Time's Convert

It was a Sunday, and the meetinghouse bells pealed over the countryside. Marcus stepped out into the crisp autumn air, naked as the day he was born. Joshua and Zeb were waiting for him by the washtub with clean clothes.

There was a tang of woodsmoke in the air, and the soft smell of leaf mold. Zeb tossed him an apple, and Marcus ate it in four bites. After weeks of thin gruel and ale, Marcus had never had anything that tasted so clean and fresh. Everything he saw, everything he felt, and everything he tasted seemed like a gift after the weeks he’d spent in the grip of smallpox. The army would have to take Marcus now, once he ran away to join the fight.

For the first time, Marcus felt that freedom was in his grasp.

Tom came out of the house, bearing a pot with a lid clamped on top.

“I believe this is yours.” Buckland held out the pot. The aroma of toasted paper filled the air. Tom had wanted to burn Common Sense, but Marcus would not allow it. Tom fumigated the pamphlet instead, lining the old pot with moss and pine needles before putting it in the embers.

“Thanks, Tom.” Marcus slipped the pages in his pocket. Paine’s words would help to keep him warm on the way back to the farm, just as they had kept Marcus sane during the period of quarantine.

Marcus left Zeb and Joshua to burn the blankets, bedding, and clothing before abandoning the Marsh homestead to prevent the smallpox from spreading to anyone who might use the place for temporary shelter on the cold autumn nights. Tom and Marcus crossed the river to Hadley and parted ways on West Street, outside the gate to the MacNeil farm.

“Take care, Marcus,” Tom said. “Someone said Obadiah is back in town.”

Marcus felt a trickle of worry enter his blood.

“Thanks again, Tom. For everything,” Marcus said, pushing the gate open. The hinge was bad, and the gate hung heavily on the post. He would have to fix that, now that he was home.

Marcus went around to the back of the house to check on the cows. He thought he would bring in some eggs while he was at it. His mother would fry them up in bacon drippings when she returned from meeting, and Marcus could mop them up with some bread—if there was any to be had. His stomach gurgled in anticipation of the feast to come.

A crash came from the direction of the rickety lean-to his father had built on the rear of the house to serve as a storeroom back when he hoped the farm would be prosperous. Either the Kelloggs’ hog had escaped again and had broken into the kitchen in search of food, or Obadiah was home and searching for the spirits his mother hid in the eaves. The badly hung door was ajar, and Marcus pushed it open a bit more with his toe. Surprise would be an advantage, be the intruder pig or patriarch.

“Where’s the rum?” His father’s voice was slurred and angry. Another piece of crockery fell to the floor.

“There’s none left.” Catherine’s voice was low, but there was a tremor of fear in her voice.

“Liar,” Obadiah shouted.

His mother cried out in pain.

Marcus turned and set off at a run for the barn. He pulled the long flintlock rifle out of the grain hopper, along with the powder and balls needed to fire it.

An ancient elm stood two hundred yards from the kitchen door. Marcus hid behind the massive trunk and loaded the gun. He had been practicing with it out in the woods. What he had discovered about the gun was that it was slow to load but astonishingly accurate, even at a distance.

“Father!” Marcus called to the house. He looked down the barrel of the gun and aimed it at the door. “Come out here.”

Silence fell.

“Marcus?” Obadiah laughed. “Where are you hiding, boy?”

Someone kicked open the door.

Obadiah came out, gripping his mother with one hand and pulling Patience along by the shoulder with the other.

“We thought you’d run off for good this time,” Marcus called.

“And where have you been?” Obadiah’s eyes searched for Marcus, but didn’t find him. “Up to no good, I hear—holed up with Zeb Pruitt at the Marsh place.”

Patience’s sobs grew louder.

“Keep your mouth shut,” Obadiah warned his daughter.

“Take whatever food you want and go, Obadiah.” His mother’s voice shook. “I want no more trouble.”

“You don’t tell me what to do, Catherine.” Obadiah snatched her closer, shouting into her face. He had momentarily forgotten Marcus. “Ever.”

“Let her go!” Patience lunged at her father, her fists landing on his back in a futile effort to interrupt his attention.

Obadiah turned toward Patience with a snarl. He shook his daughter and then pushed her to the ground. Patience cried out in pain, her leg twisting underneath her.

Marcus fired.

The sound of the gunpowder catching light reached his father before the ball did. Obadiah MacNeil’s face registered surprise moments before the shot struck him between the eyes. He fell backward.

Marcus dropped the gun and ran toward his mother and sister. His sister was unconscious. His mother was trembling like a birch tree.

“You all right, Ma?” Marcus asked, kneeling next to Patience. He rubbed her hands. “Patience. Do you hear me?”

“I’m f-fine,” his mother stammered, swaying on her feet. She removed her blood-spattered bonnet. “Your father . . .”

Marcus didn’t know whether the lump of metal had gone through his father’s skull or was still lodged within it. Either way, the man was dead.

Patience’s eyes fluttered open. She turned her head and stared into Obadiah’s unseeing eyes. Her mouth opened into a soundless O.

Marcus covered her lips before his sister screamed.

“Quiet, Patience,” Catherine said. There was a red lump under one eye. Obadiah must have struck her in his frustrated search for alcohol.

Patience nodded. Marcus removed his hand from her mouth.

“You killed Pa. What are we going to do now, Marcus?” his sister asked in a whisper.

“We could bury him,” Catherine said calmly, “out under the elm.” The tree had sheltered Marcus as he made the fatal shot.

Marcus hadn’t considered the future when he pulled the trigger and killed his father. The only thing he had been thinking of was his mother, his sister, and their safety.

“Lord save us.” Zeb stood by the corner of the house. He took in Obadiah’s body, Patience’s red-rimmed eyes and torn dress, and Catherine’s bruised face. “Go hide in the woods, Marcus. Joshua and I will come find you after dark.”

* * *

—

IT TOOK ZEB AND JOSHUA until the early hours of the morning to convince Marcus that he had to leave Hadley.

“I don’t have anywhere to go,” Marcus said numbly. The shock of the day’s events had begun to affect him. Marcus felt cold, jittery, and anxious by turns. “This is home.”

“You have to leave. You shot your father on a Sunday morning. No one hunts on the Sabbath. Someone will have heard the gun go off. And folks are going to remember seeing Obadiah in town,” Zeb said.

Zeb was right. A gunshot on their farm would not go unnoticed. And plenty of Hadley residents had walked by the place on their way to meeting. Even Tom Buckland had heard rumors that Obadiah was back.

“If you stay, you will be arrested. Your ma and Patience might even be accused of being involved,” Joshua said.

“And if I run, it will be an admission of my own guilt, and they will be free of responsibility.” Marcus put his head in his hands. The morning had dawned so bright and full of promise. He had smelled freedom on the autumn air out in Hatfield. Now he could lose not only his liberty but his life.

“Take the gun and go south, to the army. A man can lose himself in war. If you survive, you can make a new life for yourself. Somewhere else,” Joshua said. “Somewhere far away from Hadley.”

“But who will take care of Ma? And Patience?” Winters were always difficult, but with the war and the poor harvest it would be an even greater struggle to survive.

“We will,” Zeb said. “I promise you.”

Reluctantly, Marcus agreed to their plan. Joshua spread goose fat through Marcus’s hair, and followed it up with dark-colored wig powder that clung to the oily strands.