Shatto (Perry County, Pennsylvania Frontier Series) Read online

  He could imagine the stallion sprinting down the north side of the ridge and turning west already past the Blue Ball Tavern; he reached the run at the narrows and turned downstream for the final half mile to the forks. Where it passed through the narrow gap, the trail was corduroyed. The cross-laid logs and slabs slowed his progress and Rob began to worry.

  They stumbled and fought through the gloom of the pass for a seeming eternity before bursting into the sun drenched Little Buffalo Valley. Rob lifted the mare into a final all-out gallop, streaking for the copse of woods that marked the joining of the two feeders into the Little Buffalo itself. He saw riders waiting and heard their shouts, but he could not make out the stallion's position.

  Movement downstream caught his eye and he saw the stallion coming hard across the open meadow, Troop was laid out on his horse's neck as though talking into the stallion's ear, and his hat fanned the horse's straining haunch.

  But Rob had him! Not by much, but enough. He drove the mare past the screeching watchers while Troop was still fifty yards out. He figured he had himself a colt.

  They slow-loped, trotted and walked their steaming mounts. Men came up and asked questions. Finally, the racers came together.

  Abel Troop's hand was out as quick as Rob's.

  "Well done, Shatto! You licked us fair and square!"

  Troop's engaging grin broke through. "Can't say I like it much, Rob, and I don't figure on getting used to it!

  "Next time, I'll pick the course. Then watch out, you old Indian."

  +++++

  They talked on the easy ride back to Bloomfield. Rob believed he had made a friend. Abel Troop's friendliness brought him out of himself, and the militia captain's enthusiasm and interest in his small ventures warmed his spirit. He found himself telling Troop his plans for raising a few fine horses, and that telling in itself was unusual. The mountains left a man independent, and Rob normally said little about himself to other people.

  Troop had a family waiting and could not linger in town. They parted with a warm handclasp and Troop said, "Rob, I'll drop by within the week. I think we have things to talk about. You will tell me when the mare's ready, and I'll have this young stud on hand."

  Rob nodded, feeling warm and friendly. "My thanks, Abel. It's been a special day, and I'll look for your visit.

  "Meantime, maybe Amos'll race his mule against the mare!"

  Troop rode off amid their mutual laughter, and Amos's screeched assurances that his mule could make both their scurvy plugs holler uncle.

  The race made good talk in the valley. Men got to wondering if maybe Rob's gelding wasn't a better runner even than the mare was.

  Rob let them wonder. He'd made his first move toward his horse raising and was more than pleased with it. Abel Troop might never have hired out his stallion as stud to Rob's mare. The race had been memorable, he had acquired the services of the best stallion around, and he thought maybe he had made a friend worth having.

  It seemed a good day all around.

  +++++

  Chapter 5

  Rob had been west of Round Top looking at horses. He'd thought there might be a chance that someone living among the local mountains had developed a hardy strain especially suited to the rough and steep Allegheny country. The Nez Perce had bred their Appaloosa that way. Well, it hadn't happened in these parts. The local animals had been nothing special, although they had helped convince him that the best local animals were still being raised on the broad, rolling meadows south of the Alleghenies.

  Here, men were interested in plough and harness animals, not war ponies. While disappointed at not finding what he sought, Rob took some solace by expecting to be the first to breed and train such horses.

  He rode into Germantown a bit wearied and found the cool comfort of the new Blue Ball Tavern inviting. The two-story tavern and inn was an imposing stone structure, but David Koutz's choice of names struck Rob as singularly unoriginal, as the tavern by the same name on Little Buffalo Creek had been standing as long as he could remember.

  There were horses racked before the tavern entrance, but none looked familiar. The way strangers were coming into the county it was no wonder. But then, he supposed, his ten-year absence made him as much a stranger as most others.

  He put his horse between two placid looking beasts that he guessed to be non-kickers, and restrained his automatic reach for his scabbarded rifle. He made his way across the dim coolness of the tavern room to lean against the smoothed wood of the service bar. Other men sat at shadowed tables, but waiting for his eyes to adjust to the poor light he could not make them out.

  Koutz bustled from a back room scrubbing his hands on a soiled apron and wearing a professional smile of greeting. He clomped back out of sight with Rob's request for a half-pitcher of his coolest beer, and Rob heard his thick-soled shoes descending into the tavern's cold cellar.

  Rob chose an empty table offering a chair with a slatted back and slumped comfortably, letting the cool and yeasty air relax him.

  Talk that had stilled as he entered rose again as the tavern keeper placed a mug of foaming beer on Rob's table. Koutz commented on the weather and game conditions as he fumbled in a drawstring purse for Rob's change. Rob's own comments were neutral, as he knew nothing of Koutz or his tavern.

  The beer was thick and strong. After a few thirst-quenching swallows, Rob was content to sip, idly thinking of horses, and savoring the mealy coolness of the brew. His thoughts turned to his youth in old Rob's fortress home. They had owned an ice cave back then. In the winter, the family had cut ice on the millpond and packed it in straw, deep in the cave. Throughout the summer they enjoyed chillingly cold drinks, and food kept better in the cave than in Grandma Becky's springhouse. If he owned a tavern, he'd surely store ice. Really cold beer would bring a lot of trade. He mulled ways to add a good ice cave conveniently close in his own plans.

  "We see you, Shatto, and we know who you are. Don't think we don't!" The loud, whiskey voice snapped Rob from his dreaming. Three men sat in the gloom of a corner, and it was one of them that had spoken. Rob rested his mug on the table, hearing the uneasy shifting of Koutz's feet behind his bar. He tried to place the voice but it was strange to him. In the sudden stillness, he felt the reassuring press of the pistol against his spine.

  Old Bart Harris and his two best boys had stomped into the new tavern to drink away their worries. It was a poor time for Harris and the rest of the Rubys. Things were looking low. There was no money because no one had put in crops or hired out their labor. Koutz's insistence on seeing their money before serving them hadn't set well, but they'd put up enough to afford a satisfying amount of whiskey, and they'd sat drinking steadily and brooding on what to do.

  Both boys had been muttering about clearing out and joining cousin Maddoc along the Mississippi. Old Bart might have sympathized with them if it hadn't been for the news of Rob Shatto's return to the county. That made things more than a little different.

  Bart Harris had hated Shattos since the day he'd stood paralyzed with fear while the first Rob Shatto had chopped away at his father with a tomahawk, and then run them off the place that was rightly theirs. For all of his days he'd remembered and cursed the Shattos. But for them, he'd have been raised in a fine home instead of a run-down tavern. Each time his father told how he'd lost his fingers fighting Indians, Bart Harris cringed inside and hated Shattos all the more. He'd vowed his day would come, and it finally had. He'd had to wait a lot of years, but finally the Rubys his girls married came to be his clan, and he brought them north to have his revenge on the people that had ruined his chances in life.

  Well, he'd done what he came to do. He'd run the Shattos clean out of the country. Until this young Rob Shatto showed up he'd been contemplating heading back south himself, but a new Shatto made it all different.

  When Rob Shatto entered the saloon old Bart knew him instantly. The size of the man was as he remembered the first Rob Shatto, and the skin clothes and ready pistol looked just
as they had a thousand times in his memory. The sight took his breath away, and the ancient sour fear rode strong way down deep in his gut.

  Harris watched Shatto seat himself and settle into thinking. He tossed his own whiskey down scarcely feeling its bite and snarled bitter words into his boys' ears. The longer he looked and talked, the higher the old hatred flared, but he was himself surprised when his voice rose loud, calling Rob Shatto's hand. Shatto's obvious surprise and continued silence fueled his whiskey courage and made him push even harder.

  "Oh, you don't know us Rubys jest yet, Shatto, but you soon will; just like the rest o'your people got to know us." There was chuckling from the other men at the table.

  The speaker was an old man. Looking close, Rob could see age-ravaged features above a scrawny neck. The other men were younger with narrow faces and small mouths. Rob let his vision check the rest of the room. No one else seemed inclined to join in.

  Goaded by Rob's silence, the old man spoke again. 'Don't suppose the name Harris means a thing to you does it, Shatto? Ought to, seein' as how old Rob Shatto chopped most o'my pa's hand off with a tomahawk!"

  Rob thought, for god's sake! He'd heard old Rob tell of coming home from the Braddock massacre to find squatters living in his house. The man had tried for a knife and old Rob had chopped three of his fingers off. The tomahawk mark had been in their kitchen table until he left for the west. Why, that must have happened seventy years ago, and here this peculiar old man was still brooding about it.

  This, then, was old Bart Harris that he had been told about. He supposed the two younger men would be Rubys. Probably sons-in-law or maybe grandsons.

  The three of them looked cunning mean all right, but Rob didn't figure they would measure too high as hard and tough.

  One of the Rubys whispered, and all three laughed and stomped their booted feet. Old Bart choked on his liquor and again laid his loud voice on Rob.

  "Hope us Rubys ain't gone and scared you so bad you can't speak up like a man should, Shatto. This here's Asaf and Grandon Ruby siding me. Want us to come over there and shake a little voice loose for ya?" The sally again caused knee slapping and table thumping among the three, and Rob heard Koutz clear his throat nervously, the old man was obviously in his cups. Whiskey bolstered and sided by two Rubys, Harris seemed bent on making an issue of the chance meeting.

  In the western mountains, Rob had seen a trapper retreat from another's challenge. Though few spoke of the incident, the man was never again accepted or trusted. In time, he drifted away, and the others were pleased to have him gone. Rob Shatto had never backed down. He had survived and grown in a school brutal and demanding beyond the understanding of such as Bart Harris and the Rubys.

  Rob's moccasins were soundless on the rough board floor. One moment he had been seated a safe distance away. An instant later he hovered like doom itself above the Ruby table.

  Old Bart Harris experienced a momentary reversion to the time of his youth when a similar giant in hunting skins had appeared at his father's elbow. Before his reason took hold and he knew those times to be long past, his eyes skittered, searching for the gleam of tomahawk that had so cleanly severed his father's fingers.

  Rob spoke, his voice quiet but more coldly fierce than Bart Harris had imagined possible. Through the strained silence Rob's words reached all in the tavern and the listeners felt their own chills grip unexpectedly taut innards.

  "You are a fool, old man! I give you one warning. Aim no threats and make no difficulty for me or I will hurt the three of you so badly that none of you will ever be well again!"

  Shaken by the intensity of Rob Shatto's threat, old Bart attempted to bluster, but the danger hung so surely before him that his voice was dust in his throat and he sat stricken speechless, his slack jaw working loosely and his eyes darting away. The two Rubys visibly cringed, their eyes glued to the table before them. Rob held them for a long moment before stepping lightly away and through the tavern door.

  +++++

  Letting his eyes adjust to the bright sunlight, Rob stood near the tavern exit. He had seen no Ruby guns, but he had no intentions of presenting his back as he rode away.

  Voices were raised inside the tavern. Someone whistled in awe, but no footsteps approached the shadowed entrance.

  He heard Bart Harris's loud voice. "Sure it's alright for that Injun to threaten poor farmers like us, him with a pistol hangin' real handy. Jest wait till old Maddoc gets back from Natchez. Then, we'll see who walks small around these parts."

  Rob considered reentering and carrying out his promise. In the high mountains, he would already have been among them, going to the knife if need be. But back here it didn't seem that necessary. Old Bart was letting whiskey run his tongue. As to the infamous Maddoc Ruby, Rob figured to look to that when the time came.

  He tightened his saddle girth with an eye on the tavern and trotted the gelding to the horse water east of the town. He let the animal snuffle in the runoff and thought about the Rubys.

  It seemed out of place to be thinking about fighting and maybe killing back here in Pennsylvania. When he'd ridden west ten years back, there had been law with most people obeying it. Still, Perry Countians were quick to act if they felt a mite crowded, and brawls were still too common to rate more than passing interest.

  Ruby trouble Jack Elan claimed could be serious and underhanded with none of the usual straight out give and take. Rob wondered anew about the accidental shooting of his uncle. When he finally rode down to the Carolinas, he would ask his folks their version of all that had caused his family to move so far from their home place.

  He laid a rein against the gelding's neck and clucked the horse east along the valley road.

  +++++

  Old Bart saved what face he could with Koutz and his customers, but the sick fear that roiled his innards couldn't be stilled, and he ached to get square with the Shatto that had faced him down and made him look small.

  He drummed with his fingers on the rough table wishing Maddoc were here. It had been a sad day for the Rubys when old Maddoc had pulled stakes. He reckoned Asaf and Grandon could do the job that had come into his head, but Maddoc alone would have done it better.

  He leaned close to the two Rubys, talking quietly and insistently. The younger men nodded understanding and exchanged knowing smirks. They worked it out for a few minutes, then tossed down their drinks and left, walking slowly to appear casual and unconcerned.

  Old Bart stayed. He ordered more whiskey, plunking down his last cash money when Koutz withheld the bottle, and settled back to wait. The boys had seemed willing enough, and they'd done it to a Shatto once before. No one had ever figured that accident out, and they wouldn't this one either. The whiskey built a comfortable glow helping to ease the fears and rages and nourishing his sense of final vengeance after all the years of waiting.

  +++++

  Chapter 6

  For some time, Rob had listened to the horse closing up behind him. There was nothing stealthy about the rider's approach. The animal was moving at a quick trot, the way anyone wishing to cover ground might travel. But after the hard words at the tavern, Rob felt a touch of caution about someone riding his trail.

  A long meadow lay just ahead, and Rob judged the rider would catch up before he reached the far side. He chose to wait in the shelter of the near woods until he was clear on just who was pushing his horse closer.

  He pulled the gelding a step or two off the valley road and waited for the horseman. His first glance made him glad he had. The rider was the long, skinny Ruby brother that Bart Harris had called Asaf. Ruby's mount was a heavy-bellied draft animal, and the man's legs were bent high in short stirrups along the horse's flanks. Rob doubted that Ruby was much of a rider.

  There was an old cut-off fowling piece slung by a leather strap from Asaf's saddle and Rob figured he wouldn't have been in any danger from that old gun beyond fifty yards. Still, he felt more comfortable with Asaf Ruby alongside rather than behind.

&n
bsp; Asaf's eyes were searching ahead, looking out across the meadow, and he failed to see Rob waiting among the tree shadows. Belatedly sighting Rob, he jerked his mount to a hard-reined halt, a multitude of surprised and conflicting expressions flitting across his high-cheeked face.

  Ruby used the controlling of his horse to regain his composure and settled his features into a crooked smile of pleasure that in view of their recent meeting rang false to Rob's eyes.

  "Glad I caught up with ye, Shatto." There was a certain relief in his voice that inclined Rob toward believing him.

  Ruby spent time explaining how he had caught up to apologize for the way they had all acted. He struggled through a disjointed reasoning of how they had imbibed a mite too much whiskey and they hadn't meant all the hard things their uncle had spoken.

  Rob heard him out, believing little of it, and watched the man's shifty-eyed nervousness turn into sly satisfaction as the involved explanation wore to an end. Rob couldn't figure it. None of it sounded right. Yet, Ruby was alone, poorly armed, and no match for Rob Shatto under any circumstances.

  "So, Shatto, we're all a'hopin' you'll let by-gones be, an' forget them words spoken out o' liquor." Ruby concluded, and seemed suddenly more interested in being gone than in Rob's acceptance of his apologies.

  Rob nodded noncommittally, still trying to figure Ruby's purpose. On impulse he said, "Reckon I'll ride on back to the tavern and listen to what the rest of your people are saying about things. If there's been misunderstanding, we can get it all straightened out."

  Ruby appeared thunderstruck, taken utterly aback by the suggestion. His eyes darted nervously, and his tongue licked slack lips. Rob could feel him searching frantically for another course. It seemed mighty plain that Asaf Ruby didn't want him back at the tavern.