Cherokee Country
July 1784
Unbearable humidity with the air actually pressing down made it hard for Mister Black to breathe. He would have liked to say he didn't need to, but Rutledge's body did. Worse, said body happened to be a sedentary lawyer of British stock, used to a cooler climate and far less mosquitoes despite spending its life in Charleston.
"Here, Mister Rutledge. Drink this, sir." General Allen pressed a waterskin into his hand and Black drank. "It is a most oppressive day, sir. Have your fill. There is a stream not a mile away we refill from. The Indians tried to foul it back in May, but we took care of them I assure you."
"Shortly after Thomas defected."
"I...yes, sir. Sir, do you need to lie down?"
Black shook his head, willing his...Rutledge's...heart to slow. He'd need all the strength he could muster in the next few days. "No. What confuses me, General, is why you have not finished this campaign. Thomas broke their army for you, and it's been over three months. Have you made any progress?"
Allen flushed. "Allow me to explain the situation." His men wanted to go home. They represented to him their many interests back in Carolina that were quite more important than fighting savages. They would complain to the governor. They would...
"Governor Guerard will take no notice, General." Black had seen to that. "The only people you must satisfy are the Patriot's League. If your men are cowards afraid to fight...?"
"No, sir!" Allen answered sharply. "The Carolinan fears no man, certainly not an Indian!"
"Then I expect results." Black coughed into his handkerchief, frowned at the droplets of blood, and drank from Allen's waterskin.
"Yes, sir." The general could have added he never wanted command. More correctly, he wanted the prestige and glory that went with victory, but never imagined leading a body of men could be so difficult. Men continued to desert every week. Perhaps he should just strike at the Cherokee fortifications now. No, he'd rather have desertions than deaths. "Pardon?"
"I said, I should like to see any maps you have of this area," Black replied. "I want to know where this town of theirs is, and what defenses lay in the way."
Allen stiffened. "I'm quite capable of working up my own strategy, sir."
"I didn't ask for your strategy," Black growled. "I asked for a map."
"We have none, though I will send for a scout if you wish."
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The next morning Black walked away from the American camp. He followed their stream northwest for a few miles until he sensed a hulking presence in the woods around him.
"It's alright, Jasen. I'm alone."
Jasen Exeter, a hulking brute more animal than man, pushed between two thin birch trees, cracking both as he shoved them aside. He growled.
"Did you eat?"
Exeter grinned, showing blood on his teeth.
Black smiled. "No restaurants for you, I think."
They trod along, as unlikely a pair as one could imagine in the middle of a forest. As he walked, Black considered his 'plan,' a desperate, haphazard affair though still the best he could think of. It would take stealth, cunning, and inconceivable force. He doubted Jasen would appreciate not being able to help either.
Exeter growled.
"Never," Black replied. His companion stopped. Black sighed and sat on the ground. "We don't have to chase Thomas. Thomas will return to us. He knows what I am. He knows what I'm capable of. He cannot allow that to go unchallenged." He didn't tell Exeter exactly why Thomas needed to act, lest some semblance of conscience had survived. "We both will have our revenge."
Exeter grimaced. He'd waited so long already.
"You'll feel better after we kill someone. Why don't you catch us something to eat?"
The former general shambled off. Black closed his eyes and focused on healing the aches and bruises of a long walk. Did humans always hurt like this? Perhaps this was why God preferred their company: He liked to see them suffer. Perhaps He offered them something to believe in, because He knew the greater their hope, the greater their pain when it all fell apart.
If that was true, he'd underestimated God. If that was true ...
Hold. It
had to be true. If God truly loved these pathetic creatures, He'd have stopped Black before he'd even started. The fallen angel opened his eyes and stared up through the trees towards the sun. God hadn't turned from His angels because He preferred the humans, but because He didn't want them to suffer too.
"Thank you," he murmured. "I understand now."
Black rose and looked around impatiently. No, Exeter was still far away, chasing...a rabbit? He laughed. Good luck to him. Then what was that presence near...
"Look what I have found," said a voice behind him in badly accented French. "And so far from your towns and armies. Are you lost, little man?"
Black turned slowly to see a single Indian sitting on a rock thirty feet away. The Cherokee's body, lean and hard, betrayed many days away from the comforts of home. The Indian twisted his face somewhere between a snarl and a sneer.
"If you scream now, maybe your big friend will hear you," he said. "In fact, I hear if you scream it doesn't hurt as much when I cut your living scalp off and show it to you." He jumped off the rock. "Sing for me, white man. Sing as I send you to your hell, piece by whimpering piece."
The fallen angel's eyes widened, not because of the Indian's appearance nor tone nor threats, but due to the rifle pointed at his chest.
A breech-loading rifle.
I liked it!
