CHAPTER XII. THE SHADES OF DEATH
"The Shades of Death" is a marsh on a mountain top, the great, wet, andsoggy plain of the Pocono and Broad mountains. When the fugitives fromWyoming entered it, it was covered with a dense growth of pines, growingmostly out of dark, murky water, which in its turn was thick with agrowth of moss and aquatic plants. Snakes and all kinds of creepingthings swarmed in the ooze. Bear and panther were numerous.
Carpenter did not know any way around this terrible region, and theywere compelled to enter it. Henry was again devoutly thankful thatit was summer. In such a situation with winter on top of it only thehardiest of men could survive.
But they entered the swamp, Carpenter silent and dogged, still leading.Henry and his comrades kept close to the crowd. One could not scout insuch a morass, and it proved to be worse than they had feared. The dayturned gray, and it was dark among the trees. The whole place was filledwith gloomy shadows. It was often impossible to judge whether fairlysolid soil or oozy murk lay before them. Often they went down to theirwaists. Sometimes the children fell and were dragged up again by thestronger. Now and then rattle snakes coiled and hissed, and the womenkilled them with sticks. Other serpents slipped away in the slime.Everybody was plastered with mud, and they became mere images of humanbeings.
In the afternoon they reached a sort of oasis in the terrible swamp,and there they buried two more of their number who had perished fromexhaustion. The rest, save a few, lay upon the ground as if dead. On allsides of them stretched the pines and the soft black earth. It looked tothe fugitives like a region into which no human beings had ever come,or ever would come again, and, alas! to most of them like a region fromwhich no human being would ever emerge.
Henry sat upon a piece of fallen brushwood near the edge of the morass,and looked at the fugitives, and his heart sank within him. They werehardly in the likeness of his own kind, and they seemed practicallylifeless now. Everything was dull, heavy, and dead. The note of the windamong the leaves was somber. A long black snake slipped from the marshygrass near his feet and disappeared soundlessly in the water. He wassick, sick to death at the sight of so much suffering, and the desirefor vengeance, slow, cold, and far more lasting than any hot outburst,grew within him. A slight noise, and Shif'less Sol stood beside him.
"Did you hear?" asked the shiftless one, in a significant tone.
"Hear what?" asked Henry, who had been deep in thought.
"The wolf howl, just a very little cry, very far away an' under thehorizon, but thar all the same. Listen, thar she goes ag'in!"
Henry bent his ear and distinctly heard the faint, whining note, andthen it came a third time.
He looked tip at Shif'less Sol, and his face grew white--but not forhimself.
"Yes," said Shif'less Sol. He understood the look. "We are pursued. Themwolves howlin' are the Iroquois. What do you reckon we're goin' to do,Henry?"
"Fight!" replied the youth, with fierce energy. "Beat 'em off!"
"How?"
Henry circled the little oasis with the eye of a general, and his plancame.
"You'll stand here, where the earth gives a footing," he said, "you,Solomon Hyde, as brave a man as I ever saw, and with you will be PaulCotter, Tom Ross, Jim Hart, and Henry Ware, old friends of yours.Carpenter will at once lead the women and children on ahead, and perhapsthey will not hear the battle that is going to be fought here."
A smile of approval, slow, but deep and comprehensive, stole over theface of Solomon Hyde, surnamed, wholly without fitness, the shiftlessone. "It seems to me," he said, "that I've heard o' them four fellersyou're talkin' about, an' ef I wuz to hunt all over this planet an' themother planets that Paul tells of, I couldn't find four other fellersthat I'd ez soon have with me."
"We've got to stand here to the death," said Henry.
"You're shorely right," said Shif'less Sol.
The hands of the two comrades met in a grip of steel.
The other three were called and were told of the plan, which met withtheir full approval. Then the news was carried to Carpenter, who quicklyagreed that their course was the wisest. He urged all the fugitives totheir feet, telling them that they must reach another dry placebefore night, but they were past asking questions now, and, heavy andapathetic, they passed on into the swamp.
Paul watched the last of them disappear among the black bushes andweeds, and turned back to his friends on the oasis. The five lay downbehind a big fallen pine, and gave their weapons a last look. Theyhad never been armed better. Their rifles were good, and the finedouble-barreled pistols, formidable weapons, would be a great aid,especially at close quarters.
"I take it," said Tom Ross, "that the Iroquois can't get through at allunless they come along this way, an' it's the same ez ef we wuz settin'on solid earth, poppin' em over, while they come sloshin' up to us."
"That's exactly it," said Henry. "We've a natural defense which we canhold against much greater numbers, and the longer we hold 'em off, thenearer our people will be to Fort Penn."
"I never felt more like fightin' in my life," said Tom Ross.
It was a grim utterance, true of them all, although not one among themwas bloodthirsty.
"Can any of you hear anything?" asked Henry. "Nothin'," repliedShif'less Sol, after a little wait, "nothin' from the women goin', an'nothin' from the Iroquois comin'."
"We'll just lie close," said Henry. "This hard spot of ground isn't morethan thirty or forty feet each way, and nobody can get on it without ourknowing it."
The others did not reply. All lay motionless upon their sides, withtheir shoulders raised a little, in order that they might take instantaim when the time came. Some rays of the sun penetrated the canopy ofpines, and fell across the brown, determined faces and the lean brownhands that grasped the long, slender-barreled Kentucky rifles. Anothersnake slipped from the ground into the black water and swam away. Somewater animal made a light splash as he, too, swam from the presence ofthese strange intruders. Then they beard a sighing sound, as of afoot drawn from mud, and they knew that the Iroquois were approaching,savages in war, whatever they might be otherwise, and expecting an easyprey. Five brown thumbs cocked their rifles, and five brown forefingersrested upon the triggers. The eyes of woodsmen who seldom missed lookeddown the sights.
The sound of feet in the mud came many times. The enemy was evidentlydrawing near.
"How many do you think are out thar?" whispered Shif'less Sol to Henry.
"Twenty, at least, it seems to me by the sounds." "I s'pose the bestthing for us to do is to shoot at the first head we see."
"Yes, but we mustn't all fire at the same man."
It was suggested that Henry call off the turns of the marksmen, and heagreed to do so. Shif'less Sol was to fire first. The sounds now ceased.The Iroquois evidently had some feeling or instinct that they wereapproaching an enemy who was to be feared, not weak and unarmed womenand children.
The five were absolutely motionless, finger on trigger. The Americanwilderness had heroes without number. It was Horatius Cocles five timesover, ready to defend the bridge with life. Over the marsh rose theweird cry of an owl, and some water birds called in lonely fashion.
Henry judged that the fugitives were now three quarters of a mile away,out of the sound of rifle shot. He had urged Carpenter to marshal themon as far as he could. But the silence endured yet a while longer. Inthe dull gray light of the somber day and the waning afternoon the marshwas increasingly dreary and mournful. It seemed that it must always bethe abode of dead or dying things.
The wet grass, forty yards away, moved a little, and between the boughsappeared the segment of a hideous dark face, the painted brow, thesavage black eyes, and the hooked nose of the Mohawk. Only Henry sawit, but with fierce joy-the tortures at Wyoming leaped up before him-hefired at the painted brow. The Mohawk uttered his death cry and fellback with a splash into the mud and water of the swamp. A half dozenbullets were instantly fired at the base of the smoke that came fromHenry's rifle, but the you
th and his comrades lay close and wereunharmed. Shif'less Sol and Tom were quick enough to catch glimpses ofbrown forms, at which they fired, and the cries coming back told thatthey had hit.
"That's something," said Henry. "One or two Iroquois at least will notwear the scalp of white woman or child at their belts."
"Wish they'd try to rush us," said Shif'less Sol. "I never felt so fullof fight in my life before."
"They may try it," said Henry. "I understand that at the big battle ofthe Oriskany, farther up in the North, the Iroquois would wait until awhite man behind a tree would fire, then they would rush up and tomahawkhim before he could reload."
"They don't know how fast we kin reload," said Long Jim, "an' they don'tknow that we've got these double-barreled pistols, either."
"No, they don't," said Henry, "and it's a great thing for us to havethem. Suppose we spread out a little. So long as we keep themfrom getting a lodging on the solid earth we hold them at a greatdisadvantage."
Henry and Paul moved off a little toward the right, and the otherstoward the left. They still had good cover, as fallen timber wasscattered all over the oasis, and they were quite sure that anotherattack would be made soon. It came in about fifteen minutes. TheIroquois suddenly fired a volley at the logs and brush, and when thefive returned the fire, but with more deadly effect, they leaped forwardin the mud and attempted to rush the oasis, tomahawk in hand.
But the five reloaded so quickly that they were able to send in a secondvolley before the foremost of the Iroquois could touch foot on solidearth. Then the double barreled pistols came into play. The bulletssent from short range drove back the savages, who were amazed at sucha deadly and continued fire. Henry caught sight of a white face amongthese assailants, and he knew it to be that of Braxton Wyatt. Singularlyenough he was not amazed to see it there. Wyatt, sinking deeper anddeeper into savagery and cruelty, was just the one to lead the Iroquoisin such a pursuit. He was a fit match for Walter Butler, the infamousson of the Indian leader, who was soon to prove himself worse than theworst of the savages, as Thayendanegea himself has written.
Henry drew a bead once on Braxton Wyatt-he had no scruples now aboutshooting him-but just as he was about to pull the trigger Wyatt dartedbehind a bush, and a Seneca instead received the bullet. He also sawthe renegade, Blackstaffe, but he was not able to secure a shot at him,either. Nevertheless, the Iroquois attack was beaten back. It was aforegone conclusion that the result would be so, unless the force wasin great numbers. It is likely, also, that the Iroquois at first hadthought only a single man was with the fugitives, not knowing that thefive had joined them later.
Two of the Iroquois were slain at the very edge of the solid ground, buttheir bodies fell back in the slime, and the others, retreating fast fortheir lives, could not carry them off. Paul, with a kind of fascinatedhorror, watched the dead painted bodies sink deeper. Then one wasentirely gone. The hand of the other alone was left, and then it, too,was gone. But the five had held the island, and Carpenter was leadingthe fugitives on toward Fort Penn. They had not only held it, but theybelieved that they could continue to hold it against anything, and theirhearts became exultant. Something, too, to balance against the longscore, lay out there in the swamp, and all the five, bitter overWyoming, were sorry that Braxton Wyatt was not among them.
The stillness came again. The sun did not break through the heavy graysky, and the somber shadows brooded over "The Shades of Death." Theyheard again the splash of water animals, and a swimming snake passed onthe murky surface. Then they heard the wolf's long cry, and the long cryof wolf replying.
"More Iroquois coming," said Shif'less Sol. "Well, we gave them a prettywarm how d'ye do, an' with our rifles and double-barreled pistols I'mthinkin' that we kin do it ag'in."
"We can, except in one case," said Henry, "if the new party brings theirnumbers up to fifty or sixty, and they wait for night, they can surroundus in the darkness. Perhaps it would be better for us to slip away whentwilight comes. Carpenter and the train have a long lead now."
"Yes," said Shif'less Sol, "Now, what in tarnation is that?"
"A white flag," said Paul. A piece of cloth that had once been white hadbeen hoisted on the barrel of a rifle at a point about sixty yards away.
"They want a talk with us," said Henry.
"If it's Braxton Wyatt," said Long Jim, "I'd like to take a shot at him,talk or no talk, an' ef I missed, then take another."
"We'll see what they have to say," said Henry, and he called aloud:"What do you want with us?"
"To talk with you," replied a clear, full voice, not that of BraxtonWyatt.
"Very well," replied Henry, "show yourself and we will not fire uponyou."
A tall figure was upraised upon a grassy hummock, and the hands wereheld aloft in sign of peace. It was a splendid figure, at least six feetfour inches in height. At that moment some rays of the setting sun brokethrough the gray clouds and shone full upon it, lighting up the defiantscalp lock interwoven with the brilliant red feather, the eagle facewith the curved Roman beak, and the mighty shoulders and chest of redbronze. It was a genuine king of the wilderness, none other than themighty Timmendiquas himself, the great White Lightning of the Wyandots.
"Ware," he said, "I would speak with you. Let us talk as one chief toanother."
The five were amazed. Timmendiquas there! They were quite sure that hehad come up with the second force, and he was certain to prove a farmore formidable leader than either Braxton Wyatt or Moses Blackstaffe.But his demand to speak with Henry Ware might mean something.
"Are you going to answer him?" said Shif'less Sol.
"Of course," replied Henry.
"The others, especially Wyatt and Blackstaffe, might shoot."
"Not while Timmendiquas holds the flag of truce; they would not dare."
Henry stood up, raising himself to his full height. The same ruddysunlight piercing the somber gray of the clouds fell upon anothersplendid figure, a boy only in years, but far beyond the average heightof man, his hair yellow, his eyes a deep, clear blue, his body clothedin buckskin, and his whole attitude that of one without fear. The two,the white and the red, kings of their kind, confronted each other acrossthe marsh.
"What do you wish with me, Timmendiquas?" asked Henry. In the presenceof the great Wyandot chief the feeling of hate and revenge that had heldhis heart vanished. He knew that Paul and Shif'less Sol would have sunkunder the ruthless tomahawk of Queen Esther, if it had not been forWhite Lightning. He himself had owed him his life on another and moredistant occasion, and he was not ungrateful. So there was warmth in histone when he spoke.
"Let us meet at the edge of the solid ground," said Timmendiquas, "Ihave things to say that are important and that you will be glad tohear."
Henry walked without hesitation to the edge of the swamp, and theyoung chief, coming forward, met him. Henry held out his hand in whitefashion, and the young chief took it. There was no sound either from theswamp or from those who lay behind the logs on the island, but some ofthe eyes of those hidden in the swamps watched both with burning hatred.
"I wish to tell you, Ware," said Timmendiquas, speaking with the dignitybecoming a great chief, "that it was not I who led the pursuit of thewhite men's women and children. I, and the Wyandots who came with me,fought as best we could in the great battle, and I will slay my enemieswhen I can. We are warriors, and we are ready to face each other inbattle, but we do not seek to kill the squaw in the tepee or the papoosein its birch-bark cradle."
The face of the great chief seemed stirred by some deep emotion, whichimpressed Henry all the more because the countenance of Timmendiquas wasusually a mask.
"I believe that you tell the truth," said Henry gravely.
"I and my Wyandots," continued the chief, "followed a trail throughthe woods. We found that others, Senecas and Mohawks, led by Wyatt andBlackstaffe, who are of your race, had gone before, and when we came upthere had just been a battle. The Mohawks and Senecas had been drivenback. It was then we lear
ned that the trail was made by women and littlechildren, save you and your comrades who stayed to fight and protectthem."
"You speak true words, Timmendiquas," said Henry.
"The Wyandots have remained in the East to fight men, not to kill squawsand papooses," continued Timmendiquas. "So I say to you, go on withthose who flee across the mountains. Our warriors shall not pursue youany longer. We will turn back to the valley from which we come, andthose of your race, Blackstaffe and Wyatt, shall go with us."
The great chief spoke quietly, but there was an edge to his tone thattold that every word was meant. Henry felt a glow of admiration. Thetrue greatness of Timmendiquas spoke.
"And the Iroquois?" he said, "will they go back with you?"
"They will. They have killed too much. Today all the white people in thevalley are killed or driven away. Many scalps have been taken, thoseof women and children, too, and men have died at the stake. I havefelt shame for their deeds, Ware, and it will bring punishment upon mybrethren, the Iroquois. It will make so great a noise in the world thatmany soldiers will come, and the villages of the Iroquois will cease tobe."
"I think it is so, Timmendiquas," said Henry. "But you will be far awaythen in your own land."
The chief drew himself up a little.
"I shall remain with the Iroquois," he said. "I have promised to helpthem, and I must do so."
"I can't blame you for that," said Henry, "but I am glad that you donot seek the scalps of women and children. We are at once enemies andfriends, Timmendiquas."
White Lightning bowed gravely. He and Henry touched hands again, andeach withdrew, the chief into the morass, while Henry walked back towardhis comrades, holding himself erect, as if no enemy were near.
The four rose up to greet him. They had heard part of what was said, andHenry quickly told them the rest.
"He's shorely a great chief," said Shif'less Sol. "He'll keep his word,too. Them people on ahead ain't got anything more to fear from pursuit."
"He's a statesman, too," said Henry. "He sees what damage the deeds ofWyoming Valley will do to those who have done them. He thinks our peoplewill now send a great army against the Iroquois, and I think so, too."
"No nation can stand a thing like that," said Paul, "and I didn't dreamit could happen."
They now left the oasis, and went swiftly along the trail left by thefugitives. All of them had confidence in the word of Timmendiquas. Therewas a remote chance that some other band had entered the swamp at adifferent point, but it was remote, indeed, and it did not trouble themmuch.
Night was now over the great swamp. The sun no longer came through thegray clouds, but here and there were little flashes of flame made byfireflies. Had not the trail been so broad and deep it could easily havebeen lost, but, being what it was, the skilled eyes of the frontiersmenfollowed it without trouble.
"Some uv 'em are gittin' pow'ful tired," said Tom Ross, looking atthe tracks in the mud. Then he suddenly added: "Here's whar one's quitforever."
A shallow grave, not an hour old, had been made under some bushes,and its length indicated that a woman lay there. They passed it byin silence. Henry now appreciated more fully than ever the mercy ofTimmendiquas. The five and Carpenter could not possibly have protectedthe miserable fugitives against the great chief, with fifty Wyandots andIroquois at his back. Timmendiquas knew this, and he had done what noneof the Indians or white allies around him would have done.
In another hour they saw a man standing among some vines, but watchful,and with his rifle in the hollow of his arm. It was Carpenter, a manwhose task was not less than that of the five. They were in the thickof it and could see what was done, but he had to lead on and wait. Hecounted the dusk figures as they approached him, one, two, three, four,five, and perhaps no man ever felt greater relief. He advanced towardthem and said huskily:
"There was no fight! They did not attack!"
"There was a fight," said Henry, "and we beat them back; then a secondand a larger force came up, but it was composed chiefly of Wyandots, ledby their great chief, Timmendiquas. He came forward and said that theywould not pursue women and children, and that we could go in safety."
Carpenter looked incredulous.
"It is true," said Henry, "every word of it."
"It is more than Brant would have done," said Carpenter, "and it savesus, with your help."
"You were first, and the first credit is yours, Mr. Carpenter," saidHenry sincerely.
They did not tell the women and children of the fight at the oasis,but they spread the news that there would be no more pursuit, and manydrooping spirits revived. They spent another day in the Great DismalSwamp, where more lives were lost. On the day after their emergencefrom the marsh, Henry and his comrades killed two deer, which furnishedgreatly needed food, and on the day after that, excepting those who haddied by the way, they reached Fort Penn, where they were received intoshelter and safety.
The night before the fugitives reached Fort Penn, the Iroquois began thecelebration of the Thanksgiving Dance for their great victory and themany scalps taken at Wyoming. They could not recall another time whenthey had secured so many of these hideous trophies, and they were drunkwith the joy of victory. Many of the Tories, some in their own clothes,and some painted and dressed like Indians, took part in it.
According to their ancient and honored custom they held a grand councilto prepare for it. All the leading chiefs were present, Sangerachte,Hiokatoo, and the others. Braxton Wyatt, Blackstaffe, and other whitemen were admitted. After their deliberations a great fire was built inthe center of the camp, the squaws who had followed the army feedingit with brushwood until it leaped and roared and formed a great redpyramid. Then the chiefs sat down in a solemn circle at some distance,and waited.
Presently the sound of a loud chant was heard, and from the farthestpoint of the camp emerged a long line of warriors, hundreds and hundredsof them, all painted in red and black with horrible designs. They werenaked except the breechcloth and moccasins, and everyone waved aloft atomahawk as he sang.
Still singing and brandishing the tomahawks, which gleamed in thered light, the long procession entered the open space, and danced andwheeled about the great fire, the flames casting a lurid light uponfaces hideous with paint or the intoxication of triumph. The glare oftheir black eyes was like those of Eastern eaters of hasheesh or opium,and they bounded to and fro as if their muscles were springs of steel.They sang:
We have met the Bostonians [*] in battle, We slew them with our rifles and tomahawks. Few there are who escaped our warriors. Ever-victorious is the League of the Ho-de-no-sau-nee.
[* Note: All the Americans were often called Bostonians by the Indians as late as the Revolutionary War.]
Mighty has been our taking of scalps, They will fill all the lodges of the Iroquois. We have burned the houses of the Bostonians. Ever-victorious is the League of the Ho-de-no-sau-nee.
The wolf will prowl in their corn-fields, The grass will grow where their blood has soaked; Their bones will lie for the buzzard to pick. Ever-victorious is the League of the Ho-de-no-sau-nee.
We came upon them by river and forest; As we smote Wyoming we will smite the others, We will drive the Bostonians back to the sea. Ever-victorious is the League of the Ho-de-no-sau-nee.
The monotonous chant with the refrain, "Ever-victorious is the League ofthe Ho-de-no-sau-nee," went on for many verses. Meanwhile the old squawsnever ceased to feed the bonfire, and the flames roared, casting adeeper and more vivid light over the distorted faces of the dancers andthose of the chiefs, who sat gravely beyond.
Higher and higher leaped the warriors. They seemed unconscious offatigue, and the glare in their eyes became that of maniacs. Their wholesouls were possessed by the orgy. Beads of sweat, not of exhaustion, butof emotional excitement, appeared upon their faces and naked bodies, andthe red and black paint streaked together horribly.
For a long time this went on, and then the warriors ceased suddenly
tosing, although they continued their dance. A moment later a cry whichthrilled every nerve came from a far point in the dark background.It was the scalp yell, the most terrible of all Indian cries, long,high-pitched, and quavering, having in it something of the barking howlof the wolf and the fiendish shriek of a murderous maniac. The warriorsinstantly took it up, and gave it back in a gigantic chorus.
A ghastly figure bounded into the circle of the firelight. It was thatof a woman, middle-aged, tall and powerful, naked to the waist, her bodycovered with red and black paint, her long black hair hanging in a loosecloud down her back. She held a fresh scalp, taken from a white head,aloft in either band. It was Catharine Montour, and it was she who hadfirst emitted the scalp yell. After her came more warriors, all bearingscalps. The scalp yell was supposed to be uttered for every scalp taken,and, as they had taken more than three hundred, it did not cease forhours, penetrating every part of the forest. All the time CatharineMontour led the dance. None bounded higher than she. None grimaced morehorribly.
While they danced, six men, with their hands tied behind them and blackcaps on their heads, were brought forth and paraded around amid hootsand yells and brandishing of tomahawks in their faces. They were thesurviving prisoners, and the black caps meant that they were to bekilled and scalped on the morrow. Stupefied by all through which theyhad gone, they were scarcely conscious now.
Midnight came. The Iroquois still danced and sang, and the calm starslooked down upon the savage and awful scene. Now the dancers began toweary. Many dropped unconscious, and the others danced about them wherethey lay. After a while all ceased. Then the chiefs brought forth awhite dog, which Hiokatoo killed and threw on the embers of the fire.When it was thoroughly roasted, the chiefs cut it in pieces and ate it.Thus closed the Festival of Thanksgiving for the victory of Wyoming.
The Scouts of the Valley Page 12