Читать книгу Tomahawk Rights - Hal G. Evarts - Страница 6

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It was at Donaldson's that Rod Buckner heard the news that was destined irrevocably to align the Shawnees against the colonists. A man had crossed to the Indian country on a scouting expedition and had been slain by savages. In retaliation, the garrison at Fort Randolph had mutinied against its commanding officers and had slain Cornstalk, his son, Chief Red Hawk and the other Shawnee delegates of peace.

The frontiersmen had started out from Donaldson's to scout for Indian sign. The savages, suspecting that there would be scouts posted on the side toward the Indian country, had detoured widely under forced march and had covered sixty miles in a day and a night to strike Donaldson's from the opposite direction. But they failed to reach it before dawn. When that dread hour, the favorite for Indian attacks, had passed, the families of the three cabins in the meadow returned to their chores while the outlying families that had taken up quarters in the blockhouse remained in its vicinity.

Buckner had covered his shaven skull with a coonskin cap and borrowed a jacket to cover his naked torso. The jacket was too tight and it cramped him and hindered the play of the rippling muscles of his arms and shoulders but no more suitable garment was available. An hour after dawn he set off with Gilpin for a prowl through the adjacent forest on the chance that a war party of savages had eluded the vigilance of the border scouts.

"All looks innocent enough," Buckner said, as they neared the edge of the forest. "But both you and me know that a bit of woodland can appear devoid of all life by so much as the flirt of a squirrel's tail and yet shelter a hundred painted braves. 'Tis the custom of the redskins, and one which the whites would do well to emulate. When white soldiers attempt to surprise an Indian camp, it's like stalking a wily buck deer in an oxcart loaded with empty wine casks; and works as well. I'll veer to the left, and do you bear off to the right."

Rod's advance was the reverse of hasty. His eyes were not those of a civilized person, trained merely to record a given scene as a whole, but those of a savage, alertly searching out the essential details beneath the broad sweep of the general view—trained to detect the mottled snake on the moldy floor of the thicket, the sunlight dappling down through the leaves upon the spotted coat of a sleeping fawn, the nesting grouse whose colors merged into the shed leaves and brush stalks of her chosen habitat. Nor did it escape his mind that the heavy branches halfway up the trunks of mighty trees afforded excellent lurking spots for redskin scouts.

He had not progressed more than two hundred yards into the forest before his keen eye noted that the tip of a single feather sprouted from a down log a musket shot ahead of him. A shed feather might have floated down that way, quill end first, and lodged there in the bark of the prostrate trunk—or it might be woven into the scalp lock of a brave. He halted and glanced aloft as if watching for a squirrel. Then his leisurely survey swept the forest ahead and on either hand. The trunk of one tree, rather small, seemed to swell almost imperceptibly on one side from about the height of a man's belt to the bulge of his chest. Over to the right a bush twitched sharply, yet there was no wind, and there was no bird hopping alone in it. The woods were still—too still.

Buckner looked to the powder in his priming pan, then lined down the long barrel of his rifle at the peculiar bulge on the tree. The roar of his rifle was accompanied by a wild screech and a volley of French oaths as a form tumbled from behind the tree. Even at that distance Rod thought that he recognized the convulsed features of the burly French trader, Benoit, whose face still haunted his thoughts as the model of all that was monstrous. The glimpse was but fleeting, however, for almost with the report he had whirled and fled with the speed of a deer.

Instantly, the wood that had been devoid of sound and motion but a second past became an inferno of savage yells and almost half a hundred dark forms sprang to motion. Every down-log, bush and tree trunk seemed to disgorge a painted brave. Buckner leaped from side to side with the planting of each foot, his course resembling the corkscrew flight of a jacksnipe when first flushed from a bog. The musket balls of the foremost of his pursuers flew wide of the mark.

As he darted from the edge of the timber he could see the settlers tumbling from their cabins and fleeing toward the blockhouse. Women ran with babes in their arms. Men snatched up young children. Rod did not overtake the rearmost of them until just outside the fort. He scooped up a six-year-old youngster in his stride and entered as ready hands slammed the gates while the foremost savages were yet a musket shot away.

The enraged warriors rushed up to the very walls, hoping to gain an entrance before the defense could be organized. Some even thrust muskets through loopholes from the outside and discharged them into the fort. But such settlers as had come in from isolated cabins and taken up quarters in the fort had manned the loopholes at the first alarm and now poured a hot fire upon the assailants while those who had just arrived, breathless, from the cabins of the clearing were stationing themselves. For twenty minutes the battle raged fiercely and the film of powder smoke obscured the vision of those at the loopholes. Under cover of this, the savages retired, bearing with them their own dead and wounded.

There were but few over thirty defenders to hold the fort and prevent the swarm of women and children from becoming a prey to the savages. But that number would be sufficient, Rod Buckner thought, barricaded behind log walls while the Indians must fight in the open. He was glad that it was a blockhouse fight.

The savages, numbering not many more than the defenders, had retired to just beyond effective musket shot and from there reviled the whites as cowards who feared to give battle in the open. Then there occurred an instance of the unaccountable recklessness and lack of strategy which seemed to characterize the affrays between the savages and the settlers of progressive frontiers for two hundred years.

There was a sudden crowding of defenders behind the gates. Others, believing that an order to charge had been given, hastened to join them. There was a sudden rush of cheering settlers from the gates. Rod, aghast at the audacity of it, nevertheless followed.

Some one succeeded in retaining a mere handful of defenders within the fort. Rod made out the form of his uncle among those ahead as the cheering whites made their spirited charge. The warriors, firing their muskets at the advancing whites, retreated slowly. Then the inevitable occurred. There was a sudden tremendous yell of savage triumph. The landscape swarmed with painted demons that appeared as if by magic on every hand. Every rock and shrub seemed suddenly transformed into a warrior. More than a hundred strong, they closed in upon the front and both flanks of the charging party. The charge was transformed into a terrible affray, in which each little group of settlers fought desperately to regain the fort. It was now clubbed musket against tomahawk. Here and there a saber flashed, while above all the clash of arms rose the demoniac whoops of the infuriated savages.

Rod Buckner was near the rear of the rallying party so did not feel the full brunt of the first desperate rush of the savages as they hurled the foremost settlers back upon those in the rear. A brawny savage charged down upon him from the flank. A sweeping blow of Rod's musket was delivered with such force as to strike down the uplifted arm of the savage and crush his skull. But the movement had caused the too-tight jacket to hitch up and bind his bulging muscles; and as he whirled to swing the musket back in a left-hand blow at the head of another assailant, the binding of his muscles deflected his aim and the force of his own swing jerked him off balance. The tomahawk of the savage would have found his skull save for the fact that a powerful settler slashed so viciously with a saber as to almost behead the dusky assailant.

With a single wrench, Buckner stripped off the restricting jacket and plucked the tomahawk from his belt. His coonskin cap had fallen from his head. His uncle, wielding a saber as if it weighed no more than a straw, was falling back, hotly pressed by two savages. With a single leap, Rod passed the elder Buckner and struck down the nearest warrior with his tomahawk. Half consciously, he noted a fleeting look of horrified surprise in the eyes of the brave just before the iron blade found his skull. The elder Buckner, thus relieved, struck down his other antagonist, then whirled, breathing heavily, as if about to lunge at his nephew with the saber.

"To the fort!" Rod shouted above the turmoil of battle.

The older man stared for a split second, then turned and made off toward the blockhouse while Rod fell in behind him. Three settlers had cleaned up the few remaining warriors in the immediate vicinity. They, too, were running toward the fort. Rod had taken no more than three steps when, a dozen yards off on the flank, he observed a man, garbed in a greenish cloth jacket, stooping above a prostrate settler as if to lift him.

He leaped to help the man and it was not until he was within two yards that his startled gaze detected the fact that the stooping man was not aiding the settler but was scalping him. As the man rose, knife in one hand and the dripping scalp in the other, Rod knew him for a British ranger. The latter, instead of preparing to defend himself, widened his thick lips in a grin. Then sudden recognition of the fact that he was about to be attacked showed in his eyes and he half lifted his knife. Buckner's own surprise had been so great that, prepared to help a friend, he was scarcely set to strike an enemy. He had time but for a swift back-hand stroke. The pipe end of his tomahawk found the spot where the man's nose met his forehead and he went down like a felled ox. The whole affair had lasted less than twenty seconds. His uncle, running between two settlers, was but a few yards away and Rod sped after him. He overhauled the trio easily with his greater speed and was only some six feet behind his uncle when one of the flanking settlers glanced over his shoulder. With a wild oath, the man whirled and swung his musket at Rod's face. Instinctively, he ducked, but the weapon struck him a glancing upward blow high on the forehead and knocked him flat upon his back. A flickering consciousness remained to him as feet trampled past. Dimly, he heard the sounds of combat and the vengeful whoops of the savages.

Then he was seized by powerful hands, his shoulders were lifted and he felt his moccasin-shod feet trailing swiftly over the ground. At last this peculiar style of locomotion ceased and he was deposited on the ground. His returning sight focussed waveringly upon branches of trees with the blue sky above. Feebly he passed a hand over his ringing head and it came away wet and crimson. Heavy breathing from close at hand drew his flickering eyes to a badly wounded savage sprawled near him. There were other still dark shapes on the ground near by. Several wounded warriors sat with their backs propped against trees. One brave tottered about on unsteady legs and chanted his death song. One of the prone men uttered a groan and passed a hand across his face. Rod's fascinated gaze riveted on the bloody features of the British ranger and a chill tingled along his spine.

The shock cleared his reeling brain. The whole picture unrolled before his mind's eye. Once he had shed jacket and headgear, he had appeared to all eyes alike as a warrior. That fleeting look of surprise in the eyes of the brave he had cut down had been occasioned by the belief that he was assailed by an ally when unprepared to defend himself. The ranger, too, had made no move to defend himself until the last-second realization had galvanized his knife arm in a motion that was too late. And the settler had struck Rod down under the impression that he was a savage in hot pursuit of the elder Buckner. Some warriors, true to the Indian custom of carrying off their own dead and wounded, had dragged him from the field as a stricken ally.

He rose totteringly, the blood from his forehead dripping down across his face and chest. A wounded brave called out to him in the Wyandotte tongue.

"Do you die, Warrior?"

Buckner grunted a negative and moved off through the forest. It behooved him to put distance between himself and that spot before the savages, drawing off for a conference, should discuss the events of the charge and talk with the recovering Kemper. He must find some of those woodsmen who were scouting towards the west and have them rally the others to relieve the fort. But he would have to approach any of the frontiersmen with caution or he would be shot down without warning as a savage. He struck a loping gait that jarred his aching head; but the throbbing grew less instead of worse. At the end of half an hour, as he loped along a forest trail, he discerned swift motion in the forest a musket shot ahead. Then there was not so much as a flicker. The forest was silent and undisturbed. But he had seen enough in that one glimpse to inform him that the men ahead were attired in buckskin. They were woodsmen, not savages. He knew that one of their number, observing his approach, had given a signal and all had taken cover as expertly as partridges—an ideal ambush in case he was the foremost of a party of savages. He knew, too, that far out on either flank, men were circling to cut off his retreat.

He lifted his voice in a hail and stepped from behind his tree with uplifted palm.

"'Tis Buckner," Gilpin told the woodsmen. "No doubt sent as a messenger, since he could slip through the savages as one of themselves."

The forest ahead suddenly swarmed with moving figures as the woodsmen left cover and advanced. They were on their way to relieve the fort and did not so much as halt, questioning him briefly as they traveled.

"The varmints had me cut off from the fort when you stirred them out with that first shot," Gilpin said. "So I made tracks to get help. You're bloody as a gutted buck. Are you bad hurt?"

"Only nicked, as you'd bark a squirrel," Buckner assured him. Briefly, he recounted the occurrence.

"Your scalp must have been ordained by Manitou to ornament your skull instead of a redskin's girdle," Gilpin declared. "Otherwise your hair and your head would have parted company the instant a friend was so obliging as to knock you into the hands of the enemy. Remarkable fortunate, I'd name it. So they was lured into making a sortie! When will they l'arn? But these are the lads that will give the red miscreants hell," he added, gesturing to either side.

The woodsmen had spread out to advance in skirmish formation, every man of them ready to take cover on the instant in case of attack, and they forged ahead with a slack-kneed lope that covered the maximum distance with the minimum of exertion. They leaped over windfalls and across narrow draws as nimbly as deer, taking all in their stride. Theirs was the lithe power of agile wild beasts, not the muscle-bound strength of the hard-toiling settler.

Back in the blockhouse the few defenders—only twelve in number after the return of the handful who had escaped with their lives from that reckless sortie—were waging a stanch and determined battle to prevent the overwhelming horde of savages from storming the fort. Theirs was a desperate plight. Pioneer women were standing to the loopholes along with the men, but it seemed merely a matter of time.

Then suddenly there came a wild cheer, savage as any that the redskins themselves could have uttered. From the forest there poured a score of buckskin-clad figures. Bounding like panthers, these men bore down upon the rear of the hostiles. The very ferocity of the charge scattered the savages; they knew the terrible fighting qualities of these border rangers. And though many warriors rallied to oppose the advance, they were shot down by the unerring rifles or cut down by tomahawks, and the borderers fought their way into the fort.

The enraged savages withdrew to beyond musket shot. With the walls defended by that terrible little band, there would be less than no chance to storm the fort. They hung round for another day, then retreated toward the Ohio.

For a week, the smoke of burning cabins rose the entire length of the frontier. But in the main, those who had once occupied them were safe within the blockhouse walls. Chagrined attacking parties, having surrounded cabins in the night, made their rush at dawn only to discover that their intended prey had flown. Larger forces, commanded by British officers and some of them accompanied by British rangers, assaulted the larger settlements, only to find the inhabitants on guard. Not one important post fell prey to the savages during that first great border-long offensive.

Years later, in recognition of the invaluable services rendered by a certain Wyandotte chief in sending out those warnings to the settlements, the new American government granted Izaak Zane a tract of the best land in the Ohio wilderness. On this great estate, surrounded by his large Indian family, he resided regally throughout his life, and the town of Zanesfield was founded on his holdings.

As the savages fell back from the Donaldson farm, there was a general retreat all along the frontier. The border men, acting as self-appointed scouts, clung to the wake and on the flanks of such retreating war parties to make certain that this was not merely a ruse on the part of the wily hostiles. But it was an actual and frontier-long retreat. The Indians hurried on to their various towns on the Muskingum, the Scioto, the Sandusky, the Miami and the Maumee for the winter.

The hair-buying campaign of Hamilton had not ended, had only just begun. But it had exerted exactly the opposite of the intended effect. Instead of rousing terror that would lead to the speedy capitulation and surrender of the entire frontier, it roused a storm of wrath. Those who had been too far from the scene of operations in the East to have felt their effects or to have taken any very serious interest in the war, now took the colonial cause to their hearts. Hard-riding planters from isolated Virginia farms dropped their ploughs and headed toward the frontier. Placid yeomen of quiet farming communities of Pennsylvania shouldered their muskets and plodded stolidly toward the West to have a look at those who would pay a price for the scalps of their women and their children. Lukewarm adherence to the colonial cause was fanned overnight into fanatic partisanship. These tidings drifted to the harrassed armies of the East and they knew that the far frontier had espoused their cause. Names began to stand forth as synonymous with sagacious and valorous leadership, individual heroism and desperate exploits in the western wilderness. Boone, Kenton, Zane, McCullock, and other names became familiar words upon men's tongues. And presently the name of Buckner was mentioned among those others.