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Osceola the Seminole: or, The Red Fawn of the Flower Land

Chapter Twenty Two
A Circuitous Transaction

Such were my reflections as I journeyed on – suggested by the sad tale to which I had been listening.

As if to confirm their correctness, an incident at that moment occurred exactly to the point.

We had not ridden far along the path, when we came upon the tracks of cattle. Some twenty head must have passed over the ground going in the same direction as ourselves —towards the Indian “Reserve.”

The tracks were fresh – almost quite fresh. I was tracker enough to know that they must have passed within the hour. Though cloistered so long within college walls, I had not forgotten all the forest craft taught me by young Powell.

The circumstance of thus coming upon a cattle-trail, fresh or old, would have made no impression upon me. There was nothing remarkable about it. Some Indian herdsmen had been driving home their flock; and that the drivers were Indians, I could perceive by the moccasin prints in the mud. It is true, some frontiersmen wear the moccasin; but these were not the foot-prints of white men. The turned-in toes³, the high instep, other trifling signs which, from early training, I knew how to translate, proved that the tracks were Indian.

So were they agreed my groom, and Jake was no “slouch” in the ways of the woods. He had all his life been a keen ’coon-hunter – a trapper of the swamp-hare, the “possum,” and the “gobbler.” Moreover, he had been my companion upon many a deer-hunt – many a chase after the grey fox, and the rufous “cat.” During my absence he had added greatly to his experiences. He had succeeded his former rival in the post of woodman, which brought him daily in contact with the denizens of the forest, and constant observation of their habits had increased his skill.

It is a mistake to suppose that the negro brain is incapable of that acute reasoning which constitutes a cunning hunter. I have known black men who could read “sign” and lift a trail with as much intuitive quickness as either red or white. Black Jake could have done it.

I soon found that in this kind of knowledge he was now my master; and almost on the instant I had cause to be astonished at his acuteness.

I have said that the sight of the cattle-tracks created no surprise in either of us. At first it did not; but we had not ridden twenty paces further, when I saw my companion suddenly rein up, at the same instant giving utterance to one of those ejaculations peculiar to the negro thorax, and closely resembling the “wugh” of a startled hog.

I looked in his face. I saw by its expression that he had some revelation to make.

“What is it, Jake?”

“Golly! Massr George, d’you see daat?”

“What?”

“Daat down dar.”

“I see a ruck of cow-tracks – nothing more.”

“Doant you see dat big ’un?”

“Yes – there is one larger than the rest.”

“By Gosh! it am de big ox Ballface – I know um track anywha – many’s tha load o’ cypress log dat ar ox hab toated for ole massr.”

“What? I remember Baldface. You think the cattle are ours?”

“No, Massr George – I ’spect tha be da lawya Grubb’s cattle. Ole massr sell Ballface to Massr Grubb more’n a year ’go. Daat am Bally’s track for sartin.”

“But why should Mr Grubb’s cattle be here in Indian ground, and so far from his plantation? – and with Indian drivers, too?”

“Dat ere’s just what dis chile can’t clarly make out, Massr George.”

There was a singularity in the circumstance that induced reflection. The cattle could not have strayed so far of themselves. The voluntary swimming of the river was against such a supposition. But they were not straying. They were evidently concluded– and by Indians. Was it a raid? – were the beeves being stolen?

It had the look of a bit of thievery, and yet it was not crafty enough. The animals had been driven along a frequented path, certain to be taken by those in quest of them; and the robbers – if they were such – had used no precaution to conceal their tracks.

It looked like a theft, and it did not; and it was just this dubious aspect that stimulated the curiosity of my companion and myself – so much so that we made up our minds to follow the trail, and if possible ascertain the truth.

For a mile or more the trail coincided with our own route; and then turning abruptly to the left, it struck off towards a track of “hommock” woods.

We were determined not to give up our intention lightly. The tracks were so fresh, that we knew the herd must have passed within the hour – within the quarter – they could not be distant. We could gallop back to the main road, through some thin pine timber we saw stretching away to the right; and with these reflections, we turned head along the cattle-trail.

Shortly after entering the dense forest, we heard voices of men in conversation, and at intervals the routing of oxen.

We alit, tied our horses to a tree, and moved forward afoot.

We walked stealthily and in silence, guiding ourselves by the sounds of the voices, that kept up an almost continual clatter. Beyond a doubt, the cattle whose bellowing we heard were those whose tracks we had been tracing; but equally certain was it, that the voices we now listened to were not the voices of those who had driven them!

It is easy to distinguish between the intonation of an Indian and a white man. The men whose conversation reached our ears were whites – their language was our own, with all its coarse embellishments. My companion’s discernment went beyond this – he recognised the individuals.

“Golly! Massr George, it ar tha two dam ruffins – Spence and Bill William!”

Jake’s conjecture proved correct. We drew closer to the spot. The evergreen trees concealed us perfectly. We got up to the edge of an opening; and there saw the herd of beeves, the two Indians who had driven them, and the brace of worthies already named.

We stood under cover watching and listening; and in a very short while, with the help of a few hints from my companion, I comprehended the whole affair.

Each of the Indians – worthless outcasts of their tribe – was presented with a bottle of whisky and a few trifling trinkets. This was in payment for their night’s work – the plunder of lawyer Grubb’s pastures.

Their share of the business was now over; and they were just in the act of delivering up their charge as we arrived upon the ground. Their employers, whose droving bout was here to begin, had just handed over their rewards. The Indians might go home and get drunk: they were no longer needed. The cattle would be taken to some distant part of the country – where a market would be readily found – or, what was of equal probability, they would find their way back to lawyer Grubb’s own plantation, having been rescued by the gallant fellows Spence and Williams from a band of Indian rievers! This would be a fine tale for the plantation fireside – a rare chance for a representation to the police and the powers.

Oh, those savage Seminole robbers! they must be got rid of – they must be “moved” out.

As the cattle chanced to belong to lawyer Grubbs, I did not choose to interfere. I could tell my tale elsewhere; and, without making our presence known, my companion and I turned silently upon our heels, regained our horses, and went our way reflecting.

I entertained no doubt about the justness of our surmise – no doubt that Williams and Spence had employed the drunken Indians – no more that lawyer Grubbs had employed Williams and Spence, in this circuitous transaction.

The stream must be muddied upward – the poor Indian must be driven to desperation.

Note 1. It is art, not nature, that causes this peculiarity; it is done in the cradle.

Chapter Twenty Three
Reflections by the Way

At college, as elsewhere, I had been jeered for taking the Indian side of the question. Not unfrequently was I “twitted” with the blood of poor old Powhatan, which, after two hundred years of “whitening,” must have circulated very sparsely in my veins. It was said I was not patriotic, since I did not join in the vulgar clamour, so congenial to nations when they talk of an enemy.

Nations are like individuals. To please them, you must be as wicked as they – feel the same sentiment, or speak it – which will serve as well – affect like loves and hates; in short, yield up independence of thought, and cry “crucify” with the majority.

This is the world’s man – the patriot of the times.

He who draws his deductions from the fountain of truth, and would try to stem the senseless current of a people’s prejudgments, will never be popular during life. Posthumously he may, but not this side the grave. Such need not seek the “living Fame” for which yearned the conqueror of Peru: he will not find it. If the true patriot desire the reward of glory, he must look for it only from posterity – long after his “mouldering bones” have rattled in the tomb.

Happily there is another reward. The mens conscia recti is not an idle phrase. There are those who esteem it – who have experienced both sustenance and comfort from its sweet whisperings.

Though sadly pained at the conclusions to which I was compelled – not only by the incident I had witnessed, but by a host of others lately heard of – I congratulated myself on the course I had pursued. Neither by word nor act, had I thrown one feather into the scale of injustice. I had no cause for self-accusation. My conscience cleared me of all ill-will towards the unfortunate people, who were soon to stand before me in the attitude of enemies.

My thoughts dwelt not long on the general question – scarcely a moment. That was driven out of my mind by reflections of a more painful nature – by the sympathies of friendship, of love. I thought only of the ruined widow, of her children, of Maümee. It were but truth to confess that I thought only of the last; but this thought comprehended all that belonged to her. All of hers were endeared, though she was the centre of the endearment.

And for all I now felt sympathy, sorrow – ay, a far more poignant bitterness than grief – the ruin of sweet hopes. I scarcely hoped ever to see them again.

Where were they now? Whither had they gone? Conjectures, apprehensions, fears, floated upon my fancy. I could not avoid giving way to dark imaginings. The men who had committed that crime were capable of any other, even the highest known to the calendar of justice. What had become of these friends of my youth?

My companion could throw no light on their history after that day of wrong. He “’sposed tha had move off to some oder clarin in da Indyen rezav, for folks nebba heern o’ um nebber no more arterward.”

Even this was a conjecture. A little relief to the heaviness of my thoughts was imparted by the changing scene.

Hitherto we had been travelling through a pine forest. About noon we passed from it into a large tract of hommock, that stretched right and left of our course. The road or path we followed ran directly across it.

The scene became suddenly changed as if by a magic transformation. The soil under our feet was different, as also the foliage over our heads. The pines were no longer around us. Our view was interrupted on all sides by a thick frondage of evergreen trees – some with broad shining coriaceous leaves, as the magnolia, that here grew to its full stature. Alongside it stood the live-oak, the red mulberry, the Bourbon laurel, iron-wood, Halesia and Callicarpa, while towering above all rose the cabbage-palm, proudly waving its plumed crest in the breeze, as if saluting with supercilious nod its humbler companions beneath.

For a long while we travelled under deep shadow – not formed by the trees alone, but by their parasites as well – the large grape-vine loaded with leaves – the coiling creepers of smilax and hedera– the silvery tufts of tillandsia shrouded the sky from our sight. The path was winding and intricate. Prostrate trunks often carried it in a circuitous course, and often was it obstructed by the matted trellis of the muscadine, whose gnarled limbs stretched from tree to tree like the great stay-cables of a ship.

The scene was somewhat gloomy, yet grand and impressive. It chimed with my feelings at the moment; and soothed me even more than the airy open of the pine-woods.

Having crossed this belt of dark forest, near its opposite edge we came upon one of these singular ponds already described – a circular basin surrounded by hillocks and rocks of testaceous formation – an extinct water volcano. In the barbarous jargon of the Saxon settler, these are termed sinks, though most inappropriately, for where they contain water, it is always of crystalline brightness and purity.

The one at which we had arrived was nearly full of the clear liquid. Our horses wanted drink – so did we. It was the hottest hour of the day. The woods beyond looked thinner and less shady. It was just the time and place to make a halt; and, dismounting, we prepared to rest and refresh ourselves.

Jake carried a capacious haversack, whose distended sides – with the necks of a couple of bottles protruding from the pouch – gave proof of the tender solicitude we had left behind us.

The ride had given me an appetite, the heat had caused thirst; but the contents of the haversack soon satisfied the one, and a cup of claret, mingled with water from the cool calcareous fountain, gave luxurious relief to the other.

A cigar was the natural finish to this al fresco repast; and, having lighted one, I lay down upon my back, canopied by the spreading branches of an umbrageous magnolia.

I watched the blue smoke as it curled upward among the shining leaves, causing the tiny insects to flutter away from their perch.

My emotions grew still – thought became lull within my bosom – the powerful odour from the coral cones and large wax-like blossoms added its narcotic influences; and I fell asleep.

Chapter Twenty Four
A Strange Apparition

I had been but a few minutes in this state of unconsciousness, when I was awakened by a plunge, as of some one leaping into the pond. I was not startled sufficiently to look around, or even to open my eyes.

“Jake is having a dip,” thought I; “an excellent idea – I shall take one myself presently.”

It was a wrong conjecture. The black had not leaped into the water, but was still upon the bank near me, where he also had been asleep. Like myself, awakened by the noise, he had started to his feet; and I heard his voice, crying out:

“Lor, Massr George! lookee dar! – ain’t he a big un? Whugh!”

I raised my head and looked towards the pond. It was not Jake who was causing the commotion in the water – it was a large alligator.

It had approached close to the bank where we were lying; and, balanced upon its broad breast, with muscular arms and webbed feet spread to their full extent, it was resting upon the water, and eyeing us with evident curiosity. With head erect above the surface, and tail stiffly “cocked” upward, it presented a comic, yet hideous aspect.

“Bring me my rifle, Jake!” I said, in a half whisper. “Tread gently, and don’t alarm it!”

Jake stole off to fetch the gun; but the reptile appeared to comprehend our intentions – for, before I could lay hands upon the weapon, it revolved suddenly on the water, shot off with the velocity of an arrow, and dived into the dark recesses of the pool.

Rifle in hand, I waited for some time for its re-appearance; but it did not again come to the surface. Likely enough, it had been shot at before, or otherwise attacked; and now recognised in the upright form a dangerous enemy. The proximity of the pond to a frequented road rendered probable the supposition.

Neither my companion nor I would have thought more about it, but for the similarity of the scene to one well-known to us. In truth, the resemblance was remarkable – the pond, the rocks, the trees that grew around, all bore a likeness to those with which our eyes were familiar. Even the reptile we had just seen – in form, in size, in fierce ugly aspect – appeared the exact counterpart to that one whose story was now a legend of the plantation.

The wild scenes of that day were recalled; the details starting fresh into our recollection, as if they had been things of yesterday – the luring of the amphibious monster – the perilous encounter in the tank – the chase – the capture – the trial and fiery sentence – the escape – the long lingering pursuit across the lake, and the abrupt awful ending – all were remembered at the moment with vivid distinctness. I could almost fancy I heard that cry of agony – that half-drowned ejaculation, uttered by the victim as he sank below the surface of the water. They were not pleasant memories either to my companion or myself, and we soon ceased to discourse of them.

As if to bring more agreeable reflections, the cheerful “gobble” of a wild turkey at that moment sounded in our ears; and Jake asked my permission to go in search of the game. No objection being made, he took up the rifle, and left me.

I re-lit my “havanna” – stretched myself as before along the soft sward, watched the circling eddies of the purple smoke, inhaled the narcotic fragrance of the flowers, and once more fell asleep.

This time I dreamed, and my dreams appeared to be only the continuation of the thoughts that had been so recently in my mind. They were visions of that eventful day; and once more its events passed in review before me, just as they had occurred.

In one thing, however, my dream differed from the reality. I dreamt that I saw the mulatto rising back to the surface of the water, and climbing out upon the shore of the island. I dreamt that he had escaped unscathed, unhurt – that he had returned to revenge himself – that by some means he had got me in his power, and was about to kill me!

At this crisis in my dream, I was again suddenly awakened – this time not by the plashing of water, but by the sharp “spang” of a rifle that had been fired near.

“Jake has found the turkeys,” thought I. “I hope he has taken good aim. I should like to carry one to the fort. It might be welcome at the mess-table, since I hear that the larder is not overstocked. Jake is a good shot, and not likely to miss. If – ”

My reflections were suddenly interrupted by a second report, which, from its sharp detonation, I knew to be also that of a rifle.

“My God! what can it mean? Jake has but one gun, and but one barrel – he cannot have reloaded since? he has not had time. Was the first only a fancy of my dream? Surely I heard a report? surely it was that which awoke me? There were two shots – I could not be mistaken.”

In surprise, I sprang to my feet. I was alarmed as well. I was alarmed for the safety of my companion. Certainly I had heard two reports. Two rifles must have been fired, and by two men. Jake may have been one, but who was the other? We were upon dangerous ground. Was it an enemy?

I shouted out, calling the black by name.

I was relieved on hearing his voice. I heard it at some distance off in the woods; but I drew fresh alarm from it as I listened. It was uttered, not in reply to my call, but in accents of terror.

Mystified, as well as alarmed, I seized my pistols, and ran forward to meet him. I could tell that he was coming towards me, and was near; but under the dark shadow of the trees his black body was not yet visible. He still continued to cry out, and I could now distinguish what he was saying.

“Gorramighty! gorramighty!” he exclaimed in a tone of extreme terror. “Lor! Massa George, are you hurt?”

“Hurt! what the deuce should hurt me?”

But for the two reports, I should have fancied that he had fired the rifle in my direction, and was under the impression he might have hit me.

“You are not shot? Gorramighty be thank you are not shot, Massr George.”

“Why, Jake, what does it all mean?”

At this moment he emerged from the heavy timber, and in the open ground I had a clear view of him.

His aspect did not relieve me from the apprehension that something strange had occurred.

He was the very picture of terror, as exhibited in a negro. His eyes were rolling in their sockets – the whites oftener visible than either pupil or iris. His lips were white and bloodless; the black skin upon his face was blanched to an ashy paleness; and his teeth chattered as he spoke. His attitudes and gestures confirmed my belief that he was in a state of extreme terror.

As soon as he saw me, he ran hurriedly up, and grasped me by the arm – at the same time casting fearful glances in the direction whence he had come, as if some dread danger was behind him!

I knew that under ordinary circumstances Jake was no coward – Quite the contrary. There must have been peril then – what was it?

I looked back; but in the dark depths of the forest shade, I could distinguish no other object than the brown trunks of the trees.

I again appealed to him for an explanation.

“O Lor! it wa-wa-war him; I’se sure it war him.”

“Him? who?”

“O Massr George; you – you – you shure you not hurt. He fire at you. I see him t-t-t-take aim; I fire at him– I fire after; I mi-mi-miss; he run away – way – way.”

“Who fired? who ran away?”

“O Gor! it wa-wa-war him; him or him go-go-ghost.”

“For heaven’s sake, explain! what him? what ghost? Was it the devil you have seen?”

“Troof, Massr George; dat am the troof. It wa-wa-war de debbel I see; it war Yell’ Jake!”

“Yellow Jake?”