The Black Rifle (Perry County Frontier series)

by Roy F. Chandler

  Elan turned to the quiet Rob Shatto. “As I heard it from your man, Will Miller, who was with you at the time, you did something like that during Braddock’s campaign, didn’t you, Rob? Took one brave with a rifle, then knocked over two more with your pistol.”

  Rob didn’t answer, but they all knew it was true, just as they all recognized that Jack Elan was not Rob Shatto.

  It took a few days. They argued and they explained why such a plan could not work. Toquisson might come with a war party. He would surely have companions. The Eater might laugh it all off. He might consider the challenge childish. He might not believe fighting Elan worth the long march.

  Even if it all worked out, Heart-Eater might not charge as Elan hoped but continue fighting from hiding. Then what?

  They pointed out the experience in hunting and fighting that Toquisson had compared to Jack Elan’s none.

  Elan listened to it all but gave not an inch.

  Then, they began the work of figuring out how it might be done, and ended up by laying out messages of pure insult that Blue could carry—just in case they decided to go ahead with Elan’s plan.

  Chapter 9

  Gun

  A John shell rifle was usually lean of stock and long of barrel. Even the forged brass and iron fittings added to the slim look of a Shell gun. They too were more slender than those found on most rifles.

  John Shell looked a lot like the guns he made. Shell’s thin, corded arms, however, ended in hands huge and knuckly that dwarfed the tools of his trade and engulfed the slender-stocked rifles and muskets those same hands created.

  A dower man with a long, horse-like head, Shell’s creased and crannied visage rarely fractured beyond a slim smile. His lank form seemed only normally tall until he shrugged aside the habitual stoop of the bench worker. Then, John Shell looked far taller than his fellows, towering above, with his presence dominating those lesser people—much as a great, old seed pine rises high over its surrounding forest.

  Only alert eyes and webbed laugh lines betrayed the kindly interest that endeared John Shell to his few neighbors and many customers. A visitor might let a day go by just sitting and talking in the friendly warmth of Shell’s smithy, and even the women folk did not mind their men spending time with the quiet gunsmith. No jugs were passed at Shell’s, and the men came home sober and rested.

  When a shadow darkened his door, the gunsmith took in the stranger with only casual interest. It seemed to John Shell that people were swarming along the Susquehanna, and most of them did not bear special notice. This time he saw a medium tall young man strikingly leaned and draped in leather hunting clothes more than a little too large.

  Most likely the man had been down with serious fevers and was still recovering. His hide clothing was Indian-made, that was for sure—no thread used anywhere with everything laced together with gut or thongs. Shell was familiar with some tribal markings, but the decorations on the thigh-length shirt were strange. Came from a long way off, Shell supposed.

  Despite the stranger’s comfortable stance and skin clothing, he did not ring true as a frontiersman. Shell figured he was probably a farmer or a townsman who had lived a spell on the border, where a man learned to walk light and soft lest his hair get taken by some prowling redskin.

  Jack Elan trusted Rob Shatto’s feelings on gunsmithing, but when the great crane of a man unfolded until his long head hung high in the rafters, and a hand bigger than a moose hip swallowed his own small palm, Elan found it hard to see an artisan innovative enough to create his special rifle—or sufficiently accommodating to let him work out payment.

  Their opening talk stepped lightly around the reasons for Elan’s visit. Shell waited courteously at his visitor’s convenience, while Jack Elan searched for how best to broach his wishes.

  As they talked of weather and guns, Elan sensed the warmth behind the smith’s forbidding demeanor. He suspected that the best way to explain what he wanted was to simply lay out the whole story as plain as he was able and hope his special need reached the gunmaker strong enough to gain his help.

  Facing his problem straight on, Elan felt himself stiffening up and hoped he would be able to make his case as strongly as he felt. When talking it over with Rob Shatto, the idea of convincing a man of business to produce his best product for someone unable to pay in cash had seemed possible and even practical. Now, the idea appeared ludicrous.

  Money was in short supply anywhere on the frontier, and John Shell would need cash just as strongly as anyone else. Perhaps even more, now that Elan thought closer on it. The odds were that every slouchy woods runner north of Harris’s Ferry wanted gun work done for venison haunches, wild turkeys, and especially chickens.

  With Elan’s talk turning serious, John Shell damped off his forge and sat back to draw in the feel of the man’s story. He found himself sucking too fast on his pipe as the massacre, capture, and escape unfolded, and Shell felt an atavistic twinge as Elan’s eyes lost focus and his bony knuckles clenched in bitter tension.

  Elan’s need for a special rifle, and its daring use, immediately gripped the gunsmith’s imagination, and the idea of his own creation playing a major role in Elan’s just vengeance quickened his interest.

  “ . . . and I think the gun should be rifled for a heavy ball, so that one shot will do the job.” Elan explained, “I’ll need short barrels to be quick and free in the brush, and the sights must be clear and sharp so that I won’t have to hunt for them if the light is dim.

  “Of course, having two barrels is the important thing. They need to be one over the other, so they aren’t too obvious, but they’ve got to swivel real smooth and quiet so the top barrel does all the shooting. That way, I will only have one hammer to work with, and unless Heart-Eater looks close, the gun will look pretty ordinary.”

  Shell was nodding repeated understanding, and Elan was encouraged to continue.

  “The hard part is, there ain’t no way I can pay cash money for your work.” The nodding stopped, and Elan hurried on. “No doubt a rifle like I’m wanting will cost, say, twenty-two dollars or so.” A slight nod approved the price.

  “Now, I’ve got seven dollars that Robbie Shatto gave me. What I am hoping is that you can see your way to using the seven as a beginning payment and let me work out the rest anyway I can, Mister Shell.” Elan paused, anxiety strong in his eyes, and his fists clenched tight on his thighs.

  Elan thought he should just shut down, and see how it came out, but his anxiety drove him on. “I’ll do anything you need done around your place until you say it is enough, Mister Shell. You can see how it is with me. I’ve got to have that gun, and I don’t have too long a spell to get it.”

  Did a slight smile touch the corners of John Shell’s mouth? Elan was not sure. A tobacco cloud rose before the gunsmith spoke.

  “You’re in a bind, sure enough, Young Elan. What you are asking is not particularly new. These days there seems to be a lot of men around without cash money to buy what they need.” Elan’s hopes tumbled.

  “On top of not having any money, you are asking for a special gun instead of a common rifle or even a musket.” Shell shook his long head in apparent discouragement.

  Then, Elan caught it again, a tiniest of twinkle somewhere back in Shell’s eyes, and excitement tugged at him.

  John Shell scrubbed at a bristly jaw and said, “It happens there is more than a mite of work needing done around here. Men who will really work aren’t easy to find, no matter how much they claim they are willing to do.

  “This would not be light work, and I would expect a lot of visible progress. Are you really interested in hearing what I am offering?”

  Then Elan was sure he caught approval somewhere back in Shell’s eyes, and excitement tugged him.

  Elan found himself nodding eager acceptance as Shell paused to gather his thoughts and cloud the shop with pungent smoke. Finally, he continued.

  “Here is how I calculate we might even things out. Alongside my place is woods
that I’m clearing. As I am planning on building with the logs, I would like the trees taken down while the sap is out. That means they’ve got to come down before spring.

  “You take down those trees and trim out the logs, and I will make your gun. Now, I’ll have to fit the making of your rifle in between cash work because cash money cannot wait.

  “You will more than earn the building of your two-barrel rifle, but that is the only way I can see fit to do it.

  “How does that arrangement sit with you?”

  His eagerness to accept caused Elan to stumble over his words, and he wished he could grab an ax and start dropping trees this instant.

  “All right,” Shell continued, “We’ll take a look at your end of the work. Then we will come back inside and talk more about the new gun.

  The chopping was brutally hard labor, but Elan gloried in it. He let the drumbeat grow in his mind and matched it to the rhythm of his ax. Each blow brought him a swing closer to Heart-Eater. Lord how he hated that name. The thought of the savage drove his ax deeper and his strokes faster.

  It was mostly ax work, but John Shell also had a saw. The blade had been measured for two-man use, with a man on each end, but Elan could handle it alone and, when sharp, the saw bit through thicker limbs faster than the ax. Each evening, Elan re-sharpened the saw using a triangular file on each tooth, but by noon the blade was again dulled and took a half hour to touch up.

  The axes also required regular sharpening. Although he could touch up the blades using a file, Shell’s grinding wheel was quicker and better. The grinding stone, three feet in diameter, was the finest Elan had ever seen, and John Shell allowed no coarse grinding that could gouge holes or grooves in its face. The stone turned smoothly on well-greased bearings with the bottom of the wheel passing through a water bed which thoroughly soaked the stone and allowed it to smooth away iron or steel with a satisfying hissing sound. Elan’s best system was to get one of the Shell brood to turn the wheel’s handle so that he could concentrate on holding the ax blade at exactly the correct angle. On occasion, John Shell grumbled that he ought to charge his wood clearer for use of his tools, and that if Elan cut more and sharpened less the trees would come down quicker and there might be enough stone left to use after Elan had gone his way.

  The transparent grumbling brought joy to Jack Elan. The Shell’s liked him, and they worried about him. That anyone cared was boon to Elan’s wounded soul.

  None of the Shell’s could understand why he insisted on sleeping in the woods.

  “I ain’t a real woodsman, but I’m setting myself to the task of fighting and killing a Shawnee warrior that is famous in his tribe. So, I’ve got to live in the woods and learn it as much as I can. I’ve got to get as hard and as tough as time will let me. This chopping is helping. I can feel muscle coming into my shoulders, and running in the woods is keeping my wind and my legs strong.

  “Rob Shatto told me that a man’s nose gets stuffed from living inside, and that I had best stay out as much as I could to sharpen my smelling. If Rob thinks it might help, even a little, I’m doing it.”

  Elan ate his evening meal with the Shells and often retired to the smithy to take a turn pumping the forge bellows or just to watch John Shell work at his trade. If the gunsmith worked on Elan’s gun, Jack stayed on to watch, otherwise the strain of dawn to dusk laboring took him off to a hillside where he curled in his only blanket to ward off the bite of winter cold.

  John Shell was not overly religious, but he believed in resting on the Lord’s day. Jack Elan kept chopping. The winter kept moving, and so would he. Heart-Eater would not rest on Sunday.

  The Shell brood was large, and it took Elan a while to sort out the many children. There were eligible girls, and neighbors came to visit. The pulsing drum stilled Elan’s interest in them, and after cursory attention, most paid him little mind.

  Martha, Shell’s oldest daughter was a strapping big girl with her father’s large hands and frame that were only a little eased by female roundness. Martha pulled and tugged harder than the younger boys, and where the other girls frittered away time, Martha busied herself with endless household chores.

  In the bitter weather she often appeared with warming drinks for the laboring Elan, and on one memorable occasion joined him on the big crosscut saw and worked until sweat drenched them both.

  It occurred to Elan that Martha Shell was indeed a man’s woman, but he turned his mind away and kept his thoughts on the gun and what he had to do.

  John Shell hammer-welded his gun barrels from soft bar iron. He ground eight flats along the barrel using his water stone, and draw-filed the flats to perfection. He rifled the octagon barrels one turn in forty inches and threaded their breeches for plugs. Then, he silver soldered the barrels together in two places. When the rifle was complete, he and Elan would fire each barrel adjusting until the barrels fired to the same point at fifty yards. Not until then would the rifle barrels be permanently fastened together.

  Elan asked, “Are you sure fifty yards is right, John?

  “Going by what you’re planning it is. Barrels should be regulated for exactly the range you intend on using them. Most likely, you will be shooting even closer than fifty yards, but the bores are less than an inch apart, which means that you will be dead on out to one hundred yards. Further than that doesn’t seem likely from what you’ve said.”

  The gunlock, with its springs and hammer, took long to make. The shape of the back-action lock had to match exactly the pan and frizzen attached to each barrel. Even a smith as skilled as John Shell found the task formidable.

  It required both Elan and Shell to properly fit the rifle’s stock. The gunsmith measured Elan’s reach and watched him mount other guns about the place. An ill-fitted stock could throw a ball wide of the mark or make recoil punishing to face and shoulder. Shell made certain Jack’s rifle would be right.

  “What we’ll do, Jack, is make the stock a hair short. A rifleman can shoot a stock that is short, but no one can properly use a too-long weapon. A man can edge a little to get his eye just right behind his sights, but stretching to see and to hold will ruin any hope of shooting fast and accurate.”

  Shell grinned fiercely. “You can’t know for sure that you will be hunting Heart-Eater in warm weather, and a long stock plus heavy clothing could make you miss. Yours will be a short stock.”

  A plank of seasoned maple with little figure was chosen. Shell hacked it into rough shape with his hatchet, then worked it closer using drawknife and spoke shave.

  The smith inletted the metal into the wood with fine chisels until wood and metal appeared to meet and bond. When he was satisfied with his fit, Shell pronounced the gun ready to shoot.

  The short-barreled rifle felt right to Jack Elan. The balance lay between his hands allowing quick shifting of aim, but without finish or even sights, the rifle looked sadly incomplete. Shell explained the procedure.

  “You will fire the gun now, Jack. Without sights, we can see how well the rifle fits by how closely your ball strikes the target. A gun has to come up natural without a lot of straining on the shooter’s part. If it don’t fit right, a man could miss when he’s hurried or if dusk is making sights hard to see.

  “As for finish, you can do that yourself and save a bit of wood chopping.”

  Both men considered the rifle’s finish to be important. John Shell said, “Most guns get finished brown for the metal and sort of light and natural for the maple stock. A weapon finished like that looks good to the eye, but such a gun just might catch and reflect light in the woods. I’m suggesting that this rifle be about as dark as we can make it.”

  Elan agreed. Following Shell’s directions, he warmed the metal at the forge and rubbed an oil mixture into the heated parts. Slowly, the iron darkened losing its shine and becoming almost black in color. Treating the temporarily soldered barrels was delicate because the lead and silver solder melted at a low temperature. The solder did not darken with the iron, but the gunsmith a
ssured Jack that once the barrels were regulated, they would match the solder to the iron using a chemical.

  The maple stock was hand-rubbed with increasingly thin coats of linseed oil mixed with lampblack. It too darkened until the wood lost its figure and was black in color. Shine on the stock was eliminated by rubbing with sand, which also roughened the finish so that sweating hands would not slip.

  There was something lethal in the look and feel of the rifle. It was as though the purpose for its creation had been somehow absorbed into the gun. Whether snuggled beneath Jack Elan’s arm or merely leaned in a corner, the rifle’s black length looked sinister and deadly. Only a single question remained. How would the black rifle shoot?

  The rifle shot true. The barrels were regulated a few tries, then soldered their full length so that they would never shift or separate. Shell added sights to both barrels. Jack shot, and Shell stoned on the forward brass blades and filed the notches a bit on the iron rear sights. Because a cold rifle barrel does not shoot to the same point as a barrel heated, it took some days to be certain that regulating and sighting were correct. When he met Heart-Eater, Jack Elan would not be heating his barrels by firing repeated shots. Two shots, one from each barrel, were all that he planned.

  At least as important, in Elan’s hands the rifle handled smooth and naturally. Double-barreled rifles could be difficult to shoot. Most were built too heavy and they swung slow. Others were awkward in balance, and more than a few were wobbly with their barrel swivels working ever looser.

  To be best, a rifle had to fall into line when it was shouldered. The shooter should be able to raise his rifle with his eyes closed, and when he opened them his eye would be behind his sights and on the target. Most riflemen adjusted to their rifles, but Shell had built for Elan’s frame, length of arm, and style of holding a gun. The result was a natural stance that was swift and as certain as sunrise. If Elan missed, it would be his fault, not his rifle’s.