Drums Along the Mohawk (10 page)

“My God,” said Wolff, turning away.

“John Wolff,” said Weaver, fumbling for the proper words, “I’m going to arrest you.”

“Oh, my Jesus, John,” said Mrs. Wolff.

Weaver had to go back with the company, but he dismissed Gil and Reall. Reall had a little trouble on the way home, and lost the gin. But he said at parting that it was the best muster he ever attended.

Gil stopped at Weaver’s to pick up Lana and to tell Mrs. Weaver that George had had to take Wolff down to Herkimer.

Emma Weaver was not disturbed by the news. “Likely he’ll get back after dark,” she said. “I’m sorry, though, to hear about John Wolff. What’ll they do to him, Gil?”

“I don’t know, Mrs. Weaver. Where’s Lana?”

“She went home about an hour ago to get your supper ready.”

Gil was annoyed. “I told her to stay till I fetched her.”

“Now don’t get cross with her, Gil. She said you’d be tired and didn’t ought to have to wait. She’s a real good girl.”

“I don’t like having her alone.”

Mrs. Weaver smiled.

“You men all think a woman can’t take care of herself, don’t you? Well, we ain’t so frail. You think she’s so slim, and so pretty, and just about like a stem of grass when you lay hold of her, and you hate the idea of her being in that there cabin where anyone can get at her? Listen, mister, a lot more women get worked to death by their husbands than is killed by other men.”

It seemed a long way to his own turn-off. He was almost running when he came in sight of the cabin. He seemed for the first time to see how lonely the place looked. The small cabin, and the stump lot, and the ragged corn, and the swale out beyond.

When he opened the door, Lana was in front of the hearth, on which the fire had caught briskly. She started up at his entrance, smiling, her welcome in her eyes.

“Oh, Gil, I’m so glad you’re home.”

“Miss me?”

“Some.”

“Come here.”

She still held the spoon, covered with batter.

“You’re going to scold me, ain’t you?”

“Come here.”

She obeyed meekly.

He fished the green silk out of his pocket and put it round her neck.

“I ought to take you out back of the woodshed and shingle you proper.”

“Isn’t it beautiful? Oh, Gil, where did you get it?”

“The company marched up to Cosby’s. We had to break into Thompson’s house. Somebody had thrown this down when they was clearing out, as if they didn’t want it.” He felt shamefaced to tell her. “It’s hardly a real present. Only when I saw it I thought how pretty it would look on you.”

“Imagine leaving a thing like that. I wouldn’t; not if I was being driven out naked to the north pole. Oh, it’s lovely, Gil.”

She had no compunctions about wearing the thing.

“Look at those birds, those little white ones. Oh, look! Do you know what they are?”

“No.”

“They’re peacocks.”

“No!” exclaimed Gil. It made him feel better about the whole business. He put up his gun over the door and loosened his hatchet.

“You got supper ready?”

“Pretty near. I bet you’re hungry. You set down there on the stool and tell me what you did.”

He told her the whole business, seeing the Indians on the way down, mustering, the return, finding the place in the attic, and the discarded patch for a blind eye.

Lana turned white at the recital.

“Oh, Gil, supposing he’d been there! He might have killed you.”

“He wouldn’t dast shoot with all the rest downstairs. And I didn’t give him a chance to get hold of me.”

“I was afraid of that man in the tavern. He didn’t have a nice face. It wasn’t just the eye. It was all of him.”

Gil became serious.

“Suppose you’d found him here when you came home alone, Lana.”

“Him? What do you mean? What would he want here?”

“I don’t know, exactly. But this is the house furthest west in the valley except at Fort Stanwix.” He said very seriously, “You see, Lana, that’s what I meant about you waiting at Weaver’s.”

“I never thought. I will next time, Gil. It’s awful.” She returned to her cooking, speaking to him over her shoulder. Gil sat down and watched her. Even though they had been married more than a month now, she seemed like such a young girl. And for the moment he could see that she was afraid. “A man like him might be out in the woods this minute and you and I couldn’t tell it. Not till they came right to the door. And then there wouldn’t be anything we could do at all.”

“Lord,” he said. “You mustn’t get scared, Lana. Just because we arrested a man.”

“What will they do to him?”

“I don’t know.”

“I feel sorry for his wife. Maybe she felt the same way about you, the way I’d feel about that man.”

“I didn’t think of that. I guess she did. She looked scared.”

“And the Thompson people. They’d be mad if they found out who broke into their house. They’d be mad at us if they saw me now wearing this silk.”

“You don’t need to wear it, Lana.”

“I will, though. I don’t care. You thought of me when you saw it and I’d made up my mind you wouldn’t think about me all day.”

She smiled a little furtive sidelong smile, and rose from her crouch with the quick lithe movement Gil liked to see. “You can put the forks and spoons on the table, mister.”

They ate, sitting across from each other, Lana with her back to the door. They were nearly through their supper when Gil rose quietly and went round the table. He stood in the door, with his hand against the jamb, over his head, looking out.

“What is it, Gil?”

“Somebody’s coming.”

It was the mare, at the far end of the swale, that had caught his eye. She had thrown her head up. She was tossing it now, and snorting, though she was too far off for him to hear her. Then on the edge of the bushes near the river he saw a man. It was impossible to tell who or what he was, for he ducked back out of sight almost immediately. But the mare’s nose, swinging like a needle to a magnet, showed the man’s course. He was following the edge of the swale towards the house.

Lana crept up behind Gil.

“Who is it?”

“The mare acts like it was an Indian.”

“How do you mean?”

“See her stomp her hoof? She don’t like their smell.”

“Ain’t you going to shut the door, Gil?”

“No.”

“But you ain’t going to stand there in plain sight like that?”

“What’s got into you? You didn’t mind coming here alone, did you?”

She shook her head.

“I hadn’t thought.”

“Well, you needn’t act like a scared bitch just because a horse has seen a man.”

He didn’t turn around, and Lana stood stock-still, her hand halfway raised to her mouth, staring at him. After a moment she
backed quietly to her place at the table and sat down with her face between her hands. She didn’t say anything. But her eyes seemed to have enlarged.

Neither did Gil say anything. He kept his eyes on the swale and the edge of the creek bed, and he kept his hand over his head, within reach of the rifle. The only sound in the cabin was the everlasting low buzz of the flies.

To Lana the wait seemed unending. But she could not force herself to look at him. “He’s got no right to say such a thing to me. I wasn’t scared only for myself. If I was near home, he wouldn’t do it. I could go home if he did. But he knows I can’t up here.”

She showed no sign of tears. But her jaw set tight, and her eyes narrowed.

As for Gil, he didn’t think at all. All his energy was in his eyes, which he kept unwaveringly on the clearing.

He saw the man the instant the battered felt hat came up over the creek bank, only half a shot from the cabin door. As soon as he saw the crown of that hat, he relaxed. He said over his shoulder, “It’s Blue Back, Lana,” and stepped outdoors. “Hello there, Mr. Blue Back.”

The Indian climbed out of the creek bed and walked forward slowly with a grin on his broad face. He was obviously an old man, and he liked to go slow.

“How!” he gave Gil greeting. “You fine? I’m fine.” He shook hands with satisfaction.

“I haven’t seen you for a long time,” said Gil. “I’ve got married since I saw you last.”

“Yes?” said the Indian. “Got good woman?”

“Come and sit down inside and see her.”

“That’s fine,” said the Indian. He followed Gil through the cabin door.

Lana forced herself to get up and face him. She saw a brown
wrinkled face with dark eyes on which the lids seemed shrunk, a broad, rather flat nose, a simple grinning mouth.

Gil was standing at the Indian’s shoulder.

“Mr. Blue Back,” he said, “meet Mrs. Martin. Lana, this is Blue Back.” Just as if he were a white man.

The Indian had a paunch. He seemed to be pushing it out like a turkey cock. His face did not change, but he said, with great sincerity, “Fine.”

“How do you do?”

Lana bowed her head slightly. The man’s smell had already taken possession of the room. It was sweetish and greasy. If water had ever touched him, she thought, it had only been when wading the creek; and his moccasins showed how the dirt stuck to them afterwards.

He wore leggings, he had a battered skirt arrangement of deerskin with a few beads on the edge, and a weathered hunting shirt, which, if it had ever had a color, was now so greasy that it was impossible to tell. On his head was the felt hat, with a hole in the pointed crown through which the stem of a basswood leaf was sticking. He also carried a brown musket, a knife, and a hatchet.

“Fine,” he said again and sat down on the bench Lana had just risen from.

“Is there any milk left?” Gil asked her. “We haven’t any rum, but Blue Back likes milk fine. Don’t you?”

“Fine,” said the Indian, grinning and slapping his hand on his stomach. “Yes, fine.”

Lana threw Gil a glance, she didn’t care what he thought of it. The Indian’s feet were making muddy pools on her clean floor. And her stomach felt queasy. Then without a word she went out to the spring for their jug of milk. She brought it in and set it on the table.

“Get two cups,” said Gil. “And pour him some.”

Lana said, “You can pour it yourself.”

After one look at her scarlet face, Gil silently did so. He said nothing to her as she went up the ladder to the loft. Blue Back, apparently, took no notice, but fixed his brown eyes on the peacock’s feather. He obviously admired it, but said nothing. He accepted the cup of milk.

When he had finished drinking it, Gil asked, “What are you doing this way, Blue Back?”

It always amused him that the stout stodgy Indian had been named for the noisy blue jay.

“Looking for deer.” In his broken English, interspersed with innumerable “fines,” the Indian explained that he had been hunting over the Hazenclever hill. He had shot a doe which he had left in a tree down by the river to take home. He had a haunch there for Gil if Gil wanted it. But it had taken a long time.

He had found the tracks of two Seneca Indians. He thought they must have come from Cosby’s Manor. They had had a small fire and lain around on top of the hill all day. Then they had been joined by a man with shoes on. They had taken the trail for Oswego, he thought. He was going to take the doe home and then he was going up north and west for a scout. He wanted to tell Gil that if he saw two fires on the hill at night, he had better look out. Gil could tell Captain Demooth. Blue Back, in explanation, went on to say that he had heard that the Senecas had sent word to the Oneidas that a party might come down to the head of the valley soon and the Oneidas were to mind their business.

“Thanks for letting me know,” Gil said.

Blue Back said it was all right. “Like you. Fine friends. Me. you. Fine.” He finished his second cup and got up.

“I’ll come for that deer meat,” said Gil.

He accompanied the Indian down to the river where the doe
had been hung in a willow crotch. The Indian butchered off a hind leg and then turned aside and after some search selected a willow switch. This he peeled and handed to Gil.

“Got fine woman. You young man. You use this on her. Indian don’t need it. English man do. I know. I old man. You lick her. She fine woman.”

He beamed at this indication of his own sophistication in the matter of white man’s culture, shouldered the carcass of the doe and took to the ford.

Feeling very foolish, Gil wiggled the switch and watched him cross the river. It was annoying that Lana had had the poor taste to get up a mad before a guest, even if he was an Indian. Perhaps the greasy old fellow was right, and she needed discipline to take her mind off herself. It made Gil unhappy that he should have noticed.

Gil walked round the outside of his cabin, taking a piece of flannel from the woodshed on his way. He wrapped the haunch of venison in this and hung it from a branch over the spring where it was cool. He thought he heard Lana in the kitchen, but if she was she was working in the dark. At any rate, when he returned, she was not downstairs.

He saw that she had cleaned up the supper things and washed the two cups he and Blue Back had used. She must have gone back up to bed.

He sat down in the dark by the table, wondering what he
ought to say to her. He was half angry, half nettled; and yet he felt sorry for her, too. It was the first time he had wished that they lived close to neighbors, for he would have liked to be able to get the advice of George Weaver, or even of Emma. He did not know what a man ought to do.

Whatever was the matter with her, she had no business talking and acting the way she had before anyone he chose to bring into his house. But on the other hand she had been frightened just before, and a frightened woman could not rightly be held responsible for much, he supposed.

It seemed very serious to Gil. To him it was the kind of thing that shouldn’t be let pass. He should not just go up to bed without having it out, and discovering, if he could, what was wrong in her mind. Their whole future life might hinge on what he did. And then it occurred to him what a silly business it was, and he got up angrily from the table.

He didn’t light the tallow dip. He took his shoes off in the dark and felt his way upstairs.