The Man with the Iron Hand

by John Carl Parish

Toward the middle of September came the hoped-for rains, and one day Tonty and his men drew their canoe out of the water, turned it upside down, and began to renew its coat of gum ready for another trial of the river. Some of the Indians watched him as he worked with his curious left-handed movements. Others were too busy entertaining a friendly Shawnee who was paying a visit to the village. As night came on, the Shawnee departed, making his way toward the south and west. The rounded roofs of the village caught the arrows shot by the setting sun and then sank into dusk. Under each roof Indian men stretched out upon buffalo hides and lost themselves in dreams. The women arranged the lodges for the night and then lay down beside brown little papooses whose round eyes had long been closed. So the quiet night settled down upon the village. Three times would the oaks along the river sow their leaves to the winds of winter before another such peaceful night would come upon the village and its people.

The next day Indians of the village saw the Shawnee come hurrying back, cross the river, and rush hot-foot into the town. “The Iroquois!” he panted to the excited chiefs. Two leagues off to the southwest, on the banks of the Aramoni, a tributary of the Illinois River, he had discovered an army of five or six hundred Iroquois coming to attack the village. Turmoil fell upon the Kaskaskias. Where were their warriors? More than half of them were scattered to the four quarters of the valley. Only four or five hundred remained. And where were the guns which Tonty had so carefully trained them to use? Gone for the most part with the absent warriors. Only a few were left, with ammunition for three or four shots apiece. The rest of the braves had only bows and arrows and war clubs. Tonty had been right, but it was no time now to lament.

A reconnoitring party sent out to spy upon the enemy soon came back in great excitement. About five hundred Iroquois were encamped along the Aramoni. They had guns and pistols and sabers. Most of them had shields of wood or of leather, and some wore wooden breastplates. And with the Iroquois were a hundred Miamis, armed with bows and arrows. The anger of the Illinois rose with their fear. The Miamis, their neighbors and kin, should smart for this afterward. But the spying party had still further news to tell. Among the moving figures of the enemy they had seen one arrayed in a black robe and a Jesuit’s cowl. Calmer eyes would have seen that it was only an Iroquois chief decked out in a black coat and hat. But the heated imagination of the scouts saw a French priest; while in another figure they made sure they saw La Salle himself.

If the village had been in a turmoil before, now it was in a fury. Their worst fears, then, had come true: the French were all traitors. Even Tonty had deceived them and had his own reasons for trying to get out of the village before the Iroquois came. Like angry bees the Indians swarmed to the lodge of Tonty. “Now,” said one of their chiefs, “we know you for a friend of the Iroquois. The winds of rumor have told us no lies. We are lost, for the enemy are too many for us and you and the Frenchmen are their friends.”

In the midst of the furious, gesticulating crowd of warriors Tonty stood calm. “I will show you that I am not a friend of the Iroquois,” he replied. “If need be, I will die with you. I and my men will help you fight your battle.”

Their anger turned to joy as they thought that with such a leader the good spirits might yet give them victory. There was much to do before the battle. With swift hands they gathered together a supply of corn; and when night came ghostly figures moved to and fro as they embarked the women and children in their long pirogues. Each wooden canoe would hold thirty or more, and there were hundreds to crowd the little fleet. With a guard of fifty or sixty men the boats slipped out, one after another, upon the dark waters. Noiseless paddles dipped in and out as the barks, filled with provisions and the closely huddled figures, shot down the stream. They passed the black mouth of the Aramoni, and after several hours came to a spot six leagues below the village. Here, in a place made almost inaccessible by the river on one side and a swamp on the other, they landed and set up camp.

In the Kaskaskia village there was no rest that night. The young braves were preparing for the battle of the morrow. By long rows of camp-fires, kettles were hung. Dogs were killed and cooked, for the occasion was one deserving of so great a ceremony. By turns they feasted and danced in the flickering light of the fires—weird dances, punctuated with howls and whoops. The flames of the camp-fires cast the shadows of the dancers across the open space and against the walls of the lodges like ghostly, ever-changing spirits; and into the night air rose chants, rhythmic and uncanny. All the long night through the Indians kept up their rites to work themselves into a proper spirit for the attack upon the Iroquois—a fight against odds wherein they needed the help of every manitou or spirit that could aid them.

Gradually the fires die out as in the east a faint light begins to spread. The day has come at last, the day which for years the Illinois have dreaded. They gather with fresh war paint and ready weapons—bows and arrows, heavy-headed clubs, or skull-crackers, and the few guns that are left. Tonty is there with two of his men. L’Espérance is to remain in the village to guard the papers of La Salle; and the two friars, ignorant of the excitement, are a league away in their retreat in the fields.

Together the warriors crowd to the river bank, Tonty and Boisrondet and Renault in the lead, with the naked and painted Indians howling and whooping about them. Their pirogues cross the stream in a trice. Through the strip of oaks, over the hill and out across the open meadow, the warriors, white and red, dash on to the conflict. They approach the ranks of the Iroquois, but halt in an open field in sight of the enemy.

Tonty will make a last effort at peace and is given a wampum necklace as a truce offering. Handing his gun to a friend, he walks across the intervening space attended by a single Illinois. The Indians watch him closely as he nears the foe. There is a sharp, deadly volley from the Iroquois. Tonty stops, and sending back the Indian who is with him, goes on alone. Arrow and ball fly about him, but he reaches the lines unscathed. Iroquois warriors swallow him from the view of the anxious Illinois. Only the Indian who has crossed half the open space with him sees the knife of an Iroquois flash out and bury itself in the side of the white chief. Then the staggering figure is lost even to his view. A moment later his hat is raised upon the end of a gun high above the heads of the foe.