Thunder in the Valley Page 17

  My recounting must end here for the winter. My hand grows feeble, the quill heavy as lead. My strength fades long before the light of each day.

  I have, howsomever, one final heart-wrenching favor to ask of you, never minding if that favor might ruin your deepest feelings for me.

  At Cheyney’s Crossing over the Ohio in Virginia, a respected and fair-haired lady of considerable years owns a wayside inn and tavern named The Tall Man. The owner was never betrothed but turned up at the Crossing in 17 and 93 with an infant child.

  This dear woman is never to know want, I beg of you.

  Pray, let me explain when explanation is most difficult. I learned many things from Tice Wentsell after our New Orleans reunion. He told me Zelda Shaw overcame her afflictions and birthed a child in the autumn of 17 and 92. Never turning cheek she purchased the inn at the Crossing and, alone, raised a fine son, a son she named Matthan Shaw, the same Matthan Shaw who superintends our Marietta yard, the same Matthan Shaw I’m at last admitting is, in truth, your half brother.

  I hope and pray you will watch over Matthan Shaw and his family, and if necessary, his mother. Lord knows we can afford to offer sustenance for all those, few as they are, we hold near and dear.

  Care for them, I ask of you. But tell Matthan Shaw nothing of his true beginnings. I trust you not to cower or embarrass him, but love him as a brother rather than from afar as I have, for I dare not claim him without violating his mother Zelda’s wishes, which I will never do.

  May the Lord guide you and help you through the surprises and deathbed revelations of an old he-goat such as me, who must pay for his past deeds, both fair and foul, so he can at least sleep a few nights without bad dreams.

  No matter what you decide, I will love you no less, ever.

  I only pray you can say the same for me, both now . . . and when I’m gone.

  Godspeed, my favorite son.

  Keeping reading for a special excerpt of

  THE WINDS OF AUTUMN

  by

  Two-Time WWA Spur Award Winner

  JIM R. WOOLARD

  Jim R. Woolard’s classic western of a family torn apart by a savage, untamed territory, and their relentless struggle for survival—and revenge . . .

  Deep in the Ohio Valley, the Tyler family laid claim to a new life. But one deadly evening changed everything. Under a moonless night, the family is beset by rampaging Shawnee. In the red storm of bullets, arrows, and knives, Blake and Blaine Tyler emerge bloodied but alive. But their parents have been brutally murdered. And their sister, Sarah, is the victor’s spoils for a war party long gone.

  Undeterred, the brothers set off across the Ohio River. Two against one embittered nation makes poor odds. But revenge has a way of getting the job done . . .

  Chapter 1

  Sunset, September 10

  On the tenth of September 17 and 90, the Shawnee attacked what Paw proudly called the Tyler Plantation on Tygart’s Creek in present-day Greenup County.

  It wasn’t a totally unexpected turn of events for those days. After all, in the spring and summer before the Harmar Campaign, the Shawnee and Wyandot seemed to be everywhere along the wide Ohio, killing, burning and looting at their whim. Every now and then they’d dart snake-quick deep into Kentucky seeking plunder and prime horses, and one early morning they showed their faces on Ty-gart’s Creek.

  What made the September raid different from all the others was that the Injun troubles finally came to roost in our henhouse, hitting my family terribly hard. Those few short minutes of panic and sudden death nearly destroyed the Tyler clan, and lured me and my brother into a northern trek after the Shawnee beset with utmost danger and fearsome odds. Before the long rifle again hung over the mantle, Blake and I surely learned the cruelest way possible, never to be forgotten, how much we all rely and count upon the courage and love of our fellow men, females being in the particular.

  If the Shawnee attack wasn’t totally unexpected, the happenings of the evening and night hours just before, what with the spoiled homecoming, rum drinking, midnight windstorm and carelessness at keeping watch, proved highly unusual . . . and made us Tylers easy prey for the red heathen.

  The homecoming began at sunset with Blake’s fording of Ty-gart’s Creek on his white-faced bay. Two packhorses loaded with goods and supplies splashed water in his wake.

  Sister Sarah sighted him first as he reined the bay onto the pathway that wound between patches of maize and leafy tobacco and ended in our dooryard. Overcome with joy, she yelped like a young hound and bolted down the lane. From a horse stall I heard her gleeful cry, and suspecting the cause of it, toted my hay fork over to the barn door for a look-see.

  Blake spied Sarah, tall and leggy at ten and seven, loping to greet him home, and rose in iron stirrups and called her name long and loud. The sound of his call echoed through the creek bottom and Sarah leaned into the running, hard shoepacks puffing the dust of the pathway. Golden hair whipped about behind her like a ship’s pennant. They shared a secret bond these two, something special and inseparable.

  Blake had been away three weeks, he and Lem Shakett, who trailed the pack animals on a well-knit mare. They were returning from far-off Limestone over west on the Ohio, where they’d bartered spare horses and corn liquor for powder, salt, steel traps and a new plow share. Equally important, they’d bear news of how soon the militia expedition from Fort Washington against the Ohio Injuns would break camp. Everyone in Kentucky not in the ranks had an ear to the ground about General Harmar’s upcoming campaign, and prayed the bated Redsticks would finally be routed for good. Yet many older bordermen, Lem and my paw included, had little faith in the general and his federal superiors. The doubters had been disappointed by past failures. They worried the whole affair might go bust even with Pennsylvaney companies bolstering our side of things.

  Next down the lane bounded nine-year-old half-brother Adam, anxious for a rib-crushing hug from the family hunter he worshiped and followed everywhere. In his fist he waved the carved wooden pistol he was never without.

  I was as happy as Sarah and Adam with Blake and Lem’s arrival home, happy and relieved. Paw’s sprung back and hip hampered his work something fierce. I’d been busier’n a bee the past three weeks with home-place chores and daily rides upstream checking the improvement manned with Paw’s five slaves. Young Adam tried his darnest, but his penchant for boyish daydreams of future forays chasing Injuns with his hero Blake kept him from being any solid help.

  From the dooryard Blake rode out of the setting sun. Yellowish light haloed his slouch hat, wide shoulders and the barrel of the Lancaster long rifle cradled in one arm. He had a knack, my brother, for appearing at the most uplifting and opportune moment. He breathed excitement into the dullest of days with his mere presence. Women took immediate notice and after one glance at his sandy hair, gray eyes and square, clean-shaven jaw, few were ever the same again. Though Iwas enough like him that I was often mistaken for Blake, the Lord hadn’t blessed me with his gift for seizing the attention of others without doubt or nervousness. I suppose, if totally honest with myself, I worshiped him nigh onto as much as Sarah and Adam.

  Blake cleared a stirrup and first Sarah, grabbing the bay’s mane with her good arm, followed, in turn, by Adam, stepped up for the embrace of their hero. Never backward about partaking of any celebration, Lem could no longer restrain himself. He thrust his long rifle skyward and bellowed a mighty “scalp halloo.”

  A pitiful squawk of terror answered from the main stoop of our double cabin. I didn’t need look there from my spot before the barn and fenced pasture, thirty yards away, to know from whose tongue that cowardly wail had leapt. Three years on Tygart’s Creek fearing Injun attack day and night had loosened Step-mother’s moorings. Any hint the Redsticks might lurk within thirty miles sent her into a lather of nerves. Her courage had shrunk to that of a beaten pup.

  Paw stood stone-faced in front of her on the doorstep. A hickory crutch held him steady, and my twin half-sisters
, Edna and Elsie, each clutched a breeches leg. The girls were five and sprouting despite constant complaints and noses that never dried. Their mother’s fright had them thoroughly spooked.

  Step-mother Emma’s childish outburst stilled all of us except Adam. His joy was all-consuming. He jumped down from Blake’s stirrup and ran yelling for Lem. And Lem, fully aware some amends were in order, seated Adam before him and walked the mare straight-as-a-string for the crowded stoop.

  Edna and Elsie, skittish at the drop of a feather, fled into the cabin. Step-mother hastily closed the door, flattened against Paw and meekly held her ground. Lem turned the mare sideways, lowered Adam from the saddle and sought Step-mother over Paw’s shoulder with his one good eye. His smile flashed broken and missing teeth.

  “Even’n, Mother Tyler,” he rasped.

  Step-mother cringed. At close range Lem’s countenance and garb, I must admit, hardly endeared him to the faint-hearted among the ladies. A greasy black patch hid the eye shattered by an exploding rifle flint, and half an ear had been gnawed away in a tavern brawl. A large, purple, anchor-shaped tattoo covered his left jaw, testimony, he claimed, of service in the fleet of an African emir. Worse yet for Step-mother, Lem’s red breechclout and Injun leggins left flesh bare at the hip, the ultimate affront for a believer’s daughter reared with the notion any showing of one’s nether parts constituted a condemning sin. But for all that, Emma had broken bread with Lem for a decade and had no just reason for fearing or loathing him. He was a smallish man of big heart. And he showed it now.

  “Sorry for the ruckus, Missus,” he apologized loud enough for everyone watching, tipping his pelt cap.

  Choked by embarrassment at looking the fool, Step-mother couldn’t make peace right then. She gathered her skirts with an angry, disgusted flip of the chin and swept inside, slamming the door hard shut.

  “I tried me damnest, I swear,” Lem proclaimed.

  “Your intentions were good, ol’ friend,” Paw said. “Barn your mare. Emma be a mite tryin’ lately, but her pride heals quick and she always sets a fine table. You’ll have your foofaraw and corn squeezin’s, I promise.” Paw winked and chuckled.

  That telltale laugh renewed Lem’s spirits. He knuckled his forehead and wheeled the mare about, wisely holding his tongue this go-round.

  Paw sighed, wagged his beard and thumped after Step-mother Emma. At the door he called for Sarah and Adam. Sister hushed Adam’s protests and pulled him onto the stoop and across the threshold.

  A beaming Blake dismounted and bear-hugged me proper. He swung me to and fro till his rifle barrel thunked my skull. Before he freed me I near stuck him with my hay fork.

  “How do, little brother,” he said twice over.

  I leaned on the fork and sucked wind. I took no offense at his rough greeting or his words. For Blake it counted nothing I was two inches taller and twenty pounds heavier: His being a year older at twenty and four made me forever the smaller brother.

  “Glad you’re home, I am. Been a tad lonely with the two of you gone at once,” I admitted honestly with a rub of the knot swelling along my temple.

  Shooing the mare into the barn with a slap on the rump, Lem crossed over and whacked me a few good licks on the backside. “Good to see him, eh, Blake.” He fixed me with his uncovered eye. “Got big news, Blaine. Big news for all you’n,” he blustered.

  “Don’t be a blabberpuss just yet,” Blake ordered in a voice suddenly rougher’n a cob.

  His abruptness surprised me as much as Lem. Blake’s steadiness was sure as sunrise. I could count on one set of fingers the occasions he’d shown any upset with Lem for any reason, fair or foul.

  “Blake, we might as well—”

  “All in good time,” Blake said, cutting him short. “All in good time, Lem.” His voice softened a tad, but his eyes stayed narrow and hard. “I’ll do the tellin’ when I’m ready.”

  He passed Lem his flintlock, handed me the packhorse reins, then led the bay down the center runway of the barn without a backward glance. Too good a soldier to disobey a direct order, Lem rolled his one eye and trudged in Blake’s footsteps.

  The barn runway loomed dim and shadowy. Hoof-roiled dust tickled the nose. The air, ripe with the smell of leather, horse sweat, aging manure and bedding, hung heavy and hot.

  In no time at all Blake and Lem had the riding stock unsaddled, rubbed down and turned out to feed on cut cane and bottom hay. I off-loaded the pack animals and stripped their gear, after which Lem helped haze them into the pasture. All the while my curiosity at Blake’s “big news” grew even larger. Where before after Limestone visits Blake had engaged Lem in boastful banter about all the fair maidens they’d conquered, tonight serious pondering furrowed his brow and the hinge of his jaw rippled when he ground his teeth. To see my brother fretful was a rare and worrisome thing, saying the least. Yet I dared not pry, not after how he had lighted into Lem. The spirit of the evening truly seemed destined for the slop bucket.

  Blake retrieved his rifle and said, “Better bring the salt sack, little brother. We need a peace offering for the head cook. Somethin’ to disallow the year Lem scared off’n her life.”

  “The devil has a-holt of that woman,” Lem retorted as he latched the barn door and hefted his flintlock. “An’ without meanin’ ta do so, I somehow pester her ever’ time we meet.”

  “Well, get a good grip on that mouth of yourn just this once! We need Emma on an even keel. I’ve enough trouble figurin’ how ta tell Paw as it be. Let’ s wash.”

  It struck me what a really thorny dilemma Blake faced: Whatever he had to tell, it wasn’t likely it would please Paw no matter how he told him. And when mad, Paw made a wounded bear seem tamer than a church mouse.

  The sun had slipped far down. Dark clouds streaked the last flare of yellow. A light breeze swirled dust in the parched dooryard and dried sweat on my cheeks. For days on end we’d muddled through wilting sun and piddling rain. The weather might well change overnight, perhaps before dawn, thank the Lord.

  At the spring house east of the cabin we bathed face, arms and hands without benefit of soap, and sponged off with the tails of our hunting frocks. Lem detested washing of any kind, but knew better than approach the table unscrubbed lest he invite the cook’s wrath.

  “Ain’t no choice but tackle the lion in his own den,” Blake surmised when we finished. “A wise ol’ lion whose teeth ain’t worn down a hair.”

  “I’d druther run the Shawnee gauntlet,” Lem admitted.

  “So would I, bucko, so would I,” Blake agreed with a long sigh of resignation. He shouldered his weapon and strode for the cabin.

  Curiosity nearly overcame me. But I stayed my tongue. If I had to wait and learn Blake’s momentous news with everyone else, so be it. It was his story to unfold.

  Lem stopped short of our destination and peered sharply all about. “Hold on here, Blake. Where be the hounds—Colonel, Big Blue, Little Henry and the others? They never missed a homecoming afore.”

  His inquiry halted Blake, and Lem turned, set his flint-lock butt first on the ground and stared a hole in me in the dimness of dusk.

  I swallowed hard a few times and told him best I could. “Emma harped on Paw till he made me pen them at the improvement. She may be scared witless of Injuns, but she’s convinced them Fort Washington troops have the Redsticks cornered somewhere over in Ohio and we don’t need nosy, crappin’ watchdogs overrunning the place any more.”

  Lem’s good eye twitched. “I swear, lads, your step mother left what dribble of brains them Maryland dimwits bred into her the other side of the mountains. They was never loaded in our wagons.”

  “Whoa now, Lem,” Blake admonished.

  But Lem was too roused over the penning of the family watchdogs four miles from the main cabin for quick shushing. He hawked and spat and twisted his rifle butt firmly in place, sure sign a windy tirade was about to burst forth, and Blake let him speak his piece.

  “Them Ohio Injuns ain’t squattin’ scare
d no place an’ that’s plain as the stink on horse apples. They ain’t crossed the Ohio for a month we know of, but that don’t mean they might not come a-hollerin’ and scalpin’ tomorray, hell, even this very night. An’ here we be with no dogs. Well, she ain’t gettin’ my hair lifted, by damn. Someone has got ta come ta a reckonin’ with yuh paw ’bout her.” He paused, then finished hurriedly, -head and eyepatch bobbing in opposite directions. “An’ its gonna haft ta be you, Blake. He’d listen if’n you spoke up.”

  Lem and I peered expectantly at Blake atop the stoop. Whenever a tough nut needed cracking, we looked to him out of habit. And I must confess, through thick and thin, when anything mean or downright nasty had to be handled, it wasn’t in Blake’s nature to shirk whatever fell on his wide shoulders. He willingly stepped into the line of fire for those he held near and dear. He loved the challenge.

  A wide smile put us at ease. Straightening stiff as a line soldier, he saluted Lem and me. “You win, Sergeant Shakett. We’ll fetch the dogs home. ’Sides, I can’t taken out for Fort Washington on. the morrow without maken sure everyone here is safe as can be.”

  The words “Fort Washington” yanked my breath away. The shoat was out of the pen for certain. Blake’s “big news” was no longer a puzzlement. Only one thing would draw my brother away with tobacco and maize ready for the harvest: militia duty. He had gone and joined up. He would finally realize his most ardent desire and make war on the Injuns with his fellow Kentuckians. And once he had pledged his oath at Limestone, there would be no change of heart, no betrayal of his word.