Complete weird tales of.., p.1139
Complete Weird Tales of Robert W Chambers, page 1139
Now, as I paced the fire circle, listening and waiting for Nick and Johnny Silver, I could scarce credit what the wretch, Moucher, had told me, so horrid bloody did their enterprise appear to me.
That they should strive to kill us when facing us in proper battle, that I could comprehend. But to plan in the darkness! — to come by stealth in their farmer’s clothes to surprise us in our sleep! — faugh!
“My God,” says I to Godfrey, who paced beside me, “why have they not at least embodied to do us such a filthy business? And if they were only a company with some officer to make them respectable — militia, minute men, rangers, anything!”
“They be bloody-minded folk,” said he grimly. “No coureur-du-bois is harder, craftier, or more heartless than John Howell; no forest runner more merciless than Charlie Cady. These be rough and bloody men, John. And I think we are like to have a rude fight of it before sun-up.”
I thought so too, but did not admit as much. I had ten men. They mustered ten — if Moucher’s accounts were true. And I did not doubt it, under the circumstances of his pusillanimous confession.
The River Reed came to me to show me her necklace of coloured glass. And I drew her aside, told her as much as I cared to, and bade her prepare her Oneidas for a midnight battle.
At that moment I heard the Canada sparrow. Thiohero answered, sweet and clear. A few seconds later Nick and Silver came in, carrying the canoe paddles.
“They’ve gone,” said Nick, with an oath. “Two mounted men and a led horse rode toward Johnstown two hours since. They wore Canajoharie regimentals. Major Westfall sent a dozen riders after ‘em; but men who came so boldly to spy us out are like to get away as boldly, too.”
He plucked my arm and I stepped apart with him.
“Westfall’s in his dotage; Dayton is too slow. Why don’t they send up Willett or Herkimer?”
“I don’t know,” said I, troubled.
“Well,” says Nick, “it’s clear that Stevie Watts was there and has spoken with Lady Johnson. But what more is to be done? She’s our prisoner. I wish to God they’d sent her to Albany or New York, where she could contrive no mischief. And that other lady, too. Lord! but Major Westfall is in a pother! And I wager Colonel Dayton will be in another, and at his wit’s ends.”
The business distressed me beyond measure, and I remained silent.
“By the way,” he added, “your yellow-haired inamorata sends you a billet-doux. Here it is.”
I took the bit of folded paper, stepped aside and read it by the firelight:
“Sir:
“I venture to entertain a hope that some day it may please you to converse again with one whose offense — if any — remains a mystery to her still.
“P. G.”
I read it again, then crumpled it and dropped it on the coals. I had seen Steve Watts kiss her. That was enough.
“There’s a devil’s nest of Tories gathering in Howell’s house tonight to cut our throats,” said I coldly. “Should we take them with ten men, or call in the Continentals?”
“Who be they?” asked Nick, astounded.
“The old pack — Cadys, Helmers, Bowman, Weed, Grinnis. They are ten rifles.”
He got very red.
“This is a domestic business,” said I. “Shall we wash our bloody linen for the world to see what filth chokes Fonda’s Bush?”
“No,” said he, slowly, with that faint flare in his eyes I had seen at times, “let us clean our own house o’ vermin, and make no brag of what is only our proper shame.”
* * *
CHAPTER XIX
OUT OF THE NORTH
IT LACKED STILL an hour to midnight, which time I had set for our advance upon John Howell’s house, and my Oneidas had not yet done painting, when Johnny Silver, who was on guard, whistled from his post, and I ran thither with Nick.
A man in leather was coming in through the chevaux-de-frise, and Johnny dropped a tamarack log across the ditch for him, over which he ran like a tree-martin, and so climbed up into the flare of Nick’s lantern.
The man in forest runner’s dress was Dave Ellerson, known to us all as a good neighbor and a staunch Whig; but we scarce recognized him in his stringy buckskins and coon-skin cap, with the ringed tail a-bobbing.
On his hunting shirt there was a singular device of letters sewed there in white cloth, which composed the stirring phrase, “Liberty or Death.” And we knew immediately that he had become a soldier in the 11th Virginia Regiment, which is called Morgan’s Rifles.
He seemed to have travelled far, though light, for he carried only rifle and knife, ammunition, and a small sack which flapped flat and empty; but his manner was lively and his merry gaze clear and untroubled as we grasped his powerful hands.
“Why, Dave!” said I, “how come you here, out o’ the North?”
“I travel express from Arnold to Schuyler,” said he. “Have you a gill of rum, John?”
Johnny Silver had not drunk his gill, and poured it into Dave’s pannikin.
Down it went, and he smacked his lips. Then we took him back to the fire, where the Oneidas were still a-painting, and made him eat and drink and dry him by the flames.
“Is there a horse to be had at Summer House?” he demanded, his mouth full of parched corn.
“Surely,” said I. And asked him news of the North, if he were at liberty to give us any account.
“The news I can not give you is what I shall not,” said he, laughing. “But there’s plenty besides, and damned bad.”
“Bad?”
“Monstrous bad, John. For on my forest-running south from Chambly, I saw Sir John and his crew as they gained the Canadas! They seemed near dead, too, but they were full three hundred, and I but one, so I did not tarry to mark ’em with a stealthy bullet, but pulled foot for Saint Sacrement.”
He grinned, bit a morsel from a cold pigeon, and sat chewing it reflectively and watching the Indians at their painting.
“You know what is passing in Canada?” he demanded abruptly.
“Nothing definite,” said I.
“Listen, then. We had taken Chambly, Montreal, and St. John’s. Arnold lay before Quebec. Sullivan commanded us. Six weeks ago he sent Hazen’s regiment to Arnold. Then the Canadians and Indians struck us at the Cedars, and we lost five hundred men before we were out of it.”
“What was the reason for such disaster?” I demanded, turning hot with wrath.
“Cowardice and smallpox,” said he carelessly. “They were new troops sent up to reinforce us, and their general, Thomas, died o’ the pox.
“And atop of that comes news of British transports in the St. Lawrence, and of British regulars and Hessians.
“So Sullivan sends the Pennsylvania Line to strike ‘em. St. Clair marches, Wayne marches, Irving follows with his regiment. Lord, how they were peppered, the Pennsylvania Line! And Thompson was taken, and Colonel Irving, and they wounded Anthony Wayne; and the Line ran!”
“Ran!”
“By God, yes. And our poor little Northern Army is on the run today, with thirteen thousand British on their heels.
“They drove us out o’ Chambly. They took the Cedars. Montreal fell. St. John’s followed. Quebec is freed. We’re clean kicked out o’ Canada, and marching up Lake Champlain, our rear in touch with the red-coats.
“If we stand and face about at Crown Point, we shall do more than I hope for.
“Thomas is dead, Thompson and Irving taken, Arnold and Wayne wounded, the army a skeleton, what with losses by death, wounds, disease, and in prisoners.
“Had not Arnold broke into the Montreal shops and taken food and woolen clothing, I think we had been naked now.”
“Good heavens!” said I, burning with mortification, “I had not heard of such a rout!”
“Oh, it was no rout, John,” said he carelessly. “Sullivan marched us out of that hell-hole in good order — whatever John Adams chooses to say about our army.”
“What does John Adams say?”
“Why, he says we are disgraced, defeated, dispirited, discontented, undisciplined, diseased, eaten up with vermin.”
“My God!” exclaimed Nick.
“It’s true enough,” said Dave, coolly. “And when John Adams also adds that we have no clothing, no beds, no blankets, no medicines, and only salt pork and flour to eat and little o’ these, why, he’s right, too. Why not admit truth? Does it help to conceal it? Nenni, lads! It is best always to face it and endeavour to turn into a falsehood tomorrow what is disgracefully true today.
“So when I tell you that in three months our Northern Army has lost five thousand men by smallpox, camp fever, bullets, and privation — that out of five thousand who remain, two thousand are sick, why, it’s the plain and damnable truth.
“But any soldier who loses sleep or appetite over such cursed news should be run through with a bayonet, for he’s a rabbit and no man!”
After a silence: “Who commands them now?” I asked.
“Gates is to take them over at Crown Point, I hear.”
This news chilled me, for Schuyler should have commanded. But the damned Yankees, plotting their petty New England plots to discredit our dear General, had plainly hoodwinked Congress; and now our generous and noble Schuyler had again fallen a victim to nutmeg jealousy and cunning.
“Well,” said I, “God help us all in Tryon, now; for a vain ass is in the saddle, and the counsel of the brave and wise remains unheeded. Will Guy Carleton drive us south of Crown Point?”
“I think so,” said Ellerson, carelessly.
“Then the war will come among us here in Tryon!”
“Straight as a storm from the North, John.”
“When?”
“Oh, that? God knows. We shall hold the lakes as long as we can. But unless we are reinforced by Continentals — unless every Colony sends us a regiment of their Lines — we can not hope to hold Crown Point, and that’s sure as shooting and plain as preaching.”
“Very well,” said I between clenched teeth, “then we here in Tryon had best go about the purging of that same county, and physic this district against a dose o’ red-coats.”
Ellerson laughed and rose with the lithe ease of a panther.
“I should be on my way to Albany,” says he. “You tell me there are horses at the Summer House, John?”
“Certainly.”
We shook hands.
“You find Morgan’s agreeable?” inquired Nick.
“A grand corps, lad! Tim Murphy is my mate. And I think there’s not a rifleman among us who can not shoot the whiskers off a porcupine at a hundred yards.” And to me, with a nod toward my Oneidas: “They are painting. Do you march tonight, John?”
“A matter of cleaning out a Tory nest yonder,” said I.
“A filthy business and not war,” quoth he. “Well, God be with all friends to liberty, for all hell is rising up against us. A thousand Indians are stripped for battle on this frontier — and the tall ships never cease arriving crammed with red-coats and Germans.
“So we should all do our duty now, whether that same duty lie in emptying barrack slops, or in cleaning out a Tory nest, or in marching to drum and fife, or guarding the still places of the wilderness — it’s all one business, John.”
Again we shook hands all around, then, waving aside Joe de Golyer and his proffered lantern, the celebrated rifleman passed lightly into the shadows.
“Yonder goes the best shot in the North,” said Nick.
“Saving only yourself and Jack Mount and Tim Murphy,” remarked Godfrey Shew.
“As for the whiskers of a porcupine,” quoth Nick, with the wild flare a-glimmering in his eyes, “why, I have never tried such a target. But I should pick any button on a red coat at a hundred yards — that is, if I cast and pare my own bullet, and load in my own fashion.”
Silver swore that any rifle among us white men should shave an otter of his whiskers, as a barber trims a Hessian.
“Sacré garce!” cried he, “why should we miss — we coureurs-du-bois, who have learn to shoot by ze hardes’ of all drill-masters — a empty belly!”
“We must not miss at Howell’s house,” said I, counting my people at a glance.
The Saguenay, ghastly in scarlet and white, came and placed himself behind me.
All the Oneidas were naked, painted from lock to ankle in terrific symbols.
Thiohero was still oiling her supple, boyish body when I started a brief description of the part each one of us was to act, speaking in the Oneida dialect and in English.
“Take these bloody men alive,” I added, “if it can be done. But if it can not, then slay them. For every one of these that escapes tonight shall return one day with a swarm of hornets to sting us all to death in County Tryon!... Are you ready for the command?”
“Ready, John,” says Nick.
“March!”
* * *
At midnight we had surrounded Howell’s house, save only the east approach, which we still left open for tardy skulkers.
A shadowy form or two slinking out from the tamaracks, their guns trailing, passed along the hard ridge, bent nearly double to avoid observation.
We could not recognize them, for they were very shadows, vague as frost-driven woodcock speeding at dusk to a sheltered swamp.
But, as they arrived, singly and in little groups, such a silent rage possessed me that I could scarce control my rifle, which quivered to take toll of these old neighbors who were returning by stealth at night to murder us in our beds.
The Saguenay lay in the wild grasses on my left; the little maid of Askalege, in her naked paint, lay on my right hand. Her forefinger caressed the trigger of her new rifle; the stock lay close to her cheek. And I could hear her singing her Karenna in a mouse’s whisper to herself:
“Listen, John Drogue, Though we all die, You shall survive! Listen, John Drogue, This will happen, And it is well, Because I love you.
“Why do I love you? Because you are a boy-chief, And we are both young, Thou and I. Why do I love you? Because you are my elder brother, And you speak to the Oneidas Very gently.
“I am a prophetess; I see events beforehand; This is my Karenna: Though we all die tonight, You shall survive in Scarlet: And this is well, Because I love you.”
So, crooning her prophecy, she lay flat in the wild grasses, cuddling the rifle-stock close to her shoulder; and her song’s low cadence was like the burden of some cricket amid the herbage.
“Tharon alone knows all,” I breathed in her ear.
“Neah!” she murmured; and touched her cheek against mine.
“Only God knows who shall survive tonight,” I insisted.
“Onhteh. Ra-ko-wan-enh,” she murmured. “But I have seen you, niare, through a mist, coming from this place, O-ne-kwen-da-ri-en. And dead bodies lay about. Do you believe me?”
I made no reply but lay motionless, watching the tamaracks, ghostly in their cerements of silver fog. And I heard, through the low rhythm of her song, owls howling far away amid those spectral wastes, and saw the Oneida Dancers, very small and pale above the void.
I stared with fierce satisfaction at Howell’s house. There was no gleam of light visible behind the closed shutters; but I already had counted nine men who came creeping to that silent rendezvous. And now there arrived the tenth man, running and stooping low; and went in by the east side of the house.
I waited a full minute longer, then whistled the whitethroat’s call.
“Now!” said I to Thiohero; and we rose and walked forward through the light mist which lay knee-deep over the ground.
We had not advanced ten paces when three men, whom I had not perceived, rose up on the ridge to our right.
One of these shouted and fired a gun, and all three dropped flat again before we could realize what they had been about.
But already, out of that shadowy house, armed men swarmed like black hornets from their nest, and we ran to cut them from the tamaracks, but could not mark their flight in the so great darkness.
Then Nick Stoner struck flint, and dropped his tinder upon the remnants of a hay-stack, where wisps of last year’s marsh grass still littered the rick.
In the smoky glow which grew I saw that great villain, Simon Girty, fire his gun at us, then turn and run toward the water; and Dries Bowman took after him, shouting in his fear.
Very carefully I fired at Girty, but he was not scotched, and was lost in the dark with Dries.
Then, in the increasing glow of the marsh-hay afire, I saw and recognized Elias Cady, and his venomous son, Charlie; and called loudly upon them to halt.
But they plunged into the shore reeds; and John and Phil Helmer at their heels; and we fired our guns into the dark, but could not stop them or again even hope to glimpse them in their flight.
But the Oneidas had now arrived between the tamaracks and the log house, and my Rangers were swiftly closing in on the west and south, when suddenly a couple of loud musket shots came from the crescents in the bolted shutters, hiding the west window in a double cloud of smoke.
I called out, “Halt!” to my people, for it was death to cross that circle of light ahead while the marsh-hay burned.
There were at least five men now barricaded in Howell’s house. I called to Tahioni, the Wolf, and he came crouching and all trembling with excitement and impatience, like a fierce hound restrained.
“Take your people,” said I, “and follow those dirty cowards who are fleeing toward the tamaracks.”
Instantly his terrific panther-cry shattered the silence, and the Oneidas’ wild answer to his slogan hung quavering over the Drowned Lands like the melancholy pulsations of a bell.
The hay-rick burned less brightly now. I crept out to the dark edge of the wavering glare and called across to those in the log-house:
