Dance on the Wind tb-1

by Terry C. Johnston

  Those waters of the upper Ohio were littered with boulders and stones—a serpentine river, treacherous to the unwary and unskilled. Yet the water upriver was clear and clean—much more so than the lower Ohio—perhaps because of the lower river’s snaking route. River travelers had long commented on the overwhelming magnificence of the forested mountainsides that loomed right over the Ohio’s winding path as it flowed past Virginia and on to eastern Kentucky. “The Endless Mountains” was the term westerners used when speaking of those foothills of the Allegheny range.

  A lush growth of grapevine, blue larkspur, and purple phlox covered both sides of the river, along with a profusion of tall grasses and the dark hardwood timber: beech, hickory, walnut, poplar, red maple, and at least three varieties of oaks. There were places where the winding path of the Ohio so narrowed beneath the verdant overhang that a trip down the river appeared to be a journey through a green and meandering tunnel.

  Downriver from Pittsburgh lay Wheeling, Marietta, Gallipolis, Limestone, and finally Cincinnati—each new settlement outgrowing its own modest beginnings in but a few years as more and more emigrants flooded over the mountains in search of land, peace, and freedom. Through the past decade the population of Kentucky itself had more than doubled: folks looking for better ground to farm, there to put down their roots.

  Between each of these larger towns lay the smaller villages, farms, and orchards—places named Vienna, Belpre, Belleville, near the mouth of Ohio’s Big Hockhocking River, and Point Pleasant at the mouth of the Great Kanawha River—many of which sprouted up around what had originally been forts or stockades erected for the common defense during Indian scares of recent wars. From western Pennsylvania all the way to where the Great Miami River met the North Bend of the Ohio at Cincinnati, census takers estimated as many as one hundred thousand folks lived along the river, bringing some small measure of civilization to what was nothing more than a forbidding and all but impenetrable wilderness a generation or so in the past.

  Sitting across the Ohio from the mouth of Kentucky’s Licking River, Cincinnati was just then becoming known as the “Queen City of the West.” Land speculators had first laid out its streets in the 1790s, and folks came flocking to the territorial capital growing in the shadow of the new nation’s army garrison at nearby Fort Washington. By 1810 a thousand residents lived either “in the bottom,” or “on the hill,” all of them squeezed between thickly timbered heights and the Ohio itself as the settlement became a beehive of activity for boatmen moving downriver with produce, wood, iron, and hemp supplies, as well as settlers. In the town’s influential newspaper, Sentinel of the Northwest Territory, they even boasted to folks along the Atlantic coast of having two cemeteries: one for the Methodists and one, presumably, for everyone else.

  Beyond Cincinnati a man afloat on the Ohio plunged into a region thinly settled with a few farms and even fewer infant villages the likes of Rabbit Hash. By the time he journeyed farther still, halfway between the great bend of the Ohio and Louisville, he left behind those tall slopes burred with thick forests, the land slowly gentling, giving way to more hills, the rolling landscape softening here and there where farmers settled to till the fertile bottomlands dotted with swamps and ringed by deep woods.

  Titus awoke with a start.

  The air had grown cool, and with the sun’s setting the slate shelf where he had drifted off to sleep was quickly losing its warmth. Wearily, yet with a sense of urgency, Titus clambered to his feet and swept up his shooting pouch and horn, then his blanket-wrapped possibles. Turning back into the timber, he once again vowed he would find game before nightfall. He had to: sleep had been the only way to relieve the painful gnawing of his empty belly.

  Shadows lengthened and the wind picked up, rattling the bright, fiery colors of what leaves still clung to the branches like hailstones battering oiled canvas. The minutes ground past, and with them step after step through the cold timber, all without a single sign of game. No tracks, no droppings, not even a faint or narrow trail.

  He cursed his luck. Then with a growl he cursed his rumbling belly. Sensing the sap running out of him, his strength failing after two days of nothing but a handful of soda biscuits to eat, Titus slowly sank to the ground and leaned against an old elm. How he wanted to cry out loud. For a moment he became convinced he had done wrong in fleeing home. Mayhaps, he told his miserable self, it wasn’t so bad a thing having his mother’s warm food in his belly and a roof over his head. Mayhaps the plodding certainty of a farmer’s life wasn’t all that bad, after all.

  But go back?

  Titus hefted that option as a man would weigh two objects, one in each of his hands. Back and forth he considered. And in the end his pride won out. Not to have to face the look in his father’s eyes if he limped back home with his tail between his legs. No, never, he decided. He simply couldn’t bring himself to turn about and return home.

  Yes … eating crow, one foul-tasting bite after another to swallow, washing it down with a healthy draft of his battered, wounded pride, would surely be far, far worse than going one more night without real food. Without meat.

  With that renewed resolve came the stinging realization that hunting because he enjoyed it, hunting for fun, was one thing. Whereas hunting when you had to feed a hungry belly was something altogether different.

  Cradling the rifle across his lap, Titus stuffed his hands into his armpits for warmth as the wind swirled noisily through the branches overhead. A squirrel chirked in the high branches, protesting the cold, complaining about the wind, perhaps even snapping at the young hunter sprawled beneath the tree.

  It came over him the way his mam might nudge him gently awake of a school morning. He put his teeth together, opening his lips slightly, and chirked. Like most farm boys on the frontier, Titus had grown quite good at imitating the sounds of forest animals.

  There it was, by God! Close by. Near the fork of that gray limb.

  Titus slowly stood, drawing the hammer back to half cock. He looked down at the pan to be certain of priming powder, then brought the frizzen down over the pan once more. Easing the hammer back to full cock, he chirked again. The squirrel snapped back at him angrily, bounding down the limb, then leaping out of sight momentarily. Yet he found the tree, spotting the squirrel in a big knobby maple less than five yards off.

  Near its base he circled slowly, a step at a time as the animal inched out of sight. Titus studied each of the high branches, for he knew a squirrel liked to lie along them as it peered down on the forest floor. Mostly he regarded each and every fork, as that was where the savviest of the creatures hung back in hiding. At first he could not be sure, but he realized he had to freeze where he stood, motionless, peering up at the gnarled fork of a thick branch. In the fading light of autumn’s afternoon it was all but impossible to be absolutely certain. Then he saw the flicker of the squirrel’s tail. Perhaps only tousled on the wind as the sun continued its descent into the west.

  Taking a few heartbeats more to study his shot, eyeing the path his bullet would take, Titus took one step backward as he slowly brought the rifle up to his shoulder. From there the round ball would have far less chance of striking the tiniest of branches that could deflect it just enough to miss his target. He let out half his breath, held it, and brought the front blade down on the dark and narrow fork in the branch where he had seen the tail flick in the wind.

  No, he told himself. If he shot the critter from this direction, there wouldn’t be much meat left at all.

  Gingerly stepping to the left as quietly as the dry leaves allowed him, Titus inched around the base of the trunk, keeping his eyes moving to the ground before he set each foot down, then to that fork in the branches. Finally he allowed himself to take another breath, and with it he came to a stop. There in the dimming light he thought he could make out the tail curving back on itself, saw where the tail root attached to the shadow of the body, and at the far end, some of the squirrel’s head.

  If he could make a h
ead shot, none of the best meat would be ruined. Sighting in on that part of the shadow, Titus squeezed off his shot before any more light drained from the sky.

  For an instant the bright flare of the pan flash-blinded him. As the roar of the flintlock was swallowed by the deep woods, he blinked, inching forward, intent on the ground blanketed with fallen leaves. His attention was drawn by a rustle.

  The squirrel thrashed among the dried leaves as he came up and knelt over it. He had missed its head, but by striking the limb it sat on, had stunned the animal out of its hiding place. Taking his knife from his belt, he held it by the blade and brought the antler handle down on the squirrel’s head with a crack.

  As he picked up the plump squirrel, Titus glanced into the tree. Too dark to look for any bark knocked loose from the branch above him. It didn’t matter really, he thought. For certain it wasn’t good shooting that got him the squirrel this time. Perhaps the forest itself had given one of its own to feed him.

  “Thankee,” he said softly, looking around him.

  As good a place as any, he determined. Might as well make himself comfortable right here.

  After clearing a spot beneath the tree and striking a fire, Titus pulled out his tiny kettle and retraced his steps back through the trees until he found the narrow trickle of water he had passed after leaving the adamantine ledge. He drank long and slow after dipping the kettle into the oozing flow. Then he waited while the kettle filled a second time before returning to his fire.

  There he began skinning his supper, his mouth already beginning to water, anticipating the taste of meat. Cutting off head, tail, and paws, he slit the squirrel up the belly, opening it up to gut it. That done, he selected a long tree limb, as big around as two of his fingers, to skewer his supper. Shoving one end of the limb into the ground so that the squirrel could sizzle over the low flames, Titus turned to preparing his bed as the night wind hooted through the skeletal trees, making him feel all the colder.

  Kicking over piles of leaves from some of the surrounding trees, he made himself quite a mound near his fire. Turning the squirrel once, he returned to collecting. With enough of them spread out to make for a soft and deep pallet, he flung down his thin blanket. Then Titus settled cross-legged at the fire and sighed. Cold as it might be tonight, he vowed he would not allow the sounds of the forest, the wind, even the cold itself to keep him from sleeping as they had last night. If he were going to make it downriver, even as far as Louisville, he was simply going to have to master what it took for a frontiersman to be at home in the forest.

  He turned the squirrel over the flames, then probed at the browning flesh with a finger and sighed, his thoughts suddenly on Levi Gamble. How he wanted one day soon to be as sure a backwoodsman as Levi was already. Why, he knew he was nearly as good a shot, likely might even be better than Gamble soon enough. Still, he remembered Levi’s words that there was more to the life Titus Bass hankered to lead than being a good shot.

  As darkness dripped down from the leafless branches overhead, the wind came up. And with it the smell of rain. Gazing up at the sky, he could see no more than a small patch of stars off to the southeast. Chances were there’d be wet weather by morning. Just one more thing he’d have to learn to deal with if he was going to make it downriver as far as Louisville, where he figured a man might give himself a new stake in life.

  Folks talked about the place. Said it was where a young man could make a go of things. The whole area was opening up. That sense of boom and bustle appealed to him more than most anything right there and then. Second only to the aroma wafting off that squirrel. Titus fed a limb into the fire now and then, and from time to time juices plopped into the flames, each drop sizzling, every sizzle causing his mouth to water all the more until he knew he couldn’t wait any longer.

  Scrambling onto his knees, he pulled out his knife and sliced free a thin sliver along the backstrap. Stuffing it into his mouth, Titus half closed his eyes, savoring this taste of red meat. Licking his lips, he freed another sliver of meat, then washed it down with the cold water.

  Before he realized, he was squatting beside nothing more than glowing embers, gnawing the last tiny morsels from the squirrel’s scrawny bones in the dim ruby light as his fire died. Sucking the final drops of grease from his fingers, he took one last drink and stood, moving off a few yards to find a place where he could sprinkle the forest floor in the cold and dark that were his only companions again this night.

  Returning to his little camp, he fed the embers a few twigs until they caught, then laid on some thicker limbs for the first part of the night. That done, he scooted back onto his blanket and lay down, dragging his pouch and rifle in alongside him. After pulling half of the blanket over himself, Titus scooped leaves over his feet, then his legs, and finally covered his torso. Just as thick as he could burrow himself beneath.

  For a long time Titus cradled the rifle in his arms, the lock protected between his legs, watching the flames and listening to the forest around him, reminded of the sputter and crackle of a limekiln fire back home. How something so simple as a sound aroused his reverie. He wondered what Amy was about at that moment. Did she even know he had taken off? Was she missing him, or had she already made designs on some other young fellow?

  And then he thought on his mam, remembering how the pumpkins grew untended among the tall stalks of corn. Licking his lips, Titus tried to remember the taste of his mother’s pumpkin butter and pumpkin molasses boiled down in the fall.

  The first good cold snap like this every autumn brought on the hog killing, the menfolk butchering those animals fattened all year on cane roots and mast made of beechnuts, acorns, and chestnuts. Hogs were knocked in the head with a maul, their throats quickly slashed, and then hauled up on pulleys lashed to a strong tree limb for proper bleeding. Below the gently swinging creatures mam always caught as much of it as possible in cherrywood pails and churns to make the rich blood pudding she would stuff into a cleaned intestine and smoke over green hickory chips in the smokehouse. He was almost able to taste it—served under a thick white gravy with yellow hominy on the side. Memories laden with the remembrance of sausage strong with red pepper and sage, sousemeat or headcheese.

  Yes, on the frontier October came to be known as killing weather.

  But with, the remembrance he began for the first time to worry about her, sensing some remorse for the worry he was likely causing her. But no remorse for his loss of Amy. No, his only regret in not turning back was his mam, and all the anxious concern he must likely be causing her.

  A beat of wings passed over his head with a startling rush as he closed his eyes, so weary. The great-headed owl, prowling the forest.

  Titus wondered if his mam had stood there at the front of her porch across those past two days—just the way she had when he was so much younger. Calling out his name.

  Calling him home.

  He came awake in the morning slowly, smelling the heady fragrance of damp, loamy earth strong in his nostrils.

  A time or two before he opened his eyes for good, Titus heard the rain’s patter softly through the trees. A gentle, cold, soaking rain, most likely. At least he thought so from its soft cadence against the stiff parchment of the maple and gum leaves he had pulled in over himself, burrowing down like a deer mouse in its snug little hole.

  Warm it was in here. A damned sight better than the night before, he said to himself as he decided to open his eyes for good and not drift off to sleep. The irregular concert of misty drops had tapered off, and the forest fell quiet. He shifted his hip, making it more comfortable on a new spot among the thick pallet of leaves, and curled his legs up within the blanket.

  No need in rushing on his way. Warm as he was. Comfortable too. Almost as soft as his grass tick back at home. Except … it wasn’t home no more.

  He opened his eyes, finding it still dark. It took a moment or two more for him to realize he had tucked his head back into the blanket like a turtle retreating into its shell. Slowly d
ragging a hand up from between his thighs where the rifle rested, he brushed it past his face and poked out with his fingers at the leaves. With a damp rustle he parted them slightly. The light was gray. His fire gone out—nothing more than a heap of blackened char and gray ash beaten down by the steady, gentle rain. Some of the squirrel bones lay at the far side of that ring of ash. A misty fog clung back among the trees all around him.

  Not the sort of morning for a man to be rising bright and early.

  Some time later he realized he had closed his eyes again, maybe even been sleeping—coming awake slowly, as he had earlier. This time the rain wasn’t pattering on his leafy burrow. Without a lick of wind the forest lay stonily quiet about him. So quiet he could hear a low snuffling. If it didn’t sound like a dog.

  Parting the leaves again, his heart beginning to hammer anxiously, he peered out through a tiny opening in his burrow and spotted the reddish fur. Moving more leaves, he could make out the hind end of the animal, the thick, bushy tail nearly as long as the creature itself, then ringed with black and tipped in pale hair. As it rooted around his fire with its nose and front paws, the fox turned slightly, its jaws crunching down on the leavings of last night’s supper.

  So quiet was the forest that Titus could even hear the snap of the bones with every close of the fox’s jaws. He watched as it finished off the squirrel and sniffed at the small kettle before putting its nose along the damp ground, rooting for something more to eat. Had it been dry, the fox likely would never have approached his little camp. But the damp weather kept down the smell of man, burying it beneath all the other odors of a dank, musty forest.

  Through the leaves he watched the fox turn in his direction, slowly sniffing its way toward his side of the fire, going this way a step to smell something, then darting a couple steps to the other side. Inching closer all the time until it was all but eye to eye with Titus’s burrow, about to stick its nose right into the youngster’s face.