FSF, January 2009 Read online

  Across the river, concentrated at the bridge, the Redcoats made a hasty three-deep firing formation. Seeing their guns aimed at him, Proctor pulled up his musket and aimed back.

  "Hold your fire!” Captain Smith bellowed. “We're not to start it."

  But I already did start it, Proctor thought. And then he pushed that thought aside. Pitcairn had been ready to shoot Captain Parker in the back, knowing that witchcraft protected him from any retribution. Proctor had to act.

  "Once they do start it,” Smith ordered, “aim for the brightest coats first—that'll be their officers."

  Proctor's heart pounded. Waiting was harder, now that he knew what was coming.

  A gun cracked—a puff of smoke went up from the front of the British line. Proctor swallowed, kept his own finger frozen, waiting for the order. The Acton fifer began another round of “The White Cockade."

  Two more British shots went off, and then the front row of Redcoats let go with a ragged, unordered volley. One of the Acton minutemen went down, his chest burst open, spurting blood. The fifer dropped, his tune cut off in mid-note. A second volley came from the British line and a few more minutemen fell. Proctor's heart was drumming in his ear.

  And his captain was shouting.

  "Fire! For God's sake, fire!"

  Proctor aimed for the reddest coat and squeezed the trigger. For the next few moments, all he was aware of were the men beside him, the men he aimed at, and the mechanical process of reloading his musket. Dense clouds of bitter smoke obscured both sides of the river. Before the third ball left his musket he realized he no longer heard lead whizzing past.

  The British lines had broken.

  Men were down around him. Some of the militia retreated from the carnage to regroup; others ran toward the bridge to secure it. Proctor stood frozen, glad, for the second time that day, to find himself still standing.

  The musket fog began to clear; the harsh taste of gunpowder filled his mouth. Across the river, the Redcoats were in full retreat toward Concord Green.

  Just like in his scrying.

  The British dead sprawled awkwardly in the road, while the wounded cried out in pain. One Redcoat clutched his belly and crawled on hands and knees after the retreating column until he fell on his face and lay there moaning, gut shot, bleeding to death. A Concord man crossed the bridge, pulled out his hatchet, and calmly split the Redcoat's skull. Proctor was not sure if it was cruelty or mercy. You killed a chicken in the yard that way, but not a man. And yet didn't he want the British dead? Hadn't they done the same to Everett Simes?

  While he stood there unsure of his own feelings or next action, men began to carry the colonial dead and injured toward the farmhouse on the hill.

  "Proctor,” a small voice said beside him. “Proctor?"

  He looked over and saw Arthur standing there, pale and trembling. His chin was slick with vomit. “Arthur!” Proctor asked. His heart lurched. “Have you been shot?"

  "No. But I don't feel so good."

  Proctor grabbed Arthur's shoulder, turned him side to side to make sure he wasn't hurt. “Maybe you should go home and check on your mother and your sisters."

  "You sure that's proper?"

  "I'm sure. The bridge is ours now. But don't go through the center of town. Cut through the pasture and go around behind the ridge, until you come to the Bedford Road, and if that's clear, then take the road on home."

  "All right.” He continued to stand there.

  "If you have to tell them about your Uncle Everett, you do it straight out, without the details or embellishment,” Proctor said. “You don't want to upset them more than need be.” He reached out and used his sleeve to wipe the spit off Arthur's chin.

  Arthur jerked his head away and scowled, wiping his own chin. “I know what to do."

  He ran off, leaving his hat on the ground with shot in it. Proctor didn't have the heart to call after him, so he put the lead in his hunting bag and tucked the cap in his belt. Arthur crossed the bridge, sprinting past the Redcoat who'd had his skull split open. Proctor watched Arthur until he climbed up over the far hill and headed off through the woods behind town.

  He wasn't the only one to leave. Here and there, other men headed off in other directions, ignoring calls to return.

  Proctor didn't understand. A boy like Arthur was one thing, but the work here wasn't done yet—you didn't plow a field without planting it too. There were still Redcoats on both sides of the bridge.

  He found Captain Smith making sure the last of their injured were removed up hill. “What're we to do next, sir?” Proctor asked. “The Redcoats haven't exactly packed their kit for home yet."

  Smith looked past the bridge to the center of town. “No, they haven't. Gather as many men as you can before they scatter more. We're caught between four British companies still on this side of the bridge, and the rest in Concord. Could be a hammer and an anvil if we're not careful."

  "I'll do what I can,” Proctor said.

  He hurried along the causeway and up the hillside, calling the men from his company and telling them to report to Captain Smith. He grew bolder as he went and started commanding other men to report to their officers too. “The fighting's not done,” he said again and again. “The Redcoats're coming back for another try at us."

  He wasn't sure if it was true, but he had to do something, anything, to make up for his decision on Lexington Green.

  The companies hadn't even reformed when the order came to split their force, with the minutemen holding the eastern side of the bridge. Proctor ran across it with the others, skipping over the gap where planks had been pried up. They took up a position behind the stone wall on the hillside. Proctor double-shotted his musket when he reloaded. He wanted to do as much damage with that first volley as possible.

  Smoke still rose from the center of town, but it was a smaller column now, more like a bonfire than a housefire. “What do you think they're burning?” he asked.

  Amos Lathrop crouched next to him behind the wall. “The carriages for the cannons, that's what one of the girls said. At least the cannons are safely hidden."

  "We can build new carriages in pretty short order,” Proctor replied. “But the cannon would be harder to replace."

  "The Redcoat officers have to be thinking the same thing."

  It appeared they were thinking of retaking the bridge first. The Redcoats who had been routed reformed with the rest of the troops and marched back in fighting formation. When they saw the militia lined up behind the wall, they halted just outside the range of the muskets. Their officers rode forward of the troops for a better look.

  One officer rode out farther than the others, well within range of their guns. Major Pitcairn. Proctor again saw the spark at his chest, even though he had the sun behind him.

  Almost against his own will, he sighted his musket at the officer, just as he had on the green. The urge to shoot was almost overwhelming. He fought the urge until his finger cramped, then eased it off the trigger and lowered his weapon. It would be wasted lead.

  The captain, coming down the line, rapped him on the shoulder. “I saw that—hold your fire! We won't shoot until they shoot first."

  As he went down the line repeating that message to other men, Amos shook his head. “Shooting's already started. We held our fire at the bridge and lost good men."

  Proctor rolled his tongue through his cheek and spit. “It's not like he's telling us to let them shoot first, then turn the other cheek."

  Amos laughed. “There is that."

  The mounted officers retreated behind their troops again, Pitcairn last. At the same moment, a shout rose from the militia units on the western bank holding their position on the hill above the road. When the shout died down, Proctor heard drums. The other four companies of Redcoats were returning from the colonial armory at a quick march. When they saw they were surrounded by colonials, the front ranks broke into a run.

  The militia units had their muskets trained on them, but every man
held his trigger. Nor did the British shoot first.

  How four companies of Redcoats marched under the guns of the militia without either side firing a shot, Proctor couldn't say. He brought his own weapon to shoulder and winced; the four quick volleys at the bridge left him bruised.

  Still no one fired.

  At Lexington, and again at the bridge, it had taken only one stray shot to set off volleys of fire. This time, the Redcoats crossed the bridge, quietly gathered up their dead and wounded, and continued their tense march under the guns of the minutemen until they rejoined their main force.

  Amos lowered his musket and took a deep breath. “Why'd we let them by like that?"

  "When they're all bunched up together they make a bigger target,” Proctor said. “Some of those old men in the militia, their eyesight's going bad, and they need that advantage."

  Now that they'd been stung, the British moved slowly. They milled around town, forming their march, stealing carriages for their wounded, and sending skirmishers out along Arrowhead Ridge to protect their retreat. It was noon before the drums beat the call to arms and the Redcoats started back toward Boston.

  As soon as the British column began moving, Captain Smith came down the line. “It's been decided that we mean to teach them a lesson. They're not to make it back to Boston, not one of them if we can help it."

  There were somber murmurs at this, including Proctor's own. He thought about Munroe, and Everett, and that fifer from Acton. “That's more like it."

  "The militia's been raised from all over,” Barrett went on. “We're setting up along the road to harry the Redcoats. Our job is to get to the curve at the Bedford Road just past Tanner's Creek before they do."

  "That's more than three miles cross-country,” one of the men said. And another answered, “That's right—so what're we waiting for?"

  Proctor pushed his way to the front. “I can take the lead. That's out towards my father's farm, and I know the paths between there and town as well as any man."

  Smith nodded and let him go to the front.

  They ran the whole way, single file on narrow trails over rocky pastures and through the open woods. Fierce gunfire sounded south of them as they crossed the old road above Merriams's Corner, and Proctor turned to go join it. But Captain Smith stopped him.

  "There're other companies down there, that's their work, leave it to them,” he told Proctor. “We've got to be at our station on the curve to do ours."

  "Yes, sir,” Proctor said. He led the file of men through the little Mill Brook valley, where they splashed across the creek, and up over the hills, down into the swampy lowlands around Tanner's Creek.

  Again gunfire echoed down the valley from the direction of Brooks Hill. This time when the men tried to change their path to join it, it was Proctor who grabbed them and aimed them over the water and up the hills on the other side.

  "To the curve,” he told them. “We'll get our chance—go to the hill above the curve."

  Proctor reached the top of the hill to find the Concord men taking positions among the trees, and the Lincoln men joined them. He crouched behind an elm and caught his breath. The Reading militia were strung out low on the hillsides, near the start of the curve. Brown and russet jackets shifted from tree to tree on the far side of the road. Probably men from Woburn, Proctor thought. He almost felt sorry for the Redcoats. Drawn out in a narrow line, penned in by stone walls, with tree-covered hills on both sides—they didn't stand a chance.

  They came marching around the bend in a line that was much more ragged than it had been, leaving Concord.

  Across the road, the Woburn men fired first, followed by the Reading militia in their positions at the bottom of the hill. The Redcoats were caught in a vicious cross-fire. One or two of the men around Proctor let off a shot, but Smith shouted, “Hold your fire!"

  Captain Barrett, of the Concord minutemen, shouted the same thing. “Wait till they're closer, and stagger your shots. We won't get them all with that first volley."

  Down below, some of the British were trying to fight back, but those who left the road and tried to climb over the wall to reach the men from Woburn and Reading only made themselves easier targets. The smarter Redcoats ran forward to escape the fire.

  "Here's our chance now,” Smith said.

  Proctor took aim at the Redcoat in the lead, waiting until he'd almost reached the second bend and then fired. A dozen muskets went off around him at the same instant. There was no way to tell who shot the man, or how many times he'd been shot, but several Redcoats in the front fell.

  Proctor stepped behind the tree to reload and heard bark splinter as the Redcoats returned fire. When he stepped out to shoot again, he saw that the Redcoats kept pushing forward. They had to—they were being attacked from either side, and from behind, and a man could only load and shoot so fast. As long as the Redcoats kept moving, most of them would get through. Through a second and third volley, they kept marching and their carriages kept rolling, until only their dead and wounded were left.

  He had looked for Pitcairn and missed him, probably one of the times he was behind the tree reloading. He doubted that the British major had fallen.

  "Where to now, captain?” Proctor asked.

  "We've got to skip ahead of them again,” Smith said.

  This was Proctor's land, figuratively if not literally. He lived within a mile and knew every road and trail, every farm and pasture. “The south side of the road is too low and swampy, you get much beyond here. But we could make our way to the Bluffs outside Lexington."

  "I was thinking the same thing,” Smith said.

  Proctor was off and running again without waiting for an order. Looking back, he saw they didn't have a full company anymore. Men who were wounded, or who had family wounded, stayed behind, as did men tired of the fight. But the Redcoats had been thinned as well.

  They crossed the Bedford Road and passed through Mason's pastures. This time when they heard gunfire down around Hartwell's farm, not a man turned aside. In truth, there was no place where they did not hear gunfire now, and nowhere they went that they did not glimpse other groups of militia running through the fields and woods. Proctor took a twisting path over pastures strewn with granite boulders. He was panting, and several of the others were drenched with sweat, but they came to a hill above the road, once again ahead of the British troops.

  There were only two or three dozen of them now, mixed men from Concord and Lincoln, but others hid among the boulders and in the ditches, waiting for the Redcoats. Proctor started to lead the men down there, thinking it would be his best chance to get at Pitcairn.

  "Not there,” Smith said between breaths. “Further up, on the hill."

  It had a steep slope, covered with rocks, and would be harder for the Redcoats to assault. He didn't have the strength left to explain all that, but the men saw it, understood, and followed. Proctor was the last to go.

  Smith chose a position on the next curve in the road. Proctor walked among the company of men already waiting on the hillside, until he recognized Captain Parker and the other Lexington men. A few wore bandages over wounds they'd taken that morning; many more had faces black with powder.

  Parker stood tall, out in the open, listening to the stuttering beat of the British drums and the distant crack of muskets, waiting for the Redcoats to appear. He coughed quietly into his palm, eyes widening in his gaunt face at the sight of Proctor.

  "You look familiar,” he said, his voice hoarse.

  Proctor's throat tightened. Was he going to be blamed for starting the shooting this morning? “Proctor Brown, sir. Stood on the green with you this morning."

  "That'd be it,” Parker said, and stifled another consumptive cough. He was going to die soon, whether a British officer shot him in the back or not. “You look like you've been far today, son."

  "All the way to Concord and back,” Proctor said.

  "That's a long way to go on a day like this,” Captain Parker said. “God bless yo
u for coming back to help us a second time."

  "I'm sorry for the way things happened—"

  Parker interrupted him with a shake of his head that might have been general or specific. “Don't think about it. The situation was bound to come to shooting sooner or later. Either way, the Redcoats owe us a debt for what they did once the shooting started, and we plan to make them pay back every cent with interest."

  Amos sidled between them. “Being that's how you are with loans, I guess I shouldn't ask to borrow lead from you, though I don't have more than three shot left."

  Captain Parker laughed at that, and his laugh turned into a cough. Once his coughing stopped, he signaled for one of his men to come over. “We won't loan you shot, but we'll give it to you, how's that?"

  "That'll suit just fine,” Amos said.

  Proctor put his hand into his hunting bag and counted the lead balls—he could fire nine more times if he didn't double-shot. Then he checked his powder-horn and saw that he didn't have nine measures left.

  Gunfire peppered the road just west of them and smoke from muskets marked the imminent arrival of British troops. Proctor scooted downslope and took cover behind a tree that none of the Lexington men had claimed yet.

  The Redcoats rounded the bend.

  A mounted officer led them, untouched by the hail of bullets. Even before Proctor saw the golden spark flashing near the officer's throat, he recognized Pitcairn. The major was holding the Redcoats’ retreat together by the example of his courage and the force of his will.

  "Fire!” Captain Parker ordered.

  Proctor aimed but didn't pull his trigger. As the smoke thinned, he saw Pitcairn still untouched, though men around him had fallen.

  While the militia reloaded, Pitcairn shouted an order to his marines to take the hill. Militia men in the ditch screamed out as they were bayoneted and a thin red line moved up through the trees.

  Proctor grabbed Amos by the shoulder. “Pretend you're an ax-cutter and clear a lane for me through the trees. I mean to cut the head off that long red snake."