Ghost Legion, page 11
She can summon no remorse for either Duncan or her husband—she’s a widow, Marty suddenly realizes, and free—not after all they have done to her. But no one, deserter, Tory, or Patriot, deserves this, to be left for crows, wolves, and worms, to be used as a message. Wasn’t this what the Patriots were fighting against?
She kicks Abimelech into a walk, heading toward the canyon, telling herself to look straight ahead, only she cannot stop from turning her head, staring at the swinging body and decapitated head. Duncan’s body turns, its back to her, then spins around. It is no longer Willie Duncan hanging there, but Flint O’Keeffe. Nor is it Seb McKidrict’s ghastly head, but Flint O’Keeffe’s. His eyes open, his mouth opens, and Marty screams herself awake.
* * * * *
She let herself drop onto the quilt.
It had been like that back among the crab apples and meadow. They had hanged the dying Willie Duncan, and cut off Seb’s head, putting it on a post near the swinging body. Someone had written a note in blood as a forewarning. The dream bothered her almost as much as had the sight of those depredations. Flint O’Keeffe had ordered Duncan’s execution, so what did the nightmare mean? She tried not to dwell upon it.
Closing her eyes, Marty tried to sleep, knowing she could not.
* * * * *
“Fresh beef,” Ryan Folson said with a grin. “Well, fresh enough, compliments of the McDowell brothers.” Water poured off his hat brim as he handed Marty the plate. Rainwater also covered the barely browned strips of beef, as well as a water-logged piece of cornbread.
Sitting up, Marty picked at the food.
“Want me to take a look at your bandage?” Folson asked.
“No!” she snapped, then forced a smile, muttered an apology, and speared a piece of meat.
“Tempers flaring all over camp.” Folson pointed to his black eye. “Even Edisto took a swing at me this morn. Rain, cold, all that marching, all that drilling. Builds up on a man’s nerves. How do you feel?”
“Better,” she said. “I don’t remember much after getting shot.” Actually, what she did remember, she wanted to forget. “What has been going on?”
Folson laughed. “Everything.” He did his best to fill her in. The divided forces had converged on each other as planned, meeting up before they made Quaker Meadows. The McDowell brothers had driven cattle out of the mountains to be slaughtered, even helped tear down their own fence rails to fuel fires. While Marty had been slumped over in the saddle, more volunteers had joined the growing army. Benjamin Cleveland, a Virginian, had arrived from Wilkes County. A short time later, Major Joseph Winston showed up with his militia from Surry County.
All this had happened before Marty and the others rejoined the force. Now, the rain had stopped them.
“Sixteen miles from Gilbert Town,” Folson said. “Never seen such an army, McKidrict. Why, we must have near fifteen hundred souls, wetter than trout. Only sixteen miles from stomping them Tories, and, instead of killing the lot of them, we’re practically drowning. Raining so hard, a body cannot even see Pilot Mountain from here. That’s why I volunteered to bring you some grub.” He pointed at the ceiling, leaking in a few places, but at least not over Marty’s bed, or Folson’s chair.
“Where’s Flin . . . where’s Lieutenant O’Keeffe?
“Big parley going on with the officers. I figured they would have tossed you out, to keep them high-and-mighty boys dry, but it was Colonel Shelby . . . Shelby, that pious son-of- . . . well, cannot curse the man now. Shelby, he insisted that you rest. You’re a hero, McKidrict, after killing your brother, the traitor, like you did.”
Her appetite vanished, and she set the plate aside. She didn’t feel like any hero. Nor had she killed Seb, not really. The big fool had slipped or tripped and cracked open his skull. She tried not to picture him dead, just a few feet from her, but then the vision reappeared: a decapitated head stuck on a bloody post, the eyes opening, the facial features changing into those of Flint O’Keeffe.
She shot out of bed, clutching her side, spilling soggy beef and cornbread onto the floor. She lunged toward the door, but the cabin suddenly started spinning, and she almost toppled onto the porch, would have, if Ryan Folson had not grabbed her arm and pulled her upright.
“By Jupiter, what are you doing, McKidrict?” he said. “Best rest. You’re pale as a ghost.”
She blinked, recalling the sound of the crying child. “Whose cabin is this?” The question suddenly struck her.
“Belonged to some family of Tories,” Folson answered with a sneer. “Colonel Sevier, he confiscated it, kicked the woman and her brood out. Four little Tories and their King-loving mama.” He spit.
“Where are they?”
“In the barn, I suspect. If they haven’t tried to swim their way to Gilbert Town by now.”
Marty spied the Deckard rifle and her traps in the corner. She freed herself from Folson’s grasp and gathered her belongings, pulled her hat on her head, cradled the long rifle in her arms.
“Where are you going?” Folson called out.
“To the barn,” she answered.
* * * * *
“Noble,” Flint O’Keeffe told her.
The rain had slackened to a fading drizzle, but water had turned the farmland into a pond, flooded the banks of the creek. In the barn stall, Marty stopped brushing Abimelech.
“Sending a mother and four children back to their home in a rainstorm is not noble,” she said.
His gaze fell to the muddy straw. “I suspect it is not.” She could just barely hear him.
“Beheading a dead man, even a piece of trash like Seb, and hanging a weakling dying from your rifle ball, that is not what I would call noble, either!” The brush catapulted out of her hands, barely missing O’Keeffe’s bowed head, and splashed in a puddle of water just outside the barn door. Marty hadn’t meant to shout at him, hadn’t meant to throw the brush at him. It had just happened. Still, she did not feel ashamed. Her side burned, but she ignored the pain. Turning savagely, she let out an oath, balled her fist tightly, and slammed the barn wall. Skinned knuckles began to bleed. A spasm of pain rocked her back and chest. “Men,” she said contemptuously, and cursed again.
“I did not order the Pinckerts banished to this barn,” O’Keeffe said. “That was Colonel Sevier’s decision, though the woman is a Tory and her husband, most likely, rides with Ferguson. I ordered Duncan hanged . . . to. . . .”
She heard him walking toward her, but did not face him, would not look at him until she could dam those tears welling in her eyes. His hand touched her shoulder, her hair, then dropped away. Still, she stared at the wall.
“I was indentured as a cooper in Williamsburg,” he said. “Thought I wanted to be a preacher, though, so I fled, a criminal, to North Carolina. Most likely I would have died a wanderer, till I met a lovely woman on the Second Broad Brook. But then came this rebellion, and I, as did Caitrín and her family, sided with the Patriots. Zachariah Gibbs and his vermin swept through one night last spring. I was gone. So were Caitrín’s father and brothers, except the youngest, only five. Caitrín and Patrick were tied up and left inside, and the cabin fired. After that, I joined Elijah Clarke, burning and killing. Murder, it was. And then one evening around Ninety-Six, just a week after we had heard of Tarleton’s butchery at the Waxhaws, we raided this Negro’s tavern. And we killed this innkeeper, only a simpleton. Every time I see one of the freedmen riding with us, I see that poor bloke’s face. Left him hanging there, we did, choking to death, left the notes . . . ‘Tories, this is your future’ . . . ‘Tarleton’s Quarter’ . . . and rode away.”
Thunder rolled in the distance.
“That is when I came to realize that I was no better than Zachariah Gibbs. So I crossed the Blue Ridge, found my way to John Sevier, believing he was a true Patriot, a true soldier. And, I guess, I was still searching for that home. . . .”
Now she found the words. Softly Marty said: “Where the meadow is green in the summer, the creek bubbles to life. Not too big, not too small, and the mountains are blue in the distance, not too close, not too far.”
“You remembered?”
She nodded, and turned.
“It’s a place where you respect the land, and the land respects what you offer,” O’Keeffe said. “It’s not an easy place to live, but it’s not impossible to make a living. I can’t think. . . .” Tears streamed down his face. “I saw you lying there, shot, mayhap dying, and I just went mad, Marty,” he blurted out. “A craziness took hold, perhaps Lucifer himself. I became the monster I was riding with Colonel Clarke. I became Satan, Zachariah Gibbs . . . God have mercy on my soul, I ordered those men to hang Willie Duncan, and did nothing to stop Eugene Vance when he sawed off your. . . .”
She pressed her fingers to his lips, stepped closer. “This war won’t last forever,” she said. “I would like to see that place, your home in the meadow, near the creek.”
Blinking away tears, he managed to smile. “I have to find that place, first.”
“I’d like to look,” Marty whispered. “I . . . I can’t think of a place better to see one’s sons and daughters grow.”
He pulled her into his arms, and kissed her. Marty forgot all about the bandaged side. Her lips parted. She felt a hunger, but suddenly she was falling backward, pushed, bouncing off Abimelech’s side.
The horse snorted, stomped its hoofs, and Marty’s eyes shot open.
“McKidrict!”
Colonel John Sevier had stepped into the barn.
Marty patted the old stallion, came out of the stall, and answered. Flint O’Keeffe stood nearby, wiping his mouth, stuttering.
“What is the meaning of this, McKidrict?”
“Sir?” She prayed Sevier hadn’t seen them kissing.
“Sending those Tories to their cabin!”
“I . . . uh. . . .” She stuttered, trying to find an answer. A woman and four children, she wanted to say. A two-year-old girl. I am not one to make war on families. The words, however, stuck in her mouth, her resolve weakening.
“You insolent. . . .” Sevier sounded much like Isaac Shelby and William Campbell. Maybe the rain, the drill, the tortuous march had gotten to the commanders, too.
“It was my order, Colonel,” O’Keeffe said. “I asked McKidrict, if she were feeling better, to go to the barn and send the Pinckerts back to their home.”
Sevier shook his head with contempt. “Generosity for Tories! We could have used that cabin for our meeting, O’Keeffe, instead of that old slaves’ house.”
“Yes, sir, but, well, I thought we are here to fight Major Ferguson and his Tories, not a family of. . . .”
“Enough.” His eyes bore into Marty. “How are you, McKidrict? Can you ride? Shoot?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. We leave for Gilbert Town at dawn. Some say Ferguson has fled, but I am not sure of anything except this . . . we shall find him, and defeat him. One thing came out of our meeting that you both should know. We will no longer act like those backwater fools Ferguson thinks we are, but an army. There have been too many fights among our men, too many disagreements, too much insubordination.” On those last words, Sevier glared at O’Keeffe, then focused again on Marty. “Colonel Campbell is taking command of the entire force, fourteen hundred men. He did not want the command, but Isaac persuaded him to accept. I answer to him. Colonels McDowell, Shelby, Cleveland . . . everyone . . . reports to him.” He marched until he stood inches from Flint O’Keeffe. “And you, Private O’Keeffe, will report to Sergeant Gillespie.”
Chapter Fourteen
The weather had cleared the following morning, although the skies remained dreary, typical for October. After breakfast, the legion of Patriots, 1,400 strong, assembled to hear Colonel Benjamin Cleveland speak.
“The enemy is at hand,” the Virginian said. “Up and at them.” Unlike Shelby or Sevier, Cleveland didn’t march up and down the line, probably because the pale cuss weighed better than 250 pounds, little of that muscle. Folks said that he was an old fire-hunter, that, as a boy, he had spent more time chasing deer or selling furs and pelts than he had in church, but those days were 100 pounds and thirty years behind him. He hated Tories, though, with good reason.
“Most of you men know the sacrifice we Clevelands have paid for liberty. John Murray’s Tories tried to stop us from reaching you, but they failed. They ambushed us near Lovelady’s Shoals on the Catawba, hidden in the cliffs, fired on us while we were fording the river. Like assassins. My brother, Larkin, will limp from that musket ball that found his thigh. But we, gentleman . . .”—he dipped his fingers into a waistcoat pocket and withdrew a flattened lead ball—“we, gentlemen, will send this back to those sons-of-bitches, with better results.”
A few men—Cleveland’s, no doubt—cheered, and the colonel waited for the noise to subside. “Now is the time for every man of you to do his country a priceless service,” he said, “such as shall lead your children to exult in the fact that their fathers were the conquerors of Ferguson.” He took off his hat. “When the pinch comes, I shall be with you. But if any of you shrink from sharing in the battle and glory, you can now have the opportunity of backing out, of leaving. You shall have a few minutes to consider this matter.”
A smiling Major McDowell stepped up next—“to offer his farthing,” Ryan Folson whispered with a sigh. After him, Isaac Shelby took to the stump.
“Speeches,” Edisto Bickley grunted, and pulled down his wolf-skin cap. “Talking never killed no Tory.”
“You want to back out, Barnes?” Eugene Vance asked, snickering.
Teever Barnes answered with a curse.
Marty could feel Flint O’Keeffe’s eyes drilling through her, pleading for her to accept Cleveland’s generosity, step back, go home, while she had the chance. She planted her feet deeper in the mud, gripped her long rifle tighter.
“You who desire to incline Colonel Cleveland’s offer,” Isaac Shelby said, “will, when the word is given, march three steps to the rear, and stand, prior to which a few more minutes will be granted for your consideration.”
Shelby seemed to be staring at her, but Marty just looked ahead. Her side didn’t hurt so much, not today. Instead, she felt Flint O’Keeffe’s pain. John Sevier had shamed him, demoted him, reduced him to the ranks. She should have spoken up. After all, O’Keeffe had not sent the woman and her children back to the cabin. That had been Marty’s doing. Yet words had failed her.
She waited for John Sevier to give a speech. Seemed like every officer wanted to talk this morning, but Sevier just sat on his horse and glared at Flint O’Keeffe.
“Give the word,” Shelby commanded, and Sergeant Gillespie spun on his heel, facing what had been O’Keeffe’s company.
“Any man wishing to accept Colonel Cleveland’s offer, take three steps back, now!”
Marty listened for any movement, any sound. A minute passed, and she had not budged. Nor had Flint O’Keeffe. She heard something then, a rising noise coming from her left, some commotion. No. Applause. The men were applauding. No one had backed out.
“I am heartily glad . . .,” Shelby began.
Whispered Flint O’Keeffe: “You bloody fool. . . .”
* * * * *
Sergeant Gillespie dismissed the company, but not before directing the soldiers to put rations for two meals in their sacks, and be ready to move out in three hours. Before marching down Cane Creek, however, most of the men were given a noggin of whiskey, compliments of Cleveland and McDowell. By the time Sergeant Gillespie’s company rode past, however, the kegs were empty.
As they headed out, Marty glanced back at the farm. The mother stood on the porch, baby in her arms, the other children gathered around her, crying. Not from relief that her tormenters were leaving, though. No, Marty guessed that she feared for her husband’s safety if indeed Mr. Pinckert, whoever he was, rode with Major Ferguson.
Sighing, she turned around, in the corner of her eye catching Edisto Bickley staring at her. She shot him a glare, but he chuckled.
“Want to know my thoughts, McKidrict?” Bickley asked.
“No,” she said.
He told her anyway. “War is hypocrisy.”
She looked away.
“What do that mean, Edisto?” Teever Barnes asked. “Hypocrisy?”
“Means a body says he has these morals, these values, but he don’t, not really. Preaches one thing, but don’t do what he preaches. Kind of like that Moravian we chased into the canebrake that time two summers back. Hypocrisy. That’s what war is. Best you learn that, McKidrict, and accept it.”
“You talk too much,” she said.
Bickley cackled. “First time anyone has ever said that about Edisto Bickley.”
The others, even Sergeant Gillespie, chuckled at that, but Marty refused to smile. Nor did she hear Flint O’Keeffe laughing.
* * * * *
They didn’t make it far that day, making camp along the creek at Marlin’s Knob. Flint O’Keeffe volunteered for guard duty—it had to be awkward for him, Marty thought, once giving orders, now taking them. My fault.
She fell asleep before he returned, relieved by Ryan Folson, and was gone again when Marty woke up.
They moved the next day, early for once, cautiously. No speeches. Just a nervous silence. Everyone expected a battle today. Colonel Campbell sent riders scouting the trail ahead, and once again Flint O’Keeffe volunteered. This time, Marty tried to volunteer herself, but Sergeant Gillespie told her to bide her time, remember that wound in her side. “You shall get your chance to kill more Tories, McKidrict,” he said. “Mayhap before the day is done.”
They forded winding, flooding Cane Creek repeatedly, anxiously, with hardly anyone speaking. Once, Teever Barnes reminded his friends that Lieutenant Larkin Cleveland had been shot in the thigh while fording a stream. Tories might attempt that again. “Cane Creek,” Ryan Folson reminded him, “is not the Catawba River, even like this.”
No fight came, however, even when the army marched into Gilbert Town, although a riot almost broke out when Colonel Campbell ordered the inn off limits to everyone but officers. Teever Barnes swore after unsaddling his horse, cursing his family and Major Patrick Ferguson for running off, like cowards. He had been wanting to fight, to kill, to scourge the earth.
