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

  "Of course I am well! I've only come to ask that you join me on the war path to the Dakotas or perhaps north against the Huron." He groaned, shifting his weight uncomfortably.

  E'shan sighed in sympathy. "Truly the trails are longer and the hills steeper, my brother. But tell me, where have you camped? Does Long Knife follow? How long will you stay?"

  Kneeling Buffalo answered while preparing his pipe. He fitted a reed to the clay bowl and scraped a little at the hardened cake. E'shan offered his tobacco pouch, expecting that his supply was better than his friend's.

  "We camped long at the Deer Spring. Game is still plentiful there, but I wished to visit here on the Little Buffalo. Long Knife will strike the lodge today and arrive before dark. I started yesterday and slept along the ridge. I scouted slowly, so the game would not be disturbed."

  E'shan snorted his derision, "Scouted? I could hear the snapping of your joints long before you reached the meadow. You sounded like Quehana's wagon rattling across the valley." He gestured toward the high-wheeled wagon drawn closely behind his lodge.

  Kneeling Buffalo chose to ignore his friend's crudities. "If you have tales of interest and your meat is plentiful, I may linger while Long Knife counsels near Shamokin. However, if you attempt to share the same dull stories of seasons past, I may climb the Buffalo Mountain and listen instead to the rantings of the squaw Oonasa who lives on nuts and berries and claims to know the future."

  E'shan's baleful look failed to ruffle Kneeling Buffalo who called sharply for a coal to start his pipe. Flat brought a hot coal from the fire on a bit of clay. She placed it handy to Kneeling Buffalo then teasingly ruffled his gray mane and darted into the lodge. The Buffalo snorted in pretended indignation at such familiarity and fired his pipe with care. Exhaling smoke, he grunted approval of E'shan's tobacco and passed his pipe to his friend.

  "Even squaws abuse my good nature. The old times were better, E'shan. In our youth, elders were admired and respected. Now, in our turn, where are the honors? Where are the great feasts and councils? Who has halted the grand times when we plotted distant hunts and warriors boasted of mighty coups while squaws covered their mouths in awe and respect?"

  He groaned aloud and slouched on an elbow, his back against a gnarled root, gazing forlornly between his worn traveling moccasins at the sun speckled meadows.

  E'shan held up a point for examination before pausing to let his own eyes take in the familiar spread of creek and meadowland. An old memory came clear, and his features rearranged themselves in a broad smile.

  "Buffalo, my friend, do you remember the time we trapped the bear against the hill just below here?" A cackle of glee rewarded him.

  "We had two or three arrows into him, and you circled to give him another just as I sunk one into his ribs. He drove me into the creek, and I thought he was surely coming in as well when you shot him in the rump."

  Laughing, Kneeling Buffalo took up the tale, "You were never faster, old friend. Until you fell on your face, you seemed to walk on the water."

  "Surely I stepped on a mossy stone." E'shan shuddered remembering, "I could feel claws waiting to sink into my back. Your arrow was none too soon."

  "Nor too well aimed. That bear spun around with arrows hanging and ran me up that old chestnut we see from here."

  E'shan slapped his friend's thigh. "You climbed like a squirrel, kicking down at that bear's face and screaming like a raven for help." He shook his head in wonderment, "My bowstring was soaked, my arrows were floating away and my loincloth filled with water and fell to my knees. I lost a moccasin getting to the bank and fell down trying to climb it. All that time you were climbing higher and screeching louder.

  "I drew careful aim and shot the bear . . . in the foot!" E'shan stopped to shake his head and share Kneeling Buffalo's wry amusement.

  "Our uncle, the bear, seemed angry, so I climbed another tree while he tried to choose between us. Oh, we were mighty hunters that day, my brother."

  "E'shan, that bear was so embarrassed he died from it. One moment he was storming back and forth between our trees, and the next instant he lay dead."

  "It was my arrow in his foot that did it!"

  "Embarrassed him you mean?"

  "No! Killed him, oh ungrateful one. If my arrow had not turned him, he would surely have chewed on your bony shanks."

  "Ah, those were full days. Can young men today hope to enjoy such times?"

  "Huh, have you forgotten how my grandson, Shikee, was clawed by a panther and saved by Quehana, my new grandson? Or . . ."

  "Wait! Spare me those too often told stories, oh doting grandfather, or I will leave immediately for the furthest mountain.

  "Where are those two summer storms? Usually they would have disrupted the lodge by now."

  E'shan shrugged, "Who can tell? Before your arrival they brought fat eels from the creek. Then I heard them gobbling like turkeys on the north ridge. No doubt they are poking at a hornet's nest or setting fire to the meadows. They will discover you are here, and at the time of eating they will certainly appear."

  The squaws who had accompanied Kneeling Buffalo from the Deer Spring appeared and crossed the creek to prepare a lodge site for Long Knife's arrival. The old men observed their pulling of weeds and smoothing of ground in silence.

  Kneeling Buffalo said, "The land grows more empty, E'shan. Even here the lodge sites have long grass."

  "True, Buffalo. The trade has gone, and it will not return. You know the reasons as well as I."

  "You speak of whites."

  "I speak of whites and their guns! Where whites live, game is scarce, and the Indian follows the game. Soon both will be gone.

  "It is a strange game that we play, Buffalo. Whites enter our woods and kill our deer, but if a brave takes a white man's spotted buffalo there is a great cry of rage from the whites.

  "If we drive whites from our lands there is angry muttering within their villages, but if a brave attempts to live on white land he is forced away and is lucky to keep his scalp. Who can understand white men? I have thought long on it and I see only their greed and hunger to possess anything belonging to or used by another."

  "Truly their codes are strange."

  "Did you know that white men have but one squaw?"

  The Buffalo was plainly astonished.

  "It is true, I have it from Quehana." E'shan was certain.

  "Who then cares for all the extra women? Who hunts for them? Who protects their lodges?"

  E'shan shrugged. "I do not know; we must ask white men."

  "Quehana should know."

  "Perhaps, but Quehana came to us as a boy. I shall ask the trader Croghan who is seen often. He will have the answers."

  They smoked in silence, pondering the strangeness of whites. Kneeling Buffalo broke the quiet.

  "Have you noticed that all whites look alike? It is hard to tell one from another. The worst are those who grow hair on their faces. Who can see the man so hidden and disguised?"

  E'shan nodded. "True, yet whites have eyes of many colors and even hair of many tints. It is said they speak in a hundred tongues and worship different gods. Still, I agree, they are hard to tell apart."

  "Well, at least they all smell the same. Truly brother, a white must be closer than uncle to the bear for both insult a man's nose."

  "Quehana says they do not know of the sweat lodge and rarely bathe in cold weather."

  Kneeling Buffalo's nose wrinkled. "Whew! Little wonder they rival the skunk."

  "But they have guns!"

  "They have guns, iron knives, woven blankets, and the firewater drink. Their marvels are many, and their numbers endless. Soon they will be all around us, even here between the mountains. Quehana and Shikee speak of cabins along the Juniata."

  E'shan said, "Yes, I have seen them."

  "We counsel crowding our borders so the whites may not enter, but I fear the sachems will not act. The Nations are aligned like white soldiers along the great lakes to the north. These valleys
are new to the Iroquois, and they were taken as spoils of war. The bones of their people do not lie here as do ours. They do not believe these mountains important."

  E'shan's voice held anger. "Soon the white fathers will offer many gifts, and greedy chiefs will surrender this land to the whites. Long Knife's words will be brushed aside. Our counsels will have been in vain. Whites will come. I will move to the village of Aughwick and never again visit these meadows of the Little Buffalo."

  Kneeling Buffalo was not certain it could be as bad or as soon as E'shan predicted, but his friend's discouragement was plain, and he sought to lighten the mood.

  "Perhaps The Warrior will turn his attention to the pale ones. If he chose, he alone could clear these hills of all white eyes."

  Resisting solace, E'shan muttered, "The Warrior! Huh, but who can know where he travels or where he will turn?"

  Undeterred, The Buffalo continued, "He appeared recently at the Warrior's Mark in the Seven Mountains. Of course none could stand against him. He will need arrow points. Soon he will visit here. Then you might encourage his interest in white intruders."

  E'shan cast a jaundiced eye in Kneeling Buffalo's direction, but his mood lightened.

  "When the Warrior comes, this lodge grows silent. His presence hovers so strongly that it can almost be seen. No one advises The Warrior."

  "E'shan, the Warrior has many times honored your lodge. He has named your grandson. Surely he respects your counsel."

  E'shan hesitated, turning a point blank in his hand and gazing unseeing across the golden meadows. When they came, his words were a litany of awe and respect.

  "The Warrior is like no other. He is stronger, faster, and more cunning than all of the others. His courage has been seen by many and is known to all. If he has fear, none know it. The weapons of The Warrior are certain death to his enemies, yet he rarely kills."

  E'shan's gaze sharpened as his thoughts concentrated, "The Warrior has risen above the war path. He has traveled far beyond the collecting of scalps. He no longer feels as others do. He is unaffected by winter chill; he seems never to hunger or thirst. He listens to voices unheard by others and is disinterested in the affairs that concern the rest of the people.

  "The Warrior is no longer truly of this world. He searches always for the meaning of honor and greatness. For this, we hold him in utmost respect. To be noticed by The Warrior is in itself a rare and valued honor.

  "When The Warrior accepted the bone arrowheads made by my white grandson, the honor was great. When he returned with gifts and to name my grandson, Quehana, The Arrowmaker, our lodge was honored beyond belief."

  E'shan paused, "But when The Warrior appears, tongues are tied. Squaws quiver in the lodge. Even noted fighters look down and all are uneasy.

  "The Warrior is . . . too great. He is beyond our understanding. I believe that he stands closer to The Great Spirit than any other.

  "Who, then, who among us, will speak to guide the actions of such a warrior? Not I, old friend, not I.

  "If The Warrior chooses to fight, white squaws will wail from this place to the salt sea, but there is only one Warrior. Can even he fight forever within the many white villages? Can he reach across the salt sea to destroy the winged canoes that empty whites like pale ants onto our land?

  "No, even The Warrior cannot do for The Nations what they should do for themselves. If it is to be war, all must fight.

  "There is no easy way in war. Better that we flood these valleys with families and deny entry to all others."

  E'shan again hesitated, then continued gloomily, "I will go to Aughwick and watch with sorrow as chiefs and sachems wriggle and squirm, seeking power and doing all the wrong things at the worst times. I shall look for you there, oh friend of my youth, and we can grieve together."

  Chapter 4

  Shikee lay alert within the tall grass. He could tell the doe's position by her light step and occasional tearing away of tasty grasses as she grazed closer. The breeze remained steady, blowing from the deer, and their chances of counting coups on the shy animal seemed good.

  Quehana lay hidden a few yards to the left. Shikee knew he was there, although there had been no sound.

  They had seen the doe, lured into the open by rich summer grass, and had laid their ambush between her and the forest. Usually, deer browsed or grazed downwind, allowing the breeze to carry danger smells while their eyes looked ahead. This doe was no exception. The youths had put aside their bows and quivers and crept, as smooth as snakes, into the deep meadow grass.

  Shikee judged the unsuspecting doe no more than four lengths away. Without moving, he warbled a thrush cry and heard the explosion of effort as Quehana sprang at the deer. Only then did Shikee move.

  The thrush call brought the doe's attention to Shikee's spot, but Quehana's charge from the side jerked her head toward the attack, and she swerved her body away to spring to safety.

  Shikee's delay had been just long enough. He aimed for where the doe should go and hurled himself forward.

  The startled deer saw the Indian as his body rose from the grass. She again changed directions and was almost swift enough. Straining mightily, Shikee lunged at the twisting, leaping doe, and his fingers touched her fast departing rump. He heard Quehana's shout of triumph as he sprawled painfully into harsh grass and nettles, feeling his whole body jar with the impact.

  He sucked in a new breath and rolled gingerly onto a hip and elbow. Quehana stood above him wearing a huge smile, one strong arm and clenched fist raised in triumph, the other extended to help him up.

  Quehana's Delaware faltered a trifle in his excitement as he grasped Shikee's hand and hauled him erect. "We did it, Shikee! Your hand touched her strongly. You flew like a bird, and our speed was that of panthers. You have counted coup on our cousin the deer."

  Picking at nettles and rubbing at grass stains, Shikee added, "And I landed like a thrown stone. How is it that I always end up scratched and scarred, while you stay unmarked, my brother?"

  Archly, Quehana replied, "Do the mighty sachems sweat, my brother? No! There are some, probably I am among them, for whom others toil and labor. So come, oh battered one, and you may also carry my bow and quiver." Quehana turned toward the woods.

  Shikee followed, rubbing at stains on the massive scars that told of his fight with a panther a year before.

  "Surely, Quehana, as I have counted the coup while you lingered-probably sniffing at meadow flowers-you should carry both bows while I lead as a true chief does."

  Approaching their weapons, Quehana appeared to consider his friend's suggestion.

  "Long Knife may return from Shamokin today. He will have tales to tell. If we did not have to hurry I might carry the bow, but not today, my brother.

  "I seem always destined to explain how you have torn your clout and smeared the vermilion the squaws painted on your scars. Today we will return early, bathe in the creek, and appear within the lodge clean and with the dignity proper for warriors such as ourselves."

  They left the Sugar Run valley heading southwest across the ridges at an easy lope. Following Shikee, Quehana heard him say, "At least I lead as a chief should while others follow."

  Grinning, Quehana began running close on Shikee's heels, occasionally prodding him in the small of the back, while loudly complaining about strolling at a squaw's pace.

  Before traveling to the council at Shamokin, Long Knife had placed his lodge at the Little Buffalo site prepared by his squaws. He had spent an evening with E'shan and Kneeling Buffalo discussing thoughts he would present at Shamokin and polishing the words he would use.

  Fortunately, for the success of the discussion, Shikee and Quehana had not appeared, and the three men were able to reason without interruption. E'shan and the Buffalo cherished such exchanges. No longer active advisors, their opinions were still strong. Long Knife respected their thoughts and found his own much in accord.

  With morning light, The Knife had left for the great village at Shamokin. He carr
ied only ceremonial clothing for wear before the councils. Shamokin lay two days march upriver at the forks of the Susquehanna, but he would camp with friends enroute.

  The Shamokin counseling had been long and in the end dreary. The Knife had spoken his words. He had met with individual chiefs and had risen again at smaller councils that gathered, changed, and divided as sides were drawn and power and influence were juggled and shifted.

  The Knife repeated his counsel and its supporting arguments until the words seemed stale and meaningless. He heard opposing arguments until his mind soured, and his ears closed to them.

  Long Knife returned to the Little Buffalo wearied of talk and dismayed by the vacillating indecision of self-seeking leaders.

  Near E'shan's lodge the creek was small, so a crude, stone and earth dam had been placed to create a bathing pool. Drinking water was drawn upstream, and animal gutting or other messy tasks were accomplished below the dam.

  Lodges visiting the meadows usually raised their poles on the south side of the creek, and, seated beneath his oak, E'shan could observe most of what took place.

  In the late afternoon, Buffalo left the lodge of his son, made a tottery way across steppingstones above the dam pool, and settled into his favored seat beside E'shan. A few moments later, Long Knife strode from his lodge, driving his heels almost angrily into the meadow grass.

  Kneeling Buffalo sighed his distress, "My son is not pleased with the Shamokin council. His words will not bring us contentment, E'shan."

  E'shan shrugged, having expected little. "Perhaps we should worry less, old friend. Our time is short and our years have been good. Each generation must make its own way. Soon memories of our lives will be gone, and there will be no knowledge of how it used to be. Who can now recall the time before the whites? No one, for they are all with the Great Spirit. Long Knife will do as he must . . . as will the two wolves now plotting against the north slope."

  Looking closely, Kneeling Buffalo saw Shikee and Quehana standing at the forest edge. His sigh was amused. "And so ends peace along the Little Buffalo."