The Rebels: The Kent Family Chronicles (55 page)

The doctor hesitated a long time and cleared his throat twice before saying softly that the pistol ball couldn’t be removed; that Judson was evidently bleeding internally; that an opium tincture had been forced down his throat to ease his pain; and that saving his life was next to impossible.

Judson listened in a detached way, light-headed. When the doctor finished, Judson whispered that his wound didn’t hurt all that much, thanks to the tincture. He endured a fit of coughing, then asked George when he intended to head the flatboats down the Ohio. George said they would push off shortly after sunrise next day.

“I—” Judson swallowed, then smiled, his sweat-slicked face shiny in the flickering light of the room’s one lantern of pierced tin. “—I’ll live—long enough to see that, anyway.”

George and the doctor glanced at one another. Despite Judson’s feeble voice, he sounded certain.

How remarkable, Judson thought. He
did
feel peaceful. As if a struggle had reached an end, and he could rest in good conscience.

Before drifting off again, he mumbled a question about the Indian spy. George told him that Nen-nemki had confessed. The Shawnee had indeed been dispatched by Hamilton at Detroit. His mission was to watch for signs of any substantial military force being assembled at Pittsburgh.

“I suppose Hamilton chose him because he’s half white, and therefore less suspect. Nen-nemki did make one most revealing statement, though I doubt he himself understood its significance.” George paused a moment. “Hamilton wants to know how many men might be coming to fortify and defend the Kentucky settlements.”

“The Kentucky—? That—that means the British still haven’t guessed—”

Judson stopped, realizing the doctor was still in the room. He started to mutter an apology, but George’s icy smile said it wasn’t necessary:

“Our true purpose? No, evidently not.”

Judson breathed one more word—all he could manage:

“Good.”

He remembered George staying with him a long time, hunched on an up-ended section of log with his hands locked around his ankles while his pale eyes watched with a mixture of guilt and regret. Judson woke occasionally, attempted to speak to the tall young man. He wanted to tell George to have neither regret nor guilt because he, Judson, had been the one with the tally of guilt that required erasing. That was one reason he’d lunged between George and the Shawnee with the pistol. One reason, but only one—

He couldn’t muster enough strength to say what needed saying, though, and that saddened him. He floated in a foggy limbo where the pain was constant and, at times, close to unbearable. He made no outcry.

In one of Judson’s wakeful intervals, one of George’s men—a member of the six from Semple’s Tavern—appeared to say that Nen-nemki had been hanged.

Barely awake, and having consciously willed himself to live the night, he asked to be carried to the shore in the morning sunshine.

He sensed a sizable crowd around the litter on which he lay; he could hear their excited voices. Though he couldn’t feel it in his chilly hands, he knew he must be holding the small New Testament because he recalled asking for it.

Gradually, he separated other sounds from the hubbub: an almost continual thud of boots on the landing; the sharp commands of George’s men making the flatboats ready for departure.

Judson saw next to none of the actual activity. His eyes were slitted against the bright daylight. He felt the sun on his cheeks but it was curiously heatless. From his chest downward, his body seemed thick. He knew he was bandaged and doped with the surgeon’s tincture.

Time dragged. At last, a woman near him, exclaimed, “Oh, they’re going—!”

A round of huzzahs split the early summer air. Judson cried feebly, “Lift me up! Please, someone lift me up—!”

At last, he was heard. Hands grasped the end of the litter where his head lay, elevated it slowly. He was disappointed. He could see little more than a glare of sunlit water.

He blinked and kept blinking until, finally, in a welter of confusing shapes and colors, he discerned a glowing patch of red.

Red hair—

George Clark.

Where was he standing? On the roof of one of the flatboats? It must be so. The tall figure of his friend burned bright as an angel’s in the sunshine. And it was receding ever so slowly.

“Man the sweep when we pick up the current!” a voice boomed in the distance.

Suddenly Judson was more afraid than he had ever been in his life.

His hands had turned to ice. He had to exert tremendous effort just to feel the grainy surface of the testament cover between his fingers.

Shining and fierce and powerful, the figure of George Clark floated off in the sunshine. The cheering started again.
Gone away,
Judson thought.
Gone away into the
w
est I never saw. Gone away to
—
what were the names?

Kaskaskia was one. He couldn’t recall the other.

But he did remember that George had an important secret mission in the Northwest Territory. By paying the price of his guilt—a price that had needed paying for so many years—he had helped make George’s journey possible. It was a good thing to think about. One good thing to balance against all the bad—

Faces drifted through his mind. A wrathful Angus. A disappointed Donald. Butchered Seth, and Alice, drowned. Vengeful Lottie. Sorrowing but stern Tom Jefferson—

Peggy. Lovely Peggy.

The memories disturbed his sleepy comfort. He’d brought others so much sorrow; done so much that was despicable. He had so few good memories. The best, perhaps, was having seen the nation born—

And there was George. There, he could be proud. He’d helped one of Virginia’s finest captains set out to extend the boundaries of the new nation. That could be written down in the meager column opposite the much longer, blotted one.

He concentrated on the distant red-haired figure that now seemed to be floating in a gathering mist. With a shiver, he realized the mist was not external; it was within himself. He clutched the testament tightly, whispered the word,
“Father
—
”
while the cheering thundered.

The first of George Clark’s flatboats swung into the bend at the forks and, with sweeps churning back and forth, caught the current that would bear the little army down the Ohio, into the west.

But Judson never saw. Slowly, he closed his eyes. His head lolled to one side, a faint smile fading away.

One of the men holding the litter said, “I think we can put it down now.”

O
N A SPRING AFTERNOON
some eleven months later, two men climbed Breed’s Hill overlooking the Charles and the Mystic and Boston harbor.

The older of the two, Philip Kent, walked with a slight limp that contrasted with the frolicsome skips and jumps of the small boy clutching his hand. The boy was dark-haired, handsome. His brown eyes sparkled as he surveyed the orchards and stone fences and wind-blown pastures of the peninsula.

The boy tugged his father’s hand. “Papa, couldn’t we have a race?”

“You know I can’t run a footrace,” Philip said in a sharp voice.

“But we run together sometimes.”

“Only because you insist, Abraham. And only at home.”

The boy frowned. “All right, But can’t we go over to that other hill? I want to see the ships better—”

“You’ll stay here. We won’t be all that long.”

“Papa, please—”

“I said
no!”

The Marquis de Lafayette adjusted his tricorn against the slant of the sun. On one of the hat’s upturned sides, Gil sported the white-centered cockade that symbolized the French alliance.

“My good friend,” he said, “would it hurt to let your son roam? I shall be a little while examining the redoubt.”

Philip shrugged wearily. “All right. You can run by yourself, Abraham. But no farther than the top of Morton’s—” He pointed. “And stay in sight!”

Abraham gave a quick nod, a half-fearful look in his dark eyes as he watched his father’s severe face a moment longer. Then he turned away.

Freedom quickly restored his spirits. He was soon racing through the grass on his way to the summit of Morton’s Hill.

“A splendid lad,” Gil remarked as he watched the diminishing figure. “Four years old, isn’t he?”

“Not quite. In September. But he’s bright for his age. Mrs. Brumple has already taught him to read a little.”

The young Frenchman turned to gaze at the rooftops of Boston across the Charles. “Tell me. Are you and he—shall we say—on good terms?”

“I don’t know what you mean by that. I’m his father.”

“Do you spend time together?”

“I see Abraham whenever I can. And twice a week—Wednesdays and Sundays—very early in the morning, we both go out to Watertown.”

Gil asked lightly, “What’s the attraction there, pray?”

“My wife’s memorial.”

“Ah, certainly. My deepest apologies—I forgot—”

Recovering from his embarrassment, Gil pondered Philip’s blunt statements silently. Philip was thankful, because he’d heard quite enough on the subject of Abraham from Mrs. Brumple. Only the other morning, she had launched into one of those well-intentioned but infuriating lectures that would have caused Philip to order her out of the house if he hadn’t needed her to care for his son. Even now, he could recall the conversation—

“Mr. Kent, sir, you’ll forgive me if I interject a comment—”

“Of course!” Philip retorted, displaying the bad temper that had afflicted him of late. “I forgive you for it constantly, don’t I?”

A forced, belated smile didn’t mitigate Mrs. Brumple’s irritation. “I certainly never intend to be critical, Mr. Kent—”

“Yes you do, my good woman, so go right ahead.”

“Really, sir, this is intolerable—!”

Philip sighed. “I apologize. Please do continue.”

“Well—all right. I’ve been meaning to speak to you about these continual trips to the place where your dear wife’s memorial is.”

“You sound as if you don’t approve. I see nothing wrong in paying respects to Anne.”

“But must Abraham go with you each time? Twice weekly?”

“Why shouldn’t he?”

“Well, sir, this is a personal opinion—and you may find it odd coming from one who constantly deplored her husband’s lack of piety. But I feel that your insistence upon Abraham visiting Mrs. Kent’s memorial so often is harmful to him.”

“Harmful?” Philip arched his brows. “In God’s name, woman, how?”

“Sir, please accept this in the spirit in which it is offered. The Lord’s name should never be taken—”

“Yes, yes, I realize! I’m sorry. Now please get to the point.”

Mrs. Brumple clamped her lips together and nodded. Unhappily, Philip realized he’d roused her combative spirit:

“The point is this. A small boy should associate his father with cheerful events and surroundings, not exclusively with graveyards—no matter how revered the departed.”

Philip replied quietly, earnestly, speaking the deep hurt that was always with him—and was especially painful during long, wakeful nights in his solitary bed:

“Mrs. Brumple, I loved Anne above all other people in this world. I repeat—her memory deserves to be honored.”

“I wouldn’t have it otherwise, sir! You miss my meaning entirely. Your visits have become a fixation! The boy barely remembers the dear lady, and he only thinks of you in connection with situations of sadness—bereavement. I cannot help but believe it will warp his nature if it continues indefinitely.”

Curtly, Philip said, “Thank you for the advice. I will give it serious consideration.”

Ye gods, how the old goose annoyed him sometimes! He certainly
didn’t
intend to give her words even a moment’s serious consideration—

But now, standing with Gil and watching Abraham’s whirls and turns in the long grass, the discussion slipped back into his mind, and he felt a twinge of guilt.

He’d seen the fear in his son’s eyes when he spoke harshly to him a few moments ago. Perhaps he
was
giving excessive attention to mourning—and, more important, forcing the boy into the same pattern.

But dear Lord, he did miss Anne! Was it so wrong to pay homage to that undying affection?

Gil continued to study him with thoughtful hazel eyes. Somehow the glance prodded Philip to expand his defense of himself and his relationship with his son:

“I don’t deliberately leave Abraham to his own devices, you understand. But I’ve all I can handle running the presses and watching those damned apprentices. Also, as you’re well aware, I’ve sunk a great deal of money into the preparation of my first book.”

Gil nodded, tugging the slim volume from the roomy pocket of his coat. The book was bound in lustrous brown leather over boards. Philip had invested in the paper and other materials necessary to produce the sort of book Royal Rothman had suggested—a deluxe edition of Tom Paine’s
American Crisis
essays.

More essays were still coming from Paine’s quill, of course. But Philip had collected all those previously issued as individual paper-bound pamphlets, re-set them in a highly legible typeface, run off the sheets and sent them to a bindery. He was gambling on being able to eventually sell two thousand copies to private collectors and circulating libraries.

He had received the books from the bindery three weeks ago, and thus far had disposed of perhaps two hundred copies, on consignment to Boston book shops. Less than fifty had been sold. He had expected to do much better.

“If business doesn’t improve,” Philip said at length, “I may go out of the trade altogether.”

“What?” Gil exclaimed. “You’ve only just started!”

Philip stared over the sunny hillsides shadowed by a passing cloud.

“Yes, but Anne’s death changed a great many things, Gil.” He swung to face his friend. “I didn’t tell you everything when I showed you the shop this morning. Selwyn Rothman, whom you met, is pressing me for a long-term commitment. A lease on the space I rent by the month. I’ve put him off because I frankly don’t know whether I want to continue. A few months after I opened the shop, I ordered a signboard to be hung outside the entrance to Rothman’s loft. Although the sign’s completed, I’ve never called for it. The sign painter’s apprentice devils me about it practically every other day—”