Some forts had the mushroom shaped blockhouse in the center of the square or built into the angle of the fort, with larger ones having both types of defenses.
Ours had neither. Beyond, out past the muddy yard around the cabins, was a palisade of small timbers where chickens wandered and dogs shit. Our strength was not in the fortifications, however, but in our numbers.
The number of people determined to survive. The number of people determined to establish a life of their own choosing. The number of people simply unwilling to leave a newfound territory. All the while, the Old Ones of the First People refused to fade or scatter.
Captain John Autrey. Together he and father divided a few other men folk and went out in squads to look after their cattle. Others hunted for game. Mostly, we went to till our fields of corn. It was corn that sustained the first White man. Just as it had the Indian for thousands of generations before.
But the law of crying the Blood Revenge had been declared by many of the Creek villages long before we had arrived and tried to make a go on those river bottoms. Their clan-based ways had a justice system that came from religious requirements of balance, from the outer cosmos down into their own savage heart. If a person had been inflicted pain, injury, or death the maternal clan kin were responsible for restoring spiritual balance by causing an equal infliction of pain or death, though material goods often satisfied too.
Their notions of justice, however, were not our own, and conflicts between us and them went unresolved. Border raids and patrols intensified In the dead of night we were startled by awful yells and a blaze of light! There, they applied embers to the corn shucks then retreated to the corner in the fort where they found our hogs had squeezed through a gap in the logs. My father and mother each seized a rifle and stood in the door. They ordered my brother and myself to keep the fort between the Indians and us and put the fire out if possible.
We ran to the corn-pen, and pulled down the rails. The high pile of corn slipped down on the blazing shucks, smothering them. Seeing this, the Indians retreated, but not until two of their party had been killed by shots from the different cabins.
They then set fire to an outbuilding stored with flax. Dark silhouettes showed in force against the flames. They had regrouped and stood grim shouting their war-yelps. But our women had put on hats and overcoats and with our men turned out too with firearms.
Deceived by this appearance of strength, the Indians retired. A few days after the station attack, Captain Autrey made the solemn decision to set off and test the countryside. He took his farm hands out to strip fodder, and while scouting around in the field, they were ambushed. The hands made it back but Captain Autrey had stayed and fought. The men went out looking for him the next morning. We knew of his prowess in battle and most felt his chances were good to have survived or even beaten the Indians down.
Father let me accompany the party on my first pony named Thunder. Oh how brave I rode until we finally came to the slaughter. We found him sitting under the big oak in the middle of the field. All there that day said Captain Autrey had fought well. Blood stains filled the ruts in the field.
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