3stalwarts (9 page)

“Imagine leaving a thing like that. I wouldn’t; not if I was being driven out naked to the north pole. Oh, it’s lovely, Gil.”

She had no compunctions about wearing the thing.

“Look at those birds, those little white ones. Oh, look! Do you know what they are?”

“No.”

“They’re peacocks.”

“No!” exclaimed Gil. It made him feel better about the whole business. He put up his gun over the door and loosened his hatchet.

“You got supper ready?”

“Pretty near. I bet you’re hungry. You set down there on the stool and tell me what you did.”

He told her the whole business, seeing the Indians on the way down, mustering, the return, finding the place in the attic, and the discarded patch for a blind eye.

Lana turned white at the recital.

“Oh, Gil, supposing he’d been there! He might have killed you.”

“He wouldn’t dast shoot with all the rest downstairs. And I didn’t give him a chance to get hold of me.”

“I was afraid of that man in the tavern. He didn’t have a nice face. It wasn’t just the eye. It was all of him.”

Gil became serious.

“Suppose you’d found him here when you came home alone, Lana.”

“Him? What do you mean? What would he want here?”

“I don’t know, exactly. But this is the house furthest west in the valley except at Fort Stanwix.” He said very seriously, “You see, Lana, that’s what I meant about you waiting at Weaver’s.”

“I never thought. I will next time, Gil. It’s awful.” She returned to her cooking, speaking to him over her shoulder. Gil sat down and watched her. Even though they had been married more than a month now, she seemed like such a young girl. And for the moment he could see that she was afraid. “A man like him might be out in the woods this minute and you and I couldn’t tell it. Not till they came right to the door. And then there wouldn’t be anything we could do at all.”

“Lord,” he said. “You mustn’t get scared, Lana. Just because we arrested a man.”

“What will they do to him?”

“I don’t know.”

“I feel sorry for his wife. Maybe she felt the same way about you, the way I’d feel about that man.”

“I didn’t think of that. I guess she did. She looked scared.”

“And the Thompson people. They’d be mad if they found out who broke into their house. They’d be mad at us if they saw me now wearing this silk.”

“You don’t need to wear it, Lana.”

“I will, though. I don’t care. You thought of me when you saw it and I’d made up my mind you wouldn’t think about me all day.”

She smiled a little furtive sidelong smile, and rose from her crouch with the quick lithe movement Gil liked to see. “You can put the forks and spoons on the table, mister.”

They ate, sitting across from each other, Lana with her back to the door. They were nearly through their supper when Gil rose quietly and went round the table. He stood in the door, with his hand against the jamb, over his head, looking out.

“What is it, Gil?”

“Somebody’s coming.”

It was the mare, at the far end of the swale, that had caught his eye. She had thrown her head up. She was tossing it now, and snorting, though she was too far off for him to hear her. Then on the edge of the bushes near the river he saw a man. It was impossible to tell who or what he was, for he ducked back out of sight almost immediately. But the mare’s nose, swinging like a needle to a magnet, showed the man’s course. He was following the edge of the swale towards the house.

Lana crept up behind Gil.

“Who is it?”

“The mare acts like it was an Indian.”

“How do you mean?”

“See her stomp her hoof? She don’t like their smell.”

“Ain’t you going to shut the door, Gil?”

“No.”

“But you ain’t going to stand there in plain sight like that?”

“What’s got into you? You didn’t mind coming here alone, did you?”

She shook her head.

“I hadn’t thought.”

“Well, you needn’t act like a scared bitch just because a horse has seen a man.”

He didn’t turn around, and Lana stood stock-still, her hand halfway raised to her mouth, staring at him. After a moment she backed quietly to her place at the table and sat down with her face between her hands. She didn’t say anything. But her eyes seemed to have enlarged.

Neither did Gil say anything. He kept his eyes on the swale and the edge of the creek bed, and he kept his hand over his head, within reach of the rifle. The only sound in the cabin was the everlasting low buzz of the flies.

To Lana the wait seemed unending. But she could not force herself to look at him. “He’s got no right to say such a thing to me. I wasn’t scared only for myself. If I was near home, he wouldn’t do it. I could go home if he did. But he knows I can’t up here.”

She showed no sign of tears. But her jaw set tight, and her eyes narrowed.

As for Gil, he didn’t think at all. All his energy was in his eyes, which he kept unwaveringly on the clearing.

42 THREE STALWARTS

“You’re going to scold me, ain’t you?”

“Come here.”

She obeyed meekly.

He fished the green silk out of his pocket and put it round her neck.

He saw the man the instant the battered felt hat came up over the creek bank, only half a shot from the cabin door. As soon as he saw the crown of that hat, he relaxed. He said over his shoulder, “It’s Blue Back, Lana,” and stepped outdoors. “Hello there, Mr. Blue Back.”

The Indian climbed out of the creek bed and walked forward slowly with a grin on his broad face. He was obviously an old man, and he liked to go slow.

“How!” he gave Gil greeting. “You fine? I’m fine.” He shook hands with satisfaction.

“I haven’t seen you for a long time,” said Gil. “I’ve got married since I saw you last.”

“Yes?” said the Indian. “Got good woman?”

“Come and sit down inside and see her.”

“That’s fine,” said the Indian. He followed Gil through the cabin door.

Lana forced herself to get up and face him. She saw a brown wrinkled face with dark eyes on which the lids seemed shrunk, a broad, rather flat nose, a simple grinning mouth.

Gil was standing at the Indian’s shoulder.

“Mr. Blue Back,” he said, “meet Mrs. Martin. Lana, this is Blue Back.” Just as if he were a white man.

The Indian had a paunch. He seemed to be pushing it out like a turkey cock. His face did not change, but he said, with great sincerity, “Fine.”

“How do you do?”

Lana bowed her head slightly. The man’s smell had already taken possession of the room. It was sweetish and greasy. If water had ever touched him, she thought, it had only been when wading the creek; and his moccasins showed how the dirt stuck to them afterwards.

He wore leggings, he had a battered skirt arrangement of deerskin with a few beads on the edge, and a weathered hunting shirt, which, if it had ever had a color, was now so greasy that it was impossible to tell. On his head was the felt hat, with a hole in the pointed crown through which the stem of a basswood leaf was sticking. He also carried a brown musket, a knife, and a hatchet.

“Fine,” he said again and sat down on the bench Lana had just risen from.

“Is there any milk left?” Gil asked her. “We haven’t any rum, but Blue Back likes milk fine. Don’t you?”

“Fine,” said the Indian, grinning and slapping his hand on his stomach. “Yes, fine.”

Lana threw Gil a glance, she didn’t care what he thought of it. The Indian’s feet were making muddy pools on her clean floor. And her stomach felt queasy. Then without a word she went out to the spring for their jug of milk. She brought it in and set it on the table.

“Get two cups,” said Gil. “And pour him some.”

Lana said, “You can pour it yourself.”

After one look at her scarlet face, Gil silently did so. He said nothing to her as she went up the ladder to the loft. Blue Back, apparently, took no notice, but fixed his brown eyes on the peacock’s feather. He obviously admired it, but said nothing. He accepted the cup of milk.

When he had finished drinking it, Gil asked, “What are you doing this way, Blue Back?”

It always amused him that the stout stodgy Indian had been named for the noisy blue jay.

“Looking for deer.” In his broken English, interspersed with innumerable “fines,” the Indian explained that he had been hunting over the Hazenclever hill. He had shot a doe which he had left in a tree down by the river to take home. He had a haunch there for Gil if Gil wanted it. But it had taken a long time.

He had found the tracks of two Seneca Indians. He thought they must have come from Cosby’s Manor. They had had a small fire and lain around on top of the hill all day. Then they had been joined by a man with shoes on. They had taken the trail for Oswego, he thought. He was going to take the doe home and then he was going up north and west for a scout. He wanted to teli Gil that if he saw two fires on the hill at night, he had better look out. Gil could tell Captain Demooth. Blue Back, in explanation, went on to say that he had heard that the Senecas had sent word to the Oneidas that a party might come down to the head of the valley soon and the Oneidas were to mind their business.

“Thanks for letting me know,” Gil said.

Blue Back said it was all right. “Like you. Fine friends. Me, you. Fine.” He finished his second cup and got up.

“I’ll come for that deer meat,” said Gil.

He accompanied the Indian down to the river where the doe had been hung in a willow crotch. The Indian butchered off a hind leg and then turned aside and after some search selected a willow switch. This he peeled and handed to Gil.

“Got fine woman. You young man. You use this on her. Indian don’t need it. English man do. I know. I old man. You lick her. She fine woman.”

He beamed at this indication of his own sophistication in the matter of white man’s culture, shouldered the carcass of the doe and took to the ford.

Feeling very foolish, Gil wiggled the switch and watched him cross the river. It was annoying that Lana had had the poor taste to get up a mad before a guest, even if he was an Indian. Perhaps the greasy old fellow was right, and she needed discipline to take her mind off herself. It made Gil unhappy that he should have noticed.

Gil walked round the outside of his cabin, taking a piece of flannel from the woodshed on his way. He wrapped the haunch of venison in this and hung it from a branch over the spring where it was cool. He thought he heard Lana in the kitchen, but if she was she was working in the dark. At any rate, when he returned, she was not downstairs.

He saw that she had cleaned up the supper things and washed the two cups he and Blue Back had used. She must have gone back up to bed.

He sat down in the dark by the table, wondering what he ought to say to her. He was half angry, half nettled; and yet he felt sorry for her, too. It was the first time he had wished that they lived close to neighbors, for he would have liked to be able to get the advice of George Weaver, or even of Emma. He did not know what a man ought to do.

Whatever was the matter with her, she had no business talking and act-ing the way she had before anyone he chose to bring into his house. But on the other hand she had been frightened just before, and a frightened woman could not rightly be held responsible for much, he supposed.

It seemed very serious to Gil. To him it was the kind of thing that shouldn’t be let pass. He should not just go up to bed without having it out, and discovering, if he could, what was wrong in her mind. Their whole future life might hinge on what he did. And then it occurred to him what a silly business it was, and he got up angrily from the table.

He didn’t light the tallow dip. He took nis shoes off in the dark and felt his way upstairs.

The loft was like ink, with the window in the gable showing only a pale gray set of squares. The air smelled faintly of Lana and of spruce wood. Standing beside the trap, Gil stripped to his undershirt.

The boards gave springily as he walked slowly to the bed. His hand touched the foot and then guided him round to his side. He sat down on the edge and said “Lana.”

She did not answer. He held his breath and could not hear her breathing. He put his hand out cautiously and felt her hip under the blanket. She was lying with her back to him, and she must be holding her breath.

They were both holding their breath.

“Lana!” He spoke explosively.

She rolled over on her back and said in a very low, calm, forced voice, “Yes, Gil.”

“You going to listen to me?”

“Yes, of course, if you want to stay awake.”

Dutiful as damnation.

“You didn’t have no right acting the way you did.”

“What way?” she asked with such deliberate sweetness that he wished he could see her face.

“The way you did in front of Blue Back.”

“I brought you what you asked me, didn’t I?”

“You could have poured his glass, couldn’t you?”

“I didn’t know my marriage contract called for waiting on the heathen.”

“He ain’t a heathen. He’s one of Reverend Kirkland’s Indians.” Gil swallowed. “I bet he’s a better Christian than either one of us, for that matter. And even if he wasn’t you or me could go into his house and they’d offer us anything there was in it.”

“It’s too bad you didn’t marry an Indian girl.”

“It don’t matter what you think, Lana. You’ve got no right to shame me in front of a visitor.”

“You’ve got no right bringing any muck out of the woods into my house, using my things; and I won’t stand for it.”

“You won’t? What will you do?”

She said furiously, “I’ll take them and myself back out of here.”

“You won’t either. As long as we’re talking this way you might just as well understand you couldn’t do that if you wanted to. There ain’t a thing you own here under the law. Now, you listen to me. You behave decently and I won’t talk about it. But you can’t act like this and expect me to allow it.”

He heard her draw a deep breath.

Then she cried out, “You can’t stop me. I don’t care what the law is. And I don’t care what there is in here, either. You can have it. But you can’t talk to me that way.” She breathed again. “I’ll just walk out of here, that’s all. You won’t know anything of it.”