Traitor to the Crown The Patriot Witch (7 page)

While he stood there unsure of his own feelings or next action, men began to carry the colonial dead and injured toward the farm house on the hill.

“Proctor,” a small voice said beside him. “Proctor?”

He looked over and saw Arthur standing there, pale and trembling. His chin was slick with vomit. “Arthur?” Proctor asked, his heart lurching. “Have you been shot?”

“No. But I don't feel so good.”

Proctor grabbed Arthur's shoulder, turned him side-to-side to make sure he wasn't hurt. “Maybe you should go home and check on your mother and your sisters.”

“You sure that's proper?”

“I'm sure. The bridge is ours now. But don't go through the center of town. Cut through the pasture and go around behind the ridge, until you come to the Bedford Road. If that's clear, then take the road on home.”

“All right.”

“If you have to tell them about your uncle Everett, you do it straight-out, without details or embellishment,” Proctor said. “You don't want to upset them more than need be.”

Arthur nodded, but he continued to stand there. Proctor reached out and used his sleeve to wipe the spit off Arthur's chin. That made Arthur jerk his head away and scowl.

“I know what to do,” he said, wiping his own chin.

He ran off, leaving his hat on the ground with shot still in it. Proctor didn't have the heart to call after him, so he put the lead in his hunting bag and tucked the cap in his belt. When Arthur reached the bridge, he sprinted across, past the Redcoat who'd had his skull split open. Proctor watched him climb over the far hill and head off through the woods behind town.

He wasn't the only one to leave. Here and there, other men headed off in other directions, ignoring calls to return.

Proctor didn't understand. The work here wasn't done yet—you didn't plow a field without planting it too. There were still plenty of Redcoats on both sides of the bridge. He
found Captain Smith making sure the last of their injured were removed uphill.

“What're we to do next, sir?” Proctor asked. “The Redcoats haven't exactly packed their kit for home yet.”

Smith looked past the bridge. “No, they haven't. Gather as many men as you can before they scatter more. We‘re caught between four British companies still on this side of the bridge, and the rest in Concord. Could be a hammer and an anvil if we're not careful.”

“I'll go do what I can,” Proctor said.

He went along the causeway and up the hillside, calling the men from his company and telling them to report to Captain Smith. He grew bolder as he went and started commanding other men to report to their officers too. “The fighting's not done,” he said again and again. “The Redcoats're coming back for another try at us.”

He wasn't sure if it was true, but he had to do something, anything, to make up for his decision on the green. The companies hadn't even re-formed when the order came to split their force, with the minutemen holding the eastern side of the river and the other militia the west.

Proctor ran across the bridge, skipping over the gap where planks had been pried up. The minutemen took up a position behind the stone wall on the hillside. Proctor double-shotted his musket when he reloaded. He wanted to do as much damage with that first volley as possible.

Smoke still rose from the center of town, but it was a smaller column now, more like a bonfire than a house fire. “What do you think they're burning?” he asked.

Amos Lathrop crouched next to him. “The carriages for the cannons, that's what one of the girls said. At least the cannons are safely hidden.”

“We can build new carriages in pretty short order,” Proctor replied. “But the cannons would be harder to replace.”

“The Redcoat officers have to be thinking the same thing.”

They were also thinking of retaking the bridge. The routed Redcoats had rejoined the rest of their troops, and they all marched back in fighting formation. When they saw the militia lined up behind the wall, they halted just outside range of the muskets. The officers rode forward of the troops for a better look.

One officer rode out farther than the others, well within range of their guns. Proctor again saw the spark at his throat, even though he had the sun behind him. Pitcairn.

Proctor sighted his musket at him, just as he had on the Lexington Green. Then he lowered the weapon. It would be wasted lead.

Captain Smith, coming down the line, rapped him on the shoulder. “I saw that, Brown. Hold your fire. We won't shoot until they shoot first.”

As he walked away, Amos shook his head. “Shooting's already started. We held our fire at the bridge and lost good men.”

Proctor rolled his tongue through his cheek and spit. “It's not like he's telling us to let them shoot first, then turn the other cheek.”

“I'll say that much for the Reverend Emerson,” Amos said, referring to the minister from Concord. “He sure knows when it's time to beat plowshares into swords.”

Drums sounded from the western bank of the river. The other four companies of Redcoats had returned from their expedition to the mill. When they saw that the bridge was unguarded and they were surrounded by colonial militia, the front ranks broke into a run.

Proctor aimed his musket at them and discovered that his shoulder was bruised from the four quick volleys at the bridge. He needed to watch his powder.

How four companies of Redcoats marched under the guns of the militia without either side firing a shot, Proctor couldn't say. The Redcoats crossed the bridge, quietly
gathered up their dead and wounded, and continued their tense march under the guns of the minutemen until they rejoined their main force.

Amos lowered his musket and took a deep breath. “Can you tell me why we let them rejoin forces like that?”

Proctor wasn't sure. “Maybe when they're all bunched up together they make a bigger target.”

Amos nodded. “That makes sense. Some of those old men in the militia, their eyesight's going bad and they need that advantage.”

Proctor was anxious to do something more than sit behind a wall and guard the bridge. But now that they'd been stung, the British moved slowly. They milled around town, forming their order of march, stealing carriages for their wounded, and sending skirmishers out along Arrowhead Ridge to protect their retreat. It was noon before the drums beat the call to arms and the Redcoats started back toward Boston.

A sense of relief flooded Proctor. He could reach Emily again, explain to her how the fighting happened. He could tell her about Pitcairn—

Captain Smith came down the line. “Listen here, men. It's been decided that we mean to teach the Redcoats a lesson.”

There were somber murmurs at this. “Spare the rod and spoil the child,” Amos said.

Smith patted the ramrod attached to his musket. “They're not to make it back to Boston, not one of them if we can help it. That'll put a stop to their bullying.”

Proctor wondered how they were going to stop Pitcairn, with his protective charm. If they didn't stop Pitcairn, he'd hold his men together. “Not one?” Proctor asked.

“Not one,” Smith said. “The militia's been raised from all over. We're setting up along the road to harry the Redcoats. Our company's job is to get to the curve at the Bedford Road just past Tanner's Creek before they do.”

“That's more than three miles cross-country,” Amos said.

Proctor pushed his way to the front. “That's out toward my father's farm, and I know the paths between there and town as well as any man.”

“You lead the way then,” Smith said.

Proctor nodded. If Pitcairn had to be stopped, he was the only one who could figure out a way to do it. Proctor ran, leading the men single-file on narrow trails over rocky pastures and through the woods where the trees were leafing. A cold wind blew steady from the east, striking them every time they passed through the open trees. They saw other companies taking trails that paralleled theirs. As they crossed the old road above Merriam's Corner, fierce gunfire sounded south of them. Proctor turned aside from their path to go join it, but Captain Smith stopped him.

“There're other companies down there, that's their work, leave it to them,” he told Proctor. “We've got to be at our station on the curve to do ours.”

“Yes, sir,” Proctor said. He led the file through the little Mill Brook valley, where they splashed across the creek, and up over the hills, down into the swampy lowlands around Tanner's Creek. Gunfire echoed down the valley in the direction of Brooks Hill. The men were tired from running and eager to fight, but this time when they tried to change their path to join the battle it was Proctor who grabbed them and aimed them over the water and up the hills on the other side.

“To the curve,” he told them. “We'll get our chance—go to the hill above the curve.”

Proctor reached the top of the hill to find the Concord men taking positions among the trees. The Lincoln men joined them on the upper slopes. Proctor crouched, back pressed against a huge elm, and caught his breath. He stole a glance around the trunk. The Reading militia were strung out low on the hillsides, near the start of the curve. Brown and russet jackets shifted from tree to tree on the far side of the road. Probably men from Woburn.

He almost felt sorry for the Redcoats. Drawn out in a narrow line, penned in by stone walls, with tree-covered hills on both sides—they didn't have a chance.

They came marching around the bend in a line that was much more ragged than it had been leaving Concord.

Across the road, the Woburn men fired first, followed by the Reading militia in their positions at the bottom of the hill. The Redcoats were caught in a vicious crossfire. One or two of the men around Proctor let off a shot, but Smith shouted, “Hold your fire.”

Captain Barrett, of the Concord minutemen, shouted the same thing. “Wait till they're closer, and stagger your shots. We won't get them all with that first volley.”

Down below, some of the British were trying to fight back, but those who left the road and tried to climb over the wall to reach the men from Woburn and Reading only made themselves easier targets. The smarter Redcoats ran forward through the fire.

“Here's our chance now,” Smith said.

Proctor took aim at the Redcoat in the lead, waiting until he'd almost reached the second bend, and then fired. A dozen muskets went off around him at the same instant. There was no way to tell who shot the man, or how many times he'd been shot, but several Redcoats in the front fell.

Proctor stepped behind the tree to reload and heard bark splinter as the Redcoats returned fire. When he stepped out to shoot again, he saw that the Redcoats kept pushing forward. They had to—they were being attacked from either side, and from behind, and a man could only load and shoot so fast. As long as the Redcoats kept moving, most of them would get through safely. Through a second and third volley, they continued marching and their carriages continued to roll, until only their dead and wounded were left.

He had looked for Pitcairn and missed him, probably one of the times he was behind the tree reloading. But the
British troops held together, confident in their leaders, and he knew that the British major hadn't fallen.

“Where to now, Captain?” Proctor asked.

“We're to skip ahead of them again,” Smith said.

This was Proctor's land, figuratively if not literally. He lived within a mile and knew every road and trail, every farm and pasture. “The south side of the road is too low and swampy, you get much beyond here. But we could make our way to the Bluffs outside Lexington.”

“Then that's what we'll do,” Smith said.

Proctor was off and running again without waiting for an order. Looking back, he saw they didn't have a full company anymore. Men who were wounded, or who had family wounded, stayed behind, as did men tired of the fight. Their ranks had thinned, but the Redcoats had been thinned as well.

They crossed the Bedford Road and passed through Mason's soggy pastures. This time when they heard gunfire down around Hartwell's farm, not a man turned aside. In truth, there was no place where they did not hear gunfire, and nowhere they went that they did not glimpse other groups of militia running through the fields and woods. Proctor took a twisting path over pastures strewn with granite boulders. He was panting, and several others were drenched with sweat, but they came to a hill above the road, once again ahead of the British troops.

There were only two or three dozen of them now, mixed men from Concord and Lincoln, but they saw many others hiding down among the boulders and in the ditches, waiting for the Redcoats. Proctor started to lead the men down there, thinking it would be his best chance to get at Pitcairn.

“Not there,” Smith said between breaths. “Farther up, on the hill.”

It had a steep slope, covered with rocks, and would be harder for the Redcoats to assault. He didn't have the
strength left to explain all that, but the men saw it, understood, and followed. Proctor was the last to go.

Smith chose a position on the next curve in the road. A company of men already occupied the hillside, waiting for the Redcoats, but it took a moment for Proctor to recognize Captain Parker and the other Lexington men. A few wore bandages over wounds they'd taken that morning. Many more had faces black with powder.

Parker stood tall, out in the open, listening to the stuttering beat of the British drums and the distant crack of muskets, waiting for the Redcoats to appear. He coughed quietly into his palm, eyes widening in his gaunt face at the sight of Proctor.

“You look familiar,” he said, his voice hoarse.

Proctor's throat tightened. Was he going to be blamed for shooting first? “Proctor Brown, sir. Stood on the green with you this morning.”

“That'd be it,” Parker said, and stifled another consumptive cough. He looked like he was going to die soon, whether a British officer shot him in the back or not. “You look like you've been far today, son.”

“All the way to Concord and back,” Proctor said.

“That's a long way to go on a day like this,” Captain Parker said. “God bless you for coming back to help us a second time.”

“I'm sorry for the way things happened—”