A Virginia Scout Part 22

The words dropped from her lips in a sibilous crescendo as her blood drove her to a display of emotion.

Cousin's hands slowly advanced and pushed back the long locks. He advanced his face close to hers, and I knew his slight form was trembling. Then he staggered back and jerkily brought his arm across his eyes.

"G.o.d! It's my sister!" I heard him mutter.

I leaped to my feet, crying out for him to be a man. He remained motionless with his arm across his face, helpless to defend himself. I turned to the woman. Whatever light had shone in her eyes when memory forced his name from her lips had departed.

Her face was cold and immobile as she met my wild gaze. There was a streak of yellow paint running from the bridge of her nose to the parting of her brown hair. Her skin was as dark as any Shawnee's, but her eyes held the blue of the cornflower.

I tried to discover points of resemblance between her and the boy and succeeded only when she turned her head in profile; then they were very much alike. He lowered his arm to look over it, and she watched him without changing her expression.

With a hoa.r.s.e cry he straightened and answering the impulse in his heart, sprang toward her, his arms outstretched to enfold her. She gave ground, not hastily as though wis.h.i.+ng to avoid his embrace, but with a sinuous twist of her lithe body, and she repulsed him by raising her hand. He stared at her stupidly, and mumbled:

"You remember me. You called my name. You know I am your brother. You know we lived on Keeney's k.n.o.b. You remember the creek----"

"I remember," she quietly interrupted. "A very long time ago. Very long. I am a Shawnee now. My heart is red."

Her words stunned him for a bit, then he managed to gasp out, "Who is this man?" And he glared at the warrior seated at the foot of the tree.

"My husband."

The boy's mouth popped open, but without uttering a sound he stooped and grabbed for his rifle. I placed my foot on it and seized his arm and pleaded with him to regain his senses before he took any action. During all this the warrior remained as pa.s.sive as the tree-roots against which he half-reclined.

After a brief hysterical outburst Cousin stood erect and ceased struggling with me. And all the time his sister had watched us speculatively, her gaze as cold and impersonal as though she had been looking at a rock. It was very hideous. It was one of those d.a.m.nable situations which must end at once, and to which there can be no end. For the boy to kill his sister's husband was an awful thing to contemplate.

I pulled the lad back and softly whispered:

"You can't do it. The blood would always be between you two. She has changed. She believes she is red. Take her aside and talk with her. If she will go with you make for the mountains and get her to the settlements."

"An' him?"

"I will wait an hour. If you two do not return before an hour--Well, he will not bother you."

At first he did not seem to understand; then he seized my free hand and gripped it tightly. Taking his rifle, he approached the girl and took her by the arm.

"Come," he gently told her. "We must talk, you and I. I have hunted for you for years."

She was suspicious of us two, but she did not resist him.

"Wait," she said.

She glided to the savage and leaned over him and said something. Then she was back to her brother, and the two disappeared into the woods.

I drew a line on the savage and in Shawnee demanded:

"Throw me the knife she gave you."

Glaring at me sullenly, he flipped the knife toward the fire and resumed his att.i.tude of abstraction. I had never killed an unarmed Indian. I had never shot one in cold blood. The office of executioner did not appeal, but repulsive as it was it would not do for the boy to kill his savage brother-in-law. Lost Sister and the savage were man and wife, even if married according to the Indian custom.

Nor would it do for a woman of Virginia to be redeemed to civilization with a red husband roaming at large. No. The fellow must die, and I had the nasty work to do. The glade was thickening with shadows, but the sunlight still marked the top of an elm and made glorious the zenith. When the light died from the heavens I would a.s.sa.s.sinate the man.

This would give him a scant hour, but a dozen or fifteen minutes of life could make small difference. Then again, once the dusk filled the glade my impa.s.sive victim would become alert and up to some of his devilish tricks.

He did not change his position except as he turned his head to gaze fixedly at the western forest wall. One could imagine him to be ignorant of my presence.

"Where does Black Hoof lead his warriors?" I asked him.

Without deflecting his gaze he answered:

"Back to their homes on the Scioto."

"The white trader, the Pack-Horse-Man, spoke words that drive them back?"

It was either a trick of the dying light, or else I detected an almost imperceptible twitching of the grim lips. After a short pause he said:

"The Shawnees are not driven. They will pick up the end of the peace-belt.

They will not drop it on the ground again. Tah-gah-jute (Logan) does not wish for war. He has taken ten scalps for every one taken from his people at Baker's house. He has covered the dead. The Pack-Horse-Man spoke wise words."

"This white woman? You know she must go back to her people."

Again the faint twitching of the lips. When he spoke it was to say:

"She can go where she will or where she is made to go. If she is taken to the white settlements she will run away and go back to the Scioto. Her people are red. After the French War, after Pontiac's War, it was the same. White prisoners were returned to the white people. Many of them escaped and came back to us."

His voice was calm and positive and my confidence in the girl's willingness to return to civilization was shaken. She had been as stolid as her red mate in my presence, but I had believed that nature would conquer her ten years' of savagery once she was alone with her brother.

The light had left the top of the elm and the fleecy clouds overhead were no longer dazzling because of their borrowed splendor. I c.o.c.ked my rifle.

The savage folded his arms as he caught the sound, but his gaze toward the west never wavered. To nerve myself into shooting the fellow in cold blood I made myself think of the girl's terrible fate, and was succeeding rapidly when a light step sounded behind me and her low voice was saying:

"My brother is at the spring. You will find him there."

I rose and dropped the rifle into the hollow of my left arm and stared at her incredulously. It had happened before, the rebellion of white prisoners at quitting their captors. Yet the girl's refusal was astounding.

"You would not go with him?"

"I am here. I go to my people," she answered. "He is waiting for you. The squaws would laugh at him. He is very weak."

With an oath I whirled toward the Indian. Had he made a move or had he reflected her disdain with a smile, his white-red wife surely would have been a widow on the spot. But he had not s.h.i.+fted his position. To all appearances he was not even interested in his wife's return. And she too now ignored me, and busied herself in gathering up their few belongings and slinging them on her back. Then she went to him, and in disgust and rage I left them and sped through the darkening woods to the spring where I had first seen the imprints of her tiny moccasins.

Cousin was there, seated and his head bowed on his chest, a waiting victim for the first Indian scout who might happen along.

I dragged him to his feet and harshly said:

"Come! We must go. Your white sister is dead. Your search is ended. Your sister died in the raid on Keeney's k.n.o.b."

"My little sister," he whispered.

He went with me pa.s.sively enough, and he did not speak until we had struck into the main trail of the Shawnees. Then he asked:

"You did not kill him?"