Manly Wade Wellman - Novel 1963

by The South Fork Rangers (v1. 1)

  Turning his back on Fenniver and Plum, he spoke again to Zack and Enoch:

  “My young brothers, go to the lodge where you slept last night. I, the chief, say that you must stay until your enemies have gone.”

  “Chief, we do what you say,” said Zack.

  He and Enoch retraced their steps to the hut. Squatting, Enoch stirred up the fire and put fuel upon it.

  “How did you do it?” Zack almost roared at him. “You had no chance to meddle with the pistols—”

  “Not the least chance, for Halougra kept them,” Enoch agreed. “But I got my hand on the bullet mold Fenniver gave him.” He rummaged it out of*his wallet. “Now Pll smuggle it back among Halougra’s things ere he misses it.”

  “I’m still at a loss,” prodded Zack. “You cast bullets? But you loaded both guns. How—”

  “Hold your jabber while I explain. I asked you for beeswax last night.”

  “Aye, and so you did. Were the bullets of wax, then?”

  Enoch chuckled. “I melted the wax and poured it in. Then, ere it had cooled except on the outside, I poured out the melted wax still at the center. That left but a shell, and I blackened it with charcoal from the fire to make it look like an honest leaden ball. You saw me load Fenniver’s pistol. As I rammed the hollow ball down, I pushed so hard it broke all to crumbs. He could not hurt me by so much as a feather.”

  Zack caught Enoch by the shoulder and shook him. “But that’s not all the story. You fired into the snow before Fenniver’s feet, and blood showed there.”

  “Aye, it did so,” Enoch grinned. “Was that not a mystic touch to clinch the respect of these Indians? Well, I cast a second hollow waxen bullet, a trifle thicker in the shell than the first. And by dark I stole out to where Halougra’s hunters had butchered that good venison we ate at supper. There was fresh blood still, and I filled my bullet and closed the place with another dab of wax. That one I rammed down but lightly, so that it would fly out whole at the shooting, and break where it struck.”

  Zack drew a deep breath of half-angry comprehension, and once again Enoch laughed.

  “Said I not that you’d be vexed at the simplicity of it?” he reminded. “Now, all we need do is put back the mold without Halougra’s notice.”

  Together they sat and waited. The sun was perhaps two hours high when a warrior came to summon them. They followed him to where Halougra sat on his bearskin-draped rock, as dignified as a king on a throne.

  “Young brothers,” said Halougra, “your enemies are gone. I sent them by a trail that leads to the west. You two must go back the way you came, to the northeast. I have said that the Catawbas will keep peace. We do not want to send you where blood will be shed.”

  “Chief, we will do as you ask,” said Zack.

  Halougra gazed at Enoch. “This young warrior would be a great medicine man among my people, perhaps,” he said slowly. “Yet I have lived a long time, and have seen much and now and then have guessed more. It is in my heart that perhaps some magic is only a trick, and seems to be magic.”

  “Chief, some magic is like that,” said Enoch diplomatically.

  “But I am no medicine man,” went on Halougra. “Their wisdom is theirs, and mine is mine. Now, my young brothers, I bid you good-bye in friendship. But first, I have a present for you.”

  “We ask no presents,” said Zack.

  “Hear my words,” commanded Halougra. “Those enemies of yours made us mighty presents. Because we refuse to help them in their war, we cannot keep those things. To the white man who could not shoot Enoch Gilmer, I returned his two small guns. I have lost the thing that makes bullets—”

  “Chief, it is here in the snow beside the rock,” said Enoch, reaching down quickly and then straightening up to offer the mold.

  “It must have fallen there last night,” said Halougra. “As for the rest of what they gave us, the keg of gunpowder, it is still here. Because we do not keep it, I give it to you.”

  “Chief, we give you thanks for it,” said Zack gratefully.

  Halougra rose, and held out his brown hand in friendship.

  6 Alspaye Strikes Again

  THE ride home was accomplished in mild weather, with the snow that had fallen so heavily beginning to melt away. Zack and Enoch fetched the keg of powder into the Harper house to add to their supply of munitions, and the whole Ranger company gathered and listened to their adventures.

  “Why didn’t ye ambush them?” asked Seth.

  “That’s just what Chief Halougra trusted us not to do,” reminded Zack. “Anyway, we were loaded down with that powder keg, and we wanted to fetch it back here dry and safe. It’s enough and to spare to stand that siege you talk of, Seth.”

  “Wagh and so ’tis, and it could fall out that a charge of that same powder’ll some day slap Fenniver flat for us. Alspaye, too. When do we go out a-searching for them gentry?”

  But the thaw was strongly set in after the blizzard, and the melted snow clogged roads and trail with soft slippery mud and made the streams run high, even at the fording places. Any expedition, whether afoot or on horseback, would be hampered and clumsy, might well blunder into a new ambush. Zack let Seth take his mountain men on a three- day scouting trip, admonishing them not to look for a fight but only to observe. These ranged far through wet woods and soggy fields, looking for trace or word of Alspaye.

  Meanwhile, Zack and the others in Enoch’s platoon improved the fortification of the Harper house. Enoch devised a wide fencing of upright poles, well driven into the ground and hard-tamped around, but spaced some five or six inches apart, in an oval course that enclosed the yard and outbuildings with but a single gateway that could be closed with horizontal bars. Any charge of an enemy, even in considerable numbers, would be halted by that fence. Meanwhile, the openwork pattern would allow defenders inside the house to shoot at close range with deadly effect. Alan Harper and the Protheros applauded with the utmost enthusiasm. But Seth, returning with his men from their rec- onnoitering expedition, hummed pessimistically in his throat as he paced slouchily along the hemming spread of poles.

  “Trouble is, that Alspaye’s a scoundrelly dog, and he’ll have the dog sense not to come rushing against such a fence,” he complained.

  “Indeed, we hope he never comes near us, Lieutenant Mawks,” said Grace.

  “Then how can we hope to finish him off?” demanded Seth unhappily. “He ain’t to be found nor yet heard tell on, out yonder. He’s gone and holed up, like a bear a-sleeping out the winter. And we’re plumb wore out with wishing to find and fight him.”

  He told them how even his master trackers had been unable to find a single mark that would betray the Tory guerrillas, and they had heard only one whisper from a farmer who had entertained them. That was of a rumor that Alspaye had headed upstream along the South Fork, into the thickest woods toward the juncture of Indian Creek. There the trees were tall, the undergrowth dense and the trails few and narrow and dubious.

  “Mark this, my boys, that rogue Alspaye’s got a den to hide in there,” wound up Seth. “It’ll be as strong set and ready for defense as this here snug fort you’ve made us. And to head in after him, along trails that’ll sink ye to your knee in mud and mire, would be a fair invite for his galley- baggers to shoot ye down. What’s orders now, Cap’n Harper?”

  “We’ll keep patrols ever on the watch,” said Zack. “Two at a time, each on a two-day hunt. Seth, you and Enoch and I will take our turns in those patrols. Let’s draw up our lists now, putting one shrewd woodsman to each pair.”

  In that watchful manner passed the remainder of February, then two weeks of March. Zack also allowed Seth’s men to prowl after deer, and their excellent mountain marksmanship accounted for plenty of meat to feed the company. Back to the South Fork settlers drifted word of another major battle in the eastern part of North Carolina.

  This was a deadly grapple at Guilford Court House, between Greene’s Continentals and the invaders under Lord Cornwallis. On the surface, the t
ale was melancholy hearing for upholders of America. It seemed that Cornwallis had advanced with all his sturdy infantry, and had swept Greene’s regiments from the field. Cornwallis had inflicted heavy casualties, had captured several cannon, including the two light guns called grasshoppers that Zack had seen taken from Tarleton’s command at the Cowpens. And in triumph the British had camped on the ground they had won, declaring themselves overwhelmingly victorious.

  But then Peter Wales, a sergeant of Martin’s cavalry volunteers, came home to the South Fork to recover from a wound in his arm. Soberly he made certain explanations at the fireside of the Harpers.

  “It was no whole victory for the British,” he said definitely, “nor could it have been, unless Cornwallis had utterly demolished our army. Natty Greene well knows what he doth in this war, he knows it every minute. Recall you, Zack, how first he fell back to the Yadkin from the Catawba, then to the Dan from the Yadkin, and so into Virginia?”

  “Aye, do I,” said Zack. “That was for drawing Cornwallis well away from his supply bases far down in South Carolina.” “That fight at Guilford Court House reaped the fruit of the earlier drawing away,” Peter Wales went on. “Aye, true enough, Cornwallis charged and we retreated, and so I suppose he was left master of the field. Yet take thought Greene fetched off most of his army in good condition. And in the fighting, Cornwallis burned a vast deal of his gunpowder that he cannot easily replace with more. He is gone so far, do you see, from where it’s stored. He lost many men, too, and he has none to fill the empty places in his ranks. Be of cheer, my good friends, for whichever army camped on Guilford field, ’twas Greene who profited and Cornwallis who suffered.”

  Zack told the sergeant some of his own dispositions in the South Fork country, the threat of Alspaye’s marauding ' Tory band, and various adventures of the Ranger company.

  “You’ve done mightily well thus far,” Wales praised him, “and I’ll warrant that you alone have kept Alspaye from founding here a base for the furnishing and relieving of Cornwallis’s needs. And that device of yours—Enoch Gilmer’s device, I should say—for keeping the Catawba Indians from rising on the side of the British—I say that ’twas a sovereign aid to our own friends. But take care and take thought, Zack, each hour and each moment. Like Greene, Alspaye seems to have his force whole and in hand. He may yet strike a blow to set up King George’s banner and might, here in our home place.”

  “Huh” grunted Seth Mawks, Indian fashion. “We’ve got to find and rizzle him well, and that ere long. The ground’s firmer after this thaw, and if we wait into the spring there’ll be leaves on the trees to hide him from us. Cap’n Harper, we look to ye for a true word of how ye’ll lead us at them Tory knaves, afore they start on their own work.”

  “It shall be done,” promised Zack.

  But the very next day found Alspaye out and busy, ahead of the South Fork Rangers.

  The two scouts on duty were Seth Mawks and Andy Berry. Questing along the Tuckaseege Ford Road west of the South Fork in the early morning, they saw two hurrying figures, a man and a woman. These proved to be Abel Starrett and his wife, the parents of John Starrett who served with the Rangers. Mrs. Starrett was trembling and in tears, her husband tense and bright eyed with fury. He clutched an old rifle in both hands as he stammered out his story.

  Alspaye’s band had swooped down on the Starrett home near Long Creek in the dawn, had kicked in the door, dragged out all food and any other things that seemed worth taking, had shot the horses and cows in the barn and the pigs in the pen. The Starretts had barely escaped through the back yard as a Hessian deserter in a greasy green uniform had applied a torch to their house.

  “We’ve just the clothes we stand up in, and this rifle I brought off,” said Abel Starrett in choking rage. “I tried a shot at Alspaye himself, strutting in his red coat, but I was so blind mad I missed him. Then they chased us and we had to hide in a muddy swale till they went poking off again. What’s to do, friends?”

  Seth and Andy mounted the two refugees on their horses and raced alongside, all the way back to Harper’s. Mrs. Harper made the Starretts welcome, while Zack mustered his company and ordered an immediate saddling and mounting. Within thirty minutes the South Fork Rangers were racing to the scene of the Tory raid.

  “Right fast, but ride watchful,” called Zack as they took the road to Armstrong’s Ford. “Here, Enoch, pass your platoon to the front. Every man of it knows this country as he knows his own bare hand. Let them string out, but be wary of a trap. Seth, keep your men together behind Enoch’s, and ready for battle.”

  “We’re ready each hour of day or night,” said Seth heartily.

  “Good,” said Zack. “Now, should the Tories fire on Enoch’s line and drive it back, hop off your horses and meet the charge. When the shooting begins, every man mark his target.”

  “Our bullets strike where they’re sent,” said a tall mountaineer harshly, “and we’ve a score to settle with Alspaye’s lads.”

  But no incident befell the cantering war party as it crossed the ford and cut northwest along a path that would join the Tuckaseege Road. An hour passed, another. They were approaching the Starrett home now, and they could see a gush of dark smoke rising above the leafless treetops. John Starrett rode back from Enoch’s advance line.

  “Yonder’s Alspaye’s battle flag,” he snarled, pointing to the dark cloud as it rolled upward.

  “He flies it, and with luck we’ll knock him from under it,” said Zack. “Hark you, Johnny, I have it in mind that the fields are open just beyond these trees ahead, but cover approaches close to your house at the south.”

  “Aye, close to where once my house was,” agreed John gruffly.

  “Then ride back and tell Lieutenant Gilmer to pull away from the road and to southward. In any case, if Alspaye’s still there, he’ll look for us to attack from here at the east. We’ll come upon him through that cover below.”

  Back loped the stern young rider, and Zack waved his arm to point Seth’s men in the new direction.

  The Rangers made a quick circuit of a pond among tall trees. Again Enoch, with his brother William and John Starrett and Andy Berry, scouted ahead to examine the ground and spy out, if possible, any near disposition of the enemy. Zack drew up the rest of his men on the edge of the pond and waited. Within minutes, Andy came back at a gallop.

  “They’re yonder, the whole swarm of them,” he reported quickly. “It’s as it was last month at Prothero’s— the house burning to ashes, and in the yard those Tory skulks are gathered to rejoice in their work.”

  “What are they doing?” asked Zack.

  “At present they are butchering the Starrett cows they shot, and are toasting great gobbets of beef at the edge of the fire.”

  “How many?” was Zack’s next question.

  “As well as we can count, between twenty-five and thirty,” replied Andy.

  “Then truly it’s their whole company. Saw you aught of Alspaye?”

  “Aye, swaggering in the very midst. Twice Enoch had to lay hands on Johnny Starrett to keep him from shooting at Alspaye. And with. Alspaye is another commander, in the finest blue coat. Enoch says it’s Fenniver, the spy.”

  “Alspaye and fenniver both,” exulted Zack. “Be it our good fortune, we’ll end their Tory works this very day. Here, dismount all. Godfrey and Seth, bring on the rest, but lead the horses and tie them up well back from where we see that smoke. We’ll fight on foot, every man sending his j shots straight. Come, Andy, I’ll ride with you.”

  They headed through young evergreens and came to where Enoch and John Starrett stood peering between the needles toward the cleared yard where once had stood the snug farmhouse of the Starretts.

  The scene was as Andy had described it, and plain to see from some hundred yards’ distance. From the low-growing branch of a maple in the yard hung great joints of red meat, and to one side lay stripped hides and offal. Several of the Tory band, clad variously in leather, stout homespun or bits
of British uniform, stood near the smouldering ruins of the | house and held out slices of meat on long sticks to cook it. The horses of the band were herded together, with two j men to watch them. Others, with guns in their hands, gazed alertly out over the open fields to eastward.

  “ ’Twas as I said, they look for our approach from along the road,” said Zack. “Where have you seen Alspaye?” “Yonder he comes now,” gritted John Starrett. “See to him and his choice friend Fenniver, who cozened and fooled us so at your house, Zack. They were beyond the fire and smoke until now.”

  Two men had strolled into view, talking. Zack instantly recognized the broad form of Alspaye, in red uniform coat and cocked hat, and the slimmer figure of Fenniver in his blue greatcoat. Each was belted with a sword in a shiny sheath. Fenniver seemed quiet, perhaps serious, but Alspaye clapped him cheerfully on the shoulder as though in hearty good humor.

  “For what doth Alspaye cheer his friend?” wondered Enoch.

  Alspaye held something aloft. It gleamed bright in the spring sunshine.

  “ ’Tis my mother’s silver teapot,” choked out John. “Before her, ’twas her mother’s. Now a filching, creeping thief takes it for a prize! ”

  Before Zack or Enoch could prevent him, John Starrett flung up his rifle and fired.

  So hurriedly did he touch trigger, and with such glaring hatred, that his bullet did not go true. It struck neither Alspaye nor Fenniver, but the pot that flourished between them. That pot went sailing off like a silver bird, and both the officers cried out in startled amazement.

  “You fired too soon!” Enoch snapped at John. “Could you not wait for the others to come up? See, they face to us.”

  The men who had been guarding toward the east were all turning and forming a line toward the south instead, their guns at the ready. The roasters of meat dropped their wooden spits and scrambled for their muskets that lay on the ground. Alspaye shouted a command, and a long line of battle swiftly arranged itself.