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The Free Rangers by Joseph A. Altsheler

J >> Joseph A. Altsheler >> The Free Rangers




"You tell me, Senor Wyatt," said Don Francisco Alvarez, the leader of the
Spanish band, "that the new settlers in Kaintock[A] have twice driven off
the allied tribes, and that, if they are left alone another year or two,
they will go down so deep in the soil that they can never be uprooted.
Is it not so?"

"It is so," replied Braxton Wyatt, the renegade. "The tribes have failed
twice in a great effort. Every man among these settlers is a daring and
skillful fighter, and many of the boys--and many of the women, too. But if
white troops and cannon are sent against them their forts must fall."

The Spaniard was idly whipping the grass stems with a little switch. Now
he narrowed his metallic, blue eyes, and gazed directly into those of
Braxton Wyatt.

"And you, Senor Wyatt?" he said, speaking his slow, precise English.
"Nothing premeditated is done without a motive. You are of these people
who live in Kaintock, their blood is your blood; why then do you wish to
have them destroyed?"

A deep flush broke its way through the brown tan on the face of Braxton
Wyatt, and his eyes fell before the cold gaze of the Spaniard. But he
raised them again in a moment. Braxton Wyatt was not a coward, and he
never permitted a guilty conscience to last longer than a throb or two.

"I did belong to them," he replied, "but my tastes led me away. I have
felt that all this mighty valley should belong to the Indians who have
inhabited it so long, but, if the white people come, it should be those
who are true and loyal to their kings, not these rebels of the colonies."

Francisco Alvarez smiled cynically, and once more surveyed Braxton Wyatt,
with a rapid, measuring glance.

"You speak my sentiments, Senor Wyatt," he said, "and you speak them in a
language that I scarcely expected."

"I had a schoolmaster even in the wilderness," said Braxton Wyatt. "And I
may tell you, too, as proof of my faith that I would be hanged at once
should I return to the settlements."

"I do not doubt your faith. I was merely curious about your motives. I am
sure also that you can be of great help to us."

He spoke in a patronizing manner, and Braxton Wyatt moved slightly in
anger, but restrained his speech.

"I may say," continued the Spaniard, "that His Excellency Bernardo Galvez,
His Most Catholic Majesty's Governor of his loyal province of Louisiana,
has been stirred by the word that comes to him of these new settlements of
the rebel Americans in the land of the Ohio. The province of Louisiana is
vast, and it may be that it includes the country on either side of the
Ohio. The French, our predecessors, claimed it, and now that all the
colonists east of the mountains are busy fighting their king, it may be
easy to take it from them, as one would snip off a skirt with a pair of
scissors. That is why I and this faithful band are so far north in these
woods."

Braxton Wyatt nodded.

"And a wise thing, too," he said. "I am strong with the tribes. The great
chief, Yellow Panther, of the Miamis and the great chief, Red Eagle, of
the Shawnees are both my friends. I know how they feel. The Spanish in New
Orleans are far away. Their settlements do not spread. They come rather to
hunt and trade. But the Americans push farther and farther. They build
their homes and they never go back. Do you wonder then that the warriors
wish your help?"

Francisco Alvarez smiled again. It was a cold but satisfied smile and he
rubbed one white hand over the other.

"Your logic is good," he said, "and these reasons have occurred to me,
also, but my master, Bernardo Galvez, the Governor, is troubled. We love
not England and there is a party among us--a party at present in
power--which wishes to help the Americans in order that we may damage
England, but I, if I could choose the way would have no part in it. As
surely as we help the rebels we will also create rebels against
ourselves."

"You are far from New Orleans," said Braxton Wyatt. "It would take long
for a messenger to go and come, and meanwhile you could act as you think
best."

"It is so," said the Spaniard. "Our presence here is unknown to all save
the chiefs and yourself. In this wilderness, a thousand miles from his
superior, one must act according to his judgment, and I should like to see
these rebel settlements crushed."

He spoke to himself rather than to Wyatt, and again his eyes narrowed.
Blue eyes are generally warm and sympathetic, but his were of the cold,
metallic shade that can express cruelty so well. He plucked, too, at his
short, light beard, and Braxton Wyatt read his thoughts. The renegade felt
a thrill of satisfaction. Here was a man who could be useful.

"How far is it from this place to the land of the Miamis and the
Shawnees?" asked Alvarez.

"It must be six or seven hundred miles, but bands of both tribes are now
hunting much farther west. One Shawnee party that I know of is even now
west of the Mississippi."

Francisco Alvarez, frowned slightly.

"It is a huge country," he said. "These great distances annoy me. Still,
one must travel them. Ah, what is it now?"

He was looking at Braxton Wyatt, as he spoke, and he saw a sudden change
appear upon his face, a look of recognition and then of mingled hate and
rage. The renegade was staring Northward, and the eyes of Alvarez followed
his.

The Spaniard saw a man or rather a youth approaching, a straight, slender,
but tall and compact figure, and a face uncommon in the wilderness, fine,
delicate, with the eyes of a dreamer, and seer, but never weak. The youth
came on steadily, straight coward the Spanish camp.

"Paul Cotter!" exclaimed Braxton Wyatt. "How under the sun did he come
here!"

"Some one you know?" said Alvarez who heard the words.

"Yes, from the settlements of which we speak," replied Wyatt quickly and
in a low tone. He had no time to add more, because Paul was now in the
Spanish camp, and was gravely saluting the leader, whom he had recognized
instantly to be such by his dress and manner. Francisco Alvarez rose to
his feet, and politely returned the salute. He saw at once a quality in
the stranger that was not wholly of the wilderness. Braxton Wyatt nodded,
but Paul took no notice whatever of him. A flush broke again through the
tan of the renegade's face.

"Be seated," said Alvarez, and Paul sat down on a little grassy knoll.

"You are Captain Francisco Alvarez of the Spanish forces at New Orleans?"

"You have me truly," replied the Spaniard smiling and shrugging his
shoulders, "although I cannot surmise how you became aware of my presence
here. But the domains of my master, the king, extend far, and his servants
must travel far, also, to do his will."

Paul understood the implication in his words, but he, too, had the gift of
language and diplomacy, and he did not reply to it. Stirred by deep
curiosity, the Spanish soldiers were gathering a little nearer, but
Alvarez waved back all but Wyatt.

"I am glad to find you here, Captain Alvarez," said Paul with a gravity
beyond his years; indeed, as he spoke, his face was lighted up by that
same singular look of exaltation that had passed more than once over the
face of the shiftless one. "And I am glad because I have come for a
reason, one of the greatest of all reasons. I want to say something, not
for myself, but for others."

"Ah, an ambassador, I see," said Francisco Alvarez with a light touch of
irony.

But Paul took no notice of the satire. He was far too much in earnest, and
he resumed in tones impressive in their solemnity:

"I am from one of the little white villages in the Kentucky woods far to
the eastward. There we have fought the wilderness and twice we have driven
back strong forces of the allied tribes, although they came with great
resolution and were helped moreover by treachery."

Braxton Wyatt moved angrily and was about to speak, but Paul, never
glancing in his direction, went on steadily:

"These settlements cannot be uprooted now. They may be damaged. They may
be made to suffer great loss and grief, but the vanguard of our people
will never turn back. Neither warrior nor king can withstand it."

Now Paul's look was wholly that of the prophet. As he said the last words,
"neither warrior nor king can withstand it" his face was transfigured. He
did not see the Spaniard before him, nor Braxton Wyatt, the renegade, nor
the surrounding woods, but he saw instead great states and mighty cities.

The Spaniard, despite his displeasure, was impressed by the words of the
youth, but he took hold of himself bodily, as it were, and shook off the
spell. A challenging light sprang into his cold blue eyes.

"I do not know so much about warriors," he said, "but kings may be and are
able to do what they will. If my master should choose to put forth his
strength, even to send his far-extended arm into these woods, to what
would your tiny settlements amount? A pinch of sand before a puff of wind.
Whiff! You are gone. Nor could your people east of the mountains help you,
because they, on bended knee, will soon be receiving their own lesson from
the King of England."

Francisco Alvarez snapped his fingers, as if Paul and his people were
annihilated by a single derisive gesture. Paul reddened and a dangerous
flash came into his eyes. But the natural diplomatist in him took control,
and he replied with the utmost calmness.

"It may be so, but It is not a question that should arise. The King of
Spain is at peace with us. We even hear, deep in the woods as we are, that
he may take our part against England. France already is helping us. So I
have come to ask you to take no share in plots against us, not to listen
to evil counsels, and not to turn ear to traitors, who, having been
traitors to one people, can readily be traitors to another."

Braxton Wyatt leaped to his feet, his face blazing with wrath, and his
hand flew to the hilt of the knife at his belt.

"Now this is more than I will stand!" he exclaimed, "you cannot ignore me,
Paul Cotter, until such time you choose, and then call me foul names!"

The Spaniard smiled. The sight of Braxton Wyatt's wrath pleased him, but
he put out his hand in a detaining gesture.

"Sit down!" he said in a tone so sharp that Wyatt obeyed. "This is no time
for personal quarrels. As I see it, an embassy has come to us and we must
discuss matters of state. Is it not so, Senor, Senor--"

"Cotter! Paul Cotter is my name."

Paul felt the sneer in the Spaniard's last words, but he hid his
resentment.

"Then your proposition is this," continued Alvarez, "that I and my men
have nothing to do with the Indians, that we make no treaty, no agreement
with them, that we abandon this country and go back to New Orleans. This
you propose despite the fact that the region in which we now are belongs
to Spain."

"I would not put it in quite that fashion," replied Paul calmly.
"I suggest instead that you be our friend. It is natural for the white
races to stand together. I suggest that you send away, also, the messenger
of the tribes who comes seeking your help to slaughter women and children."

Braxton Wyatt half rose, but again he was put down by the restraining
gesture of Francisco Alvarez.

"No personal quarrels, as I stated before," said the Spaniard, "but to
you, Senor Cotter, I wish to say that I have heard your words, but it
seems to me they are without weight. I do not agree with you that the
settlements of the Americans cannot be uprooted. Nor am I sure that your
title to Kaintock is good. It was claimed in the beginning by France, and
justly, but a great war gave it by might though not by right to England.
Now Spain has succeeded to France. Here, throughout all this vast region,
there is none to dispute her title. To the east of the Mississippi great
changes are going on, and it may be that Kaintock, also, will revert to my
master, the king."

He waved his hand in a gesture of finality, and a look of satisfaction
came into Braxton Wyatt's eyes. The renegade glanced triumphantly at Paul,
but Paul's face remained calm.

"You would not proceed to any act of hostility in conjunction with the
tribes, when Spain and the colonies are at peace?" said Paul to the
Spaniard.

Francisco Alvarez frowned, and assumed a haughty look.

"I make neither promises nor prophecies," he said, "I have spoken
courteously to you, Senor Cotter, although you are a trespasser on the
Spanish domain. I have given you the hospitality of our camp, but I cannot
answer questions pertaining to the policy of my government."

Paul, for the first time, showed asperity. He, too, drew himself up with a
degree of haughtiness, and he looked Don Francisco Alvarez squarely in the
eyes, as he replied:

"I did not come here to ask questions. I came merely to say that our
nations are at peace, and to urge you not to help savages in a war upon
white people."

"I do not approve of rebels," said Alvarez.

Paul was silent. He felt instinctively that his mission had failed.
Something cold and cruel about the Spaniard repelled him, and he believed,
too, that Braxton Wyatt had not been without a sinister influence.

Alvarez arose and walked over to his camp-fire. Braxton Wyatt followed him
and whispered rapidly to the Spaniard. Paul, persistent and always
hopeful, was putting down his anger and trying to think of other effective
words that he might use. But none would come into his head, and he, too,
rose.

"I am sorry that we cannot agree. Captain Alvarez," he said with the grave
courtesy that became him so well, "and therefore I will bid you good day."

A thin smile passed over the face of the Spaniard and the blue eyes shed a
momentary, metallic gleam.

"I pray you not to be in haste, Senor Cotter," he said. "Be our guest for
a while."

"I must go," replied Paul, "although I thank you for the courtesy."

"But we cannot part with you now," said the Spaniard, "you are on Spanish
soil. Others of your kind may be near, also, and you and they have come,
uninvited. I would know more about it."

"You mean that you will detain me?" said Paul in surprise.

The Spaniard delicately stroked his pointed beard.

"Perhaps that is the word," he replied. "As I said, you have trespassed
upon our domain, and I must hold you, for a time, at least. I know not
what plot is afoot"

"As a prisoner?"

"If you wish to call it so."

"And yet there is no war between your country and mine!"

The Spaniard delicately stroked his pointed beard again.

Paul looked at him accusingly, and Francisco Alvarez unable to sustain his
straight gaze, turned his eyes aside. But Braxton Wyatt's face was full of
triumph, although he kept silent.

Paul thought rapidly. It seemed to him a traitorous design and he did not
doubt that Wyatt had instigated it, but he must submit at present. He was
powerless inside a ring of fifty soldiers. Without a word, he sat down
again on the little grassy knoll and it pleased Alvarez to affect a great
politeness, and to play with his prisoner as a cat with a mouse. He
insisted that he eat and he made his men bring him the tenderest of food,
deer meat and wild turkey, and fish, freshly caught. Finally he opened a
flask and poured wine in a small silver cup.

"It is the wine of Xeres, Senor Cotter," he said, "and you can judge how
precious it is, as it must be a full five thousand miles from its
birthplace."

He handed the little cup in grandiose manner to Paul, and Paul, meeting
his humor, accepted it in like fashion. He had not tasted wine often in
his life and he found it a strong fluid, but, in this crisis, it
strengthened him and put a new sparkle in his blood.

"Thanks," he said as he politely returned the empty cup, and resumed his
seat on the knoll. Then Alvarez walked aside, and talked again in whispers
with the renegade.

Wyatt urged that Paul be held indefinitely. He would not talk at first,
but they must get from him the fullest details about the settlements in
Kentucky, the weak points, where to attack and when. If the settlements
were left alone they would certainly spread all over Kentucky and in time
across the Mississippi into the Spanish domain. Spain was far away, and
she could not drive them back. But the Spaniards could urge on the tribes
again, and with a hidden hand, send them arms and ammunition. White men
with cannon could even join the warriors, and Spain might convincingly say
that she knew nothing of if.

The words of the renegade pleased Francisco Alvarez. Deep down in his
crafty heart he loved intrigue and cunning.

"Yes, we'll hold him," he said. "He is a trespasser here, although I will
admit that he is not the kind of person that I expected to find in the
heart of this vast wilderness."

He glanced at Paul, who was sitting on the knoll, calm and apparently
unconcerned, his fine features at rest, his blue eyes lazily regarding the
forest. The blue of Paul's eyes was different from the blue of the eyes of
Alvarez. The blue of his was deep, warm, and sympathetic.

"Is it likely that Cotter is alone?" Alvarez asked of Wyatt.

"Not at all," replied the renegade. "He has friends, and I warn you that
they are able and dangerous. We must be on our watch against them."

"What friends?" asked the Spaniard incredulously.

"There is a group. They are five. Where one of them is, the other four are
not likely to be far away. There is Cotter's comrade, Henry Ware, a little
older, and larger and stronger, wonderful in the woods! He surpasses the
Indians themselves in cunning and craft. Then comes Sol Hyde, whom they
call the shiftless one, but swift and cunning, and much to be dreaded.
Look out for him when he is pretending to be most harmless. And then Tom
Ross, who has been, a hunter and guide all his life, and the one they call
Long Jim, the swiftest runner in the wilderness. Oh, I know them all!"

"Perhaps you have had cause to know them well," said the Spaniard in a
sardonic tone--he was a keen reader of character, and he understood
Braxton Wyatt.

But Braxton Wyatt ignored the taunt in his anxiety.

"They must not be taken too lightly," he said. "They are somewhere in
these woods, and, Captain, I warn you once more against them."

The Spaniard smiled in his superior way, and, turning to his men, began to
give directions for the camp that night. Sunset was not far away, and they
would remain in the glade. His was too strong a force to fear attack in
that isolated region, but Alvarez posted sentinels, and ordered the others
to sleep, when the time came, in a wide ring about the fire. Within the
ring he and Paul and Wyatt sat, and the Spaniard, maintaining his light,
ironic humor, talked much. Paul, if addressed directly by Alvarez, always
answered, but he persistently ignored the renegade. Such a being filled
him with horror, and once, when Wyatt gave him a look of deadly hate, Paul
shot back one of his own, fully a match for it. But that was all.

Night came on fast. The red sun shot down. Darkness fell upon the forest,
and swept up to the circling rim of the camp fire. Chill came into the
air. The Spaniards shivered and crept a little nearer to the coals. Talk
ceased, and, out of the illimitable forest, came the low, moaning sound of
the wind among the leaves. The great stars sprang out, and shone with a
thin, pale light on the wilderness.

Francisco Alvarez was a brave man, but he was born on sunny plains where
he basked in warmth and the eye ranged far. Now, despite himself, he felt
a chill that was uncanny. The forest, thick and black, spread away, he
knew, for hundreds of miles, and neither city nor town broke it. A fervent
imagination leaped up and peopled it with weird beings. Nor would
imagination go down before will and knowledge. Boughs twisted themselves
into fantastic, hideous shapes, and the moan of the wind was certainly
like the cry of a soul in torment.

Don Francisco Alvarez shivered and the shiver became a shudder. He looked
across the fire at his prisoner, but Paul seemed unconscious of the forest
and the night, and the demon spell of the two. The lad sat immovable. Upon
his face was the dreamy, mystic look that so often came there. He seemed
to be gazing far beyond the Spaniard and the renegade into some greater
future.

Francisco Alvarez, brave man though he was, felt awe. He rose impatiently,
kicked a coal deeper into the fire, looked once more at Paul, who was yet
silent, and spoke sharply to the sentinels. Then he returned to his place,
and said to Paul:

"We offer you the hospitality of the forest and an extra blanket if you
wish it."

"It's a hospitality to which I'm used," replied Paul, "and I don't need
the extra blanket, although I thank you for the offer."

He took his own blanket from the little roll at his back, wrapped himself
in it, pillowed his head on the knoll, and closed his eyes. Francisco
Alvarez looked at him for some minutes, and could not tell whether he was
sleeping or waking, but he thought that he slept. His long, regular
breathing and the expression of his face, as peaceful as that of a little
child, indicated It.

The night grew chillier. The great stars remained pale and cold, and the
forest continued to whine, as that strange, wandering breeze slipped
through the leaves. Francisco Alvarez of the sunny plains wished that it
would stop. It got upon his nerves, and the feeling it gave him was
singularly like that of an evil conscience. He saw his men fall to sleep
one by one, and he heard their heavy breathing. Braxton Wyatt also wrapped
himself in his blanket and soon slumbered. The fire sank, the coals
crumbled, and with soft little hisses, fell together. The circling rim of
darkness crept up closer and closer, and the trunks of the trees became
ghostly in the shadows.

Alvarez saw his sentinels at either side of the camp, to right and left,
walking back and forth, and he knew also that they would watch well. Time
passed. The night darkened and then a wan moon came out, casting a
ghostly, gray shadow over the measureless black forest. The great stars,
pale and cold, danced in a dusky blue. Faint moans came out of the depths
of the wilderness, as a stray wind wandered here and there among the
leaves. Francisco Alvarez, resolute and self contained though he was,
could not sleep. He had taken a bold step in holding the messenger of
peace, and, although one might do much a thousand wilderness miles from
the seat of his authority, he was nevertheless anxious to have the full
support of Bernardo Galvez, the Spanish governor of Louisiana.

Royalist to the marrow, he wished the colonists to be defeated by their
mother country, and he wished, moreover, that Spain might make secure a
title to all the immense regions in the valley. If he could skillfully
commit Spain to a quarrel with the settlers much might be done for the
cause in which his heart was enlisted. He foresaw the truth of Paul's
warning that in a little while nothing could uproot the settlers in
Kentucky. A blow at them, if it would destroy, must fall quickly, and he
meant that the blow should be given.

His anxiety weighed heavily upon him and the wilderness at night grew more
uncanny. Sleep refused to come. The coals sank lower. One by one they
gleamed with the last fitful sparks of dying fire and then went out. The
two sentinels, one to the right and one to the left, had sat down now upon
fallen logs, but Alvarez knew that they were still watching with
care--they would not dare to do otherwise. All the rest but Alvarez slept.

The Spaniard looked at Braxton Wyatt as he lay in his blanket, one arm
under his head, and his lip curled. He despised him, and yet he could be
very useful. He would have to work with him and he must treat him at least
with superficial politeness. Then he looked at the prisoner. Paul, too,
slept soundly, his fine face thrown into relief in the wan moonlight,
every sensitive feature revealed. Alvarez wondered again that he should
find a youth of such classic countenance and cultivated mind in the deep
forest.

The wandering breeze ceased, and the wilderness fell into a silence so
deep and heavy that it preyed upon the nerves of the Spaniard. Then, out
of the stillness came a long, plaintive note, wailing, but musical, full
of a quality that made it seem to Alvarez weird and ominous.

"Only the howl of a wolf," muttered the Spaniard, who recognized the
long-drawn cry. But it made him shiver a little, nevertheless. He alone
was awake, except the sentinels, and he felt like a tiny, lost speck in
all the vast wilderness. A second time came the cry of the wolf, and then
it was repeated a third and a fourth time. After the fourth it ceased.

The four cries were so distinct, so equal in length, and repeated at such
regular intervals that they seemed to Francisco Alvarez like set notes. He
listened intently, but they did not come again. He glanced at the prisoner
but Paul had not stirred, the moon's rays illuminating his face with a
pale light. The renegade, too, slept soundly.

Alvarez wrapped himself in his blanket after the fashion of the others,
and lay down, but still sleep would not come. He knew that it was far in
the night and he wished to be rested and fresh for the next day, but he
lay awake, nevertheless. A half hour passed, and then came that plaintive
cry of the wolf again. As before, it seemed to be wonderfully distinct and
full of character, but it was nearer now. Francisco Alvarez raised
himself on his elbow, and heard it a second and then a third and fourth
time. After that only the heavy silence of the forest.

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