Traitor to the Crown The Patriot Witch (6 page)

“Amen,” Proctor said, echoed by a hundred other voices.

He knew what some of the men would say; they'd say that talents like his, skills they'd call witchcraft, were part of any falling away from the Holy Word. Were they right? If he knew how to fashion a charm like Pitcairn's, would he make it for himself? Was it a Christian gift, made with God-given skill, like his mother insisted their talents were? Or was it made with some other kind of magic?

Sunlight glinted sharp off movement at the far edge of the horizon, and the faint sound of drums strengthened into the rattle of a quick march. The double line of British regulars crested the road. The morning sun behind them turned their coats as red as blood.

Amos didn't change his expression, but he let out a low, appreciative whistle.

“Them's the ones who stabbed my uncle,” Arthur said.

A British officer rode ahead, twisting in his saddle to shout orders. Pitcairn. The drummers changed their cadence and the Redcoats spread out over the fields, forming a skirmish line opposite the minutemen. Men around Proctor began to speak up.

“Cap'n, there're too many of them.”

“We could hold this hill for one or two rounds, Cap'n Barrett, but they'll flank us for certain.”

“Don't care for the looks of that, sir.”

Proctor agreed with them. His first resolve to do something to make amends melted away like the dew.

“We'll stay here until they get within a hundred rods,” Barrett said finally. “Delay them that long, give more men time to muster in Concord. Then we'll make an orderly retreat back to the other companies.”

Proctor tightened his fist on his weapon, and he saw Amos and a few other men nodding. They could do that much without feeling like cowards.

If the British gave them the chance to do it. The skirmish line came at them steady, eager to engage and expecting to win any contest of arms. They were less than a quarter mile distant when Barrett signaled to the drummer and the colonials began their slow, deliberate retreat. The militia drummers matched the rhythm of the British drummers, beat for beat, with the fifers playing similar tunes. It would have felt like one of the parades Proctor had seen in Boston, mixing regular army with the colonial militia, were it not for the deadly circumstances earlier that morning.

They marched into Concord with the British holding firm a quarter mile behind them. The rest of the militia companies were lined up in formation on the high hill across the road from the meeting house. The liberty pole stood behind them, a thin reed stark against the pale sky, next to a pole flying the town flag. The minutemen hurried up the hill to join the other companies.

The Redcoats still outnumbered the militia two to one.
They slowed down as they entered the town, but still they swept down the road with the practiced ease of a scythe at reaping.

Along the hilltop, townswomen had been carrying food to the men. Proctor snatched a warm piece of buttered bread from a pale, determined girl he'd never met. She glanced down at the Redcoats and hurried away with her basket before he could thank her. Arthur started after her, but Proctor put a hand on his shoulder and handed him the bread. While Arthur devoured that, Proctor reached in his pocket, crumbled off a piece of the cheese his mother had given him, and slipped it in his mouth, savoring the sharp taste. He hoped she wasn't too worried, though she must have heard the shots or the news by now. By the time he swallowed, the British forces were forming their own line. Behind Proctor, the Concord militia officers debated their course of action.

“What are we waiting for?” Arthur said. “Let's shoot them.”

Eleazar Brooks, a gray-haired veteran from Lincoln and another friend of Proctor's father, stood near them in the line. “Careful, now. It will not do for us to begin a war.”

“The war's already begun,” Proctor said. He told Brooks what happened to Munroe and Everett.

Brooks sucked his teeth. “That's unfortunate. Munroe was a good man. But it's not a war yet, just some scattered shooting. If it's going to get worse, we must make sure the regulars are the ones as start it.”

Could Proctor take comfort in that? That he hadn't started it, that it was up to the Redcoats? He wasn't comforted. Somehow he had to make things right.

Up and down the line, the older men were cautious and wanted to wait, while the young men were all for meeting the British and giving them a whipping. Captain Smith, of the Lincoln minutemen, ran toward them, mopping sweat from his forehead. “More militia are coming in,” he said.
“We're going to retreat across the North Bridge to Punkatasset Hill, until our strength is equal to theirs.”

“Another retreat?” Arthur asked. “Why?”

“The hill's a good choice,” the veteran Brooks said. “It'll give us a clear view to see them coming. And it's a bigger field for us to make formation.”

“It doesn't matter if we have a bigger field, if they've got the bigger force,” Proctor said.

Then the drums and the fifes kicked up a tune, and Proctor retreated again through the town. Their double file stomped on the wooden planks as they ran across the North Bridge, drowning out the sound of the drums. They climbed Punkatasset Hill, a broad field that looked over the Concord River into the center of town.

The British force followed their retreat, occupying the abandoned bridge. Now they were blocking the way back to Emily's house, Proctor realized, and he still needed to go talk to her, to make things right somehow, so they could have the life together that they planned. Seeing the Redcoats marching so near called back his memories of the men shot at Lexington, the sharp smell of their blood mixed with black smoke, and all his plans with Emily felt as fragile as a man's life. One musket ball could destroy them.

Down below, the British commanders sent several companies across the bridge and north toward the mill. That drew angry exclamations from several of the men. “They know exactly where we hid the munitions,” Brooks said. “That means there's been Tory spies among us.”

One of the other Lincoln men said, “I hear that Rucke up from Lexington is one of them. He moved out here with his daughter just so's he could spy on the militias.”

“That's a damned lie,” Proctor snapped.

“Says who?” The man had a lopsided mouth that made it look like he was ready to bite someone.

Proctor balled his fist and stepped up to punch that ugly mouth. “Says me.”

Eleazar Brooks shoved between them, holding up his hand for peace. “Save it for the Redcoats, boys. We'll be needing both of you afore the day is out.”

The other man backed away. “That's fine with me,” he said. “There'll be time to deal with Tory spies and their friends after the day is over.”

“You make sure you know what you're talking about,” Proctor said. A cold knot tightened in his chest, different from the one he had when scrying. The worse things got today, the harder it would be to make things right with Emily. He turned back to his place in line and tightened his grip on his musket.

“I haven't ever heard anything like that about Miss Emily's father,” Arthur said quietly.

“Because it's a damned lie,” Proctor growled back. Immediately he regretted it. “Forgive my language, Arthur. It wasn't meant to be directed at you.”

“We'll show those damned scoundrels,” Arthur replied, trying to match Proctor's tone. “And we'll give them something back for what they did to my uncle. If I see any of them lying there injured, I'll bayonet them myself.”

Proctor swallowed his first real laugh since sunrise. “But you don't have a bayonet.”

“Then I'll just use a hatchet,” the boy said in deadly earnest, looking at the one in Proctor's belt.

A barking dog slammed into Proctor's leg, knocking him off-balance, before it chased another dog up the hill and into the mass of confusion there. Men's dogs had followed them from their homes and farms and frolicked as if it were a picnic.

In many ways, the hillside did resemble a church picnic. Laundry hung from the lines outside the house atop the hill. Besides the dogs, women and children ran back and forth from town with food and news. Old faces mixed with young, the black faces of slaves and former slaves mixed with the white. The officers gathered there were dressed in
ordinary clothes; the colonel in charge wore an old coat, a flapped hat, and a leather apron. The Reverend Emerson, Concord's minister, was present in his dark coat, moving among the crowd to offer words of encouragement and prayers. He carried a musket instead of a cross.

“You don't look well, Proctor,” he said.

“I saw some things at Lexington this morning, Reverend,” Proctor answered, though he meant to say
did
instead of
saw
.

“Your Miss Emily lives up that way, doesn't she?” Emerson asked.

How like the Reverend. He seemed to remember everything about every member of his congregation as easily as other ministers remembered their Bible verses. “Yes, she does,” Proctor said.

Emerson clapped him on the shoulder. “You get her away from her father and make an honest patriot of her.”

Before Proctor could reply to that, Arthur tugged at his sleeve. “Look!”

A column of smoke rose from the town below.

“That's the town hall,” Emerson said in alarm.

Everyone saw it. Before the Concord men charged down the hill on their own, the drums started beating, calling them to order. As they fell into a double line, Proctor realized there were at least two full regiments gathered, more than enough to take the bridge. With volunteers still coming in from outlying towns, they had almost a thousand militiamen now, as many men as the British force. Proctor felt a pride in his countrymen. They had no lack of courage or discipline.

He braced his feet as they marched down the slope. The colonel, in his leather apron, stomped along the length of the line. “Do not fire first,” he reminded the men every few steps. “Don't be the first to open fire.”

Proctor looked away, unable to meet his eyes.

Down the line someone called out, “What do we do once they fire on us?”

The colonel paused to answer him. “Then you remember your training and fire as fast as you can. Aim low for their bodies.”

By that time, they had reached the bottom of the hill. The British soldiers guarding the bridge saw that they were badly outnumbered and retreated across the river. As soon as the last ones were safely across, they began to pull up the wooden planks, rendering it impassable.

The colonel ran ahead to the bridge, leather apron flapping against his legs. “Stop that! Stop! That's our bridge, to our homes—you leave it be!”

In town, the column of smoke grew larger and sparks shot into the air. No direct order was given, but a consensus was reached, and the militia began to move with all the rapidity and force of a nor'easter.

The minutemen from Acton went first because they had bayonets and boxes loaded with cartridges for a faster rate of fire. Their fifer, a blond boy as young as Arthur looked, played “The White Cockade,” a quick little Jacobite song the British thought seditious. The Concord minutemen followed after them. Proctor and the Lincoln minutemen came next, finishing the front ranks.

Most of the casualties would be there in front. Everyone knew it but no one held back. The militia companies filled out the middle ranks behind them, followed at the rear by the unorganized volunteers who answered the alarms.

As the formation swept down the hillside, the Redcoats fled the bridge and collided with a second company coming up from the town to support them. While they milled, confused for a moment, frantically sorting out their order on the western bank, the militia column spread out along the eastern causeway across the river. Close enough to exchange fire, but out of range of the British bayonets.

The Redcoats finally began to form a three-deep firing formation. When their flankers ran toward the end of the militia lines, Proctor and others aimed their muskets.

“Hold your fire,” Captain Smith bellowed. “We're not to start it.”

But I already did start it
, Proctor thought.

And then he pushed that thought aside. Pitcairn had been ready to shoot Captain Parker, knowing that he was in no danger himself. And that shot would have started a war as sure as Proctor's had. Now he would do what ever he had to do to make things right again.

“Once they do start it,” Smith ordered, “aim for the brightest coats first—that'll be their officers.”

“The crossed white straps make for a nice target,” Amos whispered to Proctor.

Proctor's heart pounded. He'd already faced their guns once. Waiting was harder, now that he knew what was coming. A gun cracked and a puff of smoke went up from the front of the outnumbered British line. Proctor swallowed, but kept his own finger frozen.

Two more British shots went off.

Still the militiamen around Proctor held their fire.

Then the front row of Redcoats let go with a ragged, unordered volley. One of the Acton minutemen went down, his chest burst open, spurting blood. The fifer dropped, his tune cut off in mid-note. A second volley came from the British line and a few more soldiers fell around Proctor. Still, the minutemen waited for the order.

“Fire! For God's sake, fire!”

“Fire!”

The cry spread from one end of the militia line to the other. Proctor aimed for the reddest coat and squeezed the trigger. For the next few moments, all he was aware of were the men beside him, the men he aimed at, and the mechanical process of reloading his musket. Dense clouds of bitter smoke obscured both sides of the river. Before the third ball left his musket he became aware that he no longer heard lead whizzing past him.

The British lines had broken.

Men were down around him. Some of the militia retreated from the carnage to regroup, while others ran toward the bridge to secure it. Proctor stood frozen.

The musket fog began to clear; the harsh taste of gunpowder filled his mouth. Across the river, the Redcoats were in full retreat toward Concord Green.

Just like in his scrying.

The British dead sprawled awkwardly in the road, while the wounded cried out in pain. One Redcoat clutched his belly and crawled on hands and knees after the retreating column, until he fell on his face and lay there moaning, gut-shot, bleeding to death. One of the militiamen crossed the bridge, pulled out his hatchet, and calmly split the Redcoat's skull. Proctor was not sure if it was cruelty or mercy. You killed a chicken in the yard that way, but not a man. And yet, didn't he want the British dead? Hadn't they done the same to Everett Simes?