I didn’t ask about the slaves because I could see they had brought eight with them. They were all women and children.
Pa asked, “Did you shoot either of your guns?”
We both carried a rifle and a short-barreled musket.
Hanging my head, I said, “No, sir. I was pretty busy.”
He said, “Yes, I could see you were. I just asked in order to make sure you cleaned them if you had shot them.”
We had been in camp for a couple of hours caring for our wounded when Major Bailey called a meeting.
He said, “Men, we all know the raiding party we just whipped was some of those from south of Payne’s Town. Old Chief King Payne died not long after he was wounded in General Newman’s attack six years back. Still, these Indians were some of his. We’ve done our job in getting the animals and most of the slaves, but I think we should do more. Knowing where these were from, I think we should follow them and hit their settlement while we’ve got them thinned down and disorganized. What I’m proposing is a raid with fifty mounted men. We’ll hit and run, taking what food, horses, cattle, and runaways we can. The rest of you will take our wounded and the livestock home and give a report to each family.”
Speaking to Pa, he said, “Isaac, I hope you’ll go. You know the country better than most.”
Pa said, “I’ll go. And the boy will. Someone will need to drive our livestock home and tell our family. How long should we plan for?”
Major Bailey said, “Six days at the most. We won’t stay around long enough for them to gather a force against us.”
There was lots of talk after that. The major had to pick and choose because more than fifty wanted to go. I noticed that Sergeant Hunter was chosen. I liked him. He had treated me like an adult since we took back the livestock. He even called me by my name.
We left the next morning, riding south. Looking for tracks and other sign, Pa and I were out front about a hundred yards. The major also had outriders to his flanks to prevent a possible ambush.
South of where we fought the battle, we picked up the trail of the reassembled raiding party. They had returned to the battle site and cared for their dead and were then traveling south. They seemed to be returning to their village. There were about twenty of them. Some were riding double and five or six were walking. They were short on horses. In addition to recovering the horses they had stolen from us, we also had taken eighteen of their horses. The tracks were most of a day old so we moved along quickly. Pa and I were soon almost a mile in front of the major’s party. We didn’t figure the Indians would stop, but in case they did, we didn’t want the whole force to blunder into them.
Shortly before midday we turned back to meet Major Bailey. When we met him, Pa said, “We’ve scouted most of a mile ahead, I would suggest we stop here and cook enough for noon and night. That way we can run a cold camp tonight. We’ll then have no fire or wood smoke to give us away.”
The major gave the orders. He then sent two men out a hundred yards in each of four directions to act as pickets.
Thirty minutes before the others broke noon camp, Pa and I left. We had switched to fresh horses. Because we had lots of horses from those recaptured and the Indian horses we had taken, and because we would be riding more than the others would, we each had brought a spare. Covering lots more ground, and quicker than the others, Pa and I needed extra horses. Pa and I were soon ranging up to a mile in front of the major’s party. The Indians we were following obviously knew the country well and were taking a route that avoided contact with anyone. That also kept us out of contact with anyone, which was fine with us.
It really wasn’t hard to avoid contact with other people. There were not many people in Florida. The few that were there were located mostly on rivers or the coast. The territory was so thinly populated that, unless you knew where they were, you might have ridden for weeks without seeing anyone. Pa had been through this country before but over closer to the coast. From conversations he had, and from drawings in the sand during those conversations, Pa had a pretty good idea about where we were going. In addition to farming, Pa pulled a chain on a survey crew, did blacksmith work, and was a wheelwright. Due to his interest and inquisitive nature, Pa was always gathering information about places that could be of use in the future. He would squat and talk, and draw maps in the sand by the hour when he met someone who had been places he had not been. I’ll bet he knew more about Florida than anyone else except the Indians.
Having scouted over a mile ahead, we turned back thirty minutes before dark to meet the major.
Though we were running a cold camp that night, the men sat around and talked in small groups. Most of them didn’t go to sleep until eight or nine that night. Mostly they talked about being raided by the Indians or of raids on the Indians. Like Pa, lots of the men had fought the Red Sticks, the Upper Creek Indians. That war was brought on when the Red Sticks attacked Fort Mims in Alabama. The Red Sticks killed over five hundred white people there in 1813. The Creek Indian War then lasted until 1814 when Andrew Jackson, with a large white army and a couple hundred Lower Creek Indians, killed over a thousand of the Upper Creeks at Horseshoe Bend in Alabama. I moved from group to group and heard various versions of the battles that occurred during the Creek Indian War. There were lots of tales about battles against Billy Bowlegs, Josiah Frances, King Payne, and other Creek and Miccosukee chiefs.
A couple of men were giving different versions of an attack by Colonel Clinch on the Negro fort on the Apalachicola River. As Colonel Clinch was moving in to attack the fort, which was holding up shipments of supplies along the river, a round from a gunboat hit the powder supply in the fort. Almost all the three hundred people in the fort were killed in the explosion that followed. Thus, there was no real battle there.
I stayed up and listened to stories until the last of the men turned in.
Pa and I were mounted and rode out at first light the next morning. The Indian tracks were still evident as we rode. The worst part about riding alone, or with only a couple of riders, during the summer was the number of yellow flies, deer flies, and horse flies that gathered to us and the horses as we rode through the woods. It wasn’t so bad when riding with a large group because there were lots of people and horses for the flies to bite other than my horse or me. We saw no hostiles, however. By mid-morning we came to the forks of a wide and deep creek.
Pa said, “This has to be the forks of Black Creek. I’ve heard it described. It’s deeper than the St. Johns River into which it flows. Oceangoing ships could come up this creek to this point.”
Driving a stake in the ground, he added, “I’m going to move our family here someday. Spain can’t hang on to Florida much longer, even with the Seminoles’ help. I’ll bet there aren’t more than eight hundred Spaniards in the Florida Territory anyway. If all of it’s like St. Augustine, there are as many Italians and French here as there are Spaniards. The only requirement the Spanish have for anyone to live in Florida is that they have to be Catholic. Also, the Indians don’t own it. They just moved in from Georgia and Alabama over the last few years. I’m betting Andy Jackson takes all of Florida sooner or later. We’ll just go ahead and take us a piece of it before he takes the whole place. This is some of the best soil I’ve ever seen. We’ll build docks on the creek and warehouses next to the docks. And we’ll plant orchards and farm.”
I figured that if Pa said it, he would do it.
From there, the tracks we were following swung slightly west, and we were traveling just a little south of southwest. Figuring we were getting close to the Indian village, we slowed some and traveled with caution. At full dark we still hadn’t closed on the hostiles or found their village.
In a cold camp that night, the major said to Pa, “Isaac, I think we’re close. Since we’ve been traveling in a straight line for some time, how about you and the boy going straight ahead and see