Balle-Franche. English

by Gustave Aimard

  CHAPTER XVIII.

  A MOTHER'S CONFESSION.

  "It is just seventeen years ago, you will remember, Harry; you hadrecently received your commission as lieutenant in the army; you wereyoung, enthusiastic; the future appeared to you to be drawn in thebrightest colours. One evening, during weather like the present, youcame to my husband's clearing, to tell us the news, and bid us anaffectionate farewell; for you hoped, like ourselves, not to be longaway from us. The next morning, in spite of our entreaties, afterembracing the children, pressing the hand of my poor husband, wholoved you so, and giving me a parting kiss, you galloped off, and soondisappeared in a whirlwind of dust. Alas! who could have foretold thatwe should not meet again till today, after seventeen years' separation,upon Indian territory, and under terrible circumstances? However,"she added, with a sigh, "God has willed it so, may His holy name beblessed! It has pleased Him to try His creatures, and let His hand fallheavily on them."

  "It was with a strange contraction of the heart," the Major said, "thatsix months after that parting, when I returned among you with a joyousheart, I saw, on dismounting in front of your house, a stranger openyour door, and answer, that the white family had emigrated three monthsbefore, and proceeded in a western direction, with the intention offounding a new settlement on the Indian frontier. It was in vain that Itried to gain any information about you from your neighbours; they hadforgotten you; no one could or would, perhaps, give me the slightestnews about you, and I was forced to retrace, heartbroken, the road Ihad ridden along so joyfully a few days before. Since then, despite allthe efforts I have made, I never was able to learn anything about yourfate, or lift the mysterious veil that covered the sinister events towhich I was convinced you had fallen victims during your journey."

  "You are only half deceived, my brother, in your supposition," she wenton. "Two months after your visit, my husband, who had long desired toleave our clearing, where he said the land was worth nothing, had agrave dispute with one of his neighbours about the limits of a fieldof which he believed, or pretended to believe, that neighbour had cutoff a corner: under any other circumstances, the difference would havebeen easily settled, but my husband sought an excuse to go away, andhaving found it, did not let it slip again. He would listen to nothing,but quietly made all his arrangements for the expedition he had so longmeditated, and at length told us one day that he should start the next.When my husband had once said a thing, all I could do was to obey, forhe never recalled a determination he had formed. On the appointed dayat sunrise, we left the clearing, our neighbours accompanying us forthe first day's journey, and at nightfall left us, after hearty wishesfor the success of our expedition. It was with inexpressible sorrow Iquitted the house where I was married, where my children were born,and where I had been happy for so many years. My husband tried invain to console me, and restore me that courage which failed me; butnothing could efface from my mind the gentle and pious recollections Ipreviously kept up: the deeper we buried ourselves in the desert, thegreater my sorrow became. My husband, on the other hand saw everythingin a bright light; the future belonged to him; he was about to be hisown master, and act as he thought proper. He detailed to me all hisplans, tried to interest me in them, and employed all the means in hispower to draw me from my gloomy thoughts, but could not succeed. Stillwe went onwards without stopping. The distance became daily greaterbetween ourselves and the last settlements of our countrymen. In vaindid I show my husband how remote we were from all help in case ofdanger, and the isolation in which we should find ourselves; he onlylaughed at my apprehensions; repeated incessantly that the Indianswere far from being so dangerous as they were represented, and that wehad nothing to fear. My husband was so convinced of the truth of hisassertions, that he neglected the most simple precautions to defendhimself against a surprise, and said each morning, with a mocking air,at the moment of starting, 'You see how foolish you are, Margaret; bereasonable, the Indians will be careful not to insult us,' One nightthe camp was attacked by the Redskins, we were surprised during oursleep; my husband was flayed alive, while his children were burned at aslow fire before his face."

  While uttering these words, the poor woman's voice became more and morechoked. At the last sentences, her emotion grew so profound, that shecould not continue.

  "Courage!" the Major said, as much moved as herself, but more master ofhis feelings.

  She made an effort, and continued in a harsh, unmodulated voice,--

  "By a refinement of cruelty, the barbarism of which I did not at firstunderstand, my youngest child, my daughter, was spared by the Pagans.On seeing the punishment of my husband and children, at which I wasforced to be present, I felt such a laceration of the heart, that Iimagined I was dying. I uttered a shriek, and fell down. How long Iremained in that state, I know not: but when I regained my senses,I was alone. The Indians, doubtlessly, fancied me dead, and leftme where I lay. I rose, and not conscious of what I was doing, butimpelled by a force superior to my will, I returned, tottering andfalling almost at every step, to the spot where this mournful tragedyhad been enacted. It took me three hours--how was I so far from thecamp?--at length I arrived, and a fearful sight presented itself tomy horror-struck eyes. I looked unconscious upon the disfigured andhalf carbonized bodies of my children--my despair, however, restoredmy failing strength. I dug a grave, and, half delirious with grief,buried in it husband and children, all that I loved on earth. Thispious duty accomplished, I resolved to die at the spot where thebeings so dear to me had perished. But there are hours during the longnights in which the shades of the dead address the living, and orderthem to take vengeance! That terrific voice from the tomb I heard on asinister night, when the elements threatened to overthrow nature. Fromthat moment my resolution was formed. I consented to live for revenge.From that hour I have walked firm and implacable on the path I traced,requiting the Pagans, on every opportunity that presents itself, forthe evil they had done me. I have become the terror of the prairies.The Indians fear me as an evil genius. They have a superstitiousinvincible dread of me; in short, they have surnamed me the LyingShe-wolf of the Prairies; for each time a catastrophe menaces them, ora frightful danger is hanging over their heads, they see me appear. Forseventeen years I have been nursing my revenge, without ever growingdiscouraged, certain that the day will come when, in my turn, I shallplant my knee on the heart of my enemies, and inflict on them theatrocious torture they condemned me to suffer."

  The woman's face, while uttering these words, had assumed such anexpression of cruelty, that the Major brave as he was, felt himselfshudder.

  "And your enemies," he said, after a moment's delay, "do you know them,have you learned their names?"

  "I know them all!" she said, in a piercing voice; "I have learned alltheir names!"

  "And they are preparing to break the peace?" Mrs. Margaret smiledironically.

  "No, they will not break the peace, brother, but attack you suddenly.They have formed among themselves a formidable league, which--at leastthey fancy so--you will find it impossible to resist."

  "Sister!" the Major exclaimed energetically, "give me the name ofthese wretched traitors, and I swear that, even were they concealedin the depths of Hades, I will seek them, to inflict an exemplarychastisement."

  "I cannot give you these names yet, brother; but be at ease, you shallsoon know them; you will not have to seek them far, for I will leadthem under the guns of your soldiers and hunters."

  "Take care, Margaret," the Major said, shaking his head, "hatred isa bad counsellor in an affair like this; he who grasps at too much,frequently risks the loss of all."

  "Oh," she replied, "my precautions have been taken for a long time:I hold them, I can seize them whenever I please, or, to speak morecorrectly, when the moment has arrived."

  "Do as you think proper, sister, and reckon on my devoted aid: thisvengeance affects me too closely for me to allow it to escape."

  "Thanks," she said.

  "Pardon me," he continued, after a few minu
tes' reflection, "if Irevert to the sad events you have just narrated; but you have, itstrikes me, forgotten an important detail in your story."

  "I do not understand you, Harry."

  "I will explain: you said, I think, if my memory serves me, that youryoungest daughter escaped from the frightful fate of her brothers, andwas saved by an Indian."

  "Yes, I did say so, brother," she replied in an oppressed voice.

  "Well, what has become of the unhappy child? Does she still live? Haveyou any news of her? Have you seen her again?"

  "She lives, and I have seen her."

  "Ah!"

  "Yes; the man who saved her educated her, even adopted her," she said,sarcastically. "Do you know what this wretch would do with the daughterof the man he murdered, whom he flayed alive before my eyes?"

  "Speak; in Heaven's name!

  "What I have to say is very dreadful! it is so frightful, indeed, thatI hesitate to reveal it to you."

  "Good God!" the Major ejaculated, recoiling involuntarily before hissister's flaming glance.

  "Well," she continued, with a strident laugh, "this girl has grown up,the child has become a woman, as lovely as it is possible to be. Thisman, this monster, this demon, has felt his tiger heart soften at thesight of the angel; he loves her to distraction, he wishes to make herhis wife."

  "Horror!" the Major exclaimed.

  "Is that not truly hideous?" she continued, still with that nervous,spasmodic laugh which it pains one to hear: "he has pardoned hisvictim's daughter. Yes, he is generous, he forgets the atrocioustorture he inflicted on the father, and now covets the daughter."

  "Oh, that is frightful, Margaret; so much infamy and cynicism isimpossible, even among Indians!"

  "Do you believe, then, that I am deceiving you?"

  "Far from me be such a thought, sister; the man is a monster."

  "Yes, yes, so he is."

  "You have seen your daughter; you have talked with her?"

  "Yes; well, what then?"

  "You have, doubtless, turned her from this monstrous love?"

  "I!" she replied, with a grin, "I did not say a word to her about it."

  "What!" he said, in amazement.

  "By what right could I have spoken?"

  "How, by what right--Are you not her mother?"

  "She does not know it!"

  "Oh!"

  "And my vengeance?" she said, coldly. This word which so thoroughlyexplained the character of the woman, had before struck the heart ofthe old soldier with terror.

  "Unhappy woman!" he exclaimed.

  A smile of disdain curled the She-wolf's lip.

  "Yes, so you are," she said, with a bitter voice, "you men of cities,with natures worn out by civilization. To understand a passion, itmust be kept within certain limits, traced beforehand. The grandeur ofhatred, with all its fury and excesses, terrifies you; you only admitthat legal and halting vengeance which the criminal code sanctions.Brother, he who wishes the end, wishes the means. To arrive at myobject, what do I care, do you think, whether I walk over ruins or wadethrough blood? No, I go straight before me, with the fatal impetuosityof the torrent which breaks down and overthrows all the obstacles whichrise in its passage. My object is vengeance! blood for blood, eyefor eye; that is the law of the prairies. I have made it mine, and Iwill obtain that vengeance, if for it I--. But," she added, suddenlybreaking off, "what need of this useless discussion between us,brother? Reassure yourself my daughter has been better warned by herinstincts than all the advice I could have given her. She does not lovethis man. I know it, she told me so; she will never love him."

  "Heaven be praised!" the Major exclaimed.

  "I have only one desire; only one," she continued with a melancholyair; "it is after the accomplishment of my vengeance, to recover mydaughter, press her to my heart, and cover her with kisses, while atlength revealing to her that I am her mother."

  The Major shook his head sorrowfully.

  "Take care, sister," he said, in a stern voice; "God has said,'Vengeance is mine!' take care, lest, after wishing to assume theoffice of Providence, you may be cruelly chastised by it in some ofyour dearest affections."

  "Oh, say not so, Harry!" she exclaimed with a sign of terror; "youwould turn me mad."

  The Major let his head sink on hid breast. For a while brother andsister remained opposite each other, not uttering a word; they wereboth reflecting. The She-wolf was the first to renew the conversation.

  "Now, brother," she said, "if you will permit me, we will leave thismournful subject for a moment, and allude to what concerns you moreparticularly, that is, the formidable conspiracy formed against you bythe Indians."

  "On my word," he replied, with a sigh of relief, "I confess, sister,that I ask nothing better; my head is confused, and I believe that ifthis went on much longer, I should be unable to re-collect my thoughts,so much am I affected by what you have told me."

  "Thanks,"

  "Night is drawing on, Margaret; indeed, it has almost entirely slippedaway, we have not a moment to lose, so pray continue."

  "Is the garrison complete?"

  "Yes."

  "How many men have you?"

  "Seventy, without counting some fifteen hunters and trappers occupiedwithout, but whom I will recall without delay."

  "Very good: do you require the whole of the garrison for the defence ofthe fort?"

  "That is according. Why?"

  "Because I want to borrow twenty men of you."

  "Hum I for what object?"

  "You shall learn; you are alone here, without any hopes of help, andfor this reason: while the Indians are burning the fort, they willintercept your communication with Fort Clarke, Fort Union, and theother posts scattered along the Missouri."

  "I fear it, but what can I do?"

  "I will tell you; you have doubtless heard of an American squatter, whosettled hardly a week back about three or four leagues from you?"

  "I have; a certain John Black, I think."

  "That is the man; well, his clearing will naturally serve you as anadvanced post?"

  "Famously."

  "Profit by the short time left you; under pretence of a buffalo hunt,send twenty men from the fort, and conceal them at John Black's, sothat when the moment for action arrives, they may make a demonstrationin your favour, which will place the enemies between two fires, andmake them suppose that reinforcements have reached you from otherposts."

  "That is a good idea," the Major said. "You must choose men on whom youcan count."

  "They are all devoted to me; you shall see them at work."

  "All the better; then that is settled!"

  "It is."

  "Now, as it is urgent that no one should know of our relations, as itmight compromise the success of our scheme, I must ask you to open thegates of the fort for me.

  "What, so soon, in this frightful weather?"

  "I must, brother, it is of the utmost importance that I should start atonce."

  "You insist."

  "I beg it of you, Harry, for our common benefit."

  "Come, then, sister, I will detain you no longer."

  Two minutes later, in spite of the storm which still howled with thesame fury, the She-wolf was rowing from Fort Mackenzie at full speed.