by Scott O'Dell
28
IN THE MORNING I went down to the lake to set my lines. On the way I saw tracks along the stream where the bear had been fishing through the ice.
The tracks cut off across the lower part of the lake and disappeared into the brush. More than likely he was now holed up for the winter. But while I was setting my lines I kept an eye out. For Sam Goshen, also, though I hoped that he had gone off somewhere else to put out a trap line and wouldn't be back for days.
The snowshoes made walking easier, but I was not used to them yet and while I was crossing the lower part of the lake on my way home, with the musket cocked on my shoulder, I stumbled and fell. No one had seen me fall, but I looked around and felt embarrassed.
As I sat there getting my breath, I heard a sound. It was behind me, along the edge of the lake where black sedges stuck up through the ice. It's the bear, I thought. He has come back and is trailing me.
I tightened the straps on my snowshoes and got up. I heard another sound. This time it wasn't the sound of an animal. It was human, a long-drawn-out moan that chilled me.
There was a clump of mountain laurel just beyond the sedges. The sounds seemed to come from that direction. I walked toward them, through the stiff grass and the dark laurel. On the far side, I stopped.
A man was sprawled out in the snow. He was raising his arms over his head and clenching his fists. His head was on one side. Where he was breathing, the snow had melted away and left a grassy place.
I thought that the man had shot himself somehow, but there wasn't any blood around. Then I saw that one of his legs was caught in a trap. It was a big trap, a bear trap, and it had him tight, right below the knee.
The man must have become aware that someone was standing there, for he stopped the moaning. He moved his head around and looked up. His eyes were glassy; then they cleared a little. He opened his lips to say something but didn't speak. I couldn't mistake the eyes—I had seen them close—and the big purplish nose and the mouth stuffed full of yellow teeth. It was Sam Goshen, lying there with his leg in the bear trap.
There is no way now to tell how I felt. No way at all. I stared at him, holding my breath and staring. I took a step backward and leveled the musket. As I did so, a verse from Proverbs went through my mind. "He that passeth by, and meddleth with strife belonging not to him, is like one that taketh a dog by the ears." Certainly the strife did not belong to me. It belonged to Sam Goshen. It was none of my business if he had got himself caught in a bear trap. Before long he would die. And that would be the end of him.
I turned away. I walked along the edge of the lake, then stopped when he screamed again. I went back and stood over him. There was no sign that he recognized me. But he knew someone was standing there.
"Help," he said.
The word sounded like a frog croak.
I gathered up a handful of snow, pressed it together, and put it to his mouth. He wanted more, and I got it. Still, there was no sign that he knew who I was. He lay quiet for a while.
"Can you hear me?" I said.
He began to moan.
"Sit up," I said. "I'll help."
The trap was fastened to a heavy chain, and the end of it was wrapped around an elm tree. He had floundered about trying to get himself loose and made a half-circle where there wasn't much snow. I got him on his side so that the trap was between us.
"You pull," I said. "Then I'll pull."
Goshen took hold of one side. His hands were cut and bleeding from clawing at it. The blood was frozen in beads. I took hold of the other side of the trap. It had sawteeth that would have fitted neatly together with the other side if his leg hadn't been caught between them.
With my fingers between the iron teeth, I pulled, using all my strength. We both pulled, but I pulled harder than he did. Only the jaws on my side of the trap opened. Goshen's fingers turned white. His grip loosened. He fell back and lay still. I thought he was dead.
After a while he roused himself and sat up. He felt his leg where the jaws were biting into it. He had torn his legging away and I could see the rusty teeth half-buried in his flesh.
"It's not broken," he said, "but I feel my blood gettin' poison in it."
"How long have you been here?" I asked, as if we had met in the street and were talking.
"Two hours," he said. "Maybe more. Long enough to get poison."
I thought of asking him how he got himself caught, but didn't.
"Let's try again," he said and moaned.
This time, with him pulling harder, we got the jaws open far enough so that I could jam the butt of my musket between them and slide the trap off his leg.
Goshen let out a yell. He stood up, a freed man. He tried to take a step. He groaned and fell backward in the trampled snow and lay quiet.
He glanced up and said, "I know you. You're the one who got mad with me 'cause I said you were pretty. You camped around here? I've got to rest for a spell. My strength's run thin."
I said nothing and walked away. I crossed the lake and was starting up the stream when I heard the scream again. It made me remember that I had left my musket back there in the bear trap.
Goshen was on his knees, crawling toward me, when I got back. I pried my musket out of the trap. The pretty walnut stock had two deep scratches on it from the iron teeth. I got mad clear through, thinking that I had taken good care of the musket.
"Get out!" I shouted at him. "I don't want you here."
He was crouched on his knees looking up at me. "I'm tryin'," he said, "but my leg won't work. It hurts somethin' terrible."
"You can get yourself to Ridgeford village."
"It's too far. Too far. I'd never make it with the snow and everything. I can feel the poison creepin' through my leg already."
He tried to get on his feet and fell. He was not putting on. I could tell that. It was very cold, but there was sweat on his face.
"You must have a tent somewhere," I said.
"I been travelin' light. I ain't got none. Just blankets."
"Where's your shaggy dog?" I asked, thinking that it might be sneaking up behind me, getting ready to bite.
"Back in the village," Goshen said. "Chewed up two prime pelts last time I had him out."
I don't know how I got him to his feet, except that he was a spare man, mostly bones. But somehow I got an arm around him and one of his around me, and we started off across the ice. We had to stop every few minutes to rest. Going up the hill we rested every two or three steps.
Sam Goshen was out of his head now. "I can feel the poison creepin'," he would say. Then he'd say, "It's got into my gizzards," or "The poison's got me, sure."
"What poison? You keep talking about it."
"Poison meat," he said. "Baited the trap with it."
Good enough for you, I thought.
A short piece from the cave he collapsed, and I had to drag him the rest of the way.
29
I BUILT A fire in the far end of the cave, away from mine, put out snow water to heat. I didn't own a kettle, so I had to heat rocks and drop them into a big gourd I had cut in half. Then I laid out one of my mats by the fire and dragged Goshen across the cave and rolled him onto it.
He didn't say anything while I was doing this, though he kept on mumbling some sort of nonsense. I guessed that he must be out of his head with the pain.
I didn't know anything about fixing a leg that had been caught in a bear trap, but I washed out the places where the teeth had gone deep down. He came to before I finished, long enough to say:
"You got any bear grease? That's best for this sorta hurt."
"I have deer tallow."
"Not good as bear."
He spoke as if it were my fault, as if I should go out right away and shoot a bear and make him a pot of grease. I brought the deer tallow and let him put it on. By noon his leg had swollen up about twice the size it should be. By nightfall, however, he said he felt better and that he was hungry. "Had nary a morsel in more than two days' ti
me."
I cooked him a trout and gave him some tea. He fell asleep while he was eating. I put the musket by my side with my hand on the barrel when I went to bed. But I was not afraid to sleep. Goshen's leg was hurting too much for him to bother me.
In the morning I heated water again and helped him soak his leg and use the last of the deer tallow, which I had planned to use to make candles. He slept most of the day, waking up once to crawl out into the bushes and once to ask me what there was for supper.
"I got a hankerin' for a cut of venison," he told me.
The day was cold, with a gray sky to the north and the feel of snow. I went out with my ax and chopped down a birch sapling. I sat by the fire and whittled out a crutch. Mr. Goshen eyed me from his corner, watching the jackknife cutting the soft, white wood.
"What you up to?" he asked me. "I don't remember your name."
"Making a crutch," I said, not giving him my name.
"You want to be shut of me, I can see plain enough."
"A crutch will give you something to get around on."
"I can't move nowhere, the shape I'm in. Crutch or no crutch." He sat up and explored his leg. "Maybe in a week I can get around a little."
The thought of being in the room with Sam Goshen for a week made a big knot in my stomach. His gun was lying down by the tree where he had got himself caught in the trap. I didn't know whether he had a knife or not. Mine I kept hidden. I felt funny about it, but I carried the musket around with me whatever I was doing. I was terrified, but tried hard not to be.
I cooked him a strip of venison for his supper. He ate all of it and asked for more, which I took to be a sign that he was getting better.
"My wife, Verna," he said, "she was my first wife, had a way of fixin' venison that you might like to hear about someday. It's vinegar that makes the difference. Not that yours warn't good, but bein' young and jest startin', it might hep you to catch a husband. Nothing like tasty vittles to soften a man's heart and innards. I know that for a fact, miss. I'm feelin' it now." He gave me a wink.
At dawn I went down to the lake and picked up Goshen's musket. It had a charge in it, which I poured out on the ground. I took his powder horn and did the same with it. I hid his musket in the grass.
It was snowing by then, feathery flakes, but by nightfall it was coming hard. In the morning, early, the snow turned icy. Goshen hobbled to the door and went out, using the crutch.
"Looks bad," he said when he came back. "Looks like it might sleet all day. Lucky we got good fires burnin' and plenty of grub to fill ourselves."
I had put away food for the winter, planning everything carefully, and here I was, saddled with an extra mouth to feed. He had a big appetite now, sick as he was. What could it be when he got well?
"We don't have plenty of food," I said.
"You're forgettin', miss, that I'm a hunter." He lay beside my fire, not his, and raised his hands, as though to aim a gun, and made a clicking noise that sounded like a trigger going off. "I can shoot you a deer before you ever blink an eye."
Yes, a hunter, I thought scornfully, who gets himself caught in a bear trap. But I kept the thought to myself. I was deathly afraid of rousing his temper. I had seen none of it, but I was certain it was there, hiding behind the eyes that never looked straight at you, but around.
"You're a hunter," I said; "you must be acquainted with John Longknife."
Goshen thought for a moment, bending over. His hair grew in patches, and between the patches I could see the bones on top of his head. There were three ridges of them running front to back. In the firelight they didn't seem to fit each other.
"Longknife," he said. "Tall. Wears hair on his face?"
"No, he's an Indian," I said. "He was here last week with his family."
"Longknife," Goshen said. "Yes, I recall. No-good Indian. One of the Titicut tribe."
"He's coming back. He said today. I guess the storm held him up."
I tried to make the lie sound natural.
Goshen got on his feet and put the crutch under his arm and went back to his own fire. He asked for more wood. After I brought it, he said,
"Me and Longknife don't get along too good. Claims I owe him for two beaver pelts he got off me in a trade. Claims I said they was prime and they warn't."
He said no more about John Longknife, but I could tell he was thinking. It would make him think hard if there was a chance that the Indian might come up the trail and find him causing trouble.
30
I FIXED SUPPER again for us, roasting two trout in the coals and making flour cakes. While we were eating there was a scratching, and the muskrat wandered out of the hole he had been living in since I brought him home. His chewed paw was pretty well healed, but he had a limp as he walked and a list to one side.
Goshen, who had not seen him before, stopped eating. "Hell and high water," he sputtered, "where did you find that?"
"In one of your traps," I said.
Firelight shone on the animal's glossy coat.
"Prime pelt," Goshen said. "It'll bring good money."
"It's not for sale," I said.
He didn't hear me. "Buy you a length of linsey-woolsey," he went on, "a ribbon for your hair, and a comb with sparklers in it."
The muskrat went back in its hole, frightened, I think, by the tone of his voice.
After supper I got out the Bible and started to read. He asked me if I would mind reading out loud.
"Haven't heard the Holy Book since I was at my dear ma's knee."
I had turned to Proverbs. I read while he leaned forward and cupped his ears.
"'As snow in summer, and as rain in harvest, so honor is not seemly for a fool.'"
"Makes powerful sense," Sam Goshen said.
"'A whip for the horse,'" I read, "'a bridle for the ass, and a rod for the fool's back.'"
"Right smart talk," Goshen said. He looked around for the muskrat. "Fine pelt, that one. I'll catch me a few when my leg's aworkin'."
There was no sign that he understood what I was reading or why I was reading it. I decided to try another part of the Bible, the story of Jael. He waited impatiently for me to turn the pages.
"'And the Lord discomfited Sisera,'" I read, speaking slowly, "'and all his chariots.'"
"How many chariots?" Goshen broke in.
"Nine hundred, made of iron," I said.
"And who's this Sisera, anyway?"
"He was the captain of the armies of Jabin, King of Canaan."
"Go on, miss."
"'The Lord discomfited Sisera,'" I said, "'and all his chariots, and all his host, with the edge of the sword before Barak; so that Sisera lighted down off his chariot, and fled away on his feet...
"'Howbeit Sisera fled away ... to the tent of Jael the wife of Heber the Kenite ... And Jael went out to meet Sisera, and said unto him, Turn in, my lord, turn in to me; fear not. And when he had turned in unto her in the tent, she covered him with a mantle.'"
"Why for?" Goshen asked.
"To protect him," I said, "or so Sisera thought."
"Some womenfolks are sly."
I read on. "'And he said unto her, Give me, I pray thee, a little water to drink; for I am thirsty. And she opened a bottle of milk, and gave him drink, and covered him. Again he said to her, Stand in the door of the tent, and it shall be, when any man doth come and inquire of thee, and say, Is there any man here? that thou shalt say, No.'"
"I'm listenin'," Sam Goshen said.
"'Then Jael Heber's wife took a nail of the tent, and took an hammer in her hand, and went softly unto him, and smote the nail into his temples, and fastened it into the ground: for he was fast asleep and weary. So he died.'"
I stopped reading. Goshen waited with his mouth open. I closed the book.
"That all there's to it?" he said. "She kilt him?"
"Dead."
"With a nail?"
"With a long nail in his temple."
Sam Goshen stared across the fire at me with his cruel li
ttle eyes. He pawed at his own temple with two fingers. "A nail. That would hurt a man bad," he said. "No tellin' what some womenfolks'll do if they get riled up."
"No telling," I said.
He started to laugh and then started on a rambling story about one of his wives who got mad and hit him on the head with a length of sycamore wood. But I think he knew why I had read him the story of Jael and Sisera. Whether it had done any good or not, I didn't know. It might have stirred him up to harm me.
He didn't see the white bat until days later, although it had been hanging there above his head all the time he was nursing his leg. He was eating a bowl of morning mush when he happened to glance up and see it. It made him jump. He forgot he had a bad leg. He scrambled to his feet and picked up his crutch.
"Bad luck!" he cried. "A white one, too. They're the worst."
He raised the crutch and took a swipe at the creature. Before he could raise his hand again, I grabbed the crutch and threw it into the fire. I didn't say anything.
He pulled the crutch out and wiped it off on his sleeve. "I guess you think I don't need it no more. True enough; not much around the house here, but outside, that's different."
He put on his heavy coat and his flap-eared cap. He opened the door and glanced out.
"'Pears to be a good day for huntin'," he said. "I think I'll go and shoot us a deer. You don't mind if I take your Brown Bess along?"
I held the musket in my hand. I never put it down anymore.
"You have a musket of your own," I said.
Mr. Goshen smiled, showing his mouthful of yellow teeth. "So I have, so I have," he said. "But I plumb forgot where I done left it. With my fever and all. It makes a man forgetful, fever does."
"Your musket is down on the shore," I said. "Where the bear trap is."
He put the crutch under his arm and tried his weight on it. He teetered back and forth and looked pained.
"Still hurts," he said. "But I'll bring you back a deer or die atryin'."
I opened the door and watched him hobble off. It was a bright day, with the sun glistening on the snowbanks and blue drifts piled up along the lake. He was halfway down the slope when he disappeared behind a thick stand of mountain laurel.