Broken Trail (8 page)

Both chuckling, the two men walked on.

Broken Trail stayed quiet and still a little longer, wanting to be certain that no more Over Mountain men were nearby. As soon as it seemed safe, he pushed aside the vines and crawled out of the hole.

His heart filled with hope and dread as he climbed the steep slope. Silently he approached the juniper clump and pulled apart the low, spreading branches. Nothing. Not so much as a drop of blood to stain the scuffed needles. He felt limp with relief.
“Too, too, too,”
he whistled. No response. He had not really expected one. Maybe he would find Red Sun Rising at the top of Kings Mountain, on the battlefield. Maybe he would find Elijah, too.

BROKEN TRAIL PASSED
the unfinished barricade, where a dead soldier lay slumped over a pile of rocks. He was not Elijah.

Now Broken Trail saw before him a shambles of freshly dug graves, dead horses and dead men. Every human corpse wore a scarlet tunic. Not worth the rebels' trouble to bury redcoats, he reckoned. He wondered about Major Ferguson and Virginia Sal, but saw no trace of a dead man in a checkered hunting shirt or of a woman.

The tent where Virginia Sal had sung her ballad stood tilted but intact, one end of its awning hanging loose and its flap open. Looking inside, Broken Trail saw a polished
wooden box with brass corners lying upon a woven carpet beside a smashed camp table.

Major Ferguson's quarters had fared better than most. Where one day ago trim white tents had stood, Broken Trail now saw sagging canvas draped over leaning poles.

The vultures were arriving. Some had landed; more circled on V-spread wings. A few steps to one side, a vulture swooped down to land on the chest of a drummer boy. Broken Trail pulled out his tomahawk. Before he could hurl it, the vulture lifted into the air and settled a moment later upon a different corpse.

Broken Trail stood thoughtfully at the side of the drummer boy. He was a small boy with blond curls, not more than ten years old. Broken Trail picked up his drum and tapped it with his fingertips. A drummer boy was what he had wanted to be when he was nine. If he and Elijah had enlisted together the way they had planned, that might have been him, lying cold and stiff and still. Where was Elijah now? Broken Trail set down the drum and continued walking, searching for the body that he did not want to find.

A sudden shout disturbed the silence.

“Ho! Broken Trail!”

There was Red Sun Rising, striding toward him. He was wearing an officer's scarlet coat, ornamented in front with gold lace on a dark blue velvet ground. An epaulette of gold fringe hung from each shoulder.

At the sight of Red Sun Rising alive, Broken Trail felt as
if the sun had broken through heavy clouds. “You escaped!” he shouted.

“I told you that was good place to hide.” Red Sun Rising ran the last few steps and whacked Broken Trail on the back. “How you like my new coat?” He grinned as he turned around to show the back. “No bullet holes.”

The coat was bloody around the stand-up collar, but otherwise unmarked.

“It's good.” Broken Trail felt like laughing, partly from relief and partly from amusement at the sight of scuffed deerskin leggings below the splendid scarlet coat.

“Now we leave this place,” said Red Sun Rising. “Find horses.”

“Not yet.” Broken Trail glanced around the battlefield. “I'm looking for something.”

“No guns here. Soldiers and Over Mountain men take every one.”

“I'm looking for… a hat.” Broken Trail felt suddenly defensive. He could not explain about Elijah. Not here. Not now. Red Sun Rising, walking ahead, had not seen the young soldier who left off piling rocks to step forward and call out, “Moses.” And even if Red Sun Rising had heard it, the name would have meant nothing to him.

“Hat no good. Why not get new coat?” With a shake of his shoulders, he set the golden fringes of the epaulettes swinging. “Be quick. I wait where we leave horses.”

“Just a minute. Tell me. Did the rebels take prisoners?”

“Many, many prisoners. Like trees in the forest.”

“Where did they go with them?”

“I don't know.”

“Well, what direction?”

Red Sun Rising pointed north. “That way.”

“When?”

“At sunrise.”

“Only this morning?”

Red Sun Rising nodded. “Everybody make camp here all night. They leave this morning.”

“Then they can't have gone far.” Broken Trail looked northward, as if he still might see the army marching away. All he saw was a rutted, muddy track winding into the distance before it disappeared between wooded hills.

“Now I look for horses,” Red Sun Rising said. “I wait for you.”

“No. Don't wait. If you find the horses…” He hesitated. “If the horses are still there, take one and leave without me.”

“But you travel with me to Chickamauga.”

Broken Trail shook his head. “I must go home.”

“You not come with me?” He sighed. “I think all times maybe you not come.”

Broken Trail turned his face away. He wished that he knew how to repay his friend for having guided him all the way to Kings Mountain. But making war on white settlers was not the right way. Besides, it was certainly true that he must go home.

“Someday we'll meet again,” Broken Trail said, not believing that they ever would. He forced himself to meet the Cherokee's gaze as they clasped hands in farewell. “Be strong,” he added, for that was the Oneida way to say goodbye.

His eyes followed Red Sun Rising, resplendent in the scarlet coat with its shining adornments, until he was out of sight down the hill. Then Broken Trail renewed his search.

It was very quiet. Hard to imagine that only yesterday screams, gunfire and the shrill blast of a silver whistle had rent the air. Broken Trail walked on and on, crossing the battlefield back and forth.

As he walked, he wondered what Carries a Quiver would think if he could see him now. Many times his uncle had instructed him to forget his white family. Always, Broken Trail had hidden the fact that he could not. For a long time he had felt ashamed about his feelings as well as about deceiving his uncle. He still felt guilty about the deception, but somewhere along the way to Kings Mountain his opinion had changed about the rest. To care about Elijah was not wrong, nor did not make him any less an Oneida. Or did it?

Broken Trail was mulling over this question when right at his feet he saw, lying in the mud, a forage cap displaying a green badge.

Just a cap. No fallen soldier nearby. He picked up the cap. It was a cocked hat made of coarse felt, bound with white tape. Inside the band, he found a long, brown hair. That
proved nothing. Elijah had brown hair. So did he. So did half the white people he had ever known.

Broken Trail pulled his knife from its sheath, severed the threads that attached the badge to the cap, and thrust the badge into his pouch. Maybe it wasn't Elijah's. But maybe it was.

He walked across to the north side of the plateau and, looking down, studied the deep ruts from wagon wheels and the prints of horses' hooves and men's boots. With wounded to tend and prisoners to guard, the army could not be making rapid progress. He should be able to catch up in half a day. Then he would shadow the army, skulking in the bushes to scan the prisoners' faces. If Elijah was there, he would rescue him. Somehow, he would find a way.

HE HEARD THE ARMY
before he saw it. First the creaking and rumbling of heavy wagons reached his ears, then the voices of men: officers barking orders, soldiers talking and the wounded crying out. He walked faster, and as soon as he rounded the next bend, the wagons were in sight, bringing up the rear of the army.

Now he slipped into the cover of the trees along the track. Like a wolf shadowing a herd of deer, he moved silently through the woods.

He watched the heavy draught horses labour to pull the wagons. No wonder he had caught up so quickly! The wagon wheels were over their rims in mud.

From a distance, he had thought that the wagons were loaded with supplies. When he drew nearer, he saw that what they carried were wounded men—soldiers in blue uniforms, lying or sitting on the floorboards. No redcoats were among them.

Ahead of the wagons, the prisoners walked three or four abreast in a disorderly column. Their red tunics, which had been bright and clean one day before, were soiled with mud and blood. Flanking the prisoners, two on each side, were the rebel soldiers guarding them. Fixed to the guards' muskets were bayonets, with which they jabbed the prisoners from time to time to keep them moving.

Many of the prisoners looked barely able to walk. They shuffled along, some so weak they stumbled with every step. The healthier-looking prisoners were laden like packhorses. It appeared that they were being forced to carry the baggage and supplies that had been unloaded from the wagons to make space for wounded men.

There were hundreds of prisoners, more than Broken Trail could count. In this multitude he had to find one young, brown-haired redcoat, possibly without a cap. The best way to do it, he decided, was to station himself at a vantage point ahead of the army's advance—at a spot where he could see but not be seen while scrutinizing each face as the prisoners passed.

Moving at double the army's speed, he found a hiding place that the army would have to pass on its way. It was a leafy thicket from which he had a clear view of the track.

He had only a short time to wait before the front of the army drew level with his hiding place. At the head were the officers, riding their horses at an easy walk. Though the uniforms of some looked the worse for wear, and one horse had a patch of dried blood on its flank, the officers made a brave show. There were some fine-looking horses, too. Now that he had mastered the knack of managing a horse, Broken Trail would have liked one of those for himself. The most handsome was a grey gelding ridden by an extremely fat officer. That must be Major Ferguson's horse, he thought, remembering the remarks of the Over Mountain men. Somebody named Cleveland had claimed Major Ferguson's horse. “You could make two Pat Fergusons out of a man that size,” one of the Over Mountain men had said. Yet the grey gelding stepped along as smartly as if it carried a feather on its back. With its thick, arched neck and flowing mane, that horse looked like a chief, born to lead.

Following the officers were ranks of blue-coated soldiers. After them came the prisoners and their guards. Broken Trail recognized Major Ferguson's aide, Captain DePeyster. Even on foot, he kept his high and mighty air, marching with his shoulders square and his chin up. He still wore his white wig and tricorn hat, but not his sword.

Farther along the line, Broken Trail saw the soldier with broken teeth. He looked much different now that he had been deprived of his musket. His back was bowed with the weight of a large bundle draped across his shoulders.

The army passed like a slow-flowing river. One wounded
redcoat collapsed as Broken Trail watched. Promptly, two guards dragged him off the track and left him lying face down in the mud.

Then Broken Trail saw Elijah. Though his face was begrimed with gunpowder, there was no mistaking who he was. Bare-headed, he walked with his left arm hanging useless at his side. There was a slash in the left shoulder of his scarlet coat, and around the slash a darker stain. Staring straight ahead, he looked like someone walking in his sleep.

The man on Elijah's left and the man on his right both bore heavy loads. Yet it was Elijah, carrying nothing, who faltered with every step. Maybe it was loss of blood that weakened him. Or hunger. Or both. He looked very thin. Tall and thin. Three years ago, he had not been nearly so tall.

He was alive and he could walk! Broken Trail offered a quick prayer of thanks to the Great Spirit, and then a second prayer for help to set Elijah free.

At first the track ran through a forest of maples and yellow birch. Then gradually the woods gave way to small farms, where homesteaders had built their log cabins and cleared patches of land.