Kitabı oku: «The Prairie Flower: A Tale of the Indian Border», sayfa 9

CHAPTER IX
THE MASSACRE

Days, months, years, passed away: the White Buffalo seemed to have completely renounced that country which he was forbidden ever to see again. He had completely adopted Indian customs, and, through his wisdom, had so thoroughly acquired the esteem and respect of the Kenha nation, that he was counted among the most revered sachems.

Sparrowhawk, after giving on many occasions undeniable proofs of his courage and military talents, had gained also a firm and honourable place in the nation. If an experienced chief were required for a dangerous expedition, he was ever selected by the council of the sachems, for they knew that success constantly crowned his enterprises. Sparrowhawk was a man of clear mind, who at once understood the intellectual value of his European friend; obedient to the old man's lessons, he never acted under any circumstances without having taken his advice, and always followed his counsels: hence he speedily began reaping the advantage of his skilful conduct. Thus, when he two years later married a Kenha girl, and when his wife made him father of a boy, he took him in his arms, and presented him to the old man, saying, with great emotion:

"The White Buffalo sees this warrior, he is his son, my father will make a man of him."

"I swear it," the old man replied, firmly.

When the child was weaned, the father kept the promise he had made his friend, and gave him his son, leaving him at liberty to educate the boy as he thought fit. The old man, rejuvenated by the hope of this education, which gave him the chance of making a man after his own heart of this frail creature, joyfully accepted the difficult task. The child received from its parents the name of Natah Otann, a significant name, for it is that borne by the most dangerous animal of Northern America, the grizzly bear.

Natah Otann made rapid progress under the guidance of the White Buffalo. The latter had a few books by him, which enabled him to give his pupil a very extensive education, and make him very learned. Thence resulted the strange circumstance of an Indian, who, while following exactly the customs of his fathers, hunting and fighting like them, and who was now leading his tribe, being at the same time a distinguished man, who would not have been out of place in any European drawing room, and whose great intellect had understood and appreciated everything.

Singularly enough, Natah Otann, on attaining manhood, far from despising his countrymen, brutalized and ignorant as they were, felt an ardent love for them, and a violent desire to regenerate them. From that moment his life had an object, which was the constant preoccupation of his existence – to restore the Indians to the rank from which they had fallen, by combining them into a great and powerful nation. The White Buffalo, the confidant of all the young chief's thoughts, at first accepted these projects with the sceptical smile of old men, who, having grown weary of everything, have retained no hope in the depths of their heart: he fancied that Natah Otann, under the impression of youthful ardour, let himself be carried away by an unreflecting movement, whose folly he would soon recognize. But when able to appreciate how deeply these ideas were rooted in the young man's heart, when he saw him set resolutely to work, the old man trembled, and was afraid of his handiwork. He asked himself if he had done well in acting as he had done, in developing so fully this chosen intellect, which alone, and with no other support than its will, was about to undertake a struggle in which it must inevitably succumb.

He then sought to destroy with his own hands the edifice he had built with so much labour: he wished to turn in another direction the ardour that devoured his pupil, and give another object to his life, by changing his plan. It was too late. The evil was irremediable. Natah Otann, on seeing his master thus contradict himself, defeated him with his own weapons, and obliged him to bow his head before the merciless blows of that logic he had himself taught his pupil.

Natah Otann was a strange composite of good and evil; in him all was in extreme. At times, the most noble feelings seemed to reside in him; he was good and generous; then, suddenly, his ferocity and cruelty attained gigantic proportions, which terrified the Indians themselves. Still, he was generally good and gentle toward his countrymen, who, unaware of the cause, but subject to his influences, feared him, and trembled at a word that fell from his lips, or a simple frown.

The white men, and especially the Spaniards and Americans, were Natah Otann's implacable enemies; he waged a merciless war on them, attacking them wherever he could surprise them, and killing, under the most horrible tortures, those who were so unhappy as to fall into his hands. Hence his reputation on the prairies was great; the terror he inspired was extreme; several times already the United States had tried to get rid of this terrible and implacable foe; but all their plans failed, and the Indian chief, bolder and more cruel than ever, drew nearer to the American frontier, reigned uncontrolled in the desert, of which he was absolute lord, and at times went, fire and sword in hand, to the very cities of the Union to demand that tribute which he claimed even from white men.

We must not be taxed with exaggeration. All we here narrate is scrupulously exact; and if we now and then alter facts, it is only to weaken them. If we uncovered the incognito that veils our characters, many of our readers would recognize them at the first glance, and certify to the truth of our statements.

A terrible scene of massacre, of which Natah Otann was the originator, had aroused general indignation against him. The facts are as follow: —

An American family, consisting of father, mother, two sons of about twelve, a little girl between three and four years of age, and five servants, left the Western States with the intention of working a claim they had bought on the Upper Mississippi. At the period we are writing of, white men rarely traversed these districts, which were entirely left to the Indians, who wandered over them in every direction, and, with a few half-bred and Canadian hunters and trappers, were the sole masters of these vast solitudes. On leaving the clearings, their friends warned the emigrants to be on their guard. They had been advised not to enter into the desert in so small a body, but await other emigrants, who would soon proceed to the same spot; for a caravan of fifty to sixty determined men might pass safe and sound through the Indians.

The head of the American family was an old soldier of the war of independence, gifted with heroic courage, and thorough British obstinacy. He answered coldly, to those who gave him this advice, that his servants and himself could hold their own against all the Prairie Indians; for they had good rifles and firm hearts, and would reach their claim in the face of all opposition. Then he made his preparations like a man whose mind, being made up, admits of no delay, and he started against the judgment of his friends, who predicted numberless misfortunes. The first few days, however, passed quietly enough, and nothing happened to confirm these predictions. The Americans advanced peacefully through a delicious country, and no sign revealed the approach of the Indians, who seemed to have become invisible.

The Americans are men who pass most easily from extreme prudence to the most foolish and rash confidence, and on this occasion were true to their character. When they saw that all was quiet around them, and no obstacle checked their progress, they began to laugh and deride the apprehensions of their friends; they gradually relaxed in their vigilance; neglected the precautions usual on the prairie; and at last almost wished to be attacked by Indians, to make them feel the weight of their arms. Things went on thus for nearly two months; the emigrants were not more than ten days' march from their claim; they no longer thought of the Indians: if at times they alluded to them in the evening, before going to sleep, it was only to laugh at the absurd fears of their friends, who fancied it impossible to take a step in the desert without falling into an ambuscade of the Redskins.

One night, after a fatiguing day, the emigrants went to bed, after placing sentries round the camp, rather to keep wild beasts off than through any other motive; the sentinels, accustomed not to be troubled, and fatigued by their day's labours, watched for a few moments, then their eyelids gradually sank, and they fell asleep. Their awakening was destined to be terrible.

About midnight, fifty Blackfeet, led by Natah Otann, glided like demons in the darkness, clambered into the encampment, and ere the Americans could seize their weapons, or even dream of defence, they were bound. Then a horrible scene took place, the frightful interludes of which the pen is impotent to describe. Natah Otann organised the massacre, if we may be allowed to employ the term, with unexampled coolness and cruelty. The chief of the party and his five servants were stripped and attached to trees, flogged, and martyrized, while the two lads were literally roasted alive in their presence. The mother, half mad with terror, escaped, carrying off her little girl in her arms: but, after running a long distance, her strength failed her, and she fell senseless. The Indians caught her up; imagining her to be dead, they disdained to scalp her; but they carried off the child, which she pressed to her bosom with almost herculean strength. The child was taken back to Natah Otann.

"What shall we do with it?" the warrior asked, who presented it to him.

"Into the fire!" he replied, laconically.

The Blackfoot calmly prepared to execute the pitiless order he had received.

"Stop!" the father cried with a piercing shriek. "Do not kill an innocent creature in that horrible manner. Are not the atrocious tortures you inflict on us enough?"

The Blackfoot hesitated, and looked at his chief; the latter reflected.

"Stay," he said, raising his hand, and addressing the emigrant; "you wish your child to live?"

"Yes!" the father answered.

"Good!" he answered, "I will sell you her life."

The American shuddered at this proposition. "On what terms?" he asked.

"Listen!" he said, laying a stress on every word, and darting at him a glance which made him tremble to the marrow. "My conditions are these. I am master of all your lives; they belong to me; I can prolong or cut them short without the slightest opposition from you; but, I hardly know why," he added, with a sardonic smile, "I feel merciful today; your child shall live. Still, remember this; whatever the nature of the torture I inflict on you, at the first cry you utter, your child shall be strangled. You have it in your power to save her if you will."

"I accept," the other answered. "What do I care for the most atrocious torture, so long as my child lives?"

A sinister smile played round the chief's lips. "It is well," he said.

"One word more."

"Speak."

"Grant me a single favour; let me give a last kiss to this poor creature."

"Give him his child," the chief commanded.

An Indian presented the little girl to the wretched man. The innocent, as if comprehending what was taking place, put her arms round her father's neck, and burst into tears. The latter, frightfully bound as he was, could only bestow kisses on her, into which his whole soul passed. The scene had something hideous about it; it resembled a witches' Sabbath. The five men fastened naked to trees, the children twisting on the burning charcoal, and uttering piercing cries, and these stoical Indians, illumined by the ruddy glow of the fire, completed the most fearful picture that the wildest imagination could have invented.

"Enough," Natah Otann said.

"A last gift, a last remembrance."

The chief shrugged his shoulders. "For what good?" he said.

"To render the death you intend for me less cruel."

"What is it you want?"

"Hang round my daughter's neck this earring, suspended by a lock of my hair."

"Is that really all?"

"It is."

"Very good."

The chief came up, took from the emigrant's ear a ring he wore in it, and cut off with a scalping knife a lock of his hair; then, turning to him with a sardonic laugh, he said —

"Listen carefully. Your companions and yourself are going to be flayed alive; of a strip of your skin I will make a bag to hold the lock of hair and ring. You see that I am generous, for I grant you more than you ask; but remember the conditions."

The emigrant looked at him disdainfully.

"Keep your promises as well as I shall mine: and now begin the torture – you will see a man die."

Things were done as had been arranged; the emigrant and his servants were flayed alive. The emigrant endured the torture with a courage which even the chief admired. Not a cry, not a groan, issued from his bleeding chest; he was made of granite. When his skin was entirely stripped off, Natah Otann went up to him; the unhappy wretch was not yet dead.

"Thou art a man," he said to him. "Die satisfied. I will keep the promise I made thee."

And moved doubtlessly by a feeling of pity for so much firmness, he blew out his brains.

This horrible punishment lasted four hours. The Indians plundered all the Americans possessed, and what they could not carry off they burned. Natah Otann rigidly kept the oath he had made to his victim: as he said, from a strip of his skin, imperfectly tanned, he made a bag, in which he placed the lock of hair, and hung it round the child's neck by a cord also made of his skin. On the homeward road to his village, Natah Otann paid the most assiduous attention to the poor little creature; and, on rejoining the tribe, the chief declared before all that he adopted the girl, and gave her the name of Prairie Flower.

At the period our story begins, Prairie Flower was fourteen years of age; she was a charming creature, gentle and simple, lovely as the princess of a fairy tale. Her large blue eyes, veiled by long brown lashes, reflected the azure of the heaven, and she ran about, careless and wild, through the forests and over the prairie, dreaming at times beneath the shady recesses of the giant trees, living as the birds live, forgetting the past, which was to her as yesterday, caring nothing for the future, which to her had no existence, and only thinking of the present to be happy.

The charming girl had unconsciously become the idol of the tribe. The old White Buffalo more especially felt an unbounded affection for her; but the experiment he had made with Natah Otann disgusted him with a second trial at education. He only watched over her with truly paternal care, correcting any fault he might notice in her with a patience and kindness nothing could weary. This old tribune, like all energetic and implacable men, had the heart of a lamb; having entirely renounced the world which mistook him, he had refreshed his soul in the desert, and recovered the illusions and generous impulses of his youth.

Prairie Flower had retained no remembrance of her early years; as no one ever alluded in her presence to the terrible scenes which introduced her to the tribe, fresher impressions had completely effaced them. Loved and petted by all, Prairie Flower fancied herself a child of the tribe. Her long tresses of light hair, gilded like ripe corn, and the dazzling whiteness of her skin, could not enlighten her, for in many Indian nations these anomalies are found; the Mandans, among others, have many women and warriors who, if they put on European clothes, might easily pass for whites.

The Blackfeet, seduced by the charms of this gentle young creature, attached the destinies of the tribe to her. They considered her their tutelary genius, their palladium: their faith in her was deep, serene, and simple. Prairie Flower was truly the Queen of the Blackfeet; a sign from her rosy fingers, a word from her dainty lips, was obeyed with unbounded promptitude and devotion. She could do anything, say everything, demand everything, without fearing even a second's hesitation to her will. She exercised this despotic authority unsuspectingly; she alone was unaware of the immense power she possessed over these brutal natives, who in her presence became gentle and devoted.

Natah Otann was attached to his adopted daughter, so far as organizations like his are capable of yielding to any feeling. At first he sported with the girl as with an unimportant plaything; but gradually, as the child was transformed and became a woman, these sports became more serious, and his heart was attracted. For the first time in his life, this man, with his indomitable soul, felt a feeling stir in him which he could not analyze, but which, through its force and violence, astonished and terrified him.

Then, a dumb struggle began between the chiefs head and heart. He revolted against this influence which subjugated him: he, hitherto accustomed to break through every obstacle, was now powerless before a child, who disarmed him with a smile, when he tried to overpower her. This struggle lasted a long time; at length, the terrible Indian confessed himself vanquished, that is to say, he allowed the current to carry him away, and without attempting a resistance, which he felt to be useless, he began to love the young maiden madly. But this love at times caused him sufferings so terrible, when he thought of the manner in which Prairie Flower had become his adopted daughter, that he asked himself with terror, whether this deep love which had seized on his brain, and mastered him, was not a chastisement imposed by Heaven.

Then, he fell back in his usual state of fury, redoubled his ferocity with those unhappy beings whose plantations he surprised, and, all reeking with blood, his girdle hung with scalps, he returned to the village, and displayed the hideous trophies before the girl. Prairie Flower, astonished at the state in which she saw a man whom she believed to be – not her father, for he was too young – but a relative, lavished on him all the consolations and simple caresses which her attachment to him suggested to her: unfortunately, these caresses heightened his suffering, and he would rush away half mad with grief, leaving her sad and almost terrified by this conduct, which was so incomprehensible to her.

Matters reached such a pitch, that the White Buffalo, whose vigilant eye was constantly fixed on his pupil, considered that he must, at all risks, cut away the evil at the root, and withdraw the son of his friend from the deadly fascination exercised over him by this innocent enchantress. When he felt convinced of the chiefs love for Prairie Flower, the old sachem asked for a private interview with his pupil: the latter granted it, quite unsuspecting the reason which urged the White Buffalo to take this step.

One morning the chief presented himself at the entrance of his friend's lodge. The White Buffalo was reading by the side of a fire kindled in the middle of the hut.

"You are welcome, my son," he said to the young man. "I have only a few words to say to you, but I consider them sufficiently serious for you to hear them without delay; sit down by my side."

The young man obeyed. The White Buffalo then carefully changed his tactics: he, who had so long combated the chief's views as to the regeneration of the Indian race, entered completely into his views, with an ardour and conviction carried so far, that the young man was astonished, and could not refrain from asking what produced this sudden change in his opinion?

"The cause is very simple," the old man answered. "So long as I considered that these views were only suggested by the impetuosity of youth, I merely regarded them as the dreams of a generous heart, which was deceiving itself, and not taking the trouble to weigh the chances of success."

"What now?" the young man asked, quickly.

"Now, I recognize all the earnestness, nobility, and grandeur, contained in your plans; and not only admit their possibility, but I wish to aid you, so as to ensure success."

"Is what you say quite true, my father?" the young man asked, with exultation.

"I swear it: still we must set to work immediately." The chief examined him for a moment carefully, but the old man remained impassive.

"I understand you," he at length said, slowly, and in a deep voice; "you offer me your hand on the verge of an abyss. Thanks, my father, I will not be unworthy of you; I swear to you by the Wacondah."

"Good; believe me, my son, I recognize you," the old man said, shaking his head mournfully. "One's country is often an ungrateful mistress; but it is the only one which gives us true enjoyment of mind, if we serve her disinterestedly for herself alone."

The two men shook hands affectionately; the compact was sealed. We shall soon see whether Natah Otann had really conquered his love as he imagined.