Chapter 19: The Watery Pass

Henry was at the tiller of their boat, and the others pulled on the oars. Their strong arms soon sent it to a point near the head of the fleet. On the way they passed the Independence and Adam Colfax. Adolphe Drouillard and the others waved their hands to them. Paul, as he rested one hand from his oar, waved in reply, and then put both hands to the oar again.

All signs were being fulfilled. The darkness was increasing, and it was more than that of the night. Heavy clouds were moving up toward the zenith and joining in one until they covered all the heavens. Save when the lightning flashed, both shores were hidden in the darkness. The voyagers saw only the turbid current of the Ohio, raised into waves now by the wind which was coming stronger and stronger.

“Rough night, but good fur us,” said Tom Ross.

“And it will be rougher, also better,” said Henry.

The lightning increased, blazing across the skies with dazzling intensity, and heavy thunder rolled all around the half circle of the horizon. The darkness turned into a bluish gray, ghostly and full of threat. Adam Colfax went through his fleet, warning everybody to cover up the stores and to beware of wind and wave.

The men wrapped themselves in their cloaks and protected beneath the same cloaks their rifles and ammunition. But, despite every order, a hum ran through the fleet, and rowers, riflemen, and guides talked in whispers. They recalled the great double battle on the Lower Mississippi, that of the bank and that of the bayou. The crisis now was equally as great, and the surroundings were more ominous. They advanced in the darkness with thunder and lightning about them, and they felt that they were about to face the bravest of all the Indian tribes, led by the greatest of their leaders.

The heat was succeeded by a rushing cold wind, the lightning flared brighter than ever, and the thunder became a slow, monotonous, unbroken roll. Paul, despite his work at the oar, shivered a little.

“She’ll be here in a minute,” said Tom Ross. “Be shore you fellers keep your powder dry.”

It was about midnight, and they were advancing rapidly toward the pass. They saw by the flashes of lightning that the cliffs were rising and the river narrowing.

“The hills on both sides here are jest covered with warriors,” said Jim Hart.

“Thar may be a million uv ‘em,” said Shif’less Sol, “but in the rain an’ a black night they can’t shoot straight.”

The wind began to whistle and its coldness increased. Great cold drops struck the five in the face.

“Here she is!” said Tom Ross.

Then the rain swept down, not in a wild gush but steady, persistent, and full of chill. Lightning and thunder alike ceased. Every boat saw only the outline of the one before it and the rolling current of the Ohio beneath it. Noise had ceased on the fleet at the stern command of Adam Colfax and his lieutenants. The men talked only in whispers, there was no flapping of sail, only the swash of the oars in the water, drowned by the wind. Since the lightning had ceased, both shores were lost permanently in the darkness, and the five, who now knew this part of the river thoroughly, moved up to the head of the line, leading the way. After them came the Independence and then the fleet in the same double line formation that it had used before.

“Do you see anything on either side, Henry?” asked Tom Ross, raising his back from the oar.

“Nothing, Tom,” replied Henry, “and it seems strange to me. So great a chief as Timmendiquas would foresee such an attempt as this of ours, at such a time.”

“We ain’t goin’ to git through without a fight, rain or no rain, night or no night,” said Shif’less Sol in a tone of finality, and Henry silently, but in his heart, agreed with him.

They were going so slowly now, to prevent collision or noise, that only Tom Ross and Long Jim rowed. Henry and Shif’less Sol, near the front of the boat, leaned forward and tried to pierce the darkness with their eyes. The rain was beating heavily upon their backs, and they were wet through and through, but at such a time they did not notice it. Their rifles and their powder were dry under their buckskin hunting shirts, and that was sufficient.

Henry and Shif’less Sol near the prow bent forward, and, shielding their eyes from the rain with their hands, never moved. The blackest darkness even can be pierced in time by a persistent gaze, and, as the channel of the river narrowed still further, Henry thought he saw something blacker upon the black waters. He turned his head a little and met the eyes of Shif’less Sol.

“Do you see it?” he whispered.

“I see it,” replied the shiftless one, “an’ I take it to be an Indian canoe.”

“So do I,” rejoined Henry, “and I think I can see another to the right and another to the left.”

“Indian sentinels watchin’ fur us. The White Lightnin’ o’ the Wyandots is ez great a chief ez you said he wuz. He ain’t asleep.”

“I can see three more canoes now,” said Henry as they proceeded further. “They must have a line of them across the river. Look, they see us, too!”

They saw an Indian in the canoe nearest them rise suddenly to his knees, fire a rifle in the air, and utter a long warning whoop, which rose high above the rush of the rain. All the Indian canoes disappeared almost instantly, as if they had been swallowed up in the black water. But Henry and his comrades knew very well that they had merely been propelled by swift paddles toward the shore.

“It’s the signal,” exclaimed Henry. “We are not to pass without a fight.”

The five stopped their boat, the Independence also stopped, and the whole fleet stopped with them. The sound of a rifle shot from the right bank rose above the sweep of the wind and the rain, and then from the left bank came a similar report. The five knew at once that these were signals, although they could not yet surmise what they portended. But the fact was soon disclosed.

A sudden blaze of light appeared on the high south bank, and then, as if in answer to it, another blaze sprang up on the equally high north bank. Both leaped high, and the roar of the flames could be heard mingling with that of the wind and rain.

The effect of this sudden emergence of light from dark was startling. The hills clothed in forest, dripping with water, leaped out, the water turned from black to gray, and the fleet in its two stationary lines could now be seen distinctly.

“What a transformation!” exclaimed Paul. The faces of his comrades were lurid in the light from the two great bonfires, taking on an almost unearthly tinge.

But Henry Ware said:

“It is Timmendiquas! It is his master-stroke! He has built these great bonfires which rain cannot put out in order to place us in the light! On, boys, the faster we go now the better!”

Adam Colfax also understood, and, as he gave the signal, the huge sweeps made the Independence leap forward. Behind her the whole fleet advanced rapidly. It was well that they had protected the sides of their boats as much as they could with planks and bales of goods, as a great rifle fire was immediately opened upon them from either bank. Hundreds of bullets splashed the water, buried themselves in the bales or wood, and some struck the rowers.

But the fleet did not stop. It went straight on as fast as the men could send it, and few shots were fired in reply. Yet they could see the forms of warriors outlined in black tracery against the fires. Two other fires, equally large, and opposite each other, leaped up further on. Henry had not underrated the greatness of Timmendiquas as a forest general. Even with all the elements against him, he would devise plans for keeping his enemy from forcing the watery pass.

Paul was appalled. He had been through scenes of terror, but never such another as this. The Indians had begun to shout, as if to encourage one another and to frighten the foe, and the sweep of the wind and the rain mingling with their yelling gave it an effect tremendously weird and terrifying. Nature also helped man. It began to thunder again, and sudden flashes of lightning blazed across the stream.

“Don’t fire unless you see something that you can hit,” was the order passed down the lines by Adam Colfax, and the fleet pulled steadily on, while the hail of bullets from either shore beat upon it. Many men were wounded, and a few were killed, but the fleet never stopped, going on like a great buffalo with wolves tearing at its flanks, but still strong and dangerous.

The smallness of their boat and the fact that it lay so low in the water made for the safety of the five. The glare of the fires threw the bigger vessels into relief, but it was not likely that many of the warriors would notice their own little craft.

There was a blaze of lightning so vivid that it made all of them blink, and with a mighty crash a thunderbolt struck among the trees on the south bank. Paul had a vision of a blasted trunk and rending boughs, and his heart missed a few beats, before he could realize that he himself had not been struck down.

The whole fleet paused an instant as if hurt and terrified, but in another instant it went on again. Then the bullets began to sing and whistle over their heads in increased volume, and Henry looked attentively at the southern shore.

“I think that warriors in canoes are hovering along the bank there and firing upon us. What do you say, Sol?”

“I say you’re right,” replied the shiftless one.

“Then we’ll let the Independence take the lead for a while,” said Henry, “and burn their faces a little for their impudence.”

The boat turned and slid gently away toward the southern shore. The light cast from the fires was brightest in the middle of the stream, and they were soon in half shadow.

“Can you make ‘em out clearly, Sol?” asked Henry.

“If I ain’t mistook, an’ I know I ain’t,” replied the shiftless one, “thar’s a little bunch o’ canoes right thar at the overhangin’ ledge.”

“Sol is shorely right,” added Tom Ross, “an’ I kin reach the fust canoe with a bullet.”

“Then let ‘em have it,” said Henry.

Silent Tom raised his rifle, and with instant aim fired. An Indian uttered a cry and fell from his canoe into the water. Henry and the shiftless one fired with deadly aim, and Long Jim and Paul followed. There was terror and confusion among the canoes, and the survivors, abandoning them, dashed up the bank and into the darkness.

They reloaded their rifles, scattered some canoes further up, and then swung back to the fleet, which was still going forward at the same steady, even pace under a ceaseless shower of bullets. It was here that Adam Colfax best showed his courage, tenacity, and judgment. Although his men were being slain or wounded, he would not yet let them return the fire, because there was no certainty that they could do any damage among the warriors in the forest. He might have fired the brass twelve pounders, and they would have made a great noise, but it would have been a waste of powder and ball badly needed in the east.