The bushwhackers & other stories

by Charles Egbert Craddock

But had the conclusion of the request been audible it would have been incomprehensible to Ronald MacDonnell.

The impassive Highlander silently shook his head, and a certain fixity of despair settled on the face of the French officer. It was a young face—he seemed not more than twenty-five, MacDonnell thought. It was narrow, delicately molded, with very bright eyes, that had a sort of youthful daring in them—adventurous looking eyes. They were gray, with long black lashes and strongly defined eyebrows. His complexion was of a clear healthy pallor, his hair dark but a trifle rough, and braided in the usual queue. So often did Ronald MacDonnell have to describe this man, both on paper and off, that every detail of his appearance grew very familiar to him. The stranger’s lips were red and full, and the upper one was short and curving; he did not laugh or smile, of course, but he showed narrow white teeth, for now and again he gasped as if for breath, and more than once that sensitive upper lip quivered. Not that Ronald MacDonnell ever gave the portraiture in this simple wise, for his descriptions were long and involved, minute and yet vague, and proved the despair of all interested in fixing the identity of the man; but gleaning from his accounts this is the way the stranger must have appeared to the young Scotchman. His figure was tall and lightly built, promising more activity than muscular force, and while one hand was held on the buckle of his belt, the left went continually to the hilt of a sword, which he did not wear, but the habit was betrayed by this gesture. There was nothing about him to intimate his rank, beyond the gorget, and on this point Ronald MacDonnell could never give any satisfaction.

The Indian is seldom immoderate in laughter, but Choolah could not restrain his wicked mirth to discover that the two officers could not speak to each other. And yet the pale-faces were so often amazed that the Cherokees and the Chickasaws and the Creeks had not the same language, as if a variety of tongues were thrown away on the poor Indian, who might well be expected to put up with one speech! For only the Chickasaw and Choctaw dialects were inter-comprehensible, both tribes being descended, it is said, from the ancient Chickemicaws, and in fact much of the variation in their speech was but a matter of intonation. The tears of mirth stood in Choolah’s eyes. He held his hand to his side—he could scarcely calm himself, even when he discerned a special utility in this lack of a medium of communication, for the enterprising scout came back once more to say that there were some Chickasaws lower down on the river, where the ford was better. Choolah received this assurance with most uncommon demonstrations of pleasure, evidently desiring their assistance in guarding the prisoners to Grant’s camp, being ambitious of securing the commander’s commendation and intending to afford ocular proof of his exploit by exhibiting the number of his captives. But MacDonnell detected a high note of elation in Choolah’s voice which no mere pride could evoke, and he recognized a danger signal. He instantly bethought himself of the fate at the hands of the Chickasaws, more than a score of years before, of the gallant D’Artaguette, the younger, and his brave lieutenant Vincennes, burned at the stake by slow fires, after their unhappy defeat at the fortified town, Ash-wick-boo-ma (Red Grass), the noble Jesuit, Sénat, sharing their death, although he might have escaped, remaining to comfort their last moments with his ghostly counsels.

MacDonnell listened as warily to the talk as he might, and although Choolah said no more than was eminently natural in planning to turn over his prisoners to these Chickasaws by reason of their superior numbers, MacDonnell’s alert sense detected the same vibration when he expressed his decision to leave the Etissu and the Highland officer to guard the Frenchman till his return.

“Then we will together cross the Tennessee river here,” he said.

MacDonnell yawned widely as he nodded his head, his hand over his stretched mouth and shielding his face. He would not trust its expression to the discerning Choolah, for he had again that infrequent guest, “a thought in his mind.”

In truth, Choolah had no intention to take the Frenchman to Grant’s camp. The praise he would receive as a reward was a petty consideration indeed as compared with the delights of torturing and burning so rare, so choice a victim as a French officer. To be sure his excuse must be good and devised betimes, for Colonel Grant was squeamish and queer, objecting to the scalping and burning of prisoners, and seemed indeed at times of a weak stomach in regard to such details. And that came about naturally enough. He did not fast, as behooves a war-captain. He ate too much on the war-path. He had two cooks! He had also a man to dress his hair, and another to groom his horse. Naturally his heart had softened, and he was averse to the stern pleasures of recompensing an enemy with the anguish of the stake. This Choolah intended to enjoy, summoning the Chickasaws at the ford below to the scene of his triumph. Besides it requires a number of able-bodied assistants to properly roast in wet weather a vigorous and protesting captive. The Scotchman should suspect naught until his return. True, he might not object, for were not the French as ever the inveterate enemies of the English? But if he should it could avail naught against the will of a round dozen or more of Chickasaws. Besides, was not the prisoner of the detested nation of the French—Nana-Ubat? (Nothings and brothers to nothing.) Nevertheless, it was well they could not speak to each other and possibly canvass fears and offer persuasions. He could spare only one man, the scout, to aid in the watch, but he felt quite assured. Ronald MacDonnell was always notoriously vigilant and exacting, and was held in great fear by guards and outposts and sentinels, for often his rounds were attended by casualties in the way of reprimand, and arrests, and guard-tent sojourns and discipline. Choolah felt quite safe as he set off at a brisk pace with his squad of four Chickasaws, driving the disarmed Cherokees, silent and sullen, before him.

They were hardly out of sight when MacDonnell, kicking the enveloping blanket out of the way, sat down on one of the logs by the fire and spread his big bony hands out to the blaze. It was growing chill; the June night was wearing on toward the dawn; it was that hour of reduced vitality when hope seems of least value, and the blood runs low, and conscience grows keen, and the future and the past bear heavily alike on the present. The prisoner was shivering slightly. He glanced expectantly at the Scotchman’s impassive countenance. No man knew better than Ronald MacDonnell the churlishness of a lack of consideration of the comfort of others in small matters. No man could offer little attentions more genially. They comported essentially with his evident breeding, and his rank in the army; once more the prisoner looked expectantly at him, and then, wounded, like a Frenchman, as for a host’s lack of consideration, he sat down on a log uninvited, casting but one absent glance, from which curiosity seemed expunged, at the effigies which explained how the Cherokees came to their fate. It mattered little now, his emotional, sensitive face said. Naught mattered! Naught! Naught!

In the sudden nervous shock his vitality was at its lowest ebb. He could not spread his hands to the blaze, for his arms had been pinioned cruelly tight. He shivered again, for the fire was low. MacDonnell noticed it, but he did not stir; perhaps he thought Johnny Crapaud would soon find the fire hot enough. The scout himself mended it, as he sat tailorwise on the ground between the other two men. Now and again the Etissu gazed at MacDonnell’s impassive, rather lowering countenance, with a certain awe; if he had expected the officer to show the squeamishness which Colonel Grant developed in such matters, or any pity, he was mistaken; then he looked with curiosity at the Frenchman. The prisoner’s lips were vaguely moving, and Ronald MacDonnell caught a suggestion of the sound—half-whispered words, not French, or he would not have understood; Latin!—paters and aves! As he had expected—frogs, papistry, French, and fool!