Paper Woman: A Mystery of the American Revolution (17 page)

Having
witnessed the Frenchman in action, Sophie no longer dismissed his war stories
as figments of an old man's imagination.
 
Another wolf howled from the direction of the road, closer to the
campsite.
 
One of the pack answered from
beyond the road.
 
"Uncle Jacques,
the French War is long over."

"
Au
contraire
, we are still fighting it, and we will not stop until arrogance
has been wiped from English faces."

The west
shadows around the campfire emitted Mathias, concern on his face.
 
"Sophie, you cannot sleep?"

She shook her
head.
 
"'Out, damned spot.'"

"Ah."
 
He sighed, his face filling with regret, and
nodded.
 
"'What's done cannot be
undone.'"

Jacques
frowned.
 
"Whose secret code is
that?"

"Shakespeare."
 
Mathias's gaze met hers, and she knew that
he commiserated with her sense of loss.
 
She fished out a smile for him, enjoying the "secret code,"
wondering if he'd intended a double meaning in his quote.

Disdain curled
Jacques's upper lip.
 
"The Bard —
bah!
 
What is wrong with Racine or
Molière, eh?
 
I shall translate for you
the wit and wisdom of Alceste in
Le Misanthrope
."
 
He cleared his throat and adopted a swagger
straight from the Comédie Française.
 
"'The more one loves, the more one should object to every blemish,
every least defect'."
 
Sophie's
efforts at restraining a grin were almost undone when she realized Mathias also
struggled to submerge his humor.
 
"'Were I this lady, I would soon get rid of lovers who approved of
all I did, and by their slack indulgence and applause endorsed my follies and
excused my flaws.'"

A wolf howled
less than a quarter mile west.
 
Picketed
together, the horses shifted about, ears pricked, nostrils examining the
breeze.
 
Mathias said to Jacques,
"Pardon me, Alceste, but we've camped across a favorite wolf route."

Annoyance
speared Jacques's expression.
 
"I
shall make sure the horses are secured."

Sophie imagined
indignation seasoning the howl from the wolf that sounded off next.
 
His fellow, just as close, voiced his
displeasure.
 
She looked at Mathias.
 
"They sound quite close."

"They'll
get closer."

"Are we in
danger?"

He motioned her
to help him build up the fire.
 
"We
won't provoke them, and their food supply is abundant this summer."

Runs With
Horses joined Jacques at the horses.
 
David and Standing Wolf rose.
 
Needing no explanation for the sonata swelling around them, they faced
outward, listening, weapons ready.

At least eight
individual melodies of wolf-song flavored the night while the pack encircled
them to protest invasion of their territory and insist on their departure.
 
Eager to comply, the horses struggled with
the instinct to flee while responding to the assurance imparted by Runs With
Horses's touch and murmurs.

Her back to the
crackling fire, Sophie glimpsed the glint of green eyes in the foliage and
lifted her musket.
 
Gooseflesh raised on
her arms and neck at the raw emotion hurtling through her.
 
Fight or flight — was she the hunter or the
hunted?
 
The green eyes subsided into
night.
 
She relaxed and exhaled a shaky
breath.
 
Near her, Mathias said,
"He's assessing for his leader."

The pack
elevated their chorus to a din, members pacing just beyond the reach of
firelight.
 
She let the butt of her
musket slide to the ground and, balancing the barrel against her pelvis,
covered her ears.
 
For another minute or
two, the pack maintained the racket, ancient warriors in ceremony around a
sanctuary they could neither enter nor leave.
 
At last, resignation punctuated the howl of a wolf farther away — the
leader summoning the pack to more productive activities.
 
After voicing final opinions on the
intruders, each wolf rejoined the leader and the night.

Runs With
Horses had calmed all eleven horses, but Sophie stroked Samson because she'd
never been so close to wolves in the wild.
 
Her ears still ringing, she watched Jacques wiggle his forefinger in his
ear with an expression of distaste.
 
"One thing is certain."
 
He switched fingers and ears.
 
"The night will seem very quiet now."

***

Cirrus curtains
draped Wednesday's steamy sunrise.
 
Sophie tightened a strap on her saddle and wondered when she'd sleep
well again.
 
What slumber she'd snatched
had been splintered by visions of MacVie's agonized face and a dream wolf —
gaunt, gray, and winter-worn — that circled her and howled with laughter.
 
"
La hija del Lobo
, no daughter
of mine.
 
It isn't
me
you should
track.
 
Frightened yet?
 
Go home to your beau before it's too
late!"
 
How utterly macabre.

Next to her,
David secured his bedroll to his saddle.
 
From the purple smudges beneath his eyes, she knew the loss of their
father had overtaken him, too.
 
But by
that evening, the Fates willing, they'd catch El Serpiente, and perhaps they
could close a door on the murders of their loved ones.

She muttered,
"I keep going over it in my head, but it makes no sense.
 
Why do
you
think MacVie and the
rebels wanted us dead?
 
Were they bought
by El Serpiente and trying to assure his safe passage to St. Augustine?"

"If so,
I'm glad those buggers are dead, but I just don't swallow it.
 
To be truthful, I'm not sure Fairbourne
wanted to kill me.
 
From the look on his
face, he might have settled for scaring me off, driving me back to Alton.
 
I've no idea who made the first aggression —
it all happened so fast — but it's no use speculating or casting blame.
 
Fairbourne's dead.

"And that
the old man is gone, too — I mean, there's a part of me that refuses to believe
it."
 
He choked off and gritted his
teeth before releasing a fey laugh.
 
"It's so odd that he's gone the same week as old Carey, as if the
two of them sat down together and plotted it out — the two peas in the Alton
pod."

Like a second
masquerade for both men.
 
"Elijah
must have had a St. James in his ancestry.
 
Or maybe Father had a Carey in his."

David's smile
withered.
 
"Insanity.
 
Rebels murdering each other, mysterious
Spaniards wandering into it and being flayed alive.
 
It's a black, bloody masquerade, that's what it is.
 
Mathias got a look at the old man's
corpse.
  
He must have been unconscious
or already dead when they burned him because his arms were straight, not
contorted from being tied to restrain him.
 
As if that suggests the killers were humane.
 
But there's nothing humane about murder.
 
And we're still missing a crucial piece to
the puzzle."

She couldn't
have agreed more.
 
She studied him.
 
"Had you killed someone before
yesterday?"

His hand on the
saddle hesitated, and he didn't look at her.
 
"Eight years ago.
 
I was all
of twenty-three."

"What
happened?"

"It was a
stupid thing — really,
I
was quite stupid."

She voiced her
instincts.
 
"There was a woman
involved."

Joyless
laughter escaped his nose.
 
"A
married woman."

"You
dueled with her husband?"

"Yes.
 
I will never fight another duel."
 
So that was why he preferred widows.
 
"Killing is wretched business.
 
You never forget that last look on their
faces."

No, she'd never
forget MacVie's eyes when she shot him.
 
Even though her own survival had depended on killing him, she couldn't
rejoice at being the survivor, not while the deed was fresh and a portion of
her soul sleepwalked with Lady MacBeth.
 
She wondered how soldiers and militiamen could kill repeatedly.
 
All those sets of eyes, damning and
beseeching.

David shook his
head.
 
"I find no glory in killing
another."
 
He glanced over her
shoulder.
 
"Monday afternoon, when
Uncle Jacques flaunted his enmity over Fairfax, I thought him a fool doting on
memories of the Old French War.
 
Then I
saw him go after Peter yesterday.
 
If he
and Fairfax ever come to blows, Fairfax will have far more on his hands than he
expects."

With a shiver,
she recalled the angelic radiance on Fairfax's face Sunday morning, when he
offered to interrogate her.
 
"Unfortunately, so will Uncle Jacques."

***

By nine,
cumulus cluttered the humid atmosphere, heralding afternoon thunderstorms.
 
Concealed in the thicket just off the road,
Sophie, David, Jacques, and Runs With Horses awaited the scouts.
 
Standing Wolf, whose thigh gave him no cause
for complaint, reported the road empty at least a mile to the south.
 
Mathias rejoined them a few minutes later
from the north.
 
"Three peddlers
are headed southbound.
 
If we let them
travel with us, we'll hear news."

Jacques
narrowed his eyes with suspicion.
 
"They will also learn about us."

David pushed
his cocked hat up on his forehead.
 
"Not if we allow them the stage.
 
Peddlers love to talk about themselves."

Sophie said
dryly, "Any Spaniards among them?"

The others
stared at her a moment.
 
Then Mathias
grinned.
 
"A good point.
 
I didn't see a Spaniard."

"Well,
then, if you didn't see a Spaniard, and you didn't recognize any of them, let's
invite them to join us.
 
David, you spin
a story about us traveling to — uh —"

"To
Savannah.
 
To deliver horses to my
sister.
 
And Bear Tracker here and his
brother are horse trainers."

"Plausible
enough.
 
Just don't give it too much
detail.
 
It's hard keeping track of
lies."

He winked.
 
"Especially in the boudoir."

Jacques wiggled
his eyebrows.
 
"
Mais oui
!"

Peddlers Harry,
Rob, and Tim and their packhorses soon caught up with them, and David's
congenial nature encouraged all three to set aside their road-wariness.
 
Paunchy Harry relaxed and gabbed about his
fabrics.
 
Spindly Tim's business was
deer hides.
 
And red-haired Rob peddled
herbs.

Sophie made
herself inconspicuous.
 
From the
peddlers' cursory glances at her, they'd assumed her a scrawny boy, and she
liked it that way.
 
Besides, between
their bombast and David's coaching, she couldn't have wedged in a word.
 
But also, the agony from her thighs, ten
times worse than that on Tuesday, forced her to concentrate on staying in the
saddle.

From time to
time, a peddler would glance at the road behind.
 
David finally said, "You expecting company?"

Harry's laugh
was nervous.
 
"Ah, no, at least I
hope not."

"Sounds
like you're running from a cuckolded husband."

Excitable
laughter burst from Tim.
 
"Imagine
the likes of
you
cuckolding some doxy's old man, Harry."

Harry
scowled.
 
"Why laugh?
 
I got me a doxy in Charles Town, Augusta,
and Savannah — more than I can say for
you
."

David flagged
off the bicker.
 
"See here, we
don't want to catch a ball meant for your hides, so out with it, lads, on the
looks behind."

Rob licked his
lips.
 
"It ain't a jealous
husband.
 
It's them soldiers we passed
yesterday."

"Ah, the
militiamen.
 
We passed them, too, with
naught but a nod of greeting."

"No, there
was a party of ten redcoats headed south on horseback.
 
They'd stopped about thirty miles or so
back.
 
Nabbed a fugitive, they had, and
were interrogating him."

Sophie forced
her facial and shoulder muscles to relax and noticed Jacques attempting to do
the same.
 
But all those years of card
playing had been a boon to David's theatrics.
 
He slapped the pommel of his saddle.
 
"Jolly show!
 
I say, it's
about time the redcoats rounded up criminals and made the land safer."