Rachel’s Prayer
Kissed
by the glow of the evening sun the sweet gum and red oaks—the maples and
dogwoods provided Joseph with a comfortable bed, and the limestone overhang
protected him from the sight of anyone approaching. The cool damp air, a reminder
that winter was merely a few weeks away, brought shivers to his tired body. As
daylight dipped slowly behind the distant mountains, Joseph pulled his blanket
around his neck. A few hours east, in a small one-room hand-hewn log cabin with
a glistening fire and a warm bed was Rachel and home.
One
year ago, days after their marriage, he and Rachel boarded the Abigaile and set
sail from London to Virginia to settle in this new land with hopes of finding
adventure and prosperity. Rachel was one of three women onboard the Abigaile,
and by the time she and Joseph landed they had faced seasickness, homesickness,
pirates and death. When the ocean raged and the winds howled, they warmed each
other with intimacy beneath the finely stitched double-wedding ring quilt given
them by Rachel’s mother. Joseph’s plans for tomorrow included Rachel and home,
but for now he consoled himself by listening to the wind-rustled leaves still
clinging to the autumn trees.
“I
think I hear Rachel praying, ‘The Lord is my shepherd…’” his smile followed him
to sleep.
As
darkness turned to the blue skies of early morning, Joseph, startled by the
crackling of small branches, sat up beneath the shelter of his outdoor ceiling.
Light hovered over the treetops shadowing the approaching figure. He moved his
right hand reaching for his bow and quiver—confident that no one could see him
or he would have already been done for. Trying to control his breathing he
steadied his arrow in the curve of his bow and remained silent and still.
Minutes moved like hours.
Finally, the dawn surprised him with not one but two
visitors. Obviously twins, each sported reddish brown hair and dark brown eyes,
four legs, a fluffy white tail and white spots that had almost faded from view—no
mother in sight. He laughed aloud and named them; Manahoac after the Indian
tribes found in Virginia and Cherokee after the neighboring tribes to the south.
“I
should have known it was not an Indian,” he spoke to Cherokee and Manahoac. “I
would never have heard him coming.”
As
he stepped over his makeshift bed, Joseph spread his arms wide—bow and arrow resting
in his right hand. He closed his blue-gray eyes and inhaled deeply taking in
the fresh morning air and the sound of the water rushing over the rocks in the
nearby river. He felt alive and ready to make the last trek of his journey to
Rachel and home. Without warning someone’s breath was nose to nose with him.
Tranquility shattered. He understood the immediacy of life or death.
His arms settled by this side in a slow
methodical rhythm. His eyes exposed the morning light to reveal a man dressed in
a deerskin shirt, leggins and muskrat moccasins and wearing a beaver skin hat
with his ponytail sticking through a hole in the back.
“Cherokee,”
Joseph smiled.
“White
man,” the Indian replied.
“Friend,”
Joseph’s mind raced as he watched the unchanging expression on the Cherokee’s
face—tall, erect, robust and undoubtedly willing to scalp someone. Joseph knew
he could be dead and hairless within seconds.
“Adahy,
lives in woods,” the Cherokee shared his name.
“Friend,”
Joseph repeated and waited as Adahy looked him up and down and up and down.
“No
U-na-li-i—no friend,” Adahy grunted as he reached to his side and drew a
tomahawk from his deerskin belt.
Two
days later William Gany, a trapper known to Joseph and Rachel, found Joseph’s
scalpless body. He laid Joseph in his canoe and headed downriver. When he
reached that one-room hand-hewn log cabin, he found a mound of loose soil and a
planted cross under the canvas of a red oak tree—Rachel Leister 1621. By dusk
Joseph, wrapped in a finely stitched double-wedding ring quilt, lay peacefully
next to his beloved Rachel.
William
plodded towards the riverbank— shoulders slumped and coonskin hat drooping from
his weary hands. His spine tingled, and the hairs on his arms stood on end as
he pulled his jacket collar up and around his ears. The whispering wind carried
more than the cold. Someone was watching. He was sure.
“Yea,
though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death…”
“Miss
Rachel,” William turned expecting to see her.
“I
will fear no evil…” He sensed the presence of Joseph’s hushed voice echoing
along the path of fluttering leaves.
With
renewed energy, he pushed the canoe away from the bank settling one dripping
boot after the other; paddling through the shallows and away from the rocks. His
heart ached. Sadness tried to settle in but William refused it, and Rachel and
Joseph’s duet soon became a comforting trio heard downriver by the critters of
the forest and one bewildered Cherokee.
“For
Thou art with me; Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me…”
© Joyce Powell
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