The Light in the Forest (8 page)

“Corn Blade is dead long ago,” his father told him.

True Son said nothing. His Uncle Wilse reached into the bulging saddlebags.

“What’s this?” he asked when he brought out the bread and cold meat.

“They were for Corn Blade,” True Son said, but he saw that no one believed him.

“Did you know you were taking this stuff to Corn Blade?” Uncle Wilse put to Gordie who looked unhappy and kept still.

“So you lie and steal!” True Son’s father reproached him.

“I told you what to expect, Harry,” Uncle Wilse said.

“Well, we’ll keep him under closer watch from now on,” his father promised.

The boy tried to show no feeling. He kept the muscles of his face smooth as he had so often seen his Indian father do. The hardest thing, now that he had come so far, was to turn around and go back. He had lost all the precious beckoning things ahead. They had almost been his, the unseen valleys, the unforded streams, the untrodden forest and the great shaggy, unclimbed mountains that tried to push the white man, when he passed, into the river.

I
T
was one of those unusually mild days that sometimes come to the lower Susquehanna in late March. Outside, the sun shone. A song sparrow sang. The low grass in the orchard already looked green. Two maples in blossom stood red against the distant dark mountain. You could smell the good, upturned earth where Neal and a hired man were ploughing, with chickens and a robin following the furrows.

But inside the big upstairs bedroom, Myra Butler
had her windows closed and the curtains drawn. She lay on her couch in the welcome dimness with her eyes half closed. She was thinking, as she had so much, of that day in July eleven years ago. It was harvest time and Harry was helping the cradlers. He had taken little Johnny along. They were cutting wheat in the farthest field that curved like a wide snaith into the timber surrounding it on three sides. This timber and most of the other woods that used to stand between here and the Susquehanna was gone now, cut down and destroyed in the Indian wars. But then it stood thick and heavy as it had when the first settler came.

A hundred times she had heard the story and a hundred times had she told it, how the savages had hid in the woods and watched the cradlers. How long they had been there no one knew, but with devilish cunning they waited till the harvesters were in the middle of the field far from their rifles stacked along the fence. Then they opened fire. Tom Galaugher was killed, and Mary Awl, who helped in the binding, was wounded. The other harvesters made their escape, all but little Johnny who had been left in the shade of a big hickory building a playhouse with shagbark. When the men came back with help and fresh arms, the boy
was gone. They had kept the news from his mother as long as they could, but in the end they had to tell her that the savages had her child. That was when Myra Butler had first taken to her bed.

Lying here this March morning with her eyes half closed, she thought she heard someone ride up to the house. Afterward there was the sound of feet on the stairs, a knock, and Kate’s vigorous red face peered around the edge of the door.

“Parson Elder’s come!” she said and came in. Swiftly she redded the room, drew back the curtains, combed her sister-in-law’s hair and helped her into another gown.

Afterward a lean gray-haired man in black smallclothes, stockings, and slippers with fine silver buckles entered. He was much beloved in the two townships. His keen face seldom lost its gravity, and it didn’t lose a shred of it now as he quietly crossed the room and pressed the invalid woman’s hand.

“I saw Harry at the mill yesterday. He said you were poorly.”

“It’s nothing unusual, Parson,” Myra Butler said. “But I’m always glad when you come.”

“It’s unusual enough, Parson!” Kate corrected bluntly.

Parson Elder glanced at one face, then the other. He was a leading citizen of the county, long pastor of the Derry church, a colonel in the militia, a shrewd and successful farmer, and not easily affected by complaints and circumstances. Now he pulled a chair to the side of the couch and seated himself much as Dr. Childsley might have done.

“Tell me about it.”

“There is nothing to tell,” Myra Butler said. “As you know, I haven’t been a well woman for more than eleven years.”

“But she’s worse lately,” Kate put in. “And I’ll tell you why, Parson. It’s Johnny. You remember how often you prayed with her in this room that the Lord would restore him to her. Your prayers were righteous and the Lord answered them. Now you must do something about it, because you’re the one responsible for getting him back.”

The parson didn’t look at Kate, only at Mrs. Butler.

“What’s he done now?” he asked quietly.

The mother’s lips closed tight, but Kate was quick to go on.

“You know how he tried to run off and take little Gordie along? It’s lucky Harry and Wilse found him before he got away. Well, that’s only a
small part of it. He’s a trial to all of us but Gordie. He’s ungrateful. He won’t own to his white skin. He still thinks he’s Indian. He says Indians don’t have regular meal hours so he doesn’t want to come to meals except when he’s hungry. He shames us in front of the relations and neighbors. He won’t join in our talk. He says we only know uninteresting things. He means we don’t talk of savage things like beaver and panthers and bears and skins and scalps like the Indians. He believes Indians are sinless and perfect. He even believes it’s right to lie and steal.”

“I’m sure that’s untrue!” Myra Butler declared quickly.

“Well, if it’s untrue, then things here walk off by themselves,” her sister-in-law answered tartly. “First it was one of your butcher knives. Then Harry’s rifle went. Fortunately it wasn’t his best. The brass part to the patch box is broken and Harry said he never liked it too much anyway because curly maple rusts the barrel. But it shoots to kill, and Harry says some powder and lead are gone, too. I’ve missed Indian meal. In fact, twice the bin was lower than I remembered.”

“But you don’t know definitely if anything was taken!” Myra Butler insisted.

“Not a hundred per cent. I only know somebody around here who doesn’t like us. It don’t matter about me but it galls me to see him treat his own mother and father like strangers. The Bible says, ‘Honor thy father and mother that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.’ But he only honors his false Indian father and mother and that’s what’s the matter with Myra.”

“Kate—”

“It’s true, Myra, and you know it. You’ve heard him talk almost every chance he gets of this Cuyloga and Queen Haga or whatever her name is. He may live in this house, but he’s still a savage through and through. If he wasn’t the image of his Grandfather Espy, I’d swear Colonel Bouquet made a mistake and sent us the offshoot of some squaw and no-account trader.”

Myra Butler winced. The Reverend Elder saw it and sat back in his chair. He could afford to take his time and deliberate. It was a difficult subject.

“Perhaps I can talk to the boy for you,” he said.

“I was hoping you would. I’ll get Johnny for you,” Kate told him and left the room.

Neither the parson nor Mrs. Butler heard the
boy come in. One minute the two were talking together, and the next he stood inside the doorway, a lithe, dark-faced figure. In his jacket, pants and boots he might have been one of several well-to-do boys in the township. But on second glance there was something different in the way he held himself, an erectness, an intensity, an alien unmanageable quality you could not lay your finger on. Most boys brought in front of the formidable Parson Elder were reluctant, some terrified, all uneasy. This boy stood before him without fear or inferiority. Only his eyes showed traces of unhappiness and concealed hostility.

Before any of them could speak, Aunt Kate came brushing through with pitcher and glasses on a brass tray.

“You don’t need to stand, Johnny,” she told him.

He dropped down to sit on the floor, and the clergyman noted the instant passage of pain across his mother’s face.

“There’s a chair here by me, Johnny,” he invited.

“I am used to sit on the floor,” he answered. “Always I sit on the ground outside. It is the lap of my mother, the Earth.”

Aunt Kate flashed a look at the parson. “You see!” it said. The sweetish perfume of whiskey penetrated the room as she poured the glasses. It was the custom of the times, a full one to the clergyman, slightly lesser ones to her sister-in-law and self, and one mixed with water to Gordie who had followed her upstairs. Now she held up the fifth glass already partly prepared with water.

“Johnny?” she asked but you could see she didn’t expect him to take any.

The parson observed his refusal quietly.

“It would be more dutiful if you would join us, Johnny,” he said. “Your aunt invited you and it’s well to be obedient and of the same mind.”

The boy’s dark eyes met the minister’s.

“I don’t like,” he said briefly.

“I’m not sure that all of us particularly like everything we do on earth,” the Reverend Elder commented slowly. “However, there’s such a thing among civilized people as putting off things of the flesh and showing charity and things of the spirit, especially in the home. If you practiced politeness and took a dram with us, you might feel more friendly towards God and man.”

“My father told me why white people give rum to the Indian,” the boy answered. “Get Indian
drunk. Buy his furs cheap. Afterward Indian gets sober. Has no money, no furs, no nothing. Hates white people. Kills them some day. Now Aunt Kate gives rum to Gordie. You want give rum to me. You want make us hate you? You want make us kill you some day?”

Aunt Kate turned on him angrily.

“Now that’s enough, Johnny,” she threatened.

“I’ll talk to him, Mrs. Stewart,” the parson said. He turned to the boy. “John, what you say about some white traders is probably true. I’ve never seen it but I’ve heard of it and don’t condone it. There are evil whites like everything else. But this fellowship between us isn’t evil. It’s just sociable. We are friends here together. We don’t want to get anything out of you.”

The boy’s eyes showed disbelief.

“You want me your friend, you say. Maybe you want me to do like you. Want me baptize or pray to your God or believe things I be sorry for afterward.”

There was an awkward silence. The parson flushed.

“I do want you to believe certain things that are good for your soul,” he admitted. “Things that nearly all your white race believe in and practice.
And I do want you to do some of the things I say. For instance, to treat your mother with kindness. Also not to lie, steal or swear.”

“Indian only swear like he learns from the white man,” the boy said. “My father says when he is a boy he hears white man say God damn. God damn when it rain and God damn if powder don’t go off. So my father says God damn too. Then somebody tells him what God damn mean—that the Great Spirit must burn it in hell fire forever. He is surprise. How could the Great Spirit bother to burn in hell fire forever powder that don’t go off? For why would he burn rain when he made rain and sent it on earth? After that my father don’t swear. He tells me never swear. It’s the white man’s lie.”

“Well, I’m glad to hear such precepts from a pagan,” the Reverend Elder said with dignity and just a little sarcasm. “Did he also instruct you to treat your mother and father with love and obedience?”

“Always I treat my father and mother with love and obedience.”

“He means his Indian father and mother,” Aunt Kate explained. “He won’t believe that his Indian father ever did anything bad and horrible like
scalping white children and dashing their poor brains out against a tree.”

“Is not true!” the boy cried, getting to his feet swiftly. “But is true that white Peshtank men killed Conestogo children, and Colonel Elder is captain of Peshtank men.”

The shape of sarcasm rounding and modeling Parson Elder’s mouth slowly disintegrated. His face showed pain.

“No one knows better than a preacher of the gospel the dark unfathomable heart of man,” he said sadly. “Sometimes even the most exemplary Christians get out of hand.”

“Does good man like preacher get out of hand, too?” the boy asked.

The parson gazed at him steadily.

“No, not often,” he said. “I did what I could. As their military leader, I ordered them to disperse and go home. But they refused. Had I persisted, they would have killed my favorite horse.”

“Better your favorite horse dead than the favorite young ones of the poor Indian,” the boy asserted.

The Reverend Elder sat more powerful and self-restrained than Myra Butler had ever seen him.

“It’s not only the white man who breaks the
sixth commandment, Johnny,” he said humbly. “Evil and ugly things have been committed against the will of God on both sides. Eight and nine years ago I never dared preach without a pair of loaded rifles in the pulpit. The men in my congregation kept their rifles standing by their pews. It was to discourage any of your red friends peeping in the window from trying to scalp us and our children. You say your foster Indian father never harmed a white child. It may be true. But I’m sorry to tell you that I know personally the authentic cases of many white children who were killed and mutilated by Indians. In one case the head was used as a football.”