Fort Robinson (Perry County, Pennsylvania Frontier Series)

by Roy F. Chandler

  George's wagon led the first party moving west to stay. Despite assurances that the vehicles would return for additional loads and that everything would in time arrive at the new sites, wagons were overloaded.

  The men were as much at fault as the women. They added another ax or keg as often as their wives stuffed in a favored bucket or bench. It was nearly noon before they got away. Fourteen heavy loads with men and a few women lurched west, heading for the ferry at Harris's.

  George had an extra passenger. In his planning he had figured on both Mary and Ann staying behind with the children. They would work the fields and set examples for other families that might be slow about getting crops underway. Agnes would come to cook for James and him and probably Robert. The men would concentrate on the new cabins and on turning new fields.

  When he mounted his wagon prepared to signal the start, George found Martha Robinson seated primly in her rocker amid the load.

  Martha Robinson took some understanding. Probably seventy years of age, her husband had died decades before. Childless, Martha had resumed her maiden name, a previously unheard of action, and over the years assumed a status of senior aunt to everyone. A sprightly woman of vast determination, she nursed the sick, exhorted the reluctant, taught the young, and bided with about whomever she chose. She was the most opinionated woman George could recall encountering, and her opinions were usually, if sometimes annoyingly, correct.

  He examined Martha a bit dolefully, for her intentions were clear. She had a bundle aboard and a determined set to her jaw.

  "Now Martha, we hadn't figured you were coming along this first trip."

  "Well, George, if anybody had bothered to ask, they would have known!"

  "It isn't going to be comfortable out there, Martha. We'll all be camping and crowding, and there won't be time for making things nice."

  "Now George, I was in these woods before the Indians were cleared and long before the rest of you came clattering along. I know how it will be. And I know you will need good cooking and someone handy to keep things straightened out. That will be me!"

  Weakly, George said, "Well, if you're sure, Martha . . ."

  "I'm sure, George. Let's be off. It's getting late."

  The climb over Kittatinny was a harrowing grind. A wagon lost a wheel, and the entire line bogged to a halt. George had insisted on good distance between the wagons during the climb, so they were able to set brakes and chock their wheels with rocks letting the strain off teams without anybody colliding.

  With most helping, they muscled the wagon and its load, high enough to fit an extra wheel then tried it again. Almost immediately a top-heavy wagon crept too near an edge, tipped precariously, and tumbled much of its burden down the mountain. Swearing and struggling, the nearest men re-chocked their wheels and hustled to save the wagon from going over team and all. One wagon had to be double-teamed to make the climb, and there was more than a little hollering about fools who loaded too heavy. George held his tongue, but he surely hoped his people learned enough from the mess to listen to advice from here on.

  The going down was worse. After his own wagon nearly got away, George insisted they hook a team behind each wagon and use those animals as a brake. It worked fine, but it was dusk when they camped at the first meadows. Everybody's patience was worn thin, and their bodies were tired out.

  The next day proved rough going through Sherman's Creek where the cliffs forced them into the water. The stream was high with spring run-off and some loads got wet, but from there on they rolled easily and made the blockhouse on George's land sooner than they had expected.

  Robert met them two miles before the fort, trotting into view from the woods with his rifle held high in greeting. He shook George's hand, pummeled James enthusiastically, kissed Agnes's rosy cheek with hungry delicacy and Martha's with a certain respectful reserve.

  Martha looked him over closely, "You look peaked, boy, and your clothes could stand alone! Good thing I'm here!" Robert fled to halloo the others.

  A few wagons guided by Robert turned off before the blockhouse. Other teams would turn and plunge straight into the forest, lunging and swerving without road or trail to follow. A little later, Robert would reappear, running easily to catch up, and soon another wagon would turn aside, perhaps into a meadow or even up a brush-choked draw. These were Robinsons who had been out before and had picked out plantations that suited them. The rest camped near the Deer Spring and the reassuring bulk of George's fort.

  For the first time, night fires sparked along the creek and a light glowed within the blockhouse.

  Robert and James were off visiting. Agnes and Martha were tending a family whose belongings had been soaked in the creek.

  George stood alone on the higher ground, satisfying himself with the good beginning. The first were here, and the rest would straggle into place during the summer. Logans and others would settle all around.

  He would get his cabin up and at least a garden started. It would be full summer before Mary came out. Seemed they were apart a lot these days, but that would end with them all settled into their own place, maybe never to move again.

  George watched the twinkle of fires, heard the rattle of kitchen things, and listened as Robert's sudden whoop rose from downstream. That quick, the place had a settled feel to it. One day it was quiet and empty wilderness, the next it had people building and planting.

  An ax started, and someone whistled near a wagon. Another laughed, and a woman joined in. George felt good about it. He guessed he would go down. A lot of people would be asking his plans for sending the wagons back, what animals would stay, how they would work out helping each other, and probably which way was north.

  He smiled a little grimly to himself. None of them were really good at this opening new country, but they would begin gaining a little. A man would build a shed here, open a field there, help raise a cabin, and make a root cellar. One day they would look around and the farms would be neat and thriving with family businesses providing for needs, and none would know quite how it had all come about.

  The night wind still had teeth, and George tugged his hat down to his ears. Sparks sailed high as a man poked at his fire, and George wondered if Long Knife sat on a distant ridge brooding over the changes coming to his valley.

  Well, the Indian's day was past in these parts. Unless, of course, Braddock didn't lick the French real good and proper. If that happened, some tribes could take heart from it and come down the old trails seeking scalps. And if that occurred, the Robinson fort would come in more than a little handy.

  George delayed a little longer, wondering if they should get on with putting up a stockade. There would be no way of getting all these people inside the blockhouse if there was trouble, but he didn't see how he could get the men to give up on their own places when there didn't seem to be any nearby danger.

  Maybe he should send Robert into the woods to whoop around and let fly with a few fire arrows. That would rouse their interest! He grinned at his own foolishness and strode through the winter-dried creepers to let the nearest wagon get at him. George decided he would talk about a stockade and see how people felt before he jumped in too hard, but he would feel a lot better if they had protection for everyone.

  — — —

  George and James came to their fire fully tuckered out. Their hands stayed curled from a long day gripping ax handles, and their bodies slumped with the weariness of dawn till dark hauling and lifting.

  This day they had worked on George's cabin and planned to again tomorrow. Robert worked with them some, but mostly he hunted. Today he had chopped all morning at George's, then he had gone over to his own place where they had heard him whacking away at something. Finally he went hunting and was still out.

  Robert wasn't putting up a cabin yet. He planned on living with Ann and James for a while, but he was doing something over there on his land that he hadn't told anyone about.

  Agnes had been given a tour of Robert's holdings. The coupl
e had been doing a lot of private and serious talking since they had gotten out here, but George hadn't seen any hand holding or sneaking off together. He and James had mentioned it occasionally, and James thought it just might not be too long until one or the other made a move.

  Once, when Agnes brought their lunch, George had asked her straight out. "Nancy, when are you going to hobble that Robert? You wait too long and your house will be the last to go up."

  When George used her pet name, Agnes knew he was concerned, and she pleased him by sitting on the low wall they had been throwing up and talked seriously,

  "Do you think he's ready, George? Robert is a scary one, and I don't want him complaining for the rest of his life about how he married too young and never had a chance to do things. I've heard that from a lot of Robinson men, you know."

  "Yup, I've heard it too, but Robert is old enough, and Nancy, he looks ripe for plucking to me."

  Still serious, she turned to James, "What do you think, James? You're his best friend."

  James tugged at an ear and studied his feet. Finally he said, "Agnes, I think the minute we get these cabins roofed we should start in on your and Robert's place.

  "The way I see it, Robert will always be just like he is now. He will run the woods more than he'll plow, but he won't ever let things run down. If you look close, and I reckon you have, you notice that Robert has the best of whatever he chooses to own. I figure it'll be just the same with your cabin and plantation. Somehow, and don't ask me just how, Robert will end up a'top the pile."

  He stopped to grin at her, "Old Robert won't run off on you, Agnes. Fact is, he's just trying to figure a way to change things between you from being friends to people in love. You know how close we've gotten over the past year or so; seems I can almost read his thoughts sometimes, and just as George says, he's ready for plucking."

  Robert's ways did tend to be different and that held right through his courting. The story rolled James on the ground, and George liked telling it for the rest of his life.

  One evening, when the two cabins were near completion, Robert came early from his hunting. He carried only a single duck, and Martha turned to plant an oral barb or two. She took a look at the determination set in his face, saw that he was glaring at Agnes's innocent back hard enough to char cloth and decided to wait a bit.

  Robert's voice was husky and strained and about as appealing as a bear's. He startled Agnes half out of her wits.

  "Agnes, I've something to show you over at my place, and I'd appreciate it if you would lay down whatever you're doing and come right now!"

  He stalked off not waiting for her, driving his moccasins into the ground, and holding his rifle as though a pack of hostiles might leap from ambush.

  Agnes looked wryly amused at Martha, who half-hid her own laughter behind her hand while waving the girl to hurry along. Agnes gathered her skirts and struggled after Robert who was moving smartly.

  Halfway across the meadow, Martha saw Robert stop and wait for Agnes, but they continued on, walking swiftly, like two strangers just happening to be going in the same direction.

  When they reached the hillock where Robert planned to build, he stopped with Agnes panting and looking so rosy-cheeked from the fast walking that he nearly forgot his words.

  "Agnes!" The loudness of his own voice startled him. He made it a little more reasonable and started over.

  "Agnes, it's more than time we quit standing around waiting. You aren't getting any younger, and there are children to be raised and grandchildren after that!"

  Agnes knew Robert wasn't the most tactful Robinson around, but she thought it a good thing she loved him or she'd have punched his nose.

  "Now Agnes, I've waited as long as I'm going to for you to get over your highfaluting ways. It's time we got married, and you got settled down to being a proper wife instead of gallivanting all over the camp doing this and doing that!"

  Astounded, Agnes could only stare, and Robert took encouragement, knowing he was handling it just right. He had practiced this speech a lot. He wanted it just so, sort of tender and not too strong, so she would know what he was saying without him having to explain a lot of things.

  Satisfied, he took her arm, half dragging her into his small cleared space. "Now Agnes, I haven't put up a cabin, of course. That is something we'd best do together. But I haven't been loafing, and I've built you something as near important, and I'm guaranteeing it's the best this side of Lancaster."

  He turned her, proud of his accomplishment and certain of her approval.

  Robert had worked hard. He had split logs into planks. He had pegged everything together. He had carved a proper seat, hung a solid door, and put it all over a really deep pit. Robert had built the finest outhouse west of Lancaster.

  Agnes walked around it, tried the door, looked into the pit, but delicately avoided testing the seat for size. She wasn't sure whether to cry or giggle. That Robert! For weeks they had wondered what he was building, but he had held his tongue, and they hadn't pried.

  In a place where everybody still hunkered over a trench hanging onto a limb for balance, it was valuable, it was beautifully done, and it was exceedingly thoughtful, but mostly it was unusual.

  Words escaped her, and she saw that he was getting nervous and starting to lose his certainty.

  Well, she had had enough of unusual things for one day. Agnes walked close and put her arms around him. She felt him fumble to prop his rifle against something, and she gently pulled his head down into a kiss filled with her love and appreciation. His arms closed her tight, and distantly she heard the rifle slide and crash to the ground, but Robert didn't appear to notice.

  — — —

  With spring opening around him, Harry Kirknee headed north. His leather-clad knees gripped his horse's barrel with an ease born of nearly a year in the saddle. His broad hat shaded sun-darkened features that outdoor living had filled and strengthened. His body had muscled and grown as well, and he handled his long rifle with a familiarity that spoke of regular use.

  Kirknee rode alone, his former companions a distant memory. They had faltered where he had adapted. By now they were in England. They would have delivered his messages to the Brodish and were by this time settled back into the mire of London that they had missed so dearly.

  There were moments when Kirknee thought fondly of his old London haunts. When he returned with Wylie and Ann, he would enjoy seeing them again, but his visit would be short. He would be stifled within the crowding and hopeless squalor. He belonged now to this new world. He had survived in it for a year, and he had learned how to make his way. The wilderness fed his spirit, and he knew that without it he would never again feel whole.

  Kirknee had traveled south, clear into the Cherokee Nation and the Georgia settlement. He had found no trace of Wylie. He considered the possibility of their having boarded a ship for another land. He rejected the idea. His quarry had no funds or resources to afford fleeing by ship, and he found it ever harder to believe that, once having discovered this land, either Wylie or Ann Brodish would leave it.

  He rode north, a hunter as much a part of the land as those who tilled or traded on it. His new plan began at Philadelphia where he would call on the Brodish agent for money and any information available. Then he would start again, fanning his search outward from the city. He had heard that new land had opened in the Pennsylvania Colony. That direction appealed to him. There was also New York and on past Boston. The thought plagued him that Wylie could have run even in that direction.

  Chapter 12

  Bright Dove had been seeking tender watercress from the creek bank, and the water sound had hidden the men's approach. She saw the three whites too late to hide and stood calf deep in the creek, her skirt hiked to her knees, holding her partly filled basket in both hands.

  The men leaned on their long guns examining the squaw as they might a roasting pork joint.

  "Now there's a likely gal, Josh. Young enough not to be all wrinkled an'
scrawnied out."

  "Reckon she's alone? We ain't seen nobody else."

  "'Course she ain't alone, you fool. What'd a woman be doin' all alone out here?" Then cunningly, "Question is, how fur away is her man?"

  The others snickered in growing excitement.

  The one called Josh was skinny with a bobbing Adams apple and badly pocked features. "We goin' to do it, boys?" His throat convulsed spasmodically, "Won't take no time, an' we can make fast tracks afore she raises a holler."

  The oldest of the trio, a man of girth with thick neck and sweaty features, scratched and looked about the forest. "Don't see no others, an' even if she is an Injun, we'uns've been out a long time." He licked thick lips, "Figure you can get her a'fore she gets to screechin', Josh?"

  "I'll get her, Dunk. You jest hold my gun an' pouch so they don't get wetted."

  The Dove watched from the stream. She was a long walk from the lodge and could expect no help. She saw the man remove his hunting pouch and guessed his purpose. Carefully she backed toward the far bank and prepared herself to run.

  Smirking foolishly, the one called Josh stepped into the water holding his arms apart invitingly and sweet-talking endearments that made his friends snicker. Finding the squaw keeping her distance, he lunged forward. The woman darted downstream, but as he turned, she reversed her steps and fled up the bank, leaving him stumbling and cursing the slick bottom.

  Still, he was far quicker, and Bright Dove had only gone a few yards when he closed in on her. He reached wildly, and she spun around flailing her basket in a raking swipe that gashed his temple and made him miss.

  She was gone in an instant, and he could hear his companions splashing across behind him. This time he caught her, and they went to the ground in a tangle.