The cocky surliness slowly drained from Rupert Lawson’s features. He licked his lips, debating if he dared risk delaying the delivery of riding stock intended for officers traveling in person with General St. Clair. The threat of discipline came to the fore, overshadowing his row with the mistress. With a nod of the head, he spun about and sang out, “Riders at the gate. Inform Ensign Young, please. Hurry now!”
Beside me, my traveling companion whispered, “That’s grand. Andy will tell us what we want to know straight out.”
While we waited for the corporal, I watched her out of the corner of my eye and thought back on how Rupert Lawson had besmirched a certain Molly Green. He had said the mistress’s mother was traveling behind the army “liken she and the rest of her kind always be.” The private’s statement hadn’t exactly portrayed Molly Green as wife to any commissioned officer, for they never allowed their wives and offspring to traipse upcountry beyond the last secure outpost on the frontier, which was most assuredly Fort Hamilton. I noted again the fraying shirt and oversized breeches of the mistress. Her clothing wasn’t that of an officer’s daughter, either. Who was Erin Green? Better yet, who was her father? And why had she not mentioned his name and rank as a means of putting Private Lawson in his place from the very beginning?
My rumination ceased with the rap of leather soles inside the stockade. A new infantryman, the single silver epaulette of an ensign sewn on his left shoulder, stepped through the gate, and Rupert Lawson snapped to attention.
The private was forgotten the instant the newcomer spied Erin Green. He removed his tricorn hat and bowed from the waist. He was almost breathless with excitement. “Erin, thank God you’re alive and safe. Your mother and Sergeant Devlin feared you were dead . . . or worse off.”
I had but once before seen a man truly and totally enamored with a female, that being my father and his love for my mother, so I was no stranger to the sincere warmth of Ensign Andy Young’s smile. He wasn’t much older than I, but he would without question gladly lay down his own life for Erin Green. “Good gosh, is that your teeth I hear chattering? You must come inside and warm yourself at our fire!”
The mistress, wrapping her arms about herself against the late-afternoon chill, returned his smile. “That’s most kind, Andy. But I must rejoin my mother. Did the army march yesterday or today?”
Andy Young sighed, his disappointment most obvious. “General Butler led them off just this morning. They won’t have gotten far the other side of the Miami, but it was take up the march or watch the horses and cattle die from lack of forage.”
“Then perhaps if you can spare me a dry blanket for a wrap, Mr. Downer here,” the mistress said, waving a hand at me, “who saved me from the Injuns, will escort me home yet tonight.”
Ensign Young’s curious brown eyes locked onto mine. “I’m most grateful for your rescue of Erin. Do you have business with the army, sir?”
“Yes, sir, I do,” I answered, glancing at Rupert Lawson. “My paw is Caleb Downer, the trader, and as I told your guard, I purchased these animals in Kentucky for General St. Clair’s staff. I lost six to the redsticks, but I’m fetching these four to Paw anyways.”
“Private, please obtain a fresh blanket from the quartermaster. Tell him I will settle accounts with him later,” Ensign Young ordered crisply. “Be quick before the lady freezes.”
Rupert Lawson saluted and hustled through the gate, shoes slipping and sliding in the muddy opening in his haste. Erin Green slid from the sorrel’s saddle in a graceful dismount, stepped before the corporal, raised on her toes, and kissed his cheek. “Thank you, Andy. You are a generous and faithful friend.”
The ensign’s blush was genuine. If I wasn’t mistaken, a frown of disappointment, lasting only a finger snap, marred his features. Andy Young wanted to be much more than a friend to the mistress. Hell’s damnation, I was feeling the same urges my ownself, and I hadn’t known her long enough for us to call each other by first name. I leaned and spat quiet as I could. Less’n you kept her at arm’s length, Molly Green’s lovely daughter could be as unnerving as a rash too embarrassing to itch.
His grip lingering on Erin Green’s elbow, the ensign said, “You’ll have no trouble locating the column. The cattle bringing up the rear didn’t pass from our sight till just two hours ago.”
I then asked a question of utmost importance to me, a query spawned by Rupert Lawson’s earlier pronouncement that trader Caleb Downer had supplied the army with shoddy equipment. “Did my father also march this morning?”
The ensign spoke in return without hesitation. “No, he did not. But neither is he within the stockade. He went south with General St. Clair five days ago. We are in dire need of axes that are properly tempered and powder honestly dry in the keg for the cannon.”
The ensign did hesitate now and cleared his throat noisily. “I’m not one to speak ill of any man, but my fellow officers are plumb furious with your father and his superior, William Duer, the contractor. Supposedly, a gentleman named Court Starnes, Duer’s partner from Fort Pitt, is meeting your father at Fort Washington with additional packhorses and replacement supplies for those we found defective. I’m giving you fair warning that your name may spark trouble for you across the Miami.”
I took no exception to Andy Young’s accusations regarding Paw, for it is the errant fool who argues without bothering to learn the whole story. On my mind, too, was the realization that if Paw was ensnared in personal difficulties, trying to successfully explain to him how I had gotten Hardy killed and lost costly riding stock had about as much appeal as enduring a Shawnee scalping. Paw’s tongue could cut deep as any Injun knife, even when he was in fine spirits. And though maybe you couldn’t see them on my skin, I had the scars on my heart to prove it.
I dipped my hat at the ensign. “I thank you for the warning. I’ll not be taken unawares.”
The mistress’s gaze centered solely on me. I believe she expected me to vehemently defend Paw then and there as she would have her kin, and was at a loss how I could calmly allow the ensign’s charges to go uncontested. But much as I wanted to speak out on Paw’s behalf, my hair not being fiery red, I stuck to my decision. Tap Jacobs, who I would soon join, would tell me the truth of the situation regarding Paw and contractor Duer.
Private Lawson slipped and slid into view once more. The ensign waited while Erin Green mounted the sorrel before handing her the clean, dry blanket fetched by the private. Then he offered some counsel about our upcoming ride. “Take care treating with the sentries. They greatly fear the redsticks and, excuse my language, shoot at everything from the hoot of an owl to their own farts. Sing out well in advance, and make them respond so there are no misunderstandings. With any luck you should reach them before full dark sets in.”
Tap Jacobs having taught me hunters that trusted to luck were often buried first, I nodded at Ensign Andy Young and guided Blue around the upriver corner of the fort, the mistress and the sorrel trailing behind the horse string.
The Miami was a river known for its long stretches of treacherous, sandy bottom, and it was the presence of a rare and extensive layer of stone on its bed that had decided the location of Fort Hamilton. The swift water flowed waist high on a walking man, short of the knee if you were mounted. Blue disliked the fetlock-deep mud beaten and pounded into clinging goo by the cattle that had crossed after the infantry, but he answered a slap of the reins on his haunch and forged ahead into the current. At the middle of the river, I peeked over my shoulder in the dwindling daylight and chuckled at the nimbleness of the mistress. She was far up in the saddle, legs practically around the sorrel’s neck, her entire body safe from another wetting.
Blue struggled through another morass of goo on the far bank. There was no problem trailing after St. Clair’s regiments. A raw gouge twenty feet wide newly cleared of trees and brush by the general’s ax men, and littered with runny dollops of cow dung, straggled northeast along the base of the hills flanking the river. At the first significa
nt break in those flanking hills, the gouge twisted to the northwest like a tortured snake. At that juncture, splotches of dancing flame pinpointed the night fires of the army in the growing darkness.
I slowed Blue, and heeding Ensign Young’s warning, pried the plug from the barrel of my rifle, untied the lock cover, and thrust the both of them into the center fold or wallet of my frock. Besides their jumpiness, if I had to give my name and Paw’s supposed failures fostered resentment among the sentries, I wanted to be ready for whatever might befall me.
The smell of rain-soaked cow hair and manure was assailing our noses when the challenge rang from the trees bordering the roadway. “Stop! Who rides there?”
I halted Blue, and right thumb on the dog’s head of my rifle, answered, “Ethan Downer!”
“State your business an’ be damn quick about it!”
“I’m delivering horses to General St. Clair’s personal staff.”
“Hold tight to yer reins till we close on yuh, yuh don’t want to be shot off ’n that animal,” the hidden sentry bawled.
Two privates, muskets fully cocked, marched from the woods, trailed by a sergeant, the yellow epaulettes decorating each of his shoulders bright as new gold. I sat rigidly still in the saddle, taking pains to do nothing unusual or threatening.
The privates braced Blue’s shoulders. “He did say his name was Downer, didn’t he, Sergeant Croft?” the lanky one queried.
“That he did, Eyler, that he did,” confirmed the stubby sergeant, giant black mustache bobbing on his upper lip.
“S’pose he’s kin to Caleb Downer, the son of a bitch who bought these worthless goddamn shoes an’ foisted them on us Maryland levies?” persisted the lanky private.
Butting his musket in the mud of the roadway, the private balanced on his left foot, raised the other level with his knee, and pointed downward with his free hand. The sole of his shoe had parted with its leather uppers and was prevented from flopping about by rawhide thongs that wrapped the entire foot. I suspected the filthy gray object the size and shape of my thumb sticking from twixt shoe bottom and shoe top was a sock-covered toe.
The lanky private’s fellow sentry then demanded, “Well, are you kin to Caleb Downer? Speak up!”
I didn’t want a confrontation with either the sentries or their sergeant any more than I had with Rupert Lawson earlier, but my patience was ebbing. My father wasn’t a cheat. To my knowledge, he had never taken unfair advantage in any exchange of monies or goods, no matter how rough the bargaining. My hackles were on the verge of bristling up right handsomely. On any given evening, a son could forbear only so many of what he knew to be lies about his paw.
There came a rough push against my knee as the sorrel carrying the mistress crowded against Blue. I started but held tongue and hand, for the mistress would now be in the thick of any dispute with those accosting me. “Sergeant Croft, it’s me, Erin, Molly Green’s daughter!”
Behind the sentries, the sergeant’s brow shot upward and his huge mustache quivered. “My God, girl, it’s all over our camp that the Injuns got you, and then here you be. Stand at ease, gentlemen, stand at ease,” he commanded, pushing his stubby frame to the forefront.
I could only silently shake my head in wonder. In an army that numbered nigh onto two thousand, was there no officer that Erin Green and her mother didn’t know?
With her appearance, Paw’s alleged transgressions suddenly amounted to no more than a spit into the wind. The privates, grins bright and wide despite broken and missing teeth, stepped aside for the sergeant, who doffed his tricorn and did everything but salute the mistress. “And how were you freed, lass?”
“Mr. Downer snatched me from the saddle in the middle of the Injuns in the dead of night,” she explained. “His friend was killed, but Mr. Downer and I escaped unhurt. I owe him my very life.”
Sergeant Croft’s head bobbed repeatedly, and his underlings stared at me in openmouthed awe. These two Maryland lads had nervously cocked their muskets before they knew whether I was friend or foe, and given how they couldn’t quit gaping at me, I had a notion they had never once to date even seen a painted Injun in the flesh. Paw’s last letter had mentioned the utter inexperience of General St. Clair’s six-month levies, how they were so raw their brief bouts of target practice were a danger not only to themselves but to anyone else within shooting range. The blunt truth was an unintentional bullet from your own killed as thoroughly as a deliberate one from the enemy.
The prospect that additional sentries no better trained or experienced than the Maryland levies were stationed about prompted me to overlook what had been insinuated about Paw. “It will be dark soon, Sergeant Croft. Can you direct us to Mistress Green’s family?”
The eager-to-serve sergeant pointed ahead and to the right. “Those not in uniform are beyond the cattle herd, in the woods separating our two roads.”
“Two roads?” asked a puzzled Erin Green.
“Yes, young lady, we’re building two roads. The men hate it, but General St. Clair insists,” the sergeant informed her. “The general says a spread advance allows us to avert an ambush and form into line of battle on short notice. And if that don’t rile the men enough, we’re throwing up breastworks for defense at the end of each day. It promises to be a nasty drudge of a march, lass.”
“I can only keep the tea hot for you, Sergeant. Do find your way to our fire whenever you can,” she offered, glancing my way. “If you’re ready, Mr. Downer.”
At my nod, she took the lead as the sentries stepped to the edge of the forest, granting us a clear path of departure. Grazing bullocks occupied the roadway and its immediate borders, and we proceeded at a slow walk. Deep shadows pooled at the fringe of the forest, and though we saw drovers, no new challenges greeted us. We aimed for the nearest flames to our right and encountered a squad of artillery soldiers and their captain resting about an unhitched field piece. The mistress, of course, was acquainted with the officer, and after the now-obligatory explanation of her rescue, the captain directed us into the trees behind the cannon.
With a jaunty wave of thanks, Erin Green skirted the artillery campsite, me following with the horse string. I had no real obligation to guard her till she was lodged in her mother’s very arms, yet I reckoned someone at the Green fire was privy to the whereabouts of Tap Jacobs, and if not Tap, then another in Paw’s pay, Bear Watkins. Equally important was how a particular redheaded female constantly roused my curiosity and kept my blood churning. I couldn’t forgo the opportunity to meet her kin, nosiree.
But one must never forget that rampant curiosity makes for a treacherous ally: It can uncover the favorable as well as what you might later wish you hadn’t learned.
Chapter 4
Late Evening, 4 October
A passel of cooking fires burned brightly within hailing distance of each other, casting streaks of flickering orange onto tall trunks and clumps of low brush. Beyond the fires, it was black as pitch in every direction. The mistress halted the sorrel and called out her mother’s name, then her own. A second calling garnered a lusty response of, “Here, girl! Here we be!”
A hatted figure greatly bowed in the legs advanced from the largest of the night fires. Well, so much for my having to worry about locating Tap Jacobs. The mistress, squealing with joy, dismounted and scampered deeper into the trees. Anxious as I was to meet her folks, I stayed put and saw to the stock according to Paw and Tap’s teaching.
The gurgling sweep of running water drifted from upwind. Tiredness cramping my legs soon as I stepped down, I led my string thataway, circling left of the sudden yelling and shouting occasioned by the safe return of Molly Green’s missing daughter. I watered each horse in turn, unsaddled Blue and the sorrel, then hobbled all but Blue, who I picketed on a length of rope tied about his off foreleg. If the others started to wander overly far in search of forage, the fussy Blue would resist being left behind and protest enough to awaken me.
Standing on the creek bank, I could discern a l
arge number of glowing fires to the north and the west. The army had halted astride the stream, providing water for men and animals. The air was cold and damp, the harsh chill of it promising light frost within a few days, if not by dawn. I shivered and hefted my rifle and sleeping gear. The long, hard ride was finished, and it was time to warm my bones and fill my belly. I figured Molly Green owed me at least one good sitting for my troubles.
A sizable crowd ringed the fire of the Green family. As I came closer, it was evident the attention of everyone was centered on the mistress, who appeared to be holding court, Andy Young’s blanket still wrapped ’round her shoulders. Her listeners constituted as wide a selection of human folk as I had ever witnessed except for my sparse visits to the wharf at Limestone. Uniformed officers of the volunteer levies and the Second American Regiment, buckskin-clad wagoners and ox team handlers, and public men in cloth and linsey-woolsey and high boots listened raptly to what Erin Green was saying. Scattered among them were the women—young, fully grown, middling tall, short, skinny, plump, fair, and bedraggled, most dressed in calico skirts and woven shawls, a few in full-length pants and coarse-hewn shirts. Least obvious but present were twenty-odd children, one so young it was suckling its mother’s breast.
An older woman of similar red hair and stature stood slightly behind the mistress. Except for the difference in age, the likeness was so great it could only be her mother. A stout sergeant of the Second American Regiment with a trimmed black beard and oft-broken nose flanked Molly Green’s left shoulder. On her right, standing at ease and listening with cocked head, was a clean-shaven captain of dragoons.
Blood at Dawn Page 4
