My Guardian Angel//Lams//Post Laurens Death

Chapter One

John Laurens
My mind keeps floating back to Hamilton's last letter. It hadn't been like the usual ones, not filled when tenderness and definitely not affection. I wonder what I did wrong, and I'd wanted to write back, but I have more soldiers to recruit and I have to make sure the black men riding horses behind me weren't caught and sent back to slavery.

I'm at the head of my slowly forming battalion, all-black. I hear the clacking of horseshoes and I put up a hand, signaling for everyone to stop. They follow my instruction.

When the clacking gets a little louder, I know I'm not imagining it. I get off my horse and whisper to my soldiers to do the same. It might would make it sound like a herd of wild horses on the road instead of horses with riders.

We hide in a large thicket of trees on the side of the road. There aren't many soldiers, about thirty-two in all. I peer through the leaves and try to see if any slave owners are among the white folk.

"Clear!" one of the soldiers from outside the trees shouts in an accented voice.

"We can't be sure," says someone else. "Leave no stone unturned. The British shall not lose today."

Those are redcoats! I realize. What are they doing here? The war is over, they can go home now! Unless they know that and are just ignoring it. They could hit an American fort next! We have to stop them!

"When I say go, go," I whisper. "There's no way we're letting these redcoats past us."

"But there could be fifty of them," says some-one to my right. "We'll be outnumbered."

"Doesn't matter," I reply. "We don't have to win. We just have to drive them far enough away so they don't reach a fort or camp."

Uncertainty is clear in the air, but I'm not really paying attention. My recklessness is what makes me who I am, and it can be a good quality in a battalion leader.

"Go!"

Men spill out of the trees, some atop horses and others on foot. The redcoats are taken by small surprise, probably by the small numbers that we are. I ride out on my stallion and knock three British soldiers off their saddles.

I take out my musket, just in time to shoot someone going after one of my men. But I don't see the bullet that ends up penetrating my coat and flesh. I do see it fly out of the front of my chest and lodge itself in a tree.

I fall away from my horse, my eyes lagging and limbs paralyzed. I can't move, I can't speak without overwhelming pain. It doesn't take long for me to be blanketed in darkness. The last thing I hear is my name.

"LAURENS!"

And that's it.

—————
I blink open my eyes. I'm immediately blinded by bright light streaming in from a window on the wall in front of me. I feel warmth, but I can't recall what warmth is. I don't even know my name.

I know one thing: I'm dead.

And if I'm dead...is this Heaven? Why am I in a room with sunlight coming through drawn curtains?

A crib, a white crib, is the center of attention for me. Inside, a tiny person is asleep. He's cute. His blue eyes remind me of someone, but I don't know who that 'someone' is.

A little, toy-ish type thing hangs above. It has the American flag on it. How do I know that? How do I know anything, this language? A soft singing breaks my concentration and I turn to a man with auburn hair and blue eyes, who's wearing green.

Alexander.

The name shoots through me like a lightning strike, and memories come flooding back.