Forever Young Birth Of A Nation (50 page)

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Robert Milliken and Margaret both sat in the
parlor of the Laforge Suite, listening raptly to Celeste. “I simply
took Steven’s head and held it to his body until it began to knit
itself back. Louis helped me.”

“It is a miracle. Robert thought we had lost
Steven forever” said Margaret.

“I’ll say. We had agreed that maybe
Alexander and Simone would come back with us to England. It seemed
that even though his head had reattached itself he would never be
right.”

Marie said “Who among us has ever seen a
head reattach itself? We ourselves do not know what to expect. All
we have heard are rumors of such things.”

“That is how it was with Cosette, Marie.
Even you and Henri had only heard rumors about us being able to
hibernate and they turned out to be true” said Liri.

“Well it is a miracle anyway as far as I am
concerned and he seems fine.”

“Are you two still going back to London
tomorrow then?”

“Yes. I have a bank to run and even though
it is more fun to kill rogue vampires, banking pays better.”
Margaret laughed hardest saying “You did not have so much fun the
last time you did that as I recall and neither did I.”

“Well it is better when we don’t get a hand
chopped off or stabbed for sure!” Margaret laughed again, leaning
over to kiss Robert and putting her head on his shoulder. He went
on then, saying “Besides that, there could be dispatches from
America waiting. We had best be going back, unless you need us for
the other coven?”

“No. It is in Marseille and now numbers
twelve. We have people watching it.”

Shaking his head while laughing Robert said
“You have one fine organization over here, Henri. I think that I
could use some instruction along those lines.”

“Well, I have some well-paid human helpers
and they have done well so far.”
And we have Celeste with her
powers, but we will never be telling anyone about that.

Celeste sat there with Celine in her arms,
and she reached up her little hands to place them on Celeste’s
cheeks. Celeste thought
and I have little Celine here who helped
me straighten out Steven’s mind and his nerves, but we will say
nothing about that tonight will we baby?
Into her mind came
Celine’s clear answer.
No…Mama and Celine have a secret.

Ian, James, Moon Owl, and Melissa set out in
November toward the south. They had bought a new wagon and had the
makings of James’ new tent and its furnishings packed away and were
pulling it with a yoke of oxen. Melissa and Moon Owl drove the team
mostly while Ian and James were on foot. They traveled easily
along, not hurrying nor even knowing where the Continental Army
would be for sure. As they arrived at the junction of the Mohawk
and Hudson rivers they encountered people traveling northward up
the Hudson River Valley that had news of a massacre in the town of
Tappan, New York. Rumor was that Hessians had murdered some thirty
American soldiers with bayonets after they had surrendered. They
also heard that the Continental Army had tried and failed to take
back Savannah, Georgia. There had been some protracted battles but
no major or decisive actions had happened during the summer. The
British fleet was stretched to the breaking point now though as
rumors of Spain threatening to take Florida had traveled northward.
Rumors were that a large part of the British fleet at New York
harbor were about to be sent to see to that or maybe had departed
already.

They stayed well away from New York City and
the Hudson Valley in that area, skirting it to the west and taking
longer, but not encountering any redcoats. Three times they
encountered local militia units who were friendly after learning
their plans.

By the time they reached New Jersey they got
news from other travelers that Washington’s army was going to
winter near Morristown. It was already quite cold for late November
and the four of them quickly got James and Melissa’s new tent set
up and working. They even laid in a store of stove wood before the
two men went south on foot to bring the other tent from Valley
Forge.

In only a day the two had gotten there and
had packed the tent, stove, pipes, bed, and tub into the wagon. Ian
had left all at a farm and the farmer had used the oxen to plow his
fields that spring. They elected to pull out the following morning
and spent four days getting back to Morristown. They arrived to
find that the women had things well in hand and had been furnishing
the army with lots of small game already. Ian and James emptied the
wagon and then Ian took the team and wagon to a farm nearby and
made a deal with the family to keep both teams, both wagons, and
use them next year for plowing and hauling if they could store
their tents and gear there for the summer.

It was a moonless night so when they
returned they erected the tent in under an hour, all four working
on it at vampire speed. By nine o’clock that night, both tents were
cozy warm inside and the four of them gathered in James and
Melissa’s new tent. Ian got out the violin and played several songs
that he knew and then passed it to James who played two more that
he knew. A sentry returning from his post at midnight came and
called out to the four. James opened the inner flap and invited the
young man inside. There was some rabbit stew staying hot on top of
the stove in a smaller pot and the man gratefully wolfed it down
and took his boots off to warm his feet for a while. He departed in
about a half hour, thanking them again for the food.

The next day the hunter and guide Darren
Roberts came looking for Ian and was surprised to find that James
was with him. The men introduced Roberts to their wives and they
visited awhile. Roberts said how he thought that the winter might
be even worse than the previous year, and agreed to tell
Washington’s adjutant that Ian was here again this winter with
another hunter. Ian had him promise to let them know that since
there were two of them, he could be available for courier duty
should they need him.

After Roberts departed, all four set out to
get small game. Some four miles west of camp they fanned out and
between the four of them they caught fifty-seven rabbits. By early
afternoon, they had those gutted and hanging on a game rack made
from saplings and the women had a large stew cooking. Moon Owl had
been teaching Melissa what roots were edible and where to find them
and some of that was added to the stew along with salt and pepper
that they had brought from Boston. They had a barrel of turnips,
another one full of carrots and a third one full of apples that
they had brought with their tent, stove, and trappings.

Some of the pickets began to stop by as they
had the previous winter to get a meal on the way in from guard
duty. They all settled in for a long winter, in good spirits. The
women were together all of the time when James and Ian went hunting
after dark. Much of the work to do with the game took place at
night and often there would be a wagon from camp that would come
out at midday to take the carcasses of whatever they had back into
camp for cooking.

It turned bitterly cold in early December
and stayed that way without any let up in the sub-freezing
temperatures. They heard of cases of frostbite becoming all too
common and were determined to keep game in supply for the army as
best they could. Typically Ian and James would depart an hour after
dark with only a pistol, shot, and powder plus their hunting
knives. They ran out of deer in late January and if not for rabbits
and squirrels and coons, they would not have had much to offer by
then. The two began to kill bears that were hibernating then, and
suddenly their game rack had bear carcasses on it every day for all
of January and February.

Darren had come once, desiring to hunt with
them but the two talked him out of it, saying how far they had to
go now and that they only were getting bear as far as anything
sizable. They encouraged him to keep hunting to the south and west
and that the two of them would stay to the north. Moon Owl showed
him how to make a snare and he determined to get a quantity of
rawhide and set snares in his area.

The women would range out sometimes fifteen
miles to get squirrels, rabbits, and an occasional raccoon. Between
them and the men, they kept game on the rack for the camp cook to
pick up every day. To get the squirrels, they simply leaped into
the trees and swarmed up to where they were and snatched them. As
they jumped back down, they would simply break their necks and go
looking for more in other trees. The rabbits had to be run down
unless they were in a den. Nothing edible was off limits as the
winter wore on. Ian and James began to run red wolves down and
coyotes too. It was no strange thing to find four or five wolves on
the rack along with a few coyotes and some coons or from time to
time a black bear. Venison still was preferred but there was not
much of that to be had any longer.

The camp cook shook his head in amazement at
the varieties of game he would find on their rack. Stories spread
all over the camp about the two hunters and their wives living in
tents and all of the game they were providing. There was more than
one man who remarked that all four of them wore dark glasses when
talking about the foursome. Washington himself said “I care not if
they wear tail feathers so long as they keep bringing in meat like
they do.”

The winter wore on, but the women were not
really having a bad time of it at all. They were busy getting small
game when they could get far enough from camp to catch it and they
had each other for company and had become especially close, like
two sisters. Being vampires they were not adversely affected by the
weather much at all and they had enough to do that the days flew by
in spite of the record-setting cold weather. Ian and James had cut
long boughs of various evergreen trees and had stacked them
vertically around the whole perimeter of both tents excepting at
the entrance flaps themselves. They had secured it with strips of
uncured hides so that it could not blow away and after enough snow
fell on them, the tents had an additional layer of insulation
around eight inches thick, nearly all the way to the top. That
served to cut down on their consumption of wood for the stoves. Not
long after that, soldiers began to do some of the tents in the camp
that way and the practice spread.

There was no end of sentries stopping in to
get a bowl of hot stew, a rabbit carcass or a squirrel carcass to
take back to camp. One of their tents was always available for the
men to stop and warm up whether going or coming from picket duty.
They had devised a signal as to which tent was not open for a guest
by hanging a large red blanket over the entrance flap. It was known
to all that the tent with the red blanket over the flap was always
off limits.

The north perimeter was by far the favored
place for pickets and one of Washington’s aides, Colonel Alexander
Hamilton, had to make a schedule early on to rotate the troops so
that all of them got to have picket duty on the north side.
Everyone agreed that it was the worst winter that anyone could ever
recall, but in late April it began to thaw finally and by late May,
the four had packed their tents and stored them and all their
accessories at the barn of a local farmer. He was reminded that he
had free use of the four oxen and the two wagons until they were
needed the next winter.

After notifying Darren Roberts and one of
Washington’s adjutants, the four prepared to set off to the north
that night with only their ruck sacks, contents, and weapons.
Before they could leave the camp site however, they were approached
by a familiar looking man in a heavy springtime coat.

“Ian McCloud.”

“That is me, sir” said Ian, extending his
hand.

“Benjamin Tallmadge, Mr. McCloud. You saved
my life.”

Ian turned to the other three and made
introductions. Then he said “You were alone when I found you, Mr.
Tallmadge.”

“Yes, I managed to get clear of the ambush,
but I was thrown when I was knocked from my saddle by a branch. I
don’t recall much until we were in a tent in camp. I wanted to
thank you in person, sir.”

“I appreciate that, Mr. Tallmadge, but no
thanks are necessary. Do you know who ambushed you?”

“Delaware Indians we think. Please call me
Ben, Mr. McCloud.”

“I will if you will call me Ian.”

“Very well, Ian. May we talk privately
somewhere?”

Ian gestured to Tallmadge and the two walked
some little distance away from the other three. “Ian I wanted to
ask you if you would carry special information packets for us. They
are reports our agents have made or instructions from
headquarters.”

“You want me to be a spy courier then?”

“Well, yes. It is dangerous and you could be
caught and hanged.”

“Ben, I can tell you that is not likely, and
I do not speak idly either. I would do it, but I am headed for
Boston and then for Seneca country.”

“Is there a way we can reach you if we need
you for a special mission then?”

“Yes. You can tell James Barrows in Boston.
He and I know Paul Revere, the silversmith and we also know some
others up there, mmm… John Hancock, Sam Adams, John Adams and a few
more. He can find me if I am around Boston, and he usually knows
where I am.”

“Those last three men are usually tied up in
the legislature, but Revere is governor now. Very well Ian.”

“Ben, you might consider James. He is easily
as good a candidate for this sort of thing as I am and he is more
likely to be in Boston than I am.”

“You recommend him then?”

“I do, Ben” he said as he beckoned to James.
After James had joined them, Ian explained the situation to him and
he agreed to help too.

“Gentlemen, we do not use names in this
operation. We only use numbers. James will be number 706 and you
will be number 707 Ian.”