The Land Breakers

by John Ehle

  Anna, rocking back and forth on a small stool, spoke to Felix, asked him if he was sleepy yet. She looked deeply into Nicholas’ face, wondering what thoughts were in his mind now, for he had been moody for several days.

  At first, coming to this new place had been a help to him, and to them all. Work had healed many of his worries, and the climate had set well with him. Not long after their arrival she had been surprised one night to awake to find him clutching her, seeking her passionately. She had yielded to his needs and she had felt again ever so completely the craving of him, as if he were seeking life, were trying to free himself into life. She thought as she wrestled with him that he was wrestling with life itself, and the thought came to her that he would surely kill himself before he found comfort complete enough to satisfy himself.

  “What are you carving?” she asked him.

  “A doll,” he said.

  “For the girl?” she said, meaning her daughter.

  “Yes, for the girl,” he said.

  Paul and Nancy Larkins fastened their door for the night, which meant that three stiff poles were lowered into place. Mooney Wright’s experience with bears had shown that only the thickest and best-guarded door would offer protection.

  Paul stooped before the big fireplace and piled wood into it. His chimney had a good drawing power, and fire-steam and smoke swelled up with a roar.

  “What do you suppose the bears think of that noise when they hear it?” Nancy asked, yawning sleepily.

  “They probably think this house is a beast of some sort,” he said.

  “They don’t have much mind, no doubt, though I’ve seen clever dogs and such afore.”

  “They’re not clever like you and me,” he said, winking at her.

  She looked at him with half-closed eyes. “You’re crazy as a bird,” she said.

  “You and me are,” he said. “A bird in a birdhouse that’s all tight and newly made.” He poked his hand against the wall. “Solid as can be. Nothing can get in here, unless it can break down that door. Look how that roof is tight and it’s weighed down, too. Hardly can a noise get in this place.”

  “Or out of it, either,” she said. “We can sit here by the fire and say whatever we please and it won’t be heard by anything else.”

  He sat on a piece of a log which was nearby. “What shall we say?”

  “We can talk about what we’ll name the baby.”

  “What sort of secret is that?”

  “A nice secret, I think.”

  “I’d rather talk about how babies get made.”

  “I would rather name the baby.”

  “I remember the first time I was ever alone with you, at the place your wagon broke down near a creek and your father had gone on down the road to get help. I said to myself then, even before I spoke to you: ‘I will marry her someday.’ It was the best thought I ever had, up to that time.”

  “Have you had better ones since?”

  “About you I have.”

  The hissing of wood sap started as the log began to thaw out well and drip onto the coals. He began to scrape the ashes out from under the logs and scrape them into a small hole in the rock floor. He had built the fireplace near that hole for just that purpose, though Nancy had never used the hole for such, nor had he until now. They had been saving their ashes for the ash hopper to make lye.

  “We will get warm as bread in here afore we go to bed,” he said.

  “You better put those stones nearer the fire to warm.”

  “They’re warm now. You want them in the bed?”

  “I suppose it’s almost time.” She carried them to the bed and tucked them under the quilt. She took off her dress and stood for a moment in her shift, watching him. She took off her shoes, untying the leather twangs and unwinding them, and she got into the bed and moved close to the wall. She stretched lazily, relaxing her muscles, and was aware vaguely that he was watching her.

  He came over to the bed and sat down on the edge of it. He grasped her tightly and held her close to himself, so close she was almost hurt by him. He got up and undressed and hung his leather shirt and pants on wall pegs. He pulled off his moccasins.

  He got under the quilt beside her.

  They were quiet and content for a while. He said something about the gusts of wind which were sweeping down from the woods. “Maybe we’ll have a storm,” he said. “The roof boards will hold, though.”

  She murmured about the fire, which was dying down faster than usual, for ashes helped to hold a fire. “It misses its bed of ashes,” she said.

  “Yes, but it’ll make another one soon,” he said.

  The fire got low and he fell asleep. She lay awake wondering about her love for him, about how deep love was and how much deeper it would be someday. She remembered what her mother had said once, that a woman could show her love for a man in so many ways, in the cooking and sewing and stock-tending and helping in the fields and comforting that she does, but a man couldn’t express it so easily, for he had fewer ways.

  The cabin grew dark. She got sleepy and moved closer to him and fitted her body to his and soon she dozed off.

  She awoke to feel his hand moving across her hip. She lay quiet for a moment, then whispered to him, asked if he was awake.

  He didn’t answer. He was still breathing deeply, very much as if he were asleep.

  She nudged him. The steady breathing stopped. He had awakened now, she knew, but he made no sudden move; he awakened as a hunter awakes, with few motions or signs.

  The hand was moving still, or whatever creature it might be that touched her.

  “What is it?” he said, speaking not to her so much as to the thing itself. He rose slightly in the bed. “Go on, get,” he said suddenly.

  There was no answering squeal or sound. She could feel the creature move across the bed still. It had no breath or voice.

  “What is it?” he said.

  In a choked voice she said she didn’t know.

  “I’ll have to make firelight,” he said. He threw the quilt back.

  “There’s some pine by the hearth,” she said, “and resin sticks are in the basket.”

  He left the bed and had started for the fireplace when something bit him. He kicked at it angrily. “What the devil,” he said. He took another step and was bit again. He leaped to the fireplace and dumped on the pine sticks. The fire flared up at once. It lighted the room, and he turned to see that the floor was alive with snakes. Still other snakes were slithering from the hole in the rock where the hearth ashes had been thrown. The warmth of the ashes had awakened them from their winter sleep.

  He cried out in weakness, here in the first moment of fear he had ever known. “No,” he said deeply. “No, God,” he said. He saw her on the bed, and knew she was beyond his help now.

  A pain pierced him. He felt behind him for a stick of wood and started beating at a snake.

  He saw that she was standing in the corner, on the bed, the quilt held up around her. She had thrown the snakes off the quilt.

  A pain came to him from his legs and struck through him. He felt his own heart suddenly leap inside him. He crawled to the woodpile and from there put more wood on the fire and on the hearth itself. She must see. She must be able to see, he thought.

  With a log he covered the hole from which the snakes had come. He took a stick of wood and began to beat the snakes that were in the room, flailing about at them, feeling the stick crush in on their heads as he struck them, but the floor was wriggly with them. He beat at them and waded in among them, being bit but moving in among them, and he heard her begin to scream.

  Pain throbbed and coursed through him. He wanted to touch his wife again, to touch her, but the pain swept so high he could not even hear her scream as the pain carried him away. He turned to hide himself from her and from the fear in her face, and went through the mass of snakes to the fireplace. He tried to build the fire higher so that it would hold through the night until light came in through the cracks in t
he roof and walls.

  He could feel his heart beating, trying to escape from his injured body. He thought he must go to the door and open it, but he could not move. She must be heard down in the valley, but the door was closed; he must open the door, but he could not.

  Firmly, gritting his teeth, he began to move to the door. His hands were swollen to twice their size, his body was bloated; his blood was about to be pushed out of his body through his fingers and toes, he thought. He reached the door. With pained hands he threw off one of the poles that held it shut. He tried to throw off another, but the pain engulfed him and he crumpled to the floor.

  They must hear her, he thought. If he could open the door, they might hear her.

  He forced his body to move. He touched the second pole. With pain he touched it, and with greater pain he threw it away from the door.

  He must stand erect to reach the other pole. He stood. He stood up straight and touched it, and with pain he grasped it and threw it off. He clutched the door, opened it, threw it open and fell dead onto the stone floor of the room. She saw him fall in the fire-lighted room and she screamed, and her voice went out through the open door into the great valley.

  Lorry, lying awake in her bed, nudged Mooney. He lay still for a moment, then sat up, listening. “It’s only the wind,” he said.

  “Or a panther,” she said.

  He went to the door and stepped out into the yard. The air was cold and crisp tonight, more so than usual. The wind blew heavily, then relaxed for a moment, and he heard the voice, a scream of terror, not like a panther’s scream, not exactly like it.

  He went inside, sat down on the bed and lashed his shoes. The dog was whining, not barking but whining, as if it sensed some uncustomary dread.

  He took his gun from the wall pegs. Once more the wind died down and he heard the screams. “It’s a strange, fierce sound,” he said. He went out into the yard and stood there listening, trying to determine which way the sound was coming from. It might be from Inez Plover’s house, from Harrison’s, or from Paul Larkins’. If it was from the first two, there were neighbors closer than he. If it was from the Larkins’ place, he was the one who should be of help first.

  “I’ll go to Paul Larkins’,” he told Lorry.

  He had to tear two roof boards off the cabin to get to her. He had to lift her out through these. She knew only to hold to his arms and let him help her. Otherwise, her mind was in a dream of fear; it would not snap out of the dream, seemed like. She could not talk or walk, though she had not been bit, so far as he could tell.

  He carried her home, and even as he walked, the mountain, as if it knew, as if it had seen the horror and had feeling and responded to emotion, the mountain and the wilderness unleashed a storm, struck with it even as he carried Nancy up the river road.

  He laid her down on the bed, but she turned away from the quilt and cried out in fear of it, and left the bed, afraid of the bed, and turned wide-eyed with horror from the hearth, for he had died on a hearth, and turned with anguish from the door, for he had thrown open their door, and then sank down to the earthen floor of the cabin, weeping, then felt around her for the snakes on the floor, and all this while Mooney and Lorry were helplessly watching.

  “Her people will need to come for her, as soon as they can,” he said.

  Above them, the mountain itself seemed to erupt, the sky broke with sounds. The wind and even the fire in the hearth groaned and roared.

  The storm held bitter sway for two days; then the temperature dropped considerably and the mountain world was frozen into place. Mooney could not even get word down to the Plover house about the tragedy which had taken place, or go back to the Larkins’ house to shut the door and save Paul’s body from the beasts. He stalked his cabin, unsettled by the brutal ways, the wildness of the place.

  For four days the world was frozen; then the sun came out and the ice began to sparkle and melt; the creeks began to break free of their bounds. There was by afternoon frequently the sound of ice breaking, of ice falling from trees and from the cabin and shed roof. There was underfoot in the yard the sound of water running off down the hill, beneath the mounds of snow. Mooney led the demented woman to Harrison’s house, where a room could be provided for her and proper attention given her.

  He returned home and spent the day tightening his pens, for he said a beast attack would surely come. “They’ve been up on that mountain waiting,” he said, “and they’ll be down here directly.” He knew this without knowing quite how he knew it. He took the dry wood from inside the cabin and laid two fires in the farmyard and covered them to keep them dry. He moved more wood into the cabin to dry.

  No sooner was it dark than they heard the howls of a great pack of wolves. The sound came from up at the Larkins’ house, where the corpse was.

  When the sound became a yapping more than a yowl, Mooney told the boys to light the yard fires. “Don’t hurry,” he said, “or you’ll do worse than you ought to. We have time yet.” But not much, he thought, not much.

  The boys hurried to the stacks of wood, one of them near the sheds and the other near the pigpens, and lighted them.

  When they were back, Mooney took his gun, went to the crib and climbed to the roof. “Go get me your gun, too,” he told Lorry.

  Now the sound of the wolf pack began to beat down from the rocks nearby. It reverberated and echoed and built upon itself. It seemed to cover everything, as if a flood of water were moving over them.

  Lorry pushed the boys into the house and shut the door, even as the pack of wolves broke from the woods and came bounding forward. The first ones began to hurl themselves at the pigpens. The others came sweeping up the hill toward the cow and horse shed. Mooney’s frightened stock set up a bedlam of cries and tried to break loose.

  The gray lead wolf raced toward the shed and hurled itself at the door. The door held, but the horse began to kick, trying to free itself so it could flee.

  Mooney shot the gray wolf, and at once two wolves began to rip it apart and feed on it. Mooney with the other rifle fired at a wolf which had hurled itself at the door of the lambing pen. Two other wolves leaped at the door which broke open. Mooney left the shed, ran to the door and with the butt of the rifle began to strike at the wolves, driving them back.

  The fires were growing bright now; the wolves were disconcerted by the light and the crackling, roaring noise. Standing in the doorway of the lambing pen, he fought them off, until at last the fires so frightened them that they drew back. He began shouting and waving his arms at them, and abruptly the pack, as if working from a single mind, turned from him and went on, baying out their threatening challenges, moving toward Tinkler Harrison’s place.

  That night they did much damage there, and later destroyed the stock of the Germans’, and laid waste as they chose in most of the valley.

  1782

  12

  Three men and a woman—she the wife of one of them—arrived in February and at once began to debate whether to stay or go on to Watauga, where they had heard the best land was taken, or to the Cumberland, where they had heard the Indians were burning all that the settlers built, and were carrying off the stock and corn, too, so that a man who was rich with goods of an evening might find he had nothing by noonday of the morrow.

  As it happened, the four adults arrived on a day when the monstrous bear, hungry after a period of hibernation, killed a hog of Harrison’s. The following night the bear, the same one, came into their camp, waded through their pack of four dogs, and took a pig. The men were so drunk and confused they ran down the road half naked, shouting out about their loss and astonishment. Ernest Plover, dressed in his nightgown, joined them and soon others were in the road. The new men said the bear was twice as big as a barn door. They had never been as impressed in their lives, they said, and at once they released their four dogs to trail him.

  Harrison came riding up to see what was the matter. There was a loud discussion, which was interrupted when over at his place h
is pack of dogs began running. They were loose now, too, and the valley was in an uproar of baying and excitement. Grover came up on a horse and told his father the pack had got out some way.

  “Some way you had something to do with, I warrant,” Harrison said.

  That night the newly arrived woman, Mildred, stayed in camp alone, while her three companions were on the mountain singing songs and hunting the big bear. The wolves came around, and she chunked pieces of firewood at them; they wanted the cow and Mildred was bound not to let them have her. All night she was up, swinging firewood and calling for help. She had not so much as a pen to hide in, so she chunked firewood and prayed until dawn, when the wolves faded back into the laurel growth. Then she dropped exhausted to the ground, either fainted or died (she said later she thought she must have died), and when she awoke the sun was high up and the men were back, trooping into the settlement, drunk with whiskey and disappointment because the big bear had evaded them. They brought back their dogs, or what was left of them, for one had been killed and another had been carried off and the other two, one of them a big mongrel named London, were cut up and were far wiser than they had been.

  When Mildred’s husband, Amos, his brother, Frank, and their friend, Charley Turpin, got to the camp, they asked what had happened to all the firewood. She lashed into them, told them to cut some more and get ready to throw it all night, and if they wanted to stay here in this Godforsaken country, they could do so, but she wanted to go on to the Cumberland.

  She might as well have been talking to the cow, for they were talking among themselves about the bear and hunting bears and what a wealth of animals there was in this place and how lucky they were to find it.

  “They got more wolves here than anything else,” she told them, but it didn’t make any difference what she said.

  That night she let them worry about the wolf pack, which came back at sundown and howled and attacked. The men were up all night laughing and drinking and shooting at the wolves, and they got a contest going about who could shoot the most of them. The wolves sang prettier than the men did, as she told them, and she vowed she wished she hadn’t been the woman to agree to come along and cook for them—and she wouldn’t have, except Charley Turpin had been so pleasant to her when he had asked her.