The Rubys consolidated at the ruins of Harris's place. There was little to assemble. Their stock had survived and the three families had one wagon among them. Few in the county offered assistance as long time Ruby arrogance was now repaid with disinterested shrugs. Sam Ruby was known to have ordered his relatives off his place at gunpoint. Ruby pickings in the valley were mighty slim.
One night, someone unknown set a free keg of whiskey on the Ruby wagon. The whiskey-sodden men woke to find their wagon afire with most of their guns in the flames and their horses scattered wide with their harness cut into ribbons. No Ruby had seen anything. Old Bart bellowed threats and dire vengeance when his boy Maddoc returned. Of course, Rob Shatto had been in town most of that evening.
The Rubys made their own move and Jack Elan shot a prowler somewhere in the legs. He reported the skulker to the sheriff who was unable to follow the wounded man's tracks.
The Ruby archer met with a serious incident a night later. Posted as a lookout, he was suddenly smashed flat by a terrible blow. By the time his agonized bellows brought other Rubys pounding to the scene, he had been silenced by a savage battering with his own crude bow that he had thought safely hidden on Mahanoy Ridge.
Bart Harris himself had mounted and raced his horse into Bloomfield.
Rob Shatto was seated at a table in Doctor Jonas Ickes' tavern enjoying his friends. Old Bart stomped and roared, flat out accusing Rob Shatto of burning and beating his kin.
Rob had stood slowly and old Bart, who was again fearfully reminded of his boyhood when a man looking like this, wearing the same pistol, had chopped off half his pap's hand, became suddenly aware of holding no cards at all.
His breath froze in his throat, and he felt himself backing away. Outside the tavern, he was barely able to climb aboard his horse. Then, he fled homeward as though hounds of hell rushed through the woods in pursuit.
Old Bart looked over his holdings. Two of his men were down. One had a broken head and had been nearly flayed alive by a bow stave. Another suffered a ball through his thigh. They had no shelter, and he reckoned that damned Shatto wasn't through yet. Down south they had kin that might lend a hand, and it could be that Asaf and Grandon would still show up. He took heart in the thought that before long, Maddoc Ruby would surely be back. Then, Rob Shatto would be paid, once and for all.
They sold their scrubby stock and drove their few horses south using Ruby's only grown kin and some spindling boys. Harris and the women and children rode out on a canal boat.
Old Bart sent Rob a message. He printed it on a paper scrap. It was unsigned. Deciphered it read, "Sometime Maddooc will be back. Then we'll see."
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Chapter 8
It had taken a while for Rob to choose the ground he wanted. He rode old trails, watering at moss-choked springs and unnamed rivulets. The purpled hills rising beyond sun-dotted valleys whispered treasured enchantments. He smelled the richness of newly-turned earth and the dust of well-traveled roads. He listened to children halooing on farmsteads and felt his love of this land renewed.
On Tuscarora Mountain, he ran his hand over the arrowhead blaze old Rob had hacked into the tree from which he had hung the four Shawnee. He visited the overgrown clearing at the end of Conococheague Mountain, where Jack Elan's first wife and son had been massacred. He crossed the site of old Fort Robinson and followed the ancient Indian path to James Montour's and the run named after Montour.
Along Sherman's Creek, Simon Girty's clearing was lost among cleared farmland and Rob thought he and Elan might be the only ones left that knew its location.
The valley between Kittatinny and Tuscarora had seen much living and dying. In the early days, war parties had slaughtered along Sherman's Creek and small pox, cholera, and black diphtheria still exacted their tragic tolls in suffering and death.
Still, the land grew more settled. If a man survived, he kept clearing and he kept building. If some farmers failed to see much beyond the next harvest, others built well and planned ahead. They limed their fields and manured thoroughly. They cleared stumps and stacked the annual stone crop. Their land grew richer, and their harvests were thick and hardy.
Rob saw barns with date and name stones in the gables and stone houses fitted the same. Men that built like that intended to stay.
Sometimes he thought that every farmer opened a business on the side. Everybody cut hoop poles and there were countless fulling, saw, and grist mills. Men made and offered everything wooden, from tool handles to wagons. Blacksmiths were busy in every community and potteries were beginning to turn their crocks and jugs.
There had been great change in the county. A decade earlier, when he'd crossed Tuscarora Mountain heading for the Rockies, the county had just been formed. Farmers still thought of themselves as settlers and many of the earliest white arrivals were still around.
Now, the valleys were tamed by established farms. Fields appeared long cleared and buildings were sprouting everywhere. There were even new towns. The incredible engineering of the Pennsylvania Canal along the Juniata River had placed a final civilizing finger on the land. Finished goods as well as passengers shipped at Philadelphia and rode in comfort and safety clear to the Ohio. The canal was even developing a thriving boat-building industry. Millerstown, Newport, and Liverpool and Duncannon on the Susquehanna river all had flourishing boatyards.
The number of new hotels, each with its profitable saloon, was remarkable. Millerstown had nearly two dozen.
Rob supposed Bloomfield was the greatest local marvel. The town had sprung from George Barnett's clover field into a county seat in only a few seasons.
Old Rob wouldn't have liked the changes. The old frontiersman had been feeling crowded long before his death, but Robbie Shatto liked what he saw. He had tasted the lonesome country and savored its special flavors. Now, he wanted neighbors and order in his life. Perry County offered mountain freedom with woods to roam and game to hunt. There was wild country all about, yet friends, conveniences, and markets were close at hand.
It looked to him as though Perry County would stay open and free long after most places got jammed up and people drove off the game and chopped out their timber. Land-hungry people rushed on out to the Illinois country without even recognizing the good living between the mountains,
Well, he recognized it and hoped most would keep right on not seeing it. He figured with fourteen thousand people, the county was just about right.
He and Abel Troop had ridden the county from Pfoutz's Valley to Fowler's Hollow feeling the soil and studying the lay of the land.
Rob's enthusiasm for horse raising had infected Troop, although the militia captain's interest ran more to well-bred hunters than to purely tough mountain horses. He too wished to plant roots between the mountains, and as their friendship grew they considered buying near each other and living as neighbors.
Broad meadows along Sherman's Creek offered fine horse country, but few acres were for sale. Rob supposed that a generous cash offer would make land available. He had the money, but Troop, although holding much property in Cumberland County, did not appear to have excess cash to hand.
Rob cared little for the sweeping meadows anyway. He envisioned a tighter sort of horse ranch with fewer animals almost continually being trained toward endurance and dependability. Where Abel desired a fine home overlooking his horse-dotted pastures, Rob Shatto planned his own special kind of house and an unusual use of his acres.
It was not odd that their poking took them back to the valley of the Little Buffalo. The area had good water and the land would grow crops. Buffalo and Middle Ridge offered close protection from heavy winds and the valley road ran straight into Newport, with the county seat an easy ride to the south.
They found themselves riding often across Buffalo Ridge to sit at odd lookouts and comfortable spots in order to feel, smell and consider the Little Buffalo's steep-sided valley. Rob believed one of the springs that gushed strongly from Buffalo Ridge was a powerful point fo
r consideration.
"Old Rob used to tell of a year when things got so dry that he walked dry-moccasined across the Juniata River. Seems to me that was about 1805. I was too young to remember, but things were pretty terrible all over and there were forest fires everywhere.
"Pap claimed none of the creeks carried water to the river that summer. According to Pap, this spring kept right on running through it all. Though it isn't likely we'll have many years like that, a sure source of water is not to be sneezed at.
"Anyhow, I'll be needing a high source of water for some plans I've got. With a good fall of water, a man that knows how can keep his fields growing when most are parched out."
Rob told what he had seen not far out of a Spanish village called Taos, high in the Rockies.
"Old Bogard and me trailed into a big, flat sort of valley where on three sides mountains reached near to the sky. There were some Indians we called Navajos living there in houses made out of adobe, which is clay and straw bricks baked in the sun,
"It was a miserable kind of place, Abel. Too hot sun, and the ground was so hard it felt and sounded like riding on stone. You wouldn't think anything but lizards or snakes could live there.
"A creek came off of one mountain and the Indians had raised little dams and run shallow trenches across their land so that the water would run in them and spread out over that clay ground wherever they wanted it. They didn't have to worry about doing rain dances like some tribes did. The Navajos raised corn, beans, and peppers out of plain old brick clay, where you wouldn't think even a weed could grow.
"Anyhow, right then, Abel, I began thinking that someday, wherever I finally lit, I would make my land free of dry spells the same way. We will be raising oats, alfalfa, hay, and plain old grass for our horses. We will want corn and, of course, wheat and rye for their bran. A fast-flowing spring like this could be dammed a dozen times before the stream flattens too much to use. I figure a man might even pipe water straight into his house and save well digging and water carrying,"
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Cadwallader Jones dug through the records and acted as agent for Shatto and Troop. The Little Buffalo ground could be bought, but the asking price was high for wild land situated in the hills.
For Rob and Abel, it took more riding and discussing to settle the matter. They divided the land to suit them. Rob took the spring and the acres to the west. His fields were narrower, with steeper sides than Abel's, but he was pleased.
Troop, too, had a fine spring, but while the overflow would provide more water than a family could use, it lacked the volume needed for planned irrigation.
Abel Troop picked his home site on the south slope and very close to the valley road. His pastures would lie before him and Little Buffalo Creek would water his stock.
Rob's plan was much the same. His animals would usually be within view, and with barns and house close to the road there would be less winter snow to plow or flatten.
Their counter-offer to the landowner was rejected, and Cadwallader Jones began negotiating to gain the best deal possible for his friends.
Rob and Troop had agreed to make payment in cash. Knowing nothing of Rob's western gold, Abel Troop was concerned about his friend's ability to raise his share. Rob had mentioned selling furs in St. Louis for goodly sums. Troop supposed that Rob Shatto had diligently saved his money and was now ready to invest it.
Troop brought his wife, Mary, to see the land. A small woman, accustomed to village living, she seemed unsure about the advantages of residing within the Perry County ridge country, but her husband's enthusiasm carried the day and Abel gained her somewhat reserved approval.
Cad Jones reported tentative agreement on a selling price and Rob guessed it was time to see James Cummens and change his gold into coins and secure drafts. Some money would need investing, he figured. Old Rob had buried his in the ground and kept its presence secret. Rob figured to do the same with enough to see him through. The rest, he'd ask Blue Moccasin to put to work for him.
He visited the gold cache and chose a few pounds to lay away. He rode onto Castle Knob and slipped into the heavy cover of the giant hemlocks. When he was sure he was alone, he located the big root and dug up old Rob's treasure chest.
The stout oak seemed as strong as ever, and there were as many coins as Rob remembered. He lingered over the box, enjoying the feel of it in his hands and remembering the times he had come here with Pap to visit Braddock's money and plan how he would use it. Well, luck more than planning had given him wealth beyond their expectations. On the long ride east he had speculated on the life he should live and with months to reason, he had reached some conclusions.
Rob Shatto recognized himself as a little-educated frontiersman. His ability to read was limited to the teaching of his great-grandmother Becky and his own mother's haphazard efforts. He lacked formal education in even the rudiments of civilized living. He ate with his knife and spoke his own brand of frontier English.
Rob made no apologies to himself for whatever he lacked. A man could not be all things at one time, and while he recognized shortcomings, he was equally aware of the skills and strengths that had taken him far and brought him home safely. The time might come for Rob Shatto to live among the affluent and sip exotic wines from fragile glasses, but not for now. For now, he would live hearty and well among strong men and good horses. He would hunt, fish and build a place to raise special mounts for men who would perform special deeds.
Few would know of his gold, for he would need little of it. He speculated that a man might easily be lessened by wealth that allowed him to casually hire others to perform the hard tasks. A mountain man was judged by what he was and what he did, not by what he had. Rob figured to stick pretty close to those standards.
Possessions limited a man. He had made do with all that he owned strapped across a pack animal. Even a horse ranch would tie him down to measuring by years rather than days or weeks. A growing family would put a girth around it all and he knew he had better be finished with long-scouting before he chose a wife or tied any sort of permanent knots.
Rob thought more than a little about a good wife and sons and daughters, and in its own time, it sounded right and proper. He figured the way to handle it was to locate the woman first. If things worked out, then marry. A man that got his mind set on having a wife and then went looking was likely to make poor decisions. It only needed one mistake and a man was harnessed to the wrong woman for all of their lives. Made a man sweat just thinking about it.
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Chapter 9
Rob passed his pistol to the gunsmith almost reluctantly. Old Rob had carried the double barrel for over sixty years and he, the great-grandson, had been rarely without its comforting weight for another decade.
He watched the smith draw the charges, catching the quick knowing glance as ten large balls were removed from each barrel.
He supposed the old gun had changed some over the years. He had carved a new stock from mesquite wood when the original maple split too badly. He had followed the original pattern, but the highly-figured mesquite made the gun look a mite fancy.
Repairs were one thing. Changing the pistol to percussion was another. Old Rob's grandfather had given the flintlocks and to his knowledge they had never failed. Still, there was no doubt about the percussion system being even more certain, especially when the weather was damp and fine powder in a flintlock pan was nearly impossible to keep dry.
Melchior Fordney was the best gunsmith Rob Shatto could find. Fordney possessed a fineness of touch lacking in many frontier gunsmiths. His work was precise and utilitarian. His single submission to elegance was abundant engraving lavishly adorning his finer rifles. Rob figured he could trust the Lancaster gunsmith to do his work right.
Fordney turned the unloaded pistol in his hands, allowing his fingers to trace along barrel and stock, and linger on the name Rob Shatto cut deeply into the iron rib between the barrels.
"We rarely see work like this anymore, Mr. S
hatto." The smith's voice betrayed his interest. "Although the locks are English, they are handmade and the barrels were hammer-welded from bar iron. These days, our gun barrels come all bored and ready from the mills. Although the name on the pistol is yours, I'd venture the gun was made long ago."
Rob told how old Rob had made the gun a boy and of his own use of it in the western lands. "Out there, a man had to rely on flints because he couldn't get percussion caps west of St. Louis. We knew about the new system of course, and I figured to change my guns over once I came east to stay."
"Well, converting from flint isn't real hard. The work will take more than a few days, however. I' will have to open up each barrel and make fittings to hold the nipples that hold the percussion caps. They will be small to fit this gun. I'll cut the pans off the locks, although that won't take any time at all. New hammers will though. Might be I can pound these flint hammers into shape. Be a site better than starting from scratch."
They talked an hour away. Rob yarned about the Shining Mountains to Fordney's amazed exclamations. In turn, the gunsmith spoke of his trade, to Rob's equally intense interest. He had learned something of gunsmithing from old Rob, but Fordney was an acknowledged master and Rob grasped at every word.
Repeated calls by Fordney's shrill-voiced wife ended their rambling and the smith agreed to have the pistol ready when Rob returned from Philadelphia.
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Shatto (Perry County, Pennsylvania Frontier Series) Page 7