Escape

by Mary Beacock Fryer

  “Why are we going to Fort Hunter?” I asked.

  “Because my friend Sandy Cameron lives there. He’ll help us.

  In a few minutes we were in open country and we picked up our pace. Sometimes in the wooded areas it was so dark that we had to grope our way. Then we would come out into cleared farmland, where we could see the Mohawk glistening in the moonlight and the well-worn towpath along the water’s edge.

  Much as I wanted to be big and brave, I soon began to glance yearningly at the wagon. Sam, who was just bringing the foal to the rear, noticed that I was flagging. He could never resist a chance to tease me. “You’d better ride with the other children,” he said.

  That was all I needed to fill me with energy. “If you can walk, so can I,” I snapped, “even if you are three years older.”

  Mr. Butler broke into the argument. “It’s nearly dawn,” he said to Papa. “I think we should hide out for the day. The next time we come to a woodland close to the road, let’s turn off. We can go on to Fort Hunter after dusk.”

  “And then what?” Papa asked. He wasn’t a man to let others make decisions for him, but he realized that Mr. Butler was more familiar with this northern route.

  “We’ll make for Fort Stanwix and follow the Indian trail I came down. It cuts right through the Oneida lands to Fort Oswegatchie on the St. Lawrence River. Once we reach the fort, we’ll be safe. A British garrison still holds it.”

  “Why not just stay on the military road?” Papa asked. “It goes all the way to Oswego and would be a lot easier with the wagon. The fort at Oswego is in the hands of the British too.”

  Mr. Butler shook his head. “That would take us too far from my farm. It’s just a few miles above Oswegatchie, on the opposite shore of the St. Lawrence. Besides, I’m sure Captain Fonda will send runners along the military road when he finds out we’ve brought the wagon.”

  “You know best, Truelove,” Papa answered. “We’re in your hands, but we’re going to have to be very careful after we leave the Camerons. Many of the settlers along the road were rebel soldiers and they’re still bitter towards the Loyalists.”

  “Yes, I found that out to my cost,” Mr. Butler replied. “I’m even beginning to have second thoughts about crossing the Indian territory with the wagon. The Oneidas were friendly to the rebels during the war.”

  “I don’t think they’ll betray us,” Papa said. “They might have a few years ago, but now the new government is allowing settlers to take over their lands. The Oneidas feel threatened and they’re resentful.”

  When the two men fell silent, I asked Papa what had happened at the prison after I ran. Papa could chuckle about it now that we were some miles from Schenectady. “Escape wasn’t difficult,” he said. “Mr. Butler found a good use for the window bar. He tapped the guard over the head with it and put the poor wretch to sleep.”

  It was easy enough to see through what Papa was doing. He was trying to cheer me up, but his trick didn’t work. How long would the guard lie unconscious? How long would it be before someone came in pursuit? Fortunately Sam chose that moment to distract me. He wanted to know what the jail was like.

  Mama let me talk for a while and then she said, “No more about the jail, Ned. Try to forget it and just thank God that we’re all safe. We have more important things to think about now anyway.”

  “Amen to that,” Papa said once again.

  It was almost five o’clock when we reached a dense grove of pines close to the road. Papa found a trail leading through the trees, a trail just wide enough for the wagon. Beyond the trees we came upon a clearing bright with wildflowers.

  “We should be safe here,” Papa said. “No one passing on the road can see us.”

  Cade unhitched the horses and hobbled them so that they could graze without wandering away. The foal staggered to his mother and began to suckle. He was just a baby, and this journey was going to be very hard on him.

  Elizabeth spread blankets on the ground and flopped down on them, but she couldn’t linger there long. While Mama nursed Robert, Elizabeth went to get food from the wagon — thick slices of ham and chunks of bread. We’d have liked some hot tea, but we were afraid to light a fire. The smoke curling above the trees might give us away. We had to make do with cool water from a stream that burbled through the meadow.

  All day long Elizabeth and I took turns napping and looking after the children, who had slept all night and were very lively. Goliath was frisky too, bounding around the meadow and running through the woods towards the road, until Cade caught him and tied him up.

  Papa and Mr. Butler and Cade — and Sam, all puffed up with importance — took turns watching the road from behind the trees. Once I heard Papa say to Cade, “The road is busy, but most of the travellers look like settlers on their way west to new homes on the frontier.”

  Another time he said sharply to Mr. Butler and Sam, “Look at that man on horseback. He’s a merchant from Schenectady. He used to be a rebel officer and now he’s in the militia. He hates Loyalists. I wonder if he’s a runner for Captain Fonda.”

  “He could be. We’ll have to look out for him,” Mr. Butler answered calmly. He took everything in his stride and made me feel that nothing could go wrong.

  Late in the afternoon Mama began to prepare supper. I saw Papa take the tinderbox from the wagon and knew that this time we were going to risk a small fire. Tea at last, and not only that. Much to our delight, Mama wrapped potatoes in large leaves and roasted them in the coals.

  Right after supper Papa set us stirring again. To make more room for passengers, we repacked the wagon, very carefully this time. The night before we’d been in too much of a hurry to think about saving space.

  At dusk we left our shelter, some of us walking, some of us riding in the wagon, much like the band of gypsies in a book Mama had read to us. It was a long twelve miles to Fort Hunter, and I worried all the way. I was sure I could hear horses’ hooves bearing down on us. Militiamen seemed to lurk behind every tree. And worst of all was the picture I kept conjuring up of Captain Fonda — standing tall and stern at the entrance to Fort Hunter, just waiting to pounce on us.

  Chapter Four

  The First Haven

  Cade never fussed over us, but he always knew when we were miserable. Once in the night he murmured to me, “Don’t worry, Ned. We’ll be fine.”

  Papa, who was walking beside us, overheard and slipped his arm around my shoulders. “Cade’s right,” he said firmly. “The worst may be over. Now that we’re free, we can take care of ourselves, especially with Mr. Butler to help us.”

  As far as Sam was concerned, action was the answer to everything, and he added his brash opinion. “Of course we can. Don’t forget we have two rifles and the musket.”

  “Sam, you are too reckless,” Papa admonished him. “Use your head.” In spite of myself, I laughed. It was like old times. Back in Schenectady Papa was always having to put Sam in his place.

  Then Papa took the reins for a while, and Mr. Butler joined us behind the wagon. We were comfortable with Mr. Butler; it was almost as if we had always known him. But Cade was never satisfied until he knew the why and how of things. He asked Mr. Butler where he’d met Papa. I perked up my ears and so did Sam. Mr. Butler was willing to talk about the war days, and we were eager to find out anything we could about that earlier life of Papa’s.

  “Let me think,” Mr. Butler began slowly, going back in his mind many years. “It was just after the Battle of Freeman’s Farm. That was in the autumn of 1777.

  “Although I was still on my farm near Saratoga, my sympathies were all with the British. I helped them whenever I could, mostly by sheltering Loyalists on their way north to join General Burgoyne’s army. Word soon got around.

  “One stormy September night, a man named John Meyers arrived at my door. He’d been recruiting men for Burgoyne’s army, moving in the dead of night from one known Loyalist household to another. He had to work secretly, for the rebels far outnumbered the Loya
lists in that region. Meyers would have been hanged on the spot if he’d been caught.

  “That night Meyers had about twenty recruits — all cold and bedraggled, longing for warmth and a place to dry out. I hid them in the barn and gave them some food but in the morning I had to tell them that they were too late to join the British army. Everyone in the district knew that it was surrounded by hordes of rebels and would soon surrender.

  “At first Meyers didn’t know what to do with the men, but most of them were farmers and thought they’d better go back home for the time being and gather in their harvests. When I found out that your father was a blacksmith from Amenia, I asked him to wait while I wrote a letter to my father, who lived there too.”

  “Why did you leave your farm and go to Canada?” I asked Mr. Butler.

  “Well, I stayed there for quite a while after the British surrender at Saratoga, but I was a lot more active, carrying messages for Loyalists working as secret agents for the British. Eventually the rebels found out.

  “The end came about two years later. In the dead of night a secret agent pounded on my door; he had come to warn me that the rebels were on their way to get me. There was just time to escape into the woods with my wife and children. Those dastardly rebels burned my farm to the ground — house, barn, even some newly harvested wheat and corn waiting to be ground at the mill.

  “There was no haven for us in New York, so we struggled through the forest to Canada. What a journey that was. It was early October and the nights were bitter, but we made it safely to Montreal. When I had settled my family in a refugee camp near there, I enlisted in a Loyalist regiment.

  “Because I knew the woods and trails so well, I was put to work as a secret agent. A few times I carried messages all the way to the British garrison in the city of New York. Once, on my way there, I spent a day in hiding in your father’s loft in Schenectady.”

  Just then Papa decided to change places with Mr. Butler for a while. Sam, who thrived on adventure, began to pester him with questions. “Were you a secret agent too, Papa? Did you run afoul of the rebels? Is that why we moved to Schenectady?”

  Surprisingly, this time Sam didn’t get a set down; he got answers. I guess Papa thought it was safe to tell us now that we were on our way to Canada, and he picked up the story where Mr. Butler had left off.

  Not long after the British surrender at Saratoga, Papa was shoeing his horse in the shop at Amenia one evening. Suddenly he got the feeling that someone was watching him. Turning his head quickly, he saw John Meyers lurking in the shadows. Meyers was a big, burly man, but he’d managed to creep into the shop without making a sound.

  He was on a mission for the British Secret Service and needed a place to hide out for a few days so that he could shake off the rebels who were on his trail. Hiding him was a risky business, since anyone caught helping a British agent would be imprisoned at once, if not worse. Papa didn’t tell Mama what he was up to. He didn’t want to involve her, so that if she were questioned, she could honestly say that she knew nothing about any British agent.

  From then on John Meyers hid in our stable whenever he was passing through Amenia. Papa kept his ears open for rebel plots and plans in the district and reported them to Meyers.

  One night about two years later, John Meyers, who was a captain by then, sent a man to warn Papa that the rebels knew about him. He must leave Amenia at once. Captain Meyers had found an empty blacksmith’s shop for him in Schenectady, more than a hundred miles away. There Papa would be unknown and could go on collecting information.

  Cade seemed to come out of a dream. “I remember Amenia, Papa,” he said, “and I remember our journey to Schenectady. We travelled by wagon then too. Families along the way gave us food and shelter. They must have been Loyalists, for you warned me and warned me never to talk about them.”

  Papa looked sadly at Cade. “You were too young to be burdened with a secret like that, much younger than Ned is now.”

  That brought an indignant burst from me. “I’m old enough to keep a secret.”

  “Then begin by lowering your voice,” Papa said sternly. “If you want us to be captured, we can travel by day and paint our name on the wagon.”

  What a squelch, but luckily Mama chose that moment to ask Mr. Butler to stop the wagon so that she could get down and stretch her legs. She looked a little wistful and I heard her say to Papa, “When I was a girl, I thought I’d always live near my family on Long Island, but this is the third time I’ve had to steal away in the night, leaving most of the things I treasured behind. I haven’t even a likeness of my mother. Only Elizabeth keeps her alive for me. I often see Mama in her face.”

  Papa drew Mama to him. “It’s been hard, Martha, hard for me too.” His voice was soft and he had eyes for her alone. “Surely this will be our last flight though. Take heart. Truelove says you’ll like Johnstown.”

  Mr. Butler had more urgent matters on his mind just then. “I’m sure you’ll all be happy in Johnstown, but we’re a long way from there yet,” he said. “First we have to get to Fort Hunter. I think we should wait until daylight. If we go rumbling through the village in the night, someone is bound to wake up and wonder what’s going on. When the villagers are up and about, they won’t be so suspicious of a cart on the road.”

  “You’re right, as usual,” Papa said. “And I’ve another idea. What about separating? If there are militiamen searching for us, they’ll be on the watch for a large family.”

  Cade had a suggestion, Sam had a suggestion, I had a suggestion — and we all made them at once, but out of the babble came a plan. Mr. Butler would drive the wagon, taking Mama, the baby, and Stephen with him, an ordinary little family on its way west. The foal could run behind the wagon without arousing suspicion, for most of the settlers’ wagons trailed foals. The rest of us would go on foot, a few at a time.

  Just outside Fort Hunter we stopped again. In the early morning light, Mr. Butler drew a map on the ground to show us the landmarks we must know. The Cameron farm was about a mile south of the Mohawk on the far side of a creek that ran into the river at Fort Hunter. A bridge spanned the creek, and just beyond it a trail branched south. That bridge was the real hazard. It was the very spot for lookouts, if any had been posted. Before we came to it, we’d see a tavern on the right, and from there on we’d have to be very careful.

  Since the Camerons didn’t know us, Mr. Butler left first. A little while later Papa followed with Sarah and Elizabeth. Sarah had a mind of her own and only Papa’s sternest voice could curb her when she was bent on mischief. Shortly afterwards Cade and Smith set out. Smith looked up to his brother; he wouldn’t be any problem. Sam and I were the last to leave — and we had Goliath. Nothing suspicious about two boys and a dog, we thought.

  “Are there any Indians here?” I asked Sam as we neared Fort Hunter.

  “I don’t think so,” Sam replied. “It used to be a Mohawk village, but all the Indians fled to Canada after it was attacked by the rebels.”

  “Why did the rebels attack the Mohawks?” I asked. “Were they Loyalists too?”

  “They were helping the British, and the rebels were determined to punish them.”

  The first thing we saw as we entered the village was a large stone house and beyond it several other houses, some of square timbers and some of rough logs. They were set far apart, deep among the trees. It all looked very strange to me, accustomed as I was to the wide grassy streets of Schenectady, and the tall houses standing in a row.

  As we walked through the village, Sam and I smiled and talked, trying to look as though we hadn’t a care in the world. By the time we passed the tavern it was getting harder and harder to keep up the act. Then the axe fell. Suddenly from behind us we heard an agonized yelp. In front of the tavern door, Goliath was locked in the grip of a huge, grey beast — more like a wolf than a dog.

  “Get out of sight,” Sam ordered, pushing me behind a tree. He ran towards the dogs. At the same moment a man came out of the taver
n and grabbed the grey cur.

  “Take your animal, boy,” he shouted to Sam. “I’ll hold this one.”

  “Thank you, sir,” I heard Sam say. Pulling Goliath and scolding him fiercely, Sam started towards the tree where I was hiding.

  Suddenly the man shouted again. “Stop! Aren’t you Caleb Seaman’s son from Schenectady?”

  “No, sir.” Sam stopped and turned to the man. I was rigid with fear, but Sam stood his ground. This time he wasn’t just boasting about being brave.

  Then I heard the stranger ask, “What is your name then?”

  Quick-witted Sam didn’t hesitate. “John Hicks, sir.” What a good false name. It wasn’t too ordinary, and yet it was common enough to be familiar in the district.

  “I must go now, sir,” Sam went on calmly. “Pa will have my hide if I’m late for chores.”

  Close to disaster as we were, I couldn’t help laughing to myself. What an excuse from Sam, who was the laziest of us all and never minded how late he was for chores. In fact, the later the better as far as Sam was concerned, for then someone else might do them for him. However, Sam’s reply seemed to satisfy the stranger, who went back into the tavern.

  As he passed my hiding place, Sam stooped to change his grip on Goliath. From the side of his mouth he called softly, “Wait until I’m across the bridge and then follow me.”

  Easy for Sam to say, but it took all my courage to come out from behind the tree and cross the bridge. I caught up with Sam just as he turned south towards the Cameron farm, and I could see at once that he was a bit shaken too.

  “That man was the merchant from Schenectady Papa saw on the road yesterday,” he told me. “He’s a runner for Captain Fonda all right.”

  It didn’t take us long to reach the Cameron farm. Sam recognized it at once and turned into the path, pulling Goliath behind him. Mr. Butler was watching for us. Before we had time to knock, the door opened, and he yanked us inside the house. There were Mama and Papa and all my brothers and sisters.