Fort Robinson (Perry County, Pennsylvania Frontier Series)

by Roy F. Chandler

  "Yes, do that, Robert. Take Harry out and show him the woods. Perhaps you can find a deer. A fresh roast would be specially welcome right now."

  Agnes's urging almost turned him back, sort of making him feel that everybody thought he ought to get back to work, but he did need a walk in the quiet woods, and she had given him two excuses beyond just his need.

  Robert would have preferred going alone or with someone else. It seemed almost as though Kirknee was walking in James's place. He saw no comfortable way out, so he agreed.

  "You're right Agnes. I'm feeling awful crowded right now with Mary bad and all. We will just go out a little ways. Maybe we'll see something."

  Almost angrily to Kirknee, "You ready?" Kirknee's quiet nod made him want to kick himself, and he swore to do better.

  Hardly giving thought to his direction, Robert strode off, heading out across fields to his own place where his outhouse stood with vines already growing high on its sides. He could hear Kirknee clomping along behind in his clumsy boots. If a man didn't know enough to wear moccasins in the woods he surely wasn't much of a hunter.

  At the first ridgeline Robert pulled up, feeling Kirknee come up beside him and heard the new man panting from the swiftness of the walk. Kirknee said nothing, just looked across the woods as Robert did.

  "You done much hunting, Kirknee?"

  "No, just enough to get meat as I needed it."

  "Game has thinned out this close to the fort. Still, if we work along the ridgeline we might start a deer. You stay near the top, and I'll take it a little lower down. Work along the ridge, don't hurry, and if you shoot, make sure it isn't in my direction.

  "One other thing, I've seen no Injun sign, but if you come onto one Injun or an army of them, don't wait. Light out for the fort yelling to wake the devil. Don't look for me, don't fight them, just run. That will give you a chance, although it would be a mighty slim one at best."

  Robert could hear Kirknee's floundering track along the ridge, so he stayed well down and a little ahead. After only a few hundred yards a young doe popped up and stood looking toward Kirknee's noise. Robert laid his sights just behind her shoulder. At the rifle's crack the deer crow-hopped a few steps, humped up, and fell over.

  Robert reloaded rapidly, looking everywhere except at the dead deer. Kirknee came crashing up, saw the dead doe, and got the idea. He stepped quickly back out of sight and stayed there. Robert waited a good while, listening intently. Kirknee remained patient, waiting soundlessly until Robert said, "Alright, you start cutting. I'll watch awhile yet."

  Without hesitation, Kirknee went to work on the deer. He gutted the animal, separating heart and liver from the useless stuff. He left lungs and guts laying and cut the head loose. He lashed the four legs together and dragged the carcass clear of the mess. He squatted, got the feet over his head and rose with a grunt, the deer's weight resting on his back. He started off, taking a direct line for the fort, and Robert followed, watching carefully and giving Kirknee silent credit for doing it right.

  Kirknee rested when he needed to, making no effort to appear stronger than he was, and Robert liked that in him. Once clear of the woods, Robert took the load on in with Kirknee carrying both rifles.

  They had been gone less than two hours, but Robert felt a sight better and they had fresh venison for the company. He meant to speak to Kirknee about moccasins, but he forgot it. The next day Kirknee showed up in a worn pair he had traded for, and Robert suspected the man had possibilities.

  — — —

  Mary died on the eleventh day. Martha said she just wore down from the fever. George wasn't much use and could not say the words as he usually did. They got Mary underground the following morning and stood a good sandstone slab at her head. Women placed some dried flowers and some green boughs on the grave and went back to their tasks.

  George moped for most of the day, but by evening he was back settling arguments that had developed and was generally running the fort. If his voice was thick and tears threatened to flood, everyone understood and most appreciated that Mary Robinson had at least gone to her maker without a war whoop as her last sound.

  Within days, winter leaped from behind the mountains with limb splitting cold borne on winds so bitter that no cloak proved too heavy. Snow fell with every warming, and the mountain passes closed under deepening layers of white that blew into drifts too deep for passage.

  With the snow, men deemed the Indian menace ended until spring. Families with cabins standing separated their meager possessions and gratefully returned to their homes. Crowding at the fort lessened. Men relaxed and spent their time at woodpiles and at improving the shelters built inside the fort walls.

  Two necessities developed that were met without grumbling. The first duty was repeatedly clearing a mighty snowdrift that threatened to collapse the west wall of the stockade. Logs were braced against the inside, but the pressure of snow increased steadily, and almost daily, teams of men shoveled and carried away enough to relieve the strain.

  Snow was also removed from within the fort, but the footing grew muddy and there seemed no solution. Travel to the sinks at the stream, to the spring, or to George's cabin was through paths and occasional tunnels. Crusts formed, but new snow fell, and walking other than on shoveled paths was difficult.

  Without Indian fears, most men wished to hunt, but setting out in random parties proved unrewarding. So George organized meetings and put Robert in charge.

  "Now, I reckon everybody here figures he is a better hunter than me, and you might be right, but I'm the captain so we will do it my way for now.

  "As most have found out, deer aren't too thick out there anymore. Working together though, I figure we can bring in a few.

  "When snow is this heavy, deer aren't out browsing in the old burns and cut over stuff like they are at other times. The snow is too deep there. We'll find our deer in the big woods where the old trees are thickest and the tree cover has kept the snow from filling and drifting.

  "What we'll do is send good shots to the downwind end of a ridge. The rest of us will start moving in from upwind. Most of the deer will run from us, right into the waiting guns-we hope. If they try sneaking off to the sides, it will be up to a few flankers to drop them.

  "Now let's not everybody get to blasting away out there. If the shot isn't awful good, don't take it. This here is a hunting party, not a powder-wasting spree.

  "I'm thinking, maybe, if anybody misses, they ought to get stuck on extra guard or something, but we will try it once and see how it goes."

  Results were good. The shooting was poor but not careless. The muskets loaded with buck and ball proved their worth in close quarters. Out to fifty paces they were deadly. Beyond there, the rifles were far better.

  It was curious how next to Robert the men turned to Harry Kirknee for leadership. Kirknee didn't claim to know any more than the others, but he made decisions early and was usually correct. It became accepted that if Robert directed the watchers, Harry Kirknee took charge of the beaters that drove the deer. Sometimes they turned it around.

  Still, Robert's reserve toward Kirknee remained unbroken. Kirknee had hounded James, and despite himself, Robert couldn't forget it.

  Robert and Agnes's addition to George's cabin had been improved although it was only an unheated sleeping room. During the early evenings, with Agnes and Ann getting the children into the loft beds in George's side, Kirknee and others would come stamping in to fill the cabin with talk and the comfort of familiar friends. Kirknee's tales of hard times within London slums intrigued and encouraged others to tell stories of experiences half-forgotten.

  Often their talk turned to future plans when the Indians were gone. The Indians would go, there was no argument there, but when and how it would occur was not as regularly agreed upon.

  One side, that included most Robinsons and Harry Kirknee, expected the Indians would have to be defeated in combat so decisively that their ability to fight was destroyed.

  Ano
ther view held that if the French could be forced or persuaded to withdraw their support, the tribes would lose their motivation and their supply of weaponry. A few believed negotiations with new treaties and extensive land purchases would soothe the chiefs and move the villages further west leaving Sherman's Valley beyond the range of war parties.

  Smoke curling from his pipe, George would say, "We've got to drive them west with muskets and rifles. We should wipe out every village east of the Ohio and maybe beyond. Then we have to fill the valleys with people, so Indians won't come back."

  "Huh, when the land fills like that I'm for moving on. We didn't come out here to be rubbing shoulders with bunches of neighbors!"

  "It won't be that crowded; just enough cabins and plantations that Injuns can't get a foothold without people knowing."

  "George, how's Colonel John doing with his war plan?"

  "Hard to say, William. Kittanning is a far piece. Shatto claims a hundred men would wipe it out, but he's talking real fighters, and there just aren't that many. Colonel Armstrong wants three hundred and fifty men, and so far he hasn't got 'em."

  "Most will have to come from people in these valleys, George. Flatland people aren't threatened, and they won't line up for no such campaign."

  "Well, I expect something will come of it this spring. Colonel John would like to hit them while they are winter-weak, although sometimes he talks about waiting till the fall harvest is in so he can destroy that, too."

  "Huh, if they wait till harvest they will let the Injuns chew at us all summer, George."

  "Yup, I'm for hitting them as soon as we are able."

  So were most at Fort Robinson.

  Chapter 25

  The starving time came early to Kittanning. Deep snow slowed hunting, and lodges dug early into stored corn and supplies of pemmican that were already smaller than usual. Long before the geese returned, hunger enveloped the village.

  Warriors again became hunters and found their hunts to be long and exhausting. Each lodge or longhouse hunted for itself and shared only through close relationships.

  Most lodges stayed hungry and a few starved, their emaciated bodies found frozen in their blankets. Others, weakened by hunger, sickened and died. Faces and bodies of those living grew gaunt, and eyes appeared wide and staring.

  The scalps, iron kettles, even blankets and jackets taken in war offered little comfort to bellies empty and far beyond rumbling.

  The lodge of Long Knife, raised in a grove near the village, felt the hunger but only through choice. The people of The Knife had stored for winter. The Knife had warned any who would listen that they were slow in preparing and though few had acted, his own words prodded The Knife to even greater storing. Ignoring the war trails, he hunted while the squaws dried meat and mixed it with nuts and berries into rich pemmican.

  When most taunted captives or listened in admiration to warriors boasting of their deeds, The Knife's lodge journeyed to old fields to salvage wild corn, onions, and yellow potato roots. They ranged far in search of berries and diligently tended their own fields of pumpkin, squashes, and beans.

  As a better hunter, The Knife found game where others failed. With the first solid freeze he caught and froze fish to be used later. When the cold was at its worst, he and The Squirrel opened a bee tree discovered in the summer and saved for winter.

  More than a little of this wealth The Knife shared. He chose lodges where men were few or where children were many. He gave until the summer fat slipped from his own people. Then he stopped.

  Wrapped in his blanket, before the fire's warmth, The Knife might study the glowing coals, letting his mind wander to better days when the Great Spirit's cold breath was almost welcome, and lodges visited back and forth bringing small gifts and exchanging summer adventures and discoveries. Then, men had boasted of successful hunts and warrior fighting had been rare and described in terms of honor and coups.

  In those good times squaws mended the used and made new and handsome garments in the cold months. From secret hoards they surprised their people with tasty specialties prepared long before. The Knife recalled a favorite, forgotten in this year of hurrying and worry. His women had gathered plums and allowed them to fully ripen before storing them in the boiled sap of maple trees. The resulting sweetness almost tortured the teeth in its goodness.

  Men hunted in known places in those days. Generations had learned where the deer were to be found, and winter turkey roosts were the same each season of cold. Then, pots had bubbled and roasts simmered. Visitors were welcome, and the lodges were happy with voices.

  Then, men had spoken together and reasoned deeply while the cold held sway outside the lodges and longhouses. Their thoughts were of the meaning of things and of ways to live better. Children sat close and listened and learned. Squaws taught the girl children the ways of cooking, mending, and corn grinding, of fire making and the secrets of many herbs.

  Now, lonely in his lodge with hunger and fear stalking the valleys and hills around him, The Knife might stir at his fire and agonize at the change. Hunger changed all things, yet hunger was itself a result of change. Could it ever again be as it was? He feared not.

  The Squirrel grew as a man should. His mind was quick, and he saw beyond the sun's setting, but where were the grandfathers to tell the right ways, to help The Squirrel learn opinion and knowledge beyond his father's? Some were dead and others scattered, but most huddled in their own lodges, fearful that visitors might come expecting aid-yet unwilling to impose their own hunger and misery on friends.

  The Buffalo lay dead; frozen in a drunken stupor and found days later beneath new snow.

  Long Knife, son of Kneeling Buffalo, closed his eyes often that winter because rising smoke brought tears to them.

  Chapter 26

  Spring thaw came to Sherman's Valley with a rush of warm, humid air from the south. Rain fell steadily, clearing in a few days all but the most firmly packed snowdrifts. Streams became torrents. Big Run took the footbridge without a trace and swept the increasingly miasmal sinks near the wagon village into Sherman's Creek, which in turn raged and roared far beyond its normal banks.

  Though no one from Robinson's fort went to view them, the rivers ballooned into inland seas, engorging themselves with entire stands of trees, melting away islands, and toppled mud banks.

  Even beyond the mountains, rushing floods disrupted all things. Harris's Ferry was swept downstream, although rescued far below. Condedequinet and Yellow Breeches creeks became unfordable torrents cutting Carlisle's eastern supply routes. Game moved to higher ground, and fishing proved pointless.

  George Robinson looked at hills suddenly snow free. Warriors held in leash by cold and impassable drifts would be sharpening their hatchets in anticipation of renewed fighting. He sent Robert to warn the cabins to begin coming in.

  Robert suggested to Kirknee that he might come along on the cabin tour. It would give him opportunity to see land that he might be interested in claiming. Robert did this gruff-voiced, not admitting to himself that he desired Kirknee's company, lest he appear unfaithful to James's memory. Kirknee agreed, and the two set off.

  George had wintered well. He had missed Mary almost unbearably at times, but he learned, as had others, that life continued. Ann and Agnes ran his household in good order, and he had occasion to enjoy his few books, including the pursuit of legal reasonings to support his demands for assistance from the province. Continual visitors had quickened evening hours, and George greeted spring with some regret at seeing the winter hiatus of tensions ending.

  Ann Robinson had not hinted her future intentions. She evinced no special interests in any of the single men that had visited, most of whom implied their interest in her welfare. But the company wondered to whom she would turn, for there was little place on the frontier for a permanently single younger woman.

  The rise of spring sap and the budding explosion of new life may have been partly responsible for George's decision. He was never able to fully ex
plain his prompt action. Plainly, he never regretted it.

  He walked away from Robert and Thomas in mid-conversation. They stood open-mouthed as he stomped to his cabin. "We say something, Robert?"

  "Hanged if I know! He means business, though. He always leans forward like that when he is through fooling."

  "Well I'm pleased he's heading away from me. If George is mad, I'd rather be with him than against."

  "Oh oh, here he comes with Ann. He can't be mad at her. Where is he going anyway?"

  "Out in the fields, looks like. Must want to talk to her alone."

  "Oh my gosh, Thomas, you don't suppose he is . . ."

  Thomas instantly understood. "Well now, wouldn't that be a good and proper thing?"

  "His arms are waving, but Ann is smiling at him, Thomas. Hot chestnuts! I think he's doing it!"

  George said, "Ann, it hasn't been long enough since Mary died to be right by ordinary measures, but I figure circumstances out here make things different.

  "James's been gone near a year and Mary about half of that. We've lived close to each other for a long spell. We've shared when our loved ones were with us and just as much since they've been gone.

  "I'm afraid if I don't speak now one of those Logans or someone will ask first and carry you off to their cabin. What I'm saying is that if you will have me, I would like to make you my wife. I would like you to be mother to my children and to the children we will have together."

  He pulled at an ear, his grin wry and crinkling lines around the bright blue eyes.

  "I guess I am poor at saying the honeyed words a woman wants to hear. Somehow it embarrasses me to say loving things out here in the daylight. I have little to offer except this hard life and caring about you, and I am not able to speak clear about that. But, I reckon you know as much about me as anybody living, which is more than I could tell you about myself. I can say I will be true to you and as square and as honest as I know how."