Chapter 5
Bess opened her eyes and listened, wondering what had awakened her. It was not yet dawn, and she knew that the light, when it did come, would be faint and distorted by the heavy fog that had moved in at dusk. She rose and went to the window.
The world outside was an impenetrable wall of dampness and muffled sound. She couldn’t even see the poplar tree that grew only a few feet from the house. She yawned and raised the window. Silence.
She had no idea of the time. It could be three or four; it was too early to get up, especially since she’d been assisting in the birth of a calf in the barn until midnight.
“Kutii?” she whispered. “Are you here?” She didn’t think he was. This feeling was not the same as the one she experienced when the Indian was near. Kutii never made her uneasy; his presence was comforting.
She sniffed. Was this what she had come to? Talking to ghosts in the night? Jumping at the normal creaking of a house in the fog? Spinsters did such things. Didn’t everyone say so?
If she’d married at seventeen or eighteen, like most of her friends, she would have had a husband and children to keep her company. Her life would have been so full of responsibilities that she’d have no time for such flights of fancy.
If she’d married . . . She shook her head, banishing such thoughts. She’d never marry. She had a life and she was content with it. Fortune’s Gift was all she needed.
She closed the window and turned back toward the bed. A candle and a wooden box containing flint and steel and cedar shavings stood on her night table, but she didn’t trouble herself to strike a spark. She knew every inch of the house. Mama had always said she could see better in the dark than most people in broad daylight. A smile played across her lips. What did a witch’s hatchling need with a light?
Bess wondered if she’d been dreaming. Lord knew she had enough to be uneasy about. Her creditors were demanding money, she was still without an overseer, and she’d let Kincaid steal a second horse from her and vanish like smoke.
She hadn’t thought he would run. She really hadn’t. Her own stupidity was harder to take than his betrayal. Three weeks he’d been missing . . . and now the sheriff was threatening to collect on the bond she’d posted to guarantee Kincaid’s good behavior.
By now the rogue was probably in Carolina, drunk as a bishop, and laughing at her. She could see him in her mind’s eye, chest thrown out, arms akimbo, boasting arrogantly of his escape.
She glanced toward the window, and it seemed to her as though she saw a flash and at the same instant heard a muffled boom. Hurriedly, she threw on an old shirt of her father’s and a riding skirt. She didn’t take the time to don a corset; instead, she covered the loose shirt with an oversized vest for modesty’s sake. She stepped into low moccasins and took her grandfather’s pistols from the mantel. They were always kept loaded, and it was an easy task to load the frizzen pans with fine black powder.
Again the darkness was no obstacle. Mama had insisted that she learn to handle firearms in the pitch black. The devil rarely lashes his tail and causes mischief in broad daylight, her grandmother had admonished. Look for trouble in darkness, and you’ll seldom be disappointed.
Bess left the room and went downstairs. As she passed through the kitchen wing, she paused long enough to shake the cook from his sleep. “Wake the servants,” she ordered. “Arm yourselves and look sharp. Something’s amiss.”
“You’ll not go out—” the cook began.
“Do as I say,” Bess whispered sharply. “It may be nothing, but I want you all ready.”
Seeny, the brindle hound bitch, was whining at the kitchen door when Bess threw the iron bar aside. “Tan!” she called to the male dog stretched out before the hearth. “Go get ’em.” She opened the door a crack and the female shot out. “Tan!” Bess repeated. The dog followed his mate, ears pricked, tail stiff, keen nose sniffing the air.
Bess was halfway down the outside steps when Seeny struck up a cry. Tan began to bark and vanished into the thick fog. The bitch’s deep, resounding bellow brought similar responses from a dozen other dogs. The fog muffled the sound and played tricks on Bess’s hearing, but instinct made her turn toward the river landing.
Her heart was in her. throat. Her mouth was dry, and she clenched her teeth to keep them from chattering. There was no question of running in the murky gray vapor. She shoved one pistol into her waistband, took a firm grip on the second, and walked with one hand out in front of her to keep from striking something head-on.
Still not knowing if she’d alerted the servants and loosed the hounds for nothing, Bess forced herself to take one step after another. Fear coiled inside her. She was perspiring, despite the clammy, damp mist. She felt like a child wandering through a nightmare, waiting for some creature to leap out at her, almost wishing it would. Nothing could be worse than this nameless dread, or the overwhelming sense that something unclean walked Fortune’s Gift tonight.
Suddenly she stopped and felt the space in front of her. She couldn’t see her own hand in front of her face. Everything was lost in an enveloping cloud. Her breath came in quick, short gasps; her blood was racing. She wanted to turn and run, but she couldn’t. If she gave in to her fears, where would she stop?
She moved her hand back and forth. Nothing. Hesitantly, she took a step and stifled a cry as her foot struck something. Shaking, she dropped to her knees and reached out with trembling fingers. She touched something still warm and fur-covered. Something that no longer held life.
She ran her hand along the animal’s belly and up over a front leg, stopping when she came to a wet, sticky ooze. It was a dog, a big one, and his throat was cut. She felt for a collar and found braided rawhide. Lafe Johnson’s mastiff. Dead not more than a few minutes, unless she missed her guess.
Bess rose and tried to get her directions. Was the dock straight ahead, she wondered, or was it more to the right? The dead dog had frightened her half out of her wits. But it wasn’t just the dog. It was—
Without warning, the night exploded into pandemonium. A volley of shots rang out behind her. She heard a woman scream, followed by the roar of a flintlock pistol. The dogs no longer bayed; their snarls nearly drowned out the sounds of the gunfire.
Bess turned and ran toward the commotion. Just ahead of her, a straw stack went up in flames. In the flickering light, she made out a bulky form struggling with a slighter one.
“Help me!”
She recognized the twang of Yorkshire in the terrified woman’s voice, followed by the rip of tearing cloth and the sickening thud of a man’s fist striking soft flesh. Mariah Carey, Joe Carey’s bride of four months, was newly come from England. Mariah’s shriek of pain turned to subdued weeping as her assailant threw her to the ground and pinned her with his body.
“No. No,” the girl sobbed.
Bess rushed at the man, put the barrel of her pistol against his side, and pulled the trigger. He jerked backward and fell facedown, clutching at the gaping hole in his rib cage.
Mariah covered her face with her hands and cried hysterically. She was naked from the waist up, and blood trickled from one corner of her mouth.
“Get up!” Bess hissed. “There’s no time for this.”
Mariah lowered her hands and stared wide-eyed at Bess. “They killed Joe,” she moaned. “They cut off his head.”
“Who? Who are they?” Bess demanded. She rolled the dying man over and stared into his ugly face. He was a total stranger.
“Pirates, Joe said,” Mariah babbled. “Run, he said. It’s pirates.” She began to weep again. “They murdered him. They murdered my Joe.”
“How many of them did you see?” Bess asked. She could smell smoke. Screams of women blended now with the panicked whinnying of trapped horses. Two barns were on fire, and it sounded to her as though skirmishes were going on in at least three different spots. More shots rang out through the fog, and off to her left, beyond the pound, Bess saw two men on horseback driving the cattle toward the river.
“I don’t know . . . I don’t know,” Mariah wailed. “He tried to . . .” She pointed at the dead man. “He said he was goin’ to . . .”
“Are you hurt?” Bess asked her.
Mariah began to shake.
“Stop that!” Bess said. “Can you fire a pistol?”
“No. I never held no pistol. I’d be feared of a—”
Bess stuck the empty flintlock into her waistband and retrieved the loaded one. “Run and hide in the woods,” she said, pointing away from the fires. “Go that way. No one will see you in the fog.”
“I’m feared,” Mariah whimpered. “They’ll come back and get me.”
“Do as I say,” Bess commanded. “Run into the woods and hide until morning.” She turned away toward the pound.
“Don’t leave me,” Mariah cried.
“Go! Quick, before someone sees us,” Bess replied.
“I’m afraid. I can’t.”
“Get to the woods, you buffle-headed jade, before I shoot you.” Bess raised her pistol menacingly. Mariah gave a muffled shriek and dashed off in the direction of the woods. Bess looked around, heard the brindle bitch’s bark, and ran toward the sound.
At the corner of the barn, Clyde, one of her grooms, was using a pitchfork to hold off two men with cutlasses. The hound, hackles raised, was snarling at the intruders. Seeny’s mouth was stained dark, and she had sustained a deep gash down one side, but she was gamely trying to assist the boy.
As Bess approached, the man closest to Clyde stepped back, lowered his cutlass, and drew a pistol, taking aim at the groom. Bess raised her own weapon and fired. The light was poor, and he was a moving target. With only one shot, she knew she’d not have a second chance. To her delight, the ball tore into his hip. Emitting a yelp of pain, he dropped the pistol.
The second man, a husky seaman with his hair braided into a single tarred pigtail, whirled toward Bess and slashed at her with his cutlass. She sidestepped the blade. “Seeny, kill!” she ordered.
The hound had never hunted men. The order was one given to attack a bear or a crazed steer, but the bitch never hesitated. She flung herself at the sailor’s throat. The man toppled over, and Clyde drove the pitchfork through his chest.
For a moment, the boy stared down in shock at the twitching man; then he blinked and passed his arm in front of his face. “Me mam,” he croaked. “Me mam is alone. I got to go to her.”
“Arm yourself,” Bess said, pointing to the marauder’s pistol. Clyde nodded, snatched up the flintlock, and ran back along the side of the burning barn. The pitchfork stood upright in the fallen man’s chest.
Bess’s stomach turned over and she shut her eyes for a second, trying to regain her nerve. Whining, the dog crept close to her leg and licked her hand. “Good Seeny, good girl,” she said. She was tired, so tired. The sickly-sweet smell of blood was thick in the air; cinders and burning hay fell around her.
Her head hurt, and the sight of the man with the pitchfork in his chest made her want to be sick. The urge to give in to her fears-to run and hide—was very strong. But she couldn’t. This was her home, her people, and if she must meet violence with violence to protect what she loved, then she must find the courage or at least pretend she possessed it.
A deep baying resounded from across the yard, a sound that brought Seeny instantly alert. She leaped away from Bess and hurled herself into the fog as the baying rose to an agonized yelp. Bess recognized the sound as Seeny’s mate, Tan. He was obviously hurt, and judging from the fierce growl that came seconds later, it was clear that the hound bitch had gone to Tan’s aid. Seeny’s enraged snarling was pierced by a man’s high-pitched scream and then a musket shot.
Bess knew that she’d fired both pistols and hadn’t had time to reload, but she was afraid that if she didn’t act at once, it would be too late to save her dogs. Heedless of her own safety, she rushed toward the confrontation.
She’d not gone a half-dozen steps into the blinding fog when someone grabbed her. Bess struck out wildly at her assailant, but a sinewy hand clamped over her mouth so tightly that she wasn’t even able to scream.
Terror-stricken, she kicked and punched, trying to break free. She twisted and attempted to scratch the man’s eyes, but he was too strong for her. Despite her struggles, he dragged her off deeper into the all-encompassing fog.
“What have ye there?” a rough voice called from the darkness.
“Find your own slut. This’n’s mine.”
The faceless outlaw answered with a slash of his cutlass. Bess caught sight of it before she was thrown hard against the ground. She rolled away as a pistol spit fire and lead. There was a muffled thud and then silence.
Bess listened. The fighting still raged around the barns and dependencies. But here, in this circle of gray, there was an unnatural quiet. One man had fallen; one waited for her to move. She knew it. But she also knew that if she didn’t move, he’d catch her.
Stealthily, she began to crawl away. She’d lost both pistols and had nothing to defend herself with but her wits. She wasn’t even certain where she was. Her sense of direction was confused by the fog and by her fright of being seized by a man she couldn’t see. She thought there was a split-rail fence a few hundred feet ahead. If she could just reach that line of—
A heavy weight landed on top of her and bore her to the ground. Before she could cry out, her attacker pressed his lips close to her ear.
“Cease your squirming, woman,” he hissed. “It’s me, I’ll nay do ye harm. I’ve come to save yer lily-white English neck!”
“Kincaid!”
“Shout it a little louder, why don’t ye?” He caught her wrists and pinned them against the grass. “Ye can’t win, ye know. You’ve ten seconds to come to your senses, or I’ll knock ye cold and carry ye to safety.”
She mumbled something incomprehensible.
“I can’t hear ye.”
“Let me up.”
“Not until ye promise to do as I say. The farm is swarming with pirates. They’ve come to take slaves and livestock, and anything else they can carry.”
“We have no slaves on Fortune’s Gift.”
“Ye may know that, but they don’t.”
“What are you doing here?”
“A question I’ve asked meself more than once this night, I’ll tell ye.”
“Let me go,” she insisted.
“My way, woman. I’ll brook no argument from ye on this.”
“Coward!” she hissed. “Why aren’t you fighting this scum instead of me?”
“I’ve given ye fair warning. Come or be carried.”
Her answer was a hard drive with her knee to his groin. Kincaid’s gasp of pain lent her strength. Bess twisted her head and bit his wrist. When he let go, she wiggled out from under him and began to crawl away. He caught her ankle and yanked her back. They rolled over and Kincaid threw his weight against her, knocking the wind out of her.
Her head spun. She heard the rip of cloth and seconds later Kincaid bound a gag around her mouth. Panic surged through her and she struggled wildly, but he held on to her wrists and bound them as well. An icy current of pure fear washed over her and she came close to fainting, but then reason conquered the overwhelming terror. She ceased fighting him and listened with her inner senses. Instantly, the awful dread receded. Her rapid pulse slowed, and her breathing came easier.
Kincaid threw her over his shoulder. “I won’t hurt ye,” he growled. “Devil take ye, woman. If I meant ye ill, I’d ring your neck instead of risking my own to get ye out of this.”
His soothing words came to her from far away. She was concentrating, drawing up the witchy power that had come to her from her grandmother. For the space of a heartbeat, Bess’s consciousness was flooded with a sensation of sea-green light, and with it came the fleeting impression of being safeguarded by this rough Scot. But before she could take comfort from her intuition, his broad hand came down sharply across her backside.
“Be still!” he ordered as he delivered the stinging blow. “Lest ye—”
Bess’s sense of well-being vanished in white-hot anger. She rained muffled curses on his head and kicked him so hard in the midriff that her toes felt as though they were broken.
“Witch,” he gasped. He began to run through the fog with her, dodging once to avoid being run down by a steer and again to avoid a group of men who loomed up in the murky darkness.
Bess couldn’t tell how far he ran. Branches striking her face and tearing at her clothes told her that they had entered the woods, and the cries behind them grew fainter and fainter. At last, he stopped and lowered her to the damp forest floor.
“Now, I’ll take off the gag and untie ye if you’ll thank me properly,” he said. He was breathing hard. “You’re no feather bed to tote, ye ken. Most men would ha’ dropped ye at the first fence.”
“You bastardly gullion,” she said as soon as he pulled away the cloth. “Crow-hearted, yellow-backed—”
“Cease your canting, chuck,” he replied, “afore I regret what I’ve done and give ye over to those priggers.” He cut the rope that held her wrists together and stepped back out of the line of fire. “It would serve both ye and them right. For a more ungrateful, shrewish lass I’ve never laid eyes on.”
Bess scrambled to her feet. “Those are my people,” she cried. “My horses, my cattle. Why are you here? Why aren’t you shooting those pirates instead of carrying me off into the woods? You beetle-headed—”
“Enough!” he snapped. “ ‘Tis not my war. I’ve not been paid to kill those churls, and I dinna waste my time on matters that dinna concern me. Ye should be grateful that I came back to save your slender English neck.”
“Came back? Came back? How did you know they were going to attack Fortune’s Gift? You were with them, weren’t you?”
“Aye, I was,” he admitted. “But only for the last three days. I overheard them planning the raid, and I decided that the faster way to get back here was to sign on as one of the crew.”
“Some of my women have been attacked, my men killed.” Her voice dropped to a harsh whisper. “You could have warned us . . . prevented—”
“Nay. I could not. I was south of here, too far to ride back. They had a sloop and—”
“My horse! You stole another one of my horses. Where is it?”
“I couldn’t very well bring the gelding on the boat, could I?”
“Horse thief. Coward.” She balled her fist tightly and struck him in the center of his chest with all her might. “I trusted you, and you betrayed me.” She hit at him again, and he caught her hand.
“Nay, no more o’ that, woman,” he warned.
“You’re supposed to be a soldier,” she said. “A fighter. You’re nothing but a thieving blackguard!”
“I can fight if I have to,” he admitted. “I thought that coming back to keep you from doing something stupid was enough.”
In truth, he didn’t know why he’d returned with the pirates. It was one of the strangest things that had ever happened to him. It made no sense, and Kincaid prided himself on always using good judgment.
He’d known Elizabeth Bennett would be in the thick of the trouble, and he’d known she’d come to harm if he didn’t interfere. He’d realized it the moment he’d heard the bearded mulatto mention Fortune’s Gift.
“A plantation run by a wench,” the pirate had boasted to his drunken comrades in the Virginia, Eastern Shore tavern. “Easy pickings for a few stout men.”
And Kincaid, who’d never had a flight of fancy in his life, had instantly felt the chill of fog and heard the scream of a woman in his head. Despite the clear, star-filled Virginia night, he’d seen a vision of Bess outlined in the light of a burning building and known her life was in danger.
“I’m a stranger to your people,” he told her. “Like as not, they’d have tried to kill me along with the pirates. I’m nay fond of being caught between two sides. A man could die young that way.” He released her hand. “No more o’ that,” he cautioned. “I might hit ye back, and ye’d nay wish to wake up with a head the size of a pumpkin.”
“Oh,” she said scornfully, “you’d strike me. You’re afraid of men your own size, but you think you can bully a woman.”
“Do ye never tire of hearing your own voice?” He shook his head. “All my life I’ve been accused of being too soft with the lasses, but I’m not clod-skulled enough to stand here and let ye pound away at me.”
“I’m going back.”
“Nay,” .
“Don’t try to stop me. Fortune’s Gift is mine, and if—”
“Ye will do as I say, woman,” he said. “And I say ye will remain here where it’s safe. Dawn’s coming fast, and that band will be back to their boat soon.”
“You’d let them escape? When they’ve murdered and—”
“They’ll not go far. I took the liberty of knocking a hole in the bottom once they’d gone ashore.”
“They could take my sloop.”
“Nay, I put a hole in that too.”
“You damaged my boat?”
“Hellfire and damnation, is there nothing I do that pleases you?”
“Precious little!” She took a deep breath. “If you fight for money, I’ll buy your services. Just go back and help my men defeat them.”
“Aye, I could do that. If the pay is good enough. I warn ye, I don’t come cheap.”
“Go, damn it!”
“Not until we agree on a price.”
“What do you want?”
“The gelding I rode off on. I’d nay be hung for borrowing—”
“You can have the horse. Now, go back and—”
“They planned to drive off the cattle and horses,” he said. “I told them I knew the plantation well. I sent them down the river road.”
“But that road goes nowhere. It ends in Reedy Swamp.”
“Aye, so I found out last fall. But by the time they figure that out, they’ll be too far along to turn the animals back and go another way. If you’ve any hounds left, I’d guess ye can hunt them down easy enough.”
“It doesn’t make up for my people dead, my barns burned. You could have stopped it if you’d warned us in time,” she accused.
“I told ye,” he repeated through clenched teeth. “There was no time.”
“I still think you’re a coward.”
“Think what ye please, Englishwoman,” he said as he turned to go back to the fighting. But her words stung like salt on an open wound. He knew he was no craven. And if he knew, then what matter what Mistress Bennett thought? “But if ye stir from this spot until I send for ye,” he admonished, “I’ll tie ye hand and foot and leave ye here for the buzzards.”
He stalked away, trying to put her insults out of his mind. She was nothing to him, nothing but trouble, and he’d been a fool to make a bargain with her. “Better that lot than you,” he muttered. “Dealing with bay pirates will be safer and a hell of a lot less aggravation.” ,