When I looked up, the colonial was gone. I staggered through the vines and fell to my knees at the side of the corpse. I pulled his shoulders from the bloody water. I freed his mangled legs. I dragged his body up the bank, to fall at the foot of the bridge.
I lay my cheek upon the breathless chest of my headless horseman and wept, all through that long-ago Halloween night.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
“Agathe’s Tale ~ Part Five”
August 3rd, 1849
I woke at dawn to the sound of wagon wheels. A powerfully built older man stood on the road, holding the reins of a horse. Old Brouwer the oysterman, who lived near the yellow rocks.
“What you have there?” he asked.
“A fallen soldier.”
“That’s no soldier. That’s a hired killer. Don’t weep for that one. Weep for these.” His wagon bore a pile of dead men, colonial soldiers, with bloody faces and eyes turned toward heaven. “I bring patriot heroes from White Plains, to bless our churchyard.”
“Take this horseman?”
“Oh, no. We’ve no hallowed ground for him.”
I searched the horseman’s body and pulled a silver ring from his left hand. I extended it as payment. “He must be buried.”
“Keep your silver, girly. Buy yourself some modesty.”
I covered myself and rose, but I did not yield the way. “What can I offer?”
His face grew gentle, and I saw recognition there. “You’re the barber’s daughter.” Flies buzzed over the wagon. He turned and pointed. “Anyone laid claim to that horseflesh?”
“No.”
“Watch it ’til I return and I’ll see him to the churchyard. I can’t promise they’ll give him burial. Not a Hessian.”
“A Hessian?”
Brouwer sighed. “Whole load of them Hessians crept into the woods last night. Didn’t creep back out, though. Good thing, too.” His voice became a whisper. “Washington’s on his way.”
I looked up the road. “Washington?”
“Ayup. Barely keeping his army together, from what I saw. Making another of his daring escapes. Wish he’d make Howe run for a change. Our bridge is the only place to cross, ain’t it? If them Hessians had took it last night, we’d be back to ‘Long Live King George’ today and that fellow of yours’d be sailing home. Give him here. I’ll be back quick. Don’t let the continentals take my supper.”
He heaved the headless corpse onto his wagon and patted his horse’s rump. They trundled over the bridge. The horseman’s arm dangled over the side, as if to wave farewell to me. I would never see his body again.
I slipped the ring onto my thumb, imagining his kiss: his wedding kiss. I was his widow now. A widow is entitled to her husband’s possessions, so I rifled his saddlebags. I found a water-skin and guzzled from it. Also powder, a rough blanket, and a plug of meat, which I ate.
A square of paper bore a map and German phrases: “Ergeben Sie Sich / Do you surrender” and “Ich bin Soldat des Königs George / I am a Soldier of King George” and so forth. (I’ve sewn it into the cover of this diary for safekeeping.) Brouwer had been right. My Horseman was a Hessian. Yet he’d been so handsome. Were Hessians not godless animals? Had I spent weeks fearing the approach of archangels?
Inside a woollen pouch I found a beautiful silk scarf, delicate as bridal-lace. I draped it over my shoulders. Why would a mercenary keep such a thing? To give to some future lady love? I folded it reverently and slipped it into the pouch. I did not want to ruin it with blood. The horse had reddened the road. The horseman’s corpse had been bloodless. His blood had followed his head into the river.
His head.
Oh, he must not be buried without it! The head is the seat of reason, the throne of personality. Without a head, what is left of a man? Only his heart! His love, his hatred, and his blind rage.
I paced, hoping that Brouwer would return quickly. The sun rose higher. I might have abandoned the spot, but the now-empty wagon reappeared, clattering back over the bridge. I thanked Brouwer, who knelt to butcher the horse, and hurried down the bank, scanning the water. As I neared the millpond, I hesitated. What if Grenauld saw me there? I could no longer count on his superstitious nature: All Hallows’ had passed over. Today was All Saints’ Day.
I found a stick and pushed aside the fallen autumn leaves, as if stirring a cauldron of blood. I felt I must hurry, for a wisp of smoke now rose from the chimney of the manor house. As I stood at water’s edge, poking at the duckweed, I felt eyes upon me. I straightened, searching out the gaze.
How do we know when we are watched, Dylan? Do the eyes of a predator reflect moonlight, focusing it on our skin? Do we feel two little spots of white on our neck, and bristle with fear? I knew I was watched, and I could feel its quality. A man’s gaze. Like yearning eyes in a smoky tavern. The gaze of a supplicant. A lover.
I felt drawn to it. I skirted the pond, and beneath a vine-choked bower, I found the horseman’s severed head. The braid at the back had snagged on some twig, turning the dead eyes upward. A dragonfly rode his cheek. It fled as I reached for him. I took hold of his braid, like the vine of a pumpkin, and drew him from the water.
We sat together on a mossy log, he and I. Oh, I felt such joy to look upon his face again. I wiped the mud from his lips and nostrils, preparing him to be buried, then gathered him in my skirts and ran up the knoll, to the churchyard.
August 4th, 1849
Two young boys cavorted in the burying ground, challenging each other to jump the highest headstones. The domine, in his black wool, caught one of these by the hair, calling him blasphemer. The boys backed away, faces downcast.
“Please, Father,” I said. “Has the grave been filled?”
He gestured to a vast patch of turned earth, sunken in. I had arrived too late. I began to cry.
The domine folded his hands. “We all weep for our patriot sons.”
“Could the grave not be opened again?”
“To what end?”
I opened my gathered skirt to show him what I carried. “Please, his body has been laid in the earth. His head should join the rest of him.”
The domine raised my chin. “We will relieve you of this burden, of course. Where was it found?”
“In the millpond.”
“Was he not brought from the fields of White Plains?”
“This is a Hessian.”
The domine scowled and turned aside, calling, “Gravedigger!”
A boy knelt upon the riverbank, washing dirt from his arms. At his master’s call, he shot to his feet and ran to us. He was about thirteen, straw-haired and freckled.
“Yes, Father?” he said, in English.
“How many fallen did I bless just now?”
“Seven, father.”
“And of those seven, how many still wore their heads?”
“Their heads? Why, all of them, sir.”
“All of them?” The domine sighed with relief.
“Well, all of them but one, sir. The big fellow’d lost his.”
“The big fellow?”
“Awful big. He was on top so I puts him in first. He was a labor, sir. Awful big, like I say.”
“I see. Who brought the bodies?”
“Old Brouwer. Straight from the glorious battlefield.”
“The big one as well?”
“Ay, just like all the rest.”
“Just like all the rest?”
“Ay, but the big one weren’t nothing like the others. He was big, firstly, and all in black. Old Brouwer said the head had been taken by a cannonball.”
“This head?” The domine seized it from my gathered skirts, shaking it in Thomas’s face.
Thomas did not flinch. “Can’t rightly say sir. Might fit.”
The domine slapped the boy with his free hand.
“Ow! Begging your pardon, Father, how could I have buried the head if I ain’t had it?”
The domine threw the head to the ground and seized my arm. “This girl says he was a
Hessian!”
Thomas paled and covered his face. “Coo. Bless me. I’m damned.”
“A godless mercenary, a devil, in our most hallowed ground.” The domine frowned at me. “Don’t you know what a Hessian is?”
“A child of God?” I whispered.
The domine scowled. “Open that grave, Thomas. Remove his body. Our Lord Philipse may have lost his reason but I’m no Tory. Go on. Get to it.”
“But sir, as I told you, he’s big and deep and the bottom one of seven. You want I should bring six good boys into the sun just to find a bad one?”
The head had rolled into the shallow depression of the grave, waiting for the domine’s decision. The domine paced. He removed his spectacles and rubbed his eyes. Fife and drum sounded from the road. A line of soldiers appeared, marching over the bridge. The Continental Army had arrived. They were in poor condition, patched and barefoot, with many wounded.
The newcomers made up the domine’s mind. “Those boys have seen enough death. The Hessian’s body may stay, but I forbid you to speak of this. Swear silence.”
“I swear it,” said Thomas, making a cross and spitting.
“I swear it,” said I, bowing my head.
“God is forgiveness, and the man’s bones can do no harm. Not if six patriots hold him down. That will be all, Thomas. Remember, you swore an oath.”
The boy turned up his collar and scampered away, eager to watch the soldiers arrive.
I was puzzled. “Shouldn’t he stay until the head is buried?”
“Oh, I shan’t bury the head. His bones may rest where they are, but his brains must go elsewhere. The head is the lantern of the soul. It is his soul that is not welcome here.”
I tried to keep my voice respectful. “What shall I do with his head then?”
“Take it with you.” He snatched the head by its braid and tossed it to me.
I caught it, holding it to my breast as I would an infant. “Oh, no. Give him burial. I beg you.” I knelt, so low that I might have kissed his most-holy foot. “Mercy, Father.”
The domine scowled down at me. “God will give him mercy if he deserves it. I have none for him. Bury that head in unhallowed ground. Throw it into the Hudson and let it swim back to Prussia. Roast it as a treat for those hungry soldiers. I care not. Just take it from my sight.”
I rose and said, with more contempt than piety, “God bless you, Father.”
His eyes narrowed. “God bless our American states.”
He turned away, and I slipped the head into my skirts again.
August 9th, 1849
I strode up the hill looking for a place to bury my burden. Forlorn and confused, I sat behind an oak and lifted the head. I could not keep it forever. It showed no signs of decay, but it soon would. I wished I were an artist, and could paint this face before it fell to rot. Oh, if only I could build a little box and keep him inside, so that I might look upon him occasionally, imagine him as he’d been in moonlight, imagine our kiss.
I brushed his lips with my own.
I drew back, horrified by what I’d done. The lips had been cold, unyielding.
I threw my hand over my eyes and leaned against the oak. The domine could not watch the graveyard always, I decided. I would wait for night to fall, steal a shovel, and do the work myself. I knew where one could be found, for a trio of colonial soldiers were raising a redoubt nearby, fortifying the high ground, creating a position from which to watch the bridge.
Thomas the gravedigger brought them his own long-handled shovels. He stood and watched the soldiers work with professional interest, as dirt was his trade. Autumn leaves snagged in his hair, but he was too busy tale-telling to notice. The morning’s dark business had quite bewitched his imagination. “But the big one was a Hessian!” he exclaimed, already breaking his oath. “One of them horsemen. Head lopped off by a cannonball. He’ll be a-haunting this place now, he will. With a hip-hip and a clippety-clop. I’ll be seeing headless spooks in my burying ground. Just you wait. And if he can’t find his own head he’ll be wanting one of ours, Lord love us.” He shivered, hands in pockets. The soldiers laughed at him, but the boy was serious. Our Legend had begun to spin itself already, from the lips of our tow-headed gravedigger. Fact and fiction going their separate ways—severed, as they often are.
I listened with fascination. I had always loved a ghost story, and I’d never witnessed the birth of one before.
Ghost stories are a form of history, Dylan. If we say, “Three men died building that church and they forever haunt it,” we keep those souls alive in death. Ghost stories are the past bleeding into the present, demanding acknowledgement of those unseen presences all around us, in our street names and genealogies and on our crumbling headstones. The tragedy of Old Willow, the fall of the horseman, the fate of you or I, these tales are forgotten by academic historians, who chronicle only great men. But our small lives are remembered, so long as our ghost stories are told. That is why we must tell them and retell them, and keep them kindled in the hearts of our children.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
“Agathe’s Tale ~ Part Six”
August 21st, 1849
I snuck into the manor’s root cellar, to hide through the day and to steal food. I hid the head in a flour sack and waited, nibbling cheese like a mouse skritching in the wall. I would do my grisly work after dark, then escape. The Van Tassel farm seemed a paradise to me now, and I missed my brother.
A great clamor rose above my head. The stomping and huzzahs of men.
“Three cheers for William Crane!”
I crept to the top of the cellar steps and peered into the house. A group of Continentals surrounded a seated man, slapping his shoulders. A woman stood amongst them, pouring out ale. She was Cornelia Beekman.
“Hail to our hero!” Cornelia proclaimed. “Tell us your tale again, sir.”
The man stood, brimming with glee and self-importance, and began to speak. I recognized him. He wore clean clothes now and his face had been wiped of blood, but this was the murderer of my dear horseman. William Crane, then, was his name. He spun his own Legend out of whole cloth. He claimed to have defeated an entire company of Hessians single-handedly, to have faced a great monster, and to have slain him in self-defense. He raised the hatchet, also cleaned of blood, and the listeners passed it around.
An older man appeared in the doorway, applauding the tale. He was tall, square-chinned, and wore a blue coat, with gold epaulets and braid. His wig was extremely well set. The men bowed, and William Crane fell to one knee.
“It is a fine weapon,” said General Washington, taking Crane’s hatchet in hand. “Your countrymen are in your debt.”
“My hatchet is ever at your service, sir,” said Crane.
Washington extended the weapon. “Hatchets strike at arm’s length. Let us hope to keep our enemy at a greater remove.”
Crane refused it. “My blade is yours, sir.”
Washington searched awkwardly for a spot to set the thing down, but, as I’ve said, the manor was almost bare of furniture.
Cornelia came to his rescue. “I’m afraid we have no cherry trees, General.” The men chuckled. Washington relinquished the hatchet to her, gratefully, and she held it to her heart. “Allow this heirloom to remain in Tarrytown, as a reminder of Crane’s heroic deed.”
“I thank Providence that young William held the bridge, else disaster might have struck. May we escort you northward, Mrs. Beekman?”
“My gratitude, sir.” Cornelia bowed, cradling the monstrous hatchet. “Mr. Crane, you and your children shall forever be honored in Tarrytown.”
Crane stood, his shifty eyes darting from face to face.
“The Hero of Gory Brook!” shouted the men, and they cheered him again.
I wanted to burst into the room, to wave the severed head of Crane’s victim in Washington’s face and tell the great general all I’d seen. But Washington strode from the house. Cornelia looked up, and our eyes met through the crack. I closed the d
oor, afraid to be discovered.
August 22nd, 1849
I spent the day fuming at the injustice of it, that William Crane should be applauded for butchery. I listened to endless valedictory speeches. Finally I could take no more. Dusk had gathered. I crept from the cellar and slipped into the mill, fetching a flour sack for my horseman.
Miracle, Grenauld’s personal slave, tended the grinding wheel. He wore a purple tunic, as if he were royalty. He knelt, collecting the wheat as it spilled from between the grindstones. I boiled at the sight of him. Miracle, who had blocked my escape on the milldam. Miracle, who would have stood and laughed as I was raped.
In a fit of anger I raised a hand and muttered a spell. Miracle’s sleeve caught in the machinery. “Pull the nut! Pull the nut!” he screamed, but the gears bit away his fingers. He wailed, wrested the stump of his hand away, and watched helplessly as the stones ground his severed fingers into meal and the wheat went red.
My anger subsided. I felt cold. I stared at my hands, horrified by what I’d done. But I remembered my helplessness at the milldam, and felt no guilt, only pride.
Miracle’s screams had drawn attention. I slipped away and crept into the women’s dormitory, finding it blessedly vacant. Once changed into clean clothes, I snatched up the bag and opened the door again.
Grenauld spotted me from across the millpond. “Witch!” he shouted, and ran for the bridge.
I flung the door shut, but a slave dormitory cannot be locked from the inside. I panicked, certain that Grenauld would take my horseman from me. I darted about, searching for a place to hide him.
The enormous carved pumpkin sat on its stool. I pulled the lantern from it, slid the head inside the lantern, and returned head and lantern both, sealing the orange plug just as the door flew open.
“Here’s the witch,” Grenauld said.
SLEEPY HOLLOW: General of the Dead (Jason Crane Book 3) Page 46