Beyond the Quiet Hills (25 page)

“I think we ought to do something to help our relationships with the Cherokee.”

James Robertson stared at him for a moment with surprise. “What were you thinking of, Hawk?”

“I've been talking to Elizabeth, and we came up with the plan to give a feast to honor the Cherokee.” He ran his hand over his coal black hair and added, “You remember your history. The Pilgrims did that for their Indian friends.”

“That's not a bad idea,” Carter said.

“No, it's not,” Robertson added quickly. “We could have a feast and games and races. . . .”

After some talk it was decided, by general consensus, to have the meeting a year later, for it would take time to spread the word to all the Cherokee and to the settlers, and to provide enough food to go around.

“Sequatchie and Paul will spread the word to the Cherokee,” Hawk said. “Daniel Boone's in the area. He travels everywhere, and he can spread the word to the settlers wherever he goes.”

At this moment Sequatchie walked in with George Stevens. Stevens was holding a young man by the arm, and an odd expression was on his face.

“What's this, George?” James Robertson asked.

“This is Hiram Younger. He just moved into the community last week.”

Younger was a very small young man of some seventeen or eighteen years of age. He had carrot red hair and pale blue eyes that he lifted nervously to watch the men of the court.

“I expect this is a job for you, Sheriff,” Stevens said, looking at Hawk.

“What's he done?” Hawk demanded. “He doesn't look like a very bad sort.” He saw the relief that crossed the young man's features and wondered what sort of a crime he had committed.

“Well,” Stevens said, “this morning Deborah baked some pies and bread. She put them outside to cool, and when she heard somethin', she went to the window. She saw Hiram running away. I was right there and I caught up with him. Brought him right here.”

Robertson tried not to smile, but he could not help it. “Well, Younger, did you do it?”

“No, sir. I didn't do it. I was just passing by.”

Hawk was amused, as were the other men. “Why were you running, then?”

“I . . . I was just in a hurry.”

“A hurry, were you? What about those bread crumbs on your mouth?”

Hiram Younger's eyes flew open, and he swiped his hand across his mouth.

“You didn't even have time to wipe your face,” Hawk said.

“I didn't mean no harm. I was so hungry and it smelled so good.”

Robertson winked at Hawk and Carter. “I think stealing pies and cakes and bread is a pretty serious offense. Hanging, wouldn't you say?”

“Oh no! Don't hang me!”

“Well, a whipping at least,” Carter said.

George Stevens saw that the young man was distraught. “I don't want that to happen. It was just one loaf of bread, really. I just want him to stop stealing.”

Some discussion went on about a fit punishment, and finally Carter said, “What do you think, Sheriff?”

Hawk looked over at Sequatchie, seeing the light of humor in the dark eyes. “What do you think, Sequatchie?”

“I think you can just spread the word among the community. Tell them there's a bread thief loose.”

Hawk grinned and said, “All right, Younger. You got a new name.”

“A new name?”

“That's right. Your name is Bread Rounds Younger. I hereby make it official. Now, get out of here.”

Younger immediately whirled as soon as Stevens released him and fled through the door. The men all laughed, and as he disappeared they all called out, “Good-bye, Bread Rounds!”

“I wish all crimes were that minor in this part of the woods,” Hawk murmured. It had been a time of relaxation, and he made a note to find the young man and let him know that he had at least one friend in the community.

****

A few weeks after the Bread Rounds incident, Hawk and Sequatchie were helping George Stevens build an addition to his cabin. It was Stevens who said, “I haven't seen Bread Rounds much lately.”

Hawk was helping to lift a log into place and waited until the ends fell into the notches they had made with their axes before answering. “He left the settlement.”

“Left? I didn't know that,” Stevens said. He took his neckerchief out of his hip pocket, wiped his face, and grinned. “He didn't steal any more bread.”

“No, but everybody called him Bread Rounds. I don't think he could take that.”

“It wasn't much of a punishment,” Sequatchie observed. “Among my people it would have been worse.”

“I expect so,” Hawk said, “but all the young people took to following him around and calling him Bread Crumbs and offering him crusts of bread, even the little ones.”

George laughed and shook his head. “Well, I guess Hiram learned his lesson.”

Sequatchie picked up his ax and started notching the next log to be fitted into place. “It is good that we have law in Watauga, even for things like stealing bread.”

Chapter Eighteen

Iris and Amanda

Shifting Hannah from one hip to the other, Elizabeth glanced down at the infant and smiled.
Ten months old
, she thought,
and it seems like only yesterday that she was born. But time has gone by so quickly
.

Spring was slipping away and summer was fast approaching. Rumors from the coast had brought ill tidings, or so it seemed. The patriots in Boston and New England were taking more stringent action against the British. War talk drifted over the Misty Mountains, but by the time it reached Watauga, all of the action on the coast seemed as distant as if it were in China.

“Doesn't seem a year since Abigail's fifteenth birthday, does it, Elizabeth?” Rhoda Anderson was walking alongside Elizabeth, and now she reached over and said, “Let me carry Hannah for a while.”

“She's heavy as lead, Rhoda,” Elizabeth warned but gladly surrendered her burden. She smiled as Hannah crowed and reached up to pull Rhoda's hair, which was hanging freely down her back. Getting a fistful she gave it a hearty yank, and Rhoda said, “Ouch! That hurts!” She leaned over and kissed the baby and, with admiring eyes, said, “She's the most beautiful child I've ever seen.”

“She looks like her father, I think. Don't you?”

“Her face is shaped like his, but I can see you in her, too—especially around her eyes.”

Deborah Stevens, who was walking behind the two women, accompanied by Sarah MacNeal, disagreed. “I don't think she looks like either one of you.”

“She does, too!” Sarah protested. “She looks like Ma!”

The argument went on for some time until finally they turned on the path that led to the Taylor place. As usual, Elizabeth was depressed by the homestead, for Zeke Taylor did no work on it that was not actually required. Several pigs were rooting in the yard, and there was only a small bed of flowers that brought a bit of color to the dilapidated landscape.

“I wish Zeke would take more pride,” Rhoda murmured. “Iris loves nice things, and yet she never has anything.”

“No, and it's hard to help them,” Elizabeth said. “Zeke gets angry. He says he's not going to take charity.”

The group had approached the cabin, and it was Sarah who said, “I think I hear something.”

Elizabeth cocked her ear as they approached the door but shook her head. “I don't hear anything.” She knocked, and even as she did her ears caught a faint sound. “That sounds like someone crying,” she said.

“It sounds like Iris,” Abigail Stevens said. She had been tagging behind picking flowers and now had a small bouquet in her hands, but her eyes were troubled. Deborah looked at Elizabeth and said, “Maybe you and I ought to go in alone.”

“All right,” Elizabeth said. She pushed at the door, found it open, and when she stepped inside, was shocked to see the furniture scattered wildly about, overturned, the chairs upside down, and broken dishes on the floor. She paid no heed to that, however, for her eyes fell on Amanda, who was kneeling beside her mother, who was obviously unconscious.

“Amanda!” Elizabeth cried. “What happened?” She rushed up and knelt beside the unconscious woman and noticed that Amanda had a big raw welt on her cheek.

“I been trying to get her to wake up, but she won't,” Amanda said, tears streaming down her face.

Deborah Stevens said, “I'll get some water.” She moved outside to the pump, picking up a tall pewter basin on the way. When she came back, she snatched up a towel, dipped it in the water, and kneeling beside the unconscious woman, she began to dab at Iris's face. Her lips grew tense, for Iris had obviously taken a severe beating. Her eyes were swollen, and a cut on her mouth was bleeding. Anger welled up inside Deborah, but she said nothing, for she knew, as well as Elizabeth, who was responsible.

Elizabeth was struggling with her own feelings. She had grown very close to Iris Taylor, and Amanda, as well, over the long months on the frontier. During the trip out she had felt a sympathy for the woman and the child being tied to such a man as Zeke Taylor, and now as she half supported Iris, anger built up in her.
I'd like to see Zeke Taylor beat with a blacksnake whip!
she thought. But she said none of this. “What happened, Amanda?” she asked.

Amanda dropped her head. It was a customary gesture with her. She had formed the habit when she was but a child. Elizabeth believed it was a reflex action to avoid meeting the eyes of her father, and now she reached her hand out and took the girl's hand. “What is it? Tell me about it.”

Rhoda stepped inside the door at this time and came to stand over Iris. Her back straightened and her eyes glowed with a sudden anger. “Who did this?”

“It's all right for you to tell, Amanda. Was it Indians?”

Amanda shook her head. “No,” she whispered. “It was Pa.”

Deborah nodded as if her thoughts had been confirmed. “Where is he, Amanda?”

“I don't know. He left.”

“We've got to get Iris and Amanda away from here,” Elizabeth said.

Rhoda and Deborah agreed, and they continued to minister to the injured woman until she regained consciousness. “You've got to come with us, Iris. You can't stay here,” Elizabeth said firmly.

Iris Taylor was dazed. She could barely see out of her eyes, and she lifted one hand as she shook her head. “No . . . I can't—!”

“Yes, you can,” Rhoda said firmly. “You get her things together, Deborah. I'll go hitch the horse up to the wagon. She's not able to walk.”

“Yes,” Deborah nodded firmly. “We'll make a pallet for you in the wagon.”

Iris protested faintly but could not stand up to the determination of the three women. Half an hour later she was half carried out to the wagon by the three women. They helped her into the wagon, and she slumped back faintly as Amanda got in beside her and whispered, “Don't worry, Ma. It'll be all right.” She looked at the cabin with fear in her eyes and reached up and touched the welt on her face.
I hope I never have to come back here
, she thought, and bitterness rose to her throat. Shutting her eyes, she lay back and put her arm around her mother and held tightly to her as Rhoda spoke to the horses sharply and the wagon lurched off.

****

“Can you tell us what happened, Iris?”

Elizabeth was sitting on the bed beside the injured woman, her eyes troubled. She had decided to bring her to her own home, and Amanda had stepped outside with Sarah and Abigail. They were in the next room, and Elizabeth heard them trying to distract the girl with talk of Abigail's upcoming sixteenth birthday party.

Elizabeth reached out and took Iris's work-hardened hand, and compassion filled her heart as she studied the battered face. “What happened to make Zeke do this, Iris?”

For a moment Elizabeth did not think Iris meant to answer. She sat quietly holding the thin hand until finally Iris moved her head from side to side. She spoke in a half whisper, saying, “For a time Zeke's been good—he changed after Hawk had his talk with him. And I been prayin', Elizabeth, and tryin' to live for the Lord so that I could be a witness to Zeke.”

“Did he show any signs of really changing? I mean deep down?”

“Well, he treated us better.” Iris paused, then added, “I tried to talk to him about Jesus, but the more I talked, the more he sort of pulled away.”

“He's been running around with Crabtree and other men like that.”

“That was the trouble,” Iris said wearily. “He began to drink. Not in front of me and Amanda at first, but I found out about it. Then I told him that he didn't need whiskey. It made him do bad things. He told me to just leave him alone. No one was going to tell him what to do anymore.” She hesitated, then said, “He cussed Hawk and said not even Hawk Spencer was gonna tell him what to do.”

Elizabeth sat quietly listening as the frail woman spoke of how she had prayed harder and harder, and wondered why she had ever married such a man. She tried to imagine a youthful Zeke and Iris, but her imagination couldn't seem to picture it with the disturbed feelings she had at the moment.

“One day,” Iris continued, “a few months ago he came in drunk. He was all mad because the crop was bad. At least that's what he said.” She turned her head from side to side, her lips twisting with the pain. “I hate to say it about my own husband, but it was his own fault. He didn't work the crop right, but he blamed me. That was when he hit me for the first time since Hawk warned him.”

“What did you do, Iris?”

“Well, I stayed away from him, and the next day he told me he was sorry.”

“Why didn't you leave him?”

“I . . . I couldn't do that. I married him and promised to stay with him,” she said simply. “I wanted him to come to know the Lord so bad, and I thought maybe if I stayed it would help.”