He had much to report. Croghan had traveled far and talked long for the Iroquois sachems. The Penns stood ready to purchase lands within the mountains, even the meadows where E’shan’s lodge now stood. But the Six Nations, their pride stung by illegal settling along the creeks and rivers, first demanded removal of the squatters and restraint against their return. Some leaders called for the tomahawk to end intrusions. Others counseled patience.
Rob’s plea had been put to a number of council members, but in view of the tension over white settlers, Croghan had avoided a formal decision. Rather, he had gained approval for Rob’s presence until the council declared itself.
Croghan had distributed Rob’s iron goods. Important chieftains now carried a Shatto hatchet, and others carved with a Shatto blade. Influential squaws sewed with Rob’s needles and awls. Croghan joked that squaws made all of the decisions, anyway, and their screeching for more iron might sway the powerful chiefs toward the advantages of having their own iron worker. In the meantime, Rob should continue learning Indian ways and improve his Delaware, which Croghan claimed sounded more like Portagee than Indian. Mainly, Rob should allow the Iroquois to grow accustomed to his presence among them.
At Rob’s suggestion, Croghan agreed to sell his horses to someone who would treat the animals kindly. The teams were now of no use to him, and he feared for their safety if they were kept in the wild meadows along Sherman’s Creek.
Croghan again carried away a pack of Rob’s trade goods. Some of the goods were in payment for E’shan’s tobacco, and the rest would be disposed of as added inducements among influential tribal leaders. Croghan pointed out with some amusement that Rob was getting double service for his iron. It first paid for his lodging, and then demonstrated his abilities. Rob thought the bargain a good one.
8
1749 – The Cat
His strength fully returned, Rob accompanied Shikee on lengthy hunts across the great Tuscarora Mountain. As animals taken such distances from the lodge on the Little Buffalo required exhausting effort to pack in, the hunts were more adventures than searches for game.
They slept often in the camps of other Indian travelers. The magic of E’shan’s name and the gift of an arrowhead or two filched from the point maker’s supply made them welcome. If they could, they brought game to the fire, an act always appreciated.
The boys vied with each other at complimenting the squaws’ cooking and casting sheep eyes at eligible girls. They camped with families of Seneca, Onieda, Tuscarora, Comoy, and occasionally Delaware. Only the Shawnee left them ill at ease. Even among the Indian nations, the Shawnee were considered impatient people. They caused Rob’s hackles to rise and a warning itch to develop between his shoulder blades. At Shawnee fires, the greeting was cool, and tightness around lips accompanied by fingering of tomahawks might encourage the youths to move on.
During late summer doldrums, when sun beat the earth into dust and forest leaves hung unmoving, they wandered down the Little Buffalo, that had dwindled to little more than a trickle. Bored, they skidded a log into the Juniata and allowed it to float them downstream. The log grounded on a ledge of rock where another broken tree trunk lay high and dry. On impulse, they lashed the logs together with grape vine jerked from trees along the shore. Launching their raft they drifted in the lazy current fending off occasional boulders and shallows with a length of dead branch.
As they neared the river mouth, a few squatters’ cabins appeared where slatternly women and hungry-looking children silently watched their passage. The Indian town on Duncan’s Island baked in the still sunlight and Marcus Huling’s old trading post showed no signs of life. Even the broad Susquehanna was reduced to a sluggish, summer flow, and the raft made slow progress along its west shore.
Finding little to amuse them, the youths abandoned their logs near the mouth of Sherman’s Creek and slept the night on high ground away from clearings huddled along the water.
Having taken no game, they munched pemmican carried in their hunting bags, washing down the meat and berry mixture with cold spring water. Their fire was small, serving only to warm their spirits, and they doused it before dark. Their beds were leaves on which they stretched their uncovered bodies.
Across the Susquehanna, lights flickered at settlers’ cabins. The thought of his own kind so close failed to rouse Rob’s interest. For the present, life was rich, and the future held promise. He stretched luxuriously and squirmed his hip into a comfortable hollow. The still night, warm and humid, demanded no coverlet, and they slept well, waking only occasionally to test the night for warning sounds or smells.
They found Simon Girty’s stand where the creek formed a loop to the north. Acres of tillable soil lay within the stream’s loop, and if Girty had been so minded, a prosperous farm might have been developed. Instead, the wanderers encountered a stump-studded clearing surrounded by trees girdled with an ax so that their bared branches would allow more sunlight into the cabin site.
A mean cabin leaned near the stream. Scarcely head high, with no chimney or windows, the poor fit of the roof allowed smoke from an inside fire to seep from a hole near the back wall.
As they moved into hailing distance, Rob caught sight of a small boy flitting shadow-like among the girdled trees, and their call brought a vigorous looking woman to the cabin door. She wielded an old musket with obvious familiarity but, observing their peaceful intent, waved them forward.
Mary Girty raised her brood in the simple cabin with little help from her husband. Mother of four sons, she wished for a daughter or two to help around the cabin but expected that given a few years, the boys would be working around the place and perhaps beginning a little farming.
Rob found it pleasant to chat in English with the woman, and Mary Girty was astonished and pleased to discover the Indian visitor to be the white boy whose horses they had kept.
Simon was off hunting as usual, could come any time, or might be a few days yet. Croghan had taken the horses on his return from the Little Buffalo, and they had not heard of him since. All of the squatters along Sherman’s had been warned to leave, and they would probably get run off by Indians or whites before long.
She allowed as how her boys were nothing but woods runners, worse than their father. Simon, Jr., a wisp of eight years, was the worst his mother claimed while running a fond hand through the child’s tangled locks. Seemed as how the boy came in only for meals.
Young Simon was the boy Rob had glimpsed at the forest edge. Peeking from behind his mother’s skirts, his ferret-sharp eyes missed nothing and dwelt longest on the pistol riding in the small of Rob’s back. Simon had cared for the horses, and on impulse Rob drew a new tomahawk head from his hunting bag and offered it to the boy. The eagerness that lit the child’s face was more than enough reward. With his mother’s approval, Simon accepted the hatchet and fondled it as though it were an item of incalculable value.
The day wore away as they loitered about the Girty place. While Rob talked with Mary Girty, young Simon sat nearby, laboriously fashioning a handle for his tomahawk from a seasoned hickory stick. The child seemed torn by dividing his attention between the youth with the wonderful pistol and his new treasure.
By noon, Shikee grew restless and anxious to move on. Unable to understand the white man’s tongue, he tired of the visit. Rob’s last glimpse of the Girty clearing included Simon’s small figure skulking near its edge, his tomahawk thrust through his hide belt, its handle so long it nearly touched the ground.
They moved swiftly along a trail that bordered the creek intending to spend the night at the warm springs some seven miles beyond Girty’s. The narrow path soon left the creek bank and aimed more directly for the springs. Many paths led to the warm mineral springs, and Indian hunters often soaked in the naturally- heated sulfur water.
Below the great rock bulging into Sherman’s Creek, their trail joined the broader traveling path, and Rob followed his wagon tracks, still discernible in many places.
They round
ed the rock, wading easily in the almost turgid water, and resumed their journey at the easy, ground-consuming trot favored by Indians wishing to cover long distances.
Hunger overtook them before dark, and Shikee scouted the stream bank for frogs while Rob prepared a small cooking fire. By the time the coals were hot and deep, Shikee had returned with the fat legs of a dozen large frogs. They broiled the legs on green sticks, seasoning them with salt from Rob’s bag, and devouring the meat with the gusto of the young and healthy.
A shallow cave on the south side of the creek caught their attention, and leaving their fire they waded across to examine it. Partly hidden from below, the cave was formed when a great stone slab fell along the slope. The earth trapped beneath the slab had eroded leaving a hollow deeper than appeared from across the creek.
Leading the way, Shikee scrambled up the slope. Thick brush partly obscured the entrance, and as Rob waited a few steps behind, Shikee slashed with his tomahawk at the spreading branches.
Without warning, a feline screech, insane with mindless rage, tortured the air, and a yellowish form hurled itself from the darkness of the cave directly upon the frozen Shikee.
Instinctively, the Delaware youth sought to ward off the attack with his hatchet, but the weight of the panther struck full upon him, smashing him backward, and spilling them both down the hillside.
The screaming snarl of the great cat and its almost instant attack rooted Rob in his tracks, and as Shikee disappeared beneath the squalling, clawing monster, he stood directly in their path.
Rob’s hand instinctively reached for the grip of his pistol, and he had drawn it partly clear when the entangled panther and Delaware struck him full force. He was smashed to the ground, and a lightning rake of claws slashed at his unprotected face.
Thrown aside by the impact, Rob saw the great cat poised with Shikee’s limp form beneath him. As in a dream he felt his arm raise the pistol, his thumb racked back the hammers, and a finger touch the triggers. The shock of recoil ran up his arm, and the panther’s head appeared to explode as the double charge struck home. In that instant, as sudden as the attack itself, Rob was struck blind.
His sight was gone as completely as if it had never been. Helpless, Rob slumped against the bank, scrubbing desperately at his eyes. He could hear thrashing below him and imagined the tawny beast gathering himself for a final lunge upon his latest attacker.
For an instant, light struck through the darkness, and Rob scrubbed more frantically to clear his vision. Sticky wetness smeared his hands, and realization that blood flooding into his eyes was blocking his sight came as relief. Dropping his belt, he used his breechclout to blot blood from his eyes while also bracing himself against furious attack by the panther.
The flow of blood came from his forehead, and he clamped the soft doe skin clout tightly above his eyes to stop the bleeding at its source. Blinking and wiping, he regained sight in one eye and a moment later in the other.
On the slope below, Shikee lay unmoving. Lying on his back, head downhill, the boy’s entire body appeared bathed in blood, but for another desperate moment Rob could not locate the great cat. A fleck of yellow caught his eye, and he saw the panther sprawled awkwardly in death almost at the water’s edge. Rob’s pistol had done its work, and the animal’s death throes had tumbled the cat far down the slope.
Their casual adventure turning into horrifying attack and injury so swiftly left Rob dazed and disbelieving. Moving gingerly, with the pad held tightly to his head, Rob made his way to Shikee’s motionless form. With relief, he saw the rise and fall of his friend’s breathing and knew that Shikee still lived.
Shikee’s eyes opened but were unfocused, as though he too were stunned by the attack and had pulled his mind away to other things. Rob hovered above him uncertain of his next move. He called his friend’s name softly and saw awareness replace the shocked, blank gaze. Shikee’s eyes swung to him still dazed, and Rob waited as recognition came slowly.
Shikee’s eyes focused, and his mouth opened to speak. The familiar quirk of humor tugged at his mouth corner, and Rob’s heart flooded with emotion as his friend said, “I counted seven panthers dancing on my chest. How many did you see, my brother?”
Half crying through emotional laughter, Rob held the light vein Shikee had chosen. “I saw you wrestling with one tiny cub, oh mighty warrior, while I battled the seven females.” Shikee attempted an answering chuckle but managed only a moan.
Fearfully, Rob examined his friend’s wounds. Chest and thighs were gouged and ripped where the cat had raked with all four feet. Rob thankfully noted that the youth’s face and belly had escaped injury. The wounds were grievous, however, and Rob feared mightily for his friend’s life. Swift action was needed if Shikee were to survive. There was no other help at hand; Shikee’s life depended on Rob’s decisions.
Finding his knife, Rob slashed a strip from his blood-drenched loincloth. After wringing the soft leather in his hands, he bound the remainder to his forehead with the long strip. The pad would keep his own blood from blinding him while he labored with Shikee’s far more serious wounds.
Gently, Rob worked his arms beneath his friend’s body and legs. Shikee moved an arm as if to help, and Rob cautioned him to lie still. Already, his lesser wounds were clotting, and Shikee could not afford extra bleeding.
He lifted Shikee easily and carefully worked his way down the hillside. He passed the sprawled panther without a glance, concentrating on his footing and beginning to feel the weight of carrying. He made his way cautiously across the stream, feeling with his feet for solid footing and balancing his strength against the distance yet to go. His mind flitted across the other carry he had made only short months ago when he had borne David’s body and the anvil in his weary arms.
He made their camp and laid Shikee close to the small fire. Their hunting bags and Shikee’s bow and quiver lay where they had placed them before the harmless-appearing exploration of the cave. Now, Shikee lay sorely wounded, and Rob had little to use in caring for him.
The sun was already dying in the creek valley. The chill of night would settle over them, and Shikee would become cold and damp. If he were to live, the youth would need warmth and care.
Having considered long enough, Rob bent to his work. Unmindful of his own wound, which had stopped bleeding, he recrossed the stream and recovered his belt and pistol from the hillside. He rolled the panther onto its back and quickly skinned the hide from the limp body. Bloody the hide might be, but laid with the fur next to Shikee, the panther would provide an effective blanket. Rob quickly cut red meat from the shoulders of the panther, and slashing open the chest, he cut the heart away and placed it with the meat.
Shikee lay unmoving, eyes closed, either asleep or unconscious. Rob placed armfuls of meadow grass near the fire and gently moved the youth’s lax form onto the improvised bed. The thick layer of grass would insulate Shikee from the cold and damp of the earth.
The limp panther hide formed itself snugly to Shikee’s body leaving only his calves and feet exposed. Rob covered them with more valley grass. After propping Shikee’s head in a comfortable position, Rob had done all that he could. He dared not go for help as in delirium his friend could wander away or harm himself. It was only a mile to the hot springs, but the chances of finding anyone there were poor, and Rob dared not leave his companion for even that short period.
Dusk had closed around them, and Rob built their small cooking fire into a towering blaze. The dancing flames raised his own spirits and moving to Shikee’s other side he built a second blaze so heat would surround the wounded youth. Although the night was warm, Rob felt his own naked body chill and moved closer to a fire. He wished they lay on the slope above the river where the night was warmer. He wished far more strongly that they had warm robes to cover them both and hold off the night’s chill.
Shikee slept fitfully, rousing to ask for water before again dropping into restless dozing. Rob gathered fallen limbs to keep their fires high
and fashioned a serviceable drinking cup from the smooth bark of a young maple. He cooked and ate some of the panther meat, and in his hunger found it tough but tasty.
He worried about Shikee bleeding undetected beneath the panther skin and expected that the fur would stick to congealing blood and be torturous to remove in the morning. His own wound had crusted over, and Rob gingerly removed the loincloth compress without new bleeding. He washed the soft doe skin in the creek and during Shikee’s waking moments, he washed the boy’s flushed features with cool water.
They said little to each other, understanding that only time could tell them how serious Shikee’s wounds really were. Occasionally, Rob heard his friend’s teeth grind as he fought the throbbing pain of deep gashes. For a time, Rob sat holding Shikee’s hand, recalling the youth’s concern when he had been ill with the fevers and remembering his ordeal at his grandfather’s bedside. Rob fell into his own doze, grateful that except for slight throbbing his own wound seemed minor.
Rob Shatto rose with the new sun stiff and aching from a night of fire keeping and tending Shikee’s needs. He knelt at the stream side and washed crusted blood from his hands and face. Fearful of opening his wound, he avoided touching his lacerated forehead.
Returning to Shikee, he found his friend awake but dull-eyed with pain. As gently as possible, Rob eased the stiffened panther fur away from Shikee’s torn body. The youth cringed, his breath catching, as the fur tore itself from blood-encrusted flesh. Rob winced in sympathy but continued his work.
Shikee’s exposed chest and thighs were enough to turn a strong man away. Blood-caked gashes streaked the long muscles, and fresh blood seeped from gaping wounds that a dozen hours had not sealed.
A shudder trembled Shikee’s body as he caught sight of the ravaged flesh of his own chest. Steeling himself, Rob carefully examined the savage wounds. Aware of his friend’s silent pleading for encouragement, Rob forced a confident nod and a few grunts of satisfaction.
Arrowmaker (Pennsylvania Frontier Series) Page 7
