The First Life Of Old Benny Reed

                                                                                                                                               Vaughan, NC, Oct. 1, 1780 My Dearest Benjamin,      Sincerest greetings from what has just become Warren County, North Carolina in honor of a Dr. Joseph Warren who died at the Battle of Bunker Hill. I suppose you should know that my family along with most others in our beloved former Albemarle have sided with the colonies. I've heard that your deceased father's kin down on Currituck Sound have stayed with the mother country, though their land, such as it is, unsuited for tobacco...

       "Better use that second sight, young fellow!" Benny stumbles back from the cold fire circle in a frantic search for the unexpected voice. Then he sees the coonhound wagging her tail and staring up into a white-barked sycamore behind the abandoned campsite. The white horse turns his big head to briefly glance over his haunches from the nearby engorged stream before resuming slurps of muddy water. "What the devil are you?" Benny blurts, flabbergasted by the sight of a dark-skinned man sitting on a thick branch, his deer hide moccasins and leggings dangling below a burgundy woolen breech cloth. Most astonishing of all is what appears to be a frizzy black hat unlike any Benny has ever seen. "Don't you mean where is she?" the man laughs, his grin triggering a round of wags from Queen Charlotte.       People of African descent were just beginning to be brought over the Blue Ridge to the Valley of Virginia as household servants and farm hands in t...

       "Oh Lottie," Benjamin Reed mumbles as he awakens into the mid-October chill from a fitful dream of following his mother around the bend of a flooding river. The black and tan just moans in the pre-dawn shimmer of a slivered moon and curls tighter into her sleep ball. Benny rolls over on his bunk, pulling tighter into a woolen blanket as he tucks against the earthen back wall. The tinkling of the nearby creek is lulling them both back toward sleep when startled by a raucous "cruck-cruck-cruck" echoing down the hollow. "Dang, it gets light early up there," he groans as the white horse tethered to the outside of the lean-to cabin snuffles loudly. "Righto Ajax, might as well get going."      Benny slips his buckskin hunting frock over linen undergarments in the semi-darkness. Skipping the usual stoking of the fire, he grabs a saddle stowed beside the stone chimney and begins loading it onto the old quarter horse. The coonhound has already snif...

       "If it isn't old Benny Reed and his best girl," greets a dirt-covered militia officer standing beside the brown-leafed Tradail Oak as sunlight beams over the eastern ridge in the cool October morning.  His white quarter horse along with two mules are lapping from the nearby log trough. "Aren't we the merry-andrew," laughs Benny right back, his black and tan trotting beside the wheelbarrow carrying two oak casks.  "Aye, we surprised Ferguson on King's Mountain and routed the whole lot." "Whewee, Colonel Preston, you done good. As for my best girl, these are the last of the kegs and then Lottie and I are heading over the hill to find her." "Well young man, you're one barrel shy of that score you promised, but all my silver went to provisioning the Fincastle volunteers and they're mighty thirsty after that battle."       The Battle of Kings Mountain was a surprise victory for a cobbled group of about eight-hundre...

     "Lottie girl, don't you go getting attached to those pups," Benny warns as he pours flaked maize into heated creek water in a copper mash pot.  She lays upwind of the fire pit and is curled around four wriggling balls of black and tan, each latched onto a nipple. The little clearing beside the gurgling stream is edged by deciduous trees just beginning to turn in late September.   "Those pure-breds will be ready to trade for twenty barrels in the time it takes this mash to mature," he explains while stirring in the barley malt.  The coonhound looks up and whines as Benny completes his soliloquy: "We'll just give it a whirl every now and then before mixing in the yeast."      The breed was a recent cross between a bloodhound and a Virginia foxhound. It's large size, tracker's nose, and imperturbability made it ideal for scaring up bears, wolves, and cougars in the early Appalachian settlements. It just so happened that the cooper's s...

        "Sorry your majesty, the next batch is spoken for." So says Benny to a diminutive and foppishly dressed man under the arching branches and browning leaves of the Tradail Oak, his escort of two redcoats watering their horses at a nearby hollowed out log. "Well Mister Benjamin Reed, that delivery had better not be to any of the Virginia militias. My master is called Bloody Ban for a reason, and I'm just his valet so your obsequiousness won't work with me." "Tell you what mister footman, you can have one cask for a bit of female advice."       After accidentally witnessing the menarche ritual, Benny had been obsessed with the Cherokee woman. Ever since his mother had departed from the Tazewell settlement seven years before, he'd been so focused on keeping his deceased father's copper forge running that he'd skipped the usual teen rites of passage. He'd completely missed the occasional square dance, having finished schooling  in...