What Lies Buried: A Novel of Old Cape Fear

by Dewey Lambdin

  “Naw, Cap’m, keep yer horse back, ‘less ya trample sign,” the tracker warned him. He was distasteful to Livesey, too. While Jemmy Bowlegs was only two years older than Samuel, Bowlegs had never been a boy, and exuded the oily air of a man of middle years who had seen all the world’s evils. And had relished them.

  Bowlegs stood and walked back to them. He was part copper, and part nut-brown. His cheeks were wide, his eyes black as pitch, while the rest of his face and body were lean and lanky, tautly long-muscled. He wore Cherokee moccasins which reached his knees, much like a rider’s top-boots, and a loose pair of pale-tan, red-striped “ticken” trousers cinched low on his bony hips with a hank of twine. Jemmy’s shirt was a gentleman’s cast-off (or stolen off the line, Livesey uncharitably suspected) of fine muslin, once ornately laced, though it now bore a pattern of faint stains, smudges and sweat-moons in the armpits, and the sleeves had been cut off at the shoulder. Over that, Jemmy Bowlegs wore a loose deerhide weskit of many pockets, patterned after a proper long waistcoat, with stag-horn toggles and sinew button loops, though he was always seen to wear it open. Said weskit was adorned with knots of ribbon, festooned with patterns of trade beads and tiny shells, in designs only he could explain. On his left hip rode a brass-hilted infantryman’s hanger-sword, cut down to a wicked sixteen-inch fighting knife in a beaded bearskin scabbard; on the other hip, his powder horn and bullet pouch, atop a sailcloth “possible” sack.

  Jemmy Bowlegs’s hair was Cuffy-dark and frizzy, but as long as a horsetail, gathered at his nape with a rawhide lacing … and, like a horsetail, badly in need of combing and teazeling. And when Jemmy doffed his hat, a tricorne so old that it had sagged outwards into an awning, Livesey could espy little tufts of spun-wool in his hair.

  “That’s t’keep th’ Cuffies I cotch f’um workin’ ‘witch’ on me,” Bowlegs matter-of-factly explained. “Haints, boogers an’ plat-eyes, too. Can’t be too careful with spirits, Cap’m.”

  “Ah hum,” Livesey commented, creaking in his saddle to ease his aching rump. “What may you deduce from what you’ve seen, sir?”

  “Mistah Harry come along heah, shore,” Bowlegs replied, lifting an arm to scratch himself. “Can’t tell much in th’ road, ‘cause folk done mess hit up, since. Over heah, though …” He went back to the broken reeds and the dried flecks of rotting blood, which had gone nigh black or a foetid blue. “People come fer th’ body, they mess hit up, too, Cap’m,” Bowlegs said over his shoulder. “See th’ drag mark where they drug him out? Bare foot, over heah … big heels, an’ wide. Fella never wore shoes. Cuffy ‘at found him, I reckon. It do appear Mistah Harry wuz afoot when he died.”

  “Not shot from his horse?” Livesey grunted in some surprise. “Cack-handed, were he?” Bowlegs asked, instead. “Ah no… right-handed,” Livesey told him.

  “Then that’s right queer,” Bowlegs said, coming back to stand by Livesey’s left-side stirrup, close enough that Livesey could smell old smoke and old sweat, seared meat and deer musk. “Hoof prints’re on his left side, an’ a right-hand man’d lead a horse wif his good hand. But he might had hisself a gun or swo’werd … ‘spectin’ trouble, mebbe. Or heard somethin’ made him draw, light down an’ poke in heah.”

  “Didn’t have a weapon on him, Jemmy,” Samuel told him. “Least, when they fetched him in, he didn’t. Right, Father?”

  “No weapons, no,” Livesey sourly replied. “Oh, ajackknife in his saddle bags. None when he was at Widow Yadkin’s, either, nor upon his horse that I could see. Umm, Mr Bowlegs …?”

  “Wasted on th’ likes o’ me, Cap’m,” Bowlegs chuckled. “‘Jemmy’s’ good ‘nough. You kin see why.” Indeed, rickets or toddling too young, riding horses from infancy … Jemmy was as bow-legged as a cavalryman, his toes turned inwards like a pigeon.

  “Constable Swann said he was shot out of his saddle. Ambushed. Then shot a second time after he’d fallen,” Livesey sadly related.

  “Head heart, Jemmy,” Samuel supplied, standing at the head of the game trail, with a coldness that snapped his father’s head about and made Livesey wonder what evil, callous effect Bowlegs’s friendship had had on his son.

  “Took time t’reload?” Bowlegs sneered. “I doubt hit! Show ya why, too. Need t’git down t’see this, Mistah Livesey.” With Samuel’s help, Matthew withdrew his prosthetic “foot” from the deep right-side stirrup of his own devising, and swung his bad leg over and down, all his weight for a moment on That Thing. To remount, he’d need a tree stump.

  Matthew and Samuel Livesey gathered behind Jemmy Bowlegs as he took a few more steps down the game trail, tutoring over the spoor he found, using a grass reed as a pointer. “First off, you kin see boot prints, a’goin’ in. First shot, I reckon, hit him right heah, ya see how he most-like stumbled and skidded? Over heah, th’ shot spook his horse, an’ hit rared back, too. Mighta spun an’ hit him on hit’s way out. Left laig slid out f’um under him, he drapt t’one knee over heah, ‘fore he fell. See th’ blood speckles on th’ bushes, thar, aside th’ path? ‘Bout chest-high, that’d fit, fer one shot. Belly-high, that’d come f’um th’ second. An’ … they ain’t ‘nough blood on th’ ground. He dead when he hit th’ ground, Mistah Harry wuz, sure’s Fate. Took one shot on his feet. Second, he wuz kneelin’.”

  “You can tell all that?” Livesey queried, feeling utter confusion.

  “Man git mortal-shot, he’ll bleed bad ‘fore he dies, an’ leave a big puddle, Cap’m,” Jemmy patiently explained, gruesomely digging into the soil with both hands, sifting it like a farmer sampling land, and almost making Livesey gag and recoil in horror.

  “Ain’t no pellets,” Bowlegs stated, sounding almost whimsical. “Did a body shoot him once’t he wuz down … usin’ buckshot or pistol balls like Sam’l said, I’d figger t’find some ‘at missed or went clean th’oo him, but they ain’t heah.”

  “Real close, though, Jemmy,” Samuel countered, on his knees to see. “Really wicked powder burns an’ speckles. Maybe none missed!”

  “Naw,” Bowlegs disagreed, shaking his hands clean, wiping them on his ticken trousers as he rose. “Mistah Harry git shot ‘at close up … after he’s down, I’da found bone chips f’um his head, an’ I didn’t.”

  Matthew Livesey made a dry-retching sound.

  “I’m that sorry, Mistah Livesey,” Jemmy said, “but I kin only tell ya what th’ sign say, an’ that’s why ya asked me t’come out heah.”

  “I…I… understand, Jemmy. He was my friend, d’ye see …”

  “Iff’n hit’s any comfort to ya, Mistah Harry went quick, Mistah Livesey,” Bowlegs said, removing his hat. “Don’ know jus’ why he wuz out heah, or what got him down this trail, but I ‘spect he didn’ have time t’be afeart. Whoever done it, it wuz Bim-Bim! fast as that, an’ he wuz gone. Mighta felt suprised, wuz all, then hit wuz over.”

  “Thank God for small mercies.” Livesey grimaced.

  “Amen, Cap’m.” Jemmy nodded, turning to squit tobacco juice at a flowering bush. “Huh. Y’all hear that?” Bowlegs said, raising his nose to sniff the wind like a wary stag. “They’s a wagon comin’ ‘long th’ road. Best we see t’our horses, ‘fore they spook an’ leave us.”

  Chapter 10

  THEY HAD LEFT their hired horses droop-reined at the side of the road, at the top of the game trail, so they went back to secure them before the clattering wagon spooked them, and left the men to walk a long three miles back to the livery stables.

  But it wasn’t a wagon, it was a coach, being driven four-in-hand, at a decent clip. There was a white coachee atop the box and two liveried, young black slaves riding above the rear boot, trying to keep their little egret-feathered tricornes on their heads.

  “Wayull, sheeyit,” Jemmy commented, spewing another load of tobacco juice on the road, like a witch-woman bestowing bad cess.

  The coach glowed with bee’s wax and polish-oils. Bright yellow-spoke wheels spun like daisies. The flat-roof, potbellied box of that expensive equipage swayed and ro
cked on leather suspension straps, with all the windows down for a breeze. It was very dark green overall, and picked out in gold leaf and bright crimson trim, with a coat-of-arms on the doors.

  “Heah come Prince Dick. An’ Sim Bates’s drivin’. Reckon we oughta go down on our knees to him, hey?” Bowlegs joshed, punching Samuel in the shoulder.

  The coachee drew back on the reins as a walking stick appeared to thump the driver’s box, bringing the coach horses to a walk, then a stop.

  “Jemmy Bowlegs!” the richly garbed man inside shouted in glee, as he leaned out a window. “Workin, are you? Hallo, Livesey. Got a runaway slave needs catchin’? Didn’t hear you owned any, yet. Much held with it, either.”

  “Mr Ramseur, sir. Good day to you,” Livesey rejoined.

  Richard Ramseur, Esquire, was a hawk-beaked, distinguished aristocrat—distinguished in looks, at any rate, if one cared for eagles. While Roger Moore at Orton Plantation on the west bank of the Cape Fear owned, rented or ruled so much land he styled himself “King Roger,” the unofficial lord of the long, sabre-shaped cape that curved down to the mouth of the river on the east was Ramseur. His Ramseur Hall was nigh a match in finery to Orton, though not in acreage or profits, causing most folk of the settlements to refer to him as “Prince Richard,” yet secretly hoping he never inherited the kingship, recalling a distasteful royal of long ago—Richard the Third—with whom Ramseur shared more than a few faults as a hard-driving landlord or employer.

  What they could see of Prince Dick was costly: a black beaver tricorne festooned with white lace and snowy egret feathers. A snow-white periwig perched above a lean, choleric face of a raw complexion, as if Carolina sunlight would never agree with him, a face webbed with a lifetime of gentlemanly tippling, too. Silk shirt and stock, and a gaudy coat of parti-colored velvet—black, gold, tan and gray, intricate as a Turkey carpet—over a fawn waistcoat. Ramseur banged his stick once more, and those postillion boys sprang down to fold down an iron step and open the coach door for him. As he descended, he showed fawn moleskin breeches, and top-boots as glossy as the coach itself.

  “Not slave-catching, sir,” Livesey felt compelled to answer.

  “Then why have this stinky scamp with ye, on my side of the river, Livesey? Huntin’ guide? Oh,” Ramseur said, then paused, peering down the game trail. “Oh!” he said again, his voice rising in tone as a child’s might, over an unlooked-for present. “’twas here he died, is that it?” Ramseur seemed sardonically amused.

  “As if… !” Samuel began to bristle, then hushed.

  “What, puppy?” Ramseur barked. “Did it speak?”

  “Ya use ‘is road, ya musta knowed that a’ready, Mr Ram-sewer,” Jemmy Bowlegs drawled.

  “I don’t concern myself with the places all the rogues meet untimely ends,” Richard Ramseur bit off short.

  “Though your son did attend his funeral, sir,” Livesey felt emboldened to retort, irked by Ramseur’s high-handed, dismissive sneer.

  “Aye, I recall him mentioning that. Since he was in town, and it made as fine a show as any raree.” Ramseur smiled thinly. “I also recall he made mention of your daughter, sir. With the Burgwyns? An opinion over which they differed? Well, the nut doesn’t fall far from the tree, does it, Livesey.”

  “My tree, or yours, sir?” Livesey quipped, stung to anger, but struggling to keep an even and civil tongue in his head in spite of it.

  Ramseur eyed him head-to-toe intently, as if he’d never seen him before, or had never seen this aspect to the tradesman. He got a crafty leer after he was done. “So, you’ve come out here with Bowlegs to sniff it out, have you? Trail the killer back to his door stoop, hey?”

  “Wherever it leads, sir, yes,” Matthew answered, dead-level.

  “Friend of yours,” Ramseur said, making it sound like an accusation. “Like calls to like? Just like some of his faction, you think ’twas the rich men done him in, isn’t it?”

  “That is one of the rumors about, sir,” Livesey said calmly.

  “I’d put my money on one of his shiftless lawyer friends, were I wa-gerin’, Livesey,” Ramseur sniffed. “Murdered him to stir the pot. Work up the followers. Wouldn’t be the first ‘saint’ to go to glory so the faction prospers, your Harry.”

  “It is a plausible rumor to believe, Mr Ramseur,” Livesey responded, “that those in power had it done. The common folk adored Harry.”

  “And he just adored the common folk,” Ramseur sing-songed back. “Shit, he did. Knew him all my life, and let me tell you, Harry Tresmayne didn’t care tuppence for ’em! Long as they were useful—well!—play ’em like a fiddle, stir ’em up with promises of free land, or low rents, promise of the vote, for fiddler’s/5«y/Thanks, and wine, that is. Aye, then he loved the common folk, so he could run the Assembly. Had his eyes on the main chance, even as a lad, as clear-headed and ruthless as Julius Caesar. And about as faithful as Caesar was to old Pompey, too!”

  “Sir … he was my friend, and I deeply resent … !” Livesey said, or tried to say, stung to the quick by such a callous statement.

  “Right, right,” Ramseur calmed, pushing his palms at him as if to shush him. “Devil take him, though … ever think he might’ve played you like a fiddle, too, Livesey? Clever fella such as yourself, sir … level-headed I vow, just gettin’ a business started. Yet you up and go off at Harry’s horsetail to the fighting, leaving all behind … one more dewy-eyed … follower, to your feudal lord.”

  “Damn your blood for that, sir!” Livesey barked, making them all shy in stupefaction at such a sober man bridling in anger, in leveling a curse so black it surely could lead to a duel, and a killing! But Ramseur merely laughed, as if he admired Livesey for showing a sign of “bottom.” Or, he en-joyedrow’mg people beyond all temperance.

  “Oft as folk wish that, Livesey, I’m mortal-certain ’tis damned already,” Ramseur chuckled. “Still,” he sobered. “You think those in power had it done? That English gentlemen would stoop to murder, sir? Or, do you think anyone would be so lunatic they’d make a martyr, and run the risk of a rebellion for the sake of his memory? Crush with the power of the word, sir. But never the sword. No, never!”

  “Unless someone badly miscalculated, Mr Ramseur.” Livesey glowered. “Times change. Harry knew that. More people moving in and settling, now. A handful of’barons’ can’t rule forever, nor keep the newcomers from having a voice. It does looks suspiciously convenient that he died when he did … for your faction, sir.”

  “Which is exactly why no one of my faction … not Moore or anyone else, would have thought it necessary, Livesey,” Ramseur graveled. “We mayn’t own true patents of nobility, as we almost did during the Lords Proprietor days, and we now have this sorry parade of Governors sent out by the Crown. But we’re still an English Society, Livesey. King on his throne …” Ramseur ticked off Society on his long, sclerotic fingers. “Parliament for representation. Barons here … lords if you will, rulin’ the equivalents to shires or counties. Educated men, cultured men of good breedin’ in office under us. Tradesmen, planters, magistrates, gentlemanly tenants or freeholders under them, same as a yeomanry in the middle. An’ common renters, laborers, back-woods no-accounts sifted to the bottom of the barrel, same as a keg of flour. That’s English Society, Livesey, an’ God willin’, it will always be so. Orderly, reasonable … where people know the place they hold. If they work hard, save an’ prosper, they rise. Become yeomanry, then get the income to qualify as voters. Hell, man! I relish newcomers, do they have the wherewithal, and the gumption, to make somethin’ of themselves. More hands for me to shake on the hustin’s! More votes for my sort or the candidates we put up.

  “But not ‘til they’re qua-li-Jied! Educated, prosperous and made something solid for themselves. You give the vote to any damned fool of no substance, you have inferior men who’ll follow the first firebrand who shouts the loudest. Like Harry wanted. And a mob that fickle, and gullible, should never be encouraged!”

  “Hear hear, sir!�
� the coachee shouted in “Amen.”

  “Oh, hallo, Bates,” Livesey said, looking up at the sycophant. “Working for Mr Ramseur now, are you?”

  “Yessir.” Sim Bates nodded. He was a fairly short, thin and reedy man, knobby-featured, with a prominent Adam’s Apple, a hatchet face with lank, straw-colored hair. “Got me a good p’sition. Had it some month, now.”

  “Wondered why I hadn’t seen you outside a tavern, lately.” Mr Livesey smirked. “Didn’t know you were any good … with horses.”

  “Been a stableman all me life, sir. Growed up ‘round ’em.”

  “As I recall, Bates, didn’t Harry have you tied to a cartwheel and flogged when we were up north? Twice, wasn’t it?”

  “He did, sir,” Bates admitted, his face darkening.

  “Once, for drunk and sleeping on guard. Next, for drunk and disorderly,” Livesey remembered. “Took a swing at him, that time?”

  “Yessir,” Bates grumbled, ducking his chin into his livery—which on such an unremarkable man was like gilding on a pig. “Aye, I got th’ ‘checkered shirt’ put on me. Six dozen lashes it was.” He turned away, eyes on the tangle of reins.

  “Any other militia officer would have given such a sorry soldier to the Regulars’ provost-marshal, and an Army court would have made you dance a Newgate Hornpipe from the nearest tree, Bates.” Livesey felt inclined to sneer. Bates had been a disaster as a fellow soldier!

  “What goes around comes around, don’t it, sir?” Sim Bates truculently replied, stung by the idea that Harry Tresmayne had shown him a jot of “mercy,” for he’d loudly despised him ever since.

  Jemmy Bowlegs shot another dottle of tobacco juice under Bates that splashed, runnily ruddy, on the downturn below the coachee’s bench.

  “Don’t go smuttin’ this coach, nigger!” Sim Bates cried.

  “Ooh, what ya call me, Mistah Sim?” Bowlegs leered back, with one hand on his hip and the other on the hilt of his fighting knife. “My Injun pap’djus’ love that’n. Irish kin would too, I reckon.”