Furmidable Foes

7

November 19, 1787

Monday

A light dusting covered the ground, making Ewing hungry for a sugar cookie. Walking with him for a bit of exercise, Yancy Grant swung his cane out then back. While it lent him a jaunty air, it also helped his stability, for his knee had been shattered in a duel with Jeffrey Holloway. Pieced together as best as could be, he could move around but not quickly. He needed help mounting a horse, but he could ride.

“The King left them high and dry,” Ewing announced.

“Why would anyone trust the French right now? The Prussians shelled Amsterdam with howitzers. The defenders had but two hundred and fifty men, but they acquitted themselves with honor, without French troops for relief.”

Ewing nodded. “From time to time I receive a letter from my friend, Baron Necker. He confirms your report. Does it not occur to you, Yancy, that pieces are being moved on the checkerboard of Europe? Alliances ignored or broken. New ones begun. I thank God every day that there is an ocean between ourselves and our supposed betters.”

“Just so.” Yancy nodded. “Well, this is the end of the Dutch as a free people.”

“It’s the end of the Dutch Patriots. Not for all time, I think, but given the squalor we are seeing in France, the shameful abandonment, it seems to be the curious way of the world.”

“Perhaps.” Yancy stopped to look at a horse he once owned frolicking with Reynaldo and Crown Prince, two of Catherine’s finest stallions. “Black Knight looks full of beans.” He laughed.

“Catherine dotes on him.”

Yancy smiled. “A gift, your daughter has a gift. Ah, don’t tell me.”

A brief burst of wind sent tiny flakes swirling in their faces. The two old friends turned their backs to the west, headed east toward the main house. Given Yancy’s pace, they wouldn’t reach it for another fifteen minutes.

“The weather mystifies me.” Ewing pulled his scarf tighter. “I think it will be sunny, the clouds roll in. I think the flurries have passed and after a respite a bit more.”

Yancy tapped the farm road to test a spot that might be slick. “Firm. Well, look at it this way: The weather is the salvation of many a conversation speeding toward boredom.”

Laughing, the two finally reached the back door of Cloverfields. Roger, keeping his eye on the back window, opened the door, quickly helping Yancy up the steps.

—

As the two men repaired to warmth, Jeffrey Holloway tested a thick corner pole, heavy wood, that had been set in the ground. Big Rawly needed another woodshed closer to the house. Maureen also had extended the roof over the kitchen door as well as newly constructed wooden siding to stockpile wood there. Everyone felt this would be a deep, hard winter.

DoRe, powerfully built, strong hands from handling leather as he drove the horses, held the large, thick pole that had been squared.

“We’re lucky the ground isn’t frozen hard.” Jeffrey picked up a shovel to fill in the dirt.

“Master, I can do that,” a growing young slave offered.

“I, well, yes you can.” Jeffrey stepped away.

If Maureen heard he worked at a slave’s task, she’d hit the roof. Jeffrey enjoyed physical labor. However, his wife enjoyed exalted status. Best he not push it.

“Ground is level here.” DoRe motioned to two other young fellows to test the three already settled corners. Those big timbers held firm.

“Level because Sheba’s mother’s buried here,” Pete, a bit older, said as he moved shovels outside the large square.

“Her mother and two brothers,” Norton, the young man who took over for Jeffrey, added. “That’s what my momma told me and she told me that the Missus was so angry when Sheba ran off with her pearls and diamonds and what else that she knocked down the markers, leveled the ground. I thought she was just planning a new building.”

“Caribbean. They were all Caribbean like the Missus. They came up with her when Francisco moved to Virginia,” Pete growled.

“The brothers couldn’t have been old.” Jeffrey was curious.

Pete offered, “ ’Bout the same age as Sheba, high prime, I guess. Damn fools, well Momma said they were damn fools. Wanted the same woman. Got in a knife fight, killed each other.”

“The woman was Sulli’s mother. Beauty runs in the line”—DoRe coughed—“as does no sense.”

“You know if we can get a roof on, the sides will be easy tomorrow. I’ve built the struts for the roof. On the wagon over there. Two of you can haul one. I’ll drive the wagon in the middle, we can lift them up, you can nail them down, and then we can put in support posts. Not enough weight to sag. I know.” He smiled at DoRe. “I’m doing it backwards.”

“Mr. Jeffrey, you can do anything.” DoRe climbed into the cart with Pete, a young man already on each of the heavy beams that would be the supports on the outside edges. The men had done quite a lot of work as they’d started at sunup, and it was late now, with sunset about two hours away.

The swirl of light snow kept them all moving as fast as they could. The roof supports were fixed as the sun dipped below the Blue Ridge Mountains, turning indigo.

“I’ll hand up these tarps. We can finish the roof tomorrow and the sides as well, I think,” Jeffrey advised. “Don’t want anyone working on a roof in the dark. If we can finish this by the end of the week, have the wood shingles on the roof and the clapboard on the side, we can load it with wood and refresh the woodpile by the door. Everyone got enough wood at home?”

“Do.” DoRe spoke for all.

“Seems like we spent half the summer cutting wood.” Norton wasn’t exactly complaining as much as noticing.

“Gonna be a hard winter.” DoRe looked skyward. “Had enough hands to get up the corn, the oats, the wheat. You’re built for timber.” He smiled at Norton, muscular.

Tarps secured, the young men headed to the barn to bring in the horses. The three worked with DoRe. No one was much of a rider but they could keep a horse fit. Cheerful fellows, DoRe thought them a lot easier to work with than William, who he had found to be a vain braggart.

“DoRe”—Jeffrey started toward the barn, as that was where DoRe lived in special quarters to be close to the horses—“need more blankets?”

“No. Bettina gave me a heavy one that Bumbee wove.”

“You’ve asked a good woman for your hand.”

A big, broad smile covered DoRe’s face. “Yes, sir.”

“My wife never talks about Sheba to me. Do you think she stole that necklace?”

“I do. I think she’d been planning her escape for years. Sheba doted on the Missus and the Missus would tell her all about Francisco. Women talk. Sheba thought she should be as grand as her Mistress. She could lie and smile at you. She would tell the Missus on all of us. Truth is, we all hated her.”

“I can understand that. What about her mother?”

“She filled Sheba’s head full of how powerful they’d been in whatever island they lived on. She lived, I don’t know, long enough to have gray hair and then she dropped. In the house carrying that big silver bowl.”

“And she’s buried near where the woodshed will stand?”

“Oh, Sheba cried, threw herself down, said she didn’t want her momma far away.” DoRe shrugged. “The Missus gave in. Sheba would lie down on her mother’s grave and then her brothers’, cry. Course she made sure the Missus saw her doing it.” He shook his head. “A cobra in a skirt, that one. She’d shine on Francisco but reported everything he did to his wife. Sheba had hidden power. She was a woman to be feared.”

“Glad I didn’t know her. While I’m here, let me look at the horses so I can tell my wife how good they look.”

“Thank you.” DoRe meant it, for Maureen could turn on anyone in a second.

The young fellows pulled blankets on them. A few were blooded. Others were good riding horses, as both Jeffrey and Maureen liked a bracing ride.

“No horses were missing when Sheba ran off?” Jeffrey quizzed.

“No, sir. I think she had someone helping her. Someone who met her on the road. The Missus was gone. But I don’t believe Sheba could have walked far, as she was wearing a gown. Always was. Had to be someone in on it.”

“A lover?”

“No. I expect she promised whoever some of those jewels. She was shrewd. Everyone wants to get to Pennsylvania or Vermont. I figure Sheba headed that way or used some of the money to pay for passage to France. Missus always talking about France. Bad as Sheba treated all of us, she figured a way out of here. She’d talk French to her mother and brothers and the Missus, too, so we wouldn’t know nothing.”

“How much do you think the necklace and earrings were worth?”

“Lord, I don’t know. Francisco was rich. Liked to show that off. More money than I can imagine.”

Jeffrey was glad of the bricks underfoot in the aisle and in the stalls. Herringbone laid, the bricks added symmetry, keeping the chill from coming up off packed earth and made it easier to clean the stalls and the aisles.

“Sure you’re warm enough?”

“Yes, Mr. Jeffrey.”

“Think Sheba will ever turn up?”

“Not in our lifetime.” DoRe opened the door to his living quarters so Jeffrey could feel the warmth.