The Major paused. “Well, that’s the thing, Duncan. We don’t send any more than a warning to our men in the northeast, at least, not yet.”
“Why on earth not?”
Basham peered into his glass, swirling the last few drops of whiskey in the bottom. “Before I answer that, I need to ask you something rather delicate, Duncan. I don’t want you taking it personally.”
Angus frowned. “Ask all ye like.”
“Very well. How well do you know your wife?”
“What kind of a question is that?” Angus wasn’t offended, merely surprised at the turn in the conversation.
Basham smiled. “I don’t mean to imply anything untoward about her, I assure you. I’m simply asking about her history. Before you and she met.”
Angus thought for a moment. “Her family is from near Big Lick, and they were killed by a Shawnee raiding party. She traveled around a bit, and she and I met in Richmond last year.”
Basham refilled Angus’ glass. “How did you meet?”
“She was traveling with a woman who was, er, acquainted with my brother-in-law.”
“This would be Ian?”
“No, Robert.”
“The sea captain,” nodded the Major.
“Aye.” Angus looked up. “He’s dead now.”
“My condolences. And the woman?”
“Gone.”
“Dead?”
The whiskey had formed a nice warm ball in the bottom of Angus’ stomach. He didn’t know why Basham was asking these questions, but saw no harm in answering honestly. He trusted the man. “Just gone. She disappeared. Wanda – Winnie – was the last person to see her.”
“Ah. I suppose you’re entitled to an explanation,” Peyton Basham smiled. “The reason I asked how well you know your own wife is because, quite honestly, she has given me some very valuable information. She hasn’t given me any specifics, mind you. Mostly little hints about things worth looking into. So far,” he continued, “everything she has suggested I investigate has been dead on.”
“And?”
“I’m wondering where she comes by her information,” the Major said softly.
Angus laughed. “My friend, your guess is as good as mine. I didn’t ask questions when she told me to have her wee inoculation. But I havena been sick with the smallpox yet either. I’ve learned, sir, not to ask too many questions. If Wanda wishes me to know something, she’ll tell me in her own good time.”
Basham smiled, and they drank companionably for a while. Eventually, the subject turned back to Johnny Burgoyne. “Your wife,” he began, “is to be part of a party we are organizing. We’ll be stopping in Ringwood for a few days, so I can meet with Robert Erskine, and then I’ll travel up the Hudson – alone -- to Lake Champlain, pass the information along to the appropriate parties, and prevent Burgoyne and his men from moving at all. Winnie tells me she has business near Philadelphia.”
Angus was startled. “I’ve heard nothing about this. How much time do I have before we leave?”
The Major traced his finger around the rim of his empty glass. “You’re not going, Duncan.”
“Why on earth not? I canna be sitting here on my arse while my wife gets dragged along on a scouting party through the wilderness, or off to Philadelphia!”
“Don’t get your Scottish up on me, Duncan. It wasn’t my idea,” countered Basham.
“Well, tell me whose it was so I can go straighten things out!” Angus demanded.
Peyton Basham sighed. “Yes, well, good luck with that.”
“What do you mean by that?” snapped Angus, rising to his feet. “Was it General Washington? I’m no’ afraid to speak my mind to him, General or not.”
“Sit down, Angus. I rather hate to get in the middle of this, but the idea was your wife’s.”
Angus sat down in shock. “Another whiskey, if you please, Basham.”
Major Basham was happy to oblige.
“Angus?” Wanda crept into the dark tent. “Are you still awake?”
“Aye.”
“Oh, boy. I can tell by your voice that there’s something wrong. What is it?”
He sat abruptly, turning to look at her. All he could see was her silhouette against the front flaps of the canvas. “You really dinna know?”
“Are you drunk?” She slipped out of her petticoats and curled up beside him. “You always sound a lot more Scottish when you’re drunk.”
“Aye, I’m good and drunk, but not nearly drunk enough,” he slurred, pulling away from her.
“Angus? Damn it, what is wrong with you?”
“What’s wrong with me?” he hissed, grabbing her by the shoulders. “What’s wrong with me is that I just found out from Peyton Basham that you’ve asked to join a scouting party up in the mountains, and then ye’ve got some sort of secret business in Philadelphia, and ye intend to leave me sitting here alone!”
“I meant to talk to you about that,” she admitted. “You’re hurting me.”
“I’m sorry.” He released his grip. “No, to tell the truth, I’m not. Did ye think it wouldna hurt me when I learned you’re leaving and didna even have the decency to tell me about it?”
“Angus, let me explain,” she protested.
“What is there to explain?” he shouted. “You didna tell me!”
“You have to stay here, just in case!”
“Just in case of what? So I can get a letter from some British officer saying how sorry he is that my wife’s been scalped by the Mohawks?” Angus sat up and began pulling his clothes back on.
“There aren’t any Mohawks in Philadelphia. Now, Angus, damn it, listen to me!”
He slapped her, hard, across the mouth. “I’m finished listening to you, d’ye hear?”
Wanda clutched her hand to her face. “Oh, Christ, Angus.”
“And don’t you blaspheme, either! I should’ve listened to Mollie, when she told me there was somethin’ not quite right with ye!” He stood, swaying drunkenly from side to side. Suddenly, he lost his balance, and toppled to the ground.
Wanda climbed over to him, and crouched beside him. “Angus?”
A flash of moonlight slipped in then, and she saw tears on his face. “Ah, Wanda, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” he moaned. “I had no right.”
“You didn’t,” she agreed, thoughtfully touching her swollen lip. “But will you listen to me now? Please?”
“Aye.”
“You need to stay here. I think… I don’t know how I know, but I just do.”
“Why is that?”
“I think Cameron may come looking for me.” She had dropped a hint in her letter about the small town in New Jersey, hoping that there was indeed a time portal there, as her research had led her to believe. Maybe, just maybe, Cam would piece together a timeline in the future, and find the gate in Ringwood.
Angus blinked. They had not talked about her, not for months. “D’ye think she’ll come here?”
“I think it’s a possibility, yes.”
“Why?”
“I left her a letter.”
She heard his sudden intake of breath. “D’ye know where she is, then?”
“No. But I know where she will be. That’s where I left the letter. In a place where I knew she would find it.”
“And once she gets the letter, why should she come looking for you?”
She took a deep breath. “I believe she may come back looking for Robert.”
“But he’s dead.”
“I know, at least I know we were told he was dead.” She cradled his head in her lap. “But for some reason, I don’t believe it. I don’t think Cam will believe it either.” She couldn’t tell him the truth, that she once saw a letter regarding the capture and sentencing of a mate from the Lady Meg…
Angus recalled his conversation with Basham. “Why Philadelphia? What’s there?”
“There’s an officer near there, at Fort Wyndham, who’s been my contact for a few months,” she said softly. “He’s not terribly l
oyal to the Crown, you understand. He has information that could be very valuable. For the past few months, he’s been sending me coded letters. Now he has something he wants to deliver in person. Maybe he wants me to help him desert. I don’t know.”
Angus closed his eyes. “And why should he ask you for help deserting?”
“Why me? I don’t know,” she said honestly. “Payback for the information he’s supplied me about troop movements, I suppose. I’m rather obligated to him. But if Cam comes here looking for me, I won’t be here to meet her.”
“And that’s why you want me to stay here.”
“Yes.”
Angus Duncan was silent for a long time. “And if she doesna come?”
“Then I was wrong, I suppose,” smiled Wanda with a shrug. “And I’ll be back from Philadelphia at the end of summer and all will be well with the world.”
“Ye speak strangely sometimes, have I told you that?”
“Yes.” She kissed the tip of his nose. “But you love me anyway.”
“Aye, that I do,” Angus admitted. “That I do. Wanda, about earlier.”
She waved her hands in the dark. “Forget it. It’s done.”
“I canna forget it. I’ve never hit a woman before.”
Wanda leaned close to him. “And you’d be wise to never do it again,” she murmured. “Or I’ll put saltpeter in your stew, and the sails of the good ship Angus will never rise again.”
He looked at her in horror. “Ye wouldn’t! Would you?”
She blinked her big, catlike eyes at him, and in that very moment, he knew that if he were ever to lift a hand to her again, she would indeed do exactly as she promised. He loved her all the more for it.
Two weeks later, on the fifth day of May, 1777, a small party of four scouts headed northeast out of Morristown, New Jersey, led by Major Peyton Basham. Also present was Ambrose Meador, a bearded giant who was married to Basham’s sister Rachel, and well known as an expert tracker and mountain man. Trailing behind Basham was a lanky fifteen-year-old rifleman named Gavin O’Toole. He was a crack shot with a musket, and could get off as many as three rounds a minute. Wanda Mabry Duncan rode last in line, her hair pulled back in its usual braids, and wearing a pair of men’s trousers. Despite Basham’s objections, Wanda refused to wear a dress for traveling.
They rode northeast, stopping nightly at tiny settlements along the way, whose names Wanda never even learned. At each inn or tavern, Wanda made sure to look closely the faces in the taprooms, or on the village greens. She was rather hoping she would see a familiar one soon.
Wanda was still trying to comprehend the entire paradox of time travel. Because of her accidental discovery of the Faerie’s Gate as a child, she had traveled to a point at which she was, for all intents and purposes, two hundred and sixty years old. Then she had returned home again, where she was thirty-four. The whole concept was absurd, impossible really, yet somehow it had happened. While she was gone, for those twenty-odd years, her parents had died, and she had been left basically alone, orphaned. In that, she and Cam were not really that different.
She had written Cam the letter six months ago, which she had safely tucked away, along with some other goodies, in a locked box at Mollie’s house. In theory, if Cam ever got the letter and decided to come back, it meant that she might or might not show up at any time in the next fifty years or so. But if Cam read the letter in time, she could possibly come to the same conclusion that Wanda had, that Alexander McFarland and Robert MacFarlane were in fact one and the same. Wanda hoped she was right – she liked Robert and thought it was a shame that everyone believed he was dead.
In truth, Wanda hated knowing as much as she did. Because she had spent so many years researching the local area, she knew things about a lot of families in the Bedford area, even Cam’s… things that Cam herself probably didn’t know, and might be better off not knowing. Maybe it would be better if Cam never found the letter, or if she didn’t find it until she was eighty and feeble and in a nursing home being fed through a tube, Wanda thought.
As the small group reached each village, Wanda carefully made inquiries with the tavern keepers. No one had come looking for her so far, but the possibility remained that Cam could be arriving very soon. Wanda fervently hoped that if Cam did decide to come back, that she would be better prepared than she was the last time.
It took them over a week to reach the Ramapo Mountains, and they planned to spend three days in Ringwood while Basham met with Erskine, a Scottish geographer and engineer who was about to be appointed Surveyor General by George Washington.
The party rode into Ringwood during the third week of May. Erskine met them at the door of his manor home when they arrived.
“Basham! ‘Tis a good thing to see ye again, lad!” he exclaimed. Erskine was a native of Dumfermline, Scotland, and his years in the Colonies had not diminished his accent one bit. Wanda liked him immediately.
“The General sends his regards, of course,” Major Basham drawled. “Good to see you, as well, Erskine.”
May 18, 1777
Mollie -
We are in New Jersey now, and resting for a few days before we begin the trek into the Hudson River Valley. Angus is remaining in Morristown, while I travel north with Major Basham and the other two men in our party, one being Basham’s brother-in-law (Basham is married to his sister, and he is married to Basham’s sister!) and the other a malodorous young Irishman of questionable background who is a very good marksman.
In addition to be a major producer of iron goods, Ringwood is a supply center, transportation route, and shall soon be the site of George Washington's critical defense mapping agency. You may be amused to know this area is referred to as the New Jersey Highlands, and although it is very pretty I am sure it is not as beautiful as the Highlands from which you and Angus hail. The local iron works supplies the ore for many of our new country’s defense.
I am in the manor home of one Robert Erskine, a delightful little old man who is a somewhat prolific cartographer. Mr. Erskine is from Scotland, and has an extensive library which he has encouraged me to use at my will, and that is where I sit now. He is very sweet, and referred to me as a “titian-tressed Valkryie” upon our arrival.
On the desk before me is a scale model of an object called the Marine Chevaux de Frise, a defensive tool created by Erskine last year. It is a large spiky structure, which is composed of wood and then linked by chains to others just like it, and then strung across the river to stop British ships in their tracks. The Chevaux de Frise floats just below the surface of the water, and it seems that most of the time the sailors do not know of its existence until it is too late and their ship is poked full of big nasty holes. Tomorrow we shall tour the ironworks and see just how these chains are made – it should be quite informative.
Regards,
Winnie
The next day, Wanda and the others rode with Erskine to the foundry of the Ringwood Company. Begun by a family named Ogden in 1742, the mines and ironworks of the company were taken over by a Dutchman named Peter Hasenclever, Erskine told them, just a decade or so ago. Hasenclever had created several production sites in the area, importing over five hundred workers from Germany and England, as well as hiring a few local whites and some free blacks. Erskine himself had taken over the operation from the Dutchman in 1771.
“And this,” the little man motioned, “is the central furnace. Tis where the ore is heated and then poured.”
Wanda was intrigued. “And the ore is mined locally?” she asked casually.
“Aye, lass, it is. Right here in the Ramapo Mountains, home of some of the oldest geological formations in the world,” he beamed with pride, as though he were somehow responsible for this being the case.
“Could you show me one of the mines?” she asked thoughtfully. She fanned herself lightly with her hand; even in the cool May air, the heat of the furnace was oppressive.
If Erskine was surprised by the request, he did not show it. “They are
dirty and dark places, but if ye insist…” He waved his hand expansively. “There’s a number of them close by.”
Wanda glanced around. Peyton Basham and Ambrose Meador were examining the furnace with interest, and chatting with one of the foundry workers. “There’s one located near the top of Bellott’s Mountain,” she said carefully.
Erskine was impressed. “Ye’ve done your homework, then, lass, have ye not? Aye, ‘twas discovered by sheer accident by some lads who stumbled into a cave, and found iron ore within. Is that the one you’re interested in, then?”
“Yes, if it’s not any trouble.” Wanda tried to keep her voice neutral. “I realize it’s a bit far from the rest of the mines…”
“Tis no problem at all. If ye dinna mind riding all morning in a cart, we can be there before noon,” Erskine nodded.
She flashed a smile at him. “That would be wonderful. I’ll just let Basham know where I’m off too.”
Peyton Basham was less than enthusiastic. “You mean you want to go gallivantin’ all over some old mine shaft?” he drawled incredulously. “What on earth for, woman?”
“Business,” she said abruptly.
He arched his dark brows at her. “Business? Are you and Angus thinking of investing in a mine?”
Wanda nodded primly, and Basham laughed. “Does Angus even know that?”
“Oh, stop it, Peyton. You’re being asinine,” she snapped.
“Mmm. Well, you be careful out there with Erskine. He’s a valuable resource to the Continental Army, and I’d sure hate to see you get in the midst of any ambushes or what have you,” he advised.
She paused. “Ambushes? We’re just going a few miles, up to Bellott’s.” She pointed to a low peak in the distance.
“A few miles of empty road. I’m not saying you’re in danger, mind. I’m just suggesting you be careful.” He sighed. “I know you’re going to do whatever you damn well please anyway.”
Wanda smiled. “Thank you. I’ll be on my guard.” She frowned. “I didn’t think there were any British troops in the area right now, though.”
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