The Crossing

by Winston Churchill

  Produced by Charles Keller, David Widger, and Robert Homa

  THE CROSSING

  By Winston Churchill

  CONTENTS

  BOOK I. THE BORDERLAND

  I. THE BLUE WALL II. WARS AND RUMORS OF WARS III. CHARLESTOWN IV. TEMPLE BOW V. CRAM’S HELL VI. MAN PROPOSES, BUT GOD DISPOSES VII. IN SIGHT OF THE BLUE WALL ONCE MORE VIII. THE NOLLICHUCKY TRACE IX. ON THE WILDERNESS TRAIL X. HARRODSTOWN XI. FRAGMENTARY XII. THE CAMPAIGN BEGINS XIII. KASKASKIA XIV. HOW THE KASKASKIANS WERE MADE CITIZENS XV. DAYS OF TRIAL XVI. DAVY GOES TO CAHOKIA XVII. THE SACRIFICEXVIII. “AN’ YE HAD BEEN WHERE I HAD BEEN” XIX. THE HAIR BUYER TRAPPED XX. THE CAMPAIGN ENDS

  BOOK II. FLOTSAM AND JETSAM

  I. IN THE CABIN II. “THE BEGGARS ARE COME TO TOWN” III. WE GO TO DANVILLE IV. I CROSS THE MOUNTAINS ONCE MORE V. I MEET AN OLD BEDFELLOW VI. THE WIDOW BROWN’S VII. I MEET A HERO VIII. TO ST. LOUIS IX. “CHERCHEZ LA FEMME” X. THE KEEL BOAT XI. THE STRANGE CITY XII. LES ISLES XIII. MONSIEUR AUGUSTE ENTRAPPED XIV. RETRIBUTION

  BOOK III. LOUISIANA

  I. THE RIGHTS OF MAN II. THE HOUSE ABOVE THE FALLS III. LOUISVILLE CELEBRATES IV. OF A SUDDEN RESOLUTION V. THE HOUSE OF THE HONEYCOMBED TILES VI. MADAME LA VICOMTESSE VII. THE DISPOSAL OF THE SIEUR DE ST. GRE VIII. AT LAMARQUE’S IX. MONSIEUR LE BARON X. THE SCOURGE XI. “IN THE MIDST OF LIFE” XII. VISIONS, AND AN AWAKENINGS XIII. A MYSTERY XIV. “TO UNPATHED WATERS, UNDREAMED SHORES” XV. AN EPISODE IN THE LIFE OF A MAN

  AFTERWORD

  THE CROSSING

  BOOK I. THE BORDERLAND

  CHAPTER I. THE BLUE WALL

  I was born under the Blue Ridge, and under that side which is blue inthe evening light, in a wild land of game and forest and rushing waters.There, on the borders of a creek that runs into the Yadkin River, in acabin that was chinked with red mud, I came into the world a subject ofKing George the Third, in that part of his realm known as the provinceof North Carolina.

  The cabin reeked of corn-pone and bacon, and the odor of pelts. It hadtwo shakedowns, on one of which I slept under a bearskin. A rough stonechimney was reared outside, and the fireplace was as long as my fatherwas tall. There was a crane in it, and a bake kettle; and over it greatbuckhorns held my father’s rifle when it was not in use. On other hornshung jerked bear’s meat and venison hams, and gourds for drinkingcups, and bags of seed, and my father’s best hunting shirt; also, in aneglected corner, several articles of woman’s attire from pegs. Theseonce belonged to my mother. Among them was a gown of silk, of a fine,faded pattern, over which I was wont to speculate. The women at theCross-Roads, twelve miles away, were dressed in coarse butternut wooland huge sunbonnets. But when I questioned my father on these matters hewould give me no answers.

  My father was--how shall I say what he was? To this day I can onlysurmise many things of him. He was a Scotchman born, and I know now thathe had a slight Scotch accent. At the time of which I write, my earlychildhood, he was a frontiersman and hunter. I can see him now, with hishunting shirt and leggings and moccasins; his powder horn, engraved withwondrous scenes; his bullet pouch and tomahawk and hunting knife. Hewas a tall, lean man with a strange, sad face. And he talked little savewhen he drank too many “horns,” as they were called in that country.These lapses of my father’s were a perpetual source of wonder tome,--and, I must say, of delight. They occurred only when a passingtraveller who hit his fancy chanced that way, or, what was almost asrare, a neighbor. Many a winter night I have lain awake under theskins, listening to a flow of language that held me spellbound, though Iunderstood scarce a word of it.

  “Virtuous and vicious every man must be, Few in the extreme, but all in a degree.”

  The chance neighbor or traveller was no less struck with wonder. Andmany the time have I heard the query, at the Cross-Roads and elsewhere,“Whar Alec Trimble got his larnin’?”

  The truth is, my father was an object of suspicion to the frontiersmen.Even as a child I knew this, and resented it. He had brought me up insolitude, and I was old for my age, learned in some things far beyondmy years, and ignorant of others I should have known. I loved the manpassionately. In the long winter evenings, when the howl of wolves and“painters” rose as the wind lulled, he taught me to read from the Bibleand the “Pilgrim’s Progress.” I can see his long, slim fingers on thepage. They seemed but ill fitted for the life he led.

  The love of rhythmic language was somehow born into me, and many’s thetime I have held watch in the cabin day and night while my father wasaway on his hunts, spelling out the verses that have since become partof my life.

  As I grew older I went with him into the mountains, often on his back;and spent the nights in open camp with my little moccasins drying at theblaze. So I learned to skin a bear, and fleece off the fat for oil withmy hunting knife; and cure a deerskin and follow a trail. At seven Ieven shot the long rifle, with a rest. I learned to endure cold andhunger and fatigue and to walk in silence over the mountains, my fathernever saying a word for days at a spell. And often, when he opened hismouth, it would be to recite a verse of Pope’s in a way that moved mestrangely. For a poem is not a poem unless it be well spoken.

  In the hot days of summer, over against the dark forest the bright greenof our little patch of Indian corn rippled in the wind. And towardsnight I would often sit watching the deep blue of the mountain wall anddream of the mysteries of the land that lay beyond. And by chance, oneevening as I sat thus, my father reading in the twilight, a man stoodbefore us. So silently had he come up the path leading from the brookthat we had not heard him. Presently my father looked up from hisbook, but did not rise. As for me, I had been staring for some time inastonishment, for he was a better-looking man than I had ever seen. Hewore a deerskin hunting shirt dyed black, but, in place of a coonskincap with the tail hanging down, a hat. His long rifle rested on theground, and he held a roan horse by the bridle.

  “Howdy, neighbor?” said he.

  I recall a fear that my father would not fancy him. In such cases hewould give a stranger food, and leave him to himself. My father’s whimswere past understanding. But he got up.

  “Good evening,” said he.

  The visitor looked a little surprised, as I had seen many do, at myfather’s accent.

  “Neighbor,” said he, “kin you keep me over night?”

  “Come in,” said my father.

  We sat down to our supper of corn and beans and venison, of all of whichour guest ate sparingly. He, too, was a silent man, and scarcely a wordwas spoken during the meal. Several times he looked at me with such akindly expression in his blue eyes, a trace of a smile around his broadmouth, that I wished he might stay with us always. But once, when myfather said something about Indians, the eyes grew hard as flint. It wasthen I remarked, with a boy’s wonder, that despite his dark hair he hadyellow eyebrows.

  After supper the two men sat on the log step, while I set about the taskof skinning the deer my father had shot that day. Presently I felt aheavy hand on my shoulder.

  “What’s your name, lad?” he said.

  I told him Davy.

  “Davy, I’ll larn ye a trick worth a little time,” said he, whippingout a knife. In a trice the red carcass hung between the forked stakes,while I stood with my mouth open. He turned to me and laughed gently.

  “Some day you’ll cross the mountains and skin twenty of an evening,” hesaid. “Ye’ll make a woodsman sure. You’ve got the eye, and the hand.”

  This little piece of praise from him made me hot all over.

  “Game rare?” said he to my father.

  “None sae good, now,” said my father.

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bsp; “I reckon not. My cabin’s on Beaver Creek some forty mile above, andgame’s going there, too.”

  “Settlements,” said my father. But presently, after a few whiffs of hispipe, he added, “I hear fine things of this land across the mountains,that the Indians call the Dark and Bluidy Ground.”

  “And well named,” said the stranger.

  “But a brave country,” said my father, “and all tramped down with game.I hear that Daniel Boone and others have gone into it and come back withmarvellous tales. They tell me Boone was there alone three months. He’ssaething of a man. D’ye ken him?”

  The ruddy face of the stranger grew ruddier still.

  “My name’s Boone,” he said.

  “What!” cried my father, “it wouldn’t be Daniel?”

  “You’ve guessed it, I reckon.”

  My father rose without a word, went into the cabin, and immediatelyreappeared with a flask and a couple of gourds, one of which he handedto our visitor.

  “Tell me aboot it,” said he.

  That was the fairy tale of my childhood. Far into the night I lay on thedewy grass listening to Mr. Boone’s talk. It did not at first flow in asteady stream, for he was not a garrulous man, but my father’s questionspresently fired his enthusiasm. I recall but little of it, being sosmall a lad, but I crept closer and closer until I could touch thissuperior being who had been beyond the Wall. Marco Polo was no greaterwonder to the Venetians than Boone to me.

  He spoke of leaving wife and children, and setting out for the Unknownwith other woodsmen. He told how, crossing over our blue western wallinto a valley beyond, they found a “Warrior’s Path” through a gap acrossanother range, and so down into the fairest of promised lands. And ashe talked he lost himself in the tale of it, and the very quality of hisvoice changed. He told of a land of wooded hill and pleasant vale, ofclear water running over limestone down to the great river beyond, theOhio--a land of glades, the fields of which were pied with flowers ofwondrous beauty, where roamed the buffalo in countless thousands, whereelk and deer abounded, and turkeys and feathered game, and bear in thetall brakes of cane. And, simply, he told how, when the others had lefthim, he stayed for three months roaming the hills alone with Natureherself.

  “But did you no’ meet the Indians?” asked my father.

  “I seed one fishing on a log once,” said our visitor, laughing, “but hefell into the water. I reckon he was drowned.”

  My father nodded comprehendingly,--even admiringly.

  “And again!” said he.

  “Wal,” said Mr. Boone, “we fell in with a war party of Shawnees goingback to their lands north of the great river. The critters took away allwe had. It was hard,” he added reflectively; “I had staked my fortuneon the venter, and we’d got enough skins to make us rich. But, neighbor,there is land enough for you and me, as black and rich as Canaan.”

  “‘The Lord is my shepherd,’” said my father, lapsing into verse.“‘The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. He leadeth me into greenpastures, and beside still waters.’”

  For a time they were silent, each wrapped in his own thought, while thecrickets chirped and the frogs sang. From the distant forest came themournful hoot of an owl.

  “And you are going back?” asked my father, presently.

  “Aye, that I am. There are many families on the Yadkin below going, too.And you, neighbor, you might come with us. Davy is the boy that wouldthrive in that country.”

  My father did not answer. It was late indeed when we lay down to rest,and the night I spent between waking and dreaming of the wonderlandbeyond the mountains, hoping against hope that my father would go. Thesun was just flooding the slopes when our guest arose to leave, and myfather bade him God-speed with a heartiness that was rare to him. But,to my bitter regret, neither spoke of my father’s going. Being a man ofunderstanding, Mr. Boone knew it were little use to press. He patted meon the head.

  “You’re a wise lad, Davy,” said he. “I hope we shall meet again.”

  He mounted his roan and rode away down the slope, waving his hand tous. And it was with a heavy heart that I went to feed our white mare,whinnying for food in the lean-to.