"Savages." From the derision contorting Fairfax's features, there wasn't an Indian on the earth he trusted. His gaze bored through foliage where Betsy and Sophie crouched. Reins grasped in his left hand, he held his musket ready in his right hand. "Follow me, men. Stay alert."
The party advanced north. Fairfax passed within ten feet of Betsy, his head in her sights the entire time. She fought the urge to squeeze the trigger until her stomach grew raw with it while entranced with the thought of spattering his brains all over the road. Even after the party pulled ahead, she followed them with her musket. Through her trance, she heard Tom whisper, "Betsy, they're gone. Lower the musket."
She let the barrel drop and saw her father's hand wrap about the barrel of her mother's musket and push it gently down. His gaze traveled between mother and daughter, and his black eyes chilled with understanding.
Another Cherokee emerged from the brush, as did Runs With Horses. Mathias motioned them all to gather. The nine stood in silence while forest noises around them resumed normalcy. Then Mathias caught the gazes of the Cherokee. "You saw him, the redcoat with hair like flame?" They nodded. "Lieutenant Fairfax is the one who murdered the Spaniard in Alton and made it appear the work of the people. We have the sworn word of one of his own, Lieutenant Stoddard, that it's so."
While Indians grumbled, Betsy drew in a breath of clarity, recalling the determination on Stoddard's face in Camden and the enmity between Stoddard and Fairfax in Alton. The British Army wouldn't condemn Fairfax. It would hide him. Not the flavor of justice Stoddard craved.
Mathias threw back his shoulders. "Fairfax is also the enemy of my mother's house. He murdered her brother." Creek and Cherokee alike sucked in a breath of indignation, expressions toughening. "He laid violent hands on Nagchoguh Hogdee." His gaze pierced Betsy, read her soul. "And on her daughter.
"This moment was not ours. But someday soon, Creator may grant us our time. We will show Fairfax what it is to be a prisoner of war among the people, after the old ways." As one, the Indians bared their teeth in an expression unmistakable for a smile. "And my mother's house shall be avenged, and her brother's spirit shall find peace." He released a war whoop, and the warriors joined him, altogether bloodcurdling, inhuman. They quieted, pleased to hear the forest ring with the summons.
Dread slithered through Betsy. Had her father known his opponent, he wouldn't have issued a challenge. After a lifetime of searching for him and finding him at last, after seeing her mother content at last, she couldn't let him fall into the trap. She gripped his arm. "At this distance, he will have heard you!"
The others, even her mother, remained silent, their attention on Betsy and her question of the warrior who walked in two worlds. Mathias looked from her hand on his arm to her eyes, and his tone was calm. "May he continue to hear us, even in his dreams. The gods have granted him foreknowledge of his doom."
Gods? Some gods granted victory to a champion who brought them trophies of human blood. "Mathias — Father — you still don't understand. He'll appreciate your warning!"
"I do understand." He removed her hand from his arm and clasped it. Love flowed from him, depth, shrewdness, courage. "His is an old spirit. I see him for what he is, creature of the lower world, and I will stop him."
A gust of relief emptied from her. Unlike Adam Neville, Mathias did know his opponent.
With his other hand, her father stroked her face. "Now let us move on. With each step you take west, leave behind the fear that brought you to this place." He smiled. "You have earned the right to do so, my daughter."
Finis
Historical Afterword
History texts and fiction minimize the importance of the southern colonies during the American War of Independence. Many scholars now believe that more Revolutionary War battles were fought in South Carolina than in any other colony, even New York. Of all the wars North Americans have fought, the death toll from the American War exceeds all except the Civil War in terms of percentage of the population. And yet our "revolution" was but one conflict in a ravenous world war.
The impact of women during the American War, especially those on the frontier, has been minimized. Women during this time enjoyed freedoms denied them the previous two centuries and the following century. They educated themselves and ran businesses and plantations. They worked the fields and hunted. They defended their homes. They ministered their folk religion at gatherings. They fought on the battlefield. Although unable to vote, women did just about everything men did.
The Battle of Camden occurred on 16 August 1780 in South Carolina. The Continental Army was twice the size of the British Army, but it was annihilated because the commander, Horatio Gates, made severe errors in judgment — errors that cost the life of the gallant Major-General Johannes de Kalb. This battle came several months after another critical Continental defeat, the Battle of Charles Town. Those two battles, along with the Continental defeat at the Battle of Savannah (October 1779), might have meant total downfall for the Continental Army in the Southern Theater. But the British followed the Battle of Camden with their own series of military blunders, and soon they were headed up the road to their strategic encounter with the Continental Army in Yorktown, Virginia (October 1781).
Judging from his career in India after he left North America, Charles Brome, the Earl Cornwallis, was an excellent military strategist and an able and intelligent commander, not to mention being just a decent person. He didn't relish getting tough on colonists, pleading their case with Parliament before his wife died, leaving the harsher disciplinary measures to those of his subordinate officers who commanded mobile units throughout the Carolinas and Virginia, such as Lieutenant Colonel Banastre Tarleton. Frustrated in early 1781 by British setbacks and a lack of colonial submission, Cornwallis personally assumed the heavy-handed approach as he made his way to Yorktown.
British Colonel Francis Rawdon is an unsung hero of the Camden Campaign. Combining courage and military common sense, he and his men protected the citizens of Camden in July and August of 1780 while delaying the approach of the Continentals, thus enabling Cornwallis's annihilation of the Continental Army in the Battle of Camden. Throughout the following year, he continued to distinguish himself in service to the King.
Loyalist Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Brown commanded the King's Carolina Rangers and was based for a short time in Augusta, Georgia, where he kept order in the city. While defending Augusta, he and some of his men were besieged for almost a week in the heat of summer (September 1780) by forces commanded by Elijah Clarke. When British reinforcements arrived and took prisoners, Brown promptly hanged thirteen of his besiegers. Historians are fond of giving Brown a bad rap for this action. However each of the thirteen hanged men had either broken parole (punishable by law with execution) or was from among a mob that had attacked, tortured, and maimed Brown in 1775 when he was trying peacefully and diplomatically to calm them down.
Selected Bibliography
Dozens of websites, interviews with subject-matter experts, the following books and more:
Barefoot, Daniel W. Touring South Carolina's Revolutionary War Sites. Winston-Salem, North Carolina: John F. Blair Publisher, 1999.
Bass, Robert D. The Green Dragoon. Columbia, South Carolina: Sandlapper Press, Inc., 1973.
Boatner, Mark M. III. Encyclopedia of the American Revolution. Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania: Stackpole Books, 1994.
Campbell, Colin, ed. Journal of Lieutenant Colonel Archibald Campbell. Darien, Georgia: The Ashantilly Press, 1981.
Cashin, Edward J., Jr. and Heard Robertson. Augusta and the American Revolution: Events in the Georgia Back Country 1773-1783. Darien, Georgia: The Ashantilly Press, 1975.
Cashin, Edward J., Jr. The King's Ranger: Thomas Brown and the American Revolution on the Southern Frontier. Athens, Georgia: The University of Georgia Press, 1989.
Edgar, Walter. Partisans and Redcoats: the Southern Conflict That Turned the Tide of the American Revolution. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, In
c., 2001.
Gilgun, Beth. Tidings from the Eighteenth Century. Texarkana, Texas: Scurlock Publishing Co., Inc., 1993.
Hudson, Charles. The Southeastern Indians. Knoxville, Tennessee: The University of Tennessee Press, 1992.
Kirkland, Thomas J. and Robert M. Kennedy. Historic Camden, Part One. Columbia, SC: The R. L. Bryan Company, 1994.
Mackesy, Piers. The War for America 1775-1783. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1964.
Mayer, Holly A. Belonging to the Army: Camp Followers and Community During the American Revolution. Columbia, South Carolina: University of South Carolina Press, 1996.
Morrill, Dan L. Southern Campaigns of the American Revolution. Mount Pleasant, South Carolina: The Nautical & Aviation Publishing Company of America, Inc., 1993.
Peckham, Howard H. The Toll of Independence: Engagements and Battle Casualties of the American Revolution. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1974.
Scotti, Anthony J. Brutal Virtue: the Myth and Reality of Banastre Tarleton. Bowie, Maryland: Heritage Books, Inc., 2002.
Tunis, Edwin. Colonial Craftsmen and the Beginnings of American Industry. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999.
Follow Lieutenant Michael Stoddard's journey as an investigator
in Book 1 of an exciting new series available October 2011
Regulated for Murder
A Michael Stoddard American Revolution Thriller
by
Suzanne Adair
For ten years, an execution hid murder. Then Michael Stoddard came to town.
Bearing a dispatch from his commander in coastal Wilmington, North Carolina, redcoat Lieutenant Michael Stoddard arrives in Hillsborough in February 1781 in civilian garb. He expects to hand a letter to a courier working for Lord Cornwallis, then ride back to Wilmington the next day. Instead, Michael is greeted by the courier's freshly murdered corpse, a chilling trail of clues leading back to an execution ten years earlier, and a sheriff with a fondness for framing innocents—and plans to deliver Michael up to his nemesis, a psychopathic British officer.
Read the first chapter now
Chapter One
A MESSAGE SCRIPTED on paper and tacked to the padlocked front door of the office on Second Street explained how the patriot had come to miss his own arrest:
Office closed due to Family Emergency.
Family emergency? Horse shit! Lieutenant Michael Stoddard hammered the door several times with his fist. No one answered. He moved to the nearest window and shoved the sash.
Two privates from the Eighty-Second Regiment on the porch with him pushed the other window sash. It was also latched from within. One man squinted at the note. "What does it say, sir?"
Michael peered between gaps in curtains. Nothing moved in the office. Breath hissed from him. "It says that the macaroni who conducted business here sold two clients the same piece of property and skipped town with their money under pretense of family emergency."
"A lout like that wants arresting." The other soldier's grin revealed a chipped front tooth.
"Indeed. Wait here, both of you." Michael pivoted. His boot heels tapped down the steps.
Afternoon overcast the hue of a saber blade released icy sprinkle on him. He ignored it. Ignored Wilmington's ubiquitous reek of fish, wood smoke, and tar, too, and trotted through the side yard. At the rear of the wooden building, two additional soldiers came to attention at the sight of him. The red wool of their uniform coats blazed like beacons in the winter-drab of the back yard.
He yanked on the back door and found it secured from the inside, rather than by padlock. The young privates had no luck opening a window. Michael looked inside, where curtains hadn't quite covered a pane, and confirmed the stillness of the building's interior.
A plume of white fog exited his mouth. He straightened. Ever since Horatio Bowater had grudgingly dropped assault charges against Michael and his assistant days earlier, Major Craig had bided his time and waited for the land agent to supply him with an excuse to take another rebel into custody. A disreputable business transaction presented the ideal pretext for arrest.
And when James Henry Craig ordered someone arrested, it had damn well better happen.
Michael squared his shoulders. By god, he'd nab that bugger, throw his dandy arse in the stockade, where the premium on real estate that past week had risen in direct proportion to the number of guests incarcerated.
Surely Bowater had left evidence in his office. Business records or a schedule. Without facing his men, Michael regarded the back door anew, attention drawn to the crack between door and jamb. "The men sent to Mr. Bowater's residence should be reporting shortly. However, I suspect our subject has departed town." He half-turned toward his soldiers. "Henshaw."
"Sir."
"Fetch a locksmith from the garrison, quickly. Tell him we've a padlock on the front door."
"Sir." Henshaw jogged for the dirt street, the clank of his musket and cartridge box fading.
The other soldier, Ferguson, remained quiet, awaiting orders. A wind gust buffeted them. Glacial sprinkle spattered Michael's cheek. Another gust sucked at his narrow-brimmed hat. He jammed it back atop his dark hair. He and the men would be drenched if they didn't complete their duties soon and seek shelter.
He shrugged off February's breach beneath his neck stock and ran fingertips along the door crack. The wood was warped enough to reveal the metal bolt of the interior lock. He wedged the blade of his knife into the crack and prodded the bolt with the tip. Wood groaned and squeaked. Splinters shaved from the jamb. In another second, he felt the bolt tremble. He coaxed it, one sixteenth of an inch at a time, from its keeper until he found the edge and retracted the bolt.
He jiggled the door by its handle and felt it quiver. At the edge of his senses, he registered an odd, soft groan from inside, somewhere above the door.
But the warmth of enthusiasm buoyed him past it. There was no bar across the door on the inside. The latch was free.
Satisfaction peeled his lips from his teeth. Horatio Bowater was such a careless fool. Had the agent replaced the door and jamb with fresh wood, an officer of His Majesty would never have been able to break in like a common thief.
He stepped back from his handiwork and sheathed his knife. Ferguson moved forward, enthusiastic. Michael's memory played that weird impression again, almost like the grate of metal upon metal. Careless fool indeed, whispered his battlefield instincts. He snagged Ferguson's upper arm. "Wait." He wiggled the latch again. Skin on the back of his neck shivered. Something was odd here. "Kick that door open first, lad."
Ferguson slammed the sole of his shoe against the door. Then he and Michael sprang back from a crashing cascade of scrap metal that clattered over the entrance and onto the floor and step.
When the dust settled and the cacophony dwindled, Michael lowered the arm he'd used to shield his face. Foot-long iron stalagmites protruded from the wood floor. Small cannonballs rolled to rest amidst scrap lumber.
The largest pile of debris teetered, shifted. Michael started, his pulse erratic as a cornered hare. With no difficulty, he imagined his crushed corpse at the bottom of the debris pile.
Bowater wasn't such a fool after all.
Ferguson toed an iron skillet aside. His foot trembled. "Thank you, sir," he whispered.
Words hung up in Michael's throat for a second, then emerged subdued. "Indeed. Don't mention it." With a curt nod, he signaled the private to proceed.
Ferguson rammed the barrel of his musket through the open doorway and waved it around, as if to spring triggers on more traps. Nothing else fell or pounced. Michael poked his head in the doorway and rotated his torso to look up.
A crude cage stretched toward the ceiling, a wooden web tangled in gloom, now clear of lethal debris spiders. Bowater hadn't cobbled together the device overnight. Perhaps he'd even demonstrated it for clientele interested in adding unique security features to homes or businesses.
Michael ordered the private o
n a search of the stable and kitchen building, then stepped around jagged metal and moved with stealth, alone, past the rear foyer. The rhythm of his breathing eased. He worked his way forward, alert, past an expensive walnut desk and dozens of books on shelves in the study. Past costly couches, chairs, tables, brandy in a crystal decanter, and a tea service in the parlor. He verified the chilly office vacant of people and overt traps, and he opened curtains as he went.
In the front reception area, he homed for the counter. The previous week, he'd seen the agent shove a voluminous book of records onto a lower shelf. No book awaited Michael that afternoon, hardly a surprise. Bowater was devious enough to hide it. And since the book was heavy and bulky, he'd likely left it behind in the building.
Wariness supplanted the self-satisfaction fueling Michael. A suspect conniving enough to assemble one trap as a threshold guardian could easily arm another to preside over business records. Michael advanced to the window beside the front door. When he unlatched it and slid it open, astonishment perked the expressions of the redcoats on the front porch. "I've sent for a locksmith to remove the padlock." He waved the men inside. "Assist me."
While they climbed through and closed the window, Michael's gaze swept the room and paused at the south window. Through it, the tobacco shop next door was visible. The owners of the shop kept their eyes on everything. In contrast to Bowater, Mr. and Mrs. Farrell hadn't griped about the Eighty-Second's occupation of Wilmington on the twenty-ninth of January, eight days earlier. If they'd happened to notice atypical activity in Bowater's office over the past day or so, he wagered they'd be forthcoming with information.
How he wished Private Nick Spry weren't fidgeting, restless and useless, in the infirmary, while his leg healed. But for the time, Michael must make do without his assistant. He signaled his men to the counter, where Ferguson joined them. "Lads, I think Mr. Bowater left his records book in this building. I want the entire place searched for it."
The Blacksmith's Daughter: A Mystery of the American Revolution Page 33
