Salizar pulled alongside the two-story structure and handed Meadow the reins before disappearing inside. She hunched over the seat, rubbing the worn leather straps and glancing down the road to Boston. A few more men trickled onto the field.
Gray light gathered at the edge of the horizon, softening the dark faces of buildings and of men. Meadow felt her anxiety grow with the dawn. These were not soldiers before her. They were merchants and tradesmen, husbands and fathers and farmers. Clad in rough homespun and armed with ancient fowling pieces and pitchforks, how could they hope to stand against the mighty British? Stubborn pride and righteous indignation they had in abundance, but it amounted to dust beneath the feet of the royal fighting machine.
She wanted to scream at the men to go home, to return to their families before it was too late, but she bit her lip. Her warning would only place her in danger of an angry mob, so she watched with an iron weight in her chest.
A rider thundered into town, pulling up sharply near a cluster of men in the center of the green. As his mount reared, he shouted, “Captain Parker, I saw them! Half mile out!”
The commander turned gravely to his drummer. “Sound the call to arms.”
Men poured onto the field. Conversations rose and fell among them like grass tumbled by the wind. When their murmurings grew quiet, the captain addressed them, “Every man of you who is equipped, follow me. Those who have no weapon, go into the meetinghouse and furnish yourselves from the magazine. Then join the company.”
Less than half of the men had arrived armed. These followed Captain Parker to the far side of the green where he arranged them into a single line. There they stood defiantly, waiting for their fellows who crowded the door of the meetinghouse.
Salizar reappeared and climbed into the wagon. “It’ll do us no good to lose our merchandise now,” he stated. He flicked the reins over Aberdeen’s back. The old horse responded immediately, pulling the wagon out of sight behind the building.
Unable to hold her seat, Meadow leaped from the wagon and ran to the corner of the building like a moth drawn to the deadly flicker of a candle. As morbid as her curiosity felt, she had to know the outcome of the confrontation.
The town held its breath. Only the shuffle of weapons at the meetinghouse door broke the stillness. Women peered anxiously from behind dark, shuttered windows. The men held their line – forty tense faces set determinedly toward the lightening sky, toward Boston. Very young boys and very old men among them, they stood grim and stubborn.
The minutes ticked by slowly, feeling weighty and surreal. Nearby, a single bird awakened and began a noisy serenade. A lone dog trotted along the road, turning onto a narrow lane with a purposeful stride. A few more men from the meetinghouse straggled into the ranks.
Then they came.
The tramp of jackboots crunched and splashed over the road, echoing back from the fronts of the buildings.
Captain Parker paced before the militia, calling out encouragement and boosting their nerve. “Stand your ground, men,” he yelled, “Don’t fire first; but if they want a war, by God, let it start here!”
The regulars came quickly, wheeling to cut off three dozen men still scattered around the meetinghouse. Led by an officer on a magnificent stallion, they came stern-faced and proud, showing little sign of their all-night march.
Each wore a blood red uniform crisscrossed with straps that held weighty packs to their backs. White wigs and black hats bobbed as they came, marking time with each step. Against their shoulders rested muskets fully as tall as Meadow, affixed with bayonets that stabbed at the sky like so many needles.
She watched with wide, frightened eyes as row upon row of the king’s men flooded the commons until they outnumbered the colonists nearly three to one. Then they stopped, and the world fell silent.
The stallion pranced before the colonists, and the officer brandished his sword. He called out in a voice that rang across the field like a tolling bell, “Disperse, you rebels! Lay down your arms!”
When he dropped his weapon, the first platoon fired a sudden volley at the colonists.
Meadow jumped in horror at the unexpected noise and peeked out from between splayed fingers. As the smoke wafted away toward the east, she could see the American line still intact. Too close to miss, the shots must have been charged with only powder.
The rebels shifted nervously, but they held fast. Tension flowed thick as cream as men eyed each other across the field. Meadow held her breath and leaned forward, counting each slow heartbeat.
When she felt she must scream, Captain Parker finally ordered his men to scatter.
Meadow sank to the earth with relief. To order anything less, she knew, would have meant a blood bath. But just as the ranks of colonists began to disband, a single shot rang out.
It jolted Meadow with its suddenness. Before its echoes died away, pandemonium broke out across the commons. She cowered against the building as the horror of war unfolded before her.
Guns belched smoke and fire. Militia men fired randomly, diving for any shelter they could find while the disciplined platoons, wild as demons with the heat of battle, shot volley after volley into the colonists. Then they charged, chasing the rebels from the field. Bayonets flashed and stabbed and came up red, and screams rose ghostlike from the hazy field.
The officer rode frantically among his men, waving his arms and ordering them to stop, but his voice was lost in the thunder of shots. Shapes grew slow and distorted in the dimness and the roiling smoke, and the acrid smell of powder scorched the air. After an eternity of hell, a drum roll demanded a cease-fire and the guns fell silent at last.
A west wind swept away the smoke to reveal ten Americans writhing on the ground. Eight more lay irrevocably still.
Cheers broke out among the unscathed regulars, but their officer checked them with an angry command.
In the sullen silence that followed, Meadow heard the sound of more jackboots. Another long column of red uniforms poured in from the Boston road. Her lips parted and her jaw hung slack as the number of British in the town quickly tripled.
At a stern word from their officer, the scattered regulars regrouped. The mounted man rode back to confer with his superior among the new arrivals, and within minutes, the whole army snaked through town and disappeared down the road toward Concord.
The town began to breathe. Meadow’s vision blurred as family members burst from the surrounding buildings and raced across the bloodied green. She cringed at the sobs of new widows, at the puzzled expression of children too young to understand. She felt fuzzy-headed, as if she’d just set down a tragic story yet lingered still between its pages.
But there was no setting this tale aside.
Slowly, the militia returned from the woods to which they had been scattered. They tended their dead and wounded, carrying them inside houses scattered around the green. And as they worked, they looked often down the Concord road, their flinty glare solidified into hatred.
Meadow sadly shook her head. The foolish men! Didn’t they know the British would run them over, trample them like rats beneath a team of horses? Why had they taken the risk?
She remembered the looks of grim determination, the stubborn stances. They had known, and yet they stayed, and in her heart she knew their reason. She understood it, she shared it, but would she have traded her life for it?
She turned away.
~
“Wynn, let’s go,” Salizar called frantically.
“Where?” Was there any place on earth they could escape the madness that had overrun them?
“North. To a farmhouse I know of. We must get off this road.”
Meadow climbed into the wagon and swayed unheedingly as it bounced and shifted under her. Her heart felt burned away, like a dug-out canoe, with only a scarred shell remaining. In her mind she could still see the dead lying unmoving beneath the cloudy April sky.
“I’ve been told of a farmer willing to stockpile food stores. Isaac the stevedore w
ent ahead to make all ready. For a significant sum, of course,” he despaired. “But we will make it up.”
“You’re still going to go through with this?”
“It’s been my plan all along.”
“But after what just happened-”
Salizar grinned broadly. “We’ve been given the perfect opportunity to sneak into the city. The mice play while the cat’s away.”
Meadow suddenly understood what a pirate the man truly was. “You’re despicable,” she spat.
He shrugged. “A man has to eat.”
They sat in silence as the countryside rolled past. Meadow felt faint, and her head churned with images of the morning. At one point, she vomited her revulsion over the side of the wagon.
At last, Salizar turned the horse into the lane of a farmhouse. A woman appeared at the door so quickly Meadow assumed she had been watching at the window.
“Is this the home of Jonas Bridwell?” Salizar called.
“Aye, ’tis. Have ye news of him?” asked the stony-faced woman.
“He is not at home?”
“Nay. Called to arms in the middle of the night. He left for Lexington before first light. Have ye any word?”
Salizar’s features softened to pained sorrow, and Meadow almost gagged on the phony display of compassion. “I’m sorry-” he began, but she interrupted him.
“Oh, stuff it, Salizar. Be about your business. I’ll tend to the lady.”
Meadow hopped down and approached the trembling woman as the old man coaxed Aberdeen toward the barn. “There’s been an exchange of gunfire, madam,” she explained gently. “Several Americans were wounded, some fatally. I’m sorry I can give you no names.”
The woman sank to a chair in slow motion, the muscles in her jaw clenching and unclenching. “Surely, they would send word about Jonas if he, if he-”
Meadow nodded. “Of course they would. But most of the militia followed the British to Concord. It may be a long day, I’m afraid. Is there anyone who could come stay with you? A neighbor or relative?”
“Aye, I’ve a good friend down the road a pace. Her husband has also gone away to fight. I’ll go to her.”
“I’ll hitch a horse for you. Have you any children?”
“Nay, lad. The last is long since grown.”
Meadow proceeded to the barn and located a small cart. She could hear Salizar clattering beyond her sight. He must have found what he was looking for.
Having no idea of the woman’s driving abilities, Meadow chose a dappled gray mare that stood quietly in its stall. It made no protest as she harnessed it to the cart and led it to the woman’s door.
The woman appeared with a heavy shawl and a hamper laden with food that would most likely remain uneaten. Meadow helped her in and handed up the reins.
“My master has business with your husband. I’ll see he pays you what is owed.”
“Thank you, dear,” the woman said gratefully. “You’re a good lad.” With a flick of the reins, she drove out of the yard.
“Wynn! Come prove your mettle! I need a hand with these heavy barrels,” Salizar called from the barn’s open door.
On entering, she found he had emptied the wagon of its dwindling merchandise and its sacks of rags and bones and stacked them haphazardly about the floor. Now he gestured toward a mound of foodstuffs piled neatly in one corner.
“Isaac really came through!” he cheered. “Flour, sugar, bacon, cornmeal! This will sell for its value many times again!”
Meadow set to loading the heavy bags and barrels and soon removed her coat. It was backbreaking work, but at last the wagon bed was filled and covered with a dirty canvas.
“You better hope the rain stays away,” she muttered. “Even big old Aberdeen will have a time of it pulling this load through mud.”
Meadow’s stomach growled ravenously. She munched on stale cornbread and helped herself to a hand pump in the yard. Then, before leaving, she demanded several coins from her reluctant employer and left them on the kitchen table.
“I truly hope your husband is all right,” she murmured to the empty room.
Salizar chose a route that joined the Boston road several miles east of Lexington. Aberdeen plodded along slowly, and the sun toppled into the west before they approached the juncture.
As they drew near, the sound of heavy boots echoed in the distance. Meadow caught a whiff of smoke and spied a lazy spiral curling heavenward. Aberdeen snorted and tossed his head nervously. The spiral soon darkened to a pillar that blackened the sky and choked the countryside.
“We’re too late,” Salizar stated, halting the wagon. “The British have returned.”
Ahead of them, the figures of a woman and three young children broke into view, arms laden with precious articles that dropped in their wake. A man clad in a scarlet uniform gave chase. Abruptly, he threw up his arms and fell headlong onto the dirt. The sound of a shot followed, rolling along the road like thunder.
Meadow’s hand jerked to her mouth and her eyes bulged with horror. What had happened? What were the British doing here? And who dared to shoot at them after what they had done to the men on Lexington green?
As she watched, a company of regulars passed into view, staggering down the Boston road. Muddy, disheveled, and drooping beneath their packs, they stared grimly ahead. The men little resembled the crisply marching troops of that morning.
Another shot rang out, felling a soldier who crumpled beneath his knapsack. His comrades shouted in alarm, swinging guns that only guessed at the position of the ghosts that haunted them.
Meadow caught a glimpse of gun smoke wafting from behind a large tree. As she watched, the figure of a man darted out dressed in filthy buckskins and a wide-brimmed hat. He ripped open a paper cartridge with his teeth as he ran, pouring in powder and shot and jamming the ramrod down the barrel. After diving behind a stone fence, he primed the pan and sighted along the gun’s incredible length. Another thundering crack rent the air.
“Move along, men!” shouted a red-clad officer. Usually mounted, the man had lost his horse or decided the animal made him too easy a target. He marched among his company, pressing them onward toward safety.
Salizar turned Aberdeen off the road toward a barn behind which they might wait out the dangerous parade. As they crossed a field, the source of the reeking cloud rolled into view. A two-story house burned ferociously, throwing sparks high into the air. Flames roared from its windows and licked hungrily at the roof.
Meadow closed her eyes and fragments of old memories blurred together like smoke, slipping into one another then whirling apart. Memories of flames and terror, disbelief and loss. The bitter taste of acid. The charred remains of a village.
Her eyes opened and filled with sorrow for the family newly touched by British hatred. But she had little time to mourn. For suddenly Meadow found herself gazing down the long barrel of a musket. An angry eye squinted at the far end, holding her steady in the gun’s sights.
The man’s mouth split in a wicked grin revealing yellow, broken teeth. A high-pitched cackle broke out. “Thought you’d escaped, didn’t ya?”
Chapter 9
The voice sounded oddly familiar. Looking about, Meadow saw the wagon had been surrounded by a troupe of armed rebels.
Then recognition dawned. Several of the men had eaten with them in the Yellow Dog tavern, but their appearance had changed from their last meeting. Dirt and blood smeared their clothing, and powder burns blackened their skin. Long hair blew ragged in the wind. Faces that had laughed and drank together now burned hard and angry.
“I knew I recognized that wagon!” the man cackled again.
One man trembled with fury and pointed an accusing finger at Salizar. “I saw the devil,” he exploded. “Dressed in a red uniform and participatin’ in the mischief. Led a pack of them ravagin’ wolves right to my door, he did, and set me house ablaze! Woulda taken the scalp of me oldest boy, too, if the missus hadn’t let loose with me granddad’s pistol and put a
hole in ’im big as the barn door!”
Meadow gaped at the man, and Salizar spluttered with indignant fury. “I did nothing of the kind!” he managed.
“Not you, ye bugger, that scoundrel Duncan! A British spy, he were, and you led him to our doors!”
Salizar’s speech dried up, and his mouth worked like a fish gasping in the bottom of a boat.
Meadow absorbed the news quickly, but it didn’t strike her with the same surprise. She had tasted the preacher’s falsehood from the beginning. The fact that he was dead caused her little regret.
“They’re spies!” the man hollered. “Shoot them!”
Meadow’s throat closed, cutting off her breath so she couldn’t even defend herself.
A chorus of cheers greeted the suggestion, but one man stayed them with an upraised hand. “No, Landon. Take them in. I’ll have no vigilante justice.”
“We’ve had plenty of that today already, Todd,” one man pointed out. “Why develop a conscience now?”
“True enough, but I’ll not lift my hand against an old man and a boy. Take them in, or find no difference between yourselves and the red devils that plague us.”
At his words, rough hands seized Meadow and dragged her from the wagon. She and Salizar were forced through an overgrown field where briars yanked at their clothing. Landon led Aberdeen behind.
They were taken to a grove of trees out of sight of the road where a handful of colonists crouched, hastily stuffing their mouths with chunks of bread and a stolen apple pie. The men arose warily, muzzle-loaders at the ready, but they relaxed at the sight of their captors.
The prisoners were dragged before a tall man, distinguished even in his disarray. “We’ve captured a pair of spies, Colonel Barrett.”
The man eyed them carefully. “A boy and an old man?”
“Their ages don’t matter. They brought to our town a man called Duncan who was later seen in British uniform, delivering atrocities upon the good people of Concord.”
“Three of us saw them together, sir,” another man affirmed. “They spent the evening in the Yellow Dog two nights past, gathering information to use against us.”
The Color of Freedom Page 7
