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

CHAPTER VIII

AT THE RIV­ER BANK

The days dragged in­to a week, and the Shawnees still clung to the banks of the great riv­er, oc­ca­sion­al­ly hunt­ing, but more of­ten idling away their time in the deep woods near the shore. Paul's won­der at their ac­tions in­creased. He could not see any pur­pose in it, and he spoke sev­er­al times to Brax­ton Wy­att about it. But Wy­att al­ways shrugged his shoul­ders.

“I do not know,” he said. “It is true they build no camp fires, at least no big ones, and they do not seem to be much in­ter­est­ed in hunt­ing; but I can­not guess what they are about, and I should not dare to ask Red Ea­gle.”

Paul no­ticed that Red Ea­gle him­self of­ten went down to the bank of the riv­er, and would watch its sur­face with the keen­est at­ten­tion. But Paul ob­served al­so that he al­ways looked east­ward--that is, up the stream--and nev­er down it.

Paul and Wy­att were al­lowed an in­creas­ing amount of lib­er­ty, but they were held nev­er­the­less with­in a ring through which they could not break; Paul was shrewd enough to per­ceive it, and for the present he made no ef­fort, think­ing it a wise thing to ap­pear con­tent­ed with his sit­ua­tion, or at least to be mak­ing the best of it. Brax­ton Wy­att com­mend­ed his pol­icy more than once.

On the morn­ing of the sev­enth day the chief went down to the bank of the riv­er once more, and be­gan to watch its sur­face at­ten­tive­ly and long, al­ways look­ing up the stream. Paul and Brax­ton Wy­att and some of the war­riors stood among the trees, not fifty feet away. They al­so could see the sur­face of the riv­er for a long dis­tance, and Paul's eyes fol­lowed those of the chief, Red Ea­gle.

The Ohio was a great yel­low riv­er, flow­ing slow­ly on in its wide chan­nel, the sur­face break­ing in­to lit­tle waves, that crum­pled and broke and rose again. Paul could see the stream for miles, ap­par­ent­ly be­com­ing nar­row­er and nar­row­er, un­til it end­ed in a yel­low thread un­der the hori­zon. Ei­ther shore was over­hung with heavy for­est red with au­tumn's touch. Wild fowl oc­ca­sion­al­ly flew over the cur­rent. It was in­ex­press­ibly weird and lone­ly to Paul, seem­ing­ly a silent riv­er flow­ing on for­ev­er through silent shades.

He saw noth­ing on the stream, and his eyes came back to the thin, hatch­et-​faced chief, who stood up­on the bank look­ing so in­tent­ly. Red Ea­gle had be­gun to in­ter­est him great­ly. He im­pressed Paul as be­ing a thor­ough sav­age of sav­ages, fair­ly breath­ing cru­el­ty and cun­ning, and Paul saw now a note of ex­pec­ta­tion, of cru­el ex­pec­ta­tion, in the fierce black eyes of the Shawnee. And as he looked, a sud­den change came over the face of the chief. A gleam ap­peared in the black eyes, and the tall, thin fig­ure seemed to raise it­self a lit­tle high­er. Paul again looked up the stream, and lo! a tiny dark spot ap­peared up­on its sur­face. He watched it as the chief watched it, and it grew, com­ing steadi­ly down the riv­er. But he did not yet know what it was.

Now the spir­it of ac­tion de­scend­ed quick­ly up­on the whole band. The chief left the shore and gave quick, low or­ders to the men, who sank back in­to the for­est, tak­ing Paul and Brax­ton Wy­att with them. Two war­riors, hav­ing Paul be­tween them, crouched in a dense thick­et, and one of them tapped the un­armed boy mean­ing­ly with his tom­ahawk. Paul did not see Brax­ton Wy­att, but he sup­posed that he was held sim­ilar­ly by oth­er war­riors, some­where near. In truth, he did not see any of the sav­ages ex­cept the two who were with him. All the rest had melt­ed away with the ex­traor­di­nary fa­cil­ity that they had for hid­ing them­selves, but Paul knew that they were about him, pressed close to the earth, blurred with the fo­liage or shel­tered by tree trunks.

The boy's eyes turned back to the riv­er, and the black blot float­ing on its sur­face. That blot, he knew, had caused this sud­den dis­ap­pear­ance of a whole band of Shawnees, and he want­ed to know more. The black blot came down the stream and grew in­to shape and out­line, and the shape and out­line were those of a boat. An In­di­an ca­noe? No; it rapid­ly grew be­yond the size of any ca­noe used by the sav­ages, and be­gan to stand up from the wa­ter in broad and stiff fash­ion. Then Paul's heart thumped, be­cause all at once he knew. It was a flat­boat, and it was cer­tain­ly load­ed with em­igrants com­ing down the Ohio, wom­en and chil­dren as well as men, and the Shawnees had laid an am­bush. This was what the crafty Red Ea­gle had been wait­ing for so long.

It was the fi­nal touch of sav­agery, and the boy's gen­er­ous and no­ble heart re­belled with­in him. He start­ed up, pro­pelled by the im­pulse to warn; but the two war­riors pulled him vi­olent­ly back, one of them again touch­ing him sig­nif­icant­ly with his tom­ahawk. Paul knew that it was use­less. Any move­ment or cry of his would cause his own death, and would not be suf­fi­cient to warn those on the boat. He sank back again, trem­bling in ev­ery nerve, not for him­self but for the un­sus­pect­ing trav­el­ers on the riv­er.

The boat came steadi­ly on, Paul saw a num­ber of men, some walk­ing about and oth­ers at the huge sweeps with which it was con­trolled. And--yes, there was a wom­an and a child, too; a lit­tle girl with long, yel­low curls, who played on the rude deck. Paul put his hand to his face, and it came back wet.

Then he re­mem­bered, and his heart leaped up. The riv­er was a mile wide, and the boat was keep­ing near the mid­dle of the stream. No bul­let from the sav­ages could reach it. Then what was the use of this am­bush? It had mere­ly been a chance hope of the sav­ages that the boat would come near enough for them to fire in­to it, but in­stead it would go steadi­ly on! Paul looked ex­ul­tant­ly at the two war­riors be­side him, but they were in­tent­ly watch­ing the boat, which would soon be op­po­site them.

Then a ghast­ly and hor­ri­ble thing oc­curred. A white face sud­den­ly ap­peared up­on the shore in front of Paul--the face of a white youth whom he knew. The fig­ure was in rags, the cloth­ing torn and tat­tered by thorns and bush­es, and the hair hung in wild locks about the white face. Face and fig­ure alike were the pic­ture of des­ola­tion and de­spair.

The white youth stag­gered to the very edge of the wa­ter, and, lift­ing up a tremu­lous, weep­ing voice, cried out to those on the boat:

“Save me! Save me! In God's name, save me! Don't leave me here to starve in these dark woods!”

It was a sight to move all on the boat who saw and heard--this spec­ta­cle of the worn wan­der­er, alone in that vast wilder­ness, ap­peal­ing to un­ex­pect­ed res­cue. Fear, agony, and de­spair alike were ex­pressed in the tones of Brax­ton Wy­att's voice, which car­ried far over the yel­low stream and was heard dis­tinct­ly by the em­igrants. To hear was al­so to heed, and the great flat­boat, com­ing about awk­ward­ly and slug­gish­ly, turned her square prow to­ward the south­ern shore, where the refugee stood.

Brax­ton Wy­att nev­er ceased to cry out for help. His voice now ran the gamut of en­treaty, hope, de­spair, and then hope again. He called up­on them by all sa­cred names to help him, and he al­so called down bless­ings up­on them as the big boat bore steadi­ly to­ward the land where two score fierce sav­ages lay among the bush­es, ready to slay the mo­ment they came with­in reach.

Paul was dazed at first by what he saw and heard. He could not be­lieve that it was Brax­ton Wy­att who was do­ing this ter­ri­ble and treach­er­ous thing. He rubbed away what he thought might be a de­cep­tive film be­fore his eyes, but it was still Brax­ton Wy­att. It was the face of the youth whom he had known so long, and it was his voice that begged and blessed. And there, too, came the boat, not thir­ty yards from the land now! In two more min­utes it would be at the bank, and its decks were crowd­ed now with men, wom­en, and chil­dren, re­gard­ing with cu­rios­ity and pity alike this lone wan­der­er in the wilder­ness whom they had found in such a ter­ri­ble case. Paul heard around him a rustling like that of coiled snakes, the slight move­ment of the sav­ages prepar­ing to spring. The boat was on­ly ten yards from the shore! Now the film passed away from his eyes, and his dazed brain cleared. He sprang up to his full height, reck­less of his own life, and shout­ed in a voice that was heard far over the yel­low wa­ters:

“Keep off! Keep off, for your lives! It is a rene­gade who is call­ing you in­to an am­bush! Keep off! Keep off!”

Paul saw a sud­den con­fu­sion on the boat, a run­ning to and fro of peo­ple, and a buck­ing of the sweeps. Then he heard a spat­ter of ri­fle shots, all this pass­ing in an in­stant, and the next mo­ment he felt a heavy con­cus­sion. Fire flashed be­fore his eyes, and he sank away in­to a dark­ness that quick­ly en­gulfed him.

When Paul came back to him­self he was ly­ing among the trees where he had fall­en, and his head ached vi­olent­ly. He start­ed to put up his hand to soothe it, but the hand would not move, and then he re­al­ized that both hands were bound to his side. His whole mem­ory came back in a flash, and he looked to­ward the riv­er. Far down the stream, and near the mid­dle of it, was a black dot that, even as he looked, be­came small­er, and dis­ap­peared. It was the flat­boat with its liv­ing freight, and Paul's heart, de­spite his own des­per­ate po­si­tion, leaped up with joy.

From the riv­er he glanced back at the In­di­an faces near him, and so far as he could tell they bore no signs of tri­umph. Nor could he see any of those hideous tro­phies they would have been sure to car­ry in case the am­bush had been a suc­cess. No! the tri­umph had been his, not theirs. He rolled in­to an eas­ier po­si­tion, shut his eyes again to re­lieve his head, and when he opened them once more, Brax­ton Wy­att stood be­side him. At the sight, all the wrath and in­dig­na­tion in Paul's in­domitable na­ture flared up.

“You scoundrel! you aw­ful scoundrel! You rene­gade!” he cried. “Don't you ev­er speak to me again! Don't you come near me!”

Brax­ton Wy­att did not turn back when those words, sur­charged with pas­sion, met him full in the face, but wore a sad and down­cast look.

“I don't blame you, Paul,” he said gen­tly, “for speak­ing that way when you don't un­der­stand. I'm not a rene­gade, Paul. I did what I did to save our lives--yours as well as mine, Paul. The chief, Red Ea­gle, threat­ened to put us both to the most aw­ful tor­tures at once if I didn't do it.”

“Liar, as well as scoundrel and rene­gade!” ex­claimed Paul fierce­ly.

But Brax­ton Wy­att went on in his gen­tle, per­suad­ing, un­abashed man­ner:

“It is as true as I stand here. I could not take you, too, Paul, to tor­ture and death, and all the while I was hop­ing that the peo­ple on the boat would see, or sus­pect, and that they would turn back in time. If you had not cried out--and it was a won­der­ful­ly brave thing to do!--I think that at the last mo­ment I my­self should have done so.”

“Liar!” said Paul again, and he turned his back to Brax­ton Wy­att.

Wy­att looked fixed­ly at the bound boy, shrugged his shoul­ders a lit­tle, and said:

“I nev­er took you for a fool be­fore, Paul.”

But Paul was silent, and Brax­ton Wy­att went away. An hour or two lat­er Red Ea­gle came to Paul, un­bound his arms, and gave him some­thing to eat. As Paul ate the veni­son, Brax­ton Wy­att re­turned to him and said:

“It is my in­flu­ence with the chief, Paul, that has se­cured you this good treat­ment in spite of their rage against you. It is bet­ter to pre­tend to fall in with their ways, if we are to re­tain life, and ev­er to se­cure free­dom.”

But Paul on­ly turned his back again and re­mained silent. Yet with the food and rest the ache died out of his head, and he was per­mit­ted to wash off the blood caused by the heavy blow from the flat of a tom­ahawk. Then he crossed the Ohio with the band.

Paul was in a ca­noe with Red Ea­gle and two oth­er war­riors, and Brax­ton Wy­att was in an­oth­er ca­noe not far away. But Paul res­olute­ly ig­nored him, and looked on­ly at the great riv­er, and the thick for­est on ei­ther shore. He was now more lone­ly than ev­er, and the Ohio that he was cross­ing seemed to him to be the bound­ary be­tween the known and the un­known. Be­low it was Ware­ville and Mar­lowe, tiny set­tle­ments in the vast sur­round­ing wilder­ness, it was true, but the abodes of white peo­ple, nev­er­the­less. North of it, and he was go­ing north­ward, stretched the for­est that sav­ages alone haunt­ed. The cross­ing of the riv­er was to Paul like pass­ing over a great wall that would di­vide him for­ev­er from his own. All his vivid imag­ina­tion was alive, and it paint­ed the pic­ture in its dark­est and most somber col­ors.

They reached the north­ern shore with­out dif­fi­cul­ty, hid the ca­noes for fu­ture use, and re­sumed their leisure­ly jour­ney north­ward. Brax­ton Wy­att, who seemed to Paul to have much free­dom, re­sumed his ad­vances to­ward a re­new­al of the old friend­ship, but Paul was res­olute. He could not over­come his re­pul­sion, Brax­ton Wy­att might plead, and make ex­cus­es, and talk about the ter­ror of tor­ture and death, but Paul re­mained un­con­vinced. He him­self had not flinched at the cru­cial mo­ment to un­do what Wy­att was do­ing, and in his heart he could find no for­give­ness for the one whom he called a rene­gade.

Wy­att re­fused to take of­fense. He said, and Paul could not but hear, that Paul some day would be grate­ful for what he was do­ing, and that it was nec­es­sary in the for­est to meet craft with craft, guile with guile.

The days passed in hunt­ing, eat­ing, rest­ing, and march­ing, and Paul lost count of time, dis­tance, and di­rec­tion. He had not Hen­ry's won­der­ful in­stinct in the wilder­ness, and he could not now tell at what point of the com­pass Ware­ville lay. But he kept a brave heart and a brave face, and if at times he felt de­spair, he did not let any­one see it.

They came at last to a place where the for­est thinned out, and then broke away, leav­ing a lit­tle prairie. The war­riors, who had pre­vi­ous­ly been paint­ing them­selves in more hideous col­ors than ev­er, broke in­to a long, loud, wail­ing chant. It was an­swered in sim­ilar fash­ion from a point be­yond a swell in the prairie, and Paul knew that they had come to the In­di­an vil­lage. The wail­ing chant was a sign that they had re­turned af­ter dis­as­ter, and now all the old squaws were tak­ing it up in re­ply. Paul was filled with cu­rios­ity, and he watched ev­ery­thing.

The war­riors emerged from the last fringe of the for­est, their faces black­ened, the hideous chant for their lost ris­ing and falling, but nev­er ceas­ing. For­ward to meet them poured a mon­grel throng--old men, old squaws, chil­dren, mangy curs, and a few war­riors. Paul was with Red Ea­gle, and when the old squaws saw him, they stopped their plain­tive howl and sent up a sud­den shrill note of tri­umph. In a mo­ment Paul was in a ring of ghast­ly old faces, in ev­ery one of which snapped a pair of cru­el black eyes. Then the old wom­en be­gan to push him about, to pinch him, and to strike him, and they showed in­cred­ible ac­tiv­ity.

Thor­ough­ly an­gry and in much pain, Paul struck at the hideous hags; but they leaped away, jab­bered and laughed, and re­turned to the at­tack. While he was oc­cu­pied with those in front of him, oth­ers slipped up be­hind him, jabbed him in the back, or vi­olent­ly twitched the hair on his neck. Tears of pain and rage stood in Paul's eyes, and he wheeled about, on­ly to have the jeer­ing throng wheel with him and con­tin­ue their tor­ture. At last he caught one of them a half blow, and she reeled and fell. The oth­ers shout­ed up­roar­ious­ly, and the war­riors stand­ing by joined in their mirth.

One of the hags fi­nal­ly struck Paul a re­sound­ing smack in the face, and as he turned to pur­sue her an­oth­er from be­hind seized a wisp of hair and tried to tear it out by the roots. Paul whirled in a fren­zy, and so quick­ly that she could not es­cape him. He seized her with­ered old throat in both his hands, and then and there he would have choked her to death, but the war­riors in­ter­fered, and pulled his hands loose. But they al­so drove the old wom­en away, and Paul was let alone for the time. As he stood on one side, gasp­ing as much with anger as with pain, Brax­ton Wy­att, who had not been per­se­cut­ed at all, came to him again with iron­ic words and de­ri­sive ges­ture.

“It was just as I told you, Paul,” he said. “I gave you good ad­vice. If you had tak­en it, they would have spared you. What you have just got is on­ly a taste to what you may suf­fer.”

Paul felt a dread­ful in­cli­na­tion to shud­der, but he man­aged to con­trol him­self.

“I'd rather die un­der the tor­ture than do what you have done, you rene­gade!” he said.

This was the first time since they crossed the Ohio that he had replied to Brax­ton, but even now he would say no more, and Wy­att, fol­low­ing his cus­tom, shrugged his shoul­ders and walked away. Then all, min­gled in one great throng, went for­ward to the vil­lage. Paul saw an ir­reg­ular col­lec­tion of buf­fa­lo-​skin and deer-​skin te­pees, and a few pole wig­wams, with some rude­ly cul­ti­vat­ed fields of maize about them. A fine brook flowed through the vil­lage, and the site, on the whole, was well cho­sen, well wa­tered, and shel­tered by the lit­tle hills from cold winds. It was too far away from those hills to be reached by a marks­man in am­bush, and all about hung signs of plen­ty--dry­ing veni­son and buf­fa­lo meat, and skins of many kinds.

When they came with­in the cir­cle of huts and tents, Paul was again re­gard­ed by many cu­ri­ous eyes, and there might have been more at­tempts to per­se­cute him, but the chief, Red Ea­gle, kept them off. Red Ea­gle was able to speak a lit­tle En­glish, but Paul was too proud to ask him about his own fate. Not a sto­ic by na­ture, the boy nev­er­the­less had a will that could con­trol his im­puls­es.

He was thrust in­to a small pole hut, and when the door was tight­ly fas­tened he was left alone there. The place was not more than six feet square, and on­ly a lit­tle high­er than Paul's head when he stood erect. In one cor­ner was a couch of skins, but that was its whole equip­ment. Some of the poles did not fit close­ly to­geth­er, leav­ing cracks of a quar­ter of an inch or so, through which came wel­come fresh air, and al­so the sub­dued hum of the vil­lage nois­es. He heard in­dis­tinct­ly the bark­ing of dogs, and the chat­ter of old squaws scold­ing, but he paid lit­tle heed to them be­cause he felt now the sud­den rush of a ter­ri­ble de­spair.

The Ohio had been the great wall be­tween Paul and his kind, and with the steady march north­ward, through the forests and over the lit­tle prairies, still an­oth­er wall, equal­ly great, had been reared. It seemed to Paul that Hen­ry and Shif'less Sol and his oth­er friends could nev­er reach him here, and what­ev­er fate the Shawnees had in store for him, it would be a hard one. Wild life he liked in its due pro­por­tion, but he had no wish to be­come a wild man all his days. He want­ed to see the set­tle­ments grow and pros­per, and be­come the ba­sis of a mighty civ­iliza­tion. This was what ap­pealed to him most. His great task of help­ing to save Ken­tucky con­tin­ual­ly ap­pealed to him, and now his chance of shar­ing in it seemed slen­der and re­mote--too slen­der and re­mote to be con­sid­ered.

The boy lay long on his couch of skins. The hum of the vil­lage life still came to his ears, but he paid lit­tle heed to it. Grad­ual­ly his courage came back, or rather his will brought it back, and he be­came con­scious that the day was wan­ing, al­so that he was grow­ing hun­gry. Then the door was opened, and Red Ea­gle en­tered. Be­hind him came a weazened old war­rior and a weazened old squaw, hideous to be­hold. Red Ea­gle stepped to one side, and the old squaw fell on Paul's neck, mur­mur­ing words of en­dear­ment. Paul, star­tled and hor­ri­fied, pushed her off, but she re­turned to the charge. Then Paul pushed her back again with more force. Red Ea­gle stepped for­ward, and lift­ed a re­strain­ing hand.

“They would adopt you in place of the son they have lost,” he said in his scant and bro­ken En­glish.

Paul looked at Red Ea­gle. It seemed to him that he saw on the face of the chief the trace of a sar­don­ic grin. Then he looked at the weazened and re­pul­sive old pair.

“Put me to the tor­ture,” he said.

Now the sar­don­ic grin was un­mis­tak­able on die face of the chief.

“Not yet,” he said, “but maybe lat­er.”

Then he and the old pair left the hut, and present­ly food was brought to Paul, who, worn out by his tri­als, ceased to think about his fu­ture. When he had fin­ished eat­ing he threw him­self on the couch again, and slept heav­ily un­til the next day.