A Flight of Arrows (34 page)

Halfway down the ridge between the ravines, Two Hawks heard the bellowing voice of Nicholas Herkimer, saw the general on his white horse passing back along the lines of the first and second regiments pinned at the bottom of the western ravine, clustered in knots. The bodies of those struck down in the first volley of gunfire littered the road. The general's horse leapt them, dodging warriors who came rushing from the trees with tomahawks and clubs. The Americans were caught in a panic, many rushing to and fro, running into one another, but some had kept their heads and were returning fire in ragged spurts, shooting into the onrushing warriors.

Horsemen of the regiment behind Two Hawks came swift along the steep road, hooves drumming beneath his moccasins. Oneida warriors who had hung back near the center of the column loosed their war cries and rushed forward on the descending road, dropping down into the battle below.

Two Hawks went with them, rifle gripped, tomahawk thrust through his sash. Fear clotted his throat, for himself and for Ahnyero, who'd given no warning of this ambush as he'd promised to do.

Pushing that fear down, he leapt to the side, took aim with his rifle, and fired at a ranger rushing out of the woods to his left to attack two militiamen fumbling to reload their guns. He was up and running as the ranger dropped, reloading as he went, keeping near Honyery and Two-Kettles-Together. For a time he fought beside them. Always moving. Never making himself a clear target. The fighting ways of Senecas and Mohawks were their own ways—hit fast and run. Deflecting their blades was a matter of timing and anticipation. That these were brothers attacking them was a blade that could not be deflected. That blade pierced deep.

They were in among the second militia regiment now, a welter of bodies lurching and grappling and bleeding, half-obscured by choking smoke. Shouts of “Close up! Form up!” shrilled between the firing of muskets and the screams of men. Two Hawks couldn't tell if this ambush was becoming a slaughter or reforming into a proper battle. He'd heard his father say that to judge a battle when you are in the midst of it is hard to do. Mostly a battle is what happens an arm's length away.

Not far past the length of Two Hawks's arm, there was Herkimer again, his horse struck, the beast falling to the road, white legs thrashing, pinning its rider. Men of the general's command rushed forward to pull him free. A volley erupted from a company on the road. The smoke of it came between Two Hawks and the general being helped into the wood, wounded. Then the militia, grappling with powder horns and ramrods, were rushed at again by painted warriors hacking with clubs and blades.

Two Hawks got busy fending off attack, mostly from rangers crashing through the wood. He struck at their grim faces, parried thrusts of blade and bayonet, looking for soldiers in Johnson's green coats but not seeing them. Had William's regiment taken no part in this? Were they back at the fort?

He staggered under the passing blow of a Seneca's club, which he caught and thrust aside with his rifle before it did more than glancing damage to the head it had meant to crush. That smarting head was thinking furiously: should he fight through the ravine to the other side, get to the fort, find his brother while all these Indians and rangers were away?

A Mississauga rushed at him. Two Hawks ducked and lunged aside. The warrior swept past, but in lunging, Two Hawks's foot came down in a boggy patch. He stumbled, pushed up, and ran in a crouch for the trees north of the ravine. He took a moment in cover to catch his breath, tugging free his tomahawk. Amazingly he was still within sight of many of the Oneidas he'd come out with from Oriska. He saw Honyery kill a man attacking him, then take a wound in the wrist. Two-Kettles-Together snatched away his rifle and reloaded it for her husband while he wielded his tomahawk in his unwounded hand. Louis Cook, in cover not far from Two Hawks, leapt into the open and fired a killing shot at an enemy marksman lying in the fork of a downed tree.

At the high, piercing scream of a woman, Two Hawks turned back, thinking it would be Two-Kettles-Together, but he didn't spot her now. Were there more women in this fight?

One at least. Hair in a long braid whipping behind, she came vaulting over the end of a fallen tree where smoke hung thick, drifting through the dense wood. Only for an instant did he see her, then she vanished into the drifting haze. But her face in that moment of screaming flight was frozen in his mind.

It was Strikes-The-Water.

W
ith their first forward push into battle, the Royal Yorkers had kept in formation where the terrain allowed, clambering over down wood and rocks to get into combat. Halting at Watts's command, they'd taken cover and fired in pairs into the gray wall of militiamen pressed shoulder to shoulder in the road ahead. With no notion whether he'd hit anyone, William snatched a fresh cartridge and reloaded, only to find it impossible to fire again without hitting their own Indians darting in to attack the rebels, their struggles obscured by dust and smoke—friend and foe indistinguishable in the surging mass and the din of screams, commands, and gunfire.

Clusters of militia began breaking from the melee. Men retreated across the creek, scrambling for the trees. William felt a hot surge of hope that this might be quickly over. Then Watts ordered bayonets out. They were going to charge the fleeing rebels.

Instinct screamed to escape this hell, not plunge into its heart. Steeling himself, William took cover behind another tree, a pine oozing tangy resin into the heated morn. He fumbled the triangular blade from its scabbard. Around him bayonets locked into place with a clatter of metal sockets. Robbie MacKay's hands shook so badly he dropped his. William snatched it up and affixed it for him. They formed ranks in the road, and, led by Captain Watts and his lieutenants, the company advanced.

The rebels at the column's head, those still ambulatory, had reached the trees. Many were still visible, dodging fallen timber, blundering through thickets, scrabbling, a few crawling, dragging wounded limbs.
The Yorkers entered the wood, loosed a volley after the rebels, and, on the tide of a raging shout, charged through the acrid billow of their firing.

The land rose under William's feet. Dense heat and dimness closed around him. Smoke clogged his throat. He blinked streaming eyes clear in time to leap a man's body before he sprawled across the tilted slope, joints jarring as he landed. He slid backward in leaf mold and ducked to steady himself with a hand to the ground.

A hatchet hurled from an unseen hand sliced the air where his neck had been, taking the hat off his head. A musket ball plowed into a nearby stump in an explosion of woody matter that peppered his face like hornet stings. To his right another ball struck a Yorker he didn't recognize in the confusion; the man's face contorted in a scream. William was set upon next by the shooter, bearing his discharged gun as a club. The man had a gash through one powder-blackened eyebrow, dripping blood down his cheek; his eyes were blue and ginger lashed, his front teeth missing.

By instinct more than calculation William got his bayonet raised and met the charge with a repelling thrust. He felt the blade puncture cloth and skin, jar on bone, then slide in deep.

With a rush of foul breath, the man slammed the butt of his musket at William, catching him square in the chest, a blow that seemed to stop his beating heart. He lunged back, withdrawing the bayonet as the man slumped to the ground. William finished him, caught in a contradictory grip of grief and relief that shook him like a rat in a terrier's teeth.

Rebels were falling under blades left and right, Yorkers under the assault of hatchets and knives wielded by those cunning enough to avoid the bayonets. His heart was going again now, savage and desperate, slamming against bruised flesh. Beside him one of Watts's lieutenants—Singleton—used his musket to club a rebel militiaman. Driven to his knees, the man scrabbled for his dropped gun, swept the weapon around, and fired upward.

Singleton crumpled.

Militia were retreating deeper into the wood, up to the high ground between the ravines, brown- and beige- and gray-clad forms vanishing in brush and smoke. Others took cover to reload and fire back. The charge had faltered.

Amid the clamor, William heard Watts's voice shouting but couldn't make out the order. Press on? Retreat?

Singleton had taken the ball through his leg and was lying at William's feet cursing, bleeding. William grabbed the green coat of another Yorker stumbling past. They got the lieutenant on his feet and half-dragged him down to the road.

In the open William saw the other Yorker was Robbie, and he laughed to see the lad alive, making Singleton curse the more as they maneuvered him past bodies already plundered and scalped. Around them, others of Watts's company staggered from the trees clutching wounds, some supporting bleeding comrades, streaming sweat or tears down blood-grimed faces.

For the first time William wondered whether he'd been wounded beyond the bruising thrust he'd taken in the chest. He felt on the verge of toppling. But that was due to heat and fatigue and Singleton's dragging weight. They deposited him at last near the head of the ravine, in a clearing serving as depot for the soldiers' belongings and the wounded brought off the field—a place for the officers to regroup. A dozen prisoners were bound to trees, eyeing the Indians present with dread.

Once William saw Singleton into the regimental surgeon's care, then drained his canteen to slake a raging thirst, he realized Sir John was in the clearing, talking animatedly to the Seneca chiefs, Cornplanter and Old Smoke, while Colonel Butler and half a dozen of his rangers looked on. William couldn't make out what Johnson was saying; his own ears were ringing.

Spying Captain Watts standing behind the colonel, he edged nearer.

Sir John, flushed with heat and fury, wasn't best pleased with the
Senecas. “Your young warriors sprung the trap prematurely! Now Herkimer is entrenched, his regiments regrouping, our momentum stalled.”

The gleaming faces of Cornplanter and Old Smoke were a study of rigid pride and resentment. Only their eyes showed the shock they felt at the ferocity of the battle still underway back up the ravine. Or perhaps its cost. William had passed through a sea of bodies littering the creek and road. Indian losses were nearly as heavy as those of loyalist and rebel.

“Herkimer's boys took the worst of it,” Butler interjected. “No chance in a thousand they can rally to advance now.”

“They are not defeated,” Sir John countered. “They hold the one defensive position in this terrain Brant chose. Now you wish to inform me,” he said, turning again to the Senecas, “that you've had enough and will not command your warriors to assault them again?”

Old Smoke spoke for them. “Too many have died, when it was promised we would not even have to fight. We wish revenge, but not at the cost of more brave men. We will have our revenge on these prisoners.” The war chief swept an arm, banded with tattoos, at the captured militiamen slumped against the trees. “If the warriors wish to fight on, they may do so. That is for each to decide.”

Sir John's jaw bulged with its clenching, but he kept his composure as he ground out, “Where is Brant?”

“He and his warriors plundered the baggage,” Cornplanter said. “Some have gone after soldiers who fled east. They are running them down like wolves after deer.”

“I could better use them here.” Sir John looked around, finding Watts behind him. “How stands your company? What are your losses?”

Watts glanced toward the wounded, his gaze fastening on Singleton. A group of green-coated Yorkers came into the clearing, bringing in more injured. “Unconfirmed, sir. I expect they will be heavy. What I can confirm is that another bayonet charge will be an exercise in futility while the
rebels are entrenched on that height. Futility and wasted lives,” he added, sharing a look with Cornplanter.

“So, then, what I have to hand is a parcel of rangers, a battered company of infantry, and several hundred Indians no more easily corralled than wildcats.” Frustration rose off Johnson like heat waves. He huffed a breath and jerked his head in a nod. “Very well. I shall report to St. Leger that the column is halted and dispatch reinforcements back to finish what we've begun. Then St. Leger can sweep down the valley as he wills.”

Johnson parceled out further orders to Butler and the Senecas, undoubtedly instructing them to keep the rebels pinned, batter them, wear down their resistance. William didn't hear the particulars. His mind had stalled.
“Sweep down the valley as he wills.”

A band of Mississaugas came out of the wood, loaded with plunder from the wagons in the eastern ravine. They untied one of the prisoners and hauled the dazed man away, following Sir John toward the fort. William watched as if through dusty glass.

Captain Watts stood before him, frowning. His commanding officer asked a question. William shook his head. He couldn't hear. The ringing…

Watts said something more, then left him. William barely noticed. His whole being was focused on one hope, one prayer—
Let General Herkimer not falter now but hold that height as a castle impregnable
.

That such a thing might well cost the lives of his regiment, and his own, spent like water dashed on stone, seemed for the moment inconsequential.

Ordered to help with the wounded, he moved in a daze, wondering vaguely why Watts left him behind when the captain rounded up what remained of the company and returned to the fight.

He was holding the hand of a dead man when he realized the day had darkened. Surely not toward evening. No more than a couple of hours could have passed since the battle began. He looked up.

Above the clearing, clouds hung low and black. Thunder rumbled, ominous, deep. He heard the pop of firearms. Smelled the smoke of battle, and blood. And a heavier, more elemental smell.

He let go the dead man's hand and pushed to his feet through the stultifying heat. The Senecas were gone. So were Butler and his rangers. There were fewer prisoners tied to the tree. The surgeon was busy with the wounded who had any hope of surviving, while the rest lay dead or bleeding out onto the ground.

Something like an electrical current shot through his veins, rousing him fully. He could do it. Now. No one would know. He could follow Sam's lead and slip away…

Thunder cracked, deafening as cannon fire. A raindrop struck his cheek, fat and cold. Another hit his shoulder. More battered leaf and earth around him. That was all the warning before the heavens tore wide and a deluge came down.