Ghost Legion, page 7
Marty chewed on a piece of bear gristle and decided that she was a better cook than Abimelech’s owner, and she wasn’t much of a cook. She watched as the men emptied their plates and sloshed through the mud toward their horses. Sergeant Gillespie muttered an oath beneath his breath, but Marty didn’t mind Sevier’s order. She would rather keep moving than sit here and try to stay warm. Besides, moving took her farther and farther from Seb McKidrict.
As soon as she spit out the gristle and climbed onto Abimelech, Flint O’Keeffe galloped to them, spewing orders at the sergeant.
“We sha’n’t tarry, Sergeant,” O’Keeffe said. “So you must catch up with us. We shall cross the Little Doe just up the trail, and camp at the Resting Place. Meet us there tonight.”
“Lord Jehovah,” Gillespie stuttered. “That’s nigh fifteen miles from here.”
“Nearer seventeen, Sergeant. I shall see you tonight!” He spurred his horse toward the head of the column.
* * * * *
Sleet and snow had mixed in with the rain when the herd reached the camp long after sunset. They bedded down the cattle, too exhausted to run off, Sergeant Gillespie said, although Marty figured it was the sergeant who was tuckered out. The man didn’t even bother to hobble his horse before heading underneath the rock shelf that sheltered the bone-tired, straggling army of Patriots.
No one sang songs tonight. Marty pulled saddle, blanket, and reins off the buckskin, and picketed him near a patch of snow. She heard the ringing of hammer on iron, and guessed that the smithy named Miller was shoeing horses. She checked Abimelech’s shoes, but in the darkness they looked almost brand new, although she would use a pick to pry out rocks and mud before riding the stallion tomorrow.
After pouring grain onto the snow, Marty patted her horse and walked to the rocky ledge to escape the weather. The Big Doe roared nearby, but the sound was soon lost to the crackling of wood. The aroma of hoecakes and fried bacon sharpened her hunger.
“I thought you would have quit by now, Marty McKidrict,” Flint O’Keeffe said. He stood to her right, warming his hands over a fire.
“Is that why you had me nursing your cattle?” she asked. This time, she did not hesitate. Her backside ached, her thighs were chaffed, and she was in no mood for the Irishman’s preaching or picking.
“Heavens, no. In fact, ’twas not my idea to order you to such a detail. It was Mary McKeehan Patton’s, and you may have guessed that no one in Washington County belays Missus Patton’s orders. She said to give you the worst job on the first day, and, if you ran back home, to let you go, but if you proved your worth, then you might make a soldier, after all.”
“Do I herd your beeves tomorrow?” she asked.
O’Keeffe laughed, then lifted a flask to his lips and drank. When he lowered the container, he whispered: “I doubt if we will trouble ourselves with those bovines on the morrow. You shall find your mess in the far corner near the Doe, last fire by the Shelving Rock.” He grinned like a mischievous boy. “Tell Duncan that you made it, that he cannot have your noggin of rum tonight.”
“Thanks.” Marty turned away.
“Personally,” O’Keeffe said, “I never doubted your tenaciousness, McKidrict, and I am glad Missus Patton underestimated your wherewithal.”
Marty grunted some reply and moved away from the fire, although she longed to dry her clothes and warm her bones. She moved stiffly, although she knew she would be even sorer at dawn when they marched out. Moving past the fires, she suddenly realized she needed to relieve herself. She should have done it by the cattle herd, or when she was picketing her horse, when she was alone. O’Keeffe had said she would mess with Duncan, only she couldn’t remember meeting any Duncan at Sycamore Shoals. She saw the glow of the last campfire, realized that was her camp, and heard a few snores. She walked on, into the shadows, as far into the darkness as she could go. Sleet pelted her as she dropped her britches and squatted, and, afterward, she needed to use the Deckard to pull herself to her feet. Marty buttoned her pants, exhaustion hitting her harder with each step, as she walked to the fire. The man poking the red coals looked at her and grinned, and Marty gasped.
“Willie Duncan . . .,” she began, but never finished. The blow took her in the small of her back, and she collapsed, rolled over, and looked up at her husband.
“Shameless hussy,” Seb McKidrict said. “Dressing up like a man. Why, woman, I’ll leave welts on your gammons so thick you sha’n’t sit down for a week before I send you home.”
Marty backed up, dragging the rifle with her, as her husband spoke. She retreated on her backside, ignominiously, in trembling fear until she reached the cavern’s stone wall. Seb McKidrict towered over her, and Willie Duncan had picked up a limb from the fire, using it as a torch. The light almost blinded her. Other men in the mess lay asleep, snoring loudly, wearied after the grueling journey from Sycamore Shoals.
“W-w-what are . . . y-you do-doing . . . h-h-here?” Marty asked. “You care not . . . for the . . . Whigs.”
“Do not question me, woman!” McKidrict spit on her. “You do not care for Whigs, neither. You do nothing without my say. I come to Sycamore Shoals this morn, and, lo, to my surprise, I find I have a brother already volunteered in Colonel Sevier’s militia. An exemplary marksman, I am told. I would have been most unwelcome in Sevier’s army if not for my brother, but, because of this Martin McKidrict . . . hah . . . the righteous colonel says we can take a chance on Seb McKidrict.” He kicked the flat of her soaked moccasin, sending pain to Marty’s knee. “You shall pay for embarrassing your husband,” he said through clenched teeth, “before I send you home or hell.”
“I don’t know, Seb.” Willie Duncan lowered the torch and grinned. “She might have a use. Remember?”
McKidrict didn’t respond, just stared, shaking in rage, then bent his massive frame, reaching for her with his ham-size hands.
The Deckard barrel stopped him, and he straightened.
Marty cocked the rifle, as McKidrict took a few steps back. Willie Duncan just blinked like a simpleton.
“Y-y-you w-w-ouldn’t . . . w-wouldn’t dare,” Duncan stuttered.
“Wouldn’t I?” Marty kept the barrel moving from Duncan’s stomach to her husband’s head.
“You have no right,” McKidrict said. “By thunder, I am your husband. I have rights. . . .”
“You lost your rights, Seb McKidrict. Months ago.” She shot Willie Duncan a vicious look. “Remember?”
She stood unsteadily, but kept the rifle at the ready. “If you come close to me, either of you . . . I will kill you, the both of you . . . by the sword of the Lord and our Gideon.” She couldn’t, of course, not now. She hadn’t bothered to reload the Deckard tonight, too haggard, and certainly had not expected to see Seb or Duncan in Sevier’s camp. She knew the powder had been wet, ruined from the soaking rain all that day. Yet that craven Duncan and the brute she had married didn’t know this. At least, Marty hoped that was the case. If they called her bluff, though, Marty would die tonight.
McKidrict stood a little straighter. “I think not,” he said, but he didn’t sound convinced. “All I have to do is tell Sevier or that fool Irish Virginian who you really are. Then, by Jupiter, they will lay stripes on your back themselves for deceiving them so.”
Marty’s head shook. “Go ahead, Seb,” she said. “Tell them I am your wife.” She howled, laughing so hard one of the men in her mess rolled over in his blankets, and muttered a curse and admonition for them to shut up before resuming his snores. “Tell them, Seb. They shall be laughing at you all across the Carolinas and Virginia. Tell them!”
He took one step, raising his fist, but again the rifle stopped him. Marty’s eyes hardened. “I will kill you, Seb. Kill you for the beast you are.”
“Seb?” Willie Duncan said weakly.
Her husband pivoted sharply, barked out an order for his friend to follow him, that there had to be kill devil to be found in this camp. Duncan dropped the torch, and the two disappeared in the darkness.
Marty exhaled slowly. I’m glad I went to the toilet first, she thought, and giggled childishly. She picked up the limb Duncan had dropped, and returned to the campfire, tossing the wood on the coals before squatting and hurriedly began cleaning and reloading the rifle. She spied a plate full of hoecakes on a rock to her left.
Once the Deckard was ready, she laid it across her lap, picked up the food, and ate ravenously.
Suddenly Marty laughed again. “That’s the first time I’ve ever been sure of myself around men,” she said.
“Damn you, squire!” The nearest man rolled over in his blanket again. “Can’t a body get a wink of sleep in the miserable cave? If you do not shut your trap, I shall whip your bloody arse!”
Chapter Nine
She woke cold, stiff, exhausted, and scared, jerking upright and scanning the granite shelf for her husband or Duncan, but found neither. The man who had briefly stirred while she fought off Seb and his simpleton friend last night squatted over gray coals, his breath frosty in the frigid morning, trying to bring the fire back to life. He glanced at her, rolled his eyes, and muttered: “You don’t sleep worth a damn.”
It had been a troubled sleep. Marty offered a hoarse apology, and crawled from underneath the covers, rolling up the bedroll and checking her rifle.
“I’d druther you snore, McKidrict, than be tormented all night by hobgoblins and bugaboos.” The man bent over the pit, blew on a smoking coal, and lifted his head. “Gather some faggots for this fire. Your brother and Duncan will miss their breakfast if they tarry much longer.” He turned to the other sleeping figure and bellowed: “Rise, Bickley, and earn your keep!”
The rain had stopped, but gray clouds obscured most of the sunlight, and a heavy fog covered the ground. Branches hung low, heavy with ice, and Marty felt as if she would never warm herself, even after her messmates had gotten the fire roaring again and she had finished two cups of scalding coffee.
“I am Ryan Folson,” the big man said, “and this is Edisto Bickley.”
Bickley lifted his gaze from his long rifle’s flintlock and offered a beaming smile. His hair was dark, braided into a queue, and he wore grease-stained buckskins and a wolf-skin hat. A wiry man, face covered with beard stubble, he replaced his grin with an intense grimace and went back to working on his rifle.
“He don’t say much,” Folson said, as if Ryan Folson could outtalk John Sevier or Flint O’Keeffe. Folson might have been the tallest person Marty had ever seen. Even in his water-soaked moccasins, he would have towered over Seb McKidrict, although her husband bested him by ten or fifteen pounds. Folson’s hair was stark white, but he didn’t look much older than Bickley or Duncan. He wore a tan-colored hunting frock and black breeches, with a hawk feather stuck in his wide-brimmed hat and a pewter Cross of Lorraine hanging from his neck.
“Teever Barnes pulled sentry duty,” Folson instructed Marty. “Save him some coffee and hoecakes.”
His gaze lifted, and Marty heard the footfalls as Seb and Duncan stumbled into the camp, their eyes rimmed with red, faces pale. Both men avoided any eye contact with Marty, and said little as they rooted in their possible bags for tin plates and cups.
Marty stuffed her own cup into a bag, gathered the Deckard and bedroll, and bid good byes to Bickley and Folson. “Best get to the cattle,” she told Folson. “See you when we noon, I guess.”
* * * * *
After tending to Abimelech, she walked along the banks of the roaring Big Doe until she reached the herd, finding O’Keeffe, Gillespie, Sevier, and Colonel Isaac Shelby arguing on a rock underneath a pine.
“The citizens of the Watauga settlements gave us this beef,” said Shelby, a pious man whose chiseled face lacked any gaiety. Although five years younger than John Sevier, he looked ten years older. He stood taller than Sevier, not to mention fatter and grayer, and, while Chucky Jack might have been the best rifle shot, best horseman, and best cusser over the mountains, Marty felt certain he could not match Colonel Shelby’s icy stare.
“I am not, however, resolute in herding cattle if it slows our progress.”
“It is slowing our progress, Colonel,” Sevier said. “Sergeant Gillespie has suggested that we slaughter what our boys can carry.”
“I detest waste,” Shelby said.
“Won’t be waste. We kill just enough for the boys, drive the rest back toward Sycamore Shoals.”
“Which will cost us men.”
Sevier shook his head. “Cattle are smarter than men, oftener than not. I think once the beeves get the general idea that they are walking home, downhill, they shall not need chaperones.”
“Very well,” Shelby said. “But let us not waste time. We have tarried too long, and this butchery will cost us even more daylight.”
He saluted stiffly, pivoted after a click of his heels, and almost barreled over Marty, who slipped on the slick grass. She found herself sitting on her gammons, staring up at Shelby’s unfriendly face. The colonel did not offer his hand.
“You are. . . ?”
“Marty McKidrict.” Unable to match his glare, she focused on her feet instead.
“McKidrict’s the one who bested Colonel Sevier in a go at shooting the other day,” Flint O’Keeffe chimed in.
Shelby snorted. “I hope he fights better than he walks,” he said before storming away.
* * * * *
It took most of the morning to slaughter and butcher the beef. The cattle stampeded, and Marty spent at least an hour guiding Abimelech through the brambles, chasing scared beeves out of the thick forest, and then pushing them down the icy trail. The job was, however, better than slamming axes into the heads of the animals and carving the meat into steaks. By the time Marty returned to camp, she found Sergeant Gillespie, Bickley, Folson, and a few others she did not recognize covered with blood and grime. Abimelech faltered at the smell of death, and Marty needed a wide arc to steer the old stallion around the scene before gathering the rest of the living beeves and driving them down the mountain.
Butchery complete, the army pushed on, following Bright’s Trace through a gap, Yellow Mountain to the south, Roan Mountain to the north, a heavy snow falling all around them. They stopped four miles later at the Bald of the Yellow to chew practically raw beef, which they washed down with water, providing the contents of their canteens hadn’t frozen. Marty stood in ankle-deep snow, blood dribbling from the corners of her mouth as she ate the lukewarm steak Bickley had handed her.
“Fire your weapons!” Flint O’Keeffe ordered as he marched past, churning up snow. “Fire your weapons! Test the powder.”
Marty dropped the reins, figuring Abimelech wouldn’t go anywhere, aimed at the clouds, and pulled the trigger. Snowflakes stung her face, and, if she hadn’t felt the rifle’s kick or caught the flash of white smoke, almost lost in the wind and gray skies, she would have thought her trusty Deckard had misfired. She barely heard the reports of other rifles.
“Reload!” O’Keeffe ordered.
By the time Marty had finished, O’Keeffe had returned, now trailed by Sergeant Gillespie, their heads bent low in the blustery wind. “Roll call!” O’Keeffe called out, and Marty listened for the names.
“Barnes . . . Duncan . . . McKidrict . . . Folson . . . Bickley. . . !”
“McKidrict, Marty!” she answered, and listened as Gillespie and O’Keeffe walked by.
“Dryden . . . England . . . Bullen . . . Golf . . . Waldrin . . . Lewis . . . Vance . . . Jamison. . . !”
The voices faded.
“What was that about?” Bickley asked.
“Parade,” Folson replied, and spit out a hunk of meat too tough for him to chew. “And drill.”
Yet Gillespie and O’Keeffe, or rather Shelby and Sevier, had not finished. The sergeant and lieutenant returned, barking orders to fall in, leaving their horses ground reined, and for the next hour they drilled in the snow and ice, coming to attention, shouldering their rifles, trying to make sense of the strange orders Sergeant Gillespie kept screaming: “To the left, dress! . . . To the right, face! . . . Common step! . . . Quick step.”
They even made the soldiers practice shooting, something Marty figured she knew better than Gillespie or O’Keeffe.
“Poise firelock!” Gillespie ordered.
“In two motions, you blubbering idiot!” Marty looked up, saw the sergeant screaming at Teever Barnes. Gillespie ripped the rifle from the farmer’s grasp, and moved quickly, keeping the rifle perpendicular, bringing it from his shoulder to in front of his face.
“Two motions!” Gillespie yelled. “You will cock your rifle in two motions, you will take aim in one motion, and you will fire in one motion . . . at my command.”
Orders resumed. They fired into a snowbank, and Gillespie spat his contempt. More commands. More criticism and curses. “Half cock . . . firelock! . . . Grip that rifle like a man, Willie Duncan, not a damned harlot! . . . Handle . . . cartridge! One motion! Do it in one motion, damn you! . . . Prime firelock! . . . Shut . . . pan!”
She felt like a child, quite certain Folson, Bickley, and the others had similar emotions. They knew better than most how to fire a gun, but the army obviously saw things differently.
When they finished following the sergeant’s commands and had fired again, Gillespie turned to the surprisingly silent Flint O’Keeffe and said: “It’s hopeless, sir.”
The Irishman nodded his agreement, and the two walked away, leaving Folson, Seb, and Duncan mumbling curses.
“Mount up!” Sergeant Gillespie yelled from somewhere up ahead, and Marty pulled herself into the saddle, her leg muscles screaming in rebellion.
As they left the table top and headed down, the rider in front of her, Dryden, craned his neck and whispered: “Crawford and Chambers have deserted. Pass it on.”
She turned in the saddle, glad to be out of the wind for just a few seconds, and thankful that Edisto Bickley rode behind her and not her husband or Willie Duncan, and repeated Dryden’s report. That, she assumed, explained the reason for the roll call.
