High on a Mountain (39 page)

An online source,
http://electricscotland.com, was also helpful in rounding out my
“education.” It has a series of articles about Prince Charles
Edward Stuart and his ill-fated attempt to reclaim his father’s
throne. And a site which has accounts of three battles that took
place during “The ’45” is http://www.britishbattles.com/. Also
helpful were two books which filled in some of the gaps in my
knowledge about certain facets of life in the Highlands:
Highland Folk Ways
by I.F. Grant; and,
Celtic Warfare
1595-1763 (Modern Revivals in Military History)
by Dr. James
Michael Hill.

Although I was taught much family lore about
my Cherokee ancestors, I also did research to fill in the gaps in
my knowledge about the Cherokee. Particularly helpful were the
books:
The Memoirs of Lieutenant Henry Timberlake
by
Lieutenant Henry Timberlake;
Weaving New Worlds: Southeastern
Native American Women and Their Basketry
by Sarah H. Hill;
The Trail of Tears: The Rise and Fall of the Cherokee Nation
by John Ehle;
Myths and Formulas of the Cherokee
by James
Mooney; and,
Cherokee Women
by Theda Perdue.

I learned the Gaelic terms for some items
integral to Highland life which I used in the text, and I verified
those Gaelic words using
Dictionary of the Gaelic Language
by Norman MacLeod and Daniel Dewar. And I wish to say “thank you”
to Norah Burch, who kindly granted permission for me to use the
pronunciation guide for Gaelic given names from her site,
http://www.namenerds.com/scottish/ in the Glossary.

I also wish to acknowledge the support and
help of my long-suffering family, especially my husband, Hoyt, who
took me on a research trip to Georgetown, South Carolina and to
Cherokee, North Carolina. And thanks to family members and friends
who provided encouragement, who served as my readers and gave me
valuable feedback: Rex Saare, Penny Edmondson, Amy Sinkus, Connie
Ward, Toyin Onabowu, Betty Bond, Mike Mefford and Myra Shofner.
Without their assistance, High on a Mountain would never have seen
the light of day in print.

—
Tommie Lyn

March 2010

Excerpt

PROLOGUE

Tsalagi Territory, South Carolina Colony,
April 1760

Tayeni MacAntoisch loosened the sling,
pulled it around and took her two-month-old daughter into her arms.
With a satisfied smile, she brushed a kiss onto the tiny forehead.
She loved her two sons, but her daughter filled her with pride. Her
line of descent would continue.

“
Etsi
, I’m hungry,” six-year-old
Raibeart complained.

“You’re always hungry. Let me finish nursing
the baby, and I’ll cook something for you.” Tayeni frowned. “Where
is Seumas? You’re supposed to watch him.”

Raibeart groaned and gave his mother an
exasperated glance.

“You know he—” She broke off as he stomped
out. She shook her head. “That boy.”

The baby drowsed, her appetite satiated, and
Tayeni lifted her onto a shoulder. A few pats on the little back
brought a dainty burp. Tayeni nuzzled her daughter’s neck, kissed
her. “Such a sweet girl. You’ll be a—”

“Tayeni!” Her aunt poked her head in the
doorway. “Quick! Get the children and let’s go!”

“What is it?”

“Soldiers are coming! Everyone is running to
the hills!”

Soldiers!
Tayeni swept an anxious
glance over the neatly stored trade goods Gòrdan had arranged on
shelves along one wall. She couldn’t leave their belongings at the
mercy of soldiers. All their wealth could be stolen or destroyed.
Besides, Gòrdan was a white man. Soldiers surely would respect that
and wouldn’t bother the wife and children of a white man.

“I…I’ll be fine. Don’t worry about me.”

“I know what you’re thinking, but they won’t
care who you are. I’ve seen what soldiers can do. Come with me!”
her aunt insisted. “Now!

Tayeni shook her head firmly, but her
quavering voice betrayed her uncertainty. “No. I have to stay and
look after our things.”
Gòrdan would expect me to do that
.
She took a breath to quell her uneasiness. “I’ll be all right. You
go ahead.”

Her aunt looked over her shoulder,
listening, trembling. She turned back to Tayeni. “Please, come with
me!”

“I’m not going anywhere.” Tayeni’s chin
jutted out. She’d made up her mind.

“At least let me take the children. I’ll
make sure they’re safe and—”

“My children stay with me. Now, go.” Tayeni
shooed her toward the door. “Run with the others. I’m staying
here.” Tayeni hoped her brave words would impart the courage she
needed but didn’t feel.

“What would your mother say if she were
here? What would she say about her sister leaving you at the mercy
of—” She paused and glanced out the door. “They’re here! I’m going
before it’s too late! Please come with me!”

A tingle ascended Tayeni’s backbone, spread
into the growing fear that clutched at her stomach. When her aunt
disappeared, Tayeni almost called out,
Wait for me!

She heard an indistinct, unfamiliar sound,
and her mouth grew dry.
I’ll be safe. I’ll tell the soldiers
that my husband is a white trader and—

Her eyes widened in alarm, and she brought a
fist to her mouth. She couldn’t tell them anything…Gòrdan wasn’t
here to translate for her.

Her breath came faster. Her aunt was right.
She should go. She gathered her daughter into her arms and hurried
to the door. “Raibeart! Seumas! Where are you?”

__________

Private Simon Hooker slogged along, his view
of what lay ahead obscured by the back of the soldier he
followed.

“Hooker. Step lively. Don’t drag your feet.”
the sergeant said.

Simon mentally rolled his eyes but gave no
outward sign of his irritation. He’d learned not to display any
displeasure with conditions or orders. But he wished again that he
hadn’t let desperation and hunger drive him into the army. He
cursed himself for willingly “taking the King’s Shilling” and
enlisting for life. Other men were proud to be part of the army,
but Simon hated being a soldier, although he did like having enough
to eat.

A patina applied by distance and time
softened his memories of London, gave the straitened circumstances
of his youth less importance. Especially when compared to this
wilderness. A root caught the toe of his boot, and he stumbled but
recovered his footing.

“Halt.” The sergeant’s voice was muted but
carried his authority nonetheless. He ordered his small squad into
a single-file column, positioned behind the frontline company of
Royal Scots.

“You will follow Colonel Montgomerie’s
orders,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper, as he eased
along the column. “Destroy everything. Burn the houses, cut down
the crops, kill the animals. Kill any men you find, but spare the
women and children. Now, maintain silence until we reach the
village.”

The Royal Scots moved forward, and the
sergeant motioned for his men to follow. Simon’s muscles tightened,
and he sucked in a breath. This would be his first action as a
soldier, and he had a sudden longing to trade the soft pine straw
beneath his feet for the hard stones of a London street.

“You ain’t killed no one yet, Simon, me boy.
But you will today,” whispered Richard Clegg. He looked over his
shoulder at Simon and winked.

Simon glanced at the face of his
battle-hardened partner. And he wished he’d been paired with anyone
else but this man. There was something in Clegg’s merciless glare,
something Simon couldn’t put a name to. Something that made his
skin crawl.

“I done fought these Cherokees before. I
seen what they do. And I’ll tell you, just give me one in the
sights o’ my Brown Bess, be it man or woman, and they be dead, I
don’t care what that high and mighty Colonel Montgomerie said.”
Clegg spat. “I ain’t bound to do what no Scot says. We oughten
to’ve been placed under his command, anyway.”

“But you have to follow orders—”

“And what’ll happen if I don’t? Another
flogging?” He snorted derisively. “I done had too many o’ them to
count, almost.”

“Silence,” the sergeant hissed.

__________

Tayeni’s breath came hard and fast as she
hurried outside. Where were her sons? She heard an ominous crackle
coming from the north side of the village and whirled toward it.
Orange flickered across the roof of a house, and spots of red and
white scattered across the ground before it: the soldiers were
here!

“Raibeart!” she half-yelled,
half-sobbed.

“Here I am,
Etsi.
Seumas was at the
river and—”

Tayeni shifted the baby to one arm and
grabbed two-year-old Seumas’ hand. “Run!”

She hurried toward the hill to the west of
the village, looking once over her shoulder, the wild terror of a
hunted animal widening her eyes at the sight of two soldiers in red
coats who had almost reached her home. Seumas’ legs were not long
enough for him to match his mother’s stride, and she dragged him
along.

Raibeart followed. He paused to grab a stone
and throw it at the soldiers. It didn’t reach his target, and he
threw another.

One soldier took aim and fired his musket.
Tayeni took a faltering step. She dropped her baby girl and fell on
her. The baby’s crying stopped abruptly.

Seumas stood beside his mother’s body.
“
Etsi? Etsi!”

The soldier who had killed Tayeni reloaded
his weapon, aimed it at the little boy and ended his cries.

Raibeart stopped running when he reached his
mother’s body. He stared at her, at his brother, unable to move,
unable to understand. And a musket ball slammed into his back. The
impact knocked him off his feet, and he fell at Tayeni’s side.

__________

Smoke rose from each house in Gulahiyi
village as the red-orange flames spread through the thatched roofs
and plastered river cane walls. Shouts of soldiers and screams of
the unfortunate few residents who hadn’t managed to escape in time
mingled with the intermittent sound of musket shots and the growing
roar of fires that consumed the vacant homes. The soldiers
methodically went from house to house, insuring that nothing
remained alive, not even the livestock nor dogs.

Their next task was to destroy the food
stuffs. The redcoats tore down the storehouse behind each home and
burned the abundance of produce which would have sustained the
family for at least two years. They cut down the fruit trees beside
the homes, pulled up and trampled growing crops in gardens and
fields.

When Gulahiyi had been razed, the British
soldiers moved along to the next village in their destructive sweep
through the Lower Towns of the
Tsalagi
.

Simon Hooker couldn’t sleep that night. When
he closed his eyes, he smelled the smoke of the burning homes. He
heard the roar of the flames. And he saw a young mother and her
children lying dead.

__________

Restlessness crawled through Gòrdan
MacAntoisch’s belly. He stopped his horse where the path forked. He
pulled off his hat, wiped sweat from his face with his sleeve and
settled his hat in place again as his eyes scanned the surrounding
woods.

Sigawi, Gòrdan’s
Tsalagi
assistant,
stopped his portion of the pack train and waited for orders.

The trader didn’t speak. He lifted a finger
and gestured in the direction from which they’d come. Sigawi slid
from his mount and melted into the greening undergrowth flanking
the path.

Gòrdan sat his horse. Silent. Unmoving.
Waiting. Uneasy. His horse stamped a foot to dislodge a fly,
stepped sideways, and the saddle creaked as Gòrdan’s weight shifted
with the unexpected movement. His jaw tightened. He was almost
certain they were being followed again.

Sigawi eased from the greenery, and, with
one fluid motion, remounted his horse. Gòrdan lifted an eyebrow in
question. His assistant shook his head.

They continued on their homeward
journey.

ONE

Tsalagi Territory, South Carolina Colony,
June 1760

Eight-year-old Niall MacLachlainn dashed
into the creek behind his older brother, Aodh. He slowed as he
neared the mountain stream’s deeper pool, and an involuntary shiver
that passed down his body accompanied the rising of goose bumps on
his arms.

His mother called to his little sister, and
he glanced in their direction. At that moment, Aodh slapped the
water, and cold liquid splashed into Niall’s face. He gasped and
squeezed his eyes shut. He opened them to slits, clamped his lower
lip between his teeth and swung his right arm in an arc, the edge
of his hand skimming the water’s surface. He created a sheet of
spray that inundated Aodh, who laughed and ducked beneath the
creek’s rippling veneer.

Niall stared at reflections of green trees
and blue sky undulating on the surface of the water. His stomach
tightened as he tried to see through them, tried to see the form he
knew was swimming toward him. A hand grabbed his ankle from behind
and yanked. He fell, arms flailing, water covered his head, and he
came face to face with his grinning brother.

When the boys hunted small game and birds
with their blowguns, Niall could best his older brother. His aim
was sure, almost uncanny. And his long legs gave him an edge in
their footraces. But Aodh always won their water games. And Aodh
was the one who always won their father’s approval.

Niall rolled onto his stomach to regain his
footing and push himself out of the water. But a yellow gleam among
the pebbles on the creek bottom caught his eye. He’d never seen
anything quite like it.
Edoda
would surely be proud of him
for finding something so unusual. Aodh had never found anything
like this.