Manly Wade Wellman - Novel 1953 (9 page)

           
“I must find my fire-weapon,” said
Sam, searching along the hard earth scuffed and torn by Giluhda’s stamping
feet. There was no sign of the rifle.

           
“Did he throw it among the trees?”
Sam asked Otter.

           
“I did not see where he threw it,”
said Otter. “It will be hard to find. We cannot wait; Giluhda may come back. We
will come and look for your fire- weapon when Giluhda is somewhere else.”

           
Into the river they waded, moving
upstream among a scatter of rocks. They splashed along for half an hour, and
came out to sit on a log before a low, rocky bluff.

           
“There’s a cave,” said Sam, pointing
to a narrow opening the height of a man. “If Giluhda had chased us here, we
could have gone into it. He could not have followed us.”

           
“But he could wait outside until we
starved,” reminded Otter.

           
Sam looked into the cave while they
caught their breath. It seemed fairly roomy. He would remember that refuge.
They waited a few minutes, but no crashing sound of pursuit came to them, and
they were thankful.

           
“Brother,” Sam said gratefully, “you
told your people that I saved your fife. Now I will tell them that you saved
mine.”

           
“It was no more than I should do,”
replied Otter. “When we are together in danger, each fights with his brother’s
strength and thinks with his brother’s wisdom. That way, each is as strong and
wise as two men.”

           
“You speak good words,” applauded
Sam. “Let’s go back to
Twilight
Town
.”

           
They made the rest of their journey
home without other adventure. As they crossed the cornfields toward the gate,
they saw men and women watching from inside.

           
“You have come back very soon,” said
a warrior as they entered the stockade. “White hunter, you do not have your
fire-weapon.”

           
“I lost it,” said Sam, shamefaced.
“I will find it again.”

           
Woodpecker limped eagerly toward
them. “Did you meet Giluhda, my son?” he asked Sam.

           
Sam found it hard to reply, and
Otter spoke for him.

           
“Chief, we met him. We fought him.
He is wounded, but not badly wounded. Neither of us got hurt.”

           
“That is good,” pronounced the
chief. “Come to the town house.”

           
They followed him to the big,
clay-daubed building, and inside. Otter gathered wood and fanned coals to a
flame. As the fire rose, council members entered and sat on the benches. Their
dark faces waited, solemn and expectant.

           
“Speak,” Woodpecker prompted Sam.
“Tell us what happened.”

           
“Chief, we found Giluhda at a place
where animals drink from the river, south of this town,” began Sam. “I struck
him with my fire-weapon’s medicine, and drew blood. But he ran at us, and would
have killed me. Otter saved my life.”

           
“Is this true?” intoned one of the
council.

           
“I tell no he,” responded Sam. “Let
Otter, my brother, speak of how he saved me.”

           
“Giluhda drove my brother up a
tree,” said Otter. “I sneaked close and shot arrows into him. He felt the pain
and ran after me, but his anger made him blind. I dodged away from him. We both
escaped by running another way before he could find us.” Woodpecker, squatting
with crossed legs, stroked his brown chin. “Your fire-weapon did not give
Giluhda a bad wound,” he observed to Sam.

           
“I think I did not strike him at the
right place,”

           
Sam told the chief. “I aimed at his
head, and I think that the bone is very thick and strong there.”

           
“That is true,” agreed another
council member. “Giluhda’s head is big. It is as hard as stone and as tough as
the wood of an oak tree.”

           
“I will hunt him again,” Sam
promised them. “Next time, I will strike him in a softer place. My medicine
will go through and find his fife. But first I must go back and look for my
fire-weapon.”

           
“No,” said a dry, mocking voice from
the doorway. “There is no need to look for your fire-weapon.”

           
It was Eagle Wing. He came in,
carrying something long and narrow, loosely wrapped in his deerskin cloak. He
walked down the sloping floor to where the group sat in council, and laid his
bundle on the floor beside him.

           
“Will the chief let me speak?” he
asked.

           
“Speak,” said Woodpecker, eyeing the
medicine man narrowly.

           
“When Otter and the white hunter
went to follow the trail of Giluhda, I followed them a little way behind,” said
Eagle Wing. “I was nearby and saw when they fought him. I saw the fire-weapon
used against him. I saw Giluhda pick it up and throw it away.”

           
“Tell me where he threw it,” said
Sam, “and I will go and bring it back.”

           
“There is no need,” said Eagle Wing
again, very loftily. “I found it, and brought it.”

           
Stooping, he snatched his cloak away
from what it wrapped. The rifle tumbled across the floor to Sam’s feet.

           
Sam bent quickly to catch up his
treasure. As he took it in his hands, he could not keep back a gasp of cold
dismay.

           
The stock of the rifle was
splintered, and the barrel was bent into a sickening curve.

           
“The fire-weapon could not kill
Giluhda,” said Eagle Wing in triumphant accusation. “Chief, and you wise men of
the council, it is as I said it would be. This white hunter is young and
foolish. He could not do anything against Giluhda. His medicine was weak
against Giluhda’s medicine, and his strength was weak against Giluhda’s
strength. He had to run from Giluhda, like a rabbit from a wolf.”

           
Eagle Wing was telling it just the
way it had happened, Sam had to admit in his wretched heart.

           
“The white hunter’s promises are not
promises at all,” wound up Eagle Wing boldly. “You would have been wiser if you
had listened to me, your medicine man. Now, perhaps, you will let me show you
the way to fight Giluhda and save the Twilight People.”

           
He held the heel of his hand toward
Sam.

           
“But first, let the foolish white
man be told to go away. He is nothing. No real man among us should speak to
him. Call in a woman or a child, to say to him that he is not welcome among the
Twilight People.”

deep
into the challenging eyes of Eagle Wing.
Eagle Wing met his glare, proudly and almost smugly. Then Sam turned toward
Woodpecker, waiting for what the chief would say.

           
But Woodpecker said nothing. His
gaunt, lined face only watched Sam. So did the faces of the other council
members. So did the anxious gaze of Otter. It came suddenly to the young white
man that they expected him to reply to Eagle Wing.

           
Of course—that was the way of the
Cherokees. Eagle Wing had voiced his insulting, belittling accusations. Now it
was Sam’s turn.

           
“Eagle Wing tells lies when he says
that I have broken my promise,” flung out Sam fiercely.

           
He paused. To call an Indian a liar
was practically a defiant invitation to combat. But all the eyes only watched
him without expression. There was more deep silence. Finally Eagle Wing broke
it.

           
“I think I heard something like the
wind,” he said coldly. “Or maybe a bird sang, or a squirrel chattered. It was
not worth hearing.”

           
Sam remembered the formality with
which Eagle Wing had begun his charges. He must start in the same way. He faced
Woodpecker.

           
“Chief, may I speak?”

           
“Speak,” granted Woodpecker.

           
“I went out to find Giluhda and
fight him. It was my first hunting of an animal like that. Maybe I did not act
wisely. If I hunt him again, I will know more about how to strike him. These
things were already said by me, before Eagle Wing came into this town house.”

           
Eagle Wing punctuated this recital
with a scornful grunt, and again Sam looked him in the face.

           
“I think
,
”
he said harshly, “that Eagle Wing hides his real reasons for speaking against
me. I think that

           
Eagle Wing does not want Giluhda to
be killed just now. I think that Eagle Wing wants to be chief of the Twilight
People, as well as their medicine man. And I think that if a medicine man is
also
chief
, he will be too strong.”

           
Again he paused, and he knew that
his heart beat faster than when he had clung in the branches with Giluhda
raging below him. He had called Eagle Wing a liar and a traitor, and the
council might well turn against him if he could not prove his words.

           
“Listen to me, wise men of the
council,” he went on, his voice ringing in the firelit chamber. “I know
something about other tribes, in the eastern and northern countries. There is a
nation there, called the Iroquois.”

           
“I have heard about the Iroquois,”
said Eagle Wing importantly. “Their nation is made of many tribes. They have
strong leaders. The white men are afraid of them.”

           
“Eagle Wing says those things
because he wants the Cherokees to be like the Iroquois,” said Sam.

           
“It is good to be strong,” continued
Eagle Wing loftily, as though he did Sam a favor by replying at all. “It is
good to make other peoples afraid. The Cherokees might learn to do that, from
the way of the Iroquois.”

           
Sam thought that at least two of the
listening council members glanced at Eagle Wing in admiration. He raised his
own voice, speaking swiftly and hotly.

           
“Is it good to be strong and not
happy?” he flung out. “Is it good for a nation to be feared everywhere —when
the nation fears its own chief?”

           
Then he fell silent again. He knew
that he was saying the wrong things. These wise men of
Twilight
Town
’s council would resent him, a white youth,
trying to instruct them about what sort of chief they should have. This was all
the
more true
because he had failed to kill Giluhda,
had failed in the task for which he had been called all the way across the
mountains and the unknown forests from
North Carolina
.

           
Eagle Wing turned his flat, straight
back upon Sam. “I have said what I was going to say,” he announced with frosty
dignity. “I am tired of hearing this foolish talk. The white man does not keep
his promises. Let him go away.”

           
“Nobody needs to tell me to do
that,” said Sam fiercely. “I am going.”

           
From Otter came a quick sound of
caught breath.

           
“But I do not go back to my own
people,” went on Sam. “I came this long way to kill Giluhda. I will go to a
place near here, and I will make my medicine strong again.”

           
He held out his damaged rifle. “This
fire-weapon can be made good. I think I know how to do it. I will go. When I
come back, it will be to say that Giluhda has been killed.”

           
“Is this true?” said Woodpecker, as
though the words were surprised out of him.

           
“I tell no he,” Sam said, tucking
the rifle under his arm. “Now, I will talk no more. I will go and make my
strong medicine.”

           
He knew that they watched him as he
stalked out of the town house, and he knew that even Eagle Wing was impressed.

           
He sought the house of Chief
Woodpecker. Into his red blanket he rolled his powder horn and bullet pouch,
making a light pack. Someone came to the door and leaned against the post. It
was Woodpecker himself.

           
“My son,” said the chief slowly,
“what do you need for where you will go?”

           
Sam waited a moment before
answering. Then he said, “Chief, you are kind. I want a bow and arrows, to hunt
with until my fire-weapon can throw its ball again. And I would like to have
this.”

           
From among Woodpecker’s weapons he
lifted a stone-headed hammer. The head was an oval piece, polished into the
shape of an egg, and as big as both of Sam’s fists together. Rawhide thongs
lashed it securely to a stout handle of seasoned hickory.

           
“Take it,” said Woodpecker, and came
to search among his weapons. “And this is a good bow. You can have it, and
arrows. You will want food, too.” One of Woodpecker’s women brought a bundle
and a gourd of water. Gratefully Sam added these to his burden.

           
“I go,” he said in farewell.

           
“Go then,” replied Woodpecker, and
smiled.

           
Out walked Sam through the gate of
the stockade, along the path through the cornfields where the women toiled, and
then to the trail that led along the river. He came to the bank, and turned to
follow it downstream to the cave he had seen earlier that morning.

           
Suddenly he faced quickly around,
listening. He dropped his rifle and pack, and put an arrow to the string of his
bow.

           
“Brother,” said a voice he knew, and
Sam relaxed. Otter showed himself on the back trail. He carried a pack and a
quiver. A bow was in his hand, and from his belt hung a water gourd.

           
“I am coming with you,” said Otter.

           
Sam gazed at him questioningly. “Did
Chief Woodpecker say you could come?”

           
“He did not say I could not,”
replied Otter, with an air of crafty stealth. “Where do you go?”

           
“I am going to live in that cave we
saw this morning,” Sam informed him. “If Giluhda finds me there, he cannot come
in to fight me. And it will be a good place to make my fire-weapon good again.”

           
“How will you do that?” inquired
Otter.

           
“Back among my own people, I learned
to make shapes out of iron and steel. These are the stuffs used to make
fire-weapons. I need a hot fire, and a heavy hammer like this one Chief
Woodpecker gave me, and a thing called a forge.” He stopped to think. “Yes, and
I need another thing. White men call it a bellows. I must kill a deer for its
skin.”

           
“Let me kill a deer,” offered Otter.
“I can send an arrow straighter than you.”

           
“Kill one,” agreed Sam, “but do not
skin it. Bring it whole to the cave if you can. The skin must be taken off in a
certain way.”

           
They separated. Sam followed the
river downward and reached the cave in the rocky bluff.

           
Pushing his way through the narrow
entrance, he surveyed the inside. It was as large as a small room, with a floor
of rock, on which lay scattered several small, loose boulders. Sam leaned the
bent rifle in a recess and threw down his pack. He tested the drafts in the
cave. They were slight, and he began to drag the loose rocks together.

           
At one point on the floor was a
depression full of clay. With knife and tomahawk, Sam gouged this out. Then he
ranged his rocks along the sides to make a hearth. The largest and toughest
rock he put to one side, and braced it solidly into position with smaller
fragments. That, he told himself, would make a fair anvil. Now he needed fuel.

           
Wood could not heat the steel barrel
sufficiently, he was sure. He must have charcoal, and he tried to remember all
he had ever learned about making it. Going outside, he began to gather dry
limbs of oak.

           
Otter appeared at last, tramping
heavily under the weight of a dead deer across his shoulder.

           
“It is not large, but it will feed
us,” Otter announced. Dumping the deer in front of the cave, he put his hand to
the steel knife Sam had given him at Brooke’s Fort.

           
“No, I said I will skin it,”
reminded Sam quickly. “We can eat this food that Woodpecker gave me. Then I
want your help on something else.”

           
They made their meal, and Otter went
to help Sam gather more dry limbs. Under Sam’s direction, these were built into
a sort of pyramid, as tall as a man and more than an arm’s length through the
base. Then Sam gathered armfuls of pine needles to heap around and over this
structure. Finally he and Otter whittled flat paddles to serve as spades, and
covered the whole with a thick layer of earth.

           
“I do not know what we are making,”
confessed Otter. “It looks like a house.”

           
“It is a part of the white man’s
medicine,” Sam told him. “Leave it open at the top, a little. And make holes in
the earth through the sides, along the ground.”

           
He showed Otter how to do it.
Finally he kindled a fire in front of the cave, and put an armful of pine and
willow kindling at the top of the pyramid. Then he took a torch from his fire,
and ignited the exposed top of the structure of oak wood.

           
“Let it burn like that, under the
dirt and the needles,” he said to Otter. “It will take all the rest of the day
and the night, I think. We can do another work now.”

           
He returned to the dead deer. Otter
squatted on his moccasin heels against one side of the cave door and watched
with silent interest, while Sam went to work on the carcass.

           
First Sam removed the head, slicing
through skin and flesh with his knife and chopping through the neck bones with
his tomahawk. Then he made a long cut down the belly, from forelegs to hind
legs, without slitting the skin of the neck. Finally he severed the forelegs at
the knee and the hind legs at the hock, throwing away the hoofed shanks.