3stalwarts

by Unknown

  As she rested her head, her hair, brushed back above her ears to the big low knot behind her head, showed silver wings. But her face was still young, in spite of the lines that marked her cheeks, and her mouth retained its tenderness. Only the lids of her closed eyes were thinner, and faintly brushed with a brown shadow like a stain… .

  In the complete stillness of the afternoon a hammering to the south broke out like the sound of a woodpecker on a tree. But Lana did not lift her head. She let the comforting sound drift into her. She knew what it was. People were building over the Mohawk River beyond the fording place. Several people. She had not met them yet, though Gil had gone over one Sunday with Demooth and reported that they were Connecticut men. But he liked one of them, a sensible, law-abiding man named Hugh White. There would be a town there pretty soon, Gil thought, and they would have neighbors.

  Now she heard the cowbells coming down through the woods, and after a while she saw the cows, one behind the other, plod into Reall’s brook to dip their muzzles. The two little boys splashed in after them and whacked the water with their maple wands. Lana rose.

  In a few minutes she was milking in the stuffy darkness of the barn while Gilly explained how long it had taken to find the cows and complained about how he had had to wait for Joey.

  “Joey’s not so old as you,” Lana said quietly. “He gets tired quicker.”

  “I didn’t get tired,” Joey mumbled.

  “Go fetch the bucket from the spring then,” Gilly said.

  “I can’t,” said Joey. “I want to set here.”

  “If you ain’t tired,” said Gilly, “you had ought to get it to help Ma.”

  “You go and get it, Gilly.”

  She milked on. The cows were holding up well in spite of the heat.

  “Didn’t we have a horse?” Gilly asked when he came back from the spring.

  “Yes,” said Lana.

  “I said so. Joey wouldn’t believe me.”

  “I didn’t say we didn’t.”

  “What happened to the horse?” Gilly asked.

  “We ate it,” Lana said.

  “Why did we eat it, Ma?”

  “Because there wasn’t any food left in the fort.”

  “Did I eat some too?”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t remember it.”

  Lana tried to forget the time. It was the summer after West Canada Creek. When everyone believed the war was over, when it was over everywhere else in the country, Brant had suddenly appeared with five hundred Indians and a few Tories to harry German Flats. It was only the mercy of God that Adam Helmer and old Gustin Schimmel had happened on them. Adam had brought the warning in time; but the Indians had caught Gustin.

  Brant had surrounded Fort Dayton for four days, and the food had got so low that every living thing inside was killed that would serve for meat. On the last day, in an effort to draw the men out of the fort, Brant had had Gustin Schimmel burned to death on the open land towards the river.

  The Indians had burned him slowly with small fires, so that he would live for a long time, but they had planted the stake out of shot. Not so far away, however, that the poor old German’s screams could not be heard in every cranny of the fort. He had started giving out at sunset, but even after that the sixty defenders on the rifle platforms could see the fire, and the slowly charring shape, and hear the cries continuing with a faint insistence.

  Then Brant had vanished into the night and the next day Colonel Willett had arrived from Fort Plain. It was the last time they had been visited by the destructives.

  “Come up to supper, boys,” she said. As they walked before her, she thought of how she had tried to keep the pleading disembodied voice away from them. She shivered violently at the recollection. She had stretched a blanket over their heads and lain down under it with them. To keep them under it she had pretended they were all three Indians… .

  After supper was over and they had gone to bed, Lana heated water enough to wash out some of the baby’s things, worked for an hour in the steamy kitchen, and then picked up her daughter, who had begun to whimper for her evening feed.

  Though night had fallen, Lana blew out her candle and nursed the baby in the dark. It rested her to do so. She needed no candle to see the child’s soft hair, which was so light. It seemed perfect to Lana that her daughter should be fair— she remembered how jealous she had been of her sis-ter’s yellow hair, like her mother’s. She wanted the girl to be a beauty, “tall and fair,” like the old song.

  The child nursed more gently than the boys had done. Lana smiled at her own conceit. It was like having a woman in the house. Elizabeth Borst. Gil had agreed to the name. He said, when the child was born, that she looked like any little German girl. But he was pleased with her, though he tried not to show it.

  Lana still smiled. The cowbells clinked away beyond the brook. The baby’s head dropped from the nipple and Lana rose to put her to bed. She had her in her cradle when she heard the man rap on the door.

  For an instant all the panics of years past rushed on her heart.

  “Hello,” the man was calling softly. “Hey! Is there anybody in there?”

  Lana forced herself to go to the door.

  “Who is it?” she called.

  “It’s John Wolff. Does Martins live here?”

  “I am Lana Martin; what do you want?”

  “Please let me in, Mrs. Martin.”

  Lana knew that he could get in if he wanted to. So she lit her candle at the fire and got down the musket Gil had bought for her when she was alone. She lifted the latch and stepped quickly behind the table.

  But the man entered diffidently. He had no gun, and when he saw her he said, “I ain’t going to do you harm.”

  As soon as she saw him Lana lost her fear. He was an old man, with thin white hair and a sad hopeless sort of face.

  He said, “Don’t you remember me? I used to keep the store at Cosby’s Manor.”

  “Oh yes,” she said. “Yes.”

  “I got sent to prison,” he went on, “but I got away. I always wanted to come back. I left my wife here, see? She never turned up anywhere in Canada. Did you see her after that?”

  “No,” said Lana, quietly setting down the musket.

  “Her name was Ally,” said Wolff. “I never knew what a good woman she was till I had to leave her. I wanted to come back and find her if she was here. But they chased me out down there. They took my gun away. A big feller named Helmer swore he’d kill me, but some other folks helped me get away. They told me he’d killed three Indians that had come around since. I didn’t want to harm nobody. I was looking for Ally.”

  “No,” said Lana, “we never heard from her. They thought she went away.”

  “I’ve got a little place near Niagara now. I run the store on Squire Butler’s place. I wanted to take Ally to it.”

  “I’m sorry.” Lana could not feel hatred for him now that she was no longer afraid. “Won’t you have something to eat?”

  “No, thanks. I’ll just be getting back.”

  “Back?”

  “Home. To Niagara.” He tried to smile. “It’s quite a ways.”

  “You haven’t any gun.”

  “I’ve got a little food. There’s berries now.”

  “You take this musket,” Lana said impulsively. “I don’t need it. There’s not much powder and ball for it.”

  “I couldn’t do that.”

  “Oh yes. I expect my husband will be home tonight. Please.”

  He stared at her with his weak eyes.

  “You’re kind,” he said. “You’re the first kind person I’ve seen. And you know about me, too. But I never did nothing to get sent to jail for.”

  “I know; I believe you.”

  “She never turned up, you know. She was good to me that last day when I was into the fort, Mrs. Martin. They wouldn’t let me write to her, except I paid them money. I didn’t have enough.”

  She thought he was going to cry. But he
did not. He left in a little while, and she closed the door once more. Overhead she heard the boys steal back to their bed, but she did not scold them. She was glad Wolff had gone before Helmer found him. Helmer would kill any Tory or hostile that came into the valley if he could. They said he had killed Suffrenes Casselman. But no one knew that really, unless maybe his wife. Betsey was a strange woman in some ways. Gossip had it that she made Helmer swear an oath to bring her scalps before he got in bed with her, and that he brought her the scalps.

  Lana did not go to bed. She had the feeling that what she had told Wolff was so and that Gil would return tonight. When he was away she felt only half alive. Everything she had in her, everything she had done or would do, every thought and every hope, was part of him. And yet sometimes he seemed less close to her. She did not know. As long as he stayed with her, came back to her, it did not matter how little time of his life he gave to her, so long as she could see him, feel him, hear him. She thought of that poor hopeless man, John Wolff, returning to his store in the new settled land, somewhere in the west.

  When she heard Gil, he was walking with the Indian. She opened the door and called them to come in. But Blue Back was saying, “No, fine. Fine,” and backing into the darkness.

  Gil chuckled as he closed the door.

  “Blue Back won’t come in. He wants me to give you this. He says he’ll come round some day after you’ve had a chance to get your mad off.”

  “What on earth?”

  Gil held out to her a peacock’s feather, broken, stripped of half its herl, but still showing enough color in the eye to identify it.

  For some reason, to touch it took all the strength from Lana’s legs. She plumped down on the stool and leaned against the table. The hand that held the feather started to shake. It was silly of her. She did not understand it herself. And to keep Gil from noticing, she asked him whether they had found the place.

  “Oh yes. Blue Back found it. The stones were still there. Nothing had got at him.”

  He was taking off his wet and dirty shoes.

  “How was Mary?”

  “She cried some,” he said. “But after a while I think she felt better. She borrowed old Blue Back’s knife and dug up some posies and stuck them around the place. She didn’t take long.”

  “I’m glad you took her,” Lana said. “She wanted to go so much.”

  “Well, I’m glad too. I’d promised long enough.”

  He was watching her now, over his shoulder. “What’s the matter with you, Lana? Did anything happen?”

  “Gil, do you remember that John Wolff? He got arrested on that muster day?”

  “John Wolff, by God. The man that kept the store. I testified against him.”

  “He was here before you came back. They’d driven him out of German Flats and he came up here to see you.”

  “What did he want?” Gil’s face hardened. “If he wants to come back to settle, he better not try.”

  “Oh no, he was looking for some news of his wife. She never turned up in Canada.”

  “I remember. After they took him to Albany she went back to the store. But she’d gone from there when the militia went up— you remember, after we went to Little Stone Arabia Stockade.”

  It seemed they couldn’t get away from it. Again and again, day after day, the years came back to them. Lana wasn’t thinking of the Wolff woman then— she was thinking of the winter night in the Schuyler hut when Gil brought home the half of a thin doe. All at once she realized that it wasn’t herself who had been responsible for that long dread between them, nor Gil. She wasn’t like that. She wished he had kissed her when he came in. She lifted her face and looked at him. He wasn’t looking at her.

  Lana’s eyes filled suddenly with tears. Those years, they had entered not only herself, and Gil, and through them the children, they had become part of the land, even on this place, remote as it had been throughout the war— the birds of the air, she thought, the beasts of the field. “Man’s days are as grass.” Herself, Gil.

  “Is Dad come back, Ma?”

  Gilly’s narrow dark little face peering through the trap from the loft… . Joey still snoring on like a half-stifled little hedgepig.

  “Yes, son. It’s Dad. Get back to bed. Me and your Ma are going now.”

  He laid his arm round Lana in the dark, leading her to the room they slept in. The baby was snuffling her breath in and out. As Lana started to unlace her short gown, she discovered the peacock’s feather still in her hand. She fumbled for the shelf beside the window and laid the feather on it.

  She heard Gil getting down on the bed; the rustle of straw beneath the blankets. Beyond the window the faintly clinking cowbells moved along the brook.

  “We’ve got this place,” she thought. “We’ve got the children. We’ve got each other. Nobody can take those things away. Not any more.”

  ROME HAUL

  To CHARLES TOWNSEND COPELAND

  with

  the writer’s

  admiration, affection, and gratitude

  The author has made use of two songs taken from The American Songbag: “The E-ri-e” (page 429) and “The Erie Canal” (page 430). For permission to reproduce this material he wishes to thank Mr. Carl Sandburg and Harcourt, Brace and Company.

  1

  THE PEDDLER

  In 1850, the road to Boonville wound out of the Tug Hill country through long stretches of soft wood. On the steady downward slopes it curved back and forth through the balsams and scrubby pine; only on the occasional small ascents it ran straight; so that whoever traveled the road saw fellow travelers at a distance below him, or not at all— until he came upon them in the shadow of a bend.

  Along the road a young man was walking. He strode easily, his feet meeting the ground as if they were used to earth. He was tall in spite of the stoop that took inches from his stature. His shoulders were broad and sloped. There was a cleanliness about his face and straight short hair suggesting inexperience of men.

  The road, in his hours of walking, had laid a film of grey dust on his cowhide boots and had coated his trousers halfway to his knees. He wore a battered faded green hat with a narrow brim, a blue shirt open at the neck, and a brown homespun coat which puckered under his arms. In his right hand he carried a small carpetbag, ornamented on one side with a design of flowers, which he held turned inward against his leg.

  The road brought him to the top of a long easy hill, and as he walked over the lip he heard the creak of a wagon round a bend ahead of him.

  It was an odd-looking turnout. Both horse and wagon were of grey antiquity and capable only of slow and cautious movement. The horse leaned gingerly upon his breeching. It was not in him to hurry up hill or down. He footed the road slowly with a shambling sensitiveness and wove from side to side to lighten the effect of the grade. With the lines hanging loose on the dashboard, his head had free play so that he was able to combine his scientific descent of the hill with the demands of his appetite.

  On the box, a man was reading a book. His eyes ran from side to side of the page as though he was hurrying to finish a chapter. After a moment he marked his place with a piece of string and closed the book smartly.

  “Whoa!” he shouted, catching up the reins and throwing his weight backward.

  The horse pricked his ears at a tuft of grass and made for it.

  “Dammit!” exclaimed the man. “Have a lift?”

  He did not appear to notice that the walker moved with twice the speed of his horse.

  “Where’re you goin’?”

  “Boonville is my destination,” replied the driver, dropping the reins. “Will you climb on?”

  “Thanks.”

  The walker jumped over the nigh front wheel and took his seat.

  “My name’s Jacob Turnesa,” said the driver. “Peddler, I am. Peddles clothes and dress goods and jewelry. It’s a good business. What’s yours?”

  “Ain’t got any now.”

  “Name.”

  “Dan’l
Harrow.”

  “Pleased to know you. Shake hands.”

  He grasped Harrow’s hand with long thin fingers. His eyes over his hooked nose had drooping underlids which showed startlingly red in the pallor of his face. They surveyed Harrow appraisingly before he shifted them to his horse.

  He pulled a clay pipe from his pocket and pointed it.

  “There’s a horse,” he said.

  “Yeanh.”

  “There’s a horse,” he repeated.

  “I seen him.”

  “Ahhh! He’s a great one to go, he is.”

  Harrow nodded.

  “He is at that, though. After you get him started where there’s grass along the road, there ain’t no stopping him.”

  He nodded, ruminatively spat, and began filling his pipe from a pouch of grey buckskin.

  “Look at him now,” the peddler continued. The old horse had reached the bottom of the slope, where a small brook stole under the bridge and balsams made the air sweet; and he quickened his pace on the upward grade. “Funny horse. Has notions in his head like a human. Goes slow downhill ‘cause he hates to think of the updrag beyont. And when he hits the updrag he perks up his ears, thinking of the downhill he’s going to find on the other side. If he was a man, you’d call him a philosopher.”

  “I wouldn’t,” said Harrow, dubiously looking at his fists.

  “No,” agreed the peddler, his thin mouth grinning behind his whiskers, “you’d call him a damn fool.”

  He struck a match on the iron brace of the dashboard and put it to the bowl of his pipe. A puff of rank sweet smoke popped out of the charred bowl like a recoil and swept into Dan’s face.

  “Where you come from?” Turnesa asked, flipping the dead match at the rump of the horse, who switched his grizzled tail with irritation.

  “Tug Hill way.”

  “That’s lonely country. Leave yer family?”

  “They’re dead.”

  “Ahhh.”

  “Pa, he died. The man that bought the place didn’t want no help. I was plannin’ to go anyhow. There ain’t nothing to that land.”