Elijah Clarke was lying on a cot in a small cabin near the North Carolina line, his face drenched with sweat despite the coolness of the day. His wife, Hannah, was sitting in a nearby chair, watching him anxiously. She stood, walked over to the cot, and reached down to adjust the pillow under his head.

He exclaimed, “Dammit, woman, leave me be!”

“ ’Lige, you been mighty sick, with a high fever, and we are glad to see you doing better, even if it don’t improve the way you talk and act.”

He smiled slightly and said, “I reckon I ain’t been a very good patient, but I cain’t stand being flat on my back when there’s so much to be done. How long have I been here now?”

“It’s been a long time since your arm was almost cut off, and you been here going on two weeks. Your fever’s broke, but your shoulder never has been healing right and it’s much worse than it was at first.”

“Well, I’m gettin’ up in a day or two, no matter what you have to say.”

Hannah saw that it was a waste of time for her to argue with her husband, so she gave him a drink of water and left the cabin. She found Aaron Hart and reported the conversation.

“Aaron, he’s going to have to get some rest.”

“Is he able to ride a horse yet?”

“No, but he could travel in a travois if he had to.”

“General Andrew Pickens sent us word that the colonel is welcome to use his home in South Carolina, where there are servants, and it’s a long way from any fighting that we know of. Maybe we can talk him into going there, and I’ll go with him.”

Hannah thought for a few moments. “The only way he might go is if we make it seem like he’d be doing General Pickens a favor by keeping an eye on his place. Even if he don’t believe us, it might give him an excuse in his own mind.”

Within a week they had made the journey, and Elijah was receiving good care and plenty of rest. For the first time, the inflammation left his wound and it began to heal.

•  •  •

When Thomas Brown learned about Clarke’s location, he called in Tory Major James Dunlap, assigned seventy-five experienced dragoons to serve under him, and ordered them to proceed as rapidly as possible to the Pickens plantation with orders to capture Clarke and bring him to Augusta for public execution.