Journey Home Chapter Twenty-two

            Blood ran from his nose.  It hesitated on his bottom lip before running down his chin to soak the white collar of his shirt.  Runs Deep drew a breath in agony, astonished that he was still alive.  Hawk’s renegade dogs had been beaten him savagely, but been called off before they could finish him.  At first that fact puzzled him.  Then, when the Wyandot knelt before him and grasped his hair, lifting his head so he was forced to meet his captor’s gloating eyes, he understood.  Hawk’s pleasure was to be found in the slow torture of breaking him – one bone at a time.  

            “Why?” Hawk demanded.  “Why did you do this?”

            Runs Deep spit out blood.  “For…the people,” he gasped as he fought for air.  Several of his ribs were broken. Several of his fingers as well.  “I did it…for the People.”

            “You would save our people by betraying them to the white man?”

            “I would…save them, by showing them…the truth…about madmen like you.  Madmen…who would use them…to further their own schemes.”

            Hawk struck him hard with the back of his hand, nearly knocking him unconscious.  “Do you know what my men will do to you when I turn you over to them?” he shouted.

            Runs Deep knew that, even now, runners were going out to the tents and lean-tos of the gathered natives, rousing them to impending danger and telling them they had been betrayed by one of their own.  But it was too late.  There was nothing they could do to stop it.  Hawk just didn’t know that yet.  The Wyandot’s man who had captured him – the one who had been lurking in the shadows as he spoke with Major Gray – had seen no more than two dozen American soldiers.  Hawk’s arrogance could not conceive that there were hundreds more on the way.  Runs Deep drew a shattering breath.  He had made the decision.  He would use whatever life remained in him to buy the army the time it needed to arrive.

            “I’ve seen…mad dogs…in a pack,” Runs Deep replied, deliberately bating the old renegade.  “I know what they will do to me.”

            At that moment Hawk’s man, Gray Wing, appeared at the edge of his blurred vision.  “They are ready,” the twisted creature pronounced.

            “It is well,” Hawk said as he rose to his feet.  “Bring him.  We will let Runs Deep’s beloved people pronounce his doom.”           

~

            Adam had argued his case and won.  Now, as dozens upon dozens of determined warriors with painted faces filled the natural basin before the raised dais, he wondered if his cause had been just. 

            He could hear them.  Each and every one calling out for his brother’s blood.

            Adam turned to John Johnston.  The Indian agent was the only one who had accompanied him.  The others – Curious Dent, Daniel, Israel and his daughter, Mingo and his son – were close by, waiting for a signal.  He had argued against all of them coming with him and proved his point, if he did say so himself, by a brilliant argument based upon the facts.  In the end, he had said, there were simply too many of them, and too many white men in the group.  Since it was imperative that John Johnston come with him, they had done their best to disguise the fact that the agent was white.  John had the collar of his coat turned up to his chin.  Together with a wide-brimmed hat bent low, he had nearly succeeded in hiding his race.  Adam glanced at him now.  The agent was either very brave or very, very foolish.  It was likely neither of them would emerge from this alive.

            “What is it?” John asked, concerned by his look.

            “I would not be the cause of your family’s ruin,” Adam admitted.  “Not to save one of my own.”
            “I would be here whether or not I thought I could help your brother,” John answered.  “These are my people as well – my friends.  I will not have them shed their blood for that renegade’s selfish cause.  I have spent nearly a decade working with the Wyandot, as with all the others.  They are men.  They love their families and their homes just as I do.  They respect their God; a God who does not want to see them slaughter, or be slaughtered.”

            Adam nodded his understanding.  He glanced ahead, noting with dismay the continuous stream of deeply tanned humanity entering the field.  Then he looked back, toward the point where they had left their friends.

            John Johnston read his thoughts.  He acknowledged them with an affectionate grin.  “The others will not stay put for long.  We should get moving.”

            Adam took hold of a branch thick with green leaves and pulled it back, concealing their hiding place.  “And just how do you propose we go about that?”

            “Remove your coat,” John said.

            “Why?”

            “Without it you will not look no different from the average native here.”  John bent to the earth and came back with a handful of dirt.  Spitting in it, he turned it to mud.  With his fingers, the agent then painted Adam’s cheeks, marking them with dark stripes.  “Too bad I don’t have any feathers for you,” he said with a wry grin as he finished.

            “And what of you?”

            John made more mud and darkened his face.  His blond hair disappeared beneath the hat.  Shoving his hands into his pockets, he asked, “With so many on the move, who will notice two more?”

            Adam felt compelled to try to dissuade him one more time.  “I have to do this, John.  My brother is in there.  But you….  You realize that you may be caught between the United States Army and what they will consider an enemy force.  You look enough like one of us that, when it comes to battle, the soldiers may not bother to make a difference.”

            “If it comes to battle, it will make no difference,” John countered as he pushed in front of him.  “Kentucky’s soil will run red with both Indian and the white man’s blood.  But it will not come to that.  I will not allow it.  Now, come on.”

            Adam drew a deep breath and followed the Indian agent as he stepped out into the ranks of natives filing past their hiding place.  No one paid them any mind.  All eyes were focused forward.  As they approached the natural dais, Adam looked up, searching for his brother.  When he found him, his heart sank.  Tobias was at Hawk’s side, but on his knees.  He had been stripped of his deep blue coat.  The white linen shirt he wore beneath it was crimson with his blood.  The renegade Wyandot was speaking to the crowd, no doubt explaining how Tobias had betrayed them.  The warriors were chanting.  They called for Toby’s blood.  If Hawk shoved the wounded man and he fell forward into the crowd –

            Toby would be torn limb from limb.

            For a moment Adam was at a loss.  He didn’t know what to do.  Then he realized he didn’t have to make a choice.  It had been made for him. 

John Johnston was no longer at his side.  

~

            Mingo stared in the direction the Indian agent and Copperhead’s eldest had taken.  It pained him to think what danger his old friend’s sons were in.  His own son, Danny, had gone with Curious Dent to scout the area and find them something to eat.  Sunalei had decided to join them.  As Mingo waited for their return he had time to think – and to regret the choice he had made.  He had agreed to give Adam and John Johnston two hours’ head start.  Now, that seemed extravagant.  The situation the pair were walking into was precarious at best.  Waiting Moon had explained how Runs Deep had been taken shortly after meeting with the US army; how he had been soundly beaten there in front of him and then paraded before Hawk’s assembled men.  If Adam acted on impulse to save his brother, both of Copperhead’s sons could easily end up dead.  Mingo shook his head.  The extravagance of youth.  Tobias Fox could have come to them.  He could have asked for their help, but he had chosen, rashly, to act on his own.  

Mingo sighed.  As someone had once said, bravery and stupidity were indeed separated by only a few degrees..

            He lifted his head and glanced up at the sky.  It had been nearly an hour since Daniel and Israel had gone in search of the army.  It seemed too long since the soldiers must be close.  Though, if they were, their commander was a miracle-maker.  There had been no sight, no sound; no suggestion of what Waiting Moon had told them would be a body of hundreds of armed men.  It seemed Major Gray had experience from the Indian wars, where he had been known as the Gray Shadow.  The soldier was credited with winning many battles under what were, to put it mildly, adverse circumstances. 

Daniel Boone had listened quietly as Waiting Moon told them all of this.  Then the frontiersman had said he wanted to talk to the major before the action went down.  Daniel’s experience with military men had taught him never to take anything for granted.  He said he intended to remind the major that his orders were to subdue the natives, not to kill – unless there was no other way.

            Daniel had left about the same time as the others.  That left him and Bekah Boone alone.

Mingo turned to look at her.  She was perched on the edge of a boulder; her face turned toward the trees.  Since her father and grandfather had departed, Israel’s daughter had fallen silent.  Bekah had chosen to remain behind so she could be a part of whatever took place here, in the forest.   She had offered to hunt, but he had sent Danny and Dent instead as he hoped to have a chance to talk to her.  Daniel had told him of his granddaughter’s anger, and that he  knew nothing of its cause.  Mingo though he might.  He sensed in Israel’s oldest, a kindred spirit. 

Driven by some inner demon, Bekah Boone was harder on herself than anyone else could be.

            Mingo walked to her side and said, “I would like a word with you.”

            She glanced at him and then looked away.  “I owe you nothing.”

            “Just as you owe your grandfather nothing?”

            “It is he who left.  You, who deserted your people.  Do not question me.”

            Mingo drew a breath and let it out in a sigh.  “I see you are not only sullen, but ill-mannered.”

            Bekah shot to her feet.  “I do not have to listen to this!”

            He caught her arm before she could leave.  Her hazel eyes widened at the surprising strength of his grip.  “Yes, you do.  Your anger harms not only you, but others.  It makes you a danger to us all.”

            “Then I will go away,” she snapped.

            “That’s what you would like, isn’t it?  To go where you do not have to confront whatever it is that eats like a cancer at you night and day.  What is it, Bekah?  Does this have to do with your brother’s death?”

            “You will not speak of him!”

            “Someone has to, since you will not.  You dishonor him with your silence.”  Mingo knew his words were harsh.  He did nothing to soften them.  “You know that, don’t you?  Pretending to be Squire will not restore him to the place of honor he deserves.  And it will not please him.”  He released her arm.  “Your brother wants you to be who you were intended to be.”

            For a moment she said nothing.  Then, with less of an edge, she asked, “How do you know of Squire?”

            “Your father told me.  He is worried about you.”

            “Why would he tell you?” she replied.

            It was a reasonable question.  Mingo’s smile was gentle.  “Before I had my own children – or dreamed of such a thing – Israel was a son to me.  He could tell me things he could never tell his father.  I wish his child would do the same.”

            “You would hate me,” Bekah answered, dropping her head.

            “Would I?  Do you think I have never done anything I regret?”  Mingo reached out and lifted her chin with his fingers.  “Is that what the War Woman fears?  Not dying, but living?”

            “There is no time for this,” she said, breaking away.

            “We have nothing but time.  There is another hour promised to Adam.  Your father and Daniel have yet to return.  Bekah, you have to tell someone, or whatever it is you regret will eat away at you until there is nothing left but bitterness and self-hatred.”

            She stared at him for a veer long time, and then she returned to the boulder.  Sitting on its flat top, Bekah looked toward the trees and not at him.  Then, she began to speak.

“Squire did not want to leave the others that day, but I convinced him to leave them behind by the river.  I wanted to go to the town.  Like me, Squire was light-skinned, and with his hair in a cap and white men’s clothes, he could pass for white.”

            “So you went to Boonesborough?” Mingo asked.

            She nodded.  Then she dropped her chin to her chest.  “There was this boy.  I loved him.  I…thought I loved him.  I had been seeing him for some time without my parents’ knowledge.  We would meet in the woods.  I promised him I would come to the town and I took Squire.  I wanted my brother to meet him.  I wanted him to approve.”

             Mingo thought he understood.  “He did not know that you were of mixed heritage, this boy?”

            Bekah shook her head.  “I lied.”

            “How did you meet him?”

            “Picking berries, by the stream.”  She turned and looked at him.  “Wearing a simple skirt and blouse.  He had no idea.”

            Bekah’s hair was dyed a purplish-black, but at its roots it was as white as her father’s had ever been.  Even tanned, Bekah’s skin was pale.  She was tall, with a lovely shape.  All in all, a striking woman.  One any man might easily fall for.

            “What happened?” he asked.

            “I took Squire to meet Evan – that was the boy’s name –  just outside of the town.  But Evan didn’t come alone that day.  He was with friends and they had been drinking.  One of the other boys recognized Squire.  He had seen him come into town with our mother.” 

Bekah shuddered and dropped her head into her hands, unable to go on.

            Mingo walked to her side.  He reached out and placed a hand on her shoulder.  Israel’s daughter was shaking.  He said nothing, but waited for her to find the inner strength to continue.

            “The boys, they made fun of Evan, calling him names like ‘Injun lover’ and accused him of betraying his own.  He denied he cared for me.  He told them I was a filthy redskin squaw and he could care less if I lived or died.  One of them said, ‘Prove it!”  Then he pulled his gun and shoved it toward Evan.”  Bekah hesitated.  “It should have been me,” she whispered.  “It should have been me….”

            “Your brother saved your life?”

            “We ran.  Fast and hard.  We made it across the stream and were close, oh so close. As we paused on the bank to draw a breath, there was a sound.  I turned and saw Evan with the rifle.”  She wrapped her arms about her chest.  Tears streamed down her cheeks, carrying the war paint onto the borrowed shirt she wore.  “Squire shoved me out of the way.  The ball took him in the chest.  He fell into the water and did not move.”

            “What did Evan do?”

            “He laughed.”  Bekah shook her head.  “I am a fool.”

            “We are all fools for love at some time or other.  It blinds many to the truth.”

            “I will never love again!  I have sworn it!” she cried out.

            Mingo waited a moment and then asked, “Is that what your brother would have wanted?  Would Squire have wanted you to forsake your life to live his instead?”

            She turned her tear-streaked face toward him.  “What else could I do?  It was my foolishness that cost his life!”

            “What could you do?”  Mingo’s words were gentle.  “Live.  Learn.  Love again.  Tell your children of your brother and his sacrifice.  Make his life – his death – count for something.”  He reached out and touched her cheek.  “Now, why don’t you go wash your face.  It is almost time to go.”

            Bekah sniffed like a little girl and wiped the tears away with the back of her hand.  She rose and took a step toward the stream that tumbled nearby, and then turned back to look at him.  “Thank you,” she said.

            Mingo nodded, and then watched until she disappeared into the leaves.

            A few moments later Danny, Curious Dent and Bekah’s mother arrived from the opposite direction.  He noted none of them carried any food and all seemed agitated. 

            “What is it?” Mingo asked as he went to meet them.

            “The army, Father, it approaches,” Danny answered.  “There are hundreds of men, at least as many as Hawk has.  They can be no more than a quarter hour behind us.”

            Curious Dent nodded.  “It’s gonna be one whopper of a party!” he declared, gripping his ancient blunderbuss.

            “Did you try to speak with them?” Mingo asked.

            Danny shook his head.  He glanced at Sunalei.  “I was afraid we would be taken captive.  Their commander has no reason to trust us.”

            “We must let Adam and John know,” he answered.

            “What if they don’t have Adam’s brother yet?” Danny asked.

            Mingo shook his head.  “I am afraid they may have to leave him – ”  The look on his son’s face stopped him.  “Danny, what is it?”

            Danny raised a hand and pointed as Israel’s wife’s eyes filled with tears.

            “Well now, if that don’t beat all,” Curious Dent exclaimed.

            Mingo spun to see the figure of a woman breaking through the trees.  Her pale hair scintillated like silver in the moonlight.  Bekah Boone had washed away not only the paint on her face, but whatever she had used to blacken her hair.  She had removed her dead brother’s trousers and coat, and was dressed only in the long flowing linen shirt she had worn beneath.  Her feet and legs were bare.  The only weapon she carried was her longbow.  Gone was the tomahawk and knife, along with everything else that had marked her journey through the world as a man. 

            Bekah drew to a halt beside them and tossed her soaking wet mane back from her shoulders.  She turned and deliberately met her mother’s eyes.  “I am through hiding,” she announced.  “This is who I am.  This is who Squire would want me to be.”

            Sunalei nodded.  The tears had stopped, but her dark eyes shown with pride and joy. 

            Mingo beamed.  “Yes. Yes, it is.” 

Bekah returned the smile.  Then, she said, “I take it, it is time to go.”

            “The army approaches,” he answered.  “We must warn Adam and John Johnston.”

            Israel’s daughter seemed to ponder that for several heartbeats; a worried expression creasing her now clean forehead.  Then, she grinned wickedly.  “They cannot run so fast or fleet as me!”  With that, she kissed her mother’s fingers and then dropped her hand, and began to run.

            Before any of them could react, she was gone.

            “That’s one hell of a woman,” Curious Dent commented.

            Mingo nodded.  “Yes, she is indeed.” 

~

            John Johnston heard Adam calling him back, but he ignored the barrister’s frantic plea.  As he walked at a determined but unhurried pace through the crowd, John tossed off his hat and lowered his collar.  He took a handkerchief from the pocket of his waistcoat and wiped, as best he could, the mud from his cheeks, clearly revealing his white skin.  Each man he passed he looked in the eye, meeting their hatred and anger with a steely calm.  And always, he kept his eyes on the raised platform where Hawk stood calling his men to arms; demanding the white man’s blood.

            Many of the faces he knew.  Some of them by name.  They turned away from him – the Wyandot, the Seneca, Shawano and Lenape men.  They had been found out, and like naughty children suddenly exposed, were ashamed.    

            As well they should be.

            Resolved, John continued forward, parting the sea of Indian humanity as he did.  He knew it was only a matter of moments before the renegade on the stage realized what was happening; before Hawk turned his attention to, and his invective on him.  The questions Adam Fox had asked him continued to echo in his head.  Though the barrister had been playing a part at that moment, the words Adam had spoken were true.  By his choice of vocation and, against his own conscience, he had been made an agent of the destruction of the Indian.  Still, like Adam, he thought it best to fight from within.  There could be no going back for the Indian.  Their only hope lay in assimilating, in fitting in while keeping what they could of their own culture and beliefs.  No matter how much they wanted it, no matter how hard they fought, in the end there was nothing they could do.

            Nothing but survive.

            As John reached the edge of the stair that led to the platform and placed his foot on the first step, the crowd grew hushed.  Hawk’s voice, strident and potent in its hate, rang out through the silent night.

            “I tell you, my brothers, that Sken-ri-a-taun, the god of the forest blesses us!  Though this man has sought to betray us to our enemy, it is we who have won!”  As he spoke Hawk caught Runs Deep’s shirt in his fingers and drew him to his knees.  Adam’s brother made a feeble attempt to refuse, but it was evident his strength had all but deserted him.  “We, who are in the right!”

            “No!” John declared boldly.  “You are wrong!”

             For a moment Hawk was nonplussed but, as his gaze settled on him and the renegade understood who had issued the challenge, he quickly recovered.  “White man, have you returned for your trial?” Hawk asked with a sneer.  “I am sorry, but your counsel seems to have run away.”

            “I stand in my own defense,” John answered, mounting the first few steps.

            “Seize him!” Hawk cried as he released his hold on Runs Deep and Adam’s brother fell to the stone floor and lay there unmoving.  “Seize the white man!”

            “Why?”  John turned to face the crowd of familiar and unfamiliar faces.  “Are you afraid to let your men hear what I have to say?”

            Hawk looked down at Runs Deep.  Cruelly, he kicked the fallen man in the side.  “They have been lied to before.  By this man!  No more!” he shouted.  “No more!”

            “They are being lied to now!” John cried out.  Then he deliberately turned his back on Hawk, showing he was not afraid.  “Will you hear me, my brothers?  Those of you who know me, know I am an honest man.  Can you say the same of this renegade?”
            “Let him speak!” someone shouted.  “Let the white man speak!”

            Moments later a chorus of voices agreed.

            John remained still, waiting for the natives to quiet.  He glanced at Hawk, trying to get a sense of what the man was thinking.  The renegade Wyandot had to believe his men would not listen.

            He had to believe Hawk was wrong.

            “My brothers, I come here to speak the truth to you because you are men and you will know it when you hear it.  I do not bring lies as presents, to fool you and make you believe.  I do not treat you as women who can be wooed with honeyed words as others do.”  He looked at Hawk again.  The renegade fumed, but had not moved.  “The Indian’s day is over.  You cannot win.”

            Murmurs of disapproval rumbled through the crowd like thunder after a lightning strike. 

            “For these words, you want to kill me,” John continued.  “Why then would I speak them in anything other than truth?  The white man will not let you remain where you are, as you are.  And if you fight him to stay, then he will destroy you.  There will be no more Wyandot or Shawano, no Lenape or Seneca.  Like ash blown on a wind, you will disappear and no one will remember your name.”

            “Then what are we to do, white man?” some one cried out.  “Go to the west to wither and die as old women do?  It is better to die on the field, with your enemy’s blood on your hands!”

            “For you, maybe.  If it is better to leave your wife and children to the mercy of your foes.  For you will die.  You cannot win against the force that has been raised against you.”  John paused and licked his lips.  A moment before he had spotted Adam Fox moving toward the rear of the crowd, making his way to the platform, intending – somehow – to save his brother’s life.  “That is why Runs Deep did what he did,” he said, his voice cracking with fatigue.  “Like me, he wishes the People to survive, though it means his own death.”

            “He betrayed us!  The soldiers come to kill us!” they shouted.

            “No!  Runs Deep tries to save you from this madman!”  John pointed at the renegade Wyandot.  “Hawk would see you all dead just to assuage his own pain!”

            “Do not listen to him!” Hawk cried, moving forward and lifting his hands.  “You are my people!  You are warriors!  We will win!”

            “You will die!” John countered sharply.  “Even now the soldiers advance.  Any man who raises a weapon against them will die.”

            “Then we die!” the renegade declared. 

            Hawk’s cry was echoed in the crowd, but only sparingly.  Most of the men remained silent.  Into that silence, came a new voice.

            Daniel Boone’s.

            “John Johnston speaks the truth,” the frontiersman declared as he appeared at the edge of the crowd and began to make his way through.  Daniel was flanked by his son, Israel, Curious Dent, and Mingo and his son.  There was a young woman with them as well, one who seemed strangely out of place with her pale hair blazing under the light of the stars.  “I don’t know many of you,” the older man went on, “but I knew your fathers and grandfathers, and they knew me.  Their spirits cry out for you to listen to this man.  They do not want to be forgotten.  A man in a grave cannot remember.  And if no one remains, he cannot be mourned.”  The tall frontiersman came to the bottom of the stair.  “If you do not surrender, that is what will happen.  Not one of you will remain.”

            As a youth John Johnston had witnessed both the preparation for, and the aftermath of several great battles.  When a young man, he had been a captain of militia in Pennsylvania.  As an adult, he had housed William Henry Harrison’s Army of the Northwest on his land.  So he should have been prepared for the dark blue tide that broke from the trees and moved in an unstoppable  wave toward the ranks of the Indian – but he was not.  It was both a glorious and terrifying sight.  Without warning, hundreds of soldiers with their rifles raised, appeared and surrounded the gathered Indians.  A profound silence overtook the field as both John and the world at large drew a breath and held it. 

One arrow, one ball, one misspoken word; one wrong move and it would be total war.