The Cane Creek Regulators

by Boggs, Johnny D. ; Flosnik, Anne;

  * * * * *

  When March swept in, the reverend announced that it was time he left the comforts of Ninety Six and took the gospel down the trail to Pine Tree. He preached his final sermon that Sunday, and, after partaking in the biggest meal since his arrival, he climbed aboard his mule, with Emily riding sidesaddle on Ezekiel to the minister’s right, and her brother Donnan on a gray gelding on Monteith’s left.

  “As God is my witness,” Monteith announced, “I shall have these two warring siblings burying the hatchet by the time we reach Mister Gouedy’s trading post. And I will return them to you with smiles on their faces.”

  “Just have them home by supper,” Machara said with a smile.

  With Stewart playing “Auld Lang Syne” on his bagpipes and Rachel Zachary and Mrs. Cochrane singing, the Reverend Douglas Monteith, Emily, and Donnan rode south down the Charlestown Road. The parson tipped his hat, smiling widely, and thanked the settlers for a fine send-off. Emily and Donnan did not smile.

  The look on their faces had not changed by the time they passed the Cherokee Trail. When they reached the ruins of the old stockade, Donnan began to curse underneath his breath, just loud enough for Emily to hear. They had not made up by the time they had passed Gouedy’s trading post. Although the preacher had said nothing up to this point, when they were passing Gouedy’s muddy hemp fields, he reined in the mule.

  “You may turn around now, children,” he said without looking at either. “I can find my way from here.”

  Donnan cleared his throat. “Da said for us to see you across the Saluda.”

  “If I promise I will not drown …?”

  “Suit yourself,” Donnan replied, and, tugging his reins, he turned the gray, still not looking at his sister.

  “Wait a minute, Brother,” Emily said.

  Donnan snapped, “He is a grown man.”

  “The river might be high,” she said. “That is why Da sent us along.”

  “That is why he sent me. You were sent as part of a scheme between Da and …” he jerked his thumb toward the preacher, “him.”

  “Not Da.” Emily shook her head. “Mum, mayhap. But it would be my guess that this was concocted by one man, and that man sits on a mule by us.”

  “Mum and Da had to go along with it,” Donnan said.

  “There.” Monteith clapped his hands, leaned back his head, and laughed. “See how easy it is?”

  Emily blinked. “What do you mean?”

  “How easy it is,” Monteith slapped his leg, and pointed at Emily, then Donnan, “to carry on a conversation.”

  She muttered an oath, but noticed that Donnan had reined in his horse. He no longer was looking at the preacher, but at Emily.

  Monteith swung from the saddle, letting the mule graze as he walked toward the brother and sister. He frowned. “I do not know what happened at Christmas, and I have not pried into your disagreement.” He stood between them now. “Yet this I do know.” He looked at Donnan. “You are not Cain.” Turning to Emily, he said: “And you are not Abel.”

  With a snort, Emily spat out, “I would be the one doing the slaying, Reverend.”

  “Yes, indeed.” Donnan spit over the gray’s withers. “You are good at that, Sister.”

  Blood rushed to her head, and she had to cut off the curse forming in her throat.

  “Donnan,” the preacher said, “you lash your sister with bitter words, but it is not she who makes you angry. You are like the criminals who roamed this country during the summer last. You find someone weaker than yourself, and you attack them. But when they strike back … as your sister did on Christmas …” He shook his head. “I have prayed for you both, but you must not go on like this.”

  “Go to hell, Preacher,” Donnan said, and kicked the gelding into a lope, heading back toward Gouedy’s post and Ninety Six.

  When he reached the woods and left their view, Monteith looked at Emily, his face heavy with sadness.

  “’Tis not your fault, Reverend,” she said. “You tried.”

  “He is a lost soul.”

  “He has been like that since the Cherokee War,” Emily said. “Growing worse. More bitter, I mean.”

  “Well, I will continue to pray for him.” Monteith walked back to his mule. “But tell me, Emily, what happened at the dance? What did Donnan say to you?”

  Feeling uncomfortable, she shrugged, then said, “He called me a name.”

  “Brothers and sisters have a tendency to do that,” Monteith said as he climbed into the saddle. “I know my sister did. And so did I … when I was much younger.”

  “It was a dirty name.”

  “Once, my sister called me a niff-naffy fellow, and I said she was something much worse.”

  “What Donnan called me was much worse.”

  “It is only a name, and names cannot hurt.”

  “It hurt,” she said.

  “Aye. I must correct myself. Names cannot hurt in the physical sense. But Donnan did not mean it, I am sure.”

  “That might be some Dutch comfort,” she said, then, staring at Monteith, added, “but he meant it.”

  “Then I shall pray for you, too, child.”

  He kicked the mule. Emily watched him for a moment, then, sighing heavily, gave the dun a kick and caught up with the preacher.

  “You do not have to follow me, Emily.”

  “Da said to make sure you got across the river.”

  He chuckled, and said, “I forded many streams between the Welsh Neck and Ninety Six, Emily.”

  “That was in the summer. There has been much snow melt. And there is no ferry or bridge betwixt here and the Congaree.”

  “Which is something Mister Gouedy, your father, and many others lament about rather frequently. Mayhap I shall bring this up to the Assembly or governor when next I am in Charlestown.”

  They entered the woods, and fell silent. Emily appreciated the quiet.

  Although winter had been long, spring came quickly in the backcountry. Already trees exploded with new leaves. Birds and squirrels bantered as the forest thickened, soon blocking out most of the sunlight. A carpet of sprouting green cushioned the hoofs of their mounts, and, after a few miles, Emily could hear the roaring of the Saluda River. No, she thought, we will not be crossing the river today.

  Monteith must have heard the river, too, for he reined in his mule, and Emily pulled alongside him. Almost instantly she saw that the preacher had not stopped because of the sound of water. She reached inside her pocket and withdrew the ivory-handled pistol.

  Three bearded men, brandishing lopsided grins and long rifles, blocked the trail.

  “Run, Preacher!” she yelled, and pulled back the little weapon’s hammer.

  A hand came around her wrist like a vise and she screamed, watching the pistol fall onto the ground, seeing the massive hand clamped on her arm. Angrily she turned, saw the green eyes and pockmarked face. She reached for the man’s hair with her left hand, but that just made her lose her balance. The pockmarked man jerked, and Emily felt herself falling from the horse. But the man did not let go of her arm, and she felt as if it would break.

  She landed hard, the breath whooshing out of her lungs—her head must have struck a root or rock—as the man, who still gripped her right arm, slammed onto her stomach.

  This time, she knew, Go-la-nv Pinetree would not be here to rescue her. This time, she prayed that Donnan would return in time to help.

  Chapter Twelve

  “Matthäus! Unhand her!”

  “She is mine,” the man atop her said.

  Emily’s eyes opened. Tears of pain, not fear, half blinded her, her head and right arm ached, and for a moment she thought she might vomit.

  “If you do not release that girl, you damned little Hun, I shall be obliged to send you to hell.”

  Maybe a gun was cocked
. She couldn’t tell. She closed her eyes, trying to think clearly. She knew that wasn’t Douglas Monteith talking. It wasn’t Donnan. It was not Go-la-nv Pinetree … but she knew the voice.

  The pressure left her wrist and her stomach as the man climbed off her.

  “What kind of men are you?” That was Monteith.

  “Blindfold them,” the voice said.

  She was trying to sit up, to regain her faculties, when a coarse sack was drawn over her head.

  * * * * *

  Squeezing her eyelids tight, she turned her head from the light as the sack dropped into the fire. Beyond the campfire, she smelled frying pork and baking bread, detected the sound of a Jew’s harp and a fiddle, and, above all, loud voices that lacked tone and rhythm but not good cheer.

  As I rose up one May morning,

  One May morning so wurly,

  I overtook a pretty fair maid,

  Just as the sun was dawnin’,

  With me rue-rum-ray,

  Fother-didle-ay,

  Wok-fol-air-didle-i-do.

  Her stockin’s white, and her boots were bright,

  And her buckling shone like silver;

  She had a dark and a rolling eye,

  And her hair hung round her shoulder,

  With me rue-rum-ray,

  Fother-didle-ay,

  Wok-fol-air-didle-i-do.

  “Where are you going, my pretty fair maid?

  Where are you going my honey?”

  She answered me right cheerfully:

  “I’m on errand for me mummy.”

  With me rue-rum-ray,

  Fother-didle-ay,

  Wok-fol-air-didle-i-do.

  “How old are you, my pretty fair maid,

  How old are you, my honey?”

  She answered me right cheerfully:

  “I am seventeen come Sunday.”

  With me rue-rum-ray …

  She felt hot tin being placed in her hands, and her eyes opened. A man’s face smiled at her, and she looked at the mug of steaming tea she now held. The song continued.

  “Will you take a man, my pretty fair maid?

  Will you take a man, my honey?”

  She answer’d me right cheerfully:

  “I darst not for me mummy.”

  As the voices launched into the chorus, she lifted her eyes. Her face went tight, and she held her breath.

  Finnian Kilduff was in front of her, smiling at her, and then he turned toward the singers and joined them.

  “Will you come down to my mummy’s house,

  When the moon shone bright and clearly?

  You’ll come down, I’ll let you in,

  And me mummy shall not hear me.”

  With me rue-rum-ray,

  Fother-didle-ay,

  Wok-fol-air-didle-i-do.

  Then all the men stopped singing, and a woman’s voice began a solo. Emily looked at a freckle-faced redhead in breeches and a loose cotton smock belting out the words in a rich Welsh tenor.

  Oh, it’s now I’m with my soldier lad,

  His ways they are so winnin’.

  It’s drum and fife is my delight,

  And a pint o’ rum in the mornin’.

  Kilduff clapped his hands, and again joined in with the rest of the group as they sang:

  With me rue-rum-ray,

  Fother-didle-ay,

  Wok-fol-air-didle-i-do.

  With me rue-rum-ray,

  Fother-didle-ay,

  Wok-fol-air-didle-i-do!

  Boisterous laughter filled the camp of tents and crude shelters, set in a clearing surrounded by a palisade of trees. Smoke, Emily noticed, rose into the blue sky not only from the campfire before her, but from others scattered across the camp. These men, and that redheaded woman, were not afraid of someone spotting the smoke.

  Kilduff sat beside her, his legs crossed. Gone were the fine silk jacket and fancy duds, replaced now by deerskin pants, a plaid shirt, loose fitting neckerchief of blue and white polka dots, and a battered black hat. He still wore the high boots, only they were worn and scuffed, not shiny any more.

  Doffing his hat, he bowed, and said, “Miss Emily. Please accept my apologies. Had I known you would be accompanying the parson, we would have waited to make the parson’s acquaintance at a later date that would not have inconvenienced you.”

  The voice was the same. Just a hint of the Irish. The smiling eyes were the same.

  “You had all fall and winter to make the Reverend Monteith’s acquaintance,” she said, dumping the tea between her shoes.

  “As hard as the winter was?” Kilduff’s tongue clucked. She said nothing, and he laughed again. “You are rubbing your wrist, Miss Emily. I have cast Matthäus out of our camp, but had I known he had hurt you, I would have had him flogged.”

  “You can flog yourself, you … highwayman.”

  “The name, you must recall, is Kilduff. Finnian Kilduff.”

  “That is the name you gave me.”

  “And the one my parents saddled upon me,” he said, hooking a thumb at the redhead, now dancing with a scraggly bearded man to “The Escape of Old John Webb.” “Tanwen? Now to her I might have called myself …” he pursed his lips and knotted his brow before finally settling on a name, “Donnan Stewart.”

  She spit into the fire.

  “But I could not lie to you, Miss Emily.” He raised his right hand, snapped a finger, made a gesture.

  She watched two men—one wearing the remnants of a British sailor’s uniform and the other dressed like the Catawba Indian she had seen at the Welsh Neck—open the cowhide door to one of the huts, and bring out the Reverend Douglas Monteith. He shielded his eyes from the sunlight, as they crossed the camp, trying to pull away from the men who finally stopped in front of Emily.

  He whispered as they pushed him onto his knees, “Are you all right, Emily?”

  “Yes.”

  “And how are you, Reverend?” Kilduff asked.

  The preacher turned. “By the Eternal, I shall see you in stocks, sir. And all of these ruffians. Have you no morals?”

  “Not many,” the Catawba answered.

  Emily studied the man and determined that he wasn’t Indian, just dressed like one.

  Kilduff asked Emily, “What are your sentiments?”

  She shrugged. “Stocks … forty lashes less one … or the cord.”

  “Maybe drawn and quartered,” said the woman.

  Emily turned toward the redhead, Tanwen, who laughed and tossed back her long hair. She was, Emily had to admit, an attractive woman with a beautiful voice. “Maybe,” Emily said, and looked back at Kilduff.

  “You waylay us on the road,” Monteith said. “You almost break this poor, defenseless creature’s wrist. You rob us of our livestock. And now you kidnap us, and sing lewd songs before a girl not …”

  “I am seventeen years old, Reverend,” Emily snapped. Well, she would be. Come April.

  “And I dare say she is not poor, and certainly not defenseless,” Kilduff said, and reached underneath his smock, withdrawing Emily’s small pistol and studying it a moment before tossing it back to her. “You will need powder for the pan, naturally, and the steel seems a trifle loose, Miss Emily. You also might wish to clean it now and again.”

  Tanwen laughed. “Preacher,” she said, “we certainly do not want your poor mule and that tiny stallion.”

  The man wearing the sailor clothes slapped his thigh, spit out juice from the snuff between his cheek and gums, and said, “Even though poor mules is about all that’s left in this part of the country.”

  “Thanks to us,” added the white man dressed like a Catawba, then he laughed.

  Silencing his companions with a mere look, Kilduff nodded at Monteith. “And you were not kidnapped, sir.
We were saving you from certain drowning. Had you dared attempt to ford the Saluda, no one but the Almighty would have seen you again.”

  “We were not going to attempt to cross that river!” Monteith barked back.

  “No?” Kilduff snorted.

  “No,” Emily asserted, waiting for the rogue to look at her. “I would not have let him.”

  He laughed, clapped his hand, and asked Tanwen if she would deliver him a jug of kill-devil.

  Emily considered Kilduff for a moment, then studied the camp. The music had stopped, and men were gathering around Kilduff and his “guests” in a semicircle. Most looked like the bulk of her neighbors who lived on farms, or those who hunted in the backcountry and as far west as the Tennessee country. Two were men of color, and she thought she recognized the shorter man as one Mr. Gouedy’s slaves. His clothes had worn so thin, she could not imagine how he had survived the winter. He looked away from her once their eyes met, and she remembered hearing Mr. Gouedy complain that another one of his boys had run off. The man standing next to the runaway slave was the white man with the Roman nose who dressed like a Catawba, but next to him stood a real Indian, attired only in a breechcloth and moccasins. A Santee, by the looks of him, Emily decided.

  Tanwen slid between two of the Negroes, withdrew the cork from a brown clay jug, and took a long pull before tossing the container to Kilduff.

  Twelve men and one woman, yet for some reason, Emily did not feel threatened. Maybe she would have had the German—Matthäus—still been in their midst, but Kilduff said he had kicked him out. For hurting Emily. She decided that these men were not the same as those marauders she had seen in the Welsh Neck.

  “All right,” Kilduff said. He did not drink from the jug, but instead passed it to Monteith. “Rum,” he said. “To slake your thirst … before you deliver to us what we expect you to deliver.”

  “You will find our pockets empty of any stray shillings, sir,” the preacher said, and Emily knew he had not recognized Kilduff.

  Laughing, Kilduff tossed the jug to Gouedy’s ex-slave. “You were not crazy enough to cross the Saluda, and we did not stop you for your own safety,” Kilduff said. “Or to rob you. We brought you here for a glorious reason, Parson.”