The closing of Donald’s fingers on his shoulder took him by surprise. The compassionate look in Donald’s tired, reddened eyes startled him, then filled him with a warmth he hadn’t experienced in—Lord, it must be years.
“Thank you,” Donald said.
“You’ve made a wretched mistake, you know,” Judson laughed with a false heartiness, helping Donald hobble back to the horses.
“Who can be sure? You might discover you have a flair for oratory and backstairs finagling. Besides, while the winters in Philadelphia are miserable, I understand the ladies are quite flirtatious.”
“You understand? Haven’t you persuaded even one to tumble into bed with you?”
Donald responded to the teasing with a grimace. “I fear these damned bandages would prove—hampering, shall we say? You, though—that’s another story. See what you have to look forward to?”
“You haven’t mentioned this to the old man, have you, Donald?”
“What would be the purpose? It’s merely a contingency.”
“Contingency or no, please do me a favor and keep it private. Otherwise I’ll be rousted to camp in the fields.”
Donald laughed. “I suspect you’re right. I’ll keep quiet.”
The first of the empty wagons was pulling away as they mounted in the pattering rain. The huge casks were somber reminders of the canoes that might never come.
One buck in the second wagon glared at them when they rode by. Wincing with pain, Donald didn’t see. Judson pretended he didn’t either.
ii
In the second week of September, Donald Fletcher left in a coach, heartened by a letter from his friend Tom Jefferson. The letter said that, for the first time, the Congress might soon represent all thirteen separate political entities up and down the eastern seaboard. Reluctant Georgia was apparently planning to dispatch a delegation at last.
After Donald departed, Judson was also the recipient of an unexpected communication: four closely written foolscap pages dated almost eight months earlier, and wrapped inside a pouch one of the Clark boys brought to Sermon Hill. The letter was one of a packet that had been sent east by Judson’s friend George. The packet had been posted at Pittsburgh.
The Clark boy said George had informed his family that he was well and in good spirits. As a member of the Virginia frontier militia, he had scouted for the royal governor, the Earl of Dunmore, in sharp action against the “savages” late the preceding year.
Dunmore had personally gone across the mountains at the head of an expeditionary force numbering a thousand men. His purpose was to put down raiding by the Indian tribes. The raiding had been provoked by Dunmore’s own seizure of land in western Pennsylvania, and by the arrival of settlers in the country below the river with the Indian name—Ohio.
In the letter directed to Judson, George Clark wrote of a successful military engagement at a place called Point Pleasant. There, a Shawnee war chief named Cornstalk and his followers had been decisively defeated. Most of the rest of the letter concerned itself with the breathtaking beauty of the wilderness south of the Ohio.
On earlier expeditions, George Clark had looked at its dark, lush shores from a poplar canoe. But now, at last, he had set foot in Kentucky, and explored it.
The letter described strange, eerie marsh hollows where animals stole down to lick at frosty-white deposits of salt, and woodsmen marveled at bones thrusting up from the ooze. George wrote that he had personally seen time-bleached ribs as long as the roof pole of a cabin, and thigh bones thick as tree trunks:
I believe we gazed upon the remains of phenomenal Beasts which may have roamed our earth before the coming of the human kind. At least I have never heard of skeletons so immense, save in fanciful tales.
Judson’s mind couldn’t quite comprehend such a bizarre curiosity. But he knew George Clark would never invent a story merely to impress him. He actually felt a thrill of awe down his spine as he read the passage.
Kentucky, already divided into three large counties which nominally belonged to Virginia, now boasted several white settlements. In 1769, a man from the back country of North Carolina had crossed the barrier mountains to explore the territory. Subsequently, he’d led members of his family to the rich new land. The Boone clan had journeyed through the notch in the mountains called Cumberland Gap, and established a few isolated stockades.
Inhabitants of the frontier outposts lived with constant danger. The reason was simple: Kentucky had long been a hunting ground for the Creek and Cherokee tribes who ranged up from the south—and also for the more ferocious Miamis, Shawnee and Wyandots who claimed the forests north of the Ohio. In spite of the threat of Indian attacks from two directions, Clark saw the Kentucky wilderness as a promised land for men of free spirit:
Such spacious domains, my friend, have doubtless never before been viewed by Human eyes. Here is land where a man can breathe sweet, untainted air. Stroll all day through forests with branches that arch overhead like the vaults of Cathedrals. The limestone soil is fertile, and game astonishing in its abundance. Fat Turkeys of gold and purple—Buffalo grazing the canebrake which rises taller than a rider on horseback—Elk and Deer beyond counting—Paradise, notwithstanding its perils. In Kentucky a man relies solely upon Himself and a few trusted Comrades of like mind. It is here, I may say with conviction, that I have found both Beauty to entrance the Soul, and vast spaces whose exploration and defense give purpose to my Life at last.
The letter closed with a brief but sincere wish that Judson was in good health, and that George Rogers Clark might again share his experiences in person, if ever the mounting conflict with England gave him reason to return to the Virginia colony which had taken so much of the western forest in its own name.
The letter fired Judson’s imagination just as George’s two visits had done. It also filled him with a heightened loneliness, and a sense of deepening confusion. At a river-front inn, he withdrew to a corner and read the foolscap pages again and again. Rum helped paint vivid pictures of his lanky, red-haired friend striding along under those immense green arches, smoothbore over his shoulder, listening to the wild bird calls and sharing the friendship of a night campfire. The names rolled sonorously in Judson’s inner ear—
Pittsburgh.
Kentucky.
Ohio.
Shawnee.
By their very sketchiness in his own mind, the lands beyond the Blue Wall became richer and more colorful moment by moment; then day by day.
More painful to think about, too.
He took a trip to Richmond. The trip had no purpose other than to allow him to spend the better part of two days in bed with a cheerful whore who didn’t constantly whine for demonstrations of affection, the way Lottie Shaw did. On the trip he heard that George Clark had indeed acquitted himself well in the battle at Point Pleasant. His name was mentioned in the taverns along with those of other well-known frontiersmen—Kenton, Girty, Boone. Thanks to men like George, Lord Dunmore’s western war had been a success. God alone knew when Judson Fletcher would be able to say the same about his own existence.
iii
In early November, Donald sent Judson a letter saying that grim news had arrived on a transalantic schooner recently docked at Philadelphia. In August, George III had refused to receive the petition for reconciliation, and formally proclaimed the American colonies in open rebellion. Said Donald:
Such as John Adams of Mass. Bay are jubilant. It is plain that we shall soon be past the point of possible compromise, if we are not already. I was advised of the unhappy turn of events while at rest in my quarters. The d—d gout has once again confined me, together with what one of the local croakers diagnoses as a congestion in the breathing passages, brought on by exposure to a prolonged spell of wet, foul weather.
iv
“The vile, perfidious spawn of Satan!” Angus Fletcher cried, much too exercised to touch the hog cutlet and greens on his plate. “The wretched, deceiving miscreant!” The old man bunched his fingers and h
it the polished dining table so hard the candle-glasses rattled. A spoon fell to the pegged floor.
Into his fourth or fifth glass of claret, Judson Fletcher lounged in his chair at the opposite end of the long dinner table. A nervous house black stepped forward to retrieve the spoon. He retreated when Angus glared.
Muttering private curses, the old man covered his eyes with both hands. The tall windows of the dimly lit room were open on the November dark. The evening was unusually warm; Judson’s neck cloth was undone.
“And all along I thought you and His Excellency were kindred souls,” he said.
Angus Fletcher whipped his hands down. “I need no clack from you, you damned young traitor.”
Judson smiled. “Strikes me it’s Lord Dunmore who’s the traitor to those who thought him a friend. That he’d try to recruit a loyalist army is to be expected. But promising freedom to any nigra who deserts his master to join—that’s a delightful fillip, to say the least. After Seth heard the news, he was talking like the hottest rebel.”
Livid, Angus opened his mouth to reply. He was so upset, he couldn’t say a word. Judson glanced away, momentarily ashamed of himself.
Yet he hadn’t held back, had he?
The opportunity was just too rich. In one stroke, the Tory governor had undercut the very planters who were his strongest adherents. Men like Seth McLean could switch sides quickly when their economic position was threatened. But Angus, believing both in the slave system and the authority of the king, was not so flexible. He’d been suffering ever since the surprising announcement had been circulated in the neighborhood the preceding day.
“I’d expect you to relish my discomfort,” Angus snarled at his son. “To gloat—because you’ve no brains in your head! No notion of the turmoil Dunmore may have unleashed. We put the lid on the kettle that was stewing all summer. Now the damn fool’s pulled it off again. Only Jehovah in His wisdom knows what will—”
Boots rapped on the pegged floor. Judson swung around.
Looking apologetic, Reuven Shaw stood just inside one of the tall windows. His long blacksnake whip was draped over his left shoulder and under his right armpit.
“Blast you, Shaw,” Angus said, “you’re never to interrupt my dinner and you know it.”
Shaw seemed unnaturally pale. “Yessir, I realize, but—” The overseer swallowed. “Number two curing barn’s afire.”
The room was absolutely still. Angus turned as white as Shaw:
“Afire?”
“Yessir. I been smellin’ something comin’ all day. The niggers been jumpy as hell. I got a gang working to control the fire, but—”
Angus leaped up. “The niggers set it?”
“Who else, Mr. Fletcher? Half the bucks ain’t in their cabins. Sneaked out after sunset, I reckon—”
Judson felt no further impulse to laugh. Outside, behind the overseer, a dull red glare was rising. He heard strident voices through the November darkness.
“Sneaked out!” Angus thundered. “Don’t you have anyone watching to prevent that? Who’s your driver tonight? Why didn’t he sound the alarm?”
Reuven Shaw wiped a hand across his mouth. “My driver tonight was Beau. You know Beau—a good nigger. I just found him by the pond. His body was lyin’ on the bank, an’ his head—his head was floatin’ in—”
Shaw stopped, looking nauseated.
Well he might, Judson thought, chilled despite the mildness of the evening. There had been occasional slave rebellions throughout the southern colonies in the past. Not many. But each one was usually disastrous, at least at first, because the white owners and overseers were numerically inferior.
“You mean to tell me niggers are loose with field knives?” Angus whispered.
Again Shaw nodded, sick-faced. “Guess that’s how they butchered Beau. Larned, he’s gone for sure. I checked.”
Judson saluted Shaw with his goblet. “Congratulations. I was told you hided him twice this afternoon.”
“Sassy bastard kept braggin’ he was gonna enlist in Dunmore’s nigger army. I shoulda castrated him last summer, ’fore this got out of hand.”
“Well, it obviously is out of hand,” Angus seethed. “Why haven’t I heard the bell?”
“I come to report first. There ain’t much we can do to save number two barn—”
“Go ring the goddamned bell!” Angus screamed. “We’ve got to turn out every white man on the river before this spreads!”
The old man’s profanity indicated the depth of his fear. The house black who had been waiting on table had disappeared, Judson noticed. Angus dashed from the dining room, headed for his office. His passage made the flames of the candles jump and cast distorted shadows of Judson rising from his chair.
On his way out, the overseer gave the younger man a questioning look.
“If you’re counting on me to help slaughter the nigras—” Judson realized he was more than slightly drunk. He had trouble articulating the last word: ‘
“Don’t.”
Shaw scowled. “Like Mr. Fletcher said, we need every man—”
Judson waved. “Shit, I didn’t bring this on. I won’t help finish it.”
Reuven Shaw trembled, but not from fear. He gathered spit in his mouth and blew a gob onto the pegged floor. Then he spun and ran into the red-glaring dark.
Judson tossed off the last of his wine. He was setting the fine crystal goblet on the polished table when he heard a hideous shriek from out on the grounds.
He bolted for the window, raced down the lawn toward the rear corner of the big house. Beyond it he saw flames leaping from the curing barn, and terrified bucks, wenches and running to and fro, adding their hysteria to the din. Other male slaves were trying to round up the frightened ones with profane shouts or, in some cases, drivers’ whips.
Before Judson reached the corner of the house, his boots struck something in the neatly scythed grass. He halted, crouched down, tasted vomit in his throat—
Reuven Shaw, lying crooked as a doll. The overseer was dead. An immense gash had been cut in his throat. The distant firelight lit the still-wet blood drenching his right sleeve and the front of his coarse shirt.
Out back, the alarm bell on its great iron Y began to toll—but not before Judson heard a stirring up on his left, in the dark near the unlighted windows of the conservatory.
“Jesus God—!” he breathed, lurching to his feet as an ebony figure shot toward him from the shadowy concealment. Firelight glittered on one of the knives used to chop off the leaves at harvest.
The black man was red to the elbows. Judson’s sotted mind screamed the danger. Somehow he managed to duck as the frenzied face loomed, white teeth and eyes glaring. The long knife slashed in an arc where Judson’s head had been a moment before.
He dropped to his knees, grappled for the slave’s ragged trousers. A work-toughened hand clasped his throat, cutting off his air. He heard the guttural breathing of his attacker, then the whissh of the knife hacking at his throat—
Wildly, Judson wrenched free and rolled. The slave jumped after him, hacked again. The blade struck Judson’s left boot, cut through the leather but didn’t break the skin. The renegade slave’s downward stroke had thrown him off balance. Judson sprang up, used his head to butt the black in the stomach. In seconds, fright had torn the cobwebs out of his mind.
The slave pitched over backwards. He cursed Judson in West African dialect. The cursing ended in a yelp as Judson stamped on the slave’s wrist. The gory right hand opened. The field knife was loose. Judson snatched it up, leaped back, panting—
A shadow fell across the lawn from the dining room. Judson whipped his head around, saw his father with his sword buckled on and a British-made horse pistol in each hand.
“Kill him,” Angus ordered as the terrified slave struggled to rise.
Judson hesitated. Angus made a sound deep in his throat; a wordless condemnation. In two steps he reached the floundering slave, who blocked his face with his scarlet forearms
, shrieking, “Mist’ Fletcher —don’—”
Angus shoved the horse pistol against the slave’s chest and fired.
Clang and clang, the Sermon Hill bell spread its message of terror through the still November night. Angus treated his son to one final glare of utter loathing, then disappeared around the corner of the house, on the run.
Judson turned his back on the grisly corpse with the huge, dripping cavity in the chest. The curing barn collapsed in a crash of burning timbers and sky-spraying sparks. The slaves were being whipped into submission by the black drivers; being formed up into bucket lines that stretched from the springhouse. He heard two more shots, new screaming—and then, off across the fields, a series of ululating yells that sent worms of horror gnawing through his mind.
The renegade slaves were loose not just at Sermon Hill, but out in the countryside—
That made him run like a man demented.
Upstairs first, for his own horse pistol and the knife for the sheath in his boot. Then through the red confusion to the stable, where he flung a saddle on his roan, trying not to hear the pitiless crack of the whips beating the less able-bodied slaves back to their cabins.
The fire seemed under control now. It had spread to the roofs of the other curing barns, but slaves on ladders were dousing the flames with buckets of water. Judson mounted, jerked the roan’s head savagely, galloped past the cabins and down to the main road.
At a crossroads he encountered a dozen men from neighboring estates, all summoned by the bell. They reined in, shouting questions at him.
“Stand aside!”
When they didn’t, he booted the roan, jumped the roadside ditch and thundered by along the shoulder, tortured by what he saw through the trees in the distance.
Seth McLean’s house. Ablaze.
He booted the roan still harder, the wind carrying those piercing howls to him twice more before he turned into the lane leading to Seth’s property.