The Story of Land and Sea: A Novel by Katy Simpson Smith

Author:Katy Simpson Smith [Smith, Katy Simpson]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2014-08-26T00:00:00+00:00

5

By all accounts, the war is over. The British lost at Yorktown in the fall. There have been skirmishes in the Caribbean, where it is still warm enough to spark men’s blood, but on the continent the winter has cooled the armies’ spirits. Only the Indians continue to fight. Generals are talking to generals, and accords are being drafted. King George’s party has been replaced in Parliament, and everyone is for peace, from the mothers to the sons. The Americans are already looking hungrily westward. Grass is starting to grow over the graves of men who went to war and never returned.

In the General Assembly, Asa listens to the other representatives discuss plans for their districts: monuments, a local postal service, canals. Some are nervous about the loss of Britain’s oversight and hope for a muscular constitution; others are glad to begin governance with no long history to cloud the country’s logic. They will sit down and decide what must be true and leave out the rest, simple. Asa is lost in daydreams.

He has never had much to fear from a war. The worst danger he ever faced was as a boy, just sixteen; a fleet of Spanish privateers landed in Beaufort’s harbor and spent a summer stealing boats and raiding the town. For several years, the Spanish had been using Cape Lookout as a base to raid passing ships. The town built a magazine in case of attack and filled it with powder and shot. In the summer, boys at play took turns guarding it. But in 1747, after the Spanish had emptied the harbor of Beaufort’s fishing fleet and come back again for its silver and the fresh meat from cattle and pigs that could not be gotten at sea, the magazine became necessary. As soon as it was necessary, it was captured.

Asa is old enough now to remember that summer only in patches. He must have been afraid, but he can only recall excitement. Major Ward, who was then very young and brave, called the soldiers and the farmers and the blacksmiths to arms; a hundred of them fought the Spanish back to their ships, killing a handful and, uncertain what to do with the bodies, burying them with some measure of respect in the town cemetery, for they were Christian after all. Afterward the governor gave them money to build a fort on Bogue Island, which they started and never finished, because there had been peace ever since.

Had Asa carried a gun? No, and though he’s listened to the stories of men who shot at the rumps of the retreating Spanish, he hasn’t felt the heft of a weapon in his own hand. Not when a weapon was needed, at least. He isn’t jealous of those farmers who chased the Spanish pirates out of their harbor, nor does he wish to carry a gun in the current fight. He has chosen to build things, to piece together opportunities that jumble in the wake of wars, and to nurture a family that will outlast any glory of his own.

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