King's Mountain (14 page)

“A fine-looking child,” I said, though I could see little but the tip of its nose. “My congratulations to you.”

She shrugged. “'Tis another lass, this one, and we've three of them already.” She nodded in the direction of the creek where three little girls, the eldest no more than seven, were playing at the water's edge. “If they don't bring husbands into the business, I suppose they'll learn the craft from me, as I did from me own father.”

“You don't allow them near the fires yet, surely?”

“No. That will keep until they are older.”

I looked out across the field to the little stream, to watch the three copper-haired Patton daughters, too absorbed in their game to notice their elders. I had expected to see them laughing and splashing one another, as my own young ones did at play, but the Patton daughters were as solemn as owls. Each of them was holding a corner of a large white cloth, stained with red streaks, and they were dipping it into the creek and pulling it out again. After a moment, the oldest girl turned back to look for her mother. Finally catching sight of me watching them, she pointed her finger at me and uttered a low moan. Her sisters, stair steps to her in age, let the wet cloth fall upon the rocks, and joined the eldest in pointing and moaning in my direction. Their utter solemnity rendered the scene chilling, rather than charming.

My smile faded and I took an involuntary step backward. “What on earth are they doing?” I asked their mother, endeavoring to banish the thought of madness from my mind.

Mary Patton sighed and shook her head. “Oh, it's all a nonsense, but it's their favorite pastime nowadays. I beg your pardon if they startled you, but it's only part of that silly game. They call it being
washers at the ford.
Their father has filled their heads with wild tales from the old country. He gathers them around the hearth of an evening, and spins tales of fairy folk, and magic swords, and all manner of fanciful moonshine. So now the girls play at being the creatures in those old stories of his.”

“But what is a washer at the ford?”

“Well, John would have it that there are female spirits called
bean-sidhes,
who appear to those who are about to die. He says that if you come upon a strange woman washing bloody clothes in a forest stream, then you have met the bean-sidhe and shortly thereafter you are bound to die. You'd think the girls would take fright at hearing such a tale as that, especially the little one, but, no, they are all three enchanted. Instead of fearing such a creature, Margaret and her sisters are playing at being the fairy women themselves. They've taken to washing that old sheet in the stream, and you arrived at just the right time to be their victim today. It's only nonsense. Pay it no mind at all.” She began to fuss with the baby's shawls, and the older girls turned back to their washing.

I managed a weak smile. “Children are savage little creatures, aren't they? In happier times, I think I would be charmed by such a singular pastime, and your little woodland fairies are lovely creatures. But the mission that brings me to see you today is so fraught with danger that I am wary of any omen at all that might cast a shadow on its success. Still, these fairy washers are only little girls, and not magic beings, but I would wish that those lasses had pointed their bony little fingers at Major Ferguson instead of at me.”

At the sound of that name, Mistress Patton stopped arranging the baby's shawls, and grew very still. “So that's the way of it?” she said softly.

I sat down on the grass close to Mistress Patton's wooden stool. “Yes,” I said. “That's the way of it. Ferguson is somewhere north of Gilbert Town, last we knew, and he has had a message delivered to Colonel Shelby, threatening to invade our settlement unless we keep out of the war.”

Mary Patton was looking past me, keeping a watchful eye on her timber pyres, but her very stillness told me that she was listening intently. When she was satisfied that nothing was amiss with any of her charcoal fires, she turned her attention back to me. “Well, I don't suppose that you gentlemen do intend to keep out of the war, since you have come to pay a visit to me.”

“True enough. We have talked it over at length, Colonel Shelby and I, but I don't think either of us ever had a moment's hesitation in charting our course of action. We agree that if we allowed ourselves to be cowed by Ferguson's threats, sooner or later he would find an excuse to bring his troops here to the settlements, anyway, if only to steal our livestock to feed his army.”

Mary Patton's expression did not change. “So you mean to get into the fighting. We've heard tell that Charles Town in South Carolina fell back in the spring.”

“Yes, but we've had battles with the Tories since then, and acquitted ourselves well. We don't mean to fight the lot of them—just the forces commanded by Ferguson. We fancy our chances, providing we can take him by surprise without his getting reinforcement from Tarleton.” I doubt if I would have spoken with such frankness or in such detail with any other woman of my acquaintance, but the nature of Mary Patton's work gave her more familiarity with military matters than most members of her sex. It was the fruits of her labor that would enable us to go to war in the first place, and if we lost, the consequences to her family would be dire. She deserved to know.

She was nodding. “Take the Tories by surprise and hope they don't outnumber you, yes. And also providing that you have enough supplies and ammunition to hold your own against the king's army for however long you need to.”

“Yes, and it is on that account that I came to consult you, Mistress Patton. How is your stock of black powder these days?”

She looked appraisingly at me. “Depends on what you reckon you'll need. How many men are you taking over the mountain?”

“All of us together? Upwards of a thousand. My men, and Shelby's and those of Colonel McDowell. We can persuade William Campbell over in Virginia to come, I hope. Other militias east of the mountains will join us as we go, but they'll have their own supplies. But, say, a thousand men.”

She blinked. “So many? Perhaps I'd better be making powder for the rest of us first, then. After you've gone, will there be any able-bodied men left behind to protect us from the Indians?”

“Yes. We planned for that. James Robertson and his militia will keep the settlements safe while we're gone. But I do not expect there to be any Indian raids this soon. The Cherokee are well aware of our war with the British. If I were Dragging Canoe, I would wait to attack until the invaders reached the settlements here. That distraction would increase his chances of making a successful strike. Anyhow, Robertson should not have to hold the territory for long. Our journey will be brief—one way or another.” I glanced back at the three little girls, but they were taking no further notice of us. Now they were kneeling on the rocks at the water's edge, sailing leaf boats along in the swirling current.

Remembering the words of Shakespeare, I mused aloud,
“There is a tide in the affairs of men, which, taken at the flood leads on to fortune…”

Mary Patton paid no mind to my woolgathering. “When are you planning to set out then, Colonel Sevier?”

“We are mustering not far from here—at Robertson's fort, at Sycamore Shoals—on the twenty-fifth of this month. You have until then to make the powder we need.”

“I will need until then,” she said, glancing back at her workers, tending the charcoal pyres. “Unless weather or mishap hinders me, I reckon I can deliver five hundred pounds of powder by the twenty-fifth, but…” She hesitated.

I suspect there is Scots blood somewhere in the lineage of Mary Patton, and the French and the Scots have always understood each other. “Never fear, madam. We can pay you for your work. John Adair has advanced us funds from the settlement's treasury, and we have no greater need for that money than to purchase black powder for our weapons. The success of the venture depends upon it. Name your price, but remember that it is for a good cause.”

Mary Patton smiled. “Well, that's all right then, Colonel. You shall have your powder on the mustering day, as ordered.”

VIRGINIA SAL

Mid-September 1780

There is a time in late September when the leaves are still green, and the days are still warm, but somehow you know that it is all about to end, as if summer was holding its breath, and when it let it out again, it would be autumn.

I felt that way about the golden days we had spent racketing around the hills of Carolina, feasting on stolen cattle and swilling the apple wine of the Whig landowners. I didn't feel too sorry for the Whigs, though, because I knew they'd do the same thing to their Loyalist neighbors when they could, and I didn't feel guilty because it wasn't me that did the stealing. It would have happened just the same, whether I'd been there or not. But I kept on having this feeling that the glorious excursion was coming to an end.

I said as much to Virginia Paul, when we were rattling around in one of the supply wagons, on the way to somewhere else, which is what we usually did in the daylight hours, while the regiment went looking for rebels to fight. It wasn't any use to try to do the sewing in the wagon, for the rocky road jostled us so that we could not hold our needles steady enough to make a proper seam.

When I ventured to say that it felt like things were coming to an end, Virginia Paul stopped combing her hair, and gave me a less disdainful smile than usual. “What makes you say that, Sal?”

It was a feeling, but I couldn't put it into words. I shrugged. “It just seems like things are changing. There wasn't much fighting all summer, and most of the time I felt like we were on an excursion instead of fighting a war.”

The scornful look returned. “I suppose it was an excursion for you, Sal. Seeing new country and eating your fill every night. Nobody asked you to fight. You didn't so much as steal a chicken. There has been precious little fighting, at least in your purview, and not many losses. You have yet to see death at close hand, and feel the pain of it.”

That stung me, coming from her, for she couldn't be much older than I was. She was being awful high and mighty for somebody who hadn't seen much more of the war than I had. “I suppose you'd be an expert on dying,” I said. “I expect you know all about it.”

Virginia Paul took no offense at my mockery. With a solemn expression, she tilted her head to one side while she considered the matter. “Yes,” she said at last. “I have seen a fair number of deaths, and I reckon I know the way of it better than you do, Sal. But I never could feel it the way you can. You'll know more of the sorrow of death than I ever will.”

I knew there was no use asking her what troubles she had lived through, for she never would answer any questions about herself. Sometimes she spoke as if she were an old woman who had seen many years of toil and sorrow. But since she was so young, I thought that she must have meant that somewhere she had seen too many horrors to be moved by anything more.

Suddenly she looked up and became still, as if she were listening to something outside, but all I heard was the rumbling of the wagon, and the
clop clop
of the officers' horses in front of us. After a moment she sighed. “Well, we shall soon know the truth of it, Sal. Let us see how you feel then.”

She would say nothing more on the subject, and at last she curled up in the blankets at the back of the wagon and went to sleep, but I sat still for a long time, expecting at any moment to hear the crack of gunfire that would signal an ambush. All was quiet, though, and I decided she'd only been trying to frighten me with her talk of death.

*   *   *

That evening we fetched up somewhere near Gilbert Town, for the regiment had been circling that town for weeks, like a moth to a candle flame. We might go a ways north or west of it, but sooner or later we ended up back again, ready to set off in a different direction in a day or so.

Virginia Paul and I jumped down out of the baggage wagon and went looking for the creek, for we were sweat-soaked and dusty from the day's sojourn on the road. When we had finished what the major would call our “ablutions” and were heading back toward camp, we heard a piteous wailing, followed by shouts of alarm.

An ambush,
I thought, but Virginia Paul kept on calmly walking toward the camp, as if the noises had been no more than birdsong.

I took hold of her arm. “What is it?”

She turned to me and smiled. “Go along and find out, Sal. They'll have need of one of us, and this time it should be you.”

I hitched up my skirt and ran toward the shouting. When I neared the circle of baggage wagons, I found a cluster of soldiers gathered around something that I could not see. Before I could make my way into the crowd to see what had happened, I saw Uzal Johnson with his black satchel, hurrying along in the wake of one of the farm boys. The crowd parted to let him through, and I followed him into the gap.

I saw the blood in the dirt before I could take in anything else. Sprawled on the ground lay a rawboned boy, one of the local recruits, holding his leg, from which the blood gushed like a stream of snowmelt. I turned to the man beside me. “What happened to him?”

Without taking his eyes off the injured recruit, the soldier said, “That there's Malcolm Hardie, from over in South Carolina. They say he tripped on something—a rock—like as not, and it pitched him under the baggage wagon, just as the rest of us were rolling it in place in the circle of wagons. One of the wagon wheels ran over his leg. Crushed it, I reckon.”

“Come here, girl!” Uzal Johnson was kneeling next to the wailing boy, probing the wound with his fingers, when he looked up and caught sight of me. I had helped the doctor now and again with the washing and dressing of wounds, so I reckoned he had need of me now.