Lost Farm Camp

by Henry Herbert Knibbs

“Billy riz up and a’most fell back, but I didn’t wait to see what come of him. I quit feelin’ like a human. I commenced to feel big and strong and quiet inside, like God A’mighty. I walked over to Jules, takin’ off my mackinaw as I went. He didn’t move. Jest stood thar holdin’ thet knife as was drip, drip, drippin’, makin’ leetle red holes in the snow.

“‘Keep the knife,’ I says. ‘You are a-goin’ to need it’; and then I only recollec’ suthin’ hot across this here eye and I had a holt of him. I could lift a bar’l of flour by the chimes, them days.... When I had stomped what I reckoned to be all the life outen him, I took Gray Billy by the forelock—his bridle bein’ off so ’st he could eat—and led him up to the thing on the snow. ‘Billy,’ I says, ‘I can’t see good—suthin’ queer in my eyes, but I kin see a black suthin’ on the snow what mebby was a man onct and mebby not. Thet man stuck a knife into you, but he won’t stick no hosses no more.’

“Then I led Billy acrost the thing on the snow, twict, but thet hoss stepped over it, instid of on it as I were wishful. Then I kind of slumped down ag’in’ a tree and went to sleep. The boys come back on the road a’ter the noon spell, and found me settin’ ag’in’ the tree, and it layin’ on the snow, and Gray Billy a-shiverin’ whenever anybody come a-nigh him. The hoss got along purty good, but was always a bit tetchy a’ter thet knifin’ business. He never feared me none, though. Jules warn’t dead, which were no fault of mine, but Gray Billy’s.

“I recollec’ layin’ in the cabin thet night, listenin’ to the kettle bilin’ and the baby chirrupin’ and Nanette movin’ round. She come in whar I was and see I was some easier than when they fetched me home. ‘Bud,’ she says, ‘you almos’ keel Jule.’ ‘Reckon I have,’ says I. ‘Ain’t he dead yit?’ She didn’t say nothin’ to thet. ‘You seen Billy’s shoulder?’ says I. ‘Oui, Bud,’ she says. Thet was all. A woman kin understand some things without talkin’ ’most as good as a hoss kin. But Billy were onlucky. Jules he pulled through—them kind allus does—and went up into Canady ag’in—Northwest Territ’ry this time. Spring come and I got so ’st I could see outen my good eye. One evenin’ Nanette she fetched in a bunch of them flowers, the white uns, and fixed ’em up on the table. I reckoned thet was sign thet Jule hed got well. It came along to rain about sundown, and I started to go and see to the hosses. Then she says, ‘No, Bud, not yet. You take cold.’ And she reached down one of Jule’s ole coats and says, ‘I go.’ And why she kissed me and laughed and then kissed leetle Swickey, and said ‘Good-bye, Bud,’—jokin’ fur sure.—I ain’t never understood yit. I was pretendin’ to play with the baby when I heard a goin’s-on in the stable, and when Nanette didn’t come back I went out to see.”

As Avery paused David noticed that his big-knuckled hands were folded on his knee in unconscious finality. He was treading very softly toward the end of his journey.

“Thet coat done it! Gray Billy smelt thet coat of Jule’s, and from what I could see, he lashed out jest as she come behint him. I carried her in and laid her on the bed. When she spoke, I could sca’c’ly hear,—her side was crushed in suthin’ turrible.

“‘Bud,’ she says, ‘Gray Billy didn’t know it was me. He thought—it—was—’ and then she said suthin’ in French, what, I couldn’t ketch. I reckon she prayed.

“Then she kep’ astin’ me suthin’ with her eyes. I brung Swickey to her and she tetched the baby’s dress. I seed she was goin’. Then I stooped down and she whispered, drawin’ in her breath and holdin’ it fur every word, ‘Good-bye, Bud. Be good to Billy.’ Then she tetched the baby ag’in. ‘Take—care—of—her—.’ She lifted herself up and then fell back.... I don’t recollec’ clear....”

Avery had long passed the point where David’s interest in the story meant anything to him. He was regathering old memories, and he spoke, not of them but through them, with a simplicity and forgetfulness of his present self that showed the giant behind the genial mask, albeit battered by age and perilous toil. Presently he remembered David and continued:

“Wal, I sold Gray Billy and Gray Tom. Hain’t never tetched a hoss since. But a’ter thet the name of ‘Hoss’ sorter crawled along ahead of me from camp to camp. Then I took to handlin’ the dinnimite.”