The House of the Heart

August 3rd, 1759.  The floorboards of the family barn screeched under Hosea’s sprinting feet.  He loaded the cheap musket and focused on the white-coated fire blazing through his crops, with smoke stinging his eyes.  A chunk of rotting wood had fallen out of place, and the barrel of Hosea’s musket rested snugly in the gap leaving enough room for him to watch the French army marching closer.

Hosea fired a shot into the flames signaling the other countrymen into an offensive position.  Heaps of black powder and bullets rained on the brightly uniformed men while Hosea bit off the end of another cartridge.  He shoved the subconscious calculations of lost money aside and aimed.  

Rigid breathing huffed behind Hosea and boots noisily clamored up the ladder.  Hiram needed more powder, he thought, firing a bullet into the field.  Hosea picked up a few more cartridges and held them out for Hiram.  Nails dug into Hosea’s arm and twisted him upright, forcing him within inches of the solid, stone glare of a French soldier.  Hosea’s musket fell to the floor while black powder smeared the wooden boards.

A despairing smile stretched across Hosea’s face.  “Nice to meet you, sir.”  

The soldier threateningly dangled him above the aisle of the barn.  “Take him to the others and see if you can beat the patriot out of him.”  The French man dropped him from the ledge, and Hosea’s back crashed into the solid ground.  An ache climbed up his spine as he leapt up to escape the other soldiers.

Hosea dashed past the barn entrance, running side by side with the cackling crops, laughing as they burned, ashes tossed by the wind.  The shouts from French soldiers sounded over the fire, ordering the soldiers to round up the Brits.  The thought of his family’s safety and the progress of the British battled in his mind, slowing his pace.  A cry from his house swayed his decision immediately, and Hosea willed his legs to move faster, straining them closer to the breaking point with every stride.

He thrust the wooden door off its rusted hinges and found his wife and son cowering in a back corner.  Martha, his wife, had covered the son’s ears from the gunshots bouncing off the wooden walls.  Martha and her son had propped burlap sacks of chicken feed against the corner of the wall to block the bullets ripping through the house.  Melted wax covered the counters, burned out from last night.  “Miles, take the family musket from the chest upstairs and get your mother out of here.  I’ll meet you at Garven’s house.”  

Hosea’s stern commands, although rooted in love, knocked the son out of reachable sanity.  The boy stammered with wide, amber eyes.  “What?”  Garven lived in Boston, which was around six hundred miles from their little farm in the west, not to mention the summer heat and the mountains.

Hosea grabbed a knife from the kitchen drawer.  “Boston, South side.”  When the son quivered in response, Hosea pushed him up the stairs until Miles had a hold of himself and spotted the simple chest under the master bed.  The chest had bronze latches spotted with green from old age.  Miles heaved the chest lid open and set the musket on the ground before shoving it back under the bed.

Meanwhile, the French soldiers reached the broken door and barged through grabbing Hosea by the wrist and hauling Martha out of the house.  A shot echoed and she fell to the ground, blood pouring onto her dress.  The soldier holding onto her fell backward, a bullet in his shoulder.  The back door creaked as Miles fled away from the scene, knowing he had no chance to reload.

Hosea stabbed as many times as he could before the soldiers decided to shoot him out of convenience.

December 25th, 1771.  The howling wind masked the man’s footsteps, covering both sound and imprint in the icy snow.  The stolen cartridges rattled in his trailing, over-sized coat.  He bent down and packed the snow into a ball with his bare hands.  Looking over his shoulder, the bright red coats stood out like Polaris on a clear night.  He, on the other hand, preferred his rags.  Nothing could hide him better.  Anything would have shielded him from the frost better.  He tossed the snowball farther ahead of him into the blizzarding night, and it crumbled into a wall.  The thief peered at the white mark.  

A grin of a rat escaping the cat appeared on his face.  Shelter.  He scurried to the wooden wall, feeling his way to the door.  He never found one, only an opening where one should have been.  He slipped in.

Although the wooden house broke the wind’s blast, shattered windows, cracked wood, and the absent door left no more protection from the cold and snow.  

Abandoned, candle holders were strewn on the ground.  The thief walked over them and tucked the silver ones into his large coat pocket.  The thief snuggled into a corner and waited.  Around him, torn, burlap sacks coated the floor.  He wrapped one around his bare shoulders.

“Miles Forbes!”  The British soldiers came closer.  They would find him.  It was over.  Miles thought about the stolen cartridges.  Was the revolution worth it?  Minimal support rose from the colonists.  Miles remembered his parents.  They’d never support anything against the King.  Miles could die for an unjust cause.  He looked down at the stolen goods.  How had he become this careless monster?  He didn’t know himself.  Was I really the same person who murdered a loyalist family in cold blood three days ago?  He shook his head.  The British soldiers pushed on the feeble house.  They were here. 

The thief jumped up, found the stairs, and dashed to the second floor.  He went to the master’s bedroom.  Thankfully a door still stood, and he locked it.  Looking around, he noticed the room had barely been touched.  If this was all he had seen of the house, he would have thought that the house was in perfect condition.  Miles brushed his hand along the bed.  A solid bump perturbed from the middle.  He lifted the mattress and saw a bronze-decorated chest tucked between the floor and the bed frame.  With a sacred serenity, Miles lifted the chest out and yanked the lid up.  The hollow chest echoed in Miles.  Was he home?

British soldiers yelled up the stairs.  Miles saw a torn piece up paper tucked on the side of the chest.  He barely dared to pull it out, but curiosity bested him.

“Miles, if you are reading this, the french won, didn’t they?”  Miles could hear his father’s calm voice from the scrawled words.  “It’s only one battle, not the war.  Don’t stop fighting.  Live on and continue what I started.  I want you to know that me and your mom love you. -- Love Dad.”

The tears froze on his face.  He collapsed on the ground and gulped down sobs, leaning against the floor.  The paper floated between his legs.  If I had seen this sooner--

Brits crashed through the door. His vision was so blurred by tears, he couldn't see the soldier's muskets aimed at his heart. “Stand down or we’ll shoot.”

“Fire away.”