The Prairie, Volume 2

by James Fenimore Cooper

  Throughout the whole of these preparations Ishmael had rarely spoken. A gesture, or a glance of the eye, had served to indicate his pleasure to his sons, and with these simple methods of communication, all parties appeared perfectly content. When the signal was made to proceed, the squatter threw his rifle into the hollow of his arm, and his axe across his shoulder, taking the lead as usual. Esther had buried herself in the wagon which contained her daughters; the young men took their customary places among the cattle, or nigh the teams, and the whole proceeded, at their ordinary, dull, but unremitted gait.

  For the first time in many a day, the squatter turned his back towards the setting sun. The route he held was in the direction of the settled country, and the manner in which he moved sufficed to tell his children, who had learned to read their father’s determinations in his mien, that their journey on the prairie was shortly to have an end. Still nothing else transpired for hours, that might denote the existence of any sudden or violent revolution in the purposes or feelings of Ishmael. During all that time he marched alone, keeping a few hundred rods in front of his teams, seldom giving any sign of extraordinary excitement. Once or twice, indeed, his huge figure was seen standing on the summit of some distant swell, with the head bent towards the earth, as he leaned on his rifle; but then these moments of intense thought were rare and of short continuance. The train had long thrown its shadows towards the east before any material alteration was made in the disposition of their march. Water-courses were waded, plains were passed, and rolling ascents risen and descended, without producing the smallest change. Long practised in the difficulties of that peculiar species of travelling in which he was engaged, the squatter avoided the more impracticable obstacles of their route by a sort of instinct, invariably inclining to the right or left in season, as the formation of the land, the presence of trees, or the signs of rivers forewarned him of the necessity of such movements.

  At length the hour arrived when charity to man and beast required a temporary suspension of labour. Ishmael chose the required spot with all his customary sagacity. The regular formation of the country, such as it has been described in the earlier pages of our book, had long been interrupted by a more unequal and broken surface. There were, it is true, in general, the same wide and empty wastes, the same rich and extensive bottoms, and that wild and singular combination of swelling fields and of nakedness, which gives that region the appearance of an ancient country, incomprehensibly stripped of its people and their dwellings. But these distinguishing features of the rolling prairies had long been interrupted by irregular hillocks, occasional masses of rock, and broad belts of forest.

  Ishmael chose a spring, that broke out of the base of a rock some forty or fifty feet in elevation, as a place well suited to the wants of his herds. The water moistened a small swale that lay beneath the spot, which yielded, in return for the fecund gift a scanty growth of grass. A solitary willow had taken root in the alluvion, and profiting by its exclusive possession of the soil, the tree had sent up its stem far above the crest of the adjacent rock, whose peaked summit had once been shadowed by its branches. But its loveliness had gone with the mysterious principle of life. As if in mockery of the meagre show of verdure that the spot exhibited, it remained a noble and solemn monument of former fertility. The larger, ragged and fantsatic branches still obtruded themselves abroad, while the white and hoary trunk stood naked and tempest-riven. Not a leaf, nor a sign of vegetation was to be seen about it. In all things it proclaimed the frailty of existence and the fulfilment of time.

  Here Ishmael, after making the customary signal for the train to approach, threw his vast frame upon the earth, and seemed to muse on the deep responsibility of his present situation. His sons were not long in arriving, for the cattle no sooner scented the food and water than they quickened their pace, and then succeeded the usual bustle and avocations of a halt.

  The impression made by the scene of that morning was not so deep or lasting on the children of Ishmael and Esther, as to induce them to forget the wants of nature. But while the sons were searching among their stores, for something substantial to appease their hunger, and the younger fry were wrangling about their simple dishes, the parents of the unnurtured family were far differently employed.

  When the squatter saw that all, even to the reviving Abiram, were busy in administering to their appetites, he gave his downcast partner a glance of his eye, and withdrew towards a distant roll of the land, which bounded the view towards the east. The meeting of the pair, in this naked spot, was like an interview held above the grave of their murdered son. Ishmael signed to his wife to take a seat beside him on a fragment of rock, and then followed a space, during which neither seemed disposed to speak.

  “We have journeyed together long, through good and bad,” Ishmael at length commenced; “much have we had to try us, and some bitter cups have we been made to swallow, my woman; but nothing like this has ever before lain in my path.”

  “It is a heavy cross for a poor, misguided, and sinful woman to bear!” returned Esther, bowing her head to her knees, and partly concealing her face in her dress. “A heavy and a burdensome weight is this to be laid upon the shoulders of a sister and a mother!”

  “Ay; therein lies the hardship of the case. I had brought my mind to the punishment of that houseless trapper, with no great strivings, for the man had done me few favours, and God forgive me if I suspected him wrongfully of much evil! This is, however, bringing shame in at one door of my cabin, in order to drive it out at the other. But shall a son of mine be murdered, and he who did it go at large?--the boy would never rest!”

  “Oh, Ishmael, we pushed the matter far! Had little been said, who would have been the wiser? Our consciences might then have been quiet.”

  “Eest’er,” said the husband, turning on her a reproachful but still a dull regard, “the hour has been, my woman, when you thought another hand had done this wickedness?”

  “I did, I did! the Lord gave me the feeling, as a punishment for my sins! but his mercy was not slow in lifting the veil; I looked into the book, Ishmael, and there I found the words of comfort.”

  “Have you that book at hand, woman; it may happen to advise in such a dreary business.”

  Esther fumbled in her pocket and was not long in producing the fragment of a bible, which had been thumbed and smoke-dried till the print was nearly illegible. It was the only article, in the nature of a book, that was to be found among the chattels of the squatter, and it had been preserved by his wife, as a melancholy relic of more prosperous, and possibly of more innocent days. She had long been in the habit of resorting to it, under the pressure of such circumstances as were palpably beyond human redress, though her spirit and resolution rarely needed support under those that admitted of reparation through any of the ordinary means of reprisal. In this manner Esther had made a sort of convenient ally of the word of God; rarely troubling it for counsel, however, except when her own incompetency to avert an evil was too apparent to be disputed. We shall leave casuists to determine how far she resembled any other believers in this particular, and proceed directly with the matter before us.

  “There are many awful passages in these pages, Ishmael,” she said, when the volume was opened, and the leaves were slowly turning under her finger, “and some there ar’ that teach the rules of punishment.”

  Her husband made a gesture for her to find one of those brief rules of conduct, which have been received among all Christian nations as the direct mandates of the Creator, and which have been found so just, that even they, who deny their high authority, admit their wisdom. Ishmael listened with grave attention, as his companion read all those verses, which her memory suggested, and which were thought applicable to the situation in which they found themselves. He made her show him the words, which he regarded with a sort of strange reverence. A resolution once taken was usually irrevocable, in one who was moved with so much difficulty. He put his hand upon the book, and closed the pages himself, as muc
h as to apprize his wife that he was satisfied. Esther, who so well knew his character, trembled at the action, and casting a glance at his steady but contracting eye, she said--

  “And yet, Ishmael, my blood, and the blood of my children, is in his veins! cannot mercy be shown?”

  “Woman,” he answered sternly, “when we believed, that miserable old trapper had done this deed, nothing was said of mercy!”

  Esther made no reply, but folding her arms upon her breast, she sat silent and thoughtful for many minutes. Then she once more turned her anxious gaze upon the countenance, of her husband, where she found all passion and care apparently buried in the coldest apathy. Satisfied now, that the fate of her brother was sealed, and possibly conscious how well he merited the punishment that was meditated, she no longer thought of mediation. No more words passed between them. Their eyes met for an instant, and then both arose and walked in profound silence towards the encampment.

  The squatter found his children expecting his return, in the usual listless manner with which they awaited all coming events. The cattle were already herded, and the horses in their gears, in readiness to proceed so soon as he should indicate that such was his pleasure. The children were already in their proper vehicle, and, in short, nothing delayed the departure but the absence of the parents of the wild brood.

  “Abner,” said the father, with the deliberation with which all his proceedings were characterized, “take the brother of your mother from the wagon, and let him stand on the ’arth.”

  Abiram issued from his place of concealment, trembling, it is true, but far from destitute of hopes, as to his final success in appeasing the just resentment of his kinsman. After throwing a glance around him, with the vain wish of finding a single countenance in which he might detect a solitary gleam of sympathy, he endeavoured to smother those apprehensions, that were by this time reviving in all their original violence, by forcing a sort of friendly communication between himself and the squatter--

  “The beasts are getting jaded, brother,” he said; “and as we have made so good a march already, is it not time to ’camp. To my eye you may go far, before a better place than this is found to pass the night in.”

  “ ’Tis well you like it. Your tarry here ar’ likely to be long. My sons, draw nigh and listen. Abiram White,” he added, lifting his cap, and speaking with a solemnity and steadiness, that rendered even his dull mien imposing, “you have slain my first-born, and according to the laws of God and man must you die!”

  The kidnapper started at this terrible and sudden sentence, with the terror that one would exhibit who unexpectedly found himself in the grasp of a monster, from whose power there was no retreat. Although filled with the most serious forebodings of what might be his lot, his courage had not been equal to look his danger in the face, and with the deceitful consolation, with which timid tempers are apt to conceal their desperate condition from themselves, he had rather courted a treacherous relief in his cunning, than prepared himself for the worst.

  “Die!” he repeated in a voice, that scarcely issued from his chest; “a man is surely safe among his friends!”

  “So thought my boy,” returned the squatter, motioning for the team, that contained his wife and the girls, to proceed, as he very coolly examined the priming of his piece. “By the rifle did you destroy my son, and it is fit and just that you meet your end by the same weapon.”

  Abiram stared about him with a gaze that, for the moment, bespoke an unsettled reason. He even laughed, as if he would not only persuade himself but others that what he heard was some pleasantry, intended to try his nerves. But no where did his frightful merriment meet with an answering echo. All around was solemn and still. The visages of his nephews were excited, but cold towards him, and that of his former confederate frightfully determined. This very steadiness of mien was a thousand times more alarming and hopeless than any violence could have proved. The latter might possibly have touched his spirit and awakened resistance, but the former threw him entirely on the feeble resources of himself.

  “Brother,” he said, in a hurried, unnatural whisper, “did I hear you?”

  “My words are plain, Abiram White; you have done murder, and for the same must you die!”

  “Where is Esther? sister, sister, will you leave me! Oh! Sister! do you hear my call?”

  “I hear one speak from the grave!” returned the husky tones of Esther, as the wagon passed the spot where the criminal stood. “It is the voice of my first-born, calling aloud for justice! God have mercy, God have mercy on your soul!”

  The team slowly pursued its route, and the deserted Abiram now found himself deprived of the smallest vestige of hope. Still he could not summon fortitude to meet his death, and had not his limbs refused to aid him, he would yet have attempted to fly. Then, by a sudden revolution from hope to utter despair, he fell upon his knees, and commenced a prayer, in which cries for mercy to God and to his kinsman were wildly and blasphemously mingled. The sons of Ishmael turned away in horror at the disgusting spectacle, and even the stern nature of the squatter began to bend before such abject misery.

  “May that, which you ask of Him, be granted,” he said; but a father can never forget a murdered child.”

  He was answered by the most humble appeals for time. A week, a day, an hour, were each implored, with an earnestness commensurate to the value they receive, when a whole life is compressed into their short duration. The squatter was troubled, and at length he yielded in part to the petitions of the criminal. His final purpose was not altered, though he changed the means; “Abner,” he said, “mount the rock and look on every side, that we may be sure none are nigh.”

  While his nephew was obeying this order, gleams of reviving hope were seen shooting across the quivering features of the kidnapper. The report was favourable, nothing having life, the retiring teams excepted, was to be seen. A messenger was, however, coming from the latter, in great apparent haste. Ishmael awaited its arrival. He received from the hands of one of his wondering and frighted girls a fragment of that book, which Esther had preserved with so much care. The squatter beckoned the child away, and placed the leaves in the hands of the criminal.

  “Eest’er has sent you this,” he said, “that, in your last moments, you may remember God.”

  “Bless her, bless her! a good and kind sister has she been to me! But time must be given, that I may read; time, my brother, time!”

  “Time shall not be wanting. You shall be your own executioner, and this miserable office shall pass away from my hands.”

  Ishmael proceeded to put his new resolution in force. The immediate apprehensions of the kidnapper were quieted, by an assurance that he might yet live for days, though his punishment was inevitable. A reprieve, to one as abject and wretched as Abiram, temporarily produced the same effects as a pardon. He was even foremost in assisting in the appalling arrangements, and of all the actors, in that solemn tragedy, his voice alone was facetious and jocular.

  A thin shelf of the rock projected beneath one of the ragged arms of the willow. It was many feet from the ground, and admirably adapted to the purpose which, in fact, its appearance had suggested. On this little platform was the criminal placed, his arms bound at the elbows behind his back, beyond the possibility of liberation, with a proper cord leading from his neck to the limb of the tree. The latter was so placed, that when suspended the body could find no foot-hold. The fragment of the bible was placed in his hands, and he was there left to seek his consolation as he might from its pages.

  “And now, Abiram White,” said the squatter, when his sons had descended from completing this arrangement, “I give you a last and solemn asking. Death is before you in two shapes. With this rifle can your misery be cut short, or by that cord, sooner or later, must you meet your end.”

  “Let me yet live! Oh, Ishmael, you know not how sweet life is, when the last moment draws so nigh!”

  “ ’Tis done;” said the squatter motioning for his assistants to follow the
herds and teams. “And now, miserable man, that it may prove a consolation to your end, I forgive you my wrongs and leave you to your God.”

  Ishmael then turned and pursued his way across the plain at his ordinary sluggish and ponderous gait. Though his head was bent a little towards the earth, his inactive mind did not prompt him to cast a look behind. Once, indeed, he thought he heard his name called, in tones that were a little smothered, but they failed to make him pause.