Ram; being the tale of one Ramillies Anstruther, 1704-55 ..

by Taylor, Winchcombe

  Ram was shooting up from the terrifying depths, trying to open his eyes. They were open! He was half blinded by the moonlight.

  "Don't touch me! Keep off, I say! To remind me of that now!"

  "Nay, sweetheart, but ye crave rough usage — bruising and hurting!"

  "Yes, oh God, yes! . . . Now, now!"

  Ram was standing, his every fiber shaking, sweat pouring from him. He groped for his sword, for his pistols. Lucinda! Rob! Their names burst from him in a scream. By Christ, they'll not live another instant! He crashed against the connecting door, but it was bolted from within. Snarling, he tried again.

  "Colonel! Colonel Anstruther!" Hoofs were clattering outside and someone was pounding on the front door. "Colonel, for God's sake, up!

  Lucinda's piercing scream came from the bedchamber. Kill her, kill! Ram's crazed brain goaded. Kill both the whoring cullions!

  "Colonel, come down! There's been murder at the fort."

  At last that urgent voice penetrated. Stumbling, he reached the window and peered out. Horsemen were milling below.

  "I'll come!" His voice was a croak. He glared at the bolted door. God, how could he take retribution now, with the entire plantation being aroused?

  He smashed his sword pommel on the heavy door. "Don't stir, on your hfe!" Hysterical sobbing answered him. Seizing his coat, he rushed downstairs. Margot was again in the hall, her face ghastly.

  He flung open the front door. The ranger sergeant stood on the steps, his men, mounted, behind. Jem was bringing a chestnut mare, already saddled.

  " 'Tis escaped Negras, Colonel," the sergeant said. "They've slain poor Nell and Toby—aye, even Lachlan Mackintosh's cur."

  As if he were still in the fantastic nightmare, Ram heard himself say: "Jem, sound the tocsin! Every mounted man to parade under Captain Bland and ride for Argyle. I'll be there." The dreamlike quality persisted as he mounted, ranged himself alongside the sergeant and ordered him to lead on.

  He even heard himself demanding: "Negroes? Are you sure? Why?"

  "We found Nell first, sir—cut to ribbons. And on our way here, Jacob sees something half out of the river. 'Twas poor Toby, without his head. Indians scalp, but Negras take the whole head."

  "Sergeant, tell about the paper!" a ranger called.

  "Aye. Strange, that. Food's gone and so on, but a quire of paper tool What would savages, black or red, want with it? They can't write."

  Ram was back to reality. "Damnation, that means white men— the deserter and the spy! Maybe they're Negroes with 'em, but paper's for a white's use. We'll get 'em if we have to comb all Georgia!"

  "Lachlan's in Savannah, so Toby was there alone. He must ha' been surprised riding. Then they went to the fort and killed Nell."

  "Enough!" He could think now; but not, as the ranger imagined, about the murders. What to do? Wliat did awakened cuckolds do? Great Christ—even Diccon's not mine!

  "What's that, your honor?"

  "Nothing." He hadn't realized he had groaned aloud. He brushed tears of shame from his eyes as he remembered those terrible, animal sounds. Lucinda, the cold, the restrained!

  "Ride on!" He turned out to let the others pass. Somehow he got to ground and retched until he was empty and exhausted. Cuckold!

  But when he had remounted and caught up with the rangers, he had grown hard. Hadn't the fools realized he must find out? Once before he had half killed Rob for trying to take one of his women— a slut like Annie, Drive 'em both into the wilderness, that's it! But first treat Rob so no woman could ever take him again! He pictured Rob, slobbering oaths, as craven as Lucinda. Ah, God, but Diccon?

  Day had come when the fort was reached. Stony-faced, he looked

  at Nell. On the very night Rob's treachery had been revealed, this discarded girl of his had been ravished and slashed to death.

  Even the dog had died hard, rolled in a blanket, then stabbed a dozen times through the folds.

  He sent two rangers off to Yamacraw Town, with a request for Toonahowi to lend hunters who might find signs whites would miss. The sergeant and the other man went to bring in Yarrow's headless corpse.

  Soon twenty of his people arrived under Joseph. "I left the rest as garrison under Mr. Rob, sir," he reported. "One never knows. If it's Indians or slaves, they might attack while we're gone."

  "How is Rob?" Ram forced himself to sound casual.

  "Greatly disturbed, sir. Old soldiers like us don't get shook up by tales of massacre, but he's not had our experience. He was asking if I thought he should take the mistress and Diccon to Savannah by boat, but I—"

  "Boat? But Peg-Leg's not back in the Lass, and I thought the piragua was chartered out of Charles Town?"

  "Charter's completed, sir, so Matt brought her back yesterday."

  "Take command!" Ram had not foreseen this. "Scout the country. If they're Negroes or Indians, kill 'em. But Shannon and Mazzique must be taken alive. They must face trial."

  Joseph stared. It wasn't like the Colonel to leave an affair like this to others.

  Ram had already turned away. He had other runaways to catch. On the ride back, he realized that, come what may, he could never kill Lucinda; couldn't still her lovely body and glaze her cornflower-blue eyes. And Rob? Hadn't he promised Sue to keep him from harm? He must find some other way. Divorce was difficult, but it could be arranged. Then make Rob marry her—rot his lecherous soul, and hers! Aye, but Diccon . , . !

  The chestnut was winded and foam-flecked when he reached the stables. Already he knew the piragua had gone.

  He flung into the house. Margot came from the dining hall, her face blotched, her eyelids reddened. At sight of him she whimpered.

  He grasped her wrist. "When did they leave? Who went with them?"

  Writhing with pain, she poured out a torrent: Rob had been like

  a madman; he had broken open Ram's desk and taken all the gold and paper currency. He had ordered Matt Marrow to sail for Charles Town, swearing madam was in urgent need of a physician, and also the boy. They'd left three hours ago.

  He cursed. By the inland way, they would have a long start. But by riding to Savannah, he could perhaps catch them in a hired piragua. Did they imagine they'd be safe from him in Carolina? God, why wasn't Peg-Leg back?

  As if to answer his plea, the bell tolled. He ran outside. A boy called down that the schooner was coming upriver.

  He sought out the Frenchwoman again. "The truth! If I don't get it easy, I'll take it hard. The unlocked door; ye knew it was for him, didn't ye? Answer!"

  "Yes, monsieur. But she unbolted it. I—I waited, thinking to waylay him, to beg him to marry me, as he so often promise. W^en you arrive, I see revenge! For years he use me, when he has no one better. I am a lady born, yet he treat me like what you call a wore! I must even wait in the closet when he is with her! Dieu, many times I wish to assassinate him!" She began to sob. "But he always promise marriage. Ciel, what fools we women are!"

  "And the bastard she bore in England—whose?"

  Her eyes widened. "You know? Ah, monsieur, she is so grand a lady, spending your money to entertain the actors who look down on her when she is poor! There is one, a lover of long ago; she is indiscreet. It is why she cannot return before. Uenfant, she 'as put it out to a woman in Surrey."

  "A lover before I married her? Impossible! She was a virgin!"

  Even that shred of vanity was torn from him. "Ah, how often she laugh aboui that. There are tricks a woman knows. She was so-o modest, nest-ce pas? The wedding night, she see you drink much. She gives you a great goblet of Nantes. You snore and snore. She laugh. Mon colonel, that one, she has no soul!"

  "No more!" He lurched blindly into the study. The desk had been forced and his casket gone. "She also take her jewels," Margot ventured from the doorway.

  Brushing her aside, he went into the kitchen, shouting for the cook women to prepare eight men's fresh rations for five days— enough to last to Charles Town. He had Maria fill his portmanteau.

  He pl
aced Tom Jewell in command until Joseph's return, said where he was bound, saw the rations were sent down to the jetty and went down himself.

  Not allowing the schooner to tie up, he jumped aboard and told Parker to shove off for Charles Town by the inland way.

  Peg-Leg blinked but obeyed, and by dusk the Lass was beating across Ossabaw Sound. Ram sat, muffled in his cloak, sometimes peering ahead, though aware it was too soon to overtake the piragua. Peg-Leg was at the wheel, never speaking, aware that something was terribly wrong. He would have anchored for the night, but Ram's curt order drove him on as long as there was wind in the sails. Then only could he anchor in the lee of Tybee Island.

  He made Ram drink some brandy and eat a bite. Ram then dozed, sinking into nightmares in which Lucinda was being slashed open by Rob, who danced around with Toby Yarrow's head atop his own.

  Dawn brought wind, and by the time the schooner was crossing the Savannah's mouth, she was heeling in a heavy swell.

  " 'Twill be squally in Daufuskie," Peg-Leg warned. "If it freshens more, we'll be running nigh under bare poles."

  "Keep on!" Ram went forward to the bow where, though soaked by spindrift, he gazed ahead through his glass.

  Daufuskie was squally, as Parker had predicted, but with shortened sail, the Lass forged into it. Numbed, Ram went aft, his strength gone. Peg-Leg, his stump in a ringbolt, reported that the weather was easing. "If all's well, we should be off Port Royal tomorrow."

  Ram wiped the lens of his glass and stared through it once more. Nothing but the heaving, cloud-shadowed water. But the waves seemed smaller, the rolls longer. His eyes ached and now the numbness was mounting to his brain.

  It was Peg-Leg who saw it first. "Begod, look! There, on the island!" He spun the wheel, bawling orders.

  Ram peered, made out a dark object on the shore—a piragua. She was heeled on her side, her mast gone.

  "I'll run in as close as I dare and let go the anchor," Peg-Leg said. "She's mine all right, know her anywhere. Don't see anybody aboard. Please God they're sheltering under the trees!"

  Then he, Ram and the two crewmen were in the dinghy and pull-

  ing toward the island. They landed and Ram began to ran toward

  the piragua, outdistancing the others.

  Tangled cordage hung over its side, holding a spar and canvas. When he got closer, he pulled up short, biting his lower lip until the blood came.

  Lucinda!

  She had been lashed to the mast's stump. Her glorious hair was now clotted wdth mud and her gown had become caught up in the ropes that secured her, so that her slim, lovely legs were exposed and moved as if alive in the swirling water that ran in and out of the piragua's staved-in side.

  His hatred had gone. This was no longer his wife, but poor, poor clay!

  The boy? And Rob? And Matt and his crewman?

  Along the shore they found Rob, half submerged, Diccon clasped by one stiffened arm. He had tried to swim ashore and save—his son.

  It was growing dark. Peg-Leg gripped Ram's shoulder. "You're coming aboard, sir. I command here, and ye'll do as I say."

  Dazed, Ram let himself be taken aboard and led below, let them take off his soaked clothes and wrap him in blankets. Peg-Leg brought a steaming mug. "Rum, sir. Down it all."

  He obeyed automatically. Oh, God, why must a man think?

  At last the liquor gripped him, so that he began to shout strange oaths; to re-live tortured fragments from the past. Women's faces floated before his eyes and he called to them. Chanda! Sue! Carla! Annie! . . . And Lucinda!

  Once Peg-Leg had to force him back onto the sea cot, when he tried to thrust his sword through Erinne, who was clawing out his eyes with knife-spiked hands. But it wasn't Erinne, it was the Golden Ganesha.

  He puked all over the blankets and later didn't know that Peg-Leg had washed away the filth and wrapped fresh warmed blankets around him.

  CHAPTER 20 BLOODY MARSH, 1742

  Davie saw the Lass first and tolled the bell, which brought Joseph up to take the glass.

  "She's flying the Distress! Boy, get the men to the jetty." While the child clattered down to obey, Bland continued to peer worriedly. The schooner rounded a bend so that he could see down into the length of her waist. There, side by side, were four canvas-covered forms—bodies! Was the colonel one of them? He shivered.

  He stood with his wife and the men on the jetty as the vessel berthed. Peg-Leg had the wheel; there was no sign of Ram,

  "Oh, Joseph!" Maria moaned.

  Peg-Leg stumped down the gangplank, carrying Ram's money casket. His eyes met Bland's. "Madam, Mr. Rob and Diccon—aye, and Matt. Couldn't find Jack's body, Daufuskie Sound, it was. Squalls. The piragua's piled up on the island. Port side's stove in,"

  "The master?"

  "Below. He's—strange. Never knowed him so bad. Best have Mrs. B. go to him."

  Nodding tearfully, Maria went aboard.

  "Like crazed," Peg-Leg whispered, taking Joseph aside. "Must ha' loved her sorely—and the boy." He told of finding the wreck; of keeping Ram drunk ever since, fearing for his sanity.

  Ram appeared, leaning on Maria's arm. He halted upon seeing the shrouded dead, a wild glare in his red-rimmed eyes; then, jaw clenched, he came ashore. A murmur of sympathy arose from his people, and Joseph went toward him.

  "Away!" He brushed past, weaving unsteadily because the brandy had left his head for his legs. Yes, now he could think—and remember. Cuckold! Fresh stabs of humiliation tore him.

  As he neared the house, Davie ran to him. "Your honor!"

  Sight of him sent his brain whirling anew. Bastard— Rob's bastard! Aye, and as like Rob as a portrait miniature. So was Diccon! Why not? "Begone!" he muttered, fists deep in his pockets lest he harm the child. Within, he flung himself into his study chair. Here at least he'd escape leering eyes.

  Mercifully, Maria in her innocence had \at enough to think he'd not want to sleep in the chamber he'd shared with his dead wife, so prepared the blue room. And Joseph, realizing his agony but not knowing its bitter cause, placed a bottle of Nantes in it. Had he reached the room unhindered, drink might have deadened him into sleep, but Margot stood at the stairhead, her beady eyes glittering.

  "O mon colonel, le Bon Dieu 'as preserved you and punished the wicked!" she greeted. "Ah, but had I dared, I could have revealed all long ago. But she was a devil, and I feared her. How my heart goes out to you! Ah, give me leave to comfort you and make you forget!"

  He stared at her incredulously. The dirty drab! Tring to share his bed before her mistress was even buried!

  "I am a lady bom, monsieur, of better birth than she, yet I would feel honored to serve you alwavs in any way you may wish."

  "You louse-ridden scum!" His hand smashed across her avaricious, scheming face. She screeched and fell. He lurched back to the study. With shaking hand he drew a bill for loo guineas. Vhen he went up again, she had risen and was touching her split lips with blood-smeared fingers.

  "Here!" He would have pushed past, but her cupidity was still unsated.

  "Madame's clothes, they are now mine! It is part of my contract . . . !" She ended in a wail as he thrust her aside.

  "Take 'em all!" Rushing into the blue room, he threw himself on the bed, there to writhe in agony until, seeing the brandy, he drank himself once more into blessed oblivion.

  So he didn't know that Joseph took her in a wagon to Savannah, together with boxes of Lucinda's clothes and the loo-guinea bill hidden securely between her breasts. She was going on to Charles Town where, she boasted, she'd make her fortune as a hairdresser.

  Joseph brought back the Reverend Norris to perform the funeral services, and tlie dead were interred in Shoreacres' own httle cemetery. But Ram remained in his bedchamber, sick in soul and convinced that his people's sympathy merely hid their secret laughter and contempt.

  Only when Mazzique and Shannon were at last recaptured was he roused. They'd been found skulking near Mount Pleasant, almost opposite Palachicolas
Fort on the Savannah, having hoped to cross the river and lose themselves in the Carolinas.

  When he reached town they'd been tried, had admitted their guilt and awaited execution. He interviewed Mazzique, who confessed complicity but no actual part in the Fort Argyle murders and seemed horrified by them. For a year before his first capture, he insisted, he'd received no further instructions from the Baron del Lago. What few he had gotten had come from a Don Jaime who was, he understood, formerly the baron's assistant. He pleaded for Ram's forgiveness and seemed to be reconciled to his fate.

  Ram saw the executions. Shannon died a Catholic and blessing James Stuart to the last. Mazzique, curiously, was attended on the scaffold by a Protestant minister, having sworn he had fled from Spain originally because he had turned heretic. He was buried at Savannah. Shannon's body, howe'er, was taken to the mouth of the Ogeechee and there hanged in chains.

  Ram went to Frederica where Oglethorpe, sallow and weak, was slowly recuperating from his own sickness and humiliation. But his greeting was warm and profoundly sympathetic.

  Ram said that he'd done with Georgia. "I've told you about my enemy. Now I've no family, I'll seek him out, wherever he is."

  "You'd not leave now? Here I am, failed at Augustine and half Carolina crying I've betrayed 'em—aye, some madmen have even writ to England saying I plot with the Spaniards to massacre all the English! God, how far will they go to ruin me? Even Cooke mutters against me, because I won't let him play huckster and make profit from the troops as Cochrane did. And now youd leave me!"

  "I must, James. I never told ye, but . . ." Then Ram was explaining about del Lago's daughter, who had borne his child. "The debt between us cries for settlement. I'll hunt him down and we'll end things face to face." As if this confession had burst a dam, he went on, baldly, savagely, to tell of his own betrayal by Rob. "He put a

  bastard on me, and left another. Well, I've spawned one of my own and, begod, I'll have it, if I have to tear it from its mother's arms before the Irishman's dying eyes! If by-blows are so plentiful, why shouldn't I have my share? At least I'll know it's mine."