Wright's Tavern, Morning

The British were coming. As dawn's cold fingers clawed the eastern sky, men scurried to their stations, all too aware of the rhythmic crump of that ugly distant drumming. The Threat was inching closer, a scarlet thing with many spikes shimmering in the first sun. The Monster's great insistent heart was felt in dreadful pulsing through Concord's very earth. On skeins of breeze shrill snatches of the British pipes came sighing like the ghosts of those about to die. It would begin soon. The village men all mustered here before their tavern, whose weathered boards they knew by heart. The Thing that was now looming, The Standing Army, must not prevail. Blood banging in their ears, here beneath the sign of Wright, the blacksmith and the baker knew this was the day of days. The hour had come to stand and fight. The danger from the east would soon be here. If life was to be sweet beyond today, if this young promising land was ever to grow straight and strong, if America meant hope at all, if force majeure was wrong, then by this very afternoon the Monster must be stopped. At Emerson's command the village fifes and drums struck up, the skirmishers went out. Today at Concord, men would die. America's mettle would be tried.