A shot rang out and knocked his hat from his head, and I screamed, coming out of my stupor. He slumped, still clinging to his weapon, and Lenox bolted forward, feeling the slack in the reins. Halfway across the field, the general slid limply from his back.
I began to run toward him, my arms and legs pumping, but I didn’t make it very far. Two sharp cracks split the air like a whip being drawn in quick succession across my calf and then my thigh. I staggered, fell, and stayed down, my cheek pressed to the earth.
It didn’t hurt. A weird pressure reverberated in my groin, and I needed to empty my bladder again. But that was fear, not pain.
“Nothing is broken,” I comforted myself. I was fairly certain that was true. I began to crawl toward General Paterson, expecting another bullet to whistle past my head or sink into my flesh, but none did.
He was not moving, but his breath continued, and his heart was steady beneath my palm. I felt around his skull, moving my fingers through his hair. Blood obscured his face, and coated the front of his uniform, but the furrow through his hair and a goose egg–shaped lump at the back of his head were his only obvious injuries. His limbs were straight and sound, but he lay like a dead man, still clutching his pistol, and I could not move him, even had I not had a bullet—maybe two—in my left leg. It was still numb, but my boot squelched with blood when I wiggled my toes. I rose to my hands and knees and surveyed the rise where the gunfire had come from. I couldn’t go that way.
My horse was gone. The general’s horse too, and I studied the woods around me, trying to formulate a plan. I didn’t know if the attackers would return, if Sproat and the others could return, and I had nothing but what was on my person to aid me.
If I was right, Van Tassel’s estate should be just around the bend. I would go that way. It was no more than half a mile, at the most.
It might as well have been a thousand. Walking ten feet would be a challenge.
“Elizabeth,” I said. “Elizabeth, help me.” I don’t know what I expected, but I had no one else to beseech. I searched the woods again and begged the general to wake, feeling again for his breath and the beat of his heart. Hoofbeats and a mournful whinny sounded to my left, and I reloaded the general’s empty pistol and prepared for the worst. A moment later, Lenox meandered toward me, his head low and his steps sheepish.
“Oh, thank you,” I breathed, and rose, refusing to consider that my leg would not hold me. Lenox shuffled near and nuzzled at the general in apology. I took his reins, entreated him to hold steady, and raised my good foot into the stirrup, swinging myself up and onto his back in one desperate motion.
“I’ll be back,” I promised the general, and spurred the horse forward into a run, clinging to his back and my feeble plan.
It was as I thought, though each minute felt like an eternity. The large white structure among the trees, outbuildings and fields extending behind it, was just as I remembered. My regiment had paused for water and rest at a wide stream that fed into the river a mile north on our first march to the Point.
A young woman, her dress bright against the dull sky, sat atop a spotted pony as if she’d just set out for a ride. When she saw me, she spurred her mount back toward the house, shrieking with news of my approach. A feather danced against her pale cheek and dark ringlets bounced down her back as she called, “Papa!”
That too was a godsend. If I were to dismount, I doubted I could pull myself up again.
A man in a crimson coat and buff-colored breeches strode from the house, his large belly bouncing with every anxious step. The young woman who’d heralded my arrival dismounted and hovered at his side, smiling at me as though it was all a great adventure. He demanded she return to the house, but she ignored him. I drew up and did my utmost to steel my spine and project my voice.
“I am a soldier in the Continental army, sir. My commanding officer has been wounded and is lying in the field nearby. We were shot at and our party scattered. I cannot lift him on my own, and I require assistance and accommodations until he is fit to travel.”
I didn’t know whether to reveal Paterson’s name or rank. A general was a valuable prisoner. In 1776, General Lee had been surrounded by a British regiment at an inn in the New Jersey countryside, much to the delight and celebration of the loyalists. The Americans had been demoralized. But this was neutral territory, and civilians were required in these parts to honor the rules of engagement, regardless of their politics.
“I require assistance,” I repeated. “A cart and a horse and a man to aid me in getting the wounded officer into it.”