My Brother Sam is Dead (19 page)

“I can't help you,” he said bluntly. “The court-martial has decided and that's the end of it.”

“Then who can help me, sir,” I demanded.

He stared at me. “General Putnam. Nobody but General Putnam.”

“All right then, give me a note to him, sir.”

“Why should I do that?” he asked.

“Because Sam didn't do it. You know that's true.”

He stared at me. “Sir.”

“Sir.”

He put his head down in his hands. “War is hard, boy. Sometimes we do a lot of things we don't want to do. A lot of very good men have been killed in this war, and all we can do is hope that it's been worth it. Maybe it hasn't. Maybe in the end we'll conclude that. But I don't think so, I think it will be worth it, despite the death and destruction.” He raised his head again and looked at me. “No,” he said, “I don't think that Sam stole those cows. But I can't prove it and neither can you. Who knows, maybe he did do it after all? Maybe he had some kind of arrangement with those other men so as to throw suspicion off himself.”

“Sam would never have done that.”

He smacked his hand down on the desk. “Watch how you address me,” he snapped.

I blushed. “I'm sorry, sir.”

He put his hands behind his head and leaned back. “Do you want to know what General Putnam is thinking? It's this. He's thinking that he can't win the war if he doesn't keep the people on his side. He's thinking that he can't keep the people on his side if the troops are running amok among the civilian population—raping the women, stealing cattle, burning houses. He is determined to scare the wits out of the troops to keep them in line. And he's thinking that it doesn't matter very much who he executes to do it. So many men have died, so many mothers have wept, so many brothers and sisters have cried. He is thinking that in the long run if he executes somebody, he'll shorten the war and save more lives. It doesn't matter to him very much who he executes; one man's agony is like another's, one mother's tears are no wetter than anybody else's. And that's why he's going to have Sam shot.”

“But Sam isn't guilty, sir.”

“The court-martial says he was.”

“But they're wrong.”

He sat silent. I waited. Then he said, “Because I happen to believe you, I'm going to give you a letter to see General Putnam. But I am warning you right now that it won't do a bit of good. The one thing Putnam cannot do at this point is show clemency. If he is going to make his point with the troops, he can't start letting people off easily.”

He took up a piece of paper, wrote something on it swiftly, folded it and sealed it, and addressed it to General Putnam. Then he gave it to me and I left, running.

I ran most of the way out to the encampment over the packed snow. The sky was cloudy; there would be snow and more snow. I arrived at the gate, my breath rasping in my throat so hard I couldn't speak. I handed my letter to the guard. He took it and he called over a soldier. “Take this boy to General Putnam,” he said.

We walked up the encampment street past a long line of huts. They were identical, a hundred of them with plumes of bluish smoke rising like a forest into the air. Soldiers were everywhere, cutting wood, cleaning things, drilling. Then we came to a house, bigger than the huts, but made of the same kind of logs. The soldier handed my letter to the guard at the door. The guard took it inside and in about five minutes he came back. “Just wait,” he said.

I waited for half an hour and then an hour and then two hours. Officers went in and out, and still I waited. I got hungry but I didn't dare leave to go in search of something to eat. It became one in the afternoon, and then a soldier came out and brought me in.

General Putnam was sitting behind a rough trestle table they'd set up for his desk. There were papers neatly arranged and ink bottles, pens, sand for blotting the ink, and a stack of maps. He was a big man of about sixty, with lots of white hair. He wore the Continental uniform of buff and blue. He did not look kind.

“Meeker?”

“Yes, sir.”

“All right, let's have it.”

He scared me. His voice was hard and his eyes flashed. But I told him the story exactly as it had happened and I finished by saying, “Sam wouldn't steal our own cattle. He just wouldn't. He's been fighting for three years, he's been a good soldier. And he didn't do it, sir, I swear it. I know because—”

“Enough,” he said. “My time's valuable.” He took up a piece of paper and quickly wrote something on it. Then he said, “I'll consider it. That'll be all.”

“Sir, can I see my brother?”

He frowned at me. Then he shouted, “Sergeant, take this boy up to the stockade to see Sam Meeker. See that they stay six feet apart and pass nothing between them.”

“Thank you, sir,” I said, and then I followed the guard out.

The stockade was situated just at the bottom of the slope which dropped down into the encampment. It was a wooden hut like the others, but surrounded on all sides by a picket fence to give the prisoners a place outdoors to walk around in. Guards were posted at every corner. There were some small holes cut in the fence, each about a foot square. The guard put his face to one of the holes and shouted, “Meeker, you've got a visitor here.” Then he drew a line in the snow with his toe about six feet from the fence. “Stay behind that line,” he said.

Sam's face appeared at the hole. He was dirty and unshaven and his hair was uncombed. “Timmy,” he said.

“How are you, Sam? “I said.

“Oh I'm all right for a man about to die.”

“Don't give up hope,” I said. “I've just seen General Putnam. He said he'd consider your case.”

“Is that right?” he said. “Really?”

“He said he would.”

“What did he actually say?” Sam said. “Does he believe I'm not guilty?”

“I don't know,” I said. “He didn't say.”

“You're a good boy, Tim.”

“Sam, how come they found you guilty?”

“I guess I didn't score enough telling points,” he said.

“No, really.”

“The other men lied. They knew they were in for it right from the moment I spotted them in the training ground. I only saw one of them at first, and I leveled the musket at him. But the other one was down on the ground in the shadows, gutting the cow, and he came up behind me and stuck his knife point against my back. So they got me. Then they bashed me around a little and took me in. Oh, they were smart. They had a story all worked out about hearing somebody shout ‘Stop thief,' and seeing me driving the cattle across the training ground, and coming out to get me. And of course I wasn't supposed to be at home, anyway. I was supposed to be on duty at the Betts' house. So that went against me. And that was that.”

“What else can we do, Sam?”

“Pray, I guess. You'd better have Mother do that; the Lord is more likely to believe her than you, Tim.” He grinned. I grinned back; but I felt all sick inside.

Then the guard said, “Time's up, lad.”

“I'll try to get back to see you again, Sam,” I said.

“Say hello to Betsy for me,” he said.

“Yes.”

“And Mother,” he said.

“Yes,” I said. “And I'll try to think up some more telling points for General Putnam, too.”

He grinned. “You're the best brother I've got, Tim.”

I tried to grin back. “I better be.”

“Come on you,” the guard said. So I waved good-bye, and left.

T
HERE WAS NOTHING TO DO NOW BUT WAIT TO SEE WHAT
General Putnam decided. So we waited. Betsy Read came down to the tavern a lot, and we talked over a lot of plans—escape plans and all that kind of thing. But none of them seemed very good. A week passed. And on Saturday, February 13th, Colonel Read came up from the encampment with the word that General Putnam had refused our plea for clemency.

I began to cry. “It's just so unfair, he fought for them for three years, and now they're going to shoot him for nothing.”

Colonel Read shook his head sadly. “I know, Tim,” he said. “I know. War is never fair. Who chooses which men get killed and which ones don't?” He touched my shoulder. “You have to accept it now. Be brave, and help your mother to bear up. She needs somebody now.”

But I didn't feel brave nor like bearing up. All I felt was angry and bitter and ready to kill somebody. If I only knew who.

Sunday's church service seemed specially important so everybody could pray for the souls of the men who were going to die on Tuesday. Mother refused to go. Instead she sat calmly by the fire, sewing.

“We're required to go, Mother.”

“I'm not going,” she said. “They can murder who they like, church who they like, but I'm not going. For me the war is over.”

I went. But after a half an hour of sitting in the balcony where I'd sat beside Sam so many hundreds of times, I began to cry, and I walked out. Nobody tried to stop me. I guess they knew how I felt.

We closed the tavern early that night. Nobody was there, anyway. I guess nobody wanted to be around us, it was too gloomy. “I would like to close the place forever,” Mother said. I noticed that she had stopped drinking rum, for it was already over and there wasn't anything left to be nervous about.

“It was Father's tavern,” I said.

“I won't serve any more Continental officers,” she said. “Never again. Never.”

I knew I wouldn't be able to sleep that night, and I didn't think Mother would either, so I threw some extra logs on the fire and pulled chairs up in front of it. “We've got to think of something, Mother.”

“There's nothing,” she said. “Let the dead bury the dead.”

“He isn't dead yet, Mother. He's still alive.”

“He's dead, Tim,” she said. “He's dead as your father is.”

“No,” I said. I got up and took Father's bayonet down from the wall over the mantlepiece. Then I went out into the kitchen, took the steel out of the rack and began to whet the bayonet. Mother didn't get up, she didn't say anything. I worked over the bayonet a good long time until I had an edge on it that would slice through a man like a hot nail going through butter. Then I went out
to
the taproom and put on my coat.

Mother didn't lift her eyes from the flames snapping over the logs. “Going to get yourself killed, son?”

“I'm going to save my brother,” I said.

“No, you're not,” she said in a soft whispery kind of a voice. “No, you're going to get yourself killed. Well you might as well. Let's have it all done with at once. How does the old line go? Men must fight and women must weep, but you'll get no more tears from me. I've done my weeping for this war.”

I stared at her. Then I turned and went out the door, buttoning up my coat.

There was plenty of moonlight. Shining on those fields of snow it was almost as bright as daylight. I didn't dare walk along the road; you never knew who could be coming along. This meant that I had to work my way through woodlots and along hedgerows across the pastures, where the snow had not been packed as hard as it was on the road. Fortunately it had begun to pack of its own weight, so that my feet sunk in only a few inches with each step. But it was funny; nothing seemed to bother me. I didn't feel tired or cold or worried. My head was sort of out of focus. I didn't have any plan. I knew I ought to think of one, but I couldn't really get my mind working. All I could do was just keep going on until I came to the encampment and then see what I did next.

Finally I came to the line of trees that ran along the ridge at the top of the encampment. I dropped into a crouch and slipped from tree to tree. There weren't many of them left: the soldiers had cut most of the wood for lumber and firewood. Then I came to the last tree, just over the edge of the ridge. I stopped and stared down. The ridge sloped down sharply for about a hundred yards. The line of huts ran along the bottom, with the muddy road alongside of them, and here and there a cannon or wagon standing. There were corrals for horses and livestock, but hardly any people. Light came out of the chinks and cracks in the buildings, making slashes and dots on the snow.

The stockade was dead in front of me. I stared at it—the little hut just like the others was surrounded by that ten-foot-high fence. There was a guard standing at the corner of the stockade, but he didn't seem to be too alert. I figured he'd be cold and thinking about getting warm and not keeping too close a watch around.

I still hadn't made any plan, but there didn't seem to be many choices. About the only thing I could do was slip down there, kill the guard, open the gate and let the prisoners out. And if he spotted me first, I could try to fling the bayonet over the fence and hope that Sam could get himself out in the confusion. It wasn't much of a plan, but it was the only one I could think of.