Manly Wade Wellman - Novel 1966 (5 page)

 
          
And
then a third man came into view, and a fourth. They, too, were Indians, one
armed with a gun, the other with a bow. They stayed where they were and watched
the Chickasaw come alongside Jipi, dwarfed by the Cherokee’s great stature.

 
          
These
two were beneath the oak tree now. They conferred in low tones, Jipi bending
his fierce face above his companion. Then the Chickasaw leaned his gun against
the trunk and nimbly climbed into the branches.

           
Moments passed. Jipi stood on guard
like a mighty bronze ogre, and Tsukala and Mark stayed motionless in their
hiding place. The branches shook as the Chickasaw slid down to earth again. He
pointed northward, as though to the river or beyond. Then he held up four
fingers—four men, he must mean and extended both hands and revolved them around
each other in the sign for a wagon.

 
          
He
had climbed to spy on the mill, Mark guessed. Several settlers must be at the
mill, enough perhaps to discourage any thought of attack by Jipi’s party. Jipi
nodded, and he and his companion walked silently back to the other two and held
a council. One of the Indians smote one fist upon the other, the sign for
killing; but Jipi waggled a broad hand in disapproval, and plainly he had
authority. The four slipped back into the scrub again.

 
          
Tsukala
turned his face toward Mark. Holding his arrow across the bow stave with his
left forefinger, Tsukala drew the palm of his right hand across one cheek, then
the other. That signified paint on the face —war paint. He pointed to where the
prowlers had disappeared. He drew the edge of his hand across his throat, like
the blade of a murderous knife.

 
          
“Enemies,”
whispered Mark.

 
          
“Their
hearts are bad,” Tsukala muttered back.

 
          
He
held his palm close to the ground and moved it stealthily. “We go after them,”
he said. “They spy on us—we will spy on them. No, young warrior, do not go out
there. Come back this way.”

 
          
Gingerly,
Tsukala moved rearward, and let Mark out beneath overhanging pine branches.
Then he turned to make his way toward the south, observing carefully the
direction in which the four Indians must be moving. Mark stayed close behind as
Tsukala paced carefully to where they could see the bushes from which Jipi had
appeared. Tsukala peered and listened. Finally he motioned for Mark to stay
where he was, and flung
himself
flat to creep forward
like a brown, silent snake.

 
          
Mark
watched him come to the scrub and slide into it without rustling a twig. After
a moment, Tsukala looked out. He made a scooping motion with his hand to bring
Mark to join him. Also entering among the leafage, Mark saw many tracks in the
soft earth. One set of them, the big moccasin prints of Jipi, led away through
a damp, mossy stretch.

 
          
“Others
walk behind him,” Tsukala whispered in Mark’s ear. “Make the track look like
only one man.”

 
          
Cautiously,
Tsukala and Mark followed the trail. They kept to the shelter of broad trees,
of thickets. That line of footprints led toward a thickly grown area of swampy
ground, where Mark had adventured before and where he planned to set deadfalls
for mink when cold weather came. Tsukala kept the lead, and they advanced for a
gingerly mile or so. Then Tsukala stopped, lifted his head and sniffed. Mark
sniffed in imitation. He caught a faint but recognizable odor of burning wood.

 
          
That
meant fire, and fire meant men, a camp of men.

 
          
Tsukala
veered to his left, away from the trail. He slid here and there among a dense
growth of trees. Again he sniffed, and so did Mark. The smell of burning hung
in the air, and it was stronger than before. Tsukala was tracking by scent,
like a fox or hound.

 
          
Mark
matched his own steps and action to those of the tensely careful Tsukala. As
they went further, the smell of fire became almost pungent. Now Tsukala changed
direction again, moving to his right, slipping from the shelter of one tree
trunk to another. He lowered himself to the ground and advanced on his knees and
his right hand, carrying his bow in the left. Mark felt his own ears tingle as
he tried to look everywhere at once.

 
          
After
creeping for a score of yards, Tsukala stopped again. Mark joined him among the
spreading roots of a tree.
From overhead hung a masking
tangle of vines.
Through the broad leaves they could see a small brown
stream, and the other side of that stream.

 
          
On
the opposite bank, perhaps forty yards away, the trees grew more sparsely. A
stringy plume of smoke rose there, and around it
squatted
a dozen men, half-naked and brown. Huge among them bulked the great body of
Jipi. He was talking, and illustrated his talk with sweeping gestures.

 
          
So
intent was Mark that, for once, he moved carelessly. He rose to find a better
place from which to see. For a moment he partially revealed himself.

 
          
“No,
keep down,” Tsukala warned softly, but too late.

 
          
Over
yonder, one of the
group
sprang to his feet, crying
out and pointing. Mark had been seen.

 
          
He
had barely dropped to his knees again before a shot rang out and a bullet
ripped through the vine leaves just above his head.

 
          
More
Indians

 
          
“Quick,
shoot back,” snapped Tsukala. “Jump up, young warrior—shoot back, then run!”

 
          
Mark
did not pause to question this. He leaped to his feet and into plain sight. The
men on the other side of the stream were all up, and some had started to run
toward him.

 
          
Mark
flung his rifle to his shoulder, sighted quickly, and fired. A crack and a puff
of smoke, and the foremost Indian spun around with a cry and began to stagger
to a fall. Mark waited no longer, but whirled and raced away to the northward,
as fast as his moccasins could carry him.

 
          
More
yells resounded to rearward. Mark plunged through some thorny vines and shot
another glance backward. Again he was out of sight of pursuers. Running, he
grabbed for his bouncing powder horn. He drew the stopper with his teeth,
poured what he guessed was a proper charge down the muzzle of his rifle, and
mouthed the stopper into the horn again. He snatched a bullet from his pouch,
wet it on his tongue as he raced, and rammed it down on top of the powder.
Hurriedly he primed the firing pan and snapped it shut. He did not think he had
faltered in his flight to reload.

 
          
Yet
again a wild yell, back there where he had risen and fired; then many voices,
howling back and forth as though in consternation. Mark forced himself to a new
straining gallop. Sternly he rejoiced that hard work in the fields, long
hunting expeditions up and down the mountain slopes, had hardened and
conditioned him. The shouts seemed to dwindle behind him—he must be drawing
ahead of those who chased him. He wondered what had become of Tsukala. He ran
for fully half a mile, and then slowed to a walk because he must catch his
breath. He spared time for another look back. Finger on trigger, he gazed to
either side. No glimpse or sound of Jipi’s followers, but for all he knew they
might be closing in upon him through the woods. He dared not pause in his
flight.

 
          
He
slid in among the trees, taking advantage of all possible cover. He moved at a
crouching trot, alert for any whisper of danger. He came to where Jipi and the
Chickasaw had conferred beside the oak tree. From there he ran again,
breathlessly, to the very bank of the Black Willow.

 
          
He
saw the road, the mill on its far side, and the stream that ran down from the
pond. A rough bridge had been made there, of stout planks split from trees and
laid upon stones. A wagon was drawn up beside the mill, Joseph Shelton’s wagon,
and
Shelton
and Philip Lapham stood talking to Simon
Durwell. As Mark watched, Bram Schneider appeared from behind the mill. These
were the four men the Chickasaw had indicated to Jipi when he had climbed the
tree to spy.

 
          
Mark
came out from among the riverside trees and shouted his loudest. The men at the
mill looked his way, and Mark held his rifle high above his head. Tall Shelton
came slouching down to the other bank, his own rifle swinging in his big hand.

 
          
“Indians!”
Mark yelled to him. “Cover me from that side while
I come across.”

 
          
At
once Lapham came running, also with his gun in his hands. Mark ran into the
water. He waded to his hips, holding his powder horn above the wet. He gained
the other side and hurried up to the mill, Shelton and Lapham keeping pace on either
side of him.

 
          
Panting
for breath, Mark told the story of the scouting adventure in as few words as he
could. They heard him out, scowling in concern.

 
          
“A
dozen savages, you tell us?” growled Durwell, swinging his long arms. “And
lurking here for mischief? Hurry, friends, up with the two signal fires. We
need more help than is here at hand.”

 
          
Mark
helped Durwell drag one pile of wood together, while Schneider and Lapham
heaped up a second. They scraped flint and steel to kindle dried grass and set
the fires, and gathered leaves and trash to throw on to make smudges. Up rose
two columns of smoke toward the sky.

 
          
“That
should fetch us reinforcements,” commented Durwell. “But look to the other side
of the river. I thought I saw something move there among the leaves.”

 
          
“ ’Twas
an Indian,” said Shelton at once. “I glimpsed his
brown shoulder for a moment. Spread out, friends, and let every gun be ready.”

 
          
“Aye,
and let no enemy get across the river,” added Durwell, frowning above his
weapon.

 
          
They
knelt under cover of weeds and fallen logs. Mark peered. A hand shot into view
among the trunks opposite, waving a branch back and forth.

 
          
“That’s
a sign of peace,” said Lapham.

 
          
“A
scurvy savage trick, belike,” growled Shelton, bringing his rifle up.

 
          
“Ahi!”
came
a
quavering cry.
“Ahi,
friends!”

 
          
Mark
sprang up. “Hold your fire all, ’tis Tsukala,” he warned the others quickly. “I
know his voice. Ho, Tsukala, come over to us!”

 
          
He
beckoned with his arm. Tsukala stepped into view, and hurried through the
waist-deep water as fast as he could manage. Mark and the others gathered
around him.

 
          
“What
of those men we saw?” Mark asked.

 
          
“They
ran,” said Tsukala gravely.

           
“Ran?” echoed Mark. “But they were
twelve to our two, so I thought.”

 
          
“Twelve
no more,” Tsukala told him. “You hit one. I hit one. They are only ten now. And
the ten ran back south from where we saw them. They carried the two we shot.”

 
          
In
simple, unexcited fashion he told what had happened. When Jipi’s band of Indian
outlaws had sprung up to rush at Mark, Mark’s bullet had felled the swiftest of
them, a man running ahead of the others. That had caused a moment of indecisive
slowness. Then the rest had come on, weapons in hand, plainly intent on
catching and destroying Mark. Tsukala, waiting silently in his hiding, had sent
an arrow at close quarters to transfix another of the band as they rushed past
him.

 
          
“They
stopped then,” he said.
“One down with a bullet.
Another down with an arrow.
They did not know how many might
be there to fight them. They ran back to their fire. Jipi wanted them to go
after the young warrior, but they would not. Threw sand on the fire, picked up
those two wounded men, carried them away south. I heard Jipi calling them
cowards and women. But he went with them, too.”

 
          
“And
you waited there, to hear and see?” Mark suggested.

 
          
“No,”
and Tsukala shook his head.
“Did not wait where I was.
Went through trees, got near that stream.
Hid where I
could see and hear them— everything, close up.”

 
          
“What
if they’d found you?” Shelton asked him.

 
          
Tsukala
smiled with tight lips. “I saw they were afraid. I knew they would not look.
They meant to surprise you. They did not think they would be surprised.”

 
          
Everyone
was silent for a moment, digesting this. Then Durwell spoke, hopefully: “Maybe
they’ll be gone from hereabouts and plague us no more.”

 
          
“Maybe,”
said Tsukala.
“Maybe not.”

 
          
He
went on to describe Jipi’s band. He had
seen,
not only
the Chickasaw who had been with Jipi earlier, but men who seemed to belong to
other tribes. One, he thought, might be a Creek.

 
          
“They
are men with bad hearts,” he summed up. “Their own tribes drove them out. They
will steal, kill if they can.”

 
          
Everyone
returned to the mill and waited. At last, from the westward, came a hurrying
horseman. It was Leland Stoke, who had left his son to guard at home and had
rallied to the double smoke of warning. From the other direction, Mark’s father
and Esau Hollon rode in. Dismounting, the reinforcements listened to what Mark
and Tsukala had to say.

 
          
“We
must go and see about these uninvited guests,” declared Jarrett, creasing his
face in a scowl. “I’m not one to rest contented when my own son hath been chased
by savages. See, there are eight of us here— no, nine, counting Bram Schneider.
Have you a gun, Bram?”

 
          
“Nein,
Captain,” Schneider protested.
“Das ist nicht sehr gut
—not goot, your
talk of fighting.
Ach,
it is a bad
place here. I am afraid to go. This morning, I haf seen tracks here, and an
arrow was lying up there.” He gestured shakily.
“On the path
behind the mill.”

 
          
“That’s
true, friends,” Durwell added. “Go, Bram, and fetch that arrow you found.”

 
          
Schneider
trotted into the mill shed, and came out with an arrow in his hand. Tsukala
took it, turned it this way and that, and finally grunted.

 
          
“Not
an Indian arrow,” he informed them. “It is little warrior’s arrow. Your
brother,” he said, tapping Mark’s shoulder. “I know. I helped him make this
arrow. I know it.”

 
          
“Egad,
Tsukala is right,” Mark seconded him. “Will carries a quiver full of such
shafts. He must have lost it near by.”

 
          
“But
tracks, Indian tracks,” insisted Schneider. “I saw them.”

 
          
“We’ll
go look,” said Jarrett, and he, Mark, and Tsukala went with Schneider where a
path was worn along the edge of the pond above the dam. Schneider pointed at
tracks, and Tsukala knelt to examine them.

 
          
“Ho!”
he laughed shortly.
“A trick.
See, big moccasins.
But not strong prints.
No big man wore big moccasins here. A
small one wore them.
A boy.”

 
          
His
father set his huge hands on his hips. “Ha, Mark, your young brother Will has
been playing pranks,” he said. “Methought he and Seth Ramsey’s son were
whispering and snickering when Bram Schneider told us of his fears. Well, I’ll
speak plainly and to the point with young Will, this very day. He is not to
make false signs to vex our friend Schneider, and indeed he and the other
children must be ordered not to roam afield.”

 
          
Still
Schneider begged to be left out of any armed venture into the woods below the
river, and both Jarrett and Durwell agreed that someone should be left on guard
at the mill. But when Schneider demurred at being left alone, it was difficult
to induce anyone to stay with him. At last Shelton consented, and he and
Schneider remained at the mill. Jarrett led the others to wade across the Black
Willow.

 
          
On
the far side, Tsukala moved to the front to show the way. Mark ranged at the
right,
and Stoke at the left. Durwell, Lapham, Esau, and
Jarrett made a main body that moved along at the center of the formation.

 
          
With
woodsmanlike caution they conducted their march to the oak tree, and paused
under it while the scouts reconnoitred in all directions. From there they took
up the advance again, every man with his rifle loaded, cocked, and ready in his
hands. Mark, slipping through the woods in his wet leggings, was amazed that
they came so quickly to the stream beyond which Jipi had sat in council with
his companions.

 
          
Now
Tsukala, Mark, and Stoke crossed the stream at three widely separated points,
and made a careful examination of the woods before signaling for the others to
come on. Tsukala slid deeper among the trees beyond the stream, while Jarrett
studied the obliterated fire and the marks around it.