Desperately the stricken gunsmith desired security for his only survivor, but he had little enough to leave his grandson. There were a few gold pieces, held against hard times, and there were the horses and their good wagon. The tools were useful in skilled hands, and although not overly valuable, the old man wished the boy to have and to use them.
Who in the raw village could he expect to see the boy along his way? He found no one.
2
1749 – The Visitor
The boy himself provided the saving plan. It rose from a winter visitor to their lean-to cabin that butted against the wagon bed and served as a forge room for the traveling gun shop. It began in the look of wonder and excitement that transformed young Robbie as their visitor talked on into the night.
David was slumped in his old chair seeking to ignore the gnawing pain in his middle, and Rob was busy at the forge when the door flew open with a rush of snow and wind. Accompanying the wind-driven flurry was a leather-clad man carrying a long rifle who cursed with practiced fluency as he fought the door shut in the teeth of the wintry blasts.
Leaning his rifle against a wall, the stranger beat snow from his shoulders and shook more from his great fur hat with a vigor that scattered it throughout the small room. Only then did he turn his attention to the occupants of the hut.
Bobbing his head in recognition he uttered the Iroquois greeting that grew in the throat and was without lip movement, “Waugh!” Then raised an open palm in the universal peace sign.
“Colder’n a duck’s arse on a ice pond out there.” His voice was deep, and an Irish brogue was strong. Rob became aware of a pair of iron gray eyes searching him from beneath heavy brows.
Rob judged the man about average height. His hair hung as long as an Indian’s and was tucked inside his buckskin coat. Muscled biceps swelled as the man moved, and Rob sensed his strength and quickness.
The stranger’s heavy leather coat hung below his knees and was bound about the waist by a rawhide belt into which a long-handled tomahawk was thrust. At his right hip, a bone-handled hunting knife of notable length balanced the weight of the hatchet.
A hunting bag with large and small powder horns attached lay on his left hip, and a patch-trimming knife was fastened to the bag’s shoulder strap. A pair of rabbit skin mittens dangled from leather thongs about the frontiersman’s neck, and a thick beaver muff was fastened to the front of his leather coat.
High-topped moccasins of soft doe hide covered ankle and shin, and a pair of extremely large moccasins with stiff soles were worn as overshoes outside the softer footwear. The overshoes reached above the ankle, and straw stuffing poked above the outer moccasin lacings.
Although familiar with loitering Indians and more than a few hunters and traders, Rob had never laid eyes on such a strange and wild looking figure. He knew his jaw hung slack as he devoured the sight of his first long hunter and frontiersman.
“I’m George Croghan, trader from up beyond Kittatinny Mountain. Busted the main spring in old ‘Tag-along’ here.” Croghan waved in the direction of his long rifle.
“Heard the village had a gunsmith now, so I trailed down to see if ya could fix me a new spring. Ain’t much good a’tall out in that country with a broken gun. Too many painters an’ unfriendly varmints in there, an’ them damned Shawnee are always skulkin’ around. Reckon you’re the gunsmith?” Croghan had moved to the forge, warming his hands over the coals as he talked.
“Yes, I am David Shatto. George Croghan, is it? Poor night to be out. So, let’s look at that rifle, and we’ll see what’s to be done.”
“Watch ‘er, she’s still loaded!” Croghan warned as Rob carried the rifle to old David. The gunsmith examined the weapon with obvious appreciation. His gnarled fingers traced the pattern of relief carving on the curly maple stock.
“Hm, looks like a Reading gun. Nice wooden patchbox there and good carving. Did John Schreit make this rifle, Mister Croghan?”
“Ay, that he did, Mister Shatto, and a fine rifle it is. Been usin’ old ‘Tag-along’ more’n two years now. Had her out to the Ohio country a few months gone. She shoots true and holds like a rock. Good smith, young Schreit—knows his business.
“You must, too, Mister Shatto, to pick out a gun maker just from glancin’ at his work.” There was respect in the trader’s voice.
“Not so clever, Mister Croghan. A man leaves his mark on what he creates. Now, Rob, can you fit a new spring to Mister Croghan’s lock or will you repair the old one?”
George Croghan stirred nervously as Rob drew the charge from the barrel and removed the bolts holding the gun lock to the rifle stock. He watched for a moment then, obviously disturbed, blurted out, “Look, Mister Shatto, ain’t ya goin’ to fix the spring yoreself? I’m not doubtin’ the boy so much, but old Tag-along gits hard use an’ sometimes stands a’tween me an’ right sudden demise.”
Raising a palsied hand, David held it forth for Croghan to study. “I’m suffering an ague, Mister Croghan, and I could not repair your lock. But trust the boy. Rob is my grandson and, be assured, he has the eye and the touch. Your spring will be right, Mister Croghan.”
Under the trader’s doubting gaze, Rob removed the lock from the rifle and laid the broken main spring on the flat of his anvil.
“I can fix it, Grandpap.” Turning to Croghan he explained. “If a main spring is broken at the bend it isn’t worth repairing, Mister Croghan. You can’t ever be sure about it, but a break along the flats is easy fixing.”
Molified by the boy’s confidence, Croghan poked a glowing coal from the forge and touched it to the bowl of a short clay pipe drawn from his hunting bag. The comforting smell of rich tobacco filled the forge room. Drawing strongly, Croghan exhaled a fragrant cloud and offered the stem to David.
“Care for a puff or two, Mister Shatto? Tuscarora tobac in there. They bring it north from their old country in the Carolina Colony. Injuns claim the smoke cures a man’s ills. Makes him tough an’ strong in his lungs—like a ham gets in a smokehouse. I can’t vouch for any healin’ effects, but I will say a pipe of tobac is good company of an evenin’.”
David declined the offer, pointing to his sunken chest as unable to handle strong tobacco. Amid the pungent cloud rolling steadily from Croghan’s pipe, the two men watched Rob repair the broken main spring.
Searching through a box of broken parts, Rob found a short length of spring iron that was to his liking. He laid it alongside the broken spring for fit. He pumped the large bellows to raise his forge heat. Then, using small tongs, he plunged the pieces into the glowing coals. He pumped some more and carefully watched the spring pieces change color from the intense heat.
Allowing a few moments for the metal to heat to a bright red, he moved his work to the anvil and with solid blows welded the pieces together. The spring was returned to the coals where it again heated until tiny sparks flew from the metal surfaces. Then Rob hammered the already solid weld into a single inseparable piece. Holding the cooling metal to the light, it was readily seen that the spring was again whole with a thickened area where new iron had been added.
Croghan nodded acknowledgment and sat cross-legged on the dirt floor, his back against the kindling pile, his face partly obscured by smoke clouds from his pipe.
Hot iron hissed as Rob dipped the repaired spring into the water bucket and tried it for fit. After a few adjusting taps with his hammer and some strokes with a large file, he declared it right and thrust the spring back into the coals.
“Now, Mister Croghan, comes the tempering, and this is what makes a spring out of ordinary iron.” Old David explained for the trader’s benefit.
“There is little secret to good tempering. Many can explain how it is accomplished, but the actual skill lies entirely in the smith’s eye. The iron master has to know how hot to let the iron become. Then he must cool it exactly right. If he fails, your spring will either crack from being too hard, or it will weaken and lose its set after a few pulls. Rob here will get it jus
t right.”
Rob held the iron before him. It glowed, pulsing with bright heat which slowly dulled to a deep reddish glow. Still he waited. Finally, he saw in the metal the straw color he wanted and without hesitation plunged the hot iron into the pot of sperm oil that was always near their chimney. A violent hiss arose, and a cloud of acrid smoke battled Croghan’s more pleasant tobacco cloud.
After a moment Rob withdrew the tempered spring, and after allowing the greater heat to dissipate, he laid it on the anvil to cool before installing it in the gun.
Except for sucking noises as Croghan’s pipe drew poorly there was silence. Then, as though he had waited for his audience’s attention, Croghan waved his pipe stem toward the north and began to talk.
“Ever been north o’the mountain, Mister Shatto? Some call it Blue Mountain, but the Iroquois named it Kittatinny.”
Without waiting for a reply, the trader continued. “‘Course, you ain’t been up there. Still Indian country in them mountains. Only a few whites back in those hills, an’ one o’these days the Iroquois council will shake its rattles an’ them squatters won’t never be heerd of agin.”
Croghan paused, touching a fresh coal to his pipe. Finding it still not drawing properly, he slipped his patch-cutting knife from its scabbard and sliced a bit from the hollow reed pipestem. The shortened pipe satisfied, and he resumed his account. A natural storyteller, Croghan’s hands and arms gestured, his pipe bowl bobbed, and adding emphasis to his tale, its stem pointed.
“White men put names to everything they see, touch, or cross over. Now, that land north o’here ain’t got but a handful of squatters livin’ poor along a creek or two, but they’ve got everythin’ named. Most of ‘em squat along what they call Sherman’s Creek, although some allow as how it’s really Shareman’s, and a few call it Shearman’s Creek. Funny thing is, there ain’t never been no Sherman, Shareman, or Shearman in them hills.” The pipe bobbed valiant agreement.
“Grand country up there. Me an’ the redsticks get along good. I give ‘em fair trade an’ a little more. I don’t live in their country, but I live right up agin’ it. Right at the top o’the gap you can see from here. That a’way, I git first crack at the trade comin’ out, an’ I can wander in an’ out without makin’ nobody mad— ‘ceptin’ them damn Shawnee, an’ they’re born mad anyhow,” Croghan added as an afterthought.
“You’ve been on the border long, George?” David Shatto found his interest caught by the muscular trader, and Rob was obviously entranced by the man.
“Not long in years, Mister Shatto, but long in livin’. Came over from Ireland in Forty-three. Been huntin’ an’ tradin’ ever since. Poked around Harris Ferry awhile, but the Injun country drawed me strong. A man is free in there. He can live as he wants with no one to say him nay.” Croghan’s eyes caught the boy’s rapt attention, and he began talking directly to Rob.
“An‘ what a country it is for livin’, boy. The deer’s thick in the woods. A man can roam wild up there, and the mountains run beyond where the eye can see.
“The Delaware call these mountains the Endless Hills, an’ that’s the way they look. There’s ridge after ridge runnin’ all the way to the Ohio country. Why, only a few miles over Kittatinny there’s a thousand little guts that’ve natural meadows that’ll grow corn just from droppin’ a seed. The hemlocks grow in a million groves, an’ there’s chestnuts, walnuts, an’ butternuts with squirrels livin’ in them nut trees so thick a man shootin’ straight up’d get one for sure. There’s wide valleys and rushin’ creeks like Raccoon, the Buffalo, an’ Cisna Run. There’s springs in every hollow, an’ beavers still flood meadows with their dams. There’s fish in most of them ponds, as well.
“Now Rob, may the good Lord strike me right here in your lodge if I ain’t tellin’ it true. Why, I’ve seen shad runnin’ in the Juniata so thick a man could catch ‘em in his hat. There’s eels in the streams as big as a man’s arm, an’ you know how good eel is fer eatin’!
An’ turtles, boy. There’s snappers up there two feet across. I seen moose-deer in the woods an’ even some buffalo now an’ again.
“Ah, it’s a great land up there, Rob. I’m picturin’ in my head a meadow near the headwater of Little Buffalo Crick. It’s jest the kind of spot I’m talkin’ about. The country’s sort of a big bowl. Might hold five hundred acres, if’n it was all timbered off. There’s five springs that kind of feed into the stream. The beaver built a dam across the crick a long time ago. They’re gone now, but the valley floor is a big, rich meadow. Must be over a hundert acres already cleared. The ridges all ‘round got hard woods on ‘em, oak, maple, an’ a lot o’hickory. In there, blueberries grow on the low ground big as a man’s thumb, and there’s raspberries so large a handful numbers only about a dozen berries. There’s a kind of a knob that points the place out—sort o’hangs over the valley’s west end. In the old country, some king would of built a castle on it.
“Fact is, there’s iron a mile or so east o’there. Now that I remember on it, whole ground’s sort o’rusty lookin’. With a strong wind blowin’, a man could make bloom iron while he was burnin’ off his place.
“There’s ledges of good rock where a man who could build might break off stone for a real house, if he was a mind. An’ there’s potter’s clay all along the cricks.
“Then, I reckon I never seen more or bigger bee trees than there is in Sherman’s an’ Raccoon Valleys—more’n any place I ever been. An’ there’s hickory nuts, an’ sugar maples achin’ to be tapped, an’ there’s good water everywhere, not like down in this flat land where a man has to dig a well to cool his throat.
“I tell ya, boy, it’s the Promised Land! There’s a special thing about that country north o’here, too.” Croghan leaned closer as though imparting a treasured secret.
“Right now, it’s all Indian country, but there ain’t many Indians in there. They just use it fer a huntin’ ground. So, the Penns are plannin’ on buying a big chunk an’ openin’ it up for settlin’.
“Way I figure it, a man could get in there a might early an’ lay out a real nice plantation. Been thinkin’ about doin’ that my own self. ‘Course, a man’d have to make some sort of an agreement with the tribes, and hand over a spankin’ pile o’trade goods most likely—else his hair’d sooner or later decorate a Iroquois long house. Same as those squatters along Sherman’s Creek ‘ll get theirs took fore long.”
Intrigued, David Shatto asked, “How could a man go about dealing with a pack of Indians, George?”
Croghan puffed for a moment considering his answer.
“Well now, I ‘spect I’d be about the best man to contact, was a man plannin’ on livin’ north o’Kittatinny. Reckon I know the Indians north an’ west o’here betterin’ anybody. An’ that includes old Conrad Weiser.
“Fact is, me an‘ Weiser went all the way to the forks of the Ohio a few months back. Weiser’s a good man, but he don’t speak most o’the Injun languages the way I do. I handle Delaware an’ Shawnee right well, an’ I can get by in a pinch with Seneca an’ Oneida. An’ dealin’ with any o’them tribes, there’s likely to be more’n one pinch along the way.
“Yup, a man plannin’ on goin’ in there had best let me speak for him at council. I’m purty well knowed from Sherman’s Valley on west.”
Tapping his pipe bowl empty on the anvil, Croghan turned again to Rob.
“Well, boy, I’d best head back up the mountain, if’n that spring’s ready yet.”
Unwilling to see the trader leave, Rob moved reluctantly, but he caught David’s eye on him and hastened to place the repaired spring in the lock and snapped it a few times as a test. Finding the hammer fall to be strong he took a moment to stone the worn frizzen smooth so the spark would be more sure. Then, he replaced the lock in the stock and returned the rifle to Croghan’s powerful grasp.
Rising, the trader fumbled in his hunting pouch and withdrew a handful of odd coins. “An’ now, David, what is the charge for Rob’s good work?”
Surprised, Rob saw his grandfather wave Croghan’s money aside as he said, “No charge, George. You’ve given Rob and me much to think about this day. So, we will just call it even.”
“Well,” said Croghan, obviously pleased. “It’s a kind gesture. Few have time for my yarnin’. You have George Croghan’s thanks, Mister Shatto, an’ I’ll not be forgettin’ your kindness this night.
“An’ thanks to you, me boy.” A hard hand clapped Rob’s shoulder, and the frontiersman was gone amid a cloud of snow and sleet.
3
1749 – The Plan
Following Croghan’s departure, David dozed wrapped in his old cloak and distant thoughts. Rob closed the forge carefully separating good charcoal from the useless cinders and ash. Later, he lay back against the warmth of the forge gathering and storing his impressions of George Croghan and the wild and free country so enthusiastically described. His thoughts turned to the shrunken figure of David Shatto hunched, eyes closed in his sagging chair.
Rob had little doubt that his grandfather was dying. The ceaseless, gnawing agony in his middle had drained the old gunsmith of life’s juices, and as his body surrendered to cancer’s inroads, his will to fight on glowed less brightly and began to flicker.
As if sensing Rob’s thoughts, David’s eyes opened, and their glances held. The old man saw worry in the boy’s eyes and knew the time was right to speak of what had to come.
Noisily clearing a rheumy throat, David Shatto, gunsmith, loving grandparent, and dying man fixed Rob with eyes that for the moment held much of their former strength and determination.
“You’re thinking of Croghan’s words, Rob?”
The boy’s nod was enthusiastic.
“Could you do that, Rob? Could you go up to Croghan’s and make a place in that new country?”
“Sure we could, Granpap! We could make tomahawk heads, and needles, and knives, and all sorts of iron things for Indians. They’d trade us land for those things, and we could build a good cabin and later on we …” His voice trailed away as he acknowleged David’s rueful smile and shake of the head.
Arrowmaker (Pennsylvania Frontier Series) Page 2