The Star Woman/Book 2/Chapter 4

N the twilight of another summer's night, with the barely sunken sun again rising, Moses Deakin and Crawford and three men of Boston town, once enemies but now strangely friends and allies against disaster, came upon the river which white men called the Danish, striking it two miles above the magnificent harbour. The five men, crossing overland from the other side of Cape Churchill, had met not a soul on their trail through the woods, and for this there was good reason. In ancient days the tribes had found a great ship floating here, full of dead white men and wonderful things, and they gathered around by scores to thaw out frozen boxes and barrels; but certain of the kegs held powder. So ship and dead men and redskins went thundering up in ruin, and now the Indians called this the River of Strangers, and shunned the bay in legendary fear and horror.

There in the landlocked harbour under Point Eskimo, stout Jens Munck had watched his Danish colonists die, had gone four days without food, knew himself dying of scurvy, and so sat down to pen the last line in his log-book. And what a trumpet call of the spirit he wrote there! "Herewith, good night to all the world; and my soul to God." Yet he lived, and lived to work one ship back to Norway, two staggering men helping him. The Danish river had known heroes in those days, ay, and was to know heroes often enough in days to come!

So Crawford and the four with him started down the river bank toward the harbour, following the course of the wide stream. As they went, Moses Deakin fired the fusil and pistols again and again in the air, and sent his stentorian voice ringing up among the trees, lifting brazen curses because neither his agent, who was a Creek chief, nor any other redskin appeared. If they had any message from the Star Woman, they would not dare go away until it was delivered; and while they would not camp at the feared bay itself, they would remain near by and keep out scouts to watch for Deakin.

Crawford, who was by this time well again save for his half-healed scalp, said naught of his own hopes but smiled to himself. He was looking forward eagerly to seeing the bark lie anchored in the harbour, and to meeting Frontin. Surely Frontin must hear those shots, and the ringing bellow of Deakin, and the wild yells in which the other men joined! As the five wended downstream, the huge Bostonnais glared at the thick forest which closed in everything, and cursed the Indians who did not appear.

"Why aren't the red devils on hand to meet us?" he roared forth at length, as they came to a bit of more open shore, girded by trees and brush. "They've never failed afore this! They bring down the furs, camp in a village somewhere near at hand, across the bay, and keep scouts posted for first sight o' me. Blood and wounds, where are the red dogs? Ahoy, ye rogues! Wake up!"

From the green trees that closed down like a wall, came a low and mocking burst of laughter. The five men halted and stared about in startled astonishment. Swift upon the heels of that laugh rose a voice in English.

"Thanks for warning us, Moses Deakin! At him, lads" The trees vomited powder-smoke, the roar of fusils echoed out, then a riot of figures came bursting forth from ambush. The man in front of Crawford fell, riddled by balls. The huge figure of Deakin swayed and tottered and crashed to earth; the man at Deakin's heels screamed out as a cutlass split his skull. Then Crawford and the other remaining man were down beneath a mass of assailants, and eager hands bound them fast. So swift and deadly was this assault that not a blow was struck in return.

Deakin, unconscious from a bullet that had raked across his brow, was bound and carried off; after him, Crawford and the other man were dragged. Crawford stared at his captors in stupefied bewilderment. Frontin, indeed! These were utter strangers, English by their talk, and in command of them one Captain Moon. The name struck Crawford with enlightenment. Aboard the prize, he had heard Smithsend mention the little brig Perry, under this same Captain Moon—an unit of the company's fleet which had presumably foundered in the straits.

When the party emerged from the trees and came out upon the shores of the landlocked harbour, Crawford stared yet harder. There, inside the north point, lay the broken wreck of a small ship, beyond doubt the Perry; she had split her keel on the outer rocks and had been swept inside, a total loss. Waiting beside the huge piles of salvaged barrels and goods were Indians—lordly Crees and men of the bay-shore tribes, a good fifty of them at least.

These were sitting about in a half-circle facing the shore and the wreck, and it became evident that Moon had interrupted a council to go and lay his ambush. Perhaps the redskins here assembled had been friends to Moses Deakin in other days, but now their prodigality of gewgaws and blankets showed that Moon had spent much of his precious salvage to win them over, and none of them moved from their serried rank to greet the Bostonnais.

Now Moon, after giving his men orders, went with his lieutenant to rejoin the waiting Indians. Deakin was placed against a tree and lashed fast to it, Crawford was dragged to another—and then Deakin's one surviving man broke free and made a dash for safety. He was shot down before he had gone twenty feet, and died there. Crawford offered no resistance, and was glad enough to be mistaken for one of Deakin's crew, lest worse befall him. If he were posted in Boston as a pirate, news of him must have reached London ere this. He stood bound to the tree and surveyed the scene before him, while Moses Deakin hung in his lashings, and the eighteen men who survived the wreck sat to one side talking and smoking, watching their officers parley with the redskins.

Moon, speaking in a mixture of French and English, demanded that the Indians supply him with canoes and guides down the coast, and that they follow him to Nelson with their beaver. There was some hitch about this. Crawford could not uncover it, nor could Moon, until at last a chief arose, threw aside his blanket, and spoke in excellent French.

"We have a message for the Big Bear," and he pointed to the figure of Moses Deakin. "We have traded with the Bostonnais because the Anglais have not come here. Now the Anglais have very strong medicine. They have destroyed the ship of the Big Bear, have killed his men, have captured him. We shall trade with them, and bring the packs of castor from our camp across the bay. But first we must give this message to the Big Bear. This message has been brought to the Crees from far away, by a chieftain of the Sauteurs or Chippewas, who had it from another nation called Nadouisioux. If this message is not delivered to the Big Bear, our father Kitchimanitou who lives in the sun will be displeased and will hide his face from us, because this message comes from his daughter the Star Woman."

At this name, Crawford started. Moon, who did not know what to make of this talk about a message, made a curt response.

"Big Bear is to be hanged."

"That is good," said the Cree chief. "But first let him receive this message, if he will accept it."

Moon had no choice but to obey, and ordered his men to revive the senseless Deakin. Crawford watched in wondering surmise. Beyond a doubt, then, the Star Woman was no Indian myth, but a real person! Deakin's insolent summons had gone to her, passed from tribe to tribe—and here was the answer to be delivered!

Now Moon strode over to the two captives, gave Crawford one curious glance, then turned his attention to Deakin. The latter, under the impact of icy water from the bay, was glaring and blinking around, helpless to move; a furious thing he was, and grim to behold, all his grizzled beard being dribbled and matted with blood from his wounded forehead. Moon stood laughing at him.

"It was kind of ye to give us warning wi' shot and shout!" he exclaimed. "Well, Moses Deakin, shalt have thy head lying in salt when we leave here; the company hath twenty pound on those moustachios. And why? For that broadside ye poured into us last year i' the straits, and killed poor Cap'n Allen—ay, into a royal navy ship too! Dost mind how ye slid out from among the bergs and poured in shot, and went scooning down the wind and away? Ay, and now that work is to cost ye a head."

The Bostonnais spat at his tormentor.

"That for ye, and the pox to boot!" he roared. "Ye'll never have my head! It's no hand of man can bring me to death, but only the gift of a woman" Deakin swallowed hard, then suddenly recollected everything. "Hark, cap'n! We be from the south, wi' great news. Iberville ha' whipped the company's fleet, and by now is master of Nelson"

"What else, liar?" exclaimed Moon, laughing.

"Nay, 'tis truth! Ask Crawford, here. And what hope have ye, with your ship gone? There is one man can guide ye out, can bring ye safe south again to Albany or New Severn—and that's Moses Deakin. Come, I'll bargain with ye"

Captain Moon roared with laughter, whereat Deakin lost temper and caused Moon to roar anew.

"Iberville indeed! There are no French on the bay, ye rascal pirate! If there were, they'd be soon enough swept away"

This disbelief maddened Deakin, who cursed and raved like a maniac, until presently the officer quieted him with a word.

"These redskins have a message for ye from one called the Star Woman. Do ye want it or not, afore we hang ye?"

Deakin stared, sobered suddenly, swallowed his wrath. "Be that truth?"

"Ay." Moon surveyed him curiously. "Who's this Star Woman?"

"Sink me if I know," growled Deakin, with a sidelong glance at Crawford. Moon shrugged, and ordered his men to loose both prisoners from the trees. This was done. Their arms were tied, and they were led to the circled ranks of red warriors, who met Deakin's glare with impassive countenances. Deakin and Crawford sat down, with Moon standing beside them. Behind clustered the company men, but at a little distance.

"Keep your mouths shut, now," warned Moon. "What's that chief getting his pipe for?"

"To smoke the sun," growled Deakin in reply.

The leading Cree chief produced a much-adorned calumet, and now proceeded to smoke the sun. This had nothing whatever to do with a peace smoke, and was only done on occasions of solemnity. Presenting the calumet thrice to the rising sun, he then held it aloft in both hands and with it followed the course of the sun in the sky, chanting a prayer for happiness and favour; this done, he smoked for a moment, and handed the pipe to another chief, who repeated the ceremony. Half a dozen chiefs in all went through this ritual, then the pipe was laid away. The Cree chief produced a bundle of close-tied pelts, and stood up to address Moses Deakin.

"Last year my brother Big Bear gave us a message to deliver. That message was delivered. Here is the answer to that message. The hands of my brother Big Bear are tied. I give this belt to the hand of my brother the Anglais, that he may bring it to the sight of Big Bear."

Moon stepped forward to take the roll of skins from the chief. At this moment Crawford, who was intent on the ceremony, was startled to catch the low voice of Deakin at his ear.

"Quick! When I grab 'un, kick fusils into water."

It was no time to question whatever desperate plan Deakin had in mind, or to ask how he was to grab any one with his arms bound. Crawford glanced around. He saw that the company men, grouped behind and to one side, had stacked their fusils in two piles at the edge of the water. The guns were but ten feet distant.

Crawford gathered his muscles in readiness to spring, and then waited, tensed.

Captain Moon took the bundle of skins from the chief, half turned, and stood frowning. Then he sat down so that Deakin was on one side of him and the circle of redskins on the other, unsheathed his knife, and cut the thongs that bound the skins.

"Ay," said Deakin, straining forward, his wide nostrils flaring. "Open it!"

The officer did so, to disclose inner wrappings of doeskin, likewise thonged. These gave place to yet a third wrapping—this time of soft, thick grey fur that drew from Moon an exclamation of astonishment. It was a white beaver pelt. The Indians, no less than the whites, were watching with intense interest, and from them came a chorus of grunts at sight of the white beaver. Then, as Moon drew this open, to disclose the heart of the whole business, white men and red stared in silence—the one in puzzled wonder, the other in comprehension.

The message from the Star Woman was a short, heavy arrow with fine thin head of barbed iron. The arrow was painted red. The insolent message of Moses Deakin had been answered, significantly enough, by a war-arrow.

"What's it mean?" demanded Moon, fingering it.

Deakin caught his breath for sheer rage, unable to speak. He knew well enough that all his dreaming had crashed down in this instant, with this response displayed to all eyes; he had hoped for a very different sort of message. Perhaps he had thought that, under its influence, the Indians would rise to his aid. Now, in those bronzed features circled around him, he saw only a stolid hostility. Big Bear had lost his medicine and the Anglais had overcome him; also the Star Woman had doomed him to death. The chiefs would shun this doomed creature, leave him to meet the fate which the dreaded Star Woman had decreed for him. That fate was death.

All this Moses Deakin beheld in the ring of faces, while Moon frowned down at the arrow and the white beaver pelt. Then, suddenly, the bloodshot eyes of Moses Deakin dilated. His face under the matted beard purpled, his brow pulsed with knotted veins, and his shoulders heaved up.

"Ready, Crawford!" burst from him, as the sea-rotted hemp burst away from his mighty arms. "Blood and wounds—got 'un!"

With one hand he seized Moon by the neck, drawing him close, and the other great paw gripped the knife in Moon's hand. Crawford, despite bound arms, shot to his feet.

No one save the watching, impassive Indians realized what was happening. The company men saw only Deakin seizing their skipper, while Crawford leaped up and darted to the piled fusils and began to kick them into the water. Then indeed the men sprang up cursing and shouting—but the brazen voice of Deakin bellowed out and held them motionless.

"One move, ye dogs, and your skipper dies!"

Lieutenant and men huddled there, staring, all adread, and no wonder. There seemed something frightful and unearthly about this shaggy, blood-smeared figure that had suddenly burst his bonds and uprisen like some prehistoric monster, holding or rather hugging, bear-fashion, the frantically writhing Captain Moon—gripping the man's whole throat in one gnarled paw, lifting him from his feet, glaring above him at the staring men. The Indians sat motionless, still tense from the sight of that war-arrow, holding themselves aloof.

"To me, Crawford!" rang out the stentorian voice.

Crawford, his task accomplished, now came back to the side of Deakin, while Moon's men dared not lift a finger lest the knife bite their skipper. To be a company captain meant much; each captain was to his men as a little god, something a trifle more than human, whose slightest word was law ordained. Now, with his knife, Deakin slashed the bonds of Crawford.

"Weapons—then to the trees."

Free, Crawford leaped at the men who gave back before him. From one he caught a hangar, from the gaping lieutenant a gold-decked rapier, perhaps brought out from London as a gift for Governor Bailey at Nelson. Then back to Deakin, now retreating slowly toward the trees, backing around the circle of intent redskins, snarling as he gripped his limp captive.

Then from the lieutenant burst horrified words.

"The cap'n—dead! At 'em—cut 'em off!"

Indeed, what had been Captain Moon was now a poor dead thing, head horribly askew in that fierce grip. Moses Deakin had defeated himself. The men's stupefaction fled. A yell broke from them and they flooded forward. Deakin dropped his victim, seized the hangar from Crawford.

"Too late!" he snarled. "Another minute"

Too late indeed; a pistol roared, and Deakin staggered as the ball hipped him. Crawford might have run for it, but that was not his way; a laugh broke on his lips and he halted. The Bostonnais, knife and cutlass in hand, stood like a bear at bay. Crawford made one desperate effort to stay the onrush.

"Hold, men! Your fleet's destroyed—Nelson is captured—your only chance is"

A howl of fury drowned his words and the company men closed in, wielding hangars, knives, clubbed muskets, anything and everything. Deakin's hand moved, and the knife sang through the air; the lieutenant, blade through gullet, pitched down and lay still.

Crawford saw why those fusils had been kicked into the water, for with the firearms the company men would have picked off the two and shot them down. Now, back to back, Deakin and Crawford met the rush with whistling cutlass and delicate rapier; as the maddened crowd closed in blindly, men died by point and edge, for the only cool heads there were the two who faced their doom unafraid. Rapier slithered in and out, hangar crashed and whirled and thudded again, and the laugh of Crawford echoed the roaring bellow of the Bostonnais. The ranks of redskins, leaping up, watched the fight with gleaming eyes and low grunts of astonishment.

The company men soon had enough of this, for three of them were gasping at death and others were reeling away; they fell back, yelling at one another to close in yet none caring to be the first. Deakin bawled a laugh at them, pressing one hand to his thigh, but Crawford, eyeing that ring of fierce faces, smiled thinly.

"Your prophecy was right, Deakin," he panted. "Had it not been for that gift from the Star Woman, we might have"

Deakin hurled curses at the watching chiefs who refused him aid, broke off short to dodge a hurled axe—and the circle was closing in again. This time more cautiously, clubbed fusils and bits of wreckage battering down while the holders stood beyond reach of hangar and rapier. One man came in too far, and Deakin split his skull—but a gun-butt struck the giant over the head and staggered him. Like wolves they leaped upon him and had him down, and the writhing, heaving mass of men went rolling across the sand.

Crawford, ringed in, stood alone. An oar swept at him. He dodged it, leaped into action, flung himself at the circle about him, rapier licking in and out and sending men to cough their lives out—but a cutlass clashed on the thin blade and slithered it. Then they dragged at him, overwhelmed him; but those men worked their own ill. Crowding too close to get in straight blows, they gave Crawford a chance to work free, and he seized it. Next instant he was on his feet, his fists hammering them back. From the sand he caught up a cutlass, broke through them, found himself clear. Clear, yes—but at the water's edge, with the icy bay behind him and the ring of sullen, fury-filled men closing him in.

They were content to let him rest there a moment, for into the edge of their circle burst the writhing heap of men above Deakin. Twice Deakin hurled them clear, and twice they were in upon him before he could rise. Then, streaming with blood, battered and blind and a fearful thing to see, the giant came to one knee, gripping a screaming man in either hand. Inarticulate bellows foaming from his red-frothed lips, Deakin tore out the throat of the man in his right hand, and yelled madly. The other man, shrieking in awful panic, caught something from the sand in groping fingers and drove it home. Deakin lifted his great red paw and struck the man down, then clutched at his breast. He fell backward, one terrible gasp breaking from his lips. From his breast stood out the red shaft of the Star Woman's gift. There died Moses Deakin of Boston.

From Crawford's throat pealed up the wild yell of the Iroquois, the war whoop of the Mohawk tribe:

"Sassakouay! Sassakouay!"

That yell lifted and swirled among the trees. The dread, well-known sound of it evoked a wild and startled response of whoops from the watching chieftains. At this, the circle of blood-maddened men hung back, thinking that the redskins were about to take them in the rear, but quickly regained confidence. They spat curses, and lifted weapons anew.

Crawford faced them, yet saw them not. He was spent, and knew it well, and queer visions came whirling at him as he reeled, dazed and battered. He saw the face of Iberville greet him with one flashing smile ere it faded; he saw Moses Deakin, wide-nostrilled, glaring upon him as the shade of Aias glared balefully upon the crafty Odysseus; he saw the faces of dead men whom he had known in other days, drawing in upon him, fading, passing away. And as he stood there, leaning dazedly upon the hangar, the Star of Dreams came out from his shirt and swayed. Sight of that green jewel halted the indrawing circle of men, halted them in sheer astonishment, held them staring for an instant. Then Crawford's vision cleared. He saw one wild ruffian heave up a fusil to drive down upon him—and with a laugh he whirled the hangar and sent it hurtling point first into the ruffian's breast.

Then they closed in upon him as he swayed, empty-handed. As they came, it seemed to him that he saw the face of Frontin, and heard the voice of Frontin ringing wildly in his ears. He took it for a welcoming to the other world—the world beyond the horizon—as he went down under the blows.