Drums Along the Mohawk (37 page)

Let the damn hen squawk. The doctor grinned a little and the old horse pricked his ears and turned for the ford. They were home in half an hour; the horse amiably waiting while Doc uncreaked his weary legs and got them off, and then taking
his own way to the barn. The doctor let him go. He entered his kitchen, carrying the bag, and sniffed at the pot on the fire. “What is it?” he asked the negro woman. “Dat’s rabbit stew”—with turnips and cider vinegar and flour gravy thickening in the pan to a dark, rich, voluptuous brown.

“Bring me a glass of the Kingston rum,” said the doctor, “and here’s a hen for you to mind.”

The negress, eager for something new, made little soothing sounds as she cautiously opened the sack.

“You ain’t been ’busin’ her, has you, Doc? She lay so daid. My Lawd, de messin’es’ bird. My Lawd! Oh, de poor perty … Watch out! You make any of dem desperate messes in mah kitchen and you’s gwine to fin’ yo’se’f de makin’s of de gravy, chickun!” Her black hand had the pullet by the neck.

The doctor chuckled, and went to the store to enter a note in his ledger against the government. He was writing it down in his careful hand:—

A knock on the store door startled him. The evening was already growing dark, but he could hear a timid hand fiddling with the latchstring. “Come in,” he called.

The door opened and closed quickly at the farther end of the store, and the doctor said heavily, “I don’t see people this time of day.”

The woman stopped short, timidly. He peered at her. But she wore her shawl all the way over her head.

“Who the devil are you?” he demanded.

“I’m Nancy Schuyler.” Her voice was hushed and breathless.
“I know it ain’t the time to come and see you; but Captain had to go to the fort after supper and Missis went with him; she wanted the air.”

“Well, girl, what’s that got to do with it?”

“I didn’t want them to know I was here.”

“Oh,” he said. He began grumbling half aloud, something about the old business, and a man having supper, and he supposed he ought to look. “Well, what’s the matter?” he asked aloud.

Nancy was flushing inside her shawl so painfully she thought something in her would burst. But at his question she turned white.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I’ve been being sick. Sometimes I can’t hardly get to do my work in the mornings. But I don’t know.”

The doctor groaned and heaved himself out of his chair. He went to the windows one by one, closing the shutters, and then pulled in the latchstring. Then he took a sulphur wick and went out into the kitchen and lit it at the fire, and came back and lit the lamp on the counter. He cleared away some blankets, a jar of bear grease, a pot of bean seeds, and some Indian beads.

“Well,” he said roughly, “get up on it.”

Nancy was trembling so badly that she hardly had the strength to get up on the counter and lie down. When he touched her she shivered convulsively.

“That’s all,” said the doctor, going behind the counter to a pail and basin and starting to wash his hands, giving her time to get down and straighten herself out. “When did it happen?”

“In August,” said Nancy in a hushed voice.

“
When?
I said.”

“I don’t know. It was the day they arrested Hon.”

“Was it one of them?”

She nodded. He glared down at her through his frowning
long-haired brows. She was so damn good-looking and there were times when she almost looked intelligent. As now, when she was worried; the way she lifted her chin at him, chewing at her lip. “How in God’s name did he get at you at Demooth’s?”

“I went up to Shoemaker’s that night.”

“Where were you when we got there?”

“Out back of the barn.”

“I bet.”

Nancy didn’t notice.

“He got away, they never heard him, but they chased me.”

“Then you were the fellow they chased down over the fields? They shot at you?” Nancy nodded, and the doctor breathed through his nose. “They said it was a heavy man, about six foot tall, with long black hair! You must have run like blind destruction.”

“I was scared.”

“What are you going to do about this, Nancy?”

She was silent.

“You want that I should straighten it out, hey? Well, who was the fellow did it?”

“Jurry McLonis,” she said in a hushed voice.

The doctor swore.

“That black-complected Mick, eh?”

“He was nice to me,” Nancy said.

“He seems to have been. Well, there’s no way I can get hold of him that I can see. He’s probably in Niagara, Oswego at the nearest. I guess you’ll have to button up and make the best kind of a job you can. I’ll see Captain Demooth, if you like. You went up to find Hon, of course, and then this fellow took advantage of you.” He was sarcastic.

Her eyes filled with tears.

“I did. But he didn’t, Doctor. It just was.”

“You’d like to marry him if I can get hold of him?”

“Yes, Doctor.”

“Well, I’ll see what I can do. Now get out. I want some rest. I’ve ridden thirty miles to-day.” He put his hand on her shoulder, marching her to the door.

“But, Doctor?”

“Well …”

“You didn’t say was I going to have a baby?”

“What do you think I was talking to you about? Yes. Yes. Yes!”

“Thank you, Doctor. When will it?”

“It takes nine months.” He counted his fingers savagely just in front of her face. “May.”

“It wouldn’t be sooner?” she asked eagerly.

“Hell, no. The insides of a girl like you are just like a clock. Say May thirteenth at half-past twelve at night.” He pushed her through the door, slammed it after her, and went back to his chair and called to Chloe. “Chloe, bring that rum here and then get me another glass ready. I’ll drink the second one in there.”

“Yes,
suh
!”

Chloe came sweeping in behind her bosom, the little finger of the hand that carried the glass cocked doggily. “Missis say supper’s ready when you is.” God help all doctors.

“Yes, Chloe. I want to sit down first. Here. And then by the fire. I want to edge up to eating.”

“Yes, suh!” Chloe whipped her huge bulk away with her uncanny nimbleness. The doctor sipped his glass. The door was tapped.

“Who’s that?” roared the doctor.

A woman answered. He didn’t recognize the voice. “Go away,” he shouted. Then he was ashamed. If he hadn’t been so tired he could have sent her away, but being so tired he couldn’t defend himself. He would work himself to death.

“Wait a minute,” he shouted, and closed the door into the house. Then he opened the store door.

“I didn’t mean to disturb you, Doctor.”

He peered into the darkness. “Who is it?”

“Magdelana Martin, Doctor.”

His face cleared suddenly. Of course, Martin’s pretty wife. A bright girl. It would be fun having her after that half-animal half-wit. “Come in, Mrs. Martin. You mustn’t mind my growls. Did you want to see me about yourself?”

“Yes, doctor. But it won’t take long.”

“Well, come and sit down. Do you like egg and rum? Never tried it? Where were you brought up? Taste some of my glass.”

Lana obligingly bent forward towards his hand. It pleased him to hold something to her lips. She took it like a bird. He began to feel sentimental.

“Like it?”

Lana nodded.

“Chloe. Bring that second glass.”

“Oh no, thanks, Doctor.”

“Do you good.”

“I oughtn’t to now. That’s what I came to see you about.” She looked at him frankly. “I’m pregnant, Doctor, and I want to find out if after—after that time, I ought to be especially careful about anything.”

“Lord, no. You’re all right. If you want it.”

“Yes, I do.”

“That’s fine. I’m eternally glad, I tell you. I was sorry about you. It’s the best thing. It’s woman’s natural function, Mrs. Martin, and you’re a fine healthy girl. When do you expect it?”

Lana, remembering, colored slightly; but she smiled at the same time.

“Sometime after the first week in May.”

The doctor didn’t even swear. He just popped out his eyes and stared.

He looked so funny that Lana started laughing.

“I must be kind of a ghost.”

“Oh, no. No, indeed.” He cleared his throat. “It just happens another girl is expecting almost the identical time. She was in just before you and I’m beginning to wonder what’s been going on with my patients.” He glanced at her. “Will you be round this district, then?”

“Yes. Gil said we’d stay till the baby was born. He seems so pleased.” Her lips trembled. “Oh, Doctor, I feel as if I’d just begun living again.”

“Yes, yes.” Chloe knocking, he called her in. “Give that to Mrs. Martin. Drink it, girl. It’s a good thing to celebrate with. Here’s to Gilly or Magdelana second. Or both!” He laughed.

Lana laughed and drank with him.

“Afterwards, Gil talks about our moving back to Deerfield. He thinks we might get back in time to get our spring corn in. The Weavers will go with us.”

“Fine,” he said. “Fine. How’s your husband, by the way? Arm troubling him any?”

“Not a bit. He came down to meet Captain Demooth at the fort. We thought it might be about their taking Burgoyne, and I walked along hoping I’d see you.

“We ought to be having news.”

He showed her out and sat down again. A fine girl. He was feeling better. He was going to have a busy spring, though. Very busy. Well, he might as well get in to supper.

He went in and kissed his wife dutifully and Chloe served them. He was just starting on the rabbit stew when Demooth appeared.

“Doc,” he said. “Can you come down to Ellis’s at the falls? Right now. I said I’d drive you down.”

“What’s the matter, Mark?”

“There’s been trouble in Jerseyfield. You know that man George Mount who wouldn’t move down when St. Leger was at Oriskany?”

Petry nodded and stuffed his mouth full.

“Well, I saw him in Ellis’s a few days ago. He’d brought his wife down to buy some things at Paris’s. They were gone from home a week, and they’d left the two boys there with his nigger. Well, he went back. He found his place burned and the two lads scalped. One of them was still alive and he brought him out with the nigger. They hadn’t touched the nigger. The boy’s only seven and they say he can’t live, but Mount wondered whether you’d come down.”

The doctor dropped a morsel of rabbit.

He stared like a fish.

Then he wiped his mouth, and spoke slowly, “It isn’t over, then.”

Demooth’s face was drawn and bitter.

“It was two Indians that used to stay with Mount. Caderoque and Hess. The nigger recognized them. There were some white men in the same party. They didn’t do any scalping. They only shot the first boy.”

“Did the nigger recognize any of them?”

“He recognized Suffrenes Casselman. And he said the head man was called Caldwell.”

John Wolff had been in Newgate Prison for over a year, but he wasn’t sure himself how long it was. He seemed to have lost the sense of time. There were days when he couldn’t have said offhand whether it was
to-day
, or
yesterday
; they were days beyond track.

Sometimes he would catch himself saying the days of the week, “
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday
 …” Or the months of the year. There were many things he used to say. “
Lucy Locket, lost her pocket
 …” Sometimes he would wake up some of the near-by prisoners and they would throw odd pieces of rock at his bed and yell. It was awful when the men yelled. It started the echoes whirling in the high air shaft, seventy feet high. It was fifty feet across at the bottom, they said, though you couldn’t find that out by pacing because the water lapped against the far side. But at the top the shaft was four feet across with an iron grating fixed into the stone; and what with the smoke from the charcoal braziers one could hardly tell where the sun was in the sky, except at noon. A little before and a little after summer solstice, you could
see the sun itself upon the grating if you waded out into the water far enough. You could even imagine a faint warmth from it on your head. John Wolff had felt it, and the next man, walking out, felt it also, but he started a convulsion, and they had to haul him out of the water for fear he would drown.

But when the men started yelling and got the echoes going, it used to make John Wolff feel sick. The voices would start picking each other up, catching and passing each other, and coming up and down, until the echoes managed to acquire individual personality of their own, having echoes of their own, and the echoes had echoes, and it went on and on, a bedlam that wouldn’t die even when the trapdoor opened above the iron ladder and the guard looked down and yelled back furiously. Then the men would work on the echoes and a queer singsong rise and fall would be worked out that, even after everyone was tired, kept the echoes working endlessly.

It was like the eternal drip of water magnified. The drip of water had the same effect, when everyone was silent. At first you would notice it on the wall right beside you. Drip, and a pause; drip, and a pause. Gradually this soft impingement of a single drop would lead you to listen for drops farther away, and soon your ears would become attuned to drops much farther off. Then you would begin to be aware of the graduation of loudness that distance made, and all at once the drop you had first noticed would have the regular clang of a ringing bell. You couldn’t then put it back into its proper equivalent in the sound of sense.

Sometimes a man would get up from his wet straw and work at the bare rock for hours to change the direction of an individual drip, so that its sound would be altered and thus restored to a sane proportion.

But one night when the men were making their singsong, it happened that the guard was drunk. Maybe the guard went a little crazy himself. Anyway, he opened the trap and fired his musket. They could all see him, fifty feet above their heads in the
lighted square of the trap, his furious red face, and the musket pointing down like the finger of wrathful retribution. The bullet striking made no sound through the yelling voices and they yelled twice as loud. Even John Wolff yelled that night. And the guard lost his head entirely. He fired again and again, and finally a ball ricocheted and killed one of the prisoners. He was the man who had come in with John Wolff, the man who had beaten a soldier for molesting his wife. But they did not notice he had died till it was time for them to go up the next day.