by RITA GERLACH
* * *
Rebecah feared if she were to stay curled under the fallen tree that she would give into the desire to close her eyes for good and never wake again. She lived, but she had become a gaunt being, hardly able to go on. And her mind was weak along with her body. If help did not come soon, she knew she would not be long for this world.
She crawled forward, knowing it were a danger. Yet, the darkness hid her from LaRoux. Perhaps he had gone far ahead of her by now.
Moaning and biting her lip, she crawled out. Sunlight poured through the trees. Her body stiff from not moving, she stood trembling with the realization she had come close to the edge of a great cliff. Rough pines jutted through its face. She looked at the gorge below. Ribbons of mist moved in the lowlands. She turned east toward home.
“Rebecah!”
Startled she shrunk back. She breathed heavy and looked at the ground wide-eyed and frightened. Then she ran in the opposite direction of the voice, stumbled, and fell. Clambering up, she struggled on.
Sudden as the wind, startled deer bounded past her and scattered into the forest. Then she saw a face she hoped never to see again. LaRoux had climbed the hillside. He stood there in the gray light very close. His dark eyes contracted with a sudden burst of sunlight.
Rebecah knew if she were to run, he would stop her. Trapped, she struggled not knowing what to do. Her eyes glanced to the left where the rock fell away into a cliff-side. She inched her way toward it.
LaRoux’s eyes were fixed upon her. He held out his hand to her. “That would be a foolish way to end your life.”
“Would it?” Her voice trembled, her hands shook. The wind blew her hair back from off her face and shoulders. She moved forward and stood at the edge. Her battered feet felt the sharpness of the rock.
Below her were elms and oaks, sycamore and spruce. Her eyes filled with blinding tears. She did not wish to die, but what was left for her now?
Her tired body shivered. Tears slipped from the corners of her eyes. She closed them and being prepared for either LaRoux or the cliff, she heard her beloved’s voice whisper on the wind.
“Move away, my beloved. Move back.”
Could it be true? Her eyes shot open and she looked down. Coming up the rocks was Nash with his musket and powder horn strapped over his shoulder, and Black Hawk moving to the right of him. She froze with the feeling of elation, wondering if her mind deceived her.
Digging his knee into a crack in the cliff, Nash pulled himself up beyond LaRoux’s view. He stood. His back was to the vast emptiness, and the wind shoved against him. At last, he faced LaRoux, who turned at Nash with a wild and fierce look. Like lightning, his knife flashed in his hand, and he passed it in front of him.
Nash pulled his musket forward and took aim. “Rebecah,” he said. “Move away from his reach.”
* * *
LaRoux sneered. He paced the rock, passing his knife between his hands.
“To shoot me like a dog would be murder,” LaRoux said. “Put down your musket and draw your knife to make this an even fight.”
“You’re in no position to speak of murder, LaRoux” said Nash. “You’ve done the foul deed enough.”
“Shoot then. Or cross my path.”
Nash lowered his musket and yanked his knife from its leather sheath.
“Know this white man. If I kill you, I will have your wife, and when I’m done with her, I will wear her beautiful hair upon my belt.”
Then he leaped forward and plunged his knife into Nash’s shoulder. Down they went together near the edge of the cliff. Nash kicked LaRoux off, pressing his hand against the wound, blood oozing between his fingers. He rolled away from the dangerous edge and got to his feet.
LaRoux sprung, caught him by the wrist and throat. In turn, Nash held back the murderous hand that held the knife, and strove to free himself from another blow.
Locked together, they struggled backward and forward along the rocky precipice, the glare of the sun striking upon their buckskins.
LaRoux’s eyes were fierce and hungry for blood. He pushed Nash back and struck his fist against his wounded shoulder. Shearing pain shot through him. His blade dropped from his hand. He heard the clanging sound it made as it fell down the rocks.
At that moment, Black Hawk climbed the edge of the cliff and stood forward, his face stern and concentrated.
“Black Hawk. Have you come to glut your revenge?” said LaRoux.
Black Hawk replied by drawing out his knife and staring hard at his enemy.
Nash noticed the copper bands around each man’s arm. “What revenge does he speak of, Black Hawk? Tell me, for I will not let him have your blood this day!”
Black Hawk took a step forward. “We are of the same mother. Yet his blood is not that of my honorable father. For his evil he crushed the heart of many.”
“Because of you I was cast out,” shouted LaRoux. “For it, watch your friend die. Then I will have your life too.”
LaRoux raised his knife. Black Hawk dove between the two men, and the knife plunged into his chest. The blood poured out from his body, pooled onto the stones. He staggered forward, grasped LaRoux by the arm. In the struggle, they fell together over the precipice. Nash’s heart slammed against his chest. He gasped over and over, heaved for air.
“Black Hawk!” No, my brother. Not you.
With the horror of it, he staggered to the edge and fell to his knees. Below LaRoux lay dead, his neck broken, his body twisted. Nearby Black Hawk’s body lay between two pines.
Tears blurred Nash’s vision. He balled his fists and struck the ground. “No! No!”
Was it so wrong for a man to weep at such an hour? Was it wrong for his heart to plow into the depth of harrowing grief at the sight of his friend lying broken and lifeless? Was it wrong for him to press his fists against his eyes and cry out? Black Hawk, his brother, his friend. Black Hawk who had tended him when wounded. Black Hawk who had loved him as a brother. Black Hawk who had traveled with him through the wilderness and had laid his life down was gone.
Rebecah knelt beside him, wrapped her arms around his waist, and cried. He turned to her, touched her face, her hands, and crushed her to him in a long desired embrace. Together they wept. Together they grieved.
For a long time they were silent. Then he pulled her up. She fell against his arm and he held her fast. He kissed the hand that she had laid across his chest, then her cheeks and her lips. He brushed her hair back from off her face, and wiped away her tears.
Nash buried Black Hawk where he had fallen, and he and Rebecah spoke a prayer over that lonely place.
* * *
When they reached the cabin, they smelled venison roasting on Mrs. Monroe’s spit. There was Maddie sitting on the porch with her hand waving. In her arms, she held Abby, whose tiny hand rose too.
Nash carried Rebecah in his arms across the span of meadow grass. “Abby waits for us, my love,” he said. Then he paused. Beyond the bank of trees came riders. “Look, it’s Robert. He has Joab, Mr. Boyd, and Dr. Pierce with him.
Theresa came out onto the porch. When she saw her father, she ran toward them. Pierce hurried to her, lifted her hands to his lips, and then took her to her father who wept tears.
“Oh, Jack,” Rebecah sighed. “There is joy this day regardless of our grief. I believe he loves her.”
Sorrow was felt by all at the loss of Black Hawk. Theresa knew he had loved her, and so she went and stood a ways off from the others beside the stream to think of him. Nash’s heart was broken and bleeding, but the presence of his wife and newborn daughter overshadowed the grief.
Together with the Monroe’s they sat together inside the cabin with a good fire, eating good food. Rebecah washed Nash’s wound and bandaged it. They spoke of their ordeals. But John and Rebecah Nash did not speak, for they felt that precious solemnity of happiness as they sat together, Rebecah cradling their baby in her arms and Nash gazing at the sweet face belonging to his daughter.
At sunrise, they journeyed wit
h the others into the woods as one, down a path leading to a great valley and home.
EPILOGUE
Laurel Hill, the following year
Rebecah stood by the window. Snow fell through the haze of moonlight, the land soft blue, covered in frost.
Nash’s hand caressed her forearm. She leaned back against his chest. His arms went around her and pulled her close. Together they looked out at the fields and the everlasting mountains beyond them. His cheek lay against hers until their lips touched.
Her eyes looked into his, moist with happy tears. Happiness and love had slain sorrow. She did not speak. Her look told him everything. The war with Britain would reach the wilderness, and he would leave her for a time. She knew. She understood.
Joab would die at Laurel Hill. Maddie would follow months later and be laid to rest beside him. Theresa would marry Dr. Pierce and have six children. Robert Maldowney traveled on into the wilderness to preach the Gospel. And by the time Great Britain and America were at peace, Lady Margaret came to live at Laurel Hill. The Harcourts sailed with her to America, and David set up a law practice, Lavinia a welcoming home to all that stood on Court Street.
Abby would grow up to marry a lawyer, live in town, have a houseful of children, support her husband’s practice, and become an accomplished portrait painter.
As for John and Rebecah Nash, for the rest of their lives they would bear the burdens of the other. For, dear reader, a three-fold cord, whether made of scarlet thread or brown jute, is not easily broken.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Outside my back door, I can view the rolling Catoctin Mountains. I’ve tried to imagine what life was like in the days when they loomed over what was referred to as the Wilderness. Fredericktown was a Maryland frontier village in the 1700s, nestled in a peaceful valley. Through these novels, I have endeavored to paint with words images of a time long ago.
The story of Chief Logan’s family is based on historical events though there are conflicting accounts of what actually happened, as well as the massacres at some of the homesteads, and the sinking of the Peggy Stewart. John Wesley’s sermon is from an account in his diary.
There are other characters who lived and breathed in the time of the American Revolution mentioned in this book that I have fictionalized.
Archibald Boyd ~ Fredericktown’s town clerk.
Logan ~ Indian chief and peacemaker.
Mellana ~ Chief Logan’s wife.
Koonay ~ Chief Logan’s sister.
Shikellimus ~ Chief Logan’s father.
Thomas Johnson ~ Frederick County lawyer, delegate to the Continental Congress, Brigadier General during the Revolution, supplier of ammunitions from the Catoctin Furnace, and first governor of a free Maryland.
John Hanson ~ Deputy Surveyor, sheriff, county treasurer and Chairman for the Committee of Observation in Frederick County, Maryland. One of Maryland’s leading Patriots.
Thomas Stone ~ Maryland delegate to the Continental Congress and signer of the Declaration of Independence.
Samuel Chase ~ Maryland representative to the Continental Congress and signer of the Declaration of Independence.
William Paca ~ Annapolis lawyer, along with Chase co-founded the Ann Arundel chapter of the Sons of Liberty, signer of the Declaration of Independence.
Anthony Stewart ~ Co-owner of the ship the Peggy Stewart, burned in the second American Tea Part in Annapolis Harbor.
Michael Cresap ~ Maryland frontiersman.
Jacob Greathouse ~ Believed by many sources to be the leader in the massacre of Logan’s family.
John Wesley ~ English preacher and evangelist.
OTHER NOVELS BY RITA GERLACH
The Rebel’s Pledge
Surrender the Wind
And
THE DAUGHTERS OF THE POTOMAC SERIES
Before the Scarlet Dawn
Beside Two Rivers
Beyond the Valley
Rita Gerlach’s website
www.ritagerlach.blogspot.com
