by Alix Hawley
—Poison!
I laugh:
—You had best ask your lady about that, though I have been poisoned myself enough times to know this soup is all right.
His wife hurries over and takes the bowl from me with her mouth knitted up tight. I say:
—All right, it is all right, I have not touched the broth. Hancock, you must tell me exactly what you know.
His warrior’s lock falls over his forehead, he tugs at it. He says:
—Why should I speak to you ever again? I told Colonel Callaway and Major Smith everything.
—I know it. And I can see you are ill. It is a long run from Old Chillicothe.
—It is that! You ran off just as you liked! You sent them into such a spin, I knew they would kill the rest of us you had left behind you. I had to wait until that Indian, that flat-faced young one who called himself my father, was asleep. I ran naked out of that dirty hut with nothing but a handful of dried corn I snatched up from a basket. Nothing more! I could have died fifty times in those woods, I was seven days lost in the wilderness, like our Lord—
—Captain Will was the name of your father there, Hancock.
The muscles in his jaws clamp. If he could bite me, he would. Instead he looks all holy to the ceiling and he says:
—It was only God saved me. I lay down to die and I saw the name of my true father, Hancock, carved into a tree above my head, so I knew the fort was near. Praise to Him.
—You have never been a woodsman. Christ was not much of one either, it seems. Perhaps God meant that tree for your headstone.
I give him a hard smile, and he says:
—I did not think you would come back here. Why did you run off, when you liked it there so much? How could you go about whistling and contented for months and months in such a dirty place, among such a parcel of Indians?
At this he lies down again, his long skeleton chest heaves. Flanders gives me a nudge and says soft:
—Sir, he is not well.
—I know he is not, I can see that. I will only trouble him to ask what else he knows, anything at all that might help us if Black Fish sets out for here.
Hancock flashes his teeth to the roots, he is quite a death’s head, but he is loud as ever:
—Your Indian father? You are concerned for him?
—Hancock—
I stand, the bed rocks. I see the slow shine find its way to the dull surface of his eye. He knows of my Shawnee father and mother and little sisters. And of my wife and child. It disgusts him more than anything else, as I can see. Perhaps so much he cannot bear to speak anymore of it. He looks sick in his guts.
I hold myself still. My Shawnee life is mine, it is sunk and closed up, it has no place here. I tell him very soft:
—Perhaps you will pray for me, William.
His eyelids flicker in bafflement. Round little Molly is all nerves now, bustling about the bed. To her I say:
—We will go now. Keep him quiet. Let him sleep as much as he can.
But Hancock springs up once more like a Punch puppet. He says:
—You will see them all again, Boone. Twelve days. They are coming and it is your doing.
* * *
Twelve days. Quite like waiting for Christmas, in some other world. Now the joyful bells a-ringing, All you mountains—
Rebecca sang this sometimes at Christmas. But she is far off as snow now. I sit sweating as the day heats. I do not know what words come next, I have forgotten her songs. She has forgotten me, she said as much. For the time I will forget her as best I can. I do not have much choice, do I.
My feet are not so swollen, a small gift. I walk about better and I see what is still to be done. The sky is the dry sort of blue that means a stretch of fine weather. I suppose this is a gift also, though I do not know what we will have to pay for it.
The talk of me spreads like ripples from a fly fallen in a jar of milk. Most comes from Hancock, who has not died but is still ranting from his bed to anyone who will sit and listen. Boone promised everything to the Indians. He says it again and again as though it were true, but it is not true. It was not true when I said it.
With Major Billy Smith I am able to keep order though I feel unrest all about. Hancock, go on praying for me if it will keep you talking of my family at Old Chillicothe. No one will believe you. I hardly believe it myself, so far off it seems now. His mind is occupied with my promises and my soul, at any rate, and everyone thinks only of the Shawnee coming. And so work carries on. One relief.
It is a hot afternoon. My party is continuing with the enlarged end of the stockade when one of the very little boys darts over.
—Hear it!
So he says with his hand up, he is quite a commander though he is all dust and without a shirt or shoes.
We stop, we hear it. The pounding of hoofs from across the fields. Some of the men go for their guns, but before they can load I see two riders, more behind, all kicking up dirt and crushing down the grasses. They are riding very hard, some holding down their hats.
Wait, I say. It is Kenton at the front, his big frame curled over his spotted horse as it runs its heart out. Along the edge of the corn he gallops and pulls up hard just before us with the horse sucking in air through its teeth. He rips off his hat and says very happy:
—How do! We have ten men, sir. Five each from Harrodsburg and Logan’s.
London comes up next with his great cloud of black hair, the rest slower at his back. A few are blacks like him, some are faces I do not know. But one I do know, it is Irish Hugh McGary with his boiled-looking skin. He came out with us to Kentucky, but soon left for somewhere better, as he was quick to announce.
—How do, McGary.
He tilts back his hat and his red hair springs out in damp coils. He looks about and says:
—When do you expect the bastards who killed my boy?
His big liver-coloured hound yelps. McGary shouts at it, his voice cracks like a very young man’s. The dog finds me and gives me a sniff and a low growl. A big black man dismounts to grab it by the collar but McGary waves him back. With a nod to the hound he says:
—I brought him to feed them to. Boone, you will want to do the same, of course, for your own son’s sake.
My breath catches at his talk as though I am listening to some angry-all-over red version of myself. McGary’s stepson was killed and scalped in the bloodiest way last year near Harrodsburg. I see him gone mad, riding out to find a Shawnee wearing a shirt like his boy’s one. He hacked him to death and fed him to this dog, we all heard of it.
He is watching the hound circle me. I say:
—How is your wife?
His Mary has not spoken or moved from her bed since and McGary has got himself another wife instead. Everyone knows it. I know it. I ought not to say anything of wives. Go on: I shove the dog away with my knee. McGary sets to lighting his pipe, never taking his red eyes off me. I do not like to think of being anything like him. The dog barks again, Kenton’s horse drips foam and gasps. In relief at having something else to look at I slap its spotted flank and I say:
—Well done, Kenton. Water these horses, then we will get you new men into homes and be sure each of you is armed. When this wall is up, all of us will be given porthole stations for when the time comes. All right?
Kenton leans over the horse’s trembling neck and says very satisfied:
—We are all right.
McGary says:
—I am armed. You need not ask me. So is my man.
His sore-looking eyes are running over the fields now, his great hound drooling beside him. At the edge of my sight Dick Callaway appears from within the fort. He stands sleeking his hand over his head before he puts his hat back on.
—Here to survey our new recruits, Colonel?
So I say to him. I see his irritation but over it is a coat of cold smugness. He says only:
—Let us hope it is enough.
Before he can say any more to the men, I swing my axe:
&nb
sp; —Dick, I have no time for your hopes. We will carry on now.
* * *
Squire tells me private that he has near no lead or iron left in the shop, and not much powder. Jemima hears. She goes about asking the women for lead from anything they have, locks or shoe buckles or box hinges. Pewter from some of their plates and mugs. For your own good, she says. Most give her something. She melts it all down at her kitchen fire and turns it into small shot and bullets with the girls she recruits.
Well if she can magic this up, I can get us more gunpowder. I go to Uncle Monk, James Estill’s old black man, in his cabin, to tell him that there is less than everyone believes we have. He shrugs and says:
—Enough shit about for barrels of it. Takes time to make, you know.
—I know. But can you get some started, as much as you can?
He has a stooped back and two deep furrows ploughed either side of his nose, but his movement is careful like Squire’s. And like Squire he is clever with his hands.
He rides out to a cave he knows to fetch batshit. And before it is quite dark I have the little black boys help shovel up the chicken and cow dung from the pile where it has been rotting, and everything from the heap where the women leave the night-pot mess. Into leach tubs it all goes. We fill these with water to drip through the shit overnight and all the next day and overnight again. Monk says it is not quite long enough, but it will have to do.
Then we slow-boil the remains with charcoal and brimstone in our three fattest kettles on good fires outside Monk’s door. We keep them going all day. The heat strikes our faces in blasts, the devilish smell does also.
In the evening, Elizabeth Callaway comes out with a few women to milk the cows we have left fenced outside the walls for the time, and to fill all the remaining buckets and pots at the spring again. They trot faster once they smell what Monk and I are cooking. I say:
—Like a taste? Good for anything that ails you.
Elizabeth ignores me, but her girl Kezia fires one of her worst faces my way and runs off bumping her bucket along the ground. I call:
—Good! Run faster, that is right. Six days now.
Six days. Monk keeps the pots stirred and the fires going. His little boy Jerry comes over, tottering along before his slight young ma. He drops a handful of chicken seed, the few fowl left come poking over and he gives a great laugh. He reaches his fist out towards the stick Monk is using to stir. Monk smiles and says:
—First child born here, ought to be first to test the powder.
I think of my own boys. I think of my living boy Jesse, my youngest one, so far from here. I grasp this little fellow’s seedy fingers to feel the life in them and I say:
—Well Jerry. We will have Squire make a baby gun for you. We need all the men we can get.
Monk lifts his boy to show him the contents of the kettle, at which he struggles and lets out a yell. I go to the well for more water. I find it somewhat broader, but it is still a bad well, narrow, with only dirty water in it. To Tice Prock, the thick-bodied old Dutchman sitting on his arse beside it, I say:
—Is this all you have done? A grave would be deeper.
The brimstone smell drifts over to us. Prock raises his brows under his yellow hair and he says:
—We use the spring.
—You think the Shawnee and their friends will allow that? Let us go about our business just as we please? You think they will not poison the spring, given a chance?
I take up the shovel he has thrown down beside him. Holding it out to him I say:
—We all have our work here. All of us. This is not difficult, Prock. It is digging a hole.
—This place was meant an easier life.
He says it in his odd country-Dutch fashion but I understand him well enough. An easier life. It is not what it was meant to be, it is nothing like. I hurl the shovel so its blade just misses his shoulder and sticks in the well bottom. He looks up at me with his great dirty face and pale eyes. I say:
—It is not an easier life. Try another place if this one is not to your liking. See if you can find one. Meantime, get to work.
THE AUGUST SUN is a brute, it bares itself at us all day. The wind comes only in weak breaths now and then. Three days left, by Hancock’s count. Three is an ugly humpbacked number, as it seems to me.
The fort is better, though not as strong as it ought to be. The corner bastions are still without roofs, the Shawnee will shoot any guard who shows himself in them. But the stockade is near closed at last, the gates are fixed. We have powder and shot. Though when I sleep I see the whole fort spilling apart like a game of jackstraws. And the talk does not stop. McGary stalks about very angry in his waiting, Old Dick is quite calm by comparison as though he is certain of something. My demise, very likely.
When are they coming?
No sign, nothing.
They blame me for the waiting. The little boys keeping watch grow loose and lazy. They play in the river or the canebrakes rather than walk up and down the bank on the lookout. More of the men set down their tools for longer rests, as though the heat has made them stupid as cows. I go about shouting and sick in my heart. And I see how very happy this makes Colonel Dick in his.
Day is just rising when Kenton comes to my cabin. He sits himself on the table, stretching out his big legs, and says all quizzical:
—The Indians are coming, are they?
I am yet without my shirt and my head itches where the stubble of hair is coming in like hay. Putting on my moccasins I sigh:
—Your fellows sent you for a talk with me?
He rolls his big feet about.
—Kenton, do you really have to ask me this? Go and ask Hancock yourself. They said they are coming, they do not lie. I know you know them, it is clear enough.
I point at the dented purple scar on the side of his head where no hair grows after its meeting with a tomahawk. Another two thick marks are on his forearm, lined up neat. He grins and says:
—I do know. Only so many are saying it is false, even the new men from Harrodsburg and Logan’s. They are not cowards, they want fights. They love fights! I love fights! They are tired of waiting and of not knowing, that is all.
He points to my ribs and the scars left on me when I took my knocks in the Shawnee gauntlet. He says:
—I know what fights you have been through too. I know all the stories. Everyone does.
—Well Kenton, I am glad to hear it. Some of them are even true.
He smirks and at once I am glad of his noisy breath and his smelly warmth beside me. I hold up my leg by my scarred ankle and I say:
—Look here. You carried me in through the gates the day I got that bullet last year. We have shared at least one real fight. But fights are not always the way out.
He puffs through his nose and folds his lower lip up over the top one. Then he says:
—I do not know what that firehead McGary will get up to before then.
—Send him out with a bucket over that head. See if he draws anyone here.
* * *
What the firehead does is kick in a blockhouse door and roar that he has had enough of pulling his prick here. Old Dick’s black woman Doll has taken to praying loud whenever she sees him. Now McGary sends a kick in her direction also but she veers off praying the louder when she sees me. I turn away. It makes me sick to think of God waiting to see what we will do here. And is it all we can do, to wait? Is it?
Some of the little boys on watch say they see Indians everywhere, every minute, it is impossible to know what to believe from them. By afternoon McGary says he is going out to find the Shawnee and kill them all himself, as we are such useless bastards here. Seeing me looking, he calls me an Indian-lover and lets his slobbery hound lunge at me. Then he gets his big black man and their horses, and they ride west at a canter. I watch until they are gone. They do not come back.
Well he may go then. Though he leaves us less two guns. As Colonel Dick points out to me, then goes to march some of the boys up and do
wn along the riverbank, talking under his breath of Indian-lovers.
I cannot tear off like McGary, though I would like to do so. I am so uneasy in my skin that I go to Hancock’s cabin for a look at him. Molly lets me in, saying nothing. The shutters are closed against the heat of the day, it is quite dark.
A girl rushes at me and squeezes my hand in her dirty small one. Ned and Martha’s daughter Sarah.
—Oh! I love you!
—Well well. I have not heard so from anyone for some time. Thank you, Sarah.
She drapes herself over my arm. She is a fair-haired girl and full of love, the sort of love that will settle itself anywhere. Perhaps it comes from her daddy, who found himself loving my wife when I was gone. Do not think.
Neddy sits in the gloom beside Hancock, with Martha standing beside him. She pulls her loving girl back, and with his old easy smile Ned says:
—How do, Dan. Glad to see you. Only just getting on my feet again.
He is very thin, his eyes have the gloss of fever, but his skin has its old clear health. He looks as I might look if I still had my hair to plait up. Twins, our old ma said. Only twins have one mind and we do not.
—Ned.
I hardly know what to say to him. A flash ignites in me, a rough scent is deep in my nose. For a moment I look to Martha. Seeing my mouth set, she gives her head the smallest shake and purses up her mouth in a silent no. Ned does not know what I know about him. He can smile and smile this way and be glad to see me, just as though he had never had my wife in secret at my house when I was gone.
Well. This is not the time. There is no time, and this is no place to talk of wives, in spite of Martha moving about very nervous with all her knowing. Ned is still smiling, half up off the stool beside the bed where Hancock lies with his feet stuck out from the sheets. I say loud:
—Hancock, you look very well. Your feet look better than mine. Time you got up and set to work with the rest of us. Three days left, by your count. Did you have that right?
Hancock bounces himself up onto his elbows. His face is plumper already, though scowling. Before he can open his mouth I go on: