The Bold Frontier Read online

  “I always take him seriously,” Nick replied. “For a leader of a small tribe, the Conjurer has a large influence.”

  He put one boot on the landgrave’s fine polished writing desk. The insolence visibly excited the older man’s anger.

  “This goes back such a long way, Sir Pierce. The Indians have never understood how other men, by reason of their white skins and royal patents, can graze their cattle on Indian lands at will, and kill any red man who objects. I am never surprised when the red stick’s passed. It will pass until the tribes are gone, or we are. Now I repeat. What is this about?”

  Sir Pierce made a phlegmy sound in his throat. He scraped his buckled shoes on the pegged floor.

  “My good wife lies upstairs, most grievously ill.”

  “I wondered why I hadn’t seen her tonight.”

  “As for Barbara—she is gone too.” His cheeks showed spots of color. “To Wyndham’s Barony. She has been visiting Jelks Wyndham and his mother the past fortnight.”

  Nick sat very stiffly now. He was pale again. The barony of Jelks Wyndham, who was betrothed to Barbara Cottloe, lay up-country. To reach it required a journey of two days. It was in the heart of the sparsely populated region freely roamed by the hostile Indians. There, Nick knew very well, Jelks Wyndham had pursued his own selfish policy, which resembled that of the colony itself: setting Indian against Indian whenever possible, to preserve his domain and keep it free of molestation.

  “I will pay you twenty pounds, sterling, to ride to Wyndham’s and bring my daughter safely back to Charles Town so that she can attend her mother. I need a capable man, because it’s dangerous up-country just now.”

  Nick’s lip twisted. “I was not good enough to wed Barbara, but I’m good enough to shed blood for her, is that it?”

  “I want the best man, Nicholas.”

  “Wouldn’t that be her intended? Wyndham?”

  “Wyndham’s a gentleman—no disrespect meant to you, please understand. What I mean to say is, Wyndham’s smart, but he’s also soft. He came to Carolina from Bristol but five years ago. He doesn’t know the country as you do. He doesn’t know the red men, nor woodcraft, nor how to defend himself well in the open.” Nick began to shake his head. “If twenty pounds isn’t enough—”

  “Goddamn you, Cottloe”—Nick sounded like his own dog growling—“you wouldn’t have me for your son-in-law, you shipped Barbara away to separate us, and now you have the effrontery to ask me to rescue her.” His cheeks were even redder than Cottloe’s had been a while before. “And you know I’ll do it. That’s the galling part.”

  The landgrave unconsciously pursed his lips; a smug touch. Nick stood up so hastily he knocked over his toddy mug, spilling a few drops on the elegant floor.

  “Fifty pounds,” he said.

  “That’s a fortune.”

  “Your daughter is worth a fortune. Isn’t she?”

  There was a long, heavy, vicious silence. At last Sir Pierce said, “Done. You are as much a bastard as you always were.”

  Nick laughed at him and walked out. Over his shoulder he gave one swift look at the Ruthven portrait, wishing the beautiful girl would release him. She never would.

  At Jacksonborough, Noggins fairly danced when he heard of the planned journey. “Go up-country? The Conjurer is killing and burning there!”

  “That’s why the landgrave wants his daughter safely back on the seacoast.”

  “But we could die up there, Nick.”

  “We could die right here, any day, any moment, of any of a thousand causes. I’ve made my way in Carolina without capturing any Yamassee for the slave pens, or running cattle over their land as that fool Wyndham’s been doing. When you and I talk to the tribes, it’s straightforward. Our iron goods for their deerskins, even and fair. We have that much to protect us. If we go quickly it may be enough.”

  Noggins popped his tongue between his lips to express his lack of confidence. And indeed, Nick wasn’t feeling as confident as he sounded.

  … With considerable justification, he discovered the next day as they jogged upriver on a dusty path: the old Indian path to the Cherokee villages. It ran from Charles Town to Mondes Corner and up the west side of the Santee to the Eutaws and the country beyond. Nick and Noggins had ridden the path many times.

  The two men traveled with four horses. Worthless panted and barked in his constant struggle to keep pace on his stubby legs. About an hour after their departure from Charles Town, a rattling disturbed the palmettos to one side of the trail. Riding in the lead, Nick reined up, left hand in the air, right hand dropping to one of his saddle holsters. Each held an eighteen-inch horse pistol. Nick drew the pistol. From the brush stepped a strapping warrior with a lance raised over his head in both hands, a sign of nonhostility. Blue dragons with red eyes coiled on the muscles of his upper arms.

  Nick lowered the flintlock pistol, recognizing him. He was the chief of a small tribe with ties to the Yamassee. “What brings King Coweto back from the Floridas after many years?” He spoke fluently; he’d learned most of the tribal dialects in boyhood.

  King Coweto answered, “There is much to be done.”

  “At whose insistence? Spain’s royal governor at St. Augustine?”

  King Coweto didn’t answer.

  “All right, another question. What are you doing this close to Charles Town?”

  “I search for you,” said the Indian. “I am the one who knows you best.” That was true. Five years before, Nick had conducted the chief to a Charles Town tattoo artist because Coweto wanted dragons on his arms. At that time the Creeks were signing their peace treaty, and Indians could venture freely into Charles Town.

  “We heard you would be traveling to our country,” King Coweto went on. “I believed you would take this path as always.”

  Long steamy bars of sunlight fell between the great live and water oaks. Looks flashed between Nick and his partner; that of Noggins was anxious. Nick swatted an insect deviling his damp neck. He was constantly amazed at the way the tribes knew of developments on the coast almost as they happened. But then, in the slave pens and slave quarters, black and red men were allies against the whites who gave them their shackles.

  “The Conjurer sends you this message,” Coweto said to Nick. “You have never treated the people badly. But your skin is white, and the Conjurer swears to banish all white skins from the people’s land forever. Do not continue this journey. We say it to you in friendship.”

  Nick scraped the muzzle of his pistol over his darkly stubbled chin. “I mean no harm to the people, Coweto. But I ride where I please. It’s always been so. Tell the Conjurer I am only taking this journey to return a young woman to her father. There is no other purpose—nothing that will endanger the people.”

  “Even so, you are warned not to go. In the up-country there will be much blood flowing. Much carnage.”

  With an almost insolent expression Nick said, “I could reduce the carnage if I killed you on the spot, couldn’t I? The men of your town who must have come up from Florida wouldn’t follow the warpath with their chief fallen.”

  “Do not make evil jokes. You would not do what you say. You are an honorable man. We are not enemies.” Nick’s smile faded. “I tell you once again. If you go up this path your life is at risk.”

  Nick straightened on his horse. “Then so be it. I haven’t any choice but to go on.”

  King Coweto looked at him steadily for a moment, large, dark eyes full of sadness, pity. He shook his lance, turned, and faded away into the forest.

  As they rode they saw portents. In a small river tributary, half a dozen poles planted at intervals to mark the channel had been broken off near the water. Whitened cattle skulls that once crowned the poles were gone.

  By a gleaming marsh they came upon the cabin of a French trader foolish enough to live away from the settlements. Fire had razed the cabin. Two bodies, broiled black, hung from the crooked bough of a live oak. This curtailed conversation between the two men
, and left them weighted with melancholy.

  A little after dawn on the second full day, they observed a party of Indians striding from south to north through tall savanna grass. The shoulders and headdresses of the Indians stood out above the waving stalks. Behind the marchers the rising line of the sand hills showed as gray blurs.

  “Bad luck,” Noggins said. “I count forty.”

  Nick had his hand clamped around the bulldog’s muzzle. Worthless growled and struggled, wanting to bark. With his free hand Nick pointed to the warrior with the tallest headdress. “And the Conjurer himself, I think.”

  They remained crouched until the war party passed out of sight and hearing. Then Noggins said, “Nick, what help can we expect? How many bondsmen?”

  “Wyndham has not exactly treated me as an invited guest, you know. I’ve never set foot on his place, only passed by. So it’s all supposition. He may have six, possibly eight. Probably not a white man among them.”

  The little man spat between his teeth. “So they might run away in hopes the Indians would let them go, not enslave them a second time.”

  Slowly Nick rose out of his crouch. He released the grumbling bulldog and dusted his hands. The stillness, the flat hot glare of the hazy sun, the immensity and loneliness of the country did not inspire good feelings.

  “That is a possibility,” he said.

  But it was more than that.

  The finest feature of Wyndham’s Barony was the name. The estate consisted of hilly grazing land and a single dirt track leading away in the direction of the great house. At the border of Wyndham’s land, where the dirt track forked from the traders’ path, a shanty sheltered two black men. Each had a blunderbuss. The trumpet-shaped muzzles were dented, the brass tarnished. But that wouldn’t keep the weapons from tearing a man open with several ounces of sheet lead chopped into irregularly shaped pieces.

  The blacks looked at the white men apprehensively. Nick identified himself; they were waved on.

  A small pain began to devil his belly as they jogged up the road between scraggly pines. The pain showed how tightly his nerves were drawn. He was a fool to be here, but it was too late to go back. He must concentrate first on keeping his temper in what would be, at best, a tindery situation.

  “Where are his cows?” Noggins wondered aloud. Nick shrugged. He, too, was puzzled by the emptiness of the fields roundabout. But as they approached the last hill before the main house, they heard lowing. They exchanged looks. This grew stranger every moment.

  At the summit of the low hill Nick reined his horse. Wyndham’s home, a rambling log structure surrounded by a palisade and shaded by old oaks, sprawled on the summit of the next rise. Behind it were the cow pens, full. Nick surmised that Wyndham had his entire herd of about two hundred there. His black cattle minders were going about their tasks slowly in the heat.

  The palisade gate was open. On a platform inside, a large, rusty swivel gun was mounted so it projected over the wall. Nick recognized it as a punt gun, removed from the boat of some waterman down-country who made his living slaughtering ducks and geese. Such guns fired two or three pounds of chopped lead or small nails. They were not especially accurate, but at close hand they were deadly. They were also illegal, but that would hardly concern the owner of Wyndham’s Barony.

  They passed through the open gate in the palisade and reached the house without interference. The yard smelled of dust and cow dung. A white-haired black man in a cast-off gentleman’s vest of brocade bowed them into the lower hall.

  “Master Wyndham been waiting for you, sars.”

  “I expected he might be at the door to greet us.”

  “Master Wyndham hurt himself, sar. Can’t walk.”

  Nick’s belly felt heavy. The pain was sharper. What was going on here?

  The dark old hall, brightened only by light from open doors at front and rear, smelled of some kind of broiled meat. Flies buzzed around Nick’s head. The cattle lowed.

  In the great room he confronted Jelks Wyndham, who sat in a fine gilt chair with his right hand on a silver-knobbed cane and a bandaged left leg resting on a stool.

  “My apologies, Bray. Some kind of half-breed nigger devil ambushed me at the creek last Thursday. Struck me with an iron hatchet. Probably one you sold him.” He smiled sourly. “Before I disarmed him he succeeded in crippling me temporarily. I hung him up for the turkey buzzards, but it’s small consolation.”

  Nick Bray despised Jelks Wyndham more than he despised any man he knew. In moments of candor he admitted this was because he envied him. First, Wyndham was handsome: fair-haired, with a perfect nose, delicate mouth, soft, hairless hands. Almost a beautiful man, in the Grecian sense; no one should be so perfect.

  Second, he had taken Barbara.

  Nick waited to see where the talk would lead. He heard a ticking behind him. Worthless sauntered in. Wyndham gave the bulldog a look. Worthless began to growl, a low, ugly sound.

  “Kindly take that animal out of here before he soils the house.”

  “He won’t.” But as a concession Nick said, “Hold him, will you, Huger?”

  Nick’s partner crouched beside the bulldog. Wyndham rapped his cane on the floor twice, perhaps to show displeasure. “What difficulties did you encounter coming from Charles Town?”

  “None, because we did our best to avoid them. But there’s a deal of trouble between here and there.” He briefly described what they’d seen. “If you’re packed up, we should start for the coast as soon as possible. How many men do you have?”

  “Six niggers.”

  “How many can we depend on?”

  “In the event of an attack? Two. The ones presently guarding the road. I allow the others no weapons.”

  “It’s my understanding that Barbara will be going back with us. Is your mother here?”

  “Yes, she’ll go with us also. You’ll see them both at supper. We’ve cleared out one of the tabby slave pens for you and your partner.”

  “I think we should leave this afternoon.”

  “First thing tomorrow,” Wyndham said with a shake of his head. It was a clear challenge. But not worth pushing to a fight.

  Wyndham shifted uncomfortably. He poked at his bandaged ankle with the cane. Nick saw an ooze of blood on Wyndham’s white stocking. “The cattle travel best before it’s too hot,” Wyndham said.

  “Cattle?” Nick repeated.

  “Why yes, didn’t Sir Pierce explain? The contents of those pens are movable property. Extremely valuable. We’re taking them with us to Charles Town so they won’t be slaughtered.”

  Blood rushed into Nick’s face. “So that’s why I’m here. To be a damn cattle minder. To take your damn property to safety. Is Barbara included?”

  Wyndham fought to rise, fingers white on the cane head. “Curb your mouth, you greasy guttersnipe. You’re being well paid.”

  “But I’d never have agreed if Sir Pierce had told me the truth. The real nature of the scheme.” He felt gulled; hopelessly stupid. Open windows, their weathered gray shutters folded back, showed vistas of empty hills under hot white sky. Nick’s feeling of dread sharpened again.

  “And I wouldn’t need you to lead us out if I could walk,” Wyndham snarled at him. “But I can’t, and you certainly won’t abandon us. That is, you certainly won’t abandon Barbara and my helpless mother. Will you, now?”

  Worthless growled. Noggins muttered something to calm him. Nick wanted to wheel and ride out, but Wyndham had him.

  “You bastard,” he said. “What time do the condemned eat their supper around here?”

  Nick didn’t set eyes on Barbara until the aforementioned supper. She was almost completely silent throughout. The same couldn’t be said for Wyndham’s mother, Mrs. Thring, a widow who had acquired her last name from her late second husband, a planter on Barbados. Mrs. Thring was a great whale of a woman with knuckles the size of hailstones. Wyndham informed Nick and Noggins that she would have to be borne to Charles Town in a shaded ox cart.
/>   “Won’t be very quick going, then,” Noggins muttered.

  “But it’s necessary; any man with half a brain can see that.”

  The reproof silenced Noggins, and would do so for the rest of the meal, Nick assumed. Noggins was always shy in the presence of those he deemed his betters. Of course, he had it the wrong way around: Wyndham was inferior to Noggins in so many matters of character, Nick couldn’t begin to count them. No good trying to convince Noggins, though.

  He shot a look at Barbara. She was as slender and beautiful as memory always painted her. Yet her face lacked the outdoor color he remembered, and her blue eyes danced nervously away from his every time he glanced at her.

  When they finished their pewter plates of rice and overcooked pork, and two jugs of excellent claret, Nick pushed his chair back without ceremony. “Barbara, come for a stroll. We’ve a bit of talking to do.”

  He took her wrist gently and lifted it, to show he’d brook no argument. She looked relieved that the strained meal was over. Wyndham said, “Walking in the dark is dangerous.”

  “I believe I can deal with that, sir,” Nick said, not a little sarcastic.

  “Then stay within the palisade, hear?”

  “I am your guide, Wyndham, but I’m not under your orders. Remember that.”

  He bowed Barbara ahead of him to the hall.

  “This is a damned rotten trick, you know,” he said once they were safely out of the house. A black man on watch at the gate tried to stop them from going on. Nick brushed him aside.

  Barbara walked a safe distance to his left as they climbed a hill. “Oh, Nick, I know. Jelks never said a word about the cattle until just before supper tonight. I knew he sent a runner to Charles Town to appeal for help, but I thought it was to protect his mother and me.”

  Nick made a scoffing sound. “It’s all been very artful, Barbara. Your father enlisted me by saying your mother’s ill. ‘Grievously ill’—I believe those were his words. Is it so?”