by Alix Hawley
—Daniel.
The withering fields, the corn and wheat failing. The endless work. I look out towards them through the dark. The dull home militia training, marching back and forth with a straggling group of farmers. Now Rebecca grips the back of my neck as if I were a pup and she trying to shake me out of this. Her hand says: Am I wrong to want a peaceful life? No.
—Daniel, even some of the Indians are leaving now. I saw a group of Catawbas going north with all their things. They want no part of the fighting. Why would you want to stay?
The week before, I went on my militia duties with Squire to patrol a pair of the far backcountry farms. We found Jennings and his son and slave lying face up in their wheat, all shining and buzzing, black and green, cloaked in suits of flies. Their scalps gone and their eyes also by that time. The boy was some thirteen years of age. I could hardly bear to look at him, I was so sorry.
The body of a Cherokee was face down outside the door of their cabin in its own buzzing suit. Someone had got one shot in. We buried all of them, though some leave the Indians out in the air to rot. I did not tell Rebecca, but she knows. There was no one inside the house, but I saw a woman’s gown on a hook and a child’s cap on the bed.
She turns her back to me now and says:
—You smelled the smoke.
—You smelled it first.
A stupid joke. I did smell it, we all did. It travelled in the dark from the north last night, probably one of the Carters’ places, too much smoke to be burning brush. Too tarry and black, with too much stench, the kind that sticks to skin. Rebecca looks at me, her eyes fill with tears in an instant and she blinks them away. We do not bring up the smoke again. She moves back and forth like a switch in the air, and then goes inside.
She only wants to be gone. Her body has lost all its trained stillness. Daddy is the same, unsettled all through, worn down by Ma and age, his Carolina dream collapsed. So has the dream of Rebecca’s grandfather. In spite of all his land here in the Yadkin Valley, he has brushed the dirt from his hands and stood up to go. The retreat is sounding.
—Daniel. Danny.
Rebecca’s voice drifts from the doorway. I say:
—You know I never turn down a fight. Not even one against corn.
Again my words are stupid ones. I exhale through my teeth, a sigh by another name. I say:
—My Daddy will sell me six hundred of his acres, and we can have a better house. I know you would like that. Clapboard and an oak floor.
I do not think much of this idea, but perhaps she will. One of the children, likely Jamesie, breaks out of sleep with a cry, and Rebecca goes to him. He is never a happy sleeper.
I look out at the slight movement in the dark fields, the breeze shifting the low dry crops.
A great stone rolls from my back. It is not the thought of running from the Indians or the French or the attacks. The relief is in having a reason to turn from this silent, wily soil and all its demands. To leave it to itself and let it go wild and find somewhere else. Anywhere other, Daddy, as you once said.
All right. I move towards the door and lightly I call:
—We will go then, Mrs. Boone. If you like.
The woman with thin yellow hair and a sorrowful face picks at her skin. She seems to get no satisfaction from this activity, but she keeps at it. No one knows her, though we all sneak looks and wonder what has happened to her. Her chin begins to bleed, but she picks on with her trembly fingers.
Fort Dobbs, which the Carolina governor has built between two creeks some miles east of our place, is packed. Not enough air or light. The ceiling has the feel of a tight hat. We are jammed into one of the cabins along the north stockade with a dozen others. Between long silences, the women converse about better times and are fierce in their judgements. The walls are raw logs, we snag on the rough wood like pelts.
—Your fancy apron would enjoy itself here.
Rebecca gives a small laugh, trying to keep bitterness out of the sound. The room stinks of stale fear. Baby Israel wails continuously and serves as the voice for us all. Jamesie at least is heavily asleep for once, his face upturned as if in great hope. I have told him that we are in the dungeon of a castle waiting to see the king. Mosquitoes sing above the watery trench outside the wall. One is in here singing. We have all had a good swat at it but to no avail. The baby’s crying heightens. The sound is a contagious one, and the other babies begin to cry, like wolves taking up each other’s howling.
The yellow-haired woman bursts out suddenly:
—Plenty of bad mothers about. Plenty. All too easy to become a mother.
She returns to her picking. The wailing goes on.
My brother Israel’s boy Jesse is curled next to my feet, his arm stiffened with a splint and tucked into a sling Rebecca fashioned from a shirt. He has been my boy since not long after his father’s death, but he is never quite at ease. He and Jonathan have orphans’ carefulness and bad luck. I say:
—Does your arm hurt you?
He says:
—No sir.
—Uncle Sir will do in this place.
Jesse looks up at me with a smile, quickly hidden. He shifts his weight and tries to give the air of one pleased with where he finds himself. He never wishes to make trouble. His face is very white in the dim, like a moon shining up from the bottom of a well, and I know his broken arm is sore. He fell from the loft in the barn and did not cry, he only came walking to find me with his forearm hanging loose from the elbow. Often he injures himself in some fashion, as though life lays traps for him everywhere. With a sudden nod, the picking woman says:
—I could take that one, give him a home.
Jesse turns to her, his eyes widening. To the woman I say:
—No, thank you all the same.
She gives me a hard-done-by look and folds her arms for the time. To Jesse I say:
—Hungry?
I have a strip of jerk in my bag, I rummage for it, but Jesse shakes his head. I rub his hair and am sorry that there is nothing more I can do. I stand, but there is no room to walk about. Rebecca is nursing the baby beneath her shawl, so there is some quiet interspersed with small smackings. With her eyes shut she reaches up for my arm and says:
—Fine lodgings you have selected this evening.
She wishes me to joke with her and make her easy. She is sorry to have brought me here. But my limbs are prickling, and I do not reply.
I sit again and cover Jesse’s ears without thinking. Beneath the idle remarks, I hear them. Wolves, or Indian and French mockeries, as if the babies’ crying has brought them prowling. I put my ear to the splintery gunslit in the back wall. Jesse shifts about, Rebecca says too loud:
—What do you hear?
The shadows beneath her eyes are like petals. For a moment I want to touch them. Others sit up and listen. She asks me again what I hear, and I tell her nothing now.
—You would tell us if you did hear something? Daniel?
She is staring at me. So is Jesse, so is everyone else in the room. Jamesie rolls over and opens a sleepy eye. The yellow-haired woman stills her picking. Now I also speak too loud:
—Nothing there. The watch will be coming past soon. You will hear them. Go on, sleep now.
They quiet. My eyes adjust to the night as it deepens. The moon rises and drags the dark about. The noises of breathing and sleep begin to press upon me. I step over bodies to listen at the different walls. I hear a brief yip, it is not distant.
For a wild moment I am pierced as if by something sharp as a jewel. It stabs up to my skull, I see cold blue everywhere. Something is about to happen, surely. The thing that has been coming for me all my life. Here am I. Ready for murdering, or for being murdered. For anything but this trap.
Nothing comes. The stoppage and silence cannot be borne. If there were a proper window I would leap out of it before my Fate can catch me as it is always catching Jesse. I would surprise Fate by dodging off in a different direction, I would make some change from what is
. At this time I believe it would be possible to do so.
I take out my knife. I step over Jesse to put my ear to the gunslit again, and I listen hard into the deeper night. The quiet is like a heavy cloth. A horse tied in the centre of the fort snorts and stamps, the sound explodes. My heart surges, and I turn for the door.
Jesse’s face is pale and creased as linen laid out to dry. His eyes are like his mother’s, dark and still. They catch on mine. They stop me. His need is like lead weights. Well Gulliver, I spare a thought for you, all tied down by the Lilliputians.
To myself I say: Keep yourself still. Straighten your mouth. To Jesse I say low:
—Is your arm hurting you, Goodboy? Keeping you awake?
Sometimes I call him Goodboy as his mother did. He blinks fast, but after a moment he answers:
—Yes. Not much.
He tucks his head down again, and I crouch and place my own arm over his broken one, as if this will fix it.
—That hurt you?
—Yes.
—Oh.
I snort and Jesse laughs with a full ha-ha-ha, forgetting everything about his life for one moment. A young man in the corner groans a curse and the yellow-haired woman sits up, knocking her head, and baby Israel wakes and howls. I feel Rebecca looking at me and at Jesse with exhausted loathing. The boy retreats into himself, holding his stiff arm away from his body as if it were not his. Well I know how that arm must feel.
Forting up is rotten. After some days of the company here Rebecca can endure no more. She wishes to go towards Virginia where her family has gone, and so we do. She will not let the boys out of the wagon for an instant. She is cool all the way there until she sees her old granddaddy and her face splits open.
There is not much hunting round the place the Bryans have bought, but I am not expected to farm. There are plenty of slaves and hands. If I like, I can drive Bryan tobacco to market. Life here is like a set table. I will say that there is plenty of food also. The boys are cautiously happy. Rebecca is full of relief, she walks with the baby in a shrinking circle, regaining her old stillness. But I find myself curiously tired of eating. The smell of tobacco leaves seems to have sunk through my tongue to the floor of my mouth. I am tired of the heavy forks they have. I am tired of the talk of whether or not to have another slice of pie.
We stay through the summer, and all winter. My dreams are not frequent, but at old Bryan’s big house I do dream once of the ideal society of which Findley told me. The Englishman in the Florida wilderness with all his women, living according to inclination. Is that not what my dead brother told me, to do as I like? I think of him, especially when his boys are near, but he is not here, though I keep watch.
Rebecca’s dreams are riotous and full of portents. If she tells me about one and I come up with no great understanding she is cross all day. I do not tell her when I have a surprising dream of Adam and Eve going about their innocent business in their own garden. In the dream this is a clean wilderness, fenced, with animals roaming prettily about. A dull dream within its noisy bright edges. There is much praising and clapping. O Adam I am a happy woman! O Eve I am glad to hear it!
I remember these words as if they were shouted down my ear. Later I thought that Adam did not say that he was happy. I do not know why I recall this dream even now.
Well a fall was coming for that pair, as everyone knows. Snake, apple, surprise, punishment for ever. Goodbye! But their exile never seemed to me a true punishment, since they could go wherever else they pleased. Going on living with the Bryans in Virginia seems a penalty indeed. Always having to praise Rebecca’s granddaddy for having us here. He sits in his chair as if he has had himself stuffed for posterity. He has a drunkard’s veiny nose and cheeks, though I have never seen him take a drink, and so I cannot help but think him untrustworthy. He has a leafy dry-rot smell, the smell of old money, as I suppose.
I owe him twenty pounds for supplies he has bought me. I owe his son more. Daddy has taken Ma up to Maryland for the time as she wished to be near Israel’s grave. Neddy and Martha are here, and my sister Hannah with her family. I wonder about my brother Squire on occasion, though I do not let myself wonder whether he is alive back in Carolina, or dead from the fighting, or from being tied to his gunsmithing apprenticeship. I hate wagoning down to the pit of my gut. Squire, perhaps you hate your work also.
Trapped in the parlour, I make an attempt at conversation. To old Bryan I say loud:
—Spring is on the way.
A stupid remark, but something to say to the stuffed old man. What does he dream of? Hornworm in his tobacco. Or in his money, munching with a hundred thousand teeth.
I shift about in my chair. Rebecca and the women are talking as they thump and crack dough or nuts or bones in the kitchen. One says:
—I must almost have drowned when I was a small girl, that is why I am so afraid of water now. When I see a pond I just freeze all through, even in summertime.
The others cluck with enthusiasm.
—Perhaps it was another life when you did drown and you carry the seed of the bad memory in you. Like a cancer.
—Well I hope I do not have that. Is that what you mean? Do I look as if I have a cancer?
I pick out Rebecca’s voice, calm and sure now. She says:
—Do you believe in other lives? I do not.
Her sister Martha replies:
—I do. I would like another one. I think I must have died of fright once, I get such pains just here at night, and I am so fearful then. What a thought, to die in my bed with my mouth and eyes open. Imagine being found looking like that in the morning. Might that be a cancer? It is just here.
Through the doorway I can see Martha pointing to her chest, dead centre. She seems to believe this is the location of her heart. Indigestion, I think, though I say nothing. Rebecca says:
—I would be glad enough to have a cancer instead of being tomahawked, as we all might have been in Carolina.
One of the women goes on about the children wandering the Yadkin woods, their parents killed. Another says:
—I would not go back again for anything.
I want to shout to them: Do not believe all you hear. But Martha starts in:
—Neddy heard in town that the soldiers at Loudon’s fort have Indian wives who are sneaking beans and hog meat in to them while the Cherokees try to starve them out.
Rebecca thumps something hard and says:
—Would you do the same for Neddy? Or for an Indian husband?
They are all laughing. Martha says:
—Imagine being those women. I wonder what they wear under their skirts?
I think of a panther skin I once got as a prize at a shooting match and traded on again. It was deep black and had a weedy smell. But Rebecca, you might have liked it. You could have worn it, or wrapped the new baby, our girl Susannah, in it and made a savage princess of her. And your family would have fallen in astonishment like a set of pokers to the ground and perhaps snapped a pokery bone or two in doing so.
Such are my thoughts when Ned comes in from outdoors, his cheeks red with the wind. He nods to old Bryan and sits down beside him. The old man says in a sudden suspicious manner:
—Two black heads.
Neddy laughs. Ma used to call us her twins born in different years and say he was just like me. But though our black hair is the same, Neddy is still the one with the sweet voice and the darling countenance. Ma said he must never grow a beard, never hide his sweetness. He is always clean-shaven. Our sisters Sal and Bets used to call him Dolly Dear and make him twirl. He would usually do so without a fuss, and when he had had enough he would plop down on his backside, still smiling his sleepy smile. Ned, I do remember this, you know, and not just the rest.
To him I say:
—Been to town?
—Yes.
—Warmer out?
—Yes, a bit. Very pleasant.
—Anything happening?
—Nothing extraordinary.
Ned pities
me, as I can see. He is himself content as usual and is perplexed by my restless questions. Standing and putting his back to the fire, he stretches and says:
—This is a good house. Comfortable. I know you could live in any place, though, Dan.
—Almost any place. Not you, our Ned? Keep-home Neddy, darling Neddy.
I speak in Ma’s voice, and for one moment I am homesick myself, though I do not know for where. Neddy begins to hum a tune. A child wails and Rebecca sings out from the kitchen:
—Here is Neddy now. Come and rock the baby for me.
Martha calls:
—And your own.
Another wife joins in:
—And mine, Neddy. She will keep quiet for no one else, you have spoiled her.
He goes obediently, smiling as ever. I hear the children’s chatter rise, the women teasing. If I had your complexion, they say. Roses and cream.
I remain in my chair having nothing else to do and feeling stuck to it, stuffed as old Bryan. He is now hard asleep, perhaps in an excellent dream of food and tobacco. I go out into the cool air and to the stables, I will bridle the team and drive to town for lack of anything else to do. I occupy my mind with the harnesses and buckles. This goes there, that goes here. In, under, out. And my Fate now appears in another form.
—Christ. You made me jump. You might have been a ghost.
He stands silently at the left edge of the stable door without a smile. A shower of bright dust surrounds him in the cold light. His shape is the same, his old slight stoop, though bigger. I know it is my brother Squire, fully a man now, thin and tall with a tight sandy plait. I stare and laugh:
—But I would have recognized your ghost, Squire, you know. Though you have gone and grown taller than I am, I think, even if you are trying to hide it. You look like a peddler crushed by a pack. Now hold yourself straight.
I say this last in Ma’s voice. He gives a thin smile, his hands in his pockets. What I say is true, and it delights me, him here and unchanged. We know brothers all through, down to the smell and the marrow. So I think at this time.