The Way Lies North

by Jean Rae Baxter

  “No. Washington’s forces aren’t strong enough to take New York, and the British haven’t a chance unless England sends reinforcements. Fighting will drag on for a couple more years.”

  “At least you’ll be back here in the spring.”

  “Yes, and we’ll go to Fort Hunter to dig up those things your father buried. That is, if he doesn’t change his mind. We both know that he has doubts. Besides, he doesn’t altogether trust me.”

  “You’re a man; I’m his daughter.”

  “It’s not just that. It’s partly because I changed sides. Nobody trusts a turncoat.”

  “Don’t call yourself that.”

  “That’s the word for a man who changes sides.”

  “You haven’t told me why.” She turned to him. “When are you going to? I’ve waited all week, and your last chance is tonight.”

  “I’ve put it off because I didn’t want to hurt you.”

  “I saw your face when you told Papa that bad things happened. What did you mean?”

  Swallows skimmed the surface of the darkening water. A bat swooped overhead. Nick was still looking at the trees on the far side of the channel when he began to speak.

  “You’d been gone one week before I found out that your family had left the Mohawk Valley.”

  “We left without telling anyone.”

  “I didn’t expect you to tell me. I hadn’t seen you for five months.” Nearby a cricket cheeped. “This is how I heard. Around the end of October, I went with my father to Johnstown to sell some cattle. After we got them into the sales barn, we took a room at the inn. Dad went to bed. I wasn’t tired, so I thought I’d go downstairs to the tavern for a beer. I’d just been served when Ben Warren swaggered in with three or four friends.”

  Ben Warren. A shiver ran down Charlotte’s spine.

  “As soon as he saw me, he started laughing. He shouted your name. He called you my Tory sweetheart, and other words that I’d never repeat.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I threw my drink in his face.”

  “And then?” She knew there had to be more.

  “He bragged that he and two of his friends had … used you.”

  “Used me how?”

  “Like a harlot.”

  “Harlot!” Charlotte stiffened.

  “I couldn’t believe it. But when three men attack one woman, what chance does the woman have?” As he spoke, he kept his face turned away.

  “That depends on the woman and on how hard she fights. I did more damage to Warren than he did to me. He wanted to kill me. He wanted to kill Mama and Papa too. But another man put a stop to it. That’s all that happened.”

  “Thank God for that. I couldn’t stand the thought of any man harming you.” Nick let out his breath in a long sigh. “But Warren had one more boast, and this one was true. He bragged about shooting a redcoat in the ravine behind your farm. He said he was deer hunting but bagged bigger game.”

  “Isaac!” She shivered.

  “Yes. It was Isaac. By then I knew that James and Charlie had died at Saratoga and that Isaac was missing. So he might have been in the ravine waiting for a chance to get home. When I got back to Fort Hunter, I went to your house. There was a new grave in the orchard, and your family had gone.”

  Nick went on to explain how he had quarrelled with his father and left home, but Charlotte heard barely a word of all that. Her thoughts were back in the Mohawk Valley. In her mind’s eye she saw Isaac lying on the scuffed carpet of pine needles and dry leaves, his eyes wide open and staring up at the sky.

  Charlotte gripped Nick’s arm. “Warren will pay for this. He’ll get what he deserves.”

  “You’ll need boy’s clothes,” Nick said in the morning. “I’ll be in Montreal before spring. I can buy them there. But you must be measured for them. Come, stand in front of me.”

  From the corner of her eye, she caught a glimpse of Papa’s glum face and the twitch of a smile at the corner of Mama’s mouth.

  “Closer,” said Nick. “We must do this by comparison, since we don’t have a measuring tape.”

  With her body pressed against his and her head tucked under his chin, he measured her, arm against arm, leg against leg. Four hand spans told him the size of her waist. When he had finished, he stood back and grinned. “I enjoyed that, but I’ll never get used to your being a boy.”

  “You’ll be amazed at how manly I can be. But Nick, you’ll need a disguise as much as I will.”

  “Maybe more. If they caught me, they could hang me as a traitor or as a horse thief. I’d be dead either way.”

  She lifted the lock of fine blond hair that fell across his brow. “I’ll make a tincture of walnut husks. It dyes wool, so it ought to colour hair. And you must grow a beard. With brown hair and a brown beard, you’ll look like a different person.”

  “Will you still love me?”

  “With brotherly love.”

  Nick laughed and kissed her cheek. “Now I must pack.”

  “So soon?” She took his hand.

  “It’s not so soon. If I don’t leave now, I won’t reach the mouth of the Oswego by nightfall.”

  Charlotte let go his hand and sat down on her leaf-filled mattress while Nick packed his gear. Into his rucksack he put his steel mirror, his razor and strap, his cup, bowl, knife and spoon. All the while, he said nothing.

  She felt miserable. It was so unfair — Nick returning to his life of action, leaving her with nothing to fill the empty months that lay ahead.

  “I wish I could go with you,” she said. “I would like to be a courier.”

  Nick looked up. “No. It wouldn’t suit you.” He rolled up his blankets.

  “Why not?”

  “Would you like to spend three days in a bear cave?”

  “As much as I liked three days in a root cellar.”

  “Sorry. I take that back. You’ve lived as rough as most men ever do. But I still don’t like the idea.”

  When he had finished packing, he reached out both hands to pull her to her feet.

  “Do you know where you’re going?” Charlotte asked.

  “The Commander has a mission for me, but I can’t tell you anything.”

  “I’m afraid.”

  “Don’t be. I’ll be back.”

  She touched his face, drew her fingers down his cheek, and then traced his lips. “I’m trying to memorize you, like a poem.”

  He smiled. “You already know me by heart.”

  Chapter sixteen

  “I’m sorry, Miss Charlotte. No letter for you.”

  Again, no letter. For three months, no letter. Sergeant Major Clark’s moustache drooped in sympathy. His voice was as apologetic as if it were his fault that Nick had not written. Or maybe Nick had written, but his letter had strayed, in some courier’s pack, to the Ohio Valley or the Carolinas or wherever faraway campaigns were being waged.

  “Perhaps the letter you’re waiting for will come with the next bateau,” said Clark. “There’s always a mail packet from Montreal. If your friend …”

  “His name is Nick.”

  “If Nick is ever in Montreal, he can leave a letter for you at Sir John Johnson’s house for delivery in care of Fort Haldimand.”

  “That’s what I’m hoping for. When will the next bateau arrive?”

  “In about two weeks. It will be the last before winter.”

  “Just think,” Charlotte sighed, “we’ve been here a whole year. It feels like forever.”

  “Waiting always feels like forever,” Clark said as he measured out the Hoopers’ weekly ration of flour. He looked around. No one else stood within earshot. “Never lose hope. I was seven months without word from my dear Fidelia. And now … can you keep a secret?”

  “Well, I suppose I can.”

  “You won’t have to keep it long.” Clark blushed; his cheeks were nearly as red as his scarlet coat.

  Charlotte guessed his news, but waited for him to give it.

  “Fidelia is wit
h child. A first for us, of course. And, I believe, the first Loyalist child to be born in the Upper Country.”

  “When may I expect to wish you joy?”

  “In April, Fidelia tells me.”

  Charlotte felt like hugging him, and might have been bold enough to do so if the wide commissary counter had not stood between them.

  Every week grew colder. By December Charlotte and her parents were once again wearing all their clothes in layers, and even that was not enough to keep them from shivering through the nights. The pail of hot ashes did little more than take the edge from the chill. Mama was coughing again. She tried to hide the scraps of rag that she held to her mouth, but Charlotte saw one, and it bore the stain of blood.

  The last bateau from Montreal brought no letter from Nick. What it did bring, among the tons of winter supplies, were barrels of maggoty salt pork. Charlotte, Papa and Mama watched maggots squirm in the pink flesh and pale fat.

  “They’re looking healthy,” Papa said. “But I can’t say that I want to eat them.”

  “Ugh,” said Charlotte. Her stomach lurched at the thought.

  “I’ll boil up the pork in the camp kettle to render the fat,” Mama said. “Then we’ll simmer it with wood ash. There’s enough fat to make us a few cakes of soap. We may go hungry, but at least we’ll be clean.”

  “By the time we’re starving,” Papa said, “a bowl of pork and maggot soup won’t taste too bad.”

  Charlotte remembered Mrs. Platto’s story of the hungry soldiers’ march from Montreal to Lake Champlain — how they had eaten their leather cartridge cases, their boots, and their dog. By the end of winter, she thought, she might appreciate pork and maggot soup. But she was not that hungry yet.

  Most nights Mama had to sleep sitting up because she could not breathe lying down. When that happened, Papa sat with his arm around her, and she leaned against his shoulder. Charlotte stayed awake listening to her painful, laboured breath.

  “I wish the doctor were still at the fort,” Charlotte said. But wishing did no good. The regiment’s doctor had accompanied the regiment when the warship Ontario sailed in the spring.

  “I didn’t think highly of his remedies, anyway,” Papa said. “Sulphur fumes and blood-letting. What good did they do?”

  “The laudanum helped me sleep,” Mama gasped. The effort of speaking set her coughing again. When the fit was over, she said, “Please, let me lie down. My breathing is easier now, and I’m so tired.”

  Charlotte folded her own blanket as a pillow to put under her mother’s head. She and Papa went outside. He carried the pail of cold ashes.

  With a motion of her head towards the tent, Charlotte asked, “What can we do?”

  “Pray,” he said gruffly as he dumped the cold ashes. “Keep her warm, dose her with spruce tea, and pray.”

  “If only I had a magic touch that would cure her,” Charlotte said.

  “There’s no magic touch for what she’s got. She’s coughing blood.”

  Charlotte nodded. She knew that coughing blood meant consumption. It was a death sentence. There was no cure.

  There were tears in Papa’s eyes as he refilled the pail with hot ashes and limped with it into the tent.

  I’d better fetch some firewood, Charlotte said to herself. She picked up the hand axe from where it lay on the ground beside the woodpile. In the forest outside the fort there were always wind-fallen branches that could be dragged back as fuel.

  Sleet was falling. Halfway between snow and icy rain, it stung her cheeks. Another winter in the tent lay ahead — but not for Mama. Charlotte wiped the tears from her eyes. No power on earth could keep her mother alive until spring.

  When Charlotte returned with the wood that she had gathered, Mama lay trembling in a huddle of blankets. Her breathing-in was a wheeze, and her breathing-out a moan. Except for the hectic pink of her cheeks, her face was as pale as ashes. Papa was holding her hand.

  “Martha, is there anything you want?”

  “No. I lack … nothing.” As she spoke, a spasm of coughing took hold. Papa raised her shoulders and held a rag to her mouth. When he took it away, Charlotte saw blood at the corner of Mama’s mouth.

  “Don’t try to talk,” he said softly.

  All afternoon he held her hand. From time to time he wiped sweat from her forehead, but he seldom spoke. It seemed he had no words to cheer her — not like last winter, when he had talked about a house, a cow and chickens. With his shoulders slumped and his face lined with grief, Papa looked like a man for whom life held little hope.

  Light was fading. Papa gently withdrew his hand from Mama’s. “She’s sleeping. You stay with her so I can get some wood chopped before dark.” He left the tent.

  Sitting beside Mama, Charlotte watched her chest rise and fall and listened to the harsh groans of her laboured breath. From outside came the Whack! Whack! of Papa’s axe.

  Mama stirred. Her eyes blinked open. She turned her head towards Charlotte. “Is that your father chopping wood?”

  “Yes. Does the noise disturb you? I can ask him to stop.”

  “No. I like to listen. When we were first married, I loved to watch him split logs. One blow—–” She broke into a fit of coughing. Charlotte raised her shoulders and held the rag to Mama’s mouth. When she took the rag away, it was soaked with blood. “One blow, and the two halves flew apart. He was a strong man, your father.”

  “He still is.”

  “Not strong enough, I fear, for what lies ahead.”

  Charlotte didn’t know what to say. The rhythmic striking of Papa’s axe was the only sound.

  “From now on,” said Mama, “you’ll be all he has.”

  “Mama! No!” She pressed her mother’s limp hand, as if by that she could squeeze her own strength into it. “You mustn’t give up.”

  “Who am I to oppose the will of God? If He wants me now, I’m ready.”

  But I’m not ready, Charlotte thought furiously. Neither is Papa. We want Mama to stay with us. God spared her once. He can do it again if He wants to. Doesn’t God care?

  Charlotte felt a rush of fear to see the blue lines of veins at Mama’s temples, the dark bruises under her eyes, and the pulse that fluttered in her throat. Sweat had extinguished the fire of her red hair, dampening it into dark tendrils that clung to her cheeks. The bones of her face stood out sharply, the skull beneath the skin reminding her that Mama was going to die. Not some time in the future, as everyone must die. Not next year or next month. What remained of Mama’s life could be measured in days or hours. Charlotte’s heart ached, as if an unbearable burden pressed upon it.

  Outside, the chopping had stopped. Charlotte heard Papa stomping about, throwing sticks onto the woodpile.

  “Listen!” Mama said. “There’s something I want to tell you …” She took a deep wheezing breath, “… tell you before I die.”

  “Mama, you aren’t going to die.”

  “Don’t argue, child. Just listen.”

  Charlotte bowed her head, not bothering to wipe away the tears that ran down her cheeks.

  “I was not young when I married,” Mama’s voice faltered. “Still, I thought I’d live to see you and the boys settled and raising families of your own. I wanted grandchildren.” Now she gave Charlotte’s hand a feeble squeeze. “Well, I reckon there will be grandchildren, though I shall never see them.” Her words became faint. “You and Nick. Be happy.”

  Mama fell asleep. Gently, Charlotte withdrew her hand. “Be happy.” She would remember those words. And, yes, she would be happy, although the time for happiness was a long way off.

  Papa entered the tent and knelt beside Charlotte. Together they watched Mama’s chest move up and down and listened to the groaning of her breath.

  Papa turned towards Charlotte. “Daughter, you should get some rest. I’ll keep watch for a couple of hours, and wake you if need be.”

  She lay down on her mattress, although sure that she would not be able to sleep. But she was tired, so very tire
d.

  It was dark in the tent when Papa woke her. Rubbing her eyes, she got up and joined him at Mama’s side. Without a word, Papa put his arm around Charlotte’s shoulders. What a quiet night! At first the only sound was the wheeze of Mama’s breathing. After a time, she heard wolves howling far away. They were calling to their friends. Why couldn’t people do something like that, talk to those they loved across the miles?

  “While I was chopping wood,” Papa said, “I thought about home — the way things used to be. I always liked winter, when I had hams curing in the smoke house and your mother had her jams and jellies sitting in jars on every shelf. Winter was the time when I took out my books and she busied herself with her knitting and embroidery. She liked me to read to her while she did her fancywork.”

  “When I was little, I took everything for granted,” said Charlotte. “A soft bed, a warm house, three big brothers to spoil me, you and Mama to keep me safe. Why did everything have to change?”

  “The world is topsy-turvy,” said Papa. “Sometimes I wish I’d signed that document the Rebels kept pushing at me. All I had to do was say that I supported the Revolution. Now look where my stubbornness has landed us!”

  “You couldn’t have done differently. As soon as my brothers took the King’s shilling, everybody knew which side our family was on. Even if you had signed, no one would have believed you.”

  Mama’s eyelids fluttered. She opened her eyes. Her gaze flicked from side to side, sliding in and out of focus.

  “I want my sons. Where have they gone?” she cried out.

  “Oh, Mama!” Charlotte sobbed.

  “The boys are waiting for you,” said Papa. “You’ll be with them soon.”

  “They’re in Heaven, aren’t they? James. Charlie. Isaac.” Mama stopped breathing. Then, with a gasp, she took another breath. “Angels in red coats. I see them now. Raise me up. They’re calling me. It’s time.”

  Papa lifted her gently. With her head on his shoulder, Mama closed her eyes.

  Charlotte cut two sticks to make a cross, just like the cross she had made for Isaac’s grave. She felt numb with grief. Why was all this happening? Back in the Mohawk Valley, before the Revolution began, they had been so happy. Now Mama had joined Isaac, James and Charlie in death. Papa was old. The present was bleak, and the future uncertain.