Riding Shotgun (33 page)

As she chatted and laughed she wanted to memorize each feature, each nuance of voice. She loved these people.

A slashing wind loaded with sleet stung Cig’s face as she rode back from Jamestown toward Buckingham.

Fitz needed to get back to work. He was healing quickly and except for his stitches itching, he was strong enough to ride.

She’d grown close to him during the four days he had spent at Buckingham over Christmas. She loved the simple, warm way Christmas was celebrated—a useful gift, food, and much affection. If Fitz had been allowed, they would have traveled to Jamestown for communion. Apart from missing the sacrament, she thought it was the most wonderful holiday she’d ever spent because it was about cherishing one another.

She and Fitz talked incessantly of bloodlines. She knew the names of Cream Cheeks and a few other royal mares of Charles I. The Byerly Turk was in England but the Darley Arabian and the Goldolphin Barb were yet to come, so she didn’t mention them, which, for her, was like not completing the trinity in prayer.

Charles had supported the great Tutbury Stud. After the
king’s beheading in 1649, Cromwell disbanded it. Fitz’s knowledge of English bloodlines encompassed that history plus Irish bloodlines.

When not talking horses, they chattered about anything that came into their heads. She felt as if she’d known him all her life.

She even showed him the list she’d written for Margaret and Tom with groundnuts as the number one crop. He said the worst that could happen was that one would have a lot of fodder.

Fitz, at twenty-five, was mature. Most men of that age in 1699 were accustomed to responsibility, many to hardship.

Riding back she discovered she missed him already and couldn’t wait to see him again.

She had hoped to push on faster but the swirl of sleet slowed her down. She was at last getting close to home and glad of it. The sandy roads were frozen. Full Throttle picked his way around the little ridges. Still, it was better than the frozen red clay of the Piedmont region.

She dreamed of toasty toes. She couldn’t feel her toes anymore. Her fingers stiffly curled around the reins. She’d given Fitz her heavy scarf knitted by Margaret. He gave her his white tie, the forerunner of a stock tie. It was lovely silk but her neck was getting cold.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw movement in the trees. Full Throttle snorted. She lifted her head and flinched at the sleet lashing her face. She blinked through the gauze of bad weather. She did see something. She strained to hear a sound but the only noise was the rattle-tap of tiny ice bits hitting the ground.

She headed toward the movement and then something, instinct, pulled her up short. She could barely make out the forms but she could now see perhaps five or six men, running hard—Indians.

She squeezed Throttle and flat-out galloped, slipping and sliding as they ran toward Buckingham, not more than a mile up the road.

Throttle, in good shape, covered the treacherous ground
in six minutes. No one was at the barn when she pounded up.

“Tom!” But the wind jammed the words back in her throat.

She trotted to the house and hollered. Margaret, scrubbing floors, opened the door. Marie, brush still in hand, came up behind Margaret. “Pryor, what is it?”

“Indians running in the woods about a mile from here. Heading this way. I couldn’t make out much more than that. Where’s Tom?”

“He’s on the bee acres.”

They’d taken to calling the clover fields in the back “the bee acres” ever since Cig had won the bet.

“Load the guns and stay here. Give me the pistols.” Margaret grabbed the two flintlock pistols off the sideboard. She tossed the gunpowder bag to Cig who stuffed it in her pocket, sticking the guns in her belt. She turned, shouting over her shoulder, “Don’t let anyone in this house until you know who it is.”

“I’m going with you.”

“The hell you are, Margaret. You stay right here or I’ll beat your ass.”

Cig galloped, the sleet thicker now, her throat raw with the effort. She reached the top of the small rise behind the barn. In the distance Tom, Bobby, and Hugh, a young man of perhaps fifteen working as a journeyman, sawed trunks and branches in the acres he’d been clearing for the last year.

“Tom!”

The men couldn’t hear her until she was closer. Tom dropped his saw and ran to meet her.

“Tom,” she gasped, “Indians! Running! Maybe five or six.”

“Where?”

“About a mile down the road.” She bent over in the saddle to catch her breath as Hugh grabbed the bridle to steady Throttle who was excited. She reached under her jacket and handed him a flintlock and the gunpowder bag. “I’m keeping the other one. They were in the woods. I couldn’t see
any more than that but they were running hard and coming this way.” He loaded his pistol and passed the gunpowder back to Cig, who did the same.

“Where’s Margaret?”

“In the house. I told her to load the muskets, stay put, and not let anyone in until she knew who it was.”

“If they were in the woods they were trying to keep out of sight.” Tom’s brows knitted together. “Running hard.” He squinted at the sky and tiny ice bits stuck to his eyelashes. “Damn, it’s good cover.”

“They running from something or to something?” Bobby gruffly asked.

“Hugh, take Throttle to the barn, then go to Margaret,” Tom ordered the boy. “Keep the axe close by.”

“I want to go with you.”

“No. I want a man in the house. Just in case.”

Being called a man thrilled Hugh. He promptly headed back to the barn after Cig dismounted.

“Follow me.” Tom moved back toward the edge of the woods by the clover fields. As Pryor and Bobby approached the woods they moved more cautiously.

Tom whispered, “If they’re heading west we might be able to hear them or see them. They won’t come out on the river road.”

“Do the trails go toward the Falls?”

“Aye,” Bobby whispered back, “and far beyond.”

They slipped into the woods, senses alert. As they neared the old Indian trail, Tom crouched, holding up his hand to halt… no sound but the sleet crashing into bare branches. He motioned for Cig to get behind a large walnut. He inched forward, Bobby behind him. Then they lay flat on the miserable ground with hollies for cover.

The clatter of the sleet intensified. Cig felt woozy until she realized she was holding her breath. They stayed motionless for what seemed a long time. Then a footfall riveted them. Tom pulled out his flintlock. She pulled hers. Bobby reached for his knife.

A figure ran by, his sides heaving, the stench of fear on him. Moments later five other Indians sped by, the fleetest
closing on his quarry. He dropped to his knee, put an arrow in his bow and fired in one graceful motion. She heard a muffled yell. The pursuers leaped forward. She heard what sounded like grunts and then nothing. Just the sleet.

Tom lay stock-still. Ten minutes later he got to his knees as did Bobby. Tom motioned with his head for her to follow. They moved along the trail, nearly white now as the sleet turned to snow.

Five hundred yards up the trail a figure lay in a heap. Tom cocked his flintlock, warily moving in. He reached the Indian before Cig did. He uncocked his pistol. An arrow had pierced the man’s chest but that hadn’t killed him. Two or three mighty blows to the head had crushed his skull. His scalp had been torn off his skull in haste.

Instinctively, Cig made the sign of the
cross
over his body. “May the Lord have mercy upon his soul.”

A tight smile crossed Tom’s lips. “He’s with his spirits now wherever that is. Poor savage.” He carefully inspected the body. “Another Tuscarora.”

“Like t’other one.” Bobby spoke in his guttural way.

Tom reached down to pick up the dead Indian’s long hunting knife. Cig almost blurted out, “Don’t, in case of fingerprints.”

He handed the knife to Cig. “You need this.”

Cig bent down for a closer look, the fresh smell of blood curling into her nostrils. “He’s middle-aged and strong.”

“And rich.” Tom opened the pouch tied to his belt. It was stuffed with roanoke, an Indian form of money made from shells.

“Whoever killed him didn’t kill him for his money,” Cig said.

“No time to get rid of him.” Bobby thought out loud. “Figured the animals would get to him before anyone else did.”

“How do Indians dispose of their own dead?” Cig felt her throat constrict with the question.

“They wrap the body in skins and woven mats and put it on a scaffold about twelve feet high. The women paint their faces black and cry and howl for a full day.”

Bobby added, “When there’s no flesh left on the body the relatives wrap the bones in a new mat and bury them in a big pit along with other bones.”

“Don’t they put bodies in trees?”

“I’ve heard that, yes—the body of a great enemy warrior. As a mark of respect.”

“Still scalp him though,” Bobby laconically said.

“Barbarians.” Tom stood up after tying the money pouch to his belt.

She shivered involuntarily.

“Cold?” Bobby asked.

“A touch.” She was thinking about the skeleton they’d found in the tree the day she passed through time. Whoever he was, he had been a great warrior.

“Let’s drag him out of here.” Bobby grabbed a leg. Tom grabbed the other one. Cig took turns spelling the men. After an hour they reached the clover fields. Cig walked to the barn and put a halter on Castor, bringing the big draft horse back. Tom and Bobby heaved the body over the pliable animal.

Cig went to get Margaret. She found Hugh, armed with an axe, with her. Margaret threw on her shawl and the three of them met the two men at the barn. Margaret didn’t flinch at the sight of the man’s bashed-in head. Like everyone of the time, she had seen plenty worse than that.

“Tuscarora,” Tom informed his wife, then said to Bobby and Hugh, “Tie up his chin, arms and legs. Let’s put him in the corncrib. In this weather he’ll keep. If the weather lets up I’ll ride to Wessex tomorrow to fetch Lionel. Hugh, you can ride to Shirley.”

Marie ran into the barn and shrieked. Bobby put his arm around her. “They’re up to no good! They stole three cows from Flowerdew Hundred last week. Next they’ll come for us.”

“You don’t know if it was Indians did the thieving,” Bobby said to calm her. “Many’s the white man blamed his misdeeds on the red man.”

“Something’s not right. Miss Pryor found a murdered savage and now another one. They’re planning something.”

“I hope not, Marie, but we’ll stay vigilant.”

“They’re bloodthirsty savages. They skin people alive! They boil them and eat them!” Marie bordered on the hysterical.

“Marie, we’ll post a watch throughout the night,” Cig forcefully said. “That’s the best we can do under the circumstances.”

Marie started crying. Bobby put his arm around her and walked her back to their cottage.

“I’ll take the first watch,” Hugh said.

“Good.” Tom smiled. “Well, let’s tie this fellow up before rigor mortis sets in.”

Lionel deVries, arms crossed over his heavy coat, studied the corpse. The men gathered around him—Edward Hill, Ernest Shackelford, Daniel and Abraham Boothrod, William Byrd, and Tom—waited for him to speak. They had all set out for Buckingham as soon as word reached them and were assembled there by midmorning.

“It’s Tanx, son of Blackpaws, chief of the Tuscaroras,” Lionel finally said, using the English names for the Indians as opposed to the proper long Indian names. The English usually shortened the proper names into something they could pronounce. “He was a prudent man.”

“Would Tanx have been the next chief?” Ernest asked.

“Yes.”

“Who will succeed him?” Tom stood by the Indian’s bound feet.

“I don’t know. Chief Blackpaws has a younger son, Ortley, who is a hothead and wants to make war on the whites, which the chief fears as did Tanx.” He again looked at the bashed-in head. “But old Blackpaws is smart. He can refuse to pass on his power to Ortley. It’s not hereditary.”

“Could this trigger a war among them?” Edward tugged at his gloves.

Lionel breathed out heavily. “Yes.” He looked at Tom, Cig, and Bobby. “You saw the Indians chasing him. Who were they?”