Storyteller (11 page)

Elizabeth’s throat is dry.

But Libby stands in the doorway. “Dinner is ready.” The dining room table is covered with the map, the frame, the drawing. “We’ll eat in the kitchen,” she says.

Harry smiles at Libby. He looks happy. And he’s polite during dinner. He praises the roast, which is almost raw. Across from Elizabeth, he chews thoughtfully. Then his fork clatters onto his plate. He pushes back his chair. “I just realized …” He drops his napkin onto the table and goes back into the dining room.

Elizabeth follows, and they look at the drawing together.

“The mark in the corner here?” he says. “I’ve seen it before.”

“Where?” She stares down at it. It looks like a couple of sticks tied in the middle.

“I can’t remember.” He shrugs. “But don’t worry, Elizabeth, I’ll try. I promise you that. And tomorrow we’ll go up to Oriskany. I’ll show you where it all happened.” He waves his hand.

“I won’t be here,” she says slowly, feeling as if she’s going to choke.

“Her father is coming to get her tomorrow,” Libby says.

“Of course she isn’t going home tomorrow. Call her father and tell him. Ridiculous. She’s going to Oriskany.”

Elizabeth looks at Libby. Is it possible?

It’s as if Harry has read her mind. “Yes,” he says. “Oriskany. Nothing will stop us.”

Elizabeth and Libby look at each other and smile.

“Why not?” Libby says.

“Why not?” Elizabeth wants to hug them both.

When Pop calls, she asks him about going to Oriskany. He says yes right away. But there’s something in his voice. She knows what it is. It’s disappointment. He misses her.

She falls asleep reading Harry’s book on the American Revolution. And she thinks about sitting with Pop at their kitchen table and telling him about all this, telling him everything.

I couldn’t stop crying, couldn’t open my eyes. His arm circled my neck, and his broad hand cupped my shoulder
.

In that terrible heat of August, it was hard to breathe. We were surrounded by the smells of horses and cooking and meat that had long passed its freshness. And the noise! People shouting to each other, their heavy footsteps going past; hens clucked, pigs grunted, cattle lowed
.

But all of it seemed distant, unimportant, as I buried my head in his chest. How good it was to be able to cry. How good it was to be safe!

I knew I had to tell him about Mother and the house. “I must tell you—” I said, my voice thick
.

“Shhh,” he told me. “Shhh.”

It was the most comforting sound I had ever heard. I thought about a summer long before. John and I had hid in the cornstalks, our hands over our mouths to stop our laughing. And Father, pretending to be a bear, had thrashed around inches away from us
.

He picked up my hand now and ran his fingers over my scarred skin. “Oh, Zee.”

This was not Father. Or John. My eyes flew open. “Miller!”

He stood. “Yes, of course.”

Angrily, I brushed the tears from my cheeks. “Why didn’t you tell me? How dare you—”

“How could you not know it was me?” He smiled, his teeth even. “But here you are, Miss Zee. Back to your ordinary self.”

“Go away.” I shook my poor hands at him. And then I realized I needed his help
.

“Where are Father and John?” I asked. Dozens of people moved around us—no, hundreds. Faces I had never seen. Most of them were John’s age, but there were old people, too. Men with grizzled hair and beards, women whose faces were lined and gray. Some were soldiers; some, like the woman I’d come with, were there for protection against the Loyalists
.

And Julian, Miller’s brother—where was he?

I must have spoken aloud. Miller’s face was grim. “He’s on a bateau somewhere along the river, bringing supplies to Fort Stanwix. We can only hope they get there.”

“I saw boats,” I said. Julian might have passed that close to me
.

Miller reached for my hands. “What happened to you? How are you in this condition?”

Condition. He must have meant my filthy cap, my torn and stained petticoat. That anyone should see me this way!

I bit my lip. “My condition is no affair of yours.”

“A moment ago I was not in such trouble with you.” He put his hand on my arm. “Come. We’ll find them.”

I shook off his hand and followed without a word. We circled around people sitting, standing in knots talking, and children chasing each other
.

Miller pointed out a squat man, built like a rain barrel, who nodded at me seriously. As we moved around him, Miller whispered, “That’s General Herkimer, who will lead us into battle. We’re longing to fight.”

Of course. Miller and Julian had been fighting from the time they could stand on their feet, rolling on the ground, their clothes gathering up twigs and mud. But they were always laughing, and this was no laughing fight
.

The British were my enemies, too. I tried to brush thoughts of Ammy and Isaac from my mind. Stubbornly, they stayed, but my tears were done
.

We reached a group of men training in the center of the fort. At last! Father and John. John broke from the ranks to run to me, and Father looked up and followed
.

A few yards away they hesitated, staring at me as if they were seeing a ghost
.

Miller gave me a small push with one finger
.

I turned angrily and then forgot him. It was Mother I thought of. Mother, her cheeks flushed, pulling the bread from its place over the fire, its crust shiny. It was the house on the river, the loft where I slept, and Stout Lucy
.

All lost
.

Without thinking, I held out my hands to see the shock on their faces. “Mother is gone, then,” Father said, his words strangled
.

“The house was burning,” I said. “I saw her in front, surrounded by men.” I raised my shoulders. “She told me to go, to run. Later Old Gerard buried her.”

John reached out for my hands, his mouth unsteady, and Father’s face was more stern than I had ever seen it. “My dear wife,” he said. “And the house she loved is gone, too.” He put his
large hand on my shoulder. “You came all this way alone? Is that possible?”

I nodded
.

“Such a long trip,” Father said, and I saw the tightness in his jaw, the look in his eyes. Tears held back? “A hard trip even for a grown man.” He pulled me to him
.

Later I ate roasted corn and meat broiled on a stick until I couldn’t hold any more, and then I slept through the rest of that day and part of the next
.

I awoke to the sound of people running and men shouting. General Herkimer stood in the center of the parade ground, and around him all was confusion. “At last!” Miller said as he ran past me
.

Father and John joined the crowd around the general as he announced that finally the Americans were to make the forty-mile march to Stanwix, where St. Leger had surrounded the fort
.

Father held me to him, then John. And Miller stepped forward, to put his hand on my shoulder. “Be safe,” he said. I saw that he was going to say something more, but he just shook his head
.

Then they were gone
.

But what of me?

Was I now to lose them again?

How could I let that happen?

No. I would go with them
.

But shoes!

My feet were strong now, toughened by the rocks and branches and hard dirt they had trod over all these weeks. But still, if I ever hoped to match the pace of a marching army, I had to cover my feet. So I stole
.

I darted one way and then another, searching. Who would be foolish enough to leave a pair of shoes unattended? Shoes that might work their way onto my feet. It was almost laughable to think about. But that was exactly what happened. Beside the church steps was a pair of shoes, a little large, but they would do. I scooped them up, promising myself that I’d bring them back when we returned
.

I watched the endless lines leaving the fort, and waited. I had to stay far behind Father and John, at least until they could no longer send me back
.

How angry they’d be when they learned I was following them into battle. But their anger could not match the grief I’d feel if I were to lose them a second time
.

They were all I had left
.

What came into my mind then was the ruin of our house
.

I remembered the fireflies dancing above me as I’d stood in the river. What had I promised myself that terrible night? I would be as strong as John and Father. I would never let anyone take away what was mine
.

I felt a ripple of that strength go through me. I was tough from all those weeks. I darted outside the massive gates of the fort behind a ragged group
.

Men and boys were coming to join this march, hurrying along the road with weapons slung over their shoulders. Ahead of me the column stretched forward
.

I stopped, bending to put on the shoes, listening to the sounds of an army. “We begin on Monday, four days into August,” someone said. “We will long remember it.”

By now the line must have stretched a mile, or maybe two, in front of me. In back, men wheeled supplies and provisions on great oxcarts, all to help those who would be holding Fort Stanwix against the enemy siege
.

The carts were slow; their weapons were cumbersome. I found my place behind them. Alone, but not alone. Somewhere in those hundreds of men were Father and John, and even Miller
.

We followed the north side of the river. The path was clearly marked from long years of travel, beaten down first by the
Indians and then by the settlers as they built lean-tos and cabins nearby
.

Overhead the willows bent their slim branches toward us and offered shade. The birds were silent, terrified by our noise, or perhaps in awe of what we were about to do: save Fort Stanwix from Colonel St. Leger and his men
.

We marched for long hours; by midafternoon, I fell behind, listening to the giant wheels of the oxcarts, and sank down to work my way out of the shoes. My skin had rubbed against the stiff material, raising blisters that broke and bled as the shoes were pulled away
.

The march was slower now; only narrow trails were marked. How lucky I was that those carts lumbered through the trees at such a slow pace. I could keep them in sight but had time to dip my feet into the cool river water. Finally I left the shoes at the edge of the trail. Would I ever come back this way for them?

I hobbled along until two men leading the last cart heard me. They turned quickly, wondering, I supposed, if the enemy had somehow appeared behind them
.

I spun around, too. Nothing was there but endless trees and a path of shattered branches and torn leaves
.

I looked up at the men leading the cart, probably father and son. The young one smiled, his gray eyes crinkling; the other nodded
.

I ducked my head. I knew how I looked, a filthy waif. My cap had been lost somewhere; my hair, knotted with burrs, hung loose to my waist. My petticoat was stiffened with mud, and shreds of the hem trailed on the ground
.

The older man patted the side of the cart and swung me up onto the seat in front with them. We were quiet then. I listened to someone whistling a song on a cart in front of us. But the song broke off suddenly, and I thought about what terrible things might lie ahead
.

I spent the first night under the wagon with them
.

I should have felt safe there, but the voices of men crying out in their sleep made me tremble. They were afraid. As was I. My terror grew with each rustle of a leaf. What would it be like to be shot at with muskets? I raised my hand to my head. How terrible if an Iroquois warrior pulled up my hair and sliced off my scalp
.

My lips quivered against my teeth, but I made myself think of Old Gerard, who had taught me: Be quiet in the face of danger. Be calm and still
.

Finally I slept
.

The next morning we followed the marchers as they forded the river to the south. “Better to cross here,” the father explained, “than nearer the fort, where St. Leger will be ready to pounce.”

The woods were almost impenetrable. For hundreds of years massive trees had crowded each other to reach for the sky. Only the slimmest path wound its way under them to show that humans had been there. It was barely fit for men, and certainly not for oxcarts. All day the forest rang with the sound of axes chopping at branches so we could get through
.

At the end of the day, eight hundred men rested along a stretch that must have been two miles long. Glints of the sun still shone like burning coins on the forest floor. Mosquitoes buzzed, and smoke from cook fires made it hard to breathe. I slid over the side of the wagon, thanked the men, and began to search for Father and John
.

An impossible task? It should have been. I searched among men along the path, tripping over feet, branches pulling at me, and suddenly there was Miller coming toward me
.

Miller!

I almost said, Go away, you’re always underfoot, but I closed my mouth over the words. The truth was that I was glad to see him, so glad
.

He nodded as if he knew what I was thinking. I glanced up at
his peeling, sunburned face, his clear blue eyes, and it came to me with sudden sharp pain: he might not survive the battle
.

Would any of us?

His face was more serious than I had ever seen it. “What are you doing here, Zee?”

What was in those eyes? Was it fear? Fear for me?