A Virginia Scout Part 33

As she disappeared with her burden Black Hoof said something to Lost Sister's red husband. This warrior, very loath to miss the spectacle of a burning, sullenly glided after the woman. I feared he was sent to bring them back, but as they did not return I knew he was ordered to stand guard over them.

Now the opening was filled with the Shawnees, word having pa.s.sed that Black Hoof was about to appease his war-medicine. Only the scouts and Lost Sister's man remained out. Dale was stood on his feet and his upper garments were torn off from him. As they offered to lead him to the stake he struck their hands aside and with firm step walked inside the circle of brush which had been heaped up some five feet from the stake.

I closed my eyes and endeavored not to witness the scene but was unable to keep them closed. With a spancel rope fastened to his ankles Dale was further secured by a long cord tied around one wrist and fastened some fifteen feet up the trimmed sapling.

When the flames began to bite on one side he could hobble around the post to the opposite side. As the flames spread he would become very active, but each revolution around the post would shorten the slack of the wrist-cord. With the entire circle of fuel ablaze he would slowly roast.

Black Hoof muttered some gibberish and applied the torch.

As the first billow of smoke rose and before the savages could commence their dancing and preliminary tortures, Ericus Dale threw back his head and loudly prayed:

"O G.o.d, protect my little girl! O G.o.d, have mercy upon me!"

Black Hoof jeered him, sardonically crying:

"The white man makes medicine to his white manito. Let Big Turtle[4] try him with a mouthful of fire. We will see if the white manito is weak or afraid to help his child."

A burly warrior scooped up coals on a piece of bark and with a fiendish grin leaped through the smoke. Two rifle shots, so close together as to be almost one, shattered the tense silence as the savages held their breath to enjoy every symptom of the excruciating agony. Dale went down on his knees, a small blue hole showing where the bullet mercifully had struck his heart. Big Turtle leaped backward and fell into the burning brush. A warrior, acting mechanically, dragged the Turtle clear of the flames. He was stone-dead.

For several moments the Indians were incapable of motion, so astounding was this interference with their sport. It was the scream of a panther that awoke them to furious activity. Black Hoof shouted for his men to catch the white scout. Then he turned on me and raised his ax. The act was involuntary, for at once dropping his arm he ordered his men to extinguish the fire and to see I did not escape. Then he hurried into the forest.

The fire was stamped out and Dale's body removed to one side. I asked them to cover the dead man with a blanket, which they readily did. Now Lost Sister returned, this time leading Patricia. I called to her in Shawnee:

"Bring the white girl here. Does she know her father is dead?"

"I told her. The men said he was killed by a white bullet," was the sullen reply.

"Leave her with me and wash the black from his face," I said.

She brought her charge to me. Patricia's eyes were hot as if with fever.

She dropped beside me and stared wildly. Then she began to remember and said:

"My father is dead, they tell me."

"He is dead. He suffered none. It is as he wished. He could not escape. He is at peace."

"Life is so terrible," she mumbled. "Death is so peaceful. Death is so beautiful. Then one is so safe."

She gave a little scream and collapsed with her head resting on my bound hands. But although her slender frame shook convulsively she shed no tears.

I tried to talk to her as I would to a little child. After a while she rose and her composure frightened me. She walked to her father. Lost Sister had removed the tell-tale black. The girl kneeled and kissed him and patted his hair. Then returning to me, she quietly said:

"He looks very peaceful. Very happy. I am glad he did not have to suffer.

The bullet that took his life was very kind. It must be very beautiful to be dead."

She ceased speaking and slowly began stretching her arms above her head, and with a long-drawn scream she fell over backward and I knew she had lost her reason.

[4] Also Daniel Boone's Shawnee name in later years.

CHAPTER X

OUR MEDICINE GROWS STRONGER

The Shawnees' anxiety to start for the Ohio almost became a panic. The tragic manner in which they had been robbed of their victim, the screaming defiance of young Cousin, together with their losses in warriors, convinced them something was radically wrong with their war-medicine.

Outwardly Black Hoof remained calm but I knew he was greatly worried. His medicine had designated Dale for the torture, and then had permitted a bullet to release the man.

Nor was it any small influence which the girl's condition exerted in this desire to retreat. She seemed to be stunned. She walked about, but without appearing to hear or see her captors. There was none of the savages who did not believe her terrible scream prefaced her crossing the dividing-line between reason and insanity.

As an insane person she was under the special protection of the great manito, and black woe to him who interfered with her. The chief was eager to abandon her to be picked up by the settlers at Howard's Creek, but she clung tenaciously to Cousin's sister. The latter displayed no emotion over this preference, yet she did not repulse the girl. She even was gentle in caring for her.

Ward was for finis.h.i.+ng me out of hand, but Black Hoof insisted I should carry packs and make myself useful before being dispensed with. Then again I would be something to display at the villages and something to dance about when it came to appeasing the ghosts of the slain warriors. We broke camp that night, and with malicious ingenuity Ward strapped packs on my shoulders until my back buckled. As he finished and was promising to thrust his knife into my legs if I displayed any weariness, Cousin's sister came up and sharply directed him to remove the packs as I was to serve as a litter-bearer.

"The white woman asks for him," she said. "Cataheca.s.sa gives him to me to help carry the medicine-woman."

Ward raged, but Black Hoof upheld the girl; and although I knew Patricia was too insensible of her surroundings to ask for any one, I was keen to serve her. Lost Sister had fas.h.i.+oned a rude litter out of rawhide and two saplings, slack between the poles so the girl could not roll out. To my surprise she stepped between the saplings at the forward end and called on me to pick up the other end and march. I considered it to be a man's work, but she made nothing of it, and never called a halt that she might rest.

In the morning the hunters brought in some deer-meat and turkeys, and we camped long enough to eat. Once more Ward endeavored to prevail upon the chief to put me out of the way. He played upon Black Hoof's superst.i.tions very cunningly by declaring the war-medicine would be very weak until I was killed. The chief was impressed, else he never would have come to stare at me.

It happened, however, that Patricia was delirious, and it was my hand on her head that seemed to quiet her. Lost Sister told a n.o.ble lie by volunteering the information that it was my presence that kept the girl quiet. Black Hoof and his braves had a great fear of the girl when she began her rambling talk. They believed she was surrounded by ghosts and talking with them. So Ward's request was refused, and stern orders were given that I should not be harmed. When the home villages were reached, he added, I might be burned.

When we made our second camp on the Kanawha I called Black Hoof to me. I had been staked out in spread-eagle fas.h.i.+on and my guards had placed saplings across my body and were preparing to lie down on the ends at each side of me. I a.s.sured the chief there was no danger of my running away, as my medicine would wither and die, did I forsake the great manito's child; and I asked him to relieve me of the cords and saplings. He told the warriors to omit the cords.

The next time we halted to s.n.a.t.c.h a few hours' sleep he ordered that no more saplings be placed across me, that it would be sufficient to tie my ankles and wrists. This was a great relief. During this portion of the march the girl seemed oblivious to her surroundings, also to the fact that she was a captive. She showed a strong preference for Lost Sister's company, and would glance about worriedly if the young woman left her sight.

So it devolved on the two of us, both white, to care for her. There were times when she babbled of faraway scenes, of Williamsburg and her old home, of the streets of Norfolk and Richmond. She talked with those she had known as children. When in this condition the Indians were glad to keep away from us. Even Ward would not willingly remain within hearing of her sweet voice could he avoid so doing. And alas! There were other times when she was almost violent, when only Lost Sister could soothe and quiet her.

By the time we reached the mouth of the Great Kanawha no guard was kept over me that I could perceive; nor were my limbs any longer bound at night. At each camp Lost Sister ranged the woods and brought in roots and herbs and made strange-smelling messes in a camp kettle and a.s.siduously dosed the girl.

Rafts were quickly knocked together and the crossing made to the Indian sh.o.r.e. I had expected the band to dig out hidden canoes and descend to the mouth of the Scioto. Instead we struck into a trail across-country. The path was well worn, and the fork we followed ended at the Scioto above Chillicothe, the princ.i.p.al Shawnee town.

Much of the distance Patricia walked, although the litter was taken along for her convenience. Lost Sister talked with me at times and I began to feel that the barrier between us was much lower. But she never spoke of the settlements or her brother. Her talk was always a red talk and she never addressed me except in Shawnee.

From her I learned we were making for Cornstalk's Town, some twenty-five miles above Chillicothe, located on Scippo Creek. Among border men this region was known as the Pickaway Plains. Near our destination was Grenadier Squaw's Town, named after Cornstalk's gigantic sister.

I suffered no incivility during the overland march. My status became that of an attendant on the great manito's medicine-child. Patricia continued in a dazed state of mind, but after two days of arduous travel I detected her weeping. Lost Sister enigmatically warned:

"She is another woman. She is more like the woman she once was. She must keep close to her manito."

I could interpret this only to mean that the girl was recovering from her mental shock and was recalling bits of the past, and that she was safe only so long as the savages believed her to be insane. At our last camp from Cornstalk's Town Patricia insisted on walking beside me when the trace would permit it and she startled me by saying:

"My father was good to me."

"Do you remember me?" I asked.