“You sit on the green and tell stories about the war all the time. Soldiers come to your house and drink that grog you make. And you talk about the Revolution. I want to talk about it too. On a stage.”
“I’m not going to help you run away, Bonny.”
It was my turn to gape at him. “I am not running away.”
“You’ve got that wanderlust. Some folks do. You’ve always been a little wild. But you can’t be running around in those breeches. Not anymore. You’re not Bonny boy now. You’re Mrs. Paterson.”
“So why do you still call me Bonny?” I shot back. “And I should be able to go wherever I want, Agrippa Hull. I should be able to walk from Lenox with my musket and my sound mind without someone giving me permission or escort.”
“Should is a funny thing. People talk an awful lot about the way things should be and not the way things are. You’re a woman, and that’s a reality you can’t argue out of.”
“I’m man enough.”
He laughed at that. “Yeah. I guess you are. I guess you were. But I don’t think you’ll fool people like you did before. Your female is spilling out all over now. You’re ripe.”
My shoulders sank. It was what I feared.
“The general is one of the best men I know. Why are you running away? And from him of all people?”
“I’m not running away!” I insisted. “I am not running away from him.”
“Then who are you running away from? And why do I feel like we had this conversation a long time ago?” He scratched his head.
“Because we did. We talked about being born free and dying free. Do you realize that you are one of the only people who truly know who I am?”
“You mean soldier Bonny?”
“Yes. I mean soldier Bonny.”
“Oh, lots of people know. They just don’t know what to make of it.”
“They don’t know Deborah Samson. They just think they do.”
“So you want the whole world to know her. Is that it?”
“I want the world to accept her.”
“Accept?” His sputtering became a great rolling laugh. And he kept laughing, throwing his head back and stamping his feet like he couldn’t get enough.
His response only made me angrier.
“You may leave now, Grippy,” I insisted, splitting another log and throwing it aside. “I am so very glad I have entertained you.”
He didn’t leave. He just kept chortling, rocking back and forth in my chair, watching me hack away at my anger.
“Oh, Bonny. That’s funny. That’s a funny one. ‘I want the world to accept her,’” he said, pitching his voice a little higher, mimicking me. “Well go on then, woman. Go chase acceptance. When you find it, let me know. ’Cause there’s a few African folk who’d really like to know where it is.” He laughed again and slowly rose from the chair as if he’d worn himself out with his merriment.
“Not me, though. I already found it. It’s right here.” He patted his chest. “Right here.”
John found me where Agrippa left me, still chopping wood, still wearing my breeches, still stewing in the emotional soup of my mother’s death and finding acceptance.
“At ease, soldier,” the general demanded.
I scoffed, but I stopped hacking and watched him walk toward me. Over the years, the ruddiness had continued to fade from his hair, starting at his temples and working its way back, but John Paterson was not greatly changed from the general who’d ridden onto the field at West Point to greet a batch of new recruits. My heart had stopped then, and it stopped again. Always. Every time.
He didn’t slow until he’d reached me, and when he did, he lifted my chin and pressed a kiss on my mouth that was neither polite nor perfunctory.
“Why are you chopping wood, Private Shurtliff? Mountains and mountains of wood?” He looked around at my piles. “Our children will think you are building an ark.”
“I am chopping wood because I can. I am good at it. And our children are not even here. John Jr. has gone into town and Betsy is at your mother’s.”
John’s daughters were grown and married, and at fourteen and twelve, John Jr. and Betsy had busy lives and interests of their own. John Jr. had grown so tall and handsome. He looked more like a Samson than a Paterson, though he was his father through and through, dependable, devoted, and good. He would care what others thought of me. It would bother him to hear them talk, but he would be leaving for Yale in the fall.