“I’m not afraid,” I insisted again, fading fast. I was too tired to be afraid. “But I look after my own too. I just don’t . . . I just don’t have many folks left. Almost everyone I care about is . . . here.”
“That’s why you’re afraid. I get it. You’re afraid of losin’ the rest.” He made a sound like he had me all figured out.
“But you’re one of us now,” he continued, leaning forward to pat my arm. I tried not to jerk at the contact, an involuntary reaction, but he tsked like he understood that too. “Me and the general will take care of you.”
I suppose he did have me figured out, in a way. I was more afraid of losing my place than I was of losing my life. But with Grippy sitting by, I wasn’t afraid of losing either, and I closed my eyes and surrendered my vigil, letting him hold it for a while.
Agrippa and Colonel Ebenezer Sproat had both made it back before we did. They and the others had run down the men who shot at us and killed two of them and took the rest prisoner. The shooters claimed they thought we were loyalists, but Sproat was not convinced and made them walk at the end of his gun all the way to Peekskill Hollow, where they were currently imprisoned. When they’d circled back after the firefight to find me and the general, we were gone, and they had no idea if we were dead or alive, captured or hiding.
Colonel Sproat was almost as relieved to see us as Agrippa had been, and he whistled long and low when he heard our story.
“Jeroen Van Tassel has been a thorn in our side from the beginning. You’re lucky to have made it out of there. He would have turned you over to DeLancey without hesitation if he’d had the chance, although he’d have got his money’s worth. I wouldn’t be surprised if he helped arrange the hit on the supply train. That depot is on his land. If we’re going to get those provisions, we better do it soon.”
We didn’t return immediately to the Point. Instead, General Paterson arranged for two schooners to take a dozen handcarts and fifty men downriver, throw anchor at Eastchester, and empty the depot that had almost gotten us killed. Colonel Sproat picked the men and led the mission. It went without a hitch, and three days later, the supplies were being unloaded at the Point.
Common Sense had not been recovered, and I was given a horse so old and swaybacked, the ride back to the Point was a long one, but neither the general nor I was in any condition for haste. Dr. Thatcher wanted to cut a small hole in his skull to make sure he didn’t have a brain bleed, but General Paterson declined the offer. He insisted the doctor have another look at my calf, and Thatcher poked at it and declared it fine, but said he could bleed me if I thought it would ease the bad humors in my wound.
“Do the leeches help infection?” I asked. I was worried about the wound in my thigh. It didn’t look infected, but it ached deep, like a bad tooth.
“Yes. But I don’t think your calf is infected. It’s ugly, and the scar will be as thick as the one on the general’s head. But both wounds are healing very quickly.”
I wondered if it was Maggie’s salve, and kept applying it to the general’s head and my leg until the little pot was completely gone. Even still, General Paterson recovered much faster than I did, though I made a valiant attempt to pretend differently. By some miracle, my leg did not fester, but I lamented that I might not ever run again without pain.
“Your limping is worse this morning,” the general said when I came to shave his face, nearly a month after our narrow escape.
“It is just stiff. The more I move, the better it will feel.”
He didn’t argue, but his brow was furrowed as I worked. I pressed my thumb into the indentation and rubbed it. “You are scowling, sir. Is your head troubling you?”
“No,” he said, but he leaned into the pressure of my fingers and closed his eyes, and a flood of affection welled in my chest. I tipped his chin up and finished my task. It was my favorite part of the day.
“There you are. All done, General. Very handsome,” I said, brisk, like I was his mother and not a besotted servant.
“I have been scalped by a bullet,” he said, as if that made any difference.
I touched the thick puckered line that shot back from the left side of his brow and disappeared at his crown. The fall of his hair covered it almost completely, but when it was drawn back into a queue, the scar was quite impressive.
“It gives you character, sir.”
“Don’t kiss my arse, Shurtliff. It makes me like you less.”