King and Pawn

"Daniel, I declare, you have suffered me to chatter without so much as the hint of a yawn. Your stamina for feminine prattle is heroic, but I desire to hear the voice that has been absent from my life for so long. Please indulge me with more stories of your dear little ones, Israel and Jemima."

"By the time I get back to Boonesborough, they may not be so little anymore."

Mrs. Breeden lips puckered into a pout. "Do you still walk about on your long solitary hunting adventures?"

"Yes, ma'am, much to Becky's distress."

"Remember me to Becky and the children upon your return home and kiss their cheeks a hundred times for me."

The parlor was pleasant and bright and Daniel felt like a buffalo bull in it, but he graciously assisted in pouring them both another cup of tea from the polished silver teapot. The melancholy tick of a mantel clock measured the silence between their nervous words of reunion.

Daniel reached over and ventured to lay his hand upon the small soft hand of the widow. "I'll be sure to visit whenever I'm in Williamsburg. Perhaps one day with my family in tow. Mama Breeden, you suspected when you first saw me this mornin' that somethin' was wrong involvin' Ahner. When was the last time you saw him? Does he visit often?"

The woman put her free hand to her cheek and closed her eyes for a moment. "Ahner suffered a visit last fall. In high spirits, he announced his intentions to start anew in Kentucky and become reacquainted with you. It was a lengthy visit for him as he is always upon some trade venture or another. Did he?"

"Did he what?"

"Find you? Did you see him?" she inquired with earnest wet eyes.

Daniel released the woman's hand, giving it a gentle pat. He picked up his coonskin cap from the floor at his feet and squeezed it as he avoided the gentle woman's soft inquiring gaze. "Sort of."

Mrs. Breeden's eyes, large, wide-set, and brilliant blue like Becky's, sat like jewels in her pleasant face. Her once golden curls were now snow white. The daughter of proud and prosperous French Huguenots that had fled France a century earlier and settled in Virginia, she had not lost any of her regal beauty and poise with age. He couldn't lie to her. "Ahner is in trouble."

"That is the true purpose of your visit isn't it, Daniel?"

"Yes, ma'am. He's sittin' in the jail."

A tear fell upon the woman's cheek. She stared off across the room as if embarrassed.

"I'm awfully sorry," Daniel said.

"If blame is requisite, then his father owns it. Gosner had no patience for the boy, or for me, the doting mother. It made Ahner intensely driven especially after his father disowned him. A moment of weakness overcame me when I gave him his inheritance after selling the plantation. A dear friend admonished me. He said it was foolhardy to attempt to buy my son's love—or his forgiveness. Odd the turns a life takes. I once believed you and Ahner cast from the same mould. Perhaps it was only a mother's fancy."

"Mama, you raised a good man. I knew that man as a friend for years, but somethin' snapped in Ahner when his wife died. I saw it, but he wouldn't let me or anyone else help. He slid into disgraceful ruin then became the devil's henchman. He's no longer the Ahner you knew but I suppose he's capable of resurrectin' the shadow of that man in your presence."

Mrs Breeden pulled a lace handkerchief from her sleeve and dabbed at her eyes. "I used to thank Providence he had a friend such as you. I told Ahner every day that you were his blessing--that he needed to be more like you. The name of Daniel Boone was always on someone's lips--telling of some glorious adventure, or kind deed. Ahner would just wink and flash that flirtatious handsome smile and say, 'Yes Mama, Daniel Boone is a great man.'"

Daniel caught his breath as if the woman had punched him. He had felt responsible for the deaths of his and Ahner's sons and Ahner's subsequent descent into savagery. Perhaps his supposed friend had actually hated him much earlier than those murders.

"You were always composed and steady as a preacher in the face of troubles," Mrs. Breeden continued. "Ahner was a confident man but prone to overreact. Tom's death turned him to murder. I heard the flying reports that made their way to our remote community, though Gosner endeavored to conceal them from me. It caused me great distress when I learned my own son hunted down and murdered innocent Indians, even an unborn child."

Daniel grabbed the small shaking hand that rested on the arm of the chair. "You don't have to tell me, Mama."

"No, I desire to speak of it. To hear the words outside of myself. The governor struggled to calm the hostilities and find the renegades that murdered Tom and James. I rejoiced at Governor Dunsmore's kindness and attention. I cannot understand how people can so abhor the man now and with such vengeance. Those mock hangings and burnings on the green torment me to distraction."

The governor had known of Ahner Breeden and yet he denied it straight-faced. What sort of man was he? It was all news to Daniel that Dunsmore had tried to find the killer of James and Tom. No one like Lord Dunsmore would have thought that the death of James Boone, the son of a backwoods hunter and hired trail guide, deserved such attention. Tom Breeden, though, was the grandson of a wealthy old guard Virginian--a loyal subject of the Crown.

"Daniel, please share with me all that you know. I would rather hear it from you, than in the whispers of my neighbors at church, or the ridicule of the idle boys that rule the streets of this town."

"Even the British Empire couldn't handle Ahner. He and his cronies terrified my family for two days. He beat and tortured one good friend of mine and recently, with a grin on his face, shot my other good friend in the back. I can't afford to lose friends. I don't have as many as you might think."

Yadkin's frightened eyes as he was struck by that rifle ball rose up in Daniel's mind as if the ambush had just happened. Fretting compulsively, as he had done for the past nine days, Daniel wondered if Cincinnatus had slowed Yad's bleeding. If they had even made it to Salem. Did he send the boy, Jericho, to his death? The weary man was flushed with grief. Now he knew Ahner had acted on a cultivated hate for the legend of Daniel Boone. A jealous seed his mother planted in him long ago. At least Daniel felt freed of blame for Ahner, though it was a bitter reprieve.

"The bonds of friendship on the frontier can hold faster than blood," Mrs. Breeden said softy. "Do I know your friends?"

Mrs. Breeden crossed her arms across her breast and gripped her shoulders as if she was chilled. Daniel could see that the woman dwelled in loneliness and despair and he was only serving to make her fears concrete--to give them names and faces.

The inconsolable man took a deep breath and hesitated until Mrs. Breeden stared at him steadfast, inquiring.

"You probably remember Yadkin."

The woman's eyes widened, she opened her lips to speak but hesitated. "Carolina E. Yadkin?"

"Yes, ma'am."

Mrs. Breeden dropped her hands to her lap. She shook her head from side to side slowly as a smile brightened her face. "Now there was a wild one no one could tame. I used to say he reminded me of Gosner's dogs--born to pet and run wild. He was a good-natured boy, but quite contrary."

Daniel laughed and rubbed his eyes to prevent tears from forming. "That's an apt description of Yad. It still fits."

"How is it possible? How could my dear affable Ahner bring himself to turn a weapon upon that laughing mop-haired Yadkin and pull the trigger?" Mrs. Breeden gasped. Her brow wrinkled, her lips quivered as she gave way to violent sobs that shook her petite form. Daniel wrapped his brawny arm around her small back and allowed her to lean into him. As he did so, he felt a release. It was as if an unseen hand lifted a mighty burden of guilt from his soul. His own pent-up tears startled him as they flowed freely with hers.

"Dunsmore is going home to England?" the tall dark Cornstalk asked, his black eyes pinned unblinking on the governor.

The royal appointee in perfect practiced poise glanced at Mingo then answered, "I have not met with success in my endeavors here, Cornstalk. Some might even say I have made things worse. I have not failed you in spirit, though. You and I still believe in the same thing."

"The colonial leaders are a flock of tall-necked birds each trying to honk louder than the other. They are distracted by this conflict with their father land."

Dunsmore nodded.

The chief, wrapped in a threadbare patterned blanket, inhaled a ragged breath and continued, "There is too much distance between the governing powers and their warriors. It is the same with us Shawnee. Young warriors act without thinking. They take pleasure in making the white people cry. They rape and murder the innocent to revenge rape and murder."

"It is a spiraling circle of revenge that has no end," Dunsmore said. "My friend, I shall be leaving the colony to board a ship and I may never return. I'm afraid my time is up here. Others must carry the peace flag. I would like you to meet my son, Cara-Mingo of the Cherokee. He is with Menewa in the south."

Cornstalk rivaled Daniel in height. He studied Mingo with a stern gaze for a long moment. "I am proud to meet the son of Dunsmore. Though our people, the Shawnee and the Cherokee, have been bitter enemies for as long as I can remember, I believe that reunion is necessary for our mutual survival. Cara-Mingo, this is my son Elinipsico."

The dark son's face was unreadable. He bowed his feathered topped head that was shaven, but for the traditional stiffened scalp lock. On his body was a frock of azure trade calico belted with a coral beaded band. Calico leggings covered his lean legs. The son clearly had not come for battle, but Mingo knew of him as an accomplished warrior. He had taken many scalps, both Cherokee and white.

"It is an honor to meet you, Cornstalk, and Elinipsico, in the presence of my father." Mingo resented his father for placing him in this situation.

"I understand from Dunsmore's letter," Cornstalk said, "that we have a shared interest in this man, Ahner Breeden."

"Yes. Daniel Boone and I consider Breeden a renegade, an instigator of war. He can not be allowed to return to Ken-Tah-Tay, nor should he walk any land as a free man."

"I agree," the chief said bluntly. "He set the embers ablaze under our young chiefs; giving them the hope of winning their lands back by slaughtering the white colonists. He claimed to be in war council with General Dunsmore. When I first heard this, I knew it was fallacy, but this Breeden can talk with a silver tongue. He is no friend to the Shawnee. As to this coming white-man's war that will play out around us--what is your stand Cara-Mingo?"

Mingo glanced at his father. "The Cherokee have always sought peace and balance--"

"But you, Cara-Mingo!" Cornstalk thundered. "I ask not what the Cherokee believe but what you believe?" The chief fixed Mingo with his piercing eyes of coal until the Cherokee warrior was uncomfortable and wanted to look away.

"Cornstalk, I do not know what my father has told you about me, but I do not represent the Cherokee. I sit at their councils as a warrior. I am a skilled hunter for the tribe, but…."

"You do not know your strength? You are yet young. You have not crossed that winter where you feel yourself on a downward slope, or abandoned by your spirit guide. I understand. I only wish to know your heart."

Mingo was moved by Cornstalk's presence and words. He tried to speak from his heart. "Honorable peace. I wish for peace between the natives and the whites, but not a peace that makes dogs of the Cherokee. We are willing to talk and make treaties with the whites but all too often they play chess with our lives." Mingo glanced at his father.

Dunsmore smiled and bowed as if to acknowledge his son's accusation.

Cornstalk laughed unexpectedly and seized Mingo's shoulder with a strong hand. "I have learned that game from your father. It is merely the practice of cunning and foresight to sharpen the mind."

The governor was still smiling at Mingo, but the older man's knuckles were white as he gripped the molded edge of his desk. He was nervous about this meeting.

"I never had any interest in the game of chess," Mingo said. "I am something of a disappointment to my father."

"Cara-Mingo, I ask of you and my son to consider my words," the chief said with a sigh. "It is difficult to accept that the white farmers will outnumber us and continue to push us towards the setting sun. Yet we must see the truth that even though we may be stronger of mind and spirit and more clever, we are as the busy beaver faced with an overwhelming flood. We must take into consideration our white friend's weaker nature in our dealings with him. Let him believe that he is our elder brother so that he might open his eyes to see our young warrior's distress and open his ears to hear the cries of our women and children."

"But father if I may speak?" the son asked.

Cornstalk nodded.

"The white man has not understanding of how to live upon this land. He takes and treats it as a thing he owns then he butchers everything on it. He is stupid. He must train his animals and plants to be stupid as well so that he can easily kill them and not starve."

Cornstalk looked affectionately at his son. "Elinipsico, even so that we see the nature of this tribe that has invaded our lands, attempting to stop it with a bullet, or a blade, only stirs a giant hornet's nest which turns in blind rage upon us and slaughters without reason or mercy. We must rather teach as we would teach children."

"Yes, father. I understand what you say, but I fear the English will even steal that from us. They will take our children and make them English like him." Elinipsico pointed to Mingo. "They will turn them against their own blood, their own ways of knowing and make them dumb like sheep."

"Do you see Dunsmore," Cornstalk said, "the strife is even within our families. Son against father, brother against brother."

The old native turned to Mingo with sorrowful eyes. "I journey to find good men, wise men of like mind be they white or red, or even the two-faced Iroquois to the north. We all want the same for our families--peace, prosperity, an honorable future for our children. I bring my son so that he might hear what I hear and know what I know for I do not have many summers left."

"Then you must meet Daniel Boone," Mingo said.

"I wish to meet Sheltowee," Cornstalk said. "He lives on land that is contended by our people. Those were our hunting grounds. The Shawnee live by hunting. Now we are an oppressed people. We the Shawnee stand alone against these Virginians who dicker over our land and barter for it while we yet live upon it. Even our close brothers will not help us."

"Boone has knowledge of the Shawnee," Mingo said, "but he has gained it through Blackfish and Blue Jacket, your war chiefs."

"Good, then I have even more reason to speak with him," the chief said wearily. "We have had a long journey and must rest until the moon sets. We must still talk of what to do with the man, Breeden."

"That shall be arranged," Dunsmore said.

The chief and his son left. Mingo turned to leave but his father placed a hand on his shoulder to stop him.

"Mingo, what do you think of Cornstalk? Tell me truly. Is he fool or wise man?"

"He is a good honest man."

"Then you agree with him?"

"I am more inclined to agree with his son."

"That you are somehow less of a man, or less of a Cherokee because you are half English?"

"Yes."

"Why not the view that you are more than a Cherokee and more than an Englishman?"

"I suppose because the world favors the latter view."

"Why not change the world's view?"

Mingo turned his face towards his father. He peered into the shallow blue eyes as if searching a dim mirror for a like reflection, but he found only the cold indifferent stare of entrenched authority. The eyes narrow, set in a finely chiseled shield of white, were not his eyes, nor any other feature. "It is too late for this conversation is it not?"

"Yes. I suppose, but I hate that you so misunderstood my intentions towards you. You are my son."

"In what way? Cornstalk makes me feel small and empty like that straw man the mob burned on the green. He is as a towering tree rooted in this land with many branches. I am a seed thrown on hard ground. His son is right to condemn what I am and to stand in opposition to that which created me."

The governor smiled and shook his head. "I see a Cornstalk in you and it is not only a father's eyes that sees that. It is only you that has to be convinced. Come with me to England. Let me introduce you to political leaders in Parliament. The English believe that everyone here is with the revolutionaries. They are ready to give up the colonies. They have not heard the native voice, your voice, Cara-Mingo."

Mingo dropped his head and rubbed his eyes. Suddenly overcome with fatigue, he wanted only to be with Daniel and talk to him. "I will not return with you to England. My home--my place is here no matter how small and insignificant it seems to you. If fighting is required, I will make my stand here on Cherokee soil. Good night, Governor."

Dunsmore gripped Mingo's shoulder arresting his movement. "Do you really think this rifle over your shoulder or that rope, knife and tomahawk at your belt can fight off legions of European settlers? If so, then perhaps I have misjudged you. They will break over you like waves on a beach until you are grounded into that precious soil at your feet."

The native wrenched away from the talon clutch of his father and rushed from the room. He leapt like a panther over the railing of the stairs to the floor then crashed through the door, slamming it against its hinges as he exited into the night. He sped for the campsite where he had agreed to meet Daniel. Though having escaped in body, he carried in his mind the haunting of his father's words.

"Daniel Boone, is that you?" Breeden moaned in a cavernous voice as he rolled over on the wood bunk rattling the chains that held him there. The voice and the clang of the chains reverberated in the dark, empty cell. Moonlight streamed through a small barred window making the prisoner's face a ghost.

"Yep." Daniel stood in a secured courtyard and peered through the bars of the cell door at the dark hulk of Ahner Breeden.

"I knew you would come."

"I've just come from a visit with your mother."

"Don't bring her here for God's sake," Breeden growled.

"What a thoughtful son you are."

"Those Shawnee still out there guarding me?"

"Yep. How did you end up in their hands?"

"That was none of your doing? Then your fabled cunning and brilliance is simply luck?" Breeden roared with laughter. "How disappointing. I ran right into their arms."

"Dunsmore arranged Cornstalk's presence here."

"Dunsmore sent me to Kentucky."

"Liar."

Breeden sat up abruptly and rubbed his face in his hands. "Things just didn't go exactly as he planned."

"You're only heapin' more guilt onto the baggage of evidence against you."

"I'm a dead man anyway, Boone. You're going to let Cornstalk have me aren't you?"

"That decision hasn't been made and it's probably not mine to make."

"I could talk my way out of a hanging, Daniel. My kind of people will listen and believe. I know just what to say. You turned me over to the Shawnee and they forced me to attack my own kind. They made a slave of me."

Daniel remained silent as he stared at the lifted square jaw that yet sought to bully even while the body was shackled.

"I don't want to live," Breeden said. "Let Dunsmore decide, or Cornstalk that I may be assured of death. At least with the Shawnee I know how I will die. They will tie me to a tree and each of those warriors will use my head as target practice, trying to just miss. Then they will light a fire at my feet, force me to walk on it, stick firebrands in my side goading me to cry out for mercy. Finally, I will be burned alive, cremated to black bones and ash. My smoke a final glorious belch into the sky."

"Don't be so sure of an honorable death from the Shawnee. And Dunsmore? What would he do?"

Breeden's demonic laughter sounded like a pack of barking wolves as it echoed off the bare wood walls. "If he can find a way to get away with it, I'll be shot in the head or lost at sea. I'm an embarrassment for him."

The chained captive fell silent as if in thought for a long moment then he growled, "I know too much about that imperial gentleman as he shared my mother's bed."

Daniel caught his breath and gripped the door's iron bars. He was thankful the door was padlocked as he would have killed Ahner Breeden with his very hands at that moment.

"He shall not want me telling a judge or jury about that," Breeden mumbled. "Nope. I'm a dead man, unless you somehow convince them to give me a trial by jury here on this soil."

"You shot Yadkin in the back. A man you once knew as a friend."

Breeden was quiet. He fumbled with the shackles at his wrists. "I didn't know it was Yad. I'm truly sorry about that."

"Liar!"

The prisoner chuckled. "He was always your pet hound anyway. He believed in you. Never a word came from Yad, but was praise for you. And the great Daniel Boone, friend of the common man, used to tell me Yad was nothing but a wildcat walking on two legs--pure one-hundred-percent-proof trouble. Boone, seems to me you really ought to be thanking your ole friend Ahner for eliminating a serious hitch in your side."

"I'll admit I've been a mite ticked-off with Yad from time to time. He has a rebellious spirit, but you shot him out of pure meanness!"

"Stop expecting remorse from me, Boone!"

Daniel took a deep breath and grunted angrily in reply. He waited to speak until he could regain his composure.

"A jury trial will not be a walk on the green and a few hours in the stocks," Daniel said. "Maybe when it was Indians you were alleged to have killed, but Yadkin was one o' your own kind and enough people know him here and a whole lot o' people know and love him in Salem and Kentucky. You slipped up, Ahner. Your neck's in a noose. All that's left is to yank it."

Breeden swallowed hard. "Is he dead?"

"I don't know."

"So what are you going to do with me?"

"It's not my decision to make. I just came to see you safely to bed. Wouldn't want anyone draggin' your sorry hide out o' here and dousin' it with hot tar."

Daniel was fiery hot when he left Breeden. He ran as fast as he could into the moonlit night to flee the town and cool down before he found Mingo.

As he silently approached the camp, Daniel saw that the Cherokee had a crackling fire and rabbits roasting. He smiled at the familiar scene and the absurdity of it being a mile out of civilized Williamsburg with warm beds and warm food on every corner.

"Mingo, you save any of that rabbit for me?"

"I've got a whole one here for you, Daniel."

"Thank you, kindly. I'm starved. So tell me about this Cornstalk."

Daniel flopped down on his blanket, leaned against the convenient log Mingo had arranged and propped his knees up. He accepted the juicy rabbit-on-a-stick his friend offered.

"He is an impressive man. A man of peace among the Shawnee."

"Really? Now that's a rare bird. Is he a friend of your father's?"

"He probably thinks he is, but my father's idea of friendship differs significantly from yours and mine."

"So. Dunsmore was in collusion with the Shawnee but not exactly for the reasons most folk believe?"

Mingo smirked and wiped his hands on his blue pants legs. "Whenever I have to spend five minutes with my father I want to run and find a jug of Cincinnatus's bear juice."

Daniel observed Mingo quietly for a moment.

The Cherokee remained sullen and silent.

"So tell me about it," the frontiersman said as he gnawed the flavorful meat.

"You are thinking of the many funerals you may be facing on your return home. You do not need to hear my personal troubles."

"This is as good a time as any. I had a little help puttin' things right in my mind this evenin'. The world doesn't look nearly as bleak as it has for the past nine days. It's a relief just knowin' Breeden isn't in Kentucky."

"I don't understand this war," Mingo said. "My father seems to think it threatens the Cherokee."

Daniel leaned forward and studied his troubled friend's black eyes. "What exactly did he say to you?"

"What do you see when you look at me?"

The question surprised the frontiersman. "Are you serious?"

"Yes."

Daniel removed his coonskin cap and scratched his head. "Well. I see an intelligent strong sensitive young man. A sober and wise man whose advice I value above all other men I know. Though at times a man who is reluctant to lead or say what he truly feels. Oh….and most importantly, a kick-bum wrestler who makes the best corn cakes I've ever tasted."

Mingo laughed. "That is appropriate. I sound like a confusion."

"Isn't the more important question what do you see when you look at your reflection?"

"Perhaps to men like you and I, but not men like my father, and apparently not Cornstalk either. A Shawnee chief searched for something in me tonight and I did not feel equal to it."

"Like what?"

Mingo shrugged.

"Mingo, I'm just a simple man of simple means. For what it's worth, I believe fathers can see in the child the man to be. Take Israel for instance. You and I both have a pretty good idea of the outline of the man he will become."

"You will not force upon him your notion of what his life should be to benefit yourself."

"I hope I won't. I take it your father has high expectations where you are concerned and it makes you feel incomplete perhaps?"

"You are very perceptive for a simple man, Daniel."

"Is he tryin' to persuade you to return to England to assist in this quarrel between the Americans and the King?"

"Yes again."

"I don't blame him for that, Mingo. You can be very persuasive, but it comes from your natural honesty. I think you'd be uncomfortable if you were asked to lie or color the truth a mite to further a political goal."

Mingo turned and smiled at his friend. "As in using straw man arguments to further a cause? Give me liberty, or give me death?"

Daniel's eyes widened. "The headline in today's paper? Sounds like a slogan to me."

"The words of a man named Patrick Henry." Mingo pulled the newspaper from his bandolier and threw it at Daniel's feet. "He is the thorn in my father's side. No one has enslaved the white colonists. What does this Patrick Henry want? Tell me the truth."

"I don't know for sure myself what Patrick Henry wants, but it must be somethin' terrible as I hear tell the British have him on a list for arrest and hangin'."

Mingo frowned.

"Far as I know, he's just another wealthy Virginia politician with the gift for gab, and a desire for Shawnee land." Daniel said.

"What do you mean?"

"You asked for the truth. The Virginians want the land. All of it, even north of the Ohio--the Ohio Valley. The British have made treaties with the Shawnee that require no white settlement north of the Ohio. To some folk, liberty means freedom from honoring those treaties."

Mingo dropped his head. "There is no liberty for the native then? Only annihilation or slavery?"

"I don't know. We have to hope for better. I know I've no power to bring to bear upon it."

"Daniel, you have power. I witnessed it today."

"Ah, Mingo, I'm just a commoner. They like my story and perhaps the way I string my words together. You though, sir, obviously don't recognize your own power. It's in your look, in your voice. You grabbed those men by their imaginations and bent their ears. I'd be wearin' a tar suit right now if you hadn't been there."

Mingo furrowed his brows in doubt. He looked down at himself. "I fail to see how one lone Cherokee can stand up to the might of an empire or a rebellion. I'm a cautious man, Daniel."

The frontiersman chuckled and shook his head. "It's merely a talent to lead and the gumption to do it. Some men have it and never realize it. Even Yad has it. You've seen how he can herd those settlers at the fort like sheep. Only problem—he's sendin' 'em down the wrong trail most o' the time. That's why I keep him on a short leash."

Mingo laughed. "And Breeden?"

"Yep."

"You have any other insight into my condition to share with me?" the Cherokee asked with a sideways glance at his friend.

"In the words of my dead father, Dunsmore sees you as an investment that he'd still like to receive a return on."

Mingo nodded. "So tell me more about your relationship with your father."

"He could've sent me to school like all my other siblings. He was prosperous and had the money, but he knew I didn't belong there. He let me follow my own head. I'm thankful for that until I have to take care of a bit of business like debts and land deals then I miss my father's advice. I never felt comfortable in his world of business or politics, and because I didn't go to school, I still flounder like a beached fish."

"I do not see that you are missing anything, Daniel."

"Some day the world will no longer value a man like me. Skill with a rifle, or woodcraft, won't be important."

"Not in your lifetime."

"I'm not so sure o' that. Things are movin' pretty fast. Take this war for instance. The world will trample men like me. All that'll remain o' Daniel Boone will be stories told around campfires to children."

Mingo dropped his head. He dug at the dying embers of the fire with a stick. "The Cherokee will only be stories told around campfires to white children."

"You asked for advice. If you are askin' on behalf of the Cherokee, then I'll tell you the same thing I've told Blackfish, stay neutral."

"That is what I have been trying to do," Mingo said brandishing the ash covered stick in the air and addressing the rabbits, "but after this trip, I am not sure it is the right thing. How can I just sit on the side and let other men decide my fate?" He turned his fierce furrowed brow and steady eyes upon his friend.

The depth of his companion's uncharacteristic display of self-inflicted anxiety took Daniel aback. He thought that was his own private affliction.

"Watch out, my friend," the frontiersman said. "These men, like Cleves, your father, and maybe even Cornstalk, are sizin' you up as to how you might assist them with their respective causes. I've learned through the school of hard-knocks that if you agree to help them in some manner, make sure you have somethin' in writin' upfront with substantial collateral that you will receive a real concrete return."

Mingo laughed brightly. "Daniel, I believe that is your father talking."

"Might be. Now I'm goin' to finish off this rabbit," Daniel licked his fingers, "then I'm goin' to get some shut-eye. We have to rise as the moon sets. I don't reckon we need to set watch around here. As Dr. Cleves told me when I first met him, there are only squirrels in these woods around Williamsburg, and though their bark is fierce, their bite is not."

The native smirked and proceeded to finish his part of the repast.