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

It was so still in the canebrake that the birds over the head of the watcher began to sing. Another black bear lumbered toward them, and, catching the strange, human odor, lumbered away again. A deer, a tall buck, holding up his head, sniffed the air, and then ran. Wild turkeys in a distant tree gobbled, a bald eagle clove the air on swift wing, but the sleepers slept placidly on.

Mid-morning and Henry awoke, yawning a little and stretching himself mightily. Then he looked questioningly at Shif’less Sol who sat in a position of great luxury with his doubled blanket between his back and a tree trunk, and his rifle across his knees. The look of satisfaction that had come there in the morning like a noon glow still overspread his tanned and benevolent countenance.

“Well, Sol?”

“Well, Henry?”

“What has happened while we slept?”

“Nothin’, ’cept that Braxton Wyatt an’ twenty Shawnee warriors passed, takin’ no more notice o’ us than ef we wuz leaves o’ the forest.”

“Advancing on our old house?”

“Yes, they’ve set the siege by now.”

“And we’re not there. I’ll wake the others. They must share in the joke.”

Paul, Long Jim and Silent Tom wiped the last wisp of sleep from their eyes, and, when they heard the tale of a night and a morning, they too laughed to themselves with keen enjoyment.

“What will we do, Henry?” Paul asked.

“First, we’ll eat breakfast, though it’s late. Then we’ll besiege the besiegers. While they’re drawing the net which doesn’t enclose us we might as well do ’em all the harm we can. We’re going to be dangerous fugitives.”

The five laughed in unison.

“We’ll make Braxton Wyatt and the Shawnees think the forest is full of enemies,” said Paul.

Meanwhile they took their ease, and ate breakfast of wild turkey, buffalo steak and a little corn bread that they hoarded jealously. The sun continued its slow climb toward the zenith and Paul, looking up through the canes, thought he had never seen a finer day. Then he remembered something.

“I suggest that we don’t move today,” he said. “They won’t approach the hollow until night anyway, and it wouldn’t hurt for us to lie here in the shelter of the brake and rest until dark.”

Henry looked at him in surprise.

“Your idea is sudden and I don’t understand it,” he said.

“So it is, Henry, but it never occurred to me until a moment ago that this was Sunday. We haven’t observed Sunday in a long time, and now is our chance. We can’t wholly forget our training.”

He spoke almost with apology, but the leader did not upbraid him. Instead, he looked at the others and found agreement in their eyes.

“Paul talks in a cur’ous manner an’ has cur’ous notions sometimes,” said Shif’less Sol, “but I don’t say they ain’t good. It’s a long time since we’ve paid any ’tention to Sunday, but the idee sticks in my mind. Mebbe it would be a good way fur us to start our big fight ag’inst the tribes an’ the renegades.”

“When Cromwell and his Ironsides advanced against the Royalists,” said Paul, “they knelt down and prayed first on the very field of battle. Then they advanced with their pikes in a solid line, and nothing was ever able to stand before them.”

“Then we’ll keep Sunday,” said Henry decisively.

Paul, feeling a thrill of satisfaction, lay back on his blanket. The idea that they should observe Sunday, that it would be a good omen and beginning, had taken hold of him with singular power. His character was devout and a life in the wilderness among its mighty manifestations deepened its quality. Like the Indian he wanted the spirits of earth and air on his side.

The five had acquired the power of silence and to rest intensely when nothing was to be done. Their food finished, they lay back against their doubled blankets in a calm and peace that was deep and enduring. It was not necessary to go to the edge of the canebrake, as in the brilliant light of the day they might be noticed there, and, where they lay, they could see anyone who came long before he arrived.

Paul, as he breathed, absorbed belief and confidence in their success. Surely so bright a sky bending over them was a good omen! and the tall canes themselves, as they bent before the wind, whispered to him that all would be well. Henry in his own way was no less imaginative than his young comrade. He let his eyelids droop, not to sleep, but to listen. Then as no one of the five stirred, he too heard the voice of the wind, but it sang to him a song far more clear than any Paul heard. It told of triumphs achieved and others yet to come, and, as the great youth lifted his lazy lids and looked around at the others, he felt that they were equal to any task.

The afternoon, keeping all its promise of brilliant beauty, waxed and waned. The great sun dipped behind the forest. The twilight came, at first a silver veil, then a robe of dusk, and after it a night luminous with a clear moon and myriads of stars wrapped the earth, touching every leaf and blade of grass with a white glow.

Still the five did not stir. For a long time they had seemed a part of the forest itself, and the wild animals and birds, rejoicing in the dry and beautiful night after the stormy one that had passed, took them to be such, growing uncommonly brave. The restless black bear came back, looked at them, and then sniffing disdainfully went away to hunt for roots. The great wings of the eagle almost brushed the cane that hung over Henry’s head, but the little red eyes were satisfied that what they saw was not living, and the dark body flashed on in search of its prey.

“Three hours more at least, Paul,” said Henry at last, “until Sunday is over.”

“And I suggest that we wait the full three hours before we make any movement. I know it looks foolish in me to say it, but the feeling is very strong on me that it will be a good thing to do.”

“Not foolish at all, Paul. I look at it just as you do, and since we’ve begun the observance we ought to carry it through to the finish. You agree with me, don’t you, boys?”

“I shorely do,” said the shiftless one.

“Ef Paul thinks it’s right it’s right,” said Long Jim.

“Can’t hurt anythin’; it may help,” said Silent Tom.

They resumed their silence and waiting, and meanwhile they listened attentively for any sound that might come from those who were stalking their old home. But the deep stillness continued, save for the light song of the wind that sang continually among the leaves. Henry, in his heart, was truly glad of Paul’s idea, and that they had concluded to observe it. A spiritual atmosphere clothed them all. They had come of religious parents, and the borderer, moreover, always personified the great forces of nature, before which he was reverential. The five now were like the Romans and the Greeks, who were anxious to propitiate the gods ere going into action.

Henry gazed at the moon, a silver globe in the heavens, and he distinctly saw the man upon its surface, who returned his looks with benevolence, while the countless stars about it quivered and glittered and shed a propitious light. Then he gazed at his comrades, resting against the trunks of the trees, and unreal in the silver mist. They were yet so still that the wild animals might well take them to be lifeless, and the power to sit there so long without stirring a muscle was one acquired only by warriors and scouts.

A faint whining cry came out of the silver dark, a sound that had traveled a great distance on waves of air, and every one of the five understood it, on the instant. It was one of the most ominous sounds of the forest, a sound full of ferocity and menace, the howl of the wolf, but they knew it came from human lips, that, in truth, it was a signal ordered by the leader of the besieging band. Presently the reply, a similar cry, came from another point of the compass, traveling like the first on waves of air, until it died away in a savage undernote.