“Cast us off, lads. Ye wanted to do some fishing, didn’t ye?” chuckled the old fisherman as he put out the boat’s lamp and cast the entire area into darkness.
Robert turned back to Hack and patted him on the neck.
“You’ve been a good horse, Hack. I hope you find a good master. I wish we could take you with us to give you back to Alex, but there’s no room for you in the fishing boat,” said Robert.
Robert and Hugh worked together to push the fishing boat out into the water and climbed in. Robert reached into his saddle bag and pulled out a pouch that contained two pounds in coins and handed it over to the fisherman. The old fisherman nodded his thanks to Robert and then raised the sail after he tucked the money bag into his shirt.
“Thank ye kindly, laddie. I know who ye and yer brother are, and I’m glad to be able to help ye,” said the man with a wink as he steered the boat toward the center of loch Ryan, still sailing north.
The sheriff and the troops eventually came to the point where the Scar met the shore line, where they all rode out on the sandbank and then turned south to ride out to the end of the Scar. By the time they got to where the boat had been tied up on the Scar, all they found was Hack and Hugh’s horse standing there. The men were gone, and all the sheriff could do was scratch his head and wonder what happened to them. After some consideration, he concluded that they had probably drowned in the loch. His men rounded up the two horses, and they rode back up the Scar toward the shore.
“Robber, where exactly are we headed?” asked Hugh.
“North around Fairland Point and then west to Ireland,” answered the old fisherman for Robert.
Robert, of course, just nodded.
The fisherman had a fair wind and was as good as his word as he landed them on a deserted beach just north of Larne. He asked Robert and Hugh to shove his boat off into the water, and he waved goodbye to them. Then he set the sail back toward Scotland and Stranraer.
Robert and Hugh were exhausted from their activities of the night, so they pulled their kits out of their saddle bags, found a secluded spot on the beach, and dropped into their bedrolls.
“Welcome to Ireland,” said Hugh as he collapsed into his blankets.
Robert nodded and they both fell asleep to the sounds of the surf coming in to the shore from the Sheuch.
* * * *
Alex
“Let’s see what cover we can find, lad,” said the Longhunter.
Alex and the Longhunter knew that their situation was nearly hopeless. The odds were heavily against them, and there was nowhere to run. Even if there had been a safe haven, the Iroquois had horses, and they didn’t. Alex’s foot speed was not going to help him now; he couldn’t outrun a horse. Alex and the Longhunter were probably dead men, and they knew it, so Alex decided that he would sell his life dearly.
The Iroquois couldn’t miss the dead horse lying in the middle of the trail. The braves were sure to stop and investigate. That would at least give the girl a better than even chance of getting away. She looked like she knew how to handle a horse. She had ridden off holding the reins in both hands and leaning over the horse’s neck like she had run a horse many times before. So if she didn’t run into anything, she was probably on her way to freedom.
There wasn’t a lot of cover to be found around the dead horse, so Alex and the Longhunter decided to head off in the same direction that the girl had taken until they found something that looked promising. They were jogging along the trail when they spied a large stream that crossed the trail. It was fully dark by then and visibility was poor under the canopy of the trees.
“Alex, let’s follow this stream a ways and see what we can find. If we can dodge the band tonight, maybe tomorrow morning something will happen to give us a chance to escape,” said the Longhunter.
They followed the stream bank until they found a large, flat and wide area where the water flow had undercut the stream bank as it made a broad turn in its course. The two men crawled down the bank and under the cut, where they found a pile of brush and a few dead logs that had accumulated there.
“Here lad, let’s hide under here and cover up with mud from the stream. We might be able to wedge ourselves behind those dead logs for the night. The moon is only half full tonight. Since the clouds have blocked it for now, the braves would have to step on us to find us in the dark. Then we’ll see what tomorrow brings,” said the Longhunter.
First they backtracked and erased all of their footprints that they could find in the soft bank and then waded in the water back down the stream to the undercut bank with logs jammed up against it. Alex and the Longhunter took turns pasting mud all over each other while they waited for the Iroquois to approach. As soon as they were completely covered with mud, they lay down on their backs beside the logs and covered themselves up with leaves and twigs so that they looked like a pile of brush that had blown up between the logs and the bank. They thought that this might work to help them survive through the night, but they figured that the Iroquois would most likely unravel their ploy with the rising sun.
It was only a few minutes until they saw the approach of the first Iroquois scout. He was padding along the bank while scanning both sides of the creek. When he came to the brush and log pile, he jumped down off the bank and hopped up on top of the log beside which Alex and the Longhunter were lying. He stood on the log for a while to have a look around at the area. Alex and the Longhunter dared not take a breath. Alex prayed that the Iroquois wouldn’t look down or investigate the pile of leaves too closely as he eyed the Iroquois from beneath the leaves. The scout was within an arm’s length from him as he stood on top of the log.
* * * *
Robert and Hugh
Robert and Hugh woke up in the late morning to the sound of a dog barking. Robert turned over in his bedroll and spied a man standing over Hugh. Hugh was a heavy sleeper; the barking dog had no effect on him. Finally, Hugh was roused by the stranger kicking him in the back.
“Can’t a lad get any descent sleep around here?” asked Hugh, rolling over in his bedroll to eye the man standing over him while brushing the sand out of his hair.
Robert didn’t say anything.
“You two lads look like ye’ve just landed on the Irish shore,” said the stranger.
“Aye, we might have. Is that where we are?” asked the grinning Hugh.
“Do you mean that you don’t know where you are, lad?” asked the smiling stranger.
“Aye, we were fishing in Loch Ryan when our boat sprung a leak and sunk. The next thing we knew, we washed up on this beach last night,” said Hugh.
“A likely story, lad, but it won’t fly with me,” said the stranger laughing softly under his breath.
“What business is it of yours anyway?” asked Hugh.
“I’m the Sheriff of Larne and those are my men standing off there on the coast road holding those mean looking pistols,” said the sheriff, pointing to the group of men who had dismounted and were standing by the road near their horses.
“One of my duties as Sheriff of Larne is to insure that new arrivals to Ireland are proper persons of genteel appearance or at least have proper documentation and references. My charge is to reject and or correct any arrivals of low and mean appearance and you two lads look mighty low and mean to me. That’s one strike against you. Do you two have any documentation or references?” asked the sheriff.
“Here be my references,” said Hugh rolling to his feet into a fighters crouch while pulling his knife from his boot.
“Nae, Hugh,” said Robert coming to his feet and walking over to stand between the sheriff and Hugh.
“We’ll come along peacefully, Sheriff” said Robert with his back turned to Hugh.
That broke the tension of the situation and Hugh replaced his boot knife. As he reached down to grab his belongings, the sheriff stopped him by placing his boot on Hugh’s saddle bag.
“You two lads won’t be needing anything in those saddle bags for a long time,” s
aid the sheriff with a wicked smile.
The sheriff instructed his men to bring Robert and Hugh into Larne for further questioning. It was only about a ten mile walk from the beach into Larne, south along the coast road. After the questions were completed, Robert and Hugh found themselves locked up in the Larne gaol and robbed of all their money and possessions by the Sheriff of Larne. That left them with no money to buy their passage to America.
“Weel now Robber, look at the fasherie ye’ve got us into now,” said Hugh who was lying on his back on one of the cots in the cell.
Robert didn’t say anything as he gazed out the cell window toward the Larne harbor.
* * * *
Alex
Dawn was just breaking over the eastern horizon in muted rosy shades as the sky lightened. The morning sun soon melted the fluffy clouds, and the Iroquois started stirring from their night’s sleep. Alex and the Longhunter had spent a cold, sleepless night lying on the creek bank beside the log while covered up with mud and leaves.
The Iroquois scout that had paused on top of the log that they were hiding next to had not stayed long. He had moved on to cover more of the stream as soon as he determined that he could not locate the two men in that area. The Iroquois band had decided to camp for the night on the flat area near the stream bank, just above where the two men lay. From snippets of overheard conversation, the Longhunter had determined that the warriors thought that those who attacked them were further downstream and had run to ground for the night. The braves thought that they would rather pursue the ones on foot who fired muskets at them and killed some of their warriors than chase one or more of them on horseback that got away. They surmised that it was better not to divide their force and go after the horse, which had a head start and was obviously running fast. Riding fast at night was risky, as evidenced by the dead horse in the trail, but the person riding the horse obviously had nothing to lose. The warriors didn’t want to take the risk in order to chase the person on the horse at night.
When it was light enough to see, the Iroquois mounted their horses and rode further down the stream. They left warriors behind to guard the camp site and to block any attempt by their quarry to double back toward the main trail. Alex and the Longhunter knew that they must make their move as soon as the warriors were out of earshot. The Iroquois would surely find their hiding place when they couldn’t find any sign of the two men further downstream and came back to explore the stream near the camp site more closely.
As soon as the guards settled, Alex and the Longhunter crawled under the cut bank. Using signs and whispers, the Longhunter told Alex how they would circle around and kill the guards before they ran back toward the main trail. They crawled along the creek to a wash where they could get up the bank without being seen and then worked their way around behind the guards. After a short period of waiting and listening, the Longhunter and Alex determined that there were probably only two guards. Using signs and gestures, the Longhunter directed Alex to creep up behind one of the guards while he took care of the other one. At a signal from the Longhunter, Alex lunged with his knife and stuck his assigned guard in the back. Simultaneously, the Longhunter was close enough to reach around with his knife and slit the throat of the other guard.
The guard that Alex killed gave a grunt before he dropped to the ground, and Alex finished him off by slitting his throat. That grunt from the dying guard alerted a third Iroquois guard that Alex and the Longhunter had not seen or heard or accounted for. The third guard immediately took off running toward the main group of Iroquois to alert them of the location of their quarry.
Alex and the Longhunter saw the guard run toward their pursuers but couldn’t do anything to stop him. Neither man had had an opportunity to reload his rifle after the previous night’s skirmish. So they both turned and ran in the opposite direction, back toward the main trail. When they got to the main trail, they turned again in the direction that the girl had ridden and took off at a fast ground-eating trot to save their strength. They knew that the Iroquois were on horseback, and it wouldn’t be long before they were overtaken. So they wanted to put as much distance between themselves and the warriors as possible. Their hope was to find some kind of defensible position where they would have a fighting chance before the braves got to them.
It wasn’t long before they heard horses coming. Not long after that, they heard the war cries of the warriors as the two men came into sight. A good defensible position had not been located, so Alex and the Longhunter ran off the trail and into the trees, where the band of warriors could not just ride them down and overwhelm them. The braves followed the two men more slowly, as their horses picked their way around the trees. Very quickly, the pursuers moved up on both sides and behind the men, herding them into a small clearing just off the main trail where the braves on horseback encircled them. The Iroquois tightened the circle around Alex and the Longhunter until they were about forty paces from the two men.
Alex and the Longhunter stood back-to-back in the middle of the clearing preparing for the final fight of their lives, holding only dirks and knives because their rifles were still unloaded. There had been no opportunity during the entire chase for them to reload. The fighting was now either going to be close combat or it was going to be their execution using bows and arrows. The Iroquois sat there for several heartbeats on their horses, eyeing the two men in the center of the circle while the tension mounted.
Slowly one of the warriors notched an arrow into his bow string and aimed it at Alex. Alex was turned away from that brave and didn’t see the danger he was in. The Longhunter spied the peril at the last moment, just as he turned his head to look in that direction. He knew that he didn’t have time to warn Alex. Just as the Iroquois let the arrow fly, the Longhunter leaped between Alex and the arrow. The speeding arrow pierced the Longhunter’s shoulder, and he fell to the ground. Alex turned just as the Longhunter fell, and rage pumped more adrenaline into his body. His face turned bright red from his anger. Alex stepped over the Longhunter and flipped his knife around so that he was holding it by the blade. He quickly drew it back and threw it at the Iroquois whose arrow had downed the Longhunter. The knife throw was a good one, and the blade buried itself in the chest of the Iroquois who had shot the arrow. The warrior fell off his horse and lay dead beside it with the knife sticking in his chest.
Alex had no way of knowing that the Iroquois’ plan had been to kill Alex immediately and then capture the Longhunter to take him to their longhouses. The Longhunter faced a long and painful death back at the Iroquois longhouses, where all the members of the band could witness and participate in his death.
The Iroquois were even more angered by Alex’s killing of their warrior, and they began to slowly ride their horses toward the two men in the clearing. Alex stepped over the Longhunter and stood astride him, turning in all directions as the band rode toward them in a tightening circle.
“Alex, I’m done for. See if you can break free of the circle and make a run for it,” said the Longhunter.
“I’m not leaving you here alone.”
“It’s alright lad, I am killed anyway, either here or back at the Iroquois village,” said the Longhunter.
Alex didn’t move. The Iroquois stopped their horses about twenty paces from the two men; simultaneously they all strung their bows and notched war arrows for Alex’s execution. There was no way out this time, because their war arrows couldn’t miss Alex.
As the braves were ready to draw back and release arrows, the sound of men on horseback caused everyone to look back toward the main trail. A group of armed, mounted men came charging into the clearing, yelling and firing pistols and rifles at the Iroquois. The Iroquois forgot about killing Alex and the Longhunter and turned their horses to flee back into the trees.
The mounted men did not pursue the Iroquois after they ran them off, but turned back and dismounted near the Longhunter and Alex. The leader of the men grabbed his saddle bag off of his horse and walked over to where t
he Longhunter was lying on the ground. He reached down and broke off the tip of the arrow that was sticking out the back of the Longhunter’s shoulder and then pulled the broken remainder of the arrow, minus the arrowhead, back out the way it went in.
“This is going to hurt a bit,” he said as he cleaned and dressed the wound.
“Do your worst,” said the Longhunter.
“You’ll be okay, Alexander,” said the man after he had bandaged the wound with a clean dressing.
“Thank you, Ellison,” replied the Longhunter.
“Hello, lad,” said the man called Ellison as he stood up and held out his hand to shake hands with Alex.
Alex was dumbfounded and couldn’t say a word. He wondered how the men had found them, who they were, and where they had come from.
“Hello, sir,” was all Alex was finally able to say, shaking hands with the man named Ellison.
Things became a little clearer for Alex when he saw the girl ride the pony into the clearing. She had ridden as fast as she could during the night all the way back to Fort Cumberland, where she had awakened the Maryland Rangers, a group of militiamen that were paid by the colonial Maryland government to protect the settlers from the Iroquois. After the girl told them her story, the Rangers had mounted their horses during the night and followed the girl back toward where she had left the two men. They had heard the sounds of horses and warriors in the clearing just off the trail. The Rangers had told the girl to wait by the trail while they turned their horses and went into the trees to see what was going on.
Alex walked over to the girl and helped her dismount the pony.
“Thanks for saving my life,” said Alex.
“Thank you for saving mine,” said the girl.
“I’m Alex Mackenzie. It’s nice to meet you.”
“Hello Alex, I’m Martha Kelly. It’s nice to finally meet you, too. I’ll give you your shirt back as soon as I can.”
“Thanks; I appreciate it. I’m not in any hurry for it,” said the shirtless Alex.
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