by Alix Hawley
Ma touches my shoulder as I sit beside her. She misses Sallie, her first child, and she thinks of the younger ones at home, Neddy and Squire and little Hannah. So it gives her pleasure to coddle me for a short time. She tells the wolf story and strokes my head and says:
—Such hair. Sweet Neddy got the rest. And now what have I left?
Her hair has thinned, it is full of white threads. I was born with a black thatch, thick as hers once was. Her favourite boy Neddy has the same. He is like me but with a sweeter countenance. The rest are like Daddy, paler and gingery, though Israel’s hair is a dark brown with red in it like embers, as I recall. We have not seen him in more than a month.
With my club I fell a red finch and then two more birds on their way to their trees. I pluck and gut them and cook them on a stick for Ma. The birds’ legs stand out straight, crisped in the smoke. She says:
—A pity to eat the little singers.
But she does eat them. The evening smells of warm grass and cows’ bodies. I can see the horseshoe-shaped valley below, the Schuylkill River at the end and the creeks running along like threads, and the house no more than a stump. I say:
—Ma, where do you think Israel is?
Without answering, she gets up to bring in the herd for evening milking. She calls:
—Ah. Here with you, you Ham.
I have given this name to all the cows. Ma humours me. The bells clank round her, she hums a flat little tune. She is worried about Israel and about what will become of us in Exeter, I know, though she keeps up a calm appearance. The corn and wheat did not come good this year, and Daddy says we must get fresh land for planting. For now I will stay. I will hunt and get her anything she wishes. So I think to myself. I am happy here alone with her in the fields, perhaps it is the happiest time of my life. Perhaps we get happy times to measure our unhappiness against later. Ma, I remember you.
It is September and cooler when a grey shape appears out of the higher hills across the pasturage. The sun is just coming up, Ma is still in the little dairy cabin fetching the pails. I stand up with the gun and aim. A sharp laugh comes:
—Do not shoot me yet. You do not even know who I am.
But I do know. Israel comes with his hands up and then sets his bag outside the cabin door. He grins through his beard and lies down in the grass with his gun beside him. He is wearing a breechcloth and leggings under his hunting shirt, which has tiny bright beads sewn all over it. His hips and thighs show bare. He kicks off his moccasins and a sharp smell comes from his feet. Another smell comes from his skin, a leafy smoky smell, the sort of tobacco the Indians use. Israel closes his eyes and goes limp as the pheasants and pigeons in his bag. I sit watching for quite a long time. When Ma comes out, he yawns in a great breath, as if his life is just starting itself. He sits up and asks what we have for breakfast, his hair rumpled and wild and his whiskers piercing out from his skin. Ma embraces him and says he looks quite a warrior in his outfit. I say:
—Have you got any skins?
—Back in my camp. Traded some with the Delawares.
—For what?
—For the shirt.
He points to the beading on his chest. His mouth is full of the bread Ma gives him. She begins to spoon out some of last night’s stew and he eats as if he is starved. I say:
—Where did you find Delawares? I met some Catawbas. Where is your camp?
To Ma he says:
—Who gave you this meat?
He points the spoon at the bowl and Ma says:
—Our Daniel got it.
He looks at me properly. His eyes tighten. I say:
—Is beaver tail too fat for you now?
He begins to smile around the meat. He laughs and says:
—Well, well, the young master got himself a beaver. Got the pelt?
—Yes.
I do not tell him I shot the beaver and made a great hole in the skin. I have no traps as yet. He laughs again and chews off another great bite and takes another look at me. He says:
—You will have to come with me. We will get something else.
He sleeps all day in the grass. I help Ma but my heart is banging all the time. I want to go with him. I club a few squirrels and shine the gun and prepare my powder and shot. When Ma brings the cows in for the night, Israel wakes and stretches in the twilight. The moon is coming up already, a fat moon tonight. A wolf gives a yipping cry far in the woods. Israel finds a pitch-pine branch and makes a torch of it at the campfire. His eyes shine. He says:
—Coming?
He speaks as if he has not been asleep at all and does not much care whether I come along. I say:
—I am ready. Are you?
With our guns we cross the grass and go into the woods. I do not look back at Ma. The fire from the torch flips and shivers in the breeze. I am glad to be with him but I do not wish to show how glad, so I keep silent for some time until I cannot help myself, and I say:
—Are we going to your camp?
He says nothing as we hike up a hill. I say:
—Where is it?
He says:
—Anywhere I like.
He is silent again, I say nothing also.
When we reach a flat place with few trees about, he hands me the torch and walks on. I say:
—Is this it?
He does not answer. He gathers heaps of dried leaves and sticks and piles them as he walks about through the trees. For some time I do not see him, I only hear his light steps far off. I keep to where I am. It is darker when he returns. He takes the torch and says:
—Ever fire-hunted yet?
He touches the flame to the leaves at my feet. Fire runs along the trail he has made, a great circle a quarter-mile wide, snapping and leaping between the trees. We back up outside the round. The smoke is quick and heavy and stinking, my eyes run. He says:
—Now we wait. We might get a wolf or two. That would please Ma.
—Do you eat wolves in your camp? Do you not get anything else? We can have beaver all the time in the pastures, you know. I know where they are.
He is not looking at me. He says:
—Take the first shot. Anything that comes along. The fire will make it easy for you.
—I will take anything better than a wolf.
His teeth show in the blazing light as he grins. My heart bangs harder. I have no wish for a wolf, I do not like wolves. I feel Israel’s eyes narrowing at me. I raise my gun and I keep it steady.
A crashing begins, light at first and then furious. Something is running back and forth at the centre of the fire. The smoke is choking, I tighten my eyes to see through it. Israel throws an arm-load of branches before me, the flame jumps high as my face and I step back from the heat. But Israel is watching still, and so I move forward again with my hands tight on the gun. Now is a terrible sound, a weeping, like the sound of a woman. I look to Israel but he only squints. The weeping and crashing come closer. Perhaps it is a young wolf, perhaps it is trying to howl but can only weep in this unfair fight. I have the gun up but I cannot shoot. The fire gleams off two eyes ducking up and down behind the flames. Something breathes in, a wretched gasp. My finger moves on the trigger. And leaping straight through the fire, straight at us, is a big doe. I see the scorch marks on her pale underbelly and her tail as she leaps, I feel her gasp and I feel Israel’s watching. She is running. I turn and I shoot her through the neck and she goes down.
I feel your surprise, Israel. You did not think I could do it. You stand for a moment and you say:
—Easy.
It is too easy, it is a child’s game, and I am not a child. It is wrong. I pull myself up and I say:
—Where else have you been? Have you been farther than this?
He laughs and says:
—You want to know everything.
He takes my gun and has a look at it and runs his hand along the stock. I say:
—You can use it if you will show me where you go. You want to get out. You have found better places, I k
now you have. That is why you never come back here.
—Maybe.
—I can shoot. I could go with you. I want to get out too.
He smiles and says nothing. He only takes up the doe’s hind leg and cocks a brow at me. I take the other leg and we drag the animal back to Ma. I know I can do better than this, and better than you, Israel. To myself I say I will never fire-hunt again. I listen half the night for wolves while you sleep. And the next morning you are gone again without me.
I do not see Israel again until one evening late in the month, not long before we take the cows down to the farm again for the autumn. It is a hot thundery evening. Ma sends me home with the milk before the rain. I go down the valley side with the cans on their yoke over my shoulders, across the back of our place and round the side to the spring cellar door.
On the first step of the stairs beneath our house, I stand waiting for my eyes to wake to the dark. The yoke is heavy. The cold of the cellar hits my chest, the smell is slightly sour. Shapes press themselves out of the shadow at last and this is when I see my brother. I truly see him.
He has his gun propped against the wall and his bag set on the floor. A pelt hangs out of it, beaver or otter. His face is hidden from me. I see a hand is spread against the damp wall as if seeking relief there. It is not his hand, it is a girl’s, and Israel is bent with his forehead pressed against hers. My first thought is that this girl has an aching head and that Israel is doctoring her. Though I have never known him to show any talent for doctoring.
A whisper slides out from them, a wet hungry sound. The thought strikes me that they are thieving butter and gobbling lumps of it together in a hurry to be gone. Then I hear their catching breath. I see her white cap on the floor with its strings in limp circles. I see her shawl beside it. I see her dark hair down over her shoulders, and I see Israel’s bare thighs above his leggings as his shirt shifts upward. Her apron slides down to the flagstones. I do not move an inch. The damp ceiling weeps on my head. The damp floor weeps up through my shoes.
Israel’s hand hovers just above her breast. Now his fingers are on her, they move up to her collarbone and back down to her bosom. His mouth is against her cheek as he opens the top of her bodice. He says:
—Does it feel nice? I know it does.
I have never heard Israel speak so soft and so kind. His voice is strange and private, as if he has stolen it. Then he speaks some words I do not know. They are not English, they are Indian words. Quetit is one. She says something back in a gentle way. The words near knock me down though I do not know what they are. His hands are all up and down her. I feel myself shut off inside a clanking armour of milk cans. My legs shake. I want this, the touching and the sounds and the privacy. The want rises up high in my throat, I can never tell of it.
The girl gasps as the doe did in the fire. At once I think again of my little wife Molly Black, but she is dead. This girl is living and her arms are round Israel’s back. I drop the cans in the doorway, one clangs down the stairs and milk flies everywhere. I do not care. Full of my want, I am running. I want to go where you have been, but the only place I can go is back up to the pastures. The rain has begun but you do not come, Israel. I think of you in the spring cellar, you and the girl. You have everything you want. You have a gun and a free life and now this.
I know what you have been doing all this time. You do not know what I have seen. I have seen your wish for a secret life, your own life. My hope of going with you is finished. And I wish to have your life. I wish and wish for it all night. Israel, I am sorry for it now, perhaps I wished too hard.
The night is cold and wet. When Ma and I wake in the damp morning, Neddy appears at the cabin door. I say:
—Have you seen Israel?
Rubbing his sleepy eyes, he says with his sweet smile:
—No. Daddy says I have to tell you he will be a magistrate now, and Granddaddy is dead.
GRANDDADDY IS put in the Friends’ burying ground behind Meeting House and covered over without a marker, like everyone else. Daddy is in charge of the burial. He gives a proper nod to everyone who comes. But he is not made a magistrate yet and Granddaddy has not left him much. All his children want money. He leaves most to Aunt Sarah, who is alone now in the stone house and quite outcast without him. He does leave Daddy his carved black cabinet from England, very heavy and very old. When Daddy rumbles home with it in the wagon I say:
—You can keep your night pot in it and think of Granddaddy whenever you need it.
Daddy swats at me. To Ma he says:
—It will come. It will come right.
He is bright enough, striding home from the burying in the autumn sun. Uncle James walks along with him. He is a big man with a bald head and a wide red face and a schoolmasterish voice. With the money he does get, Daddy plans to buy another few acres to the south of our farm from him. All the burying party stops at our house to drink. I duck away from Uncle James but I hear him say to Daddy:
—You are planting yourself deeply here. Our old father would be proud, rest his soul. A good old man. He would be proud indeed.
Daddy sips his ale and says:
—Yes. Yes.
He looks as if he quite believes this, but I know Uncle James’s words are only a thing people say when someone has died. Uncle James gets up and looks out the window. He says:
—At times like this I confess to feeling as the people of the city of Troy must have felt in ancient times, waiting for the Greeks to attack and believing they would win.
Daddy laughs:
—Showing your learning again, Master Jimmy. Have the Indians been giving you wind of plans for a secret attack? Or have they joined up with the Greeks now?
Uncle James smiles and shakes his head and says:
—You ought to ensure your Daniel gets to school. He has more learning to do yet. He could do many things.
He wags a big finger in my direction. Turning back to the window he says:
—It is an odd feeling one gets after a burial, a sense of waiting for things to improve, and then to end.
Hill’s father comes over with his hand outstretched and takes Daddy’s. With his eyes shining, he says in his most earnest manner:
—Friend Boone, we know this world will end someday. We can only hope to improve ourselves while we are in it.
Daddy roars out a laugh now. He says:
—I will improve my children’s lot. They will all have part of the land my father and I settled. My Dan here will be a lawyer, I can see it in his hand.
Daddy sometimes lines us up and peers at our hands with his good eye, hoping to catch at a sign there. He takes my hand now, his breath damp in my palm. I snatch it away. William Hill, arriving beside his father, laughs and slaps my shoulder and looks me full in the face with his curious grey eyes as if he can read my life there also. My heart falls down. He is going to ask for his gun back.
—Hello.
I turn, and it is Israel coming through the back door with the sun behind him. He has been gone again since I saw him breathing in the cellar. He missed the burial. His hunting outfit is a shock against all the grey coats and frocks. The beads on his shirt gleam when the light touches them. The cloth is streaked with dried animal blood. He has a rough beard, his hair is plaited up and greased and his moccasins are dirty. The talk in the room stops. He wipes his mouth and extends his hand to Hill’s father. He says:
—Well. Who is dead, aside from the deer I left in the yard?
Daddy hands him a drink and he raises his mug and says:
—I am alive. Are you?
Daddy nods, puffing himself up. Well we are all right. Until the next whore, who is worse, being a whore and Indian.
Winter comes, and it is not long before everyone knows of her. And how can I help staring? I am not the only one. The girl’s neck is thin and pretty below her cap. My body and legs ache when I see it. Standing at the centre of Meeting she looks at the door as though to say: Deliver me from these apes. She does not look
at me.
It is cold. The snow comes down outside the window. Beside me Ma is fretful, this wedding is her doing, a real marriage in our own Meeting for the sake of the child, as she said. She wraps her shawl tight about her shoulders. We are a bad lot. Bad blood. Very bad now. The women Friends sneak looks at us, Ma keeps up her small smile that says: We are harmless, we mean no harm.
I see the girl’s knot of coppery hair and her warm brown skin. I know these parts, and more of her, from the cellar. I know Israel has been with her there more than once, and elsewhere in the woods. I have seen him cross the river, stopping to spear some fish to take to her in the Delaware cabins. He has been giving her skins and pelts she can trade for money. She is part Delaware, maybe half, maybe more. I know her soft voice though she has said nothing here yet. Friend Jones on the bench behind me says low:
—A half-breed will produce what? Quarter-breeds?
This is meant to sound kind, it has a slow drip like jelly. But Jones is picturing the mixing of blood. And of other parts. This I know because I am picturing it also. I have many such thoughts now.
A heavy countrywoman says deafly to her husband:
—Blood will out.
This may mean the Indian blood, or ours. She is old, her old face says she knows all about Granddaddy. One of the boys who is not far from where I sit sings soft, but not so soft that I cannot hear it: Blood will out out out, blood will out out out. Hill turns and smiles at me with what he believes is a sympathetic face, though he looks as though he has a needle between his teeth. He mimes holding a gun up to his shoulder, he tugs his arm back and mouths bang bang. I see his breath puff out in clouds. I suppose he wishes to go shooting with me, I am miserable thinking about it. His gun has only tied me tighter to him.