Chapter 7: The Forest Poets

Henry and the shiftless one knew that they had drawn danger upon themselves, but they had nothing to regret. The pursuit by the wolves had become intolerable. In time it was bound to unsettle their nerves, and it was better to take the risk from the warriors.

“How far away would you say that war whoop was?” asked Henry.

“‘Bout a quarter o’ a mile but it’ll take ‘em some little time to find our trail. An’ ef you an’ me, Henry, can’t leave ‘em, ez ef they wuz standin’, then we ain’t what we used to be.”

Presently they heard the war cry a second time, although its note was fainter.

“Hit our trail!” said the shiftless one.

“But they can never overtake us in the night,” said Henry. “We’ve come to stony ground now, and the best trailers in the world couldn’t follow you and me over it.”

“No,” said the shiftless one, with some pride in his voice. “We’re not to be took that way, but that band an’ mebbe more are in atween us an’ our fine house in the cliff, an’ we won’t get to crawl in our little beds tonight. It ain’t to be risked, Henry.”

“That’s so. We seem to be driven in a circle around the place to which we want to go, but we can afford to wait as well as the Indian army can, and better. Here’s another branch and we’d better use it to throw that band off the trail.”

They waded in the pebbly bed of the brook for a long distance. Then they walked on stones, leaping lightly from one to another, and, when they came to the forest, thick with grapevines they would often swing from vine to vine over long spaces. Both found an odd pleasure in their flight. They were matching the Indian at his tricks, and when pushed they could do even better. They knew that the trail was broken beyond the hope of recovery, and, late in the night, after passing through hilly country, they sat down to rest.

They were on the slope of the last hill, sitting under the foliage of an oak, and before them lay a wide valley, in which the trees, mostly oaks, were scattered as if they grew in a great park. But the grass everywhere was thick and tall, and down the center flowed a swift creek which in the moonlight looked like molten silver. The uncommon brightness of the night, with its gorgeous clusters of stars, disclosed the full beauty of the valley, and the two fugitives who were fugitives no longer felt it intensely. Henry was an educated youth of an educated stock, and Shif’less Sol, the forest runner, was born with a love and admiration in his soul of Nature in all its aspects.

“Don’t it look fine, Henry?” said the shiftless one. “Ef I hed to sleep in a house all the time, which, thanks be, I don’t hev to do, I’d build me a cabin right here in this little valley. Ain’t it jest the nicest place you ever saw? Unless I’ve mistook my guess, that’s a lot o’ buff’ler lyin’ down in the grass in front o’ us.”

“Eight of ‘em. I can count ‘em,” said Henry, “but they’re safe from us.”

“I wouldn’t fire on ‘em, not even ef thar wuzn’t a warrior within a hundred miles o’ us. I don’t feel like shootin’ at anythin’ jest now, Henry.”

“It’s the valley that makes you feel so peaceful. It has the same effect on me.”

“I think I kin see wild flowers down thar bloomin’ among the bushes, an’ ain’t that grass an’ them trees fine? an’ that is shorely the best creek I’ve seen. Its water is so pure it looks like silver. I’ve a notion, Henry, that this wuz the Garden o’ Eden.”

“That’s an odd idea of yours, Sol. How can you prove it’s so?”

“An’ how can you prove it ain’t so? An’ so we’re back whar we started. Besides, I kin pile up evidence. All along the edge o’ the valley are briers an’ vines, on which the berries growed. Then too thar are lots o’ grapevines on the trees ez you kin see, an’ thar are your grapes. An’ up toward the end are lots o’ hick’ry an’ walnut trees an’ thar are your nuts, an’ ef Adam an’ Eve wuz hard-pushed, they could ketch plenty o’ fine fish in that creek which I kin see is deep. In the winter they could hev made themselves a cabin easy, up thar whar the trees are thick. An’ the whole place in the spring is full o’ wild flowers, which Eve must hev stuck her hair full of to please Adam. The more I think o’ it, Henry, the shorer I am that this wuz the Garden.”

The shiftless one’s face was rapt and serious. In the burnished silver of the moonlight the little valley had a beauty, dreamlike in its quality. In that land so truly named the Dark and Bloody Ground it seemed the abode of unbroken peace.

“I reckon,” said Shif’less Sol, “that after the fall Adam an’ Eve left by that rift between the hills, an’ thar the Angel stood with the Flamin’ Sword to keep ‘em out. O’ course they might hev crawled back down the hillside here, an’ in other places, but I guess they wuz afeard. It’s hard to hev had a fine thing an’ then to hev lost it, harder than never to hev had it or to hev knowed what it wuz. I guess, Henry, that Adam an’ Eve came often to the hills here an’ looked down at their old home, till they wuz skeered away by the flamin’ o’ the Angel’s sword.”

“But there’s nothing now to keep us out of it. We’ll go down there, Sol, because it is a garden after all, a wilderness garden, and nothing but Indians can drive us from it until we want to go.”

“All right, Henry. You lead on now, but remember that since Adam an’ Eve hev gone away this is my Garden o’ Eden. It’s shore a purty sight, now that it’s beginnin’ to whiten with the day.”

Dawn in truth was silvering the valley, and in the clear pure light it stood forth in all its beauty and peace. It was filled, too, with life. Besides the buffaloes they saw deer, elk, swarming small game, and an immense number of singing birds. The morning was alive with their song and when they came to the deep creek, and saw a fish leap up now and then, the shiftless one no longer had the slightest doubt.

“It’s shorely the Garden,” he said. “Listen to them birds, Henry. Did you ever hear so many at one time afore, all singin’ together ez ef every one wuz tryin’ to beat every other one?”

“No, Sol, I haven’t. It is certainly a beautiful place. Look at the beds of wild flowers in bloom.”

“An’ the game is so tame it ain’t skeered at us a bit. I reckon, Henry, that ‘till we came no human foot hez ever trod this valley, since Adam an’ Eve had to go.”

“Maybe not, Sol! Maybe not,” said Henry, trying to smile at the shiftless one’s fancy, but failing.

“An’ thar’s one thing I want to ask o’ you, Henry. Thar’s millions an’ millions an’ billions an’ billions o’ acres in this country that belong to nobody, but I want to put in a sort o’ claim o’ my own on the Garden o’ Eden here. Thar are times when every man likes to be all by hisself, fur a while. You know how it is yourself, Henry. Jest rec’lect then that the Garden is mine. When I’m feelin’ bad, which ain’t often, I’ll come here an’ set down ‘mong the flowers, an’ hear all them birds sing, same ez Adam an’ Eve heard ‘em, an’ d’rectly I’ll feel glad an’ strong ag’in.”

“Where there’s so much unused country you ask but little, Sol. It’s your Garden of Eden. But you’ll let the rest of us come into it sometimes, won’t you?”

“Shorely! Shorely! I didn’t mean to be selfish about it. I’ve got some venison in my knapsack, Henry, an’ I reckon you hev some too. I’d like to hev it warm, but it’s too dangerous to build a fire. S’pose we set, an’ eat.”

The soil of the valley was so fertile that the grass was already high enough to hide them, when they lay down near the edge of the creek. There they ate their venison and listened to the musical tinkle of the rushing water, while the sun rose higher, and turned the luminous silver of the valley into luminous gold. They heard light footfalls of the deer moving, and the birds sang on, but there was no human sound in the valley. Their great adventure, the Indian camp, and the manifold dangers seemed to float away for the time. If it was not the Garden of Eden it was another garden of the same kind, and it looked very beautiful to these two who had spent most of the night running for their lives. They were happy, as they ate venison and the last crumbs of their bread.

“If the others wuz here,” said Shif’less Sol, “nothin’ would be lackin’. I’m in love with the wilderness more an’ more every year, Henry. One reason is ‘cause I’m always comin’ on somethin’ new. I ain’t no tied-down man. Here I’ve dropped into the Garden o’ Eden that’s been lost fur thousands o’ years, an’ tomorrow I may be findin’ some other wonder. I rec’lect my feelin’ the first time I saw the Ohio, an’ I’ve looked too upon the big river that the warriors call the Father o’ Waters. I’m always findin’ some new river or creek or lake. Nothin’s old, or all trod up or worn out. Some day I’m goin’ way out on them plains that you’ve seed, Henry, where the buff’ler are passin’ millions strong. I tell you I love to go with the wind, an’ at night, when I ain’t quite asleep, to hear it blowin’ an’ blowin’, an’ tellin’ me that the things I’ve found already may be fine, but thar’s finer yet farther on. I hear Paul talkin’ ‘bout the Old World, but thar can’t be anythin’ in it half ez fine ez all these woods in the fall, jest blazin’ with red an’ yellow, an’ gold an’ brown, an’ the air sparklin’ enough to make an old man young.”

The face of the shiftless one glowed as he spoke. Every word he said came straight from his heart and Henry shared in his fervor. The wild men who slew and scalped could not spoil his world. He had finished his venison, and, drinking cold water at the edge of the creek, he came back and lay down again in the long grass.

“Perhaps we’d better stay here the most of the day,” said Henry. “The valley seems to be out of the Indian line of march. The buffaloes are over there grazing peacefully, and I can see does at the edge of the woods. If warriors were near they wouldn’t be so peaceful.”

“And there are the wild turkeys gobblin’ in the trees,” said Shif’less Sol. “I like wild turkey mighty well, but even ef thar wuz no fear o’ alarm I wouldn’t shoot any one in my Garden o’ Eden.”

“Nor I either, Sol. I’m beginning to like this valley as well as you do. Your claim to it stands good, but when we’re on our hunting expeditions up this way again the five of us will come here and camp.”

“But we’ll kill our game outside. I’ve a notion that I don’t want to shoot anythin’ in here.”

“I understand you. It’s too fine a place to have blood flowing in it.”

“That’s jest the way I feel about it, Henry. You may laugh at me fur bein’ a fool, but the notion sticks to me hard an’ fast.”

“I’m not laughing at you. If you’ll raise up a little, Sol, you can see the smoke of the main Indian campfire off there toward the northeast. It looks like a thread from here, and it’s at least five miles away.”

“It’s a big smoke, then, or we wouldn’t see it at all, ‘cause we can’t make out that o’ the smaller one nearer to the cave, though I reckon it’s still thar.”

“Perhaps so, and the warriors may come this way, but we’ll see ‘em and hear ‘em first. Look, Sol, those buffaloes, in their grazing, are coming straight toward us. The wind has certainly carried to them our odor, but they don’t seem to be alarmed by it.”

“Jest another proof, Henry, that it’s the real Garden o’ Eden. Them buff’ler haven’t seen or smelt a human bein’ since Adam an’ Eve left, an’ ez that wuz a long time ago they’ve got over any feelin’ o’ fear o’ people, ef they ever had it. Look at them deer, too, over thar, loafin’ ‘long through the high grass, an’ not skeered o’ anythin’. An’ the wolves that follered us last night don’t come here. Thar ain’t a sign o’ a wolf ever hevin’ been in the valley.”

Henry laughed, but there was no trace of irony in the laugh. The shiftless one’s vivid fancy or belief pleased him. It was possible, too, that Indians would not come there. It might be some sacred place of the old forgotten people who had built the mounds and who had been exterminated by the Indians. But the Indians were full of superstition, and often they feared and respected the sacred places of those whom they had slain. For the boldest of the warriors, avenging spirits might be hovering there, and they would fear them more than they would fear the white men with rifles.