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  He shrugged again. “Without regard to whether the ships are to be ours or theirs, however, I would want to know about them, do you not agree?”

  Caleb nodded, his mouth dry, and began to turn his dugout around. “I shall bring the news back to Fort Frederick, and they can dispatch a rider to alert the men at Crown Point.”

  “Wait, there is more news, as well,” the old man sighed. “And this will not sit so well with the men of the village. Your brave captain Remember Baker, the same man who holds the grants to the area together with Ira Allen, has been slain at Saint-Jean.”

  Caleb gasped. Captain Baker was well known to everyone in the village, and he had been instrumental in leading the expedition to take the fort at Crown Point.

  Mallett nodded sadly and continued. “The Indians stole from him his boat, and then his life, and finally, his head. Barbarians! The English pigs at the Fort Saint-Jean paid them for their trophy, rewarding this savage work.” He looked up sharply at Caleb. “Captain Baker’s widow need not hear of this detail.”

  Caleb nodded, and then lifted his paddle to begin the trip back up the lake to his farmstead.

  “Your mother should not begrudge me the tongue that my mouth was born with,” Mallet said suddenly, and Caleb lowered his paddle. “This trapper, he speaks only French, and yet he wanted very much to be sure that your militias learned of this intelligence. Not all Frenchmen are makers of widows and orphans.” He closed his eyes, as if in dark recollection, then continued softly, “Some of us are. But not all.”

  Caleb paused for a moment longer to see whether Mallett had anything further to add, and then concentrated on driving his canoe to fly over the water as fast as he was able.

  When he returned home, breathless and with a wild look in his eye, Polly knew at once that he had news to share. All the way back, Caleb had tried to think of a way to explain to his mother that he had disregarded her command to shun the old Frenchman. By the time he rushed into the cabin, he had decided that there was perhaps there was no need to mention where he’d gotten this intelligence if the question did not arise.

  “Ma, I need to go to the village immediately and report what I have learned … Captain Baker is murdered, and the English are building two gunboats and mean to challenge us for control of the lake. The troops at Ticonderoga and Crown Point must learn of this at once,” he reported.

  Polly exclaimed, “What, are they killing men and building ships on our very shores?”

  “No, this intelligence has arrived this morning from Saint John’s, and I encountered a man who wanted our militia to know of it.” He tensed up slightly within himself, waiting for the inevitable question, but his mother seemed lost in thought for a moment.

  “Your father will be proud to learn that you have aided in the transmission of this news, Caleb. Fly at once to the village, and see that the rider sent from there understands the importance of the dispatch he carries!” Caleb nodded and turned for the door.

  As he ducked his way through the doorway, Polly called out to him, “When you see Captain Mallett, tell him that our family is in his debt.” He froze for a moment, and then nodded and continued out the door. From her tone, she did not sound as if she particularly liked being in the debt of the old man whose origins she despised so much.

  Mere days later, Caleb watched from the shoreline of the island as the pair of troop ships sailed northward, so heavily laden with angry men and arms that they seemed to wallow through the deep blue of the lake, rather than skimming across its surface. They were accompanied by a swarm of smaller flat-bottomed bateaux, each of which was also heavily loaded. He was certain that his father rode aboard one of the vessels, though he knew not which it might be.

  At least the weather was good for sailing—a brisk breeze blew out of the southwest, filling the sails of the ships, and sending their banners streaming proudly. The smaller bateaux also had their sails up, giving the men a break from rowing with the long sweeps mounted fore and aft on each of the vessels, and enabling them to not slow the larger ships any more than their cargoes already did.

  Caleb was not alone in observing the small fleet—he could hear the scattered reports of men further to the south firing into the air in salute as they passed. That is, he hoped that the shots he heard were salutes and not unfriendly Indians or secret Loyalists.

  Caleb watched until the last sail disappeared around the wooded edge of the island and then turned and paddled somberly for home.

  Knowing that his father had joined the militia, that he might at some point be exposed to the chances of battle and the risk of illness that attended living in close quarters with thousands of other men—well, that was one thing. Watching his father sail toward a certain battle with the British, on their own ground, was much more immediate, and Caleb could not help but feel a certain degree of dread at the prospects of the next news he would hear of the war.

  That evening, dinner was a quiet affair. Polly’s eyes were red, and her hand was freshly poulticed and bandaged, following a clumsy accident with the stew pot that had raised blisters on two fingers. Samuel had dropped a loaf of bread into the flames while trying to help her after her injury had been tended to, and all three of them had sat and silently watched the fire consume it.

  Caleb took over ladling the stew into their trenchers, and when it came time for the blessing, he simply said, “O Heavenly Father, we ask only that you bring Your servant Elijah home safe, and soon.” He was joined in his amen with great fervor from around the table.

  Other than the passing of more ships carrying more Continentals and arms to the north, there was almost no news for several weeks. A few bateaux straggled back southward, as well, carrying men too ill with smallpox and the fevers that plagued all armies during the heat of summer, but little news from the battles that had been joined.

  A few traders had slipped past the forces amassed in the river to the north, and had reported that shots and cannonades had been heard at the fort at Saint John’s and that there had been a number of small skirmishes in the woods and fields around the fort.

  Word came from the south that the commanding general of the expedition, a Yorker named Schuyler, had retired from the field due to failing health. The men at the blockhouse had snorted over this development, but their derision was silenced a few days later when news arrived that a large contingent of New England militiamen were being threatened with courts martial for having fled at the rumor of an approaching British ship. Caleb felt certain, at least, that this group would not have included his father.

  Caleb learned that when he saw some lone military vessel—always flying the Continental colors, else the news would surely be grim indeed—sail swiftly down the lake, it usually carried news which would trickle back up to the blockhouse with speed in proportion to its importance. He would find reasons to tarry about the general store for days after each time he noted a messenger speeding south.

  On one such day, he did not have to wait long. A grim-faced rider entered the store with the news that Colonel Allen, the grant holder of this very settlement and head of the Green Mountain Boys, had been taken prisoner by the British, along with Lieutenant Fuller, a man with a large farm down the river just a bit from the blockhouse.

  The owner of the mill, a man shy of several fingers, demanded, “Will they not ransom our men?”

  The rider replied, “Nay, and indeed there is even word that Colonel Allen is in irons and already bound for England aboard a prison ship.”

  A gasp arose from the men in the store, and more than one muttered a vile curse against the English. A farmer asked, practically shaking with outrage, “What, will they put him on the dock and fit him for a hangman’s noose next?”

  The rider shook his head sadly. “I know not. I was dispatched here to bring word to Lieutenant Fuller’s family, if some one of your company would be so kind as to direct me to his homestead?”

  Caleb spoke up, “That’s right along my way home, sir. I’d be happy to show you the w
ay.”

  “Thank you kindly, lad. We’d best be off, then; it’s right that his wife hear the news straight from me, and not by rumor. Gentlemen, good day.” The man touched the brim of his hat and exited the store. Caleb hurried to follow, and the two rode together down the track to the Allen homestead.

  As they rode, Caleb finally worked up the nerve to speak up. “I wonder, sir, whether you might have heard any word of my father, who is serving in the militia. His name is Clark, Elijah Clark, serving as a private in Colonel Warner’s regiment …”

  The rider pursed his lips and shook his head. “I cannot say that I know this man, I am sorry to say.” He looked at Caleb with kindly eyes, and continued, “However, do not despair, for it is probably good news that I have not heard of him. I am all too often responsible for carrying word of those who are reported as casualties or have other … adverse events befall them, such as Colonel Allen. If I encounter your father upon my return, however, I will be glad to convey your greetings to him.”

  “Thank you, sir, that is most kind,” Caleb replied, but he couldn’t keep the disappointment out of his voice. He had expected that his father’s name would have been among the well-known of the militia by now, had hoped that he might even hear tales of his bravery in battle and that he was serving some crucial role in the struggle.

  The rider noted his disheartened attitude and offered a final reassurance. “It is a large army we have gathered at the walls of Saint John’s, and I am but lately arrived there myself. Many men are serving with distinction there, yet I have not yet heard their names. You may be sure that your father is among those honorable soldiers.”

  “Thank you again, sir; it is most kind of you to say so. That track down there leads to the Fuller homestead; my path goes this way. I’ll take my leave now and carry what tidings I can to my own family.”

  “Thank you for your accompaniment, lad. If I meet your father, I promise, I shall remember you to him. Good day.” With that, the rider directed his horse down the fork in the track, and was quickly lost in the foliage of the forest, leaving Caleb to continue alone on his solemn and thoughtful ride home.

  A pall lay over the settlement after the news of Allen’s capture became widely known. Not only was he a lively and well-liked presence in the community, but his fate drove home in everyone’s awareness the hazards to which so many of the men of the community were exposed.

  Of course, capture was by no means the worst possible fate. Word of casualties was starting to make its way back south, too. Some were relatively minor, even, with the passage of enough time, humorous, such as the man who had discharged his gun accidentally into his own foot, at the cost of his middle toe.

  Others were grimmer, and the little graveyard at the outskirts of the village began to sprout fresh markers nearly every week, it seemed. Most of the dead had fallen to illness, rather than English guns, but that was small comfort to black-cloaked widows and bewildered children.

  At the Clark homestead, Polly and her two sons found themselves too busy with the harvest routines to brood too much over what was happening to the north. In the quiet hours of the night, Caleb could sometimes hear his mother shifting restlessly on her pallet, as unable to sleep as he. However, they all found moments of joy as they completed each of the tasks that needed to be done before the snow started.

  The last of the corn was in, and Samuel had pulled up the stalks of the small patch of flax that Polly wanted to experiment with, and hung them to dry. The leaves on the maples were changing from the green of nature simply pursuing her own devices, transforming to the riotous autumn display that put Caleb in mind of some painter gone mad. Polly, in particular, was always enchanted by the brilliant colors, and her sons both liked to surprise her with particularly garish examples they encountered during their daily routines.

  Caleb had done well as he set more elaborate traps than simple snares for geese in his favorite locations along the shore of the island. The migrating birds frequented small clearings in several places along the shoreline, and he’d learned that a deep, narrow trench, supplied liberally with cracked corn or breadcrumbs, would attract a quantity of geese. If he were stealthy enough when he approached his traps, they would not hear his approach, and once he was upon them, they could not spread their wings to launch themselves into the sky.

  Since gunpowder and lead were becoming more dear by the day, most being reserved to the militias, this method also had the advantage of requiring no shooting—a stout club was all that he needed to dispatch three or four birds in a row, before the remaining geese stormed out of the ends of the trench, raising the alarm to the rest of the flock. Of course, the geese presented a threat until they had fallen or run out, as they could deliver a solid beating with their powerful wings. It was a reasonably easy means of trapping, but not entirely foolproof.

  In just a few such trips, he had enough carcasses that Polly was drying the meat before the fireplace, and they had set aside several hempen bags of down, which she would sew into quilts and clothing during the long evenings of the fall and winter.

  On one afternoon, as the sky was grey and the air cold with the promise of snow in the air before long, Caleb and Samuel were working together to bring in wood for the winter. “Here, Samuel, help me with this log,” Caleb called from by the old barn, where Elijah had stacked the maple, oak, birch, and hickory he’d felled two years ago.

  Samuel looked up from where he had just set a log on the wide old stump for splitting and called back, “Just a moment, Caleb. Let me just finish with this one.”

  Caleb leaned against the barn to watch as Samuel swung the maul high over his head and then brought it down smartly on the face of the log as it stood on the stump. A crack like the shot of a rifle sounded, and the wood jumped away in two neat fireplace-ready chunks. Samuel casually swung the maul again and buried it in the stump before ambling over to help his brother.

  Together, they wrestled another length of hickory into the sawhorse, and wordlessly each took up one end of the long gang saw. Leaning into it with a practiced rhythm, they pulled it back and forth between them until it had cut most of the way through the hickory trunk. They pulled it free of the cut and moved the blade a couple of feet along the log to start the next cut.

  When they were done with the process, they lifted the log and turned it over, adding back cuts just offset from the main cuts. The log sagged a bit as they finished each of these, but it did not fall until they set the saw aside and Caleb kicked the log out of the sawhorse, breaking it into shorter sections as it hit the ground.

  “Thanks,” Caleb grunted to his brother, who nodded in acknowledgement, and returned to his stump to split more wood. For his part, Caleb took up a log which Samuel had already cleaved, and used an axe to split off narrow lengths of kindling. So they continued until it was dinnertime, and then sat to enjoy their meal.

  After he said the blessing, the now-familiar request for a swift and safe return of his father, Caleb smiled to his mother, “I find that I am actually growing weary of goose.”

  She smiled back. “Well, then bring something else to the table!”

  He laughed and reached for the beans. “Samuel and I made some good progress on the wood today,” he said. “We should have the rest of it done by noontime tomorrow, I’d guess.”

  “‘Tis hard work,” Samuel said, “but it is true that wood warms you twice—I did not feel the cold today at all, so long as we continued working.” They shared a laugh at this observation, and he continued, “I’ll be glad to see the end of that work, though. The winter squash need to come in, and I want to see what walnuts I can gather before the squirrels get them all.”

  “Well, squirrels taste better after they’ve gorged on walnuts, too, so one way or another, you’ll get the walnuts,” Caleb teased.

  Polly protested, “Squirrels are even more work than geese, Caleb! All that for a couple of scraps of meat, and a useless tail for Samuel’s collection.” Her eyes shot up to the beam Sam
uel had decorated with the tails of squirrels he’d trapped in a flush of excitement after learning how to snare them a few years ago. In truth, nobody in the family much wanted to taste squirrel again any time soon.

  Samuel blushed and retorted, “At least I won’t go hungry should I become lost in the forest!”

  “You need not worry about losing your way in these woods,” Caleb said. “You know them nearly as well as I.”

  He turned to Polly and continued, “Speaking of which, Ma, I had thought to ride into town when we’re done here, to see what news there is so that I may return before sunset.”

  Polly nodded. “Perhaps you can sell some goose while you’re there?”

  “I’ll ask, Ma, but I think most folks have already had their fill of those.”

  Once the trencher before him was clean, Caleb stood and drew on his warmest jacket. “I’ll be back soon, Ma.”

  Polly smiled at his eagerness and stood from the table herself. “Samuel, will you help me with this quilting? I want to get it stretched out so that I may fill this section with down.”

  As Caleb approached the blockhouse, driving his horse at a trot, he could hear huzzahs ringing from within. He hurriedly tied the horse up and went through the doors. Inside, pandemonium reigned. The general store within the blockhouse had taken on the air that Caleb would have expected to find at Mallett’s tavern, with more than one jug of applejack or rum being passed from hand to hand, and joyful shouts greeting him from within the tumult.

  “Caleb, my boy,” boomed the proprietor as he rushed over to embrace the young man. “I am surprised we didn’t see you here just as soon as the packet passed by, bearing the news!”

  “What news have you, Mister MacGregor?”

  “Fort Saint John’s has fallen! In addition to the colors from Fort Chambly, the defenders at Saint John’s are our captives, and are even now interned at Ticonderoga. If you hear me speak against Montgomery again, remind me of the error of my ways!”