Arrowmaker (Pennsylvania Frontier Series)

by Roy F. Chandler

  A pack of dogs followed him aways, but he shooed them home, preferring to travel quiet, like he had always done. Getting away early, he planned to look in at the old flint quarry. He hadn’t been up that creek in a dozen years, he supposed.

  He walked the almost dry bed of the Little Buffalo until he got near the Juniata, then cut the corner north, past Milford where a man was trying to run a ferry. The ferryman was plumb out of business this year. Rob crossed the river without wetting his moccasins. He sure hoped the drought ended soon. Lying there with all its bones showing, the Juniata was ugly.

  Wildcat Creek was as dry as a salt lick, and Rob walked the streambed straight to the flint ledge. Even that had changed. He judged a fire had swept over the mountain and took off all the trees. Heavy rain had washed the hill down over the rock ledge, and there was nothing to be seen. He figured the flint had been covered a few years as some pretty big brush was growing on the landslide.

  Well, there wasn’t any use for flint stone anymore. If anyone wanting a flint arrowhead he could pick one up in a field quicker than he could make one, anyway.

  The forest was terribly dry. Dust rose even under the trees, and the leaves were so few and dried out they didn’t hardly keep out the sun. It wasn’t much of a year for an old woods runner.

  Girty’s cave was untouched. Animals had denned there, but it was empty now. He built a careful fire where Simon had laid his so long ago and warmed the ham Becky had put in for him.

  His body was tired. It wasn’t his leg muscles; his whole carcass seemed to stiffen and ache if he used it much. Well, he suspected he did not have a powerful lot of miles to cover anymore, anyway. And looking back he couldn’t complain. A creak or an ache after more than seventy years wasn’t anything to be surprised over.

  Rob liked John Shuler. The man’s shop was surely simple enough, but Shuler made a good gun, he was raising a good family, and he looked ahead like a man ought to.

  Rob enjoyed sitting alongside the work bench and yarning while Shuler looked over Rob’s old pistol and told how he was contracting to make a hundred or more military pistols for the Committee of Safety.

  John Shuler had big hopes for the community some were calling Liverpool. He spoke of boat yards and maybe canals, which gave them both a chuckle as the Susquehanna this year held only a trickle. Rob figured John Shuler as something of a dreamer, a talented craftsman who would create a fine rifle. But in the gun making business, a man just couldn’t make rifles enough to become a financial success. Shuler had two boys, so maybe when they got big enough the three of them could produce enough weapons to improve the family income.

  Rob voiced his preference for the Juniata, but had to admit the broad Susquehanna with the hills rising along the east bank made a mighty pretty picture. Shuler listened intently to Rob’s predictions that a town somewhere near Wildcat Creek on the Juniata would develop because the distance was natural for stopping after turning up the Juniata. More settlers and traders would go west on that river than would go up the west branch of the Susquehanna, anyway. Shuler didn’t necessarily agree, but Rob could tell it put him to thinking.

  Shuler had a rifle that Rob liked. It was a two barrel gun. The barrels swiveled so that only one bore was in firing position at a time. The gun was short and fired about forty balls to the pound, which was a heavy ball for 1805 shooting. Rob allowed that he had never taken too strong to the small bores that were getting popular. He supposed he was getting set in his ways.

  In one way, Rob was almost fearful of buying a two barrel rifle. Jack Elan had carried his Deathgiver two barrel for as long as Rob had known him, and Rob had always disparaged the rifle as clumsy and overly heavy.

  Then, Tim Murphy had come along and beat them all with his double rifle, but Murphy didn’t count in a best rifle match, as Murphy could outshoot any of them anytime. Rob grinned to himself, figuring he would claim that two barrels were all right now that dangerous shooting was past and nobody had to worry about hostiles popping into sight. That would get Jack to sputtering.

  Rob could tell that Shuler enjoyed talking to a man who knew gun making, and when they stepped outside to try the rifle, Rob made it a point to impress him a little with his shooting.

  Shuler handled a rifle like a soldier with a lot of foot placing and huffing and puffing, but he hit solid. Rob just raised the gun and let fly when it bore. He was as fast as lightning, and he hit a lot better. They talked about it some, and Rob tried to explain about hunting and handling guns until a rifle became almost a part of your mind and body. But, it was hard to describe to someone who had not already learned it.

  Rob bought the gun, paying the twenty-four dollars without quibbling, and Shuler threw in an extra bullet mold that cast two balls at a time. It was a nice gesture and let them both feel they had gotten a good deal.

  Rob felt better traveling with a rifle in hand. It had never felt natural to be out in the woods without a long gun, and even to this day, Jack Elan never left his cabin without old Deathgiver in his fist.

  He shot the rifle a few times on the way home, and reloading gave him time to rest his bones. It was long past dark when he hallooed at the house, and Becky’s candle sitting on the windowsill looked mighty welcome and comforting.

  They stayed up a spell, talking softly on their old settle, and Becky admired the new gun like she always did. It was real satisfying, the way she got interested in whatever struck his fancy, and he marveled again at his good fortune in having her to share with.

  36

  1809 - Little Rob

  Rob left the work at the mill and climbed into hard woods north of the creek. George, Junior wanted awfully bad to cut the timber handy to the mill. It seemed silly to young George to haul logs to the saw when a whole mountain of virgin oak, ash, chestnut, and pine lay within spitting distance. Young George could see about as far ahead as his nose!

  Rob sat on an old log that had long worn away its bark and packed his clay with the Kinnikinnick his people claimed smelled like an Injun lodge. As if even one of them had ever been in a lodge! He wished they would hate it so bad some of them would pack up and start their own lodges—way off the Little Buffalo some place.

  Not much chance of that, though. They liked the easy living, this bunch did.

  He heard brush crackling off behind him and nodded contentedly. The boy was still aways off, so he would let him be a while. When the crackling grew closer, he started up, shading his eyes from imaginary sun and called, “Hark! Has someone loosed his cattle in the sacred hills of the Little Buffalo?” A child’s giggle rewarded him.

  “Ha! Do Delaware warriors stalk the great Quehana? For who else could approach with such stealth and quiet?”

  A small figure detached itself from the ground and marched bravely forward, skinny arms folded across an equally skinny chest. A band of calico around his forehead boasted a turkey feather sticking upright and announced the arrival of the famed Delaware war chief, Little Shingas, who upon occasion answered also to the name of Robbie Shatto--age seven.

  Rob greeted the mighty chief with upthrust palm, and Little Shingas squatted in the Indian manner uttering a credible “Waugh.”

  With childish abruptness, Robbie abandoned his roll as Shingas and sat close beside his great grandfather. “Pap, how come you always hear me comin’ up on you? I can creep up on most anybody, but you always hear me.”

  “Well, Robbie, others just aren’t trained to listen. They growed up safe and for the most part without worries.

  “Now, you take old Sattelihu, there was a hunter who could steal eggs out from under a sitting duck. And old Shikee maybe could’a stole ‘em away from Sattelihu. Those were real hunters in them days, Robbie.”

  “Tell me about The Warrior, Pap. Was he a great stalker?”

  “Well, they say The Warrior used to slip into a Cherokee or a Dakota village, scalp the chief or the best warrior in camp and slip away without even the people in the lodge knowin’ it.”

  “Wow!�
�

  ‘“Course, The Warrior wasn’t just a stalker. He was maybe the greatest fighting man the redskins ever had. They say one time he came on a file o’Chippewas tryin’ to sneak into Iroquois country. The Warrior waited till they all went by. Then, quiet as a eel in mud, he slipped up on the last Chippewa an’ snapped his neck so quick and quiet that the next brave in line never heard a sound. When the leader finally looked around he was all alone. He back-tracked and found every one of his braves layin along the trail dead as this ol’ log we’re sittin’ on.”

  “Wow! How many were there, Pap?”

  “Ten or eleven, I reckon.”

  “How come he didn’t kill the leader, too?”

  “‘Spect he wanted someone left to warn the rest o’the Chippewas to stay away.” Rob smoked in silence for a time, letting the boy mull over the stories.

  The boy said, “I like the story about you and Ironhawk fighting the monster-man, Pap.”

  “Yep, that’s a good one. I’ll tell it again one of these times.”

  “Hey, Pap, can I have a puff on your pipe?”

  Without hesitation, Rob handed the pipe across. “Reckon, but make it only one. Tobacco’s for old folks that don’t plan on runnin’ or trackin’ much.”

  The boy drew deep and coughed rackingly, his eyes streaming and his nose running. Rob took back the pipe saying nothing.

  “Whewee, Pap. That ain’t good a’tall.”

  “Then, I ‘spect you’d better pass up the pipe for now, Robbie.”

  The boy’s mind jumped to other things. “Say, Pap, d’you think Shikee will ever come back?”

  Rob answered slowly, taking the question seriously.

  “It wouldn’t surprise me at all, Robbie. I suppose Shikee’s bones are starting to ache a little, too, him bein’ a year older than me. He’s probably wonderin’ how things are back here on the Little Buffalo. As a man grows old, he thinks about his young days, and he is apt to want to see the old places one more time. ‘Course, them Shining Mountains are a long way. Might be he can’t make it.”

  “Maybe a painter already ate him, Pap, or a b’ar, or one o’them Sioux Indians could of pulled him down.”

  “That rightly could be, of course. Man takes his chances in the mountains. But, old Shikee was as smart as they come. T’wouldn’t surprise me none to hear his owl hoot some early morn.

  “And the word is ‘bear,‘ Robbie. Not a b’ar.”

  “Lot o’people call ‘em b’ars, Pap.”

  “I’m telling you just like my grandfather told me. Talk the best you can, not like some ignorant woods runner. Then, people will know you are somebody.

  “Mom says you’re gettin’ to talk more like a woods rat all the time, Pap.”

  “Your Mom’s right, boy. But, I’m old and it don’t matter. You’re young an’ still learning. So, do it right.”

  “Hey, Pap?”

  “What?”

  “Tell me again about you and Shikee and the panther, will you? That’s one of my favorites.”

  “Well, I’ll tell it to you in Delaware. Just like Shikee used to back in E’shan’s lodge. But, if you go askin’ questions, they gotta be in Delaware, too … or the story is quit.”

  “Shore, Pap. It sounds better in Delaware, anyhow. Makes it more real, sort of.”

  Rob tapped out his pipe and drew the boy close under his arm. It was all so long ago, yet the time stood clear in his mind. Seemed the older he got, the less he knew about what was going on around him, but the better he remembered the old days.

  He dropped easily into the liquid flow of the Delaware tongue. “Back when Shikee and Quehana stood straight like young birch …”

  37

  1816 - The Return

  The year was the strangest in Rob’s memory. In a lot of ways it was worse than the drought of 1805. Although the sun rose high in the sky, the air remained cold. There was snow on the ground in June and again in July. He watched the men plowing in their heavy coats and mittens. It was no better for planting, and they put the seed in because they had always done so. Except for the most sheltered places, the grain froze out. Deer starved. By June a carpet of dead squirrel bodies littered the forest floor. Becky’s herb garden lay winter brown, and people started to worry about next winter.

  The Shatto men began to store whatever they harvested or killed against certain shortage in the months to come. The wheat crop was pathetic at best. Farmers strode their fields with lengths of chain, whipping snow from the ripening harvest. No one knew what to do. So, most did nothing.

  With the grain shortage, George thought to make bigger profit and raised the milling price—and people stopped coming. They dug out the old plumping mills and pounded their own tiny corn and wheat harvests. George couldn’t understand what was happening to his business, and before he dropped his prices, it was too late. The mill stood idle.

  Rob supervised the reorganization of the ice cave. Meat shot in below-freezing weather was packed in ice and kept frozen for the coming winter. The young men and boys caught eels and shad. Some they smoked. The best were cleaned and allowed to freeze before storing within the packed ice. They beat hungry squirrels to the few bearing nut trees. They shot the squirrels, packed them in ice, and took the nuts home for drying. The only good to come of it all was discovery of an overlooked keg of Rob’s earliest whiskey. The keg was dated 1760. They tapped the keg and found the fifty-six year old whiskey mighty fine, indeed.

  In the villages, fevers common to the summer failed to appear, but in July, Black Diphtheria struck hard in Carlisle. George went over the mountain on business and reported bodies lying unburied outside houses. Black Diphtheria could sweep through an entire family killing all in a pair of weeks. Rob decreed that no Shatto would go to Carlisle, and strangers would be turned away. He was already too late.

  On the evening George returned from Carlisle, the family ate late. Old Rob and Little Rob ate at a small side table with Becky and Flat. Although tired from his travels, George stayed up for the meal, and the talk was all of the plague rampant in the towns. It was interesting talk, and Rob almost missed the owl hoot.

  The call came with a special lilt, and Rob felt his heart thump in his chest, and his breath caught short. Little Rob heard it, too. His eyes, big as saucers, stared at Rob, and his eating knife hung suspended halfway to his mouth.

  Rob’s hasty glance showed that no one had noticed their excitement. Becky listened to George, and Flat moved in her old and weary way among the pots and kettles. He tilted his head toward the door, and Robbie dropped his knife, then tried to appear casual as he ducked out the back way.

  He stood in the dusk of evening and hooted his answer as Rob had taught him. There was a moment’s hesitation before an answer came from the hill, and he thought he must not have it perfect yet. He went up the hill moving soft, like woodsmen did, and looked close when he was about right. Seeing no one, he hooted again, tying to listen above the pounding in his chest and a funny roaring in his ears.

  The fluid Delaware came from a shadow he’d a’sworn he looked close at. Now, he could see the Indian sitting quiet as a stone and seeing and hearing him after all the years and stories choked him up so tight he almost couldn’t answer.

  “Does Quehana still raise sons who know the old calls?”

  “No, oh no! I am Pap’s great grandson. I mean Quehana’s great grandson.” Speaking the Delaware opened his mind, and he said, “Is that really you, Shikee?”

  The still figure chuckled, “If it were a Sioux or Pawnee, a small scalp would now be his.”

  Robbie moved closer, hearing the door shut in the house below. “He is coming now, Shikee. Quehana is coming.”

  The old Indian again chuckled. “I thought I heard a slight sound.”

  Rob hooted, and when Shikee waited, Robbie called his own answer. Rob came up the hill as fast as he could and reached them only a little out of wind. The Indian raised a hand, gaunt to the edge of skeletal, and said, “Quehana, my brother.”
<
br />   Rob answered, his voice thick with emotion. “Shikee, my brother!”

  Until the night closed too tight about them, Robbie sat shivering in the chill, while inwardly glowing with the thrill of seeing the old men together. His great grandfather and Shikee sat in the dark, almost unable to see each other, but so cloaked in understanding that as the soft Delaware flowed, their closeness seemed to envelope Robbie as well.

  Their moving arms and hands occasionally caught light as they gestured in the exaggerated Indian way. They spoke swiftly, and Robbie was hard put to follow their talk. He thought he had never heard anything sweeter than Delaware being spoken by two warriors.

  Finally, Rob said, “Robbie, go down and have Flat bring us good blankets, some food, my tomahawk, and a fire starter. Flat will be back shortly, but she will be pleased to again see her nephew. Tell your great grandma, that Shikee is here, and that I will be staying out a few nights. We’ll make camp above the old lodge on the flat spot in the woods. Meet us there in the morning.”

  He scrambled down the slope and tried to leap the creek but got a wet foot. When he reached the house, he started talking Delaware without thinking until he saw that only Flat was listening.

  When he gave the news, only his great grandma Becky and Flat were excited. His grandpa George just said, “My God, I thought he would be long dead,” and acted mad because his story telling got cut off. Robbie’s own father said, “Help Flat get what they need, and get yourself up to bed.”

  Robbie decided to go back with Flat, instead. He just couldn’t stay away, no matter how angry his Pa got. They hustled to the camping spot, but the old men had not come yet. Flat built a fire in the spot Robbie and old Rob had used when the boy was small, and they had camped out here a time or two. After a bit, he heard them coming real slow and talking with a lot of laughing. Flat began to whimper as if she couldn’t wait, and Robbie wished they would hurry because he was missing a lot of things.