Paper Woman: A Mystery of the American Revolution (20 page)

"Congratulations.
 
I'm sure you'll both be very happy."

Will waited
in the wagon in the shade across the street when she emerged from the
shop.
 
He helped her aboard with Betsy,
climbed back up, and twitched the reins.
 
The wagon swayed.
 
"Something bothering you, Sophie?"

"Why
didn't anyone tell me Mathias Hale had gotten married?"

"Obviously
it must have been an oversight.
 
Sorry."

***

She stared at
the ceiling.
 
It wavered and blurred
while the storm built inside her.
 
Then
she rolled onto her stomach, buried her face in the pillow, and yielded to
grief in racking sobs.
 
That was it, the
moment when spirit departed the communication between father and daughter.
 
Why hadn't she seen it before?
 
All those years her father had known about
Mathias, and likely her mother had, too, but they'd never lectured her about
her choices.
 
Alas, by now the smile
she'd worn for her husbands fit her face too well.
 
She might even produce it for Edward Hunt and perpetuate her own
masquerade.

Will had never
stopped loving her.
 
He'd grown
frustrated with her choice of men, for his approval had gone to Mathias.
 
But she'd been blind to it.
 
Futility and irony forced out another
onslaught of tears.
 
Well meaning but
naïve, her father hadn't recognized that Mathias was only interested in being
her friend.
 
Surely she would have
noticed by then if he'd wanted more — wouldn't she have noticed?
 
Her sobs dwindled, and she pondered.

A generation
had passed in eighteen years, enough time for two people to diverge in
interests and beliefs, to shake off childhood fascination and release into the
past one afternoon of intimacy.
 
After
all that time, she and Mathias still kept each other's confidences, enjoyed
each other's company.
 
Was that all he'd
ever wanted from her?

What did she
want from him?
 
Her fingers lifted to
her cheek, recreating the sensation of his hands on her face from the day
before, the touch that conveyed a feeling so unique that she'd no name for it
yet, no kin in the repository of her experiences.

She
shivered.
 
Whatever the touch had
awakened, it wasn't worth ruining a friendship.

Weariness
ripped a yawn from her, and she rolled onto her side.
 
As she slid into sleep, the certainty sneaked over her that the
afternoon at the forge had also been the moment when two giddy youths had
become duty-bound adults.

***

Standing Wolf's
hushed voice penetrated her peculiar dream about sharing the bed with Jim,
Richard, and Edward: "Nagchoguh Hogdee.
 
We talk.
 
Quickly."
 
She rolled up, groped her way to the door,
and cracked it open to the bear-greased shadow outside.
 
"Ten redcoats on horses with one extra
horse headed south on the road, five miles north of here."

She gaped.
 
"This moment?"
 
From her estimation of how long she'd slept,
surely it wasn't past three in the morning.
 
Edward must have driven the patrol much of the night to have covered
such ground.
 
That meant ten exhausted
soldiers and eleven exhausted horses were less than an hour from the tavern.
 
"Thank you.
 
Wake the others, starting with my brother.
 
We leave in fifteen minutes."

After she'd
stubbed her toe twice on the bed, she lit the candle to finish dressing.
 
With luck, they'd have at least a
quarter-hour lead on the British.
 
From
the taste of her own fatigue, she knew Edward and his party would have to rest
before resuming pursuit.

Only after
she'd pulled on her stockings did the significance of the eleventh horse in
Edward's group strike her. The horse must be Sam Fielding's,
without
Sam
Fielding.
 
The soldiers, deeming him
useless at tracking their fugitives, must have decided he was more trouble than
he was worth.
 
She shuddered.

A yawning Mrs.
Woodhouse met them out in the stables ten minutes later, lantern held high, two
bundles beneath her arm.
 
"I wish
you folks could stay another hour and a half.
 
Porridge with raisins and cinnamon for breakfast, starting at
four."

Edward loved
porridge with raisins and cinnamon and would be most appreciative.
 
Sophie smiled.
 
"You've been so kind, but we're running behind
schedule."

The widow
extended wrapped trail bread to a sleepy-eyed David, then motioned Sophie
closer to hand her the second bundle.
 
"I figure you could use some extra rags.
 
Cannot say I blame you for running off your husband last
night.
 
I never wanted
mine
in
the bed when my monthly time was upon me."

Sophie glanced
around to Mathias, who leaned half-asleep against his saddle, and almost hoped
the widow would spin a tale for Edward Hunt of a menstruating, musket-toting
martinet.
 
After all, why should General
George Washington be the primary source of legends during the war?
 
"Thank you, Mrs. Woodhouse."

With the extra
horses roped behind, the travelers walked their mounts from the barn into the
frog song of the yard.
 
Mrs. Woodhouse's
cur padded circles around them, tail wagging in adieu.
 
A waxing quarter-moon silvered the swamp and
showed the southbound road deserted.
 
The widow waved.
 
"Visit us
again, especially you,
Monsieur
."

"
Au
revoir, cherie
."
 
Jacques blew
a kiss.

"
Vive
le Montcalm
," David said under his breath, eliciting a grin from
Sophie.

At the road,
Sophie, who rode MacVie's mare for a day to give Samson a break, surveyed the
five men.
 
"Anyone see why we
shouldn't put as many miles as possible between us and the redcoats by taking
the road until dawn?"

David sounded
awake at last.
 
"No arguments
here."

Sophie's heels
tapped the mare in the ribs, and she felt the horse leap forward, eager for the
canter she paced her in.
 
Overhead,
Vega, Deneb, and Altair steered the Summer Triangle and the heavens full of
stars westward.
 
And a shooting star
curved southward through the cosmos, blue-white beacon to East Florida.

Chapter Fifteen

DAVID SETTLED
HIS hat on his head.
 
"Surely we've
lost the redcoats in the swamp.
 
And I dreamed
last night that Fairfax was eaten by an alligator."

Jacques paced
near Runs With Horses and Standing Wolf.
 
"After that English pig is court-martialed and sentenced for
ignoring movement orders, he may wish he had been eaten by an alligator.
 
But the palates of alligators are more
discriminating."

"Amazing
what you'll eat when you're hungry."
 
A turkey buzzard landed on a limb of the pine above David and regarded
humans and horses with dispassion.
 
He
flicked his hand at the bird.
 
"Begone.
 
We aren't ripe
enough for you yet."

Sophie pushed
up from where she'd been studying the map.
 
"Have you gentlemen considered who the soldiers are pursuing?"

Jacques
shrugged.
 
"Us.
 
So we remain in the swamp."

Mathias stood
with the unfolded map.
 
"They may
also be chasing El Serpiente.
 
But it's
getting swampier, and I don't enjoy sharing a route with so many hungry water
moccasins.
 
My cousins and I are
unfamiliar with this terrain.
 
Unless we
return to the road, we'll still be picking our way through swamp two weeks from
now, too late to stop any meeting in St. Augustine."

David rubbed
his hands.
 
"I cast my vote for the
road."

Jacques's
expression clouded.
 
"Do not say I
did not warn you.
 
This part of the road
is far from deserted."

Sophie winked
at Mathias.
 
"Well put, Ambassador
Hale."

"Thank
you, General Barton."

She studied
their location on the map, peered through tree branches at the sun, then folded
up the map.
 
"We've enough daylight
to find a campsite south of the Canoochee River."

"Better
still, an inn in Savannah — Huzzah!"
 
David reached for his horse's reins, a jig in his step.
 
"Savannah, Savannah, on a Friday
night.
 
Savannah, oh, Savannah on a
Friday night."

She cocked her
eyebrow at him while handing the map back to Mathias.
 
"Surely we announced our whereabouts to the redcoats back at
Woodhouse's Tavern.
 
Would you do so
again in Savannah?"

"Dear
sister, do you know how many inns there are in Savannah?"

"Dear
brother, do you know how many redcoats there are in Savannah?"
 
In response to Mathias's tug on her hand,
she glanced to where he held her hand palm up.
 
"Is something wrong?"

Amusement
enlivened his dark eyes.
 
"I
couldn't help but notice.
 
The lampblack
and varnish are disappearing."

She studied
both palms, amused by the thought that Lady Beatrice's hands, in contrast,
would be soft and white, the nails trimmed and polished.
 
"Why, so they are.
 
I suppose that means Paper Woman has
retired.
 
What sort of name shall I take
now?
 
Wolf Woman?
 
Musket Woman?"
 
She chuckled.
 
"Swamp Woman?"

Mathias tucked
the map beneath his arm and took her other hand in his.
 
"All Women," he whispered.

The warmth and
gentleness in his expression quieted the restlessness in her mind and the words
on her tongue.
 
She followed the
luminous guide of his dark eyes into a realm where the quest and all her
irritations and terrors receded.
 
Imagining again the feeling of his hands on her face, her soul resonated
with understanding.
 
Then she heard
Jacques's voice: "Now we know why the swamp steams," and she spied
David and Jacques leering.

Infusing her
expression with what she hoped was silly charm, she withdrew her hands and
prodded the map beneath Mathias's arm.
 
"Don't lose our location on the map, Ambassador."

His eyes
twinkled.
 
"No, General, I don't
believe I shall."
 
David and
Jacques whooped with satisfaction.

Late afternoon
found the party south of the Canoochee River and Savannah and north of the town
of Sunbury.
 
Westering sunlight glinted
on the sweaty black shoulders of slaves trudging through rice fields, and on
musket barrels of white overseers astride horses.
 
Everyone Sophie saw — slaves, redcoats, Indians, colonists — wore
a forbidding expression.
 
Every tree
they passed bore a broadside denouncing the acts of renegade bands of Whigs or
Loyalists.
 
She kept her head bowed and
averted her gaze from other travelers.
 
The subdued posture they adopted blended well with that of area
inhabitants.

Early in 1779,
the redcoats had overpowered two hundred Continentals holding the small,
earthen Fort Morris, which protected Sunbury town and port.
 
They'd then dismantled the fort and wharf,
destroying what supplies and equipment they couldn't carry off.
 
Their actions incensed local plantation
owners, who were forced to haul their produce twenty-five miles or more to the
port of Savannah.

David had
related tales of Savannah's Committee of Safety plotting in back rooms of
taverns, burning effigies of King George, rioting in the streets, and dressing
like Indians to dump British imports into the harbor.
 
The miasma of fear, desperation, and hostility hovered in the air
— palatable, clammy, fetid — made concrete when David, in the lead, brought
their party to a halt at the top of a rise.
 
Beside the road a hundred feet south, a group of two-dozen civilians had
clustered around the trunk of a tree.
 
Nailed to the tree was one of Will's "Tarleton's Quarter"
broadsides.

A man lunged
forward and ripped the broadside off.
 
"Whig rubbish!
 
I'll wipe my
arse with it!"

Another man
shook his fist at him.
 
"Murdering
redcoats.
 
Kill us all in our sleep,
just like that butcher, Tarleton!"

"Lies!
 
It wasn't
redcoats
who raped my niece
and held her for ransom!
 
It was Whig
scum like you!"