The Girl Who Married an Eagle

by Tamar Myers

  “Of course you have a name, Clementine,” Julia said. “Clementine is a beautiful name.”

  “And Clementine,” Henry said, “now that we are reminded of your name, I want you to go to your room.”

  That is all it took to get the girl to obey—just to have someone acknowledge her name publicly, maybe even vehemently, in the presence of those who would reduce her to the Great Distraction. Henry had Julia to thank for that. At least the Juvenile Delinquent was good for something.

  As soon as Clementine had called “good night” from her room, Reverend Doyer told his wife to begin talking. “It’s your story, Nurse Verna,” he said.

  “It’s like this,” she said. “You don’t know how much I have prayed about this very moment. That God would lead you to hear my words. To listen to my story from start to finish, before unleashing that fiery temper of yours.”

  “My fiery temper?” Henry said.

  Reverend Doyer nodded. “Like the wrath of Jehovah in the Old Testament.”

  “Wait a minute,” Julia said. “Jehovah was God, and God can do no wrong. Therefore the wrath of Jehovah was justified.”

  Both Doyers turned to stare at Julia. She may as well have been an alien from Mars or have spoken in some gobbledygook language of her own, judging by their expressions.

  “Perhaps I should join Clementine,” Julia said quickly.

  “You stay right where you are,” Henry said. It sounded like a cry for help.

  “Well, then I shall,” Julia said. “Now please, Nurse Verna, continue. I promise that I won’t interrupt again.”

  Nurse Verna sat down heavily in Clementine’s empty chair before speaking. “This is about the day Henry lost his wife, Elizabeth, and his infant son.”

  Henry slid into the fourth chair at the table. His deep tan looked noticeably paler.

  “Go on,” he said.

  Nurse Verna did the oddest thing then; she turned to Julia and recounted the story to her. “We were on our way to our annual missionary conference,” she said. “That was two years ago, so it was held at Ngandu Station—we rotate every year. Anyway, we were at the Loange River waiting for the ferry. Like many of them, the ferry there is just four dugout canoes lashed together with some boards.

  “Anyway, it was an exceptionally hot day, and Mrs. Hayes—Elizabeth—was eight and a half months pregnant, so she decided to wade along the shore.”

  “Only one mustn’t do that,” said Reverend Doyer, “because of the crocs.”

  Nurse Verna patted his arm. “Shhh. But you see, Henry was with her, keeping an eye out. However, the water there is so muddy that an enormous crocodile was able to sneak up and pull Elizabeth under. First the beast grabbed Elizabeth by her leg, but Henry held tight. So the beast let go of her leg and grabbed Elizabeth by her arm—well, Henry still would not let go. God gave him the strength to not let go.”

  “Praise God,” Reverend Doyer said.

  “But you see,” Nurse Verna said, “neither would the crocodile give up. In the end, Henry was able to pull Elizabeth from the river, but the price she paid was steep. She lost her left arm up to, and including, the elbow. In addition, she was in full labor. I am not a doctor, Miss Newton, I am merely a nurse. And I cannot work miracles; only God can.

  “There was a Roman Catholic mission at Bakuabo, about twenty kilometers back the way we’d come, so I told Henry to drive like Jehu, and see if maybe they had a doctor who was willing to help—even though we are Protestants. Meanwhile, I did my level best with the knowledge that was mine, and the tools that were available to me.”

  “Praise God,” Reverend Doyer said again.

  This time Julia wished that she were sitting close enough to slap him. But why did she feel that way? Whatever the reason, it just proved that she was unfit to be a missionary.

  Nurse Verna gave her husband a pitying look before continuing. “I will admit that saving the life of the mother was my priority,” she said. “It is no secret that I believe that children have no place on the mission field. That they are distractions.”

  “Great distractions,” Julia said. She couldn’t help herself.

  Henry started, but said nothing.

  Nurse Verna actually seemed to smile. “Exactly. That said, Elizabeth was able to deliver an infant son, and although I cleared his air passage—and I have delivered hundreds of babies—he was never able to breathe sufficiently on his own. I had to revive him several times with my own breath, as the Prophet Elijah revived the widow’s son, but eventually—well, eventually it was the Lord’s call.”

  “Praise God,” Reverend Doyer said.

  “Oh shut up,” Nurse Verna said, speaking to her husband, but she kept her eyes on Henry. “I came here tonight to clear the air.”

  “Clear the air?” Henry said, which was ironic, because he suddenly seemed lost in a fog.

  “Yes, Henry. We heard about Chief Eagle’s threat, and since these last few months before independence are dangerous to begin with—well, only the Lord knows what’s going to happen next. Tomorrow we could all be up in Glory, worshipping at our Savior’s feet.”

  “Praise—”

  “Verna,” Henry said, like a man waking up, “it’s not fair of you to scare Julia like that.”

  “Fair? Henry, all these years I have toiled in the clinic to gain these people’s trust, and in one day she has managed to bring the vengeance of a ruthless man down upon our heads.”

  “Please finish clearing the air, Verna,” Henry said. That’s all he said; there was not a hint in his voice of sarcasm at that point. No sir, he was not going to be contradicting Nurse Verna’s claim that the immanent danger was all Julia’s fault.

  “Very well,” Nurse Verna said, obviously happy to oblige him. “What I came over to say tonight was this: I did my very best to save that infant of yours the day that your wife died. I did not give up on him too soon. If there is anyone to blame for his death—and I am not saying that there is—then that someone would be the Great Distraction.”

  Henry was on feet. “Who?” he roared.

  The Doyers rose as well. “Henry,” Nurse Verna said, her eyes still on Julia, “I might have been able to save Elizabeth as well, if it hadn’t been for the constant carrying on of that child.”

  “Carrying on? Her mother was dying, for Pete’s sake!”

  “She was a big girl,” Reverend Doyer said. “She was seven years old, for crying out loud. I kept telling her to be quiet. I tried to get her to walk with me a ways back up the road so that Nurse Verna had space to work. I told the Great Distraction that I thought I’d seen a family of monkeys in the forest up there, but she wouldn’t listen. I lied in order to save your wife and son.”

  “She is not the Great Distraction,” Henry hissed. “She is a child. An innocent child. Now get out of our house. Please. You’ve had your say, so now please go.”

  “It wasn’t my wife’s fault,” Reverend Doyer said. “We just wanted you to know. A lot of things have gone wrong, but that day was none of our doing. And neither was today.”

  “Today was all my doing,” Julia said.

  Nobody contradicted her. In fact, no one said anything after that. The Doyers left, and after Henry bolted the front door from the inside, he too went off. At first Julia assumed he was only going to check on the back door.

  When about half an hour had passed, and he still had not returned, Julia took the liberty of turning the wick down on the kerosene lantern to its lowest possible position. Then she carried the lantern as she would a flashlight, returning it to Clementine’s room.

  Julia had supposed that she would endure a sleepless night, but that was not to be the case. Almost immediately she fell into a deep and dreamless sleep that saw her through until morning. The next time that she opened her eyes, Henry was standing over her, demanding to know the answer to something.

  Apparently whatever Henry wanted to know was extremely urgent. He had a piece of folded paper in his right hand, which he kept slapping across the
fingers of his left hand. His brow was furrowed, and his dark brown eyes were searching and desperate.

  “Yah?” Julia said. “What? Again, please.”

  “Have you seen Clemey?” Slap, slap, slap.

  “No. I was asleep until just now.”

  “You slept all night? Without waking up once?”

  “Yes. No offense, Henry, but we young people sometimes do that.”

  “Do you mean to say that you slept right through it?”

  “I suppose that I must have; but since I don’t know what it is, it’s hard to say for sure if I did.”

  “Julia, my little Clemey is missing.”

  “What?” Julia’s stomach muscles clenched with fear. “She is such a vibrant, energetic child—tell me, who would do such a—I mean, but really, there has to be an explanation.”

  Henri sat on the bed beside her. “This is the explanation. This is the note I found on her bed when I came in to wake her for breakfast. I’m hoping that you can tell me something that I don’t know.”

  Julia took the note over to the window where her still bleary eyes stood a better chance of reading Clementine’s very Victorian, spidery handwriting.

  Papa,

  I have an idea that just might work, thanks to you, glory hallelujah amen. Tell Auntie Julia that she need not worry about sleeping with a canine. And please don’t stay mad at her. It looks like she possesses little in the way of fortitude.

  Love you mostest,

  Clemey, The Great Distraction

  Julia carefully refolded the note. “Oh, dear,” she said. “I haven’t a clue what this means. Not a clue.”

  “I was afraid so,” Henry said. “But I was hoping.”

  “Now what do we do?” she asked softly.

  “We do what we always do at Mushihi Station when the going gets tough.”

  “We pray,” Julia said.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  The Great Distraction did not believe in the power of prayer. It had failed to keep her mother alive, and two years of it had failed to raise her mother from the dead. Ergo, a year ago the Great Distraction stopped believing in prayer, and shortly afterward, she saw no need for God, either. Being a fair-minded child, she did, however, give her father a good month’s notice that she intended to fire his boss.

  “You can’t fire God,” Papa had said. “He’s not your boss.”

  “He’s my shepherd, isn’t he? And a shepherd is the boss of his sheep. Well, God was Mama’s boss too and he did a lousy job of watching over Mama that day by the ferry. Since Mama’s not here to fire God, then I’m doing it for her.”

  And that’s where Papa had let the subject lie. Well, for a while. He brought it up once to his brother, Uncle John, who said that if Clementine was his child he’d spank her little bottom until he’d spanked the devil out and spanked God back in. That’s what any normal parent would do with any ordinary child. But Clemey was no ordinary child, no siree, you could say that again.

  Why, you could spank Clemey’s little bottom all the way over to Kenya, but that wouldn’t make her eat one spoonful of broccoli, if eating vegetables was your goal. Clementine was a miniature Elizabeth, they all said that, except for the Doyers, of course. The Doyers didn’t approve of Mama, because she was forever trying to conceive babies.

  Papa once said that one of the things that he’d always liked best about Mama was that she was forever drawing lines in the sand. He said that’s what he admired about his Clemey too. Not just that, but Clementine’s lines were never drawn willy-nilly either, but based on her understanding of principles.

  You gotta have principles. You gotta stick up for what you believe in, for the people you love, even if you are afraid. You can’t just say that you love your little girl; you have to be willing to protect her. If someone was going to kill your darling Clementine, and you had a house full of guns that you used for hunting—well, shouldn’t you use those guns to protect your little girl?

  By sticking to the main road, Clementine Hayes took only two hours to walk to Chief Eagle’s village. She arrived at the break of dawn as the cocks crowed and the women stirred to light the cooking fires. Clementine was wearing the same outfit from the night before—her mother’s dress, straw hat with pink flowers—but in addition she carried an embroidered canvas bag over her shoulder. Clementine knew that her arrival would cause an uproar, so she was determined not to flinch.

  She was not disappointed. The first woman to see her dropped a clay pot and staggered backward.

  “Ghost!”

  “White woman’s ghost,” another woman cried.

  Hut doors slammed shut. Children screamed. The cocks stopped crowing, and the dogs, which should have been growling, crouched low to the ground outside their owners’ huts and whimpered.

  Unimpeded, Clementine followed the spiral that is the layout of the traditional Bashilele village. It begins with those people of lesser value living on the outer circles, that is, servants and trusted slaves, and ends with the chief ’s hut in the center. Clementine made it as far as the wives’ quarter before she was intercepted by two warriors armed with gleaming machetes.

  “If it please you, white thing, are you a ghost?” one of them said.

  Clementine was careful not to smile. “No, I am not a ghost. Wait.” She slowly removed her hat. “You see, I am real—a real girl. Most unfortunately, I am a white girl.” All this she said in their native tongue of Bushilele, and with a perfect accent. It was the language that was supposedly so difficult that no white man was capable of learning it.

  The men made no response of any kind.

  “I am the daughter of Muambi Gets Much Done. I have come to see Chief Eagle.”

  The warriors began discussing their options. Should they bring this matter to the chief ’s attention or lead the girl to see him straightaway? A third option was to kill her on the spot and have one of them claim her skull and the other claim her clothes.

  “Stop your women’s talk!” Clementine said in her bossiest tone. “I can hear you. I have very powerful magic in this bag, and I will put a curse on you, one that you will surely regret forever, unless you take me to see your chief at once!”

  The warriors looked stunned. “You can understand our speech?” one of them asked.

  “E. Did you not hear me speak to you just now? Did you not hear me tell you who I am?”

  “But—but no one except for a Mushilele can understand our language. We did not think—”

  “E, you speak the truth. You did not think. Now take me to see Chief Eagle before I cause your goats to die and your wives to be barren.”

  So they took Clementine straightaway to see Chief Eagle, who surprised the girl by appearing at the door of his hut rather rapidly—especially considering that he was such a big-shot heathen, all full of himself and headed straight for hell. In fact, he seemed more curious about her highly unorthodox visit than he did annoyed.

  One had to admit that he was a very handsome man, despite the fact that he was maybe thirty-seven years old and missing his two front teeth. Then again, every Mushilele man was missing his two front teeth. All in all, Clementine reckoned, sleeping next to the chief ’s muscular body for one night might actually be a better deal than spending it curled up next to one of the mangy dogs she’d seen on her way in.

  “Life to you, little one,” said the chief. “They tell me that you can speak our language like a human. Can this astonishing news actually be true?”

  “E, Master, and now I am speaking it to you.”

  “So you are. Tell me, how did you travel here? These women soldiers of mine report that they did not hear a camion.”

  “King Eagle,” Clementine said, for she had no problem with buttering his toast on both sides to accomplish her goals, “I walked here on my little worthless white girl legs. I did so because I have an urgent matter to discuss.”

  Chief Eagle grunted. “Truly?”

  “Truly, truly.”

  “Now, before we discuss this urge
nt matter of yours, I must first ask you a very important question.”

  “Ask,” said Clementine.

  “Where is your father?” said Chief Eagle.

  “He remains at our house. He does not know that I am here.”

  “Do you want to sit?” asked Chief Eagle, pointing to a chair.

  By now Clementine was aware that a crowd had begun to gather. Undoubtedly, the first to watch this most unusual scene were some of the chief ’s wives and their children, and then the nobles and their families.

  “No, thank you,” said Clementine. “I prefer to stand. I have come only to present you with a gift. In exchange, I will request a particular gift from you.”

  As Clementine spoke in a soft, ladylike voice, reminiscent of her mother, Elizabeth—thank you very much—the chief, for his own amusement, repeated her comments by shouting them through cupped hands so that all assembled could hear. Then he turned back to her and shook his royal scepter practically in her face. The scepter, by the way, was an intricately carved piece of reddish-brown wood, capped with an ivory handle, from which sprouted the long black-and-white hair of a colobus monkey.

  “You will start by telling me your request. You must understand that I am not a wealthy man.”

  “Your Majesty,” Clementine said, “my request is that you sell me that worthless female child, Buakane. I would pay back her dowry.”

  “Aiyee!”

  Clementine guessed that the cry which went up came from Buakane’s mother, herself one of the nobility. As for the Chief Eagle, the look on his face was certainly fit to kill—figuratively, of course, not literally. Everybody used that word wrong—even Papa.

  “What would you, a mere child, do with Buakane?”

  “I would send her to another place so that her memory can be erased. Forgotten. Then perhaps King Eagle and the whites at Mushihi Station can live in peace.”

  Another cry arose from the crowd, prompting Clementine to continue. “With your dowry returned and my gift, life can continue without involving the Belgians.”

  The chief shifted feet. “I said that I would wait until after independence before killing the white woman, did I not?”