Chapter XII. The Shades of Death

by Joseph A. Altsheler

　　"The Shades of Death" is a marsh on a mountain top, the great,wet, and soggy plain of the Pocono and Broad mountains. When thefugitives from Wyoming entered it, it was covered with a densegrowth of pines, growing mostly out of dark, murky water, whichin its turn was thick with a growth of moss and aquatic plants.Snakes and all kinds of creeping things swarmed in the ooze.Bear and panther were numerous.

　　Carpenter did not know any way around this terrible region, andthey were compelled to enter it. Henry was again devoutlythankful that it was summer. In such a situation with winter ontop of it only the hardiest of men could survive.

　　But they entered the swamp, Carpenter silent and dogged, stillleading. Henry and his comrades kept close to the crowd. Onecould not scout in such a morass, and it proved to be worse thanthey bad feared. The day turned gray, and it was dark among thetrees. The whole place was filled with gloomy shadows. It wasoften impossible to judge whether fairly solid soil or oozy murklay before them. Often they went down to their waists.Sometimes the children fell and were dragged up again by thestronger. Now and then rattle snakes coiled and hissed, and thewomen killed them with sticks. Other serpents slipped away inthe slime. Everybody was plastered with mud, and they becamemere images of human beings.

　　In the afternoon they reached a sort of oasis in the terribleswamp, and there they buried two more of their number who hadperished from exhaustion. The rest, save a few, lay upon theground as if dead. On all sides of them stretched the pines andthe soft black earth. It looked to the fugitives like a regioninto which no human beings had ever come, or ever would comeagain, and, alas! to most of them like a region from which nohuman being would ever emerge.

　　Henry sat upon a piece of fallen brushwood near the edge of themorass, and looked at the fugitives, and his heart sank withinhim. They were hardly in the likeness of his own kind, and theyseemed practically lifeless now. Everything was dull, heavy, anddead. The note of the wind among the leaves was somber. A longblack snake slipped from the marshy grass near his feet anddisappeared soundlessly in the water. He was sick, sick to deathat the sight of so much suffering, and the desire for vengeance,slow, cold, and far more lasting than any hot outburst, grewwithin him. A slight noise, and Shif'less Sol stood beside him.

　　"Did you hear?" asked the shiftless one, in a significant tone.

　　"Hear what?" asked Henry, who had been deep in thought.

　　"The wolf howl, just a very little cry, very far away an' underthe horizon, but thar all the same. Listen, thar she goesag'in!"

　　Henry bent his ear and distinctly heard the faint, whining note,and then it came a third time.

　　He looked tip at Shif'less Sol, and his face grew white -- butnot for himself.

　　"Yes," said Shif'less Sol. He understood the look. We arepursued. Them wolves howlin' are the Iroquois. What do youreckon we're goin' to do, Henry?"

　　"Fight!" replied the youth, with fierce energy. "Beat 'em off!"

　　"How?"

　　Henry circled the little oasis with the eye of a general, and hisplan came.

　　"You'll stand here, where the earth gives a footing," he said,"you, Solomon Hyde, as brave a man as I ever saw, and with youwill be Paul Cotter, Tom Ross, Jim Hart, and Henry Ware, oldfriends of yours. Carpenter will at once lead the women andchildren on ahead, and perhaps they will not hear the battle thatis going to be fought here."

　　A smile of approval, slow, but deep and comprehensive, stole overthe face of Solomon Hyde, surnamed, wholly without fitness, theshiftless one. "It seems to me," he said, "that I've heard o'them four fellers you're talkin' about, an' ef I wuz to hunt allover this planet an' them other planets that Paul tells of, Icouldn't find four other fellers that I'd ez soon have with me."

　　"We've got to stand here to the death," said Henry.

　　"You're shorely right," said Shif'less Sol.

　　The hands of the two comrades met in a grip of steel.

　　The other three were called and were told of the plan, which metwith their full approval. Then the news was carried toCarpenter, who quickly agreed that their course was the wisest.He urged all the fugitives to their feet, telling them that theymust reach another dry place before night, but they were pastasking questions now, and, heavy and apathetic, they passed oninto the swamp.

　　Paul watched the last of them disappear among the black bushesand weeds, and turned back to his friends on the oasis. The fivelay down behind a big fallen pine, and gave their weapons a lastlook. They had never been armed better. Their rifles were good,and the fine double-barreled pistols, formidable weapons, wouldbe a great aid, especially at close quarters.

　　"I take it," said Tom Ross, "that the Iroquois can't get throughat all unless they come along this way, an' it's the same ez efwe wuz settin' on solid earth, poppin' em over, while they comesloshin' up to us."

　　"That's exactly it," said Henry. "We've a natural defense whichwe can hold against much greater numbers, and the longer we hold'em off, the nearer our people will be to Fort Penn."

　　"I never felt more like fightin' in my life," said Tom Ross.

　　It was a grim utterance, true of them all, although not one amongthem was bloodthirsty.

　　"Can any of you hear anything?" asked Henry. "Nothin'," repliedShif'less Sol, after a little wait, "nothin' from the womengoin', an' nothin' from the Iroquois comin'."

　　"We'll just lie close," said Henry. "This hard spot of groundisn't more than thirty or forty feet each way, and nobody can geton it without our knowing it."

　　The others did not reply. All lay motionless upon their sides,with their shoulders raised a little, in order that they mighttake instant aim when the time came. Some rays of the sunpenetrated the canopy of pines, and fell across the brown,determined faces and the lean brown hands that grasped the long,slender-barreled Kentucky rifles. Another snake slipped from theground into the black water and swam away. Some water animalmade a light splash as he, too, swam from the presence of thesestrange intruders. Then they beard a sighing sound, as of a footdrawn from mud, and they knew that the Iroquois were approaching,savages in war, whatever they might be otherwise, and expectingan easy prey. Five brown thumbs cocked their rifles, and fivebrown forefingers rested upon the triggers. The eyes of woodsmenwho seldom missed looked down the sights.

　　The sound of feet in the mud came many times. The enemy wasevidently drawing near.

　　"How many do you think are out thar?" whispered Shif'less Sol toHenry.

　　"Twenty, at least, it seems to me by the sounds." "I s'pose thebest thing for us to do is to shoot at the first head we see."

　　"Yes, but we mustn't all fire at the same man."

　　It was suggested that Henry call off the turns of the marksmen,and he agreed to do so. Shif'less Sol was to fire first. Thesounds now ceased. The Iroquois evidently had some feeling orinstinct that they were approaching an enemy who was to befeared, not weak and unarmed women and children.

　　The five were absolutely motionless, finger on trigger. TheAmerican wilderness had heroes without number. It was HoratiusCocles five times over, ready to defend the bridge with life.Over the marsh rose the weird cry of an owl, and some water birdscalled in lonely fashion.

　　Henry judged that the fugitives were now three quarters of a mileaway, out of the sound of rifle shot. He had urged Carpenter tomarshal them on as far as be could. But the silence endured yeta while longer. In the dull gray light of the somber day and thewaning afternoon the marsh was increasingly dreary and mournful.It seemed that it must always be the abode of dead or dyingthings.

　　The wet grass, forty yards away, moved a little, and between theboughs appeared the segment of a hideous dark face, the paintedbrow, the savage black eyes, and the hooked nose of the Mohawk.Only Henry saw it, but with fierce joy-the tortures at Wyomingleaped up before him-he fired at the painted brow. The Mohawkuttered his death cry and fell back with a splash into the mudand water of the swamp. A half dozen bullets were instantlyfired at the base of the smoke that came from Henry's rifle, butthe youth and his comrades lay close and were unharmed.Shif'less Sol and Tom were quick enough to catch glimpses ofbrown forms, at which they fired, and the cries coming back toldthat they had hit.

　　"That's something," said Henry. "One or two Iroquois at leastwill not wear the scalp of white woman or child at their belts."

　　"Wish they'd try to rush us," said Shif'less Sol. "I never feltso full of fight in my life before."

　　"They may try it," said Henry. "I understand that at the bigbattle of the Oriskany, farther up in the North, the Iroquoiswould wait until a white man behind a tree would fire, then theywould rush up and tomahawk him before he could reload."

　　"They don't know how fast we kin reload," said Long Jim, "an'they don't know that we've got these double-barreled pistols,either."

　　"No, they don't," said Henry, "and it's a great thing for us tohave them. Suppose we spread out a little. So long as we keepthem from getting a lodging on the solid earth we hold them at agreat disadvantage."

　　Henry and Paul moved off a little toward the right, and theothers toward the left. They still had good cover, as fallentimber was scattered all over the oasis, and they were quite surethat another attack would be made soon. It came in about fifteenminutes. The Iroquois suddenly fired a volley at the logs andbrush, and when the five returned the fire, but with more deadlyeffect, they leaped forward in the mud and attempted to rush theoasis, tomahawk in hand.

　　But the five reloaded so quickly that they were able to send in asecond volley before the foremost of the Iroquois could touchfoot on solid earth. Then the double barreled pistols came intoplay. The bullets sent from short range drove back the savages,who were amazed at such a deadly and continued fire. Henrycaught sight of a white face among these assailants, and he knewit to be that of Braxton Wyatt. Singularly enough he was notamazed to see it there. Wyatt, sinking deeper and deeper intosavagery and cruelty, was just the one to lead the Iroquois insuch a pursuit. He was a fit match for Walter Butler, theinfamous son of the Indian leader, who was soon to prove himselfworse than the worst of the savages, as Thayendanegea himself haswritten.

　　Henry drew a bead once on Braxton Wyatt-he had no scruples nowabout shooting him-but just as he was about to pull the triggerWyatt darted behind a bush, and a Seneca instead received thebullet. He also saw the renegade, Blackstaffe, but he was notable to secure a shot at him, either. Nevertheless, the Iroquoisattack was beaten back. It was a foregone conclusion that theresult would be so, unless the force was in great numbers. It islikely, also, that the Iroquois at first had thought only asingle man was with the fugitives, not knowing that the five hadjoined them later.

　　Two of the Iroquois were slain at the very edge of the solidground, but their bodies fell back in the slime, and the others,retreating fast for their lives, could not carry them off. Paul,with a kind of fascinated horror, watched the dead painted bodiessink deeper. Then one was entirely gone. The hand of the otheralone was left, and then it, too, was gone. But the five hadheld the island, and Carpenter was leading the fugitives ontoward Fort Penn. They had not only held it, but they believedthat they could continue to hold it against anything, and theirhearts became exultant. Something, too, to balance against thelong score, lay out there in the swamp, and all the five, bitterover Wyoming, were sorry that Braxton Wyatt was not among them.

　　The stillness came again. The sun did not break through theheavy gray sky, and the somber shadows brooded over "The Shadesof Death." They heard again the splash of water animals, and aswimming snake passed on the murky surface. Then they heard thewolf's long cry, and the long cry of wolf replying.

　　"More Iroquois coming," said Shif'less Sol." Well, we gave them apretty warm how d'ye do, an' with our rifles and double-barreledpistols I'm thinkin' that we kin do it ag'in."

　　"We can, except in one case," said Henry, " if the new partybrings their numbers up to fifty or sixty, and they wait fornight, they can surround us in the darkness. Perhaps it would bebetter for us to slip away when twilight comes. Carpenter andthe train have a long lead now."

　　"Yes," said Shif'less Sol," Now, what in tarnation is that?"

　　"A white flag," said Paul. A piece of cloth that had once beenwhite had been hoisted on the barrel of a rifle at a point aboutsixty yards away.

　　"They want a talk with us," said Henry.

　　"If it's Braxton Wyatt," said Long Jim, "I'd like to take a shotat him, talk or no talk, an' ef I missed, then take another."

　　"We'll see what they have to say," said Henry, and he calledaloud: "What do you want with us?"

　　"To talk with you," replied a clear, full voice, not that ofBraxton Wyatt.

　　"Very well," replied Henry, "show yourself and we will not fireupon you."

　　A tall figure was upraised upon a grassy hummock, and the handswere held aloft in sign of peace. It was a splendid figure, atleast six feet four inches in height. At that moment some raysof the setting sun broke through the gray clouds and shone fullupon it, lighting up the defiant scalp lock interwoven with thebrilliant red feather, the eagle face with the curved Roman beak,and the mighty shoulders and chest of red bronze. It was agenuine king of the wilderness, none other than the mightyTimmendiquas himself, the great White Lightning of the Wyandots.

　　"Ware," he said, "I would speak with you. Let us talk as onechief to another."

　　The five were amazed. Timmendiquas there! They were quite surethat he had come up with the second force, and he was certain toprove a far more formidable leader than either Braxton Wyatt orMoses Blackstaffe. But his demand to speak with Henry Ware mightmean something.

　　"Are you going to answer him?" said Shif'less Sol.

　　"Of course," replied Henry.

　　"The others, especially Wyatt and Blackstaffe, might shoot."

　　"Not while Timmendiquas holds the flag of truce; they would notdare."

　　Henry stood up, raising himself to his full height. The sameruddy sunlight piercing the somber gray of the clouds fell uponanother splendid figure, a boy only in years, but far beyond theaverage height of man, his hair yellow, his eyes a deep, clearblue, his body clothed in buckskin, and his whole attitude thatof one without fear. The two, the white and the red, kings oftheir kind, confronted each other across the marsh.

　　"What do you wish with me, Timmendiquas?" asked Henry. In thepresence of the great Wyandot chief the feeling of hate andrevenge that had held his heart vanished. He knew that Paul andShif'less Sol would have sunk under the ruthless tomahawk ofQueen Esther, if it had not been for White Lightning. He himselfhad owed him his life on another and more distant occasion, andhe was not ungrateful. So there was warmth in his tone when hespoke.

　　"Let us meet at the edge of the solid ground," said Timmendiquas,"I have things to say that are important and that you will beglad to hear."

　　Henry walked without hesitation to the edge of the swamp, and theyoung chief, coming forward, met him. Henry held out his hand inwhite fashion, and the young chief took it. There was no soundeither from the swamp or from those who lay behind the logs onthe island, but some of the eyes of those hidden in the swampswatched both with burning hatred.

　　"I wish to tell you, Ware," said Timmendiquas, speaking with thedignity becoming a great chief, "that it was not I who led thepursuit of the white men's women and children. I, and theWyandots who came with me, fought as best we could in the greatbattle, and I will slay my enemies when I can. We are warriors,and we are ready to face each other in battle, but we do not seekto kill the squaw in the tepee or the papoose in its birch-barkcradle."

　　The face of the great chief seemed stirred by some deep emotion,which impressed Henry all the more because the countenance ofTimmendiquas was usually a mask.

　　"I believe that you tell the truth," said Henry gravely.

　　"I and my Wyandots," continued the chief, "followed a trailthrough the woods. We found that others, Senecas and Mohawks,led by Wyatt and Blackstaffe, who are of your race, had gonebefore, and when we came up there had just been a battle. TheMohawks and Senecas had been driven back. It was then we learnedthat the trail was made by women and little children, save youand your comrades who stayed to fight and protect them."

　　"You speak true words, Timmendiquas," said Henry.

　　"The Wyandots have remained in the East to fight men, not to killsquaws and papooses," continued Timmendiquas. "So I say to you,go on with those who flee across the mountains. Our warriorsshall not pursue you any longer. We will turn back to the valleyfrom which we come, and those of your race, Blackstaffe andWyatt, shall go with us."

　　The great chief spoke quietly, but there was an edge to his tonethat told that every word was meant. Henry felt a glow ofadmiration. The true greatness of Timmendiquas spoke.

　　"And the Iroquois?" he said, "will they go back with you?"

　　"They will. They have killed too much. Today all the whitepeople in the valley are killed or driven away. Many scalps havebeen taken, those of women and children, too, and men have diedat the stake. I have felt shame for their deeds, Ware, and itwill bring punishment upon my brethren, the Iroquois. It willmake so great a noise in the world that many soldiers will come,and the villages of the Iroquois will cease to be."

　　"I think it is so, Timmendiquas," said Henry. "But you will befar away then in your own land."

　　The chief drew himself up a little.

　　"I shall remain with the Iroquois," he said. "I have promised tohelp them, and I must do so."

　　"I can't blame you for that," said Henry, "but I am glad that youdo not seek the scalps of women and children. We are at onceenemies and friends, Timmendiquas."

　　White Lightning bowed gravely. He and Henry touched hands again,and each withdrew, the chief into the morass, while Henry walkedback toward his comrades, holding himself erect, as if no enemywere near.

　　The four rose up to greet him. They had heard part of what wassaid, and Henry quickly told them the rest.

　　"He's shorely a great chief," said Shif'less Sol. He'll keep hisword, too. Them people on ahead ain't got anything more to fearfrom pursuit."

　　He's a statesman, too," said Henry. "He sees what damage thedeeds of Wyoming Valley will do to those who have done them. Hethinks our people will now send a great army against theIroquois, and I think so, too."

　　"No nation can stand a thing like that," said Paul, and I didn'tdream it could happen."

　　They now left the oasis, and went swiftly along the trail left bythe fugitives. All of them had confidence in the word ofTimmendiquas. There was a remote chance that some other band hadentered the swamp at a different point, but it was remote,indeed, and it did not trouble them much.

　　Night was now over the great swamp. The sun no longer camethrough the gray clouds, but here and there were little flashesof flame made by fireflies. Had not the trail been so broad anddeep it could easily have been lost, but, being what it was, theskilled eyes of the frontiersmen followed it without trouble.

　　"Some uv 'em are gittin' pow'ful tired," said Tom Ross, lookingat the tracks in the mud. Then he suddenly added: "Here's wharone's quit forever."

　　A shallow grave, not an hour old, had been made under somebushes, and its length indicated that a woman lay there. Theypassed it by in silence. Henry now appreciated more fully thanever the mercy of Timmendiquas. The five and Carpenter could notpossibly have protected the miserable fugitives against the greatchief, with fifty Wyandots and Iroquois at his back.Timmendiquas knew this, and he had done what none of the Indiansor white allies around him would have done.

　　In another hour they saw a man standing among some vines, butwatchful, and with his rifle in the hollow of his arm. It wasCarpenter, a man whose task was not less than that of the five.They were in the thick of it and could see what was done, but hehad to lead on and wait. He counted the dusk figures as theyapproached him, one, two, three, four, five, and perhaps no manever felt greater relief. He advanced toward them and saidhuskily:

　　"There was no fight! They did not attack!"

　　"There was a fight," said Henry, "and we beat them back; then asecond and a larger force came up, but it was composed chiefly ofWyandots, led by their great chief, Timmendiquas. He cameforward and said that they would not pursue women and children,and that we could go in safety."

　　Carpenter looked incredulous.

　　"It is true," said Henry, "every word of it."

　　"It is more than Brant would have done," said Carpenter, "and itsaves us, with your help."

　　"You were first, and the first credit is yours, Mr. Carpenter,"said Henry sincerely.

　　They did not tell the women and children of the fight at theoasis, but they spread the news that there would be no morepursuit, and many drooping spirits revived. They spent anotherday in the Great Dismal Swamp, where more lives were lost. Onthe day after their emergence from the marsh, Henry and hiscomrades killed two deer, which furnished greatly needed food,and on the day after that, excepting those who had died by theway, they reached Fort Penn, where they were received intoshelter and safety.

　　The night before the fugitives reached Fort Penn, the Iroquoisbegan the celebration of the Thanksgiving Dance for their greatvictory and the many scalps taken at Wyoming. They could notrecall another time when they had secured so many of thesehideous trophies, and they were drunk with the joy of victory.Many of the Tories, some in their own clothes, and some paintedand dressed like Indians, took part in it.

　　According to their ancient and honored custom they held a grandcouncil to prepare for it. All the leading chiefs were present,Sangerachte, Hiokatoo, and the others. Braxton Wyatt,Blackstaffe, and other white men were admitted. After theirdeliberations a great fire was built in the center of the camp,the squaws who had followed the army feeding it with brushwooduntil it leaped and roared and formed a great red pyramid. Thenthe chiefs sat down in a solemn circle at some distance, andwaited.

　　Presently the sound of a loud chant was heard, and from thefarthest point of the camp emerged a long line of warriors,hundreds and hundreds of them, all painted in red and black withhorrible designs. They were naked except the breechcloth andmoccasins, and everyone waved aloft a tomahawk as he sang.

　　Still singing and brandishing the tomahawks, which gleamed in thered light, the long procession entered the open space, and dancedand wheeled about the great fire, the flames casting a luridlight upon faces hideous with paint or the intoxication oftriumph. The glare of their black eyes was like those of Easterneaters of hasheesh or opium, and they bounded to and fro as iftheir muscles were springs of steel. They sang:

　　We have met the Bostonians* in battle, We slew them with our rifles and tomahawks. Few there are who escaped our warriors. Ever-victorious is the League of the Ho-de-no-sau-nee.[*Note: All the Americans were often called Bostonians by theIndians as late as the Revolutionary War.]

　　Mighty has been our taking of scalps, They will fill all the lodges of the Iroquois. We have burned the houses of the Bostonians. Ever-victorious is the League of the Ho-de-no-sau-nee. The wolf will prowl in their corn-fields, The grass will grow where their blood has soaked; Their bones will lie for the buzzard to pick. Ever-victorious is the League of the Ho-de-no-sau-nee. We came upon them by river and forest; As we smote Wyoming we will smite the others, We will drive the Bostonians back to the sea. Ever-victorious is the League of the Ho-de-no-sau-nee.The monotonous chant with the refrain, "Ever-victorious is theLeague of the Ho-de-no-sau-nee," went on for many verses.Meanwhile the old squaws never ceased to feed the bonfire, andthe flames roared, casting a deeper and more vivid light over thedistorted faces of the dancers and those of the chiefs, who satgravely beyond.

　　Higher and higher leaped the warriors. They seemed unconsciousof fatigue, and the glare in their eyes became that of maniacs.Their whole souls were possessed by the orgy. Beads of sweat,not of exhaustion, but of emotional excitement, appeared upontheir faces and naked bodies, and the red and black paintstreaked together horribly.

　　For a long time this went on, and then the warriors ceasedsuddenly to sing, although they continued their dance. A momentlater a cry which thrilled every nerve came from a far point inthe dark background. It was the scalp yell, the most terrible ofall Indian cries, long, high-pitched, and quavering, having in itsomething of the barking howl of the wolf and the fiendish shriekof a murderous maniac. The warriors instantly took it up, andgave it back in a gigantic chorus.

　　A ghastly figure bounded into the circle of the firelight. Itwas that of a woman, middle-aged, tall and powerful, naked to thewaist, her body covered with red and black paint, her long blackhair hanging in a loose cloud down her back. She held a freshscalp, taken from a white head, aloft in either band. It wasCatharine Montour, and it was she who had first emitted the scalpyell. After her came more warriors, all bearing scalps. Thescalp yell was supposed to be uttered for every scalp taken, and,as they had taken more than three hundred, it did not cease forhours, penetrating every part of the forest. All the timeCatharine Montour led the dance. None bounded higher than she.None grimaced more horribly.

　　While they danced, six men, with their hands tied behind them andblack caps on their heads, were brought forth and paraded aroundamid hoots and yells and brandishing of tomahawks in their faces.They were the surviving prisoners, and the black caps meant thatthey were to be killed and scalped on the morrow. Stupefied byall through which they had gone, they were scarcely consciousnow.

　　Midnight came. The Iroquois still danced and sang, and the calmstars looked down upon the savage and awful scene. Now thedancers began to weary. Many dropped unconscious, and the othersdanced about them where they lay. After a while all ceased.Then the chiefs brought forth a white dog, which Hiokatoo killedand threw on the embers of the fire. When it was thoroughlyroasted, the chiefs cut it in pieces and ate it. Thus closed theFestival of Thanksgiving for the victory of Wyoming.