The Blacksmith's Daughter: A Mystery of the American Revolution (57 page)

"Yes, sir."

"Good.
 
Ideally the men pass by and never know we're
here because there are too many to squabble with.
 
All the same, ready weapons, choose cover, and don't fire unless
I say so."

Shrouded in summer foliage, they
scattered and crouched on the ledge, Mathias, Standing Wolf, and Panther
Leaping with arrows fitted to bows, Betsy, Sophie, Tom, and Joshua with muskets
ready.
 
Kneeling to the right of her
mother, Betsy turned and caught her glance of love.
 
Then Sophie's gaze snagged on the road.
 
Her expression stiffened.
 
She drew up her musket, sighting.

The hairs on Betsy's neck stood up,
and her teeth bared.
 
Riding point for
men on horseback was Lieutenant Fairfax, his predatory gaze sweeping from side
to side as the rocks rose around them.
 
He halted the party thirty feet away.
 
A man in a hunting shirt and trousers rode forward to his side: Adam
Neville.

The Ranger was clearly not his
prisoner.
 
He studied the road from his
saddle and shook his head.
 
"A
quarter mile back, they left the road."

"That's an excellent place for
an ambush up there."

"Agreed."

Understanding crawled through
Betsy.
 
Fairfax was using Neville
without letting on that he knew he was a rebel.
 
Like van Duser and Branwell, Neville didn't comprehend the twists
of Fairfax's mind.
 
At some point, his
usefulness as scout and guide would expire.
 
If he were lucky he'd get his brains blown out or his throat slit.
 
But she doubted he'd be lucky.

"Savages."
 
From the derision contorting Fairfax's
features, there wasn't an Indian on the earth he trusted.
 
His gaze bored through foliage where Betsy
and Sophie crouched.
 
Reins grasped in
his left hand, he held his musket ready in his right hand.
 
"Follow me, men.
 
Stay alert."

The party advanced north.
 
Fairfax passed within ten feet of Betsy, his
head in her sights the entire time.
 
She
fought the urge to squeeze the trigger until her stomach grew raw with it while
entranced with the thought of spattering his brains all over the road.
 
Even after the party pulled ahead, she
followed them with her musket.
 
Through
her trance, she heard Tom whisper, "Betsy, they're gone.
 
Lower the musket."

She let the barrel drop and saw her
father's hand wrap about the barrel of her mother's musket and push it gently
down.
 
His gaze traveled between mother
and daughter, and his black eyes chilled with understanding.

Another Cherokee emerged from the
brush, as did Runs With Horses.
 
Mathias
motioned them all to gather.
 
The nine
stood in silence while forest noises around them resumed normalcy.
 
Then Mathias caught the gazes of the
Cherokee.
 
"You saw him, the
redcoat with hair like flame?"
 
They nodded.
 
"Lieutenant
Fairfax is the one who murdered the Spaniard in Alton and made it appear the
work of the people.
 
We have the sworn
word of one of his own, Lieutenant Stoddard, that it's so."

While Indians grumbled, Betsy drew
in a breath of clarity, recalling the determination on Stoddard's face in
Camden and the enmity between Stoddard and Fairfax in Alton.
 
The British Army wouldn't condemn
Fairfax.
 
It would hide him.
 
Not the flavor of justice Stoddard craved.

Mathias threw back his shoulders.
 
"Fairfax is also the enemy of my
mother's house.
 
He murdered her
brother."
 
Creek and Cherokee alike
sucked in a breath of indignation, expressions toughening.
 
"He laid violent hands on Nagchoguh
Hogdee."
 
His gaze pierced Betsy,
read her soul.
 
"And on her
daughter.

"This moment was not
ours.
 
But someday soon, Creator may
grant us our time.
 
We will show Fairfax
what it is to be a prisoner of war among the people, after the old ways."
 
As one, the Indians bared their teeth in an
expression unmistakable for a smile.
 
"And my mother's house shall be avenged, and her brother's spirit
shall find peace."
 
He released a
war whoop, and the warriors joined him, altogether bloodcurdling, inhuman.
 
They quieted, pleased to hear the forest
ring with the summons.

Dread slithered through Betsy.
 
Had her father known his opponent, he
wouldn't have issued a challenge.
 
After
a lifetime of searching for him and finding him at last, after seeing her
mother content at last, she couldn't let him fall into the trap.
 
She gripped his arm.
 
"At this distance, he will have heard
you!"

The others, even her mother,
remained silent, their attention on Betsy and her question of the warrior who
walked in two worlds.
 
Mathias looked
from her hand on his arm to her eyes, and his tone was calm.
 
"May he continue to hear us, even in
his dreams.
 
The gods have granted him
foreknowledge of his doom."

Gods?
 
Some gods granted victory to a champion who brought them trophies
of human blood.
 
"Mathias — Father
— you still don't understand.
 
He'll
appreciate
your warning!"

"I do understand."
 
He removed her hand from his arm and clasped
it.
 
Love flowed from him, depth,
shrewdness, courage.
 
"His is an
old spirit.
 
I see him for what he is,
creature of the lower world, and I will stop him."

A gust of relief emptied from
her.
 
Unlike Adam Neville, Mathias
did
know his opponent.

With his other hand, her father
stroked her face.
 
"Now let us move
on.
 
With each step you take west, leave
behind the fear that brought you to this place."
 
He smiled.
 
"You have
earned the right to do so, my daughter."

Finis

Historical
Afterword

History texts and fiction minimize
the importance of the southern colonies during the American War of
Independence.
 
Many scholars now believe
that more Revolutionary War battles were fought in South Carolina than in any
other colony, even New York.
 
Of all the
wars North Americans have fought, the death toll from the American War exceeds
all except the Civil War in terms of percentage of the population.
 
And yet our "revolution" was but
one conflict in a ravenous world war.

The impact of women during the
American War, especially those on the frontier, has been minimized.
 
Women during this time enjoyed freedoms
denied them the previous two centuries and the following century.
 
They educated themselves and ran businesses
and plantations.
 
They worked the fields
and hunted.
 
They defended their homes.
 
They ministered their folk religion at
gatherings.
 
They fought on the
battlefield.
 
Although unable to vote,
women did just about everything men did.

The Battle of Camden occurred on 16
August 1780 in South Carolina.
 
The
Continental Army was twice the size of the British Army, but it was annihilated
because the commander, Horatio Gates, made severe errors in judgment — errors
that cost the life of the gallant Major-General Johannes de Kalb.
 
This battle came several months after
another critical Continental defeat, the Battle of Charles Town.
 
Those two battles, along with the
Continental defeat at the Battle of Savannah (October 1779), might have meant
total downfall for the Continental Army in the Southern Theater.
 
But the British followed the Battle of
Camden with their own series of military blunders, and soon they were headed up
the road to their strategic encounter with the Continental Army in Yorktown,
Virginia (October 1781).

Judging from his career in India
after he left North America, Charles Brome, the Earl Cornwallis, was an
excellent military strategist and an able and intelligent commander, not to
mention being just a decent person.
 
He
didn't relish getting tough on colonists, pleading their case with Parliament
before his wife died, leaving the harsher disciplinary measures to those of his
subordinate officers who commanded mobile units throughout the Carolinas and Virginia,
such as Lieutenant Colonel Banastre Tarleton.
 
Frustrated in early 1781 by British setbacks and a lack of colonial
submission, Cornwallis personally assumed the heavy-handed approach as he made
his way to Yorktown.

British Colonel Francis Rawdon is
an unsung hero of the Camden Campaign.
 
Combining courage and military common sense, he and his men protected
the citizens of Camden in July and August of 1780 while delaying the approach
of the Continentals, thus enabling Cornwallis's annihilation of the Continental
Army in the Battle of Camden.
 
Throughout the following year, he continued to distinguish himself in
service to the King.

Loyalist Lieutenant Colonel Thomas
Brown commanded the King's Carolina Rangers and was based for a short time in
Augusta, Georgia, where he kept order in the city.
 
While defending Augusta, he and some of his men were besieged for
almost a week in the heat of summer (September 1780) by forces commanded by
Elijah Clarke.
 
When British
reinforcements arrived and took prisoners, Brown promptly hanged thirteen of
his besiegers.
 
Historians are fond of
giving Brown a bad rap for this action.
 
However each of the thirteen hanged men had either broken parole
(punishable by law with execution) or was from among a mob that had attacked,
tortured, and maimed Brown in 1775 when he was trying peacefully and
diplomatically to calm them down.

Selected
Bibliography

Dozens of websites, interviews with subject-matter experts, the
following books and more:

Barefoot, Daniel W.
 
Touring
South Carolina's Revolutionary War Sites
.
 
Winston-Salem, North Carolina: John F. Blair Publisher, 1999.

Bass, Robert D.
 
The
Green Dragoon
.
 
Columbia, South
Carolina: Sandlapper Press, Inc., 1973.

Boatner, Mark M. III.
 
Encyclopedia
of the American Revolution
.
 
Mechanicsburg,
Pennsylvania: Stackpole Books, 1994.

Campbell, Colin, ed.
 
Journal
of Lieutenant Colonel Archibald Campbell
.
 
Darien, Georgia: The Ashantilly Press, 1981.

Cashin, Edward J., Jr. and Heard Robertson.
 
Augusta and the American Revolution: Events
in the Georgia Back Country 1773-1783
.
 
Darien, Georgia: The Ashantilly Press, 1975.

Cashin, Edward J., Jr.
 
The
King's Ranger: Thomas Brown and the American Revolution on the Southern
Frontier
.
 
Athens, Georgia: The
University of Georgia Press, 1989.

Edgar, Walter.
 
Partisans
and Redcoats: the Southern Conflict That Turned the Tide of the American
Revolution
.
 
New York: HarperCollins
Publishers, Inc., 2001.

Gilgun, Beth.
 
Tidings
from the Eighteenth Century
.
 
Texarkana, Texas: Scurlock Publishing Co., Inc., 1993.

Hudson, Charles.
 
The
Southeastern Indians
.
 
Knoxville,
Tennessee: The University of Tennessee Press, 1992.

Kirkland, Thomas J. and Robert M. Kennedy.
 
Historic Camden, Part One
.
 
Columbia, SC: The R. L. Bryan Company, 1994.

Mackesy, Piers.
 
The War
for America 1775-1783
.
 
Cambridge,
Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1964.

Mayer, Holly A.
 
Belonging
to the Army: Camp Followers and Community During the American Revolution
.
 
Columbia, South Carolina: University of
South Carolina Press, 1996.

Morrill, Dan L.
 
Southern
Campaigns of the American Revolution
.
 
Mount Pleasant, South Carolina: The Nautical & Aviation Publishing
Company of America, Inc., 1993.