Journey Home Chapter Four

Georgia 1838

Mingo heard a sound in the outer room.  It roused him from his musings.  He rose and crossed to the door, supposing it to be Danny returning.  Outside the light had faded.  The moon was riding high in a deep purple sky.  He glanced at the pocket-watch that hung suspended at his waist as he moved.  It was half-past seven and he had done nothing about food.   The larder was almost bare, but he had a few slices of cold meat and some wine and cheese that he could offer his guest. 

            Considering he would leave this place forever tomorrow, it had not seemed worth stocking the cupboard.

            As he crossed the threshold Mingo stopped, startled by the figure cast in silhouette before the fire his son must have kindled before leaving.  It was not Danny or the young dragoon.  It was, instead, one of his oldest and dearest friends.

            “Copperhead!” Mingo exclaimed as he moved to greet him.  “I did not expect to see you tonight.”

            Copperhead’s handsome face broke into a smile as Mingo took hold of his hand and pumped it.   They embraced and then the his old friend drew back and said with a sigh, “I am in need of refuge, old friend.”

            Mingo frowned.  “Refuge?  Have the soldiers – ”

Copperhead shook his head.  “No.  The soldiers have not molested me or mine.”  A slow smile broke across his face.  “Tonight, I needed refuge from the young.”

            “Has Adohi returned?”

            Copperhead took a seat before the fire.  He leaned forward with his hands clasped between his knees.  “My son means well.  He believes in the law.  In justice.  Adohi believes the Cherokee can still fight and win back some of what they have lost.”  He turned and his dark eyes fastened on Mingo’s face.  “We know better, old friend.  You and I.  There can be no justice in this world”

            Mingo was silent a moment.  Then he moved to sit in the chair opposite his childhood friend.  Copperhead had been a mighty warrior when young.  He had married a white woman and tried to live as a white, and been beaten and burned out for his trouble.  He had lost his faith for a time, but as the years advanced had gained it back in a deeper, stronger form which transcended the ‘here and now’ and looked toward a life eternal.  Around his neck he wore the silver filigree cross that had belonged to his late wife, Miriam.  Mingo admired the quiet peace Copperhead’s choice had given him.  He himself had never quite crossed that line.  Though he had attended church with Rachel, his faith was still the faith of a child of the forest – his God, the God of  field and stream. 

            Mingo nodded.  “Not for the Red man, at least.”

            “Or African slave or indentured Irish servant.”  Copperhead leaned back as he smiled sadly.  “We Cherokee are not alone in our misery.”    

            Mingo rose and walked to the window that fronted the court.  Outside, the huddled mass of their people gathered.  Mothers sighed.  Children stirred.  Babies cried, and fathers paced as they kept watch over all.  “I admire Adohi,” Mingo said softly.  “He has not bent in his belief.  I am afraid there is no fight left in me.”

            He heard Copperhead rise.  A moment later a hand was placed on his shoulder.  Mingo turned and looked at his old friend.  Copperhead’s long hair had grayed, but had kept a shadow of its former copper color.  For a time he had cut it and kept it in the style of the white man.  Now he wore it long, though free of bead and feather.  His red military coat had long ago been traded for a cut-away, but under it he wore a hand-beaded vest.  Miriam had made it.  The artistry was beautiful.

            “There, I think you are wrong, old friend,” Copperhead said.  “If there was no fight in you, you would not be joining us on the march.  In this, our strength is to be found in weakness.”

            A knock on the door startled them both so they jumped.  They turned in tandem and Mingo went to see who it was.  Danny and Robinson Johnston stood without.  In Robinson’s hands was a basket of food.  Danny held a bottle of port.

            “If we may, sir?” Robinson asked. 

~

           An hour later the four of them sat before the fire sharing stories.  The bottle of port was empty and the floor littered with crumbs.  Robinson was speaking with passion of his father and the elder Johnston’s efforts on behalf of the country’s native population.  Of how his father understood the needs of the natives.  Of how he was against the idea of reservations and spoke out about it every chance he got.  Copperhead had many questions.

            Mingo did not.  He remembered John Johnston well and he knew what Robinson said was true.

            Back in 1820 John Johnston’s honesty and integrity had been the only thing that had kept them all from being killed.

 ~

Kentucky 1820

Danny stirred.  He had fallen unconscious, but now shook himself awake and listened.  Hawk had taken a small party of men and disappeared, leaving a few of his younger lieutenants to watch over the camp – and him.       He had to get away!  Hawk would use him to lure his father and Daniel Boone, and then kill them.  He had a vague memory of his father mentioning this man, but the only thing that had stuck was that Hawk was ruthless and without mercy.

Somehow he doubted the years had mellowed him.

But how to do it?  He was bound hand and foot, and it was doubtful he could strike a bargain with any of Hawk’s men since he was twice hated by them.  Not only was he the son of their enemy, but he was half-white – a living, breathing reminder of the shame of the full-blooded Red man.  And that was what these men seemed to be.  By 1820 there were relatively few Indians left in Kentucky and Ohio, and even fewer whose red blood was not mixed with white.   By the look of these men they were pure – or at least as close to it as their leader could come.  Most of them had probably lost their homes, their families and lives to the ever-encroaching tide of white civilization.  Most of them probably had every right to be angry, to feel they had been lied to and abused; to want to strike out in some way.  It was just that killing innocent men, women, and children was not the way to do it.  His friend Adam, Copperhead’s eldest, had been fighting for the Indian’s rights for years.  It was the main topic of their correspondence.  Adam believed in working within the system.  He honestly believed things could change for the better.

Danny glanced at the men sitting around the fire.  Several of them were turned toward him.  He could feel their hate even from fifty yards away.  It was going to take a tongue more silver than his to convince these men of the same thing.  So where did that leave him?

Danny’s lips twisted with a wry smile. 

His mother wouldn’t approve of the phrase that had come to mind.

“You find something funny, white man?” one of the warriors challenged.  He watched as the man, a thick-set brute with a scar over his left brow, rose and walked toward him.  The man was a Wyandot.  He came from the tribe widely regarded as the most ferocious remaining in the area.  The native was dressed as a naval officer, in a purloined uniform coat worn over leather leggings, with black boots and a wide-brimmed black felt hat. 

Danny shrugged as best he could.  “Just musing on my chances of talking you into letting me go.”

The Wyandot grinned, showing teeth obviously broken off in a fight.  “That is funny.”  A second later the sharp side of his knife was pressed to Danny’s throat.  “Muse on this!”

He gulped but showed no fear.  “Be careful with that blade.  I do not think Hawk wants me dead.”

The Indian laughed.  He withdrew the knife.  “You are right.  He does not want you dead.  Not yet.”   He breathed the threat and then turned and walked away.

Danny watched him until he rejoined his cohorts.  As the wind carried their derisive laughter to his ears, he shivered.  The sun was going down and the night growing chill.  But that was not the reason.

He was afraid.

 ~

           Stephen Johnston stood waiting, ill at ease but trying his best to hide it.  His mother, his brother and sisters, were his responsibility now.  He had to keep them safe.  Had to get them to the inn. 

He couldn’t let his father down.

In some ways, he didn’t know his Pa all that well.  For most of his life Pa had been gone, treating with the Indians or serving the United States Government in some other way.  He loved him more than he could express, but Stephen had to admit – at least to himself – that he resented him a little bit too.  When his Pa was away, he was the man of the house.  He’d worked with and bossed the farmhands for years.  He protected their home and his family.  Why, he had practically raised his little brother.  Stephen grinned.  Thank the good Lord for Robinson!  Otherwise he’d be surrounded day and night by women – his mother, his grandmother Johnston, and seven sisters!  Someday, some day he was going to go away where there weren’t any women.

 Not that he didn’t love them, but he wanted….  No, he needed….

Stephen drew a deep breath and shook it off.  He had a good life.  He was the man he was because of it.

“Stephen?”

He turned to look.  His mother had emerged from the trees with the living train of his three oldest sisters trailing after her.  Robinson was bringing up the rear, marching in military fashion as he had shown his brother General Harrison’s soldiers used to do – only Robinson was doing it with a thick branch over his shoulder instead of a gun.  Ten years he’d waited for a brother.  Ten years.  And he couldn’t have asked for a better one.

“Yes, Ma?”

His mother glanced nervously at the sky.  The sun was setting, casting deep shadows across the land.  “Did you find a suitable camp, or should we attempt to press on?”

He turned to look at the land.  Nothing had presented itself that was perfect for bedding down, but like his mother he wasn’t sure about traveling after dark.  If it hadn’t been for all the girls….

“Can’t we go on to the inn?” Julia, who was nine, whined.  “Please, Mama….”

“Hush.  There is no way we can reach it tonight,” their mother answered.  She touched Julia’s dark head briefly and then looked at him.

It was only then he remembered she had asked him a question.  “There isn’t much,” he replied.  “A rocky ledge.  A hillside with a bit of an indentation.  We would probably do better to just bed down in the wagon and – ”

Stephen pivoted.  Rosanna had begun to wail.  Their older sister Elizabeth was standing by her, holding her hand; her narrow face with its frame of golden ringlets gone pale as the moon.

With Julia and Mary in tow, their mother crossed over to them.  “What?  What is it?  Elizabeth?”

There was no need to wait for Elizabeth’s reply.  Stephen knew what it would be before she said a word.  On the ground beneath their ankle-length skirts was a thick branch, shaped something like a gun.

Robinson was gone.

 ~

 Danny shifted his head.  He concentrated for a moment, listening, and then began to work his bound wrists up and down against the tree’s rough hide once more.  Across the camp from him Hawk’s confederates had fallen silent – either drunk or asleep.  He really doubted the intense older man would have approved, but the moment Hawk had disappeared into the trees several pottery jugs had appeared and the smell of liquor had drifted on the breeze along with the men’s derisive laughter.

All the better for him.  It gave him the whole night to work his way free.

He wondered where his father and Daniel Boone were.  He was long overdue and the older men would be worried.  Danny hoped they would have the wisdom to camp in one spot and wait until he came to them, but he had a feeling that was an empty hope.  Neither man was known for sitting still for long, or for letting someone else fight their battles.  He realized now that the native, Hawk, was the reason for their trip.  His father had told him it was an expedition – one last hunt with an old friend – but he had heard words pass between them.  There was talk of an Indian uprising, they said.  Of a war, maybe.  Their campfire whispers had spoken of a man they had both had a hand in killing who had returned; a dead man, now walking.  At the time he had taken it for the idle fancies of old men.

Never in his wildest dreams would Danny have considered that someone had enlisted the two older men to hunt a dead man down!

When they had split at the head of the river so they could cover more territory in their quest for a succulent supper, he had opted to walk with Daniel Boone.  He had not seen the older man in more than a decade and there was a lot to catch up on.  Later, he had regretted leaving his father and turned back to find him.  It was then he had been taken.

Which led him to where he was now.

Danny bit his lip as the bark cut into his flesh.  He wouldn’t cry out.  He didn’t want to draw the warrior’s attention.  This was the best chance he would get to break free, and he wasn’t going to waste it. 

 ~           

Stephen stood up.  He glanced at his mother where she waited with the girls and shook his head.  It didn’t look good.  Robinson’s small boot-prints had disappeared only to be replaced by moccasins – lots of moccasins.  Stephen glanced at the surrounding trees, wondering if the men who took his brother were still there, watching them.  Or if they taken him and run off. 

He wasn’t sure which thought frightened him the most.

“Stephen?”

He turned to find his mother standing by him.  She looked haggard and pale.  She had left the girls in charge of Elizabeth.  They had moved into the clearing and were near the wagon.  He could hear his sister’s voice directing the other girls’ idle hands to tasks.  Something.  Anything to keep their mind off of the danger they were in.

“Ma.  I’m sorry.  I let you down.”

His mother shook her head.  “And how is this your fault?”

“I shouldn’t have let it happen.”

“And my father shouldn’t have died in the plague.”  She sighed as she wiped her brown hair away from her eyes.  “Blaming yourself will not avail anything.”

“But Ma, Pa put me in charge….”

“And you have done your best.”  Her dark eyes flicked to the trees surrounding them.  “I have enough acquaintance with Indians to know that once they put their mind to something, it is very difficult to turn them from it.”  She swallowed hard.  “Do you think they mean to take us all?”

“I don’t think so.  Why would they wait?  Why are we still free?”

She nodded.  “I agree.”  A pained expression crossed her face.  “But why take your brother alone?”

“He’s the youngest.  And the easiest target,” he answered, growing angry.  “Robinson’s just a little boy!  Why not take me!” he shouted, challenging the trees.

He felt his mother’s fingers press his arm.  “Stephen, no….”

Resolve turned every muscle in his form rigid.  “I have to go after him,” he announced, spinning back.

“I forbid it!  I won’t lose you as well.”  His mother drew a deep breath.  “We’ll go on to the inn.  It can’t be that far.  We’ll send men back – ”

“Ma.  No.  The trail will grow cold.”  He hesitated and then added quietly, “And I am a man.  I’m sixteen.”

Her look softened.  “I know you are.  I didn’t mean it that way.  But we need you – your sisters and me.  Robinson….”  Her voice broke on his brother’s name, but she controlled her tears.  She had not been a wife and mother on the frontier for eighteen years without growing strong.  “Robinson knows what to do.  Your Pa has taught him well.  Besides, if these men went to the trouble of taking him, I don’t think they mean him harm,” she added, as if needing to convince herself. 

“Then what do they need him for?”

His mother stared at him for a moment.  Then she shook her head.  He knew what she was thinking.  Indians who had lost family members sometimes took others – Indians or whites – to replace them. 

            She remained silent a moment, staring at his sisters.  Elizabeth had the other two in the wagon and had signaled they were ready to go.  Drawing a deep breath, his mother reached out and took his hand – something she had not done for a good many years.

            “Come, Stephen.  We must get the girls to safety, and then we can return.”

           ~ 

He returned, but it was alone.

            They found it was not quite so far to the Wild Wood Inn as they had thought.  As the dawn broke they came in sight of it.  Stephen saw his sisters and mother to the door and then excused himself, saying he needed to see to the horse and wagon.  He had made his mind up on the way.  He would not wait the time it would take the call to go out to those who lived near the inn.  He would not waste an hour while they debated the wisest course; while old men argued and then finally drew into some sort of a search party.  He would not chance his little brother’s life to strangers.  And though he knew his mother would not agree, and that there would be hell to pay with his father later on, he took the horse, mounted it and headed back into the woods.

            “I’m coming Robinson,” he said, and was gone.

             ~

             Danny started and then froze as his hands came free.  He had spent the entire night fighting off sleep, using the time to worry the ropes that bound him until they finally snapped.  Unfortunately, he was not as young as he used to be and his aging bones protested as he sought to rise without noise to his feet.  He stifled a moan and leaned back, resting for a moment against the tree trunk, using the time to survey the camp.  Hawk’s men had continued to drink and play at the game of bones long into the night.  About the time the sun broke the black heart of it, they had fallen silent, asleep at last.

            He could only pray it was a deep, untroubled sleep.

            Bringing his arms before his body, Danny massaged his wrists where the cords had made them raw, and then ducked around the tree and stepped into the rustling foliage behind.  Once under cover, he breathed a sigh of relief.  He was free.  Hawk no longer had any power over his father or Daniel Boone.

            They were all free.

            “Son of Mingo, I know you can hear me!” a strong voice called out unexpectedly.  “Listen to what I have to say.”

            Danny froze.  He had escaped just in the nick of time.  The old Wyandot renegade had returned.  Even now he could hear Hawk’s men grunting as they received a just reprimand for falling asleep and permitting their hostage to escape.

            Drawing a breath, Danny waited and said nothing.

            “Son of my enemy, I know you.  You are like your half-breed father.  Weak with what the white man calls compassion.”

            He couldn’t help it.  “Compassion is my strength!” Danny called out, and then moved swiftly to another place.

            “You do not know strength.  Strength is standing in the face of loss.  It is remaining who you are and doing what must be done!”  Hawk’s voice rang through the forest.  Danny could tell from the sound of it that the Wyandot had not moved but remained near the center of the  camp.  What was hawk’s game, he wondered?  Were the renegade’s men moving through the trees seeking him even as their chief spoke, drawing his attention?

            “What do you want?” Danny called, on the move again.

            “That is the question I ask of you,” the Wyandot said.  “Do you want to save your life?  Or to save the life of this one?”

            There was a strangled sound and then a young voice – a very young voice – began to rant, offering all sorts of threats and promises of retribution.

            Danny edged forward and peered through the leaves.  Hawk stood next to the rekindled fire, holding a small boy.  The child’s long legs dangled, kicking but making no contact with the ground.  The boy was slender and dark-haired, and could be no more than six or seven years old.

What was this?

“Hawk, what have you done?” Danny called out.

“It is the way of my people.  A life for a life.  My son was taken from me.  I will take the son of my enemy.  Will it be you, Daniel Moray?  Or this child?”

Danny wasn’t stupid.  He knew if he gave himself up that would only mean that Hawk had two hostages – one against his father and another held against some unknown man.  He shifted forward so he could see better.  What he saw, made him smile.  The boy was not afraid.  Or at least he made a good appearance of not being afraid.  His arms were crossed and he was scowling.

“You would harm a child?” Danny called out.  “What sort of a man are you?”

For a moment Hawk did not move.  Then he raised his free arm and placed the sharpened edge of his knife against the boy’s throat. 

“I am a man who collects on his debts,” he said, his voice cold as the steel blade.

Danny drew a deep breath.  Hawk was surrounded by his men.  By a count of them he knew none were seeking him in the woods.  He could turn and run.  Run, and save himself and his father.

But then, he would not have been his father’s son.

Stepping out of the trees, Danny raised his hands above his head.

“You have me,” he said.  “Let the boy go.”