Chapter 2

CHAPTER 2

“ R ider from Fort Howe! Open the gate!”

At the cry from outside Fort McIntosh, Sergeant Edmond Lassiter used his ax to knock a rectangle of wood he’d just cut from the blockhouse wall. Light poured through the new loophole, and he put his eye to the horizontal opening. From his elevated position in the center of the hundred-foot-square compound, he’d a view of the messenger riding in.

“Maybe he brings the post.” Holding his adz, Private Dougal O’Connor edged up next to Edmond for a look. They both had laid off their hunting tunics and worked in the close quarters in linen shirts and woolen breeches. Judging from the way Dougal’s scent overpowered that of freshly cut pine, he could stand a bracing dip in the Satilla River, which ran about eighty yards south of the fort.

Soldiers below converged on the new arrival, eager for news from closer to civilization—if you could call Fort Howe that. ’Twas nearer to Darien and thus to Savannah than this far-flung outpost, true. They had almost finished rebuilding Fort McIntosh, the southernmost Patriot fort in Georgia. And while the confinement grated on Edmond, ’twas from here he was most likely to see action against the British-allied East Florida Rangers and their Indian recruits. And action was what he needed if he was ever to make lieutenant and get posted away from the swamps of South Georgia.

He’d hoped to have achieved that when he’d first been assigned to the frontier with William McIntosh’s Georgia Regiment of Horse Rangers. After the enemy had raided cattle and plantations and attacked Fort Howe—then called Fort Barrington—last summer, William and his brother, Lachlan, had led their troops all the way to the St. Mary’s River in Florida. Lachlan had become a brigadier general and William a lieutenant colonel, but Edmond was still a sergeant.

They had been in Florida again when an attack came in late December on Beards Bluff, a small defense on the Altamaha River, forty miles above Fort Howe. The fort had fallen under siege, and the underpaid Patriot soldiers deserted. Ever since, the country had been swarming with Loyalist rangers, Creeks, and Seminoles. Their troop of Patriot rangers had just arrived here with orders to reconstruct this outpost when William received news of Beards Bluff and departed, leaving his men under the command of Captain Richard Winn of the Third South Carolina. Edmond had requested a transfer to Fort Howe, but word of his skill at figuring, measuring, and building had already reached Captain Winn.

Edmond palmed the adz handle. When Dougal drew back and glanced at him, he tilted his head toward the gate. “Go on, then. I know you want to see if there’s a letter from your sweetheart.” The men regularly needled Dougal for his undisguised pining.

A grin split the man’s ginger-whiskered face. “Thankee, Sergeant.” He wasted no time clambering down the ladder to the floor below.

Edmond rested both tools against the wall and reached for his water flask. He took a swallow and watched the commotion in the yard through the slit. He had no sweetheart. He’d already lost Evangeline when he joined up a year ago, though he had not known it yet.

He capped the flask and stowed it as a jagged lance of pain speared his heart, followed swiftly by the battle he was far more accustomed to than fighting Tories—the one between anger and self-loathing. Edmond clamped down on it and reached for the adz. Planing the wooden opening he’d just created with the curved edge of the blade also helped smooth his emotions.

He needed to return to Fort Howe closer to Darien not for the benefit of a sweetheart, but for his mother. His task now lay in taking care of what his father had been too weak to do. But first, Edmond needed the extra income a promotion would provide.

“Sergeant!” Dougal’s head appeared in the opening in the floor. He waved a dirty, folded, wax-sealed paper above it.

“You got one.” Edmond did his best to infuse enthusiasm into his tone. If only the man would have savored his missive outside, where Edmond might have avoided hearing all the endearments.

“Not for me.” Dougal hoisted himself up and sat on the floor next to the ladder. “For you.”

“What?” Edmond dropped the blade of the adz on the floor with a thump. He never got letters. Knowing how Edmond felt about reading, Mother only wrote when something was amiss. He strode forward and snatched the paper from his private’s hand. His heart started thudding as soon as his gaze fell on the handwriting. Not Mother’s.

“Something wrong?” Dougal got to his feet and came to stand beside Edmond as he unfolded the letter. His tone implied genuine concern rather than nosiness.

Edmond focused on the signature. He had to stare at it a good ten seconds. Stress always made it harder to discern the letters. “’Tis from my uncle.”

“The one in Darien?”

“Yes. My mother’s brother.” After Edmond’s father… died —Edmond always balked at that word—and Edmond had joined the rangers, his uncle, Ian Grant, had taken Edmond’s mother in. Though Uncle Ian still had children at home with his second wife, making for a lean board to set in a crowded home next to his blacksmith shop, they could come up with no other options. It pained Edmond that his mother had been foisted on her Scottish kin rather than being properly taken care of by her only child.

Dougal frowned. “Is that unusual? Ye seem addled.”

He was always addled when he had more than a few words to read, especially under pressure. If he stood here much longer staring at the letters as they tangled and reversed, his private would think him an idiot. Not an impression he wanted to portray. Edmond shoved the letter at him. “Read it to me.”

“What?” Dougal took it reluctantly. “I thought ye went to university. And ye want me to read for ye?” The hot glance Edmond sent him made the private’s lips clamp shut.

“My mother has a weak heart. This cannot be good news, else my uncle would not be writing. Humor me, O’Connor.” Edmond took up his ax and turned toward the wall while the private held the paper to the light. Of the two weaknesses, being slow-witted or soft for his mother, Edmond preferred Dougal think him the latter. He scraped the blade with slow precision along the opening, shaving off tendrils of wood.

The private cleared his throat. “Um, it says here that yer mother has been stitchin’ ye a new coat, though she wonders if you will get it if she sends it to Fort Howe. And they are worried ye might be needin’ supplies since the Continentals in Darien are short of ammunition.”

Hardly a concern now that Captain Winn had returned from pursuing the Loyalists with a quantity of arms and ammunition. Edmond grunted and glanced over his shoulder. “What else?”

Dougal squinted at the looping script. “Apparently, Colonel McIntosh has been granted leave. People are sayin’ he failed to protect the Southern frontier and the settlers who went down to retrieve their stolen cattle.”

The blade slipped, and Edmond narrowly missed slicing his finger. “What a clanker!” He need not tell Dougal that William McIntosh was the most able commander he’d ever served under. “The man slogged through the swamps for months when no one else would. He recovered far more goods than Winn, while so sick a lesser man would’ve fallen off his horse.”

Edmond had nothing against Winn personally. He seemed an able enough sort, though at twenty-seven, he was only a year or so older than Edmond. But for a man to succeed, opportunity must couple with ability—an equation that entitled some while others of equal or greater skill and character struggled all their lives. ’Twas the very inequality the Patriots sought to throw off.

Dougal snorted. “’Tis because Button Gwinnett coveted Lachlan’s commission for himself, from all I hear.”

Indeed, the president of the Georgia Congress could be attempting to discredit his rival. Edmond shot his private a sideways glance. “What of the personal news?”

Dougal consulted the letter again. He glanced up, his mouth drawn flat.

Edmond’s chest seemed to cave in. “What?” He put down the adz. Judging by the private’s hesitation, Edmond ought not to be holding a sharp object when Dougal rendered the report.

“’Tis yer ma. Yer uncle said she had an episode.”

“How bad an episode? Is she well, man?” Edmond grabbed the missive and scanned the last paragraph. Pain…in…her…chest. Lost…her…hearth . No. Breath . “Weak. It says she is weak.”

“Aye, but recovering.” Even the Scottish lilt in Dougal’s voice failed to make his attempt at encouragement convincing.

“She needs a better doctor.” The one in Darien had never done anything to help. Most likely, he’d bestowed the honorific title upon himself after reading a medical book. There had to be some treatment that would help her—maybe in Savannah.

Edmond folded the letter and tucked it into the top of his breeches.

“Yer uncle did ask when ye would be back. If I may speak freely, sir, I’m wonderin’ the same thing.” No doubt, judging by his wheedling tone, hopefulness wreathed Dougal’s round visage.

Edmond ran his finger over the loophole, testing for jagged sections, brushing the sawdust from the edge. Why did his men think he had any power over where they were stationed? Nevertheless, he found himself saying, “I shall speak to Captain Winn. Now that the fort is almost complete, it may be that he will release the Georgia troops.” If not all twenty, at least the few Edmond regularly rode with on patrol. With the tall palisade walls and sturdy blockhouse in place, the commander should be able to hold the river crossing with his forty South Carolinians.

Like William McIntosh, Edmond had already sacrificed too much to the frontier. This time, he wouldn’t be too late to make a difference where it mattered most.

Mid-February 1777

U nder the watchful gaze of the sentry in the southerly bastion of Fort Howe, Tabitha and Dulcie boarded the Altamaha River ferry. Once they were seated on a bench, the Creek Indian man who would row them across took up the oars.

A shrill whoop made Tabitha clutch the side of the boat. She surveyed the bluff, but ’twas only a wary crane standing in the shallows some twenty yards distant. What did she expect, Indians lying in ambush mere feet from a Patriot fort?

As they pulled away from the northern bank, her heart lurched. The Old Post Road, which ran down to St. Augustine, Florida, split River’s Bend’s land from Fort Howe’s. She was leaving behind everything that had become familiar over the last decade. Had it been only three mornings prior that her life had crumbled?

Tabitha surveyed the two trunks of clothing and supplies weighing down the ferry boat. Even combined with the contents of the saddlebags on their two horses Mr. Long had swum across the river to meet them on the other side, the items contained within offered paltry little substance with which to start a new life. She turned to Dulcie and could not disguise the anxiety in her voice when she asked, “Are we doing the right thing? Should I have stayed at River’s Bend until your father heard back from the lawyer?”

The servant conveyed comfort with her eyes that propriety forbade she demonstrate by touching a white woman. Even before Dulcie answered, Tabitha’s heart knew the answer. No. Waiting to hear from Savannah would have taken far too much time—time she couldn’t bear to spend in a house no longer her own, fearing every visitor might be Hugh or Julian Jackson. But they weren’t the visitors now. She was.

Tabitha’s hopes that the bill of sale was forged had been dashed when Dulcie’s father confirmed it was legitimate.

Still, she needed confirmation. Again. It had been Dulcie who finally pulled Tabitha out of bed two days after she’d taken refuge there following the Jacksons’ visit.

“You are doing the right thing, Miss Tabitha.” As the cool breeze feathered the curls that sprang free from her linen cap, Dulcie pulled her cloak closed over her striped short gown and woolen petticoats.

“This is just for a time. Until we can make a plan.” Tabitha’s statements came out like questions. There had to be some way out of this that did not entail the former Lady Riley living in a cabin.

“We’ll talk everything over with Cyrus.” Dulcie had reminded Tabitha that she and her husband still depended on Tabitha for employment. Even though they were not slaves, positions for freedmen were scarce. “And remember, you shall have your own space in the cabin since Cyrus added the second crib last year. We’ll make it comfortable. You shall see.”

“But your father will send for us if we can return.”

The way Dulcie drew up her lower lip told Tabitha she set no stock by that possibility. Tabitha’s fingers tightened on the side of the boat, and she focused on the water slipping past. If she had produced an heir as a decent wife should, she would not be in this predicament. Henry’s voice came back to her, curling her ears with its bitterness. Useless .

She jerked at a touch to her sleeve.

Dulcie’s dark eyes skimmed her face with a fleeting, compassionate smile. She opened her mouth, then closed it again. Finally, she spoke. “Miss Tabitha, there’s something I be wanting to say.”

“Say it.” Nothing that would come out of Dulcie’s mouth could spear her as her husband’s disdain had.

Dulcie drew her hand back and gave her the courtesy of lowering her gaze as she spoke. “The woman I see before me today is not the one who came to River’s Bend more than ten years ago.” She looked back up, as if she could not help it. “ That is the woman you need to find again.”

Tabitha stared at her a moment. How dare this servant advise her? Confusion clouded Tabitha’s mind—but out of her indignation rose a recognition of the truth. Once upon a time, she had cowered at nothing. That had been before she learned how cruel life could be, how she could not always wrangle it to her designs. But perhaps even a na?ve determination would come in handy now. She gave a single nod, and Dulcie relaxed, facing forward in the boat.

That would be the last reassurance she sought from her servant. It had to be. Somewhere inside, she had to find the Tabitha who had confessed in her sister’s stead to writing the Townsman Letters that accused prominent Loyalists of supporting the Stamp Act, the woman who’d eloped with Lord Riley on his schooner to evade punishment. She’d swiftly come to regret that decision, but the fact remained—she’d turned a disaster around once. Could she do so again?

This time, she wouldn’t make the mistake of looking to a man for help.

She steeled herself as the boat slowly traversed the hundred yards of the slow-flowing river. The deep greens of switchcane and Dahoon holly provided color alongside the barren hardwoods. A bald eagle nest poked from a high nook in the tallest spruce pine. A river otter slid through a slit in a massive cypress trunk and disappeared downstream.

Across from Fort Howe, they approached Mount Venture, once the fortified home and trading post of another woman who’d also known how to bend fortune to her will—Mary Musgrove. A Creek woman married three times to white men, she’d bartered English guns for deerskins and information that had helped James Oglethorpe establish the Georgia Colony. Now, Marcus Long waited by the ruins of her store with the mounts that would take them to their new home.

As soon as the boat touched the other side, the overseer hurried forward to help them alight. Then he and the ferryman transferred their trunks from the boat to a small cart Mr. Long had attached behind his own draft horse.

After securing the load, he faced her. His salt-and-pepper beard hid most of the pock marks on his cheeks. “Can I help you mount, Miss Tabitha?” He did not smile. Occasion certainly did not warrant it. But behind his gruff manner, she sensed kindness.

“Thank you. I can manage.” Tabitha might not be much of an outdoorswoman, but one thing she could do was handle a horse. She slid her foot in the stirrup of her mare, Cora, and hefted herself into the saddle while Mr. Long assisted his daughter onto her mount.

Somehow, the man got astride his own horse—small for a draft horse but still massive in Tabitha’s reckoning—and clucked for the stallion to start down the road. The mares followed. He called over to Tabitha, “’Twill be a mile down this road before the turnoff to the cabin. After that, ’tis not far until you come into the clearing where the cattle pens are, and the house sits just beyond.”

“On a small creek, if I remember correctly?” Tabitha shot him a glance.

“That is right, Miss Tabitha.”

Only Mr. Long and Dulcie had ever called her Miss Tabitha instead of Lady Riley , the formal address used by slaves and strangers.

Dulcie attempted to trot her horse up next to Tabitha’s. Or maybe the mare just got away from her. “Cyrus won’t be expectin’ us, but it will take us no time to set the place to rights. I can put some soup on to simmer while we—whoa!” As her mount gave an agitated toss of her head and pranced in place, Dulcie pulled back on the reins. “What is she doing?” Anxiety deepened her voice.

Her father chuckled. “I daresay she doesn’t care for being caught between the other two. Let her drop back.” As Dulcie complied, Mr. Long explained, “You shall find our Dulcie is an excellent housekeeper, whether she be in a fine house or a log cabin. But she is not much experienced around horses.”

Tabitha offered a grim smile. “I’m afraid I’m the opposite.”

He cast her a sideways look. “Then you will have to take care of each other, Miss Tabitha. And I shall do my best to look out for your interests from across the river.”

“And my mother’s?” Dulcie’s tentative question wended up to them, almost apologetic.

Mr. Long put a hand on his horse’s rump and swiveled to meet her gaze. “Rest assured, I will take care of your mother.”

Of course. Why had she not thought of it before? Hugh Jackson now owned Annabelle. Tabitha’s stomach shriveled at the thought of anyone she loved being at the mercy of such a man. She ventured a quiet question to her former overseer. “Is that why you are staying on at River’s Bend?”

He blinked at her a moment, seeming to weigh how honest he could now be. “If what I’ve heard of Jackson’s methods are true, yes, I think ’tis best I stay on for Annabelle…and all the others.”

Dulcie drew up next to them as they halted at the turnoff, her brown eyes dark with misgivings. “You can always come over the river, too, Pa. You and Ma.”

He nodded. “I almost have enough money to buy her freedom, but I hope it will not come to me having to leave. I need an income, or what will we all do? For now, you and Cyrus take care of Miss Tabitha, and I will look out for your ma. You hear?”

“Yes, Pa.”

Tabitha blinked back sudden tears. Could these people actually feel some allegiance to her, some tenderness? How long had it been since someone had truly cared about her welfare?

No. That was her vulnerability talking. She’d trusted Dulcie in the past, but as a servant, not a friend. She’d been raised to believe that servants, even those not enslaved, were unworthy of personal attention. Lord Riley’s workers knew their places. And she was still their mistress, for she owned the land south of the river and its herd of cattle. She would continue to pay Cyrus and Dulcie just as Henry had done.

But how? If they sold the cattle, after that…she’d have no income.

The blankness of sheer terror froze Tabitha in place as her companions headed down the pine-needle-strewn trail.

Mr. Long twisted to check on her. “You coming, Miss Tabitha?”

She swallowed hard and got her mount moving. “Y-yes.”

They had not ridden far with the pale winter sun playing hide-and-seek through the trees, the cart creaking, and their mounts’ legs brushing the saw palmettos when hooves beat the path in front of them. A burly black man with a close-trimmed beard beneath a floppy-brimmed hat rode toward them. He drew up the reins upon sight of them, his eyes going wide. Cyrus.

Tabitha had seen him on some of his trips to River’s Bend to report on the cattle. The last time had been shortly before Henry died.

“M-Miss Tabitha!” His astonishment was warranted. The last time he’d seen her on this side of the river, she’d been taking her one and only introductory tour eleven years ago. Before he could inquire about her presence, Mr. Long addressed him.

“Cyrus, where are you bound?”

“To see you, Mr. Long…er, or Miss Tabitha, I suppose.” He cast her an uncertain glance. So he knew of Lord Riley’s passing, likely having been told by Dulcie during Tabitha’s absence, but he had yet to hear that same event had also dispossessed her.

Dulcie allowed her horse to nibble at some underbrush. “What’s wrong?”

“Cattle rustlers.” He swung his arm behind him. “I had ten head rounded up and penned to sell in Darien, and this morning when I came outside, they were gone.”

Tabitha gasped. Ten head would bring a substantial sum at market—income they needed now more than ever. “Did you attempt to follow them?”

“I followed ’em south for about a mile.” He rubbed his beard. “The tracks of the ponies around them were unshod. Indian, I ’spect. Long gone and too many for me to confront alone. I was comin’ to the fort to report the thievin’ and then to gather men from River’s Bend to ride with me.”

Mr. Long stretched his legs out in the stirrups and shook his head. “That you will not be getting.”

“Why not?”

“Everyone at River’s Bend now belongs to Hugh Jackson. Including me.”

Cyrus’s gaze swung to her. “But Miss Tabitha?—”

“Miss Tabitha is coming to live at your cabin south of the river. Her cabin. You and Dulcie now work for her, but I no longer do. Lord Riley sold River’s Bend just before he passed.”

“Ohh.” The breath Cyrus let out more resembled a groan. He removed his hat and smacked it against his leg, the crown caving in. He closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them, beat his headwear back into shape, and resettled it on his head. “Then it be more important than ever to catch them cattle.”

At his display of determination, Tabitha’s chest squeezed. She still had a few people in her corner. “Yes, Cyrus, it is.” And it fell to her to provide direction in this upended world she found herself in. Like it or not, she would make the final decisions about what happened from here on out. “Do as you said and seek help from the fort while Dulcie and I settle in. Mr. Long, I assume you must return to River’s Bend?”

He inclined his head. “Just as soon as I see you settled, ma’am. But I fear you shan’t get help from the fort either. Given the recent troubles, the rangers stay out scouting. Only those necessary to guard the river crossing remain. You’d have better luck running across a patrol as you head south.”

That she had not expected. Panic clawed its way up from Tabitha’s chest, almost blocking her ability to breathe. Could things get any worse?

She could hardly send Cyrus to track the rustlers alone. Someone must go with him. As far as the cattle foraged, distinguished from others by only their brands, it would take too long to round up more heads to fill the order. She clung to the memory of the strong walls of Fort Howe. “But surely, we should at least inquire. Is that not what they are here for, after all?”

Mr. Long’s pitying gaze said that for all her years on the edge of the frontier, she had yet to truly experience it. She feared the many dangers lurking in this vast and primeval unknown would swallow her whole. “Yes, ma’am, I can do that on my way back, and for certain sure, I shall beg they send whatever men they can. At the very least, they ought to know more cattle have been stolen. ’Tis probably only River’s Bend’s proximity to the fort that has saved us thus far. But the Loyalists grow ever bolder, Miss Tabitha. If you want to keep your cattle, you’re going to have to fight for them.”

His words echoed like a clarion call in Tabitha’s mind. She’d lost status, wealth, title, home, and respect. Self-respect too. She’d given that up long ago, when she’d chosen to remain with a husband whose contempt eroded her from the inside out until only a shell remained. She was left with two loyal servants, a log cabin, three hundred acres of pinewoods, and two hundred head of cattle. Make that a hundred and ninety.

Well.

Not if she had anything to say about it.

She lifted her chin. “Good thing Lord Riley taught me to shoot.”