“Damn, Abel, look what we got. Another fucking escaped slave.”
“I do think you’re right, Joshua.”
“So what do you think we should do with him?”
“I am not a slave,” Homer answered with a trace of indignation. “I am a free black man, and I’m on my way to Boston to find work.”
“Bullshit,” said Joshua. “You’re a fucking escaped slave and we’re going to arrange for you to go back south to your master.”
Homer was incredulous. “Don’t you know that slavery’s been abolished by the British?”
Joshua laughed. He was clearly the pair’s leader. “Nigger, you might just be surprised to know that a lot of people down south are simply ignoring that announcement. And you should know that there are a lot of other places like those owned by Spain and France where slavery still exists.”
This can’t be happening, Homer thought. He had to do something. “I have money. Let me buy my way out of this.”
Abel shook his head. “Amazing. Not only we get a slave to sell, but he has money as well to help pay us for our inconvenience. He ain’t armed so I think I’ll just take it. You keep him covered, Josh.”
Abel stepped forward and reached for Homer. For an instant, he was between Homer and Joshua. Homer shifted his left arm and the knife he had strapped above his wrist slipped into his palm. He rammed it into Abel’s heart and stepped to his left, pulling out the other knife that was below his right elbow. This one he threw at an astonished Joshua, taking him in the throat. He quickly grabbed the musket from Joshua who was clutching at his throat while blood gushed down his shirt.
Homer laughed. As he’d thought, it had never occurred to the fool that a Negro would fight back.
Homer dragged the two bodies a few yards into the forest. If he was lucky, the animals would turn them into unrecognizable slabs of meat and piles of bones in a very short while.
In the meantime, he had some decisions to make. First, he would no longer travel unarmed. He selected the better of the two muskets and threw the other away. He also took their gunpowder and bullets and, surprise, had found some money on their bodies, which he added to his own purse.
Where to go was the next decision. He decided that Boston was not a good idea, if the presence of Joshua and Abel was any indication of the welcome a black man would receive. No, he thought, he would head north, far north. He would go to Canada. Even though it was British-controlled, it might be safer for him than in the colonies.
If, he thought ruefully, anywhere would be safe for a black man.
Chapter 4
The trip south from Fort Washington to the Ohio River had been fruitless. From prior experience, Will had known that gathering intelligence was often like that. For every valuable piece of information you found, you wasted time chasing a hundred useless ones.
Will was now convinced that there was no significant British presence on the Ohio River. Of course, he and his men couldn’t check every canoe and flatboat for the odd spy or scout, but there was no army to threaten Fort Washington or the various villages collectively known as Liberty. Hell, he decided, there probably wasn’t even a company of Redcoats between him and Tarleton’s headquarters at Fort Pitt.
“See that, Major,” said Sergeant Barley, pointing in the direction of the opposite shore.
Will was still not quite comfortable with his new rank. A few months ago he’d been a prisoner. Now, he was a major in the American Army. Tallmadge had bestowed the rank on him just before they departed. Will didn’t really care what rank he held. He just wanted to stay free and stop the British.
He followed Barley’s gesture and saw a line of canoes in the shadows of the other side. With the mist on the river, they could easily have missed them.
Will thought quickly. A handful of canoes could not contain an army, but they were coming from the direction of Fort Pitt. Thus, they might be spies or scouts for the British. If nothing else, they would be civilians who had knowledge of what was going on closer on to Pitt. With their information, perhaps it wouldn’t be necessary to get any nearer to Pitt and Tarleton’s soldiers.
Barley read his mind. “And it would be a helluva lot easier paddling with the current than against it, sir.”
No argument there. Paddling upstream was brutal. Even though they were strong and in shape, and that now included Will, their arms and shoulders ached with the effort of arguing with the strong currents of the Ohio River.
“We’ll let them pass and turn into their rear,” Will said.
Their unexpected presence in the other canoes rear might frighten them, or even cause them to shoot, in which case his men would shoot back. He decided it was a chance worth taking. Innocence or guilt could be proven later.
They drifted for a bit and then turned and began to paddle with the current and across the river. They’d gone about half way when they heard gunfire. Will didn’t hesitate. “Everybody get ready to shoot,” he ordered. “Now paddle harder.”
They came upon the fighting within minutes. Bodies were in the water and there were individual struggles in those canoes that hadn’t capsized. It was too dangerous to fire their weapons. They couldn’t tell who was who. Then he saw a canoe with a handful of scrawny men in rags bearing down on another canoe that was in distress and appeared to contain what were clearly women though they were wearing men’s clothing. He quickly concluded that they were the victims and that the others were the attackers and fervently hoped he was right. Will pointed out the target canoe and gave the order to fire. Muskets roared, spilling the outlaws into the river in a display of very good shooting since the rocking action of the canoes made aiming difficult.
Will’s men roared into the fighting and ended it quickly, killing the surviving outlaws with tomahawks and knives. Will had a pistol, but didn’t find a target. None of the men in the canoe they’d fired on had come up from underwater and he presumed they were dead. He saw a small group of the outlaws on the riverbank suddenly dart into the woods.
“Let me go, sir,” asked Owen.
“Just take some of the men with you, Corporal, and try not to get hurt.”
Wells nodded and grabbed a couple of his new friends and headed into the woods where they quickly disappeared. Will almost felt sorry for the outlaws. Even the frontiersmen who came with Barley were impressed by his tracking skills.
In the short amount of time he’d been with the new American Army, Wells had proven himself to be an outstanding woodsman and an incredibly accurate shot, along with being a solid, experienced soldier thanks to his years in the Royal Navy. Will was thinking of recommending him to a lieutenancy.
Will gathered up the surviving pilgrims on the riverbank. Out of what he was told was more than twenty, only nine survived. Five were women and there was one child, a boy about seven, who clung to his mother. Most were in shock from the suddenness and savagery of the attack. Well, not all of them. One brown-haired woman glared at him. “I killed one of them,” she said, “and would’ve gotten another but my gun misfired.”
“You did well,” Will said. He noted that she was really quite attractive, even though she was filthy, exhausted, and dressed in unbecoming men’s clothes. Two other women were helping an older man with a leg wound. He would leave them alone. They were in good hands.
“And who are you, sir?” she added.
Will almost bowed. “Captain-I mean Major-Will Drake of the New American Army.”
The woman sagged visibly. “Then we’ve made it to safety?”
“I hope so.”
“My name is Sarah Benton,” she said and then named the others.
She was about to say more when Wells and the other soldiers returned. “We found one dead a little ways up and caught up with the other two of them real easy. They made a path like elephants.” Wells had never seen an elephant but he knew they were huge and it made sense that they would leave easy trails to follow.