Woods Runner (7 page)

But Samuel became more frantic with every step. At last, when they’d stopped to rest, he had told Coop he was going to take off on his own.

Coop had nodded. “There’ll be people wantin’ to kill you,” he said. “Well. Let me cut those stitches out of your head. Healed up good.” He set to work as he spoke.
“Almost everybody you meet will maybe want to kill you, so keep to the brush, keep your head down and don’t walk where others walk.” He took out the last stitch.

There was nothing more to say, so, with a nod, Samuel turned away and trotted ahead of Coop and the rest of the men.

Samuel took the advice to heart and worked well off the trail, which was becoming more like a road with two tracks. Even so, he doubled his speed.

He had brought meat with him and took care to eat sparingly. After three days, it was nearly gone. He’d have to get more soon. Deer were as thick as fleas and it was just a matter of shooting one. He was moving quietly through the woods, ready to do just that, when he came upon the farm.

It had not been attacked and burned. It was a shock to see buildings standing and unharmed.

And aside from that, this was a proper farm, not a frontier cabin hacked out of the woods. True, there was deep forest all around it, but the farm itself was neat as a pin, with split-rail fences all whitewashed and a frame house, and a barn made not from logs but from milled lumber. More, the house was painted white and the barn red, with white trim on the doors and windows. As he watched, he could see chickens in the yard.

Several thoughts hit him.

First, chicken would taste good. The thought of a roasted chicken made him salivate.

Second, if they hadn’t been attacked it must mean they were friendly to the raiders, who must have come right through here.

Third—an easy jump in thinking—it would be all right for Samuel to “confiscate” a chicken, assuming the farmer was friendly with Samuel’s mortal enemy.

Now, how to bring it about?

He could wait until dark, but that was still at least eight hours away. He couldn’t waste time sitting here.

The farm was in the middle of a large clearing.

The tree line came close to the barn. If he worked his way through the trees, he might get close enough to grab a chicken and run.

He was moving before he stopped thinking of it. Since he saw no people as he moved around to the clearing in back of the barn, he moved fast. He kept the barn between him and the house to block their view. In moments he stood against the barn wall not ten feet from a small flock of chickens pecking at the ground.

Just as he started to make his move, he heard a scraping sound overhead and a barn loft door opened. A little girl, eight or nine, was looking down at him.

“I saw you through a crack in the wall the whole way. You thought you was sneaking, but I saw you. You looked like a big, two-legged deer. What’s wrong with your head? How come you’re running like that? What are you after—oh, the chickens. You want a chicken, go ahead. I don’t like them anyway.”

Samuel was so stunned he couldn’t say anything, then he croaked in a whisper: “Is there anybody else here?”

“They’s all up the house eating. They’s eating squash and it makes me puke, so I came to the loft to play with my dolls. Go ahead, I won’t tell.”

“Thank you.”

“Take that big red one. She’s mean. Chases me all
over
the yard and pecks at my toes.”

In for a penny, in for a pound, Samuel thought. He made a darting motion and, by luck, actually caught the big red chicken. It squawked once but he held it tight and it quieted.

He started to leave, then turned. “What’s your name?”

“Anne Marie Pennysworth Clark,” she said, “but everybody calls me Annie.”

“Well, thank you, Annie. I’ve got to be going now.” He turned to leave, but her next words stopped him.

“You look just like the man who was here, ’cept he was older and his head wasn’t all cut up.”

“What man?”

“Some men and a woman came here, some on horses and some in a wagon.”

At that instant an enormous man holding a rifle came around the end of the barn. He had shoulders like a bear and his gun was pointed at Samuel’s face. Samuel dropped the chicken, raised his own rifle and aimed it at the center of the man.

After a second, Samuel lowered his weapon. As soon as
it moved, the man dropped his. Samuel had forgotten to breathe. He took a deep breath now.

“My name is Samuel,” he said.

“I thought a fox was in the chickens when I heard the hen squawk.” The man shrugged. “Wasn’t too far off.”

“I don’t steal”—Samuel’s face burned—“but I’ve been on some rough trail and I got hungry.”

“He wasn’t stealing, Pa,” Annie piped up. “I told him to take that red one. She keeps trying to eat my toes.”

“I never turned anybody away from my door hungry,” the man said. He held out his hand. “Caleb Clark—come up to the house and eat.”

It all seemed so natural and open that Samuel forgot his earlier suspicion that the farmer was on the enemy’s side. He took the man’s hand. “Thank you, sir.”

“Let’s stop by the pump and wash your head first. It’s a sight. Ma will have a fit.”

“I got hit by an Indian—and these men came along and sewed me up.”

“It looks,” Caleb said, smiling, “like you got hit by a club and then some men stitched it up and smeared some kind of dark mud or something on it.”

“Tobacco juice,” Samuel said. “And spit. They made a poultice. And it saved me.”

They were at the watering trough and pump. Caleb took Samuel’s rifle—Samuel handed it over without thinking. Caleb held Samuel’s head under the pump and started working the handle.

“Scrub,” he said, pumping harder.

Samuel winced at the pain, but went to work. Carefully.

Finally the wound was clean enough to suit Caleb and they went to the house. Annie followed and, sure enough, the red hen pecked at her toes. Annie yelped and scurried ahead of Samuel and Caleb to the house.

Samuel had never been in anything but a cabin, most often with a dirt floor or at best a crude plank one, and Caleb’s house seemed too fine, as if Samuel somehow shouldn’t be allowed in; at least not without being boiled clean first.

The house inside was as neat as the outside, with plastered white walls and a sugar-pine board floor, polished and rubbed with beeswax.

“Company, Ma,” Caleb said. “You got another plate?”

Caleb’s wife was quite round, with red cheeks and hair up in a bun. She had flour dust on her cheek. She pushed a bit of hair back and smiled at Samuel with the briefest of looks. She pointed at a chair that backed to the stove. “Sit and eat, we just started.”

There were only three people, four with Samuel, but the table absolutely groaned with food. There was squash, as Annie had said, with maple sugar and butter melted in the middle. There was a roast of venison and potatoes, a loaf of bread with apple butter and some kind of jelly, and corn on the cob with melted butter dripping from the cobs.

Samuel had never seen anything like it. Huge bowls of food, and a gravy tub that held at least a quart of rich brown steaming-hot gravy. His stomach growled as Caleb poured him some buttermilk and they all sat. There were a fork and spoon and knife at each place. Samuel waited to see how things were done. Caleb smiled. “We’ll say grace.”

They held hands, which seemed strange. Annie was to his left—she decided that since he was there she’d sit to eat—and she grabbed his hand. Caleb’s big paw took his other hand and in a deep voice he rumbled:

“Thank you, Lord, for this food and this company. In Jesus’ name, amen.”

And they set to. Nobody spoke. Ma heaped his plate with food. It seemed more than he could possibly eat—he was sure his stomach had shrunk—but he somehow got it all tucked in and felt full as a tick.

Then Ma brought out rhubarb pie with thick cream sprinkled with maple sugar and somehow he got
that
down as well.

“Thank you, ma’am,” he said. “I’ve never eaten like that, not in my whole life. Even at fall feast it wasn’t that good, or that much. I won’t have to eat for a week. I just wish my folks …”

He stopped, remembering what Annie had said. He turned to her. “You said some men came and one of them looked like me.”

Caleb cut in. “Some British soldiers came here with two wagons holding fugitives or captives. Five of them. I
fed the soldiers and they were civil enough and didn’t bother us, though I heard some bad stories of the Hessians that hit some farms east of here. Then I took food and water out to the captives and one man, had his wife with him, was very polite and thanked me. He looked like you, same eyes and nose.”

“He was my father. And that was my mother.”

Samuel looked down at the floor and blinked away the burning in his eyes. Annie softly patted his shoulder.

He told the story of the attack, leaving out the worst details because of Annie. When he was finished, Ma was crying and he was having trouble holding tears back himself.

“When were they here?” he asked. “How long ago?”

“Two, no, three days. After they ate, they watered the horses, and while they were waiting for the horses to blow and settle the water, the lead officer pulled out a little traveling chessboard. I don’t know how to play but he went to the captives and your pa sat and played a game with him on the edge of the wagon.”

“He loves chess.”

“I heard the officer say to another soldier that the only reason he brought your father was that he saw a chessboard when they raided the cabin and he wanted somebody to play with.”

Thank God, Samuel thought. Thank God for such a little thing to mean so much. His father’s life spared for a chessboard. His mother’s life, too. He stood. “Thank you
for the food. I have to be going. If I’m only three days behind and they keep taking it slow, I could catch them.”

Caleb said, “They’re headed for New York. The city. The British hold it and they keep a lot of prisoners there in old warehouses and out in the harbor on old ships. If you don’t catch them along the trail you might just go there. Good luck to you, son. We’ll keep you in our prayers.”

Ma pressed more food on him—venison, potatoes and corn, wrapped in a piece of linen. Annie and Ma hugged him and Caleb shook his hand. Then he trotted slowly, his stomach still heavy, out of the yard to the edge of the woods, where he entered thick forest.

He stayed well off to the side of the trail. Once again, this small act saved his life.

He heard one clink—metal on metal—and dropped to his stomach, out of sight, though he could see through gaps in the brush.

He watched them pass: an organized body of troops with tall hats moving at a quickstep in a tight formation. They followed an officer on a large bay horse. They did not look like British soldiers—they had brownish instead of red uniforms and were more disciplined than the redcoats. Hessians, he thought, Germans.

They were quickly past Samuel. Their march would take them directly to Caleb’s farm. Curious, and with some fear, Samuel turned and followed them, off to the side, fifty yards to the rear.

He’d relive that decision for many sleepless nights.

The attack was over in minutes.

The Hessians quick-marched into the yard, broke formation and spread out into the farmyard, grabbing chickens as they moved.

Caleb and Ma came out onto the porch. Caleb wasn’t armed, though he raised his arm and pointed at the soldiers.

He and Ma were immediately gunned down. Then four soldiers jumped to the porch and bayoneted them. Annie exploded out of the house and ran toward the barn. Three or four of the soldiers shot at her but missed, and once she was around the barn she ran for the trees. More men tried to hit her but missed. Samuel was amazed at how fast she ran. She stumbled once and it looked as if she might be hit, but she jumped to her feet and kept running.

They took the bodies of Caleb and Ma and dragged them back into the house. Eight or ten men went in the house then and looted it, taking anything shiny and all the food they could find.

Then they set fire to the house and barn and when those were roaring with flames, the soldiers fell into formation and quick-marched out of the yard, disappearing down the trail.

It had taken less than ten minutes.

Samuel was sickened by the cruelty, the absolute viciousness, of the attack, and he hunched over and retched. He felt that he should have run to Caleb and his wife, to help in some way, but knew there was nothing he could
have done. He would have been dead long before he’d got at them.

He was helpless. He sat crying, watching the house and barn burn, the Hessians gone like a plague. Caleb and Ma. The food, eating together, how open and gentle and pleasant and good it had been to sit with them and talk.

Destroyed. Gone.

Gone in this ugly war with these evil men. Gone and never coming back and there was nothing, nothing, he could do or could have done to save them, help them.

Except find Annie.

Take her with him to New York.

He made certain nobody was coming down the trail, then set off at a trot around the clearing, staying well in the undergrowth, looking for Annie and trying to erase from his mind what he had seen.

He had to find Annie. Then find his parents.

That was all that mattered.