Lord of the Wilderness Read online

  Joshua lifted his rifle, primed and loaded, and at full gallop he fired, hit the closest Indian square in the chest. Grabbing a pistol from his belt, he put a bullet through another’s head. No time to reload. Joshua dropped his guns, and shrieking a war cry of his own, he leapt from the stallion and ran at them, a tomahawk in one hand and a knife in the other.

  With a sweep of his tomahawk he arced down on a warrior’s head, cracking and crunching his skull. Joshua pirouetted, slashed his knife across the throat of his next assailant. A geyser of blood soaked his face, tasting vinegary. In zealous numbers, they came at him, a tempest of knives and tomahawks, rasping and keening under the leaden sky. Joshua slashed and pummeled, whirled and twisted a macabre dance of death. His foes, choking in blood fell to the ground, groaning and yowling, the sodden earth beneath oily with gore.

  He saw Juliet crawl from the War Chief. And seeing Joshua, Onontio stood, twitching and throbbing with rage. He looked deranged, eyes buried deep. Bared teeth, chiseled to points. His meaty left hand bunched in a fist over his tomahawk.

  A trickle of blood ran from the top of Joshua’s head. Dizzy from the blows he’d received, he struggled to stay upright, his legs barely cooperating. He winced at the ragged wound a knife had left behind. Pain. Pain was good, it meant he was alive.

  Onontio was six inches taller. And six inches wider. He was all bone and muscle, stronger, swollen up like a mountain. Pulse jumping in his neck. The Mohawk War Chief expected him to fear.

  Joshua smiled, and then his lips drew back in a snarl. In the Haudenosaunee tongue, he bit out, “This day, you will enter the spirit world.”

  Onontio beat his massive chest. “You think you will defeat me. Look at Blackberry Valley. I am invincible.”

  “Onontio, the great warrior, slaughterer of old men, helpless women and children. Cowardice will be your infamy,” Joshua taunted.

  “It will be a pleasure to take your scalp and your woman.”

  “I defeated you. I shall do so again.”

  Onontio shifted his weight from one foot to the other. His prancing less sure of victory.

  Joshua waited.

  Juliet screamed. “Snapes!”

  Joshua looked over the mammoth’s shoulder. Snapes. The madman had a struggling and screaming Juliet in his grasp. Images of Sarah flashed.

  Snapes dragged Juliet away by the hair. Onontio used the distraction to move first. Joshua hit him in the face, a colossal right, all the way up from his planted feet, as hard as he could. He caught Onontio dead on the nose, a big target, and felt his fist drive through it, and beyond it, and then his falling body weight whipped his head out from under his moving hand. Onontio went down, swung his leg out, tripped Joshua, and raised his tomahawk. On his back, Joshua clinked his tomahawk against Onontio’s, his red and black striped face glaring down at him and dripping sweat in Joshua’s face.

  A wink of metal flashed and Onontio ripped their tomahawks away. With no weapon but his bare hands, Joshua crushed the warrior’s throat, his fingertips right behind his larynx, squeezing and tearing. Onontio’s face reddened, his eyes slits of rage…his right hand grasped a knife…raised it…aimed at Joshua’s heart.

  Joshua kicked, threw his assailant off balance, enough for him to roll and get out from under him. Onontio rose, his knife high.

  A gun blasted from behind, lighting Onontio’s face with surprise as a ball had entered from the back of his head and exited the front. Eyes wide open, blood spurting, he plummeted face first to the ground, flinging up columns of caked earth.

  “I told him I would kill him.” Two Eagles kicked the War Chief, and then reached down to pull Joshua up.

  Breathing hard, Joshua said. “Good to see you my friend.”

  Two Eagles spat on Onontio and, handing Joshua’s rifle over, said, “Go get your wife.”

  Rifle in hand, Joshua sprinted. He saw Snapes slap Juliet across the face, then planted his pistol on the side of her head, forcing her forward.

  “You’ll breathe your last,” Joshua roared. A ball whizzed past his ear. Joshua halted. It was a long distance, too long. But Snapes headed to the tree line and, from there, he’d melt into the forests. No time.

  Calling on his innate skills as a crack shot, Joshua raised his rifle. Eyes narrowed down the barrel, taking in all the precise silvery details. The speed of the wind and what direction it hailed from. The arc of the ball at this distance. The coward, clutched Juliet in front of his chest. Juliet, his dear sweet Juliet. What if he missed and hit her? Joshua clutched and unclutched his finger.

  She stomped on Snape’s foot, twisted, dropped to the ground.

  He squeezed the trigger.

  Snapes crumbled. Joshua ran and ran, scooping Juliet into his arms as he reached her.

  “Joshua, I thought I’d never see you again,” she said, collapsing against his chest.

  Snapes breathed through a fine red mist oozing from his mouth. The whistling noise came from a hole in his chest.

  “You are dying, you deserve to die.” Joshua knelt. He had to get answers. “Why did you kill Sarah? Why the feud against my family? What have we ever done to you, Snapes?”

  “An eye for an eye.”

  “But Sarah?”

  “I had to make you suffer by killing her.”

  Snapes stared at his wound with wild red eyes, fearful eyes, eyes that recognized the beat of his heart pumped out and added to a pool of blood coagulating on the white hoar frost, scarlet on white.

  “Suffered financial ruin and humiliation when an investment deal done with the Rutlands went sour. The Rutlands have everything. I have nothing.”

  Each word was punctuated with a deeply drawn-out burble as Snapes dug for one more breath. Joshua knew Snapes’ lungs were filling with liquid and, in a few more seconds, he’d drown in his own blood.

  “I loved my brother. He was all I had, but he was a coward…took his life. Not me. You had to pay. The Rutlands will be sorry they crossed me…all the Rutlands must pay if they haven’t already.”

  “What do you mean? Who put you up to this?”

  Snapes bubbled through a harsh laugh. “The Duke of Westbrook. I took his money, but he didn’t have to pay me. The pleasure was mine.”

  Pleasure? Only the vilest, evilest person would take pleasure in someone else’s suffering. But right now, he wanted more than anything to make Snapes suffer even more.

  Snapes gurgled out a laugh. “Too bad I didn’t get to tell the duke all the details.”

  Joshua gritted his teeth. “You’re crazy. The Duke of Westbrook is a good friend of the family.”

  “Is he?” Snapes coughed out, then his eyes flicked from side to side and he stared into nothingness, his pig-mouth slackened and his head drooped to the side.

  Joshua stared. Then shook his head. Just another bloodied corpse the devil had called home.

  He stood, took Juliet again into his arms. I saw British troops heading toward Fort Stephens and guessed too late that they had divided their offenses. I hurried to Blackberry Valley as fast as I could.”

  Joshua smoothed a hand down Juliet’s back to ease her trembling. “Did Onontio or Snapes hurt you?”

  “No. I kicked Onontio to get away from him.”

  Within the next few minutes, while he was still holding Juliet, a dozen men from the town surrounded them, including Grace, Thomas, his father and Two Eagles.

  “Crims, Maybelle!” Juliet shouted with tears of gladness, kissing the old reprobate and hugging his horse. “I thought the Indians had killed you. I saw Maybelle’s hat—”

  “Maybelle and I galloped out of town, dodging those demons. Her hat flew off. I wasn’t fool enough to risk going back for it. She’ll have a new one made for her.”

  To James, Juliet said, “Caroline and the children are safe. You have a new son. They are safe in a cave.”

  “I know, Thomas told me everything you have done. We are going to fetch them. Thank you for saving my family and bringing my new child into the wor
ld. I’ll always be indebted to you, Juliet.” James said and turned to Joshua. “Fort Stephens is safe, thanks to your warning. Colonel Cummings sends his best along with reinforcements.”

  Joshua picked his wife up in his arms and carried her to the Bell home. “When you were in those madmen’s grasps, I thought I’d lost the sun, the moon and the stars. I despaired and feared of losing you. Not two sentiments I want to repeat.”

  “In my heart, I’d knew you’d come.”

  Joshua gazed down at her, nestled up against him, her tousled head resting trustingly against his chest. “How I love you.”

  Yet peace would not come to Joshua. Not yet. Not when he surveyed the catastrophic ruins of Blackberry Valley, innocent civilians slaughtered for nothing. The remainder of the war yawned before him. If he survived.

  She pulled his face to look at her. “Joshua, I love you.” The smile she gave him contained the pride of a legion of conquerors and the love of a chorus of angels.

  Unexpectedly, he found himself grateful. Grateful for all the darkness, the misery and the sorrow because it allowed him to know love when he found it again. And he understood without reservation that all the ruined, broken, disregarded fragments of his soul were worth placing back together again, because, in Juliet, he discovered love and new light.

  Epilogue

  Joshua clicked his tongue and flicked the reins, their wagon wheeling along a grassy road and Juliet’s heartbeat quickened with each rhythmic thud of the horse’s hooves. One step then another, closer to their little log cabin. She imagined every descriptive image Joshua had once told her.

  The soil is fat and lusty and everywhere a man spits, plants grow. Cherry trees that fruit like clusters of grapes. All sorts of fowls, to take at our pleasure. Nuts as big as eggs. The river flows with lush green grass with the shelter of a mountain.

  Having learned how to farm and run a household in the frontier while at both the Hayes’ and the Bells’ homes, she was well prepared to take on everything as a frontiersman’s wife. The art of plowing, baking bread over a fire, skinning rabbits to make a stew, smoking and preserving, she could do it all. Yes, she could, and she’d be very good at it.

  The last leg of the journey seemed to last forever. Her gaze drifted to her husband’s handsome profile. Every time she looked at him she fell in love all over again.

  A year and a half had passed since leaving the massacre of Blackberry Valley behind and subsequently moving to the safety of Fort Sullivan. There she waited, waited for Joshua, waited for the war to conclude.

  The attack and destruction on Blackberry Valley and other communities created a hue and cry throughout the Colonies; that the Indians and Tories had hit vulnerable targets, taking advantage of insufficient troop weaknesses of the Colonists unable to defend themselves had brought the people together.

  General George Washington vowed never to allow such carnage to happen again. So long as there were Indians in western New York and Pennsylvania who lent support to the British, such attacks as those that had occurred to Blackberry Valley, Cobleskill and German Flats and Andrustown would continue. To prevent further outrages, the perpetrators had to be rendered incapable of mounting attacks. The Iroquois Confederacy had to be destroyed.

  Ojistah’s prophecy whirled. The ice this winter is thin and where once we walked upon it boldly, we must now feel our way with care, lest it collapse beneath us. We have walked into the lair of the great panther and have slapped him in the face with our hard hand. The Iroquois have brought tears to his eyes with the blow, but we have not killed him! His claws are still long and his teeth are still strong. And now, for what has been done to him, he must be very angry and we must tremble as he growls with rage.

  Behold my vision. I see many villages destroyed, hunger pinching the bellies of our children, the crying of women and children, diseases and the losing of wisdom of our elders for they will die.

  But no one had listened to Ojistah. They believed the lies they had been fed. Had not good food and liquor in abundance been provided by the British? Does not their father, the King, continue to give them weapons and men to support them? They shared in the bounty of plunder that had been taken and the prisoners. They had been paid well for scalps. Why then should they be begging the Americans for peace?

  Raid after raid continued, led by Thayendanegea, Sayenqueraghta, Cornplanter, Redeye, and Gucinge, who took up the hatchet against the Americans in a time of unparalleled terror. All Iroquois except the Tuscaroras and the Oneidas stayed militant. In addition, the Mingoes supported by the British attacked in the upper Ohio and Detroit, the Shawnees in Kentucky.

  There had been no surcease. No relief from the horror. As promised, General Washington ordered General Sullivan and General Clinton to take the enemy to their ground and break their morale. The expedition destroyed forty Iroquois villages, demolishing stores of winter crops and breaking the power of the Six Nations in New York all the way to the Great Lakes.

  Of comfort during her long months at Fort Sullivan was a letter she received from Mary. Her motherless friend basked in Waneek’s care, her mother-in-law, predicting Two Eagles would be surprised upon his return to be greeted by two sons. Mary was to have twins.

  After long and lonely tension-filled nights where Juliet had prayed solidly, she was rewarded with Two Eagles’ and Joshua’s safe return.

  There were so many incidents in the aftermath, some good, some bad. Edmund Faulkner, her cousin, had set up a law practice in Albany, partnering with his brother, Two Eagles. Edmund traveled the Mohawk Valley to meet with clients and using every opportunity to visit his mother Waneek who welcomed him with open arms. Of Tionnontigo’s fall, Juliet learned Ojistah had made it safely to her twin sister’s home with her grandson, Morning Sun, and Father Devereux. Never reaching the coasts of his beloved England, Colonel Thomas Faulkner had died from alcoholism, his bones interred on the shores of Lake Ontario. Crims, James and Caroline Bell and their nine children, Betsy, Grace and several other Blackberry Valley surviving citizens left the town and had resettled closer to Albany. Of the eighty prisoners the warriors took hostage that fateful day, only forty returned.

  With the war ebbing, communications flowed back and forth across the Atlantic. A letter had arrived from the Duke of Rutland, Joshua’s father, comforted with the news of Snapes’ death and Joshua’s safety. The duke detailed the demise of Duke Cornelius Westbrook, answering the mystery of who had been the mastermind behind the plot to ruining the Rutland family. Vicar Abrams passed away from a violent heart attack during a Sunday sermon never knowing his only child, Mary, was happily married to a savage. Juliet’s uncle who had taken her ancestral home in England had lost all to gambling debts and died in a duel. Reports of Baron John Bearsted’s prosecution for his crimes against Juliet and Mary was followed by his imprisonment at Newgate. This news was met favorably by Two Eagles, Joshua, Mary and her.

  Of most significance was the safe return of Joshua’s older brother, Nicholas, and then the surprising and joyful arrival of two subsequent nephews, one born to Rachel and Anthony, and another to Nicholas and his wife, Alexandra—both born on the same day!

  Juliet turned and patted the wedding wheel Ojistah had given her, a fine gift she’d hang in her home. She adjusted the blanket around her sleeping infant daughter, held securely in her arms, and decided now was the time to share the foretelling with Joshua.

  “Waneek and Ojistah prophesized our daughter, and her daughter will be of great importance.”

  The glowing adoration in Joshua’s eyes as he gazed upon his daughter warmed Juliet. “I take their visions as gold. Who knows what our daughter and granddaughter’s destinies will be? All the events these past months have opened up the vast Ohio country, the Great Lakes region, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Kentucky.”

  “Our daughter is an infant,” she continued, “—and I pray she doesn’t have your wanderlust, at least not yet…which brings me to question…how are we going to house your father, Rachel
and Anthony, Nicholas and Alexandra, your Uncle Thomas, Abigail and Captain Thorne and their children in our tiny log cabin when they come to visit? Joshua, you must think this out.”

  He clicked the reins, urging the stallions forward. “I’ll think of something.”

  “You better think fast. Chances are they will appear on our doorstep the same time we arrive.”

  Juliet sighed. The forests they traveled through were struck with the colors of fire, the leaves had turned to magma-reds, hot-oranges and fever-yellows. Wild turkeys clucked beneath the bushes and hard nuts thunked to the ground while squirrels scuttled across crackly leaves, eager to seize one final reward. A wind gusted, swirling the branches of the trees surrounding them. Leaves soared to life by brusque autumnal notes that stirred them from slumber, inviting a final waltz before a wintry embrace would claim them.

  Ahead, the undulating path gave way to an aperture of blazing saffron-yellow light and opened to a clearing. Juliet blinked. Dazzling sunrays streamed over a three-story mansion of blunted gray stonework with huge white columns; stretching its rousing length with undeniable luxuriant confidence, before surrendering itself to wide green meadows where cattle and sheep grazed. The owner had strategically placed it on a high bluff above the glittering, jewel-blue Mohawk River. She gazed in awe so taken with the beauty of the home.

  Joshua hauled back on the reins at the entrance, and Juliet leaned into him, reminded of her worn appearance. “We cannot possibly stop here. I’d rather travel farther…to our home.”

  Joshua leapt from the wagon and swooped Juliet and their daughter up in his arms. Disturbed, the baby cried from the movement.

  “You’ve woken, Rebekah,” Juliet chastised, knowing the babe wanted to feed. “Put me down. What will the owners think?”

  Joshua laughed, holding her tight in his embrace. “How else am I to carry my bride over our threshold?”

  Juliet widened her eyes. “Ours?”

  “I had the home built the past few months. I wanted it to be a surprise.”