by Shane Phipps
It was hot work in the sugarhouse. Rebecca was wearing a full-length dress and a cap, but she did allow herself the luxury of rolling up her sleeves a bit. Her right sleeve was stained dark from where she had been constantly wiping the sweat from her brow. The fire in the little shack had to be maintained and kept extremely hot to do the job. After the third trip back to the sugarhouse, Cody finally saw a glass jug with some of the finished product in it. It was a dark, amber-colored syrup, and it looked and smelled delicious.
“I see you’re eyeballin’ the syrup there, Ethan. Want to sample a spoonful?” asked Rebecca.
“Sure,” answered Cody. Rebecca dipped a small wooden spoon into the mouth of the jug and pulled up a dollop of its gooey contents. She handed the spoon to Cody, and he touched it to his lips. He let the thick, viscous liquid slowly spread across his taste buds. It was heavenly—the best-tasting syrup Cody had ever had, perhaps because he had a lot of sweat equity invested in the process. He felt a sense of accomplishment unlike anything he had ever experienced. It is really cool, Cody thought, to make your own food from scratch. He remembered the similar feelings he had experienced after harvesting the deer to help provide table fare for Edward Carter’s family. He realized how things are much more special when you have to work hard for them. It was a good feeling. “This is delicious, Rebecca,” Cody said.
“Just be careful not to rub any on your forehead, or your tongue will slap your brains out tryin’ to get at it!” joked Rebecca.
Laughing, Cody and Daniel headed back out to finish retrieving the rest of the sap buckets. The job of sap retrieval took most of the day, and the evaporating work went on into the evening. By the end of the day, the Boones and Cody had boiled off more than three gallons of maple syrup. They were all tired and ready for a meal and some relaxation.
After supper, Daniel and Cody retired to the porch and began planning their upcoming trip. “You’ve said you’ve never been up in the Blue Ridge yet, Ethan,” Daniel began. “I can tell you that it is a place of wonder. You can feel spirits in the Blue Ridge. It is Cherokee country, and you can just feel it in your bones. Those mountains do somethin’ to a man. We’ll be followin’ the Yadkin right up to its source. There’s a place there called the Blowing Rock—spirits are real heavy in the air there. It’ll plumb near make your flesh crawl—beautiful place, but there’s a darkness about it. I’ll tell you what the Indians say about it when we get there,” Daniel said. “Wouldn’t do any good to tell you about it now. You’ll just have to feel it fer yourself.”
“How long will we be gone?” Cody asked.
“Oh, two or three weeks, maybe more, maybe less—all depends on what we run into. If there’s plenty of game about, we may be gone a bit longer—if there’s any hostile Cherokee about, we may need to scoot outta there a little quicker. I’ve gotten along pretty well with the Cherokee most of the time, but I never totally trust ’em. We’ll need to take along plenty of trade goods to keep ’em on our good side. We just have to remember to always be alert when we travel in the Blue Ridge,” answered Daniel.
Daniel Boone’s rifle was carved with images of Native Americans, nature, and animals as well as his name. (Kentucky Historical Society)
Cody was a little uneasy. This sounded a little scary, dangerous even. He felt a little stirring in his gut. Suddenly he felt lightheaded, and everything seemed to be going dark. When he opened his eyes, he was back in his room. He sat for a long moment staring at the old journal. He was having second thoughts about whether to finish reading this or not.
“Hostiles … spirits … darkness. I’m not sure I like the sounds of that,” Cody moaned.
Chapter 5
Cody stared at Ethan Carter’s journal with apprehension. He was unsure whether he should read on. He knew that traveling into the wilderness of the Blue Ridge Mountains with Daniel Boone was an opportunity for adventure that he would never have imagined, but there were many unknown dangers. Cody had sensed that even Boone had seemed a little nervous about the high country. That is what really worried him.
Cody decided he needed to do some research about this area and this time period before he made his decision. He went to his computer and searched about North Carolina in the late 1750s. What he learned, at first, did not ease his concerns. It was during the years of the French and Indian War. Cody remembered a little bit about the war from history class. He knew that the war was fought between the French and the British for control of lands on the western frontier of the British colonies in America. He remembered that various Native American tribes had taken sides with either the French or the British and joined in the fighting. Cody now learned that the French and Indian War had hit very close to home for the Boones and the other settlers in the Yadkin Valley. By the time Ethan Carter had befriended Boone, Boone had already served a stint under the command of British General Edward Braddock. In fact, Boone had been a part of a major failed campaign of Braddock’s troops in the Ohio Country. The year was 1755, and General Braddock was attempting a daring offensive maneuver to drive the French out of the Ohio Valley. They focused their efforts on the French Fort Duquesne along the Monongahela River, on the site of present-day Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The British force was aided by some American colonial militia, including a young George Washington. Before they ever had a chance to get to the fort, they were intercepted by a smaller group of French. The ensuing Battle of the Wilderness turned out to be one of the most demoralizing and embarrassing defeats of the British in the seven-year war. The battle was completely one-sided. Of the more than 1,300 British and American troops, nearly 900 were killed or wounded. General Braddock was among those who lost their lives. About fifty women had accompanied the troops as maids and cooks. Of that number, only four survived. Boone and Washington had been among the survivors who were forced to retreat and regroup. The French and their native allies, although badly outnumbered at the start of the skirmish, reported only about forty total casualties. “Geez,” muttered Cody as he read the account of the battle. “Boone must have seen some horrible things at that battle.”
This page from General Braddock’s journal depicts where British troops were on the battlefield at the time of the Battle of the Wilderness on July 9, 1755. Various markings on the map indicate the responsibilities of the soldier or group of soldiers in each area, which Braddock explains in his key at the bottom left. (The Historical Society of Pennsylvania)
Cody continued to research and soon found that the French and Indian War eventually found its way to the settlements of the Yadkin Valley. In 1759, encouraged by the French, bands of Cherokee attacked the Yadkin settlers. The Cherokee had actually been allies of the British at the beginning of the conflict but felt mistreated and switched their allegiance to the French. With the raids by the Cherokee, most of the Yadkin settlers, including the Boone family, were forced to abandon their homes and flee north into Virginia. “So Ethan met Daniel Boone in between a couple of periods of major drama,” Cody said to himself. “I wonder if Ethan got out all right when the Cherokee attacked?”
Cody had learned a great deal from his research, and he paused to let it sink in. He was still considering whether or not he wanted to venture back into Ethan Carter’s journal. Finally, he sighed deeply and said with resolve, “I just can’t miss this chance to go exploring with Daniel Boone.” He turned to face his desk and dragged his index finger along the yellowed old journal page until he found the next entry. He began to read....
I met D. Boone at his cabin just after first light this morning. He had a packhorse loaded down with our provisions. The two of us would walk.…
The words on the page began to swim, and this time when Cody emerged from the spinning darkness, he was standing outside the Boone cabin on Sugartree Creek.
“Mornin’, Ethan,” said Daniel. “Ready to go, I see.”
“Been lookin’ forward to it,” Cody replied.
“We’ll make right good time for the first couple days,” Daniel answered. “The tr
ail is pretty well worn for a good ways, and the land is mostly flat. We’ll get slowed down considerable as we get over ’round the Pilot Mountain and more so beyond that. We’ll have t’do some powerful climbin’ when we reach the Blue Ridge.”
“I’m up for it,” replied Cody, who wasn’t at all sure if he was as confident as he sounded. The two headed downstream along Sugartree Creek for a short distance until they reached the mouth of the stream as it flowed into the Yadkin River.
“This here is our guide,” said Daniel. “The river will take us right to the high country.” They followed the river upstream in a generally northward direction. As Daniel had promised, the walking was fairly easy at this point, and they rattled off the miles at a pretty fast clip.
“We won’t worry about huntin’ much the first day or two. The game is about played out here close to the settlements,” said Daniel. “We’ll buckle down and start walkin’ a little more stealthy-like when we get out aways further.”
They walked all morning and afternoon. Cody noticed the land grew progressively hillier as they went along.
By late afternoon they had traveled nearly fifteen miles. Cody’s feet were sore and his muscles were tired. Daniel, it seemed, wasn’t the least bit tired. They would have made it even further, but then Daniel shot the first deer of the trip. Daniel’s skill with a long rifle was amazing—he dropped the large doe in her tracks from nearly a hundred yards away. Watching him handle a skinning knife was like watching an artist paint a masterpiece. Cody was transfixed as Boone deftly removed the doe’s hide and scraped, or flensed, the excess fat and tissue from the underside. He then rubbed salt on the hide to help preserve it. “I’m hopin’ to come back with thirty or forty bucks on this trip,” said Daniel. “They’re worth the same as a dollar in cash apiece. That’ll buy a lot of provisions, and with a baby comin’, Lord knows we could use the money.”
Daniel had called deer skins bucks, Cody thought, and he said they could be used the same as a dollar of cash—that must be why we call a dollar a buck.
As quick as Daniel had been in completing the work of preparing the deer hide, the task had still used up most of the last hour of daylight. “We best make camp here tonight. We’ll be goin’ by the Pilot Mountain in the morning. That’ll give us a good high spot to look out for Indian campfire smoke before we head on further. I haven’t had much trouble gettin’ along with the Cherokee or the Catawba that live in the high country, but just the same, I’d prefer to know where they are before we run across any of ’em,” said Daniel.
“Sounds like a good plan to me,” Cody agreed.
Daniel retrieved the bedrolls from the pack horse and spread them out under some hemlock trees. Cody had camped out in tents before, but he had never slept out in the open like this. It had not been a particularly cold day for early February; in fact, walking that distance had actually been quite hot work. Cody estimated the high temperature for the day had been in the mid-fifties, but it was bound to drop off and be pretty chilly at night. Daniel handed Cody a couple of wool blankets and then proceeded to build a fire.
“Ethan, why don’t you take my tomahawk and go and cut us a few shelter poles about six or eight feet long?” said Daniel. A little unsure of what to do, Cody took the little hatchet and headed into the woods. He found some sapling trees about an inch or two in diameter and chopped them down. When he had gathered five of these, he headed back to the campsite. “Those’ll do fine,” said Daniel. Cody watched as Daniel trimmed away the branches of each tree and then cut each tree to a length of about eight feet. He then took several deer hide strips and tied the poles together into a makeshift frame. “Go and cut us some hemlock boughs now,” Daniel said.
Now Cody understood what was going on. Daniel was building an open-face shelter for them to sleep under. Cody cut and gathered a couple big armloads of the evergreen hemlock branches and helped Daniel lay them out on the pole frame. When they had finished, they had a three-sided shelter with the opening facing the campfire. With the shelter finished and darkness now enveloping them, Cody and Daniel sat by the warmth and glow of the fire, enjoying the fresh venison Daniel had roasted. After some chit-chat about what they might expect on their journey tomorrow, they decided to hit their pallets for some sleep. When Cody crawled under the shelter and stretched out on the pallet under the blankets, he was both surprised and relieved at how comfortable and warm he was. He quickly drifted off to sleep.
However, as quickly as Cody had felt sleep come over him, he seemed to wake back up. In what had been, to Cody, a blink of an eye, he had apparently experienced a night of sleep. The sky was gray with the early predawn light. Birds were singing their morning wake-up call. Off on a distant ridge, a turkey gobbled. Daniel was rekindling the fire and had a pot of coffee boiling and some venison roasting. After the two ate some breakfast, Daniel rose and poured the remaining coffee into the fire. The fire steamed and hissed in protest as he kicked at the smoldering sticks of wood to spread them apart and put them out. “We’ll just leave our shelter standin’, Ethan. If it’s still standin’ when we come back, we might just as well use it again,” he said.
The two rolled up their beds and packed up the rest of camp to load back onto the pack horse. Daniel made a little extra room on the back of the animal to spread out the deer hide, or buck, as he had called it. “Gotta make sure we keep our bucks in good shape, Ethan,” said Daniel. “The temperatures ought to be about right to keep ’em fresh ’till we can get back and prepare ’em proper.”
The two set out on the day’s journey. They had been walking along for about an hour when Daniel stopped and pointed to the northwest to a high mountain peak. “That there is the Pilot Mountain,” he said. “Highest point around these parts. From up there, you can see way off toward the high country. We’ll take us a sashay up there and scout around for smoke. I’d like to know afore hand if we’re fixin’ to run into any Indians. We ain’t likely to, but it’s possible. There’s mostly Cherokee and Catawba’s ’round these parts—sometimes some Shawnee or Chickasaw will wander through on huntin’ trips. Those tribes don’t always get along with each other, but I ain’t ever had any bad run-ins with any of ’em yet. ’Course, I always make sure I have somethin’ to trade with ’em—I wouldn’t want to run into any with nothin’ to offer.”
Cody looked off to the northwest and saw the huge mountain peak. Its shape reminded Cody of a large saddle. It sloped gently from the ground at first and then nearer the top jutted up abruptly with two steep pinnacles, one smaller and lower and another very large, dome-shaped one with sheer rock cliff sides and a topping of trees.
“Indians ’round here call that mountain Jomeokee,” said Daniel. “It means great guide, or pilot. That’s why we call it the Pilot Mountain. I reckon the Indians have been using it like we do, to sort of help ’em get a read on the area before they go any further.”
“Are we gonna climb all the way to the top?” Cody asked.
“Well, we won’t go up those rock cliffs there; they go straight up. But we’ll get right up to the top of the lower point. You can see a long way from up there,” Daniel answered.
Within an hour the two were ascending the mountain. After a strenuous climb, they reached the summit of the smaller of the two pinnacles. The views were spectacular, and Cody was amazed. “It sure is beautiful up here,” he said.
“Yeah, you’ll love the Blue Ridge, too, when we get there,” Daniel replied. “The good Lord took his time when he made these mountains. He put a little somethin’ extra here, you can feel it.”
Cody really could feel it. There was something here he could sense but could not exactly define. He had noticed it on his visits to his grandpa’s farm in Tennessee, too. There is something old and wise about these mountains, he thought.
Daniel pointed toward the western horizon, which included the blue-gray outlines of mountains that seemed much higher than the one they were currently standing on. “There it is, Ethan,” he said. “The high country.�
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Cody had actually seen parts of those mountains before. He had been to the Smoky Mountains many times, but this was different. There was no civilization here—no tourists or tourist traps. Cody understood that as they stood there gazing westward, only a handful of white settlers had ever ventured into these parts. They and the native peoples who lived here were the only human presence in these ancient mountains. He tried to comprehend this thought, but it didn’t really seem real to him. It was one of those imponderable notions that can boggle the mind. The two stood in silence for several minutes just staring and thinking. Of the two, Boone seemed to be looking with more of a purpose.
“I don’t see any sign of Indians,” he reported. “I reckon that won’t hurt my feelin’s none.”
“Mine either,” Cody replied.
Cody walked with Daniel down the mountain, and the two made their way back south to the banks of the Yadkin River. At this point, the river turned from flowing north to south to a meandering down out of the west. Although they were beginning to get into what certainly qualified as mountains to a boy from the flatlands of central Indiana, they were still about two or three days of strenuous hiking from the true high country of the Blue Ridge. Their pace was slowed by the harsher terrain and more frequent stops for the preparation of deer hides, each day following a similar pattern—rise at dawn, eat breakfast, pack gear, hike, climb high points to scan for Indian signs, hunt game, prepare hides, build shelter, eat a supper of venison, sleep, and repeat.
