Sarah Bishop

  "It will be much lighter than the dugout," his wife said. "You can carry a birch canoe on your back. Then you can travel from lake to lake and stream to stream."

  "The dugout is all I'll need," I wanted to say but didn't because it would seem impolite.

  The Longknifes fished for five days, and I fished with them. We smoked our trout together, enough to last well into the coming winter, which we were thinking about already. We hunted together—geese for tallow, using reed traps to save powder, and deer meat to smoke.

  One evening when we came in from the lake we found tracks beside the stream, where the bear had been fishing. It was the same animal that had stolen my cache of fish from the snowbank, judging from the way one of his front paws slanted out. I didn't mind the fish so much as I feared happening upon him sometime when I was alone.

  "Should we track him down?" I said bravely, braver than I felt.

  John Longknife shook his head. "One bullet no good. Two bullets no good. Three bullets maybe good." He turned to his wife and spoke in their language.

  "My husband says," she explained, "that the bear moves quick. And you can kill him only in a certain place. If you miss that place you will not have time to load your musket again. He will jump on you and claw you dead."

  At that moment I gave up the idea of shooting the bear with the paw that slanted out, the bear that stole my fish.

  The Indians stayed for most of a week. Helen showed me how to brew tea from black birch leaves and bark. She also pointed out a hollow tree, on the ridge near the big rock that looked like a castle, where there were two swarms of bees. In another month I could rob their hives, she told me. "But don't take all the honey. Take only half. The bees need the rest to eat during the winter."

  Since they were on their way to Ridgeford to purchase supplies, I asked the Longknifes if they would take along a packet of deer meat and give it to young Mr. Morton. Whenever I thought of him, I felt sorry that he looked so thin and gaunt. As if he needed a good meal, one like I used to cook at home when we were all together.

  The Longknifes glanced at each other and smiled when I mentioned his name, which embarrassed me. I explained that I had barely met Mr. Morton and felt sorry for him because he was so sickly-looking.

  "His father owns a store where you can buy all sorts of food," I explained, "and yet he always looks hungry, as if he never ate a mouthful."

  "He eats," Helen Longknife said, "but he has a fire inside."

  "In trouble much," John Longknife added, "this man."

  "They had him in the jail," Helen said. "It was because of the war. He would not go and they put him in jail. Then he got in arguments with his father. His father owns two Negro slave women and won't give them up. They got to fighting because he wouldn't, and Isaac Morton was put in the jail again."

  "In jail much, this man," her husband said. "All the time jail."

  I was not astounded to learn that Isaac Morton was in jail much of his time. Nor that he had a fire inside him, as Helen Longknife said. I saw all of it in his eyes when he was talking to me, smoldering there quietly.

  Helen asked, "Shall I say something to Mr. Morton? Do you want to send some words?"

  "Nothing," I said. Then I changed my mind. "Tell him he's too skinny. He needs to eat more."

  Helen was disappointed. "Is that all you are saying?"

  Even that is too much, I thought. Why should I bother with whether he was skinny or not? Why should I be giving him advice?

  "Don't say anything," I said. "Just give Mr. Morton the venison. He should know what to do with it."

  The Longknifes left in a thunderstorm, weighed down with pelts they had taken that winter. They planned to drop by on their way home, so they cached the fish they had smoked.

  When they got to the far side of the lake and stood on the big rock, they stopped and waved. I had a tight feeling in my throat as I waved back. I was surprised that I was sorry to see them go.

  34

  TWO DAYS AFTER they left I took a notion to explore the big rock where I had last seen the Longknifes, the rock that looked like the battlements of an English castle. Early in the morning I paddled the dugout to the base of the towering walls, beached it, and climbed through heavy brush to the top.

  Far below me the lake shimmered in the morning sun. The water was many shades of blue, but black deep down. I felt as if I were on a castle wall in England, on a battlement looking down into a darksome mere. I saw a shadow there below in the deep water. It was mine. It was beckoning to me.

  I took a small step forward and grasped hold of an arching branch to steady myself. At that instant I felt a sharp sting on my hand. I drew back. I thought it was the sting of a hornet, of which there were multitudes. But then I saw a pair of yellow eyes staring down from a ledge. The eyes were dark with yellow slits, bulging out of a flattened head. A black tongue flicked at me. I caught a glimpse of banded coils, brown and ruddy-brown. It was a copperhead.

  I had seen these snakes before on the farm early in May when they first came out from their winter sleep. I had watched while two of these copperheads—Father said they were males—went through a dance. They rose as high as they could and pushed against each other, until one of them fell over.

  I knew that the copperhead was a poisonous snake ... because one of our neighbors was bitten and died from the bite.

  My hand had two holes in it. It felt numb as I scrambled down the cliff and into the dugout, but it didn't hurt. I had no trouble using the paddle, and I thought maybe the snake wasn't a copperhead after all. Then my hand began to swell and my lips started to tingle. Then I got sick to my stomach.

  I went up the slope to the cave and lay there in the doorway. My left hand was now twice the size of the other one. The two holes were puffed up and blue-colored. Remembering what my father had once told me, I got out his knife and made two cross-slits where the bite was and sucked the blood away.

  My whole hand was swelling now. It was blue and black, with long streaks of yellow running up my arm. I shouted with all my breath, but no one answered. A flight of geese circled the lake, calling to each other. A crested jay silently watched me from a pine tree. I shouted again. There was not an answering sound from anywhere.

  I got to my feet. My only thought now was to find my way to Ridgeford village somehow. I went down the hill to the lake and crawled into the dugout. I picked up the light, birch paddle. It was heavy as iron. It fell overboard and began to drift. I reached for it, but it kept moving away. It was like a feather floating away in the air.

  Suddenly the sun went behind a cloud, or seemed to.

  When I saw it again I was lying in the bottom of the dugout. It had floated across the lake into the sedges. How much time had gone, I do not know. A day? Two days? I have no memory how long I lay there.

  The paddle was beside me. I don't remember ever taking it out of the water. My hand was the same size as my arm, but I looked at it and thought, I am not dead. I may die but I am still alive.

  I got to my knees and cupped water from the lake and drank it. It made me sick. Yet I felt stronger. I had strength enough to paddle the dugout through the sedges to the upper part of the lake. There I beached it and lay down on the shore and slept until the moon came up.

  By its light I found my way to the cave. The fire had gone out, but there were two strips of venison left over from my last meal, whenever that was. I ate them and fell asleep again and slept until morning. I woke up thirsty. It took me a long time to get down to the lake.

  I climbed into the dugout and slept again. I was awakened by a flock of geese beating their wings and honking as if someone had disturbed them. I thought it might be the Longknifes returning. I waited all morning, but they did not come.

  This was the first day I had felt strong enough even to think of making the long journey to Ridgeford. But I didn't move. I was afraid of the British. The reward for my capture might have been posted on the notice board again. I was more afraid of the British than of the
copperhead bite, so I lay quiet in the sun.

  A kingfisher swooped down and snatched a minnow from the lake and flew away with it crosswise in its beak. Small white clouds floated above me. I felt that I was high up in the sky and that they were white islands floating on a blue sea. A muskrat swam close and glanced up, trailing beads of bright water from his muzzle. He could have been my friend with the three paws. He'd never had a name, so I tried to think of one now, but I couldn't. I watched the evening shadows fall. I felt lonely and afraid of the coming night.

  I went back to the cave and built a fire and made tea and ate a small part of a smoked fish. I sat in the doorway for a while, watching the moon rise. A snowy owl swooped past. Wolves howled close by on the moonlit ridge.

  That night I had a bad dream. At least, it must have been a dream, or else I would not have been alive in the morning. I was walking along the stream on my way to the lake just before dusk. I saw a shadow against a rock and heard a snuffling sound and heavy steps coming slowly toward me.

  Whatever it was, it sounded much bigger than a wolf. I turned around. Not a dozen steps away was a black shape. An animal. Its head was down, as if it was sniffing at my footsteps. Then it raised up, and I saw that it was a black bear. It stood on its hind legs, swinging its head back and forth. Its mouth was open and its tongue lolled out.

  The musket was primed. I pulled the trigger. The shot came out of the muzzle slow and crooked. I loaded the musket again, but before I could bring it to my shoulder, the beast was upon me. Its red maw gaped open. Its teeth glistened for a moment, then the jaws snapped shut with a crunching sound, tight upon my head. I awakened weak and feverish.

  The sun lay on the eastern ridge, but the fire had gone out and it was still night in the cave. I sat up. I felt my hand, which was still sore and stiff. I made a vow. When I got strong enough, I would climb the high rock and find the snake that had bitten me. I had meant it no harm. I was attending to my own business. I would lie in wait and kill it when it came out of its lair.

  35

  THE LONGKNIFES CAME back and found me stretched out in the cave beside a bed of cold ashes. Helen fed me dried venison and tea, which gave me strength, and made punk-wood poultices for my arm. In three days I was much better. At the end of a week I was on my feet once more.

  We went down to the lake to fish. We were all in the dugout and ready to throw out our lines when Helen said she had a message for me from young Mr. Morton.

  "He wants you to come to a Meeting. It's seven days from now."

  "Have you been?" I asked.

  "Two times."

  "Good," John said. "Sit much. Say nothing. Eat much. Good."

  "Quakers are kind people," Helen said. "They like Indians."

  "Like much," John said. "Indians like 'em Quakers, too."

  "There is much trouble in Ridgeford village," Helen said. "No rain for five weeks now. Corn has withered. Everyone worries about food for winter."

  "It's been dry here at Waccabuc also. Some of the young birch and oaks are dying. But here it doesn't matter, because I am not growing anything."

  "There is much sickness also in the village. They call it the flux."

  "The war," I said. "What is happening?" I had tried to forget the British. I had tried hard, but I still dreamed at night about the gray hulk at Wallabout Bay and David Whitlock leaning down to tell me in a croaking whisper that my brother was dead. I still heard the tearing sound of the shot the Hessian had fired at me. And at times during the day I saw our home aflame and our barn burning and the monstrous figure of my father staggering toward me through the smoke. "What is happening in the war, Helen?"

  "The British came last month. They stood at one end of the village and fired cannons. No one fired back at them, so they marched away and didn't come back. But the drouth is bad and the sickness. People say that they are caused by a witch. Do you believe this could be true, that trouble can be caused by a witch?"

  "It is silly, but sometimes I wonder."

  "Myself, I believe in the witches." Helen was baiting a hook. She threw the hook into the water and gave me a worried glance. "Do you plan for the Meeting seven days from now?"

  "I haven't planned."

  "Mr. Morton wants you to."

  "Perhaps."

  "I hope you do."

  I gave no more thought to the invitation until days later. Watching as the Longknifes packed their fish and left, I was overcome by a spell of loneliness. I thought about the British. I saw Captain Cunningham staring at me with his red-rimmed eyes. I heard the musket shot again. But I decided to go to the Meeting whatever happened.

  The next morning I climbed the high battlement where the copperhead lived. I moved silently, as John Longknife had taught me to do. The snake's lair was a crevice beneath the exposed root of a tree. The sun shone into it. The copperhead was nowhere in sight. I hid myself behind a rock and waited, the musket cocked.

  In midmorning, when the snake hadn't appeared, I returned to the cave and packed my things and left for Ridgeford village. There would be plenty of time after I got back to kill the copperhead.

  I slept in the open that night, there being a warm wind blowing, and made a start as the cocks began to crow. I skirted the village as I had done before, thinking that the British might have returned since the Longknifes left. Likewise, I scouted around the stables. I noticed that beyond the tavern the fields were withered. I wondered about witches.

  Mrs. Thorpe gave me breakfast for helping her with the bread. I cleaned myself up and combed my hair, which was a decent length by now.

  I crossed the street to the Morton store and knocked. A black girl came to the door. I told her that I wished to see young Mr. Morton. She must have been expecting me, for she let me in and led the way through the store to a parlor in the back. She pointed to a chair and asked me please to sit down.

  I sat for a while with my hands in my lap. I felt uncomfortable in my threadbare dress. It was strange, sitting in a chair, with a rug on the floor and a clock ticking away and a glass window to look from. The window was open. I heard faint voices from somewhere beyond the parlor. I recognized young Mr. Morton's voice; afterward, his father's voice. They were arguing about something. Then there was a long silence.

  Suddenly I heard my name. That is all I could make out, just "Sarah Bishop." It was the father who was speaking. I heard my name once more. This time it was shouted. Again it was the father speaking.

  I had a strong temptation to get up and leave, for it was clear that they were talking about me. I did get up and was standing at the window when Isaac Morton came in. He was in sober clothes with his black hat on straight. He was smiling. It was a small, pinched smile, however, and his face was flushed.

  "I hoped thee would come," he said.

  He sat me down on a big sofa and then seated himself beside me, gingerly, on the edge.

  "I didn't expect to," I said, just to let him know that I had not pined to come. "It is a long way to Ridgeford village."

  "I prayed that thee would," he said. "And that the Lord would lighten thy footsteps."

  I had a mind to tell Isaac Morton that the Lord had failed him. That I was still tired from the long walk and sleeping out on the hard ground and being in fear of the British.

  "Would thee like some breakfast?" he asked.

  "I have eaten, thank you."

  "Then we should go," he said. "We are late, and the Meeting is two miles away."

  I expected that he must have a carriage waiting outside or horses we could ride, but there was neither. The cart the Mortons owned held three people. In it were his mother and father and one of the Negro servants.

  We walked down the street and turned off into a dusty road. The sun was hot. We walked for most of an hour. Mr. Morton took long, loping strides, but I managed to keep up with him. For the first mile he had nothing to say except that walking was good for the spirit.

  We were walking along a winding road, between trees that met over our heads. Th
e air was still and sprinkled with dust from the family carriage clopping along ahead of us.

  "I have spoken to thee before about the musket," he said. "About carrying it around all the time. Here it is again, sitting atop thy shoulder on a Sunday morning. It looks peculiar, this being a peaceful community."

  "Your father was curious about the musket," I said. "When I first came to Ridgeford, before I left, he asked about it." I was pretty certain that the argument I had overheard that morning was about me and the musket. "Your father doesn't like it, does he?"

  Mr. Morton was silent. He looked up at the trees. He started to whistle a tune.

  "He doesn't like me, either," I said.

  "He read about thee on the notice board, Sarah."

  This was the first time that Mr. Morton had called me by my first name. I liked hearing it. I wasn't worried much about what his father thought, not right then.

  "We do not own a musket," he said.

  "You live on a busy street, not out in the wilderness."

  "We Quakers don't carry muskets."

  "I am not a Quaker, I wish you to know."

  "I do know it," Mr. Morton said, speaking low and, for him, quite sweetly. "I know it well. That is why I have invited thee to the Meeting."

  My shoes were caked with dust. The sun was hot, despite the trees. I began to wonder why I had come.

  "They will be talking about witchcraft at the Meeting," he said. "My father will. He believes in witches. Not the ones who ride about on broomsticks, but the others who live quietly among us and never raise their voices. I believed in witches until I was old enough to know better. Did thee?"

  "Yes," I said. I didn't tell him that sometimes even now I wondered about them.

  36

  THE MEETING TOOK place at a farmhouse that belonged to a man named Peake. The house was large, and behind it were a number of barns and beyond them vast acres of corn. The corn looked sickly.