No, it wasn’t his living with the Indians he had against Louie Scurrah. It was his itchy foot. Once a man had such, it itched him all his life, and there was no help for it. It would itch to go from here off yonder and once it got there, it would itch for some other place. Nothing, likely, but the bury hole would cure it. Louie might reckon he was giving up and settling down, but an itchy foot wouldn’t let him. If nothing else worked on him, the settlers would come in, the game and woods would move out, and a woodsy would have to move out with them.
Didn’t he know? Wasn’t he like Louie nigh onto twenty years back? Couldn’t he see Jary now as he had seen her that first time along the Conestoga, young, white skinned and pretty as Genny today? Hadn’t Jary’s folks fought her for taking up with a woodsy like he was? He hadn’t much use for them then, but he could see their side now. They wanted to spare their young one from being dragged off to some lonesome tract in the woods where they would never lay eyes on her again. But off to the woods she would go. And now where was she? If she had mam or pap left, they didn’t even know she was dead and buried. When her birth time came around, like as not one grayhead would say to the other, “Jary’s thirty-nine years old today. Wonder where she’s at now!” They wouldn’t reckon she was still thirty-seven lying deep in the black muck of this Northwest land. He hadn’t liked much the time she had lit off for home when he went back to Wayne’s army. But he was glad for it now. It gave her a visit with her folks, the only one she ever had. He recollected how little Genny had cried when he took them back to the woods. But if Jary shed any tears, she had done it in secret.
Now if Louie wanted a woman, Worth would like to see him get one. But he wasn’t anxious for Genny to take the white-faced girl’s place out in that lonesome cabin. Achsa was the better woman for him, if he only knew it. Achsa took after his mother who had Monsey blood, and her bare feet had tramped behind his father any place it pleased him to wander. Oh, he knew Louie took no more notice of Achsa than of little Sulie. These young fellows never would listen. Marrying wasn’t like what you expected when you were young and foolish as a gandersnipe. Once you were married, you stayed married, unless one of you died or run off. And young ones came thick as squirrels on a hickory. A man and woman were a long time married but it didn’t take long to get started. First thing you’d know, they’d be together.
His beard tightened in the darkness. He would put his foot down on this. He’d talk plain to Sayward in the morning. But next day when he called her out of the cabin, it wasn’t easy as he had figured.
“You kin tell Ginny,” he stormed, looking the other way, “she’s too mortal young to be a sparkin’. And if she wa’n’t, I still wouldn’t want her a livin’ way out somewhar in the bush by her lonesome.”
Then he went off with his bag and rifle. He wasn’t going for game today. This was summer time and they had fresh meat. He was out to dig sang, however far he’d have to go for it. He had dug out plenty hereabouts. The whole cabin was strung up with the drying roots.
Sayward felt for her father. He couldn’t meet her eye but had to go right off. Oh, he knew well enough who it was had first taken in this Louie Scurrah and listened to his hunting stories and hefted his curly maple sporting rifle, and even gone out with his own frow and augur and fixed up that old cabin in the sumach till it was something more than for a coppersnake to live in. Yes, Worth knew who had egged this thing on. And now he was running off and telling her she had to break it up.
That was easier said than done, Sayward thought, as she redd up the trencher. You couldn’t pen up humans in different coops like they did Gypsyfowl back in Pennsylvania. Humans were free as wild pigeons in the woods. You could talk all day to a young redbreast cock or a graybreast hen sitting up on a limb, but they would mate their own selves when the notion took them. And likely it would be deep in the woods somewhere far from your eyes and hearing.
Oh, she would tell Genny what her father had said. Let Genny think her jealous if she wanted to. But today when Genny came back from walking home a short piece with Louie, she looked too mortal sweet to heartscald right now. The last few days Genny had come out like the juneberry that is only slim and pale one day and the next is all blossoms and sightlier than anything else in the woods. Only Genny’s skin was nearer like the tulip laurel that some call the white magnolia. She came back floating along the path like milkweed down. She could hardly have known what she was doing, for without being told she took the bedding out on the bushes to air.
Somewhere out there she swung on a creeper and her voice kept lifting from the woods fresh as a bobwhite back in a Conestoga meadow.
Oh, the year was a risin’ so bright and clear
And the young gal sot in the old woman’s cheer.
It was too far to know what the verse was about, but when she got to the chorus again, her voice sang out and you could catch every word.
Oh, the year was a risin’ so bright and clear
And the young gal sot in the old woman’s cheer.
Sayward went to the door and stood a while looking out. The pot was waiting for her to scrub it out with soap and sand. Let it sit till she was ready. You didn’t often see the woods more still. They were atop of summer now. The leaves wouldn’t get any bigger or the days longer. The changing season had slowed down till it nearly stopped. Now it would stay this way a while through the dog days when you had to watch out for mad, slobber-jawed wolves. The only leaves that moved were yonder where Genny kept swinging on her creeper tied in a big loop for a seat. And at the end of every verse you could hear her sing out:
Oh, the year was a risin’ so bright and clear
And the young gal sot in the old woman’s cheer.
What was that song about, Sayward wondered. She had a notion, though she couldn’t mind ever hearing it before. When Genny came in a while later, Sayward reckoned she wasn’t far off, though this time Genny was singing another.
Oh, why have you put on your bonny blue suit,
And why do you laugh so gay?
I’m off to the Lancaster street fair, Mother.
I’m off to the fair, I say.
But the fair don’t come off till June, Michael.
You kain’t dress now for that day.
It’s the May dance I’m off to, Mother, he said,
It’s the May dance I’m off to, I say.
But the May dance is past, Michael, she said;
It was over with yesterday.
Then I’ll go my Cousin Ellen to see,
Cousin Ellen to see, I say.
But Cousin Ellen’s in Reading town, Michael,
And Reading town’s far away.
Maybe she’s back to her mansion house, Mother.
Maybe she’s back, I say.
I fear it’s another, Michael, my son,
Bright as a poppinjay.
But who would it be, Mother of mine,
Who would it be, I say?
Tell me it ain’t the gypsy maid, Michael,
And this ain’t your weddin’ day?
It’s rainin’, Mother, you better go in.
You better go in, I say.
Sayward’s face was cruel as she bent over her black kettle where the bear grease had blackened and fastened. Louie Scurrah better be good to that girl, she thought. He better take care of their Genny. God help him if he thinks he can use her as he pleases and then run off to the English Lakes or some place and let her sit home lonesome as the white-faced girl in his cabin. If he reckons her folks won’t do anything to stop him, she would change his mind shortly.
Next time he came, she would call him out in the woods alone and read the law off to him. If he couldn’t make Genny any happier than he did his other woman, he better leave her alone. And if ever he had an Indian lover, he had better go back and stay with her. For every body knows an Indian lover never will give a white man up, but after seven years to the day will come back to face him with his child in her arms. It would give Genny a turn for him to go off now,
but she would over it. It had plenty men in the woods for a girl like Genny and most of them, she expected, better than Louie Scurrah.
Next time he came over she would tell him. But that was a long ways off, although she didn’t know it then.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
THE LITTLE TYKE
SAYWARD wished Buckman Tull had kept what day it was to himself. She would rather not have known that she and her father had made this out against Louie Scurrah on a Friday. The Tulls were bighead and always had to show they knew the most. They never let you forget they had an almanac and that it came all the way from the Bay State. Now Portius Wheeler came from down there himself and you’d never know it from him. But the Tulls couldn’t pass the time without fetching in the day of the week.
“How are you, this fine Friday mornin’?” Buckman Tull had called out big as you please as he went by to the post.
Sayward didn’t mind them telling her when it was the Lord’s day. The better the day, the better the deed. Any washing she did on the Sabbath would be cleaner and sweeter-smelling and bleached whiter even though it had no sun handy to hang it in. But Fridays were not like other days of the week. No, Friday was the deil’s day, for the Lord was massacred on it. Oh, it could be fair enough one place on a Friday, but other places in the world it would be black and bitter as death.
Never mind, Sayward told herself. If she couldn’t change the day, she would have to let it go. It appeared fair enough here in this Northwest country today. Achsa’s axe rang out like a man’s while she chopped supper wood. Genny hummed while she roiled the leaves soft in their beds and lugged the bedding in. And Wyitt and Sulie ran off early on their chore of fetching the cows. When it got late and they didn’t come in, Sayward didn’t think much about it. She and the other girls pulled stools to their supper. But once it was dark, she reckoned she’d go over to the Covenhovens and see what was keeping them.
Then she looked up and saw Wyitt silent and pale as tallow at the door. His bare legs were black muddy to the knees.
“Whar’s Sulie at?” Genny cried at him first.
“Ain’t she here?” he said, but you could see the way his look went around the cabin that he didn’t expect her.
“Whar’d you leave her?” Sayward asked sharply.
Wyitt stood just inside the doorway. He acted like he was scared to come in his own pappy’s house. The cows, he said, had never been out so far. He and Sulie couldn’t hear a bell till they climbed atop a sharp hill. Away down on the other side they found them in some gat brush off from the flies. But when they drove them out, the cows wouldn’t make for the settlement. No, they had it in their heads to go the other way. He beat them over their stubborn horns with a club and still they would go away from home.
He promised Sulie they would get fagged after while and then he could turn them. But she was scared to go further in the Shawanee country. He could go on with them if he wanted, she said; she would take the path back and tell Mrs. Covenhoven.
The cows kept right on with Wyitt scrambling behind. They forded a river and wound through places he had never seen before. It was dark when he saw a light ahead. This was one of the Shawanee towns, he expected. He saw a strange log barn, and a strange white man came out with a light. Wyitt asked him could he tell him where he and his cows were at. The man looked at him. He said didn’t he know where he was at? This was the Covenhoven improvement and these were their cows he had fetched home.
“It was Mister Covenhoven hisself!” Achsa jeered in her man’s voice. “The cows fetched you home and you never knowed it.”
“Then whar’s Sulie?” Genny cried.
“I expect Sulie kin take keer of her own self,” Sayward said, holding her voice and face calm. “You and Achsa stay here. Wyitt kin eat his supper. Then me and him’ll go out and git her. If he kin show me the way.”
“I kin show you the way we went out,” the boy said. “But I kain’t the way the cows brung me home.”
Before Wyitt got up from the table, big John Covenhoven came stooping in the door. His wife sent him over to see if Sulie had shown up. He said he better go along. Sayward dropped some dry candlewood and pine knots in her greasy leather apron. Wyitt lit a stick at the fireplace and went ahead. Sometimes he whirled around a pine knot or a sliver of candlewood and sometimes a bunch of shellbark torn off on the way.
More than once he stopped to make sure he wasn’t turned around again. Sayward told herself that never had she seen any of this strange black woods before tonight. They went over runs and wet places, up hill and down and up again till Wyitt said this was the knoll he and Sulie had heard the bells from. He was sure as could be and if they couldn’t find his and Sulie’s barefoot tracks in the soft ground, it must be the deil had his foot over them.
They built a fire there atop the hill and kept it going to guide Sulie’s little feet through the night. One time or another they would go to the end of the firelight.
“Whoooo-hoooo!” Sayward would send her strong call into the black woods.
“Suuuu-lieeee!” Wyitt would yell as if splitting his throat would fetch her in.
All that answered were echoes, and that, they knew, was the woods mocking them. Out in the darkness they could hear the night birds and beasts going about their business like nothing had happened. The big-eared owl some called the Hill Hooter bit off his hoots calm and steady as always and his barred relation dragged out the last of his arrogantly. Now and then wolves howled far off and once came a distant wail through the woods like a panther or catamount. Or it might have been only the red fox that Worth said could give you the worst scare of any beast in the woods when it wanted. Oh, the wild creatures gave no notice at all that they saw the red light of the fire up on this hill. They went prowling their rounds as if no little tyke had been lost in the woods and didn’t know the way home in the dark to her pappy’s.
It started to rain and in her mind Sayward could see little Sulie, a bedraggled mite somewhere out in this wide bush. Where was she at, she would be asking herself, and would ever she see sisters and brother again? She couldn’t take her sopping wet clothes off her little body tonight and snuggle down safe and dry in her loft bed under the roof her pappy had made with his axe, frow and augur. No, she must crawl in a dead, hollow tree like a bear or up a live one like a marten. Up a tree she might be safe enough, should she but recollect she is no young gabby bird that can hold on to a limb with its toes while it sleeps. If she as much as half-dozed, down she might come. And if her young legs snapped like kindling, she would have to sit on a rock and wait till they came and fetched her.
John Covenhoven said hadn’t they better go home on account of the rain?
“I ain’t sugar and salt. I won’t melt,” Sayward told him.
She was all for pushing further on, but the rain put out their torches. They had to wait for daylight to look for the place Sulie and Wyitt had parted, and then Wyitt couldn’t find the gat brush where the cows had stood off from the flies. When they got home to the cabin, no tuckered-out and brier-scratched little tyke was waiting for them, but Genny and Achsa hadn’t lacked someone to talk to. When her man didn’t come, Mrs. Covenhoven had bridled a horse and ridden over. And when he wasn’t back by early dawn, she had ridden on to the Tulls and Harbisons to sound the alarm.
The settlers answered the summons like the blowing of a great hunting horn. No church bell could have drawn them as hard as such a heartbreak thing. Jake Tench and the bound boy, almost the last to hear, were the first to come. Billy Harbison fetched his hounds and tied them to a young dogwood from where they made it ring around the cabin. Tod Wylder rode his dun ox over with his wife on behind. A gaunt Kentucky woman came on foot with her man and her fourth baby. She was nursing it as she stepped dark as an Indian woman across the doorway, her breast white as milk beside the brown face, her eyes deep in their hollow sockets. Little Mathias and his boy came. The MacWhirters and the McFalls tramped together through the woods with all their five or six boys. And t
here were some the Lucketts had only heard about and never seen before.
It made you feel better with so many around, Sayward thought. The littlest ones didn’t know what it was all about and ripped and tore like they were at a frolic. But the older ones stood here and yonder, quiet as could be, the boys with their pappies, the girls with their mams in the cabin. The women had lots to ask about this thing. Each time a fresh one came, they listened to the story over again, and their eyes kept stirred up and glowing.
Outside the men stood in a hard knot, making men’s talk, chewing off tobacco, telling of bodies they knew had been lost. Their eyes were alive in their sober faces, and now and then when one of them rubbed over his mouth with his hand, rumpling his beard if he had any and spitting copiously, he would cast around to see if his own youngest was all right, making like a grimace to cover it up, but there was no humor in it.
Jake Tench put a brighter face on them after the MacWhirters and the McFalls came.
“Never you mind, Saird,” he called in at the door. “Jude MacWhirter kin find a young’un for you. Now John Covenhoven couldn’t find one behind his own choppin’ block.”
The men’s mouths opened round to laugh at this joke on the childless Covenhovens. Judah MacWhirter had six or seven living and only God knew how many dead back in Kentucky. The women in the house laughed, too, pulling down their faces at each other, for behind the chopping log was where they told their youngest that babies came from. For a while now it was more like usual in the Luckett cabin and out. The men told lighter stories and slapped their legs. But the woods closed around this place too thick and dark to last. It hadn’t a field here nor tame bush, not a clearing or patch of sky a human could call his own. No, this cabin was owned soul and body by the great woods that ran on and on to the prairies by the English Lakes and to the Spanish Settlements on the Illinois.
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