Fort Robinson (Perry County, Pennsylvania Frontier Series) Read online

  The raiders moved out with the sun high. The Indian led, followed by Hamilton, and the Robinsons hung together near the middle.

  Their guide wasted no time. He set a straight course and held to it. Within a few miles the ground began rising, and the bulk of Sideling Hill could be glimpsed ahead. An hour out they rested, saying little, not smoking, but most chewing some form of dried or smoked meat.

  The party looked ready and able. The men appeared woods-wise, and they handled their weapons with easy familiarity. Robert figured they were in good company.

  At the second rest they were close and looked to their priming. Men sucked in extra deep breaths and fingered their knives and hatchets. Their greatest danger was being accidentally discovered by warriors entering or leaving the camp. The best way to avoid that was to get there quickly. They kept to a walk but moved swiftly. The Indian loped ahead but waited where they moved into a line.

  Until they fanned out, Robert had felt nothing special, but all of a sudden his breathing got tight and his palms began to sweat. Looking left and right, he again saw men sucking in deep, nervous breaths and wiping damp hands on their thighs. He grinned at James, whose eyes looked as big as porringers, and nudged Thomas on his other side.

  From one end of the line, Hamilton waved them forward, and the line rippled with men stepping carefully and crouching low. The fold of ground was where it was supposed to be. They squatted, then crept to its edge, keeping their heads low in the ground cover.

  The Indian camp lay within a thin copse of large pines. It was a few yards more distant than expected, and that made the shooting harder, but it was well under a hundred yards and, aimed properly, even the muskets should do their work.

  Figures sprawled on blankets, and one crouched by a fire. The prisoners lay beneath a crude shelter, their clothing making them easy to see.

  The raiders wriggled into comfortable positions, and the sound of hammers being carefully eased to full cock sounded loud in Robert's ears. He got himself ready and picked a target near the prisoners. The Indian lay on his side, and Robert experienced a momentary twinge at plowing a heavy rifle ball into an unsuspecting back. He stuffed two extra balls into his left cheek where they would be most handy and not gouge when the rifle recoiled.

  Rustling along the line ceased, and Robert fined his sights, holding solidly between the brave's shoulder blades. Sweat gathered at his eyebrows, and he wished Hamilton would give his yell before it began to trickle into his eye. He considered wiping it away, but if he took his hand off the gun, that would as sure as shooting be the instant Hamilton would call, and he would not be ready.

  Someone couldn't wait or got careless. From his left a musket bellowed startling the whole line of raiders. Too late, Hamilton called, "Fire!" Surprised and shaken, the raiders jerked triggers and rained shot into the camp.

  Robert squeezed slow and steady, sort of stroking the ball toward its target. As the ball struck, the prone warrior arched and began a feeble thrashing.

  The Indian kneeling by the fire was literally torn apart in a hail of balls. Robert swore silently; it appeared that nearly every other man in the party had picked that easy target for himself. Panicked, warriors leaped about, but the prisoners were already being clubbed to their feet and rushed toward the heavier woods.

  Robert scrambled erect, feeling James and Thomas coming on either side. They charged across the clearer ground giving their best imitations of war cries and trying to reload on the run. A musket or two boomed from behind as raiders fired belatedly, but the shots were misses.

  Robert got his hammer into half cock and his pan closed. He let powder tumble down the bore, feeling a lot of it spill over his hand. He spit a ball into his palm and dropped it down the barrel. Still running, he thumped his rifle butt on the ground driving powder into the pan, and his gun was reloaded.

  Belatedly, he saw that only the Robinsons and George McCord were attacking. Hamilton was halfway across screaming at his men to charge, but the raiders were standing at their line recharging their pieces. Every living Indian had disappeared behind the trees, and Robert saw only three bodies lying in the camp.

  Running in great leaping bounds, McCord cleared the fire and paused only to drive his rifle butt against the skull of Robert's still writhing warrior. Then he disappeared into the far woods.

  The Robinsons reached the camp, and a musket thumped from ahead sending a ball into the dirt close to Robert's feet. No target showed, although powder smoke rose from where the Indian had fired.

  McCord came tearing from the woods, waving his tomahawk and screaming that he couldn't find them. Another shot boomed, and McCord staggered, dropping both his weapons. He reached clumsily for his rifle, got it, and ran loosely toward the Robinsons.

  Still the raiders failed to come up. James fired at something moving and was rewarded by a shriek, whether of pain or defiance, they could not tell.

  Unsupported and exposed, Robert said, "We had best get out of here," and began moving back, keeping his eyes on the far woods. McCord stumbled past, blood staining a long band across his back, but he moved and held his rifle.

  Hamilton began yelling for everybody to stand fast and some muskets went off at one end of the line. Instantly Indian scalping cries rose from the same place.

  The Robinsons turned and ran back to the company of raiders that was milling uncertainly as Captain Hamilton ran in the direction of the shots.

  A man in a butternut shirt muttered, "I'm thinkin' we'd better git out while the gittin's good." As if to echo his words Hamilton's bellow, "Withdraw! Withdraw!" sounded down the line.

  The raiders turned as a body and raced for deeper timber behind. Immediately, loud yips and screams rose from hidden warriors, and arrows slanted through the withdrawing line.

  Where woods thickened, some men paused while others ran on. The man in butternut cursed and tugged at an arrow dangling from his back. Thomas reached over and jerked it free. The man grunted thanks and concentrated on reloading.

  Muskets began pounding at various places, and yelling and screeching rose and fell. The Robinsons and butternut began their own retreat. They moved swiftly but without panic, keeping silent and watching the woods. Robert led and Thomas brought up the rear, keeping an eye on the forest behind them.

  They covered a mile and things had quieted down. Robert led them a little north of their route to avoid running into others of the raiding party. He increased their pace to an easy lope, putting distance between themselves and the scattered raiders.

  The musket thundered almost beside them. The shock of the blast sent Robert diving and rolling for cover. As in slow motion he saw James stagger backward, his musket falling and his hand clapping over an eye. James stumbled another step and fell limply forward, his head striking hard.

  Robert's scream of anguish tore the air. He came up running straight for the nearby bloom of powder smoke. Beyond the smoke a bronzed figure skittered among the trees; Robert gave chase but gained nothing. He jerked to a stop and flung up his rifle. When the Indian darted between trees, Robert fired. The warrior caught his stride but kept going, and Robert lost him behind the slowly clearing powder smoke cloud.

  He became aware of more firing behind him, and with sick despair tearing his soul he turned back, again reloading on the run.

  He glimpsed the butternut shirt disappearing among the trees and heard Thomas call his name from some distance. Despite the danger he called back, still making for where James had fallen. James was dead. He knew it as sure as he hated the thought. A man hard hit falls with recognizable laxity, and James had gone down like that. Hot tears stung Robert's eyes and his throat threatened to close entirely.

  He reached the small game trail they had been following, and a specter rose before him. James was standing, holding his old musket. Blood covered the front of him, but he was alive and on his feet.

  Robert reached him and took his musket, helping him off the trail into a clear place beneath some pines. With his ea
r tuned to the woods, he tried to examine James's wound.

  It was a horror. Senses reeled with the awfulness of it. James's eye was gone, apparently driven in by the musket ball. Blood seeped, welling from the unrecognizable tissue and splintered bone.

  James kept trying to talk and finally succeeded. "Robert, the pain!" He wheezed, and his legs flailed in agony. "The ball's inside my head, God, Robert, I can't stand it!" His good eye flooded, and sweat poured from him, almost instantly soaking his clothes.

  Robert suppressed a shudder, knowing that if the ball was inside James's skull he should already be dead and that there was no hope of living long.

  He tried calming words, "Easy, James, easy now. The pain will soon pass. Just hang on until it eases, then we'll get you safe to the fort."

  James seemed to hear him and started a reply when his good eye rolled inward, and a spasm shook his body like a leaf on an aspen. A greater convulsion followed, and James's arms and legs thrust and jerked. His jaws snapped uncontrollably biting through his lips and tongue. His body arched impossibly, and his head jerked from side to side.

  Robert flung himself on top of James's twisting form, striving to dampen the terrible convulsions. The spell passed as quickly as it had come, and James sprawled sobbing, occasionally suffering a small shudder. His features, distorted by the ball's impact, had aged a generation. His tongue was already swelling from the terrible bites, but Robert could see him struggle to speak and the desperation was plain on his ravaged face. His hand rose to clutch Robert's arm.

  "Robert, the ball's inside. My head's on fire. I can't stand it!

  "Kill me, let me die, Robert. Please, no more. Aagh!" His voice died to a whimper. "Oh God, somebody help me. Somebody kill me. Oh let me die, please let me die."

  Robert's stomach churned, his mind reeled and his hands shook as though with fever. He wished James dead with all his heart. With a ball in his head his brother could not recover, and his suffering was beyond belief.

  He forgot the Indian threat so close around them. He forgot Thomas, out there, probably searching for them. He saw only James, his closest companion, suffering to death and he, who had led James to this, unable to help.

  He felt the coming convulsion as a small jerk through James's body. The wounded man felt it too, his eye lifted, and the horror in it seared Robert's soul.

  James's voice was suddenly as clear as it had ever been, and for a moment calm and understanding entered his single eye.

  "Kill me Robert."

  Robert's nod was recognized, and James's fist tightened on his arm, and his old smile tugged at his mouth an instant before his eye turned vacant and rolled until only white showed.

  This convulsion exceeded the earlier one. Robert was thrown aside, and James's lips tore in their extreme rictus.

  With a sob Robert ripped his hatchet from his belt and drove it with all his might into James's skull. The hatchet buried itself and James's impossible straining collapsed. He was instantly dead, and Robert sat stunned unto death himself.

  He took James's limp hand and held it in his own, letting tears wash silently down his cheeks. He sat unmoving until late afternoon sun touched him through the towering pines.

  He dug a grave using his hands and James's tomahawk. He dug slowly, so weary the effort seemed almost too much. He eased James's stiffening form into the earth, taking none of his possessions and unwilling to suffer removing the imbedded hatchet. He laid James's hat gently over the dead and destroyed face.

  Robert again sat for a while, unable to bring himself to forever cover his friend's final remains. It was full dark when he roused to push in the dirt and level the spot. When finished, he again slumped against a nearby tree, too defeated to do more. He had not slept in nearly two days, but memories haunted him for hours before exhaustion overcame him and he slept.

  With dawn, a raging thirst woke Robert. He took time to disguise James's grave as best he could, but it would take a season to hide it properly. He picked up musket and rifle and walked lethargic and uncaring downhill until he found water. He drank and washed, feeling a return of energy, although his spirit stayed beaten.

  From Fort Littleton, Thomas saw Robert walking slowly in, carrying two guns. He rushed from the fort, filled with relief at Robert's safety, but guessing what the two guns would mean.

  He drew up short of throwing his arms about his brother, shocked by his haggard and drawn appearance. Robert looked years older, as though he had spent too long at terrible tasks.

  Silently, Thomas shouldered James's musket, and they walked on in.

  Nearly there, Robert said, "James is dead, Thomas."

  "I figured that, Robert. I saw him go down with the first shot. Then I saw you had his gun."

  Robert seemed about to speak but finally just grunted.

  "There is no saying how sorry I am, although you'll miss him most." Thomas hesitated, surprised to see tears at Robert's eyes. "Guess you buried him all right?"

  Robert nodded, "We can talk about it later on, Thomas." He cleared his thoughts with obvious effort, "How did it turn out for the others?"

  Glad for the moment to speak of something else, Thomas said, "Well, I'd say they licked us good. It appears five of us went under, and we didn't rescue any prisoners. Two men are seriously wounded, and McCord's got a groove half a ball deep across his shoulders.

  "Captain Hamilton is fit to be tied. He has accused most of the men of cowardice in not rushing the camp according to the plan, and McCord has invited half the party outside the fort to fight it out with knives. Except for you, James, and me, McCord was the only one to get into the camp at all." He fell silent.

  Robert said softly, "Well, Robbie Shatto warned us."

  Thomas nodded, "Uh huh. Weren't more than eight or nine hostiles, I guess-probably half a dozen left after our volley. That was purely terrible shooting, Robert, even if some fool did let off too soon. Anyhow, that half-dozen Injuns just chewed up eighteen of us."

  "I maybe got the one that shot James, but he kept going, and I couldn't follow up."

  "We did the best we could do, Robert. I got all turned around in there. Got off a shot at a shadow or something. I called out for you but got to figuring that wasn't too smart, so I lit out and finally got back here just a'fore dark."

  "Nothing else you could do, Thomas."

  "We going home now, Robert, or we going to lay over?"

  "We're going home, Thomas, I've had all of this bunch I'm able to take. We'll pick up James's teapot on the way. He wanted Ann to have it, but I surely wish it wasn't me bringing it home."

  A lookout on the rifle walk first saw them coming. "Two people coming in, George. Over there across the run."

  George saw them then. Two men walking steadily, but through the trees around the spring he couldn't make them out.

  As they drew closer he recognized Robert's walk and that startled him. They were not expected back for weeks. He couldn't tell right off if the other man was Thomas or James, but a sense of something gone wrong settled over him like a soggy blanket, and he suddenly felt a sickly weakness sweep through his body.

  Without explaining to the lookout, George turned and worked his way down the ladder and shuffled out the water gate as though he wore a hundred years.

  From the bluff edge he recognized Thomas, and when he saw that Robert was carrying two guns he knew as sure as he stood there that James had gone under. Sorrow washed across him and through the heaviness of his own heart he could imagine the agonies suffered by Robert.

  James was gone, Robert's best friend and only close companion. He thought of Ann waiting patiently for her man's return, and his soul writhed. Ann and Robert, they would be the sufferers. They would need any strength he could lend them. He gathered his feelings, forcing an outward strength and calm he did not feel.

  He hurried down the bluff and crossed the run on the log footbridge they had thrown up. They came together well out in the fields, George spreading his arms, and Robert stepping into th
em as he would have his father's.

  Robert was not weeping, but his body shook and his voice was thick with loss. "James is dead, George, gun-shot over on Sideling Hill. I buried him there, George, wasn't anything else to do."

  George patted him silent, undismayed by Robert's exposed emotions. Thomas was taking it better, and George experienced a passing thought that maybe Thomas hadn't seen it all, then he reminded himself how close Robert and James had been.

  Ann received the facts dry-eyed, but a little later broke down amid Agnes and Mary's comforting. Robert spared her the details, but out of the women's hearing he told it the way he had planned.

  "I figured we had gotten clear of them by moving fast and holding off the way we had come in, and maybe we had. That Injun that shot James might have just happened to be out there.

  "The shot came without warning and struck James square in the eye. I was rolling for cover, as Thomas and the other man were. When I saw James fall I lit after the hostile that did the shooting. He had a good lead, but I think I put a ball into him before I lost him." Robert gritted his teeth in bitter anger, "Lord, how I wanted to run that Injun down, but there could have been others, so I headed back. I heard Thomas call once and I answered, but we didn't come on each other."

  Robert paused, appearing preoccupied, as though seeing it all again. He sighed and finished quickly, "James was dead, so I carried him off a ways and buried him deep. Then I went on in to Fort Littleton."

  Again George sensed something not being told, but it wasn't the time to pick and prod. Telling it was plainly painful. They had the gist of what had happened, and Robert would tell anything else when he got ready.

  But Robert said little more. He resumed his scouting and deer hunting. He was pleasant enough, but the carefree attitude was gone. He smiled seldom and kept everybody except Agnes at a distance. George guessed that having lost one companion, Robert avoided gaining, and perhaps losing, another.