Journey Home Chapter Twelve

            “Stephen?  Stephen, wake up!”

            Memory bled slowly into his consciousness along with Robinson’s voice.  They had been running.  No, they were being chased.   That was it, they were on the run and they had come to a cliff edge and he had –

            Jumped.

            Stephen opened his eyes and looked up.  The stars were winking at him in the firmament above.  Silhouetted against their light was a tower of rock jutting out some ten or twelve feet.  Atop it was the figure of a man.  Most likely one of Hawk’s, searching for them in the sea of shadows below.

            “Stephen?”

            “Shh,” he warned.  “There’s someone up there.  Are you all right?”

            Where they were, in some sort of a gully or hollow, it was pitch-black.  Stephen couldn’t see his brother, but could feel him pressed up against his side.  “My arm hurts,” Robinson responded.

            “Is it broken?”

            “No.  My shirt’s torn and it’s cut.”

            “Bad?”

            “No.  How about you?”

            Stephen hesitated.  Since awakening he had become aware of a sharp pain in his leg.  Before they jumped he had caught Robinson about the waist, and then twisted as he fell to make certain he didn’t land on top of his little brother.  He remembered hitting feet first and feeling the hard earth rush up to strike his legs.  Then nothing.  Concentrating on the pain, Stephen realized it was accompanied by a steady stream of thick hot liquid that was running, even now, down his leg and into his short boot.  Not wanting to frighten his brother, he shrugged, “I think I twisted my leg.”

            Before he could stop him, his little brother reached for it.  “It’s bleeding bad,” he breathed as his fingers made contact.  “Stephen, I think it’s – ”

            Robinson never finished the sentence.  It was cut off when Stephen cried out.  A second later the older boy stifled his outburst by gripping his filthy shirt between his teeth.  After breathing hard for a dozen heartbeats, he took his fingers and explored the damaged area.  What he found made his stomach sink.  “It’s broken.  I can feel the bone…through the skin.”

            “Ain’t…isn’t that what Pa calls an open fracture?”

            Their pa had been the assistant surgeon at the fort where they lived when he was a boy.  He helped people now in both Upper and Lower Piqua as a doctor.  Their Pa was known as a bone setter – and a good one. 

            Stephen shifted his leg.  The action brought tears to his eyes.  “I think so,” he admitted with regret.  Enough time had passed that his eyes had adjusted and he could make out his brother’s frightened face.  What he had to say wasn’t going to help any.  “Robinson, you’re going to have to leave me.”

            “No.  No, I won’t!”

            Stephen glanced up.  The figure was gone.  The Indians were probably making their way to the bottom of the hill.  Knowing natives, they knew the route by heart and would be there in no time.  “I’m not going to be able to run.  You’re going to have to go on your own…for help.”  He added the last thinking Robinson might go if he thought it was for something other than his own safety.  “You can bring back help.”

            His little brother thought for a moment.  “They’ll catch you,” he said simply.

            “Probably.  But if you bring back – ”

            “They might kill you.”

            He shrugged.  “They might.  But then, they might not.”

            Robinson was silent for a long time.  So long, Stephen began to get nervous.  “Rob, come on.  You have to go.”

            “I will,” he answered, his voice firm as his jaw, “but only if I know you’re safe.”

            Stephen stifled a laugh.  “There’s no certainty….”

            “I won’t leave you here.  Can you stand?”

            “I don’t…know.”  With effort, he lifted his body and shifted toward his good side.  Pain shot through his leg, nearly causing him to black out.  Panting heavily, Stephen pressed on and finally succeeded in standing by leaning his entire weight on his little brother.

As Robinson grunted, he apologized.  “Sorry.  Maybe I can – ”

            “What’d you tell me?  When the going gets tough, a soldier gets tougher.”  Robinson turned his face up to look at him.  “I bet General Harrison wouldn’t have let a broken leg slow him down.”

            Stephen nodded.  He could feel the blood pooling in his boot.  They were going to have to stop and apply a tourniquet to the wound to get it to stop bleeding, but that empty butte above them made him sick with nerves and he wanted to get to a place of safety as soon as possible. 

            If he could just make it without passing out.

            Relying on his brother’s strength and determination, Stephen allowed Robinson to lead him along the bottom of the gully until it emptied out into a field.  Fortunately getting out of it didn’t involved any kind of climbing.  There was no way he could have scaled anything unless it was by laying down and dragging his body.  By the time they had crossed the field and entered a grove of trees, he broke free of his brother and fell panting to the ground.

            Robinson knelt beside him.  “Just a little bit further, Stephen.  We need to find some sort of shelter.  I don’t want to leave you out in the open.  It’s getting cold.”  Stephen felt his brother’s hand brush his forehead.  “And you’re getting hot.”

            He was right.  Stephen felt fever licking at the edge of his senses.  If he laid out overnight in the early spring cold, he would probably die.  But that wasn’t what he was worried about right now.  He was worried Robinson would die when the Indians found them.  After all, their trail wouldn’t be very hard to follow.

            Stephen glanced around.  By now his eyes had completely adjusted to the meager light.  They had entered a part of the forest that was hilly, with sporadic outcroppings of rock.  The precipice off which they had plunged had probably heralded its beginning.  The nature of the land meant there were probably caves nearby.  

            “Why don’t you leave me here and go see if you can find water.  Most likely there’s a cave near the river bed.  If we walk on the river’s edge, we can hide our tracks.  Then you could follow it to safety.”

            Robinson’s look was sharp.  “To find help, you mean.”

            “Yes.  Sorry.  I’m tired.”  Stephen blinked.  He wasn’t lying.

            His brother looked at his leg.  “I’m gonna take care of that first.  I’ll find the moss Black Hoof showed me and fix a poultice.  Then we can bind it like Pa does.”

            “Rob, no!  There isn’t time.  The Indians – ”

            But it was too late. 

            Robinson had disappeared into the night.

 ~

           Rachel Moray stirred in her bed.  She rose and walked to the door and looked out into the corridor.  A candle was burning in the room down the hall where she had placed Sweetgrass and her husband, Jacob.  The baby was doing well and was sleeping, as were her exhausted parents.  The couple would remain until the following day when they would head for their home.  The pair had asked if it would be all right if they called the babe Rachel after the two angels who had saved her.

            Mingo’s wife smiled.  One bit of brightness, she thought, in the midst of such gloom.

            Pulling a shawl around her shoulders, she left her sleeping daughter behind and moved into the hall.  The door to the room the Johnston girls shared with their mother was open a crack.  She peered in to find the three girls lying close, their arms locked about one another. 

            Their mother was missing.

            Moving down the steps, Rachel was not surprised to find Raeanne standing by the window, staring out.  How many times had she done the same thing over the years?  When you lived on the frontier and your men spent most of their lives chasing about the woods, there was little else a woman could do.

            But worry.

            Without speaking, she crossed to the other woman and placed her arm about her shoulders.  “How are you?” she asked.  Being in the family way could only add to the poor woman’s worry.

            Raeanne shook from head to toe.  “Frightened.  Terrified.”  She drew a breath.  “Angry.  I wish I was a man!  Then I would go out and find them!”

            Rachel knew what she meant.  If was awful feeling so helpless – being trapped by your sex.  “But you know that isn’t wise.  Especially not in your condition.”

            “Yes.  John does not need another to worry about.”  She turned and glanced up the stairs.  “Besides, the girls need me, especially Rosanna.”

            “Your middle girl.”

            “She has been afflicted since infancy.  A fever back in the fort.”  Raeanne glanced at her.  “Her eldest sister died of the same thing.”

            “She seems a sweet child.”

            The other woman smiled.  “She is.  Such a gentle soul.  But she is entirely reliant on me.”  The smile faded into a sigh.  “I must surrender my fears to my God and trust He will guide my sons’ father to them.”

            Rachel reached out and took her hand.  “I will join you in that.  I have not told you, my son is missing as well.”

            It was Raeanne’s turn to squeeze her hand.  “I know.  Your husband spoke of it.”

            “He is no longer a little boy, but here,” she touched her heart, “he will ever be.  I fear for him.  This man, Hawk, he has no reason to treat Danny kindly – and every reason to want to kill him to hurt his father.”

            Raeanne closed her finger’s over Rachel’s  “It seems we have more in common than our names.  Do we share as well a common faith in God?”

            “My faith is there, but it is out of practice,” she admitted with chagrin.  “God may not listen to one who has waited so long to call.”

            John Johnston’s wife shook her head.  “He will listen all the more closely for the return of a beloved voice.  Will you join me then, in prayer?”

            Rachel nodded, and then let the other woman lead her to the space in front of the fire where they bent their knees and their heads and entered into communion with God.

~

           Stephen Johnston panted hard as he dragged his body up and rested his back against the bole of an ancient tree.  Above his head the stars ranged, glistening as he had seldom seen them do like ice struck by a rising sun.  A chill wind had arisen and there was the promise of rain in it.  Its touch made him shiver, which was not a good thing.  He had been nine years old when the last war broke out.  In 1812 General Harrison had come to their house to camp on the way to save Fort Wayne.  When Harrison marched off, the general left behind sick and wounded soldiers for his mother and grandmother to care for.  Several of the men had been in the field and gotten soaked to the skin on the march.  Fever set in.  Then chills.

            Stephen had heard one man crying out in delirium and gone to see what was the matter.  His father explained that the wound the soldier had had not been treated properly.  It had mortified and, with the onset of infection and the cold, brought about a killing fever.  They had bled the soldier and used purgatives.  His pa had even applied blisters, but nothing helped.

            The soldier had been the first man he had watched die.

            Stephen shivered so hard it rattled his wounded leg that had bound up with a strip of cloth ripped from his shirt-tail to staunch the bleeding.  Biting back a cry, he allowed the tears to flow.  He didn’t want to die.  He was only sixteen.  He had a lot of things he wanted to do – like see the ocean one day.  But even more than that he didn’t want his little brother to die.  He wished Robinson would have just left him.  He didn’t like the idea of him wandering about in the forest alone. 

            As a matter of fact, Robinson should have been back by now.

            Using his arms, Stephen pivoted and looked around the tree.  Before leaving him for the second time, his brother told him he had found the river and the plants he needed for the poultice.  Robinson had come back to find something to carry them in.  While binding his broken leg, they had removed his short boots.  Stephen winced with remembered pain as he recalled how it jarred him when they came off.  One had been filled with blood and the other, clean.  Finally settling on the clean boot, Robinson had taken it and disappeared into the black night with the promise to return shortly.

            That had been at least a half hour before.

            Though it was agonizing, Stephen pushed himself up the tree until he was standing.  As they moved along earlier, he had plucked a branch from the ground and used it as a support.  He did so again, rounding the tree and taking a few steps in the direction his brother had gone.

“Robinson!” he called softly.  “Robinson, are you there?”  When there was no reply, he moved forward a bit farther.  “Robinson!  Answer me!”

            Silence again.  Then the sound of footsteps moving through the trees.

            A man’s footsteps.

            Stephen froze.  The man was moving swiftly – surely – through the woods, as if he belonged.  He listened to his progress, trying to discern which direction he was coming from, but whoever it was tread softly, as if he wore moccasins instead of boots.  White men wore moccasins, he reminded himself as he swallowed over a lump of fear, but so did Indians.

            Mostly Indians.

            Breathing hard, Stephen raised the only weapon he had – the walking stick – and waited.  A moment later a figure broke through the brush nearby; a figure wearing a uniform coat but several bandoleers as well, with silver necklaces around his throat and feathers and beads in his hair.  The man was not looking his way, but toward the river.

Toward Robinson.

            Stephen brandished the stick and shouted, drawing the man’s attention back to him, and then he forgot to breathe as the Indian moved toward him, knife in hand.

~

           Robinson’s head came up.  Was that Stephen calling him?

The little boy stepped away from the rushing water with the roots in his hand and listened.  There it was again.  His brother’s voice.  He couldn’t make out what he was saying, but he sounded more worried than concerned.  Knowing Stephen he thought he was taking too long and was sure he’d managed to get himself carried off again, or fallen into the river and been washed away.

He loved Stephen, but sometimes he could tell his brother thought he was his father.  Of course, since their pa wasn’t around a lot, he probably had every right to.

Returning to the edge of the water, Robinson stuffed more moss and roots into his brother’s boot and then, tucking it under his arm, headed up the bank meaning to return to his side.  Stephen’s leg was really swollen.  The skin had passed being green and was working its way toward a violent purple.  He’d sat in his father’s office and watched him bind up broken limbs before using the method Little Turtle’s people had taught him of green willow branches wound round and round and then allowed to dry.  He’d searched and found some willow too and had it tucked in his pants.  He’d bind Stephen’s leg and then he’d see whether or not he was going to leave him.  It’d been a couple of hours and so far no one had followed them.  Maybe there wasn’t any way down from the ridge other than the one they had taken.  Maybe, just maybe they were safe from the Indians who had held them.

The sound of footsteps close by, a thud, and a soft Indian curse told him otherwise.

Robinson froze, boot in hand.  He was on the top of the riverbank.  Behind him the swift current called, speaking of escape.  If he had only had a raft!  He could have put Stephen on it and they could have sailed up the river to safety.  Odds were the river went past the settlement his pa had told him was close by.  Boonesborough, it was called.  He remembered his pa talking about meeting Daniel Boone, the man who had started it, once upon a time.

He sure could have used the frontiersman’s help now!

Gripping his brother’s boot with its precious cargo, Robinson started to descend the hill.  As he did the shadows shifted and suddenly came alive.  He watched as a thin raven-haired native stepped out of the underbrush.  Pointing at him, the man shouted something in a tongue he didn’t know.  A second, wearing a uniform coat, appeared directly below the first, scaling the hill, and rapidly advanced toward him.

“Do not move!” the man shouted in English.  “Young one!  Do not move!”

Robinson glanced behind.  His only retreat lay down the hill – and into the water.

“You leave me alone!” he yelled back, edging closer to it.

“We mean you no harm, child.  Come away before you fall.”

“Why should I believe you?” he asked, balancing on the broken edge of the ridge.

“I am Steel Coat.  Your mother sent us,” the man in the coat said, approaching slowly.  He opened his hands wide.  “She is worried.”

“How do I know you talked to my ma?” the boy asked, his eyes flicking from one frightening form to the next.

“She is at the Wild Wood Inn, with your sisters and two other women.  We left them there well.”

Robinson shuddered with hope.  “They’re okay?”

“Yes.”  The man was close enough now to reach out and catch hold of him.  “Raeanne said she was worried for you, and your brother.”

The shudder turned into a chill of fear.  “My ma’s name ain’t Raeanne,” he whispered, “it’s Rachel.”

The Indian must have seen it in his eyes.  He lunged at him even as Robinson stepped back and the thin edge that supported him gave way under his weight.   Just before he hit the water, the boy looked up to see the Indian standing at the top of the bank holding Stephen’s boot.

And then the waters of the Kentucky swallowed him.