The Kentucky Trace: A Novel of the American Revolution

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21 2 “Take off your hat and let’s have a look. You three men over there doen nothen, bring up some torches.” Leslie remained motionless. He’d fixed his hat low and tight to protect his eyes when he jumped; he didn’t aim to change it. The colonel stood on the low ledge above the shelving rock where he stood. Light washed over him; the rounded mound of pale silk waistcoat in front of him took on the pale shine of a frog’s belly. “How do you call yourself?” “By my name.” “And what in hell is your name?” “Collins.” “Collins? I’ve heard that name somewhere, but I don’t know as I’m acquainted with a Collins. Where’s your home?” “Over the mountain.” “What mountain?” “Clinch.” “You don’t sound like a backhill man. Another Tidewater Loyalist run to the backwoods, huh?” Leslie clenched his fists and gazed at the glimmering mound of belly. The “colonel” had put on too much weight for his fancy muster uniform. 22 “How long you been gone from home?” And what business of his was that? What was home anyhow? “I left sometime in late spring.” “It’s October now, the twelfth day. And what was you up to all these months?” “Worken.” “So you’ve not been helpen in this great war. What was you worken at?” “Surveyen.” Lying was crawling; he was crawling. He had surveyed a big boundary of land in western Pennsylvania for a company that aimed to burn all that fine timber into charcoal to run the iron furnaces they were building. In these gone-wild-for-western-lands times nobody—royalist or Continental—cared which side a surveyor was on, long as his work was correct and honest. He’d finished that Pennsylvania job in July, learned what he could learn, and started back to Marion’s camp in South Carolina. On the way he’d scouted the country for Marion and got into the battle at Camden. He didn’t aim to let anything slip about scouting for Marion; he didn’t trust this man. “Answer me. I’ve asked you twice which side you was on at Kings Mountain.” “Neither.” He had known and reported the whereabouts of Ferguson, but hadn’t known there was to be a battle. His gaze wandered past the belly to the pistols in their handsome holders, all atwinkle like the hilt of his sword. “A froggie would a wooing go. And he did ri-i-ide, sword and pistols by his side.” That wasn’t right. His black mammy’s froggie had a sword and buckler. What was a buckler? His mammy didn’t know. His father wore a sword sometimes, but never a buckler. One day he’d recited a bit about the froggie to his father, then asked what was a buckler. “An ancient form of shield,” his father had answered, and added: “I trust you will never repeat that stupid rhyme again. It is unfit for an Englishman.” “Damn you. Answer my question. Did you or did you not give aid an comfort to the enemy? My captives tell me they found you in the woods with them two English officers, and you hadn’t tried to disarm them for they still had their weapons.” The cockadoodle had taken the word of horse thieves and murderers . Leslie clenched his fists, then thought of the English officers. Their 23 cool politeness had never cracked, not even when they’d asked to be shot instead of hanged. No, the captain’s voice had kind of choked off when he begged for the boy’s life. “I cain’t, in the face a what my other prisoners tell me, believe your Tory buddy they was about to hang. He claimed you’d captured him and that infidel that killed hissef, an you was bringen them in when my other prisoners surrounded you all. Now, I figger you wasn’t tryen to bring in prisoners, but given aid an comfort to the enemy.” “They’re not my enemies.” He would not stoop to this jackanapes by trying to explain how the officers had happened to be his prisoners. Furthermore , a prisoner was in a sense no longer an enemy. “And what did you do for your Tory friends?” “Same as I’d do for anybody I found in the woods, misguided and without...