Eyes of Eagles (7 page)

Four people taught at the local school: Reverend Callaway, his wife, Elizabeth, Abe Caney's wife, Mary, and Sarah Montgomery. The community had tried to hire a full-time teacher, but so far had no luck in doing so. That summer Sarah tutored Jamie at home, in preparation for the next term. She found him to be exceptionally bright and to be a voracious reader. Whenever he had a spare moment, he had his nose stuck in a book.

News from town was not good. The Saxon brothers had broken out of jail . . . with some outside help, and nearly everyone thought they knew who had helped them: Hart Olmstead and John Jackson. But nobody could prove it.

Hart Olmstead had forbidden his daughter, Kate, from ever again going out to the Montgomery's. He had given the child a terrible beating when she mentioned Jamie's name one evening at the supper table.

Robert Jefferson told Jamie about Kate's beating one day in town and the boy's thoughts turned dark and savage, but no one knew it except Jamie. Like the Indians who had taken him, Jamie had mastered well the art of facial stoicism.

“Did he hurt her bad?” Jamie asked.

“He marked her some,” Robert told him, as the boys sat on the ground and played mumbly-peg with their knives.

Jamie still carried his Shawnee skinning knife, but he carried it out of sight, tucked into his high-topped moccasins. He did so without Sam having to ask. He wanted to do everything he possibly could to make life easier for the couple who were so kind to take him in. But there was one thing he refused to do: wear shoes. And Sam and Sarah had stopped asking him to. During his formative years, from seven to nearly twelve years of age, he had not had a shoe on either foot, so his feet just weren't comfortable in anything except moccasins.

“How bad?”

“Not too bad, 'way I heared it. Heard it.” Since school was about to start, he had begun to watch his grammar. Getting rapped on the knuckles or a twisted ear hurt. “He was careful not to mark her on the face. He beat her back and backside with a belt. She had to stay abed for several days.”

The boys were silent for a time. Robert looked at Jamie. “You got a funny look in your eyes, Jamie.”

The look vanished instantly. Jamie smiled. “Just thinking, that's all.”

“You anxious for school to start?”

“Yeah. I really am.”

* * *

School on the frontier was primitive at best. The buildings were ill-heated in the winter and insufferably hot in the summer. If a child got four full months of schooling a year, that was considered good. And those four months almost always were in the dead of winter, when his or her parents did not need them to work in the fields, plowing, planting, harvesting, mending fences, chasing down strayed cattle or hogs, or hunting for food or gathering berries.

But Jamie cherished every moment in school, for he was fully aware that he was far behind the others his age. However, there was also another reason why Jamie loved school: he got to sit next to Kate Olmstead.

During his first year of his stay at the home of Sam and Sarah Montgomery, Jubal Olmstead, Abel Jackson, and the few others who called them friends pretty much left Jamie alone. But Jamie knew it wouldn't last and he was careful not to get caught out alone. It wasn't that he was afraid, for he was not. He just didn't want to cause trouble for Sam and Sarah.

Jamie was growing fast and filling out. Already big for his age, he was going to be a tall man, wide shouldered, lean hipped, and heavily muscled. Already he could more than hold his own with Sam in the fields, but he always held back, so as not to embarrass Sam.

Sam had presented Jamie with a fine Kentucky horse, a midnight-black stallion named Lightning that he'd bought for no more than a song because no one could ride the animal.

“If you can ride him, you can have him, Jamie.”

“I'll ride him, sir.”

“Just keep him away from the other horses. This one's a bad one.”

“He's just misunderstood, sir. That's all. Believe me, I know the feeling.”

Jamie gently broke the horse, constantly talking to him and not even attempting to ride the stallion for weeks, until the animal became used to Jamie's touch and voice. Sam and Sarah watched him work and both knew the boy had an almost unnatural ability to handle animals.

“Eerie,” Sarah called it.

Sam agreed.

The big black had tried numerous times to bite and kick Sam, but never with Jamie.

Jamie turned out to be a fine horseman, taking to the saddle as if born to it. He could be seen often on the road into town, riding in to fetch something for Sarah. He carried a short-barreled rifle in a saddle boot — a cut-down version of a Kentucky rifle — and kept his pistol in a saddlebag. The carrying of weapons caused no head to turn, for brigands prowled the roads and dark paths of the timber, and Indian attacks were still occurring, although the latter were slowly tapering off as the various tribes were killed off, pushed westward, or breaking apart and attempting to assimilate into white society.

Jamie had heard that Tall Bull's band had left the country and gone west. Where in the west no one seemed to know. But Jamie had not forgotten Deer Woman's dire prediction: “Someday Tall Bull and Little Wolf will find you. That will be the day when you must decide whether you live or die. And whether you will, or can, kill your father and brother.”

Deer Woman might have had some doubts as to whether Jamie could kill in defense of his life or loved one. Jamie had no doubts at all.

Since the day of that terrible fight in the road that passed in front of Sam and Sarah's land, Hart Olmstead had spoken not one word to Sam, Sarah, or Jamie. John Jackson spoke, but it was forced, and never more than a very terse greeting or farewell. Hart and his boys had stopped attending Reverend Callaway's church. Kate and her mother still came to Sunday services, and to the occasional singin' and eatin' on the grounds, and Kate was rapidly turning into quite the young woman, beginning to fill out in all the right places and turning heads whenever she entered a building. But she had eyes only for Jamie.

Hart Olmstead had once again stated his objection to Jamie and forbidden his only daughter to see the boy. But Kate paid no attention to the warning and managed to see Jamie whenever he came to town, if only at a distance or to exchange a few words in Abe's General Store.

Jamie's life took on a darker and more dangerous note as the small town in Kentucky began to grow, not always with the right people. Hart Olmstead's brothers moved into the area, as did kin of John Jackson, and with them they brought several friends, mostly white trash with criminal tendencies. And as is so often the case with trash, they had an army of children, most of whom were, tragically, just as ignorant as their parents.

“Apples do not fall far from the tree,” Reverend Callaway remarked over coffee after supper at the Montgomery home. “I fear that our community is rapidly being populated with individuals of less than honorable intent.”

Jamie said nothing; just listened. Several times in the past few weeks he had been forced to gallop Lightning in order to get away from the growing gang that hung around Jubal Olmstead and Abel Jackson. Those two had dropped out of school and were very nearly men grown. And they were dangerous. Thefts had increased a dozen times over since the new additions to the community had arrived and there had been several men badly beaten and left by the side of the road after being robbed. Two women had been assaulted and raped in their cabins.

Several men had gone to Sheriff Marwick and warned him that if something wasn't done to curb the crime, the citizens just might have to take to night-riding.

Sam Montgomery's holdings had grow dramatically as farmers whose lands bordered his gave up and moved away, selling out to Sam. Sam now had two men working for him; good Christian men, with families. The community several miles from town had grown, and the citizens met and voted to start their own town, complete with church, school, general store, and marshal.

They named it New Town, which in a few years would be changed to Montgomery, and before the turn of the century would be gone, with not even a building standing. Abe Caney built a general store in New Town, Reverend Callaway moved into New Town and a church was built. Gradually, over the months, New Town became a safe haven for decent, hard-working people, while trash took over the old town. They built saloons, gambling parlors, and houses of ill repute, elected John Jackson as mayor and Hart Olmstead as tax assessor of the county.

Jamie was fourteen years old, looked twenty, and was tree-tall and strong as a bull. He still wore his thick blond hair shoulder length and wore his high-top moccasins. Several times, young men who followed the dictates of Abel Jackson and Jubal Olmstead had made the mistake of challenging Jamie, confronting him on the dark, twisted roads that wound amid a sea of trees. Twice Jamie had been able to outdistance them on Lightning. The last time he had been forced to fight.

Jamie galloped into the yard and leaped from the saddle, running to the house, startling Sam and Sarah, who had just sat down for the noon meal.

“What's wrong, Jamie?” Sam asked, rising from his chair.

“I didn't make it to the north field, Sam.” As Jamie grew older, the couple had insisted that Jamie call them by their first names. “The gang that Hart's nephew, Edgar, heads waylaid me. There was a shooting, Sam.”

Sam asked no questions. He knew in his heart that Jamie had not provoked it; knew that for almost three years Jamie had carefully avoided trouble, ignoring taunts that he, personally, would have killed over. “Ring the bell, Sarah,” he said. “The sheriff and a posse will be along soon, and they'll be wanting to take Jamie. That will not happen as long as there is breath left in me.”

“What do you want me to do, Sam?” Jamie asked.

“Charge your rifle and pistol, lad.”

Jamie shook his head. “No, Sam. Wait, Sarah. Don't ring that bell. We have a few minutes; probably more than an hour. Listen to me. There will be a dozen or more men and boys ready to swear that I provoked this trouble. You know that. I don't know if I killed that fellow or not, but I think I did. It was close range, and my ball was true. The jury will be rigged, and I'll hang.” Sarah started crying and Sam was trembling with rage. “It's over here for me.”

“No!” Sam shouted, his big fists clenched.

“Yes,” Jamie said softly. “I've been expecting this. And I'm ready for it. Even if I should beat this false charge, those who hate me will never let me live in peace. Not here. I have a place chosen in the dark timber two day's ride west of here. I've food and blankets ready to go in the barn. It's better this way. You both know it in your hearts. I love you both dearly, but I can't stay. I don't want blood spilled over me. The wilderness is my home. I'm as comfortable there as a wolf, a panther, or an eagle. I'll see you both from time to time. Tell Kate that I love her and to wait for my return. I will be back for her.” He hesitated. “Sam, I will soon have the name of an outlaw. The sheriff, Hart Olmstead, and John Jackson and their kind will have me known as a highwayman. Don't you believe it.” A twinkle came into his eyes. “Oh, I might take something from them every now and then, to help those they've taxed into poverty and the like...”

“Jamie,” Sam said. “I ...”

The young man waved him silent. “I must go. Be sure to tell Kate I will be back.” He kissed Sarah, shook Sam's hand, and walked out of the house. He did not look back.

Jamie unfolded and looked at the badly faded wanted notice he'd found tacked to a tree and smiled. There was a fairly accurate description of his likeness on the page.

“So I did kill the man,” Jamie muttered. “But what else could I do? He was trying to kill me!”

He was sitting in his camp, deep in the woods of unsettled Kentucky, and in 1826, there were a lot of those places. It had been months since he'd left the comfortable home of Sam and Sarah Montgomery, and just as many months since he'd seen Kate. But he'd been back to their secret place several times for the messages she would leave in a hollow tree. It was on the way back west to his camp that he'd found the wanted notice. Now, sitting by his lonely fire in the cave in Western Kentucky, Jamie allowed himself the luxury of a few moments of feeling sorry for himself. Would he ever find peace? The summer was nearly gone, and soon he would have another birthday. His fifteenth. These were supposed to be the fun years of life... so he'd read. If these were the fun years, he sure wasn't looking forward to the bad years.

He shook those thoughts away and once more reread the letter from Kate. Even under these dangerous and dire circumstances, it was difficult for Jamie to get very low for very long. It just wasn't his nature. He was a survivor.

Jamie folded the letter carefully. He had read the letter several times and had memorized it all.

Sitting by his fire, he cooked his supper and then rolled up in his blanket. His mind was made up. He was going back and speaking to Hannah. She had been his friend and deserved some happiness. And maybe he'd just settle some old scores with the Jackson family while he was at it.