The Way Lies North

by Jean Rae Baxter

  “Elijah!” Charlotte called. She saw how his shoulders shook. “Elijah!” When he still did not move, she left her hiding place and ran to him. Grasping his hands, she pulled them away from his face. His eyes were red, and tears streamed down his cheeks.

  “Ma’s dead.” He choked on the words.

  “No! We got her out. My parents took her to that big maple up the path. We’ll go there as soon as your brother gets back from school.”

  “She’s safe?” he said, not quite believing.

  Charlotte nodded. Should she hug him? No. He was too grown-up. She felt her own eyes fill with tears as she watched him rub his eyes with his knuckles.

  At last he raised his head and pointed up the river road. “See that steeple? That’s the church. The school is next to it.”

  “When does school let out?”

  “Any minute now.”

  They stood awkwardly side by side, watching the road. Charlotte said, “Until Moses gets here, I’m going back to that thicket where I’ve been hiding.”

  “I’ll start up the road to meet Moses. I want to tell him Ma’s safe before he gets too scared.” Elijah looked embarrassed. “Like I did.”

  From her hiding place Charlotte watched Elijah walk quickly and purposefully up the road, as if he knew exactly what to do.

  She felt guilty, although she knew it wasn’t her fault that the Cobmans had lost their home. The people who plundered and burned it didn’t know that Charlotte and her parents were hiding there. They would have attacked it anyway. In the eyes of the Rebels of Canajoharie, the Cobman family stood already condemned.

  Mrs. Cobman, wearing Papa’s woollen shirt and holding a bundle wrapped in Mama’s shawl, lay in the cleft between two great roots of the maple tree. Her face was pale with exhaustion. When she saw Elijah and Moses, she smiled weakly.

  “I have something to show you,” she said as she pulled back a corner of the shawl. “Your sister.”

  Elijah did not smile. He looked dismayed as he stared at the tiny wrinkled face. “Well, Ma,” he said after a few moments, “you got what you wanted.”

  Got what she wanted? No doubt Elijah meant it kindly, but at his words, tears came to Mrs. Cobman’s eyes.

  Moses gaped; his blue eyes were wide with wonder. He laid one grimy finger upon the baby’s cheek. “What’s her name?”

  “She don’t have one yet.”

  “Why not?”

  “I ain’t had time to think about it.”

  Moses looked perplexed. “She got to have a name.”

  “It don’t matter that much,” said Elijah, “at least not for a while.”

  The baby lay still as a doll. With so slender a hold on life, how could she survive in this wilderness? Born too soon. No cradle. No home. Baby animals had at least a den or a stall in the barn. A name would be of no use to this poor mite.

  “It does too matter,” said Moses. “Everybody needs a name.”

  “Well,” said Mrs. Cobman wearily, “what’s a good name for a girl?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Betty? Joan?”

  “She don’t look like those names.”

  “What name does she look like?” Mrs. Cobman asked.

  “Hope,” said Mama, right out of the blue.

  Mrs. Cobman smiled. A real smile.

  “Ma,” said Moses, “can we call her that?”

  “It sounds good, all things considered.”

  “Hope.” Charlotte repeated under her breath. Tiny Hope. Faint Hope. But Hope nevertheless. It was either the perfect name, or a cruel joke.

  “What do you want to do?” Papa asked Mrs. Cobman in the morning. “Have you relatives or friends to stay with?”

  She snuggled the baby to her breast. “I’ll get no help from family. They broke with me when my husband and Silas went off with Butler’s Rangers. As for friends, they got troubles of their own.”

  “You’re welcome to come with us to Carleton Island.”

  “That’s a mighty long walk.”

  “We don’t have to walk the whole distance — just sixty miles to Oneida Lake. Mohawk warriors will meet us there with a long canoe for the rest of the journey.”

  “Sixty miles! Lord! I ain’t got the strength.”

  “Ma, we got to,” said Elijah. “At Carleton Island you’ll be safe — you and the baby.”

  Mrs. Cobman said thoughtfully, “I ain’t felt safe in a long time.”

  “Then you’re coming with us,” said Papa firmly.

  “I can do a mile or two. Then we’ll see.”

  “We’ll take it easy. My ankle won’t be good for more than a few miles.”

  Mama checked the rucksack. “If we’re careful, we have enough food for five days.”

  “How long will the Indians wait for us?” Charlotte asked.

  “Until we get there,” said Papa. “When Mohawks make a promise, they keep it.”

  Charlotte gulped. They had already lost three days because of Papa’s sprain. How could he be so sure that the Mohawks wouldn’t get tired of waiting? To be abandoned in the wilderness with winter coming meant certain death.

  Chapter five

  The trail led up from the river into pine-crested hills. Here the walking was easier than it had been through the dense brush on low ground. Charlotte could see everything in the valley below: houses, mills, churches, silos, barns, and fields that looked like brown corduroy where fall ploughing had furrowed the earth.

  Although Papa and Mrs. Cobman needed frequent stops for rest, progress was better than expected. When they halted at sunset and Papa checked the map, he said cheerfully, “We covered eight miles today.”

  Charlotte did a bit of mental arithmetic. Eight miles today. That meant they would have to average thirteen miles each day for the next four in order to reach Oneida Lake before the food ran out.

  Mama got ham, biscuits and dried apple slices from the rucksack. She cut the ham as thin as she could. “One piece of meat, one biscuit, and two apple slices for each person, but Mrs. Cobman gets an extra biscuit as Hope’s share.”

  Charlotte chewed each bite twenty times to make it last longer. Then she folded her shawl for a pillow and lay down. Pine needles, thick on the ground, made a softer bed than the earth floor of the Cobmans’ root cellar, and she was warm inside her cloak. Overhead, stars filled the sky. She looked for the Big Dipper and the North Star; and there they were, shining in their proper place, even though Charlotte’s little world had turned upside down.

  At daybreak Charlotte woke in a panic, her nose twitching at the smell of smoke. She jumped up to look around. In the wooded hills she saw no trace of fire. But from the valley below smoke rose in a dozen drifting columns.

  She crept to the tree line for a better look. Mama and Papa were already there, watching flames shoot from farmhouses and barns. Silos blazed like pillars of fire. At the bottom of the hill, directly below them, men were carrying tables, wardrobes, beds and dressers from a farmhouse and loading them into hay wagons. Shouts and laughter rose on the breeze, along with smoke from the burning barn.

  “The Sons of Liberty,” Papa said bitterly.

  “Those aren’t Liberty men,” said Mama. “Those are neighbours helping themselves to the furniture.”

  “And to the livestock,” said Charlotte, for in the farm lane two men were driving a herd of cattle towards the river road.

  “They might as well take the animals,” said Papa. “The scoundrels have already fired the barn and silo. Without fodder, a man can’t feed his stock through the winter.”

  Charlotte saw Papa’s face tighten. Maybe he was thinking about their own cows, now lodged in someone else’s barn.

  “Neighbours!” said Mama. “Imagine!”

  “It’s the same everywhere,” said Papa. “All these farms destroyed! If their owners ever return, they’ll have to start over again.”

  “Henry, they’ll never come back. How could they? It doesn’t matter which side wins. Imagine meeting these people at
the store, sitting beside them in church, going to quilting bees and barn raisings with neighbours who stole everything they could carry off and burned the rest!”

  “I’d go back,” said Papa angrily. “I could face them.”

  “So could I,” said Charlotte. But she knew that this was empty talk. If there was any future for Loyalists, it lay far from here.

  The next day their trail led down from the hills and back to the river valley. They were in deep wilderness now. Elijah pointed out a pile of black, tarry lumps beside the path.

  “Bear scat,” said Papa. His brow creased in a worried frown. “Today is the first of November. I thought they’d be hibernating by now.”

  “I wish you still had your rifle,” said Charlotte.

  “We have other weapons.”

  “A knife and a hand axe! I wouldn’t want to fight off a bear with those.”

  “The best defence is the camp kettle,” said Papa. “Just bang it with a metal spoon.”

  “What if the bear mistakes the noise for a dinner bell?”

  Papa gave a wry smile. “It won’t if you stand your ground. Remember: never run from a bear.”

  Late in the afternoon they came to a fork in the river. Papa unfolded the map.

  “Look here,” he said. “So far, we’ve been following the Mohawk River northwards. But to reach Oneida Lake, we have to turn west along this branch. And so …” He paused while he returned the map to his pocket. “We say farewell to the Mohawk Valley.”

  Mama looked back the way they had come. “We shall never see our home again.”

  “Martha, we’ll get some land, build a house, plant crops. We can buy a cow and some chickens.”

  “Who sells cows and chickens in the middle of the wilderness?”

  “We may have to go to Quebec to buy them. But cows can walk. With someone to lead her, a heifer can find a new home in the Upper Country, just as we can. As for chickens, they can be shipped by bateau up the St. Lawrence. In a few years, when you have your house, your cow and your chickens, you’ll feel right at home.”

  A look of grief crossed her face. “It will never feel like home without my boys.”

  Papa put his arms around Mama. As he held her, his eyes stared straight ahead. He’s afraid that Mama will never be happy again, Charlotte thought. A desolate feeling swept over her that this was likely true.

  That night they ate biscuits and the last scraps of ham that Mama could whittle from the bone.

  “Are there any more apple slices?” asked Charlotte.

  “No,” said Mama. “We finished them last night.”

  “How much food is left?” Papa asked.

  Mama rummaged deep in the rucksack. “Six biscuits. Five cakes of pressed sugar that I’ve saved for emergencies. There’s the hambone too; I can make broth if we ever get to a place where it’s safe to light a cooking fire.”

  “Tomorrow,” Papa promised. “By then we’ll be past the furthest settlements.”

  Fog rolled in during the night. The air was white and dripping. Charlotte hugged herself for warmth. Even her thick woollen cloak was no barrier to dampness. It seeped through her clothes so that she could not stop shivering.

  Nearby an owl hooted. Wolves howled from hill to hill. A fox barked in the undergrowth. Something snarled. Something screamed. These were the usual noises of the night, though muffled in the fog. Despite the cold, Charlotte began to doze. She was drifting on the verge of sleep when a piping voice jolted her awake.

  “Mammy, I’m cold.”

  “Hush! Hush!” a woman replied. “Just settle down and be quiet or the Liberty men will get you.”

  Then another woman’s voice. “Nelly, don’t frighten the poor child.”

  This was no dream. The voices meant only one thing: Loyalist women hiding with a child. Where were they from? What were they doing in the forest, miles from any town?

  Charlotte sat up. She wanted to call out to let them know that they were not alone. But what if they had a gun? They might panic to hear a strange voice come out of the fog. They might shoot. I’ll wait for daylight, she thought, and for the fog to lift.

  A third woman spoke: “The Lord will not abandon us to our foes.”

  The second woman again: “Praise the Lord.”

  “Mammy, I want to go home!” This time the child’s cry set off a chorus of wails that sounded like a dozen children crying, and their misery broke Charlotte’s heart. She took a chance.

  “Hello! I’m a friend.” Silence. She called again. “I’m from Fort Hunter. I’m a Loyalist too.”

  This time they must have believed her. “God be thanked,” said a trembling voice.

  “God save the King,” said another.

  Through the wall of mist Charlotte felt her way towards them, her fingers brushing the wet tips of branches. She bumped into a tree, groped her way around it and then found herself abruptly in their midst. Shadowy shapes surrounded her, reaching out with cold hands. On their lips was a single question: “Do you have any food?”

  In the morning, while Mama cut up the six biscuits and five cakes of sugar, the newcomers watched so intently that they appeared ready to fall upon the food like wolves and snatch it from her hands.

  “Manna from Heaven,” said one woman. She was tall and thin, with silvery-blond hair, a long face and grey eyes.

  “Amen,” said a second, who looked like her twin.

  “Humph!” a stocky, brown-haired woman grunted. “Don’t expect there’ll be more of the same lying on the grass tomorrow morning.”

  “Nelly, the Lord will provide.” The first speaker cast a reproachful look at the scoffer.

  Charlotte hoped that this woman was right. There were sixteen newcomers, three women and thirteen children. And the hambone was the only food left. If ever they needed a miracle, it was now.

  After they had finished eating — which took only a minute, since each person’s share was the size of a walnut — the women told their story. All three were soldiers’ wives. The stocky, brown-haired woman was Nelly Platto. She had small, dark eyes, a wide mouth and a resolute chin. With her were her three small boys and a ten-year-old girl called Polly, who looked like a pocket version of her mother.

  The other two women, Mercy Weegar and Prudence Vankleek, were indeed sisters. Between them, they had nine grey-eyed children, all with pale hair, long faces and runny noses. Charlotte could not tell which child belonged to which sister. All were so alike that each appeared to have two mothers, rather than a mother and an aunt.

  “We lived near Fort Stanwix,” said Mrs. Platto. “The Rebels burned us out two days ago.”

  “The day before yesterday we were in the hills above that region,” said Papa.

  “Then you saw the burning,” said Mrs. Platto. “We lost everything.”

  “Everything,” Mrs. Weegar said quietly. “I told my sister Prudence that we might as well trek up to Canada, for there was naught to keep us here. We were walking through the bush when we heard Nelly Platto’s voice. She and her young ones were in the same plight as us. We joined up together and headed north. After one day, we were lost.”

  “You’re lucky we found you,” said Papa.

  “It was a miracle,” said Mrs. Weegar. “Surely the Lord sent you to help us.”

  “Amen,” said Mrs. Vankleek.

  Papa looked skeptical, but did not disagree. “Our destination is Oneida Lake, where Mohawks will meet us with a long canoe to take us to Carleton Island. They expect three people, not twenty-three. But if you want to come with us, I’m sure that they’ll find a way.”

  “Aren’t we still a fair distance from Oneida Lake?” asked Mrs. Platto.

  “Two days,” said Papa.

  “The Lord has brought us this far,” said Mrs. Weegar. “I trust Him to take us the rest of the way.”

  “Amen,” said Mrs. Vankleek.

  “There’s enough of us to have a parade,” Elijah said as the straggly procession set off.

  Charlotte smiled. “
For that we need a fife and drum.”

  “Oh, no! Nothing that makes noise. This is Oneida territory.”

  She glanced warily through the trees that edged the trail and imagined black, glittering eyes peering from the bushes. “From Liberty men to Oneida warriors. That’s a leap from the fry pan into the fire.”

  “Don’t speak of fry pans. You make me think about food.”

  “Tighten your belt,” she said.

  “I know that trick. I’ve tightened it two holes, and my stomach still grumbles.”

  Charlotte had no other suggestions. Before starting today’s march, she had pulled in the laces of her petticoats, not just to suppress hunger pangs but also to prevent her double petticoat with its precious load from slithering over her hips and landing in a tangle around her ankles.

  They walked all day and then, shortly before sunset, Papa called a halt. “We can have a fire tonight.”

  “You hear that, Polly?” said Mrs. Platto. “You get those little ones busy gathering wood.”

  “Yes, Mama.” Within minutes Polly had her little brothers and all the Weegar and Vankleek children lined up ready to go. Then she noticed Moses loitering by. “You too,” she ordered.

  Moses ignored her.

  Polly turned red and stamped her foot. “Mama, that boy won’t do as I say!”

  Mrs. Cobman, sitting under a tree nursing the baby, looked up and saw her younger son with his bottom lip thrust out, scowling ferociously.

  “Moses,” she called, “I want no trouble from you. Do like Polly says.”

  “I ain’t taking orders from a girl.” Moses stomped off into the woods. He was gone half an hour. When he returned, his arms were loaded with brush. But his mood had not changed.

  Later, while the campfire blazed and the ham broth boiled in the camp kettle, Moses sat alone and glowering on the opposite side of the fire from Polly. Charlotte felt sorry for him. To be under Polly Platto’s command would be a trial and tribulation for anyone.