Love Not a Rebel by Graham Heather

Author:Graham, Heather [Graham, Heather]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Historical Romance
ISBN: 9780440202370
Publisher: Dell
Published: 1989-09-03T00:00:00+00:00

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October 1774

Two divisions came against the Shawnee that fall, marching toward the Ohio River. Lord Dunmore led his men from the northern part of the valley. Eric was not with him. It had been decided that he would take a number of his old Indian fighters and accompany General Andrew Lewis, a man Eric highly respected, one of Washington’s stalwart colleagues from the campaign against the Frenchman Duquesne. Lewis led his men by way of Fort Pitt while the governor’s men came through the Great Kanawha Valley.

The Western militia were an interesting breed of men. The majority of the men were clad in doeskin, and many of them had taken or displayed an Indian scalp upon occasion. In the Virginia Valley, life was still raw, and men eked out their livings. The Indians had a name for Lewis’s men; they called them the Long Knives, an acknowledgment of their prowess with the weapons.

But they weren’t after just any Indians. As Eric rode with Lewis, the general explained much of a situation that had not changed. “We encroach upon the land. Hostiles kill white settlers, then the settlers turn around and they don’t seem to know if they’re after a Delaware, or Cherokee, a Shawnee, or another. Inevitably they kill an Indian from a friendly tribe and then that tribe isn’t so friendly anymore. A lot of trouble started with the establishment of trading posts out here—greedy men selling so much liquor that they create a savage out of any man. But now we’re going after Cornstalk, and there ain’t any man alive could call that man anything but a savage when he fights. You mark my words. The Delaware and Cherokees themselves, they tremble at the name Cornstalk.”

“So I have heard,” Eric agreed. Cornstalk was a powerful voice among the Indians. He was trying to form a confederacy of all the Ohio tribes.

Lewis looked up at the sky. “Dunmore could be in some difficulty for this one,” he advised Eric. “The territory might well be Canada—according to the Quebec Act. If not, it’s still disputed between Virginia and Pennsylvania.”

“He is determined to fight the Shawnee, and that is that.”

“Didn’t you get enough of Indian fighting back when the wars were going on?”

“I was asked to raise men.”

“There ain’t been a war whoop heard in the Tidewater region, not in a long, long time. Well, if we meet up with Cornstalk, we’ll hear plenty.”

Eric learned the truth of that statement at Point Pleasant where they found the Shawnee under Cornstalk. Tension raced high throughout the forces as the commanders conferred, but the Shawnee were the first to attack.

And Eric heard the war whoops, blood-curdling, savage, just as Lewis had said. The Indians appeared like painted devils, glistening in the sunlight, attacking with their cries. Yet above the roar of those cries and above the roar of his own orders, Eric heard Cornstalk. The Shawnee warrior, painted generously himself, cast his voice out over his people like that of God—or Satan. His men spurred forward, unafraid of steel or bullets, unafraid of death itself.

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