The Black Rifle (Perry County Frontier series) Page 10

  Jack could feel his confidence soar, and he felt hunger in his need to meet the Heart-Eater. That raised the drumming in his head to a stronger and louder beat.

  Chapter 16

  The Frontiersman

  At a clearing’s edge along Montour Run, deer browsed on young growth. A buck hung close to the shelter of the forest ever ready to slip into its safety. The does more boldly exposed themselves, delicately clipping tender shoots with sharp fore-teeth.

  Moving with pantherish caution, Rob Shatto, reached an opening through which he could observe the deer. He studied the unsuspecting animals for a long moment. The range was short, and his target was unmoving. Rob chose a neck shot close behind the head that, if properly done, would drop his animal in place. His long rifle rose with graceful precision and cracked as it touched his shoulder. His doe slumped, dead before it reached the ground.

  Remaining in the forest’s cover, Rob Shatto reloaded his rifle with a silent speed born of countless repetitions. In a land where a man with an unloaded rifle might be considered easy prey, a hunter learned to be swift even as he let his eyes roam and his ears listen.

  Rob listened to the forest, alert for alien sound, aware that an Indian moved as silently as did he. Detecting nothing, he moved to the clearing edge, shouldered the doe, and again sought the shelter of the woods.

  Leaning his rifle close to his hand, Rob deftly gutted the deer and skinned the carcass so that it lay on its own hide ready for butchering.

  He separated bone from meat, cutting it away in long fillets. He finished quickly, rolling the boneless meat into the fresh hide and lashing the heavy bundle to his pack. Rob shouldered his awkward load as soon as it was ready and moved deeper into the forest.

  Even boned-out, a deer was heavy, but Rob Shatto was stronger than most, and he often packed similar loads. What else could a hunter do? Making two trips was a poor and time-consuming option. It was also best not to retrace steps in a land where hostiles might roam. The hike from Montour’s Run to his place on the Little Buffalo was long, but Rob had much to think about.

  Although he had come to Sherman’s Valley as a youth and had roamed and hunted the area countless times, today the hills and valleys seemed unusually clear to his eyes. Rob supposed early summer was a special time. The trees wore their new growth with crisp vigor, and grass and brush had not yet reached the lush fullness that obscured earth and rock ledges. The mosquitoes and black gnats that became a late summer plague were still few in number. The locust singing amid the trees gave promise of warm days ahead, and Rob felt good about the land and himself.

  Rob knew that the hours with Jack Elan were responsible for his heightened awareness of the world around him. He felt a little like a man might after a funeral, appreciative of his own heart still laboring away and a lot more conscious of birds and sun and special colors and shapes.

  Rob felt an unusual discomfort somewhere between his shoulders and identified it as a desire to, in some way, help Jack Elan. The man surely needed a hand. Rob conceded that Jack was a steady shot and could run a good race, but unless he got real lucky, the Heart-Eater would get in the first lick, and that would be that.

  Once shed of his need to finish off Heart-Eater, Jack Elan figured to be pretty much a man. He had learned a lot in a mighty short time, and Rob guessed Elan could make out in the mountains better than most whites ever would.

  Supposing that Jack did in the Heart-Eater, or if the Shawnee ignored the challenge, then Elan would make a good neighbor. Rob doubted that Elan would ever go back to town living. Once the beauty and freedoms of the Endless Hills got into a man, he was unlikely to be satisfied with hanging about where people were bumping elbows and stepping on moccasins.

  Rob took a rest along Limestone Ridge. The woods fell away where a forest fire had swept through decades back, and he could sight a long way up and down the valley.

  Leaned comfortably against an old stump, he let his nose and ears be his protection while his eyes pleasured themselves with the view of unbroken forest as far as he could see.

  He had feared the smoke from land clearing might be rising, and he was pleased that it was not. He did not hold much with burning away the downed timber, and even less liked the idea of a lot of people crowding into his mountains. Rob found himself saddened by his thoughts and decided to think a little more about Jack Elan.

  The way he was now, Jack was not too good company. A man with a fire in his belly was not likely to do much laughing or daydreaming or day-to-day talking. Rob understood that, and he was not much for windy stories himself. Still, a man shouldn’t lock himself up inside.

  A good woman might help straighten Elan out. That would have to be after the Heart-Eater, of course. Thinking about it, Rob recalled hearing that Martha Shell had spoken to Becky about more than a passing interest in Jack Elan.

  With few people along the frontier, word of almost everything got passed. People met, and they gossiped as hard as they could go. Lonesomeness was some of it, Rob reflected, and women appeared to suffer the most from lack of company. Some men didn’t need anyone, but you never found that among the women.

  Elan and the strong bodied and strong willed Martha would be a worthy match. Rob grinned, thinking of how Martha Shell would match Jack at just about any lifting or pulling that needed doing. To live north and west of Kittatinny Mountain, a man needed a strong woman. Life was hard, and with hostiles always sharpening their knives, it could be dangerous. Elan, of course, had that fact first hand.

  Rob felt rested, and it would be getting on toward dark before he stepped on his own land. Becky would be laying out the supper table, and Will Miller would be poking around the place keeping an eye peeled. Rob slipped his pack harness onto his shoulders and paid a moment’s special attention to the sounds around him.

  He rose, leaned into the heavy load, and checked the priming of his rifle while moving. The two-barreled pistol had been pulled to a hip to give room for the heavy pack, but it rode snugly, and his tomahawk slapped comfortingly along his opposite leg. Rob felt fit and ready. His weapons were right, his pack was full, and he was headed for his own sleeping place.

  If Jack Elan’s plan for his black rifle worked out, the time might come when Rob could stop by the Elan place to yarn a little before he got home. In fact, he and Becky could walk over to Jack and Martha Elan’s on Little Juniata Creek for an evening’s visiting. Now that was a thought to chew on a little. Maybe women weren’t so different than men in enjoying having a friend or two close to hand. Rob let his imagination run as he headed north and east along the ridge.

  Chapter 17

  Martha

  In the cities, where living could be fashionable and a body was not troubled so much by just scratching out a living, small-boned, delicate women were in demand. North and west of the settlements, the men looked at things a mite different. A family clearing and planting needed physical strength and endurance. A woman that could hold her end of a saw and carry her own firewood was looked on as right desirable. So, large and strong Martha Shell had suitors, and most were serious about taking her home to their cabins.

  It wasn’t right to think of Martha Shell as common looking. Her skin was smooth, and her hair kept a clean-looking sheen. Martha was not what a lot of people would call beautiful, but she was pleasing to look at.

  Her size certainly scared off a man or two, because she stood eye-to-eye with most, and her shoulders were about as broad and her wrists as big as most men’s. Still, she was put together the way a woman should be, and no man missed that completely.

  Until Jack Elan had come off the mountain, John Shell had figured Martha was looking over the pack and was getting ready to choose. Since Jack had passed through, there had been change. Martha spent a lot of time sitting under the oak, and she had not a lot to say.

  It made John Shell nervous. He expected his daughters to marry and move to their own cabins. He had always supposed that Martha, being the oldest, would be the first to go, but w
ith her mooning over Jack Elan, it might just be a different matter.

  Martha knew that she was not being too sensible. Jack Elan might never come back, and there had been nothing said between them, anyway. It was just that the tense and troubled young man had stirred her as none other had. When she saw him stripped to the waist, swinging his ax, sweating even in chill air she got warm all over and felt like squeezing him. When they sat together over lunch she experienced a strange contentment, as though she had finally found her own special place.

  When Jack spoke of the Heart-Eater and the black rifle, a terrible knot tightened in her belly, and fear for him grew so strong she had to turn away.

  Sometimes, Martha saw a spark of interest start in Jack’s eyes, and she thought she might fan it into a worthwhile blaze. Knowing his need for his concentration and energy staying pointed toward his plan, she had deliberately hidden her emotions and held herself distant.

  It had been hardest the day Jack had left. She could feel his thoughts growing distant, and his features settled into harder and flatter planes, as though he was drawing himself all tight inside, like a copperhead ready to strike. It hurt to see him like that, but she had held her silence, staying just another member of the Shell family, and let him go his way.

  It seemed strange that everyone except Jack Elan knew her feelings. She had spoken of it to her mother and to a friend or two. With gabby sisters around that were just the right ages to notice, Martha supposed the whole frontier knew her attraction to Jack.

  There had been months to get over Jack Elan, but as the fall grew near and the corn began to ripen, he seemed ever more in her mind.

  Martha Shell heard of Jack sometimes. Rob Shatto saw him now and then, and he made it a point to notice how Jack looked and acted. Rob noticed so much that Martha wondered, once in a while if the details he remembered were not special for her to enjoy. The interpreter, James Cummens, had stopped twice with word of Elan, and the Robinson boys mentioned him in passing.

  Rob Shatto had more confidence in Jack’s chances than did the others. Rob claimed a man who had survived a massacre, escaped captivity, then lived through a winter’s march across the Endless Hills had something special in him that would pull him through where another might founder.

  Martha tried to believe Rob’s words, but she knew that only Blue Moccasin had ever met the dreadful Heart-Eater, and Blue feared that Jack had little chance.

  So, Martha pined a little and worried about how it would turn out. At times, she thought the harvest would never come and let it all get done with. Mostly, Martha wished the summer could go on forever, so that the fighting would never be.

  One thing Martha Shell became increasingly sure of. The next time she laid eyes on Jack Elan, she would tell him straight out that he was cared about and worried over.

  That was, of course, if she ever saw him again.

  Chapter 18

  A Visit to Shells

  One evening, Elan fell, landing heavily on his side. Pain knifed along his ribs, and his rifle struck hard against a mossy rock.

  Stunned and breathless, he lay for a moment fighting air back into his lungs and letting the first sharp agony ease away. When he could, Elan rose, moving tenderly, and feeling for serious injury. Stripping away his shirt, he found his side torn and bruised, and a rib or two had surely been damaged.

  The black rifle had fared no better. A deep scar along the stock bothered him little, but the hammer had bent and needed straightening.

  The accident was disturbing. In itself, the fall was unimportant because even the most agile would slip now and then, but for some time, Elan had sensed a certain weariness within himself. He regularly had to jerk his attention back to the task at hand, and his body responded lazily, as though it too was losing interest in the game.

  Elan had been dreaming too much and too hard of late. Time and again, he had found himself standing naked and tied saying, “I am the Deathgiver,” and a village of Indians kept walking by as though they could not hear him. He often woke from sleeping lathered and fretting.

  Elan judged the few stocks of corn that struggled among weeds in his old clearing. It would be weeks until the harvest. He considered his empty pack, his damaged rifle, and his weakened body. He flat-out needed a rest.

  Elan worked his reasoning around, convincing himself that a rifle ought, by rights, to be repaired by its maker, but it was just as much about good food and pleasant company that decided him to move his worn carcass up to John Shell’s to get the rifle’s hammer heated and reshaped to its once perfect fit. Jack tried not to think how easily Rob Shatto could repair his rifle, and Rob was only a few miles distance.

  Elan kept Martha Shell distant in his thoughts, lest she cloud memories of his beloved wife, Ellie. Somehow, Ellie had gotten faint in his mind, and he could not work up a clear picture of how she had looked before . . .

  Recognition that he might be losing some of her memory hurt and scared Elan. He knew he could not keep Ellie fresh in his thinking forever, but he did not relish having her slip away even a little, particularly before he had finished off the Heart-Eater.

  Jack walked slowly, favoring his bad side, but practicing his stalking. There was no doubt that he moved quieter than when he had left Shell’s clearing back in the spring. He saw and heard things he would surely have missed back then. He was no longer breaking sticks and scraping brush across himself the way he used to. If his rifle was not broken, and if his ribs were not battered, Elan believed he would be feeling pretty sure about himself.

  With the drumming put well down, Jack let his thoughts roam, and as she too often did, Martha Shell slipped into his mind. Despite his determination not to dwell on the attractive Martha, he found himself grinning a little inside, and fearful of his feelings, he sought again to raise dear Ellie’s features like he used to see them.

  The Shell place had changed little. Newly green sprouts dotted the fields he had chopped clear during the late winter, and Elan expected that deer would browse on the tender shoots, providing John Shell with some easy shooting. Most of the logs he had downed had been snaked in close where they would be handy for building. The brush piles were dried out, and they would provide fine kindling for the next winter.

  Jack figured John Shell would put a good crop in those fields. Shell would have to plow around the stumps and some immense roots, of course. Probably, John could put down corn in a stump field without difficulty because corn was best planted in mounds, but if he went with wheat, well, many a scythe got snapped against some old stump sticking up in the way.

  The first person Jack saw at the house was Martha. She was standing sort of shading her eyes and looking right at him. It made Elan feel strange, as though she had been looking for him for a long time. Jack liked the feeling, and felt his heart start to pound, but he feared the drumming in his head would start up, and he would not be able to talk clear and sound smarter than he really was.

  Jack raised his rifle and saw her wave back and start across the field toward him. Being greeted like that made Elan feel extra warm. He wished he had scraped his face a little closer and feared that his worn buckskins smelled to high heaven.

  As she marched closer, Martha thought that Jack looked about as bad as he had on his first arrival. He was skinnied down to a skeleton, his hair hung long and uncombed, and his clothing looked like something reclaimed from a grave. Jack Elan needed her.

  If Elan’s ragged and worn appearance bothered Martha, she did not let on at all. She walked up tight against him and wrapped her arms around him in a real bear hug. Jack felt himself go sort of weak, and when she kissed his cheek, he about dropped his black rifle. It wasn’t until later that Elan realized the squeezing had pained his injured side, not that he cared a lick about that.

  Her voice was as deep as he remembered it. “Welcome home, Jack. We’ve missed you.”

  He guessed he mumbled something about being glad, and Martha took his arm the whole way to the house.

  J
ohn Shell had cut a window in his shop wall. He had closed the hole with six panes of bulls-eye glass from a maker over in Reading. The cost of the glass was more than he liked to think about, but the window gave better light to work by and saved a pile of work not spent on candle making or rendering lard for use in fat lamps.

  The new window also brought his closer field and his home into view. Being able to see out joined Shell to the world and lessened the isolation of his workbench. He caught sight of Elan almost as he came from the woods. Shell was not surprised to see Martha walking to meet Elan, but he was jolted by the fervor of her greeting. His daughter had never before put on such a display of affection. Shell supposed that if Elan survived, Martha would be moving over the ridges to make her own place with her new husband.

  That made the gunsmith wonder if perhaps the Heart-Eater had come early and the fight was over? He put aside his chisel and went to find out.

  John Shell straightened the bent hammer and checked over the rifle. They went out back of the shop and fired a few loads checking the sights. One barrel shot a little high for Shell, but Elan drove the balls from either barrel into the target center with an ease that put Shell to whistling through his teeth.

  After a bit Martha came out and took the gun away from them claiming that they were scaring the whole valley. They had an hour until supper, and the two men walked out examining the season’s crops, Elan told Shell how it had been with him. The gunsmith nodded a lot of understanding and allowed as how a change of scenery and a few good meals would straighten Jack out.

  Elan felt a bit naked without the rifle in his hand. He had not laid the weapon aside in months. He carried it to the privy, he ate with it across his lap, and he slept with the black rifle tight against his side. When they returned to the house, the sight of the rifle leaned into a corner put him at ease, and he dug deep into Mother Shell’s supper.