Ashes (2 page)

The sound of a sharp
cr-rack
, like a branch trod upon by a heavy boot, echoed through the woods. The guard stood up, alert now, staring in my direction. He said something over his shoulder that I could not hear, and one of his companions got to his feet and joined him, musket at the ready. The two men raised their guns, aimed at the log, just above my head.

That's when the rattlesnake appeared.

I
ATE PART OF A FRIED
R
ATTLE
S
NAKE TODAY, WHICH WOULD HAVE TASTED VERY WELL HAD IT NOT BEEN SNAKE.

–J
OURNAL OF
C
OLONEL
H
ENRY
D
EARBORN OF THE
C
ONTINENTAL ARMY

I
DID NOT BREATHE.

Near as long as I was tall and thick as my arm, the yellow-eyed snake stared at me; tail rattling, tongue flickering like flame. I could not move. There were other noises, other dangers that needed my attention–shouts, thunder, footsteps–but I couldn't look away from those terrifying eyes.

A rattlesnake's bite meant death, or at the very least, the need for amputation before the poison made its way to your heart. The worst place to be bitten was the face, for there was not much point in the amputation of a head. The only saving grace of a rattlesnake was that the creature gave fair warning. The vigorous shaking of the rattle on the end of the tail alerted the victim not to come closer, the way a port city might send a cannonball over the bow of a pirate ship straying too close to shore. It announced that a further advance would be met with swift and fatal punishment. The only thing worse than the rattling of the snake's tail was the moment the tail fell silent, for then the creature would strike.

The snake afore me slowed the shaking of its tail but did not stop. The dull sunlight reflected off the dark brown scales, ornamented with diamond-shaped patterns in black and white. If I could move fast enough, there was a small chance I could leap up and away from its reach, but if I did that, the soldiers would seize me in an instant. The snake measured the panic in my face.

“I saw something, I tell you!” one soldier insisted. “Moving between the trees.”

“Blasted moss flapping in the wind,” replied another. “Quit acting like a wee bairn afeard of haints and ghosties!”

Two black butterflies, their wings dotted with splashes of sky blue and pumpkin orange, fluttered by. They paused for a moment on the log, their wings opening and closing like bellows, then twirled away. As they departed, the snake lowered its head to the ground and slid under the log. It did not cease rattling its tail until it disappeared from sight.

Before I could move away, the sharp report of rifle fire cut through the air. I peered over the log.

The guard lay on the ground, clutching his bloody shoulder and screaming. The British were hollering above the cries of their friend, arguing about where the shots had come from as they scrambled for their muskets and cartridge boxes.

Heavy boots thudded from the forest behind me, then militiamen in long hunting shirts and dark breeches ran past, skirting both sides of the hollow where I lay. They took up their positions behind the broad trunks of old oaks and ancient pines and knelt to load their weapons. Most carried muskets, but a few possessed the deadly rifles of the mountains.

This was warfare in the Carolinas: fierce battles betwixt Patriot militia groups and the redcoats, who fought alongside local Loyalists. Everyone was fighting for freedom, but few could agree on the meaning of the word.

“Prepare!” screamed a redcoat.

The militia roared in defiance, “Huzzah!”

“Ready!” The British snapped their muskets up to their shoulders and pulled back the hammers that held their striking flints.

“Now!” screamed a long-haired man clad in buckskin.

The militia stepped out from their trees and fired. The British fired at the exact same moment. The explosion of so many guns sounded like a fierce volley of lightning bolts.

The British soldiers dragged the wounded guard off the road and quickly formed a half circle to protect him, while preparing for the next volley. The air filled with shouts, screams, men from both sides being ordered to load, aim, and “FIRE!” The woods to both sides of me exploded for a second time. Bullets flew across the road, some headed east, some west, shredding leaves and thudding into tree trunks. Another voice cried out in pain. The screams of the injured guard were weakening. More footsteps ran past me. How many militia were there? How long before one of them found me? Was Curzon captured? Killed?

My nose twitched with the metal tang of gunpowder. I didn't dare move but couldn't stay. A stray bullet spun over my head like an angry hornet. Mayhaps I could back away from the scene, slow-like–

A hand suddenly covered my mouth, and another gripped my wrist and pinned it to the ground. Curzon threw himself to the dirt next to me.

“Don't move!” he warned.

I pushed away his hand, but for once, was not inclined to argue. “Did they see you?”

He shook his head. “They only have eyes for the redcoats.”

“How many?” I whispered.

“Not sure.”

The noise of the skirmish changed in tone. The shouting quieted. Two guns fired, one right after another, but it sounded as if they were farther away. The wounded guard had stopped screaming.

We looked at each other, gave a nod, and silently counted to one hundred, as was our custom in unsure circumstances such as this. By the end of the count the woods had fallen silent. The gritty fog of gunpowder smoke drifted away. We crawled until we could peek around the opposite ends of the log. In the distance the militiamen were chasing the British patrol south down on the road. The guard's body lay still by the fire. I did not have enough of a view to see if there were any more wounded lying about, or worse, any militia waiting to shoot at stragglers.

Curzon's view must have been blocked too, for he gave his end of the log a small push.

The rattlesnake did not take kindly to having its hidey-hole disturbed.

It coiled in tight loops and raised its head, hissing fiercely, its stiff tail shaking a dire warning. The head bobbed side to side, fangs displayed, its eyes level with Curzon's. He became still as a statue carved from rock.

The tang of gunpowder, the buzz of bullets, the threat of a deadly snake; these awaken all of the senses at once with a powerful ferocity. I could hear the retreating boot steps of the men, smell the blood stench of the dead soldier, see the pattern the snake wove in the air as it prepared to kill. I tasted fear.

My left hand, out of the snake's sight, felt for the hatchet in my belt. I fumbled with the leather tie that kept it secured, then slowly pulled it free. I shifted closer to Curzon. The snake noticed. It turned its head to me and shook its rattles faster.

I gripped the hatchet.

Curzon scratched at the fallen pine needles with his fingers, diverting the snake's attention and giving me the advantage.

The snake opened its jaws.

With all the fury I could muster, I brought the hatchet down onto the serpent, cleaving its head from its body with one blow. I pulled the blade free from the dirt and chopped again and again until at last Curzon grabbed my arm, and I stopped, panting.

“You've killed it three times over,” he said.

I spat on the remains. “Snakes vex me.”

I
WAS BORN IN THE
P
ROVINCE OF
S
OUTH
C
AROLINA, 28 MILES FROM
C
HARLES
-T
OWN.
M
Y FATHER WAS STOLEN AWAY FROM
A
FRICA WHEN HE WAS YOUNG.

–M
EMOIRS OF
B
OSTON
K
ING, WHO FLED SLAVERY TO JOIN THE
B
RITISH ARMY

I
WAS GOING TO KILL
it, you know.” Curzon prodded a bit of chopped snake belly with the toe of his boot. “I was going to smash it with a rock.”

I shrugged. I should have been giddy with delight about my victory over the creature and the fact that our enemies had chased each other away from this place. We had again cheated death and soldiers. But instead of being joyful, I felt weary and strangely out of sorts.

“You seemed determined to do the killing,” Curzon continued, crouching to admire the sharp fangs of the snake. “So I let you.”

“You let me?” I absently reached to pick up a bit of the snake's body.

Curzon stayed my hand. “What are you doing?”

“It's dead.” I stared at him. “We should cook it later, once we find a safe spot.”

“It will rot in this heat before we can cook it, Isabel. We'd both be sickened.”

He was right, of course. It was a commonsensical notion, the kind of thing a child would know. Why had I not thought of it?

He studied me close. “Are you feeling addled?”

I gave my head a small shake, trying to clear the clouds from my brainpan. “Nay, just hungry.”

“I'll see if the fire spared us any rabbit,” he said. “You investigate that stone and figger our course. Sooner we're gone from here, the better.”

We crossed the road, keeping eyes and ears open for the approach of any man or beast. Curzon approached the smoldering cook fire and the body of the dead soldier. I made for the milestone that had been our reason for coming to this place.

We'd spied on any number of Carolina plantations in the weeks previous, careful to stay out of sight, but close enough to watch how the work was done. Occasionally, when the circumstances were secure, we visited the cabins of the enslaved people at night, befriended a few folks, and learned of the news of that place and the other plantations nearby.

We were not the only ones making our way across the state by moonlight. The upheavals of the war had given many stolen people the chance to liberate themselves. Some were searching for kin, like us. Others were seeking a safe spot of ground they could call their own, a place where they could be the master of their own body and soul, and live without fear. All of us who wandered thus owned only the clothes on our backs. We relied on our wits to keep us fed. We traded information like coin. We shared stories about where clean water could be found, which places promised rest, and which held certain peril.

That was how we'd made our way to this godforsaken spot. The last woman we'd spoken to afore we became lost in the swamp had told me to seek out this very same milestone. The sea green flecks of moss growing at its base showed that it had long stood there. More moss grew in the letter
C
–for “Charleston”–that was deeply carved into its face, as well as the number
12
and the arrow that pointed south, indicating that Charleston lay only twelve miles in that direction.

Charleston had been our goal for years because the Locktons owned a fine house there, in addition to the rice plantation called Riverbend and the New York mansion where they'd held my sister and me in slavery. I'd convinced myself that Ruth had been sent to the Charleston house to work in the kitchen. Even though she'd been a sickly child, she was raised to do the heavy work of the scullery and larder.

But Charleston was under rule of the King's army, as were New York and Savannah. Weeks earlier we'd learned that anyone in Charleston who was not white skinned was required to carry a British army certification proving the whos and whys and hows of their being. I'd easily forged our free papers the winter we lived above the printer's shop in Baltimore (in a fit of hopefulness I'd even composed one for Ruth as well). But I had no notion of what a British army certification would resemble. Without the proper papers, we'd be snatched up soon as we set foot in Charleston. The scar on my cheek made me unfortunate-easy to identify, and I'd be in bondage again.