by Jamie Carie
Father Francis looked heavenward.
For what purpose did you fashion this one, my Lord?
2
Hope Renoir stood on the front porch of what had been her home for the last ten years, an arm wrapped about one of the supports, looking toward the setting sun for any sign of her daughter. Whatever had she been thinking to give her permission for such an errand? Worry had not stopped its gnawing hold on her stomach since she’d given in to the Father’s request. She bit one side of her lower lip, brow furrowed, reassuring herself that it wasn’t too late to change her mind.
After clearing up the noon dishes, she had sent Isabelle to the priest, knowing how much joy it would give the old man to send her on the quest for his books himself. He had such a soft spot for anything of beauty, and Hope supposed she couldn’t blame him. Against the rugged existence of this place, Isabelle stood out, always had, even as a little girl. It wasn’t that she was beautiful, though Hope thought that was becoming more and more a fact. No, it was something within her—something that caught and held a person. Something that her father, Joseph Renoir, had given her.
Isabelle, merciful God, that one needs a strong hand to curb her wildness! Who would ever marry her? Let him be strong, Lord, yet gentle enough to allow her spirit to flourish.
The sounds of her daughter’s singing caught her attention, and she smiled. Isabelle was just visible at the edge of the village, coming home and singing with the joy of her news. Her steps were light and graceful, her arms swinging with lively energy at her sides. When her face came into view, Hope felt the sting of tears in her eyes. There was a glow to her face that made it shine.
“I won’t let myself be killed,” Isabelle announced with delighted fierceness.
Hope let out startled laughter. “I should hope not! He told you then?”
“Yes, yes, and yes!” She grasped one of the columns of the porch and twirled around it. “Thank you for entrusting me to the task. It will be such an adventure!”
Hope looked into the excited green eyes of her daughter and took in a deep breath, knowing she had to let her do this. “You will watch over your brother? Without him realizing it?”
“Of course. You know that is second nature for me.”
Hope grasped her daughter’s waist and led her toward the front door. “I have hired a guide. An Indian named Quiet Fox.”
“A guide? Ma Mère, we will not need a guide,” Isabelle insisted, stopping her mother and glaring at her.
“Of course you will. I will not have you and Julian traveling that distance alone.”
“Who is he? Where does he come from?” Isabelle’s eyes blazed with the greens and golds of her ever-changing moods.
Hope lifted her hand, gesturing her impatience. “He comes highly recommended. Now come, let us plan what you will take with you. I want you well provisioned.”
* * *
THEIR MISSION LOOKED impossible. Nine hundred miles of waterway behind them, George Rogers Clark and his motley group of woodsmen, farmers, a handful of criminals, and even a few of questionable sanity climbed up the bank of Corn Island at the Falls of the Ohio River. They would train here for a few weeks, then travel to their first target—Kaskaskia.
Clark looked out over his men and wiped the sweat off his brow with the sleeve of his buckskin jacket. They were industrious now, felling trees to build cabins as quickly as they could. Clark’s planted rumor—that any man found unable to apply his muscle to the task of building camp would be left on this island with the women and children—seemed to be working. He would have to assign a small force, though, to stay and raise corn and provisions. The next few days should separate the chaff from the wheat, making his decision easy.
Clark took a long breath, watched two men nearly come to blows over who would wield an ax and smiled. Hard-bitten as they were, he was still thankful to have raised a fighting force of any kind. After months of passionate speech-making, he had managed to convince the politicians of Virginia that it was vital to the colonies’ quest for freedom that they protect the territory west of the Allegheny Mountains. He had left Patrick Henry’s office with a gleeful jump in his step, but after weeks of riding the countryside with Samuel Holt, he had not been so cheerful. Manpower in the east was so depleted due to Virginia’s own need that Clark had been able to cobble together a militia of only about one hundred and fifty men between Williamsburg and Pittsburg, far short of the five hundred he had hoped for.
And the hundred and fifty he had … “God help me,” he muttered. Stubborn, independent thinkers, and so cocksure of their prowess both on the battlefield and off … well, it was laughable. Where these men came up with such high-minded opinions of themselves he would like to know, given their motley appearance. Every one of them thought he could take on the British army by himself, and each seemed to envision himself raising the company flag over enemy territory with a gapped-toothed, bearded grin to the hearty hurrahs of the troops. Clark had overheard more than one daydream aloud of conquest against both the savage and the redcoats as they rowed the long miles west along the Ohio River. Still, they were able-bodied and, for one reason or another, eager for a fight. For that, Clark was intensely grateful.
His thoughts roamed back to men he admired, friends and compatriots from his exploring days. What he wouldn’t give to have a hundred and fifty Simon Kentons or Samuel Holts. Simon and Samuel should be meeting up with him at Corn Island any day now. Both were excellent scouts and fierce in battle. And both were friends. They would provide a good example for the men and good companionship for him. And he was hungry for news on how the frontier forts were doing. Was there anything left to defend? It was all hanging on by such a delicate, blood-drenched thread … but a thread was enough. A thread was all one needed to weave the outskirts of a nation.
Clark took a deep breath and expelled it in a rush, feeling the fire in his belly flare to life. He didn’t know why he cared so much, didn’t understand where exactly this burning desire to see the birth of something new—a freedom that men had only dreamed about to this point in history—had come from. He didn’t know why he was so certain of the importance of Illinois and Kentucky and the men and women who were trying to make a living there. He just knew. And for the last eighteen months he had done little beyond planning a campaign to take it all from the scalp-buying British and their dependent native tribes.
He thought of the British Lieutenant Governor, Henry “the Hairbuyer” Hamilton, sitting in his fort in Detroit, making deals with Chief Black Bird of the Chippewa and other tribes to trade settlers’ scalps for rum and trinkets. His lips pressed together in a thin line. Hamilton was creating a dependent cycle that kept the Indians entrenched and entrapped. A new knife for a farming man’s life, glass beads for his wife, and a bottle of spirits for their children—it was a bloody cycle that he, George Rogers Clark, planned to bring to an end.
Clark now stood on the brink of his campaign, just a few days’ travel from his first target, and shuddered, his resolve strengthened, full of his own imaginings concerning a man named Henry Hamilton.
* * *
SAMUEL ABSORBED EVERY detail of his surroundings, judging and weighing the dense shadows of the forest while making his way down the weed-clogged hill to his canoe. His gaze swept the banks of the Ohio River, taking in the strong smells of rotting woodland and moss, the humming of insects and frogs, the buck a quarter mile to the east with ears perked at his passage, and most important, the dense overgrowth surrounding the water, making a fine lair for enemies lying in wait. Reports of recent heated attacks by the Shawnee up and down the Kentucky frontier made his body tense with constant watchfulness, his nerves as skittish as rattlesnakes.
Seeing nothing but the lush green of a June morning, mist still rising above the green-gray waters of the river, and hearing only the distant roar of the falls upstream, he pushed his canoe into the water, jumped aboard, and settled himself low in the bottom of the craft. He found the familiar, smooth handle of t
he paddle in his hands, grasped hold, and dipped it deep into the water, feeling the glide of the small vessel across the calm surface.
Sunlight glinted off the glassy top, a welcome glare only in the sense that it felt like a new adventure awaiting him. A soft breeze blew, caressing his hair that had become rather long and bleached further by the sun. Stirrings of excitement reached his belly … rising … rising into a deep breath of the morning air.
It didn’t take long to paddle the distance. Corn Island and George Rogers Clark awaited him just ahead. Smoke was rising from the trees, the smells of breakfast cooking in the air. He’d been there before, a couple of years ago. Corn Island was just a small outcropping of land and yet could be, would be, the training camp for a small army with grand designs.
Sweat trickled down his back as he paddled faster, fishy-smelling water dripping onto his legs as he switched sides. He had not seen his friend in months, and he missed Clark’s broad grin and wild dreams. Now they would train an army before attempting the impossible—taking a series of forts from the best military force in the world with just a handful of pitchfork-swinging farmers and sharp-shooting backwoodsmen.
Whatever the odds, there was an element to a fight that always felt the same to Samuel—the sure knowledge that all he imagined would come true. Clark had that too. And when men like that came together and agreed on it, something happened. He had seen it before and knew it was about to happen again. Samuel grinned. With no one to see him and no one to care, he grinned with presumptive victory.
A few more minutes of paddling and then he spotted Clark’s tall redhead standing out in the field of greens and browns.
“Clark,” he called out, waving from the canoe. He didn’t wait for him to answer but banked, pulled the craft up onto the shore, and crossed dry land to greet his friend with a hearty clap on the shoulder that Clark turned into a bear hug.
“You’ve come, at last, my friend.”
Samuel grinned. “How are you? Have you been here long? Did you raise enough men?”
Clark quickly walked with him some distance away and spoke in low tones. “I’m well and ready, Samuel. Glad you’ve made it. As to the men, not as many as I would like, that’s the honest truth. But they are solid men—good enough, I think.”
Samuel scanned the camp, noting the organization of the troops, seeing industrious men at their chores. “How many?”
“About a hundred and fifty. Hard-bitten, I’ll admit,” he chuckled, “but I have been training them.” He smiled, his auburn hair shining bright in the sun and the wrinkles around his eyes attesting to many hours spent out in the elements. “You have checked on the forts? Kept the frontier free while I have been training these ragamuffins?”
Samuel laughed, then suddenly grew serious. “They’re not doing well. All are weak, especially Fort Harrod and Fort Boonesborough. Lack of food and, worse, lack of hope plague them. The Shawnee are ever ready to torment them, keeping them penned in for weeks at a time, preventing them from spring planting. I don’t know how they will survive the winter without a summer’s worth of provisions. Most of the families haven’t even been able to finish their cabins, and all of them are tired of living in the forts.”
Clark’s keen gaze said he understood. “That is why we cannot fail, Samuel. We win these British forts, we really take them, making the French and Indians our allies, it will change everything. Who’s the worst off?”
“Fort Harrod is in real bad shape. The people are scared and were nearly starving to death six months ago, but I think they are recovering. Boonesborough, though, may be headed for a different kind of trouble. When I first got there, I was encouraged. More men, better provisioned, stronger fort.” Samuel shook his head. “But now, I don’t know, they fight and argue among themselves more than anything. Everyone wants to lead, and no one will follow. It doesn’t look good for them.”
“Is Daniel there?”
“Didn’t you hear? Boone was captured by Blackfish himself. Adopted his white son, some say.”
Clark pressed his lips together in grim contemplation. “If Boone was there, they would do all right. I feel bad for stealing you away.”
Samuel huffed in frustration. “I couldn’t lead those men. Do you ever want to wring their necks?”
“Sure, all the time. But keep in mind what’s really going on down there.”
“I wish I understood.” Samuel shook his head. “Constant rumors and backbiting, jealousy, and competition for control. It undermines all they’re doing and makes me spitting mad.”
Samuel looked into Clark’s eyes. “Don’t they know? Don’t they understand that the wilderness has no room for such things? That here they have to be more than they ever imagined they could be? But no, they crave the paltry power of a hollow square stockade. Kings over a barrier of upright posts. Fools, the lot of them!”
Samuel leaned over and spit the bad taste from his mouth, stalking a few steps toward the river and gazing out at its placid flow. “There was even talk that you had turned, abandoned them,” he said quietly. “Sometimes I wonder if they’re worth what you’re planning to do for them.”
Clark laid a hand on Samuel’s shoulder. “Individually, they might not seem like it sometimes. But together, what they represent, that is worth it. They are Kentuckians and, God willing, soon to be Americans. Can you imagine it, Samuel? We are all going to be Americans someday.”
The word sounded foreign to Samuel’s ear. No more the title of Colonists; no more the swell of pride at being British subjects. They had turned rebel, independence screaming from their core. Samuel grinned in agreement and nodded. It was why they were there.
“Let’s introduce you to the men.” As they headed to the camp, a sudden commotion at the riverbank caused both men to turn sharply back to the river. A lone man, wearing worn Colonial army colors, was striding up the bank toward them. He bowed his head, then looked up at Clark. “Colonel Clark?” At Clark’s nod, he presented a letter and stated in staccato, “News from Patrick Henry, sir.”
Clark took the letter, pried up the wax seal, and quickly scanned the document. Samuel watched as a broad grin split his commander’s face, then grinned himself as Clark gripped the letter, shaking his head in obvious wonderment. It must be good news.
“The French have agreed to support us, Samuel. They are joining our side in the war.”
All the implications fell into place. They were about to take British forts inhabited by French citizens. Their job just got incredibly easier. Suddenly, it all seemed possible, what their commander in chief, George Washington, was doing back east and what they were about to attempt right here. The French were sending armies, trained armies, armies that had fought the British countless times over the centuries.
Armies that had won.
3
The darkening forest surrounded them, a living, breathing entity of creature noise and vegetation stirring, straining, it seemed, to snare them. Isabelle crouched down beside her brother, waiting and breathing in shallow gasps, buried almost in the dense underbrush. She watched the wind grow stronger with sudden gusts that sent showers of leaves twirling about them as it ripped summer’s canopy from the branches overhead. Her gaze scanned the sky that was turning an eerie green. Tornado weather. Isabelle shivered, thinking of the one tornado she had ever seen. Of how her mother, her brother, and she had crouched down in the tiny, damp root cellar until it had passed.
There would be no hiding places here.
Their Indian guide stood a little away, motioning them to remain back and still. Isabelle watched Quiet Fox, watched the way he used every sense to assess their surroundings, to identify the cause of their uneasiness. They had all sensed it, that crawling sensation up the back of the spine that came with the sure feeling of being watched. And then they had heard a sound that sent them scurrying to cover—a swishing of the brush nearby, as if someone had passed near them. A sudden flight of birds winging away to safety had only furthered their disquiet. With su
dden movements of his hands and an intense look in his eyes, Quiet Fox had backed them into this copse, then padded a few steps away and turned, his lean body taut with tension, his nostrils flared, eyes darting everywhere.
Isabelle shivered, thinking she was glad to have him with them now. She looked up to the wind whipping through the trees overhead, where the leaves made a sound like rushing water, and found her heart pounding like that of a trapped animal. Yet she could find no evidence of danger aside from the possibility of a coming thunderstorm. Leaning toward her brother, she whispered, “Do you hear anything?”
He shook his head, frowning at her for talking, which made her want to argue that she was quieter and more attuned to the forest than he, but she restrained herself with a silent huff. Everyone knew that Julian was the dreamer, the poet and musician of the family, and that Isabelle could outshoot, outrun, and outhunt him any day of the week. But now wasn’t the time to remind him of that. Now, what she wanted more than anything was to prove to Quiet Fox, her mother, and the others shaking their heads in worry about this excursion, that she could successfully complete this mission and bring the old priest’s books to him in perfect condition. Or at least in whatever condition she found them.
Thinking of her mother gave her a slight pang in the stomach region. Isabelle wanted nothing more than to please her mother, but she could never seem to understand what it was her mother wanted. She remembered the night before they had left. She had plopped herself on Hope’s featherbed with a pleased smile and asked, “You will really let me go, Ma Mère?”
Hope smiled back at her, fondness and disquiet in her eyes. “Yes, I have despaired of making anything but a woodsman out of you, so why shouldn’t you tromp through the forest for a few weeks and see if you get your fill.” She shook her head. “For a time, at least.”
