It was a rare night when the truck house was not filled to capacity with noisy travelers, settlers, militiamen, backwoodsmen and an occasional pseudocivilized Indian. And now in the last days of March, with the threat of a French and Indian war hanging ominously over the land, the house was nightly packed with rabble-rousers, pacifiers, and all kinds of table-pounders.
Everyone talked war, but few wanted to go help fight it. The travelers from other states seemed content to let Virginia and Pennsylvania handle the trouble, seeing that the trouble was in their backyards, and the Pennsylvanians seemed satisfied with letting Virginia solve the dispute; though it was said that Hamilton, their governor, had expressed his sympathy for Dinwiddie, but could do nothing with the placid Quaker noncombatants and the obstinate Dutch farmers who made up his Assembly.
Night after night Matt would listen to the shouts, arguments and table-pounding as he tended the serving counter, and he would shake his head in dismay. It was beyond his comprehension how people who were actually in the same boat could sit back and be willing to let others row for them.
One night young Harry Curry, an acquaintance of Matt’s, entered the truck house. Harry was a newcomer to the hamlet, having come to the Colonies only six years before. His father was a retired British officer who had left a leg behind at Culloden Moor in the famous battle of ’Forty-six, and much of Harry’s mannerism came from the old school of English superiority.
Most of the youths of the hamlet would have little to do with Harry, having been snubbed too often by his haughty attitude, and Shad Holly would have nothing to do with him at all. Shad called him “a dandified nose-tilted perfume bottle with legs.” But because Harry’s mother, who had been a French woman, had died during the siege of Louisburg, and because Matt had also lost his own mother at an early age, Matt had always felt a sort of strange kinship for this lonely proud youth, and he went out of his way to be kind to him.
Harry picked his way carefully through the throng of noisy table-pounders, somehow giving the impression that he didn’t want them to touch his clothes. His nose, Matt noticed, was pinched slightly as though he smelled something not quite to his liking.
“Evening, Harry,” Matt offered with a smile.
The youth nodded his handsome head without a hint of expression, saying, “Are they still shouting war—for lack of anything better to shout about?”
“I’m afraid it’s coming, Harry. The French will see to that.”
“The French,” Harry said confidently, “don’t want war any more than we do. They merely want a share of the land.”
Matt was annoyed and showed it in his quick reply. “They have all of Canada; why must they act like pigs? And besides, how can you, the son of an English officer who has fought the French all his life, stand up for them?”
Harry’s smooth thin face was reflective for a moment, then he spoke thoughtfully. “If this were to be a war between gentlemen—Englishmen and Frenchmen, I mean—I would say go to it. But it will not be. It will be fought with boors and bumpkins such as this.” He waved a slim hand over the house’s company.
“Backwoodsmen,” he continued, “settlers, Indians, and the usual rabble. It will be disgraceful to the name of war.” Matt’s temper as a rule was held in strong leash and, because he had always tried to understand the English youth, he had made a point of not taking offense at the unkind things Harry was wont to say. But he had put in a hard day and had heard enough dissension for one night, and he spoke with sudden heat.
“If war does come, you can sit at home and tell yourself that it’s disgusting and disgraceful if you want to, but I’m going! And so is Shad Holly and Stefen Caspary and Tammy Ferguson. I don’t know much about gentlemen and their wars; all I know is that the land belongs to the Americans and we’re going to fight for it!”
Harry stared at Matt with cold eyes. “All very melodramatic,” he said calmly, “but hardly probable. I greatly doubt that there will be a war. Good night.”
The following morning Shad Holly returned. It was the first of April.
Matt was standing at the stockade gate waiting for a rider to bring news, when a great bellow boomed from the direction of the hamlet.
“Yo, Matty! It’s come! Hi-yi! It’s come at last!”
Matt turned his head and saw Shad puffing up the hill, shouting and waving at every broad step, and bringing their two friends Tammy Ferguson and Stefen Caspary along with him.
Matt knew that Shad’s news must be important, for although he usually entered the town with as much gusto as possible, it being his jovial habit to shout ribald songs and to catch all the pretty girls within reach and give them great sweaty bear hugs and send them shrieking home to their mothers, on this day he had no interest in girls and songs but confined himself to mere shouting.
“All right,” Matt said, as his three friends swaggered up to him, “do you want the settlement to think there’s an Indian raid?”
“To hades with Indian raids!” Shad roared, as if Matt were standing twenty yards from him instead of two. “That’s pokey stuff for old men and little kids that hide in stockades and throw bean bags at one or two smelly Catawbas. There’s gonna be a battle, Matty, an honest to gosh battle!”
Matt reached for the gatepost for support. It had come at last!
“A battle!” he echoed. “Where?”
Shad took a swipe at his moist face and sucked in air to holler again. “At the Forks of the Ohio, that’s where! Just below Murder Town. Old Dumwiddie finally got things moving; told Georgie the boy major—only he ain’t a major no more, he’s a lieutenant colonel now—told him to hotfoot up to the Forks and build him a fort.
“Then, when them frog-eaters come marchin’ down from Canada to ask Georgie what he’s about, he’s gonna whap ’em over the head with his muskit and jab ’em in the pants with his bay’net and slap ’em in the face with the tips of his fingers, and say, ‘This here Ohio belongs to the Americans. We don’t want no frog-eaters here. Now you just count one-two-three, spin yourselves about and march out a here double quick!’ That’s what he’s gonna do!”
“Now wait a minute, Shad,” Matt said. “You’re adding to the facts. Tell it to me straight. How do you know there’s going to be a battle?”
Shad made like a windmill, waving his arms about excitedly. Then he got himself in hand and lumbered up to Matt with a dark scowl on his round moon face.
“I suppose you don’t believe there’s gonna be a battle? I suppose you think I made it all up, eh?”
“How can I believe you?” Matt yelled. “All I’ve heard so far is your wild imagination. What about the battle?”
“They’s got to be a battle, Matt! Old Dumwiddie is gonna force it. He’s tired a chasing himself in circles, and he’s made up his mind he ain’t gonna powder his wig again unless he gets Georgie and Cap’n Tram to build him a fort on the banks of the Ohio! Georgie is at Wills Creek right now waiting for reinforcements, and Tram and Ensign Ward has already gone up with a band a backwoodsmen to start the fort.
“Now, Matt, you know as well as I do that the French ain’t gonna let this happen without they grumble about it just a little bit. And that’s why I say there’s gonna be a battle!”
“And we’re going to help them fight it!” young Tammy cried, pitching his cap into the air.
Matt looked at him, then at Stefen who was grinning with delight.
“Do you mean that Pennsylvania is sending a company of soldiers?”
Shad grinned and winked. “ ’Course she’s sending a company,” he said. “She’s