The Life and Times of Persimmon Wilson

by Nancy Peacock

  This travel between the worlds of consciousness and unconsciousness required, ironically, that I be exceedingly conscious, that I not allow myself one speck of comfort, and that I concentrate on everything my body was feeling; the rock, the unnatural arc of my back, the stiffness of my limbs, the soreness of my skin, the rawhide cutting into my wrists and ankles. And so I spent the night wandering to the rim of senselessness, the rim that bordered the canyon of relief, and forcing my way back from it every time.

  Daybreak came. The light gradually changed. The ground in front of me became a little more visible. I heard the Indians stir. One came to me. I could see his feet standing at my right shoulder. One foot lifted and the rock was kicked off my back, a large swath of sunburnt skin taken with it. But I made no noise, not of pain at the abrasion, nor of pleasure at having this weight removed from my back. I made no noise at all. The Indian reached into my hair and pulled my head up, and then seeing that I was alive, he pulled a knife from a sheath held by a belt around his waist. He held the knife to my throat and slid its blade across, just barely pressing into my flesh, so that a thin line of blood bubbled along my neck. I showed him no fear. I gave him no satisfaction.

  It is true that I had made up my mind that this is the way I would be, but it is also true that at that moment I would have welcomed death. Lying in the desert with my throat slit, my blood pouring onto the dry, orangey earth, my body food for the vultures would have been a welcome change. The Indian grunted at my lack of response and moved his knife to my back and quickly cut the rawhide strips.

  I fell to the ground with a thud, the impact nearly knocking the breath out of me. I rolled onto my back. I tried to move my arms to the front of my body but they were empty of blood and I could not make them move. It was as if they were dead, yet somehow still attached to me. The Indian reached down and lifted one and then the other and laid them on my chest, and then he walked away, his moccasins making soft padding sounds against the earth.

  I lifted my head to look at my hands. My wrists were bleeding from the rawhide strips. I could feel that my ankles also bled. I lay my head back and closed my eyes. I could hear the Indians moving about, the horses nickering, the Indians speaking to each other words I could not understand. I did not know if they were preparing to leave, or preparing some new abuse, but for the moment, no one bothered with me. I opened my eyes and stared at the pale blue sky. A bird circled high above. I dared not close my eyes again, for I still feared unconsciousness.

  I decided that if they did not kill me, if we were to travel again, then I would sleep on the back of the horse. Slowly the tingling of returning blood filled my arms and legs like a thousand pinpricks. I tried again to move my limbs but was unable. I kept waiting and trying until finally I found that I could lift my right arm, and then my left, and my feet, and legs. I sat up, teetering.

  It looked as if we were to travel, for they were breaking camp, and gathering the horses, and placing blankets and saddles onto their backs. Soon enough one came to me and lifted me and placed me on the back of a horse behind another warrior. I was grateful to be placed upright this time. My feet were lashed together, the rope running under the horse’s belly. My hands were placed around the brave’s middle, and he clamped his arms down against mine in a muscled vise. I tried to move them but found that I could not, and he laughed as I discovered this. It seemed as though they had nothing better to do than laugh at me.

  I’d had nothing to eat or drink since before my capture. My muscles cramped with dehydration, and my stomach rumbled with hunger. The torture of the night before transformed itself into another sort of torture as my body tried to readjust to this new position, my back no longer forced into an arch, but straight. This Indian I had been placed behind must have been the same Indian I had ridden behind the day before, for I recognized the scalps tied to his belt, the hair now tickling my knee. I looked down at them.

  One was a long braid of dark hair, another a drift of golden hair, the third long brown hair, and from it a comb dangled askew. The scalps, I noticed, were starting to stink. I felt my stomach lurch again. There was nothing to come up, for which I was thankful, for who knew what might have happened had I vomited onto the back of this man.

  I pushed the rising stench of the scalps away. I knew not what they had in mind for me tonight, but this was my time to rest. I was about to lean my head against the man’s back when I saw that his hair was crawling with lice. It seemed likely though that getting lice was the least of my problems and so I went ahead and leaned my head against him. He made a small humming noise, deep in his throat, but he made no effort to dislodge me from this position. I closed my eyes and I slept with the stench of the scalps drifting into my nose.

  It was afternoon when I awoke. The sun, at its zenith, baked onto my neck. I was still naked, and scorched, and the air was a dry heat that traveled like an avalanche of gravel down my throat, causing me to cough, which turned my windpipe into a tunnel of fire. I began working my mouth, trying to produce spittle, some slight bit of moisture, but there was none.

  For the rest of the day I went in and out of consciousness. I remember telling myself that I should orient to the sun, I should determine the direction we were traveling in case I had the chance to escape, but the surrounding land was so strange and haunted that I could never tell if I was dreaming or hallucinating, or if everything I saw was real.

  I remember flat scrubby earth stretching all around me. Stunted trees twisted and hanging on to ledges as if they were sentries watching our passage. A place with piles of human bones bleached to a blinding white. An antelope with the mask of a white man springing across our path. Large rocks rising out of the ground like an army of tremendous statues whose legs were buried in the sand, and whose heads had long ago rolled off and been lost. In the distance two round caves in a cliff like the hollow eyes of a ghost.

  It was all so extraordinary; I cannot tell you, even now, what was real and what was not. I saw that antelope wearing that mask. If I close my eyes, I see it still. I will not say it was a hallucination, for it seemed no more peculiar than the land itself.

  I do not know how many miles we traveled that day, or any day. The Indians kept up a relentless pace. We tore through the country, a cloud of dust kicking up as we went. I fell asleep once again, and was awakened this time by a slowing in pace. I opened my eyes and saw only the flat land, and the big sky, and then suddenly a gash opened in the ground, and we were traveling down into a small canyon. I could feel the air become cooler and I smelt the water before I saw it, a wide stream shimmering in the sun. I leaned toward it, and the Indian in front of me said something and pushed my body back with his.

  When we reached the stream the horses waded in and bent their heads down to it and drank. The Indians, including the one I sat behind, slid out of their saddles, their feet splashing as they landed. They bent and cupped the water to their mouths. They left me tied onto the horse, and sitting there, wanting the water I could not reach, was as torturous as anything they had done yet.

  My body yearned for this water. My eyes could see it. My nose could smell it. Drops of it hit my legs as one of the Indians playfully splashed some toward his companion. The horse I was on wandered a little ways upstream, placing the Indians behind me. I looked up at the canyon walls. The sun peeked over the edge now. I leaned over and tried to reach the rope tied around my feet beneath the horse’s belly, but could not. I heard the Indians speak to each other and finally I heard one of them splashing his way toward me. He grabbed the horse’s mane and led it back downstream. There he untied me and I fell into the water and drank of it like a dog. After I’d had my fill I rolled onto my back, and let the stream cool my sunburnt skin.

  It occurred to me then that I could perhaps let the stream carry me away. The Indians were once again paying no attention to me. But I still could not swim, and I was weak with hunger, and the canyon walls were steep around me. I had no clothes, no rifle, no knowledge of where I was, so I just
lay there in the shallows, the horses wading around me, and bending their necks and dipping their snouts into the water and raising them with droplets falling and glistening in the sun.

  After a time one Indian waded into the stream and began taking the saddles off the horses. I had not noticed the three antelopes, two babies and their mother it looked like, slumped on the backs of some of Mo’s mules. The Indian untied the carcasses and I sat up to watch. Soon I heard the crackle of a fire and I smelt meat cooking and I saw the antelopes roasting on spits across the flames. I stood and waded toward the meat. I did not think. I reached for some, even though it was not fully cooked. One of the Indians slashed my hand with his knife. I reached with my other hand, and again he slashed me. Then I sat and watched the food cook.

  It was not long before one of them stood and said something, and they all stood and looked toward the eastern rim of the canyon. Three of them pulled spyglasses from their bags and peered into the distance with them. I had not noticed before that they had spyglasses. They passed them around to each other and pointed them east. After a time they settled down again and started speaking to each other, and it was not long before I heard a collective yelp coming from upstream. The Indians stood again, and let out an answering call and soon another party of braves appeared herding another group of horses. There must have been fifteen more Indians, and the horses they herded numbered in the thirties.

  All the Indians gathered around the fire now. The antelopes were taken off the spit and they tore into them, ripping off pieces of meat and pulling the bones apart. They ate their fill and I watched. Occasionally they looked at me. I sat there, naked and hungry. I did not make a noise. I did not whine or beg. I would not do this.

  After some time they had filled themselves and one of them lay a stick on the fire and they sat back and started talking. They looked at me and gestured toward me as they spoke. I sat impassively. I’d had good practice for this in my life as a slave.

  They continued to talk. After a time one of them gestured to me, nodding his head toward what was left of the antelopes, and I fell upon one, ripping the paltry strips of meat left on the bones off with my teeth, chewing and swallowing almost simultaneously, gulping it down as if it were air. They let me have what was left, although I was still hungry, for they had eaten most of it. Then I was tied up again, this time in a sitting position, feet to hands. They made their beds all around me, and fell asleep.

  Once again I tried to stay awake through the night, and I managed for some time, listening to the rise and fall of the Indians’ breath, watching their dark forms, the fire gently flickering its shadows, but my body, for the first time in two days, felt some sense of comfort, for although I was still naked and aching and burnt, I had at least had food and water. My eyelids drooped, and eventually I let my head nod and I fell asleep.

  The next morning the two parties joined each other, almost thirty Indians now, and more than twice as many horses. For the first time I noticed that there were a few young boys among them, and that one of them was white. He spoke their language fluently. I wondered if I could get him alone somehow and talk to him, if he might help me escape, but it was a foolish thought. He was as thoroughly Indianized as if he had been born to them.

  I do not know how many more days we traveled, for we went once again for a long period of time without food or water, and I became, once again, delirious and weak and unable to make sense of things. I do remember that each day, as we traveled, I was tied to the back of a horse behind the same brave, and that each night I was tied in a sitting position, feet to hands, and that this position tormented me. Every morning I could barely stand, and as the Indians prepared to break camp, I stretched and hobbled about in order to retrain my legs and back to unbend and carry me. On the last night out we camped near a spring and I was given water, but no food.

  I did not know what day it was, or how many days had passed since my capture. I cannot tell you when we reached the Indian village, only that I’d had water the night before, and that as we drew closer to the village the party of Indians I was with let out yelps of joy, and urged their horses to go faster.

  It was this that woke me from my slumber on the back of the horse.

  We were at the edge of yet another canyon, this one larger than the previous one. Down below a mile or more of tipis lined one bank of a wide glistening stream, and on the other side a huge heard of horses grazed. I saw people moving about, and ropes of smoke from cook fires rising here and there outside the lodges. As we scrabbled down the face of this canyon, our horses turned sideways and picked their way carefully, occasionally dislodging a stone and sending it clattering into the basin. Our party was soon spotted and a great undulating cry went up from the women of the village. The Indians I was with whooped and hollered and as we approached people poured forth across our path, women and children and men, all chattering and smiling and welcoming their warriors home.

  Mo’s voice came to me again.

  Don’t call fo’ yo’ mama or yo’ god. Be brave. Don’t show fear.

  There must be, I thought, thousands of them.

  IT WAS THE WOMEN who went at me first. They surrounded me, cut my rope ties and pulled me from the horse and threw me on the ground, slapping me, beating me, kicking me. One fat old woman sat on my chest so that all the air pushed out of my lungs as she smacked her large hands against my head. All the while they kept up their shrill cries. I made no effort to stop them.

  Off and on, when my ears weren’t being boxed, the noises of the camp came to me, the muted sounds of men in conversation, erupting laughter, children chattering excitedly, the thunder of the horses’ hooves as they were driven to the larger herd across the stream, and of course the women’s shrieking as they continued to abuse me. And then the large she-devil sitting on my chest smiled at me and leaned back and reached between my legs with the intent of twisting my balls, and to this I quickly rolled over, dumping her onto the ground. The other women laughed and paused in their treatment of me, while the large woman pulled her skirt down and stood up and delivered one final kick to my thigh before stalking off.

  And then, as though orchestrated, the women fell back, and a group of young bucks began charging at me, feinting with their lances as if to stab me, and at the last minute plunging their spears into the ground beside me. I lay still. They shot arrows all around me, but none hit, and soon enough this game ended and another began.

  Two Indians whom I had not seen before hauled me up and dragged me to the center of camp. I felt blows and slaps as I stumbled along. I was taken to a pole set in the ground and my feet were tied to it, my hands clasped around it and lashed behind me. A boy ran by wearing my hat. Another stood in front of a tipi, closing my little noose around his finger. A third, he could only have been five or six years old, ran up and shot a toy arrow at me. I felt it bounce hard off my chest. An old man came up to him and smiled and patted him on the back. He then encouraged the child to try switching the bow to his other arm, and the child did so. I watched as he pulled another toy arrow from the quiver on his back, placed it in the bow, and fired it at me. Again it bounced hard off my chest, and the man praised the boy, ruffling his hair and smiling.

  The party of men who had brought me in was standing off to the side. They seemed to fall into a discussion as to my fate, looking at me and talking, gesturing with their hands to each other. The Indian whom I had ridden behind said something to another, who then ran off and returned with a white boy, dressed in a buckskin shirt and leggings. He was not the same white boy who had been with the party that had brought me in. This boy was a little older and had red hair.

  The man whose horse I had shared, the one who’d hit me over the head with the butt of my rifle, my Indian, for this is how I had come to think of him, handed the boy a pistol and motioned toward me. The boy walked up to me. He looked into my eyes. His red hair was long and crawling with lice, his skin leathery from the sun, his eyes hard and filled with loathing. He lifted the gun, an
d held it to my face. I stared at the barrel, trying to show no expression, although I was certain that this was it. I was about to die. The boy pulled the trigger, and a black powder exploded across my skin, for unbeknownst to me, and possibly to him, the lead had been taken out of the shell. I dipped my head down to my shoulder in order to wipe the powder away from my eyes. “Yay,” my Indian said, and they all looked at each other and nodded.

  The women scurried off and returned carrying loads of sticks and kindling, which they piled at my feet. Dying, I realized, would be a welcome relief, and then I thought of Chloe. I wondered if I still had her button around my neck. I could not remember feeling it when I came to, slumped across the rump of the horse following my capture, or if it had been there the night they suspended me between the forked sticks with the rock on my back, or if I’d felt it anywhere along the journey to this village.

  Why would I have felt it? My body was feeling so many other things. But now, as the women continued to pile sticks at my feet, I thought that perhaps the strip of leather that held it had broken, and Chloe’s button now lay somewhere, the same as her bones lay, alone in the frontier. If I must die this way, and it seemed as though I must, I wanted more than anything to have Chloe’s button around my neck.

  I felt my fingers straining with a memory of their own, trying to reach up and touch it. But with my hands tied, I could do nothing. Instead I concentrated on that one small part of my body, trying to isolate it from all the other parts still screaming at me from stings and slaps and kicks and aches and the scrape of kindling being piled against my sunburnt calves. At last I felt it, the small weight of it against my throat. I straightened and looked out over the village.

  The men who had captured me were still gathered in a clump, surrounded by other men now. I watched as one gestured. I could not understand the language, but I was certain he was telling the story of my capture, pointing to me and crouching to mimic me taking cover behind the rock, pointing to me again and raising his arms as if firing a rifle. He nodded, made the gesture again, and then pantomimed the night I was suspended between the poles with the rock on my back. The man pushed his foot forward and said something, and the others turned as a group to look at me. I recognized the storyteller as the man who had kicked the rock off my back and slid the knife across my throat, and he made this motion now, his finger sliding across his own throat, saying something. They turned again to look at me and they nodded to each other.