Liberty's Legacy (The Liberty Series Book 3) Read online

  A rap sounded on my office door, making me jerk. “Charlotte, lovey, a priority package for you!” Trish bustled in and set a box by my desk, oohed and aahed over the baby, and off she went, a whirlwind as always.

  Viewing the mysterious package as a distraction, the address had me springing from my chair like a Jack in the Box toy. It was from an estate sale in Fly Creek. There’d been a collection of books, journals, and papers dating back to the Revolution. Sight unseen, I bought them all. I had a small selection of antiques in my shop, not to mention my personal collection at home. New additions were always welcome.

  Curiosity got the best of me. The search for Benjamin Cooper could wait. I wasn’t getting anywhere anyway. Sighing, I shut off my computer and pulled out a pair of scissors to cut through the heavy packing tape. The moment I opened the lid, the musty scent, a combination of dust and years, rose in a cloud, making me cough. I got down on my knees and pulled out one item at a time. Pamphlets from the Revolution. Books, a rare find indeed. Letters. Recipes. Miscellaneous papers. All the way to the bottom when my fingers skimmed over a small, unassuming journal bound in leather.

  A shiver ran through me and my breath came out in a rush. The cover was faded and cracked, just like another journal my Ben brought home a little over a week ago. I closed my eyes. Said a little prayer. Opened it and nearly fell over as my finger traced the name carefully written inside. Benjamin Willson Cooper 1814. A gift from Charlotte Ross Cooper, my mother, to capture the story of my life.

  I slammed it shut, stuffed the small book in the pocket of my sweater, and scooped up Jake’s bassinet by its convenient handle. “I’ve got to run an errand, girls. Might be back later, might not!”

  I slipped on my coat and scarf, hastily wrapped a blanket around Jakey, and I was out the door. Erin and Trish cheerfully waved me off. They were used to my jaunts and humored me. I would often venture on forays into our local history. My excursions meant even more to me now; ever since I slipped through a crack in time to discover that I was Charlotte Elizabeth Ross the first in a past life. The only other person who knew about my journey? Ben, formerly known as Benjamin Willson.

  I walked swiftly, bent on reaching my husband as soon as possible, patting my pocket in reassurance that the journal didn’t vanish into thin air. I didn’t imagine it. I only had a short distance to go. Just around the corner, on the opposite side of the road, St. John’s Anglican Church stood watch over Main Street. I crossed over and approached a tall figure bent over a small, iron enclosure that surrounded a grave. Sir William Johnson’s burial site, a key historical landmark in our town.

  Ben’s breath formed a cloud around his head, his cheeks streaked crimson with the cold. His face was twisted in distaste. We both had a strong dislike for our town’s founder. Anything to do with those loyal to the crown tended to turn our stomachs. Not only because we sided with the Patriots. We’d each had a taste of the Battle of Johnstown and found it bitter.

  My husband lit up when he saw me. Still pale from his sleepless night, emphasizing the shadows under his eyes, he pushed that aside to kiss me. “Well aren’t you a sight for sore eyes? What brings you? It’s not lunch time yet.” Ben bent down and kissed Jakey’s forehead quickly before coming back up. Our little one’s giggle made us both smile.

  I reached in my pocket, pulled out the journal, and set it in his hand. “I’ve got reading material for us tonight. Get ready for book club.” My voice trembled, and I clamped down on my lip with my teeth to keep from crying.

  He opened the book with hands that shook, and it wasn’t from the cold. His face went even whiter, if at all possible, and he pulled me in close, his lips scraping against my cheek. Somehow, his composure held. For now. “Why wait for tonight? I’m almost done. I’ll meet you at home. You take this.” He handed the small book to me and stepped back, maintaining his tenuous hold on control.

  I tucked the coveted journal in the left inside pocket of my coat, close to my heart. With the echo of I love you in my ears, I turned and headed to my car. I glanced back once. The snow was swirling around Ben, the wind whipping his dark hair. A lost soul stared back at me from those beautiful brown eyes I had come to know so well. The veil between now and the past had parted for Ben in an onslaught of memories. They threatened to drown him.

  I hoped that in finding Benjamin Willson Cooper’s journal, the truth about what happened to our child from centuries ago would set my husband free. I fastened Jacob in his car seat and slid in behind the wheel. My hands went still as I closed my eyes and said a little prayer. Please. Let us find good news. Give him a little peace. He deserves it.

  I forced myself to start the car and concentrate on the road, the sound of Jakey’s chortles and soft cooing noises lifting my spirit until my heart ached to think that we could only know Benjamin Cooper through his journals; his infant years were lost to us.

  “Stop it. Stop it right now,” I told myself sternly. I gripped the steering wheel with one hand, wiping at my eyes with the other. We had Jakey, our greatest blessing, and Benjamin Willson Cooper’s journals. That would have to be more than enough. More than we could expect or ever hope for—considering how we were ripped apart on that battlefield over two centuries ago.

  The drive home was over in a blink. The snow had coated my driveway and porch again, making me nearly wipe out twice. I grabbed hold of the railing and waited for my pulse to slow down. Just a few more steps. How many times had I said that in the past year or so?

  Once inside, I busied myself with Jakey, called to the shop to tell the girls to close up while I was on an adventure with the written word, and made myself a cup of tea. I drank every drop, settling myself in preparation for the journey. I glanced down at the bassinet by my side. My Jakey slept. I couldn’t help but smile as I ran my finger along his satiny cheek.

  “Amazing, isn’t he?” Ben’s voice made me jump. He stood over me, hair dusted with snow, cheeks crimson from the icy air. He bent down and kissed me. Melted me down practically to liquid . . . like the metal work in his forge.

  My hand drifted up and caught his wrist. “I didn’t even hear you. You are real?”

  He took my empty tea cup from my lap and slid me over before sitting down with me in the big chair. His arm wrapped around me, settling me against his chest. His heart thrummed madly, vibrating to my core. The scent of him was nearly overpowering, making every part of my body go weak. As he had from the first time I caught a glimpse of Benjamin Willson’s ghost in the Colonial Cemetery last October. “Real enough for you?” His whisper brushed my ear.

  I leaned against my husband and let out a sigh. I was made whole when he came back to me, as if a missing part of me was restored. His hand ran through my hair and wrapped one of my curls around his finger. “Tangled. That’s how you’ve had me from the start. Do you realize that?”

  I came up on my knees and pressed my palms to his cheeks. “It’s been the same for me.” I let my hair fall in a curtain around him as my lips touched down on his. Outside, the wind continued to howl, shaking the walls, the snow spitting at the house. The fire crackled merrily, and our son slept on. Ben’s hands, such talented hands, ran up and down my body. I almost brought up the journal, thought against it. Our reading material would keep another hour or so. We had more pressing matters at the moment.

  3

  1 July 1814

  Benjamin Willson Cooper

  Anyone who thinks we have recovered from the Revolution has not looked closely enough at what the war left behind. The scars run deep, burning angrily.

  At a glance, you would think all was well in the town of Johnstown, New York, that we were moving on more than thirty years after the fight for independence ended. Go beneath the surface and you will find it is not so. Open your eyes. The wounds still fester. Crumbling foundations and chimneys, the skeletons of farms torched by the British are overgrown with weeds, the land taking them back as they reach for the sky. Aging militia men beg in the town marketplace, or worse yet, s
it propped against a wall with an empty stare. They have lost a part of themselves—their bodies, their minds. Far too many tables have an empty chair, too many stones planted in the graveyard. Like my father’s.

  Even if we could heal, all our wounds have been ripped wide open, inflamed by the British once again ever since Madison’s War, the War of 1812, began. Mother England has treated us like a lapdog that must be brought to heel because we bit the hand that fed us decades ago. Press us now and we are more likely to snap it off at the wrist.

  This morning, my feet carried me to the place where the cut runs deepest. An empty, unassuming field, covered in tall weeds, grass, and wild flowers, dappled with a few trees. Nothing more. Prime land, yet no one treads here except to pay their respects. Our memories are long. Crystal clear. Sharp as a dagger.

  This was the site of the Battle of Johnstown, a raid that took place six days after the British surrendered at Yorktown. My gut twists at the injustice of it all. Unnecessary. Four hundred militia men could have stayed home in their beds that day. My father did not need to die. The war . . . was . . . over.

  Every day since the second war for independence began, I have walked here. To the spot where my mother and my step-father, the only father I have ever known, took me when I was a small boy. To see where my father paid liberty’s price. To keep liberty’s promise alive.

  The sun nearly blinded me today, cresting the horizon, bringing the full glory of the dawn, rooting my feet to the spot. My hands knotted into fists. My jaw clenched, my shoulders tight, as fury surged through my veins. I wanted to hit something, shoot something, do something.

  The ground shifted, and I stumbled as a wave of disorientation washed over me. I swallowed hard and closed my eyes. Tried to ignore the scent of gunpowder, burning the hairs on the inside of my nose. To shut my ears to the screams and crackle of musket fire, the thunder of heavy boots crashing in the underbrush. Coming on. Relentless. Fought to wipe away the blood that soaked the land. My hands. My chest.

  With a gasp, I forcibly wrenched myself back to the present and staggered off the field. I had visited the past long enough. I continued into town. Overcome by summer’s heat, the dust on the road, and a fierce thirst, I stopped at the Cayadutta Creek to kneel on the bank and wash away my frustration.

  I doused my face first, then sucked down a handful of water, when my reflection made me freeze. My mother’s eyes, golden like honey, gazed back at me, filled with pain. The rest of me? Tall. Dark. Broad of shoulder and back. That belonged to my father. Benjamin Willson cast a strong mold. I knew this to be so for a fact. I had watched him die. Each time my foot touched the soil on the field where he shed his life’s blood. Where he gave everything a man had to give. A shiver ran through me and I slammed my fist in the creek, making the image splinter. I gained my feet, pushing myself the final leg of the journey.

  I wanted to turn the other way, venture off. Join my brothers from Johnstown and beyond, fellow citizen soldiers, but the man I called Father, who everyone believed was my father, bade me to wait. Jacob Cooper and I were Johnstown’s gunsmiths. Until there was no choice, we would serve where there was a need, quietly carrying on the struggle behind the scenes. My head understood. My heart said fight.

  To the last drop. To the last breath. To the last beat.

  ***

  The day was nearly at a close judging by the slant of the sun’s rays as they stretched through our shop window. My frustration continued to build until I was like a keg of gunpowder about to blow. I’d tinkered with my personal project throughout the afternoon, unable to concentrate on any orders for our customers, my mind too full. My fingers cramped from the delicate work, my eyes blurring from staring at the gun for too long and too hard. The rifle combined the best of the Springfield model 1795 musket and the Kentucky long rifle. My intention? To design a gun with greater accuracy and reach, one that would load more easily to give us an advantage. When hunting. When fighting the enemy. When surviving.

  “Enough!” I growled, still struggling with the gun. I wanted to carry my weight and pick up my end of our young nation’s burdens. Liberty’s promise lived in me, ran in my blood. I needed to carry out my father’s legacy. How could I do that if I couldn’t even make this blasted gun work? I stalked to the door, intent on getting some fresh air, and slammed it. The very walls shook.

  “You might want to leave it on its hinges, Benjamin. Your grandfather does not need more work at the smithy right now.” My step-father’s mouth quirked up in the slightest of grins as he poked his head outside until he caught sight of my face. Thunderous, I’m sure. All hints of mirth disappeared. “What is the matter?”

  I returned to my table and motioned to the jumble of parts laid out before me. I fiddled with the firing mechanism, but my tools kept slipping from my hands, they were shaking so. I banged my fist on the table and bowed my head. “I am so blasted tired of sitting around here waiting for something to happen. I do not think I can take it much longer, Father!”

  With that, I made one last adjustment and took up my musket. I headed out to the field behind our shop to our firing range of sorts. We had targets lined upon a broad stretch with miles of grass and trees for as far as the eye could see. I primed the firearm. Poured in the powder. Sent down the ball. Pulled the hammer back. . . and CRACK! The kick rammed the butt back into my shoulder so hard that it threw me on the ground, flat on my backside. I gripped the offended joint, rocking back and forth, praying I did not break or dislocate anything.

  Smothered laughter made me turn my head. “Got that out of your system now, do you? Looks like you nearly blew your arm off with that one. I bet now you understand the expression about going off half-cocked.”

  My step-father stood with his back propped against the gunsmith shop, his mouth twisted in a rueful grin. Jacob Cooper wore a head of coppery curls barely threaded with white and blue eyes that were as bright as the sky on a clear day. Several inches shorter at just under the six-foot mark, he made up for his height with his brawn and a spirit that couldn’t be contained. No better man could have taken on the role of raising me.

  He offered me a hand, which I accepted, but then he gripped me at the nape of my neck. “Let me see.”

  I tried to pull away, nursing my shoulder, but he held fast. “Benjamin, you are never too old for me to look after you. When I signed on to be your father, I meant it.”

  His words held weight. My step-father had chosen to marry my mother knowing full well that the child she carried was not his. Conviction and devotion forced him to follow a high moral code. Jacob Cooper might not choose the easy way to do something, but he always did what was right. Jacob was built solid, inside and out, and was not easily shaken. He did not hesitate to accept the responsibility of the woman he loved and the child he would raise as his own.

  Breathing hard through my nose, I bowed my head and stared at my feet, my cheeks burning while he pulled my sleeve aside to inspect the damages. A low whistle escaped him, and he slapped me on the back. “You will live, although it is going to hurt like the dickens tomorrow and bruise like you will not believe. Let us take that musket back inside and see if we cannot get it right before you go off losing your temper yet again.”

  With an arm slung around me in sympathy and camaraderie, my step-father accompanied me to my table. “Did Grandpa Abraham look at it yet?”

  I nodded, picked it up, pulled back the hammer, and inspected the mechanism with a keen eye. “Aye. He told me to make a few adjustments here,” I pointed to the hammer,” and here.” I gestured to the flash pan. Jacob’s father, Abraham, was beyond belief when it came to being a gunsmith, but his hands were crippled with age. He still stopped in from time to time to give his valued advice or, as he said, to simply fill his lungs with the scent of gunpowder. Many a time, I’d see his snowy head bowed over one of our various projects. Abraham might not be able to fix them anymore, but he could tell us how to do it with his eyes closed.

  ***

  My ste
p-father and I worked side by side, his able fingers and experienced eye locating the flaw in my design. Once he pointed it out, I could not believe I had missed it. While I had apprenticed to my father and grandfather most of my life, Jacob Cooper was clearly the master craftsman. God willing, with time and patience, I aspired to be the same.

  Not one to ignore a master, I made the suggested changes. A twist here, a nudge there, and I fell under the spell of gunsmithing. I held the gun up and sighted along the barrel, pulling the hammer back and letting it go, minus the powder and ball, exhaling hard as everything fell into line, working the way that it should. This gun might be too late for the present conflict but held great promise for the future.

  “Excellent work, Benjamin,” Jacob met my stormy gaze and rested his hand on my good shoulder, frustration carefully held in check. “I know. Believe me, I want to be out there as much as you, but we have a duty here, building and repairing arms, getting them into the hands that need them. When the fight comes to our doorstep, we will take up the cause.” He slapped me on the back. My breath came out in a rush as I began to cough with the force of the blow. “Let us call it quits. I will buy you a drink at James Burke’s Inn.”

  I snuffed the oil lamps, locked the door, and we walked across the road to the tavern. The instant we stepped inside the dim, smoky atmosphere, the rumbling of discontent rolled over us. Ever since the United States declared war, Mother England’s infractions stuck in Johnstown’s craw.

  I knew the patrons’ complaints by heart. The impressment of our soldiers by the British navy when they attacked and boarded the US Chesapeake off Norfolk, Virginia. Remember the Raisin, when our soldiers were not only defeated by the British and Natives in the Battle of Frenchtown, but brutally murdered at the Raisin River Massacre the following day. Tecumseh, stirring up trouble out west with the Ohio Valley Confederacy of Natives until his death. The violent attacks of the “red man” still smarted. Many Americans had no other suitable word for their enemies.