How the West Was Won (1963) (8 page)

Anxiously, Zebulon peered ahead. One boy wounded and the other sickly ... the girls trying hard to make up for Sam. He had never realized how much he had come to depend on Sam until now; suddenly, strangely, one half of his mind began to think of him, while the other half tried to estimate the river and fought with it.

Surprisingly, he actually had no idea what his son was like. A man has children and he takes them for granted; they are his, they have grown up in his home, and in many ways he knows them. And then he realizes of a sudden that they are people-individuals with thoughts, dreams, and ambitions perhaps far different from anything he had ever known.

He thought of Sam, comparing him to the girls-to Lilith, who did not know what she wanted ... or hadn't found the words for it, at least; and to Eve, who pointed at what she wanted with quiet persistence. Sam had seen through him. He had commented upon him going off to see that show and those show-folk. Sam had seen that in him, read him for his dreams, and it had made Zebulon suddenly shy before his son. Sam had understood at least something of him; but what did he know of Sam?

Suddenly, from the front of the raft, Zeke turned and cupped his hands. Pa! he yelled against the wind. It's the falls! The falls of the Ohio! Shocked, Zebulon strained to his full height, staring through the veil of rain.

It could not be ... it simply could not be. The falls were on the other channel. Unless-unless they had missed it. Where were the Harveys? After all, they couldn't be that far ahead of him. Somehow he had missed the channel, and now the Harveys were gone, down the other side.

Fear rose within him. He fought it down, fought the ugly taste of it in his throat. There was no white water in sight, but Zeke was right: he could feel the pull of the current, he could feel the power of it against the raft, against his oar.

Now there was a dark smoothness to the water, and the raft seemed to gather speed. He had been warned that he would see no white water, not until too late, and that the rapids would seem anything but alarming. Only one who had tried to navigate those waters could understand their danger ... it all looked so easy, so smooth.

Zeke shouted again, panic in his voice. Ahead Zebulon saw a huge rock, water boiling over it. Beyond it, he saw another.

Fear flooded over him like an icy wave. Desperately, Zebulon worked at the long sweep, but even as he fought the current, he knew how little he could do with the cumbersome raft in that strong current that was already sucking them toward the rocks.

The raft was no longer simply swept along by the current, it had become like a live thing, plunging and bounding upon the boiling water. Suddenly, as the bow of the raft lifted on a swell of rushing water, the wind caught the tent that had been tied over the framework to roof the house. The canvas billowed up like a great balloon, and Lilith caught wildly at the edge. In the next instant she was jerked over the side and plunged into the racing water, the canvas ripping loose and going with her. As she surfaced in the racing water, Eve thrust a pole toward her, but Lilith failed in a wild, futile grab at the end of the pole, and was swept away. At the last, before she vanished from sight, they saw she had turned and was swimming strongly, half riding the current, fighting her way toward shore. Pa! It was Zeke. The tent's draggin' us! Cut her loose! Cut it away! Dropping his useless steering oar, Zebulon caught up his axe and, staggering across the plunging raft, he struck wildly at the entangling ropes. The canvas tent, acting like a huge sea anchor, was turning the raft broadside. He struck, and struck again. Wildly as he seemed to strike, he struck true; the ropes were slashed and the tent disappeared on the wind. An instant more and the whole raft might have been turned over, capsized in the wild water. Straighten her, pa! Straighten her! Zebulon started for the steering sweep and was thrown headlong. He felt a wicked blow across the skull, and then he was up and grasping the sweep just as the end of the raft struck a rock. It was a crashing blow that shook the raft its entire length, and then the current swung the stern around and the raft had turned end for end.

With mounting horror, Zebulon saw that the jolt of the blow against the rock had snapped at least some of the binding cords, and the logs were spreading. Water showed between them. He shouted hoarsely, and dropped the useless oar to go to his wife, who was beside Sam.

Grab holt! he shouted. Grab holt of a log! Eve heard her father shout, but she never knew what he said, for the next instant the logs parted beneath her and she was plunged down into the icy water.

Logs smashed together above her. She struck out, fighting to escape them. Dead ahead of her one log struck a rock and the current lifted the butt end of it, turning it end over end. She heard screams, a hoarse cry, and she saw her father had an arm around Rebecca. Logs smashed together like the shot of a gun, and Eve felt the sharp sting of a flying chip as it struck her face. Then she struck out, swimming downstream and across.

Glancing back upstream, she saw a log plunging toward her, and managed to avoid the charging butt end of it. As she grasped wildly at the rough bark she felt it tear at her hand, but somehow she got an arm over it and clung for dear life. The falls itself was only a few feet high-from shore it might have seemed like nothing at all. She went over, clinging to the log, and was still hanging on when she came to the surface. Suddenly the log was ceasing to plunge. Ahead there was a wide eddy and beyond it a place close in to the shore where the water was almost smooth.

Freeing one hand, she brushed the wet hair back from her face. There was a low riverbank ahead, and on it lay something dark and still. Her throat tight with fear, she began to paddle with her free hand and kick with her feet to get the log closer in.

When her feet touched bottom she let go of the log and, straightening up, splashed ashore. At the sound, the dark body quivered, and a head lifted. It was Sam ... and he was alive.

She knelt beside him and he struggled to sit up. His body shook with a spasm of coughing, and he spat river water into the mud. Are you all right, Sam? Are you hurt?

He shook his head, leaning it forward to his drawn-up knees. I'm all right.

She turned her head, looking all about her, afraid of what she might see. Something-it was some distance off and might be a log-was caught in the brush along the shore. There was nothing else in sight. The hour was late and the sky was heavily overcast.

Did they make it? Lil... have you seen Lil?

She'd be miles upriver. She shivered in the cold wind. Sam, we've got to have a fire.

Helping each other, they staggered to the edge of the trees where Eve gathered broken branches and debris cast up by high water. Near the roots of a great tree, she put together the wood for a fire. Tearing bark from a tree, she got at the dry inner bark and shredded it; then with a little dry moss found high up on the side of a tree, she had tinder for the fire. With flint and steel, Sam struck a good spark after several attempts; it caught, smoked, and then was fanned and blown into a tiny flame. This he fed carefully with shredded bark, then with twigs, until the fire was blazing brightly. By the time the fire was going both were shivering with a chill. A cold wind had started to blow and in their soaked clothing they had no defense against the wind. But they worked together to build a lean-to, a windbreak to protect them from the night.

From a forked tree to a forked branch, its other end thrust deep into the sodden earth, Sam placed a long branch. With other branches slanting to the ground from this ridge-pole, he made a roof and back wall for the lean-to, and then they swiftly cut branches to weave into and place over this. When the shelter was finished they built a reflector of branches that would throw the heat back into the lean-to itself. Then they removed their outer garments and draped them near the fire to dry while they huddled close to keep warm. The afternoon was gone. The rain continued to fall, but the heavy downpour had dwindled into a fine drizzle that promised to continue through the night. At intervals Sam got up and cut more branches to add to the roof, or dragged more sticks close for fuel.

Eve was frightened when she looked at him. His face was drawn and gray, and his wound had been bleeding again.

Sam? Are you all right?

He did not reply for a moment, and when he did he said: All right ... just almighty tired.

He dropped to the damp ground near her. Eve ... what do you think happened? To them, I mean? Do you think we're the only ones left? I can't think. I saw pa catch hold of ma ... she never did learn to swim.

She was afraid of the water.

The wind blew chill from over the water. The flames flickered and jumped beneath the hand of the wind, and occasionally a drop of rain fell into the fire. The lean-to gave little shelter, but by keeping their fire small, they could huddle close to it. Once Sam went out into the woods after more fuel, and came back dragging a dead-fall, from which he broke the branches to add to the fuel. Eve was afraid to think of Lilith and Zeke. Lilith was the best swimmer of the lot, better even than Sam, but Zeke was the weak one ... or he seemed so. His boyhood illnesses had given their mother the idea that he was not strong, yet he had always seemed eager to be out and doing.

They talked no more, but huddled, wet, cold, and miserable over their small fire, moving only to add fuel. Eve tried not to let Sam see her fear. He needed rest, needed it desperately ... But what of her father and mother? Where were they?

The wind mounted ... it was not yet fully dark. In the east there was a break in the somber clouds. The rain had ceased, but the trees dripped great, slow drops, except when a sudden gust of wind blew a small shower from their leaves. Her clothing was dry, or as dry as it was likely to get, so she dressed and walked out along the riverbank. She was drawn toward that dark, inscrutable something she had seen entangled in the brush, but it was obscured by night and she could see nothing.

She did find a canvas-wrapped bundle of clothing that had floated ashore, secure in its water-proof tarpaulin. She also found a wooden bucket and a teakettle, both of which had somehow remained afloat.

Suddenly she heard a shout, and Zeke rushed from the forest ... and Lilith was just behind him. They ran into each other's arms and clung tightly, saying nothing. It was Zeke who spoke first. Ma? Is she all right? And pa? Sam's over by the fire, she said-it was all she could say. Lilith was still soaking wet. When I got to the bank, she said, I knew there was nothing to do but follow the river down and hope to come up with you. You didn't see what happened?

Zeke told me. I've been walking since I got to shore ... that was a mite after noontime. She huddled close to the fire. I came up with Zeke about half a mile back.

Sam's afraid they didn't get to shore, Eve said to them. Ma couldn't swim, and pa was sure to try and save her. He wouldn't be likely to give up. Here and there a star was visible now through the broken clouds. They gathered branches and worked to enlarge the lean-to. Zeke and Lilith had made it, so mightn't pa and ma?

Supposin' they ... supposin' we don't find them, Zeke said. What are you figurin' to do?

Lilith tossed her head defiantly. I am not goin' west, that's for sure. I never did want to go, and now there'd be nothing out there for me, nor nobody. Eve looked from one to the other, sitting very still and thinking that this was the end of something, the end of the family they had always been. First the farm had gone, and with it all they knew of home, of stability. And now their parents ... for in her heart she was sure.

This was an end of all they had known, the beginning of all they had yet to learn.

And Lilith? Ma had worried about Lilith, with her fancy notions, but Sam had been closer to Lilith than any of them had been, and he was not worried. She was young, but there was in her a kind of steel he recognized. Lilith would make her own way, and in that way she was as much a pioneer as any of them, perhaps more than any of them, for her way would be different. In each generation there are some who break with tradition, and she was such a one. Sam would continue to the West, Eve realized, for Sam had wanted to go, and had talked of it even before pa had become interested in the idea. He had said nothing to pa, but he had talked to Eve and Lilith about it ... always thinking that it would be he alone who went, not the family. Eve looked across the fire at Sam. You'd better lie down, Sam. You looked tired.

He looked worse than tired, and for once he did not protest. He simply crawled deeper into the lean-to and curled into a ball. Eve opened the bundle of clothing they had found wrapped securely in the tarp and found a coat of pa's. With this she covered Sam, then spread an edge of the tarp it had been wrapped in over him, too. They all would have to share that tarp. The wind picked up, whispering in the leaves. Zeke turned and crawled in beside Sam, and she sat alone with Lilith.

You think they're gone, don't you? Lilith asked.

Yes.

I do, too. Even if they were carried downstream pa would have found us by now from the fire's light.

Lilith ... what are you going to do?

The younger girl huddled under the blanket that had been wrapped in the tarp, drawing it around her shoulders. I don't know. All I can do is play that old accordion and sing a little, but I like people. I want to be where there are people ... where things are happening. And I want nice things, pretty things. Eve listened to the river. How many men, through how many ages, had sat by night listening to the sound of running water? How many had sat beside this very river? She remembered some man telling pa about the strange mounds in the Ohio country, huge artificial hills made for what purpose nobody knew, by a people far and away stranger than any she could imagine. Those very people might have sat here beside this river-the Mound Builders might have sat here, or Indians, or explorers ... no telling who.