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rub away the pain, then slid down to his eyes and wiped away his tears.

    A rustling from the charred grass and timber spun him completely around. He quickly and loudly unsheathed the sword in response and gazed around the wreckage for movement. Slowly shifting his feet forward through the broken vestiges of his home an eternity passed until something poked itself free just ahead of him. Even in the dark, with the shadow cast from the fires, Mural could see something red. His arms were taut with fear; his muscles yearned to strike at that evil color. The color of the men that burned his house. The color the man he shot bled.
    Without a thought of caution or an inkling of mercy, Mural flipped the sword and stabbed the blade into the debris with all his force. The sword sunk down and stuck into the ground. A flash of the memory of the soldier's malevolent faces made him twist the sword back and forth. Mural had to protect what was left of his family and the redcoats had already tried to take their lives once, it wouldn't happen again. A muffled sound Mural wanted to believe was a cry of pain came from the wreckage beneath his sword, and then died quickly, sounding more like an animal than a person to him. But he wouldn't know.

    "The redcoats are more animal than man," Mural muttered.

    A small fire still flickered nearby. Mural walked to it and lifted a burning board from the fire and tossed it directly atop where he had stabbed with the sword. He kicked boards on top of the flame, hoping it would burn away the vermin. He watched the flames eat the rubble and, without him knowing it, gazed angrily at the last vestiges of his childhood burn away. Content with his decisions and his makeshift revenge, Mural ran back to the bonfire.

    "Listen, Nathaniel," Mural announced, lost in a plan formulating as he spoke, "We can go round up a chicken at Old Man Henry's coop and then bring it back here to roast. Then at daybreak we head to Boston. To join the Continentals and kill all those lying bastard redcoats."

    Caught up in his excitement, Mural forgot that Nathaniel was already curled up asleep by the fire mumbling, "Mother...come back..."

    Mural patted his brother's head, "Dream they return, Nathaniel. Dream and hope."

    Mural calmed down yet didn't want to sheath the sword; he enjoyed seeing the red stained blade. Such an evil color yet so persuasive. He would have to coax to be on this side from now on.

    Chapter 5

    Mural rose with the dawn. He stretched out with the first rays of sunlight and walked to the dead house again. Kicking around the grass and ashen boundary of their scorched house, trying to make sense of what he knew was goodbye, his foot discovered yet another metal object. It was smaller than the sword he found and clutched and he didn't recognize it at first. He pushed around and pried it from the dirt and saw it was their mother's wedding band. It gleamed between his ashen fingertips. Mural stared at it and gently rubbed it clean.

    "This is for Nathaniel," he said and walked back to wake him.

    Nathaniel cried most of the morning after he received the ring. He stared at its shimmer and didn't, couldn't, break eye contact for everything in the world. It was the horrible evidence of their mother's fate and he couldn't accept it. Mural let him cry until the sun had gone beyond the horizon, but had to get them moving. He didn't have much trouble getting Nathaniel to his feet and making him travel away from their home of old, their home of childhood. Nathaniel was lost in a mournful trance. They walked in silence until Nathaniel, still gazing at the ring, complained of ill health halfway to the family printing press in Boston.

    "What is the matter with you?"

    "I don't feel well, Mural. I hurt."

    "Was it the chicken? Did I not cook it right?" Mural asked.

    "I had a dream. It was my dream Mural. Mother came to me in a dream last night. I didn't know who she was at first. I couldn't see her, but it felt just like her.