The Prairie

by James Fenimore Cooper

  CHAPTER VIII

  Now they are clapper-clawing one another; I'll go look on. That dissembling abominable varlet, Diomed, has got that same scurvy, doting, foolish young knave in his helm. --Troilus and Cressida.

  It is necessary, in order that the thread of the narrative should not bespun to a length which might fatigue the reader, that he should imaginea week to have intervened between the scene with which the precedingchapter closed and the events with which it is our intention to resumeits relation in this. The season was on the point of changing itscharacter; the verdure of summer giving place more rapidly to the brownand party-coloured livery of the fall.[*] The heavens were clothed indriving clouds, piled in vast masses one above the other, which whirledviolently in the gusts; opening, occasionally, to admit transientglimpses of the bright and glorious sight of the heavens, dwelling in amagnificence by far too grand and durable to be disturbed by the fitfulefforts of the lower world. Beneath, the wind swept across the wild andnaked prairies, with a violence that is seldom witnessed in any sectionof the continent less open. It would have been easy to have imagined,in the ages of fable, that the god of the winds had permitted hissubordinate agents to escape from their den, and that they now rioted,in wantonness, across wastes, where neither tree, nor work of man, normountain, nor obstacle of any sort, opposed itself to their gambols.

  [*] The Americans call the autumn the "fall," from the fall of the leaf.

  Though nakedness might, as usual, be given as the pervading character ofthe spot, whither it is now necessary to transfer the scene of the tale,it was not entirely without the signs of human life. Amid the monotonousrolling of the prairie, a single naked and ragged rock arose on themargin of a little watercourse, which found its way, after winding avast distance through the plains, into one of the numerous tributariesof the Father of Rivers. A swale of low land lay near the base of theeminence; and as it was still fringed with a thicket of alders andsumack, it bore the signs of having once nurtured a feeble growth ofwood. The trees themselves had been transferred, however, to the summitand crags of the neighbouring rocks. On this elevation the signs of man,to which the allusion just made applies, were to be found.

  Seen from beneath, there were visible a breast-work of logs and stones,intermingled in such a manner as to save all unnecessary labour, afew low roofs made of bark and boughs of trees, an occasional barrier,constructed like the defences on the summit, and placed on such pointsof the acclivity as were easier of approach than the general face of theeminence; and a little dwelling of cloth, perched on the apex of a smallpyramid, that shot up on one angle of the rock, the white covering ofwhich glimmered from a distance like a spot of snow, or, to make thesimile more suitable to the rest of the subject, like a spotless andcarefully guarded standard, which was to be protected by the dearestblood of those who defended the citadel beneath. It is hardly necessaryto add, that this rude and characteristic fortress was the place whereIshmael Bush had taken refuge, after the robbery of his flocks andherds.

  On the day to which the narrative is advanced, the squatter was standingnear the base of the rocks, leaning on his rifle, and regarding thesterile soil that supported him with a look in which contempt anddisappointment were strongly blended.

  "'Tis time to change our natur's," he observed to the brother of hiswife, who was rarely far from his elbow; "and to become ruminators,instead of people used to the fare of Christians and free men. I reckon,Abiram, you could glean a living among the grasshoppers: you ar' anactive man, and might outrun the nimblest skipper of them all."

  "The country will never do," returned the other, who relished but littlethe forced humour of his kinsman; "and it is well to remember that alazy traveller makes a long journey."

  "Would you have me draw a cart at my heels, across this desert forweeks,--ay, months?" retorted Ishmael, who, like all of his class,could labour with incredible efforts on emergencies, but who too seldomexerted continued industry, on any occasion, to brook a proposal thatoffered so little repose. "It may do for your people, who live insettlements, to hasten on to their houses; but, thank Heaven! my farm istoo big for its owner ever to want a resting-place."

  "Since you like the plantation, then, you have only to make your crop."

  "That is easier said than done, on this corner of the estate. I tellyou, Abiram, there is need of moving, for more reasons than one. Youknow I'm a man that very seldom enters into a bargain, but who alwaysfulfils his agreements better than your dealers in wordy contractswritten on rags of paper. If there's one mile, there ar' a hundred stillneeded to make up the distance for which you have my honour."

  As he spoke, the squatter glanced his eye upward at the little tenementof cloth which crowned the summit of his ragged fortress. The look wasunderstood and answered by the other; and by some secret influence,which operated either through their interests or feelings, it served tore-establish that harmony between them, which had just been threatenedwith something like a momentary breach.

  "I know it, and feel it in every bone of my body. But I remember thereason, why I have set myself on this accursed journey too well toforget the distance between me and the end. Neither you nor I will everbe the better for what we have done, unless we thoroughly finish what isso well begun. Ay, that is the doctrine of the whole world, I judge: Iheard a travelling preacher, who was skirting it down the Ohio, a timesince, say, if a man should live up to the faith for a hundred years,and then fall from his work a single day, he would find the settlementwas to be made for the finishing blow that he had put to his job,and that all the bad, and none of the good, would come into the finalaccount."

  "And you believed the hungry hypocrite!"

  "Who said that I believed it?" retorted Abiram with a bullying look,that betrayed how much his fears had dwelt on the subject he affected todespise. "Is it believing to tell what a roguish--And yet, Ishmael, theman might have been honest after all! He told us that the world was,in truth, no better than a desert, and that there was but one hand thatcould lead the most learned man through all its crooked windings. Now,if this be true of the whole, it may be true of a part."

  "Abiram, out with your grievances like a man," interrupted the squatter,with a hoarse laugh. "You want to pray! But of what use will it be,according to your own doctrine, to serve God five minutes and the devilan hour? Harkee, friend; I'm not much of a husband-man, but this I knowto my cost; that to make a right good crop, even on the richest bottom,there must be hard labour; and your snufflers liken the 'arth to afield of corn, and the men, who live on it, to its yield. Now I tellyou, Abiram, that you are no better than a thistle or a mullin; yea, year' wood of too open a pore to be good even to burn!"

  The malign glance, which shot from the scowling eye of Abiram, announcedthe angry character of his feelings, but as the furtive look quailed,immediately, before the unmoved, steady, countenance of the squatter, italso betrayed how much the bolder spirit of the latter had obtained themastery over his craven nature.

  Content with his ascendency, which was too apparent, and had been toooften exerted on similar occasions, to leave him in any doubt of itsextent, Ishmael coolly continued the discourse, by adverting moredirectly to his future plans.

  "You will own the justice of paying every one in kind," he said; "I havebeen robbed of my stock, and I have a scheme to make myself as good asbefore, by taking hoof for hoof; or for that matter, when a man is putto the trouble of bargaining for both sides, he is a fool if he don'tpay himself something in the way of commission."

  As the squatter made this declaration in a tone which was a littleexcited by the humour of the moment, four or five of his lounging sons,who had been leaning against the foot of the rock, came forward with theindolent step so common to the family.

  "I have been calling Ellen Wade, who is on the rock keeping thelook-out, to know if there is any thing to be seen," observed the eldestof the young men; "and she shakes her head, for an answer. Ellen issparing of her words
for a woman; and might be taught manners at least,without spoiling her good looks."

  Ishmael cast his eye upward to the place, where the offending, butunconscious girl was holding her anxious watch. She was seated at theedge of the uppermost crag, by the side of the little tent, and at leasttwo hundred feet above the level of the plain. Little else was to bedistinguished, at that distance, but the outline of her form, her fairhair streaming in the gusts beyond her shoulders, and the steady andseemingly unchangeable look that she had riveted on some remote point ofthe prairie.

  "What is it, Nell?" cried Ishmael, lifting his powerful voice a littleabove the rushing of the element. "Have you got a glimpse of any thingbigger than a burrowing barker?"

  The lips of the attentive Ellen parted; she rose to the utmost heighther small stature admitted, seeming still to regard the unknown object;but her voice, if she spoke at all, was not sufficiently loud to beheard amid the wind.

  "It ar' a fact that the child sees something more uncommon than abuffaloe or a prairie dog!" continued Ishmael. "Why, Nell, girl, ar'ye deaf? Nell, I say;--I hope it is an army of red-skins she has inher eye; for I should relish the chance to pay them for their kindness,under the favour of these logs and rocks!"

  As the squatter accompanied his vaunt with corresponding gestures, anddirected his eyes to the circle of his equally confident sons whilespeaking, he drew their gaze from Ellen to himself; but now, whenthey turned together to note the succeeding movements of their femalesentinel, the place which had so lately been occupied by her form wasvacant.

  "As I am a sinner," exclaimed Asa, usually one of the most phlegmatic ofthe youths, "the girl is blown away by the wind!"

  Something like a sensation was exhibited among them, which might havedenoted that the influence of the laughing blue eyes, flaxen hair, andglowing cheeks of Ellen, had not been lost on the dull natures of theyoung men; and looks of amazement, mingled slightly with concern, passedfrom one to the other as they gazed, in dull wonder, at the point of thenaked rock.

  "It might well be!" added another; "she sat on a slivered stone, andI have been thinking of telling her she was in danger for more than anhour."

  "Is that a riband of the child, dangling from the corner of the hillbelow?" cried Ishmael; "ha! who is moving about the tent? have I nottold you all--"

  "Ellen! 'tis Ellen!" interrupted the whole body of his sons in a breath;and at that instant she re-appeared to put an end to their differentsurmises, and to relieve more than one sluggish nature from its unwontedexcitement. As Ellen issued from beneath the folds of the tent, sheadvanced with a light and fearless step to her former giddy stand, andpointed toward the prairie, appearing to speak in an eager and rapidvoice to some invisible auditor.

  "Nell is mad!" said Asa, half in contempt and yet not a little inconcern. "The girl is dreaming with her eyes open; and thinks she seessome of them fierce creatur's, with hard names, with which the Doctorfills her ears."

  "Can it be, the child has found a scout of the Siouxes?" said Ishmael,bending his look toward the plain; but a low, significant whisper fromAbiram drew his eyes quickly upward again, where they were turned justin time to perceive that the cloth of the tent was agitated by a motionvery evidently different from the quivering occasioned by the wind. "Lether, if she dare!" the squatter muttered in his teeth. "Abiram; theyknow my temper too well to play the prank with me!"

  "Look for yourself! if the curtain is not lifted, I can see no betterthan the owl by daylight."

  Ishmael struck the breach of his rifle violently on the earth, andshouted in a voice that might easily have been heard by Ellen, had nother attention still continued rapt on the object which so unaccountablyattracted her eyes in the distance.

  "Nell!" continued the squatter, "away with you, fool! will you bringdown punishment on your own head? Why, Nell!--she has forgotten hernative speech; let us see if she can understand another language."

  Ishmael threw his rifle to his shoulder, and at the next moment it waspointed upward at the summit of the rock. Before time was given fora word of remonstrance, it had sent forth its contents, in its usualstreak of bright flame. Ellen started like the frightened chamois, anduttering a piercing scream, she darted into the tent, with a swiftnessthat left it uncertain whether terror or actual injury had been thepenalty of her offence.

  The action of the squatter was too sudden and unexpected to admit ofprevention, but the instant it was done, his sons manifested, in anunequivocal manner, the temper with which they witnessed the desperatemeasure. Angry and fierce glances were interchanged, and a murmur ofdisapprobation was uttered by the whole, in common.

  "What has Ellen done, father," said Asa, with a degree of spirit, whichwas the more striking from being unusual, "that she should be shot atlike a straggling deer, or a hungry wolf?"

  "Mischief," deliberately returned the squatter; but with a coolexpression of defiance in his eye that showed how little he was moved bythe ill-concealed humour of his children. "Mischief, boy; mischief! takeyou heed that the disorder don't spread."

  "It would need a different treatment in a man, than in yon screaminggirl!"

  "Asa, you ar' a man, as you have often boasted; but remember I am yourfather, and your better."

  "I know it well; and what sort of a father?"

  "Harkee, boy: I more than half believe that your drowsy head let in theSiouxes. Be modest in speech, my watchful son, or you may have to answeryet for the mischief your own bad conduct has brought upon us."

  "I'll stay no longer to be hectored like a child in petticoats. You talkof law, as if you knew of none, and yet you keep me down, as though Ihad not life and wants of my own. I'll stay no longer to be treated likeone of your meanest cattle!"

  "The world is wide, my gallant boy, and there's many a noble plantationon it, without a tenant. Go; you have title deeds signed and sealed toyour hand. Few fathers portion their children better than IshmaelBush; you will say that for me, at least, when you get to be a wealthylandholder."

  "Look! father, look!" exclaimed several voices at once, seizing withavidity, an opportunity to interrupt a dialogue which threatened tobecome more violent.

  "Look!" repeated Abiram, in a voice which sounded hollow and warning;"if you have time for any thing but quarrels, Ishmael, look!"

  The squatter turned slowly from his offending son, and cast an eye, thatstill lowered with deep resentment upward; but which, the instant itcaught a view of the object that now attracted the attention of allaround him, changed its expression to one of astonishment and dismay.

  A female stood on the spot, from which Ellen had been so fearfullyexpelled. Her person was of the smallest size that is believed tocomport with beauty, and which poets and artists have chosen as the beauideal of feminine loveliness. Her dress was of a dark and glossy silk,and fluttered like gossamer around her form. Long, flowing, and curlingtresses of hair, still blacker and more shining than her robe, fellat times about her shoulders, completely enveloping the whole of herdelicate bust in their ringlets; or at others streaming in the wind.The elevation at which she stood prevented a close examination ofthe lineaments of a countenance which, however, it might be seen wasyouthful, and, at the moment of her unlooked-for appearance, eloquentwith feeling. So young, indeed, did this fair and fragile being appear,that it might be doubted whether the age of childhood was entirelypassed. One small and exquisitely moulded hand was pressed on her heart,while with the other she made an impressive gesture, which seemed toinvite Ishmael, if further violence was meditated, to direct it againsther bosom.

  The silent wonder, with which the group of borderers gazed upward at soextraordinary a spectacle, was only interrupted as the person of Ellenwas seen emerging with timidity from the tent, as if equally urged,by apprehensions in behalf of herself and the fears which she felt onaccount of her companion, to remain concealed and to advance. She spoke,but her words were unheard by those below, and unheeded by her to whomthey were addressed. The latter, however, as if content with the offershe had m
ade of herself as a victim to the resentment of Ishmael, nowcalmly retired, and the spot she had so lately occupied became vacant,leaving a sort of stupid impression on the spectators beneath, notunlike that which it might be supposed would have been created had theyjust been gazing at some supernatural vision.

  More than a minute of profound silence succeeded, during which the sonsof Ishmael still continued gazing at the naked rock in stupid wonder.Then, as eye met eye, an expression of novel intelligence passed fromone to the other, indicating that to them, at least, the appearance ofthis extraordinary tenant of the pavilion was as unexpected as it wasincomprehensible. At length Asa, in right of his years, and moved by therankling impulse of the recent quarrel, took on himself the office ofinterrogator. Instead, however, of braving the resentment of his father,of whose fierce nature, when aroused, he had had too frequent evidenceto excite it wantonly, he turned upon the cowering person of Abiram,observing with a sneer--

  "This then is the beast you were bringing into the prairies for a decoy!I know you to be a man who seldom troubles truth, when any thing worsemay answer, but I never knew you to outdo yourself so thoroughly before.The newspapers of Kentuck have called you a dealer in black flesh ahundred times, but little did they reckon that you drove the trade intowhite families."

  "Who is a kidnapper?" demanded Abiram, with a blustering show ofresentment. "Am I to be called to account for every lie they put inprint throughout the States? Look to your own family, boy; look toyourselves. The very stumps of Kentucky and Tennessee cry out ag'inye! Ay, my tonguey gentleman, I have seen father and mother and threechildren, yourself for one, published on the logs and stubs of thesettlements, with dollars enough for reward to have made an honest manrich, for--"

  He was interrupted by a back-handed but violent blow on the mouth, thatcaused him to totter, and which left the impression of its weight in thestarting blood and swelling lips.

  "Asa," said the father, advancing with a portion of that dignity withwhich the hand of Nature seems to have invested the parental character,"you have struck the brother of your mother!"

  "I have struck the abuser of the whole family," returned the angryyouth; "and, unless he teaches his tongue a wiser language, he hadbetter part with it altogether, as the unruly member. I'm no greatperformer with the knife, but, on an occasion, could make out, myself,to cut off a slande--"

  "Boy, twice have you forgotten yourself to-day. Be careful that it doesnot happen the third time. When the law of the land is weak, it is rightthe law of nature should be strong. You understand me, Asa; and you knowme. As for you, Abiram, the child has done you wrong, and it is my placeto see you righted. Remember; I tell you justice shall be done; it isenough. But you have said hard things ag'in me and my family. If thehounds of the law have put their bills on the trees and stumps of theclearings, it was for no act of dishonesty as you know, but because wemaintain the rule that 'arth is common property. No, Abiram; could Iwash my hands of things done by your advice, as easily as I can of thethings done by the whisperings of the devil, my sleep would be quieterat night, and none who bear my name need blush to hear it mentioned.Peace, Asa, and you too, man; enough has been said. Let us all thinkwell before any thing is added, that may make what is already so badstill more bitter."

  Ishmael waved his hand with authority, as he ended, and turned away withthe air of one who felt assured, that those he had addressed would nothave the temerity to dispute his commands. Asa evidently struggled withhimself to compel the required obedience, but his heavy nature quietlysunk into its ordinary repose, and he soon appeared again the being hereally was; dangerous, only, at moments, and one whose passions weretoo sluggish to be long maintained at the point of ferocity. Not so withAbiram. While there was an appearance of a personal conflict, betweenhim and his colossal nephew, his mien had expressed the infallibleevidences of engrossing apprehension, but now, that the authority aswell as gigantic strength of the father were interposed between him andhis assailant, his countenance changed from paleness to a livid hue,that bespoke how deeply the injury he had received rankled in hisbreast. Like Asa, however, he acquiesced in the decision of thesquatter; and the appearance, at least, of harmony was restored againamong a set of beings, who were restrained by no obligations morepowerful than the frail web of authority with which Ishmael had beenable to envelope his children.

  One effect of the quarrel had been to divert the thoughts of the youngmen from their recent visitor. With the dispute, that succeeded thedisappearance of the fair stranger, all recollection of her existenceappeared to have vanished. A few ominous and secret conferences, it istrue, were held apart, during which the direction of the eyes ofthe different speakers betrayed their subject; but these threateningsymptoms soon disappeared, and the whole party was again seen brokeninto its usual, listless, silent, and lounging groups.

  "I will go upon the rock, boys, and look abroad for the savages," saidIshmael shortly after, advancing towards them with a mien whichhe intended should be conciliating, at the same time that it wasauthoritative.

  "If there is nothing to fear, we will go out on the plain; the day istoo good to be lost in words, like women in the towns wrangling overtheir tea and sugared cakes."

  Without waiting for approbation or dissent, the squatter advanced tothe base of the rock, which formed a sort of perpendicular wall, nearlytwenty feet high around the whole acclivity. Ishmael, however, directedhis footsteps to a point where an ascent might be made through a narrowcleft, which he had taken the precaution to fortify with a breast-workof cottonwood logs, and which, in its turn, was defended by achevaux-de-frise of the branches of the same tree. Here an armed man wasusually kept, as at the key of the whole position, and here one ofthe young men now stood, indolently leaning against the rock, ready toprotect the pass, if it should prove necessary, until the whole partycould be mustered at the several points of defence.

  From this place the squatter found the ascent still difficult, partly bynature and partly by artificial impediments, until he reached a sort ofterrace, or, to speak more properly, the plain of the elevation, wherehe had established the huts in which the whole family dwelt. Thesetenements were, as already mentioned, of that class which are sooften seen on the borders, and such as belonged to the infancy ofarchitecture; being simply formed of logs, bark, and poles. The areaon which they stood contained several hundred square feet, and wassufficiently elevated above the plain greatly to lessen if not to removeall danger from Indian missiles. Here Ishmael believed he might leavehis infants in comparative security, under the protection of theirspirited mother, and here he now found Esther engaged at her ordinarydomestic employments, surrounded by her daughters, and lifting hervoice, in declamatory censure, as one or another of the idle fryincurred her displeasure, and far too much engrossed with the tempestof her own conversation to know any thing of the violent scene which hadbeen passing below.

  "A fine windy place you have chosen for the camp, Ishmael!" shecommenced, or rather continued, by merely diverting the attack froma sobbing girl of ten, at her elbow, to her husband. "My word! if Ihaven't to count the young ones every ten minutes, to see they arenot flying away among the buzzards, or the ducks. Why do ye all keephovering round the rock, like lolloping reptiles in the spring, when theheavens are beginning to be alive with birds, man. D'ye think mouths canbe filled, and hunger satisfied, by laziness and sleep!"

  "You'll have your say, Eester," said the husband, using the provincialpronunciation of America for the name, and regarding his noisycompanions, with a look of habitual tolerance rather than of affection."But the birds you shall have, if your own tongue don't frighten them totake too high a flight. Ay, woman," he continued, standing on the veryspot whence he had so rudely banished Ellen, which he had by this timegained, "and buffaloe too, if my eye can tell the animal at the distanceof a Spanish league."

  "Come down; come down, and be doing, instead of talking. A talking manis no better than a barking dog. I shall hang out the cloth, if any ofthe red-skins show the
mselves, in time to give you notice. But, Ishmael,what have you been killing, my man; for it was your rifle I heard a fewminutes agone, unless I have lost my skill in sounds."

  "Poh! 'twas to frighten the hawk you see sailing above the rock."

  "Hawk, indeed! at your time of day to be shooting at hawks and buzzards,with eighteen open mouths to feed. Look at the bee, and at the beaver,my good man, and learn to be a provider. Why, Ishmael! I believe mysoul," she continued, dropping the tow she was twisting on a distaff,"the man is in that tent ag'in! More than half his time is spent aboutthe worthless, good-for-nothing--"

  The sudden re-appearance of her husband closed the mouth of the wife;and, as the former descended to the place where Esther had resumedher employment, she was content to grumble forth her dissatisfaction,instead of expressing it in more audible terms.

  The dialogue that now took place between the affectionate pair wassufficiently succinct and expressive. The woman was at first a littlebrief and sullen in her answers, but care for her family soon renderedher more complaisant. As the purport of the conversation was merely anengagement to hunt during the remainder of the day, in order to providethe chief necessary of life, we shall not stop to record it.

  With this resolution, then, the squatter descended to the plain anddivided his forces into two parts, one of which was to remain as aguard with the fortress, and the other to accompany him to the field.He warily included Asa and Abiram in his own party, well knowing thatno authority short of his own was competent to repress the fiercedisposition of his headlong son, if fairly awakened. When thesearrangements were completed, the hunters sallied forth, separating atno great distance from the rock, in order to form a circle about thedistant herd of buffaloes.