“And does the nothing have a light-blue cast?”
“There’s no other place than here.”
“I don’t believe it.”
“Believe what you will, people always do, and they like the odd and scandalous and fantastic better than the real.”
“What about Pennyroyal?”
“She is as you see.”
But I know better.
Except now he’s on his way down—already on his way, back to his ditch.
“It’s too hot!” I’m screeching it. Then I screech again. “Dangerous to work in such heat!” (What kind of bird is that, that screeches so? None I ever knew.) “A man of your age….” Screech, screech.
He’s going. He’s down. And he didn’t say if he’d dig me a ditch or not.
But I know happiness is possible because I don’t want a lot of it. How sweet it would be to sleep in the hay with Penny. That’s not much to ask.
Like his nose says, I’ll go forward, do something, go elsewhere. I will know what I want. I will become more mule.
I go back in and pack up my nightgown and a snack. (The nightgown might be important.) I sit on one of my rocks and wait until I see Blackthorn and Penny leave the ditch. (She doesn’t even have a lead rope. She follows him home on her own. I would, too. I will.)
I wait until it’s almost dark and then I take my bundle and climb up into the piñons. There’s a light in his shack, but dim. No doubt an oil lamp or candles. I peek in. Blackthorn is at the little table, leaning over it, side view. (I do like that going-someplace look of his nose.)
With that lamplight I can see more than I could before. Things are nicer than I thought, though I see sandy dust all over everything. (I could clean that up in no time.) There’s a patchwork quilt on the cot, Secret Star pattern. There’s a humpbacked trunk. Hard to put anything down on top of that but there’s not only a couple of dirty shirts lying across it, but a tin cup balanced at the top of the curve. I hope the cup’s empty. The washbowl and pitcher look even more chipped and cracked in this light, and dirty socks are on the floor again—or still. Maybe a couple more pairs. They need darning. I’ll do that.
Then I notice I’m on the side of his rambling eye and it’s rambling right over to the window—to me. I don’t know what he sees, but there’s no reaction. It’s as if that eye is blind, but maybe it’s that he’s seeing wonderful things and wouldn’t be paying attention to me anyway.
And now he has that poet’s look of listening. Have I made a noise?
The odd eye is still right on me. It glistens in the lamp light. His good eye was crow-blue-black. This one is light blue.
I think of clouds tinged pink, rainbows of course… balconies, gazebos, long white gauzy gowns that blow in the wind, raven hair… “tresses,” as they say, also blowing. And Blackthorn…. In the world of that blue eye, he would wear clothes that fit him better, though they’d still be black. Penny would have a long courtly nose (as she already has) and her tresses would make her face look all the more narrow, but what makes somebody beautiful? Not their nose. Not perfect teeth. Not big caramel-colored eyes. (She does have that.)
“Harriet?” Now it’s his good eye which is turned towards me. “Harriet?”
How did he know my real name? Another sure sign of… well, several things. If he knows my name then for sure there is another world out there somewhere.
I hear wind. Branches squeak as they brush against the roof of the shack. I feel the evening breeze. Or is that in that other place?
He says, “Enter.”
Enter what? Does he mean into that other land? And how? Since I don’t know how to go there, for now, and though I’m right by the door, I just step through the little window. It’s small and high, but I step through just as though it was easy—except I fall when I land on the other side. I’m down by his knees. I dare to touch his ankle. He’s not wearing any shoes or socks so I touch bare skin. I look up into his eyes … eye, that is. You have to pick which one you want to look into.
“Please get up.”
But his ankle is warm and damp. I haven’t touched skin-to-skin with anybody for longer than I can remember. I lay my cheek across his instep. It smells of ditch.
“Please get up.”
I kiss his foot.
But I’m way, way, way…. I’m way….
… on a hill holding the ankle of (of course!) a black stallion. (Who would be holding the ankle of a gelding!) There’s moonlight. There’s a breeze. Blue-black clouds scoot across the sky. It’s a witch kind of land. Scary. I knew it would be. I knew all this.
The stallion paws with the hoof I’m not holding, impatient. I know he means, “For Heaven’s sake get up! I asked you to before.”
I do. I should at least be wearing something flowing so I’d match the setting. (I knew I’d need my nightgown, but where is it now?) But I’m dressed as I was, lacy mule-nose-colored shirt and loose old lady jeans. For sure, here, I’m no younger than I was in the other place. I can feel that in my knees as I get up.
He shakes his head, hard, up and down, mane flying, impatient still. (In this world it’s the good eye, the black one, that seems odd.) He walks away, looking back at me. I follow. The grass here is soft against my legs just as I knew it would be, not like my grass, all scratchy and in clumps. Not far away I hear water running. It sounds like a small stream, nothing of the flash flood about it. He, the stallion, comes to a rock and stops beside it as though I should use it as a mounting block.
I wonder if, in this world, I might know how to ride. Maybe know how to stay on even if bareback with nothing to hang on to but the mane. And how do you steer?
I mount. Now I’m glad I’m not wearing something flowing. Except, without a skirt and scarves, there’ll be nothing to blow out behind us as we gallop. Only his mane and tail, not my hair. It’s much too short. And would gray hair count anyway?
He starts away at an easy trot—but I’ve already fallen off the other side. We go back to the mounting-stone. This time I get a better grip on the mane. I hadn’t thought his back would be so slippery and bounce so.
There will be a castle. Or perhaps a smaller cozy summer castle (I’d like that) where they (we) pretend to be ordinary people. Pennyroyal, the princess all in white. Her beauty is in the look in her eye. (Everybody says so.) And in the tilt of her head. There is no kinder princess. (Everybody says so.) She does nothing but smile. But her voice is a little like mine was when I screeched. (Now I know that sound I made, birds don’t do that, it’s mule.) She smiles. At me. She calls me Sweetheart. (Everybody calls me Sweetheart!)
I curtsey. Sort of a curtsey. It isn’t until I try it that I realize I don’t know how. Where do the arms go? How low is low enough?
I’m thinking Penny is his little sister so I could be his wife. That is, if he ever can, in this world, not be a stallion. Perhaps all it takes is my kiss (like with frogs) but on his lips, not just his ankle where I kissed him before. Was it that kiss that started all this? That turned him horse in the first place?
But they don’t need any more princesses here. Everybody can’t be one. What they need is….
When I leaned my cheek against his foot back in his cabin, I’d thought how nice it would be if I could clean up the shack, scrub and dust, do the dirty socks and shirts, darn, wash the dishes. Pull down hay for Penny. Sleep in the sweet-smelling shed. Be his little helping-elf. Or anything he wants me to be. I even thought: When can I start?
But here, I’ve already started—shoveling out the stables. “Sweetheart, could you kindly go….” And I was even stroked a bit before I go there.
Here… even here… what they need is a scullery maid. I’m to sleep in the stables. It’s not at all the same as it would have been if I’d been set to clean Penny’s stall and sleep with her and clean his shack up, up there under the piñons.
How to get out of it? The stallion must know. If I could get him to take the bit—I’d bloody up his mouth if I had to—to make him go back to that hill where the entranc
e to all this might be. Maybe might be.
Or if I could wake up and it would all have been a dream (it looks like a dream and feels like a dream) and I would be there, my cheek still on his foot. If that happened, I’d not kiss, as I did, I’d bite.
Or if I could go into his stall and bite his foot now and be instantly transported back to his shack. (I do creep in to try that and he heehaws as if he was a mule.)
Or what if I could put out his eye? But which one! That’s important. If the wrong one, then I might be here forever.
And all this after I gave him water from my tank. It isn’t as if water grows on trees around here—back there I mean.
If I ever do get back, I’ll have to end up hugging the warm rock bellies like I used to. I’ll have to make do with whatever slithers by. But I don’t care anymore. I’ll wave at crow or snake or sweet gray fox….
Those townspeople were right. Jack Blackthorn! I should have known all this (as they did) from his name and his off-kilter eye and from those bushy eyebrows.
BOYS
WE NEED A NEW batch of boys. Boys are so foolhardy, impetuous, reckless, rash. They’ll lead the way into smoke and fire and battle. I’ve seen one of my own sons, aged twelve, standing at the top of the cliff shouting, daring the enemy. You’ll never win a medal for being too reasonable.
We steal boys from anywhere. We don’t care if they come from our side or theirs. They’ll forget soon enough which side they used to be on, if they ever knew. After all, what does a seven-year-old know? Tell them this flag of ours is the best and most beautiful, and that we’re the best and smartest, and they believe it. They like uniforms. They like fancy hats with feathers. They like to get medals. They like flags and drums and war cries.
Their first big test is getting to their beds. You have to climb straight up to the barracks. At the top you have to cross a hanging bridge. They’ve heard rumors about it. They know they’ll have to go home to mother if they don’t do it. They all do it.
You should see the look on their faces when we steal them. It’s what they’ve always wanted. They’ve seen our fires along the hills. They’ve seen us marching back and forth across our flat places. When the wind is right, they’ve heard the horns that signal our getting up and going to bed and they’ve gotten up and gone to bed with our sounds or those of our enemies across the valley.
In the beginning they’re a little bit homesick (you can hear them smothering their crying the first few nights) but most have anticipated their capture and look forward to it. They love to belong to us instead of to the mothers.
If we’d let them go home they’d strut about in their uniforms and the stripes of their rank. I know because I remember when I first had my uniform. I was wishing my mother and my big sister could see me. When I was taken, I fought, but just to show my courage. I was happy to be stolen—happy to belong, at long last, to the men.
Once a year in summer we go down to the mothers and copulate in order to make more warriors. We can’t ever be completely sure which of the boys is ours and we always say that’s a good thing, for then they’re all ours and we care about them equally, as we should. We’re not supposed to have family groups. It gets in the way of combat. But every now and then, it’s clear who the father is. I know two of my sons. I’m sure they know that I, the colonel, am their father. I think that’s why they try so hard. I know them as mine because I’m a small, ugly man. I know many must wonder how someone like me got to be a colonel.
(We not only steal boys from either side but we copulate with either side. When I go down to the villages, I always look for Una.)
To DIE FOR YOUR TRIBE IS TO LIVE FOREVER. That’s written over our headquarters entrance. Under it, NEVER FORGET. We know we mustn’t forget but we suspect maybe we have. Some of us feel that the real reasons for the battles have been lost. No doubt but that there’s hate, so we and they commit more atrocities in the name of the old ones, but how it all began is lost to us.
We’ve not only forgotten the reasons for the conflict, but we’ve also forgotten our own mothers. Inside our barracks, the walls are covered with mother jokes and mother pictures. Mother bodies are soft and tempting. “Pillows,” we call them. “Nipples” and “pillows.” And we insult each other by calling ourselves the same.
The valley floor is full of women’s villages. One every fifteen miles or so. On each side are mountains. The enemy’s, at the far side, are called The Purples. Our mountains are called The Snows. The weather is worse in our mountains than in theirs. We’re proud of that. We sometimes call ourselves The Hailstones or The Lightnings. We think the hailstones harden us up. The enemy doesn’t have as many caves over on their side. We always tell the boys they were lucky to be stolen by us and not those others.
When I was first taken, our mothers came up to the caves to get us back. That often happens. Some had weapons. Laughable weapons. My own mother was there, in the front of course. She probably organized the whole thing, her face, red and twisted with resolve. She came straight at me. I was afraid of her. We boys fled to the back of the barracks and our squad leader stood in front of us. Other men covered the doorway. It didn’t take long for the mothers to retreat. None were hurt. We try never to do them any harm. We need them for the next crop of boys.
Several days later my mother came again by herself—sneaked up by moonlight. Found me by the light of the night lamp. She leaned over my sleeping mat and breathed on my face. At first I didn’t know who it was. Then I felt breasts against my chest and I saw the glint of a hummingbird pin I recognized. She kissed me. I was petrified. (Had I been a little older I’d have known how to choke and kick to the throat. I might have killed her before I realized it was my mother.) What if she took me from my squad? Took away my uniform? (By then I had a red and blue jacket with gold buttons. I had already learned to shoot. Something I’d always wanted to do. I was the first of my group to get a sharpshooters medal. They said I was a natural. I was trying hard to make up for my small size.)
The night my mother came she lifted me in her arms. There, against her breasts, I thought of all the pillow jokes. I yelled. My comrades, though no older than I and only a little larger, came to my aid. They picked up whatever weapon was handy, mostly their boots. (Thank goodness we had not received our daggers yet.) My mother wouldn’t hit out at the boys. She let them batter at her. I wanted her to hit back, to run, to save herself. After she finally did run, I found I had bitten my lower lip. In times of stress I’m inclined to do that. I have to watch out. When you’re a colonel, it’s embarrassing to be found with blood on your chin.
So now, off to steal boys. We’re a troop of older boys and younger men. The oldest maybe twenty-two, half my age. I think of them all as boys, though I would never call them boys to their faces. I’m in charge. My son, Hob, he’s seventeen now, is with us.
But we no sooner creep down to the valley than we see things have changed since last year. The mothers have put up a wall. They’ve built themselves a fort.
I immediately change our plans. I decide this will be copulation day, not boys day. Good military strategy: Always be ready for a quick change of plan.
The minute I think this, I think Una. This is her town. My men look happy, too. This is not only easier, but lots more fun than herding a new crop of boys.
Last time I came down at copulation time I found her—or she found me, she usually does. She’s a little old for copulation day, but I didn’t want anybody but her. After copulation, I did things for her, repaired a roof leak, fixed a broken table leg…. Then I took her over again, though it wasn’t needed, and caused my squad to have to wait for me. Got me a lot of lewd remarks, but I felt extraordinarily happy anyway.
Sometimes on boys night I wonder, what if I stole Una along with boys? What if I dressed her as a boy and brought her to some secret hiding place on our side of the mountain? There are lots of unused caves. Once our armies occupied them all, but that was long ago. Both us and our enemies seem to be dwindling. Every ye
ar there are fewer and fewer suitable boys.
Una always seems glad to see me even though I’m ugly and small. (My size is a disadvantage for a soldier, though less so now that I have rank, but the ugliness… that’s how I can tell which are my sons… small, ugly boys, both of them. Too bad for them. But I’ve managed well even so, all the way up to colonel.)
Una was my first. I was her first, too. I felt sorry for her, having to have me for her beginning to be a woman. We were little more than children. We hardly knew what we were doing or how to do it. Afterwards she cried. I felt like crying myself but I had learned not to. Not just learned it with the squad, but I had learned it even before they took me from my mother. I wanted to be taken. I roamed far out into the scrub, waiting for them to come and get me.
The pain in my hip started when I was one of those boys. It wasn’t from a wound in a skirmish with the enemy, but from a fight among ourselves. Our leaders were happy when we fought each other. We’d have gotten soft and lazy if we didn’t. I keep my mouth shut about my injury. I kept my mouth shut even when I got it. I thought if they knew I could be so easily hurt they’d send me back. Later, I thought if they knew about it, I might not be allowed to come on our raids. Later still I thought I might not be able to be a colonel. I don’t let myself limp though sometimes that makes me more breathless than I should be. So far it doesn’t seem as if anybody’s noticed.
We regroup. I say, “Fellow nipples and fellow pillows….” Everybody laughs. “When have they ever stopped men? Look how womanish the walls are. They’ll crumble as we climb.” I scrape at a part with the tip of my cane. (As a colonel, I’m allowed to have a cane if I wish instead of a swagger stick.)
We’re not sure if the women want to stop copulation day or boy gathering day. We hope it’s the latter.
Boost up the smallest boy with a rope on hooks. The rest of us follow.
I used to be that smallest boy. I always went first and highest. Times like this I was glad for my size. I got medals for that. I don’t wear any of them. I like playing at being one of the boys. Being small and being a colonel is a good example for some. If they knew about my bum leg I’d be an even better example of how far you can get with disabilities.
I Live With You Page 5