The Winds of Autumn Read online

  The range was considerable and uphill, but Blake threw flintlock to face, beaded his choice and triggered his piece. I swear Lem fired the same instant. The twin reports echoed every which way.

  Not the best at long-range shooting, I sidestepped smoke from Blake’s shot, squatted and steadied the spyglass while he and Lem reloaded.

  Neither ball found Injun flesh in the notch, but one set a horse bucking and fostered a heap of commotion. Every naked heathen except the tallest of them ducked for cover like flushed quail. The tall red devil calmly switched his musket to his left hand, stepped between plunging, rearing saddle animals and dragged forth an unwilling spectator—sister Sarah.

  In my glass, terror strained her features. She fought the iron grip holding her, but had no real chance of escaping. Her tall captor, sleeve of her linsey dress wrapped in one fist, threatened a head blow with the musket in the other. Over a pounding heart, I heard rifles cock on both sides of me.

  “Don’t shoot,” I ordered. “That’s Sarah. Don’t give him cause ta hurt her.”

  He proved a cunning warrior, that red bastard controlling our Sarah. Passing his musket to a sheltered cohort, he forced her to the brink of the notch, turned her our way and put a knife to her throat. His meaning was unmistakable: If we fired, Sarah died, now or later made no difference.

  Awed by the tall devil’s blatant disregard for his own hide and the arrogance of his tactics, I quelled shaking hands and tightened the glass directly on him. Three eagle feathers studded the roached topknot. A bright streak of yellow coursed from the middle of his forehead to the point of his chin, and three diagonal stripes of black adorned each cheek. The eyes were dark and menacing, jawline heavy, nose straight and unpierced, ears uncut. His shoulders were square and bespoke great power. A fringed scabbard for the blade at Sarah’s throat slanted across his broad chest, secured by a neck cord. Hairy scalps dotted the leather waist belt. His hips and legs matched the strength bulging elsewhere on the large frame.

  With no forewarning he slid Sarah behind him, sheathed his knife, and extended an open palm toward us in a staying gesture before signing the rest of the war party into the trees behind him. He maintained his downward vigil till he heard the horses clear the notch, then spun and unhurriedly half-carried a kicking, screaming Sarah after the retreating raiders.

  Even after he was gone from my lens he held my complete attention. That tall devil defied fear and commanded with a King’s gall. On the warpath the fate of captives would rest solely with him. And if Sarah, a white girl with a stub arm, resisted his authority too long, delayed the withdrawal of his raiding band in the slightest, became overly irksome or merely offended his eye, he would order her killed or gladly wield the tomahawk himself.

  A cold foreboding crept over me. Sarah was snared in the worst possible trouble. The sun might well fall from the sky before the Tyler brothers ever saw their beloved sister alive again.

  Chapter 4

  Midday, September 11

  Loud popping drew my gaze back to the dooryard and more immediate concerns. Hate it I might, but Sarah was beyond help for now.

  Flame burst through the tinder-dry roof of the barn and fed a tall pillar of roiling smoke. The heat came at me in waves. Any livestock trapped inside had already perished. Damn the Redsticks anyway.

  “Couldn’t do nothin’, Blake,” Lem sputtered, cheeks scarlet against black eyepatch, bare shoulders quivering with rage. “Didn’t dare drop the door bar an’ risk Adam.”

  “I understand,” Blake assured him. Only a slight bulge at the corner of his jaw hinted at Blake’s fury over the loss of Paw, the taking of Sarah, and our sorry part in the whole affair. His eyes looked as hollow as I felt.

  “Where’s Adam an’ the others?”

  The yelling of Blake’s name in a running squeal located Adam. He charged into Blake’s legs, wrapped himself round brother’s knees and took to hard sobbing. Blake, patted his arm and tousled his hair. “Emma an’ the twins?”

  “In the big cabin, I ’spect,” Lem answered, head drooping.

  “You two check. I’ll stay with Splinter,” Blake said as he knelt to comfort Adam.

  The shattered cabin door was the last thing in God’s realm I wanted near, but Blake was protecting Adam. Paw’s slain body had already unnerved the youngster. What we would surely find might put the crazies on him.

  Still, I near didn’t obey orders. Grief choked me when I reached Paw. For some reason I never fathomed, I could no longer bear having his face buried in the dirt of the dooryard. I handed Lem my flintlock, turned Paw’s brained skull cheek-side down and brushed dust from his beard. Before I took to sobbing, Lem pulled me away and reminded me of my duty. Mourning was for later.

  From the stoop we pushed aside pieces of door plank dangling from leather hinges. Neither the cooking fire nor the wall candles showed flame, yet in the dim light we spied Step-mother Emma straight off. She was spread-eagled before the hearth, open dead eyes watching us. Blood stained her smock at chest and midriff. She grasped an equally bloody knife with stiffened fingers, indicating one of her attackers had suffered for the assault on her person. On closer inspection we discovered her braided hair remained untouched. Fearful Emma had apparently discovered that well of ferocious courage known only to cornered mothers and put up such a fight the Shawnee had honored her by not defiling her body. Gently, I closed her eyes.

  I peered about in wonder. Everything was in shambles. The wide table and seating benches, even the sideboard, had been overturned. Pewter noggins, trenchers and tools littered the floor. Emma’s flax wheel, spokes chopped apart by hatchet blows, lay upside down. The stewing kettle rested on it side in the hearth ashes. Step-mother had doused the fire with its contents and saved the cabin a torching.

  I found Edna and Elsie, the issue Emma died defending, piled atop each other behind the overturned table where they had sought refuge from the horror descending on them. The end here was a slash of the tomahawk, brutal but quick. I stared at their mangled remains. Never again would they dig open a potato hill, hide in a berry thicket or lick fingers rich with milk fresh from the cow’s teat. Their brief lives now amounted to a few warm memories cherished by the living, and with that sad realization the tears came, hot and heavy, blinding me for a spell. Knowing they had been dead before the scalping lessened my sorrow not one whit: Death of the youngest, the most defenseless, weighs heaviest on the heart.

  Lem, bless him, made himself scarce as hen’s teeth. He moved outside, told Blake in hand talk what we had found, and went next door for his missing frock. Upon his return he called from the stoop without entering. It was time to start the bury holes. Before all else, the dead deserved their final rest.

  During our absence Blake quieted Adam. The two of them prayed with bowed heads over Paw, whom they had covered with a deer hide from the sleeping cabin. I joined them, dry-eyed and as ready for what would follow as I was ever likely to be.

  Hoofbeats and barking disrupted our respects for Paw. Canto and his son, Nabu, black as midnight in late morning sunshine, rode bareback into the yard on Blake’s bay and Lem’s mare, accompanied by the hounds—Colonel, Big Blue, Little Henry, and an assortment of mutts. Nabu led four additional horses and the pack animals tied head to tail. Instead of Blake and me, it had fallen to Paw’s slaves to fetch the missing horses and watchdogs home.

  Canto was rare among owned chattel, long on good sense and pluck, short on superstition and taboo. Paw had trained him, and he oversaw the Turkey Neck improvement and his four fellow darkies, granting special favor to no one, not even Nabu.

  Always alert, Canto missed next to nothing. From the bay’s back he studied the blazing pile of rafters once a barn, then froze when he spied the covered bulk at our feet. He drew rein well back, unsure of what confronted him. Nabu followed his lead like a shadow.

  Blake expressed no displeasure whatsoever at the interruption of our solemn prayers. His tanned face brightened and his eyes danced with excitement. Roughin
g Big Blue’s ears, he smiled at Little Henry nuzzling Adam’s neck. It was as if the body beneath the deerskin belonged to a total stranger, not our paw.

  “There’s a God for sure, Blaine,” he said with a sly grin. “Stay with Splinter while I deal with our visitors.”

  Before I could question his sudden elation or his intentions, he crossed, the yard, waved Canto down from the bay and began a heap of palaver with the anxious overseer. Lem and I waited as ordered, petting and shushing dogs with Adam, totally perplexed.

  He was a mighty fine talker that brother of mine. He laid after it with mouth, body parts and hands. He could wheedle and deal with the best horse trader, match the fire and brimstone of the slickest preacher or challenge your manhood, whatever it took to have his way with you. Oh, Canto rolled his eyes. He shuffled his feet. He fingered the bay’s mane. He peered at Nabu now and again. No matter. In the end, like so many others before him, Canto’s head bobbed in complete agreement with Blake’s wishes.

  “Stand ready,” Lem warned. “We’re next. He’s hell-bent on somethin’ an’ he can be plumb dangerous.”

  Blake recrossed the yard, head held high, backbone ramrod stiff. Lem was right: He was deadly earnest about something, something he felt mighty certain about. Future Colonel Tyler was in full stride.

  “Adam, help Canto an’ Nabu water them horses an’ take care they don’t founder. We’ll be needin’ them shortly.”

  Confused and on the verge of crying again, Adam hesitated. Blake didn’t spare him. “Move, boy, time’s a-wastin’. Do your share or we’ll leave yuh behind.”

  His threat worked. Adam ducked his head and trotted off, hounds quickstepping after him.

  “Lem, fetch our trail gear. Blaine, we’ll be needin’ vittles for a week from Emma’s larder, anythin’ them savages overlooked, an’ they withdrew quick enough ta overlook plenty.”

  “Where at we headed?”

  “After Sarah, Lem. What else?”

  “’Tain’t wise, that’s what else,” Lem insisted. “Them Injuns will be watchin’ their backtrail an’ ever’ sound carries miles in this creek bottom. They don’t never need see us or us them. They’ll just kill her pronto.”

  Blake flashed another sly grin. “Then we’ll skip west across the ridge an’ ride the high ground all day an’ all night. An’ when those red bastards hit the Ohio at daylight tomorrow, we’ll be primed and smilin’ down our sights.”

  Such bold scheming didn’t impress the overly cautious Lem. The old sergeant adjusted his patch, folded grimy paws over the muzzle of his grounded flintlock and leaned toward Blake. “Dyin’ foolish don’t hold no particular charm for me. We’re overmatched an’ outgunned, for christsake.”

  Blake had a quick answer on the tip of his tongue. “We’ll leave Adam with the Oldham women an’ enlist Josh and his oldest ta trail with us. That’ll even the odds a tad, won’t it.”

  Lem’s brow knotted. “Who’ll do the buryin’ an’ hunt the bull and cows?”

  “Canto an’ the darkies,” Blake countered. “Be a mean chore, but I ain’t given no choices. They’ll bold the fort till we return. Anythin’ else botherin’ yuh?”

  “Yeh, step over there,” Lem responded, and shooed us onto the main cabin stoop with his flintlock.

  Blake honored Lem’s bidding without protest. The old sergeant won his share of arguments by saving his most telling points for last, and Blake knew better than deny him his full say. Whatever Lem was up to, he had the best interests of the Tylers uppermost in mind and had seen us through much trouble all our born days. A loyal man’s opinion was worth its weight in gold twice over.

  He mounted the stoop beside us and tapped the biggest chunk of shattered door still dangling in one piece with his rifle barrel. Blake leaned closer. Three wavering tracks of blood dried on the rough wood. The stains had been placed in a precise, deliberate pattern.

  “What the hell—”

  “Stay with me, bucko. Come over here,” Lem said as he led us to the corner of the cabin. There he drew a circle with a finger around a perfect set of prints in the dirt under the eave of the roof. The footsteps were fresh and deep, too large for any family member.

  Lem pointed to the front portion of each track in turn. “Lookee how them moccasins don’t toe-in like an Injun’s.”

  “All right, there’s Redstick blood on the door an’ one walks straight-footed,” Blake conceded. “So what?”

  “Our bad tidings ain’t over yet. It’ s Three Feathers who led them red devils, an’ he’s the worst of that whole passel of Shawnee Harmar’s after. He leaves them three marks in blood where he does his killin’, an’ while he ain’t no full-blood white eye, leastways nobody claims so, he surely walks like we’uns.”

  “Lem, a single Injun ain’t gonna make that much difference no ways,” Blake asserted. “What’s really stickin’ in your craw ’bout this here Three Feathers?”

  “He’s a bold, prideful, vengeful son of a bitch accordin’ ta Tice Wentsell, that’s what. Never lost a white prisoner after they was took. Tice says he’ll kill a captive for spite rather than be bested by a white eye. He ain’t gonna let us have Sarah back nohow.”

  Lem gathered himself, gulped a deep breath, let it out slowly, then continued. “Yuh know I ain’t no coward. But I got a powerful hunch there’s more danger brewin’ over on the Ohio than we can be shuck of, an’ Three Feathers will be stirrin’ the pot.” He paused again and looked from Blake to me. “Boys, I ain’t in no frightful rush ta bury the rest of the Tylers in the same hole with your paw anytime soon.”

  With that Lem cleared his pipes and spat. He’d had his say, and never fell prey to whining or pleading, both of which were beneath him. He had mustered his objections to Blake’s admittedly harebrained scheme and made it clear an enemy who gave no quarter must be overcome if we were to save Sarah. But having seen his duty done, Lem would abide by whatever Blake decided, as would I. Blake had replaced Paw as head of the family.

  Blake thought for some while before speaking. He was fully aware his next words would set the temper of our whole northern venture and he chose each with care, wanting our unflinching support from start to finish.

  “Even if I could, I ain’t gonna bamboozle yuh. We’re long on enemy an’ short on everythin’ else. Our saddles an’ bridles an’ horse packs burnt with the barn, so it’s bareback with rope halters across mean high country in the dark of night. An’ no doubt the weather will sour, count on it. Nothing’s pointed in our favor from the git-go.” Blake placed a hand on Lem’s shoulder and squeezed. Flint was softer than his gray eyes. “But we’re gonna make our try anyways.

  “Trust me, Lem, I ain’t forgettin’ Obidiah True. I ain’t partial ta heroes an’ fools, yuh know that. We’re gonna beat that war party ta the Ohio an’ set up an ambush. If’n we got any chance atall of savin’ Sarah, we jump them. If’n we got no chance, we hunker down, let’em pass by an’ come on home. That suit both of yuh?”

  He said it just right. He didn’t downplay the danger or the odds against us. Instead, he made the challenge of a murderous night ride and risky ambush sound doable if we had enough sand in our craws. And Lem and I went for it lock, stock and barrel, never minding we might be dooming any chance I had of ever growing to Blake’s ripe old age of twenty and four. We both blissfully nodded our heads again and again like crows pecking worms from a plowed field.

  Blake gave forth with his warmest smile, but those gray eyes were as hard as before. “Let’s talk about how we taken out of here. After we ready our gear an’ what vittles Blaine collects, we all ride upstream away from the notch, includin’ Canto and Nabu. We got ta expect Three Feathers left a scout up yonder, so we mosey in the opposite direction like we’re pullin’ back ta the improvement. Once we’re out of sight, we’ll swing west up Blue Run, scale the ridge an’ drop down on the Oldhams.”

  “What about Paw?”

  “We’ll carry him inside with Emma an’ the girls. I know, it’s tough ta ride off ’t
hout buryin’ kin, but Canto an’ the darkies can be back in the mornin’ bright an’ early an’ bury the lot of them. Let’s be about it. I’ll keep Adam away from the main cabin an’ busy till we’re out a ways. No need ta burden him with any more nightmares.”

  Once we saw to Paw and covered Emma and the twins, a frenzied hour of preparation ensued. I rummaged through Emma’s larder and discovered Blake’s earlier reckoning was sound: The fast-departing Injuns left behind a fair supply of jerk, salt, cold hoecake, and black bark for tea, which I packed in leather bags and Paw’s frayed militia haversack. The Redsticks had overturned the half-barrel in which we stored hand-milled corn, but I worked round that by scooping the spilled meal into the empty stewing kettle till it was nearly full. Atop the meal I wedged a smallish skillet and boiling noggin for campfire cooking. Paw’s last two gallons of Kentucky Monongahela, levered from his hidey place beneath the rope bed and tied together by a thong passed through the finger hole in the necks of the jugs, completed our trail vittles. I was glad to finish and gain the stoop before the dead frazzled my nerves.

  The packed vittles and cooking vessels made a right handsome pile on the doorstep, seeing as how we had lasted a week or more before with nothing to eat each day but a palm of nocake—meal dampened with water—and a little jerk to chew. We could likely feed a King’s regiment with what I had toted and stacked. Blake, though, checking the horses’ legs with Canto, Adam beside him, signed his approval. “If’n there’s a spy in the notch, he’ll report we pulled back for certain.”

  Trail garb and fighting gear was next. Blake and I dressed the same on the hunt—leather leggins over linsey breeches, tall deer-hide moccasins tied to leggin bottoms, and thigh length, wraparound frocks made of coarse linen which we much preferred to cold, clammy, never-dry buckskin. The overlapping front of the frock, held in place by a sash belt tied in back, formed a wallet for storing vitals and other sundry odds and ends. A slouch hat or pelt cap, Lem’s having a ringed tailpiece, comprised the balance of our trailing garb.