Manly Wade Wellman - Novel 1966

by Battle at Bear Paw Gap (v1. 1)

  Mark felt his blood run cold. He was amazed at the feeling, for until now things had moved too fast for him to find time for any chills of apprehension.

  “Faith, Tsukala,” spoke up Philip Lapham, “you tell us that a whole nation of Indians is in these parts, to plan our ruin.”

  “Indians of many nations,” Tsukala reminded again. “Bad Indians. Like wolves, like snakes. More, I think, than there are of you men. More Indians than all white men at Bear Paw Gap.”

  Leland Stoke shrugged, perhaps to beat a quiver of dismay from his limbs. He squinted to peer among the trees around them.

  “For all we can say, they may be stealing back to surprise us at this very moment,” he said.

  Tsukala made a negative fluttering gesture with his hand. “No, not now,” he said. “They have lost two men. I think they will wait and talk before they come to fight.”

  “Fight they will,” Lapham predicted. “We’ve shed their blood, and they’ll burn to shed ours.”

  Jarrett breathed deeply again, and turned away toward the stream. “Let’s not wait here for them to come,” he decreed. “I won’t let myself fear Indians, but I’d rather meet them on ground of our own choosing.”

  They headed back the way they had come. Tsukala walked between Mark and his father.

  “But how did so many outlaw Indians come together, from tribes that live far apart and are not friendly each to the other?” Mark wondered aloud. “What Indian among them thought of that device?”

  “No Indian, maybe,” said Tsukala.

  Mark’s father stared. “But you have been telling us that these are Indians from several tribes,” he said. “If no Indian gathered them into a body, then who?”

  “I tried to look at all those tracks, quick,” said Tsukala. “I saw some tracks that were not Indian tracks. Their toes pointed out, like tracks of a white man.”

  For some paces the party moved along in silence.

  “ ’Tis a strange thought, and an ugly one,” muttered Jarrett at last. “A white man among outlaw Indians. Perhaps he leads them, directs them against us. I ask myself, what sort of white man would run the woods in such evil company?”

  “I told you those Indians have bad hearts,” Tsukala said. “I told you their peoples have driven them out. I think it is like that with this white man.”

  “Egad, a true word!” exclaimed Leland Stoke, coming alongside. “He’ll be an outlaw himself— hunted and banished from among his own kind, as Jipi and those others have been banished from theirs.”

  “Yuh,” assented Tsukala. “Their hearts are bad, but his heart is very bad. Among them all, he is worst. Worse, I think, than Jipi.”

  To Mark, the forest air seemed suddenly to grow cold and dark and terrifying.

  CHAPTER VI

  Night Adventure

  That evening at sundown, Mark sat on the threshold log of the Jarrett kitchen door, drawing the charge from his rifle.

  The men of Bear Paw Gap had gathered for the most earnest of councils that day after noon dinner. After consulting with Tsukala, Jarrett had pointed out to his neighbors that the hovering near at hand of more than a score of Indian warriors meant a threat of something beyond off-hand violence and plunder. So large a band would never gather save for considerable blood and booty. The threat was a dire one, and concerned every household in the region.

  The three households beyond Jarrett’s Ridge, the Sheltons, Ramseys, and Laphams, had voted to gather for the time and live at the home of Seth Ramsey, largest house of the three. Their stock would be penned together, and final reaping of crops would be done in force, with weapons at hand as well as tools. The Jarrett and Hollon families, close together, might also feel something like security in their numbers, and Leland Stoke and his son, with their two wives, were certain that they could defend their snug cave dwelling against a host. Durwell and Schneider, at the mill, seemed apprehensive, but vowed to keep a sharp lookout.

  Jarrett had advised the furbishing and loading of every single rifle, musket, and pistol in every house. A policy of defense was adopted, with no thoughtless ventures south of the Black Willow for the time being.

  Mark’s pondering on these things was interrupted by the appearance of his sturdy cousin Esau, who came and leaned his rifle against the cabin wall.

  “Ha, Mark, you’ve had high excitement this day,” said Esau. “I envy you for what you’ve seen and done, scouting close to those redskin slinkers and then escaping.”

  “I take no pride or pleasure from it,” was Mark’s sober reply. “I’m only glad that I came off with a whole skin from that encounter.”

  Esau sat beside him. “Your bullet struck an enemy and felled him. How do you feel to have done that?”

  “I could wish I might never have it to do again,” said Mark, oiling a scrap of cloth and pushing it down the muzzle of his rifle with the long ramrod. “Esau, I’m ready to fight as true and fierce as any if it must be done. But we’ve had mystery and trouble enough and to spare at Bear Paw Gap, just to hold our homes among these rocks and trees.”

  “That’s the truth,” Esau agreed. “ ’Twas our former troubles I come to speak of. Do you remember our fear of an Indian spirit, the Fire-Carrier? It was said to put a curse upon our homesteads. And then ’twas proven to be but a scurvy trick, meant to scare us away.”

  “I’m not likely to forget those times, not if I live to be a hundred,” Mark said, taking another rag to swab the rifle bore a second time. “I would that we had solved this present threat and riddle as we solved that one.”

  “The earlier mystery may help solve this new one,” said Esau meaningfully. “You remember also that of all those settled here, the least to be suspected was Barney Cole. Who were so amazed as you and I when he proved to be a mountebank knave, playing tricks and frightening great and small? And all the while he pretended to be a silly, timid old man. Now, I say that perhaps a like subtlety is being attempted upon us.”

  “How’s that, Esau?” asked Mark, uncomprehendingly.

  “Tsukala spoke of a white man’s tracks among all those of the Indian raiders,” Esau reminded him. “It gives me to wonder, which of the white men here might have made those tracks and perhaps directed those Indians?”

  Mark laughed, despite his own sober concern for the plight of the settlers. “Nay, Esau, Tsukala did not recognize those tracks. He knows the print of every foot in Bear Paw Gap. He can read prints as you and I read letters in a book.”

  Esau shook his head violently. “Tsukala did not tarry to make a close study of those tracks. He himself said that he did not know how many men had made tracks; he did not wait to see. I’ll engage that could we but see the feet that left traces there—the white men’s feet, with toes out—we’d know those feet well, and recognize the body and the face above them.”

  Mark inspected the latest of the rags he had used to clean the barrel of his rifle. It showed white and he turned his attention to oiling the lock.

  “Who then do you think it was?” he inquired.

  “Who but Simon Durwell’s German servant, Bram Schneider?” flung back Esau triumphantly.

  Mark stared. “Never Schneider, Esau. Why, he trembles at the very mention of Indians.”

  “Barney Cole pretended to fear Indians and their evil spirits, before we unmasked him,” argued Esau. “See now, Bram Schneider is a foreigner among us.”

  “We’re all foreigners in America, or we were a few generations back,” Mark pointed out.

  “I mean, Schneider was a Hessian soldier, and came here to fight our fathers and destroy American liberties,” said Esau.

  “He was drafted to that service unwillingly/’ Mark rejoined. “At the first chance he saw, he left the British cause to live among Americans.”

  “Aye, for he must have known his side was losing the war.” Esau tapped Mark’s arm with his finger. “Think, Mark. Today, when you came back to the mill from your scouting of those outlaw savages, was Schneider there?”

  “Why
, to be sure. As I came to the river and looked across, I saw him come from behind the mill shed.”

  “And you cannot say where he had been before that,” said Esau triumphantly. “He may have been with the Indians, and he may have hurried back ahead of you.” Esau rose to his feet. “You are more stubborn than your wont when you defend him. I came to seek your help in learning if he means us harm. If you will not join me, I must scout him alone. I go now to do that.”

  “Nay, Esau, we won’t quarrel,” Mark placated him. “And you’re right, we should overlook no possible hint of danger. I’ll help you study Schneider, if only to make sure that he’s no more than a timid, harmless fellow in a strange and perilous land.”

  A movement inside the open door. “Mark?” came Celia’s soft voice. “Is that Esau with you?”

  “Aye, Celia, come out and talk with us,” invited Esau. “I’m all nerves as it gets darker,” she confessed.

  “Mark, I heard but the half of all that scouting and shooting of yours today.”

  “Do not ask me to tell you the other half,” Mark said, rising from the log. “I’m glad that I got not so much as a scratch.”

  “I am glad, too,” said Celia. She sat on the log and clasped her hands around her knees, looking across the yard with wide, troubled eyes. Mark carefully examined his rifle in the last light of the day, and told himself that it was spotlessly clean, inside and out. He began to load it again, very carefully.

  “I hope and pray that those savages have gone back to whatever place they came from,” said Celia, but her voice suggested that the hope was a faint one.

  “Come, Celia, be of good cheer,” Esau rallied her.

  “Aye, you never were a coward,” Mark added, and he thought of how he had first seen Celia Vesper, that very spring.

  Mark remembered the day of his first exploration into the unknown valley beyond the height now named Jarrett’s Ridge; how he had looked down into the pathetic little camp made by Celia for her two orphaned cousins, and how Celia herself had toiled to break ground and plant a few handfuls of seed to give them food; how he himself and Tsukala had made furtive visits to leave chunks of venison, strings of fish, turkeys, where Celia could find them; and how Celia and the children had been taken in and adopted by Mark’s parents. It seemed long ago, and at the same time as though it had just happened.

  “I heard you telling Esau that you felt only gratitude that the perils of this day were past,” Celia told him slowly. “I am glad for you, Mark, and though you call me brave and say I do not flinch, yet I would be vain and foolish did I not feel concern.”

  “But by now, those Indians have probably fled far away,” said Esau to comfort her. “In any case, they won’t dare challenge us here in our homes. If they do, they’ll have good cause to rue it sorely.”

  The three of them chatted more cheerfully as the evening became a soft autumn night. They tried to avoid the subject of danger to their homes. Inside the house, Mark’s father’s fiddle began to sing. Then Anne Jarrett called Celia, and Celia rose and went in.

  “Well, Mark, shall we go and look at what Bram Schneider may be doing in the dark?” prodded Esau.

  “Aye.” Mark tucked his rifle under his arm and headed for the road. Esau came after him and walked beside him.

  They moved on opposite sides of the road, habitually soft of foot. Each glanced again and again into the trees to left and right. They came to where they could see a wink of yellow light, from a window of the mill house, with lamp or candle inside. Mark drifted across the road to where he could whisper.

  “We need look for no Indians abroad in the darkness,” he said, as softly as he could. “Tsukala assures us of that.”

  “No, more likely they’re sitting together somewhere to plot and plan,” muttered Esau back. “And I’ll warrant Bram Schneider will be with them, with word as to how they may take us off guard.”

  “Aye, if your suspicion of him be right.”

  “We’re out to learn if I’m right.”

  They walked on in silence. They drew near to the mill pond. Mark heard the soft lapping of water against the lowered gate, and in the night he saw the loom of the shed, with a lighted window facing toward the road. He touched Esau’s hand.

  “Drop back behind me, and make not a noise,” Mark directed. “We’ll stop where we can see in at the window.”

  He stole along the road, to where the thick splits of logs bridged the stream from the mill pond. He moved with care, lest the loose timbers creak. Esau followed him to the far side. Together they paused below the mill, gazing upslope toward the window with its yellow glow.

  Then Mark’s hand shot out to clutch Esau’s shoulder and force him to drop to the ground. For between that lighted rectangle and the two watchers appeared a moving black silhouette of a head and shoulders, sliding across as though to approach and peep in.

  Esau flung himself prone and set his left elbow to the earth of the road. He shoved his rifle forward and took aim, but Mark pushed the barrel aside. “Wait/’ he whispered. “We don’t know who that is.”

  “An enemy,” Esau said under his breath, but relaxed his finger on the trigger.

  The dark shape seemed to stoop at the window. Then it straightened, and up rose an arm. The hand held something—a tomahawk, poised to throw.

  But from inside burst a wild yell, and then a shot rang out, loud and abrupt as a splitting tree. At once the shadow whipped itself back, and feet drummed on the slope as they ran down toward the very spot where Mark and Esau lay.

  “Halt!” cried Mark, struggling to his feet.

  As he came up, the fleeing body slammed against his. Mark’s rifle flew from his hands, and Mark tried to grapple and pin the unknown fugitive. His fingers clutched a handful of loose shirt fabric. There was a rending noise, and the stranger pulled free and shot away down the road. Mark stooped for his rifle, but already the shape had vanished in the dark.

  “Ha, rogue” he heard the bellowing voice of Simon Durwell, and a door flew open. The miller’s squat form sprang out. Light from inside gave Mark a glimpse of two big pistols in Durwell’s hands.

  “Hold your fire, sir, it’s Mark Jarrett!” Mark warned hastily.

  Esau was on his knee, and he sent a rifle shot into gloom where the figure had vanished. Durwell came charging down to where Mark and Esau stood.

  “Were you at tricks outside my window?” he barked.

  “Nay, ’twas someone we don’t know,” Mark said. “He ran when you fired. And there’s no chance of finding him in the night.”

  “Who was he, then?” Durwell questioned them. “Bram’s cat Wessah gave us warning. We sat at supper within, and Wessah looked to the window and mewed. I saw a face there, daubed as with Indian paint. I caught up my pistols from beside my plate, and fired. Had I taken half a second to aim, I’d have dropped him.”

  “He had a tomahawk, ready to hurl in at you,” said Esau. “And Bram Schneider was within, at table with you?”

  “Aye, and why do you ask? Now he’s under the bed, I make no doubt.” Durwell snorted with laughter. “He almost fell down in terror, and spilled a saucepan of dumplings. Come, lads, up to the house. What do you do out in the night?”

  “We but thought we’d make a tour of the road,” said Mark, and followed the miller along the upward path to the house.

  They entered the outer room of the leanto where Durwell and Schneider kept their bachelor living quarters. A fire burned on the hearth, and on the table a tallow candle stood in a leaden sconce. In the corner farthest from the window trembled Bram Schneider, clutching Wessah in his arms.

  “You play pranks,” Schneider accused angrily, his eyes wide in indictment. “You come to our window, make a teufel face—I tell your fathers about you!” “ ’Twas not we who played pranks,” Mark assured him. “Another night-prowler was out there, poising his tomahawk to throw in at you.”

  “Who was he?” Schneider hurled a question.

  “We don’t know that,” said
Esau. “Mark tried to catch him, but he pulled away.”

  “Mark kept a remembrance of him, at least,” said Durwell, pointing, and Mark was aware that his hand still clutched a ragged strip of cloth, torn from the man’s shirt. He brought it and spread it upon the table, and they all looked at it.

  The fabric was coarse, gray linen, such as many frontiersmen used to make their hunting shirts. It looked stained and grubby, as though from long wear in the field.

  “No Indian wore that,” pronounced Durwell expertly. “Their way is to make shirts of deerskin. Then we were spied on by a white man, for all he was smeared with war paint.”

  “Belike he painted his face to disguise it,” suggested Esau.

  “How, disguise it?” Durwell echoed him. “Would he be someone we would know if we saw his face?”

  “I had thought so,” Esau replied.

  “But how came you two to be outside even as he crept upon us?” Durwell inquired. “What gave you that fortunate notion, even as he was coming?”

  “We but happened along,” said Mark, unwilling now to speak of Esau’s suspicions about Schneider. “Belike this fellow is the same white man who left the tracks Tsukala spied today, down south of the river.”

  “Ach, why did I come to such a country?” Schneider almost wailed.

  “In any case, if he wore paint for a disguise, he was neither Mark nor Esau,” said Durwell. “He was neither Bram nor I, for we were in here. On that much we can agree.”

  “Aye, we all four stand in the clear,” Esau said slowly.

  “Then whose face was so masked ?” demanded Durwell, as though of the night. “I cannot think it was one of our neighbors. Stoke, Ramsey, Lapham, Shelton, Esau’s father, and Mark’s—each of them I’d trust as I’d trust my own soul.”

  Mark was at the window, peering out. “You say ’twas Wessah spied the fellow as he looked in here,” he mused, and turned to gaze at the big cat in Schneider’s arms. “He, at least, had a good look at that face. Would he had words, to tell us who it was.”