The Story of Old Fort Loudon

by Charles Egbert Craddock

Stuart, in whose heart poor Hope, all bruised and bleeding, with wings broken but about to spread anew, astonished, overcome, with some poignant pang of gratitude that the semblance of kindness should be again extended to him by aught on earth, felt a stifling suffocation when Oconostota's voice broke in on his behalf, for naught from the crafty Cherokee king boded good. The "Great Warrior" declared that Willinawaugh's deeds spoke for themselves—not in French, not in English, but in the Cherokee tongue—in flame and in blood, in courage and in victory. The prisoner's scalp was no great matter in the face of the fact of Fort Loudon. The long fair hair of the English Captain to hang at his belt if he liked, but here was Fort Loudon to swing forever at the silver belt of the Tennessee River! He thought the great Willinawaugh had a right to choose his reward—the goods or the scalp. The scalp Atta-Kulla-Kulla could not wear, not having taken it. And the great Willinawaugh could be present and rejoice when Atta-Kulla-Kulla should choose to burn the captive; for whom he, himself, and Atta-Kulla-Kulla had devised a certain opportunity of usefulness to the Cherokee nation before Stuart should be called upon to expiate his crimes at the stake to satisfy the vengeance of his conqueror.

And who so glad as Willinawaugh to lose naught of his satisfaction—neither his material nor immaterial reward? who now so glad to protest that he would waive any personal gratification that stood in the way of utility to the Cherokee nation? He had the watch in his hand, dangling by the gold chain and seals; the ticking caught his ear. He held it up close, with an expression of childish delight that metamorphosed his fierce face and seemed actually to freshen the expression of "him top-feathers."

In obedience to a motion of Atta-Kulla-Kulla's hand, Stuart followed him out to the parade in the red rays of the sinking sun,—how often thence had he watched it go down behind the level ramparts of the Cumberland Mountains! They passed through the staring motley throng to Captain Demeré's house which the half-king had chosen for his own quarters. It was a log-cabin, floored, and of two rooms with a roofed but open passage between, not unlike the cabins of the region of the present day. Here the Cherokee paused, and with a pass or two of the scalping-knife cut the ropes that pinioned Stuart, opened the door of Demeré's bedroom and with an impassive face sternly motioned him to enter.

The door was closed and Stuart was alone in the quarters reserved for the chief. It had not yet been invaded by the filthy plundering gangs without, and its order and military neatness and decorum affected his quivering nerves as a sort of solace—as of a recurrence of the sane atmosphere of right reason after a period of turbulent mania. And suddenly his heart was all pierced by grief and a sense of bereavement. He had realized his friend was dead, and he felt that this might fairly be considered the better fate. But somehow the trivial personal belongings so bespoke the vanished presence that he yearned for Demeré in his happy release; the shaken nerves could respond to the echo of a voice forever silenced; he could look into vacancy upon a face he was destined to see never again. His jaded faculties, instead of reaching forward to the terrible future, began to turn back vaguely to the details of their long service together; as a reflex of the agitation he had endured he could not, in the surcease of turmoil, compass a quiet mind; he began to experience that poignant anguish of bereavement, self-reproach. He remembered trifling differences they had had in the life they lived here like brothers, and his own part in them gnawed in his consciousness like a grief; he repented him of words long ago forgiven; he thought of personal vexations that he might have sought to smooth away but carelessly left in disregard; and when he lay down in the darkness on the narrow camp-bed with his friend's pillow under his head, Demeré's look this morning, of affectionate banter, with which he had turned on the ground as they lay in the bivouac was so present to his mind that the tears which all his pains and griefs were powerless to summon, sprang to his eyes.

But the weary physical being sunk to rest, and then in the midst of his somnolent mental impressions was wrought a change. Demeré was with him still,—not in the guise of that white, stark face, upturned now to the stars on the plains of Taliquo,—but in his serene, staid presence as he lived; together they were at Fort Loudon, consulting, planning, as in its happier days; now it was the capacity of the spring which they wished to enlarge, and this they had done with blasting-powder; now it was the device to add to the comfort of the garrison by framing the little porches that stood before the doors of the barracks; now it was the erection of an out-work on the side exposed to assault by the river, and they were marking off the ravelin,—Corporal O'Flynn and a squad, with the tapes,—and directing the fashioning of the gabions, the Indians peacefully sitting by the while like some big, unintelligent, woodland animals, while the great, basket-like frames were woven of white oak splints and then filled with the solid earth. He was trying to tell Demeré that he was afraid something would happen to that second gun in the barbette battery on the northeast bastion, for the metal always rang with a queer vibration, and he had had a dream that Oconostota had overcharged and fired it, and it had exploded; and as Demeré was laughing at this folly Stuart realized suddenly the fact that the day was coming in to him again there in his friend's place, as it would come no more to Demeré, though dawning even now at Taliquo Plains where he lay. Instead of that essential presence, on which Stuart had leaned and relied, and which in turn had leaned and relied on him, there was in his mind but a memory, every day to grow dimmer.

Nevertheless, he rose, refreshed and strengthened with the stimulus of that unreal association, which was yet so like reality, with the comrade of his dreams. The orderly instincts of a soldier, as mechanical as the functions of respiration, enabled him, with the use of fresh linen from his friend's relinquished effects, to obliterate the traces of the experiences of the previous day, and fresh and trim, with that precise military neatness that was so imposing to the poor Indian, who could not compass its effect, he went out to meet the half-king with a gait assured and steady, a manner capable and confident, and an air of executive ability, that bade fair for the success of any scheme to which he might lend his aid.

Now and again he marked a glance of deep appreciation from the subtle Atta-Kulla-Kulla,[13] the result of much cogitation and effort at mental appraisement. He feared that important developments were to ensue, and after breakfast, at which meal he was treated like a guest and an equal, and not in the capacity of slave, as were most captives, his host notified him that his presence would be necessary at a council to be held at Choté.

Too acute, far too acute was Atta-Kulla-Kulla not to recognize and comment upon the different aspect of life at Fort Loudon. "The red man cannot, without use, become capable of handling the advantages of the white man," he said in excuse of the anarchy everywhere, with all the riot and grotesqueness and discomfort incident to being out of one's sphere. At Choté the Cherokees would have seemed as easy, as appropriate, as graceful, as native as the deer.

And at Choté Oconostota seemed as native as the fox. There he sat on the great buffalo rugs, even his faculties much more at command in his wonted place, under the dusky red walls of the clay-daubed dome of the council-chamber. And there Captain Stuart learned the reason of the Cherokee king's interference yesterday to postpone his fate.

For Oconostota had evolved the bold project of the reduction of Fort Prince George. This would consummate the triumph of the fall of Fort Loudon, rid the greater portion of the Cherokee country of the presence of the English, and, with their strongholds in the hands of the Indians, reinforced by a few French gunners, prevent them from ever renewing foothold. The powder left by Stuart he had found, in experimenting with the guns, was not enough for a siege, but with the discovery of the ten extra bags, the supply would prove most ample. The ammunition, together with the guns, was to be at once removed and transported thither, laborious though it might prove.