Wallace

AuthorHouse™

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.authorhouse.com

Phone: 1-800-839-8640

© 2011 Ronald Lee Weagley. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

First published by AuthorHouse 4/22/2011

ISBN: 978-1-4567-6232-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4567-6233-9 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4567-6231-5 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2011906320

Printed in the United States of America

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Graphic and special graphic enhancement by Milt R. Hays, Mireiha, 2011

Author photograph, Martina’s Photography, 2008.

Contents

WAR

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

WEST

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

WEALTH

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Glossary

WALLACE

Dedication

Roots and trials are important. Frequently events are insignificant because they are in the past. Occasionally a twist of fate flashes and that forgotten unfolds as wisdom. It is wisdom earned that best streams context congruity.

Woodrow Wilson Weagley, WWW, default phantom father of the author, was a blessing for his mother Bessie Viola Sinclair-Weagley. Regrettably, death struck Bessie at the age of thirty when Woodrow was a step into infancy. The pandemic of 1918 orphaned five additional Weagley children and left them to the winds of Grace.

Fortunately, WWW survived that fiendish quirk of fate. He lived to bequeath a legacy for a son. The events morphed into the fictional protagonist Wallace William Whiteknuckle who fed the imagination of the author and surfaced full blown in a fictional trilogy named WALLACE that is dedicated to childhood memories of valorous struggles.

Wallace’s eyes were clear and his heart was pure, most of the time. However, his life was a shadow forged in survival. He traveled and wandered, as diversions for measurements against his tomorrows. Subsequently, Wallace learned that home is valued based on the ability to remember in love. Wallace begs the question of what might have been had there not arisen a national tragedy, a Civil War with collateral damage or a pandemic death of a mother. Each twist and turn allows what if fantasies to be fuel for the growth of the dreams that root in the premise that all searching is a quest for a love lost called home.

I thank my family clans, the Hahns from the rural rolling hills of Maryland, and the dispersed Weagleys from the pandemic plagued Allegheny Valley delicately couched between the Susquehanna and Potomac Rivers. I remember with appreciation the positive treats of life: the fishing, the hunting, the church bazaars, the occasional reunion celebrations, and festive holiday dinners mixed of course with unique personalities.

I express a gentle and loving, "Thank You," for four delightful children, thirteen grandchildren, five great-grandchildren and for the attentions of my loving wife Alice who packed before our frequent moves were announced, cooked with excellence well ahead of the bell and sewed before tears could shred.

Ronald Lee Weagley

WALLACE

Characters

Introduced in WAR

Ian Sinclair Whiteknuckle, father of Wallace, Calvinist Ulster-Scotch Irish American, born in Scotland in 1807, immigrant in 1830, into the United States via Canada and through Pennsylvania on to the lush rolling hills of southwest Maryland

Liam Wallace Whiteknuckle, beloved traditional Scottish father of Ian Sinclair Whiteknuckle

Moon Star Kenzie Whiteknuckle was a highly educated

Shawnee-Iroquois-Piscataway mixed mother who taught her children Algonquian and Iroquoian dialects. She was 2nd generation converted Roman Catholic who married Ian Sinclair after he saved her from certain death

Gray Cloud, Tuckahoe/Susquehannock/Iroquois mixed father of Moon Star Kenzie-Whiteknuckle

Dancing Wind, full blood Shawnee mother of Moon Star Kenzie-Whiteknuckle

Andrew Davy Whiteknuckle, alias Andy, born 1833, son of Ian Sinclair and Moon Star Kenzie-Whiteknuckle and brother of Wallace

Davy Andrew Whiteknuckle, alias Davy, born 1835, son of Ian Sinclair and Moon Star Kenzie-Whiteknuckle, brother of Wallace

Wallace William Whiteknuckle, alias Wally, born 9/3/1837, died 10/1/1914, son of Ian Sinclair and Moon Star Kenzie-Whiteknuckle

Angelina Viola Myers-Whiteknuckle, 1837-1859, 1st wife of Wallace, with a son, Jackson Crockett Whiteknuckle

Jackson Crockett Whiteknuckle, 1st marriage infant son of Wallace and Angelina, both mother and son bled to death in birth from attack wounds

Fiona Aoife Kenzie Whiteknuckle, alias ‘Fi,’ eldest daughter of Ian Sinclair and Moon Star Kenzie-Whiteknuckle, born in 1839

Sherry Kai Whiteknuckle, alias, ‘Kai,’ youngest child of Ian Sinclair and Moon Star Kenzie-Whiteknuckle, born in 1840, died of pneumonia in 1864

Ashley Barker Calhoun, alias ‘ABC,’ Confederate States of America Lieutenant with General JEB Stuart, married Sherry Kai Whiteknuckle, Wallace’s youngest sister

Ashley Biggs Calhoun, son of Sherry Kai and Lieutenant Ashley Barker Calhoun born on April 22, 1864, before mother Sherry Kai Whiteknuckle died

John Shaun Myers, Sample’s Manor farmer and father of Wallace’s first wife, Angelina Myers Whiteknuckle

Mary Susan Myers, wife of John Shaun and mother of Angelina Viola Myers-Whiteknuckle, Wallace’s first wife

George Abraham Hench, elder of the Hench clan and husband of Patti Sue and father of Ralph Edward

Patti Sue Hench, wife of George Abraham Hench and mother of Ralph Edward

Ralph Edward Hench, son of George and Patti, father of Mary Ann Hench, saved by Wallace and married to Fiona Aoife Kenzie Whiteknuckle, eldest sister of Wallace

Mary Ann Hench, daughter of Ralph Edward Hench with first wife who died stepdaughter of Fiona Aoife Kenzie Whiteknuckle, Wallace’s sister

George Marshall Kenner, Union rabble-rouser who raped and killed Angelina and unborn son, first family of Wallace who killed him on request from her mother Mary Susan Myers

John James Fishburn, Esquire, Attorney-at-law, carpetbagger who threatened southwest Maryland landowners with extortion

Reverend Joshua Jessup, Pastor of Sweet Air of Jesus Presbyterian Church, Chestnut Grove, Maryland, admired by Wallace

President Ulysses S. Grant, President of the USA

John Wilkes Booth, assassin who shot President Abraham Lincoln

General William Henry Harrison, 9th President of the U.S., fought Tecumseh at Tippecanoe in 1811

Introduced in WEST

Chief Tecumseh, Shawnee confederation chief, brother of Tenskwatawa called The Prophet and idol of the Shawnee nation

Tenskwatawa, Shawnee conservative priest who assisted his brother Tecumseh in revolt against the United States government for sale of forfeited lands in treaty

Chief Tonga, son of Chief Tecumseh, a minor Shawnee tribe chief living in seclusion with on Ohio River east bank

Twatwa Miami, young Shawnee son of Chief Tonga. Wallace saved him from drowning and from a Bear attack. He became a life partner in Wallace’s travels. Married Juanita Flora Gomez and changed his name to include Miami, a tribal name

Juanita Flora Gomez, relative of Hosea Raul Gomez in Mexico, wife of Twatwa Miami

William Twatwa Miami, son of Twatwa Miami and Juanita Flora Miami known as Billy

James Edward McPherson, elder brother of John and Philadelphia. They were partners in the ship building business. James managed the ship construction

John Dewitt McPherson, husband of Mary Lou and father of Darwin James. He managed the sales and general operations and was behind the concept of the JJ-RIVER QUEEN

Mary Lou McPherson, wife of John Dewitt and mother of Darwin James

Darwin James McPherson, son of John Dewitt and Mary Lou who become friends with Twatwa and Wallace

Billy Ray Moon, corrupt sheriff of Huntington, circa 1870

Charles Harper Moon, brother of the sheriff of Huntington, West Virginia

Harry Samuel Moon, a cousin to the sheriff of Huntington, West Virginia

Tubby Walker, brother-in-law to Sheriff Bill Ray Moon in Gallipolis-Huntington

Lord Aubrey Sinclair Worthington, English nobleman who purchased 25,000 acres of land in northwest Texas for a cattle ranch, the Wellington-X, brand mark of X, in 1865. Wallace saved his life while traveling on a Mississippi River boat and he hired Wallace and Twatwa as ranch workers with Hosea Raul Gomez

Harriett Anne Worthington, wife of Lord Aubrey. A rogue Apache raped her and left her pregnant in 1850. She wished her daughter to marry Wallace after Lord Aubrey’s death

Anne Erin Worthington, assumed daughter of Lord Aubrey, a child of the Comanche natural rape during trip in 1855, also pursues Wallace. When her mother dies, Anne marries Wallace

Andrew Davy Whiteknuckle, infant son of Wallace and Anne, born on July 4, 1877

Holiday Jack, gambler aboard JJ-RIVER QUEEN put down by Wallace on trip south

Sir George Wentworth, English Lord who faced Wallace in a gunfight, and lost

General Matthew Mark Johns, Union rogue gang leader who tried to set up an extortion ring near Wallaceville

Hosea Raul Gomez tended Wellington-X during Lord Aubrey’s two-year absence. The original ranch association killed Hosea’s son.

General Jason Mack, U.S. Northern Army Illinois prison guard turned rancher killed by Wallace as the General kills Harriet

Duncan Chapman, chair of the Cattleman’s Association

Brice Bickford, gunfighter working for the Cattleman’s Association under Duncan Chapman who sent him to ambush Wallace. Wallace wounded and eventually killed him

Elizabeth Jane Stoner, alias both Miss Betty, and ‘EJ,’ was a regular female companion for Wallace. Wallace bought her deceased husband’s farm mortgage and built a hotel for her to operate in Wallaceville

Sir George Ellis Wentworth, Irish/Englishman interloper gunfighter who owned the ranch adjoining the Wellington-X remnants that morphed into Wallaceville

Charlie and Howell, rogue stable owners originally hired by Wallace to assist with racing

Mr. Roscoe Von Fontaneda, gold/silver mine owner tycoon in Colorado who encouraged Wallace to relocate to California. Holder of the Estates near Coloma

Mrs. Adrianne Elizabeth Fontaneda, Roscoe’s wife who was saved by Wallace when held hostage in Colorado by robbers on a train

General Matthew Mark Johns, Union renegade leader of the Tag-Along Gang (See Glossary) that attacked Wallaceville and Wallace

Introduced in WEALTH

Deidre Brie Fontaine was a whimsical courtesan whose beauty captured both Wallace’s imagination and his money. She bore an illegitimate son William Wallace Whiteknuckle and died in 1900

William Wallace Whiteknuckle, ill-legitimate son of Wallace and Deidre. He was born in 1891and was raised by Estella La Rosa, Wallace’s third wife

Estella La Rosa Fontaneda-de Cortez, third wife of Wallace, daughter of the Fontaneda’s, and wife of aging Senor Juan Toltec de Cortez until his death

Senor Juan Toltec de Cortez was a matador and first husband of Estella. General Abbot killed him in a scheme to rob his estate

General Archibald Morris Abbot retired Union Army General who killed Juan Toltec de Cortez and subsequently Wallace killed him in a retribution duel after a connived match horserace

Chow Poon Ming, Cantonese immigrant befriended by Wallace while on a railroad crew. Primary in deal over Yreka gold mine after Wallace broke his leg

Joaquin Murrieta, bandito during early years of gold rush

Procopio Murrieta, nephew of Joaquin and close business friend of Senor Juan Toltec de Cortez

Adairia Bonnie Whiteknuckle, wife of Davy Andrew Whiteknuckle, Wallace’s brother

Donaldo Baen Whiteknuckle (1873), son of Davy and Adairia

Alla Bonnibelle (1879), daughter of Davy and Adairia

Wynda Artis (1881), daughter of Davy and Adairia

Gunna Anice (1883), daughter of Davy and Adairia

Sean Robert Whiteknuckle, first born of twin boys to Wallace and Estella in 1894

Ian Roy Whiteknuckle, second born of twin boys to Wallace and Estella in 1894

Juan Raul Gomez-Whiteknuckle, third child born to Wallace and Estella in 1895

Iain Royce Whiteknuckle, fourth child born to Wallace and Estella in 1896

Rose Mary Dawn Gomez-Whiteknuckle fifth child born to Wallace and Estella in 1897

Maria Lucia Cortez-Medellin, Estella’s husband’s sister served Estella as matron of the hacienda

Gregorio Jose Cortez, was Juan Toltec’s aging brother who assisted Mendoza

Hernan Castile Cortez, Estella’s cousin

Diego Raul Cortez-Velazquez, Estella’s cousin

Mendoza Oxaca Cortez, Estella’s cousin who served as operations officer under Wallace

SEE GLOSSARY SUPPORTS

WALLACE

Prologue

Natural catastrophes such as hurricanes and contrived tragedies such as wars discard collateral damage.

Frequently, the most significant riddle of a cataclysm goes ignored, i.e. fire tempered, wind ravaged and memory clogged human emotions sometimes remain scarred for eons. Occasionally, catastrophic calamities generate stirrings. Sometimes vestige swirl rings move unnoticed over the landscape; yet nearly always, churned debacles trail with corollary consequences as if natural by-products of a giant wake.

The story of Wallace uses an omnipotent reporter lens and is a literary fiction based in multiple truths.

Wallace the protagonist victim, villain and subsequent victor was born a maytee, i.e., a mix with Anglo Scottish and Shawnee natural genes. He was the third maytee son in a strain of presumed politically pure Scots. As most middle born function in large nuclear families, he was an attachment. He acknowledged reality but his importance was without priority beyond that which travels with larger broods of children that start with the Alpha and end with the Omega, pending an accounting of available labor. The number born between the first and the last may elicit gasps of disbelief at proclivity or an undetectable grunt of presumptive balance indifference.

Wallace loved his birth family memories. He watched quietly as Ulster kin entered a national civil conflict in the first section of the trilogy subtitled WAR. Most exited the Civil War changed if not completely ruined. In war, he sought redemption for the savage and needless loss of a wife and an unborn child at the hand of a fanatical fool neighbor. Appomattox stripped him bare.

In the second section of the trilogy subtitled, WEST, Wallace departed his Maryland home in search of his fortune. He traveled equipped with his war skills, his thirst for a life purpose and his inherited value system. Ironically, another fool killed the second wife and the second son in a dastardly deed of greed leaving Wallace angrier and hollow.

Section three of the trilogy is subtitled, WEALTH. The WALLACE California sagas stretch back into the wake of the 1849 gold rush. Most that fled their national and international homes in favor of a pursuit of speculative riches, while hoping and dreaming of what might be, vanished, never heard from again either by friend or foe.

Wallace was hardened hollow and fragile frail. He was depleted in the rugged west not only by the heat of the sun and the chilling winds of winter but also by his confrontations with injustice, greed, hate and the relative indifference tendered by survivors. By the time Wallace arrived in California, his temples were gray, his broken heart and his lust for peace were either in a bottle or in the chemicals of a drug dealer, ultimate grim reaper tools.

Fate swept over Wallace. A third family of five bore fruit. Along with an unannounced illegitimate love child, each player proved to be a redemptive treasure trove. Rapidly years dropped from a contented calendar, and in 1914, Wallace took his family on a nostalgic pilgrimage through his past. A return to Texas and a Mississippi paddleboat ride north coupled with a mountain tour into Maryland. It was in the shadow of what had been his birth home that he discovered a hard truth. Home need not be a geographical location or a fragment limited in time past. He found home to be synonymous with contentment of the soul.

In 1914, Wallace died a seventy-seven year old financial tycoon.

The family transported Wallace’s remains on a steam engine train from Maryland to his adopted California home, in a wooden box. They strapped his meager coffin to the floor of an enclosed railway car. His family accompanied him.

The family interred Wallace’s body in the PEACE MEMORIAL GARDEN on the de Cortez-Fontaneda-Whiteknuckle Estates beneath a monument that read, WHITEKNUCKLE, a deserving testimony to conundrum survival: Victim, Villain, Victor.

Ronald Lee Weagley

Chapter One

Rickety Porch

"All the world’s a stage and all the men and women merely players.

They have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts."

AS YOU LIKE IT-Act II, Scene VII-William Shakespeare

WHITEKNUCKLE THEATRE

Ian Sinclair Whiteknuckle and his second wife Moon Star Kenzie-Whiteknuckle responsibly played their many roles, as did Orlando and Rosalind in Shakespeare’s imagination. One of the limitless parts for Ian and Moon was parenting. At issue, was mentoring a private but vivacious third child of five, Wallace William, and his siblings.

Regularly, Ian sat in his self-fashioned rickety rocker on the rather equally rickety self-constructed front porch of the family home with his loved ones in the cool of the summer evenings, a home situated on one hundred acres of a dream. The timing allowed the anticipated breezes to twist their paths over the modest mountaintops and down the serene rolling hills to caress Chestnut Grove during the twilight dusk.

Ian’s favorite phrase was, Now this is how it was back in the hills of Scotland for my daddy Liam Wallace Whiteknuckle. It was as this is now when he was but a boy. It was as this is now for his daddy and for his granddaddy before him. In fact, this is how it was in the old days for all the old Irish and Scottish clans in the beautiful Gaelic hills of the homelands, the wind whistling Gaelic tunes through the hardwoods and pines.

For Ian, each pause for air was an excuse to frame his thoughts and each silence produced more bellowing white and gray puffs of smoke from his corncob pipe. Therefore, the garishly white phantom smoke mixed into distorted caricatures. The gentle evening breeze caught their images and carried them over the front yard into the scrubs as well as into the wilderness that lay nearby. The children chased the phantoms of the night as energy allowed; frequently claiming they saw a ghoulish smoke master hiding behind the scrubs poking from the ground under the trees.

Ian grew his own stash of tobacco. He harvested it in a miniature-tilled section near the vegetables plot. He dried it on an equipment-shed roof behind the house. He stored it under his bed often commenting of the aroma, I love the smell of that grass.

When resources allowed, Ian traded animal skins and carcasses for the best of tobacco crop, the stuff the regular growers sold at a premium. Quality grew best in the flatlands near Frederick southeast of the mountains. It sold easily to foreign markets.

STAGE

Sometimes the children remarked as if singing in a chorus, reflective of the number of times told, Daddy always talks of the old days whenever he was a boy in Scotland. He makes it sound like days in Jesus’ heaven. When was daddy a boy?

Privately the children fashioned ideas that wrapped around the question, What would we be if daddy had stayed in that old place? Their humor framed itself into a joke. Frequently Ian shouted, Now stop that, yaw hear!

However, each time Ian shouted the command, it was accompanied with a pause and a grunt, Yep, wonder what it would have been like if we had stayed in the old country? I’d probably be dead from hunger by now. Ian knew the fertile soil of the valleys and the richness of the animal life in their new home far exceeded what Scots left in their ravaged wilderness. Locals harvested trees at a rate that was certain to eradicate the landscape. The rule had been that when the foliage left, so left the animals. Ian pondered, Increased space for farming delays the problem of over utilization of the forests. Eventually the soil production will fall as a victim of abuse just like the animals departed from their homes in the wilderness out of need to look elsewhere for food.

Then there was the weather subject. It was fuel for tales from Ian: the cold, the wind, and the short growing seasons. Ian knew that his kind reference toward the old days stemmed from his longing for his dear ones, his parents, and the family bond that had existed between his brothers and sisters. In the old days, Ian muttered.

Ian’s mother taught that the Spanish man who landed his ships on the chain of small islands in the southland, Columbus, was the one who brought the bounty to the world. She carped routinely about how the Spanish took all the gold from the Indians and sent it home to Europe leaving the locals without their rightful inheritance.

Ian’s mother had little that was kind to say about that transaction but she always ended her short speeches with a shrug of her shoulders and a grunt that formed into a casual acceptance in disgust, Whatever!

SHOWMAN

Ian repeated an apology that buffeted the discontent displayed by the term, whatever, used by his mother that implied she felt sorrow for the poor naturals in the new world. However, she recognized that she was helpless to recover the ill deed that turned fate to the benefit of most colonials.

Amid the lurid smokes of the evenings, the occasional bonfires and the pipe aroma, Ian spoke his stories from the past, and the children listened. They listened intently as the tales told imprinted upon the ash of their memory for repetition at another time, in another place and with another agenda. City style formal education deferred for community clusters that hoped to be cities, the school being a trademark of social progress. For most farmers and mountain men of the age, their wives and their children snug in the shrubs, pines and oaks of solitude, education was a parental problem, a problem, as Ian put it so adroitly, Best left to parents out of the hands of the political vipers who tell fiction.

Trust for Ian was a commodity earned not one granted indiscriminately and the vipers that walked the dust of the towns and cities were suspicious varmints at best and villains at worst, mainly because there were so many Germans, English and low land peoples scratching in competition with the excellence of the Scotch Irish broods.

In tales of blazing wonder, Ian told of shiploads of humanity running from Scotland. He told of their fear for their lives both fear of hunger and fear of constant intimidation by the power crazy people in the world. Narrow the number and identification becomes easier and justice can dwell at the end of your fist, were words that ripped from Ian’s mouth as his fist smashed against empty air. Wallace watched and drank the symbolism intently. Specifically, Ian felt that people should not be judged by the way they dressed, the language they spoke or the faith they espoused but rather by the manner in which they conducted themselves, their honor and dignity. If a man felt too fine about what he was and whom he thought he might be it would show everywhere and in everything, especially in the way he handled people, chiefly people near, close and available. If he misbehaved, the options for the regular man to survive were limited: Hide, run or fight, were options tried by generations in Scotland over the eons, and by others elsewhere in Europe for that matter. They tried one thing or another with little luck, little luck that was until the passenger ships sailed west in Columbus’ wake.

Always in the stream of his consciousness when the ship subject touched his tongue, Ian ignited as if flame had struck gunpowder setting off the gift Ian held close to his person. Ian loved to tell tales, embellished slightly or extremely. He told long tales, short tales, plump tales, thin tales, and tales mixed with wit. Each evening from the edge of the porch, he rendered his specialty. Tales were catalogued lessons for the digestion of those who listened to learn, namely his children. Ian often commented, The family eating together is good but the family learning together is better.

Ian had a gift, a gift that mixed truth with fiction, stirred with a hope stick and served for the stimulation of the mind, both his and the mind of the listener. When talking about his favored subject, the Scotch people, Ian served specialties. He captured the mood with analogies and metaphors wrapped in words, Some Scotch went south, but the warm drove them north. Some Scotch went north but the cold drove them south. Some were Catholic, always blessing Mary and damning all who did not buy what they were selling. Reformers, who sold similar brands that unwrapped differently with some non-essential trappings tried desperately to make them appear unique. Still, they wanted everyone to follow them just like the Catholic wanted everyone to follow them. Terrible situation, I tell yaw, terrible!

Ian repeatedly referenced the subject with his absolute certainty that Maryland was the connection between the north and the south, the middle ground where things were sufficiently accurate if a man had a Presbyterian 1599 Geneva Bible, offered kind words about the Virgin Mary’s baby Jesus, and carried a rifle high and at the ready.

There were wars: wars between the Europeans, wars between the colonials and wars both with and including the naturals, mostly just wars for something to do that made money, got goods, and showed power. Ian told tales of General George Washington before he was a General. He told how the General traveled the Braddock mountain trails and how he treated people with trust and kindness. Ian emphasized his George speech by pointing east and saying, Right over there. George traipsed right over those hills and chased the French and the mad Iroquois Indians, no offence mother, before he ever set out to fight the British. Indeed he did that long before that big British thing.

A few puffs, a monstrous billow of gray and white smoke, another quick breath, and the stories flowed as full as the Potomac in the spring, mixed naturally with some distilled lightning in a jug that sat next to the rickety rocker, close and contagious. Puffing and sipping allowed the evening class sessions in history, ethics, and morality not only tolerable but also slightly glamorous and uniquely fashioned for mountain people.

SCOTCH IRISH WHISKEY

Ian described the flood of immigrants from the east as, Torrents of water racing through a passageway similar to the flow of a river in flood, sometimes full and rising, sometimes slow and meandering, each course dependent on their theology, social needs, political bend and the war rains that push them, smiled Ian as he puffed and spit. General Washington fought the good fight but a KING, the General would never be, bellowed Ian, night after night, year after year, puff after puff and sip after gulp.

The children especially loved it when their father did the natural Indian dances, sang Gaelic songs, and twirled in circles until he crashed to the ground, laughing with a full heart and gullet but with a weary mind. Ian was a character of characters, a proper mountaineer who loved his family, cherished his country, adored his wife and missed his mother and father deeply. The evening porch scenes were opportunities for him to speak. It was delightful when family clan members shared the moments. Ian fed the audience but the audience also fed Ian, healthfully.

Flailing arms, cracking voice and a lively spirit in his heart, as well as an ever so slight reference to the 1754-1763, Seven Year War between the French, Indians and the British with the Colonials Ian said, That brought a balance of power to the people.

Ian loved to roll out his anger at the royalty. Ian was relatively young when the wars raged at their worst and he fought with his main man George to recover his freedoms. Sip a little, puff a little, dance a Gaelic jig and before darkness in the mountain twilight, Ian would be in full bloom, telling of what he knew to have been, what he had hoped would be and recommendations along with condemnations for those who helped or blocked either.

Oral tales abounded of a young mountain man, Davy Crocket and the wide-eyed Indians that tried to hold to their fur and trading lands. They were fodder for Ian presentations. Davy, a people’s politician bested by Andrew Jackson, another fighting people’s politician soldier in early 1800, went west to Texas in search of his freedoms. The Crocket stories became living myths for Wallace William Whiteknuckle who saw himself as a mountain man with a rifle, a man who made each musket ball count when fired and a regular chap who did not miss a shot.

The mental pictures of both Andrew Jackson and Davy Crockett fed not only Ian but also more to our point; they fed his son Wallace spiritual food for his subsequent trips into destiny. For Wallace, the Davy Crocket home site looked absolutely the same as the Whiteknuckle home site. Wallace was certain that he had some Crocket blood in his veins if not blood in his veins then Crocket broth in his stew. Ian frequently included the more notorious and the most famous personalities making all equally vulnerable to wit.

Even infamous and prominent political personalities were subject to an Ian evaluation tipped with slander and shame. War or peace, regardless, Ian capitalized on circumstances to elevate or diminish, naturally respectfully or at least as reverently as a jug of mountain brewed white lightning would allow.

Whatever was gossiped either in their Presbyterian Church circles, in worship or during the fellowship at tureen dinners on festival occasions proved interesting game for Ian’s tongue. He loved to replay what the Blackwell’s or the Kenner’s or the Peckenpauls said about President Jackson’s mountaineering legacy when pitted against the great mountain man Davy Crockett. Ian especially enjoyed playing his comments if the opinions expressed were at odds with the themes he knew or if they differed from what he had learned from his daddy Liam or fellow members of the Whiteknuckle clan drove the agenda.

Well just never you mind what they say, was the standard rebuttal followed by infinite detail in support of the truth as told by an inebriated Ian who caught tale twisters in heat frequently and demanded clarity.

Wallace snickered casually when those rare moments came to fruition.

Politics was consuming and as time moved ahead for the Ian Whiteknuckle family and as the years waxed Ian’s head hair as gray white as his pipe smoke, nostalgia ramped and became the heart of stories for Ian. The clan grew in age and the number of socials increased amid the good and bad times along with the weather accordingly. The Whiteknuckle children each brought inimitable personalities to the nuclear family as well as the extended family and the play and growth of each child contributed much to the complexion of their interfacing circles of life.

What struck home most frequently were Ian’s streams of consciousness that incorporated the natural territory that stretched from the north Pennsylvania-New York barrier, south to the two Maryland-Virginia valley breadbaskets, the Cumberland and the Shenandoah Valleys. Always included in that expanse were economically, politically and culturally relevant matters. Ian spurred to mix of race, wealth, desire, lust, and survival to eloquence in his tales. Ian used everything that grew, crunched, or flowed from the Susquehanna, the Potomac and on to the banks of the Rappahannock, the Shenandoah and the James rivers, each spilling their fortunes in the great Algonquian, Chesepiooc village at the big river, or as Ian spoke of it, The Chesapeake Bay.

MARYLAND CHESS

Ian’s first wife Mary died from pneumonia leaving him a childless widower.

A tragedy or demons or the loss of his parents to the death pox brought Ian to his knees and inflicted pain remained was unclear to everyone including Ian. It remained fuzzy to the family for the course of Ian’s days in the theater of life. It was best stated with certainty and phrased most appropriately by his wife Moon Star when she said, A man of joy, laughs, tears, and love, which caressed with gentleness, fought with viciousness and meant to bring no harm upon any undeserving. He too was a victim in his mind.

Regardless, to lose a family to the pox and a wife to pneumonia and than to be left alone in a world fraught with bears in the woods, phantoms in the night and starvation at the door appeared more than sufficient to test the best of the most. Mountain life had been rough for Ian, rough but sufficiently malleable that the product was tempered fine or as near as fine can be tempered by the blacksmith’s oven. What Ian wanted was to be alone with his family, his friends, and his wilderness. Trouble was, nothing was standing still, except his memories, and even they grew disproportionately compared to reality.

A dead wife, alone in a cabin while the winds howled and the snow fell was life changing. In addition, the hostiles that roamed as rogue carnivores feeding on anything within their reach compounded the struggles. Common pneumonia killed Ian’s first wife when the snow was high and the winds were strong and her cry for help was a plea for him. Phantoms of remorse clung to his heart repeating the chime as an echo in his mind, What if you had gone for help? What more could have been done?

Ian’s first wife died childless. Her loss compounded the dilemma for Ian on the one hand but it gave respite on the other knowing that others did not suffer. When Ian’s parents were taken by the poxvirus that was imported by wanderers trading in furs and produce that the Whiteknuckle family engaged, Ian was lonely, sad and in harm’s way. Still he was resilient and knew that he needed to rise and walk if he were to hope again.

Ian assumed the site of his family residence when his parents died. The farm consumed his bride and his dreams, acres of rolling mountain range with a valley and fresh water streams. The horses, cows, sheep, chickens, and the dogs kept Ian steady as he served their needs for food, protection, and shelter. Years of isolation and loneliness were ushered by the annual falls of each year that allowed leaves to shed from the trees and the game to move briskly in search of stores for their winters.

MOUNTAIN DANCE

Frequently, Ian’s memory strayed in recall and he shared the sordid tales of his personal exposure to reality with his children. Moon Star heard the tale of Ian’s first wife numerous times; but always, she sat and listened when the words crossed his lips. She knew her role, her history, and her hopes. Each occasion that lent itself for Ian to recapitulate over personal losses was itself an opportunity for Moon Star to remember years and tears from her past, a past saturated in complexity.

While listening to Ian expound from the rickety front porch of a residence that once belonged to Ian’s parents and currently served as the Whiteknuckle legacy, Moon Star’s heart brushed great pain and suffering that was wrapped in politics, governments, invasions and gross intolerance. Shawnee splinter tribes had relationships with multiple Maryland Eastern Shore naturals that stretched over generations and involved wars, occupations and greed. Moon Star’s heritage was a natural blood mix of Nanticoke, Susquehannock, and Iroquois diluted by the Shawnee Miami genes that also flowed in her veins.

Naturals fought and lived on the Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia mapped lands for over 8,000 years before the beaching of the colonial vessels. Their arrival was as if a tsunami tidal wave of people in motion struck. Conflicts caused naturals to exercise flight as a solution to their conundrum of survival. Some stayed, some submitted to extinction, some fought and died in bravery while some hid and shivered in false hope or ran and sought better from the unknown equation. Moon Star’s biological parents died hiding from the Iroquois not the colonials. The death obstacle surfaced to a void when compared to what stared coldly at the native maytee mix named Moon Star.

The Susquehannock had taken an Iroquois offer for an alliance at face value but eventually the colonial numeric overrode the original presumption of coexistence based on strength in numbers, i.e. a sufficient number of naturals could either deter or destroy all invading colonial marauders. There were too many colonials arriving daily with no end in sight, each with a firearm and each cognizant of its power.

The Iroquois migrated at a paced run north while forging additional delay contracts with the colonials; but eventually, each treaty failed by default.

During the course of the gene mix from Eastern Shore of Maryland Tuckahoe natural to Shawnee through the force a Susquehannock and Iroquois mix, Moon Star’s bloodline linkage established not by consequence and not by her personal selection options.

Moon was a child from a Shawnee mother with an Iroquois, Susquehannock, and Tuckahoe mixed father. Rogue Iroquois killed Moon’s mother and father. Hysteria settled upon them and upon their survival flight north-northwest. The armed firepower advantage of the invading colonial occupation forces composed of settlers who sought land, power, and wealth. British, Scotch, Irish, Welsh, French, nor German in isolation or mixtures of pods could deter the movements. Moon Star, child of Gray Cloud and Dancing Wind, recalled her tears on each occasion that Ian took to the rickety front porch stage. Periodically, dependent upon the mood, the timing, and the emotional inclination of the children, the little ones pressed Ian to repeat the story of Ian’s dead wife Mary in deference to how he met their mother Moon Star.

Flashes of tunes past returned in picture bursts in Moon’s awareness, each image triggered a recall from the past. Sometimes a hand extended, a hug of warmth, a morsel of food, sounds of chaos, the heat from fires, or the query of the children to hear a select story would run into the Moon Star rescue saga, and Ian willingly acquiesced.

KENZIE

After the Mary sadness tale of death, the Kenzie family trek through life from their past to the birth of Moon surfaced as fundamentally important for the children.

The Kenzies were Scotch and Wales Gaelic Irish who were trudging the paths of the Pennsylvania Mountains after emerging from their winter Canadian escape. A deep winter freeze drove many Scotch from the north that had not had time to adjust into their security. The Kenzies were staunch Catholics in pursuit of good land. However, their journey west from the Trading Post City on the Ocean over the mountains and into the west struck against many difficulties not the least of which was the weather. They veered south in search of a warmer climate and more available fertile land not wooded.

The Kenzies passed through burned and abandoned Iroquois villages and telltale trinket remains reflected locations where settlers had attempted to build cabins. The Kenzie’s spirits sank to new depths. As always happened when faced with the probability of failure, their remorse festered. The buzz of doubt caused tears of regret and anxiety ate into their basket of hope. Ian frequently spoke the phrase preferred that he not speak, I regret having left our homeland. Those words marked their complexions and burned in their consciousness as if branded by fate.

The Kenzie journey was typical of many of the journeys that the settlers spoke of when they shared a location. The rovers pitched tents were when were tired of traveling in caravans for protection and wished to pause to tell tall tale yarns and spin new stories in hope.

The Kenzies were alone on the trail after their wagon moved off the main route in pursuit of a site for a respite. They engaged the remnants of a burned Iroquois village.

The Kenzies heard a child crying.

Ian’s version rendered his version with a smile, a pointing of the hand as he spoke, It was Moon Star. The innocent child was left for dead by scavengers, themselves seeking to survive.

Ian continued, Without hesitation, the Kenzie family assumed the care of the forsaken infant. They continued their march to the south, through the mountains, across the Susquehanna River and into the valley, south by southwest. Their search for a home and for land to work as farmers took years. Each settlement they encountered put forth the face of no vacancy. They kept moving. Each change engaged the needs of others while they were burdened with their own struggles.

Unspoken by Ian was the fact that the process of settlement related directly to water availability, land fertility, security, and weather. Cities generally grew from paths, waterways and the availability of cleared adjacent lands. Stores selling goods at intersections in paths that slowed a traveler generally marked the roots of a population site. Pitched tents surrendered to wooden shelters and eventually dried mud mixed with stone formed walls and branches created rafters for shingles only to be burned by marauding rogues: white, red and mixed who took but never created.

The established community protection as known in the villages of Scotland was nonexistent in the wild of the new country. It took years of life in the mountains and on the flat fertile lands of North America before communities grew. The new world west was best fit for loners, loners who could kill, harvest, build and kill again in order to survive against those who would steal, rape and scavenger from those least equipped to react.

The Kenzie family made it into the Cumberland Valley when Moon Star was fourteen years of age, beautiful, crimson in color, and alive in the youthful spirit of confidence that she received from her loving family. The family unit fought further south and east over the rolling hills but their efforts were mostly futile. Alone in their wagon, they searched for yet another new home.

The Kenzie wagon followed the western mountain range moving south near the fertile flat lands occupied by settlers and came to a unique stop near the Potomac river narrows in Maryland, slightly east of a small village community called Big Pool. They were tired and subdued in spirit but persistent in intent as they replayed the tall tale stories of the southland with its warm climate.

By the time Ian reached this point in the telling of the tale on his porch, he had puffed and sipped himself into a frenzy of emotion. The story stirred his heart, scratched his conscience, and pierced his sense of values to the extreme that tears welled in his eyes, his voice cracked and his head bowed. Moon Star always approached his side, whispered in his ear, Tell the children so they will remember why and how much I love you. Then she would sit on the edge of the porch floor to listen as she dangled her legs over the side moving each leg in conflictingly slow rhythmic circles.

Renewed from the whisper in his ear and the spark in Moon’s eye, Ian gasped air, puffed, sipped, and renewed his telling of the family truth tale.

THUNDER-JUG

Deep in the mountain range southwest of Sharpsburg, Ian kept a whiskey still that he inherited from his father Liam. Even Ian did not know ages of the secret concoctions but he did know their value. The lair, although a distance from their farm, was sufficiently close to allow easy access. A ten-minute casual ride on horseback surfaced at the site of the prize possession that served personal needs and met cash flow expectations. The still was near a concealed limestone cave. Stovepipes drafted the fire smoke into the cave if needed to avoid telltale signs of the location. Special metal and wood buckets held the water, malt, and corn. Stones were stacked to help stoke the charcoal remnants of previous stoking. Tubes twisting in circles that dipped into a large steel bucket of cold stream water from within the cave. The still design allowed quick assembly and disassembly for ready storage inside the cave equally as fast.

According to the Ian telling of the tale in Gaelic, it was usquebaugh or as Ian called it, The usky water of life. That translated into English as both whisky and whiskey but both meant Scotch to Ian. He referred in family code to thunder and the code word meant Scotch usky. The cave was the home of thunder as if the owner of the title possessed a life of its own. Thunder-Jugs were marked accordingly by the year of their mix and the better mixes went to the older jugs, or so Ian contended.

The Ian rant definition explained the difference between Scotch whisky and Irish Scotch whiskey. The consummate product came after two boiling distillations, according to Ian. That was Scotch. However, three boils would make it was perfect. The color of multiple boils was more golden, the taste more perfectly delightful and the aroma more fragrant sweet. It was best with charred barrel aging. Nevertheless, regardless, it was always ready for immediate consumption and for sale when in a jug, especially a Thunder-Jug.

It was a day’s ride and a river fording to reach the most distant drop point for sale of the product. Ian kept the small business enterprise sufficient distance from his tobacco crop to allow denial of ownership if pushed. It gave an excuse to buy time. The small wagon hitched to the horse with crops, tobacco leaves, and liquid lightning made the overnight turnaround worth the effort. Overnights to brew, stash, and carry to the sales drop if cash changed hands.

Nevertheless, the premier porch tale was the, Moon Star save, as Ian phrased it.

The children delighted in knowing their current efforts had a history and more often than not, when Ian told the blustering salvation tale one of the boys interrupted by chiming in for recognition, Is that old tree at the ford near the Indian fish pot wall where you took mom after you killed those bad Indians? It was a rhetorical question designed to flash knowledge and to confirm participation.

Accordingly, Ian honored it with a nod and a verbal response, Yep. You are right. It was at that tree near the fish pot. Now wait. Be quiet and let me tell the story. Your mother likes to hear it as much as you like me to tell it, so be quiet, barked Ian. He knew that the question was a trick meant to flaunt pecking order age. Ian always paused, stroked his long salt and pepper beard, twisted his mustache into a curl at the end with his free hand, and muttered, Now, where was I?

Off he would go again with the tale. Moon Star’s legs increased the extent of their circles and intensified their speed. The heart of the story was her limelight time in life. Ian pulled her back from death and she knew it deep in her heart. She loved him for it. The children watched Ian with their peripheral vision on their mother hoping to lavish the flashes in her eyes as she sat admiring her lover, her husband, her hero.

Now, let me see, the year would have been, and before Ian could complete the sentence he would pause, stroke his beard and smile, awaiting Moon Star’s blurt.

1832

1832, dear, a year before Andy was born! You know that. I know you remember that day in your life. You won me! answered Moon Star laughing as she pointed at their eldest son Andy. Her legs twirled in delight.

It was a drama dance and the children cheered, laughed, and cried, Tell him mom, tell him.

What burned inside of Moon Star was not necessarily, that told but that not told. It was as if it were a fantasy adventure in imagination twisted by goblins and noises in the night, unreal and distant. What happened was genuine. Her emotions bubbled to the surface and onto her lips drenched in fear, dark clouds, and black nights. The light that kept the darkness of fear from winning the match was Ian. She loved him for it more than words could express. She tried desperately to show him in the quiet and solitude of their bed but even she felt inhibited by shame and reality.

Ian’s words that told her to, Relax dear, it is over, never filled the void in her soul. When he whispered in her ear, You are safe with me. No harm will befall you. Relax and enjoy our love, our family, and our life together.

What gave Moon Star more pleasure than the warmth of a physical caress from Ian was the sound of his voice telling the tale of how he saved her? She remembered with vivid color the day Ian pulled the hostile attacker from her naked body. With each telling of the tale, she could hear Ian’s command, Leave her alone you animal!

Ian slit his throat. He shot another bad man between the eyes with a small pistol. She remembered the cold air that chilled her body and the warm blanket that he placed on her to give her warmth and protection as well as cover for her dignity. She remembered him saying, There is one more who must die for this sin. I will catch him and be back. Stay and take care until I return.

Moon Star remembered snatching at Ian, holding his arm and between tears and fear, asking, Don’t leave me!

The response to her appeal was clear, I need to remove this third person, or he will return and kill us. When I return, I will not leave you again. Wait for me.

Ian seldom mentioned the thoughts that accompanied shivers, chills, and moist eyes. He tried to avoid compromising moments but self-initiated recalls were stimulated into reflection by Ian’s voice upon the telling of the tale to the children and they were unavoidable. His telling always omitted the compromising scenes with a wink.

CHASE A VILLAIN

When Ian spoke of how he removed the first villain and shot the second the children squirmed, especially the boys, and the girls squealed as they covered their eyes. When Ian began the tale of the chase after the Iroquois bad man the boys leaped to their feet and swirled their arms with fists punching the air while yelling, Get him dad.

The story always ended in a fever with the girls shivering and the boys twisted tight as a braid in a bridle.

The chase cut through the scrubs, beyond the pines and to the edge of the river where an old fish pot stack of rocks formed a point from both banks of the waterway down the flow to a narrow opening that allowed the current to move avoiding a dam. It was at the top