3stalwarts (73 page)

Gil got down on his knees on the floor to kiss her and she took one hand from behind her head. Her fingers seemed fleshed with ivory.

“Good-bye, lad,” she said. Then, “Good-bye, Joe.”

Joe took off the hat he had just put on and said, “Good-bye, ma’am.” He turned to Daisy. “When I get back I want one of them hot pones.”

Then the two men at last came to the two boys, and Gil kissed them and Joe tossed them once in the air.

They went out through the door with Lana following them, huddling her clothes about her against the cold. The door closed for a moment, then Gilly yelled, “Uncle Joe!” He had been watching that knife and tomahawk all along. When Joe put in his head and saw them, he said, “How’d I come to do that?” He closed the door behind him and put them in his sheath and belt and said to Gilly, “I ought to have you along with me to look after me.”

He hesitated with his hand on the doorlatch and met Mrs. McKlennar’s eye.

“You’ve got a good heart, Joe.”

Joe blushed brick red and bolted.

The men marched off over the thin snow side by side. Lana, her face all pinched against the cold, watched their bodies merge among the tree trunks, and then pass round the corner of the fort. She put her hand to her mouth. It felt frosty where Gil had kissed her. A few snowflakes, hard as shot, drove scatteringly after them.

The muster in the parade was performed quietly. Willett and Bellinger stood side by side. Once Willett shouted, “I want no dead pans. Keep your priming covered.” The men formed lines, holding their rifles under their arms. They kept shifting from foot to foot with the cold. The dim light and the snow ran the assorted faded colors of their clothes into one indistinguishable muddy brown.

Bellinger said, “Every man carries his own rations.”

The rations were passed out and folded inside the blankets and the blankets strapped to the backs.

“We’re going to march fast,” Willett said quietly. “No straggling. Any man we leave behind will have to look out for himself.”

For one cold moment more he spoke to Bellinger. Then he called for Demooth’s company.

Young Lieutenant Tygert stepped forward, followed by the twelve men. Willett looked them over.

“You boys are to be our advance. I want Helmer, Boleo, and Martin to step forward.” They did so. For an instant Willett eyed Helmer’s huge bulk; what he thought of him was impossible to tell. “Better have one more. Name one,” he said to Martin.

Gil never knew why he called for John. He had not seen him; perhaps it was because John and Mary had been on his mind. As John stepped forward, Willett said, “You look pretty young.”

John saluted, and Bellinger said over Willett’s shoulder, “Corporal Weaver served with General Sullivan.”

“You’ll do,” Willett said without changing expression. “I want you four men to scout ahead. I’m telling you before the army that Ross and Butler are running away. We’re going to try and head them. They’ve still got more men than we are, but they’re running. Blue Back, the Indian, says they’ll head for Fairfield.”

Joe, characteristically holding his rifle by the muzzle and resting his chin on his hands, nodded. “They’ll head for the Jerseyfield road and pass Mount’s mill. That takes them on the upper trail across the West Canada, to strike the Black River. Where do you want to hit them, General?”

Willett did not bat an eye.

“I leave it to you where. I want to hit them, that’s all.”

“We’d better cross the Crick this side of Schell’s Bush, by the shallow ford, and then we’ll hit for Jerseyfield. Better pick up their trail than take a chance they’ll get lost again.”

“It’s up to you,” said Willett. “Strike your own pace, but make it a fast one. We’ll keep up. Good-bye, Bellinger.”

He shook hands, picked up his rifle, and followed Demooth’s company through the gates. Outside they were joined by the fifty Oneidas. These, it was arranged, should screen the flanks, but Blue Back, beaming and say-ing, “How!” joined the four men at the head. He trotted along with a paunchy jounce, covering the ground as fast as Adam and going as quietly as Joe. Gil and John found themselves pressed to keep up.

They rapidly drew away from the main force, along the Schell’s Bush road, and for fifteen minutes held the pace. Then Joe lifted his hand. They jogged more comfortably. The first burst had warmed them, and they thought that the men behind would be a long time getting warm. There was not enough snow to keep the frost from getting at your feet.

“We won’t spread out till after we’ve got over the ford,” said Joe.

They jogged along in single file. First Joe, making pace, then Blue Back padding in his tracks, then Gil, then John. Adam, hitching up his blanket, came easily in the rear, swinging his big shoulders and humming to himself.

The West Canada Creek rolled down through the hills, opaque and brown and swift, a thigh-deep flood even on the shallow ford. It thrust against them icily as they worked their way across holding each other with their left hands, their right hands keeping their rifles over their heads. Adam stemmed the current for them, surefooted, solid as a rock.

The five men jogged into the woods to make a short circle. Finding all clear, Joe brought them back to the ford. A few moments after their re-turn they saw Lieutenant Tygert lead the advance down to the water’s edge. “Tell him they better cut poles and march across in squads,” Joe said to Adam. Adam lifted his stentorian voice just as Willett’s long red face appeared. In a moment, unheard across the rushing water, they saw the men take hatchets to the nearest maple saplings.

The snow was thickening, falling with a steady slant into the current of the stream as if it urged it onward. On the pointed hills, the pines were swaying their boughs against the sky.

Joe sniffed the air.

“It’s making up,” he said. “We’d better not get too far ahead.” He turned to the Indian. “How about it, Blue Back?”

Blue Back, the only one of them who had not started shivering, grunted. He said his Indians would keep track of them, and pointed. Already two groups of Indians were trotting down from the flanks and taking to the water one behind the other.

“All right,” said Joe.

He trotted off, keeping along the eastern shore of the creek, following a trail that was little more than a deer run. He kept Gil and John with him and sent Adam and Blue Back out to right and left.

All morning they trotted into the blinding snow, winding back and forth to find the easier going, but always going north.

At noon they halted briefly to build a fire and soften some salt beef in Joe’s small kettle, fishing out the meat with sticks, swallowing the hot lumps whole and feeling them in their bellies, and taking turns at the resulting broth. The Indian and Adam drifted in through the snow while the three were finishing, and Adam cooked his own food. The Indian huddled in his blanket and gnawed a piece of quitcheraw, but accepted a drink or two from the kettle afterwards. While they were still at it, Joe sent John up a tree to see out over the woods, and he reported smoke visible in the south.

“They’re keeping close just like Willett promised. That man has got the makings of a regular timber beast.” Joe tilted his face and yelled, “Look north!”

They watched John edge around the tree trunk, but after a minute he shouted down that he could not see anything against the snow.

“They wouldn’t be this far south,” Joe said. “Come down, John.”

They left their little fire to be put out by the snow, which was now beginning to drift. The going became heavier, and they dropped to a much slower pace. By four o’clock they were coming out on the black moss country that stretched from above Fairfield to the Mount’s Creek Valley.

The wind swept over these uplands unhindered except by small stands of poplar. As the men stood with their shoulders to the storm, the snow appeared to drive horizontally past their eyes. They had to shout when they wanted to make themselves heard.

“We can’t find them tonight,” Adam shouted.

Blue Back shook his head, and Joe said, “This snow would cover their tracks in twenty minutes the way it’s drifting.”

The wind was hitting the flats so hard that it lifted the fallen snow in clouds that disappeared in the air like blown dust. The shirts of the men were already stiff and white with it.

Gil and John, less hardened to woods running than the other three, stood side by side, fighting for their breath. Gil thought the boy looked cold. “All right?” he said close to his ear.

John turned his head. The snow had whitened his eyebrows and lashes. His thin pale cheeks suddenly shot up spots of color.

“Yes,” he yelled, and once more turned his face into the wind. Gil looked north. It was getting dark— not dark exactly. He had not been conscious of the fading of light. Instead the whiteness of the storm appeared to increase, draw closer, causing an illusion of emptiness in the land be-yond it.

But now as he looked with John he had a glimpse of the conical tops of hills, revealed for a moment between the snowstorm and the sky. Blue Back also saw them.

“Mount’s Creek up there,” he said.

Then the hills were shut off from view.

Joe yelled, “I think we’d better go back. We’ll catch Willett in that stand of spruce. It’s the only good place to camp.”

As they turned, Gil thought he heard voices. They came from the northwest, very faintly. For an instant they sounded to him like lost men calling for help. Then the wind raised itself against his hearing, and there was only that and the hiss of drifting snow, which was a part of it.

But the old Indian was standing still with his flat nose to the north.

“What’s up, you dumb fool?” Joe asked.

“Wolves.”

“You heard wolves?”

“Hear ‘em plenty.”

Joe said, “Come on. We can tell Willett we’ve found Butler.”

As he went over the edge of the flats, and the wind leaped off into space above their heads, he said, “Wolves like that must be tagging the army.”

He plunged down the slope, knee-deep in the loose snow. John followed him, walking very erect, and the rest kept to their tracks.

They discovered the militia, a brown attenuated streak against the whiteness, slowly pressing towards them. The Indians had fallen in close on either flank.

Joe found Willett marching near the rear guard.

“You better camp, General.”

“Why?”

“Can’t camp on the flats. No shelter. There’s a good spruce stand off on your left. It’s out of the wind. We’ve found Butler up ahead.”

“Found him? How far?”

“We don’t know exactly where. But we’ll let you know before morning.” He paused. “You can’t tackle an army in a storm like this, mister. Hell, you’d be shooting yourselves half the time.”

“All right,” said Willett. “Go ahead.”

Joe lead the way to the spruce woods, where the militia set to breaking off dead limbs. The fires burnt hot under the dark trees, first dull spots of red against the white sheen of snow; then, as they reached upward, creating their own light, and forcing back the storm. The men cut saplings, and piled on lengths of wood while others started sticking up spruce-limb shanties. A little brook served them for water. They lay around on the snow under their shanties, watching the snow melt away round the fires, listening to the hiss, and the crackle of burning. Beyond the confines of the woods they could yet see in the last daylight the driving passage of the snow; but in the woods the flakes descended easily, making a watchful pattern against the darkness, or occasionally a burst came down directly, swishing over the fir branches, leaving in its wake released boughs waving, oddly black.

As soon as he had eaten, Joe Boleo rounded up Blue Back and a couple of Oneidas. The four went over to the shanty under which Willett sat wrapped in his blanket— only his fur cap showing. Joe prodded him.

“General.”

Willett’s long red face emerged.

“We’re starting now,” said Joe. “We’ll find out where they be and what they look like. We ought to be back before midnight.”

“Good luck.”

The four figures disappeared beyond the firelight with complete suddenness, as if they had walked through a blank wall. As soon as they were out of sight, Blue Back took the lead. Even Joe admitted that the old fellow knew this country better than any other man alive. Having heard those wolves, he would be able to walk straight to where they had been.

They climbed out of the spruce hollow and got the wind in their faces on the barren flats. It was too dark to see whether the storm were slacking, but the loose-blown snow stung them, and they took a slow hunching pace.

They went perfectly straight for more than two miles through the darkness, seeing nothing, hearing nothing, not even each other, not even themselves. The wind was piercing cold.

Joe had a general idea of where they would come out, and as soon as they entered the woods he realized that Blue Back had struck the Black Creek Valley. They dropped down a long slope of rough going with the snow in places well over their knees, crossed the creek on a huge fallen ash. It was uncanny the way Blue Back had come out within a hundred yards of that ash bridge.

The woods were heavier on the far side, and the wind was a lofty sound in a higher sky. Under it they heard the wolves following the hills to the north. Blue Back stood still for a long time listening to them. Then he turned his direction a little westward and went on.

Joe knew exactly where he was when they broke into the next shallow valley. The creek ran out of the woods on his right, broken over rapids, a quick-running black rough water. They crossed it on the remains of a dam. On the far side they caught their feet on square timbers under the snow.

“Mount’s mill,” grunted the Indian.

A little way beyond was where the barn had stood in which Mount’s two youngsters had been scalped so soon after Oriskany.

Blue Back trotted into the woods above the place and then swung down the valley, due west. The howling of the wolves was now closer and above them.

Suddenly Blue Back halted. He stood still as a post. Behind him the woodsman and the two Indians were motionless. Barely discernible, two shapes broke clear of the darkness, themselves embodiments of it, and slipped away.