Daniel Boone: Westward Trail Read online

  DANIEL BOONE: WESTWARD TRAIL

  By Neal Barrett, Jr.

  A Crossroad Press Production

  Digital Edition published by Crossroad Press

  Digital Edition Copyright 2016 Ruth Barrett

  Copy-edited by Anita Lorene Smith

  Cover artwork in the public domain

  Cover background designed by Freepik

  LICENSE NOTES

  This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to the vendor of your choice and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Meet the Author

  NEAL BARRETT, JR is an American treasure, a prolific author with a keen eye to character and the ability to make the improbable obvious. He has written over fifty novels and numerous short stories that span the field from mystery/suspense, fantasy, science fiction and historical novels, to “off-the-wall” mainstream fiction. Reviewers have defined his work as “stories that defy any category or convention...”

  His “author’s best” collection, “Perpetuity Blues,” was a finalist for the 2001 World Fantasy Award.

  His two fantasy novels featuring “Finn, the Lizard Master” have been published by Bantam—”The Prophecy Machine,” in 2000, and “The Treachery of Kings” in 2001. These novels were based on “The Lizard Shoppe,” which appeared in Dragon Magazine, and won the “best fiction of the year” award from The West Coast Publishers.

  In addition to his appearance in numerous magazines, his work may be seen in collections such as The Best From Fantasy & Science Fiction, Nebula Awards, OMNI: Best Science Fiction, Asimov’s Robots, Dark at Heart, The Year’s Best Science Fiction (Fourth, Fifth, Seventh, Tenth and Eleventh Annual Collections), etc.

  His novelette, “Ginny Sweethips’ Flying Circus” was a finalist for both the SFWA NEBULA Award, and the Hugo Award, for best novelette of the year, and his story “Cush” was a Hugo nominee.

  His short story, “Stairs,” received a Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award.

  Barrett has a habit of crossing genre lines with his fiction. “Sallie C.,” from The Best of the West, and “Winter on the Belle Fourche,” from The New Frontier, were both chosen for Gardner Dozois’ Year’s Best Science Fiction.

  His novel, “Through Darkest America,” received acclaim from readers and critics alike. Reviewer Edward Bryant called it “A book of astonishing power...simply one of the best...”

  Book List

  The Aldair Quartet

  Aldair in Albion

  Aldair, Master of Ships

  Aldair, Across the Misty Sea

  Aldair, The Legion of Beasts

  Crime Fiction

  Pink Vodka Blues

  Dead Dog Blues

  Skinny Annie Blues

  Bad Eyes Blues

  YA Fiction

  The Prophecy Machine

  The Treachery of Kings

  Darkest and Dawn

  Through Darkest America

  Dawn’s Uncertain Light

  “Off-Center” Fiction

  Interstate Dreams

  PIGGS

  Prince of Christler-Coke

  Slightly Off Center

  The Hereafter Gang

  ‘70s and ’80s Science Fiction

  Highwood

  Kelwin

  Stress Pattern

  The Gates of Time

  The Karma Corps

  The Leaves of Time

  DISCOVER CROSSROAD PRESS

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  DANIEL BOONE: WESTWARD TRAIL

  Prologue

  The Dreamer: July 1755

  The rainwater had already run off some by the time Daniel made his way down from the wagons an hour after the first light, but the encampment still looked like a swamp. His ruddy young face broke into a grin at the sight. The heavy summer storm that had pounded the camp until just before dawn was over. Braddock’s troops looked more like ants plowed up from a furrow than tough British Regulars. Hundreds of tents had sagged and collapsed under the driving rain, and the bivouac streets were ankle-deep in Pennsylvania mud. A few fires crackled in the morning mist, but only in front of the officers’ tents. Nobody had worried about keeping the wood dry the night before, and the officers had appropriated what little had escaped the rain. Some fifteen hundred redcoats would start this day’s march with a cold breakfast in their bellies.

  Daniel couldn’t make sense of it, especially getting wet when you didn’t have to. A six-year-old man-child on the Yadkin River could sniff a downpour coming and pick high ground to sleep on. The boys from North Carolina and Virginia weren’t dry as biscuits this morning, but they weren’t hacking and blowing their noses all over camp either.

  If someone had told Daniel Boone when he joined the trek northward that Braddock’s famed grenadiers didn’t have sense enough to keep out of the rain, he’d have called the man a liar. But the long march to Fort Duquesne had taught him differently. The redcoats were good soldiers, but they didn’t have a spit’s worth of sense in the woods. He had seen them make blunder after blunder on the long trek through the wilderness. They had even tried to march in straight columns, as if they were walking right across some fiat green meadow in Europe instead of straight up and down the Endless Mountains.

  Daniel skirted the worst of the mud and made his way to higher ground near the center of camp. Without thinking, he removed his brand-new black felt hat and held his long rifle high to avoid the heavy, dripping branches on his left. The big tent with soldiers clustered around it would be General Braddock’s. Daniel was glad to find it so quickly. Now he could get rid of these damn papers and hike back to the wagons for some hot stew and dry moccasins. Carrying messages from one end of camp to the other wasn’t Daniel’s idea of proper work for a grown man. He had signed on in Fort Cumberland to do hauling—or, if he had to, fighting. This kind of business sure didn’t seem like either to him. ’Course you couldn’t tell that to Major Dobbs.

  Even if he was a North Carolina boy, he was a Regular all the same.

  The redcoat stepped out of line, brought his rifle down smartly and jerked it toward Daniel’s belly. Daniel stopped, looked at the sharp bayonet and grinned.

  “Hey, friend, I ain’t Shawnee or French, neither. I’m on your side, near as I can tell.”

  The redcoat didn’t smile. “This is officer country, farmer. Back away and go around.”

  Daniel
ignored the insult. “Well, it’s officers I got business with.” He held up the packet of papers. “Where you reckon I can find Captain McKenzie or Dr. Walker?”

  The soldier shook his head. “You got papers for the captain,” he said tersely, “you can give them to me.”

  “That ain’t exactly what the major told me to do,” Daniel explained. He looked at the redcoat a long moment. “You made your point real good. Now I’m going to ask you to aim that thing the other way, boy.”

  The redcoat’s mouth curled into a malicious grin. “You don’t listen, farmer. I said go around.” The sharp point of the weapon moved an inch forward, pricking Daniel’s stomach. Daniel swung his own rifle up fast and slammed the barrel hard against the Britisher’s head. The man’s eyes went blank, then he dropped the weapon and folded like a sack. A shout went up and Daniel saw a short, stubby officer and three grenadiers bearing down on him fast, weapons at the ready.

  “Hold off, Captain!”

  The Regulars stopped at the sound. Daniel turned to see a tall, stern-faced young man standing in the entry to his tent. The man glanced at the redcoat sprawled in the mud, then looked sharply at Daniel. “What the devil’s going on here?”

  Daniel respectfully tipped his hat, but before he could answer, the British officer stepped up smartly. “Sir, I’ll handle this.”

  The tall man didn’t look at him. “I’ll handle it myself, Captain.”

  “Sir,” the officer protested, “this fellow struck one of my men!”

  “Need I repeat myself, Captain?”

  The captain flushed and bit off his anger. With a dark look at Daniel, he turned and stalked off angrily through the mud. The soldiers picked up their companion and dragged him down the hill.

  “Now,” the tall man turned patient eyes on Daniel, “I’ll ask again. What happened out here?”

  “I got this ration list,” said Daniel. “Major Dobbs told me to bring it to Captain McKenzie—sir.” He added the last because the Regular had. The man wore no badge, but he clearly had some rank. “Reckon that feller didn’t think I ought to be here, so he put his sticker ’bout a foot in my gut. I didn’t much care for it.”

  “I see. And that’s all?”

  Daniel shrugged. “Yes, sir. Seemed like plenty at the time.”

  “What’s your name, soldier?”

  “Boone. Daniel Boone, from North Carolina, sir. Only I don’t guess I’m exactly a soldier. More like a teamster. I do some smithin’ work, too.”

  The man almost smiled. Daniel figured they were both about the same age, only the other’s air of authority made him seem older. He wore a buckskin jacket like his own, only newer and a hell of a lot cleaner, Daniel thought. He had the sure speech of an educated man, and his deep blue eyes looked right through you when he talked. But when the man fell silent, the thin lips of his wide mouth pressed tightly together. Too tightly, Daniel decided. There was clearly something ailing the man.

  “Sir, you all right?”

  The officer gave him a short, piercing look. “Boone, you think you can make your way back to the wagons without felling any more grenadiers? We’ll likely need them in the next few days.”

  Boone felt himself color and looked down at his feet. “Yes, sir. I’ll sure do that.”

  The man reached out and took the papers. “I’ll see these get to McKenzie. He’s out of camp this morning.”

  “Thank you,” said Daniel. “And I’m sure obliged to you for gettin’ me out of that scrape.”

  As the man nodded, Daniel noted the tiny beads of sweat on his cheeks and brow.

  “Take care, Boone. We’ll likely need teamsters up north, as well. My compliments to Major Dobbs.” With that, the officer turned and disappeared into his tent.

  Daniel was halfway to the wagons before he remembered he hadn’t learned the officer’s name. He sure couldn’t go back and ask. That would be plain foolish. But he would look an even bigger fool when he had to tell Dobbs he didn’t know who he had given the papers to. Damnation!

  Suddenly he stopped, alert and wary. He. had heard a rustling in the woods.

  “If I was a Injun, Daniel, I’d sure have me a fine scalp ’bout now,” a voice laughed.

  Daniel jerked around and brought up his rifle. The man stepped out of the trees. Boone grinned sheepishly and shook the man’s hand. “Howdy, Mr. Gist. Guess I was dreamin’ some.”

  “Guess you were, boy.” He raised a disapproving brow. “Bad habit to get into. ’Specially ’round here.”

  There weren’t many men who could stalk up behind Daniel that way, but Christopher Gist could, and Daniel felt no shame in it. Gist was a neighbor on the Yadkin, and his son Nat was Daniel’s best friend. But more than that, Christopher Gist was close to being the best woodsman on the frontier. There wasn’t a man anywhere better suited to head up Braddock’s scouts.

  “I got myself in kind of a mess back there,” Boone explained. He looked curiously at Gist. “You know the general’s officers, I reckon?”

  “Most of ’em,” Gist nodded. “Now tell me.” The tall man turned curious eyes on Daniel. He saw a lean frontiersman near his own height, with dark sandy hair plaited at the back. His face was gaunt, hollow-cheeked, his wide mouth curled at one corner with a hint of mischief. “What happened out there?”

  As Daniel told him the story, Gist managed to keep a straight face until he heard described the officer who had gotten young Boone out of the fracas. Then the scout’s grizzled cheeks split into a wide grin, and he laughed out loud. “Goddamn, boy, you sure can pick ’em!”

  Daniel looked blank. “You know him?”

  “Hell yes, I know him. That’s Colonel George Washington hisseif that saved your hide, Dan’l.”

  Daniel was taken aback. He knew who Washington was, all right, but had never laid eyes on him. Everyone on the frontier knew how the colonel had fought the French all the way up the Ohio until he finally got cornered at Fort Necessity. Gist had scouted out that trek, too. Washington had to surrender in the end, but he marched his men back proud, with flags flying.

  “The colonel didn’t look so well,” Daniel told Gist. “Appeared to me he was near to falling on his face.”

  Gist looked grim. “He’s got hisself a fever, Daniel. Been carryin’ him in a wagon since yesterday, which he don’t take to at all.” Gist shook his head and leaned on his rifle. “He’s a stubborn son of a bitch, but a good man. Better’n these goddamn British, for sure. Not a one of ’em knows where the hell we’re goin’ or what’s waitin’ up there. The colonel knows, and so do I.” He looked toward the north, then let his eyes rest again on Daniel. “Take a care, boy. Don’t walk into no hornets’ nests. You might get that pretty new hat dusty.”

  Daniel watched the tough old scout walk off toward camp. Everybody sure was worried about his health this morning. Both Gist and the colonel had already told him to take a care. Daniel figured it was fair advice. Like Gist said, he and Washington had been there and back again.

  Boone silently hoped they would meet up with the French, and the sooner the better. A good fight couldn’t be worse than hauling heavy wagons through the thick woods and rocky creeks of western Pennsylvania. Each day the pioneers scouting up front had to blaze a path for the train behind. It was slow going. More than a few of the hundred and fifty wagons they had started with had since fallen by the way, and the expedition was already near a month out of Fort Cumberland. At this rate, the French at Fort Duquesne would die of old age before Braddock could fight them.

  One of the men who worked under Commissary Walker told Boone that Dr. Ben Franklin, Pennsylvania’s postmaster, had warned Braddock against taking wagons in the first place. The trail to Fort Duquesne was tailor-made for an Indian ambush. Pack horses were a more practical solution, Franklin had insisted, but Braddock wouldn’t listen. When he demanded a full wagon train to support the army, Franklin had relented and procured him the wagons. Now the general had to live with his decision. Or more rightly, Daniel thought darkly, h
e and the other wagoners had to, spending day after day mending broken wheels and axles with split wood and spit.

  The best part of the trip, as far as he was concerned, was sitting around the evening campfire with the other teamsters. They were rough, hearty men, and he enjoyed their company. Most were hunters, traders or just plain roamers who had done a little of everything to provide for their bellies. They could tackle most any job that came along—shooting straight, blazing a trail or doctoring a horse if they had to, anything, Daniel figured, except sitting under one roof for too long. None of them were very good at that, especially Boone himself.

  In all his twenty-one years, he couldn’t remember when he hadn’t spent the better part of his time out of doors and away from other people. Back in Berks County, where he had grown up, it seemed like the natural thing to do. There had always been buff aid, deer, bear and beaver to hunt, and plenty of land to roam free.

  And always, Daniel remembered, there had been Indians about, Indians you could look at and talk to, and didn’t have to shoot. Daniel understood them, and liked to be around them. Better than whites, sometimes, though it wasn’t a good idea to talk that way these days, not with everybody’s cousin having friends and kin who had been scalped or murdered.

  It was hard to figure sometimes, especially now, with the Shawnees up there ahead somewhere, laying for white heads. He knew how the Indians felt. Hell, he thought that way himself more often than not. Knowing Indians, and now maybe having to kill a few, bothered him more than a little. He knew they had done plenty of killing, and worse. Somehow, though, that didn’t ease his mind much.

  Of all the men who could spin a tall tale around the fire, Daniel liked John Findley best. Findley was a short, wiry man with a bulbous nose, bright eyes, and a face lined with a map of his travels. He was a wagoner now, but he had spent the year before roaming about Kentucky, where he did some trading and hunting with the Indians. Boone listened in wonder when Findley spoke of it. Most of the men with the wagons had wandered a far piece, but there weren’t more than a handful of whites anywhere who had seen that fabled land. It seemed odd to Daniel that three of those men were in this very expedition: Findley, Christopher Gist, and Dr. Walker, the commissary.