winced inwardly. Blast! She'd done it again and blurted out something dreadful. Edward's father, a blockade runner, had been missing at sea since last April.
Luckily, Edward didn't seem to notice. He had picked up a stick and was prodding at the burnt remains of the rowboat.
"Edward, we are the ablest amongst our group. Your mother and sister are counting on us. We mustn't let them down."
He stabbed the boat with his stick. "Fear not, fair maiden. I shall defend us to the death!"
Caroline sighed. She was definitely on her own.
"What do you want here?" a man's voice shouted.
Caroline spotted a log cabin a short distance away. A man leaned against the door frame, watching them with the bloodshot eyes of a drunkard. The ferryman, she assumed.
"Good sir," she greeted him with a forced smile. "How are you today?"
"I'm ruined." The man lifted a jug for a long drink. Wiping his mouth with a grimy shirtsleeve, he stumbled a few steps toward them. "I've been put out of business by my own neighbors, the scurvy bastards."
Edward snickered at the man's choice of words.
Caroline frowned at her nephew, then tied off the horse so she could join the ferryman close to his cabin. "It was your neighbors who burned your boats?"
"Aye. Now that they're militia, they think they can do whatever the hell they want. Said they had to burn all the boats to hurt the British."
"Oh, I'm sorry for your loss." Caroline suspected it could have been the group of men who had passed them on the horse path. As much as she applauded anyone's efforts to bedevil the British, the militia had also made matters difficult for them. "We're attempting to rendezvous with Colonel Sumter. Do you have any other boats?"
" 'Twill do you no good." The man upended his jug, discovered it was empty, and tossed it onto the ground. "The armies are gone."
"Gone?" A chill prickled the skin on her arms. "What do you mean?"
"I mean the armies with Gates and Sumter. The British killed them all."
Caroline gasped. Papa. She looked at Edward to see if he had heard. No, he had moved to the river's edge to poke his stick in the mud. Good Lord, what should she say to Ginny? Perhaps nothing for now, until she knew for sure. "Surely some of the men escaped?"
The ferryman scratched his dirty shirt. "I suppose. Shall I feed your horse for you?"
"Ah, yes, thank you." Caroline's mind raced as she considered their dilemma. Where should they go? The Munro family home in the foothills of North Carolina was too far away. Virginia would never make it there in her current condition. Was Ginny's husband, Quincy, still alive? Was their father still alive? What if Jamie Munro was lying in a field somewhere, alone and wounded? How could she ever find him? How could she take care of her family all alone?
The ferryman untied the horse, then scrambled onto the saddle and rode away.
Caroline stood, transfixed with disbelief.
Edward threw his stick at him. "You scurvy bastard!"
"Edward James Stanton!" Virginia marched from the bushes. "I will not tolerate such language."
"But he stole our horse!" Edward shouted.
Caroline emerged from her state of shock and dashed after the thief. She ran, her heart pounding and filled with dismay as she watched the last of their belongings disappear down the horse path, gone forever. Breathing heavily, she slowed to a stop.
You fool! She had wondered how it could get worse. Now she knew. They had no transportation, no destination, no money, no food. Not even a change of clothes.
She trudged back to where her sister and the children waited. "I'm sorry."
Virginia nodded and sat beside the dirt path.
" 'Tis all right, Mama." Charlotte tugged an object from her apron pocket. "I still have my book from Papa. See?"
Virginia's eyes glimmered with tears. "Yes, sweeting."
"What a bufflehead," Edward muttered.
"Hush," Caroline warned her nephew. "I want to take a look in the ferryman's cabin. Will you come with me?"
She and Edward rummaged through the filthy cabin and located several useful items - a knife, a horn of gunpowder, a tinder wheel, a block of cheese, and a sack of figs.
As they feasted on cheese and figs, Caroline attempted to come up with a plan. If they continued west, there was no guarantee they would ever locate Father. She couldn't even be sure he was alive. But if they went east, they would end up in British-held Charles Town. She stood and brushed the dust from her