Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone (148 page)

Sycamore Shoals, Washington County, Colony of North Carolina

September 26, 1780

I, OF ALL PEOPLE,
should have known that written history has only a tenuous connection with the actual facts of what happened. Let alone the thoughts, actions, and reactions of the people involved. I did know that, in fact, but had somehow forgotten, and had embarked on this military excursion with the historical account firmly, if subconsciously, in mind.

I
had
assumed that the meeting at Sycamore Shoals would be the usual boiling of miscellaneous people arriving at different times, followed by the usual confusion and disorganization attendant on any enterprise involving more than one leader, and that, indeed, was exactly what happened.

I
hadn’t
thought that no one—besides me—would bring anything substantial in the way of food or medical supplies, nor did I realize that none of the militia leaders knew where we were going.

The thought of Kings Mountain had been so long in my mind as a blunt, rocky spike wreathed with menace that it had taken on the aspect of Mount Doom. Prophesied and inexorable. But none of the militia who were going to end up there knew it. Lacking one Franklin W. Randall’s (
Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ,
I thought.
Had Frank’s parents actually named him after Benjamin Franklin? Calm down, Beauchamp, you’re becoming hysterical…
) brief but meticulous exegesis of the battle, Sevier, Shelby, Cleveland, Campbell, Hambright, and the rest had no idea that we were headed for Kings Mountain. We were in pursuit of Patrick Ferguson, a much less well-defined goal.

News of his movements reached us in dribs and drabs, depending on the erratic arrival of scouts and the detail of their reports. We knew that he and his growing body of Provincials—official British militia—and adherent Loyalists who had joined him out of fear or fury were moving south, toward South Carolina, with the intent of attacking and destroying small patriot settlements. Like Fraser’s Ridge, for instance. We knew, or thought we knew, that his troops numbered more or less a thousand men, which was not peanuts.

We had nine hundred or so, counting me. My presence had caused a lot of staring and muttering, and Jamie had been summoned to talk to the other militia leaders, presumably so they could tell him to send me home.

“I said I wouldn’t,” he replied briefly, when I’d asked him how
that
conversation had gone. “And I said that if ye were molested or troubled in any way, I would take my men right away and fight on my own.”

Consequently, I wasn’t troubled or molested, and while the staring and muttering continued for a bit, it didn’t take more than a week of my attending to the minor accidents and ills that beset an army until that stopped, too. I had become the company medic, and there were no more questions as to what I was doing there.

While we didn’t know
exactly
where Ferguson was, we weren’t precisely wandering in the wilderness, either. Ferguson wasn’t moving his troops across trackless mountains, and neither were we. An army needs roads, most of the time, and the scouts reported which roads the Loyalist militia was following. Plainly, we would converge at some point.

Jamie, Young Ian, Roger, and I knew where that convergence would be, but that knowledge was of no practical value, as we couldn’t tell Colonel Campbell and the rest how we happened to know that.

Nor would it be of much value if we could have. We were moving fast, and in the general direction of Kings Mountain—so was Patrick Ferguson.

We had left Sycamore Shoals on September 26. The battle would happen—according to history and Frank—on October 7.

IT WAS AUTUMN,
and the weather was changeable. The first balmy days gave way quickly to torrential rains and freezing winds in the mountains, only to return to a brief sear of heat as we came down into a valley. We carried no tents, and had only the occasional sheet of canvas for shelter, so were frequently soaked to the skin. And while each man had brought something in the way of provisions, these didn’t last long on the march.

Lacking anything in the nature of a quartermaster or supply wagons, our motley band existed hand-to-mouth, calling on the hospitality of family members or known rebels whose farms we passed, occasionally raiding the fields and farmhouses of Loyalists—though Sevier and Campbell did exert themselves to keep the men from shooting or hanging the Loyalists they victimized—or going hungry. There were two or three wagons—these constantly bogging down and having to be heaved out of mud or dragged through streams—but they were for the transport of weapons and powder; Mrs. Patton had supplied a satisfying number of barrels. Some men always carried their rifles, shot bags, and powder horns; others would leave them in the wagons unless or until trouble threatened. Jamie and Young Ian always carried theirs. I had two pistols, visible in holsters—and a knife in my belt and another in my stocking. Even Roger was visibly armed, with pistol and knife, though he normally didn’t carry his gun loaded and primed.

“I stand a much better chance hitting someone on the head with it,” he’d told me. “Carrying it loaded just means I could shoot myself in the foot more easily.”

Doctoring was what I did during the nightly wrangling over precedence. It was clear that
somebody
needed to be in overall charge, but none of the militia leaders was willing to submit his men to the orders of any of the others. Eventually, they settled on William Campbell as the overall leader of the group; he was in his mid-thirties, like Benjamin Cleveland and Isaac Shelby, and a well-known patriot, a planter of substance—and the brother-in-law of Patrick Henry. So far as I could tell, his chief qualification for the present command was that he came from Virginia and therefore was free of the entanglements and competitions amongst the Overmountain men.

“And he has a loud voice,” I observed to Jamie, hearing Campbell’s shouting two campfires away. He appeared to be apostrophizing the rain, the recalcitrant fire, and the fact that someone had taken the canvas off one of the wagons, letting the guns get wet.

“Aye, he does,” he agreed, without much enthusiasm. “Ye need one, aye? If ye’re going to send men into battle or get them out of one.”

“You’d best take care of yours, then,” I observed, handing him a wooden cup of hot, mint-scented water. I’d got a fire started, under a sort of junior lean-to made of canvas—our canvas,
not
the canvas from the wagon—and a handy bush, but a fitful wind kept springing up, shaking the canvas and blowing wet off the trees, then passing on, only to return again in a few minutes.

“Do you want a drop of whisky in that?”

He considered for a moment, but then shook his head.

“Nay, keep it. We may need it more, later.”

I sat down beside him and sipped my own cup, slowly, warming both my hands and my insides. We hadn’t any food to cook, and precious little to eat: corn dodgers and a bag of apples Roger had coaxed from a farmstead we’d passed. Jamie had made the rounds of his men, making sure they’d got a few scraps of whatever food was available and had places to sleep. Now he leaned back against the trunk of a large pine beside me, took off his hat, and shook the water off it.

“Will I tell ye something, Sassenach?” Jamie said, after a long silence. He leaned back to look up at the crescent moon, briefly visible through the shredding clouds, and set his hand on my knee. It was his right hand, and I could see the thin line of the scar where I had removed his ring finger, white against the cold-mottled darkness of his skin, the four remaining fingers cramped with grasping reins all day.

“You shall,” I said, taking the hand and beginning to massage it. He didn’t seem worried or upset, so it probably wasn’t bad news.

“I was sitting on the porch, just afore we left, and I had wee Davy in my arms, him sucking on my thumb, and Mandy came up the steps covered in mud, to show me a bone she’d found by the lake and ask who’d owned it. I took it, looked at it, and told her it was from the backbone of a beaver, and she looked at me and asked did I hear animals.”

I started to straighten and stretch his fingers, and he settled his back more firmly against the tree and made a small sound of mingled pain and pleasure in the back of his throat.

“Hear them…how?” It had rained on and off all day but had stopped in the evening, and while I was damp all the way to my underthings, I’d established enough equilibrium of body temperature not to be shivering, and it was tranquil here, away from the large campfires.

“Ken she and Jem can tell where each other are, without seeing each other?”

“They can?” I said, a little startled. “No, I don’t think I did know that.” I wasn’t completely surprised to hear it, though. I supposed I’d actually seen them do it a number of times, without really noticing. “Do their parents know, do you think?”

“Aye, she said her mother kent it—had tried them, in Boston, having them go some distance apart and say could each still tell where the other was. Mandy didna pay attention to how far it was—it was only a game to them, though she thought it was strange that her parents couldna tell where she or Jem were, once she realized it.”

“Is it only her and Jem?” I asked. “Or can they, um, hear other people, too? Like their parents, I mean.”

“I asked her that, and she said they can, aye—but not everybody. Just each other and their parents. And you, but not so much.”

That gave me a shiver that had nothing to do with cold.

“Do they, er, hear you?”

He shook his head.

“Nay, I asked. She says I’m a different color in her head. She kens when I’m near her, but canna feel me at a distance.”

“What color are you?” I asked, fascinated.

He made a small sound of amusement. “Water,” he said.

“Really?” I squinted at him. It was dark, and the tiny fire was sputtering on damp wood, but my eyes had adapted to the dark and there was enough moonlight to make out his features. “Any particular kind of water? Blue like the ocean, or brown, like the creek?”

He shook his head. “Just water.”

“You should ask Jem if that’s what he thinks,” I said, and slid my fingers between his, pressing his fingers back to stretch the knuckles.

“I will,” he said, with a slightly odd note in his voice. “If I see him again.”

And there it was. The stone in my heart, the lump of hot lead in my viscera. I’d forgotten, briefly, worn out by the labor of the day. But the thought of what might happen on Kings Mountain was never far from my conscious mind.

Jamie felt my shock, and his fingers closed suddenly over mine, still cold, but firm, and he put his other hand over mine as well, sheltering it.

“If I die this week, I’d ask ye three things,
a nighean,
” he said quietly. “Three things that I want. Will ye give them to me?”

“You know I will,” I said, though my throat was tight and my voice thick. “If I can.”

“Aye, I do,” he said softly, and raising my hand, kissed it, his breath warm on my cold skin. “Well, then. When ye can, find a priest and have a Mass said for my soul.”

“Done,” I said, and cleared my throat. “It might take some time, though. I think the nearest priest is probably in Maryland.”

“Aye, fine. I’ll stick it out in Purgatory ’til ye manage. I’ve been there before; it’s none sae bad.”

I
thought
he was joking. About Purgatory, at least.

“And the second thing?”

“Wee Davy,” he said. “Amanda says that he’s like me. The color o’ water. He’s not the same as she and Jem are…and I think that maybe means he canna pass through the stones.”

That one came out of nowhere, and I blinked. My eyelashes were heavy with wet, and drops flowed down my cheeks like tears. His hands tightened on mine and he turned his head toward me, a barely perceptible movement in the dark.

“I’ve said this before, but I say it now again, and I mean it. If I’m dead, ye should all go back. If it should be that Davy canna travel, give him to Rachel and Young Ian. They’ll love him wi’ all their hearts and keep him safe.”