Peter Loon (6 page)

But he knew it was daylight out, and the sound of a dove also encouraged him; he was about to let out his long held breath, when there was a second footstep and the ray of light returned. There came a whir and a hard slap, a heavy piglike grunt and the report of a musket.

The weight of something large and dying crashed against his bed of leaves and he might have thought the oak itself had fallen, for something sharp and woody raked his forehead and scalp and there were no other noises save for the thrashing of limbs (of one sort or another) upon the ground.

Shouting equal parts fear and anger, he pushed himself away and stood against the tree. Leaves clung to his father's coat. His head was bleeding and he was missing his hat. Before him, a great buck lay still, and Peter had the wild notion that it was the very stag that had sensed him in the forest the night before. On the road below stood two men, a morning mist about their knees, one with his smoking musket still half raised, and both expressing astonishment across a distance of fifty yards. Peter could hardly imagine the sight he must present, rising up from the ground behind or, presumably,
from
the fallen stag itself, with blood on his head and leaves clinging to his old-fashioned clothes, but even an unloaded weapon, pointed in his direction, gave rise to a sense of threat and he raised a hand and shouted, “Ho, there! I'm Peter Loon from Sheepscott Great Pond!” though the sudden call only startled the two men further.

Amazingly, the hunters appeared ready to give up their kill. They conferred with one another by uncertain looks and short quiet sentences. Something of their perception of the scene reached Peter Loon and he added to his greeting, “I was asleep in these leaves!”

As if this were more than they wanted to know, the two men grabbed the tackle at their feet, turned away, and began to hike at a swift rate, south, down the road. Peter watched them, and he was open-mouthed and bewildered. They stopped before they were out of sight, however, and considered him again. He could see them conferring with one another.

The man who had fired was loading his musket again, and Peter thought it a good time to find his hat and sack and press on. They were already walking toward him, up the slope, albeit methodically, with soft steps as if other things might be wakened from the immediate earth. They were woodsmen, their kits and axes in a heap by the road. The sun behind them was lifting the dew into steam and their every footfall raised breathlike puffs of mist from the ground.

Suddenly dizzy, Peter slumped against the oak and pressed a hand against the gash on his head. When he raised his head, the men were within ten feet of him and the dead buck. It had been an astonishing sight, for the animal was as large a deer as any of them had seen, and Peter had sprung from nowhere. His face was ashen where it wasn't dark and wet with blood.

“Did the ball crease you?” asked one of the men, suspiciously. He was gray and his teeth were mostly gone.

“No, thank you,” said Peter. “It was the buck.”

The men frowned, clearly laboring to interpret Peter's statement. The older man held his left arm before him and spit over it, which action was considered among the older folk to be as good a ward against faerie and witch people as could be got at short notice. Peter considered telling the man about turning one's coat inside out, but thought the fellow might not take his word for it just then.

The other younger man was a tall, broad-shouldered, round-faced fellow with straw-colored hair sprouting from beneath his hat.
“What
was the buck?” he asked. They were a little less nervous, having heard Peter speak like a real person, but they were eyeing him carefully, as well as the ground about,
and
their means of quick retreat.

“I was bedded up in those leaves,” said Peter, and as evidence of this he reached for his hat, a corner of which he could see in the pile.

“You were asleep there?” said the first man. “On the other side of this buck?”

Peter nodded.

“We didn't know you were there,” said the older man, which he may have considered necessary to state, if self-evident under the circumstances. His head made a nodding motion, indicating either the place where Peter had lain, or some expectation of Peter's agreement on the subject.

Peter felt giddy and couldn't understand why they didn't come forward to help him with his wounds; but they only stood by and watched him warily. When he sat down against the tree with a small groan, they did take a step or two in his direction, and the older man carefully prodded the great buck's side.

“Felled him like a hammer,” said the bigger fellow, when the creature showed no sign of life. He knelt beside the deer, then glanced up at Peter, as if the young man might demonstrate signs of anger or propriety concerning the animal. They had not yet gotten used to the idea that he hadn't simply sprung from the buck as it drew its last breath.

“What's in the sack?” asked the gray-haired man.

Peter was puzzled by the question. He was more concerned with what was left in his head. He looked at his hand, thinking that he may have stanched the blood. “Biscuits and apples,” he said finally.

From his expression, the older man might have doubted it. He was looking at the sack, clearly wondering if it held the answer to Peter's sudden appearance, as if Peter was a witch with potions and spells in his bag. The old man raised the muzzle of his gun in Peter's direction without conscious motive. The younger woodsman caught sight of the movement and looked with wide blue eyes from Peter's face to the musket and back again.

They were then all three startled by a new voice that said, “‘
He was a mighty hunter before the Lord: wherefore it is said, Even as Nimrod the mighty hunter before the Lord.'”
rider had come over the slope, his approach hidden by the width of the oak and the degree of their distraction; but now he ambled his mount to a point some ten or fifteen paces above them, and as he reined up, he leaned over the animal's withers.

The gray-haired man raised his musket like a bar before him, and the other woodsman stood with his own weapon pointing groundward, but poised with his thumb against the cock.

The rider was long and gaunt, with a large nose and a humorous twist to his mouth. He wore no hat and his queue was bound in a ribbon with no attempt at tidiness. The horse was of English stock, as brown as the buck, tall, broad-backed, and massively hooved. The tails of the man's blue wool great-coat spilled past the animal's flanks.

“Genesis ten, nine,” said the gray-haired woodsman, who might have had enough of the old religion to spar verses. Nimrod was a mysterious figure to men of the woods, alluded to but once in scripture and often linked in legend with strange figures that wandered the forests; the old man was not less troubled for the mention of him.

The rider seemed to know this, for he grinned at the old man, then dropped easily from the back of the horse and lifted the hoop of a leather bottle from the pommel of his saddle.

“There are more folk about than I would have credited,” said the younger woodsman.

“I wouldn't have credited
this
fellow,” agreed the rider, indicating Peter with a nod and almost a laugh. “I was watching the two of you from over in those woods.” He pointed south to a line of trees. “As clean a shot as ever I witnessed. But when this fellow sprang up from his bed–!” He found a handkerchief in a pocket and pulled the wooden stopper from the bottle as he walked around the trunk of the oak.

The woodsmen stepped back, though they were not in his way. “You saw him, then?” asked the gray-haired man. “You saw him come out of that pile?”

“Like Adam out of the Earth!” stated the rider. “Did you think he climbed out of the hole you put in that buck?” He doused the linen with water and applied it to Peter's forehead.

“I wasn't too sure,” returned the old man, which–from the look on his face–was more straightforward an expression than he had intended.

Peter had been listening to this small conversation as from another room, but the gaunt fellow's touch drew him out of his daze; he flinched a little as the tall man washed the blood from his head. “You weren't any more surprised than I,” said Peter. He realized that he had been gazing at the warm coat of the deer, and the hole at the base of the animal's neck, dark with blood. He looked up at the man who had fired the killing shot. Beyond the woodsman, beyond the road and the river, he could see the glistening tops of the trees and a broken column of smoke-rising from someone's house, no doubt–in the distance.

“You've saved yourself the
hire
of a leech, at any rate,” said the horseman, and this time he smiled broadly, as from some private humor. “Now hold that tight and see if the bleeding will stop.” He pressed the handkerchief to the wound and placed Peter's hand atop it.

The older woodsman had a way of squinting his eyes when someone spoke, as if he could squeeze his concentration of mind into his ears; Peter thought he must be a little deaf. “It was all of an accident,” said the gray-haired man. “We didn't know he was there.”

“Peter won't hold it against you,” said the tall horseman simply.

“You know my name,” said Peter, when the man stood.

“You called it out loud enough,” said the man.

“I did,” agreed Peter. He had forgotten.

“My name is Zachariah Leach,” said the horseman, and here the reason for his previous humor was revealed. He reached his hand over the dead buck.

The gray-haired man took the offered hand carefully. “I've heard the name,” he said. “Are you the saddle preacher?”

“I testify to the Grace of God and seldom the same place two days in succession. Praise him that made us and the new republic! We can bind up a litter for the deer, and for some sweetbreads and liver,” and here Zachariah Leach nodded to his horse, “I'll talk Mars into lugging that buck wherever you want it.”

THE GRAY-HAIRED WOODSMAN WAS MANASSEH CUTTS AND THE LARGER,
younger man was Crispin Moss. They retrieved their kits, and one of them had a rope with which to hang the buck from the oak. Once they had dressed and strung the carcass, they followed Parson Leach over the hill to his banked coals at the edge of the trees to the west. The parson might have owned the woods, he was so like a gracious host–inviting them into a shallow depression where he had camped the night before. A thick bedroll and two heavy saddlebags lay as bed and pillow between the fire and the trunk of an old pine. Leaning against the tree was an old firing piece and a powder horn.

The woodsmen brought the buck's liver and sweetbread and soon these were crackling over a lively fire. Still holding the cloth to his head, Peter produced, with his free hand, the hard biscuits and apples from his pack. The parson went to a nearby stream to refresh his bottle, and when he returned, he surprised them with four brown eggs from one of his bags.