The Drum of Destiny Read online

  CONTENTS

  1: The Loring house

  2: River's Edge

  3: Ben's Advice

  4: The Journey Begins

  5: Battle Brewing

  6: 80 Cannon

  7: New Haven

  8: Hope

  9: The Turn North

  10: A Gift

  11: Leaving

  12: The Battle Begins

  13: The Note

  14: The Telling of the Treasure

  15: The Ghost of Thomas Tew

  16: The Waterfall

  17: The Journey Ends

  18: Found

  19: Camp at Cambridge

  20: The Decision

  H 1 H

  THE LORING HOUSE

  Reverend Loring’s house loomed ahead of Gabriel Cooper as he made his way along the streets of New York. While most people saw the house as large and elegant, with its two white-washed columns framing the front entrance, twelve-year-old Gabriel saw only a confined and dreary space. He could find no joy there. He did not belong.

  Gabriel hadn’t really belonged anywhere since his parents, a bookstore owner and his wife, died of the pox the year before. The Lorings had taken him in, but at times he wished he were living by himself on the streets.

  With ten children in the Loring family, there was little food to go around, and Gabriel had barely enough food to survive. The Lorings expected him to pay for his keep, so instead of attending school, he got a job setting type at Peter Dalrymple’s print shop — a job given to him because he could read and write. Many nights, he would arrive back at the house after a long day at the shop to find the table cleared, just a scrap of bread left for him. He would eat quietly and then head upstairs to find his blanket on the hard wooden floor in the corner of the Loring boys’ bedroom. As he lay on the floor, he could hear the older boys snickering under their breath about the “orphan boy.” Sometimes he felt like crying, but he always held back his tears, refusing to give the boys the satisfaction.

  Despite the dread Gabriel felt as he neared the Loring home, the world seemed a bit brighter on that sunny spring day. He had finished early at the print shop and would make it to the Lorings in time for dinner — and a bit more food than usual. Still he knew he’d have to pay a price for being home early. Mrs. Loring would have a miserable, endless line of work for him as soon as he walked in the door. He was more of an indentured servant than a member of a family.

  Gabriel endured more than just endless work and hunger in the Loring home. Reverend Loring was a strong loyalist. Every night at dinner, he condemned colonists for their lack of loyalty to the good King of England, His Majesty, King George III. Everyone around the table listened at attention and nodded in agreement — everyone, that is, except for Gabriel. This did not go unnoticed by Reverend Loring.

  Gabriel longed to do more than just refuse to agree. He wished he could stand up at the Loring’s long dinner table and shout at the top of his lungs, “KING GEORGE IS A TYRANT!” But the risk was too great.

  Gabriel had his reasons for siding with the patriot cause. When Gabriel’s father was still alive, Gabriel heard him speak of Parliament’s taxes on paper, tea, lead, and glass — and of colonists forced into taxation without representation. In other words, the colonists had to give money to the King without any say in what laws should govern them. But more than having heard his Father speak out against the unfair taxes, Gabriel knew firsthand what the King’s soldiers were like.

  Under the Parliament’s Quartering Act, colonists had to house and feed British troops in their public businesses whenever necessary. When Gabriel was ten, two British soldiers found it “necessary” to lodge at the Cooper’s bookstore. They ate the Coopers’ food and drank their wine, all without paying a thing. Gabriel considered this nothing more than stealing. Even more despicable was the way the soldiers would strut around full of arrogant pride. They called the colonists worthless rabble and said they awaited the day when they could return to “glorious England, where true gentlemen lived.” Gabriel’s father had told him not to speak out against to the soldiers, at least not in their presence, and Gabriel never did. He bottled it all in.

  It was with this bottled-up resentment that Gabriel stepped back into the Loring home early that evening. He quickly shot through the door and ran upstairs before anyone noticed he was home. Rushing into the room where he slept, he pried up a loose floorboard.

  Hidden under the floor were his most precious possessions: a small bit of money he had saved from his printing-press job, an old knife, a flint rock, a flask he had found by the East River, and the two most precious of all: a note that his mother had written to Gabriel not long after she had taken ill and a ring she had left him. He checked these items whenever he could to make sure that the Lorings had not touched them.

  He deposited one of the two coppers he’d just earned into this secret hiding place — the other had to be given to Reverend Loring — then he waited upstairs until he heard the servants below call the family to the table.

  In the dining room, Gabriel took a seat at the long wooden bench. He found a spot by Herbert, a redheaded boy about his age and the only Loring who was kind to him. There was barely any room for Gabriel at the end of the bench, but he managed to fit.

  As Gabriel sat down, he was met with a cold stare from Mrs. Loring. “Gabriel, why did you not come to me directly after returning from Dalrymple’s? You know the washer woman is off for the week, and there is laundry that needs tending to. I should have you leave and tend to the washing immediately, but as the grace of God wills, I will let you sit and eat first. However, the next time I find you home early from the printer’s without finding work to do, you will meet with the lash. Do you understand?”

  Gabriel gritted his teeth, smiled, and said, “Yes, Ma’am. Thank you, Ma’am.”

  With a solemn look on his face and a stern glance at Gabriel, Reverend Loring led the mealtime prayer. Once the food had been passed around the table, he began another one of his speeches on glorious England.

  “A lack of respect for God-given authority is what it is — an unnatural rebellion! Have we forgotten our loyalty! Have we forgotten our rich English heritage? Not this family. We shall remain loyal to our king until the end. God, save the king, and death to bad government. And taxes? Are we not to give back to the king for the wonderful goodness he has shown these colonies? I dare sat that a true English gentleman gives freely to the crown and does not complain. God forbid that we should rise up against the very king who has provided for us so richly. God save us from these traitors and rebels!”

  Reverend Loring went on to tout how his grandfather had been invited to visit the king’s court many times and how fortunate this made their family. He paused and looked around the table at all of the nodding Lorings. His eyes stopped on Gabriel. The boy’s head held steady. Speaking to everyone but keeping his eyes on Gabriel, Reverend Loring said, “I am sure that Grandfather Loring — may he rest in peace — takes comfort in heaven to know that all people in the Loring house, young and old, are loyal to His Majesty the king.”

  “Here, here,” cheered John Loring, the oldest of the sons. John raised his glass, offering a toast to the glories of the King and the Loring tradition. Everyone raised their glasses — everyone except Gabriel.

  Now all the Lorings, with their glasses still in the air, fixed their eyes on Gabriel. “Uh-hum,” the reverend uttered, pretending to clear his throat and repeating his eldest son’s toast, “To the glories of the King and the Loring tradition.” Gabriel’s glass remained as firmly situated on the table as if it were nailed there.

  Reverend Loring glared at Gabriel in disbelief. “Perhaps you did not hear me when I said that all people, young and old in the Lori
ng house, are loyal to His Majesty, the king. Now, young Master Cooper, raise your glass.”

  Gabriel’s face was stern and resolute. He glared back at Reverend Loring and spoke, “I will not drink to a tyrant!”

  Everyone at the table gasped. Mrs. Loring slumped over in her chair, having fainted. Reverend Loring immediately rose and told one of his daughters to fan her mother and another to fetch the smelling salts.

  Quickly reviving his wife, the reverend now turned his reddened face to Gabriel. “What did you call our good and noble King? I warn you to reconsider, choosing your words carefully,” said the seething reverend.

  Gabriel sat silent for a minute and carefully considered his options. He could take back the insult he had made against the king and the Lorings, or he could repeat the word tyrant. If Gabriel recanted, he would still be punished, but he would be allowed to stay under the Loring’s roof. If he refused to take back his words, what then? Would he really be forced to leave? Would he be sent back out on the streets? How would he survive? Where would he go?

  The Lorings sat in stunned silence. Gabriel looked at each of them, and time seemed to slow. As he scanned their faces, Gabriel saw John Loring mouth the word orphan. No sound came from John’s mouth, but Gabriel knew the word well. He would never belong here.

  At that moment, something turned inside Gabriel. Like the ships he had seen in the river that drop sail and change course with the wind filling their sails, Gabriel would take a new course — a course away from this house.

  Gabriel spoke without hesitation, “I called the King of England a tyrant.” He went on, “He is a mean, oppressive, and brutal ruler who thinks he is above the law and can do whatever he wishes. He is not worthy of obedience and certainly not worthy of a toast with my glass.”

  With that, Mrs. Loring fainted again, this time falling all the way to the floor. While two daughters rushed to revive her, Reverend Loring pointed stiffly at the door and shouted, “Master Gabriel Cooper, pack up your belongings and leave this home! You have shamed this family before the eyes of God and our King. I will not tolerate such heathen and disrespectful behavior! You, child, have been spoiled by traitors, and I will not have you or your ruinous thoughts near my family!”

  The entire Loring family stared in wide-eyed amazement, their cups having now been placed firmly back on the table. Gabriel left the room. Trying not to look back at the piercing stares, he climbed the stairs up to the bedroom corner.

  Gabriel pried up the floorboard and began to gather his only possessions. He spread out the single blanket the Lorings had given him and laid out his treasures in the middle. When he picked up his mother’s ring and note, he paused for a moment, holding the prized items in his hand.

  The ring was too big for Gabriel to wear, so he kept it in his pocket most of the time. The gold band held a beautiful blue jewel, along with a strange yellow symbol that looked like open flower petals. A few random letters and markings were carved on the side of the ring, but they made no sense to Gabriel. His mother had once told him the ring was a French family heirloom and the blue jewel was a sapphire. The ring was precious to Gabriel, not because of what it might be worth, but because it reminded him of his mother.

  The note brought back memories of his mother, as well. Gabriel had read that note many times since his mother had died. He did not understand much of it, but one thing was clear: his mother had loved him very much.

  Gabriel put the ring in his pocket and finished wrapping his other things in a small blanket. He was tying up the bundle when Herbert Loring came into the room. “I got you some dried meat and biscuits from mother’s kitchen for you to take along,” he said. “I am sorry Father says you have to leave us. He might let you stay if you come back down and apologize.”

  Gabriel looked up at the fair-skinned boy who stood before him. “Thank you, but I will not apologize for telling the truth. I knew this day would come. I just did not think it would be quite this soon.”

  “Where will you go? What will you do?” asked Herbert.

  Those were hard questions to which Gabriel had no answer. “I don’t know, Herbert, but it does not matter right now. All that matters is that I am leaving this house, and I am not returning.”

  Herbert looked at him in amazement. Gabriel knew that Herbert had come to look up to him. Herbert had asked Gabriel to teach him French, just like Gabriel’s mother had taught him. He had told Gabriel that he wanted to read all of the same books that Gabriel had been able to read in his father’s bookstore. Gabriel knew that Herbert admired his determination and sense of adventure. Still, he was surprised when Herbert blurted out, “I would like to come with you, wherever you are going.”

  Gabriel shook his head. “No, you wouldn’t. Your place is here, Herbert. You are a Loring. You have a future in this home. I do not.” He was surprised that Herbert was willing to throw away the one thing that Gabriel wanted more than anything: a family.

  Herbert did not press him any further. “If I cannot go, then I will pray for you, Gabriel. Every night, under my breath, of course. I would pray out loud, but I am afraid that if Father knew I was praying for a, tra— you know, a trait—”

  “Just say it Herbert. A traitor. You think I am a traitor to the Crown.”

  “No,” answered Herbert. “I do not think you are a traitor, but Father does. I will pray out loud, Gabriel, if you think that God will listen more closely.”

  Gabriel, with his sack full of belongings in hand, put his hand on Herbert’s shoulder. “Herbert, God listens to us, no matter what. At least that is what my mother and father told me. Say your prayers in silence and save yourself from your Father’s lash. Now, I have to go.”

  With that, Gabriel headed down the stairs. Thankfully, the Lorings had left the table. He opened the door and stepped into the fading daylight. Looking back, he could see Herbert’s face through the small pane window from the bedroom. Herbert raised a hand and pressed it to the window. Gabriel raised his hand slowly, then put it down, and turned away. He felt alone. Although his chest began to heave, he did not cry. Gabriel knew he had a new path to find.

  H 2 H

  RIVER’S EDGE

  With no idea where he would go or what he would do, Gabriel decided to walk to the one place he’d found some peace in the days after his parents’ deaths. He had spent hours sitting on the edge of the East River, watching the ships come into the docks to have their cargos of tea, glass, furniture, spices, cloth, and all other types of English finery unloaded and then reloaded with cargos of grain, tobacco, and furs. The bustle of the work and the beauty of the ships helped take his mind away from his pain. Before the Lorings had taken him in, he even thought of stowing away on one of the ships anchored in the harbor.

  Perhaps now he could sail off and leave his anguish behind. But he knew what could happen to stowaways if they were discovered. They faced a life of hard labor to work off payment for passage, or worse still, a toss over the side rail into the ocean.

  He walked toward Queen Street to head south to the docks. With the sun beginning to set, the two- and three-story buildings cast their shadows on the streets. He’d just rounded the corner onto Queen Street when a swarthy-looking boy about his age sidled up alongside him. “You wouldn’t happen to have a copper to spare for a poor boy like myself, would you?”

  Gabriel looked at the boy, his clothes tattered and dirty. In contrast, Gabriel’s clean and tidy appearance must have made the boy think he had some wealth. “I don’t have any coppers to spare,” replied Gabriel. As he spoke, he saw another silent, smaller boy slinking along in the shadows.

  “What about a piece of bread or cheese?” continued the swarthy boy. “I am a Christian boy, you know. Go to church every Sunday. No ill living for me. Clean as a mountain stream, am I.”

  Out of the corner of his eye, Gabriel saw the small boy dart from the shadows. Quickly Gabriel tucked his sack full of belongings under his arm and kicked out at the small boy as he flew past him. The kick was enough
to send the boy sprawling to the ground. The older boy began to reach for Gabriel’s sack, but before his grubby hands could grab it, Gabriel screamed out as loud as he could, “Pickpockets!”

  A woman across the street caught a glimpse of what was going on and also began to scream. The pickpocket boys knew that once the alarm was sounded, their work for the night was over. Soon a constable would appear, and if someone got a good look at their faces, their work as pickpockets might be over for good. They ran down an alley and back into the shadows.

  Orphans were drawn to these gangs of pickpockets like flies to honey, not only to earn a living by lifting purses, but also to belong to a family again. As Gabriel watched the boys dash back into the shadows, he saw himself. Was this his destiny — to become a scrawny pickpocket? What would his mother and father say? They would be ashamed, of course, but they couldn’t have known how much he longed to have a family again, even if it was with a gang of thieves.

  He looked out at the East River as it came into view and tried to clear his thoughts of pickpockets, holding his sack close to him. The sky began to turn orange with the setting sun, and the river began to glow as if it was on fire. He went to the stony beach where he had found some of his treasures over the past month. The knife and flint rock had floated to shore in a small wooden box, and the flask had just enough air trapped in it for him to find it bobbing a few feet out in the water.

  Gabriel sat on a piece of driftwood on the stone-covered beach and looked out over the rippling water. A few lanterns glowed on the boats anchored out in the river. The lights bobbed gently up and down with the gentle waves rolling across the water. As he sat watching the lights, something along the shore caught his eye. The fading sunlight reflected off something in the water. It bobbed up and down, floating toward the shore.

  Gabriel stood and took a few steps to the very edge of the water. The river lapped up against the soles of his leather shoes as he peered out over the water. Unsure what this strange object floating in on the tide might be, he took off his shoes and socks, rolled up his pants, and waded out into the river. The rocks at the bottom hurt Gabriel’s feet, but his mind was focused on grabbing whatever bobbed in front of him. He reached down into the water and pulled upward to reveal a drum with a tangled strap dangling down into the water. The instrument was waterlogged and caked in mud, but he thought it could be salvaged. He was used to salvaging things that others tossed aside.