Arrowmaker (Pennsylvania Frontier Series)

by Roy F. Chandler

  Reed turned to the others in attendance, and Justice Burger led off.

  “A question for my personal enlightenment, Master Shatto. How, when the Iroquois are continually complaining about squatters in Sherman’s Valley, do you live so freely among them?”

  “The council of chiefs and sachems has granted me permission to live along the Little Buffalo, Justice Burger.”

  “And why have they seen fit to this for you and no other?”

  “Perhaps it is because I live as they do and offer no threat to their ways.”

  Ensign Wheelwright sniffed audibly. “I cannot see how a white man can live like a stinking savage, but it appears you find no difficulty, Shatto.”

  The others shifted uneasily under the Ensign’s disparaging attack, but Rob remained unflustered. His answer was calmly presented.

  “During the winter months, an Indian regularly visits the sweat lodge to heat the poisons from his system and to wash the dirt from his body. In the summer, an Indian bathes almost daily in the creek and washes his breechclout as he bathes.

  “During the cold months, the white man rarely touches water to his person, and in the heat of summer he bathes in a tub once a week and sweats in his clothing the rest of the time.

  “While my breechclout is clean, your jacket is sweated beneath the arms, and your collar is grimed with old dirt. My friend, Shikee, claims white men stink of sweat and pig meat. Because you are accustomed to your own smell, do not assume your scent is so sweet to others.”

  The Ensign flushed and began an angry retort, but Thomas Reed hastily interceded.

  “Well, let’s get to our subjects, shall we, gentlemen? What can you tell us of the probability of war with the Nations, Rob?”

  Rob studied their faces for a moment, seeing Wheelwright’s contempt and sensing Burger’s supercilious tolerance. He suspected their minds were already closed and their opinions brass-bound and rigid. He cared nothing for their acceptance of his thoughts but recognized that after the Penn land purchase, these men, or others like them, would govern even the most remote valleys. He would have to learn to deal with their ilk.

  “No doubt you are all aware that the French have sent agents to the tribes. They bring gifts of cloth as well as guns and powder. They point out that the French seek only trade while the English take the Indian’s land and drive the game away.”

  Wheelwright again sniffed his disdain. Whether of French efforts or Rob’s description was unclear, but Rob intended to permit no slights at his expense. “The agents of France marry women of the tribes and appear to accept the Indian as an equal while our authorities sniff and raise their noses.” Rob’s gaze fell on the Ensign who again flushed indignantly.

  Rob continued. “I know these things because, without writing, the villages pass word by honored message carriers who pride themselves on remembering and accurate telling. Many have visited the lodge of E’shan where I reside, and I have listened.

  “In the spring, I accompanied George Croghan to the Ohio country. We visited many villages from Aughwick just beyond the Tuscarora to Kittanning along the Allegheny River and the western hills. In every village there was talk of war, and Croghan’s trade goods were seized by the French who have a fort at the forks of the Ohio. Every lodge speaks of coming trouble. They speak of old days when all the land was theirs, and they speak of driving the whites into the sea.

  “But, there will not be war this year or the next. The tribes are divided. Some wait to bargain with Richard Penn. Others do not trust the French. Some remain loyal to the British because they always have been. Most wait to see whether France or England will prove the stronger.”

  “Then, Master Shatto?”

  “Probably the tribes will remain divided. Some will choose the cause of the French, others will stand outside the fighting, but most will remain loyal to the British.”

  A rotund shopkeeper joined in. “Here in Carlisle we will be safe if the Indians rise, Master Shatto, but will those of you now living in Indian country get safely away?”

  “If the cabins come under attack, those squatters will perish. They will have no chance, and I fear, sir, that your safety here in Carlisle is not certain. If you have warning, or if an attack is not carried forward in a resolute manner, your people could hold out in your stockade until the attack breaks off. Indians will not undertake a long siege, but your homes will be burned and your cattle destroyed. It would not be an easy thing.”

  Wheelwright said, “I assure you, Shatto, if anyone attacks Carlisle, my soldiers will give good account of themselves.”

  Rob smiled despite the seriousness of the discussion and thought of The Warrior. The Ensign’s naiveté was childish.

  “Captain, if you or your men enter the field against warriors serious in their intent, none of you will return to the fort alive.”

  Burger interrupted the Ensign’s angry retort.

  “Master Shatto, you are a very young man. I understand that you have been only two years with the Indians. Is such limited experience and none in war sufficient for absolute certainty in complicated military affairs?”

  Rob’s answer was succinct. “Yes, Sir, it is.”

  There was uncomfortable shuffling about the table.

  “And what are your plans for the future, young Shatto? Will you stay and perhaps fight on the side of the redskins, if they do come against us? Or will you then flee to our protection, in which you now have little faith?”

  “I will do none of those, sir. If the tribes rise, I will ignore their warring and live exactly as I now do in the lodge of E’shan, the arrowmaker. More likely, the Penns will purchase the land between the mountains, and I intend to immediately warrant a plantation, build a home, and begin to farm the meadows.”

  Rob was grateful that a businessman interceded. “Is the land good beyond Kittatinny Mountain? We are given conflicting reports.”

  “There are many rich acres, but most of the land is covered with forest, and the ridges are steep. Sherman’s Valley holds the most promise, and most squatting is now along Sherman’s Creek.”

  Justice Burger again spoke. “Can we expect you often in Carlisle, Master Shatto? You might do us service with your views on events transpiring among the tribes.”

  “I do not expect to return to Carlisle for many months, Justice Burger, but Andrew Montour is often among you, and his counsel would be strong. None know more of Indian ways than George Croghan, and his advice would be best of all.”

  Wheelwright nearly sputtered. “Montour is a half-breed! Ye gods, the man paints his face with berry juice and is married to a squaw!”

  Rob said nothing, and Wheelwright pushed his argument. “Are we to seek advice from squaw-men, Shatto?”

  His temper rising, Rob responded. “Andrew Montour travels freely where few whites can. He has the ear of many chiefs. He is known among the tribes as Sattelihu, and his wife that you dismiss so readily is the daughter of Altumoppies, chief of all Delaware.

  “Governor Robert Morris of this colony is impressed enough to place Montour’s children in the best Philadelphia schools. As to painting his face, does not our English sovereign wear a white wig, cover his face with rice powder, and rouge his lips? What matter then if Andrew Montour, living beyond civilization, wears bangles in his ears and paints a ring around his face? It is his knowledge you seek not his manner of decoration.”

  The ease with which Rob stung the haughty Ensign caused even Justice Burger’s lips to quirk, but his words revealed his irritation.

  “You have an edged tongue, young man. Be careful that it does not serve you ill.”

  “My grandfather, E’shan, says that ‘He who pokes at a panther should not be angered by his scratches.’“

  “Hmm, perhaps, Shatto, you should be certain who is the panther here.”

  Threat was only lightly veiled in Burger’s voice, and Rob thought the Justice capable of nurturing ill feelings. He decided to end the conversation.

  “Gentlemen, my broth
er, Shikee, and I wish to be across the mountain before sunset. If I can be of no further assistance, I suggest we end our council.”

  Slightly stunned by dismissal from a mere stripling, the handshaking was desultory, and the Ensign hung back, his hands clasped behind his buttocks.

  “It would be best if you and your friend were beyond our community before dark, Shatto. Our people do not care for Indians loitering in the village at night.”

  Rob’s anger again flared. “I can appreciate their feelings, Captain. Having bilked the Indian of his furs, made him sick with bad whiskey, and having tired of making sport of his drunken stumblings, he is no doubt offensive to an honest townsman’s eye.”

  — — —

  Rob felt hemmed in by the town and its critical citizenry, but he held his departing pace to a steady walk until he was beyond view lest someone suspect him of fleeing. He cast a glance at the garret window where he had spied Becky Reed two years before and was again not surprised to see her waving farewell. He raised his own bronzed arm in salute, suddenly conscious of his strong, lithe body and hoping it met her approval.

  Past the village, he broke into a ground eating lope that quickly covered the distance to the ford. He halted in the tree shadows to give the owl hoot and heard Shikee answer from across the stream. He removed his breechclout, moccasins, and weapons, holding them above water as he crossed over. He tossed his belongings onto the bank and plunged back into the stream swimming a few strokes and dousing himself liberally with water.

  Shikee sat on the powder keg waiting as Rob hand-whipped his body dry and donned his clothing. The Indian raised a questioning glance and rolled his eyes toward the village. Rob offered a lewd sound with his lips and, chuckling together, they led off on the mountain trail.

  — — —

  Comfortably seated on his porch, Thomas Reed reviewed the conversation over his after-dinner pipe. He could not deny Rob Shatto’s sharp wits. The young wild man had returned Wheelwright’s barbed comments with casual directness that stuck like a porcupine’s needles. And, Rob Shatto knew his way around Indians. Reed could not deny that, either.

  Of course, Carlisle would get by without Rob’s help. He regretted getting off on the wrong foot with the young man, but by gum, he had looked like an Indian. Parted in the middle, Rob’s black hair hung in two braids below his shoulders. He was as bronzed as an Indian, and arriving half-naked like a redskin, how was a man to know?

  His musings took a different turn. Rebecca was strongly taken with Rob. Happily, she was too young to think seriously of marriage, but warning tingles touched at the fringes of Reed’s thoughts, and he intended to heed them. Impressionable young girls could be easy marks for virile blades like Shatto. A half-Indian woods runner was the last sort of son-in-law, Thomas Reed desired.

  Reed hoped that Rob did make his visits to Carlisle rare—indeed, very rare. Rob was probably eighteen years of age, but he was already taller than the village men with whom he had spoken. Reed had examined him closely as they visited, and he judged that physical growth was barely underway. Judging by the thickness of bone at his wrists and the size of his hands and feet, Rob Shatto was destined to be very large and probably extremely powerful. If the frontier did not devour him before maturity arrived, Shatto would become a man hard to go unnoticed in any gathering.

  — — —

  With churning emotions, Becky Reed watched Rob’s loping figure fade into the forest. Her second story garret was probably the only place in town that could still see him, and she stayed by her window for many minutes after his disappearance.

  For two years she had imagined Rob’s return from his exile in the wilderness. She had pictured his buckskin clad figure striding through the ordinary, perhaps with his rifle in hand and a deer haunch over a powerful shoulder, and her father hanging on his every word. Rob would, of course, have eyes only for her maidenly form and circumspect person.

  Then, passing the store as she had a thousand times before her gaze had fallen on the pistol in the small of Rob’s back. Disbelief had held her motionless while she absorbed the fact of Rob’s strong, bronzed figure. It was him! It really was Rob Shatto standing there with his bare behind sticking out.

  Her sense of propriety abandoned her, and she had flung herself exuberantly into his powerful and enthusiastic embrace. If she had harbored secret doubts that Rob Shatto should be her man, they fled forever in the crush of his arms. Her day assumed a glowing effervescence through which she moved in dream-like tranquility.

  Becky Reed worried not a whit that she had shamelessly flung herself at a man most would believe she barely knew. She sat at the garret window almost until dusk had fallen visualizing Rob climbing the distant mountain and fantasizing about the life they could share. In two years she would be sixteen, an age at which most girls married. Rob would come for her. She knew he would. And then, they would climb Kittatinny Mountain together, and …

  13

  1751 – The House Plan

  Rob’s intent to build a home near E’shan’s lodge aroused no protest. The earth belonged to everyone, and if Quehana preferred a site unoccupied by another, it was his right to use the land given by the Great Spirit.

  The spot Rob chose to build on lay in the narrows below the Little Buffalo meadows. There the hills pushed together leaving only a wide draw through which the stream softly rustled.

  The decision to build his home where the soil was thin and with high ground rising on two sides was a judgment not easily come to. Living on the frontier had always been risky, and most settlers chose to erect simple cabins while they struggled to feed growing families. Fending only for himself with E’shan’s lodge to provide sustenance, Rob could look to the future while planning long with youthful disregard for passing seasons.

  Someday, he planned to farm the flats of the meadow, and a house on high ground would make difficult hauls from his fields. He planned a grist mill to grind his own flour and meal. That meant waterpower, so he should be close to the stream. Nestled in the shelter of the ridges, howling winter winds would pass overhead, yet the sun could still warm his walls for much of the day.

  Of course, it was far easier to drag building materials down to a low site than up to a house on high ground, and when a road came it would pass through the draw and close to his home, barn, and mill.

  Balancing the positive factors for a home in the notch was a single major deterent. Defending low ground against attack could be difficult.

  Certain in his own mind that open warfare between encroaching settlers and truculent tribesmen would develop, Rob did not discount the possibility that his home could be laid under attack or subject to regular harassment.

  It was also possible that the frontier would move on past the Little Buffalo before warfare began, and his plantation would be spared. It seemed at least as possible that, because he planned into the future, he could choose to work diligently or to allow things to slide until conditions improved.

  In any case, the house would have two stories. The lower level would be of stone and would be a single large room. It would have walls two feet thick, a great hearth, a wooden floor, and two stout doors. For the present, there would be only narrow loopholes let into each wall, but the firing slits would have lintels and frames. When the danger of warfare was gone for good, Rob could remove the proper stones, and the home could boast eight windows, two to a side.

  If he chose, Rob could roof his first story and have a cabin larger and stronger than most on the frontier. His plan, however, went much further. Atop the thick stone walls he would place massive oaken sills and raise an upper story of hewn timbers that would be larger than the ground floor. The upper story would overhang the stone walls by about four feet all around. Special floorboards in the upper story could be lifted to fire down on an enemy crouched against the stone walls. The upper story would have the usual too-small-to-slip-through loopholes, and there would be iron rods within the chimney to prevent an enemy from dropping into the ho
use. A trapdoor would give access to the roof, in case an enemy somehow gained that position.

  The roof presented special problems. With higher ground within arrow range, it would be easy to lay a barrage of fire arrows on the roof and attempt to burn the building. The usual solution was a sod roof which would not burn. Unfortunately, soddies were poor to live under. They leaked, and they rotted the supporting timbers. Rob’s solution came from his memory of David yarning about his childhood home in the old country. That home had been shingled with tiles. Although he doubted he could make the high-fired tile used in Europe, Rob could bake the local clay into weather resistant hardness in a stone and earth oven, just as the Indians made their pottery. A roof of pottery tile would turn anything Indians could shoot against it, and it would last a hundred years.

  The heavily planked roof would have wooden battens pegged across it at one foot intervals. The tile would be flat, except for an “L” shaped lip near the upper end. Hooked over a wooden batten, the tile would lay of its own weight. Each row of tile, overlapping the lower row would additionally hold all in place. It was true that he had never seen such a roof, but David’s descriptions were clear in his mind, and the technique seemed logical. Rob believed it would work.

  The labor involved in building such a house was so immense that Rob could not look at the overall plan without quailing. Rationalizing that he had years to complete the tasks helped a little. In his mind, Rob reduced the building to a series of construction steps. By examining each step separately, the overall project appeared more possible. If he could complete step one, and he could, then step two was really not that improbable a venture, which made step three … given time, he could do it.

  He would enlist help along the way, but he would accomplish what he could and seek aid when it became necessary. Looking at it that way, there was little sense in waiting, and Rob figured he should get started immediately.

  — — —

  To bake his tiles, Rob built an oven from rubble stones. Except for an entrance and smoke hole, he covered it with earth. E’shan made no complaint when he enlisted Fat or Flat’s help in patting out clay tiles. Rob doubted his explanations made clear how the tiles would be used, but the women worked with a comfortable deliberateness, and the piles of drying clay grew in the meadow.