SAMPLE THE STORY BY READING CHAPTER ONE

The dark forests rose all about me as I loped along the narrow trail on my way through the country of the Mohawks. My eyes went from the boles of the great oaks to the clumps of poison sumac, searching always for a shadow that might tell me my progress was observed. The land was at war, and I had no desire to lose my scalp to an Iroquois knife. 

In the waterproof pouch at my knife-belt, I carried orders from the Continental Congress to General Philip Schuyler at Fort Ticonderoga, which Ethan Allen and his Vermonters had taken from the English back in May. 

I must reach Schuyler at all costs. These had been my instructions, given me by John Adams himself, with an admonition that nothing was to delay me. The Thirteen colonies which were in rebellion against English rule were depending on my legs and woods-craft to see that they arrived. 

I carried little in the way of food. I was a woodsman who could live off the land. In the deerskin bag strapped to my back was a little flour and a sack of salt. My powder-horn was heavy, my bullet pouch filled with leaden balls. A man who had spent his life in the forest lands needed little more than that to survive. 

My legs carried me at a steady lope northward. I had skirted the few towns and settlers' cabins past which I ran. I wanted no man to see me so as to report my traveling. The fact that I was little more than a shadow on the land would keep me safe enough. 

Halting in the shade of an elm, I let my eyes rove about me. All was still, only the cry of a quail broke that quiet, and from far away my ears picked up the touch of an antler against tree-bark 

I moved forward, trotting on the bare dirt of this woodland game trail, seeing the mark of a deer hoof, the scratchings on a tree trunk made by a bear. The forest was a great book which a man could read, had he eyes to see and to observe. 

Here a horned owl had dropped silently on a snake, had missed its first strike and had fought with the snake. A feather or two was visible, showing that the snake had put up a struggle. Farther along, I saw where a gray fox had made its kill. 

Where a stream trickled clear water over its bottom stones, I put my moccasins into the water and ran in it for several miles. 

I stepped on a rock when I left that stream and made my way between clumps of tall yellow foxglove attached to tree trunks and berry bushes heavy laden with their fruit in this early summertime of the year 1775. My moccasins made no sound as I went at a dog-lope. 

My powder-horn was tied to my knife-belt, to prevent its bumping against a tree, and my lone rifle that had been fashioned in Lancaster, Pennsylvania but was being given the name of the Kentucky rifle, was primed and ready for use. 

I hoped I would not have to use it; a rifle shot carries far in these quiet woodlands. So far I had been fortunate, catching a fish for my meals from time to time or throwing my knife to bring down an unwary rabbit. 

My hand is skilled in knife-throwing. Old Dancing Bear of the Cherokees had taught me the rudiments when I was still a boy, and I had practiced ever since. I come naturally to its use, as I do to the firing of the long rifle. I have never been one to walk stodgily behind the plow, much to my father's dismay; even as a youngster I was off in the woods, watching the birds and the animals, even hunting food for my family. 

My name is Conn Walker. My father is English, my mother Irish. We have a farm in southwestern Virginia, close to the Warrior's Path where it runs over Cumberland Gap, not far from Cherokee country. I grew up with Cherokee boys as my playmates. 

When word came to our farm that there had been a fight at Lexington and Concord, I had set off on foot to come to Philadelphia, where the Continental Congress was meeting to make ready for the war that had already begun. I offered my services to them, and was waiting to be assigned to whatever army might be formed. While I was waiting, John Adams had sought me out with orders in a waterproof pouch. 

"If anyone can get through to Schuyler with these, you can," he had told me in his crisp voice. "You know the woods, you can slip through where a city man would blunder about and be captured." 

He had been right, so far. 

But this was Mohawk land around me now, and I was going to have to go through it without being seen if I were to reach Fort Ticonderoga. It was no easy job he had given me. An Indian can read signs. If a Mohawk cut my trail, he would know about me. 

And once he knew that a strange moccasin was walking over ground he conceived to be his own, he would loose the tomahawk at his belt and come after me. A man had told me in Philadelphia that the Five Nations—Mohawks, Senecas, Onondagas, Oneidas and Cayugas—had not yet taken the war trail against the American colonists. 

"It will come, but not yet. Not for some time, I believe," he had stated. 

Which was no reassurance. None at all. 

All that long day I ran, as I had run like this since leaving Philadelphia, bypassing Cooper's Ferry and trailing the Delaware River northward. For slightly more than three days I had been trotting in that ground-eating lope I can maintain almost indefinitely. I had seen few people. I felt certain no one had seen me. 

I moved between two birch trees and began to run downhill. Up ahead, where cattails swayed in a meadow to the onrush of a breeze, I could make out bluebells growing, and further on, a patch of light violet woodland phlox. It was a pretty scene. I paused a moment to study it, to take the cool air into my lungs. 

Off to one side, movement touched my eyes. I dropped flat on the ground and slid snakelike behind a boulder. My eyes peered from between a shelter of those flowers the settlers call Indian Paintbrushes. 

A file of Mohawks moved at a walk far below. The feathers twisted into their scalp-locks bounced to their stridings, and even from this far away I could make out the headings of their leggings and loin-clothes Two of them carried muskets, the other five held bows. They were not painted for war, but few Indians were these days. 

The smaller figure with them caught my stare. 

It was a girl—a white girl. Her wrists were bound behind her and she stumbled along, head down and with shoulders drooping, the picture of dejection. She had long black hair that had tumbled down over her shoulders, and the dress she was wearing was ragged and torn, as though it had been damaged in a struggle.

My breath went out in a sigh. 

I knew well enough what would happen to that girl. She would be raped again and again by those Indians, probably, and then tortured to death. Indians don't ordinarily torture women, but it's been known to happen. I wade a wry face. 

I had no time to waste trying to rescue a girl from the Mohawks. I had a job to do, an important job that demanded haste. By rights, I should be up and running as soon as those redskins were out of sight. The orders in my pouch were important. 

I snarled a little in my throat, not loud enough for them to hear. How could I go off and leave her to her fate? 

My mind went back to John Adams and I considered what he would have me do. We were at war, and I was a soldier in that war, carrying dispatches My duty was to remain unseen and to go about my business. 

My eyes touched that woman and held to her. Twice she stumbled and once when she did a Mohawk cuffed her on the side of the head, knocking her into a clump of purple verbenas. He was a big man, this one, as big as I was myself, and he looked hard and muscular. 

His legs were painted black, right up to the hips, and a livid white scar ran down from his left nipple to his ribs. He stood over that girl like a big bear, as if defying her to rise. 

Then he kicked her. 

I'm not sure, but I think that right then and there I told myself I was going to take that girl away from those Mohawks. Until then I might have gone on, believing my dispatches to be more important than one girl's life. Maybe I would have gone after her anyway. But that kick decided me. 

I made no move, however. I just lay there and watched as the black-legged man put his hand to her hair and yanked her up on her feet. He backhanded her face and then gave her a shove. 

The other Mohawks were waiting, watching silently. They did not interfere and something told me that she was going to furnish sport for them, when they made their camp. It wasn't often redskins got their hands on a white woman like this. 

Maybe she knew it too, because from the glimpse I got of her face as she turned it my way, she was mighty miserable. Her face was white and pinched, and her eyes seemed enormous. A shilling to a nut she was crying too, and I didn't blame her any. 

But I waited on that ground, hidden behind those Indian Paintbrushes and that boulder, and just watched. I'd have been a fool to open up on them with my Kentucky gun. One shot was all I'd have before they'd be winging arrows at me. 

The girl got up and started to walk, and Black-legs just followed her. He didn't hit her again, though. 

I waited until they were out of sight before I rose up and went after them. The sun was low in the western sky, it put a redness on the leaves and rocks past which I trotted. Those redskins were going to stop to make camp pretty soon, and when they did, I'd be there. 

They chose a clearing surrounded by birch trees and dogwoods, with splatterings of violet asters and white blood-root here and there. A tiny brook gurgled softly off to one side. 

They built a little fire and one of the Mohawks lifted out some fresh meat from a bag he had been carrying over his shoulder and began to cook it. They forgot about the girl, or seemed to, she sat on the ground with her spine to a tree-bole and her head hanging. Could be she was crying, because her shoulders heaved every once in a while. 

One thing I gave her, she had picked a good spot. There was forest behind her, and a lot of bushes. A man could snake up behind her without too much trouble. 

I figured the Mohawks would begin to amuse themselves with her right away, but they were more intent on eating. That black-legged man seemed to be an untrusting sort. He went to the edge of the clearing and stood there for a long time, just listening. 

I took advantage of that to start my crawl. 

Now, not much can happen that an Indian won't notice if it takes place anywhere around him. So I had to go in on them nice and easy. Slow. Deerskin rubbing against a leaf can make a sound. Not much, maybe, but loud enough to tell a red man somebody is sneaking up on him. 

Took me an hour, all told, before I was within touching distance of that girl. 

She was pretty, so pretty I just lay there and stared. I don't have much to do with womenfolk, excepting Ma. I got me two brothers and no sisters. But the sight of her face and that glossy black hair put a funny kind of feeling in me. I wanted to reach out and touch her hair, just run my hand over it. 

My eyes swung around toward Black-legs. He was squatted down near the campfire, chewing on some meat, and his eyes were never still. The others were leaving it to him to keep them from surprises, it seemed like. They just ate and muttered among themselves in that guttural talk they have. 

I can understand their talk, enough to get by. Not as good as Cherokee, but some. Seems these were renegades who had broken with Joseph Brant, who was a big power with the Five Nations, and were out to hunt up some trouble and loot at the same time. 

They were not going to rape the girl tonight. They were going to save her for their home base, which was a walled encampment of longhouses about one hundred miles due west. They had come this far east quietly. They wanted to go back home the same way. 

Up this close I made out a scalp or two they had taken along the way. Black-legs had a Huron scalp at his belt, and it looked fresh. I wondered where he had found a Huron this far south of Canada. 

The sight of that food made me hungry, but I have been hungry before. Figured that if I stayed alive, I would eat a meal come tomorrow. I surely wouldn't eat if those Mohawks found me. 

They stretched out after a time, feet near the fire. Only Black-legs and one other stayed awake. Black-legs came over to look at the girl. I was afraid he might see the reflection of fire-flames in my eyes, and so I closed them. But my ears were open. 

The Mohawk must have kicked her, because I heard the thud of his moccasined foot against what must have been her flesh. I did not move. To move would have meant he would see or hear me, and once he had done that, neither the girl nor I would have stood the chance of a snowshoe rabbit in hell. 

The girl didn't even whimper, so Black-legs walked off and lay down himself. Only one Mohawk was still awake. He was the man who was standing first watch. He prowled around the camp restlessly, then propped his back against a tree and stood there. 

I slithered back out of the bushes where I had hidden myself. My hand curved its fingers around the horn handle of my Cherokee hunting knife. I drew it out and put the long steel blade between my teeth. 

My crawl took a long time, but I made no sound. Once behind that tree where the guard was leaning, I rose to my feet.

My left arm hooked out and went around that Mohawk's throat. My right hand brought the Cherokee knife in between his ribs. He made a blubbery sound, but he was dead as soon as I shoved that knife in. I held him upright for a moment, then lowered him slowly. 

I waited. The Mohawks slept on. 

I dropped to the ground and snaked my way around the edge of the camp, back to where I'd left my Kentucky rifle and that girl. She was not asleep. Her eyes were darting around the camp and I think she was considering escape. 

She must have seen me run my knife into that camp guard. She was wondering who I was, and where, but she was canny. She didn't make the mistake of calling out. 

I didn't want to startle her. I wanted to make no sound, none at all. And so I eased right up behind that girl until I could lift my hand and put it on her mouth. At the same time I caught her nose between my forefinger and thumb and pinched it shut. 

She stiffened, but she made no sound. 

Very carefully I drew away my hand. She turned her head and stared down into my face. My eyes slid sideways, trying to tell her to get up and into those woods. I did not want to whisper. Sometimes a man can hear a whisper better than he can a low murmur. 

She rose quietly, and took a step and then another. She put her feet down carefully, almost as though she had been trained to move through a wilderness. She was wearing store shoes, very pretty they must have been at one time, for they had silver buckles. Right now they were mighty tattered from all the walking she had done. 

I put out my hand to her, caught her fingers and drew her with me between the tree-boles, pausing only to pick up my long rifle. 

Then I led her away from that camp just as fast as she could move. I didn't want to be caught anywhere near here by those Mohawks. If they came after us—and was betting they would—I wanted to have the pick of the place where I was going to fight. 

Once I spoke to the girl, touching her on the arm. “Wait,” I breathed, and then I was gone into the darkness. 

The guard still lay against the tree where I had left him. He was one of the Mohawks who had been carrying a bow and a quiver of arrows. My hand darted out, lifted the bow and that quiver, and then I was gone like a shadow in the night. 

We trotted all that night, the girl and I, without speaking. Once in a while I stopped to look back, but saw nothing in the forest. 

Toward morning we came to a stream and we moved up that, until we came to a river. It was wide and looked deep, so I turned and looked at the girl. 

“You swim?” I wondered. She nodded and looked down at herself. 

She was wearing a dress that must have been pretty fetching at one time. It was of striped satin, what there was left of it, and pale yellow. The skirt had been ripped away, for the most part. Her legs were visible from the middle of her thighs all the way down silk stockinged legs to those worn shoes. 

If she tried swimming in that thing, she'd drown.

She seemed to make up her mind, and gave me a brave smile. "I shall discard this," she murmured. 

She spoke English, but with a trace of an accent. I wondered who she was, where she had come from. Up this close, she was even prettier than she'd been by campfire light. She didn't hesitate either. 

Her hands caught that striped yellow satin and shredded it. This left her in some lacy underwear, and I tried not to look. Isn't often a woman tears her dress off in front of me. Matter of fact, it had never happened before. 

But she must have told herself she'd rather be shameless and alive than modest and dead. All she had on now was part of a petticoat-it must have been ripped when her dress was torn—and a lacy thing that covered her from her middle to her bare shoulders. 

I told myself I was going to have to find clothes for her. I couldn't take a half-naked woman with me through these forests. It was too much to expect of a healthy man. I might forget Ma had raised me to behave myself. 

She was a good swimmer. We came out on the other side of that river and when she waded ashore ahead of me, I told myself she was a walking temptation to a man. 

Truth was she distracted me. 

I think she knew this, because an imp of a smile came on her full mouth. With a casual wave of a hand, she indicated the way those lacy things clung to her breasts. 

“You can see the way I am," she murmured.

"I can that, ma'am. You're powerful pretty.” 

She gave me a curtsy right then and there. She ought not to have done that, because her breasts swayed out ward and I could see them real good. They were white and tipped by dark red nipples. 

I heaved me a sigh. By rights I should be thinking of our back trail, where that black-legged Mohawk would be coming after us. All I could do was try not to look at her too much, and of course, my stare kept coming back her way all the time. 

I had to find her some clothes. The sooner the better. 

So I set out in front of her, leaving her to come after me. That way I wouldn't see too much of her white skin and all. I set a steady pace along the woodland trails, not too fast but not too slow, either. Black-legs would be following us, and coming fast. 

We trotted that game trail for a long time, until I decided we ought to rest. Wouldn't do to have a crippled girl on my hands. So when we came to a little brook, bordered by grass and patches of greenish-white meadow rue, I lay down beside the water and took a long drink. 

The girl sat down on the bank and sipped water from her cupped hands. My eyes went to her unbound black hair that fell around her white shoulders, and I thought of how that pretty hair would look dangling at Black-legs' belt after he had scalped her. 

The thought put iron inside me. 

I sat there and let my eyes roam the woodland glade. It was very still, but that didn't mean those Mohawks might not be close. Redskins are a part of the forest, seems like. They could be behind the nearest tree-bole and nobody would know. 

The girl held out her worn shoes, making a face. "They will not last,” she said. 

“Soon's we can, I'll make you moccasins—or buy them." 

Those plucked black brows of hers raised up. “Where can you buy them around here?" 

“Not all the Indians in these parts are out for scalps. Right now there's peace. May not last long, things being what they are, but—' 

"What do you mean, things being what they are?” 

"Ma'am, there's a war on. Where do you come from, you don't know that?” 

Her chin lifted. “I am from Montreal in Canada. I was down here in the English country to visit relatives. I—" 

My hand stopped her in mid-word. I came off the grass and caught her hand and yanked her with me under the branches of a tree, in among the brambles. 

We waited, crouching down, her body close to mine. I could feel her trembling, but she didn't make a sound. Then I saw a face peering from a thicket across the glade. 

Very slowly I inched the Kentucky' rifle forward. I put my cheek to the stock and sighted along its barrel. Very gently my finger curled around the trigger. 

I shot that man in the face. 

One instant I saw his face, then only redness as my ball shattered it. Instantly I was up, dragging the girl with me, and we began our run. 

Black-legs would be close by, with those other Mohawks in his party. I had killed two, which left four besides the man with the painted black legs. They would be coming fast now, with the sound of that shot to guide them. 

Somehow I had to lose them. 

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