WE CROSS THE GREAT RIVER
A dark object showed in the sun-flecked greenery of the woods.
Tawannears thrust forward his musket, and sighted along the barrel.
"He is alone," murmured Peter.
"Then there will be none to tell his story," remarked Tawannears
grimly. "But Corlaer must not be too sure. He may be the bait to a
trap."
The strange figure strode into an opening bathed in the warm
sunlight, and I had a brief vision of a fluttering black habit and a
white blob of a face.
"It is Black Robe!" I cried softly.
Tawannears cuddled his gun to his cheek.
"Hawenneyu has delivered him into our hands," he commented. "If I
miss, Corlaer must shoot before he can run."
"_Ja_," grunted Peter.
"No, no," I exclaimed, "There must be no shooting."
"He is an enemy," answered Tawannears, unmoved. "He hates us. Why
should my brother care whether he lives or dies?"
"But he has done nothing to us that advantaged him," I argued. "He
does not even know that we are here."
"Perhaps he does," said Tawannears. "Perhaps he has followed us,
when Le Moyne refused to do so. Perhaps his Ouabaches and Miamis
lurk behind him."
"He is alone," repeated Peter. "But just der same we better shoot
him. He is no goodt."
"It would be murder," I insisted. "We shall serve no object by
killing him. What harm can he do us? In a few hours we shall have
passed the river where his Indians cannot reach us."
The Jesuit was in full view, advancing almost directly toward us, his
eyes on the blue horizon. He was chanting to himself in a deep,
sonorous voice, and as he drew nearer I identified the words of the
Vesper Hymn:
"mens gravata crimine,
Vitae sit exul munere,
Dum nil perenne cogitat,
Seseque culpis illigat."
"I am going to speak to him," I said. "It can do no harm. He does
not know we are here. Why, Tawannears, the man is fearless. He
would walk straight into your musket, and defy you to shoot.
Moreover, he has withstood the torture more than once, and I do not
think he is right in his head. Would you be proud of killing one
whose mind the Great Spirit had wrapped in a cloud?"
Tawannears was all Indian, despite his perfect English and the
erudition he had absorbed from his missionary teachers. Corlaer,
after a life among the red men, had imbibed many of their prejudices.
My last remark turned the scale. A man whose mentality had been
touched was sacred to any tribe.
The Seneca smiled unwillingly.
"Otetiani is a strong pleader. Very well. Let Black Robe live. But
if he meditates treachery we must kill him, even though Hawenneyu has
set him aside among men."
"He is alone," declared Peter for the third time. "Always he trafels
alone. I know it. But he is no friend to us. We watch him, eh?"
"Surely," I agreed. "He is a Frenchman and our enemy. That I do not
deny. But he cannot harm us. Come, we will ask him his business
here. Afterwards, if necessary, we will keep watch on him."
Black Robe had halted some thirty yards south of our hiding place,
and stood now on the edge of the bluff, surveying the wonderful
prospect of the unbridled river, its yellow waters glistening in the
sunlight, the opposite bank a low green wall two miles or more away.
His lips moved in words I could not hear, and he dropped to his knees
in the attitude of prayer, head bowed, and remained so many minutes,
his body rigid with the ecstasy of devotion.
I waited until he had risen again, then stepped from our hiding-place
and walked toward him. Tawannears and Corlaer followed me. He saw
us almost at once, but he made no sign of surprise. He simply stood,
facing us, his terribly maimed hands locked in front of him, his
spare frame vibrant with the suppressed energy of the indomitable
spirit within him.
"So you came this way," he said harshly. "I thought as much, but
they would not listen to me."
"And you, Père Hyacinthe?" I asked. "Where do you go?"
"I go upon my Father's business," he answered in the phrase I had
heard him use more than once before.
"Alone?"
His pallid, riven face cracked in what I suppose he intended for a
smile of sarcasm.
"Shall I take with me such guards as attend the Holy Father when he
rides in state? No, but I am guarded, Englishman. Cohorts of angels
attend me. The cherubim chant me on my way. It suffices."
"I do not seek to probe your affairs," I replied as politely as I
could, "but you are our enemy. We do not wish to harm you, yet we
must protect ourselves."
"You cannot harm me," he said without irritation. "Enemy? No, my
erring son, I am not your enemy--or, rather say I am enemy only to
the evil that hath possession of you. But content yourself. I have
come many miles this day and I saw no living thing, save the beasts
of the forest."
I was satisfied, for I knew it was not in the priest to lie.
"Have you food?" I asked.
"Food?" he repeated doubtfully, almost as if he had not understood
me. "No, but I shall eat."
"If a heretic's food----" I began.
"Heaven's grace is vouchsafed in divers ways," he cut me off curtly.
"It may be this opportunity has been given you to find an escape from
sin. I will eat your food, Englishman."
Tawannears and Peter listened sullenly to my invitation, and their
faces expressed neither welcome nor toleration as the Jesuit walked
back with us to the recess under the bluff.
His hollow eyes lighted with unusual interest when he spied our raft.
"You are crossing the Great River, Monsieur Ormerod?"
He seemed tricked out of his dour mannerisms for the moment. His
voice took on the casual courtesy of one gentleman to another. But
it was a fleeting manifestation, no doubt an echo from some
long-buried past.
"Yes," I said, "as I told the Chevalier----"
"Strange," he interrupted me abruptly, his old manner returning,
"that you of all men should be appointed to aid in the fulfilling of
my mission. How inscrutable are God's ways! Yet there must be a
meaning in this. Blessed Virgin aid me!"
My comrades would have nothing to do with him. They took their food
and removed out of ear-shot, leaving me to do the honors, which was
only fair, inasmuch as I had foisted him upon them. But it insured
an ill evening for me, for Black Robe utilized the opportunity to
examine me at length upon my religious convictions--sketchy, at best,
I fear, after a lifetime of wandering--and read me a lecture upon the
errors of my creed. I marvel much as I look back upon that incident.
In many ways I hold he was wrong, but of all men I have known as well
I must account him the most holy. He knew not the meaning of the
word self-interest. Life for him was service of the Word of God, as
he understood it. He wasted no time in the search of Truth, for he
held that it was ready to hand, ay, inscribed in letters of fire
across the skies for all men to see.
He talked to me for hours after the others slept, and I listened with
undiminished interest to the end. The man's stern conviction was an
inspiration, whether you agreed with him or not. And if some hold me
religiously a weakling because I grant him the merit of believing
what he preached, my answer is that such as he was, he--and many
others like him--was one of the most potent forces in carrying the
rule of the white man into the Wilderness Country. If he and his
fellows did not convert the savages, at least they taught them the
strength of the white man's will, and by their pioneering endeavor
they taught their own people the worth of the unknown lands that
always lie beyond the horizon's rim.
In the night the weather shifted, and the morning was overcast and
blustery, with a changeable wind. We debated whether we should trust
ourselves to the raft under such conditions, and Tawannears and Peter
advised against it until Black Robe derided their fears.
"What?" he cried in the Seneca dialect, which came readily to him, he
having been long a missionary to the People of the Long House. "Is
the Warden of the Western Door afraid to go upon the waters? Is
Corlaer, whose fat belly is dreaded by every squaw from Jagara to the
mouth of the Mohawk, fearful lest he wet his moccasins? You have
dared all manner of perils over hundreds of leagues, and now you
wince at a few leagues of water! Pluck up your courage! I am the
wreck of what was a man, yet I am not afraid. Will you let me daunt
you?"
"Black Robe does not know what he says," replied Tawannears stiffly.
"A silly little bird has whistled idle thoughts in his ear. He knows
well that Tawannears does not fear even the Master of Evil,
Hanegoategeh, whom Black Robe serves."
Peter said nothing, after his fashion, but his little eyes squinted
thoughtfully, and presently he drew us aside.
"If Black Robe is touched in der head we might be safe," he proposed.
"Nonsense," I retorted impatiently, "what has that to do with whether
the wind blows or the waters rise? It is dangerous out there on the
raft or it is not. Black Robe has nothing to do with it."
"My brother Otetiani may be right," said Tawannears, "yet he has said
that the Great Spirit has taken Black Robe under his protection. If
that is true, will Hawenneyu allow him to drown?"
"Perhaps not," I admitted, "but we might drown whilst he escaped."
"Otetiani speaks with a straight tongue," affirmed the Seneca.
"Nevertheless I say that we cannot let Black Robe put a slight upon
us. There is danger on the bosom of the Father of Waters. But if we
do not venture forth Black Robe will laugh at us, and perhaps some
day he will tell the story to his people. Let us go."
I shrugged my shoulders. I did not like the look of the river. It
was roughening every minute. But neither could I resist the quaint
logic of Tawannears, and of course, no man enjoys being told he is
afraid.
"Have it your own way," I said at last.
Tawannears walked up to the priest.
"We go," he said quietly. "If we die, remember that you urged us
forth."
One of those rare reflections of a personality long submerged shone
in the Jesuit's face. He dropped his hand upon the Seneca's bare
shoulder.
"There is naught to fear," he said gently. "God watches over us on
the water as on the land. If He has ordained for you to die, you
will die. The good warrior thinks not upon death, but upon his
mission."
His manner changed. His hand dropped by his side. His voice became
harsh.
"Heathen, would you blame me for your wickedness? As well do so as
charge me with your death! You and I have no power over life! Look
up! Look up, I say! There is the Power that decides all. Ha, you
fear--you fear what you know not!"
His face a study in masked fury, Tawannears strode to the side of the
raft, drew his knife and laid the keen edge against the mooring withe.
"Tawannears waits," he said.
Black Robe stepped aboard without a word. Peter and I climbed after
him, and the Seneca severed the withe with a single slash. We piled
our muskets, powder-horns and pouches upon a raised framework in the
center of the unwieldy craft, where they would be out of the reach of
the water, and took to the pushing poles, the Jesuit lending a hand,
and shoved out into the current.
The raft rode high, as we had expected, but its heavy weight made it
drag fearfully in the slack water under the bank. We bent all our
strength on the poles, yet the headway we achieved was trifling.
Sagging, lurching, its component trees rustling and squelching, it
crawled forward a foot or two at a time. A sandbar held us up for an
hour, and after an unsuccessful effort to push across, we finally
contrived to float around it. Then we resumed the battle, and
half-naked as we were, the sweat poured from us and our muscles
ached. How Black Robe endured it I do not know. Of us all he alone
did not sweat, but he worked unflinchingly until the moment, when,
without warning, a monstrous force seemed to seize upon the raft.
There was a swirl, a peculiar sucking noise--and the shore began to
recede. The raft wavered crazily, twirled about, started across the
current and as abruptly was spun back downstream. We stood stupidly,
leaning on our poles, scarcely realizing what had happened.
"The river does our work for us, it seems," I remarked.
Tawannears shook his head, a worried expression in his eyes.
"No, brother, the worst is ahead of us. The river is like a wild
beast to-day."
"_Ja_," squeaked Corlaer, striking his pole down in a futile effort
to find bottom.
Black Robe remained by himself on the forepart of the raft, his gaze
on the mirky distance where he appeared to be able to see landscapes
that were denied to our earth-bound spirits.
"We can work across the current," I suggested. "It may take time,
but----"
A yellow-brown wave, its crest tipped with scum, slapped against the
side of the raft and spattered our feet. Another rolled in from the
opposite quarter and lapped over the side. The structure of the raft
groaned and shifted.
"It will take many hours," answered Tawannears. "Our work has just
begun."
We got out the rough paddles we had carved and undertook to steer
diagonally with the current, but experience proved that a consistent
course was impossible of attainment. We made distance in the desired
direction--and were promptly picked up by an eddy and tossed back
again, or else the vagrant wind set in to toy with us. The waves
rolled higher constantly, and we were wet to the waist. But we
fought on, and the longer we fought the more intelligent our efforts
became.
There was a trick to this work, a trick entirely different from
navigating a light, amenable, birchen canoe. Our raft had a will of
its own, and a certain sense of decency. Handled as it desired to
be, it would even accomplish a measure of our desires, and gradually
we came to learn its ways. This aided us in winning ground--or, I
should say, water; but nothing could aid us in conflicting the
capricious moods of wind and current. Sometimes we had both behind
us, and then we were driven rapidly downstream. Again, the wind
would come from the quarter and mitigate somewhat the effect of the
current. Mid-afternoon found us with nothing gained beyond a
hazardous mid-stream course that was varied by occasional wild
lurches in the direction of one shore or the other.
When the current discharged us towards the eastern bank we battled
desperately against it. When, in one of its incomprehensible moments
of beneficence, it started us in the desired direction we labored
with gritting teeth to assist it. And every time this happened it
ended by spinning us around and starting us back the way we had come.
Night shut down upon us miles from our starting place, but less than
half-way across.
Sleep, of course, was unthinkable. We were wet. We had little
edible food. But tired as we were, we were still unwilling to
suspend for a minute our struggle against the river. Moreover, we
now required all our vigilance, for the waters were laden with other
floating objects, sinister, half-sunken projectiles that had been
trees and were now the instruments of the river's wrath. One of
these, a giant hulk of wood, careened against us in the faint
star-light and partially demolished the structure upon which we had
placed our arms and superfluous clothing. We narrowly escaped losing
all our store of powder in this misadventure, and the shock had
noticeable effect in loosening the fabric of the raft. It developed
an increasing sluggishness, a more frequent tendency to lurch
uncertainly, and our attempts to direct its progress became
ridiculously inept.
But we did not desist. The night was cool, but we sweated as we had
on the broiling savannahs, and tapped unknown reservoirs of strength
to maintain our fight. We seldom spoke to one another. There was
little occasion for words, except once in a while to shout a warning.
And Black Robe paddled and poled beside us, hour by hour. I do not
remember that he ever spoke that night. We were afraid, frankly,
openly afraid, admitting it tacitly one to another. But I am sure
that he was as serenely indifferent to fate as he had been in
prodding us to start. He was the only one who did not croak hoarse
exultation when the river played its last trick upon us.
This came just after sunrise. We had felt for the past hour an
erratic swirl in the eddying current. Now we sighted a mile or so
ahead of us to the right the mouth of another river, little narrower
than the Mississippi.
"That is the Missouri, brothers!" exclaimed Tawannears. "We are far
downstream. If we are carried beyond this we shall land in the
country of the Mandans, who are enemies of the Dakota and eaters of
human flesh. Hawenneyu has veiled his face from us!"
But at that instant Hawenneyu withdrew the veil and smiled upon us.
What happened, I think, was that the incoming stream of the Missouri,
meeting the torrent of the Mississippi, combined with the Great River
to form a whirlpool of eddies, with a backshoot toward the western
bank. At any rate, we were suddenly spun about like a chip in a
kennel, so rapidly that it was dizzying. Nothing that we could do
had any influence upon the course of the raft. We tried to work
against the eddies for several moments, and finally gave it up in
disgust, determined to meet whatever doom was in store for us without
flinching.
Our reward was to be impelled at most amazing speed toward the west
bank. Twice on our way we were caught and torn at by opposing
eddies, but each time the raft worked free of its own volition, and
the rising sun saw us floating, water-logged and bedraggled, in a
backwater under the western bank, perhaps half a mile above the mouth
of the Missouri.
We were still a long way from shore, of course, and it required two
hours of steady poling to work us through the sandbars to within
wading distance of the river's edge; but we made it. We shouldered
our muskets and staggered ashore to collapse upon the bank just above
the water-level--all except Black Robe. Without a glance at us or
the sodden remnants of the raft that had carried him here, without
even a casual inspection of the country before him, he climbed the
bank and strode westward. He had not slept through the night; he had
eaten a bare handful of food since morning; he had labored as hard as
we had.
I called after him, but he dismissed me with an impatient wave of the
hand. The last I saw of him his black figure was outlined sparsely
against a low wood. There was an uncompromising air to his back I
did not like, but I could not have pursued him to save myself.
Tawannears and Peter were stretched inert upon the bank beside me,
their eyes closed in sleep. I hesitated--and sank beside them.