Kings Pinnacle (16 page)

Just as Tom fired the shot
at Samuel, the right front wagon wheel had hit a downed tree limb
that was about the size of a man’s leg and was lying at the edge of
the trail, which caused the wagon to pause slightly before it could
travel up and over the limb. This sudden halt in the wagon’s
forward progress saved Samuel’s life. Instead of striking him
squarely in the side where Tom aimed it, the musket ball grazed
Samuel’s chest, knocking him back onto the gun cases in the wagon
bed. Tom then pulled a pistol from his belt and fired point blank
into the back of one of Samuel’s friends who was riding directly in
front of him. Samuel’s friend was instantly dead and fell forward
off his horse beside the trail. The sound of the two shots startled
everyone, including the horses. As soon as everyone recovered, a
second musket shot fired from the trees on the left side of the
trail struck Samuel’s other friend in the left temple, knocking him
off his horse. He also lay dead beside the trail.

Samuel knew immediately that
he had been betrayed by Tom Jenkins, and the ambush he had ridden
into was Tom’s plan. He also knew that there was probably no
Iroquois village anywhere in the area, and there was no one else
near who could help him. The scratch across his chest burned, but
he didn’t think it was too serious an injury.

Tom jumped out of his saddle
stirrups and onto the vacated wagon driver’s bench, pulling his
hunting knife out of the sheath tied to his belt, intending to
finish the job on Samuel Ruskin. But Samuel had already crawled on
all fours toward the rear of the wagon. When Tom jumped from the
wagon bench down onto the gun cases in the bed of wagon to lunge at
Samuel with his knife, Samuel bolted over the wagon’s rear gate.
After grabbing the reins of his friend’s horse, now standing behind
the wagon on the trail, Samuel leaped into the saddle. Samuel was
riding hard back the way he had come before Tom could climb out of
the back of the wagon and come after him.

A short time later, a scruffy,
buckskin-clad man with long hair braids emerged from the trees
carrying a rifle and ran up to Tom.

“
You want I should go
after him, Tom?” asked the half-breed bandit.

“Nah; let him go. He won’t
do us any harm. We’ve got the rifles, and he’s got nothing but his
life and a horse,” said Tom Jenkins.

* * * *

Alex

“
Well, Martha Kelly, let’s
get going,” said Alex.

The Maryland Rangers had
been able to catch two of the riderless Iroquois ponies that were
running loose. They had also gathered up their weapons and what
belongings they could find. Alex had made arrangements with Captain
Ellison McCoy to report for duty with the Maryland Rangers at Fort
Cumberland, Maryland in a few days. Alex and Martha helped the
Longhunter into the saddle of one of the ponies and said goodbye to
the departing Maryland Rangers. The plan they had come up with was
first for Alex and Martha to escort the Longhunter to his cabin so
that he could rest and recuperate from his wound. And then Alex
would take Martha to say goodbye to her folks at their grave and
see if any of her possessions had survived the raid and fire. Alex
didn’t know what she wanted to do after that, but he thought it
best to take things one step at a time.

They followed the game
trails south with the Longhunter leading the way, riding slowly to
prevent reopening the wound in his shoulder. The trip to the
Longhunter’s cabin took them several hours on horseback. After they
unsaddled his horse at his cabin, they soon had the Longhunter set
up with everything he needed and resting in his cot. Alex borrowed
a shirt from the Longhunter.

They stayed with the
Longhunter for two days to make sure that he was going to be
alright and could fend for himself. Alex hunted in the woods near
the Longhunter’s cabin and filled his game bag that hung on the
wall. Martha cleaned his cabin and washed his clothes while Alex
was out hunting. The Longhunter was very weary from traveling, loss
of sleep, and the ordeal, as well as from his wound, so he mostly
slept. Alex and Martha had made camp just outside the Longhunters
cabin. The Longhunter’s cabin was so small that it wouldn’t
accommodate two additional people anyway, so Alex and Martha
thought it would be best give the Longhunter some room to rest in
his own space. Though he was tired from the day’s tasks, sleep
eluded Alex, who was anxious about what the coming days would hold
for him.

On the evening of third day,
the Longhunter was much improved and there was nothing more they
could do for him so they saddled up their ponies and said goodbye
to the Longhunter. They rode away to start their journey, even
though there was only an hour or so of daylight left, just as the
sun was sinking low on the horizon.

The Longhunter had given
Alex directions that would lead him back to Martha’s cabin, which
was almost due south of the Longhunter’s cabin. They rode until the
sun went down, when they thought it best to stop and camp for the
evening. Near a game trail, Alex found a nice clearing that offered
some flat ground for their camp. He had taken some of the game he
had hunted for the Longhunter, so they had some food and Alex did
not have to hunt again for their supper. They both pitched in to
prepare the meal, which they ate in an uneasy silence. After they
cleaned up their gear and spread the blankets that the Longhunter
had given them near the camp fire, Alex realized that he was much
more exhausted than he had thought. So he lay down on his back on
his bedroll, closed his eyes, and started to drift off to sleep. He
was just about asleep when Martha decided that she wanted to
talk.

“
How long have you been in
America, Alex?” asked Martha.

“
Huh…, sorry…, what did
you say?” replied Alex.

Martha looked down and her face turned
red.

“
Oh, I’m so sorry; I
didn’t realize that you were asleep,” said Martha, eyes toward the
ground.

“
I have been in America
only a few weeks,” said Alex, who rolled over and rested his head
on his hand with his elbow on the ground.

“
How about you?” asked
Alex.

“I have been here almost a
year. I came over from Ireland with my husband and my parents,”
said Martha.

When Martha mentioned her
husband, Alex’s jaw dropped and his eyes widened. He had assumed
that she was unmarried. The Longhunter had never mentioned anything
about her husband. Alex was instantly wide awake and wondering
about the rest of the story and where her husband was now. He also
upped his estimate of how old she was. Martha saw his eyes widen
and his jaw drop, so she thought she should continue the
explanation.

“My husband died during our
ocean voyage from Ireland to Baltimore and was buried at sea. He
caught a fever on the ship about two weeks after we left Dublin,
and it got worse and worse until he eventually died. There was
nothing we or anyone on the ship could do for him. I was very sad
for a long time,” continued Martha.

“I’m sorry to hear about
that. Please accept my condolences,” said Alex.

“
It happened a little over
a year ago, so I have pretty much gotten over it now,” said Martha,
who then paused to think while Alex remained silent.

“My father was a printer in
Dublin, and he printed some pamphlets that the Irish government
didn’t approve of. A high ranking government official suggested
that he leave the country rather than continue to try to change it.
Our last name was O’Kelly in Ireland, but Papa dropped the “O” when
we arrived in Baltimore because he didn’t want to be associated
with Ireland any more. He said he wanted to try farming in America
and be an American. So, we homesteaded fifty acres of land on the
frontier, where you saw what used to be our cabin. Father didn’t
have the money he needed to buy land closer to Baltimore or any
other settlement. My husband had been a farmer in Ireland and, he
was going to teach us how to farm.”

She finally had to stop her
narrative because she was choking up and had tears in her eyes.
Alex didn’t know what to do or say, so he kept his silence and
rolled to his back to look at the stars while she
recovered.

“Alex, I know how tired you
are, so I am going to stop talking now and go to sleep as well. We
can talk some more in the morning,” said Martha.

Alex barely heard the last
words. He had gotten almost no sleep for the last two days and was
dead tired. He nodded his agreement and dropped immediately into a
deep sleep.

When he woke the next morning, he saw
that during the night Martha had moved her bedroll and was lying
next to him near the ashes of the camp fire.

The shock and exhaustion
from the previous few days resulted in Alex and Martha sleeping
late at their little camp site in the clearing. The sun was high in
the sky when they finally roused. They broke camp and mounted up as
quickly as they could and rode to Martha’s cabin site and her
parent’s new grave. It was several miles from the Longhunter’s
homestead, so it was early afternoon by the time they arrived at
the burned out ruins of the cabin.

Martha tied up her horse and
went to her parents’ grave to spend some time there. Then she
searched the burned out cabin for any of her possessions that might
have survived the fire. Alex made a wooden cross to mark her
parent’s grave and then hunted for something for them to eat. There
was nothing of Martha’s possessions left in the cabin. The fire had
destroyed everything. Alex used most of the scattered chimney
stones that had fallen away from the cabin’s fireplace during the
fire to cover the grave so that wild animals would not dig up the
bodies.

There wasn’t much else they
could do at the homestead and cabin. It was all gone, and there was
nothing to be salvaged by staying there.

“
What do you plan on doing
now?” asked Alex cautiously.

“Well, my uncle, Sean Kelly,
runs a general dry goods store in Williamsport. You may have met
him and his wife if you were ever in Williamsport. They don’t have
any children of their own and they always treated me
well.”

Alex recognized that he had
in fact met both of them when he and the Longhunter were
resupplying in Williamsport after losing almost all their
possessions to the Iroquois in the ambush that they narrowly
escaped.

“We stayed with them for a
while when we first came to America,” continued Martha. “I think
they would take me in and would want me to work for them in the dry
goods store. I hear that their business is rapidly expanding. So I
think I’d like to go to Williamsport to talk to my uncle Sean and
my aunt.”

“Okay, Williamsport it is.
We had best get started if you are ready. It’ll take a few days on
the trail to get there. We’ll probably have to stop and camp again,
maybe more than once. Is that okay with you?” asked
Alex.

“That is alright with me. I
would rather not stay here any longer with all these bad memories,”
said Martha.

They mounted and turned
their horses eastward toward Williamsport and rode until the day
was fast drawing to a close. Alex began to scout for a stream, so
they would have water for their camp. He soon found one not too far
from the trail that they had been following. Alex had been able to
take down some small game that he had encountered while they were
at the cabin site, and the meat grilled up very nicely over the
camp fire for their dinner. Martha put her bedroll down right next
to Alex’s as they prepared to bed down for the night.

Alex was not opposed to the
familiarity that Martha exhibited. But he was not sure about her
mental state, since she had just lost both her parents. She had
also been held captive by the Iroquois and almost violated by the
warriors in the tribe. They were both very tired physically,
mentally and emotionally after their efforts of the past several
days and were still recovering their strength from the ordeal. They
immediately crawled into their bedrolls without much conversation
and fell into an exhausted sleep.

The next morning Alex and
Martha woke up in each other’s arms, both of them sleeping in
Alex’s bedroll together. They traveled slowly, and it took them
almost a week to cover the eighty or ninety odd miles from Martha’s
burned out cabin to Williamsport. They thoroughly enjoyed each
other’s company during the trip, and by the time they reached
Williamsport, they were deeply in love.

* * * *

Samuel

Samuel Ruskin did not slow
his horse until he was back on The Great Wagon Road. Instead of
turning to ride eastward back toward Philadelphia, he had turned
southwest and ridden fast until he was well away from his close
call with Tom Jenkins. He thought that his potential pursuers would
assume that he was headed back east. So he had decided he would
throw them off by going in the other direction. When he finally
realized that there was probably no one coming after him, he had
stopped at a creek that ran across the trail to assess his chest
wound. The wound was not too bad and looked like it would heal
without any major problems. He cleaned the wound as best he could,
bound it, and mounted his horse. Riding at a slower pace to save
his horse’s strength in case any pursuers unraveled his ruse and
caught up with him, he had made his way toward York.