3stalwarts (156 page)

Gandy turned his medium eye.

Jerry bit: “Kind of a coincidence, wasn’t it?”

“Boy,” said Mr. Gandy, “boy, you are a twig.”

It was a little after two when he released Jerry a mile beyond Palmyra. His last words were, “It’s got me going, our coincidence. I wonder what is into it. But I’m a wondering man. Back in Vienna …” But his mares wheeled him forward out of hearing. Jerry looked back. The road had crossed the course of the canal, again— it veered in a long curve to northward; but the road went straight west through a rolling land, well wooded with low oak trees. And only for a little way he heard the work of diggers going forward: the shouts of men shoveling, the stamp of horses dragging scoops, the shriek of the wooden chain-drum of a stump-lifter, or the muffled thud of blasting powder where some poor devil of a contractor had come upon a ledge of stone. Half the line from the marsh to Rochester had been contracted; and work was well in hand. It would be finished by the time the marshes were dug through.

In the bright sunlight, between him and the village, he saw the sites of locks eight and nine. A local carpenter was scratching his head over the fit of an iron casting in his timbers; his helper chewed a languid cud; and a mason was laying stone.

Then Jerry turned into the woods, and their shadow passed over him. The road stretched forward through a dimness; what light there was shut in between the levels of the tree leaves and the top of the scrub growth.

2

“A man is caught by beauty’

It was quiet along the new post road. No tracks turned off to hidden farms. Though he had walked for an hour, he had met no travelers, nor heard any wheels. The fresh tire marks of a wagon that had passed on before him gave the only evidence that anyone besides himself had traveled the road this day. Even the woods were hushed. The mood that had clouded his face before Merwin Gandy overtook him now returned. He walked with his eyes upon the track, heedless of what he passed, unconscious even of the change that was taking place above the treetops.

The hot green light that filtered through the new leaves began perceptibly to whiten, then grow cool. There was no sound of wind; and if a leaf had stirred it would have startled him. His feet made the only sound, a steady thud, muffled by the light dust of the road.

Then, all at once, he felt the sweat upon his face growing cold. He raised his eyes. Breathing had become difficult— as if in the lifeless sky a vacuum had been created and was drawing the air up through the trees. The light was dying and in the south a shadow pressed down on the woods. And then he saw that it was sweeping towards him through the trees. Far off, he heard muttering thunder; and still farther off the whisper of rain.

He came suddenly to himself.

Oak woods offer scant shelter against rain. Nowhere within sight was any sign of evergreens. He saw no fallen trees large enough to shield him. But a little way ahead the darkening road turned downward in a curve. He quickened his step.

The woods were thicker here. In the growing darkness, a few beeches made a silver twilight. He glanced up once at a roll of cloud, black, high-piled, with a hungry forward licking of small tongues frayed out by the swollen wind it carried. The forest shook with the ominous low thunder that comes with hard rain.

Beside the road he saw a tree lying in the ditch. A short, thick tree, its branches were lopped off along the sides. The axeman’s heavy blade had left clean cuts like shining faces. A tree like that would offer shelter underneath it if it were not in a ditch. But he ran for it, anyway.

As he bent down to look under the stem, his eyes fell on the bark.

“That’s a butternut,” he said aloud.

Butternut, he thought; there was something to remember about a butternut; and then he grinned as he recalled Merwin Gandy. “It’s got a butternut down in the ditch along the road… . Lager’s logs.” A Gandy wouldn’t keep a Chester boar in it, maybe, but for Jerry Fowler it would offer better shelter than a fallen tree.

Jerry looked along the road edge. He saw a little way forward where the fresh wagon tracks had halted, then turned over the ditch and up a slope of ground. A spring came down between round stones to meet the ditch. There had been an old track there in other years. It was choked up with undergrowth, but the wagon had managed to draw through. Here and there a slim stem showed a scrape of bark. Jerry pressed forward.

The cloud had rolled across the woods and the thunder in its heart was gathering frequency. The first shadow of blackness was passing on. Torn fragments of bluish-white cloud were racing under it. A grey wet light was being born, and far to south Jerry heard the rain take hold of the woods.

The path was easy to sight out; it carried straight up the slope to level ground and then wound in among the larger trees. Jerry began to run. He came suddenly into what had once been a small clearing. Along the woods’ edge the trees bent down, and then as their arms lifted again he saw the trees on the other side heel away. Great heavy drops struck into the dry earth and seemed to bounce. They left their marks in hollow rings. The wind was on the world. Lightning pitchforked over the clearing; thunder swallowed the hot strike; and in the echoes a tree crashed down.

In the far corner of the clearing, a small cabin lifted scabrous walls. Beside the door there stood a wagon. Jerry shouted and ran for it.

When he left the trees the wind pounced on his back. Behind him the woods roared with rain. Before he was halfway over, the sluices were unloosed upon his shoulders, and as he ran he heard the rain pass on across the world.

The door was closed. Already rain was pouring from the roof of broken bark-sheathes. He pushed against the door. Its old latch was closed and there was no string. He knocked. Immediately it opened. A tall man held it as Jerry rushed in; then leaned against it heavily. But the wind was like a foot thrust over the sill, and Jerry had to help him. The door went shut with a dull bang, and dust came powdering down.

Jerry looked at the man. Seen once, a man could not forget the hatchet face, the humorous eyes enmeshed in wrinkles. He held his hand out.

“Mr. Bennet! Do you remember me?”

Issachar Bennet wiped the rain from his face.

“You do put me in mind of someone.”

“Three years back,” suggested Jerry. “About this season. You won a bet off me.”

“Now I recollect.” The thin face wrinkled up to smile. “I recollect the name— it’s Fowler. Jerry Fowler. I made a bet with you about a girl.”

“That’s right,” said Jerry.

“How did it turn out?”

Jerry said, “We did get married. We’ve a girl. They’re living in Montezuma while I come out here to Irondequot.”

Bennet beamed; then he turned suddenly.

“I’d heard of this place from a talkative man in Oaks Old-Stand. I smelled the storm a-coming.”

“Merwin Gandy. He told me this morning.”

But the lean face had grown serious.

“I found it out all right. But look what I found in it.”

Jerry looked into the cabin. Scarce ten by ten, the floor was rubbled with the trash of years of desolation. The stick and clay chimney was crumbling. Even as Jerry looked, a chunk gave way under the rain. The rain and wind beat in the single window, fluttering the broken edges that had once been paper panes.

Bennet had brought his horse inside, a small, black, flashy mare. She was standing close against the front wall, her rump to the open window and her tail tight tucked in under the wind. But her head was bent as if she understood the preacher’s words, and, as she eyed the corner in the shadow of the hearth, her sensitive ears kept pricking and falling back and pricking again.

Old Lager, or whoever had last used the cabin, had made a bed of hemlock tips in the corner. They were dried out now-and dusty; but as Jerry stepped forward to see better, he made out a woman huddled on them.

“She’s in bad shape,” Bennet whispered. “She was stunned when I came onto her. She’s been mishandled.”

He had moved up behind Jerry’s shoulder; and his voice spoke with a deep resonance that made Jerry turn. The amused eyes had grown sombre.

“When a man travels round the way I do he sees a lot of queer things. But this is one of the queerest things I ever come across.” He stroked his mouth with long fingers. “Look there by her feet!” He pointed suddenly. In the dustlike needles, Jerry made out rawhide thongs. He looked round at the Shaker.

The old man nodded.

“Some man has beaten her. All over. Yes—” a remnant of a twinkle fluttered his eyelids at Jerry’s expression. “I took her clothes off to see if anything was bad with her. She hadn’t any wounds, just marks of withes. Whoever it was he tied her up and left her— whether he wanted her to die, or whether he’s a-coming back, I couldn’t tell. Most like he wanted her to die.”

“Why?”

“Well, she was here all last night anyway.”

“How do you know?”

“There on the edge of her skirt. Where it ain’t tossed. A cob-spider used it for one corner of his web. Cob-spiders spin at night.”

He paused, his face bent down in thought. A fine dust came drifting down through the murk in the single room, bringing a smell of dry-rot. The mare’s black coat had lost its sheen. Jerry became aware of the thunder again; it was rolling off to north of them. Through the stripped window he saw a silvery wet line rising over the trees. The straggling ends of the rain were passing them with fitful gusts. The air smelled leafy.

“You know, Jerry,” Bennet was saying, “if that talkative man hadn’t felt obliged to tell me everything he knew in this world I’d have driven through that storm, and she’d have still been tied here.” His hand again caressed his chin. “A thing like that makes even me consider Providence.”

He bent down suddenly beside the woman.

“She’s just a girl,” he said gently.

Jerry bent forward. Bennet had a bowl on the edge of the hearth.

“Water and brandy,” he said.

His dry old hand crept with sensitive fingers under her cheek and turned up her face. He dipped his handkerchief in the bowl and began bathing the forehead. As Jerry watched, his cheeks grew slowly red.

From her left temple across her nose and down her right cheek to the barely visible angle of her jaw, a welt showed purple. She was small-featured. Her nose was short and slightly arching; her chin was close and round, with greater breadth than length; her small lips, fully rounded, were curved as if she slept. She had black hair; not the blue-black of an Indian’s hair, but inky as a crow’s wing.

“Pretty hair.” Old Issachar pressed it back from the forehead. It was tight-curled there, damp. His free hand reached behind her shoulder and drew it forward like a rope. The ends were tangled from being lain on, rough with hemlock needles, with here and there a hairpin loosely skewer-ing them.

“Fine hair,” said Issachar. “It would fall down real easy.”

He draped it over her shoulder and laid her back upon her side. Getting to his knees stiffly, he kicked his feet out and walked over to the window.

“It would be a torture to her now to put her in a wagon,” he said. “We can’t leave her here alone. We’ve got to stay. Or I ought, anyways. How about you, are you due anywhere tonight?”

“Not ‘specially. I’m going to Irondequot.”

“That isn’t above an hour’s walking. You can get in there tomorrow.”

“I’ll stay with you.”

“The point is one of us has got to wrestle up some wood.”

“I’ll go.”

“That ain’t it. There isn’t any handy to the cabin here. We’ve got no axe. And anyway she ought to have some milk in a little while. One of us has got to get provisions— for ourselves as well as her. There ain’t sense in our going hungry.”

“All right, I’ll get them.” Jerry stepped to the mare. But Issachar Bennet stretched out his hand. When Jerry turned he kept his eyes averted.

“I was thinking, Jerry, suppose the warrior that did this-here to her comes back. I’m an oldish man.” He looked comically at Jerry and began a feeble grin. “I’d be plumb scared to death. I never was any good in a rough-and-tumble.”

“Don’t you carry a pistol?”

“Yes, I do. But I’ve never had a load for it. I’d be frightened to let it off. That’s actual fact… .” He looked down along his lanky legs. “Now I guess you know the kind of man Ike Bennet is.

“Waiting here in dark,” he muttered.

The sky had cleared, but the sun was already going down.

“I’ll stay, then,” Jerry said. “But she ought to have a fire.” He cast round the cabin. A couple of rafters had fallen in at the back end. He broke them off. The remnant of bunk made planks of good dry wood. He rested them across the sill-log and jumped on them until he had convenient pieces. It took a minute only to start the shavings he made with his knife. The smoke bent and doubled before the chimney sucked the draught.

“Thank the Lord it’s rained,” said Jerry. “It wouldn’t take much to start that chimney burning, with the clay so loose.”

The Shaker had observed all his proceedings with vastly relieved eyes.

“I’ll be getting along,” he said. He caught the mare’s bridle. “Come on, Daisy.”

Jerry went out with him to help him hitch. As he started to climb in the wagon, he said, “Oh, Jerry. I’ve got some snake-oil salve laid up in bear fat.” He fished in a pack behind the seat. “I’m peddling cures along the side for them that can’t pay me for religion.” The good humor in his voice was restored. He brought out a small earthenware jar. “But this stuff’s good. I paid a shilling to a squaw near Buffalo for it for myself. Rub it in light, and keep on rubbing till the skin feels loose.”

“Me rub it on her?”

“Surely. Better you than me. Ain’t you a married man?”

He chuckled, clucked up his mare, and turned her for the road.

Jerry watched him go.

The sun had set, and looking into the west, he saw the afterglow like cool green water floating lilac clouds. A steamy breath of soaked leaves lifted through the woods. Somewhere a thrush was calling.

He touched the fire up. Hearing its crackle, he could forget the cob-webbed wall. He thrust two sticks into the ground and draped the old blanket Issachar had left across them to get warm. Then he closed the door and dropped the latch in place.