“Oh, lord,” Daniel sighed. “Meadow McKenzie, what have you done?”
“Nothing much,” she said with a twinkle, “except empty a British jail.”
His eyebrows lifted. “Are you the same trembling girl I sent away five months ago? My eyes say you are not, and my ears now agree!”
Meadow’s humor vanished. “Perhaps I’m not as different as you think. I want nothing further to do with this war. I’ve come to remove my father.”
“Your father is here?”
“He came last night with others from Boston. Do you know where I can find him?”
“Perhaps.” His face sobered. “But I fear your errand will be in vain.”
She looked up sharply. “Do you know him?”
“No, but I know the kind of men who have gathered here. Their purpose is set.”
Tears of foreboding formed in her eyes, but she lifted her chin. “I must try.”
“Meadow,” he said, taking her hand and searching her eyes, “it’s okay to be scared. You have proven what lies in your heart. You will find courage to follow through with what you believe. Don’t do this.”
She could not hold his gaze. “Please,” she mumbled, “lead me to my father.”
He dropped her hand and she felt frightened and alone, like the day she ran from Wellshire. He sighed heavily. “Come.”
She followed him through a camp engaged in daily tasks. Here and there, sweat-stained women stirred large, boiling kettles of laundry and littered the bushes with garments hung to dry. A group of young boys tore between the tents, pausing to shoot each other with sticks while their sisters looked on longingly and tended the babies. But the vast bulk of the population was men.
Some scurried about, intent on one duty or another. Others lounged, whittling or sleeping. On the parade grounds, a crowd of men played at shinny, knocking a leather ball about with sticks.
Daniel pointed out an area of shelters thrown together in haste. “Here are the newest arrivals. We may find your father.”
She sighed in dismay. “How? There are so many men.”
He threw her a sidelong glance. “Trust me. He will find you.”
Meadow suddenly became aware of the way activity slowed as she passed. She grew uncomfortable beneath the frank stares.
“Wynn!” came a shout. “Er, Meadow!”
She smiled as Jonathan approached. “I’m glad to see you safely among friends,” she said.
“And I, you. Here is one stout heart!” Jonathan told Daniel appraisingly.
“I know that well,” the young man agreed.
Their praise made Meadow feel cowardly.
“I thank you again for all you have done for me and my family,” Jonathan continued. “You are truly your father’s daughter. He once saved my life once, you know.”
So that was the reason for the deep friendship that blurred the lines of station.
“But I sorely wish you had stayed with Abigail.”
“My place is here beside my father,” she stated firmly.
“I will leave that for you and him to sort through. Come.”
Amos sat in the shade of a spreading tree cleaning a musket with an oily rag. “Meadow,” he gasped, rising, “you look incredibly like your mother.” He hugged her warmly.
She flushed with the compliment and introduced Daniel.
Amos grasped the young man’s hand heartily. “I’ve heard many good things about you, son, and I’m grateful for your friendship to my daughter these many years.”
“She’s been like a sister, sir,” he said, then grinned mischievously, “and lately more like a brother.”
The men talked long together, discussing the newest intelligence and guessing at soon-to-be issued commands. They spoke as comfortably as old companions.
After a time, Amos rose to kindle a fire. “It’s my turn to cook. You’re welcome to stay for dinner, Daniel, though I fear our fare will be no better than your own.”
“Thank you, but no. I have some chores to attend to before nightfall, and Matthew’s probably wondering where on earth I’ve gone to. He’s a horrible cook, but he’ll worry like a woman if I’m not there to sample his recipes.” With a grin and a wave, he strode off across the busy encampment.
Meadow at last found herself alone with Amos. “Da,” she began, staring into the fire, “you are a free man. Your indenture no longer binds you.”
“I know. Jonathan told me everything.” His tone was flat, neither approving nor disapproving her actions.
She rose up expectantly. “Then let’s flee this place. Why do you fight with those who hate and torment you? Let’s go to Rhode Island. We can escape this warrant of death.”
Amos shook his head. “Soon this conflict will overflow Boston Harbor. It will engulf the whole New World, and nowhere we can go would be far enough.”
“Then let’s leave America!” she cried.
Amos pursed his lips then spoke quietly. “Meadow, God has been good to lead us here. In a land so desperate for liberty, I can only believe someday room will be made for all races and religions to live together in peace. And land, Meadow! Vast amounts just there for the taking!
“No, daughter,” he concluded, “I will stay in America. If we truly want to be free, we must stay and fight this through to the end.”
Meadow slumped to the ground. Tears flowed freely down her cheeks and dropped onto her lap in small, damp circles. She wasn’t surprised. Not really. In fact, she was proud of her father and a little ashamed of herself for showing less fortitude than he.
“Meadow, go get your Bible.”
In a moment she laid the sacred book in his lap.
“The time has come to reveal exactly who you are.”
He opened the back cover and began to carefully cut away the lining with the tip of a knife.
“My dear friend’s sister, Rosemary Donovan Wescott, did not die at the hand of Lord Heathcliff as everyone believed, though she certainly would have if Father Holden had not intervened. In fear of her life and the life of the baby she carried, the priest hid her and cared for her in the church, unbeknownst even to her family, awaiting the child’s birth. He held out hope that the baby might one day grow up to claim his rightful inheritance.
“All this was hidden from me until the night of the storm – the night you were born. Anna went into labor but it was long and difficult, and the babe, our daughter, was stillborn.” He stopped and fixed her with a penetrating stare.
Meadow protested, “But I’m not dead. I didn’t die.”
He held her eyes. “Anna fared poorly and knew she was dying. I sent for the priest to administer last rites, and when he arrived he brought a baby; a newborn girl. Rosie had died in childbirth that evening but her baby lived. And before my Anna passed from this world, she charged me with raising the baby as my own and protecting her from her father’s murderer.”
Slowly, Amos’ words pierced the fog of Meadow’s mind.
Amos withdrew a paper from its hiding place in the Bible’s cover. “Before she died, Rosie dictated a letter to Father Holden and sealed it in her Bible.” He held the paper out to her. “This is for you, Allison Wescott.”
Meadow took the paper woodenly. “No,” she whispered.
She jumped to her feet, staring at it unseeingly. “NO!” she screamed, crushing it in her fist and fleeing from the camp.
Chapter 17
Tears burned her eyes, and the night grew dark with no moon to light her way, but Meadow stumbled forward, finding strength in her anguish.
She felt betrayed, cheated in the deepest part of her soul. Everything she had believed about herself was unraveling like a garment caught in nettles. She was not the daughter of the Irish peasant man who raised her. Indeed, she was only half Irish – and half British – heiress to a vast estate and kin to a murderer!
Why had Amos kept this from her? While they dwelt in the shadow of the Wescott estate his reasons were obvious enough, but a months-long ocean crossing offered am
ple opportunity to reveal a secret of such magnitude.
Her anger blazed against him, and the temptation was great to flee back to Ireland to claim her birthright. Perhaps this revelation was of divine purpose, she mused. Perhaps God meant for her to atone for her ancestry. Her mixed blood might help heal the wounds between rich and poor, between Irish and British in one small corner of the globe.
But how many were left to extend kindness to? Had any escaped the madness of Lord Heathcliff? And without Father Holden, how could she prove her identity with only a name written in a Bible?
Then there was the threat of Heathcliff himself. While she worked to establish her claim, would she suddenly come up missing only to be found dead in a ravine weeks later?
No, she decided, it would be better to let him keep his ill-gotten estate and answer for his misdeeds at the hand of a greater Power. But she could not return to Amos. She would never trust him again. He was not even her father!
She lost all sense of time in her numb state. Minutes – or was it hours? – later she pushed aside a heavy veil of branches to reveal the mouth of the Charles River spread out below. Far ahead, the lights of Charlestown twinkled. Like a moth, she pressed toward them, caring nothing for what morning might bring.
Still clutching the letter, Meadow settled herself in the doorway of a shop on the edge of town and let merciful sleep overcome her at last.
~
Meadow was awakened by cannon fire that shook the ground and made the buildings tremble. Boston was visible just across the Charles, but the noise came from the river.
A gray haze lay on the surface of the water like the hot breath of a dragon, and the horizon glared white and sultry. By some trick of the dawn, the warships seemed close and magnified, and from them the bombardment ensued.
Following the arch of the projectiles, Meadow discerned a black mar of freshly turned earth on the crest of Breed’s Hill north of town. While she had slept, the order to act had finally been given. While darkness concealed their movements, the army of Massachusetts had begun a redoubt and could be seen in the early light completing it, taunting the British watchdogs below.
Meadow applauded their ingenuity. The British, she knew, could ill afford such a bold affront to their authority, but even her untrained eye could see the difficulty they would face attacking entrenched men on high ground.
But first they had to move thousands of men and all their equipment across the Charles. Even the most organized army required time for a movement of such magnitude.
Meadow spent an anxious morning observing the workings of the king’s men and wondering if Daniel and Matthew labored atop the hill. She longed to go to them, but she refused to face Amos. In fact, she worked hard to forget him altogether.
Before late morning, most of the villagers lined the shores of the river, gawking at the troop movements. As the sun climbed higher, baking the land below, many of the observers retired to the shade or fanned themselves wearily.
Meadow settled beneath the shade of a chestnut tree and watched an elderly couple share a picnic. A gentle breeze wafted from the ocean.
The round-cheeked woman offered her a sandwich, thick with generous slabs of meat. “Here, dear, we have plenty,” she smiled. “And there are cookies and apples, too.”
Meadow’s eyes bulged at the bounty after weeks in beleaguered Boston. She had little enough appetite, but she took the sandwich reverently.
“It’s a beautiful day for a picnic, don’t you think?” the woman asked. “And entertainment such as we never see on a summer’s afternoon.”
She seemed not at all affected by the searing heat or the looming battle. Meadow doubted any of the woman’s loved ones were in danger.
After thanking her benefactors, Meadow moved again to the edge of the river where a young solder harassed the crowd. “Move away there! Make room for the guest of a British officer.”
Turning, the young man assisted a fat companion into a chair. “Your nephew promised a display of British strength during your visit and now you shall surely have it. Here on the closer shore you will have an unobstructed view of the glorious battle.”
“Thank you, soldier. And thank Lord Percival for me,” came a voice that turned Meadow’s blood to ice. “It is kind of you to accommodate me. I am sure I won’t be disappointed.”
The people about Meadow grumbled and glared accusingly at the pair, and as they moved away, she confirmed with her eyes what she already knew in her heart. Lord Hathbane Dennison sat before her like the devil himself come in human form.
Backing away in horror, old fears assailed her. After so many months, how had her master found his way to the very village to which she ran, not two days out of her disguise? Her courage failed even as the barrage of cannon fire picked up, marking the first wave of boats ferrying scarlet-clad men around the peninsula. She retreated to the center of town.
Kicking up a fine dust that whitened her gown, she paced the streets in the afternoon heat, listening to the roar of battle. The pounding of artillery erupted from Copp’s Hill in Boston and joined the boom of the ships. The combined thunder rattled the windows and echoed in her chest.
Meadow felt lost. She wandered between the buildings like a dingy drifting on the Charles with its moorings severed. Where would she go now? Amos, so long her anchor, no longer tied her to Boston. All of America – all of the world – lay open to her but she didn’t belong anywhere.
Her blood pumped with the rhythm of explosions. Daniel, at least, had proven true. She couldn’t stay tucked away among the alleys if he was among the whistling shells bombarding the heights. She peered up at the redoubt from the edge of town.
The pounding, she noticed, had stopped. In its place rose a measured drumbeat as the force of regulars advanced on the American flank. The noise sounded thin and weak after hours of bombardment.
The hilltop remained still.
Meadow watched the red lines weave over fences and split around trees and rocks. But still they kept moving, closer and closer to the guns trained on them from above. Grudgingly, she admired their bravery.
Nothing moved on the hill. Would the Americans never shoot?
Suddenly, gunfire erupted in staccato pops then melded into a single wavering crash that rained lead down on the closing troops. The pulsation ebbed and flowed, lingering on and on. The British returned fire, formed up in stiff ranks that never faltered as one by one its members fell.
Meadow couldn’t watch. She withdrew behind a building until silence lay over the battleground once more, as thick and still as death.
Through the haze of heat and smoke, Meadow could see the British forces regrouping. They had drawn back to the boats in confusion, stunned by the ferocity of the colonists. The hill was strewn with red-clad men. She could hear them moaning and calling for water as the sun blazed down on them. But the losses atop the heights remained hidden.
The loud crack of a rifle ripped the air very close by. Ducking instinctively, Meadow spotted several snipers hidden among the houses. The American sharpshooters had sneaked into town, flanked the British, and were picking off their officers at close range.
“Get back, girl!” one of them yelled to her as he reloaded his rifle with the speed of long practice. “Don’t you know there’s a war going on?”
Meadow quickly complied. Cowering in the shade of a doorway, she covered her head with her arms. The snare drums wavered out their beat as the battle renewed itself. She sat for what felt like hours, sick with dread, her head aching from the heat and the constant pounding.
When the noise died again to a scattered popping, Meadow crawled from her refuge. Stiff and sore, she stretched her back and paced before the shop.
Then the boom of artillery took up where the muskets left off.
The sun had drifted to the west, and the salty breeze fought to alleviate some of the heat. It pushed at the damp tendrils that hung against her face and blew coils of smoke about the narrow street.
Meadow c
oughed. Where had the smoke come from? Not the sharp, acrid smell of powder, this was wood smoke, and it billowed in a choking cloud.
Far down the street, Meadow heard screaming. Women and children streamed down the road loaded with everything they could carry.
A little boy wearing one shoe toddled towards her, clutching a ragged cloth dog and sobbing, “Mama! Mama!”
The sight clicked in Meadow’s memory. The British had set Charlestown ablaze!
She scooped up the toddler and ran with him toward the river, away from the fire, away from the battle, and set him on a shore filling with townspeople where boats were being loaded and launched. Already the river was awash with refugees fleeing to the safety of Boston. Meadow hoped someone would recognize the child. She ran back toward the fire to assist where she could.
The smoke roiled in a great ceiling that blocked out the sun, and the heat and crackle of flames spread, fanned by the breeze.
A vice-like grip suddenly encircled her arm. Paws as strong as a grizzly’s whirled her around. She stared into the cruel eyes of Lord Dennison.
“I found you, you little vixen!” he sneered. “You and I have some unfinished business to attend to!”
He dragged her down the street. Struck dumb with terror, she didn’t even protest.
Just then, a frightened horse bolted through the veil of smoke, pulling an overloaded wagon. “Look out!” the driver yelled.
Dennison sprang to the side, losing his hold on Meadow. She fled back toward the fire just as a third assault began on Breed’s Hill.
Bent over, she tried to run below the choking fumes. Flames blazed all around her, scorching her skin, but she could hear her master coughing behind her, calling out threats and curses, so she pressed on, dodging around corners and running up streets clogged with burning debris.
She finally outran the sound of pursuit, and Dennison’s voice rang out like a trumpet of defeat. “I hope you die in there, Meadow McKenzie!” he screamed. Then she heard nothing over the roar of flames.
Completely disoriented, Meadow searched for a way out, but everywhere she turned the world burned. Drenched with sweat, singed and blackened with soot, she despaired of ever finding deliverance when, for a brief moment, the breeze died back, revealing a narrow passage of escape before the curtain of smoke drew over it again.
The Color of Freedom Page 15
