Fear in the Forest Page 5

  The others, half-roused, grunted and returned to their sleep. Only Timothy had not stirred. Yet Daniel had seen the firelight shine on the slits of his half-opened eyes.

  All during the following morning, Daniel tried to decide whether he should speak to Josiah about what he had seen. There was nothing wrong with it, perhaps. It was possible that Timothy had a friend who had settled in these parts, and who made a point of meeting him like this whenever the pack-horse train was due at Fort St. Clair. But there were so many holes in this idea that he soon discarded it.

  Did Timothy have an Indian friend? Was he, perhaps, one of the Legion’s spies, working in this way? None of these things sounded the right note to Daniel’s troubled mind. And by afternoon it was too late.

  Each man had a ration of bear meat and parched corn which he was to eat on the road that day, for they were anxious to cover the distance to Fort Greeneville, the place where their loads would be delivered. There they might, if they were lucky, have a glimpse of General Anthony Wayne himself. Henry’s string was in the lead with Josiah, as always, in the forefront. Next came Simon’s string, with Amos and Daniel behind him. Last of all were the injured ponies, driven by Timothy.

  Ben was often with him, but Ben’s job was to patrol the entire line. It was when he was in the van, talking to Josiah, that it happened.

  There was a shout from the boys and Simon as Timothy’s string broke loose and went racing into the forest at either side. “Stay here!” Amos shouted to Simon, and he and Daniel ran after the disappearing horses at full speed.

  Daniel could hear Ben shouting farther on, and knew that he and Josiah had joined the search for the lost animals. Timothy was nowhere to be seen.

  Once Daniel glimpsed one of the ponies in the distance. It was running free, the rope which normally tied it to its fellows flying in the wind. The rope did not look as if it had snapped. The end had been neatly severed.

  He turned to tell Amos of what he had seen, but Amos was not there. Suddenly Daniel realized that he was alone in the forest, without a gun, without a companion, and that the troop was gone from sight and hearing.

  His breath rasped in his throat—not from his running, but from stark fear. Which way had he come? Where were the others? For a moment sheer panic overcame him and he shouted wildly, hopelessly.

  Josiah’s voice reached him, bringing him to his senses like a shock of cold water. “Those hosses didn’t break loose for nothin’,” Josiah said, coming from the deep woods with an angry frown between his bright blue eyes. Even his beard seemed to bristle with anger. “Simon says mebbe a bear scairt them, but there’s no sign of bear that I can see, and the hosses in Simon’s string and yours wasn’t scairt, so what was it?”

  Daniel said, still trembling from his fright, “I saw one of the hosses just now, and it looked to me like his lead rope had been cut.

  “If you saw him, why didn’t you catch him?” Josiah demanded.

  “He was too far away,” Daniel admitted.

  “If he was too far away to catch, I’d think he was too far away to see a thing like that,” Josiah snorted.

  “But that’s not all!” In his eagerness to justify his suspicions of Timothy, Daniel told his story wrong. “Timothy met a man in the woods last night—a stranger—and—”

  “How do you know?” The gaze Josiah bent upon him was impatient and skeptical.

  “I followed him when he got up from the campfire. Everybody else was asleep. Do you think—”

  “I think,” said Josiah harshly, “that you’re imaginin’ things. Do you expect me to believe you went wanderin’ in the woods at dead of night, when you were so scairt right now in the daylight that you were hollerin’ your head off?” He turned away in disgust, and Daniel, hating himself for his fear, would have liked to turn in the other direction, but dared not.

  Of the string of ten, only two horses were caught. Josiah checked the loads with a wry twist to his mouth. “Flour and ammunition,” he said. “You’ll pay for this carelessness, Timothy,” But Timothy, although he put on a show of distress, did not seem too disturbed.

  All the way to Greeneville they had to hurry, for the mishap had made them late and they were determined to get to the fort before darkness fell. “Thank heaven it’s summer, and stays light for a long time,” Amos murmured.

  “Does your pa run this pack-horse train in the winter, too?” Daniel asked, but his thoughts were elsewhere.

  “No, it don’t pay enough then. There’s no forage for the hosses, so we’d have to carry their feed. A hoss’ll eat a third of its load in feed.”

  Daniel was scarcely listening. Twice he opened his mouth to tell Amos his suspicions of Timothy, and twice he closed it again, for he dared not risk his new friend’s scorn. If Mr. Gregg thought so poorly of him, Amos might think worse, for Amos was closer to him.

  There was not too much breath for talking anyhow. Every bit of strength was needed to urge the tired animals onward, to see that they did not stray from the military road, to tighten insecure packs and girths, to watch out for tree stumps and mudholes.

  When at last the pickets of the fort loomed in sight, Daniel drew a deep breath. Now he could rest; now there would be real safety for them all.

  Josiah went to find the quartermaster to whom he was to deliver his supplies. The boys stood quietly by their animals, hot and tired and hungry, and Daniel thought to himself that at least this goal had been reached. He wondered how many goals there would be in his life to strive for, to attain, and, perhaps, to pass.

  “That’s him! Over there! Look!” Amos poked Daniel in the ribs so hard that it hurt.

  “Who? Where?”

  “Over there! Don’t you see him? Old Toney himself!”

  Daniel craned his neck to catch a glimpse of the tall, florid man who walked slowly and with a limp between two of his officers. He was disappointed, somehow. In his mind’s eye, he had envisioned General Anthony Wayne as splendidly lithe, with classic features and hawks’ eyes.

  All he could find to say in his disappointment was, “I didn’t know he was lame.”

  “It’s the gout, Pa says. Pa says he’s so lamed with it any other man would be in his bed and moanin’ for the leech, but Old Toney don’t let it get him down. He keeps an eye on everything, even if he has to be lifted up on his horse by his men.”

  Perhaps he did have hawks’ eyes, then. The thought was consoling. After all, was not this the man who was to make the frontier safe from the Indians? If he failed, would not all the settlers who had braved the wilderness be doomed to failure, too?

  The boys had not heard Ben come up behind them. “Know what the Indians call him?” Ben demanded suddenly. “No Toney Lumpkins for them! They call him the Whirlwind. Or, sometimes, the Black Snake. That’s what they think of him!”

  “How do you know what they call him?” Amos asked. He grinned as he spoke. “You been makin’ talk with any Indians around here?”

  “Next best thing,” Ben said laconically. “Spies.”

  “Spies?” Both boys spoke at once, and their eyes lighted with excitement. Like everyone else, they had heard of the wonderful work accomplished against the enemy by General Wayne’s little band of trained men.

  “D’you know Cap’n Kibby?” Daniel asked. “He’s from Columbia.”

  “I know one of his men,” Ben admitted. “He’s been one of Kibby’s rangers right along. But the big news is about Cap’n Wells and his latest catch.”

  His eyes twinkled as he saw how eager the boys were for his news. Captain Kibby’s rangers went afoot as scouts for the army. But Captain Wells and the few men attached to his command lived like gentlemen in the encampment. They were privileged to take any horse from the dragoons that they might need for their assignments, and their exploits made fine telling around the campfires.

  “Of course, you know that Cap’n Wells was brought up among the Indians. And so was Henry Miller, one of his men. Well, it seems Miller left a brother with the Indians when h
e turned white again—fellow by the name of Christopher who liked the Indian life too well to leave it.

  “A few days back, Old Toney sent the cap’n out to bring back an Indian’ prisoner so’s they could question him. They went away up along the Auglaize and there, on high ground, they surprised three Indians. Wells and Miller shot two of ‘em, and McClellan, who can run circles around a deer when he’s a mind to, took off after the third one. What does that Indian do but jump off a cliff into the river! The water was low and he sunk in the mud up to his middle and stuck there. Along comes McClellan, full speed, and jumps right in after him, mud or no mud. By the time Wells and Miller come up, McClellan had the Indian pretty well tamed.”

  Daniel shivered. “All by himself?”

  “Sure. One white man against one Indian. Why not?” Ben stopped to laugh aloud, and added. “Only this time it weren’t no Indian! When the others come up, and drug him out’n the river mud, and washed the war paint off’n him, he turned out to be a white man!”

  “A renegade?” Amos asked. “Or a Britisher?”

  “Neither. You’ll scarce believe it when I tell you it was Henry Miller’s brother Christopher that he hadn’t see for months. At first the fellow wouldn’t talk at all, but finally he admitted who he was. And,” Ben ended his story with a flourish, “he’s right here at Fort Greeneville in the guardhouse this very minute, with his brother Henry and Cap’n Wells tryin’ to git him to talk, and come over to our side.”

  “It don’t seem possible a thing like that could happen,” Amos said doubtfully.

  Ben bridled a little, then laughed again. “If you don’t believe me,” he said, “ask anyone. The story’s all over the place, and the latest word is that Christopher’s weakenin’. Myself, I don’t know whether I’d really trust a man that had been a white Indian ever since he was a lad.”

  “Henry Miller is trusted,” Amos said quickly.

  “Aye, but Henry Miller left the Indians of his own accord. And so did Cap’n Wells. This Christopher, now....I don’t know....”

  Daniel turned away. Wherever he went there was this talk about Indians. It was natural, of course, for the whole purpose of this string of forts, the whole reason for the Legion and the spies and the reconnoitering, was the eradication of the Indian menace. Twenty times a day he wished that he could have been living safely in some place like Cincinnati until the campaign was over. Yet even in Cincinnati there were plenty of Indian alarms, despite the protection of nearby Fort Washington. Why, matters had become so serious in the neighborhood that a number of men had banded together only last month to offer bounties for Indian scalps.

  Was there no safety anywhere on the frontier?

  CHAPTER SIX

  Daniel had several more glimpses of General Anthony Wayne before they left Greeneville the following day. Each time he felt a greater confidence in the limping man. He could see how piercing the hazel eyes were, how strong the jaw. And the more stories he heard about him, the more his confidence grew. If anyone was going to defeat the Indians, it would be this man. There was a feeling of watchful power about him. Even the Indians believed that he never slept.

  “He’s a wily one,” Daniel heard one soldier telling another. “The redskins never know which way this cat is goin’ to jump. Look at the roads we’ve built for him! Goin’ this-away and that, so’s they’ve no way of guessin’ which one we’ll use when we march ag’in ‘em. We don’t know, neither!” His laugh was raucous.

  Another time he overheard two men who were helping to unload and store the pack-horse-borne supplies. “Never know what’s comin’ next, we don’t. Me, I never thought, when I took the bounty and joined the Legion, that I’d be buildin’ roads and cuttin’ through the forest one day, and yellin’ my lungs out in bayonet practice the next. And here I am unloadin’ supplies. I’d be willin’ to bet you my boots it’ll be somethin’ else tomorrow or next week. Never know what Old Toney’ll think up next!” But his voice held a note of pride. This was not a complaint.

  Fort Greeneville itself held many marvels for Daniel. He had not seen its like before. Fort Washington had a more settled look with its covering of red paint. And it was located on the Ohio River, with the town of Cincinnati beside it. This was a great stockade enclosing fifty acres, in the midst of the wilderness. True, the location itself was a pleasant one, and a winding creek formed a natural moat on several sides. The prairie around it was large enough, Josiah said, to graze a thousand cattle. But it was in Indian country, and who knew what lay beyond that innocent-looking prairie?

  It was obvious that General Wayne was taking no chances of a surprise attack. The soldiers’ huts were surrounded by a deep trench, with a raised fire-step inside them for defense against attack. And there was the stockade itself. If anything could withstand a powerful Indian onslaught, it would be this place. Daniel wished with all his heart that the troop could have made its camp inside its safe walls, rather than in the exposed position the men had to take outside.

  He ventured a remark or two about this, but Amos only grinned. “Shucks, Dan’l, you don’t think any Indians could sneak across that prairie to us without bein’ seen, do you? We’d have all the time we needed to git inside the fort afore they could reach us. Old Toney’s got plenty of sentries in the night-time, so rest easy.” He put his hand on Daniel’s shoulder in a brief gesture of reassurance and affection, and Daniel’s heart swelled with gratitude. Amos, at least, did not despise him for his ever-present fear.

  They started back the next morning. With most of Timothy’s string gone, the big man was told to help Simon. The going was easier without the loads that the animals had carried on the trip up and they made good time to Fort St. Clair, camping early that first night. Henry was sent out to get the meat for them, and came back in a short while with a fine bag of raccoon, pheasants, and a couple of rabbits.

  Simon, who shone as the cook, made a savory stew for them, and then they all sat around the campfire and talked a while before they lay down to sleep.

  “I’m surprised you didn’t come back with a bear, Henry,” Josiah said, pretending to scoff at Henry’s hunting prowess. “Dan’l got us a bear when we stopped here on the way up. Your eyesight failin’ any?”

  “Oh, I saw a couple of bears—some buffalo, too—but I didn’t want the bother of toting them back here,” Henry said with a grin. “No use killing the animals just for the sport. I thought you wanted something Simon could cook in a hurry.”

  Amos leaned over to whisper to Daniel, “Henry is the best shot I ever saw. He can drive a nail into a tree at fifty paces.”

  Daniel’s eyes widened. Henry was the silent one who kept to himself most of the time. He carried a book or two in his personal bundle, which he would take out to read whenever he had time. Henry had not seemed to Daniel to be the sort of man who would be an outstanding shot.

  Simon said slowly, “Don’t see many buffalo any more. When I first come into the Territory, they was plenty.”

  “They’ve moved west,” Henry said. “First the buffalo, then the Indians, then the other big game will disappear. That’s the way it will be as men come in and settle.”

  “You seem pretty sure of the Indians goin’,” Timothy sneered. “Might be it’ll be us that leaves.”

  “No, I don’t think so.” Henry’s voice was quiet, sure. “The Indians are wanderers. They follow the game. Even their villages and cornfields are temporary, if you look at them from the standpoint of years of time. When one area has been stripped of its game, they will leave their villages and go on to some other place where the game is plentiful....But the white man comes to settle permanently. He wants to build a home, to clear fields and plant crops with the idea of staying there, of leaving property to his children. He wants to put down roots for his family. When he fights, he is not fighting for an indefinite hunting area, but for a certain farm, an acreage that is his. And so he will fight harder and longer than the Indians.”

  Josiah said, “You’re right, Henr
y. My folks have always moved on from place to place, lookin’ for a spot to settle where they could have plenty, where they could be free, and where they could think of their families goin’ on and on. I know that’s what I’ve found where I’ve settled now. I want my children to have what I’ve worked for, because I think it’s better here than anywheres else my folks have tried it.”

  Daniel saw Amos’ surprised expression and knew that this was the first time the boy had heard his father say this. For some reason, it gave him a feeling of relief. From the time he had first seen the Greggs’ farm and met the family, he had hated to think that their fine acreage and sturdy house would hold them only temporarily. Even though they might spend years on the place, if there was always the possibility of moving on, it could never be what he had sensed it should be—a true outpost of civilization.

  The thoughts that sped through his mind were unformed, but the relief was there, and he could see from Amos’ relaxed posture that he, too, was glad to hear his father speak that way.

  Timothy broke the brief silence. “Better here?” he repeated, with a faint sneer. “What have you got here in the Territory but work—and too much of it? You’ll not grow rich! What if you was to raise the biggest crops in the country? What’ll you do with ‘em? You can eat only so much. Where are you goin’ to find a market for the rest?”

  “I figger that by the time my crops are that big,” Josiah said with a slow smile, “there’ll be ways of gettin’ rid of ‘em. I can always cart ‘em to the Miami and flatboat ‘em down river to Cincinnati. And from there to New Orleans, mebbe.”

  Timothy snorted. “How you goin’ to sell your corn, or your hogs, for that matter? In the ear, and on the hoof?”

  “By that time,” Josiah said with assurance, “we’ll have mills to make flour, and we’ll be able to salt down the pork.”