Manly Wade Wellman - Novel 1966 (2 page)

 
          
“Then
let’s take enough to bake now,” suggested Mrs. Jarrett. “Fresh corn bread will
go well with venison collops and sallet greens.”

 
          
With
a wooden scoop she dipped meal into a kettle. Mark strolled across the docklike
platform and gazed at the turning, splashing wheel. He mounted the dam and
gazed above the surface of the pond at the running stream and the trees on the
slope above.

 
          
His
father strode after him. “Ha, Mark, let me see if I read your thoughts,” he
said. “You recall how we first came here, and you think that, though ’twas only
a short while ago, yet it seems long.”

 
          
“Sir,
you read my thoughts exactly.”

 
          
“Because I have thought the same. ’Twas sunny April then, and now
sunny September.
But five months gone, our first day here, we felt that
ill luck homesteaded with us.”

 
          
“Aye,
so we did.” Mark’s thoughts traveled back to that day, when his father had fallen
from a cliff to break a leg and several ribs. But Tsukala had come; became a
friend and helper. And that first day had seen the Jarretts plant the
beginnings of their home among the tree-thronged mountains.

 
          
“Oft
have I said, Mark, how I esteemed your strength and sense back then,” his
father said. “While I was helpless, you played the man here. And you’ve played
the man
since,
you’ve become a strong builder and a
wise hunter. And these other
families
thank you for
how you’ve taught their small children their letters.”

 
          
“I
try to do what’s needed,” Mark said, embarrassed at this warm praise. “Mayhap
I’ve helped with the beginnings. But now, sir, I look at this mill and hear its
busy voice. To me it seems another assurance of a strong settlement here at
Bear Paw Gap.”

 
          
His
father peered toward the road that ran between the mill and the river. A big
wagon lumbered there, drawn westward by two stout horses. The wagon was piled
high with goods under a canvas sheet, and a man and a woman sat in front. The man
waved his whip in greeting,
then
reined in. Mark and
his father strolled down from the dam to the road.

 
          
“Give
you good day,” said the driver. He was ruddy-faced under his broad hat. “We
stopped to look at this mill. ’Tis the first we’ve seen since we left Pine
Fort.”

 
          
“It
began its work this very hour,” Mr. Jarrett said. “We’re to have some of its
first grinding at our supper. Will you and your lady hitch up and join us? All
travelers are welcome at Bear Paw Gap.

 
          
“Our
thanks, but we must travel more miles ’ere sunset, the driver returned. “We’ve
taken land for a farm in Tennessee, and burn to get there. Yet I’ll say, ’tis
heartening to see mills and taverns and homes along this stretch. Had I not
already my land yonder, I’d be sore tempted to stop and live here.”

 
          
They
said good-byes, and the wagon rolled on. Mark and his father returned along the
path to the mill.

 
          
Around
the shed the shrill, excited cries of the children rose.

 
          
“Mark!”
Will
greeted
his big brother. “Wessah suddenly ran
from among us. He climbed that tree by the shed, and sprang upon the roof.”

 
          
“Nor
will he come down, though we call him,” added Becky Ramsey.

 
          
Mark
looked upward. High on the ridgepole sat Wessah, motionlessly attentive. His
round head turned away toward the south, and he seemed to gaze as though on
guard duty.

 
          
“Here
comes
Tsukala,” Becky said. “Tsukala, speak to Wessah
in the Cherokee. Say that we want him to come down and play with us.”

 
          
Tsukala
smiled gravely.
“Ahi,
Wessah!” he
called.

 
          
Wessah
turned his head to spare a moment’s glance.

           
Then he returned his attention to
whatever he watched far away.

 
          
“He
will not come,” Tsukala told the children. “He sees something, over there in
the trees.”

 
          
“Belike
he watches that wagon going west,” suggested Mark, but Tsukala shook his head.

 
          
“Wagon
went on road,” said Tsukala. “Wessah sees something down there, across the
river.”

 
          
Will
also looked riverward. “I see nothing. Perhaps if I climbed—”

 
          
“Nay,
Will, stay off the roof,” his father ordered.

 
          
“But
what doth Wessah watch so closely?” Anthony Vesper wondered.

 
          
“He
will not tell,” said Mark. “But come, I think supper is nearly ready.”

 
          
All
the children raced toward the cooking fires. Mark and Tsukala gazed again at
the sentinel cat on the roof. Mark, too, wondered what Wessah spied and studied
so raptly.

 
          
A
Hint of Peril

 
          
Later
that week, Mark and Celia loaded the. Jarrett horses, Oscar and
Bolly
, with sacks of corn and headed for the mill.

 
          
“You
vant to eat goot this vinter,” Schneider greeted them, white-aproned and
smiling. “Come, ve grind it up.”

 
          
Mark
went to raise the water gate and start the wheel, and Schneider pulled the
lever that engaged the gears. He poured corn into the hopper, and meal came out
to fall into the bushel.

 
          
“The
biggest crop of all is ripening in our fields and the fields of the others,”
reminded Celia. “Mr. Ramsey hath bidden us all to a husking day after tomorrow
evening.”

 
          
“Our
mill can run busy for months,” nodded Schneider. “For a man or woman or hungry
child, must be a peck of meal a week. A bushel a month— twelve bushels a
year—now, ve count how many people here . . .”

 
          
“Twenty-six,”
Celia told him.
“Twenty-seven, with Tsukala.”

 
          
“Dot
makes tree hoondred bushels of meal and more,” Schneider reckoned.
“Und more beyond that, for guests at Mr. Hollon’s tavern, and some
for horses and cows.
But it is a goot harvest,
ja
”

 
          
As
the bushel basket filled to the top for the first time, Schneider dipped out
the miller’s share with a two-quart tin measure and carefully poured it into a
cask near at hand. He talked to Mark and Celia about how he happened to have
come to America and to Bear Paw Gap.

 
          
Schneider
was from the German province of Hesse, and in 1775 he had been drafted into one
of the regiments hired by England to fight in the American War of Independence.
“But I did not vant to fight,” Schneider explained cheerfully. “I vas bred up
for a miller, not a soldier. So I marched along mit Lord Cornvallis, to a
battle at a place called Guilford Court House.”

 
          
“My
father and my Uncle Mace fought in that battle,” supplied Mark.

 
          
“But
I did not fight,” went on Schneider. “I saw a chance to go avay, and I flung
down my musket and ran. Kind people let me stay at a farm and vork in peace.
After the var vas done, I helped at a mill near Salem. Last month Mr. Durvell
asked me, come help him here and maybe get to be his partner.
Ja
,
I came gladly. I am goot American
miller now.”

 
          
“And,
I trust, a happy one,” ventured Celia, watching the meal mount in the basket.

           
“Most times I am happy. But my cat
Wessah makes me nervish.”

 
          
Mark
looked around the mill shed. Wessah was not in sight.

 
          
“Oh,
he is on the roof,” Schneider told them. “Most times he sits in sun, he hunts
mice,
he
plays. But then, he is up the tree and sits
high on the roof, he looks at what he sees yonder in the woods.” Schneider
shook his head. “Vot he sees—I do not know. Sometimes I vish I knew, sometimes
I vish I never find out.”

 
          
Stepping
outside, Mark looked up at Wessah on the ridgepole, like a black-coated,
white-shirted sentry.
“Wessah?”
Mark hailed him, and
the cat spared him but a single flick of green, round eyes,
then
looked off southward again.

 
          
Simon
Durwell
came
riding back from a visit to Trap Cave,
bearing a pack of deerskins gathered by Captain Stoke and Stoke’s son Michael.
“These I shall tan and sell, and the Stokes shall have meal in exchange,” he
said. “Mark, I see Bram hath ground you enough corn to furnish
your whose
household for a month and more.”

 
          
“And
for us a share that vill feed you and me a veek,” added Schneider, pouring the
last measure into the keg.
“Eight bushels for Mark’s family,
two pecks for us.”

 
          
“Fair
and more than fair,” approved Mark, coming to inspect the deerskins. “These are
prime hides, Mr. Durwell, and will fetch a dollar each at Pine Fort. Your mill
prospers, I think.”

 
          
“We
all prosper hereabouts,” said Durwell. “Come, I’ll help load that meal on your
horses. What have you been talking of?”

 
          
“Of
Seth Ramsey’s husking bee day after
tomorrow,
and Bram
Schneider’s becoming an American, and Wessah’s watching we know not what.”
Hoisting a sackful of meal across Oscar’s spine, Mark spared another look for
the intent cat on the roof. “I myself once watched and studied strange matters
in these parts.”

 
          
“Aye,
for one thing you studied me and my friends Philip Lapham and Captain Stoke,”
chuckled
Durwell. “You thought us wild, dangerous prowlers.
But we turned out to be friends, and now we are neighbors.”

 
          
“Mayhap
most seeming dangers are but fancies,” said Mark, because it was what he hoped.

 
          
But
as he and Celia headed home with the laden horses, he could not put from his
mind the thought that something strange lurked among the woods, away from the
road and deep in cover.

 
          
Two
evenings later, all the settlers gathered at the Ramsey home north of Jarrett’s
Ridge. Mark and Will tramped over on foot, ahead of their parents and Celia and
her little cousins. The Hollons came, too, leaving the tavern in charge of
Stephen and Martha Arrington, the middle-aged couple Mace Hollon had hired to
help serve guests. Joseph Shelton had come, and plump Tabitha Shelton bustled
here and there to help Mrs. Ramsey prepare for the guests. As the sun set, a
round harvest moon rose, and the September air was mild and sweet.

 
          
All
were glad to help, the more so since others would need neighborly assistance of
the same sort with their own plentiful crops. Huge heaps of ripe ears were
ready for the husking. The guests sat in circles, talking, laughing, and
ripping away the husks by the light of big fires. Even the smaller children,
the Ramsey Twins and Anthony and Alice Vesper and Will Jarrett, had a smaller
pile of ears of corn to strip and toss into a big pannier.

 
          
As
the willow baskets were filled, they were borne to Ramsey’s tall crib to be
emptied,
then
hastened back for a new cargo. The
huskers vied with each other as to who could husk an ear the quickest, fill a
basket soonest. When Mrs. Ramsey called a halt for supper, Seth Ramsey said
grace, and all ate heartily of venison, boiled wild turkey with dumplings,
green cabbage salad and molasses pudding. Afterward, they hurried to finish the
work of husking.

 
          
Mark
and Celia sat together, laughing and talking as they tore the sheaths from the
kernels. On Mark’s other hand squatted Tsukala. Though he had never planted or
hoed corn for any of his white friends, he lent a skilful hand tonight.

 
          
“Cherokees
have much fun when they husk corn,” he said. “Here, young warrior, take this.”

 
          
He
shoved a big plump ear into Mark’s hand and picked up another for himself. Mark
dragged away a handful of dry husk.

 
          
“See
to that corn, Mark, ’tis as red as blood,” commented Celia.

 
          
“Aye,
red it is,” cried Tabitha Shelton, leaning across to look. “Behold, neighbors,
Mark hath found one with red kernels—know ye all what that betokens?”

 
          
“Cherokees
know,” said Tsukala weightily. “Find a red ear—you can choose your sweetheart.”

 
          
“By
my soul, ’tis the same with white people,” laughed Mace Hollon. “Husk a red ear
and you may kiss the maid of your heart’s fancy.”

 
          
Laughter and applause all around.
“Goot custom, goot
custom,” crowed Bram Schneider.

 
          
“But
who shall Mark kiss?” demanded Ramsey. “Who can tell of such a person?”

 
          
“As
if we didn’t all know,” teased Tabitha.

 
          
Mark
sat, the half-husked red ear in his hand, looking at Celia Vesper. Celia looked
back, smiling.

 
          
“Come,
Mark, don’t scorn the custom,” urged his father.

           
Mark looked to Tsukala.
“ ’Twas
you gave me that red ear,” he charged.

 
          
“Ahi”
Tsukala admitted blithely.

 
          
“We
wait here to see ’ere we work on,” another voice cried.

 
          
Mark
was blushing, but he took Celia’s hands in his, leaned to her. His mouth
touched her soft, warm lips. The others clapped their hands and shouted
approval.

 
          
“I,
too, have found a red ear,” spoke Esau from where he sat. “Now, if I may also
choose Celia—”

 
          
“No,
too late,” Tsukala informed him, solemn as a judge. “One warrior
pick
one girl.”

 
          
Esau
flung the ear into a basket. “Then must I wait until another girl comes here to
stay, a girl to my fancy,” he complained in mock misery. “That, or wait until
Alice or Becky grows up.”

 
          
“Among
the Tuscarora, I hear tell, a red ear of corn means something else,”
contributed Captain Stoke. “They say that whatever warrior finds it will soon
fight in a battle.”

 
          
“Then
Mark and I are bound for the wars,” said Esau lightly. But there was no
merriment at the suggestion.

 
          
“Come,
we will finish in a few more moments,” declared Ramsey. “
Stow
the last ears,
then
see to that smooth, hard stretch of earth, yonder next the house. Did Hugh
bring along his fiddle? Then there will be dancing after the husking, and I’ll
call the first set.”

 
          
The
last ear was soon husked and stowed in the crib, and four couples formed to
step a measure. Towering Joseph Shelton and plump Tabitha were first to stand
up together. Mark offered his hand to Celia, and they took their places.
Michael Stoke and his wife were a third couple, and Mace and Sarah Hollon a
fourth. Mr. Jarrett set his fiddle to his chin, laid the bow across the
strings, and struck up
“Soldier’s Joy.”

 
          
“Honor
your partners!” trumpeted Ramsey. “Balance all, and away we go.”

 
          
Skilfully
they trod the figures, changing partners and executing the caller’s commands,
while the onlookers clapped their hands in rhythm and sang snatches of the old
song. When the set was done, others rose to take their turn. Mr. Jarrett handed
his fiddle to Will and led out his wife. Esau came to take Celia for his
partner, and Simon Durwell became caller so that the Ramseys might dance
together. Philip Lapham and his wife were the fourth couple of the set.

 
          
“What
will you play for us, Will?” inquired Durwell.

 
          
“The Miller’s Three Sons”
Will
replied
, and Durwell laughed loudest of all at that.

 
          
“So
be it,” Durwell granted. “Let it be sung, too, that you may know my own honesty
and Bram Schneider’s.”

 
          
The
dancers began to pace and jig, and Anthony Vesper and Jimmy Ramsey sang the old
tale of cheating customers with grain to grind:

 
          
“ ‘Father
, father, my name is Jack,