The Tory Widow

by Christine Blevins

  In a sudden tumult, a prisoner broke free from the column, running in a mad tear toward the Hudson. Muskets propped to shoulders in an instant, and before the escapee could put twenty yards between himself and his captors, he was shot down.

  “Tim!” a voice cried in anguish.

  A company of Redcoats rushed in to help the guards struggling to keep the agitated prisoners in check. Patsy took off running to help the fallen man lying facedown in the dirt road, and Anne chased after her. Patsy fell to her knees and turned him over.

  Anne groaned, dropping down beside Patsy. “Naught but a boy . . .”

  A gaping tear in his neck pulsed a red river of blood. Like the trout Anne’s father would pull from his hook and toss onto the shore, the boy stared up with round eyes, mouth opening and closing. Gulping for air, he was drowning on blood flooding into his broken windpipe.

  “Oh, Tim . . .” Patsy crooned, brushing the hair from his forehead. She stroked his freckled cheek once—twice—and he died.

  The sergeant of the guards stood over them and prodded Patsy with the bayonet fixed to his musket. “On yer feet.”

  She stood, tottering in the dancing light from the fire, her soot-smudged face muddy with tears.

  “Do you know this boy?” The sergeant was joined by a grim cohort of regulars, jostling into a ragged circle around Patsy, Anne and the dead boy. “Speak up—what’s he to you?”

  A hawk-nosed corporal with a face terribly pitted by the pox grabbed Patsy by the arm and gave her a shake. “Answer, you rebel bitch whore!”

  Still on her knees, Anne cried out, “I beg of you, Sergeant—the girl meant only to—”

  “And you”—the sergeant turned his musket toward Anne, lifting her chin with the tip of his bayonet—“you speak when spoken to . . .”

  “Sergeant Frye! Put by your weapon at once!”

  Edward Blankenship pushed into the circle, and the company snapped to attention. The captain rushed to help Anne to her feet. “Have you been harmed, Widow Merrick?”

  “No, but who’s to know what our fates might have been if you hadn’t come along.” Anne glared at the sergeant in righteous Tory indignation. “I never expected to suffer by the hands of the King’s men, as I’ve suffered by the rule of the Liberty Boys . . .”

  The captain turned on Frye. “What purpose is served here, Sergeant?”

  “They was giving succor and aid to the enemy, sir.”

  “Blubberin’ over him,” the corporal added.

  Anne looked down and heaved a sigh, not even trying to control her tears. “This ‘enemy,’ ” she said, “is but a boy—brought down and dying when the girl and I acted on the instinct of soft hearts. Truly, our only thought was to ease a poor soul onward, as good Christians are wont to do. I will allow we shed tears, for we are unused to schoolboys dying before our very eyes.”

  “Soft hearts . . .” Blankenship repeated, and it was as if he just noticed the dead body lying in a pool of blood, “a luxury soldiers can ill afford. I’m afraid hearts hardened by battle view the world in a different light. These men have seen the damage wrought by rifles in the hands of schoolboys such as this.”

  There was an earnestness in his speech Anne did not expect, and the soldiers all nodded in appreciation of his words.

  “Though I deplore how you have been treated here, it saddens me to hear you equate my men with rebels of any sort. I know them to be exemplary soldiers—solid and true to the service of our King, and I know they regret their actions in this instance.”

  “Captain’s right—we’re sorry, mum.” Frye volunteered an apology, and the rest of the men mumbled the same.

  Anne nodded in acceptance.

  “Back to your posts—move those prisoners to the Commons,” Blankenship ordered. “And Frye—see to the boy’s proper burial.” The captain turned and bowed to Anne. “If you will permit me, Widow Merrick, I will see you to your door.”

  Anne looked to Patsy. “Will you be alright?”

  “I’m fine.” She nodded. “Shaken, but still whole.”

  Patsy lingered, watching Anne take the handsome captain’s arm, and stroll away from the fire, turning the corner to Broad Way.

  The sergeant set to barking out orders. “Pennyman! Kirby! Ye heard the captain—proper burial for this rebel.” Spotting Patsy still dawdling, he jerked his musket and growled, “Off with you, imp—caused us enough trouble this night, ye have. Off with you, now.”

  Ambling away, Patsy untied the mask from her neck, and used it to wipe her face. After a few steps, she did an about turn to see two soldiers carry poor Tim across the road, and heave him into the flames.

  ANNE woke the next day as filthy as she’d ever been in her entire life.

  The washbasin in her room was definitely not up to the herculean task she required of it. Down to the kitchenhouse she went. Standing in the tin laundry tub, she gave herself an all-over sudsing using a scrub brush and her last bar of French lavender soap. Sally emptied three pails of water over her head to rinse her clean.

  With fresh clothes, a splash of lavender water and damp braids wrapped in a crown around her head, Anne claimed, “I am fit to face the world again, and I’m off to see what’s left of it.”

  “Yer brother will be spittin’ tacks when he finds yer gone after being out all night long,” Sally warned.

  “The baker is no longer here to bring us the news. We need to know what’s happening.”

  “Who’d have thought we’d ever miss auld Quakenbos?” Sally looped a market basket over Anne’s arm. “Haste ye back.”

  Anne walked along Broad Street, shaking a head at the one short city block separating the Cup and Quill from utter carnage. The devastation was epic—from Broad Way west to the Hudson, and from the Bowling Green, north, all the way to the lawn of King’s College—a full quarter of the city destroyed. Anne wandered in a parade of people bewildered by the vast landscape of charred ruins, crumbling masonry walls and chimneys.

  Incidences pointing to the fickle vagaries of the wind were made evident in the light of day. The mansions at #1 and #3 Broad Way were intact. Diverted by the graveyard at Trinity Church, the fire passed over Van Cortlandt’s Sugar House and a group of nearby tenements was also spared. St. Paul’s Chapel and many of the houses facing Broad Way along the more northerly stretch survived the holocaust untouched.

  Anne joined a small crowd gathered at the corner of Wall Street, pondering both the void in the patch of sky Trinity Church used to occupy, and the neighboring unscathed oasis of green grass and peaceful tombstones still surrounded by white pickets.

  “These devils certainly considered the weather in deciding when and how to fire the city . . .” a stout gentleman opined, waving around his silver-tipped cane. “The wind was a friend to the rebels who wrought this havoc . . .”

  Anne interrupted. “Has arson been proven, sir?”

  “Madam . . .” The man looked down his nose at her. “The fire originated in three separate locations taking best advantage of an opportune wind. The city’s bells were removed. The fire engines had all been tampered with and rendered useless. That villain there was apprehended for cutting the handles from buckets . . .” He pointed with his cane to a lamppost ahead where a dark-haired man with wrists bound back was hung by his heels—throat slashed. “Others were found with incendiary materials. I have it on good account that arrests have been made. A spy who’s admitted to working for Mr. Washington has already been sentenced and is due to hang at the Commons this morning.”

  Hanky pressed to nose, Anne trailed after the curious crowd going to ogle the body at the lamppost. It was impossible to identify the face caked in coagulated blood and writhing with green blow-flies. A boy ran up on a dare and gave the corpse a poke, sending the mass of shiny flies buzzing into the air, and the corpse swinging. Relieved the face did not belong to Jack Hampton, Anne stumbled from the sight, gagging from the putrid stink.

  Another spy due to hang this morning . . . She gripped tig
ht the handle of her basket. A sick thunderhead of dread began to roll up from her gut and pound in her head with every step to the Commons.

  Barricades and cannon had been cleared away, and a row of marquee tents was erected across the wide end of the green. She had not participated in the most recent Loyalist celebration when the Redcoats cut down the hated Liberty Pole. Like missing Trinity’s steeple, there was something unsettling about the Commons without the pole.

  No more than a stone’s throw from where the Liberty Pole once stood, a new gallows—the timbers pale and raw—loomed, almost centered on the green. The jutting limb of the gibbet was wound around with a hempen rope, dangling in a noose. She skirted along the scattering of soldiers and citizens watching a mulatto man position a horse-drawn cart beneath the noose. Steering toward two friendly looking starched linen caps, Anne took a stand beside a chubby Dutch vrouw and her skinny daughter.

  Two men emerged from one of the marquee tents—a thin man in a brown frock coat leading a prisoner by the tether bound about his wrists.

  Not Jack. She heaved a sigh. Anne did not know the spy, but the brown-coated man was familiar, and she asked the Dutch woman, “Who is that?”

  “Ze new provost marshall—Cunningham.”

  A pinheaded, pinched-faced Tory sniveler, Patsy had called him—the same man they’d seen tarred and feathered beneath the Liberty Pole, and beaten to within an inch of his life for refusing to damn the King.

  The captured spy was led to the gallows. The mulatto climbed onto the cart and hoisted the bound man up to stand on it. After threading the noose over the prisoner’s head, the mulatto jumped down, took up a stiff riding quirt and waited, muscular arms folded across his burly chest.

  The condemned man stood tall and proud—sun shining on his golden hair—and nary a glimmer of fear or doubt in his bright blue eyes. This man was a convicted Patriot spy, but watching him face death, Anne was somehow reminded of Captain Blankenship. The two were very alike in looks and spirit. They could be mistaken for brothers.

  “For crimes of High Treason . . .” Cunningham continued to read the sentencing order in a stumbling, mumbling monotone. “Sentenced to suffer death and be hanged without mercy . . .” When finished, he folded the sheet into his pocket and said, “If you’ve any last words, speak ’em now.”

  The brave man looked out on the congregation. With gentle dignity, and in a fine, clear voice he said, “I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.”

  Cunningham’s face screwed into a scowl. He waved his hand in disgust and barked, “Richmond!”

  His assistant whipped the horse with a snap of the quirt.

  The cart lurched forward.

  Mercifully, the man’s neck snapped at the drop, and there was no awful dance at the end of the rope, no strangled, prolonged suffering. And oddly, there were no cheers or sneers.

  Anne stood stunned by this brave Patriot’s eloquent last words. The short, simple sentence struck like an arrow to her heart—delving deep—piercing her very core. Squeezing the handle of her basket in both hands, and wavering to and fro in unison with the gentle sway of the Patriot’s body against the blue sky, she sent up a prayer for the keeping of his everlasting soul.

  A short queue formed at the right of the gibbet. The Dutch woman pulled her daughter to the fore. Snatching up the dead man’s hand, she rubbed it over the large goiter protruding from her girl’s throat. The touch of a hanged man’s hand was said to cure growths, tumors and sores of the skin, and desperate, afflicted people paid in good silver for such a miracle.

  Cunningham will reap a tidy profit.

  Anne hurried away from the Commons. She could not allow the memory of the man’s sacrifice to his country to be marred by such irreverent spectacle. So inspired by the unnamed Patriot’s bravery and the words he spoke, Anne felt fortunate to have borne witness to his death.

  He will receive the attention of angels . . .

  Turning onto Duke Street, Anne saw Sally careening down the lane, dodging around startled people and pigs, her cap askew, skirts clutched in fists.

  Breaking into a run, Anne met Sally midway. She tossed aside the empty basket, and clasped her friend by the arms. “Is it David?”

  “Na . . .” Sally gasped, trying to catch her wind. She leaned in and whispered, “It’s Jack!”

  WITH Sally and Bandit fast on her heels, Anne took the stairs two at a time and skittered to a stop at the doorway of her room.

  “You’ve come!”

  Jack and Titus were both on their knees helping David fit his injured leg into a boot. Jack looked up and flashed a smile. Bandit ran round in circles barking as Jack swept Anne up in a wild, laughing embrace that lifted her from the floor, swinging her around twice before setting her back on her feet.

  “I’m so happy to see you.” Breathless, Anne beamed. “Even if you smell like fish . . .”

  “I’m supposed to smell like fish—” Jack pounded his chest. “I’m a fisherman.”

  Sally laughed. “Tha’s the disguise, Annie—the three of them—smelly fishermen!”

  The men were all dressed alike—stained, coarse linen shirts and baggy, striped trousers tucked into cuffed seaboots. There was a red knitted cap for Titus, a blue one for David, and a grimy checked kerchief tied round Jack ’s neck.

  “Practice with boots on and take a turn around the room.” Titus helped David to stand, and walked with him for every step with an encouraging, “That’s the way, Captain . . .”

  David braved what Anne knew to be excruciating pain, and pulled his bad leg along in a faltering, uneven stride. With Titus’s support, he stumbled from one side of the room to the other, and then fell onto the chair in a heap.

  Jack exclaimed, “Perfect!”

  “The brace inside the boot helps.” David forced a smile.

  Anne sank down on the bed. “Are you all mad? He’s nowhere near ready—look at him . . . eight steps and he’s as pale as a sheet . . .”

  “Too soon to be puttin’ any weight on yer leg . . .” Sally said, with a shake of her head. “Stumblin’ around like a drunk . . .”

  “Three drunken fishermen to be exact.” Jack sat beside Anne. “David only has to walk a single block to our dory moored at the Fishmarket Wharf. Once we get him in the boat, he has but to sit back and watch us pull oars.”

  “I can do it.” David nodded. “I have to do it—I’m a danger to us all if I stay here.”

  Sally stood beside David, stroking his hair. “But why not just wait until dark and be carried down to the boat?”

  “The roads and waterways are heavily patrolled. There are hundreds of navy ships in the East River ready to blow any odd boat skulking around out of the water—especially after dark. There’s no way around it,” Jack said, with a shake of his head. “We have to travel by day, and have some good reason for being on the river.”

  Titus pulled his cap over his head. “Now’s our best chance to get your brother to safe ground, Mrs. Anne. The fire last night has the Redcoats tying the city up tighter than old Merrick ’s purse strings.”

  Sally cocked her head, and gave Jack the gimlet eye. “Did th’ pair o’ ye start the fire?”

  Titus laughed. “Naw, Sal, we didn’t start it . . .”

  “Only because someone beat us to it,” Jack added.

  “We have to get going . . .” Titus said, pulling his cap on. “It’s a long, roundabout course we have to row, and we’ll need every bit of daylight.”

  “Right you are. Time’s a-wasting.” Jack plucked up a gunnysack, and stuffed David’s clothing and shoes into it.

  Anne rose to her feet, giving Sally a nudge. “Better gather our things . . .”

  “We’re not goin’ with ’em, lass. Not this time.”

  “What!?” Anne looked to Jack, blinking fast to allay her welling tears.

  “Sorry, Annie.” Jack dropped the sack and took her by the hands. “Our little dory is just too small—”

  “Oh . . .”
Anne chewed her bottom lip.

  “You’ll be safe enough here once I’m gone,” David said.

  “Right . . .” She gave Jack’s hands a squeeze and shake, and dove under the bed to fish out the strongbox. Scooping up a handful of coins and notes, she shoved them into her brother’s hand. “Take it . . . you’ll need it . . .”

  “No, Annie . . . you and Sally need it . . .”

  “Take it.” Anne rumpled his hair like she used to when he was a boy. “Sally and I will earn more . . .”

  Sally popped to her feet. “I’ll go fix a parcel of food . . .” Bandit scrambled after her.

  Titus helped David to his feet. “Let’s get you down the stairs now, Captain.”

  “There’s been a chill in the air—he’ll need something to keep warm . . .” Anne flipped open the lid to the chest at the foot of the bed and dug out a woolen blanket.

  “Give us a moment.” Jack waved Titus and David on. “We’ll be right down—”

  Anne tied several rolls of linen bandages, a small pot of unguent and a packet of willowbark powder into a kerchief and handed the bundle to Jack. “See that he keeps his wounds clean and dressed . . .”

  Jack stuffed the blanket and the medicaments into his gunnysack. “You understand, don’t you, Anne? It’s just too dangerous for you to keep David here any longer . . . if there was a way for us all . . .”

  “I know . . . I know . . .” Heaving a sigh, she turned and leaned in, pressing her forehead to his breastbone. “The world’s gone upside down, hasn’t it?”

  Jack rested his chin on the top of her head, and pulled Anne into a bear hug. “I hate leaving you behind . . .”

  Rocking back and forth, Anne slipped her arms around his waist and turned her head to listen as his heart beat in time with the squeak of the floorboards.