Digger McGilvery

By Robert O' Hanlin

Another war with the Sioux was looming on the horizon and the army wanted Digger McGilvery. He had lived with the Sioux for ten years and he only took the job because he hoped to be of help to both sides. He understood the Sioux, but he had trouble understanding his own kind. It was with the help of a woman that he gained some of that understanding...but would it be enough to keep them alive.
He was the son of Scottish parents who braved all odds and settled in the Sioux territory. They were the first to settle on the land that the Sioux claimed and although the Sioux were very territorial and defended their land vigorously they saw no harm from this white man, so they let him and his family stay as they watched and studied their ways.
Angus McGilvery was a tough Scotsman, tough on those who crossed him but gentle with his family and others. This was how he treated the Sioux who showed up. At first it upset the Sioux when they saw him plowing the earth, to them he was cutting open their mother earth but he explained that he was allowing her to breathe and give new life to the world. They were skeptical until they had a chance to taste for the first time some of the vegetables that Angus had planted.
Not all the Indians in the area were friendly and when a marauding band of Cheyanne came by they left with the bodies of Angus and Mary McGilvery laying in the garden they prized so much. The Sioux took the McGilvery children, Dawson and Belle, to their camp and that is where Digger got his name. The ten years he spent being raised by a man named Wakíŋyaŋ and his wife Wičháȟpi had taught him much about their ways and thinking.
He left the Sioux when he was eighteen and went to work with the army as a scout. Even then he had hopes that there could be peace among both sides, but he was soon to learn that peace was not the only thing the government wanted from the Plains Indians.
When he finally understood this he could no longer stand the hypercritical ways of the handling of his friends the Sioux so he took what money he had and started his own ranch. Life was good for him until the Army wanted him again. He had matured some and could now handle the name of ‘Indian Lover’, in fact he wore the name Digger they had given him with pride.
Things had worsened between the Sioux and the army and now the thought that he could be of help for both sides rose in him again. He had no friends among the men he served and didn’t care to make any...until he laid eyes on a girl named Melissa.
She was the daughter of the camp commander and although he didn’t know it anything between them was doomed from the start. Her father wanted more for her then what he saw in Digger McGilvery so he sent him on a dangerous mission with no hope of coming back even if he lived through it.
Jules and James Merchant did their best to make sure he didn’t live through it but with the help of a woman, who knew little of the men of the west and nothing of the Lakota Sioux he was brought back among the living. He swore the gunrunning Merchant brothers would pay for what they did even if it meant giving up his own life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Robert O' Hanlin
• Release date: May 3, 2019
• ISBN: 9780995896383

Robert O' Hanlin

I was born in Canada but spend much of my time roaming the Sonora Desert of Arizona, which is truly a place to inspire a writer.I write in the Western genre inspired by the great Western writer Louis L'Amour. My stories are fiction with a mixture of real history and I hope you enjoy reading them.

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Digger McGilvery

By Robert O'Hanlin

SMASHWORDS EDITION

PUBLISHED BY

Robert O'Hanlin on Smashwords

Digger McGilvery

Copyright 2019 by Robert O'Hanlin

This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. Please share it with your friends and family through the source you downloaded it. Please remember that all rights are reserved, and no part of this eBook may be copied or reproduced by any means electronic or mechanical or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in Critic’s articles or reviews. Your respect for the author is appreciated.

This is a fictional book and any resemblance of the characters to any person living or dead is purely coincidental.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Digger McGilvery

Chapter 1

The young man sat beside the bed, holding his mother’s hand in his. She had made no indication that she felt him beside her for at least an hour and her breaths were coming quick and deep, almost gasps now…and then there was one deep breath that slowly exhaled, leaving her chest deflated and unmoving. Angus McGilvery stood up slowly and stared down at the frail, lifeless body of his mother.

He wrapped her in the blanket that had covered her, carried her outside and, after gently placing her in the waiting wooden box, he lowered it into the already dug hole. Her death was not unexpected, but that did not make it any easier. Life was harsh in the Highlands of Scotland and it had been particularly harsh for the McGilvery Clan.

It had been only three short months since his father and three brothers went off to defend a neighboring Glen from what was called by the British, the ‘Highland Clearance’. It meant the taking of land from the clan members whose families had lived on it for centuries and dividing it into smaller tracts of land, which were usually given to English landowners.

Even though he was eighteen, and quite capable of going, he was the youngest and it was the tradition that he was to stay home to look after his mother and the farm. The battles for the freedom of Scotland had been long and bloody in the past, but the few clan members who marched off this time expected that a show of force and unity would be enough.

The British had systematically broken the clans up over the last hundred years, but the Highlands clans were the last holdouts. They still believed strongly in the freedom of Scotland and what started as a protest by a show of force turned into a bloodbath against well-armed troops.

Although Angus was young, he understood that only when people were totally united could there be change, and when he received the news that none of his kin would be returning, he was not surprised.

He knew that the only way that there was any chance of driving the English from his homeland was if all the clans, the royals, and the elites were united in the cause. It had happened a couple of hundred years before when William Wallace united all the clans and was able to drive the English back to their own land in defeat, but after Wallace’s death there were none that could raise the people to such a fervor again.

The English slowly took over the country’s finances and worked their way back into what became an acceptable way of life for most of the population, but it was not so for the Highlands and the Clans that still lived there. The Clan life had been mostly abolished in the lowlands, but the Highlands were hard to penetrate and the Clan ways persisted there.

It was those clan ways that led his father and brothers off with members of many other clans to try to make a difference. What was going to be a protest and harassment became soon became something different that left all but ten of the fifty men lying in the soft sod of their beloved Highlands.

The initial confrontation caused confusion among the advancing British officials and then someone fired a shot and the barrage from the soldiers cut them to pieces. Seven of the ten remaining alive were wounded and captured, but three managed to escape. It was from one of those that he and his mother learned the fate of their family.

His mother mourned the loss of her husband and three sons, but could not come to terms with it. When word of his mother’s death echoed through the Glen, some members of the family wanted him to move with them while others wanted to come to the farm and look after him…at the same time taking over the land. He had nothing to do with any of the offers, but he understood that it would be only a matter of time until the Highland Clearance reached his Glen.

He was alone, but he was not lonely, for he was by nature a loner, even around his family. Being the youngest, they left him out of a lot of his brother’s shenanigans, but he did get plenty of the hard knocks they gave out. He had a favorite place high in the back of the Glen where he often went alone and dreamed about the world beyond the Glen and the Highlands.

He had tended his father’s prize garden beside him for years and he, more than any of his brothers, understood the pride that his father took in raising the best vegetables in the area. Some of those vegetables were just coming ripe now, and it was time for him to follow in his father’s footsteps to the market.

As he rode his cart through the dark, early hours of the morning, he thought about the upcoming events. He was not sure how long it would take them to get around to his Glen, but he knew it would happen.

Calen McGilvery had raised him and his three brothers on the produce from his gardens. The Highland soil was tough on farming, but with constant care and by picking the best plants for seed purposes he managed to grow some of the most sought after vegetables.

Living off the land was hard and there was little money that changed hands, but the barter system gave them some of the necessities they needed. The potato blight that was sweeping the lowlands was making it harder for everyone and although the attempts of the English to break up the clans had not yet reached deep into the Highlands, they all knew it was coming.

The devastation of the potato blight led to unrest among all the people and talk of rebellion against the English was once again a popular subject, although he had no interest in being part of it. He had heard that many young men were leaving for the New World to a place called Nova Scotia (New Scotland), but that was not for him because it was a land also under British rule and he could see no way of bettering himself that way.

As he sat up his cart for the market, he noticed a young girl across the small dirt road that was now lined with vendors. She was helping a man whom he assumed was her father set up a variety of meats on his stand. He had been to the market often with his father, but had never noticed this girl before.

Throughout the day, when he glanced her way, she seemed to be watching him and each time he looked over, her face brightened with a smile. He had not given much thought to girls before this, but this girl was burning into his mind.

As the day waned on, two men were talking near his stand and while he normally paid little attention to the conversation of others, he listened more closely when one mentioned a boat in the harbor getting ready to sail to the New World. It was not until he heard the destination as The United States of America that his interest was piqued.

As the two broke up and said their goodbyes, he stopped one of them and asked him more about their conversation. After learning as much as he could about this new country, he was determined about what he was going to do.

He began packing up and he noticed the people across from him were doing the same. They pulled out first and as the wagon started down the road, he hadn’t noticed that the girl had remained behind and suddenly she was right in front of him. Just as he straightened up, she threw herself at him and kissed him on the lips…then just as quickly, she was gone, running down the road after her father’s wagon.

He stood unmoving, watching as the wagon disappeared around the bend, and then he finished closing up his stand and went directly to the harbor where a ship called the Liberty Queen was docked.

The hands were busily loading the remaining crates on board as he approached the man, who appeared in charge.

Be this ship bound fur th’ New World?

The big man turned to him.

Aye that it is, we will be leaving on the morn tide, but if it’s passage you are wanting…we are full up.

Angus looked at the people who were making their way aboard as the man continued.

I’ll be coming back in three months, but there is already a list started for that trip, so see the purser over there.

He pointed to a small office on the dock and Angus nodded.

Thank ye kindly sur, ah wull dae juist that.

Captain Bidell watched for a moment as the young man turned away from him. He was impressed by the way he carried himself and by the fact that he looked him directly in the eyes as he spoke. Then he turned back to the work at hand.

A small, older man who was sitting behind the desk rose as he came in. He was slightly stooped as he made his way to the counter and before he could speak, Angus made his intentions clear.

I wid lik' tae book passage fur two oan th' neist trip o' th' Liberty Queen.

The man reached the other side of the counter.

Aye, it's far tae mony o’ oor weans goin awa thae days. Thare wull be a deposit o' ten shillings each tae haud that passage fur ye. Th' tot cost wull be six poonds each prior tae boarding.

Angus took out his pouch and counted out the coins, which almost emptied it. He knew that it would be expensive for him, but his decision was made and he would have three months to raise the money.

His ride home was a long and thoughtful one. He was sure of his decision to leave his homeland, but what was he thinking that a young girl would just up and leave her family and friends forever? He did not even know her name, although he did know where she lived.

Making money was not the only reason for his anxiety. He could still feel the softness of the girl’s lips on his and he wanted that feeling again. He was determined that it would not be long before that wish came to pass, and this time, he would hold her in his arms and kiss her back.

With his mind made up that he would not tell anyone his plans, he returned home to put that plan into motion. He took an inventory of his belongings. He could sell the livestock, which included his horse, a milk cow, two pigs, and several sheep, and he would continue to sell the vegetables as they came ripe.

Knowing that almost everyone had heard about the Highland Clearance, most would not be interested in purchasing any land that was soon to be broken up and disposed of. If there were