ate a whole back leg sitting there, until Annie’s face was coated with grease. They wrapped the excess in the cloth Ma had given him and were up and moving again, Samuel not wanting to waste daylight.
He could think of little but finding his parents andgetting them away from their captors. But he also realized that the odds were not good. He knew nothing of cities, or even towns, but New York City must be large, and filled with people who would not be helpful since the British were there. Try as he might, he couldn’t think of a way to get into the city safely to find his mother and father.
With meat in his belly he fairly loped along, so fast that at last Annie gasped, “You got to slow down. I can’t run like a deer.”
He slowed but kept the pace steady, so that when it was dark, hard dark, and he stopped, Annie fell asleep almost the instant he wrapped the bedroll blanket around her.
He decided to make a cold camp and didn’t start a fire. Since there was no smoke, the bugs, mostly mosquitoes, found him at once. They weren’t as bad as they’d been on his hunting trips on the frontier, but then he’d always had a fire with the smoke to keep them away.
He was tired, although not like Annie, and he had some thinking to do. It took him a while to get his mind off the mosquitoes, and by that time there was a new sliver of a moon. In the pale silver light he saw Annie’s face, wrapped in the blanket, just showing enough to let her breathe, and his heart went out to her.
She was only eight, he thought, maybe nine, and her whole world had been absolutely destroyed.
Were there many like her? Everything gone because of this war? The innocent ones were the worst part of it all. His mother and father making a life on the frontier, justwanting to be left alone, his mother trying to get the garden to grow, his father learning how to use tools, how to make his own house, wanting only to work and read and think and live a quiet, simple life with his family.
All gone. His own life gutted, not as much as Annie’s, but enough.
He had to get his parents back.
How? What to do? There were so many unknown factors that the questions seemed impossible.
He was one person with a rifle.
Oh yes, he thought, smiling grimly, and a knife.
And he felt that the entire world he was heading into was against him. He would have to get around them, the people in that world, some way, somehow….
How?
His eyes closed, opened, closed again, his questions spiraling down as he leaned back against a tree and slept.
Civilian Deaths
Civilian mortalities have always been underreported in wars, and are nearly impossible to verify. Most historians and governments are forced to guess at the numbers because not only are birth and death certificates, church records, tax rolls and emigration documentation frequently destroyed during combat, but the true numbers are, in many cases, never counted, in order to hide them from a country’s own people as well as the enemy.
Once mass weapons such as cannons and guns were developed and used by the military, far more civilians were killed simply by being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
CHAPTER
13
T he signs were on the side of a tree, two boards hacked into the shape of an arrow and nailed up with large, handmade cut nails.
One pointed to a trail that went straight south. Crude letters: “Philadelphia—41 m.”
The other arrow pointed straight east: “New York—38 m.”
“What do they say?” Annie asked. “I can get the letters but I can’t put them together so good. Yet.”
Samuel told her. “About the same to either place. A three-day walk…. Let’s get off the trail. I’ve got to think on it.”
They moved back into the undergrowth and settled out of sight.
“What’s to think about?” Annie said. “We go to New York to get our ma and pa.”
She did not realize what she said, but Samuel heard the
our
. Something had happened in her mind, she’d found a way to stand it
He could think of little but finding his parents andgetting them away from their captors. But he also realized that the odds were not good. He knew nothing of cities, or even towns, but New York City must be large, and filled with people who would not be helpful since the British were there. Try as he might, he couldn’t think of a way to get into the city safely to find his mother and father.
With meat in his belly he fairly loped along, so fast that at last Annie gasped, “You got to slow down. I can’t run like a deer.”
He slowed but kept the pace steady, so that when it was dark, hard dark, and he stopped, Annie fell asleep almost the instant he wrapped the bedroll blanket around her.
He decided to make a cold camp and didn’t start a fire. Since there was no smoke, the bugs, mostly mosquitoes, found him at once. They weren’t as bad as they’d been on his hunting trips on the frontier, but then he’d always had a fire with the smoke to keep them away.
He was tired, although not like Annie, and he had some thinking to do. It took him a while to get his mind off the mosquitoes, and by that time there was a new sliver of a moon. In the pale silver light he saw Annie’s face, wrapped in the blanket, just showing enough to let her breathe, and his heart went out to her.
She was only eight, he thought, maybe nine, and her whole world had been absolutely destroyed.
Were there many like her? Everything gone because of this war? The innocent ones were the worst part of it all. His mother and father making a life on the frontier, justwanting to be left alone, his mother trying to get the garden to grow, his father learning how to use tools, how to make his own house, wanting only to work and read and think and live a quiet, simple life with his family.
All gone. His own life gutted, not as much as Annie’s, but enough.
He had to get his parents back.
How? What to do? There were so many unknown factors that the questions seemed impossible.
He was one person with a rifle.
Oh yes, he thought, smiling grimly, and a knife.
And he felt that the entire world he was heading into was against him. He would have to get around them, the people in that world, some way, somehow….
How?
His eyes closed, opened, closed again, his questions spiraling down as he leaned back against a tree and slept.
Civilian Deaths
Civilian mortalities have always been underreported in wars, and are nearly impossible to verify. Most historians and governments are forced to guess at the numbers because not only are birth and death certificates, church records, tax rolls and emigration documentation frequently destroyed during combat, but the true numbers are, in many cases, never counted, in order to hide them from a country’s own people as well as the enemy.
Once mass weapons such as cannons and guns were developed and used by the military, far more civilians were killed simply by being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
CHAPTER
13
T he signs were on the side of a tree, two boards hacked into the shape of an arrow and nailed up with large, handmade cut nails.
One pointed to a trail that went straight south. Crude letters: “Philadelphia—41 m.”
The other arrow pointed straight east: “New York—38 m.”
“What do they say?” Annie asked. “I can get the letters but I can’t put them together so good. Yet.”
Samuel told her. “About the same to either place. A three-day walk…. Let’s get off the trail. I’ve got to think on it.”
They moved back into the undergrowth and settled out of sight.
“What’s to think about?” Annie said. “We go to New York to get our ma and pa.”
She did not realize what she said, but Samuel heard the
our
. Something had happened in her mind, she’d found a way to stand it
Similar Books
