Follow the River

by JAMES ALEXANDER Thom

  “Aye! Home! Trust me now, dear. I know the way.”

  I hope I know the way, she thought, remembering the tortuous route along creeks and over ridges and game trails and under cliffs by which the Indians had brought her down. And interspersed among the memorized landmarks in her mind there were those blank spaces: the hours, sometimes whole days, when she had been so absorbed in grief and the pain of coming childbirth that she had not been able to observe the route at all.

  But I know the way. Far enough up this river, regardless of the shortcuts th’ savages carried me over, I’ll come to places I know.

  “Aye,” she repeated, fervently believing now that she was telling the truth, “I sure do know the way. Come along. O ten times te—en times ten a—way …”

  And it made her voice sound so good that old Ghetel actually smiled as she unfolded her creaking bones and stood up.

  CHAPTER

  16

  Johnny Draper leaned close to Will Ingles and said in his ear: “This ’ere Snake Stick’s sour as gooseberry vinegar. Reckon whiskey’d sweet ’im up a mite?”

  Will looked at Snake Stick. The deep furrows in the Indian’s cheeks ran down beside and then under the down-turned corners of his mouth, and there were two deep vertical creases between his brows. A man would have to frown for forty years straight to get such a grouchy set to his face as that, Will thought. “I don’t know,” he murmured to Johnny. “It could just as likely craze ’im an’ make ’im do what he’d like to do to us.”

  “English not make low-talk to each other,” Snake Stick warned, his eyes looking even harder. “English talk straight to Snake Stick.” He thumped himself on his massive hard chest. Then he leaned forward, his face lighted from below by the little smokeless council fire. Twenty men of the village sat behind him, making a semicircle in the lodge, looking as if they were competing among themselves to appear as grim as Snake Stick, who now asked:

  “English say word whiskey?”

  “Aye,” Will replied, thinking: Lordy, but they got a keen ear f’r that word.

  “English give Snake Stick whiskey.” The chief seemed to be very intrigued that Will Ingles’ name sounded so much like “English,” and had been addressing him disdainfully as “English” since the white men’s arrival here this afternoon.

  Will nodded and delved into the duffel pouch he carried slung by a strap over his shoulder, and brought out a pewter flask covered in leather. He pulled the stopper and handed the flask to Snake Stick. He could tell by the way the chief reached for it that he had quite a weakness for it; the Indian was trying to look casual but his cold eyes were suddenly blazing. He put it to his mouth and sucked hard on it, thus taking a lot of whiskey in what appeared to be a short swig. He might have been fooling his red comrades, but Will Ingles had watched men drink enough to know that Snake Stick had probably diminished the contents by a good third. The chief put the flask down on the floor in front of him and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. His eyes were watering. He said:

  “English have more whiskey on horse?”

  “That I have.”

  “Snake Stick could take it from English and English could not do anything to stop him,” the chief said with an arrogant half-smile.

  “No,” said Will. “Snake Stick could not.”

  The chief’s eyes narrowed hard. “English say no?”

  “I know the red man’s honor will not let him rob a guest. I admire this in the red man.”

  The chief’s eyes fell and then came back to Will’s. “But English would give Snake Stick much whiskey, for his braves to drink.” With two turns of his head he indicated those who sat around him.

  “Yes, I’d do that … if Snake Stick would promise to try to help me in this matter with the Shawnee. If not, then no. I’ll give whiskey to a Cherokee who’ll be my friend.”

  The chief blew a breath so boozy that Will envisioned it bursting into flame over the council fire, then picked up the flask and took another powerful pull. Christ’s good name, Will thought, I better get this heathen’s word in five more minutes, or ’e won’t be fit to give it. And he was not entirely sure he could hang anything on Snake Stick’s honor anyway. It had been Will’s experience in life that a bitter man’s word of honor was not as good as that of an amiable man.

  “English will bring whiskey for my men,” Snake Stick announced.

  “Gander Jack,” Will said to the guide without looking at him, “would y’ trot out an’ fetch me one o’ them demijohns?” He felt the guide rise and leave behind him. He heard the shuffling of many moccasins as Jack left, and realized that the darkness in the lodge behind him had been filling with people. People coming in very stealthily. And he knew too that they would not be coming in unless Snake Stick was permitting it. He fought down a shudder. This Cherokee seemed a treacherous wretch indeed, and Will admitted the possibility that he and Johnny, and maybe even Gander Jack, might well be enjoying the final confabulation of their careers.

  Jack returned with the demijohn. He put it on the ground in front of Will and looked at him with raised eyebrows, a signal whose particular significance Will could only guess at. Wish this dang Snake Stick didn’t hear English, Will thought. I’d sure like to confer with Jack here an’ see what ’e thinks.

  Will thumbed the wax off the jug’s neck and pulled the stopper. Snake Stick pointed to the jug and then to Will and Johnny and Jack. Will hoisted the demijohn with both hands and took a pull. Then Johnny took a long, gurgling drink, passed it to Jack and sighed, licking his lips. Jack then came forward and gave it to Snake Stick, who sampled it heartily and passed it to the brave on his right with some Cherokee talk that Will guessed to mean save some for me. The braves passed it around while Snake Stick’s black eyes flashed with volatile thoughts.

  The Cherokee’s eyelids drooped a little now, making his malevolent gaze look shifty. Will’s doubts about his trustworthiness increased.

  “English listen: Snake Stick is not happy you come here and ask this thing.” He swiped his hand downward. “Snake Stick will not be proud to go to his Shawnee brothers and speak for English. The Shawnee will say to Snake Stick, ‘Why do you talk with English?’ They will say, ‘If you are so near English to talk, you should strike him.’ ”

  “Then I reckon you would answer, ‘Because the Cherokee are not at war with the English.’ ”

  “They are not at this day,” Snake Stick grumbled. “Tomorrow yes. Snake Stick this day is at war with the English in his heart.”

  Will’s nostrils distended and he said: “I remind you that today I’m a guest in your lodge, and that y’re a guest in my jug, big feller, an’ I think we’d do well as each other’s guest not to talk hostile.” Will heard Gander Jack take a quick breath behind him, but he had borne about enough of Snake Stick’s insolence and it was hard to remain diplomatic. “If my whiskey makes Snake Stick snap like a cur dog, maybe I’ll just cut Snake Stick off from my whiskey, eh?”

  The Indian’s eyes flashed. But he was enough of a chief to understand the protocol of guests and hosts, and so contained himself. Gander Jack looked back and forth between them. He saw that Mr. Ingles had actually gotten away with that bold talk, and he looked at him with considerable respect. Still, the exchange had done anything but put him at ease. This was a formidable white man who could look and talk and act like one of those chiefs in the white man’s Bible, but he was in a place where one could be too formidable for his own good.

  Will Ingles said now: “Even if you’re at war with English men in your heart, I hope you’re not at war with English women and children. Your Shawnee brothers killed the mother of my woman, and they killed my brother’s baby son. They took away my woman and my sons. I do not care what you feel in your heart about the English, but sure it’s no brave deed t’ murder and kidnap their women and children. Ask y’r Shawnee brothers if their Great Spirit would smile on them for this. Ask ’em if the Frenchmen are better people than the English if they hire red men to make war on thos
e who cannot fight.”

  Snake Stick had glowered at Will Ingles through this, and now he put his hands on his thighs and took a deep breath and made ready to debate. He was gathering answers from back in his head, where the whiskey was working.

  “The French men do not fear the Great Spirit. The French men have medicine men of their Great Father. Wear black squaw-clothes. They forgive the Shawnee for what he must do in war.”

  “What in blue thunder is he talkin’ about?” Johnny asked.

  “Priests,” Will said. “I heard Colonel Washington tell Jim Patton about ’em. The French make odd use of ’em …”

  “English not make low-talk,” the Cherokee warned again.

  “I was just a-sayin’ the French make ill use of their Great Spirit,” Will said to Snake Stick. “You’d do better to stay with your own.”

  The chief thought on this and chose not to argue it. He picked up the jug and took another deep swig.

  “You drink my whiskey,” Will said, “so I reckon you’re willin’ to talk business with me.”

  “English talk.”

  “Good, then. When you go up to your Shawnee brethren, if y’ please, ask after a woman named Mary Ingles—Mary Ingles —and her two little sons. And a woman named Bettie Draper. Bettie Draper. They were taken from a settlement near the upper—Jack, what is it they call the New River?”

  “Chi-no-da-ce-pe.”

  “Chi-no-da-ce-pe,” said Will. “Far up by Blue Ridge.”

  “Mer English,” the chief said. “Mer English with two sons. And other woman …”

  “Bettie Draper. Can you remember those? And there was a man took with ’em: Henry Lenard. I would buy him back too.”

  Snake Stick shook his head. “Not buy English man back. Shawnee at war with English men.”

  “Ask anyway. Henry Lenard was not a soldier. He was a hunter.”

  “A hunter can be a soldier. Not sell back.”

  “Let the Shawnee decide who they’ll sell back. I’m only askin’ you to carry my offer,” Will said, trying to mask his impatience.

  “How much is English offer?”

  “I’ll show you.” Will leaned forward on his crossed legs and stood up. “Jack, m’lad, help me bring in the packs.” They went out through the crowd of Indians, who parted to let them reach the door. The sky was starry and the air was crisp outside the lodge where the horses were tied. “How’re we doin’, Jack?” Will asked. He had been so scared at first that he’d thought he’d mess himself, but getting mad at that goddamned mean Indian had braved him up. He was almost having fun.

  “If he don’t kill us, we’re doin’ better than I’d a’ thought,” Jack muttered.

  They unstrapped the packs and carried them into the lodge, and spread their goods out where Snake Stick could see them all. His warriors and chieftains crowded close around and admired the treasures. Their eyes were covetous but their faces remained closed. Will tried to look at the stuff from their point of view. He had invested everything he had in this junk.

  After a while the chief raised his eyes, and Will was sure he had memorized every item, the brown liquor jugs in particular. “How much for Snake Stick to do this?” he said.

  Will thought quickly. “All that lays on this blanket,” he said. “Or, all the whiskey in these.”

  “Snake Stick could take all this from English, not go to Shawnee.” Again he was taunting.

  “I have to have faith in the honor of Snake Stick. And if you betrayed me thataway, all the Cherokee septs would soon know. ’Cause I’d tell ’em of my disappointment.”

  “Dead English could tell no stories to Cherokees.”

  “I am your guest.”

  “After you leave Snake Stick’s town, you not guest. My braves could silence you.”

  “I reckon they could. But some of your braves would have to die to silence me. And the rest would know you lacked honor. You could never silence that.” Will was sweating inside his clothes. He knew such talk was dangerous, but he felt that boldness, not timidity, was the only answer to Snake Stick’s taunts, or threats, or whatever they were. He doesn’t intend to do such a thing anyway, or he’d be a fool to talk about it, Will thought. He’s just a-testin’ my resolve and my wits.

  “If Snake Stick take all this to his Shawnee brothers, and they say is not enough for Mer English and Bettie Dra-pah?”

  “Then you bring it all back here and send for me, and we’ll talk again.” He was banking on the hope that this Cherokee would be persuasive on his behalf, rather than haul all this up to the O-y-o country and back in vain, or simply do nothing and make himself a rich man. However well or badly Snake Stick might do, Will could see that this transaction would take until next summer at least. His dear ones well might have been killed or lost or ruined by then.

  They might be lost beyond all findin’ already, he thought. Or changed beyond all redemption.

  But y’ can’t let yourself think like that, he told himself. Y’ can’t do a thing without faith.

  Even if havin’ faith is just a matter of foolin’ y’rself as long as y’can.

  CHAPTER

  17

  Mary sat on frosty ground and stared at the bright colors of her toes. They were the only colorful things she had seen for two days in the grim and shadowy valley. The colorful toes glowed through her lassitude and held her attention.

  They were gray-blue with bruises and there was bright red blood oozing out around her toenails.

  Ghetel’s feet were the same.

  Now that they had entered this valley, the luxury of walking through the level, grassy, leaf-strewn O-y-o bottomlands was a memory. Here every mile they walked was a gauntlet designed to bruise and abrade their heels and ankles and cut their soles and stave their toe-bones. The bottomlands and creekbeds were littered with boulders and splintered logs, jumbled stones and pebbles, the rock debris and forest trash that had been sliding down the mountainsides since Creation.

  They had not eaten anything for four days except a handful of acorns they had found under an oak at the top of a bluff they had climbed to shortcut a bend in the river.

  They had made several such shortcuts. Perhaps they had saved themselves as much as five miles altogether, but in their weakened condition it seemed that they had added five vertical miles. They would pull themselves up the steep hillsides by roots and rocks and shrubs, pausing every twenty feet or so to hug the slopes and breathe against the ground until they could raise the strength to go on a few more feet. Then, after resting a few minutes on the ridges with the raw wind whipping them, they would start down the opposite slopes, more sliding than walking, slamming into tree trunks and stone outcrops, slashing and bruising their flesh and tearing their dresses. Now even their precious blankets were growing tattered at the edges, and had snag-holes in them.

  Ghetel had fallen into a profound and gloomy silence in these last two days, speaking only to answer direct questions and sometimes not even then. Now Mary looked up from her own pulsating, stinging, aching feet and glanced over at the old woman, who was contemplating her own. Suddenly Ghetel turned her head and caught Mary’s eyes with a malevolent stare and there was a trembling grimace contorting her mouth.

  “I listened to you,” she said.

  Ah, Lord above, Mary thought, give me a little miracle, for I’ve got to try to cheer the old thing up yet again.

  “Aye, dear,” she said, forcing a benign smile. “Y’ve listened to me, an’ we’ve come more’n three hundred miles with no hurt t’ speak of, eh?”

  “I hurt.”

  “Eh, well. I feel same as you, not m’ very best ever. But I’m whole, an’ y’re the same. An’ damn’ee, we’re no squaws. Keep in mind, Ghetel m’ darlin’, we’re free as birds!”

  Ghetel looked incredulous at this cheery lecture. Finally she said, indignantly:

  “Free as birds? Eheh! You know how free is a bird? Alvays a bird goes here for a seed, and he goes dere for a gnat. And dat’s all he does in his whole day! An
d he nefer yet gets enough. So dere for your freedom of a bird! Hah!”

  Mary was delighted by this outburst. So the old woman’s brain was still alive after all! She grinned into Ghetel’s wrinkled scowl. “Well, y’see then! We really are as free as birds, then, ain’t we?”

  And Ghetel, after scowling for a moment, actually laughed. It was a little miracle.

  They had come to recognize hickory, walnut and oak trees from a distance, and would go to them if they were accessible. The season for berries and wild grapes was past, but there were still nuts to be found—sometimes.

  Now they were toiling up a steep, rock-studded slope toward a pair of likely looking hickories, a few yards above the river, whose shaggy bark made them conspicuous. Mary had given Ghetel her pointed lance to use as a walking-staff, as the old woman seemed to need its support more than she did. As they climbed, their breath was shallow and harsh and their feet dragged through the rustling leaves on the slope. It was a dry morning, without wind for a change, and except for the sounds of their progress and the wet murmur of the river below, a vast silence filled the valley. The winter-stripped trees were stark, and without foliage to screen it, the hard angularity of the terrain was forbidding: mountainsides tilting skyward, V-shaped ravines full of mossy boulders and detritus, huge fallen tree trunks strewn like jackstraws on the slopes and in the gullies or sometimes leaning half-fallen, hung in the branches of other trees. Some of the mountain ridges ended abruptly in sheer gray rock cliffs facing over the river. From some of these rock faces, water seeped and dribbled and darkened the rock, and in places, mountain springs and freshets would simply spew over the ramparts of such cliffs into space, disintegrating to mist before reaching the valley floor.

  When Mary and Ghetel reached the hickories they found that squirrels had been working there before them. The ground below the trees was covered with husk-quarters and a few broken, yellow-brown nutshells, but most of the nuts were gone and the few that remained were marked by the dark little pinholes that meant worms had already invaded the nutmeats. The two women scratched over the leafy slope for fifteen minutes for a yield of a dozen good nuts. Like most of their recent disappointments, this gave Ghetel an excuse to glower in silent accusation at Mary.