War Path (25 page)

Shoemaker studied his friend. They were seeing another side of Sam Oday. His friends had never heard him sound so menacing. Something was eating at the man. Nerves? But he was no stranger to a raiding party. What was different about this? It was just expected, count on Sam Oday to keep a level head. The man had suffered his share of tragedy, buried his wife and family and still he hadn't broken.

Then Shoemaker answered his own question. This was no ordinary raid. The Rangers were out for vengeance. And Sam Oday had much to avenge. His thoughts had to be of the family he had lost to French plunderers and the savages who accompanied them. Better to give Oday his space this night, let him find his own way of dealing with the memories.

Moses resolved to change the subject. All that remained was for Johnny Stark to join them.
But I reckon he's fighting the first skirmish of this campaign, right this moment
. He clapped Barlow on the knee as the jug made its way back into the old man's eager hands.

“Take it from me, lads. I warrant Molly Stark is giving her man what for. Mark my words. She's cutting that big timber down to size.” The men around him chuckled, just to think it, the towering Indian fighter whittled down to size by a mere slip of a girl.

“And what would an old moss-bones like you know about such things?” Barlow asked.

Moses didn't mind if they scoffed. “You'll see,” he said. “You'll see.”

He knew all about womenfolk.

John Stark stood out in the yard in front of his cabin, relishing this moment of peace, in the dark, in the company of his doubts and premonitions, perhaps, but only momentarily. The wilderness beyond the hills rushed to his aid. A sibilant breeze sprang up to defend him, a pattern of flaming stars fell from heaven, vanished in soundless splendor, in phosphorescent explosions of searing white and fuming emeralds. The river lapped at the shore, the swiftly flowing current roiling over rocks, and adding to the symphony of the restless wind and the stars. How could a man despair?

Once before he had stood alone, defiant against an Abenaki war party, he had run the gauntlet and hurled his victory in their faces. Then, as now, he held his vigil with the wilderness and made his benediction to the untamed spirits with whom he shared a kinship.

The wind shall guide him. Let him draw upon the secrets of the trees for strength.

“I am here,” he said, standing tall, a legend in the night.

Voices carried to him from across the field and he knew it was time. He turned and started back to the cabin, climbed the steps into the civilized light. Stark ducked and stepped through the cabin doorway, to deliver the news that the Rangers had gathered at Ephraim's farm and the hour for departure was at hand.

Throughout this last day, he had been making last-minute repairs about the cabin, as if anticipating … well, why not? A man never knew when some Abenaki war club might send him under.

Funny he never worried about it before, not once considered the possibility he might not return. Marriage had made him mortal. He started to say as much but the words died aborning. Molly was dressed in a petticoat and apron. Lamplight and shadows muted the color of her shortgown, a loose-fitting long-sleeved jacket worn in place of a bodice. Her eyes seemed to sparkle, and all the heady joys of springtime were captured in her smile.

Mortal, yes. But in another way, immortal. As if he were somehow connected to the divine in a way he never thought possible. But that was love.

Before her on the tabletop lay Old Abraham, a brace of pistols, his powder horn and shot pouch. Stark was caught off guard by her attire.

“You expected to find me in buckskins?”

“Yes.”

“You did not demand I stay behind.”

“It is your land, too. And you can outshoot most of the lads.”

“Maybe a few,” she agreed. “My land … and my home.”

He refrained from showing his relief or revealing how he had dreaded her determination to join him on the war trail. His expression was easy enough to read.

“Don't worry. I have decided and will not change my mind,” said Molly, placing her hands upon the burled walnut rifle stock. “No, I will remain behind.”

Stark was definitely confused. All the arguments he had compiled in his thoughts to keep her at Fort Edward suddenly seemed like a waste of time. And in one way, he was even disappointed. John had come to expect to find the woman at his side.

“Molly …”

“No, just listen,” she said, her lips moist and inviting, her voice soft, smooth as French silk, remarkably steady. “It is different now. We are husband and wife, joined now by a deeper bond, so that even when we are apart I am with you and you with me. But if I march off with you now, when the shooting starts, you'll be worrying about me in ways you never did before. I might be carrying the seed of our child, who can tell, but by watching out for me you will get yourself killed.”

Her lower lip began to tremble. It was all so new to her, being wife and lover and one day, God willing, mother. “There will be other trails and we will walk them together like before. But this War Path, you must go alone, with your company of Rangers.” She exhaled softly. “And I must stay.” Her gaze hardened. “If the Abenaki come, then Aunt Charity and Uncle Ephraim will need my help. And you, my love, will be avenged.”

“Was there ever a man so blessed with a wife like mine?” The long hunter rounded the table and swept her up in his arms. “I swear before God and all that is holy, I will come back to you, Molly Stark.”

And after a kiss and then another, John Stark gathered up his weapons of war and left her standing, breathless, but brave in the deafening silence.

32

B
y morning, Fort Edward was but a memory of fond farewells, of cookfires and hastily-filled wooden bowls of corn pudding and maple syrup, of shared embraces, the comfort of friends and the security of the fort's ramparts with its redoubts and cannon placements. But the frontiersmen knew, as well as anyone, walls and grapeshot were a false security. Fort William Henry had boasted the same armaments and it had fallen. All that remained were ruins and ghosts.

Unless something was done to disrupt French intentions for the settlement, no one doubted Fort Edward would suffer a similar fate before the summer was out. The
voyageur
, Benoit Turcotte, had set in motion a bold undertaking. Every man knew the risk, to mount a surprise attack against both the French and Indians at The Gathering Place below Severed Rock might be considered folly by some. But peril was no stranger to the company of the Rangers.

Major Robert Rogers, Locksley Barlow, even Old Moses Shoemaker kept up an unrelenting pace that devoured the distance throughout the night and well into the day. The
voyageur
slowed them some. The Frenchman was simply unused to such exertions. He was a man of the river. Half the time he rode on a makeshift sling carried between two of the strongest lads. They might have left him back on the trail save for the fact that they needed him to identify Colonel Lucien Barbarat. And if this was a ruse and they were heading into an ambush, the Rangers wanted to assure themselves Turcotte would be the first to fall.

With short rests every hour, taking food and drink as they walked, the Rangers kept up their forced march throughout the lengthening hours of daylight. The column was able to move with a certain degree of freedom, fairly certain they were safe from observation because of the two men scouting ahead who left a trail of marked trees and piled stones to indicate the direction the column needed to travel.

A quarter of a mile forward of the column, John Stark and Sam Oday continued to blaze a trail their companions followed. The two scouts remained ever vigilant as they marked the trail for those coming behind them. Stark kept a wary lookout for any sign of the enemy, the simple impression left by a mocassin meant cause for alarm. Using their spyglasses, the two scoured every ridge for a telltale trace of smoke from distant campfires.

Though the forests seemed devoid of French patrols or Abenaki war parties, every hill and dale teemed with life. Wrens and jays and mockingbirds chattered among the branches, gray squirrels scolded their passing, game darted from harm's way. Rabbits scampered from underfoot, disturbed by the intruders. Stark caught sight of a fox, just a flash of rust-red fur in pursuit of ground rodents. Hawks circled overhead, pinned to the azure sky above the breaks, waiting patiently for a kill. Mallards and blue teals nested in the ponds whose spring-fed waters bubbled cool and clear from mother earth.

Late in the afternoon, Stark and Oday found a proper place for camp. They'd marked the trees with their tomahawks and left a trail more than visible enough to lead the Rangers to a clearing concealed by a thick stand of white birch and maple. The two scouts stretched out against an outcropping of speckled granite on a slope overlooking the spring and waited for the column to arrive. Sam Oday was grateful for the rest and he was content to while away the remainder of the afternoon, watching slanted rays of sunlight infiltrate the forest with an army of encroaching shadows.

“These smoke poles get a mite heavy after a long run,” he said, nudging the butt plate of Stark's long rifle.

Stark nodded. He never stopped searching the perimeter of trees.

“Don't you ever tire?” said Sam. He lowered his head to his hands, the black scarf covering his scarred scalp felt warm to the touch. He tried to suppress the memories of his murdered family. Faces he had long thought dormant had bloomed in the garden of his mind like flowers of evil, opening their petals of loss and indescribable pain, to deprive him of rest and plague the long unceasing daylight hours.

“What is it, Sam?”

“Just thinking, Johnny. Just remembering. I don't know. It comes whenever the winter breaks and the world looks so fresh and full of promise. Then I get to thinking how I'll never see her and the children again.”

“I can imagine,” Stark said.

“No, you can't.”

Stark shrugged. He was not about to argue with the man and his pain. “Not like you, I know, but when Molly was hurt, I damn near went mad. I've stood on the trail you've had to walk, Sam, and I wanted to go no further down it.” His expression grew distant, veiled. “I've seen the ghosts of Fort William. I walked among the killing fields, saw our brothers left as food for the ravens, and the women, the children.…”

“Enough!” Sam blurted out, his voice tight.

“This French officer, Barbarat, it was his handiwork,” said Stark. “If I do nothing else on this earth I shall see that he answers for his butchery.”

“And the Abenaki, the Grand Sachem … Atoan,” Sam muttered, hands clenched around the fluted barrel of his blunderbuss. “Kill them all.”

Stark tried to echo his sentiments. The French commander was without honor, a base and merciless adversary. However, Atoan was different, no less fierce, but not the same. He knew the Grand Sachem would not yield, not rest until he drove Stark and his kind back over the mountains. That was the tragedy of the situation. This land was Atoan's by birth. This land was Stark's by blood. The Grand Sachem wanted him to go. Stark was determined to stay. Thus time and place had made them enemies on a collision course with destiny.

33

C
olonel Lucien Barbarat woke with the dawn. His mind was instantly alert, unclouded by the effects of the previous night's excesses. It had been an enjoyable interlude, but a man could not live on duty alone. The Widow Rox-anne LeBret had helped clear his thoughts. He had nearly depleted her supply of brandy and sated his lust in her arms. However, Barbarat's appetite for fortune and glory could only be appeased by another mistress, her name was
War
.

He lay still for a moment, watching the honeyed glow fill the curtains. He was content to let a half hour pass. It was comfortable here. The widow's boudoir was half again as large as his officer's quarters within the fort. Her furnishings, unlike the locally-crafted trappings of his own quarters, came from Quebec and had been ferried down aboard the boats belonging to her husband's trading company.

He stretched out his legs, patted the cotton bed sheets, yawned, and silently observed this bed alone was worth half a year's pay for a colonel. Of course, being the officer in command opened up opportunities to feather his own nest. The four-poster was built of natural walnut and painted beech, the footboard was decorated with carved garlands, the headboard's centerpiece was an intricately-inlaid design resembling a basket of flowers with bronze ornamentation. The legs resembled Roman columns.

The wages of a widow's grief paid well indeed, the officer mused, considering the bed, the drawing-room chair, the dressing table against the north wall, the clothes chest and damask-covered settee near the curtains. How fortunate the old merchant she married had proved to be of such delicate health. While Lucien Barbarat estimated his host's personal wealth, outside the window, the settlement of Fort Carillon came alive.

The familiar sounds of frontier life drifted up from the streets: the jangle of a horse in harness, the creaking axle on a milk cart winding its way among the houses, farmers in from the fields selling eggs, cheeses, breads, and onions, and rivermen crying out the morning's catch of lake trout, bass, and yellow perch.

The bells of Saint Elizabeth tolled the morning hour. Father Jean Isaac or one of his sanctified heathens was calling his flock to the holy rites, but they competed with the echo of distant drums carrying over the rampart walls, signaling the garrison of French marines to rouse from sleep, break their fast, or present themselves to the officers for the orders of the day.

Hmm, marching orders
. Barbarat began to make mental calculations as to how many men were appropriate to accompany him to The Gathering Place. He mustn't dishonor his red allies.
Merde
, but these heathens were a tricky business. He was weary of placating the savages. But for now, he needed men like Atoan.