3stalwarts (35 page)

Along the rising bank the corpses thinned out, the air seemed to lighten, and the men could hear each other breathing. Then on the plateau the frequency of dead was resumed, always thicker till they reached the edge of the gulch of the farther side; and here they lay so close together thai the preying animals had not disturbed them all— postured as they had fallen, in the attitudes of fighting, or grasping the earth with swollen hands.

As they saw the end of the battleground ahead, the little knot of living men began to quicken pace. They were running when they finally rose on the far side of the gulch.

Presently, while they waited, they heard the sounds of the marching army far behind across the blanketing silence of those bodies. The tramp of feet coming down on the corduroy, the rattle of harness, and the jolt and clatter of the munition carts. There was a momentary disorder and halt, and Joe Boleo’s sardonic voice inquired at large, “I wonder what Mr. Benedict Arnold makes of that?”

It was the first word any one of them had spoken. They looked in each other’s faces, seeing them sallow and wet.

But then the first bluecoats were visible along the road. They came in two columns, their white breeches and the white facings on the buttoned-back skirts of their coats swinging steadily, as their solid boots trod heavily on the rough ground. They were marching at attention, eyes to the front, muskets at right shoulder. Above the heads of the first company, the shoulders and flushed face of Benedict Arnold rose to the extended branches of the trees, and his lips moved as if he talked to himself. His eyes looked blazing mad. Demooth’s company of militia turned, all twenty-five as one, and took up the march again towards the fort.

At three o’clock the advance companies came out on the vlei land at the great bend of the Mohawk. Half a mile ahead, the walls of the fort stood square and brown above the grass, surrounding the low roofs of its four buildings. The sun, westering, picked out the sticks of the stockade along the south wall facing the army and shadowed the sally port.

But above this shadow, on the main or northeast flagstaff, the new flag hung in its bright colors. Even at that distance the men were able to make out the red and white stripes and the blue field. The air was too still to move it.

Men were moving across the fields outside the gate; a wagon was crawling towards the sally port from some abandoned tents on the high ground to the north; nowhere was there any sign of war.

The gathering resonance of the deep army drums reached onward past Gil’s moving head. He saw a man spring up on the sentry walk and the men in the field scramble to their feet. The wagon halted momentarily. The horses turned their heads. The banging of the drums grew stronger, putting a lift in the tramping feet. The sun over the fort glanced in two sparks from the shoulders of an officer. Man after man appeared behind the points of the stockade. They seemed to stand in a frozen silence. Then, suddenly, hats were scaled in the air. Four cannon on the southeast station let loose orange bursts of flame and the entire side of the fort was engulfed in a black cloud of smoke. The thudding roars beat down the sound of drums; but they swelled again triumphantly. At a signal, the fifers licked their fifes and filled their cheeks. The shrill notes leaped upward, piercing the valley.

As he walked, Gil watched the black smoke from the cannon rising over the stockade until it obscured even the flagstaff. Then it began to drift gradually towards the north. When it had vanished he saw the flag as it had been, limp against the flagpole. But now it brought him a strange sensation that it was his and that it hung in victory and peace.

10. Dr. Petry Sees Two Patients

The mid-October sun was already low over the southwest hills as Dr. Petry rode his old gray horse homeward past Herkimer Church. The fort looked almost deserted. Only George Weaver’s family and the Realls were living in it now, besides the small remaining garrison; and George Weaver no longer needed his services. He was just as glad, for Emma Weaver had become so concerned about her son John and one of the Reall girls that she was unpleasant company. The jealousy of an ambitious mother: Emma, for all her homely face, had strong passions for all her menfolks. And then, he was tired.

He was so tired that if it hadn’t been for Bell’s abominable hen squawk-ing in the sack behind the cantle, Dr. Petry would have been dozing in comfort.

He had long ago caught the trick of sleeping in the saddle. The old gray horse had a steadfast sort of ambling gait; his back was flat and broad enough to lay a table on, and he knew every road, bridge, ford, and footpath in the western half of Tryon County. People said that he knew every patient as well, and what was wrong with him, and what the prescription ought to be.

Now the doctor took off his hat and banged it behind him against the sack, causing an unexpected fluttering commotion. The silence was grateful and complete. He put his hat back on his head, tilting it well forward, and closed his eyes under the brim. Well, when he got home, he’d take his boots off and sit down and have a drink before the fire. A fire would feel good. The cold was getting more pronounced and he thought they were not far off from frost. He could feel admonitory twinges in his wounded foot. It was a good thing people were getting in the last of the corn. They had got it all in at Andrustown; they were going to have a bee there next week for the husking and had asked the doctor to spread the word of it.

“God damn that God-damn hen.” She was making a little moaning in her nose, or bill, or wherever it was. He hadn’t wanted her. He was sick of poultry round the house, but George Bell swore she was a layer, and an egg in his rum, now … Well, a man oughn’t to complain. It was all Bell had to pay with. It was all the pay he had collected for his thirty-mile ride. He had started at four o’clock that morning, and here it was past five in the afternoon.

But a man ought not to complain. The crops were in and they were good this year. The price of wheat was soaring. Bill Petry ought to collect on a few back accounts this winter. It surely looked as if the war were over, now that St. Leger had skedaddled back to Canada, frightened off by the simple lies of Hon Yost Schuyler. Hon himself, the hero of the day, seemed to have returned to his American allegiance. Fort Stanwix was in first-rate order, with that unswerving, stolid Dutchman, Gansevoort, returned to the command. And best news of all, a battle had been fought with Burgoyne at a place called Freeman’s Farm, three weeks ago, and it had been a standoff. But they said the American army had swelled to twenty thousand men (that ought to make an earful for the King of England) and Burgoyne couldn’t even run away. They had him, and they ought to lick him any day. There wasn’t any question that Great Britain would have to give in and recognize American Independence… .

Let the damn hen squawk. The doctor grinned a little and the old horse pricked his ears and turned for the ford. They were home in half an hour; the horse amiably waiting while Doc uncreaked his weary legs and got them off, and then taking his own way to the barn. The doctor let him go. He entered his kitchen, carrying the bag, and sniffed at the pot on the fire. “What is it?” he asked the negro woman. “Dat’s rabbit stew”— with turnips and cider vinegar and flour gravy thickening in the pan to a dark, rich, voluptuous brown.

“Bring me a glass of the Kingston rum,” said the doctor, “and here’s a hen for you to mind.”

The negress, eager for something new, made little soothing sounds as she cautiously opened the sack.

“You ain’t been ‘busin’ her, has you, Doc? She lay so daid. My Lawd, de messin’es’ bird. My Lawd! Oh, de poor perty … Watch out! You make any of dem desperate messes in mah kitchen and you’s gwine to fin’ yo’se’f de makin’s of de gravy, chickun!” Her black hand had the pullet by the neck.

The doctor chuckled, and went to the store to enter a note in his ledger against the government. He was writing it down in his careful hand: —

1777, October 14, George Bell, to one stab wound in thigh, and scalped. Dressed scalp twice a day. Under my steady care six weeks and this day visited and dismissed, cured … Ł.16.0.0.

A knock on the store door startled him. The evening was already growing dark, but he could hear a timid hand riddling with the latchstring. “Come in,” he called.

The door opened and closed quickly at the farther end of the store, and the doctor said heavily, “I don’t see people this time of day.”

The woman stopped short, timidly. He peered at her. But she wore her shawl all the way over her head.

“Who the devil are you?” he demanded.

“I’m Nancy Schuyler.” Her voice was hushed and breathless. “I know it ain’t the time to come and see you; but Captain had to go to the fort after supper and Missis went with him; she wanted the air.”

“Well, girl, what’s that got to do with it?”

“I didn’t want them to know I was here.”

“Oh,” he said. He began grumbling half aloud, something about the old business, and a man having supper, and he supposed he ought to look. “Well, what’s the matter?” he asked aloud.

Nancy was flushing inside her shawl so painfully she thought something in her would burst. But at his question she turned white.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I’ve been being sick. Sometimes I can’t hardly get to do my work in the mornings. But I don’t know.”

The doctor groaned and heaved himself out of his chair. He went to the windows one by one, closing the shutters, and then pulled in the latchstring. Then he took a sulphur wick and went out into the kitchen and lit it at the fire, and came back and lit the lamp on the counter. He cleared away some blankets, a jar of bear grease, a pot of bean seeds, and some Indian beads.

“Well,” he said roughly, “get up on it.”

Nancy was trembling so badly that she hardly had the strength to get up on the counter and lie down. When he touched her she shivered convulsively.

“That’s all,” said the doctor, going behind the counter to a pail and basin and starting to wash his hands, giving her time to get down and straighten herself out. “When did it happen?”

“In August,” said Nancy in a hushed voice.

“When, I said?”

“I don’t know. It was the day they arrested Hon.”

“Was it one of them?”

She nodded. He glared down at her through his frowning long-haired brows. She was so damn good-looking and there were times when she almost looked intelligent. As now, when she was worried; the way she lifted her chin at him, chewing at her lip. “How in God’s name did he get at you at Demooth’s?”

“I went up to Shoemaker’s that night.”

“Where were you when we got there?”

“Out back of the barn.”

“I bet.”

Nancy didn’t notice.

“He got away, they never heard him, but they chased me.”

“Then you were the fellow they chased down over the fields? They shot at you?” Nancy nodded, and the doctor breathed through his nose. “They said it was a heavy man, about six foot tall, with long black hair! You must have run like blind destruction.”

“I was scared.”

“What are you going to do about this, Nancy?”

She was silent.

“You want that I should straighten it out, hey? Well, who was the fellow did it?”

“Jurry McLonis,” she said in a hushed voice.

The doctor swore.

“That black-complected Mick, eh?”

“He was nice to me,” Nancy said.

“He seems to have been. Well, there’s no way I can get hold of him that I can see. He’s probably in Niagara, Oswego at the nearest. I guess you’ll have to button up and made the best kind of a job you can. I’ll see Captain Demooth, if you like. You went up to find Hon, of course, and then this fellow took advantage of you.” He was sarcastic.

Her eyes filled with tears.

“I did. But he didn’t, doctor. It just was.”

“You’d like to marry him if I can get hold of him?”

“Yes, doctor.”

“Well, I’ll see what I can do. Now get out. I want some rest. I’ve ridden thirty miles to-day.” He put his hand on her shoulder, marching her to the door.

“But, doctor?”

“Well …”

“You didn’t say was I going to have a baby?”

“What do you think I was talking to you about? Yes. Yes. Yes!”

“Thank you, doctor. When will it?”

“It takes nine months.” He counted his fingers savagely just in front of her face. “May.”

“It wouldn’t be sooner?” she asked eagerly.

“Hell, no. The insides of a girl like you are just like a clock. Say May thirteenth at half -past twelve at night.” He pushed her through the door, slammed it after her, and went back to his chair and called to Chloe. “Chloe, bring that rum here and then get me another glass ready. I’ll drink the second one in there.”

“Yes, suh!”

Chloe came sweeping in behind her bosom, the little finger of the hand that carried the glass cocked doggily. “Missis say supper’s ready when you is.” God help all doctors.

“Yes, Chloe. I want to sit down first. Here. And then by the fire. I want to edge up to eating.”

“Yes, suh!” Chloe whipped her huge bulk away with her uncanny nimbleness. The doctor sipped his glass. The door was tapped.

“Who’s that?” roared the doctor.

A woman answered. He didn’t recognize the voice. “Go away,” he shouted. Then he was ashamed. If he hadn’t been so tired he could have sent her away, but being so tired he couldn’t defend himself. He would work himself to death.

“Wait a minute,” he shouted, and closed the door into the house. Then he opened the store door.

“I didn’t mean to disturb you, doctor.”

He peered into the darkness. “Who is it?”

“Magdelana Martin, doctor.”

His face cleared suddenly. Of course, Martin’s pretty wife. A bright girl. It would be fun having her after that half-animal half-wit. “Come in, Mrs. Martin. You mustn’t mind my growls. Did you want to see me about yourself?”

“Yes, doctor. But it won’t take long.”

“Well, come and sit down. Do you like egg and rum? Never tried it? Where were you brought up? Taste some of my glass.”

Lana obligingly bent forward towards his hand. It pleased him to hold something to her lips. She took it like a bird. He began to feel sentimental.