My Name Is a Knife

by Alix Hawley

  —Well Jemima. Who is this?

  The bundle moves and squalls, it is a very small baby wrapped in a bad beaver pelt. Jemima says flat:

  —My daughter.

  My girl looks so young and so lean, my heart falls to my feet. Jemima’s mouth slants. From the trees Rebecca calls soft:

  —Jemima.

  This is all she says. Jemima looks past me:

  —Oh.

  She does not move but she watches as Rebecca walks out to us, moving as though her hips pain her. When she reaches us she looks only at the tiny child wrapped up. Again she says:

  —Jemima—

  All in a rush my girl cries:

  —Ma!

  —But—this is your baby?

  Jemima pauses, then she holds the little one up so Rebecca can see:

  —Her name is Sallie.

  My oldest sister’s name, another one they called a whore. Jemima’s face blazes up fresh now, it fights itself until it twists and she begins to cry. She is not one for crying, and tries to cover her face with one arm. To her ma she says:

  —You did not have to go.

  Rebecca holds her by the elbows and hushes her. If she tells her mother about me I will say the truth, it is true, though the fort and Martha in it all have the feel of some ancient story. But Jemima is pulling something from the waist of her skirt, a little scrap of yellow cloth bright against the dirt and snow. Rebecca takes it very careful with her fingers. As if of its own accord, Jemima’s hand has gone to her ma’s round belly. She says:

  —I kept that for you.

  Rebecca breathes out. She says:

  —It was my mother’s.

  —I know.

  —You ought to have it. But thank you.

  They both stand weeping and staring until Jemima’s tiny child howls like one raising the devil. Rebecca bites her lip, she smiles and touches the baby’s face:

  —This is certainly your daughter.

  They hold one another then, laughing and rocking slow with the little one squeaking and yelping between them.

  —How do, Dan.

  Squire and Neddy reach us with Israel. We are all how-doing and talking when movement back at the fort catches me. People on the walls now, watching. The blocky shape in the centre is Old Dick. He has his gun set on the wall in our direction. Near the front corner bastion is someone smaller. A woman, in women’s clothes. She turns her head and shakes her cap down to her neck so her dark hair shows against the pale sky. It is Martha, and though I cannot see her eyes I know they are looking, looking, looking for me.

  CHRISTMAS DAY and we set up our station camp in the new place over the river, the Bryans a few miles off on their own claim. A good place, Rebecca will see how good once the snow goes. I get us a buffalo cow for our dinner, it is a good sign. I ask her a few times to sing Now the joyful bells a-ringing for us, and at last she does so, and the children dance and make her smile. My Jesse bounces up afterwards to ask me what we will call our new town, I tell him I do not know. He says we can call it Madoc Town after the man in the story, the madman, and I say, All right, if you like.

  Squire comes riding out over the snow to bring us a festive bottle, the last he has, as he tells me. We take a drink together and watch the children running about. He tells me:

  —At the fort they are calling this place Boone’s Folly. Among other things.

  —Well. So it is.

  —So.

  —Will you come and live here, Squire?

  He taps the side of the shelter with his elbow, and he says:

  —Not yet. Jane is all nerves since the siege.

  —I will save you a claim.

  —Well.

  He says he will stay the night at least, and I fetch him a drink of my own, and a slice of the buffalo hump. Once the rest are sleeping we sit at the fire in quiet for some time. I ask him:

  —Any sign of our Shawnee friends?

  Squire eyes me sideways, puffing on his pipe. He says:

  —No sign of your Shawnee friends lately.

  He looks away, and says:

  —That young Alexander Montgomery went out on a raid a while ago, trying for horses, and they killed him.

  —Montgomery killed?

  —Yes. We found him.

  —Was Kenton with him?

  —Captured.

  Squire says no more and I ask no more. Montgomery was always wanting in his secret heart to go Indian, I saw it under that beaded shirt that was the pride of his life. I will not let his green eyes open in my brains, I will not see big Simon Kenton tied to a stake and burning slow. I say:

  —We won, Squire, you know it. There will be peace. There will be.

  Squire keeps his eyes on the dark tree line, and says:

  —I hope you are not wrong.

  —I am not wrong. I know them.

  I keep careful watch late into each night but I see nothing, and Israel sees nothing when he goes off looking for game and for a good claim of his own. When my boy is preparing to go to Virginia to get the papers for his land and mine, and for the claim I have made for Squire, Neddy rides up on his big pretty grey. I leave my wood splitting to meet him, my back pains me at any rate. Israel calls to him:

  —I built my cabin, did you happen to see it? Two feet square and full of cobs, ha! I will make your claim for you too if you like, Uncle Ned.

  Ned gives us one of his sweet sleepy smiles. His cheeks are redder with the wind, he is more a doll than ever, always somehow clean and young looking. His hair is still all black down at the roots. Looking at the heavy sky he says:

  —Not just now, Israel. You go ahead.

  To Ned I say:

  —You wish to stay on in the remains of that goddamned hellhole then?

  Neddy shrugs:

  —For now.

  —That is fine, you do as you like. In the spring you will see our apple trees, you will smell the blossom from the fort. And the cherries. Is that not right, Rebecca? My wife is a lover of cherries, I know.

  Rebecca is at the back of the shelter. I cannot see if she is looking at Ned, and he is watching the sky again as if he is embarrassed to look at our camp. Lean-tos built of boughs and boards and sticks, open to the fires in front of them. Fresh-cut stumps all round. We have a stockade up round us, though it is too cold to build cabin foundations yet. But it is a fine place to build, it will be very fine.

  My wife keeps herself still in her old fashion, as though her bones were glass. She is all waiting. I have promised her a flat lawn in spring, she asked for that very sudden one morning.

  She keeps the children huddled in the shelter much of the time until Israel comes back safe. She has Jemima too. My girl said she would not live in the fort another second. And so she and Flanders and their Sallie have a lean-to next to us. Jemima is still not easy with me, she cannot let herself love me as she wants to, I have done too much wrong. I pile their shelter with furs and kindling and whatever I hunt goes to them first. Though there is not so much to hunt. Israel says the same now every night when he comes back from looking with his friend, young Joseph Scholl. Too cold to load their guns even if they saw anything to shoot at.

  The cold is bone-deep as January crawls forward. I brought plenty of corn and I share it round, but we lose half the cattle and five horses when a blizzard buries us early one morning. The rest of the cows and pigs and two more horses go in the freeze that starts a week later. When I go to inspect the carcasses I am struck with a sudden thought of myself as a boy with another horse, Jezebel, riding her in the night towards her death. She fell and broke her neck and I had to help her die, I cut her throat. Neddy was there, he saw it, we were drunk then and young. I have not named a horse since, I call them all different things on different days, Spot or Paint or Nelly.

  Jezebel followed me at times with my other dead when I was younger, her hay-scented breath on me.

  But no, I will not think of Jezebel in the ground or anyone else as I look over the bodies. The meat is only meat, we jerk
what we can but there is not enough salt, never enough goddamned salt in my life.

  Well. I chop firewood until my arms are like to fly off. The fires roar all day and night, I do not care if they burn down the lean-tos as long as they keep burning. My thoughts creep upriver and over to the Ohio, to Old Chillicothe town and my Shawnee family. Perhaps I am no orphan. Perhaps I still have my father Black Fish, perhaps he will come looking for me again and we will find our own peace.

  I tell myself this story. At once I am torn up with pains for my Indian house, as though I had left my legs there. I have not thought of the black pot hanging from the smoke-hole in the roof, or the stars showing there. Is it gone? This thought snaps on me like a trap. It is an awful pain, it is like dying. In the night beside Rebecca I dream of my other wife as a deer again, a woman caught in a deer’s body but knowing she is human.

  All night I keep waking and wishing to prowl about, to give my legs something to do and somewhere to go. But there is nowhere to go.

  * * *

  We are all alive in the middle of February when the worst cold lifts off us like the skirts of some witch from one of Rebecca’s old tales. The children are so happy to be allowed out of the lean-tos, they run about in a frenzy spinning wedges of crusty snow at one another and jumping on frozen puddles. Susy’s black girl Cotty keeps her eyes on them. Rebecca sits in the entrance to our shelter rocking Jemima’s baby, which has put on some fat but not much. Sallie has an elderly look, her eyes are the same as Rebecca’s as she watches the children crashing through the snow. I say:

  —Are you hungry? Shall I get you a turkey? Israel took a pair this morning, they have some meat on them.

  Her free hand makes a net beneath her great belly. She says:

  —I do not want anything.

  —Nothing?

  —No.

  —Our baby likes turkey, I know.

  I touch the top of her hard round stomach and receive a kick from the child square in my palm. I bend to speak low to it but Rebecca sits herself up high and says:

  —I do not want to birth a big baby alone here. No more meat now, Daniel.

  —Do you want the Harrodsburg midwife? We can send for her today, she might still be there, and Martha is at the fort.

  —I do not want Martha.

  —Well. All right.

  I do not like to think of Martha and Rebecca talking together at any rate. I do not like to think of Ned near Rebecca either. Sallie gives one of her sudden howls and Rebecca blinks and smiles down at her. I pat the tufty little head and I say:

  —You will have an aunty or an uncle to play with very soon, miss.

  Rebecca bobs the baby up and down and looks full at me with her black eyes, crow-black, no pupils. She says:

  —I dreamed it was a boy.

  I take her hand:

  —I know what your dreams are like, little girl. You are always telling me about them, and they always come true, is that right?

  —Not always.

  I pay no heed to the underside of her words. I touch her chin now and I say:

  —Then it might well be a girl, another pretty Kentucky girl to make the boys wink.

  She smiles, but soon looks away to the children running. Rebecca, I know your ways, or perhaps I do not. You were never only mine. You were Ned’s twice, you said it was twice.

  * * *

  And Ned comes again, when the snow lessens and we set to building cabins and a good stockade round them. We make it tighter than Boonesborough ever was. A real place, not just a fort, everyone sees it now. I know Neddy sees it when he rides up to the wall I am raising with Hart’s sulking black man Moe. Ned’s fair-haired Sarah is with him on the great placid grey, she is happy to slide off and run about with the children here after giving me a good stare. Ned comes over to help Moe and me hoist a great sharpened log onto its end, and he says:

  —We can hear your sawing back at the fort.

  —Well enjoy it! If the weather holds I am going tomorrow to Virginia myself to make claims for Will and Susy and some of the rest. Some more of my own too. I can do yours while I am there, as you are so fond of home. Keep-home Neddy.

  This last I say in our old ma’s voice. It aches in my mouth, it makes me feel hollowed out in some fashion. Ned gives his head a shake and says:

  —Not yet, Dan.

  —You are always one to wait and see.

  Rebecca is getting water with Jemima at the creek. Hearing our talk she looks back but does not come. She crouches very stiff and heavy with her bucket but I know she is softening in herself, her eyes on Ned. I follow Ned’s own eyes to her and to Jemima. My chest goes hard, and harder when Jemima sets her back to me. I say:

  —Well you will miss your chance at any good land. Do not blame me for it.

  —Do not blame me either.

  This from Moe, he slumps off with his axe for another log.

  Neddy looks to the ground as though he is considering whether it is any good. He says:

  —Old Dick Callaway plans to start his own place upriver some.

  —Is that so? Have things all his own way in his own kingdom? March about all day in formation? Measure each loaf of bread just so? Is that where you wish to be, our Ned?

  Ned smiles and holds up both hands:

  —I am a peaceable man, Dan.

  —Well. Do not say I did not give you the chance to be something other.

  I go to help Moe with the next log for raising. When I look up again Ned has gone towards the river and the women who have gathered where Rebecca and Jemima are. The daylight is bright round them, it cuts straight through some of their skirts. But he stops himself before he gets there and only stands looking about my place and humming.

  * * *

  The ride to Virginia is quick. I go alone while Israel stays to clear trees on his claim and hunt for the family. The snow is light even in the higher passes, I have a stack of money for claims in my pouch, as though a flock of birds has at last decided to settle on me. Well I have been whistling for it long enough. I sit my arse on the mossy ground under a big buckeye tree near a little stream. I pull the money pouch and my powder up away from the damp. The air is going blue with night falling but I get up and ride a little longer before I camp and lie singing a tune in the dark with my feet bare before the fire. Lay lee lay lee la. I sing until my own wordless song has an eerie sound and I fall asleep silent.

  I am only a few days getting across towards James City, flying on the horse with dry snow kicking up into the air. I am all over alive again. My limbs are stronger, the scar on my shoulder hurts me less, I am getting a fresh skin. I grin to think of myself in so snakish a fashion. The pale watery sun shines all day and has not quite set when I reach the town and find an inn. Even my horse steps high still when I give it up to the stables, its legs tremble and sweat but still move as though they wish to run. Well horse, I do know this feeling.

  The inn is old and not a clean one, but I do not mind it. Once I am indoors out of the fresh cold, my blood begins to slow. I have not been in an inn for as long as I can think of. There is plenty of company here and a good fire. The innkeeper is a rough jolly sort and sees fit to give me my first ale for nothing when I pay for my room and sit myself near the bar. He says:

  —Boone, I have heard that name. I have read of you in the papers. Kentucky, is it? All adventure?

  —All adventure!

  I raise the cup to him and he nods back. Two brothers and a cousin sitting near are listening and ask me to join their table for cards, they are all fat men with big necks. Two of them are called James. I look at them to stop from thinking of my son, and I say:

  —Then perhaps James City is no place for a Dan?

  They laugh and bang the table. They know my name too, they have heard of Boonesborough and all the rest, there is no rubbing that out of anyone’s brains.

  Well. I am jolly enough myself, I win a few hands and lose a few more and win again. My head hisses and hums with this town-brewed drink. Cider and
beer and why not rum, why not?

  We drink plenty, we talk of Kentucky and land and horse breeding. They are horse breeders themselves. They say they will come out and see the place, and I say they ought to do so as soon as they can. The land is going quick, I tell them. Do not wait.

  And more rum, and more gaming. I win some dollars and some pounds and some shilling coins. These clink and slip under the money in my pouch. The brothers stand to stretch themselves, they say they are going out to get whores and do I wish to go? Do I wish to? I do not know. I can only laugh. The bigger one winks at me and says:

  —You had best go to bed alone, the state you are in. A drunk cock crows for no woman.

  For a small moment it flies back at me, the Shawnee women washing us naked in the icy river and calling us limp, calling us white, wochkonnickee.

  My legs and belly prickle with want, but I say:

  —I leave you gents to see what the whores can do for yours. The whores of James City and their no-doubt dainty charms!

  —And their no-doubt poxy cunts!

  This last from the cousin or from me, I cannot tell, my tongue is thick as a slug. We laugh like fools for some time regardless and clasp hands, we are great friends. I tell them:

  —Do your best for me, boys.

  When they go I creep up the tight staircase to the room the innkeeper has given me, I keep my eye on the little circle of light from my wobbling candle following me along the wall all the way. A step, a step, a step. When I find my door with the cold iron number three on it, I lock myself in. I am in a black sleep with one quick flash before my eyes, it is the skin of a whore I once knew in Philadelphia, the first I knew, her soft thighs and where they meet. Then the warm skin of a cheek, I do not know whose. Methoataske’s, perhaps. I try to chase after her in my sleep and see her in the dark but she is gone.