Beyond the Quiet Hills (41 page)

“Nothing for our good. You can be sure of that,” Hawk murmured.

****

Indeed, the Cherokee were making plans to go to war. They had met with all of the chiefs, and now the decision had been made. Chief Old Abram was there, as well as Chief The Raven. But it was Chief Dragging Canoe who acted as spokesman for the group.

“We must strike and strike at once!” Dragging Canoe stood before the others. A large crowd of braves had gathered, and even some of the squaws stood in the background. All knew that war would come and they were hungry for it—at least the young men were.

Far in the background Nancy Ward, the niece of Attacullaculla, stood listening quietly. She allowed nothing to show on her face, but her heart was saddened because of the deaths among both whites and Cherokee that soon would come. She listened, hoping to find some mitigation in the views of Dragging Canoe, but the more she listened, the more she knew there was no hope of averting war.

“Chief Old Abram will lead four hundred warriors against the Watauga and Nolichucky whites,” Dragging Canoe said loudly. “I will lead that many against the Long Island settlement, and then move to Virginia. Chief The Raven will take a group of braves and attack the settlement at Carter's Valley, and then join me in attacking Virginia. We will wipe the white men from the face of our land! They will never return, for we will soak the earth with their blood!”

For some time the meeting went on, and Nancy Ward stood listening to all that was said. Finally she knew that although her heart was with the Cherokee, and she was called the “Beloved Woman” of the tribe, she could not allow the slaughter to take place. Turning, she walked quietly away. No one paid heed to her as she disappeared, mounted her horse, then rode out of the Cherokee camp.

Shadows were growing long by the time Nancy had reached the home of her cousin, Wurteh. Wurteh was married to a Virginian named Nathaniel Gist, and she met Nancy with her seven-month-old baby in her arms. The child was named George, but called Sequoyah by the Cherokee.

“My sister,” Wurteh smiled. “You are welcome.” Then seeing the expression on Nancy Ward's face, she said, “What is the matter?”

“Where is the trader Isaac Thomas, Wurteh?”

“He is with Nathaniel and with some other traders outside the town. What is wrong?”

Nancy hesitated. “It is war. I will tell you later, but now I must go find Thomas.” She left at once, guiding her mare until she found Isaac Thomas speaking with William Faulin and Jarrett Williams, who turned to greet her. All had great respect for Nancy Ward, and after greeting her, they waited until she spoke.

“You must get the settlers away. Dragging Canoe and the other warriors will attack very soon now.”

Nancy's statement electrified Gist, and at once he began to make plans. “I'll get you some horses,” he said to the traders, “then you'll have to get out of town. We've got to warn the settlers of what is to happen.”

Nathaniel turned to Nancy and put his hand lightly on her shoulder. “You have saved many lives, Nancy. All of our people will be grateful to you.”

Nancy did not return Gist's smile, for she was a woman caught between two destinies. She loved the Cherokee, but she also loved her husband and the white people in the valley. Now she knew as she turned away that there would be dead men, women, and children on both sides of her heritage.

****

Hawk made a final trip out to the wagon to toss in the feather mattress. It was goose down and represented the labor of many months. He himself had always been satisfied with corn shucks, but Elizabeth had not only plucked her own geese but traded for feathers from everyone in the area. As he put the mattress down he thought,
Well, I don't think there's any danger of Indians making off with this, but I will admit it's pretty nice on a cold winter night
.

As Hawk turned away he bumped into Andrew, who had brought out the last of the clothes stuffed into a cotton sack. He tossed it up on the wagon, waited to see if it would roll off, and when he turned to Hawk, his eyes were bright with excitement. “Do you really think there'll be fighting, Pa?”

Hawk made a slight grimace at the look of expectation on Andrew's face, but he knew that young men thought differently about war. He looked with affection into Andrew's face, thinking, as he often did, how much he looked like his father, Patrick. “I calculate there will. That's why we're going to Fort Caswell.”

“Why did they name it Fort Caswell? It seems they'd have named it Fort Bean or after one of our people.”

“Richard Caswell is the Governor Elect of North Carolina, son. Now, we'd better get ready. I wouldn't put it past the Cherokee to attack at any time.” He looked up as Jacob came out the door carrying the large black pot that was Elizabeth's pride and joy and said, “Jacob, would you go see if Iris and Amanda are ready to go? And finish helping them load up.”

“All right,” Jacob nodded briefly, then turned toward the smaller cabin. He stopped long enough to put the pot in the wagon, then moved quickly until he came to stand before the second wagon, where Amanda was just putting a sack of something inside.

“Let me help you with that, Amanda.” Reaching down, he lifted the sack and grunted. “This is heavy. What is it?”

“It's our cooking pots and an iron that Mr. Smith made for us at his smithy.”

“Are you almost ready to go?”

“Almost. Just a few more things.”

“All right. Pa says we've got to leave in a hurry. I'll come back and drive the wagon for you.”

Amanda had been working hard on loading the wagon. If an attack came, it was likely that the Indians would burn the cabin, so all the settlers were taking everything they could into the fort. Now, however, as she looked at Jacob, she saw something in his face that made her call out impulsively, “Jacob?”

Jacob turned and asked impatiently, “What is it, Amanda?”

“I . . . I was just wondering what was wrong with you. I've been meaning to talk to you, but it seems there's never time.”

“I'm all right. There's nothing wrong with me,” Jacob snapped.

Amanda shrank as Jacob spoke sharply and she turned back toward the door. However, before she entered the cabin, suddenly her face changed. She was a mild-mannered girl, never challenging what her elders said, but something seemed to come to her and she whirled and said, “Wait a minute!”

She moved quickly and lightly across the ground and stood in front of Jacob. She was breathing rather quickly, and she fingered the buttons on the bodice of her dress nervously. A wave of panic came over her, but gathering her strength together, she said, “Jacob, this may not be my place, but . . .” She hesitated for just a moment, then said firmly, “I think you've been behaving terribly.”

Jacob's face flushed and he nodded, saying curtly, “You're right. It's not your place!”

“I thought we were friends.”

“We are friends, but you're getting into my business!”

“I don't think I am. It's not just your business the way you treat your father. And friends tell each other things and even have to correct each other sometimes.”

“You don't know anything about it, Amanda!” Jacob had never spoken harshly to Amanda. He had always been a faithful friend to her, partly out of compassion over the severity of her life and the difficulties she faced with a harsh father, but also because she was growing up to be a handsome young woman he found pleasing. Now, however, he was not himself and snapped, “You don't know anything about me and about my family! My father abandoned me!”

Amanda stared at Jacob for a minute, then with a sudden burst of inner strength, she spoke up, and her own voice was tinged with something as close to anger as she would ever have toward this young man. “You had a father who abandoned you, but that's better than . . . but that's better than having one who beat you!”

Whatever Jacob had been expecting Amanda to say, it was not this. He stood there with the sunlight beating down on his face, feeling the warmth of it, but his eyes were locked onto Amanda's. She had beautiful brown eyes, almond shaped and expressive, and now suddenly he found he could not meet her gaze. He was struck with the truth that he was speaking to someone with more problems than he had. He stood there quietly as she spoke, wishing to turn and run away from her words, but unwilling to retreat.

“Your father left you, Jacob, but he came back, and he's been trying to make it up to you.”

As he glanced up when she stopped speaking, her face suddenly seemed very vulnerable to Jacob. There was a softness and a gentleness about this girl that he had always admired. Somehow she had none of the sharpness or the quickness of other young women, and he had always admired her for this.

Finally she whispered, “Jacob, my father always mistreated me terribly and . . . and I hated him! You can't know how I hated him! Why, I would lie in bed at night and wish that he would die!” Here she turned her eyes upward and her lips trembled as dark memories swept back over her. “But after I gave my heart to God, I had to ask forgiveness for all those feelings.”

Jacob was moved by her words and even more by her open honesty in being willing to share this with him. It was a quality he admired, for he himself had never been able to share his innermost thoughts with anyone. It was as if he kept a room somewhere with all of his deepest feelings and his dreams locked up securely. Even now, as he felt a yearning to speak out about those things that had troubled him for years, he found himself unable to mention them to Amanda. “God doesn't care for me,” he muttered.

“God gave you a family, Jacob. Even when your father left, you had your grandparents. They took wonderful care of you obviously.”

“Well . . . maybe so.”

“Instead of being upset, you ought to be thankful.”

“I don't want to listen to this, Amanda . . . !” Jacob turned to go, but suddenly his arm was grasped and he turned around, surprised to see Amanda's eyes were suddenly angry.

“I think everyone's getting tired of you feeling sorry for yourself,” she said, and there was a strength in her voice that he had never heard before. “You've had a hard time, but that's no reason for you to behave like you're doing now. All that's in the past! You need to put everything behind you and go forward! Jacob, can't you see you're hurting yourself even more than you're hurting others?” She waited for him to speak and when he did not, she said, “Try to understand. Hawk left you without a father for many years—but he has changed, and now you're robbing yourself of a father who really loves you! Can't you see that, Jacob?”

The words of the young woman struck at Jacob with a stronger force than he let show. Jacob kept his face immobile, though his heart was crying out at the truth of what Amanda was saying. He could not answer, for he knew if he did, he would have to share hurts and deep disappointments that he could not talk about. Feeling like a coward, he said brusquely, “I'll come back and drive the wagon, Amanda.”

Amanda watched as Jacob whirled and walked rapidly away, his back straight. She felt a sense of failure and frustration and fought to keep back her tears. For a long time she had been secretly attracted to Jacob Spencer, although she would never have admitted it to anyone. After his engagement with Abigail failed, a ray of hope had shone into her heart, and she had waited for Jacob to notice her. Many times she had tried her best to do her hair a different way and had dressed more carefully, but all for naught. Now she turned blindly and moved back into the cabin, hearing her mother call.

“All right, Mother. I'm coming,” she said, and as she did, she quietly closed the door on her feelings for Jacob Spencer.

****

Fort Caswell was little different from any of the other forts in the wilderness. Some were small, while others were quite large and stockaded. The log fort was the most common type of fortification on the Appalachian frontier. They could be built by unskilled labor, for the walls were made of upright pointed stakes with the tops sharpened, embedded deeply in the ground to prevent them from being pried out of place. Long horizontal stringers fastened with wooden pegs held the palisades in place, and heavy log blockhouses that overhung the second stories were built at each corner. Usually the forts comprised a single acre, rarely any larger, and along the inside walls small log cabins, sometimes joined to each other using a single inner wall, provided living quarters. As a rule, they had two rooms with puncheon floors, but many were simply hard-packed dirt. Often the clapboard roofs were held in place by lengths of long, heavy saplings.

Inside the fort the courtyard served as a stock pen, but at Fort Caswell an enclosure had been built at the north end to shelter the horses and cattle at night. A single large, heavy folding gate faced the outside, which was critically balanced so that a single strong man could close it without difficulty. Outside the fort all trees and undergrowth had been cleared away for about three hundred feet. The Spencers arrived at the fort and at once were aware of the stir of people within the stockade. Men were moving in and out constantly, and the fear of invasion could be seen in the eyes of some of the women. Others were cheerful, insisting that there would be no war.

Hawk had rented one of the small cabins built against the inner wall of the fort, and Elizabeth and the other women who came in soon learned how to adjust. Elizabeth made a broom by shredding a hickory pole grain by grain, then swept the earthen floor each day. She cooked game meats over the fireplace, or baked corn pones there, using the iron vessels she had brought with her. Life was reduced to a few simple things, and although Elizabeth soon realized that a long stay in such close confinement would be aggravating, they would have to endure it. She settled down and grew accustomed to the hum of people who came and went inside the walled town. She learned quickly every element inside the fort. The smith's shop was set up inside the center square, and men brought their tools and guns to be mended. She went often to the hominy block, where corn was pounded free of the husk, and then would wait at the spring while the women in turn dipped water into their piggins.