In Every Clime and Place

by Patrick LeClerc

  Give and Take

  CROWN COLONY OF NEW HAMPSHIRE, JANUARY 1756

  The young man burst into the tavern, bringing swirling flakes of snow through the door with him.

  “Is there a doctor here?” he panted.

  I turned back to my ale. No point in calling attention to myself. I was just here to sell the buck I’d shot, then back to my cabin. I still wasn’t very comfortable here. It had been the best decision I could have made, after Bonnie Prince Charlie fled the field and left us there. A stolen uniform and an Irish accent let me claim status as a legitimate prisoner of war, subject of the King of France rather than a rebel—transportation rather than the noose.

  But I was a defeated Jacobite in a colony full of Hanoverians. Best not to mix too much. Better than the alternative, for now.

  The man looked frantically around the silent room.

  “It’s my Molly,” he pleaded. “She’s been in labor all day, but the baby won’t come, and the midwife is at a loss.”

  Shit.

  “Is there anyone who can help?”

  I turned back to him. “When I was a soldier, I used to assist the surgeon. I’ve done a bit of physicking.”

  He looked around the room, hoping for better. Finding no other takers, he extended his hand. “I’m John Campbell.”

  Wonderful. At least it wasn’t Cumberland.

  “William Roberts,” I replied, taking his hand in mine.

  ****

  I lay my hand on the woman’s belly, feeling the pain, the struggle within. I tried to calm her nerves while I sent my awareness deeper.

  Damn.

  The baby was backwards, and the mother’s pelvis far too narrow. She was exhausted, drenched in sweat, coming to the end of her strength. There was no way this child was coming out the usual way.

  I really had hoped that I could get by just blocking some pain and stopping the bleeding. That way I could have kept a low profile. Now, I had to do something drastic or watch mother and baby both die.

  Couldn’t do that.

  I could worry about the consequences enough to hesitate. It wasn’t all that long ago they’d been hanging witches in this colony.

  “The baby hasn’t turned,” I said.

  The midwife, already irritated that I’d invaded her domain and brought my manhood into the room, gave me a withering look. In a Catholic country I’d have earned a vicious tongue lashing, but not from a good Puritan.

  Unfortunately, I was going to have to test her pious reserve a bit more.

  “I can bring this child out,” I said.

  “How many babies have you delivered?” asked the midwife. “You were a soldier.”

  “I was an assistant to the surgeon.”

  “This isn’t a battle wound,” she said.

  “There were always camp followers,” I replied. “Even in Protestant armies.”

  Her lips compressed into a thin, angry line. She turned to the farmer. “This man has no place here.”

  “My apologies,” I said, trying to look contrite. It’s not my best look. It doesn’t get much practice. “You’ve done good service, but you’ve been here for hours. And this woman has endured all she can. If we keep on this way, Goodman John will have no family come morning.” I gave her my expression of honest concern. I’m better at that one. “Please, let me do what I can.”

  The farmer and his wife both turned pleading eyes on the midwife. To her credit, she sighed. “It’s not as though you can do any harm. I’ll pray for your souls.” She speared me with her glare. “All of them.”

  I pulled at John’s sleeve. “Boil water. Put in a needle and thread. And find bandages.”

  He nodded, eyes wide in his pale face, and rushed off. The young mother looked up at me, her face lined with pain and fear and exhaustion.

  “You’ve done this before?”

  “A time or two, madame,” I replied.

  What I was going to do wasn’t actually complicated, and with me, it wasn’t really all that dangerous to the patient. I was going to cut the baby out, then close up the incision. With anyone else, the risk of blood loss or sepsis was high, but I was different.

  For as long as I can remember, and that’s a long, long time, I’ve been able to heal others with a touch. I don’t know why, I just know that I can urge the body to heal itself quickly and cleanly. It wants to heal anyway; I just speed things up. I’ve been patching together battle wounds for ages. A neat slice in the belly was no great challenge.

  The biggest danger was to me if anyone accused me of black magic. People fear what they don’t understand, and lash out at what they fear. That’s why I spent so long as a soldier. Armies move, men muster out and new ones join. Soldiers are used to strange faces, and you’re seldom in one place long enough that people notice you don’t seem to get much older.

  That’s another thing about me. I don’t seem to age. Again, useful, but not something it pays to advertise.

  I sent some energy through my fingertips to help ease the young woman’s pain, quiet the contractions. They weren’t doing any good. She was too small, and the baby was oriented wrong. The heart still beat, so if I could get it out, it had a chance.

  John brought me the pot of boiling water and bandages. I dipped a corner of cloth in the water and cleaned my knife, then the mother’s abdomen.

  “The baby is too big and turned wrong,” I told him. “The only way it’s coming out is through a cut. I’ve seen it done, and I’ve treated worse wounds. I need you to trust me. This can get bloody.”

  “You’re going to cut the baby out?” he said in horror.

  “It was good enough for Julius Caesar,” I replied, “and it’s the only chance. The baby is still alive. If I bring it out, mother and child can both live. If I don’t, they’ll both die.”

  “John,” the young woman looked up, her eyes pleading. “Let him try. Save our baby.”

  He paused, then gave a shaky nod. “Do what you must.”

  The job itself was easy. I made a neat transverse slit in the skin, low on the belly, then in the abdominal muscles, and finally in the uterus. I dulled the mother’s pain and slowed the bleeding as much as I could without making it look suspicious. I eased a hand in and lifted the baby out. I cleared the mucus from his mouth and nose, and the baby gave a cough and a cry. I tied a quick knot in the cord and cut it, then wrapped him in a blanket.

  “You have a son,” I told the new parents, handing the baby to John. “Have the midwife take care of him. I’ll stitch up this wound.”

  The father departed and I heard the midwife’s cry of pleasant surprise from the other room. I delivered the afterbirth, then pulled the wound closed and urged the tissues to knit, the bleeding to subside, the natural defenses to combat any fever. I left the skin incompletely healed and put in a few stitches for show.

  I didn’t worry about the mother’s recovery, or the baby’s health. He was a big, strong, healthy boy, and I’d repaired the mother’s wound well. I worried for myself in the event that people considered I’d done too good a job. I knew that physicians had performed this kind of delivery with success a time or two, but surely never here in the woods, and usually only to save a baby. Saving the mother was very unusual, and not something that might be believed of a battlefield sawbones with a hunting knife.

  ****

  John returned to the bed. “How is she?” he asked me, pitching his voice low.

  “Weak, but I stopped the bleeding. With rest, she may recover.”

  The midwife brought the baby over, looked down at the young mother. “Here’s your son, deary.” She handed the baby over. “Let her hold him while she can,” she grunted softly.

  “She’ll dance at his wedding, John,” I told the father. “I’ll take my leave, before I lead Goody Poore into temptation.”

  He looked pained. “I’m sorry. We can’t thank you enough.”

  “Don’t worry. I stepped into her world. Did a job she couldn’t. Can’t expect her to be happy.”


  “Thank you again.”

  I looked at the mother and saw her smiling through the exhaustion, sweat shining on her face, but her eyes sparkling as she looked at her son.

  “I’m just glad I could help.” I put on my coat and hat, picked up my musket and opened the door. “You can buy me a drink next time I see you in the village.”

  I stepped out quickly. Let them forget me in the joy of the moment, let the fact that his family lived blur the circumstances of how.

  As I walked from the small farmhouse, I felt the cold seeping in through my coat. The wind blew in from the northwest, pulling a biting cold down over the mountains from the French colonies along the St Lawrence. A bad night to be out.

  I stopped and raised my head. The wind carried the tang of smoke. Not the dry smell of seasoned firewood. Rather the sour tang of greenwood, pine branches.

  Some silly bastard was sleeping out of doors tonight.

  And what kind of man would be doing that?

  I raced back to the farmhouse.

  “Get everyone ready to travel,” I said as John opened the door to me.

  “What?”

  “Somebody’s out there,” I said.

  “Who?” demanded the midwife. “Who would be out there on a night like this?”

  “Well, nobody who’s up to any good,” I replied. “Decent people are all inside where it’s warm.”

  “This woman has just given birth,” she said to the husband. “And endured this man’s butchery. She’s in no condition to be moved.”

  John Campbell hesitated.

  “Unless you know how to give that speech in French or Mi’kmaq, I’d get everyone ready to go.” I held my breath.

  Goody Poore blanched. “You think there are Indians out there?”

  “Seems best to prepare for that,” I said. “This is good weather for a raid. No pickets out, hard to organize pursuit. A small band can move fast, hit a settlement and be back to Winnipesaukee before word reaches Boston.”

  “They’re savages.” She shuddered. “They’ll torture us all to death.”

  They weren’t, relatively speaking, and they probably wouldn’t, but I didn’t want to argue any more. If this was a raiding party, they would kill most of us. Certainly John and me. Probably Molly and the baby if they were too fragile to travel. They might take Goody Poore captive, but unless she could hold her tongue back to Canada, they’d likely hit her with a tomahawk. Hard to blame them if they did.

  But that wasn’t cruelty. At least not more than you’d find in any other raiding party. It made no sense to take prisoners who could fight you, or ones who’d slow you down. The Indians had no prisons for captives. They’d take those who they could adopt into the tribe and eliminate the rest.

  So no worse than hearing, in other times, that the Vikings or Saxons or Normans were at the door.

  “You have a cart,” I said. “Get blankets in the bed, put your family in it and get moving. Get to Londonderry. Make sure they alert the militia. If they’re ready, and they get people into the blockhouse, they may be fine.”

  “How many Indians you think are out there?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, picking up my musket. “But I mean to find out.”

  I loaded my musket, then stuffed a rag into the muzzle to keep the snow out. I didn’t prime it, because I didn’t trust that to stay dry. I wrapped a cloth around the lock, then checked my knife and tomahawk. The only thing I wanted less than getting into a fight was getting into a fight I wasn’t prepared for.

  I nodded to the farmer, touched my hat and walked out into the snowy night.

  I started off to the north, away from the farm. After a while, I caught the smell of smoke again. The wind was from the Northwest. Any raid would come from that direction, over the mountains and down the Merrimack. Winter was a poor time to travel. A bad time to go so far to hunt. They should have been snug in their wigwams on the St Lawrence.

  But winter was a good time for a raid. No patrols out, any sentries huddled in doorways out of the wind and wrapped up for warmth, not listening for danger. Messages for help and reinforcements traveled slowly. A lightly armed group of men used to moving fast in the wilderness could strike hard and be gone before anyone could react.

  I struck the old road down to the river. Calling it a road was a stretch, but it led to the river and served as a way to get wagons of goods back and forth. Most traffic went up and down the river. The road to Boston was tortuous in good weather and impassable in bad. I moved slowly along the edge of the rutted snow of the track as the pale, cold grey of dawn started to bleed into the Eastern sky.

  With day breaking the raiding party would be moving soon. I hoped John had gotten his family moving and that they had enough of a head start. They’d be moving a lot slower than an Indian warband.

  I hoped to meet the enemy on the road, and that I’d hear them first. Neither one of those hopes was a sure thing. They’d probably take this route, as it was the fastest and speed was important to them. They’d be a large group hoping not to encounter anyone. I was a single man, expecting danger. Chances were I’d be quieter.

  The wind carried a snatch of conversation to me. Sounded like French, but too faint and not enough of it for me to get the meaning.

  I looked around and found an evergreen growing close to the road, the low branches, heavy with snow, hanging to the ground. I left the trail, detoured into the woods to hide my tracks and approached it from the forest side. Once I reached my hide, I squeezed into the open space between the trunk and the snow-covered branches and settled down to wait.

  Why was I doing this? I could easily slip away from this war party, come back to my cabin when it was over. I didn’t have any real loyalty to the English, or any animosity to the Indians. I’d wintered with the Huron some years back, and we’d gotten along just fine. The English and the French, and probably the Spanish farther South, played the tribes against one another and the settlers of their competing colonies, encouraging raids and paying for scalps. Not the natives’ fault they were caught in the middle.

  But it wasn’t John and Molly Campbell’s fault either. Or their newborn son’s. I couldn’t slide off into the darkness and leave them to their fate. The Indians wouldn’t be worse than Argyle’s Regiment at Glencoe, or Cromwell’s pious troops let loose on the population of Drogheda, but they would be bad enough, and the young family didn’t deserve that.

  I primed my musket, closed the frizzen and waited.

  The hardest thing for a soldier to learn is patience. Movement is noise, noise brings trouble. But squatting on your haunches in the snow is a sore test. Then again, the bowed branches packed with snow kept the worst of the wind out, so it wasn’t too bad.

  I found a gap in the branches to use as a peep hole. Soon I saw the lead elements of the war party. Algonquin, probably, all carrying muskets. I counted two dozen, plus a handful of French irregulars. Near the back of the force was an officer in uniform, dove grey coat with blue facings, sword at his hip. I wonder what he did to get assigned out here.

  Or to whose mistress he did it.

  Fighting thirty heavily armed irregulars was above my pay grade. If I stayed put, they’d walk right past, then I could slip out unseen and run to town.

  But could I get there ahead of them? And could the young family?

  I didn’t want to live with that on my conscience.

  I did want to live, though.

  Could I do something to stall them? Other than entertain them with my lingering death?

  Maybe. If I timed it just right.

  The uniformed officer was almost at the end of the line. A single Indian walked trail behind him, but far behind, watching the backtrail.

  I pulled the plug from the muzzle of my musket, eased my tomahawk out of my belt, and waited quietly as they passed. The point man was scanning left and right, but I was well hidden, and it’s hard to stay alert when you’re cold and don’t expect any danger. The others were even less observant. I
f there was danger, the point man should have spotted it.

  I waited until the French officer passed my hide and slipped quietly out from my shelter. I stepped quickly behind him and buried my tomahawk in the back of his head.

  The man stiffened and toppled forward. My hatchet stuck fast so I let it go and turned to face the Indian walking the end of the line.

  He had a musket, but instead of raising it, he hefted a carved war club. Maybe he wasn’t carrying his musket primed and loaded in this weather. Maybe he just liked the feel of a war club against a skull.

  He ran towards me. I cocked my musket and snapped it to my shoulder, desperately hoping that the powder was still dry. I lined up on him, but he was almost on top of me. At the last moment, he darted to his right, trying to get out of line of my shot. He was an old hand at rushing men with guns.

  But so was I.

  I stepped back and to my right to give myself an extra yard and followed his dodge with my weapon, pulling the trigger as he changed direction toward me again.

  To my relief, the musket fired. The ball hit him right in the breastbone a handspan below his throat and he spun around and flopped down in the snow.

  I didn’t turn and look to see if any of the others were moving toward me. Maybe they hadn’t heard me strike the Frenchman, but I had no doubt they’d heard the gunshot. I grabbed up the fallen Indian’s war club and ran full tilt into the forest.

  When you’ve just killed two men within sight of twenty-eight of their comrades, don’t wonder if they’ll chase you. Don’t look back to see if they’re after you. Don’t run straight if they have guns, be sure to duck and weave through the trees. And don’t slow down.

  I ran for all I was worth, the cold air burning my lungs, leaping over fallen logs, bursting through snowy branches, barreling down slopes, always tacking more to my left. South. Toward Londonderry and shelter and safety. I let the fear I’d been holding down slip its leash and drive my legs, the specter of knives and tomahawks and war clubs smothering the pain and fatigue.

  Eventually, when my sight started to go grey at the edges and my legs felt like water, I risked a look back.