The Black Rifle (Perry County Frontier series) Page 5

  As he lay in his covert, sucking marrow from the squirrel’s bones, Jack Elan pondered The Warrior’s intentions. It was possible that the fighter toyed with him, but such an act did not match the heroics of Blue Moccasin’s stories. Elan thought it more likely that The Warrior appreciated the audacity of his escape and wished to see it continue.

  Perhaps, The Warrior wished him well. Yet the thought of his whereabouts being known hinted that others less friendly might also find his trail.

  Despite his fear of trackers in relentless pursuit, Elan believed it folly to move about during daylight this close to the village. The squirrel had taken the sharpest edge from his hunger, and he decided to wait out the daylight in the safety of the laurel thicket. He would rest and husband his energy. When night came, he would cover his passage by walking in streams and changing directions until he was sure that he had lost even The Warrior. By then, he would be many miles from Pthuthoi village. He could travel during daylight thereafter and cover ground more rapidly. During daylight, he could search for nuts and even try for fish in shallow pools. At dusk and dawn he might take a rabbit with a thrown stone. After weeks of eating leavings, even raw rabbit sounded mouthwatering.

  Elan slept through most of the day, waking occasionally to listen and sniff the cold breeze. His thick blanket of leaves sheltered him, and to again wear clothing seemed a complete luxury.

  With dusk, he rose and slipped quietly from the laurel tangle. He trotted until full dark and then walked swiftly, avoiding skylining himself and doubling and twisting on his own trail. Three times he hid his route by walking in streams and leaving the water on rocks that would leave no trace.

  Before dawn, Elan felt himself slowing with fatigue. He struck a dim game trail and followed it, planning to seek shelter within a few hundred yards. Ahead, something swung unnaturally in the first hint of light. Elan moved closer and saw and smelled the freshly cooked squirrel dangling in the middle of the trail. A laugh, part amusement, mostly chagrin, started in his throat. All his maneuverings had been in vain. The Warrior was still at hand.

  Elan took the squirrel and chose a shelter. He ate and rubbed weary feet while taking stock of his situation. He clearly lacked the woodsmanship to outwit The Warrior. So, he would make rapid tracks for the distant white settlements, and he could only hope that the Iroquois killer continued restraint.

  Elan slept on that decision, waking to cold so bitter that it cracked twigs and froze everything solid.

  Each day Elan trotted and walked the countless ridges that lay between the Ohio country and the westernmost white settlements. He nearly drowned when his log broke through thin ice and rolled him under while crossing what he thought might be the Allegheny River. A sleet storm sent him to cover for more than a day; yet each night, as certain as the sun set, a cooked squirrel appeared to sustain him.

  A single squirrel was slight fare, and only rarely did Elan find other food. Once he drove scavengers from a fallen deer and salvaged enough meat for some days. He found a few nuts and succeeded in one fishing expedition. Without the squirrels, Jack Elan doubted his ability to survive the increasing winter cold.

  Elan’s moccasins wore through, and he used a sharp stone to cut patches and pads from the tail of his shirt. He moved with his hands tucked into the opposite shirtsleeve for warmth. Exposed skin of his face cracked and his lips bled. Elan supposed that his nose had already frozen and would eventually fall from his face. He struggled ahead, closing his mind to pain, time, and distance. The small drum beat in his very soul, and he let its cadence become his own.

  Elan avoided trails and the Indians that might be on them. Occasionally, he sighted or scented distant camp or lodge smoke. That those enjoying the warmth of fire and companionship might be white traders or long hunters sorely tempted him, but the odds against encountering those very few adventurers were overwhelming, and Elan kept his distance and bore steadily eastward.

  As his clothing hung ever more loosely, Elan knew that his weight still dropped away. His wild beard often interfered with his eating as scraggly hairs crept into his mouth. His fingers resembled talons, and his wrist bones stood out as great knuckles. Elan assumed that he was slowly starving, but his strength was holding, and even as his weight fell away he could travel long without collapsing.

  During the long hours of the short winter days, Elan let himself drift with his internal drumming. He used its unfaltering rhythm to drive his body ever onward, and never was he completely freed of its rhythmic presence.

  Elan wondered if the drumming indicated a certain madness that would never allow him peace. He might think of the Heart-Eater, and imagine in minute detail the vengeance that he would enjoy wreaking on his hated person. Then, the drumbeat thundered.

  On a night no different from those before, Elan found three squirrels hanging above a spring he chose to drink from.

  Burrowed deep within a rock hollow, covered deeply with a blanket of leaves, Elan pondered the meaning of three squirrels instead of the unfailing one. He decided The Warrior was leaving him with two more days travel to reach white settlements. The land he was crossing was not familiar, but he had been long on the trail, and he supposed that he must be close. Where he would come out, assuming that his reasoning was correct, Elan could not begin to guess, but his own patch beneath Concocheague Mountain had led his thoughts, and his mind had pointed to that destination.

  Elan resisted temptation, buried his hunger, and placed two of the still warm meals inside his shirt where they could not be spirited away by a daring coon or other nocturnal creature. He devoured his single squirrel asking the gods to bless the efforts of The Warrior, for without his mysterious assistance Jack Elan expected his bones would now lie frozen somewhere far to the west.

  He was awake early, waiting for the dawn with expectancy swelling in his breast. The traveling was good with the air above freezing, and he moved steadily with little pause until late afternoon brought into view the mighty length of mountain he recognized as the Tuscarora.

  Sudden weakness met springing tears, and Elan sank to the cold, hard earth accepting that he would survive after all. Only a few miles beyond that protecting barrier lay Sherman’s Valley and people of his own kind.

  Chapter 7

  Shatto

  Rob Shatto crossed Middle Ridge and touched along the narrow Sugar Run Valley. He slipped through the notch at the east end of Buckwheat Valley and was working his way west along Raccoon Creek when he heard movement over toward the big mountain.

  No animal traveled with that pounding rhythm. It was possible the runner was a message carrier from the nations or one of the more western tribes, but during the cold months there was little activity among the tribes. Soundlessly, he eased into the shelter of a giant chestnut. He checked his rifle’s priming and waited expectantly.

  The figure that appeared among the trees looked barely human. It trotted with a choppy, short-stepped, stumbly gait and was draped in buckskins so worn and ill fitting that Rob wondered that they stayed on.

  There was no hat, and unkempt beard and hair hid the runner’s features but marked him as a white man. The runner was unarmed, but his steady pace spoke of running toward a goal not away from something. On a frontier known to few, any encounter was rare. To happen upon a white so far beyond the settlements was truly unusual.

  Watching from concealment, Rob let the runner pass within a few yards. He listened to the woods, but no one followed. The runner traveled alone.

  Rob called softly, and the runner’s head jerked as if he were not sure he had heard. Rob called again, and the bearded scarecrow straggled to a halt searching the woods for the caller. When Rob stepped into view his hand raised in the peace sign, he was astounded to see the emaciated figure slip kneeling to the ground with tears welling from the corners of his hollow eyes.

  Elan had been deep in his mind when his ear caught the soft call. It took a moment to pull himself into the present, and despite a second call, he was unable to see th
e speaker.

  The sight of the leather-clad frontiersman stepping into view so flooded the soul of Jack Elan that his knees turned to water, and tears welled unbidden and trickled into his matted beard. Almost as large as The Warrior, with a long rifle fisted, no vision could have appealed more strongly to Elan than Robbie Shatto. Shatto was safety, he was shelter, and he would be friendship and renewal. Elan had come home, and he had been found by the man he would need the most.

  +++

  Elan ate carefully of the provisions Rob carried in his hunting pouch. He counted the simple meal of meat and bread about the finest he could remember. Stone ground cornbread and venison cured in pork fat seemed a feast beyond comparison, and Elan’s story came slowly as he chewed and swallowed around his words.

  Until he had said his name, and Rob had seen through the befouled beard and considered the wasted figure, Rob Shatto had not suspected the wanderer was his newest neighbor Jack Elan.

  Rob remembered Jack Elan, of course. He had only been gone four months or so, but no hint of captivity had come in, and after re-burying the remains of Elan’s family, the father had also been believed to be dead.

  As he told of the massacre and his capture, Elan saw the frontiersman’s powerful grip tighten on the rifle stock, and he fought his usual battle with the drumbeat. Elan could remember only patches of the march west, but Rob’s mute understanding lay in his nods and silent gestures.

  Shatto had not heard of the Shawnee called the Heart-Eater, and the name Toquisson was new to his ears.

  Rob Shatto did know Blue Moccasin and knew him as a friend. Shatto thought highly of Blue and welcomed him when he chose the Shatto place to transform himself from Philadelphian to Indian message carrier—or back again. Blue Moccasin, Shatto said, might appear at any time, or he might not be seen for many months.

  Mention of The Warrior brought a gleam of admiration to the frontiersman’s eyes, and The Warrior’s aid in Elan‘s escape raised repeated “Waughs” of approval and amazement.

  As Elan rested and finished his simple meal, Shatto explained how, when he was only a boy, The Warrior had named him Quehana the Arrowmaker in reward for bone arrowpoints he had given the Iroquois’ greatest fighter. The Warrior was capable of the unexpected. Elan could believe what he heard.

  They marched east with Rob leading and Elan close on his heels. Shatto set an easy pace, but Elan still found keeping up difficult. He had little bodily strength left, and seeing that, Rob rested often.

  Snugly holstered in the small of Shatto’s back lay a two-barreled pistol of uniquely compact design. Following the powerful figure, Elan’s eyes fell regularly on the deadly gun, and an idea germinated in a corner of his mind.

  Elan had barely visited the Shatto home, but the frontier stronghold was usually mentioned with Rob’s name. The house lay beyond the safety of civilization’s borders, and it had been years in the building. Most knew that part of the story, but sight of the stone and squared log home with its heavily tiled roof was stunning. For Jack Elan, its reappearance was the final proof that he had truly escaped Toquisson the Heart-Eater’s madness.

  To the destitute and homeless Elan, the Shatto household seemed all that a man could desire. Within that warm friendship he rested. He slept long, ate prodigiously, and discussed his situation at length.

  In the evenings, while Becky Shatto and a Delaware squaw called Flat clattered among cooking utensils, Elan and Rob spoke of Indians and their ways. To Elan, the talk was deadly serious. The face of the Heart-Eater lived beside the ceaseless tapping of the drum within him, and Jack Elan began building on the idea conceived by the sight of Rob’s double-barreled pistol.

  Chapter 8

  The Beginning Plan

  Blue Moccasin’s call had unbarred Rob Shatto’s oaken Dutch door. While the friends greeted each other in the Delaware tongue with the women hovering about, Elan had remained in shadows near the great fireplace.

  Even when he had stepped forward, Blue Moccasin had not known him. Elan was heavier, and fully dressed with his face clean-shaven and his hair trimmed he was not the naked skeletal captive that had crouched in a distant lodge.

  It was a pleasure to see the confidant youth’s mouth fall in astonishment, and even better to suffer the half-Indian’s enthusiastic greeting.

  The careful reserve the message carrier had maintained among the Shawnee was gone. Blue pounded Elan’s still emaciated shoulder with boyish glee, and his dancing eyes matched his exuberant whoops. Blue Moccasin seemed almost as gratified by the captive’s escape and survival as did Elan.

  The entire village of Pthuthoi had believed Jack Elan drowned. He had been seen struggling to reach the far shore and being forced to give up and merely drift with the swift current. Within moments, he was gone from view. No one, it was believed, could survive the ice-caked river, and no search was conducted.

  Many in the village preferred to listen to and observe the mad rantings of Toquisson the Heart-Eater whose performance, Blue reported, rivaled the best of spirit dancing.

  If The Warrior had been present, Blue Moccasin suspected that Heart-Eater’s bellowings and foot stompings would have been immediately curtailed but, as often happened, the mightiest of fighters had disappeared without announcement, and those weary of Toquisson’s raving were forced to simply wait out the worst and ignore the rest.

  Elan’s re-telling of his escape took time, but even Becky and Flat put aside their chores to listen. There were moments when Elan had to pause to allow his emotions to steady and for the pictures flooding his mind to lose their edges. By the time he had finished, there was sweat under Elan’s arms and dampening his upper lip, and he suffered embarrassment that his emotions showed so baldly.

  There was little said after Elan had ended his story. The men thought about his words, silently digesting the facts, and Becky and Flat returned to their work. Elan could hear Becky explaining to Flat whose English was not perfect.

  After a while, Rob said, “Well, I guess that ends it.”

  Blue Moccasin nodded agreement, and Elan knew what they meant. There was no white law able to reach deep into the Ohio country to bring a Shawnee to white justice. The officials governing in Philadelphia would deem him fortunate to have survived, and their sympathy was all that he could expect.

  Elan was more than a little surprised to hear himself say, “No, that ain’t all of it.”

  Rob and Blue perked up, and Elan felt fluttery and excited because he had not really worked his thoughts into words, and it could be that his whole idea would have no chance at all. Having spoken, Elan guessed he would have a go at it and see how his idea sounded.

  “The fact is, I’ve been working on a scheme to get me a crack at Heart-Eater.” Rob and Blue Moccasin were startled and clearly dubious.

  “Now, Blue, just suppose I sent a message full of insults to Heart-Eater and challenged him to fight me at my old cabin site?”

  Blue Moccasin looked interested, and Elan continued.

  “Suppose, Blue, I hired you to say the message in every village in the Nations and on out into the Ohio country—right into Toquisson’s own village, in fact. Maybe I could get some other message carriers to spread the word in other places as well.

  “And suppose I kept saying that Heart-Eater had a rabbit’s heart or however you could best claim that he was afraid to come—afraid to face the dreaded Deathgiver in single battle.

  “If I went at it hard enough and long enough, mightn’t he be so embarrassed and mortified that he would meet me?”

  Elan had spoken mainly to Blue Moccasin, but he could see Rob nodding over the possibilities.

  After a time, Blue Moccasin sighed and said, “What you suggest could be possible, Jack, and I would find it interesting to carry such insults to the Heart-Eater.”

  Then he shook off the idea and added, “But what good would it do if the Eater did come? He would not travel alone, and no party of whites could ambush a warrior as experienced as Heart-Eater. At least no
t when he was alert and searching.”

  Rob Shatto rose and stood before the fire warming his back and legs. With little emotion, he said, “You get the Eater here, Jack, and I will kill him for you.”

  The kitchen clatter stopped, and Elan could sense tension among the women. Warmed and humbled by the powerful frontiersman’s willingness to take on such a task, Elan hastened to ease the family’s concern.

  Elan said, “I thank you, Rob. I thank you more than I can say, but if Heart-Eater comes, I wish to kill him myself.”

  Objections rose from Blue and Rob, and even Becky added her fears for his life. Elan waited until they died away.

  “Of course, you are right. I will never be a match for Toquisson in a hand-to-hand battle, but I have been reasoning out a plan that could give me an edge, and if I have figured it right, I should get one clean shot at Heart-eater. That is all I could ever ask for.”

  Reservation strong in their faces, the men waited for Elan’s explanation.

  “As long as I have known about the frontier, I have heard how Injuns will try to draw a man’s fire, knowing that he has only one shot. Then, they will attack, closing in quickly while he is reloading. That is common isn’t it?”

  The listeners nodded some agreement, so Elan continued.

  “My idea is simple. I plan to have a two-barreled rifle. A lot like Rob’s pistol, in fact. I will let the Eater draw my first barrel, and when he comes a’charging, thinking I am empty, I will let him have the second barrel.”

  Elan waited expectantly, but the silence was heavy, and it was long.

  Then, Blue Moccasin slapped his thigh in exasperation.

  “Jack, Toquisson will have your scalp half off before you know he is this side of Tuscarora Mountain.”

  “Well, the way I am now, you’d be right, Blue, but I’ve got some ideas to make my chances better before the fighting gets started.”