Erskine Dale—Pioneer

“Erskine!” As quickly he rose, embarrassed beyond speech.

“Come here! Why, you look guilty – what have you been thinking?” He was startled by her intuition, but he recovered himself swiftly.

“I suppose I will always feel guilty if I have made you unhappy.”

“You haven’t made me unhappy. I don’t know what you have made me. Papa says a girl does not understand and no man can, but he does better than anybody. You saw how I felt if you had killed him, but you don’t know how I would have felt if he had killed you. I don’t myself.”

She began patting her hands gently and helplessly together, and again she dropped her chin into them with her eyes lifted to the moon.

“I shall be very unhappy when you are gone. I wish you were not going, but I know that you are – you can’t help it.” Again he was startled.

“Whenever you look at that moon over in that dark wilderness, I wish you would please think of your little cousin – will you?” She turned eagerly and he was too moved to speak – he only bowed his head as for a prayer or a benediction.

“You don’t know how often our thoughts will cross, and that will be a great comfort to me. Sometimes I am afraid. There is a wild strain on my mother’s side, and it is in me. Papa knows it and he is wise – so wise – I am afraid I may sometimes do something very foolish, and it won’t be me at all. It will be somebody that died long ago.” She put both her hands over both his and held them tight.

“I never, never distrusted you. I trust you more than anybody else in the whole world except my father, and he might be away or” – she gave a little sob – “he might get killed. I want you to make me a promise.”

“Anything,” said the boy huskily.

“I want you to promise me that, no matter when, no matter where you are, if I need you and send for you you will come.” And Indian-like he put his forehead on both her little hands.

“Thank you. I must go now.” Bewildered and dazed, the boy rose and awkwardly put out his hand.

“Kiss me good-by.” She put her arms about his neck, and for the first time in his life the boy’s lips met a woman’s. For a moment she put her face against his and at his ear was a whisper.

“Good-by, Erskine!” And she was gone – swiftly – leaving the boy in a dizzy world of falling stars through which a white light leaped to heights his soul had never dreamed.

XIX

With the head of that column of stalwart backwoodsmen went Dave Yandell and Erskine Dale. A hunting-party of four Shawnees heard their coming through the woods, and, lying like snakes in the undergrowth, peered out and saw them pass. Then they rose, and Crooked Lightning looked at Black Wolf and, with a grunt of angry satisfaction, led the way homeward. And to the village they bore the news that White Arrow had made good his word and, side by side with the big chief of the Long Knives, was leading a war-party against his tribe and kinsmen. And Early Morn carried the news to her mother, who lay sick in a wigwam.

The miracle went swiftly, and Kaskaskia fell. Stealthily a cordon of hunters surrounded the little town. The rest stole to the walls of the fort. Lights flickered from within, the sounds of violins and dancing feet came through crevice and window. Clark’s tall figure stole noiselessly into the great hall, where the Creoles were making merry and leaned silently with folded arms against the doorpost, looking on at the revels with a grave smile. The light from the torches flickered across his face, and an Indian lying on the floor sprang to his feet with a curdling war-whoop. Women screamed and men rushed toward the door. The stranger stood motionless and his grim smile was unchanged.

“Dance on!” he commanded courteously, “but remember,” he added sternly, “you dance under Virginia and not Great Britain!”

There was a great noise behind him. Men dashed into the fort, and Rocheblave and his officers were prisoners. By daylight Clark had the town disarmed. The French, Clark said next day, could take the oath of allegiance to the Republic, or depart with their families in peace. As for their church, he had nothing to do with any church save to protect it from insult. So that the people who had heard terrible stories of the wild woodsmen and who expected to be killed or made slaves, joyfully became Americans. They even gave Clark a volunteer company to march with him upon Cahokia, and that village, too, soon became American. Father Gibault volunteered to go to Vincennes. Vincennes gathered in the church to hear him, and then flung the Stars and Stripes to the winds of freedom above the fort. Clark sent one captain there to take command. With a handful of hardy men who could have been controlled only by him, the dauntless one had conquered a land as big as any European kingdom. Now he had to govern and protect it. He had to keep loyal an alien race and hold his own against the British and numerous tribes of Indians, bloodthirsty, treacherous, and deeply embittered against all Americans. He was hundreds of miles from any American troops; farther still from the seat of government, and could get no advice or help for perhaps a year.

And those Indians poured into Cahokia – a horde of them from every tribe between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi – chiefs and warriors of every importance; but not before Clark had formed and drilled four companies of volunteer Creoles.

“Watch him!” said Dave, and Erskine did, marvelling at the man’s knowledge of the Indian. He did not live in the fort, but always on guard, always seemingly confident, stayed openly in town while the savages, sullen and grotesque, strutted in full war panoply through the straggling streets, inquisitive and insolent, their eyes burning with the lust of plunder and murder. For days he sat in the midst of the ringed warriors and listened. On the second day Erskine saw Kahtoo in the throng and Crooked Lightning and Black Wolf. After dusk that day he felt the fringe of his hunting-shirt plucked, and an Indian, with face hidden in a blanket, whispered as he passed.

“Tell the big chief,” he said in Shawnee, “to be on guard to-morrow night.” He knew it was some kindly tribesman, and he wheeled and went to Clark, who smiled. Already the big chief had guards concealed in his little house, who seized the attacking Indians, while two minutes later the townspeople were under arms. The captives were put in irons, and Erskine saw among them the crestfallen faces of Black Wolf and Crooked Lightning. The Indians pleaded that they were trying to test the friendship of the French for Clark, but Clark, refusing all requests for their release, remained silent, haughty, indifferent, fearless. He still refused to take refuge in the fort, and called in a number of ladies and gentlemen to his house, where they danced all night amid the council-fires of the bewildered savages. Next morning he stood in the centre of their ringed warriors with the tasselled shirts of his riflemen massed behind him, released the captive chiefs, and handed them the bloody war belt of wampum.

“I scorn your hostility and treachery. You deserve death but you shall leave in safety. In three days I shall begin war on you. If you Indians do not want your women and children killed – stop killing ours. We shall see who can make that war belt the most bloody. While you have been in my camp you have had food and fire-water, but now that I have finished, you must depart speedily.”

The captive chief spoke and so did old Kahtoo, with his eyes fixed sadly but proudly on his adopted son. They had listened to bad birds and been led astray by the British – henceforth they would be friendly with the Americans. But Clark was not satisfied.

“I come as a warrior,” he said haughtily; “I shall be a friend to the friendly. If you choose war I shall send so many warriors from the Thirteen Council-Fires that your land shall be darkened and you shall hear no sounds but that of the birds who live on blood.” And then he handed forth two belts of peace and war, and they eagerly took the belt of peace. The treaty followed next day and Clark insisted that two of the prisoners should be put to death; and as the two selected came forward Erskine saw Black Wolf was one. He whispered with Clark and Kahtoo, and Crooked Lightning saw the big chief with his hand on Erskine’s shoulder and heard him forgive the two and tell them to depart. And thus peace was won.

Straightway old Kahtoo pushed through the warriors and, plucking the big chief by the sleeve, pointed to Erskine.

“That is my son,” he said, “and I want him to go home with me.”

“He shall go,” said Clark quickly, “but he shall return, whenever it pleases him, to me.”

And so Erskine went forth one morning at dawn, and his coming into the Shawnee camp was like the coming of a king. Early Morn greeted him with glowing eyes, his foster-mother brought him food, looking proudly upon him, and old Kahtoo harangued his braves around the council-pole, while the prophet and Crooked Lightning sulked in their tents.

“My son spoke words of truth,” he proclaimed sonorously. “He warned us against the king over the waters and told us to make friends with the Americans. We did not heed his words, and so he brought the great chief of the Long Knives, who stood without fear among warriors more numerous than leaves and spoke the same words to all. We are friends of the Long Knives. My son is the true prophet. Bring out the false one and Crooked Lightning and Black Wolf, whose life my son saved though the two were enemies. My son shall do with them as he pleases.”

Many young braves sprang willingly forward and the three were haled before Erskine. Old Kahtoo waved his hand toward them and sat down. Erskine rose and fixed his eyes sternly on the cowering prophet:

“He shall go forth from the village and shall never return. For his words work mischief, he does foolish things, and his drumming frightens the game. He is a false prophet and he must go.” He turned to Crooked Lightning:

“The Indians have made peace with the Long Knives and White Arrow would make peace with any Indian, though an enemy. Crooked Lightning shall go or stay, as he pleases. Black Wolf shall stay, for the tribe will need him as a hunter and a warrior against the English foes of the Long Knives. White Arrow does not ask another to spare an enemy’s life and then take it away himself.”

The braves grunted approval. Black Wolf and Crooked Lightning averted their faces and the prophet shambled uneasily away. Again old Kahtoo proclaimed sonorously, “It is well!” and went back with Erskine to his tent. There he sank wearily on a buffalo-skin and plead with the boy to stay with them as chief in his stead. He was very old, and now that peace was made with the Long Knives he was willing to die. If Erskine would but give his promise, he would never rise again from where he lay.

Erskine shook his head and the old man sorrowfully turned his face.

XX

And yet Erskine lingered on and on at the village. Of the white woman he had learned little other than that she had been bought from another tribe and adopted by old Kahtoo; but it was plain that since the threatened burning of her she had been held in high respect by the whole tribe. He began to wonder about her and whether she might not wish to go back to her own people. He had never talked with her, but he never moved about the camp that he did not feel her eyes upon him. And Early Morn’s big soft eyes, too, never seemed to leave him. She brought him food, she sat at the door of his tent, she followed him about the village and bore herself openly as his slave. At last old Kahtoo, who would not give up his great hope, plead with him to marry her, and while he was talking the girl stood at the door of the tent and interrupted them. Her mother’s eyes were growing dim, she said. Her mother wanted to talk with White Arrow and look upon his face before her sight should altogether pass. Nor could Erskine know that the white woman wanted to look into the eyes of the man she hoped would become her daughter’s husband, but Kahtoo did, and he bade Erskine go. His foster-mother, coming upon the scene, scowled, but Erskine rose and went to the white woman’s tent. She sat just inside the opening, with a blanket across the lower half of her face, nor did she look at him. Instead she plied him with questions, and listened eagerly to his every word, and drew from him every detail of his life as far back as he could remember. Poor soul, it was the first opportunity for many years that she had had to talk with any white person who had been in the Eastern world, and freely and frankly he held nothing back. She had drawn her blanket close across her face while he was telling of his capture by the Indians and his life among them, his escape and the death of his father, and she was crying when he finished. He even told her a little of Barbara, and when in turn he questioned her, she told little, and his own native delicacy made him understand. She, too, had been captured with a son who would have been about Erskine’s age, but her boy and her husband had been killed. She had been made a slave and – now she drew the blanket across her eyes – after the birth of her daughter she felt she could never go back to her own people. Then her Indian husband had been killed and old Kahtoo had bought and adopted her, and she had not been forced to marry again. Now it was too late to leave the Indians. She loved her daughter; she would not subject her or herself to humiliation among the whites, and, anyhow, there was no one to whom she could go. And Erskine read deep into the woman’s heart and his own was made sad. Her concern was with her daughter – what would become of her? Many a young brave, besides Black Wolf, had put his heart at her little feet, but she would have none of them. And so Erskine was the heaven-sent answer to the mother’s prayers – that was the thought behind her mournful eyes.

All the while the girl had crouched near, looking at Erskine with doglike eyes, and when he rose to go the woman dropped the blanket from her face and got to her feet. Shyly she lifted her hands, took his face between them, bent close, and studied it searchingly:

“What is your name?”

“Erskine Dale.”

Without a word she turned back into her tent.

At dusk Erskine stood by the river’s brim, with his eyes lifted to a rising moon and his thoughts with Barbara on the bank of the James. Behind him he heard a rustle and, turning, he saw the girl, her breast throbbing and her eyes burning with a light he had never seen before.

“Black Wolf will kill you,” she whispered. “Black Wolf wants Early Morn and he knows that Early Morn wants White Arrow.” Erskine put both hands on her shoulders and looked down into her eyes. She trembled, and when his arms went about her she surged closer to him and the touch of her warm, supple body went through him like fire. And then with a triumphant smile she sprang back.

“Black Wolf will see,” she whispered, and fled. Erskine sank to the ground, with his head in his hands. The girl ran back to her tent, and the mother, peering at the flushed face and shining eyes, clove to the truth. She said nothing, but when the girl was asleep and faintly smiling, the white woman sat staring out into the moonlit woods, softly beating her breast.

XXI

Erskine had given Black Wolf his life, and the young brave had accepted the debt and fretted under it sorely. Erskine knew it, and all his kindness had been of little avail, for Black Wolf sulked sullenly by the fire or at his wigwam door. And when Erskine had begun to show some heed to Early Morn a fierce jealousy seized the savage, and his old hatred was reborn a thousandfold more strong – and that, too, Erskine now knew. Meat ran low and a hunting-party went abroad. Game was scarce and only after the second day was there a kill. Erskine had sighted a huge buck, had fired quickly and at close range. Wounded, the buck had charged, Erskine’s knife was twisted in his belt, and the buck was upon him before he could get it out. He tried to dart for a tree, stumbled, turned, and caught the infuriated beast by the horns. He uttered no cry, but the angry bellow of the stag reached the ears of Black Wolf through the woods, and he darted toward the sound. And he came none too soon. Erskine heard the crack of a rifle, the stag toppled over, and he saw Black Wolf standing over him with a curiously triumphant look on his saturnine face. In Erskine, when he rose, the white man was predominant, and he thrust out his hand, but Black Wolf ignored it.

“White Arrow gave Black Wolf his life. The debt is paid.”

Erskine looked at his enemy, nodded, and the two bore the stag away.

Instantly a marked change was plain in Black Wolf. He told the story of the fight with the buck to all. Boldly he threw off the mantle of shame, stalked haughtily through the village, and went back to open enmity with Erskine. At dusk a day or two later, when he was coming down the path from the white woman’s wigwam, Black Wolf confronted him, scowling.

“Early Morn shall belong to Black Wolf,” he said insolently. Erskine met his baleful, half-drunken eyes scornfully.

“We will leave that to Early Morn,” he said coolly, and then thundered suddenly:

“Out of my way!”

Black Wolf hesitated and gave way, but ever thereafter Erskine was on guard.

In the white woman, too, Erskine now saw a change. Once she had encouraged him to stay with the Indians; now she lost no opportunity to urge against it. She had heard that Hamilton would try to retake Vincennes, that he was forming a great force with which to march south, sweep through Kentucky, batter down the wooden forts, and force the Kentuckians behind the great mountain wall. Erskine would be needed by the whites, who would never understand or trust him if he should stay with the Indians. All this she spoke one day when Erskine came to her tent to talk. Her face had blanched, she had argued passionately that he must go, and Erskine was sorely puzzled. The girl, too, had grown rebellious and disobedient, for the change in her mother was plain also to her, and she could not understand. Moreover, Erskine’s stubbornness grew, and he began to flame within at the stalking insolence of Black Wolf, who slipped through the shadows of day and the dusk to spy on the two whereever they came together. And one day when the sun was midway, and in the open of the village, the clash came. Black Wolf darted forth from his wigwam, his eyes bloodshot with rage and drink, and his hunting-knife in his hand. A cry from Early Morn warned Erskine and he wheeled. As Black Wolf made a vicious slash at him he sprang aside, and with his fist caught the savage in the jaw. Black Wolf fell heavily and Erskine was upon him with his own knife at his enemy’s throat.

“Stop them!” old Kahtoo cried sternly, but it was the terrified shriek of the white woman that stayed Erskine’s hand. Two young braves disarmed the fallen Indian, and Kahtoo looked inquiringly at his adopted son.

“Turn him loose!” Erskine scorned. “I have no fear of him. He is a woman and drunk, but next time I shall kill him.”

The white woman had run down, caught Early Morn, and was leading her back to her tent. From inside presently came low, passionate pleading from the woman and an occasional sob from the girl. And when an hour later, at dusk, Erskine turned upward toward the tent, the girl gave a horrified cry, flashed from the tent, and darted for the high cliff over the river.

“Catch her!” cried the mother. “Quick!” Erskine fled after her, overtook her with her hands upraised for the plunge on the very edge of the cliff, and half carried her, struggling and sobbing, back to the tent. Within the girl dropped in a weeping heap, and with her face covered, and the woman turned to Erskine, agonized.

“I told her,” she whispered, “and she was going to kill herself. You are my son!”

Still sleepless at dawn, the boy rode Firefly into the woods. At sunset he came in, gaunt with brooding and hunger. His foster-mother brought him food, but he would not touch it. The Indian woman stared at him with keen suspicion, and presently old Kahtoo, passing slowly, bent on him the same look, but asked no question. Erskine gave no heed to either, but his mother, watching from her wigwam, understood and grew fearful. Quickly she stepped outside and called him, and he rose and went to her bewildered; she was smiling.

“They are watching,” she said, and Erskine, too, understood, and kept his back toward the watchers.

“I have decided,” he said. “You and she must leave here and go with me.”

His mother pretended much displeasure. “She will not leave, and I will not leave her” – her lips trembled – “and I would have gone long ago but – ”

“I understand,” interrupted Erskine, “but you will go now with your son.”

The poor woman had to scowl.

“No, and you must not tell them. They will never let me go, and they will use me to keep you here. You must go at once. She will never leave this tent as long as you are here, and if you stay she will die, or kill herself. Some day – ” She turned abruptly and went back into her tent. Erskine wheeled and went to old Kahtoo.

“You want Early Morn?” asked the old man. “You shall have her.”

“No,” said the boy, “I am going back to the big chief.”

“You are my son and I am old and weak.”

“I am a soldier and must obey the big chief’s commands, as must you.”

“I shall live,” said the old man wearily, “until you come again.”

Erskine nodded and went for his horse. Black Wolf watched him with malignant satisfaction, but said nothing – nor did Crooked Lightning. Erskine turned once as he rode away. His mother was standing outside her wigwam. Mournfully she waved her hand. Behind her and within the tent he could see Early Morn with both hands at her breast.

XXII

Dawned 1781.

The war was coming into Virginia at last. Virginia falling would thrust a great wedge through the centre of the Confederacy, feed the British armies and end the fight. Cornwallis was to drive the wedge, and never had the opening seemed easier. Virginia was drained of her fighting men, and south of the mountains was protected only by a militia, for the most part, of old men and boys. North and South ran despair. The soldiers had no pay, little food, and only old worn-out coats, tattered linen overalls, and one blanket between three men, to protect them from drifting snow and icy wind. Even the great Washington was near despair, and in foreign help his sole hope lay. Already the traitor, Arnold, had taken Richmond, burned warehouses, and returned, but little harassed, to Portsmouth.

In April, “the proudest man,” as Mr. Jefferson said, “of the proudest nation on earth,” one General Phillips, marching northward, paused opposite Richmond, and looked with amaze at the troop-crowned hills north of the river. Up there was a beardless French youth of twenty-three, with the epaulets of a major-general.

“He will not cross – hein?” said the Marquis de Lafayette. “Very well!” And they had a race for Petersburg, which the Britisher reached first, and straightway fell ill of a fever at “Bollingbrook.” A cannonade from the Appomattox hills saluted him.

“They will not let me die in peace,” said General Phillips, but he passed, let us hope, to it, and Benedict Arnold succeeded him.

Cornwallis was coming on. Tarleton’s white rangers were bedevilling the land, and it was at this time that Erskine Dale once more rode Firefly to the river James.

The boy had been two years in the wilds. When he left the Shawnee camp winter was setting in, that terrible winter of ‘79 – of deep snow and hunger and cold. When he reached Kaskaskia, Captain Clark had gone to Kentucky, and Erskine found bad news. Hamilton and Hay had taken Vincennes. There Captain Helm’s Creoles, as soon as they saw the redcoats, slipped away from him to surrender their arms to the British, and thus deserted by all, he and the two or three Americans with him had to give up the fort. The French reswore allegiance to Britain. Hamilton confiscated their liquor and broke up their billiard-tables. He let his Indians scatter to their villages, and with his regulars, volunteers, white Indian leaders, and red auxiliaries went into winter quarters. One band of Shawnees he sent to Ohio to scout and take scalps in the settlements. In the spring he would sweep Kentucky and destroy all the settlements west of the Alleghanies. So Erskine and Dave went for Clark; and that trip neither ever forgot. Storms had followed each other since late November and the snow lay deep. Cattle and horses perished, deer and elk were found dead in the woods, and buffalo came at nightfall to old Jerome Sanders’s fort for food and companionship with his starving herd. Corn gave out and no johnny-cakes were baked on long boards in front of the fire. There was no salt or vegetable food; nothing but the flesh of lean wild game. The only fat was with the bears in the hollows of trees, and every hunter was searching hollow trees. The breast of the wild turkey served for bread. Yet, while the frontiersmen remained crowded in the stockades and the men hunted and the women made clothes of tanned deer-hides, buffalo-wool cloth, and nettle-bark linen, and both hollowed “noggins” out of the knot of a tree, Clark made his amazing march to Vincennes, recaptured it by the end of February, and sent Hamilton to Williamsburg a prisoner. Erskine plead to be allowed to take him there, but Clark would not let him go. Permanent garrisons were placed at Vincennes and Cahokia, and at Kaskaskia. Erskine stayed to help make peace with the Indians, punish marauders and hunting bands, so that by the end of the year Clark might sit at the Falls of the Ohio as a shield for the west and a sure guarantee that the whites would never be forced to abandon wild Kentucky.