The Bully Boys by Eric Walters Page B

the screaming stopped we heard those Americans charging down the hill like they were being chased by the Devil himself. You should have heard them! Screaming, yelling, cursing, their horses snorting and hooves pounding against the rock! I don’t know how they managed to get down without half of them going over the edge!”
    FitzGibbon started to laugh again, that loud, explosive laughter that made everybody within earshot start to smileand then laugh along with him. It dissolved the tension that had been gripping my stomach like a fist and I broke into laughter as well.
    â€œI suppose we’d better get going before they get down to the fort and report the hundreds of Indians up here. You never know, they might actually find the nerve to round up a few hundred soldiers and come back!”
    * * *
    I DIDN’T know what I was most pleased about: seeing the last of those Americans or starting to see the familiar sights that marked the approach to our land. We passed between two large piles of stones that my Pa and uncle and I had taken out of one of our fields last year. My Pa always joked that with all the rocks we pulled out each spring you would have thought we were planting stone seeds. If the war hadn’t come I would have spent a good part of that summer making those piles into fences. That and felling trees and pulling the stumps to make our fields bigger.
    Up ahead, grazing peacefully, were a dozen of our sheep . . . and our plough horse . . . and in the distance I could see the tip of our barn. After hearing about the Watsons’ barn, I was more than a little relieved to see it. Off to the side was the little plot of land where my grandparents were buried, and then I saw my favourite climbing tree, and . . . my Ma was standing beside it.

CHAPTER NINE
    â€œ M A!” I screamed at the top of my lungs as I spurred my horse to race toward her.
    She dropped the basket she was holding and ran to me. I brought the horse to a stop, its hooves throwing up clumps of dirt, leaped down to the ground and threw my arms around her.
    â€œTommy, Tommy,” she whispered as she wrapped me tightly in a hug.
    She started to cry and I could feel her entire body shaking. I released my grip on her but her arms remained tightly around me.
    â€œIt’s okay, Ma . . . I’m okay.”
    She sobbed even louder. “I know . . . I know,” she managed to choke out.
    I heard the footfalls of FitzGibbon’s horse right behind me and I felt almost embarrassed as my mother continued to cling to me. I tried to console her, to make her see it was all right. Why was she crying so much? I was right here andeverything was all right. I patted her on the back . . . when had she become so small? It had been almost two years since the first time we’d stood back to back and I was just a hair taller. Of course I’d kept growing since then—but she seemed so much smaller now, so thin. I couldn’t have grown that much in just a few weeks.
    â€œGood morning, ma’am,” the Lieutenant announced.
    She released her hold, slightly, and looked up at him, still atop his horse.
    â€œMy name is James Fitz—”
    â€œI know who you are, Lieutenant FitzGibbon,” my mother interrupted. “And for the first few days after my son was gone I wasn’t too happy at the mention of your name.”
    I had to smile. There was a little taste of that fire that I knew was inside of her.
    â€œI can understand your distress,” he said. “It was with a heavy heart that I had to ask your son to accompany me.”
    â€œYour heart was light compared to mine. You have no idea what it is like for a mother to be separated from her son.”
    â€œIndeed not, ma’am . . . although I know the pain I felt as a son separated from his mother.” FitzGibbon dismounted.
    â€œAnd I was angry,” my mother continued. “Angry at your reasons for taking my son. Surely, I thought, the