The Spirit of the Border

Z >> Zane Grey >> The Spirit of the Border


"Nell, will you marry me?" asked Jim, softly. Low though it was, he
had heard Mr. Wells' whisper.

Nell stretched a little trembling hand over her uncle to Jim, who
inclosed it in his own. Her eyes met his. Through her tears shone
faintly a light, which, but for the agony that made it dim, would
have beamed radiant.

"Find the place," said Mr. Wells, handing Jim a Bible. It was the
one he always carried in his pocket.

With trembling hand Jim turned the leaves. At last he found the
lines, and handed the book back to the old man.

Simple, sweet and sad was that marriage service. Nell and Jim knelt
with hands clasped over Mr. Wells. The old missionary's voice was
faint; Nell's responses were low, and Jim answered with deep and
tender feeling. Beside them stood Wingenund, a dark, magnificent
figure.

"There! May God bless you!" murmured Mr. Wells, with a happy smile,
closing the Bible.

"Nell, my wife!" whispered Jim, kissing her hand.

"Come!" broke in Wingenund's voice, deep, strong, like that of a
bell.

Not one of them had observed the chief as he stood erect,
motionless, poised like a stag scenting the air. His dark eyes
seemed to pierce the purple-golden forest, his keen ear seemed to
drink in the singing of the birds and the gentle rustling of leaves.
Native to these haunts as were the wild creatures, they were no
quicker than the Indian to feel the approach of foes. The breeze had
borne faint, suspicious sounds.

"Keep--the--Bible," said Mr. Wells, "remember--its--word." His hand
closely clasped Nell's, and then suddenly loosened. His pallid face
was lighted by a meaning, tender smile which slowly faded--faded,
and was gone. The venerable head fell back. The old missionary was
dead.

Nell kissed the pale, cold brow, and then rose, half dazed and
shuddering. Jim was vainly trying to close the dead man's eyes. She
could no longer look. On rising she found herself near the Indian
chief. He took her fingers in his great hand, and held them with a
strong, warm pressure. Strangely thrilled, she looked up at
Wingenund. His somber eyes, fixed piercingly on the forest, and his
dark stern face, were, as always, inscrutable. No compassion shone
there; no emotion unbefitting a chieftain would ever find expression
in that cold face, but Nell felt a certain tenderness in this
Indian, a response in his great heart. Felt it so surely, so
powerfully that she leaned her head against him. She knew he was her
friend.

"Come," said the chief once more. He gently put Nell aside before
Jim arose from his sad task.

"We can not leave him unburied," expostulated Jim.

Wingenund dragged aside a large stone which formed one wall of the
cavern. Then he grasped a log which was half covered by dirt, and,
exerting his great strength, pulled it from its place. There was a
crash, a rumble, the jar of a heavy weight striking the earth, then
the rattling of gravel, and, before Nell and Jim realized what had
happened, the great rock forming the roof of the cavern slipped down
the bank followed by a small avalanche. The cavern was completely
covered. Mr. Wells was buried. A mossy stone marked the old
missionary's grave.

Nell and Jim were lost in wonder and awe.

"Ugh!" cried the chief, looking toward the opening in the glade.

Fearfully Nell and Jim turned, to be appalled by four naked, painted
savages standing with leveled rifles. Behind them stood Deering and
Jim Girty.

"Oh, God! We are lost! Lost! Lost!" exclaimed Jim, unable to command
himself. Hope died in his heart.

No cry issued from Nell's white lips. She was dazed by this final
blow. Having endured so much, this last misfortune, apparently the
ruin of her life, brought no added suffering, only a strange, numb
feeling.

"Ah-huh! Thought you'd give me the slip, eh?" croaked Girty,
striding forward, and as he looked at Wingenund his little, yellow
eyes flared like flint. "Does a wolf befriend Girty's captives?
Chief you hev led me a hard chase."

Wingenund deigned no reply. He stood as he did so often, still and
silent, with folded arms, and a look that was haughty, unresponsive.

The Indians came forward into the glade, and one of them quickly
bound Jim's hands behind his back. The savages wore a wild, brutish
look. A feverish ferocity, very near akin to insanity, possessed
them. They were not quiet a moment, but ran here and there, for no
apparent reason, except, possibly, to keep in action with the raging
fire in their hearts. The cleanliness which characterized the normal
Indian was absent in them; their scant buckskin dress was bedraggled
and stained. They were still drunk with rum and the lust for blood.
Murder gleamed from the glance of their eyes.

"Jake, come over here," said Girty to his renegade friend. "Ain't
she a prize?"

Girty and Deering stood before the poor, stricken girl, and gloated
over her fair beauty. She stood as when first transfixed by the
horror from which she had been fleeing. Her pale face was lowered,
her hands clenched tightly in the folds of her skirt.

Never before had two such coarse, cruel fiends as Deering and Girty
encumbered the earth. Even on the border, where the best men were
bad, they were the worst. Deering was yet drunk, but Girty had
recovered somewhat from the effects of the rum he had absorbed. The
former rolled his big eyes and nodded his shaggy head. He was
passing judgment, from his point of view, on the fine points of the
girl.

"She cer'aintly is," he declared with a grin. "She's a little
beauty. Beats any I ever seen!"

Jim Girty stroked his sharp chin with dirty fingers. His yellow
eyes, his burnt saffron skin, his hooked nose, his thin lips--all
his evil face seemed to shine with an evil triumph. To look at him
was painful. To have him gaze at her was enough to drive any woman
mad.

Dark stains spotted the bright frills of his gaudy dress, his
buckskin coat and leggins, and dotted his white eagle plumes. Dark
stains, horribly suggestive, covered him from head to foot. Blood
stains! The innocent blood of Christians crimsoned his renegade's
body, and every dark red blotch cried murder.

"Girl, I burned the Village of Peace to git you," growled Girty.
"Come here!"

With a rude grasp that tore open her dress, exposing her beautiful
white shoulder and bosom, the ruffian pulled her toward him. His
face was transfixed with a fierce joy, a brutal passion.

Deering looked on with a drunken grin, while his renegade friend
hugged the almost dying girl. The Indians paced the glade with short
strides like leashed tigers. The young missionary lay on the moss
with closed eyes. He could not endure the sight of Nell in Girty's
arms.

No one noticed Wingenund. He stood back a little, half screened by
drooping branches. Once again the chief's dark eyes gleamed, his
head turned a trifle aside, and, standing in the statuesque position
habitual with him when resting, he listened, as one who hears
mysterious sounds. Suddenly his keen glance was riveted on the ferns
above the low cliff. He had seen their graceful heads quivering.
Then two blinding sheets of flame burst from the ferns.

Spang! Spang!

The two rifle reports thundered through the glade. Two Indians
staggered and fell in their tracks--dead without a cry.

A huge yellow body, spread out like a panther in his spring,
descended with a crash upon Deering and Girty. The girl fell away
from the renegade as he went down with a shrill screech, dragging
Deering with him. Instantly began a terrific, whirling, wrestling
struggle.

A few feet farther down the cliff another yellow body came crashing
down to alight with a thud, to bound erect, to rush forward swift as
a leaping deer. The two remaining Indians had only time to draw
their weapons before this lithe, threatening form whirled upon them.
Shrill cries, hoarse yells, the clash of steel and dull blows
mingled together. One savage went down, twisted over, writhed and
lay still. The other staggered, warded off lightninglike blows until
one passed under his guard, and crashed dully on his head. Then he
reeled, rose again, but only to have his skull cloven by a bloody
tomahawk.

The victor darted toward the whirling mass.

"Lew, shake him loose! Let him go!" yelled Jonathan Zane, swinging
his bloody weapon.

High above Zane's cry, Deering's shouts and curses, Girty's shrieks
of fear and fury, above the noise of wrestling bodies and dull
blows, rose a deep booming roar.

It was Wetzel's awful cry of vengeance.

"Shake him loose," yelled Jonathan.

Baffled, he ran wildly around the wrestlers. Time and time again his
gory tomahawk was raised only to be lowered. He found no opportunity
to strike. Girty's ghastly countenance gleamed at him from the whirl
of legs, and arms and bodies. Then Wetzel's dark face, lighted by
merciless eyes, took its place, and that gave way to Deering's broad
features. The men being clad alike in buckskin, and their motions so
rapid, prevented Zane from lending a helping hand.

Suddenly Deering was propelled from the mass as if by a catapult.
His body straightened as it came down with a heavy thud. Zane
pounced upon it with catlike quickness. Once more he swung aloft the
bloody hatchet; then once more he lowered it, for there was no need
to strike. The renegade's side was torn open from shoulder to hip. A
deluge of blood poured out upon the moss. Deering choked, a bloody
froth formed on his lips. His fingers clutched at nothing. His eyes
rolled violently and then were fixed in an awful stare.

The girl lying so quiet in the woods near the old hut was avenged!

Jonathan turned again to Wetzel and Girty, not with any intention to
aid the hunter, but simply to witness the end of the struggle.

Without the help of the powerful Deering, how pitifully weak was the
Deathshead of the frontier in the hands of the Avenger!

Jim Girty's tomahawk was thrown in one direction and his knife in
another. He struggled vainly in the iron grip that held him.

Wetzel rose to his feet clutching the renegade. With his left arm,
which had been bared in the fight, he held Girty by the front of his
buckskin shirt, and dragged him to that tree which stood alone in
the glade. He pushed him against it, and held him there.

The white dog leaped and snarled around the prisoner.

Girty's hands pulled and tore at the powerful arm which forced him
hard against the beech. It was a brown arm, and huge with its
bulging, knotted, rigid muscles. A mighty arm, strong as the justice
which ruled it.

"Girty, thy race is run!" Wetzel's voice cut the silence like a
steel whip.

The terrible, ruthless smile, the glittering eyes of doom seemed
literally to petrify the renegade.

The hunter's right arm rose slowly. The knife in his hand quivered
as if with eagerness. The long blade, dripping with Deering's blood,
pointed toward the hilltop.

"Look thar! See 'em! Thar's yer friends!" cried Wetzel.

On the dead branches of trees standing far above the hilltop, were
many great, dark birds. They sat motionless as if waiting.

"Buzzards! Buzzards!" hissed Wetzel.

Girty's ghastly face became an awful thing to look upon. No living
countenance ever before expressed such fear, such horror, such
agony. He foamed at the mouth, he struggled, he writhed. With a
terrible fascination he watched that quivering, dripping blade, now
poised high.

Wetzel's arm swung with the speed of a shooting star. He drove the
blade into Girty's groin, through flesh and bone, hard and fast into
the tree. He nailed the renegade to the beech, there to await his
lingering doom.

"Ah-h! Ah-h! Ah-h!" shrieked Girty, in cries of agony. He fumbled
and pulled at the haft of the knife, but could not loosen it. He
beat his breast, he tore his hair. His screams were echoed from the
hilltop as if in mockery.

The white dog stood near, his hair bristling, his teeth snapping.

The dark birds sat on the dead branches above the hilltop, as if
waiting for their feast.



Chapter XXVIII.

Zane turned and cut the young missionary's bonds. Jim ran to where
Nell was lying on the ground, and tenderly raised her head, calling
to her that they were saved. Zane bathed the girl's pale face.
Presently she sighed and opened her eyes.

Then Zane looked from the statuelike form of Wingenund to the
motionless figure of Wetzel. The chief stood erect with his eyes on
the distant hills. Wetzel remained with folded arms, his cold eyes
fixed upon the writhing, moaning renegade.

"Lew, look here," said Zane, unhesitatingly, and pointed toward the
chief.

Wetzel quivered as if sharply stung; the cold glitter in his eyes
changed to lurid fire. With upraised tomahawk he bounded across the
brook.

"Lew, wait a minute!" yelled Zane.

"Wetzel! wait, wait!" cried Jim, grasping the hunter's arm; but the
latter flung him off, as the wind tosses a straw.

"Wetzel, wait, for God's sake, wait!" screamed Nell. She had risen
at Zane's call, and now saw the deadly resolve in the hunter's eyes.
Fearlessly she flung herself in front of him; bravely she risked her
life before his mad rush; frantically she threw her arms around him
and clung to his hands desperately.

Wetzel halted; frenzied as he was at the sight of his foe, he could
not hurt a woman.

"Girl, let go!" he panted, and his broad breast heaved.

"No, no, no! Listen, Wetzel, you must not kill the chief. He is a
friend."

"He is my great foe!"

"Listen, oh! please listen!" pleaded Nell. "He warned me to flee
from Girty; he offered to guide us to Fort Henry. He has saved my
life. For my sake, Wetzel, do not kill him! Don't let me be the
cause of his murder! Wetzel, Wetzel, lower your arm, drop your
hatchet. For pity's sake do not spill more blood. Wingenund is a
Christian!"

Wetzel stepped back breathing heavily. His white face resembled
chiseled marble. With those little hands at his breast he hesitated
in front of the chief he had hunted for so many long years.

"Would you kill a Christian?" pleaded Nell, her voice sweet and
earnest.

"I reckon not, but this Injun ain't one," replied Wetzel slowly.

"Put away your hatchet. Let me have it. Listen, and I will tell you,
after thanking you for this rescue. Do you know of my marriage?
Come, please listen! Forget for a moment your enmity. Oh! you must
be merciful! Brave men are always merciful!"

"Injun, are you a Christian?" hissed Wetzel.

"Oh! I know he is! I know he is!" cried Nell, still standing between
Wetzel and the chief.

Wingenund spoke no word. He did not move. His falcon eyes gazed
tranquilly at his white foe. Christian or pagan, he would not speak
one word to save his life.

"Oh! tell him you are a Christian," cried Nell, running to the
chief.

"Yellow-hair, the Delaware is true to his race."

As he spoke gently to Nell a noble dignity shone upon his dark face.

"Injun, my back bears the scars of your braves' whips," hissed
Wetzel, once more advancing.

"Deathwind, your scars are deep, but the Delaware's are deeper,"
came the calm reply. "Wingenund's heart bears two scars. His son
lies under the moss and ferns; Deathwind killed him; Deathwind alone
knows his grave. Wingenund's daughter, the delight of his waning
years, freed the Delaware's great foe, and betrayed her father. Can
the Christian God tell Wingenund of his child?"

Wetzel shook like a tree in a storm. Justice cried out in the
Indian's deep voice. Wetzel fought for mastery of himself.

"Delaware, your daughter lays there, with her lover," said Wetzel
firmly, and pointed into the spring.

"Ugh!" exclaimed the Indian, bending over the dark pool. He looked
long into its murky depths. Then he thrust his arm down into the
brown water.

"Deathwind tells no lie," said the chief, calmly, and pointed toward
Girty. The renegade had ceased struggling, his head was bowed upon
his breast. "The white serpent has stung the Delaware."

"What does it mean?" cried Jim.

"Your brother Joe and Whispering Winds lie in the spring," answered
Jonathan Zane. "Girty murdered them, and Wetzel buried the two
there."

"Oh, is it true?" cried Nell.

"True, lass," whispered Jim, brokenly, holding out his arms to her.
Indeed, he needed her strength as much as she needed his. The girl
gave one shuddering glance at the spring, and then hid her face on
her husband's shoulder.

"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.



Chapter XXIX.

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.