3stalwarts (38 page)

The people moving down desultorily to the shore seemed pinched. They talked a little and they stared with a kind of deferred eagerness at the small sloop that was approaching the dock. The freeze was due on the lake any day; and the sloop was the last boat expected till next April.

In their scarlet coats a squad of soldiers from the fort marched down among the Indians and whites and took their station at the head of the makeshift dock, grounding their muskets and standing at a chilled attention. The dock could not bear the weight of many people. At the last boat’s arrival it had been swamped and the outer end broken off. But nobody was expecting much of this boat… .

John Wolff, staring from the foredeck, watched the low land creeping towards the boat. His eyes wandered slowly over the crowd. He had been six weeks reaching Niagara. He was gaunt and footsore. But his pallor was disappearing.

He had crossed the Hudson at the mouth of the Hoosic and made his way to Ballston village, and there, by chance, he had picked up two men named Kennedy and Miller who had come down from Saint John’s to visit their families. They had used their leaves to cross Champlain and tramp sixty miles of enemy country, and the day John Wolff arrived they were planning to return. They took him with them. At Saint John’s he learned that Major John Butler was in garrison at Niagara. There was talk that Butler was recruiting a regiment of his own. Nobody knew very much about it, but John Butler was a good man to serve under. If you liked frontier service.

As the boat drew in, people began calling out to the sloop from the shore, and the deck hands yelled back. Nobody said anything in particular. There was nothing to say.

The boat warped alongside the dock and the business of unloading began at once without ceremony, for the master wanted to get back across the lake before the freeze.

He moved up beside John Wolff now, smoking his short pipe, the tail of his red knitted cap hanging down beside his cheek.

He said, “Here’s where you get off.” His voice was sarcastic in spite of his joke.

John Wolff said, “Maybe I can get to see Mr. Butler and he’ll lend me the money.”

The master spat over the side.

“I’ll collect it next spring. Ain’t no hurry.” He sucked his pipestem free and stared westward across the river. “That’s where you’ll live, I reckon.”

“Over there? I thought that was the fort.”

” ‘Tis. But that’s where they’re building the barracks. They ain’t got any nails. I just as soon not see Major Butler till I got some nails to bring him. Maybe I’ll have them next spring.”

John Wolff looked west. Well back from the river shore a low line of log buildings raised bark roofs against the sky. They looked even more bleak, even more huddled under the snow, than the fort.

“God,” said the master. “I don’t see how folks can stand to live here. They must be crazy. Ain’t more than eighty women in the whole place, barring the Indians. And what I’ve seen of most of them, they wouldn’t raise the hackles of a six weeks’ rabbit.” He looked companionably at John Wolff. “You said you’d lost your wife, didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

“That’s how it is,” nodded the master. “You lose them, or something.” He gestured with the pipe. “But out here you can’t even find them. I don’t see why you came out here.”

He cocked his head.

“By God,” he said, “hear the falls. When they sound that way I begin to expect ice. Well, you might as well get off. I ain’t spoiling my time here much longer.”

The dock was now loaded with boxes and barrels— shoes, flour, rum, powder kegs, pork, salt beef, blankets.

“I wish there was some nails, though,” said the master. He shook hands. “There’s a couple of the new rangers coming down. Maybe it’s Butler. Guess I’ll get below.”

Wolff saw three men in green coats coming down to the opposite shore. They got into a skiff and rowed over the river. In the stern sat a short gray-haired man with a red face and black eyes and a long Irish lip to his mouth.

“Grange!” he shouted. “Mr. Grange. Did you bring me any nails?”

“No, I didn’t.”

The master stuck his knitted cap out of the cabin.

“Why didn’t you?”

“I couldn’t get them. That’s why!”

“Did you hand over my requisition?”

“Yes, I did!”

Major Butler’s face was black with suppressed rage.

“Didn’t they say anything?”

“They said nails was scarce.”

“That’s a lie.”

“I ain’t saying it ain’t, am I?”

“What did they say?”

“They said, ‘Jesus Christ, you’d think the old bastard was going to win the war with a kag of nails.’ “

The major drew in his breath. Then he seemed to collapse back into himself and his eyes became helpless. But he started to grin.

“Why couldn’t you tell me that in the first place?”

The master grinned back.

“Well, I didn’t just want to crucify you, Major.” In his relief, he prodded John Wolff to the side. “Here’s a man wants to jine on with you, Major. Come all the way from Simsbury Prison in Connecticut. I thought he might kind of take the place of a kag of nails. He’s kind of built like a nail, ain’t he?”

John Wolff flinched at the major’s direct stare. Then he drew in his breath and stared back.

Butler lowered his voice.

“What’s your name?”

“John Wolff.”

“Wolff? Wolff? I seem to remember the name.”

“I kept store at Cosby’s Manor.”

“Oh, I remember you now. You want to join Butler’s Rangers?” His voice had a kind of pride at the name. As if the organization were something tangible, like hand work.

“Yes, sir.”

“And you’ve been in jail?”

“Yes, sir. I was arrested a year ago last August.”

“That’s a long time.” The red face quieted. “Get into the boat, man, and come back with us. This is Sergeant McLonis. He came from your part of the valley. You may know him?”

John Wolff shook hands with the young man as he got into the boat. He felt shy. He thought he might feel better when he had a good warm uniform coat like McLonis’s. He studied the uniform. Green coat, with crossed buff breast straps. The lining of the coat was scarlet. The hat was a skullcap of black leather, with a leather cockade over the left ear and a brass plate over the forehead. The waistcoat was of heavy green woolen, and the full-length leggings of Indian tanned deerskin. It was a good uniform, Wolff thought, fixed for use in the woods.

“Sit down,” said Major Butler. “We’ll row back, lads. I don’t want to see Bolton to-day.” He turned to Wolff. “I hear that Thompson’s house and your store were burnt by the rebels, Wolff. It’s too bad. It’s going to be a long while before you can get back, I guess. With the mess St. Leger and Burgoyne made of it. We can’t get any government support for a full-sized campaign. By God, we can’t even get nails from them.”

The skiff smacked over the slight ripple. The drip from the oars had an icy sound. The air was raw and piercing.

“We’ll have to do the best we can ourselves,” said Butler. “How old are you, Wolff?”

“Fifty-odd.”

He was holding his breath to ask. He couldn’t seem to get the question out, he wished so desperately to ask.

“That’s not too old if you’re in sound health. But it’s hard work, campaigning through the woods. If you don’t feel up to it, I can give you work round here.”

“Thank you, sir. I ain’t so strong now. But I’ll be all right. I used to have good health.”

The other men kept watching him. Then he saw that Major Butler was looking too. He saw that his sleeves had drawn back showing the iron scars.

“You’ve had a hard time,” said Butler. “Maybe you can’t forget it, but it’s better to try to, Wolff.” He raised himself stiffly as the boat landed on the shore. “They’ve kept my wife and children down there. I can’t get them exchanged.”

“Yes, sir.” Wolff’s face started to work. He blurted out, “Do any women come here from the valley, sir?”

“Some got through.” He was brief. “Why?”

“You haven’t seen my wife— Alice Wolff? Ally, she’s called. Kind of a pale woman? A little younger than me?”

Butler shook his head and glanced away. The men shook their heads too. McLonis said, “It would be known if she was here. It would be bound to.” His voice was gentle with sympathy.

“Can you send letters down there, ever?”

Butler said, “I can send one under a flag, when a flag goes. But a letter’s not likely to reach her unless you know where she is.”

John Wolff, walking behind him towards the low log barracks, said, “Yes. I’d forgot. The store got burned, didn’t it?”

The snow began to drive a little before the first breath of the wind.

Two THE DESTRUCTIVES

6

GERMAN FLATS (1777-1778)

Though there had been several light falls at German Flats early in November, the snow had not lasted. But now, as Lana looked out from the kitchen window of Mrs. McKlennar’s house, it seemed to her that snow must surely come soon. She had prayed for snow, as all the valley had prayed for it since the murder of the Mount boys in Jerseyfield. Deep snow alone, in the woods between themselves and Canada, could ensure their safety. Until it came, no family living beyond easy reach of the forts could feel secure; and many of them had once more moved into German Flats. At Mrs. McKlennar’s, Gil and Lana had moved into the stone house, while their own log house had been turned over to Joe Boleo and Adam Helmer. Both were homeless men, but Gil said that in the event of a raid, he and they together could hold a stone house like McKlennar’s safe as a castle.

For two days long lines of steely clouds had been moving out of the northwest. People in the valley could feel no wind; there was no visible sign of it except the clouds, or the sudden bending of the trees on one of the higher hills.

As Lana looked through the window she saw Joe Boleo emerge from the farmhouse, drawing on his foul pipe and studying the sky. She herself was impelled to join him in the yard.

“Do you think it’s going to snow?” she asked.

He held his position, eyes aloft, the sparse hair on his half-bald head shivering as if with cold. “Women are the devil,” he replied at large.

“Why, Mr. Boleo! I only asked a question.”

He turned a sober face on her.

“That’s so,” he said in obvious surprise.

Lana flushed, then laughed. Her cheeks were bright, against the gray background of the winter trees; her eyes shone. She enjoyed this shambling, indolent, gangling man for all his musky smell that reminded her of pelts. Now she made her voice sound humble: “Well, is it going to snow, do you think, please, Mr. Boleo?”

Joe kept grinning to himself. He wasn’t like Adam Helmer, who hated the sight of a pretty girl carrying a baby in her inside because it seemed to take the point out of her good looks. Joe liked any pretty face, and he had grown especially fond of Lana’s.

“Sure,” he replied. “It’s going to snow hard. There’s a real storm com-ing. Feel the cold. No, you can’t feel it on your skin. You’ve got to feel it in your nose. You can smell a big snow before it comes. And look there!” He pointed his long finger at a gap in the tumbling rollers of the clouds. “Just watch there a minute.”

As Lana came close to sight along his finger, Joe’s eyes slid sidewise. He thought she looked happy to-day. She was a real nice girl, he thought, the way she brought him and Adam things to eat and cleaned their house out for them. “You keep watching.” He moved his shoulder so that it touched hers and he could feel the round soft solid curve through her dress. He even felt her draw her breath.

“Oh, the geese?”

“Geese,” he nodded. “They’ve been going by all day. Higher than hell and straight south.”

She saw them come and go, leaving the clouds in their wake, a rippling line.

“And there’s another thing,” said Joe. “Keep still. Don’t even breathe.”

He liked to see her when she held her breath.

“You mean that singing sound? What is it?”

“That’s high wind. You can hear it that way in the westward country where the land lies flat. Down here we get it when the wind blows high.”

Her lips were parted, quick and red to breathe the cold.

“Now you’d better get inside,” he said. “A girl in your shape has got responsibilities. And anyways, Gil will be hungry for his dinner. He’ll want to get started right after.”

“Oh yes,” she exclaimed. “The paymaster’s coming to-day.”

“Yes,” said Joe. “We’re going to draw militia pay. By God, we ought to be rich. Rich enough so I can buy you a present maybe.” He eyed her with sly eyes.

“Oh, thank you, Mr. Boleo. But you ought to save your money.”

“I ain’t a hand at saving. Why, sometimes I’ve made thirty pounds and spent it all in a couple of throws in Albany.”

“Throws?”

“Well, maybe I got tossed around by the girls a little.” He spoke with a kind of boastfulness. “Down there the girls get at a man like me. He can’t hardly help it.” His wrinkled face expanded. “God,” he said, “the things that have happened to me, though!”

“Why, Mr. Boleo!” Lana was bubbling with delight.

“Well, I hadn’t ought to talk this way to you.”

“I’m sure a girl wouldn’t rob you. Not up here.”

His eyes became lugubrious.

“That’s the trouble. Women are the devil.”

Gil and Adam came in at noon. Gil with the cart piled high with firewood to add to the corded tiers already in the woodshed, and Adam carrying the hog-dressed carcass of a buck on his broad shoulders. The three men hung up the deer in the woodshed, and all came up to the stone house for dinner, sitting down at the table with Mrs. McKlennar, who derived a monstrous satisfaction from all Joe’s stories. She was delighted also with Adam Helmer. Any big man could put a flutter under her ribs, and Adam, with his coarse, good-featured face and long yellow hair, pricked her mettle.

The kitchen reeked of their tobacco-tainted clothes, and there was a wet bloodstain on the shoulders of Adam’s deerskin shirt. Beside the two, Lana always noticed Gil’s cleanliness with pride. But to-day he was as excited and noisy as they. All three men were bursting with the prospect of ready money coming in. They hadn’t decided what to do with it, but Gil had earlier said to Lana that they would need the money. What little cash he had had dwindled away to nothing, and he would not receive his year’s salary of a hundred and twelve dollars until April. Militia money would be handy to buy some necessary stuff for clothes, shoes, and store flannel, out of which Lana could work things for the baby during the winter. Besides, their powder was getting short (and the price was high).