Brave Enemies Read Online Free Page A

patience and heard it clatter loose and drop to the steps and ground. I’d been holding my breath till I almost smothered.
    The door of the crib creaked as I pushed it open. What was I going to do now that I was out? Was I going to march back into the house and announce to Mr. Griffin I was free? Was I going to take a piece of stove wood and hit him on the side of the head? Or should I run away into the woods and never come back? A little farther west were the mountains and the Cherokee Indians. But there were also bears and panthers and wolves in the mountains. I stepped out on the ground wet with sweat and shivered, trying to think what to do.
    Then I heard horses’ hooves and voices. It sounded like there were lots of horses. And I saw lanterns.
    A jolt of scare shot through my bones, for I knew these were either outlaws or rebels, gangs of men that had fought in the militia or that hated loyalists and rode in the night and burned the houses of Tories, those still loyal to the Crown. Mr. Griffin was known to be a loyalist, but so far they’d left him alone. He was too cowardly to argue his views and sympathies in public once the royal soldiers left the district.
    â€œHalt!” somebody yelled, and all the horses stopped in front of our house. Someone with a lantern got down and walked to the front door. I kept to the shadows, edging behind the crib.
    The man with the lantern knocked on the front door, and I saw another man with a lantern coming right toward me. Another with a musket followed him and I thought they must see me in the dark. But they walked right by me to the back of the house.
    â€œWe’ll rub the polecat’s nose in his own shite,” one said. It was Mr. Pritchard, the miller from over on Bethel Creek. I cringed behind the crib.
    Mama opened the front door. She had a shawl wrapped around her shoulders, and she held a candle.
    â€œMr. Griffin, we have aught with you,” the man at the front door called. I don’t know what Mama answered, but the man yelled again, through the door, “Mr. Griffin, our business is with you.”
    The man with the lantern pushed Mama aside and started into the house. But there was a yell from the back of the house. I held my breath, and Mama ran out into the front yard. Mr. Pritchard and the other man, who I saw was Lonnie Sims from Fair Meadow, came around the house leading Mr. Griffin between them. Mr. Griffin had blood on his eye and cheek. I reckon they had caught him as he tried to run out the back door.
    â€œYou have seized an innocent man,” Mr. Griffin said. There were tears in his eyes.
    Mama ran up to Mr. Pritchard and pulled at his elbow. “Mr. Griffin is a poor man, staying on his own property,” she said. “He’s done nothing for the Crown.”
    â€œSurely you have the wrong man,” Mr. Griffin said, his voice trembling so badly it was scratchy.
    Mr. Pritchard took a letter out of his pocket and held it in the lantern light. “He’s only wrote to the Tories a list of the militia members in the district,” he said.
    Mama gasped and grabbed at the letter, but Mr. Pritchard slid it back into his pocket.
    They tore Mr. Griffin’s shirt off, and his skin looked white as chalk in the lantern light.
    â€œSurely you have the wrong fellow,” Mr. Griffin said, but a man with a musket hit him across the face with the stock and Mr. Griffin sank to his knees.
    There was a rail in front of the porch for hitching horses, and they tied Mr. Griffin over the rail with his hands spread wide and his backside up in the air. Mr. Pritchard took a stick like a broom handle from his saddle and hit Mr. Griffin across the buttocks and back. He hit him until the skin broke in several places. “This is what we will do to the king whenwe catch him,” Mr. Pritchard said. “And we’ll do it to Tarleton when we catch him too.”
    â€œNo!” Mama screamed, but somebody grabbed her and