The Shawnee war whoop and sharp bang of a rifle firing sounded one after the other. An unseen blow knocked the big Kentuckian backward. He pivoted on legs suddenly unable to bear the smallest of burdens and toppled.
I rolled onto my hands and knees and scrambled toward Erin. The awakened deserters were looking frantically about, confused and unsure as to just where their enemy was and how many there were. Panic cracking his voice, one wailed shrilly, “Corporal Deeds? Corporal?”
Erin had drawn into a ball, making of herself the smallest possible target. The blade of my missing hatchet shone in the moonlight. I seized the smooth wooden handle. A diving body smashed into my ribs and spun me around. I hit the ground on cheek and shoulder, the breath whooshing from my lungs.
Stunned to the quick, I tried to roll and separate myself from my attacker. A knee caught me in the middle of the back, pinning me flat. Metal rapped my forehead, slid downward over my nose, split my lip, and passed under my chin. The musket barrel lodged against my throat, shutting off my wind. I tried to move, to escape, but I was helpless, my arms trapped beneath me. My lungs screamed for air and my senses reeled. Holy Jesus, this time I truly was a goner!
My attacker grunted, stiffened, and a quaking tremor coursed through his entire frame. The press of the musket against my throat eased. Someone yelled, “Yuh little bitch!” I drew breath, hitched my hips, and bucked sideways, sliding from beneath my attacker. I rolled into a sitting position and took a quick gander about.
My attacker lay belly down next to me, the handle of the Starkweather knife protruding from just below his ribs. Another deserter held a flailing, kicking Erin by her long, red pigtail. A flintlock pistol occupied his other fist. I pulled the Starkweather knife from dead flesh and bolted upright.
A rifle cracked! Erin’s captor jerked, rose onto his toes, and collapsed at her feet. And there, behind her, was the final deserter, lifting his musket to his shoulder. With no more pondering than that required to swipe snot from a nostril, I lunged forward into the line of fire, tensed for the coming bullet.
The upward sweep of the deserter’s musket halted abruptly. His eyes bugged, his fingers opened, and he pitched onto his face. Sticking from the center of his shoulders, curved blade buried nearly to the handle, was a tomahawk that could belong only to Tap. The old scout walked calmly from the direction of the creek. “Might touchy there for a flash, huh, mistress?”
Next thing I knew, she was in Tap’s embrace, crying and snuffling and thanking him again and again. Me, the would-be hero, I was quickly and totally forgotten, exactly what I didn’t expect nor want to happen. So I huffed across the creek and recovered my hat, hunting frock, and coat.
Damned if I was going to freeze to death, too.
Chapter 19
Past Midnight till Noon, 20 October
It was a childish fit of anger and disappointment, the kind a grown man usually regretted sooner than later. And for sure, the regretting came mighty quick on this occasion.
I returned from my brief sojourn fully dressed. I bore Tap’s haversack and canteen, along with my reloaded rifle, the weapon recovered from where Tap had deposited it atop the swell after his first shot. The old scout was feverishly busy scalping the deserters. Scalping was gruesome to behold, no matter who wielded the blade, and her gaze averted, the mistress knelt well beyond the faint embers of the fire slicing haunch meat from the deer the deserters had slain earlier.
The sight of pink scalp flesh and dripping blood cooled me down sudden as a bucket of icy water. It wasn’t necessary to ask Tap why he was lifting the hair of white men. He told me straight out. “We ain’t wastin’ time buryin’ these rascals, an’ anybody was to stumble upon them, it’d be best they believe the redsticks caught them by surprise. We don’t want ourselves crosswise with Colonel William Oldham. He watches over those in his militia ranks somethin’ fierce, deserters or no.”
Tap wiped his knife clean with a handful of sand and washed the blood and gore from his four scalps much as he could in the creek. He then wrapped them in a shirt stripped from one of the dead. “We’ll bury these later.”
We walked together to where Erin knelt. She was stacking the deer meat on a section of the hide. “Tie that off, Mistress Green. We must get along right smartly.”
Erin gathered the edges of the hide and tied them together. She stood and came about. She wore a woolen coat too large for her that smelled of blood. Though my outright anger had faded, I was still perturbed enough with her for having run into Tap’s arms instead of mine. I waited for her to speak first. “Mr. Downer, I thank you once more for risking yourself on my behalf. But I do wish you’d moved faster.”
I couldn’t help myself. My fuse caught fire again. “Faster? What the hell you mean by faster?”
Tired and overwrought as she had to be, she wasn’t short on spunk and sass. “I let that big oaf paw me to hold his attention. I didn’t figure on you letting him enjoy it so.”
“You knew I was there all along?” I sputtered.
“From the moment you stepped from the creek. That’s why I didn’t knee him or bite him when he reached inside my shirt.”
My temper boiled over, threatening to blind me. I had snuck into a camp of four armed men solely on her account, come close to being killed twice, and here she was criticizing me for being too slow about it. “Why you ungrateful little wench,” I blurted, stepping toward her. “I ought to turn you over a knee and blister you good!”
She held her ground without flinching. Her head tilted back, and moonlight silvered her forehead and high cheekbones. “You wouldn’t dare lay a finger on me,” she challenged.
Then Tap was in the middle of us. “We’ve no time for these shenanigans. Quiet, the both of you.”
I stayed my feet. Mad as I was, I’d no cause to disobey Tap and involve him in a personal dispute. Not trusting my tongue, I backed away and went in search of the ’hawk I’d lost in the scuffle with the Kentuckians.
She let me hunt till I kicked sand in frustration. “I have your hatchet, Mr. Downer,” she chimed sweetly.
Peacemaker Tap quelled another fiery outburst on my part. He extended his hand, and she immediately relinquished the tomahawk. He crossed the half-dozen paces separating us. He spoke in a bare whisper. “Wouldn’t want you to give her cause to do you harm with it. Now, get a grip on that temper. Yuh listenin’, Ethan?”
At my nod, he spun and faced Erin. “We need to get upcountry, an’ we don’t dare follow the Injun trace on our return. We barged after you like scared rabbits. We don’t start showin’ a little caution, the Shawnee will be liftin’ our scalps. Mistress, fill our canteens. Ethan, gather the Kentuckians’ horns, pistols, an’ muskets. The Injuns wouldn’t leave them behind.”
While I roamed among the dead, Tap removed a rolled blanket from his haversack, replaced it with the deer meat, and smothered the coals of the fire with sand. Chores completed, we rejoined the old scout, Erin occupying his opposite shoulder. “Mistress, you fetch my blanket and canteen. Ethan, you tote the deer meat an’ two of the muskets an’ pistols. I’ll fetch the rest. We won’t be burdened with them for long, I promise.”
I positioned the haversack on my backside and a musket on each shoulder, thankful the militia, poor as they were equipped, had been supplied leather slings for their long guns. The pistols I slipped behind my belt.
“We’ll head west, then work gradually to the north. At dawn, we’ll hole up till dark,” Tap informed us. “I know it’ll be hard on your mother for you to be missin’ another whole day, but thisaway the odds are more favorable she’ll see you alive again. Yuh understand, girl?”
Erin sighed and nodded. “At least I have only Injuns to fear now,” she said, peeking ’round Tap’s chest. Damn, but how she loved to tease me.
“Well and good then. Ethan, you bring up the rear. Mistress, on my heels, yuh don’t mind. Any alarm, we drop where we stand and hold tight till we sniff things out.”
Erin fell in behind the
old scout, and he led us along the run that joined the creek from the west. He stuck to the bank of the run for a mile before angling upward soon as higher ground presented itself. Bearing two heavy-caliber muskets, two pistols, and my own rifle, I was a walking arsenal, but ponderous and strained in motion as a pregnant plow horse. At the top of the low ridge I was huffing and puffing, the powder bums on my chest were afire, and my split lip was swelling and throbbing nicely. I had no objection when Tap halted beside a huge, hollow deadfall and shed the deserters’ muskets, pistols, and powder horns. I did likewise pronto.
“Mistress, I believe you have a blade an’ a coat not your own,” Tap mentioned. “If’n you please. We want no unnecessary questions when we reach St. Clair’s camp.”
Erin cast the knife into the dark hollow of the deadfall and slid from her bloodied coat. The old scout threw the garment after the discarded knife. Then, leaning his rifle against the trunk of the fallen oak, he unfastened his belt and laid it over the curve of the trunk, enabling him to remove his hooded capote. “Try this, mistress.”
Erin hesitated to take the proffered coat. “What about you?”
“Never worry about us old cusses, my child. Hand me my blanket.” She did, and with a few slashes of his knife Tap cut openings for his head and arms and fashioned a makeshift outer garment for himself. “Will you be warm enough?” Erin fretted.
The old scout laughed deep in the belly. “Young woman, I ran twenty miles in the dead of winter wearin’ nothin’, and I mean nothin’ else, anywheres, but a blanket. That’s the fate of a man caught kettle bathin’ by the Shawnee with the Licking frozen an’ snow flyin’.”
“You must have been a sight,” Erin said, giggling.
“Yeah, an’ a heap colder than I will be on this little jaunt.” The old scout wrapped his belt about his waist and fisted his rifle. “Come along. We got tracks need makin’ before first light.”
Tap wheeled and set off, Erin a stride behind him. As she had when following me after I freed her from the Shawnee, she was like a fly on the old scout’s shoulder, always in step, never hindering his pace or progress. Other than her tart mouth, it was difficult to find fault with Mistress Erin Green.
Once the high ground petered out, Tap shied from the smallest trickle of flowing water and sought the most negotiable path through the deepest forest. While we disturbed the heavy leaf cover there, our tracks were much less obvious than those we would have left in the softer earth bordering the waterways. The moon slid low in the sky. The night was approaching its blackest and coldest hour when the old scout halted. “Two of yuh plunk down here. I’ll find us a day camp with cover where we can risk a fire and smoke that venison.”
The old scout allowed us a hefty drink, reclaimed his canteen, and disappeared among the tree butts. Without a peep, Erin Green plopped against a handy trunk and scrunched deeper into Tap’s coat. She was surprisingly small seated thataway. I put a few paces twixt us and kept watch roundabout from a knee. After a spell, I heard low sniffles and her shoulders began to shake. I laid my gaze elsewhere. I wouldn’t have wanted sympathy from a stranger just then, either. I knew from experience there was nothing wrong with a good cry: It cleansed the hurt from your heart so you could gather the courage you needed to carry on. I think she slept once she finished wiping her tears on the arms crossed over her knees, for though the air grew ever colder and had me stamping my feet to stay warm, she didn’t stir again.
The first glimmer of dawn light brightened the tall trunks surrounding us. To avoid spooking me unnecessarily, Tap spoke before stepping forth into my line of sight. “Hold still, lad. It’s me, the bellied one,” he said gently, easing into view.
Frost sprinkling the shoulders of the old scout’s knife-fashioned garment sparkled in the growing light. His breath froze in small, white clouds. “Found us a likely den in the middle of a briar thicket half a mile ahead.”
The mistress rose and stretched. “Can we have a fire?”
Tap wet a finger and stuck it above his head. “Sure enough. Ain’t hardly no wind, an’ there’s plenty of wood that’ll burn with but little smoke. Follow me.”
The old scout’s den was well chosen. A high wind of some bygone storm had felled an expanse of oak trees. A wide swath of sprouting trees and briars thick as a man’s thumb circled the mass of fallen timber. Tap never said what led him to brave those slashing thorns and stick his nose into the middle of that towering pile. But he had, and he had discovered the rotting trunks lay atop each other in such a way they formed a pocket in their center not unlike a cave whose roof was partially open to the sky.
Tap pushed briars aside with his forearm. “In here, mistress. Walk sideways an’ watch yer eyes.” We slithered forward, wincing as thorns tugged at our clothing. One long stalk raked my knuckles, another my throat, both drawing blood. The mix of briars and sprouting growth closed behind us.
Fallen trees blocked our path. Large roots supported the nether end of the nearest oak, creating a natural opening beneath the slanting trunk. Loose dirt thrown by sizable claws indicated either a bear or a wolf had recently been at work enlarging the opening. “You first, mistress,” said Tap.
Erin, no stranger to the woods, hesitated and seemed to grow taller. “You’ve been inside, Mr. Jacobs?”
Tap chuckled. “Yep, an’ there ain’t no four-leggeds about this mornin’,” he assured her.
So great was Erin’s trust of the old scout, she dropped to her knees and crawled under the slanting trunk without further protest. Tap, fisting a branch adorned with brown leaves, waited for me to crawl after her. I managed to wriggle through on my belly. I heard Tap’s oak branch sweeping loose dirt behind me, smoothing what tracks we had left at the opening.
Dust floated in shafts of sunlight. The ceiling of our makeshift cave was high enough Erin could stand erect. It was wide enough across to comfortably hold twice our number. Stacked wood varying in length and thickness, obviously gathered by Tap, filled its center. Shed hair, coarse and gray colored, littered the bottom of the far wall. Except for the lack of a spring, it was a fine den in which to spend the day hidden from the pesky Injuns.
“Right clever spot, huh, mistress,” Tap commented, chest puffing. “What little smoke we make will draw through the roof holes nice an’ thin. An’ I refilled the canteen a mile from here. Dig out my tinderbox an’ that deer meat, Ethan, for I shrink to nothin’ but bone.”
Erin then took charge. She shooed us to far walls, ignited a small, bright fire with Tap’s flint and steel, strung strips of venison on our ramrods, and heated them over her flame. Meat drippings sizzled and popped. Tap gave his empty belly that loving rub familiar to all acquainted with him. “You’re a treasure, lass. A real, genuine treasure.”
Even in the sun-dappled gloom of the deadfall cave, Erin Green was a most stunning creature. I watched her hand Tap a bark slab of roasted venison and decided there wasn’t a single part of her, be it sunset-red hair, sky-blue eyes, high cheekbones, lush mouth, or full breasts pushing against the front of Tap’s coat, that didn’t fit together to her advantage. It was impossible to imagine any woman matching her beauty. The trick was to keep her beauty from dazzling you to the point you couldn’t think straight. Rescuing her from danger either time hadn’t been easy or without peril. But us Downer men being far more formidable with fist than tongue, convincing her I was something other than a prying, leering dolt ready to argue with her every word was shaping up to be a much more demanding task.
I expected the three of us would sleep the day through after we finished our meal of venison and water. While Tap did doze off and take to snoring soon as he filled his belly, my scorched ribs throbbed just enough to keep me from sleeping for now. Though I couldn’t tell she was hurt anyplace, an equally alert Erin sat opposite the fire, weaving slender branches into a smoking rack for the balance of the venison. She sensed me watching, and her gaze lifted to meet mine. “That chest wound bothering you much?”
Not wanting to fuss o
ver what I believed was a minor hurt, I hesitated to answer, but she was having none of that. “I saw you jerk when the musket went off between the two of you. There’s probably burnt powder trapped under your skin. We best look at it,” she said, walking ’round the fire on her knees.
I still thought we were making a fuss over nothing, but at least she was talking to me. I remained seated, untied my belt, and drew open Paw’s hunting frock. Showing not the slightest embarrassment, she hovered before my bared chest, red pigtail dangling in front of her shoulder. Her breath and her touch were surprisingly warm and excited every part of me. How I couldn’t fathom, but she smelled of rosewater, a scent common to my mother and sisters. Maybe being wounded wasn’t such a bother after all.
She rested on her heels. “There are two holes, both deep and fouled with powder. They must be cleaned,” she decided. “I’ll need your knife.”
I slid the Starkweather blade from its scabbard and passed it to her, handle first. “Best stretch out on your back. I don’t want to dig too deep.”
I did as she requested, demonstrating more confidence than I felt. She positioned herself beside me and leaned close. Deft fingers tugged at my flesh, the tip of the blade descended, and pain shot everywhere. She felt me flinch and squirm. “Grab onto my leg you need to,” she instructed. “The next hole is the deepest.”
She started scraping again, and I quickly forswore the much-ballyhooed hiding of the greatest pain no matter the size of the hurt I’d heard older backwooders brag about and grabbed hold of her thigh. Hell’s bells, for a few seconds I was convinced she was doing more damage to me than the original wounds. I swear the point of the knife struck bone before she was satisfied she had removed every last speck of black powder of any size. She tilted back on her heels and smiled. Blood dripped from the Starkweather blade. “Well, those holes won’t fester on you now. Too bad we don’t have some whiskey or brandy to pour over the openings. Guess I’ll have to sear them closed once I heat the knife.”
Blood at Dawn Page 19