Free King's Mountain by Sharyn McCrumb Page B

shook her head. “Just a big old barn of a house. The laird and his family live in the capital city, but they have the country place farther north, and he misses it sometimes, though I think it’s because he was a boy there. He left home a long time ago and he will never go back.”
    She said that as if it were a known truth, but I didn’t see how she could know such a thing, so I said, “Mayhap he will, though. When his father dies, he could go home and take over the family farm.”
    Virginia Paul laughed at my ignorance. “Not he! Patrick Ferguson is nothing but a younger son, good for nothing unless the eldest dies. They sent him off to the army while he was still a beardless boy, and he has been there ever since. His mother’s brother is an important general, and they had hopes that he would smooth the path for young Patrick in the king’s army. And, by the by, that farm you speak of is the size of this county.”
    â€œDid he tell you all this?”
    She shrugged. “Never mind. I know.”
    I thought she must have come from his part of the world, and I wondered if being in the same clan was like being a cousin.
    â€œI am no blood of his,” she said, as if she had heard me thinking, and that made me shiver, for I could be careful of what I said around her, but I didn’t see how I could hobble my thoughts.

CHAPTER FOUR
    Early September 1780
    Isaac Shelby stayed the night at Plum Grove, and after a brief respite to partake of the barbecued steer and exchange pleasantries with the guests, he and I talked until the evening fire burned low. Maj. Patrick Ferguson had invited us into the war, and we aimed to oblige him.
    We talked over the logistics of getting a thousand armed men over the mountains and into the territory held by the enemy, with sufficient resources to fight once we got there. A decade or so of living in the backcountry served us well in this respect, for we had both taken part in campaigns against the Indians. That experience had schooled us for the coming fight.
    We knew how to move an army through the wilderness, how to make camp without being ambushed, how to keep troops armed and fed, and how to draw up a plan of battle. The expedition to Point Pleasant with Lord Dunmore was the pattern upon which we would base our campaign. The one thing we lacked now that had been supplied for us in Lord Dunmore’s War was the money it took to finance a military campaign. The colony of Virginia, backed by the resources of the Crown, could afford to engage in any wars it took a notion to fight, but we were backcountry farmers, and our worth, such as it was, lay in land and livestock. We could defend a fort with a hundred souls under our protection for a week or two, for we were equal to that task in supplies and in the courage of necessity, but now we were proposing to fight the king’s army, a long way from home. They did not lack for funds or supplies, or for professional soldiers to lead them.
    â€œNobody will want to be paid for going with us,” I pointed out to Shelby, seizing on the one favorable aspect of the whole daunting prospect.
    â€œGood,” said Shelby with a wry smile, “because I had not calculated on paying them. That is the least of our worries, though. It will take us ten days or more to get to that part of the country where Ferguson is reported to be, and if among us, we militia commanders can get a thousand men to make up an army, we’ll have to supply them with powder and shot. And feed them and their mounts the whole way there and back.”
    I could not deny the truth of what he said, but I had no wish to give up the fight for want of a few paltry supplies. “I suppose if the need were great enough, we could get Whig sympathizers along the way to feed us. We are making sacrifices for this cause, and so should all those who side with us. Many of them are rich enough, and it’s harvest time, after all. They can