Читать книгу Finding Faith - C. E. Edmonson - Страница 6

BEN HIGHTOWER MANEUVERED the pickup through the lot and onto the road, following the path of Pauline’s Cadillac limousine, long ago lost to sight. A marker by the side of the road read: “SR 115.” Faith Covington assumed that SR meant “state road” and she wondered why the road had a number and not a name. But she didn’t raise the question with her mother or Ben Hightower. There was no point. That was their road and they were going to take it: name, number, or nothing.

They drove the first several miles through a resort area. Most of the inns were little more than Victorian houses with deep gables and porches that wrapped around the fronts of the buildings. The one exception was the Pocono Manor Inn. With its fieldstone walls and rounded corners, the manor resembled a medieval castle. Faith spied a small lake behind the house.

For just a moment, she was cheered, but then the resorts dropped away and the forest pressed in on both sides of the narrow road. To her, the woods seemed impenetrable. The branches of the smaller trees intertwined at the level of her head and every inch of ground was covered with brush.

Thankfully, her mother’s attempt at conversation took her mind off the forest for a moment.

“Well, Ben, how have you been?” Margaret asked.

“I’m doin’ okay.”

“And Aunt Eva?”

“Eva’s her usual surly self.” Ben’s small mouth broadened slightly. He might have been smiling. He might have been nursing a toothache. Faith couldn’t tell either way.

“That bad?” Margaret asked.

“Eva is what she is. I’m not expectin’ her to change. No, ma’am.”

Margaret turned to her daughter. “Ben’s been staying with Aunt Eva for years. They’re a team.”

Staying with Aunt Eva? Talk about never done! In Faith’s world, a respectable woman would never think of sharing a house with a man she hadn’t married.

“What do you do?” Faith asked Ben.

“Whatever Eva tells me to.”

Ben and Margaret laughed, sharing a joke lost on Faith. Back in New York, there was a word for husbands who were bossed around by their wives: “henpecked.” Only Ben wasn’t Aunt Eva’s husband. He was some kind of employee, maybe like a ranch hand in a western movie. But in the movies, ranch hands were always white and Ben Hightower was definitely a red man. He had the small eyes and broad cheekbones of movie Indians, and his expression, now that he’d settled down, was so composed that New Yorkers would probably assume he’d lost consciousness.

“I guess I don’t have to ask how you been,” he said to Margaret. “From what I’m hearin’, things are mighty rough in the cities.” Ben shifted into third gear and the truck—though it blew out a cloud of black smoke in protest—slowly accelerated.

“‘Mighty rough’ doesn’t begin to describe the situation,” Margaret said, her voice flat. “New York is falling apart. We’re just part of the rubble.”

Ben ignored the bitter tone. “I remember them summers you passed with us, Margaret...remember ’em real well. Yes, ma’am. You were a might spunky, if I do say so. Spoke up, too, and ain’t too many folks speak up to Eva. Way I see it, you’ll do fine. You got grit.”

“Thanks for that, Ben. I only wish I was as certain.”

Faith looked past Ben and out the window as they passed a small house. The house, and the little clearing it stood on, was gone in an instant, and they were back to the forest. This time, though, Faith managed to pick out a few details. First thing, the leaves on the trees were tiny, unlike the forest in the valley, where the leaves were fully developed. They were high up on the mountain now, and the effects were plain to see.

“Is spring always this late?” she asked.

“The winter was cold,” Ben explained. “Still had ice on the lake two weeks ago. But it’s warmed up now.”

“Did Aunt Eva get her crop in yet?” Margaret asked.

“Just gettin’ started.”

Faith spotted a line of small trees in full blossom, their branches lined with clusters of small white flowers. “What are they called?” she asked.

“Juneberry,” her mother replied.

“Make good eatin’ when the berries are ripe,” Ben added.

“And those?” Faith gestured to a patch of yellow blossoms growing in the open space beside the road. The flowers were butter-bright in the sun.

“Wintercress,” Margaret responded.

“Scurvy grass,” Ben quickly added.

Faith shuddered. Scurvy? Wasn’t that a disease that British sailors got?

“Does wintercress make you sick?” she asked.

“Just the opposite,” Margaret said. “Late winter was always a hard time for Indians, especially up here where the first frosts come early. Without green vegetables, the people suffered from a number of vitamin deficiencies, especially Vitamin C, which causes scurvy.”

Faith was impressed—and more than a little surprised— that her mother knew so much about plants. Back home, she couldn’t even keep a house fern alive.

“And wintercress contains Vitamin C?” Faith asked.

“Exactly. The plant begins to grow very early in the spring. In the old days, the people were more or less desperate for green vegetables by then.” Margaret looked at Ben. “But that was the Indian way of life. Feast or famine.”

“What does...scurvy grass taste like?” Faith asked.

Ben spoke without turning his eyes from the road. “That, Miss Faith, you’ll find out for yourself. We’ll be eatin’ it tonight.”

They drove on for another fifteen minutes, occasionally passing a few small houses, until they finally came to a Texaco gas station. By then, steam was leaking out from beneath the Chevrolet truck’s hood and the needle on the gas gauge was pointing to empty. Ben pulled inside, settling the truck next to a bright red gas pump. The pump was crowned with a circular crest displaying the familiar Texaco star against a white background. A sign just beneath the crest announced the price: “12 CENTS/Complaints Extra.”

“Twelve cents a gallon,” Ben complained as he opened the door. “It’s ten cents in Stroudsburg.”

An attendant came out of a repair bay, wiping his hands on a greasy rag, only to have Ben wave him away. Ben took off the Chevrolet’s gas cap himself and inserted the pump’s nozzle into the neck of the gas tank. He started the gas flowing just as a V8 Oldsmobile sedan pulled into the station. The passenger-side door opened almost before the car stopped and a man got out, leaving his companion behind the wheel.

The man was tall and lean, with muscular arms that he folded over his chest. He wore a gray cap pulled down across his forehead, which was low to begin with, and his left cheek bore a long, jagged scar. Faith watched from inside the pickup as he ran a finger along the scar. Though the man didn’t speak, not at first, his bad intentions were obvious. The look on his face was scornful in the extreme.

Ben pumped five gallons of gas into the pickup, and then went inside for a water can. He returned and opened the hood, never so much as glancing at the Oldsmobile sedan or the man who leaned against it.

“Hey, Hiawatha, you been on the warpath lately?” The man brought his fingers to his mouth and let out a whoop. “You scalp any peaceable settlers?”

Very carefully, Ben took a rag out of his back pocket and removed the radiator cap, unleashing a plume of white steam. He stepped away from the car and shoved the rag into his pocket.

“Not talkin’? Oh, yeah, now I remember right. You’re one of them silent injuns. Lemme hear you say, ‘Ugh.’” Overcome by his own wit, the man began to laugh.

Faith listened in disbelief. The tension she felt was completely unfamiliar. Was this what it meant to be an Indian? Why didn’t Ben respond? Even her mother was responding; she had rolled down the window and stuck her head out with her sternest stare, which had always worked on Faith—no words necessary.

Faith could feel the outrage. Ben had done nothing to provoke this attack. But even now, as he poured water into the radiator, his features were composed. If the man’s taunts were reaching him, he gave no indication.

“I got it, injun. Lemme hear you say, ‘How.’” Pleased with himself, the man repeated the word, dragging it out: “Howwwww!” That brought another laugh. “Say, I hear there’s work for ya down in Cresco. Ol’ Karl Stamford’s decided to go into the cigar business. You could be his cigar store injun. Oh, but wait, you injuns don’t like work, ain’t that right? You all just wanna run through the woods, shootin’ squirrels and such. Mighty warriors.”

Faith felt like she couldn’t breathe. She watched Ben as he replaced the radiator cap and carried the water can back into the station. he reached into his pocket, came out with a handful of coins, and handed them to an older man who was busily repairing a tire. Ben was on the way back when the man leaning against the Oldsmobile spoke again.

“Guess you’re doin’ right well these days.” The man paused long enough to glance at his companion in the car before delivering the punch line. “But I do gotta say that you’re gettin’ too long in the tooth, old man, to be totin’ around two squaws. Seems like one’d be enough.”

Faith felt her heart drop. Somehow, without her knowing it, she’d become an Indian. And this, apparently, was how Indians were routinely treated.

Faith’s mother had spoken about choosing to live in the American way, about how Aunt Eva considered her a traitor. That was ridiculous. The surprise was that anybody would choose to live as an Indian.

Still, Ben didn’t react, not until the man took a step toward him. Then he reached calmly into the pickup’s bed and withdrew an axe handle. The handle was split on the end that would have held the axe head, but it was perfectly suited to the task at hand. Ben held the wooden handle with both hands at a diagonal across his chest. He didn’t speak, but his expression hardened. That he’d made a decision to fight was as obvious to Faith as it was to the man with the scar, who stopped in his tracks.

“What you gonna do with that?” he asked.

“Put your hands on me, Crease Marron, and you’ll find out.”

The man inside the car broke the tension. Faith couldn’t see him, but his voice carried across the open lot.

“Get back in the car, Crease. Now.”

That was all the excuse that Crease Marron needed. He spit on the ground, a lot closer to his own feet than to Ben Hightower’s, before rejoining his companion. A moment later, the Oldsmobile sedan disappeared around a curve in the road.

“I’m sorry, honey,” Margaret whispered to Faith as Ben got into the truck. “I’m sorry for dragging you into this. I had no idea.”

Faith almost spoke the words on the tip of her tongue, but she checked herself at the last minute. She wanted to ask, What choice did you have? But she knew the question would only make her mother feel worse.

Ben started to put the Chevrolet in gear, but Margaret twisted the key in the ignition, shutting the truck down.

“Don’t think you can just drive off without an explanation, Ben Hightower,” she said. “Because I won’t have it. This was no random encounter.”

Faith marveled. Her mother rarely disagreed with her husband, and when she did, it was only in the most careful and measured tones. Though Faith was still trembling, she realized, dimly, that there were aspects of her changed circumstances that she might be able to live with.

Faith, like most of her girlfriends, didn’t relish the prospect of spending the rest of her life trying to please a man, but there just didn’t seem to be any way out of it. At least in the world she’d left behind.

“I’m thinkin’ you’d best hear the news from Eva,” Ben said. He started the truck and shifted into first gear, but didn’t take his foot off the clutch. “That man who come out of the Olds, Crease Marron, he’s deputy constable for the township. The other one, his name is Abe Hoskins. He’s the constable. Crease is a mean son-of-a-gun, but his boss is the dangerous one.”

Faith spoke up first. New York City was divided into five boroughs. Township was a totally unfamiliar concept. “What’s a township?” she asked.

“Pennsylvania is divided into counties,” Margaret said, “and the counties are subdivided into townships. We’re in Albemarle Township, which is part of Monroe County.”

“And a constable is like a policeman?”

“There’s a county sheriff, but he spends most of his time in Stroudsburg. That’s the biggest town, where most of the tourists go in the summer. Constables only have authority in the townships,” her mother explained.

“How many constables are there in...Al-be-marle Township?”

“One constable,” Ben said as he revved the engine of the Chevrolet pickup truck, “and one deputy constable.”

Now it was Margaret’s turn. “So, all right, Ben, out with it. Why did that deputy constable challenge you? Why did he talk to you that way?”

Ben shifted gears, taking his time, and the engine roared as the little truck accelerated, giving him another excuse for delay. Finally, he said, “It’s the same old story, Margaret. If an Indian has somethin’ white people want, they take it.”

“What do they want this time?” Faith asked.

“Land, same as usual. The land we been livin’ on for a hundred years. My parents and grandparents are buried on the shores of Wildwood Lake. Me, I always planned to join ’em there.”

“And this is what they’re doing, harassing you?”

Ben finally shook his head. This was as far as he was prepared to go. “If you don’t mind, I’ll leave Eva to tell you the rest. Eva likes to talk.”

Satisfied, Margaret leaned back and put her arm around Faith’s shoulders. They were passing through a stretch of unbroken forest, mile after mile of trees and brush. The sun was directly overhead and its beams passed through the leaves of the hardwoods to dapple the forest floor with light. The alternate pattern of light and shadow fascinated Faith, and she was a bit cheered simply to discover that light actually reached the ground. From the train, it had seemed as if the sunlight were being absorbed by the upper branches of the trees and everything below would be in darkness.

They drove on for another fifteen minutes without passing a house. The only evidence of human activity were the NO HUNTING signs nailed to the trees closest to the road. And even those were few and far between. Faith was beginning to wonder if the forest stretched clear to California when a lake came into view.

“Hold up for a minute, Ben,” Margaret said. She waited until Ben pulled onto the margin of the road and set the handbrake. “That’s Wildwood Lake, Faith. That’s where we’re going. Wildwood is the largest lake on the Pocono plateau, and the deepest, too.”

Despite her mother’s enthusiasm, Faith wasn’t all that impressed. Her family had visited Lake George in the Adirondack Mountains a few years ago and Lake George was much bigger. In fact, New York’s harbor alone was big enough to swallow a dozen Wildwood Lakes. Plus, there wasn’t a home in view; the lake appeared to be surrounded by unbroken forest. Nor were there any boats on the water, or any sign that humans had ever been there, only birds, dozens and dozens of them, scattered across the placid, sun-swept surface. Faith recognized Canadian geese and some of the ducks—she’d seen them often enough on the tiny lake in Central Park—but the other kinds of birds were completely unknown. She watched them for a minute as they dove underwater then resurfaced, only to dive again a moment later.

“Look there, Faith.” Margaret pointed to a paved road that disappeared into the trees surrounding the lake.

“Is that the way in?” Faith asked. “Why can’t I see any houses?”

“You can’t see any houses because they’re hidden by the trees. The property owners wanted to preserve the wild view. As for your first question, that road is, indeed, a way into the community. Just not into our community, which is at the other end of the lake. You see, Wildwood Lake has become a hunting and fishing preserve for a few of Pennsylvania’s most powerful families. I don’t like putting it that way, but there’s no way to get around the facts. We were here first, but we live by their rules. Except for a few thousand acres to the east, which is our little world, they control all the land for miles around.”

Faith shifted in her seat. “Do you mean people like Jaspin Gore?”

“Miss Faith, how do you know about Jaspin Gore?” Ben asked.

“The girl at the station, Pauline. She told me that she was Jaspin Gore’s daughter.”

Faith looked out over the lake at a flock of geese descending one by one, their honking calls as penetrating as they were raucous. The geese were hitting hard, sending up sprays of water. Faith watched the flock swim in circles for a moment, until all had landed. Then they came together, forming a wedge, before swimming toward the far end of the lake.

“What would happen,” she asked, “if we took that road?”

“There’s a guard post a few hundred yards in. It’s still there, right?”

“Still there,” Ben said.

“Well, if we took that road, we’d be turned back unless we lived, or worked, there,” Faith’s mother continued. “We have to use the road at the other side of the lake. The two roads don’t connect. We have our road and they have theirs.”

Ben put the truck in gear and they drove for another few minutes until they came to a second road, this one unpaved and marked by deep ruts and exposed rock. Smiling, Ben spun the wheel.

“Almost home,” he said as they slowed to a crawl.