War Path (22 page)

Johnny Stark ran for all he was worth, ran like his life depended on it … and it did. He heard the crack of a rifle and steeled himself for an impact that never came and saw the cool dark recesses of the barn open to him and then he was inside.

Safe?

Hardly.

A pistol shot from above. Wood splinters spattered his face. He dove to the left and found momentary refuge in a stall beneath the loft which ran lengthwise and was about half the width of the barn. Hidden from sight, with his back to the wall and staring up at the underside of the loft, Stark wiped the blood from his cheek and gingerly plucked the splinters from his flesh.

What passed for silence was broken by the sound of wooden ramrods rasping against metal and the faint whisper of gunpowder sprinkling down the length of an iron gun barrel, the unmistakable punctuation of hammers cocked …

“You came close,” Fargo's voice drifted down from above.

Stark scrutinized the planks overhead, began to maneuver beneath the loft, drifting toward the back. The sound of Fargo's voice indicated the man was on the move. “Have I nicked you yet?” He waited for a reply. “Maybe you're bleeding, eh?”

Stark shifted his rifle to his left hand, took the pistol in his right. He glimpsed movement between the cracks in the wood. A few wisps of straw drifted down, disturbed by Fargo's steps. In the barn below, Stark kept pace, an unseen stalker.

“Speak, damn your eyes!” Fargo's voice sounded shrill now. “Bleeding, that's it. Or maybe dead.”

Stark froze, fingers tightening around the trigger. His left arm began to tremble from the weight of the long rifle. But he held his fire. Bided his time.

“Are you dead, John Stark?” Cassius chuckled. “Well, if not now, soon.” He was on the move again and the man below climbed over the side of a second stall and then eased through the broken slats of a third.

“You should have stayed in Fort Edward, stayed with that tart of yours,” said Fargo. He found an inch-wide gap in the floor planks. He paused and was rewarded with the sight of Big John Stark stepping into view. “But I showed her a thing or two and took her down a notch. She'll remember Cassius Fargo.” Stark glanced up and saw a patch of homespun shirt and the glimmer of a hate-filled stare. “All the more so when I ship you back in a box!”

A section of the floor exploded in Stark's face. He returned the fire and blasted another section back at the man above him. The two men moved in line with one another, screaming as they emptied their guns, blowing holes through the loft floor, shards of wood flying off in all directions as they blasted away at one another with pistols and rifles. The air filled with thick clouds of powder smoke. The sound was deafening.

Then it ended.

Cassius Fargo's body crashed to the dirt floor, bones snapped, limbs flopped and lay still, leaving him sprawled lifeless in the terrible haze, staring with sightless eyes, his features awash with blood from a terrible head wound. Another slug had torn through his chest and left a gaping hole in his back.

The hunt was ended.

Now all that remained was a ringing in the ears, burning eyes, the stench of mortality, and a killer with a heavy heart standing over his victim amid the settling benediction of the straw-stained dust.

The Big Leaf Moon

1758

28

“If you are to embark … chuse the evening for the time of your embarkation, as you will then have the whole night before you to pass undiscovered by any parties of the enemy.”

T
he feast began as soon as Major Ransom pronounced the couple married. While Molly Page Stark beamed and John Stark sheepishly grinned, his fellow Rangers led by Robert Rogers and Locksley Barlow emptied their rifles into the air. Sam Oday's blunderbuss sounded like a cannon. Moses Shoemaker dabbed at his grizzled features and then barrelled his way through the gathering of townsmen, soldiers of the Regiment and green-clad Indian fighters who had ventured down to the banks of the Hudson to join in the celebration, for this was a happy union and a time of joy after a winter that had brought them to the brink of tragedy.

Molly was hale and hearty after her ordeal, having recovered from Cassius Fargo's despicable assault. During the months after his return from Cowslip, Stark had kept close to the settlement, broke ground with Ephraim Page and suffered other men to patrol the woods while the “beast of the Abenaki” added a kitchen connected by a covered dogtrot to the rear of his cabin and made the place fitting. By the time the ice broke and the river currents carried off the floes, Big John Stark was prepared for the happy day when he would join his life and fortune to the woman who roamed the forests at his side. He would take Molly Page to wife, to have and to hold, to walk the trail of life together until death.

No one had asked Stark about the fate of Cassius Fargo and the long hunter offered no account of what had transpired but word reached the settlement despite Stark's reluctance to speak on the matter. A freighter hauling goods over the mountains from the eastern cities had passed through Cowslip and, along with an itinerant tinker come to ply his trade, carried the news of Fargo's untimely end, to which the inhabitants of Fort Edward added “well-deserved” and let the matter drop.

John and Molly were married by the river they loved, on a knoll where the dogwoods bloomed. Their cathedral was a landscape of rolling hills thick with oaks and maples adorned in broadleaf raiments of amber and green that swept up from the riverbank and fringed a meadow carpeted with the pinks, blues, and pearl-white bouquets of bloodroot, trout lilies, and lady's slipper.

The hills teemed with wild game and the hunting had been good. White-tailed deer and brown elk had returned to the wooded hills to graze upon the witch hobble and wild turkeys frequently flocked to pristine vales where wood ferns sprouted 'neath a shading canopy of hemlock, spruce, birch, and white pine.

The local hunters had been busy replenishing the settlement's smokehouses. But it was the sure-eyed skills of Molly Page and Big John Stark that provided a substantial part of the wedding feast. While other lasses might have been embroidering their wedding finery, Molly had followed her husband-to-be out among the hills, rifle in hand. Nor had they returned empty-handed. No less than three cookfires crackled and snapped in the afternoon. Greedy flames lapped at the spits of roasting venison, pheasant, and turkey.

Moses Shoemaker made the rounds of each blaze. He had personally appointed the men tending the fires. The irascible old Indian fighter admonished each of his men to keep the flames steady and to see the meat was basted with an anointing of fat drippings and honey. He took care to sample a cut from one of the roasts to satisfy his concerns that all was ready and waiting for the hungry revelers to descend upon the banquet.

Shoemaker might be in charge of the game cooks but Charity Page was the self-proclaimed marshal of the feast. Under her tutelage, tables were arranged, groaning boards set aside and weighed down with platters and bowls of English pudding, brown bread, johnnycakes glazed with maple sugar, tureens of succotash, and blueberry pies. Children wielding makeshift fans were instructed to keep the insects from swarming the foodstuffs. The treats were too tempting for many of the young ones who pilfered the trifles when no one was looking.

Ephraim stood at his wife's side. The gunsmith was clad in his best frock coat and embroidered waistcoat, the front of which was concealed beneath his snowy beard. His features crinkled as he flashed a good-natured smile in the face of their loss. “Well, good wife, it is a good day.”

“To think our precious niece is finally married. I prayed I might see this happy day and yet now that it has come to pass, I can only think how I shall miss her about the house.” Charity used her apron to wipe the moisture from her eyes. “First Abel and now Molly. I love her like a daughter, I swear I do.”

“Take comfort, old dame, I daresay Molly will not be a stranger to our door. She knows her husband has another calling. The wilderness howls in his veins. I doubt he will ever be fully tamed. More's the better for we will need his kind,” Ephraim replied. “The drums will sound once more along the War Path. The French will loose their dogs of war.” Page caught himself before he added, “and God help us” and silently rebuked himself for calling up such a dark cloud to dim the brightness of this blessed day.

Still, the gunsmith wasn't alone in his anxiety. Of course, spring was a time of renewal and rebirth, when the world walked in beauty. But no one on the frontier was fooled by the grandeur. Now that the river ran free and the wind blew fair, so the rumor of war was in the air and with April already drawing to an end, it was only a matter of time before blood was spilled and the brutal raids began anew.

Time had not dimmed the memory of the fate that befell Fort William Henry. It was whispered that on moonless nights the ghosts walked the forest and lingered, all forlorn, by the banks of Lake George, their endless keening in contrast to the tranquil splash of the rippling waves. Several of the Rangers claimed to have overheard a spectral portent borne upon the rustling breeze. Lo, the ghosts foretold Fort Edward would be the next to fall and the settlement that had sprung up within the shadow of the ramparts, put to the torch.

There were no fools in Fort Edward. It was common knowledge that the reinforcements promised by Sir Peter Drennan had yet to materialize. And though the British forces were massing along the eastern seaboard, here in the wilderness all that stood between the settlements and disaster were the shattered remnants of the 1st Regiment of Foot, and the small but efficient force of Rangers who followed Johnny Stark and Robert Rogers. Still the Colonials refused to abandon their homes and flee to safety. What they had was worth fighting for, and dying for, if need be.

Charity glowered at her husband. “Enough of your gloom, you old
nutmegger.”
She adjusted her lace cap then with a wave of her hands signaled the settlement's musicians to ply their talents. Locksley Barlow with his fiddle, Sergeant Strode with his walking drum, and a trio of Irish fifers from the Regiment began to play a merry jig while the festive throng formed a circle about the newlyweds.

Molly tossed her head, her thick red hair struggled against the ribbons that bound them, her eyes twinkled bright as if imbued with sunbeams glimmering upon an emerald sea. “You're trapped now, Johnny Stark,” she called out, tying up the front of the wine-colored apron she wore over her pink-and-white petticoat. She checked the fastened buttons on her matching lace bodice for modesty's sake, then approached the long hunter who glanced about for an escape route. But his fellow Rangers and townsfolk stood shoulder to shoulder.

“Perhaps I'd best break him in for you, darlin',” Tess McDonagel called out with a wink and a grin from where she stood amongst the well-wishers. “It appears the groom might be a trifle shy with you.” She placed her hands on her ample hips while the Rangers catcalled and sallied forth with ribald challenges, coming fast and furious as their beloved leader began to squirm with embarrassment.

“Tess can warm him up for you, Mistress Molly,” another of the lads shouted.

Tess stretched out her hands and began to sway invitingly. “He'll dance with me, never fear. I'll warm him true. It's not like I haven't taken him around the table before.”

Molly stepped forward and blocked the tavern keeper. “From what I hear there's not a man alive in Fort Edward you haven't
taken round the table
before.”

The onlookers roared with laughter. Now it was Tess McDonagel's turn to bear the brunt of the teasing. And these rough-hewn dull-swifts were more than ready to dish her out an ample portion of mortification.

But Molly wasn't finished. “And though I call you friend, see you keep a respectful distance from my man, Mistress Easy-Peasy, for I shall keep him
busy
enough to suit his tastes. And mine.” A chorus of cheers erupted from the crowd. Tess scowled and spurned them with her flashing eyes and arched expression.

Molly might have added an extra riposte to their verbal duel but for John Stark who clasped her about the waist and lifted her into the air and swung his fiery-tempered paramour into the sunlit circle. She seemed light as a feather in Stark's arms. The musicians started to play a Celtic reel.

“Well met, young wife, will you quarrel or will you join your husband in the reel?”

Molly laughed, a sweet clear sound, and placed her hands on her shapely hips. “I know you can fight, sir, but can you dance?”

Stark dared her to keep up with him, bowed and took a broad right step and high-kicked to the left to the merry accompaniment of fife and fiddle and drum, his long legs tapped a quick tattoo upon the well-trampled sod. The crowd encouraged him all the more.

And to the delight and grudging respect of his peers, Stark showed them all how a Celtic reel should be danced, with his frock coat cast aside and the pewter buttons of his mid-thigh-length umber waistcoat straining to contain his rippling muscles. Laughing and hollering, he kick-stepped, swung about, plunging left and right, swirling Molly along the perimeter of the circle as she struggled to match his pace.

As they passed Tess McDonagel, Stark reached out and snared the buxom wench by the wrist and spun her into Sam Oday's arms to the surprise and delight of the scarred frontiersman.

So it began, wives and husbands, spinsters and fair maidens, not one woman was left unasked, not one refused an invitation to dance and when the women were all spoken for, the remaining townsmen and Indian fighters either watched and awaited their turn with the ladies, or succumbed to the aromas that drifted over from the long tables where the wedding feast was prepared.

One reel led to another and then to a jig, then back to a foot-stamping, boisterous reel. The music buoyed on the rising warmth and filled the air. The forested slopes marked each wayward breeze. It was as if the wind-stirred branches of the trees kept time with each merry refrain.