The Rebels: The Kent Family Chronicles Page 37

  He’d chosen the horse for stamina rather than speed. But as the days warmed, speed became his paramount concern. He began to push the horse harder than he should.

  In small valleys between the ranges of mountains, he’d sometimes stop of an evening with settlers—one family, or several living in close-clustered cabins. He’d luxuriate in the comfort of a slab-wood chair beside a smoky hearth constructed of mud-plastered sticks.

  And always, he’d ask the people a variation of the same question:

  “Do you know the day of the month? I reckon it to be about the fourteenth, but I had a fever for three days after I crossed Savage Mountain and may have lost track somewhat—”

  “It’s the sixteenth.”

  And the clock ticked louder, a tormenting rhythm reminding him that it might already be too late. He’d be up and gone from the settlement before sunrise, ignoring the healed wound in his left side that still ached when the air was cold.

  The first week or two, traveling across the Blue Ridge that turned all smoky indigo in the twilight hours, then up through the meadows along the meandering Shenandoah, he’d wondered if the prophecies put to him before his departure had not been wholly correct. Maybe he was a madman to set out alone.

  True, he was well enough equipped. And he faced little risk of Indian attack this far south. Most of the fury of the British-incited Six Nations was focused miles to the north, across the tier of tribal towns from the valley of the Genesee to the valley of the Mohawk in York State.

  Yet there were many other ways for a lone man to perish in the wilderness.

  And he was inexperienced; possessed no forest skills as such, only his rifle and a compass and a couple of sparsely detailed maps.

  But he had an almost demonic will to succeed. To follow and find the man who had warily put trust in him; the man who now surely felt that trust betrayed. He kept going when rainstorms drenched him; stopped only when the fever and flux made his head spin and his bowels run until he was so weak he felt he could never stand up again.

  But somehow he did, listening to the great clock buried in his mind; the clock ticking and ticking the hours and days like whip-strokes being laid on.

  He followed the trails that wound up the dark, forested grade of Little Allegheny Mountain, then Savage Mountain where the fever felled him a second time and he lost another three days, too feeble to do more than lift corn kernels to his mouth.

  At last he reached Allegheny Mountain, in the highest range. The wooded peaks looked almost black against the April sky. Bobolinks wheeled over him and hares jumped in the brush as he climbed the slope on horseback, sitting quite tall on the bay, the Kentucky rifle held one-handed across his thighs. He was never more than a foot or two from the rifle, even in the pleasant green valleys of cabins and small tilled fields.

  As the clock beat, something burned out of him. An older self became a stranger.

  After weeks on the trail, his deerhide trousers and shirt felt not stiff but supple; a second skin. His flesh took on a darker tone, changing from the dead white of the winter sickbed through the burned red of the first days of exposure to the sun and wind and beating rains. When April came to an end, his cheeks had a mahogany shine. Not a single extra ounce of flesh remained on his body. Strangely, the new gauntness didn’t give him an unhealthy appearance, but the opposite.

  On the downslope of Chestnut Ridge, beyond the Great Meadows where General Washington had once built a fort to withstand a siege by the French, the bay horse broke its leg stepping in a burrow. He shot the animal and left it in a grove of shimmering mountain laurel and went ahead on foot, along a trail that should bring him to the junction of the two rivers—the Monongahela flowing up from the south, the Allegheny rushing down from the north—

  If his compass and maps were correct.

  But it had to be May already. The breathtaking beauty of the mountains and the intervening green valleys no longer exhilarated him. The clock in his mind beat louder—

  George Clark had said he would depart from the forks in mid-April or early May.

  He was proud of having come this far alone. Proud of surviving on sheer persistence, with not one drink of liquor since he’d left the tidewater. Those times when he’d sickened and lay shivering in the night woods astir with unfamiliar, unseen creatures, he’d wanted a taste of alcohol so badly his throat burned.

  But he had gotten through without it. He’d summoned up resources in himself long unused. There was deep satisfaction in finding them still present, ready to lend him the stamina and stubbornness he needed for the trek.

  Yet even that pride was fading as he plodded on foot, fearing—knowing—he’d be too late.

  The weather changed from spring sunshine to cool, windy gray as he followed gullies where black coal-veins showed along the eroded walls. He slept less and less every night, tossing by the small fire he always built with his chip of flint and his little steel bar and the supply of tinder shavings kept carefully dry in his haversack along with his powder and ball. Dozing, knowing he must rest but wishing he didn’t need to, he’d hear a howling off in the trees, and occasionally see a glittering animal eye reflect the firelight. The wolves smelled him. They came to prowl close by. But the blaze kept them at a distance.

  As he came out of the woods one gray morning, a farmer’s wife guiding a plow on a poor, cleared patch of land reached for her musket lying a few feet away. She watched him warily as he approached.

  He touched the floppy brim of his old loaf-crowned hat—a gift from a family for whom he’d chopped some wood in return for dinner at the start of his trail in Maryland. He tried to smile in a cordial way:

  “Morning, ma’am. My name is Fletcher. I’m headed for the fort at the forks. Can you tell me how far that is?”

  The lean, weary-looking woman, thirty or so but already minus most of her teeth, leaned on the plow handles while the dray horse clopped a hoof impatiently. He saw one of the woman’s palms, ugly and moist with old and new blisters.

  “At least thirty miles, give or take a few,” she said. “Where you from?”

  “Virginia.”

  “You bound to the forks alone?”

  “That’s right. I’d hoped to arrive by the first of May.”

  “You’re two weeks late.”

  He touched his hat brim again. “Then I’d best not delay. Thank you—”

  “You—”

  He turned around at the sound of her voice.

  “—you wouldn’t want to stay a while? I could use help with the planting.”

  “I’m sorry. I can’t.”

  “All right.”

  He started on along the fresh-turned furrows, hearing a faint rumble in the gray sky to the west. The woman wiped her forehead with her forearm, pointed toward the ramshackle cabin surrounded by stumps at the edge of the field:

  “There’s a spring out behind if you want to fill that canteen.”

  “Thanks very much, I will.”

  He said it quickly, his tone matching the impatience he felt. The clock in his head beat its warning. He’ll be gone—

  HE’LL BE GONE

  As he bent to hold the mouth of his canteen under the stream spilling from the rock ledge behind the cabin, he wished suddenly that the earth could pour forth more than water. The old craving hit him, thickening his tongue.

  Near the spring, an upright slab of wood bore a man’s name carved out with the point of a knife. Evidently the father of the two small girls he heard chattering and giggling in the cabin. Perhaps he should stop; help the woman in return for a few meals and a few nights of rest. Then turn around and go back east. He felt too incredibly tired to travel one more mile if, at the end, he failed to find his friend—

  Now listen, he reprimanded himself. You’ll find him. You’ll find him if you have to go all the way to the shore of the Kentucky country alone—

  But he had scant confidence.

  His throat burned as he capped the canteen, walked around the cabin, wa
ved to the woman at the slow-moving plow and set off through the forest while the May sky rumbled.

  ii

  Judson assumed that what had spared his life was the clean passage of Lottie Shaw’s pistol ball in and out through the flesh of his left side. That and the cowardice of Carter, the man who was living off her diminished earning power following their flight from Richmond.

  He had no way of knowing whether Carter had deterred Lottie from putting another ball into him and seeing him surely dead. In fact he had no recollection of anything in the hours immediately after the shooting.

  Lottie and Carter had evidently left him where they planned: in the damp autumn leaves along Plum Creek. Somehow he’d stumbled up and away from there, guided by an instinctive sense of direction, until he reached the road that wound to the Rappahannock near Sermon Hill. He learned later that a field black spied him staggering along the road and summoned help.

  He was borne to Sermon Hill in a wagon. There, according to Donald’s subsequent report, he was looked at by Angus Fletcher.

  The old man recognized that his son might be bleeding to death. He sent for a physician—and told Donald that Judson would be permitted to remain at the plantation until he recovered or died.

  But Angus insisted Judson be put in one of the slave cabins. His principles would only bend so far.

  iii

  Judson did remember waking in the cabin, thrashing and yelling and feeling thick bandages wrapping his chest under an itchy nightshirt.

  Flushed of face, Donald perched on a stool beside Judson’s pallet. Gently, he tried to push his brother down:

  “You’ll kill yourself for certain if you flop around that way.”

  “I promised to meet George Clark in Williamsburg!” were Judson’s first words.

  “You what?”

  Breathing hard, Judson explained in labored sentences. At the end Donald shook his head:

  “You’ve been lying here the best part of two weeks. There is no way you can make that rendezvous.”

  “Send a message, then. You’ve got to!”

  Donald agreed, and arranged it. But the black messenger returned in three days with the news that George Clark had already departed.

  “Then—” Speech and even breathing still cost Judson considerable pain. “As soon as I’m up—a week or so—I’ll follow him—”

  Donald rubbed his gouty leg, shook his head a second time:

  “It’ll be more like a month before you’re well enough to hobble. The wound was clean but quite deep.” An ironic smile touched Donald’s lips. “Father said you were to be given the best possible care. Do you know he summoned a second doctor all the way from Richmond because he felt the local sawbones didn’t know enough? I’ve never seen him so shamefaced as when he told me he’d done it.”

  Judson was too astonished to say anything immediately. He gazed at the cabin’s dirt floor, listened to the voices of blacks moving in the street outside, experienced alternate pangs of bitter mirth and exultation. Finally, he spoke:

  “I can’t conceive that I’d even be allowed at Sermon Hill. I’m surprised Father didn’t order me floated in the river immediately, to save possible funeral expenses.”

  “Stop that,” Donald said, angered. “He’s a narrow-minded, vile-tempered old devil, and no one knows it better than I. But he’s not a monster, just a man. And you are his son. So let’s have no more vituperation. There’s been enough hate on both sides too damned long.”

  Judson lay back, hurting. “Yes,” he murmured. “Yes, I guess that’s right—”

  A moment later, he re-opened his eyes:

  “When I am able to leave, I still intend to follow George.”

  “By yourself? That’s insanity.”

  “Maybe, but I’m going. I’ll settle with that Shaw bitch first, though.”

  Donald waved. “You’ll be spared. She’s disappeared, along with the flash gentleman who arrived with her while you were in Williamsburg. They either left you for dead or feared to finish what they’d started because they could guess the consequences. Father sent drivers searching for them. With pistols and muskets.”

  “Nigra drivers?”

  “Three of his most trusted. He armed them personally.”

  “You can’t be serious.”

  “I am.” ‘

  “I’ll be goddamned.”

  “Why should you be so surprised? Blood outlasts everything. Overcomes everything—including hatred. Blood and time are the world’s two great healers.”

  Judson repeated it, bemused: “Blood—” He shook his head slowly. “Odd you should light on that word.”

  “It’s common enough.”

  “But the old man thinks I’ve a bad strain running in me. Devil’s blood, he calls it.”

  “He has the same kind.” Again that ironic smile. “Don’t tell me you’ve never noticed. Of course, I don’t doubt he softened somewhat because you were shot. That made you vulnerable, you see. It’s easier to forgive a wounded creature than one who’s raring up to snap at you. I wouldn’t question it too much, I’d just be thankful. The hate’s ruined both of you for years.”

  Sleepy, Judson sighed. “I feel too stinking rotten to hate anyone but myself. Yes, I—I’m grateful he relented. Would you tell him?”

  “Of course. I doubt he’ll have any reaction.”

  “I’m not looking for a reaction, just tell him.”

  “I will.”

  “Also tell him I’m going to follow George. It’s the only way I can turn my life around. Even if I don’t catch him, or—if something should happen to me on the way, I have to start over. Do you understand?”

  Donald answered quietly, “I do. And that’s a great virtue of this country. One of the things which makes a disheartening, tiresome war worth fighting.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “We’ve much to win besides all those lofty principles declared in Philadelphia, Judson. I’ve heard Tom Jefferson speak of it time and again—the country in the west. The chance it offers for people to begin again. Lord—” A brief sigh. “I sometimes wish I could go.”

  His eyes sought his younger brother’s. “But I hope you haven’t conceived this venture only to prove something to Father.”

  “No. As I told George, I tangled my affairs so badly in this part of the world, I have to leave or I’ll die here.” Donald tried to joke, pointing at Judson’s left side: “I agree—it damned near happened, didn’t it?”

  iv

  On a bright morning in late March, Donald walked down to the river road with his younger brother.

  Though still pale, Judson looked fit. He carried a haversack and the Kentucky rifle Donald had sent to Richmond to procure. Misty March afternoons when he could manage to keep his powder dry, he’d practiced loading and firing in a remote field. His target was a chunk of log set on top of a tree stump. Before too many days had gone by, he could hit the section of log, six inches high and four across, nearly every time.

  Donald looked ponderously heavy and tired as he leaned on his cane at the point where the main road intersected the one leading from the great house. At sunrise, Judson had packed his haversack, tucked away the pocket money Donald had loaned him, dressed for his departure and left the cabin. Not once during his recuperation had he entered the main building at Sermon Hill, nor seen his father, except to catch glimpses of him riding the fields.

  “I still think you are absolutely lunatic,” Donald said. “But I also have come to the conclusion that with a spot of luck, you might find what you’re seeking.”

  “I don’t know what that is, Donald.”

  “Yes, but when you find it, perhaps you’ll recognize it.”

  “You’re more confident than I am.”

  “Brotherly intuition,” Donald smiled. “You’re not the same person I used to know—”

  “Of necessity,” Judson said. “I guess we drive out our demons the best way we can, just to survive. I don’t really know where I’m go
ing, but I know I can’t stay here. That’s a splendid declaration of purpose, isn’t it?”

  And he gave Donald a wry smile that hid a very real ache. The melancholy had overwhelmed him, without warning on the slow walk down to the river.

  “It’s an honest one,” Donald said. “By the way—I’ll take care of your request that Peggy McLean be told.”

  Judson’s head lifted sharply. “Is she back home?”

  “Why, yes. In all the bustle of preparation these past couple of days, I must have forgotten to mention it. I ran into Williams. He told me. He said she returned about a week ago. She’s been staying inside because her health is poor again, evidently.”

  Concern stabbed Judson. “What’s wrong?”

  “Williams professes not to know. It’s very odd—you realize she’s been away since last fall—? Williams said she let slip a remark about sailing home on a coasting vessel.”

  “A coasting vessel? Why in God’s name would she risk a sea trip, north or south, when the British are everywhere?”

  “So are the American privateersmen. But I agree, in wartime, a pleasure cruise anywhere is deuced peculiar—and a holiday the length of hers downright astonishing. Where could she go? Neither Philadelphia nor New York in the north, only Boston. Possibly Charleston or Savannah south of here—”

  “I’m sure Peggy has no relatives in Charleston or Savannah,” Judson said, trying to puzzle it out. “It seems to me she told me years ago that her mother had kin somewhere up in New England. Maybe my memory’s faulty, though—”

  “The sad truth is, the uprising is probably still affecting her. To the degree that wild jaunts offer the only release she can find. Williams said nothing about—” Donald sought the term he wanted. “—mental difficulties. But he’s intensely loyal, so he wouldn’t.”