Riding Shotgun

by Rita Mae Brown

  “Follow me.” Tom moved back toward the edge of the woods by the clover fields. As Pryor and Bobby approached the woods they moved more cautiously.

  Tom whispered, “If they’re heading west we might be able to hear them or see them. They won’t come out on the river road.”

  “Do the trails go toward the Falls?”

  “Aye,” Bobby whispered back, “and far beyond.”

  They slipped into the woods, senses alert. As they neared the old Indian trail, Tom crouched, holding up his hand to halt… no sound but the sleet crashing into bare branches. He motioned for Cig to get behind a large walnut. He inched forward, Bobby behind him. Then they lay flat on the miserable ground with hollies for cover.

  The clatter of the sleet intensified. Cig felt woozy until she realized she was holding her breath. They stayed motionless for what seemed a long time. Then a footfall riveted them. Tom pulled out his flintlock. She pulled hers. Bobby reached for his knife.

  A figure ran by, his sides heaving, the stench of fear on him. Moments later five other Indians sped by, the fleetest closing on his quarry. He dropped to his knee, put an arrow in his bow and fired in one graceful motion. She heard a muffled yell. The pursuers leaped forward. She heard what sounded like grunts and then nothing. Just the sleet.

  Tom lay stock-still. Ten minutes later he got to his knees as did Bobby. Tom motioned with his head for her to follow. They moved along the trail, nearly white now as the sleet turned to snow.

  Five hundred yards up the trail a figure lay in a heap. Tom cocked his flintlock, warily moving in. He reached the Indian before Cig did. He uncocked his pistol. An arrow had pierced the man’s chest but that hadn’t killed him. Two or three mighty blows to the head had crushed his skull. His scalp had been torn off his skull in haste.

  Instinctively, Cig made the sign of the cross over his body. “May the Lord have mercy upon his soul.”

  A tight smile crossed Tom’s lips. “He’s with his spirits now wherever that is. Poor savage.” He carefully inspected the body. “Another Tuscarora.”

  “Like t’other one.” Bobby spoke in his guttural way.

  Tom reached down to pick up the dead Indian’s long hunting knife. Cig almost blurted out, “Don’t, in case of fingerprints.”

  He handed the knife to Cig. “You need this.”

  Cig bent down for a closer look, the fresh smell of blood curling into her nostrils. “He’s middle-aged and strong.”

  “And rich.” Tom opened the pouch tied to his belt. It was stuffed with roanoke, an Indian form of money made from shells.

  “Whoever killed him didn’t kill him for his money,” Cig said.

  “No time to get rid of him.” Bobby thought out loud. “Figured the animals would get to him before anyone else did.”

  “How do Indians dispose of their own dead?” Cig felt her throat constrict with the question.

  “They wrap the body in skins and woven mats and put it on a scaffold about twelve feet high. The women paint their faces black and cry and howl for a full day.”

  Bobby added, “When there’s no flesh left on the body the relatives wrap the bones in a new mat and bury them in a big pit along with other bones.”

  “Don’t they put bodies in trees?”

  “I’ve heard that, yes—the body of a great enemy warrior. As a mark of respect.”

  “Still scalp him though,” Bobby laconically said.

  “Barbarians.” Tom stood up after tying the money pouch to his belt.

  She shivered involuntarily.

  “Cold?” Bobby asked.

  “A touch.” She was thinking about the skeleton they’d found in the tree the day she passed through time. Whoever he was, he had been a great warrior.

  “Let’s drag him out of here.” Bobby grabbed a leg. Tom grabbed the other one. Cig took turns spelling the men. After an hour they reached the clover fields. Cig walked to the barn and put a halter on Castor, bringing the big draft horse back. Tom and Bobby heaved the body over the pliable animal.

  Cig went to get Margaret. She found Hugh, armed with an axe, with her. Margaret threw on her shawl and the three of them met the two men at the barn. Margaret didn’t flinch at the sight of the man’s bashed-in head. Like everyone of the time, she had seen plenty worse than that.

  “Tuscarora,” Tom informed his wife, then said to Bobby and Hugh, “Tie up his chin, arms and legs. Let’s put him in the corncrib. In this weather he’ll keep. If the weather lets up I’ll ride to Wessex tomorrow to fetch Lionel. Hugh, you can ride to Shirley.”

  Marie ran into the barn and shrieked. Bobby put his arm around her. “They’re up to no good! They stole three cows from Flowerdew Hundred last week. Next they’ll come for us.”

  “You don’t know if it was Indians did the thieving,” Bobby said to calm her. “Many’s the white man blamed his misdeeds on the red man.”

  “Something’s not right. Miss Pryor found a murdered savage and now another one. They’re planning something.”

  “I hope not, Marie, but we’ll stay vigilant.”

  “They’re bloodthirsty savages. They skin people alive! They boil them and eat them!” Marie bordered on the hysterical.

  “Marie, we’ll post a watch throughout the night,” Cig forcefully said. “That’s the best we can do under the circumstances.”

  Marie started crying. Bobby put his arm around her and walked her back to their cottage.

  “I’ll take the first watch,” Hugh said.

  “Good.” Tom smiled. “Well, let’s tie this fellow up before rigor mortis sets in.”

  35

  Lionel deVries, arms crossed over his heavy coat, studied the corpse. The men gathered around him—Edward Hill, Ernest Shackelford, Daniel and Abraham Boothrod, William Byrd, and Tom—waited for him to speak. They had all set out for Buckingham as soon as word reached them and were assembled there by midmorning.

  “It’s Tanx, son of Blackpaws, chief of the Tuscaroras,” Lionel finally said, using the English names for the Indians as opposed to the proper long Indian names. The English usually shortened the proper names into something they could pronounce. “He was a prudent man.”

  “Would Tanx have been the next chief?” Ernest asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Who will succeed him?” Tom stood by the Indian’s bound feet.

  “I don’t know. Chief Blackpaws has a younger son, Ortley, who is a hothead and wants to make war on the whites, which the chief fears as did Tanx.” He again looked at the bashed-in head. “But old Blackpaws is smart. He can refuse to pass on his power to Ortley. It’s not hereditary.”

  “Could this trigger a war among them?” Edward tugged at his gloves.

  Lionel breathed out heavily. “Yes.” He looked at Tom, Cig, and Bobby. “You saw the Indians chasing him. Who were they?”

  “Monacans,” Bobby said a bit loudly. They were a fierce tribe living west of the falls in Rassawek, where the James and the Rivanna rivers met.

  Tom nodded in assent and everyone looked back to Lionel.

  Lionel’s jaw clenched. “It would have been better had his own people killed him. This means the Tuscarora and the Monacans will go to war or”—he carefully weighed his words—“that a faction of the Monacans are allied with Ortley and they, too, want to be rid of us.”

  The men started talking at once. Lionel held up his hands. “I’ll take Tanx back to Chief Blackpaws. If the cold stays with us I can be there in two days.”

  If the trails thawed it would be slower going as well as increasingly unpleasant since the corpse would be draped over a pack mule.

  “I’ll go to the Nottoway and Meherrin to gather what intelligence I may,” William Byrd said, mentioning two Iroquois tribes in northern Carolina.

  “We should enjoin the planters and their families to repair to Jamestown,” Daniel Boothrod said. He tapped the head of his ornate walking stick. “After all, savages swept out of nowhere in 1622 and made mischief again when I was a young man.”
r />   “There are more of us now, and William and I,” Lionel nodded in Byrd’s direction, “keep a presence at the Falls. They can’t sweep down the James without our being forewarned.”

  “No, but they can sweep out of the forests or up from the swamps.” Edward hill absentmindedly thwacked a corncob in his hand.

  “They can’t slip through the chain of forts without us soon knowing,” Lionel stated.

  He referred to the English forts immediately below the fall line that separated the Tidewater from the Piedmont. These forts, in place for twenty-some years, provided peace of mind to those who didn’t know that elaborate drills and red coats meant nothing to Indians.

  “But will we know soon enough?” Daniel, deeply concerned, said.

  “Only God has the answer to that.” Lionel clasped his hands behind his back.

  “God smiles upon those who are prepared. Remember the seven foolish and the seven wise virgins?” Tom counseled the men. “Not that any of you are virgins.”

  Everyone but Lionel laughed, the humor dispelling some of the tension.

  “Gentlemen,” Lionel moved toward the door to call together his men, including the four Indians, faithful to him. “I’ll take Tanx to his father and discover what I can. I counsel you not to jump to conclusions and not to provoke those Indians who have been loyal to us.”

  “Loyal to us or loyal to you?” Daniel nailed him.

  “To us.” Lionel clamped his mouth down hard.

  “You wouldn’t be pitting one tribe against another for favorable trading to yourself, now would you?” Daniel, worried sick, didn’t much care if he upset Lionel’s applecart.

  “My business is my business, sir.” Lionel’s nostrils flared. “But I’ll be damned if I’d start an Indian war.”

  That said, he motioned for his men to carry out the body.

  “Damned indeed,” Daniel said under his breath.

  As the other men filed out toward the house Lionel put his hand on Tom’s forearm. “May I speak to Pryor?”

  “I’ve no objection but the lady herself might.” Tom was terse.

  Lionel found Cig outside the summer kitchen chopping wood.

  “Pryor.”

  She stopped. She knew he’d come to identify the remains so she wasn’t surprised to see him. “Hello.”

  “I apologize. I was an ass. I’m lucky he didn’t run me through although I’ve some skill with a blade.” He couldn’t conceal his pride.

  “It’s over. Maybe we all learned something.”

  “I want to marry you. I’ll make it up to you. Please forgive me.” Humility did not come naturally to this brawny fellow.

  She held out her hand to him. “I do forgive you. I should never have shared my bed with you. I was in the wrong. I know I told you I didn’t want to get married but… maybe it’s difficult to hear that when a woman is kissing you.”

  “I can learn to control my temper.”

  “You can do anything you want to do. Let time do his work on both of us.” She changed the subject. “Did you know the murdered Indian?”

  “Yes. He was a friend. There’s trouble between the tribes and within the tribes.”

  “So we are in danger.”

  “Much depends on their councils after I take Tanx’s body back to his father. And worry won’t make it any better. Let me worry about it.” He kissed her hand. “My mother won’t speak to me until we are reconciled.”

  “That might be a benefit.” She smiled.

  He smiled back. “Don’t cast me out for one mistake.”

  “Lionel, we aren’t the right two people, if you’ll allow me an old expression, or a new expression. As I said, time will take care of our problems.”

  Margaret emerged from the back door of the house, saw them and started to go inside.

  Lionel bowed to her. “I am heartily sorry that I offended you.”

  “I’ve forgotten it already.” Margaret nodded toward him. What she didn’t say was that she was as happy as she had ever been in her life. She thought she was pregnant.

  36

  Nell Gwyn shot past Cig and Margaret, a squealing mouse clamped in her jaws.

  “Good job, Nell,” Cig congratulated the cat.

  In short order, Little Smudge and Highness followed just in case Nell had a gabby moment and her prey managed to escape.

  “Has anyone figured out how to get rid of mice?” Margaret’s knitting needles of polished bone clicked together.

  “No. We have traps, poisons and even high-frequency—that means really high-pitched—sound devices to trouble their sensitive little ears but the answer is no. The only solution to mice is cats, owls, and blacksnakes. I prefer cats myself.”

  Margaret concentrated on the new scarf she was knitting. “So do I.”

  “Wonder how long Tom will be gone?”

  “Once those men start talking—could be days. Weeks even if Daniel Boothrod and James Blair fill their sails with wind.”

  “Does it irritate you that women don’t go to these special meetings, you know, of the Assembly or whatever else is going on?”

  “Not a bit. Every man must state his opinion, rebut the other man’s opinion, fluff his feathers, sit down, stand up again. Then every other man must state his opinion on the man’s opinion who has just spoken. Around and around until the noise is dizzying and everyone forgets what he said in the first place. I’ve better things to do with my time.”

  Cig laughed. “Yeah, that hasn’t changed either.” She glanced out the window, darkness enveloping the house. “He’ll surely stay in Jamestown.”

  “They all will, I assure you. It provides them an excellent opportunity to escape female supervision.”

  “My mother used to say, ‘Men, you can’t live with them and you can’t live without them.’”

  “Every woman’s mother says that.” Margaret held the portion of the scarf away from her to check the pattern.

  “Do you feel that way about Tom?”

  “Your brother is a good man, but there are times when I could crown him.” She made a slapping motion with her hand. “He asks for my judgment on matters and then he discounts what I say. If I am proven right he gets cross with me and says, ‘Why didn’t you make me listen?’ If I am proved wrong—not often”—she impishly smiled again—“then he crows about the vast degree of his mental powers and the shrunken state of my own.” She dropped a ball of yarn. Highness grabbed it. “I can live without him very well during the days. The nights—” She shook her head.

  Cig rose to stir the fire and drop on another slow-burning walnut log. “After a time you forget about that.”

  Margaret shook her head in disbelief. “You forget until a man comes along to make you remember. I have often wondered what it is that makes one man so appealing and another, oh!” She threw up her hands in mock fright, which made Cig laugh. “Take two strong, good-looking fellows and one will attract you more than the other. Perhaps Cupid really does loose his arrows.”

  “It helps sometimes to be short-sighted.” Cig laughed.

  “Ha.” She felt a tug on her ball of yam. Highness wanted to play. “Probably Tom will come home tomorrow, half-exhausted, and announce the resolution of the meeting, which you and I could have resolved in ten minutes. If the news were dismal he’d be here now so all is well.”

  “I hope so. I’m anxious to know what Lionel and William Byrd found out from the tribes they visited.”

  “You know what makes me laugh? Why would the Indians tell the truth to any white man, Lionel or William? For all their theories and posturing, men can’t see the nose on their faces.”

  They worked in silence, Cig pricking her fingers with the needle. She was sewing a torn seam on her riding shirt.

  “Didn’t your mother teach you to sew? Elizabeth Deyhle had a beautiful hand.”

  “My mother, Amy was her name, dutifully tried. I hated it. All I wanted to do was ride horses.”

  “That hasn’t changed.”

  “No, b
ut in my time horses are a luxury. I don’t think they are but many people think so. We don’t need them for transportation anymore. We have vehicles that carry us about and we can move at speeds you wouldn’t believe. So what happens? These machines belch noxious fumes, our air is so filthy, it makes your eyes sting and sometimes it’s hard to breathe in the big cities. And worse, you speed to your destination so fast you don’t appreciate what’s in between. The journey has lost its meaning. There is no unfolding. You get where you’re going, plunging immediately into business. The whole tone of social intercourse…” Cig thought a moment. “Here with you and your time, social events, even business, are an orchestra of music.” She remembered that the symphony was not yet in vogue or she would have used the word. “For me, for my time, it’s one note. Lots of one notes. Does that make sense?”

  “Oh, I understand perfectly. I can’t imagine it though.”

  “All the juice has been squeezed from community life. Nothing’s left but the rind.”

  “Did you know this before you came here?”

  “Actually, I did, but I didn’t know what it would be like to live differently. People aren’t stupid, Margaret, but there are so many of us, our contacts are impersonal and even disembodied like the telephone I once told you about. We don’t know what to do. We don’t know how to come back together. The bonds that you take for granted are as foreign to me as if a Chinaman dropped into your midst. We’re helpless.”

  “No one is ever helpless. Pray to God.”

  “God is bored with us. I can’t blame Him.”

  “It can’t be that desolate.”

  “But it is, and it’s a seductive desolation because in place of cherished people, of common threads, of a tapestry woven by all, we get things, lots and lots of things. Cars and televisions and I know you don’t know what those things are, so how about clothing, that you can imagine, and jewelry and toys. We’re choking in things. We’re drying up from the inside out.”

  “That’s true in any time. Don’t you think Mrs. Boothrod is choking on things? She knows no real love.”