Thursday, April 18, evening
Our footsteps on the wooden bridge sounded thunderous.
No one else was crossing at this time of night. It felt as though Nell and I were the only two people in the universe. The stars spread above us like embroidery on Ma’s best linen tablecloth. Behind us only a few flickering lamps shone bright enough in Wiscasset windows to prove the town was still there.
The dark river murmured below us, and we could hear the slap of the incoming tide hitting the rocks on the shores and the ships moored in the harbor.
“How much of that long document have you finished printing?” Nell asked. I held the lantern slightly in front of us, so we wouldn’t trip on the uneven boards of the bridge.
“None,” I admitted. “Charlie and I had just started setting the type for the first two pages yesterday, when we heard about Owen.”
“How many pages will there be?”
“Ten, I think. Setting the type for each page takes several hours, and then we have to print each page.” I might as well admit the truth. “The next edition of the Herald is due out Saturday, so I’d hoped to have several pages of the Act in the paper, and then print the rest on Sunday, so it would be ready for the county clerk by Monday morning. I don’t think there’ll be time now.”
“It must be hard to run a business.”
“I’ve always dreamed of publishing a newspaper. But now that Pa’s enlisted, Ma will need me at our family’s store while he’s gone. It would have been hard to keep the paper going and help out at the store, anyway. Maybe it’s for the best if I have to give up the paper.” I said the words out loud, and tried hard to believe them.
At the end of the bridge we turned right, down a rutted dirt road.
“Where are we going?” Nell asked. “You haven’t told me.”
“At the end of this road there’s an old fort,” I explained. “It was built for the War of 1812, to defend Wiscasset from the British. Since then moss and grasses have grown over the fortifications. But you said many soldiers, and there were many soldiers at the fort—Americans and, after they were captured, British. And you said gray stones. The fortifications were built of granite from the quarry in Edgecomb, so they’re gray. It all fits.”
Nell stumbled, and I grabbed her elbow.
“I’m fine,” she said. “I’m used to cobblestones and plank roads, but roads of hardened mud are hard to navigate in the dark.”
I tried to hold the lantern so it was easier for her to see. Her wide, long skirts and cloak were cumbersome. Maybe I shouldn’t have let her come.
“How far do we have to go? I’m feeling that Owen needs us,” she said suddenly, and started walking faster.
“Perhaps a quarter-mile,” I said, smiling to myself. Miss Nell Gramercy might look delicate, but I didn’t know any girls in town who’d go for a walk in the dark with someone of the opposite sex, to a place they’d never been.
She looked at me. “I think we should run, if you think the lantern will stay lit.” And she took off.
She had to hold up her long hoop skirts and cloak, and though we wouldn’t have won any races, we did speed up considerably. We were both huffing and puffing when we made it up the hill at the end of the island where the fort stood, surrounded on three sides by the river, and partially illuminated by the half-moon.
“Owen!” I called out while Nell caught her breath. “Owen! Are you here?”
I walked first to the Wiscasset side of the island, and then to the end. Nell had dropped back and was close to the fort itself.
I’d started down to where the fortifications had been built close to the river when I thought I heard a voice.
“Joe?” Then a pause. “Joe? Is that you?”
“Owen! Where are you?”
“Down here. Near the river. I’m hurt.”
“Nell—he’s here!” I called up to her, and scrambled down one of the old paths soldiers had worn in the dirt sixty years ago, when taking their positions at the walls. “Owen! Say something!”
“Joe, I fell. My leg’s hurt bad. And I’m so cold.”