Angus grit his teeth and turned away before the man could see the anger that flashed across his face. He knew he’d have to put up with this man and this job for another year or two, then George Mercer, a representative of the Ohio Company, would return from England with a grant from the king, and Angus would be one of the men who was given a thousand acres in the new territory. All he had to do was keep his mouth shut and obey the rules the English made and he’d be set for life. It wasn’t what he truly wanted—nothing without Edilean was—but it was the best he could do under the circumstances.
He left the colonel’s office to step into the warm spring sunshine and saw that Mac, with young Connor and Welsch, was waiting for him. Angus looked into the shadows near the barracks and saw Captain Austin give a little smile before he disappeared inside the building. The man had known what the colonel was giving Angus to do, and he knew who Angus would choose to go with him. Damn him! Angus thought. He hated being known. If Jackknife Austin knew that much about Angus, then he probably knew he was hiding from someone.
“You want us?” Mac asked. Everyone complained that Mac’s accent was so thick that they couldn’t understand him, but to Angus’s ear it sounded good. It reminded him of the cool hills of Scotland, and of his family. He’d never asked, but Angus had an idea that Mac also had a lot of secrets.
“I’ll tell you everything on the way there,” Angus said to Mac.
Welsch and Connor were so new at being soldiers that they looked to Mac to tell them what to do. He gestured with his head that they were to get their horses and ride out.
An hour later, the four of them were heading deep into the forest of what was basically uncharted land. All of it had been traveled by people for centuries, but little of it had been mapped. To Angus and Mac, used to the wild hills of Scotland, it was glorious country, but Connor and Welsch kept looking about them apprehensively.
“What’s Wellman up to now?” Mac asked as he glanced back at the young men close behind them. They looked as though they expected a war party of Indians to jump out at any moment, or maybe a grizzly bear would attack. They’d all heard the trappers who came to the fort to sell their furs tell exciting stories about their encounters with wild animals and wilder people.
Angus dropped the English accent he used when around the soldiers and easily lapsed into his native Scots. “Betsy.”
Mac groaned. “What is it now? She get some boy with child?”
Angus laughed. “If it could be done, she’d do it. No, it seems that she’s engaged to a clergyman.”
“May the saints save us!” Mac said. “Her married to a churchman! The Lord will send down a bolt of lightning.”
“I’m more concerned that Austin will use his knife on him.” Austin’s nickname of “Jackknife” had preceded him as some of the soldiers had served under him in the French and Indian War, or the Seven Years War, as the English called it. The soldiers had seen what Austin could do with a knife to the bodies of the prisoners.
“I don’t envy the man being engaged to someone Jackknife wants.”
“Me either,” Angus said, and told Mac about the kidnapping of her fiancé. “If he’s still alive, I want to warn him of what to expect.”
“About Austin or Betsy?”
“Either. Both,” Angus said. “But if he’s in love with her, whatever I say won’t make a difference.”
“Know that from experience, do you?” Mac asked. He was teasing, but when Angus didn’t answer, he looked at him and saw that a curtain had come down over his face. Everyone knew that Angus Harcourt didn’t gossip with the other men, didn’t tell about his past, not even where he’d grown up. Mac knew that Harcourt wasn’t his name, but no amount of hinting had made Angus reveal anything private about himself.
Angus nodded toward the young men behind them. “Austin knew I’d choose those two because Betsy’s been eyeing them.”
“And they’ve been looking at her.” Mac turned in his saddle to look at the two men. T. C. Connor was tall, broad-shouldered, and handsome. He was a quiet man, watchful of everything that went on around him, and mostly kept to himself.
Naphtali Welsch wasn’t as handsome, but with his red hair and flashing blue eyes, he made everyone want to be near him. He laughed and sang rowdy songs and made the men laugh no matter what Jackknife Austin had done to them. One day the men were nursing their blistered feet after Austin had taken them on a twenty-five-mile march. They were cursing the bad food, the heat, and talking about deserting, but “Naps,” as he was called, started a game of seeing who could come up with the worst punishment for Austin. In the end, it had been T.C. who won when he made up an elaborate story that involved a plant that was found only in the far reaches of the new country. It ate people. When he finished spinning his yarn, their sore feet were forgotten and their moods had improved.
After that, the newcomers had become quite popular, Naps for his humor and T.C. for his stories—when he could be persuaded to tell one. They were rare and always involved plants of such magnificence that they left the men speechless.
“And he knew you’d choose me,” Mac said. “Now, I wonder why?” He was being facetious.
“Maybe because he hates you?”
“Aye, that he does,” Mac said with amusement. “I know more about the army than he does, and I get more respect from the men.”
“And you can throw a knife better than he can,” Angus added. “He doesn’t like anyone to best him at anything.”
“Including that little flirt that he’s decided he wants.”
“She’s more than a flirt,” Angus said.
Mac shook his head. “I don’t know why she hasn’t come up with child.”
“If she did, her father would kill the man.”
“Make him marry her, then kill him,” Mac said.