The Fiery Cross, Page 79

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  The Governor glared into the barrel of the rifle poking into his face and batted it away with one hand, making small choking noises, like an angry squirrel. Jamie cleared his throat in a meaningful manner, and the men faded quietly back into the copse.

  I thought that on the whole, it would be a mistake either to Offer the Governor a hand to arise, or to let him get a look at my face. I tactfully turned my back and wandered a few steps away, affecting to have discovered an absorbing new plant springing from the ground near my feet.

  Mr. Vickers reappeared from the wood, looking startled, a pail of water in each hand.

  "What has happened?" He started toward the Governor, but I put a hand on his sleeve to detain him. Best if Mr. Tryon had a moment to recover both his breath and his dignity.

  "Nothing important," I said, recovering my pails before he could spill them. "Er ... how many militia troops are assembled here, do you know?"

  "One thousand and sixty-eight, mum," he said, looking thoroughly bewildered. "That is not accounting for General Waddell's troops, of course. But what-"

  "And you have cannon?"

  "Oh, yes, several, mum. We have two detachments with artillery. Two sixpounders, ten swivel-guns, and two eight-pound mortars." Vickers stood a little straighter, important with the thought of so much potential destruction.

  "There are two thousand men across the creek, sir-but the most of them barely armed. Many carry no more than a knife." Jamie's voice came from behind me, drawing Vickers' attention away. I turned round, to find that Jamie had dismounted, and was standing face to face with the Governor, holding the latter's hat. He slapped it casually against his thigh and offered it back to its owner, who accepted it with as much grace as might be managed under the circumstances.

  "I have been told as much, Mr. Fraser," he said dryly, "though I am pleased to hear that your intelligence corroborates my own. Mr. Vickers, will you be so kind as to go and fetch my horse?" The purple hue had faded from Tryon's face, and while his manner still held a certain constraint, he seemed not to be holding a grudge. Tryon had both a sense of fairness, and-more importantly at present-a sense of humor, both of which seemed to have survived the recent demonstration of military readiness,

  Jamie nodded.

  "I suppose that your agents have also told you that the Regulators have no leader, as such?"

  "On the contrary, Mr. Fraser. I am under the impression that Hermon Husband is and has been for some considerable time one of the chief agitators of this movement. James Hunter, too, is a name that I have often seen appended to letters of complaint and the endless petitions that reach me in New Bern. And there are others-Hamilton, Gillespie . . ."

  Jamie made an impatient gesture, brushing a hovering cloud of gnats from his face.

  "In some circumstances, sir, I should be willing to dispute with ye whether the pen is mightier than the sword-but not on the edge of a battlefield, and

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  that is where we stand. A boldness in writing pamphlets does not fit a man to lead troops-and Husband is a Quaker gentleman."

  41 have heard as much," Tryon agreed. He gestured toward the distant creek, one brow raised in challenge. "And yet he is here."

  "He is here," Jamie agreed. He paused for a moment, gauging the goverI

  11) nor's mood before proceeding. The Governor was tightly wound; there was no

  1i11, tnissing the tautness in his figure, or the brightness of his eyes. Still, battle was not yet imminent and the tension was well-leashed. He could still listen.

  "I have fed the man at my own hearth, sir," Jamie said carefully. "I have caten at his. He makes no secret either of his views or his character. If he has come here today, I am certain that he has done so in torment of mind." Jamie drew a deep breath. He was on dicey ground here.

  "I have sent a man across the creek, sir, to find Husband, and beg him to meet with me. It may be that I can persuade him to use his considerable influence to cause these men-these citizens'-he gestured briefly toward the creek and the invisible myrmidons beyond-"to abandon this disastrous course of action, which cannot but end in tragedy." He met Tryon's eyes istraight on.

  "May I ask you, sir-may I beg of you-if Husband will come, will you not speak with him yourself?"

  Tryon stood silent, oblivious of the dusty tricorne he turned around and around his hands. The echoes of the recent commotion had faded; a vireo sang from the branches of the elm above us.

  "They are citizens of this colony," he said at last, with a nod in the direction of the creek. "I should regret that harm should come to them. Their grievances are not without merit; I have acknowledged as much-publicly!-and taken steps toward redress." He glanced toward Jamie, as though to see whether this statement was accepted. Jamie stood silent, waiting.

  Tryon took a deep breath, and slapped the hat against his leg.

  "Yet I am Governor of this colony. I cannot see the peace disturbed, the law flouted, riot and bloodshed run rampant and unpunished!" He glanced bleakly at me. "I will not."

  He turned his attention back to Jamie.

  "I think he will not come, sir. Their course is set"-he nodded once more toward the trees that edged Alamance Creek-"and so is mine. Still . . ." he hesitated for a moment, then made up his mind, and shook his head.

  "No. If he does come, then by all means reason with him, and if he will agree to send his men home peaceably-at that point, bring him to me and we shall arrange terms. But I cannot wait upon the possibility."

  Mr. Vickers had retrieved the Governor's mount. The boy stood a little way apart, holding both horses by their reins, and I saw him nod slightly at this, as though affirming the Governor's words. His own hat shaded him from the sun, yet his face was flushed, and his eyes bright; he was eager for the fight.

  Tryon was not; yet he was ready. Neither was Jamie-but he was ready, too. He held the'Governor's gaze for a moment, and then nodded, accepting inevitability.

  "How long?" he asked quietly.

  Tryon glanced upward at the sun, which stood a little short of mid-morning.

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  Roger had been gone for nearly two hours; how loug might it take him to find Hermon Husband and return?

  "The companies are in battle order," Tryon said. He glanced at the copse, and the corner of his mouth twitched. Then he returned a dark gaze to Jamie's face. "Not long. Stand ready, Mr, Fraser."

  He turned away, and clapping his hat on his head, seized the reins of his horse and swung into the saddle. He rode away without looking back, followed by his aides.

  Jamie watched him go, expressionless.

  I moved beside him, touching his hand. I didn't need to say that I hoped Roger would hurry.

  STRAGLERS AND SUSPECTED PERSONS'

  Item #12 - No Officer or Soldier togo beyond the Limits of the Camp which is within the distance of the Grand Guard.

  Item #63 - Commanding Officers of Corps are to examine all Strayiers and suspected Persons, and those who cannotgive agood account ofthemselves to be confined and Report thereof made to Head Quarters.

  '"'Camp Duties and Regulations-- orders Given Out by His ccllcnc Governor Tryon to the Provincials of North Carolina. Ex y

  ROGER TOUCHED THE POCKET of his breeches, where he had tucked away his pewter militia badge. An inch-and-a-half-wide button of metal, pierced round the edges, stamped with a crude "FU for "Fraser's Company" and meant to be sewn onto coat or hat, such badges-and the cloth cockadeswere the sole items of uniform for most of the Governor's foot-troops, and the only means of distinguishing a member of the militia from one of the Regulators.

  "And exactly how d'ye know whom to shoot?" he had inquired ironically, when Jamie had handed him the badge at supper, two days before. "If you get close enough to see the badge before Ye fire, won't the other bugger get you first? "

  Jamie had given him a glance of equal irony, but courteously forbore any observations on Roger's marksmanship and the l
ikelihood--or otherAise--of his doing any damage with his musket.

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  "I wouldna wait to see, myself," he said. "If anyone runs toward ye with a gun, fire, and hope for the best."

  A few men seated around the fire nearby sniggered at this, but Jamie ignored them. He reached for a stick and pulled three roasting yams out of the coals, so they lay side by side, black and steaming in the cool evening air. He kicked one V gently, sending it rolling back into the ashes.

  "That's us," he explained. He kicked the next yam. "That's Colonel Leech's company, and that"-he booted the third, which rolled erratically after its fellows-"is Colonel Ashe's. D'ye see?" He cocked an eyebrow at Roger.

  "Each company will go forward in its own path, so ye're no likely to see any other militia, at least to begin with. Anyone coming toward us is most probably the enemy." Then his long mouth curled up a bit, as he gestured toward the men all round them, busy with their suppers.

  "Ye ken every man here well enough? Well, dinna shoot any of them, and Ve'll be fine, aye?"

  Roger smiled ruefully to himself as he made his way careffilly down a slope covered with tiny yellow-flowered plants. It was sound advice; he was much less concemed with the possibility of being shot than with the fear of accidentally harming someone himself-including the not-inconsiderable worry of blowing off a few of his own fingers.

  Privately, he was resolved not to fire at anyone, regardless either of circumstance or of the possibility of his hitting them. He'd heard enough of the Regulators' stories-Abel MacLennan, Hermon Husband. Even allowing for the natural hyperbole of Husband's style, his pamphlets burned with a sense of injustice that was inescapable. How could Roger look to kill a man or maim him, only for protesting against abuses and corruption so blatant that they must offend any just-minded person?

  A trained historian, he'd seen enough of present circumstances to understand just how widespread the problems were, how they'd come about-and he understood well enough the difficulties of correcting them. He sympathized with Tryon's position-to a point-but his sympathy stopped a good way short of rendering him a willing soldier in the cause of upholding the Crown's authority-still less, the cause of preserving William Tryon's reputation and personal fortune.

  He stopped for a moment, hearing voices, and stepped softly behind the trunk of a large poplar.

  Three men came in sight a moment later, talking casually amongst themselves. All three had guns and bullet-boxes, but the impression they gave was of three friends on their way to hunt rabbits, rather than grim troopers on the eve of battle.

  In fact, this appeared to be exactly what they were-foragers. One had a cluster of furry bodies slung from his belt, and another carried a muslin bag stained with something that might have been fresh blood. As Roger watched from the shelter of the poplar, one man stopped, hand out to check his comrades, who both stiffened like hounds, noses pointing toward a clump of trees some sixty yards distant.

  Even knowing something was there, it took a moment before Roger spotted the small deer, standing still against a grove of saplings, a veil of

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  dappled light through the spring leaves overhead masking it almost perfectly from view.

  The first man swung his gun stealthily down from his shoulder, reaching for rod and cartridge, but one of the others stopped him with a hand on his arm.

  "Hold there, Abram," said the second man, speaking softly but clearly. "You don't want to be firing so close to the crick. You heard what the Colonel saidRegulators are drawn right up to the bank near that point." He nodded toward the heavy growth of alder and willow that marked the edge of the invisible creek, no more than a hundred yards distant. "You don't want to be provokin' them, not just now."

  Abram nodded reluctantly, and put up his gun again. "Aye, I suppose. Will it be today, do you think?"

  Roger glanced back at the sapling grove, but the deer had vanished, silent as smoke.

  "Can't see how it won't be." The third man pulled a yellow kerchief from his sleeve and wiped his face; the weather was warm and the air muggy. "Tryon's had his guns in place since dawn; he's not the man to let anybody get a jump on him. He might wait for Waddell's men-but he may think he's no need of them."

  Abram snorted with mild contempt.

  "To crush those rabble? Seen them, have you? A poorer set of soldiers you'd not see in a month of Sundays."

  The man with the kerchief smiled cynically.

  "Well, that's as may be, Abie. Seen some of the backcountry militia, have you? Speakin' of rabble. And speakin' of the Regulators, there's a lot of 'em, rabble or not. Two to one, Cap'n Neale says."

  Abram grunted, casting a last reluctant glance toward the wood and the creek beyond.

  "Rabble," he repeated, more confidently, and turned away. "Come along, then, let's have a look upslope."

  The foragers were on the same side as himself; they wore no cockades, but he saw the militia badges on breast and hat, glinting silver in the morning sun. Still, Roger remained in the shadows until the men had vanished, talking casually amongst themselves. He was reasonably sure that Jamie had sent him on this mission with no authority beyond his own; best if he were not asked to explain himself

  The attitude amongst most of the militia toward the Regulation was at best scornful. At worst-at the upper levels of command-it was coldly vindictive. "Crush them once and for all," Caswell had said, over a cup of coffee by the

  fire the night before. A plantation owner from the eastern part of the colony, Richard Caswell had no sympathy with the Regulators' grievances.

  Roger patted his pocket again, considering. No, best leave it. He could produce the badge if he were challenged, and he didn't think anyone would shoot him in the back without at least a shout of warning. Still, he felt oddly exposed as he walked through the lush grass of the river-meadow, and sighed with involuntary relief, as the languishing branches of the creek-side willows enfolded him in cool shadow.

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  He had, with Jamie's approval, left his musket behind, and come unarmed, save for the knife at his belt that was a normal accoutrement for any man. His only other item of equipment was a large white kerchief, presently folded up inside his coat.

  "If ye should be threatened-anywhere-wave it and cry 'Truce'," Jamie had instructed him. "Then tell them to fetch me, and dinna say more until I come. If no one prevents you, bring me Husband under its protection."

  The vision of himself leading Hermon Husband back across the creek, holding the flapping kerchief on a stick above his head like a guide leading tourists ;,,through an airport, made him want to hoot with laughter. Jamie hadn't

  Jaughed, though, or even smiled, and so he had accepted the cloth solemnly, .',tucking it away with care. He peered through the screen of drooping leaves, j."but the creek ran past sparkling in the new day's sun, silent save for the rush of i Water past stones and clay. No one was in sight, and the noise of the water drowned any sound that might have come from beyond the trees on the other

  Pside. While the militia might not shoot him in the back, he wasn't so sanguine about the possibilities of Regulators shooting him from the front, if they saw him crossing from the Government side.

  Still, he couldn't skulk in the trees all day. He emerged onto the bank, and made his way downstream toward the point the foragers had indicated, watching the trees careffilly for any signs of life. The crossing near the point was bet-

  1 ter, shallow water and a rocky bottom. Still, if the Regulators were "drawn up" ,"I anywhere nearby, they were being damned quiet about it.

  A more peaceful scene could scarcely be imagined, and yet his heart was 'hammering suddenly in his ears. He had again the odd feeling of someone standing near him. He glanced around in all directions, but nothing moved save the rushing water and the trailing willow fronds.

  I "That you, Dad?" he said softly, under his breath, and at once felt foolish. Still, the feeling of someone near remained str
ong, though benign.

  With a mental shrug, he bent and took off his shoes and stockings. It must be the circumstances, he thought. Not that one could quite compare wading a shallow creek in search of a Quaker rabble-rouser to flying a Spitfire across the night-time Channel on a bombing run to Germany. A mission was a mission, though, he supposed.

  He looked round once again, but saw only tadpoles wriggling in the shallows. With a slightly crooked smile, he stepped into the water, sending the tadpoles into frenzied flight.

  "Over the top, then," he said to a wood-duck. The bird ignored him, going on with its foraging among the dark-green rafts of floating cress.

  No challenge came from the trees on either side; no sounds at all, bar the cheerful racket of nesting birds. It was as he sat on a sunwarmed rock, drying his feet before putting his shoes and stockings back on, that he finally heard some indication that the far side of the creek was populated by humans.

  "So what dQyou want then, sweeting?"

  The voice came from the shrubbery behind him, and he froze, blood thundcring in his ears. It was a woman's voice. Before he could move or think to answer, though, he heard a laugh, deeper in pitch, and with a particular tone to it that made him relax.

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  Instinct informed him before his reason did that voices with that particular intonation were not a threat.

  "Dunno, hinney, what Nvill it cost me?"

  "Ooh, hark at him! Not the time to count your pennies, is it?"

  "Don't you worry, ladies, we'll take up a collection amongst us if we have to."

  "Oh, is that the way of it? Well and good, sir, but be you aware, in this congregation, the collection comes before the singing!"

  Listening to this amiable wrangling, Roger deduced that the voices in question belonged to three men and two women, all of whom seemed confident that whatever the financial arrangements, three would go into two quite evenly, with no awkward remainders.

  Picking up his shoes, he stole quietly away, leaving the unseen sentries-if that's what they were-to their sums. Evidently, the army of the Regulation wasn't quite so organized as the government troops.

  Less organized was putting it mildly, he thought, a little later. He had kept to the creek bank for some distance, unsure where the main body of the army might be. He had walked nearly a quarter-mile, with neither sight nor sound of a soul other than the two whores and their customers. Feeling increasingly surreal, he wandered through small pine groves, and across the edges of grassy meadows, with no company save courting birds and small gossamer butterflies in shades of orange and yellow.

  "What the hell sort of way is this to run a war?" he muttered, shoving his way through a blackberry bramble. It was like one of those science fiction sto ries, in which everyone but the hero had suddenly vanished from the face of the earth. He was beginning to be anxious; what if he didn't manage to find the bloody Quaker-or even the armybefbre the shooting started?

  Then he rounded a bend in the creek, and caught his first glimpse of the Regulators proper; a group of women, washing clothes in the rushing waters by a cluster of boulders.

  He ducked back into the brush before they should see him, and turned away from the creek, heartened. If the women were here, the men weren't far away. They weren't. Within a few more yards, he heard the sounds of camp-

  casual voices, laughter, the clank of spoons and tea-kettles and the clunk of splitting wood. Rounding a clump of hawthorn, he was nearly knocked over by a gang of young men who ran past, hooting and yelling, as they chased one of their number who brandished a fresh-cut racoon's tail overhead, floating in the breeze as he ran.

  They charged past Roger without a second glance, and he went on, a bit less warily. He wasn't challenged; there were no sentries. In fact, a strange face appeared to be neither a novelty nor a threat. A few men glanced casually at him, but then turned back to their talk, seeing nothing odd in his appearance.

  "I'm looking for Hermon Husband," he said bluntly to a man roasting a squirrel over the pale flames of a fire. The man looked blank for a moment. "The Quaker?" Roger amplified.

  "Oh, aye, him," the man said, features clearing. "He's a ways beyond-that way, I think." He gestured helpfully with his stick, the charred squirrel pointing the way with the stubs of its blackened forelegs.

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  "A ways beyond" was some way. Roger passed through three more scattered camps before reaching what looked to be the main body of the armyif one could dignify it by such a term. True, there did seem to be an increasing air of seriousness; there was less of the carefree frolicking he had seen near the creek. Still, it wasn't Strategic Command headquarters, by a long shot.

  He began to feel mildly hopeful that violence could still be avoided, even with the armies drawn up face to face and the gun-crews standing by. There had been an air of excited readiness among the militia as he passed through their lines, but no atmosphere of hatred or blood-thirstiness.