His name was MacGregor. He clung to that even as he clung to the horse's reins. The pain alive, capering down to his arm like a dozen dancing devils. Hot, branding hot, despite the December wind blowing snow.
He could no longer direct the horse but rode on, trusting her to find her wat through the twisting paths made by Indian or deer or white man. He was alone with the scent of snow and pine, the muffled thus of his mount's hooves and the gloom of early twilight. A world hushed by the sea of wind washing through the trees.
Instinct told him he was far from Boston now, far from the crowds, the warm hearths, the civilized. Preharps safe. The snow would would cover the trail his horse left and the guiding part of his own blood.
But safe wasn't enough for him. It never had been. He was determined to stay alive, and for one fierce reason. A dead man couldn't fight. By all that was holy he vowed to fight until he was free .
Shivering despite the heavy buckskins and furs, teeth shattering now from a chill that came from within as well as without, he leaned forward to speak to the horse, soothing in Gaelic. His skin was clammy with the heat of the pain, but his blood was like the ice that formed on the bare branches of the tree surrounding him. He could see the mare's breath blow out in white streams as she trudged on through the deepening snow. He prayed as only a man who could feel his own blood pouring out of him could pray for life.
There was a battle yet to be fought. He'd be dammed if he'd die before he'd raise his sword.
The mare gave a sympathetic whinny as he slumped against her neck, his breathing labored. Trouble was in the air, as well as the scent of blood. With a toss of her head, she walked into the wind, following her own instinct for survival and heading west.
The pain was like a dream now, floating in his mind, swimming through his body. He thought if he could only wake, it would disappear as dreams do. He had other dreams--violent and vivid. To fight for all the MacGregors had held with pride and sweat and blood. All they had lost.
He had been born in war. It seemed just and right that he would die in war. But not yet. He struggled to rouse himself. Not yet, the fight had only begun.
He forced an image into his mind. A grand one. Men in feathers and buckskins, their faces blackened with burnt Cork and lampblack and grease, boarding the ships Dart-mouth, Eleanor and Beaver. Ordinary men,he remembered, merchants and craftmen and students.Some fueled with grog, some with righteousness. The hoisting and smashing of the chest of the damned and detested tea. The satisfying splash as broken crates of it hit the cold water of Boston Habour at Griffin's Wharf.He remembered how disgorged chests had been heaped up in the much of low tide like stacks of hay.
So large a cup of tea for the fishes, he thought now. Aye, they had been merry, but purposely determined. They would need to be all of those things to fight and win the war that so many didn't understand had already begun.
How long has it been since that glorious night? One day? Two? It had been his badluck that he had run into two drunk and edgy redcoats as dawn had been breaking. They knew him. His face, his name, his politics were well-known in Boston. He'd done nothing to endear himself to the British militia.
