The First Life Of Old Benny Reed

  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cable_ferry      " Yo Mr. Ferryman," Benny calls as he follows Lottie and leads Ajax off the cable ferry that had just pulled them across a placid stretch of the New River. "Can a fellow hire a delivery?" "Bill Ingles is the name," replies the old man tying off a heavy hauling rope in the early dusk of late October. "That would depend on the job, young fellow." "Taking this here cask to William Preston," Benny answers with uncharacteristic directness as he hands Ingles some silver coins. It had been a long day of riding the fifty miles from his cabin in the Tazewell hills. "Just so happens that my son Thomas is coming through in a few days on the way to Smithfield," Ingles assents, barely hiding his amusement at the cavalcade of black and tan coonhound, white quarter horse, and brownsmith moonshiner.      Benjamin Reed had decided to make the one-hundred-fifty mile trek in three days to get to t...

                                                                                                                                               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...