The Life and Times of Persimmon Wilson

by Nancy Peacock

  To this end I fashioned two brackets from lumber left in one of the barns, and I secured them to either side of the cabin door, and each night before I turned down the lamp and went to sleep, I lay a thick heavy board in them to bar my way out.

  Chloe must not have called for me that first night, for I woke in my bed the next morning, and the next few after that, but then it happened one morning that I woke slumped against the door, exhausted, I supposed, from trying to open it.

  I cannot tell you exactly how many months I spent alone at the Traveling S Ranch. Perhaps if I tried, I could count for you the number of storms I endured, or the times I woke up on the floor, or the sticks of wood I burned, or the hours I spent staring at Mo and Geraldine’s tintypes, at my friends’ empty bunks, at their possessions. I cleared away none of it. I even left Mo’s spit bucket until its contents fermented one night and bubbled over the rim, sliding like algae to the edge of his boots left at the foot of his bed.

  I visited their corpses throughout the winter. On good days, days without blizzards or too much ice in the air, days in which I had done all my chores and had some time to spare, I pulled up a chair and sat next to their feed-sack-shrouded bodies and spoke to them. I told them of my life, my dinners, my breakfasts, the book I was reading through again. I thanked Sedge for his lamp. I told Mo that I’d shaved off a piece of his “tombaccer” and chewed it, inadvertently swallowing it, and I would not be trying that again, thank you very much. “I miss you,” I said.

  The dreams of Chloe continued. Her memory would not release me. She would not release me. “That winter,” she once told me, “that winter after he told you I be dead, I pray fo’ you. I pray you come back. I pray you knowed I warn’t no dead thing out on the prairie. I pray you knowed he was lyin’. I was prayin’ you find me, Persy.”

  Perhaps I should have prayed that winter. It would have at least been something to do. But I did not pray that winter, or any other. I do not pray still. While I was with the Comanche, I left the praying to the medicine men, and sometimes the medicine worked and sometimes it didn’t.

  Chloe’s medicine worked, for I cannot ignore the fact that she prayed for me. I cannot help but think that her prayers might have been the source of my dreams, the reason I could not sleep through the night. I woke many times slumped against my barred door, the fire out in the stove and my urine frozen in the slop pot.

  Spring came, as it always does, just when I believed it never would come. After a spell of warm weather the ground thawed and I buried Mo and Sedge. I dug the holes deep. I rolled them in, and by the grace of something, they both landed faceup. Into Mo’s grave I dropped the tintypes of him and Geraldine, and into Sedge’s grave I dropped his slate and the nub of chalk and a braided lariat. I covered them up and mounded their graves with rocks. I pulled two boards from one of the stalls and carved their names into them, and these I planted.

  I still did not know what month it was. The only thing I knew was that the coming of spring assured me that the year had definitely passed from 1867 to 1868. I wanted to leave this place. I had no desire to stay and wait for the other ranch hands to show up. I had no desire to be here without Mo and Sedge.

  In order to leave, I would need to take some of the horses and set the others loose, thus committing the first act for which I am to hang, horse thievery, although I did not think of it as such at the time.

  I shaved, and I rolled up my bedroll, and I crammed a few things to take with me into Mo’s haversack: a book, the deck of cards, my piece of map. I culled the horses I wanted from the herd, Cups and Spring Dance, three others so that I could trade off riding them, letting some rest as we went along. I took Mo’s team of mules. I took a good saddle and what little was left of our provisions: cornmeal and coffee and beans. I took my rifle and all the ammunition. I left the wagons. I left Mo’s block of “tombaccer.” I left Sedge’s lamp.

  I had not thought of Indians for a long time. I did not think of them still. The long winter and the loss of my friends had lulled my sense of danger and survival into an apathetic torpor. Hadn’t I managed to hold on, companionless, through blizzards, endless days of sameness, and Chloe’s voice calling to me in the night? Wasn’t the worst of it over, the weather warming now, the danger gone? I needed only to make my way back to civilization. I needed only to find some sort of work and a way to support myself. I needed only to find a way to forget about Chloe.

  I set free the horses I was not taking with me. I watched them thunder off into the plains, tossing their heads, their manes and tails lifting in the wind, some of them turning back once to look at me before disappearing over a rise.

  I visited my friends’ graves one last time. I promised Mo that I would take care of his mules. I swore to Sedge that I would take care of his horses, and that the rest were free. I told them they were as good friends as I’d ever had, as good as Henry and Sup. “You would have liked them,” I said. “Maybe I’ll find them.” And then I put on my hat, and mounted Spring Dance, and quit this place, heading southeast, angling toward the town of Drunken Bride. From there I thought I would go to Austin, and then back to New Orleans. Perhaps I really could find Henry or Sup. Perhaps I could even find my own pa or ma or sister, Betty.

  Along the way I made camps beside streams and trickles of water. I killed prairie chickens and jackrabbits and developed a taste for rattlesnake. I saw a herd of buffalo, like a slow-moving black stain against the faraway hills. Antelope sprang across my path. Vultures spun in air currents above me. I watched, one day, as two rattlesnakes mated on a sun-warmed rock beside the trail, and even though I was hungry, I did not kill them. It seemed a sacred act, this twining and twisting around each other.

  I dreamt of Chloe only once. It was not the same as the dreams that had plagued me throughout the winter. She did not call for me. I did not get up and wander into the plains looking for her. Instead she was walking toward me in the moonlight. The white gown she wore shimmered, like the Mississippi River had shimmered in the starlight when I’d awakened pressed against that snag of limbs and debris, clutching my dough bowl to my chest. In my dream Chloe held her hand out to me, and said a word, which I did not recognize. I took her hand, and woke from the dream feeling peaceful, the same as I had felt whenever in her arms.

  I traveled on. Another creek. The water was clear and cold, the air warm. I thought I might be nearing Drunken Bride, and I wanted to clean up before I did so. I shaved and washed my clothes. I had neglected to empty my pockets before washing my britches and as I dipped them in and out of the water the little noose from One-Eyed Jim’s hanging floated out and began to travel in the current across the rocks. I grabbed it and put it in Mo’s haversack, and then spread my clothes across a bush to dry and sat on a sun-baked boulder to eat a bit of leftover rabbit. My saddle sat on the ground close by. Mo’s haversack and a belt of bullets lay on the ground behind me. I had not been so stupid as to leave my rifle out of grabbing distance. With the exception of Chloe’s button on its leather strip still tied around my neck, and my hat, I was naked.

  The horses and mules were not hobbled. They were gathered in the stream, drinking contentedly, when all of them at once raised their heads and smelt the wind. And then I saw a figure splashing in the stream among them, raising his hands, waving his arms, and the horses took off, running across the plains away from me, and just as quickly the first arrow whistled by my right ear. I did not know what it was. I stood watching my horses retreat in the distance, still not comprehending what was going on when the second arrow sang by my left ear.

  The Indians came over the hill in front of me, a dozen or more. Their shrieks and yelps sounded as though pulled from the throat of the devil himself. I jumped behind the rock for cover. I grabbed my rifle, aimed and fired and aimed and fired again, but they swarmed around me like an angry nest of hornets. They turned their horses this way and that, spinning here and there, always moving. I could not take aim, they moved so fast, like a twister, swirling as if one funnel cl
oud, changing their positions constantly, trading posts as though in an orchestrated dance.

  The arrows fell thick around me now. Some pinged off the rock. Others stuck in the ground. Still more flew into the brush, landing with a whump into my clothes left drying in the sun. Several of the warriors rode up to me and touched me with their bows or the butts of their rifles, but before I could fire at them, they were gone with a shrill whoop, vanished back into that hot swirl.

  One warrior threw a lance, and it stuck in the ground next to me. I do not know why, but I reached over and pulled it out, and hurled it back to him, and somehow he caught it by its shank. The Indians found this amusing and for a brief time they stopped fighting while they laughed and rode around and around as the warrior held his lance in the air. And then it all started back up again.

  I was allowed to reload and continue shooting. Not one of the warriors took cover or showed any concern that I might kill him. They were toying with me, the same way that a cat will toy with a mouse. I know this now. Still, that I am alive today, that I am here, breathing and ready to hang, is a wonder to me. I swore to myself that as long as I had ammunition I would not surrender, but I did not know what I would do when it came down to that last bullet, the one that Mo advised I save for myself.

  I kept shooting. They kept firing arrows at me. Some of them had guns, but few were fired. I know now that they had a cache of ammunition, but they did not care to waste bullets on one easily taken naked man.

  It seemed forever that I was behind that rock, defending my life, and then it seemed no time at all that it was over. In the heat and surge of battle I had not paid close enough attention to my supply of bullets, and suddenly I reached to reload and there was nothing to reload with. A warrior galloped his horse right up to me.

  It was as if this had all been planned, as if everyone involved knew the cues and the dance but me. He jumped down and held out his hand, nodding his head toward my rifle. I looked into his eyes and shook my head no. He smiled, reached over and grabbed the rifle, then hit me in the head with its butt.

  I CAME TO, slung belly down, like a deer carcass, tied to the rump of a galloping horse. My head bounced and jostled and hurt. I had the impulse to touch the tender spot where the rifle butt had made its impact but found that my arms were trussed to my feet, the rope passing beneath the horse’s belly.

  The ground below was orangey and rocky and hard and dry, when the horse slowed down enough that I might get a glimpse of it, and then, when the Indian above me urged the horse to pick up its pace, the ground was hidden by billows of dust. I felt something soft whipping into my face, and I turned my head to find that it was hair from one of three scalps tied to the belt of the Indian. The scalps were fresh, the skin around them raw and dark with blood.

  My stomach lurched and my last meal, the rabbit I had been eating just before the attack, came up, leaving a burning residue of bile in my mouth. I spit and then spit again, and apparently a bit of it landed on the moccasin of the brave riding the horse behind me, for he rode up and thumped me hard on the back with his bow. A shower of pain sparked across my skin and I realized that I was sunburnt, for I was still naked, my butt and back taking the full beating sun.

  I raised my head and looked to my right at the foot and leg of the brave mounted on the horse with me, avoiding as much as possible the sight of the scalps. The foot was moccasined, the leg without hair, the calf bunched with muscle, the skin bronze.

  Others rode beside us, the horses’ hooves kicking up dust, causing me to blink against the grit in my eyes. A herd of horses without riders also traveled with us, and it took me a moment to realize that some of these were mine. I saw Spring Dance and Cups among them. I saw Mo’s mules.

  My stomach lurched again, but nothing came up. With each involuntary heave, the rope strained against my feet and arms, cutting into my skin. At last I lay still, my stomach settled, as settled as it could be under these circumstances.

  We entered a brushy area; mesquite bushes scratched and stung at my legs and arms and neck. I felt blood dribble and then cake along my calves and forearms. I closed my eyes now. Watching the ground go by only made me dizzy, and I feared a mesquite might brush against my face and lodge a thorn in my eye. I tried to will my body to rest. I tried to loosen my spine just as Sedge had taught me to do when riding bucking broncos. And I tried, as I was bounced along, to remember all that Mo had told me about dealing with the Indians, all the inane and puerile bits of advice he had given, other than kill yourself before you get captured, for it was too late for that.

  The truth is I had never fully trusted Mo’s information, but I had nothing else to go on. He had of course been wrong about one thing. The Indians were not so put off by my hair that they would leave me alone.

  Be brave, I remembered Mo saying. Don’t show fear. The Indians admire courage. If they offer you something to eat, take the raw meat.

  At this thought my stomach lurched again and my mind turned to torture. Cut off your nose and your fingers and your dick, Mo had said. Cut holes in your arms and run leather thongs through and hang you from a tree.

  I seed it, I heard Mo’s voice say. I seed it.

  “Mo.” I heard my own voice. It sounded so faint that I could not believe it had come from me. “Mo.”

  Don’t call fo’ yo’ mama or yo’ God. Be brave. Don’t show fear. If they offer you food, take the raw meat.

  Be brave. Don’t show fear. Take the raw meat.

  Be brave. Don’t show fear. Take the raw meat.

  Somehow I fell asleep with Mo’s voice chanting through my mind. When I awoke again we had stopped traveling. It was night. I felt the rope being loosened from my body and then I was dumped on the ground. I rolled onto my back. Above me were a pale gibbous moon, and the braves standing around me in a ring. They were but dark shadows in this faint light. I pulled myself to my knees, and tried to stand, but my legs would not support me. They were as flaccid as strips of flannel cloth, and as I slumped to the ground I heard the Indians laugh.

  I tried again, and again my legs caved out from under me, and again the Indians found this entertaining. One of them stepped forward and lifted me by my arms and stood me before him. As soon as he let go I crumpled to the ground. They guffawed at this, and stood around me laughing at my misery, and then once again one of them lifted me up and stood me before them and again I fell.

  They laughed as if they were children and I a trick toy. They slapped their thighs. They lifted me again and again and they never tired of the game until at last my legs held, and I stood there in front of them swaying like a reed. One of them, he was wearing my hat, reached over and touched my shoulder, and I grabbed his hand and removed it from my person, and this they thought hilarious.

  And then another of them suddenly stepped forward and before I knew it I was on the ground again, and my feet were tied together with strips of rawhide, and then my hands behind my back. He pulled me upright, and I stood there wobbling, willing the muscles in my legs to gain strength before the next abuse.

  It seemed they had camped here before, for my bed for the night was already prepared, two forked sticks driven into the ground. A long pole was pushed through the rawhide tying my hands and feet, and two of them picked me up by this pole, and set it in the forked sticks so that I was suspended like a sow, but with my face to the ground, my back arched. Apparently they did not consider this to be painful enough, for one of them placed a heavy rock on my back, and as he did so, I willed my voice to be silent. I willed my body not to respond with any sound.

  I could see, after the rock was placed on my back, their feet standing around me. They were looking at me. I stayed silent. I forced my breath into shallowness, for deep breaths were excruciating with this weight on my back. They made noises to each other and turned away. One of them said something in a language I did not understand and then I heard them moving about.

  Soon I saw the light of a fire flickering across the ground. I could tell by this l
ight and by the fact that its heat did not reach me that it was a small fire. I could see the shadows of the Indians settling down around it. They conversed in their strange language, paying no attention to me that I could tell. I am certain that they had no food this first night out, for I smelt no meat cooking, and heard no grease dripping into the fire, and I think I would have heard chewing or grunts of satisfaction had they been eating raw meat. Eventually the flickering shadows of the fire died down, and I heard the Indians, one by one, settle in to sleep.

  I spent the night thus. If you think hanging can hurt me compared to this, you are wrong. The rock that had been placed on my back was nearly the circumference of a large fry pan. I wished it were a fry pan for a fry pan would not have been so heavy. The rock pressed into the small of my back until it felt like a thousand people were sitting on me, causing the rawhide to pull at my legs and arms and cut into my skin. I sagged toward the ground but I did not touch it. My head hung down. The only thing that I could move was my neck, and I occasionally stretched it, although this movement sent sharp knives of pain into my shoulders and down my spine.

  I had not yet let out so much as a whimper, and I vowed that I would not. I would not show fear. I would not show pain. These were the only two things I had within my power, and I would use them. I was sure that in order to do so I must stay awake. When I felt myself passing out I forced my neck to move just a little, the excruciating arrows of pain a welcome fix on consciousness. I expected the pain, and I sucked in my breath as it hit me. But I did not cry out. I never once cried out. All night long, whenever I felt myself nodding, I again moved my neck and caused the sharp pain that would keep me awake.