by Alix Hawley
Israel snorts. But Ma’s eyes are like glass, all breakable. She squeezes young Squire, who frowns, and Daddy thumps down onto the bench again and breathes against his fist. Ma is a true lover of God. She turns back to Sallie, who is trying to keep up her meek countenance as though she has been brained like a cow by Him. Bets laughs into the crook of her arm and makes out as though it is coughing, but I know.
I squint like the new husband, I turn my face upward to make everyone vanish. I have no liking for Meeting, the people in rows, the gap at the centre where Sallie and her fellow stand to be gawped at, and the long spells of quiet when everyone contemplates each other’s sniffling. Bets is singing under her breath: Wind in my bow-ow-owels. She pokes me again but I pay her no heed. I am the first to see it. A bird at the highest window, a martin with a dark head and body. It flies straight in and sits for a moment on the sill until it flaps up to the rafters. I see every turn it makes, every shift of its wings. I see every feather of its body, and I see its small black eye.
A few hands rise and point. The martin rushes and flutters in the silence. It beats like a heart against the ceiling. Israel says:
—It will shit on Sal.
I believe Israel, I always do. He is sixteen years of age and has whiskery cheeks. I cannot help a look at them. I suppose I will have whiskers at some time. He crosses his arms and raises an eyebrow and gives a smirk. It is the first interest he has shown today. I look up with my mouth shut. Bets laughs loud this time:
—It will! Or piddle.
Daddy casts her a look from his loose eye and so she saws her cap strings back and forth between her teeth. I keep my eye on the bird. I feel Israel’s idle interest, he is following it too, he could have it down before it twitched.
The martin crosses the rafters back and forth, as if it is stitching them up with a thread. It lands on a window ledge and pants, it opens its beak but it says nothing. I know I could get that bird if I had my club. Or an arrow. Or a stick. I could make a path straight to its head from where I sit. Israel would see me do it.
At a cough from below, the martin dives straight down as if it has fallen but now swings up again to the ceiling. Its head and breast strike the roof again and again, all dull thuds. I want it to look at me. I am sorry for it. If Daddy would let me have a proper gun, I would shoot a little hole through the martin’s head and its suffering would be ended. I have clubbed plenty of birds dead. I know already that their eyes stay open but lose their wet shine, though their feathers do not for some time. I have held them until their bodies go all cold. It takes longer than you might imagine.
The martin bangs on. Hill’s father knows he has no grip on anyone’s brains now, and so he folds his hands and says Meeting is at an end for this day. Plenty of talk and hand-shaking as the rest make their way out, all looking quite relieved and able to be kindly again now that the marrying is done. I feel my Ma’s relief and Daddy’s grimness as the Friends nod to them. I am thinking to take this opportunity to ask Daddy about that gun when a finger arrives in my ear.
I stretch my foot backward to crunch William Hill’s toe. He pulls his finger out but not before he says with great cheer:
—A baby is going to come out of your sister. Out her stomach.
—Out her big arse, Hill. Like a chicken. I know you love to look at chicken’s arses.
I see Hill grin wide but I walk on with Bets behind our brothers. Once out the door, Israel turns and says loud:
—How can you stand and watch her go? And never speak to her again. Nothing about this wedding is right. It is nothing! None of these people can say we are wrong—
Ma hushes Israel as though he were young Squire. Daddy shakes his head but keeps quiet. Israel stalks off and my legs burn to follow. I know he will be going to fetch his gun, he will go up to the hills away from all of this, perhaps he will not come back until morning.
I am about to set off after him when Ma grips me and says:
—Hold little Neddy now. Stop him going into the road.
And my young brother smiles, he is always smiling. Sweet Neddy. I lift him. He has a high smell like Granddaddy. I say:
—Now look.
I hold him up so he might see Sallie’s arse as it retreats to the cart in which it will travel to a new house to lay an infant. Cast out, married to her squinting outsider husband. Neddy calls:
—Gone. Gone.
—Yes.
I set him down, his face is perplexed but he does not cry. Ma and Daddy stand still looking after Sallie as though they do not know what to do with themselves now, but they go on looking as though some answer will appear. I turn as the bird flies out the open door of Meeting House, it leaves a pile of purple droppings on the threshold. The only answer we get.
—Bets. Bets.
The night of the wedding I do not sleep, though the house is silent. Ma and Daddy are quiet in the loft upstairs. I think to get Bets out of the bed next to mine and Neddy’s, but she is heavy in her sleep and only rolls flat onto her back when I whisper. And I recall she threw shad guts over me the last time we went night fishing. So I tug the sheet over her face and leave her like a corpse.
I crawl past Sal’s empty bed. I know it is empty for ever and this gives me an odd prickling about my heart. I feel my way along the floor and I find Israel’s bed empty also, which is a disappointment to me. He has not come back. But perhaps I will find him.
Once I am free of the house I go over the kitchen-garden fence with a pail, thinking to get worms. The moon and a few stars are showing themselves. I trot over the Owatin Creek bridge and down towards the river, I can hear its quiet rush. For a moment I am quite happy.
A thick rustling comes out of the night before I get to the water. I say:
—Israel?
A shadow crashes from the birches and snatches my arm. My happiness peels away from me.
—Are you fishing, Dan? I thought you might come out. I will go with you.
It is not Israel, it is William Hill. His mouth smells of iron, I know he is smiling in the dark, as if he has eaten my happiness. He is only one year older than I am. He sits before me in my Uncle James’s school and turns about to breathe on me with this breath. Sometimes he whispers answers at me if he thinks I do not know them. I do not listen, I would rather sit blindfolded on the one-legged stool in the corner than listen to him. Uncle James is always sorry for punishing me and gives me sweets at home later.
But Hill has money, it tumbles from his pockets, he is careless with it. Sometimes he gives me some of his money for a dead squirrel or a walk with me up the creek to a fishing place. His pleased face over the fence or around the edge of the door.
I say:
—You do not know where I am going.
—To your granddaddy’s? I do not mind. I would like a look inside his house. Does he keep whores in all the rooms?
And again I run, again he follows me. He thinks he knows where I will go but he does not. I take a long winding way over the fields. I will not go to Granddaddy’s, though I cannot think of anywhere else in particular. I only want to run Hill until he is too tired to go on. I race through dark pasture and corn and flax until the moon ducks in back of the clouds and I can only make my way by knowing the fields in my mind, not by seeing them.
I run in grass up to my knees for some time. Soon enough the back of my hand catches a farm fence, all rough split rails. I know it is the Blacks’ fence and I know they all have the summer fever. It has given Ma something safe to talk about with the other women. Well, I have no care for sickness. I am sick worse of William Hill.
I follow along the fence towards the yard. A horse has got out of the stable and is standing by the front step. I put my hand over its soft nostrils as I pass, it puffs in my palm. I will find the root cellar and hide there with the turnips until Hill goes. But I hear him lumping along into the yard and so I go up the front step of the house. I find the door, the sick-rope is knotted on the latch, but I hear Hill talking to the horse as if to me
: Where are you? And so I go in.
In the thicker dark of the room I stand, keeping myself still. I am not afraid, I am afraid of nothing. I hold my breath in. A curious noise comes from across the floor, a rattle.
I pick my way over the floor to the far wall, but soon enough Hill’s breath is on the back of my head and I stop. He says:
—Go on.
—Do you want to catch it?
—Do you?
The Blacks have only daughters. One of the youngest lies beneath the open window hot as a pie, her teeth clacking and her eyes bound up with a white cloth to save them from the fever. I lean closer to see. Hill shoulders me down beside her and takes up a lock of her hair, then presses the end of it into my ear. In his father’s low kindly Meeting tones again, he whispers that Molly Black and I are now married till death do us part.
—Kiss her. Hug her.
My brother Israel told me at one time that sick hair will lay bad eggs in your ears. I do not know if this is true but the hair pricks me horribly. I make my shoulders stiff. I do not wish to wake the sick girl. Though I will not have Hill think me a coward.
I bend and put my lips to Molly’s burning cheek. Her teeth rattle on. I laugh and roll away but Hill says then reasonably:
—Or breed her. I will watch.
—No.
—Go on, Dan. I am trying to help you. I will save you from whoring, you will need a wife.
—No.
—Dan.
I jab him and again I say:
—No.
He sighs up another lungful of helpfulness. Molly’s teeth give a great rattle and I reach out to cover her mouth. Hill bends with his face big and close:
—I want to see what you will do now.
I break free of his iron breath, I fly out the door and this time he cannot keep up. I run as the stars watch blinking. This time I will run for ever.
My chest burns but I pound on and do not stop. The moon is up now, and I run back to the river by another way, past some cabins of a few of the praying Indians who come to Meeting. I see the dull white of two of their ponies in a grassy patch, I smell the smoke of their fires. A door opens, but I keep on. I skirt round a field. I will run up the river, farther than I have ever gone, perhaps farther than anyone has gone.
I hear the river at last. As I am crouched on the bank to catch my breath, a short low call comes. It is not a bird, I know.
I crawl along a way until I hear a small splashing. Someone is just upstream, stepping into the water. I see how tall he is. His dark hair hides against the sky and trees, but his pale legs show. He has no breeches on and his shirt is loose and open. He takes up a thin stick and snaps its end. He turns his face.
Israel. He has seen me already, I know, but now he is looking up the bank behind him, where the sound of light steps moves away into the woods. I say low:
—Is that a deer? Will you get it?
I know he could get it easy if he wished to. I have followed him plenty of times in the early morning, I have seen the way his eye roams in a dark, lazy fashion over the dawn sky until at once it goes still and he shoots. He can get jays and crows, and sometimes deer. He does not know all the times I follow him. But sometimes he catches me out and shows me the way to look for the marks of deer hooves on grass, or for their droppings, or their hair snagged on branches. When he is home in the evening, he often lets me measure out his powder. Four times he has let me scrape his deer hides. Twice he has let me shoot squirrels with his gun. He gave me an old broken barrel without a stock, I have it beneath the pallet of my bed. I dream of it, though it is unsatisfactory dreaming. I would like to be as good a shot as Israel. He is Daddy’s favourite, and Daddy has set him free to hunt. He will not mind the bellows in the forge or work the looms at any rate, he goes where he pleases and has no care for what anybody says. He cares only for hunting and getting away from the town. He has shown me how to hide my steps and keep my weight even on my feet and go silent. I know the deer traces no one else but Israel has seen, and some he has not seen. But I do not know what he does at night.
With the water rushing round his legs he looks at me. He says very quiet:
—No deer here. What are you doing about tonight, Danny?
I do not wish to tell him about Hill and little sick Molly Black. I say:
—Hunting. What is it then, that noise?
He raises his head. He spikes a fish with his stick, its body gives a brief shine in the moonlight as he turns it in the air. In his calm fashion he says:
—Hunting, are you? With what? Only fish here. And you.
A ball rises into my throat. He knows about every animal and where it goes and how to find it. Everything is easy for him. I say:
—Where have you been? You have not been here long, you only have one fish. Did you hunt already? What did you get?
He turns and his face goes silvery where the moon catches it. I say:
—Why are you out again? You are always leaving your bed. Come on, we can get a deer. I will help.
But he says nothing. He pulls the shad off his stick and goes on fishing as if I am not here.
—Israel!
—Go home now, Dan.
He is walking up the river against the current, lifting his bare feet. I shout:
—I hate this place! I hate Exeter. I will get something without you.
He says nothing, he only looks up briefly, and I run on. I think of running again, but it is darker now, and alone I have no hope of any deer or any escape. I go home and thump dirty into bed beside little Neddy, who sleeps as hard as Bets does. Anger thumps in my blood, anger that Israel is so free and I am so pinned and so young. I am angry too at Hill for following me and wanting to see what I will do now. I see his big face. William Hill, trotting about in my mind as if it is his own field. Dunghole. I am ready to shoot anything. But as yet I have no gun.
Israel steals in sometime before dawn. I hear him settle into his bed and breathe slow. I will find out where he goes. I will follow him. I turn over and put my hands over my eyes, and I am struck by a thought of the blindfolded girl with her skin on fire and the prickle of her hair like hay.
I wonder whether I crept into her sick dreams, a little husband. Molly, I did catch your slow fever when I kissed you, though not badly. I am alive yet. But you know this. You dead know about me and what I have done.
EVERY NIGHT I want to follow my brother Israel, but the boys who follow me are out at night also. On and on they go in soft voices outside our window: You whoresbrother, you ape, you arse, you toadstool, you stew-brains, you shit-stew, you fathead, you wart, you cuckoo, you maggoty bastard son of a whore.
One night I throw a pot out at them. My teeth ache with hating, but we continue on in Exeter for five years after my sister Sallie leaves it with her fellow. At Meeting, the looks the Friends give are pitying. We might smother in pity and kindness. Daddy and Ma keep themselves sweet there. Daddy stalks about the burying ground, flattening the earth and making sure the grass grows over the newer graves so everyone is hidden for good. He says:
—We were here first.
He means the burying ground and the town. Daddy is never one to give up. He buys five more acres of rough pasturage up in the hills and puts up a sign with our name on it. Some of the boys scratch it out with WHORES. I scratch that into HORSE. I fight anyone until my ribs hurt and I laugh until it is the only sound in my head.
And now Israel vanishes for days at a time, bringing back meat and skins every so often. He will not say how far he goes or just where. I think of him finding a marvellous place where he is quite alone and where all the birds and deer show themselves and say: Shoot us, here we are. In my mind I can quite see this place. Some days I try to track my brother up the hills and deeper into the woods, but I have no success. I will find my own place, I think. As yet I do not give it a name.
I do find new animal traces and very old Indian trails where the trees are blazed with signs. I find a worn-out hunter’s lean- to and have
a talk with two old Catawba men there who tell me where they have seen beaver on one of the streams. We have a talk together though they do not speak many English words, and they offer me a smoke, but I say no thank you, and I go on. I practise with my club until I can get any bird at the first throw, even pheasants. Once I get a raccoon that is crouching to drink, it falls into the stream dead without having seen me.
I keep myself to myself. I keep right away from my Uncle James’s school and his lessons. I avoid the boys and Hill and his kindnesses, unless he has money or tobacco. Until he gets a new-made gun for his fourteenth birthday. It is a good gun, with a scene of lilies carved into its oak stock. He brings it to the house to show me. I say:
—Let me use it and I will let you watch.
With his usual grin he shoves his hair from his eyes and hands it to me. It has a good feel, it shoots straight. I tell him I will oil all the parts for him, but I take it and go to our summer pastures up the valley. I suppose I have stolen it, and I am sorry but not so very sorry. Hill does not come up here, he is keeping on with school to please his father, and his father does not wish him to be near me. I try not to think of Hill, but at times I think of the night he married me to little Molly Black, now dead of the fever. I think of my lip on Molly’s cheek. I am sorry she is gone.
With Ma I stay in the scratchy grassland for months while the rest of the family is at home. I look after the cows and take the milk and butter down the hills to the spring cellar at home for her. I wheedle her to tell me her old Welsh story about wolves stealing into houses in the night and picking up babies in their teeth, then taking them off to their dens to live as wolf children. She does not like this tale, especially up here near the woods, but I do. Sitting at our fire we hear cold howls far away on occasion. Ma always goes into the little cabin then, but I wheel about slowly with Hill’s gun, looking into the trees with one eye shut. I would shoot a wolf if I saw one. Israel got one once after it killed a sheep and tore open the chicken house at Uncle James’s place. Its eyes were yellow. I did not like to look at it when he dragged it home, though dead wolves are worth quite a lot of money from a magistrate. Granddaddy is a magistrate still, even in his aged condition, but I will not go to his house alone again, even if I get a wolf.