The Drum of Destiny

by Chris Stevenson

  The branches overhead blocked out so much sunlight, it was hard to tell what time of day it was. Still, Gabriel sensed the night. He relished the thought of a bright fire. Then he realized he didn’t have his flint rock with him. “Blast!” he said out loud.

  He yearned for a warm fire as he shivered at even the thought of the coming cold, dark night in the middle of this dense wood. He had spent other nights on his journey without a fire, but none so far from the road in such a dense forest — one sure to hold panthers, bears, wolves, and coyotes. The hazy green light quickly gave way to darkness, and a cool mist seemed to rise from the forest floor. He didn’t even have a blanket to wrap around him. He felt naked. It was as if the forest was closing thick claws around him that would not unclench until morning came.

  With the white mist wafting in the air, visible only with the last glimpses of light, a thought crept into Gabriel’s mind: What about the ghost of Thomas Tew?

  “Stop thinking about that nonsense,” he scolded himself. “There’s no such thing as the Ghost of Thomas Tew.”

  Still, he wished Thomas the Terrible had not mentioned anything about his grandfather’s ghost roaming the woods, sword drawn, looking for the bandits who tried to steal his treasure. Well, thought Gabriel, I’m not a bandit, so what would he want with me, anyway?

  Gabriel arranged some pine needles into a bed and laid down. There was only a sliver of moon, and what light it and the stars may have provided, the ceiling of branches and leaves above mostly hid. It was dark now. He couldn’t even see his hand as he held it in front of his face. Gabriel felt around on the ground. He had his drum beside him and clutched his knife in his hand.

  As Gabriel lay in the darkness, he began to hear the soft hooting of an owl. He listened closely. At first, he could hear just the faint “hoo-hoo,” but the sound was growing louder now. As he listened, the owl’s voice seemed to change. He sat up in his bed now and listened, “Tewww, Tewww. . . . Tewww, Tewww,” came the call from the woods not far away. Then Gabriel heard a branch crack on the forest floor, several yards away from his bed. He peered into the darkness, trying to figure out what had made the cracking sound. He sat straight up, all of his senses at attention.

  “Tewwww, Tewwww . . . Tewwww, Tewwww,” came to Gabriel’s ears again, and then another crack of a branch, this time closer.

  He clenched his drum in one hand and his knife in the other. Something was in the woods, watching him. He could feel its presence. He heard another crack, again closer. He stood up, his knife in front of him. A sudden gust of wind split the still of the night, parting the branches overhead just enough to let a glimmer of light down upon the forest floor. He saw a white, wispy figure curling through the night air flying toward him. At that instant, the branches closed again, and Gabriel heard a loud crack just a few feet away. He swung his knife blindly in front of him, but he heard another loud crack even closer. Feeling the mist beginning to wrap around him, he turned and ran.

  He ran as fast as he could through the forest, without knowing where he was going. As he ran, he thought he heard the snapping of branches in the darkness behind him. He felt his heart beating and heard his breath, fast and heavy, in the night air. No matter how far he ran, he still felt as if he was being followed.

  He tried to speed up, but he was growing winded. Around him, he could hear the wind picking up again and the branches creaking loudly overhead. He was too terrified to turn and look behind him. Running blindly through the thick wood and bramble, Gabriel felt the sting of thorns tearing at his legs, branches whipping his face and arms. A thick vine grabbed his ankle, and he stumbled over some rocks. Unable to break his fall, he landed hard, slamming his head onto the forest floor.

  H 16 H

  THE WATERFALL

  When Gabriel next opened his eyes, sunlight was warming his face. As he moved his head, it throbbed with pain. He heard the roaring sound of water. Finally, he stood and looked through a clearing in the trees. In front of him, the river water cascaded down a steep cliff at least thirty feet high. It crashed onto the rocks below before churning in a bubbly foam down the river. Gabriel wasn’t sure how he’d ended up there. The last thing he remembered was being chased by what he thought was the Ghost of Thomas Tew.

  He looked at the rocky cliffs on either side of the waterfall and could picture Captain Tew climbing, carrying his sack of gold and silver and bandits taking aim with their muskets. “This has to be it,” he exclaimed out loud.

  Dizziness hit him then, and Gabriel sat down on a rock not far from the churning water. His head was still aching. Maybe some food would do me good, he thought. He only had enough meat and bread left for a meager breakfast. He hated to eat everything he had left, especially since the prospects of finding more seemed slim, but knew it would help his dizziness. So he ate.

  He sat alone in the sunny clearing and dreamed about the Fleming farm for a moment. He wondered what Malinda, Constance, and Mr. Fleming were doing. His time on their farm seemed so long ago. They had probably just finished a fine breakfast of pancakes and sausage. He could almost smell the sausage sizzling on the griddle. Malinda’s words came to his mind. “You have a vision for your life that’s more than this simple farm can offer,” she had said. He remembered the pride in her eyes as she urged him to press on, “I will pray for your safe return.” He had work to do before he could ever return to the Fleming farm.

  With food in his belly, Gabriel’s mind began to clear, but what had happened the night before was still a mystery. He had no idea what might have been chasing him, if anything at all. Had he run from nothing but a fictitious ghost created by his overactive imagination? Had it been some forest animal? He would never know, but the one thing he was sure of was that he did not want to spend another night in these woods.

  Although he now stood before a waterfall matching the story of Thomas Tew, doubts raced through Gabriel’s mind. Reaching Cambridge and joining the patriot cause meant far more to him than finding hidden treasure ever could. Still, he was here, and he had no better ideas on which way to go in this wilderness.

  He slowly walked along the rocky shore to the base of the falls. The cliff on either side was covered with pointed rocks jutting out in all directions. There were also a few small trees growing out from the rocks here and there on the face of the cliff. Gabriel walked over to the cliff, mapping his ascent. He put one hand on a rock above and put his foot on a rock just out in front. As he tried to lift himself up, his hand slipped, and he fell backward. He brushed himself off and went back to examine the rocks more closely. They were all covered with a slippery green moss. Without rope, climbing the cliff would be impossible.

  He thought for a moment and remembered Thomas had told him the bandits found a way up on horseback. “There must be another way,” muttered Gabriel. He left the sunny clearing and began tromping through the woods. Reentering the dense forest made him uncomfortable again, even in the daytime. He walked along the base of the cliff, which seemed to extend as far as he could see into the woods. Maybe the bandits and Captain Tew were on the other side of the river? There was no way he could get across the river when it was still so high. The thought of entering a raging river again gave him goose bumps.

  He walked for almost an hour in one direction along the base of the cliff. He found nothing. “Enough of this!” Gabriel felt foolish for wasting the morning chasing after the legend of an old drunk.

  But just as he turned to head back down the river, he noticed a particularly thick patch of bushes growing out of the cliff. He took out his knife and cut away at some of the branches. He reached his hand into the bushes, trying to feel where they came out of the cliff. But to his astonishment, there didn’t seem to be any cliff behind the bushes.

  He began stomping down the bushes with his feet and stabbing at the branches with his knife. Once he was through the thickest part, he could see a sloped trail set out before him. Gabriel’s heart leapt at finding this passageway hidden by the overgrowth of bushes.
The path was still rocky and steep, but it was an easy climb compared to the cliff on either side of him.

  He pawed his way along the path, still having to trudge through weeds and bushes before he finally reached the top. He stepped out into sunlight and saw the river. The water raced along at a mesmerizing pace before disappearing over the rushing falls ahead. He watched a large fallen branch floating along the current. It met the edge of the fall and dropped instantly out of view.

  What a horrible way to die, thought Gabriel. If what Thomas the Terrible had told him was true, his grandfather met a horrible fate toppling over the edge of that waterfall.

  The sun was still high in the sky but making its way down now. He left the edge of the waterfall and headed further upstream. The river bent gently to the left and disappeared out of sight. Gabriel walked along the bank as close to the water as he could without risking falling into the swift current.

  The water had gone down a little from its recent highs, so he could see the effects of the powerful flow of water that had gushed through the river. At more than one spot along the bank, slender young sapling trees, several feet tall, had been snapped in two by the force of the water. Other young trees had their roots exposed, just waiting for a good wind to topple them over into the river.

  Where the river began to bend, large boulders jutted out from the water, creating frothy foam all around them. The water swirled to and fro as it darted around one rock and then another. In most places, only the very tops of the rock peeked up out of the swirling water.

  Gabriel turned his attention back to trees. There was no guarantee the oak tree he was looking for would still be standing. After all, it was at least a hundred years old. So he tried to take careful notice of the trees that had fallen and were decaying on the forest floor. This made his job even more difficult, for a maple tree decaying on the forest floor looks the same as an oak. He noticed the beginning of a narrow trail leading away from the bend in the river. Maybe Captain Tew didn’t pick a tree right on the bank of the river.

  Gabriel decided to follow the trail. He walked the entire length and, in a matter of a few minutes, found himself back at the river, only now well upstream from the bend. This trail is nothing more than a shortcut used by deer or other animals coming to the river to drink, he realized. There were very few oak trees along the trail, and the ones there didn’t have any hollows with hidden treasure inside.

  Even more frustrated than before, Gabriel walked a little bit further upstream to a small clearing beside the river. Exhausted, he plopped down on a large rock very near the river’s edge. Why had he listened to the crazy ranting of an old drunk who looked like a common beggar?

  He thought about getting back to the road, but he no longer knew how to find the road. Now he was out of coins and food, and this forest seemed to be an uninhabited wasteland. There would be little chance of him stumbling across a house. Gabriel’s stomach growled. He could already begin to feel the first twinges of a hunger he knew would not go away. It would only grow worse. He put his head in his hands and prayed. It was the only thing he could think of to do at the moment.

  With his head in his hands, Gabriel sat motionless on the rock. He knew to look up would mean facing the foreboding circumstance surrounding him. He looked down at the drum resting at his feet and cursed the day he found it and pulled it out of the muddy banks of the East River back in New York. Yet, it had become a part of him. It was silly, really, he thought. He didn’t even know how to play the thing other than to bang it, making a senseless noise. Yet, the idea of being a drummer boy in the militia had brought him a long way from New York.

  Finally, he raised his head to look around him. The sun had set just a bit lower in the sky, casting shadows of the large trees over the river. Gabriel realized he would be spending another night here in the woods. The thought sent a chill down his spine. He was not really sure what he’d seen last night in its misty form, but he knew he didn’t want to see it again.

  Still a little dizzy from the blow he received the night before, Gabriel’s vision blurred as he stood to look upstream. The river made another bend several hundred yards further upstream. Dense woods lined it the entire way. As he peered along the bank, one of the trees caught Gabriel’s eyes, as if it had just appeared out of nowhere. It was taller than all of the rest of the trees along that portion of the bank, and it looked like an oak. He stepped out onto the rock to get a little better look. What he saw startled him. A gnarled entanglement of large roots on the ground around the tree appeared to have formed a hollow just at the base of the giant oak. Gabriel’s heart leapt up into his throat. He knew this had to be the tree where the treasure was hidden.

  H 17 H

  THE JOURNEY ENDS

  Gabriel gathered up his drum and began to turn around to leap back onto the bank and make a mad rush for the tree. Just as he turned, something in the river caught his eye. A dark object appeared to be moving in the shadowy water, coming around the bend in the river upstream from him. He stood motionless on the rock, straining his eyes to see. Looking more closely, he could see the something moving or waving.

  The thought of Thomas Tew’s ghost crept into Gabriel’s mind, sending chills up and down his back again. But this was not the white phantom shape he had seen the other night. Still, he thought it was odd the shape had appeared in the water just as he spotted the giant hollowed oak tree. This being — or whatever it was — had sprung up in the river at the exact spot where Captain Tew would have jumped in to escape the bandits’ musket fire. In fear, disbelief, or perhaps exhaustion, a sudden fainting spell caught hold of him. His vision blurred again, and he lost his balance, almost stumbling off the rock and into the river.

  Squatting to his knees, Gabriel again looked up river. He heard something above the sound of rushing water and the low drone of the waterfall that lay downstream. He thought he heard someone calling out. Again, he heard the noise. He was able now to hear a muffled, “Help me . . .”

  Gabriel forced himself to look up at the shape floating down the river. His vision cleared enough to see what looked like a man waving one arm. His other arm was wrapped around a small log, as he struggled to stay afloat. The current swept him along. This did not look, or sound, like a ghost.

  Gabriel could now hear the cries more clearly. “HELP! HELP!” The man let go of the log and grasped at a boulder that barely broke the surface of the frothy water. He caught hold and clung on. Then he turned toward Gabriel and looked him squarely in the eyes. Venturing to the edge of the rock on the river’s bank, Gabriel looked closely now. The man had a gash on his forehead, and blood was oozing from the cut.

  That’s no ghost, Gabriel thought. Instinctively, he began to move more quickly. His mind cleared as his adrenaline raced. Again, he thought of how Thomas Tew met his death tumbling over the approaching waterfall. He waved at the man from the rock. “Hold on,” he shouted. Gabriel leapt from the rock to the bank and turned to head upstream to where the man had caught hold of the boulder. But as soon as he turned, the man lost his grip on the boulder and began careening down the tumbling water once more.

  Gabriel began to panic. What could he do for this man? The stranger would soon float past him. He knew he could certainly not jump into the river to try and save the man.

  His mind raced. He must find some way to get him out. The man was growing near, his head still above the water, arms flailing. “The trail,” Gabriel said to himself. He could take the shortcut at the bend. If he ran, he might be able to get ahead of the man and throw something in for him to grab onto.

  He turned and sprinted back to the narrow trail, his drum catching on the brush as he ran. He lifted the strap over his shoulder and threw it to the ground. He ran as fast as he had the night before when he was running for his own life. This time, it was the life of the man in the river he was running to save.

  Gabriel burst out at the trailhead. The raging sound of the waterfall was much louder now, almost drowning out his thoughts. He
quickly went to the bank and looked upstream. The man was still being swept along by the current. Gabriel had gotten ahead of him, but now what?

  He surveyed his surroundings, looking for something to throw the drowning man. If he could find a long enough fallen tree limb, he could toss it out and pull the man to shore. He scrambled along the bank, pushing old leaves aside on the forest floor, but there were no long limbs to be found.

  Then Gabriel spotted a tall, slender sapling with exposed roots on the muddy bank from the rushing waters. If he could topple this sapling, it might be long enough to reach the man. He ran at the sapling, slamming all of his weight into it at once. The young tree bent but did not fall. Again Gabriel ran at the tree, forcing one of its roots to give way. He was surprised by the strength of the tree.

  “May God have mercy!” the man shouted, growing closer now. Gabriel again slammed his body into the tree and then took it by the trunk rocking it back and forth. He kicked at it, punched at it. Still, it would not fall. He could see the man clearly now. Seeing what Gabriel was trying to do, the man began flailing his arms in order to push himself closer to where Gabriel struggled with the tree. Gabriel ran back a good twenty yards. He turned, sprinted, and jumped at the tree just before he reached the base, sending all of his rushing weight at the center of the sapling. A cracking sound filled the air, and he rolled onto his side, nearly falling into the water.

  The tree finally toppled into the river. The top of it had been drug downstream a few feet, where it lodged against a boulder. The base of the tree remained attached to the riverbank by a few straggly thin roots. Although the current tugged at the tree, its roots held fast.

  Gabriel looked up from the muddy ground, his face only a few inches from the edge of the bank that fell into the river. The man was trying with all his might to reach the tree lying in the river. He flailed his arms, just making it to the boulder and banging up against it with a sudden force. Then he flung himself off the boulder onto the slender tree. Pulling himself along the tree, he slowly crawled to the bank where Gabriel lay. Gabriel could now see he was middle-aged and had no doubt been weakened by the struggle in the river.