Five Days in May
A Ghost Story
By Christopher D. Hartpence
Prologue
North-Western North Carolina, 1775
They would kill him if they caught him. It was their way. The way of the White Man. Spanish. English. Dutch. It did not matter. All the White Tribes were the same. Even the French, who had seemed more friendly than the others, would side with their White cousins in the end.
They had come humbly at first. Dying in droves because they did not know the land. Begging the assistance of Ani-Yun-Wiya, The Principle People. Claiming to be the friend of the Cherokee, and all the other tribes. But he had seen with his own eyes the treatment of his People at the hands of the White Man. Had seen villages burned to the ground. Women and children hunted like wild dogs. Shot for sport with their fire sticks, and then left to rot on the ground. He had seen their burial grounds and sacred places desecrated as the Whites moved further and further into Cherokee territory. Many of his people had fled to the deeper mountains, simply wanting to avoid the White Man and all his disease and treachery. Many more though, had not, and they were being killed. Butchered.
So he ran with all his strength, and he could hear them crashing noisily, gracelessly through the forest behind him.
They were not one with the land, and the land betrayed them at every turn. Gave them away, impeded them. They were a brash, loud people, not given to listening to the faint stirrings of the earth. They were not friend to the Cherokee. He knew that now. It had come to him in a dream. A dream which the Council Elders would call madness, but which he knew was not. Images of glittering cities thrust high into the air, in defiance of Nature itself. Armies of Whites moving out in all directions, felling every tree they came to. Pushing his People back and back and back, until nothing at all remained.
Vengeance was called for. Retribution. It was the way of Ani-Yun-Wiya. It stood at the cornerstone of their laws. The White Man must be made to pay a blood debt. Blood for blood. Life for life. But the White Man could not be fought by normal means. Perhaps early on, yes. But now it was too late. By the time the Cherokee had attacked the Carolina settlements, there were already too many Whites, and his people had been defeated. Forced to sign papers which gave away Tribal lands.
Now more Whites were coming. Their numbers seemed endless, and more were arriving ever day. Theirs was a slow, steady, ponderous conquest. Relentless. He did not know if he had the power in him to call down the Spirit of Vengeance to wage war on the White Man, but he had to try. His was an act of desperation.
Had the Council known about it, they would have forbidden it, almost certainly. There were many among his People who still thought that a lasting peace could be made. That eventually the White Man would have enough land to satisfy him, and no longer seek to encroach on the Cherokee and their neighboring tribes.
But Jehote knew better.
So he ran.
The Valley had no name. There were no words to convey the awesome magnitude of the powers that dwelt there. Spirits so ancient, so terrible and wondrous that surely they could stop the White Man.
He burst into a clearing. Felt the presence of the land itself washing over him, dark and menacing.
There was no time for proper ceremony. The men pursuing him would catch up in a matter of minutes. He had to act quickly, decisively, if he was to save his People. So he did. Drew in a deep breath, and began chanting and shuffling his feet. Dancing the Dance of Awakening.
ЧÐ
When the scouting party came to the edge of the clearing, they stopped short, not quite believing their luck. The damnable Indian had led them on quite a merry chase, but now, there he was with his back to them, dancing in the clearing like he didn’t have a care in the world. Surely he could not have believed that he had eluded them.
Jack Millsford put out a hand, signaling the three men behind him to stay still. He crept forward, using the barrel of his musket to part the low hanging tree branches before him.
“Stupid savage.” He muttered as he took aim. “Blow your damn-fool head off.”
He took aim and pulled the trigger. The musket’s roar echoed through the valley, but he did not succeed in blowing the Indian’s head off. Hit him high in the shoulder instead, which sent him spinning around once, before he tumbled to the ground.
The men behind him let out a ragged yell then, and burst into the clearing, closing the distance in a matter of seconds, and Jack let them go. Not much sport in it, now that he was wounded, but he knew he couldn’t rein them in. Virginia still had a bounty for Indian scalps, and they meant to have it. Besides, having chased the cursed Red-Man through more than five miles of rugged terrain, they were anxious for the kill.
He stood and watched them as they surrounded the Indian. Kicking at him, cutting him with their hunting knives. He tried to stand. Tried to fight them off, not that it did him any good. Winded, wounded, he wouldn’t last long against Jack’s boys.
Jack was amazed that the Indian even made it back to his feet, but sure enough, he had. And there was something else, too. He wasn’t fighting anymore. Wasn’t moving at all.
His men bore down on him, punching and cutting deep with their knives, but the Red-Man stood there quietly. Bleeding from a dozen different wounds. Staring defiantly into space.
No, that wasn’t quite right though, and a chill ran down the length of Jack’s spine as he realized that the dying Indian was staring directly at him. Lips moving, but of course, above all the racket, he had no idea what the man might be saying.
His boys were getting pretty worked up by the fact that nothing they seemed to do was making the Indian cry out, and one of them finally cut his throat in frustration.
The Red-Man’s lips stopped moving abruptly, and he fell to the ground.
He did not move.
Jack shook off the strange feeling that had seeped into his bones when the dying man had been staring at him, and entered the clearing, walking slowly toward his men and the unmoving figure at their feet.
“Lemme scalp him!” One of the three said gruffly. Jack wasn’t sure who had said it though. Suddenly the world seemed....fuzzy somehow.
Another of his men bent down. “Gonna cut his balls off!”
All three laughed.
By the time Jack had gotten right up to them, they had all but gutted the Indian. His blood soaking into the ground, already cooling.
And that was strange too. It was July, normally a hot month in the mountains. They hadn’t really noticed it as they crashed through the forest, intent on their prey, but there was a chill on the wind.
Clouds rolling in, too. Looked like it might rain soon.
He had no sooner completed the thought, when thunder rumbled in the distance. A soft, menacing growl from the sky.
No way they would be getting home tonight, unless they wanted to stumble around in the dark half the night, miserable, cold and wet.
He scanned the valley, searching for suitable shelter. Build a fire, brew some strong coffee. Take some of the chill out of the air.
A slight smile played at the corner of his lips as he shook off the last of the strange feeling and his eyes caught sight of the lip of a cave, not far off the valley floor. The entrance was heavily obscured by brush, and would make an ideal windbreak, if it was big enough on the inside.
“I’m gonna find us some shelter. Unless you boys would rather spend the night in the rain.”
He started toward the cave, and they followed him, leaving the Indian where he had fallen.
ЧÐ
A short while later, they had a fire going. The cave was indeed big enough to house them all comfortably. Quite a lot bigger than that, even, and there was evidence that it had been used before.
Probably one of the places the damned Red-Men make use of when they’re raiding. Dirty, thieving bastards. Jack thought with contempt.
Several bear and buck skins littered the floor, providing them blankets for the evening, and a long shelf had been carved into the rock face, running the length of the body of the cave and disappearing down a narrow passage that ran back God-only-knew-how-far into the belly of the mountain. It crossed his mind to take one of his boys and do a little exploring, find out how far back the passage really did go, and what it might lead to, but something stopped him.
Fear? No. Not Jack Millsford. He was just tired.
All the men were, and why not? Up until the end, the Indian had been good sport.
Thunder crashed more loudly now, and flashes of angry lightning lit up the sky. Wouldn’t be long now.
He checked the wood supply to make sure they could keep the fire going, and maybe start another in the morning, then settled back on his bedroll, pulling a bear skin up over his chest.
The rain came in torrents then, and Jack closed his eyes. Listening with one ear to the sound of his men preparing their own bedding for the evening, and to the storm with the other.
ЧÐ
A sound woke him in the dead of night.
A movement.
Or perhaps an all-too-vivid dream of a sound and a movement.
He sat part way up and glanced around.
Nothing there.
He snorted in irritation with himself for being so damned jumpy.
The rain had mostly stopped outside, reduced to little more than a light drizzle, and the fire had all but gone out.
Faintly glowing embers were all that remained.
So cold.
He blew on his hands, and rubbed them together vigorously.
Had he been a superstitious man, or more sensitive to such things, he might have felt the presence seeping into the cave with him. Might have read some significance into the fact that all the night-sounds of the mountains had grown silent. A hush falling across the entire valley, as though the land itself were holding its breath. Waiting.
Like some malignant ooze, existing just beyond the threshold of his sight, it came. Thicker and blacker than the night outside, it drew closer to him. Wrapped itself gently over and around him.
And then from no where, a thought stole into his mind.
They want to kill me.
It was good that he had awakened first.
He had no idea how he knew, but he suddenly did. He was sure that the others planned to kill him sometime in the night. Kill him and take his scalp and balls, just like they had done to the Indian.
A wicked gleam danced in his eyes, and his hand strayed to his hunting knife.
They’d not get Jack Millsford that way. No sir.
He was smarter than that.
Planning to wait until he was good and asleep, that was all. Then they’d jump him.
But he had got wise to them.
He pulled his knife. It made barely a sound at all as it cleared its sheath.
Got up slowly.
A part of his mind screamed for him to stop. Told him over and over again that he was just having some kind of crazy dream. These were his friends. Hell, he’d known Thomas Manning since they were boys. Grown up together. They didn’t want to kill him any more than he wanted to kill them.
But just the same, he crept closer, knife in his hand. Couldn’t stop himself.
Closer.
Moving with deadly purpose.
Quiet.
He slit their throats one at a time, starting with his childhood friend Thomas Manning. He made a faint gurgling noise as he died. His blood (and so much of it! How could one man have so much blood in him?) covering Jack’s hands and forearms, more of it seeping into the thirsty, insatiable earthen floor of the cave. Slipping between rocks and soaking into the ground.
He did Nathaniel Hawkins and Stephen Lane the same way.
None of them ever woke up, and somehow that was right. He had known they wouldn’t wake up, just as surely as he had known they wanted to kill him. And when they were dead, it occurred to him that he wasn’t finished yet. Oh no. Still more to do.
It took a while, with just a hunting knife, but he beheaded them, then took the heads and placed them on the carved out shelf. All in a row.
It was a long shelf, and those three heads looked lonely up there.
But he knew they would not be lonely for long.
He knew that others would follow, in time.
He was smiling as he pulled his flintlock pistol from his belt, and loaded it.
Still smiling as he put the barrel into his mouth and pulled the trigger.
The roar inside the cavern was deafening, but Jack Millsford was not alive to hear it, and the heads of the three people he had killed grinned silently at him as he died.
ЧÐ
Email this story 
Print Story 
Add to reading list
