The Forest Runners A Story of the Great War Trail in Early Kentucky

CHAPTER VII

WHAT HAP­PENED IN THE DARK

Shif'less Sol rose to a sit­ting po­si­tion, and care­ful­ly cracked his joints, one by one.

“I wuz a bit afeard, Paul,” he said, “that I had jest pet­ri­fied, layin' thar so long. A tired man likes to rest, but thar ain't no sense in turnin' his­self in­to a stone im­age.”

Sol seemed so care­less and easy that Paul drew an in­fer­ence from his man­ner.

“You are not ex­pect­ing any­thing more from them just now, Sol?”

His nod to­ward the for­est in­di­cat­ed the “them.”

“No, not yet a while,” replied Shif'less Sol. “I guess they'll lay by un­til night.”

His face showed some ap­pre­hen­sion as he spoke of night, but it was gone quick­ly. Shif'less Sol was not a man who took trou­bles to heart, else he nev­er would have earned his name.

“We'll jest chaw a lit­tle more veni­son, Paul,” he said. “I know you think a drink o' wa­ter would go pow'ful well with it, an' so do I; but since it ain't to be had, we'll jest do with­out it and say no more.”

The re­main­der of the day passed undis­turbed, but as the first wan shade of twi­light ap­peared the men be­gan to look close­ly to their arms. Horns were held up to the light in or­der that the pow­der line might show, bul­lets were count­ed, and flints ex­am­ined. Paul knew what it all meant. The Shawnees would at­tack in the dark­ness, and there would be all the con­fu­sion of a mid­night bat­tle, when one might not be able to tell friend from friend nor foe from foe. The sense of weird­ness and awe over­came him again. They were but the tini­est of atoms in that vast wilder­ness, which would be just the same to-​mor­row and the next day, no mat­ter who won.

But Paul had in him the stuff of which heroes are made, and his strong will brought his mind back to present needs. He, too, mea­sured his pow­der and count­ed his bul­lets, while he strove al­so to for­get the hot thirst that tor­ment­ed him.

The sun sank in the for­est, the wan twi­light deep­ened in­to shad­ow, and the shad­ow dark­ened in­to night. The trees where the Shawnees lay hid­den were gone in the dusk, which hung so close that Paul could see but the near­est of his com­rades. On­ly the mur­mur of night in­sects and the faint rus­tle of leaves came to his ears. The feel­ing of awe re­turned, and his blood grew chill. Then it was a re­lief to him to know that he had a com­rade in this sen­sa­tion.

“Ef an owl would on­ly hoot once or twice now,” whis­pered Shif'less Sol, “I think I'd jump right out o' my huntin' shirt.”

Paul laughed and felt bet­ter.

“Now, Paul,” con­tin­ued Shif'less Sol, very grave­ly this time, “lemme give you a piece o' mighty good ad­vice. When the muss comes on, don't move about much. Lay close. Stick to me an' Hen­ry, an' then thar ain't so much chance to git mixed up with them that's lookin' fur you here.”

“I'll re­mem­ber what you say, Sol,” replied Paul earnest­ly, as he gird­ed his spir­it for ac­tion. He knew that the at­tack would come very soon, as the In­di­ans would choose the dark­est pe­ri­od be­fore the moon rose. Nor was he wrong. The bat­tle in the night be­gan on­ly a half hour lat­er.

Paul first saw a pink point ap­pear in the dark­ness, but he knew that it was the flame from a ri­fle shot. It came from a place not far away, to which some Shawnee had crawled; but the hunters paid no at­ten­tion to it, nor to a sec­ond, nor to a third, as all the bul­lets flew wild. Paul, for­get­ting for the mo­ment that those bul­lets were sent to kill, be­came en­grossed in the spec­ta­cle of the fire­works. He was al­ways won­der­ing where the next spurt of blue or pink flame would break through the dark­ness, and the pop­ping of the shots formed a not un­pleas­ant sound in the night.

“Comin' clos­er, comin' clos­er, Paul!” whis­pered Shif'less Sol. “One o' them bul­lets fly­in' in the dark may hit some­thin' put­ty soon.”

Sol was a prophet. A hunter not far away ut­tered a low cry. He was struck in the shoul­der, but af­ter the sin­gle cry he was silent. Hen­ry was the first to see one of the creep­ing brown bod­ies and fired, and af­ter that the shots on ei­ther side in­creased fast. It was all con­fused and ter­ri­ble to Paul. The dark­ness, in­stead of thin­ning to ac­cus­tomed eyes, seemed to him to grow heav­ier. The pin points of light from the ri­fle fire mul­ti­plied them­selves in­to hun­dreds, and the front of the foe shift­ed about, as if they were try­ing to curve around the de­fend­ers.

Paul could not def­inite­ly say that he saw a sin­gle sav­age, but he fired now and then at the flash­es of light, and al­so tried to obey Sol's in­junc­tion about stick­ing close to him and Hen­ry. But he was not al­ways sure that the fig­ures near him were theirs, the dark­ness re­main­ing so in­tense. He heard oc­ca­sion­al low cries, the light im­pact of bul­lets, and the shuf­fling sound of feet, but he was fast los­ing any or­dered view of the bat­tle. He knew now that the sav­ages were very close, that the com­bat was al­most hand to hand, but he knew lit­tle else. The night en­closed all the fu­ri­ous bor­der con­flict, and hid the loss or gain of ei­ther side from all but the keen­est eyes.

Paul could nev­er tell how long this last­ed, but he felt con­fi­dent that the area of con­flict was shift­ing. Hav­ing first faced one side, they were now fac­ing an­oth­er, as the sav­ages wheeled about them. He rose to his feet in or­der to keep with his friends. He had been load­ing and fir­ing more rapid­ly than he knew, and the bar­rel of his ri­fle was hot to his touch. He stood a mo­ment lis­ten­ing for the sav­ages, and then turned to two in­dis­tinct fig­ures near him.

“Sol,” he said, “can you and Hen­ry see them?”

The two in­dis­tinct fig­ures sud­den­ly be­came dis­tinct, and sprang up­on him. He was seized in a pow­er­ful grasp and hurled down so vi­olent­ly that he be­came un­con­scious for a lit­tle while. Why he was not killed he did not know that night, nor ev­er af­ter--prob­ably they wished to show a tro­phy. When he gath­ered his scat­tered sens­es he was be­ing dragged away, and his hands were bound. He was too dazed to cry aloud for res­cue, but he re­mem­bered af­ter­wards that the bat­tle be­hind him was wan­ing at the time.

He was dragged deep­er in­to the for­est, and the shots on the hill be­came fainter and few­er. His sight cleared, but the dark­ness was so great that he could yet see lit­tle ex­cept the war­rior who pulled him along. Paul made an ef­fort and gained a bet­ter foot­ing. It hurt his pride to be dragged, and now he walked on in the path that the war­rior in­di­cat­ed.

They stopped af­ter a while in an open space in the for­est. The moon was clear­ing a lit­tle, and Paul saw oth­er war­riors stand­ing about. Near­ly all were wound­ed. Hideous and paint­ed they were, with sav­age eyes filled with rage and dis­ap­point­ment, and the looks they gave Paul made him con­sid­er him­self as one dead.

As the moon cleared, more war­riors drift­ed back in­to the glade. Some of these, too, bore wounds, and Paul's heart leaped up with fierce joy as he saw that they had been de­feat­ed. The fir­ing had ceased and the wilder­ness was re­turn­ing to si­lence, bro­ken on­ly by the low words of the sav­ages and the soft sound of their moc­casins on the earth.

Paul was still in a sort of daze. The war­riors were grouped about him, their sole vis­ible tro­phy of the bat­tle, and they re­gard­ed him with venge­ful eyes. But he had passed through so much that he was not afraid. His on­ly feel­ing was that of dull stu­pe­fac­tion, and min­gled with it a sort of lin­ger­ing pride that his com­rades had been the vic­tors, al­though he him­self was a pris­on­er. He did not know whether they would kill him or take him with them, and at that mo­ment his mind was so dulled that he felt lit­tle cu­rios­ity about the ques­tion.

A thin, sharp-​faced war­rior of mid­dle years seemed to be the lead­er of the band, and he talked briefly to the oth­ers. They nod­ded to­ward Paul, and then, with a war­rior on each side of the pris­on­er, they start­ed north­ward. Paul, his brain clear­ing, judged that they were tak­ing him as a tro­phy, as a prize to show in their vil­lage be­fore putting him to death.

They marched silent­ly through the for­est, curv­ing far to the left of the bat­tle­field. The war­riors were about a score in num­ber, and Paul thought they must have lost at least half as many in bat­tle. Their hideous paint and their sav­age faces filled him with re­pul­sion. Their wild life and the mys­tery of wild na­ture did not ap­peal to him as they had once ap­pealed to Hen­ry in a sim­ilar po­si­tion. To Paul, the chief thing about the wilder­ness was the mag­nif­icent home it would make in the fu­ture for a great white race. Spared for the present, he ex­pect­ed to live. Hen­ry had saved him once, and he and his com­rades would come again to the res­cue.

He stum­bled at first in their rapid flight from weak­ness, and the war­rior next to him struck him a blow as a re­minder. Paul would have struck back, but his hands were tied, and he could on­ly guard him­self against an­oth­er stum­ble. Pride sus­tained him.

They did not stop un­til near­ly dawn, when they camped by the bank of a creek and ate. Paul's arms were un­bound, and the hatch­et-​faced chief tossed him a piece of veni­son, which he ate greed­ily be­cause he was very hun­gry. Then, as the war­riors seemed in no hur­ry to move, he sagged slow­ly over on his side and went to sleep. De­spite his ter­ri­ble sit­ua­tion, he was so thor­ough­ly worn out that he could not hold up his head any longer.

When Paul awoke the sun was high, and he was ly­ing where he had sunk down. The war­riors were about him, some sit­ting on the grass or ly­ing full length, but the par­ty seemed more nu­mer­ous than it was the night be­fore. He looked again. It was cer­tain­ly more nu­mer­ous, and there, too, sit­ting near him, was a white youth of near­ly his own age. Paul rose up, in­spired with a feel­ing of sym­pa­thy, and per­haps of com­rade­ship, and then, to his ut­ter amaze­ment, he saw that the youth was Brax­ton Wy­att, one of the boys who had come over the moun­tains with the group that had set­tled Ware­ville.

Brax­ton Wy­att, a year or two old­er than Paul, had al­ways been dis­liked at Ware­ville. Of a sar­cas­tic, sneer­ing, un­pleas­ant tem­per­ament, he ha­bit­ual­ly made en­emies, and did not seem to care. Paul dis­liked him hearti­ly, but in this mo­ment of sud­den meet­ing he felt on­ly sym­pa­thy and fel­low­ship. They were cap­tives to­geth­er, and all feel­ing of hos­til­ity was swept from his mind.

“Brax­ton!” he ex­claimed. “Have they got you, too?”

Wy­att rose up, came to Paul, and took his hand in the friendli­est man­ner.

“Yes, Paul,” he said. “I was out hunt­ing, think­ing that there were no sav­ages south of the Ohio, and I was tak­en last night by a band which joined yours this morn­ing while you slept.”

“Why haven't they killed us?” asked Paul.

“I sup­pose they'd rather show us to the tribe first, or maybe they think they can adopt us, as Hen­ry Ware was once. They haven't treat­ed me bad­ly.”

“That may be be­cause you were tak­en with­out any loss to them,” said Paul. “We've had a big fight, and I'm the on­ly one they got. Hen­ry Ware, Tom Ross, Shif'less Sol, and the oth­ers beat them off.”

“That was grand fight­ing!” said Brax­ton. “Tell me about it.”

Wy­att's fel­low­ship and sym­pa­thy great­ly cheered Paul, and he told in de­tail about the bat­tle with the band, and all that pre­ced­ed it. Brax­ton Wy­att lis­tened with at­ten­tion, but more than once ex­pressed sur­prise.

“How many did you say were left back there on the hill?” he asked at last.

“We were ten when we be­gan the fight­ing,” replied Paul. “One that I know of was killed, and it is like­ly that one or two more were. Then I'm gone. Not more than six or sev­en can be left, but they are the best men in all these woods. Twice their num­ber of In­di­ans can­not whip them.”

Paul said the last words proud­ly, and then he added:

“Hen­ry and Ross and Shif'less Sol will come for me. They'll be sure to do it. And they'll res­cue you, too.”

Brax­ton Wy­att looked thought­ful.

“I think you're right,” he said; “but it'll be a very risky thing for them, es­pe­cial­ly if the Shawnees ex­pect it. Be sure you don't let the In­di­ans think you are dream­ing of such a thing.”

“Of course not,” said Paul.

The sharp-​faced chief now came up, and said some­thing to Wy­att. Brax­ton replied in the In­di­an tongue.

“I didn't know that you un­der­stood any Shawnee,” said Paul in sur­prise, as the chief turned away.

“I've picked it up, a word here and a word there,” replied Wy­att, “and I find it very use­ful now. The Chief--Red Ea­gle is his name--says that if you'll give 'em no trou­ble, he won't bind your hands again, for the present, any­way. I've fol­lowed that plan, and I've found it a heap eas­ier for my­self.”

Paul pon­dered a lit­tle. Brax­ton Wy­att's ad­vice cer­tain­ly seemed good, and he did not wish to be bound again. It would be bet­ter to go along in docile fash­ion.

“All right, Brax­ton,” he said, “I'll do as you sug­gest. We won't make them any trou­ble now, but af­ter a while we'll es­cape.”

“That's the best way,” said Wy­att.

Red Ea­gle and an­oth­er war­rior, who seemed to be his lieu­tenant, were talk­ing earnest­ly. The chief present­ly beck­oned to Wy­att, who went over to him and replied to sev­er­al ques­tions. But Wy­att came back in a few mo­ments, and took his seat again be­side Paul.

A half hour lat­er they re­sumed the march, and Paul knew by the sun that they were go­ing north­ward. Hence he in­ferred that they would make no fur­ther at­tack up­on the white hunters, and were bound for what they called home. Re­freshed by his rest and sleep, and re­lieved by the re­moval of the ban­dages from his wrists, he walked be­side Wy­att with a springy step, and his out­look up­on life was fair­ly cheer­ful. It was won­der­ful what the com­rade­ship of one of his own kind did for him! Af­ter all, he had prob­ably been de­ceived about Brax­ton Wy­att. Mere­ly be­cause his ways were not the ways of Hen­ry and Paul was not proof that he was not the right kind of fel­low. Now he was sym­pa­thet­ic and help­ful enough, when sym­pa­thy and help were need­ed.

The march north­ward was leisure­ly. The Shawnees seemed to have no fur­ther ex­pec­ta­tion of meet­ing a foe, and they were not so vig­ilant. Paul and Brax­ton Wy­att were kept in the cen­ter of the group, but they were per­mit­ted to talk as much as they pleased, and Paul was not an­noyed by any blow or kick.

“Have you any idea how far it is to their vil­lage, Brax­ton?” Paul asked.

“A long dis­tance,” replied Wy­att. “We shall not be there un­der two weeks, and as the par­ty may turn aside for hunt­ing or some­thing else, it may be much longer.”

“It will give Hen­ry and Ross and the oth­ers more time to res­cue us,” said Paul.

Brax­ton Wy­att shrugged his shoul­ders.

“I wouldn't put much hope in that if I were you, Paul,” he said. “This band is very strong. Since the two par­ties joined it num­bers forty war­riors, and our friends could do noth­ing. We must pre­tend to like them, to fall in with their ways, and to be­have as if we liked the wild life as well as that back in the set­tle­ments, and in time would like it bet­ter.”

“I could nev­er do that,” said Paul. “All kinds of sav­ages re­pel me.”

Brax­ton Wy­att shrugged his shoul­ders again.

“One must do the best he can,” he said briefly.

The leisure­ly march pro­ceed­ed, and they camped the next af­ter­noon in the midst of a mag­nif­icent for­est of beech, oak, and hick­ory, build­ing a great fire, and loung­ing about it in ap­par­ent­ly care­less fash­ion. But Paul was enough of a woods­man to know that some of the war­riors were on watch, and he and Brax­ton, as usu­al, were com­pelled to sit in the cen­ter of the group, where there was no shad­ow of a chance to es­cape.

Hunters whom they had sent out present­ly brought in the bod­ies of two deer, and then they had a great feast. The veni­son was half cooked in strips and chunks over the coals, and the war­riors ate it vo­ra­cious­ly, chat­ter­ing to each oth­er, mean­while, as Paul did not know that In­di­ans ev­er talked.

“What are they say­ing, Brax­ton?” he asked.

“I can't catch it very well,” replied Wy­att, “but I think they are talk­ing about a stay near the Ohio--for hunt­ing, I sup­pose. That ought to be a good thing for us, be­cause they cer­tain­ly will not de­cide about our fate un­til we get back to their vil­lage, and the more they are used to us the less like­ly they are to put us to death.”

Paul watched the war­riors eat­ing, and they were more re­pel­lent to him than ev­er. Sav­ages they were, and noth­ing could make them any­thing else. His ways could nev­er be­come their ways. But the fresh deer meat looked very good, and the pleas­ant aro­ma filled his nos­trils. Brax­ton Wy­att no­ticed his face.

“Are you hun­gry, Paul?” he asked.

“No, not hun­gry; mere­ly starv­ing to death.”

Wy­att laughed.

“I'm in the same con­di­tion,” he said, “but I can soon change it.”

He spoke to Red Ea­gle, and the thin-​faced chief nod­ded. Then Brax­ton picked up two sharp­ened sticks that the sav­ages had used, and al­so two large pieces of veni­son. One stick and one piece he hand­ed to Paul.

“Now we al­so will cook and dine,” he said.

Paul's heart warmed to­ward Brax­ton Wy­att. Cer­tain­ly he had done him wrong in his thoughts when they lived at Ware­ville. But he was think­ing the next mo­ment about the pleas­ant odor of the deer meat as he fried it over the coals. Then he ate hun­gri­ly, and with a full stom­ach came peace for the present, and con­fi­dence in the fu­ture. He slept heav­ily that night, stretched on the ground be­fore the fire, near Brax­ton Wy­att, and he did not awak­en un­til late the next morn­ing.

The In­di­ans were very slow and leisure­ly about de­part­ing, and Paul re­al­ized now that, vig­ilant and won­der­ful as they were in ac­tion, they were sloth­ful and care­less when not on the war path, or busy with the chase. He saw, al­so, that the band was en­tire­ly too strong to be at­tacked by Hen­ry and his friends.

They marched north­ward sev­er­al days more, at the same dawdling pace, and then they stopped a week at one place for the hunt­ing. Half the war­riors would go in­to the for­est, and the next day the oth­er half would go, the first re­main­ing. They brought in an abun­dance of game, and Paul nev­er be­fore saw men eat as they ate. It seemed to him that they must be try­ing to atone for a fast of at least six months, and those who were not hunt­ing that day would lie around the fire for hours like an­imals di­gest­ing their food. He and Brax­ton Wy­att were still treat­ed well, and their hands re­mained un­bound, al­though they were nev­er al­lowed to leave the group of war­riors.

Paul was glad enough of the rest and de­lay, but the life of the Shawnees did not please him. He was too fas­tid­ious by na­ture to like their al­ter­nate fits of lazi­ness and en­er­gy, their glut­tony and lethar­gy af­ter­wards, but he took care not to show his re­pul­sion. He act­ed up­on Wy­att's ad­vice, and be­haved in the friendli­est man­ner that he could as­sume to­ward his cap­tors. Wy­att once spoke his ap­proval. “The Chief, Red Ea­gle, thinks of adopt­ing you, if you should fall in­to their ways,” said Wy­att.

“He may adopt me, but I'll nev­er adopt him,” replied Paul stur­di­ly.

But Wy­att on­ly laughed and shrugged his shoul­ders, af­ter his fash­ion.

A few days lat­er they reached the Ohio. It was run­ning bank­ful, and where Paul saw it the stream was a mile wide, a mag­nif­icent riv­er, cut­ting off the un­known south from the un­known north, and bear­ing on its yel­low bo­som silt from lands hun­dreds of miles away. The war­riors took hid­den ca­noes from the for­est at the shore, and Paul thought they would cross at once and con­tin­ue their jour­ney north­ward, but they did not do so. In­stead, they daw­dled about in the thick for­est that clothed the south­ern bank, and ate more veni­son and buf­fa­lo meat, al­though they did not kin­dle any fire. A day or two passed thus amid glo­ri­ous sun­shine, and Paul still could not un­der­stand why they wait­ed.

Mean­while he still clung tena­cious­ly to his great hope. He might es­cape, he might be res­cued, and then Hen­ry and he would re­sume their task which would help so much to save Ken­tucky. No mat­ter what hap­pened, Paul would nev­er lose sight of this end.