Manly Wade Wellman - Novel 1955 Read online

  “I heard something,” he whispered as softly as he could. “Hark! There it is again.”

  A muffled thump, then another—the stamping of a horse.

  Ben motioned for Casimir to stay where he was, and moved ahead at a low crouch. Coming to a broad water oak, he knelt behind it and stealthily peered past its trunk.

  A score of yards beyond, in a sort of small clearing among the thickets, three horses stood together. Their bridles were drawn forward over their heads and gathered into the left fist of a dry-looking little man in a checked shirt and a wide, rumpled hat. This horse-holder sat on the broad root of a cypress tree, with his back to its trunk, almost facing Ben. Across his bony knee his other hand held a long, ugly horse pistol.

  Ben drew back behind the water oak and beckoned to Casimir, then lowered his palm groundward to signal for a creeping approach. Bent double, the Creole came to join him.

  Ben pointed, Casimir looked cautiously past the tree, then swiftly clapped hand to sword-hilt.

  But Ben caught his arm to quiet him. Exhaling soundlessly to make his whisper as faint as possible, again Ben brought his lips to Casimir’s ear.

  “I’ll circle him and come at him from behind,” he said. “It’ll take a little while. Stay here. When you hear me speak, jump up and rush him. Be ready for anything.”

  Casimir nodded furiously to show understanding and agreement. Ben dropped to his hands and knees and crawled off toward the right.

  His journey lay over moist earth, among roots and patches of moss. Once or twice he lay flat and wriggled along like a snake, to avoid stirring some low-grown bushes. After some yards of prone travel along a curving course, he lay suddenly still. One of the horses had snorted nervously, very close at hand.

  “You hush your fuss,” came the grunting voice of the skinny man.

  Ben raised himself on his hands and squinted through a crisscross of leafy brush. He had come within eight or ten yards of the seated horse-holder, and saw him in profile. The horses stood with their heads close together, and Ben studied them. A new inspiration came to him.

  He glanced right and left. Near him on the ground lay several thumb-sized pebbles. He pulled his pistol from his coat pocket, drew back the hammer, and laid it on the ground in front of him. Then he rose slowly and silently to his knees, a pebble in each hand.

  He drew back his arm and hurled one pebble, then the other, among the horses.

  At once all three of the animals were struggling and tugging at their bridles, and their holder cursed angrily and sprang to his feet. He grabbed with both his hands to steady and subdue his charges. The big pistol spun from his lap to the ground.

  “What’s ailing ye?” he scolded. “Quiet down, or—” Ben drew his own pistol, leaped to his feet, and charged in. Four galloping strides brought him close to the man, and he aimed the weapon.

  “Stand still! ” he commanded, as fiercely as he could manage. “You’re under arrest. Make a false move and I’ll drill you through!”

  Still clinging to the three bridles, the fellow turned a bristle-chinned, blank-eyed face to Ben.

  “Why—why—” he stammered, “what’s the matter, young sir? I’m just a-holding of these here hosses for some friends of mine what’s a-huntin’ not far off—”

  “Nom dyun diablel” That was Casimir, bursting through the leafage opposite, his sword drawn. “We know what they hunt, your friends! You are our prisoner. Deny it, and I’ll—” His point threatened the bosom of the checked shirt. Still caked with half-dried mud, his uncovered hair disordered and flowing like a mane, Casimir was a fearsome sight. The horse- holder quailed before him.

  “You’re a-makin’ jokes,” he whined. “I ain’t done nothin’ to you. If you’re a-fixin’ to rob me, I ain’t got a picayune in these here old clothes of mine.”

  Ben had caught up the fallen horse pistol in his left hand. “This doesn’t look like a peaceful man’s toy,” he said. “Let go those horses.”

  “But—”

  “Let them go,” echoed Casimir balefully, and made a prodding movement with his sword point.

  The bony hands opened j the bridles fell from them. Ben held the horse pistol toward Casimir.

  “Take this,” said Ben. “The priming on your shooting iron must have got soaked when you took your roll in the mud back yonder.”

  Casimir accepted the weapon. Ben stepped close to the nearest horse and dealt it a singing slap on the flank. It snorted nervously and went dashing away along the path toward the levee road. The others hurried after it, their bridle reins trailing behind them.

  “Now,” Ben addressed the captive, “back up to that little gum tree over there. We’re going to tie you and stuff your mouth, and then we’ll track down your partners who want to kill the Governor.”

  VI. Governor Claiborne

  The scrawny man would have argued and pleaded further, but Ben thrust his pistol against the meager ribs and fairly hustled him back against the tree. They pulled his arms around the trunk, bound his lean wrists with his own belt, and gagged him with a sleeve torn from his coarse checked shirt. Then Ben began to prowl in search of more signs of Jethro Wicks and the third member of the party.

  He found them soon enough. They led away from the clearing on the far side, and he took up the trail like a hound after a rabbit. Casimir hurried to catch up, his sword in one hand, the captured horse pistol in the other. Ben cautioned him to silence with a finger across his lips, and pushed on after the quarry they sought.

  The tracks were less easy to follow, for there was no pathway here, and the two dismounted men made fainter marks among the trees than would two horses. Yet the ground was soft and impressionable, and Ben’s eyes were sharp and his trailing talents lively. He made out prints of two sets of feet, one in moccasins, the other in stout-soled boots.

  “Wicks, I reckon,” he muttered to Casimir, jabbing a finger at the moccasin tracks. “How far are we from that Tchoupitoulas place?”

  “Very near, as I judge,” replied Casimir.

  “I thought so when I saw they’d left their horses. Come on.”

  The two reached cleared land, where cane had been grown and then cut during the summer. Above it hung the leaden clouds, filtering down a gray afternoon light. Ben directed Casimir to wait, and crossed this open space at a trot, following the double line of footmarks toward more trees beyond. When he stood under the shade of the branches, he listened, peered, then beckoned Casimir to race after him. .

  They found themselves in a narrow belt of timber, mostly live oaks, magnolias, and cypresses. A number of stumps could be seen among the trees, where some of the larger trunks had been cut away for building or fence making. Ben traced the men he followed and came to a halt again, at the edge of more cleared land.

  Very near to where he and Casimir stood appeared the backs of a row of small squat brick sheds, apparently slave quarters. Beyond these, at a distance of some two hundred yards, rose a broad structure of brick, with a two-story gallery running all the way around. To its front and to the side from which they looked at it, appeared beds of gay flowers and neatly trimmed clumps of shrubbery, while wide-limbed shade trees were spaced here and there, like well-ordered rows of sentinels. Behind the house stood a square kitchen with a wide chimney, and behind that could be seen more outbuildings. From the front door ran a broad path, bordered with fig and pecan trees, and farther along showed the surface of the broad Mississippi.

  “It is Tchoupitoulas,” said Casimir softly, and Ben leaned forward and peered.

  At first he could not see any movement. Then, at a point midway between the trees and the house, a dark stealthy shape crept from among red-berried bushes and writhed forward to another patch of growth that would give cover. After a moment, a second crawling form followed.

  “Look, Ben,” whispered Casimir.

  Ben made no reply, but dropped to hands and knees. He began to crawl through wiry grass after the two forms. He heard Casimir coming along behind him.
/>   Even here was a trail to follow. Almost under Ben’s nose, as he dragged himself forward, plain marks showed among the bushes and grass. It was as if an alligator had wallowed its uncouth way there. Ben kept to that course, where the cover had been sighted and used to advantage by the very men he stalked. He made good progress, came to a low-growing myrtle, and peered through its leaves.

  Up ahead, the two figures lifted their heads cautiously. They half crouched, half lay, behind a big log, and stealthily they reconnoitered the gallery of the big house. Then the heads came close together, as though in conference, and between them Ben could see something long and lean, with a dull shine in the gray afternoon light—a musket or rifle.

  One of the two pushed the gun across the top of the log, a9 though to aim it. Ben could make out the target. Three men were grouped together on the lower gallery, one standing, one sitting, and one stretched on a sofa or couch, inside the brick pillars that supported the upper gallery. Ben’s heart thudded furiously as he went scrambling forward on hands and knees, trying to narrow the distance between himself and the two by the log.

  Apparently the man with the gun had decided not to shoot. Once again he conferred with his companion, pointed toward the gallery, then to a domelike clump of bushes, with green- and-silver leaves and a sprinkling of snow-white flowers. The other made a gesture with his hand, as though in agreement. The two began a careful crawl around the log to approach the new and closer ambush spot.

  Ben glanced back, saw Casimir hunching along to join him, and beckoned his comrade with a quick jerk of his head. As Casimir dragged himself alongside, Ben pointed to the two skulkers in front of them, then to the log, and finally back to Casimir. His friend bobbed his head to show understanding and moved on toward the log. Ben quartered through some hollylike shrubs. Their leaf points scraped his jowl and neck, but he moved as rapidly as he could toward his enemies.

  Hunting in North Carolina had never been like this, he told himself. Again and again, for mere sport, he had crept on hands and knees to get a close shot at a rabbit or a squirrel, or at a duck on a pond. Now he hunted a prey that was dangerous to himself as well as to the unsuspecting men yonder on the gallery. Ben thanked Providence for giving him a taste and gift for trailing and shooting, and he made what speed he could on weary arms and chafed, tingling knees.

  He could not tell whether time passed slowly or quickly. He knew that he traveled at a faster clip than the pair he followed, and also that he kept concealed. Once or twice he had to drop flat on his chest and drag himself along with his nose almost plowing the earth. But at last he gained a slanting row of evergreens, taller than a man and thick-boughed to the roots. He rose to his feet, ran along behind the hedge to a point very close to the two men. His pistol in his hand, he peered through the evergreens.

  He had stopped no more than thirty yards from where they had paused again, perhaps sixty yards from the big house. The pair whispered together behind a neat pile of small logs, probably stacked there to season for fence rails. The two faces were only inches apart, and Ben recognized the black beard and buckskin-fringed shoulders of Jethro Wicks. Wicks’s companion held the rifle, and, at a prodding gesture from the bearded one, he now rested the barrel on top of the log pile. Painstakingly he sighted at the group on the gallery, from a dead rest. If his piece was a good one and his skill only fair, he could hardly expect to miss.

  Ben glanced at the priming of his pistol, and lifted.

  “Hey!” he shouted loudly, and as both figures at the log pile started and half turned toward him, he fired at the man with the rifle.

  A shrill startled squeak of pain rang out, and the man sprang to his feet, a tall and knobby-lean figure. At once he collapsed again, resting on one knee with a hand at his shoulder. A vivid crimson stream of blood ran through his spread fingers.

  In the same instant, Jethro Wicks spun away from the log pile, took one goggling look at Ben leaping through the evergreens with the smoking pistol in his hand. Then Wicks leaped up and began to run.

  “Halt, assassin!” That was Casimir, hurrying from his position near the big log. His pistol, too, roared, but Wicks only ran the faster. Ben rushed toward the man he had wounded, watching as Wicks dodged around Casimir and sped off like a frightened rabbit. As Ben came close to the log pile, the wounded man reached for the fallen rifle.

  “Don’t touch it!” yelled Ben, and hurled his empty pistol into the fellow’s face; then stopped as he ran on and snatched up the rifle with both hands. The wounded one subsided. Again Ben looked around. Casimir, hampered by the sword sheath that danced and slapped against his leg, was being left behind by the swiftly running Wicks.

  Yells and chatterings now resounded from the gallery. Two of the men rushed from there, leaping over flowers and shrubs.

  “I’m a friend!” called Ben hastily. “These men wanted to kill Governor Claiborne—I’ve caught one.”

  Wicks was already vanishing among the trees in the direction of the river, while Casimir abandoned the chase, with a wide-armed gesture of defeat.

  The two newcomers hurried up on either side of Ben. One was a square-built Creole in his forties. The other was young and dark and wide-eyed, dressed elegantly in top boots and a riding coat. “Who—” panted the younger one.

  “My name’s Parker,” said Ben. “I heard in New Orleans that these men would try to assassinate the Governor. I reckon my friend and I got here just in time to stop them.”

  The tall man with the wounded shoulder got shakily to his feet. He wore a brown coat, old-fashioned knee breeches, and heavy knit stockings. A rumpled hat had fallen from his head, and his sandy-gray hair hung around his scarred face as he glared at Ben.

  “Watch yourself,” Ben cautioned him, keeping the rifle ready in his hands. “One foolish move will joggle my finger on this trigger, and Pll hit you closer to center than the first time. Tell us what brought you and Jethro Wicks out here to murder Governor Claiborne.”

  “I’m not telling a word,” groaned the tall man.

  “That proves he is guilty,” said the square-built gentleman, in accented English. “Ha, Monsieur Dejan, here come the Governor’s men!”

  From somewhere two more figures had dashed, in the dark blue tailcoats, high caps, and white crossbelts of United States Marines. They wore dark gaiters and carried long guns. The young man called Dejan ran to meet them, shouting and gesturing at the woods where Wicks had vanished. The two marines raced off in that direction, while Casimir came past them to join Ben and the others by the log pile.

  “You seem to have taken no great hurt,” went on the square-built Creole to the tall prisoner. “March to the house. You, young sir—Monsieur Parker, is it not? Kindly keep guard with your rifle.”

  They walked, all four, to the gallery, and mounted the brick floor. The square-built man opened a door and leaned inside.

  “’Toine!” he called. “Bring cloth and water, at once.” Then he faced around. “Sit in that chair, prisoner. Monsieur Parker, permit me to remember my manners. I am Soniat du Fossat. And your friend—”

  “But, Monsieur, we know each other, you and I,” said Casimir. “I am Casimir Beaumont; I have visited here with my father.”

  “Ah, indeed, yes. And here,” Du Fossat gestured, “is one who will wish to hear your story. Monsieur le Gouverneur Claiborne.”

  Ben looked toward the sofa. The man who lay there had propped himself on an elbow, his fine-boned, handsome face lifted and intent. He wore a striped dressing gown and looked pale and drawn. Ben remembered that Governor Claiborne had been ill.

  “Your servant, sir,” said Ben respectfully. “I was saying that we’d heard in town these men wanted to kill you, and we came to stop them.”

  “Aye, and in good time! ” cried a deep, familiar voice. “An instant later might well have been too late.”

  Out of the house strode the stalwart, impeccable figure of Horner Banton, his big white hand extended. “Mr. Ben, ’twas a good wind that blew you to New
Orleans,” he pronounced. “You’ve done service to the territory this day.”

  “Thank you, sir,” said Ben, offering his own right hand while he held the rifle by the balance in his left “Maybe we can hear more of the scheme from the fellow I winged.”

  The wounded man sagged in the chair. A brown-faced servant had brought out a basin and some towels. Under Du Fossat’s directions, this servant opened the man’s shirt and began to sponge the wound.

  “I’ll tell nothing,” said the prisoner again.

  “The ball pierced the flesh only,” reported Du Fossat, leaning close to look. “It did not lodge—it is no great injury. Now,” and he glanced around to where the young man called Dejan was stepping upon the gallery, “Monsieur Parker, allow me to make you acquainted with Monsieur Claude Dejan. He is the Governor’s secretary, who will wish to speak his thanks for your courage and sense.”

  “The Governor himself would like to do that,” called Horner Banton, who had gone to the side of the couch. “Step here, both of you. Your Excellency, by your leave I’ll present a young friend of mine, a kinsman of Mr. Frank Parker, whom you know. I think you are already acquainted with Mr. Casimir Beaumont.”

  Ben looked down at the Governor of Orleans Territory. William Charles Cole Claiborne had sunk back to lie at full length. His eyes burned with fever, but his pale lips smiled.

  “I’m just beginning to be aware that I owe you my life,” he said in a voice that was weak but steady. “Thanks for such a service are always inadequate. But I’m grateful to you both.”

  Standing before the Governor, Ben thought that he must cut a wild and unkempt figure. His clothes were rumpled, his knees stained with crushed grass, and in one grimy hand he still held the captured rifle. He must look even worse than when, on his first day in New Orleans, he had been fished from the Mississippi. Casimir, too, fidgeted in miserable embarrassment for his muddy coat and lost hat.

  Horner Banton eyed them, and chuckled understandingly. “Faith, Governor Claiborne, they look like two veterans after a bad campaign,” he went on. “I honor them for their exertions. Suffer me, sir, to go and help question that scoundrel they trapped in the brush, while you speak to them.”