Ghost Legion, page 5
Mary McKeehan Patton wasn’t the only person helping out the militias of Colonel Sevier and Colonel Shelby, who Marty had yet to meet. A settler named Baptist McNabb and another man named Mathew Talbot had brought ground corn and grain from their grist mills, donating wagonloads so the volunteer soldiers could make bread during the upcoming march over the mountains. Over around Bumpass Cove on the Nolichucky River, lead had been mined for rifle balls by a handful of John Sevier’s neighbors. Practically any farmer with an extra cow or horse—and, in some cases, the farmer’s only cow or horse—had been donated to the cause of liberty. Perhaps, Marty thought, she should have paid more attention to the talk of revolution, tried to understand what exactly was going on in the low country and other colonies, and why it was happening. Perhaps the colonists needed to separate from England. Certainly everyone at Sycamore Shoals thought they were in the right.
“What in the name of Jupiter are you doing here?” Mrs. Patton finally said.
“Ma’am?”
She spit. “Does your husband know what you’re up to, ma’am? ”
Marty dropped the stir stick, felt the color draining from her face. “I don’t know. . . .”
“I am no fool. I be a woman, and a mother, a mother of sons and daughters. More than you have fingers on your hands, and that’s only them that lived. Mayhap these men don’t see through your hunting frock, but I do. And they will, too, soon enough.”
“I am. . . .”
“Where do you think you will answer nature’s call, McKidrict? It’s a long march to Gilbert Town. Some of these men are decent, but some. . . .” She spit again. “Now, are you doing this fool errand to please your man?”
“Not hardly.” This time it was Marty who spit.
Mrs. Patton grinned widely. “To get away from him, then?”
No answer. Marty felt weak, from the heat, the stink, the interrogation, her own stupidity. How did she think she could get away with such deception? She couldn’t even fool this backwater matron.
When Mrs. Patton stood, though, Marty shot to her feet. “Please!” Desperation accented her voice.
“Keep your voice down,” Mrs. Patton snapped. “And don’t get to crying. That would give you away, sure enough.” Her head shook as she chuckled. “You have backbone, sister. Or should I say something indelicate? Wisht I had your gumption.”
The woman walked closer and used her forefinger to hook out the mass of finely ground tobacco between her gums. Brown flakes stuck between her nearly rotten teeth. “I’ve heard of Seb McKidrict,” Mrs. Patton said. “Never knowed him to have a brother. Not one that would claim him, no how. Best be careful, Marty McKidrict. I shall give you a pouch of snuff. Don’t swallow the juice or you’ll be sicker than a dog, but it might help you pass muster. At least, no man will want to kiss you. Take a pinch and put it between your gums. Curb hunger, too. Look everyone in the eye, and don’t lower your voice. That will betray yourself. You talk raspy enough, like a saw, and there’s enough dirt on your face. Ain’t got much to your chest.” Mrs. Patton snorted. “That means you ain’t nursed no dozen kids.”
Actually Marty had wrapped her breasts tightly with strips of linen. It wasn’t exactly comfortable, but it did the job.
“Watch the way you walk,” Mrs. Patton continued, “and keep them slender hands in your pockets. Don’t wet your britches, neither. Now, stir that bloody pot. I shall be back directly, Mister McKidrict.”
Chapter Six
For the past two weeks, Stuart Brodie had forced down the bile rising in his throat. He rode along the Carolina border with ten of Major Ferguson’s militia, and at least three score Loyalists commanded by a swarthy, coarse creature called Bloody Bill Cunningham.
At first, Brodie thought he would like, or at least respect, Cunningham. Indeed, he guessed the reason Major Ferguson sent him to patrol the country for rebels with Cunningham was because of a common bond between the two men. In 1778, a band of partisan marauders had captured Cunningham’s younger brother, a cripple and epileptic, and murdered the poor lad. Like Brodie, Cunningham’s home had been burned, and he and most of the men that rode with him had been driven out of the Ninety-Six district. Many had spent the past two years living in Florida, hiding, waiting for their chance to retaliate. Now that the British occupied South Carolina, they had returned, riding for the King, killing anyone who opposed them, anyone they branded a rebel.
Cunningham called himself a captain, and his men legionnaires, but Brodie labeled every sorry one of them a brigand. Thieves and cold-blooded killers comprised Cunningham’s legion. He hated riding with them, but Major Ferguson had ordered it, and he would never betray the Bulldog.
“‘For they sow the wind,’” Brodie told himself, “‘and they shall reap the whirlwind.’”
“What’s that you say, darky?”
He glanced at the pipe-smoking hydra standing beside him, a filthy, red-bearded leviathan with fewer teeth than he had brains. They stood outside a farm on the Pacolet River, holding mounts while Cunningham, mounted on a black stallion, watched like some despot as his men searched the cabin, barn, and corncribs. A woman stood in front of Cunningham, makeshift bayonets at her throat, ringing her hands and crying out her loyalty to King George III.
Tethered to a post near the well, a dog barked loudly, digging the ground with its claws, straining against the rawhide collar until it almost choked.
“It’s from the Old Testament,” Brodie made himself answer, although he loathed talking to this man. “The Book of Hosea.”
The brute, named Pinckert, removed his pipe, spit, and eyed Brodie quizzically. “Aye, mayhap I have misjudged ye. Ye be a preacher. The darky preacher.” With a chuckle, he returned the pipe to his mouth. When two boys tumbled out of the barn, prodded by broken sabers carried by four of Cunningham’s men, Pinckert spoke again. “Likely ye will have opportunity to preach a funeral before noon.”
The woman wailed again, tried to stand, but one of the guards brought a bayonet closer until blood trickled down her throat.
“They’re just boys!” she pleaded.
“As was my brother, wench,” Cunningham replied.
The dog barked louder.
One of Cunningham’s lieutenants spoke: “Molten pewter was in a pot, Captain. Molds in the hay where we found these two traitors.”
“For hunting!” the mother cried. “For meat.”
Cunningham dismounted, handing the reins to the lieutenant, and ordered the woman’s two sons, the oldest maybe fourteen, brought forward.
For several minutes, Cunningham stared, right fist tightly gripping the hilt of his broad sword, the only sound coming from the angry dog, which drowned out the woman’s sobs.
“Empty your pockets,” Cunningham ordered the youngest boy.
The boy didn’t move until one of the men struck the back of his head with the flat of a sword. Timidly he turned the pockets of his trousers inside out, spilling musket balls over the ground.
“For hunting!” the woman begged.
“Aye,” Cunningham said. “Hunting men loyal to His Majesty.”
The youngest boy began sobbing, but the other just stood there, unblinking eyes glaring at the Loyalists.
“Where is your father?” Cunningham asked the second boy. “With that damned gamecock, Sumter? Answer me!”
“He’s dead!” the mother screamed.
“Indeed.” Cunningham snorted. “Then these two violent rebels will join him in Hades.”
“Please!” The mother’s voice broke, and the dog stopped barking, began wailing, as if it knew what was about to happen.
“What say you?” Cunningham asked the first child, who fell to his knees, amid the freshly molded musket balls, blubbering.
The butcher enjoyed this, Brodie thought, as the bitterness rose once more. You shouldn’t feel any sympathy for these rebels, he told himself. Remember Ezekiel. These two children might have molded the balls used by those traitors who burned our inn, who left Ezekiel hanging from that tree.
“And you?” Cunningham addressed the second boy. “Will you admit to God before you die that you are a rebel hound?”
The boy spit on Cunningham’s boots. “Aye,” he said, his voice trembling. “My father is a Patriot. He rides with Elijah Clarke. I only regret that what we made will not kill you. My uncles are Patriots. My brother is a Patriot. My dog is a Patriot. And you, Bloody Bill, are nothing but a Tory swine and bloody coward.”
Cunningham laughed as he drew his sword, and Brodie dropped his gaze. A thunk silenced the mother’s piercing shriek, and Brodie wished that dog would start barking again, instead of its pitiful howls, anything that would keep him from hearing the slashing and chopping of Cunningham’s sword.
“Burn this nest of sedition!” Cunningham bellowed as he mounted the stallion. “Take what you like. And kill that rebel dog, too.”
“What of the woman?” the lieutenant asked.
“Leave her to bury her rebel family when she wakes!”
* * * * *
Bloody Bill Cunningham cut a wide swath, and his legion grew.
He conscripted men into service for the King, farmers who feared that, if they did not join him, they would be hanged as rebels. They rested briefly at Fairforest, then crossed the Pacolet and rode hard into North Carolina.
Brodie hoped they would continue north, over the Broad River and on to Gilbert Town, where he would be relieved of having to ride with this lot, but instead Cunningham turned the command eastward, toward Charlotte Town, their progress slowed by unseasonal warm temperatures but mostly by the carts and saddlebags filled with plunder taken from those they had terrified or murdered.
Past Buffalo Creek, they dipped south again, cutting through the forest and hills, back across the border.
“What be that mountain over yonder, Preacher Darky?” Pinckert asked.
Brodie followed Pinckert’s outstretched arm and found the ridge that aroused the ruffian’s curiosity. Mountain? Brodie tried not to scoff. He had been over the Cumberland, had seen the Blue Ridge, had trapped and traded in Cherokee country. He wouldn’t even label what he saw much more than a hill. It rose maybe sixty feet over the forests, running southeast to northwest perhaps 500, maybe 600 yards, and no more than 300 yards wide. Heavily wooded at the base, the rocky ridge was bald on top.
“King’s Mountain,” Brodie answered.
“Appears to me that it would be a fine watchtower,” Pinckert said. “Why, a man would not even need a prospect glass to see if any rebel be chasing us.”
Brodie stared at Pinckert, measuring the man. He had misjudged his intellect, his military resourcefulness. “Ride on,” Pinckert said. “I shall tell the lieutenant our intentions.”
* * * * *
Rainfall had soaked the fallen leaves, allowing their mounts to climb the hill without much sound. King’s Mountain deceived a man, Brodie thought, as they moved through the ravines and creeks, circling moss-covered boulders, making their way to the treeless summit. What it lacked in height, it more than made up for in ruggedness. Brodie slapped at a mosquito buzzing his sweaty neck.
When they finally cleared the brush and reached the top of the knob, Brodie and Pinckert dismounted. Shielding the sun from his eyes, Brodie looked northwest. Pinckert had been right. You could see for miles up here. Suddenly Brodie shivered.
“See something, preacher?” Pinckert asked urgently.
“No . . . just. . . .” He shuddered again.
The big man laughed. “Ye must have just stepped on ye grave, Preacher Darky.” He fished pipe and pouch from a possibles bag that hung around his neck.
Then Brodie saw the flash of brown, off there, to his right, in the trees below the summit. A deer? No. It moved again, from tree to tree, a rifle, knife, or something metal reflecting sunlight, and Brodie brought Ferguson’s rifle up, tightened the stock against his shoulder.
“What. . . ?” Pinckert began, but the explosion of the rifle silenced him.
Brodie stepped out of the smoke, reloading as he moved, as his squealing mule bolted across the ridge top. “Halt!” Brodie yelled. The man, slender, red-headed, screamed, and ran down a deer path, not bothering now to hide in the trees.
Brodie cocked the rifle and aimed again, but, before he could pull the trigger, Pinckert thundered past him on horse, charging down the hill, ignoring the brambles and bushes. Brodie caught his breath, turned, looking for his mule, but it had stopped sixty yards away. He took off running, chasing Pinckert and the fleeing stranger.
The runner slipped on wet moss, tumbling over a boulder, crashing against a dead tree, and Pinckert reined his horse to a sliding stop. For a big man, Brodie marveled, he rode amazingly well.
By the time Brodie reached them, Pinckert had straddled the fallen figure, had jerked up the red hair and held a knife at the throat.
“For God’s sake, Pinckert!” Brodie called out, although almost out of breath. “Stop! It’s a woman!”
Her face crashed against the wet leaves when Pinckert released her hair. The big man just blinked stupidly, staring at her. She rolled over, eyes filled with fright, and crawled from beneath Pinckert, backing away until a boulder trapped her progress.
After sheathing his knife, Pinckert faced Brodie.
“Preacher,” he said heavily, “me thinks we’ve lugged the wrong sow by the ear.”
* * * * *
“Who are you?” Cunningham asked the woman.
“Virginia Sal,” she answered.
“And what, pray tell, were you doing on King’s Mountain?”
“I was lost. Trying to reach Gilbert Town.”
“Far off the trail, you rebel harlot.”
The slap caused Brodie to step back. He found himself bringing up his rifle while Bloody Bill Cunningham rubbed his stinging cheek. The woman looked like she would slap the captain again. She was buxom, blue-eyed, and fair-skinned, and Brodie could not help but notice the looks the rogues, including Captain Cunningham, had given her since he and Pinckert had brought her down from King’s Mountain. Some had blushed at the glimpse of her bare ankles, and a few had rushed to bring her clothing, shoes, water, biscuits, and rum. Most, however, eyed her wickedly, and Brodie figured maybe Pinckert had been right. Perhaps he had stepped on his own grave up on King’s Mountain. So far, Cunningham’s men may have threatened or beaten a few rebel mothers, daughters, and sisters, but they had never done anything disgraceful. This seemed different. A beautiful woman alone in a camp full of ruffians. Brodie would defend her if need be, only he knew they would both die if it ever came to that.
“Rebels killed my husband at Thicketty Fort back in July,” she said icily. “And you will withdraw that insult immediately before I claw out your eyes, you whoreson.”
Cunningham laughed so hard he doubled over, and, wiping tears from his eyes, he gave a mock bow. “I beg your forgiveness, Widow Sal, and kindly hope you will allow Captain Cunningham’s Legionnaires to escort you to Gilbert Town.”
Brodie lowered the rifle and wet his lips. He prayed they would make for Gilbert Town with all haste.
* * * * *
They didn’t, of course. Once again, the disgust rose in Stuart Brodie’s throat.
This time, he stood inside the cabin with Pinckert and Cunningham’s lieutenant, Abel Hart, as they questioned the lone woman in the cabin on Brush Creek, while Cunningham’s legion waited outside or searched the property. Brodie longed to be back with Ferguson, to be as far removed from Cunningham as possible. Rebels had hanged Brodie’s brother, but at least Ezekiel was a man, a boy in mind, perhaps, but a man. Cunningham’s self-named legionnaires waged war on women.
Pinckert jumped down from the loft, landing with a thud that shook the cabin.
“Nothing there, Lieutenant,” he said. “No firelocks, no molds, not even much in the way of plunder, sir.” The disrespect in Pinckert’s voice surprised Brodie.
“She’s a rebel, though,” Abel Hart said. “I can smell the stench on this trollop.”
The woman, her hair brown with streaks of silver, stood erect, said nothing. A proud woman, refusing to give her tormenters any satisfaction. Her hands were calloused, her dress made of rough muslin, and her home contained not enough meal to feed a rat. There would be even less when Cunningham left.
“Where is your husband?” Hart demanded.
The woman pushed bangs off her forehead and answered easily, as if she were speaking to her preacher. “In the army of Francis Marion.”
Brodie blinked back his surprise. Lieutenant Hart could scarcely believe it himself. Women did not admit that their husbands rode with rebels.
“And where is that damned Swamp Fox?” Hart shouted.
“I do not know.”
Now Brodie caught himself grinning. He admired this woman, but the smile vanished when Hart overturned the table, lunging at her.
“Where is he?” Hart shook with rage.
She repeated her answer.
Hart snatched a reaping hook off the wall, waving the blade under the woman’s nose. “You will tell me,” Hart said icily, “or you will bathe in your own blood.”
“I spoke the truth.” She did not even flinch. “I do not know, and would not tell you if I could.”
Hart pushed her back, his face enraged, and raised the hook over his head. He had just started to bring the blade down toward her breast when Brodie smashed his nose with the rifle butt. Hart reeled backward, mangled nose pouring blood, his lips busted. Spitting out broken bits of teeth, he reached for a belted pistol. Brodie dropped the rifle and lunged at the officer, wrapping both arms around Hart, the impact carrying both men through the door, off the porch, and into the mud.
The pistol had fallen somewhere inside. Brodie heard the snorts of nervous horses, hoofs dancing all around him, shouts, curses, and Abel Hart’s groans. He pulled himself to his knees, pounding fists against the lieutenant’s head, chest, stomach.
Hands and arms grabbed at him—not those of Hart, though, who lay unconscious on the ground—and he felt himself being lifted off the half-dead officer, but he kicked at Hart, kicked and screamed until he felt himself being hurled backward. He landed so hard, the breath left his lungs, and he blinked back the pain, the rage, as Cunningham’s men lifted him off the ground and pinned him against the cabin’s walls.
