Kitabı oku: «Erskine Dale—Pioneer», sayfa 7

XIV

Straightway the lad sensed a curious change in the attitude of the garrison. The old warmth was absent. The atmosphere was charged with suspicion, hostility. Old Jerome was surly, his old playmates were distant. Only Dave, Mother Sanders, and Lydia were unchanged. The predominant note was curiosity, and they started to ply him with questions, but Dave took him to a cabin, and Mother Sanders brought him something to eat.

“Had a purty hard time,” stated Dave. The boy nodded.

“I had only three bullets. Firefly went lame and I had to lead him. I couldn’t eat cane and Firefly couldn’t eat pheasant. I got one from a hawk,” he explained. “What’s the matter out there?”

“Nothin’,” said Dave gruffly and he made the boy go to sleep. His story came when all were around the fire at supper, and was listened to with eagerness. Again the boy felt the hostility and it made him resentful and haughty and his story brief and terse. Most fluid and sensitive natures have a chameleon quality, no matter what stratum of adamant be beneath. The boy was dressed like an Indian, he looked like one, and he had brought back, it seemed, the bearing of an Indian – his wildness and stoicism. He spoke like a chief in a council, and even in English his phrasing and metaphors belonged to the red man. No wonder they believed the stories they had heard of him – but there was shame in many faces and little doubt in any save one before he finished.

He had gone to see his foster-mother and his foster-father – old chief Kahtoo, the Shawnee – because he had given his word. Kahtoo thought he was dying and wanted him to be chief when the Great Spirit called. Kahtoo had once saved his life, had been kind, and made him a son. That he could not forget. An evil prophet had come to the tribe and through his enemies, Crooked Lightning and Black Wolf, had gained much influence. They were to burn a captive white woman as a sacrifice. He had stayed to save her, to argue with old Kahtoo, and carry the wampum and a talk to a big council with the British. He had made his talk and – escaped. He had gone back to his tribe, had been tied, and was to be burned at the stake. Again he had escaped with the help of the white woman and her daughter. The tribes had joined the British and even then they were planning an early attack on this very fort and all others.

The interest was tense and every face was startled at this calm statement of their immediate danger. Dave and Lydia looked triumphant at this proof of their trust, but old Jerome burst out:

“Why did you have to escape from the council – and from the Shawnees?” The boy felt the open distrust and he rose proudly.

“At the council I told the Indians that they should be friends, not enemies, of the Americans, and Crooked Lightning called me a traitor. He had overheard my talk with Kahtoo.”

“What was that?” asked Dave quickly.

“I told Kahtoo I would fight with the Americans against the British and Indians; and with you against him!” And he turned away and went back to the cabin.

“What’d I tell ye!” cried Dave indignantly and he followed the boy, who had gone to his bunk, and put one big hand on his shoulder.

“They thought you’d turned Injun agin,” he said, “but it’s all right now.”

“I know,” said the lad and with a muffled sound that was half the grunt of an Indian and half the sob of a white man turned his face away.

Again Dave reached for the lad’s shoulder.

“Don’t blame ’em too much. I’ll tell you now. Some fur traders came by here, and one of ’em said you was goin’ to marry an Injun girl named Early Morn; that you was goin’ to stay with ’em and fight with ’em alongside the British. Of course I knowed better but – ”

“Why,” interrupted Erskine, “they must have been the same traders who came to the Shawnee town and brought whiskey.”

“That’s what the feller said and why folks here believed him.”

“Who was he?” demanded Erskine.

“You know him – Dane Grey.”

All tried to make amends straightway for the injustice they had done him, but the boy’s heart remained sore that their trust was so little. Then, when they gathered all settlers within the fort and made all preparations and no Indians came, many seemed again to get distrustful and the lad was not happy. The winter was long and hard. A blizzard had driven the game west and south and the garrison was hard put to it for food. Every day that the hunters went forth the boy was among them and he did far more than his share in the killing of game. But when winter was breaking, more news came in of the war. The flag that had been fashioned of a soldier’s white shirt, an old blue army coat, and a red petticoat was now the Stars and Stripes of the American cause. Burgoyne had not cut off New England, that “head of the rebellion,” from the other colonies. On the contrary, the Americans had beaten him at Saratoga and marched his army off under those same Stars and Stripes, and for the first time Erskine heard of gallant Lafayette – how he had run to Washington with the portentous news from his king – that beautiful, passionate France would now stretch forth her helping hand. And Erskine learned what that news meant to Washington’s “naked and starving” soldiers dying on the frozen hillsides of Valley Forge. Then George Rogers Clark had passed the fort on his way to Williamsburg to get money and men for his great venture in the Northwest, and Erskine got a ready permission to accompany him as soldier and guide. After Clark was gone the lad got restless; and one morning when the first breath of spring came he mounted his horse, in spite of arguments and protestations, and set forth for Virginia on the wilderness trail. He was going to join Clark, he said, but more than Clark and the war were drawing him to the outer world. What it was he hardly knew, for he was not yet much given to searching his heart or mind. He did know, however, that some strange force had long been working within him that was steadily growing stronger, was surging now like a flame and swinging him between strange moods of depression and exultation. Perhaps it was but the spirit of spring in his heart, but with his mind’s eye he was ever seeing at the end of his journey the face of his little cousin Barbara Dale.

XV

A striking figure the lad made riding into the old capital one afternoon just before the sun sank behind the western woods. Had it been dusk he might have been thought to be an Indian sprung magically from the wilds and riding into civilization on a stolen thoroughbred. Students no longer wandered through the campus of William and Mary College. Only an occasional maid in silk and lace tripped along the street in high-heeled shoes and clocked stockings, and no coach and four was in sight. The governor’s palace, in its great yard amid linden-trees, was closed and deserted. My Lord Dunmore was long in sad flight, as Erskine later learned, and not in his coach with its six milk-white horses. But there was the bust of Sir Walter in front of Raleigh Tavern, and there he drew up, before the steps where he was once nigh to taking Dane Grey’s life. A negro servant came forward to care for his horse, but a coal-black young giant leaped around the corner and seized the bridle with a welcoming cry:

“Marse Erskine! But I knowed Firefly fust.” It was Ephraim, the groom who had brought out Barbara’s ponies, who had turned the horse over to him for the race at the fair.

“I come frum de plantation fer ole marse,” the boy explained. The host of the tavern heard and came down to give his welcome, for any Dale, no matter what his garb, could always have the best in that tavern. More than that, a bewigged solicitor, learning his name, presented himself with the cheerful news that he had quite a little sum of money that had been confided to his keeping by Colonel Dale for his nephew Erskine. A strange deference seemed to be paid him by everybody, which was a grateful change from the suspicion he had left among his pioneer friends. The little tavern was thronged and the air charged with the spirit of war. Indeed, nothing else was talked. My Lord Dunmore had come to a sad and unbemoaned end. He had stayed afar from the battle-field of Point Pleasant and had left stalwart General Lewis to fight Cornstalk and his braves alone. Later my Lady Dunmore and her sprightly daughters took refuge on a man-of-war – whither my lord soon followed them. His fleet ravaged the banks of the rivers and committed every outrage. His marines set fire to Norfolk, which was in ashes when he weighed anchor and sailed away to more depredations. When he intrenched himself on Gwynn’s Island, that same stalwart Lewis opened a heavy cannonade on fleet and island, and sent a ball through the indignant nobleman’s flag-ship. Next day he saw a force making for the island in boats, and my lord spread all sail; and so back to merry England, and to Virginia no more. Meanwhile, Mr. Washington had reached Boston and started his duties under the Cambridge elm. Several times during the talk Erskine had heard mentioned the name of Dane Grey. Young Grey had been with Dunmore and not with Lewis at Point Pleasant, and had been conspicuous at the palace through much of the succeeding turmoil – the hint being his devotion to one of the daughters, since he was now an unquestioned loyalist.

Next morning Erskine rode forth along a sandy road, amidst the singing of birds and through a forest of tiny upshooting leaves, for Red Oaks on the James. He had forsworn Colonel Dale to secrecy as to the note he had left behind giving his birthright to his little cousin Barbara, and he knew the confidence would be kept inviolate. He could recall the road – every turn of it, for the woodsman’s memory is faultless – and he could see the merry cavalcade and hear the gay quips and laughter of that other spring day long ago, for to youth even the space of a year is very long ago. But among the faces that blossomed within the old coach, and nodded and danced like flowers in a wind, his mind’s eye was fixed on one alone. At the boat-landing he hitched his horse to the low-swung branch of an oak and took the path through tangled rose-bushes and undergrowth along the bank of the river, halting where it would give him forth on the great, broad, grassy way that led to the house among the oaks. There was the sun-dial that had marked every sunny hour since he had been away. For a moment he stood there, and when he stepped into the open he shrank back hastily – a girl was coming through the opening of boxwood from the house – coming slowly, bareheaded, her hands clasped behind her, her eyes downward. His heart throbbed as he waited, throbbed the more when his ears caught even the soft tread of her little feet, and seemed to stop when she paused at the sun-dial, and as before searched the river with her eyes. And as before the song of negro oarsmen came over the yellow flood, growing stronger as they neared. Soon the girl fluttered a handkerchief and from the single passenger in the stern came an answering flutter of white and a glad cry. At the bend of the river the boat disappeared from Erskine’s sight under the bank, and he watched the girl. How she had grown! Her slim figure had rounded and shot upward, and her white gown had dropped to her dainty ankles. Now her face was flushed and her eye flashed with excitement – it was no mere kinsman in that boat, and the boy’s heart began to throb again – throb fiercely and with racking emotions that he had never known before. A fiery-looking youth sprang up the landing-steps, bowed gallantly over the girl’s hand, and the two turned up the path, the girl rosy with smiles and the youth bending over her with a most protecting and tender air. It was Dane Grey, and the heart of the watcher turned mortal sick.

XVI

A long time Erskine sat motionless, wondering what ailed him. He had never liked nor trusted Grey; he believed he would have trouble with him some day, but he had other enemies and he did not feel toward them as he did toward this dandy mincing up that beautiful broad path. With a little grunt he turned back along the path. Firefly whinnied to him and nipped at him with playful restlessness as though eager to be on his way to the barn, and he stood awhile with one arm across his saddle. Once he reached upward to untie the reins, and with another grunt strode back and went rapidly up the path. Grey and Barbara had disappeared, but a tall youth who sat behind one of the big pillars saw him coming and rose, bewildered, but not for long. Each recognized the other swiftly, and Hugh came with stiff courtesy forward. Erskine smiled:

“You don’t know me?” Hugh bowed:

“Quite well.” The woodsman drew himself up with quick breath – paling without, flaming within – but before he could speak there was a quick step and an astonished cry within the hall and Harry sprang out.

“Erskine! Erskine!” he shouted, and he leaped down the steps with both hands outstretched. “You here! You – you old Indian – how did you get here?” He caught Erskine by both hands and then fell to shaking him by the shoulders. “Where’s your horse?” And then he noticed the boy’s pale and embarrassed face and his eyes shifting to Hugh, who stood, still cold, still courteous, and he checked some hot outburst at his lips.

“I’m glad you’ve come, and I’m glad you’ve come right now – where’s your horse?”

“I left him hitched at the landing,” Erskine had to answer, and Harry looked puzzled:

“The landing! Why, what – ” He wheeled and shouted to a darky:

“Put Master Erskine’s horse in the barn and feed him.” And he led Erskine within – to the same room where he had slept before, and poured out some water in a bowl.

“Take your time,” he said, and he went back to the porch. Erskine could hear and see him through the latticed blinds.

“Hugh,” said the lad in a low, cold voice, “I am host here, and if you don’t like this you can take that path.”

“You are right,” was the answer; “but you wait until Uncle Harry gets home.”

The matter was quite plain to Erskine within. The presence of Dane Grey made it plain, and as Erskine dipped both hands into the cold water he made up his mind to an understanding with that young gentleman that would be complete and final. And so he was ready when he and Harry were on the porch again and Barbara and Grey emerged from the rose-bushes and came slowly up the path. Harry looked worried, but Erskine sat still, with a faint smile at his mouth and in his eyes. Barbara saw him first and she did not rush forward. Instead she stopped, with wide eyes, a stifled cry, and a lifting of one hand toward her heart. Grey saw too, flushed rather painfully, and calmed himself. Erskine had sprung down the steps.

“Why, have I changed so much?” he cried. “Hugh didn’t seem to know me, either.” His voice was gay, friendly, even affectionate, but his eyes danced with strange lights that puzzled the girl.

“Of course I knew you,” she faltered, paling a little but gathering herself rather haughtily – a fact that Erskine seemed not to notice. “You took me by surprise and you have changed – but I don’t know how much.” The significance of this too seemed to pass Erskine by, for he bent over Barbara’s hand and kissed it.

“Never to you, my dear cousin,” he said gallantly, and then he bowed to Dane Grey, not offering to shake hands.

“Of course I know Mr. Grey.” To say that the gentleman was dumfounded is to put it mildly – this wild Indian playing the courtier with exquisite impudence and doing it well! Harry seemed like to burst with restrained merriment, and Barbara was sorely put to it to keep her poise. The great dinner-bell from behind the house boomed its summons to the woods and fields.

“Come on,” called Harry. “I imagine you’re hungry, cousin.”

“I am,” said Erskine. “I’ve had nothing to eat since – since early morn.” Barbara’s eyes flashed upward and Grey was plainly startled. Was there a slight stress on those two words? Erskine’s face was as expressionless as bronze. Harry had bolted into the hall.

Mrs. Dale was visiting down the river, so Barbara sat in her mother’s place, with Erskine at her right, Grey to her left, Hugh next to him, and Harry at the head. Harry did not wait long.

“Now, you White Arrow, you Big Chief, tell us the story. Where have you been, what have you been doing, and what do you mean to do? I’ve heard a good deal, but I want it all.”

Grey began to look uncomfortable, and so, in truth, did Barbara.

“What have you heard?” asked Erskine quietly.

“Never mind,” interposed Barbara quickly; “you tell us.”

“Well,” began Erskine slowly, “you remember that day we met some Indians who told me that old Kahtoo, my foster-father, was ill, and that he wanted to see me before he died? I went exactly as I would have gone had white men given the same message from Colonel Dale, and even for better reasons. A bad prophet was stirring up trouble in the tribe against the old chief. An enemy of mine, Crooked Lightning, was helping him. He wanted his son, Black Wolf, as chief, and the old chief wanted me. I heard the Indians were going to join the British. I didn’t want to be chief, but I did want influence in the tribe, so I stayed. There was a white woman in the camp and an Indian girl named Early Morn. I told the old chief that I would fight with the whites against the Indians and with the whites against them both. Crooked Lightning overheard me, and you can imagine what use he made of what I said. I took the wampum belt for the old chief to the powwow between the Indians and the British, and I found I could do nothing. I met Mr. Grey there.” He bowed slightly to Dane and then looked at him steadily. “I was told that he was there in the interest of an English fur company. When I found I could do nothing with the Indians, I told the council what I had told the old chief.” He paused. Barbara’s face was pale and she was breathing hard. She had not looked at Grey, but Harry had been watching him covertly and he did not look comfortable. Erskine paused.

“What!” shouted Harry. “You told both that you would fight with the whites against both! What’d they do to you?”

Erskine smiled.

“Well, here I am. I jumped over the heads of the outer ring and ran. Firefly heard me calling him. I had left his halter loose. He broke away. I jumped on him, and you know nothing can catch Firefly.”

“Didn’t they shoot at you?”

“Of course.” Again he paused.

“Well,” said Harry impatiently, “that isn’t the end.”

“I went back to the camp. Crooked Lightning followed me and they tied me and were going to burn me at the stake.”

“Good heavens!” breathed Barbara.

“How’d you get away?”

“The Indian girl, Early Morn, slipped under the tent and cut me loose. The white woman got my gun, and Firefly – you know nothing can catch Firefly.” The silence was intense. Hugh looked dazed, Barbara was on the point of tears, Harry was triumphant, and Grey was painfully flushed.

“And you want to know what I am going to do now?” Erskine went on. “I’m going with Captain George Rogers Clark – with what command are you, Mr. Grey?”

“That’s a secret,” he smiled coolly. “I’ll let you know later,” and Barbara, with an inward sigh of relief, rose quickly, but would not leave them behind.

“But the white woman?” questioned Harry. “Why doesn’t she leave the Indians?”

“Early Morn – a half-breed – is her daughter,” said Erskine simply.

“Oh!” and Harry questioned no further.

“Early Morn was the best-looking Indian girl I ever saw,” said Erskine, “and the bravest.” For the first time Grey glanced at Barbara. “She saved my life,” Erskine went on gravely, “and mine is hers whenever she needs it.” Harry reached over and gripped his hand.

As yet not one word had been said of Grey’s misdoing, but Barbara’s cool disdain made him shamed and hot, and in her eyes was the sorrow of her injustice to Erskine. In the hallway she excused herself with a courtesy, Hugh went to the stables, Harry disappeared for a moment, and the two were left alone. With smouldering fire Erskine turned to Grey.

“It seems you have been amusing yourself with my kinspeople at my expense.” Grey drew himself up in haughty silence. Erskine went on:

“I have known some liars who were not cowards.”

“You forget yourself.”

“No – nor you.”

“You remember a promise I made you once?”

“Twice,” corrected Erskine. Grey’s eyes flashed upward to the crossed rapiers on the wall.

“Precisely,” answered Erskine, “and when?”

“At the first opportunity.”

“From this moment I shall be waiting for nothing else.”

Barbara, reappearing, heard their last words, and she came forward pale and with piercing eyes:

“Cousin Erskine, I want to apologize to you for my little faith. I hope you will forgive me. Mr. Grey, your horse will be at the door at once. I wish you a safe journey – to your command.” Grey bowed and turned – furious.

Erskine was on the porch when Grey came out to mount his horse.

“You will want seconds?” asked Grey.

“They might try to stop us – no!”

“I shall ride slowly,” Grey said. Erskine bowed.

“I shall not.”