What the Moon Saw

by D. L. Koontz

  The area had become a cauldron of competing interests: Indian, imperial, colonial. The struggle between France and England for domination of America had ended and the British were in control. A westward surge of settlement and business was underway.

  In 1764 the Indian uprisings had reached a crescendo when four Lenape Indian warriors entered a settler’s log schoolhouse in the mountains less than twenty-five miles east of where Nathan’s family settled. Enoch Brown, the schoolmaster, had pleaded with the warriors to spare the children. Nonetheless, he was shot and scalped. The warriors tomahawked, scalped, and killed nine of the children, and took four others as prisoners. Miraculously, two other scalped children survived to describe what transpired. What’s more, the day before that, the Indians had encountered a pregnant Susan King Cunningham, Nathan’s cousin on his mother’s side. They beat and scalped her before cutting the baby from her body. Others disappeared too, all assumed to have been captured by the Indians.

  The British cracked down on the savagery and kidnappings. Briefly. But no sooner had the savage war parties fled the area than the strangest of paradoxes occurred—the settlers witnessed merchants’ wagon trains carrying arms westward for sale to the same Indians who for years had destroyed their homes, murdered and scalped their neighbors, raped their wives and daughters, and captured their children.

  The settlers desired peace, but arms in the hands of the Indians thwarted that peace. So, using Indian raiding tactics, the Black Boys took action to stop the supply wagons. Earlier this year, the British had taken some of their band as prisoners, holding them in Fort Bedford.

  Anabelle urged again, “Let it be.”

  He raised a brow, puzzled. “How can you ask that,” he challenged, “when your own kin may die in there?”

  She huffed away the scrutiny. “Richard promised nothing like that would happen.”

  He bristled at her naiveté and thoughtlessness. “Are you willing to risk their lives on that promise?” Grabbing both her upper arms, he shook gently. “Can you live with more guns in the hands of the Indians? Think of the children they’ve killed. Of Susan.”

  “Susan was selfish. Walking around all by herself like that—”

  Anger coursed through him. “Like you’re doing right now, you mean?” As though he were being burned, he abruptly let go, dropping his hands to his side.

  She scowled, squared her shoulders and raised her chin, but didn’t say a word. Nathan suspected pride prompted her posturing, but that doubt drove her silence. Talking with her was futile. She demanded too many words anyway. He preferred action to conversation.

  Anabelle reached up to touch his cheek, speaking in a softer voice. “Nathan, I just want you to live.” She smiled. “I want to dance with you at Clara Miller’s wedding on Saturday.”

  Nathan suspected Richard wouldn’t be at the wedding. Wouldn’t be welcome. “You’re betrothed to someone else,” he reminded her, removing her hand from his face. “You can’t have it both ways.”

  “Nathan McKenzie,” she said, stomping her foot, “you have no right to talk to me like this. If you hadn’t left on that foolish little mission to rescue Elisa Macay years ago, we would have been married for years now and you know it. So it’s your fault.” She softened her voice before adding, “Besides, it’s just a dance.”

  Were all women this fickle in their feelings? No, he’d known women who weren’t. His sister often looked lovingly at her husband, and his mother and father still held hands despite years of hard labor, failing crops, and the loss of two children. And, then there was her—Elisa...no, always Morning Meadow to him—the woman between his relationships with Anabelle. She had loved him unconditionally. And he had loved her.

  But, she was gone forever.

  No, not all women were driven by self-indulgence and greed.

  Nathan reined in his thoughts. “I must go.” He stepped past her again but stopped in his tracks at her next words.

  “Please don’t hurt Richard just to get back at me.”

  He stiffened, icy tendrils wrapping around his heart. He’d done nothing but try to protect her and her family through the years. He turned back to respond, but was saved from it when his mother spoke from the porch. He hadn’t heard her come outside.

  “Isaiah’s ’round back, Anabelle.” Her voice was stern, her brows furrowed in concern. “He can help you.”

  Anabelle looked at Nathan a moment, her eyes filled with things unsaid, things he suspected she would never say again.

  Finally, turning to his mother, Anabelle nodded. “Yes, ma’am.” She headed toward the back.

  Nathan’s mother hitched the flow of her dress to step off the porch and move to his side. “So it’s tonight?”

  He nodded. “Dawn.”

  She wouldn’t try to stop him. They had talked about this several nights before. His parents fretted, but understood what needed to be done. His father had said, “If you capture the fort and free our men, it will be the first time colonists have seized a garrison from the British. It will prove we can unite and rise up against their tyranny.” There was no censure in his tone, no dread. In fact, Nathan thought he heard a hint of controlled hope.

  His mother exhaled a resigned breath, studying his Indian garb. “God speed, my son.” Her eyes watered. She embraced him, kissed his cheek, and stepped back.

  Roiling with emotion, Nathan looked at the ground, shifted his stance, and returned his gaze. “Ma, if I don’t come back—”

  “You will.” She offered a determined smile. “You were already taken from us once. Not again. You’ll be back.”

  This was the first his mother had mentioned that torturous absence since his return. Five years lost between him and his family. Five years spent trying to bring Elisa back, just to have her shot in the end. He stared at his mother a long moment before nodding, his heart swelling with love.

  She blinked thrice, as if fighting tears. “You’ll never know how proud I am of the man you’ve become.”

  He visualized now his mother’s face when she’d sent him off. The love he’d seen there. So much like the way Elisa had looked at him years ago. And, that quickly, her face filled his mind.

  They never had a chance.

  Then, Elisa’s vision faded, replaced by that of Anabelle. The difference startled him.

  If he survived this morning, he’d have to find a new way forward, a way to dam up the grief of the past that continually poured forth. Now is what mattered. Not the past. Now had to be dealt with. Now would take all his strength. He had to muster up and meet it.

  Chapter Four

  1769

  “Fog’s rolling in.” The whispered voice of Ned Paxton tugged Nathan out of the past and dropped him smack in the present.

  Nathan remained still. The weather was a non-concern, the comment demanding no response. He and the others had memorized what lay beyond the veil of gray, and in the darkest of caves they could pull the stoppers out of powder horns with their teeth, prime by habit, find the locks and triggers of their rifles, and retrieve their knives on the first reach every time. James Smith had trained them well when he’d formed the Black Boys.

  He heard the command, “Prepare,” come down the line. In moments, the soft pad of moccasins sounded through the silence as he and the others moved to the concealed rendezvous point and crouched. The river, over the ridge behind them, made more noise than they did.

  Rufus L’Enfant, a Black Boy they all teasingly referred to as Frenchie, fished under a log and pulled out the small iron kettle he’d hidden there hours before. Fingers dipped in, scooping out black grease and daubing it to freshen the stain on their faces. The purpose of the subterfuge was simple: Look enough like Indians to gain the element of surprise. It could be the difference between victory and death in a chance encounter on some forest trails.

  While they finger-painted themselves, Nathan listened to the other nineteen men whisper their advice on applying the stain. Several spoke with accents. Most were Scots-Irish
like him, but others were German, Dutch, French. He wasn’t even sure of their collective origins. One was a free Negro, two were dark in color with last names that were as long as his first and last put together. Their faiths included Puritans, Huguenots, Calvinists, Catholic, but by far, they were Protestant. Some were agnostic going into battle, but men of faith coming out. Yet, they shared a bond, born of freedom and a quest for self-sufficiency. They were varied: farmers who’d moved west from eastern counties, village craftsmen turned pioneering entrepreneurs, immigrants from small European villages, freed redemptioners who had traded their freedom for seven years to pay their sea passage to the New World, where a man could sweat and dig and chop and saw his own homestead out of woods and fields.

  James Smith whispered, “Ned, you’ve been to the fort?”

  “In it last night, Jim, deliverin’ that gelding they demanded,” Ned said. “They’re ready for the Black Boys. They got more’n three dozen men on night guard, but they think it’s all a joke.”

  Nathan wasn’t surprised at the Redcoats’ reaction. Several days earlier, the Black Boys staged and dawdled around the local villages and trading posts acting drunk, strutting like confused ducks, bumping into cabin doors, singing and answering questions loudly. To anyone that would listen, they’d bragged, “We’re goin’ acrost the ridge to flop the Redcoats on their blasted heads. Goin’ to take Fort Bedford.” Smith had counted on word of their behavior trickling back to the fort. He wanted the commandant to think they were a joke. Hiding behind trees, Smith explained, is not the only way to lay an ambush.

  One of the newest Black Boys, a fellow named Andreii, asked, “Do they know where we are?”

  Nathan cringed at Andreii’s question, but didn’t know why.

  “Nossir.” Ned chuckled. “They got word we’d camped at the northern ridge. They figure we can’t get to Bedford before high noon, even if we’re sober enough to chance it. They’re layin’ odds we don’t come within five miles o’ the fort.”

  Amos Warren spoke next. “I been watchin’. Gate’s closed every night, but they open it at dawn. If they’re so sure of themselves they’ll likely open it today, same as always.”

  “Their guns?” James directed the question to Amos.

  “Stacked together. ’Bout forty paces from the front gate. We can get to ’em first if they’re in back eating. And, if we’re fast.”

  James nodded. “Remember, if I go down, Nathan is next in command.” He smiled, ear to ear. “Are we ready? Let’s set our boys free.”

  They spread out like they were trained, moving left, scrambling over the next bank and lying down just below the sod brink. They stopped to prepare their long rifles, fingers cuddling the slim riggers.

  Climbing to their feet, but remaining stooped as low as possible, they moved, inching closer, dropped and listened again, then repeated the process until they got within two stones’ throw of the fort. The white mist that swaddled the terrain had looked thick but offered no resistance.

  Nathan could see the stockade and the blockhouse roof.

  As Amos predicted, the gate was open. Nathan counted three sentries on the wall, but the other Redcoats were gathered on the far side of the stronghold. He signaled ‘three’ to the man on his left and trusted it would be passed down the line.

  At Smith’s signal, the Black Boys lunged up, clawed, scrambled and sprinted full force to the fort. Smith and Nathan crossed through the gate at the same time, one dashing right, the other left, as practiced. Redcoats screamed and one rang a warning bell. A few shots rang out, but in the noisy confusion, Nathan couldn’t tell if the shots were from their long rifles or the Redcoats’ muskets.

  Within seconds, the Redcoats threw their hands in the air as though cognizant they were too unarmed to fight, even though it was quite clear they outnumbered the Black Boys by more than two to one.

  At Smith’s command, the sentinels scuttled down from their posts and ducked into the huddle of red tunics, their hands raised also.

  Nathan didn’t see Richard Wallace among the group. Just as well. Richard wouldn’t have been able to recognize him in the Indian garb, but still, he didn’t want his family identified with this in any way. Maybe Richard had been spending the night with one of the barmaids from the local tavern, where rumor often placed him. The thought made him sad for Anabelle.

  James Smith issued orders. Pointing at Levi, he said, “Find an ax to smash the guardhouse door.” Turning to Solomon he directed, “Take the flints out of those muskets. Put ’em in your pocket.” The Black Boys understood James pointing rather than calling them by name: he didn’t want to jeopardize their identity.

  “The strong box,” Will Chatham reminded their leader. It had been seized by Indians from new homesteaders, the Lauers, who had moved into the area several months earlier with their life savings. The Indians had exchanged the box of currency—sparse English coins, Spanish-milled dollars, rare gold pieces—with the British for ammunition. The Redcoats refused to believe the money belonged to the colonist family; now that the trade was over, they didn’t want to be without the money and the ammo.

  James nodded and turned to Nathan. “Search the officer’s quarters while we free the men.”

  “I’ll go with him,” Andreii offered and hurried after Nathan.

  Nathan bristled at the man’s offer, but didn’t break stride. He preferred to work alone.

  Within minutes, Nathan found a small tin box in the commandant’s desk. It matched the homesteaders’ description so he lifted the lid and confirmed it still contained the amount and variety of currency the Lauers described. Snapping it shut, he turned to tell Andreii he’d secured it, but instead looked directly into the barrel tip of a pistol.

  “I’ll take that, brother,” Andreii said, his voice cold, his free hand outstretched. His eyes were invisible in the shafts of shadows that crossed his face in the dimly lit room.

  Startled, Nathan stiffened as Andreii pulled the box from his hands and tucked it in a deep pocket on the inside of his sleeveless moleskin vest, hidden from view.

  Andreii grabbed Nathan’s rifle. “You won’t be needing this either.”

  Nathan swallowed. “Andreii, why? You won’t get away. If you shoot me, the others will be here directly.”

  Andreii shrugged. “But you will be dead. You want to take that risk?”

  “But why? If you need money—”

  “I do not need your help. Now move.” Andreii motioned his head toward a door that exited into the back of the fort.

  “This is foolish. There’s only one way out of here.”

  “Wrong again, my friend. There is a narrow door in the back, off the kitchen. Cook uses it to dispose dishwater. It is bolted and secured from the inside which, of course, works for me, does it not?” He shoved Nathan to move faster.

  As they proceeded, Nathan tried to reason with him even as his gaze cast about looking for anything to grab as a weapon. “You side with the British?”

  Andreii smiled. “I side with myself.”

  “You won’t get far. They’ll hear you. They’ll know we’re missing.”

  “In that chaos?” He gestured toward the front of the fort. “No, by the time they search for us, they won’t find anything.”

  They’d reached the back, their movements all the while blocked from view by walls. Andreii lifted the wooden bars that secured the small door, pushed it open and shoved Nathan through hard enough that he fell to his knees.

  Climbing off the ground, Nathan twisted and leaped at Andreii, but his opponent was ready and smacked him in the face with the gun stock, the blow so hard it knocked him back to his knees. Pain and dizziness surfaced. Instinctively, Nathan touched the damage.

  “Get up! Over there.” Andreii pointed toward a forested grove about a hundred paces from them. “I have horses waiting. Move!”

  “Horses?” That was all Nathan could say. When he’d spoken, a spasm of pain rent across his face again. He was rather sure his nose was broken and
his right cheek split open, because blood now covered his hand.

  Andreii chuckled a strange hysterical sound. “You did not think I would be unprepared, did you? Paid a town kid a king’s ransom to put them there before sunrise. I hoped this opportunity would present itself.”

  Despite the pain, Nathan’s mind raced. If he yelled, Andreii would shoot him. He quickly surveyed his surroundings, but didn’t see another person anywhere, just trees. Perhaps he could overpower Andreii. After all, the man was short and stalky, whereas he was six feet tall and limber. But, executing the pull of a trigger was faster than executing a tackle any day.

  In moments, they reached the grove and stumbled in another twenty paces, where the canopy of colored leaves overhead prevented the sun from reaching. Nathan saw two saddled horses tethered to a tree.

  “Get on.” Andreii pointed to the black-colored one.

  Nathan plotted. He could probably bolt once he was on the horse. Could maybe dodge behind the trees, but then Andreii would still have the money, and the Lauers needed it to build a future.

  Seeing no recourse, Nathan complied, deciding he’d seize an opportunity to overpower Andreii as soon as he could. He just hoped his vision didn’t get any worse and that he wouldn’t lose too much blood before he had his chance.

  They rode around the outskirts of the town, cutting south then west, staying in woods most of the distance. Nathan watched at least four miles of ground sweep by beneath the horse. Finally, Andreii stopped and dismounted, ordering Nathan to do the same. He tethered Nathan’s rifle to the saddle, but kept the pistol pointed.

  Nathan wasn’t familiar with the area, but from what he saw, it was deserted. Hushed. Probably not a cabin within a mile.

  “This is the end of your trip,” Andreii spat.

  Although Nathan had fought losing consciousness on the horse, clarity hit him now. Andreii couldn’t let him go. He had to know Nathan would report what he’d done. No, Andreii planned to kill him. He probably even planned to return to the others and tell him that Nathan had deserted, taking the money with him. That’s why there had been two horses waiting.