Midwife of the Blue Ridge (24 page)

litter bearers stood waiting. “Where should we put ’em?”

“The blockhouse. Get some of the boys to clear it out . . . and

gather torches. We’ll be needing the light.”

The bearers trundled off with two litters, a blanketed bundle

centered on each.

“Let’s get your basket.” Tom took Maggie by the hand. “We

caught up to the Shawnee at the Bledsoe place.”

H

Tom offered up his trencher. Janet Wheeler ladled venison stew

into it. Alice Springer plopped a steaming slab of cornbread on

top and he shuffled over to join the men clumped around Ada

Buchanan’s ale barrel.

“Sorry, lads, but I’ve only small beer to offer.” Ada dipped

tankards two at a time into the keg, handing one to Tom and one

to Brian Malloy.

Brian slurped up the froth spilling over the brim. “MM-mm!

Thick as porridge—I dare not trust my arse with a fart after

downing a cup or two of this brew, missus.”

With tankard and trencher in hand, Tom steered toward a

large tree stump across from the blockhouse and settled down

next to Alistair. “It’s been so long since last I et,” he said, setting

his drink at his feet, “that I swear my great guts are ready to eat

my little ones.” Tom balanced the trencher on his knees and ri-

fled through the chaos of his pouch. “Can’t seem to lay hand to

my—oh . . . never mind . . . here ’tis.”

Tom crumbled the cornbread into the stew, hunched over his

plate, and shoveled the food into his mouth. He gulped his beer,

belched soundly, and rose to his feet to fetch another cupful.

Alistair caught Tom by the shirttail and pulled him to sit back.

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“Enough of that pap. Time for a man’s drink.” He held up a

leathern fl ask. “
Uisquebaugh.
Carried over ocean and land

twenty-three years ago.
Slàinte.
” The old man took a goodly

swallow and handed it to Tom. “Savor that—cask-strength, lad.

Pure malt.”

Tasting of mellow scorched earth, the whiskey furred Tom’s

mouth, slithered down his throat, and burrowed into his belly to

glow like a mound of embers pulsing red under the bellows. Tom

handed Alistair back his bottle. “I’m privileged, sir—profoundly

grand stuff.”

“Na, laddie. Keep it. Yiv earned it.” The old man reached into

his shirt with an evil grin and produced another fl ask.

Tom sipped whiskey in companionable silence with Alistair,

keeping his eye on the blockhouse, hoping to catch a glimpse of

Maggie.

Furnished with a bolted door and a proper puncheon wood

floor, the blockhouse was normally used to guarantee storage of

the station’s most vital supplies—munitions and ale. It had been

cleared earlier that evening. Sloshing, open tubs filled with fer-

menting wort were carefully transported to the smithy. Bunged

firkins of ale, kegs of gunpowder, and crates of lead bar were

passed from hand to hand and stacked just outside the door.

Maggie worked inside the makeshift hospital, and every so often

she bustled past the open doorway, her white blouse agleam in

the lantern light.

Alistair also watched the hospital. “Och, but I’m sorry in my

heart for th’ Bledsoes.”

“Damn wily Shawnee.” Tom spat. “With a knowance that we

were coursing their trail, they confused the sign. Then the bug-

gers split in two. One half led us a merry chase north while the

other snuck off sideways and wormed its way back here.”

“The clever devils surely have an instinct for skulduggery. I’ve

seen where they have tread exactly upon one another’s tracks to

hide their numbers.”

Midwife of the Blue Ridge
169

“Or double back along their own tracks to increase their num-

bers. When I lived with the Ojibwe hunting in Iroquois territory,

we would hike a ridiculous course, walking along fallen logs,

leaping from boulder to boulder, anything to confuse the sign.”

Tom straightened his spine and stretched his arms up over his

head. “There are those who make the mistake of thinking that

Indians are a stupid people. But stupid people would not be such

fatal enemies. I for one should have known better.”

“And I should never have allowed the Bledsoes leave . . . but th’

stubborn eidgit just refused to listen to reason.” Alistair pounded

a fi st into his palm. “Good Lord forgive me, t’ think I was happy

to see th’ hind end of Samuel Bledsoe and his complaints . . .”

“Sam’s past complaining now. No use fretting over what thee

cannot change.”

“Aye, Tommy.” Alistair corked his flask. “But tonight, even

the fi nest
uisquebaugh
in the land cannot quell my fractious con-

science.” Hands on knees, he levered himself to stand. “I bid ye

good night, lad.”

“Good night, Alistair.”

Tom slipped down to sit rump in the dirt, legs outstretched.

He scratched his back against the stump bark, closed his eyes,

and wondered, like Alistair, what could have been done differ-

ently to alter the course of the tragic day.

Earlier that afternoon he had marched along with the militia

en route back to the station, looking forward to a hot meal and a

cup of beer, secure in having driven the war party far to the

northwest, when a black cloud belled up beyond Tuggle Moun-

tain, darkening the southern sky like a flock of migrating pi-

geons. The company turned and made for the smoke, many of

his fellows praying to find that it was not his home afi re.

Having left the Bledsoe family safely ensconced behind the

gates of Roundabout Station, the militiamen approached slowly;

with great stealth they half encircled the Bledsoe holding. Lurk-

ing in the thick brush east of the cabin, they surveyed the raucous

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scene and waited for the best opportunity—the opportunity to

kill as many Indians as possible.

A pair of cows lay haphazardly butchered in a puddle of syrupy

red blood. Beyond the cabin, the barn collapsed in fl ames. Tom

counted at least ten Shawnee going in and out the cabin door. A

few warriors tossed cookware and tools to clank in one big pile in

the dooryard. Others emerged with armloads of linens, blankets,

and clothing, which they stacked next to the tools.

Still more came with sacks of meal slung over shoulders,

clutching smoked hams and strings of sausages. A trio of Indians

made a great yowling game of chasing flapping chickens and

honking geese, wringing the birds’ squawking necks when cap-

tured. Poultry carcasses and other provender became the third

pile of plunder.

When the Indians prepared to set torches to the cabin, a silent

signal was passed along the militia firing line. The frontiersmen

drew careful aim and let loose a volley of ball, killing or wound-

ing almost every one of the marauders. Tossing spent weapons

aside, the militia charged in with tomahawks raised and long-

knives unsheathed.

A dozen more Redmen ran out from behind the burning barn,

whooping, shooting wild, swinging war clubs, thirsting for ven-

geance. The two sides clashed in a clatter of wood and metal.

The Shawnee were outnumbered by more than two to one, and

the hand- to-hand combat resulted in violent annihilation. The

dust settled. All the Roundabout men stood panting and twenty-

two Shawnee warriors lay dead in the Bledsoe dooryard.

Hamish Macauley was the first to grab hold of the bear-greased

topknot on the closest dead Indian. Hunting knife in hand, he

carved a circular incision around the crown of the head. Planting

his large foot between the warrior’s shoulder blades, Hamish gave

a sharp yank. The trophy pulled free from the skull with a pop,

sounding much like a bung plug knocked free from a fi rkin of

fizzy ale. Others joined in, rifling corpses, pulling scalps.

Midwife of the Blue Ridge
171

Collecting such booty held no interest for Tom. He wandered

back to the brush to retrieve and reload his weapon. Intent on

ramming a charge of powder, ball, and patch down the barrel,

Tom startled when a cow broke from the trees, its bell clanking a

riot as the panicked animal quick-trotted into the cornfi eld. He

ran after the valuable beast, calling, “Seth! Help me get her into

the cow pen.”

Seth ran over. Without a twist of rope for a lead, each man

grabbed a horn, pulling the smoke-shy cow toward the pen near

the smoldering barn.

Tom should have known by the droning blowfly buzz and the

harsh caw of crows feeding. He should have known by the raw

stench growing stronger with every step—a noxious combina-

tion of burned hair, spilled entrails, and sickening-sweet rot in

humid heat. Through the fog of gray smoke, an odd movement

caught his eye—a body swinging from the low-slung limb of a

big sycamore. The cow lowed miserably and wrenched away to

wander back into the forest.

Slit open from gullet to brisket, Sam Bledsoe’s naked, scorched

body hung suspended by a tangle of his own intestines. Seth

flung a stone to disperse the covey of carrion pecking at the gap-

ing wound. This first horror led them to the others.

Tossed helter-skelter amid a slurry of guts, blood, and brain

jelly, all five Bledsoe children lay at the base of the sycamore,

each child clubbed and scalped.

Tom scouted the area, to make certain no Indians skulked

about. Seth fell to his knees and scrambled from one body to the

next, desperate for life signs.

Twelve-year-old Billy lay facedown, his wrists bound back

with a strip of tug. Shiny green-and-blue flies clustered writh-

ing over the oldest boy’s skull, cracked open like a goose egg.

The twins lay side by side, young Josh’s mangled head resting

on his brother Jeb’s shoulder. Biting his lip to quash the gorge

rising up his throat, Seth untied the kerchief at his neck and

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used it to cover the broken, pulpy mass of two-year-old Suzy’s

face.

He moved to Winnie’s friend, Mary. Seth gasped, a fi nger

pressed to the base of her throat. “This one’s breathing.” He put

his ear to the girl’s chest. Encouraged by a steady heartbeat, he

gathered her up.

Tom ran over. Unconscious, Mary hung in Seth’s arms like a

load of sopping- wet linen, the smooth bare crown of exposed

bone streaming brilliant crimson over what remained of her

golden curls.

“Get her into the cabin, Seth. Press cobweb to her skull t’

stanch the bleeding. I’ll fetch more.”

Tom sprinted into the woods to find a series of funnel webs

strung cross the gap between two fallen trees. He bent to collect

the web and spied a scrap of cobalt- blue calico caught on a laurel

branch.

Tom studied the sign and found evidence of a chase—broken

cane and

beaten-down brush trailing deeper into the woods.

Now and then he found a distinct bare footprint running along

with larger, moccasin-clad feet. He crept carefully, following er-

ratic footprints down toward the creek. He raised his rifl e and

continued forward with the hammer back, finger light on the

trigger and the stock solid at his shoulder.

Tom found them creekside.

A burly Shawnee warrior sprawled on his back, centered on a

dark ellipse of blood-soaked leaves, cleaved unto the neck, his

head near severed.

Susannah Bledsoe sat slumped next to a large mossy stone.

The Indian’s knife lodged in her left side, stove in clean up to the

haft. Though she was splattered and stained with gore from head

to toe, Tom could see she was alive. Eyes wide open, she held the

handle of a bloody ax loose in one hand and the other fi st

clutched the corner of a flannel blanket to her cheek. Her gaze

was fixed not on Tom with his rifle upraised, but on the pale,

Midwife of the Blue Ridge
173

blue-tinged body of her newborn, who’d tumbled free from his

swaddling blanket to rest curled on a soft mound of green cress,

his downy head dashed in on jagged rock.

Tom lowered his rifle and stepped toward her. She tilted her

face and met him with bland expression and eyes dulled from

enduring the unendurable. Fingers streaked red closed tight on

the ax and Susannah whispered, “Leave me be.”

13

Turds and Primroses

“Maggie?”

She’d drifted to sleep sitting hunched with elbows on knees,

her face cupped in her hands. The voice called quiet, but Maggie

startled nonetheless and near fell from her stool. She eased up

slow, the segments of her backbone piling one atop the other to

sit poker straight. Squinting in dim light cast by a near-spent

lantern, she scrubbed her eyes with the heels of her palms.

“Maggie?” The heavy door scraped inward on creaky buffalo-

strap hinges. Framed in a blue rectangle of new day, Mrs. Bu-

chanan stood in the open doorway, her fleshy arms embracing a

wooden bowl of steaming water, her ruddy face glossy with

sweat. “Yiv had a long, hard night, dearie. I came t’ spell ye.”