Ghost Legion by Boggs Johnny D.;

Author:Boggs, Johnny D.;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing
Published: 2016-03-14T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fourteen

The weather had cleared the following morning, although the skies remained dreary, typical for October. After breakfast, the legion of Patriots, 1,400 strong, assembled to hear Colonel Benjamin Cleveland speak.

“The enemy is at hand,” the Virginian said. “Up and at them.” Unlike Shelby or Sevier, Cleveland didn’t march up and down the line, probably because the pale cuss weighed better than 250 pounds, little of that muscle. Folks said that he was an old fire-hunter, that, as a boy, he had spent more time chasing deer or selling furs and pelts than he had in church, but those days were 100 pounds and thirty years behind him. He hated Tories, though, with good reason.

“Most of you men know the sacrifice we Clevelands have paid for liberty. John Murray’s Tories tried to stop us from reaching you, but they failed. They ambushed us near Lovelady’s Shoals on the Catawba, hidden in the cliffs, fired on us while we were fording the river. Like assassins. My brother, Larkin, will limp from that musket ball that found his thigh. But we, gentleman . . .”—he dipped his fingers into a waistcoat pocket and withdrew a flattened lead ball—“we, gentlemen, will send this back to those sons-of-bitches, with better results.”

A few men—Cleveland’s, no doubt—cheered, and the colonel waited for the noise to subside. “Now is the time for every man of you to do his country a priceless service,” he said, “such as shall lead your children to exult in the fact that their fathers were the conquerors of Ferguson.” He took off his hat. “When the pinch comes, I shall be with you. But if any of you shrink from sharing in the battle and glory, you can now have the opportunity of backing out, of leaving. You shall have a few minutes to consider this matter.”

A smiling Major McDowell stepped up next—“to offer his farthing,” Ryan Folson whispered with a sigh. After him, Isaac Shelby took to the stump.

“Speeches,” Edisto Bickley grunted, and pulled down his wolf-skin cap. “Talking never killed no Tory.”

“You want to back out, Barnes?” Eugene Vance asked, snickering.

Teever Barnes answered with a curse.

Marty could feel Flint O’Keeffe’s eyes drilling through her, pleading for her to accept Cleveland’s generosity, step back, go home, while she had the chance. She planted her feet deeper in the mud, gripped her long rifle tighter.

“You who desire to incline Colonel Cleveland’s offer,” Isaac Shelby said, “will, when the word is given, march three steps to the rear, and stand, prior to which a few more minutes will be granted for your consideration.”

Shelby seemed to be staring at her, but Marty just looked ahead. Her side didn’t hurt so much, not today. Instead, she felt Flint O’Keeffe’s pain. John Sevier had shamed him, demoted him, reduced him to the ranks. She should have spoken up. After all, O’Keeffe had not sent the woman and her children back to the cabin. That had been Marty’s doing. Yet words had failed her.

She waited for John Sevier to give a speech.

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