Blood at Dawn

by Jim R. Woolard

  During our pursuit of the elusive redsticks, the terrain leveled, then gradually descended to a small creek. The hour approaching late afternoon, and the army having advanced seven miles, a halt was called. The levies in the center of the line, hoping the day’s march was complete, quickly kindled a large fire. From our parallel position on the flank, we sat shivering in our saddles and watched General St. Clair, surrounded by his staff officers, ride up to the blazing fire. A discussion ensued, followed by a cheer from the levies. But just as the general gave the order to disperse into our nightly formation, a hollow square, his aide-de-camp, Major Denny, and Quartermaster Hodgdon approached on horseback from the head of the column. After further discussion, the groans of the levies indicated the general had reversed his decision, and off we went again.

  Impatient to learn why the general had resumed the march, Starkweather led a contingent of our troop rapidly forward. Two miles of hard pushing through wet, wooded marshes, and the captain had his answer. An elevated flat of ground approximately seven acres in size and fronted by a westerly running stream sixty feet wide spread before us. A considerable expanse of open woods, inclining gently upward, dominated the far bank of the stream. “Can’t argue with the major general,” Starkweather said more to himself than those in his company. “Rather a small site, but it’s dry, with better water.”

  On the near bank of the stream a rider sat a gray horse with black mane, an animal I recognized from my travels with Tap as the mount of Colonel William Oldham, commander of the Kentucky militia. At least twenty of his sons of the bluegrass, yelling and signaling to one another with weapons and fists, prowled both banks of the stream and the open woods beyond it. Their feverish activity lured the captain onward.

  Colonel Oldham twisted in the saddle at the sound of hoofbeats to his rear. Starkweather drew rein and saluted. “Trouble, Colonel?”

  “Naw, redsticks quit the place just before we showed. ’Bout fifteen of them by their tracks, which be ripe and fresh,” answered the militia commander.

  “Hunters?”

  “Not likely, Captain. Too many of them for hunting. I’ve sent a rider to tell the general.”

  The colonel twisted the opposite direction in the saddle. “Sergeant Raney, how many recent fires did you count, those less than a week old?”

  A lank-haired individual with red, peeling cheeks and toting a musket with a rusty barrel, flung snot with three fingers and dug into the mud of the bank with a moccasined toe. “More’n the cornstalks in our home patch, Colonel.”

  Oldham chuckled and swung his gaze to Starkweather. “The Injuns be here often and in large numbers, Captain. I suggest you guard your horses with great care tonight.”

  “That we will, Colonel, that we will,” Starkweather promised. “Ensign Young, the day grows short. Fetch the balance of the troop.”

  With a farewell salute, the captain led his detail of eight dragoons west down the creek to the edge of the flat elevation, placing us on the left flank of the coming encampment. The balance of Colonel Oldham’s militia trudged up the road and forded the stream, cursing the necessity of wetting their feet. Next came the five levy battalions. The first three, those of Major Butler, Major Clarke, and Major Patterson, aligned themselves from left to right along the near bank of the stream, forming the front line of our nightly hollow square. The remaining two levy battalions, those of Majors Bedinger and Gaither, and Lieutenant Colonel Doughty’s Second American Regiment then did the same, forming the rear line. Seventy yards separated the front and rear lines. The marquees of ranking officers, the baggage wagons, and the carts of the camp followers filled the center of the square. Four hundred yards directly opposite the First Dragoons, our counterparts, the Second Dragoons and Captain Faulkner’s rifle company, closed the far end or right flank of the hollow square. Captain Ferguson’s artillery, split into two units of four cannons each, faced outward from designated points within both the front and rear lines. Detachments of sentries from the levy battalions and the Second Americans totaling two hundred soldiers ringed all but the creek angle of the square. Forward sentry duty was entrusted to the militia across the creek.

  The captain being leery as ever of the hoof rot afflicting the column’s baggage horses, every dragoon mount was hobbled and picketed a safe distance from those animals, which, out of necessity, were loosed along the rear of the encampment and left to forage overnight on their own. As an extra precaution against Injun thievery, Starkweather doubled the number of dragoons assigned to guard duty throughout the night. Thus, it was eight in the evening when we finally seated ourselves before the captain’s awning to partake of the best Jared could muster.

  We were spent and ate in virtual silence, what few comments we rendered centering on the immense amount of Injun sign located by the Kentucky militia. The red enemy suddenly seemed quite numerous and formidable, and battle with him in the near future more of a certainty rather than a remote possibility. And because of that growing certainty, just as suddenly I was lonely, afraid, and missing Paw and Bear and Tap something godawful fierce.

  So it was mighty shocking to hear Tap’s voice say aloud, “Lad always sees after his belly, don’t he now?”

  Bear Watkins’s quick response was equally stunning. “That he do, my friend, that he do!”

  I looked up from my plate, and my eyes fair leaped from their sockets. I hadn’t lost my tree and taken to imagining things. They were there for real in the flesh, the one bowed as a stunted clump of pitch pine, the other solid and straight as the white oak, and they came bearing news even more shocking than their totally unexpected appearance from out of the dark of night.

  Chapter 27

  Late Evening, 3 November

  My excitement got the best of me. I came upright so fast I dumped my victuals, plate included, into the fire. My tin cup was spared a similar fate only because my finger was hooked in the handle.

  Bear Watkins laughed softly. “Well, Ethan, lucky for you we’ve plenty of venison jerk with us, or you might starve after all,” he said in that smooth manner of his, tossing me a bulky leather pouch.

  Starkweather took up the conversation at that juncture, and I hastily regained my seat beside Andy Young, happy to escape everyone’s attention. “Gentlemen, what brings you to our fire?” the captain inquired.

  Bear accepted a cup from Jared, and the servant filled it with green tea. “We just finished deliverin’ a letter to General St. Clair’s headquarters from Caleb Downer, the lad’s father, an’ wanted to say hello is all.”

  “Curious,” the captain mused. “Starnes seldom lets anyone but himself treat with the general.”

  “The letter wasn’t necessarily Starnes’s idea,” Bear said. “Where Court’s concerned, keepin’ all but forty of the last train’s horses for his own, places the blame square on St. Clair if’n future shipments are too small to feed the army.”

  “But Mr. Downer disagrees?”

  Bear nodded and enjoyed a sip of tea. “Caleb thought it proper to warn the general straightaway how slim we are on animals. Less’n he returns some of the packhorses, it may be two weeks ’fore we can put together another train of sufficient size. The general needs to know, too, that the Ohio hasn’t risen hardly a lick, an’ flour shipments from upriver are arrivin’ days late at Fort Washington.”

  The captain drank tea himself. “Mr. Downer is at Fort Jefferson with Court Starnes, I take it?”

  “No, sir, he’s at Fort Hamilton, tryin’ to bring together quick as he can the flour an’ other supplies that’s dribblin’ in piecemeal from the river. Caleb does have a shipment of ten thousand pounds of flour an’ a drove of twenty bullocks on the way from there.”

  Starkweather drank more tea. “How did the general react to your letter?”

  “Can’t say, sir. He was already abed, but Corporal Thurston swore it would be presented to him yet tonight.”

  “You could do no more than that, gentlemen,” the captain said with an understanding nod. “The two
of you are to be commended for rising yourselves to deliver Mr. Downer’s letter. Two white men traveling alone are mighty tempting to the savages.”

  “Well, we wasn’t exactly without company,” Bear admitted with seeming reluctance while staring forcefully at Tap.

  The old scout, now sitting next to me on the dining log, rested the tin cup Jared had provided him on a bony knee and nervously cleared his throat. “It wasn’t no choice of ours, but we had female company. Thankfully just the two.”

  Starkweather was horrified by this turn of events. “You knowingly endangered women heretofore out of reach of the enemy, Mr. Jacobs? How could that possibly happen? How could a man of your fortitude succumb to the demands of females wanting to heedlessly risk their lives overtaking a beleaguered army?”

  I swung my head about and studied Tap, along with the others at the fire. The old scout twisted and squirmed but held his infamous temper in check. “They tagged along to tend a soldier badly hurt,” he offered by way of explanation.

  Apparently believing no woman worthy of his acquaintance would be so headstrong and misguided, the aroused captain demanded, “And who is this soldier these silly women risk their lives for?”

  “Sergeant Tor Devlin of the Second Americans. He was struck on the noggin during the big storm an’ can’t walk or hardly talk,” Tap informed Starkweather.

  Tor Devlin? My heart thumped and pounded. Were these women Erin and her mother? Good Lord, the mistress’s mother had somehow departed her sickbed.

  My thinking paralleled that of the captain. “Molly Green has made a remarkable recovery, has she not?” a disbelieving Starkweather ventured.

  “She’s not yet on her feet,” Tap stated. I nearly dropped Bear’s leather pouch, for I knew his next words before he said them. “Her daughter came in her stead.”

  My feelings swept two different directions at once. Erin was here, what I wanted most in all of creation. But being here when the army might soon engage the redsticks in battle exposed her to dangers from which I couldn’t protect her.

  “And who is the second woman?” the captain thought to ask.

  “Bower. Annie Bower,” Tap, keenly aware of Starkweather’s dislike for the harlot, owned up. “Where the daughter goes, she goes. Ain’t no way around it.”

  The captain accepted that, though not with any great pleasure. “How did the Greens learn of the sergeant’s injury?”

  “The soldiers of the Second who escorted Starnes’s train back to Fort Jefferson told them.”

  “And what are Erin’s plans?” the captain continued. “Surely she isn’t intending to accompany the army?”

  It wasn’t lost on me how, unlike his evasive tactics in the past, Starkweather now openly referred to Erin by name, which I took as indisputable proof of his personal attachment to her.

  Tap allowed himself a swig of tea. “No, she ain’t plannin’ to stay long. Bear gave her the loan of his gelding, an’ she brung the family’s cart. She an’ Annie will care for Devlin on the return trip to her mama’s cabin at Fort Jefferson. They’ll set out at dawn if the sergeant’s able.”

  The captain satisfied about Erin for the moment, the conversation then drifted to a discussion of vital information Tap and Bear had collected during their visit to St. Clair’s headquarters. Of utmost importance was the general’s proposal to construct earthworks on the morrow behind which the army would be stationed till such time as the First Americans rejoined the column. Me, I only half listened, lost in a private vision of red hair, blue eyes, magnificent breasts, and finely formed limbs, and the memory of a soft, trilling voice that ignited the best and the worst in a man. God forbid, I was so crazy in love with Erin I couldn’t countenance not having her. I had to at least talk with her before she disappeared again, even if I had to desert the dragoons.

  But bless my yearning soul, it was the captain, my rival for her affection, who saved me from that rank act. His discussion with Bear and Tap at an end, he stood and announced, “Gentlemen, I am retiring. You have my permission to visit at length with your young friend and stay the night. Since the army will not march in the morning, if you find it acceptable, the two ensigns and I will ride with you to the Green cart at dawn and extend a proper farewell to Erin and the unfortunate sergeant.”

  Tap and Bear, delighted as I was with the captain’s hospitality, spread their blankets alongside the fire. Jared kindly brewed more tea before seeking his own bed. Andy Young, yawning heavily, soon joined them.

  A chance to lay eyes on Erin assured, if nothing else, I quickly broached a second nagging problem to Bear and Tap. “How’s Paw? He still furious with me?”

  The two of them exchanged troubled glances. Tap spoke first. “It’s blamed difficult to judge his mood, lad. He don’t never mention you or ask about you.”

  Though it wasn’t surprising, Paw’s stark lack of interest in my doings since I had broken with him hurt me deeply while reaffirming the truth of our differences: He was a proud man who prized loyalty and devotion in his offspring. He held me at fault, and till I sought him out and apologized, I would have no standing with him.

  I tempered the ache in my chest with the only remedy available, what I hoped were happier prospects. “How’s Erin Green?”

  Tap’s seamed face drew near. “Didn’t figure she was any concern of yourn, not with you bein’ a fancy-sworded dragoon an’ all now,” he chided.

  “Well, damn it, how is she?” I persisted.

  The old scout slowly leaned sideways and spat into the fire, deliberately challenging my patience. My mouth sprang open to protest, and Bear snapped, “Tell the lad, you old codger, ’fore he jumps your creakin’ bones an’ does yuh harm.”

  Tap’s head shook with regret. “Yuh ain’t any more pleasant these days than a handful of wet dung, Bear Watkins,” he accused huffily. But Bear’s steely glare kept the old scout’s tongue moving. “She mainly sees to her maw along with Annie. Afternoons, she often sits on the stoop, worryin’ on somethin’ or moonin’ over somebody. I can’t determine which. Either way, she ain’t a terribly happy young lady, not liken she once was.”

  I wanted to believe Erin was mooning over me, but she was probably fretting about her mother’s illness or pining after Miles Starkweather. I simply had no confidence that she could love a lowly ensign of dragoons, though I had twice risked my life rescuing her, for neither occasion had made me handsome nor lined my pockets with gold. And with the St. Clair campaign likely to wind down in two weeks or less, I would shortly be without employment and possess not the bulging purse of oblongs I’d anticipated but a slim packet that would sustain me by myself for just a single winter at most. I’d be fortunate if I owned Blue come the spring. There was, God forbid, the strongest of possibilities I would eventually have to crawl home and beg Paw’s forgiveness to avoid starvation. By any measure, I had nothing to offer an ugly woman, let alone a beautiful one capable of attracting the most eligible man on the frontier.

  Suddenly sorry I’d ever met Erin Green and gloomy as the hell-bound sinner, I took to staring at the fire, Bear and Tap forgotten. Wise and solemn, Bear granted me a couple of quiet minutes in which to appropriately suffer, then said, “Fess up your whiskey canteen, Tap. The lad needs his belly warmed ’fore I start speechifyin’ for his own good.”

  As instructed, Tap retrieved an iron canteen from his haversack and poured liquor till my tin cup was overflowing. Not daring to defy Bear Watkins, I downed three large swallows, felt searing heat from throat to gullet, then dried tears with a thumb. Had I been situated an inch closer to the fire, my breath would surely have exploded.

  Bear grinned, his teeth a yellow wedge above his grossly full beard. “Tap, wide as his eyes be, I do allow he’s ready to hear me out. That tally with you, lad, or do you need another swallow or two?”

  I wagged my head vigorously and wheezed, “No, I don’t need no more. I won’t miss a word, I swear.”

  Bear cocked his shaggy head and listened beyond the fire. “Much bl
underin’ ’round the perimeter this evenin’. The sound of muskets carries clear as the bugling of hounds on a cold, starry night. Hell’s bells, it ain’t midnight yet, an’ the sentries have already wasted a night’s worth of balls. But mayhap tonight there be somethin’ out there besides shadows. Ethan, don’t cowtail to the naysayers. The Injuns ain’t gonna slink off without a fight. They’ll lay into this army the first mornin’ everythin’ seems to favor ’em. They’ll come in a zigzag wave, takin’ advantage of every stitch of cover. You won’t spy but a painted skull here, a banded arm there, a leather-clad leg yonder, an’ then only for an instant. It won’t be liken when they clumb the loft ladder an’ yuh could kill ’em one after the other. Quicker’n lightning, they’ll be everywhere, on every side of yuh. An’ the redcoats have taught them who to down first—officers, artillerymen, and those on horseback, the dragoons—which puts you in the greatest danger from the first shot. But unlike when they jumped you an’ the gal and killed Hardy Booth, yuh can’t cut an’ run an’ save yourself the first opportunity. You’re under the oath now, an’ if’n yuh quit the field before a retreat’s ordered, the army will brand yuh a coward an’ hang yuh. No matter what, yuh got to stick with your troop an’ abide by Starkweather’s biddin’.”

  Bear paused to gather breath. “Now for what you must never forget, Ethan, or it’ll be the death of you. In the frenzy of battle, yuh must fight with all the fury you can muster but still keep your wits about yuh. Keep up a steady fire an’ don’t get separated from your fellows. Always be ready to charge. Yuh lose your rifle or that new sword, don’t hesitate to strip the dead. Remember, whether yuh win or be routed, only the upright depart the field. Yuh takin’ to what I’m learnin’ yuh, lad?”