Becoming Americans (62 page)

      Robert Fewox took him into the propped-up cabin and saw that he was fed. For weeks, Stephen feared being found by vengeful pirates. Robert tried to reassure him that Blackbeard's men had more pressing things to do than look for him, but Stephen felt pursued. On good days he would work at scoring Robert's pines or trapping furs for him to sell, but on most days he wandered aimlessly through the woods or sat by the river with a jug of Robert's plentiful scuppernong wine. He avoided the occasional visitor, seeing only Robert and the other two men who worked the small plantation of pines. Twice, during the next year, his Uncle Richard came to visit and tried to draw him out of the woods. But, Stephen had lost interest in the world, and he spent more time with his jug of wine than he did with people.

      In June, Teach's ship had returned again to North Carolina from a very successful raid on shipping off the port of Charles Town, even blackmailing the citizens and government of that town for medicines and money. His ships sailed back to Topsail Inlet where he had two of them run aground. He replaced Bonnet in command of the
Revenge,
and confided that he intended to take advantage of the king's extended offer of amnesty, urging Bonnet to do the same. Bonnet left immediately for Bath. As soon as he was gone, Blackbeard loaded all of the amassed booty onto the
Adventure
and set sail with only forty men. Some of the other men fled, some he marooned on a deserted island with no food or water.

      When Bonnet returned with his pardon, he found the
Revenge
stripped of food and equipment. He re-supplied the ship as best he could, and with an irate crew set out to find Teach. Having no luck with the search, he renamed his ship the
Royal James
and himself, "Captain Thomas," and started pirating again.

      Blackbeard had successfully double-crossed the gentleman pirate, Bonnet, and now sailed into Bath, himself, to Governor Eden's friendly welcome and the offered amnesty.

      Captain Teach declared himself retired from piracy and settled comfortably into Bath society. He socialized often and openly with Governor Eden and his secretary, Tobias Knight. Many people were still saying, privately, that both officials had been accomplices of the pirate. Teach built a lavish home, and acquired another wife, the ceremony being performed by Governor Eden, himself. He made friends with neighboring planters by bestowing upon them gifts of rum and sugar. When his lavish spending had depleted his wealth, he resorted to small-time piracy on the inland waters then, again, to the open sea.

      Bonnet's lone cruise brought him ten ships, but the
Royal James
was badly in need of repair by September. He entered the Cape Fear River and started the work, but news of his presence spread to Charles Town. By the end of the month, he and the crew were captured and jailed in that city. By the end of November, his crew had been hanged. Bonnet, himself, was hanged in December. A year after Stephen's pirating adventure was over; he learned that his Uncle Thomas Carman was dead and rotting on the gallows.

      Out of retirement, Blackbeard entered the Atlantic from Bath, this time with only the eight-gun
Adventure.
That was enough to capture a French ship, richly laden with sugar, cocoa, and spices. He returned with the ship to Bath and reported to the governor that he'd found the ship drifting at sea, with no sign of life on board.

      A court was convened by Governor Eden with Tobias Knight sitting as judge. The French vessel was condemned by the court and the pirates given permission to sell their cargo. It was rumored that the governor received sixty hogsheads of sugar and Tobias Knight twenty as their shares of the loot.

      The government of Virginia was less forgiving of Blackbeard's relapse. A former quartermaster of his was captured and tried in that colony, confessing that Captain Teach had, indeed, returned to piracy since his pardon by the king. Governor Spotswood was determined to capture Blackbeard and, with his own funds for privacy's sake, hired two small sloops for that purpose, which he dispatched to the waters off the coast of his southern neighbor

      Just days after Carman was hanged in Charles Town, Blackbeard the pirate was killed during a battle with the Virginia sloops. His head was cut off and displayed from the bowsprit of the victor's boat. The people of Bath had stared at it in disbelief.

      Stephen stood in the edge of the woods as a visitor told the news to Robert.

Stephen seldom left the woods; the evil spirits that lived in him were excited in the presence of other people. He didn't miss the noisy life at Deep Creek and he didn't miss the ordinaries and the brothels of Norfolk Town. He did miss his mother, and he missed James. He wondered about his new twin sisters. But returning to Deep Creek—even for a visit—was not possible, now. His mother would see into him and know that he'd done evil things. She'd insist that he talk with a minister to be freed of his devils, but the church would have no interest in his demons and his soul; he had no money. He thought of his Uncle Richard and regretted his behavior toward the generous kinsman.

      Robert Fewox had married for the first time shortly after the death of his stepmother, Anne. The young bride's dark eyes and black hair reminded Stephen of the girl in Havana. Being around her aroused the terrifying, lustful spirits in him, so that Scuppernong was no longer a refuge. With his gun and powder, Stephen moved deeper into the forest.

      The restless spirits moved him on, not caring where he went. In winter he trapped beaver and stretched their skins to dry. He sold furs to the Indian traders for rum and ammunition, and he ate well from the food he killed and the corn and peas he stole from unguarded fields. He seldom heard a human voice. Sometimes he sang loudly to himself as he sat by his fire at night.

      On such a night the desire for human contact conquered his devils and led him to the town on Matencomack Creek—now called Edenton—during the Christmas celebration of 1727. With his few coins he made a rare trip to a tavern. He was pleased to see that little had changed. He stopped at the ordinary on the edge of town where his rough appearance wouldn't be noticed.

      The talk around him was about the transfer of North Carolina from the Lords Proprietors back to the Crown. A revolution in South Carolina had effected that change in 1719, and the people here were ready for it. The people resented the Proprietors for their too little and too late help during the Tuscarora War, and—lately converted—for the scandalous conduct of the governors and officials who had profited with the pirates. For their part, the Proprietors were tired of their whining colonists and a losing business proposition. Transfer to the Crown would be soon, and everyone seemed pleased with the prospect except the worried majority of residents who lived in the disputed territory between the Albemarle Sound and Virginia. They were afraid they might be confirmed as Virginians; a very few were afraid they would not. A survey was to be made in the Spring, it was said, and men were needed to carry the line through the Great Swamp.

      The drinkers listening to the news burst into sardonic laughter. No man had ever traversed the swamp, and it was unlikely that one would. It was unlikely that a man could be found who would try!

      Stephen felt an excitement building in him that he hadn't felt in years, a strength and determination that kept his devils at bay.

      Samuel Swann was the man to see, they tavern owner told him. He lived nearby, in Perquimans County, and his uncle was the Surveyor General, Edward Moseley. Swann was going with his uncle on the survey.

      On the afternoon of the designated day in early March, two of four Carolina Commissioners arrived at the north shore of Currituck Inlet. Chief Justice Christopher Gale and Surveyor General Moseley had with them Samuel Swan, the young and newlywed Carolina surveyor who was to assist his father-in-law, Mister Moseley. Stephen and nine other men paddled the large pirogue that carried them and their supplies. Waiting at the shore were the men who represented Virginia's interests.

      A Mister Fitzwilliam and a Mister Dandridge were the Virginia Commissioners, along with the famous and wealthy Colonel William Byrd. Stephen hadn't seen such finery since he'd visited the Harrisons in Williamsburgh as a child, and he delighted in the prospect of seeing Virginia velvet torn to shreds by swamp briers. The Virginians groaned when they realized that the other two Carolina Commissioners, John Lovick and William Little, were not aboard.

      The Carolina men set to work preparing a meal for the twenty men while they waited for the others to arrive. The Virginians tried to hide their frustration. The 1710 attempted survey had fallen apart after disagreements between the two colonies' representatives. Beer and rum flowed freely that night and Stephen felt glad to be with comrades again. Voices awakened him in the darkest of night and he watched the surveyors take bearings by the bright North Star.

      It was already mid-afternoon of the next day when the two missing Commissioners arrived, making excuses for their lateness, but smelling of the entertainments they'd stopped for at several places along the way. The gentlemen went to the sheltered side of a clump of myrtle and began the ceremony of exchanging documents. Soon their raised voices were heard in argument over the beginning point. Where was the true location of the north shore of the Currituck Inlet, as designated in their Commissions?

      Currituck Inlet had changed greatly since Stephen saw it first. A hurricane had opened another inlet five miles to the south in 1712. The old Currituck Inlet was nearly closed, too shallow for ships of any size to pass. Waves slammed across the sand in loud collisions, and threw themselves high into the air. From the north, a spit of sand ran southeastward from a bluff of high land. From that, said the Virginians, should the survey line westward be run: the true north shore of the inlet. Carolinians objected, saying that this spit of land migrated, and that the survey should begin at the bluff. The argument raged on for hours, and still was not resolved by morning. In a peacemaking-attempt, Mister Moseley finally agreed to the Virginia proposal, but, at the last moment, two honest witnesses appeared who swore that, indeed, the spit of land had moved considerably over the last few years. The high point of land was agreed upon and a cedar post was driven into the sand at that point.

      Stephen volunteered to join the first team to accompany the surveyors. It began as easy work, carrying the chained poles to measure across the flat sand of Dosier's Island, then, after the line was sighted across a narrow arm of the Currituck Sound, onto Knott's Island. There the group made camp in a pasture with enclosures of cut cedar branches.

      The next morning, Colonel Byrd and the other Commissioners took the smaller pirogue to search for a way around Knott's Island, while the large canoe and baggage went around the south end and back up to North River, where the surveying party was to meet Colonel Byrd. The men carried the line for half a mile over the firm land of Knott's Island, then waded through two miles of marsh, rowed across an inlet, and waded through three more miles of marsh to the high land of Princess Anne County. No one complained. Instead, the men made jokes of the discomforts and, by the time they did reach dry land, were in high spirits. Disasters were turned into merriment.

      People from the countryside flocked to the camp that evening. They looked on the men as knights-errant, they said, who were running great risk of their lives for the public good. Some thought they must be criminals doing dirty work in payment for their offenses. But, what puzzled them all was how the men could be so light-hearted doing such drudgery.

      "You have little reason to be merry," one of the visitors said. "Tomorrow will change your attitude, I fancy. If you have any worldly goods to dispose of, my advice is that you make your wills this very night, for fear you die intestate tomorrow."

      Stephen lay that night looking at the stars. He was tired but smiling, still.

      The next day started early and they passed the line over firm land to the banks of the North River. They crossed over and landed in another mile-wide marsh, then onto high land to the pocosin they'd been warned of. It was a quagmire of mush, beaver dams, and otter holes that left the men barely able to drag their legs after them.

      Sunday followed, and very opportunely. No one worked but to cook. They rested in their filth as visitors came to stare at them.

      Monday started early and easily; three miles of high, dry ground. Then came two miles of quagmire as bad, or worse, than what they'd passed. No one complained, but the jesting was gone. When one man sank to his waist, no one laughed.

      A heavy rain fell that night, sending everyone to crowd into an old house for shelter. But the house had recently been a pork storehouse, and the moisture of the air dissolved the salt that lay scattered on the floor, making it as wet inside as out. Stephen was awakened before dawn from his deep sleep in the mud by the loud and furious cursing of Colonel Byrd. During the night, men from the pirogue had stolen the meat from the cooking pot, causing all to wait for breakfast to be cooked. The morning hours were spent drying bedclothes and supplies. Everyone's spirits were lifted again by the sun, and by noon they'd returned to pocosin and marsh. Landowners came to watch as the line cut plantations in two, leaving part in Virginia and part in Carolina. Another clear night gave restful sleep.

      Early the next morning, the chaplain arrived with men Colonel Byrd had left behind. They were to relieve those who'd labored since Currituck Inlet. Stephen and his now-friends objected. They had come to be proud of what they were doing and wanted to be the first men to venture through the Great Dismal Swamp, as Colonel Byrd was calling it. But the newcomers were equally ambitious and the decision was made by drawing lots. Stephen drew a lot that entitled him to continue and, like the other lucky men, was offered money for the opportunity. No lots were sold. All but the twelve men were dismissed to wait on the CarolinaNorfolk Road for Colonel Byrd and the Commissioners.