Manly Wade Wellman - Novel 1966 (10 page)

 
          
“And
one from across the river to the south,” contributed Celia, on watch there as
she drove down the ramrod to put another bullet into Mark’s rifle.

 
          
“Then
eight or more guns were let off at us then,” Mark added them up quickly. “Most
of the shots came on this side, from among the trees on the ridge. From there,
as I think, they will seek to charge, if they plan to do so.”

 
          
His
own heart sank within him. He felt suddenly alone. After all, Celia was but a
girl, for all her brave talk. Schneider had confessed his timidity, again and
again. But even as Mark fought against a sense of despair, Schneider spoke.

 
          
“Charge?”
he echoed Mark’s word. “Let them dare.”

 
          
“What
do you say?” Mark asked, amazed.

 
          
“Ach so,
I haf been a man of peace, many
years,” said Schneider.
“Never haf I vanted to fight.
So when they try to make me fight, I ran off from fighting. I left my home, I
left
England
’s army,
I
said I wanted to be American.” Mark
heard him stamp his foot on the floor, as though to muster his resolve.
“American,
ja!”
Schneider proclaimed.
“I am American now. I make
mein
home
here. I never wanted to take homes from other people—other people, they must
not take
mein
home from me.”

 
          
Even
as he spoke, he clapped his long musket to the loophole, sighted and fired.
Smoke came jetting back into the room, and Schneider made a noise in his
throat.

 
          
“A
face looked out,” he told Mark and Celia. “I saw red paint on it, and I took
straight aim and true. Now only seven Injuns left out there, maybe.”

 
          
Wessah
came and rubbed against Schneider’s leg, as though to congratulate him.
Schneider put the musket’s butt to the floor and set about reloading it.

 
          
“I
fear there are more than seven,” Mark felt obliged to say. “We counted only
certain flashes of gunfire. They may have more guns than that, and hold some
while others let off. And not all those Indians have guns, for I have seen war
bows in the hands of some of them.”

 
          
“Seven
or seventy, I am ready to fight,” grumbled Schneider, with a resolution that
amazed Mark anew. “You hit two, Mark, I hit vun. Three Indians down. Pretty
soon, maybe ve get more of them,
nicht
wahr?
I am afraid of them no more.”

 
          
Celia
drew back away from her lookout position, and made a quick check among the
shelves and pots beside the wide fireplace.

 
          
“There’s
a big bucket with two gallons of water in it,” she said. “And here are bread
and meat.” She peered into a kettle. “
Aye,
and this is
half-full of greens, boiled with bacon. We cannot be starved out, not for some
days at least.” She looked around at Mark. “I wonder if Mr. Durwell has won his
way to the tavern as yet.”

 
          
Returning
to the table, she picked up Durwell’s rifle. She seemed to hold it confidently
as she sought the south window once again.

 
          
“Mr.
Durwell must be there, or nearly,” Mark reassured her, and felt his own spirits
rising. “Bolly could make that trip within minutes. Just now, the sun is high
overhead. Half this day is gone, and we should be able to hold out strongly
until the other half is gone also.”

 
          
“And at night, vot then?”
Schneider prompted him.

 
          
“Then
we will have darkness on our side,” said Mark. “Perhaps we can slip out and
make our escape from here.”

 
          
From
the table he took one of Durwell’s pistols and carried it with him into the
sleeping chamber. He laid it on the quilt of the bed nearest the window, drew
his tomahawk from his belt, and laid that beside the pistol. If attack
developed from that quarter, the enemy could not hope to enter except by
breaking in through the shutter. Mark promised himself silently that he would
shoot one if they charged in force, maybe could reload his rifle and shoot
another. If the shutter was breached, the pistol could claim the first Indian
through the window, could claim maybe more than one since it was charged with
several bullets. After that, he would still fight hand to hand, with tomahawk
or knife or clubbed rifle.

 
          
“Do
you see any movement outside?” he asked the others.

 
          
“Not
a glimpse,” came back Schneider’s voice.

 
          
“And
naught below here,” said Celia.

 
          
They
lapsed into silence, all three of them. Mark sat down on the bed to gaze out of
the loophole. He was not relaxed, but some of his nervous tenseness had
departed. A minute passed.
Another minute.
Mark
studied the trees that might mask Indians lurking close at hand.

 
          
Then:
“Hel-looooo!”
came
a long, quavering hail. “Hello to
the house!”

 
          
Instantly
Mark was on his feet, listening.

 
          
“Hello
to the house and all good people within!” someone was shouting. “The
danger’s
past, friends. Those murdering red raiders have had
enough— they’ve fled away to the west.”

 
          
Mark
drew in his breath sharply.

 
          
“Come
forth,” the man outside was inviting. “All is well!”

 
          
“Oh,
heaven be thanked,” Celia said under her breath, and started to cross the
floor, as though to lift the bar and open the door. But Mark raced to her and
caught her wrist.

 
          
“No,
don’t listen to him,” he warned, the words tumbling over themselves.

 
          
“But
he said—”

 
          
“I
know that voice,” Mark interrupted her. “I’d know it among a thousand. ’Tis
Quill Moxley, trying to coax us out to our ruin.”

 
          
Return
of a Foe

 
          
Mark
HAD spoken like the captain Durwell had called him. At once Celia moved
obediently, clear of the door. Schneider turned puzzled eyes upon Mark.

 
          
“Now
you tell me, I think I, too, knew it for his voice,” Celia half whispered.

 
          
“Back
to your watching,” Mark commanded them. “Go yonder into the sleeping room,
Schneider, and look sharp to the north. Celia, take your place at the door.
Make no sound, either of you. If any talking is to be done, leave it to me.”

 
          
Schneider
trotted into the other chamber with his musket, Wessah at his heels. Mark
peered through the loophole that gave a view to the south, then through the
westward one. He saw no token of danger, which made his blood tingle the more
alertly.

 
          
“Hello
within!” rose the voice of Moxley again. It seemed to issue from trees growing
thickly at the side of the road to the west of the mill. “Why do you not answer
me? I tell you, there’s naught to be afraid of.”

 
          
Mark
cupped his hands at the loophole and shouted through them as through a trumpet.
“We do not fear you,” he yelled his loudest. “But neither are we deceived by
you!”

 
          
“Nay,
the Indians are gone every one, and here are only true men—”

 
          
“You
are Quill Moxley!” Mark broke in upon that assurance.
“Quill
Moxley, the falsest and vilest man alive!”

 
          
Mark
knew, without turning away from the loophole, that Celia started nervously at
the deadly fury in his voice. He waited.

 
          
Then
Moxley raised another shout. “Who speaks? Is it Mark Jarrett, mayhap?”

 
          
“Aye,
you know my voice as I know yours,” Mark trumpeted back to him. “I read your
scurvy hopes, Moxley. We do not come out to be targets for your savages. But
you may come in here after us, if you dare.”

 
          
Laughter
floated to him from the trees.

 
          
“Mark
Jarrett, Mark Jarrett, you and I should compose our ancient quarrels. Hear me—I
cry you truce for a quarter of an hour. See, my white flag.”

 
          
Something
like a dingy napkin fluttered in the greenery.

 
          
“Suffer
me to come close without shooting,” Moxley urged. “The two of us can talk
sensibly.”

 
          
“Show
yourself at your peril,” Mark warned. “I do not believe your talk, and I hold
no parley with you.”

           
“Nay, patience, I beseech!” Moxley
persisted, apparently in the utmost of good humor. “I say I’ll come forth
unarmed. I swear to you, on my word of honor—”

 
          
“If
you swore by every holy name,” interrupted Mark again, “and kissed the Bible to
boot, I’d know you lied with every breath. We’ll have no truce, I say.
And no deceits.”

 
          
“Bravo,”
applauded Schneider through the door to the other room. “Bravely, you speak,
Mark Jarrett. I say amen.”

 
          
Again
silence outside. At last Moxley spoke, from some closer point. Evidently he had
taken time to creep forward through undergrowth.

 
          
“You
flout me thus because you think that rider will fetch help for you,” he said.
“But we settled him within less than a mile of here.”

 
          
“That’s
another lie,” accused Mark promptly. “It ’twere so, you’d keep the news from
me. You’d never claim it so lightly.”

 
          
“Be
it
lie
or true word, his ride will never bring back
friends to save you,” Moxley said doggedly. “Your folk at yonder tavern will
have all they can do to meet and fight their own day’s dangers.”

 
          
As
he spoke, there was a sound like a distant clap of thunder, away to the east.

 
          
“There,
boy, hear you those guns?” Moxley taunted him. “They have opened on your
friends and kinsmen, back where you live. As for you, I’ve been patient
overlong, longer than you deserve. Come forth, I command, you and those with
you, unarmed and with your hands up. And quick’s the word, Mark Jarrett, if you
hope for any mercy.”

 
          
“Nay,
we hope for no mercy from you,” Mark told him. “We’ll just stay where we are.”

 
          
Schneider
clicked his tongue, again signifying applause. Out in the brush, Moxley
laughed.

 
          
“Then
you’ll force us to burn that mill around your stupid heads,” he threatened.

 
          
“You’ll
never do that,” Mark flung back, for he remembered what Tsukala had said on the
subject. “If you burn this mill, you’ll burn the things your hungry Indians
need so sorely. You’ll burn bushels of corn, of ground meal. Did your friends
eat well this morning, Moxley? I think they’re sharp-set. We have good store of
breadstuffs in here with us, and you’ll never get them if you come not and try
to take them.” Moxley made no reply. Mark exulted, for plainly there would be
no effort to set the mill afire. Wessah strolled to Mark and sat at his feet,
as though he, too, were waiting for what Moxley might say next.

 
          
“Do
you sit there and play at twiddle-thumb, Moxley?” Mark jibed at last. “Or have
you no more lies to tell? I’d be sorry for
that,
they
serve to pass our dull time away.”

 
          
“Laugh,
and be blasted to you,” Moxley said thickly, as though he spoke through angrily
clenched teeth. “Laugh your fill, Mark Jarrett. You’ve been my sore trouble
since first we met.”

 
          
“
Aye,
and I’ve taught you a lesson or two,” Mark continued to
banter.

 
          
“ ’Twill
be my high pleasure to teach you one, that he who
laughs last laughs best.”

 
          
At
that, Mark drew a deep breath and laughed his loudest, in defiant challenge.

 
          
“Pleasure
yourself
,” Moxley growled. “Laugh while you may, like
the trapped fool you are. I tell you truly, you’ll be lucky if you die a quick
death fighting. My friends here around me are skilled at inventing slow, new
ways of death. Should they capture you, I’ll not stint them of their
employment.”

 
          
All
this while Mark had been listening and peering carefully, in an effort to
decide from what point in the tangled greenery Moxley was lying. But he wanted
to be more certain. If he could goad Moxley to talk further, perhaps Moxley
would betray his position.

 
          
“You
prate of captures,” Mark pursued, on inspiration. “But you yourself were a
captive, and a man accused before the law, for all the rascal tricks you sought
to play on us here. If you have escaped from jail, you’d be better off
somewhere far from the State of
North Carolina
.”

 
          
Moxley
laughed himself at that, a slow, deadly laugh. “Nay, I have been acquitted at
law. You’ll recall that Epps Emmondson and Barney Cole were charged along with
me, for various matters. I spoke sensibly to the State’s officers, and they had
a ready ear for what I was able to say. In court, I gave witness for them,
against poor, silly Epps and poor, troubled Barney. So they are convicted and
fast in prison, while a grateful judge bade me go and sin no more. I can walk
free, where I will in
North Carolina
.”

 
          
“You
know, and so do I, that you are guilty,” said Mark, to draw another word from
him.

 
          
“What
you and I know is one thing,” Moxley said, with a great burlesque of friendly
argument. “What the law says of me is another, and the law says not guilty. Nor
can I be tried twice on the same accusation.”

 
          
Mark
had backed away from the loophole. He lifted his rifle. Resting the muzzle just
within the open, he gazed carefully through the sights toward the clutter of
leaves where he felt sure Moxley lay and sneered at him.

 
          
“Twice
in the past you’ve spoiled my hopes and labors, Mark Jarrett,” Moxley was
saying. “A third time is too much luck for you to count on so surely.”

 
          
Mark
fired. The smoke spurted, the shot sounded flatly. And the roaring laughter of
Moxley came as an echo to it.

           
“Ho, you
lost,
thick-headed woods calf!” Moxley exulted at him. “Did you truly think I’d not
protect myself, here so close to you and your gun? I am lying behind a great
thick stump, and it took that pill of lead with which you hoped to dose me.”

 
          
Mark
had drawn back his rifle and was pouring down a charge.

 
          
“I’ll
dig that bullet out with my knife,” Moxley was promising shrilly. “I’ll load it
into my own gun, and fire it into your vitals the moment you dare show your
cowardly body.”

 
          
“You’re
thrice welcome to that bullet, Moxley, for ’tis your own,” Mark returned, as
insolently as he could manage. “I fired it from the very rifle we captured from
you last spring, when my father dusted our front yard from the back of your
jacket. And we took your bullets and powder horn, too, and those I have with
me.”

 
          
Once
again silence, inside, outside, all around the mill.
Then,
another sound of distant guns.
The battle at the tavern was going on,
and fiercely.

 
          
“We
can rest with some ease now,” Mark said to Celia and Schneider. “We have all
our pieces ready loaded, have we not?”

 
          
As
he spoke, he put down the Moxley rifle and took up his own.

 
          
“We
can take turns at keeping watch,” he directed, “for each of us knows what to
beware of. One of us shall keep ever on the move, from loophole to loophole all
around, studying the forest through each in turn. At any hint of danger, we all
spring to readiness. Now, Schneider, do you take the first tour.”

 
          
“
Jawohl ”
said
Schneider promptly. Carrying his musket with its fixed bayonet, he went to the
hole in the door, then to each of the front room windows, and then into the
sleeping chamber to observe from there.

 
          
“Celia,”
said Mark, “you look warlike enough with that gun in your hands to frighten an
entire army. Put it aside within easy reach, and see if you can look us out
some dinner. If we must fight, let us not fight hungry.”

 
          
So
saying, he sat on a stool, cradling his loaded rifle between his knees, and
watched as Celia leaned her own weapon against the wall. She brought out the
big piece of corn bread from which Durwell had cut them portions for eating
with the berries, and took a knife to slice off three more generous pieces. She
found cups and filled three of them from the water bucket. There was some cold
roast venison on an iron platter, and Celia served some of that onto three
plates,
then
dipped out helpings of the greens and
bacon.

 
          
“Would
I might take time to warm these greens for us,” she half mourned.

 
          
“Nein,”
said Schneider, making another
round of the various loopholes.
“It iss goot so.
Myself, I like cold greens.”

 
          
Celia
brought Mark a plate of food and a mug of water. He found himself eating with
eager relish. Celia offered him the pot of strained honey, and Mark spread some
upon his corn bread. Swiftly he cleaned up the meat, bread and greens, and
drained the last drop of water. Then he rose and carried the empty dishes to the
table.