“I have,” Roger said slowly. “But that name is virtually all I know. Is he in Savannah?”
Jamie nodded, looking easier.
“I had a letter last week, from a man I know. News, aye? And he told about the British garrison in Savannah—I’d asked, since the lass means to go there—and he said that this Marion had mentioned to him that Benjamin Lincoln had it in mind to come down from Charles Town and make a try at taking Savannah. And, ehm …” Jamie’s eyes were firmly fixed on a puddle of sauerkraut juice. Oh, so here was the slippery bit. It came out in a rush.
“Yon Randall said in his book that the Americans would attack Savannah in October—this year,” he added, with a direct look at Roger. “The Americans willna succeed, but Marion will be there.”
“And … you want me to talk to him?” The sweat was drying now, and the wind was cold through his shirt.
“If ye would. The thing is, Marion’s had a great deal of experience wi’ militias.”
“Like you haven’t?” Roger said.
Amusement flickered across Jamie’s face, but he shook his head. “I havena had any experience in lending a militia I’ve gathered and command to the Continental army. Marion’s done that several times, from what the letter says, and I want to ken if he has any sage advice wi’ regard to dealing with … certain officers.”
“Who’s a bastard and who’s not, ye mean? That would be a help—but will ye likely have a choice?”
“All officers are bastards,” Jamie said dryly. “They have to be. So am I. Some ye can trust, though, and some ye can’t. From what I hear, Marion might be one to trust.”
“I see.” And you want a friend in the army before you go to them. A man to help you test the waters before you commit yourself. Or, maybe, to warn you off.
“That’s your choice, isn’t it?” Roger continued. “Whether to commit your—our—militia to fight with the army—or go it alone, like Cleveland and Shelby.”
“They’re not alone,” Jamie corrected. “The Overmountain men have each other to call upon in case of need. But each man keeps his own command. That’s no the way of it in the army.”
Jamie’s hair had come loose on one side; he pulled off the lacing and retied it, squinting his eyes against the wind. There was a late summer storm coming; you could see one approaching for miles, here in the mountains, and the dark clouds were massing fast over Roan Mountain.
“The choice,” Jamie said, still looking at the oncoming weather, “is whether to keep the militia close, to protect the Ridge—so far as that’s possible—or to go out, to seek battle wi’ the British. If we do that, then we can decide how best to go about it.”
Roger contemplated that one for a few moments.
“‘To be, or not to be?’” he asked. “‘Whether ’tis nobler in the mind,’ and all that? Because that’s what you—we—are doing, no? We act or we don’t.” He glanced at Jamie, who was giving a good impression of a coiled spring, and smiled. “Get on wi’ ye; you couldna stay out of a fight if someone paid ye to do it.”
Jamie had the grace to laugh at that, though he looked self-conscious.
“Aye. But there is Captain Cunningham. He might get his guns one of these days, and then what?”
“Well, it wouldna be good,” Roger admitted. “But he’s not going to attack the Ridge and start burning down his neighbors’ cabins, is he? I mean … he lives here.”
“True.”
“So the Americans are going to what—lay siege to Savannah?”
“So he says. Randall. But they willna succeed.” There was something odd in Jamie’s voice every time he said that name. No wonder if there was, but Roger couldn’t say exactly what it was: not doubt, not hate, not—not quite—fear …
“Ye think it’s safe, though, for Bree and the kids to be in Savannah while this is going on?”
Jamie shrugged and picked up his discarded jacket.
“The Americans willna take the town, and Brianna will be under Lord John Grey’s protection inside it.”
“And ye trust him. Lord John, I mean.”
It wasn’t a question and Jamie didn’t answer it, but asked another.
“Do ye trust Randall?”
Roger drew in air between his teeth, but nodded.
“About the battles and so on? Aye, I do. I mean—to him it was history; it happened. And to everyone else in the time he published that book. He couldna very well say, ‘This battle happened on this date,’ when it really happened on that date—or didna happen at all. Because there’d be a great many other historians—and publishers, for that matter—who knew that it did. If the book was full of … misinformation, let us say, it would never have got published. I mean—academic publishers check the manuscripts of books they publish.”
They stood a little in silence, watching the storm come in. Roger would find Francis Marion, and, God willing, Fergus would find guns. But Roger found his thoughts sliding away from hard decisions and slippery realities toward his own more imminent personal prospects.
He was wondering whether Bree might possibly be pregnant, and if so, how she might respond to the smell of Sunday dinner in Salem.
51
Wheels within Wheels
“WHAT WAS IT YOUR mam said to your da about this expedition?” Roger rolled up his breeches to mid-thigh, eyeing the wagon wheel whose rim protruded from the burbling middle of a small creek.
“It’s too deep,” Brianna said, frowning at the rushing brown water. “You’d better take your breeches off. And maybe your shirt, too.”
“That’s what she said? Though she’s likely right about it being too deep …”
Brianna made a small, amused snort. He’d taken off his shoes, stockings, coat, waistcoat, and neckcloth, and looked like a man stripped to fight a serious duel.
“The good news is that with a current like that, you won’t get leeches. What she said to Da—or what she quoted herself as having said, which isn’t necessarily the same thing—was: ‘You’re telling me that you mean to turn a perfectly respectable Presbyterian minister into a gunrunner, and send him in a wagon full of dodgy gold and illegal whisky to buy a load of guns from an unknown smuggler, in company with your daughter and three of your grandchildren?’”
“Aye, that’s the bit. I was expecting it to be more fun …” Reluctantly, he shucked his breeks, tossing them onto the shoes and stockings. “Maybe I shouldn’t have brought you and the kids. Germain and I would have had a great adventure by ourselves.”
“Yes, that’s what I was afraid of.” She looked over her shoulder, up the steep bank that the wagon had nearly fallen over when the wheel came off. It was much too close to the edge for comfort, and she’d sent the kids off to the other side of the road to collect firewood, in hopes that that would keep them off the wagon and out of trouble.
She had one eye on Roger and one ear out for cries of alarm from above; part of her mind was calculating how long it might take her to fix the wheel, if it came out of the creek intact—if it wasn’t, they’d be here overnight—and a few brain cells were idly listing what food they had, just in case. But the major part of her attention was focused on her chest.