He chuckled. “Bet you can’t even count that high.”
“I can’t court nor marry without Mr. Griffiths’ permission.”
And he’d never give permission.
“Indentures are little better than slaves, at least while they’re bound. How many years till you’re free?”
“Two.”
“Hope you get shed of here quicker than that. Griffiths is a hard man, disliked by many.”
Lingering, she decided she’d risk Griffiths’ ire to quell her curiosity. “What news do you bring?”
His affability vanished—and perhaps his appetite with it—as he set down his fork. “The backcountry is afire again. Several frontier forts are hard hit, fifteen killed near Tates Creek, and the bloodshed is spreading.”
“Soldiers and settlers dead?”
“Settlers. A chief named Pontiac has rallied the tribes to fight back against all who take their lands. Virginia is rife with land stealers so the fight continues. I’ve come to carry a warning.”
“You’ll ride on to the back settlements.”
“Of which this is one.” The warning in his eye chilled her. Just west of the Blue Mountains and located near the northern entrance to the Shenandoah Valley, Brielle had often wondered what lay beyond the tavern at the crossroads.
He resumed his meal and she backtracked to the kitchen, trying to steady her nerves by the simple routine of washing the mound of breakfast dishes before working in the garden.
Frequent news of unrest and raids rumbled through the region. She knew the evils men were capable of though she’d rather not dwell on them. Just because they’d made peace with the French didn’t mean they’d made peace with France’s Indian allies. As long as British colonists continued to push west onto Indian lands there’d be unending conflict and blame.
Once Ross had breakfasted, he took to the tavern’s front porch where settlement folk gathered to hear more details about the warning he’d given her earlier. His raised voice echoed backto the kitchen garden behind the tavern and left her wishing she could close her ears.
By midafternoon the scout was on his way, his stabled horse brought round by Titus. The very air seemed charged with unrest. By suppertime more than travelers crowded the public rooms as settlers gathered to discuss bullet lead and fortifications and lookouts. The nearest fort—Loudoun—was several miles away, much too distant in time of attack.
As voices ebbed and flowed around her, Brielle served and refilled and cleared, her own stomach rumbling. Toward dusk she stood on the tavern’s back stoop and looked westward where a skim of black smoke seemed to haze the sky. A burning cabin or barn? She studied the distant mountains, their clouded tops hazy. Something ominous twisted inside her and refused to budge.
Heavenly Father, preserve us, please.
2
It was a mere jaunt of two hundred miles over the mountains, Bleu sometimes jested. Once he left Fort Pitt, he merely meandered along the Monongahela River then crossed the Allegheny Mountains with its steep ascents and descents before taking an Indian trail to enter the Shenandoah Valley. His sister—Sylvie—was east of that along the Rivanna River.
Oui, a mere jaunt.
The late spring weather was in his favor aside from a downpour or two. He wasn’t the only one journeying through remote wilderness though one could go for days before seeing another living soul. He’d encountered plenty of dead ones. But that was during the last war when nothing had been safe nor sacred.
This trip his foremost concern was where to rest his horse and resupply himself along the way. He knew to avoid stops likeBird-in-Handwith its raucous patrons and bug-infested linens. Taverns likeThe Red FoxandRising Sunhe favored for their tidy, Virginia hospitality. Many a time he’d slept in some darkened stable when there’d been no beds, preferring horses to humans.
More than once he’d been mistaken for a traveling preacher with no home or tie to a place. On account of the Bible he carried, he guessed. Sometimes that rootlessness bedeviled him whena twinge in his joints reminded him he was older than thirty years. Or a missed meal told him he needn’t miss any if he planted himself somewhere and made a home.
Home was no longer Acadie, lost to the British and renamed Nova Scotia. He tried not to think of that invasion and expulsion overlong. Eight years had passed since then, a blur of time spent as a guide, interpreter, and liaison between the tribes and colonies, often ending at the former Fort Duquesne, a remote garrison frequently fought over by the English and French. At the moment it was in English hands, having been wrested from the French and renamed Fort Pitt.
Hope and happenstance now found him on the move again in the North American wilderness as he came into the stump-littered clearing along the Red Fork River. In front of him stood Fort Randolph—or what was left of it. This had been the place of a massacre few had forgotten. Burnt during the last war, only the blockhouse stayed standing, a defiant outline in the dusk.
Further down the riverbank stood a log house. Light should have been flaring from Crown glass windows, a man standing on the front stoop shouting halloo but it was ransacked, too. Bleu felt a chill that had nothing to do with the spring damp. He walked through the ash and timber, looking for anything salvageable. It returned him unwillingly to Acadie when the British torched their homes and orchards and fields. Only this was the work of Indians. The signs were right.
Toward dusk when he’d pressed on another mile, he heard a rustle in the brush. Instinctively, his hand reached for the knife in his belt, suspecting an animal but finding a grizzled man staring back at him behind a sprawling laurel bush.
“Rest easy,” the stranger said, straightening and relaxing his grip on his rifle. “You have the look of a hostile but something ain’t quite right.”
Bleu almost smiled. He’d been called worse. “Part Acadian, part Mi’kmaq. From Canada.”
