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It is a golden day in early October. Big puffs of white clouds float out of the west across the deep blue sky on their way toward the eastern horizon. The leaves of hickory, walnut, maple and oak trees have turned a hundred shades of purple, red, yellow and orange. Great fields of prairie tall grass interrupt the dazzling fall colors of forested hills, and the wind blown stalks swim like the waves of a gentle sea.
Jonathan sits up front next to his sister Samantha as their father, Clark, holds the reins and guides the horses of the covered wagon onwards. Their mother, Sarah, sits next to them. She has her arm around Samantha and is singing softly to herself. Jonathan knows she only does this when she's nervous or upset.
Clark turns the wagon north off the main trail, and after a short distance they pass through a village that consists of nothing more than a few homesteads and a small church. Jonathan's mother says this is where they will go to sing praises to the Lord. They stop briefly outside one of the houses where Clark talks to a tall, slender, well dressed man with a baldish head. He is wearing bifocals. They are too far away for Jonathan to hear what is said. While they are waiting Sarah produces for lunch some biscuits, carrots and cured meats from a basket. After what seems like forever to Jonathan they continue onward.
At the northern edge of the small town they pass by an aging log cabin that appears to have fallen into disuse--except for an elderly man with a long beard and wide brimmed hat who sits leisurely on the porch smoking a pipe. In his dirty, worn overalls he watches them through narrow eyes. Jonathan waves and the man tips his hat without smiling.
It is just beyond the old cabin that Jonathan notices the massive oak tree with its crimson leaves. As if marking the spot, the ancient and gnarled sentinel towers above a point where the trail begins to ascend into a hilly region. Jonathan is viewing his surroundings in bewilderment as the road continues northwesterly though it has become more of a path than a trail. He watches Samantha brush her reddish blond hair away from her face. She calls it "strawberry blond" with an air of significance. The wind teases her hair and she has to keep pushing it away from her eyes. Samantha has just turned five and she reminds him of this constantly. She is whispering to her doll. Jonathan tries to hear what his sister is saying, but he can't understand the words. It sounds like she's speaking another language. Samantha doesn't seem to care much about anything other than her doll. She views the world through hazy, gray-blue eyes in a slightly detached way. She loves her doll--the doll of faded linen material, stuffed with cotton and fitted with a wooden head. The doll is rugged from hours of endless care. The painted features have long ago worn off the doll's face, but Samantha doesn't seem to notice. She loves the doll and the doll loves her back.
Jonathan's bright orange hair is a tangled mop in the wind. He feels strange inside. It feels like he is caught in the midst of a dream. Were they actually moving west to live on the frontier or is he imagining it all? Maybe he will suddenly wake up and it will be just another day on the riverfront.
Jonathan thinks about St. Louis--the home they left behind. He knows his mother is scared, but it doesn't seem to matter much to his father.
"We're going to live off the land," his father says. "It's cheaper to live out here. Besides, I just couldn't pass up the deal I got on this land. Look at all this land!" Clark gestures broadly as though the entire countryside is his. Maybe it is.
But Jonathan doesn’t care about "the frontier," farming, or land. All Jonathan's friends are in St. Louis. According to his father, St. Louis is only a half day's ride away as the crow flies, but it might as well be a thousand miles away. Even so, Jonathan has already made plans to go back to St. Louis as soon as he can. Father is a fool. Jonathan knows that savages live out here. Sioux and Fox and Osage and a lot of other tribes. Father says Mr. Chouteau has made it so the savages won't attack the settlements, but Jonathan is old enough to read the newspapers for himself. He knows that some of the natives still hate the whites--and they sometimes kill settlers. He knows there are some bad savages. He’s heard the stories about the attack of 1780. He knows what the savages did to many of the settlers they captured outside what was then just a fort. But he also knows that not all of them are bad--just some of them, like the Iroquois.
Clark insists that where they’re going there aren't any savages. But how does he know? Jonathan read some of the diaries and journals written by the early settlers. The savages are everywhere. He knows it even if his father doesn’t.
The trail continues to worsen as they make their way along the "Northwest Road." The covered wagon creaks and teeters as the two horses struggle to pull it up the bumpy dirt trail that is badly overgrown with weeds and small brush. It looks as if the road hasn't been used for years. In places there seems to be no road at all. Clark has to stop the wagon often so he can clear the way. Jonathan tries to help, but when it comes to sawing trees and moving logs there isn't a whole lot a nine year old can do.
Clark grunts and curses and Sarah cries out for him to stop it--for the sake of the children. He climbs back up on the wagon and mumbles something about having only "a little ways yet to go." Jonathan thinks maybe he’s right in terms of distance, but it takes five hours to finally reach the destination about which his father has been proclaiming "we’ll know it when we get there."
It is early evening when the wood becomes less dense and the path once again widens into a trail. It is here that Jonathan notices a wooden signpost nearly faded beyond recognition. The cracked and weathered board that hangs crookedly by one nail reads "Crescent Hill Ce..." The final word is indecipherable. Beyond the sign is a courtyard area against a steep embankment with a low stone wall, but the yard has become overgrown with weeds and small brush. A bit further and the forest once again gives way to a vast stretch of prairie land.
A dark, reddish-orange sun is quickly falling toward the western horizon illuminating their "new home" in the colors of fading daylight. Jonathan climbs down off the old wagon and finds himself standing in the middle of a grassy prairie that stretches westward toward a broken horizon. About a quarter mile distant to the northwest a ridge of hills rises into a jagged line of cliffs. The white limestone face of the ridge curves around from the west, gradually rising in elevation as it stretches to the east before descending into a southeastern valley that points back toward the direction from which they had come. The trees that line the ridge above and the forested hills that curve along the ridge below cause the pale facing of the cliffs to make a distinct crescent shape. The setting sun has illuminated the ridge with a reddish glow. It's a beautiful sight, but Jonathan feels lonely.
"Paw?" Jonathan has a puzzled expression on his face.
"What is it, boy?" Clark is grinning like a crazy loon.
"Well, there ain't nothin’ here 'cept that burnt pile over there." Jonathan points ahead of them at a pile of blackened wood about 100 yards away. It looks like the remnants of a giant bonfire, but it must have been some type of structure at one time.
Clark looks over at his wife and notices she has tears in her eyes. She's a nervous wreck. He takes her in his arms and holds her close as she buries her face in his strong shoulder and tries to control her sobbing.
Samantha wanders off unnoticed. Her dolly wants to tell her a secret.
Clark looks insanely happy as he holds his wife and stares out across the golden field. "There ought to be some good nails in there Sarah. We'll have a home built in no time. You'll see. Jonathan's going to help out. He's almost a man now. He's old enough to help build a house."
"Clark!" Sarah is shocked by this latest revelation. "Are you sure he can handle it?" She questions the idea in a feeble tear choked voice.
"Christ, woman! The boy's gotta learn something useful sometime. He's nearly ten years old, and all I see him doin' is readin' books. You treat him like a girl."
A short distance away Samantha is picking wild flowers. She already has a handful of Queen Ann's lace and daisies.
The sound of his parents arguing fades into the background as Jonathan approaches the decimated structure. The meadow grass grows right up to the edge of the destroyed cabin. It's obvious that no one has lived here for a long time.
Samantha is running up to her mamma with a big smile, her eyes glowing brightly, shouting about how she has just seen a deer.
Jonathan notices something white amongst the blackened ashes. As he walks up to the edge of the burnt out structure he freezes up with fear and shock when he sees that it's a human skull reflecting the fading sunlight.
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