Morgan and Harry Martin, rifles ready, peered from their position of safety behind the stockade’s north gate. When the first wagon was within earshot, the driver waved and called out.
“Hail the fort.”
“Who goes?” Morgan yelled back.
“William Rice and the Allington band from Virginia.”
“Swing the gate wide, Harry,” Morgan shouted. He laughed aloud waving the wagons forward.
The massive gate swung open. William drove his horses in, followed closely by the other four teams.
Clarinda jumped down from her perch beside Jonathan. Scurrying around behind Jake’s wagon, she untied the cow. She had seen a cow pen just outside the gate. The stockade fence formed the backside of the small enclosure.
Leading Old Beauty and her calf around and into the pen, Clarinda left them in the company of two young calves. She checked the gate, making sure it was fastened, then ran back to join Nancy and Sarah who were taking in the fort.
Clarinda spun around, arms outstretched. “Are we really home?”
Morgan threw his burly arms around William, pounding him on the back. “Son, I’m more than glad to see you. Come and meet everybody.” Morgan led the newcomers to the center of the square where a crowd had started to gather.
“Folks, William Rice here is an old friend of mine since we traveled with Boone,” Morgan shouted. “He and his wife’s family, the Allingtons from Virginia, are going to settle at our station.”
The group moved forward, shaking hands, eager to ask questions. News from the east was months old by the time it reached the Kentucky frontier. They were glad to see new faces and hear about the trip over the mountains.
“Indians give you any trouble?” Harry Martin asked David.
“No, didn’t see any. We crossed without incident, in record time too, I think.”
“We’re all getting tired of these quarters, though,” Jake said grinning, motioning toward the wagons.
William broke in, “Cutright here has a brother, Captain Samuel Cutright, who owns a station on the head of Green Creek. Do you know him?”
Peter Cutright shook hands with Morgan. “Met the captain once,” Morgan said. “Fine man.” We’re hoping you will all stay on here. We have four empty cabins and one blockhouse ready, built in ‘89. Take your pick.” He pointed out the available buildings.
What few women there were living inside the station were delighted to meet Martha, her four daughters, and Mrs. Cutright. Each woman ran to her own home to bring the food and drink she could spare. Everyone gathered in Morgan’s place to get acquainted and hear Clarinda’s brothers tell about their crossing, and pass along what little they knew of the state of the new union.
Night fell quickly. It became pitch black inside the fort. Thick clouds rolled in, obscuring the moon. Little could be accomplished until morning. The horses were fed and bedded. John helped Clarinda feed the cow and calf. This done, the new arrivals thanked their hosts for the warm friendship offered and the generous meal.
Clarinda helped Martha pick out the blockhouse on the southwest corner for their own. It faced the north gate diagonally across the square. Jonathan said it was a good choice. Pulling the bedding from inside the wagons, the weary travelers retired to their chosen cabins, ready to sleep for the first time in their new Kentucky homes.
“Clarinda, climb up in the wagon and hand the crates down,” Martha ordered.
She had roused them all up at first light. Their long trek over, the families were anxious to get settled. Nancy and Sarah busied themselves carrying load upon load into the eighteen-foot square blockhouse.
In daylight the station resembled a small fort, rectangular in shape. The longest sides ran east to west. It had been built on a ridge overlooking Slate Creek, where the rushing current formed a sharp bend in the streambed.
Morgan had settled on this strategic location, because the creek afforded a measure of protection, flowing as it did across the back or south end of the fort. The horseshoe-like bend in the creek made a curve around the fort on both the south and east sides.
Their blockhouse faced the big gate across the one-fourth acre square that formed the courtyard. Next door were the cabins of the Arthur families.
A new stockade fence encircled the compound. The cabins, sixteen feet square, were built in twos, flush with the fence. There were six cabins, two on each of three sides of the fort. A stable and corncrib belonging to James Wade, the station’s guard, occupied the north part of the station, from corner to corner. The stable was next to the big gate they had driven through last night. The second blockhouse was on the other side of the gate in the northeast corner.
James Wade, walking his rounds, stopped by to offer assistance. “Morgan took your menfolk out to look over the land, so I thought maybe I could give you ladies a hand.”
“If you don’t mind, Mr. Wade. We do have a few heavy things to unload,” Sarah replied, brushing back her long brown hair and smiling up at the scout.
James Wade was around twenty years old. Tall and muscular, his frontier garb of buckskin pants and open-necked muslin shirt caused an unfamiliar catch in Sarah’s breath.
While Wade worked, Nancy noticed the sidelong, admiring glances Sarah bestowed on him. “In which cabin do you live, Mr. Wade?” Nancy asked.
“Right now I’m living with two other men. Morgan hired me to act as a guard and hunter. He felt it might help to strengthen the place against an Indian attack.”
“Indians, are they troublesome?” Clarinda asked, feeling a slight shiver of fear. She stopped working to hear what he had to say.
“Don’t mind Clarinda, Mr. Wade. She is obsessed with talk about Indians.” Sarah said, giving her youngest sister a playful shove.
The girls noticed the grievous look of sadness change the man’s face. James Wade’s gaze rested on each of the Allington sister’s comely features. He dreaded to think what would happen if any one of them fell into the hands of a Shawnee or Wyandot warrior. His job was to protect the fort and see that it did not happen.
“I’m afraid so, Miss Allington. My parents live over at Peeled Oak, about three miles from here. We just buried my older brother, John. He was ambushed as he rode from the station to the beaver pond to set out his traps.” There was a tremor in Wade’s voice.
“Mercy me, we’re so sorry to hear tell. You poor boy,” exclaimed Martha, who had heard the conversation from her doorway. “In Virginia the Indians have been quiet since the treaty, excepting a few renegade raids. We hoped that would be true in Kentucky as well.”
“For the most part it is, ma’am. We’re close to the Ohio Territory though. The Wyandot, Shawnee and Chickasaw don’t abide by any treaties. Small war parties make forays into Kentucky sometimes. They’ll kill a white man, not so much out of hate for him, as for his possessions. They covet guns, hatchets, anything of value. We couldn’t determine which tribe this culprit came from. In the old days it was easy to tell by the type of arrow used. Now they all have rifles. No way to tell unless you see them use it.” Wade looked
