Departure Read online

  “Who goes there?” a sergeant called.

  “Two traders with skins.”

  “And where are your guns?”

  “We bear no guns,” my father said. “We are Jews who trade with the Indians.”

  Then the doors opened, and we entered with our donkeys, but there was never a smile or a nod. I looked at my father and he looked at me, but there was nothing to make out of his face; and when we looked around us, we saw that these were new men. Their cloth clothes were still fresh with the East, and they stared at us as if we were creatures; were we not Jews, they would have stared at us too, but there was that in their eyes that was singular for Jews.

  Where, I wondered, were the Yankee folk, Benson, the smith, Bryan, the cooper, Wheelbury, the harness maker? Where were the Indians, who were always a crowd in the fort? Where were the woodsy folk, the hunters, the French, in their green buckskin and red hats? Where were Stuart and Stevenson, the storekeepers? That too was in my father’s mind, as I could see, but his broad face was calm, and he smiled at me as we prodded our donkeys into the low town. As if this were the first time we had come to old Duquesne, soldiers barred our way and a British subaltern demanded of us:

  “Who are you and what are your names?”

  “We are Jews who trade with the Indians,” my father said. “My name is David, and this is my son, Reuben. Twelve years I have been in and out of this place, even when it was Duquesne, and I am known in the forest country.”

  “I don’t know you,” the young man said, as if we were dirt and less than dirt.

  “Then I be sorry,” my father said. “Stevenson knows me, for I have always traded with him and paid my loanings. Benson knows me, for he shod my beasts, and Bryan knows me, for he boxed my goods. I am not a stranger here.”

  “You are a Jew and damned insolent,” the young man replied. “As for the scum of this place, they know the dregs of the woods. Where are your arms?”

  “We bear no arms but our knives.”

  “And how did you come through the Mingoes? There is war with the Mingoes.”

  A mass of soldiers were around us now, and now I could see Benson and some of the others, but keeping off. I am not like my father. I would have made a story then, but it was not in him to speak anything but the truth. He was going to New York, but I knew of a sudden that he would be lonely and forsaken in such a place. The green woods was his home, and it was not in him to speak anything but the truth.

  “There is no war with the Mingoes,” he said slowly. “I traded two hundred skins with the Mingoes, and I lay in their lodges this fortnight past. There is no war with the Mingoes.”

  The young officer said, “You’re a damned liar, a filthy Jew, and a spy as well.”

  My father’s face was sad and hard and woeful. I moved, but he moved quicker, and he struck the officer a blow that would have felled an ox. Then we fought a little, but there were too many of them.

  They put us in a cell and they gave us no food and no water. We were bleeding and bruised, but it was not hard to go without food. It was hard for my father to go without his phylacteries, but after the second day I didn’t care. They came every few hours and asked us to tell what we knew of the Mingoes, but what we knew was of no interest to them.

  The colonel came finally. It is so different now that you cannot know what a colonel was in those days in a place like Fort Pitt. He was an English gentleman and he was God too, and he prodded us with his stick.

  “How old are you?” he asked me.

  “I am fifteen,” I croaked.

  “You are large for fifteen,” he lisped, holding a lace handkerchief over his nose. “The Yankees come large, but I should not think it would be so with a Jew. I shall hang your father tomorrow, but if you will tell me what you know of the Mingoes, you may go free and take your seven beasts with the skins.”

  “I know nothing of the Mingoes.”

  “And how do you travel in the woods without guns? I am very curious.”

  “That you could never know,” my father said, almost sadly.

  Even these days you hear things said of Jews; it is that way; but once my father found a robin with a broken wing, and made splints for the wing and a sling, so that we could carry the bird with us, and he nursed it until it flew away. So I will remember until I die how the British drums rolled as they hanged my father, who traded with the Indians in the land of the goyim, and whose word was as good as his bond. And then they gave me thirty lashes until I bled like a pig, and drove me from the fort to die in the forest.

  A Jew dies hard, they say. I crawled a mile to Angus MacIntyre’s mill, and he washed my back and cared for me until I returned to my senses and could walk again.

  “Weep for your father,” he said, “for you are only a laddie, and he was much of man.”

  “I weep no more and pray no more. My father is dead, and I am not like him.”

  “You will be like him, lad.”

  “I will never be like him, Angus, but I will make my word like my bond. I give you my word I will bring you forty beaver skins if you give me a musket and powder and shot.”

  A long time the old Scot looked at me, measuring me and weighing me. “Go to the land of the Yankees, lad,” he said, “and wear woven clothes on your back.”

  “The Yankees stood by while my father was hanged. When that redcoat filth drove the Mingoes from the fort, the Yankees stood by. When two Mingoes came back for the little they left behind and were slain at the gate, the Yankees said nothing.”

  “How many of them were there?” the Scot said quietly. “They are a strange folk, dirty and bragging and mean and sometimes, in a most curious way, a little noble. Will they be silent forever?”

  “Will you give me the gun?”

  “You are one of them,” the Scot said.

  “When they are no longer silent—I will be one of them. When they strike, I will strike with them.”

  “And your father traded in the woods with never more than a knife. For the Company. Are you for the Company?”

  “I am against any man in a uniform.”

  “I will give you the gun, lad,” the Scot said sadly, “and you will slay your meat and eat it.”

  “And other things.”

  “Then put no price on it, for what you seek has no price but a man’s blood. You are one of them.”

  He gave me the gun, and I left him and walked eastward.

  Spoil the Child

  THE FIRST MORNING Pa was gone, I tried to ride one of the mules. I didn’t think that would hurt, because the mules were unharnessed anyway. But Maude told Ma, and Ma licked me. Ma was in the wagon, and she wouldn’t have seen. I told Maude I’d remember.

  Pa left about six in the morning while Ma still slept. “Goin’ after meat?” I asked him. He had his rifle.

  He nodded.

  “Kin I go?”

  “Stay with Ma, Sonny,” he said. “She ain’t well.”

  “You said I could hunt—”

  “You stay with Ma, Sonny.”

  Maude got up a few minutes after that. I could see Pa like a black dot out on the prairie. I pointed to him.

  I said: “That’s Pa out there huntin’.”

  Maude was combing her hair, not paying a lot of attention to me. Then I tried to ride the mule. Pa would never let me ride his horse. It was only half-broken, cost four hundred dollars. Ma was always saying we could have lived a year on what that horse cost.

  Maude woke Ma. My mother was a tall, thin women, tired looking. She wasn’t well. I could see that she wasn’t well.

  “Dave, get off that mule,” she said. “Where’s Pa?”

  “Went out to hunt.”

  “Come here. Can’t ever get it into your head to behave.” I went over, and she slapped my face. “Don’t bother them mules. When’ll he be back? We can’t stay here.”

  “He didn’t say.”

  “Get some chips for a fire,” Ma told me. “My land, I never seen such a lazy, shiftless boy.” But sh
e didn’t say it the way she always did, as if she would want to bite my head off. She seemed too tired to really care.

  I guess Ma licked me every day. She said I was bad—a lot worse than you’d expect from a boy of twelve. You didn’t expect them to be bad that young.

  “You learn to leave the mules alone,” Maude called.

  “You shut up,” I told her. Maude was fifteen, and pretty. She had light hair, and a thin, delicate face. Ma said that some day Maude would be a lady. She didn’t expect much from me. She said I would be like Pa.

  I walked away from the wagon, looking for chips. By now, Pa was out of sight, and where he had gone the prairie was just a roll of yellow and brown, a thread of cloud above it. It frightened me to be alone on the prairie. Pa laughed at it, and called it a big meadow. But it frightened me.

  We had been on the prairie for a week now. Pa said in another few weeks we’d reach Fort Lee, due west. He said that if he had cattle stock, he’d settle down right on the prairie. This way, he’d cross the mountains, grow fruit, maybe, in California. Ma never believed much he said.

  I went back to the wagon and started a fire. Ma had gone inside, and Maude sat on the driver’s seat.

  “You might gimme a hand,” I told Maude.

  “I don’t see you overworking,” Maude said.

  “You better learn to shut up.”

  From inside the wagon, Ma yelled: “You hold your tongue, David, or I’ll wallop you!”

  “You’re a little beast,” Maude said.

  “You wait,” I told her.

  I went to the keg, drew some water, and set it up to boil. I could tell by the sound that there wasn’t a lot of water left in the keg. Pa had said we’d reach water soon.

  When I came back to the fire, I glanced up at the sky. It was an immense bowl of hot blue, bare except for a single buzzard that turned slowly, like a fish swimming. I guess I forgot. I kept looking up at the buzzard.

  Ma climbed down from the wagon slowly. “You’re the same as your Pa,” she said. “Lazy an’ bad.” Her face was tight-drawn. For the past few weeks she had hardly smiled, and now it seemed that she wouldn’t smile again.

  “And fresh,” Maude said.

  I put the water on the fire, not saying anything.

  “Spare the rod and spoil the child,” Ma said.

  Then her face twisted in pain, and she leaned against the wagon. “Well, don’t stand there,” she told me. “Water the mules.”

  I went to the keg. I knew there wasn’t enough water for the mules. I hoped Pa would come back soon; I had a funny, awful fear of what would happen if he didn’t come back soon. I kept glancing out at the prairie.

  Pa had an itch in his feet. Ma said I would grow up the same way—having an itch in my feet. She was always sorry that she had married a man with an itch in his feet. Sometimes she said that the war had done it, that after the war between the North and the South, men were either broken or had to keep moving, like Pa. Always west.

  We lived in Columbus. Then we moved to St. Louis; then to Topeka. Pa couldn’t stop, and Pa got more and more worn-out. She said that a wild land was no place to raise children. It was hard on Ma, all right. Pa didn’t do much, except when we were moving west, and then he would be like a different person. Ma never complained to him. She licked me instead.

  I gave the mules enough water to cover the bottoms of their pails.

  Ma came over, said: “That’s not enough water.”

  “There ain’t a damn sight more.”

  “Don’t swear!” Ma exclaimed. She clapped a hand across my head.

  “He’s always swearing,” Maude said. “Thinks he’s grown-up.”

  Ma stared at me a moment, dully; then she went over and prepared breakfast. It was gruel and hardtack.

  “Fresh meat would be good,” Ma said. She looked over the prairie, maybe looking for Pa. I knew how much she cared for Pa. She would talk a lot about itching feet, but that didn’t matter.

  After breakfast, I gave the mules some oats, and Maude cleaned up the dishes. I kept glancing at Maude, and she knew what I meant. She didn’t care, until Ma went back into the wagon. It hurt me to look at Ma.

  “He’ll be back soon, I guess,” Ma said. Then she climbed into the wagon. It was a big sixteen-foot wagon, the kind they called freighters, with a hooped top, covered with dirty brown canvas.

  Maude said: “You leave me alone.”

  “I’ll leave you alone now,” I told Maude. “I gotta leave you alone now. Maybe you know what’s the matter with Ma?”

  “That’s none of your business,” Maude said.

  “It’s my business, all right.”

  “You’re just a kid.”

  I went to the back of the wagon and pulled out Pa’s carbine. It was the one he had used during the war, a short cavalry gun.

  Ma saw me; she lay inside, and I could hear her breathing hard. She said: “What’re you up to now—Pa back?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Well, you tell me soon as he gets back. And don’t get into any mischief.”

  “All right.”

  In front of the wagon, I sat down on a feed box, and cleaned the gun with an old rag. Maude watched me. Finally, she said: “I’m gonna tell Ma you’re fooling with Pa’s gun.”

  “You keep your mouth shut.”

  Ma groaned softly then, and we both turned around and looked at the wagon. I felt little shivers crawl up and down my spine. Where was Pa? He should have been back already. I put down the gun and walked around the wagon. In a circle, the prairie rose and fell, like a sea of whispering yellow grass. There was nothing there, no living thing.

  Maude was crying. “Why don’t Pa come back?” she said.

  I didn’t answer her. I guess it occurred to me for the first time that Pa might not come back. I felt like crying. I felt like getting into a corner and crying. I hadn’t felt so small for a long time. It would be a comfort to have Ma lick me now. You get licked, and you know you’re a kid, and you don’t have to worry about anything else.

  I said to Maude: “Go inside the wagon and stay with Ma.”

  “Don’t you order me around.”

  “All right,” I said. I turned my back on her. I didn’t hold much with girls when they’re that age.

  Then Maude went inside the wagon. I heard her crying, and I heard Ma say: “You stop that crying right now.”

  I loaded the carbine. I untethered one of the mules, climbed onto it, and set out across the prairie in the direction Pa had taken. I didn’t know just what I’d do, but I knew it was time Pa came back.

  It wasn’t easy, riding the mule just with harness straps. Mules have a funny gait. And we didn’t go very fast. I was glad Ma and Maude were in the wagon, otherwise Ma would probably lick the pants off me.

  In about a half hour, the wagon was just a tiny black dot. It might have been anything. I kept glancing at the sun to remember the direction I had taken. Then a swell hid the wagon. I kept on going. I knew that if I stopped, even for a little while, I’d cry my head off.

  I saw a coyote. He stood like a dog and watched me. An antelope hopped close, and I might have shot at him. But I couldn’t bring myself to fire a rifle there. It would have done something to me.

  I found Pa. I guess I had been riding for about an hour when I saw him, over to one side. A buzzard flapped up, and I felt my throat tighten until I thought it would choke me. I didn’t want to go over to him. I got down from the mule, and I walked over slowly. But I didn’t want to; something made me.

  He was dead, all right. Maybe it was Indians and maybe it wasn’t; I didn’t know. He was shot four times, and his gun was gone.

  The buzzard wouldn’t go away; I shot the buzzard. I didn’t cry. The carbine kicked back and made my shoulder ache. I was thinking about how Pa always called me an undersized, freckled little runt. He said I wouldn’t grow up. Maybe that’s why I didn’t cry.

  I went away a little distance and sat down. I didn’t look at Pa. I tried to rem
ember where we were, what Pa had told me about going west. When I thought of Ma, I had a sense of awful fear. Suppose it happened now.

  The mule walked over and nuzzled my shoulder. I was glad the mule was there then. If he wasn’t, I don’t know what I would have done.

  Pa had to be buried. I knew that men had to be buried, but I couldn’t do it. The prairie was hard, baked mud. I went back to Pa and stood over him; I guess that was the hardest thing I had ever done in my life. I straightened his clothes. I pulled off his boots. Men in the West were always talking about dying with their boots on. I didn’t know how it meant anything, one way or another, but I thought Pa would be pleased if he didn’t have his boots on.

  Then I climbed up on the mule and started back for the wagon. I tried not to think that I was twelve years old. If you get to thinking about that, they you’re no good at all. When I got back, Ma would lick me plenty.

  The mule must have found its way back, because I didn’t pay much attention to that. I let the reins loose, holding onto the harness straps, and I kept swallowing. Then I saw the wagon.

  I thought: “I can’t tell Ma now—maybe later.” Nobody had ever told me about a thing like that, but I knew it wouldn’t do to tell Ma now. I guess I only felt it instinctively, but I knew that the importance wasn’t in Pa any more. All that was important was life, and life was just a fleck of dust in the prairie. It was like a nightmare to think of the distance of the prairie, and how we were alone.

  I rode up to the wagon, and Maude and Ma were both standing next to it. I could tell from Ma’s face how worried she had been about me.

  “There he is!” Maude screamed.

  Ma said: “I guess there ain’t nothing a body can do with you, Dave. Get off that mule.”

  I slipped off, tethered the mule. My whole body was twisted up with the strain of keeping what I had seen off my face. I came over to Ma.

  “Where you been?” she demanded.

  “Hunting.”

  “I reckon there’s nothing else for a little loafer like you. Spare the rod and spoil the child. Come here.”

  I went over and bent down, and she walloped me a bit, not too hard. She wasn’t very strong then, I guess. I cried, but I wasn’t crying because of the licking. I had had worse lickings than that and never opened my mouth. But it seemed to break the tension inside of me, and I had to cry. I went over and sat down with my back against one of the wagon wheels.