Unless …

The cannoneers were reloading, lowering their barrels, raising their linstocks….

Another flash ignited the fading light, another blast hammered the attackers, and hundreds of pieces of grapeshot whizzed and sizzled and seared into the flesh of frightened men. A great shout of shock and pain went up from the head of the column, which seemed to stop as if it had run into an invisible wall.

A man beside North Pike was struck in the forehead with a piece of shot the size of—yes—a Concord grape. He staggered, looked at North with wide, unseeing eyes, and fell over dead.

That did it.

If the Regulators had expected that the militia would not fire, would possibly run, and would probably come over to their side, they were wrong.

In an instant, those Hampshire County farmers became the rioters that the Boston moneychangers had always considered them to be. But it was a riot of retreat. They did not stop running until midnight. By then, they had run all the way back to Pelham.

THE NEXT MORNING, Will Pike put on his best deerskin breeches and a green velvet coat that his father had worn on his wedding day. He bade farewell to Gefahlz and his wife and their three plump children, and following Gefahlz’s directions, he took himself from the North End to Long Wharf, where Boston’s commerce made its way into the world. He looked out to sea, past the schooners and East Indiamen, and his heart filled with a grand sense of possibility.

Then he turned and looked up State Street, past the wagons, the horses, the crowds going about the business of the city, toward the building at the head of the street: the Massachusetts State House, former government house of the British Empire, the place where Will would learn his future. He took a deep breath and started walking.

TWO WEEKS LATER, with the snow deep and the cold air shimmering in the winter sunlight, North Pike and Daniel Shays and a few others crossed the Massachusetts border into Vermont. The remains of their army had been routed, the rebellion was over, and the leaders were now fugitives under sentence of death.

But Vermont was its own little republic. They would be as safe in Vermont as if they had crossed into Canada … for the time being.

So they went in snowshoes and heavy blanket coats across the frozen landscape.

But toward evening, North Pike decided to split from the others. He told Shays that he had had his fill of uprising. He would take his chances on his own.

He knew a New Hampshire man who cut logs and floated them down the Connecticut each spring. And he knew a woman in the logging camp, too, a woman with breasts big enough to warm both sides of a man’s face at once.

So he turned for the river.

ON THE SAME afternoon, Will Pike sat in a coach bouncing over the frozen ruts on the Middle Post Road. His toes and the tip of his nose were numb with cold, but he and the man beside him shared a bearskin lap blanket that kept them both passably warm.

Some masters would have kept the bearskin for themselves and let the apprentice freeze, but Rufus King had treated Will like a colleague rather than an apprentice.

King had graduated first in his class at Harvard, had established himself as one of Boston’s brightest lawyers, and at thirty-three had taken a seat in the Confederation Congress. He dressed well, even for travel, in a suit the color of port wine. And he was considered a handsome man, though to Will his sharp features bespoke sharp intelligence. His aquiline nose seemed like an exclamation mark whenever he made a point, and every point he made was concise.

He cocked an eyebrow at Will and said, “Eight hours out of Boston, and still you’ve not read a page of contract law?”

“It’s just that there’s so much to see, sir.”

King glanced out the window. “Fields and forests and small crossroads towns. Stare at things worth staring at, like your law books.”

“Yes, sir.” Will began to dig into the carpet bag at his feet. He had resolved from the start that he would never disappoint Rufus King, because King had given him an opportunity to fulfill his dreams, to soar like one of those Hampshire County hawks.

Then King put a hand on his arm. “We’ll be stopping soon. Enjoy the rest of the ride. Read tonight.”

“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”

“You did well in Boston. We move to a larger stage at Congress in New York, and come spring, the convention in Philadelphia, which I expect will work with great urgency, considering the scare that your brother and the Regulators have put into our governments, north and south.”

“Do you believe we need a stronger central government, sir?”

“Without it, we’re doomed. So work hard, for the better you do, the more I’ll ask of you.”

“Yes, sir. It’s what I hope, sir. Thank you, sir.”

“Don’t thank me. Thank Henry Knox.