Paper Woman: A Mystery of the American Revolution (27 page)

Awkwardness
crawled over her.
 
The last thing she
wanted from him was groveling when she felt less than noble about her own
erroneous assumptions.
 
She nodded.

"I
remember your expression.
 
You didn't
know I'd married Teekin Keyta.
 
You kept
quiet about Betsy to protect me, perhaps to let me find happiness with my
wife."

She
squirmed.
 
"It seemed the honorable
thing to do."

"How hard
that must have been for you.
 
Betsy
needed a father.
 
You needed a husband,
but I wasn't —
Richard
was available."

For several
seconds they stared at each other while years of missed opportunity thrashed
about her soul.
 
Then the wind of the
present zephyred through reminiscence and regret.
 
They must talk more later.
 
The wilderness had quieted, and Jacques listened to it at the edge of
the firelight.
 
Sophie asked him,
"Where are the dogs?"

His eyes
twinkled.
 
"Gone.
 
Southward."

Relief sagged
her shoulders.
 
In her peripheral
vision, Mathias moved back to the fire, but the door between them was open.

She cut the
baby's umbilical cord and tied it off with a strip of rag.
 
While Mathias swaddled the newborn in clean
rags, Sophie helped Lila deliver the afterbirth.
 
Mathias handed the baby back to her mother, and Sophie studied
him.
 
He'd known how to support a
newborn's head, something few men knew.
 
Perhaps he'd celebrate the birth of his grandchild after all.

Runs With
Horses, Standing Wolf, and Ulysses soon converged on camp and confirmed that
the search party had continued southward on the road.
 
His grin silly, Ulysses played with the baby's fingers and kissed
the infant's forehead.
 
"My little
girl."
 
He also pressed a kiss to
Lila's cheek.
 
"My woman."
 
Lila looked at Sophie, and a shy smile
touched her full lips.
 
So much for
Ulysses not wanting Lila or the baby.

With the
parents enraptured over their newborn, David motioned Sophie, Jacques, Mathias,
and the Creek brothers close for a conference.
 
"What are we going to do with them now?"

"Take them
with us," whispered Sophie.

Standing Wolf
stiffened.
 
"Slaves can be
dangerous, and —"

"Yes, your
brother reminded me of that."
 
She
sighed.
 
"We've extra horses.
 
Those people won't get far alone with that
baby.
 
And Lila's tote bag hasn't any
food.
 
I checked."

Mathias
frowned.
 
"I wonder where they're
going.
 
Fort Mose in East Florida?
 
I'm not sure it's still there.
 
They'd be taking their chances with the
Lower Creek.
 
They could be welcomed
into a tribe but just as easily be enslaved or killed."

Jacques removed
his hat to wipe sweat from his forehead.
 
"They will not wish to stay here.
 
The man might be of help to us in our travels, especially with those
redcoats not far behind."

"I say we
take them with us, if they're willing to go."
 
Sophie looked at David.
 
"What do you think?"

"I think I
should like to sleep in a bed for a whole day after whiskey, a pork roast,
cards, and a handsome woman."

She swatted his
chest in annoyance.
 
Mathias glanced
back at the Negroes.
 
"They're
watching.
 
Let's ask them what they
want."

"You do
the talking."
 
David winked.
 
"Ambassador."

When the six
disbanded their huddle, Ulysses crouched and watched their expressions for
clues.
 
Not by any stretch of the
imagination was the man stupid.
 
No
doubt he'd honed the art of deciphering expressions as a survival
technique.
 
His goal was freedom with
his wife and baby.
 
They mustn't forget
he carried a knife.
 
"Lila and me
be much obliged to you folks for helping us.
 
What yo' names?"
 
Sophie and
her companions remained silent.
 
Ulysses
licked his lips.
 
"Never mind.
 
You folks running, too."

Mathias cleared
his throat.
 
"You heading to Fort
Mose?"

"Yessuh,
near St. Augustine, it run by escaped slaves.
 
All you got to do to get in is become a Catholic.
 
Lila and me got no problem with that."

"It was
destroyed about forty years ago by the British."

"Yessuh.
 
We heard they built it back."

"There
have been recent rebel forays into East Florida.
 
What if your sanctuary isn't standing when you get there?"

"Indians
sometimes help runaways."

"And
Indians sometimes enslave or kill runaways."

Ulysses's jaw
became obstinate.
 
"Yessuh.
 
Everywhere we go, we taking our
chances.
 
Ain't going back to the
massuh."

"Very
well.
 
We've extra horses.
 
You may ride with us if you agree to some
rules first."

"Thank
you, suh."

"Follow
our orders.
 
Don't wander off.
 
Don't snoop in our property or take what
belongs to us.
 
Assist with camp chores
and sentry duties.
 
Help defend us, if
necessary.
 
Understood?"

His head
bobbed.
 
"Yessuh."
 
Lila nodded, dark eyes large.

"Good.
 
I'm Mathias, and that's Jacques.
 
David.
 
Sophie.
 
Sehoyee Yahuh.
 
And Assayceeta Corackall."

"Mistuh
Mathias, I only got a knife."
 
The
Negro's biceps rippled beneath his sleeves.
 
"Who do I defend you against?"

The
blacksmith's tone was nonchalant.
 
"Bandits.
 
Spanish
assassins.
 
Loyalists and Whigs.
 
Redcoats."

Disbelief
creased Ulysses's brow, and he blotted sweat off his forehead with his
sleeve.
 
"Yessuh, you running, all
right.
 
You be running from everybody in
this land.
 
Any chance you running from
them camped redcoats we sneaked around earlier?"

Sophie pared
emotion from her voice.
 
"How many
were there?"

He swiveled his
gaze to her.
 
"Ten, Miz
Sophie."

They just
couldn't seem to get far enough ahead of Edward to breathe easy.
 
"Let's just say we're avoiding
all
redcoats."

"Yessum."

***

After she'd
nursed the baby, Lila was up and about and stabilized enough to travel.
 
Had she still been on a plantation, she'd
have been back in the fields at daybreak, the baby with her in a sling.
 
Sophie found herself pondering the
significance that out of all the children she and Mathias had conceived, only
the child they had begotten together, Betsy, had survived.

The drama of
the birth and the proximity of the soldiers chased sleep from all of them.
 
After a cold meal, they packed up and moved
on at three in the morning, even though lack of sleep dragged at all of
them.
 
They paced the horses, with Runs
With Horses and Standing Wolf scouting before and behind.
 
Ulysses and Lila rode well, despite having
blankets for saddles and no stirrups.
 
Lulled by the warmth of her mother and the motion of the horse, the baby
slept.

South of St.
Simon's Island just after dawn, Runs With Horses rode back, expression
grim.
 
"Slave catchers
return."

They headed
west, downwind, into a thicket of palmettos and live oaks a hundred feet from
the road.
 
Jacques brought up the rear
spreading pepper.
 
Everyone dismounted,
readied firearms.

To the east,
sunlight sparkled on the Atlantic Ocean, and salt flavored the air.
 
Sophie heard the jingle of metal, the whine
of hounds, and the crack of a whip, followed by a man's hoarse command:
"Get up, you colored rat!"
 
She squinted at the road.
 
Ulysses wrapped an arm about Lila, and they trembled.

Three men on
horseback dragged six roped Negroes.
 
Bringing up the rear were three more men on horseback and five
hounds.
 
One of the hounds scented the
other party and bayed, only to be neutralized with sneezing when he encountered
the pepper.
 
A man dismounted and kicked
the beast out of the brush back onto the road.
 
"Move, worthless varmint!"
 
Another such encouragement, and the dog obliged and galloped north.
 
The man remounted his horse and caught up
with the rest of his party.
 
Sounds of
their passage dwindled.

Ulysses and
Lila clutched each other breathing hard, the baby between them.
 
"Your people?" Sophie
whispered.
 
He nodded.

David walked
over beside her.
 
"We cannot help
them.
 
We need them to spread word to
our pursuers that we've not been seen on this road.
 
You understand?"

"Yessuh."
 
Ulysses swallowed.
 
"Yessuh, we do."

Chapter Twenty-One

AT THE CAMPSITE
Sunday evening in East Florida, south of the St. Marys River, Lila flopped onto
a blanket with almost no strength to nurse her infant.
 
Ulysses staggered about trying to help with
chores but was so dazed from lack of sleep that he was ordered to the blanket
with his wife and daughter.
 
The
runaways deserved honors.
 
In one day,
they'd covered mileage that would have challenged a cavalry unit.

Since David was
still mending from the pistol wound, Sophie and Jacques built the fire while
Mathias and his cousins hunted.
 
Wood
smoke clashed with a breeze reeking of seaweed, dumping the taste of smoked
brine into Sophie's throat.
 
"Gods,
it's hot."

"And it
stinks worse than London."
 
Jacques
inspected her, his expression pensive.
 
"What is between you and Mathias?
 
For two days, you have not spoken with each other except to argue."

She fanned off
mosquitoes that the limpid breeze failed to flush — mosquitoes twice the size
of Alton's.
 
"It's none of your
business — or David's, either, so you may tell him that."

"It is my
business if I see it disrupting the mission.
 
So you tell me the problem, and I will act as your messenger,
oui
?"

She
scowled.
 
"Jacob Hale's the
problem.
 
And the poor judgment of
Madeleine for marrying him."

Jacques
flinched as if she'd slapped his jaw.
 
Old sadness haunted his dark eyes, and his shoulders slumped.
 
"
Belle
Sophie, let me share a
story with you."
 
He escorted her
to the edge of camp.
 
"For half a
year after the ambush, I thought Madeleine was dead.
 
Then I heard she had been the sole survivor of the massacre.
 
I spent three years tracking her from New
Orleans into Georgia and found her with the Creek, married to Toókóhee Nókúse.

"The
brother of our dead father died, and Madeleine and I inherited the family wine
estate.
 
In Bordeaux I dealt with my
aunt, the administrator."
 
He
glowered.
 
"A foul woman with such
airs about herself.
 
She had respectable
spouses picked out for my sister and me.

"Fearing
Madeleine would lose her inheritance, I told Aunt that she had married a
colonist.
 
Aunt wanted to see her, meet
her husband.
 
By the time I returned to
Georgia, the smallpox had claimed Toókóhee Nókúse.
 
Madeleine agreed to return to France with me.
 
I thought we would have Aunt's blessings at
last.
 
Then Madeleine told me she
carried Toókóhee Nókúse's child.
 
Mathias."
 
Jacques rubbed his hand over his face.

Understanding
and sadness crept through Sophie.
 
"Jacob seemed respectable, successful.
 
You convinced her to marry him."

Jacques
nodded.
 
"We did not foresee that
he would grow fanatic for a god who curses women and people with other
gods."

"Did your
aunt disown you and Madeleine?"