The Hinterlands (17 page)

As we started down the other side toward the river valley and the mountains to the west, it seemed strange that just yesterday I thought these mountains was in the West, and that I was hundreds of miles from the old settlement. A current of anger washed through me again. I just wanted to witness the look on your Grandpa's face when I told him where we had been. He was the kind of man that sometimes would argue and raise his voice on little things, but would keep quiet when he was really mad. I figured he would just stay silent when I told him he was found out, and his face would turn a little red. He might stomp off to the shed.

We heard the cowbell again, down the ridge toward the river.

“I can hear Old Bess,” Lewis said. We stopped to listen to the mellow note of the bell. It come from toward the bank of the river where we had picked the last bucket of grapes and eat our dinner. But something sounded different about the bell.

“Run over there,” I said to the younguns. They was no place to hide except some laurel bushes about a hundred feet above the trail. I picked up Willa.

“Where we going?” Lewis said.

I put my finger to my lips and they all seen how scared I was and followed. We got behind the laurels and hunkered down.

“What did you see?” Wallace said.

“Keep quiet,” I said.

I couldn't describe what was so different about the cowbell I heard. It was my Daddy's bell all right. But when we stopped to listen, I knowed it wasn't on Old Bess anymore. The bell was too steady. It was quiet, but steady. Cows don't move like that through brush and woods unless they are running, and then it's a hitting
and banging sound. This bell was too regular. It had to be carried by a horse or mule, or maybe a walking man.

We crouched down behind the laurels trying not to breathe hard, trying to swallow our breath. I could feel our heat in the cool air, like we was little stoves burning with fear on the sausage Mama had fixed. We waited, and after a few minutes these horses come into view. The first horse had the bell tied to its bridle. The man riding it had on ordinary clothes and a hat, but he was Indian. You could tell by his dark skin and long hair.

I held my breath, and I didn't need to say nothing to the children. Their eyes was big as teacups. Willa started to cough, and I put my hand over her mouth.

The lead Indian stopped just below us, and I seen what happened to Old Bess, 'cause they was big pieces of meat hung from the other horses. They had butchered the cow and was carrying the pieces of her. The horses was hung with all kinds of things, including baskets and buckets. Every horse had at least one bucket hung on it. Some was our buckets and baskets. They had dumped out our grapes along the river.

The first Indians said something in their language, and they talked in low voices. I knowed they was going to spot us behind the laurel bushes. Indians is supposed to have such sharp eyes. They would see our tracks in the leaves, or maybe they could smell us. We wasn't more than forty paces away.

The lead Indian had a rifle in his hand. And then I seen he had something in the other. It was a jug, which he raised to his mouth. The other Indians said something to him, like they wanted a drink too. That was why they hadn't seen us. They was interested in the whiskey.

When the first Indian handed the jug to the one behind him my heart froze, for it looked just like the jug Realus kept the medicine
whiskey in. Lots of jugs look like that, I told myself, but this sick pain cut through me. It was the same size jug all right. Each Indian took a drink and passed the jug to the next.

Some of the Indians had on regular clothes, and some was wearing buckskin. One Indian didn't have on nothing at all but a necklace of claws and a cloth around his waist. I didn't see how he could stand to ride on the horse that way. They kept passing the whiskey around. I wondered how they was any more liquor in that jug. Others kept coming into view on their horses, and I reckon they must have been twelve or fourteen all together. I was too scared to count exactly. They circled each other, trying to get another turn at the jug.

When I seen the last one come into sight, my heart stopped for sure. He was wearing a red plaid shirt which I knowed to be your Grandpa's. I had made it out of cloth he got from the settlement last summer, and it was the prettiest shirt he had ever had. I don't know what you would call the pattern, but it was red and yellow, with blue and green lines in it. The cloth was so bright it lit up the woods.

Of course I told myself that Indian could have got the shirt somewhere else. He could have bought the same cloth and made him a fancy red shirt. They might be dozens of shirts made out of that material in the mountains. Then I noticed this black felt hat he was wearing. It was your Grandpa's fine black hat he had bought last year with the honey he took to trade at the settlement. It was still rolled on each of its three sides, and the Indian had stuck a feather in the band.

Wallace pulled my arm and pointed toward the last Indian. He had recognized the shirt and hat same as I had. I wanted to say something to him, like maybe your Pa was not at the cabin when the Indians stole his shirt and hat. Maybe your Pa was out in the
woods hunting. I seen how scared Wallace was, and I wished I could comfort him. But they wasn't nothing I could do, except to shake my head, meaning, no, your Pa ain't harmed. I wanted to say we couldn't assume nothing until we knowed for sure. But I couldn't even comfort myself.

The lead Indian swung his leg over the neck of his horse like he was going to get down. But he must have been drunker than he thought, for his foot caught on the horse's mane and he fell off headfirst. All the other Indians laughed at him, and he bounded up quick as a squirrel and swung around with his rifle like he was ready to shoot them. He gestured with his fist, as though daring any of them to get off their horse and fight. They laughed at him. Some stripped leaves off the oaks and flung them at him.

The Indian on the ground swung his fist like he was fighting. Then he stopped and looked at the ground. Everyone got quiet. I wondered what he was doing. He had seemed like the lead Indian for sure. Suddenly he looked up sideways and started laughing. All the others laughed with him.

I wondered if the Indians was going to stay there all day. Willa was gripping my arm so hard her fingernails dug into my skin. Wallace and Lewis was pale where they crouched by the roots of the laurels. It crossed my mind they might already be orphans.

The lead Indian said something to the others and turned toward us. He walked up the slope almost to the laurels and I thought he had seen us. But he stopped about forty feet away and unbuttoned his pants and relieved hisself in the leaves. He seemed to enjoy the sound he made on the dry leaves, and he chuckled as he aimed around, pausing where the noise was loudest.

I thought he must see us hunkered down behind the laurels. Me and the younguns stayed as still as we could. What would I do if he seen us? If we tried to run they would just ride us down. If
we all scattered in different directions some of us might get away. But I wanted to stay with my younguns to protect them.

When he finished, that Indian looked right toward where we was, like he had seen something. But maybe he didn't trust his judgment, he had had so much liquor, or maybe he was just thinking absent-mindedly and wasn't looking at all. 'Cause he turned around and walked back toward the group.

It took him several tries to get back on his horse. The third time he stepped back and took a run and leaped all the way over the horse. Everybody laughed at him again. He brushed the leaves off his pants and stomped with anger.

I wondered if we might be able to crawl away from the laurel bushes while the Indians was laughing, and get into the trees around the slope without them seeing us. If we crawled slow and stayed low it might be possible. But them Indians might see us any instant, even through the laurels. I was thinking hard. They wasn't no room for panic. I tried to figure what our choices was.

Suddenly, the lead Indian was back on his horse and they started up the slope the way we had come. Clearly, they was headed toward the settlement. I wished we had some way to warn the people back there. But at least they was enough people in the valley so somebody would see them and warn the others.

Me and the younguns stayed crouched down until they was completely out of sight. We couldn't take no chances.

“Mama, that was Pa's new shirt,” Lewis said.

“It was like Pa's new shirt,” I said.

“How come he was wearing Pa's shirt and hat?” Wallace said.

“They's lots of shirts like that,” I said.

Now that the Indians was out of sight, I felt myself all hot and flustered. We had to get back to the cabin, but what if they was other Indians coming up the river valley? We had seen that campfire
the day before. But I didn't know no other way to get home. We could light out across the mountains, but that would take longer, and we stood a good chance of losing ourselves in the laurel hells on the ridge. My thought now was to hurry. The less time we was in the woods, the less likely we would run into other Indians.

“Let's go,” I said, and picked up the quilt in one arm and Willa in the other. Wallace was still holding the dinner bucket, but Lewis didn't know where the tongs was. He must have dropped them when we heard the cowbell, or before that on the mountain. We looked around in the leaves and didn't see nothing.

“Let's go,” I said.

It was more than a mile till we come to the rock where we had left our last bucket of foxgrapes. The Indians had poured out the grapes and walked their horses over them. The grapes was starting to rot, and yellowjackets buzzed over the mess of hulls and insides. The grapes looked like eyes that had been bursted.

From the rock to the river was another half mile. We crossed the river where it was shallow and then it was easy to follow the tracks of the horses, where the peavines was trampled and the weeds knocked down. I thought we could get back to the cabin by dinner time, if we didn't stop to rest.

We soon come to another pile of grapes. We could tell where they was because of the cloud of yellowjackets swelling and shrinking above them. All them rotting and broken berries made me think how lucky we was only the grapes had been ruined. It wasn't the body of one of the younguns rotting there by the trail. As we hurried through the vines and broken weeds, I kept saying in my mind, “Precious ones, precious ones.” Never had the preciousness of loved ones seemed so sweet.

We passed another pile of rotting grapes and come to a bend in
the river where they was a kind of pool with vines hanging over it. Wallace was running out ahead and he stopped dead in his tracks. Willa was talking to herself, and I put a finger to her lips. I eased up behind Lewis to see what he had seen.

They was a man standing by the water, leaning on a crutch made from a pole. He had already heard us and turned around.

“How do,” he said.

I seen he wasn't no Indian because he had several days growth of beard. His clothes was ragged and stained. His right leg come to an end at the knee, and was all bound up in dirty rags.

“Don't need to fear me,” he said. We must have stood there looking at him, white with surprise.

“How do,” I said, and held Willa close to me. I motioned for Wallace and Lewis to stay by me.

“I ain't in no shape to hurt nobody,” he said.

“Which way have you come?” I said.

He hobbled closer and I seen it was the preacher from the gold diggings. But his hair was gray and so was his beard. Close up I could see the rags on his leg was soaked in blood turning brown.

“Did you pass a clearing by the creek over yonder?” I said.

“I passed a cabin way over by the creek,” he said.

“Was anybody there?” I said. He stepped closer. He smelled dirty and sick. I hoped he didn't recognize me.

“They was nobody there,” he said. “The door of the cabin was open and looked like somebody had gone through and took what they wanted. But wasn't nobody there.”

“You didn't see no Indians?” I said.

“I figured the Indians had been there,” he said. “They've been raiding all over. That's why Chucky Jack and his men has gone after them.”

“What do you mean?”

He stepped closer and I could smell his foul breath. It was the breath of somebody that's been drunk and is sobering up.

“We fit at Kings Mountain,” he said. “That's where I got my leg busted by a Tory musket ball. They had to chop it off with an ax. We kilt Ferguson though. We learnt the redcoats a lesson.”

He went on to tell how they had defeated the British, and almost none of the mountain fighters was killed. He said it was like shooting turkeys. Everytime they seed a redcoat they touched him off. When they chopped his leg off all they had to give him was whiskey. They carried him back to the mountains in carts and wagons and he kept a jug by him.

“Now it's beginning to hurt,” he said. “Now I can feel the toes they cut off. They hurt like they was half froze and a horse had stepped on them.”

He was close enough that it sickened me to smell his breath.

“Don't I know you?” he said. “Why you're Petal Jarvis, that run off with the big feller to the West.”

“And you're the preacher,” I said. “The preacher that was digging for gold.”

“I used to be a preacher,” he said. He said he had give up gold mining and become a peddler in the mountains. And then he joined up with John Sevier to fight the Tories.

“They've gone now to fight the Indians,” he said. “They left me behind 'cause I wasn't no help. They've gone over to the Tuckasegee to pay them heathen devils back.”

I asked him again if he hadn't seen nobody at the clearing.

“Honey, I wish I had,” he said. “But it was deserted. Things from inside the cabin was strewed all across the yard.”

I wanted to get going again. His words chilled me to the soles of my feet. We divided what we had in the dinner bucket with him,
jelly biscuits and shoulder meat. “I'm much obliged,” he said. “I'm just grateful to be alive.”