“Who goes there?”
Close behind Zack, Seth was shaking Deevor Plum and whispering breathily.
“George!” Plum gulped out.
“King,” came back the countersign. “Who are you?”
Again Seth shook Plum, who spoke quaveringly: “IPs Deevor Plum.”
“Deevor, you graceless dog! Why have you left your post? Captain Alspaye will have you flogged for this. Come quick, man.”
Zack squeezed himself close to the wall, and Seth hustled Plum past him, a great hand clutching the prisoner’s hair.
“I—” Plum stammered. “I—”
“Come inside,” the sentry urged, and a hailstorm of gunfire half drowned his words. “We need every man up at the loopholes. Stand guard here again; I’ll go up and tell Captain Alspaye you’ve returned to—” A fresh volley. Seth hustled Plum ahead of him, and Zack moved at Seth’s shoulder. Right up against the openwork of poles Seth pushed Plum.
Inside was the pug-faced Tory who once had been a guard over Zack. He held his musket by the balance in one hand and with the other he dragged at a great crossbar of wood. It came from its clamps, and the door sagged inward.
With a powerful shove, Seth fairly hurled Plum into the lamp-lit chamber beyond, and then he was in the chamber himself. His brawny right hand shot out at the pug-faced Tory’s throat and fastened there like a great set of tongs. With his other hand Seth seized the gun and wrenched it from the fellow’s grasp.
Struggling, the locked pair moved across the floor, and Zack had room to spring in behind Seth. A moment later Enoch was inside, too, his rifle lifted and his finger on the trigger. He aimed at the cringing Plum.
“Not a sound out of you,” warned Enoch in a deadly quiet voice, that nevertheless could be heard above the din of battle overhead.
Zack sprang to help Seth, his tomahawk lifted, but Seth glanced back once and violently shook his bearded head. Both his hands throttled the sentry, and his muscles humped powerfully on his naked arms and shoulders. In vain the Tory clawed at Seth’s wrists, tried to pry Seth’s fingers loose. The fellow’s mouth gaped open, his face grew dark, his knees sagged. Within moments his arms drooped, and Seth pitched him against a wall like a sack of grain. The fellow fell and lay still. Above them rang and barked the guns of the defending garrison.
“Is he done for?” asked Rutledge, also in the cellar.
“Not him,” sniffed Seth. “But he’ll lay there where I flung him for the time. What now, Cap’n?”
Zack’s eyes swiftly ranged around the compartment into which they had come. A crude lamp, made of an earthenware pot filled with oil and furnished with a wick of twisted flax, gave light. The floor was of hard-tramped dirt, the walls were faced all around with split logs. Overhead showed rough-hewn timbers that served as joists, and upon these were more split trunks that formed planks for the floor above them. In the very center of the floor flowed the spring, set around with stones like a curb and sending its trickle away toward the door that led to the tunnel.
And around those roughly battened walls were gathered heaps and jumbles of goods—great rawhide-bound bales, lumpy sacks, old wooden chests and big iron pots brimming with odds and ends. In one corner lay heaped pewter cups and teapots and trays shining dully in the light of the lamp, plunder from a score of rifled homes. From pegs driven into the log sheathing hung coats, cloaks and fur wraps. In corners were stacked muskets and rifles. A great barrel of meal stood open, and from the joists overhead dangled smoked hams and shoulders.
All these things Zack saw in one roving, probing glance of the eye. Meanwhile, Enoch pointed to the rough slabs in the very middle of the floor above them.
“There’s our way up,” he said softly.
Between two of the rough joists showed a hatchlike trapdoor, made of cleated planks and laid to cover an open space in the floor. As Zack looked up at it, he heard the movement of heavy feet over his head, and yet another prolonged spatter of gunfire.
“Where’s the ladder?” Seth asked Plum.
“It’s kept above,” mumbled the prisoner. “Captain Alspaye lets none down here save a guard for the tunnel door.” “We’ll mount without a ladder,” said Zack. “Here, we’ll drag those chests under the trap.” He laid hands to a heavy wooden case. “Help me, Enoch.”
They hauled one chest across the floor, then another to set beside it. Seth seized a keg of powder and with a surging effort set it solidly upon the two chests. Crashing volleys above them drowned out the noise of this labor. Rutledge had turned and was peering into the dark tunnel.
“I hear men coming,” he reported.
“ ’Tis our own party,” guessed Zack, and a moment later Godfrey was coming into the cellar. Zack warned him to be quiet with finger on lips, and Godfrey signaled the same warning to the first men who followed. A dozen stout Rangers came into view, each with his rifle at the ready and his face tense and expectant.
“I’m going up,” said Zack quietly. “Seth, come with me in case that trap needs strength to raise it. You others follow. Enoch first, then Godfrey, then the rest.”
He took his rifle from Rutledge. He and Seth both found foothold on top of the powder keg, balancing there with their bowed shoulders beneath the trap. At that height, it was but four feet above them. They summoned their strength. Another great volley crashed out in the blockhouse.
“Now!” said Zack.
He and Seth surged upward with a quick, well-timed effort. A wild cry of alarm sounded. For a moment the hatch resisted their effort to lift it, then suddenly flew upward and clear. Zack clutched the edge of the opening and made a swift bound upward.
He was in the blockhouse on one knee, a wide oblong chamber pierced all around with loopholes, its air full of rank powder smoke. Two men sprawled under the overturned hatch, plainly hoisted up and to one side by the grim heave of Zack and Seth. On all sides the Tories turned from their posts, their gun muzzles still thrust outward through the holes, to gape and stare as Zack came into view in their very midst.
“ ’Tis that devil Harper!” bellowed Robinson Alspaye, and smote mightily with his broadsword.
Zack dodged. Seth, clambering up beside him, swiftly interposed his rifle barrel. Alspaye’s blade struck the iron with a loud-ringing crack and snapped in two. Seth’s fierce thrust sent Alspaye reeling back, and Seth howled an Indian war cry at the top of his mighty lungs:
“Hat—yahhhh!”
It was answered from outside—“Hai-yah! Hai-yah!” Guns spoke and bullets whacked against the logs. Zack, in avoiding Alspaye’s cut, had blundered full against the big Hessian, who grappled him. Hooking his leg into a twining grip around the Hessian’s, Zack threw him, fell upon him. They rolled over and over.
“Turn that Rebel hound on top,” snarled a Tory, raising his clubbed rifle.
Just then, more yells resounded in the blockhouse as Enoch and Godfrey came up from below. Enoch fired, and the man who wanted to strike Zack went over like a tree blown down by a high wind. Others erupted through the hatch.
It was so sudden and violent an inrush that the Tory defenders had barely time to leave their loopholes, much less bring their weapons into play, before the Rangers were upon them like wolves invading a sheepfold. Zack writhed and bucked and turned the Hessian over, slamming his fist into the fierce face and getting a knee upon the laboring chest.
“Lie still or I’ll break your head,” Zack warned. Then, lifting his voice: “The door! Open the door, some of you!”
Seth and Andy Berry had already fought their way to the big door, driving Tories from it and dragging at the great timber that served as a bar. The door sagged outward with a great creak, and a wild howl rose from just outside. Then the foremost of the mountain men burst in, and Adam Reep’s followers just behind, rifles pointing.
The rest of the fight took so little time that Zack barely rose from the Hessian he had subdued and dragged him erect by the grubby collar of the green coat before it was over. One or two Tories who tri
ed to resist were struck down at the threshold, and the others cowered away, unable to flee, and wildly cried out for quarter. Zack pushed his prisoner into a corner, and turned to survey the captured blockhouse.
All around him the surviving Tory raiders of Robinson Alspaye’s band stood huddled, their weapons cast away, their hands lifted in submission. The only ones who did not beg for mercy from their enemies lay prone on the rough splintered planks of the floor, past begging for anything.
“Spare any man who ceases to fight!” Zack warned, just as Seth Mawks clutched a scrawny Tory by the neck and flourished his scalping knife above a crop of gleaming brown locks drawn back into a neat queue.
“I yield me, so it please your honor!” gurgled the wretched fellow, relaxing submissively in Seth’s clutch. “Nay, worthy sir, I haven’t so much hair as will profit you.” “Profit me?” roared Seth, and yanked at the queue. The scrawny man almost fell, and his hair came away from a pate as smooth and bald as a gourd.
“Zooks, ’tis but a wig,” cried Seth in disgust, hurling it away. Everybody laughed, even the captured Tories.
“And now,” said Zack, “as for Captain Alspaye—”
He broke off, looking here, there, and everywhere. Alspaye was not to be seen among the prisoners.
15 The End of Alspaye
Zack whirled himself around, gazing at all points of the captured fort. Above him was the stout roof, split blanks upon rafters. At the open doorway stood three of his men. The loopholes were big enough to let a gun muzzle through, but not a man.
Enoch pointed suddenly to the open hatchway that led to the cavelike cellar. “There!” he cried. “He must have jumped down there!”
Zack flung himself down on his hands and peered into the lamplight below. The sentinel who had been choked by Seth was partially recovered and sat limply on a bale of plunder. Deevor Plum cowered beside the stack of cases on which stood the powder keg.
“Where did Alspaye go?” Zack yelled at Plum.
“You’ll never get him,” quavered Plum. “Not Captain Alspaye, he must already be halfway—”
Zack bounded erect again. “Godfrey, command here,” he ordered. “Enoch, Seth, follow me.”
And he was out at the door in a great leap as if hurled from a catapult, and running for the gate. Behind him came Seth and Enoch racing like staghounds.
Both the gates had been smashed to bits by the attackers from outside. Zack was through the opening in the hedge and doubling around, spurning the earth behind him. He headed toward the far end of the tunnel.
All three runners were swift and in deadly earnest, but Enoch, long-shanked and of less bulk than Seth or Zack, wore his way a pace or so into the lead. He it was who cried out in warning:
“The horses, he’s at them!”
Among the trees the herd of horses shied and danced. A Ranger lay sprawled on the ground. Running, Zack remembered that three guards had been left but that Laban Rutledge and one other had come with him through the tunnel. Then Zack glimpsed two flashes of red, a bright one and a dark one.
Alspaye, in his military jacket, held a pistol in one hand and dragged at the bridle of chestnut Jonah while he set a booted foot in the stirrup to mount.
Zack came to a halt, and emitted a shrill whistle, that carried all the way to the horses.
Jonah heard that whistle, knew it for a signal often rehearsed between his master and himself. Abruptly he reared high in the air, head back, mane tossing, front hooves pawing. Alspaye was jerked violently from his feet before he could let go the bridle and stagger backward. He saw the three approaching, lifted his pistol, fired, and missed. Then, as Zack raised his rifle, Alspaye spun and ran, his empty sword sheath dancing at his side. At a crouch he shot in among the trees.
Racing their swiftest, the three gained the horse herd. The Ranger who had been left on guard got to his knees, then to his feet, and stood shakily. Blood trickled down from one eyebrow.
“He ran at me with his hands up,” he said thickly.
“I’ll serve him out,” panted Seth, and clutched at the bridle of his own rough-coated horse. With a bound like a big cat, he was on its back and off after Alspaye. Enoch steadied the half-stunned Ranger with a hand on his arm.
“I thought he’d surrendered,” the man was saying unhappily. “But he came close and hit me with his pistol butt.”
“Sit you down against this tree,” Enoch bade him. “You seem to have missed any great hurt. We’ll come again.”
Zack had swung upon Jonah’s back, and Enoch mounted his own horse. They rode after Seth, and almost at once they found him, off his horse and bending to glare at the ground.
“He dodged me among the bushes yonder, plague on him,” Seth said without looking up. “I lost sight. I’m prowling here for his prints.”
“I’ll help,” said Enoch, springing down. Zack gathered in the bridles of both their mounts and drew the two horses along after Jonah. Within moments, Seth grunted in satisfaction and waved to where a clump of toadstools grew.
“D’ye see yonder?” he cried. “He stomped among ’em and broke ’em all to smash. That shows which way he ran.”
“Let’s be after him,” said Enoch, moving past the broken toadstools. His finger jabbed ahead of him, at a point where a violent struggling charge had driven between two bushes and broken some twigs. Seth made haste to follow, and Zack led the horses behind. On the far side of the bushes showed a creek, and along its bank went the plain-marked tracks of Alspaye’s boots.
“A hi, look how he’s running!” whooped Seth. “Heading for the river yonder, I’ll bet ye my moccasins.”
“No fear but that you’d win that bet,” said Enoch. “See to his footmarks, how far apart and how deep. He fled without looking where he trod.”
“And he trod like a thief fleeing from a pigsty,” added Zack. “Forward, and keep your eyes sharp and your rifles ready.”
“Never fear Alspaye,” rumbled Seth, fairly skipping along the muddy bank of the creek. “He’s got but a pistol, and he’s missed us with that.”
They could travel at full speed, for the traces of their enemy’s passing were plain and strong. Seth, keeping a pace or two ahead of Enoch, crowed happily over a splattered evidence of Alspaye’s falling in the mud.
“He tripped on yonder root and tumbled heels over ears,” exulted Seth. “I’ll warrant ye he’s mudded to the roots of that hair I mean to lift clean off his head.”
“And here’s his pistol,” chimed in Enoch, stooping to pick it up. “It must have flown from his hand, and he spared no time to get it again.”
“Without a shot to send at us, we can run him down and take him alive,” proposed Zack.
“Alive?” repeated Seth unsympathetically. “Why that, when he’s already engaged to the high branch of a tree?”
They were approaching the South Fork. Zack could hear its liquid voice. Almost at its edge, the creek spread over open swampy ground, with a rocky, tree-fringed height to either side. Here Seth suddenly planted his feet and glared to right, then to left.
“Blast all, he’s gone from here,” he complained. “Belike he jumped into the river and swam for it. If we make haste—
“No, no!” cried Zack. “We’ve run him to earth yonder!”
He sprang off Jonah and pointed to where, among the piled rocks to the right, a jagged cleft the size of a man’s erect body opened into the rise of wooded ground.
Both Enoch and Seth stared at the opening. Seth shook his head, but Enoch nodded.
“Aye, Zack, ’tis the truth you speak. I mind me how Deevor Plum spoke of hiding places near here.”
“And look to the mud on the grass leading thither,” pointed out Zack. “ ’Twas from his feet as he headed to hiding.”
Enoch dropped to one knee behind a creekside hummock with weeds growing on it. “Take care, friends, he may fire upon us with a gun he picked up inside.”
“I’ll fire on him,” vowed Seth. He too, took cover, sprawling on the far s
ide of a big log tufted with shaggy dry moss. He raised his voice.
“Hai-ya, ye big shammocking Tory craven! Come ye out of that rabbit burrow and give up to us, ere we send some lead in after ye!”
“Come in and fetch me, you leather-headed Rebel lur- dane!” roared back Alspaye’s voice from within.
Zack left the three horses with their bridles trailing, among willows beside the stream. He moved toward his friends.
“Keep hid,” he warned them. “Plum said such refuges had store of food and arms.”
So saying, he himself crouched behind a jagged stump and brought forward his rifle. “Alspaye,” he called, “we are three to your one. You have no least chance of slipping away.”
“Think you I seek to slip away?” returned Alspaye. “Nay, Pm snug and safe here, and I invite you to come and be snug with me.”
Seth shoved his rifle across the mossy log and fired. The bullet struck and clattered among the rocks that knobbed the entrance to Alspaye’s sheltering cave. Back rang Alspaye’s derisive laugh.
“You waste good powder and shot,” he jeered. “You can’t mark me as a target. ’Tis dark in here—see, I’ll kindle you a light to see me by.”
“What mad thing does he do?” wondered Enoch, peering cautiously from behind his tussocks of green weeds. “Beware all, he’s as full of tricks as ever a juggler at a fair.”
They waited where they were. Zack kept his rifle trained on the mouth of the cave and listening to the voice of the South Fork, felt the warm wind upon his face. Alspaye broke the silence at last:
“Now, Rebels, can you see to shoot?” he laughed at them.
“Behold, I set a torch to guide your bullets in at me. That’s how low I esteem your marksmanship.”
True enough, a warm red light danced inside the cave that had been so dark and mysterious. Seth snorted something that might have been an Indian curse, and again fired his rifle at the opening. Alspaye’s laugh came back like an echo.
“You can never touch me with your balls. Nay, someone must dare to come and bring me out. What of Captain Zack Harper, that spying, lurking traitor? Did I not hear his voice just now? Or perhaps he has fled away from very dread.” “I’m here, Alspaye,” Zack said clearly. “Again, we demand that you surrender. You’ll be treated as a prisoner of war, courteously and fairly.”
Manly Wade Wellman - Novel 1963 Page 12