Chip Shatto (Perry County Series)

by Roy F. Chandler

  "Moccasins are right for hunting but otherwise you'd best get boots on. I made the change, so I expect you can."

  "He just don't want the locals to forget that he used to be a hairy old mountain man, Pap." Carter Roth had taken to calling Rob, Pap, just as though he was family, but he should have been silent as old Rob hopped right on him.

  "And you ought to get that ring out of your ear, Carter, or don't you want the locals to forget you were one of those wild old sea captains?" Chip's snicker went unanswered, as Carter was quick with his own retort.

  "Well, this ring was given by the only woman that I ever loved and I promised never to take it off.

  "Anyway, it's not like that gold ring you wrapped around that peg foot so none of the locals would forget how it got shot off."

  Chip interrupted their new laughter. "Got to watch him, Pap. He's got a barbed tongue. Fact is, he once claimed that ring was for roundin' the Horn, an' another time he told a great windy about taking it off some dead pirate called Jose Gaspar. Oh he's a horrible liar when it comes to that ring, Pap."

  "Huh, think I didn't know that?" They fell silent listening to the sounds of the evening.

  Carter finally broke it. "That canal interest I looked into came to nothing, Pap."

  "Thought it mightn't. The canals are about licked. They haven't been able to compete with the railroads for the last twenty years."

  "Oh, it isn't just that. A man could make a good living for a spell yet. Trouble is that those people aren't sailors or even boat people. They're just merchants using a barge instead of a wagon or a train. A canal's no different than a road or rails. It follows the same routes, back and forth. A few months of that and I'd be swinging from trees."

  Chip said, "Carter, that's a dumb explanation. You can make anything look foolish if you try. Hell, you could say trainmen don't steer, or seamen just float, or....

  "Or farmers just keep plowing the same furrows year after year after year after...."

  "Roth, you're askin' for a long overdue licking!"

  Old Rob interrupted their wrangling. "Where do you stand on the Mark Long place now, Chip?"

  "Just waiting, Pap. I made an offer and he said he'd give it thought. Carter and I were planning on going up that way tomorrow. Might camp out a few days if the weather stays good. If it rains we'll check into the Millerstown Inn. I'll give Mark a visit while we're up there. I just don't want to appear too eager."

  "Might be wise to make an offer to a neighbor for some other land. Make it low so he doesn't take it but make it in a public place where word'll get back to Mark. Make him think you might buy something else."

  "God, I thought I left conniving businessmen behind at the seaports."

  Old Rob fixed Carter with a sour glance. "Chip said you were a slave trader before it got too dangerous. That so, Carter?"

  Roth's chair came down with a bang, "Now wait a minute. I carried off one load that got wrecked on a Bahama reef because I was asked to. Set 'em down free and clear on an English Cay, just like I planned and got nothing for it but a stinking hold. Why...."

  "Easy, Carter. I just asked."

  "He explains awful loud, Pap. Guilty people do that." Chip tuned out Carter's irritated response and thought back over the trip east and all that had transpired.

  ++++

  Probably a man shouldn't be judged by how well he uses his fists, but Carter Roth's demolition of the four Starling men had impressed Chip. When Roth chose to ride along with them he was pleased, and as the journey progressed, he understood why he was drawn to the sea captain.

  As a youth, Chip had been the breezy one of his family. He had the easy wit and ready laugh that beat others off the mark. Years of lonely and often dangerous trails, meeting mostly with taciturn loners who stored their feelings or with Indians who rarely exposed their emotions to outsiders, had quieted him, but inside he still twitched with quick and humorous retorts.

  In Carter Roth he discovered a kindred spirit. Roth could, and probably would, joke at a wake. He turned pain or discomfort into humor and enjoyed being the butt of a sharp comment as much as being the perpetrator.

  Humor was a way of making the intolerable endurable and Chip had encountered brave men who joked as they suffered or died. Quick wit and clever rejoinders could take the sting from disagreement and for those who knew how, a game of steady insults could be shared with inward glee and feigned exasperation that would worry an outsider.

  Roth could handle it and Chip found himself opening to another as he hadn't in years. Even his brother Ted had possessed a quiet humor in which he had rarely shared and he wondered at the empathy so easily developed be between himself and a man of the sea.

  With one eye on their back trail, Chip undertook the education of his two companions. The boy, of course, needed to learn everything and expected to learn from his elders. Carter Roth knew many things but they were of little use ashore. He might lay a carronade, reef a gallant, or plot a course, but he couldn't pick a decent campsite, build a proper fire, or even hobble a horse. So, he had to be taught.

  The problem was to approach a proud man in a manner he could tolerate. Chip decided to use tact and consideration.

  "Roth, it's hard for an experienced man like me to understand how a grown man like you can know so little about so many things. But, you are in luck, because I've decided to teach you some of the stuff you'll need to know just to live where men don't float around on a bunch of sticks nailed together."

  The Captain's neck cords began to stand out and it looked as if some of the curl in his hair tightened a little. Doug Fleming got busy with something over by the fire but Chip went right on. "Now you'll probably never ride a horse better than most farmers and you'll probably never track anything lighter than a milk cow crossin' a bog, but you can learn stuff like camping out, saddling so an animal doesn't gall, and ... well, some other common things. Anyway, we'll give it a try between here and Memphis."

  Carter Roth didn't answer for more than a minute and when he did his voice was tight and maybe a little high.

  "Shatto, I just want you to know that I'm rememberin' every word just as though I wrote it down and when the time is right I'll repay you in about one real quick and hard minute."

  Chip figured Captain Roth was going to really appreciate his lessons—even if his teeth were grinding together sort of loud.

  ++++

  It took two weeks to make Memphis. By that time they had told most of the stories, repeatedly proved the other was a dolt and a windbag, and decided that they really liked each other.

  Despite the irritation of having to learn even the simplest of tasks, it was an exciting time for Carter Roth. At age thirty he had put both forecastle and quarterdeck behind him. Sea challenges had become only extended discomforts and the isolation of command had proven burdensome with little reward beyond personal satisfaction of tasks well done.

  Now the land drew him with its offerings of new experiences in different places. At times he was intrigued by Chip Shatto's tales of the western mountains, but beyond the adventure he knew lay more loneliness and uncertainty. Carter Roth had already experienced adventure and knew her for a fickle crone that offered a thousand days of boredom in exchange for the few moments of high excitement that were long remembered.

  Mostly he liked Chip Shatto. He liked the roll of his voice and admired the powerful efficiency in the way he accomplished things. He downright envied the way Chip sat a horse. The man became one with the animal where he, "Bounce Around Roth," lurched and tottered, accumulating bruises and chafes.

  Once he leaned forward to ease his behind and the ugly plug he was riding jerked its bony skull back into his face nearly knocking him cold. Shatto didn't miss much and kneed his horse close to feel the top of Roth's mount's head. "Well, I guess he's all right, but I wouldn't do that too often if I was you, Carter. We ain't got no extra animals, you know." At times like that Roth ached for vengeance, but for now he sailed in strange waters and saw no way to eve
n the score.

  He did improve, although Chip rarely acknowledged it. He took both lessons and Chip's examples to heart.

  He doubted he'd ever be mistaken for a mountain man, but he was quickly mastering the tasks they encountered.

  At the river he got some small measure of satisfaction. To cross, they were required to lend a hand at the clumsy sweeps that propelled the cargo boat. Chip caught crabs, skidded his oar ineffectually, and got whacked under the chin by it. He swore and struggled, pretending not to see Carter's smooth stroke or hear his banter with the ferryman about the gross clumsiness of some of the woodsies who came aboard.

  They waited in Memphis only a day before accepting passage for themselves and their mounts in an empty boxcar. Trains came in filled with war making supplies and returned bearing only sick and wounded. A car of their own was indeed luxury, although a warning accompanied the ride. "Don't show yourselves until you're beyond Tennessee. This is Rebel country, and while they aren't strong enough to keep the lines cut, they ain't above sniping from good cover." They took the advice and caught up on lost sleep until Yankee country rolled beneath them.

  If he had expected marching bands or special recognition upon his return to Washington, Chip would have been sorely disappointed. The city was only a little cooler and just as noisome.

  The General was delayed in conferences and Chip waited out two cancelled appointments before he was ushered past the waiting line (that appeared unchanged) and into the familiar office.

  McClellan was grateful and congratulatory. He was genuinely interested in Chip's description of his mission and concerned that Chip recognize his appreciation of the skills that made the rescue sound routine.

  Walter Saleman had arrived safely. He was placed within the bosom of his family and immediately shipped to the safer isolation of Boston's north shore. The family knew few of the details of their patriarch's rescue and their speculations about Chip Shatto had been shunted aside by the military who intended sucking up any favors acquired. Chip did not care and had expected no more. He would have liked to have visited with the old professor under more normal circumstances, but he wasn't traveling to New England for the opportunity.

  McClellan had no further assignments for him. He could offer his influence for line duty or for western scout service, but his suggestion was that Chip go home and remain there. If something appropriate appeared, he would be called. The inference was that no call would come. A month earlier Chip would have been dismayed and sought other service, but even his brief contact with the military had dulled the edge of his wish to serve. Both Army and Navy appeared ponderously indifferent to all but their ingrained routines. If there was glory, he had not seen it. If there were individual heroics and braveries, he feared they were lost within the masses of blue—or gray—struggling just to survive. If they called, he would come, but if they didn't ... well, he didn't feel like volunteering anymore.

  He guessed those who claimed he wasn't right for it were correct, but once in a while he got to imagining how much a company of mountain men turned loose behind the lines could accomplish. Living off the land they could destroy the rails, ambush militia and supplies, drive off.... Foolish thoughts, probably, and not for him anyway. The excitements of riding and raiding were past. Pfoutz Valley waited for him and that was where he intended to go.

  ++++

  For almost a month Jonathan Starling brooded in his rooms. By then his features had assumed their new shape and the discoloration of black and blue had faded. Although his nose had lost its magnificence and was a little askew, his face had suffered only a slight distortion from the broken malar bone that depressed one side. Outwardly, Starling appeared normal; inwardly he seethed and stewed, boiling his soul in an acidic bile of hatred, souring his spirit with the rage of unsatisfied revenge.

  His men had finally lost the trail for good. It appeared the man called Shadow had returned to the western mountains. At times, Starling considered seeking him even there, but the idea of the vast empty land appalled him and he forced himself away.

  Saleman had arrived in Washington. A failed venture did no particularly dismay him. There were many more. His self-imposed isolation gave him time to examine his situation and he evaluated more closely his association with an obviously losing cause. It came to him that it was time to shift loyalties. After much deliberation he decided it would be best to leave the Confederacy behind and reappear for the remainder of the war in a neutral country.

  Canada called, but there were Rebels working in that country and he did not wish to be tarred by their activities. Jonathan Starling expected that a tour of Europe would be invigorating and help divorce him from the staggering Confederate States. After the war he could return to the reunited States and—who could tell—he might then find the trail of a Shadow who rode a speckle-rumped horse.

  ++++

  The Shatto story fascinated Carter Roth as much as it did young Fleming. That the first Rob Shatto had come into the Endless Hills as a boy to live among Indians and later to fight them for the land stirred his imagination. He handled the old two barreled pistol that the first Rob Shatto had made and looked forward eagerly to meeting the second Rob Shatto who had again used the gun to kill his enemies. To a man long orphaned, such roots and traditions were genuine marvels.

  Roth supposed Chip recognized his avowed determination to see Doug Fleming properly settled as only an excuse to continue on to Perry County. He increasingly hungered to see this rolling land between the mountains that Chip spoke of so lovingly and he wished to meet old Rob and Chip's mother, Ami-ta-chena, who was part Delaware Indian,

  Of course he had no intentions of staying. A look around, perhaps a few days relaxation, possibly a ride along while Chip looked at a farm or two, then he would be off to.... He always skirted that part of it.

  Chip's entourage stirred excitement among the Bloomfield loungers and Cad Jones hobbled into the road to get the straight of it. A man coming home with a piratical looking companion and a towheaded boy behind wasn't usual. Chip introduced Captain Roth and his former cabin boy, but when they rode on a little he trotted back to tell Cad not to let the word out that Captain Roth was a former buccaneer who had ruled the Gulf of Mexico until the Navy had rooted him out and sunk his frigate with multiple broadsides.

  When he caught up with his charges, Carter looked suspicious. "There's something about you going back there and whispering to that old man that I don't like.

  "I can just imagine you telling some sort of terrible lie about me so it will get passed all over this county and I'll never live it down. You didn't do that now, did you, Shatto?"

  "Would I do that, Roth? And what difference would it make anyway, seein' you're plannin' on moving on shortly?"

  Carter couldn't answer that conveniently but he noticed that Chip hadn't really denied it.

  Old Rob and Amy made Carter feel like family. Chip hadn't stretched the truth there anyway. He settled in to Ted's old room and became immediately embroiled in Shatto doings so that he didn't have much of an opportunity to resist the bonds of affection closing around him. It just seemed that all of a sudden he was looking for things to do in the county, just as though he had grown up there and had been away as Chip had.

  Doug Fleming had it even better. Old Rob hauled him down with the horses almost before he'd slipped off his worn one. Amy and Widow Oakes began fixing a permanent room for him and Chip saw some of his old school things reappear from a decade and a half's storage. If Carter had actually harbored doubts about his cabin boy's welfare they were shortly put to rest.

  In many ways it was as if they had all come home. Chip again put away his guns and his skin clothing. Handling Roth's pepperbox between thumb and finger as though it was severely tainted, he hung it over a high nail and forgot it. Except for all of the stories they needed to tell, it was as though they had always lived along Little Buffalo Creek.

  ++++

  Chapter 12

  Buying the farm he wanted
wasn't as easy as Chip had hoped. For some reason he couldn't fathom, old Mark Long kept edging right up to an agreement then backing off with intentions of "thinking it over a little."

  Long's hesitancy was peculiar as farms weren't worth much and a number were for sale. Long was known to want to sell and move into Millerstown where he could huddle with old cronies, so the time seemed right and Chip thought his offer fair. He tried his father's ploy and made low bids on other ground but Mark still resisted striking a bargain.

  If Long merely tempted his prospective buyer by making him hungry for what he didn't have. Chip had to admit he was succeeding. The longer he looked the more he liked the place.

  All he was really buying was land. Except for a number of fallen down huts and Tad Shuler's cabin, there were no buildings. A few marginal springs provided the only flowing water and a single rough lane angled across the fields and into the woods.

  On the other hand, once off Turkey Ridge the land sloped nicely and the soil was as rich as any around.

  It was deep ground that didn't grow a new crop of limestone boulders each year and it flowed gently to the south so the sun struck it during the growing months and dried it faster in the spring so that it could be farmed earlier than most.

  Chip loved the wooded part of the farm. Most farmers had little use for trees. Beyond a handy wood lot, they saw trees as covering useful farm land or shading what was already cleared. For Chip, the stands of oak, chestnut, walnut, and some hemlock spoke of the old county as he had enjoyed it before he and Ted went west. In woods like these he had learned to scout and read sign, and through this kind of timber he had plunged Shatto horses, training toughness and surefootedness into their Appaloosa heritage.

  When he and Carter came to Pfoutz Valley they camped in the woods where a small spring provided water and great trees hung overhead adding a cathedral atmosphere.