Prologue

May 1851
AN EVIL PRESENCE, filled with a lust for vengeance and death, lurked along the backwaters of the Louisiana bayou, hovering over the water, surveying its morbid handiwork. A flat-bottomed houseboat, tethered to an old, dead snag near the shore, listed to one side as it slowly took on water. Aboard the boat, two bloated corpses lay at opposite ends of the small cabin, each still clutching a single-shot dueling pistol, though neither pistol had been fired. Blood at the back of each man’s skull had dripped from their matted hair onto the cabin floor to form small pools, long since dried. Both men had been shot from behind and then expertly disemboweled. The perpetrators were long gone. The presence, gleeful at its accomplishment, brooded, at the same time remorseful that nothing remained on which to wreak its hateful vengeance. It lingered only for a short time, savoring the victory, and then moved on, following the perpetrators in search of a new hunting ground.
A short distance away, invisible to mortals and unnoticed by the hateful evil as it passed by, a Centurion—a minor warrior in the service of the Most High—kept a watchful eye as he rested a gentle hand on his sword. His mission remained true and his resolve unshaken. His eyes narrowed with sure purpose as he watched the presence slither away. He didn’t need to follow. His direction was clear.

Chapter 1



NATHAN WALKER’S PRAIRIE schooner creaked as it rocked back
and forth on its wooden joints along the dusty Applegate Trail. Dust
rose from under the hooves of the two plow horses harnessed to the
wagon. Nathan shifted his weight to relieve the ache in his lower back
and buttocks. Twelve months on a hard, wooden seat had done what
years behind a plow couldn’t. Or maybe it was age.
Journey’s end—Oregon Territory—was in sight on the crude map
he clutched in his beefy hand even though he could not see it on the
horizon. He swept the wide-brimmed leather hat from his balding head
and wiped the sweat from his brow with his shirtsleeve.
In the wagon, fifteen-year-old Katie sat cross-legged with her back
against a feather pillow reading the Bible she cradled in her lap. Her
mother, Ruth, sat in front next to her husband. She stuck her head into
the wagon.
“Katherine? Have you finished your lessons?”
Katie looked up into her mother’s gray eyes. They seemed tired.
Though not yet forty, her mother seemed old to Katie. Ruth’s hair, once
the color of honey, was mostly gray now. Her once flawless skin now
showed the signs of hard work and age. Even so, beauty lingered. Most
folks who had known Ruth when she was young thought Katherine
favored her.
“No, Mama, but I’m nearly done.”
“See that you read every one.”
“I will, Mama.”
“No slackin’, Katie!” Nathan said cheerfully as he flicked the reins
he held loosely in his big, rough hands to keep the team moving at a
steady pace.
“I know, Papa.” It was a lesson learned from as far back as she could
remember. “You gotta read!” he would say. “You can’t know the Lord’s
will if you can’t read His Word!” Her earliest memories were of her
mother and father sitting in front of the fire in the cool of the evening
at their Missouri farmhouse. Ruth would sit in her rocking chair reading
from the Scriptures. Nathan, in clean overalls after a hard day’s work
would listen, sometimes sitting on the hearth with his back to the fire,
sometimes standing in the open doorway gazing out at the fields of corn,
or at other times, sitting in his favorite chair with Katie in his lap.
“Read that part again, will you, Mother?” he sometimes would say
as he leaned back in his chair.
Katie picked up her Bible and continued her lesson.
“For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities,
against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against
spiritual wickedness in high places.”
Katie sighed. They were pious words—high sounding—but what
good were they out here in this wilderness? She had been fourteen
when the wagons first rolled out of Independence. That was almost a
year ago. She felt as though her whole life had been spent in desolate
solitude, away from friends and all she knew that could give her a sense
of belonging. Her wrestling, it seemed to her, was against the untamed
wilderness her father had brought them to.
“They still with us, Katie?” Nathan called back.
Katie peered out of the back of the wagon where Ben Elam and his
wife followed in their own wagon. Behind it on foot, Ben’s three boys
prodded twenty head of cattle, breeder stock for the new herds Ben
and Nathan intended to build in the new land. Dust drifted from their
hooves into the afternoon sky.
Sixteen wagons left Independence together in the summer of 1851,
but bad weather stopped them for the winter before they could cross
the Rockies. Four wagons turned back. The rest waited at Fort Bridger
until spring before continuing on. One wagon lost an axle on an obscure
mountain pass and had to be left behind. Of the remaining eleven, nine
unhitched their teams for the last time two weeks ago to settle in the
Applegate Valley of the Oregon Territory. But Nathan was determined
to press on.
“Yes, Papa. They’re still there.”
She leaned back against the side of the wagon, her Bible in her lap.
It had been an uneventful trip, at least compared to some of the stories
she had heard. The wagon was heavy. Nathan insisted on bringing
Ruth’s most cherished possessions—her mother’s cherry wood chest of
drawers, the rocking chair Nathan bought after her parents’ wedding, and
her mother’s good china, even though Ruth had objected strenuously.
Nathan was not one to change his mind once it was made up. The extra
weight took its toll on the team and Katie had to walk most of the way
while Nathan and Ruth took turns, one walking while the other drove
the wagon. Now, near their destination, provisions were low and that
made the load a little lighter. Nathan had decided it wouldn’t hurt for
them all to ride for a few miles. Katie was grateful for the rest.
She crawled to the front of the wagon and peered out. “How much
farther, Papa?”
Nathan shrugged. “We’ll see what’s up ahead a ways.”
An hour later, Nathan slowed the team to a stop beneath a giant
fir tree on a ridge overlooking a green valley cut in two by a lazy, green
river. Sounds of churning water echoed through enchanted timber.
Katie watched as he dropped the reins and climbed down off the
wagon seat. The trail followed the ridge. Nathan stood near the edge
and looked down the steep embankment. The noon sun beat down on
his face as he pulled off his hat and wiped his brow with his forearm.
Out ahead, the mountains seemed to separate to reveal an open valley.
Tall grass rustled in the breeze. The river cut across the middle of the
valley, lazily snaking its way toward the Pacific Ocean, still a hundred
miles away.
At the far end of the valley, a modest village of a half-dozen log
buildings with freshly split cedar shake roofs hugged the river. Thin
wisps of smoke wormed their way skyward from several of the chimneys
of the small smokehouses behind the cabins. Here and there, herds of
cattle and a few oxen and horses grazed along the hillsides around the
outskirts of the settlement. Beyond, in the distance, another mountain
reached up and kissed a resplendent blue sky. Katie and her mother
joined Nathan, and they all stood in silent awe.
Ruth reached out to take her husband’s cracked and calloused hand.
“Oh, Nathan! It’s beautiful!”
“It ain’t Missouri,” he said.
Katie could hardly contain herself. “Is this it, Papa? Is this the
place?”
Nathan studied the panoramic view for another moment and
then nodded. “Yep. This is it. Somewhere down there is home!” Ruth
squeezed her husband’s hand. Nathan sighed, “This is what I’ve been
looking for.”
Ben Elam, a short, thin man of forty-five with a slight limp—the
result of a wagon accident many years before—hobbled up behind them.
“Wheeew—ie!” Ben said. “That’s somethin’ awright!” He looked up at
Nathan. “This it, Nathan?”
Nathan nodded. “Let’s get those teams moving. I want to be home
by sundown.”
“Home?” Ben asked.
“Yep. Home. It’s down there—somewhere. I’ll know it when I see
it.”
“I ain’t never met a man who knew more’n Nathan what he wanted,”
Ben said to no one in particular. Then he leaned forward and spit onto
the dusty trail. “Beg your pardon, ma’am,” he said to Ruth.
Ruth ignored him as she turned to walk back to the wagon.
Ben pulled a chaw of tobacco from his shirt pocket. “Wheeew-ie!
Purdy place!” he said again as he bit off a hunk of the brown wad and
stuffed it into his cheek. “Looks like your religion paid off after all!”
“God has guided us,” Nathan said quietly.
Ben stuffed the plug of tobacco into his shirt pocket. “Whatever you
say, Nathan,” he said, and then hobbled back to his wagon.
Katie watched as her father stood for another moment, his eyes fixed
on the green valley. He’d said it often enough ever since they crossed the
Rockies. This wasn’t the wide-open spaces and gentle rolling hillsides of
Missouri. And even though some found it difficult to make the transition
from life on the plains to the mountainous regions of the Northwest,
Papa said he had been looking for this place all his life.
Nathan turned slowly and walked back to the wagon. Katherine and
Ruth were waiting for him on the wagon seat. He climbed up next to
them, took the reins in his big hands, and flicked them over the horses’
backs. The wagon lurched forward as they began the descent down the
slope of the mountain into the valley.
Katie climbed into the back and grabbed her mother’s hairbrush.
She studied her face in her mother’s small mirror and gently brushed
her hair back. It would have to do. She’d seen cabins in the valley, which
meant people, and she had no intention of letting them see her with a
year’s worth of trail dust clinging to her. She took the towel that hung
from a nail, now nearly a rag from a year’s worth of use, and moistened
it with water from a canteen. Rolling up her sleeves, she scrubbed her
face and arms as best she could.
Ruth peered into the back of the wagon from her perch on the wagon
seat next to her husband. It hadn’t been easy dragging her family from
the relative comfort of an established home and the comforts afforded
by the stability of a long-standing community relationship. But when
Jed Morrison had come into town that day, just back from the Oregon
Territory with tales of the wide-open west with its gold strikes and the
promise of land, Nathan listened. Ruth saw in his eyes that his heart
tugged at him to go, and when he began to talk of making the trip out
west, Ruth resigned herself to it. When he came home one spring day
and said he had sold his share of the farm to his brothers, she offered
none of the traditional female arguments.
Now, though, watching her daughter beat the dust of two thousand
miles from her clothes, she felt those arguments surfacing. Katie, with
her vivid blue eyes and her honey-colored hair could have had her pick
of suitors back home. But out here…
Katie looked up at her mother and smiled. Ruth smiled back as she
reached into the wagon and took her hand. “Excited?”
“Do you think there will be—people?” Katie asked.
“You saw the cabins.”
“I know, but…you know what I mean.”
Ruth squeezed Katie’s hand. “Don’t worry,” she said softly. “God
will provide.”
Katie sat back, leaning against the side of the wagon with her diary
on her lap, chewing absentmindedly on the end of the pencil for a
moment before she began to write:
Dear Diary,
We saw cabins today. Papa is heading for them. Our long
journey may be coming to an end. I only wish I knew for
certain. It has been a strenuous trip, and I had begun to fear
that I should never see another human face besides those of my
family again…
                                      *********************
By late afternoon the three wagons entered the valley, following the
trail along the river. By evening they reached the first cabin of the little
settlement. It was a small log building that stood a few yards from a
primitive barn about a hundred yards from where the river met a large
stream flowing out of the mountains.
Standing on the rustic porch of the cabin was a large, bare-armed
man in dirty overalls, a flintlock at his side, and a week’s worth of
whiskers bristling over his round face. He nodded as the wagons passed
and then stepped carefully from the porch to the ground, ducking low
to avoid bumping his head on the log that served as a beam to support
crude log rafters.
“Evenin’,” Nathan offered.
“Evenin’,” the man said. “Name’s Silas. Silas McCoy. You folks come
in on one o’ the wagon trains?”
Nathan nodded. “Sixteen wagons when we started. We came up the
Applegate. Left the others a few days back.”
“Most folks stay on the main trail,” said Silas.
“Hmm,” Nathan grunted, and then motioned toward the well-worn
wagon ruts in the road. “Looks like you been getting your share of
company.”
“Yep. Been a lot of folks through here in the last few months. I’m
beginnin’ to wonder if I ever shoulda left Kentucky. It’s gettin’ so’s a
man cain’t find no place to hisself no more.”
“Well,” Nathan said, looking around, “it looks like there’s still
plenty of room.”
“Yeah, maybe. But for how long?”
Nathan motioned toward the road. “What’s up ahead?”
“This here trail runs clean through to Portland, if you’ve a mind to
go that far. Most folks been settlin’ along the river—some purdy good
towns sproutin’ up ’bout thirty, forty miles or so.”
“What about there?” Nathan said, motioning toward the mountains
from which the creek flowed.
“I ain’t been more’n a mile upstream myself. There’s some good,
flat bottomland near the creek, but there’s Injuns too. Folks say there’s
a whole tribe that lives up in them mountains.”
“Do they give you any trouble?” Ruth asked.
“Nope,” the man shook his head. “Least ways, not so far. I seen a
couple o’ bucks walkin’ along that ridge a couple o’ weeks ago. But they
never come down, an’ I didn’t go up to meet ’em. Seems like a right
good arrangement if you ask me.”
“What do you think, Mama?” Nathan asked without looking away
from the mountains.
Ruth sighed. “What about the Indians?”
Nathan studied on it for a minute. “Well, the man says they’re no
trouble. Maybe—”
“But no one is bothering them here. If we invade their land, it might
be a different story.”
Nathan thought for a moment. “The Indians around here are
supposed to be peaceful enough. If we run into any trouble, we can
always turn around and try somewhere else.”
“But…what about Katie?”
“We’ll all be fine,” Nathan reassured her. “I’ve gotta look.”
Ruth slipped her hand around Nathan’s arm and locked fingers with
him. “All right, Nathan,” she said softly.
“It’ll be fine,” he whispered gently. “Trust in the Lord.”
“I trust you,” she said, but it had never been more difficult than at
that moment.
                                **************************
The first morning’s light found Nathan climbing up on the wagon
seat next to his wife. He took the reins in his big hands. “Well, Mother,”
he said to Ruth, “you with me?”
Sleep had eluded Ruth for most of the night, but by morning she
had found peace—the demons of doubt and fear held at bay by the
assurances of her faith in God. She slipped her hand under her husband’s
arm. “I’ve trusted you since the day I married you. I’m not about to
stop now.”
“How about you, Katie?” he called into the back. “Everything
secure?”
“Yes, Papa.”
Ben Elam’s three boys were kicking a can across the dusty trail in
front of Silas’s cabin. Ben stood with his wife on the front porch.
“I suppose your mind is made up,” Nathan said to Ben.
“I reckon it’s a good place for a general store,” said Ben. “Seems
like it’ll grow. Me an’ the missus reckon we’ll grow with it. Don’t worry
about the stock. I’ll have the boys look after ’em ’til you git settled.”
Nathan flicked the reins and the wagon lurched forward.
Katie stuck her head out of the back of the wagon and watched
with a sense of loss as the cabins disappeared behind them. It had been
so long since they had seen anyone but the people of the wagon train.
And when they had come to any small settlement along the way, Papa
and the other men had been cautious, giving them a wide berth, or if
provisions were low, camping a few miles away and sending in someone
to buy food. Papa had explained about the danger of the untamed west
and the need for caution, but it was difficult for her to understand why
there was a need for such wariness, and she felt as though she were a
prisoner of the wagon’s solitude.
When they happened upon the little settlement and the cabins the
night before, she had allowed herself to hope her father would settle
close by. But now she felt her heart sink as the cabins disappeared around
the bend in the road.
Nathan followed the creek for most of the day, slow going since the
dim pathway, worn down by deer and elk or the occasional Indian who
hunted the valley, was the only trail. When the sun buried itself behind
the mountain, they stopped for the night.
The next morning at first light they were on the move again. At
mid-morning they came to a wide spot in the trail where a long-ago fire
had cleared out the pine and fir trees, leaving an open meadow of several
pristine acres. Tall grass waved in the gentle breeze. The creek meandered
through the little valley, and then made a sharp S-bend to the west.
Nathan pulled back on the reins and the wagon slowed to a halt.
“It’s a good place,” Ruth said after a moment.
Nathan nodded, but said nothing.
Ruth reached around and rubbed the back of her husband’s neck.
“You know this would make a good place for a home.”
Nathan studied the meadow. “Maybe.” He sat in silence for a
moment longer and then said, “We’ll see,” as he slapped the reins again.
“Git up!”
They followed the creek for another two hours until the valley floor
narrowed to a draw just wide enough to allow the wagon to pass between
the creek and the mountainside. Nathan pulled back on the reins and
the wagon stopped.
“Nathan,” Ruth said as she surveyed the slim passage. “Don’t you
think we should go back? We’ve passed several good places. And that one
by the bend in the creek this morning was already half cleared—perfect
for farming.”
Nathan nodded. “Maybe,” he said, but then flicked the reins and
the wagon lurched forward. They continued on, but the going was slow
under the great canopy of trees. Running water babbled a few yards away,
but dense thimbleberries and ferns hid the creek from view. The trail,
once clearly defined and easy to follow, was now dim and narrow. The
wagon rocked back and forth as the team struggled to find easy passage.
Finally, the wagon rolled to a stop in front of a fallen log that blocked
the trail. Nathan leaned back and dropped the reins in his lap.
“What are we going to do, Papa?” Katie ventured after a moment.
“We can’t turn around. There isn’t room,” Ruth said, trying not
to accuse.
“We’ll have to move the log,” Nathan said.
He took a deep breath and climbed down. “Help me with the team,”
he said to Ruth. “Katie, get a rope from the back of the wagon.”
Ruth waited until Katie was out of earshot. “Nathan,” she said,
“can’t we look for a place to turn around as soon as this is done?” She
couldn’t conceal the frustration in her voice.
Nathan shook his head. “Just one more hill, Mama. Just one more
hill. If I don’t find it by then, I promise we’ll turn around and go back
to your meadow.”
Ruth sighed. “All right.”
Nathan lashed the log with a rope and slipped the loop of the other
end around the neck of the horse he’d freed from the harness, and then
he slapped the horse on the rump with the loose end of the rope. The
horse arched his neck as it dug its heels into the soft earth and strained
against the rope. The log resisted for a moment, then slid away from
the trail, leaving a path just wide enough for the wagon. Soon Nathan
had the team harnessed again.
Ruth came up behind him as he stood catching his breath and put
her hand on his big shoulder. “I wish I knew what it is you are looking
for,” she said softly.
“I wish I knew,” he responded, looking out ahead at the undiscovered
trail. “I’m not sure myself. I just know I’ve gotta keep looking. But I
promise, just one more hill!”
In a few moments they were on the move again.
                                        **********************
An hour later, the wagon rolled to a stop. Thimbleberries and dense
undergrowth made further passage—without considerable effort to clear
it away—impossible. To the right, a wide spot offered just enough room
to turn the team around.
Nathan’s big shoulders drooped. “All right, Mama. You win,” he
said.
Ruth took her husband’s hand. “Why don’t we stop and eat
first?”
Nathan nodded.
Katie climbed down out of the back of the wagon and ran around
to the front. “Is it all right if I go for a walk?”
Nathan looked around. “I guess it’d be all right. But don’t go any
farther than you can see the wagon, understand?”
“Yes, Papa, I’ll be careful!”
Katie bounded off ahead. Ruth and Nathan watched as she bent
down to inspect a wild flower, chased a squirrel up a tree, and danced
happily along the trail.
“Come on,” said Ruth, walking to the side of the wagon, “let’s get
something to eat.”
Nathan followed her, but he was sullen. She handed him a chunk of
hardtack out of the burlap bag that hung from the side of the wagon, a
strip of venison jerky, and a tin cup full of water from the water barrel.
“Disappointed?” she asked.
Nathan shrugged as he walked over to the edge of the trail and sat
down on a cushion of pine needles. Ruth followed. She stood at his back
with her hands on his broad shoulders and began to work the muscles
between his shoulder blades with her thumbs.
“We’ve seen some pretty remarkable country,” she said, trying to
reassure him. “We’ll not find any better.”
Nathan nodded. “I know. It isn’t that.” He paused as he gazed out
among the trees. “Ever since we left home, I’ve had this itch—to see
what’s on the other side of the next hill.”
“Only since we left home?” she chided.
Nathan smiled weakly.
“I don’t think you’re alone,” Ruth said thoughtfully. “Lots of folks
are moving west.”
Nathan chuckled. “I suppose so.” He shoved the jerky into his mouth
and tore off a piece. “I guess lots o’ folks get the fever.”
“Lust is a treacherous partner. It never gives what it promises.”
“I know. But it isn’t lust. Leastways, I don’t think it is. I don’t have
to own the land. I just have to see it.”
Ruth sat down next to her husband, slipped her hand through his
arm, and held him close. “Lust is in the air, Nathan. Everybody’s looking
for gold or land or a way to take it away from those who already have
it. But it’s not for us. It isn’t what He’s called us to.”
“Yeah,” he said, “I know.”
“Papa! Papa!” Katie cried from beyond where the trail disappeared.
“Come quickly!”
Nathan shot to his feet, grabbed his flintlock as he dashed past the
wagon, and ran in the direction he had last seen his daughter. Ruth
followed him, holding her long skirt in a bunch above her feet.
“Over here, Papa! Come quick!”
Nathan raced along the trail, checking the breach of his rifle as he
ran. His eyes searched the wilderness ahead, taking care to notice any
movement on either side and dodging the trees that were now so dense
that the trail zigzagged back and forth along the ridge. Katie’s voice
came from directly ahead over a small rise.
Nathan crested the rise and stopped. Katie stood only a few feet
away with her back to him, but when she heard his footsteps, she
turned. Nathan could hardly believe his eyes. Spread out before him,
surrounded on either side by the majestic, timbered mountains, was a
great meadow of tall, green grass lazily waving in the gentle summer
breeze. Katie stood on the edge of the shimmering waters of a deep blue
pond where cattails and patches of berry bushes randomly encroached
along the shore. Beyond it, a small grove of oak trees spread over the
far end of the pond like a giant canopy. A herd of five or six deer were
just picking themselves up and scampering away into the cover of the
great trees.
“Isn’t it wonderful, Papa?” Katie beamed.
Ruth joined her husband. “Oh! It’s…beautiful!” she said.
Nathan nodded, looking down into his wife’s face. “It’s home,” he
said. “I’m home!