Wilderness of Spring Part 10

"Yes, I can see them. Ben, art thou fevered? Thy hand is too hot."

"I don't think so. I was hungry, and the food you brought will hold me up."

"They let me eat heavy at supper, and I did so, knowing we might have a chance--Ben, are you having trouble walking?"

"No, no, I slipped, that was all. It's from fretting all day in that room and doing nothing. My head's clearing already."

"You were to have a flogging in the morning. It would have been today, but the minister was ill. He preached for Lecture Day, but then went home with a sore throat. Grandmother and old Anna were talking of it when they came back, Anna saying the flogging should be in the public square, but Grandmother said it would be at the house, and first the minister should instruct you and pray. I say let them pray for their own salvation."

"Ru----"

"I'll be quiet. But I make no peace with them, never."

"The snow's stopped?"

"It's less here under the trees."

"Trees? We're under--oh yes, I see."

"Ben--thou didst not know it?"

"I was keeping my eyes on the ground, to find those sled-marks."

"Oh ... I was thinking and planning all evening. They put me in an attic room, next the Lloyds, I was forced to wait till they went a-futtering and then a-snoring.... Ben, if it's a hundred miles to Roxbury--we can do ten miles, maybe fifteen, in a day. You've got your knife, and I stole one from the kitchen--better than nothing. We can find something.

The food will last a few days anyway."

"We'll get to Roxbury."

"Wish to rest a while?"

"I think I'd best not, Ru, unless--art thou tired?"

"I'll never tire. And then the Spice Islands?"

_Chapter Four_

In windless calm under the pines, Reuben's dark-dilated eyes could still find the furrows where sled-runners had pa.s.sed, and the half-moons of dainty hoof prints. Nothing stirred within the vague archway continually opening before him. Gradually, tree and rock and snow came to possess sharper lines, stronger shadows; somewhere, a birth of new light--"Ben,"

he said, "it's the moon."

"Where, Ru? I can't find it."

"Somewhere ahead...."

Since they came under the shelter of the trees--and that was a long time ago--Reuben had felt no longer the cold kiss of snowflakes. It had been nothing but a flurry, now ended. At a curve in the road he discovered, through a break in the treetops, a grayness brightening. He halted; Ben blundered into him, arms slipping clumsily around him as if in need of support. Dull rags of cloud dropped away from the naked radiance. "I told you, Ben. There she rides." Ben was smiling. "Ben--all's well?... I did right? We could not have stayed, and thou to be flogged, maybe put in the stocks."

"The stocks, was it?"

"Yes, old Anna was yattering about that too when they came home from the sermon, and Grandmother never said her nay."

"Of course thou'st done right.... They'll search. That snow wasn't enough to hide anything."

"No.... We've walked more than an hour--must have done five miles."

"We can walk another five." Though standing quietly, Ben was breathing too fast, his eyes too steadily fixed on the new light in the sky.

In the woods Ben always had been leader. And there it was Ben's natural way to send his glance flickering everywhere. Reuben recalled the voice of Jesse Plum: "No Inj'an'll ever surprise you, Ben. Swoonds, you could look at a squirrel while the little b.u.g.g.e.r jumps from one branch to the next, and tell me its age and gender, and if she be female whether she got little 'uns." Jesse had not croaked that in flattery. Wilderness had been near and vital to Jesse; he never made a mock of it, and was capable of scolding either boy for walking noisily in dead leaves.

"Ben, do you feel----"

"All's well. Let's go on."

Reuben walked on ahead, trying to set an easier pace. Surely, surely there was no _reason_ why Ben should fall ill....

In time the forest opened to a park-like region where perhaps in past seasons the Indians had followed their custom of burning over the land, killing new growth and brush, allowing established trees to expand their side branches in isolation. Through more than a mile of this they walked. Ben did not speak.

The sled-tracks pa.s.sed abruptly over the edge of a slope. Reuben could make out no treetops directly ahead, though a thick cl.u.s.ter of them stood to his left; the part of the slope where the road ran down would be open ground. A ghost of alien sound disturbed him.

He held out his hand, but Ben either failed to see it or was unwilling that his brother should go ahead alone; he still followed closely--more quietly though, more careful of his steps--when Reuben reached the beginning of the slope.

The thing could not be more than thirty feet away, a living blot of long shadow on the trampled white.

The slope ran steeply down. At the bottom, a flat expanse to the right must be the northern end of a pond or lake, frozen, snow-covered. The sled-tracks, plain in moon-shadow, skirted that level surface and disappeared in thicker woods beyond. On Reuben's left, all the way down the slope and connecting with the farther woods, hemlocks loomed densely black, branches bowing to the ground.

The thing gazed up across the wild turkey between its paws, and Reuben understood the sound--crunch of monstrous teeth on frail bone. Ben drew his knife and pushed in front muttering: "He won't attack, Ru. They're timid--Jesse alway said...."

The panther had flattened in alarm and readiness, all motionless but for a quiver at the tip of the tail. Round ears spread back on a skull smooth and cruel as the head of a snake, and moonlight greenly sparked from eyes arrogant with the majesty of loneliness. Once or twice the angry head dipped as if meaning to s.n.a.t.c.h up the meat and save it from the human threat; the motions were abortive, the beast preferring to freeze, and watch, and wait.

Reuben yielded no time to the weakening pain of antic.i.p.ation. He scooped a handful of damp snow into a ball, swung on his heel in the fine free motion that Ben himself had taught him, and let fly.

The s...o...b..ll hit the great face on the nose, spattering wonderfully.

Unbelieving, Reuben watched a grayish blur shoot away to the black shelter of the hemlocks, belly to earth.

A violent tremor of reaction took hold of Reuben; he heard Ben gasp.

"Ru--Ru--oh, _man_, how he sc.o.o.ned off!" Ben sat down laughing helplessly in the snow.

"Ay," said Reuben, shaken and panting and full of pride. "I allow, Mr.

Cory, he might travel some little time, Mr. Cory." The tremor was overcome by the swift joyous action of running down the slope to bring back the remains of the turkey. "See, Ben--he's left us both legs and some of the back and breast."

"Poor puss! My own little brother, a man who'd steal from a----"

"Snow down your backside!" said Reuben, and jumped for him.

Ben caught him fairly and pulled him off his feet, but in the mimic struggle Ben stiffened suddenly and groaned: "Ru--help me up!" Before Reuben could do so, Ben was on his feet without help, denying his own words: "It's nothing, Ru--I got a little dizzy, nothing more."

"Ben, if you----"