by Jeffrey Lent
Picking trout bones from her lips and flicking them into the fire, her mouth shining with grease, she looked up at him and said, “You had to’ve been to that house before. For her to play cards with you that way.”
Blood had been enjoying the quiet. Had even stopped eating to leave the rest of the trout for her, thinking a full belly might send her to sleep and bring quiet if not peace for himself. Now he frowned at her and did not answer. Then wanted one thing made clear and so spoke.
“It was not my habit. But yes, I’d stopped there a time or two. There was a time when she was a fair hand to the cards.”
“That gin’s something bad. I’d never let myself get like that.”
“Nobody ever knows what lies ahead. But you can try and learn I guess.”
She nodded. Then said, “So it’s awhile you knowed her.”
“Some years yes. Infrequent, like I said.”
“How many?”
He made a gesture with his hand. He didn’t know, wasn’t sure. “I couldn’t say.”
She was quiet a moment, wiping her hands on her shift. Then looked back at him and said, “I’m either fifteen or sixteen, I ain’t sure which.”
He looked at her a long while. Then he sighed and said, “It hasn’t been half that long ago. I know for certain. Don’t even be thinking that way.”
She nodded and looked away out into the dark. And he thought she was done with it. Then she looked back at him and said, “I don’t care anyways. But, also, I don’t see you as the sort would take his own daughter out to whore.”
She had no chance to stir he moved so fast upon her, dragging her upright by her hair and his free hand slapping one side of her face and then the other, gripping so hard her eyes bulged and he continued backhanding her even as she began to scream and beat her through her screaming until she was broken to soundless sobs, draped down limp where he held her up by her hair, her eyes white and rolling and he dropped her then and went to the meadow and brought in the oxen and hooked their chain to the side of the cart, still not looking at where the girl lay on the ground, the dog Luther standing near her, looking neither at her nor at Blood. Who looked away from her and reached down into the cart and found the cob-stoppered clay demi-john of Barbados rum and took that up and went out into the woods away from her.
After some of the rum he went back in and took up his rifle and turned back to the woods, then stopped and looked over at where she lay by the dying fire. She had turned on her stomach and was flat against the ground. He leaned the rifle against the cart and went over and dressed up the fire and laid spruce boughs over it to smudge against the insects. Then got the bearskin from the cart and spread it over her and retrieved the rifle and went back to the woods.
He drank no more of the rum and neither did he sleep. Twice he went in and built the fire back up and smudged it down. At first light she was still sleeping, now on her side with her knees pulled up. He went past her and down into the beaver meadow where he stripped off his clothes and waded out into the snow-shocked water and slid forward into it and swam until he could not breathe. Came out and stood dripping and looked upon the day. A delicate blue dawn. Some few high rose clouds in the west. There was no air moving. Trails of mist smoked off the beaver ponds. He dressed and went up to what remained of the fire.
He would sell the girl for good the first chance he found.
Two silent days later they passed the blazes and posts of a surveyor that cut in a straight line angled across the road. Blood guessed it was a grant boundary and not some individual’s pitch. The day after that the road took a sharp turn to the northwest, following a river that if his information was correct was a branch of the Dead Diamond. Or perhaps the main stream itself. His inkling was that the land itself was the only source of truth. Even the farmer-smith in the notch valley had been vague.
He did not regret his actions. And he felt her firm-shut mouth was good for her—the world did not reward gladhearts or levity. But yet he missed her prattle. What little of innocence she owned he’d squelched and while it was inevitable, by someone else if not him, he thought it would have been a meager indulgence to have allowed her that enjoyment for whatever time it might have lived on within her. The two of them alone, traveling thus, he could have endured it. He’d taken nothing from her—she’d earned it well and true. Still, he thought, if this be her sole happy time then too bad it must be so short. But then all things were so. More than any other the farce of happiness.
The following day they came upon a dwelling set amongst the trees with no effort of clearing made, a one-room single story palisade of unskinned logs chinked with a slurry of mud and moss and a lean-to roof of great slabs of elm bark held in place with a crosshatch of unpeeled poles woven together. A daub and stone chimney leaned more than stood against one end of the structure. There was the distinct stench of rotting flesh, given off Blood guessed by the flayed carcasses of animals trapped and skinned over the winter and the ones not edible thrown off into the deep-frozen quietude of winter drifts, now come back to haunt the place. Blood guessed also that the trapper did not smell them, sure that the small hot interior had endured the winter with a like reek of flensed pelts, stretched and salted but pungent nonetheless. He whoaed the oxen and halloed the log house. Whoever dwelt there, if he be home, already knew of their presence. It was quiet awhile but Blood stood where he was in the road. The girl mute with hapless downturned head at the rear of the cart. The only sign of life a crew of ravens that lifted out of the woods behind the house when he first called out.
“Make one step, I’ll blow you through.” The voice came from behind them, from the deep woods across the road from the log house. Blood thought Of course he heard us coming long before we come into sight. Blood was up by the team, armed only with the goad. The rifle was back in the cart. He couldn’t see Luther.
He paused a moment before answering. “I was already stopped, you called out. I’m no harm to you, friend.”
A long silence. Blood cursed himself. The man, whoever he was, a trapper certain but how insane there was no way to judge. He could shoot Blood and bury him off in a bog and the cart and all the stores would be his. All for Blood’s own lack of caution.
Then he heard the man stepping through the underbrush and Blood turned slowly to face him. To show dearth of fear as much as view what was coming.
The man was in filthy imperfectly tanned leather leggings and tall moccasins and a tunic shirt belted around his waist. His hair was loose, in strings pushed behind his ears. His face the color of old brick, not only from sun but also wind and cold, this coloring clouded by a layer of grease and woodsmoke. His eyes bright and dark as river water were neatly focused on Blood, not roaming the cart or the girl, which Blood took as a good sign. He carried a shotgun which Blood guessed carried a heavy charge of buckshot. What would rip a man in two.
“What’s your business?”
“Traveling through is all. Up toward the Indian Stream.”
The man peered at the cart and back at Blood. “That’s not household goods you’re freighting.”
“No. It’s not. I was thinking to do some trade.”
“Trade for what?”
“For what there is. I have yet to learn the country.”
“Pelts? Furs?”
“Why yes. Could be.”
“Mostly what there is. That’s worth anything but to barter anyways. Otherwise it’s just grain or meal or potash, some charcoal. Maybe a little linsey-woolsey some of the women work. But it’s scanty for hard money. Furs is the closest thing you’ll find.”
“I thought maybe.”
“I’ve got some pelts.”
Blood nodded. “I guessed you might. But most of what I’ve got is in full lots. I’m not set up yet to piece-trade.”
“Tell you what,” the trapper said. “You look at my bale, then see what you might have handy. It might work out for both of us. It’d save me a trip, maybe.”
Blood didn’t like it but ther
e was nothing to do. The man still held his shotgun, loose down at his side like it wasn’t even there but Blood knew how fast that scatter-gun could rise. As close as they were the man could shoot one handed from the hip. Blood said, “Won’t hurt either of us to take a look.”
The man stepped up. Extended his hand. “Name’s Gandy. I didn’t have any idea what was coming along. You’re the first white man I seen on this road cepting the survey party last summer. And they didn’t want to have much to do with me.” He grinned. Broken black and yellow teeth. “I was on the wrong side of their line for them to have any claim on me. And I wouldn’t work for em. Wanted me to guide em through the woods. Last thing I wanted, was anybody else knowing how to get around. I’ve got trouble enough from the Saint Francis heathen.”
Blood took the hand and spoke his own name. Then for the first time Gandy looked at Sally. Who was watching both of them. Gandy said, “Is that your woman there?”
Blood said, “She’s with me ain’t she.”
The furs were a prime lot. Marten, fisher, wolverine, lynx, some mink, more of beaver, some white weasel, two black bear hides, all carefully stretched and salted, supple. In a ruder state than Blood had seen before but they looked good to him. About what he’d hoped for. In a separate stinking roll were uncured pelts of what Gandy said were thirteen wolves. Gandy would not untie them but dug his fingers along the edge of the roll to count.
He said, “For the bounty they don’t need to be in any special condition. I tried awful hard to get one more. You can’t get em in the summer. I hated to end the season on thirteen. But it looks like that’s it. Might be the bad luck is the wolves not mine.”
The log house was close, smells layered too thick to break apart into any one source but together making the air a paste of dread and death. A hand-split plank table and bench was the only furniture other than a rope-strung bed built into one corner, a mattress of stinking dried rush with no ticking of any sort and a snarl of soiled blankets.
Blood said, “What do you want for them?”
“You’re the trader.”
“No. Not yet I’m not. I’m not ready to break into my goods. You seen my cart, it’s about a load as it is. I’d be pressed to get that bale up on there. I could pay hard money or you could wait and come up to the Indian Stream and find me there.”
“I’d do as well to haul em on a hand-sledge over to the Connecticut.”
Blood nodded. “It’s a hard haul.”
“Or I could float em down the Dead Diamond and over to Maine.”
Blood said, “You could. And paddle upstream coming back.”
“Either way, either place, I know I could get just what I wanted.”
“Sounds like, that’s the best for you.”
“But you’re here right now.”
“What I need to do, is get on. I need to get set up. You’re not the only one’ll be coming out of the woods.”
Gandy said, “All I really need is powder and shot. And some of whatever you got in them hogsheads. I need a good bit of that. The way I see it, we could be convenient to each other.”
“I can’t tap a cask here. I’d be sure to loosen the bung on this rough road. I won’t risk it.”
Gandy’s mouth was moist. “What is it anyhow?”
“Black Indies rum.”
“Oh my Christ Mister. I’d certain like some of that. All I had this winter was some of that potato licker them farmers make over along the river.”
“I’ve a demi-john near full. That’s all but the hogsheads. I’d risk opening a powder keg for you, you wanted enough of that. You got a mold?”
“Yuht.”
“There’s pigs of lead too. If you could be happy with the powder and lead and a small bit of rum. I’d let you have the rest in coin and come time you run low it’d be an easy hike with no load up to find me. It’d be worth the trip then. It can’t be but about a dozen miles. Ain’t that right?”
“Sixteen or so to the Connecticut Lake. But it’s big country up there. You could be anywheres at all, I came looking.”
“I plan to be right in the center of things. A man wants to trade, it’s where he needs to be.”
Gandy looked around the room as if seeking some answer there. Then he said, “Show me the rum.”
* * *
Outside, with the girl watching at a small distance, Gandy hefted the clay john but made no move toward the cob stopper. He leaned toward Blood and said, “It’s a rough country up there. There idn’t no law but enough people so there’s problems. So mostly they solve their own. There’s all kinds but each one’s ill-disposed to somebody they don’t know. They might be glad to see your goods but that don’t mean they’ll welcome you.”
Blood nodded. “I’m not accustomed to welcome.”
Gandy thought about that and then said, “How about the girl? Can I get some of her in the trade? Against what’s coming to me?”
Blood said, “No.”
“It’s an awful mean hard winter alone.”
“No.”
“I don’t mean offense.”
“No. Listen, figure what you want. Make a total of it and then we’ll go over the stock you can get now and I’ll make up the rest in cash money. I can’t be all day at this.”
“Why now,” Gandy said. “I thought you’d stop the night.”
“We’ll be going on.”
Gandy said, “If I was a mind for mischief it would be the easiest to let you go along. The pace of an ox team ain’t much to match. And I could slip in on you sleeping. So stay the night.”
Without raising his voice Blood said, “Luther.” The dog came out of the woods silent as a trout in a stream.
Gandy said, “Good God.”
Blood said, “You’d never see him coming. I sleep when and where I want to.”
“That’s the goddamnedest creature I ever saw.”
Blood did not smile. “We going to do business or should I call my girl and get on?”
They went on through the dusk and into the night. There was no moon and Blood got down his candle-lantern for the first time and lighted it and left open the slide so he could see the worst of the stumps and rocks ahead. The girl Sally was up on the cart, half-seated, half-wedged against the hogshead to rock against the bale of furs which were rough-lashed with rawhide strings to the top of the load. The stinking wolf skins jammed down in the back corner on top of the skin from her wolf.
“I’m hungry,” she said.
“We’re not stopping yet. All we have’s what’s left of the bacon anyhow. If you’re famished eat it cold. But don’t come crying it makes you sick.”
She spat a thick spume of bile. “It makes me retch just thinking of it.”
“Then wait. Cooked, it’ll freshen up.”
“You afeared that man’ll follow us?”
“No.”
They went on silent. An owl called off in the woods and from another place a different one echoed back. The calling did not frighten her but seemed to soften the night. As if there was something sweet and unknown out within it. She wondered how owls coupled. If they did it flying. She wondered what that might be like. She guessed one owl would be hard-gripped by the talons of the other. She guessed she knew which would be the one gripped, would bleed from the wounds of the mating.
After a time she said, “That trapper-man back there. When he wanted to take part payment in me. How come you to say no?”
Blood said nothing. Going forward at the head of the oxen, goad in one hand tipped back just before their noses to stop them quick, the candle-lantern held high in the other to shine the light. The cart was rocking over uneven ground and she realized they were climbing now, rising slowly up some height of land. The dog Luther was trailing the cart instead of his usual lead or side post. As if he knew without command where his master wanted him.
She had given up on response, had almost regretted asking. Wondering what it would take for her to learn to leave Blood be. When without turning his voice c
ame back in the night.
“I don’t know what to do with you.”
She thought about that. Long after a sickle moon lifted over the treetops and long after they stopped and made a small fire and cooked bacon he trimmed with his knife and even after she’d rolled herself into the bearskin and the cold night air settled down and promised frost on the hide in the morning. Long after she heard the steady tortured snoring of Blood and after Luther had come in from the night to not lie but sit upright between the two of them, watching out into the midnight. She was still thinking about it the next morning when he roused her with the sun already up and breaking slantwise among the trees. It was the first thing in her mind. And she said nothing. Was determined for once to be silent and wait. She’d discovered that what she knew of men wasn’t near what she thought. Not near what there was to know. But maybe Blood was the man to learn from.
Whatever he was, was a way she would like to be. What it was, she thought, was opportunity.
Also she figured not to give him reason to whale upon her again. But would not stop from speaking up if she had to. The rest of it, what lay between her speaking and his reaction, was up to him.
