Rob backtracked the footprints to hard ground, across a rock ledge where only crushed moss showed passage, along a fallen log, and finally to the forest floor. Convinced of his cleverness, Simon then struck out boldly, heading northeast, perhaps to parallel the Susquehanna.
Dusk found Rob a pair of miles from Duncan’s Island, near some weak sulfur springs and still trailing. Unable to track without light, he chose to camp on a high ridge hoping to glimpse the boy’s fire. He saw a fire, but it was distant and made by settlers burning a clearing in the forest.
With the rising sun, he took Simon’s trail and found where the boy had camped close by the Juniata. He had built a small fire and during the night had caught a rabbit in a snare. He had gutted the rabbit at the river’s edge and taken it with him.
Simon had waded straight out into the river, but before crossing himself, Rob ranged up and down the bank making sure the boy had not merely walked up or downstream while any followers hunted futily on the other side.
Finding no tracks, Rob stripped and, holding his possessions high, he plunged into the chill water. At times he swam, trying to keep his pack, rifle, clothing, and possibles pouch dry. By the time he reached the north shore his respect for Simon Girty’s abilities was greatly increased, especially when he considered that the boy had crossed the broad Susquehanna the same way.
Rob searched diligently before locating Simon’s landing place. The youth had walked upstream before stepping onto rocks that led into the forest. Rob found drip marks where water had run from his body and splashed on mud beside the rocks. In the woods, Simon had dressed and carefully stepped over rather than on the Indian path that paralleled the north side of the Juniata. The boy’s tracks continued generally northeast, and Rob took after him on the run.
Simon again threw Rob from his tracks when he crossed the Buffalo Creek halfway to the Susquehanna. This time it was Rob’s fault. The boy had simply crossed over, and Rob had missed his trail. Searching carefully up and down the creek, Rob lost an hour before he found the trail where he had first looked but had not seen.
The youth’s tracks ran out on the great Indian path along the Susquehanna. Simon had met the path close to the half-falls, and Rob again labored to find the boy’s prints in the centuries old trail.
If the youth had a plan, Rob had not been able to discover it. Perhaps the boy wished to stay along the Susquehanna near familiar surroundings. The thought seemed likely, and he tried putting himself in the boy’s place. A youth alone, uncertain what course to take and fearful of being followed or discovered, where would he hide? Rob’s gaze rose to the mountain above the half-falls.
Simon Girty found the shallow cave by accident, but it suited his purposes. He had climbed the mountain above the river seeking shelter where he could see yet remain unseen. The cave would hide his small fire, and from the entrance he could look far up and downstream.
He carried enough dry wood into the cave for his cooking fire and spread his blanket on needles at the driest spot. His legs were tired, and he was about as hungry as a man could get. Simon had to admit he already missed his family, but if a man was going to get out on his own he had to start sometime. There was a whole summer ahead to make himself a place and get stores put by for the winter. He wished he could have cleaned up the old cabin on the crick, but he would have been caught sure down there. He hoped he could find another spot that suited him as well as the old place had.
He got his fire started with his flint and steel and skinned the stiffened rabbit. The skin wasn’t much, but he had better start saving everything he could. He chopped the rabbit into pieces and fitted a leg onto a twig. He held it over the coals, turning it slowly, his mouth almost watering he was so hungry.
“Nuff there for two, boy?”
The words startled Simon so badly that he dropped his meat into the fire. He whirled wildly, seeing one of the biggest durn men he’d ever laid his eyes on sitting, as calm as you’d please, smack on his blanket. Simon could not believe that he could be snuck up on like that. Everybody said he was more than half Injun, just like his Pa had been, but here was a stranger sitting in his camp before he even knew it.
“Better get your meat, boy. It’s burning up.”
Confused, Simon poked the meat from the coals, taking his time and making much of it so he would have a moment to think. He figured the stranger wasn’t hostile, or else he would not be just sitting there. Simon wished he had his tomahawk close. He would feel a heap more certain. He cast a hungry glance at his weapons lying too far out of reach and swore at himself for being so careless.
“Think you could cook me a piece of that meat?” The man pointed a finger at the cut up rabbit.
“Well, sure mister. Plenty for us both, but ya surely gave me a start comin’ in on me that a’way.”
The stranger chuckled quiet-like. “A man shouldn’t loosen himself too much in the woods. Too easy for somebody unfriendly to get close. Course,” he continued, “You an’ me being old friends, we don’t need to worry right now.”
Old friends? Simon looked close, but he could not remember seeing the man before. He was a frontiersman, all right. Young, too. Simon hoped someday he would look like this fella, big, strong and handling himself real easy-like. The man didn’t have much of a rifle, though. He’d seen better. Buckskins were Delaware made, Simon figured, and they were the best. The stranger shifted a little, and Simon Girty’s mouth dropped open, and his heart thumped in his chest. He would know that pistol anywhere! He had spied it only once before, back when he had gotten his tomahawk, but he would never forget the way that pistol lay close along the man’s back.
“Why, yore Robby Shatto, ain’t ya?” There was pleased astonishment in the boy’s voice. “Why t’was you give me my ol’ tomahawk back when Pa was alive.”
The boy’s enthusiasm smothered his fears, and they swapped tales, Simon mostly cooking, offering his rabbit, and listening wide-eyed to Rob’s stories of life with the Indians. After a time, Rob asked, “That what you’re planning on doing, Simon? Live with one of the tribes?”
The boy fell into confusion. “Well, I ain’t exactly decided yet, Mister Shatto.”
Rob nodded, he hoped sagely. “Times are bad in the tribes right now, Simon. Lodges fighting lodges, tribes turning against the old ways, and the French stirring things up in general.
“I’m pulling back myself. So are George Croghan and all of the other traders that are worth a hoot. Even Andy Montour is staying clear of the tribes till this fighting and feuding gets finished.”
Rob hesitated as though considering Simon’s problem. “I sure wish you could hold off a season before going into the Indian country. Maybe by then we’d all know how it’s going to turn out. Big things are going to be happening this summer. Armies are marching, and tribes will be choosing-up sides. A man could real easy guess wrong and end up fighting people he cares about.
“A’course, if you are bound to go, well, a man’s got to do what he thinks is right, but it would be a shame to be squatting out in the brush when there’s all sorts of action going on and things happening back here.”
Rob let the boy think about it for a moment, then continued. “I suppose your maw and brothers will make out all right, but I’d guess your paw would be mighty worried about them if he was here. A’course, he didn’t exactly leave you in charge, but you being his favorite son and named after him and all …”
In the morning they traveled together back to Sherman’s Creek. Rob swapped his good tomahawk for Simon’s badly worn blade saying he would just pound more iron into the old one and make it like new.
They shook hands with great solemnity, and Rob watched the boy wade and swim the icy Susquehanna. Given a few years, Simon would make a frontiersman, Rob was certain of that. In the meantime, he would be home getting a year or two growth on himself. Rob expected he would see Simon Girty again.
22
1755 - The Homemakers
When Rob left the woods at the edge
of the Robinson clearing he almost stepped on an elderly woman primly seated against the bole of a huge chestnut. He had not seen the woman who sat enjoying the warm sun until he was past the tree. Startled, he had jerked his rifle around defensively.
Her laugh was deep and resonant, out of place in an old lady. Rob whipped off his hat bowing in respect to one far senior to himself.
“My, young man, aren’t we all jumpy these days. And who are you that comes sneaking Injun-like into our clearing?”
Rob was amused by the asperity in her tone. “I’m Rob Shatto, Ma’am, neighbor from over east a piece, and I surely wasn’t doing any sneaking, Ma’am.”
“No, of course you weren’t, young man. I heard you comin’ way back in the woods; sounded like someone driving a buffalo herd over dry sticks.”
A bit stiffly, Rob replied, “I thought I would drop over this way and see how my new neighbors were making out.”
“Hmmph, new neighbors, is it? I heard that, young man. Being in a place longest don’t allow for putting on airs, young man.”
A trifle irked by the old lady’s sharp tongue, Rob said, “I didn’t mean it like that, Ma’am.”
“Hmmph, maybe not. Anyway, it’s not a poor old lady you’ve come to see. George is the one you’ll be wanting to speak with.”
She nodded toward a cabin well back from the creek. “He’s the one with the hickory shirt and shortest hair.”
Thanking the woman, Rob crossed the busy clearing dominated by a log blockhouse and a mostly finished stockade. He counted ten active people turning ground and working the land above the bluff. George Robinson greeted him vigorously, wiping sweat from his brow and keeping an eye on the labor.
“Pleased to meet you, Shatto. Robert said you’d likely be by fore long. Been planning on hunting over your way some time. Been hankering to see that house o’yourn. Robert and Montour both claim there hain’t nothin’ like it west of Lancaster.”
Rob admitted that he had a good house, and they spoke of the coming troubles.
“Well, Rob, if old Braddock whips ‘em good an’ keeps a holt of the forks of the Ohio, I figure we’re eating in tall grass, but if things don’t run according to plan, it could be that we’ll be forting up just trying to stay alive.
“Hear you get along well with the redskins.”
“Yes, I’ve lived here so long they are used to me.”
“Hope it lasts, and ye can let a little o’that liking rub off on me, if you don’t mind. Anyhow, we’ve built our blockhouse up here on the knob, and we’ll probably finish the stockade around it soon as we can. Figure if worse comes along, we an’ our close neighbors can hole up here and save our scalps.
“To tell the truth, Rob, ol’ Martha out there is the one makin’ us get to it. I reckon but for her we’d all be spreading out, grabbing the best land we could find and maybe getting our hair took for it. Martha’s lived seventy years or so already and sort of rules the roost around here.”
George Robinson obviously thought the world of Martha, but Rob left the clearing by another route rather than have the old lady’s prickly tongue again plucking at his sensitive spots.
— — —
There were wagon tracks on the New Path to the west, and Rob found himself resenting them. He had heard that Braddock’s engineers were already hacking a new road through Virginia and on into the Cumberland Gap. He wondered why they didn’t use the more northern trail across Croghan’s Gap; it seemed as if everybody else was. No telling, and the ways of soldiers seemed obscure to him, anyway.
Rob traveled with a large pack carrying many presents for Shikee and his lodge, so his progress was slow. He occasionally passed blaze marks where land purchases had been surveyed or simply stepped off. A few clearings had been started but stood empty, their owners waiting out the winter or the probability of open war.
Shikee greeted Rob with much of his old enthusiasm, but Rob saw change in his friend. Physically, Shikee had grown more stocky, and new lines creased his features. Rob found a quieter lodge than he had known, and even Shikee’s proud patting of Red Bird’s swollen abdomen failed to restore the usual carefree mood.
As they talked through the evening and into the night, Shikee told of poor hunting, of whites continually crowding closer, of his friends moving west, and finally of his own decision to leave Aughwick and withdraw to the Ohio country.
Shikee’s unhappiness troubled Rob, yet he saw no way to aid his friend. He spared Shikee stories of his own successes. They could only be in contrast to his friend’s difficulties. Instead, he told of his coming marriage, which pleased Shikee, and of trailing young Simon Girty whose cleverness Shikee could appreciate.
He stayed two days in Aughwick and left knowing that it might be long before he again saw his friend, Rob gave his presents to the lodge.
He had brought fifty arrowheads for Shikee, who asked him solemnly if they really were magic and rolled with laughter when Rob assured him that they were. He also left his old Jaeger rifle with Shikee, The Delaware had never owned a gun, but he had fired Rob’s on occasion. The rifle would lend Shikee status in his new village.
Returning to the Little Buffalo, Rob felt almost naked. He had even left his blanket with Shikee, and except for his pistol, a severely depleted hunting bag, knife, and tomahawk he carried nothing. He trotted rapidly along the trail, his senses constantly searching for sight, smell, or sound of danger, but his mind strode ahead. He would leave early for Carlisle and hike on to Lancaster or perhaps over to Reading and get a new rifle. He wished for time to build his own, but he had much to do before the second week in April.
The minister had said the words, and they had suffered the well wishes and suggestive smirks and comments of the townspeople. Some were Becky’s friends. Most were Thomas Reed’s acquaintances. Rob had met a few in passing, but his own friends were far away.
They left Carlisle amid her mother’s tears and her father’s ill-disguised fears. The border was hot with rumor, and there had been settler harassment by Indians near Shamokin. Most who had warranted in the new lands were holding off settling until General Braddock’s victory, which could be expected in June. Thomas Reed sorely wished that Rob and Becky would do likewise.
Rob did not discount the Indian menace, but his friendship with the tribes was strong and of long standing. He expected no trouble.
They hurried along the mountain trail, but paused at David’s empty gravesite and rested their horses twice on the mountain itself while Rob described his first climb up the steep slope. Croghan’s old cabin lay deserted, but they paused to look, for in Becky’s mind, it too, was part of her husband’s life.
For Becky Shatto, each turn of the trail brought alive bits of the stories she had heard of Rob’s flight into the wilderness. Now, the trail was wider and wagons had cut deep ruts, but she saw the ford at Sherman’s Creek and the meadows at Dromgold where wagoners now rested after crossing the mountain. A smashed and discarded wagon bed lay in the creek below the great rock which still had no wagon trail around it. They paused and looked across the creek at the panther cave, and Rob poked in the spring grass until he turned over ashes from his long dead fire.
As planned, they reached the warm springs well before dark. Rob did most of the camp work while Becky arranged their bed to her satisfaction. They ate in the dusk listening to the wild sounds around them and lay in their blankets as a distant wolf pack hunted. The hobbled horses stopped their soft munching to listen. They consummated their love with tender understanding and patience that grew to passionate urgency and left them exhausted and fulfilled.
In the rising moon, Rob led his bride through the chill air to the warmth of the mineral springs. They soaked in drowsy comfort until the heat suffused their bodies and kept them warm where they curled together within their soft sleeping robes.
Rebecca Reed Shatto’s first sight of her new home was from the hemlocks on Castle Knob. Rob swung wide around the Little Buffalo meadows so his bride could first see her h
ome from the surrounding hills.
He stopped the horses inside the woods and helped Becky from her animal—not that she needed it, but Rob liked the feel of her in his arms. She rode one of the old horses that had first pulled Rob’s wagon over the mountain. The horse had become her pet, and Thomas Reed willingly included the aging animal as part of his daughter’s dowry.
She clung to Rob’s hand as the valley unfolded before them, and they sat at Rob and Shikee’s old spot in the hemlocks while Rob described his plans for their plantation in the valley. She could say only, “It is so beautiful!” But she said it over and over again, and he was more than satisfied.
She mounted, and Rob led the pack animals down the steep knob and through the meadow. They loitered at the old lodge for Becky to see and touch all that remained. A familiar breeze sighed in the great oak, and Rob wished that E’shan were there to hear it.
The home itself left her breathless. Close up, its very size was humbling. It seemed an inseparable part of the ground it stood on. The massive stone walls rose from the earth as timeless as a rock ledge, and the hewn timbers above blended with the surrounding forest. The clay tiles capping the roof lent solidity to the home, as though their very weight anchored it all in place.
Rob pulled the latchstring that raised a heavy oak bar from its sockets and swung the top half of the door wide. He was inordinately proud of the Dutch door. He had forged the four iron hinges with heart-shaped finials, and he had built them heavy enough to swing the three inch thick oak door as well as resist any battering an attacker might attempt.
Becky did not miss his pride in the door. She felt the hinges, admired the fit of the ship-lapped planks and paused with a hand inquiringly on a stone arrowhead deeply imbedded in the oak. Ruefully, Rob explained its presence as harassment by Shikee who had claimed he could shoot an arrow through Rob’s door. Shikee had nocked an arrow longer than his arm, laid on his back in the yard, and with his feet and both hands drew his bow to its limits. The stone point had sunk deep, but did not approach penetration. Shikee claimed it must have hit a knot.
Arrowmaker (Pennsylvania Frontier Series) Page 16