Chapter Fourteen
Su-Wa-Nee
Beyond doubt, the dark form was that of a woman – a young one too, as evinced by her erect bearing, and a light agile movement, made at the moment of our first beholding her. Her attire was odd. It consisted of a brownish-coloured tunic – apparently of doeskin leather – reaching from the neck to the knees; underneath which appeared leggings of like material, ending in mocassins that covered the feet. The arms, neck, and head were entirely bare; and the colour of the skin, as seen in the moonlight, differed from that of the outer garments only in being a shade or two darker! The woman, therefore, was not white, but an Indian: as was made further manifest by the sparkling of beads and bangles around her neck, rings in her ears, and metal circlets upon her arms – all reflecting the light of the moon in copious coruscations. As I brought my horse to a halt, I perceived that the figure was advancing towards us, and with rapid step. My steed set his ears, and snorted with affright. The jade of the hunter had already given the example – each, no doubt, acting under the impulse of the rider. Mine was a feeling of simple astonishment. Such an apparition in that place, and at that hour, was sufficient cause for surprise; but a more definite reason was, my observing that a different emotion had been roused in the breast of the young hunter. His looks betrayed fear, rather than surprise! “Fear of what?” I asked myself, as the figure advanced; and still more emphatically as it came near enough to enable me to make out the face. As far as the moonlight would permit me to judge, there was nothing in that face to fray either man or horse: certainly nothing to create an emotion, such as was depicted in the countenance of my companion.
The complexion was brown, as already observed; but the features, if not of the finest type, were yet comely enough to attract admiration; and they were lit up by a pair of eyes, whose liquid glance rivalled the sheen of the golden pendants sparkling on each side of them. I should have been truly astonished at the behaviour of my guide, but for the natural reflection, that there was some cause for it, yet unknown to me. Evidently, it was not his first interview with the forest maiden: for I could now perceive that the person who approached was not exactly a woman, but rather a well-grown girl on the eve of womanhood. She was of large stature, nevertheless, with bold outline of breast, and arms that gave token of something more than feminine strength. In truth, she appeared possessed of a physique sufficiently formidable to inspire a cowardly man with fear – had such been her object – but I could perceive no signs of menace in her manner. Neither could cowardice be an attribute of my travelling-companion. There was an unexplained something, therefore, to account for his present display of emotion.
On arriving within six paces of the heads of our horses, the Indian paused, as if hesitating to advance. Up to this time, she had not spoken a word. Neither had my companion – beyond a phrase or two that had involuntarily escaped him, on first discovering her presence in the glade. “She here? an’ at this time o’ night!” I had heard him mutter to himself; but nothing more, until the girl had stopped, as described. Then, in a low voice, and with a slightly trembling accent, he pronounced interrogatively, the words “Su-wa-nee?” It was the name of the Indian maiden; but there was no reply.
“Su-wa-nee!” repeated he, in a louder tone, “is it you?”
The answer was also given interrogatively, “Has the White Eagle lost his eyes, by gazing too long on the pale-faced fair ones of Swampville? There is light in the sky, and the face of Su-wa-nee is turned to it. Let him look on it: it is not lovely like that of the half-blood, but the White Eagle will never see that face again.”
This declaration had a visible effect on the young hunter: the shade of sadness deepened upon his features: and I could hear a sigh, with difficulty suppressed – while, at the same time, he appeared desirous of terminating the interview.
“It’s late, girl,” rejoined he, after a pause: “what for are ye here?”
“Su-wa-nee is here for a purpose. For hours she has been waiting to see the White Eagle. The soft hands of the pale-faced maidens have held him long.”
“Waitin’ to see me! What do you want wi’ me?”
“Let the White Eagle send the stranger aside. Su-wa-nee must speak to him alone.”
“Thar’s no need o’ that: it’s a friend that’s wi’ me.”
“Would the White Eagle have his secrets known? There are some he may not wish even a friend to hear. Su-wa-nee can tell him one that will crimson his cheeks like the flowers of the red maple.”
“I have no saycrets, girl – none as I’m afraid o’ bein’ heerd by anybody.”
“What of the half-blood?”
“I don’t care to hear o’ her.”
“The White Eagle speaks falsely! He does care to hear. He longs to know what has become of his lost Marian. Su-wa-nee can tell him.”
The last words produced an instantaneous change in the bearing of the young hunter. Instead of the repelling attitude, he had hitherto observed towards the Indian girl, I saw him bend eagerly forward – as if desirous of hearing what she had to say. Seeing that she had drawn his attention, the Indian again pointed to me, and inquired: “Is the pale-faced stranger to know the love-secrets of the White Eagle?”
I saw that my companion no longer desired me to be a listener. Without waiting for his reply, I drew my horse’s head in the opposite direction, and was riding away. In the turning, I came face to face with him; and by the moonlight shining full over his countenance, I fancied I could detect some traces of mistrust still lingering upon it. My fancy was not at fault: for, on brushing close past him, he leaned over towards me, and, in an earnest manner, muttered: “Please, stranger! don’t go fur – thar’s danger in this girl. She’s been arter me before.” I nodded assent to his request; and, turning back into the little bay, that formed the embouchure of the path, I pulled up under the shadow of the trees.
At this point I was not ten paces from the hunter, and could see him; but a little clump of white magnolias prevented me from seeing the girl – at the same time that it hid both myself and horse from her sight. The chirrup of the cicadas alone hindered me from hearing all of what was said; but many words reached my ear, and with sufficient distinctness, to give me a clue to the subject of the promised revelation. Delicacy would have prompted me to retire a little farther off; but the singular caution I had received from my companion, prevented me from obeying its impulse.
I could make out that a certain Marian was the subject of the conversation; and then more distinctively, that it was Marian Holt. Just as I expected, the daughter of my squatter: that other and older one, of whom mention had been already made. This part of the revelation was easily understood: since I was already better than half prepared for it. Equally easy of comprehension was the fact, that this Marian was the sweetheart of my travelling companion —had been, I should rather say; for, from what followed, I could gather that she was no longer in the neighbourhood; that some months before she had left it, or been carried away – spirited off in some mysterious manner, leaving no traces of the why or whither she had gone. Nearly all this I had conjectured before: since the young hunter had half revealed it to me by his manner, if not by words. Now, however, a point or two was added to my previous information relating to the fair Marian. She was married. Married – and to some odd sort of man, of whom the Indian appeared to speak slightingly. His name I could make out to be Steevens, or Steebins, or something of the sort – not very intelligible by the Indian’s mode of pronouncing it – and, furthermore, that he had been a schoolmaster in Swampville.
During the progress of the dialogue, I had my eye fixed on the young hunter. I could perceive that the announcement of the marriage was quite new to him; and its effect was as that of a sudden blow. Of course, equally unknown to him had been the name of the husband; though from the exclamatory phrase that followed, he had no doubt had his conjectures.
“O God!” he exclaimed, “I thort so – the very man to a’ done it. Lord ha’ mercy on her!” All this was uttered with a voice hoarse with emotion. “Tell me!” continued he, “whar are they gone? Ye say ye know!”
The shrill screech of a tree-cricket, breaking forth at that moment, hindered me from hearing the reply. The more emphatic words only reached me, and these appeared to be “Utah” and “Great Salt Lake.” They were enough to fix the whereabouts of Marian Holt and her husband.
“One question more!” said the rejected lover hesitatingly, as if afraid to ask it. “Can ye tell me – whether – she went willingly, or whether – thar wan’t some force used? – by her father, or some un else? Can ye tell me that, girl?”
I listened eagerly for the response. Its importance can be easily understood by one who has sued in vain – one who has wooed without winning. The silence of the cicada favoured me; but a long interval passed, and there came not a word from the lips of the Indian.
“Answer me, Su-wa-nee!” repeated the young man in a more appealing tone. “Tell me that, and I promise – ”
“Will the White Eagle promise to forget his lost love? Will he promise – ”
“No, Su-wa-nee; I cannot promise that: I can niver forget her.”
“The heart can hate without forgetting.”
“Hate her? hate Marian? No! no!”
“Not if she be false?”
“How do I know that she war false? You haven’t told me whether she went willin’ly or agin her consent.”
“The White Eagle shall know then. His gentle doe went willingly to the covert of the wolf —willingly, I repeat. Su-wa-nee can give proof of her words.”
This was the most terrible stroke of all. I could see the hunter shrink in his saddle, a death-like pallor over-spreading his cheeks, while his eyes presented the glassy aspect of despair.
“Now!” continued the Indian, as if taking advantage of the blow she had struck, “will the White Eagle promise to sigh no more after his false mistress? Will he promise to love one that can be true?”
There was an earnestness in the tone in which these interrogatories were uttered – an appealing earnestness – evidently prompted by a burning headlong passion. It was now the turn of her who uttered them, to wait with anxiety for a response. It came at length – perhaps to the laceration of that proud heart: for it was a negative to its dearest desire.
“No, no!” exclaimed the hunter confusedly. “Impossible eyther to hate or forget her. She may a been false, an’ no doubt are so; but it’s too late for me: I can niver love agin.”
A half-suppressed scream followed this declaration, succeeded by some words that appeared to be uttered in a tone of menace or reproach. But the words were in the Chicasaw tongue, and I could not comprehend their import.
Almost at the same instant, I saw the young hunter hurriedly draw back his horse – as if to get out of the way. I fancied that the crisis had arrived, when my presence might be required. Under this belief, I touched my steed with the spur, and trotted out into the open ground. To my astonishment, I perceived that the hunter was alone. Su-wa-nee had disappeared from the glade!
Chapter Fifteen
Making a Clean Breast of it
“Where is she? – gone?” I mechanically asked, in a tone that must have betrayed my surprise.
“Yes – gone! gone! an’ wi’ a Mormon!”
“A Mormon?”
“Ay, stranger, a Mormon – a man wi’ twenty wives! God forgi’ her! I’d rather heerd o’ her death!”
“Was there a man with her? I saw no one.”
“O stranger, excuse my talk – you’re thinkin’ o’ that ere Injun girl. ’Taint her I’m speakin’ about.”
“Who then?”
The young hunter hesitated: he was not aware that I was already in possession of his secret; but he knew that I had been witness of his emotions, and to declare the name would be to reveal the most sacred thought of his heart. Only for a moment did he appear to reflect; and then, as if relieved from his embarrassment, by some sudden determination, he replied:
“Stranger! I don’t see why I shedn’t tell ye all about this bisness. I don know the reezun, but you’ve made me feel a kind o’ confidence in you. I know it’s a silly sort o’ thing to fall in love wi’ a handsum girl; but if ye’d only seen her!”
“I have no doubt, from what you say, she was a beautiful creature,” – this was scarcely my thought at the moment – “and as for falling in love with a pretty girl, none of us are exempt from that little weakness. The proud Roman conqueror yielded to the seductions of the brown-skinned Egyptian queen; and even Hercules himself was conquered by a woman’s charms. There is no particular silliness in that. It is but the common destiny of man.”
“Well, stranger, it’s been myen; an’ I’ve hed reezun to be sorry for it. But it’s no use tryin’ to shet up the stable arter the hoss’s been stole out o’t. She are gone now; an’ that’s the end o’ it. I reckon I’ll niver set eyes on her agin.”
The sigh that accompanied this last observation, with the melancholy tone in which it was uttered, told me that I was talking to a man who had truly loved.
“No doubt,” thought I, “some strapping backwoods wench has been the object of his passion,” – for what other idea could I have about the child of a coarse and illiterate squatter? “Love is as blind as a bat; and this red-haired hoyden has appeared a perfect Venus in the eyes of the handsome fellow – as not unfrequently happens. A Venus with evidently a slight admixture of the prudential Juno in her composition. The young backwoodsman is poor; the schoolmaster perhaps a little better off; in all probability not much, but enough to decide the preference of the shrewd Marian.”
Such were my reflections at the moment, partly suggested by my own experience.
“But you have not yet told me who this sweetheart was? You say it is not the Indian damsel you’ve just parted with?”
“No, stranger, nothin’ o’ the kind: though there are some Injun in her too. ’Twar o’ her the girl spoke when ye heerd her talk o’ a half-blood. She aint just that – she’s more white than Injun; her mother only war a half-blood – o’ the Chicasaw nation, that used to belong in these parts.”
“Her name?”
“It war Marian Holt. It are now Stebbins, I s’pose! since I’ve jest heerd she’s married to a fellow o’ that name.”
“She has certainly not improved her name.”
“She are the daughter o’ Holt the squatter – the same whar you say you’re a-goin’. Thar’s another, as I told ye; but she’s a younger un. Her name’s Lilian.”
“A pretty name. The older sister was very beautiful you say?”
“I niver set eyes on the like o’ her.”
“Does the younger one resemble her?”
“Ain’t a bit like her – different as a squ’ll from a coon.”
“She’s more beautiful, then?”
“Well, that depends upon people’s ways o’ thinkin’. Most people as know ’em liked Lilian the best, an’ thort her the handsumest o’ the two. That wan’t my notion. Besides, Lilly’s only a young crittur – not out o’ her teens yit.”
“But if she be also pretty, why not try to fall in love with her? Down in Mexico, where I’ve been lately, they have a shrewd saying: Un clavo saca otro clavo, meaning that ‘one nail drives out another’ – as much as to say, that one love cures another.”
“Ah, stranger! that may be all be very well in Mexico, whar I’ve heerd they ain’t partickler about thar way o’ lovin’: but we’ve a sayin’ here jest the contrairy o’ that: ‘two bars can’t get into the same trap.’”
“Ha, ha, ha! Well your backwoods proverb is perhaps the truer one, as it is the more honest. But you have not yet told me the full particulars of your affair with Marian? You say she has gone away from the neighbourhood?”
“You shall hear it all, stranger. I reckon thar can be no harm in tellin’ it to you; an’ if you’ve a mind to listen, I’ll make a clean breast o’ the whole bisness.”
The hunter proceeded with his revelation – to him, a painful one – and, although I had already divined most of the particulars, I interrupted him only with an occasional interrogative. The story was as I had anticipated. He had been in love with Marian Holt; and was under the impression that she returned it. She had given him frequent meetings in the forest – in that very glade where we had encountered the Indian girl, and in which we were still lingering. Her father was not aware of these interviews. There had been some coolness between him and the young hunter; and the lovers were apprehensive that he might not approve of their conduct. This was the prologue of the hunter’s story. The epilogue I give in his own words: “’Twar a mornin’ – jest five months ago – she had promised to meet me here – an’ I war seated on yonder log waitin’ for her. Jest then some Injuns war comin’ through the gleed. That girl ye saw war one o’ ’em. She had a nice bullet-pouch to sell, an’ I bought it. The girl would insist on puttin’ it on; an’ while she war doin’ so, I war fool enough to gie her a kiss. Some devil hed put it in my head. Jest at that minnit, who shed come right into the gleed but Marian herself! I meant nothin’ by kissin’ the Injun; but I s’pose Marian thort I did: she’d already talked to me ’bout this very girl; an’ I believe war a leetle bit jealous o’ her – for the Injun ain’t to say ill-lookin’. I wanted to ’pologise to Marian; but she wouldn’t listen to a word; an’ went off in a way I niver seed her in before. ’Twar the last time I ever set eyes on her.”
“Indeed.”
“Ay, stranger, an’ it’s only this minnit, an’ from that same Injun girl, that I’ve heard she’s married, an’ gone off to the Mormons. The Injuns had it from some o’ her people, that seed Marian a crossin’ the parairies.”
“That Indian damsel – Su-wa-nee, I think you named her – what of her?”
“Ah! stranger, that’s another o’ the konsequences o’ doin’ what aint right. Since the day I gin her that kiss, she’d niver let me alone, but used to bother me every time I met her in the woods; an’ would a come arter me to my own cabin, if it hadn’t been for the dogs, that wud tar an Injun to pieces. She war afeerd o’ them but not o’ me, no matter how I thraitened her. I war so angry wi’ her, for what had happened – though arter all, ’twar more my fault than hern – but I war so vexed wi’ her about the ill-luck, that I used to keep out o’ her way as well as I could, an’ didn’t speak to her for a long time. She got riled ’bout that, an’ thraitened revenge; an’ one night, as I war comin’ from Swampville, ’bout this time – only ’twar as dark as a pot o’ pitch – I war jest ridin’ out into this very gleed, when all o’ a suddint my ole hoss gin a jump forrard, an I feeled somethin’ prick me from behind. ’Twar the stab o’ some sort o’ a knife, that cut me a leetle above the hip, an’ made me bleed like a buck. I know’d who did it; tho’ not that night – for it war so dark among the bushes, I couldn’t see a steim. But I kim back in the mornin’, and seed tracks. They war the tracks o’ a mocassin. I know’d ’em to be hern.”
“Su-wa-nee’s tracks?”
“Sartin. I know’d ’em well enough, as I’d often seed her tracks through the crik bottom.”
“Did you take no steps to punish her?”
“Well – no – I didn’t.”
“How is that? I think it would have been prudent of you to have done something – if only to prevent a recurrence of the danger.”
“Well, stranger! to tell truth, I war a leetle ashamed o’ the whole bisness. Had it been a man, I’d a punished him; but they do say the girl’s in love wi’ me, arter her Injun way; an’ I didn’t like to be revengeful. Besides it war mostly my own fault: I had no bisness to a fooled wi’ her.”
“And you think she will not trouble you again?”
“I don know about that, arter what’s happened the night. She’s gone away thraitnin’ agin. I did think she’d gin up the notion o’ revenge: for she know’d I’d found out that ’twar her that stabbed me. I told her so, the next time I seed her; an’ she ’peared pleased ’bout my not havin’ her ta’en up. She said it war generous of the White Eagle – that’s the name her people gies me – for thar’s a gang o’ them still livin’ down the crik. She gin me a sort of promise she wouldn’t trouble me agin; but I warn’t sure o’ her. That’s the reezun, stranger, I didn’t want ye to go fur away.”
“I think it would be prudent in you to keep well on your guard. This redskin appears to be rather an unreflecting damsel; and, from what you have told me, a dangerous one. She certainly has a strange way of showing her affection; but it must be confessed, you gave her some provocation; and as the poet says, ‘Hell knows no fury like a woman scorned.’”
“That’s true, stranger!”
“Her conduct, however, has been too violent to admit of justification. You appear to have been unfortunate in your sweethearts – with each in an opposite sense. One loves you too much, and the other apparently not enough! But how is it you did not see her again – Marian I mean!”
“Well, you understand, I wan’t on the best of tarms wi’ old Hick Holt, an’ couldn’t go to his clarin’. Besides after what had happened. I didn’t like to go near Marian anyhow – leastway for a while. I thort it would blow over ’s soon’s she’d find out that E war only jokin’ wi’ the Injun.”
“So one would have supposed.”
“’Twar nigh two weeks afore I heerd anything o’ her; then I larned that she war gone away. Nobody could tell why or whar, for nobody knew, ’ceptin Hick Holt hisself; an’ he ain’t the sort o’ man to tell saycrets. Lord o’ mercy! I know nowt an’ it’s worse than I expected. I’d sooner heerd she war dead.”
A deep-drawn sigh, from the very bottom of his soul, admonished me that the speaker had finished his painful recital.
I had no desire to prolong the conversation. I saw that, silence would be more agreeable to my companion; and, as if by a mutual and tacit impulse, we turned our horses’ heads to the path, and proceeded onward across the glade.
As we were about entering the timber on the other side, my guide reined up his horse; and sat for a moment gazing upon a particular spot – as if something there had attracted his attention.
What? There was no visible object – at least, none that was remarkable – on the ground, or elsewhere!
Another sigh, with the speech that followed, explained the singularity of his behaviour, “Thar!” said he, pointing to the entrance of the forest-path – “thar’s the place whar I last looked on Marian!”