Manly Wade Wellman - Novel 1966 Read online

  Closer moved the giant, peering this way and that. Here was as big a man as Mark had seen since leaving civilized country, bigger even than Mark’s robust father. Jipi must be six and a half feet tall from his moccasined sole to his huge head that was wrapped in a dull-dyed scarf. His bare arms were knotted with thick muscles, and his shoulders jutted like brown mountain crags. His dark face, broad as a bucket, showed deep, harsh lines, and his nose hooked like a beak as though to meet the upward curve of his massive chin. Mark could see the tufts of feathers that made red ornamentation for his leggings, and red-feathered, too, was the wide leather belt that carried Jipi’s knife, tomahawk and red-feathered pouch.

  Tsukala had soundlessly notched an arrow on his bowstring and held the bow half drawn, ready to pull and send the shaft instantly. Mark advanced the muzzle of his rifle, his thumb on the hammer. They both watched as Jipi looked around to the scrub from which he had come and made a beckoning motion with one giant hand. Another Indian rose into view, also stripped to the waist and carrying a gun. This man’s hair was roached like the mane of a mule. Chickasaws wore their hair like that, Mark had heard, and Tsukala had found the broken shaft of a Chickasaw arrow. As this man moved toward Jipi, Mark could see bars of paint on his face, black and red. That was war paint, such as was donned by Indian braves when they sought the excitement of battle, the trophies of enemy scalps.

  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.

  CHAPTER V

  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 upo
n 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.

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sp; 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.

  “Here’s blood,” he said, pointing to dark splotches on the earth, “and yonder is more. I wonder if either of those skulking devils struck down by Mark and Tsukala will be up again, to cause us more worry. What say you, friends, should we not press on and perhaps overtake and gall them worse?”

  “Aye, Captain,” approved Stoke, with old- soldierly determination. “They are heathen foe, and have showed it by firing on Mark and trying to run him down.”

  “Then we take their trail at once,” Jarrett said fiercely. “Here comes Tsukala back to us. Did you see which way they went, Tsukala?”

  “Yuh. The track is plain.”

  “Forward, then,” ordered Jarrett. “Their number is cut to but ten who can fight, and we are seven, with arms in our hands and courage in our hearts.”

  But Tsukala held up his hand, to halt the party. “They are more than ten,” he said.

  “How, more than ten?” protested Esau. “You told us that two of them were down.”

  “The ten met with friends,” Tsukala elaborated. “I followed them a little way. It was easy to follow— blood was on the ground. Then their tracks came to where more tracks showed.”

  Jarrett blew out his breath and sank his great head between his shoulders.

  “How many more?” he asked.

  “Another ten, maybe more than that,” replied Tsukala. “All tracks came together, and I saw where all kept going south from here. But they are not far away. Tracks were fresh.”