The Seekers Read Online Free PDF

incredible scene of confusion and carnage on his left.
    A vast area of the bottom was covered by the immense trunks of uprooted trees, some nearly rotted away. Here and there, two or three of the storm-blasted trunks lay across one another, creating natural barricades six to eight feet high. Among this titanic natural wreckage, men struggled; men with white skins, and others much darker—
    Abraham saw bayonets flashing as whole squads clambered over the huge horizontal trees, saw red faces contorted in rage, red hands swinging war clubs and tomahawks and even firing muskets. The Legion and the Indians fought hand to hand in near-total disorder—
    At least a thousand to fifteen hundred men were battling, Abraham guessed. He was barely able to hear MisCampbell’s bawled orders in the din. Past the fallen timbers, the smoke thickened above the woods where the Kentuckians fought.
    Screaming commands, MisCampbell turned the column’s head, charging the dragoons left toward the nearest uprooted trees. As Abraham pulled his saber, Stovall swung left in turn. Abraham followed—and got a horrifying view of hard-planed, reddish-brown faces waiting behind the natural fortifications; faces marked with slashes of yellow and vermilion.
    Heads shaved save for single oiled scalplocks trailing down their necks, the Indian defenders—of what tribe, Abraham didn’t know—raised muskets and aimed at the attacking cavalry.
    Abraham bent low over Sprite’s neck. He realized the dragoon formation would disintegrate the moment MisCampbell reached the first great trunks. So he chose a route for himself: a natural lane between two destroyed trees. The lane angled away to his left. Riding hard, he turned Sprite in that direction.
    The smell of powder was chokingly strong. He heard the Indian muskets erupt, raised his head just a little as a sheet of flame leaped out directly in front of the first dragoons. MisCampbell’s chest seemed to cave in, the white of his linen shirt stained with red blotches as several balls struck him at once. He pitched from his saddle, trampled by his men galloping behind him—
    Then the first riders were into the trees, each man charging in a different direction, choosing his own enemy. Never before had Abraham heard such noise: the muskets blasting; the American foot soldiers grunting and cursing as they clambered over the tree trunks; the earth-shaking hoofbeats; the war cries of the Indians—and the shrieks of men on both sides dying of a ball or a bayonet or the blade of a scalp knife—
    Abraham’s mare dashed into the head of the lane he’d picked out. Stovall was racing down the same lane directly ahead. Sprite’s flank scraped one of the tumbled trees. She almost fell. On the far side of the tree, two clouted Indians struggled with an officer of the Fourth sublegion. The man was fending off the savages with thrusts of his spontoon.
    Abraham reined in, reached across the trunk, hacked down and sideways with his saber. The blade struck flesh. With a kind of hypnotic fascination, he watched the brave’s neck spout blood over the beleaguered officer. The American took the hideous drenching—and grinned.
    The other Indian tried to scramble away over the next tree. The officer ran him through the back with the long spontoon. Abraham’s bowels felt watery as he nudged Sprite ahead, the dying Indian’s cries of agony loud in his ears.
    Abruptly, on his right a brave leaped to the top of another fallen tree. Abraham realized the warrior must have been crouching down—awaiting a victim. The Indian was tall, in his late twenties, with a distinctively handsome face and baleful eyes. He swung his spiked war club straight at Sprite’s neck.
    Abraham jerked the rein savagely. The mare reared, front hoofs tearing at the sky. The spike missed her by a fraction.
    Sprite came back to earth with a terrific jolt. The Indian found a new, more convenient target: Lieutenant Stovall. A few yards ahead, his gray’s front