PLUS
CHAPTER THREE
SHANNON FORKED THE hunk of salt beef from the swimming mass of boiled peas. He bit into one end and sawed off a piece with his knife. It was the first meat he'd eaten in weeks and his stomach cried out more, more, more, but he forced himself to chew slowly. He could not afford the waste of vomiting.
Emmett softened a piece of fire cake in the stew of peas. The fire cake was made of Indian meal—more husks and grit than corn—mixed with water. He ate gingerly, sifting through the mush with his tongue for bits of millstone. A broken tooth could greatly lessen his chances of reaching Cherry Valley.
Emmett softened a piece of fire cake in the stew of peas. The fire cake was made of Indian meal—more husks and grit than corn—mixed with water. He ate gingerly, sifting through the mush with his tongue for bits of millstone. A broken tooth could greatly lessen his chances of reaching Cherry Valley.
All these things he did without thought—not tasting the food, or enjoying the fire's warmth, or even feeling the fingers of cold creeping around it, numbing the unprotected edges of his body. Outside his shallow cave the storm was raging. Just beyond the glow of the fire, the mouth of the cave was a sheet of white—streaked with shifting streaks of night. The heated air inside the cave was an imperfect seal against the wind that fluttered in a constant drumbeat, like distant cannon fire.
Emmett was appalled at himself. What he had done was murder—there was no other word for it—and he could feel the jagged-edged wound on his soul. He ran the sequence of events over and over again. As the wagon master knocked the bung from the beef barrel, and the preserving brine spilled to the ground, Shannon saw the rage overtake his shadow self: the rifle coming up in one smooth motion, sights fixing on the bloated face, finger tightening, hammer falling, the flash of the pan, then the weapon bucking as it hurled its missile, the teamster falling away from view. He'd swiftly reloaded and the rifle had come up, sniffing for another victim. Shouts of terror from the teamster's servants had brought him back to a formless reality. But the rifle barrel hadn't wavered until the men had scurried off the trail and disappeared into the trees.
What troubled Shannon almost more than the murder was that at no point had there been any control. No moment of hesitation. It was as if a blacksmith had knocked out a critical gap in the rows of teeth encircling a gear, and the millstone had jumped from coarse to fine with none of the niceties of the middle grades.
After the men had fled, he had numbed forward until he was standing over the teamster's body. The top of the man's head was missing, and Emmett had turned away with a fit of dry heaves. He'd steadied himself, wiped the spittle from his mouth and taken stock of the situation. The man was dead, and Shannon knew that later he would mourn him. But death had also brought opportunity, and if he did not seize on every chance that fell his way, he would not survive.
Feeling like a thief, he had filled the pockets of his hunting shirt with beef. As he turned to leave he saw a large horseman's bag on the wagon seat. The leather was finely tooled, the buckles and fastenings thick brass—a little rich for a wagon master. He snagged the bag and hefted it. The weight suggested contents of value. He'd heard distant cries in the woods, and ran.
Now, Emmett's fork jarred against the wooden plate. He looked down, startled to see he'd emptied it. The kettle was on its side, scraped clean. He must have filled his plate again, eaten, and then wiped the edges of the kettle with fire cake until he had consumed every morsel. All this and no memory of it. He found it amusing, laughed aloud, then frowned. He touched an experimental finger to cheek. The flesh was dry, hot. Ah, Christ save him. It was the fever. Just thinking it made him shudder, and he wasn't sure whether the chill he felt was real or imagined. Another shudder and he realized there was no imagining to it. He fished out his medical kit, oddly grateful he now had a problem he could actually do something about.
He shook ground alder and oak bark into his cup. He mixed it in vinegar and drank, wishing again he had some laudanum to stiffen the elixir. Emmett decided he'd also better dose himself with a rum. He dug out his flask, extracted the cork and sipped. It quick-fused to his stomach, kicking like a rampart gun. Shannon grinned, a bit tipsy already. He thought about the teamster . . . this time with a shrug. He tucked the incident into a lockbox far in the corner of his mind. But just before he stowed it away, he promised himself that someday he would find a means of atonement, no matter how meager.
Emmett dragged over the horseman's bag and opened it for the first time. On top was a large, squat, corked jug. Well, buss my sweet Irish ass, Shannon, lad…could it be…? He pulled the cork with his teeth, and the small cave filled with heady fumes. He laughed again—with no fever in it this time—and took a long, gasping pull. He felt his ears flame as he choked the sweetish liquid down, then held the jug away from him, staring in disbelief. It was good old reliable Jersey Jack, straight from the stills of the Pine Barrens, where old men worked their cider artistry out of sight of the tax laws. He pawed through the bag to see what else he could find. Next was a large pair of linen drawers. Expensive—and very dirty. Emmett held them up. The pouch could not have belonged to the teamster. The drawers would have fit the teamster and his two servants ... at the same time. The wagon master would meet his Maker with more sins than mere supply fraud to worry about.
He dug into the pouch once more, feeling less like a robber cackling over his loot than a birthday child. He uncovered a pistol and its powder and brass shot. The barrel was brass as well, and the butt and sideplate handworked silver. It must have belonged to an officer or a rich man. At the bottom of the bag was a broad oilskin packet. He opened it. Emmett's eyes glittered at the next gift from Heaven staring up at him: money!
His fingers trembled as he counted it. Christ help me, it's twenty-five dollars I'm holding in my hands. No, it couldn't be. It must be Satan mocking me. But the bills were perfect Continental dollars printed in . . . He peered closer at one of the bills . . . spelling out the letters carefully: P-H-I-L-A-D-E-L-P-H-I-A. It was spelled correctly. Aw, shit on your leggings and call them brown linen! They were counterfeit. Guaranteed.
Shannon, an old hand at spotting a coiners' fraud, knew that on real Continental dollars the city was misspelled: PHILADELPKIA. Not only was the absence of the K a giveaway, but these bills were too well made. He considered . . . No. It wasn't worth the chance. Penalties were severe:starting with flogging and branding the thumbs. The punishments after that depended on how many coiners had been recently pissing on Congress's money. Emmett almost tossed the bills into the fire, but after reconsidering he wrapped them back up. He could always use extra paper. For wiping his bum or starting fires. Whatever, it was sure to be twenty-five dollars exclusively spent.
Despite his fever and the guilt nibbling at the edge of his conscience, the whole thing put him in a much better mood. He pushed the logs closer into the fire and curled up beside it. He pulled the jug into his arms for easy reach and tucked the blankets around him. After a few more sips he even began to imagine he was warm and drifted off into a light sleep.
Emmett grew up with his father's easy laughter, his mother's dare-the-law Catholic piety, his sister's nervous wit, and his grandfather's brooding presence beside the hearth.
Long after the old man was dead, Emmett could still see him sitting there in his heavy chair. Never drunk, but sipping steadily at his grog and staring into the fire. Sometimes he would mutter a name aloud. His face would blacken and he'd growl a Gaelic curse and drink more deeply. The split-board chair would groan under his weight as he shifted like an old dog grumbling at ancient slights. The family would fall silent until the creaking stopped and Grandfather Shannon found comfort in his fire again.
Emmett didn't know who he was cursing. Or if it was one man or many. Or even if it was not a man at all, but circumstances. He did notice, however, that when the great stirring began, his grandfather always kept an eye fixed on one point in the hearth. As if it was from there that a great danger threatened. In time Emmett took for granted something powerful and frightening must be there or his grandfather wouldn't keep such close watch. It worried him until he realized that whatever it was, it feared his grandfather more than the old man feared it. Otherwise he couldn't keep it pinned in the hearth with a mere glower.
When he was too big to carry but still too small to walk very far, Emmett's mother began leaving him at home on market day in his grandfather's care. At first he was intimidated. He cried as his mother stepped outside the door into the full rumble of traffic, shouting crowds, bawling animals, and pealing bells that was Market Day in Boston. But his mother pushed him back, gave him the look that said weep and die, so he stifled his sobs and shuffled off to a cluttered corner of the one-room shack his grandfather owned and shared with the family.
The shack hung from a small rocky rise above a narrow street that led to the docks. There were few other homes or even shacks on that street. Mostly it was a mixture of warehouses, blacksmiths, wheelwrights, chandleries, and a grog shop where his father spent his time between spurts of casual labor—parking carriages in the theater district or dig ging the occasional ditch. Behind the shack was a vegetable garden that struggled on rocky soil. The shack itself was about thirty by forty-five feet. During the day the center of the room was empty, save the old man's hearthside chair. All of the family's other belongings were crammed against the walls, to be dragged out when needed: a table and several log slab chairs for dinner, mattresses with straw ticking, old chests with clothing and bedding stacked inside and on top, a jumble of tools and parts for repairs, jugs, bottles and tinware of odd variety, his mother's two spinning wheels, the large loom for linen, as well as sacks and kegs of food stuffs.
The room smelled of a mixture of drying herbs, with the sharp edge of damp baby flannels when his sister was still in diapers, mixed in with sweet pudding bubbling on the hearth; or, in good times, roasting birds—usually sparrows, robins, or pigeons. Not so nice-smelling was the ever-present jug of milk souring for cheese. Sanitation of several slop jars which were dumped daily into two kegs in the cellar, along with other offal. Once a week (in theory) the kegs were set next to the sewer ditch which ran along the middle of the street for pickup by the city slop wagons.
Water was hauled in pails by his mother from a public fountain several long streets away, where the heavy washing-up of kitchen utensils was also done. Laundry was carried weekly to a larger fountain even farther away. The lighting was mostly nonexistent: even the burned gristle-smelling yellow tallow candles were very dear during Shannon's childhood—when all the colonies were sorely pinched for funds. In the day, weather permitting, there was only the open front door and one window—with paper set in the frame—to let in light.
It was in this gloom and clutter that Emmett hid from his grandfather. He sat behind his mother's spinning wheel feeling sorry for himself, wondering what he would do when he had to use the slop jar. If someone had asked why he was frightened, he couldn't have said. His grandfather had never struck him or even chastised his behavior aloud. If Emmett was too noisy, or doing something he shouldn't, the old man would only fix him with that furrowed-brow stare of disapproval. Emmett's heart would stop, as would his misbehavior.
He ducked his head quickly when he heard the heavy scrape of the old man's chair. Footsteps. Then his hand was taken and he was being led to the hearth, where a small stool was drawn up near his grandfather's chair. He was seated. Emmett was too afraid to move as he heard other sounds of the old man bustling about, but when the great chair creaked again under his grandfather's weight he dared a peek. His grandfather was toasting two slices of bread over the fire. Could one of them be for Emmett? When the toast was done, the old man placed them on a plate. He dipped out chicken fat with a ladle and smeared it on the toast. Emmett's mouth watered. Then he saw his grandfather pick up a stone jug of milk—warming by the fire—and pour out a single cupful. Silently the old man passed the plate and the cup to him. Emmett took them, bit into the toast and washed down the salty goodstuff with milk.
He looked up at his grandfather. The old man nodded at him and then took a sip from his jug. "Are ya at ease, young Emmett?" the old man asked. Emmett didn't know what to say, so he just bobbed his head. "That's nice," the old man said. And went back to staring into the fire. Then the old man began to speak. He didn't look at Emmett but into the fire and Emmett wasn't sure who his grandfather was addressing. So he just listened.
The old man seemed to be talking about fighting and soldiers and things, so it promised adventure. But Emmett couldn't make out who was fighting whom and exactly what soldiers were involved, or even when it all happened. Sometimes the old man shifted from fighting soldiers to escaping soldiers. It didn't matter. It was all very exciting. Especially some of the bits about escaping. There was a long, hungry trek home, but from where, to where, Emmett couldn't tell. He finally got the nerve to ask a question. He pointed to the fearful spot on the far side of the hearth. "What's there, Grandfather?"
"William's men," he answered, flat. "Don't turn your back on them, young Emmett," he warned. "Not ever."
"I won't, Grandfather," Emmett promised. And he meant it. Whatever Williamsmen was, if he met up with it, he'd keep close watch just like his grandfather.
"Another thing," his grandfather went on, "if they get through the line after ya, don't wave your pike about like some lad chasing lambs from the gorse. Get the butt set good, and take your man low. In the belly, if you can. When you get him to earth, give your pike a full twist before you wrench it free."
"Yes, Grandfather," Shannon said, frowning in concentration as he gave his imaginary pike a good full twist and then pulled. "Even if you believe in your heart the man can be nothing else but dead, still keep your eye on him. He may be only taking a small rest from the fighting. Or, worse, playacting. Then, whilst your back is turned ..." The old man gingerly touched his side in painful memory. Emmett had seen his grandfather shirtless many times when he washed up. Even in his twilight, his grandfather was built like a cooper. Although not tall, he had arms and legs that seemed the size of a ship's mast. His chest was the breadth of a hogshead of nails. But on his left side, below the rib-cage, was the large maw of an old wound. Still angry red after all these years.
His grandfather fell silent, and Emmett finished his small meal. As soon as he was done, his grandfather took up his plate and cup, rinsed them clean and put them away. He sat down and didn't speak until Emmett's mother came home. From then on Emmett eagerly awaited Market Day. He never made the mistake again of eating so quickly, because as soon as he was done, his grandfather would repeat the ritual. Cleaning up, followed by silence.
There were more stories about fighting and fleeing in a place called "Ourland." And the Williamsmen wasn't a thing, but the soldiers of some king. The Kingsmen. Two rivers were mentioned over and over again: the Boyne and . . . the Shannon? Had the king's soldiers stolen a river from his grandfather? Emmett burned with hatred for the king and his thieving minions. After the fighting and the final escape across the ocean, there was a woman. His grandfather's voice was edged with aching years of mourning when he spoke of her. Her name was Mary. She was Emmett's grandmother. She'd died a long time ago. The old man had never touched another woman since.
"My mother? She was a saint," Emmett's father had said when asked. "She had a laugh like the church bells. And smart! She taught your grandfather to read. And she could do sums as well."
"What happened to her?" Emmett asked.
"She died giving birth to your father," Emmett's mother said. "Thank the Lord he was the only child they bred. For with no woman in the house—" She broke off, concerned that anything else she said would be taken as criticism of her father-in-law. Although he was a puzzlement to her and she was wary of his moods, she clearly liked and admired the old man.
About a year after the Market-Day stories began, Shannon's mother decided it was time for him to learn to read. The only book the family owned was forbidden. It was the Catholic prayer book, Garden of the Soul, and besides being illegal, if lost or damaged it would be impossible to replace. Shannon's mother kept it hidden beneath the linen. Every evening she used to read aloud to the family. So Shannon found it strange when she pulled it out one morning and sat him in her lap. She tried to coax him into memorizing some of the squiggles on the page. Emmett became fitful and squirmed. She held him tighter and Emmett fidgeted and whined to be let down to play.
"Young Emmett!" It was his grandfather's voice. For the first time he was speaking sharply. Emmett turned to see the old man glowering at him. He motioned for the boy to come to his side. His mother set him free. Reluctantly Emmett dragged his feet over to his grandfather's chair. The old man placed a heavy hand on his shoulder. "Listen close to me, lad," his grandfather said. "You must learn to read. From me forward, every Shannon reads, do you understand? Otherwise, we are nothing more than teagues, or animals, and you will have no rights before the Kingsmen.
What he said next would remain with Emmett for the rest of his life:
`'If you do not read, young Emmett, then do not breed."
And then his grandfather turned back to his fire and his jug.
Shannon shrank to the safety of his mother's lap and put up with the boredom of the squiggles. The next Market Day the ritual changed. As soon as the snack was ready and the little stool dragged up and Emmett perched upon it, Shannon's grandfather pulled out the dreaded book.
"Read to me, young Emmett," he commanded.
Emmett hesitated, not knowing what to do. This was ridiculous. He couldn't read! He was only a child! This was the height of unfairness. His grandfather pressed the book at him again. "Read," he said, "or there will be no tales of soldiers."
Emmett opened the book and haltingly began to read. From then on the reading became part of the ritual. Nearly a year later, when his grandfather fell very ill, Shannon had mastered the book, and his mother was saving money to buy a primer.
At his graveside, Shannon learned his grandfather's name.
It was Brian.
Shannon bleared awake in darkness and cold. The fire had died and the storm was raging so fiercely he couldn't tell if it was day or night. His flesh was still feverish, and he shivered with the sudden chill that had awakened him. His head throbbed and every joint in his body ached with the flux. He got the fire going with his now meager supply of fuel and prepared himself another dose of bark and vinegar tea. Despite his illness, he was so ravenous he wolfed down the greasy, salt beef cold. He eased the soreness in his throat with cider. Emmett recorked the bottle and huddled in his blankets against the chill. He stared out into the storm, waiting for the fire's feeble warmth to bring relief.
Farrell Shannon looked at life through the rosy glow of an only child who had never known want—despite the endless series of disasters that struck Boston throughout his life. No matter how bad the times, Emmett's father always managed to struggle along. Farrell Shannon always believed that any day now his ship would come in. For such a thing to ever happen would be magical in the extreme—since the man never had enough money for a seabag, let alone a cargo. No matter, it was the idea of the ship that seized Farrell's mind. At any moment God would shower him with riches, that was all. It would take no real effort on his part. It was this vision that kept the family at the edge of poverty, for he would spend his last penny on a whim, and trust to Providence. Unfortunately, when the old man died, so did Providence.
He sold the shack and found new quarters off Back Street near the Mill Pond. It was still a one-room shack, but far larger: two windows, better garden soil, and in the winter a clear view of the mills surrounding the pond. In the spring and summer, however, the pond became ripe with filth and mosquitoes.
Emmett stayed away from home longer and longer during these months. The real attraction was that Emmett was a quick student of the street. With his muscular build and quick feet, he was adopted into the young gangs of apprentices and indentured lads who infested the waterfront between Clarke's Ship Yard and the Long Wharf. They preyed on the booziest and nastiest leather aprons, or press gang members who strayed from the pack. But the injuries were never more than bruises, the larceny always petty, and the targets so universally disliked there was never any retaliation from the city elders. Besides, there were far greater threats to the peace than a few mischievous boys. For every man laboring on the docks, there were six more with aching bellies and slim hope of work. These were the teagues, usually Irish, always willing to make up a mob.
Emmett thrived in this atmosphere. Each passing week made him better with his fists, quicker on his feet, and faster with his brain. Soon he was able to smooth-talk his way in or out of any situation. His youth actually increased his status with the gang, and his share of the spoils grew accordingly. Although he didn't realize it, there just weren't that many children his age. They were either nearly toddlers, or four or five years older.
Emmett's reign as a miniature terror ended five months before his father's death. It was on November 5—Guy Fawkes Day in England, but Pope's Day in Boston. The celebration to commemorate the thwarting of the Catholic "conspiracy" in 1685 was a particular favorite of the Boston poor, since on this day the world was turned upside down. It was the Colonial version of Fool's Day, where villains donned the rags of nobility, and the upper classes were mocked without fear of reprisal. The day was marked by serious drinking, brawls, fireworks, and a big parade, with the leaders of the mob bearing an effigy of the Pope—to be burned amid wild cheers and brawls on the main square.
Emmett had always been too young to participate before, but this year he not only joined the parade with his gang friends, but found himself being pushed to the front. "So there I was in all my youthful glory," he told his wife Sarah many years later. "Drunk as a rat that fell into the punch and screaming for the Devil himself to speed the journey of all Papists to hell. How was I to know I was a Papist myself?
"My mother, bless her soul, raised us to be good Christians, but when we were young, she didn't say exactly what kind of Christian she had in mind. We did not attend church, but this was not strange to our neighbors. Neither did most of them. But then, they did not belong to an outlawed faith, so what did they have to fear?
"The parade was making its jolly way to the fireworks at Long Wharf, and as we turned the corner at Fish Street, I saw my mother. But not before she spied me. I don't know why I knew what I was doing was a sin—besides the drunkenness, I mean—but I knew it soon as I saw her face. It was too late to hide, and where do you run when it's your mother seeking you? Eventually, you have to go home. In my family, if it was my mother you angered, the longer you delayed the punishment, the worse it was.
I shook off my friends and stepped out of the crowd. I stood there and waited for her to come. But she didn't. She merely stared at me with that hurt on her face that made a son wish he were for the boiling oil for the pain he had caused the woman who had borne him. Finally, I burst into tears. I crawled to her in my shame. It was like it was only the two of us in the world, and not the streets with its thousands.
"She did not say a word but turned for home. I fol' lowed her, and thought she looked so small, with her shoul' ders down and her walk so brisk her skirts set up a stiff breeze.
"When we returned home, she got out the book and sat in her chair and began to read the prayers to herself. I sat in the corner and watched, not daring to speak. My father and sister ate and went to bed. But she prayed all night and I sat up with her until daybreak. Finally, when she had calmed herself—or found whatever answers she was seeking in the book—she called me to her side. She ex-plained in a gentle voice that we were Catholics. That the Pope was our Holy Father, and that we were the keepers of the True Faith—in hiding like the poor martyrs that the Romans fed to the lions.
"I often think of that morning. Not for the reason that she showed me the Path. Because after thirty years in this life, I have little faith in the next. But because that is how I remember her. Her face so solemn, her golden curls under her dust cap, her voice like a song as she spoke. Ah, forgive me. I'll be weeping Irish tears next. It must be my father speaking in me."
Emmett stayed closer to home after that. He probably wouldn't have had much choice anyway. The times had worsened and the shipyards lay empty and prices and taxes began to spiral. Farrell Shannon said Boston was stricken with the "galloping consumption," but he didn't say it with the usual booming laugh at his own joke. He was worried and was spending less time at the tavern with his chums and more time looking for work.
There was little point in the search, for the taxes were driving the leather aprons out by the droves, and soon the streets where the tanners, blacksmiths, coopers, bakers, and gunsmiths worked fell silent. Only Anne Shannon's constantly spinning wheel and chuffing broadloom kept the family from starvation. In one of those strange quirks of business, the foreign trade created a boom in linen, while the rest of the city's trades went begging.
Disaster heaped upon disaster in January when the smallpox came. It chewed through the town like a rodent kept from the grain by soft wood. The General Court fled to Cambridge in March. By May refugees were flooding outlying towns. The Shannon family was not among them. They did not have the means to flee.
Farrell Shannon died in April. But not of the pox. With the spring came the foul odor of the Mill Pond and the swarms of insect torment. He died of malarial fever. "It's a wonder he didn't kill us all, bringing us to that house," Emmett recalled. "The air was so putrid, it had to be diseased. My mother made us all wear flannel masks dipped in vinegar about our faces. She put tarred rope all over. Spent precious pennies buying sweet stuff to burn. It was that which saved us, I'm sure. Except for my father, none of us got the fever. But I don't know what spared us from the pox. It must have been one of those miracles my mother was always talking about.
"Although if there is a greater miracle for fever than Jesuits' Bark, I'd be greatly surprised."
During a break in the storm, he crawled out of the cave to replenish his fuel. He was dizzy and disoriented and had to stop twice to spew up his guts. Although he had only stumbled twenty or thirty yards in his search, he nearly lost his way on the return. Shannon made more food and forced it down. After it seemed that it would stay in place, he built a triple dose of his bark remedy. He fell into a deep sleep and only groaned slightly when the wind returned in full force.
At thirteen Emmett Shannon was indentured to a Scots-Irish carpenter and put into the sawpit. For two years he stood at the bottom of the pit and endured a constant shower of choking sawdust as a series of luckier boys balanced on the top and worked the other end of the saw. For a year and a half he pleaded to his master for promotion— or at the very least, relief—but the man just laughed or growled, depending on his mood. Then he beat Emmett. He always seemed to be in the mood for that. For the next six months, Emmett brooded and waited for his chance. Sometimes he thought his only hope was murder. Eventually, he realized there was no hope and he would serve the full seven years of his contract at the bottom of the pit—if his lungs permitted him to live that long. The reason—and Shannon became positive of this—was the carpenter had found religion during the Great Awakening and suspected Emmett of being Catholic. This put him on the level just below a slave, for a slave at least had value, since he would never be free.
Anne Shannon had no choice in her son's indenture. For the poor of Boston the years after Farrell's death became bleaker. A group of linen traders formed an association to aid the poor. This consisted of forcing widows into workhouses—where they saw their wages devoured by inflated costs for their keep—to produce linen for the ever-richening foreign market. It also meant the forced indenture of their children. But Anne, like others among Boston's many hundreds of widows, was a fiercely stubborn woman. She refused to leave her home—it belonged to her, didn't it? Instead, she kept plying her wheel and loom—kept from the workhouse because of the city's greed for her craft.
Emmett's sister Ruth was safe for a while. It could be argued she was too young to be taken from her mother. But there were no excuses for Emmett. At thirteen his chest was already bursting the seams of his shirt, and his biceps were quickly catching up. He was for hard labor. Anne begged for time. She argued he could read and do sums as well as any son of the rich—which was true, thanks to his grandfather's insistence—and that she could find him a better position than that of bale carrier.
She came home glowing with excitement. She'd secured him a promise of indenture to a carpenter. For a moment a bit of her husband's rosy misview crept in. This would be an enormous step upward for the Shannon family. After seven years of indenturement, Emmett could boast of having the full skills of a carpenter! A leather apron for the Shannons! Poverty would be forever swept behind them. With a skilled male in the family, they could buy the nicest of homes, plenty of food, a good marriage for Ruth, and perhaps—if the future was kind—Emmett might someday join the ranks of the city fathers.
Instead, he went into the pit. The only skill he learned was a method of breathing that kept his lungs partly clear. He slept in the toolshed and was fed the same scraps the carpenter's wife fed to their pig. Although he lived just half a mile from his mother's home, he rarely saw his family. During all that time, Shannon never whispered a word of his fate to his mother. She had enough troubles.
On Easter Sunday, near the end of his second year, Emmett spent the day with his family. A half a dozen other Catholics dared the law to crowd into the room for a rare service. It consisted of a simple reading from the Garden of the Soul, performed by Emmett's mother since everyone agreed she by far had the best voice and delivery, and then a few prayers. There was no mass, because there was no priest. Shannon had never met one, and among the others, only his mother had attended a service conducted by a priest. That man was an itinerant seller of notions and remedies and a barely literate transport from Ireland. Just the same, Anne Shannon said, it gave her comfort to receive the Host for the one and only time in her life. For the most part, Catholics had to be satisfied with "Hearing The Mass In Spirit." The group quietly discussed this and other matters, and then furtively left for their own homes shortly after dark.
"I don't know how she guessed it," Shannon told his wife, "but as soon as they left, she began pressing me, and finally my tongue was wagging and I was all but sobbing as I told her of my mistreatment. My mother told me to run. But how could I abandon her and Ruth? I would be shamed for the rest of my life. Then she told me the news she was holding back.
"She had lost her final appeal to the merchants' association. The two of them were for the workhouse. 'Then we all must run,' I cried! But she said it was no use. With them to burden me, they would soon catch up to us and bring us back. The penalty would be seven more years of indenture. 'Then I shall stay,' I said. But she told me I would be a fool. She made me promise to be careful. To be patient despite my age. And only to bolt when there was little chance of capture. After I promised, we prayed together—my mother, Ruth, and I. Then I returned to my master. It was the last time I was ever to see her."
“Three weeks later Shannon got his chance. His master was drunk, and Emmett was escorting him home from a tavern, trying to dodge his blows and keep the man upright at the same time. They were turning the corner at Ann Street—an appropriate name for what happened next— when they encountered a Royal Navy press gang, and from the glowering look on the sergeant's face, they had spent futile hours trying to snare a few men for a crew. Shannon's mind leapt to a memory of the taunts he used to yell during his days with the gang. He screamed an obscenity involving the king. The sergeant stared at him, in awe at his daring.
Shannon gave his master a hard shove. "Run!" he shouted. "They're on us!" Shannon grew wings on his feet and flew down the street. An enormous freight wagon loomed up. He rolled under it. The heavy wheels barely cleared him, and he was on his feet and ducking into an alley. Only then did he stop to peer around the corner. The sergeant had his master by the throat and was belaboring him about the head and shoulders. But no one was looking for him. A few minutes later, Emmett saw them hustling the carpenter away. He guessed it would take several days for his master to sort things out. Perhaps even a little longer, considering how foul the obscenities he had shouted.
By dawn the next day Shannon had a full pack of stolen food and necessaries and was nearly twelve miles from Boston. The roads were full of widows and their children— refugees from the frontier wars—fleeing from the poverty of the wilderness to the poverty of the city. So no one noticed a teenage boy trodding in the opposite direction. Shannon wanted to warn them they would find nothing but heart-lessness and a swift warning out from the Boston merchants. But he kept his peace.
Years later his sister told him it took two weeks for his master to be released. By then Emmett was earning a few pennies chopping wood at a small frontier farm some miles east of Albany.
Next: The "Patriots” Of Cherry Valley
*****
S.O.S. ALLAN'S NEW NOVEL
Between February and May of 1942, German U-boats operated with impunity off the Florida coast, sinking scores of freighters from Cape Canaveral to Key West and killing nearly five thousand people. Residents were horrified witnesses of the attacks—the night skies were aflame and in the morning the beaches were covered with oil and tar, ship parts and charred corpses. The Germans even landed teams of saboteurs charged with disrupting war efforts in the factories of the North. This novel is based on those events. For my own purposes, I set the tale in the fictitious town of Juno Beach on the banks of the equally fictitious Seminole River—all in the very real Palm Beach County, a veritable wilderness in those long ago days. Among the witnesses were my grandfather and grandmother, who operated an orchard and ranch in the area.
Click here for the paperback and Kindle Versions
Click here for the audio version - Read By Ben McLean
*****
A DAUGHTER OF LIBERTY
The year is 1778 and the Revolutionary War has young America trapped in the crossfire of hatred and fear. Diana, an indentured servant, escapes her abusive master with the help of Emmett Shannon, a deserter from the desperate army at Valley Forge. They fall in love and marry, but their happiness is shattered and Diana Shannon must learn to survive on her own. From that moment on she will become a true woman of her times, blazing a path from lawless lands in the grips of the Revolution, to plague-stricken Philadelphia, to the burning of Washington in the War Of 1812.
Click here to buy the novel. Paperback, Kindle or, audiobook.
*****
TWO NEW AUDIOBOOKS ONLY $4.95!
S.O.S. ALLAN'S NEW NOVEL
Click here for the paperback and Kindle Versions
Click here for the audio version - Read By Ben McLean
A DAUGHTER OF LIBERTY
*****
TWO NEW AUDIOBOOKS ONLY $4.95!
Tales Sometimes Tall, but always true, of Allan Cole's years in Hollywood with his late partner, Chris Bunch. How a naked lady almost became our first agent. How we survived La-La Land with only the loss of half our brain cells. How Bunch & Cole became the ultimate Fix-It
Boys. How an alleged Mafia Don was very, very good to us. The guy who cornered the market on movie rocks. Andy Warhol's Fire Extinguisher. The Real Stars Of Hollywood. Why they don't make million dollar movies. See The Seven Pi$$ing Dwarfs. Learn: how to kill a "difficult" actor… And much, much more.
Boys. How an alleged Mafia Don was very, very good to us. The guy who cornered the market on movie rocks. Andy Warhol's Fire Extinguisher. The Real Stars Of Hollywood. Why they don't make million dollar movies. See The Seven Pi$$ing Dwarfs. Learn: how to kill a "difficult" actor… And much, much more.
THE TIMURA TRILOGY: When The Gods Slept, Wolves Of The Gods and The Gods Awaken. This best selling fantasy series now available as trade paperbacks, e-books (in all varieties) and as audiobooks. Visit The Timura Trilogy page for links to all the editions.
NEWLY REVISED KINDLE EDITIONS OF THE TIMURA TRILOGY NOW AVAILABLE. (1) When The Gods Slept;(2) Wolves Of The Gods; (3) The Gods Awaken.
*****
A NATION AT WAR WITH ITSELF: In Book Three Of The Shannon Trilogy, young Patrick Shannon is the heir-apparent to the Shannon fortune, but murder and betrayal at a family gathering send him fleeing into the American frontier, with only the last words of a wise old woman to arm him against what would come. And when the outbreak of the Civil War comes he finds himself fighting on the opposite side of those he loves the most. In The Wars Of The Shannons we see the conflict, both on the battlefield and the homefront, through the eyes of Patrick and the members of his extended Irish-American family as they struggle to survive the conflict that ripped the new nation apart, and yet, offered a dim beacon of hope.
*****
NEW: THE AUDIOBOOK VERSION OF
THE HATE PARALLAX
What if the Cold War never ended -- but continued for a thousand years? Best-selling authors Allan Cole (an American) and Nick Perumov (a Russian) spin a mesmerizing "what if?" tale set a thousand years in the future, as an American and a Russian super-soldier -- together with a beautiful American detective working for the United Worlds Police -- must combine forces to defeat a secret cabal ... and prevent a galactic disaster! This is the first - and only - collaboration between American and Russian novelists. Narrated by John Hough. Click the title links below for the trade paperback and kindle editions. (Also available at iTunes.)
*****
THE SPYMASTER'S DAUGHTER:
A novel by Allan and his daughter, Susan
After laboring as a Doctors Without Borders physician in the teaming refugee camps and minefields of South Asia, Dr. Ann Donovan thought she'd seen Hell as close up as you can get. And as a fifth generation CIA brat, she thought she knew all there was to know about corruption and betrayal. But then her father - a legendary spymaster - shows up, with a ten-year-old boy in tow. A brother she never knew existed. Then in a few violent hours, her whole world is shattered, her father killed and she and her kid brother are one the run with hell hounds on their heels. They finally corner her in a clinic in Hawaii and then all the lies and treachery are revealed on one terrible, bloody storm- ravaged night.
BASED ON THE CLASSIC STEN SERIES by Allan Cole & Chris Bunch: Fresh from their mission to pacify the Wolf Worlds, Sten and his Mantis Team encounter a mysterious ship that has been lost among the stars for thousands of years. At first, everyone aboard appears to be long dead. Then a strange Being beckons, pleading for help. More disturbing: the presence of AM2, a strategically vital fuel tightly controlled by their boss - The Eternal Emperor. They are ordered to retrieve the remaining AM2 "at all costs." But once Sten and his heavy worlder sidekick, Alex Kilgour, board the ship they must dare an out of control defense system that attacks without warning as they move through dark warrens filled with unimaginable horrors. When they reach their goal they find that in the midst of all that death are the "seeds" of a lost civilization.
*****
TALES OF THE BLUE MEANIE
NOW AN AUDIOBOOK!
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Venice Boardwalk Circa 1969
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In the depths of the Sixties and The Days Of Rage, a young newsman, accompanied by his pregnant wife and orphaned teenage brother, creates a Paradise of sorts in a sprawling Venice Beach community of apartments, populated by students, artists, budding scientists and engineers lifeguards, poets, bikers with a few junkies thrown in for good measure. The inhabitants come to call the place “Pepperland,” after the Beatles movie, “Yellow Submarine.” Threatening this paradise is "The Blue Meanie," a crazy giant of a man so frightening that he eventually even scares himself.
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