Battle Cry - Leon Uris [105]
They passed miles of farms, herds of sheep. Everything was as tranquil as though posing for a picture, slow and easy. At each farmhouse, Mr. Adams stopped and gave the mail and a shopping bag to the women who awaited him at the gate. Then in his pompous and official manner, he cut short their chatter with a glance at his worthy timepiece. The King’s Mail must go through on time.
At a small, one-room schoolhouse they took aboard a gang of screaming, laughing, freckled children. He fretted and grumbled at the laggards, who only giggled at his anger.
Pat curled up in Andy’s arm to make room for the children. The flapping feathers of the chickens protruded through the cage and beat against them; a sudden turn in the road sent a barrage of children and luggage spilling over them.
They came to a stop. There was a large swinging gate and a dirt road worn in double tracks by the wheels that had passed over it for many years. Up the road about three hundred yards was a strongly built, two-storey shingled house sporting a new coat of gleaming white paint and bright trim. There was a huge chimney of field rock running along one side and the windows were graced with the feminine touch of frilled drapes.
A stray goose wandered across the road. In the distance a bleating of sheep could be heard. The area about the farmhouse showed the signs of the life and activity which it served. There was a clump of trees and a tool shed filled with leather harness, plows, and implements. And all around, the scent of fresh-cut hay.
Beyond, a barn and a corral, where enormous draft horses lazed from their chores. The whole place lay on a gently sloping hill.
On the hilltop was a mass of trees which put the area in gentle shade, with a beam of the sun’s rays slipping through here and there, casting easy swaying shadows in a mild breeze.
At the bottom of the slope lay the fields, plowed and straight and with a large fenced-in meadow for the flock.
Andy toyed with the hitch on the gate. Above it there was an archway and a painted sign which simply read: Enoch Rogers. The gate creaked and swung open.
“Like it?” Pat asked.
“Yeah,” he whispered, “yeah.”
They galloped over the meadow, bringing their mounts to a halt near the spot where Enoch Rogers had mended the fence. Andy jumped from his horse and helped Pat dismount. He patted Tony briskly.
“Good fellow, Tony. I knew you wouldn’t let that filly beat us.”
“He must like you, Andy, he usually doesn’t take to strangers,” Enoch said looking up. He was a lean, rawboned man of six feet or more. His face was wrinkled and leathery, but it still had the fairness of the New Zealand people. A big, ragged-edged straw hat hid an ungroomed shock of graying hair. He took a kerchief from his overall and wiped the sweat from his face. His hands were calloused and the veins stood out on his arms. He stretched like rawhide, wiry as a piece of spring steel, earthy as the hobnailed boots he wore.
“Well now, Patty, have you shown Andy all our trails?” He shifted the curved pipe which hung eternally from his mouth.
“She’s been riding my bottom off, sir,” he said. “I never was much on horses.”
“You do right well, lad.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Patty tells me you were a woodsman?”
“Yes sir.”
“Were you now? Come with me, lad. I want to show you something.” He placed the pliers and hammer in his pocket and slipped between two strands of the fence. Andy put a hand on a post and sprang over.
“Timmy used to do that,” he said softly. “Coming, Patty girl?”
“No, I’ll help Mama with tea,” she answered, mounting Ariki and reaching for Tony’s bridle. “I’ll take him back in, Andy.” She rode off.
“Mite touchy about this,” Enoch said. “Can’t say as I blame the poor girl after what she’s been through. But she loves the land as all us Rogers do, that I know. This running away to Wellington proves nothing to the contrary.”
They walked alongside the fence for a half mile, then down a steep bank to a shallow swift creek. The ancient plank that forded it groaned under their weight. On the other side they came to a small