The Free Rangers: A Story of the Early Days Along the Mississippi

by Joseph A. Altsheler

  CHAPTER XX

  THE BATTLE OF THE BAYOU

  The priest came directly to the boat, in which Henry Ware and Adam Colfaxwere sitting--the remainder of the five were in the next boat--and held uphis hand as a sign of recognition and relief.

  "Father Montigny!" said Henry.

  "Yes, my son, it is I, and I give thanks to Heaven that I have found youin time."

  "What is it, father?" It seemed natural that at this moment Henry shouldbe the spokesman for the fleet.

  "A great danger has closed upon you and all here."

  "Alvarez?"

  "Yes, he is the master spirit, but back of him are the allied tribes ofthe south, Creeks, Choctaws, Chickasaws, even Osages from the west, andothers, and in addition there are two hundred desperate white men drawnfrom all nations. Alvarez has promised to lead them to great spoil andplunder. He is the buccaneer chief now and they will follow him. Atnight-fall they surprised a French trading schooner tied to the shore forsafety, slaughtered those on board, and have now drawn the schooneracross the mouth of the bayou to shut you in. The vessel also carries fourbronze nine pounders which they will use against you. Outside in theMississippi is a great fleet of Indian war-canoes which has been above youin the stream."

  Adam Colfax paled a little.

  "It seems," he said, "that when we thought we were pulling to safety wewere merely entering a trap."

  "It was a trap," said Henry with energy, "but we're strong enough to breakany trap into which we may fall."

  "That's so," said Adam Colfax.

  "You may ask me how I knew all this," continued the priest. "I tell younot what I have heard, but what I have seen. I was with the Choctaws, andI sought to dissuade them from this campaign upon which they weremarching. I told them that Alvarez was mad with ambition anddisappointment, that he had rebelled against lawful authority, that he wasan outlaw and buccaneer, and that he could not keep his promises. My wordsavailed nothing. I continued with them, hoping still to dissuade them andthe other bands that met them, but still I failed.

  "I was yet with the tribe when they met Alvarez and the wicked renegade,the one Wyatt, and their men. Alvarez would have used force, he would havedriven me from the camp with heavy blows; even this, the white man who hasinherited Holy Church would have done, but the red men, born savages,would not let him. Although they would not listen to me they let me stay,unharmed. I witnessed, or rather heard, their attack upon you last night,and their repulse has made them only the more eager for your destruction.It has also united them the more firmly."

  "When do you think they will attack us, Father Montigny?" asked Henry.

  "That I cannot tell. I heard their plans, and I deemed it my duty to warnyou. A guard, one whom I have converted to our faith, let me slip away andhere I am."

  "And our debt to you is still growing," said Henry. "As for myself, Ithink the attack will come to-night, when they deem us disorganized andbeaten down by the storm."

  "And so do I," said Adam Colfax. "We have no time to waste."

  "May God preserve you," said the priest. "I have no desire to witnessscenes of slaughter but I trust, for the sake of yourselves, for the sakeof Bernardo Galvez, the good Governor General of Louisiana, and for thewelfare of this region, that you may beat them off. But the contest willbe fierce and bloody."

  A young man, at the order of Adam Colfax, sounded a trumpet, a lowthrilling call that aroused the men from their brief sleep, and the wordwas quickly passed that they were blockaded in the bayou, and that thehordes were advancing to a new attack. They grumbled less now than at thestorm. Here was a danger that they knew how to meet. Battle had been apart of all their lives, and they did not fear it.

  The moonlight increased, the forest was dripping, but there was a noisenow of bullet clinking against bullet, of the ramrod sent home in therifle barrel, and of men talking low.

  Adam Colfax called a conference in his boat. His best lieutenants and thefive were present. Should they await the attack or advance to meet it? Inany event, the fleet must escape from the bayou, and the nearer they wereto the river when the battle occurred the better it would be for them.

  "Ef we know thar's a danger," said Tom Ross, "the best thing fur us to dois to go to it, an' lay hold uv it."

  The vote on Tom's suggestion was unanimous in its favor, and the fleetonce more began to move. A small force of riflemen marched on either bankin order to uncover possible skirmishers.

  The advance was very slow and in silence save for the dip of the oars andthe paddles. The moonlight grew stronger and stronger, and they could nowsee a good distance on the deep, still bayou.

  The five had remained in the leading boats and they watched closely forsight or sound of the hostile force, but as yet eye and ear told nothing.The trees now grew close to the water's edge and, looped heavily withtrailing vines, they presented a black wall on either side. But they hadno fear of shots from such a source, as they knew that the trustyriflemen going in advance would clear out any skirmishers who might havehidden themselves there.

  Paul was beside Henry. Near him was Long Jim and in the boat next to themwas Shif'less Sol and Tom Ross. At this moment, which they felt to beheavy with import, it was good to be together. Paul in particular, Paul,the impressionable and imaginative, looked around at the familiar figuresin the clearing moonlight, and drew strength and comfort from their nearpresence.

  The dark fleet moved slowly on, cutting the deep still waters of the bayouwith almost noiseless keel. The men had ceased whispering. Now and then anoar splashed or the water gave back the echo of a paddle's dip, but littleelse was heard. All looked straight ahead.

  Suddenly they saw in the middle of the bayou, about a hundred yards beforethem, a small, black shape, so low that it seemed to blend with the water.It was an Indian canoe, the first outpost of the savage force, and itsoccupant, promptly firing a rifle, raised a long, warning shout. In aninstant the woods on either side began to crackle with rifle-fire.Skirmishers had met skirmishers, and the battle of the bayou had begun.

  "Press on! Press on! We must cut through somehow!" cried Adam Colfax, andthe American fleet moved steadily and unfalteringly on toward its goal.They came now to the narrowest part of the bayou, and stretched across itthey saw a dark line of canoes, all crowded with Indians and thedesperadoes of Alvarez. Behind them heaved up the dark bulk of thecaptured schooner.

  The battle blazed in an instant into volume and fury. Two lines of firefacing each other were formed across the bayou, one bent upon pushingforward, the other bent upon holding it back. These lines, moreover,stretched far into the woods on either bank, where sharpshooters lay, andboth sides shouted at intervals as the blood in their veins grew hot.

  The dark hulk of the schooner suddenly burst into spots of flame, and thewoods and waters echoed with heavy reports. The captured nine pounderswere now helping to block the passage, but the brass twelve pounders onthe supply fleet replied. Steadily the fire of both sides grew in volumeand the lines came closer and closer together.

  The moonlight faded again and little clouds of smoke began to rise. Theseclouds gradually grew bigger, then united into one heavy opaque mass thathung over the combatants. Strips of vapor were detached from it andfloated off into the forest. A sharp, pungent odor, the smell of burntgunpowder, filled the nostrils of the men and added to the fire thatburned in their veins.

  This, the largest battle yet fought in the southern woods, had a somberand unreal aspect to Paul. All around them now was the encirclingdarkness. Only the area in which the battle was fought showed any light,but here the flashes of the firing were continuous and intense. The crashof the rifles never ceased. Now and then it rose to greater volume andthen fell again, but rising or falling it always went on, while over itboomed the big guns answering one another in defiant notes of thunder.

  The schooner was the most formidable obstacle to the passage. It lay fulllength across the narrow bayou and, even if the boats of the supply fleetshould reach it, there was little
room to pass on either side. From itsdecks the nine pounders were fired fast and often with precision, and themajority of the Spaniard's desperate band found shelter there also, firingwith rifles, muskets, and pistols. Others sent bullets, also, from thecomparative security of port holes. The possession of the schooner gavethem a great advantage and they did not neglect it. Now and then they sentup fierce yells, the war-cries of the West Indian pirates, and theirIndian allies answered them with their own long-drawn, high pitched whoop,so full of ferocity and menace. Both looked forward to nothing less thancomplete triumph.

  The space between the combatants was lighted up by the incessant flash ofthe firing. Little jets of water where a missent bullet struck werecontinually spouting up, and then would come a bigger one when a cannonball plunged into the depths of the bayou.

  Paul suddenly heard a heavy impact, a crash, as of ripping wood, and acry. A canoe near them had been struck by a cannon ball, and practicallybroken in half. It sank in an instant, and one of the men in it, woundedin the arm, and crippled, was sinking a second time, when Paul spranginto the water and helped him into their own boat. But not all the woundedwere so fortunate. Some sank, to stay, and the dark night battle, far moredeadly than that of the night before, reeled to and fro.

  The combat at first had been more of a spectacle than anything else toPaul. The extraordinary play of light and darkness, the innumerableshadows and flashes on the surface of the bayou, the black tracery of theforest on either bank, the red beads of flame from the rifle fireappearing and re-appearing, made of it all a vast panorama for him. Therewere the sounds, too, the piratical shout, hoarse and menacing, the Indianwhoop, shriller and with more of the wild beast's whine in it, the fierce,sharp note of the rifle fire, steady, insistent, and full of threat, andover it the heavy thudding of the great guns.

  It was Paul's eye and ear at first that received the deep impression, butnow the aspect of a panorama passed away and his soul was stirred with afierce desire to get on, to cut through the hostile line, to crush downthe opposition, and to reach the full freedom of the wide river. He beganto hate those men who opposed them, the fire of passion that battle breedswas surely mounting to his head. Unconsciously, Paul, the scholar andcoming statesman, the grave quiet youth, began to shout and to hurlinvectives at those who presumed to hold them back. The barrel of hisrifle grew hot in his hand with constant loading and firing, but he didnot notice it. He still, at imminent risk to himself, sent his bulletstoward the dark line of Indian canoes and the flashing hulk of the shipbehind them.

  The supply fleet was beginning to suffer severely. A number of boats andcanoes had been sunk and nearly a score of men had been killed. Many morewere wounded and, despite all this loss, they had made no progress. Thefire from the bank, moreover, was beginning to sting them and to stop itAdam Colfax landed more men. The increased force of the Americans on theshore served the purpose but they were still unable to force the mouth ofthe bayou. The schooner seemed to be fixed there and she never ceased tosend a storm of bullets and cannon balls at them.

  Adam Colfax had a slight wound in the arm, but his slow cold blood was nowat the boiling point.

  "We've got to force that schooner!" he cried. "We've got to take her, ifit has to be done with boarders! We can never get by unless we do it!"

  But the loss of life even if the attempt were a success, would beterrible. That was apparent to everybody and Henry made a suggestion.

  "Let's concentrate our whole fire upon the ship," he said. "Mass thecannon and the rest of us will back them up with our rifles. Maybe we cansilence her, and if we do then's the time to take her by storm."

  The supply fleet drew back and its fire died. It seemed, in truth, as ifit were beaten and that, hemmed in by fire, as it were in the narrowbayou, it must surrender. A tremendous shout of triumph burst forth fromthe men on the schooner, and the Indians took it up in a vast and shrillerbut more terrible chorus.

  Then came one of those sudden and ominous silences that sometimes occur ina battle. The fire of the Americans ceasing, that of their enemies ceasedfor the moment also. But the pause was more deadly and menacing in itsstillness than all the thunder and shouting of the combat had been. Itseemed unnatural to hear again the sighing of the wind through the forestand the quiet lap of water against the shore. The bank of smoke, no longerincreased from below, lifted, thinned, broke up into patches, and began tofloat away. The moon's rays shot through the mists and vapors once more,and lighted up the watery battlefield of the night, the schooner, thedesperate men on it, the swarms of canoes, the coppery, high-cheeked facesof the Indians, the supply fleet packed now in a rather close mass, thetanned faces of the men on board it, animated by the high spirit of daringand enterprise, the wounded lying silent in the boats, and the wreckagefloating on the bayou.

  But the stillness endured for only a few moments. It was broken by theAmerican fleet, which seemed to draw itself together into closer and morecompact form. An order in a low tone, but sharp and precise, was carriedfrom boat to boat, and it seemed to strengthen the men anew, heart andbody. They straightened up, signs of exhaustion passed from their faces,and every one made ready all the arms that he had.

  Paul, like the others, had felt the sudden silence, but perhaps mostacutely of all. His whole imaginative temperament was on fire. He knew--hewould have known, even had he not heard--that the sudden cessation of thefiring was merely preliminary, a fresh drawing of the breath as it werefor another and supreme effort. He clasped his hands to his temples, wherethe pulses were beating rapidly and heavily, and his face burned as if ina fever. But it was a fever of the mind not of the body.

  "It's a big battle, Paul," said Shif'less Sol, who had come with Tom Rossinto their boat, "but it's wuth it. The arms and other things that wecarry in these boats may be wuth millions an' millions to the people whocome after us."

  "Do you think we'll ever break through, Sol?" asked Paul.

  "Shorely," replied the shiftless one. "Henry's got the plan, and we'regoin' to cut through like a wedge druv through a log. Something's got togive. Up, Paul, with your gun! Here she goes ag'in!"

  The battle suddenly burst forth afresh and with greater violence. All theAmerican twelve pounders were now in a row at the head of the fleet, andone after another, from right to left and then from left to right and overand over again, they began to fire with tremendous rapidity and accuracyat the schooner. All the best gunners were around the twelve pounders. Ifone fell, another took his place. Many of them were stripped to the waist,and their own fire lighted up their tan faces and their brown sinewy armsas they handled rammer and cannon shot.

  The fire of the cannon was supported by that of scores and scores ofrifles, and the enemy replied with furious energy. But the supply fleetwas animated now by a single purpose. The shiftless one's simile of awedge driven into a log was true. No attention was paid to anybody in thehostile boats and canoes. They could fire unheeded. Every American cannonand rifle sent its load straight at the schooner. All the upper works ofthe vessel were shot away. The men of Alvarez could not live upon itsdecks; they were even slain at the port holes by the terrific rifle fire;cannon shot, grape shot, and rifle bullets searched every nook and cornerof the vessel, and her desperate crew, one by one, began to leap into thewater and make for the shores.

  A shout of exultation rose from the supply fleet, which was now slowlymoving forward. Flames suddenly burst from the schooner and ran up thestumps of her masts and spars, reaching out long arms and laying hold atnew points. The cannon shots had also reached the inside of the ship asfire began to spout from the port holes, and there was a steady stream ofmen leaping from the schooner into the water of the bayou and making forthe land.

  The American shout of exultation was repeated, and the forest gave backthe echo. The Indians answered it with a fierce yell of defiance, and theforest gave back that, too.

  But Adam Colfax had been watching shrewdly.

  In his daring life he had been in more than one naval battle,
and when hesaw the schooner wrapped and re-wrapped in great coils and ribbons offlame he knew what was due. Suddenly he shouted in a voice that could beheard above the roar of the battle:

  "Back! Back, all! Back for your lives!"

  It reached the ears of everybody in the American fleet, and whether heunderstood its words or not every man understood its tone. There was aninvoluntary movement common to all. The fleet stopped its slow advance,seemed to sway in another direction, and then to sit still on the water.But all were looking at the schooner with an intense, fascinated, yethorrified gaze.

  Nobody was left on the deck of the vessel but the dead. The huge,intertwining coil of fiery ribbons seemed suddenly to unite in one greatglowing mass, out of which flames shot high, sputtering and crackling.Then came an awful moment of silence, the vessel trembled, leaped from thewater, turned into a volcano of fire and with a tremendous crash blew up.

  The report was so great that it came rolling back in echo after echo, butfor a few moments there was no other sound save the echo. Then followed arain of burning wood, many pieces falling in the supply fleet, burning andscorching, while others fell hissing in the forest on either shore.Darkness, too, came over land and water. All the firing had ceased as ifby preconcerted signal, though the combatants on either side were awed bythe fate of the vessel. The smoke bank came back, too, thicker and heavierthan before, and the air was filled with the strong, pungent odor ofburnt gunpowder.

  But the schooner that had blocked the mouth of the bayou was gone foreverand the way lay open before them. Adam Colfax recovered from the shock ofthe explosion.

  "On, men! On!" he roared, and the whole fleet, animated by a singleimpulse, sprang forward toward the mouth of the bayou, the cannon blazinganew the path, the gunners loading and firing, as fast as they could. Butthe simile of the shiftless one had come true. The wedge, driven bytremendous strokes, had cleft the log.

  The Indian fleet, many of the boats containing white men, too, closed inand sought to bar the way, but they were daunted somewhat by their greatdisaster, and in an instant the American fleet was upon them cutting apath through to the free river. Boat often smashed into boat, and theweaker, or the one with less impulse, went down. Now and then white andred reached over and grasped each other in deadly struggle, but, whateverhappened, the supply fleet moved steadily on.

  It was to Paul a confused combat, a wild and terrible struggle, the climaxof the night-battle. White and red faces mingled before him in a blur, thewater seemed to flow in narrow, black streams between the boats and thepall of smoke was ever growing thicker. It hung over them, black andcharged now with gases. Paul coughed violently, but he was not consciousof it. He fired his rifle until it was too hot to hold. Then he laid itdown, and seizing an oar pulled with the energy of fever.

  When the boats containing the cannon were through and into the river, theyfaced about and began firing over the heads of the others into the huddledmass of the enemy behind. But it was only for a minute or two. Then thelast of the supply fleet; that is, the last afloat, came through, and thegap that they had made was closed up at once by the enemy, who still hungon their rear and who were yet shouting and firing.

  The Americans gave a great cheer, deep and full throated, but they did notpause in their great effort. Boats swung off toward either bank of thebayou's mouth. The skirmishers in the bushes who had done such useful workmust be taken on board. Theirs was now the most dangerous position of all,pursued as they certainly would be by the horde of Indians and outlaws,bent upon revenge.

  The boat containing the five was among those that touched the northernside of the bayou's mouth, and everyone of them, rifle in hand, instantlysprang ashore.