Hugh Pendexter

“ The tavern-keeper, too, was no longer visible, and with nothing to detain him Jackson took the trail to the south, his heart as light as his moccasined feet.
What recked youth in love-time even if the fate of the Anglo-Saxon race in America were at stake! Ever thus does youth help shape the course of political evolution, help win a world without realizing the achievement, and only ask in the midst of astounding events that the heart of a simple maid be won. ”

“ Still, I admire you for going to Great Hiwassee. But when you mention the central Government you remind me that facts are facts. Your Government. Where is it? What can it do? Can it sail a boat on the Mississippi? Can it send its goods to New Orleans? Does it resent any action of Spain’s? Or does it meekly bow the head?”
Sevier restrained himself and evenly retorted:
“We are a free people. Just now we need many things. We soon shall have them. War has exhausted us, but we shall make up our strength overnight. We shall never submit.” ”

“ Jackson had planned to follow Thatch until he went for his whisky, but as time pressed he abandoned his purpose and hurried back to find Sevier. He was much chagrined to find no candle burning in the court-house. If he was to keep his appointment with Elsie, he could not waste any time looking for his friend. He hesitated for a moment, then set off for the Tonpit cabin.
He stood at the edge of the clearing just as the moon climbed above the forest crown. The cabin was dark, and a hush hung over the place. He proceeded to the arbour and softly called her name. ”

“ Somewhere in the night a whippoorwill—waguli the Cherokees call it because of its song—was monotonously reiterating its plaintive cluster of notes. From deeper in the forest came the screech-owl’s wa-huhu; but of human and four-footed enemies there was never a sound.
When the crisis broke it was so close at hand as to seem to be in his very face; a triumphant chorus of the bloodthirsty trackers. Sevier’s wide gaze made out several vague forms racing up the slope to where reared the frightened horse. ”

“ The village was now in an uproar. Torches were flitting back and forth; men were surrounding the big house. The dogs, infuriated by the confusion, were raising their ferocious voices, demanding to be released for action. As Sevier finished a hundred warriors ran to the lighted window, calling out to their master that the man Polcher was dead and that Little John had escaped by using black magic. Some terrible evil spirit had slain a slave, wrenched the iron bars from the window and tied the dead Polcher up to the window. ”

“ What will North Carolina say when she finds she’s lost her land and hasn’t paid her debt?”
“She’ll do nothing,” assured Sevier. “There will be no violence, no bloodshed. You don’t understand the true temper of the people on both sides of the mountains. We’re kinsmen. And your amusing little illustrations make you forget the simple fact that a new State must pay its share of the national debt. Our new State will make good what Carolina owes.” ”

“ Does McGillivray always keep his word? Or does he first build for McGillivray and ask you to help him, and then tell you he is too tired to help you build, but some other time. Hayi!”
“My men want war, Little John, for the wrongs the white men have done them,” weakly retorted Old Tassel, still scarcely able to believe Chucky Jack had slipped through so many fingers.
“Your men shall have war, Utsidsata. Men shall have the thing they crave; but let them beware lest the thing they seek does not bring death to them.” ”

“ The cavalcade now drew near, and he could easily make out the oaths and commands being shouted in English by Hajason, sprinkled with orders in the Cherokee tongue. Now they burst into view, two half-breeds riding ahead, a dozen horses following them. Bringing up the rear were three white men. Sevier had eyes for only one of the trio, a giant of a man, whose features were an amazing mass of brutality and evil passions, whose bearded lips opened seldom except to permit the escape of a blasphemy. ”

“ Jackson’s material mind had taught him that one fought Indians because one must, not from choice. A beautiful and devoted wife and ample fortune appealed to the young ranger as being the goal in life. It never entered his process of reasoning that Destiny transplants men to obtain results, just as Nature supplies seeds with methods of locomotion so that new regions may be fructified. The vital incentive for Jackson’s admiration for the man was not his sacrifices but rather his knowledge that Chucky Jack had invented a new style of forest-fighting. ”

“ Stetson took the lead. Polcher walked in silence beside the borderer for a minute and then gravely asked—
“What’s to become of us, John, now that the mother State has cast us off?”
“We’re not entirely orphaned,” Sevier retorted. “We can rap on the door of the central Government, and, as a separate State, say, ‘Here is your child.’”
“But will the Government take us in? Can it protect us?”
“If it can’t protect us, it doesn’t make any difference whether it takes us in or doesn’t. We can keep on shifting for ourselves as we’ve always done.” ”

“ If the Cherokees take the red ax from the Creeks and should break off all the heads of the settlers along the French Broad, the Holston, the Nolichucky and the Watauga, what would they gain? The Creeks as friends. They have never been a true friend to any neighbour. Spain a friend? When you bait a sacred war-eagle with the carcass of a deer and kill it, you pray to it not to take vengeance on you, saying it is no Cherokee that killed it, but Askwani—a Spaniard. Why do you pray to turn the dead eagle’s vengeance against the Spaniards? ”

“ Leaning forward, Sevier swept his flaming gaze up and down the ranger’s trim form in mingled anger and scorn.
“Young man,” he softly said, “you’re either an American or just a two-legged critter. Can’t you see the time has come when it must be decided once for all whether an English or a Spanish-speaking race is to rule this country? What are your personal affairs compared with the destiny of a world? As an American you’ll do nothing dishonourable. I don’t expect you to wheedle secrets from Elsie, whom I’ve known and loved dearly and who is as good an American as I am. ”

“ You can have war. I am not here begging for peace. I am tired trying to remain friendly with the Cherokees. Take your vote and go to water; then chew your sacred root and see if the medicine can stop our bullets. At Great Hiwassee I gave you a friendly talk and asked you to a grand council. And before doing that I sent a talk to you by Tall Runner—a peace talk.
“Now I will give you no more peace talks; for you do not like them. You want war. These young warriors from the lower towns want war. You can always have what you want if your medicine is strong. ”

“ Sevier quickly replied:
“I will keep the promises I make in the grand council I am asking you to come to. The Watauga settlements are to become a separate fire and blaze beside the thirteen.”
Unable to restrain his fierce passions longer, Watts leaped to his feet and cried:
“Why should we wait longer to have promises kept? Why should we believe new promises will be remembered better than the old? What power has Little John to make the settlers keep off our lands? Even now the settlements do not know where they belong. North Carolina does not want them. ”

“ Sevier stared incredulously at the message, while his neighbours gazed stupidly at the dusty messenger. All felt as if they had been abandoned in the wilderness without shelter or means of self-defence. True, the over-mountain men had always fought their own way and financed their own campaigns, yet in the back of their minds was ever the thought that, should a crisis come, the mother State must aid them.
That a crisis was imminent was evidenced by Chucky Jack’s open mention of his petition for soldiers. Chucky Jack was worth many riflemen and had whipped the Indians many times. ”

“ Sevier devoutly cried.
“I would much prefer he had died than to have lost Petro,” the Emperor dissented.
“Then, shame on you, Alexander McGillivray!”
“Ha! You’ve saved up more bold words over night,” gritted the emperor, leaning back in his chair. “Be careful, Sevier. You are not in my white town of Coosa. You are in the red town of Little Talassee on the Coosa River. A vast difference.”
“I’m where a dog is valued more highly than a clean young American.”
“American? It’s seldom I hear the word,” McGillivray grimly taunted. “I fear it will never become the fashion. ”

“ He was satisfied the dogs were far in advance of their keepers and that the rest of the pack were still on the leash. Returning to the trail, he resumed his flight. Far behind him sounded the ominous baying, but he gave it scant heed. The dogs at the creek had picked up his trail, but the fight among the rocks had increased his optimism. His star was in the ascendancy.
For three days and nights Sevier made his way north, each hour bringing him nearer the neck of the bottle through which he must pass. Jackson’s flight undoubtedly had aroused the country. ”

“ If ever Spain was to establish an empire by force in America, no fairer opportunity could exist than the present.
Of course there was Old Thatch’s death to be investigated, but aside from his tavern cronies there were few to lament his passing. His demise could be considered leisurely; it carried no train of red axes. The murder of the Indian was epochal. The settlers assembled in the court-house viewed the situation objectively. Whether the dead be Creek or Cherokee, his people would seek reprisal. Sevier’s vision carried him beyond the Watauga. ”

“ The savages’ firm belief in the warrior’s demise set the borderer to wondering, however. What if Polcher had overtaken Tall Runner? It might easily have happened that the fleeing horseman had come upon Old Tassel’s messenger. And, had it happened, Sevier hadn’t the slightest doubt concerning the tavern-keeper’s readiness to slay the man and blame his death on Jonesboro. He suddenly decided that his life was most critically in the balance.
“The soul of Tall Runner turns to nothing. It becomes blue,” chanted the warrior ahead, his voice taking on the intonation of a shaman. ”

“ There was a time when our land reached to the Ohio and the Great Kanawha and the Catawba, and to the west as far as our young men cared to hunt. Now we do not touch the Cumberland, except on its upper waters, while the French Broad holds us back if we go toward the rising sun.
“Brothers, we are like an old man, once tall and good to look upon, but now bent and withered. There is but one medicine that will make us young and strong and straight. It is a red medicine—the blood of the whites. The all-powerful Red Spirits of the East do not love those who give up their lands without a fight. ”

“ The white man is a fool to talk of Cherokees dying when he stands alone with his enemies in the war-council at Turkey Town,” passionately cried the orator from the lower towns.
Sevier turned on him and extended a knife, handle first, and challenged:
“So, Little John is a fool to say what he does, to speak of death? Here is a sharp knife; here is my heart. Use the knife; kill my heart. But remember this, and all here remember it—there is one now who is rallying the riflemen of the Watauga. ”

“ Sevier folded his arms and stared over the chief’s head. Watts continued:
“It can not be that North Carolina will be angry if the spirit of Tsan-usdi travels to the spirit land in the West, for Carolina has driven him from her cabin. The Thirteen Fires will not ask presents for his death, for the Thirteen Fires are made of green wood and give more smoke than flame and will soon die out. The Thirteen Fires are not like fires; they are like an old man without legs to run on, without hands to lift the ax, like an old man who can only open his mouth and make foolish sounds.” ”

“ Old Tassel was an Indian and not to be put out of countenance by the death of white folks. It was the ever present fear of disaster to his people that worried him. Even the most perfect of theories may end in alarming facts. And there was the rub. He could not be sure the Creeks would do all they boasted. If a single link in the chain broke, the chain would fly to pieces. Then it would be Old Tassel’s domain that would first feel the vengeance of Chucky Jack and his horsemen. ”

“ Bold men in Kentucky had glimpsed the marvellous possibilities. Now was the crisis; an Indian’s death might be the hinge on which the door would swing to admit either imperial Spain or democratic America. Could it be kept shut a bit longer, until Chucky Jack had summoned the faithful, then let it open as widely as it would and Spain face her answer.
“Where’s this man Jackson?” asked a settler.
“Probably dodging the mob. He’ll appear when he knows he can have a fair hearing,” said Sevier. Then to a man near the door, “Stetson, go and find Polcher. He doesn’t seem to be here.” ”

“ Now let us part good friends.”
“Your place is not in Little Talassee, where they plot to cut up the Union,” was the firm response. “Your place is where Americanism thrives, in the settlements, or in the cities over the mountains. Never where McGillivray plots with Spain.”
“Mr. Sevier, I will shoot you if you persist in your interference,” Tonpit announced.
“Then you will be a murderer and your daughter will refuse to ride with you,” cheerfully countered Sevier. “If my death will restore the young woman to the American settlements, why, I shall not have died for nothing.” ”

“ As Tonpit drew up the borderer informed:
“We can’t outride them. Your girl is played out. A few miles ahead there is a cave near the trail where we can hide. Once there one of us can stand them off until the other gets help.”
“Get help? Who is there to help us in this cursed country?” groaned Tonpit.
“The Cherokees,” said Sevier. “Because of my talk with Old Tassel they will send men. Did McGillivray have his way the Cherokees would now be at war with the settlements and be among those hunting us. You’ve lost a chance to be Spain’s governor in the new world, but we’ll save the girl.” ”

“ You submit now,” wrathfully cried McGillivray. “You are powerless now. Why should you think you will be strong tomorrow? Does weakness breed strength? You say the future of my people and that of the Thirteen Fires are tied up in the same bundle. God forbid! That is what I am trying to escape from. We want none of your future, with its humiliations, with its bending of the knee to Spain. We are free to sail the Mississippi. We trade with New Orleans. When Spain speaks to us she speaks softly. Without our aid she is powerless. My friend, we shall use Spain rather than allow Spain to use us. ”

“ Too late he saw the trap he had been led into, and with a terrified stare at the ominous-eyed tavern-keeper he halted and bit his lips, then glared helplessly at Sevier.
“Without a knife he couldn’t take any scalps,” completed Sevier. “In spots, Twill, you’re an honest witness. You speak the truth when you forget. Kirk Jackson carried no knife when he came to Jonesboro. What is more, he always fought honourably and did not scalp. Polcher made a mistake in thinking he recognized him. Amos Thatch was killed with a knife, a broad-bladed knife, not a hunting-knife. Jackson never killed him. ”