My Brother Sam is Dead Read online

  Nobody was going to let me forget about it, that was sure. Mr. Beach made it the subject of his sermon. He really got wound up on it, too. He said that our first duty was to God but that our Lord Jesus Christ had said, “Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s” and that meant we were supposed to be loyal Englishmen. He said that hot-tempered young men who listened not to the voices of their elders would bring a wrathy God down on their own heads. He said that the Bible commanded youth to honor their fathers, which made me pretty nervous for Sam, because it was a sin to shout at your father the way he had done, and maybe God would punish him for it.

  I didn’t think that God would strike him down with a bolt of lightning or anything like that. I knew that God could shoot bolts of lightning if He wanted to, but I didn’t believe that He ever did. What worried me was that maybe God would punish him by getting him bayonetted by a Lobsterback. I knew that God did things like that because I saw it happen once. A farmer from the Center came down here one Sunday very drunk and rode his horse through the burying ground, and when Mr. Beach told him to get out, he told Mr. Beach to go to hell and started to gallop his horse at Mr. Beach. But before the horse got more than two or three paces he tripped on a headstone and the farmer fell off and broke his neck and was dead a minute later. It’s a true story; there were scores of witnesses.

  So I knew that God could get Sam if He wanted to; and between worrying about that and being confused over which side was right I couldn’t concentrate on church much. I just wanted to get out of there. But Mr. Beach always preached at least an hour and being fired up about the Lexington battle he went on longer. Fortunately, he always had to get back to Newtown to conduct service there in the afternoons, so finally he had to stop; and we finished up the service, and I breathed a sigh of relief and got up and started to file toward the stairs. I was nearly there when somebody touched me on the arm, and I turned around.

  It was Tom Warrups. Tom didn’t look much like an Indian. He wore the same kind of brown shirt and trousers any farmer around Redding wore, and he spoke pretty good English. “Hello, Tom,” I said.

  He didn’t say anything, but he clutched me by the arm and sort of held me back, while the others filed past us down the balcony steps. Then he said in a low voice, “If I tell you where Sam is, you don’t tell nobody?” He looked at me hard, and squeezed my arm—not enough to hurt, but enough so I knew he could hurt me if he wanted.

  “Is he up at your place, Tom?”

  “You don’t tell nobody, Timmy. You get Tom in trouble.”

  “I won’t tell, Tom.” I wouldn’t either—Tom scared me.

  He let go of my arm, turned and went down the stairs. I came along behind him. My parents were standing out in front of the church, talking to people. It was always the same. Church was practically the only time we ever saw some of the farmers from farther out in the parish—places like Umpawaug. They wanted to keep up with the news, and Father always spent some time with them—it was good business, Father said, to be cordial with people. I knew they wanted me to stand around and be cordial too, so I did, but mostly Jerry Sanford and I threw little stones at each other, until Father caught us and made us stop. 1 was impatient to go see Sam, but of course I had to pretend I wasn’t in any hurry to go anywhere, and the talk dragged on—all about the war and what might happen. Finally my parents got done talking, and we started to cross the street.

  “Father,” I said, “Jerry Sanford wants me to help him carry up a big log from the woodlot.”

  “That’s breaking the Sabbath,” he said.

  “Well, it won’t take very long.”

  He just shrugged. I guess he had too many other worries on his mind to get upset about that. So instead of going into the tavern I turned and went up the road to the Sanford’s house. As soon as I got past it, so nobody could see me from the tavern, I climbed over the stone wall into Sanford’s pasture and began running across the fields towards Colonel Read’s house. It was a couple of miles there going around by the roads, but by cutting across the fields I could make it in fifteen minutes. Better yet it brought me in from the rise behind the house where Tom Warrups’ shack was. If anyone from the Read’s house saw me go up to Warrups’ they’d want to know why. I jogged along quickly. I was pretty nervous—about lying to Father and about what Sam was doing—but it being such a beautiful day helped me to feel better. The sun was warm on my shoulders, birds twittered and there was that spring smell of mud and grass in the air. I just jogged along not thinking about anything very much; and fifteen minutes later I came upon Warrups’ shack.

  It was made in the Indian way of a circle of poles stuck in the ground with their tops bent together and tied. Covering the poles were hides and rags and in some places patches of straw thatch. There was a thin trail of smoke coming out of the top where the poles met. The door was just a hole in the side covered with a blanket flap, but the flap had been pulled aside to let light in. I ducked down and looked through the hole. Sam was sitting on the ground with Betsy Read, holding hands. They looked pretty serious.

  “Hello Tim,” Betsy said.

  “Hello,” I said, slipped inside and hunkered down by the fire. The fireplace was just a circle of stones in the middle of the floor. There was a bed made of a couple of deer hides stretched across a frame, a few pots and pans and not much else. “I can’t stay very long, I told Father I was helping Jerry Sanford move a log.”

  “Oh, Father,” he said. He sounded bitter.

  “I heard your fight,” I said.

  “I’m too old for him to tell me what to do anymore,” Sam said.

  “This morning he said you were full of college-boy wind,” I said.

  “That’s because I wouldn’t obey him.” He picked up a stone and began jiggling it from hand to hand. “I guess he’s still mad at me.”

  “He cried last night after you left, Sam, maybe he knows something about wars that you don’t.”

  Nobody said anything for a minute. I picked up a stick and began to push it into the fire to see it burn. Then Betsy Read said, “Timmy are you on your father’s side or Sam’s?”

  I wished she hadn’t asked me that question. I didn’t want to answer it; in fact, I didn’t know how to answer it. “I don’t understand what it’s all about,” I said.

  “It’s simple,” Sam said. “Either we’re going to be free or we’re not.”

  Betsy touched his arm. “It isn’t that simple, Sam. There’s more to it.”

  “What side is your family on, Betsy?” I asked.

  “Oh, we’re all Patriots. After all, my grandfather is head of the militia.”

  Her grandfather was Colonel Read. Her father was Colonel Read’s son, Zalmon Read. They lived not far from Colonel Read. “Is your grandfather going to fight the Lobsterbacks?”

  “I don’t think so,” Betsy said. “He’s too old. He said he would probably resign his commission to some younger man. Anyway he doesn’t think we ought to fight unless we really have to. He says there ought to be some way of working it out with the King and Parliament without having to fight.”

  “There isn’t any way to work it out,” Sam said. “The British government is determined to keep us their slaves. We’re going to fight.”

  “A lot of people aren’t going to fight,” I said.

  “Around here they aren’t. This is Tory country. Father, Mr. Beach, the Lyons, the Couches—most of them in our church are Tories. And they think it’s the same everywhere, but it isn’t. Down in New Haven they’re ready to fight, and Windham’s already marched their militia to Boston.” He was being scornful. Sam always got scornful when other people disagreed with him, because he always thought he was right, although to be honest, a lot of the time he was right, because of being so smart. But still it was hard for me to think that Father was wrong.

  “Sam, Father says for most people it isn’t being free, it’s only a few pence in taxes.”

  “That’s Father for you, it’s the money that count
s. There are principles involved, Tim. Either you live up to your principles or you don’t and maybe you have to take a chance on getting killed.”

  “Who wants to get killed?”

  “Nobody wants to get killed,” Sam said. “But you should be willing to die for your principles.”

  “That’s right,” Betsy said.

  “But Betsy, you don’t have to take a chance on getting killed,” I said.

  “I’d fight if I could,” she said.

  I hated arguing about it. “Well maybe the King will change his mind and get the Lobsterbacks out.”

  Sam shook his head. “He won’t. He thinks he’s going to teach us a lesson. But we’re going to teach him one. We already taught him one at Lexington.”

  “That’s what I mean,” I said. “Maybe he’ll give up now.”

  Betsy shook her head. “He won’t. Not according to my father.”

  Everybody was quiet for a minute. Then Sam said, “There’s going to be war. Which side are you going to be on?”

  I couldn’t answer. Sam made it seem that he was right and Father was wrong; but I didn’t see how I could go against Father. I didn’t say anything.

  “Tim, you could help us by keeping an ear out in the tavern. With all the Tories around Redding there’ll be lots of talk about what the Lobsterbacks are up to. You could find out who the Tories are—who’s on our side and things like that.”

  It made me nervous to think about it. “I won’t hear anything like that.”

  “You could be a big help,” Sam said. “You could be a hero.”

  I stood up. “I have to go. Father’ll get suspicious.”

  Sam got up, too. “Well, think about it,” he said.

  Betsy stood. “Tim, I’ll see you around the tavern, if you hear anything.”

  But I wasn’t paying attention to what she said, because as she stood up the shadows shifted and the firelight fell on the wall of the hut. There was a blanket lying there as if somebody had just thrown it down. But it hadn’t just been thrown down accidentally, because sticking out from one end of it was the stock of a gun.

  “Sam,” I shouted, “you stole Father’s Brown Bess.”

  He jerked around to look at it. “Damn,” he said, “I didn’t want you to see that.”

  “Sam, you can’t take that. It’s not yours, it’s Father’s.”

  “Sshh, don’t shout so loud. I have to have it, Tim; I need it to fight with.”

  “Sam, you can’t take it, we need it at home. Father needs it.”

  “You don’t expect me to fight without a gun, do you?” He gave me a sharp look. “Are you going to tell Father I’m still here?”

  “Timmy,” Betsy said, “you don’t want your brother to get killed, do you?”

  I stood there confused and mixed up inside. I didn’t say anything.

  “Are you going to tell?” Sam said again.

  “Sam, please don’t take it.” I knew I was about to cry. “Please, Sam.”

  “I have to have it, Tim.”

  “Timmy,” Betsy said. “You don’t want Sam to get killed, do you?”

  “Please, Sam.”

  “Are you going to tell?” Sam said.

  Then I couldn’t hold back anymore and I began to cry. “No, I won’t tell,” I whispered. “Good-bye.”

  And I turned and ran out of the hut and out across the field. About halfway home I got ashamed of myself for crying and stopped; and by the time I reached the tavern I’d got my eyes back to normal and nobody noticed.

  IT’S A FUNNY THING, YOU’D THINK, THAT IF THERE WAS A WAR going on in your own country, it would change everything, it would make your life different. You’d think that there’d be men marching and drilling and people hurrying back and forth and lots of talk about the fighting. But it wasn’t that way at all; it wasn’t any different from usual, it was just normal.

  Of course there were battles. There was a battle at Bunker Hill where the Patriots massacred the British troops before they were driven off, and the Rebels also took Fort Ticonderoga without much of a fight. But these battles all seemed far away—they were just things we read about in the Connecticut Journal and the other newspapers. Sometimes Father brought home Rivington’s Gazette from Verplancks. It was a Tory paper and he wasn’t supposed to have it; it was illegal, so he kept it hidden. It made me wonder how the war was going to make us freer if you couldn’t read any paper you wanted any more. Oh, I don’t mean that we ignored the war. There was always a lot of discussion about it around Redding, and sometimes people in the tavern would get into arguments over it when they’d drunk too much whiskey. Once Father actually threw a man out of the tavern. He was a stranger, and I guess he didn’t realize that Redding was such a Tory town because he told somebody that the only good Lobster-back was a dead Lobsterback and that King George was a great hairy fool. My father said, “That’s subversion and we don’t permit subversion here.”

  The man smacked his beer mug down on the table. “I thought I was among free men, not slaveys.”

  He hardly got the words out before Father jumped over to the man, jerked him out of his chair and pushed him through the door into the mud of the street. The man lay there on his back cursing Father, but Father slammed the door and the man left. I guess he suddenly realized that he was in Tory country.

  But leaving out things like that, the war didn’t affect us much around Redding in that summer of 1775. Except for Sam. Sam was gone and nobody mentioned him—not Father, not Mother, not me. Father didn’t mention him because he’d kicked him out, and Mother and I didn’t mention him because of not wanting to get Father angry. For all we knew, Sam could be dead. But I didn’t want to think about that, so I didn’t.

  So the summer went along and I lived my ordinary life, which was mostly chores all day long. Having a father who was a tavern-keeper was a lot better than being a farmer’s son, like most boys. Running a farm is terrible hard work—plowing and hoeing and milking cows and such and being out in the fields all by yourself with nobody to talk to all day long. Being around a tavern is a lot more fun. There are people coming and going, and a lot of them have been to the big towns like Hartford or New Haven or even New York or Boston, and they have stories to tell. But still, it isn’t as much fun as people like Jerry Sanford think. Mostly Jerry works on his uncle’s farm, and he thinks I have it lucky. He doesn’t realize that there’s an awful lot of wood to cut to keep the fireplaces going for cooking and a lot of water to come up from the well and if there isn’t anything else to do, there’s scrubbing the floors and washing the windows and keeping everything clean generally. My mother’s strong on cleanliness. “Food tastes better in a clean house,” she always says. And of course there’s the livestock I have to care for, too. Besides, the woodlot is two fields down the Fairfield Road from the tavern and we have to cart it up.

  So even if it was better than farming, it wasn’t all that much fun. Of course whenever I could I ducked out and did something with Jerry Sanford. If it was hot, we’d go for a swim in the mill stream, or climb the trees up in his woodlot. We played mumble-the-peg or spin tops or play duck on the rock, which I usually won because I could run faster. Sometimes, if it rained we’d go up to Tom Warrups and get him to tell us stories about the Indian wars and the brave things his grandfather, Chief Chicken, did. Or if nobody was watching me, I’d sneak up into the loft and look at the old almanacs Sam brought back from college sometimes. But mostly I worked.

  I saw Betsy Read a lot. She came into the tavern pretty often to buy thread or cloth or something, and I noticed that when she did she’d linger around on some excuse and try to listen to what people were saying until my mother would say, “Betsy, I don’t think your mother intended for you to spend the day idling,” and she’d go. I didn’t see what difference it made, anyway: I never heard anyone say anything important.

  Then one day in September she came down with a jug to buy beer. She sat down at the table, and when my mother had her back turned filling the j
ug, Betsy gave me a wink and jerked her head toward the door. I wrinkled up my forehead at her to explain what she meant, but she just nodded at the door again. Then Mother brought the beer jug back and put it down on the table. “Off with you, Betsy,” she said. “Idle hands make the Devil’s work.” Betsy got up, picked up the beer jug and walked to the door.

  “I forgot to put away the pitchfork,” I said.

  My mother gave me a funny look. “When were you using the pitchfork?”

  “Did I say pitchfork?” I said. “I meant the water bucket, from when I watered the chickens this morning.” I went through the kitchen and outside and then ducked around the corner of the house. When Betsy came out of the front door I gave her a low whistle, and she slipped up to the side of the house beside me and gave me a serious look. She wasn’t much taller than I, but she was fifteen and of course she was smarter than I was. “Tim, I have to talk to you about something serious.”

  It was a beautiful sunny day. The birds were twittering and the breeze was blowing and you could smell the hay in the field next to us waving in the heat. The wooden shingles of the tavern were warm. It was too nice a day to worry about things. I bent my head and touched my cheek to the warm shingles. “It’s about Sam.”

  “Tim, if he came back to Redding, would you tell your father?”

  “I wish Sam would give Father back the Brown Bess.”

  “Tim, stop worrying about that; Sam needs the gun.”

  “I wish he would, though.”

  “Please stop worrying about it. Just tell me what you would do if Sam came back for a visit.”

  “Why does Sam want to fight with Father?”

  “Please, Tim,” Betsy said. “I have to go, just answer my question.”