by Alix Hawley
All of it comes from you. In my mind you are a grey shadow always coming across the field with the sun, as you did in the summer pastures. We leave you in a grave near where some Germans have made a little village in Maryland. I put up a marker, which the Friends do not allow, but I have no care for that. It is a poor enough marker, only a plank with your name spelled out on it, but I could find it now if I wished to.
I cannot see you fully but I imagine you telling me there is more to find, and I always wish to follow you, Israel. I do not know at this time that you will follow me always, trying to get your life back.
We carry on, we find places we might settle. But no place is right. Daddy wishes to be farther from everyone, from everything, from all he remembers. I wish to be farther from where Israel died. I walk far ahead of the wagons, I never sleep in them now. We move on again and again, following the Indian road that bows round with the Allegheny Mountains, until we find ourselves in the Yadkin Valley in Carolina. The earth is a deep rusty red here, it clays up my moccasins as I walk. It seems a good place, with meadows and plenty of forest all round.
Daddy spots a thin man dragging a scythe across the flats near the Yadkin River. He pulls up the horses and shouts to stop the rest of us. Climbing down, he stalks after this man and speaks to him for some time. I see the man nodding, I see the sun trying to flash off the spotted scythe blade. When he returns, he says sharp to Ma:
—Three shillings the mile. What do you say, my girl?
Ma says yes, what else can she say? This sort of land would cost a hundred pounds in Exeter. Daddy buys twelve hundred acres. We stop and begin to unload. It is a pretty enough place, a long empty patch near the forking of the river, with the bluish hills rising to the west. And cheap, yes. She tries to keep her face sweet, though I know she is thinking of the lonesomeness of the situation. No friends here. And no Friends.
We stay. As soon as I can, I get out the gun and ready myself to set off exploring. Daddy looks up from where he is splitting shingles for the new house, though there is no house yet. He is set to hurl his axe at me.
—Where do you think you are going?
—Anywhere other.
After I serve him up his own words he sits down heavy upon a stone. The land needs clearing, the logs need building into a cabin. The wagons where Ma and the others and all the children are living need unloading. Granddaddy’s cabinet is the one piece Daddy has taken out. It sits crooked and black on the ground. Daddy eyes it, his face hard. He is still full of Israel’s death. His hands are set upon his bandy knees.
—Had you not better get to work here?
I think to say: N-nah, not today, his words again. But instead I say:
—I am going on a long-hunt. A month at least.
This is all that I will say now. I keep my countenance pleasant and still, what can one say to it? His face sinks as he watches Lawyer Daniel, the son of his old dreams, drown forever. I am lucky that my hands said nothing of blacksmithing and weaving when he used to try to read them. Daddy often stares at his own hands and says, as if he is arguing with someone: I have no sympathy for the materials, none at all.
Here in the Carolina backcountry, he is casting his loose eye about to establish us and to grow himself again like a cabbage. He does not wish to talk of Israel again. And we do not talk of the past, though Neddy sometimes mentions Pennsylvania and old times with a wistful air. I see him down at the creek now where young Squire is crouching, intent on fishing. Ned is trying to dry his feet, standing on one and swabbing at the other. He was made for happiness. He has always been happy, he has always pleased everyone with his company. This dragging discomfort is not to his taste, but he tosses a careless smile at me when he sees me. He sings in his pure sweet voice, it carries over the twilit flats:
The sun was sunk beneath the hill,
The western clouds were lined with gold.
When Ma touches her eyes and says he sang this for her in the old house in Exeter, Daddy says very loud that it is all sold now, it might as well never have been built, there is no such house! And Ma goes sadder at the thought of her homeless children and goes down to Neddy with a cake, trying to make her darling boy happy again.
Daddy, you never liked to be reminded of old times, as I know. You thought there were always better things coming. But the past keeps sniffing after us here.
Daddy appears fatigued. He blows his nose and peers into his handkerchief in case an answer has emerged there, he looks at his hands again as if they will change. But he has no choice with me, as he can see. He understands me to mean I am good for nothing else. His eyes say, You in those clothes. You are not my first son. Israel was to be the hunter. I hear a slight shudder in his breath. He scratches all round his neck and says slowly:
—Do not vanish entirely, Dan.
But I do think of vanishing. Daddy knows it. He sends his blacksmith apprentice Miller along when I go off for my hunt. Miller is eager and glad to be away from Daddy and all the land-clearing and homestead-building, but he is unsure of himself in the backwoods, and his arms are too long for the poor short-rifle he has. So I leave him to keep camp and I go alone through the bright autumn forests, trapping all along the Yadkin and hiking up into the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, where the air is indeed bluer and thinner. In this air I can follow the animals’ thoughts and I know which way they will run. I know which way I will find them lying in the trap and which way they will gnaw at their caught legs. They do not think, they do not have the words for thoughts, they are driven about by their blood’s whispers. I listen until I can hear the hissing. I remember Israel first showing me how to find their marks on the ground or in the trees. He seems far off now, a memory only. I look at the animals’ blood when it goes from wet to thick, I smell it. I keep a tally: thirty deer in a single day. At the camp, Miller keeps firing off the numbers of skins hurriedly under his breath. For some time I am near happy.
Over the next several years, I travel all through the forests whenever the weather is warm, and I hunt through the autumns and winters. I bring the meat to my family, I sell the hides down in Salisbury. Selling the hides takes the shine from it. The traders’ fingers are blunt and unseeing. If there were a way, I would slap the skins back on the carcasses and send the creatures off, to have the more to catch again. Selling them does bring me plenty of money, enough to bring home and keep some over. I buy a new gun. I am fond of money. And I wish for more than I have. More of everything.
One night Miller wishes to go to the frolic at old Morgan Bryan’s big place upriver. He is curious, as apprentices are not meant to go. And charming Neddy, smiling and smoothing his black hair, with no care for trouble, says:
—Why not?
I will admit I am happy enough to be persuaded. Ned and I steal out of the house as dark falls and get on Daddy’s favourite horse, Jezebel, barebacked. She is a good mare, light on her feet in spite of our double weight. Miller follows wary on the pony. All the way Ned sings “Courting” and “Women and Wine” in his sweet clear voice. I laugh and try to sing along but I cannot get into Neddy’s key.
Some at Bryan’s are taking it in turns to shoot at a straw target. The echo of the shots quivers across the dusk.
—Here at last. The famous marksman. King of the tomahawk.
This from one of the many big well-off Bryan boys, his hair like a banner on fire in the torchlight. He holds up his hands as if in surrender. Miller and Ned laugh and I say:
—Then you have been waiting for us. Your party so bad as that?
Bryan grins and crosses his arms and says:
—Give your tomahawk a twirl. Get it out, give the girls a good look.
One of his brothers says:
—Keep your weapon to yourself in public if you can, Boone, ha!
I say:
—Send me word when you learn how to leave yours alone.
The brother grabs at his parts and thrusts out his hips. Ned laughs again as he dismounts. He turns towards the barn
at the side of the big double house, where there is dancing. People in pairs spin past the open doors in the gold torchlight. Miller keeps himself well back, hoping nobody will notice him and tell Daddy later. I get down too and watch. But just to the left of the door my eye catches a face against the wall, turned just slightly, as if it were a painting on the wall, a painting of a face only. Her hair and dress both black and hidden. She is not moving even her toe to the music, not moving at all. She will not look at me, though I continue to look at her.
I raise my rifle at a black movement far across the field, and I shoot it clean. A whoop goes up with the flash of my gun. Another Bryan gives my back a violent slap. The girl does not move.
A young boy runs back with the dead animal limp over his arm, a grey owl. He hoots: Tu whit tu whoo! He spreads the owl’s wings wide, clicking the joints, the feathers fanning against one another and the head lolling back. Some of the others hoot back. Ned takes the bird and holds it out to the girl. Wordless, she turns and walks into the warm noisy depth of the barn. Another girl spins out and stops in the loop of light from the door, just before Ned. She looks similar to the other girl, likely a sister. Someone in the barn shouts for Neddy to come in and sing, and he hands the owl to this girl. She is confused, but she takes it and holds it to her breast. I whoop also, I am too happy.
Miller vanishes at some time, I do not know when, and I lose sight of Ned in the dancing. When I find Ned, it is getting on for dawn, and I say:
—We had best get home.
We mount Jezebel and set off. I have the reins. I ought to have seen it, but I am half-dreaming of girls dancing, and one girl standing still. I gallop Jezebel and she keeps her head down against the boughs and twigs across the path. Ned gives a shout and I feel him stab his heels into Jezebel’s sides, jump, but she is going down already, the ground is flying up to meet us as she falls hard onto her knees and over onto her back. A shape in the path looms up out of the dark.
My heart seems to stop. No sound. Then a wet snap of bone, a rickety crack like a child’s leg breaking. I roll clear.
—Ned.
I am against heat and mossy breath. I listen, but there is nothing to hear. My hand scrabbles for anything, my gun or my knife.
—Ned. Neddy.
—What? I am here, I am all right.
Ned is kneeling at the side of the path. It is Jezebel’s neck twisted and broken, like a fish leaping back on itself. I find myself standing over her, my arm slashing stupid at the dark. White patches begin to move against the night.
Only when it heaves itself up onto its legs does it make a noise and then I know it is a cow, a living one. It walks off. Who would have guessed that a cow could fell a mare so handily? Without trying. Ned laughs all helpless until he empties his drunken stomach all over the path. I laugh madly too until rain begins to tap at my face. I sit down then against the dead horse feeling sorry.
But Jezebel is not dead, not yet. No. She is breathing, her side moving up and down. I crawl up towards her face and I peer close. The lashes feather my cheek, I see a slight shine as the eye rolls towards me. It disappears behind a slow blink but then comes back. I find her nose, I touch her lips with the flat of my hand and put my ear to them. She does not snap at me, perhaps she could not do so even if she wished to, but she was always a gentle girl. I listen to her gentle breath, my throat clenched. I cannot see enough to load a shot, and at any rate my horn has spilled in the fall. I whisper:
—Ned. Ned. Have you any powder?
But he has none, he dropped his gun somewhere and is dizzy and sick with drink. And so I have to find the centre of Jezebel’s throat with my knife. It is not difficult, her throat is bent back. She seems to be offering it up. She is patient. I feel for the place where her neck meets her chest, and I find the notch between. The knife slips in without hitting bone. I hold it there. She shudders twice. I move back to keep her blood from my good shirt, but I bend to keep my ear near her mouth. Jezebel, I hear your last breath.
I thought I heard it. I smelled it, hay-scented. I stand, and out of the night, for a burning instant, I see Israel’s face, his sharp smile and eyes, his mouth opening, before all of it is wiped out.
Words seem to hiss in the rain. They hang in the air a moment but are quickly gone. I do not know what the words are. My ears strain for them. The hairs are standing on my neck. Neddy is still crouched, laughing and coughing. He has not seen, I know it without asking him. He has not heard. Part of me wishes to see our dead brother’s face again, to ask him what he is telling me, but I am afraid.
—Ned. Come on.
Neddy and I creep home without speaking in the wet dark and crawl back into the house. As I slide into bed, Squire remarks with his usual precision:
—You are damp and you smell of wet horse.
He puts his feet on mine to warm them but they cannot be warmed. I think of the horse and I think of Israel. My face is wet with tears I cannot stop. I turn it from Squire.
In the morning Daddy goes out and finds his best horse missing. He rides the pony out through the woods until he comes upon her body. He comes home asking:
—How did she get out? How did she break her own neck? How—how did she cut her throat?
I say:
—I cannot think how.
I remain calm as Ned is, eating his bread. I lie and I am not struck by lightning. Untruth is no calamity. Keeping quiet is no calamity. As I think at this time.
I go back to the forest to try to see Israel again or hear some echo of what he said. Israel, if I had listened harder, I might have known what was coming. But there is nothing. At this time I do not know how many dead followers I will have.
I DO NOT sleep well for weeks after I see Israel’s face. It does not come back. I sleep outside the new cabin and stare back at the stars. Israel, I am full of confusion. I am afraid of seeing you, and I am afraid you are gone.
It is Miller’s idea to go to Philadelphia. He pleads with me to go along for two nights and not to tell Daddy. Squatting on his heels, he says we can make more money selling a pack of skins here and enjoy ourselves spending some of it. I say:
—All right.
Another city, somewhere Israel never went, seems a reasonable thought.
The tavern’s bedsheets are innocent though grimy enough. The first night, we have to share the room with a travelling Frenchman who tells us of a woman he had seen in Paris, kept in a glass box quite nude. He stretches out the word in sleepy tones: newwwd. He is half asleep, his eyes are slits. I ask him to say more, but he looks at Miller with a snaky smile and says:
—Have you not dipped your wick yet, ah, poor young man?
He reaches out to touch Miller, who goes pale and turns his back and leaves for home in the early morning. The Frenchman leaves too and I get the bed to myself, though I do think on the quite nude woman. I picture her gratefully loosed from her glass box into this bed.
In the wet evening, I go north some streets into Hell Town, closer to the river and all its slapping noise. I keep myself to myself but I keep my eyes open also. There is plenty of trade here, plenty of people coming and going in boats and along the alleys. Always the smell of fish and the sad little moons of their old scales all over the walk. My skin pricks up here. I like being in a new city, not knowing what is coming. I like feeling my knife.
I stand looking at the river. I am looking for Israel’s face again, in spite of myself. This is what I am doing in Pennsylvania. I look at every face to see if one is his. He is not dead, or not fully dead, I am sure. I am watching the shifting of the water and thinking so when a man runs at me, his arm hanging like a dragging wing, I cannot see his face in the shadows of the buildings. He puffs a rough, unshapen word, it is not help, though it is something like it. He stumbles and reaches out as if he would take my arm in trade for his broken one. I step back but he falls and clutches my knees. Now I see his upturned face, his eyes are full of tears, pale blue with starry lashes all round. Not Israel’s eyes. The man kn
eels panting before me. I get out my knife. I see his unshaven throat, the bobbling lump at the front of it, and I am full of quick anger that he is not my brother. I raise the blade. I believe by this time that I could kill someone if I had to. Perhaps I believe I could fight Death itself, now that it has been close to me. Most young men believe so perhaps. I grip the handle and keep the blade above him. I stare into his face, I am ready, but he straggles back up and runs on, no longer looking at me. He is calling for mermaids. Show yourselves: so he cries in the direction of the stale water.
I laugh and quiet my heart and I walk on up a street away from the river. The cobbles have a wet sheen, the air is damp. It is quite dark here but for the lights in some of the windows, and not many people are about. And no ghosts. This is what you are now, Israel, I know. And what do you want of me?
I walk slow. Under the splintery red face on the sign for The Indian Queen tavern, a man pukes neatly and then deposits a backgammon piece in the puddle. A horse nips my hair and its drunken rider brushes my neck with dry fingers. I slide my own finger up my knife again and it seems a lonely flat thing.
I close my eyes to the streets. A sniff of green wood burning, a sniff of pickle, a sniff of deep armpit. I sit inside the doorway of a shut bakery, which has a cindery smell and gives me a sad thought of hunting, my campfire sinking to ash and the owls going about their night business. I pull myself up, I feel the cool of the step under my backside and my feet. I force my eyes open to watch the people come and go. People like this life. People like this city, they live in it all the time. But the bells here have a tired sound.
I begin the walk southward back to my inn. Two lights in another tavern burn upon parts of women as they move past the door, lighting their faces when they pause against the wall. One of the women yawns hugely, showing her wide throat. A pair stands blowing smoke into the air and another drags her gown about. When they look at men their faces turn to wood, with carved wooden smiles. Whores. I think of the story of Gulliver, the best story. Israel’s wife did not read all of it aloud, not about the whores, but I read it myself. O Gulliver, you did not know what to do with them either.