Beyond the Quiet Hills (17 page)

Boone shifted his feet. His eyes moved constantly, now on one of the men in front of him, then moving from point to point, never stopping. He was alert to his world in a way that few men were, and finally he said, “I think you did the right thing going to the Cherokee. I'd rather have them as landlords than most white men I could mention.”

“The English want the Cherokee to force the settlers out,” Sequatchie observed.

“I know they do, but they ain't always going to get what they want,” Boone said.

“It's not official yet,” Hawk said.

“If the Little Carpenter gave his word, then the thing is over.” He looked to Sequatchie for confirmation, and the Cherokee nodded silently. “I heard about the trouble that you had on your last trip,” Boone said abruptly.

Hawk glanced at the cabin and said quickly, “I didn't tell Elizabeth anything about that. As a matter of fact, I don't tell her
everything
.”

Andrew and Jacob grinned, and it was Andrew who said, “If
we
don't hear
everything
, we might let something slip to Ma that says she doesn't know everything.”

Hawk groaned and looked up at the heavens. “Later I'll tell you all about it. Come along, now—Elizabeth will be pleased to see you all. . . .”

****

Only rarely did the entire body of settlers along the Watauga River come together. True, some of them were collected into the small settlement, but others were in far-flung parts of the area. However, word sent out by James Robertson and William Bean had its effect, and the largest structure available was utilized for the meeting. This proved to be the cabin where they stored powder and other essential supplies. All these were cleaned out and set outside while the crowd gathered.

Hawk took a stand along the wall and cast his eyes around the crowded room. He noted Sequatchie, Paul Anderson, and George Stevens grouped together, while Zeke Taylor, James Robertson, William and John Bean, and John Carter, of the Carter Valley settlement, were at the other end of the room. He was glad to see Jacob Brown of the Nolichucky settlement and Daniel Boone standing close together by a large window.

The women were there, too, and even some of the young people, but they were set apart by themselves, more observers than anything else. Andrew stood beside his sister, Sarah, but his attention was mostly on Abigail Stevens.

Jacob had noticed Abigail, too, thinking how pretty she was. She had worn a dusky rose-colored cotton dress decorated with white lace and pretty pink rosettes on the elbow-length sleeves, and her complexion seemed to have matured even more during the brief time since Jacob had come to the settlement.

William Bean rose to call the meeting to order, and after asking Paul Anderson to lead them in prayer, he launched into a brief discussion of the necessity for a meeting. “We're isolated out here,” Bean said, “with no protection whatsoever. We need to have a system of law and order, and this meeting is called to see that that is provided.”

Bean spoke the truth concerning the isolation of Watauga. The settlement was outside the jurisdiction of Virginia and located far enough from North Carolina that it seemed to be in another world. A vast forest wilderness and a towering range of mountains separated the small community from the Colonies, and it was not only a matter of geography. The Wataugans were classified by the British government as mere squatters on Indian land, and sooner or later, as Bean pointed out, the British would send troops to force them off of their land. “We are not part of the Colonies,” Bean said firmly, “and out here we are as little protected by the government as the bears in the forest.”

James Robertson spoke up. “I agree with all that William says—and there's another matter.” Robertson was an impressive man with a full voice and a tall, commanding figure. “We're in danger of becoming a haven for every debtor and felon who flees from the Colonies. We all know that many of them have already headed in this direction, and I for one want to make it clear to men such as these that Watauga will not be such a settlement.”

The meeting went on for some time, and finally William Bean said, “We are determined, then, to form our own association for governing the area. Since we have proposed our own agreement to lease the land from the Cherokee, we feel that we are able to do our governing better than anyone back in Virginia or North Carolina.”

At this moment a loud voice rose and everyone turned to see Zeke Taylor, who had lurched to his feet. His face was red and his eyes were bloodshot. He was obviously drunk, or close to it. Always a surly man, and with no ability to put his views forward in a mild fashion, he shouted, “I'm against it! I wouldn't trust these dirty Indians as far as I could throw one of them! We've got to stick to our own kind, and do away with the redskins!”

Hawk glanced immediately at Sequatchie, who remained leaning stoically against the wall. His face did not change, but Hawk knew his friend well. He saw a glint of anger in Sequatchie's usually placid eyes.

“I say Zeke is right.”

William Isaac Crabtree of Wolf Hills was a tall, rawboned man with a full beard. His brother had been killed on the frontier, and he never let an opportunity slip to blame the Indians and vent his hatred upon them. For some time he stood, trying to remain calm as he spoke against the Cherokee, but finally his anger boiled over like bile, and he shouted, “I say we've got a right to this land, and I ain't payin' a penny to any redskins for it!”

“I think you're wrong, Crabtree.”

Daniel Boone suddenly stepped forward and everyone in the room fell silent. His reputation was beyond measure, the most respected in the valley. Indeed, he was the one man west of the Appalachian Mountains—the Misty Mountains as he called them—who was known throughout the Colonies. He had left his musket inside the door, as had all the other men, and Hawk thought he looked almost naked without it. But still there was a power, almost a dangerous aspect, to Boone as he glanced at the faction that had obviously been brought by Zeke Taylor and William Crabtree. When he spoke his voice was quiet, but there was a strength like a band of steel in it.

“You were right in settling with the Cherokee. It was their land, and we can't steal it from them.” Boone saw agreement go through most of the men and the women who were listening and continued. “Leasing from the Cherokee is the best way to stay in the area.” He spoke persuasively and swayed the crowd, finally ending by saying, “If we treat the Indians fairly, they'll treat us fairly. Eventually I think they'll sell the land, then it'll be yours without question.”

A fierce argument began then—Zeke Taylor and Crabtree maintaining vehemently that they would never cooperate with the Indians. Boone, Robertson, and Bean held to a more moderate course and insisted that the pressing need was for an association to band themselves together.

It ended abruptly when Taylor and Crabtree left the meeting. Taylor forced Iris and Amanda to leave with him, and Elizabeth watched with concern as the family left. She leaned over and whispered to Rhoda, who was sitting beside her, “I'm worried about Zeke's family. They look so fearful.” But there was nothing to be done for it, although she had purposed in her heart at that moment to be more careful to visit the Taylors regularly.

After Taylor and Crabtree had left, the meeting went smoothly. William Bean nominated John Carter as chairman of the court of the association, and he was duly elected. The other four members were James Robertson, his brother Charles Robertson, Zachariah Isbell, and Jacob Brown. Bean himself declined to serve.

Quickly two officers of the court were appointed. Long hunter James Smith was named as clerk. Then to Hawk's astonishment he himself was nominated and quickly elected as sheriff of the association. Hawk stood up to say quickly, “I don't have any experience as an officer of the law.”

“Then you'll get it as you go along.” Robertson smiled at him, and a murmur of approval went up from all those gathered.

This ended the formal meeting, but very quickly the “Written Articles of the Association” on which their government was based were set down on paper.

Hawk sat through all of this, and Elizabeth whispered to him, “I'm so proud of you, Hawk, that you're the sheriff of the Watauga Association.”

“I could have done without it,” Hawk murmured. He was aware that his sons were watching him with pride, but he was thinking,
I might have to sit down hard on Zeke Taylor, and I don't know exactly how to handle that
.

Daniel Boone stepped forward, his hand out to Hawk. “Couldn't have been a better choice for sheriff,” he smiled.

“Don't know about that, Daniel,” Hawk said. “I'll do my best.”

“Reckon your best is all the men want—and it'll be prime, Hawk. You can do 'er!”

The meeting was adjourned, and as the settlers of Watauga left, there was a new feeling of unity. All of them felt that somehow their precarious position as squatters had been improved. Tomorrow might bring the British to run them off their land, or they might be attacked by marauding Indians, but these brave settlers had learned to live one day at a time. Now that they had law, government, officers—men of honor—the sun seemed to shine on the Wataugans.

Chapter Twelve

A Little Fishing

Spring of 1772 proved to be a gusty season, bringing mild sunshine and an explosion of greenery throughout the valley. Everywhere plows were pulled by mules, oxen, and horses, turning over the rich loam and laying it in neat furrows as the ground was prepared to receive the seed. It was a time of peace, something that came rarely to the frontier. The Indians were quiet, at least for the time being, and no wandering bands of Choctaw or Chickasaw had come close to Watauga.

The homestead that Hawk and his family claimed as their part of the wilderness burst into blossom. Elizabeth had put out the flower seeds that Hawk had brought back from Williamsburg and tended them carefully. When the first yellow and red blossoms appeared, her cries of delight had brought Andrew around the side of the house. He had been working in the garden with Jacob and Sarah, and now he said anxiously, “What is it, Ma?”

“Look, Andrew,” Elizabeth breathed, bending over to touch one of the tender blossoms. “Aren't they beautiful?”

Andrew's eyes lit up with amusement. “Oh, Ma . . . I thought it was more than an old flower! I thought at least the pigs had gotten into the cabin.”

Elizabeth paid him no attention for a time. For her, the flowers represented civilization. She had grown up with flowers and knew their names, their odors, and when they would bloom, whether to plant them in the shade or the sun. Now as she stroked the blossoms her mind was back in Boston where she had grown up as a girl with a garden that included whole banks of flowers such as these. Turning, she smiled, saying, “It makes me feel like home, Andrew. Don't you remember the garden there?”

“Why, sure I do, Ma,” Andrew said quickly. Truthfully, the past was fading quickly for him, for his whole life was taken up with the homestead and the surrounding wilderness. He had quickly become a son of the frontier. To him, the world to the east of the Misty Mountains was becoming more vague and more indistinct with each passing day. From time to time, he had a fleeting desire to return to see his friends, his grandparents, and other relatives, but the mountains had captivated him.

“They're very pretty, Ma. I'll help you get the weeds out of them after I get through in the garden.”

“Thank you, Andrew.”

Moving back around the cabin, Andrew strolled toward the garden patch, which was much larger than any of the neighbors possessed. Hawk had insisted, “We're going to have vegetables to give away this fall, and we'll have the biggest garden in the whole settlement.”

Now Andrew lifted his eyes and saw that it was, indeed, a large garden for such a small family. He ticked off in his mind the various vegetables: two full rows of potatoes, a row of sweet potatoes, corn, okra, squash, peas, green beans. Closer to the outer limits grew the salad vegetables: radishes, carrots, onions, and other succulent plants. They were already pushing their way through the soil, and it was Andrew and Jacob's job to keep the deer and the rabbits out. The dogs did that pretty well, but Andrew knew they would have trouble with the raccoons when the corn began to tassel.

He moved over to where Jacob and Sarah were hoeing weeds in a leisurely fashion, and for a while he joined them. He and Jacob laughed as he dug up a juicy, fat, wiggling worm and ran over, threatening to put it down Sarah's dress. She squealed, dropped her hoe, and fled, but he caught her easily and pinioned her with his strong arms, saying, “You'll have to give me your piece of pie tonight if you don't want this worm down your dress.”

“You let me go, Andy!” Sarah's eyes were bright and flashing, and although she was not strong enough to break his grip, she suddenly raised her foot and stomped on his bare toes with all her might.

“Ow!” Andrew yelped, releasing her at once. He stood on one foot, rubbing the injured member, and said reproachfully, “You shouldn't have done that, Sarah!”

“Then you keep your old worm to yourself!”

Jacob, standing back leaning on his hoe, found the scene amusing. He had an analytic mind, and without meaning to do so, he studied the nature of people. Andrew had drawn his special attention because of the close relationship Andrew enjoyed with Hawk. Jacob could see that Andrew was an easygoing young man, with a temper that was rarely aroused. There was no guile in him, Jacob well knew. It was not as if Andrew had deliberately intended to supplant Jacob's place with Hawk Spencer. The two simply shared an easy camaraderie, born out of Andrew's genuine friendliness and openness, which Jacob envied.
He wouldn't be quite so easygoing if his pa had given him away
, he thought, and a cloud passed across his face.