Becoming Americans

by Donald Batchelor

  Stephen rushed for the child, but flames drove him back. His shirt caught fire and he smelled his own hair burning. He couldn't reach the child, and before she fell her screams had stopped.

  ***

  "Mother sick, Grandmother? Mother sick?"

  Little James tugged at his grandmother's skirts. Ann lay sobbing atop the salvaged cloths that were spread upon the oxcart. She held a dead baby.

  "Where Bess, Grandmother? Where Bess?"

  Mary Bourne stood with an arm around Sister Mary staring, first, at the unrecognizable charred remains of Bess, then at the lifeless infant Ann held. One leg was much shorter than the other, and the face was split with a hare-lip. Stephen turned to stare at his Grandmother Bourne.

  "Those children always die real early, Child. Almost always."

  Mary Williams tried to comfort her daughter who'd lost two children in one night. "Take the boy somewhere, Stephen," she said. "Take him away. Find him something to eat."

  Neighbors had gathered from the creeks and river and from the swamp. Some had brought tools, some had brought food. Dick Harbut galloped up and ran to his wife. Stephen led Little James to a Biggs aunt, and wandered away from the crowd.

  He still saw the fire, the dead baby, Bess in flames and screaming. He still heard the silence that happened when she'd stopped. He walked up the creek to where thick locust poles had been sunk for his father's tidal mill. The sun was above the trees and shining on the ashes of the Deep Creek manor. His home was gone and his Grandmother Bourne had…. He couldn't let the thought into his mind, at first, but he finally knew that his Grandmother Bourne had suffocated the crippled baby. Maybe his Grandmother Fewox had been right, and Grandmother Bourne was a witch! Maybe God had caused the fire as punishment!

  Thomas Biggs came up to him. Stephen's mother wanted him to feed the animals and to say good-bye, he said. Mary, Ann and Little James, with Sister Mary and Grandmother Bourne were going to Thomas's house at Great Bridge until his father, brother, and Uncle Richard returned.

  "Will we still go with Grandpa Bourne to the swamp?" Stephen asked his mother.

  "Yes," she said. "Your father still needs timbers for the mill. There's no change in that. Your cousin, Willy Biggs, is going with you, Dick, and Pa to the swamp. I'll stay with Ann till she's right to travel home by road."

  Oak trees with broad, curving limbs were needed for cutting into strong, arched pieces for wheels and gears. Maple blocks would make hard teeth when set into the wheels as cogs for gears. Grandpa Bourne knew where to lead Dick to find the wood he wanted. He'd find good trees near the edge of the swamp; he'd find more workers deeper in it.

  Stephen had been looking forward to the search, now he was desperate to go deep into the swamp, further away from people than he'd ever been. He was eager to be away from the evidence of man's temporary creations, and the mysterious female magic of life and death. He wanted to think about what he'd seen and heard.

  Dick Harbut decided to bury Bess, with the unnamed child, at the Deep Creek plantation. There'd been no minister in Norfolk County for over a year, so the warden of Elizabeth River parish said words over the two bodies as they were interred beside the resting-place of their great-grandfather, Richard Williams. Their mother was not recovered and remained in bed at her Great-uncle Thomas's.

  Stephen helped lower the little box into the earth while wondering about his Grandmother Bourne's actions. Had she been right to kill the twisted and deformed infant, or should she have let the child bring suffering and shame to the family? Stephen had wanted to speak to his mother and his sister about what he knew had happened, but he didn't. The cold, dry eyes of his grandmother and his mother stopped him. Maybe it was a woman's duty to make such decisions and to act on them. Women were weak in so many things, but they did some things that few men could. There were male witches, Stephen knew, but he'd never heard talk of one.

  Daniel Bourne was almost seventy years old, but the thick, rich air of the swamp sank deep into him, making him hardy and alert. He chewed on a sassafras twig; the taste was good with the chew of tobacco. He was a man again, in his own territory, amongst the challenges he knew. He could sense the forces of God and of the Devil all around. Life, in all forms, was everywhere. Trees towered above, with vines drooping down, bird flying in-between. Vegetation scratched at his face and pulled at his legs. The animal rustles and roars and chirps, snapping, buzzing, and singing were a din. So was the silence. Heady odors of flowers and peat and rot clogged the air.

  Stephen broke free of a tangling brier and caught up with his grandfather. The old man didn't get-up caught in the briers, and his boots were still dry. He was stooped over, but was nearly as tall as Stephen's father.

  The men followed a bear path that Stephen had used before. The path led away from one of the branches that trailed from the swamp into the head of Deep Creek. Bear, and other animal trails, were often the only passageways through the thickest growth. Not many men went there. Stephen never had.

  "Mink," Daniel Bourne said, pointing to timid scratches in the sandy bank of a stream.

  "Thy grandfather is a knowledgeable man," Willy Biggs said.

  "He is," Stephen said. He always looked at his grandfather in a different way when they were in the woods. At home, Grandma Bourne was in charge.

  "Did you ever know any witches, Grandpa?" Stephen blurted out.

  "Witches?" His grandfather made a sign and muttered a protecting rhyme. "I knowed some they said was witches," Grandpa Bourne said. "Dick, here, knows old Grace Sherwood. She lives over by where him and Ann did. Between the Pungo and Back Bay in Princess Anne. You seen her yourself, Boy. We all went to the trial."

  But Stephen hardly remembered it; he was only five years old when they'd tried the witch. The trial had taken place on the Lynhaven River, near the ferry and Princess Anne County's old church.

  "They'd put-off the trial for five days because it was stormy and windy. They were worried about Grace gettin' sick!"

  Everybody who told the story put in this part, and laughed.

  "I never saw so many folks! The fields and woods along the river were black with people. They came on carts and wagons. On horseback. Some on the ferry, or in their own boats. We took Tom's boat up the Elizabeth to the Bay, and then to the Lynhaven, by Cape Henry…. Watch out for that black snake, Boy!"

  Willy Biggs jumped into the air. The serpent had disappeared. Evil in his path!

  "They'd took her there to the witch duck for her trial by water. They tied her right thumb to her left, big toe, and her left thumb to the right, big toe, and chucked her in the water. She swam anyhow, so that proved she was a witch. And five old ladies searched her body and said she had some strange spots and markings. They kept her locked-up for a few years—if you can lock-up a witch— but then turned around and gave her a hundred and forty acre grant a couple of years ago! Over there by Kemp's, where Dick worked that time. Folks says she turns into a bat, some nights, and flies about the country, sucking the air out of babies."

  "Is that what happened to Ann's baby, Grandpa?" Stephen asked.

  The old man was slow to answer.

  "Mighta' been."

  "It wasn't Grace Sherwood," Dick Harbut said. "It was God's will."

  The old man stopped walking.

  "About here, it was. Wouldn't do no good to go farther. We never would get the logs out. This bear path's the only way. There they are."

  Daniel Bourne pointed to a leaning oak whose heavy branches swept to earth. Stephen could see that broad curves could be cut from sections running from the branches into the hidden trunk. Brown, dead vines draped and nearly covered the tree. New vines had almost overtaken it.

  "I cut all those vines when I girdled this tree back in November. Just slowed 'em down."

  "You did well finding me the right oak, Grandpa Bourne," Harbut said.

  "Well, that's the oak. Over there's the maple."

  A girdled maple tree stood on higher ground behind them. Grandpa Bourne ha
d not only found two perfect trees, they were in perfect locations.

  "OK, boys. Get to work," Harbut said. He handed Willy Biggs his long knife to slash through the vines. Stephen carried Willy's ax on his shoulder while he pulled at the tangled brush with his own.

  The last year's falling sap had hardened into a dark circle around the tree. New, Spring sap still tried to rise, but Grandpa Biggs had girdled the tree in the dark of the moon, so there'd been very little budding.

  The strong, young men took to their axes and hacked at the hard old oak in unconscious rhythm, each into his own thoughts. Dick slashed out a clearing where the tree was to fall, as the old man worked at a pathway back the way they'd come. Willy Biggs stopped chopping and caught Stephen's attention. He pointed to Stephen's grandfather. Attached at the ankle of Daniel Bourne's boot was the head of a rattlesnake, caught by its fangs, sunk deep into the leather. The body had been severed by a swipe of the old man's blade, and lay writhing behind the unconcerned old "swamp rat."

  "This part of the swamp ain't nearly so fearsome as some," the old man said when he saw the boys staring.

  It took the men a week to fell the trees, cut them into sections marked by Harbut, pull them back to Deep Creek with the oxen, and raise the logs off the ground to finish seasoning. Most of the ashes and rubble of the manor house lay as they'd fallen, awaiting Joseph's disposition. Neighbors had cleared a way to the hearth of the still-standing chimney.

  The men slept in a dilapidated slave cabin near the fenced-in garden. On the night they finished with the wood, Stephen awoke from sleeping, as he did, now, every night since the fire. But, Harbut's struggling snore and the stench of his breath kept Stephen awake. He wondered how it could he that Willy continued sleeping soundly on the other side. He got up from the pallet and went outside.

  His grandfather sat by a fire in the old hearth, stewing something in a three-legged saucepot. Stephen carried a piece of firewood to the hearth and used it for a clean seat.

  "What are you fixin', Grandpa?"

  "Making us some crab soup."

  The pot was half-full of simmering milk. Crabs, some of them already turned red, rose to the top, then sank. The two men watched the pot in silence. After some time, Stephen spoke.

  "Grandpa, do you think Grace Sherwood cursed that baby?"

  Daniel Bourne stared into the fire.

  "I don't know, Boy. Some folks would say yes. Other folks would say it was God's will."

  "Was it right for him to die, Grandpa?"

  "Was it right for Sister Mary to live?" the old man asked. "Sometimes it ain't so easy to know right and wrong. And sometimes it don't matter. You just do what you have to do."

  "You mean Grandma?" Stephen asked.

  Daniel Bourne turned to his grandson.

  "Did I say anything about your Grandma?"

  Stephen said nothing, and his grandfather turned back to the fire, moving the pot from the heat.

  "Me and your grandma haven't always lived the easy life we're living now, you know. When we were little Jimmy's age we lived like maggots in a dung heap. I tell you true. A fresh heap of horse dung will warm your hands. I remember that. And when we were your age we were living like animals in that swamp. Went two months with no cooked meat before we got a flint. Seen wild cats eat their own kittens. Seen bears leave crippled cubs to die. Won't no Grace Sherwood in the swamp to make them animals do that. The weak ones die, anyway, and hold the others back before they do."

  "Is that why Grandma…?" Stephen stopped. There was no need to say it.

  "There was a baby boy come with your mother, Boy. She didn't come into this world alone. Your mother was a twin. He was twisted, like that baby of Ann's was. Like Sister Mary is, still. We were awful young—about the same as you. Thought we'd have lots of boys…. He was a lusty crier, that boy…. When I went and came back with a gourd of water, the boy baby was quiet. That's all I'll say, and that's more than I oughtta said. Your grandma and I never spoke of it. That's the way things are. Life's hard enough, anyway."

  Stephen didn't speak, but watched his grandpa from the side of his eyes; his jaw was set, his eyes still staring at the fire.

  Joseph Williams stepped from the masted pirogue onto his dock. He stood, slack-jawed, and stared at what had been the family home for fifty years; his only home, built when he was a baby. The chimney, one year older than he, still stood. It was a survivor of the hurricane of '67, and many lesser ones.

  "Mother is at Uncle Tom's," Stephen said.

  His father seemed to be unhearing and slowly walked to the ruin. Grandpa Bourne and Dick walked with his father and his Uncle Richard, as Stephen led James up the path to where the door had been and told the tale to James.

  "If you'd stayed, you couldn't have done anything," Joseph Williams said to Dick. "You wouldn't have been in there with the women. You've been a good husband to my girl. You've given us a healthy grandson. You've always done right by me. Losing two babies in one day is even worse than this, I guess." He nodded toward the ashes. Joseph had a hard time talking about such things.

  "Nothing to do, but take care of them what's left," Dick said.

  No one spoke for a while. Richard was lost in his own memories.

  "Won't have to buy so many nails now, to build the mill," Joseph said.

  The other men snorted in appreciation.

  He thought aloud. "Got to have some shelter for my family."

  "That ol' shed gonna get crowded with the mess of all us." Bourne said.

  "We can get a log cabin up, right fast." Harbut had been thinking about it.

  "Nothing, but, to do it," Joseph agreed. "Trouble is, I need you all working on the mill."

  Dick had it figured out.

  "Grandpa can take us to the swamp to find men…."

  Richard interrupted.

  "No, you and Joseph have to stay here," he said. "Grandpa can take me to the swamp for men. It's been three months since I've been home. Three months! Grandpa can get someone to lead me out to the south. You'll need tar, anyway. I'll take just Stephen. You send Tom Biggs and his boat to me in Chowan. I'll bring us back some good tar to sell."

  "Good. We have a plan," Joseph said. "Now, Dick, let's go to our families." He turned away and stopped. He spoke to Stephen.

  "Did you think to save my accounts and tobacco notes?" he asked.

  Stephen stood there. He'd never thought of his father's accounts! He'd only thought of saving furniture and clothing.

  "It happened so fast, Pa," he said apologizing.

  "I feared you could not be counted on. Good thing I took them all with me," his father said, and went with Dick Harbut to catch their horses.

  Daniel Bourne and Richard Williams carried guns and long knives; Stephen carried a gun and a knapsack of supplies for the trip into the depths of the swamp. The sun had just begun to break through the trees when they set out. Birds were flitting about and singing with an enthusiasm that was shared by Stephen. He would have an adventure, and the chance to prove his usefulness to his father.

  The three men followed a well-worn path that branched off into another path that skirted the swamp's edges towards the west. They passed through the farthest fields of the Craford plantation and, as the sun rose above the trees, Daniel Bourne stopped by a thicket of muscadine and looked about. He walked to the bramble and thrust in his knife. He shook the vines, then lifted the matted growth revealing a small opening. Then he passed through the grapevines to a hidden bear path. Stephen's grandfather led them forward, slashing at the briers before they caught his feet.

  For two hours they advanced, single-file, through the morass. Catbriers, Virginia creeper, honeysuckle, poison ivy and grape interlocked and scratched the men's faces. The oak, ash, and gum trees grew thickly and tall, shuttering out the light. The floor of the swamp was matted with fallen trees and climbing vines. Hidden roots of trees crawled along the ground and made each step treacherous. Gnats and smaller insects clogged the air and made breathing difficult. St
ephen suppressed the urge to scream in desperation and frustration. He understood how people had gone mad when caught up in these overwhelming swarms. When possible, he held his arm to his face and breathed through his sleeve. At least there're no mosquitoes, he thought.

  The ground was not dirt. The fallen leaves and bark of centuries had become a deep, spongy cushion underfoot. When one of the men became thirsty it was necessary, only, to press a hand into the soft surface and let a cupped palm fill with water. This was deeper into the wilderness than Stephen had ever been, and he could not imagine how men lived in such a place.

  The sounds of rustling in the undergrowth were unnerving, but Stephen's grandfather continued to slash away at the trail, and the other two men followed. The buzz and hum of insects didn't stop. The sounds of countless birds chirping and tapping into wood broke through, but those sweet sounds were overwhelmed by the occasional, terrifying scream of a bobcat or the growl of a bear.