A Girl Called Samson (26)

Master Israel Wood, the muster man who had enlisted every one of the Thomas sons, looked directly into my face and saw me not at all. Did a skirt wield that much power? Or were a pair of breeches so convincing a disguise? I could not believe it. Yet no one studied me with any interest.

I signed the enlistment rolls with the name Elias Paterson, a name I’d settled on during my walk into town, and was given sixty pounds, which I didn’t stop to count. Instead, I purchased a pair of shoes and a hat with a green cockade, and stared at myself in the glass. I looked like a dandy, but I didn’t look like a woman.

No one even questioned me. They looked me square in the eyes and no recognition flickered. I might have laughed if I wasn’t so stunned. I had not altered my face. I’d simply changed my hair and donned a hat and the clothes of a man. Yet no one saw Deborah. No one saw a woman.

I marched into Sproat’s Tavern and sat myself upon a stool, not looking to the right or left. I reminded myself to lounge with my knees wide and my elbows on the bar, as though I had much on my mind and something substantial between my legs.

I’d spent months in the backroom of the tavern with my loom producing bolts of cloth for the army with donations from the townspeople. I had never sat at the bar and I had never had a drink, but if I could pass the test here, I could pass it anywhere.

“What’ll you have, young man?”

Sproat didn’t even turn around, and I grunted out, “Rum, please,” without squeaking. I didn’t think I liked rum. But I didn’t know, and whether I liked it or not, I was going to down it like a man, a free man, a solitary man, and then ask for another. I drank them both, suppressing the body-length shudder that they induced, and asked for one more.

“So you’re off with the others?” Sproat asked. “Maybe you’ll see my son, Ebenezer. He’s with the Fourth. They’ve made him a colonel.”

“Yes, sir,” I said, and belched just like Jeremiah taught me. I set my hat on the bar, growing ever more confident, and ran my hands over my tidy queue.

“You’d do well to keep your hair covered. The sun will bounce off that blond and give the redcoats a shining target. My son stands a foot taller than most of the others. It’s a wonder he’s still got his head.” He stopped pouring and offered up a prayer right then and there.

“I’m not tempting you, Lord, nor am I crediting luck when I well know it is Providence, and I am full of gratitude. Bless all the boys from Middleborough, including this lad who’s not yet a man.” He opened one eye and looked at me. “And may his drink make the hair sprout upon chest and cheek, that if he dies, he dies fully grown.”

“Amen!” someone said, sitting at my side with a belch and a slap to my back.

“He’s going to need more than hair, Sproat!”

“Oh yeah?”

“He’s as spindly as a new foal. He needs meat with his rum.”

I had a fish pie and another glass. I was beginning to like the flavor. “It’s what freedom tastes like,” I whispered, but the men around me laughed. I guess I spoke louder than I thought.

The room had grown soft around the edges, and it pulsed with the beating of my heart. I wasn’t afraid anymore, but for some reason, I began to cry. My tears kept dripping down my face and wetting the bar beneath my cheek. I would sleep here, where I was prayed for and protected by all my new friends. And tomorrow I would don my dress for a little longer, until it was time to report for duty. No one would know. I’d done it. I’d become a man.



“Are you sure?”

“Yes. Look at her hand. She’s got a felon finger. See how red and calloused it is? It’s from feeding the thread into the wheel; you’ve seen it done. You’ve seen her do it! This boy is Deborah Samson.”

“There’s only one way to know for sure.”

Their voices were muted and dreamlike, and I was not ready to wake. I was not able to wake, truth be told. I didn’t think my eyes would open or my limbs would move, but my pickled brain was trying desperately to rouse me.

Big hands grasped my shoulders and sat me up straight. I managed to peek out beneath my right lid, to see who was handling me. It was Sproat and his frizzy-haired woman.

They were staring at me, intent, and reality crashed around me. A flood of pure terror burned off the lethargy that had held me in thrall, but Sproat and his wife weren’t done with me. Mrs. Sproat ran her palms across my chest.

“She’s got ’em bound up, but they’re there.”

I gasped and slapped at her hands, and promptly fell from the stool I’d spent several hours so happily perched upon.

“Call the constable and the muster master. I saw her sign the rolls. She took bounty under false pretenses!” someone yelled.

“Did you spend it all, Deborah Samson?” Sproat was helping me back onto the stool. His hands didn’t wander to verify his wife’s claims, but he seemed convinced all the same. I was caught, and I was drunk.

I shook my head. No. I hadn’t spent it all . . . not all of it . . . had I? I clutched the purse at my waist that had felt so healthy and hopeful the night before. It tinkled but it didn’t clank, and I counted what remained with horror. Surely I had not spent so much. Someone must have taken it.

“She’s going to be sick. Get her out of here,” Mrs. Sproat wailed. “I don’t want to be cleaning up after her.”