Follow the River Read Free

straight broadsword, as long as an ordinary man stood tall, and it weighed as much as an axe. It had been passed down through his family along with a legend that it had belonged to some ancestor who had been a Scottish Highland chieftain. Its hilt was made to be held by two hands, and an ordinary man needed two hands to wield it. But old James Patton, who was four inches over six feet tall, had always been able to swing it, with equal facility, by either hand, and could do so even now as a sixty-three-year-old widower. Though it was too precious to use as an everyday tool, James Patton had found occasion in camp or in the fields to lop down thick hardwood saplings or branches with this great weapon, usually in a single stroke.
    The dazzling doorway suddenly was darkened. At the same moment, a woman’s voice screamed outdoors. Colonel Patton looked up from his word gathering, and his heart leaped. Two painted Indians had entered, each with a raised tomahawk, and as James Patton grabbed the handle of his great sword, he saw others at the door.
    The colonel wasted no time getting free of the furniture.Rather, he exploded into a standing position, hurling the heavy table at the Indians with an upsweep of his left arm while the chair fell backward with a clatter behind him. The flying table slammed one of the braves back against the doorway. The second warrior had nimbly sidestepped, and with a gurgling yell he aimed a tomahawk blow at the old man’s forehead. But the broadsword swished, glittering, and the warrior felt a strange tug in his shoulder and saw his forearm fall to the floor, spurting dark blood. It was the last thing the warrior saw; the great sword whiffed again and his head rolled on the cabin floor.
    Another warrior was in the doorway. He saw the terrible old man advancing on him holding the long, bloody sword by both hands and roaring with fury. As the brave raised his tomahawk to strike, the old man grunted and swung and the sword came around and passed through the Indian’s waist, parting everything but his spine. The Indian sagged, his bloody intestines spilling out.
    Colonel Patton tried to ready his sword for the next Indian in the doorway, but at the end of his last great upward swipe, the point of the blade had jabbed two inches deep into one of the low ceiling beams. Blood ran down the blade to the hilt and reddened Colonel Patton’s hands. And as he strained to free the weapon from the wood, the Shawnee on the threshold took aim and pulled the trigger of his musket. There was a roaring orange flash, and a musketball smashed through Colonel Patton’s temple into his brain.
    The Indians crouched in the doorway speechless for a moment in the blue powder-smoke and watched the white-haired giant begin to fall. One bloody hand slipped off the sword hilt, and then the other, and his huge body bumped to the floor.
    The hilt of the embedded claymore thrummed up and down, spraying blood onto the corpse.
    Bettie Draper was running hard now toward the Ingleses’ cabin, her crying baby clutched in her right arm. She saw Mary Ingles standing dumbstruck on the doorstoop in the sunlight with a bundle over her shoulder. And the Indians, their presence now revealed by Bettie’s alarm, broke theirsilence with yelps and howls. They sounded like a hundred devils wailing in the valley.
    One of the warriors pursuing Bettie stopped in his tracks, aimed his musket and fired.
    Her scream broke off in a gasp of pain as the musketball broke her right arm. The infant fell to the ground and Bettie spun away, falling to her knees. Her face was chalky with shock. She saw her baby lying sprawled in the grass a few feet away; she saw lithe, yipping savages running toward him with their tomahawks and clubs.
    Bettie lurched back to her feet, ran to where the baby lay, scooped him up from the ground with her good arm and continued running.
    Bettie’s plight at last jolted Mary into action. She dropped her bundle of clothing and turned