The New Land

by The New Land (retail) (epub)

  F ranklin sidled in the weak light to the workbench on the left, the one he had always used. He could make out the huddled figure better from there. The man’s hair hung in stringy clumps. He seemed large, but that might be from the shadows thrown by the lantern. His father had no fear of this stranger, Franklin told himself, so he shouldn’t either.

  “Franklin,” Johann said in a low voice, speaking German, “our guest is Horst Scheuer.” The man nodded but didn’t leave his spot in the corner. Franklin nodded back. “Herr Scheuer is from Hesse, near my old home.”

  “He’s been fighting for the British?” Franklin said. He turned to the man. “You’ve been fighting for the British, haven’t you?” Not waiting for an answer. “He’s from the fighting in New York. They’ve been brutal.”

  “Yes,” Johann said. “That’s right. Horst has had a bad time. He was separated from his regiment, ended up alone. Once on his own, he’s decided he doesn’t like to fight this war.”

  “He’s a deserter?”

  “He’s a man who wishes to fight no more.”

  “And you believe him? You’ve always said, Papa, that soldiers of the high troops, who serve the Landgraf, they never leave their duty. They have the highest discipline. So he means to fight again.” Franklin took a step forward and leaned down to speak to the man. “Isn’t that right, you’re looking to fight again, no?”

  Johann didn’t move, but his voice turned harder. “Franklin, I explained that Herr Scheuer is our guest.”

  “He’s our enemy, Papa.” Franklin spoke in a hoarse whisper, his voice probably louder than he intended. “If this man had been at Bunker Hill, he would have tried to kill me. He might have killed me. He is not a guest. He’s a prisoner of war.”

  Johann picked up his pipe. Lacking any way to light it, he chewed the stem. “Franklin, this man is no better or worse a man than your father. He joined the Landgraf’s army because his family is poor. He fights for King George because the Landgraf rents out his people like animals. Herr Scheuer does not wish to fight any more. Surely, you understand that, how a man can feel like that.” Johann sucked on his dead pipe. “All of us here understand that.” He let the silence fall among them. “To return Herr Scheuer to the war,” Johann said, “would be like turning myself in as a criminal.”

  “Papa, we have neighbors, Waldoborough men, who still fight. They were with the army in New York. Your Herr Scheuer may have shot them, or run them through with his bayonet. We have news today that Margaret is lost at sea, the sailors likely drowned. They were fighting against this man and his army.”

  “Come, Franklin, don’t be a child. That ship was a business proposition for the McDonnells. I’m sorry for the sailors, but the sea is harsh, and this man had nothing to do with it.”

  Scheuer sat mute, his shoulders hunched and his head drooping to his chest.

  “Would you set us against our neighbors?” Franklin said. “Against our country? We’re Americans, not Germans. We’re not in Hesse. I was born here.” He nodded. “I’m an American, and this man is my enemy. I don’t care how he got here, or what bad things happened to him or his family. He came here as my enemy to fight against my country, and he still is my enemy. I must deliver him to the sheriff.”

  Johann pulled the pipe from his mouth and ran his index finger around the edge of its bowl. “Franklin, can there be no moment when our enemy ceases to be our enemy? Look at this man. Herr Scheuer says he will fight no more. I believe him. Don’t you want war to leave our hearts?”

  “I’m sorry, Papa. I also want the British to leave America, but instead they spread the war to new places. This man may be cold and weary and beaten now, but when he gets to Halifax and has a few weeks of warm fires and good food, the British will have him ready again to carry a musket and kill our friends. Isn’t that right, Herr Scheuer? You know nothing except war, isn’t that right? You are a soldier, nothing else?”

  The unshaven man looked up. He was younger than Franklin had thought. His filth and air of misery made him seem older. “I don’t care for your rebellion,” the man said in a hoarse voice. “The world has no need of rebellion. Rebellions get people killed but change nothing. I don’t like rebellions or rebels. But I also don’t care for King George or for the English. I have a little one at home. I have a wife who should not be poor. My parents grow older and need their son. I want only to get home to my family.”

  “Listen to him,” Franklin said to his father. “Why is he here? He has come a long way from New York.”

  “He says he hopes to escape to Halifax and board a ship back home,” Johann said.

  “Really? Who’s being the child here, Papa? The only way for him to get home is in a British ship. Do you think they won’t know that a German man his age, trying to sail to Europe, is one of their soldiers? They’ll put him back in uniform and send him to slaughter Americans.”

  “That’s not true,” the man said. “I would refuse to fight. I will fight no more. I only want to get home.”

  Franklin shook his head. “I wish I could believe you, Herr Scheuer, but I don’t.”

  Father and son stared at each other. “All right, son. It’s late. There’s no need to get Sheriff Palmer out of his warm bed in the middle of the night. Come in the morning and we will decide, the three of us, what is to be done.”

  “I’m not going to change my mind, Papa.”

  “Well, then maybe I’ll have to.”

  Franklin opened the door to leave. “Wait,” Johann called. He reached behind his bench and pulled the scorper off a wall peg. “Keep it as long as you need it.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  †

  Johann could find no sleep that night. Franklin made sense. Their guest was a man trained only for war. He had little chance of evading British authorities and sneaking back to Germany. Yet Johann ached to help this man return to peace. If Johann could bring this one man to peace, that might atone for some of the violence of his life, violence that had echoed through Franklin’s life. It wouldn’t be a full atonement. It couldn’t be. Yet it would show what his heart felt. That seemed important.

  What if, as Franklin said, Herr Scheuer ended up back in an enemy uniform? He would still know that Americans are people of honor and generosity, people who loved peace. Wasn’t that also important?

  He rolled off the bed and pulled on clothes while Catherine slept. In the kitchen, he placed a chair next to the fire. He had banked it for the night, but it still threw off a little warmth.

  He felt the quiet of the house, these rooms that usually overflowed with talk and shouts and laughter and argument, with coming and going and cooking and washing and spinning and sewing. He knew he was still a prideful man. He had never conquered that sin and was old enough to know he never would. He was proud of this home, of his children, of the two fine women he’d taken care of as best he could, of the life he made here in Broad Bay. Walther had started his family, and now Franklin would. It was not a bad life for a man from Kettenheim with no parents and no land.

  He had lost much. Peter and Richard, gone before he could know them. And Fritz. And Christiane, which was the hardest. His eyes clouded. He had a new fear now, that Hanna, so much like her mother, should not marry this man, this sailmaker with two sons already. He told himself that she was strong like an Overstreet and would always prevail, but still he worried.

  He had liked having Horst around for the past two days, speaking proper German with a man who could tell of the old land, of the old army, neither of which seemed to have changed. Johann thought he understood Horst, how much he wished to get home, how weary he was of this American war, this family quarrel among English. It wasn’t Horst’s fight. Then again, a soldier of the Landgraf never fought for himself or his country, only for his dienst. Horst shouldn’t fight Americans, but at least he knew it. Johann knew the black feeling of killing men for reasons that mean nothing to you. For no reason. He wanted to help Horst escape that.

  Johann couldn’t disagree with
most of what Franklin had said. They were Americans now. Overstreets, not Oberstrasses. He came here for his chance, so he fought at Louisbourg for Broad Bay and King George. Yet Franklin had fought for their home against the new King George. Their duty was to America, to Broad Bay, to Mayflower Hof and their friends. This was their home.

  He sucked on the cold pipe, then stood and placed it on the mantel. There had to be a way to help this man and still to be true. He pulled on his boots and let himself out. Rolf, the black dog who loved the water, met him and licked his hand. “Good boy,” Johann said, scratching behind his ear.

  When Johann pushed the shop door open, he could see Horst’s eyes glistening out of a nest of blankets. “Sleep eludes you also,” Johann said.

  “I am trying to decide whether to run away into these cold woods or stay and go back with your son.”

  “There’s no dishonor in being captured. That’s just bad luck.” Johann leaned an elbow against his bench.

  “I know.”

  “There’s another way. You could settle here, in Waldoborough. My son couldn’t object to that. You could start out working for me, here in this shop. I need help. My son, he builds boats now so he cannot help me. I would pay you a fair wage.”

  “I’m not a carpenter.”

  “Neither was I. You’re a young man. You would learn. When the war ends, you can send for your family. You can find land here. Think of that, Horst. Land of your own.”

  They were quiet. The guest stood, keeping a blanket around his shoulders. “I know you wish to help me. I’ve been thinking of that too. Staying here would be desertion, but so is what I want to do, to go back to Hesse and be with my family. That’s what my officers would say.”

  “So stay. No one will bother with one more German in Waldoborough. This war, it can’t last forever. It always seems it will with wars, but they all end. By then you will have money and can send for your family.”

  “So I should leave my family for more years? They will be lonely and have little money. And I will be lonely also. This is only the second year of this war, whenever it may end.” He turned to the window. The moon, higher in the sky now, cast shadows across the bare yard. “You have built a fine home here. I envy you.”

  “You can do it, too, Horst. I was like you.”

  “No, you chose to come here. I wish to go home.”

  “You’ll die in the forest. It’s very cold. The British or the Indians may shoot you—they won’t understand who you are. There are bears and wildcats.”

  “Then I’ll die trying to get home. Being faithful.”

  Johann sighed. “I know you must be from my home because you won’t listen to reason. All right. I will help you, but only if you make a pledge.”

  Scheuer raised the question with widening eyes.

  “You must give your word as a soldier, that you will not fight, ever again, against Americans.”

  “I don’t wish to fight anyone.”

  “I know that. But things happen. Times may change. I need your word. I must have your pledge as a soldier that you won’t fight against Americans.”

  Scheuer nodded. “You have my word on it.”

  Johann held his hand out and the other man took it.

  “What about your son? He will be angry that I have left.”

  “You gave me your word as a soldier. He will understand it.” He cocked his head. “Eventually, I hope, he will understand it.” He nodded as he picked up a pencil he had recently bought. It was made in London, a self-indulgence for an old furniture-maker. “All right, we must get you on your way. I will gather some things. It will take little time. Roll up those blankets. You’ll need them.”

  “I have no money to pay for these things.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  Johann lit a candle in the kitchen, then fetched a piece of paper. Using the new pencil, he drew a rough map. He gathered bread and cheese and salt pork. Flint for fires. Some coins. Mittens. Catherine stirred when Johann took the socks from the chest in their room, but she didn’t wake. Scheuer had a knife. Johann had seen it. He thought about giving the man a pistol but decided against it. It was little use against animals and too useful against men. He stuffed all but the mittens in a canvas sack with a drawstring.

  He found Scheuer pacing in the shop, two blankets rolled tight around his neck. He handed the man the sack and the mittens, then gestured for him to follow. When they were a hundred yards from the house, Johann stopped in a shaft of moonlight. He showed Scheuer the map and explained in a low voice the best route north. Johann would take him as far as the path through North Waldoborough, one the smugglers used. If Scheuer traveled with some of the smugglers, he would be safer from the Indians. His best chance for getting out of America would be to sign onto one of the British ships as a crewman.

  “Yes,” Scheuer said. “That’s a good idea.”

  “Do you know anything about ships?”

  Scheuer smiled. It was the first time Johann had seen him smile. “I will be sure to know that very soon.”

  Johann told him the bears should be sleeping, but wildcats might be out hunting. He should move slowly away from either. No quick movements. Fording rivers was the most dangerous time. If part of the river was frozen and part open, he should stay off the ice and just walk through the water. It would be cold but there would be less chance of falling and having worse things happen. He shouldn’t travel while snow was falling. It was too easy to get lost. Scheuer would find no Germans beyond Waldoborough.

  Then Johann had no more advice. They walked without words. Scheuer turned his head from side to side, searching out hidden dangers. When an owl hooted, he jumped. Johann hadn’t been in the woods like this for a long time. It was in these woods, managing his traps, where he first began to understand this new land. Yet the woods he had known were shrinking. The Indians were fewer. The beavers were gone, and the trappers had moved west. He thought of the Indian he ran down and killed in these woods. Johann didn’t believe in ghosts, but that man’s face, the feel of his skin as Johann squeezed the life from him, had never left. The feeling of shame and regret came back, but that also was the night when Hanna arrived. God wouldn’t have blessed his life with Hanna if the killing was so wrong.

  Johann stopped at a frozen stream. Scheuer, he said, should walk up this stream bed until he reached a huge oak. That marked the trail to the east. It would be clear.

  “You have been generous,” Scheuer said, taking his mitten off and holding out his hand. “I will remember you, Herr Overstreet. That is the only way I can repay you.”

  “Good luck, Horst. You repay me by honoring your pledge.”

  “Yes. I will.”

  The Hessian adjusted his load and looked around. He ducked his head and started up the stream. Johann stood and watched. After the man had gone fifty yards, he stopped. He took a few more strides, then halted again. He peered into the woods in all directions. After a full minute, the Hessian let the canvas sack drop to the ground. His shoulders slumped. He crouched where he stood and put his hands over his eyes. Johann looked away. Then he followed the man’s path.

  The Hessian looked up at him. “Come,” Johann said, “in the morning, you’ll meet my family. Sooner than you know, it will be your home.”

  “But your son. He will take me to the sheriff.”

  “We will talk to him.”

  The Hessian nodded. “I must write to my family.”

  “Of course. Right away.”

  They walked back through the quiet of the cold woods. The clean smell of pine needles filled Johann. He smiled up at the brightness of the moon. In the black half of the heavens, clouds played hide-and-seek with stars in a sky pierced with the spires of great firs.

  Johann’s mind turned to Franklin’s wedding. That would be a joyous day, except for missing Christiane. He wondered again what this young woman was like who had so bewitched his son.

  Author’s Note

  The story of the German settlement of Broad Bay in t
he 1750s is told in a few sources, most extensively in a remarkable two-volume local history by Jasper Jacob Stahl, History of Old Broad Bay and Waldoboro (1953). Stahl, a descendant of the settlers (as am I), provides not only names and dates and events, but also a rich picture of the world of mid-coast Maine in the eighteenth century. It was a tremendous resource for me. Other sources on local history included Samuel Miller, History of the Town of Waldoboro, Maine (1910), the collection of the Waldoborough Historical Society, and one of the historical society’s trustees, Bill Blodgett, who showed me his town and answered questions that were doubtless annoying. For information about the Penobscot tribe, I looked at Bruce Bourque, Twelve Thousand Years: American Indians in Maine (2004). Some of the characters in the story are inspired by Broad Bay’s early citizens, though most are wholly invented. Even those inspired by real historical figures (such as General Waldo and General Wolfe) are imagined by me, not strictly based on historical accounts.

  To understand the siege of Louisbourg in 1758, I relied on Hugh Boscawen, The Capture of Louisbourg 1758 (2013), and also looked at a biography of General James Wolfe, Stephen Brumwell, Paths of Glory: The Life and Death of General James Wolfe (2008). The Bunker Hill fighting is recounted in Nathaniel Philbrick, Bunker Hill: A City, A Siege, A Revolution (2014); Paul Lockhart, The Whites of Their Eyes: Bunker Hill, the First American Army, and the Emergence of George Washington (2011); Richard M. Ketchum, Decisive Day: The Battle for Bunker Hill (2014); and James L. Nelson, With Fire and Sword: The Battle of Bunker Hill and the Beginning of the American Revolution (2011). As always, I’m indebted for the assistance of the Library of Congress and its outstanding professionals.

  I’m grateful to those who read early versions of this story and improved it with their comments: Gerard Hogan, Prof. Daniel Krebs of the University of Louisville (who kept me from blatant errors about German culture, tradition, and military concerns), and my wife, Nancy, who continues to light my days.

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