Kings Pinnacle

by Robert Gourley

  Alex soon spotted Major Ferguson riding on his charger, blowing his silver whistle to direct his troops against the patriots’ charge.

  “Hurrah, brave lads; the day is ours!” yelled the major in a futile attempt to rally his troops.

  Alex thought that if he could get off a shot at the major, it might quickly end the battle and spare some lives. Without Major Ferguson’s influence, the Loyalists were sure to surrender. He reloaded Slayer and took aim at Major Ferguson, leaning into his firing position on Kings Pinnacle. Just as Alex squeezed off the shot, the major’s horse reared up on its hind legs and the shot grazed the major’s head, knocking him off his horse. Unfortunately for Major Ferguson, one of his spurs caught in the stirrup, and the horse bolted. The major was dragged along by the running horse.

  Amazingly, the horse ran straight up toward Kings Pinnacle and straight at Alex, Robert, Hugh, the Longhunter, and Jonas, who were all standing there. Hugh jumped out on the trail along the top and blocked the horse’s path, holding up his arms to create a barrier. The horse saw Hugh and stopped right in front of him. Hugh grabbed the reins and quieted the horse. Then Alex, Robert, and Hugh walked around the horse and looked down at Major Ferguson, lying beside his horse, with his boot caught in the stirrup. The major rolled over and appeared to be almost unhurt, except for a few scratches, despite having been dragged a hundred yards by his horse.

  As he rolled over and laid eyes on Alex, Major Ferguson pointed at Alex and shouted, “You, Mackenzie!”

  “Why, hullo Patrick,” said Alex as he raked his long blond hair back out of his eyes with his left hand. “I haven’t seen you since my almost wedding at the Coldstream Bridge toll house in Scotland.”

  “And I haven’t seen ye since ye almost tortured me to death at that blasted British Fort Craghead,” added Hugh.

  “Mackenzie, I promised my Uncle Jamie that I would kill you. And I will. Of that ye can be sure,” said Major Patrick Ferguson glaring at Alex. Then he pulled a pistol out of his belt, cocked his flintlock, and aimed it at Alex’s head. Finally, he pulled the trigger.

  Alex was at first frozen when he saw Patrick pull the pistol and take aim at him, but he recovered just in time to duck. The pistol shot went harmlessly over his head. Robert and Hugh immediately pulled pistols from their belts and fired at Major Ferguson point blank. Both shots hit the major squarely in the chest. He died instantly as the musket balls passed through his heart. Several other men, including the Longhunter and Jonas, emptied their pistols into Major Ferguson’s body after the fact “just to make sure,” according the Longhunter.

  * * * *

  Epilogue

  Without Major Patrick Ferguson to lead them, the Loyalists were overwhelmed by the Overmountain Men and quickly surrendered. The Overmountain Men began to take revenge on the Loyalists, angered by the battle and previous engagements where the Loyalists showed no quarter to the patriots. But the killing was soon curtailed by the Overmountain Men’s officers. The offers to surrender were accepted, and the prisoners were secured.

  Major Patrick Ferguson’s corpse was stripped of his clothes by the Overmountain Men, and then he and Virginia Sal were buried in a shallow grave near the site where his tent was located. His body had a total of eight musket ball holes in it.

  Thomas Jefferson called the Battle of Kings Mountain, “The turn of the tide of success" in the Revolutionary War. In his book, The Winning of the West, Theodore Roosevelt wrote of Kings Mountain, "This brilliant victory marked the turning point of the American Revolution."

  And it was a turning point; it provided a rallying cry and a boost to the morale of the patriots, who had suffered so many defeats against the British.

  After the fighting was over and the prisoners taken care of, the Overmountain Men had ridden back over the Appalachian Mountains to their homes on the frontier. Robert and Hugh had ridden with Alex to his new cabin on Gap Creek that he and his brothers had built after the Raven had burned his first one. They wanted to see him home after the Battle of Kings Mountain and say hello to Martha.

  “What are you two going to do now?” asked Alex, standing in his cabin door with his arm around Martha, looking up at Robert and Hugh, who were mounted on their horses.

  “Weel now, Robber and I plan t’ soak in a hot springs near a sulfur deposit o’er the mountains west o’ here,” said Hugh.

  Robert smiled and nodded.

  * * * *

  END OF BOOK 1

  * * * *

  Author’s End Note

  I would like to apologize to my readers for portraying Major Ferguson as a less than honorable man of weak character. My depiction of him and any other historical persons and events is fictional. By all accounts and based on his letters, Major Ferguson was an honorable man and a British officer of exceptional character. He was a small, thin, wiry man with an elfin face who was considered to be cultured, heroic, and gallant by all those who have written his biographies. Witty and charming and endearing have also been used to describe him. He was considered to be a genius and inventor without peer in his day.

  The Ferguson rifle that he invented was at least fifty to seventy-five years ahead of its time. If the British Army had widely adopted it when they first had the chance, they might have easily won the American Revolution. After a musket ball shattered Major Ferguson’s right elbow at the Battle of Brandywine during the American Revolution and his right arm became bent and impaired, he learned to write, shoot, and wield a sword left handed. According to the history books, Major Ferguson did in fact have an opportunity to fire a shot at an American officer’s back while on a scouting expedition during the Battle of Brandywine but declined to take the shot because it would insult his honor. He was later told that the American officer that he had in his sights might have been General George Washington. Whether it was or not, Major Ferguson later wrote, “I am not sorry that I did not know all the time who it was.”

  He would probably never do the most of the things that I ascribe to him in this fictional story and for that, I sincerely apologize to him, his descendants and my British Empire readers and lobster-friendly sympathizers.

  * * * *

  About The Author

 

  Robert Gourley’s first published book was a technical college text book that was published in the 1970s by Prentice Hall. This is his first work of fiction and is loosely based on the life of his great, great, great grandfather, Captain Thomas Gourley who was an Overmountain Man and fought several battles in the north and in the south during the Revolutionary War, including the Battle of Kings Mountain.

  Robert lives with his wife of over 35 years, Nancy, in Frisco, Texas.

  * * * *

  If you enjoyed reading Kings Pinnacle – A March Hare Novel, Book 1, read on for an exciting preview of the further adventure of Alex Mackenzie and his brothers in the new novel, The Last Reiver – A March Hare Novel, Book 2, available in 2014.

  * * * *

  Sir James

  “Let’s ride, I want to be at Sir James’s estate near Rothbury by noon tomorrow,” said the High Sheriff as his men mounted their horses.

  And ride they did. They had camped for the night just across the border in England and kept watches on the prisoners during the night to prevent any escape attempts. But the two prisoners were both tightly bound with ropes, so there was no chance for them to escape without some kind of miracle or outside assistance. There was neither help nor miracles. It was raining when they arose and broke camp the next morning. Just before noon, as the sheriff had requested, they rode into the estates of retired General Sir James Murray.

  “Sir James, I have your prisoners,” said the sheriff after he dismounted and shook hands with Sir James Murray.

  “I see that you do, Charles. Did they give you any trouble?”

  “No trouble at all; it was the easiest favor I have ever done for you.”

  “Well I am indeed in your debt anyway, Charles.”

  “I’ll be sure to collect on it a
t the race track next Sunday.”

  Sir James and Charles Brandling walked over to the two prisoners, who were sitting on horseback in the light rain with their hands tied behind their backs.

  “Pull them down out of the saddle,” said the sheriff, and two of the sheriff’s men pulled the two men down and threw them to the ground. “They are all yours, Sir James.”

  “Thank you very much, High Sheriff. Take Mackenzie, Armstrong and his wife and son out to the Royal Oak tree in the pasture and hang them,” said Sir James to a group of his groomsmen who were standing nearby.

  After he spoke, he took another puff on his long-stemmed pipe.

  “Please, sir, ye promised me that me family would live if I helped ye. I held up my end o’ the bargain,” said Hobbie Armstrong as he sank down to his knees, holding his hands up, pleading as if in prayer.

  “That you did, Hobbie. You and they did live while you helped me, but now there is nothing more you can do for me, unless you can think of something. Now you and your family must pay for your crimes. Your daughter will become an indentured servant in my household. There’s no use hanging a flower like that before she’s been plucked,” said Sir James with a leering grin not well hidden by the pipe stem between his teeth.

  “You’re a liar and a cheat and a dirty rotten bastard. Damn ye to hell.”

  “I may be all that but you’re going to hang anyway, you red-headed idiot.”

  The English oak tree was named the Royal Oak in 1651 because King Charles II of England hid inside the trunk of a rotted out oak tree after he was defeated by the forces of Oliver Cromwell at the Battle of Worcester. This allowed him to escape the wrath of the Roundheads during the English Civil War. The Royal Oak tree in the pasture behind the manor, near the edge of the forest, was almost twenty feet in circumference and ninety feet tall. It was rumored to be over one thousand years old. Over its life it had seen many events unfold under its branches. But it had yet to see the brand of vigilante justice that was now occurring beneath its spreading boughs.

  John Mackenzie and Hobbie Armstrong were marched into the pasture, to the Royal Oak tree where Hobbie’s wife Nelly Moss, his fourteen year old son Halbert, who they called Hallie, Hallie’s twin sister Ginny, and two much smaller children were waiting for them. Also waiting were also a number of Sir James’s men, with four ropes knotted into nooses. They intended to hang John Mackenzie, Hobbie Armstrong, Nelly Moss, and Hallie Armstrong.

  The rain had increased to a steady downpour and occasional thunder was heard in the distance as the approaching storm strengthened and moved from the west toward the manor house and the pasture. When Hobbie was led up to his wife and children, they all gather around him and hugged him, crying. The day had gotten progressively darker as the thunderstorm approached the group of people under the

  Royal Oak tree. Hobbie dropped down to his knees and looked up at Nelly.

  “Nelly, I did me best, but the old bastard’s word is nae good. He’s gang t’ hang us.”

  Hobbie’s wife, Nelly Moss, was a small wizened-looking woman with her hair plastered to her head by the steady rain. Nelly was actually much younger than she looked, mostly as a result of living a hard, poor life with Hobbie. She was shocked by Hobbie’s words. She’d had no inkling that she and almost her entire family were going to die right then and there.

  In addition to being Hobbie’s wife, Nelly was well renowned as a practitioner of the dark arts all along the border. Her mother had dutifully taught her the skills when she was a young girl, long before she married Hobbie. So she instinctively reached up over her head and snapped off a small limb about twelve inches long from a lower branch of the Royal Oak tree. She quickly stripped most of the bark off it and then ran a few steps away from Hobbie. Nelly leaped upon on a large stone that was lying directly under some of the lower branches of the Royal Oak tree.

  Sir James’s men bolted to chase her but she turned upon her stone perch and pointed her bare oak wand at them, causing them to stop in their tracks. While staring down at Sir James and his men with a steely gaze, she slowly lifted her oak wand up to touch one of the large boughs of the Royal Oak tree. Then, as the day darkened, she recited an incantation while looking at Sir James.

  “O’ Mighty Oak of Ages Past,”

  “Warder of the Woodlands Vast,”

  “As the Light Brings ye Life, o’ Tree,”

  “Impart thy Power into Me.”

  As Nelly finished the last word of the incantation, a flashing bolt of lightning stuck the upper branches of the Royal Oak with a tremendous, instantaneous thunder clap. The impact of the lightning bolt stunned all the men standing around and under the tree, causing them to flinch and hunker down or dive to the ground. But the lightning bolt didn’t faze Nelly. She stood rock solid still on her rock perch as if she was expecting it. As the lightning charge travelled down the trunk toward the ground, it also travelled out its lowest bough to Nelly’s wand. Then, it traveled down the wand into Nelly, electrifying her body and causing her hair to stand on end. Nelly was a fierce sight with her wet hair standing straight away from her head. But since she was standing on a rock and not in direct contact with the ground, the lightning charge stayed in Nelly as if it was waiting to dissipate, since it was insulated from the ground by the rock.

  As the men looked up at the oak tree to see if the lightning had caused any damage or set the tree aflame, a glimmer of St. Elmo’s fire appeared on the highest branches of the tree. Then the St. Elmo’s fire slowly began to work its way down the tree. Soon the entire tree was glowing with the electrical charge of the St. Elmo’s fire. The violet glow slowly traveled down the tree to Nelly’s bare wand. And finally, it traveled down Nelly’s arm, making her entire body glow against the darkened sky as she was consumed by the St. Elmo’s fire.

  The glowing Nelly completed the incantation with a blank stare.

  “Spirits of the Dark in Lightning and Thunder,”

  “Let Sir James and All His Kin be Torn Asunder.”

  As soon as she uttered the last word of the curse, Nelly Moss collapsed to the ground, lying on her back beside the rock she had been standing on. The bare oak wand fell out of her hand onto the ground. It had been blackened by the lightning surge and accompanying St. Elmo’s fire. Sir James’s men regained their composure and got to their feet. They walked over to surround and look down on Nelly.

  “I think we should burn her at the stake rather than hang her,” said the visibly shaken Sir James brushing off his clothes.

  “That won’t be necessary, Sir James, she’s already dead,” said one the men who was bending over her body.

  * * * *