Christian Cameron - Washington and Caesar

McCoy laughed mechanically. The captain may have had something bouncy in his bed; all McCoy had for companionship were little biting bugs.

“Let’s see if we can’t complete the company. We’ll march in the morning.”

Just after three, two men rode up to the tavern on spent horses. They looked badly used: one had his face swathed in dirty bandages, and the other rode with his knees up so high that he looked like an old sack on a tall horse. The two men had a look of meanness that might have deterred normal approaches, but it was like an invitation to the recruiting sergeant.

“Do you gentlemen fancy five free shillings hard currency?” Sergeant McCoy held up his big fist with the money.

The taller man smiled a little. “Milishee?”

“That’s right.”

McCoy could see that there was old dried blood on the filthy bandage that the smaller man had on his face.

“Could have used you boys in the swamp. Had a set-to with some runaways.”

“We aren’t being raised for slave-taking, friend. We’re raised to fight the Governor, drive the British out of Virginia.”

The taller man nodded. “Regular pay, though?”

“Regular as clockwork, friend, and paid every week. Victuals at the colony’s expense and the best of living for every soldier.”

“Save it, Sergeant. I’ve served with the milishee before, an’ so has Mr. Weymes here. No one ever offered us no bounty, though. I think we’ll sign.”

“You both have your own weapons?”

“Yep.”

“And horses?”

“You ain’t blind, is you? Them’s our horses, then.”

The other man opened his mouth and then shut it, like a fish. No noise came out for a moment, and then he opened it again.

“Our black girl runned off.”

“Pay him no mind.”

“They the milishee, Bludner. You tell ’em about our black girl, Sally.”

“We’re joining the militia, Weymes, and we’ll find her in our own spare time.”

“Make your mark, here, and here. And I’ll sign for your horses and arms.”

“I don’ have to make no mark, boyo. I can sign my name.”

Lawrence had never liked back-country ruffians, and he stood up smoothly and walked forward.

“If you want to serve in my company, keep a civil tongue in your head.”

Bludner looked at him, meeting his eye unblinking. They stared at each other for just a moment-too long, in Lawrence’s book, but not long enough to count as open defiance. Then Bludner bowed his head, a quick, jerky motion-a man who retreated before superior social position but reserved judgment.

“I’ll ax your pardon then, sir. Didn’ mean no harm. Just plain talk. I ain’t ignorant.”

On the whole, Lawrence liked him now that he had retreated. And men who could read and write were too rare. Perhaps Bludner would make a corporal; he had the skills. The little man looked like death, though, and Lawrence didn’t think he’d last long.

Virginia, October 1775

They didn’t really follow the deer tracks, as Caesar had a strong idea that the deer were headed across the little creek and up the flat ground toward the next little wooded ridge. He could neither see nor smell a cabin, and yet the fields looked like they had been tilled at one time. They might have been over-used; Caesar knew tobacco could play the soil out. But it seemed odd that Washington and others were trying to drain the Great Swamp while there was good ground like this right near the coast. It didn’t stand to reason. The red earth showed through the early fall stubble of browned grass and weeds shot through with the stillvibrant green of autumn thistle. He followed the deer by watching the ground, sometimes confirmed by bent grass and the occasional deep mark in the soft soil.

The deer had stopped suddenly; that much was plain. Caesar thought he knew why and in a moment the smell of blood and ordure made it obvious. Someone else had killed the deer, right here. Caesar suddenly felt hunted himself, down in the low ground between two ridges, and he was stooped to the ground in the dry grass before he had given it any thought. Jim flattened out beside him.

“I smell smoke.”

Caesar had scented something several times, well away to the north, carried on the wind. He wouldn’t call it smoke, just yet.

“I smell something, right enough.”

“Someone else killed our deer.”

“Like the man who owns the ground. Shush now.”

He lay still for a while as the morning passed away toward noon, and nothing seemed to move. He felt hunted, and he couldn’t lose the feeling. He had checked his priming too many times. He had to move, although his instincts were to lie low.

Or were they telling him that the threat was to the camp? He was suddenly haunted by the image of the slave-takers appearing during his fever. He couldn’t let that happen again. He raised his head, and a little eddy of breeze brought him another smell of fire.

“Somethin’ burnin’.” He nodded over the ridge. “We got to know. Stay quiet.”

He moved as quickly as he could over the rest of the autumn grass to the base of the ridge and started up it, his heart easier with cover over his head and his back. It was pure panic that led him to worry about Tom and Virgil; no one could have got round him and Jim, leastwise not with enough men to take his friends. He climbed up the ridge, his legs pumping him over fallen timber, his footsteps light on the leaves and broken branches. Jim was just as quiet. When they crested the hill, they saw a line of fires off west, less than a mile away and mostly showing as smoke in the afternoon light. Beyond the line of fires was a low ridge with cabins, tents, and brush huts, and another line of fires. As far as they could see at the distance, there were no patrols.

“Is that the governor’s army?” asked Jim. He sounded eager.

“I don’t think so. I don’t see no red coats.” It struck Caesar then that if the governor had enough redcoats, he wasn’t going to need black soldiers.

“We need to get closer.” The ridge gave an excellent vantage point of the ground to the north, and Caesar saw another, several miles away and even higher. He crept back away from the opening he had used to look north and across the summit to the south side, where he could clearly see the little creek and the small ridge where Tom and Virgil were. Then he looked out to the east, where the ground was broken by patches of cultivated land and woods. He slipped back into the cover on the north slope and lay there for almost half an hour, watching the sun angle change and the movement in the distant camp. Men came on horseback, and tiny figures moved about, although no one seemed particularly on guard.

At his feet, a tiny watercourse ran into some low ground to the northwest. Beyond that, across a few hundred yards of muddy fields, was a patch of woods, the woodlot of a small cabin well off to the west.

“Jim, you go on back to the boys and tell them to be ready to move. We’ll be going hard tonight and there won’t be no food unless they gets it themselves.”

Jim nodded soberly.

“I think that’s the militia, a whole army of slave-takers.” He nodded his head. “Gon’ make sure, and meet you back to camp.”

“I could come with you.”

Caesar smiled. He suspected that Jim could do this better than he could himself, but he couldn’t order a boy to do something like that, because Jim would do it in a flash, with no thought to the consequences.

“You could,” said Caesar, and smiled broadly, to show that he understood the boy’s point. “But you ain’t.”

He moved briskly enough down the face of the ridge and into the muddy rill of water. The brush along its bank was still green and gave good cover, but the muddy water was colder than he had expected. The bottom was mud and gravel, and as he approached the low marshy ground he found the creek bottom turned to pure mud. He sank in a hole so deep that it took him several moments and a great deal of thrashing to free himself. He crawled out into the night air, and the breeze cooled him more, so that his teeth chattered. Then he moved, crouched right down, around the marsh; he couldn’t stand to be any wetter, even if he risked detection. He crossed the open ground at a run and entered the trees with relief. Had he been more experienced in the ways of armies, he would have expected the militia to have a post in the wood to cover the rear of their camp, but his luck was in and his inexperience was shared by the summer soldiers in the camp. There was no post.