The camp dogs’ frantic throaty growls and sharp yelps, echoing through the darkness, wake me with a start. I sit up, knowing they’ve sensed something.

Laying on his blanket next to me, Black Turtle wakes as well.

Then the crack of rifle fire rings out, a slight pause, time to reload, and shots again. Chief Black Fish is yelling, “Huy! Huy! Shawnees,’”

I glance at Black Turtle. “We are Shawnees?” I ask to make sure I’m interpreting it right.

“Yes. He thinks they are Shawnee firing at us and they don’t know that we are, too. But I don’t think so. Stay inside.” Black Turtle jumps up, grabs his musket, and stoops over to hurry out of the wegiwas tight exit.

 I don’t listen. Grabbing my rifle, I follow. Maybe it’s a chance to escape.

Volleys of booming gun fire burst in the forest. I run for cover, afraid of being targeted as one of the Shawnee.

I cautiously step out of hiding when it’s over with the Shawnees to find two of the hunting party shot dead. We wrap the corpses in blankets and lay them over horses to carry them back to Little Chillicothe for the four-day funeral rites.

As Black Fish mounts to head out, I overhear him ask Boone,

“We raid the whites. The whites don’t raid us. They don’t know the location of our villages or hunting camps. Who do you think it is?”

 Boone says, “It’s probably Little Fish.”

Black Fish’s eyebrows arch high and his eyes gleam with amusement. “No, Little Fish is a fool and could never have reached Kentucky.”

Boone cocked his head. “Little Fish is not a fool. He’s a skilled frontiersman.”

* * *

With the hunting expedition cut short, we head back to the village. Not long after we ride in, a small raiding party returns to get a mount for a wounded warrior they hid when they crossed the Ohio after raiding Boonesborough. I’m waiting for their return to hear if they killed anyone, scalped anyone, burned crops. I bite my knuckle as thoughts spin in my mind. 

I take a deep breath as the Shawnee raiders ride back in on lean, muscular horses at a thunderous gallop. This time with one other warrior.

I dash up to the bleeding raider. He’s wearing a deep red headband and his face is marked with red paint, the same crimson color gushing from his chest. I help him down from his mount.

One of the raiding party says, “We will help him get to the medicine man. You tell Black Fish to come there too. Nine Minks has information he’ll want to hear.”

I fetch the chief and we dash to the Medicine Man’s long house.

As soon as Black Fish enters, Nine Minks gestures to the chief and says, “I saw him. Little Fish with other white men and the stolen Shawnee horses passed by me as I hid in the brush.

The chief rubs his smooth chin. “Though Little Fish is a small man in height, he is also one of the biggest scoundrels there is.”

* * *

Skinning and butchering the venison from my hunt gives me little time to worry about how long it will take to get the pelts needed to prove my worth as a hunter. But at just 23 years of age, I still don’t know if I want a wife now. But what I can’t ignore is the image of Little Salt Bride’s face lingering in my mind. There is a glow about the warm, earthy undertone of her smooth complexion. My gaze is drawn into the depths of her alluring, acorn brown eyes. I am told the Shawnee don’t kiss. But I can’t help imagining what the gentle curve of her rosy hued bow-shaped lips feels like pressed against mine.

And if I marry her, how can I ever abandon her? Escaping would also mean leaving Red Star, which I fear will prove as hard on me as my mother’s death was. I know that makes little sense, but it doesn’t change the emotions tightening my throat and causing tears to fall. Furthermore, I cannot imagine turning away from my adopted father, who showed me an openness and warmth my own father could never offer me.

* * *

 Summer is here with fields of tall, lush stalks, their vibrant green leaves crowned with tassels the shade of honeycomb in the sun. And emerald pea pods clasping dense green leaves. As well as sunny yellow blossoms on squash vines with puffy, saffron, tear-drop vegetables just beginning to grow.

 William Hancock is sneaking around our msikamekwi, full of visitors: Chief Moluntha and Chief Black Hoof both of the Mekoche sept, Chippewa Chief, Black Bird, who fought at Braddock’s defeat during the French and Indian War.

I silently step up to him. Abruptly, he guides me over toward the fields where the women are working so hard they are too busy to care what we are talking about.

As I look at the circles under his eyes as he whispers, “444 warriors, four chiefs, including Black Fish, 12 French Canadians plus the lieutenant, and 40 horses loaded with ammunition and supplies.”

I gasp. There can’t be more than 50 men and boys combined at Boonesborough. My heart pounds with the grim realization survival is unlikely.

I rub my hand on my green leggings as he continues. “Crossing the Ohio at the mouth of Cabin Creek, then following the warrior’s path south toward the Blue Licks, taking the Great Buffalo’s Trace to Boonesborough, they’ll camp on the north bank of the Kentucky River,” he states in a hushed tone.

I see Cousin Jesse and my brother-in-law, Ann’s husband, John Milam, in my swirling mind. My muscles tense, causing the knot in my neck to ache. Boone is right. I’m wrong. They are the enemy. In raspy breaths, I ask Hancock. “The white man  brought in today. What happened?”

 “Some poor frontiersmen they captured in Kentucky. I think they killed him. Hanging about the council house, I heard them question him about how many troops are at Boonesborough.”

“He told them?” My breath catches in my throat.

William chuckles and shakes his head. “Told them all three forts were just reinforced with companies of 70 men each.”

“He lied to them. Thank God, he lied. They believe him?”

“Yes. They believe it. That’s why they got all this extra ammunition and horses. They are going to bring 40 horses just for the women, children, and old people to ride on to Detroit.”

“I have to get this information to Boonesborough.,” William rubs his elbow.

I nod. “Arabia escaped, but I don’t know the details.”

“He’ll be there now and Boone. I have to be there,” William Hancock says in a low tone.

“At Boonesborough.” I swallow a hard lump in my throat. Captivity had not worked well for him. He’d fallen into a languid, melancholy state. I think the Shawnees just think he’s strange. But this mission to save Boonesborough or be there when it’s taken has given him purpose.

“We have to break up the conversation. Men will wonder why we are talking over here by the women.” He turns his back to me and says, “Good bye.”

I have not decided in my heart to leave my mother Red Star. In my mind, I decided long ago. She is my enemy, not my mother. But my heart keeps interfering. Guilt weighs heavily on me. Not only do I not want to leave Red Star, I am not confident about getting safely to Boonesborough if I escape. I am not yet willing to risk it. Though I am not telling William that. Or anyone. I’m worried about escaping. If caught, the Shawnee will probably kill me or worse, burn me alive. I may starve or die in the wilderness or get captured by another Native American nation or other allies of the British.

Boone escaped, but not from here. They sent him with other warriors and women to Little Chillicothe to the Salt Springs on Sciota. While they were all boiling salt, the warriors heard turkeys and went to hunt them. Boone told the Shawnee women he was going to get his wife and children and bring them back, and he escaped.

My brother, Black Turtle, the enemy, they are my enemy I keep telling myself, says the chiefs and the French Lieutenant believe Boone will persuade the inhabitants of the fort to surrender peacefully with no bloodshed.

I don’t believe it. I know those people.

* * *