The Hinterlands (7 page)

I backed and turned away, and my pots and pans fell crashing in the leaves, banging on each other. But Sarse didn't seem to notice. He took both my shoulders and pushed me toward the laurels. He was trying to grab hold of the collar of my dress and tear it. I must have hollered out finally, or maybe I just made up my mind to. But next thing I remember was your Grandpa appeared just as I fell. He knocked Sarse up the side of his head, and the big man went reeling into the brush.

Realus reached to pull me up from the ground, and then I seen that Sarse had picked up a stick and was coming toward Realus. I must have screamed, for your Grandpa turned just in time to duck Sarse's swing and hit him in the belly with his shoulder.

I'm telling you what's the truth. You never seen such a fight. Both of them was big fellers, sweaty and muddy from the digging. They grabbed hold of each other and rolled on the ground, getting leaves and sticks stuck to their backs. They pulled each other's galluses and slapped and kicked. They kneed each other and bloodied their noses. I was horrified, and set like a fool in the leaves where I had fell.

It turned more of a rassling match than a hitting kind of fight. Sarse tried to grab Realus by the neck and run the top of his head into an oak tree. Realus tripped him up and they both fell down and rolled around kicking up the dirt.

The preacher stood holding his gun and watching. He hadn't said a thing, though the other men kept hollering, “That's it, Sarse,” or “Twist his arm, Sarse.” It didn't look too good for your Grandpa with all the men pulling for Sarse.

But suddenly Realus got Sarse's head in his arms and swung him around. He slung him against a tree, then he backed up and rammed Sarse's head right into that oak. Sarse staggered all over trying to stand, but he stumbled backward into a laurel bush and looked like the breath had been knocked out of him.

Realus stood trying to get his breath and I run to him. The other men stood looking at us. “Anybody else want to try me,” your Grandpa said. His blood was up and he wouldn't have cared who took his challenge. Several of the men stepped closer. I stayed by his side to keep him from fighting anymore.

“That's enough,” the preacher snapped. “It was a fair fight.” He was looking at me. “Fair enough, leastways.”

Sarse rolled over and tried to stand up, but he couldn't. They was blood on the top of his head. He crawled through the laurel bushes till he was out of sight. Several of the men barked after him like he was a coon or possum.

“We got work to do,” the preacher said.

I picked up my pots and pans and followed Realus back to the clearing. Two more men had arrived on foot, with shovels strapped to their backs. They was talking to the preacher. When I come back to the fire and put my pots and pans down, one said, “You must be the couple that eloped from the settlement.”

“Did they elope?” the preacher said. “Then they ain't married.”

“Her Daddy's looking for her,” the new man said.

“Your Daddy's looking for you,” the preacher said. He stood over me like a slavemaster over a field hand.

“That man could be lying,” I said. Realus had gone back to digging in the bank. He was out of earshot.

“You didn't say he was lying,” the preacher said.

“It's not polite to accuse people of lying,” I said.

The preacher bent close to me. “If you ain't married you're living in sin,” he said.

“We are married,” I said. “I'm a married woman.”

“If you ain't married then you're free to marry me,” he said. “I got all the gold we could need. And the Lord will forgive you for your sins. The Lord forgives all who believe on him. You think about what I said. You think real good.”

He went back to the diggings and I felt worser than ever. I knowed we had to get away from there, whether Realus knowed it or not. I had to talk to Realus, so I took a gourd for a dipper and started off to get water. On the way back I stopped in the mud and give Realus a drink. While he was drinking I said to him in a low voice, “We got to get away before night.”

I smiled and looked past him so the men wouldn't think I was saying nothing. “I'll lead the horse up the creek and tie him,” I said. “And while the men are eating I'll slip away like I was going for water, and we'll run.”

Realus didn't look at me and I wasn't sure he heard me. But
I had to believe he understood and would go through with the plan.

That evening I worked hard as ever I had to make a meal beside that mud hole. The dirt and standing water had been tramped through and spit in so much it stunk. It turns my stomach just to think of the smell of all those sweating bodies, and the mud and rotten things, and manure where the horses stood.

But I washed my hands and stewed some coon meat the men had brung in, and I roasted sweet taters in the fire. I even took some of our flour and made biscuits. I wished they was some sourwood honey. My plan was to keep them all busy eating for as long as possible, so I used a good bit of the flour and lots of sugar and salt. Hungry men are not going to go chasing through the woods as long as they have good hot food.

I led the horse way up the creek beyond where I had washed the pans. The packs was still on the poor animal. That showed how busy and beside hisself Realus was. He had left the horse standing with his burden. Realus was always good to beasts.

The horse was stiff from all the standing, and I knowed he was thirsty. His name was Dan, our first horse. I let him have a long drink from the creek and I tied him to a tree.

When I got back to the clearing it was only shadows on the heaps of mud. The men come running when I hollered it was supper time. I was happy to see Realus slipped away into the woods.

“I'm so hungry my backbone's rubbing a blister on my ribs,” one of the new men said. They grabbed the stewed coon meat in anything they had, a plate, a cup, between two biscuits. The sweet taters was so hot they could just barely hold them to eat.

“Now all we need is tea,” the preacher said.

“I'll go get some water to make some,” I said.

“No, you wait a minute and serve us some more biscuits,” he said. I served the rest of what I'd made. My dress was so muddy I was ashamed to be seen in it. They didn't seem to notice that Realus hadn't come to eat.

As they continued eating they got to laughing, as men will. “Hey preacher,” one called from where he set on the ground. “How we going to divide up the gold?”

“Everybody gets a share for every day he's worked,” the preacher said.

“Who's counting?” another man said.

“I'm counting,” the preacher said.

“How much do you get for half a day's work?” one of the new men said.

“Half a share,” the preacher said.

“Then how do you know how big a share is?” the new man said.

“You add up all the gold at the end and you divide by the number of men and days they worked.”

The men set around the fire in the early dark. Their eyes glistened. They wrapped shirts and blankets around their dirty shoulders as the air got chilly.

“Show us the gold,” one of the new men said.

“Yeah, yeah,” the others said.

The preacher wiped his hands on his pants and took the poke out from his waist. He poured the contents on the cloth where I had mixed the dough. The gold glittered like crumbs of light.

“Whoo-ee!” the men said. “That's the real stuff.”

“Why don't we divide up now?” one said.

“There'll be no dividing till the end.”

“How do we know you ain't hiding some of the gold?” one said.

“You don't know,” the preacher said.

I took up the kittle like I was going for water and slipped out of the firelight. I hoped all eyes would stay on the gold.

“Ain't that stuff pretty,” the men kept saying.

I darted into the first laurel bushes I come to and walked as quick and quiet as I could. It was that time of evening when everything is shadows and you've not got your night eyes yet. It's hard to go straight in a laurel thicket because you're bending over so much and they's nothing to keep your eye on ahead. You can't see nothing but the limbs all around, and it's hard to look through laurels leaves even in winter time.

I thought I was going toward the creek where Realus was waiting, but after I'd gone far enough to be there I still didn't see no creek. I kept pushing limbs out of my way and running further, and still they wasn't nothing ahead but more laurel bushes. I stopped and listened and all I could hear was my breathing, and the men hollering back at the fire. I didn't hear any creek water.

I thought about calling for Realus, but what if they was to hear me? Above the laurels the stars was coming out, but they didn't help me. I tried to figure out where I had gone wrong. I must have circled back away from the creek. It couldn't be that far away unless I had gone in a complete circle.

After the long walk the night before, and working all day, and the worry and fear we'd had, I must have been awful tired. I felt dizzy and couldn't think, looking around at all the dark bushes. It was like I had sunk into some hole of laurel. I was no closer to the Holsten than I had been the night before. In fact I felt even further from the peaceful life there.

Suddenly I parted two bushes and come out into an opening. And I heard the sound of creek water. They was a man standing by the bank, and I thought it must be Realus, though he didn't
have no horse. But just when I got near him I could see and smell it was the preacher.

“Why, looky here,” the preacher said. “You're not trying to run away again are you?”

“I was going to get water for the tea,” I said. The kittle was still in my hand. I wondered if I could hit him with the kittle.

“All the way through the laurel thicket you was going for water,” he said.

“A woman has to answer the call of nature,” I said.

“A woman has to answer the call of
her
nature,” the preacher said.

I started to step around him. I thought I might be able to run off into the dark bushes again.

“I ain't going to let you go,” the preacher said. “You've been sent to me by the Lord and I ain't going to let you get away.” He grabbed my arm in his powerful hand. I could smell his tobacco and his sweat.

“The Lord ain't give me to nobody but my husband,” I said.

“But he ain't your husband,” the preacher said. “You ain't married at all. I'm going to be your husband.”

I swung back the kittle and hit him hard as I could. But he seen it coming and throwed up his arm to stop the blow. Except he went down like he had fainted, like his legs just give out.

Then I seen your Grandpa with a stick in his hand. He had hit the preacher from behind just when I slung the kittle. I was so shocked I stood there in amazement.

“Let's go,” Realus said. “Let's get away from here.”

“He's got some gold. He owes us some gold,” I said.

“I want to forget about gold,” your Grandpa said.

I bent down over the preacher's body, sickened by the smell of sweat. I felt in his pocket for the poke of gold. But it wasn't there.
Instead I found a handful of sand and pebbles that felt like nuggets and I pulled them out.

“Leave the gold be,” your Grandpa said. He took my hand and pulled me along the creek to where the horse was tied.

“We ain't got no time to waste,” he said. “They'll come looking for the preacher, and for us. If they can't find the gold they'll follow us to the Holsten.”

“The poke of gold is back in the camp,” I said. “I seen him showing it to all the men.”

“We still have to hurry,” Realus said.

Your Grandpa said that since they knowed we was bound for the West they might follow us on the main trail. Best to cut to the north and go a more roundabout way. It would be harder to go through woods on Indian trails and buffalo trails, but it would be safer in the long run.

“We left some of our pots and pans back there,” I said after we had gone a mile or two.

“We'll buy some more,” he said.

“They ain't no stores in the West,” I said.

“They's traders that come through and will trade anything for fur,” he said.

The moon come up later and we could see the trail ahead better. But everything seemed stranger even than it had the night before. The mountains looked like a whole other world from the one I knowed. I got my second wind, for we must have walked ten miles before we stopped to sleep on a high-up place, right against a cliff where you could look out on the country below, blue in the moonlight.

“They's liable to be a rattler in this rock,” I said to Realus.

“They won't be stirring for another month,” he said. The pebbles I had got from the preacher's pocket was still clutched in
my hand. I poured them in a rag and tied it up before we went to sleep.

Children, the sad facts of life are always sad. You can look at anything in a certain light and it will break your heart. Something that seems perfectly ordinary, going smoothly, will suddenly taste like ashes and swill. I've always been the kind of person that could be overcome by the sadness of everything, for a while. Suddenly the luster and firmness will fall away, and everything shows its naked ugliness.

The day at the gold diggings took some of the vigor out of me. I was relieved to get back on the road, but our mood wasn't the same anymore. Maybe it was the loss of sleep for two nights, and all the work and worry around the preacher's gold mine, and the hard walking. I had been keyed up for too long.

They was something different about your Grandpa the next day too. Or at least it seemed to me he had changed. Maybe it was the fatigue and disappointment of the long day's work in the mud, and the fight with Sarse. He was tired and fretty that day. He'd stop on the trail and listen, and if he heard somebody coming he'd draw the horse off into the trees and I'd follow. We hid there until whoever it was passed.