I don't remember if this was originally an assignment for my creative writing class or if it was an, "Oh, hey, I didn't finish my assignment, let me finish it over the weekend," kind of thing that I just had already laying around.
Whatever the case, it was written during one of my periodic, "OH MY GOSH I NEED TO WRITE SOMETHING ABOUT THE ______ WAR." (These happen somewhat frequently and vary between the Civil War and Revolutionary.)
This is the prologue to what was going to be a longer story that I never finished; I did hack out another chapter to this, but it's not especially exciting. I may re-write it later and put it up, too.
* * *
- The boy stared dully out of the window, a musket resting on a wooden stool a few feet away. Just having turned eighteen, he thought he should long since have been thought of as a man by his parents, old enough by several years to strike out and start a family on his own. But still, here he was, at home, still treated like a child. For God's sake, his little sister, hardly fifteen, was engaged to be married! It was maddening how they continued to treat him like a child.
The war for independence had begun several months ago, and the major battles had been far away from where the Byrons were. But then, no one really expected to see much of anything in rural Blackwoods, South Carolina. But still, his father had insisted that a sentry be posted in the attic, gun close at hand, ready to shoot any unsavory characters that might be running through the open fields, including any slaves trying to slip away through the dead of night.
But it wasn't the dead of night, and no darky in his right mind would be running across the open fields of the Byron plantation in the middle of the day – hell, no darky in his right mind would be running across the open fields of the Byron’s property at all. Everyone and his brother knew that the Byrons kept a sharp eye on the fields surrounding their white-washed plantation house.
No, it was late afternoon, not even dusk yet, and here he sat, Daniel Byron, eighteen years old, bored stiff, and hungry.
He heard footsteps coming up the attic stairs behind him and turned in time to see his father coming up the stairs, bearing a bowl of stew with a crust of bread stuck in it. "Boy, what are you doing? Get that gun to where you can reach it."
Daniel scurried to grab the musket up from its resting place, managing only to knock it to the floor in his haste. His cheeks flushing, he grabbed it up and leaned it against the window, easily within the reach of his arm.
Frowning, his father handed him the bowl of stew and sat on the stool the musket had previously been resting on. "Heard news in town today," he said. "They say them Tories is moving this way. I want you to shoot any Loyalist or lobster-back you see, got it, boy?"
"Yessir," Daniel said around a mouthful of stew.
"Mind your manners, boy, didn't your mama raise you right? Don't talk with your mouth full."
Daniel swallowed and murmured an apology to his father. When he had finished his small supper, his father took the empty bowl and returned back down the stairs with a parting comment of "get that gun in your hands, boy."
Daniel picked the firearm up and laid it across his lap, resuming his half-hearted watch from the attic window.
* * *
It was after dark when he awoke to the sounds of shouting and gunshots ringing out across the open fields. He could see a few torches burning brightly through smoky air, and he could smell the heavy scent of gunpowder rising into the night. He fumbled for the musket, which had, in his slumber, slipped from his lap onto the floor. He found it and raised it, but couldn't remember if it was loaded or not; he checked the chamber, finding that it was, indeed, ready to fire.
He turned and ran down the stairs into the house. He saw his mother and sisters huddled in the kitchen, eyes wide with terror, but paid them no mind as he sprinted past them into the chaotic night. He caught sight of a red uniform in a brilliant flash of light as a musket fired, and raised his own firearm, taking aim.
As his finger squeezed the trigger, he felt a shot graze his cheek, and flailed his arms from the shock of the close call, his own shot flying wildly off-target, hitting the great oak tree off to the left. A second shot stung him in the right shoulder, and he cried out, dropping his own gun and clutching at his arm, falling to his knees. The butt of a gun hit him in the head, knocking him onto his back, and the next thing he knew, the glistening blade of a bayonet was rushing towards his pale, exposed throat – and then Daniel Byron knew no more.
* * *
The green-eyed brunette boy looked out the window into the darkness. To him, the lawn wasn’t overgrown. To him, the once neatly-groomed rows of cotton were still there, lying still in the darkness. He could still hear the rowdy singing of the slaves from the small collection of huts on the far end of the field. But in reality, the fields were overgrown, the line of trees from the surrounding woods had pressed inward onto the plantation grounds over the past three hundred years or so, and the house had fallen into disrepair.
But to the dead patriot boy with his shimmering, grey body, life on the Byron plantation had not existed outside of the attic room for nearly three hundred years. It was where his father had set him on watch, and it was where he had been on watch for three centuries.
