Journey Home Chapter Five

Rachel Moray raised her head and sniffed the dawn air.  She smiled gently as she laid her embroidery down.  She had awakened early that morning and could not go back to sleep for worrying over her headstrong husband and eldest son.  Her daughter Verity was still sleeping in the bed they shared and she moved quietly so as to keep from waking her.  Stepping out of the room, Rachel pulled the wooden door to and quickly descended the main stair of the Wild Wood Inn hoping against hope she would find her handsome English Cherokee husband and their tall pale-haired boy, now a man, waiting for her.

Instead she found a haggard woman surrounded by a bevy of frightened chattering girls.

The tavern-keep, James McHenry, had stepped outside to tend to early morning duties.  His wife was visiting her sister in Ohio and that left no one to do the official greeting but her.  Frowning as she carefully finished her descent, Rachel dropped her skirts and crossed the freshly cleaned pine floor to the woman’s side.  The stranger’s cloak was muddied.  Her dark hair unkempt.  It was obvious she had been weeping and even now fought to hold back additional tears.  The girls were plainly terrified, especially the middle one who appeared to be what the Indians called ‘blessed’, which was what the white world termed ‘afflicted’.

It made one wonder, yet again, which was the wiser culture.

“Hello,” Rachel said in greeting.  “Welcome to the Wild Wood Inn.”

            The woman started and then pivoted like an animal expecting to be shot.  “Where is the man who owns the establishment?” she asked breathlessly.

            “Mr. McHenry, the proprietor has stepped out.  My name is – ”

            “Oh dear!  Is there no one else?”

            “Mrs. McHenry is away….”

            “No.  No other male.”  The woman drew a deep breath and then the slightest shadow of a smile crossed her weary face.  “Pray, forgive me.  I am being rude.”  Her eyes flicked to the door and the day just waking beyond it.  “It is only that my need is dire.”

            “They took Robinson!” the middle girl wailed and began to cry, wringing her hands all the while.  “They’ll kill him!  Ma, the Indians will kill him!”

            The older woman looked stricken.  “Elizabeth,” she said wearily to the eldest of the trio.  “Will you comfort Rosanna?”

            The brown-haired girl nodded.  “Come, sweet sister.  Let us go exploring….”  And with that Elizabeth led the other girls off.  The third was a pretty little thing, brown-haired as well, who fell into step with the older two though her eyes remained firmly fixed on her mother.

            “Who is Robinson?” Rachel asked with a frown once they were out of earshot.

            “A very little boy.”  The woman shuddered and passed a hand over her face, suddenly growing faint.  “I’m sorry.  It is just….”

            Rachel caught her by the elbow and held her up.  It was only then she noticed the other woman was expecting a child.  There was a small space set aside as a drawing room at the far end of the inn’s common area.  She led the stranger there and helped her to sit in a high wingback chair.  Then she left her long enough to pour a mug of cider and gather a few bits of bread and cheese.  Upon her return, Rachel found the woman had risen and was pacing like a caged animal before the fire.  She placed the items on a table and then sat herself.

            “Now, tell me what has happened,” she said.

            The brown-haired woman turned to look at her.  It was obvious the stranger had been city born and bred by the way she held herself, and by her manner and speech.  She was slender still, even with another baby on the way.  Rachel would have placed her age at approximately thirty-five. 

The woman drew a deep breath and then let it all out at once.  “My youngest son, Robinson, has been taken by the Indians for who knows what nefarious purposes!  My husband and I, along with five of the children, came here to Kentucky to visit an old friend and purchase cattle.  Our wagon wheel broke, and we were left to fend for ourselves in the woods while my husband and eldest boy went for help.  During their absence, we were accosted by a tall older man with long silver hair who was obviously Indian.  I demanded he leave and he did.  Then, we thought he had returned.  But it was another man, only part Indian.   Your husband, I believe.”

            Rachel looked startled.  “Mingo?  How would you know that he is – ”

            “He sent us here to find you.  My eldest son, Stephen, brought us on after Robinson was…taken.  I didn’t know what else to do.  I couldn’t leave the girls in the woods, simply to be abducted by those villains at leisure.  They have been raised among Indians, but the men they know are good.  They take care of us, watch out for us.  They are not like these renegades.  Not like that other man.”

            “Tell me about him,” Rachel said, beginning to tremble.

            “He was frightening.  He looked like your husband in everything – except his eyes.  They were the eyes of a predator.”  The woman halted and fell into the chair.  Knitting her hands together she added quietly, “And now he has my sweet child.”

            Rachel was silent for a moment.  “How old is the boy?”

            His mother sighed.  She laughed, but the sound of it was weak.  “Six.  Though he thinks he is a man.”

            “On the frontier it will not be long before he is,” Rachel responded quietly.

            “It doesn’t help that Stephen is ten years older.  With all the girls in-between, Robinson naturally wants to be like his older brother….”  The stranger’s voice trailed off and she grew even paler – if that was possible. 

            “What is it?” Rachel asked.

            The woman rose abruptly.  “Stephen.  Where is Stephen?  He should have been back by now.”

            Rachel rose as well.  “Where did he go?”

            “To put the horse and wagon in the stable.”  The woman’s hand went to her throat.  “You don’t think those men followed us?  That they have taken him as well?”

            “There is no point in borrowing trouble,” Rachel answered with an encouraging smile.  “Perhaps he is talking to Mr. McHenry.  Shall we go and see?”

            “Mama?  Is something wrong?”  Elizabeth came up beside them.  She was a pretty girl, and reminded Rachel of her own Verity so many years ago.  “Rosanna has fallen asleep.  Julia says she is hungry.  Is there somewhere I can get her something?”

            Rachel smiled at the girl who was trying to be very adult and all business.  The only worry that showed was in the way Elizabeth’s eyes crinkled at the edges, and the endless twisting of her fingers in her skirt.  “The kitchen is attached.  Through there,” Rachel said with a nod of her head.  “I’m sure Mr. McHenry won’t mind if you go in and prepare a snack.”

            The girl’s eyes were locked on her mother.  “Is something else wrong?” Elizabeth asked, her voice tight.

            The dark-haired woman stepped forward and bent to kiss her daughter’s cheek.  “Take Julia and give her something to eat.”  She glanced up.  “Is there a room they can settle in?”

            Rachel nodded.  “Top of the stairs.  First on the right.  You will be directly across the hall from my daughter and me.”  As they watched the girls go, the stranger shuddered and bit back a sob.  Turning to her Rachel asked, “What is it?”

            She shook her head and then replied, her voice barely above a whisper.  “I have a terrible presentiment….”

            At that moment the door to the inn swung in startling them so they both jumped.  When she had recovered her wits, Rachel realized it was a very chagrinned Mr. McHenry who stood just inside the threshold. 

            “Sorry, Ma’am.  Ma’ams,” he said with a sheepish grin and a tip of his cap.  “Didn’t mean to frighten you.”

            “It is good to see you Mr. McHenry.  This woman has a need – ”  She paused.  The man was scratching his head and frowning.  “Is there something you need to tell us?” Rachel asked him.

            He nodded as he produced a folded note from within his waistcoat.  The paper was dirt-stained and used.  “I’ve got me a problem.  This here note is addressed to ‘Rachel’.”

            “Why is that a problem?” she asked, holding out her hand.  “You may give it to me.”

            “Rachel,” he continued, “Johnston.  Your name is Moray.”

            “Why, yes….”

            “I’m Rachel Johnston,” the stranger answered, shaking visibly as she reached for the note.  “Where did you find it?”

            “Pinned to the door of the stable, Ma’am.  With this here knife.”

            Rachel Johnston made a little strangled noise in her throat when she saw it.

            “You recognize it?” Rachel Moray asked.

            She nodded.  “It’s Stephen’s.  Did you see my son, Mr. McHenry?  Outside?”

            “Ain’t no one there, Ma’am.  Just an empty wagon and some supplies.”

            “No horse either?”

            He shook his head.

            Rachel Moray watched as the other woman’s fear matured into a mother’s righteous anger.  Her hand steadied as she accepted the note, and her jaw grew tight as she read it.  A moment later Rachel Johnston looked up.  “Do you have any sons, Mrs. Moray?”

            “Yes, one.  Daniel.  As headstrong and determined as his father.”

            “A common trait it seems, of young men forced to grow up on the frontier.”  Rachel Johnston closed her fingers about the note.  “Stephen has taken the horse and gone to find his brother.  He blames himself for Robinson being taken in the first place.”

            “How long has he been gone?”

            She shook her head.  “It gives no time.  I imagine he left as soon as we came into the inn.  So, a half hour at the very least.”

            As Rachel Johnston went to sit before the fire, James McHenry turned to her.  He pitched his voice low so the other woman would not hear.  “Was the boy taken by Indians, Mrs. Moray?”

            Rachel nodded.  “Yes.”

            “That’s not good.  There’s a renegade band in the area – an evil bunch.”  He glanced toward the fire.  “They found another young one dead this morning.  Scalped.  Weren’t no older than fourteen.  The townsfolk are holding a meeting this afternoon.  They mean to raise a posse.  I came back to get my rifle and kit.  I aim to join them.”

            Fear gripped Rachel Moray, hard as the hand of illness or death.  These men, these renegades, were the ones her husband and Daniel Boone had come here to make contact with and, ultimately, to stop.  But they had not realized just how ruthless the fugitive natives were or how base. 

            Imagine, killing children.

            “I don’t think an armed party of men storming into the woods in search of Indians who are completely at home in the wild is such a good idea, Mr. McHenry.  My husband and Mr. Boone came here to stop – ”

            McHenry looked apologetic.  “Nothing against ‘em, Ma’am.  Ain’t none better known or more respected in Kentucky than Daniel Boone and Mingo, but…well, Ma’am, they’re….”

            “Old”, she finished for him. 

            “Begging your pardon and meaning no disrespect.  Yes.  Taking care of the likes of those wicked Indians is work for younger men.”

            With hotter heads, she thought to herself, and far less wisdom.

            James McHenry, who himself could be no more than thirty, shifted past her and entered the common room.  After disappearing into one of the back rooms, he reappeared with his gun and haversack.  “Now you ladies bolt the door after I leave.  Don’t let no one in you don’t know.”

            Rachel Moray nodded, knowing it would do no good to protest.  She remained still as the door closed and then walked toward it, intending to do as he had said.

            “Who is this man, Hawk?” Rachel Johnston asked from across the room.

            She turned.  “An evil man.  He was Tuscaroras, but now calls himself Wendat or Wyandot.  He had a son, taken from him by his Indian mother.  After her death, Little Bear was raised by a white family.  Hawk came to take the boy back.  Mingo and Dan prevented it.  Hawk was killed.”

            The other woman rose to her feet.  “But he is alive again?”

            Rachel Moray nodded.  “Yes.  Risen like the serpent to strike again.  Hawk is seeking to gather together all of the disgruntled natives he can, to form an army with which he intends to destroy the settlers’ homes and lives; to drive them out and make this land only for the Indian.  Vengeance, he says, is his.”

            Rachel Johnston walked slowly to her side.  “I knew.  I knew when Robinson was taken there was something more.  Indians most often abduct girls.  They left mine alone.  They took my son.”

            “I don’t understand…”

            “What happened to Hawk’s son?  The one raised by whites?”

            Rachel Moray paled.  “He was killed recently.  By white men who did not understand.”

            The other woman paled.  “Dear God….”

            “What?  What is it?” she asked.

            “Don’t you see?  Blood for blood.  A life for a life.  It is the code of the Indian.  Hawk lost his son.

            “Now he means to take yours and mine.”

 ~

             Daniel Boone shifted and looked from one man who sat before him to the other.  John Johnston and his old friend Mingo had both fallen silent, lost in their own thoughts.  They had told the Indian Agent everything they knew of Hawk.  John didn’t remember him, but said he knew his kind.  He had fought many battles – all on paper or with words – with just such men who would not accept the inevitable.  If they wanted their people to survive, they would have to adapt, have to give in and fit in with white society, he said.   Though he thought it sad, it was inevitable.  Nothing less would be accepted.  Men such as Hawk didn’t frighten him, John added.  His job was dealing with them.

            Dan couldn’t help but smile.  Youth sure had more than its share of folly.  Quietly, Dan assured him that Hawk would never fit in, and that the only thing the renegade Wyandot dealt in was death.

            They had known, him and Mingo, when they accepted this assignment that in the end they would have to kill the renegade.  Hawk would not surrender.  He would not bend or change.  And so long as he lived, like a rabid animal he would spread the disease of his hatred to other Indians.  He would cause their deaths, and the deaths of the dozens of innocent white men, women and children they would slaughter.  Dan wanted to feel for the man.  He knew what it was to lose a child – to lose more than one.  He knew the mindless anger, the overwhelming grief that a man felt.  He understood wanting to strike back.  He had felt the cry of vengeance in his blood when James died.

            But he had also known the healing balm of forgiveness.  Even if he had never forgiven himself.

            John Johnston was a lucky man.  Other than the loss of a little girl to a fever, his children were all alive and healthy.  It was a sad thing to think it, but John’s pain waited for him.  He would know it one day, as all of them who dared to live on the frontier had.

            “A penny for your thoughts, Daniel,” a soft voice spoke.

            He looked up and smiled his crooked grin.  “And here I was, Mingo, thinkin’ about how the two of you were thinkin’ too much.”

            “I think,” John Johnston said, rising to his feet,” that is it time we stopped thinking and moved on.  If your son is being held by this madman, Mingo, then we will negotiate his release.”

            “This isn’t a parley with some friendly Indians, John,” Dan suggested quietly.  “Hawk is a killer.”

            “Even madmen have their price,” the agent snapped as he turned and reached for his rifle.

            There was a click, and then a cloud of smoke and the smell of gunpowder.  John Johnston jerked his hand back just seconds before the ball would have struck it and whirled toward the sound.  Dan and Mingo did the same and found themselves face to face with the walking dead.

            “And what is your price, John Johnston?  That is what I would know,” Hawk intoned as he stepped out of the trees.  A dozen full-blooded warriors in a mix of native and European garb attended him.

            John did not flinch.  He stepped forward, fully into the sights of the multiple rifles trained on him.  “You seem to know me, but I do not know you, sir.  We have not passed the pipe or beads.  You are no one to me.”

            Dan watched Mingo’s brows lift.  That was quite an insult.

            “I know you. John Johnston, Federal Indian Agent.  I know you and your government well.  You come to the people, filling their bellies and hearts with sweet words and promises that, in the end, leave them empty.”  Hawk clenched his fingers into a fist. “You take their land, their lives, their souls.  And while they grow lean, you grow fat – and rich.”  Hawk paused.  He barked a command in his own tongue and then waited as a short crooked native stepped forward.  The man’s back was bent and his head twisted strangely to one side.  He stopped at the renegade’s side and stared at the Indian agent with open hatred.  “This is the man, Gray Wing?”

            The Indian hobbled over to John Johnston who remained completely still as he circled him, and then limped back to Hawk.  Once there he nodded and said, his voice a painful rasp, “This is the man.”

            “Gray Wing?  I don’t….”  John paused.  It was his turn to look angry.  “I know you.  You were with the men who murdered the McCauleys.  They hanged you.”

            Hawk’s dark lips split to reveal amazingly white teeth.  “The Creator is good.  Though the white man tries to kill us, we do not die.”  Hawk nodded and Gray Wing melted back into the line of natives flanking him.  “Gray Wing says you have a grand house, John Johnston, bigger than any he has seen.  That it has wood floors and brick walls with paint and paper.  That inside there is silver and china.  Paid for by the heart of the Indian.”

            “Paid for by the sweat of my brow!” John almost shouted.  Then he realized he was allowing Hawk to bait him.  The agent drew several long, steadying breaths.  When he spoke again, his words were calm.  “What is it you want?  Why have you come to us when you know these men are here to take you?”

            Hawk’s eyes shot to Mingo.  When they turned on him, Dan shrugged.  “Hawk wants both of us dead, for what we did to him before.  For helpin’ to kill him.”  Dan paused.  “Shame it didn’t take.”

            Hawk shook his head.  “Boone.  Boone.  And here I thought you were a smart man.  The years have dulled the edge of this long knife.  I do not want you and Mingo dead.”  The renegade moved to his side.  He lowered his voice and spoke, as if he were a confidant or friend.  “I want you to suffer as I have suffered.”

            Mingo spoke from close by.  “We’re sorry about Little Bear.”

            “Little Bear?” John asked.

            “My son.”  Hawk closed his eyes for a moment and drew a deep breath.  When he opened them, he turned on the Indian agent.  The smile that touched his lips was acid.  “You have two sons.”

            Four words.  Simple words with no malice or particular meaning.  But they all knew what they meant.

            “Yes,” John answered, his voice trembling as he did.

            “The little one, the one with hair dark as night, he fights like the cougar.  He will be a warrior one day.”  The words now dripped with menace.  “If he lives.”

            “What have you done….” John breathed.

            “The other one – older, with fair hair – he is fast as the deer.”  The Indian paused and then sneered.  “But not fast enough.”

            Before either Dan or Mingo could stop him, John Johnston had moved and gripped Hawk by the collar.  “What have you done with my family?  Where are my sons?” he demanded.

            Hawk did not flinch. 

“In my power.”

~

           Rachel Moray stood at the door of the inn, staring at Rachel Johnston.  She placed her hands on her hips and blew out a puff of air.  “Well, you and I have two dilemmas on our hands.”

            The other woman frowned.  “Two?”

            “What are we going to do about Mr. McHenry raising the town to go hunting for your son?  And…what are we going to call each other?”

            Rachel Johnston seemed stunned at first, then she laughed genuinely for the first time since they had met.  “Rachel one and Rachel two?”

            “Mrs. M. and Mrs. J.?” she responded.  “Or middle names?”

            “Mine is ‘hoping’,” the other woman frowned.

            “Hoping?”

            “I was born a Quaker.”

            “Oh.”  She thought a moment, but could come up with nothing.

Rachel Johnston remained silent for a moment, then she said, “When I was a little girl, my papa had a pet name for me.  I suppose we could use that.”

            “What was it?” Rachel Moray asked.

            “Raeanne.”

            “That’s lovely.  What does it mean?”

            “Rachel, you know, is Hebrew for lamb.  Rae is the Gaelic for the same.  Papa always called me his graceful lamb.  Raeanne.”

            “Raeanne it is then.  First problem solved.  Now, what are we going to do about the second one?”

            “We have to go after Stephen.  He may not think so, but he is still a boy.  He can’t stand against a creature like this Hawk.”  Raeanne’s fingers balled into fists.  “Oh, I wish John was here.  He’d know what to do.”

            “Well, he isn’t.  None of the men are.  It is up to us.”  Rachel paused.  The other woman’s eyebrows had peaked.  “What?  You think I am too old?  Just because I am old enough to be your mother….”

            “Mother?”

            Rachel pivoted.  Verity was standing at the bottom of the stairs.  The early morning light was spilling in the windows and it struck her face, which was clearly frightened. 

            “What is it?” she asked as she crossed to her.

            “Outside.  There are men, and a few women.”  Verity drew a breath.  “They look like Indians.”

            Fear gripped her.  They had been wrong.  Hawk wasn’t interested only in the boys, but in all of them.  Rachel glanced at the door.  She had not finished bolting it or turned the key.  There was nothing to stop whoever was outside from coming in.

            “Raeanne!  Grab the bar,” she called out suddenly.  “Lock it in place – ”

            But she was too late.

            The door was opening