****
Another service was held a week later, and more people attended that one. Hawk stayed on the outskirts, supposedly guarding the group. He noticed that Zeke Taylor did not attend the services. As he kept his eye on the man, Hawk saw that Taylor was drinking heavily. Immediately after the service was over, he walked by and said, “Taylor, we’re getting into more dangerous territory now. Not unlikely we might find ourselves in trouble with the Indians.”
“What you tellin’ me this fer?” Taylor demanded. His face was flushed, and he stared belligerently at the tall frontiersman.
“I’m telling you because a man can’t shoot when he’s drunk, and you’re drunk, Taylor!”
“Spencer, you been puttin’ your nose in my business enough! I’m tellin’ you now. It ain’t none of your business what I do! Now get away from here, and don’t come around to me with more of your talk!”
“Taylor, you don’t understand this country. I won’t argue with you, but I won’t put up with any disorderly behavior. You give me any trouble, and I’ll lay you out!” Hawk turned his back and walked away. He could feel the burning gaze of Taylor and knew that sooner or later he would have trouble with the man.
It was the day of rest, but not for Hawk, who still left the camp and circled the surrounding territory with Sequatchie and John Russell. They were alert but saw no signs of Indians.
Back in the camp, Zeke Taylor continued to drink. He finally had drunk himself practically into a stupor, and late that afternoon he yelled at Amanda, “Bring me some of that stew, girl!”
Amanda, terrified of her father, quickly ran to get the meat. She hurried to bring the stew, and as she approached him, she tripped and spilled the stew right down the front of Zeke Taylor’s dirty shirt. Yelling, Taylor reached up and grabbed her. “I’ll teach you to spill food!” He grabbed a strap of leather and began to beat the girl. When she didn’t cry out, he grew angrier and slashed at her almost in a frenzy. His wife came and tried to stop him, but he slashed her across the face with the leather strap, too. She yelped and fell backward, hiding her face from him.
All this, of course, did not escape the attention of the others. George Russell started across the camp to help the woman, but John Russell reached out and grabbed George, saying, “That’s family business,” he said. “A man could get hisself killed messin’ around with another man’s business.”
Finally, the savage beating stopped, and the camp grew quiet.
Elizabeth had not seen the beating, but she heard about it from Leah Russell. When she saw Amanda, she was shocked at the child’s puffy face and its red welts. She could only guess at the girl’s body, and she said to Patrick, “Something’s got to be done!”
“I’ll speak to the man,” Patrick said.
“No, wait! That’s Hawk’s job,” Elizabeth said. “Wait until he gets back!”
Hawk and Sequatchie returned less than an hour later and were met by Patrick and Elizabeth. Hawk listened as they told him the story, and he saw that Elizabeth had been crying.
“That poor child, Amanda. Her face is—well, I can’t describe it! I can’t imagine what her body looks like! That man is a beast!” she cried indignantly.
“Can’t you do something about it, Hawk?” Patrick said. “I know a man’s got a right to run his own family, but—”
Hawk said briefly, “I’ll have a word with Taylor.”
“He’s drunk,” Patrick warned him. “Be careful. He’s a vicious man, and he’s dangerous.”
Hawk, who had faced many men more dangerous than Zeke Taylor, said quietly, “I’ll be careful.”
“Do you think he could get hurt?” Patrick asked Sequatchie as Hawk turned and walked away.
“I think Zeke Taylor could get hurt,” Sequatchie said. “He’s never met a man like Hawk.”
Hawk approached the wagon, and Zeke Taylor had sobered up to some degree. When he saw Hawk coming, he turned and pulled a knife out of the wagon and stuck it into his belt. “What’s your business, Spencer?” he demanded, his voice still thick with alcohol.
“My business is the dirty skunk who beats a woman and child,” Hawk said calmly.
“It ain’t none of your affair, or nobody else’s.”
“You may be right about that as far as this train is concerned. I was asked to guide you people to the settlement, and I’m not your judge. However, I am telling you this man to man—if you are a man. If you lay your hand on your wife or daughter one more time and I see it or even hear about it, I’m gonna take a bullwhip and take the hide right off of you! Do you understand that, Taylor?”
Whipping out the knife, Taylor yelled mindlessly and threw himself at Hawk. Hawk simply allowed the knife to come within a few inches of his chest, then reached out and pushed it aside. He grabbed Zeke Taylor by the neck, and his iron grip closed around the man’s wrist. He started to squeeze, and Taylor began to cry out. He was much smaller than Hawk, although strong, but his strength did him no good at all. “I’m gonna turn you loose, Taylor,” Hawk said. “And I’m giving you a chance to act like a man. If you come at me again with that knife, I’ll put you down!”
He shoved Taylor away and stood waiting. An unholy fire burned in Zeke Taylor’s eyes. He cursed and began to come forward, waving the knife in the gesture of an experienced knife fighter. This time he moved carefully. Hawk had left his rifle with his gear, but he would not have used it in any case. He poised himself on the balls of his feet, with his hands out slightly.
Those who were close enough to observe saw that he was smiling. It was not a very attractive smile, however, and John Russell whispered to Sequatchie, who had come to watch, “What’s going to happen?”
“Taylor’s a dead man unless Hawk decides to show a little mercy,” Sequatchie said.
Zeke Taylor lunged forward once again, and the blade shot out. Again, Taylor was much too slow. With a lightning motion, Hawk grabbed the wrist, turned his back slightly, and flipped Taylor over, so that he struck the ground with a thumping noise. Hawk stamped down on the man’s wrist, grinding it into the dirt. Taylor shrieked in pain, but Hawk continued to grind until the knife fell to the ground. Reaching over, Hawk picked it up and pressed the knife to Taylor’s throat. With his other hand he lifted Taylor’s hair and said, “I’ve heard of folks being scalped alive, and it would pleasure me right now to do that to you.” He pressed the knife close.
“Don’t kill me!” Taylor began to moan.
Hawk said, “I’m giving you one more chance. You get out of line one more time, and I will scalp you after I get done beating you with that whip! That’s a promise—and I always keep my word, Taylor.”
As Hawk walked away, Zeke Taylor’s eyes burned with resentment. Getting to his feet, Zeke cast a baleful look at those who had gathered to watch. “What are you all starin’ at?” he said. “Get away from here!” He looked at his wife, wanting to beat her, but the feel of the cold steel on his throat was still too strong. He went to the wagon, found a bottle, and began to drink again.
“He’ll be more trouble before we get there.”
“I’m not his keeper,” Hawk said to Sequatchie. “But if he touches his wife or child again, I’ll put a crimp in him. I can’t stand to see a woman or a child mistreated!”
While the altercation between the two men had been taking place, Rhoda had left the camp. It had been two weeks ago to the day when she had spoken with Jacques, and she knew that she had no choice but to meet him. She had walked no farther than a few feet out into the darkness when she heard his voice call her name. He appeared suddenly and handed her a sack.
“What’s this?” she said.
“Put some of it in the water. It will make folks sick.”
“It’s poison!”
“Not bad. It won’t kill them. It’ll just make them sick.”
“What is it?” she demanded.
Instantly Cartier’s arm shot out and he grabbed Rhoda by the neck. “You do what I tell you! I have given you half the gold. T
hese people get sick enough, they will go back. You mind what I say! Put some in the water!”
Rhoda took the bag, and Cartier disappeared.
“What am I going to do?” she moaned. She looked with horror at the bag. “How can I poison people who have been so kind to me?” She knew, however, that if she did not, Cartier would kill her. When she got back to camp, the people were still gathered around talking about the fight between Hawk and Taylor. Each wagon had its own large cask of drinking water, and she managed to put some of the poison in several of these before she decided it was too dangerous.
****
The sickness had come on so suddenly that it was frightening. The day after the fight between Hawk and Zeke Taylor, the train had started up, but by supper that night several people were complaining about terrible stomachaches. They were vomiting and breaking out into fever and sweat.
Several had such high fevers that it was questionable whether they would live. Now, three days later, there was talk of turning back.
“I don’t know what’s making people so sick!” said Paul Anderson, his face twisted with pain. “I never saw such bellyaches! What do you think it is, Hawk?”
“I’m no doctor, but it came on real sudden like,” Hawk said.
“Could it be cholera?” Elizabeth asked with fear in her eyes.
“No, it’s not at all like cholera,” Paul said. “I’ve seen that. I don’t know what it is . . . but we’ve got to do something.”
Hawk looked at the group that had come to ask him if it would be best to return to Williamsburg. Hawk did not say anything about the broken axle or the other accidents that had happened. Most of them were to be expected. However, he and Sequatchie had been conscious that there was something strange about many of them. Now, this sickness coming on so unexpectedly alerted him.
“I don’t want to alarm you, but I think this is more than just a sickness. I think it’s something in the food—or more likely in the water.”
“What makes you think that, Hawk?” John Russell asked. All of his children were down sick, and so was his wife. “Half the people in the train have got it.”
“But it’s all in families. Some got the sickness and some don’t.”
“Most of it is in your family.” And Hawk named off four others. “You’re the sickest of all, and everybody in the family’s got it. I don’t think sickness works like that.”
“What do you think it is, then?” Patrick asked in despair. He and his family had had no sickness at all, nor had Rhoda.
Hawk said slowly, “I think somebody’s put something in the drinking water. Since we each carry our own, it would make sense to me that somebody put poison in some of the water barrels, but not in others. That’s why your whole family’s sick. You’ve all been drinking out of the same keg, John.” He named off other families, then paused and said, “And as for me, I never drink out of the kegs myself, and neither does Sequatchie, so I think it’s in the water.”
“But who would do a thing like that?” Patrick asked.
“Who would saw my axle halfway through so that it would break down?” John Russell said suddenly. “I think you may be right, Hawk.”
“Get rid of all the water in every keg,” Hawk said. “Keep a close watch on the food. Anybody that’d poison water could get to the food.”
Hawk and George chose some men to go around and empty and refill the water casks, since some of the people were too sick to move. It was three days before they finally all recovered, and Elizabeth said to Patrick, “I’m so thankful they’ve all gotten well. Who could’ve done such a terrible thing?”
“I have no idea. Taylor’s mean enough to do it. He’d kill Hawk in a minute. Have you seen how he looks at him? But I don’t think he’d put poison in our water. Besides, his own family was sick. I thought his wife was going to die.”
Rhoda, who was cooking at the fire, did not look up. She had been in total misery since the sickness came. She had kept busy nursing those who were ill, until she had lost weight. And now her heart was as heavy as a stone.
Elizabeth came over and put her hand on Rhoda’s arm. “I’ll finish this, Rhoda. You’ve worn yourself out, taking care of sick folks. Go on to bed. God knows you’ve been good to the sick in our company.”
Elizabeth’s words went like an arrow straight through Rhoda’s heart. She did not look up but turned and left at once. As she walked away, she gazed upward, saying, “Oh, God! Why did I ever do such a thing?” But it was done, and it was one more proof to her of the wickedness of her heart. She had thought much about Paul Anderson’s words about Jesus and looking to Him, but now how could she ever think to look to Jesus after what she had done?
Chapter Twenty-Two
Through Storm and Flood
“I don’t like it much!” Hawk shook his head slightly as he stared down at the line of wagons and pack animals. “Here it is the middle of September, and we’ve still got a ways to go.”
“Some of the outfits have slowed us up,” George Russell said. “Especially Zeke Taylor.” He stared at Taylor’s wagon as it wobbled by, the poor animals straining with all their might. “We ought to shoot those horses and make him pull the wagon himself.”
“I would if I thought he could,” Hawk muttered.
“Has he given you any more trouble since you put the run on him, Hawk?”
“No, but if looks could kill I’d be a dead man.”
The caravan had passed over some rough, hilly country that had wearied them all. Hawk and Sequatchie had killed game fairly regularly, including two wild turkeys the day before that had been a welcome change from the monotony of the diet.
“The food is running low, and I’m worried about the settlers making it through the winter,” Hawk said to Russell.
“We’ll make it somehow. As long as there’s bear and deer in the woods, we won’t starve to death. I’m getting awful hungry for vegetables, though,” Russell said.
“You can raise you a garden next year.” Hawk grinned. He had come to like the young man a great deal, and as the two men turned and made their way to the head of the column, they spoke of the difficulties that lay before them.
Following the trail slowly, the travelers crawled across a rocky, flinty mountain ridge where a wheel from the Suttons’ wagon came off. There were no more wheels to spare, so they had to wait all night, patch the wheel together, and struggle on the next day.
In the morning, as Elizabeth stirred meal into a wooden bowl and mixed up a johnnycake, she looked down at her blistered hands. She frowned at how dirty her dress was and remembered how in Boston she’d send the children to bathe and change clothes for the least smudge. Shaking her head, Elizabeth reached up and touched her hair, which was gritty. Looking over at Patrick, who was watching her, she said, “I’m as dirty as a pig, Patrick. Wouldn’t it be nice to get into a steaming hot bath, and wash your hair, and put on nice fresh clean underthings, and a fresh dress?”
“I don’t know as I’d care for it,” Patrick said.
“You like being dirty?” she said in amazement.
“No, I don’t like being dirty, but I don’t think I’d want to put on a dress.”
“Oh, you!” She stirred the batter again and put some of it out to bake in the large frying pan. The food in their wagon had gone down alarmingly, and she knew if it had not been for the game that Sequatchie and Hawk brought in day by day, they would have been hungry long before this.
“Are you sorry that we came, sweetheart?” Patrick came over and sat beside her, put his arm around her, squatting before the fire.
“No, I’m not. It’s been the hardest time I’ve ever known physically, but—oh, it’s so exciting, Patrick!”
“I hope you’ll always feel that way. It’s been good for the kids, hasn’t it?”
“Yes, look how brown they are. Just like little Indians, almost.”
“I’m proud of both of them. I’m proud of you, too,” he said, and reached over and kissed her soundly.
> By the time they finished their meal and packed up, Hawk came by saying it was time for the train to pull out again.
They were moving at a very slow pace now. One day differed from another only by the nature of the disasters. Once Sequatchie’s horse mired in a stream, and it took half a day to drag him free of the mud, and he was unable to go on for another two hours. They crossed the same stream, it seemed, numberless times, for it wound around in their way. More than once, rainstorms swept over them. Though they were all wet to the skin, they forged on as best they could. Sometimes they made only a mile a day when wagons bogged down almost to their hubs in the red claylike mud.
Sequatchie was extremely quiet one Saturday morning. He kept looking up at the sky, and finally Hawk asked, “What’s the matter? Something wrong?”
Sequatchie sniffed the air almost like a hound dog. He shook his head and said, “Storm coming.”
Hawk shrugged his broad shoulders. “We’ve had about a dozen. I guess we can take one more.” He turned in his saddle to look over the stragglers and shook his head. “I’ll be glad to get there. I’d rather try to herd a hive of bees across a desert than do this again, Sequatchie.”
Sequatchie did not answer. He kept twisting in the saddle, turning his head to one side, and finally he said, “Bad storm coming. Very bad.”
Hawk knew Sequatchie’s almost uncanny ability to foretell weather. He could not understand it, nor explain it, nor could the Cherokee. Sometimes as long as a week before a storm hit, Sequatchie would begin to grow edgy, and grow more so until finally it would come.
“Maybe we better find some shelter and get out of it,” Hawk said.
“Good,” Sequatchie replied. “I’ll go tell preacher Anderson to pray.”
They had not had the wagons and animals secured long before huge black clouds began rolling out of the north. Inside of them, lightning bolts flickered back and forth, reaching down with long jagged blades to stab the earth.
“How far away is that storm, Papa?” Sarah MacNeal asked her father. She was holding his hand and watching the dark clouds.
Over the Misty Mountains Page 25
