Читать книгу Listen, the Drum!: A Novel of Washington's First Command - Robert Edmond Alter - Страница 6

Two men, an Indian and a white man, were in a small secluded rock-ribbed glen. The white man sat on a log warming his hands before a fire in the snow. The Indian stood aside, slightly in the rear, and watched the newcomers without a hint of expression.

The white man stood up, moving with an abrupt gracefulness, showing Matt that he was tall, well-proportioned, and neatly clad in winter garments that strangely enough would be accepted in the best of Tidewater homes or in the heart of a howling wilderness. He was a man who would fit in, anywhere.

He was obviously a gentleman, yet not of the stiff self-important English breed. He was quite young: about Shad’s age. His face was both bluff and handsome. He smiled, showing bad teeth, and said:

“Welcome, sirs! Come closer and warm yourselves. I gather from what little I chanced to overhear”—turning his warm smile on Shad—“that I owe you my thanks. I’m Major George Washington of the Virginia militia. This other gentleman is Christopher Gist, my friend and guide. And this”—with an easy wave of his hand toward the silent Indian—“Half King, my friend.”

Matt and Shad shook hands with Gist and the major and inclined their heads to Half King; and Chief, who liked to imitate Shad, shook hands also, but ignored Half King, who in turn ignored him, there being no love lost between a Seneca of one tribe and a Seneca of another.

The major studied Chief closely, then turned to Matt. “Is he a Laurel Ridge Seneca? Do you trust him?”

“Do you trust Half King?” Matt countered.

“I have reason to. Half King sees that the French are taking his lands from him. He has turned to me for help.”

“Well, major,” Shad rumbled heavily, “we got a better reason to trust Chief. Chief here don’t care a hang about land, nor the French or English neither. Chief just likes me’n Matt.”

Washington canted his head slightly toward Shad, saying, “That’s a reason for trust that’s hard to beat. So be it. Now what about this Abenaki I heard you telling Gist of?”

Matt quickly repeated his tale, thereby cutting Shad’s opportunity to embellish the facts, and finished with—“Why would the French want you murdered?”

Washington was silent for a moment. He stared at the fire reflectively, then seemed to come to a carefully weighed decision.

“I see no harm in telling you that I am acting on behalf of the Ohio Company. Being trappers, you probably know that the Company has penetrated the Ohio country to the domain of the Miamis and beyond.

“But the French view this trangression with alarm, fearing they will lose their influence with the tribes of the upper Ohio Valley, and presage the ultimate destruction of their fortified line of communication between Canada and the Gulf of Mexico. That is why they have erected forts at Presque Isle, at le Boeuf, and at Venango.

“Naturally the Company complained of these hostile demonstrations; their lands lay within the chartered limits of Virginia . . . so Robert Dinwiddie, one of the Company, and now Governor of Virginia, decided to send a letter of remonstrance to M. de St. Pierre, the French commander at Fort le Boeuf, asking the French, politely, to remove themselves. I was elected to carry that letter.”

Shad whistled his admiration. “From Williamsburg, major? That’s nearly four hundred miles!”

Washington smiled. “As the crow flies. However, to a man on horse it is perhaps double. There were eight of us in the beginning, and the journey to le Boeuf was accomplished in forty-one days. After leaving Venango on our return, we found our horses so weak that we left them and their drivers in charge of Vanbraam, a friend of mine. Gist, Half King and I have been afoot ever since.”

“How did St. Pierre receive you and your demand, major?” Matt asked.

Washington appeared amused. “Much as you would expect a French officer and gentleman to do. He thanked us, entertained us for four days, and then delivered into my hands a sealed letter for Governor Dinwiddie.”

Shad hunched forward on his haunches, his fat face working with curiosity. “Well, what did the letter say? Ain’t you opened it yet?”

Washington looked sharply at Shad. “Opened it?” he echoed. “Why of course not. It’s not mine to open. I’m only the bearer.” Then his look softened, as though he understood the nature of Shad’s curiosity. “I can say this much on my own observation: the French are well fortified. I’d say they planned on staying where they are.”

“And how were things at Venango?” Matt asked, giving Shad a nudge to quiet him.

“Much the same. Joncaire is in command there. He has a friend with him, a young half-breed by the name of Cass, I think.”

Matt started. “Cassanna? I know him. His mother was a St. Francis Abenaki and his father a French officer. When I was a youngster the father brought Cassanna to my father’s stockade near Harrisburg and stayed with us for two weeks.”

Washington nodded, staring soberly at the fire. “I couldn’t bring myself to trust those two gentlemen. Oh, they were polite enough, but I discovered later that they’d gone behind my back and had tried to turn Half King against me.”

“Bad,” Chief announced suddenly. “Cassanna—much bad name.”

Washington turned his attention to the old Indian again.

“I see your friend is somewhat civilized. What is he chief of?”

Shad beamed at Chief proudly, saying, “He ain’t chief of nothin’. I just call him that ’cause it makes him happy. He don’t have much to do with them Laurel Ridgers, and they don’t have much truck with him. Tell you what, major, since Chief took up with me, he’s decided that he’d rather be a full-blown American instead a just an old Mingo. That’s why it’s harder’n iron to get Chief to talk Seneca, ’less he wants to tell me something private-like.

“Trouble is, though, now that he’s got himself all civilized with his English words and handshaking and hallelujah religion, his tribe sort a frowns on him—thinks he’s dandified himself a mite too much. But it don’t seem to bother Chief none. He didn’t even kick when they chased him out a the village this summer.”

“Why did they desire his departure?”

Shad looked sincerely indignant. “It’s the fault of civilization, major! Poor old Chief was a victim of the white man’s habits, and when he took to returning each year to his village with them habits it just got to be more than them honest Injuns could bear. Seems that somewhere along the line Chief picked up the habit of walkin’ off with things that was left laying around by careless owners.”

He paused to glance at the sky and swipe at his mouth with the back of his hairy hand.

“I can’t for the life a me figure where he picked up such a habit,” he murmured in conclusion.

Matt felt that they were wandering far from the important matters at hand. He turned back to the young major. “Sir, what do you think will happen if the French decide not to pull back into Canada?”

Washington raised one eye and pursed his mouth slightly. “I personally feel that the French’s attitude is the same as an open declaration of war. It may be that the King will decide to drive them out.”

Shad snorted his disgust. “I’ve seen how that works before. The English get all pop-eyed with alarm over what the French are doing and they scream and wail like tom cats with ice water spilled on ’em—Oh, my goodness! We can’t have this! We’ve got to get in there and whip ’em! We’ve got to drive them nasty Frenchies clear back to the North Pole! And then who finally goes out and does the fightin’? I’ll tell you who—the Americans! That’s who! Look what happened at Louisburg in ’Forty-five!”

“Shad,” Matt said, “this land is as much ours as it is England’s. If we help England to fight their battle, by the same token they are helping us to fight ours.”

Washington nodded, his eyes curiously alight. “That’s a good thing to remember,” he said quietly. “England claims the land, but it is in name only. We are the land. Someday I hope that its name will also be ours.”

Shad turned and peered closely at Chief. “Look at old Chief,” he demanded with a grin, “laughing himself to death.”

They all paused to look at the old Seneca and saw him regarding them with an impassive stare. Gist stepped closer to study Chief’s board-wall expression. “How can you tell?” he asked dubiously.

“You got to know him,” Shad replied. Then he spoke to Chief in his own tongue. Matt, who had picked up a smattering of Seneca, could follow the flowery speech.

“What is it that delights my brother so?” Shad inquired.

“Oh my brother, is it not vastly amusing to behold the French and English and the Seneca Half King running in an endless circle, each shouting tragically: ‘It is my land! It is my land!’ Is it always this way with the civilized? If it be true, then I wash my hands of it. Let any man call it his land if he so wishes. Let him erect his forts and trading posts. Let him lay his boundaries and march his soldiers. I go where I please and when I please; because I know that it is all, all my land, and that to the children of the wilderness a name is without meaning.”

Shad tossed his great head and roared with laughter. He pounded Chief on the back and winked at Washington.

“Chief’s got the whole problem licked,” he said. “He says it’s all his land. So the rest a you fellas might as well pack up your forts and go home!”

Something landed with a flat smack against a tree just beyond Washington’s head and a split second later the six men heard the hollow plam of a musket. Instantly they were on their feet, reaching for their weapons. Half King and Chief turned without a word or sound and blended themselves into the forest.

“Came from behind you, Gist!” Shad bellowed. “Spread out and run him down afore he can reload!”

Matt ducked into a crouch, humping over his musket, and, cutting into an oblique away from the line of fire, ran for the trees. A ragged dead thicket rose to meet him at the edge of the wood. He leaped into the air and came down in its center. He crouched there for a moment peering through the network of brittle branches, opening his mouth wide so that the sound of his breathing would not obstruct his hearing. To the right of him he heard the cush-cush-cush of men running through the snow, and a shout or two. Then, abruptly, a Mingo darted across his path, head down, attempting to reload his musket as he ran.

Matt stood up in the thicket, covering the Indian with his gun. The Mingo came to a startled halt and stared at the young trapper with wide startled eyes.

“Hadi’nonge dedji’aon’gwa!” Matt said. We are all around you.

The Mingo hesitated only a moment, then pitched his musket into the snow. He folded his arms across his chest and assumed an unafraid attitude.

“Shad! Major! Over here! I’ve got him!” Matt called.

In the late shadows of afternoon the six men gathered about the strange Mingo. Shad, catching the would-be assassin by the neck in his great paw, pushed him up against a linden tree and held him there.

“Anybody know this fish-eyed scum?” he asked.

Half King stepped up and raised a finger to show that he was about to speak. “It is a French Indian from Murthering Town,” he said in stiff English. Then, in Seneca, he addressed the Mingo.

The savage from Murthering Town answered glibly, his eyes leaping quickly from face to face as he spoke. Half King grunted and turned to Washington.

“He claims that he was hunting for his dinner. His gun went off by accident. He is sorry that he nearly killed my brother. I do not believe him.”

“Don’t believe him!” Shad bellowed. “I hope to beat myself silly, we don’t believe him! He lies in his teeth, that’s what he does! I’m amazed his teeth don’t rot and fall right out a his head from the stinkin’ lies he tries to strain through ’em!”

Gist seemed of the same opinion. He raised his musket and placed the barrel to the Mingo’s head. “I see no reason why we should worry about it any further,” he said fiercely.

But Washington interposed quickly. “Wait, Gist. I’m not inclined to believe our friend any more than you; but that is hardly proof that he’s guilty. If war comes we may yet be able to swing his people over to our side. Killing this man will only give us new enemies.”

Matt, having no desire to see a defenseless man killed in cold blood, nodded, saying, “I agree with you. But you must face the fact that Joncaire and Cassanna have set their friends on you. You and Gist are in grave danger.”

“That is now quite obvious,” Washington said calmly. “Gist and I will have to double our pace, as well as our caution.”

Shad heaved a great sigh of reluctance and removed his hand from the Mingo’s throat. “Well, if you fellas have decided to let this cross-eyed bug-eater go, we better get shed of him afore he ears in on our plans.”

He grabbed the Mingo by the shoulder and propelled him bodily into the thicket. “Run you! Hy-Yi! Before I kick your breeches clear up to your ears and make you look like all legs with a pair a eyes!”

The Mingo picked his way quickly from the thicket and paused to stare blank hate at the white men. Then he turned and loped off into the mistlike gloom. Glancing at Chief, Matt realized that the old Seneca was laughing to himself. Chief loved to see other people pitched head-first into bramble bushes.

“Major,” Shad said huskily, his little eyes jumping from right to left with the strain of concentration, “I guess this St. Pierre message is pretty important to you and old Dumwiddie, so here’s what you do. You’n Gist hit straight south-east for the Forks of the Ohio, and me’n Matt’n Chief will angle past Murder Town and unload our guns into it as we go. That will draw them Mingoes off you, and us three will give ’em a chase clear over to the Allegheny River.”

Matt caught the natural hesitation in the major’s face, and he hastened to say, “Don’t worry about Shad and me, sir. With Chief to guide us, we can outrun any savage born.” He glanced at the frosty sky. “Besides, it’s going to snow. They’ll lose our tracks within an hour.”

Washington smiled and put out his hand, giving Matt a warm clasp.

“You’ve been most helpful. Thank you,” he said simply. Then he turned and shook Shad’s huge hand, his eyes crinkling with humor.

“I won’t thank you in the name of the Ohio Company or the King, but rather for myself.”

Shad looked downright embarrassed. “That’s all right, major,” he murmured. “Any time, any time at all.”

Washington offered his hand to Chief. “Chief of Nothing, I wish you my best.”

Chief nodded eagerly. “Fine,” he said, “fine. Any time ’tall!”

Shad and Matt waved a final time as Gist, the major and Half King vanished into the forest. Matt shouldered his musket with a sigh.

“He’s a fine man. Wonder if we’ll see him again?”

Shad shook his head. “Tain’t likely. Williamsburg’s a far stretch from Harrisburg. C’mon, let’s stir up Murder Town.”

The Mingo village nestled lonely in a shallow cup formed by three small hills. It was disorderly and laid out without meaning as many Indian towns are. A bark hut—a wickiup, Shad called it—sat in the center of the communal clearing, and around it and scattered off into the trees stood the tall conical tepees.

The three hunters slipped silently along the fringe of forest, skirting the eastern edge of the village. At the signal from Chief they discharged their muskets over the town, Chief letting out an ear-splitting war cry, EEE-YUUU! and Shad bellowing, “Hi-Yi! Try catchin’ us, you eight-toed bug-eaters!”

Then they took off swiftly for the woods, knifing due east toward the Allegheny, leaving cries of rage and confusion behind, as the Mingoes came pouring out like irate bees from a kicked hive.

Shad chuckled as they ran. He looked back over his shoulder and called to Matt. “Chief’s sore ’cause we didn’t give him no time to put on his war paint!”

“Save your breath for running!” Matt answered. He felt confident that Chief would lead them safely through the night and away from the Mingoes, but he knew he would feel a whole lot better when they had escaped the goshawful land of bogs and thicket tangles with their unnerving aptitude for tearing at a man’s clothes and eyes.

With black night came the snow, a smothering, strangling universe of snow, turning the icy forest into a whirling world of white crystals. It filled their eyes, their mouths, clogged their nostrils, froze to their muskets, slipped down their necks and up their sleeves.

Chief called a halt and turned back to inspect their vanishing trail. He grunted his satisfaction and Matt sighed with relief. The chase was over. The three hunters huddled together and Chief jabbed a finger first in Matt’s chest and then in Shad’s.

“You,” he said to Matt. “Shad.” He turned the finger to his own chest. “Chief. Fine! Say good-byes. You, Shad, go home. Plenty skins, plenty furs. Fine! Chief go now too. Good-byes!”

Shad grinned and, taking Chief by the shoulders, gave him a playful shaking. “All right, you old bug-grubber! We’ll see you next fall.”

But Chief shook his head. “Sooner, sooner, Shad. Much trouble come. Spring, spring, Shad.” He turned and looked off at the whorling night as if studying it for signs, or listening for words that were beyond the kin of the two white hunters.

“May. May, Shad,” he said suddenly. “Maybe sooner. Good-byes!”

The two young men watched the old man hunch off into the falling screen of snow, and Matt impulsively called, “Be careful, Chief!”

And Chief’s distant reply whispered back to them from beyond the ghostly shoulder of night. “Any time ’tall. Fine!”

Shad chuckled, taking Matt by the elbow. “Know what he’s up to now? He’s gonna cut back on our trail and see if he can’t pick himself up some trophies—Murder Town trophies. That old bug-eater. He’s still sore about that Abenaki scalp he had to pass up.”

“Why do you call him a bug-eater?” Matt asked.

Shad’s beefy face expressed surprise. “Why, ’cause he is one, that’s why! I wouldn’t never mention it around him ’cause I ain’t gonna hurt his feelings if I can help it. But one summer I spent some time with them Laurel Ridgers and I seen ’em eatin’ snails! And snails is bugs. C’mon now, Matty. If we’re lucky, maybe we can get across the Allegheny River tonight.”

But he stopped suddenly, grabbing Matt’s arm again, cocking his head back and to one side. “Listen—”

Faintly, as though it were a phenomenon of the whirling snow, Matt heard a soft pulsating, a distant disembodied beat. It seemed to reach endlessly across the snow-clogged night to touch them with its insistent throbbing.

“Drums,” he murmured. He looked up at Shad. “War drums?”

Shad shook his head, his fat face twisted with concern.

“No,” he said softly, “not quite. But it’s the closest thing. It’s kind a hard to explain, it’s a feeling more than a message. It’s a warning drum, a trouble drum. It says: look out—men are going to die.”