Anderson - Forge

F ORGE

ALSO BY

Laurie Halse Anderson

Chains

Fever 1793

Independent Dames:

What You Never Knew About the Women

and Girls of the American Revolution

Thank You, Sarah:

The Woman Who Saved Thanksgiving

ATHENEUM BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS
An imprint of Simon & Schuster Childrens Publishing Division
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the authors imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright 2010 by Laurie Halse Anderson

All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.
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Book design by Lizzy Bromley
Map copyright 2010 by Drew Willis
0910 FFG
First Edition

eISBN: 978-1-4424-4308-2

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Anderson, Laurie Halse.
Forge / Laurie Halse Anderson.1st ed.

p. cm.(Seeds of America)
Sequel to: Chains.

Summary: Separated from his friend Isabel after their daring escape from slavery, fifteen-year-old Curzon serves as a free man in the Continental Army at Valley Forge until he and Isabel are thrown together again, as slaves once more.

ISBN 978-1-4169-6144-4
1. PennsylvaniaHistoryRevolution, 17751783Juvenile fiction.
[1. PennsylvaniaHistoryRevolution, 17751783Fiction. 2. Valley Forge (Pa.)
History18th centuryFiction. 3. SoldiersFiction. 4. African AmericansFiction.
5. FreedmenFiction. 6. SlaveryFiction. 7. United StatesHistoryRevolution,
17751783Fiction. 8. New YorkHistoryRevolution, 1775-1783Fiction.] I. Title.

PZ7.A54385For 2010
[Fic]dc22
2010015971

When
ABIGAIL ADAMS
was mourning the deaths of her parents,
she quoted a popular paraphrase of a Psalm
in her letters to her husband, JOHN:

The sweet remembrance of the just
Shall flourish when they sleep in Dust.

And thus,
this book is dedicated to the memory of my mother,
JOYCE HOLCOMB HALSE,
and my father-in-law,
WILLIAM ROBERT LARRABEE SR.

Part I

PRELUDE

Sunday, January 19, 1777

WE HAVE IT IN OUR POWER TO BEGIN THE WORLD OVER AGAIN.... THE BIRTH - DAY OF A NEW WORLD IS AT HAND.
THOMAS PAINE, COMMON SENSE

C AN YOU WALK? SOMEONE ASKED ME. I blinked against the bright light and squinted.

I was sitting in a rowboat half pulled onto a snowy riverbank. The cold was a beast gnawing at my fingers and toes. I closed my eyes and struggled to think past the ice cluttering my head.

This is a fantastical dream created by my fever. In truth, I am still a prisoner of the war in the Bridewell.

I sniffed. The air here was cold but clean, without the stink of jailed men and death.

No matter. Tis still a dream.

I drifted back toward sleep.

Curzon! Someone twisted my ear. I beg you!

I flinched.

Open your eyes! the voice commanded. We must hurry away from here!

I blinked again. Before me sat a girl, her right cheek scarred by a branding iron, her eyes swollen with fatigue.

Twas Isabel, who was my friend.

I blinked for the third time and took a deep breath. Isabels hands lay in her lap, bleeding from torn blisters. The handles of both oars were bloodstained where she had gripped them.

Like a flint hitting steel, a memory sparked, then flared.

Isabel had freed me from the Bridewell Prison. Shed rowed a boat, this ancient boat, all night long. Rowed us away from Manhattan, the British army, and those who owned us.

The memory exploded.

We are free!

I stood, legs quivering, head pounding, heart leaping. You did it! How? Dont matter. Country, you did it!

She shook her head violently and pulled me back down to my seat, a shaky finger on her lips to quiet me. Hush!

But its wondrous, I said, voice low. Is it not?

Yes, she whispered. No. The wind swirled a veil of snow between us. Perhaps.

Do you know of a safe house hereabouts? I asked. The name of folks who would help us?

We have to help ourselves. She looked over her shoulder at the field beyond the riverbank. We have a handful of silver coins, some meat, and a map. I forged a pass too, but the river ruined it. She wrung out the water from the bottom of her skirt. We have to walk to Charleston.

Charleston? Why?

Thats where Ruth is.

I knew then that her mind had been addled by the exertions of our escape. Isabels little sister had been sold away to the islands. The child was likely dead, but I could not say this to Isabel. Not right then.

The river gurgled and tugged, trying to pull the boat back into the current. I clutched at the sides of the unsteady craft and shivered. Isabel had brought us this far. Now it was up to me.

But how?

We were escaped slaves, half froze and exhausted. We needed to warm ourselves, sleep, and eat. But above all, we had to stay hidden. The business of returning or selling runaways was profitable for both redcoats and rebels.

I tallied our advantages: A few coins. Food enough for a few meals. Disadvantages: No horse. No gun. No one to trust.

A large piece of ice floated down the river as the second truth crackled in me.

This freedom could kill us.

CHAPTER I

Tuesday, October 7, 1777

BEGIN THE GAME.
GENERAL HORATIO GATESS ORDER TO START THE SECOND BATTLE OF SARATOGA

T HE MEMORY OF OUR ESCAPE STILL tormented me nine months later.

It did not matter that Id found us shelter and work in Jersey or that Id kept us safe. Isabel was ungrateful, peevish, and vexatious. We argued about going after Ruth, then we fought about it, and finally, in May, she ran away from me, taking all of our money.

I twisted my ear so hard, it was near torn from my head.

No thoughts of Isabel, I reminded myself. Find that blasted road.

Id been looking for the back road to Albany since dawn on account of my former boss, Trumbull, was a cabbagehead and a cheat. The Patriot army had hired him and his two wagons (one of them driven by myself) to help move supplies up to the mountains near Saratoga. Thousands of British soldiers waited there, preparing to swoop down the Hudson, cut off New England from the other states, and end the rebellion.

Trumbull cared not for beating the British or freeing the country from the King. He cared only for the sound of coins clinking together. With my own eyes, I saw him steal gunpowder and rum and salt from the barrels we hauled. Hed filch anything he could sell for his own profit.