Ironhawk (Perry County, Pennsylvania Frontier Series Book 6)

by Roy F. Chandler

  Blue Moccasin appeared to sorrow. "But gone are those times of combat, and even the most foolish realize that there was only one Warrior, and that no other could match such a throw.

  "The times of the Delaware are now changed, and the path of Ironhawk will be one without search for enemies. Does the son of Tree Shadow understand what is being told?"

  Ironhawk understood, but the tale of the great throw remained vivid in his mind, and well along the trail, near the joining of the Big Buffalo and the Juniata, he hurled his tomahawk at a giant tree. The hatchet stuck but far from the mark and with the wrong edge buried. He could see how it would be better to keep the hatchet in his hand lest some enemy snatch it and flee.

  Ironhawk had stepped to the tree to regain his weapon when the voice of great power again swept from somewhere beyond the forest.

  "Ironhawk!"

  The youth thrilled, and this time he forced himself to call in answer.

  "I am here."

  The powerful rumble of the voice of The Warrior came clearly, and the sounds of the Delaware tongue were sweet to the ears of Ironhawk.

  "We are pleased, son of Tree Shadow."

  Ironhawk listened closely, and later he called, but no answer came on the wind.

  Within moments the youth hurried on his way anxious to tell all to his father and the people of his lodge.

  Rob Shatto stretched, and nodded approval. "Your timing was good, Blue. You about startled him out of his loincloth."

  Blue Moccasin also rose from where they had long waited.

  "I think the entire affair went well, Quehana." He shuddered a trifle. "That branding was powerful medicine, Rob. I doubt that I would have considered it."

  Blue grinned. "You north valley people are truly savages. I believe I will tell this story to the diners at one of our finer homes in Philadelphia." He smiled a bit grimly, "Although none there would really believe it."

  Rob smiled in turn. "I doubt that many really believe that you sit at fires wearing only a clout and spin wild yarns about Indian fighting while you wave your arms like a signaling sailor."

  Blue said, "Those stories were true, Quehana, or at least the people who told them to me believed that they were."

  Rob snorted. "Threw his hatchet in two revolutions without it rising above a man's shoulders, and hit his target smack in the head. Not likely."

  Before Blue Moccasin could respond, Shatto's tomahawk snapped into his hand and the powerful body whipped it into a sidearm throw that blurred with speed. The blade thudded deep into a large burl on a tree trunk, and Rob grunted in satisfaction.

  Blue’s voice held scorn. "You have been aching to do that ever since I told the tale."

  Rob said, "It spun twice."

  Blue Moccasin's voice held satisfaction. "But it did not sing in the air, and I saw no sun glint, Quehana. Perhaps you should practice more often."

  Chapter Nine

  1765

  The small party entered Carlisle from the north. Once into the first clearings where cabins dotted stump-ridden fields, Rob dropped from his scouting to walk beside Becky's riding horse. Martha Elan rode immediately behind while Jack guarded their rear with his black rifle. Although the women rode, Elan and Shatto had scouted on foot, as if hostiles might lurk nearby. Not until the mountain rise lay nearly a mile behind did Elan come up to join them.

  Rob said, "I didn't see a moccasin print this side of the summit, did you, Jack?"

  "Ain't seen any except yours since we passed out of the Drumgold clearing, and that suits me just fine."

  They strode a distance before Elan added, "But there's said to be a pack of the red varmints in the village."

  Rob agreed. "I imagine that's correct. If an adopted child of mine was being turned over to another race of people, I expect I'd be concerned enough to be present."

  Becky said, "This will be a sad day for most, Rob, but perhaps there will be great happiness as well."

  Rob thought about it. Since Colonel Bouquet had licked the Indians at the battle of Bushy Run nearly a year back, peace had dropped into the valleys as solidly as a load of rocks. The only Indian village left between the mountains was the polyglot band along Cisna Run that called themselves Chit Chits. The only danger that pack offered was to honest men's chickens and wild ranging hogs. The time of hostile Indians in Sherman's Valley and points east was gone—perhaps forever, but Rob remembered that he had thought that might be true back in 1756 after they had licked the French.

  Then in 1763 an Ottawa called Pontiac had claimed marvelous visions and a half-dozen tribes had charged along the ancient warrior paths to drive the white interlopers from ancestral lands.

  Fat chance! Bouquet had marched west and licked them good. The last hostile had fled across the Ohio—or so it was claimed.

  Rob Shatto and Jack Elan continued to scout just as they always had. The frontiersmen had only to look to the north to recognize that the mighty Iroquois Confederacy hung in never-easing threat only a few days' march or even swifter river-float along routes familiar to every tribal warrior society.

  The victorious Bouquet had ordered that white prisoners, whether slave or adopted, would be returned to white settlements. If his order was not carried out by the return of good weather, he would march on and level every Delaware, Shawnee, and Ottawa village he could find. Mingos, Cherokees, and even the Iroquois heard the message, and this spring released captives flooded into towns east of the great Blue Mountain.

  The occasions should have been joyous. Certainly the intent was good, but the returns sometimes forced heart rending separations.

  Children captured as infants had grown, married, and raised families in their adoptive villages. They spoke no English, they loved their husbands, wives, and Indian parents. Bewildered, forlorn, and lost they were brought to white villages. Delaware and Shawnee husbands attempted to live nearby their returned wives and children, but whites had no brief for fighting-age male Indians, and most returned to their distant lodges. Indian wives of captive whites also hung about the villages, but were regularly abused by intolerant villagers.

  Rob Shatto listened to the tales brought over the mountain by his neighbors, but until this journey he had seen none of it. He came this time because a final face-off was planned and whites from vast distances had come to attempt to identify long lost sons and daughters.

  There were poignant tales of mothers who sang lullabies and grown children remembered and rushed into their arms. Others were identified by distinguishing marks, and of course a few were the spitting images of their white parents.

  Another side told of young men and women who killed themselves and sometimes their children rather than leave their family lodges.

  It was clear that these moments were historic, and as the ladies wished to attend and to visit, Rob agreed to the journey. Elan was always willing to tramp across Croghan's old pass into friendlier lands where war whoops were only distant memories, but even Elan wished only to visit. The north valley frontiersmen had become a breed apart, and they did not mix well with the more stolid flatlanders beyond Kittatinny.

  Carlisle had grown, of course. It always grew, and the never-failing certainty of it bothered Rob Shatto. If the people kept coming, they would sooner or later inundate his beloved valley between the mountains. He hoped his bones would rest beside The Warrior and his grandfather long before that miserable time arrived.

  A stick fence to separate returned prisoners and hopeful relatives had been thrown up within the village green and almost alongside the old stockade which now bravely claimed to be Fort Carlisle. Carlisle village had never been attacked, but the stockade had headquartered numerous armed units, and strong plans had come from there. If the Indians really were gone, the fort would soon molder away, but Rob remembered how Robinson's Fort, which had fallen into ruin, was frantically refurbished to provide safety during Pontiac's recent war.

  Becky gigged her mount into a trot and hurried ahead to find her parents at their ordinary a
nd general store. Martha Elan followed suit, and the men were left to take their own times in arriving.

  Elan hailed an acquaintance, and wishing to study the anxious whites and uncertain prisoners, Rob strode toward the rude fence.

  The crowd was large, and Rob saw that others had come from the mountain valleys to record the scenes. He was instantly aware of the silences his presence created, but he was used to them. It was always this way when he appeared. He was too large and too wild in appearance for most palates.

  He had learned to wear leather pants when in Carlisle. A loincloth with leggings did not suffice, and his in-laws had made plain their opinions on such nakedness. Rob granted that concession but no more. His weapons made many uneasy, but those timid souls could accept them or flee; Shatto let them choose.

  Zach Sheene saw Rob coming and kept the smooth-striding giant in his eye corner. Shatto made him nervous, much like his boy, The Animal, did. The Animal's aura was pure venom, and his misshapen body set teeth on edge, but Shatto, too, caught a man's breath.

  Zach guessed Quehana was a lot like a catamount walking among rabbits. A viewer got the feeling that he might strike at any instant, and that if he did, someone would suffer perhaps even to death.

  Zach knew Rob, of course. All of the older Indian traders knew Shatto. Nearly all envied him mightily. Among the tribes, Quehana was honored where they were barely tolerated. Sheene sometimes wondered why that was and decided it had to be because Shatto mixed in with them like he was an Injun and he never seemed to care how much he got for his iron goods.

  Sheene snarled behind his mat of beard. An uncaring man like Shatto made it hard for other men to strike profitable deals between the mountains, and most traders had moved west with the Indians well beyond Quehana's careless trading.

  Zach Sheene made it a point to keep clear of Quehana. No good could come of getting close, although he occasionally considered that it could be rewarding to turn The Animal on Shatto and get him out of the way once and for all.

  Thinking of The Animal made Sheene look around. Not for his terrible son, of course. If The Animal had been with them, Zach would never have allowed him to enter the town. The Animal stayed in the deep woods, and for this summer at least, Zach did not know where his boy had wandered. Sheene hoped it was far away because The Animal often left a bloody trail that no Sheene wished to lead to them.

  Sooner or later The Animal would return, and for their own sakes, Zach would encourage him to head out again on the longest hunt to the farthest mountains he could imagine.

  Not for the first time, old Zach considered that it might be best if he just shot The Animal dead in his sleep some night. They would all probably rest more soundly, but on the other hand, if something desperate needed to be done, there was no better murderer to be found, and that particular talent had been used by the Sheenes on a few special occasions.

  Zach Sheene's eyes searched for his other sons, and he saw them near the captive fence studying the miserable pack inside. Sheene made his way to them because he had something special in mind, something important that could cool The Animal's killing hungers enough to make him useful a lot more often.

  The boys were addressed as Chek and Chok. They had other names, but The Animal, who was older, had called them by his own sounds, and those names had stuck. These sons, in fact, looked like The Animal should have if nature had not found him guilty of something damning.

  Both Chek and Chok were solid blocks of bone and muscle, neither tall nor short but thick all through like prime beef cattle. Neither had a neck, and their jaws were square and sat solidly on their heavily muscled chests. Faces disguised by never trimmed beards straggling nearly to their belts were topped by head hair snarled into uncombable mops within which lice multiplied and required continual scratching and cursing.

  It came to Zach Sheene that his sons, too, made people uneasy, and the civil populace tended to stay clear of the vile tempered Sheene traders. Zach liked that about his boys. It kept Injuns respectful, which could save a trader his hair when they were in hostile country.

  Chek Sheene saw Shatto first. He poked his brother to get his attention.

  "Jest look at this big Injun walkin' along like he was somethin' important. If we were in the woods I'd kill him quicker'n you could blink."

  Chok sniggered. "No you wouldn't. I'd kill him first for his possibles. Jest look at the rifle gun he's carryin'. It's better'n anythin' I ever owned. "

  They pretended to stare away but watched as Shatto passed. "He's a big 'un, Chok, but we could cut him down. By all the Harrys he's got a pistol hung at his back." Envy was powerful in Chek's voice.

  "We'll keep an eye on him, Chek. Maybe we could lay him low along the trail. It'd be worth it to get that rifle gun an' the pistol both. There's only four or five likely paths out o'here, and once he chooses we could get on ahead an' be waitin'."

  Chek liked the plan. "We'll jest hang close to him, an' see what comes up. Don't look at him, though. Injuns can sense when their bein' stared at."

  "I know that, you durned fool. I'm older'n you, don't forget."

  A doubt crossed Chok's mind. "Maybe he ain't a Injun, Chek. Maybe he's a white man gone Injun, an' if he disappeared there could be a lot of questions asked around."

  "A'course he's a Injun. Them moccasins is Delaware, ain't they? How many white men do you know wear moccasins? Just answer that."

  Chok said, "Well every dang one of the prisoners in that fence are wearin' Injun shoes, so why couldn't somebody on the outside do the same?"

  Chok's answer irritated his brother, but he had no response. Chek guessed that if he got a chance he'd take some of his mad out on the big Injun that was prancin' around like he was somebody.

  Zach sidled alongside. "Got somethin' I want you to take note of. You boys see that Injun gal standin' close alongside that young buck?"

  "We see her, Pap. They're holdin' hands like they might be related or somethin."

  "Well, I'm pickin’ her out for mating with The Animal—if'n she don't get spoken for by someone who knows her a'course."

  Chok was insulted. "Why you doin' that for The Animal, Pa? Either of us'd be pleased to get close to a handsome gal like that." He peered closer.

  "Say, she can't be no Injun, cause she's inside that fence. Them're all white people in there."

  "Glad you noticed, boy, 'cause you also know that The Animal would likely kill an' maybe eat any Injun gal I throwed to him, but a white gal he'd likely hang onto. If'n we could corral him a little more often, The Animal could do us a lot of good—eliminate a lot of competition, you might say."

  The Sheene men laughed together in shared understanding.

  "How you goin' to do it, Pap?"

  Zach scratched at something within his hair mat. "Don't know yet, but I'll figure it, if'n the gal ain't claimed by someone too well knowed."

  "Maybe we could claim she's our sister, Pap?"

  Zach was disdainful. "Don't be stupid, boy. How'd we explain where she got to once The Animal got done with her? Nope, it's better that we stay away and just make our move when the time turns right."

  A voice from behind the stick fence said, "Quehana." Not overly surprised that he was known, Rob turned to locate the speaker.

  A Delaware youth faced him, standing proudly, and Rob registered the fingers that gripped a hand of a younger girl. It took a moment before Rob could put it together, and although he might have guessed this one’s presence, he supposed his surprise showed.

  Rob let his smile glow, and strode to the fence hand raised, his palm open.

  "Ironhawk! You have grown."

  The youth nodded, and there was feeling in his voice. "I have grown, and it is good to see you, Quehana."

  Rob's gaze turned to the almost woman who pressed herself against Ironhawk.

  The youth made his introduction. "This is my sister, Bright Morning, who has been sent with me." The boy’s voice turned bitter. "Our father is with the honored ancestors, and ou
r brother drove us from his lodge in fear that white soldiers would kill and burn."

  Ironhawk became resigned. "We will obey for now because we can do nothing else." He brightened considerably as he added. "It is truly good to see you, Quehana of the Delaware."

  Rob Shatto's spirit rebelled against what was happening, but he saw no simple answer. If white parents or relatives could be found, the law would insist that Ironhawk be returned, and he doubted his intercession could change anything. A voice gnawed at his attention, and he turned his mind to it.

  A small black-clad man of middle years was trotting toward him ordering him back, waving his arms like windmills, and fanning the irritation already warming in Rob Shatto's breast.

  "You! Yes, I mean you. Indians are not allowed close to these poor souls. Away, I say!"

  Rob turned again to Ironhawk. "Who is this gnat? Is he important around here?"

  Ironhawk shrugged. "I do not know, Quehana. He speaks often, but we cannot understand his language."

  The gnat arrived, puffing indignation and repeating his orders.

  "Stand back away from the fence!" The voice used the worst Shawnee that Rob had ever heard.

  "And do not speak to them in Indian. Back I say, or I will have the soldiers upon you."

  The crowd of whites shifted uncomfortably, and a man Rob recognized stepped forward as if to intercede. Rob's stern-eyed gaze pinned him, and he retreated to the closeness of friends.

  Rob dipped his head to study the figure bouncing agitatedly before him. "And just who are you?" Shatto put strength into his English words, and the figure stopped dancing and stared in astonishment at the giant before him.