Nick of the Woods Part 21

"A right-down natteral, fine conceit!" muttered Captain Ralph, approvingly: "the next time I come a-grabbin' hosses, if I don't fetch a bushel of the jinglers, I wish I may be kicked! Them thar Injun dogs is always the devil."

In the meanwhile, Nathan, though proceeding with such apparent boldness, and relying upon his disguise as all-sufficient to avert suspicion, was by no means inclined to court any such dangers as could be really avoided. If the light of a fire still burning in a wigwam, and watched by wakeful habitants, shone too brightly from its door, he crept by with the greatest circ.u.mspection; and he gave as wide a berth as possible to every noisy straggler who yet roamed through the village.

There was indeed necessity for every precaution. It was evident, that the village was by no means so dest.i.tute of defence as he had imagined,--that the warriors of Wenonga had not generally obeyed the call that carried the army of the tribes to Kentucky, but had remained in inglorious ease and sloth in their own cabins. There was no other way, at least, of accounting for the dozen or more male vagabonds, whom he found at intervals stretched here before a fire, where they had been carousing in the open air, and there lying asleep across the path, just where the demon of good cheer had dropped them. Making his own inferences from their appearance, and pa.s.sing them with care, sometimes even, where their slumbers seemed unsound, crawling by on his face, he succeeded at last in reaching the central part of the village; where the presence of several cabins of logs, humble enough in themselves, but far superior to the ordinary hovels of an Indian village, indicated the abiding place of the superiors of the clan, or of those apostate white men, renegades from the States, traitors to their country and to civilisation, who were, at that day, in so many instances, found uniting their fortunes with the Indians, following, and even leading them, in their b.l.o.o.d.y incursions upon the frontiers. To one of those cabins Nathan made his way with stealthy step; and peeping through a c.h.i.n.k in the logs, beheld a proof that here a renegade had cast his lot, in the appearance of some half a dozen naked children, of fairer hue than the savages, yet not so pale as those of his own race, sleeping on mats round a fire, at which sat, nodding and dozing, the dark-eyed Indian mother.

One brief, earnest look Nathan gave to this spectacle; then, stealing away, he bent his steps towards a neighbouring cabin, which he approached with even greater precautions than before. This was a hovel of logs, like the other, but of still better construction, having the uncommon convenience of a chimney, built of sticks and mud, through whose low wide top ascended volumes of smoke, made ruddy by the glare of the flames below. A cranny here also afforded the means of spying into the doings within; and Nathan, who approached it with the precision of one not unfamiliar with the premises, was not tardy to avail himself of its advantages. Bare naked walls of logs, the interstices rudely stuffed with moss and clay,--a few uncouth wooden stools,--a rough table,--a bed of skins,--and implements of war and the chase hung in various places about the room, all illuminated more brilliantly by the fire on the hearth than by the miserable tallow candle, stuck in a lamp of humid clay, that glimmered on the table,--were not the only objects to attract the wanderer's eye. Sitting by the fire were two men, both white; though the blanket and calico s.h.i.+rt of one, and the red shawl which he was just in the act of removing from his brows, as Nathan peeped through the c.h.i.n.k, with an uncommon darkness of skin and hair, might have well made him pa.s.s for an Indian. His figure was very tall, well proportioned, and athletic; his visage manly, and even handsome; though the wrinkles of forty winters furrowed deeply in his brows, and perhaps a certain repelling gleam, the light of smothered pa.s.sions s.h.i.+ning from the eyes below, might have left that merit questionable with the beholder.

The other was a smaller man, whom Roland, had he been present, would have recognised as the supposed half-breed, who, at the part.i.tion of spoils, after the capture of his party, and the defeat of the young Kentuckians, had given him a prisoner into the hands of the three Piankeshaws,--in a word, the renegade father of Telie Doe. Nor was his companion less familiar to Nathan, who beheld in his sombre countenance the features of that identical stranger, seen with Doe at the fire among the a.s.sailants at the memorable ruin, whose appearance had awakened the first suspicion that there was more in the attack than proceeded from ordinary causes.

This was a discovery well fitted to increase the interest, and sharpen the curiosity, of the man of peace: who peering in upon the pair from the c.h.i.n.k, gave all his faculties to the duty of listening and observing. The visage of Doe, dark and sullen at the best, was now peculiarly moody; and he sat gazing into the fire, apparently regardless of his companion, who, as he drew the shawl from his head, and threw it aside, muttered something into Doe's ears, but in a voice too low for Nathan to distinguish what he said. The whisper was repeated once and again, but without seeming to produce any impression upon Doe's ears; at which the other growing impatient, gave, to Nathan's great satisfaction, a louder voice to his discourse:

"Hark, you, Jack,--Atkinson,--Doe,--Shanogenaw,--Rattlesnake,--or whatever you may be pleased to call yourself," he cried, striking the muser on the shoulder, "are you mad, drunk, or asleep? Get up, man, and tell me, since you will tell me nothing else, what the devil you are dreaming about?"

"Why, curse it," said the other, starting up somewhat in anger, but draining, before he spoke, a deep draught from an earthen pitcher that stood on the table,--"I was thinking, if you must know, about the youngster, and the dog's death we have driven him to--Christian work for Christian men, eh?"

"The fate of war!" exclaimed the renegade's companion, with great composure; "we have won the battle, boy;--the defeated must bear the consequences."

"Ondoubtedly," said Doe,--"up to the rack, fodder or no fodder: that's the word; there's no 'scaping them consequences; they must be taken as they come,--gantelope, fire-roasting, and all. But, I say, d.i.c.k--saving your pardon for being familiar," he added, "there's the small matter to be thought on in the case,--and that is, it was not Injuns, but rale right-down Christian men that brought the younker to the tug. It's a bad business for white men, and it makes me feel oncomfortable."

"Pooh," said the other, with an air of contemptuous commiseration, "you are growing sentimental. This comes of listening to that confounded whimpering Telie."

"No words agin the gal!" cried Doe, sternly; "you may say what you like of me, for I'm a rascal that desarves it; but I'll stand no barking agin the gal."

"Why, she's a good girl and a pretty girl,--too good and too pretty to have so crusty a father,--and I have nothing against her, but her taking on so about the younker, and so playing the devil with the wits and good-looks of my own bargain."

"A dear bargain she is like to prove to all of us," said Doe, drowning his anger, or remorse, in another draught from the pitcher. "She has cost us eleven men already: it is well the bulk of the whelps was Wabash and Maumee dogs, or you would have seen her killed and scalped, for all of your guns and whisky,--you would, there's no two ways about it.

Howsomever, four of 'em was dogs of our own, and two of them was picked off by the Jibbenainosay. I tell you what, d.i.c.k, I'm not the man to skear at a raw-head-and-b.l.o.o.d.y-bones; but I do think the coming of this here cursed Jibbenainosay among us, jist as we was nabbing the girl and sodger, was as much as to say there was no good could come of it; and so the Injuns thought too--you saw how hard it was to bring 'em up to the scratch, when they found he had been knifing a feller right among 'em! I do believe the crittur's Old Nick himself!"

"So don't I," said the other; "for it is quite unnatural to suppose the devil would ever take part against his own children."

"Perhaps," said Doe, "you don't believe in the crittur?"

"Good Jack, honest Jack," replied his companion, "I am no such a.s.s."

"Them that don't believe in h.e.l.l, will natterly go agin the devil,"

muttered the renegade, with strong signs of disapprobation; and then added earnestly,--"Look you, Squire, you're a man that knows more of things than me, and the likes of me. You saw that 'ere Injun, dead, in the woods under the tree, where the five scouters had left him a living man?"

"Ay," said the man of the turban; "but he had been wounded by the horseman you so madly suffered to pa.s.s the ambush at the ford, and was obliged to stop from loss of blood and faintness. What so natural as to suppose the younker fell upon him (we saw the tracks of the whole party where the body lay), and slashed him in your devil's style, to take advantage of the superst.i.tious fear of the Indians?"

"There's nothing like being a lawyer, sartain!" grumbled Doe.

"But the warrior right among us, there at the ruin?--you seed him yourself,--marked right in the thick of us! I reckon you won't say the sodger, that we had there trapped up fast in the cabin, put the cross on that Injun too?"

"Nothing more likely," said the sceptic;--"a stratagem a bold man might easily execute in the dark."

"Well, Squire," said Doe, waxing impatient, "you may jist as well work it out according to law that this same sodger younker, that never seed Kentucky afore in his life, has been butchering Shawnees there, ay, and in this d--d town too, for ten years agone. Ay, d.i.c.k, it's true, jist as I tell you: there has been a dozen or more Injun warriors struck and scalped in our very wigwams here, in the dead of the night, and nothing, in the morning, but the mark of the Jibbenainosay to tell who was the butcher. There's not a cussed warrior of them all that doesn't go to his bed at night in fear; for none knows when the Jibbenainosay,--the Howl of the Shawnees,--may be upon him. You must know, there was some b.l.o.o.d.y piece of business done in times past (Injuns is the boys for them things!)--the murdering of a knot of innocent people--by some of the tribe, with the old villain Wenonga at the head of 'em. Ever since that, the Jibbenainosay has been murdering among them; and they hold that it's a judgment on the tribe, as ondoubtedly it is. And now, you see, that's jist the reason why the old chief has turned such a vagabond; for the tribe is rifled at him, because of his bringing such a devil on them, and they won't follow him to battle no more, except some sich riff-raff, vagabond rascals as them we picked up for this here rascality, no how.

And so, you see, it has a sort of set the old feller mad: he thinks of nothing but the Jibbenainosay,--(that is, when he's sober, though, cuss him, I believe it's all one when he's drunk, too.)--of hunting him up and killing him, for he's jist a feller to fight the devil, there's no two ways about it. It was because I told him we was going to the woods on Salt, where the crittur abounds, and where he might get wind of him, that he smashed his rum-keg, and agreed to go with us."

"Well, well," said Doe's a.s.sociate, "this is idle talk. We have won the victory, and must enjoy it. I must see the prize."

"What good can come of it?" demanded Doe, moodily: "the gal's half dead and whole crazy,--or so Telie says. And as for your gitting any good-will out of her, cuss me if I believe it. And Telie says--"

"That Telie will spoil all! I told you to keep the girl away from her."

"Well, and didn't I act accordin'? I told her I'd murder her, if she went near her agin--a full-blooded, rale-grit rascal to talk so to my own daughter, an't I? But I should like to know where's the good of keeping the gal from her, since it's all she has for comfort?"

"And that is the very reason she must be kept away," said the stranger, with a look malignly expressive of self-approving cunning: "there must be no hope, no thought of security, no consciousness of sympathy, to make me more trouble than I have had already. She must know where she is, and what she is, a prisoner among wild savages: a little fright, a little despair, and the work is over. You understand me, eh? There is a way of bringing the devil himself to terms; and as for a woman, she is not much more unmanageable. One week of terrors, real and imagined, does the work; and then, my jolly Jack, you have won your wages."

"And I have desarved 'em," said Doe, striking his fist upon the table with violence; "for I have made myself jist the d----dest rascal that was ever made of a white man. Lying, and cheating, and perjuring, and murdering--it's nothing better nor murder, that of giving up the younker that never did harm to me or mine, to the Piankeshaws,--for they'll burn him, they will, d--n 'em! there's no two ways about it.--There's what I've done for you; and if you were to give me had the plunder, I reckon 'twould do no more than ind.a.m.nify me for my rascality. And so, here's the end on't;--you've made me a rascal, and you shall pay for it."

"It is the only thing the world ever does pay for," said the stranger, with edifying coolness; "and so, don't be afflicted. To be a rascal is to be a man of sense,--provided you are a rascal in a sensible way,--that is, a profitable one."

"Ay," said Doe, "that's the doctrine you have been preaching ever since I knowed you; and _you_ have made a fortun' by it. But as for me, though I've toed the track after your own leading, I'm jist as poor as ever, and ten times more despisable,--I am, d--n me; for I'm a white Injun, and there's nothing more despisable. But here's the case," he added, working himself into a rage,--"I won't be a rascla for nothing,--I'm sworn to it: and this is a job you must pay for to the full vally, or you're none the better on it."

"It will make your fortune," said his companion in iniquity: "there was bad luck about us before; but all is now safe--The girl will make us secure."

"I don't see into it a bit," said Doe, morosely: "you were secure enough without her. The story of the other gal you know of gave you the grab on the lands and vall'ables; and I don't see what's the good to come of this here other one, no how."

"Then have you less brains, my jolly Jack, then I have given you credit for," said the other. "The story you speak of is somewhat too flimsy to serve us long. We must have a better claim to the lands than can come of possession in trust for an heir not to be produced, till we can find the way to Abraham's bosom. We have now obtained it: the younker, thanks to your Piankeshaw cut-throats, is on the path to Paradise; the girl is left alone, sole claimant, and heiress at law. In a word, Jack, I design to marry her;--ay, faith will-she nill-she, I will marry her: and thereby, besides gratifying certain private whims and humours not worth mentioning, I will put the last finish to the scheme, and step into the estate with a clear conscience."

"But the will, the cussed old will?" cried Doe. "You've got up a cry about it, and there's them that won't let it drop so easy. What's an heir at law agin a will? You take the gal back, and the cry is, 'Where's the true gal, the major's daughter?' I reckon, you'll find you're jist got yourself into a trap of your own making!"

"In that case," said the stranger, with a grin, "we must e'en act like honest men, and find (after much hunting and rummaging, mind you!) the major's _last_ will."

"But you burned it!" exclaimed Doe: "you told me so yourself."

"I told you so, Jack; but that was a little bit of innocent deception, to make you easy. I told you so; but I kept it, to guard against accidents.

And here it is, Jack," added the speaker, drawing from amid the folds of his blanket a roll of parchment, which he proceeded very deliberately to spread upon the table: "The very difficulty you mention occurred to me; I saw it would not do to raise the devil, without retaining the power to lay him. Here then is the will, that settles the affair to your liking.

The girl and the younker are co-heirs together; but the latter dying intestate, you understand, the whole falls into the lap of the former.

Are you easy now, honest Jack? Will this satisfy you all is safe?"

"It is jist the thing to an iota," e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Doe, in whom the sight of the parchment seemed to awaken cupidity and exultation together: "there's no standing agin it in any court in Virginnee!"

"Right, my boy," said his a.s.sociate. "But where is the girl? I must see her."

"In the cabin with Wenonga's squaw, right over agin the Council-house,"

replied Doe; adding with animation, "but I'm agin your going nigh her, till we settle up accounts jist as honestly as any two sich d--d rascals can. I say, by G--, I must know how the book stands, and how I'm to finger the snacks: for snacks is the word, or the bargain's no go."

"Well,--we can talk of this on the morrow."

"To-night's the time," said Doe: "there's nothing like having an honest understanding of matters afore-hand. I'm not going to be cheated,--not meaning no offence in saying so; and I've jist made up my mind to keep the gal out of your way, till we've settled things to our liking."

"Spoken like a sensible rogue," said the stranger, with a voice all frankness and approval, but with a lowering look of impatience, which Nathan, who had watched the proceedings of the pair with equal amazement and interest, could observe from the c.h.i.n.k, though it was concealed from Doe by the position of the speaker, who had risen from his stool, as if to depart, but who now sat down again, to satisfy the fears of his partner in villany. To this he immediately addressed himself, but in tones lower than before, so that Nathan could no longer distinguish his words.

But Nathan had heard enough. The conversation, as far as he had distinguished it, chimed strangely in with all his own and Roland's suspicions; there was, indeed, not a word uttered that did not confirm them. The confessions of the stranger, vague and mysterious as they seemed, tallied in all respects with Roland's account of the villanous designs imputed to the hated Braxley; and it was no little additional proof of his ident.i.ty, that, in addressing Doe, whom he styled throughout as Jack, he had, once at least, called him by the name of Atkinson,--a refugee, whose connection with the conspiracy in Roland's story Nathan had not forgotten. It was not, indeed, surprising that Abel Doe should possess another name; since it was a common practice among renegades like himself, from some sentiment of shame or other obvious reasons, to a.s.sume an _alias_ and _nom de guerre_, under which they acquired their notoriety: the only wonder was, that he should prove to be that person whose agency in the abduction of Edith would, of all other men in the world, go furthest to sustain the belief of Braxley being the princ.i.p.al contriver of the outrage.

Such thoughts as these may have wandered through Nathan's mind; but he took little time to con them over. He had made a discovery at that moment of more stirring importance and interest. Allowing that Edith Forrester was the prisoner of whom the disguised stranger and his sordid confederate spoke, and there was little reason to doubt it, he had learned, out of their own mouths, the place of her concealment, to discover which was the object of his daring visit to the village. Her prison-house was the wigwam of Wenonga, the chief,--if chief he could still be called, whom the displeasure of his tribe had robbed of almost every vestige of authority; and thither Nathan, to whom the vile bargaining of the white-men no longer offered interest, supposing he could even have overheard it, instantly determined to make his way.

But how was Nathan to know the cabin of the chief from the dozen other hovels that surrounded the Council-house. That was a question which, perhaps Nathan did not ask himself: for creeping softly from Doe's hut, and turning into the street (if such could be called the irregular winding s.p.a.ce that separated the two lines of cabins composing the village), he stole forward, with nothing of the hesitation or doubt which might have been expected from one unfamiliar with the village.