Peter Loon (8 page)

They tied the litter behind Mars on the way to the river, but took it themselves, one to a corner, as they crossed the stepping stones to the eastern shore in careful measures. Mars forded the river without command from Parson Leach, and shook the water from his sides before trotting friskily before the woods like a colt.

Soon they had the litter hitched to him again, and they entered the road that Peter had come out on; but half a mile or so along this track they turned east onto a path he had not seen in the predawn.

Parson Leach was content to walk; his stride was longer than even Peter's, who was a tall boy, and consequently the clergyman found his gait interrupted frequently as he and Mars paused to wait for their fellow travelers.

A breeze tugged at the bright hardwoods in the little valleys and the thickly needled pines and firs along the stonier ridges, and the fallish chatter of stay-in-winter birds filled the branchy acres. The smaller rills ran quietly or not at all after a thirsty summer, and the low places, where marshy conditions often hindered a traveler's progress, were hardly spongy.

“This Walton who writes about fish,” said Crispin Moss, not long after they passed near one of these sun-dried beds, “is he a man you know, that you peddle his book?”

“Not at all,” said the preacher. “He lived and loved in England, and died a hundred years ago and more.” Parson Leach needed little encouragement, it seemed, regarding his books, and as they walked he fished a copy of the
Compleat Angler
from one of Mars's saddlebags. He produced a pair of spectacles from a pocket in his cloak and he wrapped the ends of these around his ears so that they sat on his prominent nose. Soon he was regaling them with a lively debate upon the relative merits of fishing, hunting, and falconry as defended, in turn, by Piscator, Venator, and Auceps. And he passed the book around when he came to an illustration of one or the other of these fellows at their occupation.

Peter and the woodsmen were, at first, a little puzzled by the discourse, but soon Cutts and Moss were expressing their opinions alongside the dialogue with various grunts and wordless exclamations. When the hunter in the book said (and this in the preacher's rich tones) “And now let us go to an honest ale-house, where we may have a cup of barley-wine, and sing
Old Rose…
” Manasseh actually laughed.

“There's a hunter's head for you!” he said. “The tavern at the end of the chase! I think I like this Venator better than your fisherman, Parson, though I wouldn't know a barley-wine and would be satisfied with hot rum or even brown ale.” Then he surprised them by singing several verses of
Old Rose
in a very passable voice.

Parson Leach returned the book to its saddlebag when the prospect of a small pond opened up before them; Traveler's Pond, Manasseh called it. They heard ducks again, and Peter thought, for a time, that the woodsmen would veer from their path and try their luck at more hunting. Parson Leach looked to have thoughts on roast duck, as well. They peered out from a natural blind, over the leaf-littered surface of the water, and Peter caught sight of a muskrat leaving his arrowlike wake across the pond to pierce a crowd of lily-pads.

They did not linger, however; instead, they crossed south of the pond over Brann Brook and skirted this and a smaller pond, as they followed a deer path east and a little south. At a further extremity of the same brook, they crossed again, and at the top of a short, granity knoll they took a bearing on Haskell Hill about a mile away, then continued through a close wood, more or less in that direction. Mars balked once or twice and there was nothing for it but that Cutts and Moss must widen the trail for him.

“He's not a battering ram, after all,” concurred Parson Leach, who lent a hand in beating down the underbrush.

Peter had never seen or heard of a
battering
ram, but could easily imagine a large, broad-horned goat. Fortunately, they came to another wood path about halfway to Haskell Hill and such a creature's good office was rendered unnecessary.

About mid-morning they stopped on a hill, where the recent windfall of an old scratch pine had opened a bit of sky and let sunlight onto a patch of ground, which was thick and soft with needles. Mars dragged the litter a few yards away, where some moss took his fancy. They had water and Peter passed around the last of his hard biscuits. He was just tasting one himself, when it occurred to him that his father had cooked them and that he would never taste anything from his father's hand in this life again. His heart was suddenly leaden and his breath came with difficulty.

The woodsmen had relaxed their guard against Peter by this time; Manasseh Cutts had wavered first of all, but Crispin Moss, when he dropped his wariness, did so wholeheartedly. The bigger fellow had found his voice and was telling them about a bobcat he once met while stepping out of a privy. Peter hardly heard the tale. The biscuit seemed dry and without flavor.

Parson Leach leaned forward with his leather water bottle and offered it to him, saying, “That'll do you good.”

Peter wondered what the preacher could know about his thoughts, but thanked the man.

“He was chasing a bird,” said Crispin Moss, “like a kitten, and I promise you, that bird was having fun with him.”

The mention of the bird made Peter oddly conscious of the chirps and chatter in the woods about them. The first sip of water did more than slake his thirst; it lent savor to the bit of biscuit in his mouth. He took another sip, then another morsel and the weight in his chest seemed to lift just a little.

Something else was said about birds, and Crispin Moss asked them “Have you ever seen this?” then cupping one hand in the other, he put them to his lips and made an odd sound, as if he were kissing the back of his fist. His eyes shone like a child's as he flashed his gaze along the tops of the surrounding trees.

Almost immediately there was a change in the quality of birdsound; the birds nearabouts grew excited, then louder, as they approached Crispin Moss and increased in number. Chickadees and sparrows and redpoles flitted in from the surrounding hills and groves.

A trio of chickadees behind and above the woodsman's big head looked so humanly curious that Peter almost laughed aloud. Crispin continued to make the kissing noise at the back of his hand and the birds were further emboldened. Several dropped onto the ground and hopped among the men, cocking their heads from side to side, flicking their tails in the pools of sunlight. When Crispin did leave off the noise the creatures stayed for a moment or two, looking startled to find themselves there before retreating to the nearby trees. From these safe heights, they set up a chorus of scolds and slowly dispersed into the forest and returned to their previous concerns.

“I've seen an Indian do that,” said Manasseh Cutts, who was the first to stand.

“I learned it from an Indian,” returned Crispin Moss. He seemed pleased with the trick. “Just a little fellow; hardly came to my belt.”

“He wouldn't have to be very little,” said the parson.

The conversation was continued on foot, with Crispin Moss leading the way. Peter hardly felt rested; accustomed as he was to long hours tending field or cutting wood, he was not used to walking such distances and though he was a hard muscled lad, his feet and shanks were beginning to flag beneath him. But Parson Leach asked Peter to tell them about his father, and the young man forgot his sore muscles and his fatigue as he recalled Silas Loon to his companions.

They rounded Haskell Hill to the east, and from another height found a plain view over the northeastern settlement of Balltown and the lake known as Great Bay.

“
There's
a place we should ask after your uncle,” suggested Parson Leach.

The woodsmen loathed to lose the horse's helpful labor, but it was not much further to Crispin's relatives, so the two men released the animal of Parson Leach's promise. Parson Leach was thankful for his horse's sake, and the older woodsman allowed, in a wry manner, that the creature had worked enough for his master's word.

Manasseh and Crispin had reconciled themselves to Peter and shook his hand; they considered that he had proven himself mortal enough, after all, having had the good sense not to grow fins and disappear into a stream, or wings and leap from a hill.

“‘
Good company and good discourse are the very sinews of virtue?
'” said the parson before Manasseh Cutts and Crispin Moss turned east again. “Those are more words from Mr. Walton.”

“He was a wise man,” said Manasseh Cutts, perhaps wryly, before leaving, “even
did
he write books.” He insisted that the parson and Peter Loon take a cut of the buck's thigh. “It'll make you more than welcome at the tavern down yonder,” he said, and though he was glad enough to be shaken of the young man who had appeared to spring full grown from the fallen creature, he inquired of Peter's wounds before he left and wished him well. The preacher hung the deer thigh at his saddle and climbed onto Mars with a small groan.

And so Peter Loon did not go to Patricktown, or even Plymouth Gore, that day, but accompanied Parson Leach and Mars around and down a series of small hills to the settlement on the shores of Great Bay in the part of the district known as Balltown. They flushed a partridge on one of these slopes and Peter was startled from a weary daze by the creature's sudden noisy flight.

There were about ten or twelve sizable buildings in the settlement, and as many small outbuildings and privies. Peter could see no church, or at least no building attempting to look like a church–no spire or high windowed nave. The street took a dogleg to the right and there were two or three more buildings nearer the shore of the wide lake.

It was not Parson Leach's first visit to the hamlet, as was made evident when they approached the single dirt street and he remarked that there were more people about than he had seen there before. He had, in fact, preached there on several occasions, which was evidenced by the greetings hailed to him by passersby, or more accurately lingerers round about the tavern in the midst of the little hamlet.

“Souls or sovereigns will it be, Reverend Leach?” wondered one wag, who may have seen a book or two, even if he had never read one.

As they neared the center of the settlement, Peter could sense the giddy air of important business that riles people who lurk along the periphery of understanding to foolish behavior. Two or three young men approached the parson to inquire if he had come into town because of the rumors flying about. “I don't seek after rumor, as a general thing,” was his reply.

“Do you think we'll be to war again?” wondered another.

“What, have the British come up river?” returned the parson, but Peter could see the man's interest was up. “The last I heard, peace was signed, eighteen years hence, but I've been in the woods a fair bit.” There were enough horses and carts about that the few hitching posts in town were occupied and the parson tied Mars to the railing of the little porch outside the village tavern.

“It's our own Great Men come up the river, you might say,” said the first young fellow. Two or three older, more sober-faced gentlemen came up to the tavern stoop to see what the ruckus was.

“You surprise me,” said the parson simply, indicating something opposite by his expression. “But Peter, here, and I would share out some of this thigh,” he informed the congregants outside the tavern, indicating the portion over Peter's shoulder, “if there were a man with the price of the beer and victuals to go with it. And that man would have the doubled pleasure of telling us all the fox-talk and rumor hereabouts and why you're all gathered here, if not to hear me preach.”