A Virginia Scout. Hugh Pendexter
his way around the dead.
Once more we were off, but now Cousin ran behind, for the way was winding and narrow, and at places the overhanging boughs tried to brush me from the saddle.
There was no need of glancing back to make sure my companion was keeping up, for his impatient voice repeatedly urged me to make greater speed.
“If the cabin ain’t standin’ we’ve got to have ’nough of a lead to let us lose ’em in the woods,” he reminded.
The path completed a détour of some tangled blackberry bushes and ended in a natural opening, well grassed.
“There it is! The roof is partly burned!” I encouraged.
“The walls stand. The door’s in place. Faster!”
Across the opening we raced. From the woods behind arose a ferocious yelling. The Shawnee were confident they had driven us into a trap. We flashed by two dead cows and some butchered hogs, and as yet I had not seen an Indian except the one masked in a bear’s pelt. The cabin roof was burned through at the front end. The door was partly open and uninjured.
It was simple reasoning to reconstruct the tragedy even while we hastened to shelter. The family had offered resistance, but had been thrown into a panic at the first danger from fire. Then it was quickly over. Doubtless there had been something of a parley with the usual promise of life if they came out. The fire crackled overhead, the victims opened the door.
Cousin said they had been conducted to the main trace before being slaughtered. As I leaped from my horse a fringe of savages broke from cover and began shooting. Cousin dropped the foremost of them. I led the horse inside the cabin and my companion closed and barred the door.
The interior of the place mutely related the tragic story. It is the homely background of a crime that accents the terrible. On the table was the breakfast of the family, scarcely touched. They had been surprised when just about to eat. An overturned stool told how one of the men had leaped to bar the door at the first alarm. I spied through a peephole but could see nothing of our foes. A low cry from Cousin alarmed me. He was overcome at the sight of a small apron.
“I wish I’d stuck to the open,” he whispered. “The air o’ this place chokes me.”
“If we can stand them off till night we can send the horse galloping toward the woods to draw their fire. Then we can run for it.”
“There won’t be no darkness to-night,” morosely replied Cousin. “They’ll make big fires. They’ll try to burn us out. We’re well forted till they git the roof blazin’ ag’in. We’ll ’low to stick here s’long we can. They won’t dare to hang round too long.”
He took a big kettle from the fireplace and thrust it through the hole in the roof. Bullets whistled overhead, with an occasional whang as a piece of lead hit the kettle and ricochetted. After the first volley the Indians refused to waste their ammunition, either realizing it was useless, or suspecting the kettle was some kind of a trick.
“I ’lowed they’d git tired,” muttered Cousin, sticking the top of his head into the kettle and lifting the edge a crack so he could scrutinize the forest. After a minute of silence his muffed voice called down to me: “Had a notion that cow we passed nearest the woods was dead. Try a shot that’ll just graze the rump.”
I fired and a Shawnee began rolling toward the bushes. The iron kettle rattled to the ground, and young Cousin, with head and shoulders thrust through the roof, discharged both barrels of his rifle. The Indian stopped rolling. I was amazed that Black Hoof’s men had not instantly fired a volley. I exclaimed as much as he dropped to the floor.
“Here she comes!” he cried as the lead began plunging into the thick logs. “If they keep it up we can dig quite a lot o’ lead out the timbers. It took ’em by surprise to see me comin’ through the roof, an’ it surprised ’em more to see two shoots comin’ out of a gun that hadn’t been reloaded. Mighty few double barrels out here. Huh! I ’low somethin’ cur’ous is goin’ to happen.”
I could discern nothing to warrant this prophecy. No Indians were to be seen. Cousin called my attention to the sound of their tomahawks. I had heard it before he spoke, but I had been so intent in using my eyes that I had forgotten to interpret what my ears were trying to tell me. There was nothing to do but wait.
Cousin discovered the horse had drunk what water there had happened to be in the bucket, leaving us scarcely a drop. Half an hour of waiting seemed half a day; then something began emerging from the woods. It resolved itself into a barrier of green boughs, measuring some fifteen feet in length and ten feet in height.
Its approach was slow. The noise of the axes was explained. The Indians had chopped saplings and had made a frame and filled it with boughs. Behind it was a number of warriors. About half-way across the clearing were half a dozen long logs scattered about.
“They’re thinkin’ to make them logs an’ while hid by their boughs yank ’em together to make a breastwork. Then they’ll pepper us while ’nother party rushes in close. New party will pelt us while the first makes a run to git ag’in’ the walls where we can’t damage ’em from the loopholes. That Black Hoof is a devil for thinkin’ up tricks.”
I fired at the green mass. Cousin rebuked me, saying:
“Don’t waste lead. There’s three braves with long poles to keep the contraption from fallin’ backward. They’re on their feet, but keepin’ low as possible. There’s t’others pushin’ the bottom along. There’s t’others huggin’ the ground. You’ll notice the ends an’ middle o’ the top stick up right pert, but between the middle an’ each end the boughs sort o’ sag down. If the middle pole can be put out o’ business I ’low the weight of it will make it cave in. Loaded? Then don’t shoot less you see somethin’.”
With this warning he fired at the middle of the screen, and the middle support developed a weakness, indicating he had wounded the poleman. He fired again, and the whole affair began to collapse, and a dozen warriors were uncovered. These raced for the woods, two of them dragging a wounded or dead man.
For a few seconds I was incapable of moving a muscle. I was much like a boy trying to shoot his first buck. Or perhaps it was the very abundance of targets that made me behave so foolishly. Cousin screamed in rage. My bonds snapped, and I fired. If I scored a hit it was only to wound, for none of the fleeing foe lessened their speed. “Awful poor fiddlin’!” groaned Cousin, eying me malevolently.
“I don’t know what was the matter with me. Something seemed to hold me paralyzed. Couldn’t move a finger until you yelled.”
“Better luck next time,” he growled, his resentment passing away.
He loaded and stood his rifle against the logs and began spying from the rear of the cabin. Whenever he glanced at the apron his eyes would close for a moment. No women had lived there. One of the Grisdols, the father of the two children, had brought it as a reminder of his dead wife. Cousin’s great fight was not against the red besiegers, but against his emotions. I knew he was thinking of his sister.
“Come here!” I sharply called. “They want a pow-wow. One’s waving a green bough.”
Cousin climbed to the hole in the roof, holding his rifle out of sight by the muzzle. He yelled in Shawnee for the man to advance alone. The warrior strode forward, the token of peace held high. So far as I could see he did not have even a knife in his belt. Overhead Cousin’s rifle cracked and the Indian went down with never a kick.
“Good God! You’ve fired on a flag of truce, after agreeing to receive it!” I raged.
He stood beside me, a crooked smile on his set face, his eyes gleaming with triumph, his shapely head tilted to enjoy every note of the horrible anger now welling from the forest. “You fired——”
“I ’low I did,” he chuckled. Then with awful intentness, “But the folks who lived here an’ was happy didn’t fire