Complete weird tales of.., p.1154
Complete Weird Tales of Robert W Chambers, page 1154
“And you, Claudia, say to Sir Frederick Haldimand that he has lighted in Tryon a flame that shall utterly consume him though he hide behind the ramparts of Quebec itself! Say that to him!”
Then I stepped back and bade Colas drive on as fast as he dare. And when he cracked his long whip, I stood uncovered and looked upon the woman I once had loved, and upon the other woman who had been my childhood playmate; and saw her child at her breast, and her pale face bowed above it.
And so out of my life passed these two women forever, without any word or sign save for the white faces of them and the deadly fear in their eyes.
I stood there in the Oneida Road, watching their coach rolling and swaying until it was out of view, and even the noise of it had utterly died away.
Then I walked slowly back to the wood’s edge; in silence my Oneidas rose from the weeds and stood around me where I halted, the sleeve of my buckskin shirt across my eyes.
Then, when I was ready, I turned and went forward, swiftly, in a southeasterly direction; and heard their padded footsteps falling lightly at my heels as I Hastened toward the Mohawk, a miserable, sad, yet angry man.
* * *
All that long, hot day we travelled; and in the afternoon black clouds hid the sun, and presently a most furious thunder storm burst on us in the woods, so that we were obliged to shelter us under the hemlocks and lie there while rain roared and lightning blinded, and deafening thunder shook the ground we lay on.
It was over in an hour. The forest dripped and steamed as we unwrapped our rifles and started on.
Twice, it seemed to me, far to the east I heard a duller, vaguer noise of thunder; and my Indians also noticed it.
Later, with the sky all blue above, it came again — dull, distant shocks with no rolling echo trailing after.
Tahioni came to me, and I saw in his uneasy eyes what I also now divined. For to the bravest Indian the sound of cannon is a terror and an abomination. And I now had become very sure that it was cannon we heard; for Stanwix lay far across the wilderness in that direction, and the heavy, lifeless, and superheated air might carry the solemn sound from a great distance.
But I said nothing, not choosing to share my conclusions with these young warriors who, though they had taken scalps at Big Eddy, were yet scarcely tried in war.
* * *
That night we lay near an old trail which I knew ran to Otsego and passed by Colonel Croghan’s new house.
And on this trail, early the following morning, we encountered two men whom my Indians, instead of taking as they should have done, instantly shot down. Which betrayed their inexperience in war; and I rated them roundly.
The two dead men were blue-eyed Indians in all the horror of their shameful paint and forest dress.
I knew one of them, for when Tahioni washed their lifeless visages and laid them on their backs, there, to my hot indignation, I beheld young Thomas Hare, brother to Lieutenant Henry Hare and to Captain James Hare, of the Indian Service.
Horror-stricken, bitterly mortified, I gazed down at the dead features of these two renegades who had betrayed their own race and colour; and my Indians, watching me, understood when I turned and spat upon the ground; and so they scalped both — which otherwise they had not dared in my presence.
We found on them every evidence that they were serving as a scout for McDonald. Probably when we encountered them they had been on their way to Sir John at Stanwix with verbal intelligence. But now it was idle to surmise what they might have been able to tell us.
We found upon their bodies no papers to shew where McDonald might be lurking; and so, as I would not trouble to bury the carrion, my Oneidas despoiled them, hid their weapons, pouched their money and ammunition, and left them lying on the trail for their more respectable relatives, the wolves, to devour.
* * *
Now, on the Otsego trail, which was but a vile one and nigh impassable with undergrowth, we beat toward the Mohawk like circling hounds cast out and at fault to find a scent.
And at evening of that day, the seventh of August, I saw a man in the woods, and, watching, ordered my Indians to surround him and bring him in alive.
Judge, then, of my chagrin when presently comes walking up, and arm in arm with my Oneidas, one Daniel Wemple in his militia regimentals, a Torloch farmer whom I knew.
“Great God, John!” says he, “what are you doing here with your tame panthers and a pair o’ raw scalps that smell white in my nostrils?”
I told him, and asked in turn for news.
“You know nothing?” he demanded.
“Nothing, Dan, only that we heard cannon to the eastward yesterday.”
“Well,” says he, “there has been a bloody fight at Oriska, John; and Tryon must mourn her sons.
“For our fine regiments marched into an ambuscade on our way to drive Sir John from Stanwix, which he had invested. Colonel Cox is dead, and Majors Eisinlord and Klepsattle and Van Slyck. Colonel Paris is taken, and our brigade surgeon, Younglove, and Captain Martin of the batteaux service. John Frey, Major of brigade, is missing, and so is Colonel Bellinger. Scarce an inferior officer but is slain or taken; our dead soldiers are carted off by waggon-loads; our wounded lie in their alder-litters. And among them our general, — old Honikol Herkimer! — and I myself saw that brave Oneida die — our interpreter, Spencer — —”
A cry escaped me, instantly checked as I looked at Thiohero. The girl came and rested her arm on my left shoulder and gazed steadily at the militia man.
He passed his hand wearily through his hair: “Only one regiment ran,” he said dully. “I shall not name it to you because it was not entirely their fault; and afterward they lost heavily and fought bravely. But this is a dreadful blow to Tryon, John Drogue.”
“We were routed, then?”
“No. We drove them from the field pell mell! We cut Brant’s savages to pieces. We went at Sir John’s Greens with our bayonets and tore the guts out of them! We put the fear o’ God into Butler’s green-coats, too, and there’ll be caterwauling in Canada when the news is carried, for I saw young Stephen Watts dead in his blood, and Hare running off with a broken arm a-flapping and he a-screaming like a singed wildcat — —”
“Steve Watts! Dead!”
“I saw him. I saw one of our soldiers take his watch from his body. God! What a shambles was there at Oriska!”
But I was thinking of young Stevie Watts, Polly Johnson’s brother, and my one-time friend, lying dead in his blood. And I thought of his boyish passion for Penelope. And her kindness for him. And remembered how last I had seen him.... And now he lay dead; and I had seen his sister but a few hours ago — seen her for the last time I should ever behold her.
I drew a breath like a deep and painful sigh.
“And the Fort?” I asked in a low voice.
“Stanwix holds fast, John Drogue. Willett is there, and Gansevoort with the 3rd New York of the Line.”
“Have you news of McDonald, Dan?”
“None.”
“Whither do you travel express?”
“To Johnstown with the news if I can get there.”
I warned him concerning conditions in Schoharie. We shook hands, and I watched the brave militia man stride away through the forest all alone.
When we camped that night, Thiohero touched her brow and breasts with ashes from our fire. That was her formal symbol of mourning for Spencer. Later we all should mourn him in due ceremony.
Then she came and lay down close against me and rested her child’s face on my hollow’d arm. And so slept all night long, trembling in her dreams.
I know not how it chanced that I erred in my scouting and lost direction, but on the tenth day of August my Indians and I came out into a grassy place where trees grew thinly.
The first thing I saw was an Indian, hanging by the heels from a tree, and lashed there with the traces from a harness.
At the same time one of my Oneidas discovered a white man lying with his feet in a pool of water. But when Tahioni drew the cocked hat from his head to see his countenance, hair and skin stuck to it, and a most horrid smell filled the woods.
And now, everywhere, we beheld evidences of the Oriska combat, for here lay a soldier’s empty knapsack, and yonder a ragged shirt, and there a rusting tin cup, and here a boot all bloody and slit to the toe.
And now, looking about me, I suddenly comprehended that we were nearer to Stanwix Fort than to Oriska; and had no business any nearer to either place.
We now were in a most perilous region and must proceed with every caution, for in this forest Brant’s Iroquois must be roaming everywhere in the rear of the troops which had invested Stanwix.
My Oneidas understood this without explanation from me; and they and I also became further alarmed when, to our astonishment, we came upon a broad road running through a forest where I swear no road had existed a twelve-month past.
Where this road led, and from whence, neither my Oneidas nor I knew. It was a raw and new road, yet it had been heavily travelled both ways by horse, foot, and waggons. It seemed to have as many windings as the Kennyetto at Fonda’s Bush; and I saw it had been builded to run clear of hills and swampy land, as though made for a traffic heavier than a log road might easily sustain.
We left the road but scouted eastward along its edge, I desiring to learn more of it; for it seemed to bear toward Wood Creek; and if there were enemy batteaux to be seen I wished to count them.
Suddenly Thiohero touched my arm, — caught my sleeve convulsively.
“Hahyion — Royaneh — my elder brother — O my white Captain!” she stammered, clinging to me in her excitement, “here is the place! Here is the place I saw in my vision! Here I saw strange uniforms and cannon smoke — and a strange white shape — and you — O Hahyion — my Captain! — —”
I looked around me, suddenly chilled and shivering in spite of the heat of a summer afternoon. But I perceived nobody except my Oneidas. We were on a long, sparsely-wooded hillock where juniper spread waist high. Below I could see the new road curving sharply to the eastward. But nobody moved down there; there was not a sound to be heard, not a movement in the forest. All around us was still as death.
Something about the abrupt bend in the empty road below me attracted my attention. I examined it intently for a while, then, cautioning my Indians, I ventured to move forward and around the south slope of the hillock, wading waist-deep in juniper, in order to get a look at what might lie behind the bend in this road of mystery.
The road appeared to end abruptly just around the curve, as though it had been opened only so far and then abandoned. This first amazed me and then alarmed me, because I knew it could not be so as I had seen on the roadbed evidences of recent and heavy travel.
I stood peering down at it where it seemed to stop short against the green and tangled barrier of the woods which blocked it like a living abattis ——
God! It was an abattis! — a mask!
As I realized this I saw a man in a strange, outlandish uniform run out from the green and living barrier, look up at me where I stood in the juniper, shout out something in German, and stand pointing up at me while a score of soldiers, all in this same outlandish uniform, swarmed out upon the road and started running toward where I stood.
Then I came to my senses, clapped my rifle to my cheek and fired, stopping one of these strange soldiers and curing him of his running habits forever.
To me arrived swiftly my Oneidas, and dropped in the juniper, kneeling and firing upon the soldiers below. Two among them fell down flat on the road, and then the others turned and fled straight into their green barrier of branches. From there they fired at us wildly, keeping up a strange, hoarse shouting.
“Hessian chasseurs!” I exclaimed. “These troops can be no other than the filthy Germans hired by King George to come here and cut our throats!”
“Those men wear the uniform I saw in my vision of this place!” whispered Thiohero, quietly reloading her rifle. “I think that this is truly your battle, my Captain.”
Then, as her prophecy of cannon came into my mind, there was a blinding flash from that green barrier below; a vast cloud blotted it from view; the pine beside which I stood shivered as though thunder-smitten; and the entire top of it crashed down upon us, burying us all in lashing, writhing branches.
So stunned and stupefied was I that I lay for an instant without motion, my ears still deafened by that clap of thunder.
But now I floundered to my feet amid the pine-top’s débris; around me rose my terrified Oneidas, nearly paralyzed with fright.
“Come,” said I, “we should pull foot ere they blow us into pieces with their damned artillery. Thiohero, where are you?”
“I come, Royaneh!”
“Tahioni! Kwiyeh! Hanatoh!” I called anxiously.
Then I saw them all creeping like weasels from under the green débris.
“Hasten,” I muttered, “for we shall have all the Iroquois in North America on our backs in another moment.”
As we started to retreat, the Germans emptied their muskets after us; but I did not think anybody had been hit.
We now were running in single file, our rifles a-trail, Tahioni leading, and I some distance in the rear, turning my head over my shoulder from moment to moment to see if we were followed.
And now, as I ran on, I understood that this accursed road had been made expressly to transport their siege artillery; that their guns were still in transit; that they had masked a cannon and manned it with Hessian chasseurs to keep their gun-road safe against surprise from any party scouting out of Oriska.
Lord, what an ambuscade! And what an escape for us!
As I jogged on at the heels of my Indians, still dazed and shaken by the deadly surprise of it all, I saw Thiohero, who was some little distance in front of me, reel sideways as though out o’ breath, and stand still near a beech tree, holding her scarlet blanket against her body.
When I came up to her she was leaning against the tree, clutching her blanket to her face and breast with both hands. But she heard me and lifted her head from the gaily coloured folds.
“Hahyion — Royaneh!” she panted, “this was your battle.... And now — it is over ... and you shall live!...”
My Oneidas had halted and were looking back at us. And now they returned rapidly and clustered around us.
“Are you exhausted, little sister?” I demanded, drawing nearer. “Are you hurt — —”
“Listen — my brother and — my Captain!” she burst out breathlessly. “This was the battle of my vision! — the strange uniforms — the cannon-cloud — the white shape!... I saw it near you where — where you stood in the cannon smoke! — a shape like mist at sunrise.... Haihee! It was the face and shape of the Caughnawaga girl!... It was Yellow Hair who floated there beside you in the cannon smoke! — covered to her eyes in white and flowers — —”
The Little Maid of Askalege clutched her gay blanket closer to her breast and began to sway gently on her feet as though the thumping of a distant partridge were a witch-drum.
“Haihya Hahyion!” she whispered— “Thiohero Oyaneh salutes — her Captain.... I speak — as one dying.... Haiee! Haie — e! Yellow Hair is — is quite — a witch! — —”
Her voice failed; down on her knees she sank. And, as I snatched her from the ground and lifted her, she looked up into my face and smiled. Then, in a long-drawn sigh, her soul escaped between my arms that could not stay its flight to Tharon.
Her face became as wax; her head fell forward on my breast; her eyes rolled upward. And, as I pressed her in my arms, all my body grew warm and wet with bright blood pouring from her softly parted lips.
* * *
CHAPTER XXIX
THE WOOD OF BRAKABEEN
IT WAS THE 12th day of August when we came again to the Wood of Brakabeen, — we four young warriors of the clan of the Little Red Foot.
We were ragged and bruised and weary, and starving; but the fierce rage burning in our breasts gave to each a strength and purpose that nerved our briar-torn and battered bodies to effort inexhaustible.
Under scattered and furtive shots from German muskets we had retreated through the forest with our dead prophetess, until night ended pursuit by the chasseurs, and we ourselves had lost our direction.
All the next day we travelled southwest with our dead. On the tenth day we came out on Otsego Lake, near to Croghan’s new house.
Where he had cleared the bush and where Indian grass was growing as tall as a man’s head, we made a deep grave. And here we four clansmen buried the Little Maid of Askalege; and sodded the mound with wild grasses where strawberries grew, and blue asters and plumes of golden-rod.
A Canada whitethroat called sweetly, sadly, from the forest in the sunset glow. We made for the grave a white cross of silver birch. We placed parched corn and a cup of water at the foot of the cross; and her bow and scarlet arrows against her needs where deer, God willing, should be plenty. And near these we set her little moccasins lest in that unknown land her tender feet should suffer on the trail.
In the morning we made a fire of ozier, sweet-birch, cherry wood, and samphire.
When the aromatic smoke blew over us I rose and spoke. After I had finished, the others in turn rose and spoke their mind, saying very simply what was in their hearts concerning their little prophetess, who had died wearing a little red foot painted on her body.
So we left her at rest under the wild flowers and Indian grass, near to Croghan’s empty house, with a vast wilderness around to guard the sanctuary, and the sad whitethroats to mourn her.
* * *
And now, fierce and starved and ragged, we came once more to the Wood of Brakabeen. And heard McDonald’s guns in the valley and his pibroch on the hills.
The afternoon was still and hot, the deep blue sky cloudless. Over Vrooman’s Land a brown smoke hung; more smoke was rising above Clyberg; more rolled up beyond the swampy ground near the Flockey.
