Chapter 4
The night was very dark with a heavy cloud cover. Heat lightning flashed above the wagons. Daniel had prepared his caravan in the event of a thunderstorm and was now engaged in conducting a group sing around his campfire. The Addisons were there, as were the Percys and the Watsons. Mingo and he joined the nineteen others and sang as many rollicking songs as the company could remember. After an hour the families dispersed to their respective wagons and bedded down. Mingo reached for his volume of Shakespeare, thumbed through the pages and began to read aloud. A distant rumble added an ominous note to his choice. The words of Macbeth rang out in the darkness.
"Is this a dagger which I see before me,
The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee;
I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.
Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible
To feelings, to sight? Or art thou but
A dagger of the mind, a false creation
Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?"
Mingo raised his dark head and saw Phoebe shiver beside her wagon. Her bright blue eyes sparkled in the last rays of the campfire. Mingo smiled at her. She smiled back and waved her hand. He nodded just as Dottie Addison came around the back corner of her wagon. She saw the exchange and frowned. Phoebe saw the direction of Mingo's gaze and turned to see her mother standing behind her shoulder. The two looked long into each other's eyes. Then Phoebe ducked beneath the wagon and curled on top of her blanket. Dottie Addison's eyes bored into Mingo's. He could not read the expression there. The tall woman turned wordlessly and crawled under the wagon beside her daughter. The heat lightning flashed and the thunder grumbled across the heavens.
A steady warm rain began before daylight. The pioneers rose and quickly donned oilcloths and slickers. No fires were attempted and the company proceeded with only a cold breakfast. The oxen walked steadily as the ground beneath their cloven hoofs grew soggy and slick.
By afternoon Daniel called a halt before a large, deep cave. The men and boys fed and hobbled the oxen while the twelve women and their daughters carried the camp equipment into the cave's large mouth. Extra firewood had been gathered at each evening's camp and now the settlers built two large cooking fires with the dry wood. Mingo stepped into the firelight with a large doe across his shoulders. He helped the women cut the carcass into chunks of meat to stew in the half dozen large iron pots set into the campfires. The women tossed in onions and stirred flour into the thin broth.
As the fragrance of stewing venison filled the air the men and boys straggled into the warm dry cave. They sat as close to the fires as possible, their wet clothes steaming. One of the Percy boys began an old English ballad, "Scarborough Fair", and his high voice was soon joined by the entire company. Song after song was sung until the meat was stewed. Then the women brought out loaves of bread and the whole gathering ate the hot stew and sopped the broth with chunks of wheat bread, rye bread, and corn bread.
The rain continued to gain intensity making washing the dishes impossible. The women dashed out and laid the various plates, pots and utensils in the steady downpour to rinse clean. The men and boys likewise dashed out to their respective wagons and gathered the family bedding. Together the families spread out the blankets, quilts and pillows. The little children were laid to sleep while the older children, men and women sat around the large fires as the flames died to glowing coals.
"Mingo, why don't you get your book and read us a story?" Daniel suggested. Mingo reached into his pack and retrieved his volume of Shakespeare plays. He turned to one of his favorites, Julius Caesar. The entire company sat spellbound as the Cherokee's deep voice expressively read the tragedy of the great man driven to death by his own faults. The words poured from his wide lips as Act 1 unfolded in the quiet firelit cave of eastern Kentucky.
"Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world
Like a Colossus; and we petty men
Walk under his huge legs, and peep about
To find ourselves dishonorable graves.
Men at some time are masters of their fates;
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings."
Mingo stopped reading to allow each person his or her own reflections. Men turned to each other and nodded their understanding. Women sat with bowed heads and smoothed the hair of the children resting in their laps. After several minutes Daniel cleared his throat and spoke to the silent gathering.
"The rain should be done by mornin' so let's all get some sleep. Mingo and me'll take the first watch. Night, everybody."
The company murmured their reply and parted to stretch out by families along the walls of the large dry cave. Together Mingo and Daniel sat silently just inside the limestone overhang. The Kentucky rain poured from the leaden sky.
"Mingo, do you think that we've been preordained to be what we are? Some collection of stars decreed we'd be here tonight? Do you believe in fate?"
"No Daniel, I don't. I think men make their own fate, either by choice or by default."
"What do you mean?"
"I can't choose what happens to me, but I can prepare myself as best as I can to face whatever the world throws at me. How I respond determines the next event. Sometimes we know the results of our actions, and sometimes we don't."
"But if'n you're real smart, like you are, that isn't your doin'. Or if you're born really dumb, that isn't your doin' either. Or maybe you're born to sing, or to hunt, or to make furniture, or arrows." Daniel grinned. "Maybe I decided to lead folks, or maybe fate decided I was to lead folks into Kentucky."
"No Daniel. What you do with what you have been given IS your choice. In that way we choose to become leaders or underlings. You are a leader because you have the gifts to be a leader. But you CHOOSE to lead. The stars didn't determine that."
Daniel turned to his friend with a sly smile on his face. "Didn't fate decide to send you to teach Phoebe to read? I think that she believes that."
Mingo smiled in return. "Ah, Daniel, but what good would it be for fate to send me if I had not availed myself of the opportunity I was given to learn myself? Or if I did not feel it necessary to carry around a heavy volume of Shakespeare? Or if Shakespeare himself had not written those plays?"
"But maybe Shakespeare himself was fated to write those plays."
Mingo yawned. "Daniel, how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?"
"What?"
"You are trying to get me into a philosophical discussion and I'm really too tired to play. Wake me in a couple of hours and I'll take your watch." With those final words Mingo curled on his side and closed his eyes.
Daniel continued to sit watching the rain. "How many angels on the head of a pin?" Daniel murmured. He turned to look at his sleeping friend. "You are a man of the stars, Mingo. You're one of the brightest." The thought pleased the tall Kentuckian and he sat thinking of angels, and stars, and girls who yearned to read.
In the morning the rain had stopped and the air steamed. The intense humidity was hard on animals and people alike and the soggy ground made for slow travel. The pioneers were tired, muddy and in poor tempers when Daniel called a halt for the night. There was no dry firewood so everyone made do with a cold camp. The small children were cranky and the mothers short of temper. Insects buzzed irritatingly. Everyone went early to bed and lay uncomfortably on the still-wet ground.
Mingo stood the first watch. About an hour into it he heard the soft footfalls of Phoebe Addison. Mingo handed her his Shakespeare volume. She opened the volume to The Merchant of Venice and began to read, sounding out the many unfamiliar names and places. The archaic English puzzled her but Mingo made her use the clues contained in the rest of the text to understand the meaning. After an hour of reading Phoebe stopped to turn the page and the unmistakable sound of another set of footsteps caused Mingo to place his hand over the page in warning.
He placed his finger on his lips and the girl sat perfectly still before him. Her face looked strained in the moonlight, fear glazing her light eyes. Mingo stepped silently between the girl and the approaching person, his rifle at the ready. In the moonlight he could see a tall figure approaching. A woman. He released a sigh of relief as Dottie Addison came to stand before him.
"I know what my husband said to you, mister." She whispered. "And I know he's wrong. You're either a right brave man or a right foolish one. I'm grateful for what you've given my Phoebe. She's always craved book-learning, but her father just wouldn't hear of it."
Phoebe stood and walked to her mother's side. In her hand she carried the Shakespeare. "Ma, I know enough now to teach you. I will. It's not real hard. Mingo explained it so easy, and I can explain it to you too. I will, Ma."
Mingo could see the excitement, longing and doubt flit across Dottie Addison's face. The tall woman reached out and smoothed the cover of the book. Then she raised her eyes to her daughter's face. "Naw, Phoebe, it's too late for me."
"Excuse me ma'am, but it isn't. Phoebe is right. You could easily learn enough to enrich your life."
"The mister wouldn't like it."
"How will he know, Ma? If you don't tell him, and I don't tell him, how will he know?"
Mother and daughter looked into each other's faces for several minutes. Then Dottie Addison nodded her head. Phoebe's face broke into a radiant smile. "I'll start tomorrow. We can do it as we walk. Pa won't know, Ma. He doesn't care what we talk about while we walk. You'll see."
Phoebe handed the Shakespeare volume back to Mingo. "I may come and borrow this back sometime." Phoebe's light eyes sparkled with confidence. Mingo nodded and smiled at his pupil. The little plain phoebe bird had found her song.
Together mother and daughter walked into the shadow of their wagon. Mingo sighed and hefted his gun as he leaned against a tall elm behind him. Above him in the dark Kentucky sky the stars wheeled brightly in their courses.