Liberty 1784: The Second War for Independence (7 page)

Chapter 3

O
wen Wells twisted against the ropes that bound him, but to no avail. His captors had tied his hands behind him with the rope wrapped behind a tree. He could kick his legs if he wanted to, but that would likely get him nothing more than another beating, and he’d had enough of those in the several days he’d been a prisoner of the scruffy bandits who’d captured him. His face was a mass of bruises and his ribs ached where he’d been kicked. The beatings only stopped when one of them realized that Owen needed to be alive for them to collect the reward from the British.

Owen’s escape from Manhattan Island had gone extremely well at first. He’d managed to land his stolen boat on Staten Island, and had carefully snuck across to New Jersey and then into Pennsylvania. There he’d felt emboldened enough to work his way openly north and west. He’d had no specific plans. All he wanted to do was put time and distance between himself and the authorities in New York.

He’d been no fool and had kept away from the trails and occasional road. He also avoided contact with the few households and bypassed the villages. He assumed that anyone who looked prosperous was a Tory, while anyone who looked impoverished would turn him in for a reward. If he saw a traveler, he hid in the brush. During the days and weeks of his journey, he’d rehoned the skills he’d possessed as a youthful poacher in his native Wales. Although he occasionally regretted throwing away his musket, he didn’t need it to catch food. A trap and snare made from local materials were more than enough to catch rabbits and squirrels and he reveled in their taste when cooked over a small fire that was also easy to make.

Thus, getting caught was gallingly stupid. Why had he thought he was far enough away from British-controlled land to ask someone how far he was away from this “Liberty” place? He had naively presumed that people so far from New York and well into Pennsylvania would be rebels and that he could drop his guard. But no, he had run into a small band of bounty hunters looking for rebels and deserters just like him, and now he faced being dragged back to New York and hanged if he was lucky. If he was unlucky, he’d be sentenced to a thousand lashes, which meant that he would be flogged to death, screaming his lungs out for the mercy of death while the white bones of his ribs and spine were exposed to the air. He’d seen men whipped like that and watched as they became something less than tormented animals before they finally died.

Stupid, stupid, stupid he said to himself. The four-man bounty hunter team was now drunk and asleep. The bayonet he’d kept lay beside one of them. It was further proof that he was a deserter.

The small fire they’d burned was dying out and Owen wished they’d thought enough to feed him. They hadn’t, and were only giving him water to sustain him. They’d rather reasonably decided that it made no sense to waste food on someone who was going to die anyhow, and a weakened prisoner was easier to control.

Owen froze when he sensed rather than heard motion in the trees behind him. It was not an animal—too large. It had to be a man. Maybe it was an Indian who would slice his throat and then scalp him. As horrible as it sounded, that would be preferable to what the Royal Navy would do to him when they got their hands on him. Whoever it was, he was only tolerably good at prowling through the woods. And whoever it was apparently didn’t want the four sleepers to wake up, which meant he wasn’t on their side. Owen tried not to hope and didn’t make any kind of a sound or move. His captors were drunk, but that didn’t mean they might not suddenly wake up and get vicious.

He continued to hold still when he felt a gentle tugging at the rope that curled behind the tree to which he was bound. It sagged and he was free. A firm hand on his shoulder meant that he should stay still. He did as he was told. Then the hand tapped him and gestured for him to move away from the camp. Owen’s muscles were cramped and he found it difficult to walk silently, but he managed to do so without alerting the sleeping outlaws. His rescuer followed a few seconds later.

When they were a ways away, Owen whispered. “Why didn’t you kill them?”

His liberator turned. He now carried a pair of muskets taken from the bandits and a pistol was stuck in his belt. Owen didn’t see his bayonet and didn’t care. The hell with it, he thought.

“It would be murder and I’ve done enough of that lately. Don’t worry. They won’t follow us without weapons.”

Owen gulped at the response. “Then tell me who you are.”

“I have the guns so you tell me first.”

Owen thought that was reasonable. After all, hadn’t the man risked a lot to untie him? He told him and, as they continued to trot through the forest, he quickly explained that he was a deserter from the Royal Navy and how he’d managed to get his stupid self captured. He added that he sincerely hoped his new friend had nothing to do with the English.

The other man laughed. “I’m Captain Will Drake of the Continental Army. If you really want to find that Liberty place I’ll help you. If it exists, of course.”

“You’ve been there, Captain?”

“No, but I think I stand a better chance of finding it than you do.”

Owen grinned. “And you’re less likely to make a fool of yourself by getting caught like I did. I’d be honored to serve under you, Captain.”

“I thought you might,” said Will. They’d come to the place where Will had been camping. They were a couple of miles away from the bounty hunters’ camp and had heard nothing of an alarm behind them. The four men would have a most unpleasant surprise in the morning. Perhaps they’d even be thankful that their throats hadn’t been sliced.

Will handed him a spare musket. “Take this.”

Owen grasped it and checked it out. “You think those bastards might still come after us?”

“No. I’d been watching them for about a day and I don’t think they can track very well at all, not that I’m that much better.”

Owen chuckled. “You were good enough to free me without alerting them, Captain. Personally, I don’t think those four could find their asses in the dark with both hands.”

* * *

Sarah and her family had also traveled into Pennsylvania, but that only put them close to the English troops headquartered at Fort Pitt and the adjacent city of Pittsburgh. Banastre Tarleton, the English general commanding the sprawling area, had troops and patrols on the lookout for people heading to and from the rebel enclave out west. His cavalry roamed the trails and roads looking for people to stop and question.

Thus, when they heard the thunder of hooves behind them, they quickly ducked into the thick bushes that lined the trail they’d been following. They dismounted and held their horses steady. Sarah and the others held their breath as about twenty green-coated cavalry pounded past. “Tarleton’s men,” her uncle muttered. “Dragoons, and Tories all, damn them.”

They waited. The enemy seemed to be on a mission, looking for someone or something. Finally, Uncle Wilford stood. “Time to get moving, I guess. But we’re staying off the trail.”

There was no argument. They began to move cautiously through the woods on foot, leading their horses to keep them quiet. After a short while, they heard the sounds of cries and screams. They looked at each other. Whatever was happening up ahead could have easily happened to them. Nobody wished ill on anyone else, but that’s how it sometimes happened. They’d gotten lucky and that’s all there was to it.

Wilford led by a few yards. He paused and signaled the others to wait, but that Sarah should come forward. He indicated that she should crouch or crawl and she complied. He pushed the branches of a bush aside and she saw what had happened.

A group of maybe a dozen travelers had been intercepted by the dragoons who had just ridden past them. There were men and a handful of women along with a couple of children. The women were on the ground, naked, and were being held down and raped by Tarleton’s men, who were whooping and hollering as they took their turns. The men in the group, also naked, were all bound and gagged, except for one man who lay limp and bloody on the ground, probably dead. The children ran around screaming hysterically and were ignored by the British, except for one who was kicked by a dragoon when he tried to get close to one of the women.

“We can’t help them,” her uncle said sadly, but firmly. “It might not be very Christian to ignore them, but we don’t want anyone to see us or the same thing might happen to us. If we stay south of Pittsburgh, we might avoid British patrols. I understand there’s a mighty river that flows westward to the Mississippi. We make it to the river perhaps we can get a boat to take us farther west.”

Sarah thought her uncle was grasping at straws, but said nothing. In truth, she had nothing to add because there were no other options. She wondered what would happen to the surviving travelers. Would they be allowed to continue their journey, naked and abused, or would they be killed? Or arrested? Sarah shuddered. Could have been us, she kept repeating to herself. Clearly this Tarleton was as bad as Sheriff Braxton.

They had to get past the British patrols before they could be safe. Her knowledge of the area’s geography was scant, but, like her uncle, she did recall hearing of several rivers that met at Pitt and at least one of them then flowed west. She thought it was the Ohio. Of course they couldn’t get a boat at Pittsburgh, but perhaps he was right. Maybe they could find something.

A keening wail from one of the abused travelers cut like a knife and drew them back to the tragic scene less than a hundred yards away. She parted the bushes to see better. The dragoons had mounted their horses and were riding off slowly, while the travelers, now only half dressed and trying to repair the torn clothes that had been ripped from their bodies, were gathered over the man who’d been lying on the ground.

“We can help them now,” she said.

“A penny says that man is dead and we can’t help at all,” said cousin Faith, who had quietly joined them.

As the travelers moved the pale body Sarah could see that the man’s head was bloodied and smashed. Worse, his limbs were totally limp. Even at a distance, they judged the situation as hopeless. What made it worse was the commonly held knowledge that Tarleton’s green-coated dragoons were likely all Tories, men who also called the colonies their home. Sarah wondered how they could commit such crimes against people who were their neighbors. Of course, she thought ruefully, there was the little matter of a war that had raged for six years and, in many ways, was a civil war pitting brother against brother, neighbor against neighbor. That she and her family were heading west was proof that vengeance was the rule of the day. She wondered just how she would have behaved towards the Tories if the revolution had succeeded.

Silently, they led their horses away. In a bit, they mounted. The tragic scene reinforced their hatred for the British and the correctness of their decision to head west.

Sarah thought that the only good thing to come from their journey was the irony that they were all healthier and stronger than when they’d lived in Pemberton. Sarah felt that she was stronger mentally and physically. She had lost weight, and little plump Faith looked like she’d gained confidence as she shed pounds. So far, they’d had little trouble finding berries and vegetables to eat, and there was fresh water in abundance. An occasional fish, or a trapped rabbit or squirrel, had rounded out their diet.

Of course, all the health in the world would mean nothing if Tarleton’s horsemen caught up to them.

* * *

Will and Owen lay on the ground and stared intently at the half dozen armed men who rested on the small hill a couple of hundred yards in front of them. The men just stood there, nonchalantly holding their muskets, while their unfettered horses grazed contentedly. Behind them was yet another stand of thick forest, which puzzled Will. If the men wanted to be unseen, all they had to do was move a few feet into the woods and they’d be invisible. Also, if it wasn’t for the weapons, they could have passed for workmen taking their ease while the boss was away. They exchanged food and drank from canteens as the two men watched. The group exuded quiet confidence which further concerned Will. They acted as if they owned the forest.

The riders had been easy to spot. Owen and Will had crept as far as they could through the forest and into the brushes without being seen by the armed men. Perhaps, Will thought, the riders had been
too
easy to spot.

There was no real trail or path as they headed west, but there were places where the presence of previous travelers could be discerned and this was one of them. When paths were obvious, the two men didn’t follow them. Instead, they worked their way parallel to them, hoping that they would not run into an ambush. The sight of the armed men in front of them confirmed their choice.

“Who do you think they are?” Owen asked.

Will didn’t respond. The answer to the question was crucial. They were far enough west, they hoped, for the band of armed men to possibly be American rebels. Still, there was no guarantee of anything. They could be Tarleton’s men, or outlaws like the men who had seized Owen. Hell, he thought, they could be that same group with a couple of more men added to it. They had a major decision to make. Should they try to evade them or go up to them? The wrong step could prove fatal.