Footsteps sounded on the path behind him … he cringed inwardly. Yet even as he did so he felt an odd warmth, a very real pleasure. It irritated him that he should be so confused about himself. After all, what did he want to do? She walked up beside him and stopped, looking down at the damaged canoe. “It’ll be a job,” Linus said, “but I can patch her up as good as new.” “Linus … ?”
“Eve, let’s talk no more about it.”
“Linus, I’m telling you. You don’t know your own mind.” “Maybe so, maybe not. I ain’t denyin’ you been in my thoughts, but I still went to see the varmint with that pirate gal. I’ll always be goin’ to see the varmint, Eve—I just ain’t cut out to be either a farmer or a husband.” “Linus, I’m not going to bring the matter up again, whether I ever see you again or not.”
“That’s best, and I wish you Godspeed, Eve, and it’s been a long time since I said the like to anybody.”
Fighting tears, she turned swiftly away toward the path. Linus straightened up and for an instant he was about to call after her. Then, grimly, he closed his mouth.
To himself, he said, “You ain’t no marryin’ man. No sooner’d you squat on some land than you’d start to thinkin’ how the wind blows over South Pass, or the way that water ripples on that lake at the foot of the Tetons. “All the time you were plowing a furrow you’d be rememberin’ the long winds in the pines atop the Mogollon Rim in Arizona, or the slap of a beaver’s tail on the water of a pool some place up the Green. No, sir. You ain’t no marryin’ man, Linus, not by a long shot.”
He cut a patch of bark from a birch tree and settled down to remove the damaged square and replace it with the fresh piece, but the girl’s face remained in his mind, interfering with his work. He swore softly, scowling as he stitched the patch in its place.
It was time he set off for Pittsburgh … and the sooner the better. This was no time to be thinkin’ soft about any chance pilgrim girl.
Chapter 6
Although it was midday, darkness lay upon the river. The black, swollen waters ran swiftly, warned by lowering black clouds that hung low above. Thunder rumbled down far-off halls, and there was the sound of rain upon the water. A quarter of a mile ahead the Harvey raft raced through the water, seen through the steel veil of the rain. That would be Brutus at the oar … he was the stalwart one, the stable one. Never excited, never disturbed, when trouble or danger came he simply bowed his head and pushed on, as his sort will always push on, to their last day.
When others panic or shout, when they wail and shed bitter tears, decrying the changing times, there are those like Brutus who simply go on. Changing times, anger, disappointment, defeat—all these they take in stride, living their lives with quiet persistence.
Eve thought of that as she looked from the shelter into the rain. Brutus was a good man, and it was too bad it was not he whom she wanted. Not that he had ever indicated any interest in her, more than a normal, friendly interest. Zebulon squinted his eyes against the rain that hammered his cheeks, staring ahead, searching the river for snags. Lilith was fighting a rope, trying to tie the tent more securely over the frame, for a fierce gust of wind had torn it loose.
“Watch yourself, Lil!” he shouted, striving to be heard above the rumble of thunder and the rush of rain and wind. “You be careful!” He could no longer see the Harvey raft, for rain had blotted out everything. The river seemed to be rushing swifter … was it the rain and wind that made it seem so?
Anxiously, Zebulon peered ahead. One boy wounded and the other sickly … the girls trying hard to make up for Sam. He had never realized how much he had come to depend on Sam until now; suddenly, strangely, one half of his mind began to think of him, while the other half tried to estimate the river and fought with it.
Surprisingly, he actually had no idea what his son was like. A man has children and he takes them for granted; they are his, they have grown up in his home, and in many ways he knows them. And then he realizes of a sudden that they are people—individuals with thoughts, dreams, and ambitions perhaps far different from anything he had ever known.
He thought of Sam, comparing him to the girls—to Lilith, who did not know what she wanted … or hadn’t found the words for it, at least; and to Eve, who pointed at what she wanted with quiet persistence. Sam had seen through him. He had commented upon him going off to see that show and those show-folk. Sam had seen that in him, read him for his dreams, and it had made Zebulon suddenly shy before his son. Sam had understood at least something of him; but what did he know of Sam?
Suddenly, from the front of the raft, Zeke turned and cupped his hands. “Pa!” he yelled against the wind. “It’s the falls! The falls of the Ohio!” Shocked, Zebulon strained to his full height, staring through the veil of rain.
It could not be … it simply could not be. The falls were on the other channel. Unless—unless they had missed it. Where were the Harveys? After all, they couldn’t be that far ahead of him. Somehow he had missed the channel, and now the Harveys were gone, down the other side.
Fear rose within him. He fought it down, fought the ugly taste of it in his throat. There was no white water in sight, but Zeke was right: he could feel the pull of the current, he could feel the power of it against the raft, against his oar.
Now there was a dark smoothness to the water, and the raft seemed to gather speed. He had been warned that he would see no white water, not until too late, and that the rapids would seem anything but alarming. Only one who had tried to navigate those waters could understand their danger … it all looked so easy, so smooth.
Zeke shouted again, panic in his voice. Ahead Zebulon saw a huge rock, water boiling over it. Beyond it, he saw another.
Fear flooded over him like an icy wave. Desperately, Zebulon worked at the long sweep, but even as he fought the current, he knew how little he could do with the cumbersome raft in that strong current that was already sucking them toward the rocks.
The raft was no longer simply swept along by the current, it had become like a live thing, plunging and bounding upon the boiling water. Suddenly, as the bow of the raft lifted on a swell of rushing water, the wind caught the tent that had been tied over the framework to roof the house. The canvas billowed up like a great balloon, and Lilith caught wildly at the edge. In the next instant she was jerked over the side and plunged into the racing water, the canvas ripping loose and going with her. As she surfaced in the racing water, Eve thrust a pole toward her, but Lilith failed in a wild, futile grab at the end of the pole, and was swept away. At the last, before she vanished from sight, they saw she had turned and was swimming strongly, half riding the current, fighting her way toward shore. “Pa!” It was Zeke. “The tent’s draggin’ us! Cut her loose! Cut it away!” Dropping his useless steering oar, Zebulon caught up his axe and, staggering across the plunging raft, he struck wildly at the entangling ropes. The canvas tent, acting like a huge sea anchor, was turning the raft broadside. He struck, and struck again. Wildly as he seemed to strike, he struck true; the ropes were slashed and the tent disappeared on the wind. An instant more and the whole raft might have been turned over, capsized in the wild water. “Straighten her, pa! Straighten her!” Zebulon started for the steering sweep and was thrown headlong. He felt a wicked blow across the skull, and then he was up and grasping the sweep just as the end of the raft struck a rock. It was a crashing blow that shook the raft its entire length, and then the current swung the stern around and the raft had turned end for end.
With mounting horror, Zebulon saw that the jolt of the blow against the rock had snapped at least some of the binding cords, and the logs were spreading. Water showed between them. He shouted hoarsely, and dropped the useless oar to go to his wife, who was beside Sam.