None knew that Quinaday's body jerked with the rifle ball's impact. They did not see their leader's mouth gout blood or observe his hand seek the new wound before he toppled sideward as dead as the white settler he lay near.
Rob looked, and at the same time, raised his hastily loaded rifle. He held the gun muzzle-high, so the balls would lie tightly against the powder. A sharp rap of the butt on the ground had shaken powder into the pan-he hoped. If it had not, the rifle would not fire.
The Seneca were coming full bore. They were already close, and Rob lowered his barrel, centering on the sweating body of the biggest warrior. He squeezed hard on the front trigger, and the hammer fell in a shower of sparks. The pan flashed, and long after it should have let go, the gun fired.
Doing his enfeebled best, Rob held his aim through the extended firing time. When the rifle fired, its kick was ferocious from overload, but Rob had no time to notice.
The double-balled load struck the Seneca squarely, his body buckled forward, and his charge slowed to a walk. All interest lost, he bent further before kneeling almost gently and finally falling face first into the plowed ground. His companions raced on, their war cries unwavering.
The two leaders struck the wood's edge at full stride. They saw their enemy, and their shrieks turned triumphant. Only a few steps behind, the last Seneca drove to be in at the kill.
Within the laurel thicket there was no room to swing a clubbed rifle. Rob dropped the empty weapon, and his usually strong right hand snatched at the pistol holstered at the small of his back.
Seneca slashed through the laurel as his left palm cocked the twin hammers. Feet planted, Rob fired straight into the straining features of the nearest savage.
The face dissolved, and Rob twisted aside to fire at the second warrior. Cat-like, the fighter dove and hurled his tomahawk the few feet separating him from his enemy.
The tomahawk struck poorly, only a glancing blow, but its force pulled Rob's aim. The pistol bucked its second load somewhere into the rolling figure's body.
Rob cursed savagely, "A fat man's father!" and slammed his empty pistol barrel viciously into the wounded Seneca's skull. He felt a satisfying crush of bone run through the gun and up his arm.
Then, the last warrior was on him.
+++
Fighting to the death consumed strength in monstrous gulps. Strong men became kitten-weak within moments. Following a first great energizing in mortal combat, exhaustion descended like a pall. Fighters moved as though dazed, supported only by their will.
Quehana did not consider that he must kill only one more. No nearness of victory touched him. He lurched at the last Seneca, clutching the empty pistol, snarling a challenge so primal it should have stirred the newly dead.
No trickery, no cunning, no special weapons remained. The two slammed together and rocked as though bound, clutching and stumbling on the forest's uncertain footing.
War cries were gone, and only straining grunts of ultimate effort broke their silent struggle.
Rob Shatto had never fought so doggedly. Weakened nearly to collapse, the great strength and endurance were gone. The Seneca he grappled with seemed made of hickory and steel. His sweated skin slid beneath Rob's equally dripping hands. Sinewy muscle rippled like an eel's, threatening to tear free from a grip seemingly too weakened to maintain.
When they came together, the Seneca's stone club had passed over Rob's shoulder and sledged him hard, high in the back. Before he got a grip on the Seneca's wrist, an iron knife had slashed his side.
He had clinched with the Indian, judging his movements too clumsied for open fighting but unsure how long his remaining strength could last in any fighting.
The Seneca writhed and twisted, seeking frantically to break his enemy's grip. Rob hung on, trapping the hatchet arm in an armpit, and clinging to the knife wrist because his life depended on it. He sought to bend the Indian's back, but the Seneca's feet were quick to adjust, faster than Rob Shatto's precarious balance.
Thrashing to break loose, the Indian kicked with feet and knees. Still Rob hung on, breath sawing, setting up his own attack.
Savagely, he rammed the pistol barrel into the side of the warrior's face. Twice he struck, stripping loose flesh and hide. Shorter than Quehana, the Seneca could find no escape. Rob struck again, ripping flesh to the bone, almost reaching the eye.
The warrior's glaring eyes fastened on the weapon tearing his face away, and he redoubled his efforts to free either hatchet of knife.
This was Quehana's moment. Upward, with all remaining power, drove the knee of Quehana.
His attention on the pistol, the Seneca was slow to defend. Too late a thigh moved across, Rob's knee sank solidly into the warrior's crotch. Eye to eye they stared, the Seneca not yet responding, but each aware that the battle had been tipped. A blow too devastating to ignore had been delivered.
Then the agony struck. Pain beyond enduring wrenched the Seneca's features. Rob felt resistance flow from the warrior's body, and the Seneca began to sag.
Quehana struck again, savage driving knee kicks to the Seneca's groin. Each lifted the warrior, while Rob's grip held him in place for the next, and the next, and the next.
When Rob allowed him to fall, the last warrior of Quinadays' band slumped as dead as the others. A ferocious swipe of the pistol barrel across the Seneca's temple made sure.
Rob tried to fumble his hands into reloading, but his strength was gone. He sat, collapsed against a tree, dangling his own and the Seneca's iron knives as his only defenses, unable to do more than hope there really was not another Indian even now creeping close to do him in.
From the cabin site, Rob could hear the forlorn wailing of the fighting's only other survivor. The child would have to wait.
For only the second time in his memory, Rob Shatto was genuinely done in. He was not blaming any of it on old age or having run too fast. The giant and twisted semi-human animal he had fought along the Juniata a decade earlier had out-muscled and out-fought him when he was younger and better prepared, but a human could only stand so much, and Rob knew he had asked all he could give from himself. The surviving child was no weaker than he was right now.
A soul-devouring thirst consumed him, but it, too, would have to wait a return of some vigor.
A few minutes rest, and he would make sure of Quinaday and the others. Then, he would gather up the child. What had its name been? He would find them a safe place to lay-up. By noon, he should be able to travel again.
Rob Shatto's head sagged, and he fell deeply and soundly asleep.
18 Mary
Rob woke with a start. He experienced no transition or beginning of awareness. He was suddenly wide-awake, alert to his surroundings, and horribly aware of time's passage.
A glance toward the sun indicated most of the morning gone. For hours, he had slept, unarmed and helpless, with dead bodies lying about him. Rob could barely believe he had allowed it to happen. At least he should have crept into some sort of concealment. Surely, he could have reloaded his rifle and pistol.
Another part of his mind knew that this was fresh strength and vigor speaking. Rob Shatto had used himself up and, despite his conscious wishes, his mind and body had shut down.
A thirst beyond all other thirsts clutched his throat. His lips were dried and cracked, and his tongue felt swollen in his mouth. Nearby, a tiny run made its way riverward. Rob not only recalled it, he could smell the water. First, a drink, his very soul demanded it. Rob got a grip on the knives and began getting up.
Even rising was a struggle. Cramped legs unfolded with stiffened complaining. His head tried to flop on his shoulders, and Rob shook it to waken muscles laxed from overuse. Sharp pain seared his side where the last warrior's knife had bitten. Rob saw that dried and darkened blood caked his shirt. A dull ache behind a shoulder reminded of the stone axe's heavy chop, but he moved anyway. If he had lived this long, Rob guessed he was not about to bleed to death.
The stream trickled onl
y a little distance away, and it was slightly downhill. When he reached it, Rob practiced an ultimate self-control. Despite his ferocious thirst, he drank only a little, allowing his systems to adjust to the impact of the water. Between swallows, he dunked his face in the deepest pool and splashed water over his head and shoulders.
Strength returned with a small rush, not that he was his old self and ready to run another day or two, but he could feel his legs steady and his grip hardening. His mind began to speed up, and priorities beyond the moment reached his thinking.
Rob fought himself free of his sweat-sogged hunting shirt. The soft leather was ripped and bloodied. Along his ribs a shallow cut ran for inches. It wept blood in spots, but the leather had taken most of the knife's edge.
He clipped a small branch from a handy pine. In moments sap would bleed, and he could give his cut a thick protective coating.
He could not see his back, but the hunting shirt was not bloodied at the shoulders. Probably, the stone axe had only bruised. It was a heavy bruising, however, and careless movement or a deep breath renewed the hurt.
What about the Hornsock child? Although he had kept listening, no sound had come from the clearing.
The child had been tiny. It would be a girl. Her name was Mary. Rob could remember it now. He was thankful for the common name. If she had been called by one of the new ones appearing these days, he likely would not have recalled it.
Mary, too, must have suffered horribly. She would be his responsibility until Hornsock relatives could be located-if there were any. Rob never doubted that the girl was the only survivor. The child had appeared unhurt. She had howled loudly enough for two or three babies. The next thing was to find her, then get them both away from this place.
Rob reloaded his guns. The pistol had survived its brutal use without damage. Rob picked loose bits of Seneca jammed near the muzzle and loaded with his usual care. He held the two-barreled weapon fondly for an extra moment, remembering how his dying grandfather had given him the English gun locks, and how he, only a boy, had forged the barrels and carved the stock to his own design.
Of all the things he had made, the pistol had served him the most faithfully. It had never failed, and this time, it had provided the margin that gave him victory.
With strength, also returned caution. If distant settlers, rivermen, or other Indians had seen the heavy smoke of the burning cabin, or heard the crackle of gunfire, they had chosen to ignore it. The bodies of the dead appeared undisturbed. Smoke rose vertically in thinned streamers from the cabin's smoldering remains. Only the child was unaccounted for.
From the forest edge, Quehana studied the clearing. Although stripped to the waist, his naturally dark skin, blackened by constant exposure, kept his appearance Indian. He could only hope that his English tongue and absurdly poor German could soothe the child's natural fears. Little Mary had to be about, but where was she?
Before entering, Quehana circled the clearing observing carefully from the forest. Part way around, he crossed the tracks of Quinaday's approach. Only a short distance further, he found the child's trail.
At first, Rob saw no footprints, but something had been dragged away from the clearing. The sign was fresh, made since the sun was high.
In a moment, the sign became clear. There were prints of small bare feet. The child had been dragging a blanket; Rob found its threads on briars. Where had she gone? Rifle ready, Quehana took her trail.
For a two year old, the trek was undoubtedly long. It was downhill, the direction instinctively taken by wounded or those escaping. The same rill that Rob had drunk from ran here. The child had knelt to drink and . . .
There she was, curled within her blanket, protected by the arm-like roots of a giant tree, sleeping soundly with a thumb in her mouth.
Rob grinned, his relief great. The guilt of his surrender to sleep floated away. Fortune had smiled on both of them. A little late for the child, but she lived, and children were hardy creatures. As young as she was, the horrors would be lost with the years. Only Rob Shatto would know how close it had been for Mary Hornsock.
He left her sleeping. Quehana looked into the dead face of Quinaday. There was no mistake. This was the killer who had been pointed toward the Little Buffalo. That threat was clearly finished.
Yet, Colonel John Butler had gained advantage. He had successfully removed Quehana from the councils. Rob Shatto would go home, and he would stay there, protecting his people from any others who might be sent to massacre.
The stink of charred bodies rose from the cabin's ashes. Hornsock's body lay at the edge of his porch. Quinaday had struck cleanly, and only Quehana's unexpected arrival had defeated him.
The Indian's muskets were weary specimens, but Rob gathered them up. Any gun was welcome because the entire Iroquois Confederacy could come yelping down the Susquehanna paths.
Rob wondered how Blue Moccasin fared. Blue's counsel might prevent just such an attack. Even if he only delayed or blunted an Iroquois rising, Blue's efforts would have been invaluable.
Well, Blue Moccasin was trying, and when word of Quinaday's failure and the deaths of his war party trickled north they, too, might remind the blood-hungry that the war trail was not always a glorious path. Rob decided that Colonel Butler needed his own personal reminder.
Hornsock's cattle and his horse grazed in their pasture. With some difficulty, Rob milked the cow needing it. He hackamored the horse and loaded it with the best of Hornsock's possessions. The pots, utensils, and the horse would be little Mary's inheritance.
Rob roused the child with low calling of her name. When her eyes cleared, she gazed at him with large, reproachful eyes that rapidly tear-filled.
The familiar horse, crunching his jaws behind Rob, was probably soothing, and after a bit, she came to him, still innocently naked, dragging her blanket behind. Rob gathered her close and rocked her gently, but she suffered no great breakdown, and only snuffled into Rob's shoulder.
For clothing, Rob slashed an oval of blanket. He sliced a head hole and a pair of arm gaps in it. He dropped the arrangement over Mary's head. A length of thong cinched the waist and made a pretty good dress.
He said her mother and father had gone to heaven and so had her brother and both of her sisters. Mary's language was German with only a scattering of English words. Rob's was just the opposite.
When the child said she wanted to go with her family, Rob's heart cried for her. All he could say was that everybody went when God called them, and she probably still had things to do around here. Even that was tough working out in a foreign language.
After a while the questions stopped, and Mary talked to the horse and crooned a song to it that Rob had not heard before.
A mile from the clearing, Rob stopped to feed the child cow's milk from Hornsock's only surviving clay jug and bits of pemmican, the last of his own supply. For himself, he had corn and pemmican from Quinaday's and others' pouches. Until he was sure of the quality, he would not offer it to the little girl.
When they had eaten, Rob mounted with Mary before him. She immediately slept, and Rob let the work animal plod its natural speed southward.
He knew a settler, perhaps five miles along. There he would really rest. His side still seeped a little, and his back ached dully, the way a hammered part should.
Rob guessed that without the horse, he would have had to lay up a day or more because he was almighty trembly of limb and had to work at keeping his eyes open and senses alert.
Behind him sprawled the worst slaughter he had been part of. There had been far worse killings during the French war in '55, and just as bad during Pontiac's rising in 1763, but Rob Shatto had been mostly at the fringes.
It was hard to accept that he had just killed five times. Even knowing it was true, Rob found the killing barely believable. If he had been able to run the forest, stretching out the fighting and striking from ambush, he could imagine outwitting and finally killing five enemy, but in one spot, all at once? Whew!
Instead, Quehana lived. He wore a scar, about which only Becky and Flat would care. His tribe of helpless offspring and hangers-on would never understand what had so nearly reached them.
It occurred to Rob that if Quinaday had killed quickly or simply taken the horse and moved on, he would never have caught up. The Little Buffalo would have experienced fire and the scalping knife.
Quehana thanked the Great Spirit for his bounty. Rob Shatto prayed with grateful heart to the God of his fathers for preserving his life and those of his people.
+++
The settler was Lon Morgan. His wife took Mary Hornsock to her bosom, and Rob helped the family fort up. A son galloped with warning while Morgan beat a tremendous clanging on an iron hung from a limb to sound a more local alarm.
Rob told his story in general terms. He explained that Quinaday was probably the only war party out, but he could not be sure.
He assured the Morgans that none from that band had survived.
Accompanied by looks of pure awe, Rob rolled into one of the Morgan's blankets and slept like a dead man.
+++
Rob rested through the day and the night following. Armed settlers gathered and marched to Hornsock's place. They found conditions as Rob had described them. Hornsock's scalp was placed on his ruined head, and the family was interred in a common gave.
The Indians were dragged into the woods and left. Rob detected evasiveness there and expected the Iroquois had been scalped for later white bragging and showing. Rob did not care. He had left his own marks. Border warfare had always been brutal and unforgiving. It always would be.
Song of Blue Moccasin (Perry County, Pennsylvania Frontier Series) Page 15