THE WILD TURKEY
THE ending to that strange and unsettled life that Jack led at the
Roost came as suddenly and as sharply as though the one part of his
existence had been severed from the other part by the keen cut of the
knife of fate.
Mr. Parker had been away from home for nearly a couple of weeks. He had
not taken Jack with him, so that during that time the lad had little
or nothing to do excepting such light work about the house as Peggy
Pitcher demanded of him.
A great deal of his time he spent in or about Dennis’s cabin, maybe
sitting in the great sooty fireplace talking ramblingly to the
overseer, while the negro wife pattered about the bare earthen floor
in her naked feet, her face always stolid and expressionless as with a
sort of savage, almost resentful reserve.
When the master was away from home, Dennis, as has been said, sometimes
went off fishing or hunting. He had an old musket hidden away in his
cabin, and now and then he would fetch home a raccoon, an opossum,
a half-dozen squirrels, or some other such bit of fresh meat from
the forest or the clearing. One hot and sultry afternoon during this
memorable time of the master’s absence, he and Jack started off to a
clearing about a mile away, where of a morning or in the slant of the
day a flock of turkey-cocks, banished now from the company of their
hens, would gather together to feed in the long, shaggy grass.
Peggy Pitcher was very angry at Jack’s going with Dennis instead of
staying at home to attend to his work. She and Jack were very good
friends, but there were times when she would become very provoked with
him. “I just wish his honor would come home and find you gone,” she
said. “I’d just like him to give you a good leathering some fine day.
Then maybe you’d learn to stay at home and ‘tend to your own work.”
She was very angry, and Jack burst out laughing at her as he ran away
out of the house and into the hot yellow afternoon sunshine.
Dennis, with his musket balanced over his shoulder, was waiting for
Jack, and the two struck off together across a shaggy field of last
year’s Indian corn, toward a dark belt of pine woods in the distance.
There were some half-dozen negroes hoeing in a neighboring field under
guard of a half-breed overseer, and they stopped from their work and
stood looking as the two passed by. Before they reached the woodland,
Little Coffee came running after them. He reached them panting, the
sweat running down his black face in bright drops. Dennis did not order
him home again, but without seeming to perceive his presence, walked
away, straight across the shaggy field, striking into the edge of the
clearing that bounded the deeper growth of woods beyond, Jack keeping
pace with him on one side and Little Coffee upon the other.
“When I rode over to Marlborough t’other day,” said Jack, “there was a
great big turkey came out and crossed over the road just in front of
me. I believe I could have knocked it over with a stick or a stone if
I’d had one in my hand.”
“Aye,” said Dennis, “there be a many of them through the woods.” He was
chewing upon a piece of spice-wood which he had broken off from one of
the bushes as he passed by.
“Me see heaps of turkeys lots of times,” said Little Coffee, but
neither Jack nor Dennis paid any attention to him.
To Jack the woods presently became an impenetrable maze of trees and
undergrowth, but Dennis walked straight on without any hesitation. It
was very warm under the still shadows of the pines. Now and then there
were patches of underbrush, and now and then they had to stoop low
to pass through the thickets; Little Coffee was sometimes obliged to
pick his way so carefully through the cat-briers that he was left far
behind. At a certain place they came to a morass in the woods which
seemed to be the head waters of some creek—a cluster of smooth, glassy
pools, surrounded by trees and bushes. Here the ground was soft and
spongy under foot, and Dennis picked his way carefully along, Jack
following in his footsteps.
“Look at that snake!” cried out Dennis sharply, and Jack started
violently at the quick words breaking upon the silence. Dennis made a
thrust at the reptile with the butt of his gun, but it slipped quickly
into the water and was gone.
“‘Twas a moccasin-snake,” said Dennis.
Jack laughed. “I’m glad I haven’t Little Coffee’s bare legs, anyhow,”
he said. Dennis grinned and looked at Little Coffee where he stood with
rolling eyes, seeing another snake in every coil of roots.
Jack never forgot these minute particulars of that day’s adventures;
that which happened afterward seemed to stamp them indelibly upon his
memory.
So, at last, they came out into an open space of some twenty or thirty
acres in extent where the trees had been cleared away. Here and there
were little patches of bushes, and here and there the tall trunk of a
tree, blackened and seared by fire, stood stark and erect. Across,
beyond the clearing, was a strip of blue river, the distant further
shore hazy in the hot sunlight.
“Is this the place where the turkeys feed?” Jack asked.
“Aye,” said Dennis. “Phew!” he continued, wiping his streaming face
with his shirt-sleeve, “it surely be mortal hot this day.”
Jack looked all around the wide spread of clearing. There was not
a sign of life in all the vast shimmering expanse, except a few
turkey-buzzards sailing smoothly through the air and two or three
others perched upon a blackened limb of a tree.
“There’s something dead over yonder,” observed Dennis.
“Where do you find the turkeys, Dennis?” said Jack.
“Find ‘em!” said Dennis. “Why, you find ‘em here. Where else should you
find ‘em?” Jack did not ask further questions, and presently Dennis
explained: “They won’t come out of the woods till toward the cool of
the afternoon, when they come out to feed. Then we’ve got to creep upon
‘em or lay by till they come to us.” As he spoke he wiped his face
again with his sleeve.
By and by he began loading his musket, measuring the powder very
carefully, wrapping the bullet in a piece of greasy cloth, and ramming
it down with some difficulty into the gun.
Jack sat upon a fallen log, watching him, and Little Coffee sat
squatted upon his hams, also looking on. After Dennis had loaded his
musket, he propped it carefully upon the log and then stretched himself
out at length upon a little grassy place under the shade of a tree. “By
smoke!” he said, “I wish I had a drink of water.”
Jack had not realized until Dennis spoke how thirsty he himself was. “I
wish I had one, too,” he said.
“Well, you can just wish for it,” said Dennis, “and so can I, and
that’s the best we can do. You keep a sharp lookout now,” he said, “and
the best pair of eyes sees the turkeys first.”
He stretched himself out as he spoke and closed his eyes, as though to
sleep.
* * * * *
The sun had sunk further and further toward the west, and the shadows
of the trees were growing longer and longer. Jack sat listening and
enjoying the warm solitude. How strange and wonderful it all was; how
far remote from that old life he had left behind in England. England!
his mind went backward feeling around amid the things of the past, and
measuring them with the present. That was England—this was America.
“Yan de turkey, Massa Dennis!” Little Coffee whispered, suddenly, and
Jack came sharply back to the consciousness of things about him with a
sudden keen thrill that was almost painful in its intensity.
Dennis had started up from where he lay and was looking in the
direction in which Little Coffee was pointing. Jack raised himself
cautiously and also looked in the same direction. His heart was beating
very quickly. The turkeys had come out from the woods without any one
of the three having seen them until that moment. They were feeding in
the open about a furlong away, and maybe fifty or sixty yards from the
edge of the woods.
Dennis arose, and, without speaking, took up his gun. Then, partly
crouching, he skirted back into the woods and along the edge of the
clearing, Jack following him and Little Coffee following Jack. So
they went on for some distance, and then Dennis turned sharply out
again toward the edge of the woods. He went forward now very slowly
and cautiously, and Jack still followed him, half crouching. He was
intensely excited, his mouth was dry and clammy, and his pulse beat
heavily in his ears. He did not notice the sweat trickling down his
face. Would Dennis really shoot one of the turkeys?
“Wait a little,” said Dennis, without turning around, “till I see where
I be.”
Jack could now see between the thickets that the clearing was just
ahead. Dennis crept cautiously forward and Jack stood watching him.
Presently he saw that the other was beckoning for him to come forward.
He did so, approaching very carefully. Dennis was crouched down,
looking out through the bushes, and Jack came close to him, Little
Coffee following. He peered out from between the leaves; there were
the turkeys, perhaps fifty or sixty yards away—a half a dozen or more
great cock turkeys. To Jack’s eyes they looked very big and very near.
“’Tis like if we went on a little furder,” whispered Dennis, “’twould
bring us nigher to them, but I have a mind to risk a shot from here.”
He was crouched, gazing at the turkeys. Then he carefully raised the
musket and thrust it out through a fork of the bush in front of him. He
took a long, steady aim. Jack waited, hardly daring to breathe, every
nerve tensely braced to meet the shock of the discharge.
Something must have alarmed the birds, for one great cock suddenly
raised his head and looked sharply this way and that, and then they
were all standing with their necks stretched high, looking intently
about them. Then suddenly there came the stunning, deafening report of
the musket. A cloud of pungent smoke hid everything for a little while;
then it had dissolved.
Could Jack believe his eyes? One great turkey cock was flapping and
struggling upon the ground.
He leaped up with a shout and ran out into the clearing. He heard
Little Coffee shout behind him as he ran forward through the long,
shaggy grass, jumping over the stumps, and he had a vision of the
rest of the turkeys scattering with shrill, piping cries toward the
woods—half-flying, half-running—then he was standing over the turkey
cock where it lay upon the ground in the tall, brown grass. It was
nearly motionless when he reached it, and its half-closed eyes were
still bright with the life that was just leaving them. There it lay,
and Jack looked down at it in an ecstasy. The sun shone upon the
burnished, metallic luster of its neck-feathers—purple, blue, green.
Its great horny foot gave a futile, scratching struggle, and then it
was quite still.
Dennis was coming hurrying forward at a trot, carrying his musket
hanging at his side. Little Coffee was capering around. Dennis came
up to where Jack stood. He hid whatever exultation he might have felt
under an assumed air of indifference. “‘Twas a pretty long shot,” he
said, “and methought I’d miss it. But ’twas the only chance I had.”
As he spoke he wiped his face with his sleeve. He picked up the bird
and held it out at arm’s length. Its wings fell open as he did so. Then
he dropped it again heavily upon the ground. “Well,” he said, “there’s
fresh meat for Nama, anyhow.”
“I’ll carry it home for you, Dennis,” said Jack.
“You may if you choose,” said Dennis.
* * * * *
The shadows were growing longer and longer as they plunged into the
woods again with their faces turned homeward. Jack soon found his load
was very heavy, and presently he was glad to share it with Little
Coffee. He tied the feet of the great bird together with one of his
shoe-strings; then he slung it over a branch, he taking one end upon
his shoulder and Little Coffee the other. Then again they went onward,
Dennis leading the way.
[Illustration: “HE PICKED UP THE BIRD AND HELD IT OUT AT ARM’S
LENGTH.”]
The sun had set and the first shade of twilight was beginning to fall
when they came out again from the woods and in sight of the Roost.
As they came up to the row of cabins Kala came out to meet them. “De
master he came home while ago,” he said. “He be axing for you.”
Jack stood stock-still. “What’s that, Kala?” said he.
“De master he came home,” repeated Kala. “He been axing for you.”
Somehow Jack could not believe what he heard. “D’ye mean Mr. Parker’s
come back?” he said.
“Hum-hum,” said Kala, nodding his head.