the Last Trail (1946)

by Grey, Zane

  "Jack, you can never tell how things is comin' out. Thet redskin I allowed might worry us a bit, fooled me as slick as you ever saw, an' I hed to shoot him. Knowin' it was a case of runnin', I just cut fer this oak, drew the redskins' fire, an' hed 'em arter me quicker 'n you'd say Jack Robinson. I was hopin' you'd be here; but wasn't sure till I'd seen your rifle. Then I kinder got a kink in my leg jest to coax the brutes on."

  "Three more quiet," said Jonathan Zane. "What now?"

  "We've headed Legget, an' we'll keep nosin' him off his course. Already he's lookin' fer a safe campin' place for the night."

  "There is none in these woods, fer him."

  "We didn't plan this gettin' between him an' his camp; but couldn't be better fixed. A mile farther along the ridge, is a campin' place, with a spring in a little dell close under a big stone, an' well wooded. Legget's headin' straight fer it. With a couple of Injuns guardin' thet spot, he'll think he's safe. But I know the place, an' can crawl to thet rock the darkest night thet ever was an' never crack a stick."

  * * * * *

  In the gray of the deepening twilight Jonathan Zane sat alone. An owl hooted dismally in the dark woods beyond the thicket where the borderman crouched waiting for Wetzel. His listening ear detected a soft, rustling sound like the play of a mole under the leaves. A branch trembled and swung back; a soft footstep followed and Wetzel came into the retreat.

  "Well?" asked Jonathan impatiently, as Wetzel deliberately sat down and laid his rifle across his knees.

  "Easy, Jack, easy. We've an hour to wait."

  "The time I've already waited has been long for me."

  "They're thar," said Wetzel grimly.

  "How far from here?"

  "A half-hour's slow crawl."

  "Close by?" hissed Jonathan.

  "Too near fer you to get excited."

  "Let us go; it's as light now as in the gray of mornin'."

  "Mornin' would be best. Injuns get sleepy along towards day. I've ever found thet time the best. But we'll be lucky if we ketch these redskins asleep."

  "Lew, I can't wait here all night. I won't leave her longer with that renegade. I've got to free or kill her."

  "Most likely it'll be the last," said Wetzel simply.

  "Well, so be it then," and the borderman hung his head.

  "You needn't worry none, 'bout Helen. I jest had a good look at her, not half an hour back. She's fagged out; but full of spunk yet. I seen thet when Brandt went near her. Legget's got his hands full jest now with the redskins. He's hevin' trouble keepin' them on this slow trail. I ain't sayin' they're skeered; but they're mighty restless."

  "Will you take the chance now?"

  "I reckon you needn't hev asked thet."

  "Tell me the lay of the land."

  "Wai, if we get to this rock I spoke 'bout, we'll be right over 'em. It's ten feet high, an' we can jump straight amongst 'em. Most likely two or three'll be guardin' the openin' which is a little ways to the right. Ther's a big tree, the only one, low down by the spring. Helen's under it, half-sittin', half-leanin' against the roots. When I first looked, her hands were free; but I saw Brandt bind her feet. An' he had to get an Injun to help him, fer she kicked like a spirited little filly. There's moss under the tree an' there's where the redskins'll lay down to rest."

  "I've got that; now out with your plan."

  "Wal, I calkilate it's this. The moon'll be up in about an hour. We'll crawl as we've never crawled afore, because Helen's life depends as much on our not makin' a noise, as it does on fightin' when the time comes. If they hear us afore we're ready to shoot, the lass'll be tomahawked quicker'n lightnin'. If they don't suspicion us, when the right moment comes you shoot Brandt, yell louder'n you ever did afore, leap amongst 'em, an' cut down the first Injun thet's near you on your way to Helen. Swing her over your arm, an' dig into the woods."

  "Well?" asked Jonathan when Wetzel finished.

  "That's all," the borderman replied grimly.

  "An' leave you all alone to fight Legget an' the rest of 'em?"

  "I reckon."

  "Not to be thought of."

  "Ther's no other way."

  "There must be! Let me think; I can't, I'm not myself."

  "No other way," repeated Wetzel curtly.

  Jonathan's broad hand fastened on Wetzel's shoulder and wheeled him around.

  "Have I ever left you alone?"

  "This's different," and Wetzel turned away again. His voice was cold and hard.

  "How is it different? We've had the same thing to do, almost, more than once."

  "We've never had as bad a bunch to handle as Legget's. They're lookin' fer us, an' will be hard to beat."

  "That's no reason."

  "We never had to save a girl one of us loved."

  Jonathan was silent.

  "I said this'd be my last trail," continued Wetzel. "I felt it, an' I know it'll be yours."

  "Why?"

  "If you get away with the girl she'll keep you at home, an' it'll be well. If you don't succeed, you'll die tryin', so it's sure your last trail."

  Wetzel's deep, cold voice rang with truth.

  "Lew, I can't run away an' leave you to fight those devils alone, after all these years we've been together, I can't."

  "No other chance to save the lass."

  Jonathan quivered with the force of his emotion. His black eyes glittered; his hands grasped at nothing. Once more he was between love and duty. Again he fought over the old battle, but this time it left him weak.

  "You love the big-eyed lass, don't you?" asked Wetzel, turning with softened face and voice.

  "I have gone mad!" cried Jonathan, tortured by the simple question of his friend. Those big, dear, wonderful eyes he loved so well, looked at him now from the gloom of the thicket. The old, beautiful, soft glow, the tender light, was there, and more, a beseeching prayer to save her.

  Jonathan bowed his head, ashamed to let his friend see the tears that dimmed his eyes.

  "Jack, we've follered the trail fer years together. Always you've been true an' staunch. This is our last, but whatever bides we'll break up Legget's band to-night, an' the border'll be cleared, mebbe, for always. At least his race is run. Let thet content you. Our time'd have to come, sooner or later, so why not now? I know how it is, that you want to stick by me; but the lass draws you to her. I understand, an' want you to save her. Mebbe you never dreamed it; but I can tell jest how you feel. All the tremblin', an' softness, an' sweetness, an' delight you've got for thet girl, is no mystery to Lew Wetzel."

  "You loved a lass?"

  Wetzel bowed his head, as perhaps he had never before in all his life.

  "Betty--always," he answered softly.

  "My sister!" exclaimed Jonathan, and then his hand closed hard on his comrade's, his mind going back to many things, strange in the past, but now explained. Wetzel had revealed his secret.

  "An' it's been all my life, since she wasn't higher 'n my knee. There was a time when I might hev been closer to you than I am now. But I was a mad an' bloody Injun hater, so I never let her know till I seen it was too late. Wal, wal, no more of me. I only told it fer you."

  Jonathan was silent.

  "An' now to come back where we left off," continued Wetzel. "Let's take a more hopeful look at this comin' fight. Sure I said it was my last trail, but mebbe it's not. You can never tell. Feelin' as we do, I imagine they've no odds on us. Never in my life did I say to you, least of all to any one else, what I was goin' to do; but I'll tell it now. If I land uninjured amongst thet bunch, I'll kill them all."

  The giant borderman's low voice hissed, and stung. His eyes glittered with unearthly fire. His face was cold and gray. He spread out his brawny arms and clenched his huge fists, making the muscles of his broad shoulders roll and bulge.

  "I hate the thought, Lew, I hate the thought. Ain't there no other way?"

  "No other way."

  "I'll do it, Lew, because I'd do the same for you; because I have to, because I lov
e her; but God! it hurts."

  "Thet's right," answered Wetzel, his deep voice softening until it was singularly low and rich. "I'm glad you've come to it. An' sure it hurts. I want you to feel so at leavin' me to go it alone. If we both get out alive, I'll come many times to see you an' Helen. If you live an' I don't, think of me sometimes, think of the trails we've crossed together. When the fall comes with its soft, cool air, an' smoky mornin's an' starry nights, when the wind's sad among the bare branches, an' the leaves drop down, remember they're fallin' on my grave."

  Twilight darkened into gloom; the red tinge in the west changed to opal light; through the trees over a dark ridge a rim of silver glinted and moved.

  The moon had risen; the hour was come.

  The bordermen tightened their belts, replaced their leggings, tied their hunting coats, loosened their hatchets, looked to the priming of their rifles, and were ready.

  Wetzel walked twenty paces and turned. His face was white in the moonlight; his dark eyes softened into a look of love as he gripped his comrade's outstretched hand.

  Then he dropped flat on the ground, carefully saw to the position of his rifle, and began to creep. Jonathan kept close at his heels.

  Slowly but steadily they crawled, minute after minute. The hazel-nut bushes above them had not yet shed their leaves; the ground was clean and hard, and the course fatefully perfect for their deadly purpose.

  A slight rustling of their buckskin garments sounded like the rustling of leaves in a faint breeze.

  The moon came out above the trees and still Wetzel advanced softly, steadily, surely.

  The owl, lonely sentinel of that wood, hooted dismally. Even his night eyes, which made the darkness seem clear as day, missed those gliding figures. Even he, sure guardian of the wilderness, failed the savages.

  Jonathan felt soft moss beneath him; he was now in the woods under the trees. The thicket had been passed.

  Wetzel's moccasin pressed softly against Jonathan's head. The first signal!

  Jonathan crawled forward, and slightly raised himself.

  He was on a rock. The trees were thick and gloomy. Below, the little hollow was almost in the wan moonbeams. Dark figures lay close together. Two savages paced noiselessly to and fro. A slight form rolled in a blanket lay against a tree.

  Jonathan felt his arm gently squeezed.

  The second signal!

  Slowly he thrust forward his rifle, and raised it in unison with Wetzel's. Slowly he rose to his feet as if the same muscles guided them both.

  Over his head a twig snapped. In the darkness he had not seen a low branch.

  The Indian guards stopped suddenly, and became motionless as stone.

  They had heard; but too late.

  With the blended roar of the rifles both dropped, lifeless.

  Almost under the spouting flame and white cloud of smoke, Jonathan leaped behind Wetzel, over the bank. His yells were mingled with Wetzel's vengeful cry. Like leaping shadows the bordermen were upon their foes.

  An Indian sprang up, raised a weapon, and fell beneath Jonathan's savage blow, to rise no more. Over his prostrate body the borderman bounded. A dark, nimble form darted upon the captive. He swung high a blade that shone like silver in the moonlight. His shrill war-cry of death rang out with Helen's scream of despair. Even as he swung back her head with one hand in her long hair, his arm descended; but it fell upon the borderman's body. Jonathan and the Indian rolled upon the moss. There was a terrific struggle, a whirling blade, a dull blow which silenced the yell, and the borderman rose alone.

  He lifted Helen as if she were a child, leaped the brook, and plunged into the thicket.

  The noise of the fearful conflict he left behind, swelled high and hideously on the night air. Above the shrill cries of the Indians, and the furious yells of Legget, rose the mad, booming roar of Wetzel. No rifle cracked; but sodden blows, the clash of steel, the threshing of struggling men, told of the dreadful strife.

  Jonathan gained the woods, sped through the moonlit glades, and far on under light and shadow.

  The shrill cries ceased; only the hoarse yells and the mad roar could be heard. Gradually these also died away, and the forest was still.

  CHAPTER XXI

  Next morning, when the mist was breaking and rolling away under the warm rays of the Indian-summer sun, Jonathan Zane beached his canoe on the steep bank before Fort Henry. A pioneer, attracted by the borderman's halloo, ran to the bluff and sounded the alarm with shrill whoops. Among the hurrying, brown-clad figures that answered this summons, was Colonel Zane.

  "It's Jack, kurnel, an' he's got her!" cried one.

  The doughty colonel gained the bluff to see his brother climbing the bank with a white-faced girl in his arms.

  "Well?" he asked, looking darkly at Jonathan. Nothing kindly or genial was visible in his manner now; rather grim and forbidding he seemed, thus showing he had the same blood in his veins as the borderman.

  "Lend a hand," said Jonathan. "As far as I know she's not hurt."

  They carried Helen toward Colonel Zane's cabin. Many women of the settlement saw them as they passed, and looked gravely at one another, but none spoke. This return of an abducted girl was by no means a strange event.

  "Somebody run for Sheppard," ordered Colonel Zane, as they entered his cabin.

  Betty, who was in the sitting-room, sprang up and cried: "Oh! Eb! Eb! Don't say she's----"

  "No, no, Betts, she's all right. Where's my wife? Ah! Bess, here, get to work."

  The colonel left Helen in the tender, skilful hands of his wife and sister, and followed Jonathan into the kitchen.

  "I was just ready for breakfast when I heard some one yell," said he. "Come, Jack, eat something."

  They ate in silence. From the sitting-room came excited whispers, a joyous cry from Betty, and a faint voice. Then heavy, hurrying footsteps, followed by Sheppard's words of thanks-giving.

  "Where's Wetzel?" began Colonel Zane.

  The borderman shook his head gloomily.

  "Where did you leave him?"

  "We jumped Legget's bunch last night, when the moon was about an hour high. I reckon about fifteen miles northeast. I got away with the lass."

  "Ah! Left Lew fighting?"

  The borderman answered the question with bowed head.

  "You got off well. Not a hurt that I can see, and more than lucky to save Helen. Well, Jack, what do you think about Lew?"

  "I'm goin' back," replied Jonathan.

  "No! no!"

  The door opened to admit Mrs. Zane. She looked bright and cheerful, "Hello, Jack; glad you're home. Helen's all right, only faint from hunger and over-exertion. I want something for her to eat--well! you men didn't leave much."

  Colonel Zane went into the sitting-room. Sheppard sat beside the couch where Helen lay, white and wan. Betty and Nell were looking on with their hearts in their eyes. Silas Zane was there, and his wife, with several women neighbors.

  "Betty, go fetch Jack in here," whispered the colonel in his sister's ear. "Drag him, if you have to," he added fiercely.

  The young woman left the room, to reappear directly with her brother. He came in reluctantly.

  As the stern-faced borderman crossed the threshold a smile, beautiful to see, dawned in Helen's eyes.

  "I'm glad to see you're comin' round," said Jonathan, but he spoke dully as if his mind was on other things.

  "She's a little flighty; but a night's sleep will cure that," cried Mrs. Zane from the kitchen.

  "What do you think?" interrupted the colonel. "Jack's not satisfied to get back with Helen unharmed, and a whole skin himself; but he's going on the trail again."

  "No, Jack, no, no!" cried Betty.

  "What's that I hear?" asked Mrs. Zane as she came in. "Jack's going out again? Well, all I want to say is that he's as mad as a March hare."

  "Jonathan, look here," said Silas seriously. "Can't you stay home now?"

  "Jack, listen," whispered Betty, going close to him. "Not one of
us ever expected to see either you or Helen again, and oh! we are so happy. Do not go away again. You are a man; you do not know, you cannot understand all a woman feels. She must sit and wait, and hope, and pray for the safe return of husband or brother or sweetheart. The long days! Oh, the long sleepless nights, with the wail of the wind in the pines, and the rain on the roof! It is maddening. Do not leave us! Do not leave me! Do not leave Helen! Say you will not, Jack."

  To these entreaties the borderman remained silent. He stood leaning on his rifle, a tall, dark, strangely sad and stern man.

  "Helen, beg him to stay!" implored Betty.

  Colonel Zane took Helen's hand, and stroked it. "Yes," he said, "you ask him, lass. I'm sure you can persuade him to stay."

  Helen raised her head. "Is Brandt dead?" she whispered faintly.

  Still the borderman failed to speak, but his silence was not an affirmative.

  "You said you loved me," she cried wildly. "You said you loved me, yet you didn't kill that monster!"

  The borderman, moving quickly like a startled Indian, went out of the door.

  * * * * *

  Once more Jonathan Zane entered the gloomy, quiet aisles of the forest with his soft, tireless tread hardly stirring the leaves.

  It was late in the afternoon when he had long left Two Islands behind, and arrived at the scene of Mordaunt's death. Satisfied with the distance he had traversed, he crawled into a thicket to rest.

  Daybreak found him again on the trail. He made a short cut over the ridges and by the time the mist had lifted from the valley he was within stalking distance of the glade. He approached this in the familiar, slow, cautious manner, and halted behind the big rock from which he and Wetzel had leaped. The wood was solemnly quiet. No twittering of birds could be heard. The only sign of life was a gaunt timber-wolf slinking away amid the foliage. Under the big tree the savage who had been killed as he would have murdered Helen, lay a crumpled mass where he had fallen. Two dead Indians were in the center of the glade, and on the other side were three more bloody, lifeless forms. Wetzel was not there, nor Legget, nor Brandt.

  "I reckoned so," muttered Jonathan as he studied the scene. The grass had been trampled, the trees barked, the bushes crushed aside.