3stalwarts

by Unknown

  “Come in.”

  Gil opened the door.

  Captain Demooth was a small, slight-built man, in his middle thirties, with dark hair and eyes. He was sitting before the mahogany desk that was one of the marvels of Deerfield. It had taken three men to get it into the cabin.

  “Hello, Gil,” he said. “What can I do for you?”

  Gil prevaricated.

  “I came down to make sure when muster day was.”

  “It’s Wednesday. You knew that.”

  “Yes, I did,” said Gil.

  “What’s on your mind?”

  Gil looked down at the floor.

  “I never stopped to think of it before, Mr. Demooth. But do you think we ought all of us to go?”

  Captain Demooth smiled.

  “It makes a difference being married, eh?” He leaned back in his chair and stretched out his legs. He wore lightweight, fitted boots. He had small feet and hands, about which his wife often made satisfied remarks, and in which he himself seemed to find his own satisfaction. Gil looked at him again and thought that he must be going down valley, for he had on a blue coat and a lace stock over his linen shirt.

  “Yes,” said Gil. “I guess it does.”

  “Your wife’s nervous?”

  “She don’t say so.”

  Captain Demooth sighed.

  “I hope she’s got more nerve than Sara. By the way, Sara told me she’d called on Mrs. Martin. Says she’s a mighty nice-appearing girl. Congrat-ulations.”

  “Thanks,” said Gil, wondering if that was what he ought to say and trying not to flush. Then it occurred to him to wonder if that was what Mrs. Demooth had actually said.

  Captain Demooth smiled a little, watching him. “Yes, Gil. I think we ought to go. We’ve got to do our part. With Wolff in between us and Schuyler, it don’t hurt to have him see us going down in arms to muster. And it don’t hurt some people between Schuyler and Herkimer to see our muster day.”

  “Who would that be, sir?”

  Captain Demooth glanced at him sharply.

  “Who is there, do you suppose?”

  “Why, there’s Shoemaker’s tavern.” Gil paused. “But I thought he was on the Committee.”

  “Yes, he is. There are a lot of people on the Committee. But some of them used to be King’s men a couple of years ago. Shoemaker was King’s justice. He was a Butler man, too. That’s more to the point. When it comes to war, if it does, it won’t be King and Congress up here, Gil, as much as us against the Butlers and Johnsons. They don’t give a damn about Congress, and I don’t know that I do about the King. But they do hate our people as having settled on the best land in the Mohawk Valley. That’s what makes them mad.” He tapped the table with his finger. “Sit down, Gil.”

  Gil sat down.

  He said, “Yes, sir. I guess that’s so. But ain’t it all the more reason for leaving somebody to look out after the women?”

  “It might be.” Captain Demooth thoughtfully stared between the white curtains at the surrounding woods. “But what good could you do if we left you? One man. Look at that.”

  “Yes, sir.” He looked down at his fists. “What right have we got to leave them here?”

  “None. If you look at it that way. I know we don’t do much at muster day. But we have a good time, that’s something.”

  “Well, I’ve got to go. I can’t afford to pay a fine, Mr. Demooth. But I don’t see what right anybody has to make me pay it if I don’t want to. Ain’t that what we’re fighting a war about? About paying up without our say-so?”

  “Officially. Up here, Gil, we’re going to fight, if we have to fight, to save our necks.”

  “Then why don’t we stay home and look after ourselves?” He felt belligerent; he thought that Captain Demooth was baiting him in some way he could not understand. “I don’t care who’s running things so long as I’m let alone. I’ve got to clear my land. I’ve got a wife to support. And I don’t want to leave her where a parcel of Indians can come in and bother her without anybody to stop them.”

  Captain Demooth looked at him gravely.

  “Listen, Gil. Do you think I’d leave my wife here if I thought anything was going to happen?”

  “No, sir. I don’t suppose so.” He met the captain’s eye. “But how do you know?”

  “It’s my business to. I’ll tell you. Everybody knows there’s queer people going up and down the valley. Running news. In this kind of war there’s bound to be some people making money every way they can. Some of those people run news for both sides. They have stations like Shoemaker’s. You can believe them if you want to. A lot of them draw pay in Niagara as well as Albany. Well, we have a few people we can believe in. It’s my business to collect news from the west and sift out what’s likely to be true. Spencer’s one of our men.”

  “The Oneida?”

  “Yes. He’s somewhere out at Oswego. Another’s Jim Dean. He’s near Montreal somewhere. I check our other men against what those two say. Right here on this table I’ve got a better idea of what’s happening than they’ve probably got in Albany this minute. I know that Carleton’s building a fleet on Champlain, and anybody can see that he’ll drive our side back to Ticonderoga. That means that our frontier isn’t going to be Canada any more. It means as sure as shooting that the British will try to take Albany next summer. And it means before they can do that they’ll have to get hold of the Mohawk Valley.”

  Gil said, “Yes, sir.”

  “I’m telling you this, Gil, to ease your mind. You can keep your mouth shut. Now listen. All along they’ve been telling us we’d better come around before the Indians come down on us. But the Indians haven’t come. There’s been a little trouble round Schoharie, but nobody’s been damaged much. There hasn’t been any up here. The nearer we are to Canada the less there’s been. Have you stopped to think why?”

  Gil shook his head.

  “It’s more than a year since Guy Johnson had his Indian council down at Cosby’s. That happened just before you got here. They sat around one day and then moved up to Stanwix. They had chiefs from every nation there. But nothing happened, even though it’s known Guy Johnson and Daniel Claus and maybe Sir John wanted the Indians turned loose. The hitch was Butler, according to Spencer. He was Sir William Johnson’s man. He knows that the Indians are good for just about one big fight. Once he started letting them loose in parties he’d never get them together again. And he’s been holding them off until he can get an army to come with them. That’s my idea. You can say John Butler don’t want to start an Indian war. But I don’t think any Butler has that much decent feeling where a German’s concerned. He would like to lick the pants off of us. But he’s got enough sense to know that in a country like ours he can’t accomplish anything by just picking off one farm here and another there. It’s the whole hog against the brisket. He’ll go for the whole hog any day. That’s the Irish of it, too.”

  Gil drew his breath.

  “Then you think there ain’t anything going to happen this year, but next year we’ll have a bad time.”

  “Just so,” said the captain. “The bigger army they can send down here the more they figure to take away from any army defending Ticonderoga.” He smiled wryly. “The one thing they don’t figure on, though, is that those people down in Albany aren’t going to take any chances, any more than the ones in Philadelphia or New England are, of weakening themselves. Do you know what they call us, Gil? Anything west of Schenectady is called ‘bush-German’ country.”

  “Then we’ve got to look out for ourselves.”

  “Oh yes. They write us about patriotism. And the great cause. And tell us to look after ourselves and not cry for help. They won’t send us troops. The damned Yankees don’t want to leave home. They hear that the likker’s poor west of Albany. They won’t send us powder even. Not even lead. Right now Herkimer’s making out an order to take sash weights out of any window that has them between Schenectady and my house. No, boy, we’ll have to look out for oursel
ves. Then if we win the war we’ll see if we can get representation in our Congress. It won’t be easy, I expect. You see the Yankee merchants started this business because they couldn’t make a 12 per cent profit any more. They used the Stamp Tax just to make the country people mad. Who gives a damn for the Stamp Tax, come to think of it? How much money have you paid out to it yourself?”

  “That’s so,” said Gil, wonderingly. “It ain’t bothered me.” He looked up at the captain. “Why do we have to go and fight the British at all?”

  “Because, now the war’s started, people like the Butlers and Johnsons will be in power if they win and they’ll take it out of our hides, the cost of it.”

  Gil said, “Yes.” As far as he could see, though, they were just about where they had started. Captain Demooth had risen and there seemed to be nothing more to say. He felt the captain take his arm as he went towards the door.

  “Don’t get scared,” the captain said. “And don’t let your wife get nervy, either. I’ve got people of my own, patrolling west and north of here. You know Blue Back, don’t you?”

  “The old Indian who traps the Canadas in winter?”

  “Yes. Mr. Kirkland’s guaranteed him. He’s got the northern beat, and if there’s any trouble this year, I imagine it would come from there.”

  3. The Farm

  When he reached his own place, Gil Martin found that Mrs. Reall had come over to borrow some soft soap. “I don’t know how I come to be out of it.” She had the baby under one arm. “I don’t know what a person can do anyway with a family like mine.”

  “Make some of your own and quit borrowing everything all your life,” was what Gil wanted to say. Instead he stood beside the door frowning down at the frowsy woman and gloomily watched Lana measuring out some soap in a chipped cup.

  “Gil’s just been down to Mr. Demooth’s,” Lana said brightly, in an effort to make them all easy. She knew that Gil did not approve of her lending so many things to Mrs. Reall.

  Mrs. Reall perked up at once.

  “It’s a pity,” she remarked, “that a nice man like Mark Demooth hasn’t got a decent woman to look out for him.”

  “Did you see Mr. Demooth, Gil?” Lana asked hurriedly.

  “Yes,” he said. “He’s getting ready to go down valley this morning. He said muster day was Wednesday.”

  Mrs. Reall looked surprised.

  “Why didn’t you step over to our place? It’s shorter, and Kitty would have told you. He keeps all such things wrote down in a book. He’s such a methody man.”

  Gil was nettled.

  “I knew when it was. I wanted to see him about something else.”

  “Well, that wasn’t what you said first,” said Mrs. Reall with perfect good humor. “Of course you needn’t tell me what you did go down for. I don’t mind.” But she made no move to get up.

  Gil knew that she was likely to stay till noon if the humor seized her. With strained facetiousness, he said, “I went down to see if he didn’t think we had ought to leave a bodyguard for all you women.”

  Mrs. Reall laughed heartily.

  “My, my,” she said, dabbing the baby’s nose with the front of her blouse. “Bodyguard! Why, I’m always that relieved when Kitty goes to muster! I figure he’s safe enough for one day. If he don’t break his legs coming home drunk the way he does. It’s one strange thing about a God-fearing man like Kitty, the way he gets drunk muster days. But then, as he says, war is war, and religion is religion, and both is pretty well concerned with hell.”

  “What did Mr. Demooth say, Gil?” asked Lana.

  “He said we ought to go down. He didn’t think there was any trouble coming for a while.”

  Gil wheeled and went out through the door. Mrs. Reall rose and said, “Thank you for the soap, Lana dearie. I’ll return you some the next time I get around to making it.”

  Lana watched her go, then started after Gil. Gil had begun work on clearing a three-acre strip along the creek behind the place. He was felling the trees in windrows widthwise of the land, preparatory to the au-tumn burning. The sound of his axe in the heavy August air had no ring, but when she found him he was laying savagely into a tree, sinking half the blade at every stroke.

  She watched him awhile, her dark eyes anxious.

  “Gil,” she said.

  He stopped, leaving the axe driven, and turned round. His head and neck were covered with sweat and sweat drops ran slowly down his arms. The sun beating down on the newly uncovered ground brought forth a suffocating, tindery smell, as if it might start the firing of itself at any minute.

  He stood for a moment looking out on his work. With what he already had cleared, he could see in his mind’s eye the first beginnings of a farm taking shape. Next year his present patch of corn would go to wheat. Two years from now, he ought to have eight acres sown to wheat. Once a farm could produce a hundred bushel of wheat the farmer had got past the dangerous years. He could begin to count on a yearly income of around two hundred dollars. He could then consider building him a barn. From where he stood, Gil saw where he would build his barn against the slope. A sidehill barn. It was going to be a great place to pasture stock in. Later they would plan on building a framed house.

  But women, he knew, put stock in board walls and a board floor. And Lana deserved a house. When he had married her, he hadn’t considered such things, or the fact that she would have to be left here on muster day. There were a lot of things to being married he hadn’t considered at all.

  She said again, “Gil!” quite sharply.

  In her work clothes, with her slim legs bare and her dark hair in a braid down her back, she looked light enough for him to raise her with one hand around her waist, like a daisy stem.

  She stamped her foot and the dust powdered her ankle.

  “Speak to me! Don’t stand there staring like a crazy man gone deaf! What’s on your mind?”

  “I was just thinking how the place would look, in five years from now.”

  He looked so sheepish that she laughed. “I’ll bet you were thinking about a barn and the cows in it.”

  “Horses. And I was thinking how long it would seem to you before it would be right for me to build you a decent house.”

  “What’s the matter with the cabin? Don’t it look nice?”

  “It does. But I thought you’d probably be hankering for a house.”

  “Well,” said Lana, “I probably will be. But that doesn’t mean you’ve got to moon about it so. When I get discontented I’ll let you know it fast enough.” She sat against the bevel of a stump. “What did Mr. Demooth actually say?”

  “Just about what I told her. He said I ought to go down. I told him I wanted to stay. It does seem kind of hard.” He repeated everything the captain had said.

  “Who’s this Blue Back?” she asked.

  “He’s an old Indian. Once in a while he stops with me.”

  “It’s a funny name.”

  “Yes, it is. If he ever comes round when I’m out, you treat him nice, Lana.”

  “Of course,” she said. “Why wouldn’t I?”

  “Well, you know how Indians is.”

  “You mean drunk.”

  “No, he don’t drink much. For an Indian.”

  He glanced at her.

  “You won’t be scared, being left here?”

  “No.”

  “You could pass the time with Mrs. Weaver.”

  “Maybe I will or go to Reall’s. But I’ll get back to have your supper.”

  “You wait for me at Weaver’s. No telling when we get back,” he said. “If I got time, maybe I’ll fetch you something from the store.”

  She laughed.

  “Me. I don’t need anything. Lord! You’re kind of silly about me still, aren’t you?”

  “I’m just about crazy,” he said, grinning.

  “This isn’t time to start that kind of business,” she said. “What do you want me to do, now?”

  “If you mean work, you could drag the lopped
branches so the tops lay on the logs.”

  She set to work. The tree trunks lay where they had fallen almost end to end, sometimes overlapping. She dragged the lopped branches so that they lay over the trunks, the tops all pointing eastward to favor the pre-vailing west winds of fall, when the burning would take place.

  They didn’t talk. The dust and the heat choked them both. But as her brain dulled with the labor she kept wondering whether a man would continue to feel like Gil when his girl began to lose her looks. After a while, she even began to forget that. There was just the work.

  They stopped at noon, and ate, and came out again into the heat, the flies following them from the cabin and then going in again, but a new swarm met them in the lot. The leaves were already wilting on the cut branches.

  It was like that, day after day. At sunset Lana stopped to hunt the cow and milk her. She had dropped off in her milk and only gave a quart at night.

  Then Lana started their supper. She gathered a few green ears from the cornfield, stripped the kernels out, crushed them in a bowl, and cooked them in the milk. The milk tasted of cherry and wild onion. All the time, as she worked in the kitchen, she could hear the strokes of Gil’s axe.

  He came in at dark all soaked with sweat and they went down to the creek together where a pool was, and stripped and washed side by side.

  Each night, to Lana, that marked the beginning of life again. She felt tired afterwards, her back ached, but she was clean; and while she ate, the natural uses of her body gradually returned. And the sight of Gil naked, knee deep in the slow flow of the creek, was still the one exciting thing she had to see. Even when she looked up at the peacock’s feather in the dark, his lean white shape came between it and her eyes. One did not see the burned hands and face in the dark, only the whiteness.

  They could begin to talk a little. They talked about a certain tree that had been hard in falling, or the way the mare was swelling in her neck from the flies. Gil would then go out with some of their precious salt in a cup and mix it with water and swab the mare’s shoulder, while Lana was clearing up. When he came in again, they would be wordless, and would wait only for a term of decency before going up to bed.