The Patriot Witch

by C. C. Finlay

  “Not on purpose,” he said.

  “Mmm-hmm. It's that purpose part that's the problem. Miss Deborah doubts your purpose, and until she's sure of you, nobody's going to teach you a thing worth learning.” She straightened and smacked the dirt from her hands. “But you didn't hear that from me.”

  She gathered up the weeds and carried them down to the compost piles. The group of women was still making their way clockwise around the property, and had reached the pasture behind the barn.

  “I didn't hear it from you,” Proctor said. “But I hear it loud and clear.”

  On his way back to the barn, he stopped by the chicken coop, hoping to find an egg. He'd avoided scrying since they'd warned him about it, waiting for a chance to learn to use it better. He pushed the chickens aside, rummaging through their nests, but it was the wrong time of day. There were no eggs.

  He kicked the side of the coop as he left it, and the rooster charged him, flapping its wings and pecking at his shins.

  “Doesn't matter what I'd see anyway,” he said as he skipped out of its way. “I already made up my mind.”

  Chapter 13

  That night, Proctor waited until Jedediah's deep snores echoed off the rafters. He listened for the better part of an hour, until he was sure the older man was deep asleep. Then he quietly rolled up his blanket and climbed to the edge of the loft.

  The wooden ladder creaked under his weight, so he jumped, pushing off from the top rung and landing nimbly on his feet. He put on his shoes, shrugged on his jacket, and stopped at the well for a quick drink. He had nothing to take with him but the clothes on his back and a single knife. With a little luck, he could be halfway to Concord by sunrise.

  The wind stirred, ringing chimes hanging from a tree.

  Nimrod appeared from around the barn. He ran, tail wagging, to Proctor's side and joined him as he walked from the house toward the main gate. The shaggy black dog kept butting his head against Proctor's thigh and nuzzling his hand until Proctor knelt to scratch his chin and rub behind his ears. The dog slobbered happily on Proctor, as if they were old friends.

  “I'm going to miss you, boy,” Proctor whispered.

  A hand fell on his shoulder. “Where art thou going there, friend?”

  Proctor jumped at the touch. He took a step back when he saw the musket in Jedediah's hand. The old man stood shoeless and hatless, out of bed in a hurry. Nimrod, tail thumping twice as fast, weaved in circles around their legs, hopping for attention.

  “What's it to you where I go?” Proctor asked.

  “Well, that depends on how much I trust thee,” Jedediah answered. “Thou must admit it is suspicious, sneaking off in the middle of the night.”

  Anger coursed through Proctor, mixed with sadness. “So am I a prisoner here, then? A slave, like Lydia? Do you plan to shoot me if I try to leave?”

  “Nothing of the sort, friend,” Jedediah said. He rested the gun against the ground. “I heard Elizabeth's warning chimes ring, so I knew someone was walking the property. I didn't realize it was thee. The last time someone came here in the middle of the night, it was to try to burn us, so I had to be cautious.”

  Chimes rang again, startling Jedediah. This time Proctor realized that he heard the sound even though the air was still. Nimrod's ears went back against his head. He turned toward the gate and growled.

  “What's wrong, boy?” Proctor asked.

  Jedediah pressed a finger to his lips to indicate silence and pointed toward shadows below them.

  Three heads topped by feathers prowled along the low stone wall at the gate. Even knowing that the days of wars against the French and their Indian allies were over, Proctor tensed at the memory of what had been done to his father. The British had Indian allies as well.

  Jedediah loaded his musket quickly. As the metal ramrod scraped softly against the inside of the barrel, Proctor keenly felt the absence of his own weapon. Emerson had insisted that he couldn't return to his house for it, and had said he wouldn't need one on The Farm in any case.

  The situation looked a little different now. If there were only three attackers, he and Jedediah might be able to scare them off. If there were more than three, or if they didn't scare easily …

  Nimrod growled again. He would have charged the men as they came over the wall, but Proctor dropped to his knees. He grabbed Nimrod by the scruff of his neck and held his muzzle shut. Surprise might be the only advantage they had. The men below didn't know yet that they'd been spotted.

  “Run to the house and warn Elizabeth,” Jedediah whispered to Proctor as he finished loading his musket. “She'll know what to do. If thou must escape, take them out past the orchard and through the swamp.”

  “But—”

  “I'll slow them down as long as I can, but hurry. Now let him go,” he said, pulling Proctor's hand off the dog. “Go, Nimrod, hunt!”

  Nimrod barked furiously, racing toward the three men who had fanned out and were walking side by side up the path toward the house.

  Jedediah raised his musket and followed Nimrod. He called out, “Leave now and live. Take one more step and I'll shoot you where you stand.”

  All this unfolded while Proctor crouched in the darkness, unwillingly to leave Jedediah's side against three-to-one odds, but unwilling to stand beside him without his own musket.

  At the sound of Jedediah's voice, the Indian on the left spewed a string of oaths and yanked a pistol from his belt. Nimrod leapt, biting his arm and dragging it down as the gun discharged. The flash illuminated three faces slashed with red and black war paint, but the brightness momentarily blinded Proctor.

  The second Indian raised his musket in the same instant and fired.

  The ball made a wet pop as it hit Jedediah's chest, and a noise came out of his mouth like a punctured balloon. The instant after the ball hit him, his own musket discharged uselessly into the air.

  Nimrod growled and scuffled with the first Indian. Proctor crouched low, not moving, counting on the attackers to be blinded by the flash from their guns. He would have run to Jedediah's side, only the damage he had seen on Lexington Green told him it was already too late.

  The second Indian ran to the old man's body.

  Nimrod's growls became more intense, and the first Indian said, in a voice as Yankee as any Proctor ever heard at church, “Help me out, Dick, the dog's mauling my arm!”

  “Hang on,” called the third man in the same familiar Yankee cadence. They were no more Indians than any of the men who'd thrown British tea into Boston Harbor. Somehow that made Proctor more afraid, not less. These were his neighbors, at least in some sense of the word. And they had come to kill him.

  The third man buried his hatchet in Nimrod's skull. The dog yelped and fell back, and the man lunged forward with another whack to finish the job.

  “We're damned fools, shooting off our guns,” the second man said. He bent over Jedediah's body with a knife and sawed off one of his ears. “We're here to kill them witches. We best do it quick now before they figure out what's going on and cast spells on us.”

  They knew there were witches here and felt confident enough that they could kill them. The lack of fear distressed Proctor. He wished he had run for the house when he had the chance. There was no way he could beat the three men there—or if he did, it would only be by seconds. And most of the women, maybe all of them, would rather die than use their powers to kill. Deborah might be the only one capable of protecting them.

  Proctor's militia training, all the drilling and marching, hadn't prepared him for this kind of battle. But he remembered something his father had told him about being a scout in the war against the French and Indians. If you were in a fight with a man up close, it was best to hit him hard and fast, and then keep hitting until he was down.

  Proctor swallowed. If he'd left an hour earlier, he'd be on his way home now, and no one would be the wiser.

  Only these assassins would have caught The Farm unprepared and slaughtered everyone inside.


  Proctor drew his knife. The first two men passed him in a hurry, and he let them go. The third trailed behind as he tried to bind the dog bite on his arm.

  When the third man passed, Proctor reared up and grabbed a handful of the man's hair. He yanked the head back, slashing across the throat the way he would to drain a deer. Warm blood spurted over his hands as he shoved the body aside.

  He charged the second man, who was just turning at the sound of his companion's death. Proctor jammed his knife down into the man's shoulder. He grunted and fell, twisting the hilt out of Proctor's blood-slippery hand. Proctor hopped over him and made an awkward tackle of the last Indian, who stank of grease and whiskey.

  “Damn, you're just a boy,” the man said. Then he smashed his forehead into Proctor's nose.

  Light and pain flashed through Proctor's head as the impact knocked him backward.

  The other man fumbled for his pistol. Proctor lurched up, blinking through the pain, and grabbed for the weapon as it pointed toward his face. The hammer smashed down on his fingers, and he yelped in pain, but it prevented the gun from firing.

  The false Indian jerked the barrel sideways. The cold metal slashed a wound across Proctor's brow, but he held on tight and wrenched the barrel away with both hands. When the man drew his knife, Proctor used the pistol as a club, smashing the butt against his head. The man reeled from the blow, but he charged back at Proctor, slashing wildly with his knife. Proctor dodged the weapon, then jumped inside the man's guard. He knocked him to the ground and pinned his knife hand down, battering his head with the pistol until he lay still.

  A voice said something behind him. Proctor spun to his feet, holding his free hand out defensively. The pistol was still clutched club-like in his other fist.

  A lantern bobbed toward him, a group of people, yards away. Elizabeth's voice said, “God have mercy, what's happened here?”

  “An attack,” Proctor gasped, lowering his club. His eyes searched around for other attackers. “Three men—there may be more.”

  Deborah came forward, holding the lantern. “You have blood on your hands.”

  “I just saved your lives,” Proctor said, searching for the third man. Two lay dead on the ground, but the third was gone. “They shot Jedediah.”

  “Jed?” Elizabeth cried, then more frantically, “Jed!”

  “He's over there,” Proctor said, pointing. “Give me the lantern.”

  “We need it to treat Jed,” Deborah said, searching for the older man.

  “One of them is still out here,” Proctor said. “He came here to kill you all, and as long as you're holding the lantern, you're an easy target.”

  Deborah spun, expecting an attack to come instantly.

  Alexandra said, “Give him the lantern and I'll go fetch another.” Without waiting for an answer, she turned and, holding up her skirts, ran to the house.

  Proctor reached for the lantern. Deborah's hand shook as she handed it over. He dropped the battered pistol and pulled the hatchet from the dead man's belt. It still had Nimrod's blood and fur on it.

  At the same moment, Elizabeth found Jedediah's body. She knelt at his side, cradling his bald head in her lap while the other women gathered around her. Magdalena shook her head, saying nothing, and Lydia stood with her arms folded. Deborah turned away from Jedediah's body and watched Proctor.

  Certain they were safe for the moment, he bent the lantern near the ground and looked for signs of the other man. He found a trail of crushed grass, some of it slick with blood. He had followed it forty or fifty yards from the house, almost to the gate, when he heard a horse whicker impatiently.

  Hand tight on the tomahawk, Proctor proceeded slowly. The lantern made him the easy target now.

  The pool of light flowed ahead of him, revealing a man crawling on the ground. The handle of Proctor's knife still protruded from his shoulder. He clutched a rock in his hand as a weapon.

  Proctor approached slowly, prodding the man with the tomahawk. “Who wants these women dead?”

  The man's eyes were wide and almost blank, staring at Proctor without any sign of recognition. Blood bubbled from his nose as he panted, trying to form words. He would be lucky to get out a single answer.

  “Tell me who sent you,” Proctor demanded.

  Determination flared in the man's eyes, and he swung the rock at Proctor's head. Proctor easily blocked the blow, but the motion made the other man roll. The knife shoved deeper into his shoulder, and he cried out in pain.

  “What's that? Are you all right?” cried Deborah's voice from the darkness behind him.

  “I'm all right,” Proctor called back.

  He set the lantern down and rolled the man onto his side, removing pressure from the knife. The man groaned in pain. They needed him alive, if only to find out who sent them, and why.

  “Hang on,” Proctor said. “We've got the best healers in the colony right here on this farm.” Raising his voice, he cried, “Help! Wounded man down here! We need help!”

  The man lifted his head and tried to speak.

  “Yes?” Proctor asked. He leaned close, his ear almost to the man's mouth. “What is it? Who sent you?”

  The man whispered, “Damn you to hell, boy.”

  Proctor started to shake. Grabbing the lantern, he ran back up the path, calling for help again. The women were all bent over Jedediah. Elizabeth cradled his head in her lap, speaking soothing words; Deborah knelt over him, trying to clean his wounds. Lydia held a lantern for them while Alexandra ran from the house with bandages. Magdalena stood to the side, shaking her head.

  “The third one is still alive,” Proctor said. “But only barely. Can one of you come help me? I don't know what to do.”

  Deborah tossed her loose hair back. “Can't you see we're busy here?”

  Elizabeth placed her good hand on Deborah's forearm. “Where's Cecily? I'll send Cecily. Cecily?”

  “She's hiding in the house, ma'am,” Lydia said. “Said she's afraid.”

  Elizabeth nodded as if she understood, and she pushed Deborah away. “Thou hast done all thou can here. If the other man can be saved, then for the sake of mercy, I beg thee go save him.”

  Deborah threw down the bloody rags. To the other women, she said, “Help Elizabeth carry him inside. We will be back shortly.”

  They walked quickly down the path again. “He's got a knife stuck in his shoulder,” Proctor said. “Has lost a lot of blood. He's here by the gate.”

  “Where?” asked Deborah.

  She was right. The man was gone. Proctor carried the lantern back and forth, but there was no sign of the man, only a trail of crushed grass through the gate. The horses were all gone too.

  “You must be very disappointed,” Deborah said. “Not to have killed them all.”

  Proctor spun, holding the lantern up between their faces. The light revealed both of them covered chest-to-waist, hand-to-elbow in blood.

  “These men came here to kill you,” he said. “They did kill Jedediah, whose last words begged me to protect all of you. They damned near killed me. So if you don't trust me, if you think I'm your enemy, just say it straight-out, and I will walk away from here and not come back.”

  Deborah dropped her head. “You're right.”

  “Because … what?”

  “No, you're right. I have no reason to judge you. I beg your forgiveness.” She turned away and stepped out of the light. “It's just that it is hard to see my father dead like that, lying in my mother's lap.”

  Chapter 14

  Before the attack, the skies had been clear for days, a few brushstrokes of cloud whitewashed on the bright blue but no hint of rain.

  The morning after the attack, clouds rolled in slowly from all directions, growing darker as they gathered. The air began to twitch like the skin of a horse bothered by flies.

  Proctor was sitting in the loft, sniffing the sharp smell of the air, when the drizzle started. The raindrops pattered a lullaby on the wooden shingles. The gloomy day
was made for napping, but he was in no mood to sleep. He had no idea what he should be doing. He was still a bit shaky from the fight the previous night.

  Elizabeth and the other women had already cleaned Jedediah's body and laid him out to rest. When Proctor went inside to see if he could help, Magdalena had snapped that she did not want to share a room with a killer, and Cecily had asked him to leave. He returned to the barn like a hired hand. Until last night, he had thought Jedediah was some kind of hired hand, and not the master of the farm.

  A scrap of weeping slipped through a crack in the house's windows and reached his ears through the rain. Proctor felt bad for Elizabeth, and for Deborah too, no matter how she treated him.

  Nobody, especially not Proctor, wept for either of the dead men wrapped in old horse blankets and tucked into the stall below. They were drunks and murderers, sent to kill a house full of women, and they deserved what happened to them. The flies had already started to find them; whenever the rain lessened its patter, he noticed their buzz. The milk cow complained about the smell and the flies, banging the sideboards of her stall from time to time.

  Two men dead, but one had escaped. Proctor doubted that the survivor made it very far, or would long outlive his companions. Whoever sent the widow had sent the false Indians, and next they would send somebody else. Proctor couldn't leave the women unguarded until somebody else arrived to protect them. He made up his mind to write a letter to the Reverend Emerson and find some way to post it.

  These thoughts paced familiar paths in his head, like a dog leashed to a post. He fell into a fitful sleep, with dreams of fighting Indians and being scalped like his father had been. Something startled him awake, and he bolted up, plucking straw from his hair and rubbing his eyes. He heard the noise again, a dull chopping sound.

  Proctor grabbed his weapons and jumped from the loft. A few steps outside the barn, he slipped to a stop. Even with the rain blurring his eyes, he recognized Deborah at the edge of the orchard behind the house. Her skirt was pinned to her knees, and she hacked away at the ground with the garden spade.