Fort Robinson (Perry County, Pennsylvania Frontier Series) Page 7

  Robert said, "We could shoot 'em right from here."

  George spared him a disgusted look, "Robert, you'd probably miss anyhow," and led the way across the puddled yard.

  James followed close on his heels with Robert muttering about waiting until he got his new rifle, then he wouldn't miss.

  Philip and the strangers were looking serious when the other Robinsons began arriving. He introduced Andrew, Sam, Thomas, William, Richard, and yet another Thomas. By the time he got to George, James, and Robert, the strangers were too overcome to more than glance at the apparently endless Robinson clan.

  The man hunters were small, wiry men. Their features were narrow and pointed and their ferret-like eyes shifted often, as though accustomed to peering at things half hidden.

  Their muskets had been shortened for close work, and they gripped them with a surety equal to Robert's. Standing within the Robinson ranks, James had to wonder at the perseverance that brought them across oceans and into a wilderness to return a married daughter to her father.

  The older of the trio acted as spokesman. He explained his case to Philip with all of the Robinsons looking on. James noticed that the other two kept their eyes roving, taking in cabins and sheds while their leader talked. Women and children were starting to emerge as the rain slackened, and they went for chores or to visit one another.

  Mary Robinson and Ann came from their cabin, glancing curiously at the strangers, and James's heart leaped at the audacity of it. Beneath her bonnet, with little Mary clinging valiantly to her dress, Ann was indistinguishable from other Robinson women hurrying about. The strangers' eyes touched her and continued on. The woman they sought had no six-year old child. James felt his confidence surge, and he became more certain that they would make it.

  The man hunter was saying, "The criminal's name is Ratherbone Wylie. We're sent by recognized authority with warrants for his arrest. Wylie's wanted for smuggling and taking away a girl of good family against her will."

  Ratherbone could feel himself smart in the face of the story but carefully allowed nothing to show.

  Philip asked, "And you believe Wylie's come this way?"

  The hunter nodded, "We nearly caught the man near Philadelphia, but he slipped away. We've tracked him through Reading, but for a few weeks we've lost the trail."

  Robert nodded knowingly and said to James, "Uh-huh, laid a trail west then sneaked south, probably on a river raft." James nodded possible agreement feeling the weight of the men's cold eyes on him.

  The leader was silent, weighing Robert's words, "Well, that might be, but the man we're lookin' for was drivin' a wore-out cart with a worse horse. He'd be remembered if seen, though he's been keeping the girl hid inside the wagon."

  James sweated over the descriptions of himself, Ann, horse, and cart, but by now the horse was traded far past the Indian village at Shamokin. The wagon appeared a permanent cabin attachment, and so far he and Ann had passed muster.

  George asked, "Anybody here encountered an outfit like that?" No one had. "Anybody heard talk of traveling strangers in these parts last month or so?"

  He turned to his own hunters, "Robert, James, you two roam around the most, you seen any tracks or sign leading on into Iroquois country?"

  Robert hadn't, and James shook his head, not risking his different accent.

  The leader grumbled his disappointment and George put in, "You might check the Logans just to the east of here. There's a pile of them, and they might've seen something."

  The man nodded but without great enthusiasm.

  "Seems strange to hunt a man this far and this long," Andrew suggested. "By now the girl would've had chances to escape, so she must have accepted her lot and be going willingly."

  The trio's leader bristled, "Well, we ain't hired to decide. The judges'll settle that end when we get Ann and Wylie home." He stopped, then thrust his jaw forward pugnaciously, "And we'll get him no matter where he runs or how long it takes."

  Robert whistled in awe, "Whew, I'd surely hate having you all after me!"

  The man hunters eyed him suspiciously, but Robert's rounded blue eyes were purely innocent.

  The leader grunted and turned again to Philip.

  "We'll ride on over to them Logans you spoke of. Might be they've run onto Wylie. Meantime, there's a goodly reward if you can turn him up. We'll be around if you hear anything."

  The man turned to go but Robert stopped him. Leaning on his musket he asked, "That reward good dead or alive?"

  The leader snorted and climbed stiffly into his saddle. He settled himself and caught his stirrups before bothering to answer. His cold eyes passed over James before settling on Robert, "If you've got the girl too, we'll settle for dead, but if someone was to do Wylie in and we couldn't lay hands on the girl, we'd not take it good a'tall!" James could feel himself chill, and the man's coldness subdued Robert's questioning.

  The man hunters rode out and were soon gone into the trees. The Robinsons dispersed, and Robert and James struck off into the woods.

  James felt relieved of a great burden. His enemies were confounded. As the James Robinsons, he and Ann could live without fear. They could build and put down roots like other people. They could think about family and plan a future. He sucked in the damp air, feeling free and strong and somehow special.

  Robert strode silently for a while, then he said, "You know, as soon as I get my new rifle I might take out after that criminal. That Wylie could be hid out around here, and a nice fat reward would set real good." Then he slid laughing down a bank to escape James's leap at him.

  Chapter 6

  Harry Kirknee rode slowly, holding his body carefully so the steady drizzle would not find new gaps to trickle cold and wet down his cloaked neck. His men plodded behind silently following his lead and speaking only to curse the weather or the fact of having lost Wylie's track and their best chance for a quick return to England.

  The three had worked together before. They had hunted men the length of the British Isles, though most often their searches were confined to the London stews. They were at home within those steaming slums. Each twisted road or wretched alley was as recognizable as the soot stained buildings that leaned wearily, promising to momentarily topple and bar all passage. They were men accustomed to the press of unwashed humanity, city odors and stenches, air heavy with coal, wood, and peat smoke from countless grimy chimneys.

  Harry Kirknee was himself a product of the London slums. Stunted in body by squalor and deprivation, he had survived by wits honed through hunger and need. He fought with the deadliest means available; he stole, bartered, or bought as occasion demanded. His very name was taken from an acquaintance because he had none of his own and no idea of who his parents might have been. Kirknee was not unusual in background. He was one of thousands that strangled London's inner city. Their lives tended to be violent, short, and unremarked.

  Man hunting set Harry Kirknee apart. The profits were small and irregular, but he had established a reputation for seeing a task through. Kirknee was known to find his man. Unlike most of his compatriots, he gained a certain pride and direction from his otherwise marginal occupation.

  The search for Ratherbone Wylie and Ann Brodish had seemed easy enough, but the close encounter that caused the quarry to flee to the colonies changed things. Kirknee had expected to drop the hunt. The Brodish insistence that the chase continue and guarantee of sufficient funds increased Harry Kirknee's professional stature a thousand fold, and it was reasonable to assume that upon his successful return, opportunities of grander circumstance would present themselves. Kirknee had every reason to find Ann Brodish, and he intended on doing so.

  The duration of the sea voyage had upset Kirknee's sense of proportion. The almost countless sea miles separating him from the security of the great city's bustle affected him as no equal number of land miles could have. London, that had seemed so central to all things, shrank perceptibly in his mind's evaluation.

  The new colonies also
stirred him. Though few lived amid the luxury or splendor observed in England, fewer also appeared doomed to interminable poverty without hint of relief before death. Here a man with nothing could turn to the west and simply take up land to his liking. To thousands like himself, who held land ownership as an imagining beyond consideration, the dangers and privations of a barbaric frontier were more than worthwhile.

  Kirknee found himself drawn to the endless forests with their streams of pure water and wild animals for the taking. He found the people independent and clearly unconcerned with old country interests. To them, London and its environs were as distant as the moon and of about as much importance. If his mission had not come before all other things, Harry Kirknee could have enjoyed the many colonists he encountered and would have found an affinity with their struggle to grow and prosper.

  Instead, he closed his mind to the heady senses of freedom and opportunity, and trusting no one, viewed with suspicion every word or action until it was proven sincere. He knew he was close to his quarry; he could feel it in his bones, but the final confrontation continually escaped, detoured by the distances involved and the scarcity of people who might have seen or heard. Wylie's trail was thin at best, and Kirknee lost it time and again along the paths to Manada.

  The Robinsons, for all their numbers, had been of little help, but they seemed willing enough. Blocking the land in his mind, he could see that the Logan holdings could be the answer. Wylie and Ann Brodish had few resources. They would tire or believe themselves safe. Then he would have them.

  But the Logans had seen nothing, and despite retracing old paths and searching out new, no hint of the fleeing couple surfaced.

  The thought offered by one of the Robinsons began recurring often in Kirknee's thinking. Perhaps Wylie had slipped away to the river and gone south to another colony. Kirknee's geography was vague, but he knew there were settlements many weeks ride along the ocean, and other settlements were being driven into the deeper mountains.

  A month after leaving the Robinson place at Manada, Harry Kirknee, followed by his two disgruntled helpers, rode south. Asking and looking, they reached Baltimore where Kirknee sent notice of his plans and whereabouts to his employer. He equipped the party with better horses and kit that he had learned was more fitting and began a new search for Wylie's trail.

  Until he returned to Philadelphia, there would be no further funds. The three of them would separate and search a broad band extending from the sea to the mountains. If Wylie had gone further south, they would discover it. If he had not, then they would plan again.

  Harry Kirknee found himself stimulated by the lone hunting across a barely touched land. Where he had camped, no one had rested before, and the air he breathed was unsullied by use.

  If he had not had a man to find, he could have considered becoming a part of it. His thoughts turned often to his life after Wylie's capture and Ann's return to her father's house. He looked at the mountains and felt their clean strength becoming a part of him. He'd find the two. Then . . . well, he would see.

  Chapter 7

  When he had gathered money for his rifle, Robert grew anxious to hike to Reading and have a gunsmith start on making it. Sometimes he could almost feel the cold weight of the rifle in his hands, and he knew just how it would be to sight along the top flat of the long, octagonal barrel, to lay the thin-bladed brass sight behind a deer's shoulder and gently touch the trigger. Robert could imagine the sharp crack as it compared to the dull boom of his old musket, and he could picture how he would walk brave around the settlement and look sure and knowing when he leaned on the slender length of the rifle. Men would envy him, and womenfolk would reckon he was a mite more than they had previously thought.

  Take his cousin Agnes now. She always held herself special because she happened to be a little older. A pair of years might have counted for something when they were children, but since they'd grown up, he couldn't see as two years amounted to anything.

  That Agnes surely could get him riled though! He couldn't count the times he'd been laying it on a little thick, and she had caught his eye and just ruined the whole yarn, and she'd always tell about taking care of him back when they were little. By the Old Harry, he hated that story!

  He wished Agnes was an ugly, old thing, maybe even as bad as Effy, his brother's Irish wife. If Agnes didn't look so good it would be a deal easier to ignore her. Instead she had all those curves and lumps that made his face hot, and her features were as clear and smooth as a baby's bottom. When she let her hair down it hung like a gold waterfall way below her waist, and her eyes were the biggest blue things he'd ever seen.

  She was a Robinson all right. She looked like one and acted prickly like one. Funny she never picked at her brothers, Sam and George, the way she did at him, and Mary and Ann got along fine with her.

  Well, he knew there was no way to understand women, but it sure galled him when she'd do one of her tricks, like handing him a serving of pig tails for supper or the time she left the feathers on his piece of duck. Made him near grind his teeth off!

  Yep, Agnes would have to take him more serious when he had his rifle. Then he'd pile game into the village, and she wouldn't hardly dare walk around holding her nose when he'd come off a hunt without time to clean up before eating . . . well, maybe she'd still do that because she was surely ornery, but inside she would know who could bring in the meat and who couldn't.

  It was more than time he and James went down and got that rifle built.

  — — —

  Agnes had held her sights on Robert since she had been seventeen, and he had just turned fifteen. She supposed that everybody except Robert knew and had become resigned to it. Some didn't think much of a girl marrying her first cousin, and most had doubts about husbands being younger than their wives, but Robinsons went their own ways, and for the most part the families watched with amusement as Agnes maneuvered poor Robert like a double-hooked perch.

  Of course, Robert didn't know the hook had been set or even that he was being baited, and telling him wouldn't have changed anything. He would have snorted disbelief and complained how Agnes always picked at him.

  Agnes wanted more out of life than drudgery and repetitive children. In Robert she saw spark and interest in being different. Plainly, he needed time to settle and finish rushing about. With his wild ways, a hint of clinging could scare him off, and having set her mind on haltering her younger cousin, Agnes played a patient, waiting game that would keep her in Robert's mind as well as hold any competition at bay.

  She heckled Robert to distraction and was not at all above leaning a soft curve against him when serving. She listened avidly to his hunting stories and applauded his successes about as often as she pooh-poohed his more blatant exaggerations.

  Wisely, she let him fly, biding her time until her chosen decided he was ready to find a bride and begin a proper life. Then she would see that Robert Robinson became a contented family man, devoted to making them all a better life.

  She guessed another year was needed before Robert began wanting his own place more than he wanted a new valley to look into, but he was coming around. Once, he hadn't cared what anyone thought as long as he could hunt and fish. Now he listened to George and even joined in at times.

  Seeing James settled with Ann helped, too. Robert knew James wished to spend most nights at home, so he hunted closer and was around more often.

  Still, Robert was a difficult catch, and he could still slip the hook. Agnes judged his smile, the thoughts behind his eyes, his skill at whatever he chose to undertake, and of course the vigor and handsome symmetry of his man's body. She felt the rewards well worth the risks of the game.

  — — —

  Both horses and hands were needed for the farming, so Robert had to walk to Reading for his rifle.

  Most didn't think much of his traveling alone, so James had a reason to go along.

  Ann and Mary made up their traveling packs. They included few luxuries, as there were not
many, and the men must carry whatever they took.

  Agnes came by with two small packets of sweet cakes. Robert was obviously pleased until, after carefully positioning James's cake in his pack, she unceremoniously dumped Robert's in and began chattering with Ann.

  Yet, as they departed, she again changed his thundercloud mood by awarding an affectionate hug and a warm kiss on his cheek. Robert marched happily eastward to get his new rifle.

  Chapter 8

  Although talk of movement to other places was almost constant, James and Robert were not involved until late fall. George broached the subject on a cold evening when they clustered about his cabin hearth soaking warmth into bones chilled from a long day in the woods.

  Samuel had come over and sat resting his feet on a block while Robert and James crowded close to the fire toasting one side before rolling to warm the other. The women busied themselves with children, and a silence had fallen among the men as they watched the pulsing heat of hardwood burning hot and clean.

  George tamped his pipe with moist leaf tobacco, then using small tongs, he fished a glowing coal and held it to the pipe bowl. He poked idly at the fire sending sparks rocketing up the chimney flue. "Seeing we're all here, Sam and me've got a proposition to put up to you two."

  James was immediately interested, but Robert looked dour, as though expecting any proposals were bound to cause him more work than he had planned on.

  "It's no news that all of us Robinsons're squatting here on Philip Robinson's land. True, we're clearing and making improvements, but the ground isn't ours. Furthermore, Samuel here will inherit, as he is the oldest, and sooner or later the rest of us will have to move off and make our own places.

  He contemplated his small audience that by now was sitting up and taking notice.