* * * *
Robert and Hugh
Robert had discarded the ideas of sailing on the cattle ferry or the packet boat at the main dock in Portpatrick as possible routes to Ireland. The presence of so many soldiers around the cattle pens and in the town was going to make it difficult for the two men to leave the country from Portpatrick. Robert and Hugh had ridden back to their camp where they both went to sleep after dismounting, pulling their saddles off their horses, and collapsing on their bed rolls. The two brothers slept what was left of the night until well into the following day, finally rousing as the sun was approaching its zenith. They ate a light meal that they cooked over a small fire.
“Weel, Robber, I guess we will have to come up with another way to get to America,” said Hugh.
Robert just nodded while deep in thought. He knew that Hugh wasn’t going to be much help coming up with a new plan. Hugh was talented alright, but his talents didn’t lie in planning and strategy. Hugh was more of a tactician; he could improvise on the fly while riding a horse in battle or raiding a stronghold. But Hugh wasn’t very creative from a long term planning point of view.
Robert reconsidered the possibility of sailing directly to America from Glasgow, Edinburgh, or one of the other ports in Scotland, but he knew that he would have more soldiers to deal with at all the major ports in Scotland. He thought about riding south to England and sailing out of an English port such as London or Portsmouth, but he and Hugh probably wouldn’t get across the border before they were captured. Since all the obvious methods to leave Scotland were blocked, he would have to find something that was a little out of the ordinary. He needed to come up with a plan quickly because the longer they stayed in Scotland, the higher the probability that the military or the other authorities would apprehend them.
“Pack up your gear, Hugh,” said Robert. “We need to get on the trail.”
“Aye, Robber,” said Hugh as he gathered up his belongings and kicked out the camp fire. Hugh knew that Robert had a new plan or at least the beginnings of a new plan. He also knew that Robert wasn’t going to tell him what it was right then, so he didn’t bother to ask. Hugh knew that Robert would tell him what he needed to know as soon as he needed to know it and not before. The brothers mounted their horses, and Robert led them back north toward The Old Military Road. When they finally arrived, Robert turned Hack northeast toward Stranraer.
The Old Military Road was built from near Portpatrick to Stranraer. Stranraer was a small fishing village situated on the south shore of Loch Ryan. Located on the north side of the isthmus that connects the Portpatrick peninsula to the mainland, Stranraer was probably not a place where the British military or the authorities would expect them to go. Loch Ryan was a long narrow north-south oriented sea loch that was noted for its calm waters even though its north side was open to the North Atlantic Ocean.
“We headed to Stranraer?” asked Hugh.
Robert just nodded and kicked Hack into a trot, and Hugh followed.
* * * *
Alex
“Where ye headed, lad?” asked the stranger, causing Alex to snap his head around to see who had spoken.
Alex had heard some noise behind him a few miles back on the trail, but hadn’t got a good look at who or what it was. The trail had become so narrow and the foliage so dense that he had lost track of what was behind him until the stranger on horseback had unexpectedly overtaken him. Alex had been walking along lost in thought anyway, but it was uncharacteristic of him to allow himself to be taken unawares, as he had been by the stranger.
“West,” was all that Alex could think to say.
The old, wizened-looking stranger was dressed all in buckskins and riding a dark brown mare while leading a pack horse. The old timer’s life history was etched into the fine lines of his tanned face, around his eyes, nose, and mouth. The cold set to his stare indicated that he had suffered a great tragedy in his life, but his easy manner told that he had come to terms with it, whatever it was, and now it was behind him. From his buckskin moccasins to his raccoon fur cap, he reeked of homespun western colonial Americana.
When the old stranger reined up his horse where Alex was standing in the trail, he leaned back in the saddle and threw one leg across the other in an easy manner, such as men do who are accustomed to sitting in saddles for long periods. Alex realized that the stranger was not a threat, so he also relaxed.
The stranger’s musket, which was covered in a brightly colored woolen sheath, was resting in the crook of his arm. The pack horse was carrying a bundle of goods that looked like it weighed one or two hundred pounds and was covered by a canvas tarp. The stranger was one of the so called “longhunters” who lived in the west and hunted for a living. Longhunters traded the hides and furs that they skinned for supplies and other trade goods back in the east.
As Alex gazed at the stranger’s face, he realized that the man was not nearly as old as he had first thought. It was just that the Longhunter had lived outdoors most of his life, so the sun and wind had taken quite a toll on his face and hands.
“West, huh? Is that all ye got to say for yourself, lad?” said the Longhunter who was slightly perturbed at the short answer from Alex.
“Sorry. You kinda startled me. I wasn’t paying much attention to who or what was coming up behind me on the trail.”
“Weel, ye wouldn’t be the first. You’re a long way from nowhere lad,” said the older Scot, softening a bit.
“I was a wanting to see a bit of the west before I died, so I thought I would head this way to see what I could see,” said Alex.
“That’s as good a reason as any. Why don’t ye walk a spell with me? My name’s Alexander Glendenning,” said the older Scot, smiling as he dismounted and stuck out his hand to shake hands with Alex.
Alex grasped his hand and said, “Mine’s Alexander Mackenzie.”
“Weel, Alexander, seein’ as how we share the same name, let’s be off. We can make a few more miles before sundown. Anyone named Alexander can’t be all bad. I need to walk a bit and let my horse rest anyway,” said the Longhunter with an easy smile.
They had met just west of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania and were both obviously traveling in the same direction on The Great Wagon Road, so why not travel along together, thought Alex. Alex had liked the Longhunter as soon as he had spoken to him and was glad for his company on the trail.
They walked together for a few more miles, continuing along the trail southwest of Gettysburg. By sundown, they had entered the valley that led up to the slopes of the first Appalachian mountain range that divides the eastern coastal plains from the interior of the country. Just over the mountains was the border between Pennsylvania and Maryland. The trail followed a pass along the mountain valleys that crossed the Blue Ridge Mountains, the easternmost range of the Appalachians.
Alex had been on the trail for several days. He hadn’t hunted since he had left the German family at York and now his food supply was getting low. He was getting hungry.
“Let’s stop and camp for the night,” said the Longhunter. “We can take on the brae and mountains tomorrow. Ye got anything to eat, lad?”
“Not much,” said Alex looking in his rucksack for something to eat.
“Weel, I just had a bit of luck hunting recently and can treat us both to a pretty good spread tonight. I also have some supplies that I’ve just traded for in Philadelphia,” said the Longhunter.
After the meal, which consisted of the meat that the Longhunter had in his game bag and some beans mixed with corn that he had fried in a little fat over the fire, they fell to talking, after cleaning up the remains of the meal and packing away their gear.
“How long have ye been in America, Alex?” asked the Longhunter.
“Only a few weeks,” answered Alex.
“That’s what I thought based on the cut of your clothes. Where do ye hail from, lad?”
“I come from Scotland by way of Ireland.”
“Then you’re what they’r
e calling a Scots Irish, Alex.”
“I guess so. Where do you come from, sir, if you don’t mind my asking?” queried Alex.
“No need to call me sir, and ye probably guessed by my accent that I am from Scotland, too.”
“I thought so.”
“Where do you hail from in Scotland, laddie?”
“I’m from the lowlands just north of the border.”
“Aye, I’m a highlander myself,” said the Longhunter.
“How long have you been here?”
“I have been here since I was a lad. Famine drove me and my folks out of the highlands. We took a ship direct from Glasgow to Philadelphia. When I first arrived in America, I lived with my parents in Philadelphia. It wasn’t as crowded back then, but after they died, I didn’t want to live in town anymore, so I moved out west and started hunting and trading for a living. I married a woman from one of the Iroquois tribes, and we had a son, but they both died from a fever that some settlers brought over with them from the old country. Now, I hunt, trade, and pretty much keep to myself. I have a small cabin a ways west of Fort Cumberland. The next stop on the trail is Hagerstown and Williamsport is after that. There’s a ferry at Williamsport that crosses the Potomac. Folks call it the Watkins Ferry, after the man who runs it. That’s where I will turn west and follow the Potomac to Fort Cumberland. My cabin is only about ten miles further past Fort Cumberland.”
“How far is it to Williamsport?” asked Alex.
“It’s about ten miles through the mountains and probably another twenty miles to the ferry. We should be in there by late tomorrow if our luck holds. I’ll tell you what, I’ll call you Alex and you can call me Alexander since I’m a wee bit older than ye are. That way we can tell who’s talking about who,” replied the old Longhunter with a smile.
“That sounds good to me,” said the smiling Alex.
Alex felt much better after meeting the Longhunter, and he smiled for the first time since he had arrived in America. He hadn’t realized till then how sad and lonely he had actually been. It was as if he had been living in a trance, where things were happening around him that he was not a part of. Now he had bounced back to the real world and had started living again. He had finally found someone in America that he could talk to and perhaps be friends with.
* * * *
Samuel
“You’re never gonna sell these muskets to the settlers or any of the state militias or to the British Army for that matter,” said the trader after having examined several of the rifles.
Samuel Ruskin already knew the answer, but he asked the question anyway, “Why not?”
“Well, first of all these stocks are not made of walnut heartwood. It looks like some other kind of wood that’s been stained to look like walnut. The barrels aren’t nearly long enough. These muskets won’t be as accurate as they would if they had longer barrels. The barrel forging welds are not overlapped enough, and you can see the weld lines along them. You shouldn’t be able to see the weld line at all if the weld was done proper. Sometimes it takes three or four days to forge a proper barrel; these barrels look like rushed, shoddy work.”
The trader cocked the flintlock of the musket he was holding and examined the firelock mechanism.
“These flintlock fittings are made of iron. They work better and last longer if they are made of brass because brass won’t rust,” continued the trader.
The trader paused and inspected a few more of the muskets. He suddenly looked up at Samuel Ruskin with a puzzled look on his face.
“Where’d you come by these guns?” asked the wily trader.
“Never mind where I got em. Do you think there might be any other markets for them other than the settlers or the militia?”
“I think I know what yer gettin at, and I don’t want to have nothing to do with that,” said the trader.
“Well, who might I talk to about that?”
“I said I don’t know nothing about it,” replied the trader.
“Come on now, you surely know someone I can talk to?”
“Selling muskets to Iroquois is against the law, and it is bad business and bad for other business,” replied the trader.
Before it had arrived in Larne, the Ocean Monarch had taken on a cargo of crates in England to transport to America along with its passengers. The cargo was labeled, “Forged Iron Wagon Fittings,” but the heavy crates were not wagon parts. Each of the long wooden boxes contained six muskets, and there were twenty of the crates. Samuel Ruskin was going to try his hand at selling guns in the colonies in spite of the British prohibitions against such sales. Bribing the customs officials in Philadelphia to allow the crates to be offloaded without inspection had been easy. He had commissioned the manufacture of the rifles in England with the intent to ship them to America and sell them at a profit, but it looked like it was going to be harder than he first thought. The people in America were more astute than he had counted on when he hatched his scheme in England.
* * * *
Alex
Alex and the Longhunter were up at first light and set off following The Great Wagon Road west toward the Watkins Ferry. Alex was walking, and the Longhunter was riding on the trail next to him. They were through the mountain passes before the sun was very high in the sky and across the Pennsylvania border into Maryland by noon. After a few more hours on the trail, they stopped in Hagerstown in mid-afternoon to get something to eat at the only inn in town. The Longhunter paid for the meals and told Alex that he could owe him for it.
From Hagerstown to Williamsport was only about ten miles, so they decided to push ahead toward the Potomac River ferry before dark. The trail began to narrow even more just outside Hagerstown, and it became a little rougher as it meandered down toward the river, through the dense forest. The sun was low in the sky, casting the long shadows of the tree trunks across the trail as the two men entered into a thicker portion of the forest about five miles outside Hagerstown.
Alex sensed that something was not right as soon as he stepped into the small creek that crossed the trail. The birds’ serenade with its insect accompaniment had suddenly stopped as if all the critters were holding their breath, anxiously waiting for something to happen. The Longhunter sensed it too, for he had suddenly dropped out of his saddle, landing on his feet in the creek next to Alex. The Longhunter pushed Alex down into the water, diving down next to him so that they lying on their stomachs with only their heads sticking up above the water.
“Stay down, lad,” he whispered as he lay next to Alex in the shallow creek.
“Let’s work our way downstream a bit,” continued the Longhunter in a whisper.
No sooner had the words come out of the Longhunter’s mouth than an arrow came arcing out of the trees landing in the water right between the two men, a narrow miss.
“Follow me!” shouted the Longhunter as he rose up out of the water and ran downstream in the middle of the creek, splashing water as he went.
The ambush had now been fully triggered and arrows were flying toward the two men from what seemed like all directions. But there weren’t as many arrows flying as there should have been in a full scale ambush. They had sensed the ambush early and triggered it before they were all the way into the ambush killing zone. The enemy warriors had not shown themselves yet, but Alex and the Longhunter knew they were in trouble and would be lucky to survive the next few minutes. Alex followed the Longhunter’s lead. He had no idea how many opponents he faced. He and the Longhunter just knew that there were probably a lot of them.
One behind the other, the two men raced down the creek for several yards. The Longhunter spied a fallen tree half in and half out of the water and dived down next to it. Alex followed suit on the other side of the tree trunk, taking what cover the fallen tree could provide. They knew that they couldn’t stay there long. Alex was breathing hard as the adrenalin coursed through his system.
“Let’s make a run for the Watkins Ferry, lad.”
“How far is it?” as
ked Alex.
“It’s likely only about five miles from here,” gasped the Longhunter. “How fast can ye run?”
Alex nodded agreement and replied, “Fast.”
Rising up out of the water again, they ran up the creek bank and through the woods paralleling the trail toward Williamsport, with the Longhunter in the lead. The Longhunter thought that the ambush was more than likely set along both sides of The Great Wagon Road, so by paralleling the trail on one side of it, they would have to deal with only about half the number of warriors that they might encounter while running down the center of the trail.
Again, the arrows started flying toward them as soon as they started running, but the forest was dense and it was hard to hit a man running full speed through a thick forest with an arrow. There were too many trees to get in the way of the arrow flight. They had run for about twenty paces when the first warrior they had seen during the entire episode stood up to block their path. He looked like an Iroquois or possibly one of the Iroquoian-speaking Tuscarora who had migrated up from North Carolina to join the Iroquois. He laid his bow on the ground and crouched into a fighting position holding a knife.
As the Longhunter, who was carrying his rifle in both hands in front of him, approached the brave, he swung his rifle like a quarterstaff at the warrior just at the last second, bringing the rifle butt around in an arc. He connected with the brave’s jaw before the warrior could dodge the blow. The warrior went down, out cold, and the two men leapt over his body and kept running as fast as they could, even with the unsure footing under the trees.
There were fewer and fewer arrows coming in their direction as they ran through the trees. So the Longhunter began to alter their course, angling on a diagonal path back toward the main trail.
When they finally merged back on to The Great Wagon Road, Alex’s superior speed became evident almost immediately. It wasn’t long before he had pulled ahead of the Longhunter by a significant margin.