CHAPTER XXI
THANKSGIVING AT FRAYNE
Thanksgiving Day at Frayne! Much of the garrison was still afield,bringing back to their lines and, let us hope, to their senses, theremnant of Stabber's band, chased far into the Sweetwater Hills beforethey would stop, while Henry's column kept Lame Wolf in such activemovement the misnamed chieftain richly won his later sobriquet "TheSkipper." The general had come whirling back from Beecher in his Concordwagon, to meet Mr. Hay as they bore that invalid homeward from the BigHorn. Between the fever-weakened trader and the famous frontier soldierthere had been brief conference--all that the doctors felt they couldallow--and then the former had been put to bed under the care of hisdevoted wife, while the latter, without so much as sight of a pillow,had set forth again out Sweetwater way to wind up the campaign. Thistime he went in saddle, sending his own team over the range of theMedicine Bow to carry a convalescent subaltern to the side of a strickenfather; the sender ignorant, possibly, of the post commander'sprohibition; ignoring it, if, as probable, it was known to him. The goodold doctor himself had bundled the grateful lad and sent a specialhospital attendant with him. Mrs. Dade and her devoted allies up the rowhad filled with goodies a wonderful luncheon basket, while Mrs. Hay hadsent stores of wine for the use of both invalids, and had come downherself to see the start, for, without a word indicative of reproof, thegeneral had bidden Flint remove the blockade, simply saying he wouldassume all responsibility, both for Mrs. Hay and the young Indian girl,given refuge under the trader's roof until the coming of her own peoplestill out with Stabber's band. Flint could not fathom it. He could onlyobey.
And now, with the general gone and Beverly Field away, with Hay home andsecluded, by order, from all questioning or other extraneous worry; withthe wounded soldiers safely trundled into hospital, garrison interestseemed to centre for the time mainly in that little Ogalallamaid--Flint's sole Sioux captive--who was housed, said the muchinterrogated domestic, in Mrs. Hay's own room instead of Miss Flower's,while the lady of the house, when she slept at all, occupied a sofa nearher husband's bedside.
Then came the tidings that Blake, with the prisoners from No Wood Creekand Bear Cliff was close at hand, and everybody looked with eager eyesfor the coming across the snowy prairie of that homeward boundconvoy--that big village of the Sioux, with its distinguished captives,wounded and unwounded; one of the former, the young sub-chief EagleWing, alias Moreau;--one of the latter a self-constituted martyr, sinceshe was under no official restraint,--Nanette Flower, hovering everabout the litter bearing that sullen and still defiant brave, whose sideshe refused to leave.
Not until they reached Fort Frayne; not until the surgeon, after carefulexamination, declared there was no need of taking Moreau intohospital,--no reason why he should not be confined in the prison room ofthe guard-house,--were they able to induce the silent, almost desperategirl to return to her aunt. Not until Nanette realized that her warriorwas to be housed within wooden walls whence she would be excluded, couldMrs. Hay, devoted to the last, persuade the girl to reoccupy her oldroom and to resume the dress of civilization. Barring that worsted hood,she was habited like a chieftain's daughter, in gaily beaded andembroidered garments, when recaptured by Blake's command. Once withinthe trader's door, she had shut herself in her old room, the secondfloor front, refusing to see anybody from outside the house, unless shecould be permitted to receive visits from the captive Sioux, and thisthe major, flintily, forebade. It was nightfall when the litter-bearersreached the post, Hay's rejoicing mules braying unmelodious ecstasy atsight of their old stable. It was dark when the wounded chief was borneinto the guard-house, uttering not a sound, and Nanette was led withinthe trader's door, yet someone had managed to see her face, for thestory went all over the wondering post that very night,--women flittingwith it from door to door,--that every vestige of her beauty wasgone;--she looked at least a dozen years older. Blake, when questioned,after the first rapture of the home-coming had subsided, would neitheraffirm nor deny. "She would neither speak to me nor harken," said he,whimsically. "The only thing she showed was teeth and--temper."
Then presently they sent a lot of the Sioux--Stabber's villagers andLame Wolf's combined,--by easy stages down the Platte to Laramie, andthen around by Rawhide and the Niobrara to the old Red Cloud agency,there to be fed and coddled and cared for, wounded warriors and all,except a certain few, including this accomplished orator and chieftain,convalescing under guard at Frayne. About his case there hung detailsand complications far too many and intricate to be settled short of acommission. Already had the tidings of this most important capturereached the distant East. Already both Indian Bureau and Peace Societieshad begun to wire the general in the field and "work" the President andthe Press at home. Forgotten was the fact that he had been anintolerable nuisance to Buffalo Bill and others who had undertaken toeducate and civilize him. The Wild West Show was now amazing Europeancapitals and, therefore, beyond consulting distance. Forgotten wereescapades at Harrisburg, Carlisle and Philadelphia. Suppressed werecircumstances connecting him with graver charges than those of repeatedroistering and aggravated assault. Ignored, or as yet unheard, were thedetails of his reappearance on the frontier in time to stir up most ofthe war spirit developed that September, and to take a leading part inthe fierce campaign that followed. He was a pupil of the nation, saidthe good people of the Indian Friends Societies--a youth of exceptionalintelligence and promise, a son of the Sioux whose influence would be ofpriceless value could he be induced to complete his education and acceptthe views and projects of his eastern admirers. It would never do to lethis case be settled by soldiers, settlers and cowboys, saidphilanthropy. They would hang him, starve him, break his spirit at thevery least. (They were treating him particularly well just now, as hehad sense enough to see.) There must be a deputation,--a committee to goout at once to the West, with proper credentials, per diem, mileage andclerks, to see to it that these unfortunate children of the mountain andprairie were accorded fair treatment and restored to their rights,especially this brilliant young man Moreau. The general was beyond reachand reasoning with, but there was Flint, eminent for his piety, anduntrammelled in command; Flint, with aspirations of his own, the veryman to welcome such influence as theirs, and, correspondingly, to giveear to their propositions. Two days after the safe lodgment of EagleWing behind the bars, the telegrams were coming by dozens, and one weekafter that deserved incarceration Fort Frayne heard with mildbewilderment the major's order for Moreau's transfer to the hospital. Bythat time letters, too, were beginning to come, and, two nights afterthis removal to the little room but lately occupied by LieutenantField--this very Thanksgiving night, in fact,--the single sentry at thedoor stood attention to the commanding officer, who in person usheredin a womanly form enveloped in hooded cloak, and with bowed head NanetteFlower passed within the guarded portal, which then closed behind herand left her alone with her wounded brave.
Blake and Billings had been sent on to Red Cloud, guarding thepresumably repentant Ogalallas. Webb, Ray, Gregg and Ross were stillafield, in chase of Stabber. Dade, with four companies of infantry, wasin the Big Horn guarding Henry's wagon train. There was no one now atFrayne in position to ask the new commander questions, for Dr. Wallerhad avoided him in every possible way, but Waller had nobly done thework of his noble profession. Moreau, or Eagle Wing, was mending so veryfast there was no reason whatever why the doctor should object to hisreceiving visitors. It was Flint alone who would be held responsible ifanything went wrong. Yet Fort Frayne, to a woman, took fire at themajor's action. Two days previous he might have commanded the support ofMrs. Wilkins, but Nanette herself had spoiled all chance of that. Itseems the lady had been to call at Mrs. Hay's the previous day--thatMrs. Hay had begged to be excused,--that Mrs. Wilkins had thenpersisted, possibly as a result of recent conference with Flint, and hadbidden the servant say she'd wait until Miss Flower could come down, andso sailed on into the parlor, intent on seeing all she could of both thehouse and its inmates. But no
t a soul appeared. Mrs. Hay was watchingover her sleeping husband, whose slow recovery Flint was noting withunimpatient eye. Voices low, yet eager, could be heard aloft inNanette's room. The servant, when she came down, had returned without aword to the inner regions about the kitchen, and Mrs. Wilkins's waitbecame a long one. At last the domestic came rustling through the lowerfloor again, and Mrs. Wilkins hailed. Both were Irish, but one was thewife of an officer and long a power, if not indeed a terror, in theregiment. The other feared the quartermaster's wife as little as Mrs.Wilkins feared the colonel's, and, when ordered to stand and say why shebrought no answer from Miss Flower, declined to stand, but decidedlysaid she brought none because there was none.
"Did ye tell her I'd wait?" said Mrs. Wilkins.
"I did," said Miss McGrath, "an' she said 'Let her,' an' so I did." Thenin came Mrs. Hay imploring hush, and, with rage in her Hibernian heart,the consort of the quartermaster came away.
There was not one woman in all Fort Frayne, therefore, to approve themajor's action in permitting this wild girl to visit the wilder Indianpatient. Mrs. Hay knew nothing of it because Nanette well understoodthat there would be lodged objection that she dare not disregard--heruncle's will. One other girl there was, that night at Frayne, who markedher going and sought to follow and was recalled, restrained at the verythreshold by the sound of a beloved voice softly, in the Sioux tongue,calling her name. One other girl there was who knew not of her going,who shrank from thought of meeting her at any time,--in any place,--andyet was destined to an encounter fateful in its results in every way.
Just as tattoo was sounding on the infantry bugle, Esther Dade satreading fairy stories at the children's bedside in the quarters ofSergeant Foster, of her father's company. There had been Thanksgivingdinner with Mrs. Ray, an Amazonian feast since all their lords werestill away on service, and Sandy Ray and Billy, Jr., were perhaps tooyoung to count. Dinner was all over by eight o'clock, and, despite somemerry games, the youngsters' eyes were showing symptoms of the sandman'scoming, when that privileged character, Hogan, Ray's long-tried troopernow turned _major domo_, appeared at the doorway of the little armyparlor. He had been bearer of a lot of goodies to the children among thequarters of the married soldiers, and now, would Mrs. Dade please speakwith Mrs. Foster, who had come over with him, and Mrs. Dade departed forthe kitchen forthwith. Presently she returned. "I'm going back awhilewith Mrs. Foster," said she. "She's sitting up to-night with poor Mrs.Wing, who--" But there was no need of explanation. They all knew. Theyhad laid so recently their wreaths of evergreen on the grave of thegallant soldier who fell, fighting at the Elk, and now another helplesslittle soul had come to bear the buried name, and all that were left formother and babe was woman's boundless charity. It was Thanksgivingnight, and while the wail of the bereaved and stricken went up from morethan one of these humble tenements below the eastward bluff, there werescores of glad and grateful hearts that lifted praise and thanksgivingto the throne on high, even though they knew not at the moment but thatthey, too, might, even then, be robbed of all that stood between themand desolation. Once it happened in the story of our hard-fighting,hard-used little army that a bevy of fair young wives, nearly half ascore in number, in all the bravery of their summer toilets, sat in theshadow of the flag, all smiles and gladness and applause, joining in thegarrison festivities on the Nation's natal day, never dreaming of theawful news that should fell them ere the coming of another sun; that oneand all they had been widowed more than a week; that the men they loved,whose names they bore, lay hacked and mutilated beyond recognitionwithin sight of those very hills where now the men from Frayne werefacing the same old foe. In the midst of army life we are, indeed, indeath, and the thanksgiving of loving ones about the fireside formercies thus far shown, is mingled ever with the dread of what themorrow may unfold.
"Let me go, too, mamma," was Esther's prompt appeal, as she heard hermother's words. "I can put the children to bed while you and Mrs. Fosterare over there."
And so with Hogan, lantern bearing, mother and daughter had followed thesergeant's wife across the broad, snow-covered parade; had passedwithout comment, though each was thinking of the new inmate, thebrightly-lighted hospital building on the edge of the plateau, anddescended the winding pathway to the humble quarters of the marriedsoldiers, nestling in the sheltered flats between the garrison properand the bold bluffs that again close bordered the rushing stream. Andhere at Sergeant Foster's doorway Esther parted from the elders, and waswelcomed by shrieks of joy from three sturdy little cherubs--thesergeant's olive branches, and here, as the last notes of tattoo wentechoing away under the vast and spangled sky, one by one her chargesclosed their drooping lids and dropped to sleep and left their gentlefriend and reader to her own reflections.
There was a soldier dance that night in one of the vacant messrooms.Flint's two companies were making the best of their isolation, andfound, as is not utterly uncommon, quite a few maids and matrons amongthe households of the absent soldiery quite willing to be consoled andcomforted. There were bright lights, therefore, further along the edgeof the steep, beyond those of the hospital, and the squeak of fiddle anddrone of 'cello, mingled with the plaintive piping of the flute, wereheard at intervals through the silence of the wintry night. No tramp ofsentry broke the hush about the little rift between the heights--themajor holding that none was necessary where there were so many dogs.Most of the soldiers' families had gone to the dance; all of the youngerchildren were asleep; even the dogs were still, and so, when at teno'clock Esther tiptoed from the children's bedside and stood under thestarlight, the murmur of the Platte was the only sound that reached herears until, away over at the southwest gate the night guards began thelong-drawn heralding of the hour. "Ten o'clock and all's well" it wentfrom post to post along the west and northward front, but when NumberSix, at the quartermaster's storehouse near the southeast corner, shouldhave taken up the cry where it was dropped by Number Five, afar overnear the flagstaff, there was unaccountable silence. Six did not utter asound.
Looking up from the level of "Sudstown," as it had earlier been named,Esther could see the black bulk of the storehouse close to the edge ofthe plateau. Between its westward gable end and the porch of thehospital lay some fifty yards of open space, and through this gap nowgleamed a spangled section of the western heavens. Along the bluff, justunder the crest, ran a pathway that circled the southeastward corner andled away to the trader's store, south of the post. Tradition had it thatthe track was worn by night raiders, bearing contraband fluids fromstore to barracks in the days before such traffic was killed by thatcommon sense promoter of temperance, soberness and chastity--the postexchange. Along that bluff line, from the storehouse toward thehospital, invisible, doubtless, from either building or from the bluffitself, but thrown in sharp relief against that rectangular inlet ofstarry sky, two black figures, crouching and bearing some long, flatobject between them, swift and noiseless were speeding toward thehospital. The next instant they were lost in the black background ofthat building. Then, as suddenly and a moment later, one of themreappeared, just for a moment, against the brightly lightedwindow,--the southernmost window on the easterward side--the window ofthe room that had been Beverly Field's--the window of the room now givenover to Eagle Wing, the Sioux,--the captive for whose safe keeping aspecial sentry within the building, and this strangely silent Number Sixwithout, were jointly responsible. Then that silhouetted figure wasblotted from her sight in general darkness, for the lights within assuddenly went out.
And at that very moment a sound smote upon her ear, unaccountable atthat hour and that side of the garrison--hoofbeats swiftly coming downinto the hollow from the eastward bluff,--hoofbeats and low, excitedvoices. Foster's little house was southernmost of the settlement. Theground was open between it and the heights, and despite the low,cautious tones, Esther heard the foremost rider's muttered, angeringwords. "Dam fool! Crazy! Heap crazy! Too much hurry. Ought t' let himcall off first!" Then an answer in guttural Sioux.
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bsp; And then in an instant it dawned upon the girl that here was new crime,new bloodshed, perhaps, and a plot to free a villianous captive. Herfirst thought was to scream for aid, but what aid could she summon? Nota man was within hail except these, the merciless haters of her race andname. To scream would be to invite their ready knives to her heart--tothe heart of any woman who might rush to her succor. The cry died in herthroat, and, trembling with dread and excitement, she clung to the doorpost and crouched and listened, for stifled mutterings could be heard,a curse or two in vigorous English, a stamping of impatient ponies, awarning in a woman's tone. Then, thank God! Up at the storehouse cornera light came dancing into view. In honest soldier tones boomed out thequery "What's the matter, Six?" and then, followed by a scurry of hoofs,a mad lashing of quirts, a scramble and rush of frightened steeds, and acursing of furious tongues, her own brave young voice rang out on thenight. "This way, sergeant! Help--Quick!"
Black forms of mounts and riders sped desperately away, and then withall the wiry, sinewy strength of her lithe and slender form, Estherhurled herself upon another slender figure, speeding after these, afoot.Desperately she clung to it in spite of savage blows and strainings. Andso they found her, as forth they came,--a rush of shrieking, startled,candle-bearing women,--of bewildered and unconsciously blasphemous menof the guard--her arms locked firmly about a girl in semi-savage garb.The villain of the drama had been whisked away, leaving the woman whosought to save him to the mercy of the foe.