Conceived in Liberty

by Howard Fast

  I attempt to rid myself of the fear that this will be our grave. There’s no sound. Are we all dead? I cry out, and my voice comes back, a plaintive echo. I want to fire my musket. It’s a great desire, and I have to use all my powers to hold back. How many men on sentry beat fire their guns for the same reason? Break the silence. The day before, a man had been whipped half to death for that.

  The moon shows above the far hills. It shows a curved rim of yellow ice. It lights up the countryside, gives a weird, unholy beauty. The moon rises until it looks like half a mouth, laughing.

  VII

  The Jew is dying. Smith suffers from scurvy, and we can do nothing for him. To some degree we all have it, but Smith’s face is like a rotten apple, and his teeth have fallen out. He lies in bed, groaning with pain and cursing the Jew. Or calling back memories of roasts in the kitchen of his inn.

  His voice grows stronger as he talks. “—a roast of beef, a prime rib roast of beef. Give it fifteen minutes to the pound, and turn it slowly. Turn it slowly and catch the drippings. Drippings for gravy—”

  We can’t stand that. We tell him to close his Goddamned mouth.

  The doctor came twice. Once he brought a slice of potato for Smith. It helped a little, but potatoes are rare. The second time, he asked the Jew if he’d go to the hospital.

  “Good mother earth has relieved us,” the doctor said. “There’s a place to spare. They squabble like chickens—give it to a New Jersey man, give it to a Massachusetts man, give it to a Vermonter. God, a stinking breed, those Vermonters, cold as their mountains and ignorant as pigs. Can I say I’m holding it for a Jew? Can I tell them that? I threaten to walk out, and they let me do what I want with the place, save it for my Jew. They listen to me. I tell them eighteen miles away—in Philadelphia—there’s ten golden pounds a week waiting for an army doctor. I take their Continental money and use it for bandages. It doesn’t make good bandages even.”

  “How long have I got?” the Jew asked him.

  “Any day now.”

  “I’ll stay here,” the Jew said, his smile curious.

  The doctor looked at him oddly. He seemed to be really regretful. “I thought we’d talk,” the doctor said. “You can go mad, not having anyone to talk to.”

  “You won’t go mad,” the Jew said.

  Then they looked at each other; there seemed to be a sort of understanding between them.

  We sit, now, waiting for the Jew to die. We fear his death, more than he does himself. Of that I’m certain. We know it won’t be long. He bled for a long time through his nose and mouth, and after that he lay quiet, hardly breathing. His face is like yellow parchment, old skin stretched over bones. But he can’t be very old.

  I ask Ely what guess he’d make of the man’s age.

  “There’s no age to him,” Ely says slowly.

  “He ain’t seen thirty winters,” Jacob guesses.

  “He never spoke of wife or children. He’s a strange, silent man.”

  I say, fretfully: “Why won’t he die? He’s been a week dying.”

  “A black magic that struck me,” Smith says. “The scurvy comes from the heathen Jew.”

  I crawl into my bed, and Bess asks me: “He’s dead?”

  “No—not yet.”

  “Allen, I can’t stand any more of this. I tell you, I can’t. Only take me away, Allen. It’s better to die outside than to die here. I wake up in the night, sweating—thinking that the place has closed in on me. Only take me away.”

  “There’s no fear,” I tell her, “no fear.”

  “But take me away, Allen.”

  “It’s a long, weary five hundred miles to the Mohawk,” I say. “It’s a road we could never travel. And the British hold all the country in between.”

  “We don’t have to go to the Mohawk, Allen.”

  “Then where?”

  “The British in Philadelphia pay a price and keep for information, Allen. Food and housing——”

  “Christ, you slut!” I cried. “You turning, crawling slut. You’d have me sell Ely—you’d have me sell them all.”

  “Only for you, Allen, only for you—only for my love of you, Allen. Only for my deep, abiding love of you.”

  “You’re not a fit woman to love a man—to be loved by a man. You’re not a fit woman to hold a man’s body——”

  “Allen, what are you saying?”

  “I’m saying the truth! Clark Vandeer put his curse on me when he lay dying. He predicted true. You’re a little filthy slut, and you’re not a fit woman for a man.”

  “No, Allen—only my love of you to make me say it. Only my love that put thoughts in my mind. Loving and sleeping, sleeping half the day and night from weakness, dreaming all the time, you dream fancies, Allen. Like I dream I’m not here, but in a place where men and women are real. God forgive me, I think of a dress, Allen, almost go crazy making a dress in my mind, a dress of fine white flax, spun. I spin it myself, Allen. Day and night, I spin the flax. I can spin; I can card and weave and spin. I’m a fair, decent woman, Allen, and no bad woman could card and weave and spin. I make the cloth and cut a dress for myself, and sew it. With yellow thread, a cloth as white as snow. Like the snow outside, Allen—a dress of snow, clean and spotless. No marks on it, Allen—all over it not even a mark. To make me good, Allen, and I’m not a bad woman. Not a bad woman, Allen, only a dress of white to make me good. You wouldn’t have to tell them truth, Allen. It’s said the British are fair stupid beings. They’ll believe you, Allen, whatever you tell them. They’ll give us food and shelter to keep the winter——”

  “You’re no fit woman—let me go!”

  “Allen, I’m good—stay by me, Allen. Allen, I could grow strong and round with a winter. Come spring, Allen, we could go to the southland and over Boone’s road into Transylvania. There’s no war there in the south, Allen, and I would be strong—a fit woman to weave for a man, to clean and to work for him. You wouldn’t have to love me then, Allen—only let me work for you. I wouldn’t be holding you down, Allen—only to work for you.”

  I climbed out of bed, stumbled, and almost sprawled into the fire. I heard Bess’ little cry of terror. I stood and watched the flames. Our wood is almost gone—a low fire. I tried to see something in the small flame.

  Ely is by the Jew. He says something, and then over his shoulder to me: “Allen—come here.”

  I go and bend over the bed.

  “You’ve had schooling, Allen. You’ve read books.”

  I nod.

  “You’ve come on a fair prayer for a Jew in your reading?”

  I shake my head helplessly.

  He says a few words. The Jew sighs, and Ely closes his eyes. Ely says: “I’m not a man to think a lot about heaven and hell—but I’ll go where he went, and content with that.”

  I can’t speak.

  Ely says: “Come and cut a few sticks of wood with me, Allen. The fire’s low.”

  I take up the axe, and we go outside. Ely leads the way into the forest. I cut down a small tree, and then I rest while Ely lops off the branches. The work is good; it takes my mind off things.

  We come back loaded with wood and build up the fire. Jacob is kneeling by the Jew’s bed. We both look at him, but neither of us speaks.

  I go to my bed. Bess touches my face, timidly. I put my head on her breast and sob convulsively.

  VIII

  WE’VE DECIDED to desert, Kenton Brenner, Charley Green, and I. Not at once did we come to the decision, but slowly, working our courage, and giving ourselves all the arguments we needed to leave the army. First Kenton and I—then Charley.

  Two days after the Jew died, I walked on sentry beat with Kenton. The fresh meat had lifted us, brought back little fires of strength that were all but gone. I came on Kenton at the end of my beat. He leaned on his musket, looking northward over the hills.

  I said to him: “I was watching you—you were silent and unmoving here wondrous long. I thought to myself, you’re frozen and sleeping on you
r feet.”

  “I’m thinking a strong man could walk through the snow.”

  “Where to?” I asked him. “Where would you be walking?”

  “North—a great stretch north to the Mohawk. I’m sick to look at the Valley land.”

  “For five hundred miles? Edward froze. Stiff as a log of wood. They brought him back and laid him down, and he was all ringed over with ice. I don’t forget the sight of Edward, with the ice sealing his lips.”

  “Edward was alone.”

  Then I looked at him, and I could feel how the hope was tearing inside of me. “We’re like rats in a trap—and lacking all courage,” I muttered.

  We asked Charley that night. Charley a Boston man, a city man. A curious man who had read many hundreds of books. He had a round face, tiny blue eyes, and a stoutness that days of starving wouldn’t rid him of.

  “We’re enlisted three years,” Charley said.

  “For three years, and three hundred men in our regiment,” I said. “Six of us left. There’ll be none of you left for ripe rewards at the end of three years—not enough to hang from an English gibbet.”

  “I’ve a woman here,” Charley muttered. “I’d be sleeping alone many a night.”

  “You’ve a dirty slut who won’t hunger for you once ye’re gone.”

  “I’m sick to be home.”

  “There’s food on the way,” I told him eagerly. “There’s a country full of food on the way. Rich, good food for our taking.”

  “We’ve no money. Our Continental paper wouldn’t buy a loaf of bread to the thousand dollars.”

  “We don’t need money. We’ll take our muskets. Men with muskets can find food.”

  “I’m no thief,” Charley said stubbornly. “By God, I’ve become a rotten mock of a man, but I’m no thief.”

  “No plunder. I’m not meaning plunder, Charley. Old soldiers could find a little bit of food.”

  Then we sit close to the fire, looking at each other, looking around the tiny smoke-blackened dugout. Ely is out on sentry duty. I try not to think about Ely; I try to think only of freedom—of an end to the awful monotony that’s rotting my soul. Jacob lies in his bed, a cloak drawn over him, his feet protruding—ragged, bandaged stumps. His eyes are closed, and he lies without moving. Smith groans softly. Henry Lane is sick with the French disease. He has been sick and silent that way for weeks now—a living dead man lying quietly in his bunk.

  We three look at each other and measure each other.

  I say: “How long? I’m afraid to die here. Outside—anywhere outside. I’m not afraid to go to sleep in the snow, not wake up—just sleep in the snow. That’s easy. There was no pain in Edward’s heart for his dying.”

  “We’d start without food,” Charley says.

  Kenton grins. “We’re used to that.”

  “You’d go to the Mohawk?”

  “Or to Boston until the winter’s over.”

  “No women——”

  I stare at them, and they both look at me, and I glance over my shoulder; if Bess is awake.

  “No women,” Kenton says dully.

  I get up, and I go to my bed. Her arms are round me. I watch the fire, pretending not to know that she is awake. I lie there for a long time, not moving, watching the fire, until I think she is asleep.

  Ely comes in. Slowly, painfully, he gets out of his clothes. He is very tired; his face is sunken and drawn. Each step he takes draws a grimace of pain from him. I had thought of pleading with Ely to come along with us. But his feet wouldn’t carry him a dozen miles.

  He puts wood on the fire. He stands there for a little while, wiping the smoke out of his eyes. Then he walks to Jacob’s bed. He and Jacob are both older than the rest of us, both of them apart from us. He watches Jacob, draws the cloak up to Jacob’s neck. Smith groans. Ely takes a cup of the thin corn-broth that we keep by the fire—when we have corn—and holds it to Smith’s lips. The man drinks a little.

  Ely takes something out of his pocket. “A bit of onion,” he says to Smith. “I got it from a Massachusetts man for a few Continental papers. A rare good thing for the scurvy.”

  Ely sits down by the fire, puts out his legs in front of him. He closes his eyes and leans back, his hands spread on his thighs. I look at him until he blurs in front of my eyes, and then I say:

  “Ely——”

  He turns to me. “Allen? I didn’t think you were awake.”

  I don’t say anything now.

  “You wanted something, Allen?”

  “Nothing—nothing, Ely.”

  I turn round. Bess is awake. I see her wide-open dark eyes.

  She whispers: “When will you be going, Allen?”

  “Going? Where would I be going?”

  “Allen, when I came to you that night, and my feet were bleeding, like a pain all through me, and you bound them up, Allen, and said that I was your woman——”

  “I said it to keep men from putting hands on you.”

  “However you said it, I swore I would make no claims on you, Allen. I swore I would love you as long as I lived, Allen, but make no claim. What they were all thinking—that I was a bad woman and a slut. But it didn’t matter about those Virginian men, Allen. It didn’t matter, their having me. After you, there’s nobody else, Allen. When you go away, I won’t live.”

  “What do you want me to do?” I demanded hoarsely. “If we were man and wife, you could make a claim on me. I’d not part from any wife of mine.”

  “I make no claim, Allen.”

  “I could go mad, staying here—making my insides rot out.”

  “I don’t want you to stay here, Allen. I wouldn’t ask you to stay here. It’s two years now of bitter fighting, and I cannot make out yet what they’re fighting for. Only I’ve come to hate war, Allen. What is there, Allen, to make a man give up his life and bring an abiding sorrow in a woman?”

  “I don’t know,” I said miserably.

  “You’re a northland man, Allen, and cold in the way of the northland men.”

  “I can’t take a woman with me——”

  “But tonight, Allen. I’m not holding it against you. Put your arms around me and love me tonight.”

  I lay without sleeping. Half the night, I lay without sleeping. Finally, I said: “I’ll not go without you.”

  The next night, we were ready. When I told Kenton that Bess would come, he shook his head. I argued with him. I told him that having a woman with us would make it easier to get food.

  “She won’t walk it.”

  “She’s a lean, hard woman,” I said.

  “But ye’re a fool, Allen. She’s not fit woman for a man. She’s a slut. So why would you be nailing yourself to a slut?”

  “You can go to hell without me,” I said.

  “We won’t be fighting over the matter of a woman. If you want the wench, take her with you, Allen.”

  Now that we are ready to go, Kenton’s woman and Green’s woman sit and watch us, but say nothing. Kenton’s woman is already glancing at Jacob. There are more than enough men for the women.

  Jacob hasn’t said a word. He must have known before that we were going, but he doesn’t speak. He sits on his bed, a ragged, bearded man, hair streaked with grey, watching us. I try to avoid his eyes.

  Henry Lane watches wistfully. He says: “When you come to the Mohawk country—if you see kin of mine, you’ll not tell them of my sickness. You’ll tell them I had a fair, clean death.”

  Kenton says: “Ye’re not a dying man, Henry. It’s just a slow spell of weakness.”

  “But you’ll tell them a quick, clean passing?”

  We try to smile at him. We wrap our feet carefully, feeling all eyes in the place upon us. Ely is standing in one corner; he doesn’t look at us.

  “You won’t hold it against us, Ely?” I say to him.

  He doesn’t answer. We go on with our preparations. We load our muskets carefully. We have about ten rounds of ammunition apiece—no food. If we pause for a moment, the entire
hopelessness of our enterprise appears to overwhelm us. When we are ready, we stand round and look at each other. Nobody moves toward the door. We look round the cabin we have lived in for so many weeks now, the smoke-blackened timbers, the beds built against each wall, the dugout floor which has become as hard as rock. Out of our own hands.

  Where are we going?

  Kenton says: “Time to go——”

  I say, desperately: “Come along, Ely. We’re not doing any wrong, Ely. There’s been no pay for weeks, no rum, no food. Two years we’ve fought for them. Come along.”

  Ely shakes his head, doesn’t answer.

  Jacob cries: “Christ—what are you waiting for? Get to hell outa here! A blessing to be rid of a spineless swine. For once I thought there was the making of a man in you, Allen, but ye’re one with that bloodless Boston printer. Kenton’s mindless, senseless, but I never thought it of you to follow that Boston man.”

  “Jacob——”

  “I want no words with you. Why don’t you go?”

  “We’re going,” I say dully.

  Charley moves to the door, opens it. The cold air rushes in. Charley waves to his woman. Kenton follows him. I take Bess’ arm, and we go out after them, closing the door behind us.

  We go a few paces into the night, and then we stand and look back at the dugout. As if we expect movement, as if we expect some sign of life. The dugouts stand in a long row, and we walk past them.

  I glance down at Bess’ face. It’s lit with happiness. She walks apart from me, as if she wishes to prove that there’s enough strength in her. She says:

  “I can walk, Allen. Don’t fear for me. I’m a strong walker, Allen.”

  I try to feel glad. We’re free; and there’s no going back.

  “If we’re stopped,” Kenton says. “What if we’re stopped?”

  We grip our muskets. We’ve passed the Pennsylvania dugouts. On our right is the encampment of General Poor’s men. We push through the thin strip of woods and come out into the open. A sentry standing on the hill sees us.

  “Shall we make a run for it?” Green asks.