Shatto (Perry County, Pennsylvania Frontier Series) Read online

  He again hesitated and touched Elan with his thoughtful gaze.

  "The fact is though, Jack, for all that wild country's offering, it just isn't my home place. After looking her over for ten years I've come to recognize that back here in Perry County is what I like best."

  Rob let his mind roam across the valley and the wooded lines of Limestone and Mahanoy ridges. "A mountain going to the sky really isn't much use, and seeing a hundred miles isn't as interesting as watching woods close to hand. Here, a man can farm or roam and hunt as he sees fit. There's game in the woods and fish in the streams. Above all, a man isn't two months hard riding from his own kind. A man tires of watching his trail for hostiles, and he wearies of sleeping light with his rifle close.

  "I reckon I've seen the most of it. There will come a time when people will be crowding into those mountains. I expect it will be a common thing, and I can see why a man would choose to go just like I did, but I been there.

  "It could be that I saw the best of it. Sitting by my fire out in those big mountains I remembered how old Shikee came home to this land to die, because here was where he was raised and this was where his people lay.

  "Still being young, I figured it was time to quit ramming around and to start making myself a place where I really wanted to be, doing what I really wanted to be doing."

  Rob took his time about going on. "Had me a good pardner, name of Bogard. A war party got him a season back. Fact is, Jack, with old Bogard gone under, it isn't in me to ride the long trails again. I'm back to stay. I'm going to get me a place and do some things I been thinking on for quite a spell.

  "Reckon I'll see my folks, pick a good spot, and get settled down on my own land the way a man ought."

  Elan shifted his weight, making his chair creak, suddenly concerned and uncomfortable. "Well Robbie, it'll be real nice havin' you for a neighbor, but there's news you need catchin' up on.

  "Plain to see you ain't heard about your family packin' up and movin' on down into Carolina." At Rob's stunned look Elan nodded and elaborated. "Yep. Hauled out near a year past."

  He leaned forward attentively, speaking softly as though listeners might be about. "Funny things began happening to your folks, Robbie. Buildings burned for no reason, your uncle Frank got shot by some hunter no one ever saw.

  "The saw mill went up in flames one night and your Pa sort of threw up his hands and quit. A man from Carlisle made him an offer for the land and almost afore anyone knowed it, the Shattos were moved out and gone.

  "Mighty strange, all of it, Rob. A mean family drifted into the county. They go by the name of Ruby and they've made a point of pickin' trouble with Shattos. Nothin' certain tying 'em to serious trouble, but I've got my own ideas, and I'll be tellin' 'em to you when we get down to it. Might be you'll have some watchin' out to do your own self."

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  Chapter 2

  Old Rob's great home had fallen into ruin. There had been fire here also. The tiled roof had collapsed and only the stonewalls remained. Poking through the wreckage, Rob found a tile with a handprint that had been imbedded before the tile had hardened. He rubbed his fingers over the print, wondering if it was his grandpap's or one of the squaws' that had helped make the tile.

  The gristmill looked intact, although the overshot water wheel was gone and the milldam leaked in a hundred places. Robbie Shatto found it hard to believe. When he had left, the farm had been in good order and both sawmill and the grinding mill were producing and showing profit.

  The land had also fallen onto hard times. The virgin timber on the north ridge had been cut and erosion gullies laced the hillsides. The fields were sprouting weeds and small brush. Whoever had bought the place seemed in no hurry to rebuild.

  Disgusted and offended by the destruction of old Rob's great dream, he climbed the burial knoll to look at the graves.

  A decade earlier, he had looked across cultivated fields to see old Rob's headstone shining in the sun. Now it lay half fallen among weeds and beginning trees. Great-grandma Becky's stone was down, as was grandpa George's. He seated himself on E'shan's plain rock marker and studied the devastation wrought by simple neglect.

  He had planned to come back someday, to sit here and tell old Rob how it had been in the Shining Mountains. Oh, they'd shone all right! They had risen clear and strong against a vast bowl of sky. He'd ridden the length of them and tasted all that they'd offered.

  Now, he was back and he had time to think on the wonder of it all. He felt the warm sun relaxing him, and he talked to old Rob in his mind, just as he had intended.

  Wish you could of been along, Pap. Maybe, we'd have stayed on and made a new place out there together. Alone, I just got my fill of it.

  Can't say why I missed this country so much, Pap. I suppose some of it was because my growing years were so good here. Maybe that high country was just too lonesome for my kind of man. Whatever the reason, Pap, I'm home and I'm staying.

  I've got me a dream now, Pap. I don't reckon it's as big a one as you had, coming out here before it was even legal, but I think I'll like working at it, and maybe I'll be doing something sort of good for some other folks.

  He lost his thought as his eyes focused on the still forested slope of Castle Knob. Probably the old treasure box lay undisturbed where it had been buried since the time of Braddock's defeat. Whew, that was ancient history now.

  He tried to remember how much gold and silver remained in the chest. He figured it was a goodly sum even by today's standards. No matter how poor things had gotten, knowing it was there if needed had made him feel rich and secure. Maybe he'd go over and poke through the coins for old times' sake. Made him feel close to old Rob, who had collected it all.

  Looking at the mess his folks had left didn't make their memory too sweet. He never had gotten close to his people, except old Rob, of course. The two of them had lived sort of outside of things. They'd talked Delaware half the time, and everybody else resented it. He figured they had been about as glad to see him ride out as he had been to go.

  He doubted he had the heart to buy back the old place and start building it all over. He counted that all dead and done with. He looked at the ruin of the burying place and questioned the wisdom of trying to keep it all prettied up. The Indians did it better. They recognized that the soul left with death and that marking where some old bones lay wasn't very important. He resolved to remove the slab markers and put natural stones in their places. Old Rob would like that. He had marked E'shan, Shikee, and the The Warrior's that way, so Robbie knew it would be good enough. Then, only he and those he chose to tell would know where the old ones were laid away.

  The gelding snorted down below and roused him from his thoughts. He took a long look around expecting to spend little time brooding over family losses.

  He would start hunting a new place right off. He wanted land with lots of water and a sheltered spot for his lodge. He mentally changed that to house and began visualizing the kind of home he would raise.

  Sadness left him and he began considering sites he remembered across around the county. There were fine meadows along Sherman's Creek, but that was a long ride from the county seat where a man did his business. There were a lot of things to be considered before making a final choice.

  He walked the gelding through the gap and on down Little Buffalo Creek. He recalled a boyhood chum who now worked in the courthouse. Cadwallader Jones! Rob smiled at the name as he had a thousand times before.

  Cad Jones was a quiet, studious one, smarter than most Rob suspected. Cad could help him out on finding what was for sale and how much he should pay.

  The land around him took his attention, and he turned uphill to view a strong spring that he'd nearly forgotten about. He liked the lay of this land. It fell nicely to the wooded creek bank. It might do to check it out with old Cad Jones.

  Growing eager to get on with it, he touched the gelding into a trot, heading straight for Bloomfield.

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  Cad Jon
es had grown into the man Rob had expected. Short vision left him peering through thick spectacles, and his slight frame bound him to the less taxing work of clerking for the county. Jones seemed to know about everything there was to know about Perry County. Rob got to wondering if any gossip or any happening escaped Cad's attention.

  After a time of chuckling over youthful memories, they talked land. Rob let it be known that he could raise some cash money but hinted that things were tight with him.

  Cad could appreciate that. Money was short throughout the county. People often paid their bills by bartering chickens, grain, or produce. The cash shortage made serious business difficult, and the county was in the act of issuing its own scrip to help pay its bills and keep things moving.

  They parted with their friendship renewed, and Jones' promise to keep Rob posted. Cad Jones had left Rob Shatto with things to keep his mind working. Land possibilities looked surprisingly good with many parcels up for sale.

  Of as much interest were Cad's regrets over Rob's family's losses and ultimate rout to the Carolinas. Jones, too, mentioned the Ruby clan with obvious suspicion and resentment.

  According to Jones, the Rubys had come north from holdings along the southern coast. They had settled by squatting and building or on rented places. The Rubys began pushing Shattos almost upon arrival. They went out of their way to initiate fights and start pointless lawsuits. Maddoc Ruby had mauled two Shatto men before he left for the Mississippi country.

  The Rubys were led by a grandfather named Bart Harris, and from all appearances, old Bart was the meanness pushing the Rubys into the Shattos.

  There was no evidence to tie the Rubys to the hunting accident or the many strange fires, but as other Shatto trouble seemed always to include Rubys, Jones thought their involvement more than likely. The Rubys had been less troublesome since the Shattos left. They lived on the edge of starvation, raising many children in their mean cabins. Villagers avoided them when possible and tolerated them when necessary. Jones claimed that only the taverns profited from the Rubys. Their men always had cash for whiskey, although they needed credit for flour.

  Elan harbored the same suspicions toward the Ruby clan, so Rob put some stock in the seriousness of the problem. It shamed him to know that his people could be run off by a family of ne'er-do-wells. Old Rob had recognized the softening among his people and also had resented it. Their timid ways were probably responsible for he and old Rob keeping away by themselves. Well, the Shattos had paid dearly, and Rob could only hope they would do better in their new country.

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  He rode back to Elan's, guessing it was time to talk to Jack about the western gold. Samples from the pack he had buried before entering the valley were in his saddle bags. Made him grin to think how Elan's eyes would pop. So much gold seemed almost immoral. It was surely more than one man needed.

  The question was, what to do with it? A man couldn't go around paying bills with lumps of pure gold. Folks saw so little gold that nobody would know its true value anyway.

  Rob and Elan sat on a soft carpet of needles, their backs comfortable against a monster white pine. Rob's pack lay open between them. They could see a long way and no one could appear unexpected.

  "It's a hard thing to describe, Jack. First off, you've got to picture a country that stretches a thousand times further than you think it could. You have to imagine more mountains and valleys than you would expect to be in the whole world. Then, toss in handfuls of Indian tribes, all of them moving around and shouldering each other to prove who's the strongest with the bravest hearts.

  "Well, we fell in with a small village that summered high in the Uintahs. Those are funny mountains. They point east and west where most ranges run to the poles.

  "Anyhow, this village had a lot of gold trinkets. They liked gold because it could be worked easily and it polished up nice. Fact is, they liked copper or silver about as much. Gold wasn't anything real special to them.

  "'About a year back, we were adding our guns to an early spring hunt when one of the braves pointed out a good place to get the sun-colored metal. Soon as we could, my pard and me hot footed it back there to see if we could collect a few ounces."

  Rob exposed a strip of worm-like gold for Elan's examination. "Well, there she was, Jack. Just like you see it here. After a little pecking and poking we found the right spot and picked gold out of a rock face with our hunting knives as easy as could be."

  Rob paused, returning in his mind to the veined outcropping. "My pard got sort of feverish about it. He wouldn't quit till his animals were near foundering from the load.

  "We headed east then, figuring we had made our fortunes and being careful to stay alive until we got among our own kind."

  Again, Rob hesitated, his face tightening with the memories. "Our luck ran out along the Platte, and my pard lost his gold and his life to some marauding Sioux. We just about got run over by a pack of them. My pardner went down, and I took a mean hit in the back with a stone arrow point. I managed to ride hard and got clean away during the night.

  "I holed up for a spell getting some strength back, then rode east taking it slow, watching my back trail, and letting no one know what I was carrying."

  They sat for a while, fingering the gold and speculating on its value. Finally, Elan tossed a last piece on the pile and sat looking at the dully-gleaming horde.

  "Well Robbie, there sure ain't nobody hereabouts that can handle that kind o' money. This county's about as poor as a place can get, an' my own guess is you just might be the richest man 'tween Kittatinny and Tuscarora mountains."

  Rob grinned almost ruefully. "So, what shall I do with all this, Jack? Make bracelets like the Uintahs?"

  "Oh, it isn't a hard answer to come by, Robbie. Just you think a minute on it.

  "Now, who's the best educated, best thought of, and downright richest man you ever knew?"

  Rob frowned trying to catch Elan's meaning. "I don't know any such people, Jack. I've been gone too long to hardly recall anybody important anyway.

  "Why, the only man I ever knew that made a wide trail in important places was James Cummens, and . . . Jack, are you telling me that old Blue Moccasin is still alive?" He saw approval in Elan's eyes and felt his heart leap in his chest.

  Elan nodded, pleased with himself. "And why shouldn't he be, Robbie? Blue's a few years younger than me. Sitting in that big house in Philadelphia, being waited on by fancy servants, ain't likely to have worn him down too much.

  "Yep, Blue's your man. He'll know how to handle your gold an' it goes without sayin' that he is as true as any man I ever knowed."

  Blue Moccasin, half-Indian, and old Rob's certain friend! In the white-man's world, he had thrived. Cummens' ships sailed the seas and poured their fortunes through the Cummens' Philadelphia warehouses. But it was as Blue Moccasin that James Cummens had visited the Shatto place on the Little Buffalo. Rob remembered the blue moccasins worn with the fine English cloth cut by the best Philadelphia tailors. He could recall the twinkle of blue eyes beneath a crop of thick black hair even then becoming streaked with gray. Blue Moccasin, a name from the fine days of his youth. Robbie Shatto found himself feeling good all over.

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  Jack Elan had seen many summers and the men that had grown out of them. He had known the old men of the frontier; men who had struggled on the land before there was a Perry County.

  They had been a hardy lot. There had been Irish, George Croghan and Andrew Montour, a half-Indian. The wilderness shaped those frontiersmen with a savage hand. The weak died, almost unnoticed, while the survivors learned to bend to the strains and grow stronger.

  Blue Moccasin and Rob Shatto had been among the few able to live with both Indian and white. When the redmen were gone, each had adapted to the changing times and had lived lives rich and full.

  Elan, too, had been one of the hard men. A bit younger than many, he had been severely tried by the frontier brutality that endured during the fading power of the India
n nations. Now, he alone, among all the men of Perry County, could remember the wildness of those earlier times.

  A more stolid Perry Countian had replaced the woodsmen Elan had known. The new men worked harder in their fields and built homes and barns of great size and strength. Their German tongue at times threatened to overcome English as a common language. They were hardy, but they saved and stored more than their predecessors had, and they turned to law for the settling of disputes and receipt of justice.

  These sturdy citizens looked askance at old Jack Elan, as though the heard-about terrors of old still lurked within his wiry frame, and he in turn, feared that their spark wasn't quite as strong as what he'd become accustomed to.

  When Jack Elan looked at Robbie Shatto, he saw all that he held to be right in a man. There was Rob's physical presence, of course. Taller than most, with wide shoulders and deep chest, Rob's powerfully developed body was hardened through wilderness living so that a casual looker might underestimate his weight by twenty or more pounds.

  Elan recognized the cat-like balance and lightning quick reflexes that half disguised the bone-cracking strength inherent in young Robbie Shatto. Old Rob had been the same. Old Rob had moved with a certain smooth and graceful power that made things look easy. Robbie had the same ways. Elan could envy that more than a little. He'd had to plug hard to measure up to old Rob's natural abilities. He found himself feeling good that young Robbie had inherited and built on those special qualities.

  Like his grandfather, Rob's hair and eyebrows were Indian black. Old Rob had worn his in twin Delaware braids, but Robbie had hacked his hair shorter so that it hung sort of even just above his shoulders.

  Eyes as black as his hair struck sparks above a reasonably straight nose. A firm jaw squared his high-cheek boned face and framed a straight-lipped mouth that showed strong and even teeth against a skin bronzed by mountain winds and desert suns.