Part 76 (1/2)
And it doubled us with laughter to think on't, so that for lack o'
breath I sat down upon a log to hold my aching sides.
”Now, she'll be ever on their heels,” muttered Boyd, ”hen-like, malevolent, and unaccountable. No man dare face and flout that lady, whose husband also is utterly subjected. It was Betty Bleecker who set her on me. Well, so no more of yonder ladies save in her bristling presence.”
Yet, as it happened, one thing barred Mistress Sabin from a perpetual domination and sleepless supervision of her charges, and that was the trap-door. Through it she could not force herself, nor could she come around by the guard-door, for the covered way would not admit her ample proportions. She could but mount her guard at the ladder's foot. And there were two exits to that garret room.
That day I would have messed with my own people, Major Parr inviting me, but that our General had all the Otsego officers to dine with him at headquarters, and a huge punch afterward, from which I begged to be excused, as it was best that I look to my Indians when any rum was served in camp.
Boyd came later to the bush-hut, overflushed with punch, saying that he had drawn sixty pair of shoes for his men, to spite old Sabin, and meant to distribute them with music playing; and that afterward I was to join him at the fort as he had orders for himself and for me from the General, and desired to confer with me concerning them.
Later came word from him that he had a headache and would confer with me on the morrow. Neither did I see Lois again that evening, a gill of rum having been issued to every man, and I sticking close as a wood-tick to my red comrades--indeed, I had them out after sunset to watch the cattle-guard, who were in a sorry pickle, sixty head having strayed and two soldiers missing. And the manoeuvres of that same guard did ever sicken me.
It proved another b.l.o.o.d.y story, too, for first we found an ox with throat cut; and, it being good meat, we ordered it taken in. And then, in the bushes ahead, a soldier begins a-bawling that the devil is in his horses, and that they have run back into the woods.
I heard him chasing them, and shouted for him to wait, but the poor fool pays no heed, but runs on after his three horses; and soon he screams out:
”G.o.d a'mighty!” And, ”Christ have mercy!”
With that I blow my ranger's whistle, and my Indians pa.s.s me like phantoms in the dusk, and I hot-foot after them; but it was too late to save young Elliott, who lay there dead and already scalped, doubled up in the bed of a little brook, his clenched hand across his eyes and a Seneca knife in his smooth, boyish throat.
Late that night the Sagamore started, chased, and quickly cornered something in a clump of laurel close to the river bank; and my Indians gathered around like fiercely-whining hounds. It was starlight, but too dark to see, except what was shadowed against the river; so we all lay flat, waiting, listening for whatever it was, deer or bear or man.
Then the Night Hawk, who stood guard at the river, uttered the shrill Oneida view-halloo; and into the thicket we all sprang cras.h.i.+ng, and strove to catch the creature alive; but the Sagamore had to strike to save his own skull; and out of the bushes we dragged one of Amochol's greasy-skinned a.s.sa.s.sins, still writhing, twisting, and clawing as we flung him heavily and like a scotched snake upon the river sand, where the Mohican struck him lifeless and ripped the scalp from his oiled and shaven head.
The Erie's lifeless fist still clutched the painted ca.s.se-tete with which he had aimed a silently murderous blow at the Sagamore.
Grey-Feather drew the death-maul from the dead warrior's grasp, and handed it to the Siwanois.
Then Tahoontowhee, straightening his slim, naked figure to its full and graceful height, raised himself on tiptoe and, placing his hollowed hands to his cheeks, raised the shuddering echoes with the most terrific note an Indian can utter.
As the forest rang with the fierce Oneida scalp-yell, very far away along the low-browed mountain flank we could hear the far tinkle of hoof and pebble, where the stolen horses moved; and out of the intense blackness of the hills came faintly the answering defiance of the Senecas, and the hideous miauling of the Eries, quavering, shuddering, dying into the tremendous stillness of the Dark Empire which we had insulted, challenged, and which we were now about to brave.
Once more Tahoontowhee's piercing defiance split the quivering silence; once more the whining panther cry of the Cat-People floated back through the far darkness.
Then we turned away toward our pickets; and, as we filed into our lines, I could smell the paint and oil on the scalp that the Siwanois had taken. And it smelled rank enough, G.o.d wot!
About nine on Monday morning the entire camp was alarmed by irregular and heavy firing along the river; but it proved to be my riflemen clearing their pieces; which did mortify General Clinton, and was the subject of a blunt order from headquarters, and a blunter rebuke from Major Parr to Boyd, who, I am inclined to think, did do this out of sheer deviltry. For that schoolboy delight of mischief which never, while he lived, was entirely quenched, was ever sparkling in those handsome and roving eyes of his. For which our riflemen adored him, being by every instinct reckless and irresponsible themselves, and only held to discipline by their wors.h.i.+p of Daniel Morgan, and the upright character and the iron rigour of Major Parr.
Not that the 11th Virginia ever shrank from duty. No regiment in the Continental army had a prouder record. But the men of that corps were drawn mostly from those free-limbed, free-thinking, powerful, headlong, and sometimes ruthless backwoodsmen who carried law into regions where none but Nature's had ever before existed. And the law they carried was their own.
It was a reproach to us that we scalped our red enemies. No officer in the corps could prevent these men from answering an Indian's insult with another of the same kind. And there remained always men in that command who took their scalps as carelessly as they clipped a catamount of ears and pads.
As for my special detail, I understood perfectly that I could no more prevent my Indians from scalping enemies of their own race than I could whistle a wolf-pack up wind. But I could stop their lifting the hair from a dead man of my own race, and had made them understand very plainly that any such attempt would be instantly punished as a personal insult to myself. Which every warrior understood. And I have often wondered why other officers commanding Indians, and who were ever complaining that they could not prevent scalping of white enemies, did not employ this argument, and enforce it, too. For had one of my men, no matter which one, disobeyed, I would have had him triced up in a twinkling and given a hundred lashes.
Which meant, also, that I would have had to kill him sooner or later.
There was a stink of rum in camp that morning and it is a quaffing beverage which while I like to drink it in punch, the smell of it abhors me. And ever and anon my Indians lifted their noses, sniffling the tainted air; so that I was glad when a note was handed me from Boyd saying that we were to take a forest stroll with my Indians around the herd-guard, during which time he would unfold to me his plans.
So I started for the fort, my little party carrying rifles and sidearms but no packs; and there waited across the ditch in the suns.h.i.+ne my Indians, cross-legged in a row on the gra.s.s, and gravely cracking and munching the sweet, green hazelnuts with which these woods abound.