The Immortal American

Neither was Mathew. As he gave the signal to shoot, but before the militia had the time to pull their triggers, I set my sights on the captain’s gloriously tall hat. Never closing my eyes, I held my breath. My finger did the rest. I blinked finally when the smoke hit me, but felt Sam nudge my arm as he said, “Jesus, good shooting. Just aim lower next time.”

  Looking down, I saw that the captain was without a hat and somehow had lost his sword. The line of Regulars faltered. Many soldiers were on the ground, some screaming, some quiet, and I waited with my pistol ready to see if they would shoot at my husband. Some of the Regulars returned a volley, but there was no aim in their firing. Some shot their guns to the sky, perhaps begging to God for mercy, or angry at God for forsaking them.

  The Captain’s horse stirred under him, but he had the gray mare under control within a moment. He was clearly confounded. He kept reaching for his phantom hat. A random Regular soldier bent down to retrieve it, then Sam fired his rifle. When the smoke cleared, I saw that Sam had not shot the soldier, but the hat from his hands. That gigantic black hat with gold fringe was again on the ground, now lying on its side.

  I kept my hand steady on my pistol, waiting for my rifle to cool. I was too far away to aim with predictability for a pistol, and hoped I wouldn’t hurt any of the militia. The light infantryman who had tried to retrieve the hat looked down at it as if it were possessed. The officer, still on his horse, grunted something to the soldier, and the troops began to march on. As the lobsterbacks double-time marched, they trampled the once glorious hat. Many had funneled through Meriam’s Bridge, but a few redcoats lay on the road, crying, screaming, or moaning. My heart twitched for the ones that made no noise at all.

  There were periodic shots fired from the militia on both sides of the highway. Someone let loose a victorious scream, an Indian war whoop. Then followed a few volleys into the air, which made the Regulars begin to stampede away all the more.

  Sam nudged me again with his elbow. “Now, we’ll really get ‘em to run.”

  The Regulars were already running for their lives, and the militias were on their heels.

  Sam hurriedly grabbed his canteen, horn, cartridge bag, and hat then scooted to his knees. “You coming?” he asked.

  I looked down at Mathew and Jacque. For some strange reason they weren’t moving, just sitting on their horses, very close to each other, while their men raced on to keep up with the Regulars.

  “No. I’m keeping close to Mathew, er, Lieutenant Adams.”

  I looked up in time to see Sam smile warmly and nod. “Sure wish I could find me a wife like you.”

  I thought of Melicent and grinned. “You will.”

  He winked and waved good-bye as he bound down the hill.

  I peered at Jacque and my husband, vaguely aware that I was staring at them from my rifle’s sights. I thought about greeting them, but the way they whispered to each other, the way the shadows of their faces morphed into something dark, made me stay still.

  Their murmurs became more dramatic, heated. Mathew threw a hand to the now opaque gray black sky, shaking his head vigorously.

  Suddenly Mathew barked, “Because she’s my wife!”

  My heart stopped.

  Jacque turned away from Mathew and looked in my direction. Did he know I hid on top of the hill, shrouded by a juniper?

  “I’m very aware of that.” I heard Jacque respond quite clearly.

  Mathew and Jacque, in the darkness of the forest, turned from youthful men into twisted angry images—morbid and waxen.

  “Don’t take that patronizing, French tone with me.”

  Jacque cocked his head to the side. “And what tone would you like me to take, hmm? German? Russian?”

  The horses started a nervous pawing at the ground and in so doing rotated in a tight circle close to each other.

  Mathew made a furious gurgling noise. “The point is, Frenchman, that she’s my wife now. I know you understand that. Your English isn’t that poor.”

  “What is your point?”

  “She’s mine now!” Mathew screamed.

  Just a few days ago, or was it just this morning, I had thought how lovely it was to have Mathew be mine. To belong to me, to my heart. There was connection and closeness when I thought of Mathew as my husband. I felt luxuriously honored.

  But the way he had yelled those words—smeared with something so utterly not romantic, not connection—so similar to what Jacque had said that one dreadful morning, didn’t ring of hearts belonging to each other’s. What Mathew had screamed felt like . . . ownership.

  “Mine,” Mathew continued, “as in, you dare touch her in any way, I’ll kill you. You speak to her ever again, and I’ll kill you.”

  I could guess the patronizing look Jacque gave Mathew now.

  “You think I’m not serious?”

  “Non, non. I think you’re very serious. You will kill me. I wish you much luck with that endeavor.”

  Mathew’s hand sprang to his pistol holstered on his hip.

  Jacque extended his hands in surrender. “Please, mon ami, there is so much fighting with the British soldiers today, can’t we just kill them? Not me?”

  “Everything is a joke to you. But know this: I jest not! Violet has made her choice, and it was me she chose. She is my wife. Mine!”

  There it was again—the resonating feeling that Mathew was talking about me as if he owned me. It was then that I realized why I took so much offense to when Jacque had called me his. He thought he possessed me, as if I were a mere trinket, not a woman, not a heart to love.

  Irritated at Mathew’s tone, his meaning, it took me a couple seconds to realize the phrase Mathew had used regarding me making a choice. Mathew knew I had had another suitor. He had to have known about Jacque after all.

  “My wife will do my bidding now.”

  Oh, I really didn’t like that. I would have a serious talk with my husband later.

  As Mathew continued my trigger finger itched.

  “Which means that if I ask her to stay away from you, she will.”

  Jacque actually chuckled. “You don’t know your wife very well, if you think that.”

  Mathew pulled his pistol and placed it on Jacque’s right eye. “Don’t know my wife? I’ve known her since I was child, loved her since I was a child. I know everything about that woman. I know you briefly distracted her, but in the end she chose me. She chose me!”

  “Oui, yes, she chose you. So why are you trying to kill me? You have clearly won her. She’s yours, as you say. Yours.”

  Mathew took his pistol away from Jacque’s face.

  Jacque nodded, his voice softened. “You won her, because you are the better man between the two of us. I know this, Mathew.”

  Mathew relaxed.

  “But I am the one better for her.”

  Mathew smacked the barrel of his gun against Jacque’s face again. Mathew’s jaw line tightened to the point where I almost didn’t recognize him.

  “Go ahead, mon ami, pull the trigger,” Jacque said calmly. “Shoot me. I deserve it. That was a cheap thing for me to say.” He paused long enough to take a deep breath. “I am just an old, lonely man, Mathew. I am pathetic, and I know it. I am in love with a woman who is in love with . . . you. Trust me, I know how idiotic I am in this situation.”

  Mathew again loosened his grip and let his pistol fall to his side. His face broke from its tense bindings into a softer plane. He searched the canopy of the forest for some answer. Shaking his head, he said to Cherry’s neck. “Even though I should hate you, I cannot.”

  “I hate myself enough for the both of us, I think.”

  Mathew actually smiled briefly, but then he appeared to want to say something, yet just shook his head again. Then he dug his heels in, and Cherry flew through the woods.

  More shots fired somewhere in the distance. Jacque dismounted, stumbled, then fell onto the ground. I sprang from my camouflage and raced down the hill to him. He was on his haunches, l
eaning back, looking for answers at the top of the trees, as Mathew had done.

  “Where are they going?” I asked.

  Jacque sprang on me faster than a mountain lioness searching for prey for her cubs. He hovered over me, pinning me down once more with his powerful arms and legs, but relaxed once recognition passed his eyes. He closed his lids and swayed down, almost touching my body with his own.

  “Violet,” he whispered over and over again. “Violet, Violet, Violet.” After a moment he asked, “How did you sneak up on me?”

  His hold on me had loosened, and I knew I could escape, but just stared up at him. Once, now another world away, I’d wanted Jacque exactly where he was, between my legs, painfully close. I swallowed and heard his heart pounding. “You were probably distracted by the argument you’d just had with Mathew.”

  Jacque leaned away from me, a hand still on my stomach, but gave me enough room to sit up.

  “Oui, perhaps, I was . . . absorbed in our conversation.”

  “Pointing a pistol at your head hardly makes for any kind of conversation.”

  Jacque shrugged. “If I was him, I would have taken that shot and killed me. He has every right to be angry. Hate me.” He slowly shook his head and released his hand from my waist. “I tried so hard not to love you or even think about you. I fought harder at not loving you than any battle I have ever been in.”

  I nodded, but couldn’t respond. I’d fallen in love with him too. As I looked upon his sad blue eyes, long nose that I adored, and unshaven hollowed cheeks, I hated that I still found him so arresting. I hated that I could remember how I’d never had as much pleasure in a conversation as I had with him. I hated that we could finish each other’s sentences, something Mathew and I still couldn’t do, although we’d known each other all our lives. Even though falling in love with Jacque seemed to happen in another lifetime, I remembered it well. But then I dredged up how he’d killed me twice, and I stiffened my spine.

  He sighed.

  We stared at each other for a long moment. The chilly breeze of the morning was back. The trees around us drooped with the heavy burden of the day’s battle and now wounded hearts.

  He started to talk, but only the strained sound of a man dying came out. He cleared his throat and tried again. “I will send you a map of India, where I found the spring water, at least as close to it as I can recall. I ventured to China as well, for it was there that I heard about eight immortals and thought I could find them, discover more about my condition, but I never found anyone. I’ll send you my notes on that journey anyway. Perhaps you and Mathew will discover more than I have. You have each other. Two are better than one.” He stopped abruptly and looked down at the space between us. “I will search on my end to find if there is a cure, of course. I will let you know anything I find.” He slowly lifted his head and stared into my eyes. “With all my heart, Violet, I’m so sorry. In a desperate and lonely act I have done such wrong to you, to Mathew too. But I will make this right. I promise.”

  I realized then that he was trying to leave me. We would be in contact, because my undying conditioned needed to be solved, but he would keep his distance. He was promising that to me.

  I nodded. “I have to catch up with Mathew.”

  He just looked at me for a long moment, then he sighed. “Good bye, Violet.”

  The words spilled out of my mouth before I had time to censor them. “Au revoir, mon amour.”

  His eyes widened, but I escaped before he could respond. I scooped up my rifle and already had the bag of bullets on my belt, then ran. Racing faster than I ever had before, I slowed until I past the tail end of the militiamen, as they began to near Lincoln.

  At this point I didn’t care any longer if anyone saw me. I just wanted Mathew to be safe. Trotting, I gained my breath. Then someone snapped my arm and twirled me around.

  “Sam,” I whispered on a smile as my chest smacked into his.

  He smiled down at me, then kept his hold on my arm as we crept to a thicket of Tulip trees. “Violet,” he whispered, “your eyes and that rifle are needed up here. We’ve got one lieutenant down, but we need to get a few more captains. Those redcoats sure know how to run, I tell you.”

  I nodded and crouched low into the thicket that revealed four other men. They stared at me. They were mostly young men, twenty years of age at the most, except for one man of thirty or so that I recognized also from Acton.

  “All you Acton boys have sharp eyes?” I smiled, trying for a jesting confidence, when of all the damned moments of the day it was then that I wanted to lie down and cry.

  The eldest man smiled as Sam nudged me in the ribs. Ouch. Even though I’d been shot hours ago, my bones still ached, yet I resisted a wince.

  “I heard that Concord had their women out fighting for them. Now I believe it. Josiah, Josiah Whitney.” The eldest of the men extended his hand to me, and I shook it.

  “Vi.” I nodded, not saying the rest of my name. They probably knew it anyway, and I reasoned that if they didn’t have to call me Mrs. Adams then I could be one of them—just one of the boys.

  Then Sam had to mention, “Isn’t she something in those breeches?”

  An amen was said as well as a couple grunts.

  “As good as she looks, her shooting’s better. Better than mine,” Sam added.

  The men’s eyes widened, but as Sam slapped me on my back, they all gave me a quick nod of what I thought was respect. And that was my initiation with the other snipers.

  Sam spoke up again. “Tell Vi the orders.”

  Mr. Whitney nodded. “We’re still targeting officers. Makes the rest of the lobsterbacks real nervous when their officers fall off their horses.”

  I nodded myself and swallowed. I wasn’t going to admit that I doubted I could shoot to kill. Shoot to injure, yes, but I didn’t think I had it in me to kill. Unless Mathew was endangered.

  “As I was saying,” Mr. Whitley began, “that sharp turn in the highway up ahead. Everyone know it? It’s about midway through Lincoln?”

  We all nodded.

  Mr. Whitley continued, “If we got ahead of that angle in the road, we’d have all the Regular officers pointing their big hats right as us, perfect targets.”

  Sam elbowed me again with a smile, and I tried not to grimace. Certainly, with my new condition I could heal quickly, but there was the residual ache of a wound that was, well, normal. At least that part of me was the same.

  Mr. Whitley cracked a small half smile. “We’re marching triple time to get there, boys, er—”

  I shrugged as Mr. Whitley gave me an apologetic grin.

  Mr. Whitley led, as we followed, but I mimicked Sam more than anything. He’d hide behind a tree, and I would too. The big young man would aim while concealed behind that tree, then shoot. I tried to do the same.

  On the torso of the redcoats’ uniform was a white cross of belts. It made for a perfect target, but I knew that shooting at it would more than likely be fatal. So instead I aimed at shoulders, and sometimes the legs of a man. I missed quite often at first, which utterly irritated me. But shooting at a man was much different than hunting a doe. For a deer, I’d wait until the happy animal was chewing their cud, standing still, or at the very least walking slowly, then fire. For today though I had to measure my aim against my target’s movement, quick movement at that, and after a while I finally could figure where a man might be when my bullet would make its impact.

  As Sam and I ran from tree to tree he informed me that Mr. Whitley’s father had been a Ranger in the French Indian War and had taught him all the tactics before his untimely death from being trampled by a runaway horse. Isn’t that just like life? To fight during a war, against an esteemed enemy, yet get killed by a damned horse afterward.

  We ran in a jagged line behind Mr. Whitley, not even the militia seemed aware of our company as we passed.

  I saw Cherry and Mathew as I ran, but he did not see me. Mathew was encouraging his men to keep up w
ith the Regulars who were keeping a brutally quick pace.

  We all managed to make it to Lincoln where the highway did hold the tight corner that Mr. Whitley spoke of.

  I caught up with Mr. Whitley quickly. “I want to be closer to my husband,” I said as I grabbed his linen shirt in an effort to plead for my case.

  He looked down at his forearm, and I released the light hold I had on him. His brown eyes met mine for a moment and he nodded. “I sure wish you’d stay with us. Saw you picking off most of the men we shot at. You got good eyes. Most of the other boys, ‘cept Sam, don’t have the aim. But I understand. If my wife were fighting, I’d want to be close to her too.”

  That was permission enough. I took off running. My legs were, oddly, never tired, and although I should’ve been hungry, I wasn’t. I just wanted to be close to Mathew. I wanted this day to be over and all the violence to end. I wanted Mathew to take me home, once and for all, and hold me.

  I found Cherry, of course, and slowed immediately, as I paralleled the horse. Mathew sat calmly on the gelding, his voice steady and strong to his men.

  The woods enveloped me as I walked beside Mathew, a few feet off. His gentle voice reminded me of my wedding night, how after he’d made his confessions to me, he’d erupted with passion, yet I knew it to be bridled. He had made sure to pleasure me before himself. I recalled his lips roaming my body, and how the thought alone made my breasts ache.

  Mathew took out his sword, yet kept his voice serene, urging his men forward a little more, a little more.

  His voice had been so gentle with me that night, asking me if I wanted more. Did I like it when he kissed this? Did it feel good when he suckled that? So carefully he’d dipped his head between my legs, making me catch my breath.

  The loud pop of a musket erupting yards away startled me, and I returned to watching my husband riding slowly along the trail. Then I checked on the Regulars, still on the highway, making sure not one of them would turn and aim their guns at my Mathew. Then I remembered when he finally pushed himself inside me, the pain, the elation, his eyes searching mine. He’d asked on a tender whisper if it hurt too much. I couldn’t answer with words. My desire was too strong by then. I wrapped my legs around him, making him smile.

  “Quiet, men, quiet. We’ll get our chance yet.” Mathew grinned at his men.

  They respected him. I saw it in their eyes. They beamed back at him, trusting my Mathew, proud of their commander.

  Lincoln went by in a hurry, and as we approached Lexington, Mathew’s voice grew fuller and more animated. “It’s about time, boys. It’s about time.”

  The Regulars were beginning to slow down, but the militia was not. I saw on the other side of the highway that there were many companies in the woods, following the redcoats as we were.

  “Eight men died just this morning at the hands of these bastards.” Mathew’s voice began to boom. “Eight. These were men with all their lives yet to live. Men with children and young wives. Men like you and me. They died today with their backs turned on the Regulars because they were making ready to go back home. They didn’t come to fight. They were leaving, giving way to the Regulars to search their houses looking for ammunition and arms that the Regulars didn’t even have a proper search warrant for. Those damned demons were conducting unlawful search and seizures when they killed eight of our men. Eight. And ten more are wounded.

  “For the last ten years the Regulars and all of the King’s men have been trying to whittle away our God-given rights as Englishmen to protect our homes and protect our loved ones. They’ve been trying to take away our God-given right to have our government be fair in dealing with us. And today those blasted redcoats killed men, our men, as they were making their way back to their homes.” Mathew’s voice broke with emotion. The faces of the men marching beside him shone. My God, but he would make a good politician.

  Mathew gripped his sword as he said, “Today is the day when we say, ‘No more.’ We say it as one. One brotherhood, one family, today is the day that united we say,” he raised his sword, “don’t tread on me!”

  “Don’t tread on me!” a man echoed.

  Then four thousand voices rang out, “Don’t tread on me!”

  Subsequently, the militia on both sides ambushed.

  The Regular officers, those still firmly in their stirrups, had enough insight to know that Mathew was making his speech to up the already high morale of the militia and to attack. The Regulars were running by the time the militia opened fire on the rushing red uniforms, racing into Lexington.

  I didn’t watch much of the action, only the environment around Mathew. If any Regular soldier aimed his musket in my husband’s direction, which many did as Mathew had made himself quite a target with his loud speech, I shot. Again, I aimed for shoulders and legs and hats. I exhaled after every shot, gave my long rifle a few moments to cool, then packed the bullet deeply, slid my rod back into place, aimed and fired and fired, again and again. Within the short moments of the ambush, I spent half of my bullets, and worried about the powder ruining the helical grooving inside the barrel.

  Suddenly a gargantuan boom exploded, and the Lexington’s meetinghouse shattered through and through—cannon fire. That meant that there were more redcoats in Lexington, and they were armed to the teeth.

  The militia, held away from Lexington, out of the cannon’s range, stayed in the woods, as the Regulars made their passage into the sanctuary of the small town. Both the Regulars and the militia rested. I was certain both sides were in meetings, war councils, trying to figure out what was to be done now.

  Mathew made signs that he was going to dismount when Mr. Whitley immerged close by and looked out at the highway little more than fifty yards in front of my husband. There lay at least four men clad in red. I didn’t think I had shot any of them with that severe of a wound to lie bleeding on the road.

  “You got an angel watching out for you, Mr. Adams,” Mr. Whitley said, pointing with his head at the prostate redcoats.

  Mathew looked at the lobsterbacks on the road. I realized then that the men on the highway were dead.

  “Was that your handy work, Mr. Whitley?”

  “No, sir. I was up ahead some.”

  Suddenly Mathew looked angry, nodded, and at a quick clip, rode Cherry further east into the forest.

  I was certain I hadn’t shot anyone to death, but . . .

  I looked around and saw about twenty feet above me, a rifle’s barrel slowly sink into a bush.

  Mathew truly did have an angel watching over him, a blue angel.

  Chapter Twenty-Six: Last Effort