“No.” Locky Hunt’s face was no more than a dark oval, but the fear in his voice was clear as day. “Please, sir … please. My—my wife …”
“Shut your gob,” Jamie said, grunting as he wrenched and sawed. “Listen. That way”—he pointed, his finger directly under the man’s nose—“is west. Medway Plantation is maybe three miles in that direction. It belongs to a nephew of Francis Marion; he’ll help ye. I dinna ken where ye live these days, but my advice is to go do it somewhere else. Send for your wife when you’re safe away.”
“She—but she—the big man fired our cabin,” Hunt said, beginning to weep from nerves, relief, and renewed fear.
“She’s no dead,” Jamie said, with a certainty he hoped was justified. Cleveland was a brute, but so far as Jamie knew, he’d never killed a woman, save perhaps by crushing her to death by lying on her. Not on purpose, anyway … “She’ll have taken refuge wi’ someone nearby. Send a note to your nearest neighbor, they’ll find her. Now go!” The last fibers parted and the strands of the rope fell away.
Lachlan Hunt made more noises, babbling thanks, but Jamie turned him and gave him a solid push in the middle of the back that sent him staggering on his way. He didn’t watch to see how the man fared but hared back toward the hanging-tree, where a good bit of what Claire called argy-bargy was going on.
To his great relief, a good bit of the shouting was being done by Isaac Shelby and Captain Larkin, who were taking vigorous issue with Cleveland’s notion of sport. It had also commenced to rain again, which further dampened enthusiasm for the prospect of hanging the Tory prisoners; the crowd was beginning to melt away.
Jamie was beginning to feel that wee bit soluble himself, and when Young Ian turned up at his elbow, he merely nodded, patted Ian’s shoulder in thanks, and walked back through the dark to Claire, feeling very tired.
145
The Mirror Crack’d
October 7, 1780
FOUR DAYS LATER, THE mountain came in sight, and with its appearance, a jolt of expectation ran through the men. Jamie felt his own blood rise and knew every other man felt it, too. It had been a long time since he’d fought with an army, but he recognized the surge of strength and heat that burned away tiredness and hunger. Thoughts of pain and loss were still with him, but now seemed insubstantial. God willing, they’d reach the point in battle where death ran with you and sometimes you could ride it. His mouth was dry; he took a swig of tepid water and glanced at Claire, offering the canteen.
She was white to the lips, but she managed a smile and reached for the canteen. The horses had felt that charge of energy among the men, though, and were snorting and jostling, tossing their heads, and she dropped the canteen. It vanished at once in a trampling of muddy hooves. He thought for a moment she meant to dive after it and grabbed her arm, holding on.
“Dinna fash,” he said, though he knew she couldn’t hear him through the rising noise of the men. There was no advantage to silence, and many of the younger ones were whooping and shouting incoherent threats at an enemy too far distant to hear them. She nodded, nonetheless, and patted his hand.
He heard Cleveland’s hoarse bellowing up ahead, and the body of men began to slow. Time to fall out and check weapons, have a quick piss, and fettle themselves.
Jamie pulled up, raised his rifle to summon his own band, and swung down from the saddle. Roger Mac was there; he lifted Claire down, her long, bare legs a flash of white in the muddy ruins of her petticoats. Young Ian appeared at Jamie’s shoulder. He’d painted his face at dawn, and Jamie saw Roger Mac notice it and blink. He wanted to laugh but didn’t, just clapped Young Ian on the shoulder and jerked his head at the men, saying, “See to them, aye?
“Keep Claire with ye,” he said to Roger, and went to confer with the other colonels.
They’d drawn up and dismounted near Campbell, who still sat his big black gelding. John Sevier’s younger brother, Robert, and two other young men had left camp in the dark to scout the situation, and Jamie had a brief sense of falling, hearing them say the words that painted in Frank Randall’s account and brought it vividly to life.
“You can tell Major Ferguson right off,” Robert Sevier was saying, swiping a hand down his chest in illustration. “He’s got on a red-and-white-check shirt and he wasn’t wearin’ a coat when we saw him. Shows up right well amongst all those green Provincials.” He cocked his thumb and finger in the semblance of a gun, closed one eye, and pretended to aim.
John Sevier frowned at him, but said nothing, and Campbell merely nodded.
“All Provincials, are they?”
“No, sir,” said another young scout, quickly so as to keep Sevier from sticking his neb in. “Near on half of ’em don’t have uniforms, at least.”
“But they do all have guns. Sir,” said the third scout, not to be left out.
“How many?” Jamie asked, and felt the words strange in his throat.
“A few more’n us, but not enough to make a difference,” Sevier replied, but in Jamie’s mind there echoed another voice: Frank Randall’s.
The forces were nearly equal, though Ferguson’s troops numbered over a thousand, as compared with the nine hundred Patriots attacking him.
A sort of murmur ran through the men: acknowledgment and satisfaction. Jamie swallowed, a taste of bile in his mouth.
“There’s more of ’em, but they’re trapped up there.” Cleveland put the sense of the meeting into words. “Like rats.” And he laughed and stamped a large boot as though crushing a rat into bloody mush.
Likely what he does for fun, Jamie thought. He cleared his throat and spat into the dead leaves.
It took no more than a few minutes to sort out whose men should take which direction. Jamie’s band would go with Campbell and several others, and he went back to gather the men and tell them how it would be.
ROGER HAD BEEN told off to mind me—or, as Jamie put it more politely, to wait until the attackers reached the saddle of the mountain.
“Ye’ll do most good comin’ in when folk will need ye most,” he’d said to us both, in the firm tone that meant he expected to be obeyed. My face must have expressed what I was thinking, for he glanced at me, smiled involuntarily, and looked down.
“Look after her, Roger Mac,” he said, then cupped my face in his hands and kissed me, briefly. His hands and face were pulsing with heat and I felt a sudden coolness when his touch left my skin.
“Tha gràdh agam ort, mo chridhe,” he said, and was gone.
Roger and I looked at each other with a perfect understanding.
“He told you, didn’t he?” I said, watching him disappear upward into the brush. “About Frank’s book?”
“Yes. Don’t worry. I’m going after him.”
The brush above was crackling and snapping as though the mountain was on fire. I could see men flickering through the leaves and trunks, reckless and purposeful. It was happening.
“The curse has come upon me, said the Lady of Shalott.” I hadn’t thought I’d spoken aloud, until I saw Roger’s startled look. Whatever he might have said, though, was drowned by William Campbell’s shout.