Shikee’s totems faded with the seasons, and Rob replaced them. Hopefully, other settlers placed similar totems around their clearings but suffered Indian wrath as the Delaware retaliated for misuse of their medicine. Many whites marveled at Rob Shatto’s apparent immunity to attack, but few resented it. His violent reprisal against the hostiles who had taken his wife crushed any suspicion that he might somehow favor the tribes.
— — —
From within their stronghold, the Shatto household saw the seasons pass. The fields grew as did the family. George had come into the world on schedule and with Flat’s assistance, Becky had little trouble. A quiet baby, George caused little turmoil within the household and was greatly loved by all and spoiled by the women.
The family grew with almost seasonal regularity. Andrew was born eighteen months after George. Then wee Martha followed by sweet Ann, and finally the twins, Thomas and Richard. Rob observed the increases with solid satisfaction. Each new Shatto furthered Rob’s plan for a plantation of significance within the valley.
Although he longed for an end to Indian hostilities, raids and ambushes had become a part of life in Sherman’s Valley. Rob adjusted their lives to the constant threats, and the family flourished despite the dangers around them.
When Indian attacks were heavy, the Shattos and Robinsons were isolated on their holdings. During harvests, only Rob traveled beyond the land protected by Shikee’s totems. He occasionally encountered Delaware war parties. He spoke with them and on occasion smoked at their fires. He avoided Shawnee and observed their directions with suspicion.
Occasionally, Rob was able to warn settlers of approaching hostiles, but his own position, so precariously balanced on the good will of the Delawares, also forced him to turn aside, although in doing so he might cost white lives. His dilemma was unsolvable, and in time he resolved it within himself by doing what he could and dismissing what he could not.
Indian raids weeded out the weak and fearful among the Sherman’s Valley settlers, and Rob detected a new and hardier breed developing. Women handled muskets with familiarity. Cabins were built with more eye toward their defense than their comfort. Crops were grown close to the door, and at the first hint of alarm, families forted up. The men were increasingly quicker to shoot and used the forest more to their advantage. War parties began to suffer casualties in the deep woods. Attacks into Sherman’s Valley were becoming costly to attackers, and their frequency fell away, Jack Elan escaped his Shawnee captors and returned to the valley where his black rifle took its toll on raiders.
Captain Jack, a slightly mad settler whose family had been massacred, was credited with frequent reprisals on war parties and for giving warning to isolated cabins. Jack had periods of rationality during which he reentered white ways, but more often, he lurked in the deepest woods hunting Indians and killing them when he could.
Rob encountered Jack at different times, and the two men had stalked one another before recognition ended their deadly game. Captain Jack grew scrawny on his poor forest diet, and his hair hung long in greasy strings. Jack’s strangely unfocused eyes appeared sightless, yet his vision and his wood skills had developed until he could hunt Indians born to the wilderness. Jack was constantly short of ammunition and new flints. When they met, Rob gave Jack what he had, but the Indian killer never came to the Shatto place for resupply.
To Rob’s eye, there was steady deterioration among the Delaware he encountered. It was as Shikee had described. The Indian families and the lodge societies seemed falling apart. Young braves passed coarse remarks about old ways and thought only of the spoils of their raids. Because white settlers were often as poor as the Indians, even in victory the raiders gained little and warfare took continuous toll of irreplaceable warriors.
The braves were poorly led, their weapons were worn, their clouts were dirty, and their braids or scalplocks were matted and unclean. Few resembled the proud warriors and hunters who had visited E’shan’s lodge a decade past. Rob felt they should all go to the Shining Mountains and renew themselves.
27
1759 - Whiskey
One year the corn crop was the best Rob had ever seen. Will Miller had claimed it would be a good corn year, and hoping to harvest enough for their own people and animals, they had planted every available inch in corn—which came close to one hundred acres. Many of the fields were new, which meant many weeds, and other acres were only clearings below girdled trees, but the summer had alternated strong sun with good soaking rains, and grasshoppers and chewing beetles had stayed away. Rob walked the tall corn feeling the fat ears and wondering what to do with it all.
He supposed they could throw up an extra corn crib or two, but the mice and squirrels would get more good out of the corn than his animals, Rob thought that maybe it was time to make up a still. Whiskey had advantages over corn. It usually brought a good price, it was easier to transport than corn, and whiskey did not spoil.
In preparation, Rob contacted neighbors who also expected bumper crops. Where he could, he contracted to buy their extra corn. He would pay with one half of the whiskey distilled from the same amount of corn.
Will Miller traveled east to purchase the materials they needed to construct a still. He took all of their horses and was gone so long that Rob had begun to worry. Miller returned laden with equipment and supplies. He had found it necessary to journey to Philadelphia but had still found some essentials unobtainable.
Copper boilers and tubing had resisted his best efforts. They could only be ordered from England. In desperation Miller had sought out the Cummens shipyard. He had reminded the elder Cummens that Rob Shatto was a close and important friend of Cummens’ wandering son, Blue Moccasin, and Cummens had made available copper plate used for sheathing ship hulls. Rob would have to build his own boilers and close his own tubing.
Miller found yeast and sugar available if they desired it. He had contracted for kegs and a few large barrels to be delivered to Carlisle because the cooper would not venture into the dangers of the border valley. Thomas Reed agreed to store the containers and was interested in bidding on any whiskey they might produce.
While Rob sweated over his forge, Will prepared the still site below the house where prevailing winds would carry away the smell of fermenting grain. Woolever and Bristline had become Rob’s regular employees, and with field work slack before the harvests, they quickly became part of the whiskey making crew. They erected lean-to sheds for the mash barrels and a larger shed for the cooker itself. An endless supply of wood was needed, and their axes echoed the ring of Rob’s hammer.
The soft copper formed easily into a cylindrical boiler five feet long with a wooden plug sealing the hole where mash liquid could be poured in. The men placed the boiler above a stone fire pit, and Rob began making tubing.
He cut his copper into three-inch wide strips and hammered each strip into a tube around an iron rod. He sealed the seam with light strokes on the heated metal and had a length of tubing. Forty feet of tubing led from the top of the boiler and coiled through a long box of cold water. Under the tubing’s end waited an open-topped keg. Woolever and Bristline brought Miller’s purchased kegs, barrels, and jugs from Reed’s, and the still waited only firing.
The corn proved out better than could be hoped. Load after load was sledded from the fields. Cribs overflowed, and fat ears were mounded near the still. In the evening, the entire household husked and kernelled, filling open-topped mash barrels so fermenting could begin.
The first whiskey cooking was undertaken with much excitement at the Shatto place. Fires beneath the boiler had been lit early, and liquor from the fermented corn was poured into the boiler. The boiler’s sealing plug was tapped in tightly and worried over lest the pressure prove too great and blow it out. In less than an hour’s time heat had built, and wet steam entered the tubing and fed itself into the coils lying in the cool water of the doubling box. The steam condensed, and whiskey began to drip from the tubing end. They cheered as the drip
became a thin rivulet. Rob poured a small amount of the distillate into a hollowed stone and lit it. The flame burned blue, and he declared it good, fit to drink, whiskey.
The whiskey did not come free. The still occupied most of their time. Cords of wood were burned, and as Rob allowed no cutting close to hand, every stick was skidded on sleds from deep in the notch. Jack Elan, who had settled into a cabin on Little Juniata Creek, was drafted to help, and Rob wished other hands were available.
Corn arrived from neighbors and distant clearings as settlers found their crops bountiful. Rob demanded that all corn be husked and kernelled and ready for fermenting. Robinsons arrived with an entire pack train, each horse bearing a pair of leather panniers filled with grain. Robert Robinson suggested Rob try making wheat whiskey, as many had harvested more wheat than their small plumping mills could handle. Cooking a small batch of his own wheat, Rob found the whiskey sweeter than the pure corn. It was good whiskey, and he included wheat in his grain dealings.
The still dripped its steady reward into jugs, kegs, and finally barrels. Rob and Will charred the insides of the Shatto containers by holding the containers over the forge. Sealed within charred oak, Rob’s whiskey aged toward maturity.
As the collection of kegs and barrels mounted, storage became a serious concern. The rock ledge west of the house had provided stone for Rob’s house, for a smokehouse, and for the half walls of his new forge building. The result was a shallow cave against the steep slope. Removing more stone and adding a heavy beamed and sodded entrance created secure storage for the highly flammable whiskey.
When the millpond was completed, Rob planned to cut ice and pack the cave with it. All summer they could have ice and the whiskey would be cooled and hidden behind the ice blocks. Rob often thought that it would not be good for Indians to discover the firewater. Such a hoard might transcend loyalty to Shikee’s aged totems.
As the whiskey matured, Rob’s funds grew seriously short. Purchasing corn from settlers who did not wish to trade for whiskey ate away his cash. He thought long on the matter, knowing the ready solution, yet not convinced of its rightness. He wondered how Will Miller felt about the money buried along Braddock’s road.
28
1760 - The Treasure
When they were alone at the still, Rob asked Will Miller if he had given any thought to the buried money.
Will said, “Oh, off an’ on over the years, Rob. We ain’t never needed it, so I figured you was letting it lay till we did.”
“You give thought to turning it back to the King, Will?”
“Nope! And I hope you don’t either, Rob. Maybe you don’t know the army as well as I do, but there’d be little if any’d ever find its way home. You’d just be givin’ it away.”
“It’s surely as much yours as mine, Will.”
“Fact is, Rob, you’re the only one livin’ that can find that gold. I couldn’t no more find that clearin’ than I could kiss the Queen.”
Sensing Rob’s indecision, Will continued, “I seen it a’fore, Rob. Seen sailors cheated out o’their share of prize money. I’ve knowed soldiers to have their just spoils taken away, an’ lord knows we all served enough and never got paid. Just like you never got paid for scouting for Braddock’s column. Claimed the records got lost in the massacre, didn’t they?” Miller chuckled appreciatively. “Reckon them Injun scouts was right about getting paid real regular. They’re the only ones made out on that trip.”
Will paused to give weight to his thoughts. “Just suppose I had claim to part o’the coin buried out there. You’ve put up with me livin’ at your place for a long spell now. How long has it been, Rob? Goin’ on six years, ain’t it? I’m owing you for all of that, Rob.”
“Will, that’s not so! Without you this place wouldn’t be half what it is. More than that, we’re friends, Will. You are part of this family. You’re welcome to all that we have; you know that.”
“Well, I thank’e, Rob. This valley o’yourn is all a man could want, and I’d be pleased to run my string out right here. And, if Braddock’s coin makes it easier or better, then I say we keep it.”
Miller turned suddenly reluctant and spoke almost with embarrassment as his words came hard.
“Fact is, Rob, I been meaning to speak to you about something that’s been on my mind quite a spell.” He hesitated, poking the dirt with his toe.
“Well, I thought maybe I’d throw up a little cabin just off your close-in land. Maybe just below the still where the pines come down to the water. Nice and cool in the summer, an’ good shelter in the winter. I’d be handy there, an’ I’d be out from under your roof an’ all.”
He faltered again, as though greatly embarrassed, but before Rob could come to his rescue, Will stumbled on. “Well, dang it, Rob, I’m gettin’ on toward fifty years an’ I’d like a place of my own. An‘ well, fact is … well, I’m plannin’ on askin’ Flat to move on down with me.”
Miller continued defensively in a rush of words. “Won’t be as though Flat was gone or nothin’, Rob. She’ll be close by to help Becky an’ all. I figur’ to take good care of Flat, Rob. She’s a fine an’ good lookin’ woman an’…”
Rob interrupted Miller’s flood of words. “Will, I couldn’t be more pleased! Have you spoken to Flat?”
“Well, I said a few words on it. I figur’ she’ll come if you give your say so, Rob.”
“My say so? Excepting Shikee, you and Flat are my closest friends. If it is what you want, my best wishes go with you, Will.” The two men shook hands as if sealing a great and final charter.
Rob asked, “Does Becky know any of this, Will?”
“‘Spect she knows somethin’ is in the wind. Hard to keep anythin’ from Becky.”
“Well, let’s go up and tell her now, and I’ll tell Flat how pleased I am.”
They walked toward the house, and a thought struck Rob.
“Will, we’ll throw up a cabin as you planned, but better than you just squatting down there, we’ll take some of Billie Braddock’s gold and you can warrant a good parcel. Could be, you and Flat will have a family and need land.
“Time to do it is now while everybody is still Injun scared. We’ll get logs down and square ‘em up and build a snug cabin with all of the fixin’s. And I’ll just get myself down south a bit and make sure we’ve got all this coin we’re planning on. For all we know, some Frenchie might already be living on it over in Paree or someplace.”
— — —
Braddock’s road had grown in. The ax-men had chopped it twelve feet wide, but brush had flourished, and except for a narrow horse trail in its center, the road was unusable.
The road was still littered with jetsam from the fleeing English. Rotting pouches, hats, gaiters, and packs still dotted the brush. The lack of discarded muskets and bayonets showed that Indians and probably colonists had picked over the leavings.
Rob recalled talk among a band of Delaware he had met beyond Tuscarora Mountain. They had spoken with amusement of Long Knife, a warrior who had collected weapons from the massacre and hidden them in a secret place for use in the next battle. Rob was less amused. He had known Long Knife when he and Shikee were youths, and The Knife had been a powerful thinker and planner. Rob expected the tribes could easily have acquired over a hundred good Brown Bess muskets from the battle. Those weapons probably accounted for some of the musket-armed warriors attacking Sherman’s Valley.
Rob located the clearing on instinct. It looked no different from a hundred others, but he knew it was the spot. It was an odd feeling to stand behind the same tree and detect a few pitiful bone shards that marked where the two charging Indians had fallen.
Wheelwright and his attacker lay together. The lieutenant’s blade had rusted, but the gold sword hilt appeared undamaged. Animals had rolled the skulls about, and Rob could not tell which was Wheelwright’s. As usual, coyotes or wolves had carried off the lower jaws and ground other bones for their marrow. He kept the sword hilt and toed the brass buttons but l
eft them.
The cannon lay undisturbed beneath a few inches of dirt and leaves. Rob uncovered the only slightly pitted iron barrel and, locking his hands beneath it, managed to heave it from its resting place.
Wheelwright had plugged the cannon muzzle with clay, and Rob broke it loose with a few blows of his tomahawk. A stream of untarnished coins trickled from the cannon’s mouth, and Rob’s heart thumped at the sight of more wealth than he could ever use. He had to sit back for a moment and just look.
Never in his life had he seen such a pile of money and never figured he would again. Rob had to make a special effort not to look around the woods to see if anyone was watching. That amount of money gave a man funny feelings.
The coins made a pack Rob figured at over a hundred pounds. Most of it was gold, but even in silver he carried a fortune.
He returned the cannon to its resting place and covered it carefully. No one had entered the glade since the massacre, but if they did, there would be no indications of his visit. Rob left Wheelwright and the three warriors guarding the empty cannon.
29
1761 - The Muskrat
A trail where morning dew had been disturbed crossed the ridge and headed toward the meadow. Until he saw a moccasin print, Rob thought a deer had made the trace.
The imprint was small and touched so lightly Rob could not determine its shape. He judged the wearer to have passed within the hour as dew still dropped from disturbed grass.
He re-checked the priming of his rifle and followed cautiously. Whomever he followed used the utmost caution, and Rob carefully swept the forest in case the intruder was not alone. The moccasin wearer stopped at one of the old arrow blazes, and Rob got clear moccasin prints. They were Shawnee. Quehana bent to a crouch and moved more swiftly in pursuit.
Arrowmaker (Pennsylvania Frontier Series) Page 22
