He kept a slow pace and leaned a bit more than usual on his stick. The day was hotter than he had thought, and the shade ahead beckoned invitingly. He wished Robbie would come over so they could wrangle over the old days and speculate about those Rocky Mountains. Most likely the boy was off exploring back of Bower Mountain. Still some pretty wild country back in there.
He reached the oak, and without thought, sank gratefully into E’shan’s old spot, letting the pressure on his chest slack a bit. The meadow lay rich, their crops looked strong and healthy. He leaned against the rough bark, stretching his legs before him. He heard ducks calling on the pond and closed his eyes, listening to the soft breeze rustle in the oak.
Without warning, a sudden, giant silence ballooned within his body. A pain as huge as the silence sliced through his left shoulder, and he counted it worse than anything he had ever felt. Worse even than when the Carlisle people pulled at his scalp. His vision turned a little fuzzy and the pain made thinking hard. He saw someone running toward him across the meadow. After a moment, he recognized Becky and immediately felt the pain slack a little. She would make it well for him, like she always did. Lordy, how good she looked all young and slender as a reed. Her legs flashed in the sun, and he closed his eyes thinking that he would have to tell her how real pretty she looked. The pain grew distant, and he thought he would just rest a bit until she got here.
Robbie Shatto bounded across the meadow, his legs driving him in great leaping bounds. He saw Rob sort of start up and lay back against the old oak, and he sprinted the last few rods out of plain high spirits. He dropped to the ground, greeting his great grandfather with an affectionate, “Waugh!”
That Rob was dead came slowly to him. The old man’s expression was one of contentment, but the open eyes saw nothing. He couldn’t believe it! He struggled to understand that Rob Shatto was no more, that the legendary Quehana—his grandpap—was gone, and no more would they sit together yarning while he learned how it had been and how it should be done.
Tears stung at his eyes, and the ache in his throat seemed unbearable. He sat for a long time, muffled in his loss, until his grief became tolerable. He gathered Rob’s body in his arms, marveling at its lightness, and carried his great grandfather back to his old house and family.
— — —
The service had been typical. The family brought in a preacher who had rambled on in German that few understood, about a man he could not know. All but Robbie wore mourning black. He had dressed in the hunting clothes that old Rob had preferred.
He waited only to see that the burying was done right. The natural stone marker looked proper. He figured that old Rob didn’t care much, anyway. The Arrowmaker had lived in the forests around them, and as long as he, Robbie Shatto, lived, so would the spirit of old Rob.
He had already heard the mutterings and speculating about how the land would be divided, and for him it meant nothing. His legacy lay in the love given by old Rob and what lay hidden in their secret place.
Little Rob said his goodbyes. He did not wish to share Pap’s dreams with people who would not understand, and he said only that he was heading west.
No one questioned his right when he chose Rob’s good Shuler rifle from the rack or when he made his choices of pack, horn, and tomahawk. He left when ready, moving at a walk under the weight of his worldly possessions.
His family watched him go without advice or special well wishes. They seemed almost relieved, as though his departure leached the last wild blood from the line, and they could now get on with their farming and milling without reminders of massacre and danger that had once loomed closely. He knew he was being unkind to his people, but the loss of Pap hugged him too tightly to feel different.
He climbed into the hemlocks on Castle Knob, and digging beneath a great root, he uncovered their secret. Packed in bear grease lay Rob’s two-barrel pistol and scabbard. He strapped the belt around his own waist, marveling at its fit because Quehana had been almost a giant among men. Little Rob had rarely pondered his own growth in the eyes of others and could perhaps understand a little better how his presence created unease among his people. He cleaned and loaded the pistol and vowed he would never set it aside.
In the old wooden box lay many English coins, the last of Braddock’s money was still considerable. He chose a few gold coins and reburied the rest. He rose, ready to journey. He looked once across the valley, knowing its beauty and loving its memories, but seeing only the glint of sun on Rob’s stone.
He thought he would cut across Ickesburg Gap and see again the arrowhead hacked into the oak where Rob had hung the Shawnee. Then he would leave it all behind until he could come back and sit with old Rob and tell him how it was out in the Shining Mountains.
ARROWMAKER
Roy F. Chandler
Arrowmaker has been described as a masterpiece—better even than the classics Drums along the Mohawk or The Last of the Mohicans.
A novel of the colonial frontier, Arrowmaker adventures with a first settler within the Endless Hills of the Allegheny Mountains. Those who have read this story claim a special kinship with the hardy frontiersman, Rob Shatto, as if Rob were an actual friend and relative. The author admits to the same experience.
Arrowmaker is an action story rich in frontier lore and accurate historical background. If he chose, a reader could go to the land told about and. explore the novel’s geographical features.
Arrowmaker also provides the base for a fourteen book series that involves the land and the people you will meet herein. These violent but true-to-life frontier sagas will glue a reader to his mailbox or his computer waiting for the next volume to appear.
Although the novel stands alone, Arrowmaker is the foundation book of the frontier series, and it should be read first.
Before you have finished this story, you will want them all!
Roy Chandler has been a full time author for more than forty years. He has had sixty-five books published in hardback. He is a resident of Nokomis, Florida but spends much of his time in St. Mary’s City, Maryland. At eighty-five years of age. “Rocky” Chandler still rides his Harley-Davidson motorcycles.
Table of Contents
Introduction
1: 1749 – Carlisle The Beginning
2: 1749 – The Visitor
3: 1749 – The Plan
4: 1749 – The Mountain
5: 1749 – The Lodge of E’shan
6: 1749 – Girty
7: 1749 – Shikee
8: 1749 – The Cat
9: 1749 – The Warrior
10: 1749 – The Flint Quarry
11: 1749 – The Name Giving
12: 1751 – The Meeting
13: 1751 – The House Plan
14: 1751 – Aughwick
15: 1751 – The Moose
16: 1752 – Planning & Building
17: 1752 – Rebecca
18: 1753, 1754 – Change
19: 1754 – Iron
20: 1754 – House & Land
21: 1755 – The Tracker
22: 1755 – The Homemakers
23: 1755 – Braddock
24: 1755 – Intruders
25: 1755 – The Shawnee
26: 1756 – The Desperate Year
27: 1759 – Whiskey
28: 1760 – The Treasure
29: 1761 – The Muskrat
30: 1763 – The Attack
31: 1770 – Lime Making
32: 1775 – The Mill
33: 1776 – The War
34: 1780 – Simon Girty
35: 1805 – The New Gun
36: 1809 – Little Rob
37: 1816 – The Return
38: 1816 – Black Diphtheria
39: 1820 – The Legacy
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Arrowmaker (Pennsylvania Frontier Series) Page 29
