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Chapter One
Sycamore Creek, Illinois
1832
“Close your eyes or go blind.”
John Ryan called out a warning as he stripped down to the skin, threw his sweaty clothes over a bush on the riverbank, and waded into the cool water. It was May, but it was hot as the devil’s oven anyway, especially when one was living outside and wearing buckskin and boots.
The metal locket around his neck was the only thing he was still wearing, and it jingled as he jumped hip-deep into the river. The splash sprayed water over his friend, Billy, and six other Illinois militiamen who were taking the chance to cool off after a long day.
Billy turned to splash him back, then disappeared entirely under the water. He reappeared a second later, shook water out of his dark hair, and wiped it from his eyes. He pointed to a sentry standing at the top of the bank and called:
“Keep your eyes peeled up there! Don’t want my bath to be interrupted by an arrow in my back.”
John glanced toward the grinning sentry and added: “Or by a chewing from Major Stillman.”
The other men laughed, including the sentry. “Probably no need to worry about either one.” He nodded in the direction of a distant meadow. “I saw a party of Indians making for the main camp under a flag of truce. With any luck, we’ll be headed home soon, boys.”
John splashed his face with water and muttered, “Amen to that. I’m tired of playing hide-and-go-seek with the Indians. Maybe they’re tired, too.”
Billy grinned at him. “Wouldn’t that be something? Hey, Tommy, tell us if you see any of those Indians going home.”
Laughter circled around the water, and John glanced up at the sentry standing atop the rocky bank. He was standing with his back to the creek, gazing out through the trees.
He frowned and called teasingly, “Hey, Tommy, you see anything?”
The sentry didn’t answer. As John watched, he twisted slightly, just far enough for John to see an arrow sticking into his throat. The man tumbled abruptly down the bank to the water’s edge.
John stared in shock for an instant, inhaled deeply, and shouted, “Redskins!”
He lunged through the water toward the creek bank. The other men turned to glance at the dead sentry, then splashed after him in a mad dash for their guns.
“Ye-ye-ye-ye-aiiiiiiah!”
Screams and war cries tore the air as their enemies, the Sauk, burst through the trees. The painted braves topped the bank on horseback and rode upon the scattered militia as they grabbed frantically for their weapons. The warriors looked like red demons with their shaved heads and spiky porcupine headdresses.
John scrambled for his gun as the Indians murdered his naked comrades with arrows and clubs. His face twisted as he raised his rifle.
“Back to Hell, murdering devils!”
He shot a brave with a black handprint over his mouth, watching as the man tumbled backwards off his horse and into the water.
“Get down, John!”
He turned just in time to be tackled broadside. Billy shoved him to his knees and was grazed across the head by a wooden club. John shot the screaming man who’d tried to kill him and knelt to help his stunned friend.
“Come on, Billy, get up!” He threw his arm around his friend’s shoulder, dodged another warrior on horseback, and dragged Billy off to the shelter of an outcrop. He dropped his friend under the rocky shelf away from their violent attackers.
To his amazement, another militiaman across the creek appeared and shouted, “Stillman’s called the retreat! Every man for himself!”
He disappeared into the trees, and the remaining Sauk turned to chase a fleeing man down the creek. John rushed to grab a riderless horse. He pulled it over to the rocks and grunted, “Climb up, Billy, it’s our last chance. Come on!”
He helped heave his friend onto the horse’s back, jumped up behind him, and kicked the horse’s flanks so hard that it vaulted over the bank and bore them away.
But he didn’t carry his friend back to their camp. Their camp was under attack, so he turned the horse’s head away from the battle. A thin trickle of blood was seeping out of Billy’s ear, and his eyes were dazed and dull.
Billy needed doctoring, and John was going to make sure he got it.
* * *
A few miles into the forest, John glimpsed a farm through the trees. There was a big log house and barn, and he could see a big, bald man chopping wood in the yard as they approached.
He kicked the horse into a trot, and he saw the man straighten and take the axe in his hands, waiting to see if they were friend or foe.
They were riding a dead Indian’s horse.
John raised his hand and waved, while yelling, “Help! We need help!”
The man frowned and gripped the axe, and John almost laughed as he realized that he and Billy were both covered in mud, wet, and buck naked. They no doubt looked like savages.
He hollered, “We’re Illinois militia!”
As they neared, the man started walking toward them. He called, “What happened?”
John pulled the horse to a stop and propped his friend up in the saddle. “We were attacked by the Sauk down at Sycamore Creek,” he panted. “We were outnumbered. I saw a dozen men go down!”
The man holstered the axe then walked up and raised his arms. “Here, give me your friend. I’ll help you carry him to the house.”
John helped slide Billy out of the saddle and into the other man’s arms, and he climbed down wearily to help carry him toward the cabin. The bald man demanded, “How far away are they?”
“About five miles, I’d say.”
“Are they coming this way?”
John shook his head. “I don’t know. We have hundreds of men at our camp, but I don’t know what’s happening there. We were half a mile away from camp when they hit us.”
As they hurried across the yard, a boy appeared around the side of the house. He watched in amazement until his father saw him and shouted, “Go get your brothers and tell ‘em to come back to the house. Hurry!”
The boy disappeared, and together they dragged Billy up the shallow stone steps, through the front door, and into a bedroom at the back of the cabin.
Billy slumped on the bed with a groan, and John picked up his feet and straightened him on the mattress. The other man tossed a quilt over him.
John turned to him. “You know how to doctor a man who got hit in the head?”
The other man stared down at Billy and shook his own. “Reckon the best thing is to patch him up and let him rest. I’ll get water and a rag.”
John bit his lip and frowned down at his dazed friend. “Obliged.”
The other man’s glance flicked over him. “I’ll bring you some britches, too.” He turned to walk out, and John stared down at himself and reached for a knitted throw somebody had tossed over a chair.
Chapter Two
“Here.”
The bald man bent to pour beer into a mug, and John lifted it to his mouth gratefully. He shook his head and smacked his lips. There was nothing like home brew.
“I didn’t get a chance to thank you, Mister…”
The big man nodded. “Abel Tanner. And no need for thanks. I’m proud to do what I can for the men who fight to keep us safe. Murdering red devils,” he rumbled, and set the pitcher down on the table. He jerked a thumb toward the front door. “I got my sons out there watching with their rifles ready, and the youngest going to rouse the countryside. We’ll be ready if they come this way!”
John took a bite of the bread and bacon that his host had provided. That was good news, because there was no knowing what had happened back at the camp. For all he knew, the Illinois militia and the regular army there might well be dead. The Sauk and their leader, Black Hawk, might be looting the camp as they spoke.
The Sauks were ruthless enemies.
John frowned into his beer. Billy was in bed with a busted skull because he’d jumped in front of a redskin’s club. Billy had saved his life.
Now it was his turn to save Billy’s.
John set his jaw. He hated to have to choose between his duty and his friend, but Billy was in no shape to go back to camp. He needed a long rest, and if they went back now, he’d get everything but. He’d probably die on his feet out in the woods somewhere.
John adjusted one shoulder as he ate. He’d been fighting Indians for three years. He had scars all over him where he’d barely escaped getting carved up by some redskin, and he had three slugs still in his ribs.
He and Billy were volunteers, not regular army. If they went over the hill, the government would consider them deserters, but he felt way more loyalty to his childhood friend than he did to the government.
Billy was like his brother.
He sat staring at his plate without seeing it and finally came to his decision. The war was going to have to wait until Billy was up on his feet again.
When John looked up, Abel Tanner’s eyes were on him, and he hoped his thoughts didn’t show on his face. It wouldn’t do for their host to see what he was thinking.
“Thanks for the grub,” he grunted. “I think I’ll sit with my friend a bit. Call me if you need another rifle at the window.”
“I will.”
John wiped his mouth and left the front room. When he opened the door to the bedroom, Billy was asleep on the rough corncob bed.
He closed the door softly and sank down into the only chair in the room, a battered rocker. It squeaked and groaned as he lowered himself into it, and Billy’s eyes fluttered open.
He glanced around. “Where am I?” he mumbled and put a hand to his brow.
“We had to high-tail it. I found a cabin in the woods,” John told him. “The man who lives here is letting us stay with him. For now.”
Billy put a hand to his hair. “I got a bad headache,” he complained.
John crossed his arms. “That figures. You got a Sauk club upside that walnut.”
Billy sputtered weakly and sighed. “Law, imagine what Mother Eugenie Theodora would say right now if she could see us. Got caught in the middle of a creek and beat up by Indians.” He laughed, “I can just hear her saying that if we was minding our own business it wouldn’t have happened.”
John rolled his eyes and smiled. He hadn’t thought about the abbess of the Saint Margaret Orphanage in years, and that was on purpose.
“Prob’ly take that ruler of hers to our backsides,” John agreed. “For almost dying buck naked.”
Billy laughed, then groaned. “Stop making me laugh. It makes my ears ring.”
He fell silent for a while, then added: “Where are those redskins now? Are we about to get another surprise?”
John shrugged. “I don’t know. We’re only a few miles from Sycamore Creek. The man who lives here says he sent his son out to warn the neighbors, and they’ll be coming soon. But I can’t see Black Hawk sending his men to chase after settlers or a couple of militia men. If he wants a fight, he’d hit the camp, where the army regulars are.”
Billy raised his eyes. “Maybe that’s where we should be right now.”
“You’re in no shape for that.” John bit his lip and ventured, “Listen, Billy, I’ve been thinking. You and me, we’ve been fighting somebody else’s battles ever since we ran away from the orphanage. We’ve been soldiers for hire, and what’s it gotten us? Busted up and flat broke. If I’m gonna risk my neck, it makes more sense to risk it for my own future.”
Billy was silent, and John went on softly. “You remember that place we used to dream about when we were kids back at St. Margaret’s?”
A reluctant smile curved Billy’s lip. “You mean that little Missouri settlement we read about, what was its name?”
“Vanguard.”
“Law, yes, Vanguard. Right on the frontier! All the stories we made up about that place, with us the heroes, fighting Indians and blazing trails in the wilderness and saving pretty damsels in distress.” He laughed again, then hissed and put a hand to his head.
John stared at him. “Why don’t we go there?”
Billy raised his brows. “You sure you weren’t hit on the head? Or talking moonshine, more like. We gotta get back to the camp or we’re both gonna be charged for desertion.”
John adjusted his jaw in frustration. He hadn’t been joking. Their band of militia had been attacked by hostiles, and it would take time for the army to figure out what happened to them. Their superiors didn’t know but whether they’d been killed or taken hostage by the Sauk.
They had a few days before the army would come looking for them. It was a perfect opportunity to vanish, and Billy needed to disappear if he was going to make it. A man with a head injury couldn’t take long, hot marches in the sun, or do hand-to-hand fighting.
Billy needed to go to the doctor.
John decided to try a different angle. “That’s true, I won’t deny it, but before we do, let’s get a doctor to take a look at your head,” he replied. “No use playing out halfway back to camp.”
Billy seemed to consider, and to John’s relief, he nodded. “I am weak as a cat.”
“Yes, you are. So, I think I’m gonna ask around for a doctor,” John replied. “There should be somebody around here who can look you over.”
Billy closed his eyes, and John noticed that his face looked drawn and tired. “I’ll let you sleep. Try to get some rest.”
He stood up, and the rocker creaked again. When he got to the doorway, he turned to frown at his friend’s thin face before he walked out.
OFFER: A BRAND NEW SERIES AND 2 FREEBIES FOR YOU!
Grab my new series, "Grit and Glory on the Frontier", and get 2 FREE novels as a gift! Have a look here!
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