Chase the Dawn

by Jane Feather

  “You will not be. I will,” she said firmly.

  Benedict sighed. “Listen, lass. It is hard enough for me to do what I must when I have a woman in tow.”

  “I am not in tow!” Indignation sparked in her eyes.

  “You are,” he stated, “and I would not have it any other way. But not a child!”

  “Then I shall stay with him, and you may come back for us both when you have done what you must and what you cannot do with women and children in tow.” She faced him on the narrow path with all the resolution that he knew so well, but a resolution now hardened with the wisdom and experience of maturity.

  Benedict looked down at the child, who still clung to her skirts, peeping up at him with an anxious yet unusually trusting stare. He accepted defeat. “Then retrieve my sovereign. We don’t have so many that I can scatter them at random around the countryside, for all that you seem to think I can.”

  “Mayhap, she will have some clothes that would do for him,” Bryony said thoughtfully. “For a small payment—”

  “There will be no more payments,” Ben interrupted, “for anything that is not essential. You will have to turn seamstress, I fear. You were taught to sew, were you not?”

  “Well, yes,” Bryony said doubtfully. “But I’ll lay odds I am not as good as you are.”

  “As it happens, I am not at all handy with a needle,” he stated, dashing her hopes.

  “Oh.” Bryony shrugged. “Then, I daresay I will manage.” She ran back to the house, where the woman still stood, as if carved in granite. “I must thank you, ma’am, but the child, it seems, wishes to come with us.” She smiled, hopefully placating. “If I could have the sovereign.”

  “Givin’ in to children never did any good,” the woman said, but she handed over the gold coin with a tiny shrug, then turned back into the house without a word of farewell, the door banging shut with a desolate finality.

  Bryony left the bleak, unfriendly spot with a sigh of relief, and the three of them set off down the path, Ned, his articulate moment apparently just that, trotting silently between them. Bryony looked up at Benedict. “We could not have left him there.”

  “We could have,” Ben replied. “You would not. Warfare and children make ill companions. And warriors who have to concern themselves with the day-today conditions of women and children make less than single-minded soldiers.”

  “You would be rid of me, then?”

  Ben glanced down at the brown, set face and shook his head ruefully. “Only when there is danger and I worry about your safety. But I could do without the child, I’ll admit.”

  “I will care for him,” she declared with determination. “I am quite capable.” A mischievous chuckle suddenly escaped her. “After all, in any other circumstance, I would have had half a dozen of my own by now.”

  Benedict, for some reason, did not seem to find the idea as amusing as she did. Indeed, the thought of fathering a child filled him with trepidation, and he could not imagine a time when it would not. He was hardly in a position to found his dynasty, and it seemed highly unlikely that that position would change, even if he survived the war. He had no land, no fortune, no family to fall back on—nothing to give a wife, let alone children. But such contemplation produced gloom, and time was too precious these days to waste in despondent reflection upon a future that might never materialize.

  “It is to be hoped you don’t regret your charge,” he declared with an assumption of briskness. “For he is most certainly your charge. I shall hold you responsible for any mischief he may get himself into and for ensuring that he does not trouble anyone else. Is it agreed?”

  Bryony peered down at the trailing mite. “He doesn’t look as if he could possibly get into mischief.”

  “It is the nature of the beast called child,” Ben told her. “Once he has recovered himself somewhat, you will have your hands full, I guarantee it.”

  Charlie greeted their return with raised eyebrows. “Still got him, then?”

  “He didn’t want to be left,” Bryony explained. “He actually said so.”

  Charlie whistled in surprise. “So, what are you going to do with him now?”

  “First I must find him some clothes.” Bryony tapped her teeth with an impatient fingernail as she pondered the problem. “I can cut down Ben’s shirts easily enough, but what are we to do about britches?”

  “I don’t recall giving you permission to make free with my shirts,” Ben stated.

  “Well, you would not allow me to buy him clothes, so what else are we to do?” She caught the raised eyebrow. “What else am I to do?” she amended.

  “That’s better. You may have one of my shirts in addition to the one he is already wearing, but that is as far as I am prepared to countenance the depletion of my already scant wardrobe.” Shouldering his musket, Ben veered off into the woods in search of game for their supper.

  A week later, they crossed the border into North Carolina and knew they were close now to their prey. The houses were still smoldering, the bodies barely cold, and those they spoke with told bitter tales of systematic looting and murder. The band of backwoodsmen and frontier riflemen was almost nine hundred strong, each and every one filled with a savage fury, vengeance their only goal. Bryony felt the grim purpose rise to exclude all else as the men grew silent, the lines of their faces set as they turned inward, drawing from their own wells for strength and courage.

  “We have him, Ben.” It was said with satisfaction, just after they made camp early one evening, and Benedict looked up from the rifle he was cleaning.

  “The scouts have found him?”

  “Aye. Atop a hill at Kings Mountain. About a thousand of ’em.” The young rifleman squatted down by the fire. “They’ll have the advantage, being atop of us.”

  Bryony’s fingers became suddenly clumsy, and the needle she was using slipped, pricking her thumb and leaving a bright spot of blood on the shirt she was hemming. She swore a backwoods oath that did not even draw a glance from her companions, and sucked the injured thumb.

  “There are more ways than one of skinning a cat,” Ben mused. Bryony abandoned her needlework. Her fingers were trembling too much. She clasped her hands firmly in her lap and waited for Benedict to share his thoughts.

  “Ben! Ben! Look what I got!” The excited shriek came first, the small body catapulting through the bushes in its wake. Ned, tripping over the bottom of the shirt that Bryony had managed to cut but had not yet got around to hemming, rushed over to them, his hands clasped to his scrawny chest.

  Putting thoughts of battle strategy behind him in the face of this clearly more urgent matter, Benedict said, “What have you got there?”

  “Look!” The child extended his cupped hands, a delighted beam on the dirty little face.

  “Oh, it’s a lizard.” Ben gave the captive due consideration. “What do you intend doing with it?”

  “Eat it,” the child replied matter-of-factly. In his recent experience, the acquisition of animals meant supper.

  Bryony choked, her eyes meeting Ben’s amused glance over the boy’s head. “I don’t think it has enough meat on it, Ned,” Ben said seriously. “Lizards are a bit bony.”

  “Oh.” Ned’s face fell. “Could put it in the pot.”

  “Well …”

  “No!” Bryony cried when it looked as if Ben was about to agree to the suggestion, presumably on the grounds that so many things went into the pot, what difference would a little lizard make? “I refuse to eat reptiles.”

  “You ate snake the other day,” Charlie pointed out.

  “I did not!” She glared with growing suspicion around the circle of laughing faces.

  “I’m afraid you did,” Ben said. “And pronounced it very tasty.”

  “Sometimes, Benedict Clare, I dislike you intensely.” Bryony stood up, smoothing down her faded dimity print skirt. “Don’t you dare put that lizard in the pot.” She stalked off, hearing their laughter behind her. Her annoyance died fairly rapidly a
s she strolled around the camp. What did it matter if they made fun of her once in a while? She didn’t really mind and knew that sometimes, like just now, the teasing provided an outlet when tensions or excitement were running high. It was probably the last laugh any of them would have until the grisly business that had brought them so many miles was completed. If any of them were left alive to laugh.

  She tried to shake off the thought. They were all sworn to see Ferguson and his men dead or prisoners. There would be little quarter offered those who fell into the hands of these enraged Carolinians. But Ferguson’s army was well trained and had never been accused of lacking in bravery, and they held the superior position, even if they were trapped in it.

  “Bryny … Bryny …” Ned’s shrill accents interrupted the unpleasant reverie. Since the boy had found his voice again, his incessant chatter continued every waking minute. He did not really seem to mind if there was no audience beyond birds and flies, and his imperative shrieks for either Ben or Bryony were constantly heard.

  She waited for him to reach her, then asked, smiling, “What did you do with the lizard?”

  The little face screwed up with intense concentration. “Ben says we’re not goin’ to eat it, so you can come back. Charlie says he didn’t mean to tease you.”

  “What a splendid messenger you are,” Bryony said, taking his hand, and they walked back to their campfire.

  “Still cross?” Ben stood up as she reached him, tilting her chin to plant a kiss on her freckled nose.

  “You are quite horrid sometimes,” she declared, trying to maintain her severity. “Did I really eat snake?”

  “Do you really want to know?” He laughed.

  “Probably not.” Bryony sighed. “There is much that I do not think I wish to know, but that I must.”

  “For instance?” The laughter had left the black eyes, his gravity matching hers.

  “How you intend skinning this particular cat—and when—and what Ned and I are to do while you go about it.”

  “You and Ned, sweeting, will stay in the village,” he said. “The people have no love for Ferguson and his bandits, and you will be quite safe.”

  “When?”

  “We leave before dawn and attack at first light.” As usual, Ben answered her questions with no wasted words and, as usual, he would offer her no false comfort, no promises that he could not be certain of keeping.

  It was still dark when the band of nine hundred stamped out their fires, shouldered their rifles, and slipped through the trees to the base of the mountain that formed a natural fortress for the enemy. The gray October dawn saw them swarming up the mountainside, taking their lessons from Indian strategies that they had learned painfully over the years. Expert marksmen to a man, they hid behind trees, firing with deadly accuracy into the Tory/Loyalist lines as they charged, bayonets poised. The backwoodsmen fell back beneath the charges, only to re-form and press ever closer to the camp, forcing Ferguson’s lines backward, his men dropping like flies beneath the sniping fire.

  “By God! We have them on the run,” Charlie exclaimed, dashing the sweat from his eyes as he joined the wave of men breaking from cover to surge across the field, firing as they raced forward, overrunning the Tory lines. For a minute there was chaos as the two forces mingled, trampling over the dead and wounded, trying to sort themselves out; voices yelled orders, screamed pleas, roared in savage fury as bayonets slashed and rifles cracked.

  “A surrender flag,” Benedict gasped as two white flags appeared out of the tumult, waving forlornly above the bloody field. “By God, he’s surrendering.”

  Then the flags vanished as Patrick Ferguson cut them down with his sword. Bellowing defiance, he charged down the field, riding directly at the American forces standing massed in his way. Fifty men raised fifty rifles, leveling them at the figure. A volley exploded and the major fell from his horse, quite literally shot to pieces.

  Benedict Clare thought for a fleeting instant of the time when he had sat at table with the major, had shared a toast. Then a great roar went up as white flags again appeared, this time to remain fluttering in the cold, early-morning mountain air. The battle had taken one hour, and the field was littered with bodies bearing Tory uniforms and Loyalist insignia.

  Francis Cullum drifted in and out of pain. When it came, it was too intense to be endured, and he would sink into oblivion, returning to his senses but to a confused awareness of the hard ground beneath him, the misty blue of the sky above, the sounds that could have come from hell’s inferno—men pleading for water, for surcease; men cursing in broken voices; men weeping. There was a great heaviness on his chest, as if someone had rolled a boulder onto him, and when he breathed, a funny bubbling sound came forth and he did not seem able to draw sufficient air to satisfy his body’s craving. Clearly, he was going to die, he thought with calm detachment. He had been seeking death in this war, after all. But somehow he had not envisaged this reality. Did it have to be in this manner? So slowly and so lonely. Then he heard a voice—a voice from the past, piercing the fog that was coming to claim him again. He opened his mouth and thought he said the name. “Clare.” But then the fog came and he did not know whether he had spoken or not.

  Benedict heard his name, or something approximating it. It had come forth as a weak croak from somewhere below him. He looked down. The band he had marched with and fought with showed no interest in the wounded. They would leave them on the field to die or to be cared for by any who chose to come among them. The living were their main concern. Seven hundred of them were to be herded and marched off in captivity, back into the mountains. When he saw Francis Cullum, his first thought was that he was dead, that he had to be dead with such a wound in his chest. Then he saw the eyelids flicker.

  He dropped to his knees beside him, feeling for a pulse. It was there, but fast and feeble. “Charlie?” He beckoned to the younger man, who was standing, surveying the devastation, the look on his face so clearly expressing grim satisfaction—they were revenged for Camden and for all those left dead in Ferguson’s wake. “I want to get this man down the mountain,” Ben said. “I do not know if he will survive being moved, but he will not survive here.”

  “Why bother?” Charlie knelt beside him. “Throw him in the pit with the others.”

  “You do not combat gratuitous savagery with its like.” It was a cold rebuke from a man who knew its truth, and Charlie felt the blood rush hot to his cheeks.

  “Clare?” Francis spoke with sudden clarity, startling them both. “Thought I heard your voice.” His eyes closed again. “How is Bri?”

  “Well,” Ben said. “Do not talk. I am going to take you to her.”

  “You … you … know him?” Charlie stuttered.

  Ben tore off his shirt and began to roll it into a flat oblong. “He is a childhood friend of Bryony’s. Now help me lift him so that I may bind his chest with this. It may serve to keep the wound closed.” Charlie obeyed the rapid instructions without further demur. They fashioned a rough stretcher from material they found within the Tory camp and together bore the now unconscious Francis down the mountain.

  Bryony had left the village the minute the firing had started and taken up a position at the base of Kings Mountain. She had left Ned behind with a motherly soul who had enticed him with the promise of gingerbread. It was impossible to tell what had happened until news of the resounding defeat was brought down the mountain by local lads who had followed the frontier force. Bryony, without further reflection, set off up the slope at a run. There were casualties on the American side, she knew, although her jubilant informant had said nary a one compared with the slaughter of the butcher’s men.

  It was a chilly autumnal morning, and the sun had not the power to warm the mountain air, but the sweat was trickling down her rib cage and plastering her hair to her brow when Benedict saw her clambering at great speed up the mountainside toward him, hampered by her skirts and her ill-shod feet. He wondered whether remonstrance would be a worthwhile exe
rcise and decided that it would not. The minute his back was turned, she went where she chose, as she had done since the night she had followed him to the armory and warned them of the redcoats.

  “You are safe!” Breathlessly, she came up to them, smiling mistily. “I could not wait below … not when I heard that the battle was won.”

  “So I see,” was all he allowed himself to say. He did not allow himself to touch her, either, and saw that she also held back, as if just the moment of reunion was precious enough and sufficient unto itself, after the agonizing uncertainty when the image of his death was as real as the memory of his presence.

  Then she dragged her eyes from his, smiled at Charlie, including him in her joy, before their burden intruded on her consciousness. The color left her face. “Francis?”

  “He is sore wounded,” Ben said swiftly. “We must take him to the village.”

  “Yes. I’ll go ahead and make preparations.” She turned immediately, then stopped with her back to him. “Will he live, Ben?”

  “I do not think so,” he said quietly; there were things he would not tell her, but he would never lie to her. Her back was still and straight, her head slightly bowed so that her neck curved, open and vulnerable, and he ached to hold her through the grief. But then she raised her head, tossed her hair over her shoulder, and went ahead of them, running down the mountainside.

  The woman in the cottage where Bryony had left Ned raised her eyebrows at the request that she receive under her roof a wounded Tory, but the pain that stood out in the younger woman’s eyes could not be denied, and she gestured to the bedstead that stood against the kitchen wall. “Ye can lay him there.”

  Ned crept into the inglenook when Ben and Charlie appeared in the doorway, the stretcher between them. There was fear and dread in the kitchen where before there had been the hot fragrance of gingerbread; rich, embracing laughter when he had said or done something that seemed to amuse; hands that stroked or patted carelessly. Now it was like it had been when the soldiers had come and his mother’s eyes had opened wide in terror and his father had cried out. As he had done then, he hid in the far corner of the fireplace, so close to the fire that it scorched his cheek, and he closed his mouth tight, lest a betraying sound should come forth.