War Drums (Sass)/Chapter 22
SUNRISE found them again on the road—the Path, as Almayne called it—the great Trading Path from Charles Town to the inner country. All that day and through the early hours of the next they pushed on steadily. The Path had long been an Indian trail; now the traders' caravans travelled it also, the long lines of pack ponies bearing cloths, rum, guns, hatchets, paint and innumerable trinkets to the Catawbas of the middle country, the Cherokees of the Blue Mountains, the Chicasaws who dwelt beyond the mountain barrier; and returning, after months in the far wilderness, laden with bales of pelts. It was becoming a well-travelled road, for year by year the peltry traffic grew and the caravans increased in number; yet it was still, throughout most of its length, but a narrow trail through a vast and unspoiled wilderness.
Jolie's heart sang within her, answering the singing birds, of which the number seemed illimitable. Her eyes, thought Lachlan, as she turned to glance behind her, were brighter than the wild flowers strewn along the way; her's lender form, as she swayed with the motion of her horse, was more graceful than the slim, leaping deer. Yes, she was beautiful, and doubtless it was true that in England many gentlemen were her servitors because of that beauty. But—he smiled a wry smile and, leaning forward, whispered to his mare:
"Tuti, my little Snowbird," he spoke softly into the silken ear, "she is a very lovely lady, this Mistress Jolie, this Lady Sanguilla. But saw you ever such pride, Tuti, such vanity of woman?"
The mare flicked her ear and tossed her small shapely head. Lachlan laughed quietly.
"Be at ease, Tuti, little Snowbird," he murmured. "For a while longer thy master's heart belongs to thee alone."
Nevertheless, he kept his eyes upon the girl. She rode a little in front of him, Meg Pearson by her side. Ugly Meg's horse, like that of Jock Pearson, who rode with Almayne a few paces behind Lachlan, was a blue roan of the big-boned English type; but Jolie's claybank gelding, Selu by name, was of the Indian breed, small, slim, long-maned, long-tailed, smallheaded like a barb. Men said that the wild horse herds, which roamed the forest savannahs on both sides of the Blue Mountains and from which the Indian warriors obtained their mounts, were sprung from the horses that the Prince Soto had abandoned in the wilderness long years before on his ill-fated march to the Great River. There was truth in the tale, for in those days, before in-breeding had produced the mustang type of later years, one could see in many of the Indian horses—Chicasaw horses, as the folk of Charles Town called them—the signs of Andalusian blood.
Selu, so named because he was the colour of corn, was of this Chicasaw breed, and Tuti the Snowbird, though her colour was dark chestnut, might have been Selu's sister. Lachlan had bought them both of a smooth-tongued trader who had brought them down from the nation of the Cherokees into Charles Town; and though Selu was the swifter and the better trained, Lachlan loved Tuti the Snowbird better, because of her playful, impudent tricks and the warm, loving heart within her.
He was content, for the present, with Tuti's company. Mr. O'Sullivan, digging his heels into the ribs of his mule, pushed past and joined Jolie and Meg at the front of the caravan. Behind Lachlan, Almayne, who rode a piebald Chicasaw pony which he called Nunda the Moon-Face, spun yarns with Jock Pearson about great hunts beyond the Blue Mountains and marches and ambushes of the Indian wars. After these again trailed the pack ponies, the pack-horse drivers riding beside them, occasionally cracking their long whips.
Lachlan turned in his saddle from time to time to' watch the trail behind. The great nation of the Cherokees, who held the mountains and the upper foothills, was known to be restive. The Governor's ill-advised policy had incensed the younger braves; and Lachlan knew more than the authorities at Charles Town knew—knew that a Cherokee war was inevitable. But he did not expect it immediately, and the Catawbas, who held the middle country, were friendly to the Charles Town English.
It was from behind that danger might come at any time, although Lachlan did not look for it so soon. Doubtless Stanwicke had already gone to the Governor with news of Jolie's flight. Doubtless Falcon also had the news by now, and probably the forces of the Province were already engaged in the search. But Lachlan and Almayne had planned carefully.
Before leaving Charles Town for Stanwicke Hall they had laid a false scent, which, Lachlan felt fairly sure, would send the searchers off on a blind track. None in Charles Town knew that they were to join Pearson's pack train, and with the deceptive clues that they had prepared in advance, considerable 'time should elapse before the searchers found the right trail.
One possibility bothered Lachlan. It might be known in the town that Mr. O'Sullivan had left with Pearson's train, and in this Lance Falcon might see some significance. Yet this, too, seemed unlikely. Mr. O'Sullivan had told no one of his hastily formed decision to go journeying into the wilderness, and since the pack train had started before daylight, there was a good chance that his presence in it had been unobserved by anyone who knew him.
In the mid-forenoon they met and passed a group of half a dozen Congaree Indians, members of one of the smaller tribes that the warrior nations despised. All were armed with rifles, two carried steel hatchets, while the others bore tomahawks of stone. They were unmounted, for the Congarees were too poor to own horses, and they carried on their backs the bundles of skins that they would barter in Charles Town for taffai rum.
Recognizing Pearson, they stopped and made as if to show the pelts that they carried, hoping to get their rum at once instead of trudging the weary miles to Charles Town; but Jock, knowing the Congarees of old and aware that few skins of value would be found in their bundles, bade them roughly get on and clear the road. It was just after they had passed that Jolie beckoned Lachlan and he rode forward and joined her.
"Your warriors," she said, "Striking Hawk and Little Mink. I have not seen them this day. Where are they?"
"Little Mink is ahead of us, Mam'selle," Lachlan told her, "and Striking Hawk follows in our rear."
"But why?" she asked.
"You are not travelling the safe roads of England," he replied. "Here it is well to know who comes on the Path in front of you and who follows on the Path behind."
Her eyebrows lifted. "Did you know that those Congaree Indians were coming?" she inquired.
Lachlan nodded.
"A logcock called from the woods in front of us some minutes ago," he said. "It was the voice of Little Mink, and it gave me notice that travellers were approaching and that they were not to be feared."
She exclaimed in wonder, while Meg Pearson looked on with a smile and Mr. O'Sullivan swore softly in the ancient language of Ireland which he used when he was much pleased or surprised.
"And, lad?" he asked, "if those poor Congarees had been enemies whom we should have had cause to fear, what then would have been Little Mink's signal to you?"
"He would have called to me, then," Lachlan answered, "in the voice of one of the preying birds or one of the hunting beasts. If the danger were slight he would have used a sparrow hawk's cry. If it were great, but not very great, he would have uttered the scream of the partridge hawk. If the danger were very serious, we should have heard the howl of a lone wolf or the scream of a hunting panther."
Mr. O'Sullivan slapped his thigh with his right hand. "By damn and by Paul!" he cried, his round face glowing like a beet under his white mop of hair. "'Tis the strategy of the wilderness and 'tis superb material for the book I plan to write about the war fare of the aborigines. Now tell me, lad . . ."
The words died on his lips; he stood open-mouthed, eyes suddenly wide. From Jolie's cheeks the colour drained.
From far behind the pack train the sound came—a long, quavering, wailing scream. It might have come from a woman smitten suddenly with terror; yet it was an utterly inhuman cry, savage and wild and menacing, fiercer even than the chorus of the wolves.
Ugly Meg found her tongue first.
"Speak of the devil" she said grimly, her eyes on Lachlan's face.
Mr. O'Sullivan glanced at Jolie, marked the pallor of her cheeks.
"Perhaps," he suggested hopefully, "that was the real thing we heard—a real panther. What say you, lad?"
Lachlan made no reply. Already Almayne was at his side, speaking rapidly in a low voice, his gray-blue eyes alight. Lachlan nodded, turned swiftly to Jolie.
"Mam'selle," he said, "we will go now—you and Almayne and I. It was the signal agreed upon with Striking Hawk. It means that pursuers from Charles Town are coming. Mr. O'Sullivan, you cannot come with us—your mule could not keep up. Ready, Mam'selle? Then—ride."
Meg Pearson's long arm encircled Jolie's slim shoulders. Leaning forward, she kissed the girl upon the forehead.
"God's blessing on you, my lamb," she whispered. "We'll do what we can for you here."
Nunda the Moon-Face leaped forward as Almayne's heels dug into the piebald's flanks. "Now, lamb!" cried Meg, and struck Selu's haunch with her open palm. They were off, racing straight up the Path, Almayne in the lead, the fringes of his buckskin shirt streaming in the breeze, his long rifle balanced in his right hand.
Teeth clenched, muscles taut, Jolie bent forward over Selu's neck. She saw Almayne glance behind him, saw the frown on his brow, read the thought that was in his mind.
The spurs of her riding boots tickled Selu's sides. The claybank was racing now, and Jolie, head down, boring into the wind, spoke to him coolly, gently:
"Faster, Selu! Faster, my sweet boy! We'll teach Almayne something, you and I."
The gale shrilled in her ears. Above the rush of the wind she could no longer hear the thunder of Tuti's hoofs behind her. The Path was hard here, the grass that grew in it was short, its curves as it wound through the forest were long and sweeping; yet Jolie knew that it would have been madness to race an English horse at such break-neck speed along that trail. But she knew also that the Chicasaw horses were marvellously sure-footed, and ahead of her Nunda was racing, too. Almayne had let the piebald out; he was doing his best, and his best was good. For some minutes he held his lead; then, little by little, the space between them lessened, and Jolie smiled.
As inch by inch she drew abreast of Almayne, as inch by inch she passed him, she turned her face to him so that he could see that smile.