Kentucky Road

PROLOGUE
1771

“Silas!”

Emily’s scream pierced the boy’s slumber. He lurched upward in the chair, eyes fluttering open. Who was Silas? he wondered, and why had his mother called for him? The anguish of her cry made his heart pound in his chest.

He had been asleep, dreaming of a picnic on the commons. There had been a patchwork quilt spread with fruit, cut irises, and his favorite creamed cheese and raisin teacakes, arranged beneath his mother’s tasseled parasol. Her dark green eyes were sparkling above delicately freckled cheekbones as she swayed to the distant rhythm of a hammered dulcimer.

Upon waking, he knew that this was no summer’s day. It was a rainy spring night. His mother was not beautiful, smiling, and vibrant. She was emaciated, suffering in the room nearby with a bilious fever.

He heard the rustle of corn husk house slippers as the Negros scurried about her sickbed. Their activity threw shadows across the floor of the library where he sat.

The voice of Chayta, matriarch of the house slaves, crooned softly to his mother, “Em’ly, dear, dear, Em’ly.”

“It’s so dark,” Emily complained.

The twelve-year-old could see candlelight flickering from the doorway of her room. Why did she say it was dark? A sudden flash of lightning poured brilliance between the cracks of the tall window shutters in the library. Thunder rattled the room an instant later, sending shivers through the surrounding bookshelves.

He knew that fevers were dreaded killers, even for privileged souls living in the wealthy resort of Bath. Struggling with mounting fear, he reached for a pair of wire-rimmed spectacles where he had placed them on the arm of the chair. He tugged and pulled the stems over each ear. They remained slightly askew, balanced across his nose.

Standing up, young Jonathan Barratt began to walk across the library. The soles of his buckled pumps clicked on the hardwood. Short of the doorway, he stopped, his lips forming a grim little line as he searched his pampered soul for the courage to move forward. He was, as he appeared to be, a neglected gentleman boy; blouse askew, untucked above a pair of fine velvet riding breeches. Beneath his mussed blond curls, fear glowed like silent embers in his blue eyes.

“He’s not here,” he heard his mother complain weakly. “Where is Silas?”

Silas? The name rang in the boy’s head again like a tolling bell. Curiosity won a battle against an urge to run away, and he continued to walk forward on his tiptoes.

Two hours later the dogs of Strasburg welcomed him. At the south end of town stood the Strasburg Inn and Alehaus. Jonathan had heard of its reputation while a student at Harvard. It was touted as a haven for highwaymen who paid a safekeeping bounty to the proprietor, a German ale maker, Hans Korbel. But Hans had served the Revolutionary War effort with such faithfulness that he had been vindicated of his past reputation, as had many of the highwaymen.At this hour, Jonathan did not care what reputation the innkeeper had established. All he desired was a simple bed. A lamplight still flickered in the main room of the inn. It was well into morning, but surprisingly, the inn still showed life. Jonathan stopped, dismounted, and tethered both horses. He entered by the main door. Inside, three men sat at a table throwing dice. One of them stood to greet him. This could not be the infamous Hans Korbel, Jonathan thought. He was a small, soft-looking man who spoke in a soft voice as well. “You seek a room?”

“I do if Silas Will is here.”

“I do not know Silas Will.” The man backed off a step, looking Jonathan over suspiciously.

“He is a riding preacher,” Jonathan explained.

The man relaxed visibly. With a sly wink, he said, “He may be here, I cannot say. Do you care to see our stable?”

“Yes, I would.”

The man led him to the interior stable door. Jonathan took a lighted lamp and followed. Another lamp burned within the stable. Silas sat at a makeshift plank-and-barrel table where he worked over a pile of wadding, gunpowder, and shot, making ball-and-charge cartridges. The silence of the night was broken by loud snores. Two drunks sprawled in the straw. Silas looked up. For a moment Jonathan had the supreme satisfaction of seeing surprise and disbelief on the wilderness preacher’s face, but only for a moment. Silas again bowed to his task.

“The stable will suit you, yes?”

“Just fine,” Jonathan said.

He followed the man back into the inn, shutting the stable door.

“Wilhelm. Put up da man’s horse.”

“Yes, Hans.”

Jonathan produced several pine tree shillings and laid them on the bar. Hans drew him a stein of ale. He gulped it down and felt his thirst slaked and his body soothed by its mellowing influence. He ordered another. With the second tankard in his hand, he went into the stable, where Wilhelm brushed down his horses.

“Double grain for both, and a fresh pine-tar poultice for my stallion,” he said.

Wilhelm nodded.

Jonathan took his bedroll from the saddle and sat on it, his back resting against the wall. He sipped and watched Silas work. At length Silas looked up. Immediately his face clouded with disgust. He stabbed his hunting knife into the plank before him, rose glaring, and walked over to where he sat. Jonathan knew he had offended him with the drink and stood to meet him, his tired muscles tensed. He remembered their first confrontation over ale at the Bath House Inn.

“I do not intend an insult by this drink,” Jonathan defended.

Silas only stared.

“It is no business of yours, but since you seem to want to make it so, I will argue that I have ridden hard. I drink in moderation. Whatever is wrong with a drink in its proper place?”

“Nothing,” Silas said.

Jonathan was taken aback.

“It has a proper place.”

Silas held out his hand to receive the tankard. Jonathan gave it to him, curious now. Silas took the drink and backed away to a pile of fresh horse manure, slowly pouring the contents of the tankard over it.

“That is a drink in its proper place.”

Harsh, coughing laughter erupted from one of the darkened horse stalls, and a drunken voice called out.

“Don’ never cross wits with no ridin’ preacher,” the voice warned. “Don’ never, heh, heh … cough, cough …”

Jonathan led his horse close to the bush. It continued to shake and rustle. Whatever was under the leaves was not yet aware of him. Then, to his surprise, a small child’s hand reached up to pluck one of the blue-black berries from a branch.“Hello,” Jonathan said.The hand continued to pluck berries, ignoring his greeting. He leaned carefully over the bush and drew back the branches. A scrawny boy and girl of perhaps six or seven years of age were under the foliage. They were totally naked, brown-skinned, and covered with filth. Berry juice was smeared all around their lips. Their dark hair was matted in long, kinky clumps as though it had never been trimmed. When they saw Jonathan, they leaped up with fright, squealing like wild animals, and scampered away through the bushes.

“Hey,” Jonathan called and ran after them. Their weird shrieks caused the hair to rise on his neck.

“Leave them be,” Silas barked.

Jonathan stopped and turned around. Silas had mounted his horse uneasily. “Come back to the road,” he said.

Jonathan hurried back through the whortleberry bushes and mounted Merlin. “Those children are like animals.”

The squeals continued from bushes farther off. At length, the children broke into the roadway ahead. They paused, sighted the two men, then darted up the steep embankment above the road.

“Half-breeds,” Silas muttered. “They’re wild all right, but they belong to Molly. That’s what I make of it.”

“Molly?”

“A whore. Lives near the pass, but I never knew she had children.”

“They appear to be deaf. Neither of them seemed to hear me call.”

Jonathan was in the lead. He nudged Merlin forward. As he approached the place where the children had crossed the road, he pulled up, letting his eyes search the hill above. To his surprise the two children stared back at him over a fallen log at the crest of the embankment, not twenty feet from the roadway.

“Hello,” he said, wiggling his fingers in a friendly gesture.

A wild-eyed woman with a mane of filthy brown hair stepped into view behind them. She towering like a earth born giant just above the children’s heads, leveling a long rifle at Jonathan’s chest. Her arms were as large as a man’s; her face ruddy, small-eyed and thin-lipped. Her big-boned body was draped in tattered buckskins, which looked as if she had eaten, slept, and bathed in them for years. If she had bathed at all.

She spat a long stream of tobacco juice to one side, keeping her eyes fastened on Jonathan. “What the hell you lookin’ at?” she demanded.

“I, ah, thought the children were—I thought they might need help.”

“Hell you did!” She cocked the rifle.

“Well, now that I know they are well protected, Maam, I’ll be on my way.”

“Git out!”

“I certainly will,” Jonathan said politely. He was already moving forward.

He glanced back at Silas, who appeared to be chuckling quietly to himself in the saddle. Now the woman spotted the preacher.

“Silas Will!” she bellowed.

He looked up at her. “What do you want with me, Molly?”

“Nuttin’.” She spit another stream of tobacco. “I’m a damn ole whorin’ sinner boun’ fer hell and I know it, so git on past ‘ere.”

Silas began moving. “God loves damn ole whorin’ sinners, Molly. I told you that.”

“Don’ go a prayin’ for me. Pray fer you own self and jus’ stay clear o’ Cumberland Gap fer yer own good, that’s all.”

Silas stopped.

Jonathan, who was ahead, stopped and turned in the saddle.

“Stay clear of the Gap?” Silas repeated.

“An’ Martin’s Station, too.”

Silas turned to look at her.

“I ain’t sayin’ it fer you,” Molly spat the words. “The Sterns was kin. It’s time LeFevre got what’s due ‘im, that’s all. Now git yer ass on down the road.”

Silas continued to stare. Jonathan felt immediately that her words rang true. But he was even more amazed that lifesaving Providence might come from such an unlikely source. Molly was the first to give up her locked-in stare with Silas. She disappeared behind the crest of the embankment.

The two wild children remained watching behind the fallen log until both riders had disappeared.

Jonathan ran in a crouch, both pistols drawn. But Macaijah was there ahead of him, striding boldly toward the two men from their left. They saw him and glanced quickly at one another for explanation. It was then that one of the men spied Jonathan and swung his long rifle around at point-blank range. One pistol spouted fire, showering the man with spent wadding and scorched powder. The second pistol barked. Numb with terror and rage, Jonathan saw the ball enter the man’s temple. His head flew back, and he flipped from the saddle, landing behind the horse on his back. His mount squealed and pounded away, the saddle empty. There was the sound of a bone-crushing impact as Macaijah dispatched the other rider with a blow of his rifle barrel to the head. The man hit the ground moaning, and Macaijah was immediately on top of him.Jonathan did not watch him finish his kill. However, it seemed insanely comforting to notice, in the heat of battle, that his former slave killed another black man. Jonathan was sure now that Macaijah held no allegiance to LeFevre and his gang. He knelt quickly where Melody lay. Drawing a knife from his belt, he cut free her gag and the thongs that bound her arms and legs. He glanced to the meadow, panting heavily. Several of the riders had dropped out of the chase with Silas. He saw the legs of their horses beneath the branches of the trees now returning to the still. Silas must have made it to the barn. Jonathan jerked Melody to her feet. She sank down again, her arms and legs barely responding.

“I can’t move them.”

Jonathan stooped and snatched her up in his arms and ran. His lungs began to scream; his side bore sharp pain, but still he ran.

Macaijah ran beside him.

“We’ll go to the spring,” Jonathan said, panting out the words between gulps of air. “We’ll hide her in the cave until this is over.”

“No,” she demanded. “Put me down.”

In a secluded spot, sheltered by underbrush, he stopped and set her down. Jonathan saw no pursuers anywhere in sight. He knelt beside her and began to frantically rub her legs. She moved them as he worked over her, moving the joints to restore circulation where the tight thongs had bound her.

“Get me back to the barn,” she seethed between clenched teeth, “and get a gun in my hand.”

Jonathan nodded. He would not argue with her determination and anger. Her family was there in the barn. If she had never wanted to live in this wilderness land they had chosen, she would fight and die beside them. He loved her for that.

“Macaijah, ride for Logan’s Fort. Joburn is there. Bring every man with a horse and gun. Tell them this is the result of their jackass raid on LeFevre’s cave. We need them now!”

Macaijah was quiet, rubbing Melody’s upper arm. He didn’t want to go. Jonathan checked the sun. It was about three o’clock. “If you go now, you can be back before daylight.”

“I am a runaway. They won’t follow me.”

“Joburn will see to it.”

“I want to make the fight here.”

“I need someone who can get through for us. Go for your horse. Now.”

Macaijah slowly stood, eyeing the woods for signs of pursuers. Then he was gone.