Stupidly McIntosh tried to bolt for the open door, but Ferguson’s oldest son tripped him before he had gotten more than four steps, and the man fell to the floor, unable to break his fall with his hands. Ferguson’s sons jerked McIntosh to his feet, blood oozing from his nose and lip, and slammed him against the wall. “Where are the others?” Stewart asked him.
The prisoner sniffled.
“Then make your peace with God,” Stewart declared.
“I do not know, but come September they shall convene at Jacob’s Fork,” said McIntosh.
Emily looked at Donnan, who shrugged and shook his head.
“Jacob’s Fork?” Stewart repeated, and looked at the other men inside Cormorant’s Rock.
“It is in North Carolina!” McIntosh cried out. “In the South Mountains.”
“Draw us a map,” Donnan said, and rifled underneath the bar until he had found a piece of parchment.
Unbound, William Robert McIntosh drew a map. He answered every question the regulators asked him. He said at least three bands of renegades met each September in the South Mountains, to get drunk on kill-devil, to bet on horse races, to brag, to fight, to mingle with whores. A procurer from the settlement called Charlotte Town along the Great Wagon Road brings in a wagonload of courtesans to entertain the outlaws. When the rum is gone, after they whore and gamble and fight themselves out, they disband.
“Fornication, gambling, drunkenness. You turn these colonies into Sodom and Gomorrah,” Monteith said.
“Go help Mum,” Donnan told Emily.
“I shall do no such,” she whispered back at him, but then felt his grip on her arm, tight, hurting, and she whirled at him, but his eyes frightened her. They burned harder than those of her father. As Donnan’s hand let go, Emily turned, not giving her brother the satisfaction of letting him see her rub her arm that she knew would be badly bruised, and moved toward the door.
“How many men?” she heard her father ask.
“Sixty,” McIntosh said. “Maybe more.”
They hanged him, anyway. They did give him a chance to pray with the Reverend Monteith, but did not allow him to wash the pig manure off his face, hands, and clothes.
* * * * *
By August, Monteith was gone, having joined up with the Gouedy clan as they hauled their pelts and other trade goods to Charlestown. Emily felt relief when the mules, carts, and wagons headed down the road, through the trees, and out of sight. She had feared her father would send her along, and this time she doubted there would be a smallpox outbreak in Georgetown to save her.
On a Sunday afternoon, after delivering a loaf of bread to Darlene Courtney and her toddling son—a handsome devil and quite the handful—Emily walked back home. In the cabin in the timbers, Rachel Zachary sat with her husband, laughing as he fumbled with his fiddle. Warblers and wood thrushes, meadowlarks and tanagers sang from their perches in their nests or on limbs. A bobwhite quail called out from the forest, and a pair of squirrels frolicked over her head, chattering, as they leaped from tree to tree. Emily realized she had been whistling as she walked, answering the bobwhite, and it struck her that she felt safe.
Safe. No fear. Her mother had not warned her to be careful, had not asked someone to accompany her to Darlene’s home, and Emily had not even thought about carrying the small pistol with her.
She stopped, and looked at the path between the tavern and Mr. Taylor’s property. The stocks were empty. No one had been strapped to the whipping posts recently. Emily could not even remember the last time she had been wakened in the middle of the night by nightmare of Blubber Cheeks, or the dead Turk, or William Robert McIntosh.
Her father still led patrols, but no hogs had been reported stolen. Horse theft had become a rarity. Certainly there had been no murders. She had to admit that the Cane Creek Regulators were doing their job.
A peace had settled over Ninety Six.
That would change, of course. Most nights, when they were home and not patrolling, her father and Donnan met with Dr. Bayard, Pierre Maupin, James Middleton, and the hog farmer Ferguson, studying the map. Sometimes, Go-la-nv Pinetree would be there.
September, Emily knew, was only two weeks away.
The aroma of shepherd’s pie and Sally Lunn bread drifted out of the oven and cook fire her mother had going in the backyard—it was too hot to cook inside these days—and Emily stopped.
Bent over the pot, Emily’s mother put her hand on her back, and straightened, then wiped sweat from her forehead. She beamed at her daughter, and Emily smiled back.
“Do you need help, Mum?” she asked.
“No, child, but thank you. Supper will be ready in half an hour or so.”
“Thank you. Then I shall go upstairs and practice my reading.”
“Hosea,” her mother said. “Chapters One and Two.”
“Yes, Mother.”
She entered through the back door, stepped through the winter kitchen, and moved into the tavern, then up the stairs and into the loft, to the room where Alan and Elizabeth sat on the floor, drawing pictures. Emily found the Bible, sat on the stool, and opened the book to the Old Testament. She shot a glance at the children, who were preoccupied with their artwork, and she reached underneath the mattress, and pulled out the piece of paper, unfolded it as quietly as possible, and set the paper on the pages of the Bible.
Pretending to read, she studied the map. Cross the river and follow the train northeast, past Glenn Springs, to the Cowpens, a four-day journey. Then north, fording the Broad River at a place marked Boiling Springs, east of Kings Mountain. From there, the South Mountains were a hard day’s ride, almost directly north. To the north and west rose the rugged Blue Ridge, and to the southeast stood Charlotte Town. Not many trails, and the country was hillier, apparently, certainly more rugged than around Ninety Six, but Emily thought she could make this journey. She knew she would regret leaving her mother alone with Elizabeth and Alan, worried sick, and she knew Donnan and her father would make her regret such disobedience.
Why? Emily had to think about that. Why did she want to go to Jacob’s Fork and the South Mountains? She was a girl, no, a woman. She had no business chasing after the regulators, spying on them. Besides, following that map, vague as it appeared, would not be easy. Certainly she did not think she would find Finnian Kilduff at the South Mountains, and even if she did, she wouldn’t be able to rescue him from the stocks or whipping post. As Reverend Monteith had reminded her, Kilduff was not Robin Hood. He was an outlaw, too lazy to earn an honest day’s shilling.
She focused on the map. The hanged pig thief had made the first copy, which Emily’s father had shown to Go-la-nv Pinetree, mentioning to him the South Mountains and Jacob’s Fork and North Carolina. The Cherokee had borrowed that map, over Donnan’s objections, and carried it with him back to the Cherokee village of Keowee. When he had returned, he had brought a new map, with more details, including a few symbols that Emily couldn’t quite decipher. After talking with Go-la-nv for several hours, Dr. Bayard and her father had worked on the map themselves, until they felt confident it would lead them to the haven of the outlaws.
Emily had snuck into the tavern after everyone had left or gone to sleep, found the map, and sketched her own copy.
“Catch the bandits in September,” her father kept saying, “and we will crush their hold on the backcountry once and for all.”
Hoofs sounded outside, and Alan and Elizabeth hurried to the window, staring down, pointing, whispering between themselves.
“Who is it?” Emily asked.
Her brother turned. “I do not know.”
Elizabeth interrupted him. “But there is a lot of them.”
Emily slipped the map out of the Bible, folded it, and stuck it inside her apron, before walking to the window.
She watched the men swing out of their saddles. A number of horses, their hides wet fro
m sweat, already crowded the hitching post and rail, and she heard voices and footsteps on the porch.
“One … two … three …” Elizabeth began.
Emily counted the horses herself. Four pack mules, and an ox-drawn cart loaded with …? She couldn’t tell.
“Seven … eight … eleven,” Alan said.
“Shut up!” her sister snapped. “You have made me lose my count, and nine comes after eight.”
“Does not.”
“Does too.”
“Does not!”
“Emily!”
“Quiet,” she said, shushing her siblings. “Da is speaking.”
“Good tidings to you all,” Stewart was saying from the porch. “You men look as if you have worked up a substantial thirst.”
“And my father has just finished a new batch of persico,” Donnan announced.
“Machara did not think you would be here so soon,” Stewart said. “Nor did I. But we shall put more food in the pots, and bake more bread.”
“Food,” a voice said, “can wait, but mead would be welcome.”
“We brought out own grub, Captain Stewart,” someone else said.
“For the long journey to North Carolina.”
One of the voices she thought she had heard before, but Emily could not place it with either face or name. She studied the men, some unsaddling their horses, a few drinking from gourds, one emptying his canteen over his long, sweat-soaked black head. Backcountry men for certain, who, from the looks of their horses, had traveled far.
Now she could hear voices from inside the tavern, casks being moved to fill steins and mugs, chair legs scraping against the floor, voices mingling with laughter.
A figure rounded the corner of the tavern—a dark man who seemed to have little interest in joining the other men inside the building.
“Indian!” Alan sang out, pointing.
“That’s not Pinetree,” Elizabeth said. “Is it, Emily?”
“No,” she said softly. “His name is Blue.”
“Blue?” Elizabeth asked.
“How do you know his name?” Alan asked.
She didn’t answer. She looked at the Indian with his long hair, no clothing except for the breechcloth, moccasins, and that strange cap. Ye Iswa. Now Emily knew where these men had come from. Now she remembered where she had heard that voice. The Welsh Neck. Owen Devonald and the others who had captured the killers of Dogmael Jones and his family. She watched the Catawba Indian sit silently in front of the well.
“Clarke!” came the voice that she had thought sounded familiar from inside the tavern. “Show Captain Stewart our uniform.”
“Let me get it!”
She watched as a man came out of the building and headed for a ground-reined sorrel horse near the oak tree. He rubbed his hand on the horse’s sleek hide, moved to the saddle, and opened a canvas sack fastened to one of the pommel holsters. Out came a cotton mask, dyed blue, holes cut out for the eyes. That went on his head, and the man returned inside.
“You hide your face like a night rider!” she heard Donnan shout.
“Not in shame,” came the response, “but to strike fear in the raiders we will crush. Is not that right, Captain Devonald?”
Memories of Swift Creek and the Anderson place came back to Emily. The night attack, and the capture of the killers who then had been sent to Charlestown. Where the governor pardoned enough of them to reap a whirlwind across the South Carolina backcountry. She heard herself whisper, “For good order and harmony of the colony.”
“What?” Alan asked.
Emily brought her finger to her lips, and the two children went quiet.
“We are the Peedee Regulators, Breck,” Devonald was saying. “And I respectfully will follow your command as we ride to crush the vermin at the South Mountains. Have you heard from Captain Pegues?”
“He will join us at Boiling Springs,” Stewart answered.
Pegues. Emily had not met him, but she had heard her father speak of him often enough. A rich planter from Cheraw, Captain Claudius Pegues commanded Cheraw’s vigilante group.
“And what of Henry Hunter and his boys?” Devonald asked.
Hunter. She knew of him, too, commanding the regulators at the settlement once known as Pine Tree but now being called Camden.
“I did not send word to Hunter,” Stewart informed him. “Nor to Gideon Gibson at Mars Bluff. Nor the man … I disremember his name … leading the campaign on the Saluda.”
“And what of William Wofford?” another man asked.
“I do not know him, and those who I know not, I do not trust,” Stewart said. “Secrecy will mean the success of our mission, gentlemen. If word reaches the outlaws, then this campaign will be for naught.”
“Well, Breck,” Devonald said, “we are with you, and glad to be here, and glad that you know, and trust, the Peedee Regulators.”
As Devonald broke out into some Welsh war ballad, Emily led Alan and Elizabeth away from the window.
“We need to do our Bible studies,” Emily said, and opened the book to Hosea. Yet she wasn’t thinking about the Scripture she read to her siblings. She was thinking about that mask, the uniform of the Peedee Regulators.
Now she knew how she could follow her father and his men to Jacob’s Fork.
Chapter Sixteen
In the morning the two groups of regulators rode out of Ninety Six. Breck Stewart stood in the tavern, waiting for Emily to come down the stairs, hands behind his back.
She stopped as soon as she saw him, swallowed nervously, and continued down the steps. The tavern was empty, but through the open door she saw her mother hurrying out to the men as they saddled, handing them the biscuits she had spent all night preparing. A chorus, including Darlene Courtney and Rachel Zachary, serenaded the men with “The Flowers o’ the Forest.”
“Good morning, Daughter,” Stewart said, smiling.
“Da.” She reached the main floor, holding her breath as he brought his hands out from behind him. Her eyes dropped to her stare at her feet as soon as she saw the blue-dyed mask in his hands.
“Come here, Emily,” he said, not harshly and without condemnation. She watched him drop the mask on a table, and when she could not make her legs move, she saw him approaching her, and then his massive arms were around her, hugging her with the strength of a black bear.
The tears broke free, and she sobbed. Squeezing her even tighter, he kissed her hair, and whispered, “You are a Stewart of Appin. Next to Machara, you are the love of my life. I know a father should not have favorites, but you are mine. You always have been. You always will be. Did you really think you could follow us to North Carolina?”
She cried even harder, and fought to get the words out. “I … thought … I could … try.”
He pulled back, keeping his hands on her shoulders, smiling through the tears in his own eyes. “I have left Nutmeg with ol’ Benji Cooper,” he said. “The saddle is in Cooper’s barn. He has been told that you are not to have it, that you are not to leave this village, for three days. Now … I must trouble you for the map.”
She felt regret when he released his hold. His hands, she feared, were the only things keeping her steady on her feet. Her left hand slid into the pocket of her apron, and came out with the folded piece of parchment.
He took it, shoved it inside the leather pouch hanging over his shoulder, and shook his head. “You are a wonder, child.”
Emily wiped her nose. “How did you find out?”
His head tilted in the direction of the assembling men. “David Clarke discovered his mask was missing. Some of the boys said he must have lost it in a state of drunkenness, but I had another notion. You have been studying your Bible much more than usual, Emily, and your mother thought it odd that she found the quill and ink on the table in your bedroom.”
Nodding,
accepting defeat, she brushed the last of her tears from her cheek.
“Do you have a weapon?” he asked.
For just a moment, she thought he might just take her with them. After all, she had been with the men at the Welsh Neck just more than a year ago, but then she realized the foolishness of such a thought, shrugged, and said, “The pistol you gave me.”
Stewart’s head bobbed. “Keep it. Things have been peaceful here, but one cannot be certain the vermin who prey on others will not strike here whilst we are gone.” He turned to go, but stopped, and came back to embrace her even harder, longer, before he finally pulled away.
“Wipe your eyes a final time, Daughter, and join Alan and Elizabeth to see the Cane Creek Regulators and the Peedee Regulators ride to glory. Remember …” his voice lowered, “you are a Stewart of Appin. I love you. I have always been proud of you, and shall always be proud of you.”
He whirled, and his long legs carried him out the door, but not before he snatched David Clarke’s mask off the table.
Emily stood there, trying to gather her composure. Finally she managed a tentative step forward, then another, and, sucking in a deep breath, she found herself stepping through the doorway and onto the porch to the cacophony of shouts, songs, and curses mingling with the whinnying of horses and the stamping of nervous hoofs on the ground in front of the tavern.
Emily shivered. She remembered last year, how hard that winter had been, how early it had struck, and prayed it would not happen again. She realized that the chill she felt was not from the wind, which blew warm, but from somewhere inside her. Pulling up the collar of her dress, she moved down the porch where Alan and Elizabeth stood waving.
“I wish they’d let me go with them,” Alan said.
“Me, too,” Elizabeth said, and, looking up at Emily, she asked, “Do not you wish so, too?”
Emily smiled weakly and shook her head. “We must know our place,” she said softly. “And we must be brave. We are Stewarts … Stewarts of Appin.”
“I still wish I could go with them,” Alan muttered.
The Cane Creek Regulators Page 13