Ride the Fire (31 page)

Nicholas led almost daily forays, some into Lower and Upper Town to gather whatever wood they could from the burnt cabins, and some into the garden and fields after spelt, vegetables, cattle, even the occasional startled rabbit. Though they left the fort at different times of day and from different ports and sometimes managed to take the Indians by surprise, they came under attack each time, risking their lives and sometimes gaining little for it. So far they’d lost only one man, a militiaman who’d taken a ball to the belly while tending the cattle. Two others had been injured.

There could be little doubt as to who was faring better thus far. As hungry soldiers watched from the ramparts, Indian canoes traveled up the rivers loaded with corn harvested from the surrounding farmsteads. And although the Indians had not yet launched another direct attack, they were always present around the fort, coming right up to the walls in the dark of night, hiding in the ditch, penetrating the glacis, frightening people with their death whoops. And just so the English could see their strength, they openly crossed the rivers out of range of the cannon, many hundreds of them. Although Captain Ecuyer had told messengers sent by the chiefs that Fort Pitt had supplies and ammunition to outlast a siege of three years, Nicholas knew that unless reinforcements arrived, they would not survive three months.

“You take my portion.” Bethie slid her slice of salted pork onto Nicholas’s plate, ignored her growling stomach. “I am no’ hungry just now.”

“Bethie, eat.” Nicholas frowned at her, tossed the precious slice back onto her plate.

“But you work much harder than I. You need a man’s portion.” She started to toss it back, but the scowl on his face stopped her.

“You’re feeding a baby. Eat!”

She ate her meager breakfast, watched as he cleaned his pistols and long rifle, realized what he was doing. “You’re going out again today.”

He looked down the barrel of the rifle, slid the cleaning rod down its length. “Aye. The corn is ripe, and Ecuyer doesn’t want it falling into Indian hands.”

“Why must it always be you? Can no one else lead them this timer She stood, paced the length of the room, a knot of fear in her belly.

“We’ve been through this before. The men trust me to lead them and—”

“And you know every bean pole and row of that garden now. Aye, I know. But surely the men who planted and tended the bloody garden know it just as well.”

“Aye, but how many of them are good marksmen? How many of them have faced down a charge of painted warriors?” Nicholas set his rifle on the table, stood, pulled her into his arms. “Most of them are privates, like young Fitchie. They’ve seen little of real battle. If we’re not able to harvest the spelt and the corn, we’ll starve before help arrives.” He paused, smiled. “Of course, we can always eat the dogs.”

Bethie laughed despite her fear. The captain’s loathing for barking dogs—and the settlers’ resulting hatred for him—had become fort legend. “How can you jest about something so grave?”

He nuzzled her ear. “It made you laugh, didn’t it?” Then he kissed her, a gentle, languorous kiss, and she tasted the salt on his lips.

These past three weeks with him had been wondrous, the most precious of her life. Yet it seemed that love came at a price. Never had she felt more keenly the fear of loss, for never had she stood to lose so much. If aught were to happen to Nicholas . . .

Right now, in this moment, he was alive and strong. How she wished she knew some words of enchantment, a bewitchment to keep him safe until help could arrive.

“What will we do if reinforcements dinnae come?” It was the question Nicholas asked himself every day. A part of him thought he might have been wiser to take Shingiss’s offer of safe passage, and to have led Bethie away from all of this. But with so many warriors from so many nations traveling through the forest, they would have been running a gauntlet all the way over the mountains and beyond. As it was, they’d barely made it to Fort Pitt alive.

“What would the Indians do to us?”

She felt so sweet, so fragile in his arms. He inhaled the lavender scent of her hair, pressed his lips to her brow. “If we abandon the fort and journey east, I suspect they will try to ambush us somewhere along the way. If they take the fort, it will follow days of bloody battle.”

“Nay, I mean what will they
do
to us, to you, to the soldiers, to the women and children.”

He could feel her fear, but he had no honeyed words to assuage it. He would not lie to her. “This is war, Bethie. It’s a war such as I’ve never seen. I imagine they would kill most of the adult men and torture the rest. They would kill the smallest children and babies—those they deemed young enough to be a burden on the trail home. The women and older children they would either kill outright or take captive.”

“Annie says you were taken while trying to save the lives of two young soldiers and that you were forced to watch as they were burned to death. Is that true?”

Whatever he had expected her to say, it was not this. Her words felt like a fist to his stomach. It took a moment before he could answer. “Aye.”

“And that is why I need to lead the men out to the garden today.”

“Now.”

Dr. Aimes took the bandages from her hands. “Thank you for your help, madam. You’d best be off to your quarters.” Heart pounding, Bethie removed her apron, hurried outdoors.

What she heard turned her blood to ice—hundreds of voices raised in war cries.

The fort was under attack.

Gunfire from the ramparts. The blast of a cannon. The bitter tang of gunpowder.

She’d truly intended to fetch Belle from the trading post and return to her quarters, as she had promised Nicholas she would, but he was out there, fighting for his life. Her
feet
turned instead to the east, and she ran toward the East Ravelin, where men were rushing through with sacks and baskets loaded with Indian corn and vegetables.

Private Fitchie ran after her. “The lieutenant will have my hide if you dinnae do as he says! You’re to go to your quarters!”

“I cannae, no’ so long as he’s out there!” She ran toward the drawbridge, searched through the crowd, praying to see his face.

And then she saw him. He strode over the drawbridge, his shirt torn and bloodied, a man draped over his shoulder. He did not see her, but shouted to one of the sergeants, lowering the man he carried carefully to the ground. “He needs the surgeon. He took a ball to the knee.”

“Aye, sir!”

Then he turned to the quartermaster. “Is everyone in and accounted for?”

“Too close.”

She knew the exact moment he saw her, knew he was beyond furious.

Tears pricked her eyes. “You’re hurt! At least let me—“

“It’s nothing! This is war, Bethie. You’ll likely see far worse before it’s over. There are God knows how many warriors on the other side of these walls. Now go!” He turned to Private Fitchie. “You have my permission to drag her, carry her, do whatever you need to do to see that she is safely indoors. Get her out of here, and then report to your commanding officer.”

Private Fitchie nodded sharply. “Aye, sir!”

Bethie started to object, but Private Fitchie was already pulling her in one direction, and Nicholas had disappeared into the throng.

The attack lasted all day and into the night, showed no sign of letting up. Before the sun had set, Captain Ecuyer had taken an arrow in the leg, and a corporal and one of the frontiersmen had been killed. The Delaware and Shawnee had taken cover wherever they could around the fort—in the shelter of the steep riverbanks, in the garden, in the burned-out ruins of Upper and Lower Town—and fired both arrows and lead balls on anything that moved. Although Ecuyer’s marksmen were highly trained, they could not bring down targets they could not see. And Nicholas, who had positioned himself on the Monongahela Curtain directly above the officers’ barracks with a team of militia marksmen, quickly realized they had a problem.

“The fort is positioned so near the Monongahela that they are able to fire arrows over the walls while using the riverbank for cover,” he told Ecuyer. “Your marksmen cannot reach them. Cannon are of no use. They simply hide or shift from one position to another.”

The captain grimaced as the surgeon finished bandaging his leg. “What do you suggest, Kenleigh?”

“A direct assault on the riverbank from the cover of the West Ravelin. A team of grenadiers could toss grenades directly into their stronghold, force them into the open.”

Ecuyer gaped at him. “You would send men outside the walls in the midst of battle?”

“It’s the only way we’re going to dislodge them from the riverbank.”

Ecuyer shook his head. “That’s suicide! I won’t risk it.”

Nicholas left Ecuyer’s quarters sure the captain was making a grave mistake.

But it was well past noon, and, judging from the gun and cannon fire, the fighting was growing fiercer. She’d opened the door twice, hoping to be able to see Nicholas on the ramparts, to know for certain he was unhurt, but the sight of spent arrows, their darts buried in the soil only footsteps away, had convinced her not to step outside. So she had stood in the open doorway, breathed air heavy with the smell of sulfur and smoke, watched British regulars hurrying across the parade ground on some unknown errand. Her only word of the battle had come from Private Fitchie, who had come by once just before noon to check on her, his young face covered with sweat and lined with fatigue.

“Sergeant Harmon got shot through the lungs, and one of the grenadiers was shot through the leg, but none of ours have been killed today, mistress. One of theirs got blown in two by a cannonball.”

In
the thick of it?
Bethie hadn’t liked the sound of that at all. “How is the battle going?”

“The enemy are hidin’ along the riverbank, close enough to get their arrows over the wall. But Master Kenleigh and Paddy are flushin’ them out.”

“Paddy?”

“Aye, Paddy. He’s our man of straw. The soldiers pass him up and down the curtain wall, hold him up on a pole where the Indians can seem him. When the Indians break cover to shoot at poor Paddy, Nicholas and the other marksmen pick them off. It’s my job to keep the men supplied with powder and balk” He’d looked so young in that moment, both afraid and proud.

Bethie had leaned out of the doorway, given him a kiss on the cheek. “Be safe, Private Fitchie.” His face had turned scarlet, but she’d seen a smile on his face as he’d hurried away.

Afternoon stretched into evening, and still the fighting did not lessen. Bethie sang to Belle, paced the floor with her, played with her on the bed and had just finished nursing her to sleep when she smelled it: smoke. At first, she’d thought it was just the scent of the battle carried on a breeze. But then it grew stronger. She was about to open the door to see what was burning, when the door flew open and Nicholas stepped inside.

His face was wet with sweat and streaked with the black of gunpowder. She could tell he hadn’t slept. “Nicholas!” She ran to him, threw her arms around him. He kissed the top of her head, gave her a squeeze.

“There isn’t time, Bethie. Be ready to flee the building.” “

Wh-what?”

Outside the door, several flaming arrows landed with a hiss and a thud in the dirt.

“They’re firing lit arrows over the wall, and both this barracks and the captain’s house have been hit several times. So far we’ve been able to douse the fires from the ramparts, but I want you to be ready to flee should the need arise. We’ve evacuated the upper floor, but I think you’re safer for the moment where you are.”

Outside the door, Bethie saw women hurrying to the wells with buckets. “I could help to carry water.”

Nicholas understood her need to help and used the best argument he had to dissuade her. “No, love. Isabelle needs you. What would happen to her if you were hurt or killed?”
What would happen to me?
He thought the words, but he didn’t say them.

“If I can help in no other way, then let me at least give you something to eat and drink.” She pulled away from him, hurried to the table, where he saw one of his leather pouches near the water bucket. Quickly she dipped his cup into the water and pulled a chunk of pemmican from the pouch. “Drink, and take this with you.”

Suddenly the hours of fighting began to tell on him. Nicholas stood beside the table, drank his fill, took several bites of pemmican, gave a groan of pleasure when Bethie touched a cold, wet cloth to his face and throat. “You know how to make a man feel almost grateful to have been in battle, Bethie, love.”

She smiled, a fragile smile that did not hide her worry. “If you can stay awhile, I have ways of makin’ you feel even more grateful.”

He could tell from the purple shadows beneath her eyes that she hadn’t slept well, if at all. He bent down, tilted her chin up toward him, kissed her. “I bet you do, and I can’t tell you how much I’d love to see what you have in mind. But I need to get back. I just came to warn you in case you need to flee. Be ready.”

In truth, anyone could have warned her of the fire danger. But he’d wanted to see her, needed to see her. Now that they’d had to put out fires on the rooftops several times, Ecuyer understood the danger of allowing the Indians to remain in the cover of the Monongahela bank. At the captain’s request, a dozen militiamen had volunteered to make one quick grenade strike from the West Ravelin. As soon as it was dark, Nicholas would lead them out. “I’d best return to my post.” He kissed her nose, forced himself to let her go.

As he turned away, she called after him. “Nicholas, please be safe.”