Chapter 2
It was a mere jaunt of two hundred miles over the mountains, Bleu sometimes jested.
Once he left Fort Pitt, he merely meandered along the Monongahela River then crossed the Allegheny Mountains with its steep ascents and descents before taking an Indian trail to enter the Shenandoah Valley.
His sister—Sylvie—was east of that along the Rivanna River.
Oui, a mere jaunt.
The late spring weather was in his favor aside from a downpour or two.
He wasn’t the only one journeying through remote wilderness though one could go for days before seeing another living soul.
He’d encountered plenty of dead ones. But that was during the last war when nothing had been safe nor sacred.
This trip his foremost concern was where to rest his horse and resupply himself along the way.
He knew to avoid stops like Bird-in-Hand with its raucous patrons and bug-infested linens.
Taverns like The Red Fox and Rising Sun he favored for their tidy, Virginia hospitality.
Many a time he’d slept in some darkened stable when there’d been no beds, preferring horses to humans.
More than once he’d been mistaken for a traveling preacher with no home or tie to a place.
On account of the Bible he carried, he guessed.
Sometimes that rootlessness bedeviled him when a twinge in his joints reminded him he was older than thirty years.
Or a missed meal told him he needn’t miss any if he planted himself somewhere and made a home.
Home was no longer Acadie, lost to the British and renamed Nova Scotia.
He tried not to think of that invasion and expulsion overlong.
Eight years had passed since then, a blur of time spent as a guide, interpreter, and liaison between the tribes and colonies, often ending at the former Fort Duquesne, a remote garrison frequently fought over by the English and French.
At the moment it was in English hands, having been wrested from the French and renamed Fort Pitt.
Hope and happenstance now found him on the move again in the North American wilderness as he came into the stump-littered clearing along the Red Fork River.
In front of him stood Fort Randolph—or what was left of it.
This had been the place of a massacre few had forgotten.
Burnt during the last war, only the blockhouse stayed standing, a defiant outline in the dusk.
Further down the riverbank stood a log house.
Light should have been flaring from Crown glass windows, a man standing on the front stoop shouting halloo but it was ransacked, too.
Bleu felt a chill that had nothing to do with the spring damp.
He walked through the ash and timber, looking for anything salvageable.
It returned him unwillingly to Acadie when the British torched their homes and orchards and fields.
Only this was the work of Indians. The signs were right.
Toward dusk when he’d pressed on another mile, he heard a rustle in the brush. Instinctively, his hand reached for the knife in his belt, suspecting an animal but finding a grizzled man staring back at him behind a sprawling laurel bush.
“Rest easy,” the stranger said, straightening and relaxing his grip on his rifle. “You have the look of a hostile but something ain’t quite right.”
Bleu almost smiled. He’d been called worse. “Part Acadian, part Mi’kmaq. From Canada.”
“Friend, not foe, then.” The man ran a sleeve across his damp brow. He was so heavily bearded Bleu couldn’t tell if he was young or old. The pronounced lump in his cheek foretold tobacco. “You’re a far piece from the north territory.”
“I quit Fort Pitt recently and am headed to the Rivanna River.”
“I’m coming back from Cumberland country.” He spat into the laurel. “And I’m done in. My horse threw a shoe about half a mile back but I remember a blacksmith being in the next settlement.”
They made camp near a thin ribbon of creek away from the main trail. Dusk gathered with all its accompanying sounds and shadows as they talked in low tones. This man—Uriah Stone—was a Longhunter who knew the Virginia frontier well but had his sights on Tennessee and Kentucke.
“What news do you bring from Pitt?” he asked, passing jerked meat to Bleu. “Peaceable in that part of the country at long last?”
“Peaceable enough that Pitt’s commandant is busy making a deer park and garden and bowling green instead of bullet lead—or was.”
Stone chuckled then sobered. “Any truth to the rumor that Detroit’s Indians are calling for uprisings up and down the frontier?”
Bleu nodded and swallowed the jerky. “The Seven Years’ War may have ended for the British and French but no tribe will rest when overrun by the enemy and treaties are violated.”
“So, what will you do once you reach the Rivanna?”
“Visit my sister and her family.” Even now Bleu envisioned his nieces and nephews clamoring for attention, the youngest climbing his buckskin-clad legs like a tree.
Talbot, Amélie, Corbin, Madeleine, Morgan and Jolie.
By now Sylvie might have had another. His last visit was more than a year ago.
“What’s the name?”
“Blackburn,” Bleu replied.
“William Blackburn of Blackburn’s Rangers?” Respect rode Stone’s bearded features. “Started a settlement in central Virginia. Even wrote a book if I recollect rightly. And you?”
“I’m a former trader with Hudson’s Bay Company turned scout and interpreter during the last war. As for the future, I’m at a crossroads.”
“Maybe you could pen a book about your exploits like Blackburn.”
Bleu shook his head. “My histoire captivante would fall far short of his.”
“I beg to differ.” Stone took a long drink from his flask. “I’ve heard tales of you Canadians and the like. Your Hudson’s Bay adventures would fill more than one volume.”
“I’d rather forget. Start afresh.” Bleu took a drink from his own flask. “Canada holds a bitter taint.”
“You wed?”
“Wedded to the wilderness.” Would there ever be a Madame Galant? He doubted it. “And you?”
“Nay. Few women would put up with my tramps that last two years or better.” He studied Bleu shrewdly. “I could use a hand with trapping and trading if you’d reconsider the Rivanna.”
As a Longhunter? It held little appeal. He’d rather survey alongside his brother-in-law instead. Finish the house he’d begun in the foothills near his and Sylvie’s home, Orchard Rest. Forge a different sort of life.
Perhaps even come to terms with all that had been lost.
“For now I need to see central Virginia. I’ve been away long enough my sister might be wondering if I’m still alive.
” Bleu looked through the trees where the sun was setting in a fiery show.
“I may well tarry awhile this time. Nothing is more important than family. When you’ve lost much you treasure those who remain. ”