Manly Wade Wellman - Novel 1966

by Battle at Bear Paw Gap (v1. 1)

  More whoops and shouts, in jabbering Indian tongues. From among some weed-fringed rocks at the very edge of the river sprang an Indian, stripped to the war belt and brightly blotched with paint on his face and chest. He swung a tomahawk about his black- tufted head as he scuttled into the road and put out his other hand as though to snatch at the bridle. But Bolly’s hurrying shoulder struck him and he went reeling backward, almost falling.

  As Durwell rushed past the Indian and away, Mark steadied his rifle against the door jamb and took quick aim. That was the Chickasaw he had seen spying with Jipi, Mark felt sure. He fired, and the Chickasaw gave a strangled roar of pain and went tumbling into the river with a great splash. Mark pushed the door shut and set the bar in its place.

  “I have hit another,” he cried at his companions. “Here, Celia, load my rifle again.”

  He caught up Moxley’s weapon and hurried into the sleeping room once more, to peer to the northward. Even as he did so, there came another clattering fusillade of shots, and bullets smote the log walls like storm-driven hail. Mark saw five or six puffs of smoke and flashes of exploding powder among the trees on the slope, threateningly close above him.

  “Did you count any guns?” he asked the others, stepping to the inner door.

  “I think I saw two guns shoot out here,” Schneider made his report from where he had taken his station at the loophole of the westward window.

  “And one from across the river to the south,” contributed Celia, on watch there as she drove down the ramrod to put another bullet into Mark’s rifle.

  “Then eight or more guns were let off at us then,” Mark added them up quickly. “Most of the shots came on this side, from among the trees on the ridge. From there, as I think, they will seek to charge, if they plan to do so.”

  His own heart sank within him. He felt suddenly alone. After all, Celia was but a girl, for all her brave talk. Schneider had confessed his timidity, again and again. But even as Mark fought against a sense of despair, Schneider spoke.

  “Charge?” he echoed Mark’s word. “Let them dare.”

  “What do you say?” Mark asked, amazed.

  “Ach so, I haf been a man of peace, many years,” said Schneider. “Never haf I vanted to fight. So when they try to make me fight, I ran off from fighting. I left my home, I left England’s army, I said I wanted to be American.” Mark heard him stamp his foot on the floor, as though to muster his resolve. “American, ja!” Schneider proclaimed. “I am American now. I make mein home here. I never wanted to take homes from other people—other people, they must not take mein home from me.”

  Even as he spoke, he clapped his long musket to the loophole, sighted and fired. Smoke came jetting back into the room, and Schneider made a noise in his throat.

  “A face looked out,” he told Mark and Celia. “I saw red paint on it, and I took straight aim and true. Now only seven Injuns left out there, maybe.”

  Wessah came and rubbed against Schneider’s leg, as though to congratulate him. Schneider put the musket’s butt to the floor and set about reloading it.

  “I fear there are more than seven,” Mark felt obliged to say. “We counted only certain flashes of gunfire. They may have more guns than that, and hold some while others let off. And not all those Indians have guns, for I have seen war bows in the hands of some of them.”

  “Seven or seventy, I am ready to fight,” grumbled Schneider, with a resolution that amazed Mark anew. “You hit two, Mark, I hit vun. Three Indians down. Pretty soon, maybe ve get more of them, nicht wahr? I am afraid of them no more.”

  Celia drew back away from her lookout position, and made a quick check among the shelves and pots beside the wide fireplace.

  “There’s a big bucket with two gallons of water in it,” she said. “And here are bread and meat.” She peered into a kettle. “Aye, and this is half-full of greens, boiled with bacon. We cannot be starved out, not for some days at least.” She looked around at Mark. “I wonder if Mr. Durwell has won his way to the tavern as yet.”

  Returning to the table, she picked up Durwell’s rifle. She seemed to hold it confidently as she sought the south window once again.

  “Mr. Durwell must be there, or nearly,” Mark reassured her, and felt his own spirits rising. “Bolly could make that trip within minutes. Just now, the sun is high overhead. Half this day is gone, and we should be able to hold out strongly until the other half is gone also.”

  “And at night, vot then?” Schneider prompted him.

  “Then we will have darkness on our side,” said Mark. “Perhaps we can slip out and make our escape from here.”

  From the table he took one of Durwell’s pistols and carried it with him into the sleeping chamber. He laid it on the quilt of the bed nearest the window, drew his tomahawk from his belt, and laid that beside the pistol. If attack developed from that quarter, the enemy could not hope to enter except by breaking in through the shutter. Mark promised himself silently that he would shoot one if they charged in force, maybe could reload his rifle and shoot another. If the shutter was breached, the pistol could claim the first Indian through the window, could claim maybe more than one since it was charged with several bullets. After that, he would still fight hand to hand, with tomahawk or knife or clubbed rifle.

  “Do you see any movement outside?” he asked the others.

  “Not a glimpse,” came back Schneider’s voice.

  “And naught below here,” said Celia.

  They lapsed into silence, all three of them. Mark sat down on the bed to gaze out of the loophole. He was not relaxed, but some of his nervous tenseness had departed. A minute passed. Another minute. Mark studied the trees that might mask Indians lurking close at hand.

  Then: “Hel-looooo!” came a long, quavering hail. “Hello to the house!”

  Instantly Mark was on his feet, listening.

  “Hello to the house and all good people within!” someone was shouting. “The danger’s past, friends. Those murdering red raiders have had enough— they’ve fled away to the west.”

  Mark drew in his breath sharply.

  “Come forth,” the man outside was inviting. “All is well!”

  “Oh, heaven be thanked,” Celia said under her breath, and started to cross the floor, as though to lift the bar and open the door. But Mark raced to her and caught her wrist.

  “No, don’t listen to him,” he warned, the words tumbling over themselves.

  “But he said—”

  “I know that voice,” Mark interrupted her. “I’d know it among a thousand. ’Tis Quill Moxley, trying to coax us out to our ruin.”

  CHAPTER X

  Return of a Foe

  Mark HAD spoken like the captain Durwell had called him. At once Celia moved obediently, clear of the door. Schneider turned puzzled eyes upon Mark.

  “Now you tell me, I think I, too, knew it for his voice,” Celia half whispered.

  “Back to your watching,” Mark commanded them. “Go yonder into the sleeping room, Schneider, and look sharp to the north. Celia, take your place at the door. Make no sound, either of you. If any talking is to be done, leave it to me.”

  Schneider trotted into the other chamber with his musket, Wessah at his heels. Mark peered through the loophole that gave a view to the south, then through the westward one. He saw no token of danger, which made his blood tingle the more alertly.

  “Hello within!” rose the voice of Moxley again. It seemed to issue from trees growing thickly at the side of the road to the west of the mill. “Why do you not answer me? I tell you, there’s naught to be afraid of.”

  Mark cupped his hands at the loophole and shouted through them as through a trumpet. “We do not fear you,” he yelled his loudest. “But neither are we deceived by you!”

  “Nay, the Indians are gone every one, and here are only true men—”

  “You are Quill Moxley!” Mark broke in upon that assurance. “Quill Moxley, the falsest and vilest man alive!”

  Mark knew, w
ithout turning away from the loophole, that Celia started nervously at the deadly fury in his voice. He waited.

  Then Moxley raised another shout. “Who speaks? Is it Mark Jarrett, mayhap?”

  “Aye, you know my voice as I know yours,” Mark trumpeted back to him. “I read your scurvy hopes, Moxley. We do not come out to be targets for your savages. But you may come in here after us, if you dare.”

  Laughter floated to him from the trees.

  “Mark Jarrett, Mark Jarrett, you and I should compose our ancient quarrels. Hear me—I cry you truce for a quarter of an hour. See, my white flag.”

  Something like a dingy napkin fluttered in the greenery.

  “Suffer me to come close without shooting,” Moxley urged. “The two of us can talk sensibly.”

  “Show yourself at your peril,” Mark warned. “I do not believe your talk, and I hold no parley with you.”

  “Nay, patience, I beseech!” Moxley persisted, apparently in the utmost of good humor. “I say I’ll come forth unarmed. I swear to you, on my word of honor—”

  “If you swore by every holy name,” interrupted Mark again, “and kissed the Bible to boot, I’d know you lied with every breath. We’ll have no truce, I say. And no deceits.”

  “Bravo,” applauded Schneider through the door to the other room. “Bravely, you speak, Mark Jarrett. I say amen.”

  Again silence outside. At last Moxley spoke, from some closer point. Evidently he had taken time to creep forward through undergrowth.

  “You flout me thus because you think that rider will fetch help for you,” he said. “But we settled him within less than a mile of here.”

  “That’s another lie,” accused Mark promptly. “It ’twere so, you’d keep the news from me. You’d never claim it so lightly.”

  “Be it lie or true word, his ride will never bring back friends to save you,” Moxley said doggedly. “Your folk at yonder tavern will have all they can do to meet and fight their own day’s dangers.”

  As he spoke, there was a sound like a distant clap of thunder, away to the east.

  “There, boy, hear you those guns?” Moxley taunted him. “They have opened on your friends and kinsmen, back where you live. As for you, I’ve been patient overlong, longer than you deserve. Come forth, I command, you and those with you, unarmed and with your hands up. And quick’s the word, Mark Jarrett, if you hope for any mercy.”

  “Nay, we hope for no mercy from you,” Mark told him. “We’ll just stay where we are.”

  Schneider clicked his tongue, again signifying applause. Out in the brush, Moxley laughed.

  “Then you’ll force us to burn that mill around your stupid heads,” he threatened.

  “You’ll never do that,” Mark flung back, for he remembered what Tsukala had said on the subject. “If you burn this mill, you’ll burn the things your hungry Indians need so sorely. You’ll burn bushels of corn, of ground meal. Did your friends eat well this morning, Moxley? I think they’re sharp-set. We have good store of breadstuffs in here with us, and you’ll never get them if you come not and try to take them.” Moxley made no reply. Mark exulted, for plainly there would be no effort to set the mill afire. Wessah strolled to Mark and sat at his feet, as though he, too, were waiting for what Moxley might say next.

  “Do you sit there and play at twiddle-thumb, Moxley?” Mark jibed at last. “Or have you no more lies to tell? I’d be sorry for that, they serve to pass our dull time away.”

  “Laugh, and be blasted to you,” Moxley said thickly, as though he spoke through angrily clenched teeth. “Laugh your fill, Mark Jarrett. You’ve been my sore trouble since first we met.”

  “Aye, and I’ve taught you a lesson or two,” Mark continued to banter.

  “ ’Twill be my high pleasure to teach you one, that he who laughs last laughs best.”

  At that, Mark drew a deep breath and laughed his loudest, in defiant challenge.

  “Pleasure yourself,” Moxley growled. “Laugh while you may, like the trapped fool you are. I tell you truly, you’ll be lucky if you die a quick death fighting. My friends here around me are skilled at inventing slow, new ways of death. Should they capture you, I’ll not stint them of their employment.”

  All this while Mark had been listening and peering carefully, in an effort to decide from what point in the tangled greenery Moxley was lying. But he wanted to be more certain. If he could goad Moxley to talk further, perhaps Moxley would betray his position.

  “You prate of captures,” Mark pursued, on inspiration. “But you yourself were a captive, and a man accused before the law, for all the rascal tricks you sought to play on us here. If you have escaped from jail, you’d be better off somewhere far from the State of North Carolina.”

  Moxley laughed himself at that, a slow, deadly laugh. “Nay, I have been acquitted at law. You’ll recall that Epps Emmondson and Barney Cole were charged along with me, for various matters. I spoke sensibly to the State’s officers, and they had a ready ear for what I was able to say. In court, I gave witness for them, against poor, silly Epps and poor, troubled Barney. So they are convicted and fast in prison, while a grateful judge bade me go and sin no more. I can walk free, where I will in North Carolina.”

  “You know, and so do I, that you are guilty,” said Mark, to draw another word from him.

  “What you and I know is one thing,” Moxley said, with a great burlesque of friendly argument. “What the law says of me is another, and the law says not guilty. Nor can I be tried twice on the same accusation.”

  Mark had backed away from the loophole. He lifted his rifle. Resting the muzzle just within the open, he gazed carefully through the sights toward the clutter of leaves where he felt sure Moxley lay and sneered at him.

  “Twice in the past you’ve spoiled my hopes and labors, Mark Jarrett,” Moxley was saying. “A third time is too much luck for you to count on so surely.”

  Mark fired. The smoke spurted, the shot sounded flatly. And the roaring laughter of Moxley came as an echo to it.

  “Ho, you lost, thick-headed woods calf!” Moxley exulted at him. “Did you truly think I’d not protect myself, here so close to you and your gun? I am lying behind a great thick stump, and it took that pill of lead with which you hoped to dose me.”

  Mark had drawn back his rifle and was pouring down a charge.

  “I’ll dig that bullet out with my knife,” Moxley was promising shrilly. “I’ll load it into my own gun, and fire it into your vitals the moment you dare show your cowardly body.”

  “You’re thrice welcome to that bullet, Moxley, for ’tis your own,” Mark returned, as insolently as he could manage. “I fired it from the very rifle we captured from you last spring, when my father dusted our front yard from the back of your jacket. And we took your bullets and powder horn, too, and those I have with me.”

  Once again silence, inside, outside, all around the mill. Then, another sound of distant guns. The battle at the tavern was going on, and fiercely.

  “We can rest with some ease now,” Mark said to Celia and Schneider. “We have all our pieces ready loaded, have we not?”

  As he spoke, he put down the Moxley rifle and took up his own.

  “We can take turns at keeping watch,” he directed, “for each of us knows what to beware of. One of us shall keep ever on the move, from loophole to loophole all around, studying the forest through each in turn. At any hint of danger, we all spring to readiness. Now, Schneider, do you take the first tour.”

  “Jawohl ” said Schneider promptly. Carrying his musket with its fixed bayonet, he went to the hole in the door, then to each of the front room windows, and then into the sleeping chamber to observe from there.

  “Celia,” said Mark, “you look warlike enough with that gun in your hands to frighten an entire army. Put it aside within easy reach, and see if you can look us out some dinner. If we must fight, let us not fight hungry.”

  So saying, he sat on a stool, cradling his loaded rifle between his knees, and watch
ed as Celia leaned her own weapon against the wall. She brought out the big piece of corn bread from which Durwell had cut them portions for eating with the berries, and took a knife to slice off three more generous pieces. She found cups and filled three of them from the water bucket. There was some cold roast venison on an iron platter, and Celia served some of that onto three plates, then dipped out helpings of the greens and bacon.

  “Would I might take time to warm these greens for us,” she half mourned.

  “Nein,” said Schneider, making another round of the various loopholes. “It iss goot so. Myself, I like cold greens.”

  Celia brought Mark a plate of food and a mug of water. He found himself eating with eager relish. Celia offered him the pot of strained honey, and Mark spread some upon his corn bread. Swiftly he cleaned up the meat, bread and greens, and drained the last drop of water. Then he rose and carried the empty dishes to the table.

  “Come now and have your noon rations, Schneider,” he invited. “I’ll have a look through those loopholes in my turn. After me, Celia shall be our sentinel.”

  Rifle in hand, Mark began to pace here and there. At each of the openings he paused a long moment, trying to observe every tree trunk, every clump of bushes, every rise of ground where an adversary might be sheltered. Again he told himself that Mox- ley’s renegades would most likely try a rush from the north, where they could take a commanding jump-off position on the slope and could approach very near through the cover of woods there. But the mill house was most stoutly built there at its northern wall, and only the one window, with its heavy barred shutter, could give them a possible entrance.

  Schneider sat down. He, too, seemed to be enjoying his simple dinner, and he sliced small bits of venison and fished tags of bacon out of the greens to put on the floor for Wessah. The cat ate them eagerly, purring as though in thanks, and then strolled to seek a tin dish of water set for him on the stone hearth of the broad fireplace.