Virginian Read online

  Mark J. Rose

  508 Longbranch Rd.

  Simi Valley, CA 93065

  Home: 805.583.0737pter

  Cell: 805.304.4945

  E-mail: [email protected]

  Word Count: 90,400

  Genre: Historical Fantasy

  Matt Miller in the Colonies

  Book Three: Virginian

  A Novel by

  Mark J. Rose

  Prologue

  Major Ferguson

  Major Patrick Ferguson did his best to remain hidden as he approached the smoking wreckage that was barely visible through the trees. His training was hardly necessary here in the Tennessee countryside, but the habits developed during two tours in Iraq were hard to break. Destruction was rarely a singularity in that desert hellhole; another bomb was always ready to go off or another jihadi waiting around the corner. Patrick scanned the surrounding woods and then stopped to focus on the rays of sun that filtered through the thick canopy of leaves. It reminded him of a proper English forest and then of the home that he had left behind. He’d been at Oak Ridge Laboratories participating in a high-tech weapons transfer for almost four months and would stay until the end of the year.

  Patrick looked again at the trees to realize why he had to look twice. The leaves were green. Tennessee had been at the peak of fall color the last time he could remember. He surveyed the forest wondering if his splitting headache was making him hallucinate. The strong smell of smoke pulled his eyes back to the ground as he moved toward the fire and his training made him stoop low as he approached the burning rubble. He smiled through the thundering in his head at the unlikelihood that anything of consequence had happened in the countryside of the sleepy town of Oak Ridge. The smoke was doubtlessly some Tennessee redneck burning his trash, or kids playing with matches.

  Patrick stood higher as he moved closer and another volcano erupted in his skull forcing him down to his knees. The immobilizing pain took him into some far off and unrecognizable world. He hugged the ground and held as still as possible while his mind went haywire with flashing images. The Special Forces had trained him well enough to take cover when he was injured.

  Patrick lost track of time as the pain engulfed him and he could only crouch there waiting for his vision to clear enough for him to struggle again to his feet. His head seared and he almost went down to his knees again. It took all his effort to put one foot in front of the other as he moved forward. Straining through the pain, Patrick could see four burning wagons lined up near a dirt road that ran along the edge of the forest. He was close enough to feel the heat from their fires. The scene took him back to the devastation he had experienced in the Middle East. He knew he was in Tennessee, but something about the burning wagons hinted of war. He scanned the forest, but no one was around to watch.

  Patrick turned his head past the blazing wagons at the sound of moaning. It still made no sense, but his training forced him low to the ground as he worked his way around the flames to a position where he could see into a clearing. Patrick ducked into a depression as he got across the road. His head thundered, so he rested for a moment to press on his temples.

  Patrick stood to move forward enough to see bodies on the ground. Drug dealers? Everyone knew methamphetamine was in the hills of Tennessee. It crossed his mind that he should go back to his pack and use his phone to call the police. He heard more moaning, though, and any thought of retreat disappeared; leaving an injured person dying on the ground was not an option. He pressed forward to see a dozen or so bodies arranged in the short grass. They were dressed like American Mennonites or Pennsylvania Dutch. Their faces were bloody and their bodies riddled with arrows. Arrows?

  The blood covering their faces struck him as odd, and he realized that their scalps were gone. Patrick had seen too many mutilated bodies in the Gulf to count, but taking a scalp seemed a particularly brutal act. Someone had dragged the carcasses into the clearing and arranged them in a line. From the amount of blood, he suspected that some of the victims had still been alive when the scalping started. Patrick grimaced at the pain they must have endured. The moan came again, and he saw a woman’s body shudder on the ground. “Help me,” she whispered through a blood-covered mouth.

  Patrick crouched to her. Along with her missing hair, there was an arrow sticking from her chest. Bright red blood soaked the front of her dress. “Help me,” she said again.

  Patrick knelt beside her. “What happened?” he asked.

  “Savages,” she whispered through the pain. “Took the horses.”

  Patrick scanned his perimeter in response to her bizarre explanation. “Can I pull this out?” he asked motioning to the arrow. “You’ll be fine.” His experience told him that she had already lost too much blood to survive without a transfusion, but removing the arrow would help her breathe in the time she had left.

  “Please,” she said. Thick drops of dark red blood oozed from her skull.

  “Where’re you from?” he asked. He studied the arrow thinking about how he could remove it in one clean motion.

  “We left Philadelphia but a week ago,” she gasped, “for the Ohio country.”

  “You were taking these wagons to Ohio?”

  “We had a grant,” she replied. “Please, I cannot breathe.”

  He wrapped his fingers gently around the shaft and slid it quickly out of her chest. Bright red spurted from the hole as she inhaled.

  “God bless,” she gasped. He watched her shudder and die. Patrick let the bloody shaft fall from his grasp and reached down to close her eyes. Of all the things he had experienced in combat, he had never gotten used to watching a human life disappear.

  He heard a noise and instinctively ducked his head. There was only a hint of motion at first, barely visible through the smoke, but as the movement closed, Patrick recognized it as a man on horseback. The man wore camouflage on his face and held a spear. Patrick knew the rider had seen him and so he grabbed the bloody arrow he had pulled from the woman’s chest and shirked back into the thick, choking smoke. Patrick pressed himself low to the ground hoping that he had moved far enough out of the horse’s path.

  The rider thundered through the grey and missed Patrick by inches with the thrusting spear. Patrick sprang to his feet and snatched him from his horse as he rode, pulling him crashing to the ground. The attacker turned struggling in Patrick’s arms to face him with a red and black striped face. Warpaint? The man threw his fists and elbows repeatedly as Patrick worked him into a Jiu-Jitsu hold. The attacker struggled until the end, but the hold, once set, was impossible to escape. Patrick squeezed until the man went limp. He felt no remorse in ending a man he knew was responsible for the death of innocent travelers. Patrick eased his arms from the dead rider and pushed him away into a heap on the ground. He reached for the spear and crouched there, but no one else came.

  Patrick stooped to search the body and found only a knife. He tucked the weapon into his shorts and then walked back toward the trees to retrieve his mountain bike. When he pulled his phone from his saddlebag to call the police, he was surprised that there was no signal. This was as bizarre as anything else that had happened. Quantum phones worked if there was a functioning tower within a thousand miles, and towers were all over the East Coast.

  Patrick put his phone back in his pack, straddled his bike and started pedaling down the country road. He had woken up lying in the dirt next to his bike, in a place with no phone signal, and killed a painted man on horseback. To top it off, this splitting headache was about to drive him mad.

  Part 1

  Englishman

  “Every man's life ends the same way. It is only the details of how he lived and how he died that distinguish one man from another.” ~ Ernest Hemingway

  Chapter 1

&n
bsp; Representative Matthew Miller

  It was a game of cat and mouse, and the crew’s agitation grew over the week that the ship had matched their speed and course. They’d catch enough wind to press their pursuer into the horizon only to see the vessel materialize, magically, hours later. The ship would disappear long enough to give them hope, but like Chinese water torture, it would pop unexpectedly into view and bring their anxiety rushing back.

  Matt sat on the deck of the Norfolk reading his third book of the journey. The Norfolk was a twenty-gun, sixth-rate frigate with a complement of one hundred and sixty souls. Matt glanced from his pages, at the sounding of four bells, to watch Captain Pearce, a tall grey man, shouting orders to the crew as he tried to harvest every bit of speed from the robust winds. The bells signaled the midpoint of the afternoon watch, meaning that the men on-deck had another two hours before they’d be replaced.

  The seamen jumped to the captain’s commands as they crawled about the masts and rigging, like so many ants, to adjust the positioning of the weathered canvas sails. Matt had spent enough time assessing the Captain to know he was smart, experienced and respected. Matt trusted the Captain’s judgment. Pearce caught Matt watching him, stepped closer, and looked down with a humorous face. “You don’t appear vexed by this pirate nonsense, Mr. Miller,” Pearce said. “Perhaps you could do us the service of reading one of your books aloud to the crew if they impart such calm.”

  “I hardly think medicinal plants would interest them, Captain,” Matt replied. “But if you think.”

  “Probably not,” Pearce murmured gruffly. “Only the end of this dogged pursuit will set them at ease. All know too well the perils of the sea, but this chase has lasted overlong by half. Better you should work with them on their swordplay.” He gave a throaty chuckle.

  The crew, and especially the marines, had watched Matt’s daily practice of martial arts on the deck of their ship. Matt would begin by moving through tae kwon do forms and then finish with the saber. He had vowed more than a decade ago, after his first disastrous fight in the colonies, never again to let his combat skills lapse. Matt had trained regularly since then, either by himself or with Richmond’s most famous fashion plate, dancer and swordsman, Henry Duncan. Matt smiled to himself when he thought back to the day that he had met Henry, and the assumptions he had made of a man who had described London fashion in terms used only by the most flamboyant designers of the twenty-first century. Matt’s preconceptions were almost immediately shattered, and he and Henry had become close friends.

  “I was hoping that we wouldn’t need to fight,” Matt said to Captain Pearce. “They told me this was the fastest ship in the colonies.”

  “And so we believed,” Pearce replied as he looked toward the tiny sails on the edge of the horizon.

  “You’re surprised by their speed,” Matt observed.

  The Captain nodded. “They should have melted into the sea by now.”

  “They have a fast ship, too,” Matt said. He shrugged his shoulders.

  “Or a skillful fellow at their helm,” Pearce replied. “Such a man flying a pirate banner vexes me heartily.”

  “You’re sure it’s a pirate ship?” Matt asked. He knew the rumors, but they had never gotten near enough to see the ship’s colors.

  “I’ll not let her close,” Pearce answered. He went quiet then as he looked off into the distance and then up at the wispy blue skies. “It’s a keen, clear wind. It’ll hold.”

  Matt glanced up at the full sails, each stretched tight like the skin of a drum, and then down to the frothing sea that sped past them. The straining of the sailcloth and the whoosh of the rushing water told him they were moving at a rapid pace. “What happens when the winds go?” Matt asked.

  “The same for that piece of shite,” Pearce replied. He looked again towards the chasing ship. “Ah! We shall drink the claret tonight, that’s to be certain.”

  Matt smiled. “Excellent plan, sir,” he replied, but Pearce had already walked away to shout more orders at his crew. “Look alive, there!” Matt heard him yell.

  **********

  The Captain, ship’s officers, and the surgeon sat around the table in the captain’s mess dressed in their uniforms. Matt watched the porter fill his goblet. The wine was strong, and like the others sitting there, Matt was beginning to feel its effects. The jovial debate that jumped around the table was all the proof Matt needed that Pearce’s instinct to pull the best bottles from his cabinet had been correct. The Norfolk’s officers seemed thankful to divert their minds from the threat that loomed on the horizon. Their respite ended abruptly, though, as the door opened and First Lieutenant Daniel Jay entered the mess to resume his place at the table. Jay took a drink from his full wine goblet, wiped his mouth and measured their faces. He knew they expected him to say something, but he took a bite of the butter-soaked chicken on his plate instead, focused deliberately down at his meal, and fiddled with his food.

  “What report from the deck?” Lieutenant John Creighton stammered. He was third in command. Matt had often seen Creighton at the helm steering the ship, or with navigation tools and charts plotting their course.

  Since the appearance of the pirate ship, the men of the crew had segregated themselves into three nearly equal categories, as far as Matt could discern. The first was a group of men anxious to fight; the Norfolk couldn’t stop fast enough. The second included crew who didn’t pay much attention at all and went about their jobs like any other day. The third group consisted of men who were visibly agitated and spent more than the normal time staring aft with sober expressions on their faces. Creighton, Matt noticed, was definitely in the third group.

  “Report?” Jay asked. He picked up his goblet and drank more wine.

  “The pirates!” Creighton cried.

  “That business?” Jay said nonchalantly after making Creighton wait for what seemed like an eternity. “Their topsails are lit by the moon.”

  “Why am I not surprised?” said Pearce disappointedly. He was contemplating his wine as he swirled it around in the goblet. The Captain had remained mostly silent during the meal, happy to relax in his chair and nod at the tales and exaggerations that his men told as they emptied their glasses. “We’re a good ship with a damn fine crew,” Pearce said. “God willing, we shouldn’t make the acquaintance of our sea brothers anytime soon, but should they come, so be it.” He gave a satisfied grunt.

  “With all due respect, Captain,” Creighton, said. “They’re not brothers. They’re a bunch of pirate scum!”

  “A bunch of drunken cutthroats, I suspect.” Jay declared. “We should teach them the price of tangling with Virginia seaman. Our marines are itching for a fight.”

  “The Norfolk is the fastest ship in the colonies, but she has paid that price in cannon,” Pearce said. “Deliver our cargo and our passengers. Those are our orders, Mr. Jay.” He looked at Matt. “We should not want Mr. Miller to miss his appointments in London.”

  The men turned their heads to Matt, and the room became quiet. Matt was a special guest among the passengers. Besides being a member of the Virginia House of Burgesses and having paid a premium to stay in their largest guest cabin, he had spent much of his time on deck talking with the men, reading or training. He knew most members of the crew by name and moved easily between seamen and officers. The ability to endear himself to people of all stations was something he had learned from Benjamin Franklin. Adopting Franklin’s skills had helped Matt navigate many of the complexities that governed the eighteenth century.

  Like Pearce, Matt had been happy to remain quiet. Matt smiled as he calmly scanned their fresh faces. “Don’t let me be your excuse,” he proclaimed. “I’m no longer a young man, but as you’ve seen, I prepare for a fight every day.” He gave the table a knowing smile. “My fighting master was the toughest man I’ve ever met…aside from many of you, of course.” A forced laugh went around the table at his joke. Matt could see that none of the men felt particularly potent in the present situat
ion. “My master said there was no disgrace in avoiding a fight, especially when there’s nothing to gain. If by mastery of the sea we can leave your drunken cutthroats behind, then we have defeated them.”

  “You’d join us if they were to come?” Jay asked.

  Matt nodded. “You’ve seen me.”

  “Lettered men,” Jay declared. “They choose talking o’er fighting, almost always.”

  “If we do our best to avoid this fight and it still comes, I’ll be at your side.”

  “We’ll fight if we must,” Captain Pearce said. “For now, we’ll stay ahead of ‘em.”

  The table went quiet to ponder the Captain’s proclamation. Midshipman James Carlton, a yellow-haired man in his early twenties, with a reddish face, interrupted the silence. His voice was unsure as he found his pitch, but then his words rang clear.

  There once was a lofty ship, from…Virginia she did hail.

  Blow high, blow low, and so sailed we;

  From the…south of Hampton and she did sail,

  A cruising down the coast of the High Barbary

  Matt expected the others to join, but the table remained silent as they looked around, maybe wondering at the lines. Carlton gave them a clever smile to emphasize the changes he had made in their well-worn shanty. Captain Pearce was next to sound off in a singing voice that resonated like an old, slow, sandstone wheel touching the dull blade of an ax. It took one line from the Captain for the rest of the men to join with exuberant voices lubricated with extra gulps from their goblets.

  ‘Aloft there, aloft!’ our jolly bosun cried.

  Blow high, blow low, and so sailed we;

  ‘Look ahead, look astern, look win’ward and a-lee,

  A cruising down the coast of the High Barbary.’

  ‘There's naught upon the stern, sir, there's naught upon the lee’

  Blow high, blow low, and so sailed we;