Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
About Roy Chandler
Books by Roy Chandler
Copyright © 1984 and 2013 by Katherine R. Chandler. All rights reserved.
Publication History
ebook: 2013
Katherine R. Chandler, Publisher
St Mary's City, Maryland
First Printing: 1984
Bacon and Freeman, Publishers
Orwigsburg, Pennsylvania
This is a work of fiction. None of the characters represent any persons living or dead.
All characters and incidents depicted were created by the author.
This book is for my sister
BARBARA CHANDLER BATES
with special memories of "Jim"
&
"Floppy Man"
BOOK ONE
Chapter 1
July 1863
It might have been the heavy July heat that made Nace Myers' tongue run careless. At least it was that sort of a day.
Sun-baked humid air drifted up from the south until just breathing made a man sweat and even the shaded hotel porch offered little relief. The trees on the market lot across the Bloomfield square looked cooler but furnace heat and the ankle deep dust between discouraged the loafers from finding out. Until Chip Shatto rode through, they slouched in place, bored, sweaty, and willing to be irritated by anything.
Nace Myers wasn't a foolish man but he had big ideas about himself and had gotten used to being taken as a tough and dangerous sort. Nace had done his service and he had lost his right hand in a melee that grew and varied with each telling. An early war hero, Myers had stacked arms and retired to a poorer life of bar leaning and bragging that quickly wore out his welcome with all but others of similar ambitions,
Nace Myers received more attention than many limb short veterans because he solidly mounted a long double-edged knife blade in the wooden block he wore in place of a hand and spent a lot of time honing it to razor sharpness. Big and mean looking with the leather scabbard whipped off his blade, Myers was forbidding enough to intimidate many.
As far as the village knew, he had never cut anyone but he had threatened more than a few and seemed increasingly anxious for a chance to use the blade on something more lively than white pine whittling,
Choosing Chip Shatto as a likely prospect woke the porch loungers in a hurry but none of them, maybe even including Nace himself, thought it a particularly well-conceived action.
Chip had already ridden through, turning south on Carlisle Street, and Myers had sent a long war whoop after him. As Chip rode on without reacting, the loafers chuckled over Nace's daring because it was pretty well conceded that Chip Shatto might be more than a little dangerous himself.
Of course the stories Cad Jones and some of the others told about Shatto's western years might be pure hog drippings, but clad in skins and moccasins, Chip Shatto did give a man pause.
When Shatto rode back through the square Nace Myers was sitting on the porch steps, as usual whittling with his wickedly-tipped stump. Having raised a laugh and built his reputation a little, Myers tried again. When Chip was close he invited loudly, "Hold up, Shatto, and buy us old soldiers a mug or two. It's a boilin' day an' we're near parched."
Shatto's black eyes glittered under the broad slouch hat and his voice was cool and distant. "Some other time, perhaps." His horse walked on.
Undeterred, Myers added, "Oh come on now, Shatto. They'll serve Injuns in here." It got suddenly silent on the porch before a chair settled noisily onto all four legs. Shatto's horse seemed to stop of its own accord only yards from the brick sidewalk. Again Shatto's cold eyes took in Myers and the other loungers and most felt their senses keen the way they did around a vicious dog.
Nace felt it too because he lifted his blade suggestively, allowing it to glitter in the light, and spoke warningly, "Now don't waste time lookin' mean around here, Shatto. More than me've stood to fire, an' hard looks by them that ain't worn the uniform don't worry us much."
He spat noisily in Chip's direction and added, "If you ain't buyin', you'd best move on afore I prick that nag you're straddlin' an' help her along." He casually sliced a long sliver from his whittling stick.
Shatto swung his left leg across his horse's neck and dropped off so gently the dust barely stirred. He stepped onto the sidewalk moving feather light on his toes with a grace remarkably different from the heavy booted stride common to most.
A big boned hand, calloused from horse handling, swept past his calf-high moccasin and appeared holding a Green River knife sharpened on both edges and long enough to make Nace's blade look puny. That quick, throats got dry along the porch and Nace Myers froze where he sat.
If Chip Shatto had seemed a cold and distant figure, that was now gone. His wide-shouldered body weaved a little as though hungry to fight and the black Shatto eyes were hot with an intensity that jellied nerves and made breathing short and painful. When he spoke, his voice was brittle and icily emotionless.
"You've waved that knife once too often, Myers. I'm callin' you right now. Get on your feet and start cuttin' or I'll slice your guts where you're sittin'!"
Nace Myers felt his soul shrivel and any fight he thought he had disappeared in a sudden sweat of raw terror that soaked his body. There was no give showing in Shatto at all and Myers felt like a man trapped with a rabid panther. He feared to move lest Shatto use that god awful knife on him, and the transition from aggressive bragging to cringing fear was so sudden that Myers had no opportunity to wonder about his friends' reaction. Right then he didn't care; he just wanted to find a way to keep healthy.
If Nace Myers had not known it before, the difference between advancing on an enemy while surrounded by other determined men and facing a skilled knife wielder more than ready to cut you to death, was canyon wide. Suddenly, pretentions were gone, bluffs were useless and only ability and heart remained. Shatto's abilities were bright in the smooth power of his movements. The way he held the long Green River blade low, with threatening point and edge, showed confident familiarity and his readiness to start cutting was only too obvious. Nace Myers had to crawl. If he did not, Chip Shatto would cut him deep and ride off leaving him bleeding on the square.
If Myers had had time to consider the improbability of a knife duel at the county seat in 1863 he might have wondered how it had all come about. Men didn't do those things any more. They might brawl or even slash at each other with liquor dulled minds but mostly, just mean words were exchanged with the weaker man taking them and backing off so no one got hurt. Shatto was cold sober and rattlesnake ready. Nace Myers knew as sure as hell drew closer that if he stood up, Shatto would be all over him like a catamount and he recognized just as surely that he wouldn't be able to do anything about it.
Nace was willing to threaten farmers and townsmen, but he wasn't up to facing a knife fighter. Unmindful of how others might see him, he sank lower on the porch step and held up his good hand as though it could help ward off Chip Shatto's menacing knife. He managed words but hardly understood them.
"Now Shatto, I got no call to knife fight you. I'm just a crippled soldier with only one hand."
Shatto didn't even hesitate. He flipped his knife into his left hand and stuck his good right hand into the back of his pants. Fury was still riding his voice and he spoke loud enough for all to hear.
"Alright, Myers, we're equal now. Quit weaseling and fight!"
Nace sank even lower on his porch step. He laid his own knife-mounted arm out across the porch, placing it as far from Shatto as he could get it. The fear in his voice embarrassed other loafers not facing Shatto's anger, but Nace was beyond caring.
"I ain't fighting you, Shatto. I just ain't fightin'." He flopped his good arm down the steps leaving himself exposed and helpless.
For a long moment the watchers thought Shatto might knife him anyway, and the recognition slipped through more than one mind that Myers had unwittingly unleashed a deadliness beyond anything any of them had experienced. The stories Cad Jones told about Chip Shatto were suddenly believable.
"Alright, Myers, you won't fight, but I've listened to your yapping mouth for the last time and you've waved that knife around once too often." Shatto's voice was still bitter sharp but at least he wasn't cutting.
"You just stick that blade of yours between a pair of those porch planks and snap it off. Do it now, Nace!"
Myers hesitated, hating the degradation of it, and the delay cost him. Like a giant cat, Chip was over him and the long knife went in just under Myers' jawbone. It barely cut but the iron-like arm holding it and the merciless eyes, black as well bottoms, finished Nace Myers' resistance.
With utmost caution he inched himself into a better position and thrust the shiny steel of his blade through a crack between boards. The pressure of Shatto's knife was unremitting, forcing his head awkwardly backwards, and with only a soft sob of fear and frustration Myers heaved his strength sideward against the trapped blade, snapping it off cleanly.
In the fearful and embarrassed silence onlookers heard the broken blade strike something hard beneath the porch but their minds were on the combatants and the knife still pressing into Nace Myers' throat.
Shatto nodded short acceptance and then leaned even closer to his antagonist.
"Now, Nace, if you ever put another blade into that stump I'm going to look on it like a personal challenge and come after you. You understand that?"
Mouth parched by fear and developing mortification, Myers nodded delicately against the knife's pressure.
"And Nace, if you've occasion to talk to me, make certain sure your words are real kindly and friendly like, alright?" Again Myers gently nodded.
Shatto stood back a step, his knife gone to its boot scabbard almost as quickly as it had appeared. Like snuffed candles his eyes lost their heated intensity and appeared almost bemused. He still spoke to the slumped Myers as though the others were not even present.
"I must be turning soft, Nace. A few months back I'd have gutted you from crotch to gullet." His eyes seemed to smile coldly." Just don't risk it again, Nace. Where I've been livin', a man's mighty fortunate to get a second chance and I never heard of anyone surviving for a third."
Shatto stepped to his tall Appaloosa and ignoring the stirrups, rolled into his saddle like an Indian. He backed the horse using only knee pressure, then turned it and loped easily west along the dusty main street.
On the porch men expelled too long held breaths and a few laughed nervously. One friend went over to commiserate with the chagrined Myers but most avoided looking that way as the man's mortification was unbearably complete and they did not wish to share in it.
++++
Chapter 2
When the Shattos rode, people took notice. Both were big men who rode as though born to it and old Rob's gold banded peg foot glinted through dust or dark, marking him as someone special.
Chip had been away many years so even before the Nace Myers incident he too required thinking about. Chip had become a man exploring those Rocky Mountains, even the biggest fool could see that.
Still, a lot of good men rode through Bloomfield without raising a mutter among the old men and limb short war veterans who gathered around the square. They missed little and not much impressed them. They were quick to shout greetings or launch appreciative whistles after attractive females, but the Shattos struck them some different and salutations tended to be muted, with speculation only half concealed.
Of course reputations had something to do with it.
Old Rob had killed his man more than once and no one doubted he'd do it again if the need arose. Chip, it was getting told around, had fought Indians and lived with the wild bunch while he was in the west. Most expected the stories were true.
Singly, the Shatto men loomed a bit larger than life. Together, the father and son relationship jumped at you powerful enough to make a man nervous. Where an average man might stand five feet eight or so, the Shattos topped six feet by a few inches. Their bodies were rock hard wedges, big boned, with excess flesh stripped away by constant riding. Chip's thickly muscled frame showed the awesome powered roundness that old Rob had shared before age had begun stringing his still corded, arms and shoulders and imparting a wolf-like leanness.
Men could envy the Shattos' physical presence, and many did, but their eyes also prompted restrained behavior. Anthracite black, framed by naturally tanned skin and jet eyebrows, Shatto eyes snapped with alert awareness that could focus with almost hypnotic intensity." Like looking into a grave," one man contended. Men weren't necessarily afraid, but those black Shatto eyes did invoke caution.
When people wanted to know about the Shattos they usually turned to Cadwallader Jones. Cad had grown up with old Rob and had spent his years working in county government. Retired, with painful rheumatism swelling his joints, he loafed away the good weather among old cronies on the town square.
Jones never tired of telling Shatto stories. Mostly he told how old Rob had driven the Ruby clan from the county and lost his foot in an ambush on Carlisle Street. He told of Rob's great strength in lifting the round stone that men still struggled with on the market lot. He didn't have to tell of the arrowhead branded horses the Shattos still raised. Everybody knew about them.
Mountain horses, old Rob called them, bred and trained for long and hard traveling across the Great Plains and through the mighty Shining Mountains. Cavalry soldiers also desired Shatto horses for they stood to gunfire and kept their feet under the roughest going. Only a few saw service however as Rob limited sales to those he believed special. Rob Shatto did not raise horses for cannon fodder.
In fact, Shatto horses were becoming few. Since Chip and Ted had gone west in 1856, old Rob hadn't worked as hard at it. Ted was settled for good out in Texas they said, but maybe now that Chip had come home, the wild Shatto horsemen would again rattle the ridges and valleys with the drumming and crashing of hard ridden animals.
Although he had been home less than a month, Chip was already centered in controversy. People were taking sides and the rowing about him didn't seem likely to quiet down. With the Civil War taking a turn for the better, Northern spirits could have lightened a little, but if anything, the streams of wounded and savaged boys dragging home from the fighting increased. The rolls of honored dead lengthened and healthy young men not in uniform received increasingly cool receptions from the general citizenry.
In Chip Shatto's defense it could be rightly noted that he had gone west years before war developed. He had barely returned and it was, in fact, perfectly legal to buy a substitute to serve in his stead, if he so chose.
Perhaps the Shattos rode too proudly, or carried too many guns and knives, or possessed too much hard currency.
Where another might have passed with little notice, Chip Shatto raised hackles, and mutterings that he should be with the Army became popular grist for milling.
The humbling of Nace Myers was a story to be savored and mulled over. It was a scary tale for most and the tellers were able to embellish the yarn with more than a few imaginative details. Chip's words changed with each repetition and some even had Chip's knife stretched nearly
to saber length.
Few listeners doubted that Nace Myers had it coming, but some chewed the point that Nace was a crippled war veteran and they weren't sure that a man who hadn't served was the one to do the straightening out. Most simply digested the story with relish and prepared to pass along their version of how it had happened.
Rob Shatto got the story from a friend who had picked it up in Newport. According to what the friend had heard, Chip snapped Myers' knife and then jerked the man by his hair over half the town square, all the while threatening to scalp him after he cut his throat from ear to ear.
Rob asked why Chip had jumped the one armed veteran, but the man hadn't gotten that part clear. Bad words over a horse or something, he thought.
After his friend rode on, Rob sat on the porch for a while with his peg propped comfortably on the railing. Without awareness, he aimed it across the valley toward different spots on Middle Ridge using the peg tip as though it was a front sight.
Chip was down in the meadow in the shade of some big oaks along Little Buffalo Creek where they had a small shed for storing horse grooming equipment. It was usually easier to bring the mounts there than up to the barn and Rob had seen Chip walking his Appaloosa mare into the trees some time before. Probably he was giving her a good going over with a currycomb and maybe raking the burrs and mats from her tail.
For a man suspected of being a little wild, Chip looked pretty far ahead and a good demonstration of that was his bringing home of two mares from the Nez Perce country. The Appaloosa strain that old Rob had started in his horses had pretty well run out and the new blood was welcome.
It was good to sit and think about Chip. For almost two years he and Amy had thought him dead in the distant Rockies. Then he'd shown up unannounced, full grown, and as far as Rob could tell, a man to ride the river with.
That didn't mean they weren't more than a little worried about Chip. It might be that Amy worried more than he did, but that was a mother's way. Rob wasn't bothered because Chip hadn't settled down; hell, the boy was only thirty years old and young men leading adventurous lives often remained light footed after their more stolid companions were well into family raising. He probably understood Chip a bit better because he had hallooed along those same trails.
Chip Shatto (Perry County Series) Page 1