Jamie sucked on his peppermint stick and watched the trio move toward him. One of the boys left the group and walked over to sit on the edge of a watering trough.
“Hey, you!” Abel called to Jamie. “Red nigger. Why don’t you leave town. Nobody wants you here.”
Jamie’s eyes narrowed slightly but other than that his expression did not change. He said nothing.
“Maybe he’s forgot how to talk English,” Jubal said. “I bet that’s it.”
“Let’s learn him,” Abel suggested. “Hey, Injun-boy, can you say, ’I’m ’bout to get a heap big butt-kickin’?”
The two boys thought that was hysterically funny. The third boy sat on the edge of the trough and did not laugh. He watched Jamie. He thought that maybe Abel and Jubal were about to make a big mistake. His pa had been among those who’d met Jamie, and his pa had been plenty impressed by the boy. More man than boy, his pa had said. And added that his son had best walk light around the Shawnee-raised young fellow. There was a mean glint to the lad’s eyes.
I will witness this, Reverend Callaway thought. And when the dust settles, I will testify that the two young scalawags egged this on.
“Get off that porch, Injun-nigger,” Abel said. “And take your whopping, ’cause you’re sure gonna get one.” He added a most disgusting phrase concerning Jamie’s mother.
Jamie left the porch like a mainspring that had been wound too tight. His moccasins hit Abel flush in the face and Reverend Callaway winced as the sound of Abel’s nose breaking crunched its way to him. Jamie whirled and kicked out, his foot striking Jubal behind one knee and bringing the boy down in the dirt. Then Jamie was all over him and had drawn first blood before Sam and Abe could rush out of the store and separate the boys. From the look on Jubal’s face, the older and bigger boy was mightily relieved that somebody had broken up the fight.
Reverend Callaway stepped out. “Jamie didn’t start this, Sam, Abe. And the Jefferson boy didn’t have anything to do with it.” He told the merchant and the farmer what had happened just about the time Sheriff Marwick came puffing up.
“You again!” he shouted to Jamie. “Damn little half Injun troublemaker.” He started toward Jamie and Sam stepped in front of him.
“I’d suggest you hear what Reverend Callaway has to say about it, Sheriff. And don’t you ever call Jamie that again. Or I’ll call you out and we’ll settle this with pistols or blade. Your choice.”
Marwick sputtered for a few seconds, but he really wanted no trouble with Sam Montgomery. Sam was rich — to Marwick’s mind — and wielded considerable power in the community. Besides that, after he’d witnessed the beating Sam had administered to Hart Olmstead, he was more than a little afraid of him.
The sheriff listened to the preacher and shook his head. “Them boy’s daddies ain’t gonna like this none, Reverend. They’s gonna be trouble and it’s gonna be bad. One boy’s nose is busted and the other got kicked in the privates and can’t even get up. Lord God, where’d that kid learn to fight?”
Sam looked at Jamie. The boy stood expressionless, his arms folded across his chest. There did not appear to be a mark on him. Sam looked at Reverend Callaway, who was also staring at Jamie. The preacher lifted one eyebrow in silent questioning.
Marwick helped Jubal to his feet. The boy stood half bent over, both hands holding his aching groin and tears of pain and rage streaming down his face. “I’ll kill you!” he shouted to Jamie.
Jamie shrugged his shoulders in reply.
“You boys get on home,” Marwick told the two agitators. “Move!” He looked at Robert Jefferson, still sitting on the edge of the trough. “What’s your part in all this, boy?”
“Nothing, Sheriff. I didn’t do nothin’.”
“He’s telling the truth,” Jamie spoke. He walked over to the boy and stuck out his hand.
Robert looked at the hand for a few seconds, then stood up with a grin and shook the hand.
Sheriff Marwick snorted in disgust and stalked off. Sam and Abe walked back into the store, Reverend Callaway with them. Jamie sat down on the edge of the watering trough with his new friend. He hesitated for a second, then gave Robert his last piece of peppermint candy.
“Hey, thanks! Where’d you learn to fight like that?”
“At the Shawnee town — warrior training.”
“You really took Injun warrior training?”
“Since I was nine. I think,” he added. “I’m not really sure how old I am.”
“You look like you’re about fifteen.”
Jamie shook his head. “Eleven or twelve. One or the other. I’m sure of that. You going to be at the to-do this Saturday?”
“Plan to be. Pa says it’s gonna be a whing-ding of an affair. Ma’s got her party dress from the trunk and letting the wrinkles fall out. Pa’s gonna cut my hair this week.” He looked at Jamie’s long blond, shoulder-length hair, with all the berry dye washed out. “I wish I could grow my hair that way. You gonna cut it off?”
“I see no reason to.”
“Jamie? You made some bad enemies today. Them two won’t forget it. They’ll be lookin’ to waylay you. You best walk careful from now on.”
“I always do,” Jamie said softly. And probably always will, he added silently.
* * *
The ladies began bringing food over Saturday morning. Jamie had never seen so much food — pies, cakes, cookies, roasts, and the like.
Jamie wondered if the families of Olmstead and Jackson would come to the party?
“Doubtful,” Sam told him. “We both made bad enemies, Jamie. Those two are spiteful, revengeful men. And their children are just like them.” He smiled. “All except Kate.”
“Kate who?”
“Kate Olmstead. Prettiest girl in this part of the state. Just about your age. And she’s as sweet as honey. She spends a lot of time with Reverend Callaway’s daughter, Judith. More time with them than she does at home. I don’t think she likes her home life very much. She might be here for the party. She’s a very sweet girl, Jamie. You’ll like her.”
Sarah looked up from her kitchen work and smiled. “I’m glad you made a friend with Robert Jefferson, Jamie. He comes from a good Christian family.”
“We get along fine,” Jamie said.
Jamie scrubbed himself until he shone, bathing in the creek that ran not far from the house. During the summer months, Sam, too, bathed in the creek — it was a common practice on the frontier. When the first folks began arriving at the house, Sam and Jamie were all decked out in clean clothes, and in Jamie’s case, new store-bought clothes. Hannah came out with Reverend and Mrs. Callaway . . . and Kate Olmstead. Hannah was escorted by a huge young man everybody called Swede. But even though Hannah was beautiful, Jamie only had eyes for Kate. He thought she was just about the prettiest thing he had ever seen. She had hair the color of wheat and dark blue eyes. All the young boys followed her around. But Kate had eyes only for Jamie. Jamie got so discombobulated looking at her he walked right into a tree and put a knot on his forehead.
Sam and Sarah were amused at the boy’s antics.
“I think he’s in love,” Sarah said.
“Oh, honey, they’re just kids,” Sam replied.
“So were we, remember?” she reminded him.
“You’re right. As usual.”
Hannah and Swede joined the young couple. They too had noticed Jamie and Kate.
“It’s about time Jamie had some fun,” Hannah said. “God knows he’s lost most of his childhood.”
The four of them stood apart from the laughing and gossiping crowd that spilled from the front to both sides of the yard. The Jackons and the Olm-steads were not in attendance, and the general consensus among everybody there was relief.
“Is Jamie really just eleven years old?” Sarah asked.
“Twelve, I believe. But he could easily pass for someone much older. He hadn’t been at the Shawnee town five minutes before he whipped Tall Bull’s son, Little Wolf. Jamie’s a fighter.”
“Yes,” Sam said dryly. “I can attest to that.”
“And so can them rowdy boys who picked on him in town,” Swede said, his eyes sparkling. He chuckled. “I would have very much liked to have seen that.”
“It was brutal,” Sam said. “And frightening in a way. The boy fights with a coldness that is scary. And he is very skillful.”
“I’ll tell you what he is now,” Hannah said, and they looked at her. “In love!”
Six
Four people taught at the local school: Reverend Callaway, his wife, Elizabeth, Abe Caney’s wife, Mary, and Sarah Montgomery. The community had tried to hire a full-time teacher, but so far had no luck in doing so. That summer Sarah tutored Jamie at home, in preparation for the next term. She found him to be exceptionally bright and to be a voracious reader. Whenever he had a spare moment, he had his nose stuck in a book.
News from town was not good. The Saxon brothers had broken out of jail . . . with some outside help, and nearly everyone thought they knew who had helped them: Hart Olmstead and John Jackson. But nobody could prove it.
Hart Olmstead had forbidden his daughter, Kate, from ever again going out to the Montgomery’s. He had given the child a terrible beating when she mentioned Jamie’s name one evening at the supper table.
Robert Jefferson told Jamie about Kate’s beating one day in town and the boy’s thoughts turned dark and savage, but no one knew it except Jamie. Like the Indians who had taken him, Jamie had mastered well the art of facial stoicism.
“Did he hurt her bad?” Jamie asked.
“He marked her some,” Robert told him, as the boys sat on the ground and played mumbly-peg with their knives.
Jamie still carried his Shawnee skinning knife, but he carried it out of sight, tucked into his high-topped moccasins. He did so without Sam having to ask. He wanted to do everything he possibly could to make life easier for the couple who were so kind to take him in. But there was one thing he refused to do: wear shoes. And Sam and Sarah had stopped asking him to. During his formative years, from seven to nearly twelve years of age, he had not had a shoe on either foot, so his feet just weren’t comfortable in anything except moccasins.
“How bad?”
“Not too bad, ’way I heared it. Heard it.” Since school was about to start, he had begun to watch his grammar. Getting rapped on the knuckles or a twisted ear hurt. “He was careful not to mark her on the face. He beat her back and backside with a belt. She had to stay abed for several days.”
The boys were silent for a time. Robert looked at Jamie. “You got a funny look in your eyes, Jamie.”
The look vanished instantly. Jamie smiled. “Just thinking, that’s all.”
“You anxious for school to start?”
“Yeah. I really am.”
* * *
School on the frontier was primitive at best. The buildings were ill-heated in the winter and insufferably hot in the summer. If a child got four full months of schooling a year, that was considered good. And those four months almost always were in the dead of winter, when his or her parents did not need them to work in the fields, plowing, planting, harvesting, mending fences, chasing down strayed cattle or hogs, or hunting for food or gathering berries.
But Jamie cherished every moment in school, for he was fully aware that he was far behind the others his age. However, there was also another reason why Jamie loved school: he got to sit next to Kate Olmstead.
During his first year of his stay at the home of Sam and Sarah Montgomery, Jubal Olmstead, Abel Jackson, and the few others who called them friends pretty much left Jamie alone. But Jamie knew it wouldn’t last and he was careful not to get caught out alone. It wasn’t that he was afraid, for he was not. He just didn’t want to cause trouble for Sam and Sarah.
Jamie was growing fast and filling out. Already big for his age, he was going to be a tall man, wide shouldered, lean hipped, and heavily muscled. Already he could more than hold his own with Sam in the fields, but he always held back, so as not to embarrass Sam.
Sam had presented Jamie with a fine Kentucky horse, a midnight-black stallion named Lightning that he’d bought for no more than a song because no one could ride the animal.
“If you can ride him, you can have him, Jamie.”
“I’ll ride him, sir.”
“Just keep him away from the other horses. This one’s a bad one.”
“He’s just misunderstood, sir. That’s all. Believe me, I know the feeling.”
Jamie gently broke the horse, constantly talking to him and not even attempting to ride the stallion for weeks, until the animal became used to Jamie’s touch and voice. Sam and Sarah watched him work and both knew the boy had an almost unnatural ability to handle animals.
“Eerie,” Sarah called it.
Sam agreed.
The big black had tried numerous times to bite and kick Sam, but never with Jamie.
Jamie turned out to be a fine horseman, taking to the saddle as if born to it. He could be seen often on the road into town, riding in to fetch something for Sarah. He carried a short-barreled rifle in a saddle boot — a cut-down version of a Kentucky rifle — and kept his pistol in a saddlebag. The carrying of weapons caused no head to turn, for brigands prowled the roads and dark paths of the timber, and Indian attacks were still occurring, although the latter were slowly tapering off as the various tribes were killed off, pushed westward, or breaking apart and attempting to assimilate into white society.
Jamie had heard that Tall Bull’s band had left the country and gone west. Where in the west no one seemed to know. But Jamie had not forgotten Deer Woman’s dire prediction: “Someday Tall Bull and Little Wolf will find you. That will be the day when you must decide whether you live or die. And whether you will, or can, kill your father and brother.”
Deer Woman might have had some doubts as to whether Jamie could kill in defense of his life or loved one. Jamie had no doubts at all.
Since the day of that terrible fight in the road that passed in front of Sam and Sarah’s land, Hart Olmstead had spoken not one word to Sam, Sarah, or Jamie. John Jackson spoke, but it was forced, and never more than a very terse greeting or farewell. Hart and his boys had stopped attending Reverend Callaway’s church. Kate and her mother still came to Sunday services, and to the occasional singin’ and eatin’ on the grounds, and Kate was rapidly turning into quite the young woman, beginning to fill out in all the right places and turning heads whenever she entered a building. But she had eyes only for Jamie.
Hart Olmstead had once again stated his objection to Jamie and forbidden his only daughter to see the boy. But Kate paid no attention to the warning and managed to see Jamie whenever he came to town, if only at a distance or to exchange a few words in Abe’s General Store.
Jamie’s life took on a darker and more dangerous note as the small town in Kentucky began to grow, not always with the right people. Hart Olmstead’s brothers moved into the area, as did kin of John Jackson, and with them they brought several friends, mostly white trash with criminal tendencies. And as is so often the case with trash, they had an army of children, most of whom were, tragically, just as ignorant as their parents.
“Apples do not fall far from the tree,” Reverend Callaway remarked over coffee after supper at the Montgomery home. “I fear that our community is rapidly being populated with individuals of less than honorable intent.”
Jamie said nothing; just listened. Several times in the past few weeks he had been forced to gallop Lightning in order to get away from the growing gang that hung around Jubal Olmstead and Abel Jackson. Those two had dropped out of school and were very nearly men grown. And they were dangerous. Thefts had increased a dozen times over since the new additions to the community had arrived and there had been several men badly beaten and left by the side of the road after being robbed. Two women had been assaulted and raped in their cabins.
Several men had gone to Sheriff Marwick and warned him that if something wasn’t done to curb th
e crime, the citizens just might have to take to night-riding.
Sam Montgomery’s holdings had grow dramatically as farmers whose lands bordered his gave up and moved away, selling out to Sam. Sam now had two men working for him; good Christian men, with families. The community several miles from town had grown, and the citizens met and voted to start their own town, complete with church, school, general store, and marshal.
They named it New Town, which in a few years would be changed to Montgomery, and before the turn of the century would be gone, with not even a building standing. Abe Caney built a general store in New Town, Reverend Callaway moved into New Town and a church was built. Gradually, over the months, New Town became a safe haven for decent, hard-working people, while trash took over the old town. They built saloons, gambling parlors, and houses of ill repute, elected John Jackson as mayor and Hart Olmstead as tax assessor of the county.
Jamie was fourteen years old, looked twenty, and was tree-tall and strong as a bull. He still wore his thick blond hair shoulder length and wore his high-top moccasins. Several times, young men who followed the dictates of Abel Jackson and Jubal Olmstead had made the mistake of challenging Jamie, confronting him on the dark, twisted roads that wound amid a sea of trees. Twice Jamie had been able to outdistance them on Lightning. The last time he had been forced to fight.
Jamie galloped into the yard and leaped from the saddle, running to the house, startling Sam and Sarah, who had just sat down for the noon meal.
“What’s wrong, Jamie?” Sam asked, rising from his chair.
“I didn’t make it to the north field, Sam.” As Jamie grew older, the couple had insisted that Jamie call them by their first names. “The gang that Hart’s nephew, Edgar, heads waylaid me. There was a shooting, Sam.”
Sam asked no questions. He knew in his heart that Jamie had not provoked it; knew that for almost three years Jamie had carefully avoided trouble, ignoring taunts that he, personally, would have killed over. “Ring the bell, Sarah,” he said. “The sheriff and a posse will be along soon, and they’ll be wanting to take Jamie. That will not happen as long as there is breath left in me.”
Eyes of Eagles Page 6