Chapter 11

It took a month to get the rest of the crossbows converted and to get the 50 new bolts made. Joe now had enough money from the meat business to contract with the woodworker to make new crossbows. It was his intention to have everyone in the family or on the tavern staff reasonably proficient with the weapon. Even though King Philip's War was nearly over, Joe knew from his history lessons that more wars were coming, and these wars might actually involve conflict with formal army troops.

Individually, the Indians were probably better fighters than regular soldiers, but the Indians only fought when the mood struck them. Furthermore, the Indians never were really interested in siege warfare, whereas regular troops often did that sort of thing. Therefore, they needed some way to fight against a besieging army, and the crossbows were the only sure way he could see to do it.

Hopefully, it would never get that far, but the women needed a way to protect themselves from an attacker, and the crossbow seemed to Joe to be the best solution to the problem. No matter how he sliced it, he had to get the women to learn to use the crossbows. Mary would be the easiest to reach, but Martha and Esther were probably going to give him a battle.

Ed managed to acquire an old chunk of leather big enough for fabricating into a target. Redbird formed it into an envelope about the size and shape of a man's torso and stuffed it with grass and leaves. Ed painted it white with whitewash and put a palm-sized black spot on it about where the heart would be. They stepped off a 100 feet and marked a line for the shooter to stand on.

Joe was soon able to hit the black spot every time at that range. They wound up having to patch the target under the black spot so that other people would have something to shoot at. The bolts went through the outer leather covering but were slowed enough so that they were caught in the inner stuffing; thus they did not lose many bolts due to breakage.

Ed and Turtle quickly caught the knack of aiming and holding that position while they shot the bolt, so it was not long before they, too, were scoring well at 100 feet. There was a problem that each of the crossbows was slightly different; thus, it was difficult to jump back and forth among the weapons at hand and maintain accuracy. Each man quickly realized that he needed a crossbow personalized to his shooting habits. Three bows were marked for Joe, Ed, and Turtle. The remaining bow fell to John to use, and his previous experience with the crossbow quickly brought him up to Joe's shooting standard.

Additional crossbows were assigned as they were delivered. Cookie never became more than barely adequate with his bow, and that was when they found out that he was so nearsighted that he had trouble seeing the target at 100 feet. Nevertheless, he was assigned a bow and kept it close to hand in a dry place in the kitchen.

Now it was time to start the hard part: convincing the women that they needed to learn how to shoot. Joe started with Mary, and, as expected, she did not want to learn. After general arguments about the value of learning did not make any dent in her resistance, Joe played his trump card. "Honey, what would you do to protect Elizabeth and Joseph if you were their only defense? Or, how would you protect me if I was wounded and could not fight?"

Mary took only a moment to change her mind as she thought about those situations. In fact, she became a very enthusiastic proponent of the crossbow, once she had taken a few practice shots and learned how deadly she could be with it. The heavy recoil did bother her at first, but they were able to pad the stock butt so that it did not hurt so much. This enabled her to become very accurate with the crossbow up to 150 feet. Beyond that, the rapid drop of the bolt made it very difficult for anybody to be very accurate with it.

Martha was convinced with the same arguments used on Mary, and she agreed to learn to use the weapon. Esther finally was ordered by Martha to learn, since there were no other levers to use against the old widow. Neither one could see much better than Cookie, so their shooting would have to be limited to very close work, but that would probably be how things worked out, anyway.

Redbird and Blue Jay were persuaded by Turtle to learn to shoot. They were probably convinced by the fact that Redbird was obviously pregnant and Blue Jay thought that she might be, even though it was too early to be certain. Joe didn't care why they learned, they were diligent enough to become excellent shots, and that was what counted.

As a kind of trade mark, Joe was persuaded by Turtle to paint his bolts white to signify that they came from White Ghost. Turtle thought that this would be an added psychological advantage against Indians, and Joe was amused by the idea, so that's what he did. He painted 10 bolts white and reserved them for use in war.

The crossbows turned out to be very convenient for hunting, since they could be used in places where overhanging tree limbs and other such stuff made it impossible to get a good swing with the atlatl. The three hunters switched to using the crossbows exclusively for deer and elk. Nobody went after bear without backup, but they did occasionally bring in a bear on "special order" with special broadhead bolts.

Whenever they went after Indian raiders, which was still fairly often, they always went out with 12-15 crossbow bolts in each of the quivers. The first time they went after some raiding Nipmucks, Turtle had to remind Joe to use his white bolts exclusively until he ran out, then he could switch to the regular unpainted bolts.

Their first encounter with raiders followed a night attack on a cabin at John's Crossroads. Everybody now had an alarm that he rang in the event of an attack, and that was what alerted Turtle, Ed, and Joe to this raid. Of course, Turtle heard the alarm first, and he called Joe and Ed to duty.

They grabbed their weapons and rushed toward the point of attack. The people in the cabin had managed to bolt their door and shutters before the Nipmucks got to them, so they were fairly safe inside until the Indians could break down the door. The three defenders arrived before that could happen, though the door was about to collapse.

Seeing that they could not get to the cabin before the door was broken in, Joe ordered them to shoot their crossbows, even though they were at maximum range. Each man fired, and three bolts arced toward the Indians clustered around the door. By the purest luck, the bolts fired by Ed and Turtle wounded two Indians, but the white bolt fired by Joe killed a man with a shot square between his shoulder blades.

A second bolt was on the way almost before the first bolts had landed, and this time, two more Indians fell dead, one with a white bolt in his body. Three dead and three wounded Indians, hit by a previously unknown weapon, was all it took to convince the other eight Indians that they would be better occupied somewhere else. The eight uninjured Nipmucks ran away before any more could be hit, but they left their wounded companions behind.

The three wounded Nipmucks who could not escape were dispatched with tomahawk blows, and the other two men retrieved and cleaned the expended bolts while Joe talked to the people within the cabin. A man, a woman, and five children were escorted back to the tavern to spend the night in safety.

Joe, Turtle, and Ed gathered up the rest of their gear in preparation for following the retreating Indians. Turtle had recognized the beadwork as coming from a particular village, so they knew where the Indians came from. Unfortunately, there was no guarantee that the remaining Indians would head directly home, so they were forced to follow them, rather than try for a shortcut.

They went after the retreating Nipmucks at a fast jog, but they did keep an eye out for an ambush. The Indians had not made any attempt to hide their trail, probably because they did not believe that any Whites would try to follow them at night. The Whites were well known for fighting only in the daytime. Probably, the three friends would not catch up until the quarry stopped to make camp, unless there was an attempt at an ambush.

There was no ambush, and the chase lasted for nearly four hours. The Nipmucks were camped in a small clearing which kept them close together. Their contempt for the Whites was such that they had not put out guards, so it was easy to get close to the group.