Charleston (11 page)

Captain Lark trotted to the bottom of the sand hill and dismounted. With his fists jammed on his hips, he studied Edward and Poorly. The man smelled like a barn. His loose white shirt was gray with dirt. A waistcoat of lightblue satin bore streaks of rust or dried blood. A metal cartridge box painted bright red hung on his belt.

“Slowly, slowly,” he advised as Edward got up. Two of Lark's men ran down the hill to back up their captain. Their pistols pointed at Edward.

“Far from home, aren't you, Mr. Bell? Surely not a journey for pleasure, not in these times. Are you one of Sumter's boys? Or is it that pious shit Marion?”

Edward stared, defiantly silent. Lark's eye rolled toward his nose, then back again. Color in his stubbled cheeks hinted at anger, but he kept a stiff smile. “Either way, it's my obligation to reduce the enemy by two. My duty as a military officer.”

“Does military duty include permitting your men to rape young women?”

Lark flayed Edward's cheek with the back of his hand. “Curb your tongue. I owe you no explanations. You gave me a wound that was a long time healing.” He touched his left leg.

“It wasn't enough to pay you for murdering my mother.”

Lark dismissed the accusation with a shrug. “Fortunes of war. You resisted.”

Edward shouted at him. “Damn you, are we going to stand here while this man suffers? He's badly hurt.”

“I am not blind, laddie. I see his crooked foot.”

“Then help him.”

Twilight was settling. A breeze blew across the hills. Loose strands of gray hair fluttered around Lark's ears. “Happy to oblige. We'll send him to meet his Heavenly Father posthaste.”

Edward lunged. Lark's men rushed to seize him, clubbed him with pistol butts. One man rammed his knee into Edward's crotch; the other man's weapon whacked the back of his head. On his knees, Edward pushed at the ground to keep from keeling over sideways.

Lark opened his red box, removed a paper cartridge and ball marked with a black dot. When he'd loaded the cartridge and used the rammer, he found something else in the box; held it out for inspection. Edward thought it an ordinary ball until he saw two deep knife marks partially quartering the sphere of lead.

“Recognize this, Mr. Bell?”

“Those are outlawed by both armies.” Balls partly halved or quartered did inhumane damage if fired at close range. Even worse was a ball with a small nail driven through.

“I answer to no one but myself, sir.” Despite the pistol pressed against the back of his head, Edward stood up. “Hold him, hold him,” Lark exclaimed. “I see I must make short work of this.”

The lookout on the hill waved in an agitated way. Lark didn't notice. Standing astride Poorly's legs, he fired the pistol into Poorly's stomach.

Poorly's spine arched. His outcry tore across the empty hills and sky. Black hands turned red where they pressed against a smoking hole in his shirt. Lark reached into his cartridge box again. “I've reserved another for you,” he said to Edward. Then he noticed the alarmed look of one of his men. The man bobbed his head toward the hill, called out:

“Twenty, thirty on horseback, coming fast.”

Marion? Hope ran through Edward like a dizzying draft of spirits. He shot his elbows backward into the bellies of his guards. When one fired his pistol, Edward was already running away from it; the shot missed.

He dashed into a palmetto thicket as the second man fired. He dived for the ground and heard the ball buzz by. Lying on his side, ear in the sand, he detected the throbbing rhythm of horses at the gallop.

Captain Lark was furious but had the sense to retreat. Halfway up the slope he screamed at Edward. “Another time, lad, count on that. The war has a long way to run.”

Then he was in the saddle and wheeling away. He and his men disappeared below the hill. Edward swept hair out of his eyes and hurried back to Poorly, who lay unmoving.

Five minutes later Francis Marion arrived with thirty riders. Edward shouted to warn them of the nest of yellow jackets but few heard him. Four men were badly stung.

 

When Marion saw Poorly's condition, he ordered camp to be pitched on the other side of the sand hill where Lark had appeared, thus affording Edward a measure of privacy with his dying slave. Edward built a small fire and sat beside Poorly; bathed his forehead with water and vinegar from his canteen. The quartered ball had torn Poorly's vitals. He moaned occasionally. When at last he opened his eyes, he gazed at Edward in a vacant way. “We in Charleston?”

“No, but we'll get you back there soon.”

“Don't think so, Mr. Edward. Can you”—his tongue moistened his dry lips—“can you lean down closer?”

Edward obliged. Poorly whispered, “Need to ask a boon. This child's bound for his reward, whatever it may be. Look after Sally, and the baby.”

Edward slipped his hand into Poorly's, bloodying his fingers. “Of course I will.”

“I know she'll have a boy baby. Change his name. No more Poorly. I earned it being such a sickly child, but I never liked it. Isn't strong. Been thinking how to ask you.”

“I promise we'll give him a new name.”

“A good one.”

A sudden thought. “Why not call him Strong? What's wrong with that?”

“Nothing wrong. I like that fine.”

“He'll need a first name.”

Poorly coughed hard; more blood soaked his shirt. “Always liked Bible names. Joshua. Amos. Oh, Hamnet too. I like Hamnet real well.”

Edward squeezed the red hand. “Done. And something else. I'll set him free. I'll write the paper the moment I'm home. And one for Sally.” Poorly's eyes closed. “Did you hear what I said? Your wife and son will be free people.”

Voices drifted from Marion's campfires. Someone laughed. A sentry imitated a nightjar's call; another sentry answered.

“Poorly?”

A rising full moon cast brilliant light on Poorly's face. The black hand slipped from Edward's. He turned away, unable to hold back tears.

Some minutes later he crossed the moon-silvered hill, to find Colonel Marion seated beside the largest of several fires. When Marion's men saw Edward's hands, talking ceased. The colonel stood as Edward approached.

“He's gone.”

“I'm mightily sorry, Edward. Poorly was a brave soldier. He served our cause well. I know you regarded him highly.”

“He was the finest.”

“Did he suffer?”

“Yes.”

“I have never met William Lark, but I know his reputa
tion for cruelty. Men like that sometimes escape judgment on earth, but they are always judged in heaven.”

“I'd like to see the bastard hung, drawn, and quartered.”

Marion put a calming hand on Edward's arm. “We'll give Poorly the Christian burial he deserves. I have a Bible. I also travel with a flask of rum for emergencies. It's time I broke my rule and allowed you a drink. Wait here.”

He left Edward standing in the moonlight with red hands and haunted eyes. Marion's men sat silent, not knowing what to say.

Francis Marion's legend grew from that war-torn autumn.

In late October, at Tearcoat Swamp, he attacked Tory militia commanded by Col. Samuel Tynes. The Tories were newly equipped and overly confident, drinking and gaming noisily into the night while Marion's men lurked in the darkness, waiting.

At midnight Marion fired a pistol; Edward and his comrades charged the encampment, shooting and yelling. Again Marion left a path of retreat open; Tynes used it to escape. Marion's men counted eighty fine horses and eighty muskets captured.

After Black Mingo and Tearcoat Swamp volunteers poured in. Marion soon had four hundred men. These he took to the High Hills of the Santee, to harry enemy traffic at Nelson's Ferry on the Congaree. His presence had a profound effect. Teamsters feared to travel from Charleston to the inland forts. The British had to deploy large detachments to guard the supply trains.

Unknown to Marion himself, Lord Cornwallis was taking notice of the upstart colonel whose name he'd been unable to remember a month before. Cornwallis ordered Banastre Tarleton's Legion to pursue Marion and end his depredations. On November 7 Tarleton, his dragoons, and two cannon lay in wait at the plantation of the late Gen. Richard Richardson.

Marion advanced to within sight of ruddy clouds reflecting campfires hidden by heavy woods. While he was pondering strategy, the widow Richardson sent her son, a paroled Continental officer, to warn of the superior numbers waiting in ambush.

Marion turned aside, galloped to the head of Jack's Creek, then down along the Pocotaligo River through harvested fields and dense pine forests. Tarleton chased him for seven hours. Then, confronted by a trackless bog near Ox Swamp, he gave up, announcing that he would go after Gen. Thomas Sumter's militia brigade instead. Weeks later an express rider brought Marion word of what Tarleton said after making his decision:

“As for that damned old fox Marion, the devil himself couldn't catch him.”

The anecdote might have been amusing if it hadn't been accompanied by an account of Tarleton's retreat. He burned over thirty houses, and corncribs full of precious winter food. At the Richardson plantation he ordered the general's body dug up, punishment for Mrs. Richardson's alarm to Marion. He demanded a lavish dinner and left the general's rotting body beside the desecrated grave while he dined. Before he rode away, his men herded Richardson cattle, pigs, and chickens into a barn, locked it, and burned the animals alive.

“The man who threw the torch was your old friend Venables,” Marion told Edward.

 

Revenge became Edward's obsession. It flowed in every vein and tinctured every thought like a poison. He soon learned that his commander had no tolerance for personal vendettas. Marion sent a small detachment to stop the slaugh
ter of cattle at the farm of a prominent Whig. The party included a recent recruit, Lt. Gabriel Marion.

British soldiers surprised and caught the Americans. Someone identified Gabriel as the colonel's nephew. Someone else fetched a musket loaded with buckshot, put it against Gabriel's chest, and fired.

The others managed to escape. Next day a patrol captured a mulatto who admitted he belonged to a Tory master. At the nightly campfire a sergeant walked up to the mulatto, shoved a pistol in his ear, and blew half his head away. Marion could barely control his fury. “Why did you do it?”

“For your nephew, Colonel. For Gabriel.”

“Gabriel's gone. Another murder won't bring him back. They may be animals, but we are not. There will be no such action in this company ever again.” To Major Horry he said, “Chain that man's wrists. When we move out tomorrow, he walks. No food or water until I say so. This lesson will not be forgotten.”

Edward hid his passion for vengeance.

 

In the late autumn they went to ground on Snow's Island, a low ridge of land five miles long and two miles wide, bounded by the Pee Dee, the Lynches, and Clark's Creek, a virtual moat surrounded by swamps and pine forests. It was a haven safer than most.

December brought a change of command in the South. One of Washington's most trusted officers, Gen. Nathaniel Greene, relieved Horatio Gates. Greene, not yet forty, was a Quaker from Warwick, Rhode Island. He took command of three thousand Continentals who faced at least four thousand of the enemy in the Carolinas.

Greene's first letter to Marion praised the colonel's reputation and hoped for an early meeting. Meanwhile, to bolster Marion's command, he dispatched Lt. Col. Henry Lee of Virginia. Light Horse Harry arrived with his men impeccably clad in smart green coats, spotless white breeches, and shiny brass helmets crowned with horsehair plumes.

Lee and Marion sat under a live oak dining on hominy and corn bread. Lee was clean and manicured, his wig properly powdered. Marion's red jacket showed months of hard wear. His boots were scuffed, his neckcloth grimy. As Edward observed the colloquy from a distance, however, it seemed to him that Lee and Marion got on splendidly. Each recognized the other as an accomplished soldier.

A courier arrived on New Year's Day 1781 with another express from Greene, promoting Marion to brigadier. A great celebration followed. Rum appeared surreptitiously, obtained from unknown sources in the neighborhood. That day drinking was not punished.

 

Edward rode on into a stormy and eventful year. In January, with barges, canoes, and piraguas spirited to Snow's Island by sympathetic country folk, Lee and Marion launched a waterway attack on Georgetown. It failed, but they captured the British commandant.

After each sortie Marion slipped back to Snow's Island. Lt. Col. John Watson, five hundred loyalists, and a full British regiment moved against the base in March. Marion ordered all supplies burned before his company of seven hundred broke camp. After a sharp engagement at Wiboo Swamp on the Santee, Marion allowed Watson to send two wagons of wounded to Georgetown without harassment.

April took them to Fort Watson at Scott's Lake. The fort had a high, almost impregnable palisade. They overcame it by erecting a forty-foot tower made of swamp lumber. They built it at night, by stealth, and in the morning Edward was one of the marksmen who scrambled up ladders to the protected platform on top. He looked down the muzzle of his Brown Bess into the fort's central compound. Small red figures scurried about in panic. On command he fired, dropping one of them. Conquered from the sky as it were, Fort Watson surrendered.

Edward knew many men in the company, but he had no close friends. He was a private and solemn person, usually
spending the evening staring at the fire and brooding about Venables and Lark. Or Joanna. He wanted to see her, see whether he could find a life with her after the war. But that had to wait.

Nathaniel Greene won no stunning victories, yet he exhausted the British with his ferocious fighting when he engaged. After Guilford Court House, Hobkirk's Hill, Eutaw Springs in early September, Greene was in a position to advance toward the coast. A farmer's wife Edward met on patrol said joyfully, “There's a new motto in South Carolina. ‘Soon everything will be Greene down to Moncks Corner.'”

Eutaw Springs proved to be the last battle of consequence. Shortly afterward Marion announced that militia under his command would be released to go home after a year's hard service. Edward hired a farmer's boy to carry a letter into Charleston, asking Joanna whether she could leave the city safely, and if so, would she meet him on the first of November at Malvern?

In late October he said good-bye to the general whose fame had spread to all the great cities of the North. Exploits of the “Swamp Fox,” true or otherwise, were regularly presented in the papers. Marion might be less important than General Washington, but throughout the North he was more celebrated, colorful, and mysterious, galloping in and out of Carolina's gloomy swamps to strike and confound the enemy.

Edward rode down to the coast on Brown Eyes, a ragged blanket wrapped around himself. At a roadside dramhouse he heard great news from Virginia. Cornwallis and his army had surrendered at Yorktown on October 19; his musicians had ironically mocked the defeat by playing a familiar British air, “The World Turn'd Upside Down.”

“And across the York, at Gloucester,” said a little button-eyed tailor at the blazing hearth, “that rogue Tarleton gave up with a thousand men. He feared for his life, so he threw himself on the mercies of Count de Rochambeau. The count protected him but would have nothing to do with him personally. My cousin wrote that General Washington invited Lord Cornwallis and his officers to dine but would not invite Tarleton.”

Edward's fingers closed around his tankard. “I knew a Major Venables in Tarleton's Legion. Any word of him?”

“Never heard of him, sir. However, the senior officers will sail to New York and after that, I suppose, hie off to England to enumerate a thousand reasons for their defeat.” Edward remembered Marion's little homily on life's unfairness and the certainty of ultimate judgment. It didn't help.

He approached Malvern on a golden afternoon that spoke of summer more than autumn. Saddle sore, he dismounted near the weedy rubble lying untouched since the fire. Birds chattered; the river sparkled. The lawn was sere from summer drought. He'd passed slaves working the indigo fields again. He saw no sign of Joanna.

“We'll wait till morning,” he said to Brown Eyes, rubbing her flank affectionately. He heard a horse whicker in a palmetto grove near the riverbank. He spied a small, sturdy marsh tacky, and then its rider.

He flung off the stinking blanket, vaulted over black timbers and stonework, and ran down the lawn, full of such strong emotion, he felt like a drunken man. He nearly crashed into her, whipping his arms around her waist, lifting and whirling her, feeling her warmth, her youth and strength.

Her hair flew against his face. She laughed and let herself be whirled again and again. Finally he set her down beside the purling river. He touched her face as though unable to believe its reality. Tears came to her brown eyes while she clung to him. “Oh, Edward. How tired you look. And how wonderful.”

He pulled her to him more roughly than he intended, desperate to kiss her, feel affection to counter the dark pus of hatred. She opened her lips and touched his tongue with hers. Before he knew it he'd carried her farther down the bank, scaring a white egret into graceful flight. She reclined on her back while his hand worked at her skirt. Her hands came up to his chest, holding him away.

“Only if you love me, Edward.”

“I do. Today and forever. All these months away from you made me know that.”

She lowered her hands, smiling.

 

She was astonishingly ardent for a sheltered young woman, yet maintained that she was inexperienced until this very day on the bank of the Cooper. Dressed again, she helped him build a small fire near the ruined house. “There's a great deal of news to relate.”

“Tell me. I heard nothing while I was galloping hither and yon with the old fox.”

“Early in August, Colonel Isaac Hayne was hanged for violating his parole and taking up arms. The British thought his death would send a warning. Instead it roused the wrath of the city like nothing else before.”

“My father knew Hayne. He signed his parole only so he could leave Charleston to help his family. There was smallpox at their country home. What else?”

“Mr. Henry Laurens was apprehended on the high seas near Newfoundland in September, en route to the Netherlands. He and”—hesitation—“many of the exiles were sent from Florida to Philadelphia. Laurens sailed from there. He's locked up in the Tower of London accused of high treason. Dr. Benjamin Franklin is waging a vigorous campaign for his exchange.”

She tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear. “Sally's baby boy is fine and healthy, awaiting a name. Do let Poorly know.”

“I can't.” He told her about the killing, and Poorly's wish that his boy be called Hamnet Strong.

Joanna gazed at the river. “I seem to have nothing but bad news for this reunion.” He waited. “In May your brother married Miss Glass at St. Michael's.”

Edward felt a stab of hatred but he said, “It's no concern of mine. They'll find themselves on the wrong side again.”

“The British show every intention of remaining in Charleston for a while.”

“It won't be forever. Anything else?”

“Yes, Edward, and the worst, I fear. Your father—” She stopped. He gripped her hand. Her colorless lips showed he was hurting her. He let go, feeling the lub of his heart in his chest.

“While in the St. Augustine dungeons your father succumbed. Late March, it was. The formal report said it was self-induced starvation.”
Or the special attention requested by Venables?
“They buried him in Florida,” she said.

Edward's voice was wrathful. “My mother was shot down in this very place because of me. My father died in exile because of me. Sally is widowed and the boy orphaned because of me. Who's next?” Deep-socketed eyes held hers. “You might do better to stay away from me lest something happen to you.”

“Stay away?” She kissed him. “Not in a million, million years, my love. We're going to have a long and happy life together.”