Over the Misty Mountains (12 page)

Sorrow came into McDougal’s eyes. “Too bad. He was a bonny preacher. How did he die?”

Sequatchie shook his head. “Of sickness,” he said briefly. He hesitated, then said, “He was an honest white man.”

McDougal smiled suddenly, rather ruefully, and nodded toward Hawk. “Our reputation’s none too good with the Cherokees. I suppose we’ve earned most of it, though.”

“Not you,” Hawk said at once to McDougal. “You too are an honest man. Have you heard news of the war?”

“Ah, it’s still the French talking the Indians into making raids along the frontier. Not ten miles from here two families were massacred and their homes burned just last week.”

“It wasn’t the Cherokee,” Sequatchie said at once.

“No! They were Creek, I think. They’re in thick with the French.”

“They’re wrong. The French will lead them astray,” Hawk said.

The three men spoke for a while, and Hawk noticed that Jack Carter had been eyeing them steadily. “What about that fellow there, McDougal?”

“Ah, nobody knows about him, but he’s not good for the Indians. Trades them cheap whiskey for good furs.”

At McDougal’s words, Carter’s countenance turned cold and his eyes narrowed. He did not speak again that day to Hawk or Sequatchie.

Later that night Carter crept outside of the fort. He made his way silently through the forest. When he was far enough away from the fort, he stopped and made a cry that sounded almost exactly like a hunting owl. Far off in the distance the screech of another owl answered him. Soon he saw a shadowy movement and spoke out in Creek, “It is I, Jacques Cartier.”

Figures stepped out from behind the trees. Three of them were Indians, and one was a white man. “What ’ave you found out, Cartier?” the man said with a heavy French accent.

“The fort can be taken. How many soldiers can you get to attack?”

The French lieutenant studied the face of Cartier and shook his head. “Right now, not enough. But our time, eet will come.”

Cartier turned to the three Indians and said, “There are two men inside. They will leave the fort. Probably tomorrow. They will have much silver. I will send you word when they leave. Kill them and you can keep the silver they carry for yourselves.”

“What do they look like?” asked one of the warriors.

“One is Cherokee. The other is a big white man with black hair, black eyes. Kill them! Plenty of silver to buy whiskey.”

The Indians all nodded. Two of them were Chickasaws, the other a Creek, all sworn enemies to the Cherokees. “Come, Lieutenant,” Jacques said. “I will show you the trail that leads to the fort. When you lead your forces here, I will come with them. I can get inside the fort anytime. They trust me there. When the attack starts, I will see to it that the gates are open.”

The lieutenant nodded eagerly. “We must take this fort,” he said. “That would put the Cherokees into our arms. They must believe that the English are powerless. The taking of Fort Loudoun will prove that!”

****

Early the next afternoon, Hawk and Sequatchie were saying their farewells to McDougal. The Scotsman said, “I wish ye wouldn’t go now. There’s been reports of Creeks and Chickasaws in the area, maybe French forces, too. We’ll need every gun if we get attacked here.”

Hawk looked at the small Scotsman. “I wouldn’t mind staying. What about you, Sequatchie?”

“No, my people need these supplies. They are hungry after the long winter.” He had bought a horse and loaded it down with sacks of grain and food supplies.

“I guess I’ll go along with Sequatchie.”

“Watch your scalp,” McDougal said.

At that moment, Jacques Cartier stepped outside of the factor’s office. He had been drinking heavily, and he had been thinking of Rhoda Harper. For the two years he had thought Spencer was dead, he had been at peace. Now his mind went back to the brawl they’d had. And now Spencer had snubbed him to buy goods from a filthy Scotsman. He felt the hatred burn within him. He could not handle liquor well, and now he staggered across the parade ground, murderous intent on his face. Hawk did not see him approach. When Cartier lunged forward, Sequatchie simply stepped up and, reversing his tomahawk, struck the trapper between the eyes with the blunt end. Cartier uttered a gasp, his eyes rolled upward, and he fell limply to the ground, the knife he had intended to use on Hawk falling beside him.

Hawk wheeled and saw what had happened. Reaching down, he picked up the knife and studied the face of the unconscious man, then looked up to Sequatchie. “Thanks,” he said.

“Why does he hate you so much?” McDougal asked.

“I think he hates everybody.” Hawk hesitated for a moment, then leaned forward with the knife.

“You’re not going to—” McDougal gasped, for Hawk had removed the trapper’s fur cap and had grasped his long, thick red hair. “You’re not going to scalp him!”

“Not really,” Hawk said, smiling grimly. He took the knife, held the thick hair up, and cut it off close to the scalp, without drawing blood. He stuck the red hair inside his belt and looked around at those who had come to watch the scene silently. “Tell this coward that Hawk has his scalp. Tell him I’ll swap it to a squaw for a bowl of stew.”

McDougal watched them as they left the fort, his eyes on the tall form of the man called Hawk. Then looking down at the unconscious form, he said, “He’ll be like a mad animal when he wakes up. Hawk would have been better off if he’d put a knife in his throat. He’ll have to do it someday, I fear.”

Chapter Seven

Encounter at a Stream

October of 1757 brought a beautiful fall. As Hawk and Sequatchie made their way through the towering trees, Hawk remarked, “Somehow, I always liked autumn the best, even though there’s always something of death in it.” He looked up at the garish colors of the season—the reds, yellows, and oranges—colored the forest, and he became more philosophical than was his usual manner. “I guess there has to be death or there wouldn’t be life,” he murmured. “Every year autumn comes, and then winter, and everything seems to be all over. The ground’s hard and frozen, and the trees look dead. Nothing but dead grass, but then spring comes, and new green shoots begin to break their way through the hard ground. The trees sprout their new growth, and the first thing you know the earth’s all renewed again.”

Sequatchie, who was plodding along beside Hawk leading one of the pack animals, nodded and said, “That’s the way it’s always been. Death and life. Does the Book say anything about that?”

Hawk was accustomed to the Indian asking him questions about the Bible. He had read the Bible through more than once during the two years he had been with the Cherokee, and now a verse came to him. “The Lord kills and the Lord makes alive. I guess this is His world,” he remarked, looking at the white clouds scudding across the blue skies overhead.

Hawk was silent for a long time, and Sequatchie knew that his white friend was thinking of the things in the Book, as Sequatchie called it. He had an instinctive knowledge that Hawk was a man who was deeply unhappy and dissatisfied. Once he had said to his mother, Awenasa, “My brother Hawk is a man who wanders lost. He has learned to find his way through the woods—but he has not found his way as a man.”

Awenasa had agreed at once. “He needs a squaw and sons, and little ones about him. No man is complete without that.” She had given Sequatchie a reproachful look, for it was a constant argument between the two about Sequatchie’s own lack of a wife. He had been married once, but his wife had been killed in a raid by the Creeks, and he had never spoken of taking another wife. He had looked at his mother, knowing what was in her thoughts. Ignoring her hints about his own marital status, he said, “Hawk was married. He did have a squaw.”

“He told you that?”

“Not in so many words, but I know it.” There was a deep wisdom in the Cherokee, and he knew well how to read the hearts and minds of men, especially one such as Hawk, with whom he had been day and night for almost two years. “But it is not a squaw he needs—he needs the Jesus God of the Bible. He reads about Jesus, but he does not believe.”

Now as the two rode on, Sequatchie thought of the conversation he had had with his mother. He said no more about it, but as they wound their way through the forest, he spoke of plans to come. “There will be food now,” he said. “The buffalo will come again. We will have venison, wild turkey, and bear. The fish will be in the streams, and I will show you how to catch them with white oak fish traps.”

They paused early in the afternoon, and Hawk used a Dutch oven that he had purchased from the Scottish trader, McDougal. He made plump loaves of bread from the flour and corn, and that night they drank coffee and ate fresh trout plucked out of a stream. They also enjoyed the pulpy meat of the persimmons that had fallen to the earth in abundance, for both men loved sweets. Sitting by the small fire, they talked late into the night, and just before turning in, Hawk said, “I will go in the morning and get a deer. There are tracks around the stream everywhere.”

Sequatchie nodded, and the two men rolled in their warm blankets. Hawk went to sleep almost at once, which was unusual for him, and slept dreamlessly. When he awoke there was no yawning or stretching or coming awake slowly. One moment he was deeply asleep, then his eyes opened, and he was completely alert and aware of his surroundings.

Rising silently, he picked up his gun and left the camp, marveling at how he had learned to travel through the woods making no more sound than a cloud drifting overhead. It had been a hard lesson to learn, but Sequatchie had taught him well. He knew that it was a skill that might save his life one day, and as he moved through the forest, his eyes never stopped moving from side to side. He had also learned from the Cherokee that life in the forest often hung by a hair. The tribes that surrounded the Cherokees were cruel. Some of them were treacherous and could appear at any moment, rising like ghosts, killing, butchering, scalping, and then fading away back to their own territory.

By the time Hawk reached the creek, the sky in the east was tinged a faint milky gray. He took a stand beside a huge beech tree and checked the priming of his rifle. Holding his rifle loosely with both hands, one finger on the trigger, all he had to do was sweep it up, aim, and pull.

He was acutely aware of the sounds of the forest. He had never known how much he had missed until he had learned to still-hunt. After a time, he heard the tiny singing sound that he knew came from a mouse, called the “singing mouse” by the Cherokees. It had small white feet, and its song could only be heard if a man remained absolutely still. Overhead, an owl drifted by on his last cruise for food before daylight. His thick feathers deadened the sound of his flight, and yet the quick ears of the hunter heard it faintly. Hawk did not move, but turned his eyes upward without shifting his head and saw the great hunter glide across the sky. There was something ominous about the great bird that carried death in his mighty talons.

Time passed and only the tiny sounds, faint and mute, continued to catch his attention. Hawk’s mind suddenly went back to Williamsburg and he had a clear vision of his son’s face as he had seen it the day he left home. It came to him sharply now. He saw the round red face, the chubby fingers, and marveled at the perfection of the tiny fingernails. He remembered the dimples beside each knuckle of the red hands that were clenched tightly together. The hair was as black as his own, and he wondered if it had grown lighter. Sorrow came to him as he realized that this part of himself—this part of Faith, the fruit of their love—was alive and so far away. By this time the child would be walking and talking and becoming whatever was in him.
Would he be like Faith? Would he have a dimple such as she had in her right cheek? Would he have her sense of humor? Will he become tall like me or short like her?
The thoughts flashed through his mind, although he remained perfectly still. It was painful for him to think of his son, and more than once during his two years he had suffered agonies, knowing that he was wrong to leave the child alone. He thought of his own father, and his memory went far back as he recalled how he had depended on him and learned from him. He stirred faintly, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, driving the memories from his mind and concentrating on the scene before him.

Even as he did, a slight sound caught his attention. Without moving his head, Hawk swiveled his eyes, and at that moment a magnificent buck stepped out from behind some alders and lifted his head.

As always, since Hawk first saw a deer, his heart started to beat like a trip-hammer. There was something regal about a full-grown, powerful buck, and he remembered back when he had shot his first deer. His hands had trembled so that he could hardly pull the trigger. He was more experienced now, having killed many bucks, and his finger tightened on the trigger. He knew he had to move quickly to swing the rifle into position, for one move and the buck would be gone, springing away at a flying gait.

Careful now. You’ll only get one shot
, he warned himself. He took a deep breath, held it, then suddenly the deer lowered his head and began drinking. Hawk could’ve taken the shot then, for the deer’s eyes were, of necessity, down close to the stream and he could not see his enemy. Yet there was something so peaceful and quiet and right about what he saw that Hawk could not move. He took in the strong shoulders, the heavy rack of antlers, and when the deer suddenly lifted his eyes, Hawk snapped the rifle into position. He expected the deer to leap away, but nothing happened!

Of all the times he had hunted, Hawk had never experienced anything like this before. The slightest move, and a deer ordinarily would explode with a blinding speed and bound away, but the liquid brown eyes regarded him calmly, and Hawks’s finger on the trigger remained still.
Why, he seems not at all afraid of me. I’ve never seen such a thing . . . !

As if to reinforce this, the deer suddenly lowered his head and drank again. Hawk could hear the sound of the deer lapping the water. Although the rifle was held in his hands with a rocklike steadiness, still, he did not pull the trigger. The deer seemed to be aware of him, yet showed no fear at all. Hawk noticed an oval ring of white fur on the deer’s haunch.