Arrowmaker (Pennsylvania Frontier Series)

by Roy F. Chandler

  The musketry grew desultory. A few fire arrows slid harmlessly from the roof tiles, and a number burned themselves out in the upper walls. The sound of tomahawks began on the rear door, and Will was pleased that he had not raised the floorboards for the attack on the Dutch door. He had no doubt that the attackers chopping at the door were ready to spring aside and no doubt had their own muskets bearing on the doorway.

  Mary Bristline was soothing frightened children, but at his call, Julia Woolever and Becky swiftly brought up the boiling water. They stepped softly above the Indians at the door, and when the women were ready the men silently lifted a floorboard.

  A bit of dislodged dirt caused a startled attacker to glance upward, but he was too late, and the scalding liquid struck him squarely in the face. The hostile’s scream of agony matched others drenched by the boiling deluge, but their noise was muffled from those inside by the thick floorboard thudding solidly into place. Woolever jumped to his musket and tried for a shot at the scalded savages, but their scramble to escape was too quick.

  The attack settled into occasional shots as the Indians waited for a better plan or perhaps for nightfall. There was clanging at the whiskey still, and the forge shed burst into flame. Will figured the Indians would try building fires under the house overhang after dark. He doubted that their few barrels of water would stop that for long, but in the meantime, he would try to pick off a couple more, and out there somewhere, Quehana would be taking his toll.

  As heavy firing at the house hurried him, Rob almost lost his life. He passed a giant chestnut to his left and surprised a painted warrior looking straight at him. Their weapons rose together, but the Indian had to swing his musket across his body, and the extra movement cost him his life.

  Rob’s rifle cracked, and the hostile’s face dissolved in a spray of blood. Rob snatched the dead warrior’s musket and stepped quickly behind the chestnut, but the heavy thud of muskets continued, and no one investigated the rifle’s sharper report.

  Rob reloaded his rifle, using less powder so that the distinctive rifle crack would more match the duller boom of Indian muskets. He hid the dead warrior’s French Charleville musket and moved cautiously forward.

  From near the crest of the ridge he could see his roof top and a few Indians scattered on the far slope. They appeared to be a mixed band of Delaware and Shawnee, The distance was too great to determine features, and he could not tell if one of the Indians he saw had a split nose.

  Rob heard tomahawks working on the door of the house and was not surprised by the double musket blast that ended the chopping. During the uproar and shooting after the door slammed, Rob aimed carefully and shot a crouching Shawnee across the notch. He aimed high on the chest, but the reduced charge threw the ball lower than he expected, and the warrior clutched at his belly and lay thrashing on the slope. After awhile he lay still.

  Rob saw the Indian climb to the roof of the house. He dared not shoot as it would have betrayed his presence outside. While all eyes focused on the brave prowling the roof top, Rob worked his way close behind a husky Shawnee sprawled on his belly and aiming his musket down the hill.

  Crouched behind the warrior, Rob drew his tomahawk and waited. Dry leaves lay between them, and he feared to move closer. The Indian on the roof moved toward the chimney, and Rob prayed silently for him to look down.

  He did, leaning well over the opening. Almost instantly the hostile’s body reared upward and then collapsed over the chimney edge, and disappeared from view.

  Rob launched himself onto the Shawnee. The sound of his hatchet sinking between the brave’s shoulders was lost in the volley of angry shots raining on the house. Again, Rob hid the musket and wrenched his tomahawk from the warrior’s back.

  Rob judged that the war party had already taken a fierce mauling. The blast through the open door must have killed two or more. He had taken three, another hostile lay in the meadow, and another within his chimney. Those who survived would not hurry back to the lodge of Quehana.

  Rob saw no way to approach other warriors on this slope without being discovered, and the longer his presence was unknown the easier his task would be. Rob pulled back up the ridge and saw a second clear shot across the valley. He raised his rifle, holding this time for the head. At the shot, the brave clutched his chest staggering about until his balance left him, and he toppled face forward down the hill.

  Inside the house, John Woolever saw the Indian rise from hiding and tumble with death’s fluid grace, and he grinned wolfishly through powder-grimed features. He had not fired, and Miller was at the front of the house. Quehana was at work.

  A few hostiles were filtering around the outbuildings, and Rob slipped lower in the hemlocks, waiting to strike without detection. A pair of Delaware tipped coals from the forge and fired the forge shed. They seemed alone, and Rob moved closer as they headed for the still house. They entered the door, holding more coals in Rob’s scoop. The dull copper of the boiler held their attention, and death sprang among them.

  Rob’s tomahawk sheared the skull of one, but the other Delaware reacted with speed born of desperation. Rob and the warrior locked in terrible embrace. The Delaware’s painted body slipped against Rob’s buckskins, but Quehana’s massive arms closed around the brave’s back. The Indian’s arm rose to strike, and Rob drove his forehead into his enemy’s face smashing the warrior’s lips back into his teeth.

  Burying his chin in the Delaware’s neck, Rob jerked the brave’s feet from the floor, and with muscle and sinew popping from effort, he bent the warrior’s back like a bow. Rob’s shoulders bunched with strain; the warrior’s breath was forced from his lungs, and his back snapped with the clear crack of a dried stick. Rob dropped the broken body, and it fell with a crash among the copper coils.

  His body trembling from the massive effort, Rob recovered his rifle from outside the door and rested for a moment in the cool of the still house, letting his lungs return to normal and giving his body time to regain its vigor.

  How many was that? He thought about ten, but he was losing track. He had guessed the war party to number no more than twenty warriors. When they began to settle down and take stock, they would discover half of their band dead, and they would know that an enemy was loose among them.

  Rob figured the war party would have to talk it over. He wondered where they would gather. If he could be waiting, he would soon know who led the attack, and he would know who next to kill.

  The Shawnee Two Nose had directed the attack from near Rob’s house. He had cut a slit in the skin of The Warrior and wore his medicine like a cape. The legs of The Warrior dangled to the front, and the head hung behind guarding the rear.

  Until the attack on the house had turned bitter in his mouth, Two Nose had begun to believe his own medicine. The death of his warriors when only half of the door had swung open had stunned him, and when the warrior on the roof had disappeared head first down the lodge’s smoke hole, he had tasted the first green bile of defeat.

  Now, warriors had been found dead on the hill behind him, and two had died without sound in the house of shiny iron. Two Nose had the horrifying feeling that Quehana was not in the house at all but was stalking them, killing at will as he had done long ago on the Tuscarora.

  Two Nose felt suddenly cold and alone. He whistled the call they had agreed would mean to gather and led the way, moving cautiously among the trees to a clearing well down the notch.

  From her hiding place deep in a thicket on the south slope, Flat watched the war party gather. They were but a short distance from her cabin but had not yet discovered it. She waited with a squaw’s patience, but with alert expectancy, for earlier she had glimpsed Quehana’s figure on the far slope.

  Rob, too, watched the raiding party gather. There was much gesticulating and loud talk. Two Nose was plain to see. Rob guessed that was The Warrior’s hide the Shawnee had hung over himself.

  The raider’s face was bad to look at. Rob’s tomahawk had split his forehead, and with
out care, the skin had fallen allowing his entire face to sag. His nose had healed in two parts, and his lips and chin had re-grown crooked and ugly. It was no wonder the Shawnee lost his mind.

  Two Nose stood clear, and Rob saw no reason to wait. He placed his brass front sight blade on The Warrior’s crotch where it lay just above Two Nose’s breast bone. He touched the trigger, and a warrior rose from nowhere and took the bullet in his own head. Rob was already moving and reloading, his mind frozen with disbelief and chagrin as Shawnee bolted in many directions.

  Two Nose had no doubt that the ball had been meant for him. He scrabbled frantically for cover, sprinting blindly away from the shot and remembering the last time he had fled from the wrath of Quehana. He clawed his way up the slope and saw a thick stand of brush. He dove into its concealment and turned quickly to be sure he was out of sight.

  Below, the clearing lay empty except for the dead warrior, but Two Nose was sure that on the opposite slope Quehana waited for him. Two Nose wiped sweat and paint from his face and gathered his patience. Night was coming. Then, he would go far away and wait and wait until his chance came again. He heard a slight rustle behind him as though he had disturbed a small animal. Two Nose hoped that it was not a snake.

  Without warning, agony more terrible than he had ever known slammed into his back. His scream rebounded from the hills, and his legs shot him into the open, his hands clutching for the thing tearing into his back.

  A rifle cracked from across the hollow, and a numbing blow in his chest overcame his agony. His face struck the needles and briars on the slope, and Two Nose felt their sting an instant before he died.

  Rob recharged his rifle in the protection of a tree. He kept the thicket in which Two Nose had hidden in his view. The hilt of Flat’s squaw knife protruded from Two Nose’s lower back. The blade had gone through The Warrior’s scarred hide and sunk deep into the Shawnee’s kidney.

  Rob believed the remnants of the war party would already be on their way from this part of the forest, but as much as he could enjoy hurrying them along, he would stay close and make certain that no stubborn enemy approached Flat’s place in the thicket.

  He settled himself to wait, listening to the forest come alive around him. He wondered who lay dead in the meadow and felt anger wash up inside him. Rob let his eyes rest on the body of Two Nose with the knife sticking out of it. His grin was fearsome when he thought that The Warrior’s last wound was one the mighty fighter would be pleased to wear.

  — — —

  The peaceful routine of the home was difficult to restore. The scalped body of Peter Bristline was buried on the knoll, and a skittish horse dragged two sled loads of dead hostiles beyond the valley.

  The war party had paid heavily. Twelve bodies were collected, and one of Rob’s victims had been carried away. Will Miller skinned the dead horse, and they dug a hole beside the animal, rolled it in, and covered it over.

  The women scrubbed furiously at the large blood splotch that had dripped from the chimney. Rob volunteered to chop the chimney body into pieces that would fit through the iron bars, but the women objected. So he and John Woolever had hoisted it back onto the roof, slid it to the ground and hauled it away. They aired the house and cooked vigorously. On the second floor, the men filled six additional water barrels and reorganized their weapons and powder. Five muskets from deceased hostiles were worth keeping and were added to their armory. The rest became useful iron at Rob’s forge.

  If Peter Bristline had not died, Rob would have been highly pleased with their stand. Materially, they had suffered little. The raiders had fired only the forge shed and the haystack. Those losses were small. Neither Will’s cabin nor the sodded horse barn had been touched, and contrary to the prediction of Neeake, the Wild Goose, the hogs returned from the woods as usual.

  The attack on Shatto’s was but a tiny part of the greatest Indian uprising in history. Inspired by Pontiac, an Ottowa Chieftain, war parties struck at a dozen points along the western border on the same day. The warriors raided along two paths. The northern attack moved down the west branch of the Susquehanna sweeping all before it and rolled to the very gates of Fort Hunter. The southern column swung south of the mountains dropping attacking parties en route. Sherman’s Valley marked the furthest penetration of the southern raiders who slaughtered and looted up and down the valley.

  Robinson’s fort was again attacked but held out strongly. Will Robinson and Tom Robinson were killed and Robert Robinson was again wounded in an ambush along the Tuscarora.

  Rob Shatto scouted constantly, and for the most part, his people remained indoors with bars in place. At times, they chanced a bit of haying and took enough corn to provide for the winter.

  Will and Flat moved back into the big house, and Mary Bristline and her child stayed on until Rob could see them safely to relatives in Carlisle. Thomas Reed sent welcome supplies with a group scouting the valley, but most of the time the Shatto Fort lay isolated.

  The raids dropped away with the onset of winter, but Rob continued his scouting. His giant’s body leaned, and his features became lined from the strains of continual alertness. Becky saw little of him; he slept most nights in the forest.

  When the weather was severe, Rob kept alive by crouching for hours above a tiny blaze, draping his blanket tent-like over both the fire and himself. Occasionally, he found hostiles, and his long rifle cracked its death note, but he spoke little of it in his home.

  In the spring, soldiers arrived, and an officer and twenty men were stationed near Robinsons, and another group camped in the valley of the Little Buffalo, less than a mile away, almost in Jack Elan’s front yard. Their presence did not relax either Rob or Elan’s vigilance. No one left either house until their morning call told that all was clear, and their rifles constantly protected those who ventured into the fields.

  In the summer of 1764, Colonel Henry Bouquet smashed Indian power at Bushy Run, and like morning dew, the Indian menace was gone. Rob Shatto could scarcely accept it. Word that hostiles had fled Pennsylvania soil failed to slow his scouting. The months passed, but despite his unceasing vigil, he found no trace of hostile warriors.

  With spring, old settlers returned, and new pioneers flocked in caravans to claim safe land. It was another year before Rob Shatto slacked his vigilance, knocked the stone from his window frames opening his loopholes into genuine windows, and brought from Philadelphia the glass he had promised Becky ten years before.

  With the Delaware and Shawnee threat believed forever gone, the Shatto house began a gradual change from fortress to a home. Rifles, muskets, and water barrels were stored in unused corners, and permanent walls divided the upstairs into convenient rooms. Furnishings muted the war-like atmosphere that had so long prevailed. The farm became the center of activity, and additional fields were planted and new barns were raised.

  Hired men came and went, and as the years passed with increasing swiftness, Rob’s boys became useful around the place. They proved willing workers and thrived on routine chores that sent Rob stomping into the woods with his rifle, seeking relief from day-to-day drudgery.

  Blue Moccasin, whose Philadelphia wealth appeared to double almost seasonally, also escaped to the still wild lands between the mountains, and Rob welcomed James Cummens’ arrivals with spirited whoops and immediate departure for valleys demanding re-exploration.

  Will Miller directed the farming and led the crews until the years began to take their toll. Thereafter, he gave the orders and supervised the field work while Rob saw to the forge and the still.

  As the trails became roads, and sleds were increasingly replaced by wagons, the Shattos traveled regularly to Carlisle and on to Lancaster and Baltimore.

  Yet, Becky could recognize a stiffening within her husband beginning as they descended the southern slope of the Blue Mountain. Rob’s world was the wild land north of Kittatinny, and his people were those living within the mountain valleys. He enjoyed their hardy spirits and willingness to risk th
e dangers and poverties of the frontier. Rob Shatto admired tasks that required strength and courage, and he looked with suspicion on those who lived too much from the sweat of others.

  Rob preferred the company of hunters and settlers to the more refined and less-open town dwellers. In turn, the people of the piedmont envied the massive frontiersman’s success on his mountain plantation but resented his unwillingness to concern himself with their favor.

  To Rob Shatto, his family was everything, and the land was essential to their prosperity—not merely the cultivated fields, but also the steep ridges and almost inaccessible hollows that fed his spirit and in their wildness guaranteed the Shattos their freedoms.

  On occasion, Rob bought more land, enlarging his holdings with an eye toward the needs of his sons and daughters, but he let the new land lay untouched, waiting other plows and harrows. His own acres provided more than he and Becky needed, and with what he had for himself, Rob Shatto was content.

  31

  1770 - Lime Making

  The land needed lime. Annual corn crops weakened the soil, but lime would renew it. Will Miller suggested that they should more often rotate their corn with wheat or perhaps oats, but corn whiskey still ruled as a cash crop, and changing required serious consideration.

  Someday, Rob planned to have a lime kiln from which he could cook a steady supply of good quality lime to spread on his fields. Until then, he would resort to the primitive and less efficient stack method.

  They hauled wood kindling into a circle some forty feet across and two feet deep. Then they piled a foot thick layer of fist-sized limestone rocks on the woodpile.

  From a thin vein of coal further down the creek they hauled enough lump coal to form a measurable layer, which was topped by more limestone and wood. Each course was laid smaller until the top stood fifteen feet high. Finally, the entire stack was covered four inches deep in clay soil. The result looked like an earthen pyramid raised to some pagan god.