Paper Woman: A Mystery of the American Revolution (18 page)

"True,"
said Harry in a grudging tone, "but criminal or no, I didn't like what I
saw and heard yesterday.
 
Off to the side,
a lieutenant was flogging a fellow.
 
As
we rode past, there stood the major, calm as you please at the roadside, giving
us a good day like he'd just stepped out of a meeting with Parliament,
la-dee-dah."

Rob
grumbled.
 
"Like it was all in a
day's work for them to thrash the poor lout around."

Tim said,
"He enjoyed flogging him, the lieutenant did."

Loathing
punctuated Jacques's mutter.
 
"English pig."

Sophie
shuddered.
 
In his desire to escape the
previous day's carnage, Sam Fielding had hopped from the frying pan into the
fire.
 
The word "mercy" wasn't
in Fairfax's vocabulary.
 
As for
why
Edward Hunt and Dunstan Fairfax had elected to give chase, she surmised the
quest must have become personal for them.

The back of her
neck tingled with apprehension.
 
Any
soldier who defied movement orders risked a court-martial.
 
Lieutenant Fairfax must be damned certain
the quest would score him glory vast enough to excuse his defiance.
 
Will St. James and Jonah Hale had been
murdered for that glory.
 
She stared ahead,
southward, as if she could see past the hundreds of miles that separated her
from St. Augustine.
 
Her neck tingled
again.

"To be
perfectly honest with you folks," said Harry, "we'd like to pick up
the pace a bit.
 
You're good company,
but we'd rather not run into
them
again."

She wondered
what the peddlers would think if they knew dead men's horses were roped behind
them.
 
David rotated his head to
evaluate the others in his party.
 
"These fellows want more speed of the journey.
 
That meet with your approval?"

She thought
he'd never ask.
 
They mumbled their
agreement.
 
Biting her lip against the
throbbing in her thighs, she kicked Samson into a gallop.
 
And the party of nine flew south on the
postal road beneath the congesting cumulus of late morning.

Chapter Thirteen

NEAR BRIAR
CREEK and the Savannah River, the road sloped out ten feet into dark swamp
muck.
 
The terrain stank of sulfur and
stagnation, like dozens of farting cows.
 
Beneath overwatered, undernourished trees, Sophie mopped sweat off her
neck and slid the soggy kerchief beneath her hat to blot at the hairline.
 
Gnats and flies persecuted the sweaty
travelers and tired horses.

In that
location back on March 3, 1779, British General Prevost had battled with
General Ashe, resulting in two hundred drowned Whigs.
 
She wondered what possessed the men to fight in a place where
anyone could drown in seconds by walking the wrong path.
 
Surely they could have agreed to find solid
ground first.
 
Women would have done so
— but women would probably have found
common
ground and left the scene
without resorting to a battle.

During the day,
the peddlers had figured out she was a woman, but none had so much as leered at
her.
 
Their manners might be attributed
to the presence of her five companions.
 
However, she received the impression that none of the peddlers was the
sort of fellow to abuse a woman.
 
For
random travelers encountered on the road, she could have done far worse.

Rob
fidgeted.
 
"Those friends you said
you was waiting for out here ain't going to show."

Harry jutted
his chin at the western sky, where towering cumulus churned and boiled higher
during the time they'd waited at the junction.
 
"I don't like the looks of the weather."

Rob spread his
hands.
 
"There's a tavern and
trading post at a crossroads a few miles south.
 
They got a decent ale with beds and clean sheets if your money's
good.
 
You can even get hot water.
 
And the roof don't leak."

Sophie and
David exchanged a look of dejection.
 
Mathias and his cousins had scouted into the snake-infested swamp and
found no sign that anyone had preceded them to the area — if their guess had
even been correct about El Serpiente's itinerary.
 
With a thunderstorm threatening and the evening approaching,
they'd have to push on.

David beamed at
the peddlers.
 
"You fellows have
the wisdom of it.
 
I'll buy you a round
of ale for being such good sports and waiting with us."

The peddlers'
spirits perked up at the mention of free brew.
 
Everyone began mounting horses.
 
Sophie stroked Samson's neck.
 
"Five more miles, hey, boy?
 
I'll find you oats and dried apples if you'll just give me five more
miles."
 
Samson's tired, dark eyes
regarded her with understanding, so she hauled herself back into the saddle,
clamping her teeth together against the agony in her thighs.
 
"Good boy."
 
She took a deep breath and trotted him after
the others.
 
"This hurts me far
worse than it hurts you."

***

Pipe smoke
blue-hazed the candlelit common room of Woodhouse's Tavern — a sturdy timber
building, the only watering hole for miles — and muted its yeasty, sweaty
stink.
 
At one of the rough-hewed
tables, six men huddled over dice while several others pondered
backgammon.
 
A fiddler scratched out
"The Star of the County Down" while a red-haired matron with an Irish
accent mangled the tune for her red-haired, Irish family.
 
Men talked over tankards, and women mended
socks or embroidered by candlelight at the table next to Sophie, sleepy
youngsters nestled against them.

The only woman
in the room wearing trousers and a man's shirt, Sophie was also the only woman
in the room cleaning a musket — anomalies that other women had difficulty
comprehending, judging from inquisitive glances aimed her direction.
 
They probably hadn't blown a man's guts open
and stood their ground against wolves in the past thirty-six hours, either.

In the shadows,
Standing Wolf and Runs With Horses murmured with Creek warriors from a nearby
village.
 
A weary-eyed David leaned
against the stone fireplace with his tankard, ignoring Harry's pleas for a card
game.
 
Mathias was out back in the forge
helping the elderly blacksmith repair the Irish family's wagon wheel, and
Jacques lurked around the kitchen.

Widow Woodhouse
slid a tray before Sophie and unloaded a bowl of stew, fresh bread, softened
butter, and a tankard of cinnamon water on the table.
 
Then, she hiked up her petticoat and straddled Sophie's bench,
wobbling it.
 
"I do wish I spoke
more French.
 
That father-in-law of
yours well knows how to make an old woman remember her girlhood."

Father-in-law?
 
Jacques had spun some crazy story to capture
the widow's favor.
 
Sophie sniffed the
repast.

Her amiable
face rosy, Mrs. Woodhouse tucked gray hair beneath her mobcap.
 
"
Voulez, voulez, voulez
.
 
I could hardly get my work done for him
trying to butter the bread in the oven, if you take my meaning."

Hard to miss
Jacques's meaning when he spoke that kind of French.
 
Mouth watering, Sophie set her cleaned musket aside and picked up
her spoon.
 
"This smells delicious."

"Eat,
child.
 
You're nothing but skin and
bones.
 
Got you some hot water
started.
 
Should be ready in half an
hour.
 
I'll show you the tub out back
soon as you've supped."

Sophie
swallowed a mouthful.
 
Not enough salt,
but after two days of deer jerky, she didn't care.
 
"Thank you."

"Need
laundry done?
 
My granddaughter could
use the work."

"Umh-umh,"
said Sophie, her mouth full of bread.

"Got extra
oats for the horses in the morning.
 
Poor beasts look half-starved, too."

"Umh-umh."

The
proprietress regarded the collection of people, then looked back at
Sophie.
 
"So good to have a common
room full of decent guests like this.
 
Makes me glad to help travelers."

"Umh-umh."

"A
pleasant older gentleman passed through here just after noon, two young fellows
with him.
 
All polite.
 
They ate up quick and rode off southbound
but left me a decent tip."
 
All
right, all right, Sophie acknowledged the hint about a tip.
 
She noticed the widow's expression
cloud.
 
"They wasn't at all like
that Spaniard who came through about four o'clock."

Sophie coughed
up cinnamon water.
 
"Did you say a
Spaniard?"

"Aye.
 
He frightened me.
 
You know, sometimes you can tell when a man has killed
people.
 
This dreg had me fingering my
pistol.
 
I was never so glad to get rid
of a patron as him."

So El Serpiente
was only about two hours ahead of them.
 
Sophie cast an eager glance in David's direction, but in the next
instant estimated the effort they'd exert to overtake the Spaniard and slumped
in her seat.
 
She and her party, horses
included, were exhausted.
 
If they took
up pursuit without rest, each of them might as well shoot themselves in the
foot for all the progress they'd make.
 
But an emergency meeting that evening and a pre-dawn start for the
morrow were in order.

"Your
business must seem dangerous and frightening sometimes with patrons like that
Spaniard and his companions."

"Companions?
 
Hah.
 
He was traveling alone.
 
Scum
like that don't have friends."

Hadn't MacVie
said El Serpiente was accompanied by two Bostonians, "friends of John
Adams"?
 
What had happened to them?
Perhaps MacVie had lied about them, and El Serpiente traveled alone — yet the
campsite near Butlers Creek displayed evidence of three travelers.
 
Even more pieces were missing from the
puzzle than they'd assumed, but one thing was certain.
 
Mrs. Woodhouse was observant.
 
With the redcoats less than a day behind,
Sophie's party couldn't afford to stand out in her memory by asking peculiar
questions about travelers who'd preceded them.
 
"Sorry.
 
I
misunderstood."
 
She took another
bite of stew.
 
"Delicious.
 
Don't forget our blacksmith."

"I fed him
first.
 
Such a kind fellow to help my
brother with the wheel.
 
You're a lucky
woman."

Why
was
she a lucky woman?
 
Then, recalling the
widow's comment about Jacques being her father-in-law, she realized the story
the Frenchman had spun.
 
Jacques needed
his mouth gagged.
 
Sophie sweetened her
smile.
 
"We're lucky for your
hospitality."

Mrs. Woodhouse
patted her shoulder.
 
"You need
anything else, you let me know.
 
Oh
—"
 
A conspirator's twinkle entered
her eyes.
 
"I save the little room
in the corner upstairs for special guests.
 
You can have it tonight."

Gratitude
surged through her.
 
Despite the stress
of the past few days, her menses had started right on time, and she was cranky
enough to tell her male companions to ride off without her.
 
A night spent alone without their snores
would be a delight.
 
"Thank
you."

"Cozy in
there.
 
Just enough room for the two of
you."
 
With a wink, the
proprietress heaved herself up, retrieved the tray, and lumbered back to the
kitchen.

Oh, hell.
 
Jacques had woven quite a web, the old
fool.
 
Annoyed, she nevertheless plowed
into her food.
 
She was better off
straightening out the sleeping arrangements on a full belly.

The fiddler
finished the tune, and the Irishwoman was welcomed back to her seat by polite and
obligatory applause from patrons.
 
Tankard in hand, David pushed up from his bench and headed for the
fiddler, with his height clearing the low ceiling by only a foot.
 
Sophie motioned him over to tell him about
El Serpiente, but he waved her off.

After David
spoke with the fiddler, the man sawed out bars of music that sounded vaguely
familiar, and naughty.
 
David nodded
approval, initiating the first bawdy song of the evening.
 
The entertainment would degenerate from
there and run the women and their children out of the common room and upstairs
to bed.