Homecoming, page 4
Twenty bronzed faces were cast toward him. Twenty inscrutable faces that gave him no clue as to what they were thinking.
“Howdy,” Flavius bleated, mustering a sickly smile. Somehow he had to get it across to his captors that he was friendly. Maybe then they would go easy on him.
At the head of the lodge sat the tall leader with the fur headband. He beckoned, and Flavius was steered between the two rows and forced to kneel in front of him.
The chief scrutinized the backwoodsman, then touched his own chest and said, “Keekweechiweepinank.” He looked at Flavius as if expecting an answer.
Flavius’s mind raced. He was at a loss to know what to say. Their tongue was as foreign as Russian would be. Had the leader asked him a question? Or made a comment? What was he supposed to do?
Rather impatiently, the chief again touched himself. “Keekweechiweepinank,” he repeated, and pointed at Flavius.
An older warrior who sat on the leader’s right leaned forward, placing his palm on his sternum, and said, “Kawakatusk.” He too pointed at Flavius, his bushy eyebrows arching.
In a blaze of understanding, Flavius grinned and tapped his own torso. “Flavius Augustus Harris,” he proclaimed. If they had been white men, he would have gone on to explain that his pa had attended a highfalutin school in Philadelphia as a boy and picked up a smattering of Latin. Ever since, his pa liked to show off by using Latin every chance he got.
The Indians would never understand.
Flavius waited nervously as they talked amongst themselves. When Keekweechiweepinank raised a hand, silence fell. The chief’s dark eyes bored into his.
“Why you come our country?”
Flabbergasted, Flavius blinked and half rose. A firm hand shoved him back in place. “You speak our tongue?” he exclaimed. “Why didn’t you say so sooner? We could have cleared up this whole affair and I could have been on my way.”
“Why come?” Keekweechiweepinank repeated. “Not many whites come. Man in long dress. Trappers once. But that be all.”
Immensely heartened, Flavius said, “My friend and I are from the sovereign state of Tennessee. We’re on a gallivant to see what we can see, and we sure as blazes don’t mean you or your kin any harm. We’re just passing through, is all.”
The chief placed a hand on the war club at his side. “You not come steal women?”
Flavius chuckled. “Whatever would we do that for when we both have wives back at home? Why, if I so much as looked crosswise at another woman, Matilda would take a shovel to my noggin.” He shook his head. “No, sir. We are not on the scout for females.”
Keekweechiweepinank pondered awhile. When Kawakatusk addressed him, he nodded and said in English, “Maybe you speak with two tongues, white man. Maybe you think we fools.”
“Why would I lie?” Flavius said defensively. “Ask the warriors who found me. I had no female with me. I was nowhere near your village. Anyone who claims I came to steal your womenfolk is the one speaking with two tongues.”
The leader gestured. At a word from a warrior near the entrance, the flap opened and in came an old woman. Flavius gaped. It was the scrawny wildcat he had saved from the war party. Inadvertently, he pressed his fingers to the scratch marks she had left on his cheeks.
“You know Tokawonda?” Keekweechiweepinank asked stiffly.
“Not by name, but we’ve met,” Flavius said. “She and a pretty young thing were jumped by a war party. Davy—that’s my partner—grabbed the pretty gal and left the hag to me.”
“Hag?” the chief said.
Flavius bobbed his head at the old woman, who stood demurely to one side. Smirking, he said, “That’s what we call females who are long in the tooth and as mean as a stuck snake.” He winked at the leader. “You must know the kind I mean.”
Keekweechiweepinank did not so much as crack a grin. “Tokawonda is my mother.”
An icy chill pierced Flavius. “Your ma?” he croaked. “Hey, I didn’t mean anything by that crack I made. It was a joke. Your people must poke fun at each other all the time.”
“Ojibwas never say bad things about Ojibwas,” Keekweechiweepinank said severely. “As for pretty young thing,” he quoted exactly, “she is Wawaneechotinka, my sister.”
“Oh, God,” Flavius said under his breath. How could he have been so dumb? He had gone and insulted the headman’s flesh and blood! To ease the sting, he said quickly, “Ask your ma. She’ll tell you that Davy and me were trying to help them, not steal them. It was those other Indians who were up to no good.”
“If this be true, where is your friend? Where is my sister?” Keekweechiweepinank placed the war club in front of him. “Maybe friend and you think to steal women for your own. Maybe that be why you take them from Fox warriors.”
Flavius was so incensed by the accusation that his temper flared. Stabbing a finger at the chief’s mother, he snapped, “Want her? I’d have to be as blind as a bat and as randy as an elk in rut! She’s old enough to be my grandma, for crying out loud!”
A hardening of Keekweechiweepinank’s features warned Flavius that he had gone too far. Other warriors shared their leader’s outrage, and shifted as if eager to spring on him. A lump formed in his throat. He had to cough to clear it, then said contritely, “Not that I meant she isn’t a fine woman. I’m sure she is in her own right. But she’s just not the type I’d be likely to steal. I’m more partial to pretty young things.”
Even as Flavius said it, he knew that he had made another dreadful mistake. He had not only stuffed his foot in his mouth, but his leg clear to the hipbone.
“Pretty young thing,” Keekweechiweepinank said. “Like my sister.”
“No, no, no,” Flavius said. “I wouldn’t steal her either. Neither would Davy. We’re married, darn it. It wouldn’t be right for us to dally with strange womenfolk.”
“I do not believe you, white man,” Keekweechiweepinank said bluntly. “I think your friend stole Wawaneechotinka. I think you should die.”
Murmuring erupted along both rows. Flavius squirmed, resisting a mad impulse to bolt. He would not get three feet. “We’re innocent, I tell you!” he hollered. “We were trying to help your women, not take them captive.”
The murmuring grew louder. It was not terribly difficult for Flavius to assess the mood of those assembled. There had to be something he could say or do that would show them the error of their ways, but for the life of him he could not think of what it was.
At that juncture the gray-haired warrior, Kawakatusk, rose and made a short speech. The others listened attentively. Evidently his counsel held weight, for when he was done the rest discussed whatever he had told them for quite some time. At last their leader focused on Flavius.
“You say your friend try to help. You say he not keep Wawaneechotinka. I not believe you. But Kawakatusk think we must be fair. We give friend chance to prove your words true.”
Sheer, ecstatic relief filled Flavius to the brim. “How can he prove it?” he asked, his vocal cords unusually raspy.
“If friend do as you claim, him bring sister soon,” Keekweechiweepinank said. “If not, that mean you speak with two tongues.”
Flavius wanted to shout for joy. Davy would not let him down. Sooner or later the pair would show up. “How much time are you willing to give him?”
“If Wawaneechotinka not back in three sleeps,” Keekweechiweepinank said, and swung his war club as if he were bashing in the cranium of a foe, “you die by my hand.”
“Can’t you give him a little more than that?” Flavius said. Three days should be more than enough, but there was no telling what Davy might run into along the way. Any delay, and he was the one who would pay the price. “Why not seven sleeps? Or fourteen? Or a full moon?”
“Three sleeps,” Keekweechiweepinank repeated.
Kawakatusk was smiling at Flavius. He realized he should be grateful for the venerable warrior’s intervention, but he was too distressed to do more than nod in response as the same three men who had brought him to the council lodge heaved him to his feet and hauled him outside. The cool air was invigorating after the stifling, smoky interior.
The Ojibwas tied him to the post. One kicked dirt on him as they departed.
Flavius endured the abuse without complaint. His mouth had already gotten him into enough hot water. It would be foolhardy to provoke them any further.
Left alone, Flavius slumped and lamented his fate. He never should have gone off with Davy. Matilda had warned him not to. She’d flat out told him that it was senseless for a grown man to be wandering from Dan to Beersheba when he had a wife and sprouts to look after.
For once Flavius had stood up to her. Not out of ill will, or because he was sick of her companionship. He’d simply wanted to roam a bit, to take in the sights. He’d not gone off to fight the Creeks as Davy had done. Truth was, he’d never strayed more than seventy-five miles from the place where he was born. It was high time he saw something of the world, he’d thought.
So curiosity was to blame. And everyone knew what curiosity had done to the proverbial cat.
Flavius lifted apprehensive eyes to the heavens. Unless his friend appeared within three days, his life was over. Davy where are you? he mentally screamed.
Of course there was no answer.
~*~
Davy Crockett did not like being trussed up like a hog for slaughter. He lay on his left side twenty feet from a crackling fire, ignored by his captors. They had not bothered to feed him, had not even offered him anything to drink.
Shortly before the sun sank, Kiyo Kaga had called a halt in a clearing. Some of the warriors had gone off to hunt, others to collect firewood. A doe had served as their evening meal. The tantalizing aroma had had Davy’s stomach growling and grumbling for over an hour.
Now and then one of the Fox men had come over and checked his bonds. The rest of the time it was as if he did not exist.
Wawaneechotinka was another story. Kiyo Kaga had forced her to sit next to him at the fire. She’d been given water, which she’d accepted, then offered a portion of roasted meat, which she’d refused. The Fox leader, so considerate and polite to her until then, had turned on her, seizing her wrist and twisting it until she began eating as he wanted. As soon as she’d taken a bite, Kiyo Kaga had oozed snakish charm again.
Davy had never been much of a hater, but he found himself growing to despise Kiyo Kaga as he had few others. The man had an obvious cruel streak. It was clear, also, that Kiyo Kaga had his sights set on the maiden. Davy felt sorry for her. When the time was ripe, Kiyo Kaga was going to force himself on Wawaneechotinka, then as likely as not cast her aside like yesterday’s garbage.
Unless Davy could get them out of there. He glanced at his sorrel, tethered in a patch of grass south of the campfire. The saddle had not been removed. A couple of warriors had tugged at the cinch, but had never gotten the hang of undoing it.
As for Davy’s personal effects, they had been distributed among the band. Kiyo Kaga had his rifle, another warrior had his pistols, a third his knife, and so on. Reclaiming them posed a problem, but he would not leave without them. His hunting tools, as he liked to call them, were as necessary to his survival as his arms and legs.
Davy pretended to drift off while spying on the Foxes through slitted eyelids. One by one they turned in, the last doing so shortly before midnight. Wawaneechotinka was given a blanket and permitted to lie by herself on the opposite side of the fire. Kiyo Kaga stretched out near her.
A lone man was left on guard. Armed with a bow that he carried slung over his left shoulder, he got up every so often to patrol the clearing.
Davy set to work on freeing his hands. By rubbing his wrists constantly back and forth, he gradually loosened the cord. It was painful work. His skin was scraped raw and bled slightly, but that did not deter him from renewing his effort whenever the guard’s back was to him.
It was past two in the morning when Davy’s wrists grew slippery enough to slide them out of the stretched loops. Prudently keeping his arms close together so the sentry would not notice, he turned as if tossing in his sleep, contriving to bend so his hands were close to his ankles.
The knots were as tight as closed clams. Davy pried and pried, breaking a fingernail in the process. He succeeded in picking apart the first, and started on the second.
So intent was he on his bonds that he had not paid any attention to the guard for quite a while. The scrape of a moccasin on grass alerted him to his oversight. Breathing heavily to give the impression he was deep in slumber, Davy peered past his feet and saw the sentry warily stalking toward him.
The man suspected something was wrong. He had partially drawn a long knife and moved in a sideways crouch.
Davy feigned a soft snore. The warrior stopped and observed the rise and fall of his chest. He must have been convincing because, ever so slowly, the knife was replaced. Straightening, the Indian moseyed over to the fire and hunkered down to add more dead branches.
Davy resumed his assault on the last knot. He did not care that his fingers hurt like the dickens. He did not care that the flesh under the broken nail was bleeding. Pulling and plucking, he parted the stubborn cord. Both ends fell onto the grass.
The warrior was holding his hands to the fire to warm them. He tossed his head to fight off drowsiness, then yawned.
Silently pushing to his feet, Davy moved among the sleeping men. He came to the one who had taken his tomahawk. It was beside the man, the handle propped across a thick war club. Davy’s fingers wrapped around it just as the warrior grunted and rolled over, facing him.
Chapter Five
Davy Crockett was determined not to be captured a second time. If the warrior woke up, he planned to grab Wawaneechotinka and dash into the forest. He would probably have to fight his way through, but it could not be helped. Once there, they might elude the Fox band.
The sleeper stirred, but did not open his eyes. In seconds he was sleeping peacefully. He did not utter a sound when Davy rose.
The man by the fire was fiddling with a stick, poking it into the flames so it would catch fire and then extinguishing it with a few puffs of breath.
Davy stepped over another sleeper, circled a third. The one who had claimed his pistols had placed them in a parfleche and deposited the bag on a stump. Davy sank onto a knee, slipped his hand under the flap, and removed the flintlocks one at a time. He wedged them under his belt.
Off in the woods an owl hooted. The guard idly lifted his head to gaze in its direction, which just happened to be in the same direction as the stump.
Davy flattened, pressing his body against the ground, heedless of a stone that gouged his leg. The stump was barely high enough to screen him. If the warrior looked closely, the jig was up.
But the man only scanned the woods and went back to playing with the stick.
Davy let some time go by before he crawled into the open. The Fox who had appropriated his butcher knife was dangerously close to the fire. Once there, Davy would be bathed in the full glare of the firelight. He would have nowhere to hide. Should the sentry turn, all hell would bust loose.
The knife hung by a leather cord from the Indian’s right shoulder. Since the man now lay on his left side, the knife and sheath were on the ground in front of him. Davy had to get within a few inches of the Fox in order to retrieve his weapon.
Trying to untie the cord or to slip it over the man’s head was bound to wake him up. Davy relied on the keen edge of his tomahawk. Placing it on top of the cord near the sheath, he applied his full weight to the handle. The tomahawk sheared the thin leather as handily as a hot table knife would shear through butter. He added his butcher knife to the growing collection tucked under his belt.
That left his long rifle, powder horn, ammo pouch, and a small bag in which he kept personal effects. Kiyo Kaga had them all.
The man by the fire tossed the stick into the flames, then stretched. He gazed at the stars, evidently noting the position of the Big Dipper.
It might be a sign that the warrior was getting set to wake up another man to relieve him. Davy did not want that to happen. The new sentry would be more alert and bound to check on their prisoner first thing.
Changing his grip on the tomahawk, Davy crept up behind the guard. Each foot he raised and set down as carefully as if he were walking on broken glass. An arm’s length away he paused to hike the tomahawk on high. A glance confirmed that none of the sleepers had moved.
The sentry stretched again, placed his hands flat, and began to push himself up off the ground.
Throwing all the strength in his shoulders and upper arms into a lightning swing, Davy brought the flat side of the tomahawk down on the warrior’s noggin. There was a thud and the man collapsed like a poled ox. Davy had to seize hold of the sentry’s shoulders to keep him from pitching into the fire.
Another hasty glance showed that the thud had not been loud enough to rouse anyone.
Davy slowly lowered the heavy frame. Other than a nasty bump and an awful headache, the man would wake up in the morning no worse for wear.
Davy could have killed the Fox, but he was not one of those frontiersmen who believed that the only good Indians were dead ones. Besides which, he’d had his full of slaughter during the Creek War. If he could help it, he never killed unless his life or that of someone else was in immediate peril.
He might make an exception tonight, though.
Kiyo Kaga was a mighty tempting target. Davy stood over him, debating what to do. From what Wawaneechotinka had said and what he had seen, the man was as cruel as they came. It was Kiyo Kaga who was to blame for the latest flare-up of hostilities between the Ojibwas and the Fox tribe. Should he die, the hostilities might cease. Countless lives would be spared.
Cocking his arm, Davy prepared to strike. Seconds elapsed, and still the tomahawk hung suspended in the air. Frowning, Davy lowered it. He just couldn’t bring himself to slay someone who was powerless to resist, even if that person deserved to be rubbed out.
