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  We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

  –Declaration of Independence

  This book is dedicated to the fulfillment of that promise.

  CHAPTER I

  Monday, June 25, 1781

  IN SHORT, MONARCHY AND SUCCESSION HAVE LAID . . . THE WORLD IN BLOOD AND ASHES. ’TIS A FORM OF GOVERNMENT WHICH THE WORD OF GOD BEARS TESTIMONY AGAINST, AND BLOOD WILL ATTEND IT.

  –THOMAS PAINE, COMMON SENSE

  VEXATION, BOTHER, AND BLAST,” I muttered, trying to blink away the sweat that stung my eyes.

  Curzon dug his elbow sharply into my side, scowling, then tapped his finger on his lips. He wanted me to be silent as the grave, even though the British patrol we were hiding from was much too far away to hear us.

  “A little closer,” I whispered low, “maybe I could read it then.”

  “Any closer and you’ll be gutted by bayonets.” He turned his head so his lips touched my ear. “Patience.”

  That foul word again. “Pox on your patience.”

  I shifted my gaze to the lobsterbacks gathered at the edge of the woods. If they weren’t a patrol, then they were a foraging party sent to plunder farms. Whatever their purpose, they looked about to expire of the heat. The cool shade of the enormous live oak had so delighted them that they’d quickly stripped off their sweat-soaked coats and waistcoats and hung them from branches to dry. Two had even removed their shirts and rinsed them in the stream, showing a shock of white skin paler than any ghost would ever dream of being. ’Twas a frightful sight, but their desire to cool themselves had allowed Curzon and me to crawl safely to a hollow that was sheltered by tall ferns and overhanging magnolia and bayberry branches.

  We’d had several encounters with patrolling soldiers in the previous weeks. Our course of action had always been to retreat slow and careful, and then circle wide to avoid them. This time we could not. A milestone stood at the crossroads a few paces from their fire. Hidden under their collection of bloodred coats and dingy haversacks was the carving of letters and numbers that showed travelers the direction and distance to Charleston, South Carolina.

  After walking more than a thousand miles, after months spent laboring first in Lancaster, then Baltimore, then Richmond, and at whatever mountain farm would have us . . . After having been cheated, lied to, near captured twice . . . After months lost in worry, waiting to see if Curzon would recover from the wounds inflicted by a falling hemlock, then another half a year wasted as I fought an intermittent fever that gripped my lungs so tight I could barely walk . . . After dodging two armies, wild packs of banditti, and armed Loyalists deep in liquor . . . After sleepless nights haunted by ghosts and endless days of empty bellies . . . After all that, I was close to finding my baby sister, Ruth.

  The thought of it made my heart pound.

  All I needed was the information on that milestone.

  We stayed hidden under the ferns in the hollow so long that the sun swung from the east to the west, and the damp ground soaked through both my skirt and the shift under it. The smell of the rabbits roasting over the British cook fire pained me. We’d eaten our last meal–a small, hideous fish boiled with bitter greens plucked from the edges of the swamp–more than a day and night previous. We were out of salt and hadn’t tasted bread nor porridge for weeks.

  A mosquito bit my neck. I pinched it dead between my fingertips. In our years of journeying I’d grown accustomed to being bone tired, starving, and filthy, but I could not abide the bloodsucking demons.

  “I’m going to move a wee bit closer,” I said.

  Thunder rumbled in the distance. “Too dangerous,” Curzon said.

  I killed another mosquito. “Not knowing where we are is the real danger. What if they decide to camp here for the night?”

  A broad-shouldered, pink-faced soldier placed his damp coat at the end of a long stick, which he held above the fire in an attempt to dry it. Not a moment later the stick broke, the coat fell onto the rabbits roasting on the spit, and the whole lot tumbled into the flames. The soldiers roared with laughter, save the one who owned the coat. He snatched it out and stomped on the smoldering cloth, cursing vile and loud, while his companions rescued their supper.

  “They’re barely keeping watch.” I pointed to a fallen tree trunk halfway between our position and the road. ’Twas alarmingly close, true, but several young pines sheltered it from view, the tips of their branches touching the ground like a drapery. “If I hide behind that log, I’ll hear every word they say.”

  “The sun has fried your wits.” Curzon used his sleeve to wipe away the sweat trickling down my cheek, the scarred one. The unexpected kindness of his gesture startled me.

  As we lay silent, my tired mind drifted into the past, to the day I’d first met Curzon back in ’76. I’d been a terrified maid of twelve, still in shock from the circumstances that had landed Ruth and me in New York. He’d been a cheerful lad, two years older than me and foolish enough to be eager for war.

  Thunder rumbled again and a cool breeze stirred the moss that hung from the branches above.

  I snuck a look at Curzon. He now stood a head taller than me and had the forged-steel strength of a man. He was still capable of mischief on occasion, but his smile was rare. He’d long ago traded the red hat he affected for a dark blue cap that did not draw attention. Likewise, the piratical earring he used to wear was now hidden in the lining of his filthy jacket.

  There was no way of figgering what he saw when he looked at me, for he’d grown skilled at hiding the truth from his eyes. Time and hard travel had much changed us both.

  Our friendship lay in ashes, another victim of the unending War of Independence. Months earlier we’d argued terribly, as fierce as two armies, when he declared that he needed to enlist again with the Patriots. We’d called each other ugly names and exchanged cruel words that cut deep. By the end of the battle he’d agreed to stay with me only until we found Ruth, but the damage was done.

  The thunder rumbled again, dragging me from my remembering.

  “I’ll backtrack,” Curzon whispered, “circle around and come down the road from the north, act as if I’m fleeing a rebel master. I’ll ask for their protection.”

  I snorted. “So they can drag you to Charleston and put you to work with a shovel?”

  “I’ll invent a tale of some Continentals I saw up the road. That will shift them away from here.”

  “Blast your eyes!” I muttered. “You just want to play soldier.”

  “Play? I’ll gather information and . . .” Curzon broke off speaking. His gaze shifted left, tracking a group of swallows as they flew betwixt the trees. Something shuffled in the distance behind us.

  “Did you hear that?”

  “A squirrel,” I said. “Nothing more.”

  He rolled onto his back and lifted his head so he could better study the heavily wooded forest behind us. Our recent time lost in the swampy wilderness had revealed Curzon to be mortally afraid of alligators. In truth, I suspected half of his excuses for dawdling in the last few days were due to his unnatural fixation on the beasts.

  ’Twas not charitable to prey on his fears, but I knew my plan was the wiser one. I gave a start, as if I’d heard something else. “Over there!”

  “What?” He tensed. “Where?”

  “I heard something.”

  “You said ’twas a squirrel.”

  “Nay, this was a different sound, low and slithersome. As if a heavy tail was dragging through the brush.”

  “A tail-slither sound?”

  “A long and heavy tail.” I feigned deep concern. “Reminded me of that big fellow, the one w
e saw with the fawn in his jaws.”

  He swallowed hard and squinted, trying to see the alligator that did not exist.

  “Or it could be nothing,” I added. “The wind, mayhaps. I can go back and scout for it, if you’d like.”

  “’Tis likely nothing.” He swallowed hard. “But I’ll go.”

  “You swear you won’t circle round to meet the soldiers on the road?” I asked.

  He nodded curtly. “I swear. But don’t move from this spot.”

  I waited until he’d slipped out of sight, then rose up on my elbows to study the soldier standing guard, musket resting on his crossed arms. When he turned away to say something to his companions, I crawled forward one pace, keeping low to the ground. I’d become rather clever at moving without attracting notice. Months of dirt had erased the colors of my clothes, so I blended into the landscape. My few belongings fit in a small haversack, and my hatchet was secured to the leather belt I’d fashioned from reins taken off the skeleton of a horse. I was as skilled at moving without being seen or heard as an army scout.

  After another check of the guard I crept forward two more paces. Just then he stepped onto the road. I pressed myself against the dirt as he gave a quick glance north and south, then returned to the comfort of the shade.

  I studied the ground ahead, eyes keen to spot poison ivy, which I never wanted to touch again. I crept ahead a third time, only to be stopped by another noise in the woods behind me, this time off to the left. I slowly turned my face in that direction. Shadows danced as the strange moss that hung from the trees swayed like tattered laundry in the breeze.

  A branch snapped.

  I flinched. Curzon was too wily to make any such noise this close to danger. The Carolina woods were filled with treacherous creatures: bear, wolf, and panther. Was one stalking me for its next meal?

  I forced the thought aside and trained all of my senses on the enemy ahead. The minutes ripened slow and fat, caught in the sweltering heat. When the guard put down his musket and knelt to fiddle with his boot, I crawled four full paces, moving silent and steady, until I ducked under the low branches of the pines and reached the advantage of the log. I breathed slow as bits of the soldiers’ conversation drifted over me: “bloody rebels,” “consarned heat,” and “affliction of my great toe on both feet.” Grumbling complaints were the common language of all armies.

  The sound of a sharp cr-rack, like a branch trod upon by a heavy boot, echoed through the woods. The guard stood up, alert now, staring in my direction. He said something over his shoulder that I could not hear, and one of his companions got to his feet and joined him, musket at the ready. The two men raised their guns, aimed at the log, just above my head.

  That’s when the rattlesnake appeared.

  CHAPTER II

  Monday, June 25, 1781

  I ATE PART OF A FRIED RATTLE SNAKE TODAY, WHICH WOULD HAVE TASTED VERY WELL HAD IT NOT BEEN SNAKE.

  –JOURNAL OF COLONEL HENRY DEARBORN OF THE CONTINENTAL ARMY

  I DID NOT BREATHE.

  Near as long as I was tall and thick as my arm, the yellow-eyed snake stared at me; tail rattling, tongue flickering like flame. I could not move. There were other noises, other dangers that needed my attention–shouts, thunder, footsteps–but I couldn’t look away from those terrifying eyes.

  A rattlesnake’s bite meant death, or at the very least, the need for amputation before the poison made its way to your heart. The worst place to be bitten was the face, for there was not much point in the amputation of a head. The only saving grace of a rattlesnake was that the creature gave fair warning. The vigorous shaking of the rattle on the end of the tail alerted the victim not to come closer, the way a port city might send a cannonball over the bow of a pirate ship straying too close to shore. It announced that a further advance would be met with swift and fatal punishment. The only thing worse than the rattling of the snake’s tail was the moment the tail fell silent, for then the creature would strike.

  The snake afore me slowed the shaking of its tail but did not stop. The dull sunlight reflected off the dark brown scales, ornamented with diamond-shaped patterns in black and white. If I could move fast enough, there was a small chance I could leap up and away from its reach, but if I did that, the soldiers would seize me in an instant. The snake measured the panic in my face.

  “I saw something, I tell you!” one soldier insisted. “Moving between the trees.”

  “Blasted moss flapping in the wind,” replied another. “Quit acting like a wee bairn afeard of haints and ghosties!”

  Two black butterflies, their wings dotted with splashes of sky blue and pumpkin orange, fluttered by. They paused for a moment on the log, their wings opening and closing like bellows, then twirled away. As they departed, the snake lowered its head to the ground and slid under the log. It did not cease rattling its tail until it disappeared from sight.

  Before I could move away, the sharp report of rifle fire cut through the air. I peered over the log.

  The guard lay on the ground, clutching his bloody shoulder and screaming. The British were hollering above the cries of their friend, arguing about where the shots had come from as they scrambled for their muskets and cartridge boxes.

  Heavy boots thudded from the forest behind me, then militiamen in long hunting shirts and dark breeches ran past, skirting both sides of the hollow where I lay. They took up their positions behind the broad trunks of old oaks and ancient pines and knelt to load their weapons. Most carried muskets, but a few possessed the deadly rifles of the mountains.

  This was warfare in the Carolinas: fierce battles betwixt Patriot militia groups and the redcoats, who fought alongside local Loyalists. Everyone was fighting for freedom, but few could agree on the meaning of the word.

  “Prepare!” screamed a redcoat.

  The militia roared in defiance, “Huzzah!”

  “Ready!” The British snapped their muskets up to their shoulders and pulled back the hammers that held their striking flints.

  “Now!” screamed a long-haired man clad in buckskin.

  The militia stepped out from their trees and fired. The British fired at the exact same moment. The explosion of so many guns sounded like a fierce volley of lightning bolts.

  The British soldiers dragged the wounded guard off the road and quickly formed a half circle to protect him, while preparing for the next volley. The air filled with shouts, screams, men from both sides being ordered to load, aim, and “FIRE!” The woods to both sides of me exploded for a second time. Bullets flew across the road, some headed east, some west, shredding leaves and thudding into tree trunks. Another voice cried out in pain. The screams of the injured guard were weakening. More footsteps ran past me. How many militia were there? How long before one of them found me? Was Curzon captured? Killed?

  My nose twitched with the metal tang of gunpowder. I didn’t dare move but couldn’t stay. A stray bullet spun over my head like an angry hornet. Mayhaps I could back away from the scene, slow-like–

  A hand suddenly covered my mouth, and another gripped my wrist and pinned it to the ground. Curzon threw himself to the dirt next to me.

  “Don’t move!” he warned.

  I pushed away his hand, but for once, was not inclined to argue. “Did they see you?”

  He shook his head. “They only have eyes for the redcoats.”

  “How many?” I whispered.

  “Not sure.”

  The noise of the skirmish changed in tone. The shouting quieted. Two guns fired, one right after another, but it sounded as if they were farther away. The wounded guard had stopped screaming.

  We looked at each other, gave a nod, and silently counted to one hundred, as was our custom in unsure circumstances such as this. By the end of the count the woods had fallen silent. The gritty fog of gunpowder smoke drifted away. We crawled until we could peek around the opposite ends of the log. In the distance the militiamen were chasing the British patrol south down on the road. The guard’s body lay still
by the fire. I did not have enough of a view to see if there were any more wounded lying about, or worse, any militia waiting to shoot at stragglers.

  Curzon’s view must have been blocked too, for he gave his end of the log a small push.

  The rattlesnake did not take kindly to having its hidey-hole disturbed.

  It coiled in tight loops and raised its head, hissing fiercely, its stiff tail shaking a dire warning. The head bobbed side to side, fangs displayed, its eyes level with Curzon’s. He became still as a statue carved from rock.

  The tang of gunpowder, the buzz of bullets, the threat of a deadly snake; these awaken all of the senses at once with a powerful ferocity. I could hear the retreating boot steps of the men, smell the blood stench of the dead soldier, see the pattern the snake wove in the air as it prepared to kill. I tasted fear.

  My left hand, out of the snake’s sight, felt for the hatchet in my belt. I fumbled with the leather tie that kept it secured, then slowly pulled it free. I shifted closer to Curzon. The snake noticed. It turned its head to me and shook its rattles faster.

  I gripped the hatchet.

  Curzon scratched at the fallen pine needles with his fingers, diverting the snake’s attention and giving me the advantage.

  The snake opened its jaws.

  With all the fury I could muster, I brought the hatchet down onto the serpent, cleaving its head from its body with one blow. I pulled the blade free from the dirt and chopped again and again until at last Curzon grabbed my arm, and I stopped, panting.

  “You’ve killed it three times over,” he said.

  I spat on the remains. “Snakes vex me.”

  CHAPTER III

  Monday, June 25, 1781

  I WAS BORN IN THE PROVINCE OF SOUTH CAROLINA, 28 MILES FROM CHARLES-TOWN. MY FATHER WAS STOLEN AWAY FROM AFRICA WHEN HE WAS YOUNG.

  –MEMOIRS OF BOSTON KING, WHO FLED SLAVERY TO JOIN THE BRITISH ARMY

  I WAS GOING TO KILL it, you know.” Curzon prodded a bit of chopped snake belly with the toe of his boot. “I was going to smash it with a rock.”