Long Knife by JAMES ALEXANDER Thom

his back as the leader of “the squaw campaign,” had asked to be relieved of his command, and was awaiting his successor now. It was discouraging even to look at him, and George was as anxious to be gone as the general obviously was to see him leave.
    “My thanks, sir,” said George, careful as always to keep the pity out of his voice, extending his hand.
    “Good fortune to you,” said the general, at last looking directly at him. “Let’s pray there’ll be a bigger contingent awaiting you when you get down to the Kentucky.”
    “I’m sure there will be. Goodbye, sir.”
    There had better be, George thought, as he made his way past the massive earthwork redoubts of the fort and down the dirt road among houses and garden plots toward the wharf. He had expected to have more than three hundred men underway to Kentucky by March; now it was late in May and he and his captains had managed to enlist a mere one hundred and fifty. Everywhere they had gone to recruit, they had met the resistance of leading citizens who demanded to know by what authority their own meager manpower was to be taken away for the defense of remote Kentucky. News that Daniel Boone and a party of twenty-seven salt-makers had been captured by an Indian force in February had demoralized many of the settlements, and the borderland disputes between Virginia and Pennsylvaniahad dimmed George’s hopes of signing up any Pennsylvania volunteers. The whole frontier had sent up an uproar of disapproval against his recruiters, and men already recruited were being encouraged to desert. Many had.
    There’ll be danger of even more slipping away until we put distance between us and these settlements, he thought. That was why he had decided not to prolong the futile enlistment effort any longer; this little band would more likely shrink than expand if it waited longer here.
    Despite the disappointments of the recent months, his confidence quickened as he turned his back on civilization and strode down the hill toward his flotilla. Out there, he thought, one can control the course of things, and not be undermined by schemers.
    He turned heads as he made his way to the river. Women in doorways and gardens watched him; men with barrows and mules nodded to him; Indians and bushlopers in smoke-blackened deerskins stopped and turned as he passed. He was aware of the impression he created; he carried himself at full height and deliberately expressed all his energy and power in his movements. Without the epaulets and insignia of the regulars’ uniform to proclaim his rank, he knew he had to inspire obedience by sheer force of bearing. He wore now a fine high-collared coat of soft doeskin which reached his knees, edged in fringe and emblazoned Indian-fashion on the back with elaborate designs in red and white beads and quills. At its throat showed a clean white linen stock. Into the brass-buckled swordbelt at his waist were thrust a long, slender tomahawk and a flintlock pistol. His chest was crisscrossed by two leather straps, one supporting a large sheath knife and a powder horn, the other a pouch for rifle balls and personal effects. His long legs were sheathed in fringed deerskin leggings and on his feet he wore deerskin moccasins decorated with narrow bands of blue and white beadwork. His red hair was pulled back over his ears and bound into a queue, and his glinting eyes were shaded by the wide brim of a round-crowned soft black felt hat pinned up on the right side. Cradled in the crook of his left arm was his long Kentucky rifle, slim as a walking-stick, with its gleaming blond stock of flame maple. Even so heavily accoutred, he moved with a swift, easy gait which brought him quickly down to the water’s edge and onto the sun-warped, fishy-smelling planks of the wharf, where his captains stood waiting for him.
    “How went the muster?” he asked, returning their homespun salutes.
    “Real good, George,” drawled Leonard Helm, a bow-legged, barrel-chested man