Manly Wade Wellman - Novel 1966 (3 page)

 
          
Out
of a bushel I’ll take a peck—’

 
          
‘Father,
father, my name is Ralph,

 
          
Out
of a bushel I’ll take a half—’

 
          
‘Father,
father, my name is Paul,

 
          
Out
of a bushel I’ll take it all—’

 
          
‘Now,
glory
be
!’ the old man says,

 
          
‘I’ve
got one son who’s learned my ways!’ ”

 
          
Mark
joined Tsukala and Schneider. “All happy and neighborly here,” Mark commented.

 
          
“
Ja
,
they vould
not sing that song if they thought ve stole too much,” said Schneider. “A
miller’s fair toll is two quarts in a bushel, vun share out of sixteen.”

 
          
“Your
cat Wessah does not say that,” Tsukala made one of his unsmiling jokes. “He
counts
taladu nungi,
sixteen four.”

 
          
“Ach,
Tsukala,
all
times you speak of strange doings.”

           
“What strange doings?” inquired
Mark.

 
          
“He
asked about Indian spirits,” said Tsukala. “I told him.”

 
          
Schneider
drew up his shoulders, not quite shuddering.
“Ja,
tales of spirits,
teufels,
ghosts burning like fire at night. I feel I am come to a haunted country.”

 
          
Mark
laughed. “I thought the same, when Quill Moxley and his rascals played tricks
hereabout,” he said. “But those are things of the past, Bram Schneider. Your
mill’s loud, brave voice will frighten all evil away.”

 
          
“Ach so”
returned Schneider, not much
reassured. “By day all is goot, but at night the mill keeps silent. I lie in
bed, and dream I hear feet valking, voices vis- pering.”

 
          
Again
Mark laughed. “Did I hear such
things,
I’d lean out
the window and see how big a bullet a ghost could carry away with him.”

 
          
“Nein”
argued Schneider. “Ghosts are not
hurt by bullets.”

 
          
Tsukala
looked steadily at Schneider, and his face was expressionless in the moonlight.
“You asked for stories,” he said. “I should not have told you.”

 
          
Will
ceased fiddling the song of the miller, and the dances came to a halt. Mark
returned toward them, clapping his hands. Then Durwell called for Schneider to
dance a German jig, and Mr. Jarrett played

           
"Betty
Martin”
while Schneider, nimble and even graceful for all his plumpness,
jigged, postured, and whirled. He finished by leaping high and cracking his
heels, and grinned around at the applause as though he had forgotten his
nervous fears.

 
          
When
good nights were said, Mr. Jarrett helped his wife and
Will
mount Bolly and led them away. Mark helped Celia to Oscar’s back, lifted Alice
and Anthony astride,
then
strolled with them on foot.

 
          
“You
are silent, Mark,” said Celia as they moved along the homeward trail. “See to
the moon up there, is it not beautiful? This is no night to be grave and glum.”

 
          
“I
was only listening,” said Mark.

 
          
“Listening
to what?”

 
          
“To the trees, the air.
Bram Schneider spoke of strange
noises around the mill, and so I have been lending an ear. But I hear nothing
uncanny.”

 
          
Celia
laughed merrily. “I think that Mr. Schneider wants to be frightened. He’s in a
strange, wild land, and he wants strangeness about him.”

 
          
“It
may well be.”

 
          
They
reached home as Mark’s father helped his wife down. Mark took the bridles of
both horses and led them to their shed. A shadow moved at the door.

 
          
"Ahi,”
a soft voice greeted him.

 
          
“What
is it, Tsukala?” Mark asked as he unbuckled the girth of Oscar’s saddle.

           
“That man Schneider is much afraid.”

 
          
“He
dreams he hears things in the night,” said Mark.

 
          
“Maybe
he does not dream. I walked in woods today to hunt. Found tracks by the river.”

 
          
“My
tracks, or Esau’s, or—” Mark began.

 
          
“No,”
said Tsukala. “No tracks of men who live here. I know all those tracks. These
are made by a stranger.”

 
          
Mark
whistled softly. “An enemy, you think?” “You get up early,” Tsukala suggested.
“Get up before sun. I will be here. You and I will go, see those tracks. Maybe
follow them.”

 
          
“Agreed,”
said Mark, urging the horses into their stalls.

 
          
“Tomorrow,”
Tsukala said, and departed into the shadows under the trees.

 
          
Tracks
of Evil

 
          
Mark
AND Will slept in the open-air bachelor quarters they had made, a roof of
evergreen thatch raised on upright poles. An hour before dawn, Mark opened his
eyes and slipped from his blankets. The oncoming fall would make nights chilly
in this bower, he told himself. Perhaps he and Will would lay poles horizontally
for walls, chink them with clay, and sheathe the roof with shingles. A small
hearth and chimney would give cheerful heat. But just now, there was a morning
expedition to accomplish.

 
          
Taking
care not to rouse Will, Mark donned shirt, leggings and moccasins. He took his
rifle from its brackets under the roof, slung his powder horn over his shoulder
and fastened his bullet pouch to his belt. He saw firelight through the
half-open kitchen door of the family cabin, and made his way to it.

 
          
Celia
was inside. “This morning was my turn to milk the cow,” she said, arranging
pans on a shelf. “Will you have breakfast with me? There’s coffee, and some of
yesterday’s corn bread made
warm,
and fresh butter.”

           
Gratefully Mark accepted a share. “I
am for the woods today,” he said.

 
          
“What
do you seek in the woods?”

 
          
“Tsukala
wants to show me some tracks,” he replied. “
Hark,
I
think he’s at the door even now.” Celia opened it, and Tsukala entered on
silent moccasins, bow in hand. With a nod of thanks, he took a chunk of bread
from the platter and drank a mug of coffee sweetened with brown sugar. They all
finished quickly. Celia began to wash dishes, and Tsukala and Mark went out. In
silence they followed the trail to the Black Willow River. The first gray light
of dawn touched them as they followed the north bank.

 
          
“I
go in front, watch for the trail,” muttered Tsukala at last. “You come at the
back, watch both ways. Keep your gun ready.”

 
          
“ ’Tis
always ready.” Mark poised his long rifle in
practiced hands. “Where’s this moccasin track?” “You will see. No, don’t follow
path. We will go beside the water.”

 
          
They
came to where a string of rocks made it possible to cross the river dry-footed.
Mark followed his friend to the south bank, and Tsukala headed westward there,
just inside the line of riverside trees. Not a sound did he make as he
advanced. Mark, too, moved noiselessly. Months of scouting and hunting in these
woods had made him able to do that. He peered into thickets, past big trunks,
but saw and heard nothing.

           
They had accomplished more than two
miles, and the sunrise had turned the dim gray light to soft rose, when Tsukala
put his hand behind him, palm toward Mark, to signal a halt. Then Tsukala crept
forward alone, bending double, toward a sort of clearing by the river. It had
been a drinking place for deer in the first days of the Jarretts’ adventures at
Bear Paw Gap. Tsukala looked cautiously this way and that, across the river,
and among the trees on the clearing’s far side. Then he ventured into the open.
He dropped to one knee and motioned for Mark to join him.

 
          
“See,”
whispered Tsukala, and lifted a big patch of bark. “I hid track with this.”

 
          
Mark
studied the moccasin print. As Tsukala said, it was not a familiar one—Mark,
too, knew the tracks of his fellow-settlers by study. This was larger and
longer even than the prints of the big feet of Joseph Shelton or Lapham
Phillips.

 
          
“Indian
track,” pronounced Tsukala.

 
          
“How
do you know?”

 
          
Tsukala
gestured. “Deep here, at the outside. White men set whole foot to the ground.
Indians walk on outside, toes turn in.”

 
          
That
was a new thought to Mark, but he had become used to learning trail wisdom from
Tsukala. “It points westward,” he said.

 
          
“Yuh.
Come, we
will go west, too.”

 
          
Again
Tsukala led the way, in the direction to which the big track pointed. He moved
more slowly,
questing
this way and that. Some twenty
paces farther along, he grunted and bent to look at a slight scrape in moist
earth. Mark, also examining this trace, judged that it was hours old, probably made
the day before. Tsukala turned away from the river, and squatted on his heels
to peer at the ground again. He waved Mark close.

 
          
“More
than one man,” he said under his breath.

 
          
Mark
saw a flat piece of stone the size of his hand, with a smaller chunk upon it
and a second pebble against it on the westward side. “What does that mean,
Tsukala?”

 
          
“Indian
sign,” Tsukala replied.
“Stone with little stone on top—that
means a trail.
Little stone to one
side, that
shows which way to go. Cherokees do that.”

 
          
“A
Cherokee should be your friend,” Mark suggested.

 
          
“Maybe,”
said Tsukala darkly. “Cherokees are like white men—some good, some bad. Come.”

 
          
Watchfully
they moved westward. Mark judged that they must be almost due south of
Durwell’s new mill. Tsukala signaled another halt, and inspected the trunk of a
tall oak. He gazed up among its branches,
then
looked
in all directions. The morning sun gave clear light by now.

 
          
“Somebody
climbed this tree,” he said as Mark joined him, and stooped to survey the ground.
“Aht,
the big
foot.”
He pointed with the heel of his hand to where a blurred track was
visible between two outspread roots. “He jumped, caught hold of that branch up
there. See, his foot scraped the bark. He climbed to look at your friends, over
there at what you call the mill.”

 
          
“When
did he climb, Tsukala?”

 
          
“More
times than one, I think. Wessah watched from the roof. Wessah knew he was in
this tree, looking. See, Big Foot left his gun here to climb.”

 
          
He
laid his palm on the trunk, and Mark saw a slight nick in the bark, where a gun
sight had leaned. “Anyway, he didn’t climb up there to shoot at us,” Mark
offered.

 
          
“No.
He counted white men to know their strength. Maybe shooting will come later.
But he came here, left a trail for others.”

 
          
And
Tsukala pointed to where, several paces away, had been placed another flat
rock, with a smaller piece upon it and a pebble on that.

 
          
“Three
rocks together,” Mark said. “What is that sign?”

 
          
“Big
Foot marked a place for his friends to gather.” Tsukala paced carefully toward
the little pile of stones for a closer look.

 
          
But
Mark, staring upward among the branches of the oak, spied a tiny bit of bright
red. At once he leaned his rifle against the bark, setting its sight where the
prowler had set his. Then he gathered himself, leaped high and caught a branch.
Nimbly he swung himself into the tree and climbed. He found the little red
thing, a tuft of dyed feathers that was caught in a roughness on the main
trunk. Digging it out with his thumbnail, he slid down again.

 
          
Quickly
he went to join Tsukala, who was examining the ground where the stones were
piled.

 
          
“Others
came here,” Tsukala reported. “More moccasin tracks—five men, I think, maybe
more. They had guns. See, one man set his gun there.” He looked at the feather
tuft in Mark’s hand, and his eyes grew suddenly wide. “Where did you find
that?”

 
          
“It
was up in the oak, where that big-footed man climbed.”

 
          
Tsukala
took the feathers. His face fell into a creased expression of concern.

 
          
“Quick,”
he whispered. “We go away from here. Now I know who Big Foot is.”

 
          
“Who?”

 
          
“Cherokee.
A bad Cherokee.
Come, I
say.”

 
          
In
swift silence, Tsukala went back toward the east, Mark at his heels. They came
to where the drinking place was, and beyond, to where a great fallen log made a
rough bridge over the water. Tsukala looked up and down the river.

 
          
“Stand
ready with your gun,” he told Mark. “I go across.”

           
Mark waited, finger on trigger,
until Tsukala had walked along the log to the far side. There, Tsukala laid an
arrow to his bowstring, and jerked with his head for Mark to follow. Then they
headed to the road, and on the far side of it Tsukala squatted. Mark knelt
beside him.

 
          
“I
do not think they will come here,” said Tsukala. “Now, we talk.”

 
          
“Aye,
tell me how you know that bad Cherokee.”

 
          
Tsukala
still held the feathers in his hand. “He always wore these.
Red
feathers, on his belt and his leggings.
The feathers were his medicine,
he said. His name is Jipi. His heart was a bad one, to all men.”

 
          
Tsukala’s
mouth was narrow, his mouth hard, as though he remembered old, bitter things.

 
          
“It
was a long time back,” he continued. “Back when your people fought the
redcoats. The Cherokees took council. Some said, it was a white men’s war and
the Cherokees should not fight. Others said, there was old friendship with the
redcoats, that the

 
          
Cherokees
should help them.”

 
          
“Some
Cherokees did fight against us,” Mark said. “There was bitter fighting in
1776—sixteen years ago.”

 
          
“I
was medicine man then, with a small band that lived near this place,” Tsukala
went on with his tale. “We wondered if it must be peace or war, and the old
chiefs asked me to pray to Those Above, to learn the truth. I prayed, and in my
heart I heard an answer. I told them that we must keep peace.”

 
          
“Would
that all men kept peace,” Mark could not help saying.

 
          
“Ahi,
young warrior, you say wise
words.” Tsukala frowned at the twist of red feathers. “All chiefs but one said
I was wise. But Jipi was a chief among us. He was our biggest warrior, our
strongest. Some young men followed him and said he was brave and wise. Jipi
said he, too, had prayed. He said we must fight both sides—your people and the
redcoats.” “Make war on all white men?”

 
          
“Yuh.
He said that
then white men would leave this land. The Cherokees would be strong again, in
their own place. The other chiefs heard him. They said they would do what he
said. They made a war party to fight some redcoats, off there,” and Tsukala
stretched his arm to hold his palm toward the northeast.

 
          
“Then?”
prompted Mark.

 
          
“We
fought them, but they were many, and their hearts were brave. They killed some
of us, and the others came back to camp. But Jipi had run away from that fight,
when it began. We found him at camp, taking things—furs, beads, weapons. A
chief’s wife saw him with her man’s tomahawk, and when she said he stole it, he
struck her with it and killed her. We came and found them like that. Jipi had talked
with two tongues, sent the others to fight so that he could rob them.”

 
          
“Rob
his own friends?” demanded Mark.