Black fingers of smoke stretched and curled menacingly upward; clawing at the night sky.
Dixon stared at them through blurred vision, wishing that they would rip the stars from their places and hurl them down upon him. He wanted to escape from the pain; he didn’t care how. He wanted to run from the horrors that he had just experienced. He wanted revenge.
So many thoughts were crashing down upon him at this moment that he didn’t notice the tall, muscular figure approaching him. When the man grabbed him roughly by his shirt collar and began to drag him toward the woods—away from the large pile of ashes and cinders—Dixon didn’t fight back. He hadn’t the strength to resist. Honestly, he didn’t care if this man was going to kill him; he no longer had a reason to live. Everything was gone.
Dixon allowed himself a small whimper, but made sure it wasn’t audible to his captor. He wouldn’t let them see him cry, regardless of what they did to him. Never would he be called a coward. He would be confident and rest in the strength that the Lord provides. As he was dragged through the thick undergrowth deeper into the forest, he earnestly prayed that the Lord would allow him to follow his family and friends to the blissful resting place that they had now gone to. As he was roughly forced away from the clearing, however, his grief overcame his attempt at composure and he began to cry.
“It’s not fair!” He sobbed under his breath, “Lord! Why do You allow things like this happen to those who have followed you so earnestly all their lives?! Why do You allow evil to prevail?! Why has this happened to me?! Lord—” his voice quickly rose to a piercing scream filled with grief, “—where are You?!”
Dixon collapsed to the ground and began to wail hysterically; shaking uncontrollably. A large hand clasped itself over Dixon’s mouth and squeezed. He could feel a sharp pain in his neck as he was abruptly lifted off the ground. The man raised him to eye level and held him there. As tears poured down his cheeks, he closed his eyes in an attempt to block the face that was now so close to his. He never wanted to see one of those painted faces again. He grasped desperately at the iron fingers piercing into his face, but his struggling was useless. As the lack of oxygen caused him to feel faint, Dixon relinquished the fight. The man dropped him to the ground and kicked him in the side.
“Get up!” He demanded in a rough form of English. Dixon made no effort to comply. The man kicked him again and repeated the order. Once again, Dixon remained stationary. His attacker yelled something that he could not understand and pointed into the trees. Dixon opened his eyes just enough to be able to see another warrior rush a war horse over to them. The paint on the horse’s face and shoulders matched the heinous symbols on the man’s chest. He reached down and pulled Dixon up by his arms. Dixon was 160 lbs. of pure muscle, but this man lifted him effortlessly onto the war horse and then swung himself up behind him. As they rode off at a full gallop into the darkening forest, Dixon closed his eyes once again and went limp.
~ ` ~ ` ~ ` ~ ` ~
Dixon knew not how for long they rode. The days seemed to slur together as they galloped through forests and across plains; fording countless rivers along the way. The only thing that he could keep straight as they traveled was that they were heading steadily north-west.
When the warriors would stop at night to rest their horses, Dixon was tightly bound to a tree with a leather thong. Being tied by his feet in this way, he felt somewhat like the hunting hawks that he had read about in his school books. It wasn’t a pleasant feeling at all. He would usually get thrown something to eat, but his captors were ruthless in their treatment of their prisoner. Dixon didn’t see any others in his situation as the days crawled by, but he was glad of this. He didn’t want any of his friends and fellow settlers to have to endure this. Dixon had experienced a lot of hardship in his 16 years of dwelling on various Western frontier settlements. He had faced the various dangers of the wilderness and the hostility of the natives countless times before, but he had never been in such a peril as this.
Dixon’s father had been an English Puritan pastor for many growing frontier settlements. He had the task of providing spiritual stability for those carving a path into the great unknown lands outside of the established Colonies. He would usually stay with a settlement until there was enough growth to establish a solid church community. This process usually took anywhere between three to five years to complete, although there had been a few times when it only took about 18 months or so. Once the settlement reached this point of development, his father would feel that his time had come to help out in other places. He would arrange for another pastor to come and take over the shepherding of the flock that he had established, then they would move on further westward. Always westward.
When the French and Indian War erupted two years ago in 1754, Dixon’s family was caught up in it in more ways than one. His mother happened to be a French woman. Although she didn’t side with the French, there was much pressure from her relatives to support her native country. Anywhere she went as they traveled from settlement to settlement, her accent and uniquely French manner always made her a target for French sympathizers. Beginning with the events leading to the outbreak of the war, this mixed heritage had made Dixon’s family many enemies everywhere they went. Dixon’s parents, however, would never reciprocate the hatred shown towards them.
“As the Holy Scripture saith in Romans 12:21,” his father would remind him daily, “‘Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.’ We need to share the love of Christ with those who are lost, regardless of how they treat us.” Dixon had learned a lot from his father in the areas of forgiveness, love, and a passion for sharing the message of salvation with the lost. He had never hated anyone before; that is, until now.
Dixon slowly pulled himself out of reminiscing the days gone by and came back to reality. He knew that his father would be ashamed with his lack of faith right now. He knew what he would say if he were there at the moment. Romans 12:21 continued to repeat itself in Dixon’s head as he fought with himself for control over his emotions. He could almost hear his father speaking to him:
“My son, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”
“Father—” Dixon choked on his tears. These men had burned his settlement. They had killed his family and friends. They had ruined his life. His ankles were bleeding from the chaffing leather binding him to the pine tree next to him. He was dizzy from lack of water. He was angry, confused, and he did hate these men. Yet, as a small and quiet voice in the midst of a roaring crowd, he could hear his father quoting the Holy Scripture and admonishing him to make the God-honoring choice.
These men don’t know any better. They are completely lost and following after their own selfish desires because they don’t know what else to do. They are going to spend an eternity away from the presence of God because of their sin, and they don’t even know it! Help them, Dixon. Help them!
After taking several deep breaths, Dixon felt a peace rush over him as he sat alone in the dark night.
“Fairest Lord Jesus,” he began shakily, “Thou art the Ruler of all nature. O, Thou of God and man the Son; Thee will I cherish. Thee will I honor. Thou art my soul’s glory, joy and crown. Amen.”
Dixon opened his eyes to discover that all his captors had moved toward the camp fire. They were looking at something that in the hands of the man with the painted chest; the same man who had carried Dixon on his horse thus far. They were all mumbling excitedly in low tones. Dixon wished that he could understand them. A few of them knew how to speak a little English, but it was very primitive and didn’t communicate more than a few basic thoughts. Dixon was oddly curious about what the man was holding. The Indians seemed to be afraid of it. He caught a glimpse of something that looked like a book, and he thought he heard one of them ask, “What does it mean?”
Dixon snapped to attention. He had understood that question!
How did I know what he was saying? He thought to himself. Then, like a flash of lightning in the midst of a calm, starry sky, he realized what had happened. That particular Indian had spoken in French!
Of course! He began to put the clues together, These Indians must be in league with the French! Dixon had certainly heard about such agreements between the natives and foreign settlers before, but he had never considered that these men might have been sent by the French. It was just a haunch, but it seemed pretty reasonable.
“Je peux vous aider,” Dixon offered. Thanks to his mother, he could speak, read, and write French fluently. The man holding the item jumped and spun on his heel. Dixon could now see that he was indeed holding a little book.
“You can help us?” One of them spoke in English.
“I can.” Dixon then repeated himself, “Que je peux.”
The painted man brought the book up to Dixon’s face and ordered him to read it. It was written in French. Dixon had no problem obliging him and read until the man slammed the book shut. He spoke to the Indian next to him and Dixon’s bonds were removed. The painted man then threw the book in front of Dixon. Grabbing the book and looking up, Dixon saw that he was smiling at him. It wasn’t a pleasant smile, and he didn’t like it, but it was better than someone slapping him in the face like they usually did when they got close to him. The man lowered his voice and spoke in deep tones:
“You will teach my village how to understand White Man’s magic paper.”
~ ’ ~ ’ ~ ’ ~ ’ ~
Dixon breathed a sigh of relief when, on the eighth day of hard traveling, they crested a ridge and came to a village nestled between two mountain ranges. Many women and young children came out to greet the raiding party. Dixon was still bound, but he now had his own horse—led by the painted man—and he had been treated much better since the night he read from the little French book. He wasn’t about to tell his captors that it was a Bible that he now held in his chaffed hands.
A great celebration was held that night in honor of the success of the warriors. Dixon was tied up inside the chief’s teepee, away from the festivities, but he was allowed to keep the Book with him. He read by the firelight until he could no longer keep his eyes open; greedily drinking in the words on the pages and relishing the chance to see the old familiar passages of Scripture before him once again. For the first time in over a week, Dixon fell into a peaceful sleep.
Daybreak came without the rooster’s crow, but the village was up and bustling long before the sun graced the tips of the eastern mountains. The painted man, who was indeed the chief of the village, wasted no time in showing off what his captive could do. He took Dixon and the village elders out to a rock outcropping by the base of a mountain. After they had sat down in a circle, they listened to the young man read from the Book. They all understood and spoke French quite fluently, so Dixon had quite an attentive audience. He opened to the first chapter of Matthew and read for several hours. The Indians gave him some water to drink when his voice gave out, then ordered him to continue. They didn’t return to the village until darkness was beginning to overtake the valley. Dixon was provided a great portion of food at that evening’s meal and, even though he was still securely tied inside the chief’s teepee, some women brought him several animal furs to sleep on. Gazing out the hole in the roof that night as he lay on the comfortable furs, Dixon caught occasional glimpses of stunning constellations through the light cloud of smoke rising from the remains of the fire in the middle of the teepee. He was still acutely aware that all he had ever known was gone forever, but he wasn’t mad or confused anymore. He felt strangely peaceful, like he knew that he was needed here for God’s purpose.
Suddenly, he felt very poetic (this had happened on occasion a few times before in his life) and he began to search for something to write with. The leather thong that tied him to the teepee had been lengthened, so he was able to quietly stretch out on the floor, move his foot over to the edge of the smoldering fire, and maneuver a piece of charcoal to his bed. He hesitated when he opened the Bible’s cover and set the charcoal on it. He was always taught to never, ever mark on the Word of God, but he believed that it would be appropriate for the particular verses playing through his head. He wanted to remember them in the future, so he carefully and reverently wrote them out:
Fair is the sunshine; fairer still the moonlight and all the twinkling starry host.
Jesus shines brighter. Jesus shines purer than all the angels heaven can boast.
All fairest beauty (heavenly and earthly) is wondrously, Jesus, found in Thee! None can be nearer, fairer, or dearer than Thou, my Savior, art to me.
The pattern of events followed on his first day in the village continued for a solid week. The chief and elders would take Dixon up into the mountains before the sun rose and they would listen to him read from the Book until nightfall. They seemed completely enraptured with the story that Dixon was telling. He continued through the Gospels, then Acts, and then went into Genesis and worked through the Old Testament. Those listening seemed rather confused with the reversion of events, but Dixon prayed earnestly that they would understand how the Old Testament correlated with what he had already read.
By the seventh day of this, the Indians began to start asking questions about what it was that Dixon was reading. He tried very hard to sound like his father when he would preach to settlement congregations. When one of the Indians would ask him a question, Dixon would stand up a little straighter, look the man in the eye, and speak slowly in the deepest voice he could muster. They seemed to respect him when he spoke in this way.
After two weeks of this, others in the village were allowed to come and listen to Dixon. He was quite astonished at how many of them understood French. He later learned that the Indians had learned it through their constant fur-trading with Frenchmen. Dixon also discovered that this tribe had many times when they were taken advantage of during a trade-out because they couldn’t read a Frenchman’s papers. This seemed to be the main reason why the chief wanted his village to learn what Dixon knew; how to read French.
As Dixon spent his days reading the Bible and answering questions about its content, his treatment by the villagers improved as the weeks went on. Actually, there seemed to be a stirring in the hearts of those who listened to him; a change began to take place in the little village hidden in the mountains. The chief allowed Dixon more freedoms and, although he was still a prisoner, the young settler felt like he was starting to win the trust of the Indians. He had contemplated trying to escape on several occasions, but, when he prayed about it, he felt such a burden for these lost souls that he simply had to stay and continue to share what the Bible had to say.
The chief had a teepee erected in the center of the village for Dixon to use as a schoolroom. Many children and adults came every afternoon to learn to read and write in French. Although they didn’t have any paper or pencils, Dixon was able to use large flat rocks and charcoal to practice the lessons with. The students caught on quickly and the chief was very pleased.
As months came by and passed on, the village packed up and followed the elk herds. Dixon had come to know and love the little valley that they had been living in, but he knew that they would be back next year. He was now an active member of the tribe. He aided the warriors as they hunted for meat, he learned how to fashion teepees, and he also learned to speak their native language.
~ ` ~ ` ~ ` ~ ` ~
Almost two and a half years after the raid on Dixon’s settlement, their migrating village crossed paths with a French trader. This man had just been through a settlement about two weeks prior, and, when they told him that they were learning how to read French, he offered to trade one of the books that he had obtained at the settlement. Because he only had two books with him at the time, it was a very high price to get one of them. He was adamant about trading only one of the books to the chief. Dixon wasn’t present when the trade was made, but he prayed that the Frenchman carried wholesome literature. When the chief returned to his teepee where Dixon was waiting, he pulled his new possession out of a leather satchel with a flourish.
“I do not understand everything you read,” he spoke in his native tongue. “I wish to be able to read the Book for myself so I can learn more. After you finish teaching us how to understand White Man’s writing, I will read this every day so that I can know how to live according to the words found in it.”
Dixon stared in amazement and wonder at the new Bible in the chief’s hands. These hands were the hands that had killed and burned hundreds of innocent people, the hands that had beaten him so that he now has permanent scars on his back, the hands that had carried him so far away from everything he had ever known; these hands now reverently held the very words of God. The chief had traded a great amount of precious goods in order to gain possession of this Bible. Dixon silently thanked God that he was allowed to be a part of the amazing work that He had done in this chief’s life.
Dixon continued teaching the lessons with a new motivation now; he could sense more of a change was beginning in the village. The people were becoming less and less self-centered; they were more and more forgiving. They no longer practiced evil worship customs, but now instead were beginning to question the false teachings that they had believed all their lives. The warriors stopped raiding other villages.
Of course, there were those who opposed Dixon and what he was preaching, but the chief always protected and stood up for him. It wasn’t long before the chief himself was reading the Bible in front of the entire village every night. Dixon watched the Lord work mightily in the lives of those he had come to love.
~ ` ~ ` ~ ` ~ ` ~
Dixon stood upon a large boulder and looked over the crowd of over two hundred Indians gathered before him. It was early in the morning; the sun had not yet cast its rays into the valley where they were assembling. Dew was still upon the grass and tree leaves and the rush of a waterfall could be faintly heard in the far distance.
Hugging the little girl in his arms, he subconsciously stroked her hair as he watched more people arrive. These natives had been enemies for as long as legend can recall. However, through the 23 years that Dixon had lived among his tribe, the influence of the gospel had surpassed their little sphere and spread to many other tribes in the region. Today marked the first peaceful gathering of these tribes. Today, a formal church service would be held where pagan religion had been practiced by so many generations before them. Today was a symbol of the regeneration of the spirit that the Word of God can bring upon a listening people.
The little girl in his arms didn’t resist when an Indian woman walked up to Dixon and took her from him. Dixon looked at the woman, smiled, and kissed her gently. The little girl squealed in mock disgust and hid her face in her mother’s shoulder. Dixon laughed at his daughter’s antics. True, she had her mother’s looks, but she sure had his sense of humor!
After helping the two of them off the boulder, he regained his perch and waited for everyone to seat themselves on the grass in the clearing. As usual, Dixon would start off their time today with a prayer and his favorite song. He had composed the tune to fit some poems he had written many years back: when he was still a young man who was learning how to follow the Lord through fiery trials. Most of the natives knew the three verses by heart—Dixon taught it wherever he went—but he planned on teaching them his newest verse today.
Hundreds of voices blended in joyful unison as they lifted up their praise to God. There in the wilderness, amongst former enemies, as the sun topped the ridge and cascaded golden rays of light to dance on the carpet of lush, green grass; there was the culmination of everything the Lord had been doing in the lives of so many people for over the past two decades. Their melody bounced off the surrounding mountains and caused the entire valley to resound with a noise like an angel’s choir in heaven. Elderly men and women, adults, young children; everyone was singing together without reservation.
After the third verse was completed, Dixon raised his voice and began the fourth verse he had composed that very morning. The multitude became silent as the words rang out loud and clear:
“Beautiful Savior! Lord of all the nations!
Son of God and Son of Man!
Glory and honor, praise, adoration,
Now, and forever more, be Thine!”
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