When they got close, Robbie saw that Shikee moved terrible slow as though he hurt real bad inside, but he stood straight like his Pap, and Robbie had the sudden thought that he would stand tall like that even till he died. That thought exploded in his mind like a lightning strike, and he knew why Shikee had come home to the Little Buffalo.
— — —
Robbie was up early, but he found the old warriors already on the knoll sitting against the headstones. He squatted a distance away until Pap waved him in.
He had gone to sleep, aching in all his bones to see what Shikee looked like in daylight. For an instant, he was disappointed because all he saw was an old Injun in his blanket. Then he saw the Delaware’s eyes as they looked him over in turn, and it was like looking down the barrels of Pap’s double gun or maybe like staring an eagle straight in the eyes. The good chill ran like fingers up and down his spine, and he knew he had been privileged to look into the face of one of the real people.
Shikee said, “He has the mark of the hawk in his eye, Quehana.”
“I think there is fire in his heart, Shikee. He will see new trails in his days.”
Being talked about that way put needles in his hands, and he gloried in it and squatted to hear their talk.
Rob told who lay on the hill. Shikee held a palm toward the stone where the skin of The Warrior lay and grunted appreciatively when Rob told of Becky’s abduction and the attack by Two Nose. The stories were old to Robbie, but he always liked hearing them again. He wished he had been around in those days.
Then, Shikee told of the Shining Mountains, and it was Rob’s turn to grunt and “Waugh” in amazement, and Robbie found his mouth hanging and his heart thumping against his ribs, just like he had felt when he had heard Shikee’s owl hoot.
Shikee told how he had lived where the mountains grew so high that on their tops a man could find no air to breathe. He talked of beaver and great bears and elk and moose-deer. He painted word pictures of feathered warriors whose legs were bowed from riding, and of streams where the white man’s gold lay bright in the gravel, and of great plains so flat that a man walked for days without seeing a hill.
Later in the day, Shikee told of Red Bird’s death in winter cold and of his longing to leave his bones in the earth of his people. He had left the lodge of a grandson and ridden toward the rising sun. He had traded his horse to Mandans on the Missouri and floated to the Father of Waters. He had paddled down the Father to the Ohio, going ever slower as his strength failed. He had been many sleeps in the Endless Hills, moving when he could and resting when he must.
He had feared his body would not carry him to the lodge of his brother, but as he came to the Tuscarora, his spirit had grown and his body became its servant, and he had after all lived to see again the place of E’shan and the land of his youth.
The men talked of other things, and Robbie saw the terrible panther wounds and even the puckered scars left by Rob’s crude stitching. Robbie knew that Shikee had come to die. Among whites, he would have found the knowledge disturbing or fearful, but facing the aged Delaware, the act of looking death straight and true without doubt or fear seemed noble and right.
As night approached, he brought a store of food from the house, and Rob took him aside and told him not to come again until he sent for him. Robbie knew that would not be until Shikee died. He felt thick in the throat and feared he would cry going back down the hill.
It wasn’t until he had gotten back to the house that he realized he had forgotten to tell Pap that Grampa George was taken bad sick, and Great Grandma Becky and Flat had taken him to the cabin for nursing. He guessed it didn’t matter anyhow, as Pap had enough on his mind as it was.
— — —
It seemed to Rob that Shikee had lived on will alone. He ate almost nothing and had no interest in the mill or white man’s things. He had husbanded his last strength to see again the Little Buffalo and having seen it, he was content.
Shikee lay in his blankets listening as Rob told of the death of Sattelihu and of George Croghan who had died on his farm in 1782. Then, Shikee spoke of Fat who had been taken as squaw by a Hunkpapa Sioux and of his meeting a tall and lithe Shawnee named Wild Goose who traveled far in the Shining Mountains and told of Quehana in the Endless Hills.
In the night, Shikee tired and lay closer to death, but still he listened as Rob talked of their old times together when their blood ran swift and their legs flashed strong in the summer sun. At times, Shikee smiled, a trace of his old smile, and once he said, “We have seen much and done well, Quehana.” But later he lay unmoving, and before dawn he had gone.
Rob sat until the sun was high, thinking of his brother and remembering. He wondered if Shikee was really on the broad trail to the happy hunting grounds where the Great Spirit waited for him. He wondered if Shikee was again young and strong. That would indeed be a good thing, and he hoped that it was so.
When he was ready, Rob wrapped the body of Shikee in their blankets. At the edge of the woods he waved the come-in signal to Robbie, who, as he expected, waited on the knoll. Little Rob brought the light wagon, and they moved Shikee to his burial place.
Little Rob did most of the digging while old Rob smoked and thought. Hard shale lay only three feet down, but Rob declared it deep enough. They placed Shikee in the hole and covered him over. Rob said something in Delaware that Robbie did not catch. Then they rested a bit, and little Rob told about the sickness.
38
1816 - Black Diphtheria
“Reckon Grampa George is real sick, Pa. Great Grandma Becky and Flat moved him down to the old cabin and won’t let nobody go near. Paw said he was puking and terrible feverish yesterday, but I was out here and didn’t see him.”
Rob came to himself with a jerk. He said, “A fat man’s father!” and his voice was as fierce as Robbie had ever heard it. Rob scrambled to his feet, cursing the seventy-nine years that slowed his joints, and ran down the hill with little Rob in astonished pursuit.
Rob slammed through the door bellowing mad, and everybody stopped their doing and stood looking at him with their faces blank and dumb. Even the younguns shut up for once, and Robbie thought that remarkable.
When he had their attention, Rob’s voice got low and so mean that Robbie felt his own hackles rise. “Ain’t there even one o’you people with enough sense not to let an old woman get around Black Diphtheria?
“Ain’t there one o’you strong, young people willin’ to nurse your grandpap without his mother having to do it?”
He did not expect an answer, of course, and outside of some foot shuffling and eye dropping, he didn’t get one.
“Ain’t there even one o’you that remembered Flat is an Indian? Don’t any o’you know that an Indian can’t stand against white men’s sicknesses? Didn’t any of you think that Flat’s more than eighty years old and wore down from waitin’ on the bunch o’you?”
Then his voice got even colder and meaner, which Robbie wouldn’t have believed possible, and he actually saw an uncle shiver and a couple of women turn pale.
“Now, you all listen real close. ‘Cause if you don’t do exactly like I say, without no mistakes a’tall, when this is over I’ll run every livin’ one o’you clean off the Little Buffalo, an‘ you’ll never get back, never!
“You all know where the big beech is just this side o’the old cabin. Well, mark it good, that’s your line. Don’t go past it. I want a kettle of hot water waitin‘ there all the time. An’ I want somebody sittin’ right there day and night in case I need something. Everybody understand that? Then, get to it.”
He turned, and Robbie ran with him down to the beech. Big Rob turned to him, and Little Rob had never seen such anger and pain in his face. Big Rob said, “Keep them worthless ones awake, Robbie,” and he went to the cabin.
Becky met him at the door. He could see the weariness in her eyes. She said, “Oh, Rob, I hoped you wouldn’t come.”
He wrapped her in his arms and let her cry a minute o
n his shoulder. Then he stepped back and lifted her chin with his finger. “But you knew I would, didn’t you, Becky?” And he pulled her close again.
They went in and looked at George lying wax-like on the bed. Becky said, “It hit him so hard and quick, Rob. It just cut his air right off.”
The breathing Rob heard was not from George. Flat lay on the trundle bed, her face flushed with fever, and her breath rasping in her chest. She tried to speak, but no sound came.
He took Becky aside, “My God, Becky, I never heard of diphtheria striking like this. George has only been back two days, and look at ‘em, both near to done in.”
She shrugged helplessly, and they each took a patient, easing their miseries with cool cloths, and if they were conscious, with sips of water. When the hot water arrived, they bathed the sick, and Rob tried to clean some of the vomit stink from the room. Neither seemed to do much good.
Flat died in the morning, and Rob thought she just shivered herself away. No amount of stacked blankets or warmed stones did her any good. She shivered till her heart stopped. Rob wrapped her tired old body in blankets and placed her gently on the porch.
George hung on. He sweat until he dried himself out, and his lungs heaved like bellows fighting the fever. He drifted in and out of consciousness, sometimes recognizing his mother, sometimes not.
Exhausted from the ordeal, Becky collapsed and slept in their old rocker. Rob worked on George. He soaked blankets in the creek and wrapped his body in them, but George stayed so hot with fever his skin got crackly and heat rose off him like a fire.
Becky woke and started over, but Rob pushed her gently back in the chair. Her eyes looked kind of wild, and he felt her forehead. The heat of high fever struck his hand and he thought he might just die on the spot, but something inside him took hold and he just said, “Oh Becky.” She nodded, already knowing, and hating the hurt and fear in his eyes.
It was usually Robbie who waited at the beech tree, and it was to him that Rob said, “Flat’s dead, Grampa George is bad off, and Great grandma Becky’s got it, too.”
After Rob had gone back inside, Robbie dashed to the big house and told them. There was a lot of yelling and blaming and people saying, “I told you,” until Robbie felt like emptying Pap’s old musket into the lot of them. So, he went back down and sat waiting by the beech tree.
George gave out before Becky got real bad. Rob turned from getting some broth into Becky, and George just wasn’t there anymore. Later, when Becky was sleeping a little, he put George outside with Flat. He thought fleetingly that it was lucky there wasn’t any summer, or he’d have had to dig graves right away. He went to the beech, and told Robbie to have ‘em get two graves ready on the hill. George would lay just below the spot reserved for Becky and him, and Flat would be beside Becky.
He fought the diphtheria as he had once fought the mountain. He battled it with the savage intensity that saved Shikee from the panther. When Becky got hot, he cooled her with wet blankets, and when she was suddenly chilled, he piled on blankets with warm stones at her feet and placed his body tightly against her, feeding her with his body heat and trying to force his strength and determination into her.
He knew he was losing. The fevers took away her strength, and chills devoured her energy. She forgot where she was and lived some in her childhood. Rob heard his name off and on, but Becky was far away in her mind. Toward the last, he called loudly to her, trying desperately to rouse her, but she sank lower, and finally her breathing stopped, and her eyes lay with the glazed half-open look he had seen so often.
Robbie brought the wagon to the beech when the third grave was dug, but Rob shooed him away. He loaded the three bodies and buried them himself. He came back to the beech and freed the horse and gave orders that it was to run free till he said otherwise. No one was to go near the graves until after the first hard rain, and they were all to stay west of the beech tree until he was done.
Sitting across the creek, Robbie could see most of what Pap was doing. He saw him burn nearly everything in the house. The bedding went, the bed itself, a couple of braided rugs, even the old rocker. Pap scrubbed out the place with lye soap and propped open the door and window. Two days after the burying, Robbie saw his Pap standing in the cold in only an old breechclout, burying all of his clothes, even his moccasins. Then, he signaled, and Robbie met him near the beech.
Rob was dripping water from a thorough dousing in the creek. The air was bitter, but he didn’t seem to mind it.
He said, “Well, Robbie, I’ve done all I know how to do.” And that was the end of it. The others waited, expecting all kinds of trouble, but Rob said no more about it.
Robbie noticed the changes, though. Pap hadn’t taken his old pistol to the cabin, and he never put it on again. Robbie could usually find him by Grandma Becky’s stone, kind of rubbing his hand along the edge of it and looking over the fields.
They spoke mostly in Delaware, as though Rob didn’t want the others in the talk, and it seemed to Robbie that Pap was always showing and telling him how to do things the old ways, as though he wanted awful hard for him to know.
Everybody paid a lot of attention to old Rob, and they worried about him, but he built space between him and them, and except for Robbie and Jack Elan from over in the Little Juniata Valley, no one could talk much with him. He just didn’t bother to listen.
39
1820 - The Legacy
He’d been feeling a mite peaked the last few days and thought a stroll in the warm sun might raise his spirits. Walking on the familiar ground, his thoughts could range back over the years, and he could enjoy memories of people and times long past. Sometimes, he got to wondering why he still hung on when it seemed like everybody he’d known or cared about was already gone. A man didn’t have much say in his dying time, and he thought maybe it ought to be arranged differently—maybe fixed so that when a man got on and his body turned feeble and his joints hurt, and he didn’t care much about what was going on, he could sort of say in his mind, “Enough!” and the good Lord would take him out of his troubles.
Rob eased his way through a jumble of children and puppies that always appeared whenever Grandpap chose to leave his chair. He patted heads and called them “Boy” or “Honey” as their clothing indicated. Having given up trying to sort them by name or parentage, he scarcely wondered who they all belonged to. Seemed like there were more younguns under foot every time he turned a corner. Place was getting took over by ‘em. If he was a might younger, he just might head out toward those Shining Mountains he and Robbie talked about.
Ha! That Robbie! Now there was a boy worth thinking about. Moved like an Injun, Robbie did. Reminded him of old Simon Girty. Had the same smooth way of passing through a woods—sort of like the trees moved out of his way. Well, Girty was long in his grave. Died up in Canada, living with a daughter and mostly blind, he had heard. But good for old Girty, he had outlasted most that were after his scalp.
Rob had fallen into the habit of talking within his head. A lot of the time people would speak, but he would be busy in his memories thinking of other times, and he never even heard them. He didn’t mind because, if he listened, most of them only wanted to ask how he felt or what he wanted for dinner, anyway.
It was funny about that. When he was in the woods, no matter how far he let his mind drift, he still heard everything. Even Robbie couldn’t slip up on him, and that was saying something.
He let his mind settle on Robbie Shatto. Only boy his whole family ever named after him.
Happened he turned out to be the only one in the whole tribe worth tracking with, anyway.
Robbie’d be about eighteen he figured. George had been born in fifty-six. Whew, that was a pile of years back. And his boy, George, junior got born about … seventy-nine or so. And that meant Robbie had come along maybe in 1800 … No, that would make him too old. This was 1820, the year of the new county. Rob dropped his remembering and thought about the new county name.
Perry
County seemed good enough. Old Admiral Perry fought a good fight, and being a county, they were finally clear of that bunch of flat-landers south of Kittatinny. He didn’t have much use for Carlisle people. He reckoned that sometimes his head still hurt where they had strung him out by his hair.
The new county took in just about the right piece of land, too. Had to give credit to whoever did the laying out. The land between Blue Mountain and the Tuscarora was natural enough, and stopping at the mountains to the west was right. The only difference he would have made would be to end the county at the Juniata River. That old river would split the county as long as it flowed. Good people over in Millerstown and Liverpool, though. Guess they were about as glad to get free of Cumberland as he was.
His steps had turned up the slope, and he felt a warning twinge deep in his chest. Huh, time was he used to run clear over to Aughwick, and now he heaved and blew just going to the privy.
He sat on E’shan’s burial stone and looked across the valley. The shade under the old oak looked inviting, and it was about as far as he cared to travel. The burying spots all looked good. He had seen to that. Once he laid himself down beside Becky, he expected things would soon go to seed, but it wouldn’t matter to him then, anyway.
They were all there with him even now. Curious how he remembered them at their best. Shikee always stood with his scars painted bright, and even his boy George looked strong and ready to do something. He supposed George had lived a good life. He had raised a family, and he had run the mill right well. But George had been a plodder, and Rob wished he had had more spark to him. As her first born, George was loved sort of special by Becky. It might have been just as well that they went together. Black Diphtheria was a hard way of dying though. Rob prayed that they had seen the last of it.
He ran his hand over Becky’s marker, noticing how over the years he had worn a smooth spot where he rubbed, and missing her still somewhere deep within his mind and body. He wondered if that part that ached for her voice and touch might not be his soul. He sighed to rid his throat of the familiar tightness and made his way slowly toward the oak.
Arrowmaker (Pennsylvania Frontier Series) Page 28