Ironhawk (Perry County, Pennsylvania Frontier Series Book 6)

by Roy F. Chandler

  "In those earlier times there were no whites to help me, and if there were white laws no one obeyed them. Now, it is said to be different, and if a white is killed a sheriff will come with questions and perhaps shackles of iron."

  Quehana’s lips quirked. "Even now, the sheriff seeks these whites in the wrong direction, and what would he do if he knew they were here in the Endless Hills? Could he capture and hold them? I doubt that he could.

  "Unless I discover who these whites are, they may never be known. Unless I decide their punishment, they may receive none. What would be my proof that they met with Shawnee? Who would listen to the half-Indian, Rob Shatto? Too few, I am certain. There would be head scratching and word twisting, but those who stole Bright Morning would not be fully punished."

  Rob spat to a side, and his words were bitter.

  "So, if I can, I will kill them, and I will make their deaths known so that others will not believe anyone escaped. It is said that killing is allowed if it is in self-defense, and that will be my claim."

  Rob smiled coldly. "In a sense, that will be true, but I will kill them anyway."

  Ironhawk found his head bobbing in agreement.

  Quehana had more to say.

  "Until the other Shawnee are dead you must not attempt to travel alone. We know that Yellow Jacket is cunning, and he could find you along the trail.

  "So, we must travel together, and my path follows the tracks of the limper's moccasins."

  Ironhawk was still nodding acceptance, so Quehana shifted his subject.

  "The Shawnee still living may have heard my shot. They may even now be hunting us and be close on our tracks. More likely, they will be returning to their fire on the same path they used before.

  "I believe that will be so because most make that mistake. Wise warriors rarely retrace their steps lest someone—like us—might be waiting for them.

  "If Yellow Jacket heard my shot he will be hurrying because he left no guns in his camp, and he will know that enemies have struck. The limper will wish to move swiftly, and he will retrace his steps. We will go now to find his trail and move carefully along it.

  "I will scout well ahead. You, Ironhawk, will follow at a distance, and Bright Morning will stay close at your side.

  "Do not close up when I fire. Remain distant and be prepared to defend your woman.

  "If I shoot, there will then be only two Shawnee, and they will flee. These are outcast Shawnee, and, unless their chances are strong, they will not stand and fight.

  "If we are lucky, I will have killed Yellow Jacket, and we will have to do no more. If he does not lead their march, and my bullet does not find him, our search will continue for he is the poisonous snake among them.

  "When we find these Shawnee, Ironhawk, you will have your musket. Then, we will find the whites, and we will decide how that battle is to be fought.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The Shawnee heard white voices before they were near the lodges. Loud and careless were the whites, and the band of Yellow Jacket sneered among themselves.

  While his companions waited, Yellow Jacket crept nearer and observed the Sheenes' activities. As expected, they were three, but the traders were not as reckless as they sounded, and each had a weapon close to his hand.

  If the muskets of the Shawnee had been dependable, Yellow Jacket might have simply fired into the whites until they were dead, but the Shawnee guns were poor, and he saw a rifle gun among the Sheenes' weapons. Rifles, Yellow Jacket had discovered, shot very straight and very far. He would not care to again face such a gun.

  Quehana, the Arrowmaker, had killed with deadly certainty when the band of Two Nose had struck his lodge, and Yellow Jacket would not forget how a warrior had fallen each time the rifle of Quehana had spoken. As he remembered, Yellow Jacket resolved that the Sheene rifle would be his.

  With drawings in the dirt, Yellow Jacket explained his plan for killing the whites. He placed twigs to show whites and small stones to mark his band. When they counseled, the whites might set aside their weapons, and if they did, Yellow Jacket would strike. His shot would begin the Shawnee attack, and in his mind, Yellow Jacket planned to kill whichever Sheene had the rifle.

  From well out, Yellow Jacket called to announce their arrival, and the Sheenes’ answer was loud and welcoming.

  Zach Sheene warned his boys. "Don’t take your eyes off these varmints for an instant. Yellow Jacket is like a snake, and he ain't above trying to kill us for our goods.

  "If they've got the girl, we will go straight to the rum. If they claim she's nearby, we'll do the same 'cause The Animal will find her. If they claim they've failed or lost her for some reason, we will take a little longer to discover if the matter can be fixed. If'n it can't, we'll let 'em drink up, but not until we're sure the game has been lost."

  "The Animal won’t like it if you don’t hand over a woman, Pap."

  Zach scratched at head lice. "We’ll have to deal with Mathew the best we can. Let’s hope it don’t come to that."

  The Shawnee came in column, and Zach growled at the sight of only three of them.

  "Watch the woods, boys. The other two could be layin' out there." Zach greeted the visitors in his miserable Shawnee.

  Yellow Jacket answered warmly, and there was dramatic handshaking.

  Smiling with all of his jagged teeth showing, Chok said, "I hate shaking with Injuns. They about tear your arm off."

  Zach said, "Bear with it, Chok. The rewards will be worthwhile, and this will likely be the last time we have to come out into this god forsaken wilderness to trade with savages."

  The counciling became two lines facing. The whites held their rifle and muskets across their laps as did the Shawnee. Neither side voiced the suspicions that all shared.

  Zach offered tobacco, and they smoked using a Shawnee pipe. They mixed poorly understood words with better recognized hand signs, and the conversing progressed.

  Yellow Jacket sat to the right of his companions, and his rifle pointed almost at the belly of the Sheene with the rifle. That the rifle was also pointed at him was disconcerting, but Yellow Jacket planned to hurl himself aside if he fired and expected any return fire to be wild.

  Yellow Jacket wished for his other men, but if the Sheenes became careless, he would act. He would choose a moment when the rifle holder looked away. He would need no more advantage.

  When he believed he had displayed proper courtesies, Zach broached the important subject.

  "Has the band of the noble Yellow Jacket brought to the trader Sheene the woman from the village called Carlisle?"

  Yellow Jacket indicated that they had and that the woman was held nearby while he had come to be certain that the time was right to make the promised trade.

  The Sheenes were loudly pleased, and even Yellow Jacket's suspicious mind could not doubt their satisfaction.

  Zach slapped at his knee and declared it the finest news he had received in a dozen moons. He ordered a son to fetch rum for everyone, and the Sheene with the flattened nose rose to obey.

  Yellow Jacket watched closely, but the trader sought only small jugs and returned to distribute a jug to each at the council.

  The old Sheene pulled the corn cob plug from his jug, and the smell of the rum titillated the nostrils of the Shawnee.

  His smile staying broad, Zach said in English, "Be enthusiastic now, boys, and keep your guns ready."

  Switching to his best Shawnee, Zach said, "Here is rum for each noble Shawnee and for each of us at this council.

  "For each a jug to take to his blankets, and not part of the trading for the woman."

  The usual offer was a single pull at a common jug, so the gesture was indeed generous, and even Yellow Jacket was gratified by the respect shown his band.

  The plugs were pulled and jugs rose to expectant mouths. Yellow Jacket delayed his own drink until he was certain that the whites were drinking. When he saw their Adam's apples bob, he raised his own jug.

  But beside him a
companion choked and rum spewed from his mouth. Zach Sheene laughed and offered a disparaging comment. Yellow Jacket almost drank, but the second companion gagged and clutched at his breast.

  Suspicion flared in the mind of Yellow Jacket, and his intense glare saw a knowing smirk cross the face of the Sheene sitting before his gun muzzle. Beside him his companion groaned and clutched at his throat.

  Then, Yellow Jacket knew. His thumb eared the hammer of his musket and his screech of rage focused the agonized minds of his companions.

  Yellow Jacket fired his musket without raising it, and the huge and distorted lead ball of a many-times-fired bullet sledged into the body of Chok Sheene. At point blank range the seventy-five caliber slug blew the life from Chok as if it were a cannon.

  Although distracted by the apparent success of his poisoning, Zach Sheene’s reactions to the blast of Yellow Jacket’s musket and the accompanying insane shriek were swift and automatic. Still sitting, his legs propelled him backward away from the horrific blast and the blinding cloud of powder smoke. He could not see the strike of the Shawnee's bullet, but bitter experience told him that a son had surely been hit.

  Sheene's weapon was a musketoon whose shortened barrel was loaded with heavy buckshot. At closer ranges, the gun was a room-sweeper with the shot blasting away everything before it. Through the smoke, Sheene saw a poisoned Shawnee struggling erect, and he held solid and fired. Recoil was severe and blew his weapon out of line, but Zach knew he had struck home. Surely his boys were doing as well.

  Chek Sheene was stunned by the Shawnee’s resistance to the poisoned rum. He had recommended the deadly drink to his family, and they had tested it on a hog. Forced down the pig's throat, the mix of lye and rum had killed almost instantly with the animal managing only a few feeble kicks of defiance.

  The lye for the Shawnee rum was even stronger than that used on the hog. They had boiled wood ashes and saved the lye-soaked lye water. At later fires, they had used the same water in fresh ashes until the liquid became almost too thick to flow properly. Then they had boiled the water, evaporating away the liquid until almost pure lye remained. Dangerous even to touch, the lye would cause sudden and agonizing death to anything that swallowed it—or so the Sheenes had believed.

  When the Shawnee drank, Chek had concentrated on the Indian in front of him. He saw the savage swallow and knew he was only a living corpse.

  The certainty of the Shawnee's demise disarmed Chek, and he, too, was slow responding. Yellow Jacket's shriek further confused him, and the blast that gutted and killed his brother crossed Chek's lap so close that he felt its passage.

  Then the dying Shawnee were on their feet. Astounded, Chek fumbled and failed to find his gun hammer. Through the powder smoke he saw his Shawnee gripping a tomahawk.

  Almost in Chek's ear, Pap Sheene's musketoon blast stunned Chek's thinking. He again fumbled for his gun hammer, found it, eared back, and something came at him through the smoke. Chek’s final awareness was that the Shawnee was frothing at the mouth. Then the tomahawk clove his skull almost to the chin.

  Yellow Jacket rolled aside. His own shriek filling his ears, he fought himself erect only to be again shaken by the blast of another gun from within the fog of his own shot.

  He saw one of his band fold and collapse on himself even as the other flung himself into the haze of battle. Prepared to kill until nothing lived, Yellow Jacket swept around the smoke and found the oldest Sheene struggling to his knees and fumbling at his powder horn, as if he would have even a small chance of reloading.

  There was no other life. Zach Sheene saw his sons dead, one shot through and the other with an iron tomahawk buried in his skull. Sour gorge rose in the old man’s throat, and he puked across his empty musketoon.

  Yellow Jacket felt only satisfaction. The trade goods would be his. He had his guards at the camp to remove, and they would prove no obstacle. The white woman was beneath consideration. Yellow Jacket drew his tomahawk and without wait chopped down onto Zach Sheene's exposed head.

  A horrendous blow threw Yellow Jacket's hatchet aside. The bone crushing smash into his shoulder deflected the descending tomahawk and the blade slashed along Sheene's skull, removing an ear, and burying its razored edge deep along the trader's neck.

  Yellow Jacket reeled, losing the tomahawk from a nerveless hand and staggering wildly from whatever had struck him.

  Then his legs turned to water, and he collapsed onto his knees for a spirit-monster so evil that it defied what he saw was bending above the stricken Zach Sheene.

  The creature from the darkest place moaned in a demented agony that terrorized the mind of Yellow Jacket, and the beast-man stroked the dying body as if it could somehow staunch the flow of blood spurting from the tomahawk's death wound. A stench assailed the nostrils of Yellow Jacket, and he knew it to be the smell of the grave.

  Primal fear clutched the soul of Yellow Jacket. His arm hanging useless, the Shawnee used his musket to pull himself to his feet. A large stone lying nearby appeared to be the weapon that had struck him. His eyes in passing saw the shaft of a broken off arrow low in the monster's back, and there was blood on the matted fur covering the creature's body.

  Eyes that glittered like the pits of a water viper met the Shawnee's, and Yellow Jacket knew that when he was ready, the monster would come for him.

  Yellow Jacket fled. He clung to his musket hoping that he could gain time and enough use of his shattered shoulder to reload. Then he might fight the creature, but his arm had no feeling and no movement, and he believed his only hope would be the river.

  If he could reach the river, he might lose the monster by floating away. Above the pound of his own footsteps he listened for those of the beast-man, but he heard nothing. The silence goaded him as much as footsteps could have, and he redoubled his efforts to reach the water before he was overtaken.

  Mathew Sheene knew despair. He had been shot before, but only with buckshot that he had picked from beneath his skin. Now something was lodged deep in his chest, and even breathing agonized him. The arrow in his back stabbed other pain through him, and he felt himself weakening under the unrelenting anguish.

  His brothers were dead, but his father mumbled words. Before the voice failed, the man-monster heard his name. Other words did not matter. The Animal had already been told what he had to do.

  The Animal saw the Indian flee, but he knew the Shawnee would be easy to find, and he held his father close until he was sure that life had passed away. He lingered longer, wondering if there was something he should do with the bodies of his people. If there was, he could no longer bring forth the memory.

  His mind turned to the Shawnee who had killed his Pap, and Mathew remembered that these Shawnee had come from the camp where he had been shot. To gain help, this one would go there, but The Animal had already returned to the clearing, and there was no help waiting.

  When the arrow had struck him, The Animal had turned to kill, but the deadening impact of the unexpected bullet had driven fear into his heart and left only the need to escape. He had fled to huddle within himself and nurse his wounds until he was again ready, this time to destroy those who had hurt him. His pain had become huge and pounded at his mind until it overcame his hunger to kill. He had made a pain-filled way to his family for his father's comforting and to have his injuries eased,

  Instead, he had found Shawnee at his family’s fire. He had lurked within the forest husbanding his agonies and fighting the stiffening of his wounded body until he could safely appear. He hungered to leap among the enemies who had hurt him, but he could not know his father’s wishes. He waited.

  The Shawnee had attacked without warning, and rallying his strength, The Animal had charged from the forest. Rushing ahead, he had hurled a chosen stone, but it had been too late.

  The Animal swept all but the rage from his mind. Now he would kill the escaping Shawnee.

  Later, he would kill his father’s enemy, the hated Quehana.

  Mathew Shee
ne did not think further.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Yellow Jacket's tracks from the Shawnee camp to the river were easily followed and Rob led his small party as rapidly as Bright Morning's injuries allowed.

  When the forest monster had attempted to carry her away, the hide rope around Bright Morning's waist had cut viciously, and when the beast had hurled her aside to turn on Ironhawk, Bright Morning had landed badly and had strained both a hip and a knee. Now, she moved adequately, but Quehana would be pleased when they could place her on a horse.

  Ironhawk helped where he could, but the Shawnee followed no trail, and except for rare openings, the forest allowed only single file.

  With her face stained dark and her hair in snarled and knotted strings with her tube-like hide dress disguising her body, Bright Morning would not interest anyone other than the whites who had mysterious plans for her. With the Hawk as her protector, Rob believed he could attend to watching for the return of the Shawnee.

  They were quickly at the river, and that passage presented genuine danger. If caught in the open or with ambush waiting on the other side, anyone crossing risked his life.

  Rob weighed the dangers. If the Shawnee were returning because of Rob's shot they would have appeared by now. Perhaps they had been beyond sound of the rifle.

  Bad luck could place him halfway across when the enemy appeared, but there seemed no safe way to ford unless they maneuvered far up or downstream and around a bend. He would not waste that time.

  Rob placed the Hawk and Bright Morning in hiding from where they could observe his crossing. If he ran into trouble, they were to hastily withdraw and make their ways to his lodge. Ironhawk made appropriate complaints, but he recognized the sense of Quehana's plan. If all went well, Hawk and Bright Morning could make their own crossing protected by Quehana's rifle.

  Choosing the shallow and decent-bottomed ford was important not only for quickness but because the crosser dared not fall. Holding his rifle, powder horns, pistol, and possibles pouch at shoulder height, Rob hopped quickly from exposed rock to mud bar to another rock making his way swiftly to the deeper channels.