Zane Grey (32 page)

Even as the imploring voice ceased a heavy thump sounded on the
door.

"Who's there?" demanded Heckewelder.

Thump! Thump!

The heavy blows shook the cabin. The pans rattled on the shelves. No
answer came from without.

"Quick! Hide Benny! It's as much as our lives are worth to have him
found here," cried Heckewelder in a fierce whisper, as he darted
toward the door.

"All right, all right, in a moment," he called out, fumbling over
the bar.

He opened the door a moment later and when Jim Girty and Deering
entered he turned to his friends with a dread uncertainty in his
haggard face.

Edwards lay on the bed with wide-open eyes staring at the intruders.
Mr. Wells sat with bowed head. Zeisberger calmly whittled a stick,
and Jim stood bolt upright, with a hard light in his eyes.

Nell leaned against the side of a heavy table. Wonderful was the
change that had transformed her from a timid, appealing,
fear-agonized girl to a woman whose only evidence of unusual
excitement were the flame in her eyes and the peculiar whiteness of
her face.

Benny was gone!

Heckewelder's glance returned to the visitors. He thought he had
never seen such brutal, hideous men.

"Wal, I reckon a preacher ain't agoin' to lie. Hev you seen any
Injun Christians round here?" asked Girty, waving a heavy
sledge-hammer.

"Girty, we have hidden no Indians here," answered Heckewelder,
calmly.

"Wal, we'll hev a look, anyway," answered the renegade.

Girty surveyed the room with wolfish eyes. Deering was so drunk that
he staggered. Both men, in fact, reeked with the vile fumes of rum.
Without another word they proceeded to examine the room, by looking
into every box, behind a stone oven, and in the cupboard. They drew
the bedclothes from the bed, and with a kick demolished a pile of
stove wood. Then the ruffians passed into the other apartments,
where they could be heard making thorough search. At length both
returned to the large room, when Girty directed Deering to climb a
ladder leading to the loft, but because Deering was too much under
the influence of liquor to do so, he had to go himself. He rummaged
around up there for a few minutes, and then came down.

"Wal, I reckon you wasn't lyin' about it," said Girty, with his
ghastly leer.

He and his companion started to go out. Deering had stood with
bloodshot eyes fixed on Nell while Girty searched the loft, and as
they passed the girl on their way to the open air, the renegade
looked at Girty as he motioned with his head toward her. His
besotted face expressed some terrible meaning.

Girty had looked at Nell when he first entered, but had not glanced
twice at her. As he turned now, before going out of the door, he
fixed on her his baleful glance. His aspect was more full of meaning
than could have been any words. A horrible power, of which he was
boastfully conscious, shone from his little, pointed eyes. His mere
presence was deadly. Plainly as if he had spoken was the
significance of his long gaze. Any one could have translated that
look.

Once before Nell had faced it, and fainted when its dread meaning
grew clear to her. But now she returned his gaze with one in which
flashed lightning scorn, and repulsion, in which glowed a wonderful
defiance.

The cruel face of this man, the boastful barbarity of his manner,
the long, dark, bloody history which his presence recalled, was,
indeed, terrifying without the added horror of his intent toward
her, but now the self-forgetfulness of a true woman sustained her.

Girty and Deering backed out of the door. Heckewelder closed it, and
dropped the bar in place.

Nell fell over the table with a long, low gasp. Then with one hand
she lifted her skirt. Benny walked from under it. His big eyes were
bright. The young woman clasped him again in her arms. Then she
released him, and, laboring under intense excitement, ran to the
window.

"There he goes! Oh, the horrible beast! If I only had a gun and
could shoot! Oh, if only I were a man! I'd kill him. To think of
poor Kate! Ah! he intends the same for me!"

Suddenly she fell upon the floor in a faint. Mr. Wells and Jim
lifted her on the bed beside Edwards, where they endeavored to
revive her. It was some moments before she opened her eyes.

Jim sat holding Nell's hand. Mr. Wells again bowed his head.
Zeisberger continued to whittle a stick, and Heckewelder paced the
floor. Christy stood by with every evidence of sympathy for this
distracted group. Outside the clamor increased.

"Just listen!" cried Heckewelder. "Did you ever hear the like? All
drunk, crazy, fiendish! They drank every drop of liquor the French
traders had. Curses on the vagabond dealers! Rum has made these
renegades and savages wild. Oh! my poor, innocent Christians!"

Heckewelder leaned his head against the mantle-shelf. He had broken
down at last. Racking sobs shook his frame.

"Are you all right again?" asked Jim of Nell.

"Yes."

"I am going out, first to see Williamson, and then the Christians,"
he said, rising very pale, but calm.

"Don't go!" cried Heckewelder. "I have tried everything. It was all
of no use."

"I will go," answered Jim.

"Yes, Jim, go," whispered Nell, looking up into his eyes. It was an
earnest gaze in which a faint hope shone.

Jim unbarred the door and went out.

"Wait, I'll go along," cried Zeisberger, suddenly dropping his knife
and stick.

As the two men went out a fearful spectacle met their eyes. The
clearing was alive with Indians. But such Indians! They were painted
demons, maddened by rum. Yesterday they had been silent; if they
moved at all it had been with deliberation and dignity. To-day they
were a yelling, running, blood-seeking mob.

"Awful! Did you ever see human beings like these?" asked Zeisberger.

"No, no!"

"I saw such a frenzy once before, but, of course, only in a small
band of savages. Many times have I seen Indians preparing for the
war-path, in search of both white men and redskins. They were fierce
then, but nothing like this. Every one of these frenzied fiends is
honest. Think of that! Every man feels it his duty to murder these
Christians. Girty has led up to this by cunning, and now the time is
come to let them loose."

"It means death for all."

"I have given up any thought of escaping," said Zeisberger, with the
calmness that had characterized his manner since he returned to the
village. "I shall try to get into the church."

"I'll join you there as soon as I see Williamson."

Jim walked rapidly across the clearing to the cabin where Captain
Williamson had quarters. The frontiersmen stood in groups, watching
the savages with an interest which showed little or no concern.

"I want to see Captain Williamson," said Jim to a frontiersman on
guard at the cabin door.

"Wal, he's inside," drawled the man.

Jim thought the voice familiar, and he turned sharply to see the
sun-burnt features of Jeff Lynn, the old riverman who had taken Mr.
Wells' party to Fort Henry.

"Why, Lynn! I'm glad to see you," exclaimed Jim.

"Purty fair to middlin'," answered Jeff, extending his big hand.
"Say, how's the other one, your brother as wus called Joe?"

"I don't know. He ran off with Wetzel, was captured by Indians, and
when I last heard of him he had married Wingenund's daughter."

"Wal, I'll be dog-goned!" Jeff shook his grizzled head and slapped
his leg. "I jest knowed he'd raise somethin'."

"I'm in a hurry. Do you think Captain Williamson will stand still
and let all this go on?"

"I'm afeerd so."

Evidently the captain heard the conversation, for he appeared at the
cabin door, smoking a long pipe.

"Captain Williamson, I have come to entreat you to save the
Christians from this impending massacre."

"I can't do nuthin'," answered Williamson, removing his pipe to puff
forth a great cloud of smoke.

"You have eighty men here!"

"If we interfered Pipe would eat us alive in three minutes. You
preacher fellows don't understand this thing. You've got Pipe and
Girty to deal with. If you don't know them, you'll be better
acquainted by sundown."

"I don't care who they are. Drunken ruffians and savages! That's
enough. Will you help us? We are men of your own race, and we come
to you for help. Can you withhold it?"

"I won't hev nuthin' to do with this bizness. The chiefs hev
condemned the village, an' it'll hev to go. If you fellars hed been
careful, no white blood would hev been spilled. I advise you all to
lay low till it's over."

"Will you let me speak to your men, to try and get them to follow
me?"

"Heckewelder asked that same thing. He was persistent, and I took a
vote fer him just to show how my men stood. Eighteen of them said
they'd follow him; the rest wouldn't interfere."

"Eighteen! My God!" cried Jim, voicing the passion which consumed
him. "You are white men, yet you will stand by and see these
innocent people murdered! Man, where's your humanity? Your manhood?
These converted Indians are savages no longer, they are Christians.
Their children are as good, pure, innocent as your own. Can you
remain idle and see these little ones murdered?"

Williamson made no answer, the men who had crowded round were
equally silent. Not one lowered his head. Many looked at the
impassioned missionary; others gazed at the savages who were
circling around the trees brandishing their weapons. If any pitied
the unfortunate Christians, none showed it. They were indifferent,
with the indifference of men hardened to cruel scenes.

Jim understood, at last, as he turned from face to face to find
everywhere that same imperturbability. These bordermen were like
Wetzel and Jonathan Zane. The only good Indian was a dead Indian.
Years of war and bloodshed, of merciless cruelty at the hands of
redmen, of the hard, border life had rendered these frontiersmen
incapable of compassion for any savage.

Jim no longer restrained himself.

"Bordermen you may be, but from my standpoint, from any man's, from
God's, you are a lot of coldly indifferent cowards!" exclaimed Jim,
with white, quivering lips. "I understand now. Few of you will risk
anything for Indians. You will not believe a savage can be a
Christian. You don't care if they are all murdered. Any man among
you—any man, I say—would step out before those howling fiends and
boldly demand that there be no bloodshed. A courageous leader with a
band of determined followers could avert this tragedy. You might
readily intimidate yonder horde of drunken demons. Captain
Williamson, I am only a minister, far removed from a man of war and
leader, as you claim to be, but, sir, I curse you as a miserable
coward. If I ever get back to civilization I'll brand this inhuman
coldness of yours, as the most infamous and dastardly cowardice that
ever disgraced a white man. You are worse than Girty!"

Williamson turned a sickly yellow; he fumbled a second with the
handle of his tomahawk, but made no answer. The other bordermen
maintained the same careless composure. What to them was the raving
of a mad preacher?

Jim saw it and turned baffled, fiercely angry, and hopeless. As he
walked away Jeff Lynn took his arm, and after they were clear of the
crowd of frontiersmen he said:

"Young feller, you give him pepper, an' no mistake. An' mebbe you're
right from your side the fence. But you can't see the Injuns from
our side. We hunters hevn't much humanity—I reckon that's what you
called it—but we've lost so many friends an' relatives, an' hearn
of so many murders by the reddys that we look on all of 'em as wild
varmints that should be killed on sight. Now, mebbe it'll interest
you to know I was the feller who took the vote Williamson told you
about, an' I did it 'cause I had an interest in you. I wus watchin'
you when Edwards and the other missionary got shot. I like grit in a
man, an' I seen you had it clear through. So when Heckewelder comes
over I talked to the fellers, an' all I could git interested was
eighteen, but they wanted to fight simply fer fightin' sake. Now,
ole Jeff Lynn is your friend. You just lay low until this is over."

Jim thanked the old riverman and left him. He hardly knew which way
to turn. He would make one more effort. He crossed the clearing to
where the renegades' teepee stood. McKee and Elliott were sitting on
a log. Simon Girty stood beside them, his hard, keen, roving eyes on
the scene. The missionary was impressed by the white leader. There
was a difference in his aspect, a wilder look than the others wore,
as if the man had suddenly awakened to the fury of his Indians.
Nevertheless the young man went straight toward him.

"Girty, I come—"

"Git out! You meddlin' preacher!" yelled the renegade, shaking his
fist at Jim.

Simon Girty was drunk.

Jim turned from the white fiends. He knew his life to them was not
worth a pinch of powder.

"Lost! Lost! All lost!" he exclaimed in despair.

As he went toward the church he saw hundreds of savages bounding
over the grass, brandishing weapons and whooping fiendishly. They
were concentrating around Girty's teepee, where already a great
throng had congregated. Of all the Indians to be seen not one
walked. They leaped by Jim, and ran over the grass nimble as deer.

He saw the eager, fire in their dusky eyes, and the cruelly clenched
teeth like those of wolves when they snarl. He felt the hissing
breath of many savages as they raced by him. More than one whirled a
tomahawk close to Jim's head, and uttered horrible yells in his ear.
They were like tigers lusting for blood.

Jim hurried to the church. Not an Indian was visible near the log
structure. Even the savage guards had gone. He entered the open door
to be instantly struck with reverence and awe.