Arundel

by Kenneth Roberts

  “I’ve got something for you, Stevie,” he said, squeezing himself between Jacataqua and myself at the fire. He turned to Natawammet, shouting, “Fat—Stevie—You—Me—Give—Get—Good.”

  Natawammet obediently produced a package wrapped in birch bark. On opening it I found a cake of raccoon fat.

  “This Indian Nat,” Cap said, “he ain’t so bad.”

  “One of the best in the world,” I assured him.

  “Did you know,” Cap asked, “that ants kill vermin?”

  “Every Indian knows that.”

  “Well,” Cap said, “you could have knocked me over with a horsehair!” He meditated for a time. “Those Virginians,” he resumed, “were a lousy lot. Do you know what they did? They stopped off at our cabin day before yesterday. Dearborn and Goodrich got out of the swamp in a canoe and stayed overnight. Early in the morning they left all their truck in the cabin and went back to the swamp to get their men out. They left a couple pieces of pork and enough flour to fill a couple hats. After they’d gone some of Morgan’s men came along.”

  He paused again, and absent-mindedly kneaded Jacataqua’s shoulder. “You know, Stevie, I don’t mind a man picking up a little food here and there, or a pair of breeches or something, but it kind of seems to me you shouldn’t take a man’s food if it’s all he’s got, any more’n you ought to take his last pair of pants, unless you got something against him.”

  “Look here,” I said, handing him one of the roasted crows, “push that into you and come ahead! There’s men starving down along the river!”

  “For sure there is!” Cap said. He tore greedily at the crow’s breast, chewed twice, and then swallowed convulsively. “For sure there is! Those lousy Virginians, they stole Dearborn’s and Goodrich’s food. Just took it and walked out and said nothing, only laughed fit to die when they went off in their bateaux.”

  “All their bateaux were wrecked,” I said.

  “It serves ’em damn good and right! Those men, they’d steal anything.”

  “Come on,” I urged him.

  “Listen, Stevie,” he said, struggling to his feet, “after they’d gone I begun to itch, and you know what Nat did?”

  “Warmed up an ant’s nest,” I said, shouldering my pack.

  “Damned if he didn’t!” Cap said. “He built a fire around a ant hill, and they come to life, hot and mad, and I put my clothes on it. Left ’em there an hour, and ain’t had an itch since!” He clapped Natawammet on the back, nodding and grinning condescendingly, as if to assure him of his friendliness. “All right, Nat!” he bawled so I thought my eardrums would crack. “Good—You keep—You no give yet.”

  “What’s all this?” I asked.

  “Oh,” Cap said, “he taught me how to roll Indian dice in a bowl while we waited. I licked him. He ain’t got nuthin no more.”

  “No food, you mean?”

  “No; not nuthin! See that musket he’s got?”

  “Yes,” I said, mystified.

  “It’s mine. I won it. See his shirt and leggins?”

  “Yours?”

  He nodded complacently. “I let him use ’em. I like to have people grateful.”

  So we started down the river, hurrying insofar as it was possible to hurry over those cliffs and swamps. At mid-afternoon we spied a bateau with its side caved in; beyond that two more without bottoms. Then we saw the wreckage of half a dozen, and a fire on the river bank, with men near it.

  I could hear the roaring, bellowing voice of Daniel Morgan, and see his towering figure striding up and down among the men. Here, therefore, was the rear-guard of the army; and someone, we decided, must remain always behind the rear-guard, picking up exhausted soldiers, dragging them to fires and catching fish for them. To perform this duty we left Paul Higgins, Hobomok, and five of Paul’s Abenakis.

  As for me, I knew I couldn’t hunt for my friends among the long line of troops without going among them; so it seemed best that Cap and Jacataqua and I should try our luck with Morgan and his men, to see whether I was taken for a spy or not. If not, I could venture anywhere. Therefore Natanis went around this camp of Morgan’s while we went boldly through it, only to find we might have spared ourselves all worriment, since those we passed were so weary and hungry that they cared for nothing save their own affairs.

  There were bateaumen from Morgan’s seven boats at this camp, and bateaumen from three other bateaux, as well as all their passengers. Burr was among the latter; and he hailed us jovially, though his swarthy face was drawn and lined, no longer pretty.

  “Ho, ho!” he said, drawing Jacataqua out from between us and holding her by the upper arms, “life’s not all gloom and sorrow after all!”

  “Were you overset?” I asked, and braced myself for his answer, fearing I might have to run for it.

  He looked at me, frowning in a puzzled way. “How did you get here? It was back in ’73 that Colonel Enos ran home and you gave me the flour, wasn’t it? Or was it in my first year at Princeton? I’ve forgot, I swear I have! You ought to be up ahead of us, oughtn’t you—or have you discovered the northwest passage and gone around by it to take us in the rear?”

  His eyes strayed toward Jacataqua’s dog, Anatarso, snuffling at the package of raccoon fat in my breeches pocket.

  “Were you overset?” I asked again.

  “A thousand pardons! Things seem to slip my mind. Too much high living, I fear. Ho, ho! Yes, yes! Well, let me see: were we overset? Were we? Man dear, this was the greatest oversetting since Pelion was piled on Ossa! It was like the Red Sea overwhelming Pharaoh’s army, except that we were rolled over more handsomely.” He dropped his gaiety. “You haven’t anything to eat with you by any chance, have you?” I thought I saw a queer furtiveness in his eye as his glance returned to the dog Anatarso.

  “No,” I said, meaning to hold to my package of raccoon fat until there was greater need for it. “Food’s none too plenty where I’ve been. They tell me you had extra food in your bateaux. Where’d you get it?”

  “I know nothing about it. Whatever they had, they’ve lost it now.” He released his hold on Jacataqua and reached for Anatarso, who came to him amiably, switching his rump from side to side and laying his ears back to show his appreciation of this small notice. Jacataqua caught the dog by the tail and dragged him away.

  “Keep your hands off my dog, Aaron,” she said, sweetly enough; but there was no mistaking her meaning. “He stays with me.”

  Burr gentled her arm again. “I’d do him no harm.”

  “You will if you can,” she said, pulling free, “but you can’t, because I’ll damn well see that you don’t. He’s found game for you all along the river, and now that you’re emptier you want to eat him.”

  “No, no, no! little spitfire,” Burr said, striving to catch her, but not striving hard, it seemed to me; and, in truth, Jacataqua’s beauty had faded in our marches. She looked draggled and hard, her tangled hair bound with a twisted squirrel skin instead of a wampum band, her back bent forward under blanket and musket, the velvety brown of her face and hands scratched and chapped from wetness and the brush through which she had scrambled, her buckskin garments wrinkled and stained.

  Cap Huff, in his turn, took Jacataqua by the shoulders and shook her lightly. “Naughty, naughty girl,” said he, in a hoarse but mincing voice, “why didn’t you tell me! I could have saved some for your friend!”

  Cap put his arm on Jacataqua’s shoulder and led her down the path through the camp, while Burr listened morosely to Cap’s booming voice. “There were those six raccoons,” he improvised, “and the eighteen partridges and all those nice buttery catfish and that fat buck! He could have had some, just as well as not, if we’d dreamed he was hungry!”

  “He’s making game of you,” I said, having no heart to tease a starving man, even though I mistrusted him. “Cap’s as empty as the rest of us. Why didn’t you get on, and where are the others?”

  Burr made an angry hissing sound. “It was that damned wreck! We wer
e half drowned, all of us: pitched out and rolled down the river for close onto a mile, banging against rocks and fighting to get our breaths and swallowing water like funnels.”

  He shook his head at the recollection. “I swear to God I was drowned! How I got out, I don’t know, nor any of the others, either. All we know is that we came ashore in a little cove. Morgan found us lying on the bank as if we’d been pulled out and thrown there. We were sick, all of us: couldn’t move for a day. Felt like a flame in our lungs; had aches everywhere, as if a smith had hammered us.”

  He moved his right shoulder tentatively and felt the back of his neck. “We saved a little food. Wet flour—a little. The footmen went on. They’re fairly well off. We’ll all get through, I guess. Some of the others won’t.”

  “What others?”

  “Goodrich’s men. They’re scattered; going it as best they can. Hurrying to get to food. Hurrying. Falling down. Bad.”

  “Where are they?”

  “You’ll come up with the best of them to-morrow. Some of the worst ones are just beyond here. Captain Dearborn’s sick. He looks terrible—a skeleton with a black beard.”

  “Some filthy rat stole food from him,” I said.

  “I don’t know anything about it,” Burr protested. “He doesn’t need to starve. He’s got his dog with him: that damned big black dog. Fat, too.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I felt him.”

  I shouldered my pack. “When are you starting on?”

  “To-day. Soon. Some of the men are getting so they can stand. We got a few fish. The stream’s so swift we can’t handle ’em. Our lines break, or the current snags ’em before we can hook anything.”

  “Good luck,” I said.

  “If you want to say good-bye to McClellan,” Burr added, “he’s in the lean-to. We’ve got to leave him here.”

  “What,” I said, “Hendricks’ lieutenant?”

  Burr nodded. “Didn’t you hear about it? He’s got the fever in his lungs. Captain Hendricks and one of the riflemen brought him over the Height of Land on a stretcher. We thought maybe he’d get well; but he was in Hendricks’ bateau, and it came down behind ours and piled up when we did. I guess he’s dying.”

  McClellan was a good officer, young, like Major Bigelow, and cheery like Bigelow. I went in the lean-to to see him. He whispered something; but I couldn’t hear for the roaring of the Chaudière. I wanted to do something for him, but could only give him a bit of raccoon fat.

  “Let me have some of that,” Burr said.

  I gave him a piece the size of a walnut.

  Jacataqua and Cap Huff fell in line behind me, and Natanis rejoined us when we had gone below the camp. Thirty miles we made that day. Toward dusk the trail was dotted with stragglers who sat by the path, asleep, or held to trees and watched us pass. Some wavered from side to side, raising their knees as though they expected to find the path higher than it was, like drunken men. Others talked quietly to themselves and at times laughed a silly laugh, a weak titter.

  “We can’t waste time,” said Natanis, shaking his head over the numbers of the stragglers. “If we should have a change of weather, these men would die like flies!”

  At nightfall we came up with some of Goodrich’s soldiers. I remembered them as the poorest of the company, the most slovenly and improvident, men who could not be trusted with rations when rations were running low. They couldn’t eat a little to-day and a little to-morrow, but must eat everything to-day and let the morrow look out for itself. Such men, I have found, are always the first, barring those who are sick or hurt, to lag behind.

  They were merry among themselves, which is something I have ceased to explain to folk who have led sheltered lives: how one evil experience, provided it carries with it no sharp pains, is no worse than another, and how a number of them put together are things to be endured from moment to moment with the thought that eventually things must be better. It is strange to me how folk will not have it so, but wish to think that men who are, as they say, suffering must constantly bemoan their condition.

  These men were clustered around a little light kettle suspended over a fire, and were talking about food: squabbling as to whether there was nourishment in boiled leather. Indeed, I could get nothing out of them concerning the rest of the company until I had given my opinion on leather-eating. Each one had cut a piece from the top of his moccasins, a strip three inches wide and eight inches long, and had washed this and his leather shot pouch in the river so they could be cooked. Some held that if roasted until crisp and scorched, they would crumble in the mouth and give nourishment when swallowed; while others held that if boiled they would become pulpy and more easily digestible.

  Thinking their strength might hold out better if they amused themselves in this way, I said I thought it would be wiser to boil their leather. If it didn’t dissolve, it could then be recovered and roasted; whereas if it was roasted first it would be useless for boiling.

  At this they put private marks on their pieces and popped them into the kettle; and one of the men took from his pack a jar of pomatum, such as is used to grease the hair, and offered to put it in the broth on the chance that it might prove nourishing. I felt guilty about the raccoon fat in my breeches pocket. Yet it would have done these men little good, and I was determined to save it until I reached Phoebe.

  While the leather stewed, one of the men deigned to answer my frequently repeated demand for information concerning Noah Cluff, but the others embarked on a discussion of cookery, in which they had evidently been involved before my arrival.

  “Noah’s close behind Goodrich,” the soldier said. A square of birch bark was roughly stitched to the seat of his breeches.

  “How far ahead?” I asked.

  He had, however, injected himself into the argument. “They ain’t no good unless you parboil ’em three times before you bake ’em!”

  “That don’t take the place of soaking overnight,” another objected.

  “Who said it did! Soak ’em all you damned please, only they won’t soften up till you parboil ’em.”

  “Gosh,” said another, “I could eat a kittleful, parboiled or not!”

  “A kittleful!” The speaker’s hair stuck out on all sides of his head like straw out of a wagon. “I could eat a barrelful!”

  “With hot bread!” added a small man with no teeth in his upper jaw.

  “And sour milk cheese!” said another.

  A man whose coat lacked a sleeve raised an angry shout. “What you want to mess up baked beans with sour milk cheese for! You can’t improve on hot bread and plain beans with lots of juice to ’em! Sour milk cheese, for God’s sake!” He snorted contemptuously.

  “I’ll tell you this much,” said the one with the birch-bark seat. “If you don’t parboil ’em three times you’ll get so much wind in your stummick it’s apt to press your heart up against your backbone so it can’t beat.”

  “Hell,” said his wild-haired friend, “it ain’t parboiling that stops wind: it’s putting mustard in ’em when they’re baking. You put in a couple pinches mustard and there won’t be no more wind to a barrel of ’em than there would be to a humming-bird!”

  “Well, by Gosh,” said the owner of the birch-bark rear, “I wouldn’t tetch a bean that hadn’t been parboiled three times!”

  “No, I s’pose not,” the wild-haired man sneered. “I s’pose if somebody come up behind you and held a great big plate of beans, all brown and juicy and smelling of pork and all, over your shoulder, you’d say, ‘If those ain’t been parboiled three times, take ’em away! I don’t choose to have nothing to do with ’em!’ I s’pose that’s what you’d say!”

  The soldier with the birch-bark seat looked quickly over his shoulder, as though hopeful of seeing the plate of beans, but saw only my face.

  I seized the opportunity. “How far ahead is Noah Cluff? Is Phoebe Dunn with him?”

  “I dunno,” he said. “I got awful tired and laid down and slept. If they a
in’t slept any, they’re six hours ahead of us.”

  “Keep going,” I told him. “There’ll probably be food to-morrow or next day.”

  The wild-haired trooper called after me as I moved on. “Tell ’em to parboil it three times, or we won’t eat it!”

  Natanis had saved the body of one of our owls of the morning, and Cap had with him a piece of raccoon fat the size of Jacataqua’s fist. These we divided into four equal parts, and were glad to have them. There is something, I learned, to be said for owl meat: it can be chewed longer than anything I have ever eaten, though Natanis told us it is not to be compared with a piece from the neck of a bobcat, which, if chewed discreetly, can be made to endure for a day with no noticeable shrinkage.

  To this moment my memory is dim concerning the following day. We were dizzy when we started at dawn, and there were blank spots in my mind for long stretches, together with periods when I felt light and unreal, so that my feet seemed to skim the ground; then hugesome and heavy, as though I carried anvils in my shoes. Cap angered me by stumbling, then tittering like a silly girl, so that for a time I could think of nothing save when he would stumble and titter again, and in so thinking I would stumble myself. Yet we were better off than any of those we passed; for the four of us had eaten meat and fat within three days, whereas the others had eaten nothing.

  It seemed as though we passed a thousand men, which was impossible since the whole army had dwindled to little more than six hundred. When I saw the snail’s pace at which they traveled, and their stumblings and slippings, I knew God was good to give us fair weather on that first day of November; for if there had been a fall of snow with a bitter wind to lash it into our faces we’d have lain down and died, and nothing could have saved us.