Daniel Boone: Westward Trail

by Barrett Jr. Neal

  “Becky, what’s wrong?”

  “Nothin’, Daniel. Not anythin’ at all.”

  “There is. There’s somethin’. Becky, if it’s Flint you’re worried about, that’s over with. By God. I sure wouldn’t leave if I thought there’d be problems with that feller. You ought to know that.”

  “Wouldn’t you, Daniel?”

  “What? Now what the hell does that mean?”

  When she turned over slowly and faced him, the brittle coldness in her eyes shocked Daniel. The woman lying beside him didn’t look at all like his Rebecca.

  “You wouldn’t leave if you thought there was danger, Daniel. But what if I thought there was? Or if I figured there was another reason you shouldn’t go. What then?”

  “Hell, I—I can’t even tell what you’re tryin’ to say,” he mumbled gruffly.

  She held his eyes a long moment, then turned and looked away.

  “Don’t worry,” she said evenly. “I won’t ask you to stay, Daniel. Maybe I have a right to, and maybe I don’t, but I’d never put that burden on you.”

  “Well, damn it all,” he said crossly, “you know if you—I mean if you was to—.”

  “No.” She laid a finger on his lips. “Don’t, Daniel.”

  After a moment, she slipped out of bed and left him. For a long time, he could hear her rocking on the porch. Finally, when he had nearly fallen asleep again, she returned, snuggling close and affectionately nuzzling him. He turned to her, and they made love. Afterwards, he held her close, and everything was like it ought to be.

  Only it wasn’t. Not really. Something wasn’t there that should have been. He didn’t like that. He wanted all of Rebecca, without even the smallest part of her gone. He suddenly knew she might keep that something from him, hold it to herself always. It scared him to think about that.

  Damn it all, it didn’t seem right. A man ought to have all of his woman. He gave everything to her, didn’t he? He sure wasn’t holding anything back he could think of.

  The next morning looked to Daniel like anything but the start of a hunting trip. It reminded him more of a spring fair, or a wedding celebration. Folks had come from up and down the Yadkin and all over Rowan County to see them off. There were plenty of Boones—cousins, uncles, aunts and whatever, and enough Bryans to start an army. Dick Henderson and his partner came, as did many other people from Salisbury.

  Hell, even people he owed money to had come to wish him well!

  He felt uncomfortable about the whole business. There were too many people bunched around the small cabin, all wanting to shake his hand and talk. Still, it touched him deeply that they had bothered to come. All the yelling and shouting put excitement in the air, and a feller couldn’t help getting caught up in it.

  “You take care of your kin, now,” he told James again and again. “You got a man’s job to do.”

  “I will, Pa.”

  “Squire, I’ll see you in the fall. We’ll blaze a trail for you plain and clear.”

  Squire gripped his brother’s hand and forced a smile, but Daniel knew how disappointed he was.

  “Hold on to your scalp, Daniel,” yelled one of the Bryans.

  “In case you don’t,” Nat Gist called over, “we’ll send a couple of extry wigs out with Squire!” The crowd laughed, and Daniel laughed with them. John Stewart gave his pretty wife, Hannah, a long goodbye kiss and the folks around them cheered. Stewart, a big bear of a man with dark eyes and a great mane of black hair, turned red as a beet and let go of his wife. The pint-sized Hannah sternly pulled him back in her arms and kissed him soundly again.

  Daniel had already hugged his children a dozen times and lifted the young ones up onto his horse for a ride around the yard. Finally, he held Becky tight and whispered his good-bye to her, then mounted his horse and started down the slope for the river. Findley, anxious to get started, had already walked the pack horses as far as the hollow. Boone caught up, looked back once more at the cabin, waved, then followed the others into the woods.

  It’s happening, he thought. I’m finally on my way to Kentucky. By God, it’s happening right now!

  Boone and Stewart knew every turn and hill of the first stretch. The long, westward valleys that cut through the Blue Ridge peaks were as familiar to them as the streets of Salisbury. Following the curl of the Yadkin River south, they crossed the rough, high country down to the headwaters of the Watauga and started the trek northwest. Daniel loved this part of the country. There were so few people here, and game was still easy to find. He, Stewart and Findley took turns going out after meat, ranging away from the path the others would take, then catching up in the evening. Deer were plentiful, but chasing them down was difficult. The land was wild and rocky, thick with trees, and crisscrossed with rushing water. And the game thereabout knew the best, most treacherous places to hide from a horse and rider.

  From the start, Daniel was glad he had decided to bring along Cooley, Holden and Mooney. They were good men, easy to get along with and content with their duties in camp. Nor had any of them a desire to ride out alone. The Cherokees were supposed to be friendly at the moment, but you never could tell.

  Findley was fond of advising them that the friendliest of Indians were the ones you didn’t see.

  “And what about the others?” asked Cooley.

  “Oh, you don’t see them, neither.”

  “What’s the difference, then?”

  “Well, you’re dead when you don’t see the unfriendlies,” said the old peddler. Daniel and Stewart laughed at the ancient joke, but the three camp-keepers weren’t amused.

  At night, Daniel and his companions took turns spinning yarns, each trying to top the other. Stewart regaled them with the wonders of the Mississippi and the sinful joys of New Orleans. For the first time, Findley loosened up and talked about his long years of misfortune after his trek with Braddock. He told how he had wandered about from one odd job to another, always aiming to make another try at Kentucky. Once, he had almost got a big enough pile together, but that disappeared when a trading-boat venture went bad.

  Daniel and Stewart nodded in understanding. It was the sort of bad luck that happened to a man now and then. There was no shame in it.

  John Stewart knew all of Daniel’s tales, but Findley had heard only a few, so Daniel related what had happened to him during the past fourteen years. He had returned home from the war with the Shawnees only to fight another with the Cherokees after they had ravaged the Yadkin Valley. Then he had gone back north with General Forbes and had seen the end of Fort Duquesne, come south to see the Cherokees make peace, wandered off through Tennessee a spell, and made a trip down to Florida.

  “Don’t sound to me like you been sittin’ ’round much,” grinned Findley.

  “Guess not,” conceded Daniel, looking at him across the fire. “But what good was all that rovin’? It sure didn’t come to no account.”

  Daniel was impatient to get on to new, unfamiliar lands. But even though he knew the path ahead, it wasn’t country you could hurry through. One towering peak led to another, and in between were deep, dark, wooded valleys. And always the Endless Mountains ranged far to the west, looming up like an impassable barrier against travelers to Kentucky. Sometimes it seemed to Boone as if they got farther away instead of closer every day.

  Finally, the twisting water of the Holston appeared, and past that, through another range, the Clinch River, flowing swiftly southwest through the dark, rocky land. At last, the wild desolate beauty of Powell’s Valley lay before them. Here was Martin Station, a final lonely settlement in the very shadow of the great range ahead. Beyond Martin’s, there were no clear paths to follow. From here, the only trail would be the one they made.

  The blood in Daniel’s veins surged at the sight. The air above the mountains was crisp and clear and as he watched, an eagle soared high over the peaks, then vanished westward into Kentucky. It was there, just beyond Daniel’s reach. Once again, he felt the deep, unreasoning fear that it would someh
ow be gone when he got there, that the dream would disappear.

  It was already late afternoon, and in the hollow of the mountains, shadows crept quickly over the land. Still, Daniel insisted they leave the outpost behind and make camp in the wilderness. Even if only a mile or so farther, at least it would be at the edge of the unknown.

  The country south of Martin’s seemed to close in around them and push them back. They camped on a ridge near the base of the mountain, a place so thick with trees that Findley said it was all a man could do to stretch out straight.

  Daniel lay awake, watching the stars through ragged branches. Somehow, his mind wouldn’t turn to Kentucky. Instead it strayed back East, across the long valleys to the Yadkin. Becky had been on the edge of his thoughts since they had parted. It hadn’t been easy to leave her. She had gotten her dander up good and really given him a time. It was something she had never done before, and it puzzled him, made him angry. In fact, it frightened him.

  The terrain grew rougher, as rough as Boone had seen anywhere. In places, the steep, wooded ridges were almost impenetrable. It took a whole day to get the mounts and pack horses through one especially difficult stretch of tangled trees and spiny rock. When the job was finished, they found they had cut a path right to the rim of a deep, impassable gorge. Peering over the edge, they saw a white, angry river thundering below, a river tucked so tight between the high granite walls of its canyon that the sun touched its waters only a few minutes out of the day.

  Frustrated and tired, they made their way back through the growth to find another route.

  Still, if it was wild and difficult, the country was awesome, spectacular to look upon. It seemed to Boone that neither God nor man would ever tame it.

  When it happened, it happened quickly, surprising them all. They had forded a rushing river that morning, nearly losing their pack horses and supplies to the current, and had come up against another tangle of woods that looked as solid as a fortress wall. Stewart, scouting ahead on foot and cursing up a storm, suddenly let out a whoop. The whole party rushed up to him, rifles at the ready, but when they reached him, they found him laughing uncontrollably. They followed close as he plunged through the trees. They had gone less than twenty yards when they found themselves standing in a narrow, open way that wound like a snake through the forest. A high ridge, sharp as a razor, had split the woods there and fallen over on itself, leaving a pathway free of growth and tangles. It was no Boston Road, for certain—in places it was scarcely visible to any but the practiced eye—but they understood at once what they had found. Here was the Warrior’s Path, the clear, honest-to-God trail to Kentucky.

  Curbing his excitement, Daniel bent down to show them sign. “We came to the right place,” he said dryly. “There’s more goddamn Indian tracks here than you’d see after a war dance.”

  “Cherokee?” asked Stewart.

  “Uh-huh. And not real old, either. Goin’ that way, mostly,” he said, pointing northeast. “Back to Martin’s Station, or past it. No wonder them redskins come an’ go as they please. I ain’t surprised they was able to keep this place a secret.”

  “Ain’t any secret no more,” grinned Findley.

  “It will be again,” Stewart remarked soberly, “if they catch us out here.”

  They followed the path south, keeping silent and staying in shadow whenever they could. Sometimes the way seemed to disappear completely, or to end at a high, rocky wall. Always, though, they found it again, twisting off in what inevitably proved the easiest way. Finally, the path widened, spreading out into a long valley that turned abruptly northwest. The valley was overshadowed by a sheer wall of stone, rising to an awesome height before it vanished into the dark, grey clouds overhead.

  The party stopped, gazing up the valley at this wondrous sight. As they watched, the clouds scudded away, blew into bands of mist and left ragged tails behind. As the veil slowly lifted, Daniel saw it, a deep cleft in the wall, as if some great tooth had been pulled from a monstrous jaw.

  “Great God A’mighty,” breathed Findley. “There’s your door to Kentucky, Dan’l, and I reckon it’s stand-in’ right open.”

  Chapter Seven

  Daniel stopped a moment to let his horse take water. The creek deepened where it trickled through a dense draping of willow, hiding darting schools of sunfish and perch. Beyond the bank was a rolling pasture of grassland, and past that, foothills that led to a higher range. The light colors of spring had darkened now, and the land about him was rich with the deep, green shades of summer. There were still good months of hunting ahead, plenty of time to add more skins to the pile.

  Damn, what a haul they would take back to the Yadkin! He still marveled at the rich supply of game in the area. The cache in the camp, piled high into bales, grew bigger every day, and his camp-keepers had all they could do to keep up with the hunters. Besides collecting pelts, they were also storing a supply of smoked meats for the winter. Deer, buffalo, bear, squirrel, rabbit and a dozen other kinds of game abounded in Kentucky, so the men were in no fear of starving.

  Bringing the horse out of the willows, Daniel started off north, keeping a sharp eye on the open stretch of land all around him. In the two months since they had crossed the mountain gap and set up camp, they had seen no fresh sign of Indians, though there were old fires and stale traces in the woods. Daniel figured they were still around somewhere, but not in great numbers. He figured the Indians were here for the same business as his own party—hunting and roaming about.

  Leaving his horse in a thicket, Boone started up the big hill he had sighted from the willows. It was an easy slope to climb, rising some seven or eight hundred feet above the rolling grasses. At the top, he stood on a flat table of stone and peered out over the land. The sight nearly took his breath away. Below, the great river blazed like copper in the sun, and past it, Kentucky seemed to stretch out forever.

  When he had first stood in that high gap between the mountains and looked down on the land he had so long sought, Daniel thought he had seen the loveliest sight Kentucky had to offer. Yet, each new vista he came upon put the one before it to shame. Drinking in the great, sprawling scene before him, he longed to strike out for the farthest point he could see. What was there, where the land disappeared past the soft blue horizon?

  Daniel shook his head in wonder. If this wasn’t Paradise under his feet, where was it? Dick Henderson, and a thousand other men, would look no farther. But Daniel knew it was there just past that far blue haze. It would always be just past him, and he would always yearn for it.

  It struck him then that this was what Becky had told him with her eyes. She knew what he was as well as he did—a wanderer. She had hidden her fears a long time before finally letting him see them. Daniel couldn’t blame her. A woman needed a man to be all hers, and maybe she was entitled to that. But he couldn’t be something he wasn’t. If he changed to someone else, Rebecca sure wouldn’t have the same Dan Boone she had loved and married.

  On the way back to camp, Stewart came up to meet him. “Findley says he saw what looks like fresh sign just west of here, where you found that old skinnin’ ground.”

  Daniel nodded. He knew right where it was. The Indians had taken buffalo there a season back. “Not too surprisin’. We knew they was here. How many does John figure?”

  “Half a dozen, no more’n that. A huntin’ party, most likely.”

  “Shawnee or Cherokee?”

  Stewart shook his head. “No way to tell. Wasn’t that much to see.” He stopped, and looked at Daniel. “You thinkin’ we ought to move?”

  “Kinda late for that, ain’t it?”

  Stewart didn’t answer. The edge in Daniel’s voice was clear enough.

  “I’ll talk to Findley when he gets back,” Boone said quietly.

  The whole business irked Daniel no end. They had been expecting sign all along, and it was a damn wonder they hadn’t seen it before now. They were too close to the Warrior’s Path—had been from the start. Daniel had been
against it, but the spring rains had set in hard and sudden, so they had stopped and put up a shelter. They should have kept going, he thought, west, east, anywhere but right here. There was nothing to do about it now, except keep their eyes peeled. It meant they would have to hunt farther from the main camp. and the outlying camps as well. He, Stewart and Findley would be doing more traveling than shooting, which would cut down considerably on what they could take and carry.

  Daniel wondered how he could warn the camp-keepers to be more careful when they went for water, and watch how they lit their fires, without alarming them. Maybe there was no good way to do both.

  “Squire’Il be comin’ in a couple of months,” he told Findley and Stewart as they sat by the campfire that evening. “We’ll figure what to do then. I don’t see makin’ no move right now.”

  Findley agreed. “We leave this place an’ the Injuns find it, ain’t no way they won’t know we’re here, and they’ll sure come lookin’.”

  Boone stirred up the fire and chewed on a tender strip of venison. “If they don’t spot us before the cold sets in, they won’t be movin’ ’round enough to find us. Squire’ll bring plenty of traps, and we can start after fur. Trappin’ makes a hell of a lot less noise than shootin’.”

  Daniel didn’t sleep well that night. He wasn’t nearly as confident as he tried to sound to the others. Findley and Stewart, he decided, were likely to be thinking the same thing. Their luck had been running too strong for too long. Now they knew for certain there was a party of Indians close by. Kentucky was a big chunk of country, but not that big. It was just a matter of time before one of them walked around a tree and saw someone wearing a scalp lock instead of a hat.

  Throughout July and into early August, Daniel and his companions roamed far from camp to trap and to hunt. They stayed far away from the Warrior’s Path, and often, when the country looked too open, they hunted in pairs.

  By late September, the main camp was inundated with skins. They were packed and baled on high scaffolds, far enough off the ground to keep wolves or curious bears from tearing them down.