3stalwarts (24 page)

The total force of the army was eight hundred men. The number weighed heavily on Herkimer’s mind that morning. He knew that St. Leger had four hundred regulars, that he had six hundred Tories, men just as good or better than his own straggling militia, and in addition almost a thousand Indians.

At Fort Stanwix, Gansevoort had seven hundred men under arms, but Gansevoort couldn’t be expected to send them all out. His duty was to hold the fort. But if it were put up to him in time, he might be willing to spare a couple of hundred of them for a diversion.

The advance guard crossed Staring’s Brook early in the afternoon. It took three hours for the train of carts and wagons and the rear guard to arrive. The army pitched camp wherever they could find room along the road, a scattering, unorganized mess of men, nearly two miles long. The fires were like glowworms in the big timber— the men lying beside them, talking softly, hugging close to get in the smoke, cursing the flies, and wondering how things were going at home.

In the morning camp was broken at ten and the troops set out at a good pace. A little before noon, Gil and Weaver, marching side by side along the road, came out in Deerfield, on their own land.

It was incredible how quickly the land had become overgrown, as if the mere fact that men had moved away had emboldened the weeds. The burnt acres on Gil’s place already had a scrub of blueberries, and tall clumps of fireweed were flourishing among the charred stumps where corn by now should be beginning to tassel out. The houses were no more. Only the black lines of dead coals marked the squared outlines where the walls had stood.

“It don’t do any good to look at it, Gil.”

Weaver turned his face towards the alder bottom, through which, deep-rutted by the army carts that had passed that way last fall, the road headed straight to the river.

In the ford, a mile away, Cox’s regiment was stirring up the mud.

“Thank God the water’s low,” said Captain Demooth. “All these wagons going through at once are going to cut the bottom out of the river.”

The passage of two hundred men had softened the bottom. By the time Klock’s and Bellinger’s regiments had waded over, the mud was getting pulpy.

Klock and Bellinger halted their companies on the bank and ordered them to stack arms and take their pants off. But with the way the mosquitoes were taking hold, the men preferred wet leggings and shoes to bites, and raucously refused.

They had to wait an hour before the horns of the first yoke of oxen appeared at the bend of the Kingsroad. The animals came on, snuffing the corduroy and planting each hoof as if they wished the things to grow there. When they reached the riverbank, they came down willingly enough, then stopped and drank.

The teamster swung his bull whip on them, but they refused to stir. Behind the tailboard yoke after yoke was halted, until the train filled all the alder swamp, a dozing mass of beasts, with switching tails. Other teamsters came forward and applied their lashes to the first yoke. The cracking of the whips banged like musketry. There was no room to bring another yoke around the first cart. The whole army was held up by a pair of lousy steers.

Even Colonel Fisscher had time to overtake them. He came storming and swearing along the edge of the road on his bay horse and stared and said loud enough for all the men to hear, “You’d think they were a couple of brigadier generals to look at them.”

The men looked up. This militia business, with its high-toned colonels all over the lot, was new to them. They couldn’t think what to say. But Bellinger had also heard him. He jumped off his horse and waded into the ford.

“Just what did you say, Fisscher?”

“I said they were like brigadiers, the way they take their time.”

“Perhaps they wanted to see whether you’d catch up,” said Bellinger.

The Palatine and German Flats outfits guffawed. But the teamster, who was embittered by the whole concern, turned the situation off. “It’s got me beat,” he said, helplessly. “The buggers don’t even want to move their bowels.”

Fisscher splashed his horse through the water to find Colonel Cox.

“Can’t you do anything?” Bellinger asked the teamster.

“I’ve licked them. I’ve twisted their tails. I bit the off one by the ear. It’s got me beat.”

Old Coppernol crossed the ford. He said, “I’ve cut me an ox gad. If you bush twerps will make two fines and look like fences, these critters might mind a sensible man.”

People laughed. But Demooth called to Bellinger, “Clem knows oxen. Let him try.”

Clem said, “You see, these animals have got intelligence. They wasn’t born for Baptists and they have to be convinced. Besides, they’re kind of bored with all the colonels around.”

“Meaning me?”

Clem looked at Bellinger.

“Hell, no. You ain’t even a brigadier’s nephew. You only married his niece “

In the laughter, Bellinger said good-humoredly, “All right, Clem. Try a hand.”

The men waded into the ford and formed two lines, like fences for a lane, but Clem Coppernol acted as if he didn’t see them. He talked to the oxen, patted them behind their horns, and then he walked the length of the ford and back, between the lines of men. He said to the oxen, “If an old man like me can do it, you two God A’mightys ought to.”

Then he pricked the off ox with the stick and said, “Hup.”

The oxen, miraculously, blew their breaths out, lowered their heads, and lifted their knobbed knees. The cart creaked, sank into the mud, but did not stop. The beasts had got to work again.

Clem bawled, “The others will come now, but don’t let one get stuck. If it starts to stop, lay hold of the spokes and pull like God A’mighty.”

To the admiring teamster he said tolerantly, “You can fetch my muskit for me. Somebody’s got to show these twerps the way.”

He went ahead as unconcernedly as the slow brown beasts, talking to them happily, as if for the first time since the muster he had found something he could do.

That night the head of the straggling column got as far as the Oriskany Creek. Colonel Cox picked his camp site on the eastern bank, opposite the little hamlet of Oneida huts. But the huts were empty, and Joe Boleo explained that the Oneidas had cleared out the same day the British Indians left Oswego.

Along the road the rest of the army bivouacked as they had the night before, wherever there was room. It was nearly dark when Demooth’s company were finally fed and ready to lie down in their smudges. But as they sat on the ground, quietly in the dark, with the firelight streaking the boles of the trees, and a white mist creeping towards them from the river flats, a man floundered down the line, calling over and over, “Captain Mark Demooth. Captain Mark Demooth.”

“This way,” Demooth answered for himself. “What is it?”

“Herkimer wants to see you in his tent.”

“Who are you?”

“Adam Helmer. Do you know where Joe Boleo is?”

“Right here,” said Joe. “Has Herkimer got any likker on him?”

Herkimer’s tent was pitched in a natural clearing a little behind the Canajoharie militia. His old white horse, ghostly and gray in the mist, was grazing stodgily beside it. They could hear the steady crunching of his teeth, and the small tearing sound of the parting roots. There was no sentry. Nobody hailed them. Even the horse didn’t trouble to prick his ears.

Joe pulled the flap open and asked, “What’s bothering you, Honnikol?”

“Come in, Joe.”

Seated on his blanket, the little German was thoughtfully smoking his pipe. “Sit down,” he said when they had entered. “Spencer’s bringing Skenandoa.”

The low tent was rank with the tobacco, but none of them noticed that.

Even Joe Boleo, when he saw the general’s troubled face, forgot the liquor question.

“Those bug-tits been dripping again?” he asked.

“If you mean Cox and Fisscher and Paris,” the general said quietly. “Yah.” He pushed the tobacco down in the pipe bowl with a calloused thumb. “It ain’t them bothers me.”

But they could tell by his voice that the. officers were getting under his skin.

“It ain’t them,” he said. “Spencer says Skenandoa thinks that Butler has moved out of camp and that he’s waiting for us.” He cocked his head towards the west and for a minute all four men were so still that the flowing of Oriskany Creek on its rift in the mist was audible in the tent. And queer mingling sounds come with it: the clink of a halter link on a tied horse; the raised voice of a distant man; the hooting of a small owl back in the hemlocks; the grumble of a frog by the waterside.

“Spencer’s bringing Skenandoa.” Herkimer stopped again. “That must be them outside.”

The two Indians had come quietly. Turning, the four white men saw Spencer’s blacksmith hand pull back the flap. Then the old chief of the Oneidas stepped in. He bent his head with dignity. He was wrapped around in his blanket, and he scarcely seemed to crease it as he squatted down in the door, so that they saw his dark-skinned wrinkled face, and the red head covering against the fire on the ground.

Spencer said above him, “Skenandoa’s young men have come back.”

Herkimer said nothing. After a minute more, Skenandoa nodded his head. “They say Butler and Brant have moved the Indians down the road from the camp. They are doing it now. The white men are coming along soon.”

Herkimer thanked him quietly.

“That’s all?”

“Yes.”

“Have you Oneidas made up your minds?”

The chief seemed to have withdrawn inside his own old thoughts.

When he replied, his voice was low. “The Mohawks and the Senecas have sent threats. Mr. Kirkland is my good friend. Some of us will go.”

“Thanks.”

The two Indians departed, almost as quietly as they had come.

“You see,” said Herkimer. “It’s what we would expect. But these military gentlemen, they want to ride right through, banging on drums. Cox says it is disgraceful we ain’t got trumpets!”

“What do you want us to do, Honnikol?”

“I’ve been thinking, all day. I think if we could get Gansevoort to send out men against their camp, eh?”

Demooth nodded.

“You, Joe, and you, Adam, you know these woods. Do you think you could get into the fort? With the Indians coming this way, you could go round and get inside?”

Helmer laughed.

“Sure,” he said offhand.

“I can’t let Bellinger or Klock go. Mark, will you? You’re the only other officer that knows these woods and Indians.”

“What’ll we tell him?” Demooth asked.

“Send out men if he can, and fire three cannon to let us know.” He got up and walked to the door. “It’s misty. You’ll have good cover.” The pipe smoke mingled with the mist. “You better get going now.”

In the morning, Herkimer sent out a call for all commanding officers to come to his tent. While the men were cooking breakfast they arrived. They made a knot of uniforms, bright, lighthearted, against the dark hemlock boughs. Cox with his bellicose flushed face and staring eyes; Bellinger, rawboned, simple, honest, looking worried; Klock, stodgy, chewing snuff and still smelling faintly of manure and already sweating; Campbell’s gray face freshly shaved; Fisscher, dapper and dandy in his tailor-made coat and new cocked hat; and the black-coated, clerkly, calculating Mr. Paris. Behind them assorted captains and majors waited, watching.

Cox had the first word, as he always did.

“Well, Herkimer. Going to give us marching orders?”

“Pretty soon.”

“Why not now? The sooner we get going, the sooner we’ll have Sillinger making tracks for home.”

“Listen, the Oneidas told me last night that Brant and Butler have got the Indians somewhere up the road. They moved down after dark. Johnson’s troops ought to be there by now.”

“Fine,” Cox said boisterously. “We can lick the Tories and then we can tend to the regulars. Like eggs and bacon for breakfast.”

Herkimer looked thoughtfully from face to face, looking for support, perhaps, or perhaps just looking for what was there. Only Bellinger was attentive— and maybe Klock.

“We won’t break camp for a while,” Herkimer said. “I’ve sent Demooth and two men up to the fort. They’ll send a party out and shoot off three cannon when they do. We’ll move when we hear the guns.”

For a moment no one said a word. But they all looked at Herkimer in the sunshine, while the morning birds cheeped in the surrounding trees.

“You mean we’ve got to sit here on our arses?” demanded Cox.

“If you like to wait like that,” said Herkimer. “I do not mind.”

“Personally,” said Fisscher, “I’m getting sick of waiting.”

Herkimer said nothing.

“It’s a good idea,” Bellinger said loyally.

“You getting scared too?” said Paris.

Herkimer held up his hand with the pipe in it.

“There’s no sense fighting among ourselves.”

“What’s the matter? We’ll outnumber them. The whites. We can handle the Indians on the side.”

“You’ve never seen an Indian ambush,” said Herkimer.

“Oh, my God,” cried Cox, “this isn’t 1757! Can’t you get that through your thick German head?”

Rumor had gone down the road that the gentry were having words. The men abandoned their fires to hear the fun. Many of them left their guns behind. They pushed off the road, surrounding the clearing, till the little German seated before his tent was the focal point of over a hundred pairs of eyes.

Gil Martin, coming with the rest, listened among strangers. For over an hour the silly fatuous remarks went on. Some said you could not hear a cannon that far; some said that the three men would surely get captured; some said that probably they’d never gone to the fort at all. That was Parish voice.

Herkimer sat in their midst with the voices flinging back and forth above his head; his shirt was still unbuttoned, showing his stained woolen undershirt. Now and then he took his pipe from his lips to answer some remark that had a rudiment of sense behind it; but the rest of the time he kept his head turned to the west, listening. Apparently he was unheeding; but the men close to him could see his cheeks flexing from time to time and the slow even reddening of his skin.

It was Cox who finally touched the match.