CHAPTER VI. MAN PROPOSES, BUT GOD DISPOSES
A week passed, and another Sunday came,--a Sunday so still and hot andmoist that steam seemed to rise from the heavy trees,--an idle day formaster and servant alike. A hush was in the air, and a presage of weknew not what. It weighed upon my spirits, and even Nick’s, and wewandered restlessly under the trees, seeking for distraction.
About two o’clock a black line came on the horizon, and slowly crepthigher until it broke into giant, fantastic shapes. Mutterings arose,but the sun shone hot as ever.
“We’re to have a hurricane,” said Nick. “I wish we might have it and bedone with it.”
At five the sun went under. I remember that Madame was lolling listlessin the garden, daintily arrayed in fine linen, trying to talk to Mr.Mason, when a sound startled us. It was the sound of swift hoof beats onthe soft drive.
Mrs. Temple got up, an unusual thing. Perchance she was expecting amessage from some of the gentlemen; or else she may well have beentired of Mr. Mason. Nick and I were before her, and, running through thehouse, arrived at the portico in time to see a negro ride up on a horsecovered with lather.
It was the same negro who had fetched me hither from Mr. Lowndes. Andwhen I saw him my heart stood still lest he had brought news of myfather.
“What’s to do, boy?” cried Nicholas to him.
The boy held in his hand a letter with a great red seal.
“Fo’ Mistis Temple,” he said, and, looking at me queerly, he took offhis cap as he jumped from the horse. Mistress Temple herself havingarrived, he handed her the letter. She took it, and broke the sealcarelessly.
“Oh,” she said, “it’s only from Mr. Lowndes. I wonder what he wishesnow.”
Every moment of her reading was for me an agony, and she read slowly.The last words she spoke aloud:--
“‘If you do not wish the lad, send him to me, as Kate is very fond ofhim.’ So Kate is very fond of him,” she repeated. And handing the letterto Mr. Mason, she added, “Tell him, Parson.”
The words burned into my soul and seared it. And to this day I tremblewith anger as I think of them. The scene comes before me: the sky, thedarkened portico, and Nicholas running after his mother crying: “Oh,mamma, how could you! How could you!”
Mr. Mason bent over me in compassion, and smoothed my hair.
“David,” said he, in a thick voice, “you are a brave boy, David. Youwill need all your courage now, my son. May God keep your nature sweet!”
He led me gently into the arbor and told me how, under Captain Baskin,the detachment had been ambushed by the Cherokees; and how my father,with Ensign Calhoun and another, had been killed, fighting bravely.The rest of the company had cut their way through and reached thesettlements after terrible hardships.
I was left an orphan.
I shall not dwell here on the bitterness of those moments. We have allknown sorrows in our lives,--great sorrows. The clergyman was a wiseman, and did not strive to comfort me with words. But he sat thereunder the leaves with his arm about me until a blinding bolt split theblackness of the sky and the thunder rent our ears, and a Caribbeanstorm broke over Temple Bow with all the fury of the tropics. Then heled me through the drenching rain into the house, nor heeded the wethimself on his Sunday coat.
A great anger stayed me in my sorrow. I would no longer tarry under Mrs.Temple’s roof, though the world without were a sea or a desert. Theone resolution to escape rose stronger and stronger within me, and Idetermined neither to eat nor sleep until I had got away. The thoughtof leaving Nick was heavy indeed; and when he ran to me in the dark halland threw his arms around me, it needed all my strength to keep fromcrying aloud.
“Davy,” he said passionately, “Davy, you mustn’t mind what she says.She never means anything she says--she never cares for anything save herpleasure. You and I will stay here until we are old enough to run awayto Kentucky. Davy! Answer me, Davy!”
I could not, try as I would. There were no words that would come withhonesty. But I pulled him down on the mahogany settle near the doorwhich led into the back gallery, and there we sat huddled together insilence, while the storm raged furiously outside and the draughts bangedthe great doors of the house. In the lightning flashes I saw Nick’sface, and it haunted me afterwards through many years of wandering. Onit was written a sorrow for me greater than my own sorrow. For God hadgiven to this lad every human passion and compassion.
The storm rolled away with the night, and Mammy came through the hallwith a candle.
“Whah is you, Marse Nick? Whah is you, honey? You’ suppah’s ready.”
And so we went into our little dining room, but I would not eat. Thegood old negress brushed her eyes with her apron as she pressed acake upon me she had made herself, for she had grown fond of me. Andpresently we went away silently to bed.
It was a long, long time before Nick’s breathing told me that he wasasleep. He held me tightly clutched to him, and I know that he feared Iwould leave him. The thought of going broke my heart, but I never oncewavered in my resolve, and I lay staring into the darkness, ponderingwhat to do. I thought of good Mr. Lowndes and his wife, and I decidedto go to Charlestown. Some of my boyish motives come back to me now:I should be near Nick; and even at that age,--having lived a life ofself-reliance,--I thought of gaining an education and of rising to aplace of trust. Yes, I would go to Mr. Lowndes, and ask him to let mework for him and so earn my education.
With a heavy spirit I crept out of bed, slowly disengaging Nick’s armlest he should wake. He turned over and sighed in his sleep. CarefullyI dressed myself, and after I was dressed I could not refrain fromslipping to the bedside to bend over him once again,--for he was theonly one in my life with whom I had found true companionship. Then Iclimbed carefully out of the window, and so down the corner of the houseto the ground.
It was starlight, and a waning moon hung in the sky. I made my waythrough the drive between the black shadows of the forest, and came atlength to the big gates at the entrance, locked for the night. A strangethought of their futility struck me as I climbed the rail fence besidethem, and pushed on into the main road, the mud sucking under my shoesas I went. As I try now to cast my memory back I can recall no fear,only a vast sense of loneliness, and the very song of it seemed to besung in never ending refrain by the insects of the night. I had beenalone in the mountains before. I have crossed great strips of wildernesssince, but always there was love to go back to. Then I was leaving theonly being in the world that remained to me.
I must have walked two hours or more before I came to the mire of across-road, and there I stood in a quandary of doubt as to which sideled to Charlestown.
As I lingered a light began to tremble in the heavens. A cock crew inthe distance. I sat down on a fallen log to rest. But presently, as thelight grew, I heard shouts which drew nearer and deeper and brought meto my feet in an uncertainty of expectation. Next came the rattling ofchains, the scramble of hoofs in the mire, and here was a wagon witha big canvas cover. Beside the straining horses was a great, burly manwith a red beard, cracking his long whip, and calling to the horses in astrange tongue. He stopped still beside his panting animals when he sawme, his high boots sunk in the mud.
“Gut morning, poy,” he said, wiping his red face with his sleeve; “whatyou do here?”
“I am going to Charlestown,” I answered.
“Ach!” he cried, “dot is pad. Mein poy, he run avay. You are ein gutpoy, I know. I vill pay ein gut price to help me vit mein wagon--ja.”
“Where are you going?” I demanded, with a sudden wavering.
“Up country--pack country. You know der Proad River--yes?”
No, I did not. But a longing came upon me for the old backwoods life,with its freedom and self-reliance, and a hatred for this steamingcountry of heat and violent storms, and artificiality and pomp. And Ihad a desire, even at that age, to make my own way in the world.
“What will you give me?” I asked.
At that he put his finge
r to his nose.
“Thruppence py the day.”
I shook my head. He looked at me queerly.
“How old you pe,--twelve, yes?”
Now I had no notion of telling him. So I said: “Is this the Charlestownroad?”
“Fourpence!” he cried, “dot is riches.”
“I will go for sixpence,” I answered.
“Mein Gott!” he cried, “sixpence. Dot is robbery.” But seeing meobdurate, he added: “I vill give it, because ein poy I must have. Vat isyour name,--Tavid? You are ein sharp poy, Tavid.”
And so I went with him.
In writing a biography, the relative value of days and years shouldhold. There are days which count in space for years, and years for days.I spent the time on the whole happily with this Dutchman, whose namewas Hans Köppel. He talked merrily save when he spoke of the war againstEngland, and then contemptuously, for he was a bitter English partisan.And in contrast to this he would dwell for hours on a king he calledFriedrich der Grosse, and a war he waged that was a war; and how thismighty king had fought a mighty queen at Rossbach and Leuthen in his owncountry,--battles that were battles.
“And you were there, Hans?” I asked him once.
“Ja,” he said, “but I did not stay.”
“You ran away?”
“Ja,” Hans would answer, laughing, “run avay. I love peace, Tavid. Dotis vy I come here, and now,” bitterly, “and now ve haf var again once.”
I would say nothing; but I must have looked my disapproval, for he wenton to explain that in Saxe-Gotha, where he was born, men were made tofight whether they would or no; and they were stolen from their wives atnight by soldiers of the great king, or lured away by fair promises.
Travelling with incredible slowness, in due time we came to a countycalled Orangeburg, where all were Dutchmen like Hans, and very few spokeEnglish. And they all thought like Hans, and loved peace, and hatedthe Congress. On Sundays, as we lay over at the taverns, these wouldbe filled with a rollicking crowd of fiddlers and dancers, quaintlydressed, the women bringing their children and babies. At such timesHans would be drunk, and I would have to feed the tired horses and mountwatch over the cargo. I had many adventures, but none worth the tellinghere. And at length we came to Hans’s farm, in a prettily rollingcountry on the Broad River. Hans’s wife spoke no English at all, nordid the brood of children running about the house. I had small fancyfor staying in such a place, and so Hans paid me two crowns for my threeweeks’ service; I think, with real regret, for labor was scarce in thoseparts, and though I was young, I knew how to work. And I could at leasthave guided his plough in the furrow and cared for his cattle.
It was the first money I had earned in my life, and a prouder day thanmany I have had since.
For the convenience of travellers passing that way, Hans kept atavern,--if it could have been dignified by such a name. It was in truthmerely a log house with shakedowns, and stood across the rude road fromhis log farmhouse. And he gave me leave to sleep there and to work formy board until I cared to leave. It so chanced that on the second dayafter my arrival a pack-train came along, guided by a nettlesome old manand a strong, black-haired lass of sixteen or thereabouts. The old man,whose name was Ripley, wore a nut-brown hunting shirt trimmed with redcotton; and he had no sooner slipped the packs from his horses than hebegan to rail at Hans, who stood looking on.
“You damned Dutchmen be all Tories, and worse,” he cried; “you stay hereand till your farms while our boys are off in the hill towns fightingCherokees. I wish the devils had every one of your fat sculps. PollyAnn, water the nags.”
Hans replied to this sally with great vigor, lapsing into Dutch. PollyAnn led the scrawny ponies to the trough, but her eyes snapped withmerriment as she listened. She was a wonderfully comely lass, despiteher loose cotton gown and poke-bonnet and the shoepacks on her feet.She had blue eyes, the whitest, strongest of teeth, and the rosiest offaces.
“Gran’pa hates a Dutchman wuss’n pizen,” she said to me. “So do I. We’veall been burned out and sculped up river--and they never give us so muchas a man or a measure of corn.”
I helped her feed the animals, and tether them, and loose their bellsfor the night, and carry the packs under cover.
“All the boys is gone to join Rutherford and lam the Indians,” shecontinued, “so Gran’pa and I had to go to the settlements. There wahn’tany one else. What’s your name?” she demanded suddenly.
I told her.
She sat down on a log at the corner of the house, and pulled me downbeside her.
“And whar be you from?”
I told her. It was impossible to look into her face and not tell her.She listened eagerly, now with compassion, and now showing her whiteteeth in amusement. And when I had done, much to my discomfiture, sheseized me in her strong arms and kissed me.
“Poor Davy,” she cried, “you ain’t got a home. You shall come home withus.”
Catching me by the hand, she ran like a deer across the road to whereher grandfather was still quarrelling violently with Hans, and pulledhim backward by the skirts of his hunting shirt. I looked for anotherand mightier explosion from the old backwoodsman, but to my astonishmenthe seemed to forget Hans’s existence, and turned and smiled on herbenevolently.
“Polly Ann,” said he, “what be you about now?”
“Gran’pa,” said she, “here’s Davy Trimble, who’s a good boy, and his pais just killed by the Cherokees along with Baskin, and he wants work anda home, and he’s comin’ along with us.”
“All right, David,” answered Mr. Ripley, mildly, “ef Polly Ann says so,you kin come. Whar was you raised?”
I told him on the upper Yadkin.
“You don’t tell me,” said he. “Did ye ever know Dan’l Boone?”
“I did, indeed, sir,” I answered, my face lighting up. “Can you tell mewhere he is now?”
“He’s gone to Kaintuckee, them new settlements, fer good. And ef Iwasn’t eighty years old, I’d go thar, too.”
“I reckon I’ll go thar when I’m married,” said Polly Ann, and blushedredder than ever. Drawing me to her, she said, “I’ll take you, too,Davy.”
“When you marry that wuthless Tom McChesney,” said her grandfather,testily.
“He’s not wuthless,” said Polly, hotly. “He’s the best man inRutherford’s army. He’ll git more sculps then any of ‘em,--you see.”
“Tavy is ein gut poy,” Hans put in, for he had recovered his composure.“I wish much he stay mit me.”
As for me, Polly Ann never consulted me on the subject--nor had she needto. I would have followed her to kingdom come, and at the thought ofreaching the mountains my heart leaped with joy. We all slept in the oneflea-infested, windowless room of the “tavern” that night; and beforedawn I was up and untethered the horses, and Polly Ann and I togetherlifted the two bushels of alum salt on one of the beasts and theploughshare on the other. By daylight we had left Hans and his farmforever.
I can see the lass now, as she strode along the trace by the flowingriver, through sunlight and shadow, straight and supple and strong.Sometimes she sang like a bird, and the forest rang. Sometimes she wouldmake fun of her grandfather or of me; and again she would be silent foran hour at a time, staring ahead, and then I knew she was thinking ofthat Tom McChesney. She would wake from those reveries with a laugh, andgive me a push to send me rolling down a bank.
“What’s the matter, Davy? You look as solemn as a wood-owl. What alittle wiseacre you be!”
Once I retorted, “You were thinking of that Tom McChesney.”
“Ay, that she was, I’ll warrant,” snapped her grandfather.
Polly Ann replied, with a merry peal of laughter, “You are both jealousof Tom--both of you. But, Davy, when you see him you’ll love him as muchas I do.”
“I’ll not,” I said sturdily.
“He’s a man to look upon--”
“He’s a rip-roarer,” old man Ripley put in. “Ye’re daft about him.”
“That I am,” said Polly, flushing and subsiding; “but he’ll not knowit.”
As we rose into the more rugged country we passed more than one charredcabin that told its silent story of Indian massacre. Only on thescattered hill farms women and boys and old men were working in thefields, all save the scalawags having gone to join Rutherford. Therewere plenty of these around the taverns to make eyes at Polly Ann andopen love to her, had she allowed them; but she treated them in returnto such scathing tirades that they were glad to desist--all but one. Hemust have been an escaped redemptioner, for he wore jauntily a swanskinthree-cornered hat and stained breeches of a fine cloth. He was a bold,vain fellow.
“My beauty,” says he, as we sat at supper, “silver and Wedgwood betterbecome you than pewter and a trencher.”
“And I reckon a rope would sit better on your neck than a ruff,” retorted Polly Ann, while the company shouted with laughter. But he wasnot the kind to become discomfited.
“I’d give a guinea to see you in silk. But I vow your hair looks betteras it is.”
“Not so yours,” said she, like lightning; “‘twould look better to mehanging on the belt of one of them red devils.”
In the morning, when he would have lifted the pack of alum salt, PollyAnn gave him a push that sent him sprawling. But she did it in such goodnature withal that the fellow mistook her. He scrambled to his feet,flung his arm about her waist, and kissed her. Whereupon I hit him witha sapling, and he staggered and let her go.
“You imp of hell!” he cried, rubbing the bump. He made a vicious dash atme that boded no good, but I slipped behind the hominy block; and PollyAnn, who was like a panther on her feet, dashed at him and gave him abuffet in the cheek that sent him reeling again.
After that we were more devoted friends than ever.
We travelled slowly, day by day, until I saw the mountains lift blueagainst the western sky, and the sight of them was like home once more.I loved them; and though I thought with sadness of my father, I was onthe whole happier with Polly Ann than I had been in the lonely cabin onthe Yadkin. Her spirits flagged a little as she drew near home, but oldMr. Ripley’s rose.
“There’s Burr’s,” he would say, “and O’Hara’s and Williamson’s,”marking the cabins set amongst the stump-dotted corn-fields. “And thar,”sweeping his hand at a blackened heap of logs lying on the stones,“thar’s whar Nell Tyler and her baby was sculped.”
“Poor Nell,” said Polly Ann, the tears coming into her eyes as sheturned away.
“And Jim Tyler was killed gittin’ to the fort. He can’t say I didn’twarn him.”
“I reckon he’ll never say nuthin’, now,” said Polly Ann.
It was in truth a dismal sight,--the shapeless timbers, the corn,planted with such care, choked with weeds, and the poor utensils ofthe little family scattered and broken before the door-sill. These sameIndians had killed my father; and there surged up in my breast thathatred of the painted race felt by every backwoods boy in my time.
Towards the end of the day the trace led into a beautiful green valley,and in the middle of it was a stream shining in the afternoon sun.Then Polly Ann fell entirely silent. And presently, as the shadows grewpurple, we came to a cabin set under some spreading trees on a knollwhere a woman sat spinning at the door, three children playing at herfeet. She stared at us so earnestly that I looked at Polly Ann, and sawher redden and pale. The children were the first to come shouting at us,and then the woman dropped her wool and ran down the slope straight intoPolly Ann’s arms. Mr. Ripley halted the horses with a grunt.
The two women drew off and looked into each other’s faces. Then PollyAnn dropped her eyes.
“Have ye--?” she said, and stopped.
“No, Polly Ann, not one word sence Tom and his Pa went. What do folkssay in the settlements?”
Polly Ann turned up her nose.
“They don’t know nuthin’ in the settlements,” she replied.
“I wrote to Tom and told him you was gone,” said the older woman. “Iknowed he’d wanter hear.”
And she looked meaningly at Polly Ann, who said nothing. The childrenhad been pulling at the girl’s skirts, and suddenly she made a dash atthem. They scattered, screaming with delight, and she after them.
“Howdy, Mr. Ripley?” said the woman, smiling a little.
“Howdy, Mis’ McChesney?” said the old man, shortly.
So this was the mother of Tom, of whom I had heard so much. She was, intruth, a motherly-looking person, her fleshy face creased with strongcharacter.
“Who hev ye brought with ye?” she asked, glancing at me.
“A lad Polly Ann took a shine to in the settlements,” said the oldman. “Polly Ann! Polly Ann!” he cried sharply, “we’ll hev to be gittin’home.” And then, as though an afterthought (which it really was not), headded, “How be ye for salt, Mis’ McChesney?”
“So-so,” said she.
“Wal, I reckon a little might come handy,” said he. And to the girl whostood panting beside him, “Polly, give Mis’ McChesney some salt.”
Polly Ann did, and generously,--the salt they had carried with so muchlabor threescore and ten miles from the settlements. Then we took ourdeparture, the girl turning for one last look at Tom’s mother, and atthe cabin where he had dwelt. We were all silent the rest of the way,climbing the slender trail through the forest over the gap into the nextvalley. For I was jealous of Tom. I am not ashamed to own it now.
In the smoky haze that rises just before night lets her curtain fall, wedescended the farther slope, and came to Mr. Ripley’s cabin.
CHAPTER VII. IN SIGHT OF THE BLUE WALL ONCE MORE
Polly Ann lived alone with her grandfather, her father and mother havingbeen killed by Indians some years before. There was that bond betweenus, had we needed one. Her father had built the cabin, a large one witha loft and a ladder climbing to it, and a sleeping room and a kitchen.The cabin stood on a terrace that nature had levelled, looking acrossa swift and shallow stream towards the mountains. There was the truckpatch, with its yellow squashes and melons, and cabbages and beans,where Polly Ann and I worked through the hot mornings; and the cornpatch, with the great stumps of the primeval trees standing in it. Allaround us the silent forest threw its encircling arms, spreading up theslopes, higher and higher, to crown the crests with the little pines andhemlocks and balsam fir.
There had been no meat save bacon since the McChesneys had left, for oflate game had become scarce, and old Mr. Ripley was too feeble to go onthe long hunts. So one day, when Polly Ann was gone across the ridge,I took down the long rifle from the buckhorns over the hearth, and thehunting knife and powder-horn and pouch beside it, and trudged up theslope to a game trail I discovered. All day I waited, until the forestlight grew gray, when a buck came and stood over the water, raisinghis head and stamping from time to time. I took aim in the notch of asapling, brought him down, cleaned and skinned and dragged him into thewater, and triumphantly hauled one of his hams down the trail. Polly Anngave a cry of joy when she saw me.
“Davy,” she exclaimed, “little Davy, I reckoned you was gone away fromus. Gran’pa, here is Davy back, and he has shot a deer.”
“You don’t say?” replied Mr. Ripley, surveying me and my booty with agrim smile.
“How could you, Gran’pa?” said Polly Ann, reproachfully.
“Wal,” said Mr. Ripley, “the gun was gone, an’ Davy. I reckon he ain’tsich a little rascal after all.”
Polly Ann and I went up the next day, and brought the rest of the buckmerrily homeward. After that I became the hunter of the family; butoftener than not I returned tired and empty-handed, and ravenouslyhungry. Indeed, our chief game was rattlesnakes, which we killed by thedozens in the corn and truck patches.
As Polly Ann and I went about our daily chores, we would talk of TomMcChesney. Often she would sit idle at the hand-mill, a light in hereyes that I would have given kingdoms for. One ever memorable morning,early in the crisp autumn, a grizzled man strode up the trail
, and PollyAnn dropped the ear of corn she was husking and stood still, her bosomheaving. It was Mr. McChesney, Tom’s father--alone.
“No, Polly Ann,” he cried, “there ain’t nuthin’ happened. We’ve laidout the hill towns. But the Virginny men wanted a guide, and Tomvolunteered, and so he ain’t come back with Rutherford’s boys.”
Polly Ann seized him by the shoulders, and looked him in the face.
“Be you tellin’ the truth, Warner McChesney?” she said in a hard voice.
“As God hears me,” said Warner McChesney, solemnly. “He sent ye this.”
He drew from the bosom of his hunting shirt a soiled piece of birchbark, scrawled over with rude writing. Polly seized it, and flew intothe house.
The hickories turned a flaunting yellow, the oaks a copper-red, theleaves crackled on the Catawba vines, and still Tom McChesney did notcome. The Cherokees were homeless and houseless and subdued,--their hilltowns burned, their corn destroyed, their squaws and children wanderers.One by one the men of the Grape Vine settlement returned to save whatthey might of their crops, and plough for the next year--Burrs, O’Haras,Williamsons, and Winns. Yes, Tom had gone to guide the Virginia boys.All had tales to tell of his prowess, and how he had saved Rutherford’smen from ambush at the risk of his life. To all of which Polly Annlistened with conscious pride, and replied with sallies.
“I reckon I don’t care if he never comes back,” she would cry. “If helikes the Virginny boys more than me, there be others here I fancy morethan him.”
Whereupon the informant, if he were not bound in matrimony, would beginto make eyes at Polly Ann. Or, if he were bolder, and went at the wooingin the more demonstrative fashion of the backwoods--Polly Ann had a wayof hitting him behind the ear with most surprising effect.
One windy morning when the leaves were kiting over the valley we weregetting ready for pounding hominy, when a figure appeared on the trail.Steadying the hood of her sunbonnet with her hand, the girl gazed longand earnestly, and a lump came into my throat at the thought that thecomer might be Tom McChesney. Polly Ann sat down at the block again indisgust.
“It’s only Chauncey Dike,” she said.
“Who’s Chauncey Dike?” I asked.
“He reckons he’s a buck,” was all that Polly Ann vouchsafed.
Chauncey drew near with a strut. He had very long black hair, a newcoonskin cap with a long tassel, and a new blue-fringed hunting shirt.What first caught my eye was a couple of withered Indian scalps thathung by their long locks from his girdle. Chauncey Dike was certainlyhandsome.
“Wal, Polly Ann, are ye tired of hanging out fer Tom?” he cried, when adozen paces away.
“I wouldn’t be if you was the only one left ter choose,” Polly Annretorted.
Chauncey Dike stopped in his tracks and haw-hawed with laughter. But Icould see that he was not very much pleased.
“Wal,” said he, “I ‘low ye won’t see Tom very soon. He’s gone toKaintuckee.”
“Has he?” said Polly Ann, with brave indifference.
“He met a gal on the trail--a blazin’ fine gal,” said Chauncey Dike.“She was goin’ to Kaintuckee. And Tom--he ‘lowed he’d go ‘long.”
Polly Ann laughed, and fingered the withered pieces of skin atChauncey’s girdle.
“Did Tom give you them sculps?” she asked innocently.
Chauncey drew up stiffly.
“Who? Tom McChesney? I reckon he ain’t got none to give. This here’sfrom a big brave at Noewee, whar the Virginny boys was surprised.” Andhe held up the one with the longest tuft. “He’d liked to tomahawked meout’n the briers, but I throwed him fust.”
“Shucks,” said Polly Ann, pounding the corn, “I reckon you found himdead.”
But that night, as we sat before the fading red of the backlog, the oldman dozing in his chair, Polly Ann put her hand on mine.
“Davy,” she said softly, “do you reckon he’s gone to Kaintuckee?”
How could I tell?
The days passed. The wind grew colder, and one subdued dawn we awoke tofind that the pines had fantastic white arms, and the stream ran blackbetween white banks. All that day, and for many days after, the snowadded silently to the thickness of its blanket, and winter was upon us.It was a long winter and a rare one. Polly Ann sat by the little windowof the cabin, spinning the flax into linsey-woolsey. And she made ahunting shirt for her grandfather, and another little one for me whichshe fitted with careful fingers. But as she spun, her wheel made theonly music--for Polly Ann sang no more. Once I came on her as she wasthrusting the tattered piece of birch bark into her gown, but she neverspoke to me more of Tom McChesney. When, from time to time, the snowmelted on the hillsides, I sometimes surprised a deer there and shot himwith the heavy rifle. And so the months wore on till spring.
The buds reddened and popped, and the briers grew pink and white.Through the lengthening days we toiled in the truck patch, but alwaysas I bent to my work Polly Ann’s face saddened me--it had once been sobright, and it should have been so at this season. Old Mr. Ripley grewquerulous and savage and hard to please. In the evening, when my workwas done, I often lay on the banks of the stream staring at the highridge (its ragged edges the setting sun burned a molten gold), and thethought grew on me that I might make my way over the mountains into thatland beyond, and find Tom for Polly Ann. I even climbed the watershed tothe east as far as the O’Hara farm, to sound that big Irishman about thetrail. For he had once gone to Kentucky, to come back with his scalpand little besides. O’Hara, with his brogue, gave me such a terrifyingnotion of the horrors of the Wilderness Trail that I threw up allthought of following it alone, and so I resolved to wait until I heardof some settlers going over it. But none went from the Grape Vinesettlement that spring.
War was a-waging in Kentucky. The great Indian nations were making afrantic effort to drive from their hunting grounds the little bands ofsettlers there, and these were in sore straits.
So I waited, and gave Polly Ann no hint of my intention.
Sometimes she herself would slip away across the notch to see Mrs.McChesney and the children. She never took me with her on thesejourneys, but nearly always when she came back at nightfall her eyeswould be red, and I knew the two women had been weeping together. Therecame a certain hot Sunday in July when she went on this errand, andGrandpa Ripley having gone to spend the day at old man Winn’s, I wasleft alone. I remember I sat on the squared log of the door-step,wondering whether, if I were to make my way to Salisbury, I could fallin with a party going across the mountains into Kentucky. And wondering,likewise, what Polly Ann would do without me. I was cleaning the longrifle,--a labor I loved,--when suddenly I looked up, startled to see aman standing in front of me. How he got there I know not. I stared athim. He was a young man, very spare and very burned, with bright redhair and blue eyes that had a kind of laughter in them, and yet weresober. His buckskin hunting shirt was old and stained and frayed by thebriers, and his leggins and moccasins were wet from fording the stream.He leaned his chin on the muzzle of his gun.
“Folks live here, sonny?” said he.
I nodded.
“Whar be they?”
“Out,” said I.
“Comin’ back?” he asked.
“To-night,” said I, and began to rub the lock.
“Be they good folks?” said he.
“Yes,” I answered.
“Wal,” said he, making a move to pass me, “I reckon I’ll slip in andtake what I’ve a mind to, and move on.”
Now I liked the man’s looks very much, but I did not know what he woulddo. So I got in his way and clutched the gun. It was loaded, but notprimed, and I emptied a little powder from the flask in the pan. At thathe grinned.
“You’re a good boy, sonny,” he said. “Do you reckon you could hit me ifyou shot?”
“Yes,” I said. But I knew I could scarcely hold the gun out straightwithout a rest.
“And do you reckon I could hit you fust?” he asked.
At that I l
aughed, and he laughed.
“What’s your name?”
I told him.
“Who do you love best in all the world?” said he.
It was a queer question. But I told him Polly Ann Ripley.
“Oh!” said he, after a pause. “And what’s she like?”
“She’s beautiful,” I said; “she’s been very kind to me. She took me homewith her from the settlements when I had no place to go. She’s good.”
“And a sharp tongue, I reckon,” said he.
“When people need it,” I answered.
“Oh!” said he. And presently, “She’s very merry, I’ll warrant.”
“She used to be, but that’s gone by,” I said.
“Gone by!” said he, his voice falling, “is she sick?”
“No,” said I, “she’s not sick, she’s sad.”
“Sad?” said he. It was then I noticed that he had a cut across histemple, red and barely healed. “Do you reckon your Polly Ann would giveme a little mite to eat?”
This time I jumped up, ran into the house, and got down some corn-poneand a leg of turkey. For that was the rule of the border. He took themin great bites, but slowly, and he picked the bones clean.
“I had breakfast yesterday morning,” said he, “about forty mile fromhere.”
“And nothing since?” said I, in astonishment.
“Fresh air and water and exercise,” said he, and sat down on the grass.He was silent for a long while, and so was I. For a notion had struckme, though I hardly dared to give it voice.
“Are you going away?” I asked at last.
He laughed.
“Why?” said he.
“If you were going to Kaintuckee--” I began, and faltered. For he staredat me very hard.
“Kaintuckee!” he said. “There’s a country! But it’s full of blood andInjun varmints now. Would you leave Polly Ann and go to Kaintuckee?”
“Are you going?” I said.
“I reckon I am,” he said, “as soon as I kin.”
“Will you take me?” I asked, breathless. “I--I won’t be in your way, andI can walk--and--shoot game.”
At that he bent back his head and laughed, which made me redden withanger. Then he turned and looked at me more soberly.
“You’re a queer little piece,” said he. “Why do you want to go thar?”
“I want to find Tom McChesney for Polly Ann,” I said.
He turned away his face.
“A good-for-nothing scamp,” said he.
“I have long thought so,” I said.
He laughed again. It was a laugh that made me want to join him, had Inot been irritated.
“And he’s a scamp, you say. And why?”
“Else he would be coming back to Polly Ann.”
“Mayhap he couldn’t,” said the stranger.
“Chauncey Dike said he went off with another girl, into Kaintuckee.”
“And what did Polly Ann say to that?” the stranger demanded.
“She asked Chauncey if Tom McChesney gave him the scalps he had on hisbelt.”
At that he laughed in good earnest, and slapped his breech-cloutsrepeatedly. All at once he stopped, and stared up the ridge.
“Is that Polly Ann?” said he.
I looked, and far up the trail was a speck.
“I reckon it is,” I answered, and wondered at his eyesight. “She travelsover to see Tom McChesney’s Ma once in a while.”
He looked at me queerly.
“I reckon I’ll go here and sit down, Davy,” said he, “so’s not to be inthe way.” And he walked around the corner of the house.
Polly Ann sauntered down the trail slowly, as was her wont after suchan occasion. And the man behind the house twice whispered with extremecaution, “How near is she?” before she came up the path.
“Have you been lonesome, Davy?” she said.
“No,” said I, “I’ve had a visitor.”
“It’s not Chauncey Dike again?” she said. “He doesn’t dare show his facehere.”
“No, it wasn’t Chauncey. This man would like to have seen you, PollyAnn. He--” here I braced myself,--“he knew Tom McChesney. He called hima good-for-nothing scamp.”
“He did--did he!” said Polly Ann, very low. “I reckon it was good forhim I wasn’t here.”
I grinned.
“What are you laughing at, you little monkey,” said Polly Ann, crossly.“‘Pon my soul, sometimes I reckon you are a witch.”
“Polly Ann,” I said, “did I ever do anything but good to you?”
She made a dive at me, and before I could escape caught me in her strongyoung arms and hugged me.
“You’re the best friend I have, little Davy,” she cried.
“I reckon that’s so,” said the stranger, who had risen and was standingat the corner.
Polly Ann looked at him like a frightened doe. And as she stared,uncertain whether to stay or fly, the color surged into her cheeks andmounted to her fair forehead.
“Tom!” she faltered.
“I’ve come back, Polly Ann,” said he. But his voice was not so clear asa while ago.
Then Polly Ann surprised me.
“What made you come back?” said she, as though she didn’t care aminkskin. Whereat Mr. McChesney shifted his feet.
“I reckon it was to fetch you, Polly Ann.”
“I like that!” cried she. “He’s come to fetch me, Davy.” That was thefirst time in months her laugh had sounded natural. “I heerd you fetchedone gal acrost the mountains, and now you want to fetch another.”
“Polly Ann,” says he, “there was a time when you knew a truthful manfrom a liar.”
“That time’s past,” retorted she; “I reckon all men are liars. What areye tom-foolin’ about here for, Tom McChesney, when yere Ma’s breakin’her heart? I wonder ye come back at all.”
“Polly Ann,” says he, very serious, “I ain’t a boaster. But when I thinkwhat I come through to git here, I wonder that I come back at all. Thefolks shut up at Harrod’s said it was sure death ter cross the mountainsnow. I’ve walked two hundred miles, and fed seven times, and my sculp’sas near hangin’ on a Red Stick’s belt as I ever want it to be.”
“Tom McChesney,” said Polly Ann, with her hands on her hips and hersunbonnet tilted, “that’s the longest speech you ever made in yourlife.”
I declare I lost my temper with Polly Ann then, nor did I blame TomMcChesney for turning on his heel and walking away. But he had goneno distance at all before Polly Ann, with three springs, was at hisshoulder.
“Tom!” she said very gently.
He hesitated, stopped, thumped the stock of his gun on the ground, andwheeled. He looked at her doubtingly, and her eyes fell to the ground.
“Tom McChesney,” said she, “you’re a born fool with wimmen.”
“Thank God for that,” said he, his eyes devouring her.
“Ay,” said she. And then, “You want me to go to Kaintuckee with you?”
“That’s what I come for,” he stammered, his assurance all run awayagain.
“I’ll go,” she answered, so gently that her words were all but blownaway by the summer wind. He laid his rifle against a stump at theedge of the corn-field, but she bounded clear of him. Then she stood,panting, her eyes sparkling.
“I’ll go,” she said, raising her finger, “I’ll go for one thing.”
“What’s that?” he demanded.
“That you’ll take Davy along with us.”
This time Tom had her, struggling like a wild thing in his arms, andkissing her black hair madly. As for me, I might have been in the nextsettlement for all they cared. And then Polly Ann, as red as a hollyberry, broke away from him and ran to me, caught me up, and hid her facein my shoulder. Tom McChesney stood looking at us, grinning, and thatday I ceased to hate him.
“There’s no devil ef I don’t take him, Polly Ann,” said he. “Why, he wasa-goin’ to Kaintuckee ter find me for you.”
“What?” said she, rais
ing her head.
“That’s what he told me afore he knew who I was. He wanted to know efI’d fetch him thar.”
“Little Davy!” cried Polly Ann.
The last I saw of them that day they were going off up the trace towardshis mother’s, Polly Ann keeping ahead of him and just out of his reach.And I was very, very happy. For Tom McChesney had come back at last, andPolly Ann was herself once more.
As long as I live I shall never forget Polly Ann’s wedding.
She was all for delay, and such a bunch of coquetry as I have neverseen. She raised one objection after another; but Tom was a firm man,and his late experiences in the wilderness had made him impatient oftrifling. He had promised the Kentucky settlers, fighting for theirlives in their blockhouses, that he would come back again. And aresolute man who was a good shot was sorely missed in the country inthose days.
It was not the thousand dangers and hardships of the journey acrossthe Wilderness Trail that frightened Polly Ann. Not she. Nor would shelisten to Tom when he implored her to let him return alone, to come backfor her when the redskins had got over the first furies of their hatred.As for me, the thought of going with them into that promised land waslike wine. Wondering what the place was like, I could not sleep ofnights.
“Ain’t you afeerd to go, Davy?” said Tom to me.
“You promised Polly Ann to take me,” said I, indignantly.
“Davy,” said he, “you ain’t over handsome. ‘Twouldn’t improve yere looksto be bald. They hev a way of takin’ yere ha’r. Better stay behind withGran’pa Ripley till I kin fetch ye both.”
“Tom,” said Polly Ann, “you kin just go back alone if you don’t takeDavy.”
So one of the Winn boys agreed to come over to stay with old Mr. Ripleyuntil quieter times.
The preparations for the wedding went on apace that week. I had notthought that the Grape Vine settlement held so many people. And theycame from other settlements, too, for news spread quickly in thatcountry, despite the distances. Tom McChesney was plainly a favoritewith the men who had marched with Rutherford. All the week theycame, loaded with offerings, turkeys and venison and pork and bearmeat--greatest delicacy of all--until the cool spring was filled for thefeast. From thirty miles down the Broad, a gaunt Baptist preacher on afat white pony arrived the night before. He had been sent for to tie theknot.
Polly Ann’s wedding-day dawned bright and fair, and long before the sunglistened on the corn tassels we were up and clearing out the big room.The fiddlers came first--a merry lot. And then the guests from afarbegan to arrive. Some of them had travelled half the night. Thebridegroom’s friends were assembling at the McChesney place. At last,when the sun was over the stream, rose such Indian war-whoops and shotsfrom the ridge trail as made me think the redskins were upon us. Theshouts and hurrahs grew louder and louder, the quickening thud ofhorses’ hoofs was heard in the woods, and there burst into sight of theassembly by the truck patch two wild figures on crazed horses chargingdown the path towards the house. We scattered to right and left. On theycame, leaping logs and brush and ditches, until one of them pulled up,yelling madly, at the very door, the foam-flecked sides of his horsemoving with quick heaves.
It was Chauncey Dike, and he had won the race for the bottle of “BlackBetty,”--Chauncey Dike, his long, black hair shining with bear’s oil.Amid the cheers of the bride’s friends he leaped from his saddle,mounted a stump and, flapping his arms, crowed in victory. Before he haddone the vanguard of the groom’s friends were upon us, pell-mell, all inthe finest of backwoods regalia,--new hunting shirts, trimmed with bitsof color, and all armed to the teeth--scalping knife, tomahawk, and all.Nor had Chauncey Dike forgotten the scalp of the brave who leaped at himout of the briers at Neowee.
Polly Ann was radiant in a white linen gown, woven and sewed by her ownhands. It was not such a gown as Mrs. Temple, Nick’s mother, would haveworn, and yet she was to me an hundred times more beautiful thanthat lady in all her silks. Peeping out from under it were the littleblue-beaded moccasins which Tom himself had brought across the mountainsin the bosom of his hunting shirt. Polly Ann was radiant, and yet attimes so rapturously shy that when the preacher announced himself readyto tie the knot she ran into the house and hid in the cupboard--forPolly Ann was a child of nature. Thence, coloring like a wild rose,she was dragged by a boisterous bevy of girls in linsey-woolsey tothe spreading maple of the forest that stood on the high bank over thestream. The assembly fell solemn, and not a sound was heard save thebreathing of Nature in the heyday of her time. And though I was happy,the sobs rose in my throat. There stood Polly Ann, as white now as thebleached linen she wore, and Tom McChesney, tall and spare and broad, asstrong a figure of a man as ever I laid eyes on. God had truly made thatcouple for wedlock in His leafy temple.
The deep-toned words of the preacher in prayer broke the stillness.They were made man and wife. And then began a day of merriment, ofunrestraint, such as the backwoods alone knows. The feast was spreadout in the long grass under the trees--sides of venison, bear meat,corn-pone fresh baked by Mrs. McChesney and Polly Ann herself, and allthe vegetables in the patch. There was no stint, either, of maple beerand rum and “Black Betty,” and toasts to the bride and groom amidstgusts of laughter “that they might populate Kaintuckee.” And Polly Annwould have it that I should sit by her side under the maple.
The fiddlers played, and there were foot races and shooting matches. Ay,and wrestling matches in the severe manner of the backwoods between theyoung bucks, more than one of which might have ended seriously were itnot for the high humor of the crowd. Tom McChesney himself was in mostof them, a hot favorite. By a trick he had learned in the Indian countryhe threw Chauncey Dike (no mean adversary) so hard that the backwoodsdandy lay for a moment in sleep. Contrary to the custom of many, Tom wasnot in the habit of crowing on such occasions, nor did he even smile ashe helped Chauncey to his feet. But Polly Ann knew, and I knew, that hewas thinking of what Chauncey had said to her.
So the long summer afternoon wore away into twilight, and the sun fellbehind the blue ridges we were to cross. Pine knots were lighted in thebig room, the fiddlers set to again, and then came jigs and three andfour handed reels that made the puncheons rattle,--chicken-flutterand cut-the-buckle,--and Polly Ann was the leader now, the young menflinging the girls from fireplace to window in the reels, and backagain; and when, panting and perspiring, the lass was too tired to standlonger, she dropped into the hospitable lap of the nearest buck who wasperched on the bench along the wall awaiting his chance. For so it wentin the backwoods in those days, and long after, and no harm in it thatever I could see.
Well, suddenly, as if by concert, the music stopped, and a shout oflaughter rang under the beams as Polly Ann flew out of the door with thegirls after her, as swift of foot as she. They dragged her, a strugglingcaptive, to the bride-chamber which made the other end of the house, andwhen they emerged, blushing and giggling and subdued, the fun began withTom McChesney. He gave the young men a pretty fight indeed, and longbefore they had him conquered the elder guests had made their escapethrough door and window.
All night the reels and jigs went on, and the feasting and drinking too.In the fine rain that came at dawn to hide the crests, the company rodewearily homeward through the notches.
CHAPTER VIII. THE NOLLICHUCKY TRACE
Some to endure, and many to quail, Some to conquer, and many to fail, Toiling over the Wilderness Trail.
As long as I live I shall never forget the morning we started on ourjourney across the Blue Wall. Before the sun chased away the filmy veilof mist from the brooks in the valley, the McChesneys, father, mother,and children, were gathered to see us depart. And as they helped us totighten the packsaddles Tom himself had made from chosen tree-forks,they did not cease lamenting that we were going to certain death. Ourscrawny horses splashed across the stream, and we turned to see a gauntand lonely figure standing apart against the sun, stern and sorrowful.We waved our hands, and set our faces towards Kaintuckee.
>
Tom walked ahead, rifle on shoulder, then Polly Ann; and lastly I drovethe two shaggy ponies, the instruments of husbandry we had been ableto gather awry on their packs,--a scythe, a spade, and a hoe. Itriumphantly carried the axe.
It was not long before we were in the wilderness, shut in by mountaincrags, and presently Polly Ann forgot her sorrows in the perils of thetrace. Choked by briers and grapevines, blocked by sliding stones andearth, it rose and rose through the heat and burden of the day untilit lost itself in the open heights. As the sun was wearing down to thewestern ridges the mischievous sorrel mare turned her pack on a sapling,and one of the precious bags burst. In an instant we were on our kneesgathering the golden meal in our hands. Polly Ann baked journeycakes ona hot stone from what we saved under the shiny ivy leaves, and scarcehad I spancelled the horses ere Tom returned with a fat turkey he hadshot.
“Was there ever sech a wedding journey!” said Polly Ann, as we sat aboutthe fire, for the mountain air was chill. “And Tom and Davy as grave asparsons. Ye’d guess one of you was Rutherford himself, and the other Mr.Boone.”
No wonder he was grave. I little realized then the task he had sethimself, to pilot a woman and a lad into a country haunted by frenziedsavages, when single men feared to go this season. But now he smiled,and patted Polly Ann’s brown hand.
“It’s one of yer own choosing, lass,” said he.
“Of my own choosing!” cried she. “Come, Davy, we’ll go back to Grandpa.”
Tom grinned.
“I reckon the redskins won’t bother us till we git by the Nollichuckyand Watauga settlements,” he said.
“The redskins!” said Polly Ann, indignant; “I reckon if one of ‘em didgit me he’d kiss me once in a while.”
Whereupon Tom, looking more sheepish still, tried to kiss her, andfailed ignominiously, for she vanished into the dark woods.
“If a redskin got you here,” said Tom, when she had slipped back, “he’dfetch you to Nick-a-jack Cave.”
“What’s that?” she demanded.
“Where all the red and white and yellow scalawags over the mountainsis gathered,” he answered. And he told of a deep gorge between toweringmountains where a great river cried angrily, of a black cave out ofwhich a black stream ran, where a man could paddle a dugout for milesinto the rock. The river was the Tennessee, and the place the resortof the Chickamauga bandits, pirates of the mountains, outcasts of allnations. And Dragging Canoe was their chief.
It was on the whole a merry journey, the first part of it, if a roughone. Often Polly Ann would draw me to her and whisper: “We’ll hold out,Davy. He’ll never know.” When the truth was that the big fellow wasgoing at half his pace on our account. He told us there was no fear ofredskins here, yet, when the scream of a painter or the hoot of an owlstirred me from my exhausted slumber, I caught sight of him with hisback to a tree, staring into the forest, his rifle at his side. The daywas dawning.
“Turn about’s fair,” I expostulated.
“Ye’ll need yere sleep, Davy,” said he, “or ye’ll never grow anybigger.”
“I thought Kaintuckee was to the west,” I said, “and you’re makingnorth.” For I had observed him day after day. We had left the trails.Sometimes he climbed tree, and again he sent me to the upper branches,whence I surveyed a sea of tree-tops waving in the wind, and lookedonward to where a green velvet hollow lay nestling on the western sideof a saddle-backed ridge.
“North!” said Tom to Polly Ann, laughing. “The little devil will beatme at woodcraft soon. Ay, north, Davy. I’m hunting for the NollichuckyTrace that leads to the Watauga settlement.”
It was wonderful to me how he chose his way through the mountains. Oncein a while we caught sight of a yellow blaze in a tree, made by himselfscarce a month gone, when he came southward alone to fetch Polly Ann.Again, the tired roan shied back from the bleached bones of a traveller,picked clean by wolves. At sundown, when we loosed our exhausted horsesto graze on the wet grass by the streams, Tom would go off to look for adeer or turkey, and often not come back to us until long after darknesshad fallen.
“Davy’ll take care of you, Polly Ann,” he would say as he left us.
And she would smile at him bravely and say, “I reckon I kin look out forDavy awhile yet.”
But when he was gone, and the crooning stillness set in, broken only bythe many sounds of the night, we would sit huddled together by the fire.It was dread for him she felt, not for herself. And in both our mindsrose red images of hideous foes skulking behind his brave form as hetrod the forest floor. Polly Ann was not the woman to whimper.
And yet I have but dim recollections of this journey. It was no hardshipto a lad brought up in woodcraft. Fear of the Indians, like a dogshivering with the cold, was a deadened pain on the border.
Strangely enough it was I who chanced upon the Nollichucky Trace, whichfollows the meanderings of that river northward through the great SmokyMountains. It was made long ago by the Southern Indians as they threadedtheir way to the Hunting Lands of Kaintuckee, and shared now by Indiantraders. The path was redolent with odors, and bright with mountainshrubs and flowers,--the pink laurel bush, the shining rhododendron, andthe grape and plum and wild crab. The clear notes of the mountain birdswere in our ears by day, and the music of the water falling over theledges, mingled with that of the leaves rustling in the wind, lulled usto sleep at night. High above us, as we descended, the gap, from nakedcrag to timber-covered ridge, was spanned by the eagle’s flight. Andvirgin valleys, where future generations were to be born, spread out andnarrowed again,--valleys with a deep carpet of cane and grass, where thedeer and elk and bear fed unmolested.
It was perchance the next evening that my eyes fell upon a sight whichis one of the wonders of my boyish memories. The trail slipped to theedge of a precipice, and at our feet the valley widened. Plantedamidst giant trees, on a shining green lawn that ran down to the racingNollichucky was the strangest house it has ever been my lot to see--ofno shape, of huge size, and built of logs, one wing hitched to anotherby “dog alleys” (as we called them); and from its wide stone chimneysthe pearly smoke rose upward in the still air through the poplarbranches. Beyond it a setting sun gilded the corn-fields, and horses andcattle dotted the pastures. We stood for a while staring at this oasisin the wilderness, and to my boyish fancy it was a fitting introductionto a delectable land.
“Glory be to heaven!” exclaimed Polly Ann.
“It’s Nollichucky Jack’s house,” said Tom.
“And who may he be?” said she.
“Who may he be!” cried Tom; “Captain John Sevier, king of the border,and I reckon the best man to sweep out redskins in the Wataugasettlements.”
“Do you know him?” said she.
“I was chose as one of his scouts when we fired the Cherokee hill townslast summer,” said Tom, with pride. “Thar was blood and thunder for ye!We went down the Great War-path which lies below us, and when we wasthrough there wasn’t a corn-shuck or a wigwam or a war post left. Wedidn’t harm the squaws nor the children, but there warn’t no prisonerstook. When Nollichucky Jack strikes I reckon it’s more like athunderbolt nor anything else.”
“Do you think he’s at home, Tom?” I asked, fearful that I should not seethis celebrated person.
“We’ll soon l’arn,” said he, as we descended. “I heerd he was agoin’ topunish them Chickamauga robbers by Nick-a-jack.”
Just then we heard a prodigious barking, and a dozen hounds camecharging down the path at our horses’ legs, the roan shying intothe truck patch. A man’s voice, deep, clear, compelling, was heardcalling:--
“Vi! Flora! Ripper!”
I saw him coming from the porch of the house, a tall slim figure in ahunting shirt--that fitted to perfection--and cavalry boots. His face,his carriage, his quick movement and stride filled my notion of a hero,and my instinct told me he was a gentleman born.
“Why, bless my soul, it’s Tom McChesney!” he cried, ten paces away,while Tom grinned with pleasure at
the recognition. “But what have youhere?”
“A wife,” said Tom, standing on one foot.
Captain Sevier fixed his dark blue eyes on Polly Ann with approbation,and he bowed to her very gracefully.
“Where are you going, Ma’am, may I ask?” he said.
“To Kaintuckee,” said Polly Ann.
“To Kaintuckee!” cried Captain Sevier, turning to Tom. “Egad, then,you’ve no right to a wife,--and to such a wife,” and he glanced again atPolly Ann. “Why, McChesney, you never struck me as a rash man. Have youlost your senses, to take a woman into Kentucky this year?”
“So the forts be still in trouble?” said Tom.
“Trouble?” cried Mr. Sevier, with a quick fling of his whip at an unrulyhound, “Harrodstown, Boonesboro, Logan’s Fort at St. Asaph’s,--theydon’t dare stick their noses outside the stockades. The Indians haveswarmed into Kentucky like red ants, I tell you. Ten days ago, when Iwas in the Holston settlements, Major Ben Logan came in. His fort hadbeen shut up since May, they were out of powder and lead, and somebodyhad to come. How did he come? As the wolf lopes, nay, as the crow fliesover crag and ford, Cumberland, Clinch, and all, forty miles a day forfive days, and never saw a trace--for the war parties were watching theWilderness Road.” And he swung again towards Polly Ann. “You’ll not goto Kaintuckee, ma’am; you’ll stay here with us until the redskins arebeaten off there. He may go if he likes.”
“I reckon we didn’t come this far to give out, Captain Sevier,” saidshe.
“You don’t look to be the kind to give out, Mrs. McChesney,” said he.“And yet it may not be a matter of giving out,” he added more soberly.This mixture of heartiness and gravity seemed to sit well on him.“Surely you have been enterprising, Tom. Where in the name of theContinental Congress did you get the lad?”
“I married him along with Polly Ann,” said Tom. “That was the bargain,and I reckon he was worth it.”
“I’d take a dozen to get her,” declared Mr. Sevier, while Polly Annblushed. “Well, well, supper’s waiting us, and cider and applejack, forwe don’t get a wedding party every day. Some gentlemen are here whoseword may have more weight and whose attractions may be greater thanmine.”
He whistled to a negro lad, who took our horses, and led us through thecourt-yard and the house to the lawn at the far side of it. A rude tablewas set there under a great tree, and around it three gentlemen weretalking. My memory of all of them is more vivid than it might be weretheir names not household words in the Western country. Captain Sevierstartled them.
“My friends,” said he, “if you have despatches for Kaintuckee, I prayyou get them ready over night.”
They looked up at him, one sternly, the other two gravely.
“What the devil do you mean, Sevier?” said the stern one.
“That my friend, Tom McChesney, is going there with his wife, unless wecan stop him,” said Sevier.
“Stop him!” thundered the stern gentleman, kicking back his chair andstraightening up to what seemed to me a colossal height. I stared athim, boylike. He had long, iron-gray hair and a creased, fleshy faceand sunken eyes. He looked as if he might stop anybody as he turned uponTom. “Who the devil is this Tom McChesney?” he demanded.
Sevier laughed.
“The best scout I ever laid eyes on,” said he. “A deadly man witha Deckard, an unerring man at choosing a wife” (and he bowed to thereddening Polly Ann), “and a fool to run the risk of losing her.”
“Tut, tut,” said the iron gentleman, who was the famous Captain EvanShelby of King’s Meadows, “he’ll leave her here in our settlements whilehe helps us fight Dragging Canoe and his Chickamauga pirates.”
“If he leaves me,” said Polly Ann, her eyes flashing, “that’s an end tothe bargain. He’ll never find me more.”
Captain Sevier laughed again.
“There’s spirit for you,” he cried, slapping his whip against his boot.
At this another gentleman stood up, a younger counterpart of thefirst, only he towered higher and his shoulders were broader. He had abig-featured face, and pleasant eyes--that twinkled now--sunken in, withfleshy creases at the corners.
“Tom McChesney,” said he, “don’t mind my father. If any man besidesLogan can get inside the forts, you can. Do you remember me?”
“I reckon I do, Mr. Isaac Shelby,” said Tom, putting a big hand into Mr.Shelby’s bigger one. “I reckon I won’t soon forget how you steppedout of ranks and tuk command when the boys was runnin’, and turned thetide.”
He looked like the man to step out of ranks and take command.
“Pish!” said Mr. Isaac Shelby, blushing like a girl; “where would I havebeen if you and Moore and Findley and the rest hadn’t stood ‘em off tillwe turned round?”
By this time the third gentleman had drawn my attention. Not by anythinghe said, for he remained silent, sitting with his dark brown head bentforward, quietly gazing at the scene from under his brows. Theinstant he spoke they turned towards him. He was perhaps forty, andbroad-shouldered, not so tall as Mr. Sevier.
“Why do you go to Kaintuckee, McChesney?” he asked.
“I give my word to Mr. Harrod and Mr. Clark to come back, Mr.Robertson,” said Tom.
“And the wife? If you take her, you run a great risk of losing her.”
“And if he leaves me,” said Polly Ann, flinging her head, “he will loseme sure.”
The others laughed, but Mr. Robertson merely smiled.
“Faith,” cried Captain Sevier, “if those I met coming backhelter-skelter over the Wilderness Trace had been of that stripe, they’dhave more men in the forts now.”
With that the Captain called for supper to be served where we sat. Hewas a widower, with lads somewhere near my own age, and I recall beingshown about the place by them. And later, when the fireflies glowed andthe Nollichucky sang in the darkness, we listened to the talk of thewar of the year gone by. I needed not to be told that before me were therenowned leaders of the Watauga settlements. My hero worship cried italoud within me. These captains dwelt on the border-land of mystery,conquered the wilderness, and drove before them its savage tribes bytheir might. When they spoke of the Cherokees and told how that sameStuart--the companion of Cameron--was urging them to war against ourpeople, a fierce anger blazed within me. For the Cherokees had killed myfather.
I remember the men,--scarcely what they said: Evan Shelby’s words, likeheavy blows on an anvil; Isaac Shelby’s, none the less forceful;James Robertson compelling his listeners by some strange power. He wasperchance the strongest man there, though none of us guessed, afterruling that region, that he was to repeat untold hardships to found andrear another settlement farther west. But best I loved to hear CaptainSevier, whose talk lacked not force, but had a daring, a humor, alightness of touch, that seemed more in keeping with that world I hadleft behind me in Charlestown. Him I loved, and at length I solved thepuzzle. To me he was Nick Temple grown to manhood.
I slept in the room with Captain Sevier’s boys, and one window of it wasof paper smeared with bear’s grease, through which the sunlight came allbleared and yellow in the morning. I had a boy’s interest in affairs,and I remember being told that the gentlemen were met here to discussthe treaty between themselves and the great Oconostota, chief of theCherokees, and also to consider the policy of punishing once for allDragging Canoe and his bandits at Chickamauga.
As we sat at breakfast under the trees, these gentlemen generouslydropped their own business to counsel Tom, and I observed with pridethat he had gained their regard during the last year’s war. Shelby’sthreats and Robertson’s warnings and Sevier’s exhortations having noeffect upon his determination to proceed to Kentucky, they began toadvise him how to go, and he sat silent while they talked. And finally,when they asked him, he spoke of making through Carter’s Valley forCumberland Gap and the Wilderness Trail.
“Egad,” cried Captain Sevier, “I have so many times found the boldestplan the safest that I have become a coward that way. What
do you say toit, Mr. Robertson?”
Mr. Robertson leaned his square shoulders over the table.
“He may fall in with a party going over,” he answered, without lookingup.
Polly Ann looked at Tom as if to say that the whole Continental Armycould not give her as much protection.
We left that hospitable place about nine o’clock, Mr. Robertson havingwritten a letter to Colonel Daniel Boone,--shut up in the fort atBoonesboro,--should we be so fortunate as to reach Kaintuckee: andanother to a young gentleman by the name of George Rogers Clark,apparently a leader there. Captain Sevier bowed over Polly Ann’s handas if she were a great lady, and wished her a happy honeymoon, and me hepatted on the head and called a brave lad. And soon we had passed beyondthe corn-field into the Wilderness again.
Our way was down the Nollichucky, past the great bend of it belowLick Creek, and so to the Great War-path, the trail by which countlessparties of red marauders had travelled north and south. It led, indeed,northeast between the mountain ranges. Although we kept a watch by dayand night, we saw no sign of Dragging Canoe or his men, and at lengthwe forded the Holston and came to the scattered settlement in Carter’sValley.
I have since racked my brain to remember at whose cabin we stoppedthere. He was a rough backwoodsman with a wife and a horde of children.But I recall that a great rain came out of the mountains and down thevalley. We were counting over the powder gourds in our packs, when thereburst in at the door as wild a man as has ever been my lot to see. Hisbrown beard was grown like a bramble patch, his eye had a violet light,and his hunting shirt was in tatters. He was thin to gauntness, ateravenously of the food that was set before him, and throwing off hissoaked moccasins, he spread his scalded feet to the blaze, and thesteaming odor of drying leather filled the room.
“Whar be ye from?” asked Tom.
For answer the man bared his arm, then his shoulder, and two angryscars, long and red, revealed themselves, and around his wrists weredeep gouges where he had been bound.
“They killed Sue,” he cried, “sculped her afore my very eyes. And theychopped my boy outen the hickory withes and carried him to the CreekNation. At a place where there was a standin’ stone I broke loose fromthree of ‘em and come here over the mountains, and I ain’t had nothin’,stranger, but berries and chainey brier-root for ten days. God damn‘em!” he cried, standing up and tottering with the pain in his feet, “ifI can get a Deckard--”
“Will you go back?” said Tom.
“Go back!” he shouted, “I’ll go back and fight ‘em while I have blood inmy body.”
He fell into a bunk, but his sorrow haunted him even in his troubledsleep, and his moans awed us as we listened. The next day he told us hisstory with more calmness. It was horrible indeed, and might well havefrightened a less courageous woman than Polly Ann. Imploring her not togo, he became wild again, and brought tears to her eyes when he spoke ofhis own wife. “They tomahawked her, ma’am, because she could not walk,and the baby beside her, and I standing by with my arms tied.”
As long as I live I shall never forget that scene, and how Tom pleadedwith Polly Ann to stay behind, but she would not listen to him.
“You’re going, Tom?” she said.
“Yes,” he answered, turning away, “I gave ‘em my word.”
“And your word to me?” said Polly Ann.
He did not answer.
We fixed on a Saturday to start, to give the horses time to rest, and inthe hope that we might hear of some relief party going over the Gap. OnThursday Tom made a trip to the store in the valley, and came back witha Deckard rifle he had bought for the stranger, whose name was Weldon.There was no news from Kaintuckee, but the Carter’s Valley settlersseemed to think that matters were better there. It was that same night,I believe, that two men arrived from Fort Chiswell. One, whose name wasCutcheon, was a little man with a short forehead and a bad eye, and hewore a weather-beaten blue coat of military cut. The second was a big,light-colored, fleshy man, and a loud talker. He wore a hunting shirtand leggings. They were both the worse for rum they had had on the road,the big man talking very loud and boastfully.
“Afeard to go to Kaintuckee!” said he. “I’ve met a parcel o’ cowardson the road, turned back. There ain’t nothin’ to be afeard of, eh,stranger?” he added, to Tom, who paid no manner of attention to him. Thesmall man scarce opened his mouth, but sat with his head bowed forwardon his breast when he was not drinking. We passed a dismal, crowdednight in the room with such companions. When they heard that we were togo over the mountains, nothing would satisfy the big man but to go withus.
“Come, stranger,” said he to Tom, “two good rifles such as we is ain’tto be throwed away.”
“Why do you want to go over?” asked Tom. “Be ye a Tory?” he demandedsuspiciously.
“Why do you go over?” retorted Riley, for that was his name. “I reckonI’m no more of a Tory than you.”
“Whar did ye come from?” said Tom.
“Chiswell’s mines, taking out lead for the army o’ Congress. But thereain’t excitement enough in it.”
“And you?” said Tom, turning to Cutcheon and eying his military coat.
“I got tired of their damned discipline,” the man answered surlily. Hewas a deserter.
“Look you,” said Tom, sternly, “if you come, what I say is law.”
Such was the sacrifice we were put to by our need of company. But inthose days a man was a man, and scarce enough on the Wilderness Trailin that year of ‘77. So we started away from Carter’s Valley on a brightSaturday morning, the grass glistening after a week’s rain, the roadsodden, and the smell of the summer earth heavy. Tom and Weldon walkedahead, driving the two horses, followed by Cutcheon, his head droppedbetween his shoulders. The big man, Riley, regaled Polly Ann.
“My pluck is,” said he, “my pluck is to give a redskin no chance. Shoot‘em down like hogs. It takes a good un to stalk me, Ma’am. Up on theKanawha I’ve had hand-to-hand fights with ‘em, and made ‘em cry quits.”
“Law!” exclaimed Polly Ann, nudging me, “it was a lucky thing we runinto you in the valley.”
But presently we left the road and took a mountain trail,--as stiff aclimb as we had yet had. Polly Ann went up it like a bird, talking allthe while to Riley, who blew like a bellows. For once he was silent.
We spent two, perchance three, days climbing and descending and fording.At night Tom would suffer none to watch save Weldon and himself, nottrusting Riley or Cutcheon. And the rascals were well content to sleep.At length we came to a cabin on a creek, the corn between the stumpsaround it choked with weeds, and no sign of smoke in the chimney. Behindit slanted up, in giant steps, a forest-clad hill of a thousand feet,and in front of it the stream was dammed and lined with cane.
“Who keeps house?” cried Tom, at the threshold.
He pushed back the door, fashioned in one great slab from a forest tree.His welcome was an angry whir, and a huge yellow rattler lay coiledwithin, his head reared to strike. Polly Ann leaned back.
“Mercy,” she cried, “that’s a bad sign.”
But Tom killed the snake, and we made ready to use the cabin that nightand the next day. For the horses were to be rested and meat was tobe got, as we could not use our guns so freely on the far side ofCumberland Gap. In the morning, before he and Weldon left, Tom took mearound the end of the cabin.
“Davy,” said he, “I don’t trust these rascals. Kin you shoot a pistol?”
I reckoned I could.
He had taken one out of the pack he had got from Captain Sevier andpushed it between the logs where the clay had fallen out. “If they tryanything,” said he, “shoot ‘em. And don’t be afeard of killing ‘em.” Hepatted me on the back, and went off up the slope with Weldon. Polly Annand I stood watching them until they were out of sight.
About eleven o’clock Riley and Cutcheon moved off to the edge of acane-brake near the water, and sat there for a while, talking in lowtones. The horses were belled and spancelled n
ear by, feeding on thecane and wild grass, and Polly Ann was cooking journey-cakes on a stone.
“What makes you so sober, Davy?” she said.
I didn’t answer.
“Davy,” she cried, “be happy while you’re young. ‘Tis a fine day, andKaintuckee’s over yonder.” She picked up her skirts and sang:--
“First upon the heeltap, Then upon the toe.”
The men by the cane-brake turned and came towards us.
“Ye’re happy to-day, Mis’ McChesney,” said Riley.
“Why shouldn’t I be?” said Polly Ann; “we’re all a-goin’ to Kaintuckee.”
“We’re a-goin’ back to Cyarter’s Valley,” said Riley, in his blusteringway. “This here ain’t as excitin’ as I thought. I reckon there ain’t noredskins nohow.”
“What!” cried Polly Ann, in loud scorn, “ye’re a-goin’ to desert?There’ll be redskins enough by and by, I’ll warrant ye.”
“How’d you like to come along of us,” says Riley; “that ain’t any placefor wimmen, over yonder.”
“Along of you!” cried Polly Ann, with flashing eyes. “Do you hear that,Davy?”
I did. Meanwhile the man Cutcheon was slowly walking towards her. Ittook scarce a second for me to make up my mind. I slipped around thecorner of the house, seized the pistol, primed it with a trembling hand,and came back to behold Polly Ann, with flaming cheeks, facing them.They did not so much as glance at me. Riley held a little back of thetwo, being the coward. But Cutcheon stood ready, like a wolf.
I did not wait for him to spring, but, taking the best aim I could withmy two hands, fired. With a curse that echoed in the crags, he threw uphis arms and fell forward, writhing, on the turf.
“Run for the cabin, Polly Ann,” I shouted, “and bar the door.”
There was no need. For an instant Riley wavered, and then fled to thecane.
Polly Ann and I went to the man on the ground, and turned him over. Hiseyes slid upwards. There was a bloody froth on his lips.
“Davy!” cried she, awestricken, “Davy, ye’ve killed him!”
I grew dizzy and sick at the thought, but she caught me and held me toher. Presently we sat down on the door log, gazing at the corpse. Then Ibegan to reflect, and took out my powder gourd and loaded the pistol.
“What are ye a-doing?” she said.
“In case the other one comes back,” said I.
“Pooh,” said Polly Ann, “he’ll not come back.” Which was true. I havenever laid eyes on Riley to this day.
“I reckon we’d better fetch it out of the sun,” said she, after a while.And so we dragged it under an oak, covered the face, and left it.
He was the first man I ever killed, and the business by no means camenatural to me. And that day the journey-cakes which Polly Ann had madewere untasted by us both. The afternoon dragged interminably. Try as wewould, we could not get out of our minds the Thing that lay under theoak.
It was near sundown when Tom and Weldon appeared on the mountain sidecarrying a buck between them. Tom glanced from one to the other of uskeenly. He was very quick to divine.
“Whar be they?” said he.
“Show him, Davy,” said Polly Ann.
I took him over to the oak, and Polly Ann told him the story. He gaveme one look, I remember, and there was more of gratitude in it than in athousand words. Then he seized a piece of cold cake from the stone.
“Which trace did he take?” he demanded of me.
But Polly Ann hung on his shoulder.
“Tom, Tom!” she cried, “you beant goin’ to leave us again. Tom, he’lldie in the wilderness, and we must git to Kaintuckee.”
The next vivid thing in my memory is the view of the last barrier Naturehad reared between us and the delectable country. It stood like a lionat the gateway, and for some minutes we gazed at it in terror fromPowell’s Valley below. How many thousands have looked at it with sinkinghearts! How many weaklings has its frown turned back! There seemed tobe engraved upon it the dark history of the dark and bloody land beyond.Nothing in this life worth having is won for the asking; and the best isfought for, and bled for, and died for. Written, too, upon that toweringwall of white rock, in the handwriting of God Himself, is the history ofthe indomitable Race to which we belong.
For fifty miles we travelled under it, towards the Gap, our eyes drawnto it by a resistless fascination. The sun went over it early in theday, as though glad to leave the place, and after that a dark scowlwould settle there. At night we felt its presence, like a curse. EvenPolly Ann was silent. And she had need to be now. When it was necessary,we talked in low tones, and the bell-clappers on the horses were notloosed at night. It was here, but four years gone, that Daniel Boone’sfamily was attacked, and his son killed by the Indians.
We passed, from time to time, deserted cabins and camps, and some placesthat might once have been called settlements: Elk Garden, where thepioneers of the last four years had been wont to lay in a simple supplyof seed corn and Irish potatoes; and the spot where Henderson and hiscompany had camped on the way to establish Boonesboro two years before.And at last we struck the trace that mounted upward to the Gatewayitself.
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