A Girl Called Samson (66)

“Get on, Shurtliff,” Paterson clipped.

Morris stepped up, ready to assist me too, and I let him, settling on the horse’s rump and leaving the saddle to the general. The horse shifted and I slipped, unable to clamp my thighs to keep my seat.

“Hold on to him, boy,” Morris warned, and I did as instructed, wrapping my arms around the general’s waist. He was rigid and breathing like he was about to be sick again.

“You know where you’re going?” Morris asked me, his eyes on the general’s ashen face.

“We’re about four miles east of the river,” I answered. “Peekskill is north.”

Morris jerked his head in the affirmative. “Don’t follow the road. Not yet. Van Tassel will be coming home that way. And who knows who’ll be with him. Follow the stream until you reach the fork. Then find the road. It cuts through just east of there.” He pointed into the woods, and the general thanked him.

“Should you need . . . anything . . . you come to me,” the general insisted. “We welcome good men. All good men.”

“I’ve got a woman and the boy,” Morris said. “We’re lucky to be together. Van Tassel could sell us off, any time he wants. I can’t be a soldier.”

“Tell Van Tassel the truth. We took the horse,” I reminded Morris, suddenly worried about him. “He doesn’t need to know you helped us. Tell him I threatened to shoot you, just like I did him.”

“You should go. Now.”

“Thank you, Morris,” I said.

“Don’t thank me. Just go,” he said, urgent. “And go slow or you’ll never make it.” He wrapped the reins around the saddle horn and set the general’s hands atop them. Then he gave Lenox a nudge.

I didn’t look back, but I felt his gaze as we disappeared into the trees.

Our combined misery was palpable, and for the first mile or so, the general clung to the pommel and I clung to him, my arms quaking and my legs screaming with the effort to keep us both upright. The space I’d thought I could maintain was nonexistent.

“Our Father which art in heaven,” I whispered.

“Are you still praying, Shurtliff?” The general’s voice was pained.

“Yes, sir,” I said. “You are heavy. And I am . . . weak.”

“We will go slow, just like the man said. And we will both hold on and trust the horse.”

“Yes, sir.” Lenox chuffed and the clouds shifted, and I prayed silently.

“You threatened Van Tassel with a pistol?” the general asked suddenly.

“He refused to help me.”

He grunted, and I wasn’t sure if it was laughter or pain. “Talk to me,” he demanded.

“Sir? If I am talking, I can’t listen.” I expected company around every bend, and we had miles to go before we reached friendly territory.

“The horse is listening.” His voice was strained and his grip on the pommel had become desperate. I tightened my arms. I doubted, in his current state, that he would notice anything at all. “My head is swimming. I cannot tell the ground from the sky,” he confessed.

“Close your eyes,” I directed. “If the horse can listen, he can also see.”

“Talk to me,” he insisted again.

“Um. Do you like Shakespeare, sir?”

He grunted. It sounded like an assent.

“King Lear, Much Ado about Nothing, Romeo and Juliet?”

“I never cared for the latter.”

“No. Neither do I. I have never been able to understand the appeal.”

“Not a romantic, Shurtliff?”

“No, sir. I prefer Hamlet. The Merchant of Venice. Othello.”

“Why?” He was doing his damnedest to hold up his end of the conversation.

“I understand the Moor. His need to prove himself. I didn’t much care for the way he treated the woman in his life, but that too was understandable.”

“It is the curse of manhood.”

“What is, sir?”

“The need to prove oneself.”

I grunted but did not disagree. I considered it a trait shared by the sexes, but thought better of arguing that point.

“I always knew what my father wanted,” the general continued. “I knew exactly what was expected of me. Virtue. Strength. Integrity. The things he wanted for me became things I wanted for myself.

“He wanted me to go to school. He wanted me to study the law. To care for my mother and sisters and to have a family of my own. God, family, country. That was his motto, though country did not mean to him . . . what it means to me. I often wonder what he would think of our cause.”

“He was a military man?” I knew that he was.

“Yes. His service took him away. Just like mine has done.”

“Away where, sir?”

“He died in Cuba of yellow fever when I was eighteen.”

“I’m sorry, sir.”

“He was a good man. At least . . . I think he was. I hope he was.”

“What is a good man?” I asked, trying to keep him talking.

“My father told me once that valiance is the defining quality of true greatness. Not talent. Not power. Valiance. That has been my goal. Some days, my only goal. I fear my lack of personal ambition was a great disappointment to Elizabeth.”