Background
78-year-old Roseanna Carter is relaxing on her porch, in a rocking chair, after a Sunday dinner with her kin.surrounded by her she begins telling a tale of the frontier.
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He jerked awake.
He didn't move, all his senses were attuned to his environment. Men in his predicament who dozed off usually didn't wake up.
Doolittle Carter was a big man, an inch over six foot and he weighed nearly 240 pounds. A dark brown beard obscured most of his face And his shoulder length hair could have used a barber. He felt every ounce of that weight because for three days he had led a small band of Shawnees on a merry chase through the Ohio Valley. Doo, as he was known, considered the Ohio Valley his personal hunting and trapping grounds.
But so did the Shawnee.
Doo was afraid of no man. He could out wrassle, out drink, out cuss, out fight, and out race any man on the frontier, except maybe Dan'l Boone. But when he saw five Shawnee braves pawing through his camp, self preservation kicked in he hadn't thought twice, he dropped his traps where he stood, turned and ran.
The Shawnees were alerted by the rattle of the traps. They let out a howl and began to give chase. Doo never gave a second thought about leaving his winter catch of furs and his horse behind . Though he did wish he could have gotten his horse.
As he was running he was looking for a place that offered him some protection and he could hold the Indians at bay. He quickly discarded this thought because he knew if he stopped it would be for a last stand. And he wasn't ready for that.
For two days. The Shawnees had been on his trail. He had been making his way East, towards the river, where he had a canoe cached. The Shawnees had been persistent in the chase, but it ceased being fun for them when Doo had given one of the braves a trip to the happy hunting grounds with rifle ball in the forehead. The four remaining Shawnee had become deadly serious in the chase. Some people just don't have a sense of humor, Doo thought.
It was the afternoon of the second day when Doo lost his footing going down a ravine. The slide to the bottom left him no worse for wear. But the stock of his Lancaster rifle had splintered, rendering the weapon useless. This ain't good, Doo thought.
Armed with only a knife and a hatchet, Doo poured on the speed like his life depended on it, because it did. The first bit of luck that smiled on Doo was when the sky opened up and let loose with a gully washer. "It's raining like a cow pissing on a flat rock," Doo thought.
Doo figured on forging ahead through the storm, trying to build a lead on his pursuers.
Thankful his tracks would be wiped out. The rain came down so hard visibility was so poor he couldn't see his hand in front of his face. Doo found a pine tree, he parted the limbs and backed his way to the trunk. It didn't offer much protection, but it would conceal him unless they got close.
Last night's rain had left him shivering and his buckskins clammy. He was exhausted, tired, hungry, and needed to poop real bad. He knew staying put wasn't an option. Maybe if the Shawnees lost the trail the rest of the trip to the river would be peaceful.
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Swooping Eagle's brow furrowed. The rain had washed away the trail of the white man. Normally he'd have given up by now. But the one shot the white man had taken killed his brother Laughing Otter.
Prior to that, his plan if he caught the white man was to make him run the gauntlet and adopt him into the tribe. Then he killed Laughing Otter, the plan now was to roast him slowly after the woman had tormented him. That brown scalp will look good on my war club, he thought.
The best tracker in the group was Black Hoof.
"The rain has washed away the trail," Black Hoof observed.
"He has been heading to where the sun rises for the past two days," Swooping Eagle said. "we should keep heading that way, maybe we'll cross his trail.
"We should go back to his camp, get the horse and divide up his furs," Stalking Panther said.
Swooping Eagle looked at Lonesome Owl for guidance. Lonesome Owl was the oldest and presumed to be the wisest.
"It was not my brother killed, If it had been I would follow the white man to whatever hole he slithered out of." Lonesome Owl said.
Swooping Eagle grunted. Stalking Panther rolled his eyes. Black Hoof could care less, every day away from the village was another day away from his fat, nagging wife.
"We'll look around for today then we'll go back to his camp," Swooping Eagle declared.
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Doo decided to try for the river, he was close , close enough to smell it. Keeping with the contours of the ridge he was on Doo made his way down to a meadow. This didn't look good, too much open space to cross, but he could now hear the rushing of the headwaters of the Ohio River.
He started across when he heard a "Pffht" go past his ear. An arrow had materialized where he was about to step. He looked behind him, and there about 150 yards up the ridgeline were those damned Shawnees. Even though it had missed, Doo was impressed by the shot. That was a helluva distance and he had just barely missed him.
Doo made a beeline for some woods, the river sounding louder as he entered them. Another "Pffht" sound and an arrow was quivering out of a maple tree trunk about a foot to his left. A glance back told him the savages had closed up the distance to 75 yards. Doo kept running as fast as he could, all of a sudden he found himself standing at a chasm the river flowed through.
He gauged the fall to be about 50 feet. Doo had never looked down on something from above before and the height to the river made his stomach tie itself into knots and do flip flops. He hesitated at the edge.
A glance backward and Doo saw a Shawnee pulling back an arrow. He was close enough to see the cruel smile on the Injun's face. It was now or never, Doo walked over the edge into thin air.
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Swooping Eagle was set to deliver a crippling shot with his bow. He saw the white man's look of panic as he glanced back at him.
Then the white man did something none of the party expected, he walked off of the cliff.
Black Hoof and Stalking Panther were shocked. Lonesome Owl was impressed at the white man's dedication to not being caught. Swooping Eagle was mad.
"That coward jumped instead of facing Shawnee justice," Swooping Eagle fumed.
Looking down the chasm, Lonesome Owl was still impressed when he said, "You have to admit he had some big hanging pears to make that jump."
Swooping Eagle just grunted.
Author Notes
Here it is, Wilderness Road Redemption Chapter 1. Be kind, I'm putting mysef way out there with this project. If you like it tell your friends.
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