The Spirit of the Border and the Last Trail (31 page)

“A judgment of God!”

“It does seem so, but it came in the form of leaden death from Wetzel's unerring rifle. Do you hear all that yelling? Half King's death has set the Indians wild.”

There was a gentle knock at the door, and then the word, “Open,” in Heckewelder's voice.

Jim unbarred the door. Heckewelder came in carrying over his shoulder what apparently was a sack of meal. He was accompanied by young Christy. Heckewelder put the bag down, opened it, and lifted out a little Indian boy. The child gazed round with fearful eyes.

“Save Benny! Save Benny!” he cried, running to Nell, and she clasped him closely in her arms.

Heckewelder's face was like marble as he asked concerning Edward's condition.

“I'm not badly off,” said the missionary with a smile.

“How's George?” whispered Heckewelder.

No one answered him. Zeisberger raised his hands. All followed Heckewelder into the other room, where Young lay in the same position as when first brought in. Heckewelder stood gazing down into the wan face with its terribly significant smile.

“I brought him out here. I persuaded him to come!” whispered Heckewelder. “Oh, Almighty God!” he cried. His voice broke, and his prayer ended with the mute eloquence of clasped hands and uplifted, appealing face.

“Come out,” said Zeisberger, leading him into the larger room. The others followed, and Jim closed the door.

“What's to be done?” said Zeisberger, with his practical common sense. “What did Williamson say? Tell us what you learned?”

“Wait—directly,” answered Heckewelder, sitting down and covering his face with his hands. There was a long silence. At length he raised his white face and spoke calmly:

“Gentlemen, the Village of Peace is doomed. I entreated Captain Williamson to help us, but he refused. Said he dared not interfere. I prayed that he would speak at least a word to Girty, but he denied my request.”

“Where are the converts?”

“Imprisoned in the church, every one of them except Benny. Mr. Christy and I hid the child in the meal sack and were thus able to get him here. We must save him.”

“Save him?” asked Nell, looking from Heckewelder to the trembling Indian boy.

“Nellie, the savages have driven all our Christians into the church, and shut them up there, until Girty and his men shall give the word to complete their fiendish design. The converts asked but one favor—an hour in which to pray. It was granted. The savages intend to murder them all.”

“Oh! Horrible! Monstrous!” cried Nell. “How can they be so inhuman?” She lifted Benny up in her arms. “They'll never get you, my boy. We'll save you—I'll save you!” The child moaned and clung to her neck.

“They are scouring the clearing now for Christians, and will search all the cabins. I'm positive.”

“Will they come here?” asked Nell, turning her blazing eyes on Heckewelder.

“Undoubtedly. We must try to hide Benny. Let me think; where would be a good place? We'll try a dark corner of the loft.”

“No, no,” cried Nell.

“Put Benny in Young's bed,” suggested Jim.

“No, no,” cried Nell.

“Put him in a bucket and let him down in the well,” whispered Edwards, who had listened intently to the conversation.

“That's a capital place,” said Heckewelder. “But might he not fall out and drown?”

“Tie him in the bucket,” said Jim.

“No, no, no,” cried Nell.

“But Nellie, we must decide upon a hiding place, and in a hurry.”

“I'll save Benny.”

“You? Will you stay here to face those men? Jim Girty and Deering are searching the cabins. Could you bear it to see them? You couldn't.”

“Oh! No, I believe it would kill me! That man; that beast! will he come here?” Nell grew ghastly pale, and looked as if about to faint. She shrunk in horror at the thought of again facing Girty. “For God's sake, Heckewelder, don't let him see me! Don't let him come in! Don't!”

Even as the imploring voice ceased a heavy thump sounded on the door.

“Who's there?” demanded Heckewelder.

Thump! Thump!

The heavy blows shook the cabin. The pans rattled on the shelves. No answer came from without.

“Quick! Hide Benny! It's as much as our lives are worth to have him found here,” cried Heckewelder in a fierce whisper, as he darted toward the door.

“All right, all right, in a moment,” he called out, fumbling over the bar.

He opened the door a moment later and when Jim Girty and Deering entered he turned to his friends with a dread uncertainty in his haggard face.

Edwards lay on the bed with wide-open eyes staring at the intruders. Mr. Wells sat with bowed head. Zeisberger calmly whittled a stick, and Jim stood bolt upright, with a hard light in his eyes.

Nell leaned against the side of a heavy table. Wonderful was the change that had transformed her from a timid, appealing, fear-agonized girl to a woman whose only evidences of unusual excitement were the flame in her eyes and the peculiar whiteness of her face.

Benny was gone!

Heckewelder's glance returned to the visitors. He thought he had never seen such brutal, hideous men.

“Wal, I reckon a preacher ain't agoin' to lie. Hev you seen any Injun Christians round here?” asked Girty, waving a heavy sledgehammer.

“Girty, we have hidden no Indians here,” answered Heckewelder, calmly.

“Wal, we'll hev a look, anyway,” answered the renegade.

Girty surveyed the room with wolfish eyes. Deering was so drunk that he staggered. Both men, in fact, reeked with the vile fumes of rum. Without another word they proceeded to examine the room, by looking into every box, behind a stone oven, and in the cupboard. They drew the bedclothes from the bed, and with a kick demolished a pile of stove wood. Then the ruffians passed into the other apartments, where they could be heard making thorough search. At length both returned to the large room, when Girty directed Deering to climb the ladder leading to the loft, but because Deering was too much under the influence of liquor to do so, he had to go himself. He rummaged around up there for a few minutes, and then came down.

“Wal, I reckon you wasn't lyin' about it,” said Girty, with his ghastly leer.

He and his companion started to go out. Deering had stood with bloodshot eyes fixed on Nell while Girty searched the loft, and as they passed the girl on their way to the open air, the renegade looked at Girty as he motioned with his head toward her. His besotted face expressed some terrible meaning.

Girty had looked at Nell when he first entered, but had not glanced twice at her. As he turned now, before going out of the door, he fixed on her his baleful glance. His aspect was more full of meaning than could have been any words. A horrible power, of which he was boastfully conscious, shone from his little, pointed eyes. His mere presence was deadly. Plainly as if he had spoken was the significance of his long gaze. Anyone could have translated that look.

Once before Nell had faced it, and fainted when its dread meaning grew clear to her. But now she returned his gaze with one in which flashed lightning scorn, and repulsion, in which glowed a wonderful defiance.

The cruel face of this man, the boastful barbarity of his manner, the long, dark, bloody history which his presence recalled, was, indeed, terrifying without the added horror of his intent toward her, but now the self-forgetfulness of a true woman sustained her.

Girty and Deering backed out of the door. Heckewelder closed it, and dropped the bar in place.

Nell fell over the table with a long, low gasp. Then with one hand she lifted her skirt. Benny walked from under it. His big eyes were bright. The young woman clasped him again in her arms. Then she released him, and, laboring under intense excitement, ran to the window.

“There he goes! Oh, the horrible beast! If I only had a gun and could shoot! Oh, if only I were a man! I'd kill him. To think of poor Kate! Ah! he intends the same for me!”

Suddenly she fell upon the floor in a faint. Mr. Wells and Jim lifted her on the bed beside Edwards, where they endeavored to revive her. It was some moments before she opened her eyes.

Jim sat holding Nell's hand. Mr. Wells again bowed his head. Zeisberger continued to whittle a stick, and Heckewelder paced the floor. Christy stood by with every evidence of sympathy for this distracted group. Outside the clamor increased.

“Just listen!” cried Heckewelder. “Did you ever hear the like? All drunk, crazy, fiendish! They drank every drop of liquor the French traders had. Curses on the vagabond dealers! Rum has made these renegades and savages wild. Oh! my poor, innocent Christians!”

Heckewelder leaned his head against the mantel shelf. He had broken down at last. Racking sobs shook his frame.

“Are you all right again?” asked Jim of Nell.

“Yes.”

“I am going out, first to see Williamson, and then the Christians,” he said, rising very pale, but calm.

“Don't go!” cried Heckewelder. “I have tried everything. It was all of no use.”

“I will go,” answered Jim.

“Yes, Jim, go,” whispered Nell, looking up into his eyes. It was an earnest gaze in which a faint hope shone.

Jim unbarred the door and went out.

“Wait, I'll go along,” cried Zeisberger, suddenly dropping his knife and stick.

As the two men went out a fearful spectacle met their eyes. The clearing was alive with Indians. But such Indians! They were painted demons, maddened by rum. Yesterday they had been silent; if they moved at all it had been with deliberation and dignity. Today they were a yelling, running, blood-seeking mob.

“Awful! Did you ever see human beings like these?” asked Zeisberger.

“No, no!”

“I saw such a frenzy once before, but, of course, only in a small band of savages. Many times have I seen Indians preparing for the warpath, in search of both white men and redskins. They were fierce then, but nothing like this. Everyone of these frenzied fiends is honest. Think of that! Every man feels it his duty to murder these Christians. Girty has led up to this by cunning, and now the time is come to let them loose.”

“It means death for all.”

“I have given up any thought of escaping,” said Zeisberger, with the calmness that had characterized his manner since he returned to the village. “I shall try to get into the church.”

“I'll join you there as soon as I see Williamson.”

Jim walked rapidly across the clearing to the cabin where Captain Williamson had quarters. The frontiersmen stood in groups, watching the savages with an interest which showed little or no concern.

“I want to see Captain Williamson,” said Jim to a frontiersman on guard at the cabin door.

“Wal, he's inside,” drawled the man.

Jim thought the voice familiar, and he turned sharply to see the sun-burnt features of Jeff Lynn, the old riverman who had taken Mr. Wells' party to Fort Henry.

“Why, Lynn! I'm glad to see you,” exclaimed Jim.

“Purty fair to middlin',” answered Jeff, extending his big hand. “Say, how's the other one, your brother as wus called Joe?”

“I don't know. He ran off with Wetzel, was captured by Indians, and when I last heard of him he had married Wingenund's daughter.”

“Wal, I'll be doggoned!” Jeff shook his grizzled head and slapped his leg. “I jest knowed he'd raise somethin'!”

“I'm in a hurry. Do you think Captain Williamson will stand still and let all this go on?”

“I'm afeerd so.”

Evidently the captain heard the conversation, for he appeared at the cabin door, smoking a long pipe.

“Captain Williamson, I have come to entreat you to save the Christians from this impending massacre.”

“I can't do nuthin',” answered Williamson, removing his pipe to puff forth a great cloud of smoke.

“You have eighty men here!”

“If we interfered Pipe would eat us alive in three minutes. You preacher fellows don't understand this thing. You've got Pipe and Girty to deal with. If you don't know them, you'll be better acquainted by sundown.”

“I don't care who they are. Drunken ruffians and savages! That's enough. Will you help us? We are men of your own race, and we come to you for help. Can you withhold it?”

“I won't hev nuthin' to do with this bizness. The chiefs hev condemned the village, an' it'll hev to go. If you fellars hed been careful, no white blood would hev been spilled. I advise you all to lay low till it's over.”

“Will you let me speak to your men, to try and get them to follow me?”

“Heckewelder asked the same thing. He was persistent, and I took a vote fer him just to show how my men stood. Eighteen of them said they'd follow him; the rest wouldn't interfere.”

“Eighteen! My God!” cried Jim, voicing the passion which consumed him. “You are white men, yet you will stand by and see these innocent people murdered! Man, where's your humanity? Your manhood? These converted Indians are savages no longer, they are Christians. Their children are as good, pure, innocent as your own. Can you remain idle and see these little ones murdered?”

Williamson made no answer, the men who had crowded round were equally silent. Not one lowered his head. Many looked at the impassioned missionary; others gazed at the savages who were circling around the trees brandishing their weapons. If any pitied the unfortunate Christians, none showed it. They were indifferent, with the indifference of men hardened to cruel scenes.

Jim understood, at last, as he turned from face to face to find everywhere that same imperturbability. These bordermen were like Wetzel and Jonathan Zane. The only good Indian was a dead Indian. Years of war and bloodshed, of merciless cruelty at the hands of redmen, of the hard, border life had rendered these frontiersmen incapable of compassion for any savage.

Jim no longer restrained himself.