War Path (10 page)

Charity and her husband were by no means wealthy compared to merchant folk who made their homes in places such as Boston and New York, but they lived tolerably well, earning their comforts with their farmland and Ephraim's gunsmith shop, a stout-looking little cabin he'd situated near the Kit Fox Tavern, close to the proper center of the settlement. A good gunsmith was always in demand, and with Locksley Barlow and his cousins to till the fields and bring in the crops, the older couple wanted for little, save the return of their son, dead these long months.

Molly was no stranger to loss. Her own parents had succumbed to smallpox when she was but a child. But she had come to terms with her loss and lived for the future. The red-haired young woman smiled wanly, the dead being beyond her grasp, and gingerly approached her aunt.

Charity and her good husband of many years were a study in contrasts. The farm woman was pleasingly plump, with rosy round cheeks and an upturned nose. Her wealth of silvery locks were tucked beneath a lace cap. Her brushed woolen sleeping gown collected in tucks and wrinkles about her ample bosom and expansive hips. Her features, in slumber, were free of worry lines and pretty in a homespun way, the look of a durable woman whose inner strength is centered in faith and a sense of good humor.

Ephraim was reed thin, with the air of a prophet about him, and a nose as long and crooked as a beak and features wrinkled from staring into the sky's white glare. He'd been plagued with bouts of melancholia since the death of his son. But Molly's presence had been their saving grace. The couple doted on their niece and took great comfort in her.

Molly moved aside a small table on which her aunt had placed a porcelain teapot, cup, and saucer, and hooking a small, padded footrest with her toe, pulled it over and placed it alongside the rocking chair. She sat and placed her hand on her aunt's. Charity stirred, her eyes opened, she blinked.

“Land's sake,” she exclaimed, momentarily disoriented. Ephraim coughed and rubbed his eyes and tried to focus on the dimly-lit interior. One of the lamps was in need of a fresh supply of whale oil.

“Who is it? Hold the line, lads … for what we are about to receive.… uh … Molly?”

“Back safe and sound. You need not have waited for me. I am perfectly safe with Johnny Stark.”

“Yes,” Charity sighed. “More's the pity.”

“Wife,” Ephraim sternly admonished while Molly grinned.

“Husband!” Charity retorted right back at him. “Johnny Stark needs to be thinking about something more than just fighting the French and Indians. He is not getting any younger and neither is Molly. All of her friends are properly wed and bearing sons and daughters.” She patted her niece's hand. “Or grandsons and granddaughters.”

“Still it decries the good book that you should encourage one of our own to wantonness.” Ephraim pressed the Bible to his chest as if saluting the wisdom to be found within those pages.

“I encourage nothing of the kind,” Charity scoffed and shook her head, then cast a knowing look in the younger woman's direction. She failed to stifle her yawn. “I am only attempting to guide Molly here upon a most precipitous path.” She nodded and smiled at Molly. “But Ephraim is correct. With all this terrible trouble that has befallen us, it might be best if you do not keep such late hours beyond the safety of these walls.” Charity checked her teacup and drank the last of what she found.

“Isaac is always at hand,” Molly gently reminded them with a glance toward her rifle. “I am not afraid of anything.” She stood and kissed her aunt on the cheek, did the same to her uncle and then climbed the stairs to the bedrooms upstairs.

Charity glanced in Ephraim's direction. “Now, that's what worries me,” she said.

“Amen,” her husband replied.

12

S
tark glanced over his shoulder through the open doorway of his cabin and considered returning to his chair inside. But the night beckoned, the sound of the river rushing over sheets of submerged shale; foaming and bubbling in backwater breaks was a siren call the long hunter could not deny. He knelt and scratched the mastiff behind her ears, then left the steps and meandered down toward the riverbank, a shore strewn with lichen-covered rocks. Further downriver he could make out the expanse of an island in midstream.

His friend, Robert Rogers, had laid claim to that stretch of woods and sand in the center of the Hudson, set midstream between the two riverbanks and in the shadow of the English fort. He proclaimed it Rogers Island. Stark grinned, thinking of his comrade at arms. Robert Rogers was hungry for rank and glory, aspired to have his name written on the pages of history whereas Johnny Stark had other goals. He valued freedom above any rank; good land and independence was worth far more than gold. Then he thought of Molly Page and his blood warmed. Yes, good land, independence, and a good woman.

Upriver, wrapped in darkness, a final tier of rapids limited travel, although Johnny Stark had taken Molly up to the headwaters, a couple of years back. They had explored the mountains to the north and found a chain of ice-cold lakes that the Abenaki called the “Tears of the Mountains.”

No colonist would ever come up with a better name for the place. He admired much about the Abenaki, not that it would deter him from fighting them. That was the tragedy of this war, that red man and white man could not find a way to live in peace. Maybe one day, Stark thought. But he doubted in his lifetime. He thought of the butchered remains beyond the walls of William Henry. There had been too much cruelty, too much dying on both sides. And for what? Some days it seemed as if he and Atoan were just pawns in this struggle between the age's two great powers, France and England.

That too needs to change
, he thought. “But not now,” he sighed. First the settlement had to survive the coming months.

Duchess, who had followed him down the path from the cabin, bristled and uttered a deep-voiced, guttural growl. Someone was approaching. For an instant, an image flashed through Stark's mind, that of his trusty rifle back where he left it, on the spruce wood rack above the mantle in his cabin.

A man venturing anywhere these days without his smoke pole was a fool. The wilderness could be a harsh teacher and unforgiving of the careless. Stark slipped a knife from the sheath at his side. The blade was hand-forged, tempered true and sharpened to a fare-thee-well. He tensed. The hackles rose on the mastiff's back, increasing her size. She could have passed for a bear in the darkness.

“Stark,” said Major Ransom. “I will thank you to call off the dog. I believe someone mentioned to me that was Colonel Monro's mastiff?”

“Maybe, but she's orphaned now, and going it alone.” Stark returned the knife to his belt. He checked the shadows for some sign of the officer's escort and realized, much to his surprise, that Ransom had come alone. “Well now, Major, I never thought you officers went anywhere without a company of
lobsterbacks
to watch your arse.”

Lieutenant Penmerry's report must have been alarming, if it had driven the fort's commanding officer into committing such a rash act. Stark had to raise his estimation of the man. Maybe the officer had more gumption than Stark gave him credit for. He made a mental note to never again underestimate a British officer. It appeared Ransom was likewise confronting his own personal dilemma. That he chose to exorcize his demons beyond the scrutiny of the men who would have to follow his orders made a kind of sense.

“John Stark.” Major Ransom muttered the name like he would a curse. “Do I place you under arrest and have you flogged for fleeing the field of battle or thank you for saving my life?”

“I would not try the former,” cautioned Stark. “And the latter is unnecessary.” He waited for the officer to approach and then the two men continued abreast of one another along the riverbank. “Flogging,” he added with contempt. “You officers are mighty free with the lash.”

“Flogging teaches discipline, Mister Stark. Without discipline, an army cannot hope to succeed.” Ransom tugged on the hem of his coat. He had exchanged his disheveled uniform for one proper and fitting and not stained with blood and powder burns. Moonlight glinted off the white embroidered facing on his tunic and the silver hilt of his sword.

“The only thing a lash ever taught a man is how to turn his back,” Stark replied. He was not impressed. “The 1st Regiment of Foot had discipline at Bloody Meadow, and you lost half your lads. And the poor bastards at Fort William Henry looked like they had plenty of discipline as they marched out to be massacred!”

Stark knew it was highly unusual for a colonial of his station to address an officer of Ransom's rank and stature with such familiarity. But Ransom had left that privilege behind at the gate. The two men had survived the disastrous relief attempt, battle, and the rout toward Fort Edward. It was quite evident John Stark really did not give a damn if the Englishman took offense.

Ransom bristled at the big man's tone of voice. Only within the walls of Fort Edward had the major begun to experience a sense of safety. And even that was suspect. He imagined the possibility of an armed host of French and Indians massing just beyond the hills, preparing for an all-out assault on the ramparts. And the command had fallen to him. Indeed, for the moment the future of the English presence in the Adirondacks rested upon his inexperienced shoulders.

Ransom swallowed his pride, breathed deep and folded his hands behind his back. He had not slipped through the side entrance of the fort only to become embroiled in a conflict with this uncouth frontiersman. “Rogers paid me a visit.”

“Robert is not a man to waste time.”

“He told me of your plan.…”

“It is both of ours. We have talked on it some.”

“He mentioned you both seek a separate command of the Colonial Militia and that it should be considered apart from the King's troops.”

“Not militia,” Stark said, eyes glinting in the moonlight as he faced the power of the mighty Hudson. “Rangers.” He turned and faced the English officer. “Do you want to win this war?”

“Of course I do,” Ransom answered.

“Then let us fight to win. We shall raise a force of Rangers who can outmarch, outsail, outrun and outfight any Abenaki or Frenchman in the New World. I will handpick the force. Each man will have to be a crack shot and skilled with the hawk and knife. And they will have to know the woods.” Stark folded his powerful arms across his broad chest.

“It is most irregular. I will no doubt have to answer for it,” Ransom mused, stroking his pointed chin. “That is, when General Amherst arrives to assume command. And he most assuredly will do just that, when my dispatches reach him.”

“Avenging what happened this week ought to buy his good graces.”

“I don't know,” Ransom said, stroking his chin. Upriver to the north, the enemy waited; at least he hoped they were waiting and not advancing for the final battle.

Stark knelt, drew his knife and began to draw in the soft moist earth of the riverbank. A crude map took form, clearly visible in the moonlight. Indeed, the two men had no problem seeing one another's facial expressions. Both looked worn and troubled by the events of the past few days.

“Look here,” Stark began, drawing an elongated circle in the dirt. “This is Lake Champlain.” He drew a long appendage to its southern reaches. “And this is
Tisinondrosa
. That's the Abenaki word. It means ‘the tail of the lake.' The great lake narrows here and becomes more like a river, about twenty five miles long and a quarter of a mile wide. It ends in
La Chute
, I'd say that's about four miles of rapids which connect Lake Champlain to the northern tip of Lake George. And all of it is under French control. Fort Carillon at the mouth of
La Chute
and Fort Saint Frederick to the north where the lake broadens.”

“It is their own private waterway,” Ransom drily observed. “But there is nothing I can do. I'd need an army of several thousand men to drive out the French and push them back north across Lake Champlain. And at the moment, I fear what the French command has in store for Fort Edward. That is my immediate concern.”

“And mine,” Stark said. “Maybe we need to get those French marines worried about something other than Fort Edward.”

“Oh … what?”

Stark placed his foot across the tail of the lake, leaving an imprint upon the French territory. “The French and their Abenaki allies want a war, let's give it to them, Major,” said John Stark, his voice seductively soft. But he was speaking words of death not love. He drew his foot across “the tail of the lake” and obliterated both forts in the process.

“Rangers, eh? A separate company, answering to you and Rogers.” Ransom pursed his lips a moment and absentmindedly chewed on the inside of his mouth as he considered the proposal. It was a gamble all right. But things could not possibly get any worse, could they? “Tell me then, once more. In detail. Exactly what sort of command do you have in mind?”

“Trust me,” said Stark. “It will be like nothing you've ever seen.”

The Leaf-Falling Moon

1757

13

“If you find the enemy encamped near the banks of a river or lake, which you imagine they will attempt to cross for their security upon being attacked, leave a detachment of your party on the opposite shore to receive them, while, with the remainder, you surprise them, having them between you and the lake or river.”

B
enoit Turcotte wanted a woman. And he had wanted a woman ever since leaving the settlement of Fort Saint Frederick, when he and his crew of stouthearted rivermen had been ordered by Captain Lucien Barbarat to proceed on to Fort Carillon and refrain from indulging themselves in the taverns and crib dens standing cheek to jowl in an estuary south of the waterfront.