The Immortal American

The major disadvantage to a rifled musket, like the one I was carrying, was in its reloading time. It would take up to a full minute, sometimes more, to cool the rifle enough to reload. Also, the gunpowder itself could foul up the barrel, making accuracy a distant dream. The Kentucky rifle often needed a good cleaning after so many shots, which was not conducive for battle. Hunting, yes, but definitely not for warfare.

  I would need a pistol too, as a weapon that I could use while the long rifle cooled or needed a cleaning. I had Colonel Devlin’s sidearm, but that was more than a mile away at my house. And since no one knew if the fat colonel would leave Concord any time soon, I wasn’t sure I could leave my Mathew unattended, even if Jacque had promised to watch over him. Actually, especially because Jacque had promised to watch over my beloved.

  There was only one course for my dilemma: I would have to pilfer a pistol. As fate would have it, a few hundred soldiers, men who often were with weapons, were lying ‘round the Concord Commons eating their midday meal.

  I made sure Jacque was occupied, then ventured off to perform my first act of thievery.

  It was difficult navigating around all the militia soldiers. Luckily, I seemed to be at my best and managed to maneuver in and out of the crowd of men at record speed. Further helping me was my father’s large brimmed hat and my husband’s now muddy black overcoat. Thank God for black. It hid the specks of blood from being shot by Jacque. By God, I just might shoot him myself after today, even if it was childish of me, but I thought Jacque owed me at least one death to my two.

  I stopped in my tracks at that last thought. Cocking my head to the side, I wondered if I had just imagined my deaths. Imagined Jacque too? After all, this was lunacy to believe I was . . . undying.

  Pulling my husband’s coat from my neck, I peered down. My men’s white linen shirt was no more but red and pink shreds. The beautiful light blue corset under had a large hole over my heart and blood splattered over the whole of my chest.

  Looking up, I gulped down the need to scream, but instead made tight fists. I nodded to myself. I had somehow died twice yet still lived. Once more I glanced under Mathew’s coat, caught sight of the wreckage, then decided to continue on with my plans. I couldn’t solve my bizarre problems while staring at my now bruised skin. Damnation.

  I approached the Commons by way of scraping my thin body on the sides of houses so as not to be detected. It was the first time I thanked God for my figure.

  I could make out the Commons easily enough from where I stood, leaning against the Brown’s home. Astonishing me, I spied the Regular soldiers acting kind almost to the point of scrupulous to my fellow Concordian women, as the women served them water and loaves of bread and stew. A few companies were in the very beginning of making their formation to march back to Boston, but most of the Regulars sat in crowds, eating in a hurry.

  I needed one man who had unpacked his arms, and for him to be alone or nearly alone, so I could steal his pistols. Pistols were usually something only a wealthy officer could own, so I began my search for a high-ranking soldier.

  Found him! He was a lieutenant who was angrily talking with his fellow officers, his back turned against his pistols, a sword, a powder horn, and a cartridge bag. All his arms were unattended, and, glory be, he had a shred of bread neatly packed beside one of his pistols. Oh, thank heavens, for I was hungry too.

  A herd of sheep provided me coverage while I crept toward the arms and bread. They bayed happily, as they were quite pleased with the crawling woman who let them munch on her hat and hair. I let them nibble on me as much as they wanted, as they encircled me, protecting me from sight.

  Then, shocking me almost into a scream, the angry young lieutenant plopped down near his arms and bread. He was looking away from his provisions, but still he was less than two feet from them, and I was less than two feet from him.

  Help me. Help me, please, I prayed . . . I don’t know to whom. The sheep? They got me that much closer to my prey, but should I really filch from a man who might notice me? As I listed off reasons to run away, the lieutenant’s head suddenly jerked upright, and I saw the granddaughter of Colonel Barrett, Melicent, walking toward us. She was fifteen, and very much her grandfather’s granddaughter in her self-determination and self-reliance. She approached the young lieutenant with a large pot of water and drinking spoon. Melicent looked down at the Regular soldier as if he were a bug she would like to squish under her boot.

  “Water?” she asked with disdain clearly marked in her dark eyes.

  “Ah, thank you, miss,” said the man, not noticing how Melicent stared at him as if he were the devil himself.

  Seizing the opportunity, I inched forward with the sheep protecting me from the lieutenant’s view, but not Melicent’s. She saw me immediately, but darted her eyes back down at the man close to her feet. She bit her bottom lip, while her dark eyebrows lowered.

  The lieutenant took a few sips, then after saying thanks again, leaned back, very close to his stash of arms, and very close to my outstretched hand.

  “Take more,” Melicent hollered.

  The soldier stopped his descent and stiffened his back. “No, no, thank you. I shouldn’t take more than any of my men.”

  Melicent glanced at me, then back down to the lieutenant, then bellowed, “I like you. Very much. I like a man who shares.”

  That halted him instantly.

  If it had been any other day, any other circumstances, I would have laughed until I rolled around on the ground at Melicent’s loud and forward behavior. But I needed the man’s gun to try to shoot his fellow soldiers. Sobering thought, that.

  The lieutenant slowly rose to his feet, looking down at Melicent. She tried not to recoil as I stole his bread and pistol then rushed away. Yet I could hear him say, “When this is all sorted, I could call on you, if you’d like? I must confess . . . I like a bold woman.”

  I don’t know how she answered as I ran so fast I could only hear the drum-like beat of my heart and wondered if my feet ever touched the ground. The sun popped out again from the clouds and was at its highest peak above my head—noon—when I heard in the distance the Regular fifers begin to play for the soldiers to get into formation. Then I kept running to Meriam’s Corner. Even while holding my very long rifle, more balls and powder for my new-to-me pistol all tucked into my belt, I knew I was sprinting faster than ever before. I was rushing so fast that I saw everything in blurs. Oh, what had happened to me?

  I tripped and fell as a spark in my memory served me at that damned time. Herodotus, the Greek historian, wrote of a spring of water that caused people to remain young and live eternally. Skidding to a stop, I winced as agony shattered through my jaw, chest, knees, and an elbow. The pain shockingly intensified, then ebbed. I sat up as I recalled other stories: a spring in Ethiopia, another reported in the Caribbean, Juan Ponce de León supposedly found the Fountain of Youth in the Floridas. There were tales of eternal water from Germany, Scotland—or was it Ireland?—as well as Spain. I pressed my fingers to my jaw. When retracting my hand from my visage, I saw blood. Not much, just a smear. Yet after I dabbed at my jaw with the sleeve of my coat, I couldn’t find any more blood. Mayhap because I wasn’t injured anymore.

  Tears stung my eyes, and I ached to be comforted. What had I turned into? As much as I hated to explain whatever I was now, there was only one person I wanted to cling to, have him wrap his large arms around me. I needed to push all thoughts aside and just find my husband.

  I got up and ran through the woods. Spotting Jacque first, then my heart warmed and grew in size as I finally found my husband. They were both riding their horses, talking and smiling at each other as if they were out on a day’s hunt, as if they weren’t joined by an ever mounting militia about to commit battle.

  The militia had, indeed, grown with every minute. I couldn’t believe how many more officers and their men were now lining behind and ahead of my husband on the wide trail parallel to the highway. None of them wore any
kind of uniform, many just as muddy as me. Suddenly they all stopped and hushed.

  Off toward the Commons I heard the fife’s song change to a quick paced one, and their drums began to set a fast rhythm too. The lobsterbacks were on the move.

  I trudged carefully closer to my husband. Jacque and I both agreed that it was for the best that I shadow Mathew, not let him see me. Mathew would want me safe at home, God bless him. So I had to figure out how to stay near enough to protect him, yet far enough that I wouldn’t distract him. I somehow succeeded in this.

  For about fifteen minutes the quieted militia followed the redcoats while they left Concord. Being that the militia was steadily increasing it was difficult to keep the forest still, and the Regulars, as they walked along the rutted highway, watched the woods with narrowed, suspicious eyes.

  At Meriam’s Farm, the meadow was wide and large, making it so that some of the militiamen became bold enough to walk out of the copse and expose themselves as they marched alongside the redcoats. The Regulars knew very well that they were being escorted out, and each soldier held tight his Brown Bess—his smoothbore musket.

  Ahead of me stretched a game trail. I followed it until it rose enough for me to get a better vantage point. As much as I hated leaving my husband’s side, I knew that if I could see more, the better I would be at spotting any risks for him. I ran to a hill where an overgrown juniper bush had usurped most of the trail. It was the perfect location to bury myself while I loaded my weapons. I didn’t think even Jacque could catch sight of my nest.

  The thorns from the juniper were strong enough to rip at my skin when I hunkered into its lair, and at first I flinched from the scratches, then shuddered as my wounds almost instantly healed. I swallowed away my tight throat and put my energy into placing the gunpowder in the frizzen pan, then a little down the barrel of my gun, next came the bullet. I replicated the procedure with the pistol, then searched my surroundings for my husband.

  Across the highway from the long line of redcoats I saw the distinct shadows of more men. The militia surrounded the Regulars on both sides. This was going to be a complete ambush. Shaking my head, I tried my damndest to not think about the moral ramifications. I wanted to yell at my father for installing me with such thoughts in the first place. What good could these considerations come to when blood had already been shed?

  The sun beamed down on the earth and shot a few rays into the forest. When had the sun begun to shine? Wasn’t that a strange phenomenon? When I thought the world was on fire, about to go up in smoke, Mother Nature proved me wrong by letting the sun shimmer, growing green grass, and nurturing yellow buttercups in a field.

  I listened to my breath when I saw a Regular officer on horseback followed by some wagons start the parade down the highway toward Lexington, toward Meriam’s Farm, toward destiny. Paying attention to the air going in and out of my body was a ritual that Daganawida had taught me—how to calm my body with breath so that it clarified my thoughts, bringing me better aim and a more productive hunt.

  I nestled to my belly, securing my rifle’s butt against my shoulder, and spied through my rifle’s sights upon the scene below me. My eyes caught the bright red of Cherry, and I smiled. That big horse was one of the reddest sorrels I’d ever seen. I wiped my grin off when I realized, oh dear God, Cherry would make for an easy target if Mathew ever moved from the woods. As I was thinking that, Jacque caught up and rode beside him. I sighed as Jacque’s dark horse overshadowed Mathew’s. Their horses strolled at a turtle’s pace, and Mathew said something to Jacque that made him lift his black brows in surprise. But after a beat he nodded. Both men reined in their horses to a standstill, as the militia walked around them on the trail, and the redcoats kept marching toward Meriam’s Bridge.

  Mathew nodded as men passed, some saluting. He looked like a god atop that on-fire horse, his own golden hair loosened and waving about like he was Thor himself. He was beautiful. He glanced at his dark comrade, and my finger inched toward the trigger when I sighted Jacque. I chided myself, knowing I couldn’t make a sound, let alone shoot someone, but there sat black Jacque, the man that had forever changed me. What a choice of words! Forever.

  I hated him. I wanted to hate him. Well, I did hate that I thought of the way his voice softened when he recited French poetry. Then I hated myself as I peered down at Jacque, the sun pouring down on the two men at that instant, but it made Jacque so blue, not black, as I wanted.

  Luckily I couldn’t think any more of the two men I loved as I noticed that there were some men, militia, making their way to my hill up top. There were only four of them in total, but I stopped breathing as I watched their approach.

  Not one of them noticed me, until one was standing almost on top of me.

  “Jesus, boy, why didn’t you say you were already stationed here?”

  Rolling to my back, the rifle long against my body, I looked up at the young man. I recognized him as another man from Acton. He couldn’t have been more than eighteen, but I’d danced with him several times at a few county dances. Although he’d been too nervous to talk to me when we danced, he’d asked me repeatedly to be his partner.

  But as I lay before him with my rifle he did not recognize me.

  “I thought I was the only one here with a rifle.” He hunkered down next to me, less than a foot from my person, not taking another glance at me, then threw his cartridge bag and a powder horn close to mine. “You’re quiet. Where you from?”

  “Concord.” My voice was raspy due to the fact that I was dreadfully thirsty.

  He nodded and flung a canteen at my chest. I caught it and whispered my thanks.

  He nodded once more. “I’m from Acton. Sam, Sam Raymond’s my name.”

  After a heavenly sip, I gave him back his canteen.

  He extracted a cartridge and tore the paper that held one bullet and a pinch of powder, then stuffed them down the barrel of his pistol. “You got a name, boy?”

  I watched as he extracted his ramrod and was beginning to shove it down his gun when I said, “Mrs. Adams. Violet Adams. You know me, Mr. Raymond. We’ve danced before.”

  Slowly he lifted his gaze from his labor. He stretched his neck to get a better look at me, his brown brows furrowed.

  His mouth opened and he quit breathing.

  I couldn’t help but smile at the dumbfounded look he had.

  Suddenly he laughed. “I should have known. You smell too damn good.”

  I chuckled myself.

  He reached out and wiped at my cheek, but then stopped himself, extracting his hand almost painfully away from me.

  “Sorry. I just wanted to see under the mud to make sure it was really you.”

  “My face is muddy?” I asked.

  He nodded. “Looks like you got blood on you too. You ain’t been in a fight, have you?”

  No, I was just shot in the heart. I shook my head. “I ran into a blueberry bush. Might be juice from the berries.”

  He nodded, but didn’t look convinced. “Mrs., er, what are you doing out here?”

  “Same thing as you, I suspect, Mr. Raymond.” I knew that Samuel Raymond had an eye that other men swore the devil himself inserted, and as such was one of the best hunters in Middlesex. The four other men must be his peers—fellow snipers.

  Even though the gravity of our mission should have been weighing my mind with sober thoughts, I only thought of Mr. Raymond being a pest on the dance floor, as many of the Acton boys were. Although too shy with me, he’d terrorized my poor sister almost to tears once, then as I danced with him minutes after I had calmed Hannah down, I’d stomped on his toes until his eyes watered, all the while smiling coyly at him. As Hannah, my mother and I left the dance, he’d hobbled after me in stocking feet, clutching at his toes, and claimed to be mortally wounded.

  He crouched low to accost me with a gigantic smile.

  “Miss . . . er, Mrs. Adams. I seem to be having a problem saying your name now.”

  I took hi
s hat from his head and set it close to our powder horns. “How about Violet, then?”

  He gave me another giant smile, then scooted to lie on his belly next to me as I rolled back to my stomach too.

  “Violet,” he parroted. He said my name on a sigh then elbowed my arm. “I was real sorry to hear about Miss Hannah. She was real nice. I liked her. Sure did. I always liked you too. Thought I’d marry one of you girls. Then, you had to marry Adams, Lieutenant Adams, I should say.”

  For some strange reason, his jesting soothed me, and the usual sensation of bleeding internally when someone mentioned my sister’s name was not there.

  “Mr. Raymond, I do believe this is the most you’ve ever spoken to me. And you seem to be quite the flirt. What’s the change?”

  “Sam,” he instructed then gave me a quick glance. “Don’t know. Figure since you’re dirty as hell I can talk to you now.”

  I quietly laughed.

  “My pa told me that you have quite the eye, for shooting, that is,” Sam said. “Your daddy was bragging about you, and my pa said, ‘Ain’t no woman who can shoot that good.’ And your daddy grabbed you, and had you shoot at a target, and my pa came home shaking his head, saying, ‘Didn’t know women could do that sort of thing.’”

  I smiled and recalled the incident. I’d done my father proud that day, making a shot with my rifle a little more than three hundred fifty yards away. One man had call me a saint and another a witch. Ah, men. What can one do with them?

  “I heard you have quite the sharp eye as well.”

  He nodded and licked his lips, looking at the passing redcoats and militiamen. “Don’t like to brag, and I’m real humble about it, but I bet I could outshoot you.”

  “Humble, indeed.”

  He flicked his eyes over my face and down past my shoulders. “We could runaway together after this. I heard Nova Scotia’s real nice.” Despite the day, the circumstances, the fact that I was where I was to protect my husband, I liked Sam’s flirty teasing. He was a calming energy to my frenzied, frantic one.

  “We could.” I smiled.

  “You like the Carolinas more, don’t you?”

  I shrugged. “I’ve never been outside our country, Massachusetts.”

  “Me neither.”

  We both stopped our gabbing as the Regulars marched closer and closer. The crimson soldiers oozed down the road. Two wagons, I was sure that had been confiscated, were at the front of the parade, more than likely holding the wounded that couldn’t walk. Other, more capable injured were at the center of two long lines of red-clad men. I wondered how the boy with acne was, hoping he had survived.

  Sam whispered even more quietly, “How’d Adams talk you into shooting for us boys?”

  I glanced at him and wasn’t too sure if I should answer him, but he gave me his amiable wide grin and I gave in. “He doesn’t know I’m here.”

  Sam shook his head. “Damnation, I’m lyin’ here next to a real renegade then?”

  I chuckled and shoved at his arm.

  He scooted nearer, then whistled. “Nice rifle, Renegade.”

  “Thank you.” Then I looked at his. It was also a long rifle, but was a few years more modern than mine. “Your rifle is very fine too.”

  Sam fingered the pistol I had inherited and cocked a brow at me. “Nice pistol too . . . uh, Lieutenant Sutherland.”

  I pursed my lips as I read the former owner’s name on a gold plate at the bottom of the pistol. “Oh . . . oh, right, I . . . found this, you know.”

  “I bet you did, missy.” He laughed.

  “Well, all right, I made a deal with a group of sheep for it. They concealed me as I stole it from an officer.”

  “What’d the sheep get out of the bargain?”

  “They bit my hair and back.”

  “Hell, I’d give you all this year’s grain if you’d let me bite your back.”

  I quietly chuckled again and slugged his arm. He rubbed where I smacked him and smiled at me.

  “Do you flirt with the other militiamen this way, when you’re readying yourself for battle?”

  “Sure. Calms my nerves. Doesn’t much calm the man I’m next to though.” I quietly laughed, while he continued to talk. “Have I ever told you that I think more women should wear breeches?” He shook his head and looked down my body again. “Yes, sir, women in breeches would sure be a good thing, I think.”

  I laughed again, and then we both startled at the firing of guns. We looked down our sights as smoke erupted from behind the marching Regulars. Good grief, but someone was shooting at the Regulars’ back. Reciprocity, I wondered about the word. The Regulars broke from formation and began to return fire into the woods and behind them. At the front of the red parade they were just beginning to cross Meriam’s Bridge.

  There was returning volley for a couple seconds more when Sam leaned into my ear and whispered, “Aim for the officers.”

  I peeked at him, then back down to Mathew. His men surrounded him while they hid behind trees, shrubs, or a large rock. He had a hand up and was quieting his men, making them wait for the right opportunity to fire.

  “Those are the orders?” I whispered back to Sam.

  Sam nodded. “We shoot if we’ve got a clear shot.”

  I nodded too and waited.

  There were a few more shots fired, then quiet—deafening silence.

  Something was finally called out from one of the Regular officers, and the light infantry that flanked the stockier and supposedly braver grenadiers turned, then the line of the grenadiers about faced—right in front of where Mathew sat on Cherry. His hand, palm out to his men, waved about, as if pleading with them to stay still. Jacque was trying to maneuver around Cherry, protecting Mathew from the highway, the Regulars. But in a fast move Mathew gripped Jacque’s reins at the bit, and stopped the dark horse, forcing Jacque to be motionless beside him.

  Then from the other side of the highway a shot was heard, then several more. The Regulars turned around and waited for their officer to say something, but the officer—if I wasn’t mistaken I thought him to be Captain Parsons with his gold plumed hat—never uttered a word, but looked hither and thither across the road.

  Then one of Mathew’s men fired upon the Regulars. A redcoat fell to the ground and screamed as he lay at the feet of his comrades. The captain made up his mind, unsheathed his sword then raised it to the growing gray sky. The sun hid for what happened next. The captain then lowered his rapier toward the copse, right at Mathew’s head.

  I wasn’t going to have any of that.

  Chapter Twenty-Five: Damned Confrontation