My Brother Sam is Dead Read online

  I still hadn’t made up my mind which side I was on in the war, and I didn’t care whether Sam was a Patriot or a Tory or what. All I could think about was snuggling up to him and listening to him talk about scoring telling points. Knowing Sam I was pretty sure he was trying to score telling points from the other soldiers he was with. “I won’t tell,” I said.

  “Promise?”

  “I promise.”

  “You swear on the Bible, Tim?”

  “I swear on the Bible,” 1 said. “When is he coming?”

  “I don’t know exactly,” she said. “Soon. He sent me a letter.”

  I was disappointed. “He didn’t even say when he could come?”

  “No. I have to go, Tim. Remember, you promised.” But he didn’t come soon. At first I thought he would come in a few days, but he didn’t. A week passed and another week and still he didn’t come. When I saw Betsy at the tavern or in church I would look at her in hopes that she would give me a sign or whisper to me that Sam was coming soon, but she never did. I guess she was scared of having the subject come up in front of grownups, especially Father or the other Tories. Once I actually managed to speak to her when she came into the tavern while Mother was in the kitchen getting some bread for some travelers who were eating lunch.

  “When’s he coming, Betsy?” I whispered. “When?”

  “Ssshh, Tim,” she hissed. “Just shush about it.”

  So I shut up about it, but I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I wanted to have Sam there and listen to him talk about the fighting and everything. I wanted to tell him about everything I’d done, too, all the things that would make him proud of me and respect me, like finally being able to throw a stone clear over the tavern, which we weren’t supposed to do, and about being best in school in arithmetic. I never used to be very good at anything in school, but for some reason I suddenly got good at arithmetic

  So September passed and then October. The geese flew south in long, wavering V’s. The leaves went red and orange and then brown and fell so that they crunched when Father and I walked around on them out in the woodlot, where we were getting up the winter’s wood. The sky went that low, November grey; the puddles grew coats of ice overnight, and one morning when I woke up the fields were white with snow. That morning Betsy came down to the tavern with the beer mug. Mother was out with the chickens, but Father was in the taproom sharpening the two-man saw, because we were going out to the woodlot.

  “Hello, Betsy,” Father said. “How’s your family?”

  “In good health, sir,” she said.

  “I’m glad to hear it. What can I do for you? Beer, is it? Well help yourself, you know where it is.”

  “Thank you, sir,” she said. She crossed over to the barrel. Father bent over the saw, the file making the metal sing as he worked it over the teeth. “Tim, are you going to school this term?” Betsy asked.

  “Yes,” I said. I looked at her. “We started last month.” Then I noticed that she was nodding her head slowly up and down. Sam was back.

  I WAS SO EXCITED I COULD HARDLY STAND IT. I FELT ALL sparkly inside—sort of scared and happy both at the same time. When lunchtime came I could hardly force myself to eat, although of course I did, so nobody would suspect anything. Being so excited worried me. A couple of times I almost blurted something out. You know how it is when you get really interested in something, you forget what you’re doing or even where you are. Well I was thinking so hard about going up to Tom Warrups’ and finally seeing Sam after all this time that I kept forgetting it was a secret. Once I started to say aloud, “I wonder if Sam really shot anybody,” and another time I began to say, “Maybe I ought to bring him up something to eat.” But both times I caught myself in time.

  The big question was to find an excuse to get away. On a school day it would have been different, I would have just told the teacher I had to go home and help at the tavern, and gone up to Warrups’. But I didn’t want to wait until Monday; probably Sam would be gone by then anyway.

  After lunch Father sent me out to the woodlot with the axe. Although it had warmed up some, the day was cloudy and the thin layer of snow was still on the ground. From the woodlot the whole country looked white, as if it had been painted to match the church and the houses around it. I began cutting wood, wondering if I dared to sneak away to Warrups’. I decided not to: after a while Father would notice that there weren’t any chopping sounds and come up to see what I was doing. I needed another excuse; and as I chopped I tried to think of one.

  I was thinking like that when I first heard the horses. I straightened up, letting the axe dangle from my hand, and listened. There were a lot of them coming up the Fairfield Road from the south and they were coming pretty fast. I stared down the road toward the bend. They would have passed right by me. At first all I could hear was the heavy drum roll sound of hooves; then I began to hear voices of men shouting and the jingling of harness. Then suddenly they came pouring around the bend of the road into sight. It was a party of maybe twenty people, and even at a distance I could see that some of them had on blue uniforms which meant that they were Continentals—the Rebel troops. I stood back among the trees and watched them come galloping by. It was a pretty unusual thing to see a party of horsemen in Redding. They came on, and then they were swirling by, an officer wearing a sword in the lead, followed by the ordinary soldiers. Most of them had Brown Besses like ours slung over their backs. I guess they were mostly from the Fairfield trainband. The horsemen pounded on, churning the snow on the road into mud. I kept down in the shadow of the trees, but they didn’t pay any attention to me anyway. In a moment they had swept past. I darted through the trees to the road, and looked after them. They pulled up at the tavern. The officer and three of the men dismounted, and then the rest galloped off.

  I was scared, but I was curious. I figured the officer had gone into the tavern to drink a mug of beer. I hadn’t really seen many true soldiers, and I wondered what they were like. I wasn’t sure if it was safe, though. What would they do if they knew that Father was against the war? Still I didn’t want to be left out of the excitement. So I cut back through the woodlot and across the snowy fields so I could come up to the house from behind. I figured I would sneak in the kitchen door and listen to what was going on first. I was still carrying the axe. It was dangerous to run with an axe, because you might fall and cut yourself, but it made me feel safer to hold it in my hand. I went on running through the light snow, and then I came up behind the barn and eased myself around it into the barnyard. I could hear the horses stamping and jingling their harnesses in front of the tavern.

  Somebody began to shout. The shouting was coming from inside the tavern. I darted across the barnyard and slipped into the kitchen. The door to the taproom was mostly closed, but there was a crack where it was hinged onto the wall. The shouting went on. I tiptoed to the door and put my eye to the crack.

  Mother was standing up against the fireplace wall. There was a man in front of her, holding a rifle sideways to keep her from getting away. Two other soldiers had hold of Father from the back, twisting his arms behind him so that he couldn’t move. The officer in charge stood in front of him with a sword. “We know you have a weapon, Meeker. Where is it?” he shouted. He jabbed the sword forward as if he was going to stick it into Father, and at the same time the men holding Father gave him a jerk. I began to shake and shiver, and I thought I would run someplace to get help, but then I realized there wasn’t any help. Probably the Patriots were trying to get the guns away from all the Tories.

  “I don’t have it anymore,” Father shouted. “My loyal son Samuel stole it to go play soldier boy.”

  The officer laughed. “Come now, I’m not going to believe that story. You’re all Tories here. We want your gun.” He jabbed the sword again at Father’s stomach.

  “Believe it or not as you like,” Father said. “What do you intend to do, run me through with that sword and leave my wife and child to fend for themselves?”

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p; “I will if you don’t give up your weapon.” He jabbed again with the sword. “We know you have one. We know where all the Tory weapons in Redding are. Not everybody is willing to play the dog to the King.”

  My father spit. “There are traitors everywhere,” he shouted.

  “Watch your tongue or I’ll slice it out.”

  Oh, it scared me to hear Father yell at the Rebel officer. I wanted him just to be quiet and not make a fuss; to beg, even. It made me realize where Sam got his rebelliousness from, though. Father didn’t like anybody to tell him what to do anymore than Sam did. “Oh, Father,” I whispered to myself, “please don’t talk back.”

  And I guess Father realized that he ought to be more quiet, because he got a grip on himself and said calmly, “I’m telling you the truth, my son ran off to join your army and took my gun. We have no weapons here but butcher knives.”

  The officer looked at Father, considering. Finally he said, “I don’t believe you.” He raised the sword. I gasped and the officer whipped the flat side of the blade across Father’s face. My mother shrieked, Father cursed, and a thin line of blood appeared on his cheek and upper lip. I knew what I had to do. I ducked out of the kitchen, dashed across the barnyard and began to run through the pastures toward Colonel Read’s house. There was one person who knew what had happened to Father’s Brown Bess, and he was up at Tom Warrups’.

  Oh, I was scared. The war had finally come to Redding, and it was terrible. I guessed pretty easily what was happening. Because Redding had such a reputation for being a Tory town, the Rebels had decided to disarm it—at least disarm the Tories. Partly it was to get guns for themselves—everybody knew that the Rebels didn’t have enough of anything, guns included. And part of the idea was to make sure that Redding Tories wouldn’t be able to do to the Continentals what the Minutemen had done to the British at Concord and Lexington six months earlier. And I knew the Rebels weren’t just playing; they’d kill Father if they wanted to.

  So I ran uphill and down, clambering over the stone and rail fences that divided the pastures. My lungs began to burn and even though it was cold, my face was soaked with sweat. But I didn’t dare stop to rest; all I could see in front of me was that Rebel officer pushing a sword through Father’s stomach. So I ran on, my breath roaring in my mouth and my legs getting so weak and trembly that a few times I almost stumbled.

  Then I saw Tom Warrups’ shack and I stopped running. There was a tiny trickle of smoke drifting up from the chimney, which I could hardly see against the grey sky. I slipped quietly around to the door. The blanket was hanging across it. I pushed it a little aside and peered in. The fire in the circle of stones was practically out, but there was enough light so I could see that there was nobody in the hut but Sam. He was lying on Tom Warrups’ frame bed on his stomach, with a deerskin rug over him. I could hear him softly breathe and see his back go up and down. I guessed he must have walked a long way to get to Redding and was tired. He was a pretty good sleeper, anyway; I’d slept with him all my life and I knew that he was hard to wake up, even if you punched him.

  I crept into the hut, leaving the blanket hanging over the door in case somebody should walk by, and knelt down by the bed. I was sorry to wake him up, knowing how tired he must be. I put my hand on the bed to shake it; and suddenly I realized I was touching something funny. I felt along the edge of the bed. There was something hard and long under the blanket. I put my hand under the blanket to feel it better, but already I knew it was the Brown Bess. I guess Sam had got into the habit of sleeping with it so nobody would steal it. He was lying with his arm across it, with the blanket over top of both.

  Carefully I slid my hand down the barrel until I got to the stock, gripped it, and gave it a little pull. Sam snorted in his sleep and shook his head as if he were trying to shake a fly off his face. But he didn’t wake up. I gave the gun another little pull. This time he began to talk loudly, but the words came out nonsense, and I couldn’t make them out.

  I let go of the gun and took my hand out from underneath the blanket, trying to think what to do next. Sam was pretty tired, and being a good sleeper, I figured I might be able to move his arm without waking him up. When we used to sleep together plenty of times he’d thrown his arm or his leg over me in his sleep, and I’d have to grunt and heave to get myself untangled from him, and he’d never wake up. I decided to take a chance. I flipped the blanket back a little until his arm and the Brown Bess were uncovered. Then I quickly bent his arm away so it wasn’t lying across the gun anymore. He snorted again, but he didn’t wake up. I picked up the gun, ducked through the door of the shack just pushing the blanket away with my head. When I got outside I began running across the snow-covered pastures as fast as I could go, praying that I’d get back before anything happened. Ahead of me, as far as I could see was a trail of my own footprints in the snow, drawn like a line across the fields and fences that divided them up.

  I was so worried and scared that I didn’t even hear Sam coming until I was across Read’s pasture and climbing over a stone wall at the other side. As I slid over the wall, I first heard the heavy thump-thump of running feet. I looked back. Sam was down at the bottom of the pasture about a hundred yards away, charging up at me as fast as he could come. He saw me look at him, but he didn’t shout, for fear that somebody would hear him.

  I leaped over the wall and began running on as fast as I could, but I knew it was hopeless. Sam was bigger and stronger and faster than me. I looked back again. Sam was coming up to the stone wall. He didn’t bother to climb it, he just cleared it in one jump and came running on. I turned and swung down to the left in the direction of the road. I didn’t think Sam would follow me there for fear of being seen. I tried to pray, but I couldn’t think of any right words and all I could do was whisper over my gasping breath, “Oh please, God, oh please, God.”

  And then Sam was ten yards behind me. “Timmy,” he said in a whispery shout. “For God’s sake, Tim, give me that before you hurt yourself.”

  I swiveled around to face him. He lunged at me, grabbing for the muzzle of the gun. He got a couple of fingers on it, but I jerked it out of his grip. He cursed, and stuck his fingers in his mouth, and I could see he’d got a little gash from the bayonet clip when I jerked it out of his fingers. I leveled the Brown Bess at his stomach and I said, “Don’t come any closer, Sam, or I’ll shoot you.”

  I couldn’t even hold the gun right. It was too long and too heavy for me to hold against my shoulder the way you’re supposed to. I had to hold it against my hip with one hand on the trigger and the other wrapped around the barrel. I knew that if I fired it I’d be knocked flat, but I didn’t care.

  Sam stared at me. “Timmy.”

  “Don’t move, Sam.”

  “It isn’t loaded, Tim.”

  “You’re a liar.”

  He started to step toward me. “Stand back, Sam, or I’ll shoot you in the stomach.” Suddenly I began to cry, not just little tears but big sobs all mixed up with trying to get my breath. I felt ashamed of crying in front of Sam, and embarrassed, but it was all so terrible I couldn’t stop.

  “Timmy, don’t be crazy. It isn’t loaded. Now give it to me before it gets damaged.”

  “Jesus, Sam, Jesus, they’re down there and they’re going to kill Father if he doesn’t give them the Brown Bess.”

  “Who? Who’s down there?”

  “Some Continentals, with some others from Fairfield.”

  Then he lunged. I never knew whether I would have pulled the trigger because the next thing I was lying on the ground with Sam on top of me, and he’d got the gun. My fingers hurt, and when I looked at them I saw that they were bleeding, too, where they’d got ripped out of the trigger guard. Sam’s face was dead white. “You would have shot me, you little pig, wouldn’t you?” He got up off me, and I sat up. “Are you all right?” he said.

  I jumped up. “I wouldn’t tell you if I wasn’t, you son of a bitch. By this time they’ve probably killed Father.’
r />   “Timmy, I can’t go down there.”

  “Why not? They’re supposed to be your friends.”

  “I can’t, Timmy, I’m not supposed to be here.”

  “What do you mean you’re not supposed to be here?”

  “I’m supposed to be in Danbury buying cattle. They sent me down from Cambridge with Captain Champion, the commissary officer because I’m from around here.”

  “Did you run away?”

  “I didn’t desert, I just came home for a couple of days. Captain Champion had to go over to Waterbury for something so I decided to slip home for a day or so.”

  “To see Betsy Read.”

  “All right, so what?” Sam said.

  “Won’t you get in trouble?”

  “They won’t catch me,” Sam said. “People are always sneaking off home for a few days; the officers don’t know where half the men are a lot of the time. If they come around looking for you, one of your friends says you sprained your ankle and you’re coming along behind.”

  “Sam, I’m scared about Father. Let’s not stand here talking.”

  He looked sort of uneasy. “He’s probably all right. They’ve been disarming Tories in lots of places. It’s orders from the Connecticut General Assembly. You don’t think they’re going to let the Tories keep their guns, do you?”

  “What’ll they do to Father?”

  “Oh, probably just push him around a little. They don’t shoot people.”

  “I saw him, Sam, he was going to stick his sword into Father. You have to go down, Sam, you have to.”

  “I can’t, Tim. They might hang me for a deserter if they found out.”

  “All right then, let me take the gun home and give it to them.”

  “I can’t do that, Tim. If I go back to camp without my weapon, they’ll surely hang me.”

  I thought about that. “Oh God, Sam, what did you have to fight for? Why didn’t you stay in college?”

  “I couldn’t, Tim. How could I not go when all of my friends were going?”