“I am Robert Shurtliff, General.” My stomach twisted as it always did when I lied outright. “Captain Webb’s company.”
“Ahh. That’s right. Robbie. Robbie and Jimmy.”
He stopped beside me, his eyes on the river, and said nothing more for several long minutes. His melancholy was palpable, and my own throat began to throb, the need to acknowledge his loss almost unbearable. I searched for something to say—anything—to distract us both.
“Have you read Gulliver’s Travels, General?” I blurted.
He jerked and looked down at me, as if he’d forgotten I was there. “I have,” he answered, almost surprised.
“Which is your favorite?”
He was silent for a moment, as if mulling that over. “I don’t know. I never understood why Gulliver kept casting off. Home is the only place I long to be.”
I could not relate. Home was, in some ways, as mythical a place as Gulliver’s Lilliput or the land of the horses. I had never truly had one of my own.
“Where is home?” I asked, though I knew.
“Home is in Lenox, though I’ve hardly been there enough in the last six years for it to feel at all familiar. I was born and raised in Connecticut.”
I wanted to keep him talking. I don’t know why. It was certainly not my way. With every word, I endangered myself.
“And before that?” I asked. “Where are your people from?”
He studied me. I could feel his eyes on my smooth cheeks, and I kept my gaze averted, looking out over the slope of ground that led to the water, a diligent watchman on duty.
“My great-grandfather fled Scotland, a place called Dumfriesshire, during the reign of King James the Second. I have exchanged one set of highlands for another.”
I knew to what he referred. They called the area around the Point the “highlands of the Hudson”—the hated highlands, to be exact.
“I should like to see Scotland,” I said.
“So would I.” There was a bit of irony in the general’s voice, and again I seized on the chance to converse.
“It’s odd, isn’t it? That one’s history could be all wrapped up in a place. That one’s ancestors could toil in the land and walk the hills for thousands of years, and yet it be as foreign to us as the Pyramids of Egypt or the streets of Paris. Have you ever been to Paris?”
“I have never been to Paris. No.”
“I should like to go there too.” I made myself stop talking, and he did not pick the subject up again. I had not lifted his spirits or distracted him from his sorrow, I could see.
“You shouldn’t be here,” he said softly, suddenly, and it was my turn to start in surprise.
“Sir?”
“You shouldn’t be here,” he repeated. “You are just a boy.” I knew what he saw. A tall, beardless lad with a voice that hadn’t deepened into manhood and shoulders that hadn’t widened with years.
“No, sir. I’m old enough. And I know why I’m here.” To tell the truth felt sweet, and my words rang with the conviction of testimony. If I knew nothing else, I knew that.
“Why? Why are you here?” It seemed an existential question, and hardly one particular to me. It was as though he asked so that he would better understand himself, and the anguish I sensed underscored his words.
“‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,’” I began.
He huffed under his breath, like I’d surprised him again, and I paused in my recitation.
“You’ve memorized it?” he asked.
“Yes, sir.”
“Why?”
“Because I believe in it.”
He grunted, considering that. “Do you know it all?”
“I haven’t memorized all the injuries and usurpations, word for word. The list is long.”
“Yes. It is.” He laughed, though it was hardly more than a chuckle. I considered it a victory.
He sighed, and we stood in silence once more. “Will you recite what you can remember?” he asked. “I need to be reminded.”
“Of course,” I said, though I was rusty and afraid. I reminded myself again that the general would not—could not—find me familiar. He knew nothing of my face or form, or even my fondness for recitation. But I finished with feeling, and he pressed my shoulder in thanks, a heavy hand that rested only a moment.