A Tryst

Above the White Plains the territory was supposed to be our own. Below, seventeen thousand red-coats held the city of New York; and their partisans, irregulars, militia, refugee-corps, and Legion-horsemen, harried the lines. Yet, except the enemy's cruisers which sometimes strayed far up the Hudson, like impudent hawks circling within the very home-yard, we saw nothing of red-rag or leather-cap north of our lines, save only once, when Lieutenant-Colonel Simcoe nearly caught us.
His Excellency's army lay in position all around us, now, from West Point down the river; and our light-horsemen patrolled as far south as the unhappy country from which we had retired through the smoke of Bedford's burning farms and the blaze of church and manor at Poundridge. That hilly strip was then our southern frontier, bravely defended by Thomas and Lockwood, shamefully neglected by Sheldon, as we had seen. For which he was broke, poor devil, and a better man set there to watch the red fox Tarleton, to harry Emmeriek, and to throw the fear o' God into that headlong blockhead, Simcoe, a brave man, but so possessed by hatred for "Mr." Washington that every move he made was like a goaded bull-- his halts merely the bewilderment of baffled fury, his charges blind and bellowing.
I know how he conducted, not from hearsay alone, but because at sunrise on our second day northward, before we struck the river-road, we had like to have had a brush with him, his flankers running afoul of us not far beyond a fortified post heavily held by our Continentals.
It was the glimpse of cannon and levelled bayonets that bewildered him; and his bawling charge sheered wide o' the shabby Continental battle-line, through which we galloped into safety, our Indian sticking to my crupper like a tree-cat with every claw. And I remember still the grim laughter that greeted us from those unshaven, powder-blackened ranks, and how they laughed, too, as they fired by platoons at the far glimmer of Simcoe's helmets through the chestnut trees.
And in the meantime, all the while, even from the very first evening when we off-saddled in the rocky Westchester woods and made our first flying-camp, I had become uneasy concerning the Siwanois-- uncertain concerning his loyalty to the very verge of suspicion.
I said nothing of this to Lieutenant Boyd, having nothing definite to communicate. Nor did I even hint my suspicions, because distrust in the mind of such a man as Boyd would be very difficult to eradicate, and the slightest mishandling of our delicate situation might alienate the Sagamore forever.
Yet, of one thing I had become almost convinced: the Siwanois, while we slept, met and held communication with somebody outside our camp.
On the first night this had happened; for, awaking and missing the Sagamore, who had been left on guard, I lay a-watching under my blanket, and when he came in to the fire once more, it seemed to me that far in the woods I heard the faint sound of another person retiring stealthily through the tell-tale bushes that choke all second growth hereabouts.
On the second day we crossed to the other side of the Hudson in flat boats, with our horses. But on that night it was the same, I feigning sleep when it came time for the Siwanois to relieve the man on guard. And once again, after he had silently inspected us all, the Sagamore stole away into leafy depths, but halted as before within earshot still. And once again some nascent sense within me seemed to become aware of another human being somewhere moving in the woods outside our fire.
How I divined it I do not know, because this time I could hear no sound in the starry obscurity of the Western Catskills, save only those familiar forest sounds which never cease by night-- unseen stirrings of sleeping birds, the ruffle, of feathers, the sudden rustle of some furry thing alarmed, the scratchings and pickings in rotting windfalls, the whisper of some falling leaf severed by insects or relaxing its brief clasp of the mother stem in the precocity of a maturity premature.
Yet, so strong now had become my suspicions that I was already preparing to unroll my blanket, rise, and creep after the Siwanois, when his light and rapid footfall sounded on the leaves close to my head; and, as before, while again I feigned sleep, far in the thicket somebody moved, cautiously retreating into tangled depths. But whether I really heard or only guessed, I do not know down to this very day.
On the third night it rained and we made a bark hut. Perhaps the Siwanois did his talking with this unseen visitor while away in pretense of peeling bark, for he did not creep abroad that night. But, somehow, I knew he had kept some tryst.
Now, on this fourth day, and our journey drawing to its end, I resolved to follow the Siwanois if he stirred from our fire, and discover for myself with what manner of visitor he held these stealthy councils.
During the long day's march I lagged and watched and listened in vain for any follower along our route. Sometimes I even played at flanker, sometimes rode far on ahead, and, at times, stuck to the Indian hour after hour, seeming not to watch him, but with every sense alert to surprise some glance, some significant movement, some cunning and treacherous signal, to convince me that the forest had eyes that marked us, and ears which heard us, and that the Siwanois knew it, and aided and abetted under our very gaze.
But I had seen him do nothing that indicated him to be in secret communication with anybody. He marked neither tree nor stone, nor leaf nor moss, as far as I could see; dropped nothing, made no sound at all save when he gravely answered some observation that we offered. Once, even, I found a pretext to go back on the trail, searching to find some sign he might have left behind him: and had my journey for my pains.
Now, had this same Indian been an Iroquois I might have formed some reasonable judgment concerning his capacity for treachery; but I had seen few Delawares in my life, and had never heard them speak at all, save to boast in their cups of Uncas, Tamanund, and Miontonomoh. As for a Siwanois Mohican, this Sagamore of the Magic Clan was the first of his tribe and ensign that I had ever beheld. And with every motive and every interest and desire in the world to believe him honest-- and even in my secret heart believing him to be so-- yet I could not close eyes and ears to what so stealthily was passing in the midnight woods around me. And truly it was duty, nor any motive baser, that set me after him that starlit night, when, as before, being on guard, he left the fire about midnight: and I out of my blanket and after him in a trice.
The day was the 7th of July, a Wednesday, I remember, as I had writ it in my journal, my habit being to set down every evening, or as near the date as convenient, a few words which briefly recorded the day's events.
The night before we had camped in the woods along the Catskill road leading toward Cobus-kill; this night, being fine and warm, we made open camp along a stream, within a few miles' journey of the Middle Fort; and, soupaan being eaten, let the coals die and whiten into ashes. This, partly because we needed not the warmth, partly from precaution. For although on the open roads our troops in detachments were now concentrating, moving on Otsego Lake and the upper waters of the Delaware and Susquehanna, this was no friendly country, and we knew it. So the less firelight, the snugger we might lie in case of some stray scalping party from the west or north.
Now, as I say, no sooner did the Siwanois leave his post and go a-roving than I went after him, with infinite precaution; and I flatter myself that I made no more noise on the brookside moss than the moon-cast shadow of a flying cloud. Guy Johnson was no skilful woodsman, but his Indians were; and of them I learned my craft. And scout detail in Morgan's Rifles, too, was a rare school to finish any man and match him with the best who ran the woods.
Too near his heels I dared not venture, as long as his tall form passed like a shadow against the white light that the stars let in through the forest cleft, where ran the noisy stream. But presently he turned off, and for a moment I thought to lose him in the utter blackness of the primeval trees. And surely would have had I not seen close to me a vast and smoothly slanting ledge of rock which the stars shining on made silvery, and on which no tree could grow, scarce even a tuft of fern, so like a floor it lay in a wide oval amid the forest gloom.
Somewhere upon that dim and sparkling esplanade the Siwanois had now seated himself. For a while, straining my eyes where I lay flat among the taller fringing ferns, I could just make out a blot in the greyness where he sat upright, like a watching catamount under the stars.
Then, across the dimness, another blot moved to join him; and I felt my hair stir as chilling certainty shocked from me my lingering hope that I had been mistaken.
Faintly-- oh, scarce audible at all-- the murmur of two voices came to me there where I lay under the misty lustre of the stars. Nearer, nearer I crept, nearer, nearer, until I lay flat as a shadow there, stark on the shelf of rock. And, as though they had heard me, and as if to spite me, their voices sank to whispers. Yet, I knew of a certainty that I had neither been observed nor heard.
Hushed voices, whispers, undertones as soft as summer night winds-- that was all I heard, all I could make of it; and sniffed treason as I lay there, making no question of the foulness of this midnight tryst.
It was an hour, I think, they sat there, two ghostly figures formless against the woods; then one rose, and presently I saw it was the Sagamore.
Noiselessly he retraced his steps across the silvery esplanade of rock; and if my vague, flat outline were even visible to him I passed for a shadow or a cleft beneath his notice-- perhaps for a fallen branch or heap of fern and withered leaf-- I know not. But I let him go, unstirring, my eyes riveted upon the other shape, seated there like some grey wraith upon a giant's tombstone, under the high stars.
Beyond the ferns I saw the shadow of the Sagamore against the stream pass toward our camp. Then I addressed myself to the business before me; loosened knife and hatchet in their beaded sheaths, stirred, moved forward inch by inch, closer, closer, then to the left to get behind, nearer, ever nearer, till the time had come for me to act. I rose silently to my moccasined feet, softly drew my heavy knife against events, and lightly struck the ringing blade against my hatchet.
Instantly the grey shape bounded upright, and I heard a whispering cry of terror stifled to a sob.
And then a stunning silence fell between us twain.
For I was staring upon the maid who had brought the Sagamore to us, and she was looking back at me, still swaying on her feet and all a-tremble from the dreadful fear that still possessed her.
"Lois?" I made out to whisper.
She placed one hand against her side, fighting for breath; and when she gained it sighed deeply once or twice, with a low sound like the whimpering wings of doves.
At her feet I saw a cup of water shining, a fragment of corn bread and meat. Near these lay a bundle with straps on it.
"In God's name," I said in a ghostly voice, "what does this mean? Why have you followed us these four days past? Are you mad to risk a scalping party, or, on the open road, hazard the rough gallantries of soldiers' bivouacs? If you had business in these parts, and desired to come, why did you not tell me so and travel with us?"
"I did not wish to ask that privilege of----" She hesitated, then bent her head. "---- of any man. What harm have I caused you by following?"
I said, still amazed and wondering:
"I understand it all now. The Sagamore brings you food. Is that true?"
"Yes," she said sullenly.
"And you have kept in touch with us ever since we started?"
"With Mayaro."
"Why?"
"I have told you that I had no wish to travel in your company."
"But for protection----"
"Protection! I have heard that, too, from men. It is ever on men's lips-- that word meaning damnation. I thank you, Mr. Loskiel, I require no protection."
"Do you distrust Lieutenant Boyd or me? Or what?"
"Men! And you twain are two of them."
"You fear such men as we are!" I demanded impatiently.
"I know nothing of you," she answered, "save that you are men."
"Do you mean Mr. Boyd-- and his thoughtless gallantry----"
"I mean men! All men! And he differs in nothing from the rest that I can see. Which is why I travel without your leave on my own affairs and by myself-- spite of the Iroquois." She added bitterly; "And it is known to civilization that the Iroquois are to be trusted where the white man is not!"
Her meaning was plain enough now. What this young girl had seen and suffered and resented amid a world of men I did not know. Boyd's late gallantry, idle, and even ignoble as it had appeared to me, had poisoned her against me also, confirming apparently all she ever had known of men.
If this young, lonely, ragged thing were what her attitude and words made plain, she had long endured her beauty as a punishment. What her business might be in lingering around barracks and soldiers' camps I could not guess; but women who haunted such resorts seldom complained of the rough gallantries offered. And if their charms faded, they painted lip and cheek, and schooled the quivering mouth to smile again.
What her business might now be in following our little detail northward I could not surmise. Here was no barracks wench! But wench or gypsy or what not, it was impossible that I should leave her here alone. Even the thought of it set one cold.
"Come into camp this night," I said.
"I will not."
"You must do so. I may not leave you here alone."
"I can care for myself."
"Yes-- as you cared for yourself when I crept up behind you. And if I had been a savage-- then what?"
"A quick end," she said coolly.
"Or a wretched captivity-- perhaps marriage to some villainous Iroquois----"
"Yes, sir; but nothing worse than marriage!"
"Child!" I exclaimed. "Where have you lived to belie the pitiful youth of you with such a worldly-worn and bitter tongue? I tell you all men are not of that stripe! Do you not believe me?"
"Birds sing, sir."
"Will you come into camp?" I repeated hotly.
"And if I will not?"
"Then, by heaven, I'll carry you in my arms! Will you come?"
She laughed at me, dangerously calm, seated herself, picked up the partly eaten food, and began to consume it with all the insolent leisure in the world.
I stood watching her for a few moments, then sat down cross-legged before her.
"Why do you doubt me, Lois?" I asked.
"Dear sir, I do not doubt you," she answered with faintest malice.
"I tell you I am not of that stripe!" I said angrily.
"Then you are not a man at all. I tell you I have talked with men as good as you, and heard them protest as you do-- yes, with all the gentle condescension that you use, all of your confidence and masterful advice. Sooner or later all have proved the same," she shrugged; "---- proved themselves men, in plainer words."
She sat eating thoughtfully, looking aloft now and then at the thick splendor of the firmament.
Then, breaking a bit of corn bread, she said gravely:
"I do not mean that you have not been kind, as men mean kindness. I do not even mean that I blame men.
God made them different from us. And had He made me one, doubtless I had been as all men are, taking the road through life as gaily, sword on thigh and hat in hand to every pretty baggage that a kindly fate made wayfarer with me. No, I have never blamed a man; only the silly minx who listens."
After a short silence, I said: "Who, in the name of heaven, are you, Lois?"
"Does that concern you?"
"I would have it concern me-- if you wish."
"Dear sir," she said very coolly, "I wish nothing of the kind."
"You do not trust me."
"Why, yes, as I trust every man-- except a red one."
"Yet, I tell you that all that animates me is a desire to render you a comrade's service----"
"And I thank you, Mr. Loskiel, because, like other men, you mean it generously and well. Yet, you are an officer in the corps d'élite; and you would be ashamed to have the humblest bugler in your regiment see you with such a one as I."
She broke another morsel from her bread:
"You dare not cross a camp-parade beside me. At least the plaything of an officer should walk in silk, whatever clothes a soldier's trull. Sir, do you suppose I do not know?"
She looked up at the stare, and then quietly at me.
"The open comradeship of any man with me but marks us both. Only his taste is criticized, not his morals. But the world's judgment leaves me nothing to cover me except the silk or rags I chance to wear.
And if I am brave and fine it would be said of me, 'The hussy's gown is brave and fine!' And if I go in tatters, 'What slattern have we here, flaunting her boldness in the very sun?' So a comradeship with any man is all one to me. And I go my way, neither a burden nor a plaything, a scandal only to myself, involving no man high or low save where their advances wrong us both in the world's eyes-- as did those of your friend, yonder by a dead fire asleep."
"All men are not so fashioned. Can you not believe me?"
"You say so, sir."
"Yes; and I say that I am not."
"Birds sing."
"Lois, will you let me aid you?"
"In what? The Sagamore feeds me; and the Middle Fort is not so far."
"And at the Middle Fort how will you live?"
"As I have lived; wash for the soldiers; sew for them-- contrive to find a living as I journey."
"Whither?"
"It is my own affair."
"May I not aid?"
"You could not if you would; you would not if you could."
"Ask me, Lois."
"No." She shook her head. Then, slowly: "I do thank you for the wish, Mr. Loskiel. But the Siwanois himself refuses what I ask. And you would, also, did you know my wish."
"What is your wish?"
She shook her head: "It is useless to voice it-- useless."
She gathered the scant fragments of her meal, wrapped them in a bit of silver birch-bark, unrolled her bundle, and placed them there. Then she drained the tin cup of its chilly water, and, still sitting there cross-legged on the rock, tied the little cup to her girdle. It seemed to me, there in the dusk, that she smiled very faintly; and if it was so it was the first smile I had had of her when she said:
"I travel light, Mr. Loskiel. But otherwise there is nothing light about me."
"Lois, I pray you, listen. As I am a man, I can not leave you here."
"For that reason, sir, you will presently take your leave."
"No, I shall remain if you will not come into camp with us."
She said impatiently:
"I lie safer here than you around your fire. You mean well; now take your leave of me-- with whatever flight of fancy," she added mockingly, "that my present condition invests me with in the eyes of a very young man."
The rudeness of the fling burnt my face, but I answered civilly:
"A scalping party may be anywhere in these woods. It is the season; and neither Oneida Lake nor Fort Niagara itself are so distant that their far-hurled hatchets may not strike us here."
"I will not go with you," said she, making of her bundle a pillow. Then, very coolly, she extended her slim body and laid her head on the bundle.
I made no answer, nor any movement for fully an hour. Then, very stealthily, I leaned forward to see if she truly slept. And found her eyes wide open.
"You waste time mounting sentry over me," she said in a low voice. "Best employ your leisure in the sleep you need."
"I can not sleep."
"Nor I-- if you remain here awake beside me."
She raised herself on her elbow, peering through the darkness toward the stream.
"The Siwanois has been standing yonder by the stream watching us this full hour past. Let him mount sentry if he wishes."
"You have a tree-cat's eyes," I said. "I see nothing."
Then I rose and unbuckled my belt. Hatchet and knife dangled from it. I stooped and laid it beside her. Then, stepping backward a pace or two, I unlaced my hunting shirt of doe-skin, drew it off, and, rolling it into a soft pillow, lay down, cradling my cheek among the thrums.
I do not know how long I lay there before I fell asleep from very weariness of the new and deep emotions, as strange to me as they were unwelcome. The restlessness, the misgivings which, since I first had seen this maid, had subtly invaded me, now, grown stronger, assailed me with an apprehension I could neither put from me nor explain. Nor was this vague fear for her alone; for, at moments, it seemed as though it were for myself I feared-- fearing myself.
So far in my brief life, I had borne myself cleanly and upright, though the times were loose enough, God knows, and the master of Guy Park had read me no lesson or set me no example above the morals and the customs of his class and of the age.
It may have been pride-- I know not what it was, that I could notice the doings of Sir John and of young Walter Butler and remain aloof, even indifferent. Yet, this was so. Never had a woman's beauty stirred me otherwise than blamelessly," never had I entertained any sentiment toward fashionable folly other than aversion and a kind of shamed contempt.
Nor had I been blind at Guy Park and Butlersbury and Tribes Hill, nor in Albany, either. I knew Clarissa Putnam; I also knew Susannah Wormwood and her sister Elizabeth, and all that pretty company; and many another pretty minx and laughing, light-minded lass in county Tryon. And a few in Cambridge, too. So I was no niais, no naive country fool, unless to remain aloof were folly. And I often wondered to myself how this might really be, when Boyd rallied me and messmates laughed.
And now, as I lay there under the clustered stars, my head pillowed on my deer-skin shirt, my mind fell a-groping for reason to bear me out in my strained and strange perplexity.
Why, from the time I first had spoken to her, should thoughts of this strange and ragged maid have so possessed me that each day my memory of her returned, haunting me, puzzling me, plaguing my curiosity till imagination awoke, spurring my revery to the very border of an unknown land where rides Romance, in armour, vizor down.
Until this night I had not crossed that border, nor ever thought to, or dreamed of doing it. No beggar-maiden-seeking king was I by nature, nor ever felt for shabby dress and common folk aught but the mixture of pity and aversion which breeds a kind of charity. And, I once supposed, were the Queen of Sheba herself to pass me in a slattern's rags, only her rags could I ever see, for all her beauty.
But how was it now with me that, from the very first, I had been first conscious of this maid herself, then of her rags. How was it that I felt no charity, nor pity of that sort, only a vague desire that she should understand me better-- know that I meant her kindness-- God knows what I wished of her, and why her grey eyes haunted me, and why I could not seem to put her from my mind.
That now she fully possessed my mind I convinced myself was due to my very natural curiosity concerning her; forgetting that a week ago I should not have condescended to curiosity.
Who and what was she? She had been schooled; that was plain in voice and manner. And, though she used me with scant courtesy, I was convinced she had been schooled in manners, too, and was no stranger to usages and customs which mark indelibly where birth and breeding do not always.
Why was she here? Why alone? Where were her natural protectors then? What would be her fate a-gypsying through a land blackened with war, or haunting camps and forts, penniless, in rags-- and her beauty ever a flaming danger to herself, despite her tatters aud because of them.
I slept at last; I do not know how long. The stars still glittered overhead when I awoke, remembered, and suddenly sat upright.
She was gone. I might have known it. But over me there came a rush of fear and anger and hurt pride; and died, leaving a strange, dull aching.
Over my arm I threw my rifle-frock, looked dully about to find my belt, discovered it at my feet. As I buckled it, from the hatchet-sling something fell; and I stooped to pick it up.
It was a wild-rose stem bearing a bud unclosed. And to a thorn a shred of silver birch-bark clung impaled. On it was scratched with a knife's keen point a message which I could not read until once more I crept in to our fire, which Mount had lighted for our breakfast.
And there I read her message: "A rose for your ring, comrade. And be not angry with me."
I read it again, then curled it to a tiny cylinder and placed it in my pouch, glancing sideways at the reclining Mohican. Boyd began to murmur and stretch in his blanket, then relaxed once more.
So I lay down, leaving Jack Mount a-cooking ashen cakes, and yawning.