Kings Pinnacle (37 page)

Big Mike and his men took
charge of turning the cannons around and firing them into the
fortifications at Verplanck’s Point, but the range was so great
that no significant damage was done.

“This isn’t worth the
trouble,” said the frustrated Big Mike.

“True. Let’s get these
cannons hitched up so that we can get them out of here,” replied
Ellison.

* * * *

Alex

When it was fully dark,
Alex, the Longhunter and Jonas slipped over the back wall of the
fort and ran to the trees, which were only a hundred yards behind
the fort. The Raven had not placed any of his Cherokee warriors
behind the fort, so it was a relatively easy task to get out of the
fort and melt into the trees. If everyone had left the fort over
the back wall, that would have been fine with the Raven and the
Cherokees. They could have waltzed in unmolested and burned
everything to the ground. The warriors had attacked the fort
several times during the afternoon and early evening, but they had
been forced back each time by musket fire from Alex’s men. Alex’s
marksmanship training was paying off in a big way, and several of
the braves had been carried off, either wounded or dead. At one
point, the braves had tried to scale the Fort Watauga palisade, but
a kettle of boiling water poured down from above them had stopped
that attempt dead in its tracks. The Cherokees were not foolish
enough to make any more attempts to scale the walls after
that.

All three men were carrying
muskets and pistols. Alex also carried his longbow and a quiver of
arrows strapped over his shoulder. Of course, each man also carried
one or more knives in sheaths at various places on his person or in
his clothes. The three men worked their way around the fort in the
trees until they were behind the warriors, with Martha and the
warriors between them and the fort.

The Cherokee braves were all
gathered in a circle around the stake where Martha was tied, and
were standing or sitting on the ground. They were getting settled
in to enjoy the entertainment of seeing her burning at the stake.
Alex counted only two braves watching the horses. He and his men
were positioned not very far back in the trees, where they also had
a good view of Martha tied to the stake. Alex, the Longhunter and
Jonas huddled in the trees and Alex whispered the order for them to
execute the initial part of the plan. Jonas and the Longhunter
would each take out a sentry, and Alex would work his way through
the brush to get as close as he could to Martha and the rest of the
warriors.

As soon as the Longhunter,
Jonas and Alex were positioned where they could accomplish their
missions, Alex pulled an arrow from his quiver that he had
specially prepared for this task. He had tied a small piece of
cloth around the arrow just behind the tip. The cloth had been
soaked in tar and the tar had some very flammable dry straw
embedded into it. He pulled out his flint and steel and struck
sparks on the tarred portion of the arrow. It took him several
moments to get the sparks to ignite the arrow. As soon as it was
blazing well, Alex notched the arrow into his bow string and lifted
up the bow at a forty-five degree angle above the horizon. Alex
quickly fired the flaming arrow high in a great sweeping arc,
directly over Martha and the Cherokees, toward the fort. Everyone
inside and outside the fort looked up and watched the arrow as it
soared across the dark sky. It finally stuck, still burning in the
ground about half way between the warriors gathered around the
stake and Fort Watauga.

As the fiery arrow was in
flight, several things happened at once. The Longhunter and Jonas
killed the two sentries with their knives. They had sneaked up
behind them and slit their throats as the guards raised their heads
up to watch the flaming arrow fly across the sky. Simultaneously,
the Fort Watauga gates opened, and Alex’s men, who had massed just
behind the gates, came streaming out of the fort yelling and
howling, running towards the warriors. The warriors saw the attack
coming toward them and momentarily forgot about the flaming arrow
and who might have fired it. They rose to the challenge by getting
up and running straight towards Alex’s men, bellowing war whoops.
As soon as the warriors were within a hundred yards of Alex’s men,
the militiamen stopped, fanned out, knelt down on one knee, cocked
their musket flintlocks, and almost simultaneously fired a volley
toward the attacking warriors. As soon as they had fired, they
immediately got up, turned around and ran back toward the fort,
with the Raven and his Cherokee warriors in hot pursuit.

At the same time this
skirmish was occurring, Alex ran out of the trees to the stake and
cut Martha loose, then ran with her back into the trees to
rendezvous with the Longhunter and Jonas.

“Well, the first half of the
plan worked perfectly. Let’s see if the second half does, too,”
said Alex to the Longhunter and Jonas while he held Martha’s
hand.

“It seems like I am always
rescuing you out of some sticky situation,” said Alex to Martha,
giving her a hug.

“Tell me something I don’t
know,” replied Martha, hugging him back.

Alex’s men reached Fort
Watauga ahead of the warriors and closed the gates and barred them
as the last man ran into the fort. The men scurried up the ladders,
up to the elevated walkways, where they could reload their muskets
and fire down on the attackers.

It didn’t take long for the
Raven and his braves to determine that they were losing too many
warriors too quickly and this attack was another disaster.
Realizing that they had been tricked, they withdrew from the
engagement and ran back toward the now-empty stake.

* * * *

Robert and Hugh

“
Robber do ye think it
might be getting too dark find a sulfur deposit anytime soon?”
asked Hugh.

Robert glanced over at Hugh
and kept riding south, following a promising valley several miles
west of Fort Watauga. They had just ridden through a pass and into
a valley that was bounded by mountain ridges to the east and west.
The two men had turned south southwest to follow a small stream
that flowed through the valley. Robert pulled his reins up to stop
his horse and got down to examine something he saw in the stream.
He waded out into the stream and picked up something yellow out of
it.

“What ye got there Robber;
is it sulfur?” asked Hugh.

“Nae,” answered Robert as he
examined what he had pick out of the stream. “It’s
gold.”

Hugh immediately jumped down
off his horse to examine the gold nugget. He took the nugget out of
Robert’s hand and bit down on it with his teeth. It was soft, as he
had suspected, and his bite left a small indention in the
nugget.

“It is gold alright,” said
Hugh. “We’re rich.”

“
No were not,” replied
Robert.

“
Why not?” asked
Hugh.

“
It’s only one
nugget.”

“Yeah, but I bet there’s
more around here.”

“Maybe you’re right and
maybe not.”

“Weel, let’s have a
look-see.”

“Okay, you wade back down
this stream looking for more nuggets, and I’m going to explore this
side stream that feeds into the creek right here, where the water
is a little warmer,” said Robert as he strode off into the brush
and up toward the ridge.

After some exploration,
Robert found a warm spring in a cleft located a short way up the
ridge, where it had pooled into a shallow rocky basin. When Hugh
finally gave up his fruitless search for more gold nuggets, he
followed the same side stream that Robert had traveled upward. When
Hugh arrived at the basin, he found Robert had stripped off all his
clothes. He was lying on his back almost asleep in the warm water,
relaxing in the mineral springs. Robert opened his eyes just as
Hugh walked up to the warm pool.

“Robber, can I get ye
something to drink, like wine or Scotch whiskey, lad?” asked the
grinning Hugh.

“Did you find any more
gold?” Robert asked, changing the subject.

“Nae, I guess we’re not
rich.”

“Do you smell anything in
this pool?” asked Robert.

“Aye, it smells rich like
minerals.”

“That’s the smell of sulfur
and some other elements. There must be a natural deposit of sulfur
around here somewhere since this spring smells of it. Sulfur
springs are said to have healing properties. You might want to get
in and join me. It’s too dark for any more exploration today
anyway.”

“Aye, I believe I will,”
said Hugh stripping off his clothes and wading into the pool to lie
down in the water across from Robert.

* * * *

Alex

“
Martha, keep running no
matter what I do behind you,” shouted Alex toward Martha’s back as
they ran through the trees.

Martha nodded and yelled,
“Okay”, raising her hand and waving as she ran, to indicate that
she had heard and understood. It was too dark for Alex to see her
nod and he didn’t hear her yell, but he did see her raise her hand
and wave, so he assumed that she had heard him and understood his
request. Alex, Martha, the Longhunter, and Jonas were running
through the trees in a wide circle around Fort Watauga headed
toward the Sycamore Shoals on the Watauga River, which was only a
short distance from the fort. Jonas led the way, followed by the
Longhunter, then Martha. Alex ran at the rear of the group. The
order that they were running in had been predetermined as a part of
the plan that Alex, Jonas, and the Longhunter had devised before
they climbed out of the back of the fort.

When the Cherokees arrived
at the empty stake, they knew in an instant what had happened and
how they had been tricked. It didn’t take them long to pick up the
trail and soon they were running behind Alex and closing the gap
quickly. Martha had not had time to tie up her skirts, so she was
slowing Alex down quite a bit. There was a widening gap between her
and the Longhunter. That was fine with Alex because it was also
part of the plan.

When the Cherokees closed
the gap and got close enough to Alex, he stopped, turned around and
dropped to one knee. He pulled the loaded pistol from his belt,
cocked his flintlock, and fired a ball into the chest of the
leading pursuer. The Cherokees slowed their charge as Alex stood
up, turned around, and ran back toward Martha. It didn’t take him
long to catch up with Martha, but the maneuver had served its
purpose and given the Longhunter and Jonas time to increase their
lead on him and Martha.

Sycamore Shoals is a wide,
rocky stretch of river rapids where the Watauga River flows over a
shallow bottom. It was used by the early settlers who lived in the
area as a convenient place to ford the river. However, recent rains
in the upper Watauga watershed had increased the flow of the
Watauga to a swifter torrent. In normal times, one could wade
across the Watauga at Sycamore Shoals because the water depth there
was usually no more the knee high. But the recent rains had raised
the water level to entirely cover the rocks, and it was flowing
very rapidly. It was not an easy task to wade across with the water
with it running so swiftly. It was almost chest deep in some
places.

There was normally a birch
bark canoe tied up on each bank of the Watauga River at Sycamore
Shoals. These two canoes were the property of the entire community
and were used to ferry across the river both dry goods and people
who did not want to get wet. Jonas and the Longhunter arrived at
Sycamore Shoals well ahead of Alex and Martha. They struggled
across the river in the high, fast-flowing water and gathered both
canoes, positioning them in the shallows near the fort side bank.
As a result, the canoes were located where they would be easy to
board and paddle away into the downstream river flow.

As Alex approached the
Watauga River, where he knew that Jonas and the Longhunter were
waiting with the canoes, he repeated his maneuver of stopping,
turning around, and dropping to one knee. This time he raised
Slayer, cocked his flintlock, and killed the leading Cherokee
pursuer dead on the trail. This bought him and Martha a little more
precious time as they raced toward the river. As soon as they
reached the shallows just ahead of the braves, Martha and Alex
boarded one of the canoes, with Alex in the rear paddling position.
Jonas and the Longhunter boarded the other canoe, with the
Longhunter in the rear paddling position, as they all pushed off
into the river. Jonas and the Longhunter took the lead since they
could paddle faster than Alex and Martha. They paddled as fast as
they could to get themselves out into the middle of the river and
headed downstream with the river flow.

The warriors soon arrived at
the river and began to run along the bank, paralleling the canoes,
while firing arrows at them whenever they found a break in the
dense foliage that grew along the river bank. The darkness and the
bouncing, moving canoes made it almost impossible to score a hit
with a bow and arrow. Alex watched them as he and Martha paddled.
To his amazement, the Raven, who was the young warrior that he and
Martha had nursed back to health, raced ahead of the others along
the bank. The Raven was very swift, almost as fast as Alex, and
soon he had even raced ahead of the canoes.