3stalwarts

by Unknown

  The loft was like ink, with the window in the gable showing only a pale gray set of squares. The air smelled faintly of Lana and of spruce wood. Standing beside the trap, Gil stripped to his undershirt.

  The boards gave springily as he walked slowly to the bed. His hand touched the foot and then guided him round to his side. He sat down on the edge and said “Lana.”

  She did not answer. He held his breath and could not hear her breathing. He put his hand out cautiously and felt her hip under the blanket. She was lying with her back to him, and she must be holding her breath.

  They were both holding their breath.

  “Lana!” He spoke explosively.

  She rolled over on her back and said in a very low, calm, forced voice, “Yes, Gil.”

  “You going to listen to me?”

  “Yes, of course, if you want to stay awake.”

  Dutiful as damnation.

  “You didn’t have no right acting the way you did.”

  “What way?” she asked with such deliberate sweetness that he wished he could see her face.

  “The way you did in front of Blue Back.”

  “I brought you what you asked me, didn’t I?”

  “You could have poured his glass, couldn’t you?”

  “I didn’t know my marriage contract called for waiting on the heathen.”

  “He ain’t a heathen. He’s one of Reverend Kirkland’s Indians.” Gil swallowed. “I bet he’s a better Christian than either one of us, for that matter. And even if he wasn’t you or me could go into his house and they’d offer us anything there was in it.”

  “It’s too bad you didn’t marry an Indian girl.”

  “It don’t matter what you think, Lana. You’ve got no right to shame me in front of a visitor.”

  “You’ve got no right bringing any muck out of the woods into my house, using my things; and I won’t stand for it.”

  “You won’t? What will you do?”

  She said furiously, “I’ll take them and myself back out of here.”

  “You won’t either. As long as we’re talking this way you might just as well understand you couldn’t do that if you wanted to. There ain’t a thing you own here under the law. Now, you listen to me. You behave decently and I won’t talk about it. But you can’t act like this and expect me to allow it.”

  He heard her draw a deep breath.

  Then she cried out, “You can’t stop me. I don’t care what the law is. And I don’t care what there is in here, either. You can have it. But you can’t talk to me that way.” She breathed again. “I’ll just walk out of here, that’s all. You won’t know anything of it.”

  “Now, Lana.” Gil tried to talk calmly. “We didn’t marry to act this way.”

  “I don’t care what we married for. I won’t stand it. I don’t mind living here alone. I didn’t as long as you was here. I didn’t mind working my share outdoors. I didn’t let myself get scared. I done everything I thought you’d like. I tried to be good to you. And then you call me a bitch.”

  “Bitch?” He didn’t understand. “I never called you a bitch.”

  “Yes, you did. When you told me to shut my mouth and not act like a scared bitch.”

  “And you got mad because of that?” He reached for her hand in the dark. “I didn’t think what I was saying. I didn’t mean it. Honest, Lana. I wouldn’t call you that. I was scared myself, and I didn’t want you scaring me worse.”

  He had sense enough not to try to hold her hand. He felt her shaking. But he got into the bed and lay on his back.

  “I never thought that things could begin to work up here the way they are. I don’t know what I ought to do.”

  He waited in the dark. He felt beside him the trembling lengthen into jerks. Suddenly she rolled over against his side. The way she cried was al-most brutal.

  “Oh, Gil. I hadn’t ought to’ve done so. Only he smelled so bad. I couldn’t think he was nice. Oh, Gil!” She put her face against his undershirt. “You were right to call me so. I did act like a bitch.”

  He didn’t say anything, for he felt as if all nature had upheaved inside his chest. He let her go on crying until she had quieted.

  Then, when he was just dropping off to sleep himself, damned if she didn’t start poking him.

  “Gil!”

  “Yes.”

  “You awake?”

  “Yes.”

  “Gil, I better tell you sometime, and I’ve been trying to all day.”

  “Tell me what?”

  “You and me are going to have a baby.”

  8. Trial

  The trial of John Wolff for treason was set for the twenty-fifth of August, Sunday, so that witnesses against the prisoner would not be discommoded in traveling down to Herkimer. It would make no difference to the prisoner; he was already there. They had kept him under guard in the new fort; but the trial, though handled by the military, would take place in the office of Dr. William Petry, son-in-law of the accused man, and a member of the Tryon Committee for German Flats.

  The office, which adjoined Dr. Petry’s framed house, had originally been a small log barn. One end of it was the general store, the other and smaller section, the dispensary. A sort of counter ran across the room with a removable leaf in the middle, so that doctor and patient were continually within view of those who were buying or who were waiting their turn with the doctor. In that way, a very suggestive and doubled-ended atmosphere was maintained. People waiting would be prompted to buy— groceries or goods; and store customers would be reminded of the fact that their children needed sulphur, or rhubarb and soda, or be encouraged to show the doctor the thumb they had sprained the week before and that had somehow never got just right since.

  The doctor was a choleric, tall, and heavy man, invariably dressed in a black coat and a shirt with no cravat. He served both sorts of customers simultaneously, naming prices as he looked down a patient’s throat; or, leaving the gut and needle in a cut, he lifted the counter and took down a bolt of calico.

  On the day of the trial he was leaning back in a chair under the diploma from the Electoral Palatine Medical Assembly at Mannheim which announced in no uncertain terms that William Petry had successfully answered all questions as to wounds, in general, contusions, tumors, fractures, luxations, and anatomical and surgical operations. The fact that the fort was still noisy with carpenters and joiners had led him to suggest that his store be used as the largest available room in the settlement, the fact of the recent arrival of a shipment of French cloth goods having, naturally, no bearing.

  When Lana entered with Gil, the room already seemed unpleasantly crowded. People had lined the counters, until there was hardly passageway up the middle of the floor. They sat wherever they could find a perch, on the grindstones, on the kegs of oil, applejack, and molasses and rum. Even on the road outside people were gathered between the houses: farmers in their best homespun coats, with their wives on their arms, carrying prayer books in their hands, and still with the chilled damp look of churching on their faces.

  Someone pointed out herself and Gil as new settlers up under Hazenclever’s hill; Gil as the man who had uncovered the evidence. As soon as he helped Lana down from her place behind him on the mare, they gave way readily, offering little encouraging half-words of praise that made her realize that Gil had made a mark in the community and become a per-son of importance. It was even more impressive as they entered the store. At the door a soldier in a brown coat asked Gil who he was, and when Gil gave his name bawled out in a high, untuneful nasal voice: “Witness for the United States.”

  A little lane opened for them. Lana would have stayed in the background, but Gil still held her hand, and perforce she had to move forward towards the counter or make a scene. There, at what was now the bar of justice, he let her go and she shrank against the wall, holding her small chintz pocket in both hands.

  A terrific smell of snuff causing her to look to her left, she met the quizzical eyes, under shaggy black brows, of
the doctor himself. He stared at her with such frank curiosity that the blood flowed to her head and she wondered dizzily whether an educated doctor could tell from merely looking at a girl in a bonnet if she was pregnant.

  Gil was standing at the edge of the transverse counter beside George Weaver. Beyond them, sitting down, the lean bright face of Captain Demooth was turned a little away from her, as he talked to the lieutenant from the garrison at the fort who was to preside. Then the lieutenant looked at Gil, and nodded, and met Lana’s eye. He pulled out his cuffs very slowly. Lana looked away. When she glanced back again, Captain Demooth was talking over his shoulder and the lieutenant was staring her way, and as their eyes met he smiled.

  He must be a young man,— about Gil’s age, she thought,— but when he was serious he looked older, less impulsive, and rather lonesome. He had a narrow Yankee face with a snubbed nose and an oddly thin wry mouth that was a little sad. He looked like gentry to Lana, for all his homely face.

  Gil was reaching up his right hand to scratch the top of his head as Captain Demooth talked to him. Just in the nick of time, he remembered how carefully he had oiled and combed his hair, and his hand hovered, as if he couldn’t think how to disguise the gesture; and the back of his neck got bright red.

  Lana’s heart swelled. That little piece of defeat on his part showed her how much she loved him. She let her eyes close under the shade of the bonnet and locked her fingers round the pocket strings, and prayed.

  “Oh, God, let Gil show up well before the gentry.”

  The Committee of Safety had committed various disaffected people remaining in German Flats before this. But in a case like Wolff’s, in which the suspect was believed to have harbored spies, they had preferred to turn the matter over to the regular army. Lieutenant Biddle had been appointed by Colonel Dayton to handle the business. The colonel was busy with arrangements for the repairing of Fort Stanwix before fall and, as he said, “These damn valley Dutch seem to think the army ought to send up a general for their housecleaning.”

  “Do you know anything about the case, sir?”

  “No. I don’t want to. All I want is to get Stanwix decently fixed, but I can hardly get a team out of these people. If I had my say we’d fall back on Fort Hunter and let them take their medicine.”

  “Yes, sir.” The lieutenant swallowed. “But what ought I to do? What line should I take, sir?”

  “Please youself, Mr. Biddle. It doesn’t matter a hang to us one way or the other. We’ll be the butts any way we do it. I’ll stand behind you.”

  Lieutenant John Biddle looked at Gilbert Martin, and he knew that both of them must have the same unhappy feeling on their breakfasts. He wished to God the sergeant would bring in the poor devil and get it over. All about him the German faces kept staring at him. They weren’t easy people to get acquainted with. They distrusted soldiers of any rank. The girls were as standoffish as unbroke fillies.

  He glanced towards the door again, meeting Lana’s eye on the way. He thought, “There’s one girl that looks as if she had a heart in her. But Demooth says she’s married to the witness, and just as God-saving as the rest of them.”

  The people outside the door were moving left and right. There sounded the clicking walk of men in step. The sergeant pushed his face through the door, with his hand still wiping his lips, saluted, and announced the prisoner.

  “Bring him in,” directed the lieutenant. He sighed and took a last look at Lana. The old turkey cock of a doctor was stretching his neck at the girl.

  The sergeant drew a paper out of his pocket, and announced: “The prisoner, John Wolff, of Cosby’s Manor. Accused of harboring the King’s spies and trafficking with treasonable persons.”

  John Wolff entered. Lana saw his face, stubborn, rather pale, the eyes fixed on the lieutenant. There was another stir at the door and Mrs. Wolff squeezed through. “I got the right,” she was saying in a subdued, desperate voice. “I’m his wife. I got the right, ain’t I?”

  The lieutenant rapped his pistol butt on the counter, and some capsules collapsed in a bottle.

  “Order, please.”

  There was a silence.

  “You are John Wolff of Cosby’s Manor, as represented?”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “You can stand over against the counter,” the lieutenant said.

  “Easy on the jug,” said the doctor. “It’s got acid in it.”

  Captain Demooth, as a member of the Committee, and the commanding officer of the company of militia which had made the arrest, read the indictment. It caused no titillation. Everyone knew what was in it.

  Lana thought, “He’ll call on Gil now.”

  But George Weaver had to give his evidence… .

  “What were you doing downstairs, Sergeant Weaver?”

  “I was kind of keeping my eye on the boys.”

  “What were they doing?”

  “Most of them was looking for Thompson’s cellar.”

  “Did they find it?”

  “Yes, they did.”

  “Did they break in?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “What were they looking for?”

  “I don’t know. But they found gin, anyway.”

  “In other words, they were just looting?”

  George hawed a little.

  “I guess you could call it that,” he admitted.

  “Were they all so employed?”

  “No. Gil Martin, there. He was looking up in the attic.”

  “He was sober, I take it.”

  “You could of fed him hay,” said George.

  “How did you know he was there?”

  “I went to see where he was. I got upstairs and hollered. He said for me to come up. I went up in the attic. We found where there had been people sleeping. We found evidence that there had been a man named Caldwell there. A blind man.”

  “What is the matter with this man Caldwell?”

  “The Committee says he is a spy. George Herkimer’s been looking for him.”

  “Thank you,” said Lieutenant Biddle. He wondered where all this was getting him. There was no proof at all about Wolff’s harboring spies.

  “Gilbert Martin.”

  Gil was sworn to tell the truth. He spoke in a clear hard voice. It didn’t sound quite like his voice, even to himself.

  “You are acquainted with the prisoner Wolff?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Have you ever to your personal knowledge known him to be associated with treasonable characters?”

  “I know he’s always stood out for the King’s side. Mr. Thompson went after the Johnsons this summer. John’s always said the way he stood on things.”

  “He is known for a Loyalist?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The lieutenant considered. Then he asked Gil to tell what he had found in the attic, and Gil did so. He further described the man he and Lana had seen at Billy Rose’s tavern. He was asked for and gave his deductions. He did so plainly and simply.

  “Why hadn’t you arrested Wolff when you first caught him in the store?”

  “We didn’t have nothing on him. Only the powder.”

  “Were you drunk when you got to the clearing?”

  “Some of us was a little lit up, sir.”

  “That will do,” said the lieutenant. Lana felt the doctor touch her leg.

  “Your boy’s done all right,” he whispered. “He was fair enough to John, too.”

  Gil had stepped back. He stood quite still, perspiring. People murmured and nodded. It was all how you looked at the matter. Nine tenths of them thought that there was reasonable cause to judge the prisoner guilty. But there wasn’t much proof, not the way the lieutenant was asking questions. Only that business about the eye patch.

  The lieutenant turned to Captain Demooth. He asked if there were any other witnesses against the prisoner. There were.

  Story Grebb was called. He said he lived the west side of Fall Hill, beyond Bellinger’s. He testified that thr
ee days before the arrest he had been awakened by his negro man, Hans. He had shut the negro out because the negro had been in the habit of sneaking down to the Herkimer place where they had a black wench named Frailty, and Esquire Herkimer was being annoyed. Hans was frightened because he said there was two Indians on the road. They was asking the way to John Wolff’s store. He yelled to them to keep on moving, and he let in Hans and tied him up in the pantry and gave him a hiding.

  The following witness made the greatest impression. He was a heavy-handed oldish man, with a white moustache stained at the ends and edges. He said his name was Hon Yerry Dorsch. He lived just west of Eldridge Patent. He testified that on the evening of July 14 he came home from settling a paper with Isaac Paris. That he had taken all day to the trip back, and in the evening when he got to James Jones’s house there was a man with a lame left hand sitting in it. That he had on a speckled under jacket, a brown surtout coat, blue woolen stockings and strings in his shoes… .

  Lana caught her breath as Dorsch continued with circumstantial relish.

  That the said man was lame in his left hand: that Dorsch asked him, Jones, where the man came from, and that Jones said he did not know; that the man stood him, Dorsch, a drink, and that then the three of them set out along the Kingsroad in company; that as they went he asked the lame-handed man what his name was, but he would not tell him, but told him that he came up from Albany; that Dorsch was sure the lame-handed man was carrying a bundle of letters, because he stumbled against him once and felt them crackle inside the man’s shirt; that the lame-handed man said he was meeting a man with a blind eye, and did Dorsch know such a person, which Dorsch said he did not and would take oath to same now before the lieutenant if need be.

  Lieutenant Biddle, listening to the tortuous slow testimony, became aware of the excitement in the audience. The stupid Dorsch had brought with him a peculiar nervous tension. The prisoner Wolff stood against the counter, apparently not hearing a word. The woman who had said she was the prisoner’s wife had her hand to her mouth. The pretty girl beside the doctor looked a little better now that her husband had testified, though the stuffiness of the store seemed to be getting on her nerves.