A man lunged forward and ripped the broadside off. "Whig rubbish! I'll wipe my arse with it!"
Another man shook his fist at him. "Murdering redcoats. Kill us all in our sleep, just like that butcher, Tarleton!"
"Lies! It wasn't redcoats who raped my niece and held her for ransom! It was Whig scum like you!"
"King George is the liar, and you're the nockhole for believing!"
"And it's Whig bum-fodder like you what printed these broadsides!"
"Where's the tar and feathers, lads? I say we give these Tories some new clothes!"
Approval resounded from half the crowd, and the mob congested. A pistol shot rang out from within the knot of people. Sophie and the others galloped the horses back north on the road several hundred feet before heading west into the marsh and paralleling the road by a quarter mile. Brother killing brother, neighbor against neighbor, father betraying son — and not a redcoat in sight. That seemed the way of the war in the southern colonies.
Quite a difference from the day before, when they'd traveled without incident to their campsite between New Ebenezer and Abercorn. Alton, too, was tame in comparison. Not for the first time on the journey did she realize how fortunate she'd been to live so sheltered a life. And she thought with longing of her safe, comfortable bedroom and her safe, comfortable vocation at the printing press.
Mathias, scouting ahead, found a ridge of dry land half a mile from the road, sheltered by a grove of pines. After the horses had been unsaddled and rubbed down, he and the Creek brothers disappeared to hunt with their bows. Jacques led the horses down the ridge for water. Sophie and David built a fire.
Although she'd no difficulty lighting the resinous pinewood, she'd have given three armloads of it in exchange for a couple of seasoned hardwood logs, for fire devoured the pinewood and gave them more sparks and pops than heat or light. She and David were forced to forage in the gathering dusk for more firewood. She returned to the fire ahead of him, dumped a load of branches, and began feeding them into the flames.
A twig snapped behind her. Snatching up her musket, she rose, pivoted, and peered into the surrounding foliage. "David?"
"Damn," said a man, "look at that. It's a woman."
She faced the voice, musket raised. "Show yourself."
Response slurred from the opposite side of the foliage. "Tad, you reckon we ought to leave anything of her for Ben?"
Laughter rumbled from several men in the foliage. Fear chilled her. She cocked the musket fully.
"Man, I don't know." That voice sounded slurred, too. The men were drunk. "You reckon she knows how to use that musket?"
"She's looking like she's used it before."
Mere threats with her musket might not be enough with these men. Zack MacVie's screams of agony haunted her memory and flooded her with nausea. The thought of killing another human was almost as horrifying as that of being assaulted. Her hands began shaking, and she silently implored the men to back off.
"What the hell, there's six of us and one of her. Who's had the least whiskey? Jed, go on out there and coax that musket out of her hands."
"Kiss my arse, Hoppy. She's too old to be worth having my jewels blown away."
"Yah, and I like 'em with big bubbies."
"Jove bugger the lot of you. I say she can't aim that thing worth shit. I'm getting me that oyster basket."
A man tottered from the foliage unshaven, reeking of whiskey. Terror commanded Sophie's reaction. Two seconds later, a leer still pinched the left side of his face as he collapsed, the right side of his face blown away. With her discharged musket, she clubbed the groin of the closest bandit who leaped out at her. He doubled over in torment. The other four wrested the musket away and pinned her arms behind her.
Breath stinking of whiskey and rotting teeth slammed her face. "She is awful old and skinny."
"Release me!" She thrashed for escape, and pain shot through her shoulders.
"Shit, why bother Ben with her?" Fumbling with the buttons on his breeches, the bandit tottered, his sneer revealing blackened teeth. "I'll empty my own stones in her —"
"Sophie!" The back of the bandit's head dissolved in a spray of bone fragments, brains, and blood, and he sagged to the ground. A snarling David charged through the black powder smoke, knife raised.
She twisted and jammed her heel into the instep of one of the men holding her. He howled and turned her loose. Another man whipped out a pistol and aimed at David. The third man pinned her arms again. She screamed. "David, look out!" The report of the pistol echoed through the trees. David cried out in agony, dropped his knife, clutched his left upper arm, and fell to his knees. "David!"
"Son of a stinking slut — Ben warned you about wasting ammunition!"
"Kiss my arse, Tad! He was going to spit me on that knife!"
"How many more of them are there?"
"I don't know."
"Let's get the hell out of here."
"Without their money?"
"Those two weren't traveling alone. We're probably outnumbered. Take the old nag's musket, and let's begone."
"With the old nag?"
"Why not? Ben may want her after all."
Like hell. Arms still pinned behind, Sophie stomped for another instep. When she missed, she tried to wriggle free. One of the other men seized her plait and brought the point of his knife within six inches of her left eye. "You cooperate, or I put your eye out."
She ceased struggling, her gaze fixed on the knifepoint, her gut churning.
"That's better. Wheezer, on your feet, you whoreson!" The man kicked the leg of the bandit who was still incapacitated on the ground from her blow to his groin. Without waiting to see whether he revived, the trio marched her from the campsite and down the ridge.
On marshy moonlit ground, they halted long enough to bind her hands behind with a kerchief, long enough for the pistol-toting bandit to reload. Stinking of sweat, he waved the pistol in her face. "Make any trouble for us, and you're carrion." He spat near her feet for emphasis.
They marched her across the tall-grass salt marsh eastward. When she stumbled and fell, bruising her left shoulder, they hauled her to her feet and shoved her onward, ever deeper into the nightmare. Terror kneaded her stomach. She tried not to wonder what size reception she'd entertain at her destination or anticipate her fate with the entire gang.
Chapter Sixteen
AFTER A HIKE of a quarter hour, they entered another pine grove. Sophie smelled horse dung, wood smoke, whiskey, and human waste. Staggering into the cleared circle around their campfire, she tallied a couple dozen bandits before one of her captors gave her a shove that sprawled her into a noisome mass of pine straw. "Look here, Ben, we brought you an oyster basket!"
A heavyset, oily man heaved himself up off a fallen log and approached her, eyes bloodshot with whiskey and fatigue. He yanked her to her feet, jerked her head back by her plait, and groped her breasts through her shirt. "Bloody old and skinny, but I reckon she'll do for me. And you boys are welcome to her afterwards."
Stinking of diarrhea and whiskey, Ben wheeled her around and paraded her past the men, who shouted their suggestions for his sport. Terror coiled in Sophie's stomach and rotated dark specks through her vision. This wasn't a nightmare from which she could awaken. No one was going to rescue her. She'd be violated by the mob for hours, unless she found a way to rescue herself. Her brain clutched for something she'd read earlier that day on a broadside, a caption about rebels exchanging a kidnapped nobleman for one of their own destined for the gallows. Did she have the presence and mettle to pull off a bluff? Anything was worth a try.
She honed an imperious edge on the British accent she'd heard so often. "Release me this moment!" Thank heaven her voice didn't betray how she shook. "None of you is man enough to recognize a woman nobly born!"
The command in her tone sliced through enough of the mob's derision to taper off some of the noise.
"A woman nobly born?" Ben roared with laughter, turned her lo
ose, and leered at his men. "Sure, and next we'll entertain Lady Pitt, the Duchess of Chatham, or perhaps Queen Charlotte herself. Tad, where'd you find this doxy? In a tavern?"
"Eh, no, Ben. At a campsite about a mile and a half away."
"You killed everyone who was with her, right?"
"Eh, no, Ben. Sly shot one of them, but we ran off before the others showed. Here's the woman's musket —"
"What? You bleeding idiot, you left a trail for them to find, and you bring me a bleeding musket?" Ben whipped a knife from his belt and flung it. Tad screamed, the knife embedded in his chest, his hands clutching at the shaft, his body convulsing. Keeling forward onto one knee, he succeeded in prying the knife out. Heart blood spurted forth. Sophie closed her eyes a moment and shuddered over the bandits' idea of discipline.
Ben waddled over, kicked a gurgling Tad aside, wiped his knife off on Tad's clothing, and shoved it back into his belt. He dragged another bandit by the shirt closer for scrutiny and flung him toward the trees. "Stand watch with Rabby. You, too, Jed. You boys got the least whiskey in you."
The two trudged off to patrol the perimeter, taking their muskets with them. Ben snatched up Sophie's musket, swiveled his gaze around the group grown silent and sullen, then headed back over to her, drawing up so close that his foul breath coated her. "What's your name, woman?"
She held his stare, not knowing whether he could tell how her stomach still heaved. Since he seemed familiar with the names of British nobles, she raked her memory for the name of one who supported the cause of the colonists. Lennox, the third duke of Richmond, perhaps. "Lady Sophia Lennox."
Ben's eyebrow rose. "Lennox? As in Charles Lennox, the secretary of state?" She nodded.
A brigand across the fire sounded apprehensive. "Ain't Lennox partial to the patriot cause, Ben?"
Another outlaw spoke out. "Yeah, if she's a Lennox, we can't touch her."
"Been sticking up for us, Lennox has. The gods know we need more of his kind over there."
Ben bellowed with laughter. "Cow piss!" He slapped Sophie's shoulder. "'Lady' Lennox, suppose you explain to me what an English gentlewoman is doing out here in the middle of the night dressed like a man?"
Was her bluff actually working? The bandits around the fire were paying attention. She lifted her chin and maintained the imperial accent. "I am returning to Savannah from St. Augustine with my escort of twelve. As for why I'm dressed like a man, well, I invite you to don stays and a petticoat and see how comfortably you can travel in such a manner."
Bandits guffawed. "Ben, we'd like to see you in a petticoat." "Yah, Ben, with stays jamming your teats up your nose." "Wag your arse on the wharf. See what money you fetch!"
"Shut up, you bung-hole cleaners!" Ben began pacing. "Didn't you hear her? She had an escort of twelve."
"All we saw was one. And Sly shot him."
Sophie's heart had ceased hammering enough for her to drill Ben with a glare. "It might be expedient for you to consider me a candidate for a prisoner exchange." She slathered haughtiness into her tone. "And I remind you that should you consent to such an exchange, it behooves you to leave me unmolested while I'm in your custody."
A sneer imprisoned Ben's face. After flinging down her musket not far from the edge of firelight, he swung his fist in the direction of several of the bandits. "Barney, haul your arse over here and tie her Ladyship up!" Dear gods, her bluff had worked! "Sol, get out there and help Gabe with the horses. The rest of you, do what you got to do to get your miserable hides sober. We're marching out in a quarter hour. All of you, no more whiskey until the morrow!"
Within a minute, she found herself sitting, hands and feet bound, at the edge of camp, her musket forgotten on the ground about six feet from her. Adrenaline ebbed. She felt cold, drained. Her memory revisited MacVie's face and that of the bandit she'd shot, lingering on the sight of blood on her brother's arm, the contortion of agony in his expression. David, oh, David.
A bandit staggered over and retched into the bushes near her. The stench settled over her like a sticky cloud. While he staggered back to the campfire wiping his mouth, another bandit pissed on the ground nearby. She drew her feet up closer to her body to avoid getting splashed. The night seemed to have no end.
Rustling in the bushes drew her attention over her shoulder. She caught her breath when a pair of dark eyes materialized in the bushes, and Mathias lifted his finger to his lips. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, almost unhinged with relief. Caught up with departure preparations, the mob had ceased paying her direct attention. A gentle tug and loosening of the rope binding her hands told her Mathias was cutting her free.
From somewhere out in the trees, she heard the approach of multiple horse hooves, a pistol report, and a man's scream of pain. More screams — human and equine — erupted from beyond the trees. Then seven sword-wielding redcoats thundered into view on horseback, Lieutenant Dunstan Fairfax at their lead.
Fairfax's voice roared through the campsite: "Tarleton's Quarter!" Scarlet archangel from the abyss, he dismembered or beheaded four bandits. Through geysers of blood, their heads bounced and rolled, and their bodies collapsed, twitching. Horror punched the breath from Sophie's lungs and paralyzed her, even as the rope fell away from her hands.
Drunken bandits scattered, bellowing with panic. A few managed to discharge their pistols at the soldiers, but terror torqued their aim awry. Swinging their blades like scythes, Fairfax and the six soldiers mowed the band of brigands down. Severed arteries spurted. Bandits writhed and screamed.
Mathias sprang from concealment into chaos, a single slash of his knife freeing her feet. Two bandits charged Sophie and Mathias with knives. Mathias yanked her to her feet and thrust her musket into her hands. She clobbered a bandit in the head with the butt while Mathias kicked the knife from the other's hand and kneed him in the groin.
She scurried into the bushes with her musket, but not before a backward glance rewarded her with the sight of Edward and two other soldiers riding into the clearing. The blacksmith caught up with her. "Go! Run like fire!"
They sprinted for the moonlit marsh, galvanized by the pounding of pursuit, and emerged from the pine grove into moonlight. Sophie tripped over the body of a bandit with an arrow through his throat. As Mathias heaved her to her feet, a sword-bearing Ben barreled from the grove and was upon them. "Whore of Babylon, I'll cut your scrawny teats off!"
She screamed. The schlick of an arrow silenced when it pierced Ben's throat. The bandit gurgled and sagged to the grass, thrashing.
Bow in hand, Standing Wolf emerged from behind a lone tree, while Runs With Horses trotted their four horses over. Mathias shoved Sophie up into Samson's saddle. Her limbs beginning to tremble, she kicked the gelding into a gallop and, with her companions, fled the massacre in the grove.
At the ill-fated campsite, she spied her brother propped against his saddle, bare-chested, near the dying fire. A bloody knife nearby, Jacques finished bandaging David's arm and sat back, satisfaction on his weather-beaten face. She rushed to them and threw her arms about David, who clutched her with his right arm. "Sophie, oh, gods, Sophie, are you all right?"
She doubted she'd ever be "all right" again. "Yes. Let me see your arm — broken?"
Pallid-faced, he struggled up to a sitting position and shook his head. "Mere flesh wounds."
Jacques laugh was harsh. "How like a brother to not worry his sister. I pulled a ball from his arm."
David gritted his teeth. "None too gently, I might add."
"Uncle Jacques, did you get all of it out?" Her words sounded distant to her. She felt distant, as if she were teetering on the fringe of humanity.
"Of course, belle Sophie."
"Thank you." She shook out David's shirt, then stared at the bloodstains on it.
"Unfortunately I have performed such grim service many times before, once on my own leg at Saratoga." He grinned at David. "You want to see the scar, eh?"
Even through his pallor, David man
aged a gusted laugh. More stories of valor from the annals of Jacques le Coeuvre. "No. I'll take your word for it."
Mathias strode past the body of the outlaw David had killed and knelt beside David. "Our redcoat friends are about a mile in that direction butchering bandits. They were making quick work of it, so I cannot imagine them wasting time before they look for us. Can you ride?"
"Jove's jewels, the mongrel didn't shoot my bum, you know."
Mathias helped him stand. "I don't want you bleeding to death on the road."
"As I've never been a martyr, I'll let everyone know if I start bleeding to death." He snatched his shirt from Sophie. "Let's go."
Chapter Seventeen
TWO HOURS LATER, beneath a half moon and firmament of stars, they guided the horses to firm ground west of the road. A groan escaped David's lips when he slid from his saddle, and Sophie led him to moonlit grass. "Sit. I'll care for your horse tonight."
"Thank you." He folded his long legs beneath him. "I hope we left the whole bloody lot of redcoats behind."
Jacques yawned. "We should be back on the road by sunrise."
Sophie said to her brother, "Help me remove your shirt so I can change the bandage."
"My arm doesn't need more prodding tonight."
"If gangrene sets in, you'll be shuffling cards one-handed. Off with your shirt!"
Mathias led his horse past. "You'd best do as General Barton orders. Wounds like that fester."
Cursing under his breath, David eased his shirt over his head. "The rotten luck of it. I could have been at a Savannah card table tonight plucking purses and drinking whiskey."
Well she knew he might have enjoyed Savannah. She might have slept in a bed at a decent inn. She'd voted to bypass Savannah and pitched them into that snarl of outlaws and redcoats — gotten David shot, and nearly gotten herself violated by a gang — and she'd had to kill a second man, not that she wanted to dwell on that at all. She unrolled David's bandage. How naïve she'd been to insist on making the journey. Were her companions humoring her: a "general" with no field experience?
Paper Woman: A Mystery of the American Revolution Page 13
