Drew spread his legs wide, planting his toes in the dirt to steady himself, to keep her from pulling him backward, though she hardly weighed anything now. She steadied herself against him.
“Run to the house, Jenny,” Drew said, circling around so that now both she and the house were at his back. She had a clear path.
He felt her fumbling for the pistol in his waistband
“No, Jenny! No!”
She was clutching at the butt of the pistol, trying to pull it from his waistband. He grabbed for it. Missed. Hit her hand instead. The pistol clattered to the ground behind his heel.
Eliot saw it and the grin vanished from his face, but only for a moment. A pistol in the dirt was no threat to him.
Drew took a step back, increasing the distance between them and their attacker, kicking the pistol as he did so, pushing Jenny toward the house with his hands.
“Run to the house, Jenny! Now! Run!”
He could no longer feel her.
A quick glance over his shoulder.
He saw Jenny’s back, and beyond her, in the distance, Nell coming out of the house, calling to her, urging her on. Jenny was having a hard time of it, barely able to stand, her progress barely the pace of a crawl.
Ffffffthump!
An arrow from the forest pierced the earth, landing between Drew and Jenny.
Eliot attacked, only he couldn’t do it without yelling and the cry alerted Drew, who turned back just in time to see the knife coming down at him. Instinct saved him. Ducking to one side, raising his arms defensively, he aborted the thrust by blocking the blow, his crossed forearms stopping Eliot’s forearm.
He caught Eliot off balance. A shove sent his attacker reeling backward, skidding to the ground on his backside.
The pistol.
Drew searched the ground for the weapon. He saw it perhaps a dozen feet away. He went for it.
Ffffffthump!
Drew’s right leg collapsed under him. He fell to one knee, the shaft of an arrow buried deep in his thigh. Pain seized his leg, crippling pain, spreading like wildfire to his knee, racing to his hip, locking up his joints, rendering them useless. His hand to the ground, he steadied himself to keep from falling over.
If he collapsed now, he was dead. Eliot would be on him in a heartbeat.
Have to stay alive long enough for Jenny to reach the house.
He checked her progress.
She had stopped! She was just standing there, not but a few feet beyond the pistol, shoulders slumped, staring at her sister who was pleading with her to keep moving.
Drew wanted to go to her, to sweep her up in his arms, to carry her to safety, to the house he’d built for her and Nell. But he knew they’d never make it. Not with an arrow in his leg. Eliot would come after them, catch up with them. The only way to save her, was to stop Eliot.
But even if he managed to hold Eliot off long enough for Jenny to reach the house, probably at the cost of his own life… what then?
Eliot would pursue Nell and Jenny again. Another place. Another time. He was relentless. The only way Nell and Jenny would be safe is if Eliot was stopped for good.
Drew had to kill him.
He turned his back on Jenny, handing her over to Nell, and faced Eliot Venner. His task was clear. Bishop Laud’s operative in the colonies, Drew’s former mentor, must not leave this field alive. Whether or not Drew survived was inconsequential. Eliot must die.
Biting back the pain, Drew maneuvered his feet under him and stood, an arrow sticking out of his leg at an unsightly angle.
Eliot moved toward him. He, too, seemed to conclude that it was just the two of them now.
“Remember that time by the river,” Eliot said, “when you were all blue and I poked you all over, and you were too slow to do anything about it? I’m gonna do that again, only this time I’m not gonna use my finger, and instead of blue, when I’m done with you, you’ll be covered with red, from toe to head.”
Eliot slashed.
Drew jumped back, pain shooting up his leg.
Another slash, this one closer.
Another jump. More pain. Drew’s head was swimming.
A third slash, only this time Eliot followed close behind it, head down, plowing forward, catching Drew mid-jump, lifting him off his feet, slamming him to the ground, knocking the breath from his lungs.
Drew gasped for air while at the same time trying to shove the slippery, sweating, painted body off of him. But he couldn’t get a grip, his hands kept slipping on Eliot’s slick skin.
When Eliot tried pushing himself up, Drew realized that, pressed against him like this, Eliot couldn’t use his knife. Drew changed tactics. Instead of pushing Eliot off, Drew hugged him, pinning his attacker’s arms down to his sides. Drew locked his hands together, holding on with all his might.
Eliot struggled to break free. Drew held tight, satisfied for the moment that he had Eliot neutralized, giving Nell time to reach Jenny and get her to safety.
Aaaaaahhhhhhh!
In his struggle to get free, Eliot kicked the arrow in Drew’s leg.
Drew nearly passed out from the pain.
It took Eliot a moment to realize what had happened. When he did…
Aaaaaahhhhhhh!
Now Eliot wasn’t in any hurry to get up. With a laugh, he kicked the arrow again.
Drew’s senses blurred from the pain. Through his own screams he thought he could hear someone shouting. It sounded like Nell, but he couldn’t make out what she was saying.
An arrow whizzed overhead.
Ffffffthump!
A scream.
Nell!
Still holding Eliot close, Drew craned his neck in the direction of the scream.
Nell was still a safe distance away.
Jenny wasn’t.
She’d come back. She was a short distance away, on her knees, with an arrow protruding from her chest and a faraway look in her eyes. With a slow, half-turn, she collapsed to her side.
“No!” Drew shouted.
Eliot, too, reacted in anger.
“This is my hunt!” he shouted at the trees.
With Jenny on the ground, the colonists opened fired. Musket shot whizzed overhead, peppering the trees, sending bark and wood chips flying everywhere, driving the Indians back into the woods.
Angrily, Eliot kicked the arrow in Drew’s leg, snapping it off, throwing Drew’s head back in pain, and breaking his grip.
Eliot sat up, straddling Drew who was unable to do anything to stop him.
His painted chest heaving in victory, Eliot raised his knife.
Drew lifted a hand to stop him, but they both knew there was no strength in it. It was over. Already, life was seeping from Drew’s body and the blade had yet to find its mark. Drew’s only victory was that Eliot had not been able to keep him alive to witness the mutilation of his body.
Stifling his hyena laugh, Eliot said, “Imagine the reception Laud will give me when I describe your death and then deliver to him the real Justin!”
Knocking Drew’s protecting arm aside, Eliot Venner lifted the blade to ram it into Drew’s heart.
“Who’s the bishop’s top boy now?” he said.
BLAM!
The report was close. Loud. Loud enough to startle Drew’s failing senses.
Eliot bolted upright. His eyes quickened with a dreadful realization of what had just happened, his arms fell limp at his side, the knife dropped to the ground. He fell forward, landing on Drew as lifeless as a sack of grain.
Fighting to remain conscious, Drew struggled to free himself, shoving the body of the painted wild man off of him. Free of his burden, he sat up to see who it was who had killed Eliot and saved him.
The colonists, led by John Winthrop, were running into the field.
Coming from the house was Nell, with the Coopers and Marshall and Mary Ramsden close behind.
A short distance from him, on the ground, propped up on one elbow and holding a smoking pistol, Jenny Matthews looked at
Drew through dying eyes, eyes that told him she would always love him.
EPILOGUE
Nell approached her husband from behind and tenderly wrapped her arms around his neck.
“Reminiscing?”
Drew nodded.
“They’re waiting for us.”
“Give me a moment.”
Drew Morgan sat at the table in the sitting room of the house he built overlooking Boston’s bay. In front of him were two books: the Bible he’d brought over with him from England and his journal.
Twenty-two years had passed since he penned the journal’s first entry:
May 16, 1632
Jenny was buried today. She’s with her father now. I pray he’ll forgive me. I failed in my promise to keep her safe. My only comfort is in knowing she’s in a place where no one can ever hurt her again.
Nell sat beside her husband and caressed his arm.
“I’m glad we didn’t go back to England. God’s been good to us here.”
Drew was flipping the pages of the journal. One place was marked with an envelope.
February 26, 1645
Word has reached us from England today. Bishop William Laud, archbishop of Canterbury, was executed on January 10 of this year. During his trial he was held in the Tower of London and was beheaded on the green.
The account of his death had two quotes in it—
Nehemiah Wallington
“His Little Grace, that great enemy of God, his head cut off.”
John Dod
“The Little Firework of Canterbury was extinguished on Tower Hill.”
I can’t help but have mixed feelings. Bishop Laud was a vindictive, hateful man. But he was always good to me.
“Did I ever tell you your father was a prophet?” Drew said.
Nell smiled. “What are you talking about?”
“When he had charge of me in Edenford, he took me bowling with David Cooper. After the game, we sat by the river, and your father told us a story about a poor man who attempted to rob a thief. The thief scolded him, telling the poor man he was going about it all wrong, and then proceeded to teach him the correct way to rob someone, whereupon the poor man robbed the thief the correct way.”
Nell laughed. “That sounds like one of my father’s stories.”
“After the story your father likened the thief to Bishop Laud, pointing out that the bishop was teaching England to hate and kill and that his teaching would be his own undoing. According to the reports I read of Laud’s trial, the prosecutor had no ears and wore brands on his cheeks, one of the bishop’s former victims.”
Nell pointed to the envelope.
“Why do you keep that?”
“I don’t know. Does it disturb you?”
“A little.”
It was a letter from Archbishop Laud, written from London’s Tower just days before his execution. Drew didn’t receive it until well after the archbishop’s death.
In the letter the archbishop wrote that no one had ever hurt him as much as Drew. He said he had no remorse for his actions. There was no mention of Eliot. At the bottom of the letter the bishop had written: (6/1/17/20–23) (40/5/14/13) (5/1/7/5–6) (22/5/4/1–2) —“God be with thee on your journey. My beloved.”
Nell reached over and closed the journal.
“I don’t want to think about Archbishop Laud today,” she said. “This is a special day, and I don’t want him ruining it.”
“Like it or not,” Drew replied, “we never would have met if it weren’t for him.”
“I still don’t want to think about him today.”
She pointed to the Bible resting next to the journal, the one Bishop Laud had given him, the translation authorized by King James.
“And I still don’t like that Bible,” she said.
She squeezed his arm and gave him a peck on the cheek.
“Come, it’s time.”
Drew and Nell Morgan walked arm-in-arm down the hill toward the old meeting tree, no longer the place for town business and worship services once the church building had been erected.
Waiting for them was their family.
Christopher, their eldest son, twenty years old.
Lucy, nineteen, standing next to her intended, William Sinclair, a schoolmaster.
And Roger, sixteen, who resembled his father at that age.
Drew stood tall before them, a proud father.
Christopher had associated himself with Reverend John Eliot, the former pastor of Roxbury, in missionary activities among the Indians. Together with his mentor, he was learning Indian dialects and assisting the missionary in founding thirteen colonies of “Praying Indians,” comprised of over 1,000 members.
Lucy was a headstrong young woman who championed the abused, neglected, and the outcasts. Her outspokenness had gotten her into trouble on more than one occasion. Yet she was a woman of conviction, and although her father didn’t always agree with her, he was proud of her determined spirit.
Roger was still an unknown. He spent his days daydreaming of pioneers and tales of western adventure.
“A Morgan family tradition begins today,” Drew began.
He appraised each child separately.
Christopher had his mother’s brown eyes; Lucy, with her beautiful, long, straight hair, resembled Jenny, the aunt she never knew; Roger was fidgety, restless.
“The tradition we begin today marks the passing of our family’s spiritual heritage from one generation to the next.”
Drew held up his Bible.
“This is the symbol of our heritage, the Bible I brought with me from England. Inside—”
Drew opened the Bible and pulled out a cloth cross.
“—is a cross of lace, your mother’s contribution to our legacy.”
Lovingly, he laid the cross in the crease between two pages and closed the book.
“The person who possesses this Bible has a twofold obligation. First, it will be his responsibility to ensure that the spiritual heritage of the Morgan family is passed to his progeny. Second, it will be his responsibility to select a person worthy of this heritage to succeed him. In a family ceremony like this one, he will deliver this Bible, this cross, and an admonition to the candidate to remain faithful to God and His Word.”
Nell scowled at Roger. He was drawing something in the dirt with his shoe and not paying attention. The boy caught his mother’s glance, sighed, and looked at his father.
“In the front of the Bible,” Drew opened the cover, “there will be a list of each person who has been entrusted with the care of the Morgan spiritual heritage. The list begins with my name.
He read aloud:
Drew Morgan, 1630. Zechariah 4:6.
“Below my name, I have written:
Christopher Morgan, 1654, Matthew 28:19.
Christopher smiled. He liked his father’s choice of verse.
“The Scripture reference that accompanies my name was given to me by my spiritual father, your grandfather, Christopher Matthews. It has become my life’s verse. As Christopher’s father, I have chosen a life verse for him: “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.”
Drew Morgan handed the Bible to his eldest son.
“As the head of the Morgan family, I entrust to your keeping the responsibility of carrying on the Morgan family faith. My prayer for you is that God will bless you with a son and that one day you will hand this Bible to him with a similar charge. I also pray that you will be as proud of him as I am of you.”
Drew hugged his son. Nell kissed Christopher on the cheek.
“Before God, I promise to do my best to make you proud of me,” Christopher said.
For the remainder of the afternoon, the Morgan family and William Sinclair sat beneath the meeting tree reminiscing about growing up in Boston Colony and telling various family tales, many of them having been stretched beyond believability. The highlight of the afternoon came when Drew Morgan related his
children the narrative of the beginning of the Morgan family faith.
“The story begins at Windsor Castle,” he said, “the day I met Bishop Laud. For it was on that day my life began its downward direction.”
AFTERWORD
Historical fiction is the weaving together of two colorful strands—historical fact and imaginative fiction; the finished product, if the author is successful, is a narrative tapestry depicting scenes of life from a previous age. In this type of work the question inevitably arises as to how much of each strand the author used. How much of the tale is fact, and how much is fiction? Of course, the amount of each strand and its placement in the overall tapestry is the creative task of the author. For those who are interested in this author’s use of these two strands, I offer the following paragraphs.
In general, the life and times of the men and women in seventeenth century England is based on historical research. From this research, I attempted to recreate the physical, emotional, and spiritual setting of the era. Then, having identified the paramount conflicts and interests of that day, I chose characters that would portray the various sides, some historical and some fictional.
Historically, I selected Bishop William Laud, King Charles I, and John Winthrop to portray interests on each side of the conflict. Other historical characters making minor appearances include Rev. John Cotton, Roger Williams, Rev. Francis Higginson, Rev. Skelton, and Governor Endecott. The families Morgan, Matthews, Cooper, and Chesterfield are fictitious as are Eliot Venner, and Marshall and Mary Ramsden. The story is carried along by the fictitious Drew Morgan. Through his eyes we see the controlling desires of the English church and crown, the awakening evangelical faith of the Puritans, the emptiness of the vast wealth of the class of country gentlemen, and the riches of spiritual life through Jesus Christ in the midst of persecution and poverty.
The Puritans (American Family Portrait #1) Page 47