We had nine hundred or so, counting me. My presence had caused a lot of staring and muttering, and Jamie had been summoned to talk to the other militia leaders, presumably so they could tell him to send me home.

“I said I wouldn’t,” he replied briefly, when I’d asked him how that conversation had gone. “And I said that if ye were molested or troubled in any way, I would take my men right away and fight on my own.”

Consequently, I wasn’t troubled or molested, and while the staring and muttering continued for a bit, it didn’t take more than a week of my attending to the minor accidents and ills that beset an army until that stopped, too. I had become the company medic, and there were no more questions as to what I was doing there.

While we didn’t know exactly where Ferguson was, we weren’t precisely wandering in the wilderness, either. Ferguson wasn’t moving his troops across trackless mountains, and neither were we. An army needs roads, most of the time, and the scouts reported which roads the Loyalist militia was following. Plainly, we would converge at some point.

Jamie, Young Ian, Roger, and I knew where that convergence would be, but that knowledge was of no practical value, as we couldn’t tell Colonel Campbell and the rest how we happened to know that.

Nor would it be of much value if we could have. We were moving fast, and in the general direction of Kings Mountain—so was Patrick Ferguson.

We had left Sycamore Shoals on September 26. The battle would happen—according to history and Frank—on October 7.

IT WAS AUTUMN, and the weather was changeable. The first balmy days gave way quickly to torrential rains and freezing winds in the mountains, only to return to a brief sear of heat as we came down into a valley. We carried no tents, and had only the occasional sheet of canvas for shelter, so were frequently soaked to the skin. And while each man had brought something in the way of provisions, these didn’t last long on the march.

Lacking anything in the nature of a quartermaster or supply wagons, our motley band existed hand-to-mouth, calling on the hospitality of family members or known rebels whose farms we passed, occasionally raiding the fields and farmhouses of Loyalists—though Sevier and Campbell did exert themselves to keep the men from shooting or hanging the Loyalists they victimized—or going hungry. There were two or three wagons—these constantly bogging down and having to be heaved out of mud or dragged through streams—but they were for the transport of weapons and powder; Mrs. Patton had supplied a satisfying number of barrels. Some men always carried their rifles, shot bags, and powder horns; others would leave them in the wagons unless or until trouble threatened. Jamie and Young Ian always carried theirs. I had two pistols, visible in holsters—and a knife in my belt and another in my stocking. Even Roger was visibly armed, with pistol and knife, though he normally didn’t carry his gun loaded and primed.