Drums Along the Mohawk (54 page)

Gil turned back and stared.

“That’s five to one,” he said incredulously. “Money’d dropped to four to one the last I heard.”

“Oh, no,” said the driver. “I was in Schenectady last month. It’s down to eight to one now. You’ll get a real good bargain, see.”

“Go to hell!” said Gil.

“You needn’t act like that to a favor.”

“Get out of here.”

“It’s a highway.”

“Get out of here before I drag you off your wagon, by God.”

The driver stared a moment and then spoke to his horses. “My Jesus,” he said. “I never seen such a crazy fool.”

Adam Helmer came round the house with his rifle. He had been listening, apparently, for he said to Gil, “Shall I shoot the bug-tit? We could drag his wagon down the road and make it look like destructives. We’d burn the wagon.” He lifted his rifle suggestively. “I could scalp him. I ain’t very good at it, but I could get it off all right. Then we could give an alarm.”

The driver took one look at Adam’s great bulk and started to flog his horses.

Going back to the house, Gil said bitterly over his shoulder:—

“Save your powder for something we can eat.”

But Adam could not resist putting a ball through the canvas top. The rifle made a roar in the snowy sunshine and as the powder smoke drifted gently away from Adam’s big red face he gave a whole-souled grin. The wagon was careening round the bend of the road; the four horses bucking up their rear ends like unanimous rabbits while the driver screeched and flogged them with all his might.

Gil had turned back at the shot.

“You damn fool. Now he’ll probably report on you and come back with a squad.”

“No!” said Adam. “I hadn’t thought of that.” And he beamed all over.

Gil had worked hard. He and Adam had rigged up a small log shelter for the horse and the sole remaining cow. It was a great streak of luck that had let the Indians find the other three and leave the freshened cow; but she was already feeling the pinch of light rations and was falling off in her bag. She gave only about a quart at each milking, and Gil figured gloomily that by January she would be giving less than a quart a day. The quality of the milk, too, had changed. It had turned whiter and thinner and it had a peculiar pungent, barky taste that the baby still gagged over.

That did not trouble Lana, who said that she could take care of the baby, whatever happened. She was sure of it, too. It was a kind of inward confidence that made her seem to bloom, even on the day they came back to the farm and saw the familiar sights obliterated—the barn, the log house, even the fence rails leading from the barn, had been burned up. But Gil was not sure in his own mind of Lana’s ability to nurse the baby. He felt that they would have meat enough with Adam around most of the time. Joe Boleo was expected to come back also. But Gil doubted whether Lana’s milk would hold up on a meat diet.

He cursed himself now for persuading Mrs. McKlennar to let him put practically all the ploughed land into wheat. They had been banking on the rising market of course. But he wished to God he had put more in corn.

The corn was all gathered, the husks braided, and the ears hung by them along the red and black rafters of the kitchen in long rows of gold and maroon. But considered in terms of six adult people, it looked like a small supply.

Occasionally he found Mrs. McKlennar watching him when she thought he wasn’t noticing her. She herself was quite happy now that she had got back to her own house. She continually breathed defiance and war at the thought of ever leaving it again, vowing she would rather lose her scalp a dozen times than go away. But she was worried about Gil and spoke to Lana about him.

“He lies around too much,” she said. “You ought to get him out. Working. Doing something.”

Lana lifted her dark eyes.

“What can I get him to do?”

“It doesn’t matter,” said Mrs. McKlennar. “Anything.”

“But he’s done all he can. Now the little stable’s finished and he’s got the wood cut. Adam doesn’t do anything, and he’s all right. I guess Gil is.”

The widow snorted.

“Adam’s not the same. He’s just a bear, a big brainless yellow-haired bear. Bears naturally lie up in winter. They lie around and scratch their bellies.” She smiled to herself. “I like Adam.”

“Gil will be all right,” Lana said confidently.

“Well, you’re his wife. You think I’m a stuff-budget. All young people think old people are, girls worse than boys. Nobody pays any attention to an old woman like me.”

Lana smiled and held up the baby to Mrs. McKlennar.

“Here’s two do, anyway. After all you’ve done for us.”

“Go on!” But Mrs. McKlennar smiled and took the baby in her arms, and the baby confidently began to bounce. “The warrior,” she muttered. “Lord!” Then she looked across him at Lana. “You’re so pretty. And you’ve got your baby. And Gil loves you. And you aren’t afraid. I hope you never will be.”

Later she said to Gil, “Why wouldn’t it be a good idea to start work on the new barn? We’ll need it next year.”

“I can’t build a barn till the frost’s out of the ground.”

Mrs. McKlennar controlled her impatience.

“You could cut the logs, couldn’t you?”

“Yes,” said Gil, doubtfully. “But what’s the use? It’ll soon be too deep in snow to skid them out.” He turned away from her and added, “It would probably get burned next year, anyway.”

Mrs. McKlennar allowed herself to be tart.

“Nothing will ever get built again if you think that way.”

As he lay before the fire, watching Daisy’s broad shape bending down to place a pone on the coals, he wondered where Adam was. Adam had returned to McKlennar’s for a purpose. With the Bowers girls at Fort Dayton, he couldn’t carry on his commerce if he lived in the community of cabins. It was not private enough. He knew that if he were so handy to Polly he would soon give himself away. Besides that, he had a new distraction in Jake Small’s wife over at Eldridge. He hadn’t made much progress, he admitted to Gil, but give him a little time. He knew her well enough by now to know that she was crazy for another baby, and that she was beginning to lose faith in poor old Jake.

“I don’t say nothing against Jake’s powers,” Adam maintained honorably, “but I just hang around so she can look at us both at once. She’s quite a girl.” He combed his hair. “No doubt she’ll get the idea.”

Gil thought of that and thought of Betsey Small, red-haired, quick-tongued, and thin and tight-looking. For a moment he didn’t catch on to what Daisy was saying about Mrs. McKlennar. Then he cursed and told her to keep a civil tongue. He wrenched himself off the floor, got his axe, and presently all the people in the house could hear its clear hard cracks as it bit into a spruce.

At supper time he felt better than he had in weeks. He was tired; but he had felled and cut to lengths twenty logs. He said to Mrs. McKlennar, “I think I’ll make the new barn sixteen wide.”

Immediately she got up an argument for a narrow barn, delighted to see him get his teeth into conversation. But finally she succumbed. “You probably know better, Gil.”

He replied good-naturedly, “Well, you see I’ve done farming all my life.”

He left her in the kitchen and went to find Lana. It was cold in the bedroom, so cold that they saw their breaths between them and the baby. Lana tucked it in, while Gil got undressed, and covered the whole cradle with a thick quilt, making an airless tent.

He watched her slight start when she discovered that he was already in bed. She glanced at the cradle sidewise, looked at him from under her lashes, and, smiling slightly, took her comb from the top of the chest.

He lay still and straight in the deep trough of the feather bed, watching her. He loved to watch her comb her hair when she was in this quiet and contented mood: the way she undid the braids; the way she flung the hair forward over her shoulder and combed it in front of her, head down, looking out at him over it, quiet, refreshed, as if the touch of the comb on a single strand of her hair might soothe them both; the way she lifted it behind her head and combed it from beneath, in long arm-length strokes that were slow, almost languid, with sensation. Her strokes were so deliberate that it seemed as if the thick mantle of black hair to her waist must keep her warm. The comb crackled very faintly as it passed through her hair; and the sound of it made Gil conscious of his own tired ease and the increasing warmth beneath the covers.

“Hurry up, Lana.”

She smiled at him in the bed, deliberately going on with the combing. Her voice was soft, and she watched him through the motions of her hands with sleepy, humorous eyes.

“Mrs. McKlennar was worrying about you,” she said. “But I wasn’t worried about you.”

“What about?” His voice was sharp at her irrelevance.

“About you lying around and not doing anything.”

“I’ve started getting logs for the new barn.” He stopped himself and said sternly, “What’s that got to do with things?”

“Nothing, only I said I wasn’t worried.”

He grinned.

“You weren’t worried a bit?”

“Not a bit,” she said.…

Captain Demooth walked with Dr. Petry to the latter’s store. The doctor had been over to the cabin to see Mrs. Demooth. But the men had not been able to talk; there was no place in the cabin where one might talk without everyone hearing you.

“Come inside, Mark,” said the doctor. “I’ll get you a drink.”

“I don’t want a drink.”

“Well, I want one. And you better join me.”

The doctor went to his office and faced the shelves. He stood for a minute looking at the rows of bottles; then he said: “It was a dispensation of Providence they didn’t burn this office. This town could a whole sight better spare a church than those bottles.” He reached for one marked
Tarta Emetic
and took two glasses, and poured out a yellow liquid with affection. “Don’t get nervy, Mark. It’s good Kingston. The last I have. I put it there to make sure it don’t get misapplied. Now if it was Tartar Emetic in a rum bottle, that would be something.”

He drank and watched Demooth drink.

“How long have you been married?”

Demooth started. He met the doctor’s eyes.

“Why …” Then suddenly he caught on—the drink, the question. Demooth swallowed and said in the same tone, “Twelve years, Doc.”

Dr. Petry grunted, held out the bottle, and poured two more glasses. He closed his eyes as he drank; then he said, “Twelve years is a long time, for some people, and short for others. I’ve
been married only ten, myself. Well, Mark, I might as well tell you …” He drew a deep breath.

“You needn’t, Doc. I’ve thought so for some time myself.”

“Yes, it went to her head.”

“It wasn’t the raid, you know,” said Demooth. “I was waiting for it to happen. She was scared.”

“Weak head, weak head. She was one of the prettiest women, when I first saw her, I ever saw,” said Dr. Petry.

“How long do you think she’ll live?”

“A week, a month, maybe till next spring. She’s strong in some ways. But she doesn’t want to hang on.”

Demooth turned to the window.

“I think the thing for me to do is to take her to Schenectady. She never got used to living up here. When I see her in that hut, I remember the way she used to look at me when we first settled in Deerfield, before the house was finished. I used to laugh at her then.”

“Some people never get over being scared, Mark. There’s nothing you can do about it. Yes, I’d move the poor lady down. It might make her happy. It might give her a new lease. But if she dies, don’t take it too much to heart, Mark. Try not to. It doesn’t pay to get brooding. Not up here. Not now.”

Demooth ignored what he said.

“I can take her down to Little Falls in one of those wheat wagons that went up to Fort Stanwix yesterday. They ought to be back by the end of the week. Ellis will lend me his sleigh.”

“The sooner the better,” nodded the doctor. “Before it gets too cold. She won’t stand much cold. Will you stay down there?”

Demooth hesitated.

“Yes.”

“Will you come back next spring?”

Again he hesitated.

Finally he said again, “Yes.”

“Good thing,” said the doctor. “You’ll probably be needed. While you’re down, try and get me some stuff. I’ve got a list. I haven’t been able to get anything sent up from the army hospital. Good luck, Mark.”

They shook hands.

…“What will we do, John?”

She wasn’t crying, but her eyes were helpless and tragic.

“Won’t he take you?”

“He says he can’t. He says he’ll have to take Ellis’s sleigh and there’d be no room for me. He told me, too, that I’d done Mrs. Demooth as much good as anyone could have done. He was very nice, and he gave me a month’s wages, too. I didn’t want to take them, but he made me. Do you think that was all right?”

“I guess so,” said John. “As long as he said so.”

They were walking out along the Kingsroad, because they had no other place to be alone. It was snowing a little; there was no sunlight; the sky was gray, and even the snow looked lifeless, as if it died in falling.

Walking through it, both Mary and John looked thin and small and cold. Mary was cold. She was wearing moccasins she had made herself, stretched over rough knitted stockings. Whenever she had to answer him, she drew a deep breath so that her teeth would not chatter. She was afraid he would see how cold she was and make her turn back. But he was too preoccupied to notice her. He walked bent over, watching his own feet in the snow, a frown on his face. The frown made him seem older; she liked him when he frowned, knowing he did so on account of her. Ordinarily it gave her confidence in him. But now she thought, what could even John do in such a situation?

He suddenly blurted out, “If I could get work anywhere …”

It was to her a confession of his hopelessness. There was no
work—she knew that as well as he—and she knew also how he felt about his mother. Now that his father had been taken by the enemy he felt a natural responsibility for her welfare and for Cobus’s. Cobus wasn’t yet old enough to be solely responsible. He was a stout strong lad, but he was too young to hunt. Moreover, the Weavers had less corn than almost any other family; and almost no money at all.