Halestorm

by Becky Akers

  In that instant, Alice fell in love all over again. Nathan didn’t so much as chuckle at the thought of simple-minded Asher fighting Redcoats. Instead, he nodded and waited for Mr. Wright to continue.

  “I tried to talk him out of it, but he’s wore me out, begging to go back with you. He’s a good boy, Nathan, with a good heart, even if he ain’t got sense enough to duck when they start lobbing cannonballs at him.”

  Nathan did chuckle then. “Been my experience, sir, that ducking doesn’t help much anyways.”

  “Would you take him with you, son, as your attendant? He’s pretty much set on it, and, truth to tell, ’tis the only way his mother and me can sleep at night, knowing you’re watching after him.”

  “How’s your wife?” Abigail asked, and the talk turned to other matters. But before he left, Mr. Wright had Nathan’s promise that Asher would attend him. Asher’s slow smile filled with pride as he held Alice’s yarn that night and teased Nathan that from now on he must call him Captain.

  One of the farm’s usual guests made himself scarce during the first two weeks of Nathan’s visit. But by the third, when Guy Daggett went to town for some snuff and overheard two girls lamenting that Captain Hale would not attend Rev. Huntington’s party tomorrow evening because he was recruiting down to Windham, he set his jaw. He could imagine Alice’s rapture this last fortnight, living in the same house as her brother, breathing the same rarified air. Time to remind her of the advantages he offered over the honorable captain.

  Guy took extra care with his toilet the next morning. He left his hair unpowdered, clubbing it with a simple black ribbon as Nathan did. He frowned at his reflection, at his eyes, so dull without a white wig for contrast, and reminded himself not to smile lest the brown spots show on his teeth. That was another thing about Hale. Not only did he have all his teeth, but they were also white, shining, even.

  Guy climbed into his buggy and was soon looping his reins over the Hales’ hitching post. He studied the stack of beams growing near the barn. With that much wood, the Deacon must aspire to a mansion. Guy let fall the door’s brass knocker, and Joanna led him to the parlor, where Abigail and Alice sat sewing.

  Abigail greeted him warmly as always, but Alice wore that misty look she affected when Nathan was about. He proposed that they ride afield this sunny morning, and she finally agreed, more because her mother urged her than anything else. He handed her into the buggy and settled the lap-robe over her.

  The harness’s bells tinkled as Guy drove to the waterfall where they had come when he first courted her. Animal tracks crossed in the snow, and the water churned transparent and black between its white banks. An owl stared from its perch in a hickory before fleeing on hushed wings.

  “Haven’t been here for a while,” he said.

  She nodded absently.

  He helped her from the buggy, and they walked along the stream. He flirted charmingly, but she might have been made of beeswax for all the interest she showed. Damn that brother of hers. He dared not touch her, but he spoiled her for anyone else. Guy clenched his fists. He would drive thoughts of Nathan Hale from her if it were the last thing he did.

  He laid a hand, trembling with desire, on her arm. “Alice...” He poured his longing for her into that one word, and as always, it caught and held her. The overwhelming need that she yearned to hear in Nathan’s voice shook in his.

  “Alice, I’ve missed you these last weeks.”

  “I really think maybe we ought to be starting back. I—I can’t stay away too—”

  “Now, Alice, your mother told you to enjoy yourself. And isn’t this enjoyable, walking together here beside a brook?” He took her arm in his, bent to kiss her fingers lingeringly.

  “Mr. Daggett!” She pulled free.

  Damn him, Guy thought again. She likes me so long as he stays away, but he comes near and she acts as though I’ve got the pox. Well, let her moon after him all she wants. This day I’ll own her.

  “Alice, what’s wrong? You used to care for me, I thought, but now....” He sighed. “What’s happened to change that?”

  She hesitated. She had once been fond of Guy, might even have married him. But his callous response to Jonathan’s death had horrified her, and she had begun to see him for what he was: a man consumed with lust, devoid of decency and honor. Something slithered through his tone now that made her itch to be back in the buggy, riding safely home.

  He rested his hands on her shoulders, and the gleam in his eyes mesmerized her. She had never noticed before how they were as black and cunning as a serpent’s. A tingle ran up her spine, left her powerless to resist.

  “You’re so beautiful, Alice. I’ve always loved you, you know, from the first time I saw you.”

  His crooning was slick as snake oil, his hands as smooth as his words. They paused at her waist before venturing under her cape to stroke her breast.

  “Don’t you love me, Ally?”

  Something snapped in her, and she leaped backwards. “How dare you!” was all she could think to say, but she spat it with every bit of rage she could muster.

  His face contorted. “That what you’d say to your precious brother?”

  He clutched her to him and forced her head back for a kiss, thrusting his hand down her bodice.

  She beat her fists against his back as hard as she could, but she might have been petting him for all the notice he took.

  She kicked, met only air, would have fallen if he had not been holding her. His mouth on hers smothered her cries. She lashed out with another kick. This time her shoe smashed against bone.

  He bellowed at the pain, and she broke free. She plunged into the forest, screaming as he pounded after her.

  “Get back here, you jade!”

  Her skirts tripped her. His hands grabbed her again, hot and demanding, pulled her down into the snow. His weight was crushing her, his breath scalding her neck, as he hoisted her petticoat and forced her knees apart.

  Suddenly, she saw Nathan’s face, dark with vengeance, as clearly as if he were standing there. “Help me!” she begged the vision.

  In the next instant, Guy was yanked off her. The earth whirled as air rushed into her lungs. She willed her body to stand and her legs to carry her away, but she could only lie gasping for breath.

  Gradually, she realized that Guy was yelling at someone, fury pushing his voice as high as a girl’s.

  “The lady and I were having a disagreement. And just what business is it of yours?”

  She craned to see his audience and nearly swooned as her dream came to life. Nathan stood resplendent in the uniform and greatcoat finished before his trip to Windham, legs planted wide, hand on the hilt of the sword at his waist. Even without the weapon, he was imposing. He stood a head taller than Guy, his tightly muscled body a reproving contrast. His voice, too, though it was polite and his words courteous, held an undercurrent of threat.

  “Mr. Daggett, maybe you didn’t hear me. I asked you to help my sister up and apologize.”

  Guy’s face purpled. “Damn it, you—”

  Nathan shifted slightly to grasp the sword and rattle it in its scabbard. Guy subsided. He leaned over to offer Alice his hand, but she shuddered and scrambled to her feet, disdaining his aid.

  “You all right, Ally?” Nathan asked as she brushed snow from her cape.

  She nodded, and he gave her a smile before gesturing at Guy.

  Guy tossed off a clipped, “Forgive me.”

  “Now, Mr. Daggett, you’re an eloquent fellow,” Nathan drawled. “You can do better than that.”

  Guy shot him a murderous look, then snatched his tricorn from the snow. He started to put it on, but with a glance at Nathan, lowered it to his side instead. “Mrs. Ripley, I apologize. Your beauty, er, made me, ah, forget that a gentleman restrains his—his ardor.”

  She did not answer. She could not even bear to look at him. Nathan must have motioned to him because she heard him crunching across the snow to his buggy with her brother calling a
fter him, “Goes without saying, Mr. Daggett, I’ll thrash you, I find you near my sister again.”

  She could not look at Nathan either, though it was embarrassment instead of loathing that fixed her eyes to the trampled snow.

  At length, he said, “I was on my way home. Want to walk with me?”

  “Please.”

  He offered his arm to her, and she felt his muscles through the wool of his sleeve hard as the glint in Guy Daggett’s eyes. He chatted while they tramped toward the farm, as if he were used to rescuing distressed ladies, as if she meant no more to him than one of his students whose sweetheart had misbehaved.

  He was telling her how well his recruiting had gone, and how he had, then, decided to come home a day early, when she could stand it no longer. She dropped his arm and confronted him.

  “Didn’t you see what he was doing to me? Don’t you care?”

  He said nothing, staring into the distance over her shoulder.

  “Nathan.” She laid her hand on his chest and fingered the linsey-woolsey of his waistcoat. “Nathan, please—”

  His eyes came back to her, filling with his love before he turned away. “Come on, Ally. They’ll be watching for us at home.”

  Sometimes, Guy had nightmares in which Nathan Hale’s sword slashed at him and severed what had been about to possess Alice there in the snow. Other nights, he lay awake, remembering his humiliation at Hale’s hands. How could he face Alice after her prissy brother had chastised him as if he were a schoolboy caught cribbing answers?

  He had been shamed unforgivably, with Alice as witness. She had rejected him time and again, had scorned his pleas for marriage, always and obviously preferred her brother. Guy’s patience was gone, though his lust remained, for she was still the most alluring woman he had known.

  For a week, he carried his pistols as he chopped wood and fed his stock. Their honor would probably keep her brothers from ambushing him for his attempted rape, but he wouldn’t stake his life on it. He avoided his neighbors, too mortified to face them. He cared not whether they knew of his assault on Alice, but he cringed lest they hear of his cowardice before her brother. He shunned going to town, fearing he would meet one of the Hales, or worse yet, Alice herself.

  He loathed Coventry. His farm hardly flowed with milk and honey as he had once envisioned. Worse, he feared that someone might yet detect his murder of Elijah Ripley. And the countryside was lousy with Hales. His obsession with Alice was weakening, leaving nothing to hold him in Connecticut.

  Coventry was inconvenient for milling gunpowder, too. He needed a location accessible to the British Army or on the seacoast at a major port. He wanted a place loyal to the king, where the militia or the Sons of Liberty would not swoop down and burn his works before tarring and feathering him. True, most people now thought him a lukewarm patriot, but feelings ran high, and he foresaw the day when lukewarm would not save him. He longed to return to England, but he dared not do so with his debts outstanding. Besides, America sparkled with far more opportunity for earning a fortune.

  The only place in the colonies that met his criteria was New York. The city pleased him, and the people there knew how to savor life, unlike these pious Yankees. Given New York’s important harbor and its location at the mouth of Hudson’s River, the waterway that controlled New England, the government must sooner or later occupy the place, whether Howe burst out of Boston or whether a second force sailed from England. That would draw the Continentals to York Island as well, silly gamecocks and amateurs opposing the king’s professionals—and no doubt requiring extra powder to do so as their inexperienced gunners fumbled to find their range. Guy had no intention of selling to them, for they confused mere slips of paper with gold, but his competitors might. That would leave more business with His Majesty’s forces for him.

  By the end of January 1776, Guy had sold his land. He complained that New York was a nest of Tories to anyone who would listen, but nevertheless booked passage for it, a week after Nathan left for Boston with Asher Wright and his recruits.

  CHAPTER 11

  “Secundus!” Billy Hull’s face crinkled with pleasure as he waved a pamphlet at him. “Didn’t know you were back already. I was gonna leave this at your quarters for you.” He fell into step beside Nathan. “Bring any recruits?”

  “They’re in Roxbury, waiting for the rest of the company.” The day’s march had been long, and he was eager for his hut on Winter Hill. “How are you, Billy?”

  “Alive, unwounded, healthy. Can a soldier ask for more?”

  “Reckon you could, but most likely you wouldn’t get it.”

  Hull took his musket, leaving him free to accept the booklet. “Your family well?”

  “Hale as ever.”

  “Ever worry your puns’ll lose you your friends?”

  “On the contrary, Captain, I use them to winnow the chaff from the wheat. What’s this?” He inspected the tract. “Common Sense. You don’t think I have enough already?”

  “Thought you’d enjoy it. ’Twas just published—haven’t seen it yet, have you? Whole camp’s talking about it.”

  Nathan thumbed the pages, stopping dead as the prose leaped up at him. “Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one.…The sun never shined on a cause of greater worth....’Tis not the concern of a day, a year, or an age; posterity are virtually involved in the contest and will be more or less affected even to the end of time by the proceedings now….”

  He flipped to the cover to see who had written such truth, then realized that no man could sign this and live so long as the king’s forces patrolled the colonies. “’Tis better titled Uncommon Sense,” he said, “and I’ll wager ’tis a stinking scent in the royal nostrils.” Hull juggled the musket in one hand and tried to punch him with the other, but Nathan dodged him. “So what’s new the last month?”

  “Nothing much. The siege continues. They snipe at us; we snipe at them. They kill a sheep; we shoot a cow. We blow off a Regular’s arm; they hit one of our men in the leg.”

  “Lots of cannonballs to chase, huh?”

  “Ahyuh, and no matter how many orders I issue or how many men lose a foot trying to stop a ball rolling through camp, there’s still daredevils willing to try. Don’t know why General Putnam issues them rum for every cannonball they bring in.”

  “Costs us more in men than it gains us in balls.”

  “Got two fellows in quarters now, one with a broken leg and the other with his hand gone at the wrist, but I got to keep telling them not to play with rolling balls. Say, we had some fun at the beginning of the year.”

  “What happened?” They had reached Nathan’s cabin. He threw his pack aside and knelt at the tiny hearth to lay a fire.

  “’Twas a dismal time of it here, with enlistments expiring and even the heroes who’d reenlisted gone home on furlough.” Hull bowed mockingly, and Nathan tossed a stick of kindling at him over his shoulder. “His Excellency thought he’d raise our spirits by raising a flag.”

  “The one I passed in Cambridge on my way here?”

  Hull nodded. “That’s an old ship’s mast it’s hanging from—only thing that would get it high enough to suit His Excellency. Had that mast specially salvaged and planted on the hill. Between hill and mast, the flag’s probably, what, seventy, eighty feet in the air? So all of Boston saw it same as us, including the Redcoats. The red and white stripes are for the Provinces and our unity, though my men are ready to kill any Bostonian who criticizes our fighting, and the Rhode Islanders wanted to mutiny the other week when a Massachusetts major was assigned to their regiment.”

  Nathan held his hands over the fire curling around the wood. “’Tis amazing, the energy they have to hate each other. I use all mine up hating the government.”

  “’Twill take more than a flag to unite us. Anyway, happened we raised that flag the day they got copies in Boston of his Majesty’s most gracious speech, breathing sentiments of tenderness and compassion
for his deluded American subjects. Redcoats decided the king’s more eloquent than they knew. Once we go and raise that flag with the British Jack in the upper corner, they figured it for a token of submission, the deep impression that speech made on us. We had a hot time persuading them otherwise.”

  “That where the cannon came in that I saw near headquarters?”

  “Henry Knox is responsible for those.”

  “Henry Knox.” Nathan added more wood to the blaze. “I know that name.”

  “You should. We ordered some of Linonia’s library from him. He ran The London Book-Store in Boston, but he’s spent the last four or five months dragging all those cannon back here from that fort Arnold captured over in New York. Fort Kontigerola or some such.”

  “Ticonderoga.” Nathan threw another twig at him. “You can conjugate ingredior in all its tenses, but you can’t remember Ticonderoga?”

  “Well, these savage names they give everything....His Excellency wants those cannon fired as a diversion. While the Redcoats are busy dodging our shells, we’ll seize Dorchester Heights, that hill down there on the Neck overlooking Boston, and fortify it.”

  The Continentals labored mightily to emplace Knox’s guns over the next month, fashioning in camp the fortifications to protect Dorchester Heights. On the appointed night, they would erect those works atop the frozen hills, without need for digging. Men felled brush for barricades, built barrels and filled them with earth, hauled logs from far to the west. Nathan worked to exhaustion with hands growing as calloused as they did during harvest.

  At dark, he mounted picket duty closer to the enemy’s guns than he liked, grappling with the cold and his fear. It was the same fear that had chilled him when his father, clutching Baby Joanna, had sobbed the unthinkable, that their mother was dying. They were ranged around the Deacon in the firelight after supper and looked at each other blankly, the younger ones unable to comprehend, the older ones refusing to. Though he thought it impossible that evening, they survived.