Flight Of The Hawk: The River: A Novel of the American West by W. Michael Gear

Author:W. Michael Gear [Gear, W. Michael]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9781647345150
Publisher: Wolfpack Publishing
Published: 2021-03-31T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seventeen

The following morning the wind blew fiercely from the northwest. They moved Polly out of the tree she'd landed in the day before and began removing the splintered remains of the old mast. Others combed the woods to gather hardwoods for ax handles, ramrods, and a couple of spare masts. The ash, oaks, and hickory woods desired for such articles were scarce upriver. The cottonwood, poplar, pines, and cedars found on the high plains were softer and not as readily available.

Tylor, his hands bound in cloth, took his rifle and went hunting. Maybe he could find something to fill the larder. With the hunters stuck on the other side of the river, there was no telling when fresh game might be found. In spite of his skills, he saw only tracks; and as the wit had once said: tracks make thin soup.

Darkness had begun to drop its cloak when Michael Immel, Caleb Greenwood, Lauriston, and the others wandered into camp, their rifles over their shoulders.

Amidst the cheers, Lisa ran out, a beaming smile on his face. "You are here! We had thought to send the mackinaw over this morning, but there was no sign of you."

"Camped upriver, Manuel," Immel said in his drawl. "Figgered ye'd be a good five miles further up. Caleb scouted down last night and saw the fires over here. Figgered then that ye'd ketched hell some way er 'nuther. Long 'bout noon we built us a raft and tried t' float acrost. Lost six miles in the river a'fore we grounded on the right side."

"Is there any game?" Latoulipe almost cried.

"Two deer on t'other side." Immel looked at the boatman with sorry eyes. "Didn't flgger they'd float so well."

The expression of tragedy on Baptiste Latoulipe's face would have done Euripides proud.

For more than one hundred and fifty years, the boatmen had covered the American interior, paddling their canoes, poling the keelboats, portaging over the rapids. Through it all they had lived on hominy-corn gruel and whatever else they could scrounge. But Baptiste was different. Hominy gruel tortured his gut and caused him gas—to the delight of his teasing fellows who periodically would sneak a lighted brand behind to see if they could light it afire.

To Latoulipe's horror, on occasion they did.

For a general's tent it wasn't much. The tall and lean man who reclined at the camp table in the rear wouldn't have noticed that it was dingy and worn. Andrew Jackson's uniform jacket hung open, the top buttons on his shirt undone as a consequence of the stifling heat. He puzzled over the parchments that lay before him. The general's thin face and long, straight nose matched his hollow cheeks, in a face that was an appropriate setting for the two fierce eyes that glared at the papers strewn across the tabletop.

"Beggin' the gen'ral's pardon, sir," a young man called as he passed the guards.

Andrew Jackson looked up from the clutter on the table and nodded. "What is it, Toby?"

"I, uh...got the mail, sir."

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