Read Online King's Mountain by Sharyn McCrumb - Free Book Online

left, where they would never miss me anyhow. This Elias Powell didn’t look like the sort of nosy parker who could be bothered to do such a thing, but I trust nobody, especially in these times, when neighbors are at one another’s throats over some fal-lal of ideas about liberty and such, as if such notions would buy you a pot of beer or a crust of bread. I couldn’t see the sense of it.
    â€œAnd you live around here?”
    â€œI come from Virgininy,” I told him. Well, one time I had come from there, and I saw no reason to tell him more. It was true enough.
    He grunted, as though he begrudged the fact that my answer had pleased him. “Well, then I shall call you Virginia Sal. You’ve come a long way, but I am not yet twenty miles from home, myself. But, like you, I wanted a taste of army life. I’ll wager there’s little else of common ground between us, though. Why are you hanging about this camp like a stray dog?”
    â€œBecause I am one, I reckon.” I picked a dry leaf out of the tangles of my hair, and that set me to wishing that I had given myself a wash in the creek this morning afore I come into camp, cold as the creek water was. There was no use being sorry about my dirt-streaked, ragged dress, though, for I had no other. “I got no family, so I thought I’d come find the soldiers, and mayhap hire on as a cook or a laundress. Whatever the army needs. Armies always have money.”
    He shook his head. “Maybe they do, but earning it a penny at a time from the likes of yonder hounds would be hard labor indeed.” He held me at arm’s length and looked me over. He muttered to himself, thinking aloud, and heedless of whether I heard him or not. “A right ragamuffin, I’ll be bound. And it wants to be a laundress, if you please. The first thing in need of a wash are those hands and face. Young and fit, though. No sign of the pox. Good teeth. Curly red hair. He’s partial to gingers, though the Lord knows why. I don’t fancy ’em myself.”
    I stiffened when I heard him say this. “ He? Who are you speaking of that is partial to red hair?”
    â€œThe commander. He’s a bit of a ginger himself, so perhaps that accounts for it. He’s a proper Englishman. Well, Scotch, then. He is particular about that, as if one place there over the water is any different from another. At any rate, the commander is a gentleman, son of a lord or some such title, and they have a fine country estate somewhere that he talks about when the mood takes him. So it stands to reason that he won’t stand for the ordinary privations of soldiering, even out here in the wildwood.”
    I resolved then and there to get a closer look at this high and mighty fellow. “And what are the needs of a gentleman general?”
    â€œHe is not a general, but only a major, though I’ll warrant that is a high enough perch in the king’s regular army. They buy their way into the officers’ ranks, the British do, so you’ll hardly find any commoners among them.”
    â€œIf they are as rich as that, you’d think they would have better things to do than come out here to the wilderness to fight.”
    â€œThey are younger sons, mostly, so the money settled to buy them an army commission is their inheritance and their one chance to make good—unless of course the eldest brother dies, and then perhaps they’d go home and get on with the business of managing the family estate.” Elias Powell scowled. “As to the commander’s personal requirements, that need not concern the likes of you, unless he accepts you into his service, and then I reckon you’ll be apprised of them soon enough, and roundly punished if you should forget them.”
    â€œWhat service would his lordship be needing then?”
    Powell took a breath, as if he were about to trot out a lecture on how to address my betters, but he must have