Manly Wade Wellman - Novel 1963

by The South Fork Rangers (v1. 1)

  “Zack,” she said gently, and took his big brown hand in her slim white one, “I was merry only for pride in you. We played together as children, we are comrades now in these times of strife for truth and freedom. You have been through mighty perils and will go into others, you and Godfrey. Pll pray for you both, equally and often, that you may come back safe and sound to us.”

  Zack felt more embarrassed still. Grace saw his mood and said no more, but pressed his hand warmly and let it go.

  Prothero stepped out to give his foreman the letter for the overseer and bid the men again to move southward away from the coming storm. Returning, he joined Alan Harper in examining the captured guns.

  “A brave armament, this,” he said. “With it we could stand siege here in your house, Alan.”

  “We may have it to stand,” Mr. Harper observed, “for if Zack’s company serves in these parts, it must have headquarters and a rallying place. What better place than its captain’s own home?”

  Zack wanted to protest, but his father insisted. Mr. Prothero and Grace would stay with the Harpers for the time being. The Prothero butler Cassius and his wife Guinea, who was an accomplished cook, would also have quarters on the place. “With six guns, three men to wield them and three brave women to load in case of need, we shall not fear attack,” wound up Zack’s father.

  “Pd not have it otherwise,” put in Grace, “and if we are assailed, I can fire a gun as well as load it.”

  “Aye, lass, I myself taught you to aim true to the mark,” cried her father proudly. “Zack—Captain Harper, I’ll learn to call you—think of us as your home garrison while your company is in the field.”

  “And fetch your men hither, to have shelter and food while you prepare your campaign,” added Zack’s mother.

  Zack discussed that measure at some length. The Harpers had several sheds behind the main dwelling. They were disused but tightly built, and could give quarters to all of the Rangers. Hay from the Harper mows would make beds, and patriot farms all along the South Fork could be counted on to provide corn and meat to feed their defenders. To all this agreement was made, and Zack and Prothero went out to their horses. Grace followed them to the door.

  “Godfrey,” she said to her brother, “I never failed of pride in you when you felt your duty was with King George. But now I rest easier that you are a friend of liberty. And Zack,” she said, “as sure as I stand and speak to you, Pm certain that you’ll triumph over your enemies, come home safely with honor, and be a leader in peace as in war.”

  She kissed his cheek, and held the door open for them. They mounted and rode away.

  “Ha, Zack, you were melancholy about your new command before,” commented Godfrey. “Now you hold up your head like Washington himself.”

  “Nay, I am resolute,” Zack assured him. “I’ve stout friends to go with me into battle, Pve the confidence of my generals who sent me to this task, and at home Pve backing such as cannot fail me. But it draws toward night, and we’d best see that the men have a good supper and good beds. For tomorrow we seek out Robinson Alspaye and make him sick of his business here.”

  “Tomorrow?” echoed Godfrey, and glanced upward through the scatter of snowflakes at the gray sky. “It may be storming. Yonder clouds look heavy with snow.”

  Zack had been too busy with other thoughts to notice those clouds. Now he studied them. To the south, where the Prothero cattle were plodding away, the horizon was clear; but overhead the sky was gray and low and threatening. The air, mild earlier in the day, had taken on a chill.

  “The sooner we’re under roofs the better,” said Zack, and they quickened their pace to reach the Prothero yard again.

  But only seven comrades waited there, Enoch and the other South Fork volunteers. These had brought horses and rifles to the meeting place. Enoch hurried across as Zack dismounted.

  “Where’s that mountain platoon?” inquired Zack. “Have they had so much war already that they’ve gone home?”

  “They’ve not had half enough,” said Enoch. “No sooner had you ridden away than Seth Mawks summoned his leather jackets and said they’d go forth to deal with Alspaye. I was alone here of the other platoon, and said you’d expect all men to wait your return; but Seth yammered out that you’d told him he might go Tory-hunting, you’d said the mountain men might have their chance to show their mettle—”

  “Aye, Zack, you said something like that,” remembered Godfrey.

  “But I didn’t mean for him to wander off on his own whim,” groaned Zack. “Which way did they go?”

  “After Alspaye,” and Enoch pointed to the road up the South Fork. “Those wild hunters are famous trackers; they swore that Alspaye’s tracks were as plain to read as print. I couldn’t keep them here by myself, so perforce I let them depart, each bragging to his fellow that he’d eat Alspaye’s whole crew without salt or pepper.”

  “We must follow after them,” said Zack, his foot back in the stirrup. “Come, friends all, mount and make ready!” “No need for that,” said Godfrey. “Here they come again.”

  And indeed horsemen were approaching along the way where Seth Mawks had ridden after Alspaye.

  At another shouted order from Zack the men of Enoch’s platoon deployed across the yard with their rifles cocked and ready. But almost at once the riders could be recognized as their comrades from the mountains, with Seth at their head, moving at a slow, unhappy trot. Into the yard they came, and got heavily down from their saddles. But where nine had departed, only seven had come back.

  Zack strode across to Seth. “What foolishness have you been up to?” he demanded in a voice deepened with angry reproach.

  “Foolishness enough,” Seth almost moaned. “Foolishness too much, I reckon. Yet after all, Cap’n, ye did tell us they run, them Tory hog thieves—”

  “And for sure they did run,” put in another, whose head was tied up with a blood-spotted scarf. “But not far enough, Cap’n Harper, nowheres near far enough.”

  Zack glanced at the others of the platoon. Next to the one with the bandaged head stood a long-legged fellow with limp black whiskers, cherishing a wounded shoulder. Even those who were not hurt looked ashamed, like boys caught stealing apples.

  “I take it you were ambushed,” said Zack after a moment.

  “Ambushed?” cried the long-legged one with the hurt shoulder. “Dog bite me, we was rabbit-trapped and frog- trounced! ”

  “And all my fault, every bit,” confessed Seth wretchedly. “Pd plumb fergot my last grain of sense. Wanted to show my friends and yours, too, I was top dog of the hunt. So when we caught up with two of ’em, and they run like scared quail, we set after ’em on a gallop. But then the rest of ’em was a-waitin’ amongst trees beyond, and give us a fire of their guns that turned two of us under—Micajah Truver and Hosea Flynn, two of my choicest friends—and though we shot back we never knowed if we so much as nicked their bark.”

  Godfrey was patching the shoulder of the long-legged man. “You’ll be all right with a few days’ rest and clean bandages,” he said comfortingly as the fellow winced under his touch.

  “All the rest and bandagin’ on earth won’t never set me right again!” cried Seth in sudden self-accusation. “Boys, ye follered me like true men, and I failed ye like a rotten log over a mudhole. Harkee, all of ye, I ain’t to be lootenent of ye no more, I ain’t fit—”

  “Don’t take on like that, Seth,” implored the man with the bloody head. “Any man makes mistakes, I warrant ye.”

  “And I’m champion fer my mistake,” said Seth. He blinked and his mouth quivered in his red beard. With utter amazement, Zack saw tears on Seth’s heavy, hairy face.

  “Choose ye another to lead ye better,” he snuffled.

  “No, Seth, ye’re our chief,” vowed another of the party. “None amongst us could ha’ done better.”

  “Hark to your men speaking to you,” Zack bade Seth. “They say that you still head their platoon. Now take heart, Lieutenant Mawks, and profit
by the mistake you own you made. I’m sorry for the men you have lost, and I mourn their loss to us and to their friends at home. Yet, Alspaye cannot claim that he has evened the odds, for he scored but two against us where we counted six against him.”

  Seth Mawks recovered somewhat, though he did not brighten. “Well, Cap’n, be it as ye order me. Lead us and I’ll fight my best to make up for this. But I’m done and past any wise notions of my own.”

  Zack held out his hand. As Seth shook it strongly, the white flakes of snow increased in the air about them.

  “Friends,” said Zack, “we can’t go looking for revenge just now. It’s coming on to storm, and we’ll lose their traces and maybe fall into another cunning trap. Come, follow me and we’ll have good shelter and warmth and food tonight. Another day is coming.”

  “Aye,” said Enoch, “and another fight.”

  “And it’ll turn out another sight different from that ’un I got ye into,” vowed Seth Mawks, “or I’ll lose my scalp and skin trying to square my charges!”

  3 The Gay Visitor

  SNOW fell fast and heavy by the time the South Fork Rangers gained the Harper dooryard. Great, soft white flakes spread the open clearings as with table linen, and powdered the evergreens and stuck to the leafless twigs of oaks and maples and sycamores. Alan Harper and John Prothero made the men welcome. While Mrs. Harper and the grave butler, Cassius, dressed the hurts of the two wounded men, others of the company hastily cut stacks of firewood and started blazes at the doors of the sheds where they would sleep.

  “This storm will shut Alspaye in his den as it shuts us up here,” suggested Godfrey to Zack.

  “But we’ll keep watch,” Zack decided. “Tell the men off in twos, each two to watch an hour during the night. You and I shall watch, too. We’ll pick partners from among the mountain lads, and know them better.”

  Supper was corn dodgers and salt beef, eaten around the fires with makeshift canopies of pine boughs to keep the snow from soaking the burning wood. Already the ground was thickly blanketed, and a cold wind piled drifts against the northern sides of house, stable and sheds. Zack went from group to group, seeing that all had plenty, that the men on guard moved alertly and that the two wounded were comfortable. At last he went to the house with Godfrey for supper.

  The big hall-like kitchen was filled with excited chatter. The Harpers, John Prothero and Grace were all gathered around a stranger in a splendid blue greatcoat, who stood close to the open fire and shook his silver-laced cocked hat above the flames to free it from wet and slush.

  “No apologies, sir,” Alan Harper was saying. “We welcome civil-spoken travellers. Here, suffer me to present my son—Captain Zack Harper of the South Fork Rangers.”

  He rolled out the name like a master of ceremonies at some great reception, and Zack offered the stranger his hand.

  “Yours to command, Captain,” said a pleasant drawling voice. “Pm Edmund Fenniver, and grateful to be taken in. Egad, my poor saddle horse was blinded and shivering like a lost puppy as he fetched me to your door.”

  “I’ll look to your horse,” said Zack at once.

  “Nay, Cassius hath already taken him to the stables, and the pack horse Mr. Fenniver led,” said John Prothero. “We were but waiting for you and Godfrey ere we sat down to meat.”

  Edmund Fenniver divested himself of that fine greatcoat. He was elegantly slender in buckskin breeches, polished boots and a snug, blue riding jacket with white facings. His powdered hair was neatly queued, his young face fine featured, his eyes darkly brilliant. Zack saw that Grace watched him with frank interest.

  “Mr. Fenniver, I trust your journey will be pleasant and profitable,” ventured Zack.

  “So trust I,” said Fenniver cheerfully. “Thus far it’s been diverting at least. I come from Philadelphia—I left there to avoid the fighting that seems to start on all hands. But even as I reach these Southern regions, the fighting follows me down.”

  “You are not with the army, sir,” observed Zack.

  “I did my service last year, and took camp fever from which I have but lately recovered,” Fenniver told him easily. “Though Pm not in fighting gear like your stalwart self, Pm yet a proper friend of liberty, and I seek kinsmen in South Carolina with whom I hope to serve against the British.”

  “The British, sir, are here in North Carolina,” declared Zack, bleak because Grace seemed to admire Fenniver so warmly.

  “Then tell me about fighting them,” said Fenniver, and all went to sit at the long table.

  After Alan Harper had said grace, Cassius and Guinea served them with platters of smoking turkey, stewed apples and corn bread, and again Fenniver urged Zack to tell of his service against the redcoats. Zack thawed as he talked, because Fenniver listened with such eager interest and asked such respectful questions. Then Fenniver told of his home in Philadelphia, and of seeing George Washington, of hearing Baron Von Steuben talk gutteral German and the Marquis de Lafayette talk graceful French.

  “I’m threefold in your debt,” said Fenniver as dinner ended, “for generous shelter, a delectable dinner and excellent company. Say now, have I not talked enough on my own small affairs. May we not have a song together, like good friends around the winter fire?”

  “Why, when it comes to that,” said John Prothero, “my daughter Grace hath as sweet a voice as any I’ve ever heard.”

  “Then pray her to sing, sir,” urged Fenniver, and took a pinch of snuff from a jewelled box.

  Mrs. Harper joined in the plea, and Grace stood up beside the fireplace, touching her fair hair as though she feared it was untidy. To Zack she had never looked lovelier, nor had he ever heard her sound sweeter as she sang, in her high, melodious voice, an old ballad that Zack knew was one of her favorites:

  Lord Lovel he stood at his castle gate, A-combing his milk-white steed,

  When along came Lady Nancy Belle To wish her true lover Godspee'd . . .

  All listened with pleasure, and in particular Edmund Fenniver. Loudly he applauded when Grace finished the sad, romantic song.

  “Wondrous tuneful, I vow, and so would any man on earth,” he declared. “Miss Grace, you’d be commended by the great Washington himself, and I hear he hath a pretty taste in music, and for all his soldierly gravity can tread the dance as gracefully as any.”

  “Will you not favor us with a song, Mr. Fenniver?” suggested Grace, and her cheeks were pink with pleasure at his hearty praise.

  “Any song of mine would sound dull by comparison,” said Fenniver, with a modest dip of his head. “But I have a small skill at effects of magic, and if you’d indulge me—”

  Rising, he fluttered a cambric handkerchief in the air, rolled it between his hands, and it seemed to vanish before their eyes. He then appeared to pluck it again from Grace’s golden hair, and spread it over his empty right hand. Whisking it away, he showed his jewelled snuff box there. He opened the box and offered it to Zack, who saw the box disappear like something in a dream. These illusions were warmly acclaimed, and Fenniver bowed gracefully.

  “Does not our tall young captain sing, too?” he inquired, his eyes on Zack.

  “Zack can raise a tune with any,” spoke up Godfrey loyally. “Oft have I heard him and Enoch Gilmer together, with Barney OyLinn.”

  “That’s but a rough backwoods song at best,” said Zack, trying not to growl, and rose from his chair. “In any case, I must crave your pardon and go. My men need looking to.”

  He took up his rifle and strode out, hoping he looked impressive, hoping the eyes he felt at his back were Grace’s admiring eyes. But as he closed the door behind him, he heard her ask Fenniver something about the gay towns of Boston, Philadelphia and New York.

  The snow in the back yard was mid-leg deep and still falling heavily as Zack visited the sleeping sheds. His South Fork Rangers had made themselves very much at home on their straw pallets. In one hut, Seth Mawks was telling Andy Berry and Cy Cole a hair-raising tale of a bear hunt, and in another Enoch Gil
mer was teaching several mountaineers to sing Barney O’Linn.

  “That very song was called for at the house, even now,” said Zack. “The quality’s visiting us, a spruce stranger named Fenniver.”

  “Let’s go sing it to him,” said Enoch, but Zack shook his head.

  “I’ll visit the men on guard. Who are they?”

  “My brother William and a mountain man named Jud Rawlins.”

  The two guards prowled the woods toward the road to Armstrong’s Ford. The snow fell so thick that they could see but a few yards in the night, and they reported that they heard nothing but the whisper of falling flakes. Zack returned to the sheds.

  “I’ll sleep here,” he told Enoch. “My blanket’s still on my saddle in the barn, and I’ll steal half of your straw.”

  Enoch looked at him from the corner of one eye. “I take it that somehow this Fenniver stranger has put your nose out of joint.”

  “You can take it that I’ve no zest to sit warm in the house while my friends make a winter camp. I’ll just drag off my moccasins and take a wink of slumber. Wake me for my turn at guard.”

  At once Zack drifted off to sleep, for it had been a most eventful day, and a most wearying one.

  He woke in the dark hut, starting up on his bed of hay. From somewhere outside came a wild yell, like an Indian war cry.

  “A shot!” cried Enoch, outside by the fire. “Someone fired a gun out there among the trees.”

  Zack was up in a flash. Two quick tugs, and his moccasins were on his feet. He snatched up his rifle and raced off after Enoch.

  They saw two men among the tall pines near a side path.

  “No need for help, friends,” bellowed Seth Mawks. “One ball from my old shooting stick was ’nuff. Look where he lies!”

  “Who?” demanded Zack, and moved forward, Seth at his side. On the trail lay a fine buck with spreading horns, stone dead.

  “Wagh!” hooted Seth. “He was a-treading that there little trail yon, and we was still of foot and voice, but he looked our way. A tag of fire caught his eyes. I aimed between them, and there’s where I struck him.”