“In Kentucky?”
“In Kentucky. Down the Licking, I think.”
“Yeah.” Boone frowned and made circles on the table with his cup. “I been there. It’s a good way in. Ain’t a bad place, if you don’t mind Indians up your ass.”
Russell shook his head. “You know the Shawnees, Boone, as well as anybody. They’ll be warmin’ up to those surveyin’ parties and generally be real helpful. Get their trade goods now and steal ’em blind when they get into the country.’
Daniel was silent for a moment. “I’m goin’ to do it, Russell. I fair got to. I been back two years and that’s too damn long. If folks are goin’ in now, what do you think it’ll be like in another couple of years?”
“You already know that.”
“I do for certain,” Daniel said grimly.
After another whiskey and more talk of the wonders of Kentucky, Russell asked Daniel to step outside. As they sauntered down the dusty road, Will stopped Boone and faced him. “Daniel,” he said evenly, “if you aim to go, I want to go with you.”
Daniel stared at him and clasped the man’s arm. “Well, by God, Will! You mean that?”
“I do,” Russell said firmly. “I made up my mind soon as we started talkin’. And there’s plenty of families here on the Clinch and all down the valley that’ll join us.”
Blood raced through Daniel’s veins and warmed his face to a flush. Here was a man who would stand by him, a man who could be depended upon, who would not falter. “Then it’s settled, Will.” He offered his hand and Russell gripped it hard.
“It sure as hell is, Daniel.”
When Daniel told Rebecca he wanted to sell the house on the Yadkin, she quietly agreed. “If you think it’s the thing to do, Daniel.”
“It is Becky,” he said firmly. “Our life in these parts is dead, just like the land is. Kentucky’s a place a man can build a proper home. Remember the meadow I told you about?” His eyes flashed when he spoke. “The one right off Otter Creek with the sycamores that come straight down to the river? That’s where we belong, you an’ me an’ the children—all the children.” He grinned and patted her swollen belly.
As ever, pride and sadness struggled for a place in her heart—sadness that she would once again leave so much behind, and pride that Daniel would do what he had always dreamed of without Dick Henderson or anyone else. “When you’re ready,” she said gently, “I’ll be right beside you, Dan Boone. I told you I got a wagon and a cow.”
Daniel soon got word that James and Robert McAfee had taken a party into Kentucky down the Kanawha off the Ohio, some fifty miles north of the Big Sandy. On the Kanawha they had come across James Harrod leading his own group, and the two parties had traveled together into Kentucky. Daniel’s heart climbed to his throat at the news. He knew the area well. It was a different path than he had taken, but it led right to the heartland of Kentucky.
He had already made one trip to the Yadkin, and now he took James and prepared to hurry back there again to recruit families for the trip. They would have to be ready to leave by fall. He would make that clear if he hadn’t already. There could be no delays now.
Not any.
As if providence were blessing his plans, just before Daniel left, baby Jesse was born.
In Salisbury, Dick Henderson hailed Boone and waved him down. “I’ve heard the news, Daniel. I’m glad you’re going. Unofficially glad, of course.” Henderson’s grin changed quickly to a sober look. “Dan, you don’t have to say it. I’ll say it myself. I’ve let you down, and I know it. You—ah, know my position. I hope to hell you understand it.”
“You got to do what you think’s right, Dick. I don’t fault you for that and never have.”
Henderson studied him closely. “Is that true, Daniel? I value your friendship greatly. You know that.”
“It’s true, Dick.”
Henderson seemed to relax at the reassurance. “I hope so. I want it to be. It’s the damn legalities, Daniel. The Crown’s clamping down hard on speculators, and so are the colonies. You’re breaking the law, you know.”
“I got me near fifty families ready to go west, Dick, and the damn English law is one of their reasons for goin’. No offense, of course, but some of us have had about all of the law we can stomach. An’ the taxes to go with it.”
“I know that,” said Henderson. He frowned and clamped his lips together. “Don’t blame you a bit. As a Court Justice, I’m obliged to enforce those bloody laws, and some of them don’t go down my throat any easier than they do yours.”
Daniel knew he meant what he said. Whatever else he was, Dick Henderson was an honest and compassionate man. Sending debtors off to prison gave him no pleasure. Boone reached out his hand and Dick grasped it warmly.
“My heart goes with you, Dan. By God, you ought to know that.”
“I reckon I do.”
Henderson hesitated. “If there’s anything you need … from me, personally, I mean—money for supplies, that sort of thing. .
Daniel couldn’t help stiffening at the offer.
“Damn it,” Henderson flushed, “I owe you that much and you know it. You’ve done more than enough for me. All your work with the Cherokees alone, Daniel.…”
“You paid me for my work, Dick. I ain’t forgot you got me to Kentucky in the first place.”
“Well,” Henderson fumbled, “well, goddamn it anyway, I don’t feel right about this!”
“Hell,” Daniel replied easily. “There’ll be another time. An’ I’m obliged. You don’t owe me a thing.”
Just saying the words seemed to lift a great load off Daniel’s shoulders. Hell yes, he needed help! Selling his farm on the Yadkin had only made a dent in his expenses. But he was going, he and Will Russell and the others. By the skin of their teeth, maybe, but they were going. And if the King himself didn’t like it, then he could by God get himself a horse and ride into Kentucky and say so!
Chapter Twenty-One
It wasn’t the biggest expedition ever mounted, but he couldn’t have felt prouder if he had been leading a whole regiment of British Regulars. Five families from the Yadkin were gathered and ready to go—children, pack horses, livestock and all. A troop of Bryans would join the train later, when Daniel’s group met Will Russell’s at Castle’s Woods. All together they would count nearly two hundred. Not many, he thought, but enough. Others would soon follow, and the time wouldn’t be long coming when a real town would spring up in that meadow by the river.
Followers and well-wishers remained with them nearly the entire morning, leaving them finally at the river. It was almost as if everyone in the valley wanted to feel they had played a part in the adventure, as if, in a way, they were going, too.
At the crossing, Daniel swept his eyes along the small column of buckskin, blue linsey and homespun grey waiting for his word. Finally, he gathered the men from his party and directed them in firing a salute to the neighbors who had seen them off. The guns cracked in a ragged volley, smoke billowed over the water and everyone cheered. James and some of the other young men urged stragglers into line and chased a pack of squealing pigs out of the brush. In moments, the whole party was out of sight, lost in the bright autumn foliage of the forest.
Daniel rode up to James and slowed his horse. “By God, son, we’re going,” he said joyously. “All the way this time, clear across Kentucky.”
James grinned back at him. “You said we would, Pa. You sure did.”
“Well, I did, didn’t I?”
The boyish grin faded, and Daniel saw in the firm, determined features and deep blue eyes someone he hardly knew. And he found himself shocked at the sight, as if, in a blink, a child had simply vanished and a man had appeared. God A’mighty, he thought wondrously, the boy’s nearly seventeen now. He just grew up, and I didn’t even see it!
“You remember when we talked, right before I went West the first time?” he asked James.
“Yes, sir. I remember,” nodded James. “I ain’t likely to forget
, Pa.” He gazed straight at Daniel, his sharp eyes proud and clear. “You said we’d get there, an’ when we did, I’d be ridin’ right beside you.”
“Well, James, it took a while, but here we are.” He glanced at the rifle cradled in his son’s arms. “That piece of yours brings back a few memories. That was a day I won’t forget too quick. It still shoot good?”
“Better’n ever,” James commented easily. He smiled and looked at his father, then patted the stock. “You recall how it veered ’bout a hair up left?”
“I do for sure,” said Daniel.
“Well, it don’t no more. That Shawnee’s head knocked it right back in line.”
Daniel stared at the boy’s sober look, then burst out laughing. “Jesus, boy, you spin a tale tall as your pa!”
James smiled, but held silent. He couldn’t tell his father what he was thinking—that it wasn’t exactly a yarn. Pa wouldn’t understand. But James knew there was magic in the rifle, and his father had put it there. It lay in the stock Pa had carved and fitted after he had shattered the first one saving his mother. James had hardly been twelve, then, and hadn’t understood the wonder of the thing. He remembered dark thoughts that had scared him plenty, not realizing then that he carried a powerful piece of his father’s love locked in that oily piece of wood. James grinned at the thought and shook his head. Damnation, kids sure didn’t know much. There was a lot you had to learn in the world.
The party moved north into Virginia, then curved up west through the mountains to Castle’s Woods, where Daniel expected no trouble with Indians. Still, that was just when you got trouble, he knew. Throughout the trip he kept sharp-eyed riflemen on the flanks of the party, and, his best woodsmen ranging through the forests and over ridges ahead. The Indians weren’t as likely to come near if all the men were armed, but the women, children, pack horses and livestock put the party in a vulnerable position. A dozen Shawnees could scatter horses, cattle and screaming kids over half the Blue Ridge Mountains.
Will Russell was waiting below the last ridge before Castle’s Woods: When Daniel saw the party gathered below, he threw his hat in the air, gave a loud whoop, and plunged his horse down to meet them. Russell grinned and pounded him on the back as Daniel marveled at the size of his group.
“Thirty folks at least,” smiled Will. “More’n that, with the pigs.”
Daniel laughed, heard a cheer from Will’s group, and saw Squire leading his own party into the clearing. Soon, the two groups mixed easily with one another, scaring the stock and creating havoc for James and the other herders.
Daniel found himself surrounded by old companions, some he hadn’t laid eyes on for ages. Stout, red-faced Michael Stoner was there, his thick Pennsylvania Dutch accent so smothered by corn whiskey that Daniel could hardly understand him. It looked to Boone like every frontiersman worth his salt was’ right here, ready and eager to range down the Clinch.
“I ain’t lookin’ for any trouble,” he told Will Russell, “but we can likely handle what comes with men Eke these.”
“The McAfees and their party came through from the west last month,” said Will. “Both the Shawnees and the Delawares was quiet.”
“We didn’t move none too soon, friend. Every man in the colonies is headin’ for Kentucky.” Daniel shook his head in wonder. “Damned, if they ain’t.”
Russell, laughing indulgently, dropped an arm over Daniel’s shoulder and led him toward the tavern. “Now it ain’t that bad, friend.”
Michael Stoner peered past Russell and fixed a bleary eye on Daniel. “It is true, Will. When Boone sees three men together, he thinks it is a village.”
“I seen him run from a group of four, once,” Russell said solemnly. “Thought it was a war breakin’ out.”
Stoner wheezed and patted his belly. “Is true, is true!”
“You boys laugh all you like,” Daniel grumbled. “When we get there and find some fellow from Massachusetts sellin’ rides on a buffalo, don’t come hollerin’ to me.”
As the men joked and baited each other, the women were also getting acquainted. Rebecca liked Mary, Will’s wife, right off. She was a practical, straightforward woman with no frills about her, someone you could talk to without being careful of what you said.
“Guess I better sit down on a seat that doesn’t move while I have the chance,” said Becky, resting on a large rock. “Be a while ’fore we get another chance.”
“Isn’t that the truth!” sighed Mary. “Lordy, Rebecca, looks like we could’ve picked us some nice, quiet store clerks for husbands, don’t it? Someone who’d stay in one place more’n a minute.”
“Does, doesn’t it?” said Becky. She looked at the other woman’s grin and let her own laughter burst out into the open. “What the hell you figure we’d do with men like that?”
The party moved out south and west, through the narrow passes of the Clinch and the broad valley of the Powell River, where the Bryan families were waiting.
Becky greeted her relatives as if she had never seen them before, giving them all a laugh, for it hadn’t been a month since they had joined together on the Yadkin to plan the trip. Her brother James was there with his family, and so was Dan’s sister Elizabeth and her husband. Becky was proud of all the Boones and Bryans who had come along.
Now the expedition party was complete. Daniel and Russell decided to break it into three detachments for the trip to the gap.
“Watching after everybody at once is too big a job,” explained Boone. “If folks travel with people they know, they’ll notice real quick if a child wanders off from its ma.”
Russell agreed. He took a post at the rear with the Clinch settlers and a few experienced woodsmen.
In front of him were the pack horses and provisions.
The livestock was herded by a group that included James and Russell’s son Henry—a job James and his new friend resented. They could both shoot well, knew the woods, and figured they ought to be out in the brush looking for Indians. Besides, Captain Russell’s two slaves could handle this job on their own.
Daniel took the lead with his party, including the Bryans behind him. Some families had complained when Boone and Russell sternly forbade wagons on the trip and insisted that whatever they took to Kentucky would be carried on pack horses. Now the travelers knew why. Past the Powell River, the land turned steep and rugged, thick with trees and rough, stony ridges. Beyond that grew high patches of nearly impenetrable cane, the terrain so wild that even walking was a challenge. Some families had hedged the rules and brought small carts pulled by oxen, but these few soon wished they had never thought of the idea.
“Where the hell’d they figure we was goin’?” Daniel grumbled to Squire.
“Boston, I reckon. Or maybe Philadelphia.”
“Well, we ain’t. There sure are some fine wheels back there for the Cherokees.”
“An’ about a dozen good porkers runnin’ wild. And a couple of fat cows.”
Daniel turned to make sure his son was guarding the livestock, then frowned. “Tell James and the Russell boy to quit huntin’ Shawnees and watch those goddamn animals;” he growled.
Squire grinned and turned his horse back along the column.
Daniel brought his party to a halt on the slopes of Wallen’s Ridge. They were making good time. With any luck at all, he would lead them through the gap on the next day. Sitting his horse, he squinted west into the fading sun. Just across the valley, the high peaks of the Cumberlands seemed to drip gold down their sides. Tomorrow he would be there, with Becky, the children, and all the rest. The sight sent a familiar rush of excitement through his bones. I’ve got you, Kentucky, he thought. I by God bought and paid for you, but I got you sure.
He stopped a moment to figure the date. They had left the Yadkin for the Clinch on the twenty-sixth. Which meant today was October ninth. The tenth, then, would be the day to remember. He might forget his birthday. But he sure as hell wouldn’t forget the tenth.
After Daniel helped Becky
and the children settle in for the night, he rode back along the trail a few miles until he found where James had stopped to quarter the animals. He looked the site over and nodded his approval. The boys had picked a steep-sided hollow with a creek, a place where the stock could get water and yet not wander off.
James left his companions about the fire and walked over to his father. “Everything all right, Pa?”
“Sure is, son.” Daniel slid off his horse and laid a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “I just wanted to ride back and have a talk with you. Figured now would be a good time to do it. You want to walk over here a ways?”
When they had gone a few yards from the little camp, Daniel stopped and faced his son. “You remember what I said about Kentucky, James, how you and me was goin’ to ride through that gap together some day? Well, tomorrow’s it, and I want you up front with me. So when we start goin’ through, you by God hitch your mount up fast. I sure don’t figure on ridin’ into Kentucky again without you!”
James’s face filled with pride. “We shook on it once, Pa. Mind if we do again?”
“I’d be proud to,” said Daniel.
“Then I’ll by God be there for certain, Pa!”
Chapter Twenty-Two
James walked back to the fire as proud as he could be. Every one of his companions, even Captain Russell’s two slaves knew who his pa was. When Daniel left the camp, they all looked after him, then glanced reverently at James himself. It was as though his pa had suddenly rubbed off on him, and he felt another foot taller.
James was near bursting to tell Henry Russell what Pa had said about the following day, but he didn’t, even though it nearly killed him to hold his tongue. His father wouldn’t stand for such showing off.
The more James got to know Henry, the more he liked him. They were the same age, and Henry was the only person James had ever met who reminded him of himself. They had grown up knowing all the same lore about hunting and shooting and camping in the woods. In the few days they had been together, they had told each other nearly everything each had ever done, and then made plans for what they would do when they made it to Kentucky. The only difference James could see between them was that Henry’s Pa wasn’t poor. He figured that wasn’t so important, though, and Henry never mentioned it.
Daniel Boone: Westward Trail Page 15