Blood at Dawn

by Jim R. Woolard

  “I saw Court Starnes earlier, Mr. Watkins, and I’m delighted the three of you have been assigned to Dodd and his horse tenders. Dodd desperately needs the advice and counsel of those with experience controlling animals in the wilds. We can’t wait each morning for him to find his charges, particularly now that General Butler has changed our means of advancement.”

  Bear rose in his iron stirrups. “He changed St. Clair’s orders?”

  I watched the captain like a circling hawk. I couldn’t count the times Paw had written that no one defied Arthur St. Clair, who not only commanded the army but was also governor of the Northwest Territory.

  Starkweather’s smile was brief. “We will henceforth cut a single road instead of two. Yesterday, not even an extra ration of rum excited the chopping crews. We are naming the streams north of the Miami by distance from Fort Hamilton, and General Butler was not pleased that at the end of the first day we halted at Two Mile Creek. We don’t move faster than that, we’ll not reach the Saint Mary’s River and the Shawnee towns till midwinter.”

  The captain stood in his stirrups and aimed a gloved hand across the road to the southwest. “Dodd and his men are still chasing down loose stock. I’m sure you will be most welcome,” he concluded, dropping back into the saddle. “Mr. Downer, you know your horses. And before you take your leave, I have something for you.”

  Reaching into a leather saddlebag at his hip, Starkweather extracted a rosewood-handled knife, complete with black leather scabbard. He kneed the sorrel closer and extended his arm. “This will replace the weapon you lost recovering Mistress Green. I would be most proud to have someone of your courage carry it. It’s been in my family for many years.”

  My mouth didn’t drop open as far as those of Tap and Bear, though I would have topped them easy had Starkweather’s gesture not taken me so aback. It was an expensive gift I couldn’t refuse. The twinge of hesitation I forcibly swallowed stemmed from the realization a rival you envied was doubly difficult to dislike if he was generous to boot.

  I slid the knife free of the scabbard, admiring the slightly curved handle, small brass guard, and brass end pommel. I ran the cutting edge of the twelve-inch blade along the top of my wrist. Hair parted from skin. The blade was razor sharp. My delighted grin pleased the lieutenant. “It will have the best of care, and I thank you.”

  Starkweather saluted, reined the sorrel about, and headed north again toward Butler’s headquarters. We watched his departure, then Tap suggested we better seek out Dodd on the quick. “With gifts fallin’ from the sky, it’s got to be a great day awaitin’ us.”

  At the start, Tap’s uplifting outlook showed great promise. The bright sunshine was a welcome break from the recent rain, and a light breeze, warming by the minute, skittered early leaves at the feet of our horses. It was a true Injun summer morning, the favorite season of both the raiding Shawnee as well as the Kentucky squirrel hunter.

  Unfortunately, we soon arrived at the Dodd horse camp of the previous evening where events soured with the stink of spoiled milk. Packhorses milled in an enclosure built by stringing rope from tree to tree. A larger bunch of unfettered pack animals roamed the surrounding woods. Hoof cuts and bites that had drawn blood told they had been fighting among themselves, most probably over scant forage. Taller riding stock, a dozen in number, stood hitched to a picket line at the center of the campsite.

  Despite the hour, nearly eight by the clock, sleeping tarps and blankets lay scattered helter-skelter about a fire not yet doused. The only jasper in sight, a smallish character with narrow shoulders wearing a bearskin hat with a jutting leather bill, sat on a log writing in a bound ledger book, inkwell balanced beside him on the rough bark. His upward peek from beneath the jutting hat bill exposed a pumpkin countenance divided above the lips by the thinnest of mustaches. Spurning even the slightest nod of greeting, the narrow jasper resumed his entries, the quill of his pen dancing merrily.

  Bear Watkins was by inclination a mannerly soul, schooled by a mother who taught him, so he said, that neighborliness cost nothing more than a smile and a kind word, which the Lord provided all his subjects free. Bear trusted his mother’s teachings without question and, therefore, had no patience with those who were rude without provocation. The sharp clicking of metal against metal, the unmistakable sound of a rifle cocking, overwhelmed the scratching of the quill pen. “Valentine Dodd, ain’t yuh?”

  The bearskin hat tilted, and small, widening eyes stared flush into the yawning muzzle of Bear’s long gun. Hell and damnation, I would’ve found the gumption to smile real friendly and sincere, too, had I been sitting on that log. And I’ll vouchsafe for him, Valentine Dodd made right proper work of it. Stone would’ve melted in his mouth.

  “Yes, sir. I’m Monsieur Dodd,” said the rifle’s would-be target, bearskin hat suddenly off his mostly hairless head. “And who might you be?”

  “I’m Bear Watkins. This is Ethan Downer an’ Tap Jacobs,” Bear answered, easing the hammer of his long gun to half cock and singling us out one at a time. “Court Starnes sent us to help with the horse stock.”

  Dodd shot to his feet, nearly upsetting his inkwell. “That is grand news. I’m lacking men, and the redsticks are everywhere. They steal from us every night.”

  Bear hawked and spat. “You actually seen the Injuns stealing your ownself?”

  “No,” Dodd admitted. “But Gabe Hookfin reports such, and he knows the Indians true as any Kentucky scout.”

  “And where would we find your wise Mr. Hookfin?” an openly skeptical Tap inquired.

  “He’s hunting stray animals with Ira Fellows and Henry Cross. They shouldn’t be much longer,” Valentine assured us.

  Bear stood his rifle on his thigh. “Not to pry, mind yuh, but you or your hires ever been around horses much outside of the stable?”

  The horse master answered instantly and completely. “No, we haven’t. We were mucking stalls at Fort Pitt when we met Court Starnes. He put coins in our palms and dreams in our heads, and here we be.”

  “Just as I figured,” Bear concluded. “I listen close at night an’ I have yet to hear the first bell. You can’t keep track of horses you don’t hobble or picket at night without bells. Starnes ever mention bells before you sailed from Pittsburgh?”

  Perhaps afraid Bear would bring his rifle into play again, Valentine hid nothing. “No, sir, he said we’d have soldiers detailed to help us, so there wasn’t any sense paying for gear we didn’t need.”

  Bear’s head shook slowly. “Well, let’s hope General St. Clair doesn’t learn his horses have been allowed to drift free after dark. There’ll be the devil to pay if’n he does.”

  Dodd’s ledger book snapped shut, his smile a memory. “I’ve done the best I could with what Court Starnes gave me. I can only pray it doesn’t prove my ruination. I’m not partial to the stock or a public whipping.”

  “Neither are we, Dodd, neither are we,” Tap said with a sigh.

  Hooves knocked beyond the rope pen of the packhorses. Three riders hazed an additional dozen animals behind those already tied to the picket line. The foremost rider booted his mount around the line to within a few rods of us. He was beanpole tall and knife-blade thin in every limb. The flesh of his forehead, cheekbones, and jaws clung to the bones beneath them. His chapped mouth was a mere slit in skin dry and shrunken as drawn leather.

  “These gents flailin’ your rope, Dodd?” the lean horseman challenged defiantly.

  While I wasn’t widely experienced in the dealings of hostile men, I had the wherewithal to suspect you never crowded any rider with his rifle standing on his thigh, less’n your own weapon was leveled and cocked. Bear’s long gun tilted downward, and Gabe Hookfin’s slit of a mouth puckered shut. He had stuck both boots in the manure and knew it, for like Valentine Dodd before him, he had unexpectedly gained the privilege of staring down the barrel of Bear’s rifle. The musket resting across his lap, the major source of his bluster, was suddenly of no consequence whatsoever.
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br />   It was Dodd who spared the fuming Hookfin a possible ball through the innards. “Gabe,” Valentine called in a rising voice, “this be Bear Watkins and friends, come to help with the herding on the orders of Court Starnes.”

  The change in Hookfin’s demeanor was pronounced. His body slackened in the saddle. “Sorry, my friend. I wasn’t aware you’re one of us.”

  Bear’s rifle never wavered. “We’re not one of you. We’re here on the orders of Caleb Downer. We work for Caleb, not Court Starnes. Everybody understands that, we can be plumb helpful till Caleb sends for us. When he does, we’re gone, be it day or night. That suit you, young’un?”

  The beanpole’s lengthy stare was ample evidence he detested the comeuppance Bear had laid on him, but pointed weapons are plumb persuasive, and the nodding of Gabe Hookfin’s head, though slow and reluctant, was nonetheless witnessed by all present.

  Tap and I had no objection to what Bear had done. Yet there was no denying we now had an enemy within our own camp, and maybe more than one if Hookfin’s companions watching from the picket line felt as he did. My own head shook with resignation. Odd it was, that men bearing arms together could be downright touchy with one another despite the fact they shared the same danger and a common enemy.

  Peace reigned the balance of the daylight hours, for Miles Starkweather returned, accompanied by other mounted dragoons anxious to bring the baggage horses forward. Once the column lined out, the surveyor with his shielding party of riflemen, the road cutters with their protecting troops, and five horse-drawn cannon led off in that order on General Butler’s single highway twelve feet wide. The ammunition wagons and the baggage horses carrying the supplies rolled next, followed by five more pieces of artillery under the protection of a rear guard. The First and Second Americans and their counterparts, the levy regiments, marched to the left and right of the road by single files at a distance of one hundred yards. Mounted dragoons then flanked those marching on foot.

  Though tending to fall to the extreme rear and mix with the ragtag collection of camp followers trailing the column, the bullock herd was mostly contained twixt the outside columns and the road. We Dodd men spent the day on the heels of the rear guard where the officers’ servants traveled, always well in advance of the camp followers. Our duty was to see after the spare horses of the officers and those pack animals too infirm for hauling that particular morning.

  The weather stayed fair and sunny and the going, while faster than the previous day, was nothing to brag upon. At noon, we lurched across Four Mile Creek. Twice during the afternoon, General Butler himself, portly in figure and mounted on a sizable brown mare, inspected the entire column, his visits eliciting cheers from the women camp followers so lusty and sustained we heard them over the lumbering bullocks surrounding us. In late afternoon, the column bore westward up the meandering bed of Seven Mile Creek, and we halted for the night within the gorge of that shallow stream.

  We watered the riding stock and baggage horses, bunching them along the banks of the creek to take advantage of the grasses that had survived the early frost. Sufficient forage was available in the bottoms to keep the herd fairly close about till dawn. At dusk, I was beyond the far bank checking for any additional open ground with good graze when the camp followers continued upstream as would become their habit. The women preferred to spend the dark hours next to the wagoners, locating themselves hard abreast of the fires closest to the rear elements of Butler’s command. Missing an opportunity to snatch at least a peek at Erin Green proved powerfully disappointing.

  The situation at Dodd’s fire didn’t brighten my mood, either. Tap and Bear were standing the early watch, leaving me free to sup first with the others. Our campsite was a barren pocket in a beech grove twenty yards from the water’s edge. Blazing flames greeted me. Dodd was there, writing in his ledger by firelight, along with Henry Cross and Ira Fellows. Both Henry and Ira were nearly thirty in years and dressed in hide clothing as ancient and patched as that of Gabe Hookfin. Their caps had been fashioned from coon fur complete with ringed tails. They were seated and sharing a jug of rum, waiting for the fire to burn down to coals so serious cooking could begin. I dropped my gear alongside theirs and plopped atop my saddle.

  “Where’s Gabe?” Henry Cross asked Dodd, stuffing a wedge of leather into a boot to plug a break in its sole.

  His quill never stopping, Dodd said, “Off gabbing with his spirit-swilling friends, the Pennsylvania levies. One of them brought word the levies are demanding their discharge end of the month.”

  “And Gabe loves to stick his nose in wherever there’s a dispute, don’t he now?”

  “Aye,” Dodd confirmed. “To the ears, head foremost.”

  “Well, if’n he weren’t there, he’d be tryin’ to sniff out Erin Green’s scent, though I can’t rightly blame him none,” Ira Fellows alleged with a rattling chuckle. “I surely did enjoy my gander at her an hour ago.”

  The mention of Erin’s name naturally caught my attention, and with head lowered, I studied Ira from the corner of an eye, not wanting to show too much interest straight off. Maybe he and Henry hadn’t heard of my rescue of her. Then again, maybe they had.

  Henry Cross stood the boot he was repairing next to the fire. “For a female hardly growed, she’s surely strung together something fine.”

  “Yesiree, she must taste sweet as combed honey,” Ira proclaimed with sudden enthusiasm before touching a lighted twig to the tobacco in his clay pipe. He blew smoke, then looked my way. “You spent time in the woods with her. What say you, Downer?”

  I peered past the rum jug Ira fisted my direction. Surprisingly, my quick temper stayed to home, for Ira was most assuredly moonstruck just thinking of Erin Green, and neither he nor Henry Cross intended to befoul her name when describing the appeal of her body or pondering what it would be like to be alone with her. That was the way of it with honest men everywhere once they sighted a truly beautiful woman.

  “Well, Downer, yuh gonna make us wait a week afore you bother to answer Ira there?”

  Gabe Hookfin’s outburst gave me a genuine start. Damned if the beanpole, for all his bluster, didn’t move about with less noise than a bird on the wing.

  “Come on, Downer, let’s hear it. She as wild as that red hair?”

  I didn’t budge a lick. He was behind me, and I feared my temper would betray me. I’d succumbed to blind anger in the past and taken a severe beating when my opponent landed a telling first blow. Gabe’s temper was bad as mine. He surely was remembering how Bear had taken him to task. It was entirely possible he was using Erin to rile me into a fight he believed he could win rather than tackle the larger and stronger Bear. Revenge of any kind just now would tickle the beanpole.

  I reached and lifted the rum jug from Ira’s lingering hand. “I wouldn’t have any notion how wild she might be. With all them Injuns lurking about, I was more interested in keepin’ my hair than anything she had to offer.”

  Hookfin snorted loudly. “Too bad I wasn’t there. I would have gotten that silk shirt of hers undone, Injuns or no Injuns, and I’m bettin’ she’d have thanked me afterward.”

  Tilting the jug, I sipped slowly, then downed the liquor in a long swallow. I had to make a decision, a decision that, if wrongly made, could lead to much trouble and perhaps the spilling of blood. And that blood might prove to be mine.

  I was in no position to challenge Gabe Hookfin with muscle or weapons. He was still behind me, and I was seated with my rifle leaning across my gear and my belt weapons, Starkweather’s knife and my hatchet, useless till I stood upright and freed them. He would have the first play, no question.

  I glanced at Valentine Dodd, who sat directly before me on the other side of the fire, his pen momentarily at rest. He watched me with hardly a blink. Seeing he had my attention, he wagged his bearskin hat ever so slightly. At the wrinkling of my brows, his bearskin hat wagged “no” a second time. Maybe he didn’t dare intercede on my behalf, but the horse master surmised as I did
that Gabe Hookfin’s primary purpose in boasting how he would have taken advantage of Erin Green had he been in my place was to goad me into attacking him.

  Even knowing that, I was still inclined to turn low and fast and risk being whipped at the get-go rather than knuckle under to the slandering beanpole. But much as it hurt, I swallowed my pride, and it was because of Paw that I refrained. My orders were to work with the Dodd men, not brawl with them. Whether I emerged the victor or not, Paw would likely send me packing once he heard the whole story. He didn’t need men about him who couldn’t overlook a few incendiary remarks about a camp girl for the sake of keeping the peace within their own camp. You engaged the enemy, not your own.

  By Christ, I hated the doing of it, but there was only one response that I thought might safely defuse the beanpole behind me. I came to my feet like a snake uncoiling, rifle clasped loosely by the barrel. “Ira, the woods are calling, and since I’m not partial to sleepin’ in wet breeches, I’m afraid I’ll have to let you and Gabe argue the charms of Erin Green.”

  Deliberately avoiding even a peek at the beanpole, I skirted the fire, the quickest way to put space twixt the two of us, and took for the woods. It was the longest short walk I ever made.

  A stride or two into the trees, a string of curses erupted back at the fire, Gabe blowing off his frustration at being outfoxed. He would brand me a coward or at least try to, and some would listen. I could bear up under that, knowing Dodd would tell Paw the truth at my request. I had a hunch Valentine Dodd was neither a weakling nor a liar. He did the best with what the Lord had given him.

  I angled toward the creek, the last of the anger that had nearly overcome me draining away. The moon was out and shining through every open seam of tree branch and leaf. Beech trunks shone as if painted silvery gray. The frost had silenced most of the singing, clacking night critters of summer, and dead leaves crumbled beneath my moccasins in dry squeaks. It was a singular repeating of that dry squeaking off to my left that caught my ear. Had it been a horse, a following noise would have confirmed the movement of something with more than two legs.