Erskine Dale: Pioneer

Streaks of red ran upward, and in answer the great gray eye of the wilderness lifted its mist-fringed lid. From the green depths came the fluting of a lone wood-thrush. Through them an owl flew on velvety wings for his home in the heart of a primeval poplar. A cougar leaped from the low limb of an oak, missed, and a shuddering deer streaked through a forest aisle, bounded into a little clearing, stopped rigid, sniffed a deadlier enemy, and whirled into the wilderness again. Still deeper in the depths a boy with a bow and arrow and naked, except for scalp-lock and breech-clout, sprang from sleep and again took flight along a buffalo trail. Again, not far behind him, three grunting savages were taking up the print of his moccasined feet. An hour before a red flare rose within the staked enclosure that was reared in the centre of the little clearing, and above it smoke was soon rising. Before the first glimmer of day the gates yawned a little and three dim shapes appeared and moved leisurely for the woodseach man with a long flintlock rifle in the hollow of his arm, a hunting-knife in his belt, and a coonskin cap on his head. At either end of the stockade a watchtower of oak became visible and in each a sleepy sentinel yawned and sniffed the welcome smell of frying venison below him. In the pound at one end of the fort, and close to the eastern side, a horse whinnied, and a few minutes later when a boy slipped through the gates with feed in his arms there was more whinnying and the stamping of impatient feet. Gol darn ye! the boy yelled, cant ye wait till a feller gits his breakfast? A voice deep, lazy, and resonant came from the watch-tower above: Well, Im purty hungry myself. See any Injuns, Dave? Not moren a thousand or two, I reckon. The boy laughed: Well, I reckon you wont see any while Im aroundtheyre afeerd o me. I dont blame em, Bud. I reckon that blunderbuss o yours would come might nigh goin through a pat o butter at twenty yards. The sentinel rose towering to the full of his stature, stretched his mighty arms with a yawn, and lightly leaped, rifle in hand, into the enclosure. A girl climbing the rude ladder to the tower stopped midway. Mornin, Dave! Mornin, Polly! I was comin to wake you up, she smiled. I just waked up, he yawned, humoring the jest. You dont seem to have much use for this ladder. Not unless Im goin up; and I wouldnt then if I could jump as high as I can fall. He went toward her to help her down. I wouldnt climb very high, she said, and scorning his hand with a tantalizing little grimace she leaped as lightly as had he to the ground. Two older women who sat about a kettle of steaming clothes watched her. Look at Polly Conrad, wont ye? I declare that gal Lyddy! cried Polly, bring Daves breakfast! At the door of each log cabin, as solidly built as a little fort, a hunter was cleaning a long rifle. At the western angle two men were strengthening the pickets of the palisade. About the fire two mothers were suckling babes at naked breasts. A boy was stringing a bow, and another was hurling a small tomahawk at an oaken post, while a third who was carrying wood for the open fire cried hotly: Come on here, you two, an hep me with this wood! And grumbling they came, for that fort harbored no idler, irrespective of age or s*x. At the fire a tall girl rose, pushed a mass of sunburned hair from her heated forehead, and a flush not from the fire fused with her smile. I reckon Dave can walk this farhe dont look very puny. A voice vibrant with sarcasm rose from one of the women about the steaming kettle. Honor! she cried, Honor Sanders! In a doorway near, a third girl was frameddeep-eyed, deep-breasted. Honor! cried the old woman, stop wastin yo time with that weavin in thar an come out here an hep these two gals to git Dave his breakfast. Dave Yandell laughed loudly. Come on, Honor, he called, but the girl turned and the whir of a loom started again like the humming of bees. Lydia Noe handed the hunter a pan of deer-meat and corn bread, and Polly poured him a cup of steaming liquid made from sassafras leaves. Unheeding for a moment the food in his lap, Dave looked up into Pollys black eyes, shifted to Lydia, swerved to the door whence came the whir of the loom. You are looking very handsome this morning, Polly, he said gravely, and Lydia is lovelier even than usual, and Honor is a woodland dream. He shook his head. No, he said, I really couldnt. Couldnt what? asked Polly, though she knew some nonsense was coming. Be happy even with two, if tother were far away. I reckon youll have to try some daywith all of us far away, said the gentle Lydia. No doubt, no doubt. He fell upon his breakfast. Purple, crimson, and golddaughters of the sunsuch are not for the poor hunteralack, alack! Poor boy! said Lydia, and Polly looked at her with quickening wonder. Rallying Dave with soft-voiced mockery was a new phase in Lydia. Dave gave his hunting-knife a pathetic flourish. And when the Virginia gallants come, where will poor Dave be? Pollys answer cut with sarcasm, but not at Dave. Dave will be busy cuttin wood an killin food for eman keepin em from gettin scalped by Indians. I wonder, said Lydia, if theyll have long hair like Dave? Dave shook his long locks with mock pride. Yes, but it wont be their own an itll be powdered. Lord, Id like to see the first Indian who takes one of their scalps. Polly laughed, but there was a shudder in Lydias smile. Dave rose. Im goin to sleep till dinnerdont let anybody wake me, he said, and at once both the girls were serious and kind. We wont, Dave. Cow-bells began to clang at the edge of the forest. There they are, cried Polly. Come on, Lyddy. The two girls picked up piggins and squeezed through the opening between the heavy gates. The young hunter entered a door and within threw himself across a rude bed, face down. Honor! cried one of the old women, you go an git a bucket o water. The whir stopped instantly, the girl stepped with a sort of slow majesty from the cabin, and, entering the next, paused on the threshold as her eyes caught the powerful figure stretched on the bed and already in heavy sleep. As she stepped softly for the bucket she could not forbear another shy swift glance; she felt the flush in her face and to conceal it she turned her head angrily when she came out. A few minutes later she was at the spring and ladling water into her pail with a gourd. Near by the other two girls were milkingeach with her forehead against the soft flank of a dun-colored cow whose hoofs were stained with the juice of wild strawberries. Honor dipped lazily. When her bucket was full she fell a-dreaming, and when the girls were through with their task they turned to find her with deep, unseeing eyes on the dark wilderness. Boo! cried Polly, startling her, and then teasingly: Are you in love with Dave, too, Honor? The girl reddened. No, she whipped out, an I aint goin to be. And then she reddened again angrily as Pollys hearty laugh told her she had given herself away. For a moment the three stood like wood-nymphs about the spring, vigorous, clear-eyed, richly dowered with health and color and body and limbtypical mothers-to-be of a wilderness race. And as Honor turned abruptly for the fort, a shot came from the woods followed by a war-whoop that stopped the blood shuddering in their veins. Oh, my God! each cried, and catching at their wet skirts they fled in terror through the long grass. They heard the quick commotion in the fort, heard sharp commands, cries of warning, frantic calls for them to hurry, saw strained faces at the gates, saw Dave bound through and rush toward them. And from the forest there was nothing but its silence until that was again brokenthis time by a loud laughthe laugh of a white man. Then at the edge of the wilderness appearedthe fool. Behind him followed the other two who had gone out that morning, one with a deer swung about his shoulders, and all could hear the oaths of both as they cursed the fool in front who had given shot and war-whoop to frighten women and make them run. Dave stood still, but his lips, too, were busy with curses, and from the fort came cursesan avalanche of them. The sickly smile passed from the face of the fellow, shame took its place, and when he fronted the terrible eyes of old Jerome Sanders at the gate, that face grew white with fear. Thar aint an Injun in a hundred miles, he stammered, and then he shrank down as though he were almost going to his knees, when suddenly old Jerome slipped his long rifle from his shoulder and fired past the fellows head with a simultaneous roar of command: Git ineverbodygit inquick! From a watch-tower, too, a rifle had cracked. A naked savage had bounded into a spot of sunlight that quivered on the buffalo trail a hundred yards deep in the forest and leaped lithely aside into the bushesboth rifles had missed. Deeper from the woods came two war-whoopsreal onesand in the silence that followed the gates were swiftly closed and barred, and a keen-eyed rifleman was at every port-hole in the fort. From the tower old Jerome saw reeds begin to shake in a cane-brake to the left of the spring. Look thar! he called, and three rifles, with his own, covered the spot. A small brown arm was thrust above the shaking reeds, with the palm of the hand toward the fortthe peace sign of the Indianand a moment later a naked boy sprang from the cane-brake and ran toward the blockhouse, with a bow and arrow in his left hand and his right stretched above his head, its pleading palm still outward. Dont shoot!dont nobody shoot! shouted the old man. No shot came from the fort, but from the woods came yells of rage, and as the boy streaked through the clearing an arrow whistled past his head. Let him in! shouted Jerome, and as Dave opened the gates another arrow hurtled between the boys upraised arm and his body and stuck quivering in one of its upright bars. The boy slid through and stood panting, shrinking, wild-eyed. The arrow had grazed his skin, and when Dave lifted his arm and looked at the oozing drops of blood he gave a startled oath, for he saw a flash of white under the loosened breech-clout below. The boy understood. Quickly he pushed the clout aside on his thigh that all might see, nodded gravely, and proudly tapped his breast. Paleface! he half grunted, white man! The wilds were quiet. The boy pointed to them and held up three fingers to indicate that there were only three red men there, and shook his head to say there would be no attack from them. Old Jerome studied the little stranger closely, wondering what new trick those red devils were trying now to play. Mother Sanders and Mother Noe, the boys of the fort, the gigantic brothers to Lydia, Adam and Noel, the three girls had gathered about him, as he stood with the innocence of Eden before the fall. The fust thing to do, said Mother Sanders, is to git some clothes for the little heathen. Whereat Lydia flushed and Dave made an impatient gesture for silence. Whats your name? The boy shook his head and looked eagerly around. FranaisFrench? he asked, and in turn the big woodsman shook his headnobody there spoke French. However, Dave knew a little Shawnee, a good deal of the sign-language, and the boy seemed to understand a good many words in English; so that the big woodsman pieced out his story with considerable accuracy, and turned to tell it to Jerome. The Indians had crossed the Big River, were as many as the leaves, and meant to attack the whites. For the first time they had allowed the boy to go on a war-party. Some one had treated him badlyhe pointed out the bruises of cuffs and kicks on his body. The Indians called him White Arrow, and he knew he was white from the girdle of untanned skin under his breech-clout and because the Indian boys taunted him. Asked why he had come to the fort, he pointed again to his bruises, put both hands against his breast, and stretched them wide as though he would seek shelter in the arms of his own race and take them to his heart; and for the first time a smile came to his face that showed him plainly as a curious product of his race and the savage forces that for years had been moulding him. That smile could have never come to the face of an Indian. No Indian would ever have so lost himself in his own emotions. No white man would have used his gestures and the symbols of nature to which he appealed. Only an Indian could have shown such a cruel, vindictive, merciless fire in his eyes when he told of his wrongs, and when he saw tears in Lydias eyes, the first burning in his life came to his own, and brushing across them with fierce shame he turned Indian stoic again and stood with his arms folded over his bow and arrows at his breast, looking neither to right nor left, as though he were waiting for judgment at their hands and cared little what his fate might be, as perfect from head to foot as a statue of the ancient little god, who, in him, had forsaken the couches of love for the tents of war.