Complete weird tales of.., p.124
Complete Weird Tales of Robert W Chambers, page 124
Instantly a shot echoed in the gorge, and the pack on my back jerked. I never made such a jump in all my life before, for I had cleared the open like a scared fawn, and now stood glued to a tree, peering at the blue cloud of smoke which trailed along the opposite shore.
There it was! — there came their accursed canoe like a live creature poking its painted snout out of the leafy screen, and I cocked and primed my rifle and waited.
There were two men in the canoe; one paddled gingerly, the other had reloaded his rifle and was now squatting in the bow. But what astonished and enraged me was that I knew the men, Wraxall the barber, and Toby Tice, perfectly well. They were, moreover, tenants of Sir William, living with 145 their families in Johnstown, and their murderous treachery horrified me.
I had never shot at a man; I raised my rifle and held them on the sights for a moment, but there was no fever of the chase in me now, only a heart-sick horror of taking a neighbour’s life.
In a choked and shaky voice I hailed them, warning them back; my voice gave them a start, for I believe they thought me hard hit.
“Go back, you clowns!” I called. “Shame on you, Toby Tice! Shame on you, Wraxall! What devil’s work is this? Are you turned Huron then with your knives and hatchets and your Seneca belts? Swing that canoe, I say! Au large! Au large! — or, by God, I’ll drill you both with one ball!”
Suddenly Wraxall fired. Through the blue cloud I saw Tice sweep au large, and I stepped out to the shore and shot a ripping hole through their canoe as it heeled.
Wraxall was reloading desperately; Tice started to send the canoe towards me once more, but suddenly catching sight of the leaking bottom, dropped on his knees and tried to draw the ripped flaps together.
Behind my tree I tore a cartridge open, rammed in a palmful of buckshot, primed, and fired, tearing the whole bow out of their flimsy bark craft. The canoe stood up like a post, stern in the air, and Wraxall lay floundering, while Tice shrieked and fell sprawling into the river, head first, like a plunging frog, paddles, poles, and rifle following.
They were swimming my way now, but I shouted to them to sheer off, and at rifle point warned them across the river to land where they might and thank God I had not driven them to the bottom with an ounce of buck.
I was still watching them to see they landed safely, and had half turned to take the trail again, when, almost under my feet, a human hand shot up above the river-bank and seized my ankle, tripping me flat. The next moment a man leaped up from the shore where he had been crouching, but as I lay on my back I gave him a violent kick in the face and rolled over out of reach. Before I could grasp my rifle, his hatchet flew, pinning one flap of my hunting-shirt to the ground; and I wrenched the hatchet free and hurled it back 146 at him, so that the flat of the blade smacked his face, and he dropped into the water with a scream.
Shaking all over, I rose and lifted my rifle, instinctively repriming. But the sight of the man in the mud, crawling about, gasping and blowing bloody bubbles, made me sick, and the next moment I turned tail and ran like a rabbit.
As I sped down the trail, over my shoulder I saw Walter Butler, planted out in the shoals of the river, taking steady aim at me, and I seized a tree and checked my course as his bullet sang past my face. Then I ran on, setting my teeth and vowing to repay that shot when my life was my own to risk again.
It was late in the afternoon when I turned once more from the trail and limped into the forest; and I was now close enough to exhaustion to feel for the first time in my life a touch of that desperation which makes a fury out of a cornered creature, be it panther or mouse.
For I had not been able to shake off pursuit, double and twist as I might. They were distant, it is true, but they plodded tirelessly, unerringly. Again and again I saw them on the rocks, on the vast arid reaches of the mountains, heads down to the trail, jogging along with horrid patience.
Once I doubled on them so close that I could see one of the band with his face tied up in a rag, doubtless the fellow who had tasted of his own toothsome hatchet. Walter Butler I could also distinguish, ever in the lead, rifle trailing. Only one among the others bore a rifle. I had certainly upset their canoe to good advantage. But now I began to repent me that I had not shot them in the water when I had the chance; for truly I was in a sorry condition to proceed farther, through forest or on trail; my limbs at times refused their service, and a twig tripped me when I needs must leap a log.
I fired my first long shot at them as they were entering a ravine below me, and I missed, for my hands were unsteady from my labouring breath. Yet I should have marked a deer where I pleased at that range.
This shot, however, delayed them, and they now advanced more slowly and cautiously, alert for another ambush. An hour later I gave them a second shot. My aim was wavering; my bullet only made one man duck his head.
I was fighting for time now. If I could keep on until dark I had no fear for the morrow. To tell the truth, I had no actual fear then; it seemed so impossible that these Johnstown yokels really meant to take my life, even if they caught me — this ass of a Toby Tice whom I had tipped for holding my stirrup more than once. And Wraxall, the red-headed barber sot, who had shaved me in the guard-house! How many times had he snatched off his greasy cap to me, as he loafed in tavern doors, sweating malt like a hop-vat!
But the nearness of Walter Butler was a very different affair. Even when I was but a toddling child at Mistress Molly’s knee the sight of Walter Butler ever sent me fearfully hiding behind the first apron I could snatch at. Year by year my distrust and aversion deepened, until I had come to look forward serenely to that mortal struggle between us which I knew must come. But I had never expected it to come like this.
As I crept once more into the forest my hatred for this man gave me new strength, and I staggered on, searching for a vantage coign where I might take another shot at the grotesque crew. Up and up I crawled, faintly alarmed at my increasing weakness, for now, when a vine tripped me, I could scarce make out to rise again. In vain I whipped and spurred my lagging strength with stinging memories of all the scores I should wipe out with one clean bullet through Butler’s head; it was nigh useless; I could barely move, and how was I to shoot with my brier-torn hands shaking so I could neither hold them still nor close my swollen fingers on the trigger? I needed rest; an hour would have sufficed to steady the palsy of exhaustion. If only the night would come quickly! But there were two hours of daylight yet, two long hours of light in which to track my every step.
I caught a distant glimpse of them far below me, searching the ravine and river-bank. How they had been lured off to the river I know not, but it gave me a brief chance for breath, though not for a shot; and I rested my face on my rifle-stock and closed my eyes.
I had been kneeling behind a granite rock in a bare waste of blueberry-scrub, close to the edge of the woods; and presently as I attempted to rise I fell down, and began to claw 148 around like a blind kitten. Stand up I could not, and worst of all, I had little inclination to attempt it, the bed of rough bushes was so soothing, and the granite rock invited my heavy head. All over me a sweet numbness tingled; I tried to think, I strove to rouse. In vain I heard a sing-song drowsing in my ears: “They will kill you! They will kill you!” but there was no terror in it. What would it be, I wondered — a hatchet? — a knife at the throat like the deer’s coup-de-grâce? Maybe a blow with a rifle-stock. What did I care? Sleep was sweet.
Then a quiver swept through me like an icy wind; with a pang I remembered my mission and the wampum pledges, the boast and the vow to Sir William. Darkness crowded me down; my head reeled, yet I rose again to my knees, swaying and clutching at the rock which I could barely see. All around a thick night seemed to hem me in; I groped through a chilly void for my rifle; it was gone. Panic-stricken I staggered up, drenched with dew, and I saw the moon staring at me over a mountain’s ghostly wall.
Slowly I realized that I had slept; that death had passed me where I lay unconscious in the open moorland. But how far had death gone? — and would he not return by moonlight, stealthily, casting no shadow? Ay, what was that under the tree there, that shape watching me? — moving, too, — a man!
As I shrank back my heel struck my rifle. In an instant I was down behind the rock to prime with dry powder, but to my horror I found flint missing, charge drawn, pan raised, and ramrod sticking helplessly out of the barrel. The shock stunned me for a moment; then I snatched at knife and hatchet only to find an empty belt dangling to my ankles.
In the impulse of fury and despair, I crouched flat with clinched fists, trembling for a spring; and at the same instant a tall figure rose from the bushes at my elbow, laughing coolly.
“Greeting, friend,” he said; “God save our country!”
Speechless and dazed, I turned to face him, but he only leaned quietly on a long rifle and pinched his chin and chuckled.
“There are some gentlemen yonder looking for you, young 149 man,” he said. “I sent them south, for somehow I thought you might not be looking for them.”
Weakness had dulled my wits, but I found speech presently to ask for my knife and hatchet.
He laid his head on one side and contemplated me in mock admiration.
“Now! Now! Let us go slow, friend,” he said. “Let us converse on several subjects before you begin bawling for your playthings. In the first place your manners need polish. I said to you, ‘Greeting, friend; God save our country!’ and you make me no polite reply.”
Something in the big fellow’s impudence and careless good-humour struck me as familiar. I had heard that voice before, and under pleasant circumstances, it seemed to me; somewhere I had seen him standing as he was standing now, in his stringy buckskins and his coon-skin cap, with the fluffy tail falling like a queue.
“If you please,” I said, weakly, “give me my hatchet and knife and receive my thanks. Come, my good fellow, you detain me, and I have far to travel.”
“Well, of all impudence!” he sneered. “Wait a bit, my young cock o’ the woods. I don’t know you yet, but I mean to ere you go out strutting o’ moonlight nights.”
“Will you give me my hatchet?” I asked, sharply, edging towards him.
Before the words left my lips he snatched my rifle from me and stepped back, putting the rock between us.
“Now,” he said, grimly, “you come into camp and take supper with me, or I’ll knock your head off and drag you in by the heels!”
Aching with fatigue and mortification, I stood there so perfectly helpless that the great oaf fell a-laughing again, and, with a shrug of good-humoured contempt, handed me back my rifle as though I were an infant.
“Don’t grind your teeth at me,” he chuckled. “Come to the camp, lad. I mean no harm to you. If I did, there’s men yonder who’d slit your pipes for the pleasure, I warrant.”
He took a step up the slope, looked around in the moonlight encouragingly, then abruptly returned to my side and passed his great arm around me.
“I’m dog-tired,” I said, weakly, making an effort to walk; but my knees had no strength in them, and I must have fallen except for his support.
Up, up, up we passed through the foggy moonlight, he almost dragging me, and my feet a-trail behind. However, when we reached the plateau, I made out to stumble along with his aid, though I let him relieve me of my rifle, which he shouldered with his own.
After a minute or two I smelled the camp-fire, but could not see it. Even in the darkest night a fire amid great trees is not visible at any considerable distance.
My big companion, striding along beside me, had been constantly muttering under his breath, and presently I distinguished the words he was singing:
— “One shoe off, one shoe on,
Diddle diddle dumpling, my son John—”
“I know you,” I said, abruptly.
He dropped his song and glanced around at me.
“Oh, you do, eh? Well, I mean to know you, too, so don’t worry, young man.”
“I won’t,” said I, scarcely able to speak.
Presently I saw a single tree in the darkness, all gleaming red, and in a moment we entered a ruddy ring of light, in the centre of which great logs burned and crackled in a little sea of whistling flames.
I was prepared to encounter the other coureur-de-bois, and there he was, ferret-face peering and sniffing at us as we approached. However, beyond a grunt, he paid me no attention, and presently fell to stirring something in a camp-pot which hung from cross-sticks over a separate bed of coals.
There was a third figure there, seated at the base of a gigantic pine tree; a little Hebrew man, gathering his knees in his arms and peeping up at me with watery, red-rimmed eyes; Saul Shemuel! — though I was too weary to bother my head as to how he came there. As I passed him he looked up, but he did not appear to know me, though he came every spring to Sir William for his peddling license, and sometimes sold us children gaffs and ferret-muzzles and gilt chains for pet dogs.
He bade me good-evening in an uncertain voice, and peered up at me continually; and although I doubted that even Sir William could have recognized me now, I feared this Jew.
The big man brought me a bowl of broth and spread a blanket for me close to the blaze. I do not recollect drinking the broth, but I must have done so, for shortly a delicious warmth enveloped me within and without, and that is the last I remembered that night.
CHAPTER X
IT WAS STILL dark when I awoke; the fire had become a pyramid of coals. By the dull glow I saw two figures moving; one of them presently crossed the dim, crimson circle and sat down beside me, fists clasped under his massive chin, rifle balanced on his knees.
“I am awake,” I whispered. “Is there any trouble?”
Without moving a muscle of his huge frame, the forest runner said: “Don’t come into the fire-ring. There’s a man been prowling yonder, a-sniffing our fire, for the last four hours.”
I drew myself farther into the darkness, looking about me, shivering and rubbing my stiffened limbs.
“How do you feel?” he asked, without turning his head.
I told him I felt rested, and thanked him so earnestly for his great kindness to me that he began to laugh and chuckle all to himself and drag his great chin to and fro across his knuckles.
“Consider yourself fortunate, eh?” he repeated, rising to come into the thicket and squat on his haunches beside me.
“Yes,” said I, wondering what he found so droll in the situation.
“Ever hear of Catamount Jack?” he inquired, after a moment.
“Yes; you mean Jack Mount, the highwayman? But you are mistaken; the man who follows me is not Jack Mount,” I replied, smiling.
“Sure?”
“Oh yes,” I said, bitterly; “I ought to know.”
“What do you know about Jack Mount?” he asked.
“I? Nothing — that is, nothing except what everybody knows.”
“Well, what does Mister Everybody know?” he inquired, sneeringly.
“They say he takes the King’s highway,” I replied. “There’s a book about him, printed in Boston.”
“With a gibbet on the cover,” interrupted the big fellow, impatiently. “Oh, I know all that. But don’t they say he’s a rebel?”
“Why, yes,” I replied; “everybody knows he set fire to the King’s ship, Gaspee, and started the rebels a-pitching tea overboard from Griffin’s Wharf.”
I stopped short and looked at him in amazement. He was Jack Mount! I did not doubt it for one moment. And there was the famous Weasel, too — that little, shrivelled comrade of his! — both corresponding exactly to their descriptions which I had read in the Boston book, ay, read to Silver Heels, while her gray eyes grew rounder and rounder at the exploits of these so-called “Minions of the Moon.”
“Well,” asked the forest runner, with a chuckle, “do you still think yourself lucky?”
I managed to say that I thought I was, but my lack of enthusiasm sent the big fellow into spasms of smothered laughter.
“Now, now, be sensible,” he said. “You know you’ve a belt full of gold, a string of good wampum in your sack, and as pretty a rifle as ever I saw. And you still think yourself in luck? And you’re supping with Jack Mount? And the Weasel’s watching everything from yonder hazel-bunch? And Saul Shemuel’s pretending to be asleep under that pine-tree? Why, Mr. Cardigan, you amaze me!” he lisped, mockingly.
So the little Hebrew had recognized me after all. I swallowed a lump in my throat and rose to my elbow. With Jack Mount beside me, Walter Butler prowling outside the fire-ring, and I alone, stripped of every weapon, what in Heaven’s sight was left for me to do? Truly, I had jumped into that same fire which burns below all frying-pans, and presently must begin a-roasting, too.
“So they say I take the King’s highway, eh?” observed Mount, twiddling his great thumbs over his ramrod and digging his heels into the pine-needles.
“They say so,” I replied, sullenly.
He burst out petulantly: “I never take a rebel purse! The next fool you hear call me a cut-purse, tell him that to stop his mouth withal!” And he fell a-muttering to himself: “King’s highway, eh? Not mine, not his, not yours — oh no! — but the King’s. By God! I’d like to meet his Majesty of a moonlight on this same highway of his!”
He turned roughly on me, demanding what brought me into the forest; but I shook my head, lips obstinately compressed.
“Won’t tell, eh?” he growled.
An ugly gleam came into his eyes, but died out again as quickly; and he shrugged his giant’s shoulders and spat out a quid of spruce-gum he had been chewing.
“One thing’s plain as Shemuel’s nose yonder,” he said, jerking a big thumb towards the sleeping peddler; “you’re a King’s man if I’m a King’s highwayman, and I’ll be cursed if you go free without a better accounting than a wag o’ your head!”
