The Winds of Autumn Read online

  Our sash belt bore weapons in grand style, sheathed knife on left hip and hatchet, inserted handle first, behind the right. A pigskin shot pouch for balls, patches and extra flints hung from a shoulder strap and fronted our right flank. On short lengths of leather stitched to the strap of the pouch, we strung powder horn with charge cup, firing pan brush, and touchhole pick. The shot pouch with its attachments supplied everything required to patch, ball and prime a flintlock with no wasted motion. The good Injun fighter and tracker practiced reloading as much as his shooting.

  We had Paw’s foresight to thank for our prime weapons. During the Tyler family move west in 17 and 87, we waited out weeks of winter cold in the borough of Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Paw heard in the taverns that the borough’s gunsmiths had greatly improved the .50-caliber flintlock by lengthening the barrel, reducing the bore and making the ball a lick smaller yet so the round missile, encased in a greased patch, spun as it passed through the spiraled groves of the longer barrel, thereby enhancing the weapon’s accuracy. The smaller ball and greased patch, moreover, were easier to seat’with the ramrod and shortened the time it took to reload. Paw determined each of his sons should own a Lancaster rifle, and his inquiries about the best gunsmith available earned him the name of Jared Cooper.

  We spent a morning at Cooper’s Gunworks selecting octagonal iron-rod for the barrel, maple wood for the stock and brass fittings for trigger guard, patchbox and ramrod thimbles. Gruff, white-haired Jared Cooper measured Blake and me himself, then crafted the Lancaster to fit our sizes, the muzzle being even with your chin while the rifle rested on the oak flooring of his manufactory. Since only a two-inch difference in length told which weapon was which, Cooper embedded two brass stars in one stock and a single star in the other. The afternoon Paw paid for our most prized possessions, Blake naturally reached for the Lancaster with two stars.

  Within the week Paw realized Lem was captivated by our new flintlocks. He admired and praised them constantly. Within another week Paw and Lem visited the gunworks. When Jared Cooper later presented Lem his new flintlock, the letters LS adorned a brass moon set in the stock. A happier face the Lord never made.

  The Lancaster firearm matched the tavern bragging Paw overheard, a rare occurrence. It withstood bumps, bangs and drops, and proved deadly accurate if propedy aimed and held steady. Lem boasted to any willing ear, “She shoots far and hits almighty hard ever time.” Even the hunters constant dread—flashes in the pan—were few and far between.

  Blake said it best as we topped horns with fresh powder and made a final check of shot pouches. “We got ourselves, our wits an’ the fmest rifles in Kentuck ta see us through. That’ll have ta be enough, eh, lads.” He pushed off his stool and rapped the workbench with his knuckles. “Let’s be about it.”

  With Adam bringing up the rear, we tramped out to the yard, where Canto and Nabu had the horses lined out and trail supplies tied as best they could on the two pack animals. Lem, Blake and I swung astride, the absence of saddles no hindrance, leastways not on flat ground in midday sun both bright and hot.

  At a word, Nabu banded up the kettle filled with meal. It was heavy and cumbersome, but I squirmed about and finally balanced it on my right thigh.

  “Yuh’ll play hob totin’ that load all the way ta the Ohio,” Lem observed with his chicken cluck of a laugh.

  Everyone chimed in, Canto and Nabu included. The brief fit of humor was a godsend on an otherwise black and sad day.

  “Don’t worry, Sergeant,” I responded. “I’ll weasel a packsaddle out of the Oldhams and leave the kettle there.”

  “Glad yuh gots a plan, son. Hate like hades ta see yuh draggin’ that thing belly down ta an ambush.”

  Lem’s retort provoked another round of boots and chuck les, and I shared a belly laugh with them. Lem’s wit was unsinkable and never off target.

  “What do I ride?”

  Every eye swung to the sleeping cabin doorstep. Adam stood there hip-shot, puzzled worry written across his features. He had matched our trail garb right down to the sash belt Sarah had fashioned for him. The handle of his carved toy pistol jutted from the belt in front of his belly. His chin trembled, and the hold he had on his feelings was terribly weak. He was giving his best, God love him. The unexpected loss of Paw and Emma and his sisters had been bad enough, and the prospect of being carted off and left in strange surroundings with a totally uncertain future, perhaps still to lose his surviving brothers to the Shawnee, was chewing at his innards something awful. He was poised on tiptoe, ready to dash back inside and dive under the hide robe on his bed in vain hope of blotting out the grief that had befallen him so cruelly and unjustly since the first screech from a Shawnee throat just hours ago. Maybe he was only nine years of age, but Adam’s whole future, his manhood, hung in the balance. The Kentucky frontier had no room for the meek and terror-ridden, be you nine or ninety-nine.

  Wise and venerable Lem saved the moment and Adam with it. He slid from his sash an old flintlock horse pistol he had fetched along on the off-chance close-range shooting might further our cause at some interval. Flipping the pistol in the air, he caught it by the barrel and offered it butt first to Adam. “Little underarmed, ain’t yuh, Private Tyler? A soldier needs a proper weapon as well as a horse, don’t he now?”

  Adam stared at the long horse pistol, then without a word bolted from the doorstep, zipped past the horses and scurried for the glowing embers of the bam fire. Five pairs of eyes followed his every stride.

  “What’s he about?” Blake wondered.

  “Beats the blazes outen me,” Lem said, confused as everyone else.

  Adam slid to a halt, yanked the wooden gun from his belt and chucked it into the dying fire. Flames burst over the discarded toy as be rushed back to Lem and claimed the horse pistol, beardless countenance sober but firm with resolve. He would do, this young one: He was a Tyler.

  “Don’t cock it lessen yuh means ta fire, Private,” Lem advised as he passed the pistol.

  Blake was onto Lem’s ploy and played it to the hilt. “Boost Private Tyler aboard the bay filly, Nabu. He’ll ride on my off shoulder. Sergeant Shakett, you scout out front. Corporals Canto and Nabu, you’re in the middle with the balance of the horses. Lieutenant Blaine Tyler, you bring up the rear. We’ll not have yuh hurtin’ anyone or scarin’ the animals if’n you was ta fall out from under that there kettle.”

  And in Blake’s proscribed order, the last of the Tyler men, all three of us, trotted forth in a hail of laughter on a hunt for the Shawnee that might well result in the death and scalping of the two oldest before noon tomorrow.

  Part 2

  Pursuit

  Chapter 5

  Afternoon, September 11

  A mile upstream, at about the midpoint of the western loop of Tygart’s Creek, Blue Run, no wider than a horse was long, trickled into the larger body of water. Here Canto and Nabu continued toward Turkey Neck.

  Lem watched them ride away. “Askin’ a mite much of ’em, ain’t we, Blake?”

  “Naw, not hardly. They mind the place and gets the buryin’ done, I promised Canto their freedom, one and all, or the improvement. They’ll have their druthers.”

  I had no quarrel with Blake’s action. I knew of no more appealing prospect for the long-serving Canto and his subordinates. Paw had talked of such an arrangement the past year, and Blake’s offer in time of dire need was open testimony of what Paw had hoped someday to provide his prized darkies. Canto would see to the work and chores, even the harvest in the event our return was delayed. Paw believed firmness and generosity, not harshness and purposeful cruelty, begot loyalty. It was only of faithful servants that absent offspring dared expect a proper burial for the master.

  Blue Run washed low over a smooth limestone bottom. The pools between the bends of the stream, as well as occasional riftles, were mere inches deep. Willows and larger trees crowded the banks and thrust branches together overhead for long stretches. The horses splashed contentedly through the co
ol water and shade. Without their heightened breathing one could hardly tell we were constantly climbing, so gradual was Blue Run’s ascent.

  We rode single file, heads up, rifles primed, eyes sweeping left and right. It would be some days before our sharp vigilance waned; such was the aftermath of any skirmish with the dreaded Shawnee.

  A splattering echo heralded the presence of a waist-high waterfall before it hove into sight. Lem led us behind pile of rotting logs on the left, and we emerged above the falls on a flat bar of slab rock. Across the stream a ravine, rough and brush-spotted, wound upward till it reached the ridgeline separating our present location from the cluster of low hills in which the Oldham cabin nestled.

  “These here animals been over that track afore. Lead off, Lem. It’s smoother’n she looks.”

  Blake always did stretch things a mite, if need be, to get a man started. I was glad to be behind the rest when the brown gelding faltered unexpectedly and the handle of the kettle banged my wounded lip and set the blood running again. The dull throb of pain was easier to accept the balance of the way to the ridgeline since I didn’t have to endure the sting of Lem’s biting humor. Still, by the time we topped out on the ridgeline, I had reddened the sleeve of my rifle arm blotting at my mouth. When we dismounted and gave the horses a well-deserved blow, Lem studied me but stayed his tongue. Much as he hated passing over the chance to fun me, he probably reckoned arm wrestling that kettle uphill bareback was punishment enough for any one after noon. And before Lem could swap intentions, Adam lent a heavy seriousness to our brief stopover with a sudden question.

  “Mama slammed the door on Sarah, didn’t she, Sergeant Lem?” Adam answered himself just as quickly, denying Lem any chance to reply. “I’ll never forgive her for that, yuh know.” He ducked his sandy, hatless head, squatted and began a minute inspection of the horse pistol.

  A perplexed Lem looked at Blake, unsure how to respond.

  My eyes were on Big Brother too. It made no difference that Lem had not related this particular detail of the Shawnee attack to us. What was done was done and best left unsaid. But we had to deal with the bitterness clearly poisoning Adam’s mind before it soured forever his memory of Emma. Step-mother had doted on Adam, and other faults and shortcomings aside, she deserved better from him.

  Some careful words were needed. From Lem’s recounting of thirty years of Injun attacks, the bald truth was plain as a wart on a pretty girl’s nose: Survivors were often simply the lucky ones. He who found himself inside or near the cabin where he could quickly take cover behind a shut and barred door many times lived another day. Any poor soul caught outside, unarmed and any distance from the shelter of the cabin walls, was usually the first to perish. With Paw downed by the first shots, Emma, alone and riddled with alarm, had no other recourse if she were to save her twins except close the door immediately and fort up till help came. And once Emma secured the door, to open it before help arrived would have been tantamount to killing her own issue. It was Sarah’s misfortune to be outdoors at the onset of the Shawnee strike, too far to gain the safety of either cabin before her capture. But the hard truth of the morning meant little to Adam. His love for Sarah clouded his feelings and his judgment in her favor.

  Blake stepped beside Adam and rested on a knee. “Splinter, a true an’ lovin’ mother always sees first ta the smallest of her brood, those who can least do for themselves, Edna and Elsie. Sarah an’ you bein’ older, she expected yuh ta fend for your ownselves. She done what she thought best at the time, just like when Paw’d lay a laced jacket on you with the hickory switch. You might not’ve always agreed. with him, but in the end he didn’t love yuh any less, nor you him. That was a mighty mean comin’ together back down there, an’ we men need remember the best of those we lost.” Blake paused and chewed a grass stem till Adam lifted his head. “Don’t you agree, Private?”

  Adam slowly bobbed his head in agreement, swallowed hard and licked his mouth so as to speak. “Yes, sir. I’m mighty feared for Sarah is all.”

  Blake rapped him on the shoulder. “So are we. Just never forget, no one’ll ever Jove yuh more than your maw did. Boost him up, Blaine. We ain’t helpin’ Sarah dallyin’ about lazy as vagrants thout the sense of a good hound.”

  We took out for the Oldhams. Blake had again handled the talking to the satisfaction of Lem and me. Brother truly missed his calling by never standing to the pulpit or the bar of justice. The Lord was less generous with many of his other followers.

  What greeted us at the Oldhams wasn’t what we expected: smiling faces, hot vittles and an offer of help. What we found instead was a deserted dooryard, smokeless chimney and quiet so hushed it like to raise the hackles under your hat. Soon as we cleared the tall corn fronting the two-story cabin, Lem reined in his mare and pointed out why no warning barks greeted us. Four hounds Jay at various points in the dry grass. One or more arrows stuck from each swollen carcass. Three Feathers and his Shawnee had passed by here too, probably sometime yesterday by the looks of the dead watchdogs.

  Our searching eyes located other telling reminders of the Shawnee visit. The stock shed near the far fringe of woods was a blackened heap from which charred animal legs jutted. Across the other way the family necessary rested on its side and gave off a wondrous smell we all caught, seeing how we were downwind of an afternoon stir of breeze. The lazy swirl of buzzards over the trees behind the fallen necessary hinted at more dead creatures, either two-or four-legged.

  Lem rose in his stirrups and was about to “halloo” the cabin when fast as a rifle shot the door ripped open and the Oldhams, every last one still drawing breath, gushed forth, spilling over each other in their hurry, yelling and carrying on wild as drunken militia. The smiling faces we were denied upon arrival surrounded the horses. “Hell’s bells,” Lem snorted over the din, “might this here ol’ goat finally be a hero ta somebody?”

  “Don’t get overjoyed,” Blake chided him. “It won’t last. They’ll settle down once they get a good gander at what saved them. Old salts never taste nothin’ but bitter ta a landlubber.”

  Lem ignored the insult and went right on shaking hands and patting heads. The Oldhams, however, hadn’t entirely taken leave of their senses: They scattered before he started kissing on their womenfolk. That turnabout didn’t bother the gleeful Lem. He sat astride the mare clucking merrily, watching family members seek the sheltering woods so as to answer calls of nature postponed during their forting up. I tell you, it would’ve been a hellish long line even if that necessary had remained upright. Seemed to me there were enough Oldhams streaking for the trees to keep two such outbuildings full day and night.

  Gray-bearded, stoutly built Joshua Oldham, the father of all those scurrying feet, loomed before the horses, musket resting on his shoulder. He was a man of few smiles and fewer sins, fast with a switch and slow to forget any slight done him and his clan. He had already buried two wives. The third had aged considerably in five years of marriage, while Joshua never changed. He was like bedrock, ageless and seamless.

  “Shawnee hit last evenin’. James was bringin’ the cattle home out yonder and fired a warnin’ shot.”

  “Anyone killed?”

  Joshua’s face saddened. “Only James. Ain’t seen him since the attack. Rest of us made the inside thanks ta him. We’re truly glad yuh happened along. We was afraid they was hidin’ an’ waitin’ ta ambush us if’n we got jumpy an’ showed ourselves too soon. They hit you?”

  “Dawn today. Lost Paw, Step-maw Emma and the twins. They took Sarah,” Blake said.

  Joshua bowed his gray head for a brief and silent prayer. He thought high of Paw. Then he eyeballed our bareback mounts, supplies rough-tied on the pack animals and my kettle. He knew how much we loved our Sarah. “You gonna hunt ’em down?”

  “Right shortly. We’ll need the loan of saddle gear is all, and a place for Adam ta den up a while.”

  No seasoned backwoods neighbor argued the wisdom of decisions already made. Joshua butted his mus
ket. “They stole our two horses an’ saddles. We seen that ’fore they burnt the shed. We got one ol’ packsaddle in the dwellin’ yuh can have the pleasure of. Step down and we’ll fill your gullets.”

  Blake accepted the offer, but admonished Lem and me, “Let’s not tarry, ’tis a long ride ta the Ohio.”

  I leaned forward to slide from the gelding, and fingers seized the kettle handle. “I’ll fetch that for yuh,” a soft, throaty voice murmured, and the handle was pulled free of my grip. I reared back, leaned after the disappearing kettle and peered into the valley separating the bosom of Loraleen Oldham.

  My eyes swelled big as noggin bottoms. Those large mounds floating free in the billowy front of her dress demanded a thorough look-see, and made me keenly aware of her blazing red hair, white skin dotted with countless freckles, and eyes that pooled darker than still water shaded by trees. Loraleen made you stammer and strut in spite of every honest attempt to just stand back and admire. She stirred you right at your centermost, like it or not, a flame you couldn’t forgo sticking a fmger in. And she damn well knew it.

  I slid off the gelding’s far side, struggling to collect my wits and loosen a tongue gone dead. Little that aided my predicament: She lugged the kettle round the gelding’s haunches quick as a bounding deer.

  “I’ll pack this meal while yuh eat,” Loraleen announced with a smile sunshine bright. She reached and touched my split lip, which for once wasn’t dripping blood. “That hurt,” she whispered.

  Even the smell of her, something akin to blooming flowers, was enticing. I’ll never know what all parts of me turned scarlet, but it went far beyond the stains on my chin. I stared over the top of her head. The words I finally parted with in a croak befitted the best of dunderheads. “Really ain’t much.”