The Kentucky Trace: A Novel of the American Revolution

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261 21 He stood near the saltpeter cooker and watched John Sawyer cross the creek and start up the hill. His mother would get the letter if John got through alive. Would she believe what he had written and accept William David as her grandson? He shook his head. No use in looking back at the letter. It was finished and gone. There was worse ahead. He’d rather write that letter twice over than travel the Kentucky Trace with a divided party; more like two small parties. They’d have to be far enough apart that the damned yellow-headed shrew wouldn’t learn William David was still alive. There was a man named Daniel Boone. He’d divided his party. Cherokee got the one that had his son. The poor boy’s mother, safe in Daniel’s party, had to sit still in her hideout and listen all night to the screams of her lad as he died by slow torture. Leslie shivered. This Daniel had been happy as a June bug all morning. Now, he stopped whistling to chide: “Professor, you know better than to watch a lone man out of sight. You’ll bring him bad luck.” Leslie saw no reason to answer. He had stopped watching John. He turned slightly so that John and his two packhorses were no longer in his line of vision. He would ride in front with Rachel, carrying William David, close behind him; no, Cleo might give trouble, if she couldn’t travel next 262 to him and Kate. Rachel would have to ride behind Cleo, and next to her, Little Brother on Beau. Jethro and Jimmy with the yellow-headed woman would have to ride far enough behind, she couldn’t hear William David when he cried. And he would cry. But that would give the yellow-headed woman the protection of two gunmen with only himself for William David. Well, Little Brother could be counted on for some help. Jethro and Jimmy would be close enough to hear a rifle shot. No, they wouldn’t be. How far behind would they have to be so the yellow-headed woman couldn’t hear the cow bawl? He’d forgotten the cow. If she heard the cow she’d know William David was along. Furthermore—Daniel had said something. Leslie turned and said by way of apology: “Sorry, I must have been woolgatheren and didn’t hear exactly what you said.” Daniel came out of his world with the new wife he’d been whistling about to give him a long disapproving look. “Leslie, I didn’t say a word you could answer. Call it woolgatheren if you will, but that’s not what ails you.” He shoved a stick of wood under the saltpeter kettle. “You’re homesick, sick a the woods. You’d like to a gone with McGee when he left at daylight in his Queen a the May. Now, you’re wanten to ride off with John. That’s what ails you. You look like the wrath of God.” Leslie nodded. It would be strange if he didn’t look like a man on whom God had wreaked his vengeance. He’d spent most of the night in killing his second wife; the rest had gone to getting a pack of lies in shape for his parents to read. He’d slept none, eaten too little, and drunk too much. Daniel’s look had changed from disapproval to pity. “Leslie, my boy, when a man gits in the shape you’re in, he’s liable to come down with woods fever.” Leslie laughed, and pointed to the sun just clearing the ridge top. “Why, Daniel, I’m all right. I know that’s due west where the sun is risen.” “Woods fever is nothen to joke about, boy.” Leslie didn’t answer. His glance had happened on an empty peck measure , yellow as gold inside. It had been used to measure sulphur. Everything touched by sulphur changed color. . . . The packhorses loaded with gunpowder ought to be up front with him. That would make them close to William David. Cherokee, Chickasaw, Wyandot, or Shawnee, it didn’t matter; all would kill for gunpowder. . . . “Daniel, will sulphur poison a person?” 263 “Leslie, if you hadn’t lost your wits you’d recollect that sulphur and molasses is good medicine in the spring when a person’s...