The Wild Huntress: Love in the Wilderness

During the progress of the dialogue, I had my eye fixed on the young hunter. I could perceive that the announcement of the marriage was quite new to him; and its effect was as that of a sudden blow. Of course, equally unknown to him had been the name of the husband; though from the exclamatory phrase that followed, he had no doubt had his conjectures.

“O God!” he exclaimed, “I thort so – the very man to a’ done it. Lord ha’ mercy on her!” All this was uttered with a voice hoarse with emotion. “Tell me!” continued he, “whar are they gone? Ye say ye know!”

The shrill screech of a tree-cricket, breaking forth at that moment, hindered me from hearing the reply. The more emphatic words only reached me, and these appeared to be “Utah” and “Great Salt Lake.” They were enough to fix the whereabouts of Marian Holt and her husband.

“One question more!” said the rejected lover hesitatingly, as if afraid to ask it. “Can ye tell me – whether – she went willingly, or whether – thar wan’t some force used? – by her father, or some un else? Can ye tell me that, girl?”

I listened eagerly for the response. Its importance can be easily understood by one who has sued in vain – one who has wooed without winning. The silence of the cicada favoured me; but a long interval passed, and there came not a word from the lips of the Indian.

“Answer me, Su-wa-nee!” repeated the young man in a more appealing tone. “Tell me that, and I promise – ”

“Will the White Eagle promise to forget his lost love? Will he promise – ”

“No, Su-wa-nee; I cannot promise that: I can niver forget her.”

“The heart can hate without forgetting.”

“Hate her? hate Marian? No! no!”

“Not if she be false?”

“How do I know that she war false? You haven’t told me whether she went willin’ly or agin her consent.”

“The White Eagle shall know then. His gentle doe went willingly to the covert of the wolf —willingly, I repeat. Su-wa-nee can give proof of her words.”

This was the most terrible stroke of all. I could see the hunter shrink in his saddle, a death-like pallor over-spreading his cheeks, while his eyes presented the glassy aspect of despair.

“Now!” continued the Indian, as if taking advantage of the blow she had struck, “will the White Eagle promise to sigh no more after his false mistress? Will he promise to love one that can be true?”

There was an earnestness in the tone in which these interrogatories were uttered – an appealing earnestness – evidently prompted by a burning headlong passion. It was now the turn of her who uttered them, to wait with anxiety for a response. It came at length – perhaps to the laceration of that proud heart: for it was a negative to its dearest desire.

“No, no!” exclaimed the hunter confusedly. “Impossible eyther to hate or forget her. She may a been false, an’ no doubt are so; but it’s too late for me: I can niver love agin.”

A half-suppressed scream followed this declaration, succeeded by some words that appeared to be uttered in a tone of menace or reproach. But the words were in the Chicasaw tongue, and I could not comprehend their import.

Almost at the same instant, I saw the young hunter hurriedly draw back his horse – as if to get out of the way. I fancied that the crisis had arrived, when my presence might be required. Under this belief, I touched my steed with the spur, and trotted out into the open ground. To my astonishment, I perceived that the hunter was alone. Su-wa-nee had disappeared from the glade!

Chapter Fifteen

Making a Clean Breast of it

“Where is she? – gone?” I mechanically asked, in a tone that must have betrayed my surprise.

“Yes – gone! gone! an’ wi’ a Mormon!”

“A Mormon?”

“Ay, stranger, a Mormon – a man wi’ twenty wives! God forgi’ her! I’d rather heerd o’ her death!”

“Was there a man with her? I saw no one.”

“O stranger, excuse my talk – you’re thinkin’ o’ that ere Injun girl. ’Taint her I’m speakin’ about.”

“Who then?”

The young hunter hesitated: he was not aware that I was already in possession of his secret; but he knew that I had been witness of his emotions, and to declare the name would be to reveal the most sacred thought of his heart. Only for a moment did he appear to reflect; and then, as if relieved from his embarrassment, by some sudden determination, he replied:

“Stranger! I don’t see why I shedn’t tell ye all about this bisness. I don know the reezun, but you’ve made me feel a kind o’ confidence in you. I know it’s a silly sort o’ thing to fall in love wi’ a handsum girl; but if ye’d only seen her!”

“I have no doubt, from what you say, she was a beautiful creature,” – this was scarcely my thought at the moment – “and as for falling in love with a pretty girl, none of us are exempt from that little weakness. The proud Roman conqueror yielded to the seductions of the brown-skinned Egyptian queen; and even Hercules himself was conquered by a woman’s charms. There is no particular silliness in that. It is but the common destiny of man.”

“Well, stranger, it’s been myen; an’ I’ve hed reezun to be sorry for it. But it’s no use tryin’ to shet up the stable arter the hoss’s been stole out o’t. She are gone now; an’ that’s the end o’ it. I reckon I’ll niver set eyes on her agin.”

The sigh that accompanied this last observation, with the melancholy tone in which it was uttered, told me that I was talking to a man who had truly loved.

“No doubt,” thought I, “some strapping backwoods wench has been the object of his passion,” – for what other idea could I have about the child of a coarse and illiterate squatter? “Love is as blind as a bat; and this red-haired hoyden has appeared a perfect Venus in the eyes of the handsome fellow – as not unfrequently happens. A Venus with evidently a slight admixture of the prudential Juno in her composition. The young backwoodsman is poor; the schoolmaster perhaps a little better off; in all probability not much, but enough to decide the preference of the shrewd Marian.”

Such were my reflections at the moment, partly suggested by my own experience.

“But you have not yet told me who this sweetheart was? You say it is not the Indian damsel you’ve just parted with?”

“No, stranger, nothin’ o’ the kind: though there are some Injun in her too. ’Twar o’ her the girl spoke when ye heerd her talk o’ a half-blood. She aint just that – she’s more white than Injun; her mother only war a half-blood – o’ the Chicasaw nation, that used to belong in these parts.”

“Her name?”

“It war Marian Holt. It are now Stebbins, I s’pose! since I’ve jest heerd she’s married to a fellow o’ that name.”

“She has certainly not improved her name.”

“She are the daughter o’ Holt the squatter – the same whar you say you’re a-goin’. Thar’s another, as I told ye; but she’s a younger un. Her name’s Lilian.”

“A pretty name. The older sister was very beautiful you say?”

“I niver set eyes on the like o’ her.”

“Does the younger one resemble her?”

“Ain’t a bit like her – different as a squ’ll from a coon.”

“She’s more beautiful, then?”

“Well, that depends upon people’s ways o’ thinkin’. Most people as know ’em liked Lilian the best, an’ thort her the handsumest o’ the two. That wan’t my notion. Besides, Lilly’s only a young crittur – not out o’ her teens yit.”

“But if she be also pretty, why not try to fall in love with her? Down in Mexico, where I’ve been lately, they have a shrewd saying: Un clavo saca otro clavo, meaning that ‘one nail drives out another’ – as much as to say, that one love cures another.”

“Ah, stranger! that may be all be very well in Mexico, whar I’ve heerd they ain’t partickler about thar way o’ lovin’: but we’ve a sayin’ here jest the contrairy o’ that: ‘two bars can’t get into the same trap.’”

“Ha, ha, ha! Well your backwoods proverb is perhaps the truer one, as it is the more honest. But you have not yet told me the full particulars of your affair with Marian? You say she has gone away from the neighbourhood?”

“You shall hear it all, stranger. I reckon thar can be no harm in tellin’ it to you; an’ if you’ve a mind to listen, I’ll make a clean breast o’ the whole bisness.”

The hunter proceeded with his revelation – to him, a painful one – and, although I had already divined most of the particulars, I interrupted him only with an occasional interrogative. The story was as I had anticipated. He had been in love with Marian Holt; and was under the impression that she returned it. She had given him frequent meetings in the forest – in that very glade where we had encountered the Indian girl, and in which we were still lingering. Her father was not aware of these interviews. There had been some coolness between him and the young hunter; and the lovers were apprehensive that he might not approve of their conduct. This was the prologue of the hunter’s story. The epilogue I give in his own words: “’Twar a mornin’ – jest five months ago – she had promised to meet me here – an’ I war seated on yonder log waitin’ for her. Jest then some Injuns war comin’ through the gleed. That girl ye saw war one o’ ’em. She had a nice bullet-pouch to sell, an’ I bought it. The girl would insist on puttin’ it on; an’ while she war doin’ so, I war fool enough to gie her a kiss. Some devil hed put it in my head. Jest at that minnit, who shed come right into the gleed but Marian herself! I meant nothin’ by kissin’ the Injun; but I s’pose Marian thort I did: she’d already talked to me ’bout this very girl; an’ I believe war a leetle bit jealous o’ her – for the Injun ain’t to say ill-lookin’. I wanted to ’pologise to Marian; but she wouldn’t listen to a word; an’ went off in a way I niver seed her in before. ’Twar the last time I ever set eyes on her.”

“Indeed.”

“Ay, stranger, an’ it’s only this minnit, an’ from that same Injun girl, that I’ve heard she’s married, an’ gone off to the Mormons. The Injuns had it from some o’ her people, that seed Marian a crossin’ the parairies.”

“That Indian damsel – Su-wa-nee, I think you named her – what of her?”

“Ah! stranger, that’s another o’ the konsequences o’ doin’ what aint right. Since the day I gin her that kiss, she’d niver let me alone, but used to bother me every time I met her in the woods; an’ would a come arter me to my own cabin, if it hadn’t been for the dogs, that wud tar an Injun to pieces. She war afeerd o’ them but not o’ me, no matter how I thraitened her. I war so angry wi’ her, for what had happened – though arter all, ’twar more my fault than hern – but I war so vexed wi’ her about the ill-luck, that I used to keep out o’ her way as well as I could, an’ didn’t speak to her for a long time. She got riled ’bout that, an’ thraitened revenge; an’ one night, as I war comin’ from Swampville, ’bout this time – only ’twar as dark as a pot o’ pitch – I war jest ridin’ out into this very gleed, when all o’ a suddint my ole hoss gin a jump forrard, an I feeled somethin’ prick me from behind. ’Twar the stab o’ some sort o’ a knife, that cut me a leetle above the hip, an’ made me bleed like a buck. I know’d who did it; tho’ not that night – for it war so dark among the bushes, I couldn’t see a steim. But I kim back in the mornin’, and seed tracks. They war the tracks o’ a mocassin. I know’d ’em to be hern.”

“Su-wa-nee’s tracks?”

“Sartin. I know’d ’em well enough, as I’d often seed her tracks through the crik bottom.”

“Did you take no steps to punish her?”

“Well – no – I didn’t.”

“How is that? I think it would have been prudent of you to have done something – if only to prevent a recurrence of the danger.”

“Well, stranger! to tell truth, I war a leetle ashamed o’ the whole bisness. Had it been a man, I’d a punished him; but they do say the girl’s in love wi’ me, arter her Injun way; an’ I didn’t like to be revengeful. Besides it war mostly my own fault: I had no bisness to a fooled wi’ her.”

“And you think she will not trouble you again?”

“I don know about that, arter what’s happened the night. She’s gone away thraitnin’ agin. I did think she’d gin up the notion o’ revenge: for she know’d I’d found out that ’twar her that stabbed me. I told her so, the next time I seed her; an’ she ’peared pleased ’bout my not havin’ her ta’en up. She said it war generous of the White Eagle – that’s the name her people gies me – for thar’s a gang o’ them still livin’ down the crik. She gin me a sort of promise she wouldn’t trouble me agin; but I warn’t sure o’ her. That’s the reezun, stranger, I didn’t want ye to go fur away.”

“I think it would be prudent in you to keep well on your guard. This redskin appears to be rather an unreflecting damsel; and, from what you have told me, a dangerous one. She certainly has a strange way of showing her affection; but it must be confessed, you gave her some provocation; and as the poet says, ‘Hell knows no fury like a woman scorned.’”

“That’s true, stranger!”

“Her conduct, however, has been too violent to admit of justification. You appear to have been unfortunate in your sweethearts – with each in an opposite sense. One loves you too much, and the other apparently not enough! But how is it you did not see her again – Marian I mean!”

“Well, you understand, I wan’t on the best of tarms wi’ old Hick Holt, an’ couldn’t go to his clarin’. Besides after what had happened. I didn’t like to go near Marian anyhow – leastway for a while. I thort it would blow over ’s soon’s she’d find out that E war only jokin’ wi’ the Injun.”

“So one would have supposed.”

“’Twar nigh two weeks afore I heerd anything o’ her; then I larned that she war gone away. Nobody could tell why or whar, for nobody knew, ’ceptin Hick Holt hisself; an’ he ain’t the sort o’ man to tell saycrets. Lord o’ mercy! I know nowt an’ it’s worse than I expected. I’d sooner heerd she war dead.”

A deep-drawn sigh, from the very bottom of his soul, admonished me that the speaker had finished his painful recital.

I had no desire to prolong the conversation. I saw that, silence would be more agreeable to my companion; and, as if by a mutual and tacit impulse, we turned our horses’ heads to the path, and proceeded onward across the glade.

As we were about entering the timber on the other side, my guide reined up his horse; and sat for a moment gazing upon a particular spot – as if something there had attracted his attention.

What? There was no visible object – at least, none that was remarkable – on the ground, or elsewhere!

Another sigh, with the speech that followed, explained the singularity of his behaviour, “Thar!” said he, pointing to the entrance of the forest-path – “thar’s the place whar I last looked on Marian!”

Chapter Sixteen

A Predicament in Prospect

For half a mile beyond the glade, the trace continued wide enough to admit of our riding abreast; but, notwithstanding this advantage, no word passed between us. My guide had relapsed into his attitude of melancholy – deepened, no doubt, by the intelligence he had just received – and sat loosely in his saddle, his head drooping forward over his breast. Bitter thoughts within rendered him unconscious of what was passing without; and I felt that any effort I might make to soften the acerbity of his reflections would be idle.

There are moments when words of consolation may be spoken in vain – when, instead of soothing a sorrow, they add poison to its sting. I made no attempt, therefore, to rouse my companion from his reverie; but rode on by his side, silent as he. Indeed, there was sufficient unpleasantness in my own reflections to give me occupation. Though troubled by no heart-canker of the past, I had a future before me that was neither brilliant nor attractive. The foreknowledge I had now gained of squatter Holt, had imbued me with a keen presentiment, that I was treading upon the edge of a not very distant dilemma. Once, or twice, was I on the point of communicating my business to my travelling companion; and why not? With the openness of an honest heart, had he confided to me the most important, as well as the most painful, secret of his life. Why should I withhold my confidence from him on a subject of comparatively little importance? My reason for not making a confidant of him sooner has been already given. It no longer existed. So far from finding in him an ally of my yet hypothetical enemy, in all likelihood I should have him on my die. At all events, I felt certain that I might count upon his advice; and, with his knowledge of the situation, that might be worth having.

I was on the eve of declaring the object of my errand, and soliciting his counsel thereon, when I saw him suddenly rein in, and turn towards me. In the former movement, I imitated his example.

“The road forks here,” said he. “The path on the left goes straight down to Holt’s Clarin’ – the other’s the way to my bit o’ a shanty.”

“I shall have to thank you for the very kind service you have rendered me, and say ‘Good-night.’”

“No – not yet. I ain’t a-goin’ to leave ye, till I’ve put you ’ithin sight o’ Holt’s cabin, tho’ I can’t go wi’ ye to the house. As I told ye, he an’ I ain’t on the best o’ tarms.”

“I cannot think of your coming out of your way – especially at this late hour. I’m some little of a tracker myself; and, perhaps, I can make out the path.”

“No, stranger! Thar’s places whar the trace is a’most blind, and you mout get out o’ it. Thar’ll be no moon on it. It runs through a thick timbered bottom, an’ thar’s an ugly bit o’ swamp. As for the lateness, I’m not very reg’lar in my hours; an’ thar’s a sort o’ road up the crik by which I can get home. ’Twan’t to bid you good-night, that I stopped here.”

“What, then?” thought I, endeavouring to conjecture his purpose, while he was pausing in his speech.

“Stranger!” continued he in an altered tone, “I hope you won’t take offence if I ask you a question?”

“Not much fear of that, I fancy. Ask it freely.”

“Are ye sure o’ a bed at Holt’s?”

“Well, upon my word, to say the truth, I am by no means sure of one. It don’t signify, however. I have my old cloak and my saddle; and it wouldn’t be the first time, by hundreds, I’ve slept in the open air.”

“My reezuns for askin’ you air, that if you ain’t sure o’ one, an’ don’t mind stretching’ yourself on a bar-skin, thar’s such a thing in my shanty entirely at your sarvice.”

“It is very kind of you. Perhaps I may have occasion to avail myself of your offer. In truth, I am not very confident of meeting with a friendly reception at the hands of your neighbour Holt – much less being asked to partake of his hospitality.”

“D’ye say so?”

“Indeed, yes. From what I have heard, I have reason to anticipate rather a cold welcome.”

“I’deed? But,” – My companion hesitated his his speech – as if meditating some observation which he felt a delicacy about making. “I’m a’most ashamed,” continued he, at length, “to put another question, that war on the top o’ my tongue.”

“I shall take pleasure in answering any question you may think proper to ask me.”

“I shedn’t ask it, if it wa’n’t for what you’ve jest now said: for I heerd the same question put to you this night afore, an’ I heerd your answer to it. But I reckon ’twar the way in which it war asked that offended you; an’ on that account your answer war jest as it should a been.”

“To what question to you refer?”

“To your bisness out here wi’ Hick Holt. I don’t want to know it, out o’ any curiosity o’ my own – that’s sartin, stranger.”

“You are welcome to know all about it. Indeed, it was my intention to have told you before we parted – at the same time to ask you for some advice about the matter.”

Without further parley, I communicated the object of my visit to Mud Creek – concealing nothing that I deemed necessary for the elucidation of the subject. Without a word of interruption, the young hunter heard my story to the end. From the play of his features, as I revealed the more salient points, I could perceive that my chances of an amicable adjustment of my claim were far from being brilliant.

“Well – do you know,” said he, when I had finished speaking, “I had a suspeecion that that might be your bisness? I don know why I shed a thort so; but maybe ’twar because thar’s been some others come here to settle o’ late, an’ found squatters on thar groun – jest the same as Holt’s on yourn. That’s why ye heerd me say, a while ago, that I shedn’t like to buy over his head.”

“And why not?” I awaited the answer to this question, not without a certain degree of nervous anxiety. I was beginning to comprehend the counsel of my Nashville friend on the ticklish point of pre-emption.

“Why, you see, stranger – as I told you, Hick Holt’s a rough customer; an’ I reckon he’ll be an ugly one to deal wi’, on a bisness o’ that kind.”

“Of course, being in possession, he may purchase the land? He has the right of pre-emption?”

“’Taint for that. He ain’t a-goin’ to pre-empt, nor buy neyther; an’ for the best o’ reezuns. He hain’t got a red cent in the world, an’ souldn’t buy as much land as would make him a mellyun patch – not he.”

“How does he get his living, then?”

“Oh, as for that, jest some’at like myself. Thar’s gobs o’ game in the woods – both bar an’ deer: an’ the clarin’ grows him corn. Thar’s squ’lls, an’ ’possum, an’ turkeys too; an’ lots o’ fish in the crik – if one gets tired o’ the bar an’ deer-meat, which I shed niver do.”

“But how about clothing, and other necessaries that are not found in the woods?”

“As for our clothin’ it ain’t hard to find. We can get that in Swampville by swopping skins for it, or now an’ then some deer-meat. O’ anythin’ else, thar ain’t much needed ’bout here – powder, an’ lead, an’ a leetle coffee, an’ tobacco. Once in a while, if ye like it, a taste o’ old corn.”

“Corn! I thought the squatter raised that for himself?”

“So he do raise corn; but I see, stranger, you don’t understand our odd names. Thar’s two kinds o’ corn in these parts – that as has been to the still, and that as hain’t. It’s the first o’ these sorts that Hick Holt likes best.”

“Oh! I perceive your meaning. He’s fond of a little corn-whisky, I presume?”

“I reckon he are – that same squatter – fonder o’t than milk. But surely,” continued the hunter, changing the subject, as well as the tone of his speech – “surely, stranger, you ain’t a-goin’ on your bisness the night?”

“I’ve just begun to think, that it is rather an odd hour to enter upon an estate. The idea didn’t occur to me before.”

“Besides,” added he, “thar’s another reezun. If Hick Holt’s what he used to be, he ain’t likely to be very nice about this time o’ night. I hain’t seen much o’ him lately; but, I reckon, he’s as fond o’ drink as ever he war; an’ ’tain’t often he goes to his bed ’ithout a skinful. Thar’s ten chances agin one, o’ your findin’ him wi’ brick in his hat.”

“That would be awkward.”

“Don’t think o’ goin’ to-night,” continued the young hunter in a persuasive tone. “Come along wi’ me; an’ you can ride down to Holt’s in the mornin’. You’ll then find him more reezonable to deal wi’. I can’t offer you no great show o’ entertainment; but thar’s a piece o’ deer-meat in the house, an’ I reckon I can raise a cup o’ coffee, an’ a pone or two o’ bread. As for your shore, the ole corn-crib ain’t quite empty yet.”

“Thanks thanks!” said I, grasping the hunter’s hand in the warmth of my gratitude. “I accept your invitation.”

“This way, then, stranger!”

We struck into a path that led to the right; and, after riding about two miles further, arrived at the solitary home of the hunter – a log-cabin surrounded by a clearing. I soon found he was its sole occupant – as he was its owner – some half-dozen large dogs being the only living creatures that were present to bid us welcome. A rude horse-shed was at hand – a “loose box,” it might be termed, as it was only intended to accommodate one – and this was placed at the disposal of my Arab. The “critter” of my host had, for that night, to take to the woods, and choose his stall among the trees – but to that sort of treatment he had been well inured. A close-chinked cabin for a lodging; a bear-skin for a bed; cold venison, corn-bread, and coffee for supper; with a pipe to follow: all these, garnished with the cheer of a hearty welcome, constitute an entertainment not to be despised by an old campaigner; and such was the treatment I met with, under the hospitable clapboard roof of the young backwoodsman – Frank Wingrove.