3stalwarts (75 page)

She did not resent Gil’s absence. She had urged him to it. It was the fulfillment of a long-standing promise to take Mary Weaver into the woods and find John’s grave. Lana loved Gil for being willing to take time off. They had left four days ago with old Blue Back, who swore he could go straight to the spot… .

The Weavers had returned to Deerfield at the same time as Mark Demooth. George and Demooth had been released from prison a year ago, and though George’s ankles had been so burned from fetter sores that he was not able to do heavy field work, the Weavers, due to young Cobus’s labors, had done as well as the Martins had. Of course, neither family could afford hired help like Demooth. He employed a young man and his wife, in Clem Coppernol’s place, and the woman’s sister, a pretty girl, whom Emma Weaver thought Demooth might marry even though she was not in his class.

“A durn sight better wife than the first, she’d make,” said Emma.

Emma worked like a man. Though her bodily vigor seemed to have increased since George’s return, she had become a fussy woman. Fussy over George, and yet more fussy over Mary and John’s daughter, Georgina. At times it got on Mary’s nerves, the way Emma interfered to spoil the child. But Mary was grateful for the kindness. She had grown into a fine, full-bosomed woman, whom Lana wished John might once see again— it was so unexpected. And it seemed tragic to her that those two should have had each other and been parted before the arrival of Mary’s late beauty.

Just before she set out with Gil and the smelly old Indian, who was again pestering their farms as he had in the old days, with four black-eyed little brats trailing him into idle mischief, Mary had heard from her mother that she and her new husband, Rebus White (they had been married as soon as Mrs. Reall drew her indemnity from Congress), were planning to come west to the old Reall place and rebuild the mill. Deerfield would seem then as if it had never been destroyed.

It had not been hard for Gil and Lana to make up their minds to this return to Deerfield; there had been no other place for them to go to. Both Lana’s parents had been killed in the wiping out of Fox’s Mills. Only her married sister was left alive of her whole family.

As to the McKlennar farm, they had discovered, when Mrs. McKlennar died in the spring of ‘82, that her will must have burned in the house. So they had no legal title to the place. When they filed a claim, they were informed that the farm was forfeited for unpaid taxes and that their claim would be considered along with others. The man who succeeded in acquiring McKlennar’s was a man from Springfield, Massachusetts, a Mr. Jonathan Allen, a decent man, they were told, though they had never seen him. For when Gil was informed that his claim had been refused in favor of an army veteran for unpaid service to his country, he had packed up his family and come straight to Deerfield. As it was, it had been a hard struggle to meet the taxes. Lana had shared Gil’s bitterness then; but soon she had got over it. Here there were no pushing Yankees to remind you that the organized army and the New England states had seized the reins of government. Here she could be reminded of her first arrival as a bride, how she had been afraid of its dreariness and emptiness. Now it seemed sweet to her in the rare moments when she found leisure to look out at it.

She lifted her head to listen for the two cowbells up Hazenclever hill. But there was no sound yet, and she realized how cows hid themselves away in swampy places on these hot days. She rested her head against the doorsill, without fear of Gilly’s getting lost. He was uncanny in his knowledge of the place. She felt quite safe about him and Joey.

The late afternoon sun poured over her. She was not disturbed by its heat. She loved it, when she could be still in it. It seemed as though her body never could get enough warmth after those last cold winters. How the children had survived those damp cabins she never knew.

As she rested her head, her hair, brushed back above her ears to the big low knot behind her head, showed silver wings. But her face was still young, in spite of the lines that marked her cheeks, and her mouth retained its tenderness. Only the lids of her closed eyes were thinner, and faintly brushed with a brown shadow like a stain… .

In the complete stillness of the afternoon a hammering to the south broke out like the sound of a woodpecker on a tree. But Lana did not lift her head. She let the comforting sound drift into her. She knew what it was. People were building over the Mohawk River beyond the fording place. Several people. She had not met them yet, though Gil had gone over one Sunday with Demooth and reported that they were Connecticut men. But he liked one of them, a sensible, law-abiding man named Hugh White. There would be a town there pretty soon, Gil thought, and they would have neighbors.

Now she heard the cowbells coming down through the woods, and after a while she saw the cows, one behind the other, plod into Reall’s brook to dip their muzzles. The two little boys splashed in after them and whacked the water with their maple wands. Lana rose.

In a few minutes she was milking in the stuffy darkness of the barn while Gilly explained how long it had taken to find the cows and complained about how he had had to wait for Joey.

“Joey’s not so old as you,” Lana said quietly. “He gets tired quicker.”

“I didn’t get tired,” Joey mumbled.

“Go fetch the bucket from the spring then,” Gilly said.

“I can’t,” said Joey. “I want to set here.”

“If you ain’t tired,” said Gilly, “you had ought to get it to help Ma.”

“You go and get it, Gilly.”

She milked on. The cows were holding up well in spite of the heat.

“Didn’t we have a horse?” Gilly asked when he came back from the spring.

“Yes,” said Lana.

“I said so. Joey wouldn’t believe me.”

“I didn’t say we didn’t.”

“What happened to the horse?” Gilly asked.

“We ate it,” Lana said.

“Why did we eat it, Ma?”

“Because there wasn’t any food left in the fort.”

“Did I eat some too?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t remember it.”

Lana tried to forget the time. It was the summer after West Canada Creek. When everyone believed the war was over, when it was over everywhere else in the country, Brant had suddenly appeared with five hundred Indians and a few Tories to harry German Flats. It was only the mercy of God that Adam Helmer and old Gustin Schimmel had happened on them. Adam had brought the warning in time; but the Indians had caught Gustin.

Brant had surrounded Fort Dayton for four days, and the food had got so low that every living thing inside was killed that would serve for meat. On the last day, in an effort to draw the men out of the fort, Brant had had Gustin Schimmel burned to death on the open land towards the river.

The Indians had burned him slowly with small fires, so that he would live for a long time, but they had planted the stake out of shot. Not so far away, however, that the poor old German’s screams could not be heard in every cranny of the fort. He had started giving out at sunset, but even after that the sixty defenders on the rifle platforms could see the fire, and the slowly charring shape, and hear the cries continuing with a faint insistence.

Then Brant had vanished into the night and the next day Colonel Willett had arrived from Fort Plain. It was the last time they had been visited by the destructives.

“Come up to supper, boys,” she said. As they walked before her, she thought of how she had tried to keep the pleading disembodied voice away from them. She shivered violently at the recollection. She had stretched a blanket over their heads and lain down under it with them. To keep them under it she had pretended they were all three Indians… .

After supper was over and they had gone to bed, Lana heated water enough to wash out some of the baby’s things, worked for an hour in the steamy kitchen, and then picked up her daughter, who had begun to whimper for her evening feed.

Though night had fallen, Lana blew out her candle and nursed the baby in the dark. It rested her to do so. She needed no candle to see the child’s soft hair, which was so light. It seemed perfect to Lana that her daughter should be fair— she remembered how jealous she had been of her sis-ter’s yellow hair, like her mother’s. She wanted the girl to be a beauty, “tall and fair,” like the old song.

The child nursed more gently than the boys had done. Lana smiled at her own conceit. It was like having a woman in the house. Elizabeth Borst. Gil had agreed to the name. He said, when the child was born, that she looked like any little German girl. But he was pleased with her, though he tried not to show it.

Lana still smiled. The cowbells clinked away beyond the brook. The baby’s head dropped from the nipple and Lana rose to put her to bed. She had her in her cradle when she heard the man rap on the door.

For an instant all the panics of years past rushed on her heart.

“Hello,” the man was calling softly. “Hey! Is there anybody in there?”

Lana forced herself to go to the door.

“Who is it?” she called.

“It’s John Wolff. Does Martins live here?”

“I am Lana Martin; what do you want?”

“Please let me in, Mrs. Martin.”

Lana knew that he could get in if he wanted to. So she lit her candle at the fire and got down the musket Gil had bought for her when she was alone. She lifted the latch and stepped quickly behind the table.

But the man entered diffidently. He had no gun, and when he saw her he said, “I ain’t going to do you harm.”

As soon as she saw him Lana lost her fear. He was an old man, with thin white hair and a sad hopeless sort of face.

He said, “Don’t you remember me? I used to keep the store at Cosby’s Manor.”

“Oh yes,” she said. “Yes.”

“I got sent to prison,” he went on, “but I got away. I always wanted to come back. I left my wife here, see? She never turned up anywhere in Canada. Did you see her after that?”

“No,” said Lana, quietly setting down the musket.

“Her name was Ally,” said Wolff. “I never knew what a good woman she was till I had to leave her. I wanted to come back and find her if she was here. But they chased me out down there. They took my gun away. A big feller named Helmer swore he’d kill me, but some other folks helped me get away. They told me he’d killed three Indians that had come around since. I didn’t want to harm nobody. I was looking for Ally.”

“No,” said Lana, “we never heard from her. They thought she went away.”

“I’ve got a little place near Niagara now. I run the store on Squire Butler’s place. I wanted to take Ally to it.”

“I’m sorry.” Lana could not feel hatred for him now that she was no longer afraid. “Won’t you have something to eat?”

“No, thanks. I’ll just be getting back.”

“Back?”

“Home. To Niagara.” He tried to smile. “It’s quite a ways.”

“You haven’t any gun.”

“I’ve got a little food. There’s berries now.”

“You take this musket,” Lana said impulsively. “I don’t need it. There’s not much powder and ball for it.”

“I couldn’t do that.”

“Oh yes. I expect my husband will be home tonight. Please.”

He stared at her with his weak eyes.

“You’re kind,” he said. “You’re the first kind person I’ve seen. And you know about me, too. But I never did nothing to get sent to jail for.”

“I know; I believe you.”

“She never turned up, you know. She was good to me that last day when I was into the fort, Mrs. Martin. They wouldn’t let me write to her, except I paid them money. I didn’t have enough.”

She thought he was going to cry. But he did not. He left in a little while, and she closed the door once more. Overhead she heard the boys steal back to their bed, but she did not scold them. She was glad Wolff had gone before Helmer found him. Helmer would kill any Tory or hostile that came into the valley if he could. They said he had killed Suffrenes Casselman. But no one knew that really, unless maybe his wife. Betsey was a strange woman in some ways. Gossip had it that she made Helmer swear an oath to bring her scalps before he got in bed with her, and that he brought her the scalps.

Lana did not go to bed. She had the feeling that what she had told Wolff was so and that Gil would return tonight. When he was away she felt only half alive. Everything she had in her, everything she had done or would do, every thought and every hope, was part of him. And yet sometimes he seemed less close to her. She did not know. As long as he stayed with her, came back to her, it did not matter how little time of his life he gave to her, so long as she could see him, feel him, hear him. She thought of that poor hopeless man, John Wolff, returning to his store in the new settled land, somewhere in the west.

When she heard Gil, he was walking with the Indian. She opened the door and called them to come in. But Blue Back was saying, “No, fine. Fine,” and backing into the darkness.

Gil chuckled as he closed the door.

“Blue Back won’t come in. He wants me to give you this. He says he’ll come round some day after you’ve had a chance to get your mad off.”

“What on earth?”

Gil held out to her a peacock’s feather, broken, stripped of half its herl, but still showing enough color in the eye to identify it.

For some reason, to touch it took all the strength from Lana’s legs. She plumped down on the stool and leaned against the table. The hand that held the feather started to shake. It was silly of her. She did not understand it herself. And to keep Gil from noticing, she asked him whether they had found the place.

“Oh yes. Blue Back found it. The stones were still there. Nothing had got at him.”

He was taking off his wet and dirty shoes.

“How was Mary?”

“She cried some,” he said. “But after a while I think she felt better. She borrowed old Blue Back’s knife and dug up some posies and stuck them around the place. She didn’t take long.”

“I’m glad you took her,” Lana said. “She wanted to go so much.”

“Well, I’m glad too. I’d promised long enough.”

He was watching her now, over his shoulder. “What’s the matter with you, Lana? Did anything happen?”