3stalwarts (31 page)

“Oh no,” said Nancy.

“Well, good-bye, daughter.”

That was the way her mother always said good-bye. Calling Nancy “daughter,” as if the word were a gad she pricked her own heart with. But it was a relationship that had no meaning. Her mother did not really belong to her. She was the general’s sister. All her talk was about the general, or his big house and the figure he now made in the nation. She never mentioned Nancy’s father. That was a mistake the general wished to have forgotten, since the man was dead. Nancy and her brother Hon were the only reminders of their mother’s indiscretion, for the other brother, Nicholas, was black-complexioned and quite steady. Mrs. Schuyler never talked about Hon any more than she did of her dead husband.

Sometimes, sitting by herself in the corner of the room, Nancy could feel her heart swell with her own loneliness, and then she would pray that Hon might come down to German Flats as he had promised a year ago. She wished that he could write and she could read, so he might tell her what he was doing. He was such a lighthearted man that Nancy felt that it would do her good just to hear what he was up to.

Now, as she stitched away on her piece of handkerchief linen, she amused herself with remembering all the things she could about Hon Yost. She knew, for instance, that he had joined a regiment of regular troops. She even remembered the name of it— the Eighth King’s Regiment. And she remembered his last message. She had once repeated it to Mrs. Martin when they were in Deerfield. The very words came back to her. “He said he’d try to fetch me an officer, too.”

Her mouth curved over her sewing, and Mrs. Demooth, looking across the room, thought petulantly how easy it was for a simple-witted woman like Nancy Schuyler to be happy.

It startled both Mrs. Demooth and Nancy when they heard the captain’s voice outside hailing Clem.

“Where’ve you been, Clem?”

“Up to Shoemaker’s.”

“What did you go up there for?” The captain sounded stern.

Clem answered gruffly.

“I heard there was some British there. I thought it wouldn’t do no harm to hear what was going on.”

“What were they doing?”

“Nothing much.”

“Look here, Clem, if you don’t tell me what I want to know, I’ll have to take you to the guardhouse in the fort.”

“Why don’t you ride over there yourself?” the Dutchman said sourly.

“Stop your impudence.”

“They ain’t doing nothing but set around and drink. Ensign Butler has a paper he’s reading out of.”

“Butler?”

“What I said.”

“John Butler! No, he’s a colonel.”

“No, this is a young man. Nice-spoken, too. He’s Ensign Walter Butler of the Eighth King’s Regiment, he says. Wears a red coat. They all do, barring the Indians.”

“How many are there?”

“Ten or a dozen. I didn’t count. They was reading this paper saying how anybody going over to their side will be pertected. And anybody not will be cut up by the Indians. There was only four Indians, so I didn’t put stock in that part.”

The Eighth King’s. That was Hon’s regiment. In spite of Mrs. Demooth’s “Nancy!” she went out to the two men.

“Clem,” she said breathlessly. “Did you see Hon?”

“Hon?” Both men turned. Then Clem guffawed in the midst of his aura of rum. “Yes, by God! I did see him. Why?”

But Nancy had stepped back into the house. Already she had made up her mind to do a desperate thing. She would go up and see Hon herself. It might not be safe for him to come so near the fort, so she would go to him at Shoemaker’s, no matter what Mrs. Demooth would surely say. She wouldn’t even let them know.

As she sat down on her stool her heart beat so fast that she was unable to thread the needle. She tried again and again, knowing that Mrs. Demooth’s unsympathetic eyes were watching her. Finally, in desperation, she merely pretended that she had succeeded. She made the motion of drawing the thread through the eye and with the empty needle began to take fine stitches in the handkerchief seam.

The color glowed in her soft cheeks. She realized that she had fooled Mrs. Demooth. She had never been clever like that before. It seemed like a good omen. Outside of the house the night was uninterrupted. Clem had gone off tipsily to his bed in the barn. The captain had hurried back to the fort. All through the grass crickets were singing. The rhythm of their united notes swung into the beat of Nancy’s heart, bringing the darkness close to her.

All she need do was wait until Mrs. Demooth should go to bed, and Mrs. Demooth was already yawning.

It was nearly a two-mile walk to Shoemaker’s. Nancy followed the road as fast as she could, but though she knew her direction, and had traveled the distance before, the darkness handicapped her. Now and then on a good patch of the road the ruts failed to guide her and she found herself walking in the rough grass at the side.

There was neither moon nor stars. No sign of life showed anywhere except the light of two torches that appeared in the main gate of Fort Dayton. But they were too far behind Nancy to look like more than sparks, and shortly after she had first noticed them, they vanished. With their going the intensity of blackness became deathly. Even the crickets were still, as if they felt the imminence of storm.

In her secretiveness she had pulled a dark shawl over her head, so that with her plain dress she was nearly invisible. A man rising suddenly in the darkness on the other side of the road never saw her at all, and she had time to shrink into the grass with the timid stillness of a deer.

He was coming away from Shoemaker’s, and like herself he seemed in a hurry and anxious not to be noticed. She could not tell who he was, but she smelled the rankness of tobacco in his clothes and a strong breath of rum was left behind him after he had gone.

Nancy waited until his footsteps had faded out before resuming her own way. She was not frightened, but she did not wish to be seen by anyone who might know her, lest the word of her adventure might get back to Mrs. Demooth. She was too absorbed in her desire to see Hon to feel afraid.

It took her half an hour to reach Shoemaker’s house. As she approached it she encountered more men coming away; and one or two men overtook her, going in her own direction. The queer thing about them was that none of the men spoke. They moved furtively, and they seemed anxious even to avoid each other. Since her first encounter she had traveled more cautiously, listening for every footfall on the road, so that she had time enough to step out of the way, sometimes standing by the side of the road, and sometimes finding one of the old river willows near enough to hide behind.

Shoemaker’s house stood back a little from the road. When Nancy reached it, it was merely a darker square against the sky. The shutters were closed over the windows, so that the frames were barely indicated by threads of light. The only sign of life was the recurrent faint mumble of voices.

Nancy stood on the far side of the road, pressing herself against Shoemaker’s pasture fence. Now that she had come so far, doubts overcame her and she felt suddenly shy of Hon. It seemed to her that the business the men were conducting must be very important, and her original plan of walking up to the door and asking for Hon, if he were not outside, was quite impossible. She did not want to do anything that might embarrass him in front of so many people. Not that she thought that Hon would be annoyed with her; but all her life she had been made to realize her un-importance before people.

With the opening of the front door, she suddenly discovered herself full in the light. She had one glimpse of the interior of the house. It was full of farmers, standing along the walls. They did not appear to be saying anything. Their faces looked stupid in the tobacco smoke. They were all staring through the door into Shoemaker’s taproom.

Nancy could see through the door also, but only enough to have a flashing glimpse of a scarlet coat or two, and, beyond, the face of one man, pale, young, and dark-haired. He was addressing the gathering in a high, decisive voice.

Then the men who had come out on the stoop closed the door, and the darkness was returned. As the men stepped off the stoop, Nancy felt herself seized from both sides. She was taken by the arms and hauled stiffly erect. She started to cry out, but a hand put over her mouth checked the cry. The men who held her did not move until the men leaving the house were well away down the road.

Then a voice said, “You come now.”

She was led quickly towards the house, but not to the front door. They turned the corner to the left towards the kitchen porch. Nancy stumbled a little on the steps.

She was not afraid now, only surprised, and bitterly ashamed that she should have been discovered and have been brought to Hon’s attention in so humiliating a fashion after she had tried to be so careful. She could not understand how the men had got so close to her. She had not seen them even when the door was open. And now on the porch boards their feet made hardly a sound.

One spoke to the other, and she felt him taking hold of her with both hands, and as the other moved towards the door her nostrils were filled with a strong sweet greasy odor and she knew that the two men must be Indians. As the door opened she looked up at the man who held her.

He was a powerful thickset man. He wore a red cloth headdress, with a single eagle feather hanging down over his left ear. From the waist up he was naked, his hairless chest beaded through the grease with tiny drops of sweat, so that the light shimmered on his skin with a bronze sheen. He was looking curiously down at her, the eyes a strange parody of intelligence behind the red and yellow painting of his face.

“You be good,” he said, and relaxed the pressure of his hands slightly; but he did not let go of her.

The door opened again, showing her the second Indian and a soldier in a scarlet coat.

“You can let her go,” the soldier said to the second Indian.

He looked down at her. His coat was unbuttoned. Between the flaps Nancy saw that his shirt was wringing wet. He blew out his breath. “God, it’s good to get some fresh air. It smells like a Dutch funeral in there. Well, Missy, what do you want here?”

Nancy flushed within the protection of her shawl. She tried to find words.

“All right, Missy,” the soldier said. “Nobody’s going to hurt you.”

“I know,” Nancy replied. At the sound of her fresh young voice the soldier looked at her more closely. “I didn’t mean to make a bother,” Nancy went on. “I just heard my brother, Hon, was here and I haven’t seen him for two years and I wanted to say something to him.”

The soldier said kindly, “You’ve got a brother with us?”

Nancy nodded.

“What did you say his name was?”

“Hon Yost.”

“We ain’t got anybody named that with us. What’s your name?”

“Nancy Schuyler.”

“Nancy is a nice name.” He hesitated, still looking at her. Then, as if he couldn’t help himself, he took his hands from his belt and put the shawl back from her face. She stood in the light, hesitant and flushed, looking up at him with large eyes. Her full lips trembled a little.

He seemed to miss the simpleness in her eyes. He kept looking at her face, her lovely mouth, her heavy yellow hair, and the long soft curves of her body showing through the thin dress.

“Is your brother Jack Schuyler? He looks a little like you. Not really, you know. Jesus!” He drew his breath. “I haven’t seen a pretty girl since I left Montreal, last April.” He seemed to recollect himself with an effort. “Jack’s got yellow hair like you. Do you think he’d be your brother?”

Nancy was staring in a trance. But her eyes were on the glittering sergeant’s stripes, on the red coat, and the white breeches, now stained from his passage through the woods. She did not see at all the eagerness of his face, the almost feverish brilliance of his eyes.

“I don’t know,” she said timidly. “He had yellow hair. But I always called him Hon.”

“That’s Dutch for John. The Eighth is supposed to be all English. I’ll fetch him out, anyway. I’d do a lot for you, Missy.” He smiled deliberately at her. “You just stay here.” He put his hand on her shoulder, letting it slide down her arm as he turned away to the door.

“Where’s that half-wit Schuyler?” she heard him ask another red-coated man.

“What do you want him for?”

“His sister’s outside. She wants to see him.”

“His sister?” The man laughed out loud.

He disappeared in the throng and one Of the Indians closed the door, leaving Nancy and themselves in darkness. She heard their catlike tread moving past her along the porch, and presently she made out their heads, shadowy silhouettes, staring east together from the steps.

She had to wait quite a while before the door opened again. But it was not Hon Yost; it was the soldier who had gone to look for him.

“Jack can’t get out right now,” he said.

She asked timidly, “Did you tell him I was here, Mister?”

“Yes. He said for you to wait. I told him I’d look after you.” He leaned himself against the wall of the house and stared at her. He had left the door open a crack, so that the light shone on her, but when she moved he put his hand out.

“Don’t move. Please. You don’t know how it is, in the woods. So long. You get half crazy with the heat, and the flies, and there’s nothing to see but men like yourself. You don’t know what it is for a man just to look at a pretty girl.”

Nancy stood still. She couldn’t see his face now— only his brown hair over his ear in the edge of the light; but she could see where his eyes were.

He said, “I used to live down here. Down beyond Fort Dayton. On the other side of the Canada Creek. I worked for an old woman named McKlennar. It’s funny I never heard of you.”

Nancy could not think of anything to say. She was listening and looking for Hon. But the soldier’s voice sounded so unhappy that she turned her face a little towards him and smiled her slow smile, with its meaningless warmth.

He said, “My name’s Jurry McLonis.”

“Yes, Mr. McLonis.”

She smiled again and he was silent for a time. Through the door the same decisive voice she had heard before came with the stilted precision of a man reading:—