Manly Wade Wellman - Novel 1953
Read Manly Wade Wellman - Novel 1953 Online
Authors: The Last Mammoth (v1.1)
THE LAST MAMMOTH
by
Manly Wade Wellman
Decorations by Leej Ames
HOLIDAY
HOUSE,
NEW YORK
Text, copyright 1953 by Manly Wade
Wellman Decorations, copyright 1953 by Leej Ames
PRINTED IN
U.S.A.
FOR
IRVING
CRUMP
“His was the universal cordiality,
which made his society more agreeable than any flattery, while never for a
moment failing to command respect. In his commendation there was no loudness,
and about his learning no parade.”
—Marcus Aurelius
Antoninus
Contents
gainst
the French.” Young Dan Boone could not keep
the eager joy out of his voice. “I’m right sorry you aren’t marching, too.”
Sam Ward managed to smile back at
his friend, so spruce and happy in new buckskins. But the smile had to fight
disappointment on Sam’s lean young face.
“I did reckon
North Carolina
could send more than a stingy hundred
militiamen,” he said. “How can those British regulars and
Virginia
rangers fight the French and Indians
without
Carolina
boys to show ’em how?”
Dan Boone chuckled. He was twenty, a
year older than Sam, but shorter and slimmer. He squinted up at the March sun
above the trees that fringed the settlement.
“
Noon
,” he said. “I’ll have to step. I’m joining
boys east of here. Sam, I want you to have this.”
Sam stared at the gift Dan thrust
upon him.
“Dan, you aren’t giving me your
Pennsylvania
rifle!”
“Take it, Sam,” insisted the other.
“They won’t let me carry it to that French war. General Braddock says the
militia has to have army muskets, all alike, so as to use the same size of
bullets. That’s what they call military orders.”
“This rifle’s better than any
musket,” Sam protested.
“I know, but the general says what
I’ll carry, not me. Anyway, you always wanted to swap your smooth-bore for a
rifle-gun, to do your meat-hunting better. And you and I are friends. I say I
want you to have it.”
He fairly forced the rifle into
Sam’s arms, then slipped off his bullet pouch and slung it on Sam’s shoulder.
They shook hands, slim young Dan Boone in his new fringed buckskins, sinewy,
fair-haired Sam Ward in his smoke-stained ones. Dan took the trail off along
the eastern way through the leafless trees, while Sam leaned on the
Pennsylvania
rifle and watched him out of sight.
Enviously he thought of Dan’s coming adventures, and his own dull prospects for
excitement.
Sam Ward was the meat-hunter for the
settlers at Brooke’s Fort, here in the
North Carolina
wilderness at the eastern slope of the
mountains. Turning, he glanced at the little jumble of buildings among the
trees. The biggest of them was Captain Brooke’s blockhouse-home. Nearby stood
Fletcher Carrier’s smithy shed, where Sam had lived since his father had died
three years before, and the long, low house that held Mr. Lycurgus Meehaw’s
store and trading post. Around these sprawled the dozen or so cabins of the
settlers, who in this March of 1755 were busy breaking ground in the corn
clearings. Brooke’s Fort was the home of fifty men, women and children, and Sam
Ward, between spells of blacksmithing with Fletcher Carrier, hunted meat for
everyone.
There’d been a point in meat-hunting
once. It had taken a lot of game—a deer a day hadn’t been any too much. And Sam
had had to pick off bears, too, and smoke their legs and sides like sure-enough
hog ham and bacon. But lately had
come
the herds of
cattle, the penfuls of pigs. Nowadays most of Sam’s hunting was for turkeys and
partridges and geese, to relish the beef and pork. He had Dan Boone’s
Pennsylvania
rifle now, with its beautiful balance and
long, straight-throwing barrel, but he wasn’t really needed much for hunting
any more. He wished he could march away with Dan Boone and General Brad- dock
to fight the French and their Indian allies . . .
Thinking of Indians, Sam suddenly
realized that he saw one.
In front of Captain Brooke’s
blockhouse of brown, chinked logs, several white men stood staring at that
Indian, who held himself straight and grave in his tight-drawn cloak of fox
skins. A Cherokee, Sam saw at once from the shaven skull and the single
dangling scalp lock. As Sam strolled close, Mr. Meehaw, big and fat and trying
to be elegant, was frowning over the Indian’s speech.
“All I make out is
Tsiya,”
Mr. Meehaw admitted to Captain Brooke, who stood with booted feet set wide and
a thumb hooked in his belt. “That means an otter, as I take it—but he has no
furs to trade. I don’t know why he comes among us.”
“Happen he’s a spy,” suggested
Fletcher Carrier, the smith. He crossed his strong, sooty arms on the front of
his leather apron.
“Thought ye understood the Cherokee
speech, Mr. Meehaw.”
“I do, I do!” protested Mr. Meehaw.
But Sam knew that the fat trader had picked up only a few simple words and
phrases from the Indians who came to barter their pelts at his store. “This red
vagabond doesn’t speak Cherokee as I know it. Belike he’s of another tribe,
with a similar tongue—”
“Let me try him,” said Sam Ward,
entering among them and dropping the butt of the
Pennsylvania
rifle to the ground. “I’ve hunted among the
Cherokees since I was nine years old, and can talk Cherokee with the best.”
Mr. Meehaw scowled. He envied and
resented Sam’s better knowledge of Indian manners and language. But Captain
Brooke, middle-aged and practical in his shabby old militia coat, nodded.
“Aye, lad, make the attempt,” said
the captain. “None of us can take his meaning.”
Sam faced the Indian. He saw a man
about thirty, almost as tall as himself, and intensely solemn and watchful.
“Ayastigi,”
said Sam. That
meant warrior, a Cherokee term of respect.
“Young warrior,” replied the Indian.
His pronunciation was not like that of the Cherokees with whom Sam had hunted
and talked from his childhood. Nor was he dressed, as they would be, in gaudy
trade clothes. Below the close-drawn fur cloak Sam saw forest-made moccasins,
and the plug-like ear ornaments the stranger wore were of shell, not copper.
“What does the warrior seek here?”
asked Sam.
“I seek council,” was the deep,
formal reply, “the word of your chief and of his wise men. From far off I come,
from beyond where any white man has travelled. My name is
Tsiya
—Otter.”
Sam translated this, and Captain
Brooke nodded. “Fetch him into the house,” he ordered. “We’ll hear him.”
“Come in here,” Sam bade Otter,
gesturing toward the door.
Captain Brooke’s house was the
largest and best in the settlement, with benches and a table and several real
chairs from the civilized towns toward the coast. But Otter sat cross-legged on
the floor of split planks, dropped his robe and folded his arms on his naked
brown chest. Captain Brooke, Meehaw and Fletcher Carrier sat on chairs. Sam
remained standing.
“Speak,” Meehaw bade Otter in
Cherokee.
“Let my words come through the young
warrior,” replied Otter, his narrow, bright eyes on Sam. “He knows my speech
better than the fat, old one.”
“What did he say?” demanded Meehaw
suspiciously.
“He asked me to interpret for him,”
Sam replied, and squatted facing the Indian, then spoke to him. “This is the
council of our town. The chief’s name is Captain Brooke. These others are his
wise men. Begin.”
Otter fumbled at the girdle that
supported his deerskin leggings. He brought out a leather strip, worked with
wampum beads of white, red and brown, in a series of four oblong designs.
“A belt,” muttered Captain Brooke to
Carrier.
“Important business.”
Spreading the wampum on his left
palm, Otter touched its first pattern with his dark right forefinger. He began
to speak in the deepest of voices, almost chanting the words he had committed
to memory:
“Chief: I am of the Twilight People.
Our town is
Usun-hiyi,
Twilight
Town
, on the banks of
Egwami- maya,
the
Big
River
, at the farthest west of the Cherokee
hunting grounds. It is our home; our grandfathers have died at
Twilight
Town
, and their grandfathers.”
“Is this true?” asked Sam, as he
knew was proper at such a ceremonial recital.
“I tell no he,” replied Otter, also
according to custom.
Sam translated, and Captain Brooke
nodded, to show that he, as chief, had taken note. “Speak on,” Sam prompted
Otter, and Otter’s forefinger touched the next pattern on the wampum belt.
“Chief: As long as we remember, a
beast has lived near
Twilight
Town
. He is big like a hill, hairy like a bear,
wise like a spirit. Our fathers named him Giluhsti, the Strong Hairy One.
Giluhsti was their friend. The children of
Twilight
Town
gathered grass and sweet cane for Giluhsti
and his mate. Our medicine men foretold weather and hunting by Giluhsti’s
actions. Time went on for more than an old man’s life.”
Again a pause, while Sam translated
this curious information. Captain Brooke and the others frowned.
“D’ye understand him rightly, Sam?”
demanded Carrier. “It sounds like a fable for infants, this hairy beast of
his.”
“The savages are full of silly
myths,” suggested Meehaw, taking snuff from a silver box. “Well, let’s hear
more talk, perhaps saner.”
“Speak on,” said Sam, and Otter
touched the third pattern.
“Chief: Giluhsti’s mate died, and
Giluhsti was sad. We heard him mourn in the night. We tried to show that we
were sorry. Dancers went and made a circle around the dead body. They wanted to
bury it with honor. But Giluhsti did not know this. He charged and killed
several dancers. We tried to fight, but our arrows only stung his hairy hide
and made him
more angry
. He raged around
Twilight
Town
. We had to put up a stockade of strong logs
to defend our houses. Giluhsti killed our hunters and corn-planters. Even our
chief,
Kugu-sta,
the Woodpecker, was struck down by Giluhsti and made
lame. At night Giluhsti grumbled outside
Twilight
Town
. We feared him. We changed his name to
Giluhda, the Hairy Killer.”
Sam translated as before. Captain
Brooke frowned again, and Meehaw snickered.
“He’s serious,” argued Sam. “He was
told to say those things, by the council that sent him. The wampum belt shows
that.”
“We’ll hear him out,” decided
Captain Brooke.