Ghost Legion, page 20
“’Tis my brother who stands next to the darky,” another man said. “My brother, a Tory, a man I hate, an enemy I despise . . . but still a brother . . . a brother I love. I beg of you to spare his life. Ferguson has been whipped. Let the bloodshed end . . . tonight.”
Fingering his cross, Ryan Folson bowed his head, and no one moved. The wind turned suddenly cold. Slowly two figures stepped forward, and helped one of the condemned men out of the noose and off the chair. Colonel Lacey and Colonel Cleveland, Marty recognized them in the flickering light. Cleveland, the magistrate, announced a pardon. The Negro came down next, then the last man, his knees buckling, teeth chattering.
“Return the prisoners to the bullpen,” Cleveland said. “All of them. They shall be marched with the others to Hillsborough.”
She didn’t wait to hear the rest. Raindrops began peppering her face as she hurried back to the cabin. She grabbed Flint O’Keeffe’s hand, told him that the hangings were over, that Colonel Cleveland and Colonel Lacey had stopped it, had pardoned the condemned men, that it was over, thanks to him, thanks to Flint O’Keeffe. She squeezed his hand tighter, hoping he would respond, but he didn’t.
Blubbering now, she buried her face in his chest. She told him that she loved him, that he had to get better, that she wanted to find that place of his, that special home, that she wanted to be with him . . . forever. Rain began falling in sheets. Reluctantly Marty stood, wiping her face, and hurriedly crossed the room and closed the door.
O’Keeffe’s breathing was ragged when she returned, his face white, his flesh cold. She held his hand all night, till two hours past dawn, when Sergeant Gillespie came inside, hat in hand, and begged forgiveness for the intrusion but needed to inform her that Colonel Campbell had requested her presence immediately. Gillespie stood uncomfortably, and not because of his rain-soaked clothes.
It was Sunday, October 15, 1780.
Marty bent over, kissed O’Keeffe’s forehead, and folded his hands across his chest. She rose stiffly, looked at him again, and followed Sergeant Gillespie into the cold, wet morning. It didn’t matter. Not now. Not any more.
Lieutenant Flint O’Keeffe had been dead an hour.
Chapter Twenty-Four
That Sunday downpour must have washed away the rebels’ urge to kill. The rain began long before sunrise, not that anyone could see the sun, slacking only twice, then coming down steadily, drearily. Despite the weather, the Ghost Legion broke camp that morning, leaving the Red Chimneys, pressing on urgently to cross the Catawba before the river flooded.
Brodie couldn’t understand these banditti, especially the woman who had intervened, had saved his life. Finally he stopped thinking about them. In spite of the deluge, they traveled better than thirty miles that day—nearly doubling the distance they had traveled the previous week—reaching Quaker Meadows well past sunset.
The militiamen had lost interest in the war, it seemed, but mostly in the prisoners. Maybe they just wanted to go home now. Perhaps they had accomplished their goal. They had crushed Major Ferguson, had killed the Bulldog, annihilated the western flank of Lord Cornwallis’s army. It would take a miracle, Brodie realized, for the British and Loyalists to recover.
It struck him as he wandered into the forest: The war is lost. The Whigs would win. No matter what happened, they would beat England into submission. Cornwallis and Sir Henry Clinton might claim a few more battles, but they would never be able to suppress men like Sevier, Shelby, Campbell, Clarke, men like Sumter, Pickens, and Marion, and all of their followers. A new nation would be formed, partly because of what had happened on King’s Mountain.
Escape proved almost effortless. The mountaineers just didn’t give a whit any more. Several prisoners had gotten away fording the Catawba. Others had disappeared into the woods that evening. At Quaker Meadows, Brodie just got up to relieve himself and kept walking.
Already the mountain men were disbanding. The Whig named Lacey had taken his followers back to South Carolina. Sevier and Shelby planned to trek back across the Blue Ridge. Others were bound for Virginia. A few remained behind to escort the prisoners to Hillsborough, but the number of prisoners kept shrinking. Brodie would not be surprised if only a handful remained for exchange by the time they reached the next bullpen.
Stuart Brodie would not be among them.
He had not seen the woman since the night at the hanging tree. Brodie wondered about her. He wondered about the lieutenant he had shot. Word was that the officer had died, had been buried back at the Red Chimneys. A pity, Brodie thought. His feelings surprised him. What now?
Rain had not only cleansed the Whigs of their blood lust. Brodie no longer felt he had to avenge Ezekiel. Maybe he had already done that, fighting at King’s Mountain and Musgrove’s Mill. He had done all anyone could ask, yet he was a Loyalist, and a far-sighted man. After the final battle of this brutal insurrection, not all Patriots would be forgiving as the woman at the Red Chimneys oak. Loyalists would be abused. Some, like Cunningham, deserved such scurrility, but others. . . .
He could try to find Lord Cornwallis, fight on, but what was the point?
No, Brodie wanted to put all of this behind him, so he turned westward. Across the Cumberland Gap, he thought, back into Kentucky. A man could start over there, even a Loyalist, leave his past behind him in the colonies, find a new beginning, a new country, a new hope. Should England somehow win this war, he could always return to the Carolinas, but he doubted it.
Moving with confidence despite his aching joints, Brodie quickened his pace.
Yes, he told himself, Kentucky.
Chapter Twenty-Five
“Mayhap Colonel Sevier finds your behavior amusing,” Colonel Campbell said stiffly, “but I see no mirth whatsoever. You should be ashamed of yourself, acting like a termagant. I will pray for your soul, McKidrict, if that truly be your name, but I will not allow your presence in our army one more day.”
Marty had expected this, so she stood silently in the cabin, listening more to the rain pelting the roof than the Virginian’s tirade. The tall commander shook with rage, but could not look Marty in her eyes.
“Colonel Sevier,” Campbell continued, “says he will settle accounts with Madam Lewallen.”
Bewildered, Marty cleared her throat. “Madam Lewallen?” she asked.
Thunder rolled, and Campbell’s eyes narrowed. He did not like the interruption. “The Cherokee woman at Sycamore Shoals who gave you the old stallion you rode. Rode like a man! Shameless.” He looked away. “I can provide you an escort to Gilbert Town. ’Tis the Christian thing to do. That is all I shall do.”
“I sha’n’t be going to Gilbert Town,” she said firmly, and held his eye when he glared at her. Again, he looked away before dismissing her.
“Then take your horse and be gone.”
She walked into the rain, back into the cabin. She would leave when she was ready, after they had buried Flint O’Keeffe. Marty picked the spot, a nice place, she thought, and far enough away from the Gallows Oak. Colonel Lacey said a few words over the muddy grave, but Marty didn’t pay attention. Lacey even offered his condolences before departing, the only soldier who dared speak to her. Folson, Barnes, Vance, and others, even Sergeant Gillespie, avoided her—John Sevier did not even attend the funeral—treated her as if she were some leper. Marty preferred it that way.
The army marched out in the rain, prisoners still carrying captured firelocks. Ghost Legion, Ferguson had called the force of mountaineers, and Sevier and Shelby had adopted that name. Fitting, too. Ghost Legion. A legion of ghosts. Edisto Bickley—James Williams—William Chronicle—many she didn’t know, or barely knew—and Flint O’Keeffe. Marty didn’t watch. She just stood at the grave until the rain slackened.
“Good bye, Flint,” she said at last.
Back in the cabin, she exchanged the drenched pretty clothes for her gamy frock and breeches. She thought about waiting out the storm, but that wouldn’t do. Marty wanted to put as much distance between the Red Chimneys and her as she could. So she tossed a blanket over her shoulders and went outside. Abimelech waited patiently.
Rifle in hand, Marty found the stirrup, pulled herself into the saddle, and kicked the old stallion into a trot. She gave Abimelech plenty of rein, keeping him pointed westward, toward the silhouette of the mountains. And then?
Marty had no place to go, no home, not really. She didn’t really know where she was bound, and yet, oddly enough, she did. The thought comforted her. When she closed her eyes, she could picture it, just the way Flint O’Keeffe had described it. All she had to do was find it.
And she would find that place, the one Flint O’Keeffe had dreamed of. His words echoed through her mind, clearly, so alive, as she loped through the fallen leaves.
There’s a place 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. It’s a place where you respect the land, and the land respects what you offer. It’s not an easy place to live, but it’s not impossible to make a living. I can’t think of a place better to see one’s sons and daughters grow.
THE END
Author’s Note
The Battle of King’s Mountain (or Kings Mountain, depending on your preference) proved to be the turning point of the American Revolution, followed shortly by the decisive American victory at nearby Cowpens and a costly British victory at Guilford Courthouse, North Carolina, that sent Cornwallis’s blooded army to Yorktown, Virginia, and George Washington and the Continentals to destiny.
For research help, I owe thanks to the staffs at Kings Mountain National Military Park near Blacksburg, South Carolina, Cowpens National Battlefield near Chesnee, South Carolina, Sycamore Shoals State Historic Area in Elizabethton, Tennessee, the Overmountain Victory Trail Association, and the late Frank Handal.
Father of my best friend at the University of South Carolina, Frank Handal was Brooklyn-born, but we native Sandlappers never considered him some carpetbagger. After all, as owner and president of Sandlapper Publishing Company in Orangeburg during the late 1970s and ’80s, Mr. Handal helped keep interest in South Carolina’s Revolutionary War history alive by publishing many of Robert D. Bass’s histories, including Ninety-Six: The Struggle for the South Carolina Back Country (1978). That book began fueling my desire to write a novel about King’s Mountain and the over-mountain men.
Surprisingly the definitive historical account of the Battle of King’s Mountain remains Lyman C. Draper’s 1881 book, King’s Mountain and Its Heroes: History of the Battle of King’s Mountain, October 7th, 1780, and the Events Which Led To It, reprinted in 1991 by The Overmountain Press. I plan on coercing fellow South Carolinian Walter Edgar, author of South Carolina: A History and Partisans & Redcoats: The Southern Conflict That Turned the Tide of the American Revolution, to tackle this subject and update Draper’s monumental narrative.
In addition to the works by Bass, Draper, and Edgar, other sources—of a varying range of information and credibility—for this novel include: One Heroic Hour at King’s Mountain by Pat Alderman (The Overmountain Press, 1990); The Road to Guilford Courthouse: The American Revolution in the Carolinas by John Buchanan (John Wiley & Sons, 1997); King’s Mountain: The Defeat of the Loyalists, October 7, 1780 by J. David Dameron (Da Capo Press, 2003); South Carolina and the American Revolution: A Battlefield History by John W. Gordon (University of South Carolina Press, 2003); Southern Campaigns of the American Revolution by Dan L. Morrill (The Nautical & Aviation Publishing Company of America, 1993); A Battlefield Atlas of the American Revolution by Craig L. Symonds (The Nautical & Aviation Publishing Company of America, 1986); and the 1991 National Park Service publication With Fire and Sword: The Battle of Kings Mountain 1780 by Wilma Dykeman. An excellent language source was Colonial American English by Richard M. Lederer, Jr. (Verbatim, 1985).
Martha Anne McKidrict, Flint O’Keeffe, Stuart Brodie, and Saul Pinckert are fictional characters, but many others, including Patrick Ferguson, John Sevier, Edward Lacey, and Isaac Shelby, are historical figures who fought at King’s Mountain. James Crawford and Samuel Chambers did desert the “Ghost Legion” to warn Ferguson, but the flight, capture, and execution of the fictitious Seb McKidrict and Willie Duncan are my own inventions. Also, Virginia Sal and Virginia Paul, according to legend, remained with Loyalist forces (and may have been Ferguson’s mistresses). Sal was killed during the battle, and Paul was probably sent to Charlotte.
The trial of prisoners at the Red Chimneys also is true to history. Nine Tories were executed, then left hanging from the oak’s limbs, before the others were pardoned. The tree earned the name The Gallows Oak after the incident.
In 1815, Dr. William McLean, a former Patriot, led an effort to clean up the battlefield and re-inter the dead, many of whom had been uprooted and eaten by animals. It’s even said that, after the war, hunters often trekked to King’s Mountain, where wolves were abundant and fat. Approximately 55,000 people attended an anniversary celebration at the battlefield in 1855, and twenty-five years later a monument was unveiled on the small mountain top in observance of the battle’s centennial anniversary. In 1931, Kings Mountain National Military Park was established.
As far as the principal historical figures depicted in this novel are concerned, Dr. Uzal Johnson returned to New Jersey and resumed his medical practice until dying in 1826 at age seventy. John Sevier and Isaac Shelby became powerful government figures, not to mention living legends. Sevier and Shelby were the first governors of Tennessee and Kentucky, respectively. Shelby died in 1826; Sevier, in 1851. While serving at Yorktown in 1781, William Campbell suffered an apparent heart attack, only a couple of months before the British surrender, and died at age thirty-six. Edward Lacey moved to Tennessee and later Kentucky after the war, but at age 71 on March 13, 1813, he was thrown from his horse into Deer Creek and drowned. Legend has it that a Gypsy told Lacey’s fortune when he was a boy: he would survive many battles but would later drown.
Many Loyalists, including Captain Abraham DePeyster, fled to Nova Scotia after the war. DePeyster died in 1799. Bloody Bill Cunningham, who is believed to have died in 1787, faded from history—but not before executing more than a dozen Patriot prisoners in retaliation for King’s Mountain after a skirmish at Haye’s Station, South Carolina, in November 1781. Likewise, ruthless Tory leader Zachariah Gibbs also disappeared into obscurity.
And Patrick Ferguson? His body remains buried at King’s Mountain, not far from where he was killed in a last-ditch effort to break the Patriot resistance in the Carolina Backcountry.
Johnny D. Boggs
Santa Fé, New Mexico
About the Author
Johnny D. Boggs has worked cattle, shot rapids in a canoe, hiked across mountains and deserts, traipsed around ghost towns, and spent hours poring over microfilm in library archives—all in the name of finding a good story. He’s also one of the few Western writers to have won both the Spur Award from Western Writers of America (for his short story, “A Piano at Dead Man’s Crossing,” in 2002) and the Western Heritage Wrangler Award from the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum (for his novel, Spark on the Prairie: The Trial of the Kiowa Chiefs, in 2004). Another novel, Ten and Me, was a Spur finalist in 2000. A native of South Carolina, Boggs spent almost fifteen years in Texas as a journalist at the Dallas Times Herald and Fort Worth Star-Telegram before moving to New Mexico in 1998 to concentrate full time on his novels. Author of twenty-seven published short stories, he has also written for more than fifty newspapers and magazines, and is a frequent contributor to Boys’ Life, New Mexico Magazine, Persimmon Hill, and True West. His Western novels cover a wide range of topics. The Lonesome Chisholm Trail is an authentic cattle-drive story, while Lonely Trumpet is an historical novel about the first black graduate of West Point. The Despoilers and Ghost Legion are set in the Carolina backcountry during the American Revolution. The Big Fifty chronicles the slaughter of buffalo on the southern plains in the 1870s, while East of the Border is a comedy about the theatrical offerings of Buffalo Bill Cody, Wild Bill Hickok, and Texas Jack Omohundro, and Camp Ford tells about a Civil War baseball game between Union prisoners of war and Confederate guards. “Boggs’s narrative voice captures the old-fashioned style of the past,” Publishers Weekly said, and Booklist called him “among the best Western writers at work today.” Boggs lives with his wife Lisa and son Jack in Santa Fé. His website is www.johnnydboggs.com.
Johnny D. Boggs, Ghost Legion
