Thunder in the Valley Read online

  The freed skiff lost way and slipped astern so quickly it swept the legs from under me. I frantically latched onto the railing of the keelboat with both hands. But the skiff continued to lose way, stretching me out like a deerskin staked out for drying. The sorriest excuse for a bridge ever, feet dangling in the skiff, fingers locked in a death grip on the keelboat railing, I watched pop-eyed the steady growth of a horrifying expanse of black water beneath my belly.

  Fortunately, luck stuck with me. Someway my feet wedged together in the skiff’s sharp prow and I humped my body and pulled with my arms. Amazingly, my feet and shinbones didn’t split asunder at the ankles. Nor did I lose my handhold. I gradually closed the yawning space separating the two crafts, sweating mightily.

  But I couldn’t let it go at that, that wasn’t my youngish style. Once on my feet again in the skiff, I got downright bold, too bold. I spun away from the railing . . . and lost my balance. With all the grace of a rock, I tumbled headfirst into the bottom of the skiff, whanging my noggin on the center seat. This fit of heedless abandon earned me a knot on the skull that thumped for a week. Thoroughly disgusted, I dipped the oars into the water and started rowing with long, even strokes. The misty gloom swallowed the keelboat in nothing flat.

  Anyone familiar with boats knows that you sit backwards when rowing a skiff. Lest care be taken, one can wander hither and yon all over a river at night, wasting time and strength. At night you stick tight along the bank, and the black line of trees fringing the shore will set your course. And by sticking in the shallower waters along the shore, an upstream rower avoids the main force of the downstream current, saving more time and strength. Into the bank I went.

  Ahead waited a straight span of water, a sharp left bend, a second spurt of straight rowing past Fort Frye, followed by a sharp right bend, then the final run past Waterford to a landing above the mouth of Wolf Creek.

  My worst fright of the night occurred a short jaunt round that first bend, the sharp left. There the Muskingum had undercut its bank and felled a mammoth old sycamore. The underside of the toppled tree lay buried in the mud of the riverbed with a host of topside branches protruding above the waterline. The protruding branches were treacherous as a cordon of spears, and I rowed the skiff right into the middle of them.

  Having drifted wide rounding the bend, I was bent forward sweeping fast with the oars for the shallows when something snatched the hat from my head. Before I could respond to this ominous hint of impending trouble, a second branch jarred my elbow, a third snagged my coat collar, and the skiff rammed a submerged limb and stopped dead in the water, almost unseating me.

  I hadn’t any more fastened a hand on a wet slippery branch, staying the skiff, and a voice said, “Donna fret ’bout your houn’, Mr. Parsons. We’ll heel him home hale and hearty after the hunt.”

  By all that was holy—there could be no mistake—that was the voice of Timothy Ballard! And Mr. Parsons? None other than my shirttail cousin, Hezekial.

  You’ve heard how the hair on your neck can stand on end if a lad be frightened badly enough. My fright had to be of a rare and monumental nature because every hair on my lanky frame lifted clean from the hide. I even feared they would hear the knot on my skull thumping, which sounded just then inside my head like the high notes of a hunting horn.

  They had me. They couldn’t miss me. Their skiff slipped along no more than the length of a packhorse from the outermost branch of the deadfall, and while the low fog forming on the surface of the river concealed their boat, the opposite was true of their hats, shoulders, and beards: these could be seen with no problem atall. I had to be plain as a bullfrog trapped in the glow of a gigger’s lantern.

  “I’ll not fret, Timothy. I trust you and the others will have that young hellion Matthan noosed high by noon today.”

  “That we will, sir! That we will!”

  They didn’t see me. And they didn’t because of a fault common to all hunters of man and beast at one time or another: not expecting their quarry to be hung up in the shadowy limbs of the deadfall, they weren’t looking for me. They glided by in the thickening fog, none the wiser.

  I rested my forehead on my arm, gladly granting the two of them time to glide out of earshot before the breath departed me in one big relieved whoosh! Being so frightened a hunter couldn’t breathe didn’t always result in an unmanly experience after all. If I’d rooted in the bottom of the skiff for the long rifle, they’d have seen me or heard me and taken me like Timothy said earlier, “. . . easy as pickin’ a hickory nut offen the ground.”

  Thank the Lord I’d heeded Jeremiah’s advice. Uncle had been right in his predictions. With no solid evidence against me personally, my neighbors had declared the youngest of the Hannars a fugitive and organized themselves to track me down.

  Their faulty judgment taught a lesson I wouldn’t soon forget. A man needn’t be guilty when incurring the wrath of others; the mere appearance of guilt can cause him to be unjustly wronged and treated as if he’d committed the most dastardly of crimes. It didn’t count for anything you’d lived ten and nine years as I had without seriously offending another man or professing greed or a mean nature. Whether I liked it or not, it was the lynching rope or the land of the redskins for Matthan Hannar.

  Well, I didn’t like it. I dug hat from stern, hove the skiff clear of the branches of the deadfall, and resumed my upriver voyage, hell-bent once again on denying Lansford Van Hove the pleasure of killing off the last of the Hannars.

  Once past Fort Frye on the opposite shore, I rowed about the right bend in the Muskingum above the stockade and encountered new difficulties. The long session at the oars gradually devoured my waning strength and with it, my determination. My blistered hands stiffened like claws. A searing pain rampaged through my arms and down my back into my legs. Twice I ducked my head in the water, fighting off exhaustion. Every sweep of the oars became sheer torture. I thought of that preacher who’d spoken at Sunday meetings during our year at Fort Pitt. How he’d lied! A fate worse than the fiery pits of damnation that young Bible-thumper lavishly depicted in his sermons could befall a man: he could be condemned to a long siege of rowing on a rising river surrounded by swirling gray fog. For all I knew, Satan himself had been birthed on the Muskingum in a skiff.

  My strength shot, the pain grew intolerable. Enough was enough. Short of my planned landing beyond Wolf Creek, I headed into the bank.

  A dog barked! Other hounds chimed in. A din of howling and growling swelled along the waterway. I halted the rowboat and held a steady position with light strokes of the oars. The dogs, I soon realized, hadn’t spotted the boat in the dense fog. They heard the squeaky rasp of the oars in their locks.

  Whose dogs?

  A fuzzy shaft of yellow light pierced the cloying fog. “Shet up, you addle-brained bunch of useless curs! Shet up or Zed and me will whup the stuffin’s out of ya! Ain’t no one out there on a night like this’un!”

  A door slammed, blocking off the shaft of fuzzy light. The pack reluctantly obeyed their master. The howling and growling softened, then subsided altogether.

  Zed?

  Of course, Zed Shaw! The skiff fronted the Shaw cabin. They farmed a parcel of bottomland within yards of the mouth of Wolf Creek, and old man Shaw, too cantankerous to fort up and tolerate the leadership of Colonel Van Hove, headed the clan. A widower, he shared the cabin with his twin sons, Zed and Zeb, both ornery as ring-tailed coons, and Zelda, a skinny unmarried daughter. Zelda wore long pants, straddled a horse like a man, talked with birds, and cussed an unladylike blue streak whenever the mood hit her. It was nearing dawn and that feisty lot was up early, breakfasting before a roaring fire.

  What it came down to, lest Matthan Hannar craved a nose-to-nose meeting with the Shaw hounds, he’d better pick another landing site. A downriver landing meant sneaking around behind the dogs on foot. Nothing else beat a landing beyond Wolf Creek, which put the stream between me and the snarling pack. Much as I hated it, I pointed the skiff upri
ver, gritted my teeth, and laid into the oars for one final go-round.

  The Shaw hounds proved doggone inspirational. I overcame my pain and not only surpassed the mouth of Wolf Creek, but rowed another half mile before calling it quits.

  Guiding the skiff into shore, I boated the oars and cast the iron ball attached to the anchor rope over a tree root. Then, crampy legs splayed wide for balance, I unloaded the long rifle and haversack. The bank lifted too high there for hauling the skiff into the trees. I whacked a gaping hole in its bottom with my hatchet and scrambled ashore. Water bubbled and gurgled into the skiff. It filled with water and sank from sight. I picked up the iron ball with both hands and from a crouch threw it underhanded as far out over the water as I could. The ball hit with a mighty splash and sank instantly, jerking the anchor rope under with it.

  That completed my diversion. Now I had to wind my way through miles of territory controlled by wild savages, locate the rendezvous site, then await the arrival of Abel Stillwagon, a scoundrel as yet unawares he had a new partner . . . and who might not want one.

  Good thing I was a praying man.

  Chapter 7

  Dawn—January 8

  How fine it would’ve been to dawdle awhile, strike a fire and ease wearied limbs and blistered hands and throbbing head.

  I didn’t.

  I couldn’t.

  Oh, the missing keelboat and the letter on Hezekial’s desk would lure the lynch mob into a fruitless quest downriver, of that I’d no doubts. Sometime later this very morning they’d come upon the drifting keelboat, find aboard only the Ballard gun and the stolen supplies, and scour the riverbanks close about. After unearthing no sign anyone had gone ashore they’d reckon their prey had either drowned or lighted out in the skiff, then search downriver past where the Muskingum joined the wide Ohio at Marietta, once more fetching up no trace of their quarry. At that juncture a confounded Lansford Van Hove would suppose Matthan Hannar dead or beyond his immediate reach in the skiff, and with the entire day wasted, have little choice except lead his jaded search party home to Fort Frye.

  Knowing that, a brasher, less cautious lad might’ve dawdled in front of a fire at least through the forenoon. But the elder Van Hove proved a nagging worry. The colonel, in all likelihood, had withstood Jeremiah’s winging shot, and even bedridden and hurting, the old bull still commanded the fort. He might well order an upriver search and spoil my diversion. The colonel lacked Lansford’s rash manner and gullibility. He might believe Jeremiah Hannar’s nephew clever enough to hoodwink his son and flee upriver for Indian territory. Thus, weariness and blisters and thumping head aside, I needed to lay tracks while the Fort Frye crowd wasted the day. I slung the haversack onto my back, shouldered the long rifle, and taken out of there upriver in a shambling, stumbling gait.

  Heavy brush drenched from the night rain flanked the Muskingum. Every clump shed showers of water at the slightest touch. Thick tendrils of fog, ghostly white in the murky light of winter dawn, danced and twisted before the morning breeze. A few lurching steps and I couldn’t see beyond the tip of my nose. All told, the wet choking brush, dim light, and dancing fog made the river bottom a right eerie, nightmarish place at daybreak.

  Somewhere nearby dead reeds crackled and snapped as some biggish creature switched positions in rapid bounds. Never did I determine whether the noisemaker had two legs or four legs. An icy twinge of panic laid hold of me and in a whipstitch I feared a redskin waited behind every clump of brush, tomahawk poised for the death blow. Panic sprouted a will of their own in my feet, which suddenly craved to be elsewheres—fast—and I knuckled under to their silly craving, barging headlong into the heavy brush, pointed plumb away from the riverbank, headed for high ground and some seeing and breathing room.

  Thank the Lord a long ridge of goodly height ran along to the Muskingum ’bout half mile back. Otherwise I might be a-running yet.

  I barged and blundered and clawed pell-mell up the face of the ridge. Once on the crest of it, the fog dwindled to a shimmering haze, the underbush slackened, and I could gaze a fair distance round about. So much for imaginary redskins . . . nary a one could be spotted in any direction.

  Winded by the steep climb and feeling decidedly foolish, I plopped down on the trunk of a handy deadfall. The panic ebbed and shame nearly gagged me. Where was that valiant lad who vowed on his knees just last night he’d forever be strong and courageous, prey neither to weakness nor unmanliness?

  Rest assured, I’d meant that vow, every word. But nothing came from kidding oneself. Good intentions and broken vows cobbled the road bound for ruination and failure. I’d skimmed through a long desperate night on sheer luck and brute strength and hadn’t learned a thing—a little fog and sudden noise had spooked me into an uphill charge that’d worn my legs to a frazzle.

  I clucked my tongue in utter disgust.

  It was high time I grew up. High time I thrust boyish foolishness behind me once and for all; high time the old noggin did more than anchor my hat. I was, after all, trapped betwixt a mighty big rock and a mighty hard place. Every step upriver widened my lead over Lansford and his mob, but even a gold coin had two sides: every step also led smack into outright Injun country. I could ill afford for the redskins—Shawnee, Delaware, or Ottawa—to fix eyes on me. Since I’d never traded with them as had Stepfather and Stillwagon, the red devils had scant reason for looking on Matthan Hannar with any special favor. White be white, and the only good white lad was a dead white lad where they were concerned. And when they didn’t kill a man on sight, the Ohio Indians found particular delight in running an enemy down and torturing him to death. Cut it any way you please, a trek up the Muskingum in January of 17 and 92 was fraught with peril and danger, a task not to be taken lightly or gone about carelessly.

  The rising winter sun, a yellow stain through the shimmering haze, brightened the eastern sky. It mattered not. I did as I shouldn’t. I dawdled on the deadfall, weak-kneed and deathly tired, aching from heel to crown.

  The longer I tarried, the more overwhelming seemed the tiredness and pain. I was too young that morning to fully appreciate an old truth—bodily miseries dwelled upon very long breed doubts and misgivings in a man about his being able to handle the task at hand, and once doubts and misgivings beset him, gumption and determination slip away powerfully quick. Believe you me, the doubts and misgivings that popped into my thumping head gnawed an awesome hole in my determination.

  How could a scared lad who’d never journeyed into Injun territory with a fellow hunter, let alone by himself, expect to travel deep into such country and hide out till Abel Stillwagon arrived at the rendezvous site?

  Wasn’t it foolhardy and god-awful stupid to believe my best chance for survival was a successful rendezvous with Abel Stillwagon, the very scoundrel responsible for all my troubles?

  What if the Shawnees pulled a double-cross, robbed him of his plunder, and left the big-nosed trader and his stiff-footed partner scalped and smoldering in a torture pit?

  What if Stillwagon simply changed his plans and never showed?

  Worse yet, what if Stillwagon showed, heard me out, then shot the last of the Hannars to still his tongue?

  My head sagged. The doubts and worries seemed insurmountable. Lord forbid, even surrender at Fort Frye hardly appeared as poorly a choice as it had just last night.

  I dawdled, and dawdled. My legs and feet after a while seemed somewhat better. But dallying and feeling sorry about everything, wasting precious time because I lacked sufficient gumption, blushed me with a heavy pang of guilt. My spirits hit rock bottom when I thought of how Jeremiah would look upon my dallying and doubting. Without any deliberation atall, I knew exactly what Uncle Jeremiah would say if he were present, could almost hear the words:

  “Matthan, be you a sheep or be you a fox?”

  Whenever anything had rattled my tree for no good reason, Uncle always spat out the same challenge like a hissing tomcat, eyes bright with a hard glint:

  “Matthan
, be you a sheep or be you a fox?”

  Uncle claimed sooner or later all trailing men experienced the cold sweat of panic when properly spooked. What stood the test in the Ohio backcountry was how trailing men did for themselves after that clutch of cold terror came calling. Jeremiah maintained some hunters never determined whether they faced a real or a fancied danger. They barged and blundered about in a heedless fashion like sheep, creatures with such a dearth of good sense their favorite ploy when attacked was to stampede for the nearest spot of low ground and mill about, bleating haplessly while their attackers shredded the hide from them.

  Contrariwise, unlike those whom terror converted into sheep, other hunters, Uncle claimed, speared by the same stab of pure fright, kept their wits about them and likened themselves to the fox roused by a pack of hounds. True, the harried fox ran away as did the sheep. But unlike the sheep, the fox ran with a purpose. He galloped, then trotted, galloped, then trotted, husbanding his strength. He planned his escape route, always gaining ground on the barking hounds, not reckoning he was safe till their baying hadn’t been heard for hours. Even then the wily fox deigned rest. He searched till he found a secure den, readying himself for a new run for his life before the next foe had been sighted or scented.

  Jeremiah’s challenge stuck in my mind.

  “Matthan, be you a sheep or be you a fox?”

  I pondered on it some. A sheep would go on barging and blundering about till the Fort Frye crowd caught up to him, then bleat haplessly for mercy before a hanging noose peeled the skin from his neck. Took all of the blink of an eye, it did, to see playing the sheep wouldn’t wash for the nephew of Jeremiah Hannar.

  Playing the fox appeared a much better bet. I knew the lay of the land thereabouts from trapping and salt gathering forays with Stepfather and Jeremiah. Eight miles or so over to the west, the Muskingum swept abruptly northward, then bent around in a ragged half circle and flowed southeast again past the bottom of the ridge upon which I now sat. A smart old fox would forego the bank of the river and shortcut due west for where the Muskingum made its abrupt northern turn, saving many a step and many a mile. And a short hike after the shortcut awaited a fine den—a cave with a spring.