Manly Wade Wellman - Novel 1961 Read online

She studied him, and at last she smiled, briefly and tremulously. “You can help me and my father,” she said at last, “by bringing us news of Godfrey.”

  He shook his head and again wiped his face. “But I know nothing of him.”

  “But you can find out. Zack, I have heard that you are as good a huntsman and woodsman as any on the South Fork. And up yonder—” she waved her whip off toward the headwaters of the river “—up there, this man Moore has his camp. You could steal close without anybody knowing, and find out if Godfrey is there.”

  “I might do so,” he conceded, shifting the hoe and leaning on it again. “Indian Creek is no far journey. And I might see Godfrey, if he was among the volunteers there.”

  “And come back and tell my father? If Father knew where his son is, if he could send him a message, a plea—”

  “Aye,” Zack agreed, and tucked the hoe under his arm. “Grace, I’ll do it if I can.”

  “Thank you, Zack.”

  Quickly she peeled the glove from her right hand and held it out to him. It was a slim, soft hand in his broad, sunburnt one.

  “Thank you, my friend,” she said again.

  “But no word of this,” he warned quickly. “If I’m to go a-spying, better that nobody hears of it.”

  “You are right.” She smiled as she mounted. “ ’Twill be a secret between us, then.”

  Watching her ride away, he asked himself if he had been foolish, easily persuaded. Grace Prothero had been so grand lately, and at their last meeting she had been proud and accusing. Now, he was ready to go sneaking and spying at her first word. He might even find himself in danger if he prowled around that nest of Tories.

  “Huh!” he grunted aloud, like a Catawba Indian.

  No, it wasn’t like that. He welcomed the idea of excitement and adventure. The trip wouldn’t violate his oath of neutrality to his father, and as a neutral the Tories surely would offer him no harm. Meanwhile, it had been a pleasure to listen to the pleading of Grace Prothero, to be in a position to grant her plea.

  Zack had no difficulty gaining his parents’ permission to be gone a couple of days. He would hunt, he told them. Smoked venison and salt pork were growing monotonous as features of the Harpers’ diet, and game was scarce in the neighborhood.

  If he made a long stroll, he said, he might bring back something toothsome, perhaps a wild turkey or two brace of partridges.

  “Well thought of, Zack,” applauded his father. “Already you shoot as well as I—even better, perhaps. And surely your legs are longer and younger, you can roam a score of miles without being weary.”

  Zack’s mother made him up a small package of corn pone and dried meat for his journey, and he took his own long rifle, a handful of bullets, a horn of powder, a keen hunting knife, and a light tomahawk with a narrow iron blade. He left at early dawn of the first of June, and headed up the South Fork.

  Indian Creek entered the South Fork from the westward, and Zack decided to seek a ford early to take him to that side. Not Armstrong’s Ford, close to his home—too many neighbors lived near there. A friend might see him on a hunting jaunt and ask to go along. He avoided the approach to Armstrong’s and went five miles upstream to Cathey’s Ford, where the wagon road from Tuckaseege Crossing of the Catawba ran almost straight westward to the big house of Christian Mauney, where the county court met. Doffing his moccasins and tucking up his leggings, Zack waded across the shallows.

  The sun, climbing the eastern sky, made the bright leaves greener and danced on the slope of Spencer Mountain yonder to the right of the ford as Zack strode westward. He kept not upon the road but at its edge, ready to duck into the trees at the first approach of anyone who might hinder him with questions about his journey. Once or twice he heard the stir of motion in the brush—perhaps game bird or beast to shoot and fetch home. He decided against finding out. There would be plenty of time to shoot meat on the way back.

  By noon he had gone something like a dozen miles past the ford, and stopped by a trickling little stream to eat some bread and meat. At midafternoon he came to Long Creek, and crossed on a fallen log that made a precarious little bridge. A couple of hours later, long before sundown, he approached the house of Christian Mauney, a broad one-story structure of timbers with shade trees in the rail-fenced yard.

  Mr. Mauney, a wiry middle-aged man with pepper-and- salt hair and a seamed, shrewd face, was sitting on a bench in front of his house and rose to greet Zack. He wore knee breeches of woollen cloth and a vest of spotted cowskin.

  “It’s young Harper, is it not?” he asked, peering. “I know your father well. What brings you here?”

  “I’m on a hunt, sir,” replied Zack. He looked at the house. One of the windows was heavily barred, and Zack knew that the room beyond was sometimes used as a jail by the county officers. “And I’m trying to find things out,” he decided to elaborate.

  “What things, young man?”

  “Down there in the Point settlements, where the South Fork comes to the Catawba, we hear talk about a camp of Tory volunteers.”

  “Then you hear true talk,” said Mr. Mauney. He pointed toward the north. “Up yonder, six or eight miles away or so, on Indian Creek, there they squat and plan their deviltries.”

  Mr. Christian Mauney would be bound to ascribe deviltries to any Tory. Zack remembered that various chief men of the region had met at Mauney’s five years earlier, to sign their names to a resolution upholding the Continental Congress and defying England. McLeans, Mauneys, and Hambrights were among those who had signed. Alan Harper had not gone to that meeting, nor had Mr. Prothero—then, as now, they had hoped for friendly settlement. But Moses Moore, father of Colonel John Moore of Tory volunteers, had been there and had signed, too.

  “How many are there, sir?” asked Zack.

  A shake of Mr. Mauney’s broad head. “I myself have not gone out to count them. One man tells me that there are scores. Another, that there are hundreds. Whoever is right, there are still too many.”

  “Perhaps I’ll go look,” said Zack.

  Mr. Mauney eyed him narrowly. “You’re never planning to join that rascal crew?”

  “No, sir, not I. It’s only that I’m curious.”

  Zack declined, with thanks, a friendly invitation to stay for supper, and departed northward. He had tramped long that day, more than twenty miles, but he was not weary and the sun still stood well above the western horizon. Perhaps he could view the camp of John Moore’s followers before that sun had set, perhaps even see Godfrey Prothero among the Tories. As he walked, Zack munched a strip of dried meat and a chunk of cold pone. He came to Beaver Dam Creek, listened carefully, and then squatted to scoop handfuls of water to quench his thirst. A flying leap took him across a narrow stretch of the stream, and he continued northward for five or six miles.

  The sun had fallen close to the treetops to the westward when Zack came to the brink of Indian Creek. From that point, as he decided from Mr. Mauney’s words, the Tory camp lay upstream. He moved furtively along the water’s edge, taking advantage of all cover and avoiding any careless breaking of twigs or rustling of leaves.

  Then he heard a murmur, which grew as he approached. Human voices, he could tell after a moment. Someone shouted, as though in command. Zack smelled the faint pungency of wood smoke. Crouching low, he stole through a thicket of mixed pine and cedar, then climbed a bushy rise. It was crowned with a juniper thicket, and he pushed through with gingerly care, to a point where he could gaze out beyond.

  He found himself looking into a wide clearing beside Indian Creek, and it was thronged with men.

  They lounged singly or in groups, some beside fires, others fetching kettles of water from the stream for cooking supper. Near at hand a pair of them smoked short pipes and chatted. Zack heard a snatch of conversation:

  “I heard that the colonel says we must wait for more men first.”

  “More come in each day. The report is that a hundred are on the way.”

  A hundred more,
thought Zack, and tried to estimate the number of those already encamped. At least a hundred, he judged after some study. They were dressed in deerskin, like hunters, or rough homespun, like farmers, but each wore a plumelike sprig of pine needles in his hat. Most of them had long-barreled rifles or short, heavier muskets, each man carrying his gun in the hollow of his arm or, if he sat, slanting it across his knees.

  On the far side of the clearing Zack could see a cluster of huts, made of poles and thatch. Near it stood a knot of men in better dress than their comrades, apparently leaders of the camp. All of them listened intently to a tall figure in a red coat and a smart cocked hat, who was gesturing importantly.

  That red-coated one surely must be Colonel Moore, Zack told himself. Among the listeners was an elegant man, in a spruce blue riding coat, whom Zack thought he recognized. Godfrey Prothero? Zack laid his rifle on the ground and rose silently to his knees for a better view.

  “Stir not a muscle further, young rooster,” said a triumphant voice at his very ear, “or you’ll have a ball from this pistol through your head.”

  4 Prisoner of War

  ZACK froze where he was, aghast and miserable. A soft stir of movement behind him, and a clink of metal at his side—a hand had snatched up his rifle. Then:

  “All right, young rebel sneak, unfasten your belt and drop it.”

  Zack did so, and his tomahawk, knife, and pouch fell to earth.

  “Now rise and turn around.”

  Zack obeyed. He looked full into the heavy, mocking face of Robinson Alspaye. The Tory was dressed in a brown hunting shirt with fringe, and in his cocked hat stood a brushy plume of pine needles. In his right hand he held a long brass- mounted pistol. Under his left arm he cradled Zack s rifle.

  “Why, it’s the young schoolboy wrestler!” cried Alspaye. “Let me perish, but this is a welcome prize. I owe you somewhat, youngster, for that foul grapple two weeks or so past.

  “It was a fair grip and a fair throw,” Zack said grumpily. “Do you care to try another?”

  “Not while I hold the guns and you don’t. What’s your name, boy? Ah, I mind me, ’tis Harper. Turn around once more, Harper, and walk into camp, with your hands high. Some of our lads have rude ways with surprise visitors, and they might shoot at you.”

  Zack turned because he must. He heard Alspaye stoop quickly for his belt with its weapons, and the rifle nudged Zack between the shoulders. Together they walked into the open, Zack holding his hands aloft, Alspaye chuckling behind him.

  The nearest group of campers spied them and hurried forward, babbling excited questions.

  “ ’Tis a rebel spy,” Alspaye announced importantly. “His neck may soon show the prettier for a stretching. Give us walking room, friends. Colonel Moore must see this tender partridge I’ve netted.”

  A dozen men walked along with them, clamoring and talking. Zack and Alspaye approached the group of leaders next to the huts. One of the men ran ahead, saluting clumsily and reporting. The man in the gold-laced coat turned and listened, then faced around and waited for Zack to come up. His companions, too, gazed. They seemed to have crude marks of rank, one wearing a sword belted around his waist, another with a sash, others with rough epaulettes sewed to the shoulders of their coats. The man in green was recognizable as Godfrey Prothero.

  “Zack Harper!” cried Godfrey in amazement. “What do you here, Zack?”

  “He was lurking and spying, Captain Prothero,” said Alspaye. “Colonel Moore, I know this prisoner. He forced a fight on me not many days gone, when I was seeking recruits down the South Fork.”

  “You forced that fight,” snapped out Zack. “You started it, and I finished it.”

  “Silence,” growled the one addressed as Colonel Moore. He was a straight, sturdy man of about thirty, with gray- streaked red hair neatly clubbed, and a silver gorget at his throat. He had an aggressively heavy jaw and a short, wide nose with a scar across its bridge. His eyes, green as a cat’s, blazed into Zack’s.

  “So you’re a spy,” he said. “Have you aught to say for yourself?”

  “Only that I’m no spy,” replied Zack, as levelly as he could manage.

  “He was crouching in a thicket like any red Indian!” accused Alspaye.

  “Suffer him to say his say, Sergeant,” said Colonel Moore. “If you’re no spy, young sir, what are you?”

  “I brought a message for Mr. Prothero here,” said Zack. “Ha!” exclaimed another officer, a stringy man in a bluefaced red coat not as fine as Colonel Moore’s. “Is this true, Captain Prothero? Do you traffic with these buckskin traitors hereabout?”

  “Not I, Major Welch,” said Godfrey, scowling at Zack. “I do not know what message he means.”

  “Your kinsmen asked me to find you, Godfrey, ’ said Zack. “They are worried, with no news of you ”

  “Silence,” ordered Colonel Moore again. “Speak when I speak to you. And keep a civil tongue, and lie no more than your nature demands of you.”

  Zack felt the eyes of all the officers upon him, and was conscious of others gathered to watch and listen. “Sir,” he said, “I have never been uncivil when civility was warranted, and I scorn to lie to anyone.”

  “Burn me,” said Major Welch, “the fellow speaks boldly.”

  “Aye,” added the officer next to Welch. Prothero, if you are acquainted with this prisoner, desire him to tell his true errand.”

  “Well, Zack?” challenged Godfrey.

  “You ve heard my true errand, Godfrey. If you and these others won’t believe it, I’ll just hold my peace.”

  “You’ll speak when you’re bidden,” Alspaye blustered.

  Colonel Moore, see the arms he bore. Tomahawk, knife, this long gun. “Are these a peaceful man’s belongings?”

  “Harper, if that’s your name, you’re in sore trouble,”

  Colonel Moore said. “I give you one more chance to clear yourself.”

  “Colonel Moore,” rejoined Zack, “there’s no point in my speaking if nobody here has the wit to recognize the truth when I tell it.”

  “Take him away,” ordered the colonel. “See that he is put within four stout walls, and let him think on his plight for an hour’s space. Then bring him to me again, and if he talks not to the point and the profit, we’ll give him cause to rue it.”

  “Come, you gallow’s meat,” growled Alspaye, and poked Zack into motion again. “Over yonder with you, to the log hut. That’s our guardhouse.”

  The throng watched Alspaye herd Zack toward a low- roofed shed built of stout poles daubed and plastered between with great chunks of clay. A lolling sentry in homespun opened a door of cleated planks, and Alspaye pushed Zack roughly inside. Zack heard the door slam shut, and a stout wooden latch fell into place with a clatter.

  Alone in his dim prison, Zack stood in the middle of the hard-tramped dirt floor and looked around. Apparently this was one of two rooms in the shed, and it was perhaps eight feet by ten. There was no window, only a two-inch strip of open space where the clay chinking had been picked from between two of the horizontal logs. Overhead were stout, roughly hewn rafters, and upon them lay slabs which, Zack’s prodding hands told him, were weighted down with a heavy layer of earth. He doubted if a bear could smash its way out of the place, even if that sentry did not wait outside. There was no furniture, only a pallet-like heap of dried grass and beside it a gourd which, when Zack shook it, resounded splashingly with the water inside.

  Outside, the evening was dimming into dusk. Zack heard voices near and far and, when he peeped out at the slit, saw fires where men sat eating or lounging. He drew a long, unhappy sigh, as much in disgust at being trapped as in woe at being held.

  Alspaye had sneered at him, calling him a netted partridge , Zack thought that he had been taken more like a snared rabbit, with no chance to show sense or fight. He squatted on his moccasin heels in a corner, his face to the barred door. This came of doing the wish of pretty Grace Prothero, of trying to give neighborly help and perhaps to ma
ke peace between Godfrey and his father and sister. There had been talk of treason and punishment, and Alspaye had called Zack gallow’s meat. Would these rough Tory irregulars hang him to prove their loyalty to King George?

  There came a rattle at the door, and he got quickly to his feet. The door opened and a dark figure appeared there.

  “Your supper, prisoner,” said the man gruffly. “Sentry,, stand ready if he turns foolish.”

  “Come in without fear,” Zack bade the man, who set a wooden bowl on the floor. It was full of smoking-hot stew, with a pewter spoon in it, and gave off a savory smell. Left alone again, Zack carried the bowl to the chink for what light he could get to eat by. He surprised himself by eating heartily. Perhaps he was not sunk in despair after all.

  When he had cleaned the bowl, he pried at the clay of the walls with the stout spoon handle and made the chink longer by a good two feet; but the wooden poles above and below were stout, and could never be moved without a hatchet or crowbar. Night had fallen outside, and only the nearby fires gave him light. He sat down again, nodding drowsily. Then he roused, for the door opened again and someone stood there with a gleaming lantern in his hand.

  “Out here with you, Harper!” bawled Robinson Alspaye. “Colonel Moore has time to judge your case. And think yourself lucky if you do not finish with the traitor hide stripped from your carcass.”

  Zack could think of no scornful retort, so he came out silently. Two men with ready guns ranged themselves at Zack’s sides. “March!” barked Alspaye, and they set off together.

  In front of one of the larger huts were gathered the officers.

  Among them Zack recognized Godfrey Prothero. A rough table was set on the grass, and a candle burned there, stuck in its own grease. On a stool behind the table sat Colonel Moore, very stern and grim, and beside him was an epau- letted officer with an open book, an ink-stand, and a quill pen. At a gesture from Moore, Alspaye set the lantern on the table to augment the light. The rays struck gleaming patches on Moore’s jaw and jowls and touched his eyes to cold sparks. Zack stood before him, the two guards at his elbows.