Brave Enemies (31 page)

Some had eaten their grits or mush on the way up the river. But I'd carried the pot all the way without touching the grits. The grits now had set into a kind of jelly as they cooled and a crust had dried on the top. I put the pot over the new fire, and pretty soon you could smell the grits frying at the edges and starting to parch. I ate them with a knife like they
were some kind of bread. When the wind changed I could smell the soldiers that had run into the polecat. It was a stink like burned paint, and I feared it would turn my stomach. But then the wind changed again.

I
WAS HARDLY AWAKE
the next morning. I was still dreaming about marching up the river and catching a glimpse of John. It seemed we'd been marching for days, following trees that moved like soldiers. The cedar trees and swamp pines moved, and I thought I saw John in the distance. I tried to call out but couldn't say anything. I wanted to say I was sorry we had fussed. We weren't ever going to catch up with the evergreens. Thorns on the holly bushes stuck out like little bayonets, and briars thrust out their points in my face.

“Wake up, you lazy rascals!” It was Gudger. I pulled the blanket from my head. It wasn't even daylight and the fires had died down to coals. The stars had gone but there wasn't any light yet.

“Get up, slugs,” the sergeant said.

“Tarleton has crossed the river,” Captain Cox shouted. “He has crossed downstream.”

Everybody in the camp stirred and stood up.

“Not five miles down the river,” Captain Cox hollered. “They left their campfires burning to fool us.”

I grabbed my rifle and blanket and mush pot and was already marching before I knew it. One second we were sleeping and dreaming and the next we were on our way. Tarleton was on our side of the river and he was after us. We must have left half our things on the ground. We left a few tents and stockings drying on sticks. But I don't reckon anybody left their rifles or their boots.

My belly felt awful. With the blanket over my shoulders and the rifle under my arm, I reached into the coat pocket with my left hand and got the little bottle. I had to pull the cork with my teeth, and, holding the stopper between my fingers, I took a sip. The laudanum trickled into my belly while we marched.

“Give me a sip of that,” T. R. said.

“Ain't for younguns,” I said.

Cox led us away from the river, up this road through the pine woods. It ran north toward Thicketty Creek where Morgan and the rest of the army were camped.

There is nothing as confusing as a march before daylight. You can't see where you're going, and your legs are walking while you're still dreaming. Everything swirls around, trees and clouds, the ground rising and falling. We were rushing and I couldn't see anything, like we were marching in an endless tunnel.

I thought Tarleton's Greens might jump out of the pines any instant and cut us down with their sabers.

“Goddamn Cox,” T. R. muttered behind me.

“Cox is going to get us butchered,” Gaither said.

“Shut up, you pups,” Gudger snarled.

The mud of the road was frozen, like a crust of leather that cracked here and there. The frost on the grass was clean, but where we walked the ruts soon got muddy.

“Halt!” the captain called.

I saw we had come to a field where the big army was camped. There were the rest of McDowell's North Carolina volunteers and Col. John Howard's Delaware and Maryland regulars. It was a sight to see, all the blue uniforms on the officers and the sparkling bayonets. They had already assembled, and when they started marching up the Green River Road we fell in behind McDowell's men. General Morgan rode out ahead on his big white horse, his face red in the morning air. He had a bad scar on his cheek that twisted his face sideways. It was daylight by now and we could see him riding way out ahead. We seemed to get faster with each step.

“Anybody runs away gets shot in the back,” Gudger said, and wiped his nose on his sleeve.

I had a catch in my side that the laudanum hadn't cured, and my feet
were so cold and wet they were nearly numb. I'd wrapped more rags on my feet the night before, but they were soaked with the red mud. My leather rags were worn out, and I'd tied pieces of canvas on the bottoms, pieces of an old tent and strips of rawhide. I would have given anything for a pair of boots and dry stockings. Didn't seem like I'd ever have warm feet again. The rags on my feet were red as blood.

Cox made us walk on the road four abreast, and Gaither on the left side was stepping through broom sedge and briars, sometimes running into limbs of pines and post oaks. By the time we were joined by another militia company past Burr's Mill we were worn out. There was cursing and muttering all up and down the line. Words and strings of words ran backward and forward along the column. I belched up the taste of laudanum.

“Tarleton is following us” was passed up the line. It was spoken across the ranks as we tramped along. Our feet sucked in the mud and swished in the stubble of weeds and brush.

“Tarleton is behind us,” I heard muttered farther and farther up the line toward General Morgan. I reckon the general's scouts were telling him from time to time where the dragoons were. A member of Colonel Washington's cavalry rode by us in his white-and-blue jacket and we stood aside to let him pass. We walked a little faster every time we heard mention of Tarleton.

The general was one of the strongest-looking men you've ever seen. His shoulders were wide in his blue coat and his hands looked powerful enough to grip the reins of ten horses. General Morgan had a voice like a mule driver's. I'd heard he was once a teamster for Gen. George Washington. His voice was loud as a preacher's and twice as rough. And he spoke out of the side of his mouth because of the big scar on his cheek.

“We'll not be caught by Benny Tarleton,” the general yelled back at us.

The men in the column cheered. Old Morgan's gray hair fell over his collar. From time to time he looked back and yelled, “I won't be outfoxed by Benny Tarleton!”

There was a man in fine clothes riding beside the general. He wore a light blue coat with lace at the wrists. And he had on a white wig tied with ribbon.

“Who is that old fop?” Gaither said.

“That's Baron de Glaubeck, from somewhere over the water,” Gudger said.

“Looks like an actor dressed up in powder and rouge,” T. R. said.

“Don't mock your betters,” Gudger said.

“He gives the general advice,” Cox said.

“How does he keep from getting mud on his fine silk pants?” T. R. said.

“Why are we going to Kings Mountain?” somebody hollered way behind us. Captain Cox didn't say anything. He rode about ten feet ahead of us.

I figured if there had been one fight at Kings Mountain there might as well be another. Marching is like any other awful job. I kept telling myself that a little bit farther and the worst would be over. It would warm up and we would rest. That's the way you get through a hard day. I kept thinking, just a little more and a little more. When we get to that tall pine tree, or the next creek, or the top of the rise, we will halt and rest. You have to break the hardest jobs into little pieces and finish them one piece at a time. You have to feel that the worst is over or you couldn't get through the next few minutes, or hours.

We marched for so many hours I thought I might be dreaming the march. My legs moved on their own, and my back hurt. As my legs got numb it seemed the trees were marching past us, not us marching past them. The ground seemed far away beneath me. I can't go on much longer, I thought. You are a murderer, I said to myself. You killed Mr. Griffin. You deceived John and his congregations. That thought gave me a little extra strength, for I saw I was paying for what I had done.

E
VERY TIME WE PASSED
a tavern there was a little company of militia waiting. We would halt and the general would talk to the militia
captain. Silly as it may sound, I kept on the lookout for John. I thought he might be with one of the ragged bands. I knew it was impossible, but I still hoped to see him. Once I saw a tall skinny fellow in black and my heart thumped up into my throat. But when we got closer I saw it wasn't John. I knew John had been taken to punish me. Everywhere I looked I hoped to see John, but didn't.

The new companies would stand at attention as we marched past, and then they would fall in behind the column and make it even longer. There were men in pieces of uniforms of the regulars, men who had enlisted before and then come home when their time was up. We even saw a man wearing a dirty red coat with the stripes torn off. I guess he had taken it off a dead soldier, or maybe he'd been a Tory himself and deserted.

But mostly the new companies were dressed same as us, some in fur hats and some in felt hats, some in hunting coats and some in buckskin. Some had long mountain rifles and some had Brown Bess muskets and boxes of paper cartridges. A few had pistols in their belts. Not many had bayonets on their belts, but a few did. Some had bags of rations slung over their backs, and some had nothing but shot and powder. One carried a plucked chicken to roast for dinner.

We stopped in front of a tavern somewhere near Hancockville around dinnertime. I could smell bread cooking and chicken baking. A little company was formed in front of the tavern, a poor-looking bunch, and not all of them had guns. Their clothing was rumpled and some didn't have hats. Old Morgan talked to their captain and they drew themselves up to attention and saluted the general. Just then this old man came out the door of the tavern and hurried to the company. His shirt was unbuttoned and he looked like he'd been asleep.

“You ain't coming, Jarvis,” the captain said to the old man.

Jarvis could hardly stand up, but he tried to hold himself at attention. His gray hair went every which way. He stretched up to the captain of the company. “Who's giving orders here?” he said.

“I'm giving orders,” the captain bellowed.

“No you ain't,” the old man said.

“Go back inside and have another drink,” the captain said, and flipped him a coin.

The general sat on his horse and watched Jarvis pull himself up and salute him. “The king can kiss my arse,” Jarvis said.

“Go back inside or we'll kick
your
arse,” the captain said.

“Ain't nobody giving me orders but the general,” Jarvis said. He squinted, staring up at the Old Wagoner, who used to be a teamster in Virginia.

It looked like they were going to have to tie Jarvis up to get rid of him. He had gotten it in his mind to be a soldier. Just then a woman came from behind the tavern carrying a bucket. She wore an apron like a maid or a cook.

“Who is giving me orders?” Jarvis said, and raised his fist.

“Martin Jarvis,” the woman said sharply.

Jarvis spun around and as he faced her the woman slung the bucket of water right in his face. The water stretched out like a tongue and slapped him backward. He stumbled as if he'd been hit by a horse or a bolt of lightning, then fell flat in the muddy yard. A boy came out of the tavern and helped the woman drag the old man back inside.

The whole column laughed out loud and cheered. We didn't know what else to do, having watched it all. The general pointed ahead and yelled “Forward!” and we started marching again.

Some houses we passed looked empty. There were no younguns in the yards, and no woman with a troubling stick out by the washpot. No smoke rose out of the chimneys, and there were no signs of pigs or chickens. We passed one burned house, and then another. You would have thought everybody had up and left the country. Folks had packed up and moved on, those that had not been shot or hung.

But people must have been hiding too. They heard the army coming and hid in cellars and lofts, in potato holes and in the woods. They took their daughters and put them way back in thickets and swamps, or
under fodder in the barn. They had carried their ham meat and cornmeal to holes beyond the pasture and covered them with leaves.

A few people had stayed in their houses. They stood on porches and watched us march by. One pretty girl with long black hair watched from a second-story window. Dogs ran out from under porches and barked and backed away. A spaniel snapped and wagged its tail at the same time. By one cabin an old woman was boiling soap.

The friendliest person we saw that day was a woman way up the road just before we got to Thicketty Mountain. She had a house on a little hill, and I guess we slowed down walking up that hill. Her head was tied up in a wool rag against the wind, and she brought a big bucket of water with a dipper and set it on a stump by the road. She gave a drink to every soldier that came by and wanted one. She ran forward up the line and gave a boy a dipper and he drank and handed it back to her. We never did stop marching, though we slowed down a little and the men behind hollered at us. She ran forward and gave Gaither the dipper and he swallowed quick. Then she filled the dipper and gave it to me. It was the sweetest water I'd ever drunk. It was so cold it seemed to come from the heart of rock or melting snow. It was so sweet it seemed to have honey and silver lights in it. I won't ever forget that woman.

Wasn't till I put my lips to that cold dipper that I found out how dried they were. My lips had chapped in the wind and cold air. They were tight and cracked, with rough pieces of skin peeling off like paint. I pulled one of the pieces and it tore off to the quick. The place started bleeding and I tried to stop the blood with the back of my hand. I tasted salty blood as I walked along.

I must have closed my eyes while I was walking, for I was dreaming of Mama. She was sitting on the porch in a rocking chair looking down the road. She was watching to see if I would come down the road. I wanted to call out to her and tell her I was coming. But just as I tried to speak
something slammed into me. I opened my eyes and saw I'd marched into the musket of the man in front of me.