War Path (13 page)

Or tried to kill him.

15

A
bove the treetops, broad formations of Canadian geese and smaller speedier little clusters of emerald-winged teals raced southward across an azure sky, following some secret invisible trail among the clouds, a course etched in their untamed hearts by the whims of nature and the unfathomable call of the great beyond. But the workings of creation and the miracle of southern migrations were for another day, when men like Stark might have the time to ponder his own connection to the world of the hart and the hawk.

Johnny Stark and Robert Rogers had pushed the Rangers unmercifully. Rogers, although tentatively in command, often drifted back to the rear of the column to check for any sign of pursuit. Both men were equally determined to put as much distance as possible between the Ranger company and the site of their latest raid. Keeping to the opposite bank where they concealed their canoes for a return foray, the buckskin-clad raiders passed the looming walls of Fort Carillon under cover of night. Mid-morning found them a half-day's march from
La Chute
. It was the kind of forced march a Ranger must make or be left behind.

Press on … and on.

A couple of miles from the wooded landing where they had concealed four bateaux among the reeds and rushes fringing Lake George, the mastiff, trotting ahead of the column, began to whine and paw the earth, turning up clods of dirt, and decayed leaves and gray rocks.

John Stark hurried forward to investigate. Duchess had cut across some recent
Injun
sign, mocassin tracks along a deer path. Now the homeward trek took a different turn. Stark and Rogers drifted off to confer apart from Molly and the company of Rangers.

The column waited. Moses Shoemaker found an outcropping of granite and stretched out against it, luxuriating in a patch of sunlight like an old hound. Tom Strode, the fisherman's son, studied the lake. “Wonder if a man could feed his family on the catch from yonder pond?” he mused aloud.

“The only way to find out is to shuck that red coat of yours and clear you a home site,” said Sam Oday.

The British sergeant glanced over at his scarred companion. The man had lost family, suffered torture, and still he remained. Why? Because the frontier was his home. “Tell me, mate, were your dreams worth the sacrifice?”

“Better to suffer and dream than sleep without hope. My wife and dear daughters died free. And when my time comes, so will I. There's not many in this world who can claim that.”

Molly walked up alongside Oday and placed her hand on his shoulder. “Well said. You speak for all of us. Bless you, Sam.”

“Be careful now, Molly, or your apt to see Judgment Day a spinster,” Shoemaker spoke up, lightening the moment. “Best you quit trailing that big rooster yonder and share my blanket,” Moses added with a mischievous grin.

“Or mine,” said Locksley Barlow, gnawing a strip of jerked venison he'd retrieved from his possibles bag.

“Or mine,” another of the company called out. And laughter rippled through the ranks as the reply was echoed by each of the men in turn.

Molly scowled and shook her head and turned away lest they catch her smile. She casually observed the two men standing apart from the column. Johnny Stark and Robert Rogers were locked in a heated debate with the latter becoming more agitated. But at the last they seemed to reach an accord, tempers cooled and a short while later the two men rejoined the patrol.

Rogers announced he would take half the contingent and continue on to the boats, for it was important to reach Fort Edward as soon as possible and give a report as to the success of the raid and the increased French activity around Fort Carillon. He called for volunteers to accompany Stark who intended to follow this recent trail that wound like a brown ribbon through the trees and across a hilltop.

Molly Page and thirteen of the Rangers cast their lot with Stark. Sam Oday, Shoemaker, Barlow, Strode, each man in turn stepping across to side with John Stark. The last man to volunteer was Cassius Fargo, which surprised everyone. However, Molly frowned and took note. Johnny had already been wounded once. It was not going to happen again if she had any say in the matter. Stark though, accepted one and all without question and with a wave and a “Good luck” to Major Rogers, trotted off down the trail with Duchess in the lead. Stark had a mighty stride and Molly and the rest had to hury to keep up.

Press on.…

By late afternoon, with thunderheads gathering on the southern horizon, the company trudged wearily up a steep, heavily-wooded bluff and through a stand of curly maple that overlooked the deep blue waters of the lake.

Nearing the crest, Stark called a halt and crept to the edge of the promontory and waited. The great mastiff stretched out at his side, tail wagging and striking the ground with a thump … thump … thump. Molly knelt by Stark and the mastiff and scratched the dog behind the ears. The woman was thankful for the breather although she refused to let on how spongy her legs were becoming.

“I am grateful Robert took another route,” she said.

“Oh?” Stark replied, searching the distance. The rest of the company held back, stretching out upon the sward, relaxing in sunlight and shadow. “Rogers is a good man.”

“I know that,” she continued. “Just of late he seems a mite quarrelsome. I swear the man has traded in his good Christian name for ‘Major.'”

Stark chuckled. “When we were a provincial militia it didn't mean so much. Now that the Regiment has made it official and put him in command, Robert does set quite a store by the title.”

“And you'd think he had gone and hugged a porcupine the way he carries on when you don't give him his due.” She had become aware of a growing tension between the two friends, especially whenever Johnny questioned Rogers's lead. He looked across at her and grinned. Duchess snorted and rumbled. Molly and John reached out together to stroke the dog's ears, their hands met and lingered. Johnny turned a bit red and became flustered and returned his attention to the trail ahead.

Oh, but that was Johnny Stark, he marched to a different drummer. From the moment she laid eyes on the big rascal better than half a dozen years ago, she had loved him. He wasn't handsome like Locksley Barlow or a wealthy landowner like Robert Rogers or even Uncle Ephraim, but there was something special, something unique about Johnny that appealed to her.

“Men like Robert place a great value in the trappings of rank and breeding,” she drily observed.

“Yes, and more's the pity. When it comes to staying alive out here, lineage is about as useless as teats on a bull. Gold lace and brass buttons never helped a man keep his topknot.”

And Stark was a survivor. Like the Abenaki who first trod these thousand hills and traversed their maze of streams and rivers, John Stark had learned the language of the untamed places; his soul soared among the trees and on the wings of the wind.

This was the kind of man Molly Page chose to love and the Rangers would follow, through hell or high water.
So farewell, Robert Rogers, hurry on to Fort Edward, let this man be
, thought Molly, crouching so close as to be in his shadow.
Let him go his own way and search the hills.

Stark tried to concentrate on the hills and the forest but he could feel Molly's heart reaching out to him. Bless her, but the lass was proving to be a distraction. Perhaps they ought to head on out then and take their chances among the trees. Just as he was prepared to wave the company forward, three crows exploded from the treetops and swooped upward, their great black wings pummeling the air. Something … or someone had startled them from their roost. Duchess growled.

“Easy,” Johnny muttered as he scanned the forest floor. Seconds later he caught a glimpse of an advancing war party on the march toward the lakeshore. He glanced over his shoulder at the remainder of his command, raised his right arm, opened and closed his hand three times and then made a fist. The signal was unmistakable. The Rangers scrambled to take cover and prepare an ambush.

Molly, Moses Shoemaker, Locksley Barlow, and the rest of the men quickly scattered about the fringes of the little glade, where the trail cut through the small clearing. Molly moved through the underbrush as effortlessly as a shadow. At first she had considered fighting alongside the man she loved. Then another thought came to mind. Back at the Tail of the Lake, during the skirmish with the
voyageurs
, a rifle ball had nicked Stark's ear and come close to taking off his head. Had one of their own tried to kill him?

Possibly. And they might try again. But who? Well, Johnny Stark wasn't the only one who had a premonition about such things. Molly Page knew just the spot for her and it wasn't alongside her man.

16

“
Y
ou're a piss-poor marksman,”
Ford Fargo whispered in his brother's ear. At least that's what Cassius heard, like the merest rustle of a passing breeze. Ghosts are like that, easily mistaken for the cry of a loon, the wind in the branches of the tamarack, a leaf scratching across a shuttered window, a laugh heard in the dark or worse, at brightest noon … when there's no one there.
“But then you was never my equal, Cassius, not with a smoke pole, and not with the women.”

Cassius closed his eyes and shook his head but the voice remained. The dead continued to harangue the living. He wasn't surprised. After all, they'd both heard their father call to them on stormy nights, his tortured cry rising from the spot where the well collapsed on him. “
I would have made that high and mighty bastard John Stark pay in blood had it been you he got killed. Made him pay long before now, brother, but you always needed time to work up to things.”

Cassius Fargo stood beneath the shading branches of a maple tree. Like all the others dotting the heavily wooded hillsides above Lake George, the tree was gloriously bedecked in its autumn raiments. Leaves of scarlet and gold littered the good earth, gave the impression that some royal procession of nobles had passed this way and left fragments of their royal robes in its wake.

“Hold your fire till we see the whites of their eyes,” Stark whispered as he made his way around the clearing. Fargo's features wrinkled into a scowl. Damn if the big bastard didn't make a proper target.

“I'll hold alright,”
Cassius Fargo thought, determined to bide his time. He waited until Stark darted behind an outcropping of lichen-covered gray stone large enough to conceal his great size. Then Cassius made his way through the maples until he found a spot that offered a direct line of sight. The long hunter would have to show himself to shoot, he'd have to rise up and reveal at least his upper torso, and this time Fargo wouldn't miss.

Fargo was confident and in his mind's eye could even envision the attempt in its entirety. He could picture the Rangers as they open fire, the Abenaki drop, scatter, driven back, reeling; for a moment all is confusion, cries and gunshots and no one notices when Cassius Fargo takes his shot. Stark claws at his chest, drops to his knees, his mouth framed in a silent scream.…

Suddenly the would-be assassin detected someone moving up behind him, glanced around in alarm half expecting to encounter his brother's ghostly form joining him beneath the sheltering trees. His thick features paled and a gasp escaped his lips. Then he recognized Molly Page as she made her way through the trees, keeping in the shadows until she crouched within a yard of Fargo. Her weathered buckskins were a close fit. The brute hungrily eyed the curve of her hips and the creamy whiteness of her throat.

“I hadn't expected you to fight at my side, Molly Page,” he said, keeping his voice low.

“I'll make my stand where I'm needed.”

“Maybe you are worried for me after all, eh?”

“I'd hate to see you have trouble with your aim,” Molly warned, barely above a whisper.

“Lay beneath me and I'll prove my
smoke pole
can find its target, every time.”

Molly shrugged and slid over to him. Fargo checked the perimeter, found they were adequately concealed from view. He could not believe his good fortune. He reached for the redheaded woman as her right hand shot out and placed a knife against his throat.

“See here, Cassius Fargo. Do not talk to me as you would some tavern wench or I'll carve out your tongue for its offense.” Fargo made it clear he was not about to argue with the point of her knife. She nodded and returned the blade to its sheath then took up her rifle. “And mind your aim,” she once more cautioned, “for Isaac will be watching you.” She patted the rifle barrel for added effect.

Fargo scowled and turned his attention toward the trail. He could still feel the kiss of her steel against his jugular. His thoughts began to simmer over like boiled milk and left him troubled and seething with anger. No woman had the right to speak to him in such a tone. Someone needed to teach Molly Page her place. Someone.…

The Abenaki war party appeared on the trail about fifty yards downhill. Stark estimated about twenty warriors, perhaps a few more; he did not bother to make an accurate count and chance revealing his position. Let the warriors approach undisturbed. Stark crouched and rested against the speckled gray rock that provided concealment and protection.

Duchess began to growl, sensing the war party. The mastiff raised her jowly head and sniffed, her black face becoming even more wrinkled as she tested the air. Stark placed a hand on the animal's back and she stilled at his touch. He glanced over at the British sergeant, Tom Strode, and Moses Shoemaker with whom he shared the out-cropping. Both men checked to see if their rifles were primed and the flints properly set.

“Leastways you've not dressed me up like a tart,” Strode softly grumbled, scratching his bushy sideburns.

Stark had to grin. He glanced past his companions and checked what he could see of the company. Blast it all, where had she taken off to?