“Good night, Esther.” Father handed her the candle, adjusted the Brown Bess in the crook of his elbow, and slipped away. “I best load this gun in case Hamilton returns.”
“How can he? You forbade him.”
Father paused in the moonlight. “He loves you, and I suspect he knows you love him. A man armed with knowledge is strong, driven. He will return.”
“Then you are coming around to my view?”
“No, my dear, I am as against you as before. In fact, I’m starting to come around to your mother’s way of thinking. Perhaps I should send you home once and for all.”
“Good night, Father.” Esther slammed her door and set the candle on her night table with a clatter.
Send her home. Indeed. She’d refuse to go. Why, she’d run away. With Hamilton.
Taking stationery from her desk, Esther dipped her quill in the ink bottle and wrote a brief note to the man she loved.
Are you home for a season? May we meet at the willow?
Allowing for the ink to dry, she tucked the missive under her pillow with plans to send Kitch on an errand tomorrow.
After blowing out the candle, she whispered her prayers, the events of the night already drifting away, slumber claiming her as the voice of her beloved called from her dreams.
14
HAMILTON
October 15, 1780
He wore the battle of King’s Mountain like a millstone, heavy and suffocating. Struggling to hold his head up, Hamilton urged Tilly toward home. Rounding the bend, the old girl moved from a trot to a gallop.
Yet he reined in the horse, patting her gently on the neck. “Easy, we’ll be home soon enough.”
He’d not seen Quill Farm since the night he disarmed the threat at Slathersby Hill. He’d meant to lodge with Aunt Mary for a short season, check on the dealings with the farm, meet Esther at their willow... but Captain Irwin urged him to stay with the Upper Ninety Six, so he moved north with them, scouting, preparing, and awaiting orders.
He’d received Esther’s short note well after he’d departed, replying with his own brief letter.
I trust you are well. I’ve moved on with the Upper Ninety Six. Tell your Father to keep his Musket loaded and take care, My Friend. Hamilton
But tonight he was coming home. The light of the October dusk spread a purple haze over the burnished countryside, the last of the day’s warmth beginning to fade.
Breathing in, Hamilton could almost smell Aunt Mary’s baking bread and roasting chicken.
In the aftermath of King’s Mountain, he was bruised, worn, and torn. His right arm had taken a saber slash, which the field surgeon mended, though he had more pressing demands with the dead and dying.
He needed a clean bandage and one of Aunt Mary’s poultices. And a solid meal. Hot and hearty.
King’s Mountain. A bloody brawl he longed to forget, but he feared his actions there would haunt him forever.
After the enemy’s surrender, ’twas nothing but sheer brutality. By his patriot brethren, not the green-vested British dragoons who murdered and pillaged their way through the south.
No, this destruction was wrought by his countrymen. A seething revenge for the destruction done at Hill’s Ironworks and the torching of churches.
And Hamilton, who had fought with honor until then, almost lost himself in his brothers’ savagery.
Coming round the bend, Tilly tossed her head with a whinny. Aunt Mary’s gelding, Achilles, stuck his head out the stall window and returned her call.
“Pray God there’s hay for you, girl.”And forgiveness for me. And a washing. For both body and soul.
Hamilton reined in Tilly as he passed the shortcut to the willow. Esther. How he missed her, longed to see her.
