Scarlet RIbbons

by Judith E. French

  "Yep." The now-balding Quaker "woman" grinned. "This here is my son, Tom. Tom was spyin' out them rangers for us."

  Forest scrutinized the child. He couldn't have been more than two or three years older than Joshua. Forest's mental image of Sarah's boy brought with it an overwhelming sense of shame. He'd wished Obediah Turner dead . . . and whatever differences Sarah and Obediah might have had in their marriage, Obediah was still Josh's father. The boy undoubtedly loved him.

  The tow-haired boy gathered up the fallen cape and bonnet and stood grinning, his eyes shining with pride. "You licked 'em good, Da! You really whipped the tar out'a them rangers!"

  "Yeah, he did," John agreed. "And he hardly needed our help at all." John winked at Forest as he caught the reins of a loose horse. "I never figured Donald McCarthy to look so good in a skirt. You, Forest?"

  "Nope."

  "When I tell the cap'n about this, he'll want to issue skirts to all his special forces," John continued.

  Donald's florid face turned beet red as he dragged the civilian to his feet. "Consider yerself under arrest for aidin' an 'bettin' the enemy, Thomas Murphy," he said. "And in the Delaware counties, where yer standin' now, that's a hanging offense."

  "No!" the man blubbered. "No! It weren't my fault. I was forced to do it!"

  "Like you was forced to help burn James Good's barn and run off his milch cow? Like you was forced to watch when these green-coated bastards raped my little niece, Becky?"

  "No! No! It wasn't me!"

  Donald McCarthy shoved the man Murphy toward the captured ranger. "This man came to you on his own or was he seized?" McCarthy demanded.

  The young soldier straightened his shoulders and stared at Murphy with contempt. "Look in his pockets. Good English silver will tell you what you want t' know."

  McCarthy's grip tightened on Murphy's shirtfront, and he half-lifted the weeping, protesting man from the ground. "The worst thing about you," McCarthy said, "is that you're not helping the Brits out of any love for your mother country. You're betrayin' your neighbors out of greed!" McCarthy glanced over at his son. "Take one of these horses and ride to your grandma's at Duck Creek," he ordered.

  The boy's face fell. "But Da! You said I could help! You said—"

  "Damn it, Tom, you did help. Now you do as I say and git! You got your mama and your little sisters to watch after. If I don't come back, I expect you to get the crop in the ground in the spring. You hear?"

  Tears sprang into the boy's eyes, but he seized the stirrup of the nearest animal and, still clutching the bonnet and cape, pulled himself up into the saddle. "You be careful, Da."

  "Guess you better leave your mother's clothes. I might just need them again," McCarthy decided. He tossed one of the pistols to his son. "Take this, and don't hesitate to use it if you have to." He motioned with his chin, and the boy set his heels into the sorrel's sides.

  As soon as horse and rider were out of sight, McCarthy raised his remaining pistol and leveled it at Murphy's head. "Might as well save the new Delaware government an execution," he murmured.

  Murphy moaned and clamped his eyes shut.

  "No!" Forest leaped from the saddle and grabbed McCarthy's hand. "Don't."

  "He'll be just as dead by Christmas," John said.

  "It's not the same thing, and you know it," Forest argued. "You both know the General's orders about prisoners. "

  "Yeah, I know 'em," McCarthy grumbled. "But the General don't have to drag this pond scum around in the midst of all this fightin'." Reluctantly, he nodded and stepped back. "You take the both of 'em, though. I might have second thoughts."

  "Done," Forest said. "Now, we'd best all be out of here before those rangers come back with reinforcements. Uncle John?"

  John murmured agreement. He turned toward the two rangers. "I s'pose if we let you two go, we'll just have to fight you again tomorrow."

  The younger man nodded. "It looks that way."

  The ranger on the ground shook his head. "Not me. You turn me loose and I'm headin' home."

  "And you'll send General Washington a Christmas ham when you get there," Forest said sarcastically. "On your feet, hands behind your back. Give us no trouble and you'll be exchanged before the week is out." Quickly, he moved to bind the hands of the nearest ranger with a leather thong.

  "What about the cart?" McCarthy asked.

  "Leave it," John replied. "Too slow. We've got to make tracks."

  "And the pig?" McCarthy grinned as he heaved the cage from the back of the cart.

  "I don't know," Forest said seriously. "Does he look like a Patriot pig or an English pig to you, Uncle John?"

  "I borrowed it off a Quaker—" McCarthy began.

  "No," John protested. "It couldn't be. That pig has a definite resemblance to old King George hisself."

  "Good," Forest shot back. "Because I'm declaring that pig a prisoner of war and giving him a personal invitation to dine with us back at headquarters."

  ~~~

  Captain Peregrine Harris licked the last of the roast pork from his fingers and stared calmly across the sheep shed at Forest Irons. "Request for transfer denied."

  "Denied? Damn it, Captain, you can't deny it. You need every man you've got. You're the one who ordered me to report for duty if Howe landed on the Chesapeake. You know I can be of more use to the cause here than forking manure at a tavern on the Misakaak."

  Harris removed his hat and laid it on the rough-hewn plank that served as a table. Light from the brass lantern revealed a starkly handsome, olive-skinned face framed with coal-black hair. Two bands of pure white hair streaked up and back from the captain's high cheekbones. His slightly slanting oval eyes were steel-gray, with flecks of gold, his lips and nose as finely sculptured as those on a Greek statue.

  "Hell, Captain," Forest confessed. "I can't go back there. I'm getting too personally involved with the Turner family."

  Captain Harris glanced into the shadowy corners of the stone shed. Except for two sheep and a black-and-white dog, they were alone. "You do look a fright in that beard, Lieutenant. It's a wonder the woman didn't shoot you instead of taking you in." His precise, upper-class English accent was tempered by the soft hint of Chesapeake.

  "She probably will if I go back."

  The captain ran his gaze quickly over two sheets of parchment and then consigned them to the flame of the lamp. "We have every reason to believe Howe means to take Philadelphia," he said quietly. "The General can't stop him. The most we can do is make the acquisition an expensive one. If Howe settles into Philadelphia without securing the peninsula, we're still in a position to strike back. We can't lose the Eastern Shore."

  "The information I've already sent you—"

  "Isn't enough. We need the names of the leaders of the raiders, we need the location of that Loyalist fort in the woods, and we need to keep the supply lines open to the north."

  Forest clenched his hands into tight fists at his sides. The four hours of sleep and the meal had helped to clear his head, but they had done nothing to ease the confusion he felt about Sarah Turner. "Send someone else," he insisted.

  The hint of a smile twitched at the corner of the captain's mouth. "I'm not asking you to sleep with the lady, Lieutenant."

  Forest struggled to control his rising temper. "I've never asked you for a personal favor before. I'm asking now. Send someone else back to King's Landing, and let me return to active duty."

  Captain Harris stood up. He was over six feet, taller even than Forest, and his dark hair nearly brushed the low roof. "You were picked because Tilghman and Smallwood thought you were the best man for the job. I agreed with them." Harris sighed heavily. "How long have we known each other, Forest? Ten years?" His voice dropped to a husky rasp. "Hell, even before you carried me out of that swamp at Long Island I knew you were a man I'd trust with my life anyplace, anytime."

  Their eyes met. "You know I wouldn't ask, Peregrine, if it wasn't important."

  "Whatever your personal feelings are
, can't you put them aside?"

  "I've lost a lot of sleep trying."

  "All right, Forest, this much I'll do for you. I'll put your request for transfer to Tench when I see him next, and I'll explain the circumstances. But if the orders stand, I'll expect you to return to King's Landing and complete the assignment. I want your best effort. Anything less, and I'd have to consider it a dereliction of duty. Is that clear?"

  "Yes, sir."

  Peregrine Harris leaned forward on the table. "And remember, if you do go back and the Turner woman learns who you are, she'll see you hung as a rebel spy. Make no mistake about it, Lieutenant, Sarah Turner is your enemy."

  Forest nodded. "I won't forget—"

  "Captain! Captain!" A young man burst through the open doorway. "There's a rider! You better come quick, Cap'n Harris! He says he just came from Head of Elk, and he says Howe is on the move!"

  Chapter Seven

  A Woman’s Vulnerability

  October 12th, 1777

  "Please, Mama, can I go with Johnny? I promise I won't get in the way. And if a bee comes near me, I'll run." Joshua twisted a bare foot in the dirt and clung to Johnny Green's hand. The two boys were standing beside the well near the back door of the inn. Both hounds lay a short distance away on the grass; Flirt, the hound bitch, was nursing a litter of five puppies.

  Sarah looked from her son's eager face to Johnny's, and once again she was struck by the unfairness of life.

  Johnny Green was a tall, broad-shouldered lad with the face of an angel. His blond hair had been bleached by the sun until it fell in shining white-gold waves. In a colony where most of the people were missing teeth or had mouths full of rotten and decaying ones, Johnny's were perfect, as smooth and white as ivory. His smile was rare, but when it flashed across his handsome features it was sweet enough to cajole any woman, from swaddled babe to tottering crone.

  At sixteen, Martha's youngest son was known from Annapolis to New Castle for his hunting and tracking skills. He could ride a horse and shoot a gun far better than most professional soldiers, and he had the patience of a Shawnee.

  Johnny's weakness was his mind. A farmyard accident had injured his brain when he was not much older than Josh. Johnny's speech was slow and difficult for strangers to understand. A new task that Joshua could learn in hours might take Johnny months of repetition to master. Martha and her husband, Will, had accepted Johnny's weaknesses. They loved him no less than they loved their other, normal sons, and slow or not, Johnny was expected to do a man's part on the farm.

  "Mama?" Joshua shifted excitedly from one foot to the other. "Can I go and watch them smoke out the bees?"

  Sarah set the basket of corn on the ground and bent down to hug her son. "All right, you can go. But I want you to take those fish you caught this morning to Martha. And you're to make yourself useful—do you understand?"

  Johnny grinned and pointed toward his mother's horse. "Hoom. Hoom . . . Jah-nay."

  Sarah smiled back at Johnny and nodded. She had no qualms about letting Joshua go with Johnny to White Oaks. Johnny loved Joshua with a fierce loyalty, and Sarah knew the older boy wouldn't hesitate to lay down his life for Joshua if there were danger. It was the loss of her son's help in getting in the corn that had made her hesitate. As young as he was, Joshua saved her many a step.

  Still, she reasoned, Joshua was still little more than a baby, and he'd worked all day yesterday in the cornfield beside her. It wasn't Joshua's fault that Sarah didn't have help at the inn. "Go and have a good time," she urged him. "But if you get stung, don't blame me."

  Johnny fished in a leather pouch dangling from his waist and produced a smooth white stone. Proudly, he held the stone out to Sarah. The smudged numeral 2 was scratched on the stone in charcoal.

  "Yes," Sarah replied. "Two. Two days. Martha wants you to come for two days." She smiled again at Johnny. "It's not someone's birthday tomorrow, is it?"

  Johnny blushed red and nodded. "Jah-nay."

  "Your birthday? That's wonderful, Johnny."

  Joshua's gray eyes twinkled as his gaze met Sarah's, and he hopped from one foot to the other, eager to be gone.

  Sarah didn't let on for a moment what she and Joshua both knew about Johnny's birthday—that Martha celebrated them whenever Joshua came to spend the night. Martha would bake cookies or a cake, and Martha and the two boys would play games and sing songs. Birthday parties were Johnny's greatest joy, and Martha made certain her son enjoyed lots of them.

  "And since it's your birthday, Johnny, I think you should have a present." Quickly, Sarah crossed the yard and picked up two of the puppies. Martha had given her permission the last time she'd been at King's Landing, but they'd said nothing to Johnny, so the puppies would be a surprise. "These two are for you," Sarah said. "Johnny's puppies. Special puppies for a special young man."

  Tears sprang into Johnny's eyes as he took the fat, squirming pups into his arms. Too happy to attempt speech, he just grinned his heartfelt appreciation.

  "You have to take good care of them," Joshua explained. "You have to feed them and water them."

  "And take them outside," Sarah prompted.

  "And love them lots," Joshua continued. "Puppies need lots of love."

  Sarah watched as the two boys, one chattering, one silent, fussed over the wiggling, tail-wagging, brown-and-white pups. Sometimes, she thought it was hard on Joshua, growing up without friends his own age to play with. Children passed through King's Landing with their parents, but they stayed only a few hours, or days at most. When she was a child, she had lived in a village where there were dozens of boys and girls. Here, Joshua's friends were a single slow boy, a silly, bad-tempered goose, and two dogs. And . . . for a little while this summer, there had been Forest.

  Damn Abe Forest, or whatever his name was! Joshua had formed an attachment to the man in the short time he'd been at King's Landing. Her son had cried when she finally told him Forest was gone, and even now, half the boy's sentences began with "Forest said . . ."

  Sarah couldn't shake her own memories of Forest when she returned to the cornfield after Joshua and Johnny and the two puppies had ridden away toward White Oaks.

  Cutting the cornstalks and stacking them in shocks was grueling, backbreaking labor. Stalks had to be chopped off close to the ground, bound in bundles, and then piled upright so that the plants wouldn't rot in the field. Later, the corn would be stripped from each stalk and husked. The stalks and dried leaves would be fed to the cow and the mule. The grain would feed Sarah's livestock through the winter and would also provide cornmeal for the kitchen when part of the harvest was shelled and ground in a hand grinder.

  With each stroke of the heavy corn knife, Sarah vented her frustration at Forest. If he hadn't left, he would have been here to help with the harvest. He could have taken over the cutting while she tied the bundles. He could have helped with the hundred and one heavy chores that had to be done every day. If Forest were still here . . .

  "Damn the good-for-nothing rogue!" Sarah muttered between clenched teeth. It was a good thing he had left! How dare he have the nerve to kiss her? If he hadn't gone, she would have thrown him off the place. Or . . . Sarah nibbled her upper lip . . . would she?

  Well, she mused, Forest was gone, and there was nothing to be done about it. She'd have to find help or continue to do the work herself.

  She would hire a servant if she could find a decent one willing to work for practically nothing. So far, no likely candidates had shown up at King's Landing, and she couldn't afford to leave the inn and go to town to hunt for one. In her desperation, she even thought of taking an indentured servant, something she had sworn she'd never do, not since Obediah's last bond servant, that worthless Roman Clough, ran away.

  Stopping to catch her breath, Sarah straightened her stiff back and let the cool breeze from the Misakaak River blow across her sweating face and body. Her hands had blistered in spite of the rawhide gloves. The blisters had broken, and now the raw places burned like fir
e.

  The last thing she'd ever expected to consider was buying another human's indenture. There were so many bad memories . . . so many shed tears. Memories, long buried, of her childhood in England swept over Sarah.

  No child as loved and cared for as she had ever expected such tragedy to befall her. Sarah had been too young and innocent to understand the dangers in life for a girl when her beloved father died suddenly. Within days of the funeral, her father's cousin, Martin Young, came to the inn to help the bereaved family. Within months, the man married her widowed mother, and by the move gained control of her father's valuable property and business.

  Still stunned by the loss of her father, Sarah hadn't understood the changes in her mother. Sarah had always helped around the inn, but now she was forced to do the work of a hired girl. From sunup until late at night, she washed and scrubbed and carried ale and food to customers.

  She was twelve when her new stepfather first struck her, and thirteen before she realized that her mother was unwilling or unable to come to her aid. Sarah had spent the next few years staying as far from Martin Young's fists as she could.

  When she was fifteen, her mother fell or was pushed down a flight of stairs. According to her father's will, Sarah should have inherited the inn and a mill and the five acres that surrounded it. But she was under age, and her stepfather became her legal guardian. When Martin tried to force himself on her sexually, she fended him off with an iron poker. Out of revenge, Martin beat her and sold her as an indentured servant to a ship's captain bound for the American Colonies.

  Sarah was three months short of sixteen when she first came to King's Landing, as a bond servant. She was little more than a slave to Obediah Turner and his shrewish wife. Starved and ill-treated, worked nearly to death, Sarah survived the ordeal . . . barely.

  Sarah attacked the cornstalks with a fierce anger. Crossing an ocean had not saved her from unwanted sexual abuse. Obediah Turner had wasted little time before forcing himself on her, and Sarah wept away her girlhood innocence in the sweltering garret beneath the tavern roof.