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The Shenandoah Road: A Novel of the Great Awakening

By Lynne Basham Tagawa

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Chapter One

The Lord’s my shepherd, I’ll not want;
He makes me down to lie
In pastures green; He leadeth me
The quiet waters by.
—Psalm 23:1, The Scottish Psalter, 1650


May 1744
John Russell knelt on the grass growing over the grave. The small hickory cross had survived the winter. And so had her name.
His wife’s name.
Janet Russell (1719-1742)
He had spent hours on the little cross, finding the best wood, hand carving it, engraving it, and rubbing linseed oil into it again and again.
Still, it would not endure the elements forever. Wood never did. But her soul was safe with God, and though he had grieved long and hard, his peace was real, too. The peace that went beyond all understanding.
He stood.
“She was a good wife,” Sarah murmured behind him. “And she willna mind you marrying again.”
“I know.” John turned to look at his sister. She meant well, though words couldn’t lessen the ache. Still, death was a constant in the wilderness. Fever, accident, Indians. He had thought them relatively safe from Indian attack in this place, but he had been wrong.
He corralled his thoughts. God was in control of all things and would bring good out of evil. The truths he found in his worn Bible had kept him sane in the dark places.
John’s mouth twitched in a wry smile. His sister was right. His daughter did need a mother.
“Susanna will be well looked after with us,” his sister said. “Do not look at me like that. I will teach her the Catechism.”
“I ken that all the Bashams are good Presbyterians, aye.” Sarah could be so serious. He would miss her. Most of the Basham family lived well to the east of the Blue Ridge, and after the deadly skirmish with the Indians, his brother-in-law James Basham had lost his taste for the rich soil of the Shenandoah Valley. Their wagons were packed.
“Have ye written Da? Does he ken ye’re coming?”
“Aye, a month past.” He frowned. “He’s no’ a matchmaker, now, is he?” Not that he minded all that much—he didn’t know how to look for a new wife and had not the heart for it.
Sarah’s features relaxed, and a merry glint shone in her eyes. “Ye ken how he is. He will have something to say. And Philadelphia’s a big place, with young ladies arriving from Ulster every day, if what I hear is true.” Her expression changed, and she reached into a pocket. “Here, Johnny. For a pony.”
A wisp of Sarah’s auburn hair escaped its braid in the gentle spring breeze as she handed him a small leather pouch.
He hefted it. Heavy. Loosening the drawstring, he slid the contents into his palm. Gold Dutch ducats winked up at him, nestled among silver Spanish dollars.
He blinked. “Sarah.” Money was scarce in the backcountry. “A pony?”
His sister smiled and cocked her head. “Aye, here’s what James is asking. Buy an Irish Connemara mare, bred, and he wants the get. Filly or colt.”
“I see. That makes better sense. Not a hunter or quarter mile horse?”
“No, he would look to Williamsburg or Richmond for those. But he trusts you to be a good judge of a sturdy pony. And Susanna can ride it eventually.”
She turned and looked over the landscape, bright with the green of new leaves, the creek peeking through birch and tulipwood trees beyond the tiny cemetery. Even the rough-hewn logs of the meetinghouse failed to interrupt the gentle beauty of the valley.
Was she trying to memorize it?
“I will miss this place,” Sarah said finally. Turning back to face him, she studied his face. “Send word when you return and get settled. You’ll see your daughter again soon.”
Then she departed, striding quickly down the slope to the path that wound its way along the creek. Soon her indigo skirts merged with the foliage and she was gone from sight. Gone to join her husband and his servants.
And his four-year-old daughter was going with them.
Until he could find a wife.
***
John directed his mare through a stand of oak and hickory, his cousin’s wagon rattling behind him. His sister and her family had left a week ago, and the swollen Shenandoah had begun to subside. A ferry crossed the larger Potomac, but the current could get treacherous in the spring. No sense inviting trouble.
The McClures’ place appeared through the foliage, the pearly light of dawn casting uncertain shadows in the open space before the cabin.
“Ho, there you are, John.” Samuel McClure stood in front of his cabin, rubbing his grizzled jaw.
“McClure.” John dismounted from his prized Rhode Island pacer. “What do you have for me?”
Tying his horse’s reins to a nearby sapling, he turned his attention to the wagon. The mules snuffed as his cousin Roy circled them to the front of the large, two-room structure that not only housed the McClures but also served as general store for the families nearby.
“The Cunninghams heard you were taking a wagon north. They brought a keg of whiskey from their still for you to sell. I have four from mine.”
“Going to Philadelphia?” Maggie McClure’s solid form burst from the cabin. “Needles! I need needles—and fennel, ye mind it?”
“Fennel. No ribbon or lace?”
She shook her head. “Did Samuel tell ye we needed wool?”
“Aye, Mistress, fifty pounds, dyed and carded.” John smiled at the midwife. Few women could face the wilderness with such resilience of spirit. Maggie was one such woman.
Janet, too.
His smile faded. Janet had been a treasure among women.
John climbed into the wagon bed and loaded McClure’s whiskey alongside his goods and Roy’s leatherwork. He laid the fruits of his hunting and trapping, including a bearskin, on top of the barrels and secured everything under oilcloth. He’d sell the goods in Philadelphia and shop for supplies. And he hoped to visit Ben Franklin’s print shop—the man always stocked sermons as well as newspapers and books.
Finally, they were ready. Roy clucked to the mules, which swung their long ears for a moment, as if considering all options, before shifting their weight against the harness. The wagon creaked, and they were on their way.
***
John studied the trail over his horse’s chestnut neck. For the first time in six years the familiar valley road seemed drab and lonely.
A gentle breeze cooled the back of his neck. Which meant that they’d catch no doe unaware just ahead, even if that were possible, with the ruckus the mules and wagon were making behind him. He shook his head to stay alert. There was still danger—from man.
Seeing nothing, he turned his mount and circled back behind the wagon, scanning the trees. It would be impossible to prevent a well-aimed Indian arrow or musket ball from harming them, but it was foolish to plod ahead blindly. Especially after the skirmish just over a year ago, which was more the result of misunderstood intentions than anything.
John fingered the stock of his musket lying across his lap, loaded but not primed. Roy sat on the wagon seat ahead, hair ruffled by the breeze. His cousin appeared relaxed, the mules’ reins held loosely in his hand. But the dark stock of Roy’s Brown Bess rested ready on his left forearm, and his gunpowder horn nestled under his right arm, strapped to his side, like his own. Priming their firearms would require mere seconds.
Bandits were his main concern, though few would be found here. His sister’s gold ducats made themselves known now and again as he shifted in the saddle; he’d sewn them into the seam of his buckskin breeches for safety. The silver, still in the leather bag, kept company with his rock collection safe inside his linen shirt. Rocks of all shapes and colors, pleasing to the eye. Who would know what the stones were? A goldsmith?
A good beaver pelt yielded about eight shillings, but his entire winter’s hunting and trapping would only pay for supplies and taxes. He had walnut burl in the wagon, always a good find, but if he wanted one of Jake Deckard’s long rifles he’d need more funds. It was too much to hope that one of the stones would be worth something. Maybe next year he’d have enough.
If he’d had a Deckard rifle that day… If only.
Ahead, trees crowded the track, their slender branches reaching overhead, while sumac and rhododendron swelled underneath, spilling into the path. John slowed his nimble mare, watching her ears. She’d catch the acrid odor of bear or the faint musk of a painter before he’d know of their presence. All he could smell was the honeysuckle vine wound around the pin oak to his left. And a hint of pennyroyal from the goose grease salve on his neck.
No, nothing alarmed the horse, and no wonder. Bears tended to avoid people, and the great cats only hunted at twilight. He urged her forward, glancing behind. The wagon was doing well, the trail having widened over the years since they’d settled here.
Unwelcome thoughts invaded his mind. He was going to Philadelphia for a wife, but could he love another? It certainly did not seem possible. Janet’s sunny smile had begun to fade from memory, and the knife-edged stab of grief was lessening, but she would never be replaced. Only Susanna’s need of a mother drove him.
Duty was the foundation of all good choices, his father had said once. John remembered laboring over the foundation of his cabin. Some settlers used logs. He’d chosen stone for the base, digging into the ground, laying stone and gravel, mixing a crude mortar from a slurry of clay and ground limestone. His neighbors had then raised the logs he’d accumulated on top of the base.
Aye, stone was a good foundation. As was duty—and duty meant faithfulness. He purposed to be faithful and honorable. He hoped the young lady in question would understand he was a man only partially healed of his wounds.
The trees thinned. He slowed his horse until he rode beside his cousin’s seat on the wagon. Nearby, to their right, the Shenandoah River sparkled in the sun.
Roy caught his glance. “Ye expect trouble from the Indians?”
“No.” They both knew Governor Gooch of Virginia had paid the Iroquois a hundred pounds immediately after the recent conflict. In return the Indians had relinquished their rights to hunt along the Shenandoah, which lay on the fringes of their territory anyway.
Such an agreement would help to keep them away from the new settlers, minimizing the chances of further skirmishes. Some had misnamed this latest a “massacre.” Foolishness on the part of the militia, in John’s opinion, but then, he knew he was biased. He had struggled so long to keep his heart from bitterness that verses on forgiveness would come to mind every time he thought about that dark day. No, it didn’t matter what the clash was called.
“Not from the Indians,” John said. “McClure says there is a final treaty in the making. With gold to secure it.”
“Glad to hear that.” Roy smiled. “I’d like to bring a wee wifie down here too.”
John raised an eyebrow. “I dinna suppose any place is totally safe. And I’m not just speaking of Indians, mind ye.”
“There’s plenty of rabble in all colors,” his cousin agreed. “Especially in the Cumberland.”
“Aye, I dinna want to stop there. Not at Magraw’s place. Not with all this whiskey.”
Roy nodded in agreement. “We can camp in the woods.”
“We’ll trust in God—“
“—and keep our powder dry.”
Their grandfather’s favorite saying seemed especially appropriate out here.

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