Paper Woman: A Mystery of the American Revolution (48 page)

Her gut roared
by the time they paused in a copse of pines for corn cakes and dried
venison.
 
Nothing had filled her stomach
since the predawn slop that passed for corn mush in jail.
 
Soon after they finished eating, Ulysses,
who had helped several warriors confiscate their weapons from the redcoats, ambled
over and returned their weapons.
 
David
produced a smile fit for a cotillion and motioned for the Negro to sit
cross-legged with them.
 
"My good
man, how are Lila and the baby?"

"They
fine.
 
Lila be helping the women in the
fields, sharing some things we know.
 
That child be growing like a weed."

Mathias
gestured to the Negro's horse.
 
"You've done quite well for yourself in just a few weeks."

"Yessuh.
 
I teach English to folks who want it.
 
They teach me to hunt, find my way
round.
 
Got my first deer with the
musket two days ago.
 
Ain't no massuh
ever going to find us."

He lowered his
voice.
 
"We taking you to the
Georgia colony so as them redcoats don't find you at least as far as the St.
Marys River.
 
Yesterday the major ride
into the village to talk to Mico.
 
Mico
ask me and Bear Up The Tree to join them, make the English words.
 
We smoke the pipe, and I wonder where I seen
this redcoat before.
 
I remember the
night Lila have the baby, just before we met you folks, we sneaked round their
camp.

"The major
say he be escorting three prisoners that he know be innocent, but he afraid
Mico George rule otherwise and they get executed.
 
He throw money on the mat before Mico.
 
More money than I ever seen in my life.
 
He say help me save them, Mico.
 
They got to escape.

"He
describe you.
 
They plan the
ambush.
 
He say things may go bad, so if
I give you the signal, you shoot me in the leg to make it look better.
 
I think, man, how bad do things got to get
when you want somebody to shoot you?
 
Then I see.
 
The lieutenant want
all of you dead."
 
He regarded
Sophie.
 
"Or maybe worse.
 
Lila tell me what happen in Cow Ford."

Mathias and
David glowered.
 
Sophie waved it away
and thanked Ulysses, but she knew Mathias wasn't finished with Fairfax.

After Ulysses
left them, Mathias spoke up sounding chagrined.
 
"I misjudged Hunt.
 
He's truly a warrior."

David scraped
venison from between his teeth.
 
"I
called him 'a mediocre soldier.'
 
Zounds, how wrong I was."

She flicked her
gaze back and forth between them — brother of her blood and bones, brother of
her heart and spirit — two of the most remarkable men she'd had the fortune of
knowing.
 
And Edward — never would she
have expected him to step so far outside regulations.
 
In the final look he'd given her, she'd recognized that his
actions hadn't been based solely on his convictions of their innocence and the
court's shortcomings.
 
The agony it
brought him to let her go ripped him as much as the musket ball.

David
snorted.
 
"We've returned a fortune
to an ungrateful Spaniard and escaped the gallows.
 
Where do we go?
 
We're in
exile."

"To my
home village."
 
Mathias held up a
hand to divert their protests.
 
"My
aunt communicates with Beloved Women from Cherokee villages in the Carolinas.
 
The Cherokee may be able to hide us."

David eyed
Mathias as if he'd hit his head and wasn't thinking clearly.
 
"Aren't the two tribes at war?"

"It
depends upon our perception of the enemy.
 
I'd like to try strengthening relations between my people and the
Cherokee.
 
I shall be honored to have your
company in such an endeavor."

How welcome did
the Creek feel in the land of the Cherokee?
 
Sophie imagined Mathias an ambassador among them.
 
A thrill of apprehension and anticipation
spiraled through her.

David scratched
his head.
 
"Sounds interesting,
however, I have a plan of my own.
 
I
haven't visited a card table in weeks.
 
Fairfax, rot his soul, denied me the pleasure of cleaning out the
Spaniards in Havana.
 
I've always
enjoyed cards in Williamsburg, and there's a widow there whom I'd like to visit."

Sophie smirked
at him.
 
"Abby, right?"

"No,
Nancy."

Mathias
nodded.
 
"Williamsburg is far
enough away that you shouldn't be conspicuous."

"Of
course, I need to visit a widow in Augusta before I head to Williamsburg."

Sophie
grinned.
 
"Martha, right?"

"No,
Abby
's
the widow in Augusta."

Mathias
frowned.
 
"That visit will put you
at risk."

"So I
won't advertise."
 
He studied
Sophie, sobered.
 
"Betsy must be
frantic about you.
 
Come with me.
 
You could see her in Augusta.
 
And Nancy's family owns the press in
Williamsburg.
 
With your experience,
you'd be a tremendous help to them."

She was spared
making a decision when Bear Up The Tree signaled for them to resume
traveling.
 
David rolled to his feet,
and Mathias helped her up.
 
"No
matter where we three end up, let us have a few days' respite among the people
first."

She smiled at
him.
 
"Agreed."

"I've no
objection."
 
David braced his hands
on his hips and gazed southward.
 
"But someday after all this is over, I must discover just how
easily the Spaniards in Havana lose their purses."

***

They arrived
exhausted in the Creek village just before sundown on Friday, July 7.
 
Within a minute, Sophie and David were shown
to the guest portion of Laughing Eyes' hut.
 
Mathias and his aunt sought a conference with the mico, and the
travelers' horses were led away to receive care.
 
David began snoring almost before he'd flopped into the hammock
in the guest hut.

On a mat at the
other side of the hut, Sophie lay awake, her belly full of beans, corn cakes,
and melon, every muscle aching.
 
Her
mind gyrated with the adventure and flashed places, faces, and events through
her memories.

Zack MacVie's
ambush.
 
Wolves and peddlers.
 
Fairfax's attack on the outlaws.
 
Esteban Hernandez.
 
El Serpiente and El Escorpión.
 
Ulysses and Lila.
 
Cow Ford.
 
Luciano de Herrera.
 
Miguel de Arriaga and the
Gloria Maria
.
 
A tropical storm and a moonlit beach.
 
Imperial haughtiness on Don Antonio's
face.
 
Jacques's dying words.
 
Her father's swim for safety.
 
Edward's mercy.

The journey
from East Florida had been as placid as the trip down to St. Augustine had been
horrific.
 
She'd spend the rest of her
lifetime sorting out June 1780.
 
If the
people of Alton but knew what they'd been through — ah, but they'd never
believe it.

After Mathias
slipped inside the hut, they lay side-by-side on the mat, listening to David's
snores intensify.
 
Mathias
snickered.
 
"Listen to him.
 
He's pushed the past four weeks clear from
his mind so he can make room for card tables."

"A
remarkable skill, eh?"

"Indeed.
 
Here, now, I've much news.
 
Most importantly, Will spent last night in
this very hut."

She gasped and
pushed up on her elbow.
 
"Uninjured?"

"Yes,
except for his being travel-weary."

"Thank the
heavens."
 
She felt jittery with
relief, love, heartache.
 
"We must
find him.
 
Where did he go?"

"All my
aunt knows is that he's meeting rebel friends in the Carolinas."

Sophie lay
back, frustration emptying her in a sigh.
 
"Father wouldn't have said more.
 
Protect the people."

"Yes.
 
So do you truly want to pick up his trail
and follow him?"
 
Mathias sounded
reluctant.

She considered
a moment, trying to find a path through her swirl of conflict, at last deriving
insight from what Runs With Horses had once said to her:
The journey of Will
St. James separates from yours for awhile, but Creator will again unite your
paths
.
 
For now, she'd continue her
own journey.
 
"No."

"Wise
woman."
 
Mathias stroked her
brow.
 
"Tomorrow at dawn, my aunt
shall dispatch a messenger with information about us.
 
He'll ride to a Cherokee village in northwestern South
Carolina.
 
They should be able to give
us refuge there.

"Locally,
Alton's been quiet beneath the command of Captain Sheffield, although tongues
still wag over how Will dug up Mr. Carey's corpse.
 
The official finding of the murder investigation is that the
Spaniard was flayed alive by his Spanish partner."

From Sophie's
brief contact with Lieutenant Stoddard, she'd judged him astute enough to
figure out who really murdered the Spaniard.
 
A pity if the official statement meant the redcoats intended to protect
their own.
 
Fairfax had acquired a taste
for dispensing his own "justice."

"A
convenient finding for all parties.
 
El
Serpiente won't be contesting it.
 
Has
there been word of Major Hunt and his men yet?"

"None."

"Excellent.
 
And how is the war going?"

"Mid-June,
General Horatio Gates was commissioned by the Congress to assume command of the
Southern rebel army from Johann de Kalb.
 
Aside from a skirmish in North Carolina, the southern colonies have been
relatively quiet.
 
Perhaps everyone's
being reasonable about the heat and lying low.
 
Too bad Major Hunt didn't let us hear more of his conversation with the
captain of the
Zealot
.
 
With
Gates's commission and all of Cornwallis's activity, something enormous must be
building in South Carolina."

"Do you
think it's wise to go there?
 
My concern
is less about relations between the tribes.
 
I don't want to get underfoot when Gates and Cornwallis stomp
about."

He took her in
his arms.
 
"Honestly I don't know
what we shall encounter in military action.
 
I do know that the word of one Beloved Woman to another will grant us
hiding, so at least we shan't be found by anyone from Alton, particularly the
redcoats.

"Yes,
there's danger in South Carolina.
 
I
suppose an option would be to head west, but that's even more dangerous.
 
Unless you know kin elsewhere who would hide
us for awhile —"

"They're
all in the Carolinas."

"Well,
there you have it."
 
He stroked her
cheek in the darkness.
 
"If someone
had asked me a month ago at Zeb's dance, I'd have told them I never expected
you at my side.
 
But having you there
has made the hell of the last month more bearable for me.
 
If you will come with me into South
Carolina, help and guide me, I shall be the most content man on earth."

Oh, how she
wanted to see her daughter again.
 
No
bond on the earth equaled the intensity of that between mother and
daughter.
 
But playing a part in the
formation of an alliance between the Creek and Cherokee called her from beyond
her boundaries of comfort and thrilled her with a challenge to both heart and
intellect.

Help and
guide me
.
 
Her soul had come to rest
in Mathias as it had never rested in her life.
 
No man's decoration, she was Mathias's partner.
 
A line from
The Iliad
came to her
then:
If even in the house of Hades the dead forget their dead, yet will I
even there be mindful of my dear comrade
.
 
She touched his lips with her fingertips.
 
"I shall go with you."

***

"Hold the
lantern closer, will you?"
 
David
strapped his bedroll behind his saddle and grumbled at the paling sky.
 
"Bugger that son of a poxy whore.
 
Fairfax must have run several horses to
death galloping up here two days behind us."