The White Scout

Matthew Taylor left the cabin a good hour before dawn.  The morning promised to be a brisk fall day; with the feeling that winter was not far behind.  The cabin he left behind in the dark was now his alone, his family were now dead.  The journey west to the gold fields in the Dakota badlands claimed the lives of his mother and sister.  They were buried under a tree next to the trail they were traveling with the wagon train.

Zach Taylor had left the army as a scout for the hope of striking it rich and creating a easier life for his family.  Zach had no fear living on the edge of civilization, it was just away of life for him.  He was equally comfortable in the woods, guiding soldiers safely back to their forts or locating the enemy Indian tribes.  He was a veteran of the Indian wars with the Cherokee and Choctaw that was fought in what is now known as the Oklahoma territory.

Zach had his last years of his military contract expire in 1849.  It was the following spring of 1850 that the Taylor’s began their journey to the Dakotas and the hope of gold and riches.  Zach’s plan for his family was to leave his wife and daughter at Fort McCoy along the Missouri river about 200 miles south and east of the Dakota territory.  His wife and daughter never made the fort as the fever struck the wagon train that the Taylor’s were traveling with.  Zach and Matthew or Matt as he preferred to be called were out scouting and hunting meat for the caravan.  They were traveling two days in front of the wagon train, because game for their meat supply was scarce on the dry dusty plains they were traveling.  The two days travel from the wagon train spared the lives of Zach and his son Matt.

As Matt, now a young man of 17 was walking across the frosty meadow his thoughts were about his dearly departed family.  He knew his thoughts should be on the hunt and killing a deer or two so he could begin preparing for the long winter.  His thoughts returned to his family, he thought of his sister she would have been 14, he missed his mother and the smell of fresh baked bread and pies when he returned home from school.

Matt continued on his way to his favorite hunting spot about two miles from his cabin.  He planned to arrive shortly before dawn in hopes of completing his hunt in one day, but in the careful ways of his father he had packed along provisions in case it was necessary to spend a day or two out in the open.

Matt continued his trip on silent feet, he thought now of his father and all the things that he had taught him.  He could sneak through the woods as well as any Indian boy his age.  He was an above average shot with both his hawken rifle or the bow and arrow.  His father had taught him all the tricks of survival that he knew.  In this wild land that brought death so easily skills of surrivival were necessary.  The Indians considered this area part of their homeland, the Indians had learned the skills of living off the land along with its many dangers..

Matt realized that his father Zach had fallen victim to this harsh cruel land.  He had helped his father build the cabin along side of a small stream that they had panned some gold flakes from.  His father had begun a mining tunnel at the base of a hill that provided runoff into the small stream.  The Taylor men were quite successful having put together several sacks of gold which was buried in a corner of the cabin floor. 

Zach had made his fatal mistake not leaving his tunnel with the approaching spring storm.  He chose to continue digging for he was sure that a large vein of gold was not far away.  As the rains began a drenching downpour Zach had sent Matt back to the cabin to prepare the evening meal.  each had never considered the danger he was in with the swollen creek from the melting snow.

As the creek rapidly filled and overflowed its bed it began a mad rush into the Taylor’s tunnel.  When Zach saw the water entering the tunnel he knew he had to leave.  After grabbing his days supply of gold that the mine had provided he prepared to step outside.  He was immediately hit along side of his body from an uprooted tree that was being rushed down the creek.  In a matter of minutes the small peaceful creek had become a boiling, force of nature bent on destruction to anything that entered it’s pathway.  Zach was knocked off of his feet and another branch from the tree hi him on his head, and that was the end of the famous Indian scout Zach Taylor.

As the evening began to turn into night Matt thought he should take some supper down to his father.  Putting on a rain parka he went out into the blowing rain.  As Matt walked towards the tunnel he could see that the creek was way out of it’s bed and rushing on into the dark like something he had never seen before.  It was then that he noticed the tunnel, or at least where it should have been.  The entrance of the tunnel was nothing but mud and swirling dark water.  Matt tried to reach the entrance of the Taylor tunnel but was surprised at the strength and fury with which the creek denied him access.  So Matt b