Drums Along the Mohawk (50 page)

Gil and Joe Boleo and Conrad Franck, lying well beyond the line of their men, plainly saw Caldwell and Brant meet and report to each other. The dour unemotional white man was nearly a head taller than the Indian. Watching the latter’s temperamental face, Gil could not help but remember how Brant had towered over Herkimer that day at Unadilla thirteen months ago. Herkimer was dead; Herkimer must have known what would happen with Brant loose in the woods with armed men to manage. Even to Gil, who knew little of the general strategy of war, it seemed that Brant was the leading actor in
the gradual encircling of the flats. He wondered for an instant whether it would be worth while to shoot Brant where he stood. A fair mark, with his red blanket over his shoulder and cocked hat with yellow lace and the silver gorget on his chest that a man could hold his sights just under. But even as the thought occurred to him, Joe Boleo touched his hand and shook his head. “There ain’t no Indian worth getting killed for,” he whispered. Before Gil could think it out in his own mind, the army was on the move.

They disappeared as quickly down the road as they had come. A few of the Senecas deployed in front; a few of the Mohawks spread out in the rear, loitering along until the main body was well ahead. One man came within a hundred yards of where Gil lay. He was close enough for Gil to see the lines of his face under the paint, the broad nose, slightly hooked, with the deep nostrils; the little silver socket that held the eagle’s feather over his right ear; the notches on the handle of his tomahawk.

The thirty men stayed where they were for over an hour, but when no one else came from the east or north, they withdrew to Boleo’s lodge to take council. They waited for Bellinger and Klock until sundown. Gil found that several, like himself, had felt the itch to draw a bead on Brant. But having seen Brant’s army, they felt less anxious to open battle on them.

There was nothing thirty men could do. It was obvious that they ought to go home. But the men were spoiling for something now they were out, and it was Joe who calmly mentioned Young’s settlement two miles east of Edmeston, on a branch of Butternut Creek. The inhabitants were all outspoken King’s men.

Nobody had any arguments. As soon as it was dark, they moved across the trail. Within an hour they came out on the creek shore and found the wagon ruts that led to Young’s; an hour more and their work was done. Behind them the small clearings were alight with the burning farms; three of them, belonging to
Young, Bollyer, and a man named Betty. The men from the flats had found only women and children, but that fact—that Tories felt it safe to leave their families unprotected in the woods—served only to infuriate them. They hauled the women out of bed and drove them and the children down the trail. Then they burned every standing wall, killing cattle and horses and even shooting the pigs that ran squealing round the firelight. They stripped one of the women, who returned to save three pounds in hard money, and laughed at her, dividing the money among themselves, and telling her to talk to Captain Caldwell.

Adam Helmer had missed all these events while he was traversing a hundred and fifty miles of wilderness, and he felt bitter at having missed the fun. For a month and a half nothing happened. Every time he returned to the flats, Demooth or Bellinger sent him out again at once. He had hardly had time for more than a couple of visits with Polly Bowers; he hadn’t been back to McKlennar’s for a good meal at all. He hadn’t seen Gil; Gil was too busy getting in his wheat. But the wheat would all be in now; and the next trip down they might be able to get up a decent crowd. Joe Boleo was covering the west since the raid on Schuyler in which George Weaver had been taken prisoner. Helmer alone was responsible for the Unadilla trail, unless he included the three men who were supposed to be watching the trail with him. Most likely they were sitting together throwing dice.

Adam combed his hair as he lay in the green filtered sunlight. The woods were dim with the September haze. The August heat was continuing; but it was better to be hot than to lie out in the rain.

His first sight of the Indians came so abruptly that he knew it would be impossible to warn the men beyond him. There were forty Indians, he judged, Mohawks too, coming up the trail at a
dogtrot. That many meant surely that there were flankers out. He heard them now. Whatever force it might be, it was coming fast.

At last what everyone had feared had come to pass, and Adam had allowed himself to get caught like a fifteen-year-old boy on his first scout. He knew that there was only one chance of those three fools getting away; and he knew also that someone would have to get away if German Flats were to be warned in time. Adam did not hesitate. He rolled over on his knee and took the leading Indian a clean shot right under the wishbone. Then, while they milled, he charged straight down the slope and over the trail and up the opposite bank. He made it so fast that the first shots the Indians had at him he was dodging through the scrub.

The musket fire crackled like dry sticks, and the stink of black powder reached out in the still air so that he smelled it as he ran. But he paid no attention to the shooting and yelling on the trail. He dodged into some heavier timber, and wheeled down the bank again. He had judged his course exactly. He hit the trail three hundred yards ahead of his first crossing, just beyond a bend.

He ran lightly, listening to the surge of voices behind him. Up at the lodge a sudden feeble burst of three shots sounded, then more yells. The damned fools hadn’t had the sense to cut and run when he gave them the diversion. He knew as sure as he knew which end of himself he ate with that the three men were dead. It left him alone to carry the warning into German Flats.

German Flats lay twenty-four miles to north and he knew he had probably the pick of Brant’s Indians on his trail, men who could run eighty miles through the woods between sunrise and noon. But Adam knew that he could run himself, and he knew that he would have to run on an open trail and that once the Indians discovered that, they would know he would stick to it. They wouldn’t have to be bothered with tracking.

He eased up slightly, listening behind him. The first surge of yelling had overshot the eastern ridge; now it returned. It would be only a minute before they brought his tracks down to the trail. He began to put on a little pressure to make the next bend; but just before he rounded it he heard the war whoop slide up to its unhuman pitch and a wild shot cut the air high over his head.

His wind had come back from that first foolish burst up and down the ridge. He lengthened his stride. His yellow hair, fresh-combed and beautiful, whipped up and down on his shoulders like a short flapping blanket. His mouth opened as he reached his full pace and he took the slight grade with the bursting rush of a running buck deer.

The Indians had stopped yelling. At the end of the next straight stretch Adam flung a look over his shoulder and saw the first brave running bent over, going smooth and quick and soundless. The Indian knew that Helmer had seen him, but he didn’t lift his gun. He wasn’t carrying a gun. He had only his tomahawk, which was a great deal more deadly if he could pull up within forty feet.

The Indian must have been gaining, Adam thought, or else he was the leader of a group, following the old Mohawk dodge of sprinting to make the fugitive travel at top speed. The others would take a steadier pace; but as soon as the leader tired another man would sprint up. By keeping pressure on the fugitive in this way they could run down any man in four or five hours plain going. Adam would not only have to keep ahead of the press, he would have to run the heart completely out of them.

He sprinted himself now; not blindly, but picking his next easing point beforehand; he knew the trail, every stone and root of it, from Edmeston to German Flats, as well as he knew Polly Bowers. His easing point would be the ford over Licking Brook. A half mile.

At any time it was worth while to see Adam run. He was the biggest man in the flats, six feet five in his moccasins. With his mass of yellow hair he seemed yet taller. He weighed close to two hundred pounds, without an ounce of fat on him.

He began to draw away from the Indian as soon as he started to sprint. Glancing back again, he saw that the Indian had straightened up a little. He got the feeling that the Indian’s face was surprised. Probably the Indian fancied himself as quite a runner. Maybe he was champion of some lousy set of lodges somewhere. Adam could have laughed if he had not needed his wind, but the laughter went on in his inside, sending the blood into his hands. His head felt fine and clear. He figured he had gained thirty yards on the Indian when he hit the brook.

He jumped the ford. It was too early to risk wetting his feet and going sore. But as he cleared the water, he threw his rifle from him. It splashed into the pool below the ford and sank. Now that his hands were free, Adam began unlacing his hunting shirt. He got it off. By the time he came to the big butternut tree, he had wrapped his powder flask and bullet pouch in it, and he threw it over a small clump of witch hobble. Then he tightened his belt and stuck his hatchet into the back of his belt where the handle would not keep smacking against his legs.

He was now naked from the waist up. The wind of his running felt good on his chest, cooling the sweat as it trickled down through the short golden mane. He was a wonderful man to see; his skin white as a woman’s except for his hands and face, which were deeply tanned. He was feeling fine and going well. He felt so fine he thought he might almost let the leading Indian pull up and maybe chance a throw at him with his tomahawk. He eased a little, enough to see the Indian. When the buck appeared behind him, Adam saw that he was a new man. He was taller, and his face was painted black and white instead of red and
yellow as the other’s had been. He did not come quite so fast, but Adam’s trained eye saw that he had better staying power. Adam decided then and there that he would put all ideas of a quick fight out of his mind. The Indians meant real business.

For the next four miles the chase continued with only a slight variation of the pace, Adam adapting himself to the man behind. He was beginning to feel the pressure, but he was running with greater canniness. He kept his eyes glued to the trail now. He did not dare risk a blind step. His ankles wouldn’t hold up as well if he lit on a rolling stone or a slippery root. He had the feeling very definitely that the race was reaching a climax, and though he ran strongly, strong enough to lick any man in the flats at a hundred yards straightaway this minute, he knew that these Indians were good.

His breathing was still excellent. He had no fear of giving out; he could run till sundown, he thought; and then it came upon him that it would be a fact, if he managed to clear the Indians, that he would hit the flats just about sundown. Even while he ran, he reasoned it out that Brant must have figured on reaching the valley at dark and striking in the morning. Adam wondered what would happen when Brant knew that the word had gone ahead of him. He doubted whether Brant could get up his main body anyway much before sunset. But it didn’t matter much. The only thing in the world Adam could do was to reach the flats. If he got there first some people could get into the forts.

His eyes kept checking in his landmarks and he realized that Andrustown was only a mile, or a little more, ahead. He must have outdistanced most of even the first pursuit. He expected there would not be more than half a dozen who could have held on as long as this, and if that were so they would have to be sending up another man pretty soon. And they would all begin bearing down at the same time.

Adam figured that if he could get through Andrustown clearing he might better take to the woods, for he would have gained as much time as anyone could on the main body.

As he chanced a backward glance, he saw that the Indians were going to try to run him down now. The new man was there and it was evident that he was their best man. He was not tall. He was thickset and had thick short legs. He was entirely naked except for ankle moccasins and breech clout and he was oiled and painted and rather light-colored. He looked like a Mohawk. He wore three feathers. It seemed impossible that he could have kept up with the rest, just to see him at first, for he had a belly that showed out in front. But his belly did not bounce at all. After a minute Adam thought it must be an enlarged place where he kept his wind.

The Indian’s legs moved with incredible rapidity. He had already taken his tomahawk from his belt as if he were confident of being able to haul up on the white man. That gesture gave Adam the incentive he needed. He was enraged, and he took his rage out in his running. When the Indian entered the clearing, Adam was already down past the black ruins of the houses and going away with every stride. It was the greatest running the Indian had ever looked at. He knew he was licked, and he started slowing up very gradually. By the time Adam hit the woods, the Indian had stopped and sat down by the roadside.

When Adam looked back from the woods the Indian wasn’t even looking at him. He was all alone in the clearing and he was futilely banging the ground between his legs with his tomahawk. Adam knew he had made it. He did not stop, nor even let down quickly on his pace. All he had to race now was time. He would have laughed if he could have got the breath for it. Time? Time, hell!