July 1780
Her blue skirt pulled above her knees and kneeling in the sable brown earth, she extended her arm to grab an errant weed just beyond her reach. She tugged and it came out easily, moist dirt clinging to its roots. She flung it into the pile to her left. Satisfied that she had pulled every wild, creeping vine that threatened her garden she sat back on her heels. She reached among the small green leaves of a bean plant and held one of the pods in her hand to judge their size and ripeness. She snapped it open with her thumb and saw the white seeds within were only the size of her infant daughter's fingers. It would be well a month, perhaps, two, before they could be harvested and dried.
Hearing her daughter gurgling and cooing to a sparrow, she turned and looked upon her child lying on a blanket only a few feet away. Her heart swelled with love for the little creature, more than she would have thought possible. A breeze stirred the tiny brown tendrils that had just begun to sprout on her head. Her eyes had not changed to her mother's color as everyone had told her they would. She knew they would stay the same color as they were now, as they had been when she had been born; a pale blue the color of a robin's egg. The color of her father's. Her thoughts inevitably trailed to Andrew. During the day, she was so busy with keeping the farm together and running and taking care of her child that she had no time to think of him. But at night, as she lay in bed waiting for sleep to come, she would see his face, hear his voice with the strange lilts not found in this land. She did not doubt he would return if he was able. But she was simply weary with waiting and expecting his return any moment.
She looked up at the tops of the poplar and oak trees. The wind had picked up and whistled among the branches and made the top half of the tree sway, leaves fluttering wildly. The sky above was gray, the air nearly insufferably hot. She wiped sweat from her brow, and pushed back moist brown strands of hair that had come loose and stuck to her face, staggering to her feet. A storm would soon come, she knew. When one lives in wild places, they can predict nature's cycles. In summer, heat filled with sunshine was nearly always followed by pouring rain and fierce thunder at nightfall. She could feel it in the air, the heavy and dirtiness feel of it. Rain was weeks overdue, and she was glad it had finally come. She grew tired of toiling heavy buckets of water to and from the well to the plot, and constant worrying over the fields of flax and corn, wondering if they would survive. She decided she would go into the forest and find the creek to bathe. It was not far, and she could be back before the storm came close.
He shoved aside tall, yellow stalks of grass as he tried to make his way through the seemingly endless acres of canebrake. The weed grew impossibly high, twice as tall as he was and hung over the rabbit trail he was following , impeding his way. They were dry and rattled and whispered in the breeze above his head as he passed through. Several times he had seen snakes as large around as his leg slither past across the path in front of him. The cane was full of spiders, and he felt as though he would go mad if he had to brush another sticky cobweb out of his face.
To put it plainly, he was utterly lost. Disgusted and sickened by endless months of backwoods fighting, he had so badly wanted to return to her. He had been unable to think about anything but her. He felt as though he were going insane, and confused. His men had thought him so, and his concerned superior had given him two weeks furlough to spend in Charlotte. He knew that she lived in the woods west of a village called Marion, in the most recent and very least settled areas of the colony. He had rode his horse to near death, taking two days, gotten vague directions, and had then walked westerly, foolishly believing he could find her farm. He had been a fool, he realized now too late. He had been walking for three days now, and the food he had packed was nearly gone. He looked a mess, his face scratched and uniform stained and torn. Orange dust coated him, and he was miserable.
He had to admit that despite his miserable circumstances he had admired the pretty country he passed through. Fields of corn had been planted on deadened acres when bare, girdled treed stood above the stalks. True, it was a world of briars and thickets, swampy valleys and crisscrossed with rough, narrow trails. Cabins were scattered along the branches of green, slow moving rivers. Most farmers grew flax and vegetables and some had already established fruit trees in acres in ridges above the rivers. There were several towns to the east, but most of the country this far west was wild. Cherokees claimed much of the land and sometimes made hunting forays into the river valley. He had been told to not be afraid of them for they were in allegiance with the Crown and would kill all patriots they caught.
He broke through the end of the canebrake at last and fought his way through branches and limbs, stumbling towards a stand of pines. He knelt on the moss covered rocks and washed the cuts the briars had made on his hands and face. He splashed his face and drank the cold creek water, for it was intolerably hot. Clouds had not settled overhead, dark gray with rain. He startled at a sound he heard coming from upstream. He cocked his pistol and stood, hearing splashing.
She splashed water onto her face, rolling the sleeves of her shirt up to her elbows. She wore her brother's shirtsleeves and breeches, even though she was alone in the forest. The war of rebellion had raged all around her secluded farm tucked into the Nantahala foothills. Sometimes it seemed a foreign thing, with battles in the north spoken of as only rumors. Victories of the patriots at Saratoga, Trenton and Princeton. Washington's defeat at Brandywine.
But now the war had come close to home. General Cornwallis had sailed to Charlestown in March and after a two month siege had taken the city. Another British general, by the name of Campbell, had driven rebel militias out of the city and into the backcountry. Many patriots had been killed or captured. The war had gotten closer as the people of the Carolina hills took furs and stock to sell there. Living on the border between north and south, people had become nervous when the Lord General had moved his huge army of ten thousand soldiers to conquer them and meet up with the rest of the army in Virginia.
Soon after, everyone knew about his calvary commander, Colonel Tarleton. At only twenty-six he was already famous for never having lost a battle and for being a fierce fighter. While she had passed by a Methodist church on the way home from the village, she had heard men talking outside of the story of a battle near the Waxhaws. After he had won, he had ordered all men who had been captured or who had surrendered to be killed. He never took any prisoners.
Any newspapers to be had were passed along, hand to hand and were often months old and unreliable. You had to be extremely careful who saw you with a rebel or loyalist paper, for being caught possessing one was enough to get your house burned if the wrong person saw you.
Recently she had read that Andrew Pickens of the Long Canes, leader of the militia in her county, had been defeated and had been forced to swear an oath to never fight the Crown again. Now there was no one to defend the outlying settlements from the dragoons sweeping the interior of the Carolinas. They burned houses of patriots, even those suspected of being traitorous, hanging rebels from trees in front of their own houses, raping whatever women they caught and stealing whatever livestock and provisions they pleased.
She did not know what to do. Should she abandon her home and flee into the forest? Many had already done so, and already she had heard two skirmishes far off to the south, and once had come upon royal soldiers marching pass on their way to their camp to the east. She had grabbed her baby and hid in the cellar all that day and the next night, for fear that they would come. She worried for herself and for her child. Her father and eldest brother fought for the patriots. Would she be punished for their crimes? It was hard to remain calm, and she shivered despite the heat. She looked up at a patch of sky between branches of the trees, saw that the clouds were dark and ominous, and heard a distant rumble of thunder. The air smelt strangely of electricity. The creek she stood in was bitterly cold and made her legs ache. She turned to pick up her child and head towards home.
"Don't move."
She froze, sucking in air, fear coursing through her. Was he a dragoon? His voice designated him as on of the king's soldiers from across the ocean. Then she remembered she wore men's clothing, and raised her hands.
"Slowly turn. I don't want any trouble. Are you alone?" She nodded. "I want to know where I am."
He turned his face fearfully at the deep rumbling he heard, and looked afraid as the ground slightly trembled. She turned around, and as she did she saw his face.
"Andrew!" He startled at his name and pointed his pistol at her. He saw that this farmer was not a man. His eyes widened in recognition. He lowered his weapon and stared, sure that what he saw before him was not real but a dream. She rushed to him.
"Leah," he murmured against her mouth. "My Leah." His lips captured hers again, and his arms slid beneath hers to gather her to him. He swept a flurry of kisses along her face. She let him kiss her over and over again on her face, her lips. He pulled her to him as though he were afraid she would disappear from him if he did not hold her fast. She tried very hard to quell the frenzied fluttering of her heart as she met his eyes, the blood that flushed her face. She tried to speak, to tell him of her overwhelming joy at his arrival, but her head swam, her senses lost to her. She wrapped her arms around him.
Suddenly they heard the baby squalling, and she rushed from him to her baby, he followed. The pines had sheltered them from much of the rain, but now drops fell onto the baby and made her begin to fuss. The two had not noticed the wet, lost in their rapture at the unlikely but lucky occurrence at finding each other so in this copse of pines. She beamed as she lifted their baby in her arms.
"Our daughter." He looked to her in awe, before he took the fussing infant in his arms, as careful as if he were afraid of breaking her.
"I am a father… she is beautiful. Perfect." He snaked an arm around her waist and pulled her close to him. The baby quieted in her father's arms.
Raindrops soon began to fall in more urgency. She unwrapped his arm from her waist and took his hand in hers. Thunder boomed closer now, and he jumped in fear. She tugged at his hand.
"Come. We must leave before the storm approaches. Its not far."
He followed her as she wound expertly through the trees, curving around sinkholes and pits of quickmud. Soon they were out of the wood and running between rows of corn. The rain poured now from the sky in torrents, and he slipped in red mud as slick as grease. He had tucked his child into his coat so that she would remain dry. As he went up the steps and into the house he saw she was as soaked as he was, her wet hair plastered to her back and strands stuck to her face. He took the now quieted baby and handed her to her mother, who wrapped her in a blanket and set her in a crib by the fire. He noticed that the air had cooled considerably.
A sudden crash made him jump and gasp aloud, startling him more than he would have liked to admit. He saw that he trembled and shivered, and reached up to touch a dark brown strand of hair at his temple. He turned and looked at her, calming.
"The thunder frightens you, doesn't it?"
He swallowed. "I have never heard a storm rage with such violence---" another crash, this one louder than before. She could see in his eyes the fear he tried to hide and smiled. She took his hand again in hers, bade him to sit next to her. He was suddenly extremely glad he was not out in the wilderness in this storm, and that he had found her.
"Don't be afraid."
"Are you not?"
She shook her head. "No. A dozen storms, sometimes far worse than this pass by each summer." She touched his face, and looked at the torn, soaked red uniform he wore. He had cuts on his face. She brought out dry clothes, and a salve for his cuts.
After they sat on the floor, a blanket wrapped around them and watched the lightning flash and thunder grumble as the storm passed them.
"How long were you lost?"
He sighed. "I left Gilberttown three days ago."
"Without a guide?"
"I know. I was a fool, thinking I could find my way through this wilderness to get to you. I just had to… to see you."
She lay against him, and with her he no longer found the great sounds terrifying, despite being at his wit's end at having had such little sleep over the past few days. He had so little energy left that she had to half carry him up the stairs and into her bed.
It was well into the next evening before he awoke again. She washed out the cups and bowls used during dinner, opening the back door and tossing the dirty water into the yard. The day had been hot, and she wore only her father's shirt, which hung to her knees. She picked a fresh strawberry out of a bowl and put it into her mouth, leaning against the doorframe to look outside, everything cast in fiery redness with sunset. She heard a shuffling sound, and turned and saw that he had been watching her from the bottom of the stairs.
"Come to me, Leah." He said, and took her hand. He drew her to his lap and put his arms around her. He reached his hands under the long shirt and felt her back. Her breath got close and short, and she felt warm. It was the best feeling, to be held that way. His touch was maddeningly sweet. His hands grew more daring, and their eyes met, suddenly they both blushed. He looked away to the wall and she towards the hearth. Missing his touches, she shyly took his hand and placed it on her again.
He began to breathe sharp and hard then She felt his pulse jumping against her back. His hands roved all over under the cloth. She felt something soft at the back of her neck and knew them to be his lips. He ran them from the hair against her neck to her shoulder, and she ran her fingers in his hair, drowning in the love reflecting from his eyes.
He was still exhausted, but he eagerly carried her upstairs to the bed. He unbuttoned her shirt slowly and pulled it over her head, coaxed her to slip under the blankets with him.
