Manly Wade Wellman - Novel 1961

by Rifles at Ramsour's Mill (v1. 1)

“What is this I hear of your fighting, my son?” demande Alan Harper sternly.

  “Does bad news travel so fast, Father?”

  “Aye, Zack, lad, it’s bad news indeed when neighbors lik yourself and Godfrey have fighting words,” said Protherc “Godfrey rode in, even now, to tell of it. And I’m here to make peace with my neighbors ere they turn to war, as have America and England.”

  “Zack, we’d be obliged for your own account,” said Alai Harper.

  Zack told what had happened in front of the school shed, as briefly and calmly as he knew how. The two older men heard him out in silence, and when he had done John

  Prothero put a plump hand on Alan Harper’s lean, square shoulder.

  “What are we to do, old friend?” he appealed. “You and I have seen something of war, and are sure we want to see no more of it. Yet our two sons are ready for blows and defiances and—”

  He broke off, shaking his head again. Zack knew that Mr. Prothero, like his own father, had served against the French and Indians a quarter of a century earlier, and that he had spoken as a quiet neutral ever since 1775, the year when America and Great Britain began to fight.

  “Mr. Prothero, I’m sorry for what happened,” Zack ventured to say. “Yet I do protest it was none of my doing. That man Alspaye struck Will Caldwell a craven blow without warning, and I could not but speak against it. And when he dared me to fight him, I fought.”

  “I do not blame you, Zack,” Prothero assured him frankly. “If I could but believe things would stop where they are. You rid Godfrey never fell out before, but now—”

  A sudden clatter of hoofs, and a rider was upon them. He ecognized Grace Prothero, Godfrey’s sister. She was slender in her brown riding habit, her honey-gold hair was disordered, and her blue eyes were wide and tearful.

  “Father,” she quavered. “Godfrey—he’s—”

  “He’s what, child?” demanded Prothero sharply.

  Grace Prothero gulped and blinked. “When you told him he’d played the hothead, and then you rode here, Godfrey vas furious,” she said, trying to keep her voice steady. “He rowed he’d not be scolded like a child, or be lectured as to where his duty lies, when his King calls upon all true subjects. He rode off with that man—Mr. Alspaye—and called back to me that he would join Colonel Moore’s Tory volunteers—” She faced Zack, and now her eyes and voice were steady. “And you,” she accused. “ ’Twas you who began this fisticuffing that has sent my brother into the ranks of the British.”

  “Grace, I—”

  Zack could say no more. Grace Prothero daunted him. Once they had been gay and comradely, as children wading in the shallows of the South Fork or hunting through the woods for grapes or strawberries or birds’ nests. Of recent years, however, Grace had grown grand and stately and formal. Zack, in his buckskins, had become embarrassed before her silks and satins, her disturbing gravities, and her more disturbing smiles. Now, indicted as a bringer of ill fortune to her and her family, he could think of nothing to offer in his own defense. It was her father who spoke for him.

  “Moderate your words, Grace,” said Mr. Prothero. “It wasn’t Zack’s doing. He did not fight with Godfrey at all, but with—”

  “He threatened Godfrey,” interrupted Grace. Her slirr gloved hand tightened upon her gold-handled riding whip

  “Not I,” protested Zack at once. “Godfrey drew a pistol or me, and I dared him to shoot. He did not do so.”

  “Because your friends were there in great number,” Grace flung back. “Had he fired on you, he would have been helpless in their hands.”

  “Then heaven be thanked that they were there,” pronounced Mr. Prothero heartily. “Grace, child, I seek to compose differences here. And you seek to aggravate them. Are you, like Godfrey, a Tory?”

  “Not I! ” she blazed out. “I stand for the Continental Congress and for blue and buff against red coats. If I say that, can’t you wonder that I am wounded when my brother is driven to join the enemy?”

  “It was not I who drove him to that, Grace,” Zack insisted. She turned from him without replying, and mounted her horse. A flick of the handsome whip, and she was gone. Mr. Prothero breathed deeply. It was almost a groan.

  “Alan, my friend,” he said to Zack’s father, “I must go and see what I can do about my two willful children. One for the King, one for the Congress, and myself midway between. This will be nothing to make enemies of the two of us?”

  “Naught in the least, John,” Mr. Harper assured him, and the two shook hands. Zack bowed to Mr. Prothero, who mounted and rode away on the trail his daughter had taken. Alan Harper clicked his tongue mournfully. “I grieve for that man, Zack,” he confessed. “Money he has, and lands, and a fine house, and many valuables beside, but neither of is two children obeys him. I hope—”

  Breaking off, he looked searchingly at his son. “I hope,” he began again, “that you do not mean to go on fighting as you did this day.”

  “Only if a fight is forced on me, Father.”

  Alan Harper sat down on the bench. He picked up the arness again, took an awl and a leather thong, and began to aend it.

  “Your two brothers are far away,” he said. “Benjamin in the mountains with his wife and children, at Sycamore Shoals, and Steve off somewhere in the Tennessee country with those rappers. Yet I trust them both for true and honest men, leither swift to get into folly nor slow to take their own part. And, Zack,” his voice grew slow and serious, “neither of them has as yet taken arms in this sorry strife with old England.”

  “No,” agreed Zack, and sat beside his father.

  “I know not how matters will turn out,” went on Alan Harper, “whether America will go free, or will return kindly o English rule. But, my boy, what I do know is that I’ve seen somewhat of war, and it was more terrible to see than my tongue can tell. I don’t want you to see it as I did.”

  He waited. Zack said nothing. His father had always stopped short of telling how Braddock was defeated up in Pennsylvania.

  “Well?” prompted Alan Harper at last.

  “I don’t know how to answer you, Father. I heard today that Colonel John Moore was assembling Tory volunteers—”

  “Aye, he was doing that more than a year ago,” reminded Mr. Harper quickly. “You heard that from our friends were of here. He had two hundred and more to take up arms an follow him, and he seized the horses of old Timothy Rigg and the saddle and gun of Abe Clark. Moore was raising a army of about two thousand to fight for King George in thes parts, but then he went to South Carolina, and his follower melted away.”

  “Colonel Moore is back now,” Zack said. “And this time he claims to have the true hand and help of England.”

  “You believe that, my son?”

  “This man Alspaye showed us a whole fistful of golden sovereigns,” said Zack. “I told you that, did I not? Gold coin of British money, not those worthless Continental notes that aren’t worth the ink used to print them.”

  “So,” said Alan Harper heavily. “Zack, you have a quick eye and a wise head to put such thoughts together. Gold money means British backing, sure enough. But—”

  He made a gesture with the awl.

  “You know how I went with Braddock into Pennsylvania,” he said. “I have not told that matter to you or your brothers or your mother. It’s nothing to please the ear, Zack. You know not what war is, bloody war, with the noise of guns and the war-cries of enemies, and your choice friends and comrades falling at your side. I pray heaven you don’t ever find out.”

  “Aren’t you two hungry for your noon meat?” cried the voice of Zack’s mother. She came into the open space under the central roof, a pleasant-faced, vigorous woman, with gray streaks in her heavy dark hair. “There’s venison stew,” she said, “with blueberry conserves for the corn dodgers.”

  They rose at her summons. “No word of this just now,” whispered Alan Harper, and Zack nodded agreement.

  The dinner was a good one, savory smoked venison in -avy
and stacks of hot corn cakes, but neither Zack nor his ther spoke many words as they ate. Mrs. Harper looked from one to the other, in deep mystification. “I declare,” she said, “if we had a cat, I’d say it had both your tongues. Was Mr. Prothero’s visit so stunning an event?” Her husband drank from his copper mug of spruce beer, and wiped his mouth. “Nell,” he said portentously, “I can no longer conceal from you—”

  He broke off in mid-sentence. The hoofs of a horse sounded plain, before the very door, and then a loud voice: “Whoa, boy! Hello, the house!”

  Zack and his father both sprang up from their stools. Toother they strode swiftly to the door, and Zack, reaching , there a pace the quicker, pulled up the latch, and opened it. As he did so, he heard a heavy clank of metal as Alan Harper fized the long rifle from the deer horns on the wall beside the jamb.

  Outside was Andy Berry, astride his father’s roan-gray orse. He waved a hand in greeting.

  “More tidings, Zack,” he cried. “Will Rankin—you know his family, their home is north of here on Dutchman’s Creek, is back from South Carolina. ’Twas he brought that news of Charleston. Now Will seeks volunteers for Captain McKissick’s new company. We’re meeting at Mr. Blythe’s, all of us.” He made a beckoning gesture. “Ask your father for that rifle, and come with me.”

  Alan Harper dropped the rifle butt to the puncheon floor.

  It struck like a mighty drum-beat. His other hand seized his son’s shoulder in a steel-trap grip. “No, Zack,” he said in a husky whisper.

  “Not now, Andy,” said Zack obediently.

  Andy’s young face fell. “But they want you, Zack. All are asking for you. After you struck down that Tory boaster— “Not now, Andy,” Zack said again. “I must not be hasty.”

  “We still pray for peace in this part of the land,” added Mr. Harper.

  “Peace?” echoed Andy. “Why, sir, there is no peace.” He leaned from his saddle. “I am no seasoned veteran,” said emphatically, “but I can read a track on the trail or tell the float of a stick in a stream with the best. The British are coming in their thousands, and the folk here who follow King George are rising to welcome them. Mr. Harper, every man and boy who can march and hold a gun will be constrained to choose England or America, freedom or the crown.”

  “I must think,” Zack insisted.

  Andy gathered up his reins. “Think, then,” he replied “but don’t think long. There is scant time. We’ll watch and hope for you at the muster at Mr. Blythe’s.”

  He kicked his horse’s flank and raced off among the trees The two Harpers watched him go, the father’s powerful grin still fastened on the son’s shoulder.

  “You say you choose neither side, Father,” said Zack. “Does that mean you still hold by King George?”

  “Alas, Zack, how can I hold by the King? I was born in England. I was the King’s subject in the old country and in this new one, and once I fought for the King. But now, when he sends his soldiers among our homes and fields—Zack, I cannot say that I am still loyal.”

  “Nor can I, Father. What must we do?”

  “Wait for the nonce. Do not go to that enlistment of volunteers. We can but pray for peace.”

  “Pray?”

  That was Mrs. Harper. She had joined them at the open door.

  “Alan,” she said, “I heard what Andy Berry said before he rode off. Peace is past praying for, I doubt, for there is no peace.”

  3 Tory Rendezvous

  THE muster from which Zack stayed away did not result in any immediate marching. Some twenty-five neighbors of the Harpers including most of Zack’s older schoolmates, signed their names to a company enlistment roll offered by Captain Daniel McKissick, then were ordered to return to their homes and wait a summons in case of any invasion danger.

  Invasion did not come that May. Zack, loosening earth around the sprouting corn in the patch behind the Harper home on the last day of the month, heard his name called. Two figures stood at the trail side. One was Will Caldwell, and the other Enoch Gilmer, a middle-sized man in his twenties. Gilmer had a local reputation for pranks, but just now he looked serious.

  ”You seem busy enough,” said Will, leaning on the rail fence and twiddling the staff he carried.

  “Aye,” agreed Zack, raking out a stone with the blade of his hoe. “What is the news of your rifle company?”

  “Very little indeed,” Will told him. “Once or twice Captain McKissick has called us out to drill.”

  “And we drill mighty awkwardly,” added Enoch Gilmer.

  “So I can believe,” nodded Zack. “I would think you’d do better to practice shooting at a mark.”

  “Why that?” demanded Gilmer, chuckling. “Captain McKissick knows that every man jack of us can knock a squirrel out of a tree at seventy-five paces. No, Zack, I doubt if we prosper much standing in line, marching here and marching there, sloping and shouldering and grounding firelocks at the word. If the British come, I’m for fighting them Indian fashion—hide behind trees and stones, fire when and where they least look for us. That has driven redcoats ere this.”

  “So I have heard,” said Zack, remembering what little his father had told him of Braddock’s disaster.

  “In any case,” went on Will, “word comes that Cornwallis will never move hither except in the autumn, when harvest is done and his army can feed itself from our cribs and its horses from our haystacks. That is still a long way ahead.”

  Zack looked from one of his friends to the other. “Tell me frankly, does anyone blame me for not joining the company?”

  Will shook his head, and Gilmer laughed aloud. “None who count,” said Gilmer. “We know that when there’s true reason for a muster you’ll be there.”

  “Aye,” seconded Will, “and up front in the fighting.” When his friends had gone, Zack hoed more slowly and thoughtfully. His mates trusted him, expected his help in case of need. Yet there had been the word to his father, who continued to hope and pray for peace.

  Cornwallis and his British regulars still tarried far away in South Carolina. But there were settlers of this very region, American-born for the most part, who remained loyal to England. Such men were gathering, he had heard again and again, at the call of Colonel John Moore. Hadn’t Robinson Alspaye preached Moore’s gospel? If Tory volunteers were mustering here, then they meant to prepare the way for Cornwallis to march to the very shores of the South Fork.

  Cornwallis. Zack had heard about him from men who had heard other men describe the noble-born commander from England. Lord Charles Cornwallis, lieutenant-general in the armies of His Britannic Majesty, George the Third, was overwhelming and invincible, red-coated, gold-braided, and powder-wigged, a giant figure on a huge horse, followed by fierce, glittering hordes of soldiers. Who could stand against such a conquering warrior?

  Another vision came to Zack. That was of a tall, powerfully-limbed man with big features and a coat of blue, George Washington. His father had spoken of Washington as a young colonel of Virginia militia in Braddock’s force, and had praised him for courage and leadership. Now, as Zack knew, Washington was the hope of the American patriots, a leader who had survived terrible defeats to score considerable victories. It would be Cornwallis against Washington, and thousands of British against thousands of Americans. Perhaps the decisive battle would happen here, right in the Harper corn patch within sight of the Harper house.

  Zack snorted fiercely to himself and swung the hoe with all his strength, then stepped back, embarrassed. He had chopped several young blades of corn out of the ground in the excitement of his imaginings.

  “Good day to you, Zack,” said a clear voice.

  It was Grace Prothero. She had ridden up softly, without his knowing, and sat her sidesaddle, looking across the rails at him with something like apprehension. Her riding skirt and jacket were dark, and so was her round hat and the veil on it. She looked as though she were in mourning, both as to costume and mood.

  “Grace,” said Zack, and leaned upon his
hoe. With his linen shirt sleeve he wiped his damp brow. “How do you fare, and your father?”

  “I am worried, Zack. And Father—he’s troubled. About Godfrey.”

  “What do you hear of him?”

  She shook her head. “We hear naught, ever since he rode away with his friend, that man Alspaye. Not even a rumor from up yonder on Indian Creek, where Colonel Moore is said to have his quarters.”

  “Indian Creek,” said Zack after her. That was a stream that ran into the South Fork a good twenty miles or so to the northwest. “Is Godfrey there with Moore?”

  Another shake of her head. The sunlight glinted in her hair.

  “We don’t know that, Zack. If Godfrey is there, he could easily send word home, but—” She hesitated. “Well, maybe he has gone to South Carolina. He may even have joined Cornwallis, as other young men of good family are said to have done. My poor father is sick from wondering and puzzling, and I am sick from worry for my father.”

  “I wish I might do something, Grace.”

  “Do you wish that?” she said eagerly. “If you mean your words, Zack, I might ask—”

  “Ask it, Grace,” he urged her at once, and came forward, hoe in hand, to the fence. “I was sorry when we parted bad friends the other day. I’d like to make amends.”

  “It is I who should make amends,” she said. “Taking out my fear and anger upon you, as I did, was a naughty child’s trick. But you say you will help.”

  She slid down from her saddle, and came to the rail, holding the reins. “You can help,” she said, looking into his eyes.

  “Can I so?” he said, looking down at the blade of the hoe.

  “We do not see you so often as in the past,” Grace said gently.

  “That’s no strange thing,” he decided to say. “You live on a plantation, I live on a farm. Your pleasures are balls and music parties, mine are hunts and barn-raisings.”

  “Zack!” Grace pleaded. “But you and I were friends as children.”

  “And not enemies now, as I hope. You said I could help you.”