War Path (15 page)

It was an unsettling thought. The massacre of Fort William Henry's garrison, instead of sending the Yankees reeling in terror from Abenaki lands might have had the opposite effect and only hardened their resolve.
The beast will be born of blood.

Well, there had been plenty spilled. And ever since the fall of the
Anglais
fort, Abenaki raiding parties had been ambushed, French patrols attacked, and now these bateaux, looted and burned. Atoan glanced at the ashes on the shore, he scrutinized the trampled earth, caught the telltale signs of the skirmish that had been both brief but savage.

And he remembered all that Lobal had told them, all he had seen. Stark and his Rangers struck hard and fast. Tabid never saw them until it was too late. It was a slaughter. And then these Rangers disappeared into the forest like the morning mist, like so many shadows.…

Like the Abenaki.

“Rangers,” Lucien sneered, one hand cupping his chin, his cold blue eyes looked as if they had been chipped off some distant horizon and set in his aquiline features. “But they are only men. And Englishmen at that.”

“Mais oui, mon Colonel,”
said Atoan, trouble in his voice. “But they fight like us.”

Ambush. Trickery. Subterfuge. These were not the tactics of a gentleman. But then, the colonials were anything but men of breeding. “I will yet teach this ‘beast' a lesson and cage him proper, on my oath,” said Colonel Lucien Barbarat. “It is only a matter of time.” He had seen all he could stomach of this site and started toward the canoes that had carried him south from Fort Saint Frederick.

“Colonel Barbarat!” one of the marines called out. It was Sergeant Moquin, a seasoned campaigner from the old country and other wars. He was in command of the detail that had escorted Turcotte and the other
voyageurs
who had been placed under arrest and singled out for punishment. “What of these prisoners?”

The Jesuit priest stepped forward, by his expression, appealing to the officer's better nature.

Lucien glanced at the men, almost as an afterthought, then he shrugged, and smiled. For a fleeting second, Father Jean Isaac thought Benoit Turcotte and his unfortunate companions might see another sunrise. But before the priest's words of thanks and praise could gush forth, the newly commissioned officer barked out his orders.

“Accrochez-les haute!”
Barbarat exclaimed. “Hang them high!”

The Winter Moon

1758

18

“
W
hich one is Stark?” Sir Peter Drennan inquired. The personal aide-de-camp to General Jeffrey Amherst scrutinized the shore of Rogers' Island, set like a teardrop in the middle of the Hudson River. The bow of the johnny boat dipped beneath his weight. Grayish white slabs of ice bumped against the oak hull, reminding all aboard that another month from now they might make the crossing on foot.

Behind Drennan, Major Michael Ransom stoically bore the crossing in silence. He wondered if they would make it safely to Rogers' Island without being unceremoniously dumped into the frigid gray waters where Sir Peter's bloated form might float or better still, sink like a rock, nay a boulder, beneath the ice-cracked river.

Of course, the unfortunate demise of nobility while in Ransom's charge ought to make for a bleak Christmas and it could only further threaten the major's already precarious career. So if the boat capsized, Ransom might have to try and drag the amazingly obese officer to the riverbank. Failing that, he'd better sink along with him.

Although they shared the same privileged birth, it was clear each man had his place. Sir Peter, a colonel at the tender age of thirty and only a few years older than Ransom, had become the knighted head of his family's estate. It was a title Michael Ransom aspired to, but for the moment it exceeded his grasp. Justified or not, his reputation had been tarnished by the disastrous defeat at Bloody Meadow. Only the fact that the major had conducted an orderly withdrawal and saved the colors kept him from being returned to England in disgrace.

Ransom dug his hands into his great coat and exhaled slowly, his breath hanging on the cold still air like a cloud searching for a home sky. The two oarsmen put their backs into it and managed to pull the unsteady craft safely to the shore. Drennan stepped over the gunwale and slipped in the mud, cursed, regained his balance and wiped his hands clean on a kerchief he produced from a secreted pocket nestled in the folds of his black cloak.

“Blast and hell this God forsaken wilderness. Give me the Chilterns any day, what?”

“Indeed, Sir Peter,” Ransom obligingly agreed. He checked the somber gray sky overhead. He'd already seen a few flakes of snow this morning. “And a baked goose stuffed with sweetbreads, plum pudding, and mulled wine.”

“Here, here,” Drennan chuckled and politely applauded. “You are a man of taste, sir, and obvious refinement.” He noticed a group of buckskin-clad Rangers gathered out in front of the longhouses. Several of the Indian fighters smoked their pipes as they warmed their hands by a cheerful campfire. Black smoke curled from the chimneys signaling that more of the Rangers had sought shelter from the brisk wind behind stout log walls chinked with clay. Another half a dozen of the Rangers congregated before an overturned tree stump that had been trimmed, turned base upwards, and set upon a small scaffold about chest high. The woodsmen took turns throwing their tomahawks at a card one of the Rangers had pinned to the stump. The one who succeeded in cutting the card from a distance of about eighteen feet would win a jug of rum to ward off December's chill.

After several attempts, one of the Rangers succeeded in landing his tomahawk dead center, much to the chagrin of the men who had hoped to win the jug for themselves. Drennan took note of the man's success and postured that this indeed must be Stark.

“No, your grace, that is Robert Rogers,” Ransom replied.

“Ah, the commander of the company.”

“He has assumed this rank, yes,” said Ransom as he joined Sir Peter on the shore. There could only be one commanding officer and Robert Rogers had quietly laid claim to the title. “But the men follow Stark,” the major added.

As the English officers looked on, Rogers returned the jug to his companions who cheered his generosity, then taking leave of his men, walked across the trampled earth toward the English officers who met him halfway, drawn to the cheerful warmth of the well-tended campfire. Sam Oday sat hunched forward by the flames; water bubbled in a black pot into which he had thrown a fistful of loose tea leaves. As the English officers in their great coats drew close, Oday chose to drift off toward the men with the jug of rum, leaving the blaze he had tended for those in command.

Ransom was grateful for the warmth. Drennan, despite the rolls of fat that should have kept him warm, stretched out his pudgy fingers to the dancing flames, and all but purred. He looked up at the tough-looking man in the buckskin hunting shirt. When Rogers did not doff his Scottish bonnet but only raised a knuckle to his forehead in salute, Drennan cast a quick glance aside at Ransom, in obvious disapproval.

“Major Robert Rogers of the Colonial Militia,” Ransom pronounced, “may I present his lordship, Colonel Peter Drennan.”

Drennan looked the Ranger straight in the eye, and frowned, his round red jowls stung by a sudden gust of wind. The sudden discomfort reminded him that this island was the last place he wanted to be. Somewhere within the walls of Fort Edward, a high-backed chair, a flagon of spiced ale, and a platter of roasted pork awaited his pleasure.

“At your service, gentlemen,” Rogers grinned. “Welcome to my island. Major Ransom tells me you have expressed an interest in what we are doing here.” He waved them forward and then indicated the collection of longhouses, firing stands, a powder magazine, racks of tanned hides and the like. The site could have passed for an Abenaki village.

“Sir Peter is visiting us on behalf of General Jeffrey Amherst,” Ransom explained.

“Major Ransom has extolled the virtues of your peculiar command,” Sir Peter said. His thick fleshy features were red from the cold. “It is most irregular.” The officer spoke in a gravelly voice, the legacy of a monthlong bout with fever and congestion that made drawing a breath through his nose nigh on impossible. “However as we prepare to mount an offensive against the Marquis de Montcalm, your forays have proved an effective distraction for the French, the general must admit.”

An outcry arose from the perimeter of the encampment and Drennan caught a glimpse of a towering individual in buckskins leading a column of similarly dressed young men at a dead run through a grove of fir and maple trees. Apparently the company had just ferried themselves across the river and disembarked on the tip of the island. From the looks of their red cheeks and labored breathing they had been running for some time.

The formidable figure in the lead did not call a halt until the men stumbling along behind him were within earshot of the English officers. The column maintained its formation as the men came to a halt, although several of them had to double over and support themselves, hands on knees, while they regained their wind. Only the man in the lead, and another boyish-faced “lad,” seemed oblivious to their recent exertions.

The big man stood tall and straight, his long rifle clasped in his right hand, the thumb of his left hooked in the broad leather belt circling his waist. He paused there, in repose, an aura of power and self-restrained violence seemed to emanate from him. The man's great chest rose and fell, breath streaming from his nostrils upon the clouded air. One could imagine some mythic beast snorting steam before unleashing a fiery blast of brimstone and death.

“Now that is Stark,” Major Ransom told the general's aide.

“Ah … the great beast of the Adirondacks who has carried the war to the French.”

“The French have put quite a price on him we have learned. Fifty Spanish reals for the man who brings in the head of John Stark,” Ransom added. He was still amazed at how quickly news of any sort traveled through the wilderness, despite the distances.

“A tempting payment,” Drennan mused. “I dare say I wouldn't sleep well myself were I the man.”

“John takes pride in it,” Robert Rogers frowned and shifted his stance, resenting the way his friend seemed to dominate the interest of his peers, both Rangers and British officers alike. “See here, Colonel, Stark is a worthy soldier, and certainly casts a long shadow. But like many of these mountain folk, he lacks vision.”

Ransom detected a note of jealousy in Rogers's voice. But there was a degree of truth to his observation. The English officer respected Stark, as any soldier would, because the man could fight and was unafraid to seek out the enemy. But as for lacking vision? Now there was the conundrum. Ransom suspected John Stark could see clearer than any of them. In some ways that made him not only necessary but dangerous.

“Dear heavens,” Sir Peter blurted out, catching a glimpse of several scarlet waistcoats beneath the green-fringed hunting shirts. “Those are men of the Regiment.” On closer inspection it appeared these regulars had been in a scrape or two for some were favoring an assortment of wounds and most had features blackened by gunpowder.

“But, of course, your grace. These Rangers have been so successful at carrying the war to the French I felt it behooved us to establish a company of king's Rangers to work in conjunction with the Provincials,” Ransom explained. “See Sergeant Strode there. He has performed admirably on patrol with the Colonials and recently played no small part in a successful excursion to the north.”

The major took care to avoid giving an in-depth account of the raid and the ruse that saw the sergeant dressed as a tavern wench. Ransom had heard the report directly from Strode, back in the fall. At the time he had been tempted to voice his objections. But it was hard to “object” to the destruction of French property. However, Ransom made certain Strode's account went no further than the walls of Fort Edward. He felt no call to elaborate in his dispatches all that had transpired. Besides, he doubted Amherst or the colonel or any of the other officers safely removed from the frontier could handle the truth.

Stark's voice rang out upon the cold crisp air.

“Remember, lads, mind you the Abenaki, for they have few peers when it comes to wilderness fighting.”

“The savages will retreat if they must and live to fight another day,” the youth acting as his second in command called out. This man's voice was softer than Stark's but carried a similar note of authority. The lad had obviously proved his worth somewhere down the War Path.

“Remember how we handled those French marines, take heed the next time you cross paths with them or Atoan's redsticks,” Stark continued. “As you withdraw, if the rear comes under attack, then let the main body and the flankers turn about to right and left and confront the enemy. The same if the enemy strikes upon your flank. That way the enemy will always be opposed by the entire command. Drive them back and then continue to withdraw.”

“Stark, if we may have a word with you!” Robert Rogers called out. The long hunter glanced in their direction, handed over the command to Sergeant Strode who took charge of the King's Rangers and ordered them to the longhouse that had been built for them near the sleeping quarters of Rogers' Rangers. Stark muttered an aside to the youth standing close at hand then the two of them sauntered over toward Rogers and the Englishmen. Stark acknowledged the officers with a nod of the head. His chiseled countenance looked weathered and dark from a week-old growth of beard the color of his dark ginger mane. He halted a few paces from Major Ransom.

“John, you know Major Ransom, of course,” Robert Rogers began, “and this is Sir Peter Drennan, the personal aide to General Amherst. I believe he has come to see what we are about hawk but little else.”