The Little Red Foot Part 89

As I came up our cavalry was forming to charge; Lieutenant Wirt had just turned in his saddle to speak to me, when one of the outlaws ran out to the edge of the lawn and called across the road to Wirt that he should never live to marry Angelica Vrooman,[41] but would die a dog's death as he deserved.

[Footnote 41: Angelica Vrooman sewed the winding sheet for Lieutenant Wirt's body.]

As the cavalry charged, Wirt rode directly at this man, who coolly shot him out of his saddle.

I saw and recognized the outlaw, who was a Tory named Shafer.

As Wirt fell to the gra.s.s, stone dead, his horse knocked down Shafer.

The Tory got up, streaming with blood but not badly hurt, and, clubbing his piece, attempted to dash out Wirt's dead brains; but Trooper Rose swung his horse violently against Shafer, sabred him, and, in turn, fell from his own saddle, fatally wounded.

Another trooper dismounted to pick up poor Rose, who was in a bad way, but one of McDonald's painted Tories fired on them and both fell.

I fired at this man and wounded him, and Tahioni chased him, caught him, and slew him by the fence.

Then, above the turmoil of horses and gun-shots, the Oneida's terrific scalp-yell rang out in the deepening dusk; and at that dread panther-cry a panic seemed to seize McDonald's men, for their grotesque riders suddenly whirled their horses and stampeded ventre-a-terre, riding westward like d.a.m.ned men; and I saw their Highlanders and Cha.s.seurs and renegade Greens break and scatter into the forest on every side, melting away into the night before our eyes.

Into the brush leaped my Oneidas; their war-yells awoke the shuddering echoes of Brakabeen Wood. I saw a cha.s.seur leap a rail fence, stumble, and fall with the Screech-owl on top of him. Again the awful Oneida scalp-yelp rang out under the first dim stars.

The cavalry returned and camped at Stone House that night. They brought in their dead by torch-light; and I saw Wirt's body borne on a stretcher, and the corpse of Trooper Rose, and others.

One by one my Oneidas returned like blood-slaked and weary hounds. All had taken scalps, and sat late at our fire to hoop and stretch them, and neatly plait the miserable dead hair that hung all draggled from the pitiful shreds of skin.

At a cavalry watch-fire near to ours were also some people I knew--Mayfield men of a scout of six, just come in; and I went over to their fire and greeted them and questioned them concerning news from home.

Truman Christie was their lieutenant; Sol and Seely Woodworth, the two Reynolds, and Billy Dunham composed the scout; and all were in rifle-dress and keen to try their rifles on McDonald, but were arrived too late, and feared now that the outlaws were on their way to Canada.

Christie told me that the alarm in Johnstown and at Mayfield was great; that hostile Indians had been seen near Tribes Hill, and had killed a farmer there; that some people were leaving Caughnawaga and moving their household goods down the river to Schenectady.

"By G.o.d," says he, "and I don't blame 'em, John Drogue! No! For a Mohawk war party is like to strike Caughnawaga at any hour; and why foolish folk, like old Douw Fonda, remain there is beyond my comprehension."

"Douw Fonda!" said I, astonished. "Why, he is gone to Albany."

"He came back a week ago," says Christie. "They tell me that the young Patroon tried to dissuade the old gentleman from going, but could do nothing with him--Mr. Fonda being childish and obstinate--and so he had his way and summoned his coach and his three n.i.g.g.e.rs and drove in state up the river to Caughnawaga. We pa.s.sed that way on scout, and I saw the old gentleman two days ago sitting on his porch with his gold-headed walking stick and his book, and dozing there in the sun; and the yellow-haired girl knitting at his feet----"

"What!"

He looked at me, startled by my vehemence.

"Sir," said he, "did I say aught to offend you?"

"Good G.o.d, no. You say that the--the yellow-haired girl, Penelope Grant, is at Caughnawaga with Douw Fonda!"

"Yes, sir."

"Did you see her?"

"I did; and spoke with her."

"What did she say?" I asked unsteadily.

"She said that Mr. Fonda had sent a negro servant to Johnstown to fetch her, because, having returned to Caughnawaga, he needed her."

"I think Mr. Fonda's three sons and their families must all be mad to permit the old gentleman to come to Caughnawaga in such perilous times as these!" I said sharply.

"And so do I think likewise," rejoined Christie. "Let them think and say what they like, but, Mr. Drogue, I am an old Indian fighter and have served under Colonel Claus and Sir William Johnson. I know the Iroquois; I know their ways and wiles and craft and subtle designs; and I know how they think, and what they are most likely to do.

"And I say to you very solemnly, Mr. Drogue, that were I Joseph Brant I would strike Caughnawaga before snow flies. And, sir, under G.o.d, it is my honest belief that he will do exactly that very thing. And it will be a sorry business for the Valley when he does so!"

It was a dreadful thing for me to hear this veteran affirm what I myself already feared.

But I had never dreamed that the aged Douw Fonda would return to Caughnawaga, or that his sons would permit the obstinate, helpless, and childish old gentleman to so have his say and way in times like these.

Nor did I dream that Penelope would go to him again. I knew, of course, that she would surely go if he asked for her; but thought he had too completely forgotten her--as the Patroon wrote--and that his childishness and feeble memory no longer retained any remembrance of the young girl he had loved and had offered to adopt and to make his legatee.

The news that Captain Christie brought was truly dismal news for me and most alarming.

What on earth I could do about it I had no idea. Penelope, the soul of loyalty, believed that her duty lay with Mr. Fonda, and that, if he asked for her, she must go and care for him, who had been to her a father when she was poor, shelterless, and alone.

I realized that no argument, no plea of mine could move her to abandon him now. And what logic could I employ to arouse this childish and obstinate old gentleman to any apprehension of his own peril or hers?

To think of it madded me, because Mr. Fonda had three wealthy sons living near him, who could care for him properly with their ample means and all their servants and slaves. And why in G.o.d's name Captain John Fonda, Major Jelles Fonda, or Major Adam Fonda did not take some means of moving themselves and their families into the Queens Fort, or, better still, into Albany, I can not comprehend.

But it was a fact, as Christie related to me, that scarce a soul had fled from Caughnawaga. All the landed gentry remained; all people of high or low degree were still there--folk like the Veeders, Sammons, Romeyns, Hansens, Yates, Putmans, Stevens, Fishers, Gaults.

That night my dreams were horrible: I seemed to see Dries Bowman's body spinning in the sunshine, whilst he darted his swollen tongue at me like a snake. And always I seemed all wet with blood and could not dry myself or escape the convulsed embrace of the Little Maid of Askalege.

Moaning, waking with a cry on my lips to gaze on the red embers of our fire and see my Indians stir under their blankets and open slitted eyes at me--or to lie exhausted in body and all trembling in my thoughts, while the slow, dark hours dragged to the dead march beating in my heart--thus pa.s.sed the night at Stone House, full of visions of the dead.

Long ere the cavalry trumpet pealed and the tired troopers awakened after near fifty miles of riding the day before, I had dragged my weary Indians from their sleep; and almost immediately we were on our way, eating a pinch of salted corn from the palms of our hands as we moved forward. For, after a brief ceremony in the Wood of Brakabeen, I meant to make Johnstown without a halt. My mind was full of anxiety for Caughnawaga, and for her who had promised herself to me when again I should come to seek her.

But first we must halt in the Wood of Brakabeen to fulfill in ceremony that office due to the memory of a brave and faithful Oneida warrior--our little Maid of Askalege.

It was not yet dawn, and the glades of Brakabeen Wood were dark and still; and on the ferns and gra.s.ses rested myriads of fire-flies, all pulsating with faint phosph.o.r.escence.

I thought of Thiohero as I had beheld her in this glade, swaying on her slender feet amid a dizzy whirl of fire-flies.

Tahioni had gathered a dry f.a.ggot; Kwiyeh carried a bundle of cherry-birch, samphire, and witch-hopple. The Water-snake laid the fire.

All seated themselves; I struck flint, blew the tinder to a coal, and lighted a silver birch-shred.

The scented smoke mounted straight up through the trees; I rose in silence; and when the first burning stick fell into soft white ashes, I took a few flakes in my palm and rubbed them across my forehead. Then I spoke, facing the locked gates of morning in the dark:

"Now--now I hear your voice coming to us through the forest in the night.

"Now our hearts are heavy, little sister. The gates of morning are still locked; the forest is still; everywhere there is thick darkness.

"_Thiohero, listen!_