LITMIR.BIZ

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test with that flush hand. If you had raised the bet and made me withdraw, I would have probably found an excuse to get out and left Hammer to you in the will. But you showed me you deserve that hoss. He’s yours, quick as I can fill out the papers. You get the saddle, too. Ain’t no Alabama saddle fitten for that palomino.”

      Canon had noticed the saddle’s horn, something that most saddles did not have. Mexicans devised it. It was used to anchor the rope when working with tough range cattle. Western cowboys had copied the invention. Canon had heard of the saddle horn, but had never seen one. He doubted he’d have much use for it, but thanked Bill profusely.

      Kelley took the horse Canon had ridden to town, for a memento, he said. But he refused any extra payment for Hammer and also refused to see Hammer to say goodbye.

      “Couldn’t stand it,” he said with an embarrassed chuckle. Kelley gave orders for Hammer to be saddled and brought around. Canon took leave of the rancher amidst promises to write and to visit one day. He was home with Hammer by dark.

      He was up and working with him by dawn, and for many successive dawns.

      Canon’s father and his father-friend, Mountain Eagle, were as taken by the stallion as Canon and promised to help train Hammer. They made a formidable team. Canon had traveled, and learned much about European horse training methods. Buck was a pioneer to whom the horse had been the most important equipment he could possess. Mountain Eagle had been a war chief for the Cherokee. Horses, to them, were simply life and death.

      Buck Canon carved the sprawling plantation from wilderness bordering the Alabama River, named it Mulberry because of the huge broadleaf berry trees which surrounded and cooled the manor house. He was a pioneer who helped settle the area and usher in statehood. And he paid fair value to the Cherokees for the land, but Buck could not shake a feeling of guilt that he had gotten rich off lands the red man had tended for generations. Worse was the death march the dispossessed Indians were sent on that became known as the Trail of Tears. He also felt some guilt that he “owned” two hundred human beings. Rabe Canon opposed slavery and wanted them freed. His father refused, saying they would be shunned by the other plantation owners. The slaves became the single source of conflict between father and son, as the land had originally been a source of conflict between Buck and Mountain Eagle. The latter conflict had been so severe that it lived on in legend.

      Mountain Eagle had been a leader on the Trail of Tears as the Cherokees were pushed from Alabama. He watched his people die on that torturous journey to Oklahoma and vowed revenge on the best known settler in Alabama, whoever he might be. He turned out to be Buck Canon. Mountain Eagle did not know that Buck had favored Indian rights. The Eagle only knew his vow.

      Once the limping remainder of his tribe was settled in the West, the Eagle returned. He found Buck clearing land. For long minutes, Mountain Eagle watched his enemy. It was early morning in early summer. The woods were singing with sounds of nature even as the axe rang and fire crackled. The pioneer was stripped to the waist, his long sandy hair swinging wildly as he put all his two hundred pounds into each swing of the blade. Slabbed muscles on his sweating six-foot frame rippled and shone in the morning sun.

      As the Indian watched, he also took in aromas born of this beautiful land. The sharp, fruity tang of pine nettles blended with perfumes of wildflower and honeysuckle. Eagle identified the songs of thrush, robin and mockingbird. This land of my forefathers, he thought, taken from me forever. Hatred awoke in him. Three inches shorter than the white man, thirty pounds lighter, he would need rage to win open combat. He would have to be quick, quick, quick. He must kill this white devil.

      But should he risk his own life in open combat? This was the choice he had to make. He could strike from his hidden position—there was no shame in it against a sworn enemy—or face death for the greater glory of hand-to-hand fighting.

      Spurning ambush, the Indian stepped forward and called out a warning. Buck whirled, reached, and brought up a long rifle. He guessed the Indian’s identity, though he said nothing. Buck had heard that a dangerous Cherokee was on his way back from the west, intending to kill a white leader. Buck knew there was no time to explain, though he spoke some Cherokee and knew most Cherokees spoke English. This Eagle would not believe him, would think him a coward. He also realized the Indian could have probably ambushed him, rather than stepping out as he now did with nothing but breechclout, war hatchet and knife.

      The Indian wore paint, and the single Eagle’s feather in his hair announced his name and status. Nodding his compliments to the Indian, Buck set the rifle aside, drew his knife and picked up his axe.

      Eagle had heard stories of the ferocity and fighting ability of this white man. He began to chant his death song as the men closed.

      The story of their struggle was still told over campfires. The doctor who treated the men passed the tale through white ranks, and Indians who had been allowed to stay temporarily behind took the story with them when they traveled west. The fight took place a year before Rabe Canon was born, but he prevailed on the men to re-enact the battle at the spot where it occurred. He stood mesmerized as the aging warriors perfectly recalled the scene, and demonstrated tremendous blows exchanged and sustained.

      They fought almost an hour, as recollected. Canon chilled at the description of terrible wounds each had inflicted on the other. Anyone would have doubted the veracity of the story. Anyone, thought Canon, not there now to see the scars the men displayed as they told the way of the wounds that caused them.

      Finally, Mountain Eagle said, his journey from the west, coupled with loss of blood, weakened him until he began to fail. Neither man had strength to stand, so they continued on their knees to slash at each other. The axes were gone. They stabbed and grappled.

      Mountain Eagle said he could feel his spirit begin to leave him, but that he was proud because he knew his enemy could not live out the day. Finally, Eagle said, he was exhausted. He toppled onto his back and called out for the Great Spirit to accept him.

      “Your father reached down and took the knife from my hand, and I awaited the thrust of his blade in my breast,” Eagle said. “But this man beside me, he I named Lion Heart, for he threw away the knives and took my hand. He said we would journey together as brothers to the Great Spirit.

      “My spirit had darkened so that I could no longer see. The last thing I remembered was the sound of your father’s body falling next to mine.”

      Canon knew what had happened then. His mother, worried because her husband had not come home for the noon meal, rode out and found the two men. She stanched their wounds and rigged a travois on which she moved them back to the house. She patched them best she could though she expected neither to live through the night and then fired signal shots until neighbors came. She sent them to Montgomery for a doctor. By the time he arrived, the men had returned to semi-consciousness. The doctor stayed long enough to get the story, patch them somewhat better, and pronounce them both goners. Then he left to spread the story.

      “She said we both lived just so’s she’d have to wait on us hand and foot for a month,” the elder Canon winked at Rabe. “Said it was nothing but pure cussedness on both our parts. Might be so. Your mother was a great seeker, knower and teller of the truth, boy. But you watch this here lyin’ redskin bastid. He was fit as a fiddle when he jumped me. Weren’t tired a bit from that trip.”

      Mountain Eagle gave a rare smile, clutched Buck by the shoulder, looked at Rabe and shook his head in comic resignation.

      A great regret in Canon’s life was that he never knew his mother. Her blue blood went back to the English cavaliers. Her hair was like spun gold.

      She died at Canon’s birth. Died holding him, Mountain Eagle said, gazing at him as the light left her eyes. Buck grieved mightily. He had at first, against his will, blamed the infant for his wife’s death. But the Eagle convinced Buck that the baby was Evalena’s last and greatest gift to him. Father, son and Indian friend became inseparable companions.

      From his youth, Canon learned love for the hunt and the skills of a master woodsman. Hunting bear taught Rabe courage and coolness. These things were required when a cornered three-hundred-pound black bear turned to fight. Riding to hounds

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