Hunter’s Moon

by Norah Hess

  Hearing steps on the pole stairs, she leaned over the side of the bed and peered at the opening in the floor. The top of Simon's gray, grizzly head appeared and then the large bright eyes, a twinkling grin in them.

  "Here you are, honey."

  He carried a warmed robe and pair of house slippers in his hands. She smiled her thanks and gratefully slipped into them. Simon spotted the snow on the bed and hurriedly brushed it off. "Was you warm last night, child?" he asked.

  "I guess so. I didn't wake up once."

  "I'll get some rags pushed in them cracks soon as I eat."

  After breakfast, Darcey and Cindy worked until lunch straightening up the cabin and arranging their personal effects around the room. Simon pulled and tugged the provisions to the cellar below, sorting and stacking the food on the shelves. Coming back upstairs, he obtained some rags from Cindy and climbed to the attic.

  They had finished lunch, and Darcey was drying the last dish when a knock sounded on the door. Removing her apron, Darcey opened the door to Jim. A man, a woman, and a young boy were with him. She imagined they were his family. "Come in, come in," she urged, stepping back and swinging the door wide.

  They busily stamped the snow from their feet and entered. Jim said, "This is my sister Clara, her husband Bill, and Charlie, their youngin'."

  Clara Wilson held out a work-worn hand in greeting. Her husband, tall and fair and standing out in the company of his dark-skinned, black-haired relatives, bowed his head and greeted her quietly, his blue eyes studying her face. And the young gangly lad she took to right away. Although he was shy and kept dropping his eyes from her, she had not missed the small devil that looked out of them, reminding her of someone else.

  It was her turn now to introduce Simon and Cindy. She hid a smile at the startled look that came over the Wilsons' faces and then was immediately quashed as she introduced the black pair as though they were family.

  For a moment the room was a bustle of activity and confusion as coats and boots were removed, and everyone was talking at once. All the available chairs were grouped around the fire, and they settled down, with the boys sitting on the hearth.

  "How was your trip, Simon?" Bill asked. "Did you run into any Indians or mercenaries?"

  "Naw, didn't see hair nor head of any human being."

  "You were lucky. The Indians have been huntin' regular in these parts for game to feed the British army."

  Simon, catching the look of alarm on the faces of Darcey and Cindy, changed the subject. "How do you get along with the taxes back here in the hills?" he asked.

  "I'm through with payin' taxes!" Bill declared. "Them British have got the last cent they're gonna get out of me."

  "I think we're far enough into the wilderness not to be bothered anymore with taxes," Clara said. "There ain't gonna be anybody brave or foolish enough to come in here to collect them."

  "I don't doubt that you're right, Mrs. Wilson," Simon said. "Anyhow, I think our biggest concern is gonna be the Continental bill. It's fast becoming useless, you know."

  "I know it," Bill answered. "Until recently the war has only affected us indirectly, makin' supplies and such scarce. The damned Tories stop just about every boat on the Ohio. But now with our paper money just about worthless, we can't buy much even when someone runs the blockade."

  He paused a moment and then added, "I worry about how we're gonna get along without gunpowder to shoot our meat with. We'll all starve if this war keeps up much longer."

  "Well, from the talk down at the post, you won't have to worry about it," Jim said. "They say that in the spring the British are gonna set the Indians on all the towns up and down the Ohio. If that happens, we'll all be in it, and we'll have plenty of gunpowder."

  "I don't believe that," Clara said. "I think this war is about over."

  "I don't know," Bill answered doubtfully. "They said that last year, and it's still goin' on."

  "But it won't much longer," Clara insisted. "Since Ben Franklin talked France into helping us, the British will soon be giving up."

  "I hope you're right, Clara," Bill answered. "The sooner they get out, the faster we can set up our own government and go about our business."

  "Yes, that's sure the truth," Simon agreed.

  Before he could continue further, Clara interrupted. "Let's talk about something else. I get so tired of always talking war and taxes."

  The Wilsons then proceeded to fill them in on all aspects of the settler's life. In the next hour, Darcey and the black couple learned it was a far cry from what they had been used to. The hill people lived the most simple of lives. They were occupied with just the plain business of working to keep body and soul together. Now and then there was a party and church meeting on Sunday to break up the drudgery that filled the biggest part of their lives.

  They learned also that some things they took for granted were almost a luxury to the settler. "You take salt now," Bill said. "It's packed in by horses from Ohio and goes for eight and nine dollars a bushel and likely to go higher if it makes it in. We hill people need an awful lot of it to make the strong brines we put our meat in. Meat don't last no time in the summertime without it."

  Darcey shook her head and exclaimed, "I wish I would have known. I could have brought a couple of barrels with me."

  Clara then went on to explain that they made their own sugar. "When the sap runs in the maples in the spring, we bore holes in the bark and catch the juice and then boil it down to sugar. Then, of course, in the fall, we have sorghum for sweetening." After a pause, she added, "As for soap, start saving all your fat and I'll show you how to make lye soap."

  The afternoon wore on, and Cindy served them coffee and some cookies she had brought with her. Darcey tried for an hour to steer the conversation around to a point where she could bring up the man at the spring without arousing Cindy's suspicious nature. But Clara and Cindy kept up a steady stream of chatter, and it wasn't until Cindy, with a teasing look in her direction, asked, "Is there many single men around here?" that she relaxed and waited for Clara's answer.

  When Clara had enumerated on her fingers every eligible man in the hills and went into a long discourse on the desirability of each as a husband, Darcey interrupted with the words that had been burning on her lips all afternoon, "I think I might have met one of those men yesterday afternoon, Clara."

  She felt Cindy's curious eyes upon her as Clara said, "You think so? Where did you meet him? What was his name?"

  "On the path by our spring. He didn't say what his name was."

  "What did he look like? Was he young? Was he good-looking?"

  The excited gleam in Clara's eyes amused Darcey. She suspected that Clara was hoping it had been her brother Jarvis. Jim had told her a little of his handsome brother and had hinted that his sister might try a little matchmaking. Although it would have been wonderful if it were true, the man at the spring could in no way be described as good-looking.

  "I would say he was in his late thirties," she answered, "and his face was too hard to be called good-looking . . . although I found him attractive."

  Charlie's excited words brought the blood rushing through her veins. "That's Uncle Mike, Maw! He's the meanest lookin' man around these parts, and his place is just on the other side of Mr. Josh's spring."

  "You hush up, Charlie Wilson!" Clara snapped. "Your Uncle Mike is not mean-looking."

  Turning to Darcey, she asked, "Was he a big man and did he have much to say to you?"

  Darcey sensed that everyone in the room had stopped talking and was listening to them. Her mind searched for the right words and the right tone of voice. She wondered what their reaction would be if she should say that he was a man of action rather than words. She could imagine the startled looks on their faces if she should tell them of his actions. Then quietly she said, "He was a large man, and, no, he had very little to say."

  "It sounds like Mike all right," Clara said. "He's not one to talk a great deal."

  It was Charlie's n
ext words that stopped her breathing. "I think he's gone back to the long-hunters. I was over there this morning, and his trap and gears is all gone . . . and the dog, too."

  When Simon asked, "What is a long-hunter?" Darcey could have kissed him for she longed to know and her paralyzed tongue refused to function.

  "Long-hunters, Simon, are men that hunt for a livin'," Bill answered. "Before the war, Mike was one of them for years."

  Clara then said, a deep sadness in her voice, "I really thought that he liked his little place and wouldn't return to them scally-wag hunters."

  "Why do you call them that, Clara?" Cindy asked.

  It was Bill that answered, "They're not really scally-wags, Cindy. Clara just calls them that because she thinks they're lazy and shiftless. I must say, though, they are a wild bunch. The only home they got is in the woods. They go on some huntin' trips that last as long as two years."

  "Yeah. Them and the loose women that tag along with them," Clara snapped disgustedly. Bill and Simon laughed and Cindy clucked her tongue.

  "I guess it'll be a while, then, before we meet your brother Mike," Simon said.

  And as Charlie had dashed her hopes before, he now brought them hurrying forth. "You'll get to meet him when the spring comes and the snow is all gone. He told me yesterday that he's gonna put in a couple acres of tobacco this year."

  Darcey's eyes swung back and forth between Bill and Clara, anxious for them to verify Charlie's words. When Clara's face broke into a wide smile, the breath she had been holding whisked through her teeth and she could have kissed Clara as she said, "That's right. He told us that yesterday when he was visiting. I wonder, though, why he didn't mention going off on a hunting trip."

  "Oh, you know Mike, Clara. Anything could have set him off. There's been a hunter's moon all week, and I caught him starin' at it a couple of times. The carefree life of a hunter gets in your blood, you know," Bill said.

  "I guess," Clara grudgingly agreed. "But I sure wish he'd get it out of his system."

  The Wilsons left shortly after that, but not before they had been given a plentiful supply of provisions.

  Darcey had noted that all afternoon Clara's eyes had been pulled as a magnet to the stack of food Simon had arranged in one corner of the room. It had been placed there purposely for them, but now Darcey didn't know how to broach the subject of gifting the couple with food. Words of her grandfather kept running through her mind, "Hill people are the proudest people on earth," he had said.

  Not for the world would she hurt these kind people. She had almost given up on the idea when Simon with his usual tact settled the problem neatly.

  "Bill," he said, "we brought more food with us than we can use this winter. But I hated to leave it behind to spoil. It was my intention to share it with you folks, you being so good to Josh, taking care of him and all. We'd be mightly proud if you'd take it."

  Smiles lit the faces of the Wilsons. Bill said, "That's right neighborly of you, Simon, and we thank you."

  When they had left, making Darcey promise to visit them soon, a mutual liking had sprung up between them, and Darcey felt that the outspoken, friendly Clara would have a lasting influence on her life.

  As she helped Cindy prepare their supper, Darcey wondered when the snow disappeared in this region and spring arrived. Her spirits, which had already been at a dangerous low, had plummeted to the bottom at Charlie's revelation of his uncle's extended absence. Gone now was the expectant feeling she had arrived with, the excitement of a new life evaporating like the mists over the river that vanished with the rising sun.

  "Nothing will mean a thing to me until he returns," Darcey said to herself.

  She set the table, and Cindy called Simon in from the shed. Cindy and Simon ate with a hearty appetite while she idly pushed her cooling food around in the plate, her thoughts on the man called Mike.

  CHAPTER 6

  Darcey was mistaken in thinking that Mike had been indifferent to her. She had affected him deeply, more than any other thing in his life. Right now, almost a week later, sitting beside a lonely campfire, she dwelled in his mind as strongly as she had the first night on the trail.

  His caring for her had driven him from his cabin and into the wilderness. When he had left, his intent was to put as many miles as possible between them. She was the reason he was on his way, hoping to make contact with the long-hunters.

  He had run into some of them last summer, down at the post. They had urged him to go with them when they left in the fall. "We may go as far as Maine before we're finished," one of the hunters had said.

  "We'll spend a whole winter in Pennsylvania, though," another had explained. "There's an awful lot of furs to be had there. They ain't hardly been scratched yet."

  "Well, that could be true, but I hear there's just as many Indians," Mike answered.

  "Hell! The Indians ain't bothered anyone since '61."

  "That's the way it used to be, but since the Revolution, they have thrown in with the British and fight right alongside them."

  "Shit! We're gonna be so far off the beaten path we'll never run into them."

  They had talked a while longer, and to get rid of them Mike finally had promised to think about it. At the time he had had no intentions of joining them ever again. They were a part of his past, and that was where he had wanted them to stay. But a blonde-haired woman with strange amber eyes had changed all of that.

  He took some small twigs out of his pocket and counted them. There were five. Allowing that he walked fifteen miles a day, he figured to be about seventy-five miles from home.

  He had noted the past couple of days that game was becoming more plentiful and wondered if more heavy snows in the mountain regions had chased the animals down. And, too, in the many streams he had crossed, there had been beaver activity in every one.

  He debated, without coming to a decision, about making a permanent camp in the present neighborhood and forgetting about the long-hunters altogether.

  Sighing, he rose to his feet and moved around the fire, readying the camp and unrolling his bed beside the fire. Laying a small log on the coals, he settled himself before it and stared into the flames.

  As the solitude of night enveloped him and the sigh of the wind moved through the treetops, his mind swung to the cause of his lonely vigil beside a campfire in the wilderness.

  Searching his pockets for his pipe, he delayed the time to roll into his blankets. His real hell always began once he was stretched out in the darkness. It was then that she came and lay down, teasing and tormenting and fading away when he reached for her.

  It was the early hours of morning, when the night was its blackest, that he dreaded the most. It was then that he was most governed by his desire for her. Once awakened, there would be no more sleep, and his mind would wander back and forth, rehashing every moment of the two short-lived hours.

  Loving her had been a new and wonderful experience for him. Never before had a woman shown him tenderness in that most intimate act. She had also been the only woman he had ever shown tenderness. He could still feel her warm, smooth arms around his neck, pulling his head down to lay next to her own. Then he would remember starting his body rhythm against hers, and he'd groan deep in his throat and get out of his bed and pace around the campfire until morning.

  He would recall retracing his steps to his cabin that afternoon and dreading the silence that awaited him. Always he had loved the peace and serenity that permeated its sturdy walls, but now the ghost of a pale-haired woman would walk around its one room, and he would be unable to stand it.

  The thought that gnawed at him the most was her marrying Jarvis . . . Jarvis, selfish and mind-crushingly cruel.

  Entering the cabin and throwing himself across the bed, Mike breathed in the scented warmth of her among the blankets. Mentally exhausted, he had slept awhile and had awakened to total darkness. He lay awhile pondering his future and then, his mind made up, arose and gathered his gear and traps.

  He
would join the long-hunters until spring, in the hope that a few months in the wilderness would help erase his memory of her. When he returned, he could accept her marriage to Jarvis.

  A faint wind had arisen as he packed his grub, and the snow had scraped gently across the window pane. When he called Si and closed the door behind them, they had walked into a building blizzard. He had chosen the river road to leave by, and after a couple of hours, he became aware that the storm had worsened. Sleet mixed with the snow bit into his face like tiny needles. Its fury had grown so he could see hardly a yard ahead. But he continued to plod laboriously along for another hour, the dog whining at his heels and floundering through the snowdrifts that were beginning to build.

  Reluctantly, he realized that the storm would be a long one and that his strength was giving out. He knew that he soon must find shelter for himself and the dog. If they went down in this screaming, howling hell, they wouldn't be found until spring.

  If his memory served him right, the only protection at this particular spot was a grove of cedars about a half mile to his left. He stood uncertain for a moment, debating the possibility of locating the cedars in the blinding whiteness that hung like a blanket in front of him. Impatiently, he swiped at the snow hanging on his eye lashes and gave his mind over to what he should do. Certain death awaited him here, so he had nothing to lose in trying to find the grove.

  He decided that the spot he sought should lie in a straight line to his shoulder. Turning at a slight angle and keeping the wind to that side as a guide, he struck off through a snow-swept field. Step by labored step, he trudged along, the sharp particles of snow blinding his eyes and taking his breath.

  Finally, when he was sure he had become lost, miraculously the stretch of tall cedars loomed in front of him. The wind, although it had lashed angrily at him, had guided him to shelter.

  Wearily, he crawled under a great bough interlaced and burdened with snow. Beneath its mighty spread it was warm and dry, the snow-sealed branches repelling the whipping wind. Hunkering down against the tree's large trunk, he pulled the dog to his side and prepared to wait out the storm.