Drums Along the Mohawk by Walter D. Edmonds

Author:Walter D. Edmonds [Edmunds, Walter D.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-101-87268-0
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2015-02-03T05:00:00+00:00

BOOK II

THE DESTRUCTIVES

VI

GERMAN FLATS (1777–1778)

1

Paid Off

Though there had been several light falls at German Flats early in November, the snow had not lasted. But now, as Lana looked out from the kitchen window of Mrs. McKlennar’s house, it seemed to her that snow must surely come soon. She had prayed for snow, as all the valley had prayed for it since the murder of the Mount boys in Jerseyfield. Deep snow alone, in the woods between themselves and Canada, could ensure their safety. Until it came, no family living beyond easy reach of the forts could feel secure; and many of them had once more moved into German Flats. At Mrs. McKlennar’s, Gil and Lana had moved into the stone house, while their own log house had been turned over to Joe Boleo and Adam Helmer. Both were homeless men, but Gil said that in the event of a raid, he and they together could hold a stone house like McKlennar’s safe as a castle.

For two days long lines of steely clouds had been moving out of the northwest. People in the valley could feel no wind; there was no visible sign of it except the clouds, or the sudden bending of the trees on one of the higher hills.

As Lana looked through the window she saw Joe Boleo emerge from the farmhouse, drawing on his foul pipe and studying the sky. She herself was impelled to join him in the yard.

“Do you think it’s going to snow?” she asked.

He held his position, eyes aloft, the sparse hair on his half-bald head shivering as if with cold. “Women are the devil,” he replied at large.

“Why, Mr. Boleo! I only asked a question.”

He turned a sober face on her.

“That’s so,” he said in obvious surprise.

Lana flushed, then laughed. Her cheeks were bright, against the gray background of the winter trees; her eyes shone. She enjoyed this shambling, indolent, gangling man for all his musky smell that reminded her of pelts. Now she made her voice sound humble: “Well, is it going to snow, do you think, please, Mr. Boleo?”

Joe kept grinning to himself. He wasn’t like Adam Helmer, who hated the sight of a pretty girl carrying a baby in her inside because it seemed to take the point out of her good looks. Joe liked any pretty face, and he had grown especially fond of Lana’s.

“Sure,” he replied. “It’s going to snow hard. There’s a real storm coming. Feel the cold. No, you can’t feel it on your skin. You’ve got to feel it in your nose. You can smell a big snow before it comes. And look there!” He pointed his long finger at a gap in the tumbling rollers of the clouds. “Just watch there a minute.”

As Lana came close to sight along his finger, Joe’s eyes slid sidewise. He thought she looked happy to-day. She was a real nice girl, he thought, the way she brought him and Adam things to eat and cleaned their house out for them.

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