Erskine Dale—Pioneer

John Fox

Erskine Dale—Pioneer

I

Streaks of red ran upward, and in answer the great gray eye of the wilderness lifted its mist-fringed lid. From the green depths came the fluting of a lone wood-thrush. Through them an owl flew on velvety wings for his home in the heart of a primeval poplar. A cougar leaped from the low limb of an oak, missed, and a shuddering deer streaked through a forest aisle, bounded into a little clearing, stopped rigid, sniffed a deadlier enemy, and whirled into the wilderness again. Still deeper in the depths a boy with a bow and arrow and naked, except for scalp-lock and breech-clout, sprang from sleep and again took flight along a buffalo trail. Again, not far behind him, three grunting savages were taking up the print of his moccasined feet.

An hour before a red flare rose within the staked enclosure that was reared in the centre of the little clearing, and above it smoke was soon rising. Before the first glimmer of day the gates yawned a little and three dim shapes appeared and moved leisurely for the woods – each man with a long flintlock rifle in the hollow of his arm, a hunting-knife in his belt, and a coonskin cap on his head. At either end of the stockade a watchtower of oak became visible and in each a sleepy sentinel yawned and sniffed the welcome smell of frying venison below him. In the pound at one end of the fort, and close to the eastern side, a horse whinnied, and a few minutes later when a boy slipped through the gates with feed in his arms there was more whinnying and the stamping of impatient feet.

“Gol darn ye!” the boy yelled, “can’t ye wait till a feller gits his breakfast?”

A voice deep, lazy, and resonant came from the watch-tower above:

“Well, I’m purty hungry myself.”

“See any Injuns, Dave?”

“Not more’n a thousand or two, I reckon.” The boy laughed:

“Well, I reckon you won’t see any while I’m around – they’re afeerd o’ me.”

“I don’t blame ’em, Bud. I reckon that blunderbuss o’ yours would come might’ nigh goin’ through a pat o’ butter at twenty yards.” The sentinel rose towering to the full of his stature, stretched his mighty arms with a yawn, and lightly leaped, rifle in hand, into the enclosure. A girl climbing the rude ladder to the tower stopped midway.

“Mornin’, Dave!”

“Mornin’, Polly!”

“I was comin’ to wake you up,” she smiled.

“I just waked up,” he yawned, humoring the jest.

“You don’t seem to have much use for this ladder.”

“Not unless I’m goin’ up; and I wouldn’t then if I could jump as high as I can fall.” He went toward her to help her down.

“I wouldn’t climb very high,” she said, and scorning his hand with a tantalizing little grimace she leaped as lightly as had he to the ground. Two older women who sat about a kettle of steaming clothes watched her.

“Look at Polly Conrad, won’t ye? I declare that gal – ”

“Lyddy!” cried Polly, “bring Dave’s breakfast!”

At the door of each log cabin, as solidly built as a little fort, a hunter was cleaning a long rifle. At the western angle two men were strengthening the pickets of the palisade. About the fire two mothers were suckling babes at naked breasts. A boy was stringing a bow, and another was hurling a small tomahawk at an oaken post, while a third who was carrying wood for the open fire cried hotly:

“Come on here, you two, an’ he’p me with this wood!” And grumbling they came, for that fort harbored no idler, irrespective of age or sex.

At the fire a tall girl rose, pushed a mass of sunburned hair from her heated forehead, and a flush not from the fire fused with her smile.

“I reckon Dave can walk this far – he don’t look very puny.”

A voice vibrant with sarcasm rose from one of the women about the steaming kettle.

“Honor!” she cried, “Honor Sanders!”

In a doorway near, a third girl was framed – deep-eyed, deep-breasted.

“Honor!” cried the old woman, “stop wastin’ yo’ time with that weavin’ in thar an’ come out here an’ he’p these two gals to git Dave his breakfast.” Dave Yandell laughed loudly.

“Come on, Honor,” he called, but the girl turned and the whir of a loom started again like the humming of bees. Lydia Noe handed the hunter a pan of deer-meat and corn bread, and Polly poured him a cup of steaming liquid made from sassafras leaves. Unheeding for a moment the food in his lap, Dave looked up into Polly’s black eyes, shifted to Lydia, swerved to the door whence came the whir of the loom.

“You are looking very handsome this morning, Polly,” he said gravely, “and Lydia is lovelier even than usual, and Honor is a woodland dream.” He shook his head. “No,” he said, “I really couldn’t.”

“Couldn’t what?” asked Polly, though she knew some nonsense was coming.

“Be happy even with two, if t’other were far away.”

“I reckon you’ll have to try some day – with all of us far away,” said the gentle Lydia.

“No doubt, no doubt.” He fell upon his breakfast.

“Purple, crimson, and gold – daughters of the sun – such are not for the poor hunter – alack, alack!”

“Poor boy!” said Lydia, and Polly looked at her with quickening wonder. Rallying Dave with soft-voiced mockery was a new phase in Lydia. Dave gave his hunting-knife a pathetic flourish.

“And when the Virginia gallants come, where will poor Dave be?”

Polly’s answer cut with sarcasm, but not at Dave.

“Dave will be busy cuttin’ wood an’ killin’ food for ’em – an’ keepin’ ’em from gettin’ scalped by Indians.”

“I wonder,” said Lydia, “if they’ll have long hair like Dave?” Dave shook his long locks with mock pride.

“Yes, but it won’t be their own an’ it’ll be powdered.”

“Lord, I’d like to see the first Indian who takes one of their scalps.” Polly laughed, but there was a shudder in Lydia’s smile. Dave rose.

“I’m goin’ to sleep till dinner – don’t let anybody wake me,” he said, and at once both the girls were serious and kind.

“We won’t, Dave.”

Cow-bells began to clang at the edge of the forest.

“There they are,” cried Polly. “Come on, Lyddy.”

The two girls picked up piggins and squeezed through the opening between the heavy gates. The young hunter entered a door and within threw himself across a rude bed, face down.

“Honor!” cried one of the old women, “you go an’ git a bucket o’ water.” The whir stopped instantly, the girl stepped with a sort of slow majesty from the cabin, and, entering the next, paused on the threshold as her eyes caught the powerful figure stretched on the bed and already in heavy sleep. As she stepped softly for the bucket she could not forbear another shy swift glance; she felt the flush in her face and to conceal it she turned her head angrily when she came out. A few minutes later she was at the spring and ladling water into her pail with a gourd. Near by the other two girls were milking – each with her forehead against the soft flank of a dun-colored cow whose hoofs were stained with the juice of wild strawberries. Honor dipped lazily. When her bucket was full she fell a-dreaming, and when the girls were through with their task they turned to find her with deep, unseeing eyes on the dark wilderness.

“Boo!” cried Polly, startling her, and then teasingly:

“Are you in love with Dave, too, Honor?”

The girl reddened.

“No,” she whipped out, “an’ I ain’t goin’ to be.” And then she reddened again angrily as Polly’s hearty laugh told her she had given herself away. For a moment the three stood like wood-nymphs about the spring, vigorous, clear-eyed, richly dowered with health and color and body and limb – typical mothers-to-be of a wilderness race. And as Honor turned abruptly for the fort, a shot came from the woods followed by a war-whoop that stopped the blood shuddering in their veins.

“Oh, my God!” each cried, and catching at their wet skirts they fled in terror through the long grass. They heard the quick commotion in the fort, heard sharp commands, cries of warning, frantic calls for them to hurry, saw strained faces at the gates, saw Dave bound through and rush toward them. And from the forest there was nothing but its silence until that was again broken – this time by a loud laugh – the laugh of a white man. Then at the edge of the wilderness appeared – the fool. Behind him followed the other two who had gone out that morning, one with a deer swung about his shoulders, and all could hear the oaths of both as they cursed the fool in front who had given shot and war-whoop to frighten women and make them run. Dave stood still, but his lips, too, were busy with curses, and from the fort came curses – an avalanche of them. The sickly smile passed from the face of the fellow, shame took its place, and when he fronted the terrible eyes of old Jerome Sanders at the gate, that face grew white with fear.

“Thar ain’t an Injun in a hundred miles,” he stammered, and then he shrank down as though he were almost going to his knees, when suddenly old Jerome slipped his long rifle from his shoulder and fired past the fellow’s head with a simultaneous roar of command:

“Git in – ever’body – git in – quick!”

From a watch-tower, too, a rifle had cracked. A naked savage had bounded into a spot of sunlight that quivered on the buffalo trail a hundred yards deep in the forest and leaped lithely aside into the bushes – both rifles had missed. Deeper from the woods came two war-whoops – real ones – and in the silence that followed the gates were swiftly closed and barred, and a keen-eyed rifleman was at every port-hole in the fort. From the tower old Jerome saw reeds begin to shake in a cane-brake to the left of the spring.

“Look thar!” he called, and three rifles, with his own, covered the spot. A small brown arm was thrust above the shaking reeds, with the palm of the hand toward the fort – the peace sign of the Indian – and a moment later a naked boy sprang from the cane-brake and ran toward the blockhouse, with a bow and arrow in his left hand and his right stretched above his head, its pleading palm still outward.

“Don’t shoot! – don’t nobody shoot!” shouted the old man. No shot came from the fort, but from the woods came yells of rage, and as the boy streaked through the clearing an arrow whistled past his head.

“Let him in!” shouted Jerome, and as Dave opened the gates another arrow hurtled between the boy’s upraised arm and his body and stuck quivering in one of its upright bars. The boy slid through and stood panting, shrinking, wild-eyed. The arrow had grazed his skin, and when Dave lifted his arm and looked at the oozing drops of blood he gave a startled oath, for he saw a flash of white under the loosened breech-clout below. The boy understood. Quickly he pushed the clout aside on his thigh that all might see, nodded gravely, and proudly tapped his breast.

“Paleface!” he half grunted, “white man!”

The wilds were quiet. The boy pointed to them and held up three fingers to indicate that there were only three red men there, and shook his head to say there would be no attack from them. Old Jerome studied the little stranger closely, wondering what new trick those red devils were trying now to play. Mother Sanders and Mother Noe, the boys of the fort, the gigantic brothers to Lydia, Adam and Noel, the three girls had gathered about him, as he stood with the innocence of Eden before the fall.

“The fust thing to do,” said Mother Sanders, “is to git some clothes for the little heathen.” Whereat Lydia flushed and Dave made an impatient gesture for silence.

“What’s your name?” The boy shook his head and looked eagerly around.

“Français – French?” he asked, and in turn the big woodsman shook his head – nobody there spoke French. However, Dave knew a little Shawnee, a good deal of the sign-language, and the boy seemed to understand a good many words in English; so that the big woodsman pieced out his story with considerable accuracy, and turned to tell it to Jerome. The Indians had crossed the Big River, were as many as the leaves, and meant to attack the whites. For the first time they had allowed the boy to go on a war-party. Some one had treated him badly – he pointed out the bruises of cuffs and kicks on his body. The Indians called him White Arrow, and he knew he was white from the girdle of untanned skin under his breech-clout and because the Indian boys taunted him. Asked why he had come to the fort, he pointed again to his bruises, put both hands against his breast, and stretched them wide as though he would seek shelter in the arms of his own race and take them to his heart; and for the first time a smile came to his face that showed him plainly as a curious product of his race and the savage forces that for years had been moulding him. That smile could have never come to the face of an Indian. No Indian would ever have so lost himself in his own emotions. No white man would have used his gestures and the symbols of nature to which he appealed. Only an Indian could have shown such a cruel, vindictive, merciless fire in his eyes when he told of his wrongs, and when he saw tears in Lydia’s eyes, the first burning in his life came to his own, and brushing across them with fierce shame he turned Indian stoic again and stood with his arms folded over his bow and arrows at his breast, looking neither to right nor left, as though he were waiting for judgment at their hands and cared little what his fate might be, as perfect from head to foot as a statue of the ancient little god, who, in him, had forsaken the couches of love for the tents of war.

II

All turned now to the duties of the day – Honor to her loom, Polly to her distaff, and Lydia to her spinning-wheel, for the clothes of the women were home-spun, home-woven, home-made. Old Jerome and Dave and the older men gathered in one corner of the stockade for a council of war. The boy had made it plain that the attacking party was at least two days behind the three Indians from whom he had escaped, so that there was no danger that day, and they could wait until night to send messengers to warn the settlers outside to seek safety within the fort. Meanwhile, Jerome would despatch five men with Dave to scout for the three Indians who might be near by in the woods, and the boy, who saw them slip out the rear gate of the fort, at once knew their purpose, shook his head, and waved his hand to say that his late friends were gone back to hurry on the big war-party to the attack, now that the whites themselves knew their danger. Old Jerome nodded that he understood, and nodded to others his appreciation of the sense and keenness of the lad, but he let the men go just the same. From cabin door to cabin door the boy went in turn – peeking in, but showing no wonder, no surprise, and little interest until Lydia again smiled at him. At her door he paused longest, and even went within and bent his ear to the bee-like hum of the wheel. At the port-holes in the logs he pointed and grunted his understanding and appreciation, as he did when he climbed into a blockhouse and saw how one story overlapped the other and how through an opening in the upper floor the defenders in the tower might pour a destructive fire on attackers breaking in below. When he came down three boys, brothers to the three girls, Bud Sanders, Jack Conrad, and Harry Noe, were again busy with their games. They had been shy with him as he with them, and now he stood to one side while they, pretending to be unconscious of his presence, watched with sidelong glances the effect on him of their prowess. All three threw the tomahawk and shot arrows with great skill, but they did not dent the impassive face of the little stranger.

“Maybe he thinks he can do better,” said Bud; “let’s let him try it.”

And he held forth the tomahawk and motioned toward the post. The lad took it gravely, gravely reached for the tomahawk of each of the other two, and with slow dignity walked several yards farther away from the mark. Then he wheeled with such ferocity in his face that the boys shrank aside, clutching with some fear to one another’s arms, and before they could quite recover, they were gulping down wonder as the three weapons whistled through the air and were quivering close, side by side, in the post.

“Gee!” they said. Again the lad’s face turned impassive as he picked up his bow and three arrows and slowly walked toward the wall of the stockade so that he was the full width of the fort away. And then three arrows hurtled past them in incredibly swift succession and thudded into the post, each just above a tomahawk. This time the three onlookers were quite speechless, though their mouths were open wide. Then they ran toward him and had him show just how he held tomahawk and bow and arrow, and all three did much better with the new points he gave them. Wondering then whether they might not teach him something, Jack did a standing broad jump and Bud a running broad jump and Harry a hop, skip, and a jump. The young stranger shook his head but he tried and fell short in each event and was greatly mortified. Again he shook his head when Bud and Jack took backholds and had a wrestling-match, but he tried with Jack and was thumped hard to the earth. He sprang to his feet looking angry, but all were laughing, and he laughed too.

“Me big fool,” he said; and they showed him how to feint and trip, and once he came near throwing Bud. At rifle-shooting, too, he was no match for the young pioneers, but at last he led them with gestures and unintelligible grunts to the far end of the stockade and indicated a foot-race. The boy ran like one of his own arrows, but he beat Bud only a few feet, and Bud cried:

“I reckon if I didn’t have no clothes on, he couldn’t ‘a’ done it”; and on the word Mother Sanders appeared and cried to Bud to bring the “Injun” to her cabin. She had been unearthing clothes for the “little heathen,” and Bud helped to put them on. In a few minutes the lad reappeared in fringed hunting shirt and trousers, wriggling in them most uncomfortably, for they made him itch, but at the same time wearing them proudly. Mother Sanders approached with a hunting-knife.

“I’m goin’ to cut off that topknot so his hair can ketch up,” she said, but the boy scowled fearfully, turned, fled, and scaling the stockade as nimbly as a squirrel, halted on top with one leg over the other side.

“He thinks you air goin’ to take his scalp,” shouted Bud. The three boys jumped up and down in their glee, and even Mother Sanders put her hands on her broad hips and laughed with such loud heartiness that many came to the cabin doors to see what the matter was. It was no use for the boys to point to their own heads and finger their own shocks of hair, for the lad shook his head, and outraged by their laughter kept his place in sullen dignity a long while before he could be persuaded to come down.

On the mighty wilderness the sun sank slowly and old Jerome sat in the western tower to watch alone. The silence out there was oppressive and significant, for it meant that the boy’s theory was right; the three Indians had gone back for their fellows, and when darkness came the old man sent runners to the outlying cabins to warn the inmates to take refuge within the fort. There was no settler that was not accustomed to a soft tapping on the wooden windows that startled him wide awake. Then there was the noiseless awakening of the household, noiseless dressing of the children – the mere whisper of “Indians” was enough to keep them quiet – and the noiseless slipping through the wilderness for the oak-picketed stockade. And the gathering-in was none too soon. The hooting of owls started before dawn. A flaming arrow hissed from the woods, thudded into the roof of one of the cabins, sputtered feebly on a dew-drenched ridge-pole, and went out. Savage war-whoops rent the air, and the battle was on. All day the fight went on. There were feints of attack in front and rushes from the rear, and there were rushes from all sides. The women loaded rifles and cooked and cared for the wounded. Thrice an Indian reached the wall of the stockade and set a cabin on fire, but no one of the three got back to the woods alive. The stranger boy sat stoically in the centre of the enclosure watching everything, and making no effort to take part, except twice when he saw a gigantic Indian brandishing his rifle at the edge of the woods, encouraging his companions behind, and each time he grunted and begged for a gun. And Dave made out that the Indian was the one who had treated the boy cruelly and that the lad was after a personal revenge. Late in the afternoon the ammunition began to run low and the muddy discoloration of the river showed that the red men had begun to tunnel under the walls of the fort. And yet a last sally was made just before sunset. A body pushed against Dave in the tower and Dave saw the stranger boy at his side with his bow and arrow. A few minutes later he heard a yell from the lad which rang high over the din, and he saw the feathered tip of an arrow shaking in the breast of the big Indian who staggered and fell behind a bush. Just at that moment there were yells from the woods behind – the yells of white men that were answered by joyful yells within the fort:

“The Virginians! The Virginians!” And as the rescuers dashed into sight on horse and afoot, Dave saw the lad leap the wall of the stockade and disappear behind the fleeing Indians.

“Gone back to ’em,” he grunted to himself. The gates were thrown open. Old Jerome and his men rushed out, and besieged and rescuers poured all their fire after the running Indians, some of whom turned bravely to empty their rifles once more.

“Git in! Git in, quick!” yelled old Joel. He knew another volley would come as soon as the Indians reached the cover of thick woods, and come the volley did. Three men fell – one the leader of the Virginians, whose head flopped forward as he entered the gate and was caught in old Joel’s arms. Not another sound came from the woods, but again Dave from the tower saw the cane-brush rustle at the edge of a thicket, saw a hand thrust upward with the palm of peace toward the fort, and again the stranger boy emerged – this time with a bloody scalp dangling in his left hand. Dave sprang down and met him at the gate. The boy shook his bow and arrow proudly, pointed to a crisscross scar on the scalp, and Dave made out from his explanation that once before the lad had tried to kill his tormentor and that the scar was the sign. In the centre of the enclosure the wounded Virginian lay, and when old Jerome stripped the shirt from his breast he shook his head gravely. The wounded man opened his eyes just in time to see and he smiled.

“I know it,” he said faintly, and then his eyes caught the boy with the scalp, were fixed steadily and began to widen.

“Who is that boy?” he asked sharply.

“Never mind now,” said old Joel soothingly, “you must keep still!” The boy’s eyes had begun to shift under the scrutiny and he started away.

“Come back here!” commanded the wounded man, and still searching the lad he said sharply again:

“Who is that boy?” Nor would he have his wound dressed or even take the cup of water handed to him until old Joel briefly told the story, when he lay back on the ground and closed his eyes.

Darkness fell. In each tower a watcher kept his eyes strained toward the black, silent woods. The dying man was laid on a rude bed within one cabin, and old Joel lay on the floor of it close to the door. The stranger lad refused to sleep indoors and huddled himself in a blanket on the ground in one corner of the stockade. Men, women, and children fell to a deep and weary sleep. In the centre the fire burned and there was no sound on the air but the crackle of its blazing. An hour later the boy in the corner threw aside his blanket, and when, a moment later, Lydia Noe, feverish and thirsty, rose from her bed to get a drink of water outside her door, she stopped short on the threshold. The lad, stark naked but for his breech-clout and swinging his bloody scalp over his head, was stamping around the fire – dancing the scalp-dance of the savage to a low, fierce, guttural song. The boy saw her, saw her face in the blaze, stricken white with fright and horror, saw her too paralyzed to move and he stopped, staring at her a moment with savage rage, and went on again. Old Joel’s body filled the next doorway. He called out with a harsh oath, and again the boy stopped. With another oath and a threatening gesture Joel motioned to the corner of the stockade, and with a flare of defiance in his black eyes the lad stalked slowly and proudly away. From behind him the voice of the wounded man called, and old Joel turned. There was a ghastly smile on the Virginian’s pallid face.