3stalwarts (13 page)

He said, “When you married Jake you thought he was too old to corner you like this, didn’t you?”

She nodded.

“Well,” he said, “it serves you right.”

She said, “My mother died when I was born.”

“Yes, I remember. I did the best I could.”

“It’s just a curse with us, I expect.”

“You ain’t built right.”

“I know.” She turned her eyes to his and said, “There’s one thing, Doc. You won’t believe it, but I’ll tell you anyway. I loved Jake and I still do. We had a lot of fun.”

“I’ll bet,” said the doctor dryly.

“You troubled about John Wolff?”

“He’s a mean sort of cuss,” said the doctor. “I never liked him. But he’s Kate’s Pa. I’ve got to do something.”

She nodded.

“It’s all a mess,” she said brightly, and then caught hold.

When Jake returned with Mrs. Helmer, both breathing hard, the doctor drank his apple juice and let the woman attend Betsey. Mrs. Helmer was a stout German Frau. She had had twelve children of her own and she probably knew as much about it as he did. She looked at Mrs. Small’s bare body with a critical eye and then went out to see how the water was coming.

Jake Small gulped at his glass and looked away from his naked wife. He felt that the world had turned immodest. He couldn’t control it; but it didn’t seem right for a human being to be handled that way. It was his doing, too; and to think that he had been quite delighted at first! It was one of those surprises that happen to a man after a long life. It just went to show.

“It’s a terrible thing for a man my age, Doc.”

“Now, Jake. Don’t say that again.”

“All right, Doc.” He paused and fumbled the glass with his hands. He was looking for a nice outside topic. “You think they’re going to shoot Wolff?” he inquired.

“I don’t know,” said the doctor. “I can’t get help from Herkimer. And Colonel Dayton won’t see me. He’s all twittered on account of not being able to get teams to haul stuff out to Stanwix. Schuyler wants the fort finished before spring. He’s got some crazy notion of the British coming down on sleds or something.”

“My God!” said Small. “You don’t say?”

“Everybody’s got crazy ideas about this country.”

A motion on the bed made him look at his watch again and Jake went over to the window and leaned out. Mrs. Helmer came bustling in from the kitchen and bent over the footboard. But Betsey shook her head. “No, thanks, Mrs. Helmer.” Her voice held no gratitude for the woman. “Listen, Doc. If Dayton feels that way and you can get him four or five teams, maybe he would get John Wolff off. Jake would send ours, I guess.”

“Sure,” said Jake, explosively. “Casler owes me work too. You fix her up, Doc, and I’ll promise you two teams, maybe three, for a couple of weeks.”

Dr. Petry got up and leaned over the bed with admiration on his homely face.

“Betsey, you’re quite a girl.”

She stuck her tongue out, bit it, and shrieked.

“Get out of here, Jake,” said the doctor. He took Betsey’s hand. “I’ll fix you up all right, Betsey, if it’s the last job I ever do.”

Her lips drew back. Jake took one look at her and fled.

Dr. Petry arrived at Fort Dayton after dark. He had a job getting in to see Colonel Dayton, but when he did he came right to the point.

“How many teams do you need?”

“Do you know of any, doctor?”

“How many?”

“How many can you promise?”

“Would four teams be any use?”

“I’d shoot my grandmother for that many.”

“You needn’t shoot any. You can have those teams if you let John Wolff off.”

“What the devil …”

“I don’t care what you do to him. I mean I don’t want him shot. I married his daughter, see? I reckon you can fix it.”

“I’ll have to send him to jail for the duration of the war; I can’t do better than that.”

“That’s all right with me. I just don’t want the poor fool killed.”

The colonel got up and shook hands.

The doctor went home and routed his wife out of bed.

“They ain’t going to shoot John,” he said flatly.

She came out of the bedroom in her nightdress and stared at him with her pale face that so resembled Wolff’s.

“Oh, Bill,” she said. They stared at each other. Then she asked, “Where’ve you been all day?”

“Getting John off,” he said crossly. “And attending a case.”

“You must be tired,” she said. “You coming to bed?”

Her voice invited him. She was making up for the way she had acted since her father’s arrest, as if that had been his fault. He couldn’t really blame her. He supposed you got fond of your father sometimes, even if he was John Wolff. But he shook his head. He went down to the kitchen and stirred up the fire and got some rum from the store. He was thinking about Betsey Small. He wouldn’t have believed it was possible to have got a baby out of a body like that, and have both live.

Dayton had said that Herkimer had had word of trouble to be expected on the West Canada or at Hazenclever’s. Some of the rangers had gone up the Kill before dark. They had sent word to Demooth.

When he finally changed his mind and went into his bedroom his wife found him difficult. She couldn’t understand why he should act so, but she accepted her lot like a martyr.

Two mornings after the birth of Jacob and Betsey Small’s first child, John Wolff was prodded on his blankets by the muzzle of the sergeant’s musket. It was close after sunrise and the fort was yet quiet.

“Get up,” said the sergeant. “Your wife wants to see you.”

He said, “My wife.”

“Yes, she wants to say good-bye to you.”

John Wolff sat dumbly on the edge of the blankets, with his hands round his knees, his dull eyes staring at the soldier’s Yankee face.

“They ain’t going to shoot you,” the sergeant said with contemptuous kindness. “They’re sending you down to Albany.” He walked out of the door, holding it open behind him. Through it Wolff heard his wife sobbing. It seemed to him the last unnecessary jab of fate that he should have to put up with his wife’s weeping before breakfast. But he knew that he had a duty to perform. “Come in,” he said. “And quit that crying.”

“Oh, John. They ain’t going to kill you.”

“No,” he said dazedly.

“Where are they taking you to?”

“I don’t know,” he said.

She had sat down beside him on the blanket. She was sniffling her sobs back into her nose. Her clothes were put on which-way and her hair was still braided.

“How long will you be away, John?”

“I don’t know,” he said. He began to feel more kindly. “Listen, dear.” (He hadn’t called her dear for a good many years; she was a fool woman, always scared to death of something. She got on his nerves; but he had to admit she was loyal, if she was weak-minded.) “Listen,” he said, “what are you going to do?”

“I don’t know.”

He said bitterly, “There’s fourteen dollars hid in the store. But that won’t last so long. Maybe you could live with Kate.”

“She asked me, but I said I’d rather die than stay in his house.”

“I don’t blame you. But it’s the only thing.”

“I’ll get the money. I’ll board with somebody. Maybe I can get work somewheres. Maybe I’d move down to where they’re taking you, if we knew where it was.”

“People look at me here,” she added plaintively. “How long will they keep you away, John?”

“They can’t keep me after the army comes down. That won’t be long. Maybe next spring. Then I’ll get back here.”

“Oh, John!”

He put his arm round her shoulder and kissed her.

“You look out for yourself,” he said.

He stood uncertainly as the sergeant waited for him. He couldn’t understand how you could get fond of a person without ever knowing you were. Then he handed her what silver he had on him.

“It’s only just over a pound,” he whispered. “I won’t need it. If you could get to Canada, you could see Mr. Thompson or Mr. Butler. Walter Butler, he’s helped people. He helped Witmore a couple of years ago with his land. But I guess you can’t get there.” He faced the sergeant. “Where are you taking me to?”

“Albany.”

“Well, good-bye, Ally.”

“Good-bye, John.”

They put him in a wagon with two soldiers and drove out through the settlement towards the Kill ford. There was still morning mist over the creek, and as the team hauled out on the Kingsroad on the far side, they surprised a doe drinking.

The afternoon of the third day, the sergeant delivered John Wolff to the keeper of the Albany jail. He was put in a room with four other men, and the room was so small that they could not all lie down in it.

Two days later they were all five ferried over the river and put into the hands of a teamster named Bush, who was getting five dollars for taking them to Simsbury with two sheriff’s officers as guards. They traveled by the way of Canaan and they were two days making the trip— the longest John Wolff had ever made, for he had been born and spent his life in Tryon County.

He did not feel sociable, either, with the other prisoners. He kept thinking of Ally all the time, of the way he had never managed decently to appreciate what a good woman she was, whine or no whine. It preyed upon him. It was the worst part of going to jail. Even when he was informed that two of the other men were Mr. Abraham Cuyler, the former mayor of Albany, and Mr. Stephen DeLancey of the great family that ranked with Schuylers, Johnsons, Van Rensselaers, and Livingstons, it made no difference to him. He answered their request by telling who he was, and what had happened to him; but he listened to their furious indignations like a person outside himself.

When they reached Simsbury, the heel of the moon was over the barracks on the high hill. The horses climbed the road painfully and walked through the gate. An officer in underdrawers and a black coat and hat took them inside. He led them through a door into the face of the hill. They found themselves in a room with no windows. It was the guardroom. The officer kicked one of the soldiers, who got up and started a small forge working in one corner.

The officer said, “You can have new irons for twenty shilling apiece. Or you can take rusty ones.” One of the five, a tailor, with an instinct for getting on the right side, purchased new ones.

John Wolff watched the dexterous soldier hammer on the manacles. They were joined together by a chain of long links, which in turn was linked by two chains to the anklets. The whole affair weighed over forty pounds. The heated iron burned his wrists, but he hardly felt it at all. He seemed dazed. Mr. DeLancey gave his name for him when the officer checked the list the sheriff’s officers had handed him.

Then the blacksmith opened a trap in the floor.

“That’s where you’re going,” said the officer. “If you don’t make trouble, I won’t trouble you. You can come up every other day, when your name’s called. You’ll get your meals lowered down like the rest.”

He watched them with apathetic eyes. The two gentlemen went down the ladder first. They did not even look at the officer. The tailor shuddered at the dank smell of stale water. The fourth man, like John Wolff, seemed to be dazed. He was being sent down for beating up a soldier who had molested his wife. John Wolff went last.

They found themselves twelve feet down in the mine, in a small sentry room. There were a couple of soldiers there with a lantern and a pack of cards. As the prisoners descended, one of these opened another trap and said, grinning, that there was another flight.

He held the lantern over the hole for them to see. Far down below they saw men lying on a patch of damp sand. The men yelled when they saw the light. “Company’s coming,” the soldier roared, and laughed. He dropped the trap over John Wolff’s head, barely missing his hands.

John Wolff went slowly down a slimy iron ladder, which had been grouted into the stone. It was hard work; the irons were heavy to handle, and the chains clashed on the rungs. The air grew damper and cooler. He began to shiver. His eyes were lustreless when he reached the bottom at last. A bearded man in the remains of a cravat and broadcloth clothes took him by the hand.

“You’ll get used to the cold,” he said. “It never gets colder, even in winter. It just stays about the same temperature as that.”

He pointed at the water. Now John Wolff saw that it was like an underground pond at one end of which he stood. Directly overhead, the walls rose into obscurity. “It’s seventy feet to open air,” said one of the men. “They’ve iron bars over it.” John Wolff lowered his eyes to the water again. It filled two passages of the mine; and all around the trickle and drip of water sounded unceasingly from every wall.

“You can’t get out,” the man explained. It was obvious.

Mr. DeLancey asked through chattering teeth, “What are those for?” He pointed to three braziers.

“Charcoal. We burn them or we suffocate. If we make trouble they threaten us by keeping back the charcoal. It’s all very simple.” He smiled. “I’ve been here over a year now. I got taken by the Committee. I come from Virginia. My name’s Francis Henry.”

There were thirty men or more, lying on the sand. They didn’t get up. They didn’t speak. They lay there like half-dead beasts.

Mr. Henry said, “It’s the custom for new arrivals to attend to the braziers. You can settle it between yourselves.”

John Wolff spoke for the first time that day.

“I’ll look after them. I want to get warm.”

Mr. Henry showed him the charcoal box.

“Don’t fall asleep,” he said. He pointed to the dark water. “We’ve a rule. Anybody who goes to sleep tending fire gets thrown in there. It takes you a week to dry out.”

“I won’t,” said Wolff. Then he looked up. “Mister, do they let you write letters?”

“It’s against the rules. But one of the guards can be bought. It costs a pound.”

John Wolff sat down. He watched Mr. Henry return to his dirty blanket. Then he watched the braziers, and the smoke from them curling up to the ceiling. It went straight up, but when it reached the ceiling, seventy feet above, it started slowly seeping back down the walls and slowly licked away into the shafts of the mine. It seemed to be floating on the water like canoes.

One pound. He wondered whether Ally had gone back to Cosby’s Manor yet. He wondered if she would be as scary by herself as she was when he was round to be complained at.