Journey to Victory, page 3
When she had arrived here, she had revealed as little as possible about herself. She had told Sarah only the bare truth: she was a widow of a fur trapper. She’d lost forever the world, the life she’d lived before Canada. And if she did speak of it here, would anyone believe her? She pursed her lips. This man had caused her to be indiscreet, unwisely so.
“But you speak so good English, kleines Frau,” Jakob remarked, calling her politely what amounted to “little lady.”
“My father was English-speaking. My mother was French.” She fussed with her son’s blanket, hiding her face.
“I will explain the Revolution to you,” Jakob said. “The Parliament makes the laws for England. But the king rules the colonies through governors. And always the colonies elect their own legislatures and tax themselves. Now, Parliament makes taxes and we are not asked.”
This did not sound simple to Christiane, but she nodded. Jean Claude fussed in his sleep and she bent again, again avoiding Jakob’s eye.
Tom spoke up, “Jakob, if you’re so set on this Revolution, why ain’t you wintering with Washington’s troops outside Boston?”
“Tom Mitchell,” Jakob replied, “I have made my decision. I will join the army this spring. First I plow with Jon. Then I enlist.”
His news startled everyone to silence. Christiane sat up straighter. Her jaw hung loose. He was going to war? To Revolution? Was he mad?
Recovering herself, she closed her mouth and modestly arranged her blouse to nurse her son back to sleep. Glancing up, she caught Jakob’s attention on her. She couldn’t trust herself to speak. Talking revolution was one thing. Enlisting was another.
“Pa, I want to go with you,” Jon spoke up. “I’m old enough to fight.”
“No. You must stay to tend and harvest. You must hold our land.”
“But, Pa—”
“No. If the war lasts till you turn seventeen, I will let you enlist. Until then, no.”
Jon colored, obviously embarrassed at having his youth pointed out.
Christiane worried her lower lip. Evidently Jakob was serious, dead serious.
Sarah cleared her throat. “Enough of this war talk. It’s time for bed. War or no—the sun will rise early as always. Come along, Christiane.”
As the women left for their bed in the next room, good nights were exchanged all around as the men let themselves out. Christiane felt Jakob’s eyes following her and fought the unwelcome urge to look at him in return. He’d shown he wasn’t eligible or sensible. No common man could win against the crown. Just like her father, Jakob Kruger was heading straight for disaster.
***
Two weeks later
Standing in the doorway of Sarah’s barn, Christiane pulled up her single braid so she could feel the spring breeze on her neck. Though small patches of snow still lingered in shaded spots, the warm wind swept billowy white clouds northward across a perfect blue sky. The wild grass was green again from recent showers and the trees had unfolded tight little buds. On this spring day, now seventeen years old, she felt delightfully alive, but somehow unsettled.
She’d just finished milking the cow. During the harsh gray winter, sitting on the milking stool and leaning her cheek against the warm cow’s furry hide had been comforting. Physical evidence that she and her son had a home again. It had been enough. Now the restlessness that had begun that evening a few weeks ago unfurled inside her. And somehow it was all tied up with Jakob Kruger. Deep in her thoughts, she did not notice Jakob until he cleared his throat in front of her.
“Kleines Frau, I think you would like these. I find them this morning just inside my clearing.” He pushed a small, uneven bouquet of wild flowers into her hands.
Christiane inhaled their pungent, wild fragrance. Her hesitant smile answered him. “They smell like spring.” Though no man had ever given her flowers before, she knew what this attention meant. Avoiding Jakob’s eyes, she bent her face over the blooms once again. “Thank you, Mr. Kruger,” she said in a prim tone.
“You are welcome, kleines Frau.” His voice caressed her.
She knew she should get away from him, but she could not think of a way to excuse herself without appearing rude.
He rested one moccasined foot on the door sill in front of her. “It is a beautiful day, ja?”
She slid a bit to the right, preparing to leave. “Yes, it’s hard to believe winter has finally ended, Mr. Kruger.”
He continued to smile and in spite of herself, she liked the way the skin around his eyes crinkled. Approaching the point of leaving, she asked, “Did you want to see Sarah about something?”
“No, I come only to bring you flowers.”
His bold response startled her. She couldn’t stop her cheeks from coloring. “I have thanked you for them, so I will bid you good day,” she said with precise courtesy. Lifting the full milk pail, she tried to step past him.
His outstretched arm arrested her.
Her chin lifted. “Was there something else?” Her words stiff.
“Yes.” His rough hand reached to support her arm, which held the pail of milk. She opened her mouth to ask what the something else was and found she couldn’t speak. His eyes held hers and she watched, mesmerized, as his face drew nearer, nearer. Then he pressed his warm lips to hers.
“Pull away,” her mind instructed. But pure amazement filled her, her eyes still wide open. Her late husband’s kisses were a distant memory. Had they ever held sway over her like this?
“Mr. Kruger.” She whispered his name against his lips, giddy with a sudden rush of sensations.
“Kleines Frau,” he whispered back and began a second kiss. She closed her eyes and drifted against him. Finally he spoke. “Kleines Frau, I ask you a favor.”
His voice rumbled through her. “What?”
“I wish you call me Jakob.”
Through half-closed eyes, she studied him and how she’d relaxed against him. What had he asked? The words came back to her. This request was a step toward intimacy. I should say no. He’s almost twice my age and I haven’t known him long. But instead of a denial, she felt her lips form the word “yes.”
“I wondered what was holding back the milk being brought in.” Old Sarah’s wry voice boomed across the yard between the tavern and the barn.
Christiane jerked back. If Jakob’s hand had not steadied her grip on the milk pail, she would have spilled it. As it was, a few drops trickled down her bare ankle into her moccasin, pitching her back to reality.
She wrested her arm from Jakob’s grip. “I’m sorry, Sarah,” she said, taking a step past him.
“Sorry, Sarah,” Jakob echoed, sounding not a bit sorry. He leaned back against the door jamb and folded his arms across his chest.
From the corner of her eye, Christiane observed his nonchalant pose and self-satisfied expression. She would have liked to slap it from his face. And she should have. How could she have let him slip under her intentions and kiss her?
Several minutes later, still inwardly fuming, Christiane sat on the stoop of the inn, concentrating on stitching a small shirt for Jean Claude, who was crawling on the wild grass nearby. Coming outside, Sarah sat on a ladder-back chair beside her. Had she seen Christiane letting Jakob kiss her? Christiane wondered if Sarah would have more to say. Or, she corrected herself, what more would Old Sarah have to say?
A few moments in the golden sunshine passed. Sarah broke the silence. “So you have a man courting you?”
Christiane sat still, contemplating the word, “courting.” She’d have been an idiot not to recognize Jakob’s interest in her. But somehow the word “courting” turned her stomach inside out. “Do you really think he is courting me?”
“Course.” Sarah snorted. “That kiss should have told you that. And I see the way he looks at you. Like a farmer looks at the grain he’s about to harvest.”
To give herself time to think, Christiane picked up her chubby son and nuzzled him. He squealed with delight. The truth, a straight arrow, came to her. I don’t want anyone courting me.
Then she voiced her reason aloud to herself as well as Sarah. “My first marriage was arranged. This time I want to choose. What if I make the wrong choice?”
“Picking a man ain’t easy. Though most don’t think about it much. They just do it as a matter of course, do ya see? And some poor women just don’t have many chances. But you, yes, you will have choices.”
Christiane pondered this.
Then Sarah said, “Jakob has a good head on his shoulders. I have to admit that if I were in the market for a man, I would be looking Jakob over as a good choice.” She chuckled at herself.
“Sarah!” Christiane slapped her friend’s knee as though scolding a child. Then her tone abruptly became serious as she voiced one of her concerns, “He is too old for me, don’t you think?”
“He’s only in his thirties. And age don’t mean much. Jakob is a strong, hearty man. I’m certain he will be around many a year more.”
“But I would want more of a family,” Christiane said cautiously. Doesn’t age affect that?
Sarah snorted again. “Don’t worry about Jakob. He’s man enough to take care of any woman. His wife was a sweet woman, but she was barren after Jon, and that’s all there was to it.”
“I suppose age is not the best reason to marry someone or not,” Christiane conceded with honesty. “My first husband was younger than Jakob and he has passed already.”
“Aye, there are no guarantees in life. That’s a fact.”
“But Sarah, Jakob doesn’t have time to court me if he goes ahead and joins Washington’s army.” This brought a confusing mix of relief and tension. Christiane’s lungs tightened and her heart jigged.
Sarah let the subject go. Companionable silence ensued. Overlaying Christiane’s thoughts, the unbidden face of the English captain momentarily floated before her and the memory of her cheek against the wool of his red coat. She’d known Captain Eastham only a day, less than a day, much less than a day. Why did she continue to think of him? She waited, but no answer came to her. Where are you, Captain Eastham? Do you ever think of me?
Sarah broke into her reverie. “Just remember you don’t have to be in a hurry. Jakob isn’t the only bachelor in New York Colony. Word is getting ‘round about you. Now that the weather is better, others will come looking. You know what they say, ‘Marry in haste and repent in leisure’.”
Good advice surely. I’m not ready yet. “I think I should wait another year. I’m in no hurry.”
Sarah grinned. “But your callers may be.”
“Then they will have to learn patience, won’t they?” Christiane answered with a saucy grin. They shared a chuckle over this. Then Christiane scooped up her drowsy son to take him in for his nap, leaving Old Sarah absently fanning away stray mosquitoes.
***
By late April, most fields were plowed. Talk of the Revolution still dominated every conversation. Christiane found herself irritated, yet fascinated with these political discussions. How could these men really think that their opinions could change their duty to the Crown? But Jakob’s staunch intention to enlist worried her most, and her worry was her most guarded secret.
This afternoon Christiane stood in the quiet inn, holding Jakob’s copy of Common Sense, the book that everyone, whether they were literate or illiterate, was arguing over. Jakob had loaned her his copy so she could read for herself why this Revolution was so important. To him.
“I’ll be back long before supper. Are you sure you don’t want to come with me?” Sarah asked at the open door. “Quiltin’s handy to know.”
“Not this time, Sarah.”
The old woman looked through her sewing bag one last time and then puttered outside. Christiane sighed with relief. Jean Claude was taking his long nap and Sarah and the other village women were attending the quilting party.
Time alone, in the small cabin, in the small village, was rare and an occasion to be savored. Christiane sat down by the sunlit doorway and turned the pages of the book slowly. All week in between duties, she’d read it. What a pleasure to have something to read again. Now she wanted to skim it once more. Jakob would come tonight and she would enjoy arguing with him over it. As she read the spirited words before her, the quiet of the afternoon settled around her like a cozy shawl.
The sound of a throat clearing startled her. She looked up and saw Jakob leaning in the doorway, his arms folded over his chest. “You like the book, I see?”
His unexpected appearance made her breathless, but she managed a calm smile. “Mr. Paine’s argument for the Revolution is very bold. I have never read anything like it before. It is very radical.”
He nodded as though satisfied. “What part are you reading now?” Coming in, he set a chair at a right angle to hers, lounged back in it, and crossed his legs.
She held up the book to keep both their minds on the topic. “I was reading where Mr. Paine says that we should settle this matter of independence now and not leave it for our children.”
“I agree with him. Jon is my only child. I want him to raise his family in a new, free country. I do not want him to have to die in a war to get it.”
“But we’re free here, aren’t we?” Did it really matter to them who ran the colony?
“Would you feel free if you lived in Boston, where redcoats are quartered in private houses?”
She shook her head. No, but she wasn’t in Boston. “But why does it matter to us here?”
“Because the English don’t have to march here. They may pay the Indians for our scalps.”
This idea was appalling. “No.”
“It happened in the last war here with the French.”
Stark fear nipped her. It goaded her. “Do you really think you and the other farmers will be able to defeat His Majesty’s Army?”
“Ja.”
“Don’t you realize that you might die trying to gain this liberty?” She couldn’t keep the exasperation out of her voice. Was death a thing to be sought?
“Ja.”
For the first time she could remember, Jakob’s face lost all teasing or bravado. His expression sucked the air from the room, from her. They stared at one another. His features froze in grim concentration. Christiane tried to grasp the reality of a war, of redcoats and muskets, of Indians and counting scalps.
In the warm sunlight, a shiver of fear slid through her and she knew what she wanted. She leaned forward. “Jakob, don’t go.”
“I don’t want to go.”
“Then don’t.” She went on rashly. “Stay for me.”
He sighed heavily and moved as though preparing to leave. “I can’t.”
“Why not?” The implacable seriousness of his tone frightened her. She touched his sleeve.
His expression flickered between certainty and uncertainty. Then he nodded. “Ja, you should know why, why I must go to fight.” He rubbed his forehead. “You are from the old country, so you understand better, I think, than someone born in this open wilderness what it is like to be a peasant under a baron who owns all and is the only law.” He looked into her eyes while sadness drew down his mouth.
She nodded. She did not want to admit that she knew of peasants mainly by hearsay.
He looked past her as if looking far away. “Our baron was already an old man when I was young. He was old, proud, and cruel. Maybe because I was young that I crossed him. Surely an older man would have been more careful.”
His final words made the back of her neck prickle.
“I was seventeen years when it happened. A neighbor married a young girl from the market town, a day’s journey away. It was on the coast. We lived near the North Sea. That was our only salvation in the end.” He halted, struggling with himself. “This girl was very pretty, more than pretty. We were all jealous of her husband… till it became known that the baron was interested in her, too.” He paused. “You are so young, Christiane—” His voice dropped. “I do not think that you know that some men get their pleasure from a woman by hurting her.”
Christiane let her surprise show on her face. “From hurting?” she whispered with dread.
“Yes, some minds are as diseased as some bodies. His mind was one of these. We all knew this, but we never talked of it. What could we do? And besides while he was married, he went away to get his women. But that year his wife died. She had been of a more noble and wealthy house so he had had to please her. But then the wife was gone and this young girl came, innocent, to our village.”
At these ominous words, Christiane’s mouth went dry.
“He did not take long to make his desires known. She refused him. She was just a young girl like yourself and newly married,” Jakob explained. “But the fact became known, the way things do in a village, and that angered him more. Then her husband was found dead. She was living on the baron’s land. She had no family in our village, only a brother in the town that she had left. So the baron sent his men to bring her to the castle. But she got away from them and ran into the hills and hid. He was furious.”
Christiane realized that she was clutching Jakob’s sleeve.
“Everyone was relieved she had gotten away, but no one was willing to help her. Not even her husband’s family. I was ashamed of my village, ashamed of people I had known all my life. I decided that I would help her.”
She exhaled. “Oh, I’m glad.”
He shook his head. “I went and found her. I took her to the next village and married her.”
“She was your wife?”
“Yes, I thought if I married her that the baron would leave her alone since she had a husband with a large family. Surely he would not bother so many. And I thought my family would stand with me.”
She nodded, encouraging him to go on.
“That was my mistake. When we came back together, we were shunned. All, even my own family, were too afraid to side with us.” His voice became thick with emotion.
“We moved into her hut. The next day when we were in the fields tending the crops, our hut was burned to the ground. People just stood and watched. No one would even fill a bucket and try to stop it. Oh, I was angered! I stood in the midst of them and called them the cowards they were!” Now his voice shook. “Not one said a word to me, and of course, not one family would take us in. We slept out under the trees that night with only each other’s bodies to keep us warm. But the worst was yet to come.”
