Journey Home Chapter Twenty-five

            Israel could still see her, his child, lying in the grass with the blood pouring from a gunshot wound to her shoulder.  It was that, more than what Simon Keller and his men were about to do to him, that filled him with fury.  If he hadn’t been bound, he would have taken the sandy-haired man apart.  Keller had been crafty.  He and Bekah had been taken and moved away from the field the army occupied – far enough away no one could hear them.  Then, in order to get him to comply, one of Keller’s men had held a gun to Bekah’s side.  Israel  had pleaded with them not to harm her, telling her to be quiet as he held his hands out and let the men bind them behind his back.  He had begged Keller just to tie her up and leave her.  He didn’t care what the men did with him, just so Bekah survived.

             At first it seemed Simon Keller wasn’t totally without compassion.  The sandy-haired man had done what he asked, binding Bekah’s hands and gagging her before placing her in the wagon they had brought with them.  But then, to Israel’s horror, he had watched as the man climbed up after her and began to handle her.  Tears of frustration had filled his eyes, and the blood rose up in them until he couldn’t see.  Then, suddenly, Keller had taken a flying leap out of the wagon and ended ignominiously sprawled on the ground.  In a second Bekah was on her feet, ready to continue the attack.

            That was when Keller shot her.  Then the villain had tossed Bekah on the ground and left her lying there like unwanted meat discarded after a kill.

            Keller’s men had lifted him up then and placed him in the bloodied wagon, and driven away.  Time passed without measure as they traveled.  Israel had no idea if it had been an hour or a day before they arrived at the place where they were now.  It was a pretty place, with a stream that passed over flat rocks in a series of short water falls.  Keller and his men had leapt from the wagon then, leaving him behind to watch as they began the preparations for turning one of the trees dangling over the water into a gallows.

            As the sun crested the trees, striking Israel’s bound form and warming him, Simon Keller returned to the wagon.  With deliberation the sandy-haired man climbed into the driver’s seat and turned backwards, and then sat there staring at him.  Israel wet his lips.  He had no gag.  Apparently they were too far away from the others for his cries to matter.

            “You ready to meet your maker, Injun lover?”

            “I have nothing to be ashamed of.  Can you say the same?” Israel shot back.

            Simon Keller ignored that.  “Before you die, I want to hear the truth.  I want to hear how you killed my boy.”

            “I didn’t kill him.”

            “You had the knife in your hand.  Your knife bathed in Peter’s blood!”
            He studied the older man.  Keller was shaking.  Sweat trickled down the other man’s neck.  “I don’t remember anything,” Israel answered.  “Sure, I went there to do something – maybe to kill him – but I didn’t.  It ain’t right to take the law in your own hands.”

            Keller shifted into the wagon bed.  Then he leaned in close so his face was only inches away.  “I seen you there.  Talking to my boy.  I was watching.”

            “You were there?”

            “I was.”  Keller struck fast, like a serpent.  He caught Israel’s hair and pulled up hard on his head, and then pressed the butt of a knife into the back of his neck.  “You remember this?  The feel of carved wood against your skull?  That was me, Boone.  I took you out.”

            Israel had been looking at Peter Keller when that happened.  He remembered now that the young man’s face had worn a look of surprise.  “You knocked me out?”

“I told that boy he wouldn’t be a man ‘til he’d been blooded,” Keller boasted.  It was

me told him to take the shot.  Peter took it all right, and hit the mark.  He done right.  I told him, he done right to kill that Injun.”
            Israel sensed there was something else Keller wasn’t about to – or couldn’t – say.   Something eating at the other man and driving him to this reckless, violent act.  Taking a guess, he countered, “But Peter didn’t think it was right….”

            “That boy was soft like his mother.  He didn’t have the spine.  That Injun, he deserved to die.  Dressing like a white man, taking on airs.”  Simon Keller licked his lips.  “I don’t know why the boy couldn’t see it….”

            Israel drew a breath.  He knew he hadn’t killed Peter Keller, and he doubted his father did.  So that left only…. 

“Peter turned the knife on himself.  Didn’t he?”

            Simon Keller had the look of a man who had been scalped but lacked the courage to die.  Simon clung to the illusion he had created, refusing to accept the truth – that his hatred had cost his son his life.

            “That knife was in your hand, Boone.  In that hand that’s fondled red flesh.  You killed my boy – you and all them Injun lovers like you – and now you’re gonna die!”  As he spoke Simon took him by his bound hands and hauled him to his feet.  The sandy-haired man whistled, and one of his men swung the rope that they had fastened securely to the tree over to him.  Israel remained completely still as the noose was slipped over his head and tightened about his throat, and the wagon underneath his feet shifted.  The horses were skittish, sensing the madness that infected these men.

            Keller jumped from the wagon.  Once he was on the ground, he called, “You got any last words, Boone?  Anything you want to say?”

            Israel closed his eyes.  It looked like this might be the end.  His father had always taught him, as he had taught his children, that death was just the beginning, that it was nothing to fear – that how you died was just as important as how you had lived.

            He looked Simon Keller directly in the eyes.

            “I forgive you,” Israel answered.

            There was a crack as Simon slapped the horse’s rump, and then the wagon began to move. 

~      

            It wasn’t fair.

            Robinson Johnston lay on a lumpy bit of military bedding, coming pretty close to pouting.  It wasn’t fair for pa to leave him behind.  Mrs. Moray needed him.  He should have gone with his pa. 

            If he had his way, he still would.

            The soldier his pa had left in charge of him was busy.  Hosea was talking to another military man who had stripes on his sleeves.  Robinson wished Stephen had been there.  His brother could have told him which one was more important.  If he’d known that, he would have known which one to ask.  The soldiers were raising an army to follow his pa and Robinson meant to go with them.  Still, truth be told, the soldiers were all old and most likely wouldn’t listen to him.  Old men didn’t think young ones like him knew anything, and if he told them he wanted to go after his pa, they would say he was too little and he had to stay behind.

            Robinson had watched earlier as his pa and Daniel Boone talked.  He’d been excited when he realized who the tall, white-haired man was.  He’d grown up with stories about Daniel Boone – about how brave the frontiersman was, and how fearless.  When his pa and Mr. Boone had finished talking, the frontiersman had mounted a horse and, along with another man who looked like an old squirrel with whiskers, set out to find Boone’s son who had been taken by some bad men.  For a long time after that, Robinson’s Pa had sat holding him.  Pa didn’t say anything.  Just sat.  Then his pa told him he had to go to save Mrs. Moray and that he had to stay behind.

            Robinson didn’t argue, but he sure as shooting didn’t mean to stay put!

            “No way,” he whispered.

            Hosea turned and looked at him.  The soldier patted him on the head.  “You all right?”

            Robinson nodded.

            “I gotta go take care of something.  You want to come along?”

            The boy shook his head and feigned a yawn. 

            “I bet you’re tired,” Hosea said with a laugh.  “I heard you rode the Kentucky all the way past Boonesborough.  When you grow up, you come and find me, you hear?  I’ll be a general by then and you can be my captain.  All right?”  The soldier helped Robinson to turn over and then pulled a blanket up to his chin.  “I’ll be right back.  You get some sleep, soldier.”

            Robinson really did feel tired.  Not quite pretending, he offered a weak salute.

            Hosea laughed again and then walked away with the other man.

            The boy blinked.  He closed his eyes and almost fell asleep, and then started and opened them wide.  Shaking himself, Robinson sat up and looked around.  No one was watching.  With stealth worthy of any Indian, he rose up from his bed and headed in the direction his father had gone.  Just as Robinson reached the edge of the camp, a soldier stepped out of the trees and barred his way.

            It was Hosea.

            The soldier’s face was stern.  “Obeying orders is the first mark of a good soldier, Private Johnston.”
            Robinson halted.  He drew a breath and then stuttered, “But…but Pa needs….”

            “Your pa needs to know you are safe.  What do you think would happen if he was in the middle of a fight and suddenly he saw you?  Or say, someone caught you and used you against your pa like Hawk tried to?”  Hosea knelt so they were eye to eye.  “Men also serve who only stand and wait.”

            Robinson sniffed back his tears.  “But I want to help.”

            Hosea nodded.  “I know.  You see this gun?”  He held up the rifle he carried.

            “Yes.”
            “You might think this is my most important weapon,” he said, patting the rifle.  “But is isn’t.”  The young man’s lips curled in a gentle smile as he laid the weapon aside.  “It was General Washington’s too.  You want to know what it is?”

            The boy shook his head.

            “I’m on my knees already,” Hosea said.  “Private Johnston, why don’t you join me in a soldier’s prayer?” 

~     

            Daniel Boone crouched in the underbrush and gave the signal to Curious Dent who had made his way to the opposite side of Simon Keller’s camp.  Just as they arrived, he and Dent had watched Keller climb into the wagon where Israel was held.  Dan’s fingers gripped his rifle tightly, the knuckles going white as his son’s hair.  He had one chance to save Israel.  One shot that had to be true.  Dan wished with all his heart that he had the eldest Ticklicker in his hands.  Even though the succeeding guns he had carried had borne her name, none had been so true as the lady of his youth. 

            He and the tavernkeeper had followed the tracks that started near the rocky platform where Hawk had appeared into the trees, past the place where the soldiers found Bekah, and beyond it to the bank of the stream. Simon Keller had slunk off like a snake into a dark hole to work his evil deed.  Dan’s eyes strayed for just a second to the tree above his son’s head.  It was a hanging tree, with a great wide branch leaning out perpendicular to the ground.  There was already a rope tied to it and a noose around his son’s neck.  He and Dent couldn’t storm in.  If they did, Simon Keller would just slap the horse hitched to the wagon and send the animal on its way leaving Israel dangling.

            The old frontiersman closed his eyes to dismiss the image, but then opened them quickly.  Dan’s rifle’s sight was set to follow the rope as it swayed in the wind like the trailing end of a spider’s web.  Dent was watching from the other side.  The tavernkeeper would signal when he thought it was best to shoot.

            Waiting for that signal was like watching a loved one struggle for breath.

            In Dan’s mind’s eye the prisoner in the wagon became the little white-haired boy with a freckled nose running after his ornery goose; the boy who had brought a wounded deer into the house.  The beloved child who would sit in the crook of his arm looking up at the stars, wondering how you used them to find your way home.  Too many years, Dan sighed.  He had let too many years go by. 

            But at least he was here now, when it counted.

Out of the corner of his eye, Dan saw Curious Dent raise a red cloth and wave it.  That wasn’t good.  White meant the time was right.  Red was the signal for danger.  Dan looked and found Keller had left the wagon.  The man’s hand was raised and ready to slap the horse’s flank.  Dan closed one eye and sighted along the barrel, keeping calm, staying steady.  He  watched the rope swing, waited – and then fired.  The head of every man in the camp turned toward the shot.  The ball whizzed over their heads and struck the rope dead-on just as Israel’s weight began to pull down on it and his son began to choke.

            It struck it, but the rope didn’t break.

            With no time to reload his weapon Dan roared out of the trees, wielding the current incarnation of Ticklicker as a club.  He heard Curius Dent’s blunderbuss bark and saw one of Keller’s men fall.  But there were four more and Israel was dying.

            Truly frightened for one of the few times in his adult life, Dan vaulted the yards separating him and his son, disregarding the way his old heart pounded almost fatally  in his chest.  Halfway there one of Keller’s men caught up with him.  There was a scuffle and while Dan quickly gained the upper hand, every second lost brought Israel closer to the grave.  Dan heard several shots fired as he fended the man off, and at least one scream.  By the time he broke free and turned to look, the old man was mortified to think of what he might find.

            What he found was Israel’s unconscious form seated on the shoulders of an Indian dressed in a military uniform as the rope was cut by another native.  Several more Indians, along with Curious Dent, were herding Simon Keller’s men into a group. 

Keller himself was lying on the grass bleeding.

            Dan rushed to his son’s side.  He arrived just as the Indian in the coat laid Israel on the ground and reached for the remnants of the rope that had burnt a red ring in his son’s flesh.

            “Is he..?” Dan asked, fearing the worse.

            The Indian looked at him.  “Whitehair lives,” he said solemnly.  “No thanks to Simon Keller.”

            Dan’s green eyes narrowed.  He thought he knew the native.  “White Wolf?”

            “Yes.”  The man in uniform answered as he finished removing the rope and then rose to his feet.  The remainder of the vile thing dangled from White Wolf’s fingers.  “Dying is too good for the likes of that yo-ne-ga.”  The Miami spit the Cherokee word for ‘white man’ out with disgust even as his hand moved toward what, even a decade before, would have been known as his scalping knife.

            “White Wolf, no….” a rough voice said.

            Dan pivoted at the sound.  There had never been another so welcome in his life.  He knelt as Israel stirred and tried to sit up.  Putting his arm around his boy’s shoulders, Dan told him, “Stay where you are, son.  Save your strength.”

            Israel swallowed hard even as he lifted his hand and his fingers traced the rope burn on his neck.  “I forgave…Keller, White Wolf.  You…gotta forgive him too.”

            The Indian’s look suggested there was little hope of that.

            “Keller lost his son, Pa,” Israel said, turning those great blue eyes on him.  His son swallowed again and his voice gained in strength and conviction.  “Peter Keller killed himself.  He couldn’t live with what he done.”  With Dan’s help Israek sat up and looked at the man where he lay dying.  “Neither could his pa, who made him do it.”

            “You rest, son,” Dan said as he climbed to his feet.  Slowly, thinking the whole time, Dan marked off the yards to where Simon Keller lay.  Like White Wolf, he wanted nothing more than to take the man and string him up by the noose he had made for his boy; to hang Keller until he was dead, dead, dead.  But that was wrong.  Dan could hear Rebecca’s sweet voice in his ear, telling him it was wrong.  ‘Judge not, and ye shall not be judged.  Condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned.  Forgive, and ye shall be forgiven.’ 

Dan paused about halfway to Simon Keller.  He turned his face to the sky.  “I hear you, Rebecca, but it’s hard – so hard.”

Curious Dent appeared at his side.  The tavernkeeper still gripped his weapon tightly.  “How’s your boy?” he asked.

            “Alive,” Dan answered.  “Thanks in part to you.”

Dent actually blushed.  “It weren’t nothing.”

“Curious, will you do somethin’ for me?  Will you help White Wolf get Israel into the wagon?” Dan asked.  “Knowin’ that boy of mine, he’ll insist on walkin’ back to camp.  And tell him Bekah’s fine.  He’ll want to know.”

            “Sure thing, Daniel,” Dent answered as he moved away.

            Dan continued on until he stood over the dying man.  He looked down at Keller, still fighting the war that had made him pause.  If there was a way to save the man who tried to kill his son, should he?  Wasn’t it justice just to let Simon die?  Remembering Rebecca’s words, Dan decided it wasn’t, and so he knelt to check the man’s wound.  It was evident all too quickly that he needn’t have troubled his conscience.  There was no way that Keller could survive.  The blast had taken out half of the man’s side.

            As he hesitated Simon Keller opened his eyes.  For a moment they remained unfocused, then he saw him.  “Boone….” he said.

            “Yep,” Dan answered.

            “Tell…tell your…boy…I was…wrong.”

            “Wrong how, Simon?”

            The dying man’s words rattled in his throat.  “Israel didn’t…kill Peter…I…did.  Took his knife…bloodied it….”

            Dan shook his head.  “You framed Israel.  Why, Simon?  Why?”
            “Hated Injuns.  Hate…them still.”

            “Was that hate worth your boy’s life?  And yours?” the old frontiersman asked quietly.

            Simon stared at him.  He would never do anything else.

            He was dead.

            Dan reached out and closed the man’s eyes, and then rose to his feet and returned to his own son.  Israel was in the back of the wagon, propped up and breathing, but looking mighty poorly.  Dan nodded to Curious Dent and White Wolf, and then climbed into the bed.  Sitting, he pulled Israel into the crook of his arm and together, as the wagon rolled back toward the army camp, they talked of old times. 

~   

            On the south side of the army camp Mingo paused to examine a confusion of tracks.  He had found them after Waiting Moon and the other young men had gone off to hunt for food.  Using his age as an excuse, Mingo had remained behind.  In truth, he was glad of a little peace.  He remained ruminating for a while, and then rose and began to walk.

            Which led him to the prints. 

The first set Mingo noted was that of a young boy.  Overlaying the child’s prints were those of perhaps a dozen natives.  These, of course, crossed dozens more left behind by those on their way to Hawk’s ill-conceived gathering.  In the midst of them Mingo found something he couldn’t quite believe: the imprint of a woman’s finely cobbled shoe.  There was a distinct point to the toe, and the shoe’s wooden heel had bit hard into the dirt.  The woman had been with the child.  The child had run and then, she had been alone.

            Mingo rose to his feet and stood, pondering the puzzle.  Even if there had been a woman among Hawk’s hundreds, or Tobias Fox’s dozen or so, she would not have worn such a shoe.  Most traveling to such a meeting would have worn moccasins or boots.  The woman had ridden a horse as well.  He had found traces of its passage. 

The animal had been as finely shod as its mistress.

Convinced that there was something important about this discovery, Mingo left his animal tethered to a nearby sycamore tree and began to move out in an ever-widening circle, searching for further evidence.  A feeling of dread overcame him as his mind strayed to the only ‘civilized’ women he knew of in the immediate area.  Had John Johnston’s wife set out to find her missing child?  Women, Mingo knew, could be fiercely independent and at times rather reckless when it came to protecting their own.  Take his own wife, Rachel…. 

The feeling of dread became a hollow pit in Mingo’s stomach.  Could Rachel have followed him?  No, she had more sense than that.  His wife was far too advanced in years to be running around the woods taking chances. 

But then again, so was he.

            Chiding himself for giving way to unfounded fears, Mingo pushed them aside and renewed his search, moving into the underbrush closer to the stream. What he found there filled the hollow pit with cold hard fear.  Lying on the bank, clearly abandoned with the intent of being seen, was an elegantly tooled leather saddlebag with the initials R. M. clearly worked upon it.    

            “An old man without a young man’s arm to defend him is a man who has little time yet to live.  You are a fool, Cara-Mingo,” a sneering voice declared.

            For just a moment the words and the way they were spoken brought Tara to Mingo’s mind.  He had last faced his brother on just such a river bank as this, and been taunted in much same way.  Only this time, the man speaking was neither Creek or kin. 

            “Watowah,” Mingo pronounced as he turned.

            The thick-set Cherokee swaggered down the tree lined bank.  Watowah was dressed much as Mingo remembered him from decades before in buckskins decorated with beads and feathers, as if they still walked the frontier and not a land quickly giving way to the modern world.  Half a dozen men flanked the renegade Chickamauga.  Five were holding weapons.

The other one was holding his wife Rachel.

            Above the gag that silenced her, Rachel’s face was streaked with dirt and tears.  Her silver-blond curls were disarrayed and defaced with bracken and pine nettles, as if at some point she had made a break for it.  Rachel’s torn and mud-stained dress lent mute testimony to her treatment so far, as did her missing shoes and bleeding feet.

            “Let her go,” Mingo demanded.

            Watowah’s smile was that of a snake coiled for the kill.  “A man does not give his goods away.  He bargains for them.”  The renegade took a step toward him.  “What will you give me, Cara-Mingo, for your woman’s life?”

            Again, he did not hesitate.  “Whatever you ask.”

            Rachel struggled in her captor’s grip.  Mingo answered her terrified gaze with a shake of his head.  Long ago, when she had come to America seeking him, their path had led them to a similar moment – with his beloved held captive by John Gerard.  That thought brought a reluctant smile to Mingo’s lips.

            Somehow he did not think Watowah would understand the concept of pistols at ten paces.

            “You see something amusing, my enemy?”

            “I see a coward hiding behind a woman, pretending to be a man.”

            The insult stung.  It made Watowah bristle.  Mingo noticed, among his men, more than one affirmative nod.

            “Do you want the woman dead?” Watowah all but screamed.

            “What pleasure would that give you?  It is me you want,” Mingo countered.

            “Seeing your pain,” the Chickamauga replied.

            As Watowah drew closer, Mingo realized he needed to tread lightly.  As with Hawk, there was a glint of madness in the renegade’s eyes.  “Though our homes are different, Watowah, you are Tsalagi, like me.  What would your ancestors think of a man who threatens an innocent woman?”  He glanced at the renegade’s men.  “Where is the honor in that?  Do we not revere the mother of our children?  And of our children’s children?”  Mingo paused and his eyes flicked to Rachel.  Hers pleaded with him, but he refused to listen.  If she died, he died.  There was no choice to be made.  “Do with me what you will.  I will not fight or run.  But let her go.”
            “I have the great Cara-Mingo’s word?” Watowah sneered.

            With a nod, he sealed his fate.  “You have my word.”