Black Creek. Paul Varnes
in their bedrolls by seven to get some rest. If you find them, we’ll hit them at daybreak.”
Pa said, “Okay. I’ll need to take a third man. He and the boy can come back while I watch the village. Sergeant Hunter is a good man.”
I had spoken to Pa about Hunter and was proud that Pa agreed with my judgment, though he probably already knew more about Hunter than I did. They didn’t live far from us.
The sliver of moon was bigger than it was two nights before and gave enough light for easy traveling in the open woods. Since the moon was pretty high, the moonlight wouldn’t last but a few hours so I studied the stars as we rode. I would need to know where I was going if Pa sent me back. After riding at a fast walk for an hour and a half, we heard a dog bark in the distance.
Pa said, “That’s a yard dog barking. It’s probably the village we’re looking for.”
If you’ve heard it enough, it’s easy to tell the difference between the bark of a dog that’s chasing an animal and a dog that’s sounding an alarm around the house. They’re two completely different kinds of bark. We then turned toward the sound. At two hundred yards from where the barking dog was, we dismounted and tethered our horses. We were downwind and the smell of wood smoke was strong. The dog soon quit barking and we began to work our way forward on foot. As we advanced it became apparent that this was a permanent Indian town. The town and cleared fields covered several acres.
After creeping around for some time and looking, Pa tapped Sergeant Hunter and me on the shoulder and pointed toward our horses.
Arriving at the horses, Pa said, “You two go back and bring the major. I’m going to ease around some and get a better feel for the layout of the place. One can move more quietly than two or three. Can you find the place we were when we first heard the dog bark?”
Both of us said we could.
“I’ll meet you there an hour before daylight.”
Sergeant Hunter and I then mounted and left.
I said to the sergeant, “Let’s ride back to where we first heard the dog so we can identify some landmarks.”
He said, “That’s a good idea.”
It took slightly more than an hour to make the return trip to our main camp. Having been through the area previously, we knew it was clear of hostiles so we made better time.
It was almost eleven P.M. when we finished making our report and answering questions for the major. We then pulled our blankets over the exposed parts of our bodies and slept until three A.M. It seemed like only ten minutes had passed when I felt Sergeant Hunter’s hand on my shoulder.
He said, “It wasn’t a very long night was it, Isaac?”
I said, “No, sir, it wasn’t.”
The other men had already been up for thirty minutes and were about ready to pull out. In ten minutes I had a fresh horse saddled and was ready.
The major said, “Jacob”—that’s Sergeant Hunter’s first name—“I want you to lead off. Travel at a walk and stop every so often to give everyone a chance to close up.”
Turning to me, the major said, “Isaac, I want you to be the last person in line. If the line gets separated, you can get the stragglers to the right place.”
It was the first time he had called me anything but Boy and I couldn’t help but feel a flush of pride at that, and at being given the responsibility, though I don’t know who else could have done it.
The moon having already set, we were then guided by the stars and by the landmarks Sergeant Hunter and I had picked out. Even with the lack of light, it was an uneventful trip. There were no stragglers and no one got lost. We arrived at the designated place at five in the morning. I was too far back to hear what he said as Pa spoke to the major from the darkness. The major then passed the word back for all the corporals, sergeants, and lieutenants to come forward. I went forward with them. There in the dark, Pa gave his report to the eight of us.
Pa said, “The best I can make out, there are twenty dwellings. Counting men, women, and children, there’s close to a hundred people. There’s not much in the way of guards. I didn’t see any. There are some dogs though. As soon as they hear us, they’ll raise a racket. Counting those from the raiding party, we know there could be more than twenty braves here. There are some boys and old men who were not on the raid. They’ll also try to put up a fight. There’s not much of a horse herd—twenty-five or so—and some staked out, or stabled, close to various dwellings.”
Major Bailey said, “How do you think we ought to do it?”
Pa said, “Depends on what you want to get done. If you just want the horses and cattle, we can make a sweep from two sides on horseback and get most of them. If you want to do damage to their fighting ability, and their ability to pursue us or raid in the future, we probably need some people on foot and on horseback.”
The major said, “We want to do both of those. We also need to scavenge for food for us and our horses.”
Pa said, “That means taking the village and holding it for an hour or so. I would suggest a sweep through the village with twenty-five men on horseback, followed by twenty-one men on foot. That leaves four men to hold and protect the spare horses. Once through the village, the men on horseback, minus four to move the horses and cattle they gather a little further, would reload and sweep back through to the men on foot.”
The major said, “We’ll do it. We’ll play it by ear from there. I want you people to make it clear to everyone that they are only to shoot fighting people—no women or small kids. Though they kill ours sometimes, I don’t think it’s right. Also, there’s a better reason. If you shoot a noncombatant, you’ll be standing there with an empty gun for someone with a gun to shoot you. We want to make every shot count.”
Pa and I were with the mounted group. It was breaking daylight and we were on the move, seventy-five yards from the first dwelling, when their dogs started barking. We kicked our horses into a run and our men on foot broke into a run toward the village. As we rode into the village, heads started popping out of doors. Further across the village people started running toward the woods. Some tried to mount their horses and ride off. Very few succeeded. We shot some, and took their horses; and took the horses that were staked out or penned. We were almost through the village and my horse was at a full run when an Indian boy, who was younger than I was, stepped out from behind a house and let fly at me with an arrow that missed. I was past him before I could get my horse stopped and pulled around. He was standing there with another arrow almost nocked. Having fired my rifle at a man who had run out of a house, I leveled my short-barreled musket to shoot the boy. Without reason, I held my fire. Dropping his hands to his sides, an arrow in one and his bow in the other, he straightened himself up tall and stared at me. He knew he was going to die. Seconds passed as we each held our pose. Then I pointed at him with my left hand, while still holding my musket on him with my right hand, and pointed to the woods. After only a second’s hesitation he ran for the woods, bow and arrow still in hand. I then heeled my horse and joined the others at the end of the village.
As we were reloading our guns for the return trip through the village, Pa said, “What was that about, Boy?”
I said, “I don’t know, Pa. I just didn’t want to shoot him standing tall like that. He was younger than I am.”
At the time, I could not know this boy, two years my junior, was Osceola. Nor did I know we would meet again and recognize each other. Osceola, a Creek Indian boy, had moved to Florida from Georgia with Peter McQueen when Andrew Jackson and Pa had given the Creeks such a beating in 1814. His family members, like other Indians and many black people who moved to Florida, were to become Seminoles. Seminole means “wild one” or “runaway.”
With our guns reloaded, we raced back through the village shooting at targets of opportunity. We took the village with little damage to our party and held it for most of two hours while we took almost