Storyteller (3 page)

She’d think Elizabeth was crazy.

So would Pop.

Over my head, oak leaves lined the branches like furry mouse ears
.

“It’s the time to plant,” Old Gerard had told Ammy Patchin and me as he’d sifted corn kernels through his leathery fingers. Old Gerard, the Lenape, knew all about those things. So that’s what Ammy and I were doing:

Poking a stick into the earth
.

Dropping three kernels into the hole
.

Whispering, “Be happy down there.”

No, Ammy wasn’t whispering to the corn. Ammy didn’t talk to things the way I did, didn’t tell the bread to rise, the sun to come out. But she always met me, running, halfway across the field when our chores were done
.

“Cold,” I said to her today; I was shivering
.

“Windy,” she agreed
.

We watched a few sad leaves from last fall skitter across the field. My cap wanted to fly off my head, but I held on to it. In the next field, my brother John’s jacket flapped around him. It looked as if he’d sail away across the mountains
.

And I was without the woolly shawl I had knitted last winter. Where was it? I wrinkled my forehead. Maybe it had been captured by a thornbush, or floated down the river to see the world. Imagine. A red shawl with dropped stitches curtsying to King George or Queen Charlotte. I had to laugh at my foolishness
.

Hands tapped my cheeks. Ammy, smelling like lavender, leaned over. “It’s worse to laugh to yourself, Zee.”

“Worse than what?” But then I waved my hand. “Never mind. I know. Worse than talking to—”

“Yourself,” Ammy said, but she said it kindly. We locked arms to look at our corn patch. The rows zigzagged along, looking like my hair when it was newly plaited
.

Father and Mr. Patchin had given us this square of land as soon as Ammy and I had been old enough to plant. It was no bigger than our keeping room. Half of it was on Father’s land, half on Mr. Patchin’s. Once, they had been best friends, like Ammy and me. But that had been before all this talk of war
.

Don’t think about that, Zee, I told myself. I might as well have said it aloud, because Ammy knew what was in my mind. Her eyes floated in tears
.

I bent over to poke in another hole, humming so she’d think everything was all right. But it wasn’t all right. Trouble was coming upon us like a twist of clouds just before the streak of lightning seared the earth
.

Last night John had pounded the table until the plates had jumped. “There will be war,” he’d said. “And after planting I will go to fight against the Loyalists.”

War. I had run my finger over a bit of spilled soup and brought it to my mouth. Warm. Salty. Don’t think about war
.

Father opened his mouth. I thought it was to scold John. But no. He looked serious, his slate blue eyes darker than usual. “It will come to that for us both.” He shook his head. “Neighbor against neighbor. The Loyalists will fight for the king; others like us will fight to be free.”

Now John came across the field, a hoe in one hand, his face like thunder. He held his hat against the wind, glaring at Ammy: Ammy in her soft cap with the red ribbon, Ammy with her turned-up nose. Who could be angry at her?

“Where’s your brother?” John asked. “Where’s Isaac?”

Ammy barely looked up. “I don’t know.”

“He’s off doing mischief with the Loyalists. Maybe he’s in Canada with Colonel St. Leger. They say St. Leger’s coming down the St. Lawrence. We’ve all heard that. He’ll meet up with General Burgoyne, and squeeze New York until there’s not an American left to fight.” He squeezed the end of his jacket, his knuckles white
.

Ammy straightened herself. Two spots of red circled her cheeks. “Loyalty to King George is not mischief. This country belongs to him, belongs to England.”

I thought John would burst with anger. He bent down and gripped a clump of earth in his fist. “The king has never seen this soil, never touched foot on this land. He cares only about taking what we have, our money in taxes, our food, our animal skins.”

There was no other sound then except the whooshing of the wind. John crumbled the soil in his hand. “It’s your brother, Isaac, who is the traitor,” he told her
.

Isaac, a traitor? I pictured his smile that was only for me. Isaac, whom I hoped to wed someday
.

I turned away from John’s angry face and looked at the river. The waves were like small white horses prancing north, prancing to where the fighting might be
.

Soil and pebbles rattled as John threw the dirt across the field
.
He looked toward Ammy’s cabin, hidden by the trees. “House of our enemies,” he said
.

He left us and went back to the field. He stood there, hands on his hips, shoulders heaving
.

Tears streamed down Ammy’s face. John had never talked to her like that
.

My own tears came. When John made up his mind, there was no changing it. And deep inside my head was a voice that whispered, this time Father agreed with him
.

“When the corn grows a little,” Ammy said, “we will plant the beans. They will use the cornstalks as poles to hold themselves up.”

I took a breath. “And then the squash,” I said, my voice even. “It will grow in the shade of its two sisters, the corn and the beans.”

We were using Old Gerard’s words about planting. They never changed. But think of how his life had changed! After having lived here for hundreds of years, the Lenapes had lost all their land to the Iroquois and left for the West. Only Gerard and his grandson remained, in his lean-to
.

That last day, his daughter had gathered her children around her, falling to her knees, begging Gerard to come with them
.

He’d answered her slowly. “I stay out of respect to the old
ones. Their spirits have gone to the sky, but their bones remain. Who else is there to care about them but me?”

She’d walked across the field, her children following. Then she’d turned. “Stay with your grandfather, Elam.”

Elam kept plodding along until his mother picked up some small stones and threw them at his feet. Then, at last, he started back and I saw that he was smiling. Staying with his grandfather was what he wanted after all
.

Now Ammy touched my shoulder. “By the time we harvest the corn, we will have forgotten this talk of war.” Her face was set, determined
.

Please, I told myself. Ammy is right more times than not. Let her be right now
.

The rain began late one night. It spattered hard on the roof: an angry sound against the logs, the chunks of clay, and the chimney stones
.

Stout Lucy, the cat, hated it. She curled herself up on the quilt next to my feet. I thought of the likeness of Lucy that was lying near my pallet. It had been drawn on a mushroom with a nail, and showed her irritable face. That cat was always angry
.

I couldn’t sleep. Was it because I had forgotten something? What was it? Not the sheep. I had closed their gate, so it wasn’t that. Why did I picture Miller standing on top of our henhouse, nails in his mouth, hammer in his hand, the day our neighbors had built it together?

And then I knew. The henhouse!

I climbed down from the loft, and in the glow of the banked fireplace ashes, I let myself out without a sound. Old Gerard had taught me that—to watch my footsteps, to tread carefully. “Important for the hunter,” he’d said
.

I ducked my head against the storm. Facing me was the river, the shallows white against the rocks, and the center pockmarked with fierce drops. Beyond the rushing water were the fields, green now, but beaten down
.

Closer was the chicken coop. The door swung back and forth, banging; the rope that usually held it fast lay loose. My fist went to my mouth. I had fed the hens and given them water but had forgotten to close them in for the night
.

How thankful I was that I’d discovered it before Mother or Father had. But then I saw puffs of white: my poor hens skittering over the mud. An animal with matted fur held a hen in its jaws
.

I picked up a rock and sent it after the creature, but with the rain in my eyes, my aim was poor. The fox disappeared around the side of the coop, its thick tail almost sweeping the ground
.

A footfall sounded behind me. Hands covered my mouth and my nose, hands that made it hard to breathe. I felt as if I were a
hen in the jaws of the fox. I arched my back and brought my hands up to his wrists, scratching wildly
.

“Be still, Zee.” The hands came away from my face and clamped on my arms
.

John
.

“You might have killed me,” I said
.

His wet hands tightened on my arms. “Ah, Zee, I didn’t want you to wake Mother.”

“We have to capture the hens.” I leaned against him in spite of myself and wiped my eyes and my cheeks
.

“Never mind the hens just yet,” he said
.

I shook my head. The fox would be back sooner or later. He’d take not only a hen but what that hen would give us—an egg a day and eventually a meal on the table
.

John moved me forward to stand under the shelter of the trees. “You might as well know,” he said. “I’m leaving now with Miller and his brother Julian before Mother sees me. I can’t bear to see her tears.”

Leaving? In the rain? In the middle of the night? Oh, John and Julian. Oh, Miller. Annoying as Miller was, he’d helped furrow our fields and mill our grain
.

I grasped John’s sleeve. “Why would you do that?”

“I have to fight,” he said
.

I looked up at him. His hat was soaked with rain, the drops rolling off the edge. In the dim light, it was hard to see his eyes. “War is not here,” I said. “It hasn’t come to us.”

“Oh, Zee.” His voice was harsh. “We’ll all be pulled in before long. This is about being free to live our own lives.”

“I’m free enough!”

“Father and I have been outspoken against the king, and there are Loyalists here who want us gone.”

I thought of the Patchins. “We’ll always live one field away,” Ammy had said. “We’ll sugar together in the spring; we’ll quilt all winter.” And Isaac, perching on the fence he was supposed to be mending, patting the rough wood with his freckled hand, and saying, “Put down your basket, Zee. We’ll sit awhile.”

Isaac
.

I must have said it aloud, because John repeated bitterly, “Isaac. He’s gone off to fight with the Loyalists. And there are others in this valley who would fight, too. We left them a warning, Miller and Julian and I.”

I shook my head as John grabbed my arm. “They’ll try to hurt us, all of them, the British and the Loyalists.”

It was too much to think about. “Don’t go, John.” I wrung my hands. “Suppose something happens to you?”

“I’ll go north,” he said, as if I hadn’t spoken. He pointed over his shoulder
.

“No need to point,” I said. I knew well where the sun came up, and where it disappeared at night. To go north, he’d have to keep the sun on his right in the morning, on his left in the afternoon
.

“I heard about a militia,” John said. “I’ll train up near Fort Dayton with General Herkimer.”

A name so strange I could hardly say it
.

“Herkimer’s father came from the Palatinate in Europe, like Father,” he said. “One of our own.”

Inside the house a light flickered. Father must be awake. I turned to John, but he had moved into the trees. And in moments it seemed as if he had melted away. Old Gerard had taught him well, too
.

I looked at the trunks darkened by rain, the leaves dripping. But I couldn’t stand there for long. I had to take care of the sodden hens. I flapped my petticoat, trying to guide them into the coop. I clucked at them gently. Poor hens. Their feathers were bedraggled, weighed down with mud. There would be no keeping this from Father
.

But all I could think of was John, remembering games we had played together when we were young, remembering that he’d carried me home when I had twisted my ankle, that he’d shared food with me in lean times
.

I looped the rope over the coop door and made sure it was closed tight, then went toward the house
.

Father stood in front, peering at me. “Zee?”

I stood still, afraid to move, the rain coming down at me. “I am sorry about the hens.”

“The hens?”

“A fox got one of them.”

He took a step forward, too angry to speak
.

“And John is gone,” I said, wanting to distract him
.

His face changed. “I knew he’d go. If it weren’t for the farm, if it weren’t for Mother, I would go, too.”

I felt a pain deep in my chest. Father was stern, but I loved his spareness, his gentle handling of the animals. I was glad the farm and Mother would hold him back
.

Inside, Mother sat at the table, her head bowed in her hands. “I know it’s John,” she said
.

I poured cider into mugs and put one in front of her. She cupped her hands around it. “You’re a good child, Zee.”

I glanced at Father. I was not a good child. We might lose our hens to the chill because of my forgetfulness. And now that John was gone, how could I take his place? I had little strength to be of real help to Father in the fields
.

As for helping Mother, I tangled the yarn in the spinning
wheel; my stitches were uneven when we sewed petticoats or shirts. I burned mush in the pots, and cakes in their iron forms. Now I took a sip of the warm cider and held its sweetness in my mouth
.