Journey Home Chapter Twenty

A solitary figure stood upon the rocky dais, watching the evening sun as its dying rays cast long shadows across the now empty field.  Only an hour before the area before it had been overflowing.  Two hundred or more natives had first cried for Hawk, and then for him to lead them to victory.  Runs Deep closed his eyes so that it appeared he was deep in thought, or perhaps in communion with his god. 

In truth, he was neither.  He was remembering.

The man who had been the boy, Tobias Fox, was thinking of the home in which he had been raised.  It had been a grand structure, fronted by a pair of great white columns that stood sentinel before richly carved oaken doors.  A porch ran the length of it, and from that porch you could see a meandering stream that cut like a blue silk ribbon through the lands his family owned.  Before, behind and about the house there were fields of ripening grain that washed, waved, and waxed brilliant in the Georgia sun.  In Runs Deep’s mind’s eye, his father occupied a chair near one of the columns.  He could see him fanning, slowly, chasing away the ever present flies.  His father, George Fox – once known as Copperhead – was dressed as a white man in a suit of unbleached linen, with pale bone-white stockings and soft brown leather shoes with buckles.  The collar of George’s linen shirt was high enough it brushed his clean-shaven chin.  A fine silk tie circled his collar, worked by his white mother’s fingers into a fashionable bow.   His father’s rich copper hair was short and cut in the current fashion.  Everything about George Fox spoke of a settled landed gentleman.  Everything except his skin.  It was copper as well.

Copper as his own.

Runs Deep opened his eyes, but the vision continued.  He saw the light oak doors open and his white mother appear.  Petite as a girl, with golden hair and skin pale as cream, Miriam Fox was dressed in a gown of sapphire blue.  Her hair was upswept, but the memory included the errant strands that inevitably broke free of their restraint to trouble her bright blue eyes.  In his vision, she reached up to push them away.  The scene would have been idyllic if the day he recalled had never passed into night.  If he could have frozen it at that moment.

If what had happened, had not happened. 

            It had begun simply enough.  While he was playing at dice with his sister, Talia, they had heard the sound of horses’ hooves fast approaching.  His father had risen and gone down the lane to greet the men who appeared at its end.  Their mother had remained beside them, but she raised her hand to block the sun and watch.  After a few minutes, their mother grew uneasy.  As she stepped off the porch, the men began to shout.  His father shouted back.  Runs Deep sighed.  At the time what happened next had made him laugh out loud.  Now, he knew better.  He and Talia had watched and clapped as their father took one of the strangers by the scruff of the neck and marched him down the lane.  When he returned, George Fox told them he had thrown the pair off their land.

            Toby Fox had been twelve then.  More than old enough to understand.  But the life he had led had sheltered him from the white ma’s prejudice and violence

All of that had been about to change.

During the night their mother wakened them.  She was shaking and tears streamed down her cheeks.  Miriam Fox told them each to toss a cloak about their shoulders and then she hustled them down the stair along with their sister, Sunalei.  At the bottom their mother stopped to speak to their father.  He stood before the oaken door.  Outside the night had grown brilliant with torchlight.  George Fox shook his head in answer to her question.  At that moment a stone shattered the sidelight, casting glass shards like diamonds on the Spartan rug beneath his feet.  Toby watched his mother touch his father’s face and heard his father’s voice tell her to take them and flee through the back door.  He could still see him standing there, drawing a deep breath before he opened the door.

The next time Toby Fox saw his father, he thought the older man was dead.  The white men beat George Fox until the unbleached linen suit he wore ran red with his blood.

            They left their home that night –  left the white columns and the golden oak door, the porch and the fields of waving grain – never to return.  And though his father survived, he was never the same.  Something more than his home and land had been taking from him. 

The white men had taken his father’s soul. 

            That was why Runs Deep hated the whites.  They had broken what could not be broken, and taken that which could not be reclaimed.  The memory of that night had driven him to run with the wolves.  For years he had been one of them – an angry destructive young man.  He had run with the Chickasaw, the Shawano, the Creek.  It did not matter who.  Just so their actions made the white man pay.  And then one day, as he stood watching a settler’s cabin burn – as Runs Deep looked upon his handiwork and pronounced it good, a white woman had stumbled out of the burning building with a child clutched to her breast.  She had fallen to her knees before him begging to know ‘why’.

            And then she died.

            Runs Deep closed his eyes again and pressed trembling fingers to his forehead.  The woman remained in his mind’s eye, standing beside his father.  Both condemned him.

            He had become what he hated.

            Runs Deep opened and closed his fists, breathing deeply of the night air.  He sought to drive the vision away, not because it shamed him – though it did – but because it had the power to rivet him to the spot.  There were things to do.  There was only so much time before the others arrived and he must make certain, before they did, that his brother was safe.  He had no idea what would happen when the army arrived.  He had prayed to the Creator that his means did not justify a bloody end.  He did not want to shed the blood of his People, but he knew it might be necessary.

Just as his death might prove necessary.

            Voices below him caused him to open his eyes.  Runs Deep realized quickly that it was only the sentinel he had set to patrol the perimeter of the camp.  Counting on the acclamation that had swept him into control to keep him there, he had ordered the gathered men to their beds; telling them they must rest and offer up sacrifices and prayers.  When the new day dawned they would depart for Boonesborough and once there, the purge would begin.

            Runs Deep’s copper hands went to his face.  He covered it with them briefly, and then lifted both in supplication toward the sky.  If the Creator was listening and his prayers were answered, he would be the only one to die.

            A sound behind him made him pivot toward the stair that rose from the forest floor to the top of the natural rock platform.  He recognized his lieutenant, Waiting Moon, as the man stepped into the waning light.  Waiting Moon was one of the few who knew the truth.  One of the few he knew he could trust.  They had run together as wolves and shed their skins at the same time.

            “What is it, my brother?” Runs Deep asked.

            “It is your brother.  Adam Fox wishes to speak to you.”

            He dismissed the request with a curt gesture.  “There is no time.”

            “He insists.  He says your sister is in danger.”

            “What is this?  My sister?”

            “The one with a white husband.  Sunalei,” Waiting Moon replied.  “Your brother says Hawk holds her somewhere close to here, and that if the Wyandot does not send word soon that all is well, she will be killed.”

            “Does he know where she is?”

            “No.  He intended to seek her.”  His lieutenant drew closer.  His jaw was bruised and blood filled one eye.  “I did not let him.”

            Runs Deep shook his head.  “No one can be in the forest tonight.  You know that.”

            The other man nodded.  “He has been restrained.”

            “Guard him well.  Adohi will not die.  The world that is born this night will need men like him.”  Runs Deep placed a hand on Waiting Moon’s shoulder.  “These are your orders.  Take two men you can trust and escort Adohi to the place where the Indian agent is held.  Bind them there together, and then seek my sister.”  He paused, and then added with menace.  “Before you go, make Hawk tell you where she is.”

            Waiting Moon’s dark lips twisted with satisfaction.  “Is that all?”

            Runs Deep glanced at the darkening sky.  “Make certain you return by dawn.  I would have you at my side when the army arrives.”

            His lieutenant briefly touched his hand and then backed away.  “I would be no where else.”

            Runs Deep watched the other man depart, certain he had done all he could.  Waiting Moon would give his life to make certain Adohi and Sunalei lived.  When this was over, he hoped his siblings would understand the choice he had made.  Most likely they would not.  Most likely, they would think him mad.

            As a little boy Cervantes’ Don Quixote had taken his imagination.  He loved pretending to be a knight and doing noble deeds.  Now, as an older man, he knew it was not so easy to tell a giant from a windmill as Sancho Panza thought.  Very few things were clear cut.  For over twenty years he had done what he thought best and he had been wrong.

            Now, it was time to put things right.

            True valor after all, as Cervantes said, lay somewhere between cowardice and rashness. 

~

            Mingo signaled to Danny to draw closer.  It was twilight and the meager light and shadows kept them safely hidden as they watched Hawk being marched by in restraints.  Following at a discreet distance, they watched as the renegade was imprisoned in a small hastily constructed lodge set back against the tree-line.  A moment later Danny caught his arm and whispered something, causing Mingo to turn and look the other way.  Adam Fox had appeared.  The lawyer’s clothes and hair were disheveled and he was covered with debris.  Even so, Adam looked better than his captor who sported a blackening jaw.  Adam walked by them as well and, along with the men who guarded him, disappeared into the trees.  

            “What do you think?” Danny whispered.  “Can we take them and free Adam?”.

            “Not now.  We will have to follow them and see where they go.”  Mingo sighed.  “You and I alone cannot take four strong, well-armed warriors of their age.”

            “What if you ain’t alone?” a familiar voice asked from close behind them.  “I think six to four is pretty good odds, even if three of the six are old men.”

            Both Danny and Mingo jumped.  Then the older man laughed.  “I must be getting old.”

             “I guess so,” Daniel Boone agreed with his usual lop-sided grin.  “I’d a had you skinned before you even knew the knife was out.”

            “You shoulda seen your face Mingo,” a light voice added with a laugh.

            “Israel!”  Mingo reached out to touch the young man’s arm, as if he feared the vision was not real.  “It is good to see you.”

            Israel’s hand covered his.  “You, too, Mingo.”

            Behind father and son were a third and fourth figure.  The third was an older man who bore a striking resemblance to his old lamented friend Cincinnatus.  Daniel introduced them man as the tavern-keeper’s nephew, Curius Dentatus Cincinnatus Jones.  Mingo greeted him, but then the fourth figure shifted into the light, drawing his attention.  At first Mingo thought it was a slender Cherokee male dressed for the warpath.  He quickly realized his mistake – not about the war, but about the warrior’s sex – when they spoke..

             “We have no time for this,” the war woman spat.  “They are getting away.”

            “Didn’t your Pa ever tell you that patience is a virtue?” Dan asked as he glanced at his son.

            She was big and tall for a woman, and in spite of her blackened hair and war paint, Mingo noted a tell-tale trace of blond – as well as multiple freckles running across the bridge of her nose.  “Her ‘Pa’?”   Amazed, he looked at Israel.  “She is not….”

            “This is Israel’s oldest,” Dan answered.  “Mingo, meet Bekah, my granddaughter.”

            “A war woman,” he said.

            “Is there something wrong with that?” the woman snarled, gripping her bow.  “Do you not think a woman can wage war?”

            “Bekah…” her father warned.

            “On the contrary, my dear,” Mingo replied, “having been married to one for nearly forty years, I have the greatest respect for the capabilities of the fairer sex in that quarter.”  He waited as she digested his words, and then flashed a smile.

            Bekah didn’t get the joke.

            Turning to her father, she said brusquely, “I will find where they take my uncle.”  With a nod toward Curious Dent who had been tapping his toe this whole time and pretending not to listen – but who was actually greatly enjoying the family squabble – the war woman took her leave.

“If I was thirty years younger,” Dent mused with a sigh.

            “Whew!” Danny said with a laugh.

            “She’s a hellion, that one,” her grandfather agreed. 

            “Oh, I don’t know,” Mingo said softly.  “She puts me in mind of a certain redhead of my acquaintance.”

            Daniel Boone looked pained for a moment.  Then he grinned.  “That one was a hellion too, Mingo, ‘til I tamed her.”  Dan drew a deep, steadying breath and then changed the subject.  “Well, now what?  Do we follow?”

            Mingo looked at him.  “You mean you do not have a plan?  I thought Daniel Boone always had a plan.”

            The big man shrugged.  “I told the girl I did, but truth be told, I’ve been sort of making it up as I go along.”

            Mingo placed his hand on his old friend’s shoulder.  “It is good to know that some things never change,” he grinned.  “Now come on, Israel and Curius Dentatus Cincinnatus Jones.  Let us go and rescue Adam.”           

~      

            Hawk was on his knees.  With his hands raised he prayed to the Great Spirit of his people, to the god of the forest, asking to be told where he had gone wrong.  He had done everything he could to show his men that they must hate the white man, and to make the white man hate them so the natives would wake and drive the pale serpent from their shores.  He had brought them all together: Wendat, Shawano, Lenape.  Even Tsalagi.  No longer did tribe matter.  No longer would they fight among themselves.  They would join together because – if they did not – soon, they would all be dead.

Dead as Little Bear.

            Was it so wrong to want his son avenged?

When he rose from death to return to the world of the living, Hawk had wandered many moons not knowing who he was.  It was then he heard the voice of the god of the forest calling him out.  At first he had not known what his Creator wanted him to do.  But the night he had heard of Little Bear’s murder, he had known.  He must stop the white man.  He must make him pay. 

He would make them all pay.

Rising wearily to his feet Hawk stood still and listened to the world outside.  He heard the cries of night birds, the singing of brown toads, and close by the cry of the wolf.  Once, he heard it. Twice.  And again.

Hawk’s thin lips curled in a sneer. 

They were coming.

As he grinned in triumph, the renegade Wyandot wondered – did the unweaned Cherokee pup who had usurped him think him so easily conquered?  He had not lived near fourscore years by the white man’s counting only to be undone by one less than half his age.  Hawk had foreseen someone might betray him.  When a man surrounds himself with wolves, there is always the chance – if the prize is great enough – that they will turn and bite.   All are hungry.  All desire the first kill.

A strangled sound and the noise of a body hitting the ground signaled they had arrived.  Seconds later Gray Wolf stepped into the lodge, dragging the lifeless body of a Cherokee dog behind him.  The dog’s master, Watowah, followed close behind.  Hawk knew he should not have trusted the Cherokee, but their hatred of Boone and Mingo was one.  Perhaps Watowah did not know of the young one’s intentions – but then, again, if he did not, then that made it worse.

Watowah stepped forward, showing Hawk that his hands were bathed in his kinsman’s blood.

“Who is this man you brought here?” the Wyandot demanded.

“One I believed was on our side,” Watowah answered.

“Then you were a fool!” Hawk spat.

“Runs Deep hates the white man,” the Cherokee assured him.  “He is young.  Perhaps he can lead us to victory.”

“Where I can not?”

“I did not say that.”

Hawk dismissed him. “You did not have to.  I do not trust this man.  I do not think he has the People’s good in his heart.  Still, we will go.  We will listen.  His words will prove what he believes, and what he is.”

Watowah seemed relieved to still be standing.  He nodded his head.  “And if Runs Deep is not what he claims?  What then?”

The renegade sneered.  “We will show the People….

“And he will die.” 

~

 Leaving the fate of his brother and sister to his lieutenant, Runs Deep moved through the shadows, heading for a prearranged rendezvous known only to himself and one or two of his men.  It was a dangerous course he pursued, but in the end he had come to see that there was no other way.  The natives’ heart cried out for his people and his land, driving him to fight.  But beyond that there was a beauty to battle; a symmetry of sinew and soul found nowhere else.  A native man’s heart withered and died when his hand was forced to the plow; when he was forced to walk the way of a woman.  For doing this to them – even more than for their greed – the Indian hated the white man. 

These men who followed Hawk and who now followed him, would rather die.

Runs Deep understood their anger.  Once, he had been one with them.  But now he understood that it was not only they who would die, but their families – their wives and children.  The Tsalagi, the Lenape, the Seneca and the Wendat – all that was good – would disappear as surely as smoke on the breeze.

In order to prevent that, he had chosen to betray them all.

Runs Deep halted.  Covered by the shadows of the leave he awaited the signal.  It had been decided upon: one whistle, two cries of the cougar; a bird’s call.  These would bring about the end of Hawk’s war as surely as it would bring about his own.  It was unlikely his departure from the camp would go unnoticed.  Hawk would be watching, noting every move.  That was all right.  If what he did this night was discovered, it would still be too late.

Just so his brother and sister were safe, and the Indian Agent.  Beyond that he did not care.

Though he heard nothing, Runs Deep sensed movement within the trees that flanked him.  Stepping into a beam of moonlight that struck the forest floor, he revealed himself. 

“I am here,” he said, and then he waited.

Like a rush of blue water they came from out of the leaves, several dozen strong;  United States soldiers in their worn uniforms with golden braid on their sleeves, each one bearing a rifle. 

White soldiers.

One man, with braid on his shoulders as well, older and with a neatly trimmed beard going gray, stepped forward smartly.  “Woe-dee Gee-ash-goal-ee,” he said.

Runs Deep hid his smile.  It was his father’s Cherokee name, much mangled by a tongue not born to speak it.  He had chosen it as his password.

“A copperhead strikes only when it is attacked,” he answered.

“Tobias Fox, I presume?” the officer said, moving toward him.   

 “Yes.”

“Major Thomas Gray, United States Army.”

Runs Deeps’ keen eyes surveyed the heavily armed men that backed the officer.  He counted twenty.   “I assume there are more to come,” he said.

“More than enough to take down that false Wyandot messiah,” Major Gray sniffed, his tone both sharp and dismissive.  “And the men who follow him.”

“I have the general’s promise,” Runs Deep countered, “that there is to be as little bloodshed as possible.”  He had met with General Alfred Carrington, a veteran of the Indian Wars who had emerged from them with more than a grudging respect for his enemy.  Carrington had hoped that a major show of force would prove, once and for all, to the Indians that they could not win in a war.  The general wanted peace, not carnage.

Runs Deep was not so certain about Major Gray.

The major nodded.  “I have my orders.  You can be sure I will follow them to the letter.”  Gray pursed his lips as he removed his gloves and tucked them behind his sword belt.  “It seems to me that your actions imply you are with us.  Is that correct….”

Gray didn’t add the name, Judas, but he heard it in his tone nonetheless.

Though he knew he did not need to justify his actions to this man, Runs Deep did so anyway.  “There is no other way.  A few may die tonight, but that is preferable to hundreds tomorrow.” 

Into the silence that followed his statement, a youthful voice came.  “Sir, the men are in place.  What are your orders?”

As Major Gray pivoted to answer the young soldier, Runs Deep turned to look back the way he had come.  Hawk’s men would be sleeping.  Even if someone had followed him, there would be no time to rouse them to action.  The army of the United States was about to move and the white soldiers would swallow his red brothers in a rush of unstoppable blue.

But before they did, he had to return.

Runs Deep remained a few minutes more, speaking with the white major.  Then he turned and plunged into the trees. As he retraced his steps he sensed eyes upon him, but knew from the sound of padded feet that the one who watched him was not human.  Long ago his father had told him of a silver fox that walked with him, bearing the spirit of his maternal grandfather, Walker.  Could it be the animal had come to assure him that the path he had chosen was the right one? 

Runs Deep stopped and turned back.  A moment later the leaves at the side of the footpath rustled and then parted to reveal a great animal with a shining silver coat.  The creature looked at him.  Its  wisdom eyes were unblinking.  Then, suddenly, it barked and darted into the underbrush.

A second later there was another sound.  A spoken Wendat word.

A curse.

And then everything went black.