The Blacksmith's Daughter: A Mystery of the American Revolution (55 page)

"I've a better
idea."
 
He walked his fingers down
the front closing of her jacket.
 
"You tell me where to find your mother."
 
His lips brushed her throat.
 
"But you needn't hasten to arrive at
the truth.
 
We're both enjoying
this."

Goosebumps emerged all over her
body.
 
"Take your hands off
me.
 
I didn't give you permission to
touch me."

He chuckled and unfastened the top
of her jacket.
 
"Your permission is
irrelevant.
 
Let's start with your
uncle.
 
On July the eleventh, he paid
you a quick visit on his way to Virginia or the Carolinas."
 
She squirmed when he began toying with the
drawstring of her shift.
 
"He'd
traveled with your mother north from East Florida, yes?"

"I don't know.
 
He didn't say."

"But she gave him a message to
deliver to you.
 
'Don't worry, I'm all
right, I'm hiding.'"
 
He caressed
the side of her mouth with his lips and whispered, "Where is she hiding?"

She smelled blood on him.
 
How many men's blood?
 
Revolted, she jerked her head to the side.
 
He forced her face back around to him while
his other hand opened her drawstring.
 
Primitive fear overcame her rational mind.
 
Her knees knocked.
 
"In the C-Carolinas or Virginia."

"Oh, she was more specific
than that.
 
She's your mother."

All Betsy wanted was to escape the
smell, taste, sight, sound, and feel of death.
 
"N-no, I swear it, and oh, g-gods, please just l-leave me
alone!
 
You've tortured me enough over
my husband!
 
Must you t-torture me over
the mother and father I cannot find because —"
 
She gulped back her words with renewed horror.
 
Oh, no, she hadn't just said that, had she?

He dropped the drawstring in
surprise.
 
"
Father
?
 
Then your father wasn't le
Coeuvre?"
 
Venom infiltrated his
voice.
 
"Why, he's that half-breed
Creek bastard, isn't he?
 
Ah, that makes
much more sense."
 
He bared his
teeth, his face in her face, becoming her view of the universe.
 
"
Savages
.
 
I loathe the lying, traitorous lot of
them.
 
So where are Mother and Father,
Betsy?
 
Are they hiding with the Creek
near Alton?
 
Or with the Cherokee
northwest of Ninety Six?"

Tom's voice bellowed through the
clearing.
 
"Maggot, unhand
her!"

Fairfax pivoted in a blur of
movement faster than any human ought to be capable of moving and drew his
pistol on Tom, who stood a few feet ahead of his horse and the packhorse with
his musket trained on the lieutenant.
 
Aware of the accuracy of Fairfax's pistol, Betsy kicked his knee as he
pulled the trigger, skewing the trajectory of the ball to the right.

The shots, simultaneous, loaded the
clearing with smoke.
 
Fairfax regained
his balance from the kick and stepped away from her.
 
Tom toppled to the ground, blood darkening the hair near his left
temple, and lay still, supine.
 
Betsy
shrieked.
 
"No!
 
No!
 
Oh, gods, no!"

His shoulders thrown back, Fairfax
ambled over to his horse, granting Tom a cursory look on the way.
 
He swapped his fired pistol for another,
shoved the new one in his sash, and ambled back to Betsy without a second
glance at Tom.
 
"Pardon the
interruption, darling.
 
Where were we?
 
Ah, yes, Mathias Hale."

"God damn you to hell!"

He studied her a few seconds, no
emotion in his eyes, before retrieving another strip of torn linen from the
ground and gagging her with it.
 
"I
need your attention, and you've been talking too much and saying too
little."
 
He unfastened more of her
jacket.
 
"Such soft skin. You do
know where your mother is hiding.
 
Mothers tell daughters things like that."
 
The remainder of the jacket opened.
 
"She told you where to find her.
 
Perhaps she communicated it to your uncle or sent you a
letter.
 
But you do know, and you will
tell me."

Although he dominated much of her
field of vision, she spotted movement over his shoulder — Tom swabbing the palm
of his hand to his temple and bringing it away bloodied.
 
She yanked her gaze away from a head wound
that looked lethal enough to fool Fairfax, wondering how serious it actually
was, hoping the lieutenant didn't notice where she'd looked.
 
His attention was on the neckline of her
shift, which he'd hooked with his forefinger and begun teasing open.

She allowed her body to slump,
signaling acquiescence.
 
Behind him, Tom
rolled over, brought himself to his knees, and wiped away blood near his left
eye with the back of his hand.
 
If she
hadn't kicked Fairfax's knee, the ball would have plugged Tom between the eyes
instead of yielding that scrape to the side of his head.
 
Tom blinked and spotted her, and she looked
at Fairfax as pathetically as possible.
 
Yes, yes, keep your attention on me.
 
I'm surrendering.
 
I'll tell you
everything.

He registered the change in her and
paused from tickling the skin on her upper chest.
 
"Really?
 
So
soon?
 
Damn.
 
I thought you'd more resistance in you.
 
Are you quite certain you're sincere?
 
Perhaps we should play this out a bit longer, just to be
sure."

She shook her head in misery,
begging, tears filling her eyes, and forced her gaze to hold his.
 
In her peripheral vision, Tom found his
footing, stole toward his horse, and reached for something.
 
Surely he wouldn't try to reload his musket.
 
Fairfax would hear him.
 
She moaned.
 
Two tears rolled down her cheeks, and she moaned again.

Fairfax stiffened, preternatural
awareness alerting him to movement without sound behind him.
 
When he spun around, Tom had sought partial
concealment behind a pine tree, blood oozing down the left side of his face, a
coil of rope in his hands.
 
No mere coil
of rope, Betsy realized with a zing of fear: a lasso.
 
True, he'd chased down and lassoed one of their hounds the
morning she and Clark left for Augusta.
 
But Fairfax wasn't going to let himself be lassoed and tied down like a
dog.

The lieutenant eyed her and moved
out of kick range.
 
"Are you
challenging me with a
rope
, boy?"

Tom twirled the lasso.
 
"Untie her and let her go."

"More than blood leaked from
your head just now."
 
Fairfax
pulled out the pistol and took aim.
 
"You have to my count of five to lay down the rope, or I shall put
a ball between your eyes.
 
And this time
I won't miss."

Betsy's eyes bulged.
 
He wouldn't count to five, but Tom might
make the mistake of believing so.
 
She
stamped her foot three times.
 
Focused
on his opponent, Tom paid her no heed.
 
She screamed through the gag and again stamped her foot three times.

"One."

She thrashed about, drawing Tom's
eye for an instant, and stamped her foot three more times.
 
Three.
 
The faintest widening of his eyes told her he'd intuited her message.

Fairfax cocked the pistol.
 
"Two."

With more nimbleness than she'd
ever seen him exhibit, Tom pivoted from cover and flung the lasso.
 
It hooked Fairfax's neck, fouling his pistol
aim, sending the ball among the trees.
 
When he tried to extricate his neck, Tom tightened the rope, creating a
collar.
 
The lieutenant charged him, slackening
the rope.
 
Tom dropped it, grabbed the
tree for support, and jacked his knee just in time to catch Fairfax's groin.

Betsy heard the solid thud and
gaped.
 
Fairfax hadn't dropped to the
ground in agony the way a normal man would have done.
 
The blow had only sent him into a crouch from which he began
fumbling with the lasso, loosening it.
 
His breath in gasps, Tom grabbed the rope and tightened it again,
yanking the lieutenant up against the pine tree.
 
Choking, Fairfax dropped the empty pistol and pushed off the
tree.
 
Tom hauled him back and kicked
his knee from beneath him.

With a grunt, Fairfax collapsed to
all fours.
 
Tom dispensed a kick to his
kidney.
 
Wandering the twilight between
conscious and unconscious, Fairfax struggled to a sitting position.
 
Tom ran the rope around the tree again and
again, trussing him up against it.
 
When
he'd secured it and shoved the pistol beyond range, he staggered away, legs
folding beneath him, head in his hands.

For excruciating seconds, Betsy
expected him to pass out.
 
Fairfax
regained consciousness and began squirming to exploit a weakness in his
bonds.
 
Tom pulled a handkerchief from
his vest pocket and mopped blood from his head and face.
 
Stuffing the handkerchief away, he heaved to
his feet and headed for her.

He cut her bonds and gag.
 
They embraced, both a mass of muscle tremors
from exhaustion and wracked nerves.
 
Then, wordless, he stomped for his horse.
 
She scurried after, puzzling over his stony expression,
tightening the drawstring on her shift and fumbling her jacket closed.
 
But when he snatched up his musket, she
straightened her shoulders, understanding.
 
So did Fairfax, who stopped squirming.
 
With a derisive smile, he watched Tom load his musket.

The packhorse snorted.
 
Betsy went to him and stroked his nose, her
back turned.
 
A metallic swish told her
Tom had pulled the ramrod from the barrel of his loaded musket.
 
The packhorse shifted around, frisky, as if
smelling something good and familiar.
 
All Betsy smelled was death, by then all too familiar.

Tom cocked the musket.
 
"May the devil welcome his own."

"Lower your weapon, sir.
 
We have you surrounded."

The packhorse's ears perked, and he
whinnied in welcome.
 
Betsy swung around
in shock and watched four men emerge from the woods while Tom complied with
their order: Josiah and Jeremiah Carter and two friends, all bearing muskets,
all grimed with black powder.
 
Cordiality filled Fairfax's voice.
 
"Mr. Carter, how good of you to stay my execution.
 
Please untie me and assist my apprehension
of these rebel spies."

Carter looked from Fairfax to Tom
and the wound on his head.
 
Then he
shifted his gaze to Betsy, whose hand trembled across her naked
collarbone.
 
Her modesty supplied a
summary of the scenario: violation and vengeance.
 
Carter's gaze swept back to Fairfax.
 
"Rebel spies?
 
I'm
certain you're mistaken, Lieutenant.
 
I
know this man and woman.
 
They aren't
rebel spies."

"You stopped him from
executing me just now."

Betsy saw determination root in
Carter's expression.
 
"We chanced
upon you while pursuing bandits who raided my plantation.
 
I think it likely this man and woman found
you tied thusly and chased off your would-be executioner."

Fairfax's jaw bounced open.
 
"What?
 
He was aiming his musket right at me.
 
Have you no eyes?"

"I've a good set of eyes, and
I see a substantial injury to your arm, sir.
 
You've had blood loss.
 
Maybe
enough to affect your perceptions and memory.
 
We'd best get you to a surgeon."

"I don't need a bloody
surgeon!
 
I need you to untie me!"