A Daughter Of Liberty
Book One Of The Shannon Trilogy
By Allan Cole and Chris Bunch
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Published By Allan Cole And Chris Bunch At Smashwords.com
Copyright © 2010 by Allan Cole And Chris Bunch
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For
Kathryn and Karen
The late Leo L. Bunch
The late Margaret Regina Guinan
And
The Irish
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PROLOGUE
THUNDER, SUMMER THUNDER swept aside the morning's heat-curtain and echoed down the glen and across the river. But lightning and rain would not follow to break the heat.
The thunder came from huge, massed drums. Behind the drums, ten abreast, came the Dutch Guards.
Brian O Seannachain wiped sweat-slick palms dry on his dirty jerkin and braced his pike against the ground.
He hoped that from this day forward Ireland would be free of the foreign king, his German God and his bloody-handed soldiers. That after this day Brian could find his way back, back away from this heat-drenched tidal river named the An Boin, back to his own lands and his own river, the Shannon.
For centuries, his family had farmed the rich land along that river some boasters claimed bore their name. They worked the land through good times when peace hung over Ireland and the men with bloody swords busied themselves in other lands with their killing and the O Seannachains' scythe was a tool for harvesting and the pike was hidden rusting in the thatch. In good times there was food, some for the day and for the winter.
But there were other times, times of famine. And there were times of fear, when the soldiers came across the land. Then the O Seannachains fought. Fought the Romans, the Vikings, the Normans for independence. Then came the English, and the land itself bled. King John. Henry. Elizabeth. Cromwell. Each time the English, quicker with the sword and the lash, won.
Now, on this hell-baking July day, one thousand six hundred and eighty-nine years after the birth of Our Savior, another battle was to be fought. The last one, some said. Between the Dutch William of Orange, William the chosen Protestant king of England, and James II, the Stuart, the Catholic, dethroned in England, renamed king by a Dublin Parliament.
Drumthunder crashing closer now. Screaming, pain-screaming anger-screaming as the English and their gallow-glasses waded into the neck-deep water of the ford toward Brian and the Irish line. Thud of carbines, dull in the heat. Across the river the crash-crash-crash of cannon, and there was a man pulling himself out of the water toward him, using a handful of willows for a hold, baskethilt sword waving, most unwarlike, peruke and hat sogging down over his face, and his hands flung wide, pitching the long sword high into the air as a musket ball caught him.
A horse screamed beside Brian. There were other horses, armed men astride them, being kicked through the river. Brian set his mind and his feet firm—cavalry would not charge, he had learned in the months past in the long dreary retreat from the north, any man or thing that stood firm. But if you turned and ran, you would be ridden down and take a sword, pike or ball in the back. Brian knew this—others did not. He saw the ripple as men shouted. Ran. Banners were cast down, cast away with weapons for ease of flight. He warned himself to not be thinking of that. Concern himself only with this small yardage that was his battlefield. His life, his death would be found here, as white cannon smoke and dust closed the horizons in. A sword cut across his arm, but it was nothing and numb and Brian fought on, stepping aside once, twice, again as the Irish cavalry charged through the lines against the English, Sarsfield's happy banner flashing in the stilly sun, until shouts broke his mind. Shouts that the flank was turned, James had fled, save yourselves my sons, my lads, save yourselves, and the dust lifted.
Brian saw horsemen, English horsemen, crash into the Irish line on the left, wails and the line broke. Broke, and crumbled back, back toward the narrow pass of Duleek toward Dublin and screams from a man Brian had followed north from the River Shannon into battlehell to run, run, we can fight again another day, and then that man went down.
Brian was running, trying to watch over his shoulder, cavalry, good Irish cavalry holding the ground, even charging the Englishmen as the foot soldiers fled and looming just up in front of him a man shouting something in a tongue that was not Gaelic nor English. Brian slashed with his pike, and the man fell back.
Brian heard hooves behind him, turned, saw cavalry sweeping across this battleground that was becoming a shambles and pain seared, burnt, numbed, and he stumbled, 'most fell, turned, seeing that man he'd but touched pull his sword free, free from Brian's left side, drawback for the killing slash and Brian put the pike through his face.
Christ to lie down just to bleed awhile, Christ for some water, Christ how dry the world is and the sound of battle waver on him. No, he thought. No you will not. You will not fall, you will not stretch yourself on this battlefield for them to find and slaughter you like they have so many of your friends before. You are moving, damn you, damn you. One foot. Now then, another. You can do it. Get that damned pike up; see the horseman pull his mount away from the wavering, threatening bloodred tip. Clear now. Clear for the pass. Away from this river and this hell. For home. For the Shannon. But there will not be safety there, because this day is the end. Hide yourself, Brian O Seannachain. Hide yourself well, in the marshes, in the empty moors, in the cities, and then you will hide yourself on foreign shores.
That day in July, 1690, began the Flight of the Wild Geese. Irishmen, driven out of their country. Driven to France, to Germany, to Spain… and to America.
One of them was a pikeman. His name became, in the language of the conqueror, Brian Shannon. He came with only his wits, the clothes he wore, and the passion to find a land where no man would be his master. It was a poor legacy for the Shannons. But it was all he had.
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BOOK ONE
VALLEY FORGE:
WINTER-SPRING, 1778
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CHAPTER ONE
ON FEBRUARY 22, 1778, Private Emmett Shannon, Fourth New York Regiment, deserted the Continental Army at Valley Forge. He had not suddenly joined the ranks of the summer soldiers and sunshine patriots so loathed by Tom Paine. The Royal Brute of Britain and his bullies were still insufficiently punished—and Emmett had generations of Irish forebears to revenge.
Nor had physical hardship broken him: twenty pounds lighter, canvas pants flapping in the icy wind, a hacking cough, the half-gill of rice and tablespoon of vinegar that had been his Thanksgiving meal—these were expected in a campaign. He'd learned that the first time he went a-soldiering, almost fifteen years before. Even as a civilian wandering the frontier, he'd known far harsher winters and suffered shorter rations in his thirty-five years. But it was time to go home. His fingers touched the letter folded into a pocket of his hunting shirt, which had arrived two days earlier.
Dear Brother Emmett,
The council has taken our goods and property for debt. We have no furnishings. Not even a bed. Nor do we have wood to last the winter. I fear there will be not food enough to last one half of that. Your two sons are gravely ill and my own children are failing. I do not care for myself, but your poor wife must be crying in Heaven to see such a sight. Please come home soon or I fear we shall all be dead.
Your loving sister, Ruth
His sister was of a flighty disposition, prone to make a tempest out of a chimney rattler. But whatever was happening in Cherry Valley obviously needed some attention.
It made perfect sense to Emmett that the Committee of Public Safety would persecute the sister and children of a widower fighting for their own cause; or what had become the committee's cause after the destruction of British general Burgoyne at Saratoga. These brave Patriots in Cherry Valley needed an example to show their new fervor.
But this was how the war was being waged, Shannon and his fellow soldiers agreed. The loudest of the Patriots seemed content to let others do the actual fighting while they concentrated on profit. For instance, here at Valley Forge the army was starving, but the burghers just beyond a foraging party's range were untouched by the war and fat as fireside cats. Only the soldiers suffered.
Before the war, Valley Forge had been the home of Quaker farmers and a prosperous iron forge and gristmill. It made perfect sense to the starving, miserable revolutionary soldiers that this hellhole, originally one of William Penn's properties, had been named the Manor of Mount Joy. Of course, Mount Joy itself was within the campsite and Mount Misery just outside it.
It was a natural fortress. General Washington, with his surveyor's eye for terrain, had chosen it as the best possible location for the battered Continental Army's winter quarters. About sixteen miles from British-occupied Philadelphia, it had a creek-swollen gorge on its west, the Schuylkill River guarding its borders on the north and east, and steep bluffs on the south. If Lord Howe—commander of the British forces occupying Philadelphia—tired of his mistress's bed and marched out to battle, the American army would face him from a four-foot-deep trench, with earth mounded behind it; earthen forts prepared as strongholds, and a line of sharpened stakes beyond the trenches. A strong position, far better than most of the hasty defenses the Americans had fought from earlier in the war.
The defenses of Valley Forge might be properly laid out, but there was almost no one fit enough to man them in the event of a battle. About eleven thousand men marched into winter quarters at Valley Forge on December 19. There were less than four thousand left. By February, Valley Forge was a sewer of nearly two thousand acres. When the weather rose above freezing, as it had regularly and unpredictably that winter, the residue of a half-trained indifferently led army thawed and stank, from shit to garbage to the hundreds of dead horses.
The soldiers themselves felt abandoned by their leaders, politicians, and countrymen.
Emmett Shannon himself had been unpaid for three months. His captain had announced, rather dryly, just after New Year's Day, that the ever-generous Continental Congress had authorized an extra month's pay for any officer or man who would soldier on through the winter. That, too, had never been paid.
On paper the Continental Army was well fed. Each soldier was authorized, daily, a pound of bread, a pound of meat or salt fish, a pint of milk, a quart of beer, a quart of peas, a quart of beans, and butter. Shannon, waiting for dusk in the reeking murk of his hut, tried to find some humor in that. He had last tasted beef, he calculated, a week ago. Rancid salt beef it was, too. No rations at all had been issued for the last three days. The hooting and cawing had gone up and down the company streets, and then the chants of "No meat, no coat, no flour, no soldier." Shannon didn't bother to join in—that put no victuals on his table. Eventually the chants died away, and there was silence except for the wind snarling outside, whistling through the indifferently mud-caulked timbers of the hut.
Emmett Shannon reconsidered his careful plans for desertion while he waited. The current penalty, he'd heard, was five hundred lashes on the bare back, well laid on. Such a punishment, if he was caught, was unlikely to be carried out. Nor would the previously proclaimed penalty of a hundred lashes. Those unfortunates who'd been stripped and striped in front of their regiment were fairly committed villains who'd also struck an officer—in one case with a ramrod—stolen, or been imbecile enough to head for the British lines at Philadelphia to join up, only to be captured by their former comrades. But Emmett preferred not to play the odds.
The first and most important step was getting rid of his damned musket. In a way, Emmett was sorry to part with the ten-pound Tower musket that the British called a Brown Bess, for a stupidly sentimental reason: it had been made at, and was stamped behind the lock, DUBLIN CASTLE; about the closest he would ever come to his grandfather's homeland.
But there was no place for sentiment. Shannon gathered musket and the six-pound metal cartridge box filled with balls, powder, and accessories. He headed out from his brigade's position along the bluff into Woodford's brigade, sited across Baptist Road, one of the five rutted trails into Valley Forge.
Eventually he encountered one of Morgan's riflemen who was equipped with a particularly well-mounted and -maintained Pennsylvania long rifle. He offered a trade and was greeted with immediate and total suspicion.
The rifle may have been legendary among the myth-makers, balladeers, and propagandists. But none of them had ever stood on a bare field, discharged one round at the onrushing enemy, and then realized that the British line would be on them before they would be able to reload. On them with needle-sharp, triangular, seventeen-inch bayonets.
After that first engagement, any rifleman who survived was eager to acquire a Brown Bess from a dead Britisher.
A musket and a rifle looked a bit the same. Each was about five feet long and weighed about ten pounds. Both were loaded at the muzzle. Gunpowder, either poured by eye or spilled from a paper tube, went in first. Then the ball—a round cartridge of hand-poured lead about three-quarters of an inch in diameter—was put down the barrel on top of the powder. Both the musket and rifle ball would be wrapped in a greased linen or buckskin patch. Loose gunpowder was sprinkled in a pan that inletted into the barrel's base. When the trigger was pulled, the hammer, which actually was a tiny vise holding a piece of flint, would fall and strike sparks from the pan cover—called the frizzen—set off the powder in the pan, and the weapon would fire.
The weapons were very similar—but there were two major differences. Both differences killed riflemen. The musket barrel was a smooth pipe. A ball could be—and in an emergency was—simply dropped down on top of the powder, the weapon hastily lifted and fired. That would work, if the musket ball did not simply roll out of the barrel before the powder went off.
The rifle was a more sophisticated weapon. Its tube was grooved, so the ball would spin as it exited, and gain accuracy. The rifle ball, in turn, was cast so that it fit tightly into the barrel. A rifleman sometimes had to use both his ramrod and a small mallet as well to drive the load home. In that time, a Hessian Jaeger would have wreaked the martyrdom of Saint Sebastian on the unfortunate man. For some unknown reason, no rifles had yet been equipped for bayonets. So, once the first ball was discharged, the rifleman's sophisticated instrument of death was nothing more than a club.
So Shannon's offer to Morgan's man was far too good to be believed. The man examined the musket with the care of a horse trader being offered a blind spavined nag with glanders. But he could find no fault. He therefore growled for an explanation. Shannon, smiling guilelessly, gave him one. He had been told off by his sergeant for a foraging party, which would range up toward New Jersey. Shannon had plans of assassinating a deer. "No deer closer'n thirty miles," the rifleman said.
"My deer'll have just two plain horns," Shannon said. "One t'either side of its skull."
A smile flickered across the rifleman's face. "And if you yanked its tail, it'd bawl," he suggested.
"It might," Shannon said.
"The Dutchmen could stand to lose a bullock or two," the man said, and handed over the rifle and shot pouch. That was the hardest part. The rest of the supplies Shannon had amassed were either slung around his body or fit handily in the brown, hairy goatskin knapsack acquired from a very dead British grenadier while doing a bit of thoughtful corpse-looting after Saratoga.
There wasn't much to take. For clothing Shannon had a pair of moccasins he'd sewn up early in January, hide traded to him by one of the regiment's butchers; leggings; his deerskin hunting shirt; a ragged pair of pants he'd made from tent canvas—quite explicitly against Washington's orders when the tents were turned in to the quartermaster some months earlier; his rifleman's slouch hat; and a blanket, worn Indian-style, for a coat. A second blanket was rolled and tied across his knapsack.
One thing he would not need was the tarred rope around his waist. Emmett, being a man who had occasionally made his way selling medicine, had scientifically protected himself with the rope against the vapors this fever camp would produce. But now, heading away from the pollution, this would not be necessary.
Shannon heard the tootle and rattle start from behind his hut, down below on Gulph Road. It was time to go. He picked up his rifle and shouldered his pack. He stumbled, nearly fell, and swore. Normally the barrel-chested man carried around 150 pounds on his five-foot, seven-inch frame. No longer. He was in no shape to be walking across the valley, let alone the hundreds of miles to his home. But there was no choice. He walked away without looking back.
There was a cluster of soldiers trailing up the road around the artillery brigade's cannons, vaguely following the sound of music. The music came from the cannoneers' fife and drum corps, and the group was marching in what they thought a proper military formation toward General Washington's quarters in the Potts House. It was the General's birthday, and this was the best his army could do to celebrate.
May you have many more, Shannon thought to himself as he wove his way through the throng. Loathing officers, he respected the general. A rich, slave-owning bastard from Virginia he might be, but he knew how to soldier. He'd been down in the muck and the mire like any rifleman. He'll win this war, Shannon thought, in spite of the fools in the Congress. Maybe when we lick the British he'll lead the army on York or wherever the sons of bitches are hiding. Emmett joined a ragged cheer for the general, then moved on, toward Fort Washington. He found an abandoned breastwork to hide in, and waited. It was freezing, even out of the wind. But Shannon was used to being cold.
Eventually, at sunset, the drumroll started down the line, then went through the second line, the artillery, and the reserve.
Retreat. It got darker and colder. Again the drumbeat sounded through the camp. Tap too. Nine of the clock.
Shannon gave it another estimated hour, until whatever sentry was on guard should be frozen through, then crept on toward the frozen Schuylkill River. Staying low, eyes widened, looking for a patch of black in the blackness that would mark the sentry, he saw nothing. Then he heard movement as the man came up from a huddle, dropping the blanket he'd had around his shoulders, and there was the click of a musket being brought to full cock.
"Halt," came the challenge. "Who comes there?" Then: "Orkney."
"Otway," answered Shannon. He'd been given the night's password by his sergeant.
"Advance one." Shannon walked toward him. "What's your business?"
"Damned sergeant told me to reinforce the sentry out on the bridge," Shannon said.
"Shit." The sentry was unimpressed. "They reinforce, they send four men. And the corp'ral of the guard."
"Not when the sergeant throws a knave and you hold a king, they don't," Shannon said.
Silence, while the sentry considered the story. Shannon moved closer to the man. He'd rather not . . . but his fingers touched the tomahawk in his belt. The sentry was very young. His clothes were even more ragged than Emmett's. Over his shoulders were the remains of a British greatcoat. His head was bare.
Shannon looked down. The sentry was standing on his tricorner hat. He shifted frequently from naked foot to naked foot. Poor lad, Shannon thought. Shoes without soles. He wondered if there was blood on the frozen ground. "You're deserting," the young man said. The tomahawk was reversed in Shannon's fingers. With luck, he'd be able to knock the man unconscious with the flat, and not kill him.
"Wish't I could as well," the young man added suddenly. "But . . ." and Shannon could see the man's head move. Gesturing downriver. Toward Philadelphia. "Understand the king's got a few troops in the city. Hell. I don't even know if I've got a home to go back to." Shannon had nothing to say. "Better you get moving," the sentry said. "My sergeant's been known to check his posts right around this time. Hopin' to catch us sleeping. Wish't I could. Too damned cold."
"You take a care," Shannon said softly.
"Care or anything else comes my way."
Emmett Shannon slid toward the river, and down it to the ice. He unhooked the cross strap of his knapsack so he could dump it if he went through. Holding his rifle in front of him, he moved out onto the ice. Ten feet from the shore, it groaned. Shannon thought he saw a rock in the dimness, moved toward it, found firmer footing, and continued on. His foot broke through. Shannon flailed back. His foot came out of the water and he was safe. Then rising blackness in front of him, the opposite shore—with no waiting British patrols. He had made his escape. Now for Cherry Valley, far to the north, and west from Albany, on the New York frontier.
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CHAPTER TWO
EMMETT'S MOST IMMEDIATE concern was to put miles between his tender skin and Valley Forge. An American patrol would return him to the encampment for punishment. If he encountered British soldiers, the best he could hope for was to be captured by regular infantrymen. Neither the mounted infantrymen called dragoons nor the German mercenaries everyone called Hessians took much interest in prisoners.
His plans were limited by geography. The roads around Valley Forge led mostly east toward occupied Philadelphia or west toward the frontiers. Shannon did not dare strike due north across rough terrain. A frontiersman he may have been, but one of the fabled long hunters he wasn't. Certainly not in the dead of winter. Plus he had neither map nor compass. So he determined to take the road that somewhat paralleled the Schuylkill River, past Reading. Then the road curved north and west toward Bethlehem. He would follow that route through the pass in the Kittatiny Mountains, and cross the East Branch of the Delaware into New York. From there he intended to strike again northeast to the Hudson and follow that river, even though it led through the wasteland of the Neutral Ground to Albany, and then the final road west to his home. It would have been simpler if British forces weren't lurking across the roads to his northeast. That would be a far more direct route; a direct route, most likely, to one of the British prison hulks in New York Harbor. If he had wanted to starve or die of the fevers, Shannon thought, he could have remained at Valley Forge and saved himself this walk.
He moved on—slowly and cautiously. His progress wasn't helped by the weather. Two days after he deserted, the storm broke. Snow and sleet slashed down, and his slow movement became a plod. He took a large chance and followed the road, to pick up speed. Emmett cursed the weather—until it saved his life.
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Shannon heard the jingle of harness in time to roll off the rutted road into a shallow frozen runnel. He kept his head low, broadcasting thoughts that he was nothing more than an uninteresting rock as the riders passed. Emmett waited until he was sure there was no rear guard before he dared a look. There were about fifteen of them. It might have been possible to think they were nothing more than a group of civilian drovers, headed for shelter. But since when did drovers wear identical cloaks? Or have saddlery the same? Let alone the dimly glimpsed flash of a saber's scabbard on the rearmost rider.
British dragoons. Their supposed purpose was for reconnaissance. Essentially they were mounted infantrymen. Ride to battle, dismount, skirmish, and then get out. In fact, they were used as scroungers, thieves, raiders, and ambush experts. On both sides dragoons tended to be somewhat casual about obeying the laws of man, the military, or God Himself. They were armed with three-foot-long sabers, the shortened muskets called musketoons, a pistol or two if the trooper had managed to liberate one, plus whatever other weapons they fancied. They tended to be skilled in the use of all of them. The infantry equivalent of the dragoons were the rangers, who had an equally questionable reputation among the line units. These, Emmett thought, were probably an ambush element, clumsily disguised, trying to waylay any of the Continental Army's foraging expeditions. Or maybe foraging on their own. Dragoons tended to keep their own counsel.
Emmett was not that terrified. Especially after seeing the backs of the dragoons disappear into the storm.
There had been dragoons, after all, at Saratoga that summer. They'd been on foot, wading through the swamps called the Drowned Lands in twelve-pound horse boots, and lugging carbines and yard-long, basket-hilted sabers. Each one of them also carried a halter, intended for the horse to be won somewhere in America. They were part of the eight-thousand-man British army invading from Canada. The army was led by Gentleman Johnny Burgoyne, he of the florid face, the vast concern for his soldiers' welfare, the mistress, and the thirty carts of personal belongings. Among his forces were some of the proudest regiments of the British army, German mercenaries, Loyalists, Canadian frontiersmen, and nearly four hundred Indians.
Burgoyne fought south, taking casualties in a hundred little nameless skirmishes, dragging his army through the swamps. The damned rebels had destroyed the few roads that existed. His men stumbled through the wilderness, bewildered, mosquito- and snake-bitten, and starving. Moving his army twenty miles through virgin wilderness took him twenty-six days. His Indian allies contributed to the war effort by murdering the fiancée of one of his Tory officers, then deserting in a snit.
Burgoyne's march went on. Eventually he stumbled to the Hudson, where the main rebel army waited, under an ambitious schemer named Gates, near a minuscule village called Saratoga. The Americans were camped on top of Bemis Heights, a steep plateau surrounded by woods that was completely fortified.
Burgoyne split his army into three columns and sent them forward into the attack on a brisk, frosty fall day.
Turkey gobbles rattled from the thick brush. Daniel Morgan's Virginia riflemen used bird sounds to signal. The gold-braided officers and pike-carrying noncommissioned officers were the first to go down under the spatter of rifle fire. The British sent in backup troops, and the nightmare began, hours of screaming, blood, sallies, countersallies, and death.
Emmett had been part of that nightmare. By now he had a story assembled as to what happened to him that day—how his company had gone against the light infantry, been shelled flat by the British, then had gone on and taken the guns. It all happened. But Shannon's real memories had, at least to his mind, little of the reach of an epic. In fact, he'd realized later, they bore closer resemblance to what his grandfather had told him in fits and starts about his own career as a soldier.
There was a sergeant shouting at them, and they were up, muskets charged, running forward. A scream of "fire" and Emmett was staring down the barrel of his Bess and the trigger was pulled. Jolt against his shoulder and a cloud of white. Unsure of what he'd shot at, he was running forward again. A bawl from someone to halt and reload, and Emmett was ramming a fresh charge and ball down the barrel of the musket, trying to remember if he hadn't done this moments ago, and if so and he hadn't fired, the musket was going to explode. Then seeing the man next to him— Garrity, he remembered—grunt gently, look at the gout of blood where his arm had been, and then fall forward.
Another man—Emmett could not, for his life, remember his name—was staggering, spraying blood from his throat, for all the world like a slaughtered chicken, and ahead of them were billowed white clouds that might have been storm signals at sea but were not, and then came the blast, the blast that sent his hat spinning and Emmett stumbling. A man was coming at him, shouting something, and all Emmett could see was the stabbing needle of the bayonet. Somehow Emmett had his musket sideways and the needle shoved away and he and the man were chest to chest. Emmett's knee came up, and the man screamed, doubled. Emmett struck with the musket butt, and the man was on his back. Emmett had his musket up, butt lifted to crash downward to finish the kill, and there was another scream. Turning, he saw a Britisher pulling his bayonet out of the body of Fraser, who—he remembered—he still owed a flask of rum to, and the redcoat was pulling back for the finishing stroke. Emmett's musket went off, and the ball blew out the Englishman's guts.
Someone was shouting at him now to retreat. Pull back. Emmett was running back the way he had come as a line of British infantrymen lockstepped forward. The line suddenly vanished in a crash of cannon fire—theirs, ours?—and someone else was crying the charge yet again, and Emmett was headed back the way he had come. He remembered the rattle of harness, the screams of a horse and thunder of wheels. But maybe that had come before, because he was told later that they charged once more against four British cannon.
But if that were so, who had slaughtered the British soldiers? And why would anyone charge into cannon fire? It made no sense, but he found himself at a run, his bayonet aimed at a matross's chest, and that cannoneer trying to block his thrust with a ramrod, and the bayonet thumping home, and the sound of the matross's last breath whistling, most clear, as he died. Which Emmett should not have been able to hear.
The day went on. Hours—so Shannon guessed—hours of stumbling up and down that hill, over the softness of bodies, and hearing the shatter of cannon fire. He could put none of it in order. The first he could remember, when time began once more, was his lunged thrust pulled aside as the red haze lifted and he saw the face of a corporal-Atkins, it was, Second Company—shouting at him that they were pulling back. "Back, you Irish bastard!" Shannon had turned and stumbled away. Uphill away. He was heading in the right direction, he guessed. All he was really aware of was a great thirst. Pouring mountain rivers of water, and him lying underneath them.
He got his drink, back atop Bemis Heights. And was told what had happened. The British hadn't been beaten. But six hundred of them lay out there on the slopes below the plateau. He could hear their screams and groans, fading down as the freezing wind whispered over the battlefield and night closed in. At daybreak a heavy mist, and each side went out to bury the dead and bring in the wounded. British and Colonial troops would stumble into each other, wordlessly stare, and then backstep into the fog. There'd been enough death.
Burgoyne decided not to count the number of his dead, but held in place, entrenched his position and called the battle a victory. Some days after that, surrounded, Burgoyne sent some soldiers out to see what would happen. The American forces, led by one of the most brilliant officers of the revolt, Benedict Arnold, counterattacked. At the end of the day Gentleman Johnny's troops—bearskins, sabers, and traditions—were driven back against the Hudson. Ten days later, after negotiations—and the only person in America who could pose more nobly than Burgoyne was Granny Gates—Burgoyne surrendered 5,700 of Britain's formerly-finest soldiers. He had been trapped by a force more than three times his number.
Shannon thought, as he trudged on through the storm, at least he had been part of that. His unit, the Fourth New York, had been detached from Gates's army and ordered to march south in fall, just in time to go into winter quarters at Valley Forge.
South, away from Cherry Valley. Shannon was unsure if he would have enlisted at all if he'd known he would be serving far from his home. He'd joined for the bounty—but also to protect his people and farm against the Loyalists and the Indian butchers they controlled from across the border.
Never mind, Emmett thought, bringing himself back to this icy Schuylkill road. The matter is done.
* * * *
Emmett Shannon was traveling light. His rifle he carried ready and primed in one hand. The hunting bag he'd gotten from Morgan's rifleman was particularly fine. The bag was built so the powder horn was slung below it. The horn was three-quarters full of powder. The leather bullet pouch inside the bag held twenty-six balls. It was more than enough ammunition. The bullets were for hunting or, at worst, delaying an enemy until Emmett could disappear into the woods.
In the rifle's patch box were the necessary cleaning and maintenance tools for his rifle. Stuck in his worn leather belt were his tomahawk and the horn-handled nine-inch-bladed knife Emmett had forged from a file years earlier.
Around his neck he carried his drinking cup. Also slung was his small camp kettle—tinned iron—in a dirty linen pouch, as was a one-quart tin British canteen, half full of rum. He would need that for medication. The rest of his gear was carried in the hairy knapsack: a wooden plate, a spoon, a jackknife, flint and steel; a rolled skin pouch, in case he needed to carry water. His provisions: one and one-third pounds of Indian meal, one pint of dried peas, about a pint of rice, a hunk of dirty salt. Not much, but the best he had been able to acquire.
At least his medical supplies were adequate. Emmett was proud of what he carried. He had clean linen, to serve either for bandages or spare rifle patches. A bit of soft soap-made of ashes and dirty tallow. He had a half pint of vinegar, alder, oak bark for fever tea, sumac, horseradish roots, and mustard seed. Plus some Glauber's purging salts in a twist of paper. He wished he had been able to steal some opium or tobacco.
But he also wished he could have obtained a surrey, a change of horses, and a cavalry escort home. Emmett Shannon, hunched under his blanket coat, looking less like a shaman than a starveling, traveled on through the storm.
* * * *
On the sixth day after he deserted, the weather broke. Frozen slush became muddy slush. But there were tiny spots of green on the trees. Maybe spring would come early this year, Emmett hoped, as he rolled his blanket coat onto his pack and moved on again. By now he should be beyond most of any army's tentacles. He felt well enough to mutter a song to himself:
* * * *
"How brave you went out with your muskets all bright And thought to befrighten the folks with the sight But when you got there how they powdered your pums And all the way home how they peppered your bums. And is it not, honeys, a comical—"
* * * *
He broke off, rifle coming up as he crouched and doubled off to the side of the track. Voices ahead. Emmett moved farther away from the road, into cover. Then he slid forward, toward the voices. The road below him dropped away, into a small hollow. There were three men, sweat-stained and spattered with mud. One man was doing most of the swearing. Four unhitched draft horses stared disinterestedly at what was going on. The four-wheeled wagon sat canted, one end of its box supported by a braced wagon jack. The shattered remains of a wheel lay to one side. Two of the men were muscling a new wheel onto the axletree.
Shannon's hands on the rifle stock were white. He had no use for teamsters. At least not those that made the run from Reading to Valley Forge. Thieves and profiteers they were, at best. "Lean into it, sods," shouted the vocal one, and Emmett knew their roles. The one doing the least and shouting the most was the wagon master, prosperity having spilled his gut over the front of his breeches; the other two were bound-out servants.
The wheel slid into place. The wagon master took a large wooden mallet from the wagon. "We've been miring ourselves since Reading," the man said. "Mought as well lighten the load now." The mallet swung—and the bung came out of the first barrel. Brine poured out, and Emmett had a gut-searing, memory taste of putrid beef from other barrels deliberately smashed on their way to Valley Forge by other thieving teamsters. The wagon master stepped to another barrel and the mallet came up and fury overtook Emmett. His rifle locked into his shoulder, his finger pressing, then the flash of powder and the smack of recoil as the ball took the wagon master just above the eyebrows and ripped away most of the skull. The echoes of the shot rang around the tiny hollow.
* * * *
CHAPTER THREE
SHANNON FORKED THE hunk of salt beef from the swimming mass of boiled peas. He bit into one end and sawed off a piece with his knife. It was the first meat he'd eaten in weeks, but he forced himself to chew slowly. He could not afford the waste of vomiting. Emmett softened a piece of fire cake in the stew of peas. The fire cake was made of Indian meal—more husks and grit than corn—mixed with water. He ate gingerly, sifting through the mush with his tongue for bits of millstone. A broken tooth could greatly lessen his chances of reaching Cherry Valley.
All these things he did without thought—not tasting the food, or enjoying the fire's warmth, or even feeling the fingers of cold creeping around it, numbing the unprotected edges of his body. Outside his shallow cave the storm was raging. Just beyond the glow of the fire the mouth of the cave was a sheet of white—streaked with shifting streaks of night. The heated air inside the cave was an imperfect seal against the wind that fluttered in a constant drumbeat, like distant cannon fire.
Emmett was appalled at himself. What he had done was murder—there was no other word for it—and he could feel the jagged-edged wound on his soul. He ran the sequence of events over and over again. As the wagon master knocked the bung from the beef barrel, and the preserving brine spilled to the ground, Shannon saw the rage overtake his shadow self: the rifle coming up in one smooth motion, sights fixing on the bloated face, finger tightening, hammer falling, the flash of the pan, then the weapon bucking as it hurled its missile, the teamster falling away from view. He'd swiftly reloaded and the rifle had come up, sniffing for another victim. Shouts of terror from the teamster's servants had brought him back to a formless reality. But the rifle barrel hadn't wavered until the men had scurried off the trail and disappeared into the trees.
What troubled Shannon almost more than the murder was that at no point had there been any control. No moment of hesitation. It was as if a blacksmith had knocked out a critical gap in the rows of teeth encircling a gear, and the millstone had jumped from coarse to fine with none of the niceties of the middle grades.
After the men had fled, he had numbed forward until he was standing over the teamster's body. The top of the man's head was missing, and Emmett had turned away with a fit of dry heaves. He'd steadied himself, wiped the spittle from his mouth and taken stock of the situation. The man was dead, and Shannon knew that later he would mourn him. But death had also brought opportunity, and if he did not seize on every chance that fell his way, he would not survive.
Feeling like a thief, he had filled the pockets of his hunting shirt with beef. As he turned to leave he saw a large horseman's bag on the wagon seat. The leather was finely tooled, the buckles and fastenings thick brass—a little rich for a wagon master. He snagged the bag and hefted it. The weight suggested contents of value. He'd heard distant cries in the woods, and ran.
Now, Emmett's fork jarred against the wooden plate. He looked down, startled to see he'd emptied it. The kettle was on its side, scraped clean. He must have filled his plate again, eaten, and then wiped the edges of the kettle with fire cake until he had consumed every morsel. All this and no memory of it. He found it amusing, laughed aloud, then frowned. He touched an experimental finger to cheek. The flesh was dry, hot. Ah, Christ save him. It was the fever. Just thinking it made him shudder, and he wasn't sure whether the chill he felt was real or imagined. Another shudder and he realized there was no imagining to it. He fished out his medical kit, oddly grateful he now had a problem he could actually do something about.
He shook ground alder and oak bark into his cup. He mixed it in vinegar and drank, wishing again he had some laudanum to stiffen the elixir. Emmett decided he'd also better dose himself with a rum. He dug out his flask, extracted the cork and sipped. It quick-fused to his stomach, kicking like a rampart gun. Shannon grinned, a bit tipsy already. He thought about the teamster . . . this time with a shrug. He tucked the incident into a lockbox far in the corner of his mind. But just before he stowed it away, he promised himself that someday he would find a means of atonement, no matter how meager.
Emmett dragged over the horseman's bag and opened it for the first time. On top was a large, squat, corked jug. Well, buss my sweet Irish ass, Shannon, lad…could it be…? He pulled the cork with his teeth, and the small cave filled with heady fumes. He laughed again—with no fever in it this time—and took a long, gasping pull. He felt his ears flame as he choked the sweetish liquid down, then held the jug away from him, staring in disbelief. It was good old reliable Jersey Jack, straight from the stills of the Pine Barrens, where old men worked their cider artistry out of sight of the tax laws. He pawed through the bag to see what else he could find. Next was a large pair of linen drawers. Expensive—and very dirty. Emmett held them up. The pouch could not have belonged to the teamster. The drawers would have fit the teamster and his two servants ... at the same time. The wagon master would meet his Maker with more sins than mere supply fraud to worry about.
He dug into the pouch once more, feeling less like a robber cackling over his loot than a birthday child. He uncovered a pistol and its powder and brass shot. The barrel was brass as well, and the butt and sideplate handworked silver. It must have belonged to an officer or a rich man. At the bottom of the bag was a broad oilskin packet. He opened it. Emmett's eyes glittered at the next gift from Heaven staring up at him: money!
His fingers trembled as he counted it. Christ help me, it's twenty-five dollars I'm holding in my hands. No, it couldn't be. It must be Satan mocking me. But the bills were perfect Continental dollars printed in . . . He peered closer at one of the bills . . . spelling out the letters carefully: P-H-I-L-A-D-E-L-P-H-I-A. It was spelled correctly. Aw, shit on your leggings and call them brown linen! They were counterfeit. Guaranteed.
Shannon, an old hand at spotting a coiners' fraud, knew that on real Continental dollars the city was misspelled: PHILADELPKIA. Not only was the absence of the K a giveaway, but these bills were too well made. He considered . . . No. It wasn't worth the chance. Penalties were severe: starting with flogging and branding the thumbs. The punishments after that depended on how many coiners had been recently pissing on Congress's money. Emmett almost tossed the bills into the fire, but after reconsidering he wrapped them back up. He could always use extra paper. For wiping his bum or starting fires. Whatever, it was sure to be twenty-five dollars exclusively spent.
Despite his fever and the guilt nibbling at the edge of his conscience, the whole thing put him in a much better mood. He pushed the logs closer into the fire and curled up beside it. He pulled the jug into his arms for easy reach and tucked the blankets around him. After a few more sips he even began to imagine he was warm, and drifted off into a light sleep.
* * * *
Emmett grew up with his father's easy laughter, his mother's dare-the-law Catholic piety, his sister's nervous wit, and his grandfather's brooding presence beside the hearth.
Long after the old man was dead, Emmett could still see him sitting there in his heavy chair. Never drunk, but sipping steadily at his grog and staring into the fire. Sometimes he would mutter a name aloud. His face would blacken and he'd growl a Gaelic curse and drink more deeply. The split-board chair would groan under his weight as he shifted like an old dog grumbling at ancient slights. The family would fall silent until the creaking stopped and Grandfather Shannon found comfort in his fire again.
Emmett didn't know who he was cursing. Or if it was one man or many. Or even if it was not a man at all, but circumstances. He did notice, however, that when the great stirring began, his grandfather always kept an eye fixed on one point in the hearth. As if it was from there that a great danger threatened. In time Emmett took for granted something powerful and frightening must be there or his grandfather wouldn't keep such close watch. It worried him until he realized that whatever it was, it feared his grandfather more than the old man feared it. Otherwise he couldn't keep it pinned in the hearth with a mere glower.
When he was too big to carry but still too small to walk very far, Emmett's mother began leaving him at home on market day in his grandfather's care. At first he was intimidated. He cried as his mother stepped outside the door into the full rumble of traffic, shouting crowds, bawling animals, and pealing bells that was Market Day in Boston. But his mother pushed him back, gave him the look that said weep and die, so he stifled his sobs and shuffled off to a cluttered corner of the one-room shack his grandfather owned and shared with the family.
The shack hung from a small rocky rise above a narrow street that led to the docks. There were few other homes or even shacks on that street. Mostly it was a mixture of warehouses, blacksmiths, wheelwrights, chandleries, and a grog shop where his father spent his time between spurts of casual labor—parking carriages in the theater district or digging the occasional ditch. Behind the shack was a vegetable garden that struggled on rocky soil. The shack itself was about thirty by forty-five feet. During the day the center of the room was empty, save the old man's hearthside chair. All of the family's other belongings were crammed against the walls, to be dragged out when needed: a table and several log slab chairs for dinner, mattresses with straw ticking, old chests with clothing and bedding stacked inside and on top, a jumble of tools and parts for repairs, jugs, bottles and tinware of odd variety, his mother's two spinning wheels, the large loom for linen, as well as sacks and kegs of food stuffs.
The room smelled of a mixture of drying herbs, with the sharp edge of damp baby flannels when his sister was still in diapers, mixed in with sweet pudding bubbling on the hearth; or, in good times, roasting birds—usually sparrows, robins, or pigeons. Not so nice-smelling was the ever-present jug of milk souring for cheese. Sanitation of several slop jars which were dumped daily into two kegs in the cellar, along with other offal. Once a week (in theory) the kegs were set next to the sewer ditch which ran along the middle of the street for pickup by the city slop wagons.
Water was hauled in pails by his mother from a public fountain several long streets away, where the heavy washing-up of kitchen utensils was also done. Laundry was carried weekly to a larger fountain even farther away. The lighting was mostly nonexistent: even the burned gristle-smelling yellow tallow candles were very dear during Shannon's childhood—when all the colonies were sorely pinched for funds. In the day, weather permitting, there was only the open front door and one window—with paper set in the frame—to let in light.
It was in this gloom and clutter that Emmett hid from his grandfather. He sat behind his mother's spinning wheel feeling sorry for himself, wondering what he would do when he had to use the slop jar. If someone had asked why he was frightened, he couldn't have said. His grandfather had never struck him or even chastised his behavior aloud. If Emmett was too noisy, or doing something he shouldn't, the old man would only fix him with that furrowed-brow stare of disapproval. Emmett's heart would stop, as would his misbehavior.
He ducked his head quickly when he heard the heavy scrape of the old man's chair. Footsteps. Then his hand was taken and he was being led to the hearth, where a small stool was drawn up near his grandfather's chair. He was seated. Emmett was too afraid to move as he heard other sounds of the old man bustling about, but when the great chair creaked again under his grandfather's weight he dared a peek. His grandfather was toasting two slices of bread over the fire. Could one of them be for Emmett? When the toast was done, the old man placed them on a plate. He dipped out chicken fat with a ladle and smeared it on the toast. Emmett's mouth watered. Then he saw his grandfather pick up a stone jug of milk—warming by the fire—and pour out a single cupful. Silently the old man passed the plate and the cup to him. Emmett took them, bit into the toast and washed down the salty goodstufT with a milk.
He looked up at his grandfather. The old man nodded at him and then took a sip from his jug. "Are ya at ease, young Emmett?" the old man asked. Emmett didn't know what to say, so he just bobbed his head. "That's nice," the old man said. And went back to staring into the fire. Then the old man began to speak. He didn't look at Emmett but into the fire and Emmett wasn't sure who his grandfather was addressing. So he just listened.
The old man seemed to be talking about fighting and soldiers and things, so it promised adventure. But Emmett couldn't make out who was fighting whom and exactly what soldiers were involved, or even when it all happened. Sometimes the old man shifted from fighting soldiers to escaping soldiers. It didn't matter. It was all very exciting. Especially some of the bits about escaping. There was a long, hungry trek home, but from where, to where, Emmett couldn't tell. He finally got the nerve to ask a question. He pointed to the fearful spot on the far side of the hearth. "What's there, Grandfather?"
"William's men," he answered, flat. "Don't turn your back on them, young Emmett," he warned. "Not ever."
"I won't, Grandfather," Emmett promised. And he meant it. Whatever Williamsmen was, if he met up with it, he'd keep close watch just like his grandfather.
"Another thing," his grandfather went on, "if they get through the line after ya, don't wave your pike about like some lad chasing lambs from the gorse. Get the butt set good, and take your man low. In the belly, if you can. When you get him to earth, give your pike a full twist before you wrench it free."
"Yes, Grandfather," Shannon said, frowning in concentration as he gave his imaginary pike a good full twist and then pulled. "Even if you believe in your heart the man can be nothing else but dead, still keep your eye on him. He may be only taking a small rest from the fighting. Or, worse, playacting. Then, whilst your back is turned ..." The old man gingerly touched his side in painful memory. Emmett had seen his grandfather shirtless many times when he washed up. Even in his twilight, his grandfather was built like a cooper. Although not tall, he had arms and legs that seemed the size of a ship's mast. His chest was the breadth of a hogshead of nails. But on his left side, below the rib-cage, was the large maw of an old wound. Still angry red after all these years.
His grandfather fell silent, and Emmett finished his small meal. As soon as he was done, his grandfather took up his plate and cup, rinsed them clean and put them away. He sat down and didn't speak until Emmett's mother came home. From then on Emmett eagerly awaited Market Day. He never made the mistake again of eating so quickly, because as soon as he was done, his grandfather would repeat the ritual. Cleaning up, followed by silence.
There were more stories about fighting and fleeing in a place called "Ourland." And the Williamsmen wasn't a thing, but the soldiers of some king. The Kingsmen. Two rivers were mentioned over and over again: the Boyne and . . . the Shannon? Had the king's soldiers stolen a river from his grandfather? Emmett burned with hatred for the king and his thieving minions. After the fighting and the final escape across the ocean, there was a woman. His grandfather's voice was edged with aching years of mourning when he spoke of her. Her name was Mary. She was Emmett's grandmother. She'd died a long time ago. The old man had never touched another woman since.
"My mother? She was a saint," Emmett's father had said when asked. "She had a laugh like the church bells. And smart! She taught your grandfather to read. And she could do sums as well."
"What happened to her?" Emmett asked.
"She died giving birth to your father," Emmett's mother said. "Thank the Lord he was the only child they bred. For with no woman in the house—" She broke off, concerned that anything else she said would be taken as criticism of her father-in-law. Although he was a puzzlement to her and she was wary of his moods, she clearly liked and admired the old man.
About a year after the Market-Day stories began, Shannon's mother decided it was time for him to learn to read. The only book the family owned was forbidden. It was the Catholic prayer book, Garden of the Soul, and besides being illegal, if lost or damaged it would be impossible to replace. Shannon's mother kept it hidden beneath the linen. Every evening she used to read aloud to the family. So Shannon found it strange when she pulled it out one morning and sat him in her lap. She tried to coax him into memorizing some of the squiggles on the page. Emmett became fitful and squirmed. She held him tighter and Emmett fidgeted and whined to be let down to play.
"Young Emmett!" It was his grandfather's voice. For the first time he was speaking sharply. Emmett turned to see the old man glowering at him. He motioned for the boy to come to his side. His mother set him free. Reluctantly Emmett dragged his feet over to his grandfather's chair. The old man placed a heavy hand on his shoulder. "Listen close to me, lad," his grandfather said. "You must learn to read. From me forward, every Shannon reads, do you understand? Otherwise we are nothing more than teagues, or animals, and you will have no rights before the Kingsmen. And if you do not read, young Emmett, then do not breed." His grandfather turned back to his fire and his jug.