Nattie Nesmith/Chapter 18

by Sophia Homespun

 

Chapter XVIII.

Sorrowing.

T was the first purpose of Augustus Reid, when he left the ruins of his father's wigwam, to collect a company of his own race, recover what might remain of the hapless creatures who had met death there, and see them decently buried. He did not at once return to the house of his white friend, the young contractor, for two reasons; he felt that the old chief, North Wind, would prefer that some of his own people should assist in the last, sad offices about the ruins of his wigwam, and he shrank from making known to the whites the crime of his father in the abduction of one of their race. If Nattie had perished miserably with her Indian companions, he thought it as well to let her tragic history end there, and, by avoiding the inquiries which would naturally be made, in the excited state of feeling which the first knowledge of the affair would occasion, that distressing and useless revealings might be prevented. He had once entertained the hope that, through his efforts, the abducted girl might be restored to her friends, but what good could result to those friends from the knowledge that she had perished in the flames of an Indian wigwam? It would, rather, be a kindness, to conceal from them a fate so dreadful. This, Augustus Reid, or Torch Eye, thought that he might be able to do. The Frenchmen were not likely to do anything so averse to their own safety as the spreading abroad of the tale of their lawless work would prove, and, by taking but a few red men to the scene of desolation, to assist in the searching out and burial of the poor victims, the young Indian hoped that the turf of the forest might hide them and their histories, in undisturbed oblivion.

This was the first step; the next was to compass, in some way, the destruction, or banishment, of those reckless villains who had done the deed; for there was enough of the red man's nature in the youth to make the blood in his veins run hot with fierce thirst for revenge on the wretches who had wrought this wanton wickedness.

The third and last step was to leave these haunts, made dreadful to him by the scenes through which he was now passing.

The task of finding some men of his race proved more difficult than he had anticipated. On the third day, his strength failed, and he was compelled to rest for thirty-six hours in a wretched cabin, to recruit his powers so as to travel onward. The few wigwams that he found on the borders of the forest were deserted. Hither the inmates had traveled away, as many of them did at the approach of winter, to the white settlements, for the purpose of trade and traffic, or the resounding axes in the forest had led them to abandon their homes and journey toward the deeper wilderness of the east, for security. A week's search proved fruitless, and Augustus Reid returned, disheartened, to the scene of the conflagration.

It was night when he reached the spot. All was black and coldnow. No smoke, no stench, no eye of fire gleaming from the ruins. He pulled his blanket close about him, bent his head in its folds, and walked slowly around and around the desolate spot. While he was thus engaged, deeply absorbed in his own melancholy thoughts, the eyes of a man and woman who stood in the shadow of a pine-tree, not far off, were fixed upon him with terror in their gaze. His tall form, thus enveloped, looked almost spectral in the uncertain light.

The two persons under the tree soon drew near each other, while the woman whispered, with pale lips:

"It is a ghost,—the poor, old, lame Indian stalking around his own funeral-pile."

This was said in imperfect English, and the man answered in the same tongue:

"It is a fool, you are, Mother Minotte, to call yonder tall, straight figure the ghost of the doubled-down, old creature that once crouched in that cabin."

"Still, I am sure that it is he," was the response; "for though his old body was bent, why could not his ghost be tall and straight, fleet and vigorous, as in his youth? for thus, we hear, spirits are when they have left this earth for upper spheres."

"Much we hear, Mother Minotte, little we know of what is beyond us," returned the man.

"But I wish that I could believe that yonder striding figure is nothing worse, or more powerful, than the ghost of the old red-skin that died here."

"Why! what, then, do you think it is?" asked the woman, putting her eyes close to the man's face, so that she could the better read its expression.

"Do you know whose wigwam it was that we burned?" he asked.

"Wasn't it that of the old man and squaws that lived in it?"

He shook his head slowly, and said:

"As we have since learned, they were only placed here by the owner, to take care of a young white squaw whom he had sometime stolen from the whites, and was keeping with great care, to be the wife of his son, some day."

The woman made a slight exclamation, and asked:

"Who, then, was the owner of the wigwam?"

"Did you ever hear of an Indian chief by the name of North Wind?"

"That have I," she answered, almost aloud, in her excitement at these words from her companion; "a man fierce and terrible to his foes."

The wretch at her side suddenly grasped her by the arm and hissed in her ear:

"Hush! that is he walking yonder. I know his form. He is more slender than he was. It is because of his long, hurried march. He has heard of the fall of his wigwam, in the far land whither he had traveled, and has returned to take vengeance on the foes who have laid waste his home."

"What will he do?" asked the woman, gazing intently on the stalking figure; "he is alone, and can't do much against six men with good, stout weapons."

"Alone he seems to be now," was the answer; "but there is help near, you may be sure. North Wind has too long a head to come unprepared Tor the blow. He has a son, Torch Eye by name, half white, half red, a subtle, bold youth, popular with the Yankees at Sibley's Corner. It would not be strange if North Wind, through the influence of his son, had entered into alliance with these men to search out the destroyers of the wigwam, and bring them to justice."

"But, admitting all this, I don't see how they can fasten upon you as the guilty ones," said the woman, in a husky whisper; "for no witnesses escaped from the fire to tell of you, and know your faces if they saw you again; and the Yankees can't afford to make arow with all the French hands and drive them off, because they want their help. There," she added, striking the man's arm and pointing in the direction of the ruins, "he has sat down."

"Yes," whispered the man; "and his next move will be towards our huts in the forest. Let us hasten there and arouse our fellows. Depend upon it, he will have a company with him that will overpower us, burn our dwellings, and put us to slaughter. I know well what Indians are when their blood is up."

He started away in the darkness, pulling the woman after him, their guilty fears lending speed to their feet. The lone figure, which superstition and guilt had invested with such power and might, was left crouching on the broad, flat stone which had once been at the entrance to the wigwam. Alas, how weak and powerless this lonely being felt himself to be! Not one of his father's race in all the bordering wilderness, to lend him a helping hand in the task before him,—the task of searching that pile of ruins for the blackened bodies which he supposed lay buried there, and consigning them to a safe resting-place. He was pondering in his mind whether he should commence the work alone, or apply to the Yankee colony, six miles distant, for aid. He still had a shrinking from the disclosures which might follow the latter course; and he had an overpowering dread of taking Nattie's little, stiffened, lifeless form from the ruins, and, alone, bearing it to its burial. This stern conflict of feeling kept him alternately walking and crouching on the desolate door-stone till morning dawned. Then, summoning all his native nerve and fortitude, he set about the unwelcome task.

During three hours of hard work, the remains of five human bodies were drawn forth from the ruins; but he sought vainly and wildly for the sixth. The five discovered were the unfortunate Indian family,—the poor old man, the three squaws, and the young boy. The white girl was the slenderest, the slightest of the company; had she, then, been entirely consumed, or were the remains too few, or too deeply buried, to be discovered? He sought unremittingly for two hours more, but with no success. Then he cleaned out the pit which was beneath a portion of the wigwam, rolled the five bodies into it, and covered them with earth and ashes.

"But the white maiden sleeps not in the grave with them," he said, while a dark, hopeless sorrow overspread his face. "Her soft, fair little body is either burned to ashes, or"——and a ray of hope, like a single stray gleam of sunlight, flashed suddenly through his mind,—"or she has escaped."

He sprang to his feet as he uttered the last word, and turned his face upward to the fair, blue sky above him, but the head drooped again as he thought:—

"If escaped, where is she? Whither could she have directed her steps from this burning wigwam? She may have been murdered by the wretches that fired her home, lest she might live as a witness against them, or she may have sunk down and died alone in the wilderness, from the agony of her own wounds, for she could hardly have escaped the fierce, raging flames without serious injury."

While Augustus Reid thus pondered, still walking around the ruins, he saw a glittering object among the rubbish which he had stirred up in his search for the burnt bodies, and going toward it, drew forth a partly melted metal box. It was of an oblong shape. The cover seemed to be tightly glued in its place, but by the use of his pocket knife he soon had it removed. The strips of bright broad-cloth, containing the names of "Red Rose," "Black-bird," "Fox Heart," "Light-foot" and "Sweet Fern", met his gaze. The box was of thick metal, so the heat of the fire had not penetrated, to shrivel the cloth, or mar the whiteness of the beads. It seemed like Nattie's very self speaking to the young man, as he gazed. A new thought and purpose took possession of him, as he closed the box and put it in his pocket.

"I will hesitate no longer," he said, "nor seek to hide a father's misdeeds. Nathalie may yet be living; or, at all events, I am persuaded that she did not perish 'neath these ruins; thus her fate is yet unknown. I will goto her own people, relate her story, and invite their aid in clearing up the still dread uncertainty which hangs about her."

"Night was again falling, when the young man left the ruins and struck into the forest. As he approached the vicinity of the French cabins, where he had listened, unobserved, to the rehearsal of their deed of darkness, he noticed that no lights gleamed from the crevices of the boards, nor were the sounds of revelry borne to his ears. All was gloom and silence around them.

"They can not be sleeping already," he thought, as he bent his steps to the door of the nearest hut.

It was standing open. He entered. No person was visible, but marks of disorder were apparent, as if the inmates had left their abode in haste. He visited the other two cabins. They presented the same appearance.

"What can it mean?" he thought. "Are they yet abroad in the woods, or is there any stir about the burning, which has led to their arrest, or caused them to flee away?"

These thoughts caused him to hasten towards the white settlement at Sibley's Corner. His progress was so rapid that by nine o'clock in the evening he heard the sharp rasping of the saws in the great mill on the mad river, and was soon striding across the trembling foot-bridge toward the house of the contractor. Lights gleamed from the windows as he stepped upon the door stone and gave a timid rap.