My Name Is a Knife

by Alix Hawley

  Some of the women come marching along the rampart to see who made the noise. Pompey calls to Sarah:

  —You may take that one.

  From a bastion, narrow young John Holder shouts:

  —It is our cow, you black shit.

  Estill’s wife Rachel gasps, then levels her false gun at Pompey. Stepping over to her I tell her to put it down, but she looks fit to strike me in the face with it. Hancock’s round little wife Molly comes wobbling along too with the same look, and with an iron pan handle as long as she is. Pompey grins, and again he calls:

  —What will you give me for this pony? She is a fine one. I will take a good gun for her. Have you any of those?

  John Holder shouts again:

  —You can fuck off on that lousy animal.

  Old Dick looking out his own bastion permits himself a brief smirk at his son-in-law’s tongue. The little girls scatter back towards the gate with Monk shooing them along, while London goes for the cow. Pompey smiles in the direction of the fort, he turns the pony and trots her back towards the camp. As he goes we all hear him singing Over the hills and far away. My old friend William Hill’s favourite song. I taught it to some of the Shawnee though they did not understand the words. It strikes me harder than any slap.

  The smell of cooking fires and meat floats up to us. Molly Hancock clutches her pan and says:

  —Those Indians are fanning the smell this way to make us suffer.

  I say:

  —You have become very fierce, Molly. Perhaps we ought to give you a real gun.

  Her eyes grow rounder watching the smoke threading the air from the camp. She will not look at me. She says:

  —Oh I do not mind deprivation, not a bit. I take what the Lord sees fit to give me. But the children are hungry enough already.

  I hear the acres of resentment in her. I say:

  —If we asked them for some of what they are cooking, they would share it.

  Now she turns and spits on my neck. It is the first time in her life she has spat at anyone as I can see, she is as shocked with herself as I am. She stands holding the pan with a string of wet stuck to her own chin and her mouth open. She takes a breath and spits at me again. I let her do it, what else can I do?

  * * *

  Pompey is back on Sweet Apples in the afternoon. He trots up closer to the fort and rides in a great loop. Someone yells:

  —Fuck off with you!

  Likely Holder again and his supremely ill tongue, he loves to shout fuck at anything. Most of the young men and many of the women join him in this sentiment. A shiver of hate goes along the fort wall, I feel it pass through me. It is an enlivening shiver, everyone seems to have woken with it.

  Molly Hancock shifts her weight about on the slope of her cabin roof. Her expression says she would brain Pompey with her pan handle given the chance. Now she has spat upon me, she looks quite capable of murder. Pompey gives her a nod. Well. I say loud and even:

  —What have you come to tell us?

  He grins up at me:

  —I come with a request.

  —You are not having any more of our animals.

  This very lofty from Madam Callaway in Old Dick’s Sunday hat and shirt. I call:

  —Take what you need, as we told you.

  Pompey raises his voice to its announcing tones:

  —The chiefs and men wish to see Boone’s famous white women, having heard of their many charms.

  He grins very wide. He looks at each of us lined up along the walls. Some he looks at longer, he looks quite up and down. The women begin to boil, the mothers especially. They make their voices deep like men’s to go with their outfits, but they shout worse things than any man here has dared to. Johnny Gass is smirking behind his freckle-skinned hand, and I know others are doing the same. Calm as I can I call back:

  —You Shawnee stole my daughter and other girls from here once. You will not get another look at any of them.

  Old Dick stalks along the rampart towards me, but Jemima is at my side first in a great coat and hat, saying:

  —Daddy you are not going out there again, are you?

  Dick calls before he reaches me:

  —By God, if you try to send my girls out I will roast you alive and that black can watch me do it.

  Betsy and Fanny and little Kezia, who has charcoaled a beard round her mouth, are huddled with their ma. When the older two were taken with Jemima, we near killed Betsy when we found them at last. With her long black hair let down to her knees, she looked like an Indian. My jaw clamps to think of it, of what could have happened. And Black Fish’s son lying shot, dead across their campfire. When I did not know Black Fish.

  Old Dick’s black woman Doll comes to stand in front of the girls, staring me down. My gun is heavy in my hands. We must slow down, we must make time heavy as melting iron. This is all I can see.

  The rest carry on yelling at Pompey as he laughs and bows. He is still sitting on the pony, and he snaps its shaggy head up when it tries to bite a tuft of grass. I get up to go towards the ladder. Perhaps I ought to talk with him myself before he is shot.

  But Jemima pushes past me, she darts down the ladder and into her cabin. Flanders comes over to me to ask what she is about, but she runs out again in only her white undershift with its frayed fingerlike hem, she runs to the front gate and speaks quick with Ned there. With a glance to me Ned shrugs and opens the gate a crack. She ducks out. I call:

  —Jemima!

  I run with Flanders behind me and more coming, we all run into the corner bastion from where we can see her standing just outside the gate. Ned is there with his gun ready, which makes me sore and queer. I train my gun square on Pompey’s forehead. When he lifts his head and turns, I have to shift my sight. He gives a slow call. Ichquewa. Woman.

  And from the side of the corn come some of the chiefs and warriors. They are unarmed, holding out their hands to show it. They keep well back, they move no closer. With another bow, Pompey says very sweet:

  —Sheltowee’s girl, the chiefs have asked if you will let down your hair as a gift to them. They have heard of its beauty. Will you?

  Flanders is breathing hard, mumbling God damn. Bodies press at my back, all trying to see. Jemima in the woods, taken, they said they did not hurt her.

  My girl is tugging the combs from her hair and unwinding the plaits tied up in back of her head. I cannot see her face, I see the long spill of black, black as her mother’s and Ned’s. And mine. It falls like a great splash of ink over her shift and down past her knees. She stands barefooted with her elbows turned out, she spins herself about to show them. Then she does so again. The chiefs speak low to each other, their faces go soft. I see even old Moluntha’s go soft for a moment before he controls it. I know he is thinking of his child, his lost child, another child lost through my fault.

  My heart kicks at my ribs. With my eye along my gun barrel I watch my girl, and I hear what they are saying. Sheltowee ichquewa. Ah. Skihotie. Skihotie weeletha. Sheltowee’s woman. Yes. Beautiful. Beautiful hair.

  Black Fish speaks to Pompey but is smiling at Jemima. Pompey calls:

  —We have presents for your lovely famous daughter.

  He takes a pouch from my Shawnee father and holds it high. To my girl Black Fish says:

  —Skihotie.

  It seems to me no one in the fort has swallowed for quite some time. I take a breath and I call to her:

  —Jemima.

  But she speaks to Black Fish:

  —You are not changing my name.

  Dust kicks up round her ankles as she stalks back into the fort. Ned shuts the gates behind her. I go down to her. I hold her arms and I say:

  —Jemima, that was a true gift for you, that is their way. They said you were beautiful. They would not have done you any harm.

  A few of her hairs crackle and rise from her head as she shoves them away from her face. The great black sheet of it over her makes her look small, a child wrapped in a blanket. Two hot tears rush from
the corners of her eyes. Her eyes are Rebecca’s, they are two black questions. I rub the tears away quick as they come. There are no more. She says:

  —I did it but I will not do it again. Do not go out there Daddy.

  —My duck—

  —I know what they think about me and I do not care. I know they think you are theirs.

  This last she says with her eyes hard on my face. I see what her loyalty is costing her. Callaway’s Doll wraps Jemima’s hair into a quick twist. Her hands say Look at her half naked, her own mother gone because of you. Flanders tears off his hunting shirt to put over her and takes her to their cabin.

  With the rest watching I climb back up to the rampart. The chiefs and Pompey have already vanished behind the corn.

  * * *

  I am shaken, I remain so until evening, when Major Billy and I take Squire and two of the other older men out with us. I feel Isaac Crabtree keeping himself a few steps away from me. Whenever we see each other we can only think of my boy dead. Crabtree saw it happen, I cannot forget it. But we walk, we will not talk of it, we have no choice.

  The air is cooling fast now. Our shadows have long peg legs. The insects keep up their usual noise.

  The chiefs wait at the same place as yesterday, the same furs and blankets ready. Our one day is finished and what have we accomplished in it? No one has said anything new, it is only the same old feeling of being dogs or cocks caged up before a fight. I think we will all tear out the nearest throat, any throat, if we are let loose.

  I speak in English before anyone can say a word:

  —My people will not surrender as long as there is a man living. You have seen we have many men.

  A look flares behind Pompey’s eyes as he opens his lips to begin his interpreting. It says, Many men, is that so? But Black Fish cuts in with quick hard Shawnee:

  —Your white chief in Detroit ordered me to avoid killing if at all possible, but how can I avoid it now?

  Major Billy and the rest look to me without understanding. Pompey says nothing. A flat silence falls on us all. Black Fish stares at me. He tucks his hands behind his blanket and nothing of him moves. The warriors stir and stretch their necks, horses nicker in the Shawnee camp behind us. The other chiefs begin to speak to one another, but Black Fish halts them. He says:

  —We must discuss how to live with each other now. Tomorrow I will bring all my chiefs, you will bring your head men, and we will parley.

  Pompey repeats it in English. Squire brushes his sleeve against mine, a warning as I know well enough. There was a time he would not have felt the need to do it. When he trusted me entire.

  Old Moluntha takes two steps forward and says:

  —We will meet in your fort, make it easy for you.

  Pompey interprets with his head high. Billy coughs, Squire takes his arm away and I feel the lack of it. I say:

  —Our women are frightened, they keep indoors all the time. We cannot meet in the fort with them there, and they will not have us going to your camp.

  Black Fish turns to his men and says in a lighter fashion:

  —It is good to keep peace with your women. Though not easy.

  The chiefs and warriors laugh, and the air eases somewhat. Black Fish dips his chin and sets his eyes on me. Father, I know you are trying to help me, I know it.

  Squire beside me says to him quiet:

  —You should know that an army from Virginia is coming to our aid.

  Pompey turns this to Shawnee, and Black Fish goes still again. Major Billy says:

  —We will meet you here with all our leaders tomorrow.

  He turns on his heel and the others follow. With a last look back at my father I do the same. As we near the gate I say:

  —This has given us time, Billy. Another day means there is a chance for a treaty. They will get the pipes out again.

  Billy shakes his head, and the feather on his hat bobs and turns like a fighter:

  —I have no heart for smoking and more talk just now, Dan. How long can this carry on?

  He marches ahead. Squire tucks his thumbs into his belt and says in his dry fashion:

  —One more day living.

  I say:

  —That is right.

  Behind us the chiefs go on talking very soft, I catch no words at all.

  When we are at the gate I let the others go in first. I stay outside as the dark sinks down. There is a humming above me, it passes back and forth. When I look up I see Martha walking in a lazy oblong on the rampart, swinging her gun barrel like a tail. She thinks she is giving me something.

  A night bird rustles and twitters over the river. It is all blue shade round me now. I am struck by a thought that the sun is up on the other side of the earth. Ma and Daddy I think of you in England before you came to this country. Perhaps there you are children, still living, who can tell what possibilities there are?

  There are possibilities still. I know there are.

  And I know that someone is coming slow round the corner of the fort. I stay where I am. I know him by his walk. My Shawnee father, going very careful and silent and looking up at the walls and the bastions. He goes straight past me as though I am not here at all. Round the next corner he passes and I do not move, I do not follow, I do not see where he goes.

  MY EYES BURN DRY when the sun creeps up above the wall. I am alone on watch inside the front gate, sitting to rest my feet, when I hear a great bawling outside it some way off. I get up stiff and I look through the wall slit. It is the remaining cows in a great mass. They need milking, and their bellowing grows more miserable every moment. But we need our women to keep up our false numbers, walking about on the ramparts. I cannot let them go out. Even if they would go out.

  One girl up on the walls screeches like a jay when she sees the cattle heading for the gate. I go up, and I see that they are herded by Shawnee and Cherokee warriors. They call in high voices like ladies’ at this women’s work and laugh with each other. This way pretty cow. Do you love me? I will milk you so you will, I will touch you so, so.

  The cows bawl to be admitted. I call down to Ned to let them in:

  —This is no Troy, these cows are not made of wood and full of enemies!

  The Shawnee herders look up at me but keep back, they only flick their soft switches when a cow tries to turn round again. I yell a thank-you down to them, and some nod and grin. One is Kaskee, my young guard. He claps and shouts, Over the hills and far away. Over the heels, he says still, as they did in Chillicothe. A few of the others join in before they turn and walk back and I watch them go.

  The cows mill at the centre of the fort, they groan as they look about for help. Their bags swing low. I tell the older girls to get down and milk, and leave their mas to march about on the roofs and walls. I climb down also and push my way through the flies and hills of warm milky flesh to find Major Billy and Ned and Squire near the gate:

  —Another gift. We must return it in some way.

  Squire pushes up his hat and says:

  —Kind of them to give us our own cows.

  —I know how this works, Squire. We must give them a good meal before the treaty making.

  Billy laughs or coughs, I am unsure which it is. He says:

  —I would like a good meal myself. I do not think any woman here has much to spare me.

  —Billy, I must ask you to plead with the women to cook up all they have. They can take it in shifts, and the girls will help. We have to make a show of plenty.

  —Dan. Have we not given them enough?

  —If they think we have plenty to eat, they will not bother trying to starve us out.

  Major Billy coughs or laughs again and smoothes the sides of his fluffy white hair. He says:

  —I am trying my damndest to do as you say. People want to believe you but you are not making it easy.

  I have no answer to this. In the silence a cow lets out a great bawl. Ned says:

  —Let me speak to the women.

  —Do that now, and Squire, yo
u tell the men at the slits and the bastion closest to the meeting place to keep there. They will have to shoot in a heartbeat if there is any trouble.

  As Ned goes off, Squire says:

  —Some are talking of shooting that black man straight, peace or no peace. If it starts you know how it will go.

  —Go and tell them. They will listen to you, they trust you. And I am afraid you will have to trust me, Squire.

  Squire brushes a fly from his face and says:

  —And you have nothing to trust but your own gut, is that right?

  The cows go on moaning. My blood knocks in my ears, I I I, an empty noise.

  * * *

  The feast is near everything we have. Corn, greens, tiny hard apples from the small orchard Uncle Monk started. Sweating wheels of cheese pulled early from the dark of the dairy house, enough fresh milk for all of us to take a swim in, new butter, hot cornbread, jerked venison softened in water, the buffalo tongues Black Fish gave us, dressed up to look different. So unused are we all to this plenty that we sit staring as though it might fly off if we blink.

  The chiefs sit across from us at the tables we have rigged up from boards and logs on the flat before the fort, each with two warriors standing behind. They are not painted up now. Some wear coloured headscarves and not feathers. I do not look at the food, I look at their shirts, all weighed down with silver pins and brooches and bells. The ones in blankets throw these back over their shoulders to free their arms. Seeing this I say:

  —Might as well get out of our coats, boys, what do you say? Another warm day.

  It is hot here in the open. Major Billy stands and salutes as though I have given him an order, he takes off his red coat and folds it and salutes again. Squire takes off his jacket and the rest follow, Flanders and Crabtree and others. Our calmest men, but for Colonel Dick, who is far down the length of the tables, keeping very silent. I do not know how he is doing it, perhaps it is because he has taken a hank of bread and is already chewing it as if to say, Try to take this from me! But he does not remove his red coat and this seems to satisfy him, though I feel his hard eye follow me as though it is sewn to me with gut.