Manly Wade Wellman - Novel 1963

by The South Fork Rangers (v1. 1)

  “Seth Mawks, you eternal fool!” cried Zack. “The whole camp’s up and in arms, fearing attack. Back, Enoch, tell them to stand easy. Why did you let off that gun?”

  “Why, Cap’n, ain’t it nature for an honest hunter to knock a fine deer under on sight? See to him, he’ll butcher out to ’nuff venison to feed our company and save yer daddy’s beef and pork—”

  “ ’Twas sorrily ill done,” Zack broke in. “We load our guns to fight, not hunt. Go back to your quarters, Seth, I’ll stand your guard here and pray heaven I stand it better than you.”

  Seth departed, his big shoulders stooped unhappily. Seth’s companion came close. It was Andy Berry.

  “Why so hard on him, Zack?” inquired Andy. “He said the truth, that’s a splendid fat deer to make excellent eating.” “Then drag him off to the barnyard,” said Zack. “You talk as if you’d have shot him yourself had you seen him first.” “You’re in worse humor than the weather,” said Andy, and slung his rifle behind his shoulder. He caught the buck’s horns and dragged the carcass through the drifts. Left alone, Zack frowned to himself. True, he had been brusque, first in his own house, then out here with his comrades. It was all the fault of that self-assured dandy Edmund Fenniver, so charming and so much at ease near the bright fire and the brighter smile of Grace Prothero. Forget the fellow, Zack admonished himself. Fenniver had spoken airily about doing army service, but if he were worth a pinch of gunpowder— Someone approached from where the fires gleamed.

  “Who comes there?” called out Zack.

  “Friend of liberty,” came back a merry voice, and Edmund Fenniver, bundled to the ears in his fine greatcoat and wearing his modish cocked hat, waded toward Zack. He carried a rifle.

  “Captain Harper,” he said, “pray accept me for an hour’s space as a gentleman volunteer.”

  “Volunteer?” repeated Zack, and Fenniver chuckled.

  “Aye, ’tis the least I can do to repay your hospitality. I came out when that gun sounded. Then I heard ’twas but a chance bullet at a fine toothsome buck, and as your officer— that splendid buckskin fellow, Enoch Gilmer’s his name as I think—was choosing out a man to bear you company, I begged to be sent, with this borrowed firelock.”

  “But you’re our guest,” said Zack.

  “Yet I’ve stood guard ere this, and in colder snow up north. If I serve this hour, ’twill give one of your company a welcome chance at his warm blanket instead of shivering in this blizzard.”

  Zack relented. “You speak wisely and well, and I hear you with gratitude. I confess, once or twice tonight I suspected you—”

  “Suspected me?” broke in Fenniver sharply.

  “Suspected that you were better at doing jugglery and flattering ladies than at watching and fighting. But you wouldn’t have come into this bitter weather were you not as good a man at heart as any.”

  “Fie, Captain, no apologies,” said Fenniver heartily. “Let me confess, too. At first glimpse I thought you a mere backwoods clod, fitter to wade swamps and spear fish than command troops or sit with polite company. But I find you a true gentleman after all, and am happy you take me for an honest soldier. Now, for what do we watch?”

  Zack explained that he had no strong notion of Alspaye’s will to attack, but that he maintained a guard in case Alspaye would try a surprise under cover of the storm. Fenniver applauded this measure, and applied himself to patrolling among the trees as well as any of the South Fork Rangers. At last two more came to relieve them, and back in the yard Zack and Fenniver shook hands.

  “My thanks for your help, sir,” said Zack.

  “Nay, ’twas a pleasure to serve with you.”

  Fenniver made for the house, and Zack lay down again in the shed beside Enoch.

  He woke to find gray dawn struggling with grayer clouds. The snow had ceased, but the ground was thickly drifted and every twig bore a cottony heap of flakes. Seth Mawks reported bashfully that two of his platoon had butchered the deer by firelight, and it hung, in joints, from the branches of a big oak tree near the barn. Would Zack ask his mother to accept a choice haunch? Zack complimented the appearance of the fine meat, at which Seth cheered up and grinned in his red shock of beard.

  Godfrey had come out and was supervising the preparation of venison and corn cakes for the men’s breakfast. “Go you on to the house,” he said. “They’re serving up your ham and eggs.”

  “Is Mr. Fenniver risen yet?” inquired Zack.

  “He rose while yet it was night. When he saw that no more snow fell he ate hastily, thanked your mother, and rode off leading his baggage horse. Stout hearted, I say, to brave the drifted trail.”

  “And stout heartedly he bore me company on guard last night,” said Zack, heading for the kitchen door.

  Grace herself was setting the table for him, with steaming food and a mug of mulled cider to take off the chill of his night’s vigil.

  “Don’t you miss our mannerly guest of last night?” Zack could not help but ask her.

  “True, he was pleasant spoken,” said Grace, “yet the evening was far happier before you went out to your company, Zack.”

  He smiled with a happiness he could not conceal, and made a hearty breakfast. Back in the barnyard, he held a council with Godfrey, Enoch and Seth.

  An early morning reconnaisance by some of the mountain men had revealed no tracks in the nearby snow save those made by the night guards and the floundering trail of Fen- niver’s horses away toward Armstrong’s Ford. Plainly Alspaye had kept his own camp while the snow fell. Zack gave his attention to the establishment of a strong headquarters at his home.

  Seth, wise in the ways of a frontier beset by Indians, pointed out that the main house was strongly built and needed only shutters at the windows to make it a fort in case of need. Several of the men began to split logs into slabs, while others pegged the slabs together into shutters and gouged loopholes in them and cut up old harness to make leather hinges. Into the spacious larder of Mrs. Harper’s kitchen was borne most of the remaining venison, to be handy to a besieged garrison. There were weapons enough for both the Rangers and the families of Zack and Godfrey, but Seth and Zack shook their heads over the small quantity of powder and shot.

  “Ain’t got more’n what we fetched in our pouches and the little we took from them rascals at the scene of your tussle,” said Seth. “Now when it’s a siege, folks burns a mighty nation of powder, and quick. We got to git more, and that’s the whatever truth.”

  “We’ll find some,” declared Zack. “But look yonder, someone’s riding in to the front door.”

  He went into the house, and in the hall found his father welcoming an old friend and neighbor, Thomas Hanks.

  “I saw you up on the Yadkin some days back, with Samuel Martin’s company,” Zack greeted him. “What of General Greene’s army?”

  “All in quarters at Guilford Court House,” replied Hanks, “but I had a chill and a racking cough, and Captain Martin bade me come home and recover. I lay last night at Ezra Plovins’s home, else I’d have brought you Captain Martin’s message ere this.”

  “A message for me?” asked Zack.

  “Aye, and Captain Martin had it from General Greene himself. You’re to look sharp out for a spy in these regions.”

  “Doubt not but that we will,” Zack said confidently. “Who is this spy?”

  “As I hear tell from Captain Martin, he’s a prime shrewd Britisher from the North. He served there with that rampant scoundrel Walter Butler, to raise the Indians against honest settlers along the Mohawk. Then he came hither to join Cornwallis. It’s thought he’s on his way to join with Robinson Alspaye for mischief along the South Fork.”

  “What’s his name?” asked Alan Harper.

  “Why, nobody knows that for sure,” replied Hanks, “but it’s said that he crossed the Catawba under the name of Edmund Fenniver.”

  4 The Indian Camp

  EDMUND Fenniver,” said Alan Harper dully.

  “Edmund Fenniver,�
� repeated Grace Prothero, from the door to the kitchen. “But he seemed—”

  “I’ve no time to talk,” Zack said with sudden decision. “Father, good-bye. Grace, good-bye. Make my farewells to the others.”

  And he was gone, with great leaping strides, past Grace and out the back door. Within brief seconds he was among his friends again, telling them the news.

  Seth said something in a western Indian tongue that sounded impolite, and tugged his beard. “It’s noon,” he growled. “That British skunk has the start of us since early morn. Let’s take the whole war party—”

  “He’s too far ahead,” interrupted Zack. “ ’Twill take the best of horseflesh to follow him.”

  “Your Jonah,” said Enoch at once.

  “Aye, and that charger of yours, captured from Tarleton’s dragoons,” returned Zack. “You and I ride after Fenniver.”

  “I, too,” volunteered Godfrey, but Zack shook his head.

  “Stay here, command in my absence. And Seth, do you help Captain Prothero see to the strengthening of our base here. Fenniver is but one, and Enoch and I are two. If we can but catch him ere he joins Alspaye.”

  At once he and Enoch saddled and rode toward Arm- j strong’s Ford, following the plainly marked trail of Fenniver’s horses in the snow.

  It had warmed considerably, though the drifts did not melt with any readiness. They found Armstrong’s Ford unfrozen and swiftly running, and drew their feet from the stirrups lest the girth-deep water make them clammily wet. On the far side, they saw that boot tracks showed beside the marks of hoofs.

  “Friend Fenniver jumped down to run awhile and warm himself,” observed Enoch. “Belike he damped his fine boots. Let’s spur on and catch him up.”

  Just beyond the ford, at the snug cabin of a farmer named Milbanks, another line of hoof marks joined those left by Fenniver’s two horses. Zack and Enoch hailed Milbanks to his doorway and he answered their questions.

  “Aye, a fellow stayed the night with me,” he told them. “Deevor Plum—he lives up yonder on Dutchman’s Creek, and I’ve heard say he’d speak out on the Tory side if he dared. I don’t like him, but I’d not have refused shelter to a dog in last night’s snow. Plum was ever looking about the cabin, asking if I did not fear Alspaye’s band and did I have my valuables safely hid. I made answer that they were well hid indeed, and that I’d tell nobody where.”

  “And he’s gone now?” inquired Enoch.

  “Early today a fellow rode by on a fine black, leading a pack horse, and Plum hurried out after him.”

  “Thank you for your word,” said Zack, and he and Enoch pressed on.

  The name of Deevor Plum was known to both of them. They remembered the fellow as having stood trial before a justice of the peace on a charge of hog stealing, and also that Plum was reckoned a shrewd and not strictly honest gambler. Occasionally Plum had traded with Indians in South Carolina, but neither the Harpers nor the Gilmers were on such close terms with him as to know if he traded profitably.

  “If Plum rides with Fenniver, that stamps him as a certain spy,” mused Enoch. “Now they are two, and two are we. Go cautiously and beware of such an ambush as befell poor Seth Mawks.”

  Full fifteen miles they kept the road, which led to Crowder’s Creek and along its bank into South Carolina. Twice they stopped at houses to ask news. From both householders they heard of two men riding by with a laden pack horse, and at the second they got news of a camp of Indian hunters not far along the creek.

  “They are friendly Catawbas, and no war party,” said the settler. “I have no fear of them.”

  “Nor have I, nor has my friend here,” said Zack. “As boys we knew the Catawbas well, and learned from them how to shoot arrows and wrestle and swim. Come, Enoch, in that camp will be old acquaintances who may inform us of Fenniver and Plum.”

  Half an hour’s ride farther, while the gray skies grew dusky with evening’s approach, they came upon a young Indian in blanket and feathered headband. He walked beside his horse, across which lay the carcass of a deer, and in one hand he bore a string of fish. At Zack’s greeting in the . Catawba tongue he made friendly reply:

  “A ho, are you not Alan Harper’s son? And is this not Enoch Gilmer? Brothers, we were all boys together, I think, in the old days when the Catawbas hunted here.”

  “A ho, brother, that is true,” said Zack. “That was ten years ago, by my count. Will you let us come to your camp?”

  “Come,” said the Indian readily. “Our chief is Halougra, he will remember your fathers. Our hands are ready in friendship.”

  He led them from the road into a creekside trail, the snow beaten down by the hoofs of horses and the moccasins of men.

  “How many of your people are in camp?” Enoch asked.

  “Five tens, all warriors. We hunt for meat, because in our new country the white men made war and frightened away the deer and the turkey and the bear.” The Indian raised his voice to give the cawing cry of a crow, and it was answered from among the trees. “Come, we are at the camp. Others you know will have good hearts when they see your faces.”

  Beyond a curve of the trail they came among a throng of redskin hunters.

  The Catawba camp was well set up, with cone-shaped brush shelters like wigwams and small fires everywhere. Close to these sat the hunters, each hugging his small blaze Indian fashion with his blanket spread to catch all the warmth. Several knew Zack and Enoch, and lifted hands in greeting.

  “We come to find other white men,” Zack said. “Have any come among you?”

  “Aho,” said a warrior squatting at his fire. “When the sun behind the clouds was still high, two came. They are yonder,” and he pointed. “See, the big council fire, where Chief Halougra camps. They make talk with him there.”

  A full score of Indians gathered at the biggest fire in the camp. Among them showed a brief glimpse of dark blue.

  “That’s Fenniver’s fine coat,” said Zack, and he and Enoch dismounted and led their horses toward the group.

  The warriors saw them approach and drew back to right and left, revealing the council fire that blazed ten times as large and bright as the smaller individual fires. Near it was a great rock, swept clean of snow and draped with the skin of a black bear. Upon this sat the chief of the Catawba band, and near him stood Fenniver, with a smaller white man in fur cap and stout leather coat. Everyone stood still and watched as Zack and Enoch tied their horses to some small trees, then walked into the center of the gathering. Resolutely Zack kept his eyes from Fenniver, fixing them instead upon Chief Halougra and lifting his right hand, palm out, in token of peace and friendship.

  Chief Halougra was a stalwart man of middle age, wrapped in a robe of fine fox pelts sewn together. His long hair, its black plentifully threaded with gray, hung in braids upon his shoulders, and from a scarflike band of deerskin around his temples rose two eagle feathers, tufted with red wool. His face was broad and dark and strongly lined, with high cheekbones, a jutting chin, and burning black eyes set on either side of a high nose like the blade of a copper hatchet.

  “Aho,” he greeted them. “Do you come as friends? What are your names?”

  “Chief, I am Zack Harper and this is Enoch Gilmer. When we were boys we saw you and knew you.”

  “Zack Harper,” the deep voice repeated. “Enoch Gilmer. Those names are known to me. In other times I knew men named Harper and Gilmer.”

  “Chief, they are our fathers,” said Zack. “We come in peace. But here with you,” and at last he looked full at Edmund Fenniver, “are white men who are enemies to us, who are on the side that makes war upon our fathers and us.”

  “Is this true?” asked Halougra of Fenniver.

  “Chief, it is true,” replied Fenniver’s companion in Catawba, and Zack took time to see that he was small and active seeming, with a sharp, crafty face like a fox. “We follow the great white chief of the British, the Redcoats, as we have told you. He is called King George. He is great and good, and he wish
es to be your friend and father. These two white men are his disobedient sons, who have turned from him like bad children who do not hear their father’s voice.”

  “Is this true?” asked Halougra again, this time of Zack, and his great voice grew stern.

  All eyes were upon Zack again. Fenniver smiled at him, and took a pinch of snuff. Zack paused for several long-seeming moments before he made reply.

  “Chief it is only half true,” he said at last. “Once our fathers whom you know followed that white chief called King George 3 but King George sends warriors among us, to burn our homes and kill our young men. Chief, there is a Catawba custom. A chief is followed only while his people trust him and know that he is brave and good.”

  “That is a Catawba custom,” agreed Halougra.

  “Chief, these hunters with you follow you and obey your orders because they trust you. My people, here in this land, have turned from King George because his heart is bad. We want our own chiefs, who are wise and fair minded and good. King George says that we must obey him or he will kill us all. That is why there is war in the land, and brave, wise Catawbas will understand the reason.”

  “Aho” muttered a big warrior beside Zack, as though in approval. Others nodded and grunted, agreeing. But Ha- lougra’s strong brown face remained bleak.

  “In times far back, before you young men were born, the Catawbas made a treaty with the councillors sent by King George,” he said. “In those days, we promised friendship to his people. We said we would help them in their war against the Cherokees. A treaty is a treaty. A man’s word is a man’s word.”

  “Chief, that is good talk,” volunteered Deevor Plum smoothly. “To remind you of that old friendship with King George, my friend Fenniver and I came today and gave our friends the Catawbas gifts and pledges, as much as a horse could carry.” He pointed. “There yonder is the keg of gunpowder, the big pieces of lead to be made into bullets, that you may hunt well and conquer your enemies. You yourself have thanked Fenniver for the small guns he gave you.”