My Brother Sam is Dead by James Lincoln Collier Page A

home. I don’t want to travel twenty miles with the oxen slipping and sliding up and down every hill.” He shook his head. “We’ve got a problem, Tim. I want to avoid the Ridgebury area where we ran into those so-called Rebels before. I thought we’d curve south a little, hitinto Connecticut at Wilton Parish and then go up through Upawaug to Redding, but that’ll take us a half day out of our way, and with the snow coming, I’m not sure we want to risk it.”
    I didn’t feel so easy when I thought about the cow-boys. “Do you think they might be waiting for us?”
    He shrugged. “They know we have to come back sometime. The people in Mohegan heard that a drover from Norfield had been shot on the Ridgebury Road two days ago and his cattle driven off.”
    â€œWas he killed?”
    â€œNobody knew. The report may not be reliable anyway.” He shook his head. “I don’t know, Tim, if it snows we ought to go the shortest way home, but I don’t like going back through Ridgebury.”
    â€œIf it’s snowing really bad maybe the cow-boys won’t want to come out raiding.”
    â€œThere’s that,” Father said.
    I didn’t say anything more. Neither being raided nor traveling through the snow was going to be much fun. We just pushed on. There wasn’t much to do; mostly I stayed at the head of the oxen and kept them moving. Sometimes Father walked with me, but sometimes he mounted Grey and rode on ahead a mile or so. He didn’t tell me what he was doing, but I knew; he was scouting the road ahead for cow-boys.
    It began to snow just after noon. It wasn’t much at first—just a few light flakes drifting down from the sky. “Damn,” Father said. “Oh damn.”
    â€œMaybe it’ll stop,” I said.
    â€œNo,” he said, “we’re in for it now.”
    We pushed on. Ten minutes later the sky was full of flakes falling quietly through the air. It was beginning to feel colder and every once in a while a quick gust of wind would slash the snow into our faces. “It’s going to be a bad one,” Father said.
    â€œMaybe it’ll pass by,” I said.
    â€œI’m afraid not, Tim.” He frowned. “I think we’d better take a chance on going back by Ridgebury. I don’t think many men will want to ride in deep snow.” By one o’clock it was a real, hard snowfall. The wind had picked up and the snow was blowing into our faces. The oxenbecame white and wet and they kept shaking their heads to throw the snow off. We walked along with our heads bent forward to keep the wind and snow from flying in our faces. I tucked my hands in my shirt for warmth.
    In the middle of the afternoon we reached a fork in the road. “Hold up the oxen,” Father said. I prodded them to a stop. He stood by the cart staring around him. There was already six inches of snow on the ground and it was blowing steadily down on us. “We could turn off here for Wilton Parish,” he said. Then he shook his head. “There’s no hope for it, Tim. We can’t go on through this all night. We’ll have to push on to North Salem and hole up at the Platt’s until it stops, and then take our chances on Ridgebury.”
    I didn’t feel very good. My hands were cold and my face was cold, and my feet were getting wet through my boots and they were going to be cold, too. I couldn’t stop thinking about the cow-boys. We’d just been lucky getting away from them the first time. They were bound to be angry with us now for escaping, and they’d want to hurt us to get even. “Can we get an escort through Ridgebury, Father?”
    â€œI don’t know,” he said. “We’ll ask at the Platt’s.” The walk seemed to go on and on. The oxen were balking at walking in that blowing snow. They kept trying to turn their backs to it, and it took Father walking on