MacFarlane's Ridge

by Patti Wigington

  “Where’s he from?” Ralph piped up, not because he was really interested but simply to be part of the conversation.

  Banastre leered at the boy. “Well, he’s supposedly the bastard son of an earl or a duke or something. He spent some time in the army when he was young, disappeared for a while – there was some scandal about a dead whore – and then popped up here for his new post.”

  Alexander closed his eyes. He didn’t give a damn about any of the dragoons or their personal histories. He just wished they would hurry up and get things over with.

  That afternoon, Charlie Banastre was led to the gallows. Alexander watched the entire proceeding with detached interest, and Ralph Fitzralph, who was standing on tiptoe to see out the window, vomited all over his own shoes.

  Banastre did not die terribly well.

  The hours passed by, each just like the one before it. All of the men in the cell were ready to kill Ralph, tired of his incessant whining and sobbing. Only Alexander’s protective hand had kept him alive. He didn’t really think of the boy as a friend; Ralph was more a lost and whipped pup that merely needed to be protected from bigger, more vicious dogs.

  On his third day in the Fort Wyndham prison, Alexander McFarland was rudely awakened by the fat dragoon, whose name was Tumblesby.

  Tumblesby kicked him in the side, and Alexander felt the air rush out of him. Ralph Fitzralph scurried to the far corner, not wanting to get kicked himself.

  “Get up, you Scot bastard,” Tumblesby said conversationally. “Lieutenant Clarendon wants to see you before you get sent off for your trial.”

  Alex pulled himself to his feet. The cell was not as full as it had been. All of the prisoners who had been there when he arrived were now gone, and of the ten in his group, only five were left. One had hung himself the night before. Alexander had thought it mighty charitable of the fellow to save the British the trouble.

  His hands were bound and Tumblesby and another, smaller, dragoon called Stave led Alex down the narrow corridor. They emerged from the prison building into the bright June sun, and made their way across the courtyard. As he passed the gallows, Alex glanced up, wondering for the first time exactly what it felt like to die.

  While he had accepted that it was coming, he was still curious about what he would feel, what he would think as it was happening. Would it be peaceful, his soul floating off into a pale oblivion once the rope dropped and his neck snapped? Or would he flail wildly, like Charlie Banastre, flopping back and forth like a puppet on a string, a great wet stain appearing on the front of his trousers?

  He hoped that when the time came, he could die with some semblance of dignity, like old Grey Fox had done. He was a bit worried about young Ralph Fitzralph, who would be sobbing like a little girl all the way until the end. Bad enough to die with your neck in a noose, he thought, but then to have a bunch of redcoats laughing at you as well…

  Tumblesby led him into the main officers’ quarters, grumbling the entire way about a number of different ailments, all of which he seemed to blame upon the prisoners, including his digestive problems.

  Stave rapped on a door, and shoved it open. “Lieutenant Clarendon? I brought you the one you asked for, sir.”

  A tall man with a vicious pink scar across his right cheek turned to face them, and Alex tried to keep the expression on his face neutral, but it was impossible. He had been caught completely off guard.

  The lieutenant brushed an invisible speck of lint from his fine red coat, and walked casually up to Alex.

  “Well, well,” he drawled. “What have we here, now? I rather thought it might be you, when I saw that Mr. Alexander MacFarland had been captured on the Lady Meg.” He circled Alex slowly, like a cat ready to pounce at any moment. “How have you been, Robert?”

  Rob said nothing, staring straight ahead.

  “Shame about your friend Thibodeaux,” he continued gently. “Likeable fellow. And what about, hm, dear me, what was her name?” He tapped his finger on his chin thoughtfully. “Oh, right. Cameron. Do you keep in touch?” he smirked.

  There was no answer

  “Guess not,” continued the lieutenant. “That’s okay, I don’t hear from her either. She wasn’t much fun, really.” He looked Rob dead in the eye. “She did make an awful lot of noise in bed, though, didn’t she?”

  And before he could even finish the sentence, Robert McFarlane, who had inexplicably managed to loosen the bonds around his wrists, leapt at him, knocking the powdered wig right off the lieutenant’s head, much to the surprise of Tumblesby and Stave.

  It was his every intention to kill Wayne Sinclair before the dragoons could get off a shot.

  Cameron Clark had never been as exhausted in her life as she was during the weeks of June 1777. Her body ached, and she guessed that she was walking between fifteen and twenty miles a day. That in itself might have been tolerable, but most of the terrain was barely navigable. She found herself on narrow, rocky hillside paths through the woods, and her feet were bloody and blistered from the journey.

  They stopped in the middle of the day to eat, but other than that there was no rest period until they camped for the night, and as they lay by the fire, Running Stream would tell stories. Wanda and Cam had their wrists tied each evening, but were allowed to get up and wander about. Peyton Basham and Ambrose Meador were not as fortunate; they spent their nights sitting lashed to a tree.

  They were all hungry, but Cam always saved a piece of her meal for Ambrose.

  Sometimes, as they walked, Running Stream would come and chat with them. They learned that she was fourteen, rather than the twelve or so they had guessed. Some day she would marry Plenty Rabbits, who had been married once before but his wife had died in childbirth.

  She was stunned to learn that neither Cam nor Wanda had children at their advanced ages, which struck both of them as amusing. Cam recalled a similar conversation she had once carried on with Robert MacFarlane, regarding her lack of marital prospects.

  They also discovered that they were to be given to the commander of Fort Wyndham so that he could then trade them to the Continental Army in exchange for British prisoners.

  “So, what do your people get out of it, turning us over to them?” Wanda asked Running Stream.

  The girl smiled. She had warmed up to them considerably in their time together, and she was quite open about everything they asked her. “We get to live in peace,” she answered softly. “The British leave us be, and they give us guns to defend ourselves if we need it.” She raised her eyes to meet Cam’s.

  “Please do not think badly of my people. We must survive, like anyone else.”

  Cam nodded. She understood, and was saddened by the knowledge of what would become of Running Stream’s people, and the other tribes, over the next two hundred years. She opened her mouth to speak, but Wanda caught her arm.

  It was just a tiny gesture, the slightest shake of Wanda’s head that stopped her. Wanda mouthed, “Don’t.”

  Cam exhaled, and Wanda released her arm. Later that night, when Running Stream had gone to sleep and the rest of the camp was quiet, Cam said, “Why did you stop me?”

  “You were going to warn her, weren’t you? About what happens to all of our brave and noble savages? About how the white man comes, takes all their land, kills their buffalo, and wipes them all out so they can live on a reservation somewhere with an eighty percent unemployment rate?” asked Wanda, all in one breath.

  “It had crossed my mind,” said Cam dryly, “although in not quite such a dramatic way.”

  “Well, you can’t, so forget it,” snapped Wanda.

  “What is with you, anyway?” Cam propped herself up on her elbow and stared at Wanda in the darkness.

  “Nothing. You just can’t change stuff, that’s all. Remember? You might change the outcome of one small life, but you aren’t allowed to mess with the course of history.”

  “Not allowed?” Cam was incredulous. “Now there’s a rulebook or something?”

 
“I just mean that you can’t,” Wanda said stubbornly.

  Cam stared at her. “Can’t because it just won’t happen, or can’t because Wanda Mabry – excuse me, Wanda Duncan – says I can’t?”

  Wanda said nothing.

  “What is this all about, Wanda? I wasn’t going to try to change anything. But I like Running Stream, and I thought I could help her by… I don’t know. Giving her a warning or something,” Cam murmured.

  “Well, she doesn’t need a warning from you. The Mohawks will do as they please until they get wiped out, just like the Shawnee did,” Wanda grumbled from under her thin blanket.

  “The Shawnee? Is that what this is about? I can’t tell Running Stream to protect herself because of what the Shawnee did to your family?” Cam sputtered.

  There was no response. Cam shook her head. “I never pegged you for the vengeful type, Wanda. You didn’t even kill Wayne Sinclair when you had the chance, and I ---“

  “Shut up!” Wanda hissed. “Shut up, Cameron Clark. You don’t know the first thing about it, and killing Wayne Sinclair would have given me more pleasure than I can even tell you. But I had my reasons for letting him live, and I am not under any obligation to discuss them with anyone, especially you!”

  Wanda wriggled to her feet, encountering some difficulty because of her skirts, and flounced off to the other side of the clearing.

  Cam lay awake for a long time afterwards. She thought about Wanda’s family, lost in a raid near Big Lick – Roanoke -- two years ago. I wonder if I would feel the same way, if I were in her position. Probably not, she concluded. Then again, I guess Ill never know, since when my family died it was a freak accident…

  They would be at Fort Wyndham in two days, and Cam was thankful. Finally, she slept, Wanda’s words echoing in her dreams.

  By the time Tumblesby and Stave pulled him off Wayne Sinclair, Robert MacFarlane had managed to inflict a fair amount of damage. Sinclair’s lip was bloody, one eye – the blue one -- was swollen shut, and there were livid bruises on his neck from Rob’s hands.

  Gasping, Sinclair reeled away from Rob, leaning over his desk, where he vomited into a stack of papers.

  Tumblesby and Stave held Rob pinned against the door. The fat dragoon pummeled Rob’s side with his pudgy fist, while the smaller one jabbed at him with the end of his musket.

  Sinclair poured himself a glass of wine from a decanter on the side table and sat, sipping it carefully.

  “Well,” he croaked finally, “I can’t say I’ve missed you either.” He nodded to Tumblesby. “Hold him still,” Sinclair ordered.

  They obeyed, and Sinclair took the musket from Stave, who was watching with avid interest. Sinclair examined the musket carefully, and held it level with Rob’s face.

  “I could shoot you now,” he said hoarsely. “I could load and fire and no one would ever be the wiser. Men die in prison all the time, especially here at Fort Wyndham. I could shoot you now,” he repeated.

  Rob smiled at him. “Do it.”

  Sinclair blinked owlishly. “Robert, I am starting to think you’re really not that afraid of me. You’re not, are you?”

  “I am not. Should I be?” Rob asked softly. “I am here because I was captured aboard the Lady Meg as we prepared to board a British cargo ship. I am being charged with piracy and most likely will hang before the week is out.” He narrowed his eyes at Sinclair. “So, Lieutenant Clarendon, I dinna think that there is much ye could threaten me with that would strike fear into my soul.”

  Sinclair moved his face closer to Rob’s. “Do you see this scar?”

  “I’d be a blind man to miss it.”

  “Wanda Mabry gave me that. Shot me in the face, dragged me down a mountainside and left me to die,” he hissed. “There are worse things than death, Robert. Much worse.”

  How well I know, Rob thought. How well I know.

  “Let me tell you something, Robert MacFarlane, or Alexander MacFarland, whichever you prefer. From this moment until the one in which your sorry corpse dangles from the hangman’s rope,” whispered Wayne Sinclair, “I am going to give you plenty of reasons for you to ask whatever God you believe in to let you die.”

  He spun the musket around with lightning speed, and slammed the stock into Rob’s abdomen. Robert doubled over, but the dragoons prevented him from falling completely on his face.

  Sinclair stepped back abruptly. “I hope you have made peace with your God, Robert.”

  Rob looked up at him, and smiled through the pain. “And I hope ye’ve done the same with yours, you son of a bitch.”

  The stock of the musket crashed down again, and everything in Robert MacFarlane’s world went black.

  “Clarendon? What the devil is this about? Why do you want me to sit in judgment on a piracy trial? Has it no’ occurred to ye that I may have better things to do?” huffed Brigadier General Simon Fraser.

  Fraser was Scottish by birth, but had allied himself with the British early in his career. Fraser was no fool. Now nearing fifty, he had always known where his own best interests, and that of his landholding family, lay.

  “The 24th has places to be, lad. I canna be sittin’ about your garrison sentencing a bunch o’ pirates to hang when there’s work to be done,” he continued. Fraser was the commander of the 24th Regiment of Foot, and was in somewhat of a hurry. His men had recently assisted in the taking of an American fort on the shores of Lake Champlain, and then promptly engaged in a nasty battle with some New Hampshire militiamen. He was eager to get back to them. “We’re to rendezvous with Howe shortly, as ye may know.”

  Wayne Sinclair smiled and leaned back in his chair, sipping his brandy. “I certainly am sympathetic to that, sir. However, there is one gentleman in particular being held here that you might find of interest.”

  Simon Fraser snorted and scratched his paunchy stomach. “I have no interest at all in pirates, Clarendon. Ye can be assured of that. There’s bigger fish to fry than a bunch o’ inconsequential merchant seamen.”

  Sinclair nodded eagerly. “That is precisely why I asked you to sit in on this trial, sir. I have one man here who is more than a pirate. He’s a traitor to the Crown.”

  Fraser peered narrowly at him, his interest piqued. “Go on, laddie.”

  “His name is Robert MacFarlane, and he was the first mate of a vessel called the Lady Meg, which was apprehended during an attempt to board a British cargo ship. At the time the ship was captured, he was going under another name.”

  “Ye say he was the mate? What of the captain?”

  “Dead,” Sinclair shrugged. “No great loss, really.”

  “An’ why is this man more traitorous that the average privateer?” Fraser inquired.

  WayneSinclair smiled. “He is a member of a Virginia family that is simply infested with traitors. His brother-in-law, an Angus Duncan, was a delegate to the Continental Congress, and is now working within Washington’s intelligence network.”

  “Go on.”

  “Angus Duncan is married to a woman of, shall we say, questionable virtues. She’s a spy,” he said bluntly.

  Fraser stared at him for a long moment. “And ye think this MacFarlane will give us evidence on the brother-in-law and his wife?”

  “I think it’s possible,” admitted Sinclair, licking his lips, “with a little persuasion.”

  “I dinna hold wi’ torture,” said Fraser softly, his tiny eyes glittering. “However, I do understand that in times like these… well, ye do what ye must, aye? When is MacFarlane to appear for trial?”

  Sinclair smiled. “Tomorrow, at noon. Would that delay your trip too much?”

  Fraser belched and scratched himself again. “I suppose not.” He helped himself to more brandy, and sighed. “But it had best be worth it, Clarendon. I shall be very put out if ye’re wasting my time.”

  Ralph Fitzralph was overjoyed to see Robert return to the cell, even as badly bruised as he was. Ralph was terrified he would be raped in Robert’s absence. He didn’t like the way Cor
poral Stave had been looking at him over the last few days.

  “MacFarland! Ye’re still alive!” Ralph exclaimed happily.

  Stave laughed. “Not for long.” He nibbled on a grimy fingernail and eyed Ralph. “He ain’t gonna be here to protect you all the time, boy,” he leered.

  Robert gingerly examined his ribs. “Leave the lad alone, Stave, he’s a child,” he muttered.

  Stave squinted at him. “You know we’ll be comin’ back for you later.”

  “Aye. Would ye mind giving a message to yon Lieutenant Clarendon for me?” asked Rob politely.

  “What is it?”

  Robert smiled. “Tell him that next time, if I get a chance, I’ll kill him.”

  Stave and Tumblesby were the ones who came to get him that night, of course. The three other men in the cell put up a bit of opposition, not so much because they were concerned about Robert’s well-being but because they were simply not looking forward to any more of Ralph Fitzralph’s incessant blubbering. Tumblesby put a stop to any thoughts of resistance by waving his musket around furiously and shouting the men back into a corner.

  Stave promised Ralph he’d be back for him later, and then he and Tumblesby led Rob back to the officer’s quarters.

  Wayne Sinclair was, as Rob expected, waiting for him.

  “You may go,” he said abruptly to the two dragoons.

  Tumblesby frowned. “Begging your pardon, Lieutenant, but he has promised to kill you at the first opportunity.”

  Sinclair nodded solicitously. “And I do appreciate your concern, Corporal. But I don’t think that opportunity will ever arise,” he said softly, looking at Robert, who noted with satisfaction that the swelling around Sinclair’s blue eye had increased somewhat. Maybe I’ll blacken the brown one for you next…

  The dragoons left, and Robert was alone with Sinclair once more.