Follow the River (30 page)

“Don’t it now?” Mary snapped bitterly. “But it was ’ee complainin’ about th’ Indian victuals, not I. ’Twas ’ee blatherin’ about all y’r fine kitchens an’ y’r fine Dutchy dinners an’ all …”

And while Mary was railing on this way, falling back, as she did when upset, into her mother’s brogue, while she was pouring out all this grief and anger over the loss of the horse, the old woman had begun to pat her shoulder, and had sat down beside her on the log again.

And when Mary’s invective had run down and some of the hurt had eased out of her breast, she became aware that her head was leaning on the old woman’s shoulder, and Ghetel was gently stroking down her matted hair and saying, ’A gut girl now. A gut girl. And you’re all I haf in dis vorld, May-ry Inkles. All I haf.”

They ran out of corn. They ate the last of it on the O-y-o River bank at a place where the river course came down from the north and went a long way west. Mary recognized the place, even though the foliage of summer was now gone and the evening sky was full of marching black clouds instead of sunset: It was the place where the Indians had stopped to gaze down the broad valley and she had caught Captain Wildcat staring at her in that strange and smug way as if she had been a good possession of his. She did not try to tell Ghetel about it. Ghetel cared about nothing now but that they had eaten the last of their corn.

They had detoured around two more rivers and two creeks since the one where they had lost the horse two days before.
Now they sat looking down the great, slate-gray river and held their blankets over their heads and clenched tight at their throats to keep them from being blown off by the relentless wind. Finally, unsettled by Ghetel’s dark and lifeless stare, Mary ventured:

“I know where we are.” She forced a smile. “We’re just about exactly halfway home, accordin’ to my reckonin’.”

Ghetel said nothing for a while. Then: “Eh. Half.”

“Y’d not’ve thought we could come this far, would ’ee?”

“Nor go farder.”

“Oh, yes.” She tried to be cheerful. She knew that Ghetel was now blaming her for their unspeakable circumstances, and she could see that the old woman was nurturing that resentment with every painful step they took and with every hollow twinge of hunger she felt, and that the resentment would surely only get worse from here on because food was getting to be almost impossible to find, and within a day or two they would be leaving the relatively easy terrain of the O-y-o valley and turning up into the steep and boulder-strewn valley where the waters of the New River twisted through the towering mountains of the Allegheny range. “I reckon we’ve walked all in all about three hundred fifty mile in less’n three weeks,” she went on. “Don’t that make ’ee feel some’at proud? It does me, I’ll say as much!”

“Eh!”

“Come on, then. There’s still an hour o’ light. Then we’ll find us a nice cozy place out o’ this wind, an’ we’ll get all snug an’ I’ll do the kindness to y’r feet, eh? What say’ee t’ that?” She rose, hurting in every joint but making herself smile. She stood leaning on her hickory spear. Under her blanket, in her knotted rope belt, hung the tomahawk. Its cold steel head against her naked flank made her shudder. But she did not want Ghetel to carry it. Since the loss of the horse, she had little faith in Ghetel. Ghetel would probably lose it, as she had lost her lance, and as she had lost them the horse. And they could not afford to lose the tomahawk. They simply would be out of all luck if they lost the tomahawk.

She reached down. “Up, now, dear,” she said.

Reluctantly, the surly old woman took the hand and
groaned to her feet. Her gray face under the dark cowl of the blanket was full of hollows now, and in the gloom, with strands of wild, dirty white hair blowing over her face, she looked like a spectre, like a witch. The muffled bell hung on the strap around her neck.

Nay, Mary thought. She’s but a poor crone thinkin’ she’s reached th’ end of it all. A marvel that she can still get up. I’m a-goin’ back t’ Will. There’s strength f’r me in that. But what’s she got t’ look to, other’n a fat hot Dutch supper someday?

“That’s m’ good darlin’, it is,” Mary encouraged, turning her and starting to lead her up the river bank. “Oh, I d’know what I sh’d do without ’ee!”

They had not found a bite of anything edible by the next evening and it was then that the old woman started talking about the horse.

The sun had at last broken through the cold dark cloud-cover, just in time to glow like a dying campfire between the river bluffs downstream. It reflected in Ghetel’s eyes as she looked back down the river. She suddenly started spewing a stream of Dutch invective so bitter and unexpected that Mary stopped where she was and came back to stand in front of the old woman. With the red gleam in her eyes she looked like a madwoman. “What is this?” Mary demanded.

“Dat horse. How vas I so
stupid
?”

“Nah, nah, Ghetel. It’s a past thing. I’m sorry too, but we tried and it failed. Don’t blame y’self …”

The old woman was clenching her fist against her chin and the fist was trembling. “No! I mean the
meat!
The meat.”

“What? What meat?”

“The horse! The
horse!
”

Mary blinked and stepped back. “Oh, no. Don’ say …”

“Ve should haf meat! Dat horse dies. Ve should haf …” She made a sudden motion with her fist as if striking the poor beast between the eyes with a tomahawk. Then she turned to Mary with eyes ablaze. “Listen,” she hissed, and her mouth worked into a ghastly smile. “Gif me the ax, and I go back and get us meat. Meat!”

Mary laid a hand on her wrist. The old woman’s arm was
tense and trembling. Mary licked her lower lip and tried to figure out how to talk to her. This was a new kind of thing to deal with. “Dear,” she said, in a soothing way as if trying to teach something to a child, “now, we’ve come three days a-walkin’ since that sorry day. We’ve come along good, an’ I wager we’ve done fifty miles. Now, we’re no such fools, you an’ me, as t’ go back fifty miles f’r a poor nag. Th’ buzzards ’as got ’er by now, anyway, if not a panther …”

“All dat
meat!
Gif me the little ax; I go back …” She snatched suddenly at Mary’s blanket, tried to claw it open and get the tomahawk. Her hands were strong and she pulled the blanket away and Mary was swept by the cold wind. She spun away, and got her hickory lance between her and Ghetel, stopping her.

“And besides,” Mary continued, more firmly now, “we loved that horse. She was our friend, give to us by God when we needed ’er. That’s why we never thought t’ eat ’er. Never even
thought
on’t …”

Ghetel’s face set in a strange, cunning resignation. Wherever her reason was, she could comprehend that at this moment, Mary was armed and she was not. But a shrewd little smile stayed on her face as she seemed to acquiesce.

“Now if’n y’ see my way o’ thinkin’,” Mary went on in a level voice, “kindly hand me back m’ blanket there, dear, as I’m likin’ t’ freeze …”

Ghetel gave her the blanket and Mary draped herself in it and smiled as if everything was nice and ordinary, but she stayed on her guard and kept the spear at hand. They found a bower carpeted thick with leaves in the lee of a rock outcropping, and Mary massaged the old woman’s feet for a long time. Then they rolled up in their separate blankets and about an hour later Mary went to sleep waiting for Ghetel to go to sleep.

When Mary woke the next morning before dawn, the old woman was gone. She had taken her blanket and the tomahawk and Mary knew she had set out to go back fifty miles to butcher their old friend the horse.

Mary knelt in her blanket for a few minutes, trying to figure
out what to do. She was furious with the old woman, who had let the misery in her guts overpower the reason in her head and the nobility in her soul. For a moment Mary thought about simply forgetting the crazy hag and pressing on alone toward home. She still had her blanket and her spear. The loss of the tomahawk was a serious matter. But not having the old woman to feed and humor and contend with would give her much greater freedom and probably much less trouble. Ghetel was tough and magnificent, but she was erratic and sometimes threatening, and could not be depended on to act wisely.

But for those very reasons, the old woman would surely get herself lost or killed or would go completely crazy running around in circles desperately seeking food.

Mary imagined the old woman attacking a bear or something with the tomahawk to kill it for food and getting killed herself instead; then she envisioned her getting lost and wandering alone in the forest screaming and mad.

And then, having imagined this, there was nothing to do but get up and draw the blanket around herself and, using her spear as a walking stick, go back down the river and try to find Ghetel while there was still a chance of finding her. It was terrible to go back even a step.

But the main reason she had to go back was because it was unthinkable to proceed up into the dark mountains and roaring gorges and the cold, howling nights of the approaching winter without a companion.

The sun was a white blot trying to look through the overcast, a quarter of the way up into the sky over the ridges, when Mary heard a strange moaning and mumbling nearby at her left. She had come perhaps three miles, and before her was the mouth of a creek they had circumvented the day before.

Mary paused and held her spear aslant before her, and moved with stealth toward the sound. The leaves crushed loudly under her feet. At the edge of the creek bank she stopped and looked down.

In her drab blanket, Ghetel was as colorless as the sere
landscape and Mary would hardly have seen her but for the movement of her rocking.

The old woman sat on an exposed sycamore root at the creek’s edge, rocking back and forth, groaning and talking to herself. The tomahawk lay on the ground a few feet away. Mary’s pity flooded out to the old wretch.

Poor soul, she thought. Jus’ couldn’t face one o’ these creek walkarounds alone.

Mary edged down the creek bank and picked up the tomahawk and put it in her belt. The old woman stopped crying and rocking and turned her face to Mary. It was wet with tears and snot and her nose was red. She showed no surprise at the sight of Mary. It was impossible to imagine where her mind was. Mary extended her hand. “Come, dear. Y’ been goin’ the wrong way.”

However much or little the old woman comprehended, she apparently had forgotten about or given up hope of finding the horse. More important, she seemed to understand that she must follow Mary. Without Mary, the wilderness was utterly pathless and there was no such thing as direction. Mary was like a compass needle, steadily pointing toward somewhere, and if the old woman had learned anything in her morning alone it was the utter emptiness of having no guide. It was perhaps a worse emptiness than that of hunger. And so Ghetel was compliant and followed Mary, followed her and stayed close, as they continued northward along the winter-gray O-y-o and came at last to the place where the mountain river came down and emptied into it.

Mary recognized it at once, despite the change the season had wrought. There was that wide river mouth coming down through the narrow but lush bottomland, between those steep and dark-flanked mountains. There on the opposite side of the mouth was that spacious grove where they had camped, and where the medicine brave had made the hickory frame to carry the baby girl in …

She put that thought of the baby out of her mind quickly and led Ghetel southeastward to the place where the Indians had hidden the canoes after coming across. It would be good if we could find a canoe, she thought. It was not that she
wanted to cross the river here, particularly; this side of the valley looked as easy to walk as the far side, and if they would stay on this bank for a while, they would have the river between themselves and the Indian road. But the river was broad and slow here, and going up it in a canoe would be a needed relief from walking, a chance perhaps for their bruised and bleeding bare feet to rest and heal. Also she knew that a canoe turned upside down on a river bank, with a deep bed of leaves under it, would make a good shelter against cold rains. November, according to her calendar of knots, was but a week or so ahead, and she knew what November could be like in the high and harsh Alleghenies.

But here again she found no canoes. If there were any canoes at the mouth of this tributary, they were on the far shore and it was useless to think of them.

She came back to the place where Ghetel squatted rocking on her haunches and gazing forlornly across the river mouth. “Eh, now, Ghetel. They’s no canoes here, so it’s time we get on our shanks an’ git.”

The old woman shook her head slowly and extended a gnarled hand toward the river. “Vat use? Ve nefer find a place to cross dis big ’un.”

“Ah! But y’ forgot what I told ’ee! We don’t have t’ cross this’n. We go up this’n all th’ way t’ home!”

Ghetel looked up at her as if this were beyond comprehension, or was perhaps just a ruse to get her on her feet. “Home,” she said low and flat, as if dismissing the word.

“Aye!
Home!
Trust me now, dear. I know the way.”

I hope I know the way, she thought, remembering the tortuous route along creeks and over ridges and game trails and under cliffs by which the Indians had brought her down. And interspersed among the memorized landmarks in her mind there were those blank spaces: the hours, sometimes whole days, when she had been so absorbed in grief and the pain of coming childbirth that she had not been able to observe the route at all.

But I know the way. Far enough up this river, regardless of the shortcuts th’ savages carried me over, I’ll come to places I know.

“Aye,” she repeated, fervently believing now that she was telling the truth, “I sure do know the way. Come along.
O ten times te—en times ten a—way
…”

And it made her voice sound so good that old Ghetel actually smiled as she unfolded her creaking bones and stood up.

Johnny Draper leaned close to Will Ingles and said in his ear: “This ’ere Snake Stick’s sour as gooseberry vinegar. Reckon whiskey’d sweet ’im up a mite?”