@@CHAP@@ Adam
@@BLOCK@@ July 14, 1759 @@BR@@ Forty miles north of Fort Machault
It was nearly midday and the corporal still hadn’t realized that Adam had swiped his flask during the night. Or perhaps, Adam mused, he did know, but didn’t care because the whiskey in it tasted like sweat and horse manure. This Adam knew because he had taken advantage of the few times the corporal disappeared ahead of him in the dense deciduous forest to sample the beverage. After the first taste he almost wanted to give it back. Almost. Despite the flavor, it warmed his mouth and gave him that proper heady, joyful feeling, his fingers tingling, a burst of liveliness animating him. Alcohol was the only thing that gave him that feeling anymore.
Adam studied the corporal’s broad back. Renaud, that was his name, or something like it, born and raised in Old France. He was a loud, gruff man, some years older than Adam, and enormous, like a grenadier should be. Adam suspected Renaud had come to New France to fight as a way out of some scandal or, more likely, debtor’s prison. Still, he had that swaggering, cocky quality about him that all the men that came over from Old France had. As if being born there somehow made them better than the French born in the wilderness of this untamed new world. As Adam watched, Renaud dug in his ear with one grimy finger, smearing his findings on the shoulder of his once-white uniform.
The air was sweltering in the thick wool justaucorps of a soldier of France’s troupes de la marine. Despite the presence of his superior officer, Adam had left his coat, waistcoat, and even his shirt partially unbuttoned. But the open shirt allowed the relentless mosquitoes and gnats ample flesh to nibble. It seemed that for every one mosquito Adam swatted a hundred more sprang up to take its place. Adam pulled his horse up for a moment to pick a few plump thimbleberries from a heavy-laden bush, and, ignoring the waving green caterpillar on one of the berries, he smashed them into his mouth, insects and all.
“Why do you stop? At this rate le capitaine may as well bring word of the reinforcements to Pouchot himself,” snapped the corporal, glaring back at his young subordinate. It seemed to rankle the man to no end to have been paired with such a useless slob as Adam to take Captain Lignery’s message to Fort Niagara. He never missed a chance to berate the younger man. “We’ll arrive only in time to warn the British after they’ve already surrendered.”
“Need to keep my strength up,” replied Adam around the mouthful of juicy berries, grinning purple and feigning the usual insouciant attitude that all the men in his company knew him for. “Besides, the Indians le capitaine sent will reach there long before us. I don’t know why you want to rush.”
“Impossible! You are impossible,” Renaud ranted. “Pah, like a dog you are. No ambition. No cares. This is what becomes of men born of high blood. All worthless. All scoundrels. Everything handed to them on a silver platter. That’s why they don’t care. Nothing matters to them. Give me a common Marseillais blacksmith any day before a dandy from Montreal. Le capitaine doesn’t trust his Indian messengers, that’s why he sent us. But Lignery is a fool, entrusting such a lazy pig to take such an important message.”
“Lazy pig? You oughtn’t be so hard on yourself, Renaud. You do the best you can with the soap His Majesty Louis XV sees fit to ration us,” quipped Adam.
That did it. Renaud flew into a rage, speaking so rapidly with that thick Marseille accent that Adam could make nothing of it. The man was turning red and sweating. Adam thought with bitter amusement that he did look a little like a pig. Adam told himself he wouldn’t do it—that he absolutely shouldn’t do it—but he was enjoying himself and wanted to see how far he could take things. It didn’t matter what Renaud did to him in the wilderness, after all. On any given day, nothing really mattered to Adam, the corporal had been right about that, and it had been three days since the young soldier had a proper brawl. Reaching down, he slid the flask out of his pocket and took a slow, measured draft of the foul whiskey, never taking his eyes off the corporal as he gulped the burning liquid down.
Renaud spurred his horse back through the nettles, snatched the flask from Adam with a curse and struck the younger man so hard across the face that he unhorsed him. Seeing colored lights bursting in his vision, Adam toppled into a bed of stinging woodland nettles. As he hit the ground, the image of the girl burst unbidden into his mind. The girl that haunted him, the blue-eyed young woman with the straight brown hair, the round, honest German face, and those flushed rosy cheeks. She had been so fierce, standing before him with her musket raised. That damn girl. A piercing jolt of guilt stabbed into Adam’s heart, taking his breath away. He hated it. That terrible feeling he had known every day for almost two years. The terrible guilt for what he had done. The feeling that only alcohol kept at bay.
Adam was torn from his reverie when Renaud, who had dismounted, slammed a foot into his gut. Somehow the pain of the blow was less than the pain of Adam’s guilt. He opened his eyes as Renaud spat on him. Then the corporal turned away, casting about for the flask he had accidentally dropped into the weeds in his rush to visit vengeance upon his subordinate.
Even with his eyes open, Adam could still see her, not standing up to him any longer, but lying still in the grass. Had she breathed? He had seen that moment play out more than a thousand times since that day in German Flatts, two years before, but he still was not sure if the girl was breathing when he fled from her insensate form. She shouldn’t have been visiting him when he was awake. He was too sober, dangerously sober. He stared up at the corporal as the man stowed the flask in his coat and went to mount his horse again.
“Why do you start fights if you’re not going to retaliate?” asked the corporal. “Useless coward. I will have you flogged when we reach Fort Niagara, flogged within an inch of your life.”
Adam managed to affect his usual careless smile, climbing back to his feet unsteadily and hoisting himself into the saddle of his bay gelding. The animal danced nervously beneath him after Renaud’s display of human ferocity.
“If it weren’t for your father, you’d have been drummed out of the service entirely by Picoté, in disgrace, as you should have been. Worthless lout,” Renaud grumbled, setting off through the forest. Adam didn’t reply. He didn’t engage with the older man for the rest of the day. He was too busy thinking about the girl. He hadn’t seen her in a few days, because he had been maintaining that drunken state that usually kept her away. But here she was again, back, and every time he closed his eyes—hell, every time he blinked, he could see her. He should have died to pay for that girl’s life. Yet here he was, still too cowardly to kill himself, to atone for his crimes, even after two years of shame, shame for himself, his company, his regiment, his God, his country, and his family.
That night he lay awake, staring up through the overhanging tree branches at the wondrous stars beyond, fields of stars, so much brighter than they were from the bustling streets of Montreal. Gazing into the clusters of brilliant white, the milky fields in the jet-black sky, he was afraid to close his eyes. He wished that he hadn’t flaunted the flask; then at least he might still have it. He needed the alcohol it contained, foul as it had been. He could already feel his hands trembling and he was drenched in sweat beneath his thin blanket roll, but worst of all he could not make her leave him alone. He glared at the girl floating in the corners of his vision. In desperation he thrust his fumbling fingers inside the pocket hidden in his coat’s blue cuff, searching for a small, folded piece of parchment. Perhaps staring at something else, intently, as if reading—though it was too dark to actually read—perhaps that would drive the girl away. He drew the roll of paper out and opened it. It crinkled as his hands shook. He didn’t need the light; he knew the words as well as he knew the rosary.
@@BLOCK@@ Capitaine Pouchot, @@BR@@ Take courage. As you have requested, I have delayed my move to attack Fort Pitt. I am leading close to @@BR@@ a thousand French and Canadian militia as well as Indian forces to your relief, along with Captain @@BR@@ Aubry of the Illinois contingent, and will recruit more as we travel north with all haste. @@BR@@ Be ready to open your gates to us on the 25th. @@BR@@ Capitaine François-Marie Le Marchand de Lignery.
Adam folded the paper and stowed it back in his cuff. He let his eyes drift closed and saw again the girl, the cursed, angry girl. At the same instant, he heard the voice of the corporal in his head: We’ll arrive only in time to warn the British after they’ve already surrendered. His eyes snapped open. The glade where they had camped echoed with Renaud’s snores. The stars stared down at him, softer, less accusing than they were before, less headache-inducing. Perhaps there was a way to redeem himself, a way to make the ghost of the girl leave him alone. He hadn’t thought of it before, but when it came to him at that moment it seemed obvious. The settlers in German Flatts had no warning, or if they did, they had not heeded it. That was why they had been so easily defeated, so easily slaughtered. If he warned the British outside Fort Niagara, if he did what he thought no one had done for the girl and her family, perhaps she would leave him alone. He could save a thousand lives for her, then perhaps she would let his soul be at peace. Or, better yet, in the attempt to get word to the British, perhaps, at last, he would suffer the final and most just consequence for his crime, the thing he still hadn’t dared to do himself all these months later. He wrestled with the idea for hours. He could not sleep anyway, not with the girl there, flickering in and out of his vision, and he was too shaky and too sweaty. He needed alcohol. The images of all the horrors of the last four years flashed through his mind. The weight of every atrocity he had seen pressing like an anvil on his chest, as if to suffocate him. Finally, as the first calls of doves heralded the coming of dawn, Adam decided. He would do it. What did he have to lose? His father’s regard? His honor? All long gone. But how to disable Renaud? He considered cutting the man’s throat as he slept, but this was a step too far in his treason. He had lost his taste for killing the day German Flatts burned. He had lost his taste for a lot of things that day—though not for alcohol, he reflected with the flash of a grin.
He slipped over to the horses and undid the hobbles on the corporal’s mount, giving her a gentle tap on the bottom. The mare began to wander, grazing the dry summer grass and foliage further from their little camp. The air was so full of the noise of cicadas and frogs that Renaud did not stir. Nor did he stir as Adam saddled his own mount, taking care to avoid jingling the harness. In a few minutes the bay stood ready, still half-asleep, chewing idly on his bit. Adam fixed the saddlebags to the horse, secured his own pack on his back, placed his musket in the sheath along the horse’s side, and then he was suddenly ready, sooner than he felt he should be. The cicadas seemed to crescendo into a frenzied, deafening chorus. He glanced back at Renaud and froze. The gleam of the whiskey flask was just visible, protruding from within the man’s justaucorps. It had been so easy to obtain the night before. He licked his lips and glanced at his horse, then back again at the enticing metal object.
Taking his horse’s reins, Adam moved quietly toward Renaud, then crouched, gripping the reins with one hand, ready for flight at a moment’s notice. He reached out, stretching until his fingertips barely grazed the smooth metal. The flask shifted in Renaud’s jacket when he brushed it. He froze and drew in a slow breath, eyeing the other man. The corporal let out a loud snore but showed no sign of awakening. Biting his lip, Adam extended his hand still further, and then the cold metal was in his grasp. He tumbled backward, a triumphant grin splitting his face even as he fell onto his back. But then the grin faded as he saw Renaud’s bleary eyes, red-rimmed and wide awake, staring at him.
The corporal wore a confused expression, and then a deepening frown, his gaze scanning over Adam with his pack, his horse saddled, clutching the precious whiskey flask to his chest. Then his eyes flitted to look across the glade toward where his own mare had been. That was all Adam had time to see before he scrambled to his feet, lunging toward the bay gelding. But Renaud was on him before he could rise into the saddle, yanking him free of the harness and tossing him bodily to the ground. The bigger man was cursing in his thick Marseille accent, and Adam saw the gleam of a knife in Renaud’s hand. They tussled in the grass, Adam trying desperately to free himself from the enormous, smelly grenadier, noting, even as he fought, that his gelding was edging away from the tumult. Renaud rolled on top of him, raising his knife above his head, and Adam tried desperately to hold the weapon at bay.
“Would you desert, you scum? And leave me stranded here?” asked Renaud, gritting his teeth as he wrestled the younger, smaller man. “Where is my horse? You bastard, I’ll put your bloody eyes out!”
Adam slammed his knee into Renaud’s crotch, noting with satisfaction how the man’s face crumpled into a mask of pain. However, he did not have much time to enjoy the spectacle. Taking advantage of the second he had, Adam rolled, tossing Renaud off him, and then ran, tripping and stumbling clumsily toward his horse. He didn’t pause to use the stirrup, vaulting straight onto the obedient animal’s back and spurring the horse away through the crowding maple and chestnut trees. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw Renaud kneeling, raising his musket. Corporal Renaud always kept his musket loaded, and he had a deadly aim. Adam had seen his work in wilderness skirmishes before. But, Adam thought with a bemused grin, what did he care? He had no desire to live anymore, and he had achieved his aim: he was free, and he had the whiskey.
He raised the flask to the sky in what he thought might be his final, triumphant toast, then took a quick, mind-numbing, tremor-halting swig. He swallowed the putrid liquid as the horse broke into a canter beneath him. For a few seconds Adam thought he was truly free, a successful deserter, for all his bumbling oafishness in the process. Then a bolt of lightning pierced through his torso, followed by the echoing crack of a gunshot. The pain vanished for a second and he thought that he was dead at last. But then the piercing, tearing agony through his middle returned. Every jolt of the horse’s movements as it darted around trees and boulders was like being torn in half.
He was alive. God would not have mercy on him and let him die quickly. God wanted him to suffer more for what he’d done.
* * *
@@BLOCK@@ November 12, 1757 @@BR@@ North German Flatts, New York
When Adam jerked awake it was so dark that for a moment he thought his eyes were still closed. He blinked, but it changed nothing. Despite the early hour, he could hear whispers all around him. The memory of what day it was set his heart thumping and twisting madly in his chest and his stomach tying itself into intricate knots. He had joined the troupes de la marine at fifteen, a year older than his father had before him, and for four years he had marched and drilled and practiced and dreamed of this day. Now, at last, there was going to be action. He was going into battle.
“T’es prêt, mon ami?” whispered the cheerful voice of Pierre near his ear.
Adam nodded, realizing as he did so that his friend couldn’t see him. He grabbed his pack and the musket that lay beside him, floundering in the blackness for his saber. Few of the marines carried them, but the shining old weapon had been an impressive gift from his father on the day he enlisted, and he knew it made the older men jealous. He strapped it on, steam blowing around him each time he exhaled a shaky, excited breath. The frozen ground was layered with a thin crust of snow, enough for their white justaucorps to give them an advantage, for once.
They had a mile to push through the darkness, and then they would be upon their target. Adam knew little of what they were attacking. A settlement with blockhouses, he had heard, and a fort of some sort. This was to be a surprise attack, that much he knew, and he took care to move as silently as he could across the blanket of white that covered the earth, keeping in step with Pierre. All around in the night their allies among the Iroquois moved soundlessly, putting the king’s frontier marines to shame. Adam fancied the shadowy warriors laughed at the French soldiers every time one of them clinked their sword against their canteen or broke a stick underfoot with a resounding snap.
Those cracking twigs did not matter; as it turned out, the settlers were deeply asleep. The only warning those settlers had was the barking of their dogs, but the Iroquois silenced the animals quickly. Then came a shrill scream in the night as Adam and the men in his company, crouching low on the approach, attained the first barnyard between them and the blockhouses. There were more screams around them, as other companies entered other residences, and then there were gunshots, and an ember glow growing swiftly from a neighboring house, set to light. Adam was trembling like a leaf, unable to point his gun as he saw the door of the farmhouse open. There was a flash of movement in the doorway and the dull gleam of a gun barrel.
A blast sounded by his ear. Pierre had fired at the house, and the figure within the doorframe crumpled. There were cries and he saw others—a woman, perhaps, it was hard to tell, and maybe children as well. The woman was bending to pick up the gun while the children were screaming, and Adam heard his sergeant order them to fire. He dropped to his knees, shaking, and heard another loud blast, but this time it was not one of his comrades that had fired. This time Pierre fell to the ground beside him. Adam dropped his gun. He could hear the other soldiers firing wantonly at the residence, and piercing shrieks of pain filling the night, but he had eyes only for Pierre. His friend was looking at him, reaching for him, blood bubbling up from a wound in his neck. He was gasping, desperate, gurgling incoherently, and then he was still, a film coming over the brightness of his eyes.
“Pierre, non! Non! Mon ami, réveille-toi! S’il te plaît, Pierre!” But his words fell on dead ears. Pierre was gone. A sob catching in his throat, Adam leaped to his feet, dashing to follow the other men into the farmyard, where they were setting fire to the curtains inside the residence. He tripped over the bodies of a man, a woman, a girl not much bigger than his own little sisters back home, and a boy still in skirts. In a daze, Adam realized he had forgotten his musket, leaving it beside the fallen Pierre. There were more shots in the dark, proper volleys, with scattered answering rounds, and more whoops and war cries from the Iroquois—shrill, haunting sounds that sent terror through anyone listening.
Adam stumbled back through the melee to where Pierre lay. He tripped over his friend’s body and lay still for a few seconds, tears welling up in his eyes. Then he searched with his hands, finding the weapon he sought. He rose again and turned back, but his comrades had vanished into the night. He stood for a moment, lost, and for a second there flashed in his head the image of his father watching him parading in Montreal. He had been dressed like a shiny doll, his uniform yet starched and stiff, as he marched beneath the fleur-de-lis of his regimental banner. The pride in his father’s eyes—that unspeakable pride in his father’s eyes that had made his heart soar.
He spun from Pierre’s body and ran as fast as he could back toward the settlers’ blockhouses, where he was sure his fellow marines must have gone. He raced mindlessly to join his comrades in battle. Battle? What battle was this? Just the killing of surprised families in their homes. He tripped over every log as he ran, stumbling over vines and branches even though his way was half-lighted by the multiple houses and barns burning around him. His foot caught on a thick vine and he fell for what felt like the thousandth time, thanking God above that his father wasn’t there then, to see his bumbling coward of a son. This last fall knocked the wind out of him, and as he struggled to regain his breath, he heard a voice above him exclaim, “ Verdammtes Schwein!”, and he looked up and saw her.
She was a short girl, around his age, curved, strong, with straight brown hair and eyes the color of cornflowers, eyes that blazed with impossible hatred. She was dressed in her night shift, but in her hands she clutched a musket as long as she was tall. She clamped the butt of it against her shoulder, the barrel aimed at his head as he peered up at her. He saw her finger poised over the trigger and he leaped up, knocking the barrel aside, driving his head directly into her middle, bringing her to the ground and sending the musket flying.
He felt a terrible pain in his neck and realized that when he had knocked her to the ground, pinning her down, she had bitten him, and was still latched on, her teeth tearing through skin and muscle. He fell back and she released her grip, cursing gutturally in German as she grabbed the musket she had dropped, spinning to face him, raising that absurdly large weapon toward him again, the barrel wavering from the awkward weight. With a cry of anger, Adam swung his own gun, striking her head with the butt of it. She discharged her weapon into the forest, missing him widely as she collapsed.
He started forward instinctively to check the senseless girl for signs of life, but then he heard loud voices and stomping in the brush and trees beyond, voices speaking not French, not English, nor any of the Indian languages he had become familiar with, but German. He glanced at the girl, unsure if she was breathing, unsure if he saw the faintest movement—perhaps just the flicker of her eyelashes, perhaps nothing. Then he spun about and fled back the way he had come, dripping sweat, trembling, his heart beating so hard he thought it would come bursting out of his chest.
* * *
@@BLOCK@@ July 16, 1759 @@BR@@ Ninety miles north of Fort Machault
Sometimes Adam fancied that the girl had risen, a pale specter, and followed him back in his panicked retreat through the trees. She must have, really, for she had been with him ever since that night, following him with her eyes full of rage and accusation. The only time she left him alone was when he was stupid drunk. Because of her he had hardly been sober since that night, almost two years before. Sometimes he could hear her voice, cursing at him in German, and feel the sharpness of her teeth, and the trickle of blood down his neck and into his white shirt. He shook himself awake at the sensation. The girl was not there. There was no voice shouting in German. There were no teeth digging into his neck, but the blood . . . the blood was real, though it came from a wound along his right flank. He peered down blearily at the wetness of his justaucorps, the rust-brown stain becoming moist and scarlet red again in the center.
He dug into his waistcoat for the flask. He had no regrets about that particular risk. But he did regret that he had drunk it all over the past two days. He shook it and was not rewarded with the satisfying slosh of liquid. Nevertheless, his fingers thick, numb, and clumsy, he undid the cap and peered into the little vessel. It was, depressingly, decidedly empty, as it had been the last few dozen times he had checked it. If only they made a flask that spontaneously generated alcohol. Or, he reflected with a wry grin, if only he had Jesus as a traveling companion, to turn water into wine for him. He sighed and patted the neck of the indefatigable horse. “Well, I suppose that’s it; may as well lie down and die. The whiskey’s gone. That is, of course, unless you have some secret stash of alcohol you haven’t been telling me about, camarade?”
The gelding let out a long blowing breath, as if annoyed with his master, but did not reply to Adam’s query. It was foolishness. Utter, useless foolishness. He was playing while he waited for his body to die. Adam had tried to staunch the bleeding, but he had lost a great deal of blood, and the constant jostling movements of the horse kept the steady ooze from fully clotting. Adam was getting more and more lightheaded, his weakness confounded by the symptoms of delirium from want of spirits, and he knew he couldn’t make it much further. But he comforted himself with the thought that he had been brave, for once. He had so courageously attempted to betray his own people. He would die the distant cousin of a hero, thrice, perhaps four times removed, and that was something. The only witness to his one act of bravery would be the horse he was riding on, and it would tell no one.
Adam groaned, reaching over to grasp hold of his wounded right side and press against it, willing the pain to dull. The gelding threaded through a dense grove of hemlock and then halted, nervously shifting backward, eyes wide, ears turning back and forth between the forest ahead and his rider. Adam, still reeling from pain, stroked the animal’s neck in a vain attempt to soothe him. He glanced up to see a shadowy gray form crouched on the ground, its lips drawn back in a menacing snarl. Once he saw one, he realized the wolves were all around them, a pack on the hunt. They had probably been following him for miles, drawn by the smell of fresh blood from a wounded, weakened quarry. Adam pulled his musket from its sheath, but the horse, not waiting for its master to load the weapon, spun about and broke into a swift canter that nearly unseated his rider. Adam struggled to maintain his balance, clinging with his legs, stiff and spent from days of riding. He gripped the animal’s thick brown mane with one hand while holding the musket awkwardly with the other. Glancing over his shoulder, he could see the wolves racing after him, trying to encircle his horse.
He let the gelding have his head, drawing in a deep breath, and despite the peril of their situation, a grin spread across his pale countenance. One last gallop, and then rest, sleep, forever—the perfect sleep of death. Eaten by wolves in the wilds around Lake Erie; it wasn’t really the end he had anticipated, but it would serve as well as any other demise. Adam urged his horse still faster, kicking madly at the bay’s flanks, while awkwardly, and uselessly clutching the musket. He could not aim a long gun from the back of a loping horse. Adam felt like he was flying, the horse’s rapid strides eating up the woodland beneath them, and then, quite suddenly, the horse jerked to a stop and Adam no longer simply felt like he was flying; he was, in fact, soaring through the air.
He tumbled along a sheer sandstone wall that was slick with water, grabbing vainly at protruding rocks and branches, crashing through shrubs and saplings growing from the rock face. His wounded right flank struck hard against a branch, and he heard and felt the terrible crunch of his ribs. Then, at last, he landed prone in a shallow creekbed and lay still, listening to the sound of his musket clattering to the ground beside him. Turning his head, Adam tried to take in the world around him as it spun. He had fallen down a steep gorge that widened out near the bottom, where a nearly dry creek trickled over rocks made smooth by hundreds of years of flowing water. He lay still, waiting for things to steady, but they remained wavering and immaterial. He wondered if he might finally be dead.
“Verdammtes Schwein!” he heard a familiar voice cry, a strangely familiar voice.
Adam rolled over and stared up into the blazing blue eyes of the angry German girl, the same girl he had seen every day for almost two years. She was gripping his musket, pressed into her shoulder, the barrel inches from his head. He was dead, then, finally, and joined with the girl whose blood stained his hands. This, then, must be his purgatory—he would spend eternity having his brain repeatedly blown to bits by the girl he had killed in German Flatts. It was fitting, it was just, he reflected, as he saw her finger squeeze the trigger and everything went black.