The Holy Warrior (16 page)

Rustling leaves behind her startled Missy, gripping her with an unknown fear. Panicking, she turned around to see a large black shape appear against the background of the foliage less than ten feet away.
It’s a bear!
The thought chilled her.

She leaped to her feet and made a wild lunge for the path, but her foot slipped on the moss, and she fell sprawling and helpless as the dark shape loomed closer. “Go away!” she cried out, desperately rolling over to kick at the bear.

“Go away? Why, here I’ve come halfway across the country and now you tell me to git?” The shape grinned at her.

“Christmas!” Missy scrambled to her feet and flung herself into his arms, her relief causing her to forget herself. “You scared me to death! I thought you were a bear!”

“You’re not the only one who’s scared,” Christmas told her, the smile disappearing from his lips. “Your mother is about crazy with worry, child!” There was an edge in his soft voice as he added, “You ought not to worry her, Missy, her being so poorly.”

The gentle rebuke was a blow to the girl, and tears sprang to her eyes. Dropping her head, Missy turned and trudged blindly down the path, speechless. To her, a reprimand from Christmas was ten times worse than from anyone else. She had looked forward to his arrival for so long—and now this!

“Wait!” he said, running after her. He stopped her and gently turned her around to face him. There was gentleness in his eyes. She had always been his pet, and it distressed him to see her hurt. “It’s not so bad as that.”

“It is! I’ve acted like an idiot!”

“Me too, Missy—lots of times,” he laughed softly. “I heard all about it. You and Asa fought like wildcats, so Charity said.”

“Did she say what we fought about?” Missy felt her face get hot.

“No. Wanna tell me about it?”

“Oh—it was nothing.”

“Guess little brothers are just a pain in the neck sometimes.”

“I’m such a fool!”

Christmas looked at her thoughtfully. Missy had grown two inches taller since he had seen her last year. The high point of his yearly trip east was the time he spent with the Greenes, and watching Missy and Asa grow up was a pleasure that carried him through the long winters in the mountains.
He was fonder of her than he knew, and now he wanted to ease her grief.

“Go on and feel bad then,” he grinned, “but I can tell you something that’ll make you feel better, I bet. Matter of fact, I’ll bet you what I got in my pocket against a big hug and a kiss that I can make you whoop and holler in ten seconds.”

“Bet you can’t!”

“I’m coming home with you and I’m gonna stay there two months and you and me—we’re gonna get a sample of every bird’s egg in the country, and I’m gonna teach you how to shoot like a mountain man!”

“Christmas!” she exclaimed, her face beaming with joy—as he had hoped—and her brown eyes widening in delight.

“See? You lose,” he said. “Now, give me that hug and kiss—then we better get back before they send out a search party.”

She threw her arms around him and he smiled, thinking,
This won’t last long. Someday soon she’s going to grow up and be too big to hug.

Assuring himself that that time was still far off, he let her lead him back to the house, chattering and pulling at his hand.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CAMP MEETING

Years later, the Greenes never referred to those months as “the summer of 1806.” It was always “the summer Chris stayed with us.”

On July 4th of that year the Greenes had a big celebration dinner to welcome their guest. After the meal, Chris left the room, returning with a rifle in one hand and a small sack in the other. Setting down the rifle, he took something out of the sack—a powder horn, Asa saw, and a shot pouch—and picked up the handsome rifle again. Asa eyed it longingly, thinking it was a gift for his father, and paled when Chris held the rifle out to him. “You can’t be a mountain man without a rifle, boy.” Asa was speechless. His hands trembled as he took the heavy gun, running his fingers down the barrel, caressing the smooth stock. His throat was thick and tears stung his eyes. Not wanting Chris to notice and think he was a baby, Asa turned away with a husky “Thanks.”

Chris grinned and clapped Asa on the shoulder and explained, “I’m never around anybody but Indians at Christmastime, so I decided this Christmas’ll be on July 4th.” He fished around in the sack and handed a package to Caroline. “Hope you like this, Caroline. You’re hard to buy for, but maybe this will please you.”

Caroline’s gift was a fine leather book with HOLY BIBLE in gold letters across the front. Her fingers gently traced the words. “It’s beautiful, Christmas,” she said softly. “I’ll treasure it always.”

The bulky package Dan unwrapped was a volume of Rev. Charles Wesley’s sermons—something he’d always longed for. The bindings were all calf leather, and the paper was thick vellum. “Why—these must have cost a fortune, Christmas!” he exclaimed.

He handed Anne a small package, saying, “This isn’t Indian made, Anne. Came from over the water.”

Chris watched her as she removed the paper, and he was saddened by how thin and wan she looked. She had been such a pretty young woman when he had first met her, but her last pregnancy had almost killed her, and she never recovered her strength after losing the baby. Nothing seemed to relieve her nagging cough, and she was unable to do hardly any work.

“Why, Christmas! It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen! Look, girls—a pearl case.”

They admired the delicate mother-of-pearl case, finely worked with gold wire, and then Chris said, “Well, that’s all—oh, except this.” He handed Missy a length of braided leather, saying, “You like to ride so much, I thought you’d like an Indian-made bridle. This one was made by a Sioux woman named Still Water—made of elk hide she chewed herself to make it soft.”

The Greenes cast furtive glances at each other. It seemed unfair that Chris would give Missy such a small gift when he had given the rest of them such expensive things. Even Asa felt bad and tried to console her. “Hey, Missy, that’s really a nice bridle.” The others, somewhat embarrassed for her, admired it loudly.

But Missy was delighted with her present. “Thank you, Christmas!” she smiled. “You always think of the best gifts for us!”

“Oh, it’s not much,” Chris shrugged. “Say, did you notice there’s no bit for the horse’s mouth? Gotta be a pretty fair rider to control an animal with an Indian bridle. Come on—we’ll try it out on the mare.”

“All right.”

Leaving the house together, they heard Asa clamoring to fire the rifle. Dan, who had not lost his interest in guns since his younger days, gave in and took his son down the road to find a safe place—away from the house—for shooting practice.

Watching her brother proudly carrying his rifle, Missy said, “What nice gifts!—much nicer than what we usually get for Christmas.”

“It’s little enough, Missy. I’ve taken a lot more from the Greenes than I’ll ever be able to pay back.” They came to the barn, and Chris put his hand on the bolt, swinging the door back. “Let me get Lady out for you.”

“All right.” Missy was perfectly capable of getting the mare, but it pleased her to have Chris do it. She turned the bridle over in her hands, examining the finely worked leather, and did not look up when she heard the sound of the horse’s hooves. Still toying with the bridle, she walked closer to where Chris stood, glanced up, and froze in her tracks.

It was not Lady that Chris had led out. It was a beautiful chestnut stallion!

“Here’s the rest of your present, Missy,” Chris said quietly, handing her the hackamore he’d slipped over the neck of the animal.

She took the reins without looking at Chris, for her eyes were filled with the beauty of the horse. He was young, but very tall and rangy. His eyes were large and his coat glistened under the rolling bands of smooth muscles as he stamped the ground.

Chris moved back to lean against the barn, savoring the sight. Somehow he knew that even when he grew old, he’d still be able to pull this scene up from the place old dreams lie—the tall girl, leggy and strong, with the dying sun putting red lights in her blond hair, looking up with wonder at the powerful colt.

He was pulled out of his reverie when Missy turned and
looked at him with enormous eyes that were brimming with tears. “I—I can’t ever thank you enough...!”

Embarrassed, Chris shifted his weight and pushed himself away from the wall. Brusquely, he told her, “Well, you’ve got to teach this horse a few things, Missy. He’s got a mind of his own, and he’s big enough to make life miserable for you if you don’t show him who’s boss.”

“What’s his name?”

“Whatever you call him.”

She thought hard before saying, “When he runs, I bet it sounds like thunder. What’s the Indian name for thunder, Chris?”

“Wah-tee-nah.”

She mulled it over, then shook her head. “No, it’ll just be Thunder.” On the heels of that decision a new thought occurred to her. “Will you teach me to ride him—like you taught me to shoot?”

“Do what I can—but you’re a natural rider, Missy. You ride like you’re a part of the horse—just like the Sioux.”

The compliment made her blush, and she ducked her head. “I—I don’t ever give you anything, Christmas. You always bring me such wonderful presents, but I never give you anything.”

He stirred uncomfortably, “Ah, Missy, when you get older, you’ll find out that to us older folks, the best present is to give a youngster something and watch them enjoy it. Come on, it’s time you took your first ride on Thunder!”

The rifle for Asa and Thunder for Missy—those were milestones in their young lives. For Asa, everything was dated “after I got my rifle.” As for Missy, the stallion became her clock; everything else fit in around the times she was feeding, grooming, and riding him. So the days sped by, and the dark streak that had been such an obvious part of Chris’s manner disappeared; the long hours he spent teaching Asa to shoot
and Missy to care for the horse were like balm. One Monday morning Dan remarked to Caroline, “Christmas is going to the camp meeting over at Cane Ridge with me on Friday.”

“Did you make him agree to go, Father?”

“Not a bit of it!” he said emphatically. “Matter of fact, when I mentioned that I’d be preaching there, he asked if he could go with me. There’s been a lot of prayer for this meeting, Caroline. If the power falls again like it did back in 1801—could be that Chris gets converted. You pray on that.”

“Yes, of course. Are we all going?”

“Your mother’s not up to it. Someone will have to take care of her.”

“I’ll get Mrs. Rollins to stay with her. Mother likes her so much—and it’ll be good for Sister Rollins, too.”

That Friday the Greenes pulled into the Cane Ridge campground where the meeting was to be held. Chris had said little on the journey, and now he looked around the area, half-angry with himself for coming, half-wondering why he had asked to go in the first place. Over the past five years he had tried to put God out of his mind, until last winter when he’d been snowed in with Con and Frenchie for over a month in a tiny line shack.

The only reading available had been Con’s greasy, worn New Testament. Though Con prided himself on his cynicism, secretly he admired men who seemed to know God, and so had carried the New Testament wherever he went, reading it from time to time. Chris had read a few chapters of John’s gospel, and was surprised to discover that the simple story of Jesus gripped him as nothing else ever had. Something broke within him, and the words seemed to leap from the pages with dramatic intensity. Totally absorbed, Chris would read for fifteen hours at a stretch—much to Con and Frenchie’s consternation—hardly pausing long enough to eat. When the thaw came, Chris threw himself into getting the furs back to the east. Still, the words of the little New Testament echoed in his mind night and day.

Now he had come to Cane Ridge—out of curiosity, mostly. He had no intention of making a fool out of himself, like some of the others he had heard of. Chris watched without comment as Dan waved and greeted almost everyone they passed. The place hummed with activity, and he noted stages erected in a clearing of the woods about a hundred yards from a small meeting house. On one of them stood a fat man who was already preaching to a large crowd. When they stopped the wagon and made their way through the crowd, they encountered several more of these platforms, all manned by fiery preachers who drew the attention of the swelling mobs around them.

“Why so many pulpits?” Chris asked.

“Gets you closer to the people in smaller groups,” Dan answered. “Whitefield preached to ten thousand at times—but not many men have the voice for that.”

“Are these all Methodist folks?”

“Oh no!” Greene began to identify the speakers and their organizations. “That’s Brother Hayes, and he is a Methodist—but over there, the skinny man with the jug ears? Rev. Tyler, a Baptist—and next to him, Rev. John Hamilton, a Presbyterian—”

Dan was interrupted several times by men who greeted him respectfully; one very muscular young man by the name of Peter Cartwright welcomed Chris with a bone-crushing handshake. “Well, glory!” His intense black eyes sized the frontiersman up as if he were a prize steer. “You are a big one, Brother Winslow—just the man to preach the word in these parts!”