War Path (2 page)

The sachem shoved Abel and sent him stumbling toward the gauntlet. The warriors aligned along the bank began to wave their weapons in the air and exhort him to enter the deadly path stretching between them.

“No!” Abel said, freezing in his tracks. He turned toward the brave who had freed him. The warrior, distinguished by a blaze of jagged war paint adorning each shoulder and another band masking his eyes, threatened the frightened youth with a French dagger. The Abenaki gestured toward the gauntlet then addressed the youth in perfect English.

“Yankee … all you must do is reach the far side, do you see the Medicine Staff thrust into the ground? Reach it and live.” His voice had an edge to it. Johnny took note of a jagged ridge of scar tissue that resembled a lightning bolt seared along the warrior's neck and upper shoulder.

“Please,” Abel stammered. “We only came to hunt.”

The frightened young man continued to hold his ground and held out his hands, imploring the warrior to show mercy, a quality the Abenaki had no word for when it came to driving the
Anglais
settlers from their hunting grounds. The sachem remained implacable. He knew if the white settlers were to be driven back into the sea, his people must be of firm resolve; their will, ruthless.

“Abel, give it a try. You were always fast. Keep your head low. You might make it. I'll warrant you will!” Stark shouted, knowing full well what his friend could expect if he failed to budge.

“We meant you no harm,” Page muttered.

“Abel! Run!”

“You understand me. What is to be gained by shedding blood?”

“Go now,
Anglais
. It is the end of days for you.”

“Abel!”

“No!” the youth replied, rooted in place. “He must understand. We are not enemies.”

The Abenaki prodded his prisoner, jabbed the dagger into Page's belly. The younger man's eyes bulged with horror as he glanced down at the seeping blood. The first time had been a flesh wound. And still Page refused to budge.

“For the love of God …!” he cried out.

The warrior scowled, disgusted, and slashed the young man's throat. Abel Page sank backwards, clutching at the spurting wound; he sat with a muffled thud, made a series of short, garbled cries and rolled over on his side, convulsing. Then his eyes rolled up in his head and the tremors that consumed his body ceased.

Now it was Stark's turn. One of his captors struck him behind the knee with the stock of his musket. Stark's leg buckled and the big man went down. The warrior who had killed Page strode forward. Up close, the man appeared to be in his mid-forties, with the hooded gaze of a seasoned fighter.

“I am Atoan, Grand Sachem of the People of the White Pines. Run the gauntlet and you will go free. There is my son, Kasak, who guards the Medicine Staff. Four men has he killed in battle. But if you show courage he may stand aside. Reach the Staff and you will live. This is my word.”

Stark's deep-brown eyes flashed with fire, his gaze seemed to bore a hole in Atoan, his mouth was an impassive slit, betraying nothing. A slight twitch along his right cheekbone belied the impression the big man's features had been chiseled from granite.

“
Kita!
Listen. Your friend said he came in peace and then died like a woman. Will you give us sport?”

“Cut me loose and find out.” Stark held out his hands. Atoan grinned and approached. Behind him, the men with Atoan cocked their muskets. The Abenaki weren't taking any chances with their towering captive. So be it. Stark would give them a gesture to remember him by.
Whatever else happens, by all that's holy I swear they shall sing songs of this day, and weep for the lost
. But he needed to make some kind of unique gesture. Johnny glanced down at his fallen comrade, Molly's cousin. Abel Page had made a poor showing. So there was nothing to do but make these next few minutes count for them both. Johnny knelt by Page's corpse and dabbed his fingertips into the blood coagulating along the cruel wound. His hand came away sticky, moist and crimson.

Johnny held Atoan with his fierce gaze. “And just so you know …” Stark streaked his cheeks and forehead, donning his own horrid war mask with the blood of his friend, “… my name is Johnny Stark. And unlike young Abel here,
I do
mean every one of you murdering bastards
harm
!”

Atoan retreated a step as the man rose to his full height. He had not expected this much defiance and was taken aback by the long hunter's demeanor. Atoan had expected the man to beg for his life, he had never before encountered such a complete lack of fear among the Yankee colonists. Perhaps this
Johnny Stark
had the heart of a warrior after all.

In that instant he sensed a kind of kinship with the long hunter.
Have I found a worthwhile enemy?
Atoan wondered. And yet a man's worth was measured by more than just a name, but by deeds, so the sachem asked yet again, “Who are you,
Yankee
?”

And Johnny Stark growled in reply, “I'm the wrath of God.”

Kasak, son of Atoan was young and brash and full of courage and determined that his brothers would sing songs of his valor, as they did for his father. The great Atoan had never been bested by an enemy; the Grand Sachem possessed the spirit of the wolverine.
Glory to Atoan who was quick and cunning and utterly ferocious in battle.

Kasak, in his haste to escape his father's shadow, was ever the first to fight. He was a “young lion” springing pell-mell into danger, ever daring but too often foolhardy when stealth was called for. Kasak, like any young man who has all the time in the world, too often felt that time was wasting. He exhorted the warriors along the gauntlet to steel themselves. They responded in kind for they loved Kasak for his courage and his pride as they honored and feared his father and gave way whenever he passed.

The smell of blood was in the air, the gauntlet had claimed two of the Yankees and waited for the last. Kasak paced the ground before the Medicine Staff like a panther, his naked upper torso the color of hammered copper, lithe and sleek, he moved with feline grace and the knife in his hand was like a naked claw.

“Here comes the last of them.
Anglais
, give us sport. Or the next time we will send our women to make war against you!” Kasak shouted and the warriors along the gauntlet laughed and raised their war clubs and jeered at the last of their captives. But they fell silent when Stark knelt and painted his features with the blood of his friend. And when he turned and charged down the slope toward the gauntlet, the Abenaki braced themselves and began to exhort him to die bravely. Not for an instant did any of the braves doubt the outcome of this afternoon's sport. The long hunter's size only made him that much more of a target for their war clubs. He was like a great oak that they intended to fell.

“Come,
Anglais
!” Kasak shouted. “My knife is thirsty.” His youthful features were streaked with charcoal and ochre, his head shaved but for a topknot of black hair braided with a raven feather. A necklace of shells and panther claws and pounded silver disks jangled against his hard chest as he paced and taunted.

Johnny Stark didn't need any more of an invitation than that. He barreled down the slope like a raging whirl-wind, his long legs devouring the distance, pulse racing, his wild heart nearly bursting through his rib cage. The bold-eyed sun washed the clearing and the creek bank with a honeyed light that filtered through the entwined branches of the sheltering red oaks and glistened on the surface of the meandering waters.

It was a land of beauty.

It was a day of rage.

The warriors lining the gauntlet braced themselves for battle, each man eager to land a blow on the long hunter and send his spirit after those of his fallen comrades, Walch and Fargo, whose lifeless forms had been dragged off to the side to allow Stark an unimpeded entrance to the killing ground.

Fifteen yards … ten … five … Johnny Stark loosed a wild battle cry and veered to the side and charged the brave closest to him, a startled youth unprepared for this change of course. The young warrior retreated, his legs tangling, keeping him off balance.

This might be naught but a game to the Abenaki, but Stark had no intention playing by their rules and running the gauntlet. Damn if he'd be a mere target. It was time these red devils had a taste of their own medicine.

He ducked as the warrior swung at him. The long hunter drove his big shoulder into the brave and sent him reeling. He caught the brave by the wrist and twisted the war club from his grasp and before the other Abenaki could adjust to his tactics, Stark rushed the next lot, broke bones and bashed heads, spun and struck and powered his way along the length of the column.

Johnny blocked and battered, caught one man by the scruff of his buckskin shirt and spun him about and used him for a battering ram as a pair of warriors descended on him. Stark's human shield yelped as blows rained down upon him. Johnny forced his way forward, turned and blocked a second round of strikes that left the man in his grasp bloody and dazed.

The brave sagged forward. With a mighty effort Stark hoisted the smaller man aloft and hurled his limp, compact frame into the faces before him, knocking another pair of warriors to the ground.

“Come on, you cursed bastards, I'm for you!” Stark bellowed. His voice rang out above the chorus of war whoops like a trumpet's blare. “Here's for your songs. Is this sport enough for you? Come and take me!”

And they tried. Again and again the Abenaki braves closed in, only to be beaten back one by one. Oh, Stark was an easy target when it came to size, and they landed blows right enough, but nothing connected with enough force to cripple their intended victim. And he gave as good as he got, even better in most cases as he barrelled forward. And the force of his unexpected attack served him well and propelled him past many of Atoan's men before they could get in a good lick.

A gruff-looking warrior with a brooding brow and a deep hatred in his eyes rose up before the long hunter and swung his war club. Stark parried the man's attack, tore the war club from his grasp and now with a weapon gripped in each of his ham-sized fists, struck the Abenaki across the forearm, in the belly, then as the man doubled forward to retch, struck him between the shoulder blades. The red man dropped like a rock, landing face forward in the trampled grass.

Johnny Stark never broke stride but pressed on, he swung to right and left, whirling and battering and always moving toward the Medicine Staff. He had lost all sense of time and distance, he knew only the violence as he gulped in the pine-scented air, knew only the noise and sweat and the pain of glancing blows that failed to stop him, knew only his own iron will to survive.

And then he reached Kasak.

The younger man braced himself, brandished a war club and a French hunting dirk with a silver hilt and an eleven-inch blade of sharpened steel. Kasak lunged in low, expecting Stark to meet him head on. Kasak intended to rip open the long hunter's belly with a single thrust. But Stark danced aside with a quickness uncommon for a man of his size.

Kasak was fleet of foot and swifter by far than any of his peers and were this a footrace Stark would have been at his mercy. But this was a fight to the death. And it was in battle that Stark had the edge. He possessed an almost supernatural clarity of vision, the ability to read his opponent and
know
without understanding the how and why of it, what the man was about to do and in that instant begin to counter the move.

It was his strength as surely as his corded muscles and powerful physique.

Some men are born with a lot of
quit
in them, but not Johnny Stark. Early on in life he had learned there comes a time to run and a time to stand, and a time when nothing else will do but to suck up your courage, girdle your loins, and cry havoc. Committed to the struggle, Stark would continue to fight for as long as he drew breath.

As he had cut a swath through the Abenaki war party lining the gauntlet, so did he batter aside Kasak's defenses. The big man sensed the warriors gathering behind him and realized his time was running out unless he tried one last desperate gamble.

Kasak thrust forward with the hunting dirk. Stark dropped the war clubs and caught the smaller man's wrist and twisted until the brave's arm nearly broke. Kasak loosened his hold on his weapon and Stark wrenched it from his grasp, spun him around, and placed himself between Atoan's son and the advancing warriors. He grabbed Kasak by his topknot and yanked his head back and brought the French blade to the younger man's naked throat. The gesture stopped the Abenaki in their tracks.

The clearing fell silent.

Now there was only the moaning wounded, the babbling brook to his right, the gentle soughing breeze and rustling of branches, the faint buzzing insects, and the labored breathing of the young man whose throat Stark was about to slit.

The Abenaki drew back as Atoan walked though their ranks, past the injured and dying, down the slope and up the slight rise where his son had proudly paced and pranced like a young cougar. A trickle of blood seeped from the superficial wound left by the dirk's cruel bite and trickled down his son's coppery smooth chest. Kasak's eyes were wide with alarm though he tried to remain calm, but the proximity of his own demise left a hollow pit in his gut. Gone was his bravado. Now he just wanted to see another sunrise.

Johnny Stark faced them down, the lot of them, his gaze sweeping over the war party with their war clubs and tomahawks and leveled muskets. And silence reigned then, like the stillness after a storm. No bird called. Only the wind uttered a sigh as if nature had already become bored with the travails of men.

“There is no glory in fighting women. No songs live here,” Stark called out, his voice echoing throughout the clearing. He contemptuously shoved Kasak aside, as if the young warrior's life was not worth taking. With an over-handed throw, the long hunter sent the French dirk spinning through the air. He buried the blade halfway to the hilt between Atoan's feet. A lesser man might have flinched. Not the sachem. There was only a subtle shift in his expression, relief that he still had a son, albeit a humiliated one.