A Ride into Morning by Ann Rinaldi

Author:Ann Rinaldi
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

15

Within the next ten minutes the word was uttered. Plain. And in God’s good sunlight. By Henry to me in the orchard.

He was sitting on the ground near the sentries, who did not take him into account as anything but an oversized half-wit. They nodded their hellos to me, and Henry and I walked away from them. He was fairly shivering with anticipation.

A distance from the magazine, I turned to look at him. “My friends said you wanted to talk to me, Henry.”

He was almost jumping out of his skin, hopping from one foot to another as he stood there.

“Henry must tell you,” he said. “Important.”

“Talk to me, Henry, do. But talk to me as the real Henry. You know I’ll listen.”

He wagged his head steadily, compressed his lips. “Mutiny,” he said. “They’re planning mutiny.”

“You already told me that, Henry. And others suspect it, even Wayne. But nothing’s been done yet.”

“There’s more.”

“Well?”

He sighed, took a moment to look to the heavens and compose himself, then recited carefully. “Bowzar’s intending to take Tempe’s horse, not borrow him. Take him away. And there’s a good chance he’s going to take the Line and go over to the British.”

The sky seemed to whirl above me and come down on my head. “Defect to the British?”

He nodded vigorously, looking at his shoes as if ashamed to even utter such words to me. “It’s not decided yet. Many of the men are indisposed to mutiny. Some may not fall in with the dissenters when the time comes. Many want to go to the British. Others say it is not their intention, and they will hang any man they suspect of such desires. But it is a possibility.”

I nodded.

“At the crossroads out of camp,” he went on, “it will be determined. If they take the road to the left, or go straight, they can march to Chatham and Elizabethtown, then on to the British if they wish. The other road goes to Princeton and then Philadelphia. No telling ’til they reach the crossroads which way they will go. And there is more.”

I waited.

“With spies about, the British will hear of the revolt. And do what they must to entice the Line to go to them.”

I gazed in wonderment at him. He had figured out all the possibilities on his own. He was not stupid.

“Why do you care, Henry?” I asked. “When they all treat you so shabbily. The soldiers make sport of you. General Wayne wouldn’t listen to you now, even if you could get through to his headquarters. He puts you down as a lunatic along with everyone else. Even Will Leddell treats you with disdain and uses you. Tempe won’t let you in the house to see your mother. Why, after all these years, do you care?”

I was taking a chance, I knew, uttering such words. They might discourage him. And then again they might prod him to action.

“Because,” he said, “I care about the army and what it’s trying to do. I care about freedom.

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