Manly Wade Wellman - Novel 1963

by The South Fork Rangers (v1. 1)

  “Never that,” muttered Seth, tearing up great handfuls of the dry moss in his fury.

  “I’ve no gun or sword with me, Harper,” Alspaye was jeering again. “You’ve had some small triumph in our last encounter or two, but we’ve not been at grips for some months now. I’ve learned science of my own. Dare or care you to grapple with me now? I swear you by all that’s sacred I’ll not strike, with shot or steel.”

  The rosy light flickered inside the cave, as though Alspaye passed his torch from one hand to the other.

  “He means somehow to scorch us with that fire,” said Enoch. “Hold, Zack, what are you doing?”

  For Zack rose to his full height and stepped clear of the stump, in full view of the cavern’s mouth.

  “Alspaye! ” he cried out. “If you were a man of honor, to be trusted, I’d gladly come there to you and try a grip and fall.”

  “Ha, you insult me because you fear me.”

  Enoch had writhed across from his earthy shelter. “Down, Zack,” he urged, and tugged at his friend’s ankle. “You make a fair target to him.”

  “Nay, he’d have shot me already had he aught to shoot with,” replied Zack. Then, louder; “I never feared you, Alspaye. Step into the open and I’ll lay you low in a minute’s time, as more than once before.”

  “But I am your inviter,” demurred Alspaye, and again the light flickered in the cave. “Come in to me, and see if you can draw me forth.”

  Seth came to his knees beside the mossy log. “Cap’n, see ye not what he devises?” he asked. “Why, that little poltroon Deevor Plum as good as said—”

  Breaking off, he rolled quickly over, came to his feet, and sped toward the horses. Zack took a step in the direction of the cave, and Enoch, too, sprang up.

  “Zack, you must beware,” said Enoch earnestly, and caught Zack’s arm.

  “Aye, you fear me,” Alspaye’s scornful voice came to them. “You fear lest I get the better of you, you shambling, overgrown country fool. You dread the thought that I might conquer you. Aye, and if I did so I’d take that fine chestnut horse. He’s too fine for a scurvy rider like you.”

  “You can’t even sit on his back!” Zack yelled, his temper rising like a flame.

  “With you done for, I’d sit on his back. Then he’d be mine. And this also I say, Zack Harper. With you done for, Pd yet call to see Miss Grace Prothero, and tell her what she deserves to hear, that she’s the fairest and loveliest—”

  At that Zack made half a dozen steps toward the cave, dragging Enoch with him.

  “Ah!” rang Seth’s war shout behind them, and Zack glanced around.

  Seth was on one knee by the log. He had set a fire in the moss there, he seemed to be holding a twig in the blaze. Then Seth straightened up, and in his hand was his bow. He bent it.

  “Stand one side, friends!” Seth cried, and his arrow flew past Zack and Enoch with a purring yelp.

  At what seemed the same instant, a tremendous crashing roar deafened Zack, and he felt the ground fairly whipped from beneath his feet.

  He lay there, fuzzily relaxed and restful. Then he felt his wits returning, from wherever they had gone. Hands quested over him, a voice spoke his name. He sighed, opened his eyes, and raised himself on an elbow.

  “Glory be, he’s still alive,” said Seth’s voice, hoarsely thankful.

  “Did Alspaye shoot me?” Zack asked dully.

  “He doesn’t know yet,” said Enoch to Seth.

  “Why, Cap’n, he had that cave of his stuck full of gunpowder. Didn’t I tell ye to recall Deevor Plum’s word about it? Hiding holes, with food and powder—”

  “Aye,” and Zack sat up. “I was too angry to think on that.”

  “He kept railing at ye to make ye come in. Taunting ye, saying things ye wouldn’t stand off and hear.”

  “And he had the torch ready,” chimed in Enoch. “He must have known full well that his day was done, and he swore in his black heart to take you with him.”

  Zack made shift to rise. “I don’t know what struck me.” “The blast mowed the two of ye down,” said Seth. “Enoch fell on top of ye, but I hazard ye struck your head on a stone.”

  “But look yonder, where the cave was,” Enoch urged. Zack looked.

  There was no cave. The rocks had collapsed upon it, the earth had broken in, the trees were overthrown and shattered.

  “I sent a fire arrow,” explained Seth. “Ye know I wanted to send one at the blockhouse. I wrapped dry moss on the point, kindled it and sent it yonder. Aimed for the floor—I guessed that Alspaye would have poured his powder there, ready to put the torch to it.”

  Zack gazed at the place the cave had been.

  “And Alspaye?” he said. “Where do you think he is?” “No doubt but that he’s inside yonder,” answered Seth tonelessly. “With rocks and dirt and logs on him, enough to crush the strongest man ever lived. And there’s where he’ll bide forever.”

  16 Report to George Washington

  It was warm for an October noonday on the peninsula of Virginia. Under a sunny sky of blue, a pleasant southwest breeze fluttered the autumn leaves. Zack held Jonah to an easy ambling walk; they were nearly at the end of their journey.

  He thought back on the past months. His labors had been hard, but triumphant. After the taking of the Tory blockhouse and Alspaye’s finish, there had remained the mopping up of small bands that still professed Tory loyalty and pilfered from patriot homes. Zack’s three platoons separated to pursue such gangs, in all directions from the freed South Fork. Enoch Gilmer had disposed of one troublesome handful near King’s Mountain. Godfrey Prothero had joined Adam Reep’s company in scattering a larger force far up the Catawba. Seth Mawks and his mountaineers had gone on to the outskirts of Gilbert Town and there had wiped out an unsavory crew of stragglers from the army of Cornwallis and the earlier expedition of Ferguson. Zack had ridden hard to supervise all of these campaigns.

  Toward the end of August, peace and victory had been recognized as assured on the South Fork, the Catawba, and for many miles around. The stores and plunder from Alspaye’s blockhouse and other Tory lairs were surveyed, and where possible, various articles were returned to those from whom they had been stolen. Other things were given to needy settlers. And Zack, who had toiled and fought so tirelessly as chief of the Rangers, found himself recognized as a sort of head of government.

  It was to the Harper home that Chief Halougra had sent dignified elders of the Catawba tribe to smoke a ceremonial pipe and declare that henceforth it was America, not Britain, to whom the Catawba people turned as friends and allies. Zack had made formal reply and commitment, in the name of the Continental Congress itself. It was Zack, too, who was obliged to receive erstwhile Tories who came to declare themselves Americans henceforth, by loyalty as well as by birth.

  But late in September the task seemed done. Lincoln County’s officials pursued their duties, and no whisper of a Tory threat could be heard to east or west. Then Zack had shaken hands with Seth Mawks and had seen him and his fellows ride away for their mountains. The other South Fork Rangers were mustered out, but Zack himself could not rest. By mutual agreement of both Rangers and citizens, he was dispatched to the American army in Virginia to make full report of the war’s successful end in his part of the world.

  Riding, he also remembered his journey, day upon day of it, and the days extending into weeks. He had seen country on this trip of which he had heard only reports. He had ridden through Hillsboro, where Cornwallis once had held headquarters and pleaded without avail for submission to the British crown. He had been entertained in Halifax County, at the beautiful plantation home of Willie Jones, and had heard the tale of British troops passing through, of Tarleton’s boasts and of the proud answer Jones’ wife had given him. He had entered Virginia, had been directed on to the Peninsula. He now headed Jonah toward the place where, everyone said, the combined American and French armies under George Washington had bottled Cornwallis up in massively fortified Yorktown.<
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  Only the night before—that was October 18—he had been welcomed in the town of Williamsburg, had been told by the host of a snug tavern that the townsfolk had listened for days to the thundering bombardment of Cornwallis’s works. But there had been no volleys of cannon that night, no volleys of cannon this morning. Zack felt ever so slightly disappointed. Had the fighting dwindled to a lull? Would he come upon a stalemate? Could not a decisive and happy ending be put to this long, bloody fight for American independence?

  He thought back to his farewells at home. Edmund Fenniver was there—Edmund Fenniver had declared he would found a home on the South Fork, be a good friend and neighbor among those he once had fought. He had lent Zack a fine cocked hat for his visit to Virginia. Fenniver was clever and industrious at learning how to farm, was buying land from John Prothero and, Zack noticed, showed frank, mannerly admiration for Grace Prothero. But Grace had been no more than courteous to this former adversary who now spoke to her so winningly.

  To Zack she had voiced soft, earnest farewell:

  “Go you and make your report, Zack. I know you will be thanked for what you’ve done. And however fast you hurry there, hurry back faster. I’ll think each day lonely until I see you ride into my sight once again.”

  And Zack had bowed to kiss her hand, as gracefully as might Fenniver himself, but Grace had drawn him to her and kissed him in warm, affectionate farewell. And she had stood with her father and the Harpers to watch him until he was out of sight.

  From his saddlebag Zack dug out the lunch a Williamsburg lady had given him—a great roll of white bread, split to hold a thick slice of dark red ham. Biting into it, he gazed at the fields on either side of the road. Tents were pitched in the distance, massed rows of them, enough to shelter thousands. Still his thoughts mused on the South Fork where the fighting was over, and on Grace Prothero’s farewell to him. Then he started in his saddle, and reined Jonah to a halt. Two men had sprung into the road, with lifted muskets.

  “Qui vive?” one shouted at him. They were foreign- looking men, in snug coats of green with red piping, and white breeches and gaiters.

  “Friend of liberty,” replied Zack, as he had responded to so many challengers. “I carry a message to army headquarters.”

  “Que veut dire cela?” demanded the other man sternly.

  They were Frenchmen, Zack saw. “I can’t speak French,” he told them.

  The first challenger shouted something, and from nearby trees hurried a third Frenchman, an officer girt with a sword. He questioned Zack in a flood of language. Zack smiled, and drew from inside his fringed shirt two folded papers.

  “General Greene wrote this order to give me a captaincy,” he said, slowly and carefully. “This other is a report of my labors.”

  The officer took them and studied them uncomprehendingly. Then, from the direction of the tents, trotted a horseman.

  “Que faites-vous, mes enfants?” asked this man. He, too, was an officer, middle aged and plump, with gold-laced coat and hat.

  “Cyest un homme mysterieux, mon colonelsaid the younger officer. “Un esfion Anglais, feut-etre—”

  The mounted man took the papers and looked at them. Then he handed them to Zack, smiling.

  “It is that they did not comprehend,” he said, in careful, accented English. “You are the Captain Harper, yes?”

  “Yes, sir,” replied Zack. “I’ve come a long way, with word from the west.”

  “Enchantey Captain. I am Colonel du Bac. But you have come into our lines, the French. Better that you go yonder.” A gesture. “Present yourself to headquarters. Come, allow me, I’ll set you on your way.”

  Zack rode past the sentries, and away with Colonel du Bac. “There’s no battle?” he asked.

  “A truce today. We have bid them give up, for they have no hope against us.”

  They reached a tent where several officers sat at a table and men held horses to one side. Colonel du Bac summoned one young man who hurried forward and saluted.

  “This is my aide, Lieutenant de Marriot,” the colonel told Zack. “He speaks English, he will conduct you.”

  Zack said his thanks, and rode with the young lieutenant past a field full of tents, toward a broad field where a great throng of men seemed to be marshalling. To the north, in the distance, showed roofs and what looked like ramparts.

  Zack asked about the troops and the town, but Lieutenant de Marriot spoke little English, after all. He only smiled and shrugged. “Bons camarades, non?” he said. “Good friend—amis—”

  “Good friends,” agreed Zack.

  He saw that the troops were forming into lines on opposite sides of the open field. They looked to Zack like swarms of insects that had learned to march and obey orders. As he and de Marriot approached, two American dragoons in blue halted them and asked questions. De Marriot had difficulty with his English again, and when Zack explained his errand one of the dragoons pointed toward the nearer edge of the field where the troops were mustering.

  “See yonder, at the trees?” he said. “See the officers there? You’d best go talk to them, Captain.”

  “If you’ll direct me to headquarters—”

  “That’s headquarters just now, sir,” said the dragoon.

  Zack thanked him, shook hands with de Marriot, and rode toward the trees. A dozen or so men sat their horses there. They wore shiny boots, fine blue coats belted with gleaming swords, and had plumes or cockades in their hats. One of them looked up as Zack approached. He was a grizzled man with a seamed face.

  “What do you here, fellow?” he snapped. “Join your regiment at once, or you’ll rue it.”

  “Pm not of any regiment here, sir,” said Zack.

  “Then why are you here at all?”

  “Pve ridden all the way from the Catawba country in North Carolina,” Zack informed him. “I carry a report of matters there.”

  “Of what report does he speak?” said another officer, and turned in his saddle to look at Zack.

  This man’s fine white horse was the largest of the party, and the man himself was longer legged and wider shouldered than any of his companions. His tailed coat of blue fitted his straight sinewy body like wax, and his white breeches and gleaming black boots were snug to powerfully muscled thighs and calves. Beneath the cock of his hat his face was ruddy, with a firm wide mouth, a great blade of a nose, and level, piercing eyes.

  “Your Excellency, I was asking him—” began the grayhaired officer.

  “Aye, sir, and let him tell us, for the time is scant,” said the tall man on the white horse. “Your name, sir,” he addressed Zack, “and your business.”

  Excellency, that other officer had said. Then this must be—

  “I await your word, sir,” said the tall man impatiently.

  “Sir, I am Captain Zack Harper, of the South Fork Rangers,” Zack ventured. “What word I bring is of small import, perhaps, but I was directed here as to headquarters.”

  “Where I am is headquarters,” said the other. “Come, Captain Harper, I command here, and I wait to receive your report.”

  “General Washington,” Zack began, but could say no more. He offered his papers, with a hand that trembled despite itself.

  George Washington took them, nodded, and quickly scanned them. “Hmmm,” he said. “I mind that General Greene once sent word of this very matter.” He looked up and smiled, with his lips almost fiercely tight.

  “Captain Harper,” he said, “I do thank you for coming so far with your good news.”

  “Your Excellency,” Zack managed to say, “ ’twas but a small affair out there in my country, compared to this siege.”

  “You kept it from being a great affair, one that might have advantaged and supported Lord Cornwallis,” said Washington. “Sir, I apprehend that you’ve done the nation’s business diligently where you were, kept the Tories from embodying to fall upon us from the rear.”

  “We but did our best, sir,” was all that Zack could say. He was aware o
f the eyes of all that were turned upon him, and felt embarrassed and daunted as never by the enemy in arms.

  “You did your best,” said Washington after him. “Aye, Captain, and we’ve done our best here, too. Even now we sit to meet the British army, that will march out and give up its arms.”

  “And here they come, Your Excellency,” volunteered an officer.

  They all glanced toward Yorktown, and Zack saw that it was true. The head of a column of men, led by a close-drawn party on horseback, was coming into view.

  “And in good time, too,” said Washington, in tones of deep satisfaction. “Captain, there is a matter to settle now. I’ll rely on you to make full report to me later. But now, if you would like to watch, join with my staff officers.”

  He touched the white horse’s flank with his spur and wheeled it to face the approaching column.

  Another of the party, a plump general in resplendent uniform, took his place at Washington’s side. The others quickly formed a line behind the two, and Zack put Jonah at one end of the formation.

  Silently they waited. Now Zack took time to see that to one side the Americans were drawn up, regiment upon regiment. They wore tattered blue uniforms or homespun greatcoats or fringed buckskin like his own garments. On the other side were the French lines, handsomely turned out in blue, in white, with rose and green facings.

  Between these rows of men, toward the point where Washington sat astride his great white charger, the British marched. The silence was broken by a growl of drums. Fifes began to squeal, a slow rhythm, like music for a funeral.

  “Know you that tune?” asked the gray-haired officer from where he held position beside Zack.

  “Not I, sir.”

  “I know it well. I heard it a year gone, when I was a prisoner of the British. *Tis an old air called ‘The World Turned Upside Down.5 ”