Cry of the Blood

Abbott Press

Contents

Acknowledgments...............................................................viiForward.......................................................................ixIntroduction..................................................................1Part One......................................................................9Chapter 1 Australia: The McCarrons...........................................11Chapter 2 A Horse Farm in Georgia............................................21Chapter 3 America, A New Life: Jacob Albert Carver...........................30Chapter 4 Kidnapped in Senegambia............................................48Chapter 5 Pennsylvania Master................................................62Chapter 6 The Women..........................................................74Chapter 7 The Visitation.....................................................98Chapter 8 "Our Lamb Conquored, Let Us Follow Him"............................106Chapter 9 New Every Morning..................................................117Chapter 10 The New Church....................................................135Chapter 11 A Divine Destiny..................................................146Part Two......................................................................187Chapter 12 An Indian Named Bear-Guts.........................................189Chapter 13 Nanci.............................................................198Chapter 14 The Dispatch......................................................204Chapter 15 The Legistature, The Law, and The Human-Being.....................223Chapter 16 To Everything There is a Time.....................................234Chapter 17 The Swelling Tide.................................................249Chapter 18 The Decision......................................................262Chapter 19 The Long Hard Year................................................271Chapter 20 Tsali.............................................................284Chapter 21 A Nightmare in Hell...............................................288Chapter 22 A Time to Join Together and a Time to Part........................304Chapter 23 The Closing Hours.................................................320Chapter 24 Nuna Dat Shun'yi "The Trail Where They Cried".....................326Chapter 25 The Greatest Sacrifice............................................341Chapter 26 The Western Frontier..............................................345Chapter 27 Senagambia, West Africa...........................................351

Chapter One

1818

It was a hot, muggy, day in late December when Laird McCarron set down his sledge hammer and leaned it against the new fence post. He spat on the ground. He untied the kerchief from around his neck and began wiping the sweat from his face and the back of his neck. Looking skyward, Laird stood with legs slightly apart to brace himself against the strengthening wind. "Ah Da, looks like its a-blowin up a thunderstorm. A little wind and rain is good, but not what I'm a-feelin is a-comin'." A tight grin formed across Laird's mouth as he watched the clouds change, becoming dark then rolling faster and faster as though they were being chased by a giant leviathan in the midst of a swelling sea.

He looked down at the kerchief in his hand. "Ah Da," he sighed again, studying the kerchief. "Part of our flag, it is!" He caressed it fondly fingering it in his hand, remembering how he and his five men had been caught in the midst of a blowing sand storm while on patrol. The sand blowing and had whipped so hard they couldn't see, much less breathe. "Bring that flag over here, Bobby," he could hear himself saying like it was only yesterday.

"Yes Sir?" Bobby responded handing the pole to his commanding officer.

Laird knelt and laid the flag across his knee and began to tear the flag into six strips. He laughed to himself remembering the shocked look on his men's faces. "Now listen to me, men, we're in a serious situation here. We have to cover our nose and mouth. We're a-go'n to turn back. We'll make it to camp. Don't panic! I don't intend to lose a man out of ignorance." Remembering brought tears to Laird's eyes. How he had loved his men, and how he so loved his country. "Tearin' that flag was a mighty hard thing, but it saved our lives, it did," he said to himself. He wiped tears with the arm of his sleeve and re-tied the kerchief around his neck.

The wind felt good against his skin—skin tanned by Australia's hot summer's sun. It was already darker than most whites because of his aboriginal ancestry; even though it boasted only a slight amount of aboriginal, it was his and contributed to his good looks. He had held his age well and knew he was still a handsome man at the age of forty-eight. Thick hair, he had, and a full head of it, light brown in color with just the right amount of grey, all curly and wavy-like. His eyes were bright blue, set under thick eyebrows and long black eyelashes. Just short of six feet tall, his body was muscular with long, strong legs.

Laird turned and leaned against the fence on arms muscled from years of working the land. Raising his eyes once again to the rolling sky he smiled to himself, memories running freely as the increasing wind blew through his hair. He remembered how his father had worked hard, insisting that he and his older brother be schooled in the Jesuit school over in Bainey. It had been costly, but somehow he and Mum had handled it. He could still hear him, "Those Jesuits know how to teach about life the good God created. All any fool has to do is to look outside of himself, and look up and around with eyes open, and they could see th' handiwork of th' Almighty, in th' heavens, rivers and trees, th' sun, moon, and stars. Not only that, Son, but those Jesuits will keep you on th' straight and narrow, you won't get away with stuff and nonsense under their tutelage."

"But, Da," Laird had whined when his dad had taken him on that first day, "I want to stay with you. You can teach me."

"Now, never you mind, Laird, you have to trust your Da knows what's best for his boy. Times are a-changin', lad. You will need to be smarter than your Da. You'll see! Come on with you, now, and stop your whimperin'."

"Guess you were right, Da," Laird whispered against the whistling wind. Laird had learned well. He was smart. He knew how to deal with people as well as the land, and the horses. A good man, loving and kind, Laird's heart flowed through his hands making him known throughout the country for the compassionate treatment of his horses. He felt a warmth flow through him as he thought of his youngest son, Jordy. "Just a little tike, he was, always a- followin' after me, stretchin' out those little legs to keep up, tryin' to imitate his Da. I can still see him a-sittin' atop the corral fence never tirein', watchin' while I worked horse after horse, tenderly whisperin' into their ears, caressin' their neck and body. Ah Da, you'd be mighty proud. He learned well how those horses respond. He has your tenderness of heart and lovin' hands, he has." Laird brushed a tear of nostalgia with his same shirtsleeve, chuckling he interrupted his own thoughts, "I keep 'a-doin' this and it's a-goin' to be a different color than th'...