The Prairie (62 page)

"And yet, Ishmael, my blood, and the blood of my children, is in his
veins, cannot mercy be shown?"

"Woman," he answered sternly, "when we believed that miserable old
trapper had done this deed, nothing was said of mercy!"

Esther made no reply, but folding her arms upon her breast, she sat
silent and thoughtful for many minutes. Then she once more turned her
anxious gaze upon the countenance of her husband, where she found all
passion and care apparently buried in the coldest apathy. Satisfied now,
that the fate of her brother was sealed, and possibly conscious how well
he merited the punishment that was meditated, she no longer thought
of mediation. No more words passed between them. Their eyes met for an
instant, and then both arose and walked in profound silence towards the
encampment.

The squatter found his children expecting his return in the usual
listless manner with which they awaited all coming events. The cattle
were already herded, and the horses in their gears, in readiness to
proceed, so soon as he should indicate that such was his pleasure. The
children were already in their proper vehicle, and, in short, nothing
delayed the departure but the absence of the parents of the wild brood.

"Abner," said the father, with the deliberation with which all his
proceedings were characterised, "take the brother of your mother from
the wagon, and let him stand on the 'arth."

Abiram issued from his place of concealment, trembling, it is true, but
far from destitute of hopes, as to his final success in appeasing the
just resentment of his kinsman. After throwing a glance around him, with
the vain wish of finding a single countenance in which he might detect
a solitary gleam of sympathy, he endeavoured to smother those
apprehensions, that were by this time reviving in their original
violence, by forcing a sort of friendly communication between himself
and the squatter—

"The beasts are getting jaded, brother," he said, "and as we have made
so good a march already, is it not time to camp. To my eye you may go
far, before a better place than this is found to pass the night in."

"Tis well you like it. Your tarry here ar' likely to be long. My sons,
draw nigh and listen. Abiram White," he added, lifting his cap, and
speaking with a solemnity and steadiness, that rendered even his dull
mien imposing, "you have slain my first-born, and according to the laws
of God and man must you die!"

The kidnapper started at this terrible and sudden sentence, with the
terror that one would exhibit who unexpectedly found himself in the
grasp of a monster, from whose power there was no retreat. Although
filled with the most serious forebodings of what might be his lot, his
courage had not been equal to look his danger in the face, and with the
deceitful consolation, with which timid tempers are apt to conceal their
desperate condition from themselves, he had rather courted a treacherous
relief in his cunning, than prepared himself for the worst.

"Die!" he repeated, in a voice that scarcely issued from his chest; "a
man is surely safe among his kinsmen!"

"So thought my boy," returned the squatter, motioning for the team, that
contained his wife and the girls, to proceed, as he very coolly examined
the priming of his piece. "By the rifle did you destroy my son; it is
fit and just that you meet your end by the same weapon."

Abiram stared about him with a gaze that bespoke an unsettled reason. He
even laughed, as if he would not only persuade himself but others that
what he heard was some pleasantry, intended to try his nerves. But
nowhere did his frightful merriment meet with an answering echo. All
around was solemn and still. The visages of his nephews were excited,
but cold towards him, and that of his former confederate frightfully
determined. This very steadiness of mien was a thousand times more
alarming and hopeless than any violence could have proved. The latter
might possibly have touched his spirit and awakened resistance, but the
former threw him entirely on the feeble resources of himself.

"Brother," he said, in a hurried, unnatural whisper, "did I hear you?"

"My words are plain, Abiram White: thou hast done murder, and for the
same must thou die!"

"Esther! sister, sister, will you leave me! Oh sister! do you hear my
call?"

"I hear one speak from the grave!" returned the husky tones of Esther,
as the wagon passed the spot where the criminal stood. "It is the voice
of my firstborn, calling aloud for justice! God have mercy, God have
mercy, on your soul!"

The team slowly pursued its route, and the deserted Abiram now found
himself deprived of the smallest vestige of hope. Still he could not
summon fortitude to meet his death, and had not his limbs refused to aid
him, he would yet have attempted to fly. Then, by a sudden revolution
from hope to utter despair, he fell upon his knees, and commenced a
prayer, in which cries for mercy to God and to his kinsman were wildly
and blasphemously mingled. The sons of Ishmael turned away in horror
at the disgusting spectacle, and even the stern nature of the squatter
began to bend before so abject misery.

"May that, which you ask of Him, be granted," he said; "but a father can
never forget a murdered child."

He was answered by the most humble appeals for time. A week, a day, an
hour, were each implored, with an earnestness commensurate to the value
they receive, when a whole life is compressed into their short duration.
The squatter was troubled, and at length he yielded in part to the
petitions of the criminal. His final purpose was not altered, though he
changed the means. "Abner," he said, "mount the rock, and look on every
side, that we may be sure none are nigh."

While his nephew was obeying this order, gleams of reviving hope were
seen shooting across the quivering features of the kidnapper. The report
was favourable, nothing having life, the retiring teams excepted, was
to be seen. A messenger was, however, coming from the latter, in great
apparent haste. Ishmael awaited its arrival. He received from the hands
of one of his wondering and frighted girls a fragment of that book,
which Esther had preserved with so much care. The squatter beckoned the
child away, and placed the leaves in the hands of the criminal.

"Eest'er has sent you this," he said, "that, in your last moments, you
may remember God."

"Bless her, bless her! a good and kind sister has she been to me. But
time must be given, that I may read; time, my brother, time!"

"Time shall not be wanting. You shall be your own executioner, and this
miserable office shall pass away from my hands."

Ishmael proceeded to put his new resolution in force. The immediate
apprehensions of the kidnapper were quieted, by an assurance that
he might yet live for days, though his punishment was inevitable. A
reprieve, to one abject and wretched as Abiram, temporarily produced
the same effects as a pardon. He was even foremost in assisting in the
appalling arrangements, and of all the actors, in that solemn tragedy,
his voice alone was facetious and jocular.

A thin shelf of the rock projected beneath one of the ragged arms of the
willow. It was many feet from the ground, and admirably adapted to the
purpose which, in fact, its appearance had suggested. On this little
platform the criminal was placed, his arms bound at the elbows behind
his back, beyond the possibility of liberation, with a proper cord
leading from his neck to the limb of the tree. The latter was so placed,
that when suspended the body could find no foot-hold. The fragment
of the Bible was placed in his hands, and he was left to seek his
consolation as he might from its pages.

"And now, Abiram White," said the squatter, when his sons had descended
from completing this arrangement, "I give you a last and solemn asking.
Death is before you in two shapes. With this rifle can your misery be
cut short, or by that cord, sooner or later, must you meet your end."

"Let me yet live! Oh, Ishmael, you know not how sweet life is, when the
last moment draws so nigh!"

"'Tis done," said the squatter, motioning for his assistants to follow
the herds and teams. "And now, miserable man, that it may prove a
consolation to your end, I forgive you my wrongs, and leave you to your
God."

Ishmael turned and pursued his way across the plain, at his ordinary
sluggish and ponderous gait. Though his head was bent a little towards
the earth, his inactive mind did not prompt him to cast a look behind.
Once, indeed, he thought he heard his name called, in tones that were a
little smothered, but they failed to make him pause.

At the spot where he and Esther had conferred, he reached the boundary
of the visible horizon from the rock. Here he stopped, and ventured a
glance in the direction of the place he had just quitted. The sun was
near dipping into the plains beyond, and its last rays lighted the naked
branches of the willow. He saw the ragged outline of the whole drawn
against the glowing heavens, and he even traced the still upright form
of the being he had left to his misery. Turning the roll of the swell,
he proceeded with the feelings of one, who had been suddenly and
violently separated from a recent confederate, for ever.

Within a mile, the squatter overtook his teams. His sons had found a
place suited to the encampment for the night, and merely awaited his
approach to confirm their choice. Few words were necessary to express
his acquiescence. Every thing passed in a silence more general and
remarkable than ever. The chidings of Esther were not heard among her
young, or if heard, they were more in the tones of softened admonition,
than in her usual, upbraiding, key.

No questions nor explanations passed between the husband and his wife.
It was only as the latter was about to withdraw among her children, for
the night, that the former saw her taking a furtive look at the pan
of his rifle. Ishmael bade his sons seek their rest, announcing his
intention to look to the safety of the camp in person. When all was
still, he walked out upon the prairie, with a sort of sensation that he
found his breathing among the tents too straitened. The night was well
adapted to heighten the feelings, which had been created by the events
of the day.

The wind had risen with the moon, and it was occasionally sweeping over
the plain, in a manner that made it not difficult for the sentinel
to imagine strange and unearthly sounds were mingling in the blasts.
Yielding to the extraordinary impulses of which he was the subject, he
cast a glance around, to see that all were slumbering in security, and
then he strayed towards the swell of land already mentioned. Here the
squatter found himself at a point that commanded a view to the east and
to the west. Light fleecy clouds were driving before the moon, which
was cold and watery though there were moments, when its placid rays were
shed from clear blue fields, seeming to soften objects to its own mild
loveliness.

For the first time, in a life of so much wild adventure, Ishmael felt a
keen sense of solitude. The naked prairies began to assume the forms of
illimitable and dreary wastes and the rushing of the wind sounded like
the whisperings of the dead. It was not long before he thought a shriek
was borne past him on a blast. It did not sound like a call from earth
but it swept frightfully through the upper air mingled with the hoarse
accompaniment of the wind. The teeth of the squatter were compressed,
and his huge hand grasped the rifle, as if it would crush the metal.
Then came a lull, a fresher blast, and a cry of horror that seemed to
have been uttered at the very portals of his ears. A sort of echo
burst involuntarily from his own lips, as men shout under unnatural
excitement, and throwing his rifle across his shoulder he proceeded
towards the rock with the strides of a giant.

It was not often that the blood of Ishmael moved at the rate with which
the fluid circulates in the veins of ordinary men; but now he felt it
ready to gush from every pore in his body. The animal was aroused, in
his most latent energies. Ever as he advanced he heard those shrieks,
which sometimes seemed ringing among the clouds, and sometimes passed
so nigh, as to appear to brush the earth. At length there came a cry, in
which there could be no delusion, or to which the imagination could lend
no horror. It appeared to fill each cranny of the air, as the visible
horizon is often charged to fulness by one dazzling flash of the
electric fluid. The name of God was distinctly audible, but it was
awfully and blasphemously blended with sounds that may not be repeated.
The squatter stopped, and for a moment he covered his ears with his
hands. When he withdrew the latter, a low and husky voice at his elbow
asked in smothered tones—

"Ishmael, my man, heard ye nothing?"

"Hist," returned the husband, laying a powerful arm on Esther, without
manifesting the smallest surprise at the unlooked-for presence of his
wife. "Hist, woman! if you have the fear of Heaven, be still!"

A profound silence succeeded. Though the wind rose and fell as before,
its rushing was no longer mingled with those fearful cries. The sounds
were imposing and solemn, but it was the solemnity and majesty of
nature.

"Let us go on," said Esther; "all is hushed."

"Woman, what has brought you here?" demanded her husband, whose blood
had returned into its former channels, and whose thoughts had already
lost a portion of their excitement.

"Ishmael, he murdered our first-born; but it is not meet that the son of
my mother should lie upon the ground, like the carrion of a dog!"

"Follow," returned the squatter, again grasping his rifle, and striding
towards the rock. The distance was still considerable; and their
approach, as they drew nigh the place of execution, was moderated by
awe. Many minutes had passed, before they reached a spot where they
might distinguish the outlines of the dusky objects.