Chapter 9: The Keepers of the Cleft

Henry and the shiftless one had not gone far, before they were deeply grateful that the undergrowth was so dense. They distinctly heard three shots and twice the war whoop. A small gully, so thickly covered with vines and bushes, that it was almost like a subterranean channel, allowed them to go much nearer. There lying hidden until twilight, they distinctly heard scattered firing, war whoops and then a long piercing shout which had in it the quality of the white man’s voice. Shif’less Sol laughed low, but with intense pleasure.

“I can’t hear his words,” he said, “but I’d know that yell in a million. It’s Long Jim’s ez shore ez shootin’. It’s so pow’ful loud ‘cause it’s drawed up from a long distance, an’ when it does come free it comes a-poppin’. It’s Jim tellin’ them warriors what he thinks of ‘em. He’s tellin’ ‘em what scalawags they are, an’ how their fathers an’ mothers an’ grandfathers an’ grandmothers afore ‘em wuz ez bad or wuss. He’s tellin’ ‘em they’re squaws painted up to look like men, an’ ez he talks Shawnee an’ Miami they’re hoppin’ mad.”

Henry even could not refrain from laughing. It was Long Jim’s voice beyond a doubt, and his note of triumph showed that he and his comrades were safe--so far. Evidently he was in great fettle. His words shot forth in a stream and Henry knew that the savages were writhing in anger at his taunts. The report of a rifle came suddenly and echoed through the darkening forest. When the last echo died there was a moment of silence, and then to their welcome ears came the voice of Long Jim again, pouring forth a stream of taunt and invective with undiminished speed and power.

“Ain’t he the great one?” whispered Shif’less Sol, admiringly. “Didn’t I tell you that voice o’ his was so strong ‘cause it come up so fur. An’ did you ever hear him do better? Thar ain’t a word in the hull Shawnee an’ Miami languages that he hasn’t used on ‘em an’ a sprinkling o’ Wyandot an’ Delaware too. They’re so mad I kin see ‘em bitin’ their lips an’ t’arin’ at thar scalp locks. Good old Jim, give it to ‘em!”

The voice went on a quarter of an hour with amazing force and speed. Then it ceased abruptly and silence and darkness together came over the woods. Henry and his comrade debated as they lay in the little gully. Should they try to get in to their comrades? Or should they try to get their comrades out? Either would be a most difficult task, but as the night deepened, and they talked they came to a decision.

“It has to be me,” said Henry.

“I s’pose so,” said Sol, regretfully. “You’re the likeliest hand at it, but you always take the most dangerous part. It’s nothin’ fur me to lay ‘roun’ here in the night till you fellers come.”

Henry’s smile was invisible in the dusk.

“Of course, Sol,” he said, “you run no risk. I read once in a book, that our teacher had at Wareville, about an outdoor amusement they called a lawn festival. That’s what you’re going to have, a lawn festival. While I’m gone you’ll walk about here and pick flowers for bouquets. If any savage warrior wanting your scalp should come along he’d change his mind at once, and help you make your bouquet.”

“Stop your foolishness, Henry. You know it ain’t no hard job fur me to hang ‘bout in the woods an’ keep out o’ danger.”

“Yes, but you may have a lot to do when you hear the signals. Keep as close as you reasonably can, Sol, and if we come out and give the howl of the wolf you answer, according to our custom, and we’ll know which way to run.”

“All right, Henry. I won’t be sleepin’. Thar they are shootin’ ag’in, but not doin’ any yellin’. So they haven’t hit anythin’. Good-bye, an’ rec’lect that I’ll be waitin’ here.”

Strong hands clasped in the darkness and Henry slipped away on his perilous mission, reaching without event the valley that the cliff overlooked. Then he used all the caution and skill that the superman of the forest possessed, creeping closer and closer and ever closer, until he could see, despite the darkness, the painted forms of Miami and Shawnee warriors in the thickets, all looking up at the point where the crevice in the cliff was practically hidden by the foliage. It was an average night, quiet and dark up there, but Henry knew that three pairs of good eyes in the coign of the crevice were watching everything that went on below.

He crouched lower and lower, until he blended with earth and thicket and still watched. He saw one of the warriors raise his rifle and fire at the hidden mark. Then he heard two impacts of the bullet, first as it struck upon stone, and then as glancing, it fell among the leaves. Out of the mouth of the fissure came a great booming voice, speaking Shawnee and ridiculing their lack of skill with the rifle.

The voice said that if they did not improve in their firing he would come outside, sit in the best moonlight he could find, and let them take turns at him as a target. He would even mark off spots on his chest and offer prizes to any one who might hit them, but he knew very well that none of them would ever succeed. If he had a six-year-old boy who should do as badly as they were doing he would take him away and whip him with willow switches.

Henry, lying close in his covert, laughed inwardly. Long Jim was in good form. Upon occasion he had a wonderful command of language, and the present occasion was better than any other that Henry could remember. Events, chief of which was a successful defense, had inspired in him a wonderful flow of language. His great sonorous voice again pealed out wrath, defiance and contempt.

“Oh, you dogs! sons uv dogs! an’ grandsons uv dogs!” he shouted. “Why don’t you come an’ take us? Here we are, only a few, jest settin’ an’ waitin’ fur you! An’ thar are twenty or more uv you! Oh, you Shawnees an’ Miamis, an’ Wyandots, why are you waitin’ down thar when jest a few uv us are up here, ready to give you welcome? I don’t think you’re re’lly warriors. You’re jest old squaws painted up to look like ‘em, an’ the real fightin’ men uv your tribe are at home, asleep in the lodges, afraid to face the bullets uv the white men, while they send thar old women here to make a noise!”

Henry laughed again that soundless laugh behind his teeth. He read everything as plainly as if it had been written in a book before him. Nobody in the stony hollow had been hurt, else Long Jim’s voice would not have been so exultant. They were confident, too, that they could hold the narrow opening indefinitely, else he would not have sent forth such intolerable taunts. He made his position a little easier and again laughed deep in his throat and with unction. He had never known Long Jim to be in finer form. Shif’less Sol was the acknowledged orator of the five, but tonight the cloak of inspiration was spread over the shoulders of Long Jim Hart.

“Why don’t you come into our little house?” he shouted. “It’s a nice place, a warm place, an’ the rain can’t git at you here. Won’t you walk into our parlor, ez the spider said to the fly! It’s a good place, better than any wigwam you’ve got, nice an’ warm, with a roof that the rain can’t get through, an’ plenty of cool runnin’ water! An’ ef you want our scalps you’d never find grander heads uv ha’r. They’re the finest an’ longest an’ thickest that ever grew on the head uv man. They’re jest waitin’ to be took. Any warrior who took one uv ‘em would be made a chief right away. Why don’t you come on an’ git ‘em? It can’t be that you’re afraid, you Shawnees and Miamis an’ Delawares an’ Wyandots. Here’s our gyarden, jest waitin’ fur you, the door open an’ full uv good things. Why don’t you come on? Ef I had a dog an’ told him to run after a b’ar cub an’ he wouldn’t run I’d kill him fur a coward!”

Henry heard a roar of rage from the thickets, and once more he laughed behind his teeth. Long Jim Hart was still in his grandest form, and although many Indian chiefs were great orators, masters of taunt and satire, Long Jim, inspired that night, was the equal of their best. The gift of tongues had come to him.

“I heard a noise down thar in the holler!” he shouted. “Wuz it made by warriors, men? No! it wuz dogs barkin’ an’ crows cawin’ an’ wolves whinin’ an’ rabbits squeakin’. Sech ez them would never come up ag’in a white man’s rifle. I hear the wind blowin’ too, but it don’t bring me no sound ‘cept that uv dogs barkin’, low-down curs that would run away from a chipmunk with their tails atween their legs. I’m gittin’ mighty tired now uv waitin’ fur them that called theirselves warriors, but are nothin’ but old squaws in war paint. Ef I don’t hear from ‘em ag’in soon I’ll go to sleep an’ leave here my little boy, ten years old, to meet ‘em with a switch ez they come up.”

There was another roar of rage from the brush, and Henry said under his breath:

“Well done, Long Jim! Well done, twice and again!”

Long Jim now softened his voice and began to beg.

“Why don’t you come up here, you red Indian fellers?” he cried. “All my friends, knowin’ thar is no danger, hev gone to sleep, leavin’ me to welcome the guests, when they stan’ afore our door. I’m waitin’! I’ve been waitin’ a long time, an’ ef you don’t come soon I’ll hev to go to sleep leavin’ you outside our door.”

The Indians were always susceptible to oratory and now another shout of rage came from them. The taunts of Long Jim were too much, and a dozen dusky forms sprang from the undergrowth and rushed up the slope. There was a puff of smoke from the cleft in the cliff and the foremost warrior fell, shot squarely through the forehead. A second puff and a second warrior was gone to a land where the hunting is always good. Before such accurate shooting with only the moonlight to aid, the other warriors shrank back appalled, and quickly hid themselves in the undergrowth.

“Good boys! Good boys!” exclaimed Henry under his breath. “Splendid shooting! They’re bold warriors who will now face the Keepers of the Pass.”

All the warriors save the two who had been slain were hidden in the dense thicket or behind stony outcroppings, and again the tremendous voice of Long Jim floated on waves of air above them.

“Why don’t you keep comin’?” he shouted. “I invited you to come an’ you started, but you’ve stopped! Everythin’ is waitin’ fur you, all the gaudy Roman couches that my friend Paul has told me about, an’ the gushin’ fountains, an’ the wreaths uv rose leaves to wrap aroun’ your necks, an’ the roses droppin’ from the ceilin’ on the table loaded with ven’son, an’ turkey, an’ wild pigeons, an’ rabbits an’ more other kinds uv game than I kin tell you about in a night. Why don’t you come on an’ take the big places you’re invited to at our banquet, you miserable, low-down, sneakin’, wrinkled old squaws!”

A wild yell of rage came once more from the bushes, and again Henry laughed deep in his throat. He knew how the taunt stung the Indians, and Long Jim’s eloquence, the dam now having been taken down, flooded on.

“Here, you red-skinned barbarians!” he shouted. “Come into our house an’ we’ll teach you how to live! The tables are all set an’ the couches are beside ‘em. The hummin’ birds’ tongues are done to a turn an’ the best singers an’ dancers are all on hand to entertain you!”

Henry knew that Jim’s patter had come from Paul’s stories of the old Romans, and now he was applying it with gusto to the wild scene lost in the vast green wilderness. But he was sure that the Indians would not return to a headlong charge. The little fortress in stone was practically impregnable to frontal attack and they would resort instead to cunning and subterfuge.

“Ain’t you comin’!” thundered the voice of Long Jim. “I hev done give you an invite to the banquet an’ you stop an’ hang ‘roun’ thar in the woods, whar I can’t see you. Five minutes more an’ the invites are all withdrawed. Then the eatin’ an’ the singin’ an’ the playin’ will all go on without you, an’ ef you are found hangin’ ‘roun’ our door I’ll hev the dogs to chase you away.”

No answer came from the woods, but Henry knew how the hearts of the warriors were consumed with rage. Those whom they wished to take were so near and so few and yet they held an almost invincible fortress. Rage stabbed at the Indian heart.

Long Jim continued his taunts for some time, speaking both Shawnee and Miami, and also a little Wyandot and Delaware. His vocabulary acquired a sudden richness and depth. He called them names that implied every manner of cowardice and meanness. Their ancestors had been buzzards feeding on offal, they themselves were mangy, crippled and deformed, and, when the few that were left alive by the white men returned home, they would be set to work cooking, and caring for the lodges. When they died they would return to the base forms of their ancestors. They would be snakes and toads and turtles, and the animals that walked on four legs and looked straight before them would laugh at them whenever they saw them.

Long Jim had never before been so eloquent, and never before had his voice been so unctuous. He thundered forth challenges and insults after the Indian fashion. He told them that he and his comrades found it a poor amusement to fight with such men, but when they finished with their eating and drinking and sleeping they might go north to the Indian villages and whip the warriors in the presence of their squaws with willow switches. Meanwhile they intended to sleep and rest, but if any of the old women out there came into their cavern and annoyed their slumbers he would chase every one of them out with a switch.

Henry laughed long in his throat. Long Jim was proving himself a forest warrior of the first quality. It was the way of the woods, and these taunts stung the red men to the quick. He knew that they were lying in the bushes, their hearts beating heavily with anger and the hot breath burning their lips. Two, unable to restrain themselves, fired, but their bullets merely rebounded from the stone walls of the grotto, and the defenders did not deign to answer.

Then came a long period of silence and Henry made himself as small and obscure as possible, lest the warriors, moving about, might see him. But, fortunately the night had now turned quite dark, and where eyes might fail his acute sense of hearing would reveal the approach of any enemy. But as he lay close he again laughed inwardly more than once. The three were certainly holding the grotto in most gallant fashion, and Long Jim was fast becoming one of the greatest orators of the woods. He did not believe that the Indians could carry the fortress, but to get them out and away was another and much harder problem.

Absolute silence save for the whispering of a light wind through the leaves came over the forest. The night, to Henry’s great joy, grew much darker. No sound came from the room in the cliff, nor did any come from the Indians in the thickets. Apparently the whole place was a wilderness, as lone and desolate as it was when it first emerged from the sea. Nowhere was the sign of a human being visible, but Henry knew that vigilant eyes watched at the mouth of the stone cleft and that eyes equally as keen peered continually from the thickets.

But he meant to join his comrades before dawn. He did not know yet just how he would do it, but such was his confidence that he felt quite sure he would be with his comrades before the rising of the sun.

Luckily the forest and thickets in the valley were extremely dense, enabling him to lie within a couple of hundred yards of the besieging force, and not fear detection. His figure in its green clothing blended perfectly with the green bushes.

The night turned colder, and after a while a chilly drizzle began to fall. Henry, hardened to all kinds of weather, and intent upon his task, took no note of it, except to be glad that it had come, because it would further his aims. Night and storm might enable him to slip past the besiegers and join his friends.

But the Indians, who do not despise comfort when there is no danger in it, gathered in a cup in the side of the hill, beyond rifle shot from the hollow, and built a fire. Henry, from his lair in the bushes, saw them distinctly, about thirty warriors, mostly of the Shawnee tribe, with their head chief, Red Eagle himself, present as a leader, and the two renegades Braxton Wyatt and Blackstaffe. Henry noted Blackstaffe and Wyatt closely and his heart thrilled with anger that they should turn against their own people and use the tomahawk and scalping knife, and even stand beside the stake to witness their slow death by the torture of fire.

Blackstaffe[A] was one of the worst of all the renegades, second only to Girty in cruelty and cunning, a scourge of the border destined to meet his fate from an avenging bullet years later, just after the Fallen Timbers, where Wayne crushed the allied tribes. Now he was a young man, tall, heavily built and tanned almost as dark as an Indian by weather. He and Braxton Wyatt had become close friends, and both stood high in the councils of the Indians. Henry saw them clearly now, outlined against the firelight, engaged in close talk with the middle-aged Shawnee chief, Red Eagle.