War Clouds Over West Florida by Lee Gramling

Author:Lee Gramling
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pineapple Press
Published: 2019-11-06T00:00:00+00:00

After trudging along for half a day, it became abundantly clear to O’Shaughnessy and MacKenzie what the two they pursued had already learned: this country to the west of the Apalachicola was not nearly so flat as they might earlier have supposed. It lacked the craggy bluffs and rock-bound ravines they’d had to cope with on their way to the Indian village. But the seemingly endless series of gently rolling hills—not obvious at first because of the dense growth along the river—in time made their trek every bit as taxing as that previous journey.

Most of the hills were covered by forests of tall pines whose shade encouraged few plants to grow beneath them. This made for somewhat easier walking, and the general lack of brambles or thorny vines was especially pleasing to O’Shaughnessy.

It wasn’t always the case when they descended a slope to one of the numerous winding creeks that needed to be crossed. But usually the junglelike growth that bordered them was no more than a few yards wide. And the Irishman decided that if these were the worst impediments he encountered for the rest of the journey, he might just be able to keep up with his companion in the future.

He might. And then again, he might not.

MacKenzie seemed determined to set a relentless pace, uphill and downhill, showing little regard for the contours of the terrain and pausing only occasionally for a brief study of the ground. He spoke rarely, and O’Shaughnessy stayed silent as well, trudging grimly along beside or behind the frontiersman as their forest surroundings permitted.

There were times, off and on, when the dense woodland yielded abruptly to wide, grassy savanna, mostly shades of yellowish brown now under the winter sun. Often these stretched for several miles into the distance. Yet, whenever the travelers made it to the top of one of those low barren knolls, they always saw another dark-green ribbon of woodland awaiting them on the horizon.

The unbroken landscape of forested hills seemed to go on forever.

At last MacKenzie called for a midday halt in a small clearing among the pines. When he spoke, O’Shaughnessy thought he detected a little shortness of breath in his companion’s clipped words. And once he’d taken a seat on a fallen log, the man’s broad shoulders seemed to sag a bit before he reached for his water bottle.

It came as a mild surprise, for until then the frontiersman had seemed almost like some tireless automaton not subject to human frailty. O’Shaughnessy frankly couldn’t help but view this revelation with a touch of relief. He was feeling more than a little worn out himself. Only pride and thoughts of being left behind again had kept him from speaking of it.

He sat on the ground with his back to a tree and took out his own water bottle for a long drink. He studied his companion without speaking for several minutes.

Then he said quietly, “It is a long journey that still lies ahead o’ us. An’ the nature o’ this up an’ down country is not kind to a man’s legs.

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