The Kentucky Trace: A Novel of the American Revolution

15.

181 15 Jethro had fed the horses, but Leslie spent a long time with them, talking to each by turn as he felt hooves, shoes, backs, and mouths. Satisfied that all were well and in good spirits, he walked slowly back to his rockhouse with many stops to study the stars. He was in no hurry to read the letters Jimmy had brought. Jethro had left the letters in a conspicuous place near the fire he’d built to give plenty of light. Leslie felt among the pile and took the three thin ones: two of these were from men claiming six square miles of land in the Blue Grass of Kentucky County, Virginia; they’d bought it from a land company , and now they wanted it surveyed. He shook his head; there wasn’t any unclaimed, unsurveyed land in the Kentucky Blue Grass. The third wanted a survey made of twenty thousand acres “east of the Kentucky Trace and north of Cumberland River.” He gave another head shake; insofar as he knew that land wasn’t free of Indian title. And anyhow, soon as he had all the powder he could get, he was heading for the South Carolina rebels. He remembered Little Brother. He reckoned he’d have to get him home. And what about William David? He picked up two letters Jimmy had tied together. Each was sealed with what looked to be a thimble on tallow candle drip. The crabbed writing of 182 his name with no Esquire gave certainty to his suspicion—the letters were from his mother-in-law. No, not any more. He stood a moment and thought how good it would be to drop the letters unread into the fire and be done with the Hawkins crew forever. Reading didn’t mean he’d answer; some of the “business” Jethro had mentioned might be in one. He opened the first and waded through two pages of vilification: “Oh roo the day I let you cary off my darlen inosunt dauter.—alone, awl awl alone on her dethbed while you trapsed around the cuntry doen God knows what.” He skipped several lines, but when he tried again, he read: “Alone awl awl alone to set by the deathbed of her sun.” He cursed, skipped everything until on the last page “100 lashes on her bear back” caught his eye. He struggled through the remainder of the letter without learning what had happened to Angela. He flung the letter into the fire. An older anger tore through him. Slavery . It was a sin. He’d said so once to his brother Percy. That older brother was a toady, told their father. Leslie had been sent for; in the library his father had lectured him about how well slaves were treated, even the very old and the very young unable to work. Furthermore, slaves wouldn’t be able to take care of themselves; their ancestors in their native land had been unable to do so and had been captured by other black tribes and sold to slave dealers. His father had sent him from the room with no chance for rebuttal. He knew Leslie knew, as did everybody else know, of the piece of “gentry” two plantations down the river: that man bought green hands because they were cheap, then let his overseer beat some half to death because they didn’t know how to strip tobacco either speedily or properly. What if Sadie had had a free hand with his help? He’d had to interfere more times than one and paid for it with hateful talk from her. Forget it. Sadie was dead. Quit looking back. Reading this damned mail was looking back, and he had still another from that woman to be read. He needed a drink. The jug was in its accustomed place, but almost empty. It didn’t matter. He had brought more than one jug. The second letter from Mistress Hawkins was shorter than the other with the first pages taken up with a livery stable bill for nine horses for two 183 weeks, plus what he took to be the copy of a farrier’s bill for shoeing “said” nine horses, and also “without my cunsent 12 blank horse shues with nales.” He laid the bills aside and skimmed on, half his mind wondering where the horses had been the rest of the time, the other...