Freedom Bound (10 page)

THE INN STOOD
on high ground above a rippling stream—
the only clean-looking water that Charlotte had seen since
starting out nine hours earlier.

A wooden sign above the door announced that this was
Hewitt's Inn. It was a frame building, with a low, wide porch
reaching across the front. Two men were lounging on the
porch, drinking from tankards. A wagon, its load covered by
tarpaulins, was parked beside the building. A pair of mules
stood nose-to-tail in a paddock, the twitching of their long
ears the only sign that they were awake.

Before approaching the inn, Charlotte knelt by the stream,
cupped her hands, and drank the cool, fresh water. As she
drank, she felt the eyes of the men watching her, but their
scrutiny did not bother her. Her encounter with the stranger
on the wagon track had bolstered her confidence that her
disguise and her acting ability would fool anyone.

When she rose, wiping her hands on her breeches, she
greeted them.

“Good evening.”

“Evenin',” they answered, almost in unison.

As she told the story about her brother hunting turkeys,
the men exchanged sideways glances.

“What's he wearin'?” one asked.

“Why, a black hat, like mine. A dark grey coat. Black
knitted stockings.”

When she had finished speaking, the second man said,
“We never seen him.”

The other agreed. “No sir. We ain't seen any young fellows
come along this way. But y'all can ask inside.”

From the covert way they looked at each other, she wasn't
sure whether they had seen Nick, or not. If they had, they
weren't talking. In these dangerous times, there might be
any number of reasons to lie. Neither looked as if he were
ready to divulge any further information.

Charlotte had never been in an inn before. Nick spoke
well of the experience, but from the outside this small, backwater inn did not strike her as the kind of hostelry likely to
provide the weary traveller with a feather bed.

Her heart was thumping as she pressed the latch.

The room she entered had a low ceiling, bare-board walls,
and a brick fireplace. She looked around. There was a little
light from the fire, and more came through the two windows in the front wall. A door in the back opened onto a
kitchen, where a white woman wearing an apron and a
mobcap sat at a table peeling shrimp. Against the right wall,
a steep staircase ascended to the upper floor. On the opposite side of the room were three long trestle tables, each with
one end butting against the left wall.

There were three men in the inn's main room. One of
them, a portly fellow who wore a homespun smock over his
clothes, stood next to a sturdy frame on which rested three
beer kegs. He must be the innkeeper, Charlotte thought.

The other two men were seated side by side, close together
at one of the tables. One had a coonskin cap on his head,
and the other a wide-brimmed hat with a flat top. When
they looked up, her blood ran cold. These were the men who
had been watching Nick at the slave auction. There was no
mistaking either the beaky nose and receding chin of the
one wearing the coonskin, or the bushy brows and squinty
eyes of the other.

For a moment, she thought that Bushy Eyebrows recognized her. He squinted at her, but then, with a shrug, broke
off his gaze.

She relaxed, reminding herself that in her Quaker garb
she looked nothing like the young lady who had been with
Nick at the slave auction. If Bushy Eyebrows showed any
interest in her, it was probably because a Quaker entering an
inn was a rare sight.

Speaking loudly enough for all three to hear, she described
her fictitious brother in his Quaker garb and enquired
whether they had seen him.

“Sorry,” said the innkeeper, “I can't help you.”

“Not many turkeys in this part of the swamp,” said Beaky
Nose. He had a shrill voice to match his sharp features. “Y'all
better go a ways back along the trail and straight ahead. The
ground's higher that way. Round here, muskrats and alligators are all anybody's like to find.”

A bolt of lightning lit up the room, followed by a deafening crack of thunder. Charlotte flinched. “I'll take thy advice,
yet I fear my search must wait until tomorrow.” She turned
to the innkeeper. “Can thee provide me with a bed for the
night?”

“Sixpence. That includes supper and breakfast.”

After Charlotte had dug the coins from her satchel, he
pointed to the staircase. “Take any bed you like. We're not
full tonight. My wife will have supper ready in half an hour.”

Charlotte went up the stairs directly into a large room
that held six beds. Each bed had a thin mattress on which lay
a folded quilt. Off to one side stood an open keg. She quailed.
Oh, no! Not a honey bucket! She wrinkled her nose. There
had been a honey bucket in the barracks at Fort Haldimand,
an uncovered half-barrel for men to relieve themselves if
they didn't want to go outside to the latrines in the middle
of the night.

I'll pull my quilt over my head, she thought, and not see
a thing.

At the top of the stairs, a door stood open, letting her look
into a smaller room. This room was furnished with a double bed, a wardrobe, a small table and two chairs. Was this
room for wealthy guests? It was certainly more comfortable
looking than the other.

But a second glance told her that the smaller room belonged to the innkeeper and his wife, for she saw a woman's
bonnet on a hook, a framed sampler on the wall, and a covered chamber pot under the bed.

Turning back to the larger room, Charlotte chose the bed
furthest from the honey bucket, took off her boots, and lay
down. After her long walk, she needed a rest. Maybe she
could nap for half an hour, taking advantage of having the
room to herself.

Almost at once she heard raindrops on the roof, followed
by a peal of thunder so loud it shook the windowpanes. She
pulled the quilt up to her chin, listening to the rain hammer
harder and harder.

Her heart was hammering nearly as hard as the rain when
she thought of the night to come. Here she was, under the
same roof as the two men who had been watching Nick at
the slave market. Tonight she would try to eavesdrop on
their conversation. With luck, she might discover whether
there was a connection between their presence here and
Nick's abduction.

Turning her head, she saw through the windowpanes rain
sweeping in sheets across the swamp. The sky looked leaden
and bruised. Where was Nick? Not outside, she hoped, while
the storm raged.

She rested but did not sleep. When she judged that half an
hour had passed, she went downstairs. The men who had
been lounging on the porch were now indoors. Wood had
been added to the fire, so that it blazed more brightly. On
the walls, candles burned in tin sconces. The woman who
had been peeling shrimp was dishing up the fruits of her
labour: grits, shrimp and biscuits.

The innkeeper handed Charlotte a tankard. “You Quakers
don't object to a draught of small beer, I hope. It comes with
the meal.”

“Oh, no. Of course not.”

Charlotte had never tasted beer. She had enjoyed wine on
special occasions. But decent young women never drank
beer. What about Quaker men? She had no idea.

Charlotte supposed that she could ask for water. But since
she didn't want to draw extra attention to herself, she lifted
the tankard to her lips.

It tasted bitter, but good in its own way. She would drink
slowly, she resolved, and not too much. The Quaker principle of moderation would be her guide.

Beaky Nose and Bushy Eyebrows were still sitting side by
side at one of the trestle tables, now with food and drink
placed in front of them. Carrying her tankard of beer and
her plate of food, she sat down at the next table, with her
back to them. They were so close that her chair bumped
against Beaky Nose's chair until she pulled hers in.

If she acted as if she were minding her own business, they
might be careless about what they said. A quiet young
Quaker, absorbed in studying his Bible, would not be suspected of eavesdropping on their conversation.

After finishing her meal, Charlotte took from her satchel
the Bible that Mrs. Doughty had given her. It troubled her
conscience to use a Bible in such an underhanded way.

“Lord, forgive me,” she murmured as she opened it at the
place where a bookmark had been inserted between the
pages. Psalm 46, she read:

God is our refuge and strength, a very present help
in trouble.

Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be
removed, and though

the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea:

Though the water thereof roar and be troubled,
though the mountains shake

with the swelling thereof.

She could hear waters roaring outside the inn. On a night
like this, it would be hard to pick a Psalm more in tune with
the weather. This part of South Carolina lacked mountains,
but the raging creeks were doing their best to carry any bit
of land still above water into the midst of the sea.

She read no further. Beaky Nose and Bushy Eyebrows
were starting to talk.

“. . . he was no more a planter's son than a flying pig.” That
was the shrill voice of the former. “But he sure 'nough had
us fooled.”

“I never thought to see him again,” drawled Bushy Eyebrows, “the way he slipped away in the middle of the night.
But there he was a week later, right in the heart of Charleston, bidding on that girl like he really was a planter's son.”

“Sure has an eye for pretty women. Did y'all notice the
young lady with him?”

“I did indeed.” Bushy Eyebrows gave a chuckle. “If my old
woman looked like that, I wouldn't need a black girl on the
side.”

Oh, really! Charlotte thought, her ears burning. Not her
Nick! If they think that Nick would ever . . .

Hunched over the Bible, she endured more remarks of a
similar nature until the snickering stopped and Beaky Nose
and Bushy Eyebrows returned to the subject of the supposed
planter's son.

“Now that our friend's had another night chained in the
cave, he should be ready to talk,” said Beaky Nose.

“He's pretty tough.”

“There's nothing like sitting in swamp water to soften a
man. If he won't talk tomorrow, we can try fire ants.”

“He must know a hundred backcountry names we can
add to the list,” said Bushy Eyebrows. “Tories. Families supplying food to British soldiers. There'll be mighty good farms
for the taking, after the Assembly banishes those traitors and
seizes their property.”

“Here's to Liberty!” Beaky Nose raised his voice in a toast.
“And to Prosperity!”

While their tankards clinked, she kept her eyes on the
page. So they had Nick sitting in swamp water, chained in a
cave. But where?

Her first idea had been to find Elijah and ask for his help.
But it turned out she didn't need Elijah's help. If she could
follow these men, they would lead her straight to the cave.

Beaky Nose and Bushy Eyebrows went on to praise a man
named Francis Marion, leader of a band of rebels they called
swamp dodgers. These fighters, she learned, were busy picking off British outposts and ambushing Loyalist troops on
the march to defend Fort Ninety-Six. She also heard a prediction that Charleston would be surrounded by the end of
summer. None of this surprised her. It was what Nick expected, too. He had told her, on the night he returned from
the backcountry, that the rebels were taking over South
Carolina bit by bit.

When the two men left their table, Charlotte waited for a
while to give them time to go to bed. Then she closed the
Bible and went upstairs. She crawled onto her bed, pulled
the quilt over her head, and did her best to ignore her companions' snores, the honey bucket, the howling wind, and
the pelting rain.

IN THE MORNING
it was still raining. The stream from
which Charlotte had drunk the previous afternoon had disappeared under the black and swollen flood. The wagon
track had vanished beneath a vast lake that was studded
with isolated trees. Water reached halfway to the hocks of
the two mules standing forlornly in the paddock. Wavelets
lapped at the boards of the porch, where Charlotte now
stood by herself, looking about.

She was not alone for long. The two men who had been
sitting on the porch when she arrived at the inn came outside.

“Don't worry about your brother, lad,” said one. “He'll
have found his way to high ground, where he'll have wild
turkeys for company, along with deer and rabbits, if he's still
minded to do some hunting.”

“When will the water go down?”

“It'll start to drain away after the rain stops. Y'all better
stay put for a few hours, 'cause you don't know the currents.
One false step could carry you away.”

While he was talking, his partner waded to the wagon and
retrieved harness from under the tarpaulins.

“Surely thee won't leave this soon!” exclaimed Charlotte.

“General Greene is waiting for these supplies. We've done
this before. One time on the wagon track, we sloshed through
water for six days. We know the way. The mules do, too.”

He stepped off the porch, waded to the paddock, and
brought out the mules. While the men were hitching them
up, the big, placid animals looked as though they had been
through this a hundred times. The men climbed onto their
seat at the front, and then the wagon started out, heading
northeast. Its wheels were halfway to their hubs in black
water.

When Charlotte went back inside, she saw Beaky Nose
and Bushy Eyebrows seated at one of the tables, eating grits
and drinking coffee. She sat down at the next table. In a few
seconds the innkeeper's wife set Charlotte's breakfast in
front of her.

While she ate, she tried to overhear what Beaky Nose and
Bushy Eyebrows were talking about. Nothing much, she
soon realized. The business of eating seemed to require their
entire attention. Each sat hunched with his arms virtually
wrapped around his plate, as if afraid someone would try to
steal it.

After breakfast, she wandered back out to the porch. The
rain had stopped. In the distance, the wagon pulled by the
two mules was still in sight.

Beaky Nose and Bushy Eyebrows joined her a few minutes later.

“The rate it's going, that wagon won't cover five miles today,” said Beaky Nose.

“Don't much matter,” said Bushy Eyebrows. “Slow and
steady wins the war. Whenever they arrive, General Greene
can use those supplies.” He turned his head toward Charlotte. “What's your opinion of General Greene?”

“My opinion?”

“He's a Quaker, or didn't y'all know? They call him ‘The
Fighting Quaker.' Fighting goes against your beliefs, don't
it?”

“Well . . . er . . . I don't know anything about General
Greene.” She was starting to sweat, afraid to say something
accidentally that would reveal she was not a Quaker.

“Nathanael Greene has more brains in his big toe than
Cornwallis has in his whole head.”

“Is that so?” Charlotte murmured politely.

“Look what General Cornwallis did. Burned his own supply wagons so his army could travel light. He's got eight
thousand hungry Loyalist soldiers scattered in companies all
over the backcountry. Hungry men can't fight. Now, General Greene knows that. He knows you have to feed your
men if you want a good fighting force.” He pointed to the
wagon that was making its slow and steady way northwest.
“Y'all know what's on that wagon?”

“No.”

“Rice and sweet potatoes to feed the Patriots. We have
wagons every week taking food to our fighting men. Last
week we had a wagon loaded with hams, two wagons loaded
with corn, and another carrying rifles and gunpowder. What
do you think of that?”

His words sounded like a challenge. Was Bushy Eyebrows
trying to goad her into condemning General Greene for his
un-Quakerlike behaviour? She was puzzled to know what a
real
Quaker would say in response.

She answered, “It's an excellent idea to send food for your
army. Then the soldiers won't have to steal it. I've heard that
both sides raid farms, leaving nothing for local people to
eat.”

“So you ain't gonna criticize General Greene?”

“I'm sure he has his reasons for whatever he does.”

“As for that brother of yours,” said Bushy Eyebrows, “what's
he think about this war?”

“My brother doesn't take sides.” Charlotte shifted uncomfortably. “I just hope nothing's happened to him,” she said,
trying to change the subject.

“He never should have come here if he doesn't know the
swamp,” said Beaky Nose. “Neither should you, unless you
want to be dinner for an alligator. As soon as the water level
goes down, you should follow the track right back to
Charleston; that's what you ought to do.”

Suddenly Bushy Eyebrows gave a shout. “Billy, look who's
comin' this way!”

Charlotte looked in the direction he was pointing, and
there was a rowboat approaching the inn.

“Good ol' Rufus,” said Bushy Eyebrows. “He knew where
to find us.”

Charlotte stood watching while the boat pulled up beside
the porch just as if it were a dock. The man called Rufus had
reddish hair and a ruddy complexion.

“Mornin' Billy. Mornin' Abner.” He rested on his oars. “I
figured I'd find y'all here.”

“It was either that or spend the night in the cave,” said
Bushy Eyebrows. “Me and Billy reckoned Hewitt's Inn would
be a darn sight more comfortable.”

So Beaky Nose was Billy and Bushy Eyebrows was Abner.
Just knowing their names made Charlotte feel a little more
in control.

“Where's Robert and Joe?” Billy asked.

“They went on home,” said Rufus. “They was worried
about their livestock gettin' caught in the flood.”

“That's fine,” said Abner. “The three of us can do what
needs to be done.”

“How'd you get along yesterday with our friend?” Rufus
asked.

“No results yet. He's mighty tough,” Abner replied as he
clambered into the boat.

“We reckon one more night in the cave will have softened
him up,” said Billy. “If he won't talk today, we'll try fire ants
tomorrow.”

Billy climbed into the boat after Abner.

“Feels like she's scraping bottom,” Billy said.

“That's all right,” Rufus answered. “It's just mud. I can
push off.”

“Three men is too many,” said Billy. “If the water goes
down much further, we'll go aground. Then we'll be stuck
until the next high tide.”

“We're all right,” said Rufus. “But we can't waste any time.”
He leaned into the oars, and off they went.

Charlotte, left alone on the porch, watched the boat pull
away. It did not, she noticed, follow the same northeast
course as the wagon, but headed due north toward a low,
wooded island about half a mile away. The boat disappeared
around the eastern end of the island, leaving her uncertain
whether it had gone ashore or continued on. At least I know
the general direction I must go, she thought as she went
inside.

The innkeeper was sweeping the floor with a corn broom
while his wife cleared the table.

“Now I'm thy only guest,” Charlotte said. “The others went
off in a rowboat, and soon I'll be on my way.”

The innkeeper stopped sweeping. “Not so fast. You should
never walk through flooded land until you can see blades of
grass sticking out of the water. That's how you tell the shallow places. Never take a step where no plants are visible, or
like as not you'll step off the edge of an underwater creek
bank, and the current will sweep you away.”

“How long must I wait here?”

“Now that it's stopped raining, the water will start to go
down. Maybe by low tide you'll be able to leave. That'll be a
few hours.” The innkeeper returned to his sweeping. “You
know, running an inn during times like these isn't easy.
Everything's political. Even asking a person whether he
wants coffee or tea.”

“How can that be political?”

“It's been political ever since England put a tax on tea. If
you offer a Patriot a cup of tea, he's likely to offer you the
back of his hand.”

The innkeeper's wife called through the open kitchen
door, “You Quakers are lucky. Nobody forces you to take
sides. I wish we could be treated like that. All my husband
and I want to do is wait it out to see who wins.”

“We hope that nobody sets his sights on taking over the
inn.” The innkeeper leaned on his broom. “It's a good inn,
though the land's of no value. Would you believe we have six
kinds of snakes in the swamp, three of them poisonous? And
then there's the alligators.”

“I saw one,” said Charlotte. She sat down at the table. “It
was about five feet long.”

“Just a baby!” said the innkeeper's wife as she set down
another plate of grits in front of Charlotte.

“Don't scare the lad.” The innkeeper resumed sweeping.
“Alligators don't bother us much. Of course, if they're hungry, they can move real fast. For a few yards, an alligator can
outrun a deer. It swallows the deer—hair, hoofs and all. Then
it doesn't need a meal for weeks. Until it gets hungry again,
it just lies there basking in the sun.”

“When I meet an alligator, how do I know when it ate its
last meal? It isn't as if I could ask.”

“Look for the bulge,” he answered. “A big bulge in the
middle means the gator's digesting something big.”

“I'll remember that.” Charlotte finished her grits, stood
up and pushed back her chair. “I noticed an island about
half a mile to the north. The men who went off in the rowboat headed in that direction. I think that's where I'll look
for my brother.”

“Island? That's no island. It's the top of a hill, as you'll see
when the water goes down.”

Feeble sunshine was now coming through the windows.

“I'll wait on the porch,” Charlotte said, “to let thee get on
with thy work. But first, will thee sell me a flask that I can fill
with clean water, when I find some.”

“A penny for the flask,” said the innkeeper. “The water's
free. We always keep on hand a barrelful from the spring. At
high tide or whenever there's a flood, we might as well be in
the middle of a desert, for all the water that's fit to drink.”

She sat on the porch all morning, watching the supposed
island grow wider and wider, closer and closer. What had
looked like a lake studded with isolated trees gradually transformed into land. When tips of grass finally emerged, she
went back inside to pick up the flask. The innkeeper and his
wife wished her good luck in her search.

With her first step off the porch, Charlotte discovered
that the water was barely past her ankles, but the bottom
was so soft that she sank halfway to her boot tops. Thanks to
Mrs. Doughty's concoction of beeswax, tallow and tar, not a
drop of water penetrated the leather of her boots.

It must be low tide, she thought as the water continued to
drop. Before long she was walking not in water but upon
soggy land, picking her way around pools that steamed in
the afternoon sun. Beside one pool a sixteen-foot alligator
lay motionless. The gator had a deeply ridged back, armoured
flanks, a muscular tail, and a huge, swollen belly. With a
bulge like that, it can't be hungry, she assured herself. But
she couldn't help wondering about the unlucky creature
being slowly digested inside. A deer? A hog? Either would be
about that size. She gripped the handle of her knife as she
walked by. When giving it to her, Mrs. Doughty had said
that this was the knife her husband had used to cut out
leather soles for shoes.