“A place like this can kill a man’s appetite.” Or his spirit …

An hour later, Will stood to leave in the lowest spirits of his own life. But he would go with one promise. “We’ll get you out of this place, Pa.”

“I’ve labored hard all my days, son, because I believe that good things come to good men. And I give this country six years of service, but when I come home, I was loaded with class-rates and lawsuits, saw my livestock sold for half its value, had to pay when no one would pay me, got hauled off by the sheriff, and—” Whatever else he had to say, he could not go on. He simply stopped and buried his head in his hands.

Will Pike touched his father’s shoulder. “We’ll get you out.”

“I’ll serve my time. Then we’ll pay our bills. That’s how I’ll get out.”

THERE HAD TO be a better way, thought Will.

“There’s better ways,” said North that night at Conkey’s. “Ain’t that so, Dan’l?”

“Better ways. Aye.” Daniel Shays took a swallow of flip.

North elbowed his brother. “Dan’l’s agreed to lead us after all.”

“I’ve set my hand to the plow.” Shays sounded more resigned than committed. “Though it be hard ground. Neighbors don’t make the best soldiers.”

The uprising would soon be called Shays’s Rebellion, but there were many leaders in many towns. And while the rebels would be called “Shaysites” by their enemies, they called themselves Regulators, after farmers in England and the American South who had taken the law into their own hands in earlier days.

That fall, they put sprigs of evergreen in their hats, like the men of the Revolution. They marched behind old soldiers like Shays. And they struck fear into the elected officials in Boston.

The governor implored the legislature to take “vigorous measures to vindicate the insulted dignity of the government.” So they passed the Riot Act, calling for the Regulators to forfeit “their lands, tenements, goods, and chattels,” and to be whipped and imprisoned if convicted.

But in Pelham, men took an oath: “We do each one of us acknowledge ourselves to be enlisted in Shays’s Regiment of Regulators for the suppressing of tyrannical government in Massachusetts.” And men took oaths in the other towns, too.

They closed the courts in Worcester, then in Taunton and Concord. When the governor sent militia to protect the court in Great Barrington, the Regulators handed out evergreen sprigs and brought the militia to their side. In Springfield, hundreds of merchants surrounded the court to protect it from the Regulators, but no one answered the jury summons, so the court did not open.

While North marched, Will stayed at home, did chores, read what law books he could find, practiced the handwriting that a good legal apprentice needed, and continued to seek a better way to free his father. When he heard that Henry Knox, his father’s old commander and the Secretary of War, was visiting Springfield to investigate the uprising, Will saw his better way.

GOIN’ TO SPRINGFIELD are you?” said Shays.

“Goin’ to see Henry Knox,” said Will.

“You’ll be goin’ to the arsenal, then,” said North.

“I reckon.” In truth, Will did not know where in Springfield he would find Henry Knox. He supposed the arsenal would be as good a place as any.

It was early in the day, so the taproom at Conkey’s was mostly empty. Sunlight slanted through the front door and the windows. Old Man Conkey was sweeping up. His wife was stirring a pot on the fire. Mugs of tea sat on the table.

North scratched at the stubble on his chin and looked at Shays. “An honest lad, bringin’ a petition to Henry Knox at the Springfield arsenal …”

Shays looked at Will. “You could do us a service.”

“Service?” said Will.

“If you get onto the grounds of the arsenal, keep your eyes open, watch the guards, where they are, when they change, what—”

“I’m goin’ to help my father.”

Shays leaned closer. “The day may come when the government heeds nothin’ we say. Then we’ll need guns, new guns, guns to arm every farmer who marches. Nothin’ makes a politician concentrate better than the barrel of a gun.”

“And they keep the guns in the arsenal,” said North.

Will sipped his tea and said, “It’s my intention to obey the law.”

“Our intention, too,” said North, “till we’re forced to start shootin’.”

Will looked from one face to the other, from those wide-apart eyes of Daniel Shays to the rock-hard gaze of his brother. This was not something he wanted.