Recently promoted Captain Whitley warmed his hands on a small fire. It had been two weeks since the Regulars had been run out of the Massachusetts’ countryside. Now it was a full-fledged siege, the Siege of Boston. He scrubbed his hands over his face, probably noting his long whiskers. He sat alone on a small stool and gave a quick sigh, then leaned to his side to pick up a scrap of thin paper. He wrapped it tightly around a stick that he used as a dowel and licked the end of the paper, sealing it into a cylinder. Then he twisted the bottom of the paper cylinder tight. After that he retracted the dowel. Sliding a round lead ball into the device, he subsequently capped it with a funnel. Next he grabbed his powder horn and tapped a small amount into the paper cartridge.
I came to stand closer to him, and my movement finally caught his attention. He startled. The paper tube, metal ball, and black gunpowder flew into the air. The fragrance of the powder immediately trapped into my nose. It still reminded me of soil.
The earth comforted and provided, while gunpowder . . .
I’d spent the last two weeks sleeping on my husband’s grave. The soft soil had given me all the soothing reassurance it could, but I still was frozen in my body—forever missing my husband.
It was melodramatic of me, I know, but waking every day craving my husband’s touch, my sister’s giggles, and my mother’s nurturing had driven me completely mad. Further agitation was the knowledge that two haunting blue eyes watched me, my every move. While weeping uncontrollably upon a dark and dreary night, I plunged my sgian dubh deep into my chest.
I woke moments later, the dagger removed from my breast, a small blue purple bruise in its place. At first I thought Jacque had been the culprit that had taken the knife from my person. But for once I didn’t feel his pervasive presence. I could only surmise that it was my own body that had eliminated the sharp dirk from my heart. No matter how much pain I endured, no matter what dagger was drudged through my heart, I would keep waking.
It was that last admittance that enabled me to run.
I sprinted as fast as I could. The trees and Massachusetts’ houses and taverns turned into a blur. I needed time. Aye, I had plenty of it, since I would forever more continue to keep waking, no matter what happened to me. But I needed time away from Jacque, from the Joneses, from my grief-filled life. I needed to think of what to do, what I could do. I’d run to Cambridge, the headquarters for the militias conducting the siege.
Captain Whitley righted himself as I sat on another stool by his fire. My rifle spanned my lap.
“Little sneak.”
I gave him a small shrug.
He studied me, and I let him while I stirred the golden orange coals of his fire with a long branch, the scent of acrid gunpowder still filling my nostrils. At length, I turned to him, watching as he kept opening his mouth with, I’m sure, many sentiments of sorrow for me, wondering if I was all right, had I eaten enough, what of my destiny now?
He looked down at my rifle. I wore my husband’s overcoat unbuttoned and was certain he could easily see the two pistols I carried in holsters on the inside, and a tomahawk wedged beside one of the pistols. He sighed. “Reporting for duty?”
And what of my fate?
I took a sharp inhalation, but nodded all the same.
Aye, like gunpowder, my providence was now of my own choosing. Disguising myself as a lad and joining the militia was a surefire way of escaping Jacque. For a few weeks, at least. Part of the militia was encamped at Harvard, where the university stood vacant while tensions boiled over. I could begin at the library, where I might find more about Herodotus and the cursed water that I’d drunk. Mayhap I could find a way to make myself . . . human again.
Perhaps, like the lot in my life, I would find more than I was looking for…
Make sure to watch for the next book in
The Immortal American series,
THE BONES OF WAR,
coming fall 2013. . .
Author’s Acknowledgement
The fabulous works of William Shakespeare, Sonnet 18, “Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day?”
For the French translation of Sonnet 18, I looked to the French translator Isabelle Schwartz-Gastine. Merci beaucoup!
Please give generously to . . .
The Wounded Warrior Project
&
The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention
Thank you for reading books on BookFrom.Net Share this book with friends