There was silence for a while as Zack drifted. Then the voices of the men began to chatter as before. Greatly daring, Zack raised his head to peer through the leaves.
The current had brought him close to the mill itself, and he headed straight for the turning, creaking wheel. He must quit his swimming shelter or go over the race. He took a deep breath, dived deeply, then slowly paddled under water, straight toward the mill.
The sun overhead struck through the brown current. In front of him hung darkness like a cavern. He swam toward that, and dared to rise toward the surface. He came up under a rough walkway of logs, built out over the water like a little wharf. Clinging to a support, Zack listened. Feet walked above him, and paused not far away.
“Zounds, Godfrey, you’re surly to the men,” said someone, and the someone was Robinson Alspaye.
“I’ll have discipline here,” replied Godfrey. “There’s no sense in burning the powder we may need in battle.”
“Think you the rebels will dare face us?” inquired Alspaye scornfully. “We could drive twice our number of those cowards.”
“Yet I wish Colonel Moore would stay here,” said God- I frey. “Lord Cornwallis says to gather the grain, that he will bring his army by autumn.”
“We’ll be sure of the early harvest in a week’s time,” said Alspaye. “Then why wait timidly for Cornwallis? We can1 ' go out over the country without him, make every rebel householder sick of his rebellion. That’s what Colonel Moore wants, to show Lord Cornwallis not only harvested corn but a beaten country.”
“You’d enjoy that, I take it,” said Godfrey, not very pleasantly, and Alspaye laughed.
“I would indeed. That’s the conqueror’s reward, to destroy and plunder the goods of the enemy.”
“Enemy,” repeated Godfrey. “Yet these folk are my old friends and neighbors. I value them, and you do not.”
“I value none save your good self, who had the sense to join the winning side. Oh, and perhaps one other.”
“What one other, sir?”
A laugh. “Why, Godfrey, who but your fair sister?”
Zack started, almost splashing the water. His hand reached for his submerged knife. There was silence above him for a moment. Then Godfrey spoke, with cold anger in his tone. “Sir, I’ll have no such mocking use of Grace’s name.”
“Now, now, who mocks? I speak seriously, in admiration. After all, Godfrey, I’m a captain of the King’s men, and a gentleman.”
“Captain, perhaps, by Moore’s assignment. Gentleman— no, Alspaye!”
“I’ll not take such sneers from you,” said Alspaye, angry in turn.
“My sister’s not for you,” said Godfrey. “If you’re disposed to resent what I say, I’m very much at your service.”
Godfrey spoke fiercely. The very logs above Zack’s head seemed to vibrate with tense feeling.
“You mean a duel? ” inquired Alspaye with heavy mockery. “You’ve heard the colonel on the subject of private duels. No brawling or fighting amongst ourselves until we’ve settled the rebel threat.”
Godfrey’s feet shifted on the walkway. “When that threat is settled, we’ll settle this,” he promised.
“When the threat is settled, Miss Grace Prothero may not look unkindly on a captain of the triumphant army,” returned Alspaye.
“Sir,” said Godfrey, “I’ll hear not a word more from you about this.”
“Have it so. I’ll speak my words to your sister.”
Another quick movement of Godfrey’s booted feet, and the sound of a slap, sharp as a pistol shot.
“You struck me!” cried Alspaye, in startled anger.
“Aye, so I did. Resent it if you dare.”
Zack waited no longer to hear the two captains quarrel. He swam noiselessly under the walkway to the very brink of the dam. The wheel creaked there, and a masking slope of boards extended beside it to the creek below.
He screwed up his courage, scrambled out upon the dam, then slid down the muddy face of it under the boards. At the bottom he dropped into the creek and, lying almost against its bed, swam away to where the bridge would give him hiding.
Now he must find his way out of there, for there was still much to see and learn.
15 Battle Orders
JONAH whinnied gently as Zack fairly crept into the grove behind Reinhardt’s smithy in the late afternoon.
“You know me, Jonah?” Zack said in a husky, tired voice. “It’s good to see you again, too.”
Zack drooped with fatigue. His hair trickled water and his i pantaloons and moccasins were wringing wet and caked with mud. He looked and felt very little like a hero of the American Revolution.
After his stealthy escape over the dam and down Clark’s Creek, he had continued his scouting toward Moore’s old camp on Indian Creek. For hours he had crept, hidden, and peered. He found the road across the South Fork near Reep’s cabin thronged with Tory troops, armed with rifles and muskets, and wearing evergreen sprigs in their hats for uniform. The whole force was on its way from the earlier stopping place to Ramsour’s Mill.
Zack had scouted that force more thoroughly. Again and again, flanking parties had all but stumbled upon him. Once he had been forced to climb a great oak while half a dozen t enemy soldiers moved beneath him on a trail. Another time he had escaped discovery only by wallowing in a boggy pond. and covering himself with mud. Not all of that mud was, washed off yet. But, he told himself, he had done his work well. He had been able to compute the moving Tories as more than a thousand strong, not counting those two companies at the mill. And they were well armed, with wagonloads of supplies, and fully two hundred were mounted as cavalry, with pistols and sabers at their belts.
Kneeling by his saddle in the grove, Zack opened his ration sack and brought out the food he had been issued at Dickson’s. He had not needed much of it so far, what with Reinhardt’s hospitality, but now he ate heartily of parched corn and roast beef. As he finished his meal, he saw Fesso at the rear door of the smithy.
“Psst!” Zack hissed stealthily, and Fesso glanced toward him, then walked in among the trees. “I’m back again, and safe so far,” said Zack. “Where’s Mr. Reinhardt?”
“Yonder he comes,” replied Fesso, and Zack saw Reinhardt emerge from the door. In a moment the smith had joined them, grinning in pleasure as he recognized Zack.
“I’ve been through the country west of here,” announced Zack.
“So? And you seem to have brought a deal of it sticking to you. Come into the shop. Fesso will bring a bucket of water for you to wash with, and there’s someone there who knows I you.”
Zack followed Reinhardt into the smithy. Against the wall lounged the stocky body of Adam Reep, who happily shook hands. As Zack washed the mud from his face, arms, and fchest, he told of his adventures and discoveries.
“It’s no news to me that they make ready to march and rob,” growled Reep when Zack had done. “What’s to do how?”
“I must carry the word to Tuckaseege Ford, and at once,” feplied Zack.
“I’ll give you moccasins for those you wear,” offered :Reinhardt, and took a pair from a shelf near the front door. “You and I are of a size in the foot, and those wet ones will dry out hard as wood if you do not work them with oil. But others beside your Tuckaseege friends should be warned.”
“That is true,” agreed Zack. “Could somebody ride west of here, into Rowan County up the Catawba, and warn Colonel Locke? General Rutherford sent orders for him to embody iwhat troops he could there.”
“I’ve a neighbor who knows Locke well, and who can be trusted as we trust our own hands,” said Reinhardt. “I’ll go tell him at once.”
“And another messenger might ride to the Point,” went on Zack. “Captain McKissick’s company is there, ready to fight iwhen called.”
“I’ll go to him myself,” said Reep eagerly. “I know Enoch Gilmer of McKissick’s men, and he’ll vouch that I bring true information.”
There were pleas that Za
ck stay and rest overnight, but he was not to be persuaded. He cleaned his soggy pantaloons iof most of the mud, put on his dry shirt and borrowed moccasins, and tucked the precious map into the crown of his hat once more. Then he mounted Jonah and rode off the way he had come, via the side road to Dellinger’s Tavern, them by the curving trail through the bogs and woods to the maim road.
He made good speed toward the east. Jonah, without being forced, traveled swiftly and well. The sun went dowm before Zack stopped beside a creek on Alexander Low’s land, to let Jonah rest and drink. Zack gave Jonah all the parched ' corn, and ate the last of the meat he had brought. Then he rode on in the night, with only a scrawny new moon to guide him.
He remembered his first trip to Moore’s camp. On the night of his capture by Alspaye, that moon had been full. Since then, it had waned to nothing, and only now was showing its white rim again. Tonight was the night of June 17, barely two weeks since Zack had escaped imprisonment and the threat of hanging. It seemed almost a lifetime.
He reached Dickson’s in the deep night, and stopped at the challenge of the sentry. Lieutenant Freeland came to question him, then Captain Martin, and Zack was brought to Colonel Dickson’s front door. Roused from sleep, Dickson appeared with a blanket wrapped around him. By candlelight he studied the map Fesso had drawn, while Zack explained.
“Once more you’ve done splendidly,” said the colonel at last. “Those Tories number upward of a thousand, you say?”
“Closer to thirteen or fourteen hundred,” said Zack.
“And they talk of marching against us in a week’s time,, you told me. Maybe we will have numbers to dare them, and save them the trouble of marching.”
“Save them the trouble?” echoed Zack, uncomprehending.
Dickson grinned harshly at Captain Martin. “This lad of yours will be busy in our service, and we may trust him with what’s in the doing,” said the colonel. “Harper, General Rutherford finds that those other Tories fall away to the south from Hanging Rock. Therefore Old Griff will leave but a small part of his force at Charlotte and fetch the rest here. His advance guard is already here in bivouac. He himself comes tomorrow, and he’ll have a ready ear, I doubt not, for all you can tell him.”
Zack departed, exhausted but joyous at the praise and attention he had received. He unsaddled Jonah and saw to his comfort, then sought out the coals of the fire where his friends Andy and Cy slept. He himself was half-asleep even as he lay down, and within seconds he was fairly drowned in deep, dreamless slumber.
In the morning he did not rouse for once, but lay motionless until Cy and Andy shook him awake to share a breakfast of hot cakes made with eggs and corn meal. Afterward he went to look after Jonah, who was picketed next to Christian Mauney’s horse. Both cropped grass contentedly. He found a wooden pail to bring water, and met Captain Martin looking after his own mount.
“Suppose you turn that Mauney horse over to me,” said the captain. “I’ll see to it that he’s returned to his owner. As for you, you’re wanted at the house yonder. General Rutherford has just ridden in and is at breakfast with Colonel Dickson. They scowl over that map of yours and ask help in reading it.”
“I’ll go at once, Captain.”
At the house, a servant ushered Zack into the morning room. Dickson and Rutherford sat at a table, eating fried ham and hot rolls. The big leather-clad general glanced up, saw Zack, and fairly howled a greeting.
“Here’s that young fox who prowls under Moore’s very hand to sniff out Tory secrets!” cried Rutherford. “They say you’ve fetched back a new fardel of intelligence, lad, but I’m no sure eye at reading a map. Sit by me while I eat, and tell me what these marks mean.”
Zack did so, running his finger from point to point of Fesso’s chart, and explaining. Rutherford listened closely, and finally he struck his great fist on the table, so heavily that the dishes danced.
“We’ll gobble them up at that mill,” he vowed. “They’ll come forth to plunder and conquer, will they? We’ll show them two sides of that plank. Harper, you’ve served your friends well. What reward do you ask of me?”
“Only that you let me into the front of the fighting, General,” said Zack earnestly. “I’ve a score to settle with one of Moore’s captains.”
“Not Godfrey Prothero?” suggested Dickson.
“No, I’ve sworn not to hurt him. It’s Robinson Alspaye I pray to meet face to face.”
“Aye, aye, the man you say has his eye on Prothero’s sister,” said Dickson. “Did she not make us our flag? You saw that flag, General Rutherford. I don’t think the hand that sewed it should be bestowed on a Tory thief.”
“I’m ambitious to let young Harper settle him,” quoth the general. “Very good, Harper, I’ll engage you have your chance. But we have some numbering and planning to do ere we march.”
Zack stayed with the big general the rest of the day, watching new and ever new bodies of men as they arrived across Tuckaseege Ford. Half a dozen companies were mounted and armed as cavalry, with swords and horse pistols, but Rutherford insisted that to each saddle must be tied a rifle or musket.
“We won’t be dragoons, like those imps of Satan who follow Butcher Tarleton,” he said. “Horses will take us swiftly to where the enemy waits, but there we’ll jump to earth and open fire. A bullet strikes harder than the finest blade ever forged.”
And there were wagons heaped high with pones of corn- bread stacked like cords of wood, with joints of meat and great baskets of potatoes and turnips. Mountains of food were needed to provision the hundreds of men.
By afternoon, an aide brought Rutherford a listing of the troops on hand. Of Rutherford’s force that had marched from below Charlotte, fully six hundred had arrived. With Dickson’s men, there were eight hundred in all. Rutherford rocked his big head so that the ends of his scarf fluttered.
“I’ll not say that eight hundred American patriots are too few for the twelve hundred Tory thieves,” he said, “yet I want all the muskets we can bring against them. I sent an express to Colonel Locke three days gone, and if I know him, he has gathered many up in Rowan County. Where did we hear Locke is posted?”
“This side the Catawba, opposite the head of Mallard’s Creek,” replied the aide.
“That’s twenty miles hence, as the crow flies,” decided
Rutherford. “Say twenty-five miles by the road. Harper, how like you that horse Jonah I gave you?”
“He’ll run and make distance with any horse I ever saw,” replied Zack.
“Is he rested after those things you did around Ramsour’s Mill? Then I’ll send you on to Locke, to fetch him and his men down to j oin us. He can reach there tomorrow, and we’ll then have a thousand or more. With so many, I’ll dare face all the yapping curs Moore can whistle to his Tory banner.”
Rutherford himself scribbled a message for Colonel Locke, and Zack departed northward with it, in the middle of the afternoon.
Again he found himself riding into the warm June night, along a road between stretches of trees, with occasional dark blotches of farm buildings. He crossed a creek called Dutchman’s, passed a fine house that must belong to a man named Abernathy and another that, as he had heard, was the home of a Colonel Forney. Once he stopped to rest by a spring, where Jonah drank gratefully while Zack ate a few mouthfuls of bread he had been given by Colonel Dickson. Then he resumed his journey. As he approached a crossroad in the dark, he heard the hoofs of another horse approaching.
At once Zack’s hand snatched loose the thongs that held his rifle to his saddle. Dropping the bridle on Jonah’s neck, he lifted the weapon. “Who goes there?” he shouted loudly.
“A friend of liberty! ” came back the answering cry.
“So am I,” declared Zack, and a moment later the two riders came close and paused, side by side. The other man leaned across as though trying to make out Zack’s features in the dark.
“Where are you from?” he asked.
“From General Rutherford,” said Z
ack, keeping his rifle poised. “And you?”
“I ride to General Rutherford with word from Colonel Locke. Don’t be nervous, friend, no Tory dares show his nose in these parts. I am Colonel Johnson.”
“Colonel Johnson?” Zack had heard of him. “My name is Harper, sir, and I am a common soldier. Colonel Locke uses express riders of high rank.”
“Mine was the best horse in his command,” said Johnson, “and my news is great enough to warrant carrying by a man of any rank. Harper, you said? Zack Harper, by any chance? The name was brought us in an express from Ramsour’s Mill.” “I was there yesterday, sir.”
The colonel checked his eager, sidling horse. “There was word of a Tory army there, a thousand and more, ready to venture out and lay waste the land. Colonel Locke sends to General Rutherford, saying that he is moving toward Ramsour’s Mill with two hundred men and hopeful of gathering more to give battle.”
“But General Rutherford desires Colonel Locke to join him at Tuckaseege Ford!” exclaimed Zack.
“Then let us waste no more time in gossip. I’ll ride on to inform your general. Go you on to tell Colonel Locke your news. See this crossroad, that bears to the west? Follow it. You will find Colonel Locke camping somewhere along the way. When he hears your dispatch, he will act accordingly.” They separated, and Zack turned Jonah toward the west, where Colonel Locke waited, and beyond Colonel Locke, the Tories at Ramsour’s Mill.
16 Closing In
Away rode Zack, Jonah loping as though he had just begun the journey. Trees grew darkly, gloomily, on either side of the way. Overhead were the stars. A dog barked in front of a farmhouse, but there was no light, no movement.
He was in Rowan County now, as he judged, westward and slightly northward of that Tory-thronged mill. According to Colonel Johnson, the troops under Locke had intended to reach this road on which Zack traveled and make camp on it. Here ran the nearest way to the mill—and to conflict. But if Zack rode too fast, he might miss Locke entirely and pass on westward to the very outposts of Moore.
Manly Wade Wellman - Novel 1961 Page 12
