Woods Runner

by Gary Paulsen

  “I will. There are a lot of drunken soldiers on the street at night. But yes.”

  “All right. Do that. Tell your husband to get by the door at midnight alone, and you be out here at midnight or just a few minutes after.”

  She nodded, looking from Abner to Samuel.

  “We’ll come for you then, if everything works right. Now say your goodbyes and get back in the house before we get discovered.”

  “Samuel,” she said, turning toward him, “you’re sure you’re all right?”

  “Everything will be right after tonight, Mother.”

  “Please, please, be careful. I thought you were dead and I just got you back. I can’t lose you again.”

  “Go inside,” he whispered. He almost smiled. Telling him to be careful now, after all that had happened—that horse was well and truly gone from the barn. “We’ll be back later.”

  They looked at each other. She smiled, her lips trembling, staring at him as if to memorize his face. Then, at last, she picked up the slop bucket and went back into the house.

  Prisoners of the British

  During the war, at least sixteen British hulks—ships that had been damaged and abandoned—lay in the waters off the shores of New York City as floating prisons. Over ten thousand prisoners died of intentional neglect—starvation and untreated disease. Their bodies were tossed overboard into the harbor or buried in shallow graves at the shoreline by fellow prisoners.

  CHAPTER

  17

  Darkness.

  Like the inside of a dead cow. There had been a sliver of a moon but clouds covered it and with them came a soft rain. Enough to make everything wet and uncomfortable outside. A godsend. Even drunken soldiers didn’t like to be out in the rain.

  Abner and Samuel had gone by the sugar mill just before dark to look it over. Samuel’s mother had been right. Only one door was being used and two guards stood there talking. One had a chair. There was a small roof over the entry to keep the rain off.

  The building was strangely quiet. If there are hundreds of men packed inside, Samuel thought, there should be more noise. They walked past the guards, who paid them no mind, and down alongside the building. Now and then they could hear scuffling and thumping against the wall on the inside, but nothing else.

  When they had walked completely past the building, they crossed the street and came back on the other side. Because of the rain, there weren’t many soldiers along the walkways and no one bothered them.

  They went along the river to a point close to where Matthew would come across and then moved into some trees along the bank. It was starting to get dark. Abner pulled a small oil-soaked bag from the inside of his coat and took out a watch. “Seven-thirty.” He put the watch back, settled down against a tree, hunched up the collar of his coat. “Try to get a little sleep, because later tonight there won’t be any.”

  “How are we going to do it?” Samuel asked. “Get him out?”

  “Simple plans are best,” Abner said. “Did you see all the bricks around the steps? They probably had more of a porch when the place was new; now the bricks have all fallen down. I’ll distract the guard; you take a brick and hit him over the head.”

  “That’s your plan?” Samuel stared at him. “What if both guards are there?”

  Abner said, “I’ll be ready for him. You just do your part.”

  Samuel still stared. “We’ve come this far and you tell me to just hit him over the head with a brick?”

  “Hard,” Abner added. “Hit him over the head hard. Then we open the door, grab your father and run like hell. Or as fast as we can go. Scoop up your mother, get in the boat, get across the Hudson, hook up the mules, get in the wagon and head out. A good, simple plan.”

  And in the end that was exactly the way it worked.

  Almost.

  Samuel surprised himself. After an hour of his thoughts tumbling over each other without sense or reason, in spite of the rain, a veil slipped over his mind and he slept, leaning against the same tree as Abner.

  “Let’s get to it.” Abner shook him awake close to midnight. Samuel rubbed his face and stood.

  Abner was gone in the darkness and Samuel had to hurry to catch up. Their path took them past the house where Samuel’s mother worked. She was already outside and saw them approach. “I’m coming with you,” she said softly as they neared. “To help.”

  “No. Hold. Hold here. We’ll be back,” Abner whispered. “Shortly.”

  As they walked closer to the sugar mill Abner took off his coat and wrapped it so that it seemed he was carrying a bundle. There was a tiny glow from a lantern near the guard, the kind with a small candle inside and a slit to let out a sliver of light.

  It was enough for Samuel to see some bricks. He picked one up before they moved within range of the guard.

  “Halt!” the guard said as he saw them. Samuel held the brick behind him. “State your purpose.”

  “Bringing food,” Abner said, holding up the bundle, “for the prisoners.”

  “Advance.” The guard stepped forward, interested in the package.

  They climbed the steps to the entrance, Abner in front of the guard and Samuel slightly to the side, gripping the brick.

  Abner held the bundle out. The guard put the butt of his musket on the ground to free one hand to open the package. He leaned forward and Abner said, in a soft, conversational tone, “Now, Samuel.”

  And Samuel hit the guard with the brick.

  Hard.

  A moment’s hesitation, then the guard fell. Abner caught him, slid him off to the side of the door, laid him on the platform, turned to the door. “Padlocked.” He swore.

  Gently, delicately, he worked the keys off the guard’s belt and unlocked the door. He flung it open.

  Samuel’s father was in the doorway and even in the dim glow Samuel could see that he was in bad shape—face skull-like, eyes sunken. He almost fell into Samuel’s arms.

  But he wasn’t alone.

  Thirty, forty more men were waiting with him, and as soon as he was outside they piled out, scattering like quail, a stream of prisoners, thin as cadavers, pouring out of the shed in a strange silence, moving off in all directions.

  “Come.” Abner took Samuel’s father’s arm. “No time.”

  With Abner on one side and Samuel on the other, they carried Samuel’s father, toes dragging, through the darkness. Samuel’s mother was waiting and hurried over to help. Twice they tripped and stumbled in the darkness, but they were up fast and moved as rapidly as possible to where Matthew would be with the boat.

  He wasn’t there.

  “I’ll look up and down the bank,” Abner said. “Stay here and watch.” He vanished upstream in the darkness. Minutes that seemed like hours passed before he came back.

  “Nothing—I’ll check downstream.”

  Again, an interminable time while the three of them stood in silence. Abner came back shaking his head.

  “Are you sure Matthew—” Samuel started to ask.

  They heard a dull thump in the darkness on the water and then Matthew’s voice.

  “Here, over here! Caught a crab of wind on the way over that kicked me downstream. Had to tack back up. Here—over here.”

  They found the boat almost by feel, out in a foot of water. Samuel half-carried his father to the side, and he fell into the boat.

  “He needs help,” Samuel said. “Get him up and in the cabin—please, help him.”

  Matthew pulled him into the cabin, then helped Samuel’s mother onto the boat and into the cabin as well. Abner jumped in and Matthew pulled up the sail, which filled in the freshening breeze. He said to Samuel: “Push off as you come aboard.”

  Samuel did so, tripped, flopped into the mud and water, lost the boat and was nearly left behind. In one lunge he caught the gunwale—the boat was picking up speed rapidly—pulled himself up and in, and nearly fell in Abner’s lap.

  Right then the world ashore went berserk. A gunshot, another; lighte
d torches could be seen in the vicinity of the sugar mill, carried every which way.

  “You didn’t,” Abner said, “hit him hard enough.”

  “I thought I killed him!”

  “He raised the alarm.”

  “It matters not at all,” Matthew said. “We’re away from the light. Torches won’t cast out here. Besides, they’re looking in all directions.”

  “A passel of other men came out at the same time. They went all over.” Abner sighed and leaned back, resting. “It was good fortune.”

  “Fortune favors the well prepared,” Matthew said. He stood from the bucket, where he was sitting, and took out a package wrapped in cloth. “Emily sent beef sandwiches and milk mixed with rum.”

  “Rum?” Samuel asked. “Milk and rum?”

  “Heats the blood, makes the food go in better. It’s not for you, but your father. Here, hand it in the cabin. Tell him to eat slow or he’ll lose it.”

  Samuel took the package and moved into the cabin. If possible it was darker inside than it was outside.

  “Mother? Father?”

  “Here,” his mother said, and he felt a hand on his arm. “Father is next to me.”

  “I’m here,” his father said. “Samuel—I am so thankful to see you.” Small laugh. “Well, I can’t see you at all. My son, I never dreamed you were still alive, much less that you would win me my freedom in this bold manner.” His voice was faint.

  “Hold your hand out.” Samuel fumbled in the package and pulled out a sandwich. “Matthew brought food.”

  He held a sandwich out in the void, felt a hand grasp it. He heard his father wolfing it. “Eat slow, or Matthew says you’ll lose it.” He fished a small lidded crock out of the package. “Here’s some warm milk mixed with rum. He says it will make the food go down better.”

  The chewing slowed as he held the crock out in the darkness, felt his mother’s hand take it. “Here,” she said, “I’ve got it. Samuel, who are these men? We owe them so much and we don’t even know them.”

  “They’re friends—Abner and Matthew. Matthew owns the boat. We met Abner on the way. We—oh, yes, you have a daughter.”

  “What?”

  “You’ll meet her when we get to the wagon. Her name is Annie. She … well, she needs us. It’s been part of this run.” He took a few moments to tell them the part about Annie, without too many details of the Hessian attack. It was too terrible to describe.

  “Then she’s our daughter,” his mother said in a firm voice. “From now on, as good as blood.”

  His father stopped chewing, swallowed, drank some of the rum-and-milk mixture. “Food. Food. When you haven’t had it for a while, it tastes as sweet as anything you’ve ever eaten. Tell Mr. Matthew thank you.”

  “You’re very welcome,” Matthew said from the tiller, which was only six feet away. “I’ll tell Emily you like her food.”

  “Like it? It’s life itself.”

  “Aye.”

  “I feel guilty, though,” Samuel’s father whispered. “So many men in that shed, in other sheds. Starving. And I get food.”

  “It is the way of it,” Abner put in from the darkness, “of war. Some get, some don’t, some live, some … don’t. It’s the way of it.”

  “It’s bad.”

  “Yes. It is. But it is our lot now, and we must live it.” Abner sighed. “The best we know how.”

  And with that, there was silence the rest of the way across the river, broken only by the lap of water on the side of the boat.

  Treatment of Prisoners of War

  Prisoners were given only one cup of water a day belowdecks. The rations, issued only in the morning and only half those received by British soldiers, were largely inedible—leftover food from England that was old, stale and, in many cases, rotten. It was not until the nineteenth century that supplies for captives were expected to be provided by their captors; during the Revolutionary War, their own army, government and families attempted to provide for the prisoners.

  CHAPTER

  18

  When they reached the other side of the river and made their way to Abner’s wagon, Samuel found Annie asleep, curled up next to Abner’s collies.

  “Annie.” He touched her shoulder to wake her.

  She opened her eyes and threw herself into his arms. He staggered backward under her weight and turned to his parents.

  “This is our Annie,” he said.

  His mother reached out and stroked her hair. “Annie. I always wanted a little girl.”

  “I had a ma,” Annie told her, “but then I didn’t.” She smiled shyly even as the tears welled in her eyes.

  “And now you have a ma again,” Samuel’s mother whispered through her own tears.

  “And a pa,” Samuel’s father said as he stepped next to her.

  Abner cleared his throat and started to hook up the mules in the light of the slit lantern.

  “No sentries this side of the river,” Matthew said. “Just stay to the main road north for a time.” He handed them a cloth bag. “Emily fixed food for you to take. Good fortune to all of you.”

  “I don’t know how to thank you,” Samuel’s father said. “You men have given us back our lives, restored our family.”

  “Help when you can,” Matthew said. “We all need to help. I will go back to the boat now and across the river again. There might be others I can reach before daylight.”

  And he was gone, and with him the dim glow from the lantern.

  “Here now,” Abner said. “Everybody inside the wagon except Samuel. Samuel, you come up and ride with me. We must talk.”

  With his parents and Annie in the wagon, Samuel felt his way up to the front and climbed up in the seat. In near silence, Abner made a soft clucking sound with his tongue and the mules started pulling the wagon up the road. Even with the uproar across the river there was nothing moving on this side. They progressed in quiet for half an hour or so.

  The mules, Samuel saw, had no trouble seeing the road in the darkness—were they like cats? Aside from a bump in a rut now and then, it was comfortable. The rain had let up a bit. Samuel’s rifle and powder were inside the wagon, covered, so he had no concern on that level.

  “We cannot stay together,” Abner said suddenly.

  “All right,” Samuel said, startled. “But why?”

  “Too dangerous. If we were stopped before, I could say you were my grandchildren. Now, with your mother and father here, that won’t work. There would be questions and, with them, danger. I’m afraid we’d be taken prisoner, in spite of my passes. So we must separate.”

  “I understand,” Samuel said, nodding, though in the darkness Abner could not see it. “You’ve already done enough—more than enough. I never thought I would see them again. And you have given them back. Well, thank you.”

  “We all do what we can do. Now, here’s the lay of it. We go three more hours on this road. It will get light in four hours. We’ll be back in forest, or almost, at that time. Enough for you to have cover. You leave me then and take the forest straight west for two, maybe three hours—your father will be slow for a time.

  “There you will come on a large swamp. Just before you get into it, turn left and go southwest toward Philadelphia. It’s safe there. You’ll be about seven days’ travel from town. Here, take this.” He handed Samuel something in the darkness, a small brass object like a watch. “A compass.”

  “Don’t you need it?”

  “Take it.”

  “Thank you again.”

  “Southwest,” Abner repeated. “Seven days’ walking, maybe eight. It’s near on ninety miles to Philadelphia and you’ll find trails to help you along. As your father gets stronger you’ll move better.”

  Samuel sat in silence, thinking.

  “That’s the good news,” Abner said. “Now for the bad. Somewhere along there—nobody seems to know exactly where, although it was thought to be down in Trenton for a time—there will be a place where the British have a defensive line. Yo
u might not even know you’re going through it—but you may run into the redcoats. They’ll be a mite jumpy and will probably shoot before talking, so avoid them if you can. If you see them at all. Stay straight southwest, don’t fall toward the south over by the main road—that’s where they’ll be.”

  Southwest. Samuel was silent, memorizing Abner’s instructions. Then he said, “Thank you. There aren’t words to—”

  “I said that’s enough. Now, I don’t know what Matthew’s Emily put up for food, but try to get something with a lot of fat into your father. Fat is where the power is, red meat and fat. Maybe some raccoon or, if you can, a bear along the way. Thick meat. It’s going to be hard for him to walk ninety miles. Be patient.”

  Again, Samuel nodded. “Yes. I will.”

  “And with your mother, too. She’s very strong but this is different. They’re going to try to be your ma and pa, but for now, you have to be the leader. They don’t have the knowledge for what’s coming. You do. And one more thing: Take an extra blanket.”

  And then silence, except for the sound of the mules clopping along, and their breathing.

  They met no one, or at least didn’t see anybody in the pitch-darkness. After a time Samuel realized he could make out the white markings on the dogs. About then Abner pulled the mules to a stop.

  “Out here,” he said. “Remember, west to the swamp and then southwest.”

  “Yes. And again, thank—”

  “Enough. Away.”

  Samuel jumped off the wagon and went around to the back. In the dim light he motioned to them to get out. Annie came out of the back half-asleep. Samuel found the food, two bundles, and he gave one to his mother and the other to Annie. Next he tied a blanket to his bedroll and put it over his shoulder; then he located his rifle and powder horn, checked the priming in the quarter-light and found it to be good. As soon as he said, “All right,” Abner clucked at the mules and in a moment was gone in the morning mist.

  “We didn’t get to say thank you,” his mother said.

  “We can’t talk now,” Samuel said. “Later. Now we have to get moving. Are you all right to walk, Father?”