Free The Light in the Forest by Conrad Richter Page B

in which he had come home from captivity. Since the boy’s illness, Aunt Kate had hurried to take it out of hiding and put it back, hoping it might console him and her own conscience as well.
    In the end, the father left the bedside saddened and unrelieved. Going to a small room downstairs which had once been used as a cloak room but was now his office-room, he stood at the high desk and opened his heavy leather-bound account book.Hardly had he begun to set down the day’s entries when he heard someone ride up to the house. There was a knock and Kate called him. When he got to the hall he found Parson Elder’s son standing there in restrained excitement. He waited till Aunt Kate had gone.
    “My father sent me over. There’s Indians around and he wanted to warn you.”
    At once Mr. Butler took the younger man to his office-room and closed the door. Here he turned around, shocked.
    “Indians! Why, we’re at peace!”
    “Maybe we are but they aren’t,” the other said. “One was shot tonight at Mehargue’s pasture. He’s lying down there now. Since Papa’s head of the militia, Mr. Mehargue came right over.”
    “Any of our people attacked?”
    “We don’t know yet. They’ve seen only two of the savages so far. They stopped first down at the mill asking for the white boy that was taken from the Indians. The men at the mill sent them to Mr. Owens’ cooper shop. At least, that’s where the Indians went. My father thinks the men at the mill told them Mr. Owens was Johnny’s uncle and that the Indians couldn’t understand English very well and thought that Johnny lived there. But somethink the men at the mill did it on purpose, for devilment. They know how much your brother-in-law hates Indians. But evidently Mr. Owens was very kind and hospitable. When one of the Indians asked for ‘lum,’ Mr. Owens gave him some. I believe the Indian had two or three mugs. Then he started boasting about himself and abusing the whites. There were some cronies with Mr. Owens and they said the Indian told degrading stories on the white people. Anyhow about sundown the two Indians left. It was just getting dark when the Mehargues heard two shots. Some others heard them, too. When the Mehargues investigated, they found the Indian lying dead and scalped in their pasture. Mr. Mehargue said it looked like somebody had ambushed him from behind the trees because the Indian had been shot from the side and back. My father said he’d have him buried in the morning.”
    Harry Butler heard all this with a mixture of emotion. Troubles seldom came singly. Never had he known it to fail.
    “Did your father say who he believed shot him?”
    “He didn’t say, sir.” The younger man moved uneasily and declined to meet Mr. Butler’s eyes.
    “Did he say what happened to the other Indian?”
    “Nobody’s seen him since. If there were only two, my father thinks he’s back across the river by this time and still going. But you never know how many might be hiding in the mountain. My father thought you ought to hear right away. He said you’d likely want to keep it from Johnny. It might aggravate his sickness.”
    For a while after the rider had gone, Harry Butler stood thinking. If he told Kate, she would invariably tell Myra and that would upset her. Let her hover around for news. He would confide in no one for the present but keep his guns handy and loaded. When he heard Gordie trotting downstairs from his mother’s room, he went back to his office. It was a relief at such a time to stand at his desk and straighten out his business affairs, to reckon up his accounts and property. When he opened the heavy brown-leathered book, the double pages with their solid lines of physical and financial items looked back at him, stable and reassuring. Presently the rough nib of his quill scratched roughly over the smooth blue and red lined surface of the thick page.
    May 31, 1765

    Opened last Kag of Cydar. Very Potent
    Sow Campbell sold me has Litter