Читать книгу Westy Martin on the Old Indian Trail - Percy Keese Fitzhugh - Страница 5

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They were on the ferry crossing from Newburgh. Mr. Hollister, relieved of driving for a few minutes, sat back to rest. “Do you know anything of the Mohawk Trail, Westy?” he asked.

“No,” Westy replied. “Not very much, anyhow. My father said it’s full of nice scenery and that the new paved highway from North Adams to Greenfield is about fifty miles long. He said that the Mohawk Indians used to come from New York State and go through Massachusetts to Connecticut. That’s all I know.”

“Few people know much about it,” Mr. Hollister said. “Only the old settlers up there can give a complete history of it. The new Mohawk Trail—the highway, I mean—follows the original trail, and one can see, riding along, where the old beaten path of the Indians crosses and recrosses the new concrete road. I’ve heard say that parts of the old trail have become obliterated with time, especially where it led up and across the mountains and into secret recesses where the red men hid in times of danger.”

“Gosh!” Westy exclaimed, turning to Warde. “Let’s make that—let’s hunt out the old trail and follow it wherever it goes!”

“That’s a good idea,” Mr. Hollister said. “The difficulty is, that something like a few hundred years of undergrowth will impede your progress.”

They came out of the ferry house at Beacon and started along a fine, smooth road. “A scout knows how to overcome a whole lot, though,” Warde said, taking up where his father left off. “As Pee-wee Harris says, ‘we’ll circumvent Nature.’”

Mr. Hollister laughed heartily. “Well,” he said, “try it, anyway. I’ll be interested to know how you’ve done it, when I see you again. Meanwhile, safety first. I’ll appoint Westy your leader, what do you say?”

It was agreed, and Westy promised to keep that trust faithfully, although he secretly hoped that the promise would not prevent him from participating in any great adventure that Chance might offer. His mind was eager to know more of this romantic, historic old trail. “Gee whiz,” he said, enthusiastically, “I bet if we only knew it, there’s lots of stories about that trail that’ve never been written.”

Benny, who had thus far sat in respectful silence, burst forth: “Maybe ghosts of Indians and skeletons, we’ll step on, Westy, huh?” He asked the question timidly.

“Oh, boy!” Westy answered, “then that would be a regular hike. I like spooky, mysterious places—the spookier, the better.”

“Say,” Benny wailed, “for me—not! I like dead Indians to stay dead. They shouldn’t speak no more after a hundred years.”

“It’s not only the Indians’ ghosts, Benny,” Mr. Hollister said, laughingly. “They say that many of the first Massachusetts settlers along there were secretly massacred and some held captives in the mountains. So their ghosts, too, supposedly are haunting the Berkshires.”

“Ugh!” Benny said, with a hint of a groan, “to hear it, I shiver. But I’ll show you I won’t run if they speak to me!”

“That’s the stuff,” Westy said. “You talk like a scout.”

It had been agreed upon at starting to eat along the way and leave their generous supply of camping things undisturbed until the Trail was reached. So they stopped at supper time in a little hamlet that boasted of one lunch wagon.

“Are you scouts willing to ride tonight until we strike North Adams?” Mr. Hollister asked, after supper was finished.

“Sure,” Westy answered for himself and Benny.

“It’s unanimous then,” Mr. Hollister said. “The sooner we get to North Adams, the more time you will have. It might be daylight before we get there.”

“We should worry about that,” Westy said. “We didn’t come up here to sleep much anyway.”

“Say,” Benny put in, “so full of excitement I am, my eyes wouldn’t close. It’s better I should ride and keep awake.”

“Don’t let anyone kid you about ghosts, Benny,” Warde said. “There’s no such thing.”

Benny said nothing. He felt that to challenge a belief in ghosts was to challenge that which made Westy so likable. The adventurous, romantic spirit of Westy seemed fitted for ghosts and such things, and Benny wouldn’t have had him changed for the world.

They sped along and after an hour or so encountered but little traffic. The towns were few and far between and on the far horizon, mountains raised their tree-covered crests into the deepening twilight.

Night came on apace. Mr. Hollister put on his lights and increased his speed, rushing into the black void, ever yawning before them. He was enjoying the friendly argument that his son and Westy were having on that spectral subject, ghosts.

Benny, on the other hand, was far from enjoying it. To put it mildly, he was uncomfortable. Finally, he could stand it no longer. “Westy,” he said, with a calmness that belied his true feelings, “as a friend, I ask you—don’t talk such things no more. In daylight, I can stand it, but when it’s dark everywhere around—no!”

They all laughed heartily. Westy leaned over and gave him a fraternal crack on the knee. “All right, Ben,” he said, “I’ll save the ghosts for the Trail. There’ll be so many up there that you’ll soon get used to them.”

Westy little realized that his statement, uttered in jesting tones, would perhaps be horribly real before another week had passed. Some portion of this truth was creeping into his thoughts, even as he spoke. He could not divine why suddenly a chill should steal upon him when he was so warm. Perhaps it was the weird effect of a little gleam of light appearing far down the dark road, seeming gradually to come nearer and nearer.

“Is that something coming to us or us coming to something?” Warde asked his father.

“I think it’s us coming to something,” Mr. Hollister answered. “From here, it looks like the tail light of a car.”

“Somebody stalled, most likely,” Westy said.

“I guess so,” Mr. Hollister agreed.

“After talking of ghosts,” Warde said, laughingly, “I’m so creepy feeling, it makes me think of the evil eye coming for us. It’s so red and gleaming on this dark road that it’s spooky-looking.”

Poor Benny felt a slight chill, too. But he determined not to show any weakness again. He forced a loud, shrill, contemptuous laugh. “Hah!” he said. “So foolish you talk, Warde. It couldn’t be no such thing. Evil eye! Hah!” Then he laughed again, quite naturally.

His mirth sounded gay and cheerful along the lonely road. It echoed even above the click-click of the big cord tires as they gripped the smooth pavement with each revolution.

Gradually the light became quite distinct and in the glare of Mr. Hollister’s headlights they could see that it was indeed the tail light of a car. And along the road, walking and coming toward them, were two men, waving their arms quite frantically.

“I guess they need some help, all right,” Mr. Hollister said, sympathetically. “I wouldn’t want to be stuck along here.”

He slowed down and came to a full stop just as the two men reached the car. Mr. Hollister leaned out. “What seems to be the trouble?” he asked, kindly.

The two men spoke as if with one voice. “Up with ’em! All of you!” they commanded.

The four occupants of the car, so full of mirth a few minutes before, now looked fearfully into the grim, death-dealing muzzles of two guns.