Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD: and the fruit of the womb is His reward. As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth. Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them.

He smiled at the thought, but thinking of children brought yet one more to mind.

Damn, he’d forgotten Jenny, Ian, and Rachel, and wee Hunter James Little Wolf—and Rachel’s new unknown, who wasn’t due until the spring.

He rubbed two fingers between his eyes. Perhaps he should think more, finish this later.

The trouble was that he didn’t dare go to Kings Mountain without making disposition of his property, in case he was right about what he thought Frank Randall was telling him.

Would he lie? A historian, sworn—to himself, at least—to tell the truth as far as he could?

Any man would lie, under the right circumstances—and given what Frank Randall had certainly known of Jamie Fraser …

He couldn’t risk it. He picked up the quill again, and wrote.

To my Sister, Janet Flora Arabella Fraser Murray, I leave my Rosary …

143

Will I Tell You Something?

Sycamore Shoals, Washington County, Colony of North Carolina

September 26, 1780

I, OF ALL PEOPLE, should have known that written history has only a tenuous connection with the actual facts of what happened. Let alone the thoughts, actions, and reactions of the people involved. I did know that, in fact, but had somehow forgotten, and had embarked on this military excursion with the historical account firmly, if subconsciously, in mind.

I had assumed that the meeting at Sycamore Shoals would be the usual boiling of miscellaneous people arriving at different times, followed by the usual confusion and disorganization attendant on any enterprise involving more than one leader, and that, indeed, was exactly what happened.

I hadn’t thought that no one—besides me—would bring anything substantial in the way of food or medical supplies, nor did I realize that none of the militia leaders knew where we were going.

The thought of Kings Mountain had been so long in my mind as a blunt, rocky spike wreathed with menace that it had taken on the aspect of Mount Doom. Prophesied and inexorable. But none of the militia who were going to end up there knew it. Lacking one Franklin W. Randall’s (Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ, I thought. Had Frank’s parents actually named him after Benjamin Franklin? Calm down, Beauchamp, you’re becoming hysterical …) brief but meticulous exegesis of the battle, Sevier, Shelby, Cleveland, Campbell, Hambright, and the rest had no idea that we were headed for Kings Mountain. We were in pursuit of Patrick Ferguson, a much less well-defined goal.

News of his movements reached us in dribs and drabs, depending on the erratic arrival of scouts and the detail of their reports. We knew that he and his growing body of Provincials—official British militia—and adherent Loyalists who had joined him out of fear or fury were moving south, toward South Carolina, with the intent of attacking and destroying small patriot settlements. Like Fraser’s Ridge, for instance. We knew, or thought we knew, that his troops numbered more or less a thousand men, which was not peanuts.