3stalwarts (166 page)

Bennet laughed.

“She never lets the breeching catch her if she can help it. Well, no harm. The grade’s easy.”

They met the Batavia stage toiling up towards them. The horses were walking. The curtains were rolled up, showing a full load of passengers, some taking after-breakfast naps, others fuming at the length of time required to mount from the lake. The driver sat placidly on his seat, a broken straw suspended from his underlip. But when he caught sight of them his eyes brightened and he gave the mare a fancy toot on his horn and waved his whip.

Then they were past. Glancing back, Jerry saw their dust covering the stage and rolling upon the road two hundred yards behind them.

“Here’s Bridgeport. Thank the Lord the tollgate’s in Cayuga or Daisy’d take it along with her onto the bridge.”

They flashed through a hamlet which had a tiny sloop dock and thudded out on the bridge. For over a mile it stretched before them, a causeway built on piles, the track wavering up and down. The unnailed planks lifted and banged under the wheels. Way on the other side they saw a small white speck that marked a wagon.

Bennet slowed Daisy to a walk.

“I always go slow across here. It’s the one dust-free passage on the Seneca pike. There’s always a breeze here, and a person can see out.”

The lake lay between its low shores one sheet of blue. A light breeze sparkled it with sunlight. They could see farms along the banks south of them, cattle grazing and sheep like veils on the hilltops. On the Bridgeport shore a man was working in a vineyard.

“I hate leaving you so soon, Jerry.”

“You’ve been real good to me, Mr. Bennet.”

“Some people would call you a fool, Jerry. But I don’t think it’s done you harm. Just so long as her eyes light on you it will be all right.”

Jerry swallowed a lump in his throat.

“Give her my love.” Bennet gazed beyond the ears of his mare. His long face was momentarily sad. “I’ve kicked around all my life. It seemed to me I was more unhampered doing that. But bad as you think you are off, Jerry, I believe now I’d change shoes with you if I could. I’m getting old, I guess.”

His eyes crinkled nearly shut. In a moment he was grinning.

“Just you walk in,” he said. “Just you walk in, Jerry. It seems to me the Lord isn’t so much interested in religion for His own part. But it seems to me He likes young people.”

Daisy did not fancy the bridge. She lifted her hoofs with care and set them down precisely. She was fidgety when Bennet drew her over to the edge to let the movers by. A woman drove a pair of horses on the wagon, and a couple of children brought along some cows. But the man of the family was having the devil’s own business to keep the two pigs moving. Daisy blew out her nostrils at the hog scent, and, as soon as she was past, broke into a thundering trot. In three minutes she was standing before the tollgate on the Cayuga shore.

The gatekeeper accepted a York shilling for his toll and wound the gate up. They drove ahead to the crossing road that ran between Aurora and Montezuma. Bennet drew up at the corner.

“Good-bye, Jerry.”

His lean hand gave Jerry a sense of confidence.

“Good-bye, Mr. Bennet. And thanks.”

“Shucks, boy. Get along home.”

He handed Jerry down his bag and tool chest, touched the mare. The wagon spun away, and for a moment Jerry had a sight of his narrow shoulders topped by the Quakerish hat between the houses. Then an oxcart loaded with hemlock bark for the tannery cut in behind him. The lump rose again in Jerry’s throat. He hefted the tool chest, thought a moment. An inn stood across the road. He would leave the chest there, for he and Mary would be coming back this way so soon… .

He was tired from walking; he had come ten miles; and the two miles left to cover seemed a long way.

The afternoon was breathless. The clear sunshine of the morning had faded to a flat brown light that turned the river on Jerry’s left to a leaden sheet. Beyond the farther bank the grass of the Montezuma marshes stood still as death. Not a blade moved. In the sky tumultuous clouds were rising up, slate-grey, white-violet, and a blue so deep that it looked black. Far beyond them the sky appeared to have been laid on in paint. There was no feeling of air. But the clouds continued to build, mounting, gaining distance over the earth, their dark hearts revolving lightning.

The voice of roadside crickets made little brittle cries; chickens in farmyards lifted their faces sidewise and scanned the portents; in an elder bush, laced over with its parasols of green berries, Jerry heard the cheeping of a young sparrow.

He pressed on. The gathering clouds intoxicated him with a sense of haste. He must get home before the storm. He mustn’t be stopped to shelter from it. “So long as her eyes lit on you.”

“You’d best stop in, young man,” a woman cried from her porch. “That storm’s a dinger. It’s been making for three days. Stop in and welcome.”

Her face was lifted apprehensively at the sky.

“No, thanks,” said Jerry.

Perhaps she was afraid of thunder. Some people dreaded thunder. Perhaps her man was out at work. But he was afraid of more than thunder.

The clouds had wind in them. High up, where the denizens of earth could not feel it, wind was blowing. It tore off wisps from the thunderheads and spread them across the dim brown light. But the clouds made themselves new shapes and continued their brooding.

He could see ahead as far as the village. The houses stood out from the green grass. They and the trees that gave them shade were cut clear, as if a child had set them up in paper. The steeple of the church pierced the treetops and caught a wavering sheen on its white paint.

Strung out above the marsh, a flock of crows were winging towards him. The young birds cried from time to time, but the older members plied their wings in silence. They were flying low, turning their heads this way and that to spy a cover.

Jerry pressed on. He had stopped feeling tired. But his head lifted above his shoulders at each step, and settled down again with a jolt of pain.

The great cloud in the southwest seemed to rear its full height upward, showing its black belly. The tissues churned in it, and behind unexpected transparency Jerry saw lightning forking.

He pressed on. For all his dread, he experienced a kind of gladness. He was coming home. In another fifteen minutes he would be in the village street; he would be turning in to the little cabin. Already he saw the stark, square walls of Mrs. Peck’s frame house. An apple tree cut off the view of the cabin behind it; but at every step he saw more of the yard, the pump shed, the garden patch Mary had made.

He scarcely cast a glance at the swamp. He did not notice the rope across the river to the beginning lock and the causeway towpath. His ears took no heed of the shouts of the diggers, to make his eyes turn again to the brown, puddled berms shutting the marsh grass from the ditch. He kept his face ahead as he pressed on, for he was nearly home.

As his foot fell over the line where the road widened into the street, his ears were startled. A little to eastward of the tannery a flat, long-carrying “trahn-ahn-ahn-ahn” cut through the houses. The strangeness diverted his eyes from their first view of the cabin. He walked with his eyes along the street. It came again: trahn-ahn-ahn-ahn.

A man was entering his house. Jerry hailed him.

“What’s that racket, mister?”

The man turned lacklustre eyes towards him, looked him up and down.

“Didn’t you never hear a boat horn for a lock?” He tilted his head at the sky. “Rain,” he said, “is likely to be wet. You’d better get under a roof, young feller.”

The flat surface of the river was suddenly disturbed. Big drops struck it, studding it with nail-heads. But Jerry stood stock-still. A basin had been cut into the main street, and a white-railed bridge arched over the canal. As he looked, he saw two mules walk under the bridge. Little by little a towline crept across the street, and a man walked beside the rope with a whip trailing behind him in the dust. Then the boat slid by. It was painted a bold red, and the windows had yellow shutters. On the rear deck a man leaned indolently against the tiller. He didn’t even look where he was going, but watched the storm with calculating eyes. As Jerry watched he lifted a long brass horn to his mouth and again the trahn-ahn carried towards him down the street.

“Now,” said the man in the door of the house, “you’ve seen a boat— a canal boat on the big ditch. If you stay here you’ll hear that racket a dozen times a day.” He spat. “Myself, it makes me sick. There ought to be a law against them horns.”

The rain, falling in the river, spread itself eastward under the stately march of the clouds. Thunder rolled again. Jerry recollected where he was. He could hear the rain now in the marsh. He had one glimpse of the eight-foot blades bending under the weight of falling water. A roar like all destruction swept up out of the southwest. Pops of dust were whipped out of the street. The man slammed his door. The banging of closing windows resounded through the village. A gust of cool air fell across Jerry’s shoulders like a whip. He hitched up his bag and ran.

The chimney showed no smoke. The door was closed, but the latchstring was out. He yanked it. “Mary!” He burst in as the wind took hold of the village. “Mary!” He looked round him. It was cool in the cabin. There was no fire in the hearth. It was bitter to find her out the very minute he came home. But he called, “Mary!” again and waited. No one came. He would have to wait by himself in the rain. But he would have a fire for them if they came in wet.

He let his bag fall and went to the wood-box. It was nearly empty, but enough sticks remained for a small fire. He took them to the hearth and raked the ashes open. There were no coals. He took some ashes in his fingers. They were dead. They had been dead for a day at least. He couldn’t be fooled as to that.

He got up slowly, dusting his hands. The cabin had a peculiar look. The closet curtains hung blankly. He went over to them and lifted them. There was nothing on the hooks. He looked round again. Now he knew. The bedstead had no blankets. It was like a joke. He could have laughed.

“Mary!” he called. Then he smiled a little. “Polly!”

He stood still with strained ears, his mouth awry.

His legs washed out under him. He sat down. The storm rolled on the village, shaking the cabin with its thunder and wind, sluicing the roofs, filling the air with the cool scent of water. Squeaking crazily upon its strap hinges, the door creaked and banged. A branch tore off the apple tree and crashed. Jerry sat still.

At last the storm passed on, leaving an empty freshness in its wake that human sounds crept into with a pitiful smallness. A stick poked the door wide and a voice cried harshly, “What are you doing in my cabin?”

Jerry looked up. It was hard for him to see.

“Why, it’s the young gallanter come back home!”

Mrs. Peck leaned on her stick in the doorway. Her beautiful gold wig was pushed back from her forehead. Her eyes peered closely at him round her hooked nose.

“High time, too,” she said unctuously. “High time. High time.”

As she put out her chin to laugh, she reminded him more than ever of a weazened old hen-turkey.

“The rent’s all paid. You settled when you left. I guess you might as well set there, if you’re minded to.” She cocked her head at him, “Eh?”

“Where’s my wife?”

“Where’s his wife? Oh, my God! Where’s his wife?”

Her shoulders heaved.

“I don’t know, gallanter. How should I know?” She switched to anger suddenly as a cat. “You go off gallanting, leaving the poor child here, and ask me that. Oh, oh! What a clever question!” She laughed again.

Jerry stared stupidly at her.

“A quiet girl. She set here by her lone most of the time. Weaving. A fine weaver. She’s wove lots of spreads and made good money, too. ‘When’s Mr. Fowler coming back, honey?’ I’d ask her. And she’d say, ‘I haven’t heard from him lately. Pretty soon, maybe.’ She’s always said those same words, month after month.” Suddenly the old woman raised her stick. “Gallanting’s all right, mister. But you can’t go off that long.”

In her silence, Jerry said, “She must have left some word.”

“Word? Word? What word would she leave for you? You traipsing round with a fancy gal, gallanting fit to bust a pig for three whole months. Flesh and blood won’t stand it.”

She struck her stick on the floor, came a little forward, and swallowed noisily.

“You needn’t flush up so, gallanter. We know the whole of it. Mr. Falk told the whole of it to me, after he told her. They went away two days ago.”

“Falk? Harley Falk? What was he doing?”

“Falk?” she mimicked him. “Yes, Harley Falk. He’s been out where you was. He told what was going on. And she got kind of still to hear it. Not mad nor nothing. Just still. She didn’t shed a tear. She talked with Mr. Falk, and next morning they hauled out, her with one baby on her lap and another inside of her. I watched them down the street. I could hear the wagon squeaking after that. ‘Good-bye, Mrs. Peck,’ she said to me. That was all she said. Not mad nor nothing.”

Mrs. Peck wiped her eyes with clawlike knuckles.

“Didn’t she leave any word for me?” Jerry asked hopelessly.

“Word?” said the old crone again. “Word? I don’t know. She left a par-cel for you, if that’s what you mean.”

“For God’s sake give it to me.”

“Why, if that’s what you want, come along.” She leaned heavily upon her stick. “Now don’t go hurrying me too much. I ain’t nearly spry as I used to be. It don’t do no good to hurry me. I can’t go just so fast. My stars! How did I know it was the parcel you was after? Give me time, mister. And leave go my arm. Leave go or I’ll lambaste you. You can’t get it without me. So just hold your check. I’m coming along.”

She fumbled at her kitchen door, led him into her kitchen. She shuffled over to a cupboard and fished in a sugar crock. Her skinny hand withdrew in tantalizing slowness a folded piece of paper sealed with tallow.

“There ‘tis,” she said breathlessly and let herself down in her rocker. She rocked jerkily, fighting for her breath.