A Place Called Freedom (1995)

37

THE ANCIENT BUFFALO-HUNTING TRACK KNOWN AS Three Notch Trail went due west for mile after mile across the rolling Virginia landscape. It ran parallel to the James River, as Lizzie could see from Mack’s map. The road crossed an endless series of ridges and valleys formed by the hundreds of creeks that trickled south into the James. At first they passed many large estates like the ones around Fredericksburg, but as they went farther west the houses and fields became smaller and the tracts of undeveloped woodland larger.

Lizzie was happy. She was scared and anxious and guilty, but she could not help smiling. She was out of doors, on a horse, beside the man she loved, beginning a great adventure. In her mind she worried about what might happen, but her heart sang.

They pushed the horses hard, for they feared they might be followed. Alicia Jamisson would not sit quietly in Fredericksburg waiting for Jay to come home. She would have sent a message to Williamsburg, or gone there herself, to warn him of what had happened. Were it not for Alicia’s news about Sir George’s will, Jay might have shrugged his shoulders and let them go. But now he needed his wife to provide the necessary grandchild. He would almost certainly chase after Lizzie.

They had several days’ start on him, but he would travel faster, for he had no need of a wagonload of supplies. How would he follow the fugitives’ trail? He would have to ask at houses and taverns along the way, and hope that people noticed who went by. There were few travelers on the road and the wagon might well be remembered.

On the third day the countryside became more hilly. Cultivated fields gave way to grazing, and a blue mountain range appeared in the distant haze. As the miles went by the horses became overtired, stumbling on the rough road and stubbornly slowing down. On uphill stretches Mack, Lizzie and Peg got off the wagon and walked to lighten the load, but it was not enough. The beasts’ heads drooped, their pace slowed further, and they became unresponsive to the whip.

“What’s the matter with them?” Mack asked anxiously.

“We have to give them better food,” she replied. “They’re existing on what they can graze at night. For work like this, pulling a wagon all day, horses need oats.”

“I should have brought some,” Mack said regretfully. “I never thought of it—I don’t know much about horses.”

That afternoon they reached Charlottesville, a new settlement growing up where Three Notch Trail crossed the north-south Seminole Trail, an old Indian route. The town was laid out in parallel streets rising up the hill from the road, but most of the lots were undeveloped and there were only a dozen or so houses. Lizzie saw a courthouse with a whipping post outside and a tavern identified by an inn sign with a crude painting of a swan. “We could get oats here,” she said.

“Let’s not stop,” Mack said. “I don’t want people to remember us.”

Lizzie understood his thinking. The crossroads would present Jay with a problem. He would have to find out whether the runaways had turned south or continued west. If they called attention to themselves by stopping at the tavern for supplies they would make his task easier. The horses would just have to suffer a little longer.

A few miles beyond Charlottesville they stopped where the road was crossed by a barely visible track. Mack built a fire and Peg cooked hominy. There were undoubtedly fish in the streams and deer in the woods, but the fugitives had no time for hunting and fishing, so they ate mush. There was no taste to it, Lizzie found, and the glutinous texture was disgusting. She forced herself to eat a few spoonfuls, but she was nauseated and threw the rest away. She felt ashamed that her field hands had eaten this every day.

While Mack washed their bowls in a stream Lizzie hobbled the horses so that they could graze at night but not run away. Then the three of them wrapped themselves in blankets and lay under the wagon, side by side. Lizzie winced as she lay down, and Mack said: “What’s the matter?”

“My back hurts,” she said.

“You’re used to a feather bed.”

“I’d rather lie on the cold ground with you than sleep alone in a feather bed.”

They did not make love, with Peg beside them, but when they thought she was asleep they talked, in low murmurs, of all the things they had been through together.

“When I pulled you out of that river, and rubbed you dry with my petticoat,” Lizzie said. “You remember.”

“Of course. How could I forget?”

“I dried your back, and then when you turned around …” She hesitated, suddenly shy. “You had got … excited.”

“Very. I was so exhausted I could hardly stand, but even then I wanted to make love to you.”

“I’d never seen a man like that before. I found it so thrilling. I dreamed about it afterward. I’m embarrassed to remember how much I liked it.”

“You’ve changed so much. You used to be so arrogant.”

Lizzie laughed softly. “I think the same about you!”

“I was arrogant?”

“Of course! Standing up in church and reading a letter out to the laird!”

“I suppose I was.”

“Perhaps we’ve both changed.”

“I’m glad we have.” Mack touched her cheek. “I think that was when I fell in love with you—outside the church, when you told me off.”

“I loved you for a long time without knowing it. I remember the prizefight. Every blow that landed on you hurt me. I hated to see your beautiful body being damaged. Afterward, when you were still unconscious, I caressed you. I touched your chest. I must have wanted you even then, before I got married. But I didn’t admit it to myself.”

“I’ll tell you when it started for me, Down the pit, when you fell into my arms, and I accidentally felt your breast and realized who you were.”

She chuckled. “Did you hold me a bit longer than you really needed to?”

He looked bashful in the firelight. “No. But afterward I wished I had.”

“Now you can hold me as much as you like.”

“Yes.” He put his arms around her and drew her to him. They lay silent for a long while, and in that position they went to sleep.

Next day they crossed a mountain range by a pass then dropped down into the plain beyond. Lizzie and Peg rode the wagon downhill while Mack ranged ahead on one of the spare horses. Lizzie ached from sleeping on the ground, and she was beginning to feel the lack of good food. But she would have to get used to it: they had a long way to go. She gritted her teeth and thought of the future.

She could tell that Peg had something on her mind. Lizzie was fond of Peg. Whenever she looked at the girl she thought of the baby who had died. Peg had once been a tiny baby, loved by her mother. For the sake of that mother, Lizzie would love and care for Peg.

“What’s troubling you?” Lizzie asked her.

“These hill farms remind me of Burgo Marler’s place.”

It must be dreadful, Lizzie thought, to have murdered someone; but she felt there was something else, and before long Peg came out with it. “Why did you decide to run away with us?”

It was hard to find a simple answer to that question. Lizzie thought about it and eventually replied: “Mainly because my husband doesn’t love me anymore, I suppose.” Something in Peg’s expression made her add: “You seem to wish I had stayed at home.”

“Well, you can’t eat our food and you don’t like sleeping on the ground, and if we didn’t have you we wouldn’t have the wagon and we could go faster.”

“I’ll get used to the conditions. And the supplies on the wagon will make it a lot easier for us to set up home in the wilderness.”

Peg still looked sulky, and Lizzie guessed there was more to come. Sure enough, after a silence Peg said: “You’re in love with Mack, aren’t you?”

“Of course!”

“But you’ve only just got rid of your husband—isn’t it a bit soon?”

Lizzie winced. She herself felt this was true, in moments of self-doubt; but it was galling to hear the criticism from a child. “My husband hasn’t touched me for six months—how long do you think I should wait?”

“Mack loves me.”

This was becoming complicated. “He loves us both, I think,” Lizzie said. “But in different ways.”

Peg shook her head. “He loves me. I know it.”

“He’s been like a father to you. And I’ll try to be like a mother, if you’ll let me.”

“No!” Peg said angrily. “That’s not how it’s going to be!”

Lizzie was at a loss to know what to say to her. Looking ahead, she saw a shallow river with a low wooden building beside it. Obviously the road crossed the river by a ford just here, and the building was a tavern used by travelers. Mack was tying his horse to a tree outside the building.

She pulled up the wagon. A big, roughly dressed man came out wearing buckskin trousers, no shirt, and a battered three-cornered hat. “We need to buy oats for our horses,” Mack said.

The man replied with a question. “You folks going to rest your team and step inside and take a drink?”

Suddenly Lizzie felt a tankard of beer was the most desirable thing on earth. She had brought money from Mockjack Hall—not much, but enough for essential purchases on the journey. “Yes,” she said decisively, and she swung down from the wagon.

“I’m Barney Tobold—they call me Baz,” said the tavern keeper. He looked quizzically at Lizzie. She was wearing men’s clothing, but she had not completed the disguise and her face was obviously female. However, he made no comment but led the way inside.

When her eyes adjusted to the gloom Lizzie saw that the tavern was one bare earth-floored room with two benches and a counter, and a few wooden tankards on a shelf. Baz reached for a rum barrel, but she forestalled him, saying: “No rum—just beer, please.”

“I’ll take rum,” Peg said eagerly.

“Not if I’m paying, you won’t,” Lizzie contradicted her. “Beer for her, too, please, Baz.”

He poured beer from a cask into wooden mugs. Mack came in with his map in his hand and said: “What river is this?”

“We call it South River.”

“Once you cross over, where does the road lead to?”

“A town called Staunton, about twenty miles away. After that there’s not much: a few trails, some frontier forts, then real mountains, that nobody’s ever crossed. Where are you people headed, anyway?”

Mack hesitated so Lizzie answered. “I’m on my way to visit a cousin.”

“In Staunton?”

Lizzie was flustered by the question. “Uh … near there.”

“Is that so? What name?”

She said the first name that came into her head. “Angus … Angus James.”

Baz frowned. “That’s funny. I thought I knew everyone in Staunton, but I don’t recognize that name.”

Lizzie improvised. “It may be that his farm is some way from town—I’ve never been there.”

The sound of hoofbeats came from outside. Lizzie thought of Jay. Could he have caught up with them so soon? The sound made Mack uneasy too, and he said: “If we want to make Staunton by nightfall …”

“We don’t have time to linger,” Lizzie finished. She emptied her tankard.

“You’ve hardly wet your throats,” Baz said. “Drink another cup.”

“No,” Lizzie said decisively. She took out her pocketbook. “Let me pay you.”

Two men walked in, blinking in the dim light. They appeared to be local people: both were dressed in buckskin trousers and homemade boots. Out of the corner of her eye Lizzie saw Peg give a start, then turn her back on the newcomers, as if she did not want them to see her face.

One of them spoke cheerily. “Hello, strangers!” He was an ugly man with a broken nose and one closed eye. “I’m Chris Dobbs, known as Deadeye Dobbo. A pleasure to meet you. What news from the East? Them burgesses still spending our taxes on new palaces and fancy dinners? Let me buy you a drink. Rum all round, please, Baz.”

“We’re leaving,” Lizzie said. “Thanks all the same.”

Dobbo looked more closely at her and said: “A woman in buckskin pants!”

She ignored him and said: “Good-bye, Baz—and thanks for the information.”

Mack went out and Lizzie and Peg moved to the door. Dobbs looked at Peg and registered surprise. “I know you,” he said. “I’ve seen you with Burgo Marler, God rest his soul.”

“Never heard of him,” Peg said boldly, and walked past.

In the next second the man drew the logical conclusion. “Jesus Christ, you must be the little bitch that killed him!”

“Wait a minute,” Lizzie said. She wished Mack had not gone out so quickly. “I don’t know what crazy idea you’ve got into your head, Mr. Dobbs, but Jenny has been a maid in my family since she was ten years old and she’s never met anyone called Burgo Marler, let alone killed him.”

He was not to be put off so easily. “Her name isn’t Jenny, though it’s something like that: Betty, or Milly, or Peggy. That’s it—she’s Peggy Knapp.”

Lizzie felt sick with fear.

Dobbs turned to his companion for support. “Ain’t it her, now?”

The other man shrugged. “I never saw Burgo’s convict more than a time or two, and one little girl looks much the same as another,” he said dubiously.

Baz said: “She fits the description in the Virginia Gazette, though.” He reached under the counter and came up with a musket.

Lizzie’s fear went away and she felt angry. “I hope you aren’t thinking of threatening me, Barney Tobold,” she said, and her voice surprised her by its strength.

He replied: “Maybe you should all stay around while we get a message to the sheriff in Staunton. He feels bad about not catching Burgo’s murderer. I know he’ll want to check your story.”

“I’m not going to wait around while you find out you’re mistaken.”

He leveled the gun at her. “I think you’re going to have to.”

“Let me explain something to you. I’m walking out of here with this child, and there’s only one thing you need to know: if you shoot the wife of a wealthy Virginian gentleman, no excuse on earth is going to keep you from the gallows.” She put her hands on Peg’s shoulders, stepped between her and the gun, and pushed her forward.

Baz cocked the flintlock with a deafening click.

Peg twitched under Lizzie’s hands, and Lizzie tightened her grip, sensing the girl wanted to break into a run.

It was three yards to the door but they seemed to take an hour to get there.

No shot rang out.

Lizzie felt sunshine on her face.

She could contain herself no longer. Shoving Peg forward she began to run.

Mack was already in the saddle. Peg jumped up on the seat of the wagon and Lizzie followed.

“What happened?” Mack said. “You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.”

“Let’s get out of here!” Lizzie said, snapping the reins. “That one-eyed fellow recognized Peg!” She turned the wagon to the east. If they headed for Staunton they would first have to ford the river, which would take too long, and then they would be riding into the sheriff’s arms. They had to go back the way they had come.

Looking over her shoulder she saw the three men in the tavern doorway, Baz still holding the musket. She whipped the horses into a trot.

Baz did not shoot.

A few seconds later they were out of range.

“By God,” Lizzie said gratefully. “That was a nasty moment.”

The road turned a corner into the woods and they passed out of sight of the tavern. After a while Lizzie slowed the horses to a walk. Mack brought his horse alongside. “We forgot to buy oats,” he said.

Mack was relieved to escape but he regretted Lizzie’s decision to turn back. They should have forded the river and gone on. Staunton was obviously where Burgo Marler’s farm was, but they could have found a side trail around the town, or slipped through at night. However, he did not criticize her, for she had been forced to make an instant decision.

They stopped where they had made camp the night before, at the place where Three Notch Trail was crossed by a side trail. They drove the wagon off the main road and concealed it in the woods: they were now fugitives from justice.

Mack looked at his map and decided they would have to go back to Charlottesville and take the Seminole Trail south. They could turn west again after a day or two without coming within fifty miles of Staunton.

However, in the morning it occurred to Mack that Dobbs might be heading for Charlottesville. He could have passed by their hidden campsite after dark and reached the town ahead of them. He told Lizzie of his worry, and proposed riding into Charlottesville alone to check that the coast was clear. She agreed.

He rode hard and reached the town before sunrise. He slowed his horse to a walk as he approached the first house. The place was quiet: nothing was moving but an old dog scratching itself in the middle of the road. The door of the Swan tavern was open, and smoke came from its chimney. Mack dismounted and tied his horse to a bush, then cautiously approached the tavern.

There was no one in the bar.

Perhaps Dobbs and his sidekick had been heading the other way, toward Staunton.

A mouthwatering smell was coming from somewhere. He went around to the back and saw a middle-aged woman frying bacon. “I need to buy oats,” he said.

Without looking up from her work she said, “There’s a store opposite the courthouse.”

“Thanks. Have you seen Deadeye Dobbs?”

“Who the hell is he?”

“Never mind.”

“Would you like some breakfast before you go?”

“No thanks—I wish I had time.”

Leaving his horse, he went up the hill to the wooden courthouse. Across the square was a smaller building with a roughly painted sign saying “Seed Merchant.” It was locked up, but in an outhouse at the back he found a half-dressed man shaving. “I need to buy oats,” he said again.

“And I need a shave.”

“I’m not going to wait. Sell me two sacks of oats now or I’ll get them at the South River ford.”

Grumbling, the man wiped his face and led Mack into the store.

“Any strangers in town?” Mack asked him.

“You,” he replied.

It seemed Dobbs had not come here last night.

Mack paid with Lizzie’s money and took the two big sacks on his back. When he went outside he heard hooves and looked up to see three horsemen riding in from the east, going fast.

His heart skipped a beat.

“Friends of yours?” said the seed merchant.

“No.”

He hurried down the hill. The riders pulled up at the Swan. Mack slowed his pace as he approached and tipped his hat down over his eyes. As they dismounted he studied their faces.

One of them was Jay Jamisson.

Mack cursed under his breath. Jay had almost caught up, thanks to yesterday’s trouble at South River.

Luckily Mack had been cautious, and as a result he was forewarned. Now he had to reach his horse and get away without being seen.

Suddenly he realized that “his” horse had been stolen from Jay, and it was roped to a bush not three yards away from where Jay now stood.

Jay loved his horses. If he gave this one a glance he would recognize it as his own. And he would know in a flash that the runaways were nearby.

Mack stepped over a broken fence into an overgrown lot and watched through a screen of bushes. Lennox was with Jay, and there was another man he did not recognize. Lennox tied up his mount next to Mack’s, partly masking the stolen horse from Jay’s view. Lennox had no love of horses and would not recognize the beast. Jay tied up next to Lennox. Go inside, go inside! Mack shouted in his head, but Jay turned and said something to Lennox. Lennox replied, and the other man laughed coarsely. A drop of sweat rolled down Mack’s forehead and into his eye, and he blinked it away. When his vision cleared the three were walking into the Swan.

He breathed a sigh of relief. But it was not over yet.

He came out of the bushes, still bent under the weight of two sacks of oats, and walked quickly across the road to the tavern. He transferred the sacks to the horse.

He heard someone behind him.

He did not dare to look around. He put one foot in the stirrup, then a voice said: “Hey—you!”

Slowly, Mack turned. The speaker was the stranger. He took a deep breath and said: “What?”

“We want breakfast.”

“See the woman out back.” Mack mounted his horse.

“Hey.”

“What now?”

“Has a four-horse wagon passed through here with a woman, a girl and a man?”

Mack pretended to think. “Not lately,” he said. He kicked his horse and rode off.

He did not dare to look back.

A minute later he had left the town behind.

He was anxious to get back to Lizzie and Peg, but he was forced to go more slowly because of the weight of the oats, and the sun was warm by the time he reached the crossing. He turned off the road and down the side trail to the hidden campsite. “Jay is in Charlottesville,” he said as soon as he saw Lizzie.

She paled. “So close!”

“He’ll probably follow Three Notch Trail across the mountains later today. But as soon as he reaches the South River ford he’ll find out that we turned back. That will put him only a day and a half behind us. Weil have to abandon the wagon.”

“And all our supplies!”

“Most of them. We have three spare horses: we can take whatever they will carry.” Mack looked along the narrow trail leading south from the camp. “Instead of going back to Charlottesville we could try taking this track south. It probably cuts a corner and meets up with the Seminole Trail a few miles out of town. And it looks passable for horses.”

Lizzie was not the type to whine. Her mouth set in a determined line. “All right,” she said grimly. “Let’s start unloading.”

They had to abandon the plowshare, Lizzie’s trunk full of warm underwear, and some of the cornmeal, but they managed to keep the guns, the tools and the seed. They roped the pack horses together then mounted up.

By midmorning they were on their way.