Thunder in the Valley Read online

  Also by Jim R. Woolard

  Riding With Morgan

  Riding for the Flag

  Thunder in the Valley

  The Winds of Autumn

  Blood at Dawn

  Thunder in the Valley

  Jim R. Woolard

  LYRICAL PRESS

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  www.kensingonbooks.com

  All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

  Table of Contents

  Also by Jim R. Woolard

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Prologue

  Matthan Hannar’s Recounting

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Epilogue

  Teaser chapter

  To the extent that the image or images on the cover of this book depict a person or persons, such person or persons are merely models, and are not intended to portray any character or characters featured in the book.

  LYRICAL PRESS BOOKS are published by

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  119 West 40th Street

  New York, NY 10018

  Copyright © 1995 by Jim R. Woolard

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

  Lyrical Press and Lyrical Press logo Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.

  First Electronic Edition: June 2017

  ISBN: 978-1-5161-0161-0

  Prologue

  Marietta, Ohio

  January 5, 1836

  To my son,

  Matthan Hannar, Jr.,

  The task I face is an onerous one, and I suspect I lack the courage, if not the strength, for finishing it.

  No man fancies recollecting those occasions on which he found himself scared nigh onto death, been worried so great his innards hurt, or worse yet, proved himself god-awful foolish. But my beclouded past threatens us anew and may yet imperil what for you is a most promising future. Lord knows such a prospect gnaws at my vitals morning and night.

  I have long hankered to jaw with you about the rumors and half-truths making the rounds twixt the locals since you stepped under the political tent by declaring yourself for Congress.

  And therein nests my problem.

  You surely are aware of how I can’t exchange personals. It’s not that I be cold-boned. Somehow feelin’s and sentiments always stay my tongue. And since my big black spell back at the harvest moon, a red-eyed drunkard fares better with words than yours truly. In short, I can’t abide looking the fool.

  Matthan . . . I can’t honestly and won’t falsely profess amends for what I been guilty of in the past. A man traverses many paths in the precious few years his Maker grants him. Sometimes, with forethought, much sweat, and a heaping dose of pluck, a good man can skirt clear of trouble. Other times, no matter how good a man be, happenings catch him up in a brew of bad tidings that sap most all his strength just to keep plugging along and holding his nose above water.

  Your detractors claim I was—and still am and always will be—a liar, a thief, and a traitor because of what transpired back there in the winter of 17 and 92. lf any credence is given the backbiting of them who never bark in the light of day, it appears I ungratefully ducked my chance before the bar of justice. Seems I taken out for New Orleans and made my pile of gold in the river trade whilst those few knowing the true story of my supposed foul deeds shed their lifeblood in the Injun troubles of 17 and 94.

  I ain’t disgruntled over the ease with which many of our townsfolk embrace that side of certain past events. Each and every soul paints pictures of things past with his own brush. And just as surely, most folks find themselves too contrary for ever allowing they might have daubed wrong colors on a few canvasses.

  What I must do is set down my own recounting as well as I am able. I wish you no misfortune. You are a good son. You seldom failed to please. You got your chores and your recitations. Even your reading for the law didn’t displeasure me once I reckoned it was your prime ambition.

  There is also your whelp—my grandson—preying on me. He is such a savior on mean days. It would certain be the death of me if little Matthan, the Third, ever believed poorly of his “Gan-Paw.”

  I trust I can sustain a firm hand. My limbs suffer me with the onset of winter, and I struggle with my wind. I study the cold and snow outside the office here at the boatyard and remember long and hard, for the cold was as bitter and the snow even deeper back along the Muskingum in 17 and 92. I can only pray that the elements, instead of hampering my writing, sharpen my memory and my quill.

  When I finish, you may do with these papers as you wish. I will take pains and not ramble and wander and burden you with too many particulars. Nonetheless, I must tell enough that you might could well decide that any creature worth its salt, when menaced by danger at every turn, and forced to stand alone, can only follow the trail that unfolds before him, no matter what the Lord serves him up.

  ’Tis all I have ever demanded of you.

  Your loving father,

  Matthan Hannar

  Matthan Hannar’s Recounting

  Chapter 1

  Morning—January 7, 1792

  It has been some forty odd years since the Ballard brothers ambushed me on the seventh day of January, 17 and 92.

  Even if I live another forty years, I’ll never forgive myself for letting them take such liberties with me. Before the day ended, my whole life turned upside down, never to be the same again.

  I can remember everything about that cold clear morning. Before I met up with the Ballards, I was a mighty happy lad marching home along Wolf Creek, downright pleased with anything and everything. And why not? I was warmly garbed in moccasins, linsey-woolsey breeches, buckskin hunting frock, and pelt cap—nothing for courting the fair damsel in, I admit, but no better garments could be had for the hunting trail in crisp weather.

  I toted a fine flintlock rifle that morning, a rifle that seldom failed me, and on my back I bore the quarters of the buck deer I’d slain with it just an hour before. And if warm bones, a fine rifle that smelt of burnt powder, and a heavy pack burdened with the meat of a fresh kill didn’t come close to heaven on earth, downstream at our home place my stepfather, John Hannar, back from a venture up the Muskingum, and Uncle Jeremiah eagerly awaited my return. I chuckled. No jerked beef or salt pork would grace the Hannar table this night. We’d eat prime buck, and nothing less would do.

  It had been a grand morning, and it tickled me I owed the brindle cow for my success. Yesterday afternoon she’d drifted away from her shed. A quick quartering of the ground at the edge of our clearing confirmed she’d moseyed along the north bank of Wolf Creek. I’d suspected right off she could be found grazing in the meadow across the ford a few miles upstream. Even in winter, whenever left un-penned or untended, she sought the last of the good grasses there.

  Despite my confidence I followed her path those few miles with sweeping eye and ready gun. Just a few weeks back General St. Clair’s army had suffered a horrendous defeat at the hands of the Ohio Indians, and the victors were free to kill and plunder throughout the territory. The cow needed bringing in, but not at the cost of my hair.

  She was there in the far
reaches of the upstream meadow all right, head down, feeding without a care for anything else. I stood firm in a copse of oak and eyed the woods about her. Satisfied she was alone, I loped across and slapped a lead rope round her neck. Just then I sighted the deer tracks. Four sets of hoofprints bordered the trees in each direction in an irregular, yet steady line. Each print seemed of the same size and depth. My heart quickened. They’d all been made by one animal.

  Squatting, my probing finger found the freshest of the hoofprints firm-edged with only tiny leaf bits and little upturned dirt in the center. That made them no more than a half dozen hours old. The others, if aged by their content and how much frost and sun had blurred and flattened the edges of them, looked one, two, and possibly three days old. Their message sounded clear as the peal of thunder on a quiet summer afternoon. Coming first round the eastern hill in front of me, the solitary deer browsed northward every morning.

  It was a perfect setting for the whitetail. The trees shielded the rising sun well past dawn, creating shadows through which he fed his way with a feeling of security for a morning drink at the creek. The animal, unless disturbed or spooked, would no doubt continue his sunrise ritual tomorrow. And I would be here awaiting. I led that poor brindle cow home at a pace just short of a gallop, shooting appetite thoroughly whetted.

  Even the poorness of the evening didn’t dampen my spirits. Uncle Jeremiah, tortured by a lame ankle, acted cross and snappish as a she-bear guarding her cubs, and Stepfather, just that day back from his Muskingum venture, proved no better company. The cough he’d acquired in the Harmar Indian Campaign of 17 and 91 doubled him up on the rope bed opposite the hearth. I tended the stock and quietly sought the husk bed in the sleeping loft.

  Uncle Jeremiah, bless him, recovered in time and wished me Godspeed next morning. Out and under way before first light, I waded the creek below where the shoulder of that eastern hill nudged the opposite bank and padded for a spot between two large elms from which the length of the meadow could be seen. Stones gathered from along the edge of the water and mounded between the trees provided a solid shooting rest for my flintlock. I settled in, wedging a shoulder against one of the elms, and removed the deerskin cover from the lock of the rifle. With the hammer pulled to half cock, the frizzen opened freely. I primed the firing pan with fine grain powder, closed the frizzen, and snugged the hammer all the way back.

  A white oak down at the other end of the meadow stood out clearly in the graying dawn, a perfect sighting target. By candlelight at the cabin I’d loaded the rifle with a full seventy-two grain charge of powder. Though I’d hold fire till my prey reached the midpoint of the meadow for a sure shot, that first shot had to be hard and telling. There’d be no time for a second before the deer gained the trees close at hand.

  I started my watch. Spotting deer required considerable skill and Uncle Jeremiah had schooled me well. First you looked at the whole meadow at the same time, not just some likely section of it. That way, any movement stood out and told you where to look in earnest. Otherwise you trusted your ears, which, in light of how quietly deer sometimes skulked about, greatly limited the likelihood of making a successful kill.

  I caught the flicking of a pair of large ears above a screening of brush long before the white-tailed buck pranced into the meadow and commenced feeding. He nibbled at twigs and small branches along the forest fringe, pausing every once in a while to scan his surroundings. A wary devil and for good reason. An antler stub flopped loosely on the side of his head and a long scar zigzagged down his neck. Some scuffle had taken a pretty severe toll on him. He fed his way patiently toward me, and I just as patiently let him come on.

  He got within fifty yards when all of a sudden his tail twitched, his head popped up, and he stared straight in my direction. I held my breath. I hadn’t moved. No wind stirred. He hadn’t scented me. Then his ears jiggled and I knew some far-off noise too faint for my hearing was bothering him.

  He listened long and hard. Eventually, deciding nothing really threatened him, he turned his head and stretched for a high branch, ully exposing the base of his throat and the top of his shoulder. I drew a bead on that juncture of his body and squeezed off my shot.

  The slam of the ball buckled his knees. His tail dropped and he lunged for the trees in a staggering death run.

  I let him go. Sticking with Uncle Jeremiah’s teachings, I made ready in case the gunshot’s echoing roll attracted hostile Injun attention. I scampered upright behind the elms, greased linen patch and metal pick from the box in the stock of the flintlock gripped between my teeth.

  I measured with powder horn and charge cup, and with gun resting butt first on the ground, poured the precise charge of French black down the barrel. Next down the barrel, swathed in the greased linen patch and powered by a thrust of the hickory ramrod, went a ball from my shot pouch. I tamped patch and ball home and reseated the ramrod inside the thimbles and groove under the barrel with a slight snick of noise.

  A flick of the wrist swept the butt of the rifle off the ground and balanced the weapon in my left hand with the lock at belly level. An off-hand tug set the hammer at half cock and exposed the firing pan. The tail of my hunting frock served as a handy rag for wiping clean the pan, the flint held by the jaws of the hammer, and the frizzen. A jab and twist of the metal pick reamed clean the touchhole in the bottom of the pan. Priming the pan with more powder completed the reloading, and off I went after the whitetail.

  I disdained the open meadow, circled the shoulder of that eastern hill, and trotted northward along the bottom of a dry ravine. At the point I figured the buck entered the trees on the far hillside I started climbing. My luck held true. I topped the hill and over left of me, short of the crest, lay the buck, glazed eyes wide open, blood pooled ’neath his scarred neck.

  I gutted and skinned him hastily, dressed the quarters and bundled them in the hide. Something had alerted that wild dead creature—some unnatural sound—and that festered in my craw. Being a fair distance from home and probably the only white man out and about for miles, I felt lonely and exposed even with close-by trees and brush masking my presence. The safety of the cabin and the companionship of Stepfather and Jeremiah seemed all at once of paramount importance.

  I abandoned the rest of the carcass and back-tracked for Wolf Creek. Early on I stuck behind good cover, checked my back trail, and moved at a slow, careful pace. But as a boy is prone when the winter sun warms his homeward-bound backside, my stride lengthened and the worry faded the farther I walked and the more I dreamily relived the morning hunt. How I fairly wanted to burst out and whistle a tune. I marched past the creek bend short of our cabin as carelessly as a love-befuddled stag in the rut.

  And there stood the Ballard brothers, Timothy and Joseph, one on either side of the footpath, rifles leveled and centered on my breastbone.

  “Freeze right thar,” Timothy ordered.

  I done as I was told. Let me tell you, those Ballards never were anything much to look at, what with their sparse black beards, long noses, beady gray eyes, and flesh white as milk. On top of that their hats drooped with age, animal blood stained their greatcoats, and their leather boots were badly worn at sole and heel. They smelt of wood smoke and manure and appeared duller than opossums in a motherly way. Some joked on them. But not I. Uncle Jeremiah’d admonished me once these two boys enjoyed a lick of dirty work long as the pay followed right after in gold coin. Little, if anything, was beneath them.

  “Matthan,” Timothy said, “us’ens won’t harm you lest you get contrary. Now Joseph is goin’ round behin’ you an’ lay holt on that thar rifle.... You understan’?”

  I nodded my head.

  “You put that rifle butt agin the groun’ an’ keep lookin’ me right in the face. You look anywheres elst an’ I’ll blow a hole in your brisket.... You understan’?”

  I nodded again.

  “What about his knife an’ tomahawk?” queried Joseph.

  “Pitch ’em,” Timothy responded.
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  I stood quietly while they disarmed me.

  Timothy shifted his feet. He fixed me with a gaze cold as dead ashes and said slowly, “Now, Matthan, we all gonna head down fur the edge of your clearin’. I’ll be in front an’ Joseph straight behin’. . . . You understan’?”

  He drew still another nod from me.

  “Now, Matthan, donna get your pride up over this an’ try somethin’ stupid. Donna fret ’cause we tracked an’ taken you so easy. And donna try warnin’ your step-paw. If’n you give out with a peep or taken a misstep, Joseph’s gonna blow your backbone in two.... You understan’?”

  I studied on his words—no fool this one. Nevertheless, I allowed as how once we were in single file and moving, the deer meat shielding my back might stop a shot from Joseph’s gun and give me the opportunity to pounce on Timothy. But Timothy, studying on how I was right big for a lad of ten and nine years, thought right with me. He smiled a yellow-toothed smile.

  “Best drop the pack before we leave out of here, Matthan. We wouldn’ want anythin’ twixt your backside an’ a bullit, would we now?”

  Respect for Timothy growing by the instant, I slid the straps from my shoulders and let the bundle of deer meat tumble into the dirt at my heels. The two of them had me in a box without a lid. I could only silently curse myself for letting them put me there without a struggle.

  “Leave us go. Big people be awaitin’,” snapped Timothy.

  Chapter 2

  Noon—January 7

  We started down the footpath as my captors ordered, Timothy in the lead, then me, then Joseph. Being marched home at rifle point, vitals a-jumble, mouth dry as an empty bucket, hands clammy, legs wobbly, made for an unsavory experience. The awareness my captivity stemmed solely from my own carelessness and foolishness didn’t make it any easier either.