* * *
It was 1838.
Back in the States, the Iowa Territory, consisting of what would someday be the states of Iowa, Minnesota, and most of North and South Dakota, was formed. The territorial capital was placed at Burlington. It would later be changed to Iowa City.
Joseph Smith and his followers fled Ohio and settled, for a time, in the Missouri frontier.
Samuel Parker had published a book called Journal of an Exploring Tour Beyond the Rocky Mountains. In it, he wrote about the west, the Indians, the animals, the mountain men, and the trails and rivers. Many people didn’t believe it although the book would later be considered very accurate.
The U.S. government had ordered the Army, under the command of General Winfield Scott, to begin rounding up many Indians who lived east of the Mississippi River and start herding them westward. The journey, from Georgia through Kentucky, Illinois, and Missouri to Oklahoma, would be on foot, without adequate food and clothing. Thousands would die and the infamous trek would be called The Trail Of Tears.
But those in the long and lovely and secluded valley in the Rocky Mountains knew none of this. They had not seen a white man in months, had not read a newspaper nor heard any gossip from the outside world.
* * *
Moses and Swede had a bumper crop of vegetables, and the women stayed busy storing what they could. True to his word, Jamie took sacks and sacks of vegetables to Black Thunder’s band and was received cordially, the Indians trading venison, buffalo meat, skins, and pelts for the gifts of vegetables.
“How your woman?” Black Thunder inquired.
“She’s fine,” Jamie told him.
“No more children?”
“Not this year. So far.”
“Good. I tell my woman, Shining Bright, about your many family. Bad mistake. She not let me near her for long time. No talk about your family to my woman. You through fathering children?”
“One more,” Jamie said with a smile. “Next year, maybe.”
Black Thunder grunted and walked off, shaking his head and muttering under his breath. “Stay away from Shining Bright, Ja-mie,” he called over his shoulder. “Not want to go through that again.”
* * *
“Mac?” the question came at a gathering of mountain men.
“Aye,” a man said, turning his head and looking at the man who’d called his name. The mountain man stood up. He was well over six feet, his silver hair hanging down to his shoulders. His eyes were a startling blue. He was an old man, but he stood erect, tall, and proud, a man who would bow to no one. He was all wang-leather and muscle and gristle. Even at his advanced age, not a man to take lightly.
“I think you got kin down near the Arkansas, Mac. You recall that long wide valley where that crick cuts off from the Arkansas and runs all the way through it?”
“I do.”
“I was jawin’ with Preacher some months back. He told me ’bout a MacCallister he helped out down in Texas some years back. Big tall lad with yeller hair and blue eyes and a little bitty button of a girl with yeller hair and blue eyes. They come from Kentucky, on the run. Preacher was gonna tell you hisself but he never could catch up with you. I was talkin’ to Black Hand ’bout a month back, and he says a whole passel of white folks done moved into that valley. One of them be a lad named Jamie Ian MacCallister. I heared you say one time that was yore Christian name.”
“Aye. For a fact, it is.” The old man smiled. “I’ll be sayin’ my farewells to you good lads and takin’ to the wind. That there’s my grandson, sure as I’m standin’ here. I’ll be seein’ you boys. Keep your powder dry and your arses covered.” The elder Jamie Ian MacCallister packed up his kit, saddled his horse, and rode out of the camp, a smile on his lips. “I got me a grizzly bear for a grandson,” he muttered proudly. “Takes after me, I reckon.”
Three
Mac prowled the high country around the valley, watching the comings and goings of those in the tiny settlement below. The Utes knew he was there but left Silver Wolf alone, for the old man was a legend in the mountains. Practically every tribe of any consequence west of the Mississippi had fought with Silver Wolf at one time or another, and at no time had they been victorious. The Indians finally made peace with the man and let him wander, for he was not a man who started trouble . . . just finished it.
And the Utes who watched the old man were amused, for as good as Silver Wolf was, his grandson was better. Man Who Is Not Afraid was silently tracking Silver Wolf, and the old man was not aware of it. The conclusion to this game came one morning.
The elder MacCallister awakened with a start. Moving only his eyes, he carefully looked all around him. He knew something was wrong but could not figure out what it was. Then he smelled fresh coffee brewing and meat cooking. His senses working hard, he realized that someone, or something, was behind him, out of his field of vision.
“You going to lay warm abed all day, Grandpa, or get up and join the land of the living?” the question came from behind Silver Wolf.
Chuckling, the old man threw off his blankets and stretched. Without turning around, he asked, “How long have you known I was here, boy?”
“From the very first day.”
“Them Shawnee they done you right, boy.” He turned around and stared for a moment at a young mountain squatting behind him. Great God but his grandson was one hell of a man. “Your pa, did he die well?”
“I suppose. I was in the house with Ma when the Shawnee struck. It was the day before my seventh birthday.”
“Five year with the Injuns, hey, lad?”
“Yes.” Jamie stood up and poured them both coffee. Then he speared pieces of meat from the pan with a stick and handed the food to his grandfather. “Don’t feel bad about my slipping up on you, Grandpa. I’ve slipped up on just about every woods animal you could name.”
“You the spittin’ image of my pa, Jamie. You know you come from a long line of warriors?”
“No, sir. Pa never talked about that.”
“Well, you do. MacCallisters’ a been fightin’ and dyin’ for some damn fool cause for a thousand years. I hear tell you ’bout lost it all in some old church.”
“I came close. A lot of good men died there, Grandpa.”
The old man called Silver Wolf grunted and slurped at his coffee. “I just told you, MacCallisters have been fightin’ other folks’ wars for years. Not me. I fight my own wars. After your grandma died—you never knowed her—I went west. Only been back east a couple of times since then. Sell my pelts through an agent. Young Preacher says this country is gonna fill up with settlers. That’ll be a sad day.”
“Preacher helped us on the trail. I’d like to see him. Where is he?”
The old man laughed. “Boy, I doubt the Good Lord Hisself knows the answer to that one. Preacher is like the wind a-blowin.” He looked at Jamie. “All them yeller-haired kids yours, Jamie?”
“No.” The old man looked startled. Jamie laughed and added, “Kate had something to do with it.”
* * *
The group gathered on the common ground in front of their cabins and watched as Jamie and his grandfather rode in. The family resemblance was startling. “Come and meet your great-grandfather kids!” Jamie called. “He’s come to pay us a visit.”
“My word!” Swede muttered, gazing at the tall, fierce-looking old man. He noticed that the old man dismounted with a spryness that belied his age, a rifle in hand.
“That, senor,” Juan whispered, “is a man not to be taken lightly.”
“I concur,” Sam Montgomery returned the whisper. “Jamie comes by it honestly, doesn’t he?”
“Hush up and come on,” Sarah said, tugging at his sleeve.
The kids, all of them, were, naturally, in awe of the wild-looking man with the mane of shoulder-length silver hair. But Ian, as he told Jamie he preferred to be called, smiled and that broke the ice, for the smile changed his whole appearance.
Within minutes, Ian was rough-housing with th
e boys and tickling the ribs of the girls.
“Don’t play so rough, boys!” Kate called. “You’ll hurt your great-grandfather.”
Jamie laughed at that and Ian roared like a grizzly. “Hurt him?” Jamie asked of Kate. “That old man is as hard as an oak tree. I’ll tell you what, Kate. I wouldn’t want to fight him.”
Kate looked at her husband to see if he was really serious. He was.
* * *
The kids had been put to bed and were asleep. The men and the women sat in the dogtrot of Jamie and Kate’s cabin and talked into the pleasant night.
“It’s a fine and fair place you have here, laddie,” Ian said to Jamie, after lighting his pipe. He was never quite able to get the burr out of his words. “A fine family and good friends. There is no more a man could ask for.” He looked at Moses and Liza. “You two ran from slavery, you say?”
“Yes, sir,” Moses replied. “Back in Virginia.”
“I dinna hold with slavery. It’s wrong. No man should be held in chains and beaten like some poor draft animal or be indentured to another man.”
“I agree,” Moses said with a smile.
“I ’spect you do,” Ian returned the smile. He looked at Sam and Sarah. “You two, now, that’s another story. I know quality when I see it, and it’s written all over the both of you.”
“We like adventure,” Sam said quickly.
Ian chuckled. “Do you, now? Well, you’ll find out here that names don’t matter for much.” He smiled in the darkness. “Or what a man leaves behind him back in civilization.”
Sam arched an eyebrow at that but said nothing. Both Sam and Sarah were from rather well-to-do families back east. But Sam had a little trouble with a loudmouth and killed the man. Shortly after that, he and Sarah moved to Kentucky where they took Jamie in and then followed him westward a few years later. For the time, Sam and Sarah were moderately wealthy people and could be living in a grand house in St. Louis or New Orleans. But Sam had been speaking the truth when he said both he and Sarah liked adventure, for they did.
Ian cut his eyes to Hannah. “And you’d be the lady who escaped from the Shawnee village with Jamie.”
“That’s right. Had it not been for Jamie’s cunning and skill, I think I would have killed myself rather than spend my life married to Big Head.”
Ian nodded. “And you, shepherd,” he said to Juan. “Why did you come along to the Big Lonesome?”
Juan lifted his hands in the gesture that only the Latins can do so well and so meaningfully. “Because these are my friends, senor.”
Ian grunted. Pretty good answer, he thought. He looked at Moses and Liza’s girl, Sally, who was married to Robert. They had taken in Robert’s half brother and sister, twins, who had been fathered by a white plantation owner and were as white-appearing as any there. The white-looking twins were born to trouble, Ian thought. He was as sure of that as he was that a wheel is made to roll. The girl, budding into womanhood quickly, was going to be a beautiful woman, albeit a sneaky one. Ian wasn’t sure about the boy, but he was going to be a handsome man, that much was for sure. With not a trace of negroid features in either of them. But it damn sure might show up in their kids.
His grandson had done well, Ian concluded. He liked everyone here at the settlement. If he could be sure every man and woman who had an urge to come settle the west were of the quality of these folks, Ian would volunteer to guide the wagons.
Might as well wish he could soar on the wings of eagles, the old man thought sourly.
When the settlers awakened the next morning, the old man was gone.
“He might be back tomorrow, next month, next year, or never,” Jamie told them, unconcerned about his grandfather’s sudden leave-taking. “He’s seen that we’re all right, everybody is well and happy, and there is nothing he could do. So he left.”
Kate and Hannah understood; the rest were dumbfounded. But they’d get over it, Jamie reckoned.
In the fall of that year, Kate told Jamie she was pregnant. “Nine to live,” she said. “That’s what we agreed upon.”
The baby was born during the hard winter of early ’39 and was named Falcon. Neither Jamie nor Kate ever spoke of Baby Karen, killed by bounty hunters at the age of five months and buried in the tiny cemetery in the Big Thicket country of east Texas, but they each thought of her. She would have been ten this year.
Jamie Ian and Ellen Kathleen turned twelve that year. Andrew and Rosanna were eleven. Matthew, Megan, and Morgan were seven. Joleen was five. The family was complete.
“Is it over now, Jamie?” a thoroughly exasperated Moses asked him after the birth of Falcon.
Jamie laughed and patted the older man on one muscular arm. “It’s over, Moses. We planned for nine and we now have nine living.”
“Own tribe,” Black Thunder muttered when he heard the news. He did not tell Shining Bright about the new baby.
During the summer of ’39, a few wagons began rolling out of the east, heading toward California. Their route would take them either north or south of the long peaceful valley in the mountains. But their coming would touch Jamie and the others, for it signaled the beginning of the end for one group of people and the start of a new way of life for the other.
The elder MacCallister rode up late one afternoon during the waning days of summer in the high country. The nights were beginning to turn cooler and fall was just around the corner. Silver Wolf swung down and began talking as if he had been gone for only hours instead of months.
“First little wagon train made it through,” he said, accepting a cup of coffee from Kate. He eyeballed the new baby and shook his head at Jamie.
“What about the wagon train?” Jamie said, ignoring his grandfather’s comments.
“Preacher led it through, or at least part of the way. And it’s got the Indians so riled up they’re talkin’ war. Especially the Arapaho. There’s blood on the moon, boy.” He looked down at the baby asleep in the cradle. “What’s the lad’s name?”
“Falcon.”
“Good, strong family name. My great-grandfather was named Falcon. He was a Highlander. Some called him a mystic. I dinna know about that, but he was a warrior supreme.”
“What about the Indians?” Sam asked, walking over from his cabin.
The elder MacCallister waited until the entire settlement had gathered around—which now numbered thirty people, including the babies—then told them about the wagon train. “They opened the gate, people. Now they’ll be no stoppin’ the pioneers, as some has taken to callin’ the fools.”
“Why do you call them fools, Grandpa,” Kate asked. “Were we fools?”
“ ’Cause that’s what they are. Not like you folks. You all lived in the wilderness; many of you born in the wilds. You understand it. You know not to fight it but to live with it. These folks are townpeople. They think this is a grand adventure. They never learned that a wagon train was wiped out last year—wiped out to the last person. I didn’t even know it myself until a Pawnee told me a few months back. From the glint in his eyes, I’d say he had a part in it, too. Wait a minute. I got something for you people.” He went to his pack horse and retrieved a small bundle. “Newspapers,” he said, dropping the bundle on the ground. “I got them down at Bent’s Fort. Newspapers from all over. Course they’s months old. But it’s still readin.’ ”
The news-hungry men and women began mentally devouring the papers while Ian saw to his horses.
“Missouri has a university,” Sarah said. “Amazing.”
“People have begun settling on the west coast,” Hannah said. “Someplace called the Willamette Valley in Oregon Territory. Wherever that is.”
“The Trail of Tears,” Sam Montgomery said softly. “Jamie, nearly four thousand Indians died while being relocated to Indian Territory just north of Texas.”
“What tribes?” Jamie asked.
“Cherokee, Choctaw, Creek, and Seminole.”
“The population of the United States is sixteen million p
eople,” Swede read. “That’s incredible.”
“Sixteen million and thirty,” Jamie said with a smile. “They missed us.”
“How could they count the Indians, Pa?” Jamie Ian asked.
“They didn’t, son. And probably didn’t count the negroes either.”
“That don’t hardly seem fair,” the boy replied.
“Doesn’t,” his mother corrected.
“That, too,” Jamie Ian said with a grin and easily ducked the open-handed swat Kate swung at him for sassing her. But he settled down immediately after his father cut his eyes to him, for when Jamie laid a branch across one’s rear-end, it was an affair to remember.
Jamie did not believe in much physical punishment, usually leaving all that to the gentler hand of Kate. But when he did order one of his kids to go cut a branch, that punishable act was never committed again.
This was a time when discipline was necessary for life itself, for the wilderness was fraught with danger. There were grizzly bear and puma and rattlesnakes all about. Even Indians, usually friendly, had been known to steal children. And for the very young, it was easy to get lost.
The elder MacCallister returned and sat down. “Army wants to talk to you, Jamie,” he said quietly.
“What about?” Jamie asked.
“Somebody named Fremont is plannin’ some sort of explorin’ trip, way I hear it. To find the best way to git to Oregon. Gonna leave St. Louis in about a year. He wants to meet you and see if you’d like to go along.”
“I wouldn’t,” Jamie said shortly.
“That ain’t all. They’s talk of invadin’ Mexico. You gonna be asked to take part in that, too.”
“I’m not interested,” Jamie replied, just as shortly as was his reply to the first notion. “Why me, Grandpa? I’ve only been about fifty or so miles west of where we are. I don’t know the country west of here. Why not you or Preacher or Kit Carson or some other mountain man?”
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