The Sign of the Beaver (14 page)

"I was bound we'd get here 'fore Christmas," she panted. "I couldn't of borne it to let Christmas go by. Oh Matt - you're safe!"

"It was the typhus," his father explained. "We all took sick with it, and the fever was bad. Takes all the strength out of a body. Your ma got took the worst. We'd ought to of waited longer till she was more fit, but she was dead set on starting. The river is 'most frozen shut. We had to wait at the trading post three weeks before anyone would risk carrying us. Then we had to get the sled made. But your ma, she kept pushing at us. She's a rare one, your ma."

"I had to," she said. "Thinking of you alone in this place."

"It wasn't so bad," Matt said stoutly. "I wasn't alone all the time. I had the Indians."

"Indians!" his mother gasped. "Are there Indians hereabouts?"

"Pa said there wouldn't be," Sarah exclaimed, wide-eyed. "What are they like?"

"They're gone now," Matt said. "But they were my friends." Then he brought it out proudly. "I had an Indian brother."

From the way they stared at him, he could see it was going to take a mighty lot of explaining before they could understand. He didn't suppose they ever would, truly. His father said nothing. He was looking soberly at the snowshoes propped against the wall and at the bow hanging over the door where the rifle should have been. Everywhere he looked, Matt realized, he must see something the Indians had given him or had taught him how to make for himself. However, his father seemed to think there was no time now for questions.

"We'd better unpack the sled," he said, "before it starts to snow again."

Matt sprang to help. There was one question he had not dared to ask till he and his father were alone. "The baby—did you leave it behind?"

His father ran a hand over his beard. His eyes were troubled. "The little one only lived five days," he answered. "'Twas a pitiful little thing would never have made this journey. Just don't say aught to your ma. She still takes it hard."

Matt promised. He wished he had somehow been able to hide the cradle before she noticed it.

Standing in the snow, his father reached to put a hand on Matt's shoulder. "You've done a grown man's job, son," he said. "I'm right proud of you."

Matt could not speak. It took his breath away to think that he might have gone with the Indians, that they might have come to an empty cabin and found that all his mother's fears had come true. He would never have heard the words his father had just spoken. This was how Attean had felt, he knew, when he had found his manitou and become a hunter.

As his father untied the bundles from the sledge, Matt lugged them into the cabin. Flour. Molasses. A fine new kettle. Warm, bright quilts. And, thanks be, new boots for him and a woolen jacket and breeches. He felt richer than Robinson Crusoe with all the plunder from that sunken ship. Then he noted that his father had a new rifle, and presently he discovered, poking out from his mother's pack, his own old musket. He hadn't a doubt she had learned to use it, and would have too, had her family been threatened. He suspected that even Sarah, so grown-up now, wouldn't have feared to pull that trigger if there'd been need of it. Well, there'd be no more need of it now, with two men to fend for them.

Inside the cabin Sarah was bustling capably about, unwrapping the pewter dishes, setting out the little whale-oil lamp that had always stood on the table in Quincy.

"That's the funniest-looking dog I ever saw," she said. "It won't come near us."

"He's an Indian dog," Matt told her. "He's suspicious of white folks. You wait. You'll get to like him."

He couldn't get over how much older she looked. But still spunky. Her eyes were sparkling, and Matt suspected that for her the long journey had just been an adventure. He should have made her a bow instead of a doll, and he would, too, the first chance he got.

His mother had thrown off her cloak, and the fire had brought a bit of color into her cheeks. She was making a great show of coming home. If the cabin seemed rough and cramped after the pretty house she had left behind, she never let on for a moment. She went about admiring everything—the drying ears of corn, the strings of pumpkin, the fine new wooden bowls he had carved.

"All this food," she marveled. "And I've been feared you were starving!"

He was thankful now for the times he had gone hungry to save what he could for their coming. "There's jerky for supper," he told her. "I tried not to eat too much of it. You can make a pretty fair stew with that and a little pumpkin. Some salt would sure help if you brought any."

As he started out again, his mother stopped him and put her hands on his shoulders. "Wait a minute," she said. "I just want to look at you." She had to tip her head back to do it. "You look different, Matt. You're 'most as tall as your pa. And awful thin. You're so brown I'd have taken you for an Indian."

"I almost was one," he said, giving her a quick hug to show he was joking. He hoped she'd never know how true it was.

"We're going to have neighbors," she said happily, as she set the new kettle over the fire. "A man and his wife have a claim not five miles from here. They're staying at the trading post till spring. We plan to share a pair of oxen. They say three other families are coming too. They're going to set up a mill. 'Fore you know it we'll have a town here, maybe even a school for you children."

Neighbors. That was a thought that would take some getting used to. Matt supposed he ought to be pleased. Yes, of course he was pleased. It was just that he rather liked it as it was here in the forest. With all the gladness in him right now, you wouldn't think there'd be room for any other thought. But even now, with his family here, their voices filling the long silence, with all his worries vanishing like smoke up the chimney, he suddenly thought of the Indians. He wished that Attean and his grandfather could know that he had been right to stay, that his father had come as he had promised them. But the old man had been right, too. More white men were coming. There would be a town here on the land where the Indians had hunted the caribou and the beaver. If only he could be sure that the Indians had found a new hunting ground.

Matt thrust his arms into his new jacket and went out again into the snow. Behind him the cabin glowed, warm and filled with life. Already steam was rising from the new kettle. He'd cook one of his special stews for them for supper, and he wouldn't have to eat it alone. They would all sit together around the table and bow their heads while his father asked the blessing.

Then he would tell them about Attean.