Blood at Dawn

by Jim R. Woolard

  I rode through the dragoon line, halted Blue and, listening for those familiar Shawnee war whoops, the boom of muskets, and the harsher crack of rifles, began reloading my long gun in earnest. But other than the rattle of bridle chains, the creak of saddle leather, and the occasional nervous cough, silence befell my ears. I seated my ball with a solid thrust of ramrod and glanced up to find the bulk of the dragoons watching me, not the surrounding forest in which I had sighted the enemy, and from whence he was most likely to launch his attack.

  But silence prevailed, not the noise and clamor of battle. Not a single enemy shot had been fired, and it became as obvious as the derisive stares of the dragoons that the entire troop believed me a cowardly pup of a scout who had sparked a false alarm over nothing. I seated the ramrod in its thimbles beneath the barrel of my rifle and sat Blue at attention, refusing to drop my eyes or cower before them. Judge me they could, but I knew what I had seen.

  The captain wasn’t as quick with an opinion as was his mounted infantry. “Mr. Watkins, Sergeant Baker, Privates Crane, Langtree, and Sharp, reconnoiter to our front, please,” he ordered.

  Bear Watkins, still afoot, positioned the mounted sergeant and three privates in the throat of the notch, then glided into the trees. The troop waited, long guns poised and cocked. The minutes crept by, and the low mutterings of the dragoons made it plain they felt the scouting party was a monumental waste of time and effort. When no shout of discovery or alarm was forthcoming from Bear, the dragoons grew more restless. Catcalls and snorts of satisfaction rippled through the dragoon line as Bear emerged calmly from the trees and led the scouting party before Captain Starkweather.

  “Your report, Mr. Watkins?”

  “All clear now, Captain,” Bear said.

  “Now? Did you say now, Mr. Watkins?” Starkweather questioned loudly.

  The dragoons quieted except for the repeating of the captain’s query at the ends of their line. Bear stepped beside Starkweather’s sorrel. His right arm extended upward. Dangling from his hand was a large maple leaf. “Blood, sir, wet and fresh. I found a heel print, but no other sign. It was a close thing, sir, mighty close.”

  The captain reached down and delicately grasped the bloody maple leaf with the tips of two fingers. He studied it, then turned in the saddle. “Congratulations, Mr. Downer. You’re the first of my command to successfully engage the enemy. I shall long remember this occasion. I salute you,” the captain said, raising his leather helmet high above his head with his free hand. “Gentlemen, a cheer for Mr. Downer!”

  Bearskin-crested helmets lifted skyward, and the accompanying cheer like to hurt my ears. My chest bulged more than a tad, I can tell you. It was probably the most recognition any borderer ever received for merely wounding the red enemy. But damn, I was proud that my judgment had held water.

  Ensign Andy Young, whose foremost ambition was to fight the Shawnee in person, could talk of nothing else throughout our return ride. I repeated the details of the attempted ambush of the captain to him every other mile, which did me the great favor of mostly keeping my mind off my situation with Paw. In fact, it took a new burst of cheering from a different source to finally draw the ensign’s attention elsewhere.

  We were fording the creek on the northern fringe of General St. Clair’s encampment when the shouting and yelling commenced. Once started, lusty, sustained cheers rolled over us in waves to echo in the creek bottom. We rode from the water, and the ensign stood in his stirrups, hoping for a better view of the commotion. “Other than General St. Clair aborting the campaign, nothing but the arrival of the pack train could cause such excitement,” Andy Young concluded.

  The ensign’s statement made perfect sense. General St. Clair had dispatched three hundred baggage horses south to speed the shipments of flour and supplies, in the process, provoking considerable talk and speculation. From the loud and raucous nature of the cheers, which continued unabated as we entered the eastern meadow, the arriving pack train had to be much longer and better stocked than the general’s forces had dared anticipate.

  I didn’t share the joy of the multitude, for it meant I would shortly find myself standing before Paw. Having promised Paw I would be present at the Dodd fire upon his return, Bear wasted not a moment separating us from Starkweather and his dragoons. We gained the military road dividing the encampment and waited with the watching soldiers while the small drove of cattle bringing up the rear of the packhorse train plodded past.

  The cheering had finally died down, and Bear leaned from the saddle in the gathering dusk to inquire of a levy private, “Big shipment, my friend?”

  The slack-jawed private was only too happy to relate what he had observed. “Two full brigade of horse. Must be nigh onto ten tons of flour and plenty of jug whiskey,” he gushed.

  “Yep, Tate, that be true,” a pipe-smoking levy chimed in. “An’ we gots that big fellow Starnes to thank. He done made double good on his brag to St. Clair.”

  The levy’s unsolicited opinion hit a nerve with me. All of Paw’s prior efforts seemed forgotten with the sudden emergence of Court Starnes. I just prayed Paw’s rivalry with Starnes hadn’t put him in a totally sour mood. God’s bones, Paw was difficult enough to deal with if’n he was merely riled up. You couldn’t reason at all with him during his black spells. Then, he was as Mother said, “Quite impossible.”

  Bear and I picketed our horses in the western meadow and lugged saddles and gear to the Dodd fire, which burned bright and cheery in the gray twilight. Val Dodd, Ira Fellows, Henry Cross, and the wagoners, Thaddeus and Timothy, were present. Val Dodd was seated on his log, singing as he tended baking bread and roasting meat. The rosy bloom on his plump cheeks indicated he, like the others, was being generous with the whiskey jug. “Come, come, my bosom friends, a fine evening beckons, does it not?”

  Greetings were exchanged, and the jug made a round, then another. I drank heartily both passes, seeking a little liquid courage. I managed to conjure up enough to pose the fatal question: “Is Paw with you?”

  “Yep, he be,” Ira Fellows said following a mighty slurp from the passing jug. “He’s reportin’ to St. Clair along with Court Starnes as we drink.”

  “An’ Hookfin, too,” Henry Cross slurred. “Starnes took his personal spy with him, broke jaw notwithstandin’, mayhap to kiss the general’s boots for him.”

  Lord, it couldn’t be worse. No doubt Hookfin had gone running to Starnes, and Court was rubbing Paw’s nose in the shit royally. I slugged another dollop of the raw whiskey. Hadn’t Paw said on numerous occasions a wild temper could lead to a man’s downfall easy as murder, lying, and cheating? Why did I always learn the truth of what he said too late?

  I sighed heavily and settled on my haunches with a tin plate of victuals. The others joked and wove tales of incidents on the journey north with the pack train. I chewed and gazed at the fire, there being nothing left for me except to while the time away till Paw showed hisself. It was near dark when Ira Fellows tapped my shoulder and said quietly amid the laughing and joshing, “Horses comin’, Ethan.”

  Gabe Hookfin, hurt jaw swollen the size of a large gourd, rode into the firelight. Behind him came Court Starnes, then Paw. Paw’s glance as they proceeded past the fire into the western meadow to picket their mounts was stern and unsmiling. His solemn nod merely acknowledged the presence of Bear and me. As I had feared, I faced a truly bleak evening.

  Hookfin, Starnes, and Paw returned together, Paw in the van now. The talk about the fire stilled at the sighting of Paw’s dark visage. Muscle bunched at the hinges of his jaws. His eyes shone bright with pent-up anger. The greetings of the Duer crew, including that of Val Dodd, were bland and cautious.

  I expected Paw to take me aside, as was his custom, to discuss what I believed private business. Instead, his voice leaped at me soon as his saddle touched earth. “Ethan, you have much to atone for.”

  He kept walking, and halted a stride short of me, his shoulders squared to mine, and I realized I would be f
rayed bare in public, though thankfully, it appeared, with just the tongue, for Paw bore no whip. I could almost feel the heat of Paw’s ire, and his words fell upon me like blows from a hatchet.

  “Ethan, I can no longer trust you. First, you disobeyed me and we lost Hardy Booth and valuable riding stock. Next, you traipsed off, again against my orders, to rescue a camp girl. Then, last evening, at this very fire, over a few words you apparently didn’t like, you broke a man’s jaw without warning. Am I not telling the truth of your failings?”

  I wanted to explain myself, to make him understand how I loved Erin as deeply as he loved Mother and could not let her come to harm of any kind nor brook anything foul or slighting said of her. But he wouldn’t listen to what he would consider merely lame excuses. I knew that same as I knew he was right in what he said. In every incidence, I had directly disobeyed him.

  “Well, Ethan, am I telling the truth?” Paw demanded.

  Afraid my voice would quake, I resisted the urge to shuffle my feet, and nodded. Paw swallowed, like maybe even he didn’t like the punishment he was about to dictate. “Ethan, since I can’t trust you, there’s but one thing to be done, and that’s send you home to your mother and sisters.”

  Though I didn’t take my eyes from Paw, it had to be Hookfin who chortled with glee, the skinny son of a bitch. I wasn’t certain later just what I had expected from Paw, but I shouldn’t have been surprised in the least. He had previously threatened to send me packing with my tail twixt my legs. But to be dismissed entirely from his service in such a humiliating fashion was worse than suffering a whipping that left scars. And it took but a moment’s reflection for me to realize that if I acceded to his wishes, I wasn’t likely to lay eyes on Erin Green ever again. Lord God almighty, the speed of my response and the strength behind it shocked even me.

  “No, sir, I won’t go!”

  “You what?” an equally startled Paw shot back.

  “I’m not returning home,” I repeated, my voice still solid and unwavering. “I’ll make my own way from here out.”

  Paw edged closer, and the raw, naked fierceness of his stare nearly wilted my knees. “Then so be it. You may have the roan gelding you ride and everything you have in your possession I have provided. And since you are now without ties to your family or us Duer men, you will immediately seek sustenance elsewhere. We tolerate only our own at this fire.”

  Shock rippled through me anew. I was being dismissed from camp plumb into the night. I steadied my nerves and my limbs, cocked my chin defiantly, circled around Paw, retrieved my rifle, saddle, and gear and, without a solitary good-bye or backward glance, walked into the enveloping blackness.

  My feelings were so roiled, I don’t remember much about the saddling of Blue. But I won’t ever forget my departure. My destination was as yet undecided, but as I skirted the Dodd fire, I kicked Blue into a gallop and flashed past with my hat brim pulled low.

  Damned if I was going to let any of the watching crowd, especially Hookfin and Court Starnes, see tears in the eyes of Ethan Downer now that he had declared himself his own man.

  Nosiree!

  Chapter 23

  Late Evening, 22 October

  Once well away from the Dodd crowd, I slowed Blue to a walk and dried my tears. Some serious thinking was required on my part, and hurriedly to boot. I had been set adrift within a military encampment and had to decide where to cast my lot, for I had no desire to enter the enemy-infested country alone in the night.

  Though I would find some friendly faces there, particularly those of Annie Bower and Erin, I quickly discounted the Green cabin as a possibility. The mistress had enough of a burden looking after her mother, and I didn’t want her worrying that she had caused the rift twixt Paw and me. Nor did I want her sympathy.

  In the whole of the St. Clair encampment, the only other place I might be welcome was Starkweather’s marquee. He had offered me the opportunity to scout and track for him. And had I not saved his life earlier this same day? So to the eastern meadow I went.

  It wasn’t a particularly long ride, but my feelings were together somewhat when Blue answered a gentle tug of the reins alongside the overhang of the captain’s marquee. A table lighted by a lanthorn, the candles of which flickered in the light evening breeze, reposed beneath the overhang. A place setting of white china and silver tableware rested on the velvet-covered table, and a small fire straddled by an iron tripod holding a boiling kettle of water burned before the overhang. It appeared the captain was preparing to dine.

  No one was about, and a sheet of canvas at the rear of the overhang hid the interior of the tent. My call of greeting died on my lips as a hand, black and bluntly fingered, gently lifted the canvas door and Jared, the captain’s servant, slid through an opening not an inch bigger than his liveried frame.

  The servant toted an empty kettle. Blue tossed his head and snorted, drawing Jared’s attention. Not the least perturbed or frightened, the servant halted and asked, “Who be it, please?”

  “Ethan Downer, here to speak with Captain Starkweather about scoutin’ for him,” I informed Jared.

  Jared smiled and bowed slightly at the waist. “I remembers you. You called with another gentleman yesterday. I tell Captain Starkweather you be waitin’. But you best step down an’ be patient. Captain, he just started his bath.”

  With a similar polite bow, Jared hustled to the fire, removed the kettle of hot water, refilled the empty kettle from a leather piggin, hung it on the straddling tripod, then slipped back through the canvas doorway with the boiling one, leaving me peering after him openmouthed. Bath, he had said, an indoor bath in a tent in the middle of the Ohio wilderness. I was familiar with creek washing of exposed parts and feet on the trail whenever time and place permitted, and practiced such, though the opportunities of late had been woefully scarce. I clucked in admiration. Miles Starkweather had brought the comforts of home into the field with him on a scale as grand as that normally enjoyed by colonels and generals.

  I loosened the girth of Blue’s saddle, added wood to the fire, and took a seat on a nearby log. By the faint light of candles within the closed tent, I saw a shadowy, lean figure lift a leg high, pause, then lower it behind a low wall I assumed was the side of a metal or wooden tub large enough to engulf an entire body. I can’t lie. I wondered just how luxurious that warm, soapy water felt. Understand now, I didn’t abide that cleanliness was next to godliness from birth to grave like Mother, but the weekly bath I was missing had enormous appeal given the state of filth I was experiencing. As of that evening, being downwind of Ethan Downer was a threat to the nose of the most unrefined soul, male or female.

  Starkweather was in his tub long enough for the water to turn icy cold before Jared emerged and fetched another kettle of the boiling stuff. “He’ll be dressed soon,” the scurrying servant announced over a shoulder. And sure enough, within short minutes, Miles Starkweather stepped into view wearing tall boots, pantaloons, and a fringed hunting frock in lieu of his standard uniform coat. He wasted not a second getting to the business at hand. “Evening, Mr. Downer. Jared says you’re here to discuss scouting and tracking for my dragoons.”

  “Yer, sir, I am,” I said.

  The captain frowned. “You’re no longer in the service of your father?”

  “No, sir. I’m my own man. I serve where I please.”

  My respect for Starkweather grew by leaps and bounds, for he didn’t pry. Had he demanded an explanation of my sudden change of circumstances, I might have turned blubbery and teary-eyed and perhaps fled into the surrounding darkness. To my utter joy, he simply took me at my word. “You will be a welcome addition to my troop. But are you willing to take the oath, an oath that would obligate you to my employ for the duration of the campaign, however many months that may be?”

  I didn’t answer straight off. My hesitation stemmed from the realization the taking of Starkweather’s oath meant I had truly broken with Paw. There would be no going back, no belated apology and mending
of fences. So ingrained was Paw’s sense of family and personal loyalty there was a goodly chance I would never again grace the stoop of the Downer plantation house, even as a visitor, if I pledged myself to anyone not blood kin. But, ironically, it was the absolute stubbornness and steadfastness of purpose I’d inherited from the ferociously loyal Paw that gave me the courage, despite the pain and sacrifice of my choosing, to say to Starkweather in a plain, clear, unmistakable voice, “I’ll swear your oath, Captain. I will.”

  My heart fluttered with that momentous decision, and nearly breathless, I accepted Starkweather’s invitation to enter his striped marquee. Inside, I swore an oath on his Bible, and he produced from his writing table an enlistment voucher that required my signature. “Your pay will be as I stated yesterday: full rations and three oblongs for each day in the field. Since this is a volunteer troop and not the regular army, I assign the rankings. Hence, you will hold the rank of ensign and serve as my aide-de-camp. You’ll sleep in Jared’s tent. I trust you find these terms acceptable?”

  “Yes, sir, I surely do,” I responded with sincere enthusiasm. Nothing like solid victuals, generous daily pay, and dry night quarters to ease a man across the most crucial watershed of his young life.

  Starkweather’s smile was equally sincere. “Ensign Downer, welcome to the ranks. We must now pursue some additional details,” he proclaimed, opening the brass latches of the traveling trunk flanking his sleeping cot. He rummaged about inside the trunk and produced a metal and leather dragoon helmet, an exact duplicate of that he himself wore when on duty except for his signature blue and white silk cockade. Then, opening the second of his traveling trunks, he lifted free a pair of tall riding boots. “I believe we are the same size at the head and feet, Ensign. Try these,” he said, sliding the chair from beneath his writing table.

  Overwhelmed by his generosity, I laid my flop-brimmed hat on the table and settled the helmet in place. The captain was correct. It fit perfectly with no wobble fore and aft. I sat in his canvas-seated chair and removed my moccasins. As I feared, the odor that flooded the tent was an acute embarrassment. Starkweather’s nose wrinkled, and he pursed his lips. “Perhaps we should forgo trying the boots till after I grant you a visit to my tub.”