Broken Trail Page 4

  Drawing little encouragement from this answer, Broken Trail felt his hope for a rifle begin to fade. He would have pushed on without sleeping if Red Sun Rising had suggested it, despite the obvious peril of traversing mountain passes in the dark.

  Red Sun Rising interrupted his thoughts.

  “When you get that rifle,” he said, his voice full of energy, as if he had never entertained the slightest doubt, “you come with me to Chickamauga. That is my town. I tell my friends, Broken Trail looks white, but his heart is same like ours. You join our war party. We kill settlers. Take many scalps.”

  Broken Trail hated to refuse Red Sun Rising, who was going to so much trouble to help him on his mission. He even liked the idea of joining a war party, but it was more important to return home as soon as he could. Besides, he was not sure that he wanted to kill settlers.

  “Is every settler an enemy?” he asked hesitantly.

  “Every one is our enemy. Every settler steals Cherokee land. Our chiefs make treaties. They give up much land. Settlers promise to take no more. They break that promise. Our chiefs make a new treaty. They give more land. Settlers break promise again. Every time, they push us farther into lands of other nations. The Koasati and the Muskogees don’t want us there. It’s their land. Then our leader Dragging Canoe tells us, ‘Kill all the settlers before they push us into the Mississippi River.’”

  “You can’t trust white people,” Broken Trail agreed. “We Oneidas helped the rebels. But General Sullivan burned our towns anyway. Burned our fields. Left us hungry with nowhere to live.”

  “Kill them all!”

  With these words, Red Sun Rising lay down, rolled onto his side, and rested his head upon his folded arm. “Time to sleep,” he said in a voice so fierce that Broken Trail wondered what kind of dreams he was likely to have.

  Lying down near him, Broken Trail closed his eyes. Though the stony ground was no more comfortable than the mountain ledge on which he had slept three nights ago, he dozed off quickly. And then he dreamed.

  In his dream he was back in the forest glade of his spirit quest. As before, the wolverine walked out of the bushes and stood looking at him. It was just as big and shaggy and its teeth were just as sharp and yellow as when he had seen it in his trance. And the musky smell was just as strong. But this time the wolverine said nothing. After staring at Broken Trail for a few moments, it raised its head and walked away. As it disappeared into the undergrowth, it glanced back over its shoulder, as if inviting Broken Trail to follow.

  He wanted to follow. But when he tried to rise, he could not move. He wanted to call out to the wolverine, but could make no sound. Suddenly he awoke. Opening his eyes, he saw Red Sun Rising lying fast asleep, but no wolverine was anywhere about. Gone again, he thought. Then he sniffed the air and smiled. Wolverine. There was no mistaking that pungent smell.

  Settling down to sleep again, he let his mind linger over the recollection of his dream, hoping to slide back into it. But that one brief vision was all that the spirits allowed.

  After one more day in the mountains, Red Sun Rising and Broken Trail descended into a valley, following a clear, wide track between wooded slopes. Broken Trail saw horses’ hoof prints in the soft earth.

  “Soon we come to settlers’ farms,” Red Sun Rising said. “Over Mountain men.”

  So far, Broken Trail had seen no sign of settlement, for there was nothing but forest on either side of the track. He was beginning to wonder where the settlers and their farms might be, when he and Red Sun Rising rounded a bend and he saw, down a short lane, a log cabin surrounded by tree stumps.

  In the spaces between the stumps were the withered stems and the brown leaves of turnip and potato plants, as well as freshly turned soil where these root vegetables had been dug. But he saw no sign of a human being, a horse, a cow, a pig, or any other living creature. Everything was quiet. The cabin door stood ajar. No smoke rose from the chimney. The sight gave Broken Trail a shivery feeling. Something was amiss.

  “Nobody there,” he said.

  “We look.”

  They crept forward cautiously. Broken Trail clutched his tomahawk. Red Sun Rising had his knife ready. When they peered around the edge of the half-open door, Broken Trail smelled the acrid odour of a burnt-out fire mingled with the sweet, stale smell of blood.

  From the doorway he saw a long plank table in the middle of the room. On the table sat the remnants of a meal. Flies clustered about ham slices on a platter. There were broken biscuits on tin plates.

  Half under the table, clinging to each other, were the bodies of two little girls in matching homespun gowns. They appeared to be five or six years old. Twins, perhaps. Beside one table leg lay a cloth doll with tufts of yellow yarn for hair, and a happy smile embroidered on its face.

  Broken Trail stepped into the room. Now he saw the rest.

  Near one wall, a man wearing a grey hemp shirt and black breeches lay crumpled beside an overturned chair. Broken Trail flinched when he saw the bloody top of his head where his scalp had been.

  Sprawled upon the hearth was the body of a young woman. She lay on her back, her face nearly as white as her apron. The blood in which she lay had dried almost black. A dead baby lay beside its cradle on the plank floor.

  Every scalp had been sliced off. Blood was splattered everywhere.

  “We’re too late.” Red Sun Rising returned his knife to his belt.

  Broken Trail could not take his eyes from the baby. It was so small. He wanted to pick up the baby and return it to its cradle. But he couldn’t do that with Red Sun Rising watching, his dark eyes hard as stone.

  “Come on. Let’s go,” Broken Trail took a step backward, pulling his foot free from the stickiness on the floor.

  “Not yet. Maybe we find guns.”

  Red Sun Rising went into the next room, leaving Broken Trail staring at the baby.

  When he returned, he was holding a straight razor. “No guns. Nothing good but this. Very sharp.”

  “It’s for shaving.”

  Red Sun Rising’s face creased in a grim smile. “When you get that rifle, I use this to shave your head, except for scalp lock. We put on war paint. We find plenty more settlers.” He waved his arm in a gesture that seemed to dismiss the five bodies. “Take many scalps.”

  Broken Trail turned his face away. He crossed to the threshold and stood gazing out at the tree stumps and empty yard, for he could not bear to look any longer at the massacred family.

  “Hurry,” he said. “Let’s not waste more time.”

  He walked out through the open doorway without looking back.

  Those settlers had no right to steal Cherokee land. But it wasn’t right, either, to kill helpless people while they were eating supper in their own home.

  Whose side was he on, he wondered, when both sides were in the wrong? He wanted to help Red Sun Rising, but he did not want to be part of his war. Killing settlers was not the answer. There had to be a better way.

  Chapter 6

  THE SUN HAD STOOD straight overhead when Broken Trail and Red Sun Rising left the cabin of the murdered family. They had been walking ever since. Now the sun was setting, yet they had not once paused to eat or to rest.

  “When will we stop for the night?” Broken Trail asked.

  “Not stop. Not this night. Not next night. Then maybe we come to Kings Mountain in time.”

  Maybe? Broken Trail thought this over. Maybe was not reassuring. He was already tired. How could they walk two nights and two days without a rest? Not even the toughest warrior could manage that. And even if they could, they still might be too late.

  Broken Trail’s heart sank. He had been travelling for ten days, and if he did not reach Kings Mountain in time, it would be all for naught.

  Despite his discouraging words, Red Sun Rising showed no sign of wanting to give up. Fatigue did not slow him. If anything, he walked faster.

  Before it grew dark, they passed half a dozen more homesteads, each in its own clearing, and
once they made a wide circle through the woods in order to avoid a village. The name of the village was Elizabeth town, Red Sun Rising told him, and it was not safe for them to be seen there.

  A full moon hung in the black sky when Red Sun Rising suddenly stopped walking. He pointed to a homestead nestled in a hollow just off the track. Visible in the moonlight were a two-storey house of dressed timbers, a small barn and a smaller outbuilding. The windows of the house were dark. In a paddock, standing nose to tail with their heads lowered in sleep, stood two horses. One was dark, the other light in colour, though it was too dark to tell what that colour might be.

  “Horses,” said Red Sun Rising. “We take them. Ride all night.”

  Ride all night! Everybody knew that Cherokee boys could ride before they could walk. But Broken Trail had never been on a horse. He did not like this idea. But what excuse could he give, apart from admitting that he might fall off?

  “I’m not sure we ought to do that. People hang horse thieves.”

  “Only if they catch them.”

  “What if there’s a dog? It’ll wake up everybody.”

  “I have spell to make dog quiet.” As if he sensed Broken Trail’s reluctance, he added quickly, “These are the horses of our enemies. It is right to take them.” When Broken Trail continued to hesitate, Red Sun Rising said bluntly, “Don’t you want to reach Kings Mountain in two days?”

  Broken Trail gulped. “I can’t… I can’t…”

  “You can’t ride!” The Cherokee’s voice mixed amusement with disbelief. “I teach you fast.”

  Reaching into his pouch, he pulled out two pieces of cord and made a loop at one end of each. “Cord go in horse’s mouth. Like this.” Without warning, he grabbed Broken Trail’s jaw, pulled it open, and looped his lower jaw.

  “Ow!” Startled rather than hurt, Broken Trail pulled the cord off.

  Red Sun Rising took it from him. “I put it on horse for you. You pull cord. Tell your horse which way to go.”

  Broken Trail understood. During his childhood in Canajoharie he had been familiar with bits and halters although his family had not owned a horse.

  The boys crept like lynxes through the underbrush. When they neared the house, Red Sun Rising gave a whistle. He waited, and then whistled a second time. Sure enough, a shaggy black and white dog emerged from the shadows beside the front step. The dog shook itself and then turned its head this way and that, its ears pricked up.

  Red Sun Rising raised his arm. Something flew through the air. The dog sniffed, picked it up, and carried it away.

  Now the horses were awake. Their ears angled forward. Broken Trail heard their snorting breath.

  “Which one you want?” Red Sun Rising whispered.

  “I don’t care.”

  “Then I take the dark horse.”

  Red Sun Rising inched forward and eased open the paddock gate. First, he stroked the light horse’s neck, and then he deftly slipped the loop of the cord around its lower jaw. The horse did not object. Then he did the same to the dark horse.

  “Ready?” he whispered. Without a sound, he sprang onto the back of the dark horse. It stamped its feet and whinnied.

  “Hurry,” he whispered to Broken Trail, who crouched close to the paddock fence, hoping that his oki was near. Tightening his muscles, he leapt. If he had not grabbed a handful of mane, he might have shot over the horse and landed on the other side. But in a moment he had thrown one leg over the horse’s back and gained his balance.

  Red Sun Rising grabbed the free end of the cord that dangled from the jaw of Broken Trail’s horse. He handed the cord to Broken Trail before reaching across to slap the pale horse’s rump. Both horses shot out of the paddock and up the lane to the track, with the dark horse in the lead.

  Broken Trail lay forward against his horse’s warm neck, one fist clutching the mane, and the other the end of the cord. He gripped with his legs as hard as he could while the horse rocked him up and down and back and forth all at the same time. He slid sideways. He was going to fall off. “Oki! Oki!” He whimpered. “Save me!” Behind him he heard shouts and rifle fire.

  There was no pursuit. How could there have been, with the horses gone? After a brief gallop, Red Sun Rising slowed his horse to a canter, and then a trot. Broken Trail, pulling cautiously on the cord, was surprised at the willingness of his horse to obey. They kept going for the rest of the night.

  At sunrise Red Sun Rising stopped his horse and slid from its back. He held out one hand to help Broken Trail dismount.

  “The Oneida are great warriors,” he stated, “but not great horsemen.”

  Broken Trail’s thighs hurt and his knees wobbled. “I praise the Earth, my mother,” he said weakly. Good solid unmoving Mother Earth.

  They led the horses from the track into the forest. When he had caught his breath, Broken Trail said, “The dog didn’t bark. What spell did you use?”

  “Dried blood and bear grease stuffed into a hollow bone. Powerful magic, but it only works on dogs. I carry it on war party, but settlers see us before I can use it.” Red Sun Rising gave a shake of his head as if to banish an unwelcome thought. “Let us hobble these horses. They need to rest. So do we. No one can catch us before we reach Kings Mountain. We are there in two days. You give your message in time.”

  Chapter 7

  RED SUN RISING pointed through the streaming rain toward a flat-topped hill a mile away.

  “Kings Mountain,” he said.

  “That’s no mountain!”

  “Yengees give it that name, not me.”

  The steep sides of the hill looked as if they ought to continue up and up into the sky. The Maker of All Things had a mountain in mind, Broken Trail thought, when he planted the base. But sixty feet above the surrounding plain, the mountain stopped. It looked as if a giant had sliced off the rest and carried it away, leaving only a bare, flat top.

  Broken Trail took a deep breath and then exhaled slowly. He had reached his destination in twelve days. He would deliver his message on time.

  His legs gripped the horse’s sides as it jounced along the trail, and he muttered a prayer of thanks to his oki for keeping him safe so far. Even little problems, like steering the horse, had become manageable. Now all he had to do was deliver the message and collect his new rifle. A sentry could direct him to Major Ferguson’s tent, the English captain had said.

  The rain had lessened by the time he and Red Sun Rising reached the foot of Kings Mountain. They stopped by a small stream, dismounted and hobbled their horses, leaving them to graze amongst the trees—great oaks and maples draped in moss.

  “Horses not go far,” Red Sun Rising said. “We ride away soon.”

  The sides of Kings Mountain were heavily wooded with mature trees big enough for a man to hide behind. They climbed the steep slope.

  At the top, Broken Trail and Red Sun Rising emerged onto the bald plateau, which was twice as long as it was wide. One end was open field; the other was covered with army tents. Apart from a few soldiers piling heaps of rocks near the edge of the plateau, Broken Trail saw no sign of defence preparations.

  “This army doesn’t look ready for battle,” he said. “They must think nobody can get at them from below.”

  Red Sun Rising looked down at the thick cover of trees on the steep incline.

  “Then they make big mistake.”

  “I don’t see a sentry. Maybe we should ask those soldiers piling rocks for directions to Major Ferguson’s tent.”

  “Don’t need to ask. I see it.”

  He pointed along a line of identical army tents to one that was twice the size of the rest. It had a sheet of canvas stretched horizontally over the opening as an awning. Under the canvas, protected from the drizzle, stood two soldiers leaning on their muskets, looking half asleep.

  “Yes. That must be it,” Broken Trail said.

  When the soldiers noticed the boys approaching, both stood a little straighter and pointed their muskets in a half-hearted way. Broken Trail
raised his right hand, open palm outward, in the sign of peace.

  “I bring a message for Major Patrick Ferguson.”

  Those words seemed to wake them up. The corners of their eyes crinkled with amusement as they looked the boys over. As usual, Broken Trail’s blue eyes claimed chief attention.

  One of the soldiers smiled, showing broken teeth. “What are you doing, dressed up like an Indian?”

  Broken Trail summoned all the dignity he could muster. “What I look like doesn’t matter. I bring a message for Major Ferguson. I’ve been travelling twelve days to deliver it to him and to nobody else.”

  The other soldier, who had a snub nose and freckles, snorted. “The boy’s a half-breed. They sometimes come out looking pretty white.”

  “Those can be the worst kind of devils,” the soldier with broken teeth said.

  Broken Trail scowled. “Look at this!” He pulled the letter from his pouch. “Take me to Major Ferguson.”

  “Oh, we dassn’t do that,” he snickered. “A brave like you might lift his scalp, and then where would we be?”

  “What’s the message?” said the other soldier, smirking. “We can let him know as soon as he’s disposed. At the moment, the Major is entertaining a lady.”

  “Is that what you’d call Virginia Sal?” his comrade snickered.

  Both burst out laughing. Broken Trail gave them a dark look as he shoved the letter under their very noses.

  “Read the cover.”

  “I can’t read,” said the soldier with broken teeth.

  “No more can I,” the other grinned.

  “The message is addressed to Major Patrick Ferguson, and it’s marked ‘Urgent.’”

  “Who taught you to read!”

  The soldier with broken teeth spat on the ground. “Maybe we should tell Captain DePeyster. Keep ourselves in the clear if there be something to it.”

  “Nobody could attack us here.”

  “That’s God’s truth. But I’m going to tell DePeyster all the same.” He turned to the boys. “Wait here. I’ll to talk to Major Ferguson’s aide.” Leaving the shelter of the awning, he strode to the tent just beyond.