Follow the River (35 page)

She had kept this old woman alive. She had led her safely out of captivity. She could not comprehend how Ghetel could now turn on her. Unless she had truly lost her reason. Sometimes on this trek—during the storm at the burning spring, especially—Mary herself had barely managed to cling to her own reason. But never even then had she harbored any notion to hurt Ghetel. Dear God, she thought, what have we got but each other?

She hauled herself painfully up a slope among leafless shrubs, looking back constantly for fear that Ghetel would come at her from behind with her spear. When she reached the high ground where the hill sloped off toward the river, she stood looking back with her spear in her hand, looking back at the boulders at the edge of the creek, watching to see Ghetel come out, come out smiling and contrite, she hoped, ready to go on. Oh, I can’t bear it, she thought. To have come this far together and then to lose her. She can’t just stay here and
die
. She doesn’t know where to go, without me.

Maybe she’ll get herself together and come along and we’ll be all right as we were before …

Ghetel, gray as a ghost, came slowly out from behind the boulder, stopped there holding her spear and peering around like a hunter until she saw Mary standing above her. Mary felt
a surge of compassion. “Good,” she called down. “Come along now, dear. I knew y’could …”

The old woman began laboring up the slope toward her, her mouth working as if she were counting her steps or telling her feet to go. The old bell clunked and clanked. When at last she had approached within four yards, she stopped and stood gasping. But now again she lowered her lance tip threateningly toward Mary.

She’s still half daft, Mary thought. Lord, give me the wit to talk ’er back to ’er senses.

“Ghetel! Imagine this! I recognize this place. Darlin’, we’re no more’n a hundred or hundred-twenty mile from home! Oh, I reckon that sounds a lot, but we’ve come five or six hundred already, and we’re quite all right, aren’t we now? Another hundred will be easy for such as us, now, won’t it?”

But at the same time she was asking herself: A hundred miles? Can I really even go a hundred more yards?

Nothing changed in the old woman’s face. She shuffled forward a step, still holding the sharpened stake and glaring like a soldier on attack. Mary moved on a few steps along the river bank, side-stepping more than walking so that she might keep a wary eye on Ghetel. In the meantime, she cajoled: “Good! Why, y’re a-comin’ right along. Didn’t think y’ could, now did ’ee? Oh, that’s a fine lady, that is. I knew y’ weren’t th’ kind as ’d give up. Nay, Ghetel. Y’re my friend, an’ I need a friend I can count on …” The old woman was getting alarmingly close. Mary feigned a burst of gaiety and fairly danced away, as quickly as her aching, exhausted limbs would allow, putting another fifteen feet of safe distance between them. “Come along, dear! Oh, I feel just so fine about ’em last two cricks, how we just crossed ’em right where we come to ’em, eh? And didn’t have to do a walk-around? Oh, I feel it, this is a fine day for gettin’ along! Just a
fine
day! Why, another week o’ days like this’n an’ surely we’ll be almost home, home to a big ol’ table covered with hot bread, an’ quail pot pies, an’ a great pitcher o’ milk—an’ Ghetel, I promise ’ee, I sh’ll make ’ee one o’ my huckleberry cobblers, that are a legend in Virginny …”

Thus chattering away, creating hopes and strengths and
mouth-watering images out of a mind that had almost gone barren during their weeks in the wilderness, Mary coaxed Ghetel along for another two miles through a cold sifting rain that afternoon, around the bases of steep hills, over ledges and screes and knots of roots, and through tangles of driftwood, coaxed her along, staying a safe distance ahead of her, fearing her and pitying her and never knowing what was going on in the brain behind that hideously wrinkled and mottled face, that strange, menacing silence.

Until, with about an hour’s daylight left, they came to another torrential, steep-sided creek, this one far too wide and fast to wade at its mouth.

Mary stopped and looked at it, aghast. She looked up the awful chasm through which it poured, and there was no shallows within sight before it curved away into the mountains. Her little strength, which she had talked into a high state by cajoling Ghetel, suddenly drained out of her with a rush, and she nearly fell down.

And suddenly with a bolt of terror she heard the old bell and felt a hand clutch her blanket.

The crazy old woman had closed the gap between them while Mary stood stunned by this obstacle.

Mary tried to snatch her blanket out of Ghetel’s grasp and hurry out of her reach. But she had too little strength. Her sudden movement simply threw her off balance and she fell with bruising impact on the rocky slope. Ghetel, hardly any stronger, was pulled down with her and fell on her with a grunt and a clattering of the bell. Mary tried to wriggle out
from under her and push her back. They grunted and breathed harshly, and stirred leaves and dislodged rocks. Ghetel clutched Mary’s blanket and pulled, as if trying to climb on her and crush her. She had dropped her spear and was clawing at the blanket with both hands. Mary tried to squirm out from under the stinking, desperate, persistent embrace. Their weight on the rocks under her was grinding her flesh against her bones. Mary’s heart was pounding with fright and fury but seemed to pump no strength to her exhausted muscles.

Mary at last got a leg free and pressed her knee into the old woman’s throat. The old woman squeezed out a gurgling groan and twisted her head aside, and her yellow teeth clamped down on the naked flesh of Mary’s thigh. She seesawed her jaws as if to bite out a mouthful of flesh. One of her big front teeth worked loose and fell out. Mary made a fist and struck several times at Ghetel’s temple. With her aching cold fingers and swollen joints, every blow was as painful as striking a rock. But one last blow did cause Ghetel to open her mouth to yowl in pain. Blood was oozing from her tooth-marks in Mary’s thigh.

Now Mary’s blanket was almost pulled off her, and she was naked on the cold ground except for her belt and the few remaining tatters of her dress. She felt the icy steel blade of the tomahawk turning against the flesh of her waist and realized that Ghetel had grasped its handle and was trying to twist it from its loop in her belt.

She grew truly desperate now, overcoming even her physical lethargy and reaching down to grasp the steel head of the weapon and to try to pull it away from Ghetel. For several seconds they strained against each other and wheezed and grunted. Then the loop of yarn broke and the painful bite of the steel edges on Mary’s fingers was too much to bear, and the old woman had the tomahawk.

On gaining possession of it, Ghetel began to rise, as if to be in a better position to strike with it. Freed of her opponent’s weight, Mary quickly scrambled aside and got onto all fours. Her right hand found the worn shaft of one of the spears and she picked it up as she rose to her feet.

The old woman now was standing, a few feet away and up the slope above Mary, raising the tomahawk to strike. Mary swung the end of the lance in a swift arc at the moment when Ghetel brought the tomahawk down at her. Ghetel’s knuckles whacked against the hickory and the tomahawk flew out of her hand. She roared in pain as the weapon sailed through the air, swishing through bare twigs, struck a stone ledge several yards down the slope, clattered down a scree of loose shale, ricocheted off a mossy rock at the river’s edge and splashed into the deep, fast, dark water of the tributary.

Ghetel’s yelp of pain echoed away into the rush of water and space as the two women watched this precious tool of their survival vanish forever. Even Ghetel, a moment ago seemingly so crazy and bent on destruction, now appeared to comprehend the awfulness of this loss. She stood, gaping down at the place where it had disappeared, slowly and unconsciously folding her barked fingers into the comfort of her other hand, something like fear or shame dawning in her face, transforming her face from a Fury’s mask to that of a guilty child.

It was as if the rage leaving her were filling Mary, like some scalding liquid being poured from one cup into another. Mary slowly came around on her, eyes blazing, her scrawny naked limbs shaking with outrage, trembling lips shaping words of damnation.

“Oh. Oh, ye … great … dull … 
sow!
Oh, thou
demon
of stupidness! D’you
know
what y’ve done to us now? Eh? Do you? Oh, you hateful
blunderer!
I’d ha’ better left ’ee with y’r terrible big appetites back there wi’ the’
savages
t’ be their
squaw!
Aye, that’s th’ full measure of ’ee, damn y’r greedy, whining soul to th’ Infernal blazes!” Her voice rose to a shriek as she poured this out, and she began advancing on Ghetel holding her spear like a long club. And Ghetel began backing away, blinking, raising her hands to protect herself. “Aye! Now y’ve got your wits back, haven’t ’ee, now th’ damage is done? Oh, tha’ reechy … Dutch … 
lump!
”

And with that, she laid on with the long stick, pounding the old bony flanks and shoulders as if beating dust out of a carpet, the stick whistling and whacking, the old woman
howling and shrilling, the bell clanking. Now there was none of the brave dignity that had carried Ghetel through the gauntlet. She stumbled backward a few steps and then fell on her rump and sat with her hands laced over her head, begging for mercy.

By then Mary had expended all the strength of her outburst, and she dropped the end of the stick to the ground and stood leaning on it, hauling in deep, rasping breaths, exhalations steaming in the chilly air, her ribs rising and falling under her gray, bruised skin, the nipples of her little hard-dried breasts puckered in the cold.

And all was still again in a moment, except for Mary’s strenuous breathing and Ghetel’s low, whimpering lamentations in Dutch.

Mary was chilling quickly after the heat of her outburst. The cold, raw air penetrated her naked skin and made her bones ache. She eased herself down the slope and picked her ragged blanket up from the ground and wrapped it around herself like a hooded cloak. She took up her spear, and then also the one Ghetel had dropped, set her jaw and turned up the course of the tributary to seek a place to cross it. She did not look back to see whether Ghetel was following or not. She was still too angry, and too full of trepidation about being in the wilderness without a cutting tool, to concern herself with Ghetel.

She’s been as much bother as a stubborn mule anyhow, Mary thought indignantly. Glad t’ be shed of ’er, truly. And she’s so miserable, I reckon she’d be better off dead. She thinks so too, or acts like it. Well, by heaven, ’tis a relief, withal, and I sh’ll enjoy light goin’ the rest o’ the way home. Reckon it’s easier to find edibles f’r one than two, at that.

So she thought as she advanced along the steep and rock-strewn slope, placing her numb and bleeding feet carefully, hauling herself over ledges and root snarls, dragging the spears with one hand while with the other she fought to keep snagging branches from stripping her of her precious blanket.

But she had not progressed a quarter of a mile before she was aware of a terrible aching knot in her throat, so thick and aching that it forced out little strangling noises and made her
mutter the name of God over and over, and squeezed out unexpected curtains of tears that she had to wipe away so she could see to continue. It was growing dark now, the dull grays and greens of moss and sycamore dimming to dark gray, and the other tree trunks and the water almost black, and the day cold slid down to evening cold. She heard a rustle of leaves a few yards ahead and looked up to glimpse a wolf trotting ahead of her with its tail low to the ground, pausing now and then to turn its gaze on her before going on. Mary stopped then, propping herself against a fallen tree trunk as thick as she was tall, where she caught her breath and tried to keep from calling Ghetel’s name back down the valley. She busied herself for a few minutes by untying the yarn rope from her waist. She swept off the blanket and stood for a moment shaking it out and rearranging it, finaly draping it around herself in a fashion that allowed her to rope it at the waist, pull two corners of it forward over her shoulders and tie them down in front, thus in effect making a wool dress that left her hands free for the business of carrying the spears and grasping handholds. It was not as warm as before, as her hands and head were bare, but it would be better for moving through tangled brush. And while she was thus dressing herself, she kept glancing back down the chasm. Tears stung her eyelids and her bosom ached, and the lack of her companion spread like a stain over the whole wild landscape. She was beginning to have the surprising comprehension that she
needed
Ghetel—probably as much as Ghetel needed her.

But Ghetel did not appear, and when Mary had stalled for ten minutes at the fallen log she told herself that she must get along and try to find a fording place before dark, and that she must not retrace her steps to go back and fetch Ghetel or she would not manage to get herself home.

The old thing’s naught but trouble, she reminded herself. She’s like an anchor and she’s gone daft and wants to kill you, as you’ve just seen. You’d be the worst kind of a fool to go back and get her. If you plan ever to get the last hundred miles up this canyon, y’ve got to forget about her just as you forgot about the baby, and put her behind forever. That thought, which she had forbidden herself for so many weeks, sank in
on her loneliness and remorse so heavily that she leaned back against the fallen tree trunk and squeezed her eyes shut and bit the inside of her lip until the worst part of the anguish had passed. She faced up the gorge and, holding a spear in each hand as walking-sticks, her bone joints grinding in their sockets, the rock bruises of her fight with Ghetel making her wince with every step, she limped forward.

Sometimes under the rustle of her footsteps and the rasp of her breathing she would imagine that she heard a voice, and would stop and listen, and would strain to listen through the pulse-poundings in her head and the rush of wind and water, but was never certain she heard a voice, though one seemed to be there, just under the hiss of space and the whiffing of wind, a hair-thin suggestion of a human voice. It made her spine tingle and her heart ache.