Daniel Boone: Westward Trail

by Barrett Jr. Neal

  At supper Dick met his partners, John Luttrell and Nat Hart. They were laying for him, too. He could tell the minute he laid eyes on them.

  “We must take a firm hold on this enterprise,” Hart said severely, “or it will very likely slip through our fingers.”

  “We have a firm hold,” Dick replied shortly. “We have a few problems, Nat. We’ll overcome them.”

  Nat raised a brow and looked ironically at Luttrell. “A few problems, Richard? Great God, man, we are practically out of business! The buyers are deserting like sheep. Another five families left at noon. They want no part of Kentucky. John, show him your note.”

  “What note?” Dick asked.

  “I’ll read it to you,” said Luttrell, pulling the paper from his jacket. “A hunter sent it over the gap. ‘I have discovered the scalped and slaughtered bodies of a poor family bound for Kentucky. It is a massacre here in this country.’” Luttrell looked at him. “And that, of course, is on the heels of Boone’s letter.”

  “Who else has read it beside yourself?”

  “No one. What difference does it make? Good Lord, Dick, these aren’t just rumors running around this camp. Read this letter! It’s all true! We are leading these people to slaughter!”

  “Oh, John, come now,” Henderson’s face looked pained. “Those families who take to the road on their own know what they’re getting into. We offer protection—armed men and safe passage. If they ignore that.…”

  “If they ignore that,” Luttrell said loftily, “they can go in and claim land on their own. They don’t have to buy it from the Transylvania Company.”

  Henderson was wondering when his partners would hit on that sore point. “They have no rights to that land. It is not theirs to claim. In time, we’ll take care of them through the proper court actions.”

  Hart and Luttrell looked at him as if he had lost his mind. What court? they were saying with their eyes, and they were right. There were no laws or lawyers in Kentucky. It wasn’t a colony or a province. It was just several million acres he had purchased from the Cherokees, against every possible pressure the Royal Governors could muster. Hart and Luttrell knew that as well as every other holder in the company. They also knew that a paper wouldn’t carry them across the Cumberlands. Nothing would do that but fortitude and guts. Dick Henderson wasn’t sure he had either, but he would keep trying.

  He began to show his followers a Dick Henderson they had never seen before. He stomped down the valley in the cold light of dawn and stalked through the encampment, his commanding courtroom voice ringing in the frosty air. By damn, he was leaving, he told them. Right now, come hell or high water. He was taking his own provisions and pack horses and half a hundred of the finest marksmen in the land. If folks wanted to hightail it back East, why, they were welcome to do so. If they wanted lush green meadows in a virgin land, an empire to leave their children, then they had best mount up and follow! A ragged cheer went up—not nearly as loud as he had hoped for, but Henderson didn’t care. He mounted his horse, raised a hand to the sky as he imagined an explorer might do, and headed across the valley.

  God help me, he thought, not daring to look back, what if there’s no one back there following me?

  For nearly a day, Henderson felt like he imagined Boone himself might. His courage had clearly stirred the others and only a few weak souls had stayed behind. As they crossed the high summit of the Cumberland Gap, as the snow burned his cheeks and the wind howled like a demon through the pass, hope filled his heart. Below, the weather cleared almost immediately, and his settlers moved cheerfully forward. Even Hart and Luttrell began to treat him with new deference and respect.

  The next day, April 9, the skies turned slate grey and a frigid rain mixed with snow pounded and pelted them. Still in sight of the gap, half a dozen families started back. By noon, the narrow trail had turned into an icy river, and they could go no farther.

  At least now they can’t desert, Henderson thought dismally, shivering under his blanket. They couldn’t even find the way back.

  When day broke on the tenth, however, he prayed for snow again. The weather was bright and clear, but it brought new disasters. Henderson was appalled when, just before noon, his column met forty men and women riding, walking, fleeing to the safety of the mountains.

  The afternoon brought dozens more men with eyes full of fear and hair-raising tales of ambush, terror, blood-hungry Shawnees on the war path. With each new encounter, one of his own families lost their nerve and joined the refugees on the trek back. He begged them to stay, pleaded with them not to desert.

  “Don’t you know what you’re giving up?” he shouted. “It’s your fortune up there, your future!”

  A hollow-eyed settler stared at him, holding his crying wife and child close to his side. “Mister, there ain’t no future in Kentucky.”

  By nightfall, his whole enterprise lay shattered in pieces. A few brave followers clung to his train, but not many. The last group of stragglers had been men from Daniel’s own company! They begged Henderson to turn back. Boone and the whole party were dead by now, they were sure of it!

  No, Henderson thought fearfully, it can’t be! Daniel’s still there. He’s got to be! If Boone himself was gone, then the rest were dead for sure. He had to find out. Henderson still had some men, but how many? Enough to stand off a Shawnee attack?

  Before the sun came up, he walked to the head of the column and approached Will Cocke, a rangy woodsman he had hired to lead the train. It was essential to get a message to Boone, he announced, and Cocke was just the man to do it.

  The man looked at him and laughed. “No disrespect, Mr. Henderson, but if you want a man to ride up through that country, you’d best look in a mirror.”

  “Cocke,” Henderson shook his head incredulously, “I would. I would if 1 were qualified. I am not, and you are, sir!”

  Cocke looked grim. “Qualified for what? To get my hair lifted? Hell! Near anyone’s qualified for that.” He paused and raised a brow. “I’ll do it, mister, for an extry ten thousand acres of land.”

  “Done!” cried Henderson.

  “Prime land, Mr. Henderson.”

  “The best, Mr. Cocke. I swear it! I’ll write it out if you like.”

  “Don’t have to,” Cocke said dryly. “I’ll remember. Only I ain’t goin’ alone. Not out there.”

  “What?” Henderson stared. “You said.…”

  “I ain’t goin’ alone. Take it or leave it.”

  Henderson trembled, certain his legs would leave him. His eyes clouded, and tears stung his cheeks, but he felt no shame at all. “Any of you?” he shouted hoarsely. “Jesus, please, our enterprise is ruined if you don’t. You understand? Ruined!” He stumbled along the column, facing one man and then another. “Ten thousand acres, you hear? Just go with him. For ten thousand acres!”

  Men stared at him and turned away. Finally, Cocke gave him a ragged look and jerked his horse down the trail.

  “God be with you!” Henderson shouted after him. “We’ll see you soon!” But he was certain they never would. Whoever rode off toward the west, he was convinced, would disappear forever from the sight of man.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  “By God,” Stoner said darkly, “people are the only animals I put no trust in, Daniel. This is the truth!”

  Daniel grinned and shook his head. Standing on the bank of the river, he looked south to the lush green meadow easing down to the water and to the broad line of sycamores beyond. Stoner was right. The hard-working men in the clearing looked nothing like the drawn and haggard lot he had led from Taylor’s Fork the week before. Now they laughed and called out to one another, striding jauntily across the meadow like English lords. Three men carrying fresh-cut timber for the fort stopped to wave, and Daniel waved back. Two of the fellows had threatened to leave with Luke Mitchell and Draper. Now, they had paced off great tracts of land for themselves and talked scornfully of men who couldn’t face the wilds.

  They had chang
ed, all of them, and Otter Creek had done it, had touched them with the same kind of magic Daniel had felt the first time he saw it. They had discovered the wonder of the place, the rich soil, the fields full of game. And they had taken Boone on their shoulders, given a weary cheer, and quickly named the spot Fort Boone.

  “If it ain’t the thin, it’s the fat,” Gass complained irritably as Boone walked up. He wiped a coat of dust from his face and set his rifle aside. “Dan’l, they’re not payin’ no damn attention to what I say. We got ’bout half a fort standin’, and it ought to be finished. I looked for my crew this mornin’, and where do you think they was? Four of ’em was walkin’ off plantations for themselves down the valley, an’ one was out shootin’ buffalo!”

  Daniel frowned. Striking a healthy balance was getting to be a real problem. He had spoken that morning to Callaway who, for once, agreed with him. The problem of security was a frustrating one. The men had somehow put the Indians completely out of their minds, as if the Shawnees had vanished from the world the moment Otter Creek came into sight.

  Callaway had a solution. He quickly put into effect a rigid schedule of drills, guard rosters, scout patrols and inspections that would have wearied a British grenadier. At the same time, Dave Gass doubled his labor requirements on the fort.

  Since Callaway’s army and Gass’ workers were one and the same, the two men were at odds in less than a day. Daniel stepped in and laid down the law. “These boys ain’t soldiers nor slaves neither,” he explained patiently. “We got to build the fort and guard it.

  That don’t seem like no big problem to me.” Gass and Callaway both started shouting at once. “Goddamn it, hold it!” snapped Daniel. “We got about what? Maybe thirty men, countin’ the stragglers from Harrod’s. You get a third of ’em for soldierin’, Dick, and two-thirds go to work on the fort. Well rotate ’em every three days.”

  Callaway looked appalled. “I cannot guarantee our safety with a dozen men!”

  “You can and you will,” Daniel said firmly. Both Gass and Callaway started to protest, but Daniel walked off.

  The plan worked well for two days, and Boone was greatly pleased. Then the men started drifting back into old habits. Daniel gathered them up and gave them another talking-to, and they fell in line again for a day. After that, it was business as usual. They simply refused to change their ways.

  Slowly, the fort began to rise and Otter Creek to take on the shape of a settlement. By the twelfth of April, Daniel decided the barricades were strong enough to defend against an attack, which, Daniel was certain would soon come. It baffled him that the Shawnees hadn’t come down on them already. Where were they? There was plenty of sign about, and his scouts had seen war parties in the distance. The only answer that made sense chilled him to the bone—they had found Henderson’s party and cut it to ribbons. It was a logical target, and far more appealing than armed men forted up on a river. There were women in the party and pack horses full of provisions. If Flint was still riding with the Indians, he would urge his Shawnee brothers to take the settlers before they reached the protection of the fort.

  And Flint was there, Daniel knew. He could sense his presence, almost feel him sometimes. Wandering through the forest, Daniel would look up suddenly and stare through green branches. Something would move on a high hill, nearly out of sight. Then he would run swiftly through dark hollows and over high ridges, rifle at the ready, till he reached the spot, and there would be nothing, no sign at all that Black Knife was near. But Daniel knew he was right. His enemy was there, a wraith that stood just out of sight in the shadows.

  “You want me to go look for Henderson, I will,” Stoner said firmly. “He must be close, Dan’l.”

  “If he ain’t close, he likely ain’t comin’. You know that as well as I do, Mike.”

  Stoner frowned. “Ja. Maybe they get him, I think. You want me to see?”

  “If they’re in trouble or dead, there’s no use riskin’ a man to find out. We can’t help ’em till they get here.”

  And if they don’t get here at all, thought Daniel, then what? We have plenty of lead and powder on hand, but it won’t last forever. Our lives are in Henderson’s hands, and if his company’s not dead, he’s counting on us to give them shelter, but right now, we can’t do a damn thing for each other.

  On the fifteenth of April, Daniel’s scouts reported a large war party to the west above Harrodsburg. The same day, Daniel himself saw two Shawnees north of Otter Creek and fired on them. What are they waiting for? he wondered. What’s holding them back?

  Two days later, a gaunt, hollow-eyed man rode into Otter Creek and slid wearily off his horse. “Are you Boone?” he asked. “I’m Will Cocke from Mr. Henderson’s party, an’ I’m goddamn glad to be here.”

  Boone gripped his hand and the men around him cheered. “Dick—where is he? Is the column all right?”

  Someone offered Cocke a cup of water, and he drank it down fast, staining the dust on his cheeks.

  “Should be here in a few days. I come about a hundred an’ fifty miles, I guess. Took me seven days to do it.” Cocke spit on the ground and wiped his mouth.

  “Many Indians?” asked Daniel.

  “Damn right.” Cocke frowned. “What do you fellers do here? Grow ’em from seed?”

  Daniel and the others laughed. “Mike, you can take that ride now. Take a couple of boys with you an’ some spare horses.” He turned back to Cocke. “Reckon you’d like some rest and a bite to eat, mister. Come on into the fort, and we’ll fix you up.”

  Cocke stood his ground. “I can eat later,” he said solemnly. “Right now I aim to stake out some land.” Boone frowned. “Right now?”

  “Hell yes, right now. Dick Henderson promised me ten thousand prime acres, and I’d be pleased if one of you gentlemen’d show me what ain’t taken.”

  Daniel stared. Ten thousand acres? Dick Henderson had promised him only two thousand for cutting the trail to Otter Creek!

  After Cocke was out of hearing, Daniel took Squire and Gass aside. “When Henderson gets here, get everyone up near the fort an’ keep ’em there as best you can. I don’t want no folks wanderin’ about stakin’ off empires. There’s too many Indians.”

  Squire shot a questioning glance at Daniel. “And where’ll you be all this time?”

  “Out,” said Daniel. “Lookin’. Anybody else wants to know, ’specially Henderson and Callaway, I’m huntin’ buffalo.”

  “Dan’l—” Gass started.

  Boone cut him off. “That answer is no, Dave, an’ thanks. I got to do this myself. If they’re going to hit us, I want to know when and how many, and I can’t spare either of you from the fort.”

  Squire and Gass knew better than to argue. “I know where he’s going,” grinned Dave. “Out to find where Will Cocke’s staked his ten thousand acres.”

  “I’m glad you found me out,” Daniel replied. “I ain’t so embarrassed, now.”

  He slipped out of the fort after supper, leading his horse into the trees and walking through the growing shadows. After a cold camp, he started northeast before dawn, keeping to hollows and thick forests when he could.

  For three days he wandered vaguely toward the Licking River, crisscrossing the land and following sign as he came to it. There were Indians about, plenty of them, and he had guessed where they were gathering. Every trail he crossed eventually turned north. Finally, he quit tracking and headed straight for the bend of the Licking. Indians held to a habit like everyone else, and the bend was one of their favorite stomping grounds.

  Four days out of the fort, he left his horse under a high limestone cliff and climbed up the steep rock wall to the ridge above. Heavy foliage covered his passage, and along the ridge at the top, pines stood straight, like sentinels. Daniel chose a tree with good branches and shinnied his way up to the crown. Down the gentle slope below was the bend of the Licking. And on the flat plain beside the river were more Shawnees than he had ever seen at once, three hundred or more, he was certai
n. Still, it didn’t take him long to pick out Henry Flint.

  Dick Henderson was beside himself with joy. The long, harrowing journey, nearly a month on the trail, had taken the spirit out of him. He ached all over, and had shed thirty pounds from his portly frame. Still, when the two dozen rifles at Fort Boone fired a volley and cheered him in, he decided it was all worthwhile.

  And by God, Will Cocke was still alive! Henderson, having never expected to see him again, greeted him like an old friend. Boone’s men laid out great steaming portions of buffalo steak on bark platters, and the newcomers ate until they couldn’t force any more food down their throats. It was a great day, the best ever, Henderson decided. A double day to celebrate, because he had ridden into Fort Boone on April 20, his fortieth birthday.

  After the first good night’s sleep he had enjoyed in a long time, Dick Henderson made a more careful inspection of Fort Boone. Now fully rested, he was less than enthralled about the place. Stalking across the meadow, he collared Mike Stoner. “Where’s the fort?” he asked sharply. “I can’t seem to find it.”

  Stoner raised a brow. “It is right there, Mr. Henderson. You are looking at it.”

  Henderson stared. “That? That’s a fort? Good God, man, you can’t be serious!”

  “What’s the matter with it?”

  “What’s the—why, it’s—it’s—everything’s the matter with it!” he stormed. What Stoner called a fort looked to Henderson like a tall pigsty. The timbers were set crookedly and had been barely pounded into the ground. Henderson stomped around it and found whole sections missing.

  “What the hell good is a fort if you could drive a herd of buffalo through the gaps?” he mumbled to himself. Inside, there were new horrors to see. Three small cabins were cramped tightly against the walls, only one near completion. Where were his people supposed to stay?”