The family was at their morning meal when he burst in through the door. He so startled them that one of the little ones, who reminded him of Martha, spilled a mug of milk in her surprise. The frothy liquid slowly rolled across the table as he related his awful news. The woman’s hands flew to her mouth.
“Aye, I’ll go and guard the door,” the man said. “And I’ll not even go inside. Ride fast, preacher, and bring the constable.”
“But, Jacob,” the woman said. “What if the fiend is still about? What if he comes here and attacks the living while you’re guarding the dead?”
“I doubt you’re in danger,” Lewis assured her. “I have seen this before. He attacks only lone women, and you have two big boys here, as well as all the little ones. He won’t come near. Look after your mother, now, you hear, boys?” and they swelled with pride at the notion that they would protect the family against a mad murderer.
Lewis left and rode toward the river. The path was faster now, and he could feel the bite of the November wind blowing from the water. He pushed his horse as fast as he dared, but in places the going was so icy that the animal’s hooves skittered and chattered. He would have seen them sooner, if he hadn’t been paying such close attention to his footing. When at last he looked up, he was astounded — he was on a rise that gave him a view of both Prescott and the river, the buildings of the town huddled together. But it was the sight beyond that alarmed him. A few miles downstream he could see a collection of vessels, the first of them just reaching the shore in the early-morning light. When he squinted, he thought he could make out the banner the largest ship was flying — the American flag. A ship in trouble, sailing for the shore it could most easily reach? He hoped so, but he had an unsettling conviction that there was a more malevolent reason.
His fears were confirmed when he reached the town and found alarm and confusion. An armed force had attempted to attack Prescott itself first, a surprise nighttime attack, but the garrison had been forewarned, or perhaps merely vigilant. The invaders had been repulsed and two of the American ships had become mired and aground on the mud flats where the mouth of the Oswegatchie River met the St. Lawrence. A third boat had pulled them free, but the river’s current had swept them downstream and toward the Canadian shore. There, a few miles east of Prescott, an army had landed.
The British troops at Fort Wellington were preparing to march out to meet the threat, he was told, and groups of Canadian militia were mustering to march with them. Already the streets of Prescott were clogged with people — militiamen racing for the fort, men frantic for news, families packing their belongings and preparing to leave, farmers desperate to thread their way through the jam and ride home to protect their families — each of them jostling and shoving, calling and shouting, attempting, it seemed, to push their way against a tide of traffic that had no discernible pattern.
Lewis had difficulty finding a constable in the confusion, but after an hour of searching, he eventually located a burly man who was attempting to direct traffic around an overturned wagon.
“There’s been a murder,” he shouted in the man’s ear.
“What, already?” the constable replied. “Those thievin’, murderin’ bastards. Well, there’ll be more I expect before this is over.”
“No, nothing to do with this. A woman in a house back from the river. I found her and I rode to get help.”
“So them damn Yankees have been marauding in the country? They’ve attacked civilians first?”
“No. At least I don’t think so. I don’t think it has anything to do with the Yankees.”
“Well, I can’t sort it out now. I’ve got my hands full. It’ll have to wait.”
Lewis wanted to scream at the man, but he knew it would do no good. And he had to admit that the current crisis trumped a single crime, but unless someone went right away, it would be too late to do much good. He wished now that he had looked closer, taken more note of the details, ransacked the cabin for clues, for, in spite of his instructions to the contrary, he was certain that the woman’s body would be washed and laid out, if not promptly buried, in very short order. Her family would want to get her into the ground before it became too frozen to dig. He wondered if he should try to find someone at Fort Wellington to talk to, but then he realized that he would likely get the same reception there.
He overheard snatches of conversation as he led his tired horse along the main street.
“It’s Mackenzie,” one woman said. “He’s raised an army.”
“No,” said a man running by, “Mackenzie’s in jail. It’s pirates.”
“It’s the Americans,” another said. “They’ve declared war and launched a full-scale invasion. It’s 1812 all over again.”
“No, it’s the Hunters. There are thousands of them.”
“Nay, there’s only a handful. We’ll soon rout ’em out.”
Within a few hours, a marginally coherent version of these rumours distilled into a widely circulated edition that gave a reasonably accurate description of events. It appeared that a group called the Patriot Hunters, the same Americans who had been conducting small raids along the border over the last few months, had somehow managed to commandeer enough ships to bring a force of five hundred of them across the river. They had hoped to surprise the British garrison at Fort Wellington by mounting a foray on Prescott during the night hours. Repulsed, grounded, and then freed from the mudflats that had prevented their return to Ogdensburg, they opted to use the river’s current to take them closer to the Canadian shore. Here, at the tiny village of Newport, they had managed to land some of their troops.
The Hunters had expected, apparently, in that way that all Americans seemed to have, that Canadians would rise up and join them, eager to dispel the yoke of British rule, a plan that was sadly lacking in any understanding of the politics of Upper Canada or the views of its people. Local support failed to materialize; in fact, locals offered nothing but armed opposition, preventing the force from making any progress inland. Pinned to the shore, they took refuge in the solid stone of an old windmill, its rubble walls built on a rise of ground, giving them a commanding view of the countryside around it. The 83rd British Regiment at Fort Wellington, bolstered by several bands of militia, was marching out to the attack.
Beyond this general summation of confirmed events, it was difficult for anyone to know what was happening at any given moment. Rumours took flight, circled and came to ground again with the regularity of a flock of starlings.
Lewis knew that he should set out for Brockville. He had meetings waiting for him there. But he was reluctant to leave until he had at least set into motion an investigation of the murder he had discovered. He also felt that he might make himself more useful by staying in Prescott. A field hospital of sorts had been established in one area of the blockhouse, and he went along to offer his assistance in whatever capacity was needed. It wasn’t long before they found plenty for him to do.
The first attack on the windmill was violent and bloody. There was little cover in the surrounding fields and from their vantage point the Hunters could simply pick their attackers off one by one. The garrison soon filled with wounded — Lewis estimated well over fifty of them in the first rush — and he was put to work bathing wounds and applying bandages, tending the injured, and comforting the dying.
“We’re sitting ducks as long as they’re in that bloody tower,” one militiaman muttered as Lewis cut away the sleeve of his coat. The shot had carried away the fleshy part of the man’s upper arm, mercifully missing the bone, but the wound was bleeding profusely. He packed it with wads of bandaging and told the man to hold it in place until the surgeon could have a look. That could be some time, he figured, for there were far more grievous wounds that would need attention first.
He moved among the casualties, trying to judge which men were in urgent need and which could make do with his inexpert attentions. He