Editor’s Note: This is an ongoing series which runs each Thursday morning titled the Richland Chronicles Volume 2, by author Paul Lintern. It is set in the summer of 1831 and tells the story of Richland County through the eyes of young people. This is the second in a three-book trilogy. Volume 1 was Amelia Changes Her Tune.

The boys were up at first light, excited by the stories Simon Kenton had told the night before, and hopeful for a shooting lesson from the great frontiersman. Breakfast was going to be nice, too.

“Did it bother you that he talked so much about killing Indians?” Isaac asked Wolf Paw.

It had just occurred to him that many at the reserve would think of Simon Kenton as an enemy.

“We are taught to have great respect for all warriors, even as we are taught in warfare to have no mercy for enemies. My ancestors had some friends and many enemies, and before my grandfather’s time, all the friends and enemies were Indians.

“When white men came, some were friends and some were enemies, and not always the same ones all the time,” Wolf Paw said.

“That is why Chief Black Hoof and Simon Kenton can be enemies, then friends, over the years, like anybody?” Isaac asked. “Do you think we will be enemies some day?”

“That will be up to you,” Wolf Paw said and Isaac rolled his eyes.

“You’re getting closer to it by the minute,” Isaac replied, in mock anger. “Really, do you think I will always be welcome at the reserve? Or will I be threatened because I am a white man?”

“White boy,” Wolf Paw said, and Isaac rolled his eyes again. “We don’t know what the future holds, we just go there on the straightest path. My grandmother says that.”

“We don’t know what the future holds, but we know who holds the future. My grandmother says that,” Isaac said.

“Sometimes I think the adults at the reserve ought to be angry at the way they have been treated, about losing their lands and being confined to an area, but they seem grateful that they still have what they have.

“I don’t know how to be that grateful. I don’t want to live on a reserve all of my life, no matter if it is here or in Kansas or on the moon.

“I want freedom, the freedom you have, that your grandfather fought to get and your father fought to preserve,” Wolf Paw said.

“My father’s dead,” Isaac said.

“He died a free man,” Wolf Paw replied. “And your mother was free to do the best thing for you in marrying John. I think it is time for you to accept that.”

“Why?” Isaac shot back.

Wolf Paw paused, then smiled.

“Because things…”

“Change,” Isaac finished the sentence.

Simon Kenton came out of the cabin a few minutes later and greeted the new day and the boys.

“My darling bride is preparing breakfast, and it will be a dandy. Now, I want to turn you, young Isaac, into a dandy marksman,” Simon said.

“You can do that?” Isaac said.

“We can start,” he replied.

He grabbed Isaac’s musket and looked into the barrel.

“Whoo-ee, son, this is your best friend. Don’t you be growing a garden in there. When was the last time you cleaned it out?”

“Cleaned it?”

“Oof,” Simon said, grabbing a small cloth attached to a long string with a short metal stick at the end.

“We have to clean all the residue out and oil it nicely, so the musketball will fly through the barrel. You’ll shoot twice as far and twice as close.”

“Close?”

“Meaning you will actually hit your target now and then,” Simon replied.

Normally, Isaac would have been angry at someone making fun of him and his gun, but he had already decided that this man could tell him to hop across the field on his head and he would do it. Isaac got a thorough lesson in cleaning, as his musket got a thorough cleaning.

“Now, when it comes to shooting, aim small,” Simon said.

“Small,” Isaac repeated.

“Don’t aim for the deer. Aim for his eye, aim for his heart. Aim small, and you will hit small. Aim big, and you will miss big.”

Simon showed the boys several ways to stand, lean and kneel with the weapon to steady it and aim quickly. He taught them about turning and firing and judging angles when the musket is not at eye level.

He taught them about loading it silently, so enemies or animals nearby would not see or hear it. He even gave Wolf Paw some pointers with the bow and arrow, something Simon learned during the time he was captured and adopted by Shawnee. That is when he first met Chief Black Hoof.

Elizabeth called out for breakfast, but Simon said he had one more lesson, and they would be in shortly. She said something about having heard all that before, but seemed to let it go and went back inside.

“The last thing I want to teach you, and practice this until you can do it and do it well, is how to load your musket while running.”

“Running away?” Isaac asked.

“Or toward something,” Simon said. “This is how I have stayed alive. If you stand still to load, you are an easy target, and your attackers can gain on you. If you can run while you are loading, you can be getting away, or finding a better vantage point or keeping your enemies from gaining on you.”

He showed Isaac about doing things by touch in order to see where he is running, and how to run smoothly while taking each item from its place on his belt. He showed him how to have the powder and paper and musket balls secure enough that he can grab one at a time without losing the others, how to turn and fire quickly and accurately, without losing a step.

I can’t wait to practice this, Isaac thought. But I hope I never have to use it.

By the time the three returned to the cabin for breakfast, Elizabeth was complaining that because of their tardiness, the bread was dry, the bacon was shriveled up and the oatmeal was too thick.

Isaac thought it all was delicious, and Wolf Paw wolfed it down, as usual.

As the boys hopped on Green, they asked if they could visit again some day.

“I’m not going anywhere, except Heaven before long,” Simon said. “Or who knows, maybe I’ll still be here when I’m 109, like ol’ Black Hoof.

“When you come back, though, I expect you both to show me what you have practiced from today’s lesson.”

They ended up riding with Simon a couple of miles north, until he turned to the northwest toward his old friend in Wapak Village, while they headed north then east to the reserve.

Although it had only been three days since they had left Upper Sandusky, to Isaac it seemed a lifetime. In Chief Black Hoof and Simon Kenton, they had met nearly 200 years of frontier experience and Indian wisdom. Both boys seems quite a bit older than when they had left.