Arrowmaker (Pennsylvania Frontier Series)

by Roy F. Chandler

  Rebecca placed her folded hands demurely on her lap and admired Rob as he explained in a rush of words. The old scar over his eye gave his features a roguish tilt that caused her heart to flutter.

  His hair was groomed in the Delaware manner with a center part and chest length braids adding to his Indian appearance. She could understand how many thought him part redskin.

  My how he had filled out! He stood taller than anyone in Carlisle, and his shoulders were broad and muscular. His hunting shirt was decorated with dyed porcupine quills, and he wore doeskin pants instead of a breechclout. She guessed that, wishing to show her his best, he had dressed carefully before entering the village. As if she cared how he dressed, anyway. She wished he had worn only a clout and moccasins; she would enjoy seeing how his body had changed.

  Her thoughts sent color to her cheeks, and she tried to concentrate on his words. He was struggling so hard to explain why he must wait longer before asking her to be his wife. She had understood him the first time, but the poor dear insisted on repeating himself as though he feared she would not comprehend.

  She wished to reach out and gently silence his lips, letting him know that further explanations were unnecessary, but her mother was busily carding wool across the room and straining to hear. Any untoward act on Becky’s part would be cause for immediate termination of Rob’s call. Becky liked it better when she was a girl instead of a young lady. All she could do now was sit and try to look sweet.

  Her mother was fully aware of her fascination with Rob Shatto, and her father rarely missed an opportunity to rail against foot-loose woods runners. Defending Rob, she had shown her father Rob’s sketches of the house he was building. Far larger than the small living quarters his own family occupied—and indeed Shatto’s upper floor was as large as the entire ordinary—Reed had been secretly impressed. Outwardly, he had shrugged the plan aside saying, “Paper plans do not make a house,” and rumbled that, “Damned redskins will probably burn it, anyway.”

  Despite her desire to prolong Rob’s visit, Becky wished him safely out of town. Since Girty’s death, ill-feeling against Rob had been whipped up within the town’s rougher element. Justice Burger’s voiced antagonism toward Rob had lent support and a sense of righteousness to their threats of retaliation against the man responsible for “Ol’ Simon gettin’ killed.” There was continual and worrisome talk of what would happen to Indian-lover Shatto if he showed his face in Carlisle.

  Twice Becky had managed to spill hot food on Burger as he ate in the ordinary. The second incident had been so plainly deliberate that her father had administered a tongue lashing far more severe than anything she had believed him capable of. Since then, she had been more subdued but increasingly resentful, and she had been pleased to notice her father’s displeasure in the irrational and dangerous talk going around. Having Rob for a son-in-law was one thing, laying plans and making threats against his person was another, and Thomas Reed did not like what he was hearing—or, as a matter of fact, those who were doing most of the talking.

  Departing reluctantly, Rob passed into the ordinary where his old rifle waited in a corner. Few were in the tavern, and he barely noticed the occupants. Thomas Reed’s parting wishes were correct but noticeably perfunctory as Rob bid him good-by and indicated his intent to wait beyond town for George Croghan and Sattelihu, whom he would accompany to Philadelphia.

  The attack came from behind without warning and caught him completely unaware. Rob saw Reed’s glance travel past his shoulder and too late saw his eyes widen with surprise and shock. Before he could react, powerful arms clamped around his body, pinning his arms, and hoisting his feet from the floor.

  Unprepared, breath swooshed from Rob’s lungs even as he heard his attacker grunt with the effort of his bear hug. Momentarily helpless, Rob drummed his feet ineffectually into his unknown attacker’s shins in a desperate effort to loosen his hold and to gain a breath.

  Rob’s vision swam as he failed to draw air into his tortured lungs, and he saw Reed’s mouth working in anger. A new face came between them, and a hard fist rocked his senses. Still struggling, he took blow after blow to the face and felt his strength slip away until, dazed and barely conscious, he was dragged into the dust of the road.

  Suddenly, he was released from the body-crushing hold, and his chest heaved to restore breathing. After a moment his hearing returned, and raucous laughter mingled with shrill female indignation brought him alert.

  A burst of pain along his head jerked him sideways, and an equally agonizing explosion of agony on the other side hauled him back again. Rob found he was on his knees in the dust of the street. He attempted to rise and again suffered shocking head pain. Wiping involuntary tears from his eyes, Rob saw that rawhide ropes had been tied to his braided hair, and a man on each side had taken a turn of his rope around a tree. A jerk on either rope sent agony slamming through his head as his scalp sought to loosen from his skull.

  In desperation, he grasped the rope in one hand and his braid in the other putting his strength to ripping them apart, but a series of hard jerks on the other line poured such blinding pain through him that his grip released and he slumped to the ground.

  Rob heard a single voice speaking, and he again wiped tearing eyes to see a squat muscular figure clad in heavy townsman’s shoes and leather trousers addressing a growing crowd. Three men seemed involved in the attack on him. Two nondescript characters guarded the ropes, and the squat man Rob recognized as the town’s blacksmith was doing the orating.

  Becky Reed was in the observing crowd being firmly restrained by her father. Rob sought Becky’s eyes, and she burst into tears, pulling from her father’s grasp and darting out of sight. Reed let her go and demanded Rob’s release, but he was shouted down by the blacksmith and others within the mob.

  Rob knew that Justice Burger had ridden out of town, and he wondered if his absence had been arranged. Croghan and Sattelihu would not arrive in time, and he could expect no help from the ensign at the fort. Rob tightened his nerves to undergo severe suffering.

  His accuser blamed him for many deaths, the crowd roared, and the ropes were jerked, shattering Rob’s thoughts with waves of pain. He was said to urge Indians to massacre and there was more agony in his head. He wondered vaguely if his tormentors planned to kill him. They must realize that if he lived, he would take complete and terrible revenge. The blacksmith’s accusations went on, but Rob lost their meaning as wave after wave of suffering engulfed him.

  Sudden hoarse shouts of alarm brought him again hopefully alert. His eyes swept the crowd, and near the edge he saw Becky struggling with a burly figure. A knife flashed, and the man fell back squalling and holding his arm. She ran toward him, long skirt flying, with what to Rob seemed pathetic slowness. The grinning smith moved almost casually to head her off. There was no dodging the man, and despairingly Rob saw her run full tilt into him. In the last instant, Rob saw the knife leave her hand in a glittering arc, pass under the smith’s blocking arm, and float toward him twirling in the air. His own hand went to meet it, and as his fingers closed around the handle, exultation and killing rage swept over him. He aimed a slashing cut at the rope holding his left braid, but a savage jerk from the right threw off his stroke and the sharp edge parted the braid close to his ear.

  Rob fell hard on his right side aware that the smith who still wrestled with Becky did not realize that he was free. A single slash severed the remaining cord, and he was on the man still holding a useless line. Taking no time to cut with the blade, Rob pounded the hilt of the knife into the man’s startled face. Blood gushed as the limp form fell away, and Rob wheeled in a crouch to defend against his other attackers.

  The second rope puller had started for Rob’s back, but seeing his friend’s destruction he whirled and tried to run.

  His head afire with pain, Rob palmed the knife and launched it overhand in the throw he and Shikee had religiously practiced. The blade struck low, but thunked home in the runner’s thigh and
sank nearly to the hilt with the point exiting through the man’s breeches’ front. The runner staggered, calling out in hurt and fear, but continued away in a limping scrabble. Rob whirled toward the blacksmith.

  The crowd was disintegrating as though a bear had been turned loose among them. Thomas Reed had reached Becky who lay on the ground where the blacksmith had flung her, but disheveled and dirty, she was already rising with battle fever flashing in her eyes.

  Rob saw the smith’s lumbering form plunging toward the open face of his shop. On legs tempered by years of woods travel, Rob shot after the laboring smith in ground devouring bounds.

  The smith heard him coming and glanced desperately over his shoulder as he reached the shelter of his forge. Rob’s hurtling body struck him in that same instant, and they smashed together into stacked materials that collapsed under them like so much chaff.

  The smith’s slow power was little match for Rob’s cat-quick reflexes. A sledging fist that permanently flattened the smith’s nose was followed by a hard-driven knee that sank deep into the man’s belly. The smith sagged, and Rob’s flattened palm splatted repeatedly across the man’s bloody features until his pig-like squealing sank to a choking gurgle.

  His rage unquenched, and his skull a seething bed of pain, Rob held the collapsed smith in one hand while his searching gaze settled on the forge and a horseshoe that lay within the coals. The shoe pulsed with heavy heat. With a single massive heave, Rob jerked the sagging smith erect and flopped his limp body face down across his own anvil. Holding him in place, Rob caught up the heated shoe in a pair of pincers and planted the glowing iron firmly on the seat of the smith’s leather pants. The man’s agonized bellow echoed through the community, and some thought Rob was scalping him alive.

  Rob Shatto appeared in the entrance of the smithy, its owner in tow by his hair. He released the bloodied man and watched as the smith staggered to his own horse trough and sank himself bottom-first into the water.

  The smith’s supporters had disappeared, and Rob turned his back on his smashed and branded attacker. Rob’s own agony was intense. Barely able to stand the pain beating within his head, he could think only of getting away from the scene of his torture, and like some wounded beast crawl into a safe and quiet den.

  First, Rob recovered his weapons. Then, before her parents and the town, Rob pulled Becky Reed into his arms, kissed her lips, and with blood from his wounds smearing her features, he whispered into her ear.

  He said only, “I will come for you when I can.”

  He loped from view, his single braid with a bit of rope still attached whipping back across his hunting shirt.

  Leaving town, Rob attempted to look strong. Once out of sight he shuddered to a halt, his breath sobbing in his throat, the pain in his scalp too much to bear. He hid himself close to the trail waiting doggedly in his agony for Croghan and Montour, who found him just before dusk.

  Gently, the frontiersmen trimmed away his hair so that its weight would not bear on his tortured scalp. They bound his head tightly in cloth to stop the bleeding beneath his scalp. Montour sat with him, soaking his bandages in cool water while Croghan entered the town to voice his outrage and satisfy his need for vengeance on his friend’s attackers.

  Croghan found no one with whom to do battle. Justice Burger had belatedly returned and found a town shamed by its hesitance in coming to Rob’s aid. Adjusting to popular sentiment, the formerly antagonistic Burger became vocal in his commendation of Rob’s gallant defense of his person and his courageous retaliation against his attackers.

  Becky Reed did not make an appearance. Her mother was said to be distraught over her daughter’s willful behavior, but the usually dour Reed was obviously proud of Rebecca’s courage and highly pleased over Rob’s escape and ultimate victory. The injustice of the attack on Rob had caused the people of Carlisle to turn against the rumor spreaders, and Croghan believed Rob’s cause to be advanced by the violence in the street.

  The blacksmith’s branded bottom had tipped the town’s support to Rob. Despite his own injuries, Rob Shatto had refrained from killing his man. The town thought the branding highly amusing and sufficient unto the crime. Rob, his head loaded with pain, was not so sure. Although he listened with satisfaction, Croghan’s good news did little to salve his misery.

  The blacksmith had become the town’s laughing stock and might never again be respected in Carlisle. The man whose face Rob had smashed had regained consciousness and was last seen flogging his team in the direction of York. His wounded friend lay in the wagon bed. Rob’s thrown knife had struck cleanly, and unless the wound suppurated, the man would live.

  When the kitchen knife was jerked free of the rope puller’s thigh, Thomas Reed had claimed it for Rob. He handed the blade over to Croghan, but the trader returned the knife allowing that Rob Shatto had his own blades, all of which were better. Reed hung the knife above his mantle, and regularly retold the story of the fight and its outcome.

  More important to Rob was the bottle of laudanum Croghan procured from Thomas Reed. A spoonful mixed with water numbed his pain and allowed him to sleep.

  During the next few days, Rob’s entire head and shoulders turned blue and increasingly black as internal bleeding seeped downward under his skin. The blows to his face were as nothing compared to the damage caused by his scalp being virtually ripped from his skull. Rob listened as Croghan and then Sattelihu visited Carlisle and brought back the latest developments.

  Rob’s detractors had disappeared. No one, of course, knew that he lay crippled a short way beyond their village. To their minds, Rob had escaped unscathed, and the frontiersmen told them no different.

  Tales of Rob’s fighting abilities were being passed around the town. That he had single-handedly whipped three men would not be quickly forgotten. Croghan amused himself by inventing a few highly imaginative stories of Rob Shatto’s daring-do and incredible fortitude in the wild lands beyond Kittatinny Mountain. He planted the stories carefully and waited with amusement to hear them passed on as gospel truth.

  While Rob Shatto lay in the brush, drugged with opium and tended by friends, his fame as a fighter blossomed and began an ever widening belief in the ferocity of fighting frontiersmen living in and around Sherman’s Valley.

  18

  1753, 1754 – Change

  For Rob, the tour of the Endless Hills had not been pleasant. For much of the journey, his scalp had been sore, and his skull had throbbed with continual pain. Indians covered their mouths in awe at his black and blue chest and back. His face was badly discolored, and the last bruises to melt away were two purple rings under his eyes that remained so long that he feared they had become permanent.

  The Penns were purchasing a magnificent panorama of hills, valleys, and streams. The Indians, who had never thickly occupied the land, were already moving west, and the upheaval caused serious unrest within the lodges.

  Rob was genuinely disturbed by the disruption of the Indian life. Poverty lurked close as the braves traded instead of hunted. Self-sufficient living was failing as Indian dependence on white man’s cloth and iron replaced their former contentment with leather and stone. Whiskey had twisted the souls of many Indians living close to the border, and families traded their possessions or themselves for the white man’s firewater.

  Although traditional chiefs still reigned, young and angry voices that demanded white destruction were being listened to. The French were working diligently to undermine English influence, particularly among the Delaware, and the travelers noted that they were having some success.

  The Indian exodus westward would expose already discontented warriors to increased French influence along the Ohio River and French Creek. Troublesome times loomed ahead, and the threat of raised tomahawks was strong.

  Of all the lands in the Endless Hills, Rob found none that appealed to him more than those lying south of Tuscarora Mountain. In their youth, he and Shikee had poked into every nook and cranny along Raccoon Creek and S
ugar Run. They had found the headwaters of the Big Buffalo, Cisna Run, the Little Juniata, and Sherman’s. In their exploring, Rob had seen iron ore staining the ground and knew of thin coal veins near the center of Sherman’s Valley. The land was rich in timber, soil, and water. It lay close to Harris’s Ferry and Carlisle, yet distant enough to be separate. It might be that a more gregarious man would build on the Juniata River where trade and traffic would develop quicker, but wilderness living had turned Rob from the white man’s clustering, and he saw in the meadows of the Little Buffalo a place where humanity’s tides might pass him by. Yet, his acres would provide all that would desire.

  Their return from the west led the three frontiersmen south of the mountains, and they swung into York village where Rob turned north toward Carlisle while Croghan and Montour continued on to make their report in Philadelphia.

  In York, Rob contacted the Moyer brothers. A good ax man should be broad of shoulder with mighty thews and deep chest. The Moyers were small and wiry, but they were claimed by others to be the best log squarers in or around York.

  Rob found the brothers taciturn but willing to travel to the Little Buffalo to finish his house. Having a previous contract to complete, they agreed to start north and meet Rob at Carlisle within a few days. The plan suited Rob who hoped to spend a day or two with Becky.

  He entered Carlisle with far more concern than he had previously observed. Rob checked the priming of his old Jaeger rifle as carefully as he would have at a Shawnee lodge, and his tomahawk and pistol were loosened in their scabbards. If the citizens of Carlisle again vented their ill-will in his direction he would be prepared, and his retaliation would be sudden and violent.

  As things will, Ensign Wheelwright chose to pass from his stockade gate as Rob approached from the York road. Garrison duty had done little for the Ensign, and soft living had already paunched his middle and sallowed his complexion. The contrast between his own poor figure and Rob’s stalwart physique may have struck Wheelwright for, other than his customary sniff, he gave no outward recognition of Rob’s presence. The Ensign spun on his heel and reentered his log sanctuary. Rob grinned sourly to himself and wondered if Wheelwright exemplified Carlisle’s opinion of him.