Kitabı oku: «Erskine Dale—Pioneer», sayfa 6

XI

The Indian boys were plunging into the river when Erskine appeared at the opening of the old chief’s tent next morning, and when they came out icicles were clinging to their hair. He had forgotten the custom and he shrugged his shoulders at his mother’s inquiring look. But the next morning when Crooked Lightning’s son Black Wolf passed him with a taunting smile he changed his mind.

“Wait!” he said. He turned, stripped quickly to a breech-clout, pointed to a beech down and across the river, challenging Black Wolf to a race. Together they plunged in and the boy’s white body clove through the water like the arrow that he was. At the beech he whipped about to meet the angry face of his competitor ten yards behind. Half-way back he was more than twenty yards ahead when he heard a strangled cry. Perhaps it was a ruse to cover the humiliation of defeat, but when he saw bucks rushing for the river-bank he knew that the icy water had brought a cramp to Black Wolf, so he turned, caught the lad by his topknot, towed him shoreward, dropped him contemptuously, and stalked back to his tent. The girl Early Morn stood smiling at her lodge and her eyes followed his white figure until it disappeared. His mother had built a fire for him, and the old chief looked pleased and proud.

“My spirit shall not pass,” he said, and straightway he rose and dressed, and to the astonishment of the tribe emerged from his tent and walked firmly about the village until he found Crooked Lightning.

“You would have Black Wolf chief,” he said. “Very well. We shall see who can show the better right – your son or White Arrow” – a challenge that sent Crooked Lightning to brood awhile in his tent, and then secretly to consult the prophet.

Later the old chief talked long to White Arrow. The prophet, he said, had been with them but a little while. He claimed that the Great Spirit had made revelations to him alone. What manner of man was he, questioned the boy – did he have ponies and pelts and jerked meat?

“He is poor,” said the chief. “He has only a wife and children and the tribe feeds him.”

White Arrow himself grunted – it was the first sign of his old life stirring within him.

“Why should the Great Spirit pick out such a man to favor?” he asked. The chief shook his head.

“He makes muzzi-neen for the young men, shows them where to find game and they find it.”

“But game is plentiful,” persisted the lad.

“You will hear him drumming in the woods at night.”

“I heard him last night and I thought he was a fool to frighten the game away.”

“Crooked Lightning has found much favor with him, and in turn with the others, so that I have not thought it wise to tell Crooked Lightning that he must go. He has stirred up the young men against me – and against you. They were waiting for me to die.” The boy looked thoughtful and the chief waited. He had not reached the aim of his speech and there was no need to put it in words, for White Arrow understood.

“I will show them,” he said quietly.

When the two appeared outside, many braves had gathered, for the whole village knew what was in the wind. Should it be a horse-race first? Crooked Lightning looked at the boy’s thoroughbred and shook his head – Indian ponies would as well try to outrun an arrow, a bullet, a hurricane.

A foot-race? The old chief smiled when Crooked Lightning shook his head again – no brave in the tribe even could match the speed that gave the lad his name. The bow and arrow, the rifle, the tomahawk? Perhaps the pole-dance of the Sioux? The last suggestion seemed to make Crooked Lightning angry, for a rumor was that Crooked Lightning was a renegade Sioux and had been shamed from the tribe because of his evasion of that same pole-dance. Old Kahtoo had humor as well as sarcasm. Tomahawks and bows and arrows were brought out. Black Wolf was half a head shorter, but stocky and powerfully built. White Arrow’s sinews had strengthened, but he had scarcely used bow and tomahawk since he had left the tribe. His tomahawk whistled more swiftly through the air and buried itself deeper into the tree, and his arrows flashed faster and were harder to pull out. He had the power but not the practice, and Black Wolf won with great ease. When they came to the rifle, Black Wolf was out of the game, for never a bull’s-eye did White Arrow miss.

“To-morrow,” said the old chief, “they shall hunt. Each shall take his bow and the same number of arrows at sunrise and return at sundown… The next day they shall do the same with the rifle. It is enough for to-day.”

The first snow fell that night, and at dawn the two lads started out – each with a bow and a dozen arrows. Erskine’s woodcraft had not suffered and the night’s story of the wilderness was as plain to his keen eyes as a printed page. Nothing escaped them, no matter how minute the signs. Across the patch where corn had been planted, field-mice had left tracks like stitched seams. Crows had been after crawfish along the edge of the stream and a mink after minnows. A muskrat had crossed the swamp beyond. In the woods, wind-blown leaves had dotted and dashed the snow like a stenographer’s notebook. Here a squirrel had leaped along, his tail showing occasionally in the snow, and there was the four-pointed, triangle-track of a cottontail. The wide-spreading toes of a coon had made this tracery; moles had made these snowy ridges over their galleries, and this long line of stitched tracks was the trail of the fearless skunk which came to a sudden end in fur, feathers, and bones where the great horned owl had swooped down on him, the only creature that seems not to mind his smell. Here was the print of a pheasant’s wing, and buds and bits of twigs on the snow were the scattered remnants of his breakfast. Here was the spring hole that never freezes – the drinking-cup for the little folks of the woods. Here a hawk had been after a rabbit, and the lengthening distance between his triangles showed how he had speeded up in flight. He had scudded under thick briers and probably had gotten away. But where was the big game? For two hours he tramped swiftly, but never sign of deer, elk, bear, or buffalo.

And then an hour later he heard a snort from a thick copse and the crash of an unseen body in flight through the brush, and he loped after its tracks.

Black Wolf came in at sunset with a bear cub which he had found feeding apart from its mother. He was triumphant, and Crooked Lightning was scornful when White Arrow appeared empty-handed. His left wrist was bruised and swollen, and there was a gash the length of his forearm.

“Follow my tracks back,” he said, “until you come to the kill.” With a whoop two Indians bounded away and in an hour returned with a buck.

“I ran him down,” said White Arrow, “and killed him with the knife. He horned me,” and went into his tent.

The bruised wrist and wounded forearm made no matter, for the rifle was the weapon next day – but White Arrow went another way to look for game. Each had twelve bullets. Black Wolf came in with a deer and one bullet. White Arrow told them where they could find a deer, a bear, a buffalo, and an elk, and he showed eight bullets in the palm of his hand. And he noted now that the Indian girl was always an intent observer of each contest, and that she always went swiftly back to her tent to tell his deeds to the white woman within.

There was a feast and a dance that night, and Kahtoo could have gone to his fathers and left the lad, young as he was, as chief, but not yet was he ready, and Crooked Lightning, too, bided his time.

XII

Dressed as an Indian, Erskine rode forth next morning with a wampum belt and a talk for the council north where the British were to meet Shawnee, Iroquois, and Algonquin, and urge them to enter the great war that was just breaking forth. There was open and angry protest against sending so young a lad on so great a mission, but the old chief haughtily brushed it aside:

“He is young but his feet are swift, his arm is strong, his heart good, and his head is old. He speaks the tongue of the paleface. Besides, he is my son.”

One question the boy asked as he made ready:

“The white woman must not be burned while I am gone?”

“No,” promised the old chief. And so White Arrow fared forth. Four days he rode through the north woods, and on the fifth he strode through the streets of a town that was yet filled with great forest trees: a town at which he had spent three winters when the game was scarce and the tribe had moved north for good. He lodged with no chief but slept in the woods with his feet to the fire. The next night he slipped to the house of the old priest, Father André, who had taught him some religion and a little French, and the old man welcomed him as a son, though he noted sadly his Indian dress and was distressed when he heard the lad’s mission. He was quickly relieved.

“I am no royalist,” he said.

“Nor am I,” said Erskine. “I came because Kahtoo, who seemed nigh to death, begged me to come. There is much intrigue about him, and he could trust no other. I am only a messenger and I shall speak his talk; but my heart is with the Americans and I shall fight with them.” The old priest put his fingers to his lips:

“Sh-h-h! It is not wise. Are you not known?”

Erskine hesitated.

Earlier that morning he had seen three officers riding in. Following was a youth not in uniform though he carried a sword. On the contrary, he was dressed like an English dandy, and then he found himself face to face with Dane Grey. With no sign of recognition the boy had met his eyes squarely and passed on.

“There is but one man who does know me and he did not recognize me. His name is Dane Grey. I am wondering what he is doing here. Can you find out for me and let me know?” The old priest nodded and Erskine slipped back to the woods.

At sunrise the great council began. On his way Erskine met Grey, who apparently was leaving with a band of traders for Detroit. Again Erskine met his eyes and this time Grey smiled:

“Aren’t you White Arrow?” Somehow the tone with which he spoke the name was an insult.

“Yes.”

“Then it’s true. We heard that you had left your friends at the fort and become an Indian again.”

“Yes?”

“So you are not only going to fight with the Indians against the whites, but with the British against America?”

“What I am going to do is no business of yours,” Erskine said quietly, “but I hope we shall not be on the same side. We may meet again.”

Grey’s face was already red with drink and it turned purple with anger.

“When you tried to stab me do you remember what I said?” Erskine nodded contemptuously.

“Well, I repeat it. Whatever the side, I’ll fight you anywhere at any time and in any way you please.”

“Why not now?”

“This is not the time for private quarrels and you know it.”

Erskine bowed slightly – an act that came oddly from an Indian head-dress.

“I can wait – and I shall not forget. The day will come.”

The old priest touched Erskine’s shoulder as the angry youth rode away.

“I cannot make it out,” he said. “He claims to represent an English fur company. His talk is British but he told one man – last night when he was drunk – that he could have a commission in the American army.”

The council-fire was built, the flames crackled and the smoke rolled upward and swept through the leafless trees. Three British agents sat on blankets and around them the chiefs were ringed. All day the powwow lasted. Each agent spoke and the burden of his talk varied very little.

The American palefaces had driven the Indian over the great wall. They were killing his deer, buffalo, and elk, robbing him of his land and pushing him ever backward. They were many and they would become more. The British were the Indian’s friends – the Americans were his enemies and theirs; could they choose to fight with their enemies rather than with their friends? Each chief answered in turn, and each cast forward his wampum until only Erskine, who had sat silent, remained, and Pontiac himself turned to him.

“What says the son of Kahtoo?”

Even as he rose the lad saw creeping to the outer ring his enemy Crooked Lightning, but he appeared not to see. The whites looked surprised when his boyish figure stood straight, and they were amazed when he addressed the traders in French, the agents in English, and spoke to the feathered chiefs in their own tongue. He cast the belt forward.

“That is Kahtoo’s talk, but this is mine.”

Who had driven the Indian from the great waters to the great wall? The British. Who were the Americans until now? British. Why were the Americans fighting now? Because the British, their kinsmen, would not give them their rights. If the British would drive the Indian to the great wall, would they not go on doing what they charged the Americans with doing now? If the Indians must fight, why fight with the British to beat the Americans, and then have to fight both a later day? If the British would not treat their own kinsmen fairly, was it likely that they would treat the Indian fairly? They had never done so yet. Would it not be better for the Indian to make the white man on his own land a friend rather than the white man who lived more than a moon away across the big seas? Only one gesture the lad made. He lifted his hand high and paused. Crooked Lightning had sprung to his feet with a hoarse cry. Already the white men had grown uneasy, for the chiefs had turned to the boy with startled interest at his first sentence and they could not know what he was saying. But they looked relieved when Crooked Lightning rose, for his was the only face in the assembly that was hostile to the boy. With a gesture Pontiac bade Crooked Lightning speak.

“The tongue of White Arrow is forked. I have heard him say he would fight with the Long Knives against the British and he would fight with them even against his own tribe.” One grunt of rage ran the round of three circles and yet Pontiac stopped Crooked Lightning and turned to the lad. Slowly the boy’s uplifted hand came down. With a bound he leaped through the head-dress of a chief in the outer ring and sped away through the village. Some started on foot after him, some rushed to their ponies, and some sent arrows and bullets after him. At the edge of the village the boy gave a loud, clear call and then another as he ran. Something black sprang snorting from the edge of the woods with pointed ears and searching eyes. Another call came and like the swirling edge of a hurricane-driven thunder-cloud Firefly swept after his master. The boy ran to meet him, caught one hand in his mane before he stopped, swung himself up, and in a hail of arrows and bullets swept out of sight.

XIII

The sound of pursuit soon died away, but Erskine kept Firefly at his best, for he knew that Crooked Lightning would be quick and fast on his trail. He guessed, too, that Crooked Lightning had already told the tribe what he had just told the council, and that he and the prophet had already made all use of the boy’s threat to Kahtoo in the Shawnee town. He knew even that it might cost him his life if he went back there, and once or twice he started to turn through the wilderness and go back to the fort. Winter was on, and he had neither saddle nor bridle, but neither fact bothered him. It was the thought of the white woman who was to be burned that kept him going and sent him openly and fearlessly into the town. He knew from the sullen looks that met him, from the fear in the faces of his foster-mother and the white woman who peered blindly from her lodge, and from the triumphant leer of the prophet that his every suspicion was true, but all the more leisurely did he swing from his horse, all the more haughtily stalk to Kahtoo’s tent. And the old chief looked very grave when the lad told the story of the council and all that he had said and done.

“The people are angry. They say you are a traitor and a spy. They say you must die. And I cannot help you. I am too old and the prophet is too strong.”

“And the white woman?”

“She will not burn. Some fur traders have been here. The white chief McGee sent me a wampum belt and a talk. His messenger brought much fire-water and he gave me that” – he pointed to a silver-mounted rifle – “and I promised that she should live. But I cannot help you.” Erskine thought quickly. He laid his rifle down, stepped slowly outside, and stretched his arms with a yawn. Then still leisurely he moved toward his horse as though to take care of it. But the braves were too keen and watchful and they were not fooled by the fact that he had left his rifle behind. Before he was close enough to leap for Firefly’s back, three bucks darted from behind a lodge and threw themselves upon him. In a moment he was face down on the ground, his hands were tied behind his back, and when turned over he looked up into the grinning face of Black Wolf, who with the help of another brave dragged him to a lodge and roughly threw him within, and left him alone. On the way he saw his foster-mother’s eyes flashing helplessly, saw the girl Early Morn indignantly telling her mother what was going on, and the white woman’s face was wet with tears. He turned over so that he could look through the tent-flaps. Two bucks were driving a stake in the centre of the space around which the lodges were ringed. Two more were bringing fagots of wood and it was plain what was going to become of him. His foster-mother, who was fiercely haranguing one of the chiefs, turned angrily into Kahtoo’s lodge and he could see the white woman rocking her body and wringing her hands. Then the old chief appeared and lifted his hands.

“Crooked Lightning will be very angry. The prisoner is his – not yours. It is for him to say what the punishment shall be – not for you. Wait for him! Hold a council and if you decide against him, though he is my son – he shall die.” For a moment the preparations ceased and all turned to the prophet, who had appeared before his lodge.

“Kahtoo is right,” he said. “The Great Spirit will not approve if White Arrow die except by the will of the council – and Crooked Lightning will be angry.” There was a chorus of protesting grunts, but the preparations ceased. The boy could feel the malevolence in the prophet’s tone and he knew that the impostor wanted to curry further favor with Crooked Lightning and not rob him of the joy of watching his victim’s torture. So the braves went back to their fire-water, and soon the boy’s foster-mother brought him something to eat, but she could say nothing, for Black Wolf had appointed himself sentinel and sat rifle in hand at the door of the lodge.

Night came on. A wildcat screeched, a panther screamed, and an elk bugled far away. The drinking became more furious and once Erskine saw a pale-brown arm thrust from behind the lodge and place a jug at the feet of Black Wolf, who grunted and drank deep. The stars mounted into a clear sky and the wind rose and made much noise in the trees overhead. One by one the braves went to drunken sleep about the fire. The fire died down and by the last flickering flame the lad saw Black Wolf’s chin sinking sleepily to his chest. There was the slightest rustle behind the tent. He felt something groping for his hands and feet, felt the point of a knife graze the skin of his wrist and ankles – felt the thongs loosen and drop apart. Noiselessly, inch by inch, he crept to the wall of the tent, which was carefully lifted for him. Outside he rose and waited. Like a shadow the girl Early Morn stole before him and like a shadow he followed. The loose snow muffled their feet as the noise of the wind had muffled his escape from the lodge, and in a few minutes they were by the riverbank, away from the town. The moon rose and from the shadow of a beech the white woman stepped forth with his rifle and powder-horn and bullet-pouch and some food. She pointed to his horse a little farther down. He looked long and silently into the Indian girl’s eyes and took the white woman’s shaking hand. Once he looked back. The Indian girl was stoic as stone. A bar of moonlight showed the white woman’s face wet with tears.

Again Dave Yandell from a watch-tower saw a topknot rise above a patch of cane now leafless and winter-bitten – saw a hand lifted high above it with a palm of peace toward him. And again an Indian youth emerged, this time leading a black horse with a drooping head. Both came painfully on, staggering, it seemed, from wounds or weakness, and Dave sprang from the tower and rushed with others to the gate. He knew the horse and there was dread in his heart; perhaps the approaching Indian had slain the boy, had stolen the horse, and was innocently coming there for food. Well, he thought grimly, revenge would be swift. Still, fearing some trick, he would let no one outside, but himself stood waiting with the gate a little ajar. So gaunt were boy and beast that it was plain that both were starving. The boy’s face was torn with briers and pinched with hunger and cold, but a faint smile came from it.

“Don’t you know me, Dave?” he asked weakly.

“My God! It’s White Arrow!”