Hal G. Evarts

Tomahawk Rights

Warsaw 2019

Contents

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XII

CHAPTER XIII

CHAPTER XIV

CHAPTER XV

CHAPTER XVI

CHAPTER XVII

CHAPTER I

Rodney Buckner’s first struggle toward wakefulness was occasioned by the harsh voice of the woman bidding him rise and go after the cow. Then the lingering remnants of sleep were dispelled by a deafening explosion as a flintlock was discharged through the half-open door and the spreading dawn was rent by the fiendish war whoop of savages.

Ensuing events were but a vivid nightmare of horrors. The cabin swarmed with painted warriors. There was the sound of a blow, a shriek of mortal hurt or terror. The bedding which sheltered him was plucked from his trembling form, an iron hand seized his wrist and he was rudely dragged from his bunk. His captor, brandishing before his horrified eyes a menacing tomahawk, expelled the few English words, “Boy no talk!” in such a fierce tone as to freeze unuttered the anguished wail that trembled on his lips.

On the floor lay the forms of an older girl and the young man of the household. He was dragged out through the door by his captor, almost stumbling over the still shape of Johnny Aiken, the youngest son of the woman, a boy two years older than himself. He was propelled towards the spot where the woman, a tall, gaunt person, her hands pinioned behind her, stood in the custody of two toweringsavages. Then he was entering the forest while the faint light of dawn was amplified by the glare of the blazing cabin.

A briar thorn pricked his foot and he halted to seize the injured member with his hands. The savage just behind him thrust him forward with a sharp grunt of impatience. Rodney could see that a half dozen warriors led the way in single file. Next came the woman, another warrior, then himself. Five more savages brought up the rear. The sinuous progress of this procession along the winding path through the gloomy forest recalled to his childish mind the gliding movement of a huge blacksnake that had swallowed two young chickens in their garden a few days before. His throat constricted with terror–also with thirst; and he was fiercely hungry before they had been on the trail an hour. His feet and legs burned from occasional briar pricks.

The tall figure of the woman strode on and on as if she could never tire or falter. Always she had impressed him that way–indestructible, driving, relentless. From the first he had felt little about her that was lovable. Of his own mother, he had but a vague recollection of a gracious, loving presence. After her premature death his bereaved father had drifted westward with Rodney, eventually to leave him with this pioneer woman while he accompanied her husband, Aiken, in search of a fabled mine still deeper in the wilderness. Neither had been heard of again and the boy had been left an unwelcomeburden upon the hands of this woman. A stern, rather harsh creature, and no doubt harassed by the cares and anxieties of carrying on alone, she had found little time for gentleness. But now the boy drew a measure of comfort from that very harsh efficiency that was hers. Her presence seemed a tower of strength to him.

His legs grew weary and each foot seemed a leaden weight. But whenever he lagged, the fierce Wyandotte who could speak a few words of English hissed the command, “Boy hurry!” Presently he stubbed his toe painfully.

“I am too tired to go on!” he cried out.

The woman, wise in the ways of the Indians, knew that captives usually were treated well until such time as a council was held in some Indian town to decide their fate. But those that were too frail or ailing to keep up the pace on the trail were dispatched without hesitation.

“You’ll have to keep up, Rod,” she said without turning her head. “If you lag, one of ’em will fetch you a clip with a hatchet.”

The boy had never disobeyed that voice with impunity and he responded to it now, trotting along manfully to close the gap. Fatigue dragged at him but terror spurred him on to fresh exertions.

The distant sound of occasional gunshots and the faint gobbling yelps of the war whoop reached their ears from ahead and to the right, and Rodney knew that the savages were making an attack on the cabins of three settlers at a spot known as Jamieson’sFarm. The intermittent nature of the sounds had conveyed to the ears of the warriors that the whites at Jamieson’s were making a stubborn resistance. They commented upon it in their own tongue.

Presently they stopped at a spring and refreshed themselves. Another and longer string of savages came through the forest and joined them. Two men prisoners accompanied the new arrivals. The captives were heavily burdened with various plunder that had been captured by the savages.

They were two bondmen, having sold themselves into bondage for a period of years to work out the price of their passage to this new land. They had gone outside at dawn, only to be captured by the first rush of the savages. The others of the Jamieson settlement had succeeded in barricading themselves in the three cabins and beating off the assailants.

“Them as took us is Wyandottes, with a few Ottawas throwed in,” said the woman. “The ones that got you is Senecas. All the tribes must have gone out again.”

The weaker of the two captives, too frail to support his burden, stumbled frequently. At last an exasperated savage swung a tomahawk upon his skull, stooped to encircle his head with a knife and wrenched off the scalp.

“God ha’ mercy on his soul,” the other man mumbled.

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