Nobody had any arguments. As soon as it was dark, they moved across the trail. Within an hour they came out on the creek shore and found the wagon ruts that led to Young’s; an hour more and their work was done. Behind them the small clearings were alight with the burning farms; three of them, belonging to Young, Bollyer, and a man named Betty. The men from the flats had found only women and children, but that fact—that Tories felt it safe to leave their families unprotected in the woods—served only to infuriate them. They hauled the women out of bed and drove them and the children down the trail. Then they burned every standing wall, killing cattle and horses and even shooting the pigs that ran squealing round the firelight. They stripped one of the women, who returned to save three pounds in hard money, and laughed at her, dividing the money among themselves, and telling her to talk to Captain Caldwell.
Adam Helmer had missed all these events while he was traversing a hundred and fifty miles of wilderness, and he felt bitter at having missed the fun. For a month and a half nothing happened. Every time he returned to the flats, Demooth or Bellinger sent him out again at once. He had hardly had time for more than a couple of visits with Polly Bowers; he hadn’t been back to McKlennar’s for a good meal at all. He hadn’t seen Gil; Gil was too busy getting in his wheat. But the wheat would all be in now; and the next trip down they might be able to get up a decent crowd. Joe Boleo was covering the west since the raid on Schuyler in which George Weaver had been taken prisoner. Helmer alone was responsible for the Unadilla trail, unless he included the three men who were supposed to be watching the trail with him. Most likely they were sitting together throwing dice.
Adam combed his hair as he lay in the green filtered sunlight. The woods were dim with the September haze. The August heat was continuing; but it was better to be hot than to lie out in the rain.
His first sight of the Indians came so abruptly that he knew it would be impossible to warn the men beyond him. There were forty Indians, he judged, Mohawks too, coming up the trail at a dogtrot. That many meant surely that there were flankers out. He heard them now. Whatever force it might be, it was coming fast.
At last what everyone had feared had come to pass, and Adam had allowed himself to get caught like a fifteen-year-old boy on his first scout. He knew that there was only one chance of those three fools getting away; and he knew also that someone would have to get away if German Flats were to be warned in time. Adam did not hesitate. He rolled over on his knee and took the leading Indian a clean shot right under the wishbone. Then, while they milled, he charged straight down the slope and over the trail and up the opposite bank. He made it so fast that the first shots the Indians had at him he was dodging through the scrub.
The musket fire crackled like dry sticks, and the stink of black powder reached out in the still air so that he smelled it as he ran. But he paid no attention to the shooting and yelling on the trail. He dodged into some heavier timber, and wheeled down the bank again. He had judged his course exactly. He hit the trail three hundred yards ahead of his first crossing, just beyond a bend.
He ran lightly, listening to the surge of voices behind him. Up at the lodge a sudden feeble burst of three shots sounded, then more yells. The damned fools hadn’t had the sense to cut and run when he gave them the diversion. He knew as sure as he knew which end of himself he ate with that the three men were dead. It left him alone to carry the warning into German Flats.
German Flats lay twenty-four miles to north and he knew he had probably the pick of Brant’s Indians on his trail, men who could run eighty miles through the woods between sunrise and noon. But Adam knew that he could run himself, and he knew that he would have to run on an open trail and that once the Indians discovered that, they would know he would stick to it. They wouldn’t have to be bothered with tracking.
He eased up slightly, listening behind him. The first surge of yelling had overshot the eastern ridge; now it returned. It would be only a minute before they brought his tracks down to the trail. He began to put on a little pressure to make the next bend; but just before he rounded it he heard the war whoop slide up to its unhuman pitch and a wild shot cut the air high over his head.
His wind had come back from that first foolish burst up and down the ridge. He lengthened his stride. His yellow hair, fresh-combed and beautiful, whipped up and down on his shoulders like a short flapping blanket. His mouth opened as he reached his full pace and he took the slight grade with the bursting rush of a running buck deer.
The Indians had stopped yelling. At the end of the next straight stretch Adam flung a look over his shoulder and saw the first brave running bent over, going smooth and quick and soundless. The Indian knew that Helmer had seen him, but he didn’t lift his gun. He wasn’t carrying a gun. He had only his tomahawk, which was a great deal more deadly if he could pull up within forty feet.
The Indian must have been gaining, Adam thought, or else he was the leader of a group, following the old Mohawk dodge of sprinting to make the fugitive travel at top speed. The others would take a steadier pace; but as soon as the leader tired another man would sprint up. By keeping pressure on the fugitive in this way they could run down any man in four or five hours plain going. Adam would not only have to keep ahead of the press, he would have to run the heart completely out of them.
He sprinted himself now; not blindly, but picking his next easing point beforehand; he knew the trail, every stone and root of it, from Edmeston to German Flats, as well as he knew Polly Bowers. His easing point would be the ford over Licking Brook. A half mile.
At any time it was worth while to see Adam run. He was the biggest man in the flats, six feet five in his moccasins. With his mass of yellow hair he seemed yet taller. He weighed close to two hundred pounds, without an ounce of fat on him.
He began to draw away from the Indian as soon as he started to sprint. Glancing back again, he saw that the Indian had straightened up a little. He got the feeling that the Indian’s face was surprised. Probably the Indian fancied himself as quite a runner. Maybe he was champion of some lousy set of lodges somewhere. Adam could have laughed if he had not needed his wind, but the laughter went on in his inside, sending the blood into his hands. His head felt fine and clear. He figured he had gained thirty yards on the Indian when he hit the brook.
He jumped the ford. It was too early to risk wetting his feet and going sore. But as he cleared the water, he threw his rifle from him. It splashed into the pool below the ford and sank. Now that his hands were free, Adam began unlacing his hunting shirt. He got it off. By the time he came to the big butternut tree, he had wrapped his powder flask and bullet pouch in it, and he threw it over a small clump of witch hobble. Then he tightened his belt and stuck his hatchet into the back of his belt where the handle would not keep smacking against his legs.
He was now naked from the waist up. The wind of his running felt good on his chest, cooling the sweat as it trickled down through the short golden mane. He was a wonderful man to see; his skin white as a woman’s except for his hands and face, which were deeply tanned. He was feeling fine and going well. He felt so fine he thought he might almost let the leading Indian pull up and maybe chance a throw at him with his tomahawk. He eased a little, enough to see the Indian. When the buck appeared behind him, Adam saw that he was a new man. He was taller, and his face was painted black and white instead of red and yellow as the other’s had been. He did not come quite so fast, but Adam’s trained eye saw that he had better staying power. Adam decided then and there that he would put all ideas of a quick fight out of his mind. The Indians meant real business.
For the next four miles the chase continued with only a slight variation of the pace, Adam adapting himself to the man behind. He was beginning to feel the pressure, but he was running with greater canniness. He kept his eyes glued to the trail now. He did not dare risk a blind step. His ankles wouldn’t hold up as well if he lit on a rolling stone or a slippery root. He had the feeling very definitely that the race was reaching
a climax, and though he ran strongly, strong enough to lick any man in the flats at a hundred yards straightaway this minute, he knew that these Indians were good.
His breathing was still excellent. He had no fear of giving out; he could run till sundown, he thought; and then it came upon him that it would be a fact, if he managed to clear the Indians, that he would hit the flats just about sundown. Even while he ran, he reasoned it out that Brant must have figured on reaching the valley at dark and striking in the morning. Adam wondered what would happen when Brant knew that the word had gone ahead of him. He doubted whether Brant could get up his main body anyway much before sunset. But it didn’t matter much. The only thing in the world Adam could do was to reach the flats. If he got there first some people could get into the forts.
His eyes kept checking in his landmarks and he realized that Andrustown was only a mile, or a little more, ahead. He must have outdistanced most of even the first pursuit. He expected there would not be more than half a dozen who could have held on as long as this, and if that were so they would have to be sending up another man pretty soon. And they would all begin bearing down at the same time.
Adam figured that if he could get through Andrustown clearing he might better take to the woods, for he would have gained as much time as anyone could on the main body.
As he chanced a backward glance, he saw that the Indians were going to try to run him down now. The new man was there and it was evident that he was their best man. He was not tall. He was thickset and had thick short legs. He was entirely naked except for ankle moccasins and breech clout and he was oiled and painted and rather light-colored. He looked like a Mohawk. He wore three feathers. It seemed impossible that he could have kept up with the rest, just to see him at first, for he had a belly that showed out in front. But his belly did not bounce at all. After a minute Adam thought it must be an enlarged place where he kept his wind.
The Indian’s legs moved with incredible rapidity. He had already taken his tomahawk from his belt as if he were confident of being able to haul up on the white man. That gesture gave Adam the incentive he needed. He was enraged, and he took his rage out in his running. When the Indian entered the clearing, Adam was already down past the black ruins of the houses and going away with every stride. It was the greatest running the Indian had ever looked at. He knew he was licked, and he started slowing up very gradually. By the time Adam hit the woods, the Indian had stopped and sat down by the roadside.
When Adam looked back from the woods the Indian wasn’t even looking at him. He was all alone in the clearing and he was futilely banging the ground between his legs with his tomahawk. Adam knew he had made it. He did not stop, nor even let down quickly on his pace. All he had to race now was time. He would have laughed if he could have got the breath for it. Time? Time, hell!
They saw the runner coming down the long hill, his body glistening with sweat and reflecting red from the low-lying ball of the sun. He was coming hard. The sentry in the spy loft of Fort Herkimer saw men come out of houses as the runner passed. Then the men ran back into the houses. Before the runner was out halfway over the flat land, the family of the first house he had passed had their horse hitched to the family cart in front of the door and were piling their belongings and children into it.
The sentry let out a yell.
“It’s Helmer!”
In the yard an officer stopped on his way out.
“Helmer?”
“Yes, Adam Helmer. He’s running hard. He ain’t got his gun. He ain’t got his shirt on.” He paused, looked out again, and then bawled down once more. “He looks pretty near played out.” His voice flattened. “I reckon it’s Brant.”
“What makes you think so?”
“The people are coming in after him.”
Without another word the officer went round the corner of the blockhouse on the run for the church. It was Colonel Bellinger. The sentry heard the whang of his feet on the rungs of the belfry ladder.
Bellinger was now in the steeple. He was yanking the canvas off the swivel. The brass barrel glinted in the sunset. Bellinger stood back, waving the match.
The gun roared. One shot.
All over the valley it brought people outdoors to stare at the church steeple. Before dark they were thronging towards the forts by road and river. Those who had already reached Fort Herkimer stood in front of the church and stared at Helmer’s naked chest. It was whipped with branches, the white skin welted and bloody. But Helmer was breathing easily again. He had never, he thought, felt finer in his life.
12
A Night—and a Morning
Mrs. McKlennar’s barn was a comfortable place to milk in. It was cool and dusky. There were no windows—only the walls of logs and the log ceiling overhead. The four cows stood in a row on rough plank. The whole place was filled with dust and the dry earthy smell, mingled with dung, from the walk behind the cows. It was quiet with the soft breathing of the cows, and the hiss of milk striking its own froth in the pails. Mrs. McKlennar, gray bare head butting one cow’s flank, and Gil, face turned to look through the open door, were milking together. They were not making any conversation. They were tired from lashing down the wooden barrack roofs over the wheat stacks. And they were both conscious of the finish of the harvest, a good harvest, one they were both proud of—Mrs. McKlennar because the farm belonged to her, and Gil because she had dropped the remark that it was the best yield they had ever had from the land. He knew that it was he himself who had made that best yield a fact. They were thus contented, balanced on the one-legged stools, when the flat impact of the swivel’s roar fell on their ears.
In the first breath, they could hardly believe what they had heard. Then Daisy’s voice lifted in a falsetto screech from the house. “Oh, Mis’ McKlennar! Hit’s de cannon gun over de foht. I seen it going off! Oh, Mis’!”
The widow rose with Gil. Her long face was set. She saw how white he was.
“It’s the alarm gun,” he said. “It’s a raid.”
“One gun.” Her lips compressed; she nodded.
“We’ve got to move to the fort.”
She nodded again. They were out of the barn now, striding towards the stone house. “Don’t run,” said Mrs. McKlennar. “We won’t get there by running. And she’s all right.”
But Gil had to see Lana. Lana would have been feeding young Gil—christened Gilbert McKlennar Martin, with the widow as sponsor.
Lana was sitting in the kitchen, with Gilly at her breast. Her eyes met Gil’s, questioning, terror-stricken, but full of enforced quiet. Thank God, he thought, she hasn’t lost her nerve, yet.
“Now, Gil, where do you think we’d better go?”
“We can get to Dayton by the road. But I’d rather cross the river to Herkimer. It’s quicker. We can take the cart down to the river.”
Mrs. McKlennar nodded.
“We won’t try to take much. I’ll get my money and some brandy. Daisy, you take the pail from Gil and fill a stone jug. Milk is handy sometimes. And that fresh baking of bread and the two hams. And don’t scream. They don’t pay for nigger scalps.”
“Yas’m.”
Gil was surprised to find that he was still carrying the pail. He got the rifle down from the pegs between the beams, and then started through the house, closing and barring the shutters. Mrs. McKlennar collected her money and the brandy and her own clothes and Lana’s. She made bundles of the clothes on the kitchen floor and wrapped the brandy and money in them. Daisy brought the food in a basket. “I fetched de new currant preserve and de side of fresh pohk,” she said proudly. “That preserve and pohk tas’ good together.”
Gil was already out of the house. He chased the pigs into the woods, drove out the cows after taking off their bells, and then hitched the mare to the cart. As soon as he brought it to the door, Mrs. McKlennar tossed their belongings in. Lana buttoned her short gown. She met Gil’s eyes with a pale face, saying, “I thought I’d let Gilly finish his feed. I thought he’d be quiete
r.”
“Good girl,” said Mrs. McKlennar.
He helped Lana into the cart. Daisy and Mrs. McKlennar scrambled over the tailboard. Gil closed the door and poked the latchstring in. They had done all they could. He took the mare by the head and led her down to the road. As they turned into it, they heard the express rider coming along from Dayton. He passed them at full gallop, leaning forward in his saddle. He did not appear to notice them.
The alarm gun at Eldridge Blockhouse made a single dull thud.
“They haven’t reached the valley yet,” Gil thought. He opened the bars on the far side of the highway and led the mare into the wheatfield. They went at a walk over the stubble towards the river.
Though the darkness was already a shadow in the east, and a mist had begun to hover on the water where brooks entered the river, a hazy after-sunset light reached from beneath a dark bank of clouds rising in the west. Through this dim haze the four adults in the cart could see people moving across the flat land on the far side of the river. The creak of the cart, even the tread of the horses on the opposite road, reached them with startling clearness, but the absence of all talk gave to the approaching night a singular effect of silence.
They themselves got out of the cart without a word when Gil stopped the mare on the riverbank. He drew the bow of the boat on shore and helped the widow into the stern. Then, standing in the water, he passed the baby from Lana’s arms to Mrs. McKlennar’s lap. The child lay still as a mouse. It seemed to them that it must be aware of what was going on, it lay so still, looking straight up at the unaccustomed sky with wakeful eyes. Lana got in next and helped to stow away the basket and bundles. Daisy nearly upset the boat in her anxiety. Her fat hams filled the bow, her striped petticoat swelling over the gunwales. She sat motionless, holding her treasure, a framed small picture of Christ, close to her bosom. Her face was gray under her bright calico kerchief.
Drums Along the Mohawk Page 40