by John Moss
When I was in Grade Ten, he was still around. He had dropped out of school but there he’d be, by my locker, in the parking lot, across the cafeteria, near the water fountain. Just hanging around. We never talked. Our only real memory in common was too upsetting to talk about. For him, I mean. Not really for me. His sister and I were never friends. Like I say, I can’t remember how she died.
Maybe he was stalking me.
But why would be want to kill me?
Because he was in love with me.
Allison Briscoe!
The only way Russell Miller could live without me—was if I were dead.
Some people are unbalanced that way. They confuse love with hate, and life with death. They fall in love with a movie star and murder them. It’s a sickness. I’m not a star but maybe Russell Miller thought I was.
Why wait until I was fifteen?
Because David or what’s-his-name and then Jaimie Retzinger were always around.
Then I split up with Jaimie Retzinger.
And then one night, I was walking alone through the snow.
And the rest, as Mrs. Muratori would say, is history.
She was wrong about one thing, though.
I’m not boring, I refuse to be boring. Only bored people are boring and I’m never bored.
Not ever.
Rebecca
The two Captains de Vere looked very much alike. William was a larger version of Edward. William was quiet. He was older and he had been wounded at the Battle of Québec in December of 1775.
While very young, he had joined the Sons of Liberty and fought against unfair taxes and no representation in government. This led to a serious quarrel with his father, also named William, who was torn between passionate commitment to his rebellious compatriots and deep gratitude to King George. The de Veres, like the more famous Reveres, who had changed their name from Revoire, had fled France after thousands of Protestants had been slaughtered in the streets of Paris for their religious beliefs, until the River Seine ran crimson with blood. The British provided them refuge, the Boston colonies offered prosperity.
One day the elder William, Madge’s husband, was shot dead by a drunken British soldier. The de Veres were very traditional. But after nothing was done to punish the soldier, the whole family decided to follow William’s example. They wanted no more of British rule.
When Edwina joined Washington’s army at Valley Forge, after nursing her brother in the hospital in Virginia, their mother followed. Madge de Vere closed up their house, packed up their household goods, and sold what she could to raise money for the Revolution. She joined her daughter early in 1778 as a member of the Regimental Camp Followers, with special skills in organizing workers. In Boston, she used to have six servants indoors and two for the garden. None was a slave. One, who worked for them briefly, was a black patriot called Crispus Attuks. He was killed in the Boston Massacre of 1770, while William was still in his teens.
Rebecca admired how the de Vere family got along. William treated Edward like a fellow officer, not a kid sister. Madge treated them both like soldiers. And all three of them adopted as one of their own the foundling Mennonite girl who had stumbled into their lives.
While the de Vere brother and sister looked alike, they were very different. Edward was usually filthy. William, who preferred to live among the general staff, was spotless. His uniform was like new, his long blue coat had buttons that shone in the sunlight. Edward’s uniform, in spite of the sewing and washing his mother did, was in rags. Edward preferred to stay close to his men. There was not one of them who would not have taken a bullet for their slight young leader.
Whether they knew she was a woman or not, she was among the most revered officers at Valley Forge.
Baron von Steuben kept his officers working but, after they met, William quite often took time to call on Cabin 27 to visit Rebecca. If all the signs of war and of want had not been so much in evidence, they might have been courting.
On the evening of June 18th, the young couple strolled around the edge of The Grand Parade. She sometimes took his arm as they skirted puddles. But then she would let go, determined to walk on her own. Still, they walked closely enough. Their relationship was apparent to all.
There was more activity than usual, given the hour. Soldiers were packing up. Some were already on the move toward Philadelphia. The women had been getting ready for several days and were doing last-minute things. The next morning, the small city of Valley Forge would be no more.
“What about you, Becky?” William asked. “Where will you go?”
“I will stay with Madge. I can’t go back to Lancaster County. I disobeyed my father. Well, not exactly, but I left his house. In his eyes and God’s, I broke his trust. I would be shunned.”
“Shunned? What’s that?”
“No one will talk to me. If I walk among them, even my own mother must treat me like I’m not there. To my family and my church, I am dead.”
“What a terrible church.”
“Don’t say that, William. They are good people but they believe in a stern God. I left by choice. I needed to warn my friend, Jacob Shantz, that he was wanted for murder.”
“So I’ve been told. For killing his father. And did he?”
“No, of course not.”
And as if to prove she were right, almost by an act of the Almighty, Himself, Rebecca glanced over among the cabins and looked straight into the familiar face of a soldier from home.
“William, stop,” she exclaimed.
But the soldier was already walking toward them.
He seemed as surprised as she was. Here was a Mennonite girl dressed in colorful rags, walking with a handsome young officer in a fresh, clean uniform.
It was Corporal Jonas, the Redcoat soldier with the scar down the side of his face who had come looking for Jacob. He still had his big mustache but now he was dressed in tattered blue.
“Sir,” he said, first addressing Captain William de Vere. Then he turned to Rebecca. She remembered his warm smile. “Miss Rebecca Haun. I met you at your father’s farm three months ago. I am Peter Jonas. I was on the other side back then. A lot can happen in three months. We had given you up for dead, Miss Rebecca. Did you ever find Jacob Shantz?”
“I am very much alive,” she explained. “Jacob is deceased.”
“I’m sorry to hear of it.”
“He died from the fever. He did not kill his father.”
“I know that, Miss. But how do you prove it? He has gone to the grave with the mark of murderer on him forever.”
“Do you know who did it?” she demanded.
“I have my suspicions, Miss Rebecca.”
“Well, speak up, man,” said Captain de Vere.
“No sir, I cannot. I have no proof. But the whole affair upset me enough that I have joined our Continental Army.”
“Well, that’s one good thing to come out of Noah Shantz’s death,” said Rebecca. She held out her hand. “Perhaps we’ll have a chance to talk again.”
“Are you following us to Philadelphia, Miss?” Peter Jonas inquired.
“Yes, but I have something to do, first.”
She smiled at the soldier and took William’s arm, leading him away.
“I intend to leave right now. There will be a full moon tonight and I enjoy walking in the dark. I promise I will be safe and I will catch up with you later. Will you take me back to Cabin 27? No, do not, I wish to go by myself. I will pack what little I have and get on the road. If I miss your mother, please tell her and tell Edward, thank you for everything. But I owe it to Jacob and his righteous God to clear his name.”
“Be careful,” said William.
“Thank you for not asking me to explain myself,” she said. She took his hand and laid it against her cheek, then turned away so neither he nor the renegade soldier could see
her tears.
As she walked off, all by herself, she heard Corporal Jonas call after her:
“Follow the horse, Miss Rebecca. Follow the horse.”
Eleven
Allison
I have dark brown hair and hazel eyes. I wear a size four. My shoe size is 8, my bra size is 34B. My preference is for bright clothes with solid colors. Sometimes I dress a little skanky, but when I do, I know I’m doing it. I’m about three feet tall, including the bed.
Okay, that last bit was a joke.
If I could stand up, I would be about average height.
Why am I telling you my data? Just to establish I’m me.
I wonder if it gives my midnight stalker satisfaction, seeing me like this? I mean, I’m not even a zombie. They have no mind but they can move. I have a mind, and can’t.
Yeah, well, I’m alive! Maybe not kicking, but I’m alive! As that woman in the States used to say, the one from Alaska who ran for President or whatever: You betcha!
I couldn’t have voted for her, anyway. Only Americans can vote for the President. Which doesn’t seem fair, since their President is pretty much the boss of the world.
If my Pennsylvania Dutch ancestors did not come up during the Revolution, or soon after, I would have been an American. But they did, they crossed over at Fort Erie near Niagara Falls. My family became Canadians before Canada existed. Nana Friesen used to tell me about them. She could remember things that happened before she was born. Maybe you don’t need a bullet in the head for the blood to remember. Sometimes, the past is just there, within us.
My ancestors were known as United Empire Loyalists. They packed as many of their belongings as they could into what they called Conestoga wagons. They hitched up plow horses and oxen to pull them. And they came north. Some of them had been in Pennsylvania since 1683, so it wasn’t easy to leave. They had been there for over a hundred years. They had buried grandparents and parents and children in the cemeteries of Lancaster County.
But the British had promised them they would never have to fight in a war. The British King had the power to enforce God’s laws. But King George was losing the battle. So my family came north to Upper Canada because the King was still in charge up here and everyone was free—slavery was against the law here, over seventy years before it was illegal in the United States.
Upper Canada became the Province of Ontario in the Dominion of Canada. And I became a vegetable in a hospital in Peterborough, with a bullet hole in my brain.
I don’t think Russell Miller wanted to hurt me. I’ve decided it must have been Russell Miller. He just wanted me dead.
In his screwed up mind, then I would be his.
But he would have had to kill himself to join me. I wonder if he thought of that?
Good question, Allison. When I get better, I’ll have to ask a shrink. Meanwhile, he watches over me. Russell does. It must be him. I don’t know what he’s told the night nurses. They must know he’s here.
They probably think he’s my long lost lover, on a deathwatch.
Rebecca and her people had their God. I have Russell Miller.
But what about the witness, the other guy in the car, the guy who yelled “Stop?” Where’d he get to? Maybe I just made him up, maybe I want to imagine Russell has a conscience, so in my memory I’ve created the other guy to try and save me. He’s what they call a figment of my imagination. I thought of fig newton cookies when Mrs. Muratori first told us about making up things on purpose. She could have just said, “intentional hallucination.” Sometimes words have no meaning, sometimes they mean too much.
I’m thinking in circles, like a figure skater going faster and faster as the circles get tighter, the closer I get to the truth.
I’m drifting off to sleep. Where is he? It must be evening. Yeah, David was here a couple of hours ago. My mom didn’t come in.
The door into the hall opens and closes. I can feel the air in the room moving. I can hear him breathe.
His breathing is getting louder.
Is this it, Allison? Is this the end?
The breathing is slowing down. He must be sitting in a chair. I listen and listen. Good grief, he’s snoring.
My night stalker is asleep.
He snores again.
Oh, my good glory! I’d recognize that snore in a hailstorm.
It’s Jaimie Retzinger.
Rebecca
By the time Washington’s army reached Philadelphia in pursuit of the British, Rebecca was trudging through familiar landscape. She had found Madge to say goodbye but missed Edward. Madge had put together a respectable outfit for her from borrowed clothes and packed up some brown bread and fillets of smoked fish caught in the Schuykill River. She had hugged her when they parted, like Rebecca was her own daughter.
As Rebecca entered familiar country, she thought about her mission. She knew enough of the world by now to realize it would do no good to announce Jacob’s innocence, simply because he didn’t know his father was dead. Peter Jonas had told her to follow the horse. Somehow, Old Bess could prove that Jacob had committed no crime—apart from leaving his community, defying their God, and joining the forces of a great revolution.
Rebecca stopped at the end of the long lane into her family’s farm. She was wearing a blue muslin skirt and a blouse of light green cotton. She had the gray woolen shawl, the one she had taken with her when she left home, draped over her shoulder.
The fields were lying fallow. They hadn’t been plowed or planted. The barn doors were open. In the distance, she could see her brothers and sisters. Daniel, Luke, and Matthias. Sarah, Rachel, and Ruth. Christian would still be away in Massachusetts, studying at Bible College in Concord outside Boston.
They were busy loading up two Conestoga wagons. Her mother came out of the house and gazed in her direction. Her mother waved.
It was a friendly wave to a stranger. Rebecca knew it would not have crossed her mother’s mind that her own daughter was standing at their gate, wearing bright blue and green, with flowing brown hair and no bonnet.
Rebecca waved back. She took the shawl and laid it over the fence post. Her mother would be able to use it in Canada. Then she turned and walked toward the community that had grown up around the white painted Mennonite church—the church where she and Jacob Shantz had shared her first and only kiss. The kiss on his cheek when they parted at Valley Forge wasn’t really a kiss.
Warwick had three churches and a hostelry called The Warwick Hotel. Rebecca went to the hotel, which had been bought a few years earlier by a man who owned two slaves—a man and a woman. The Mennonite elders had told him he could not run his business there if he had slaves. So he sold them.
Rebecca paid for a room for one night with some of the money Madge de Vere had given her. After cleaning up, as a treat she went to Nixon’s Dry Goods store and bought some clothes. She returned to the hotel to leave her parcel of clothes and then walked down the main street in the direction of the British garrison.
She passed many Mennonites as she walked, people she had known all her life. The men and boys looked straight through her. The women cast their eyes to the side. Girls her own age or younger blushed and pretended not to see her.
Rebecca walked with her head down. She nearly bumped into a woman dressed in black. She moved to the side. The woman moved the same way.
“Excuse me,” Rebecca said.
The woman, who was carrying a gray shawl over her arm, stood her ground.
“Look at me, girl. Won’t you look at your mother? Did you not know I could recognize my own child? Hold your head up, Rebecca.”
Her mother was defiant.
“Let those who are without sin be our judges. Only them.” She seemed to sigh. “We are going to Canada, Rebecca. I am sorry you cannot come. Your father would forbid it. We will be among our brethren, just across the river near the great F
alls. But when this war is over, you will come to visit. I will see that your father allows it.”
“Danke, Mutter.”
Suddenly, Rebecca realized her mother had been speaking to her in English. Standing on Main Street. Looking her straight in the eye. Without shame.
“Thank you, Mother,” she repeated in English.
“And do you know who killed Noah Shantz, Rebecca? That is why you are here, yes?”
“That is why I am here.”
An idea was beginning to form, but she couldn’t be certain.
“I will go with you,” her mother announced.
Together, they marched down the street to the outskirts of town. They found the commanding officer of the garrison. He was busy. The British had fled from Philadelphia when George Washington arrived. The commandant was packing up to join his fellow Redcoats in retreat.
He seemed surprised to see a Mennonite woman accompanied by a girl who was obviously not Mennonite.
“Captain, I am here about Jacob Shantz,” Rebecca announced.
“He did not murder his father,” her mother declared.
“And how do you know that?” the officer demanded, speaking to Rebecca.
“How do you know that?” her mother asked Rebecca in German.
Suddenly, it all became clear. If Jacob did not take Old Bess, like everyone thought, then someone else did. The soldier with the scar had been trying to tell her, the person who took Bess murdered Noah Shantz when he tried to stop him.
“There were two soldiers who came looking for Jacob,” said Rebecca. “But, earlier that morning, did someone sell a horse to the British Army? Do you keep records?”
“I don’t have to look at the records. The answer is ‘yes.’ Private Panabaker sold us a horse. We had not eaten meat for three weeks. It was a life saver and very tasty.”
“Old Bess!” Rebecca exclaimed. “Poor Old Bess.” She took a deep breath. “Your soldier stole him.”
“Well, I’m sorry for that. But I’m not surprised.”