When Wilderness Was King Part 26

Just in front of us, a large army wain struggled along through the yielding sand, drawn by a yoke of lumbering oxen. The heavy canvas cover had been pushed high up in front, and I could see a number of women and children seated upon the bedding piled within, and looking with curious interest at the stream of Indians plodding moodily beside the wheels. Some of the little tots' faces captivated me with their expression of wide-eyed wonder, and I rode forward to speak with them; for love of children is always in my heart.

As I turned my horse to draw back beside Mademoiselle, my eyes rested upon the stockade of the old Fort, now some little distance in our rear; and to my surprise it already swarmed with savages. Not less than five hundred Indians,--warriors, all of them, and well armed,--tramped as guards beside our long and scattered column, yet hundreds of others were even now overrunning the mound and pouring in at the Fort gates, eager for plunder. I could hear their shouting, their fierce yells of exultation, while the grim and silent fellows who accompanied us never so much as glanced around, although I caught here and there the glint of a cruel, crafty eye. The sight made me wonder; and I swung my long rifle out from the straps at my back down across the pommel of my saddle, more ready to my hand.

The trail we had been following now swerved nearer the lake, deflected somewhat by a long high ridge of beaten sand, separating the sh.o.r.e from the prairie. Here the two advancing lines of white and red diverged, the Indians moving around to the western side of the sand-ridge, while Captain Wells and his Miami scouts continued their march along the beach. There was nothing about this movement to awaken suspicion of treachery, for the beach at this point had narrowed too much for so great a number moving abreast, and it was therefore only natural that our allies should seek a wider s.p.a.ce for their marching, knowing they could easily reunite with us a mile or so below, where the beach broadened again. Their pa.s.sing thus from our sight was a positive relief; and so quiet did everything become, except for groaning wheels and the heavy tread of horses, that Mademoiselle glanced up in surprise.

"Why, what has become of the Indians?" she questioned. "Have they already left us?"

I pointed to the intervening sand-ridge.

"They move parallel with us, but prefer to walk upon the prairie gra.s.s rather than these beach pebbles. For my part, I would willingly dispense with their guard altogether; for in my judgment we are of sufficient strength to defend ourselves."

"Ay, strong enough against savages," interposed De Croix, his eyes upon the straggling line ahead; "yet if by any chance treachery was intended, surely I never saw military formation less adapted for repelling sudden attack. Mark how those fellows march out yonder!--all in a bunch, and with not so much as a corporal's guard to protect the wagons!"

I was no soldier then, and knew little of military formation; but his criticism seemed just, and I ventured not upon answering it. Indeed, at that very moment some confusion far in front, where Captain Wells led his scouts, attracted my attention. We must have been a mile and a half from the Fort by this time, and I recalled to memory the little group of trees standing beside the trail where we had halted on our journey westward to enjoy our earliest glimpse of Dearborn. At first I could make out little of what was taking place ahead; then suddenly I saw the squad of Miamis break hastily, like a cloud swept by a whirling wind, and the next instant could clearly distinguish Captain Wells riding swiftly back toward the column of infantry, his head bare, and one arm gesticulating wildly. In a moment the whole line came to a startled and wondering pause.

"What is it?" questioned Mademoiselle anxiously, shading her eyes.

"Have the Indians attacked us?"

"G.o.d knows!" I exclaimed, clinching my rifle firmly. "But it must be,--look there!"

Wheeling rapidly into line, as if at command, although we could hear no sound of the order, the soldiers poured one quick volley into the sand-ridge on their right, and then, with a cheer which floated faintly back to us, made a wild rush for the summit. This was all I saw of the struggle in front,--for, with a cry of dismay, the Miamis composing the rearguard broke from their posts beside the wagons and came running back past us in a panic of wild terror. I saw Sergeant Jordan throw himself across their line of flight, striking fiercely with his gun, and cursing them for a pack of cowardly hounds; but he was thrown helplessly aside in their blind rush for safety.

"Wayland! De Croix!" he shouted, staggering to his knees, "help me stop these curs, if you would save our lives!"

It was a fool thing, yet in the excitement I did it, and De Croix was beside me. Two or three of the settlers on foot rallied with us, and together we struck so hard against those cowering renegades that for the moment we held them, though their fear gave them desperation difficult to withstand. I recall noticing De Croix, as he pressed his rearing horse into the huddled ma.s.s, las.h.i.+ng at the faces of the fellows mercilessly with his riding-whip, as if thinking Mademoiselle would admire his reckless gallantry.

A wild yell, with the mad thrill of the war-whoop in it, suddenly a.s.sailed our ears; the Miamis broke to the left like a flock of frightened birds, and my startled glance revealed a horde of naked Indians, howling like maniacs, and with madly brandished weapons, pouring over the sand-ridge not thirty feet away from us. With a shout of warning, which was half a curse at my own mad folly, I drove the spurs deep into my horse's side in a vain endeavor to fling myself between them and the girl. Hardly had the startled animal made one quick plunge, when we were locked in that human avalanche as if gripped by a vise of steel. A dozen dark hands grasped my bridle or clutched at me, their swarthy faces fierce with blood-l.u.s.t, the eyes that fronted me cruel with pa.s.sion and inflamed by hate. I heard shots not far away; but we were all too closely jammed to do more than fight in a desperate hand-to-hand struggle with club and knife.

The saddle is a poor place from which to swing a rifle, yet I stood high in my wooden stirrups and struck madly at every Indian head I saw, battering their faces till from the very horror of it they gave slowly back. I won a yard--two yards--three,--my horse biting viciously at their naked flesh, and las.h.i.+ng out with both fore-feet like a fiend, while I swept my gun-stock in a widening circle of death. For the moment, I dreamed we might drive them back; but then those devils blocked me, clinging to my horse's legs in their death agony, and laughing back into my face as I struck them down.

Once I heard De Croix swearing in French beside me, and glanced around through the mad turmoil to see him cutting and hacking with broken blade, pus.h.i.+ng into the midst of the melee as if he had real joy in the encounter. While I thus had him in view, a knife whistled through the air, there was a quick dazzle in the sunlight, and he reeled backward off his horse and disappeared in the ruck below.

Never in a life of fighting have I battled as I did then, feeling that I alone might hope to reach her side and beat back these foul fiends till help should come to us. The stock of my rifle shattered like gla.s.s; but I swung the iron barrel with what seemed to me the strength of twenty men, striking, thrusting, stabbing, my teeth set, my eyes blurring with a mist of blood, caring for nothing except to hit and kill. I know not now whether I advanced at all in that last effort, though my horse trod on dead bodies. Only once in those awful seconds did I gain a glimpse of Mademoiselle through the mist of struggle, the maze of uplifted arms and striking steel. She had reined her horse back against a wheel of the halted wagon, and with white face and burning eyes was las.h.i.+ng desperately with the loaded b.u.t.t of her riding-whip at the red hands which sought to drag her from the saddle.

The sight maddened me, and again my spurs were driven into my horse's flanks. As he plunged forward, some one from behind struck me a crus.h.i.+ng blow across the back of the head, and I reeled from my saddle, a red mist over my eyes, and went hurling face downward upon the ma.s.s of reeling, tangled bodies.

CHAPTER XXVI

THE FIELD OF THE DEAD

The fierce plunging of my horse in his death agony, and his final pitching forward across my prostrate body, were doubtless all that saved my life. Yielding to their mad desire for plunder, the savages scattered when I fell, and left me lying there for dead. I do not think I quite lost consciousness in those first moments, although everything became blurred to my sight, and I was imprisoned by the weight above me so that the slightest effort to move proved painful; indeed, I breathed only with the greatest difficulty.

But I both heard and saw, and my mind was intensely occupied with the rush of thought, the horror of all that was going on about me. How I wish I might blot it out,--forget forever the h.e.l.lish deeds of those dancing devils who made mock of human agony and laughed at tears and prayers! It was plain, as the wild cries of rejoicing rose on every side, that the Indians had swept the field. The distant sound of firing ceased, and I could hear the pitiful cries of women, the frightened shrieks of children, the shrill note of intense agony wrung from tortured lips. Close beside me lay a dead warrior, his hideously painted face, with its wide, glaring, dead eyes, so fronting me that I had left only a narrow s.p.a.ce through which to peer. Within that small opening I saw murder done until I closed my eyes in shuddering horror, crazed by my own sense of helplessness, and feeling the awful fate that must already have befallen her I loved. G.o.d knows I had then no faintest wish to live; nor did I dream that I should see the sun go down that day. Death was upon every side of me, in its most dreadful forms; and every cry that reached my ears, every sight that met my eyes, only added to the frightful reality of my own helplessness. The inert weight of the horse stifled me so that I drew my short breath almost in sobs; nor did I dare venture upon the slightest attempt at release, hemmed about as I was by merciless fiends now hideously drunk with slaughter. Once I heard a man plead for mercy, shrieking the words forth as if his intensity of agony had robbed him of all manliness; I saw a young woman fall headlong, the haft of a tomahawk cleaving open her head, as a brawny red arm gripped her by the throat; a child, with long yellow hair, and face distorted by terror, ran past my narrow outlook, a naked savage grasping after her scarcely a foot behind. I heard her wild scream of despair and his shout of triumph as he struck her down. Then I lost consciousness, overwhelmed by the multiplying horrors of that field of blood.

It is hard to tell how long I lay there, or by what miracle of G.o.d's great mercy I had escaped death and mutilation. It was still day, the sun was high in the heaven, and the heat almost intolerable, beating down upon the dry and glittering sand. I could distinguish no sound near at hand, not even a moan of any kind. The human forms about me were stiffening in death; nor did any skulking Indian figures appear in sight.

From away to the northward I could hear the echo of distant yelling; and as I lay there, every faculty alert, I became more and more convinced that the savages who had attacked us had withdrawn, and that I alone of all that fated company was preserved, through some strange dispensation of Providence, for what might prove a more terrible fate than any on that stricken field. With this thought there was suddenly born within me a fresh desire for life, a mad thirsting after revenge on those red demons whose merciless work I had been compelled to see. Yet if I hoped to preserve my life, I must have water and air; a single hour longer in my present situation could only result in death. Fortunately, such relief, now that I felt free to exert myself and seek it, was not so difficult as it had seemed. The heavy horse rested upon other bodies as well as my own, so that, little by little, I succeeded in dragging myself out from beneath his weight, until I was finally able to lift my head and glance cautiously about me.

I pause now as I sit writing, my face buried in my hands, at the memory of that dreadful field of death. I cannot picture it, nor have I wish to try. I took one swift glimpse at the riven skulls, the mangled limbs, the mutilated bodies, the upturned pleading faces white and ghastly in the sunlight, the women and children huddled in heaps of slain, the seemingly endless line of disfigured, half-stripped bodies stretching far down the white beach; then I fell upon my face in the sand, sobbing like a baby. O G.o.d, how could such deeds be done? How could creatures shaped like men prove themselves such fiends, such hideous devils of malignity?

It sickened me with horror, and I shrank from those dead bodies as if each had been a grim and threatening ghost.

Necessity presently overcame the dread possessing me; and slowly, seeking to see no more than I must of the awful scenes about me, I struggled to my knees, and peered around cautiously for signs of skulking Indians.

Not a living creature was near enough to observe me. To the northward the savages were swarming about the Fort, and it was evident that they had left everything to search for plunder. My uncovered head throbbed under the hot sun, and my hair was thick with clotted blood; scarce a hundred feet away was the blue lake, and on my hands and knees I crawled across the beach to it, forgetful of everything else in my desire to roll in the cool sweet water.

I realized that it would be far safer for me to remain there until darkness shrouded my movements; but I felt so revived by the touch of the water that the old desire for action overcame considerations of personal safety. Before night came I must somehow gain possession of a rifle, with powder and ball; and I must discover, if possible, the fate of Mademoiselle. I cannot describe how, like a frightened child, I shrank from going again amid those mutilated corpses. I started twice, only to crawl back into the water, nerveless and shaking like the leaf of a cottonwood. I knew it must be done, and that the sooner I attempted it the safer would be the trial; so at last, with set teeth and almost superhuman effort, I crept up the beach among the silent, disfigured dead once more.

With little trouble I found the wagon against which I had seen Mademoiselle draw back her horse in that last desperate defence. It was overturned, scorched with flame, its contents widely scattered; while about it lay the bodies of men, women, and children. A single hasty glance at most of these was sufficient; but a few were so huddled and hidden that I was compelled to move them before I thoroughly convinced myself that Mademoiselle was not there. I finally found her horse, several rods away, lying against the sand-ridge; but she whose body I sought with such fond persistency was not among those mangled forms.

Faint and sick from the awful scene, with head throbbing painfully, I sank down upon a slope of sand where I was able to command a clear view in either direction, and thought rapidly. I was alone with the dead. Of all those lying silent before me, none would stir again. Not a savage roamed the stricken field,--though doubtless they would again swarm down upon it as soon as the sacking of the Fort had been completed. I must plan, and plan quickly, if I would preserve my own life and be of service to others. And life was worth preserving now, for there was a possibility,--faint, to be sure, yet a possibility,--that Toinette still lived. How the mere hope thrilled and animated me! how like a trumpet-sound it called to action! She had told me once of friends.h.i.+ps between her and these blood-stained warriors; of weeks pa.s.sed in Indian camps on the great plains, both with her father and alone; of being called the White Queen in the lodges of Sacs, Wyandots, and Pottawattomies. Perchance some such friends.h.i.+p may have intervened to save her, even in that fierce melee, that carnival of l.u.s.t and murder.

Some chief, with sufficient power to dare the deed, may have s.n.a.t.c.hed her from out the jaws of death, actuated by motives of mercy,--or, more likely still, have saved her from the stroke of the tomahawk for a far more terrible fate.

This was the thought that brought me again to my feet with burning face and tightly clinched teeth. If she lived, a helpless prisoner in those black lodges yonder, there was work to be done,--stern, desperate work, that would require all my courage and resourcefulness. Firm in manly resolve, and rendered reckless now of contact with the dead, I crept back among the bodies in eager search for gun and ammunition. For a long time I sought vainly; the field had been stripped by many a vandal hand. At last, however, I turned over a painted giant of a savage whose head had been crushed with a blow, and beneath him discovered a long rifle with powder-horn half filled. As I drew it forth, uttering a cry of delight at my precious find, my eyes fell upon a pair of bronze boots, with long narrow toes, protruding from beneath a tangled ma.s.s of the slain. It was no doubt the tomb of De Croix; and without so much as a thought that he could be alive, I drew the bodies off him and dragged his form forth into the sunlight.

Merciful Heaven! his heart still beat,--so faintly, indeed, that I could barely note it with my ear at his chest. But life was surely there, and with a hasty glance about to a.s.sure me that I was un.o.bserved, I ran to the lake sh.o.r.e. I returned with hat full of water, with which I thoroughly drenched him, rubbing his numbed hands fiercely, and thumping his chest until at last the closed eyes partially opened, and he looked up into my anxious face, gasping painfully for breath. His lips moved as I lifted his head in my arms; and I bent lower, not certain but he was dying and had some last message he would whisper in my ear.

"Wayland," he faltered feebly, "is this you? Lord, how my head aches!

Send Sam to me with the hand-mirror and the perfumed soap."

"Hus.h.!.+" I answered, almost angry at his flippant utterance. "Sam is no doubt dead, and you and I alone are spared of all the company. Do you suffer greatly? Think you it would be possible to walk?"

"I have much pain here in the side," he said slowly, "and am yet weak from loss of blood. All dead, you say? Is Toinette dead?"

"I know not, but I have not found her body among the others, and believe her to be a prisoner to the savages. But, come, De Croix," I urged, anxiously, "we run great risk loitering here; there is but one safe spot for us until after dark,--yonder, crouched in the waters of the lake.

The Indians may return at any moment to complete their foul work; and for us to be found alive means torture,--most likely the stake,--and will remove the last hope for Mademoiselle. Think you it can be made if you lean hard on me?"

"_Sacre_! 't will not be because I do not try, Master Wayland," he answered, his voice stronger now that he could breathe more freely, and with much of his old audacity returned. "Help me to make the start, friend, for every joint in my body seems rusty."

His face was white and drawn from agony, and he pressed one hand upon his side, while perspiration stood in beads upon his forehead. But no moan came from his set lips; and when he rested a moment on his knees, looking about him upon the dead, a look of grim approval swept into his eyes.

"Saint Guise, Wayland," he said soberly, "'t was a master fight, and the savages had it not all their own way!"

It made me sick to hear such boasting amidst the horror that yet overwhelmed me, and I drew the fellow up to his feet with but little tenderness.

"G.o.d knows 't is sad enough!" I answered, shortly. "Come, there are parties of Indians already straying this way from the Fort yonder, and it behooves us to get in hiding."

He made the distance between us and the water with far less difficulty than I had expected, and with a better use of his limbs at each step. In spite of vigorous protest on his part, I forced him out from the sh.o.r.e until the water entirely covered us, save only our faces; and there we waited for the merciful coming of the night.

CHAPTER XXVII

A GHOSTLY VISION

The touch of the water brought renewed life to De Croix. This was shown by the brighter color stealing into his cheeks, as well as by the more careless tone that crept into his voice. The lake proved shallow for some considerable distance off sh.o.r.e, and I compelled the Frenchman to wade with me southward, and as far out as we dared venture, until we must have reached the extreme limit of the field of ma.s.sacre. Indeed, I fully believed we had pa.s.sed beyond the point where the attack had first burst upon Captain Wells's Miamis; for I could perceive no sign of any bodies lying opposite us against the white background of sand.