Joseph Altsheler - The Eyes of the Woods - A Story of the Ancient Wilderness

“A black dot among the trees, Paul, but it’s very small and very far, and it may be a bear that’s wandered out in the wet. Besides, it’s two dots that we want to see, not one, and—as sure as I live there are two, moving this way, though they’re yet too distant for me to tell what they are.”

“But since they’re two, and they’re coming towards us, they ought to be those whom we’re expecting.”

“Now they’ve moved into a space free of undergrowth and I see them more clearly. They’re not bears, nor yet deer. They’re living human beings like ourselves.”

“Keep looking, Henry, and tell us whether you recognize ’em.”

“The first is a tall man, young, with light hair. He is bent over a little because of the heavy pack on his back, and the long distance he has come, but he walks with a swing that I’ve seen before.”

“I reckon,” said Long Jim, “that he’s close kin to that lazy critter, Shif’less Sol.”

“Closer even than a twin brother,” continued Henry. “I’d know him anywhere. The other just behind him, and bent also a little with his heavy pack, is amazingly like a friend of ours, an old comrade who talks little, but who does much.”

“None other than Silent Tom,” said Paul joyfully, as he rose and joined Henry at the door. “Yes, there they are, two men, staunch and true, and they bring the powder and lead. Of course they’d come on time! Nothing could stop ’em. The whole Shawnee and Miami nations might be in between, but they’d find a way through.”

“An’ the buffler steak an’ the wild turkey are jest right,” called Long Jim. “Tell ’em to come straight in an’ set down to the table.”

Henry, putting his fingers to his lips, uttered a long and cheerful whistle. The shiftless one and the silent one, raising their heads, made glad reply. They were soaked and tired, but success and journey’s end lay just before them, and they advanced with brisker steps, to be greeted with strong clasps of the hand and a warm welcome. They entered the rocky home, put aside the big packs with sighs of relief and spread out their fingers to the grateful heat.

“That’s the last work I mean to do fur a year,” said Shif’less Sol. “’Twuz a big job, a mighty big job fur me, a lazy man, an’ now I’m goin’ to rest fur months an’ months, while Long Jim waits on me an’ feeds me.”

“Jest now I’m glad to do it, Sol,” said Jim. “Take off your clothes, you an’ Tom, hang ’em on the shelf thar to dry, an’ now set to. The steaks an’ the turkey are the finest I ever cooked, an’ they’re all fur you two. An’ I kin tell you fellers that the sight uv you is good fur weak eyes.”

Shif’less Sol and Silent Tom ate like epicures, while, denuded of their wet deerskins but wrapped in dry blankets, they basked in the heat.

“Not a drop of rain got at the powder,” said the shiftless one presently, “an’ even ef we don’t capture any from the Injuns we ought to hev enough thar to last us many months.”

“Did you see anything of the warriors?” asked Henry.

“We hit one trail ’bout fifty miles south uv here, but we didn’t have time to foller it. Still, it’s ’nough to show that they’re in between us an’ the settlements.”

“We expected it. We discovered sufficient while you were gone to be sure they’re going to make a great effort to end us. They look upon us as the eyes of the woods, and they’ve concluded that their first business is with us before they make another attack on our villages.”

Shif’less Sol helped himself to a fresh piece of the wild turkey, and made another fold of the blanket about his athletic body.

“Paul hez talked so much ’bout them old Romans wrapped in their togys that I feel like one now,” he said, “an’ I kin tell you I feel pow’ful fine, too. That wuz a cold rain an’ a wet rain, an’ the fire an’ the food are mighty good, but it tickles me even more to know how them renegades an’ warriors rage ag’inst us. I’ve a heap o’ respeck fur Red Eagle an’ Yellow Panther, who are great chiefs an’ who are fightin’ fur thar rights ez they see ’em, but the madder Blackstaffe an’ Wyatt git the better I like it.”

“Me, too,” said Silent Tom with emphasis, relapsing then into silence and his preoccupation with the buffalo steak. The shiftless one regarded him with a measuring gaze.

“Tom,” he said, “why can’t you let a feller finish his dinner without chatterin’ furever? I see the day comin’ when you’ll talk us all plum’ to death.”

Silent Tom shook his head in dissent. He had exhausted speech.

Paul, who had remained at the door, watching, announced an increase of rain and wind. Both were driving so hard that leaves and twigs were falling, and darkness as of twilight spread over the skies. The cold, although but temporary, was like that of early winter.

“We needn’t expect any attack now,” said Henry. “Join us, Paul, around the fire, and we’ll have a grand council, because we must decide how we’re going to meet the great man hunt they’re organizing for us.”

Paul left the cleft, and sat down on a doubled blanket with his back against the wall. He felt the full gravity of the crisis, knowing that hundreds of warriors would be put upon their trail, resolved never to leave the search until the five were destroyed, but he had full confidence in his comrades. In all the world there were not five others so fit to overcome the dangers of the woods, and so able to endure their hardships.

“I suppose, Henry,” said Paul, with his mind full of ancient lore, “now that the Roman Senate, or its successor, is in session you are its presiding officer.”

“If that’s the wish of the rest of you,” said Henry.

“It is!” they said all together.

Henry, like Paul, was sitting on his doubled blanket with his back against the stony wall. Jim Hart, his long legs crossed, occupied a similar position, and, by the flickering light of the fire, Shif’less Sol and Silent Tom, wrapped in their blankets, looked in truth like Roman senators.

“Will you tell us, Henry, what you found out while we wuz away?” asked the shiftless one. Henry had made a scouting expedition while the two were gone for the powder and lead.

“I made one journey across the Ohio,” replied their chief, “and at night I went near a Shawnee village. Red Eagle was there, and so were Blackstaffe and Wyatt. Lying in the bushes near the fire by which they sat, I could catch enough of their talk to learn that the Shawnee and Miami nations are going to bend all their energies and powers to our destruction. That is settled.”

“I feel a heap flattered,” said Shif’less Sol, “that so many warriors should be sent ag’inst us, who are only five. What wuz it that old feller was always sayin’, Paul, every time he held up a bunch o’ fresh figs before the noses o’ the Roman senators?”

“ Delenda est Carthago , which is Latin, Sol, and it means just now, when I give it a liberal translation, that we five must be wiped clean off the face of the earth.”

“I’ve heard you say often, Paul, that Latin was a dead language, an’ so all them old dead sayin’s won’t hev any meanin’ fur us. I kin live long on the threats o’ Braxton Wyatt an’ Blackstaffe, an’ so kin all o’ us. But go on, Henry. I ’pologize fur interruptin’ the presidin’ officer.”

“I learned all I could there,” continued Henry, “but I was able to gather only their general intention, that is their resolve to crush us, a plan that both Wyatt and Blackstaffe urged. However, when I trailed a large band two days later, and crept near their camp, I discovered more.”

“What wuz it?” exclaimed the shiftless one, leaning forward a little, his face showing tense and eager in the glow of the flames.