Chapter 14: Open Arms

In early September of 1775 the strong-backed fillers trundled the first cartloads of charcoal, iron ore and limestone to Trinka's always-waiting maw. The massive new furnace had somehow acquired the name of a tavern keeper's voracious daughter known throughout the Middletown Valley for her massive girth, foul mouth and salacious nature. The waterwheel turned and the double bellows pumped. Fire boiled up in the bosh and soon the sweating barrow crews had filled the cavity with the needed layers of raw materials. The tired slaves rested on their tools by the coal shed and charge house, watched the rising flames and dense smoke and listened to the deep-throated roar, pleased with the result of their efforts and happy they were finally done for the moment.

Matthew, standing with the toiling colliers, wiped his face, black with rivulets of charcoaled sweat. He smiled as Trinka settled down into what was to become her recognizable voice. Every blast furnace had a somewhat different sound, and the iron makers here convinced themselves that theirs made a noise like a hefty young woman in the throes of violent, satisfying and endless coitus.

Once the furnace had been fired, unless some sort of accident or unexpected failure took place, it would roar on for many months. In fact, unless the supply of ore turned out to be inadequate, as had happened with the brown hematite up the road at Green Spring, a properly-built furnace could produce almost indefinitely with pauses for the installation of a new fire brick lining from time to time.

A few hours later most of the men who had helped build the belching furnace, along with some local investors and a number of the curious from nearby Frederick Town, waited near the casting house for the first spark-sputtering, white-hot pour. For more than an hour a crew of experienced iron workers, all of them deep-black but America-born slaves, had been busy at the cinder notch, reaching down and raking off the volcanic slag with long handled tools.

Now the ironmaster and the night boss, called the "keeper" in this gang, gave the long gutter and lightly sanded molds one last, critical look. After a brief consultation, they decided that the crucible behind the tymp wall had filled enough for a preliminary test. Then, with a glance at the heavens and swinging stroke, the manager broke the clay plug for the first time and the liquid iron gushed out of the forehearth throwing glittering stars in all directions like a Guy Fawkes pyrotechnic. The booted guttermen stepped up with their dams and hoe-like tools, ignored the burning particles and guided the raw iron from the broad sow into the first few pig forms.

The founder nodded his satisfaction with both the hearth and the casting floor as the last of this small batch dripped out and the flushed manager renewed the plug with a heavy maul. Broad smiles, back pounding and hand shakes were the order of the day. The furnace, of course, stayed "in blast" and in about twelve hours would be tapped again when the hearth was nearly full. The day-shift fillers topped up the stack and prepared the night stock for the next crew as Trinka's sex-starved bass voice roared on, undulating, chugging, always demanding more.

While the slaves at the cinder notch and in the casting shed rested before continuing their endless work, savoring a rare tot of rum as their reward, the owners, managers and their guests went off to celebrate. Matthew turned the other way and easily found Otto in the crowd of locals starting back for town since his blond friend was much taller than almost all the others.

"You ast your captain?" Matthew said, taking Otto by the arm and pulling him from the narrow path.

"Oh, ja, ja. Kap'n Mantz, he hass now funfzig, uh, fifty-six privates so dere is room for you, for ten more efen. But you must show him you can shoot, ein Beweis."

"Demonstrate, huh? With your rifle, Otto?"

"Nein, mit ein Brown Bess, ein verdamnt Tower, dot is eine Flinte," Otto said, looking discouraged.

"What's wrong with that?" Matthew asked, excited by the chance to join the militia company instead of sitting at the side of the field with the women and children, watching Otto and his comrades drill and maneuver every week. He had been doing that most of the summer and had even learned a couple of German drinking songs. His increased bonus went mainly for beer and for an occasional two-shilling whore in the dark, narrow rooms above the tavern, a brief spell of grunting effort and quick release that brought little joy.

"Iss schlecht, smooth, not ein Gewehr. I do not know the vord."

"I understand. When?" Matthew asked, undiscouraged.

"Samstag, Saturday, at d'field. I see you den." He hurried off to catch up with his short wife and bundled child, pleased that the wood he had spent the winter cutting had been put to such impressively good use.

Matthew turned back toward his drafty barracks, once again attentive to the comforting roar of the two furnaces and the rhythmic pumping of the water-driven bellows. The solid, new pigs had been examined and pronounced "first class" by the time he reached the dining hall and joined the festive party.

After firing three shots in just under two minutes with the standard British infantry musket, now the property of the recently reorganized Maryland militia, Matthew was sworn into the fifth company raised in Frederick County. One of his shots hit the target board some twenty paces distant, another clipped its edge and the third ball, a much-hurried last shot, missed the tree, frightened a rooster almost a half a mile away into flapping protest and provoked a roar of laughter from the friendly watchers who joked about the dangers of giving a gun to a bear.

Matthew was issued his weapon and spike bayonet, both left from the days of ill-fated Braddock's last campaign, a well-worn cartridge case on a long strap, a bayonet half-scabbard and a black cockade for his hat. He did not tell the captain that he did not own a proper, three-cornered hat. The supply sergeant had, he explained with hands spread, exhausted his collection of blankets and quilts donated by the people of Frederick Town, but the battalion's bearded armorer pronounced his musket "sound" and the frizzen properly hardened. He gave Matthew two extra flints.

After drilling with his sixty fellow militiamen, some were now proudly calling themselves minutemen, Matthew adjourned with Otto and a dozen other German-speaking men to the nearby tavern and enjoyed his sore shoulder, a great deal of coarse humor, several foaming "biers," and a sturdy blonde who spoke no English and needed none in her strenuous vocation.

The first Frederick-area company, Captain William Blair's self-styled "gamecocks," had already gone to active service when Matthew decided it was time to talk with MacCorm again about his status and his future. He found the boss in his small office near the open-sided casting shed attached to loudly-heaving Trinka and her more subdued, but equally massive sister.

"Look at this," MacCorm said as Matthew entered the sunlit room. "Plans for the foundry. They're already talking about making cannon, three-pounders, n'cannon balls as well as cooking pots for the militia. Old Johnson up at Catoctin got the first order, a'course. He has the contacts, the right friends in Annapolis, y'ken. Later, we'll build rolling and slittin' machinery."

"It's the militia I wanted t' talk about. I've joined, like you said I could, and one company's already gone off. I don' know where, probably Boston or New York, wherever General Washington is."

"Think you'll be next? Damn! I want you t'learn the casting floor jobs." Mac rolled up his plans and set them aside. "Hoped to put ye wi' the night crew till winter came on. Them colliers up here really don' need help."

"We're fifth in line. I don't think we're ready t'go anywhere right now," said Matthew quickly. "Some a'the boys can't shoot no better than me, and a lot a'them don' know lef' foot from right 'alf the time." He smiled, recalling the time he had turned the wrong way and smashed into another young soldier, knocking them both to the ground.

"George, he said somethin' about you wanting some time off, about getting a bath. I dinna think he was joking." The big Scot smiled at Matthew who returned the grin.

"No, well, I smelled pretty bad when we talked about the militia this spring. Managed a couple a'baths since then, over by the waterwheel," Matthew said. He grinned at MacCorm. "Got to where I couldn't stan' being with m'self no matter how cold it was. Picked off a few a'them grey lice, too."

"Yeah, well, him an' me talked, we did. Jean's name even come up, as I recall. Now that old Trinka's out there mumbling away, enjoyin' herself, I'm gonna give ye a week and y'bonus to spend. I'm sure you'll find a way somehow. Oh, an' I got somethin' for ye, a letter. Don' see many a'them up here. Come with that shipment a'slag rakes, window glass and wood-pegged boots." MacCorm fished the folded paper from one of his desk slots.

"Who's it from?"

"Damn if I know. Open 'er up."

"You know I don' read too good," Matthew said as he popped the red wax seal. "What this say on the outside. I habn' seen this kind'a script writin' that much."

"It's t'you 'care of J. Martz.' That's what it says. Go on."

"I think it's from Elizabeth. Is this 'er name, right here?" Matt pointed to the signature, feeling both excitement and concern.

"Yep," said MacCorm, glancing at the letter and swallowing a smile.

"I didn' know she could write. When I met 'er on that ship, she could read some Bible verses, said she could write 'er name." Matthew tried to picture the lean woman, but only saw her long hair in his mind, blowing wildly at the ship's rail like a mast-top pennant, then her worry-filled grey eyes and her dead husband.

"Well, what could y'do then? People do learn, even bears. Read it."

"I am well and liv-living on a farm in," Matthew began, reading out loud, word after careful word, his brow creased.

"I dinna need t'hear yer letter. I'm goin' for a walk, see how them channels is holdin' up. Meet me over at the casting house. They's about ready for the nex' pour." MacCorm picked up the one crutch he now used and closed the door behind him, shaking his head.

Matthew sat at his table and read through Elizabeth's letter twice. Some words he would have to ask about, but he figured out most of it. It made him feel peculiar to read words the young woman had written on paper she had held. He rubbed his fingers across the inked lines and graceful swirls.

"I am well and living on a farm in Prince George," Elizabeth had written on the creamy paper Mrs. Conroy had provided. She had used a quill pen and made some blotches, but her letters were large and mostly straight in line. "We grow tobacco & wheat. I tend kitchen gardens. I did not get yr letter. I have a baby. Please write again in care of Priscilla Conroy in Annapolis. Yr friend," and she signed her name, very neatly and drew a line beneath it.

Matthew folded the letter into a square, went back to his bunk and put it in the oilskin pouch he had made for his indenture contract. Then he asked MacCorm when he could have that time off. By damn, he thought, I'm certainly a bit late. Elizabeth had a baby.

Almost a week later Matthew woke in Jean's narrow bed feeling very relaxed, satisfied, sated. Through the open door of her lean-to, he could see her wash fluttering on the line attached to a maple tree that had turned as red as fresh-poured iron. On his way down from the mill, he had noticed that the signs of fall were coloring the hillside wood lots and that flights of honking birds sometimes darkened the cloud-mounded sky.

Matt stretched and scratched, enjoying the clean feel of his skin and hair, as well as the flaccid state of his exhausted member. He took a deep breath and thought he could smell the Bay. He looked at his black-rimmed fingers and wondered if his hands would ever come clean. Jean had given up on them when she made so little progress with her scrub brush. Then she had worn him out completely and dropped him into a dreamless sleep, like a pebble falling into a deep, blue lake, sinking and sinking.

In the tavern he enjoyed a breakfast of fried ham, raw oysters, hot biscuits, golden honey and brown beer. He gave the innkeeper two shillings and Jean two more, "for the bath" he told her when she growled at him. He patted her rump, hitched the dray horse to his borrowed wagon, and drove on in toward Annapolis, happy that George had replaced the old mule and that young Jean was still so tirelessly accommodating. Elizabeth has a baby; his mind wondered over that. Whose baby? What kind of baby? Was she still a bond servant? Was she in trouble? Had she somehow married?

In less than a hour, he presented himself at the Conroy's huge front door, and Moses let him in, frowning his disapproval. Matthew stood waiting in the hall, his short boots clean and his dark hair tied back, both courtesy of the tavern girl's expert hands. He had even brushed his teeth with a shredded twig and shaved twice in the reflection from the water bucket.

First Anne and then Mrs. Conroy followed by Priscilla appeared at the foot of the stairs, all in light, frilly, day-time dress, openly staring at the large young man in the dark, shabby clothes. Matthew swallowed his nervousness, cleared his throat and introduced himself as a friend of Elizabeth and told the girls that he recalled seeing them on the ship. Anne named her step-mother and older sister and then said, "I'm Anne Conroy. Did you get Elizabeth's letter?"

Matthew nodded, amused by the redheaded girl's energy and obvious excitement. Anne stepped to him boldly and took his elbow, smiling and then surprised how large and hard his arm felt. He was, she thought, probably the biggest man she had ever seen. She had danced with many boys but had never felt an arm like this; it felt as hard as the banister. The top of her head came barely to his broad chest. No one would ever call him handsome, she decided. "Rough hewed," perhaps, a phrase from one of her favorite novels. She suppressed a smile, thinking where she had left her heroine with her bookmark.

"Won't you come in, please, and sit so we can talk," Mrs. Conroy said as if she entertained visiting colliers or oversized iron workers almost every day. He doubted any man without a wig or proper waistcoat had been in her parlor since the plasterers finished their work.

Matthew was happy he had bathed and brushed his clothes. The room seemed as fancy looking, fresh-painted, high-ceilinged and well-furnished as any he had ever seen in England. He carefully put his fourteen stone on the front edge of a cane-seated chair and rested his black-crusted hands on his heavy thighs, his fingers curled in. The three women sat opposite him, side by side on a white, brocaded sofa. He broke the nervous silence.

"Please tell me 'bout Elizabeth. An' about her baby," he said. "If you can." He sniffed. "If y'will."

"Oh, the child, she's very pretty," said Mrs. Conroy, arranging her flaring skirt and silken petticoats, creamy lace cascading from her arms, pearl bobs at her ears. "She is, I fear, something of a mystery, the child. But the young woman seems very well, rather sun-browned however, but very well. Wouldn't you say so, Priscilla?"

"Indeed," Priscilla said, holding her chin up and seldom meeting Matthew's eyes, letting her gaze pass over him very quickly. "We must apologize to you about the letter you sent. It was, I guess you would say, intercepted, mis-delivered might be better." She exhaled rather loudly and touched her fingers to her lips, looking down at her knees.

Matthew nodded and waited, wondering if well-bred girls ever belched. He noticed the large, dark paintings on the wall, the gleaming silver on the small table, the ornate plaster work around the edge of the ceiling.

"Elizabeth looks more than healthy, quite robust. She told us she had not been sick a single day down at the farm," Mrs. Conroy said, unaware of repeating herself, uneasy for some reason. She unconsciously frowned at Matthew who looked so out of place and wondered if the old chair would hold him.

"She has lots of freckles on her arms," Anne added with a grin. "An' I think she works in the garden barefoot most of the time. But she wears a bonnet."

"How far is this place?" Matthew asked.

"Half a day's ride, maybe less if the roads are good, which they now are," Mrs. Conroy answered. "Girls, I am going to excuse myself and see about some refreshments." She stood and flowed quietly from the room.

"It was her son that kept your letter from Elizabeth," Anne stage-whispered as the pocket doors slid closed with barely a click.

"Anne, please," said her sister, turning her head quickly away.

"Well, he did," Anne insisted, making her usual pout into a thin line and wrinkling her smooth forehead.

"Did you see the baby?" Matthew asked, aware of his own breathing. He rubbed his nose with a knuckle.

"Oh, yes," said Priscilla. "She is very fine, lovely, pink and plump, but Elizabeth has not named her. At least she had not when we were there."

"When was this?" Matthew asked, surprised by that oddity.

"The third week in August, 'bout a month ago," Anne said. "I think the baby was two weeks old."

"An' it's a girl?" asked Matthew.

Both girls nodded.

"Is Elizabeth married then?" Matt reluctantly asked, knowing he was missing something, feeling confused, left out, somehow negligent.