A Place of Meadows and Tall Trees

by Clare Dudman

  Silas lowers himself onto his belly and moves closer. There is a slight rise in the ground and it enables him to see quite well. The old man seems to have many animals: all sorts of horses and mares and foals, in many different colours and sizes, and, it seems, temperament. There are also many dogs yapping around the place, one or two of which seem rather small and useless. One in particular seems to have as little to do as the old man and spends most of its time either lying on a skin or curled up in the old woman’s lap.

  Several of the horses have elaborate saddles and some of them glint with silver. Silas wonders how a man like this can have so much wealth and imagines raids on the colonies of white men and their horses driven away in the dark. Although obviously quite old, the man looks strong and active and his face is scarred with old wounds across his cheeks, and Silas wonders how many men he’s killed. Silas rests his head on the ground. The Indian could easily be a killer and thief – there is a sly look about him, and there is something about the way he holds the blades as he sharpens them that makes Silas think of Selwyn’s gesture as he mimed an Indian removing a scalp.

  The two younger women, who are middle aged rather than young, seem to be constantly busy – as soon as they have finished assembling the fire they fetch water from the river and begin to cook on the fire. Meanwhile the old man and woman have begun a game of cards together. They play silently, both of them smoking, and both with a dog lying on their laps.

  The water on the campfire seems to be boiling; Silas can see the steam billowing away from the pot in clouds. One of the women exclaims, reaches forward and pours some of the liquid into cups. They are making tea. Silas can smell it – that green tea everyone seems to drink around here. Just like us, he thinks, and sidles backwards. The old woman looks up as he does so, and as her eyes meet his he realises that she is not surprised. She looks at him calmly, her face turning slowly from him in such a dignified way that his alarm turns swiftly into a slight feeling of shame. Then, as he shuffles backwards he sees he is not the only spectator. Further along the mound, behind some bushes, he spots the backsides of Joseph, Miriam and Ieuan Jones.

  ‘I suppose they’ll want to trade with us like they do with the folk at Patagones,’ Selwyn says. He untangles himself from Annie’s arm so he can stand more upright. ‘In fact they might prefer it. Patagones is a long way for them to go, I reckon.’

  ‘They seem wealthy and are well armed,’ Silas says, ‘with guns, knives, and lots of horses – I’ve seen them.’

  ‘Too true,’ says Mary Jones. ‘They could be waiting for dark to strike us in our beds. Maybe we should act now.’

  But Jacob shakes his head. ‘We are all God’s children,’ he says, ‘and these Indians are innocent, even more like children than the rest of us. They are uncorrupted, pure...’

  ‘Straight out of Eden, I suppose,’ snorts Mary.

  ‘We should treat them as the Lord has instructed us to treat all of his children. We could teach them the Lord’s way.’

  ‘Of course we can’t trust them,’ Annie says, and a few people nod and murmur agreement. ‘Like children they may be, but even children can be wily and cruel.’

  ‘We could minister to them too,’ Jacob says loudly, as if he hasn’t heard, then he raises his voice a little more. ‘Maybe one day they would take the Lord into their hearts and know Him too.’

  Mary snorts again. ‘As long as our bones aren’t being picked over by the vultures by then.’

  Silas nods and Mary notices him. ‘See, there are some who agree,’ she says. ‘I say we should see to them before they see to us.’

  ‘What do you propose – that we sneak over there and kill them as they sleep?’ Jacob’s voice is high and soft, as if he is astonished.

  Mary folds her arms. ‘Perhaps. That would be an end to the matter.’

  ‘No madam, it would not.’ Caradoc spreads his knees apart and leans over his stomach towards her. ‘They have friends, Mary,’ he says menacingly. ‘Did you not notice the fire? Do you believe they roam the desert alone? Once their blood is spilt we will be stained forever. Their friends and relatives will come for us.’

  ‘Excuses. Some of you are too afraid. We should act now before it is too late.’

  ‘Are there many that agree?’ Caradoc asks, looking around at everyone, while everyone else looks around too, seeing who sides with whom. Most faces are blank, but there are a few who are nodding and murmuring yes.

  ‘Then you are overruled. This is the new Wales, God’s kingdom. It is ruled by God and we obey God’s rules.’ Caradoc looks at Mary, John and Annie then slowly shifts his gaze to Silas. He looks back and for a few seconds the two men stare at each other. ‘And those who think they would prefer to live by other regulations should perhaps think of living elsewhere.’

  Thirty-two

  ‘I don’t trust them,’ Silas tells Megan, ‘And Caradoc and Jacob are too stupid with them.’

  But she looks away. ‘You don’t mean that.’

  ‘I do. They’re being naive, weak. Those Indians are no more like innocent children than any of the rest of us. They’re sly, vicious, just biding their time.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  He shakes his head.

  ‘Tell me, Silas!’

  ‘I don’t trust them, that’s all I’m saying.’ He stands and walks to the door then looks back at her. She is pale, her mouth drawn, and her eyes slightly wide. Frightened – or angry. ‘Why don’t you just tell me? It’s ridiculous to tell me just hints and half truths – worse than telling me nothing at all. I’m not stupid, and I’m not a child.’

  He sighs. Everything he does is wrong. ‘It’s just something Selwyn has been telling me...’ he says, and pauses, trying to think how to tell her.

  ‘Tell me!’

  ‘About a place north of here, a place called Bahía Blanca.’ He stops. Despite her insistence she looks alarmed. He is not making it any better. ‘But that’s five hundred miles away...’ he adds quickly. ‘Oh cariad… please, I don’t want...’ He steps back to her and tries to throw his arms around her, but she pushes him away. ‘The rest, Silas, I want to know the rest.’

  ‘It’s nothing, nothing…’ His voice trails off, continuing only when she glares at him. He takes a deep breath in. ‘He says they came on the Sabbath, stealthy like cats. No one was spared, not even babes in their mothers’ arms. By the time they had finished, all that was left was a line of scalps.

  She stares at him, her mouth open. Slowly, she shakes her head. ‘No,’ she says quietly, ‘I don’t believe it. They wouldn’t...’

  Silas forces out a laugh. ‘Yes, it’s probably just a story. Just something someone’s made up to keep their children in order. Anyway, the Indians down here are a different tribe – Tehuelche – more peaceful.’ He smiles. ‘Well known for it.’ He laughs uneasily, kisses her smartly on her disapproving mouth and opens the door. It is cold, the end of June, the beginning of winter. He draws his jacket around him and allows his teeth to rattle loudly. ‘I’ll try to get some more flour,’ he says.

  The supplies from Buenos Aires are being rationed. There are a few voices around the village complaining that this should have happened earlier and that things are worse now than they were when the Meistr was in charge. People are tired and irritable and a little hungry again – even Caradoc’s waistcoat is beginning to sag emptily over his stomach.

  Every day the old Tehuelche visits the fort with his wife, and every day he picks up a word from the Welsh, and they pick a word from him, and in that way a new language is fast developing – a pidgin Welsh, or a pidgin Tehuelche. Selwyn was right – the Tehuelche has come to trade – his guanaco hides and feathers for whatever the Welsh can give them in return, which turns out to be not very much at all and is getting less with every passing day.

  When Silas reaches the village, the old man is already there in the warehouse. Silas can smell the huge, garishly coloured skin he has with him, as soon as he enters. It is not smoke that he can
smell at this distance, but the rank odour of improperly cured leather. The man is throwing the pelt out in front of him over the floor so the colonists can inspect. It is made from the skins of several animals sewn together and Silas can see it has small scraps of dried-up flesh adhering to the outside. The smell is strong as it unfurls. The old Tehuelche shows how they wear it, the fur inside, drawn to his body with folded arms. Then he unwraps it from himself and offers it to them.

  ‘Bara,’ he says.

  Caradoc shakes his head. Silas wonders how he can bring himself to touch it, the thing is probably alive with lice or something worse. ‘This is worth more than bread.’

  The old Tehuelche shakes the mantle again. ‘Bara’.

  Caradoc looks at Jacob and Selwyn. ‘How can I accept this? How can we tell him?’

  For a few minutes the men look at each other, then the old man hurries outside to where his horse is waiting. In one of his saddlebags is a note. He hands it to Caradoc.

  ‘Spanish, I think a letter,’ Caradoc says, examining it and turning it over. ‘Can you make any sense of it?’ He hands the note on to Selwyn.

  ‘It’s a list, things they’d like in exchange for the guanaco mantles or feathers – yerba for maté, sugar, flour, bread, biscuits, tobacco, ponchos, handkerchiefs, blankets,’ he grins, ‘…and alcohol. That seems to be the most important of all.’ Selwyn reads on a little further. ‘Ah, I think it says he’s glad we’re here. The people in Patagones are… thieves, I think… and horses, yes, horse-thieves. I wonder who wrote this... it ends telling us not to be afraid, calls us friends, says there’s plenty of food here for everyone… plenty guanaco, plenty ostrich.’ He stops suddenly and looks at the old Indian who is listening intently. ‘Thank you,’ he says and claps the Tehuelche on his bare shoulder – underneath the mantle the Indian wears just a pair of skin trousers and boots. Then he turns to Caradoc. ‘I think this means they are willing to share their land with us. It’s very...’ he looks at the old man again ‘...kind.’

  ‘Fetch him some bread,’ Caradoc says to Jacob, ‘Mrs Rhys was baking this morning, tell her I’ll make sure she gets some flour in return.’

  Silas tuts. He has been standing listening for several minutes. They seem so willing to be taken in, a few words on a piece of paper and they are ready to believe anything. The old Tehuelche has shifty eyes; they rest on nothing for very long. It gives him a haunted air and it makes Silas feel uneasy.

  ‘We’re almost starving and yet you are giving away our food?’ Silas says. ‘These people can find food of their own, they don’t need ours.’

  ‘We can spare a little.’

  ‘We can’t spare anything. We’re all hungry, Caradoc!’

  The Indian points to Silas. ‘Háchish! You… aoukem.’

  The men look at each other.

  ‘Aoukem!’ The old man rotates one hand around his head then mimics stabbing at something on the ground.

  Silas has understood but still he shrugs and asks, ‘What does he want?’

  ‘I think he wants you to go with him to hunt.’

  Silas laughs. ‘Me?’ he asks incredulously, then laughs nervously, ‘I’m not doing that.’

  The old Tehuelche’s name is Yeluc. His skin is the colour and texture of an old leather chair Silas once saw in a minister’s house. Around his forehead is a band of cream cloth holding back hair that is long and streaked with grey. Held around him at all times with a hand that looks as if it is set into the shape of a hook, is the huge enveloping cloak.

  He greets Silas with a curt nod, and then presents him with a horse – a pied thing, obviously selected for its bad temper. Then he sits back on his own horse with the suggestion of a grin on his face, and watches as Silas attempts to mount, and then cajole his horse into action. This horse is nothing like any horse Silas has ridden before. It is more like a mule than a stallion. For about ten minutes it refuses to move at all, then, after he has given it a couple of hard nudges with his heels, it bucks and tries to throw him, arching its back and then its neck, dipping and throwing up its back legs, until Silas is thrown several feet away onto the soft mud of the riverbank. He lies there for a few seconds trying to decide where he hurts the most, and then sits up and stares angrily at Yeluc.

  ‘That horse is not broken.’

  The Indian smiles and shrugs, then without leaving his own horse leans out of his saddle, picks up the reins of the piebald and offers them to Silas again. ‘Hogel… ketz.’

  ‘No!’

  The Tehuelche shakes them at him, the small pieces of metal jangling together, but still Silas doesn’t move. He hurts everywhere, he has decided, but mainly down his left arm and leg which are burning as if alight. He groans and lies back again. He is too old for this. The Indian should be teaching the younger members of the colony – they mend more easily.

  Someone coughs. Someone quite close. He looks around but sees nothing except Yeluc and his horse. But someone is watching. The Tehuelche smiles and shakes the reins again and reluctantly Silas gets up. He is not a coward. He will not give up. He swings painfully back on his horse and looks around just in time to see Jacob striding back to the fort.

  Yeluc shows him how to keep his place by holding on with his knees, and how to soothe the animal with a whispering voice. Then, when the horse is calm, Yeluc taps Silas with his stick until he is sitting upright in the saddle, his back straight. Yeluc nods without smiling. He is sitting with his arms folded. Good, he seems to be saying, that will do.

  The next day he is waiting outside Silas’ house when he wakes. As Silas opens his back door he hears the snort of a horse – and stepping out he sees Yeluc there sitting erectly, smiling.

  ‘Today – bolas… chume,’ the old man says, and draws something long and heavy from his saddlebag.

  Silas peers at what the old man has in his hands: two fist-sized round pebbles, each with a long leather thong tied around a carved shallow channel. He counts them, offering one and then the other towards Silas. ‘Chuche, houke…’

  Silas nods. ‘What are they?’

  Yeluc stares at him uncomprehendingly.

  Silas pretends to throw them away and then shrugs at the Indian.

  ‘Ah…’ Yeluc smiles suddenly, then flaps his elbows at his sides. ‘Mikkeoush,’ he says, then allows his head to flop to one side with his tongue out and eyes closed. Then he opens his eyes and sits upright again. ‘Chuche, houke…’ he says, taking the thongs from Silas and letting the two stones dangle, ‘…mikkeoush.’ Then taking out another stone on a lead counts again, ‘Chuche, houke, aäs…’

  ‘Three stones?’

  Yeluc nods and imitates something trotting along with his fingers.

  ‘For guanaco! Ah I see, two stones for ostrich and three for guanaco! That’s right, isn’t it?’

  But the old man has gone. There is, apparently, no time for breakfast. Yeluc points to where the piebald is snorting impatiently, and Silas calls out goodbye to Megan and swings himself into the saddle.

  Yeluc makes him throw the bolas again and again at a target until his arms ache – the pitch of the old man’s grunt only changing slightly when Silas misses and when he hits. After an hour of this he motions for him to follow him and they return to his camp. The women are busy as usual; one of the younger women pegging out a skin while the other one is sewing two smaller skins together with sinew. The older woman stirs something in a pot that is dangling over the fire. There is a smell of herbs and meat that makes Silas realise he has missed breakfast. They are chattering quietly together, the two younger women laughing at whatever the older woman is saying. When they see Yeluc they stop what they are doing and gather around the fire.

  Yeluc directs Silas to sit on a small pile of skins.

  ‘Seannu,’ he says, pointing at the old woman, who nods and smiles.

  Silas nods.

  ‘Tezza,’ he says, pointing to the thinner of the two women with a fringe, then ‘Mareea.’ He points at Seannu again. ‘Seannu.’

&n
bsp; ‘Ah,’ Silas nods and smiles. The women are something to do with Seannu, then. He mouths the words, trying to remember them and they look at him expectantly. Seannu’s skin is dark and polished like her husband’s but Tezza’s and Mareea’s are slightly paler and their eyes wider and more oval. Mareea, he notices, seems more inclined to smile than the others and it is she who offers him some meat wrapped in a small piece of skin. Still they watch him as if they are waiting for him to say something. He takes a bite of the meat. It is tender, covered in a flavoured fat. ‘Good,’ he says.

  ‘Where are your people?’ Silas asks. ‘Where is your tribe? Your village?’

  They look puzzled so he draws on the mud. Four stick people indicating that they represent Yeluc and his women, and then many more at which he points and gestures at the empty valley around them.

  But Yeluc grins and doesn’t answer. Silas watches him and says little else. You understood, he thinks, you understood very well. Where are your people, the other Tehuelche? You don’t want to tell me. He looks around him. Hiding, waiting. He takes another bite of his meat. This show of friendliness means nothing. He will not be fooled. He will keep on his guard.

  Silas is not the only one Yeluc has selected to train. He has picked out various young men in the village including Joseph and Ieuan Jones, Miriam’s brothers, but he refuses to take Miriam herself even though she dresses in her brother’s trousers and makes a fairly convincing boy.

  After several days Yeluc seems to be convinced that his apprentices are competent enough to be taken out on the hunt, and smiling he allows Miriam to join them too – acting as beater with his three women.