Drums Along the Mohawk (57 page)

In the opinion of some people, the winter had been providentially mild; but in another way it had been hard, for after the beginning of February the snow had so far decreased in the woods that the deer no longer yarded. With the steady hunting round German Flats, they had also become wild; and by March most of them seemed to have moved south to the grass flies on the Unadilla tributaries. It often meant a two days’ hunt for even good woodsmen like Joe Boleo and Adam Helmer to pick up one deer.

But to Gil Martin, the problem was more than one of food. He had worked hard and had his logs all cut and ready to roll for the new barn. Now, as the snow went down in the valley, bringing up to the eye the lay of the soil again, he wondered where he would find seed for his fields. There had been no wheat to plant last fall. He would have to find oats and barley. He had none left. During the first months Mrs. McKlennar had bought oats, and wheat and barley flour, not only for herself, but to help the neighborhood. There was no question of her paying Gil’s wages.
Such things as wages and money belonged to a former time. But her supply of cash was nearly spent.

It was in Gil’s mind this Monday, the fifteenth of March, to go down to Fort Dayton. He wished that Captain Demooth were back from Schenectady; but failing him, Gil thought he had better talk to Colonel Bellinger.

He stood outside the shed, looking up at the sky. The blue was softer than it had been all winter, and a white cottony tier of cloud hung over the southern hills. Some of the brooks already had opened, loosening a smell of earth.

He said through the open door, “I’m going down to Dayton. I don’t know when I’ll be back. You’ll be here, Adam?”

“Till five o’clock,” said Adam. “I’ve got an errand over to Eldridge’s.”

Lana smiled over his head and Mrs. McKlennar tossed hers. They all knew that Adam was making his play at Mrs. Small. “Her and her red hair,” Adam would say. “And just wasting her time with Jake.” So far he had made no progress.

“I’ll be back,” said Gil.

Whenever he went to Fort Dayton, Gil realized how lucky they were at McKlennar’s. The stamp of hunger was bitten deep into all the people’s faces. You could see it at McKlennar’s, and you could feel it too, in the sharp answers they gave one another. But many of these people looked apathetic, or their eyes were like the eyes of ghosts.

Even Bellinger’s eyes were unnatural. He opened the door of his cabin to confront Gil. He was a big man, and rangy, with a great coarse-cut head on his stooped shoulders. He looked tired.

“Oh, it’s you, Martin. Come in. I’ve company.” His voice was dry. “But he’s about through here. Come in, will you?”

Gil entered.

A man in a brown coat was sitting at Bellinger’s plank table. He had a rather studious face and mild eyes. He didn’t look like a farmer or a soldier; but by the way he folded the papers before him, it seemed to Gil that the man’s soul was filled with a love of writing. For the papers were covered with neat, pointed script, precisely ruled.

Bellinger said tiredly, “Mr. Martin, let me acquaint you with Mr. Francis Collyer. Mr. Collyer has been sent up by the governor at the request of General Clinton.”

Mr. Collyer made a slight bow. He took no interest in Gil, but addressed himself to Bellinger.

“Thank you, Colonel. You’ve given me everything. I’m sorry that I shall be compelled to report as I have told you.”

“That’s all right, sir. It’s your business.”

“Of course, Colonel, I have no idea what action Congress will take in the matter. I merely report. I am leaving you a copy of my summation. You know the figures anyway, as you’ve obligingly supplied them yourself.”

“I don’t give a damn what Congress does,” Bellinger said suddenly. “You can tell the Governor so. Put it in your report, sir.”

Mr. Collyer wisely said no more. He took his leave politely and walked to the fort, where his horse waited for him. Bellinger closed the door on his back. He leaned against it for a moment, staring at Gil. Then he began slowly and wearily to swear.

“I’ve had that gentleman on my hands for a day and a half, Martin. He’s made me feel sick to my stomach. It’s queer how sick to your stomach you can feel when you’re half empty. Oh, he was very polite. A nice quiet gentleman. Mr. Collyer. Sent by Congress! Think of it!” He wiped his mouth and stepped to a stool and sat down. “Listen, you know I took things into my own hands in January and started signing requisitions for food from the army depot at the falls. But, by God, somebody had to do something! I signed the requisitions as on Congress. People had
to have flour. I had to keep them. If I hadn’t done it they would have been forced to leave. It was the only wheat in this part of the country. Thank God I got a double requisition yesterday! Just in time.”

He stopped.

Gil asked, “What’s Mr. Collyer?”

“That’s it. What is he? He’s a damned accountant sent up from Albany to look into all my requisitions of wheat. We were very patient together. We visited people. He heard their stories. Then he made a report. There’s the summation. Read it! Read it, will you!”

What Gil read in the precise writing was this:—

Bellinger was regarding Gil with deep-set angry eyes. “I suppose we ought to have been dead to warrant using army food. My
God! Can’t they realize that if we don’t stay here, the frontier will automatically drop back to Caughnawaga? Can’t they realize anything?”

Gil had nothing to say.

“I don’t care what they do to me. I’ve pilfered, stolen, robbed the damned Continental army of enough to see us through till April. They can’t hurt me, now. I’ll resign my blasted commission. It won’t make any difference if I do.”

He stared hard at Gil.

“What did you want to see me for?” he asked belligerently. “You aren’t out of food, are you? You haven’t been on rations yet.” Suddenly Bellinger smiled. “Come on. I won’t kill you. Though I’d like to, too.”

Gil felt better.

“Maybe this will kill you, sir. I came down to see where I could get twenty bushels of oats or barley for seed.”

“Oh, my God!” Bellinger burst out laughing. The little cabin rang with his deep voice. “That’s good.” He slapped Gil’s shoulder. “And I’d clean forgot about seed! Christ, what a man!”

“What can we do now?” asked Gil.

Bellinger got up.

“We’ll take some wagons down to the mills. We’ll beat the conscientious Mr. Collyer, who’s going to leave an order with Ellis not to issue any grain except for Continental use. And we’ll take along enough men to make the Continental guard surrender it, too, by God.”

It took them two hours to round up men and wagons, and then the half-starved horses went so slowly through the pawsh of snow that they did not reach the mills until late afternoon. Mr. Collyer had already been there. The sergeant in charge of the mills forbade the entrance of the German Flats men. But the sergeant
wasn’t armed, and neither were the guard. They were sitting in the miller’s loft playing a chilly game of cards and drinking beer. Bellinger simply locked them in.

The sergeant watched them with grim eyes.

“What do you dumb-blocks think you’re doing?”

“We’re going to help ourselves to a little oats and barley,” said Colonel Bellinger, returning from the loft. “If we can find any.”

“You’ll catch it plenty if you do,” threatened the sergeant. “I’ll name the bunch of you by name in my report.”

“You’d better explain how you came to be caught like this. Garrison! As your superior officer I ought to have the lot of you court-martialed.”

“Superior bug-buttocks,” said the sergeant.

Bellinger’s shoulders suddenly hunched towards the man.

“What kind of buttocks did you say?”

The sergeant was furious with himself as well as the world for having been caught without a single guard on duty.

“I didn’t name no bug.”

“No? Why not?”

“I wouldn’t insult no bug,” said the sergeant.

The men had forgotten all about the grain and were now crowding the space between the bins to watch. It was too close quarters for them really to see. But even over the roar of the falls and the empty clack of the wheel ratchets, the impact of Bellinger’s fist against the sergeant’s middle was a solemn sound. The man’s wind shot out all beery in the floury atmosphere. His hands went to his middle and his jaw came forward and his eyes swelled directly at Bellinger’s fist. The fist traveled beautifully to meet the jaw. The sergeant straightened, went over backwards flat on his back, bursting a sack of flour in the process, so that a white cloud engulfed him. He lay there, dead to the world. The men yelled suddenly as Bellinger breathed on his knuckles. He
turned on them. “Get to work,” he bawled. “And don’t waste any.” He waited till they started to the bins. Then he sat down beside the prostrate sergeant and studied the gradual discoloration of his face until the wagons were loaded.

Gil found him still sitting there when he came to report that they had barreled and sacked almost a hundred and fifty bushels of oats, and thirty bushels of barley, and about ninety of wheat they could store for next fall’s planting.

“Good,” said Bellinger. “We’d better start.” He took from his pocket a written requisition he had prepared before leaving the flats, and with a sharpened bullet filled in “150” and “30” in two blank spaces of his badly formed writing. At the foot of the paper he added: “P.S. 90 Bushels wheat too. PB, Col.” He bent over to slip the sheet into the front of the sergeant’s coat and dusted his hands as he rose. “You know, Martin, I kind of like that fellow now,” he said. “Well, we better get going.”

As they emerged from the door into the late afternoon air, all misty with the spray from the falls and vibrant with the thundering water, they found Mr. Ellis, the miller, anxiously regarding the five wagons.

“The boys tell me you’ve taken oats and barley and some wheat for seed, Peter,” he yelled.

“We took only ninety bushels of wheat,” Bellinger yelled back over the noise of water.

“Where’s the guard?”

“They’re locked up in the loft. I don’t know whether they finished their card game. The sergeant’s busted a bag of flour. But he’s got my receipt.”

“How’d he do that?”

“With his head, Alec.”

The men burst out laughing, but the roar of the falls swallowed their laughter. Ellis’s jaw dropped.

“You did that, Peter?”

“Sure we did. By the way, where did all those oats come from?”

“It was shipped in last week from Stone Arabia, Klock’s, and Fox’s Mills,” bawled the miller. “I was going to mill the wheat to-morrow.” He shook his head as though to clear it of the roar of water. “You’d better take it back, Peter. Honest you’d better. I can fix the sergeant so he won’t say anything.”

“Like hell I’ll take it back.”

“Listen. Don’t be a fool, Peter. Don’t you know they’re collecting supplies all over the valley? They say Clinton will muster the line regiments up here inside of six weeks.” He watched Bellinger swing onto his starved horse, which had been nudging up to the tail of the nearest wagon and snuffing with exalted shivers of its slatty sides. “Listen, Peter. That grain’s for them.”

Bellinger leaned out of his saddle, and stared at Ellis, then wiped spray from his eyes. “Where’s the army heading for?” he shouted.

“I don’t know for sure. Some say they’re going to wipe out the Indians.”

“What Indians?” yelled Bellinger, as the men crowded up to listen.

“The Iroquois.”

“By God,” shouted Bellinger. “How?”

“I don’t know. But you take that wheat back, anyway. There’s going to be five regiments. Maybe a thousand men. You’ll get into bad trouble, Pete.”

A lull in the wind made his words startlingly loud as the roar of the falls was swept north. Bellinger was leaning on the withers of his horse. He seemed to be thinking with his whole body. He looked tired again. All his men, including Gil, watched him. Bellinger lifted his reins. His voice was as resonant as it had been at Oriskany. They all heard it.

“Like hell I’ll take anything back. They can do what they like, Alec. It’s worth it to get seed into the ground.” He moved his horse to the front, regardless of his yelling men.

The men went at the horses with their whips. The wagons lurched and groaned inaudibly and gathered a semblance of speed against the foot of the hill. The miller, watching them leave, thought they looked like animated scarecrows. Not very animated, either. He lifted his hand.

Scattered bits of news that filtered in to German Flats during the next two weeks seemed to confirm the miller’s words. The First New York had gone into garrison at Fort Stanwix and Colonel Van Schaick himself had ridden through to take command. And on Captain Demooth’s return from Schenectady in the first days of April, they learned that a great many bateaux were being built in that town for army use. Demooth said it was no secret that Congress intended an expedition, though where and when it would start, nobody knew.

The people listened to the rumors without much heart. Nothing had ever happened before to lend credulity to such reports. More pressing things occupied them—the spring ploughing and the sowing of the stolen seed. Bellinger was anxious to have it in the ground before a company was sent to reclaim it. He himself waited for court-martial papers to be served on him with a kind of grim fatality, and in the meantime thought of ways to hide the seed until it could be sown. He never was court-martialed. He never found out why not. Probably no one knew.