The Blacksmith's Daughter: A Mystery of the American Revolution (11 page)

Betsy studied Clark's peculiar
fenced-in, wary expression over the rim of her coffee mug after Susana walked
away.
 
"You visited the tanner
yesterday, did you not?" she said low, keeping her face neutral.

"Yes, but you don't think I
had anything to do with his murder, do you?"

"Did you?"

"Good god, he was my
friend!"

"And the Spaniard who murdered
him?"

Clark looked away.
 
"I don't know who he might have
been."

The coffee soured in Betsy's
mouth.
 
From the horror and suspicion in
her husband's eyes, she suspected he did know something about the
murderer.
 
That he was unwilling to confide
in her about it filled her with more anxiety.
 
The least Clark could do would be to tell her how the tanner's murderer
figured into his mission.

Upstairs after breakfast, while
Betsy was cleaning her teeth, she heard the jingle of spur and harness outside
in the front yard.
 
She rinsed her mouth
and looked beyond the porch overhang to see Lieutenant Fairfax dismounting his
horse while five other soldiers remained in their saddles out on the road.
 
Will's hounds rose from the front porch, their
toenails scraping the planks, and trotted over to greet the visitor.
 
Halfway out, both dogs changed their minds
and dove beneath the porch.
 
Not a
reassuring gesture.

The clock in the shop struck seven,
followed by a rap on the front door.
 
Betsy slung her tote sack over her shoulder and left the bedroom.
 
Susana gave her a matronly hug downstairs in
the shop, handed their wrapped dinner to Clark, and hugged him.
 
"I may have the biggest mouth in Alton,
but no one ever walked away from my table hungry."

As soon as Betsy opened the door,
Fairfax glared in at them.
 
Without a
word, she walked past him, Clark behind her, to where Clark had tied their
saddled horses, noting the stiff expressions on the other five soldiers, none
of whom had accompanied Stoddard to fetch them from Augusta.
 
She and Clark sure weren't going to
supplement any soldiers' rations with homemade goodies during dinner this trip.

The Sheridans waved goodbye to
Susana.
 
On the road, their escort of
six spoke little.
 
Attempts at chitchat
between Betsy and Clark withered in the ambiance that they were a mere
liability to the soldiers.

They stopped at nine and again at
eleven.
 
Betsy, at last grown to
understand the complaint of "pregnant bladder," trekked through
foliage west of the road to relieve herself.
 
Wandering out into the brush far enough for privacy made her feel like
an escaped prisoner.
 
And to think they
had several more hours in Fairfax's company.

Her return was curtailed by pistol
fire and the appearance of a dozen bandits descending on the escort.

At first she gaped in shock.
 
Horses skittered and neighed through black
powder smoke.
 
Fairfax whipped out a
pistol, blew a bandit's face away, and vaulted into his horse's saddle.
 
Clark discharged his fowler into another
bandit's midsection, sending the man screaming and thrashing in agony.

A volley erupted from the soldiers'
muskets.
 
The arc of sunlight on the
lieutenant's hanger made Betsy flinch in horror, too late to avoid seeing the
spurt of blood and the bounce of a bandit's severed head.

She crouched behind a tree, shaken,
nauseated, Stoddard's words hammering her memory:
I was the target,
sir.
 
Had the men not performed
commendably, I'd have been assassinated
.
 
So this wasn't indiscriminate highway robbery and murder, then.
 
Was she witnessing part of a conspiracy to
assassinate British officers?

More pistol shots, more screams
from dying men, the thud of someone running toward her — she gasped at a bandit
fleeing into the woods and huddled lower in the brush.
 
Best to stay concealed.

Her gaze followed the retreating
man and widened when a Spaniard emerged from the brush thirty feet from her,
the reins of his horse in one hand.
 
He
studied the bandit's noisy flight before looking toward the road, his
expression as full of purpose as it was devoid of warmth.
 
Betsy's stomach lurched, and she almost lost
her breakfast.
 
He was the Spaniard who
had murdered the Givenses.

When he spotted her, menace and
recognition condensed in his piercing, black eyes.
 
He tossed the horse's reins over a branch and lunged.
 
Betsy bolted for the road and blundered
straight into the arms of a second retreating bandit.

He hauled her around and, with one
arm pinning her to him, faced the soldiers, a knife pressed to her throat.
 
Dark specks rotated through Betsy's vision
of stunned soldiers and a horrified Clark.
 
Clark faltered forward a few steps.
 
"For the love of god, please let her go!"

"Stay there, you hear me?
 
All of you.
 
Or I'll cut her!"

In the background, moribund bandits
moaned.
 
One began a death rattle.
 
Clark spread his hands, beseeching.
 
"I haven't much money with me, but it's
yours if you let her go."

"I'll take your money, all of
you, and I want every horse.
 
After all,
it's what's due us for our efforts.
 
Drop your weapons and keep your hands where I can see them.
 
Lieutenant, drop that pistol, I say!"

Betsy's gaze riveted to Fairfax,
who'd dismounted.
 
He finished reloading
one of his pistols and replaced the ramrod with the calm and ease of a preacher
reviewing a popular sermon for a familiar flock.
 
Then he lifted the pistol and took aim with a steady hand.
 
"Drop the knife and let her go unharmed
by my count of five, and I shall grant you a thirty-second lead before I hunt
you down."

"Does your lordship think me a
fool?"

Agony bloomed on Clark's face.
 
"Lieutenant, didn't you hear him?
 
Put that pistol away, or he'll murder
her!"

"Stand your ground, Mr.
Sheridan."

"You've lost your wits!
 
Pistols aren't accurate enough!"

"
Stand your ground
."

Betsy's gaze yanked back to
Fairfax.
 
Angelic radiance suffused his
face, and a half-smile teased his lips, as if he agreed with Clark's assessment
of his pistol's accuracy.
 
Again, she
almost vomited.
 
The pistol was aimed
right for her.
 
Did he have no regard
for her life at all?

"Ensign, if Mr. Sheridan
interferes, restrain him."

"Sir."

She darted a glance around — from
edginess on the four privates' faces, to discipline on the ensign's face, to
terror on Clark's face, to the radiance that transfigured Fairfax in such a
breathtaking, preternatural way.
 
Gods.
 
The only time she'd seen
such virility imbue Clark's expression was during lovemaking.

She felt close to fainting.
 
Sweat streamed between her thighs.
 
If the bandit didn't kill her, Fairfax or
the Spaniard would.
 
She was on her
own.
 
Tensing, she spotted a small
branch nearby: a good weapon to wield after she raked her heel down the
bandit's shin and into his instep.

He firmed his grip on her, and
desperation snarled his voice.
 
"I'm tired of dancing with you buggering bloodybacks.
 
Give me what I want, or I'll cut her throat."

"As I said, let her go
unharmed," said Fairfax, "or I shall put a ball between your eyes on
my count of five.
 
One."

"All your money and
horses!
 
And drop that pistol!"

Humming filled Betsy's ears at the
look of torment in Clark's expression.

Fairfax cocked the pistol.
 
"Two."

"Meet my demands, or I'll kill
her!"
 
The bandit pricked her neck
with the point of the blade.
 
Fire
burned down the side of her neck and into her tucker: blood.
 
Her knees knocked.
 
Terror punched her breath from her lungs and fed it back to her
in puny gasps.
 
Rage fueled the bandit's
shriek: "The devil damn you black for a liar!"

"Three."

The tiny movement of Fairfax's
forefinger squeezing the trigger preceded the
kerr-poww
of the pistol a
millisecond before the searing breath of the ball skimmed the mobcap at Betsy's
right temple and plowed through cartilage, bone, and brains of the bandit with
a wet thump.
 
Blood sprayed the back of
her neck.
 
He collapsed.
 
Her hand groped for her neck.
 
The world tinted yellow.
 
Sounds muffled.
 
Her knees buckled.

Clark caught her before she hit the
ground.
 
Seconds later, the sensation of
him dabbing off her neck with his handkerchief and water from his canteen
anchored her, steadied her pulse.
 
"Thank heavens it isn't deep.
 
It's already stopped bleeding.
 
I've cleaned blood off your clothing."
 
He hugged her from behind, his chest warm against her back.
 
"How do you feel, Betsy?"

The dead bandit's booted feet
haunted her peripheral vision.
 
Her
tucker felt pasted to her shoulder.
 
She
moaned.

"Ah, sweetheart.
 
We haven't much time.
 
I hope you're well enough to ride."

On the road, soldiers cut purses
and confiscated weapons from corpses before dragging the bodies into the brush
east of the road.
 
Betsy's gaze sought
the cumulus-smudged sky, where turkey buzzards would be circling soon enough,
then shifted to the edge of the thicket, where Fairfax appeared and dusted off
his hands.
 
Somewhere behind her in the
brush, the Spaniard lurked.
 
Her voice
emerged little more than a whisper.
 
"I will ride."
 
And the
sooner the better.
 
Something about the
attack didn't seem valid.

Fairfax strode for them, his face
expressionless.
 
She focused her gaze on
the horses.
 
Dried weeds and coarse
grass crunched beneath his boots.
 
He
bypassed them, scouted in the brush, and returned alone to the body of the
bandit.
 
Perhaps the Spaniard had
witnessed his marksmanship and taken cover again.
 
The bandit's booted feet jiggled as Fairfax relieved the corpse
of purse and knife.
 
"One of them
escaped and may return with support.
 
Let's be on our way."
 
The
lieutenant walked off.

Her life had been imperiled, but
had Fairfax's satisfaction derived from heroism?
 
No, his concept of honor was frightening and fluid, more like
that of a cat playing with prey.
 
She
murmured to Clark, "Five.
 
He'd
shoot on his count of
five
, he said."

Clark pressed her arm with his
hand.
 
"Hush.
 
Up you go."
 
He rose and helped her to her feet.

Over his shoulder, Fairfax dosed
her with his gray-green stare.
 
"Did I say five, madam?
 
Of
course, I meant three."
 
He
continued to the horses.

Clark made sure he was out of
earshot before lowering his voice.
 
"How did Captain Sheffield put it yesterday?
 
'I assure you he's quite capable of handling
any problems that might arise on the road.'
 
Thank you, Captain."

Her gaze shifted north, toward
Augusta.
 
In three hours, she'd be home,
rid of the company of a brilliant, blighted British officer.
 
There was no place like home.

***

They reached Augusta just after two
Thursday afternoon.
 
Betsy's heart lightened
at the approach of her foster-father, Lucas O'Neal, on horseback south on the
main street.
 
With him were Adam Neville
and the Sheridans' nearest neighbors, stocky Ephraim Sweeney and wiry Caleb
Cochrane.
 
They held up their hands and
pulled their horses to a halt, waiting.
 
Her buoyancy collapsed at their expressions.
 
No welcoming committee, they were conveyors of bad news.
 
Someone close must have died.