The Overmountain Men

Cameron Judd

• Publisher: Open Road Media
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781497630895
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Westerns
• Index: Literature

The first in a trilogy set in the untamed colonial American wilderness, from "a keen observer of the human heart as well as a fine action writer" ( Publishers Weekly ). Joshua Colter was born of the wild frontier. As a young boy living with his family on the edges of civilization during the French and Indian War, he witnessed firsthand the bloodshed and brutality men were capable of—from the deception and depredations of whites like his own vile father to the merciless vengeance of the native tribes. Forced by cruel fate to set out on his own, he was adopted by an honorable hunter who taught him to fight and survive while remaining true to his own heart. But as much as the solitary Joshua loves living rough and free in the forests and mountains, the troubles of the civilized world are encroaching, as the once-pristine wilderness is being carved up between the all-powerful British crown, settlers searching for a land to call their own, and the native Indians who desperately defy them both to protect their ancestral home. Now, in a burgeoning land of hope and hardship, Joshua will have to decide what he is willing to fight and die for as the birth of a new nation breaks on the horizon.

III
Haverly Fort

Chapter 12

For months after Tilly’s suicide, Joshua remained alone: hunting, exploring, losing himself in the deep forests and avoiding human contact. The lingering pain of Tilly’s death was his only companion besides his packhorse and dog. He grieved for Tilly deeply but also fought an impulse to hate her for what she had done. She had forever taken herself from those who loved her, and Joshua had trouble forgiving that.

He prayed for Tilly sometimes, having no idea if such could do her any good. If nothing else, it made him feel better, so he did it quite often—in the back of his mind and sometimes aloud.

He left North Carolina and traveled into Virginia, crossing the New River along the road leading to Fort Chiswell. Turning southwest, he passed rapidly through Wolf Hills and into the Holston region, moving down the great valley that extended into Tanisi, or Tennessee, as many now called it. Near Sapling Grove, where he, Alphus, and Levi had met Evan Shelby many months ago, he took a more westerly course and traversed the rolling hill country over to the famous Long Island of the Holston River, an important military site for both white and red men and a historic treaty ground.

Here, at the head of a long mountain ridge that extended southwest for more than twenty miles, he turned northward along an ancient Indian route and passed through a gap sliced by nature through Clinch Mountain. He went west along the line marked by the northern slope of Clinch Mountain for about six miles, then turned north up a creek that followed the contours of the hill bases like a long curving snake until at last he reached the rocky slopes of Powell Mountain.

Just beyond Powell Mountain was the northwesternmost section of Wallen’s Ridge, a familiar landmark to hunters and explorers. The ridge, named for a 1760s long hunter whom Alphus Colter said he had met many years before, extended parallel to Powell Mountain for many miles, with Wallen Creek running between the mountain and ridge.

Joshua turned west along the creek to hunt, planning to travel the full length of the ridge. He went only a short way, however, before changing his mind and cutting north across a high gap in the ridge and entering the valley of the Powell River, which meandered through some of the most beautiful land Joshua had ever seen. Joshua decided to follow the river, along whose banks one Ambrose Powell had more than twenty years before carved his name into the bark of streamside trees, leading Wallen and other long hunters to call the river by his name.

As weeks passed, the sharpness of his pain wore away, and his thoughts turned more often to the daily activities of his solitary life. Autumn came, cooling the air and turning the mountains scarlet and golden. The fresh smell of crisp fall leaves gave the air a clean sharp edge that made every breath seem purging and full of health. The cooler temperatures allowed for longer and more strenuous treks, and Joshua covered vast distances, especially when traveling along the abundant Indian paths and buffalo trails that were the highways of the forest.

Joshua traveled slowly through the valley, with the high ridge of the Cumberland Mountains to the north, Wallen’s Ridge and Powell Mountain to the south. At length he turned north again, moving toward the base of the Cumberlands and onto the Indian war trace there. He found the remains of a settlement that one Captain Joseph Martin had begun in 1769 but had abandoned under the harassment of hostile Cherokees. He continued westward until the white rocks along the top of the Cumberland ridge told him he was nearing Cumberland Gap.

The gap, which first revealed itself awesomely to Joshua in the glare of a nighttime lightning flash, was a deep, wide slice through the otherwise impenetrable Cumberland Mountains, beyond which lay the fabled country the hunters called “Caintuck,” or Kentucky. Joshua traveled across the long sloping hump of the gap’s low point and down into the level of the creek beyond. Crossing the creek, he noted occasional seams of coal in the nearby rocks, found abundant reeds and cane, and struck a wide buffalo trail that marked a clear northward route. Following it, he forded the Cumberland River and passed through another mountain gap some miles beyond it.

Until the winter came, he hunted and explored through the endless mazelike forested Kentucky hollows, valleys, and passes. This was rugged rocky country, full of vast trees overtowering scrubby dogwoods, rhododendron, laurel, sumac, and other underbrush. It was level nowhere, easily confusing, even to an experienced woodsman, and Joshua occasionally was uncertain for several hours of his exact location. He began using the Cumberland River as his point of reference and after that explored throughout the region without much difficulty until winter came on and he turned south again.

At Cumberland Ford, the dog tangled with a bear Joshua had stirred from its winter den and came out the worse for it. Joshua killed the bear, then with a heavy heart shot the hopelessly injured dog. He lingered long enough to bury the dog and to make a new winter cloak for himself from the bearhide, then continued south.

Passing back through Cumberland Gap, he crossed the Powell and Clinch rivers, climbed the northwest slope of Clinch Mountain, and descended into the flat bottomland on the far side. Here he hunted, living in a little hide-covered lean-to built near a clear spring that bubbled from a hole in a rock. Tiring finally of this area, he headed farther south and then east as snow dusted the landscape. He was now closer to the hunting grounds that he, Alphus, and Levi had most often used.

These months of long and seemingly pointless wanderings were serving a purpose for Joshua. Every day, his mind was less weighted by the death of Tilly. He thought increasingly about Alphus, Sina, and the others, wondering how they fared

and if Alphus had made good on his talk of moving west. If he had, then he might not be far from here. Perhaps at Sapling Grove, in which he had seemed so interested during their talk with Evan Shelby.

Traveling up Lick Creek, Joshua came to within a few miles of Long Island in the Holston and considered heading across to Sapling Grove. But after considerable debate, he decided instead to explore the Watauga River, along which he, Alphus, and Levi had hunted and trapped so often. There, surprisingly, he found many signs of settlement. The cabins and farmsteads he kept away from, not yet desirous of company, particularly that of strangers.

Traveling slowly, building one crude lean-to station camp after another, Joshua by chance found a beech tree marking the spot where Daniel Boone had killed a bear in 1760 and recorded the event with his knife on the tree’s smooth surface. There were several cabins nearby now, and more in the nearby Watauga Old Fields—ancient fields cleared of their virgin forests long ago by the Indians.

Joshua all but felt the presence of Levi Hampton, partially because he had hunted in this area with him, partially because Boone’s carving on the tree reminded him of Levi’s final carved message. He eventually reached Great Limestone Creek and followed it to the Nolichucky River, along which he searched for the little creek marking the place Levi had died. He found it.

The tree still bore Levi’s message and would for scores of years to come, but already growth and healing had begun warping the inverted words. Joshua read the message and felt tears burn his eyes. A sense of failure overcame him as he read Levi’s plea to be buried in a place where he would not be forgotten. Despite all their intentions to come back and recover Levi’s remains for a better burial, Alphus and Joshua had never gotten around to it. Joshua determined then that he would not leave that duty undone much longer. As soon as he could, he would come back here, recover Levi’s corpse, and reinter it in a proper burying ground, with a stone and a fence and people around to see it. With that thought in mind, he went looking for the place he and Alphus had laid Levi’s body.

Joshua found it and stopped, shocked. The grave was empty. It had recently been dug up, and not by wolves, as he might have expected, but a spade. Someone had deliberately removed Levi’s body.

The frontiersman knelt beside the empty grave, wondering who would have emptied the grave and why. He finally concluded that some other wandering hunter or trapper must have found Levi’s carved message and his grave, and reburied the body at some place he thought more permanent.

“Well, whoever it was likely did better by you than Alphus and I have, Levi,” Joshua said to the sky. “I’m bloody sorry we didn’t get it done ourselves.” He stood, tossing a pebble into the snowy hole. Turning away, he stopped abruptly. “And, Levi, if you can really hear me, I hope you’ll tell Tilly, next time you see her, that I miss her. But tell her I can’t go on thinking on her all the time anymore. Life has to go on for me, even though she decided it shouldn’t go on for her. I wish she had stayed around to share my life, but that was her choice, and I can’t change it. I reckon that’s all I got to say at the moment, Levi, except good-bye. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll go to Sapling Grove and see if maybe Alphus has come through, for I’m ready to see him again.”

The settlement north of the Holston had grown extensively even since Joshua’s previous pass through the area months before. As he traveled beneath a gray late-winter sky, he found abundant new cabins, cleared fields, fields of corn growing beneath girdled trees or around fresh stumps, and occasional small stockades either completed or under construction. He traveled along a new rutted road beaten through a belt of woods, and when he came out on the other side, he stopped to investigate what appeared to be a substantial monument consisting of a tall chunk of limestone surrounded by palings, standing at the head of a mound of earth. As he drew closer to it, he realized it was a grave.

On the stone was a carved inscription in large letters, and as he read it Joshua shook his head in surprise.

HERE LIES LEVI JAMES HAMPTON, HUNTER AND FARMER OF NORTH CAROLINA, BORN MAY 18, 1712, DIED FEBRUARY 2, 1771. BLESSED IN THE EYES OF THE LORD IS THE DEATH OF HIS SAINTS.

“Quite impressive, is it not?” Surprised by the voice, Joshua turned. Approaching him from a cluster of log buildings ahead was a man, older than he and resembling Evan Shelby, though younger. The man extended his callused hand, and Joshua shook it. “Hello to you, sir. My name is Isaac Shelby.”

“Hello. You’re kin, I would guess, of Evan Shelby?”

“Yes. My father.”

“Aye, I saw the look of him in your face. My name is Joshua Colter.”

“Colter! I’ve heard of you, and not long ago.”

“Your father must have spoken of me, then. I’ve met him.”

“Oh, many times I’ve heard your name, Mr. Colter. They say you once traveled the wilderness alone when you were just a lad, fresh out of captivity among the Cherokees. Quite a tale, that one. But that’s not the mention of your name I was talking of. There was a man through here who spoke much about you, the very man who made this grave and stone here. His name was—” Isaac Shelby screwed up his brow, searching his memory, “Alphus Colter. He’s your father or foster father, I gathered.”

“Aye, yes! When did you speak to him?”

“Not a month ago. As I said, he came bearing the bones of this Levi Hampton, wrapped up in bearskin, and put this grave here by the roadside—with my father’s permission, for this is one of his parcels. He said it was important that the grave be where it could easily be seen.”

Joshua felt a warm surge of emotion. “It was what Levi wanted. He wanted to be buried where he would not be forgotten. Tell me, did Alphus appear to be hunting, or coming to settle?”

“To settle. He talked much about it. He had with him a woman and little boy.”

“That would be Sina and Zachariah. Formerly Hampton, now Colter. Sina was Levi Hampton’s widow, now my father’s second wife.”

“I see. You well knew this Levi Hampton and his brood, then.”

“Aye. Levi was a good friend, and a neighbor when I lived in North Carolina. I hunted with him often. It was my father and I who first buried him.”

“Down by Gone to God Creek?”

“By a creek, yes, but I’ve never heard it called by that name.”

“I...