by Zane Grey
“Jake, come over here,” said Girty to his renegade friend. “Ain’t she a prize?”
Girty and Deering stood before the poor, stricken girl, and gloated over her fair beauty. She stood as when first transfixed by the horror from which she had been fleeing. Her pale face was lowered, her hands clenched tightly in the folds of her skirt.
Never before had two such coarse, cruel fiends as Deering and Girty encumbered the earth. Even on the border, where the best men were bad, they were the worst. Deering was yet drunk, but Girty had recovered somewhat from the effects of the rum he had absorbed. The former rolled his big eyes and nodded his shaggy head. He was passing judgment, from his point of view, on the fine points of the girl.
“She cer’aintly is,” he declared, with a grin. “She’s a little beauty. Beats any I ever seen!”
Jim Girty stroked his sharp chin with dirty fingers. His yellow eyes, his burnt saffron skin, his hooked nose, his thin lips—all his evil face seemed to shine with an evil triumph. To look at him was painful. To have him gaze at her was enough to drive any woman mad.
Dark stains spotted the bright frills of his gaudy dress, his buckskin coat and leggings, and dotted his white eagle plumes. Dark stains, horribly suggestive, covered him from head to foot. Bloodstains! The innocent blood of Christians crimsoned his renegade’s body, and every dark red blotch cried murder.
“Girl, I burned the Village of Peace to git you,” growled Girty. “Come here!”
With a rude grasp that tore open her dress, exposing her beautiful white shoulder and bosom, the ruffian pulled her toward him. His face was transfixed with a fierce joy, a brutal passion.
Deering looked on with a drunken grin, while his renegade friend hugged the almost dying girl. The Indians paced the glade with short strides like leashed tigers. The young missionary lay on the moss with closed eyes. He could not endure the sight of Nell in Girty’s arms.
No one noticed Wingenund. He stood back a little, half screened by drooping branches. Once again the chief’s dark eyes gleamed, his head turned a trifle aside, and, standing in the statuesque position habitual with him when resting, he listened, as one who hears mysterious sounds. Suddenly his keen glance was riveted on the ferns above the low cliff. He had seen their graceful heads quivering. The two blinding sheets of flame burst from the ferns.
Spang! Spang!
Two rifle reports thundered through the glade. Two Indians staggered and fell in their tracks—dead without a cry.
A huge yellow body, spread out like a panther in his spring, descended with a crash upon Deering and Girty.
The girl fell away from the renegade as he went down with a shrill screech, dragging Deering with him. Instantly began a terrific, whirling, wrestling struggle.
A few feet farther down the cliff another yellow body came crashing down to alight with a thud, to bound erect, to rush forward swift as a leaping deer.
The two remaining Indians had only time to draw their weapons before this lithe, threatening form whirled upon them. Shrill cries, hoarse yells, the clash of steel, and dull blows mingled together. One savage went down, twisted over, writhed, and lay still. The other staggered, warded off lightninglike blows until one passed under his guard, and crashed dully on his head. Then he reeled, rose again, but only to have his skull cloven by a bloody tomahawk.
The victor darted toward the whirling mass.
“Lew, shake him loose! Let him go!” yelled Jonathan Zane, swinging his bloody weapon.
High above Zane’s cry, Deering’s shouts and curses, Girty’s shrieks of fear and fury, above the noise of wrestling bodies and dull blows, rose a deep, booming roar.
It was Wetzel’s awful cry of vengeance.
“Shake him loose!” yelled Jonathan.
Baffled, he ran wildly around the wrestlers. Time and time again his gory tomahawk was raised only to be lowered. He found no opportunity to strike. Girty’s ghastly countenance gleamed at him from the whirl of legs, and arms and bodies. Then Wetzel’s dark face, lighted by merciless eyes, took its place, and that gave way to Deering’s broad features. The men being clad alike in buckskin, and their motions so rapid, prevented Zane from lending a helping hand.
Suddenly Deering was propelled from the mass as if by a catapult. His body straightened as it came down with a heavy thud. Zane pounced upon it with catlike quickness. Once more he swung aloft the bloody hatchet; then once more he lowered it, for there was no need to strike. The renegade’s side was torn open from shoulder to hip. A deluge of blood poured out upon the moss. Deering choked, a bloody froth formed on his lips. His fingers clutched at nothing. His eyes rolled violently and then were fixed in an awful stare.
The girl lying so quiet in the woods near the old hut was avenged!
Jonathan turned again to Wetzel and Girty, not with any intention to aid the hunter, but simply to witness the end of the struggle.
Without the help of the powerful Deering, how pitifully weak was the Deathshead of the frontier in the hands of the Avenger!
Jim Girty’s tomahawk was thrown in one direction and his knife in another. He struggled vainly in the iron grip that held him.
Wetzel rose to his feet clutching the renegade. With his left arm, which had been bared in the fight, he held Girty by the front of his buckskin shirt, and dragged him to that tree which stood alone in the glade. He pushed him against it, and held him there.
The white dog leaped and snarled around the prisoner.
Girty’s hands pulled and tore at the powerful arm which forced him hard against the beech. It was a brown arm, and huge with its bulging, knotted, rigid muscles. A mighty arm, strong as the justice which ruled it.
“Girty, thy race is run!” Wetzel’s voice cut the silence like a steel whip.
The terrible, ruthless smile, the glittering eyes of doom seemed literally to petrify the renegade.
The hunter’s right arm rose slowly. The knife in his hand quivered as if with eagerness. The long blade, dripping with Deering’s blood, pointed toward the hilltop.
“Look thar! See ’em! Thar’s yer friends!” cried Wetzel.
On the dead branches of trees standing far above the hilltops, were many great, dark birds. They sat motionless as if waiting.
“Buzzards! Buzzards!” hissed Wetzel.
Girty’s ghastly face became an awful thing to look upon. No living countenance ever before expressed such fear, such horror, such agony. He foamed at the mouth, he struggled, he writhed. With a terrible fascination he watched that quivering, dripping blade, now poised high.
Wetzel’s arm swung with the speed of a shooting star. He drove the blade into Girty’s groin, through flesh and bone, hard and fast into the tree. He nailed the renegade to the beech, there to await his lingering doom.
“Ah-h! Ah-h! Ah-h!” shrieked Girty, in cries of agony. He fumbled and pulled at the haft of the knife, but could not loosen it. He beat his breast, he tore his hair. His screams were echoed from the hilltop as if in mockery.
The white dog stood near, his hair bristling, his teeth snapping.
The dark birds sat on the dead branches above the hilltop, as if waiting for their feast.
CHAPTER XXVIII
Zane turned and cut the young missionary’s bonds. Jim ran to where Nell was lying on the ground, and tenderly raised her head, calling to her that they were saved. Zane bathed the girl’s pale face. Presently she sighed and opened her eyes.
Then Zane looked from the statuelike form of Wingenund to the motionless figure of Wetzel. The chief stood erect with his eyes on the distant hills. Wetzel remained with folded arms, his cold eyes fixed upon the writhing, moaning renegade.
“Lew, look here,” said Zane, unhesitatingly, and pointed toward the chief.
Wetzel quivered as if sharply stung; the cold glitter in his eyes changed to lurid fire. With upraised tomahawk he bound across the brook.
“Lew, wait a minute!” yelled Zane.
“Wetzel! wait, wait!” cried Jim, grasping the hunter
’s arm; but the latter flung him off, as the wind tosses a straw.
“Wetzel, wait, for God’s sake, wait!” screamed Nell. She had risen at Zane’s call, and now saw the deadly resolve in the hunter’s eyes. Fearlessly she flung herself in front of him; bravely she risked her life before his mad rush; frantically she threw her arms around him and clung to his hands desperately.
Wetzel halted; frenzied as he was at the sight of his foe, he could not hurt a woman.
“Girl, let go!” he panted, and his broad breast heaved.
“No, no, no! Listen, Wetzel, you must not kill the chief. He is a friend.”
“He is my great foe!”
“Listen, oh! please listen!” pleaded Nell. “He warned me to flee from Girty; he offered to guide us to Fort Henry. He has saved my life. For my sake, Wetzel, do not kill him! Don’t let me be the cause of his murder! Wetzel, Wetzel, lower your arm, drop your hatchet. For pity’s sake do not spill more blood. Wingenund is a Christian!”
Wetzel stepped back breathing heavily. His white face resembled chiseled marble. With those little hands at his breast he hesitated in front of the chief he had hunted for so many long years.
“Would you kill a Christian?” pleaded Nell, her voice sweet and earnest.
“I reckon not, but this Injun ain’t one,” replied Wetzel slowly.
“Put away your hatchet. Let me have it. Listen, and I will tell you, after thanking you for this rescue. Do you know of my marriage? Come, please listen! forget for a moment your enmity. Oh! you must be merciful! Brave men are always merciful!”
“Injun, are you a Christian?” hissed Wetzel.
“Oh! I know he is! I know he is!” cried Nell, still standing between Wetzel and the chief.
Wingenund spoke no word. He did not move. His falcon eyes gazed tranquilly at his white foe. Christian or pagan, he would not speak one word to save his life.
“Oh! tell him you are a Christian,” cried Nell, running to the chief.
“Yellow-hair, the Delaware is true to his race.”
As he spoke gently to Nell a noble dignity shone upon his dark face.
“Injun, my back bears the scars of your braves’ whips,” hissed Wetzel, once more advancing.
“Deathwind, your scars are deep, but the Delaware’s are deeper,” came the calm reply. “Wingenund’s heart bears two scars. His son lies under the moss and ferns; Deathwind killed him; Deathwind alone knows his grave. Wingenund’s daughter, the delight of his waning years, freed the Delaware’s great foe, and betrayed her father. Can the Christian God tell Wingenund of his child?”
Wetzel shook like a tree in a storm. Justice cried out in the Indian’s deep voice. Wetzel fought for mastery of himself.
“Delaware, your daughter lays there, with her lover,” said Wetzel firmly, and pointed into the spring.
“Ugh!” exclaimed the Indian, bending over the dark pool. He looked long into its murky depths. Then he thrust his arm down into the brown water.
“Deathwind tells no lie,” said the chief, calmly, and pointed toward Girty. The renegade had ceased struggling, his head was bowed upon his breast. “The white serpent has stung the Delaware.”
“What does it mean?” cried Jim.
“Your brother Joe and Whispering Winds lie in the spring,” answered Jonathan Zane. “Girty murdered them, and Wetzel buried the two there.”
“Oh, is it true?” cried Nell.
“True, lass,” whispered Jim, brokenly, holding out his arms to her. Indeed, he needed her strength as much as she needed his. The girl gave one shuddering glance at the spring, and then hid her face on her husband’s shoulder.
“Delaware, we are sworn foes,” cried Wetzel.
“Wingenund asks no mercy.”
“Are you a Christian?”
“Wingenund is true to his race.”
“Delaware, begone! Take these weapons an’ go. When your shadow falls shortest on the ground, Deathwind starts on your trail.”
“Deathwind is the great white chief; he is the great Indian foe; he is as sure as the panther in his leap; as swift as the wild goose in his northern flight. Wingenund never felt fear.” The chieftain’s sonorous reply rolled through the quiet glade. “If Deathwind thirsts for Wingenund’s blood, let him spill it now, for when the Delaware goes into the forest his trail will fade.”
“Begone!” roared Wetzel. The fever for blood was once more rising within him.
The chief picked up some weapons of the dead Indians, and with a haughty stride stalked from the glade.
“Oh, Wetzel, thank you, I knew——” Nell’s voice broke as she faced the hunter. She recoiled from this changed man.
“Come, we’ll go,” said Jonathan Zane. “I’ll guide you to Fort Henry.” He lifted the pack, and led Nell and Jim out of the glade.
They looked back once to picture forever in their minds the lovely spot with its ghastly quiet bodies, the dark, haunting spring, the renegade nailed to the tree, and the tall figure of Wetzel as he watched his shadow on the ground.
* * *
When Wetzel also had gone, only two living creatures remained in the glade—the doomed renegade, and the white dog. The gaunt beast watched the man with hungry, mad eyes.
A long moan wailed through the forest. It swelled mournfully on the air, and died away. The doomed man heard it. He raised his ghastly face; his dulled senses seemed to revive. He gazed at the stiffening bodies of the Indians, at the gory corpse of Deering, at the savage eyes of the dog.
Suddenly life seemed to surge strong within him.
“Hells fire! I’m not done fer yet,” he gasped. “This damned knife can’t kill me; I’ll pull it out.”
He worked at the heavy knife hilt. Awful curses passed his lips, but the blade did not move. Retribution had spoken his doom.
Suddenly he saw a dark shadow moving along the sunlit ground. It swept past him. He looked up to see a great bird with wide wings sailing far above. He saw another still higher, and then a third. He looked at the hilltop. The quiet, black birds had taken wing. They were floating slowly, majestically upward. He watched their graceful flight. How easily they swooped in wide circles. He remembered that they had fascinated him when a boy, long, long ago, when he had a home. Where was that home? He had one once. Ah, the long, cruel years have rolled back. A youth blotted out by evil returned. He saw a little cottage, he saw the old Virginia homestead, he saw his brothers and his mother.
“Ah-h!” A cruel agony tore his heart. He leaned hard against the knife. With the pain the present returned, but the past remained. All his youth, all his manhood flashed before him. The long, bloody, merciless years faced him, and his crimes crushed upon him with awful might.
Suddenly a rushing sound startled him. He saw a great bird swoop down and graze the treetops. Another followed, and another, and then a flock of them. He saw their gray, spotted breasts and hooked beaks.
“Buzzards,” he muttered, darkly eyeing the dead savages. The carrion birds were swooping to their feast.
“By God! He’s nailed me fast for buzzards!” he screamed in sudden, awful frenzy. “Nailed fast! Ah-h! Ah-h! Ah-h! Eaten alive by buzzards! Ah-h! Ah-h! Ah-h!”
He shrieked until his voice failed, and then he gasped.
Again the buzzards swooped overhead, this time brushing the leaves. One, a great grizzled bird, settled upon a limb of the giant oak, and stretched its long neck. Another alighted beside him. Others sailed round and round the dead treetop.
The leader arched his wings, and with a dive swooped into the glade. He alighted near Deering’s dead body. He was a dark, uncanny bird, with long, scraggy, bare neck, a wreath of white, grizzled feathers, a cruel, hooked beak, and cold eyes.
The carrion bird looked around the glade, and put a great claw on the dead man’s breast.
“Ah-h! Ah-h!” shrieked Girty. His agonized yell of terror and horror echoed mockingly from the wooded bluff.
The huge buzzard flapped his wings and flew away, but soon returned to his
gruesome feast. His followers, made bold by their leader, floated down into the glade. Their black feathers shone in the sun. They hopped over the moss; they stretched their grizzled necks, and turned their heads sideways.
Girty was sweating blood. It trickled from his ghastly face. All the suffering and horror he had caused in all his long career was as nothing to that which then rended him. He, the renegade, the white Indian, the Deathshead of the frontier, panted and prayed for a merciful breath. He was exquisitely alive. He was human.
Presently the huge buzzard, the leader, raised his hoary head. He saw the man nailed to the tree. The bird bent his head wisely to one side, and then lightly lifted himself into the air. He sailed round the glade, over the fighting buzzards, over the spring, and over the doomed renegade. He flew out of the glade, and in again. He swooped close to Girty. His broad wings scarcely moved as he sailed along.
Girty tried to strike the buzzard as he sailed close by, but his arm fell useless. He tried to scream, but his voice failed.
Slowly the buzzard king sailed by and returned. Every time he swooped a little nearer, and bent his long, scraggy neck.
Suddenly he swooped down, light and swift as a hawk: his wide wings fanned the air; he poised under the tree, and then fastened sharp talons in the doomed man’s breast.
CHAPTER XXIX
The fleeting human instinct of Wetzel had given way to the habit of years. His merciless quest for many days had been to kill the frontier fiend. Now that it had been accomplished, he turned his vengeance into its accustomed channel, and once more become the ruthless Indian slayer.
A fierce, tingling joy surged through him as he struck the Delaware’s trail. Wingenund had made little or no effort to conceal his tracks; he had gone northwest, straight as a crow flies, toward the Indian encampment. He had a start of sixty minutes, and it would require six hours of rapid traveling to gain the Delaware town.