Becoming Americans (63 page)

      These twelve men sat with the Commissioners and surveyors that night as they listened to the borderers of the Dismal who'd come to give advice. No one knew its width, or little else of it, even though they'd lived within smelling distance of it all their lives. Stephen listened in amusement as he old timers told tales of the lions, panthers, and alligators they were likely to encounter. He'd heard such stories in his youth, and more.

      Early in the morning, the provisions, bedding, and other necessaries were made up into packs for the men to carry. Enough food for eight days was allowed; it was certain that would be enough, and they couldn't carry more. As one of the strongest men, Stephen's pack weighed nearly seventy pounds. With these heavy packs, the men were to carry the chains, measure the distance, mark the trees, and clear the way for the surveyors every step they went.

      The men were cheerful, ready for the test. Mister Irving, a Virginia surveyor, was the only man of the group who seemed unenthusiastic. For his comfort, he had the men carry his bed and several changes of clothing. By ten o'clock in the morning, they had entered the Dismal.

      The reeds were tall and thick like Stephen had seen before. The ground was wet and spongy like he remembered. He and a Virginia man pushed ahead and used their tomahawks to clear an opening for the surveyors. In three hours they pushed forward half a mile to a small area of firm land. They put down their packs and rested, passing around the jug of rum. After an hour's rest Colonel Byrd made a rousing speech and the surveying party continued into the reeds as Colonel Byrd and the two other Commissioners with him turned back. In the stifling heat of the reeds the party made one more mile's progress that day.

      Another day in worse reeds and briers than before ended amidst a tangle of great cypresses which the wind had blown down and heaped upon one another. The limbs were sharp snags, like pikes, that were hard to avoid. Less than two miles were made on this day as the jug of rum moved around, mixed with the dark water that bubbled up from any depression.

      Stephen lay strips of bark on the ground, and put his blanket on top of that. He lay awake for a few minutes, knowing that by now Colonel Byrd and his party would have passed through Deep Creek on their way to greet the surveying part when it exited the swamp on the western side. He thought of his mother and fell asleep.

      Another day of edging through and over fallen trees followed. Making it worse, the bad water had brought on fluxes among the men, many of them soiling their breeches. Mister Irving stopped to change clothes twice. They all chewed the rhubarb that Colonel Byrd had issued to them, and the malady was controlled. Early in the evening a hard rain started. As the trembling ground they stood on turned into a pond, the men had the good fortune to come upon firm ground and raised a shelter of branches to be safe and dry. Mister Irving looked about for snakes that might be seeking high ground from the water, but Stephen reassured him. The Commissioners had been wise to choose this time of year, before the snakes came out.

      They rested on the high ground for another day, Sunday, until the water dropped.

      Monday was clear and the line passed over better ground. They covered nearly three miles until stopped by an impenetrable cedar thicket.

      Tuesday, the nineteenth of March, was another day in a miry cedar bog, with more fallen trees and trembling ground. They worked in silence.

      Wednesday was more cedar bog, where the trees were smaller and grew in a thicket. Provisions were getting shorter and the work was getting harder. They began rationing the food, and lay down to bed hungry. Some humor did remain, and the youngest fellow of the group, who was plump and healthy-looking, was threatened with the cooking pot if things got worse. He was glad to be of service to such good friends, dead or alive, he said, but was the last to fall asleep.

      On Thursday morning, the remaining provisions were distributed among the men to eat when they saw fit. The prospect was bleak so, with all consenting, they decided to abandon the line, for present, and set off very early with their compass in a direct, westerly course. The struggled through the cedar swamp until dark, covering about four miles. All food was gone by night, and most of their hopes, until they heard the sound of cattle lowing and dogs barking.

      At sunlight, they started off again towards the west. They saw the good omen of crows flying overhead and, after an hour's march over marshy ground they began to find themselves among tall pines that grew in the water. Stephen knew they were out. It was wet, but the ground was hard beneath. About ten o'clock that morning they reached dry land. Their good luck took them to the house a Mister Brinkley, just south of the line, who began a barrage of questions.

      "We have no spirit to answer questions till after dinner," Samuel Swan told him.

      "But, pray, gentlemen, answer my one question at least: what shall we get for your dinner?"

      Swan answered for them all

      "No matter what, provided it be but enough."

      Stephen heard himself groaning and woke up. The pain in his foot made him yell and he reached down to grasp his ankle. He'd stepped on a cedar spike as they scrambled to get out of the swamp, but didn't know how baldly he'd hurt himself till then. Samuel Swann lay next to him and woke up in alarm.

      "What is it, man?"

      "My foot!" Stephen cried.

      Swann untied the stocking and pulled it off, over the swollen foot, stiff with dried blood.

      "My God!" Swann said, and handed Stephen a flask of kill-devil rum.

      Swann went to get Colonel Byrd as Stephen drank from the flask and moaned.

      The spike had driven to the bone and the wound was dirty from the swamp. Colonel Byrd had one of Mister Speight's servants wash the foot, then he bound it tightly after applying a salve that he made from ingredients he carried with him, mixed with herbs that Mistress Speight grew in her garden.

      The salve gave some comfort, as did the rum, and the celebrity that came with their exploit was a diversion from pain. It was so for Stephen, but nothing was solace for George Tilman who was exhausted with the flux and who lost nourishment and liquid faster than he could take them in. Stephen Williams and George Tilman were done with the survey.

      In short time both men were satisfied for their services. Mister Moseley, in his cups, called Stephen a "martyr," and paid him handsomely for the dirty work. Mister Dandridge settled well with Tilman, though the man was still too weak to know the difference. Their comrades paid them honors, and the men waiting to take their places treated them like munificent benefactors.

      Word spread quickly of the men's escape from the swamp, and people began to come. Many of them brought food or drink, and a fair celebration was held.

      The next day was Sunday and more people came to hear the chaplain's sermon or to have their children baptized. Stephen was carried to a high-wheeled cart among the men where he could lie to hear the pastor and to see and be seen by the crowd. He saw
Nancy
Manning, from Deep Creek, in the throng. She was much older, to his surprise, and stood with a man and three children. She looked at him and smiled in recognition.

      Nancy Ruffin, she told him later, the wife of Charles Ruffin, to whom she introduced him.

      They had but little time to talk. Mister Ruffin was anxious to be presented to Colonel Byrd by his friend Speight, and Nancy had lost track of her girls. Before leaving to return to their plantation on the Blackwater River she came back and interrupted the group of young people who had gathered around him.

      "I'm glad you're doing well, Stephen," she said. "You're looking well. The last time I saw you was at a church service, too, you remember. Your actions, then, had chased away the girls. Not like today."

      Her eyes traveled over him in a scandalous way as she held his hand in farewell.

      For the next five days Stephen stayed at the Speight plantation as his former comrades returned to the swamp to carry forth the line. Mister Speight, who had nearly exhausted his supply of laid-up pork and beef, was plainly relieved to be near the end of his hospitality. Colonel Byrd and the other Commissioners, along with their porters, servants, and extra men, had drained his reserves of graciousness as well as those in his smokehouses. His daughter, and the female servant assigned to tend Stephen's wound, were more compassionate. Although they were unduly pale, with "custard faces," as he heard Mister Dandridge say, from the Carolina diet of port, Stephen found their attentions to him flattering and arousing. By Thursday, he had bedded the nurse and one of the Speight daughters. This activity made his foot bleed anew and caused a jealous reaction from a second daughter, which threatened to expose the household's methods of treating a wounded hero.

      On Friday, after bringing the line onto the high ground and causing signs to be raised alongside the road, Mister Swann was allowed to depart from the survey party so as to return home to his bride. He led the cart that carried Stephen down to Edenton, passing happy people all along the road. All of the disputed land was now officially recognized as being in North Carolina.

There was celebration when Stephen and Swann reached Edenton, and when Samuel Swann rode out the next day to join his bride at their plantation, Stephen was left as hero of the hour.

      Traversing the Dismal Swamp was a trek worthy of Marco Polo. Never before had man ventured into that morass of evil spirits and sickly humors to emerge alive on the other side. Some said that the explorers lied; some that they were allies of Satan, who lived in the Swamp; some that they were specially protected by God in their labor of community spirit; but all were thankful that the boundary dispute was settled, and all were eager to be in the company of a "dismalite."

      Stephen paid for no drinks, even though he had ample cash to supply himself. Doors were opened to him, and the hospitality of Edenton offered him a fresh bed every night for weeks. Men rushed to be his friend, and many came with schemes for quick wealth and position. Women approached him on the street, and his thoughts moved from forest brooding back to the motivating ponder of sensual pleasures that had filled his mind when he was younger. He basked in the attention, and it warmed him to the company of society. The years of solitude and despair faded in his memory as he listened to the words of praise for his daring and sacrifice. He enjoyed the moment and gave little consideration to his future.

      Carolina had changed in the years since he'd gone into hiding from Blackbeard and from the evil spirits that had haunted him. There seemed to be people everywhere; people were moving to the colony in ever-greater numbers. Some said there were thirty thousand souls in North Carolina—including the bondsmen and slaves. The manufacture of tar, pitch, and turpentine had become a valuable resource for the British Empire. With the export of these commodities, along with the great footage of lumber, staves, and rows of barrels, many folks were growing wealthy. Many more, smaller landholders were able to provide for their families and live an easy life in the land of plenty. A tide of new Europeans, mixed with the influx of Virginians, pushed past the falls of the rivers towards the hill country of their sources, some already seating near the mountains. Bertie precinct was created from Albemarle County, and Bath County had been subdivided into Beaufort, Hyde, and Craven precincts. Carteret precinct was created to the South, and New Hanover in the area by the Cape Fear River, where settlers were arriving from Barbados and from Scotland. And talk was current of subdividing from New Hanover, an Onslow and a Bladen, and from Bertie, an Edgecombe precinct.

      The political situation appeared to have changed, but it was merely some of the players and their titles that were different. Mister Moseley remained a power, and when he returned from the interrupted boundary survey in April, he reentered the struggle for a people's party in the government, fighting to hold off the arbitrary use of power by the executive, be he a proprietary or royal governor.

      The attitudes of the soon-to-be-royal colonists were unlikely to change, all agreed. Royal and Parliamentary authority would be more direct, with the change, without the middlemen of Proprietors and their appointees, but the tradition was well established of an aggressively independent populace.

      The political influence of Quakers was gone. Oaths of qualification had weeded out that faction, although dissenting sects still abounded. England's Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts was occupying itself with the spiritual needs of "Rogues Harbor," but churches were rare and the ministers set poor examples. The times were unfettered by moral constraints. Fear of the church, itself, no longer sufficed to curtail the sensual appetites of the people, and name-calling, profanity, and violence were the usual tools in disputes among all layers of society. Unwed mothers were not uncommon. In this milieu, Stephen no longer felt hunted, but liberated.

      With his reputation as a woodsman well established, and his curiosity about the wilderness piqued, Stephen accepted an offer of partnership with the merchant trader, Peter Michie. Michie was a small trader who poled the inland waterways and rivers to the falls, and followed the paths and rough roads that connected them. Most Indian traders were based in Virginia or in South Carolina since most Indians, by this point, lived far to the west. There remained the Tuscarora Town up the Roanoke, and the Meherrin Indian Town north of that, near the Virginia line, but the eastern tribes and nations had largely been slaughtered or transported after the great Tuscarora War. And, since the great rivers of North Carolina flowed from northwest to southeast, commerce from the Albemarle required too many dangerous crossings or extended detours.