Chapter 1 1797 THE BEGINNING

Chapter the 

1

 1797

            Ian Kirk walked about the cabin. A familiar sickly-sweet smell identified their cabin. This odor had a pervasive presence without being too objectionably strong . Ian knew the smell came from new furs stacked against the cabin walls. Tiny bits of rotting skin not completely fleshed out of the hides still clung to the edges of the fur pelts  Somewhat ironic in that this unpleasant smell came from what they made a living.

             Ian looked around the trading post cabin. Pa had built the cabin secure and weatherproof.  Their hard-packed dirt floor lay several feet below ground level. The half-buried log walls allowed no light penetration–making it almost as dark as a cave, but it cut winter drafts. Sunlight filtered through a tightly stretched dried scraped deerskin. Their one window provided only a grayish half-light in that part of the room. But, as Pa had reasoned,  the room was lit by the burning logs in the fireplace anyway. In fact, in the night time, the usual smoldering fire in the open fireplace provided much less light than a candle. While up close the fire provided heat, it mainly fed an annoying acrid smelling and bluish-grayish wisps of smoke into the room. Ian remembered the smoke visibly floating about in the light. One candle in a glass lantern on the plank table in the middle of the room provided some light sometime. But "You don't need candlelight--work and play were done in the light of day and the candles must be used sparingly.           

            The family log cabin, simply stated, comprised only one room; and functioned both as a family shelter and a storage room for the trading goods and furs.  All of which were piled along the walls.

            " where are you--pa? Why don't you come home, papa?"

The cries of the pathétique little boy, waiting on the banks of the Platte River--the sounds lost in the noise of the river, and in the widespread stars covering the plain's night sky.

             Night after night, the fruitless waiting, the little boy's continued crying sounds, begin to wear thin the patience of his grieving mother. After all, to Ian Kirkt's mother, the coming issues--of how will they survive--started crowding her thoughts. The coming winter loomed closer then the boy knew. The family problems would multiply--amounting to the family's very survival if his father didn't show up. So something must be done.

            Pa stood as the strongman in life. In a family of three boys; and as the eldest Ian had the privilege of being  the one pa took on trading missions. Kirkt felt privileged because pa often shared tips about life. Trusting in his father's strengths, he knew security. 

            The failure of his father to come home from could not happen. He had only ttaken a routine trip to Saint Louis  They had every confidence that he would be showing up--rounding the bend in the Missouri. Something had delayed him, but he would be coming.                                           

            However after weeks of waiting, while the family still had hope, doubt begins. Ian begins feeling a crushing of his hope--bit by bit/ he wasn't coming back. Month after month had passed and there was no way he would be gone that long. They knew he would be coming back though and excused his delay. But he didn't.           Ian's mother, acting as a mother, had to accept reality. One of the traits of her race was the ability to adapt and survive.  If he wasn't coming back, they had to prepare to survive without him. And the world changed for Ian

            Upon accepting his father's permanent absence, Ian determined he must be the one to fill his father's place.

"No more tears," he had ordered his younger brothers. Keeping his own tears back was not easy, but he had to be a man to take father's place – he would be the protector of mom and family. Ian steeled himself to stand against any threats to the family such as Mike Ignosky.

He had stood up to Mike Ignoski--a big powerful man. He had to threaten to shoot him one time.

            He was a trader from downriver, who had begun to frequent their trading post as soon as pa’s long absence became known. Pa had disliked this person, and for that reason alone--an enemy of his father was Ian's enemy--but also he was a crook. He cheated the Indians in his trading business. One of the major problem with this crook--he stood a head taller and ten pounds heavier than most adult men, and he had a loud voice.  With this extra advantage, Ighnosky would dominant his opposition in accepting an unfair trade, simply by glaring at his customer.  Most of the time his trading took a gross unfairness.  

          Pa had instructed Ian how this crook was building up some real bad blood.  Ian warned his ma about seeing this crook. Ian had told her, he would take his father's place and care for her. But winter had shown that this didn't seem to work.

           I gotta be the man of the house, thought Ian, trying to reassure himself.  And with that thought, he took on a new relationship with his younger brothers.

            "Stop that crying and sniffing," he scolded his brothers. "Be a man like me--I'm not bawling like a baby."

            After a couple of weeks, that seemed to work with his brothers and they started obeying not only in grief but they begin coming to him for instructions and guidance. However, Ian begin to have nightmares. His father was in them--a ghostlike shadowy figure. Sometimes the dreams caused him to rise out of bed sweating.  Ian's struggles at working in the day and his lack of sleep from his dreams began having an effect. And from the expressions on Ma's face and her gestures, he could see she wasn't being convinced that his plan would work.

            To more convince Ma, Iain became more demanding of his brothers.

            One day, that Fall, the family had just had breakfast, and, sitting at the table, Iain grabbed both brothers--Jamie is 8 years old and Doug being 9--and he dragged them outside.  Knowing ma was watching, Ian gave the orders.

            "Doug, you an' Jamie, an' me hafta git the winter wood in--so follow me."

            Previously, Iain had cut up a large number of driftwood and logs already and left numerous woodpiles along the riverbank.

            "I'll help you the first time, but I've still gotta cut more wood."

             After loading his brother's arms with sticks of wood, he loaded himself, and started for woodshed behind their home. Depositing his wood in the woodshed, he stacked the wood like his Pa had shown him.  He then quickly returned back on the trail, looking for his brothers. They had slow and halting, claiming it was too heavy, so he expected them to be far back, but he only found sticks of wood.

            Finally, he went back to the trading post.  Ma was standing in the door. She didn't say anything, but she didn't have to.  So Iain got the winter wood in.

            This relationship arrangement survived the first winter, but after the blizzards came and the river froze over things became much harder. They survived only because of the pemican and dried fish they had stored, and even then, on some days, they never ate.

            Soon a nightmare that routinely occurred in Kirkt's thoughts.  The thought  that Mike Ignosk-- the trader from downriver--would become more frequent. Ma had mentioned that he offered to take her as his woman. Later, when a preacher came by later, he'd take her as a wife. The worst part of this offer had the demand that he, Ian, the oldest, would have to leave the home. 

            The following Spring, Ian decided he had better start early on getting the winterwood in, and he had been down on the riverbank cutting driftwood. Coming back to the trading post that night, he had just come in sight of their cabin, when he noticed two people standing in the doorway. Carrying an armfull of wood, he thought about first going to the woodshed, but the trail came close enough the cabin to see who the people were. Mike Ignosky stood by his ma. They both were watching him.  

          Ian dropped the wood. There was a long silence as they stared at one another.  Finally, Iain reached down and picked up one of the large sticks of wood.

This seemed to spring the held-back tension in all of them, and they all sprang into action.

          Mike Ignosky was a large man, but he covered the distance to Ian before Ian could get ready.  Ignosky was not only large man, but he had experienced many fights in his life. Iain, only twelve years old, hardly had a chance to throw his stick of wood. Ignosky hit Ian once with a blow that knocked him to the ground. Stunned, Ian couldn't get up before Ignosky was on top of him raising his fist to hit him again. But by this time Ian's mother had picked up Ian's stick and hit Ignosky in the head with it.

            "Wha' ya' doin'?' Ignosky said, rubbing the back of his head.  He had fallen to the side, dazed, looking at Ian's mother.

            "What you think?" she screamed at him. "I'm not gonna let you kill him!'.

            "You're not goin' back on our deal are you?"

            There was a long silence before she answered. Finally she looked down and shook her head.

            "No, I've agreed I'll hafta go through with it." She looked at Ian, tears in her eyes. "I canna do other."

            With that Ignosky turned to Iain. His eyes glaring he totally shut down Ian's remainig resistance. "All right boy git yer things an' git!"

    

           The Indian raiding party started their attacks that night. Starting with the Kirkt Trading Post, the raiding party had set themselves to burning as many cabins as they could destroying as many far down as Charrette. They knew there would be little reprisal from any French authorities and certainly nothing from Spanish.  Spain had all but abandoned the land.  There wasn't enough locals to even chase them let alone be of any danger.

             Told to "git" Ian had been  compelled to leave his home and family that evening.  This occurred, only hours before the raiding party swept down, burning the cabin and destroying everything. Halfway to the next settler's cabin, Ian became dimmly aware of loud voices yelling and screeching, coupled with the sounds of pounding many horses' hoves,  galloping down the trail behind him.  Ian plodding down the trail with his eyes full of tears, staring down at the trail. At this time, had little mind to even get out of the way. So, walking head bowed down, Ian existed in his own little world of sorrow and grief. He had just raised his head, after stepping over a small creek and turned to the noise, when suddenly, in the early night's semi-darkness,the horse and rider making the noise, appeared.  Before Iain could react,  he came face to face with the lead braves of the raiding party.

            This happened in a way that didn't set well with lead brave.  His horse suddenly coming on a figure in the darkness, spooked to one side, instantly unseating the brave.  He suddenly found himself sitting in water up to his waist instead of riding like he was leading the hounds of hell. To make it all the worse, enough light remained in the day to exhibit to all those following him how their leader had fallen.

            The leader didn't have the time to beat up Kirkt, but looping a rawhide rope around Kirkt's neck and running his horse, the leader didn't spare Kirkt either.

                      Upon becoming a captive, literally and immediately stripped Kirkt of everything but life. He lived now like a slave, masinly because he was a slave.  Kirkt bound with a rawhide rope, also had a rawhide rope around his neck, and forced to run behind his captor's horse. The war party mainly followed single flIe Kirkt's captors forced him to trail behind them forcing Ian to keep up or get stepped on by the horses. While that long night of raiding seemed to last forever, Ian's mind became occuppied with what would happen when they stopped burning  cabins and killing the occupants.

            He had to run and walk to keep up with the warriors, all mounted on horses. One isolated  homestead, recieved no mercy. Waiting for the defenders to fire off all their one shot weapons, the raiding party rushed the cabin and quickly overwhelmed the defenders. With little hesitation they slit the throats of everybody in the cabin-men, women and children. After taking their scalps, they moved to a neighboring settlement.  The settlement, apparently alerted, defended themselves much more vigorously. However a raiding partyof 40 had a considerable advantage over the defenders. With single-shot muzzel loaders a family of defenders could only last as long as the number of their loaded weapons  Here the raiding party only took a total of four captives. 

            lan soon realized he did have something to be thankful for.  One prisoner they had just  taken was,a young boy about lan's age, But he did't fare as well as lan. The boy was overweight. The warriors had little patience for weakness of any sort. They tied him a  rope around his neck, as they had lan, but he couldn't keep up. The warrior kept his horse moving at the same gait as the rest of the raiders, aand this resulted in his body being pulled and dragged most of the time.  

            At their first camp, all of the captives collapsed on the ground completely exhausted.It was now dark but Ian could see that all four of the captives had a rope around their neck as he had.  Keeping up with the raiding partty's travel so exhausted lan that he never considered trying to escape or encourage his fellow captive Just to stop and fall down and rest answered his total needs.  No one moved--apparently no one else had the energy to even make an attempt to escape.

            Obviously, the captors knew this because they simply dropped their ropes. Ian, watched their captors though a fog of exhaustion,  He noticed the overweight boy's captor had tied the end of his rope to a tree. and then he left to join the other captor. Ian too exhausted to do more then only fleetingly wonder why .  When the Indian raider returned, he took a fire-brand from the campfire, as did a number of the other warriors, and they proceeded in chasing the boy around the tree non-stop. When he did stop he suffered getting burned. Finally, too tired to move, he just allowed them to burn him and then it all stopped.  The boy, Kirkt noticed, didn't make the next camp.