"I still don't understand what you mean."
Walker closed his eyes for a few seconds and then opened them again. "From the first moment I saw the city of London," he said, "the demons came to me. They began their whispering in my ear, day and night. In my dreams I see them as high-collared Englishmen with gold coins and jewels in their fists. They have eyes like fire-pits, and they say, Look upon what will be. All those buildings, roads, coaches, and people. A hundred thousand chimneys, spouting black smoke. All that noise, like the beating of great drums that you can never find nor understand. All that confusion, and constant rushing like mad human rivers. The demons whispered: this is the future. Of everywhere. Not only of the English New York, and Philadelphia, and of every town the English build upon the earth. But for the Seneca, or the Mohawk, or any of my nation there will be no place left, among all those buildings and roads and noise. Oh, we'll fight for a place, yes, but we won't win. That's what my demons tell me; that's what they've shown me, and to make me insane they have ensured that no other of my tribe will believe it, because it is beyond belief. The world will be strange. My nation will no longer be part of it. All we have created all that is important to us gone, under the buildings and the roads, and all we hear will be lost to the noise."
He looked at Matthew and nodded. "Don't think you shall escape it. Someday you'll see your world and not know it, and think it strange monstrous, even. And you and your Englishmen will yearn for what was lost, and never be able to find it again, for that is the demon's trick. To point the way forward, but to close the way back."
Matthew ventured, "I suppose that's called progress."
"There is progress," Walker agreed, "and there is rushing toward an illusion. The first takes wisdom and a plan, the second can be done by any drunken fool. I know how that story ends." He regarded the watch again. "I will think of Mr. Oxley whenever I look at this. I will think of him hurrying through the night, toward a fortune that never existed, with a wagon full of mishaps of nature. And I will think that the greatest thing for a man-and maybe the hardest thing-is to make peace with the passage of time. Or the stopping of his own time." He returned the watch to the bag, and gathered up his cloak, his bow and quiver, and the belt with his knife. "It's not raining anymore. I'll find another place."
"You can stay here."
"No, I can't. I won't be far away, though. I believe we have four or five hours before light, so there's still plenty of time to sleep. Take it while you can."
"All right. Thank you." It was all Matthew could think to say. He watched as Walker strode off into the dark beyond the fire, which seemed a familiar place for the Indian to be. At last Matthew lay down and tried his best to relax, if that would ever be possible again. But weariness is weariness, after all, and slowly he began to drift off. His last sense of anything was hearing the voice of a nightbird far away in the woods, which stirred some memory that did not linger, but departed on silent wings.
Twenty
"So," said the Reverend, "you've had a good year, then?"
"Yes, sir. Very good," Peter Lindsay answered. "A bumper crop of corn, apples a'plenty, and pumpkins still on the vine. You must have seen them, out in the field."
"I did. Peter, you're a blessed man. To have such a farm as this, and such a lovely family. I was speaking with a fellow not long ago about greed. You know, how greed can lead a man into the valley of destruction. It's good that you're not greedy, Peter, and that you're satisfied with your position in life."
"I am, sir, and thank you."
"Well, we certainly need the glories of the farm, don't we? Just as we need " He paused, tapping his chin with one forefinger, which had a long and ragged nail.
"The glories of Heaven?" asked Peter's wife, Faith, who was preparing the midday meal at the hearth across the room. Her kitchen was a glory of its own: clean and tidy, with walls of pale yellow pinewood, an orderly arrangement of cups and platters on shelves and in the arched fireplace itself the frying pans, trivets, spider skillets, iron pots, bake kettle, pot hooks and other vessels and tools that kept a home in operation and the family fed.
"Exactly that," the reverend agreed.
The youngest child, Robin, had been helping her mother. Now she came toward the reverend, who sat at the head of the table nursing a cup of cider, and showed him something she'd brought from the other room. She was eight years old, blonde-haired, and very proud of her small embroidered pillow, which indeed had upon it the representation of a robin perched on a tree branch.
"I made this myself," said the child.
"You did? How wonderful! Now, you're saying your mother didn't help you one bit, is that right?"
"Well " The child grinned. Her eyes were a bright, warm blue, like her mother's. "She helped got me started, and she helped got me finished."
"Oh ho! But I'm sure there was a lot of work between starting and finishing." He handed the pillow back. "Ah, what's this, then?" The middle child, the thirteen-year-old tow-headed boy named Aaron, had come forward as well to show off his favorite possession. "A fine collection," said the man as he took a small white clay jar and admired the bright variety of different colored marbles within. "How many do you have?"
"Twenty-two, sir."
"And you use them for what purpose? Games?" "Yes, sir. But just to look at, too." "I'd think any boy would like to have these." "Yes sir, any boy sure would."
"Aaron?" said Faith Lindsay. "Don't bother Reverend Burton, now."
"He's no bother. Not at all. Here you are, Aaron." He returned the jar of marbles and then lifted his bearded chin slightly to gaze at the eldest child, who stood next to the fireplace in the process of helping her mother cook the cornbread, the beans, the baked apples and the piece of ham for this special occasion.
She was sixteen years old, with the pale blonde hair of her mother and sister, the same lovely oval-shaped face and high cheekbones, and the lustrous dark brown eyes of her father. She stared fixedly at Reverend John Burton, as she paused before spooning the beans into a bowl.
"Would you like to show me something, Lark?" the man prodded.
"No, sir," came the firm reply. "But I would like to ask you something." Sitting opposite the reverend, her father-a wiry man in his late thirties, wearing a blue shirt and tan-colored breeches, his face lined and freckled by the sun and his scalp bald but for cropped reddish-brown hair on the sides and a solitary thatch at the front-glanced quickly at her, his thick eyebrows uplifted.
"Go right ahead, please," said the reverend, in a gracious voice.
"Why are your fingernails like that?"
"Lark!" Peter frowned, the lines of his face deepening into ravines. At the same time, Faith shot a stern look at her daughter and shook her head.
"It's all right. Really it is." Reverend Burton held his hands up and stretched the fingers out. "Not very attractive, are they? It's a pity I couldn't keep my nails like a gentleman ought to, among the Indians. My travels among the tribes unfortunately did not include weekly use of scissors. I presume you have a pair here? That I might use later?"
"Yes, we do," Peter said. "Lark, what's gotten into you?"
She almost said it, but she did not. I don't trust this man. Even thinking such a thing of a reverend, a servant of God, was enough to make the red creep across her cheeks and her gaze go to the floorplanks. She began spooning the beans into the bowl, her shoulders slightly bowed forward with the weight of what she was thinking.