Zane Grey (35 page)

"Delaware, we are sworn foes," cried Wetzel.

"Wingenund asks no mercy."

"Are you a Christian?"

"Wingenund is true to his race."

"Delaware, begone! Take these weapons an' go. When your shadow falls
shortest on the ground, Deathwind starts on your trail."

"Deathwind is the great white chief; he is the great Indian foe; he
is as sure as the panther in his leap; as swift as the wild goose in
his northern flight. Wingenund never felt fear." The chieftain's
sonorous reply rolled through the quiet glade. "If Deathwind thirsts
for Wingenund's blood, let him spill it now, for when the Delaware
goes into the forest his trail will fade."

"Begone!" roared Wetzel. The fever for blood was once more rising
within him.

The chief picked up some weapons of the dead Indians, and with
haughty stride stalked from the glade.

"Oh, Wetzel, thank you, I knew—" Nell's voice broke as she faced
the hunter. She recoiled from this changed man.

"Come, we'll go," said Jonathan Zane. "I'll guide you to Fort
Henry." He lifted the pack, and led Nell and Jim out of the glade.

They looked back once to picture forever in their minds the lovely
spot with its ghastly quiet bodies, the dark, haunting spring, the
renegade nailed to the tree, and the tall figure of Wetzel as he
watched his shadow on the ground.

When Wetzel also had gone, only two living creatures remained in the
glade—the doomed renegade, and the white dog. The gaunt beast
watched the man with hungry, mad eyes.

A long moan wailed through the forest. It swelled mournfully on the
air, and died away. The doomed man heard it. He raised his ghastly
face; his dulled senses seemed to revive. He gazed at the stiffening
bodies of the Indians, at the gory corpse of Deering, at the savage
eyes of the dog.

Suddenly life seemed to surge strong within him.

"Hell's fire! I'm not done fer yet," he gasped. "This damned knife
can't kill me; I'll pull it out."

He worked at the heavy knife hilt. Awful curses passed his lips, but
the blade did not move. Retribution had spoken his doom.

Suddenly he saw a dark shadow moving along the sunlit ground. It
swept past him. He looked up to see a great bird with wide wings
sailing far above. He saw another still higher, and then a third. He
looked at the hilltop. The quiet, black birds had taken wing. They
were floating slowly, majestically upward. He watched their graceful
flight. How easily they swooped in wide circles. He remembered that
they had fascinated him when a boy, long, long ago, when he had a
home. Where was that home? He had one once. Ah! the long, cruel
years have rolled back. A youth blotted out by evil returned. He saw
a little cottage, he saw the old Virginia homestead, he saw his
brothers and his mother.

"Ah-h!" A cruel agony tore his heart. He leaned hard against the
knife. With the pain the present returned, but the past remained.
All his youth, all his manhood flashed before him. The long, bloody,
merciless years faced him, and his crimes crushed upon him with
awful might.

Suddenly a rushing sound startled him. He saw a great bird swoop
down and graze the tree tops. Another followed, and another, and
then a flock of them. He saw their gray, spotted breasts and hooked
beaks.

"Buzzards," he muttered, darkly eyeing the dead savages. The carrion
birds were swooping to their feast.

"By God! He's nailed me fast for buzzards!" he screamed in sudden,
awful frenzy. "Nailed fast! Ah-h! Ah-h! Ah-h! Eaten alive by
buzzards! Ah-h! Ah-h! Ah-h!"

He shrieked until his voice failed, and then he gasped.

Again the buzzards swooped overhead, this time brushing the leaves.
One, a great grizzled bird, settled upon a limb of the giant oak,
and stretched its long neck. Another alighted beside him. Others
sailed round and round the dead tree top.

The leader arched his wings, and with a dive swooped into the glade.
He alighted near Deering's dead body. He was a dark, uncanny bird,
with long, scraggy, bare neck, a wreath of white, grizzled feathers,
a cruel, hooked beak, and cold eyes.

The carrion bird looked around the glade, and put a great claw on
the dead man's breast.

"Ah-h! Ah-h!" shrieked Girty. His agonized yell of terror and horror
echoed mockingly from the wooded bluff.

The huge buzzard flapped his wings and flew away, but soon returned
to his gruesome feast. His followers, made bold by their leader,
floated down into the glade. Their black feathers shone in the sun.
They hopped over the moss; they stretched their grizzled necks, and
turned their heads sideways.

Girty was sweating blood. It trickled from his ghastly face. All the
suffering and horror he had caused in all his long career was as
nothing to that which then rended him. He, the renegade, the white
Indian, the Deathshead of the frontier, panted and prayed for a
merciful breath. He was exquisitely alive. He was human.

Presently the huge buzzard, the leader, raised his hoary head. He
saw the man nailed to the tree. The bird bent his head wisely to one
side, and then lightly lifted himself into the air. He sailed round
the glade, over the fighting buzzards, over the spring, and over the
doomed renegade. He flew out of the glade, and in again. He swooped
close to Girty. His broad wings scarcely moved as he sailed along.

Girty tried to strike the buzzard as he sailed close by, but his arm
fell useless. He tried to scream, but his voice failed.

Slowly the buzzard king sailed by and returned. Every time he
swooped a little nearer, and bent his long, scraggy neck.

Suddenly he swooped down, light and swift as a hawk; his wide wings
fanned the air; he poised under the tree, and then fastened sharp
talons in the doomed man's breast.

The fleeting human instinct of Wetzel had given way to the habit of
years. His merciless quest for many days had been to kill the
frontier fiend. Now that it had been accomplished, he turned his
vengeance into its accustomed channel, and once more became the
ruthless Indian-slayer.

A fierce, tingling joy surged through him as he struck the
Delaware's trail. Wingenund had made little or no effort to conceal
his tracks; he had gone northwest, straight as a crow flies, toward
the Indian encampment. He had a start of sixty minutes, and it would
require six hours of rapid traveling to gain the Delaware town.

"Reckon he'll make fer home," muttered Wetzel, following the trail
with all possible speed.

The hunter's method of trailing an Indian was singular. Intuition
played as great a part as sight. He seemed always to divine his
victim's intention. Once on the trail he was as hard to shake off as
a bloodhound. Yet he did not, by any means, always stick to the
Indian's footsteps. With Wetzel the direction was of the greatest
importance.

For half a mile he closely followed the Delaware's plainly marked
trail. Then he stopped to take a quick survey of the forest before
him. He abruptly left the trail, and, breaking into a run, went
through the woods as fleetly and noiselessly as a deer, running for
a quarter of a mile, when he stopped to listen. All seemed well, for
he lowered his head, and walked slowly along, examining the moss and
leaves. Presently he came upon a little open space where the soil
was a sandy loam. He bent over, then rose quickly. He had come upon
the Indian's trail. Cautiously he moved forward, stopping every
moment to listen. In all the close pursuits of his maturer years he
had never been a victim of that most cunning of Indian tricks, an
ambush. He relied solely on his ear to learn if foes were close by.
The wild creatures of the forest were his informants. As soon as he
heard any change in their twittering, humming or playing—whichever
way they manifested their joy or fear of life—he became as hard to
see, as difficult to hear as a creeping snake.

The Delaware's trail led to a rocky ridge and there disappeared.
Wetzel made no effort to find the chief's footprints on the flinty
ground, but halted a moment and studied the ridge, the lay of the
land around, a ravine on one side, and a dark impenetrable forest on
the other. He was calculating his chances of finding the Delaware's
trail far on the other side. Indian woodcraft, subtle, wonderful as
it may be, is limited to each Indian's ability. Savages, as well as
other men, were born unequal. One might leave a faint trail through
the forest, while another could be readily traced, and a third, more
cunning and skillful than his fellows, have flown under the shady
trees, for all the trail he left. But redmen followed the same
methods of woodcraft from tradition, as Wetzel had learned after
long years of study and experience.

And now, satisfied that he had divined the Delaware's intention, he
slipped down the bank of the ravine, and once more broke into a run.
He leaped lightly, sure-footed as a goat, from stone to stone, over
fallen logs, and the brawling brook. At every turn of the ravine, at
every open place, he stopped to listen.

Arriving on the other side of the ridge, he left the ravine and
passed along the edge of the rising ground. He listened to the
birds, and searched the grass and leaves. He found not the slightest
indication of a trail where he had expected to find one. He retraced
his steps patiently, carefully, scrutinizing every inch of the
ground. But it was all in vain. Wingenund had begun to show his
savage cunning. In his warrior days for long years no chief could
rival him. His boast had always been that, when Wingenund sought to
elude his pursuers, his trail faded among the moss and the ferns.

Wetzel, calm, patient, resourceful, deliberated a moment. The
Delaware had not crossed this rocky ridge. He had been cunning
enough to make his pursuer think such was his intention. The hunter
hurried to the eastern end of the ridge for no other reason than
apparently that course was the one the savage had the least reason
to take. He advanced hurriedly because every moment was precious.
Not a crushed blade of grass, a brushed leaf, an overturned pebble
nor a snapped twig did he find. He saw that he was getting near to
the side of the ridge where the Delaware's trail had abruptly ended.
Ah! what was there? A twisted bit of fern, with the drops of dew
brushed off. Bending beside the fern, Wetzel examined the grass; it
was not crushed. A small plant with triangular leaves of dark green,
lay under the fern. Breaking off one of these leaves, he exposed its
lower side to the light. The fine, silvery hair of fuzz that grew
upon the leaf had been crushed. Wetzel knew that an Indian could
tread so softly as not to break the springy grass blades, but the
under side of one of these leaves, if a man steps on it, always
betrays his passage through the woods. To keen eyes this leaf showed
that it had been bruised by a soft moccasin. Wetzel had located the
trail, but was still ignorant of its direction. Slowly he traced the
shaken ferns and bruised leaves down over the side of the ridge, and
at last, near a stone, he found a moccasin-print in the moss. It
pointed east. The Delaware was traveling in exactly the opposite
direction to that which he should be going. He was, moreover,
exercising wonderful sagacity in hiding his trail. This, however,
did not trouble Wetzel, for if it took him a long time to find the
trail, certainly the Delaware had expended as much, or more, in
choosing hard ground, logs or rocks on which to tread.

Wetzel soon realized that his own cunning was matched. He trusted no
more to his intuitive knowledge, but stuck close to the trail, as a
hungry wolf holds to the scent of his quarry.

The Delaware trail led over logs, stones and hard-baked ground, up
stony ravines and over cliffs. The wily chief used all of his old
skill; he walked backward over moss and sand where his footprints
showed plainly; he leaped wide fissures in stony ravines, and then
jumped back again; he let himself down over ledges by branches; he
crossed creeks and gorges by swinging himself into trees and
climbing from one to another; he waded brooks where he found hard
bottom, and avoided swampy, soft ground.

With dogged persistence and tenacity of purpose Wetzel stuck to this
gradually fading trail. Every additional rod he was forced to go
more slowly, and take more time in order to find any sign of his
enemy's passage through the forests. One thing struck him forcibly.
Wingenund was gradually circling to the southwest, a course that
took him farther and farther from the Delaware encampment.

Slowly it dawned upon Wetzel that the chief could hardly have any
reason for taking this circling course save that of pride and savage
joy in misleading, in fooling the foe of the Delawares, in
deliberately showing Deathwind that there was one Indian who could
laugh at and loose him in the forests. To Wetzel this was bitter as
gall. To be led a wild goose chase! His fierce heart boiled with
fury. His dark, keen eyes sought the grass and moss with terrible
earnestness. Yet in spite of the anger that increased to the white
heat of passion, he became aware of some strange sensation creeping
upon him. He remembered that the Delawares had offered his life.
Slowly, like a shadow, Wetzel passed up and down the ridges, through
the brown and yellow aisles of the forest, over the babbling brooks,
out upon the golden-flecked fields—always close on the trail.

At last in an open part of the forest, where a fire had once swept
away the brush and smaller timber, Wetzel came upon the spot where
the Delaware's trail ended.

There in the soft, black ground was a moccasin-print. The forest was
not dense; there was plenty of light; no logs, stones or trees were
near, and yet over all that glade no further evidence of the
Indian's trail was visible.

It faded there as the great chief had boasted it would.

Wetzel searched the burnt ground; he crawled on his hands and knees;
again and again he went over the surroundings. The fact that one
moccasin-print pointed west and the other east, showed that the
Delaware had turned in his tracks, was the most baffling thing that
had ever crossed the hunter in all his wild wanderings.