by Alix Hawley
I embrace him. He says only:
—Well.
—Why are you here?
—I have left.
He hunches a shoulder higher. He means his apprenticeship, the life Daddy arranged for him. He means he has run off but he looks unabashed. I say:
—You have left all your guns? Did your master go after you?
—I know enough about gunsmithing. Few enough left in the Yadkin to make guns for now.
—Everyone is coming this way, even Keep-home Neddy is here. What will you do in Virginia?
He shrugs again and looks direct at me and says:
—My wife thought it time we left Carolina.
—A wife? Well I congratulate you. Though I never would have taken you for the type to bolt from apprenticing, least so for married life. Did it seem a fair trade?
He gives a quick, private smile. I pull his hat down over his eyes and I say:
—Another Boone bride, poor girl. I hope you do speak to her now and again. Will we meet her soon? Or have you warned her off your kin already?
The brim shadows half his face. It suits him this way. But he settles the hat on the back of his head and his precise eyes run over everything from rafters to ground. Nothing in the stable seems to strike him, and so his eyes go on another round. I clap him on both shoulders:
—You can do as you like.
Israel, our dead brother, I think of you now, and I think too that Squire must do as he likes before his time ends, for who can know when that might be? He is young, he has no children yet. I tell him to come inside, as if the house is mine. I am so glad he is here that I do not mind old Bryan sleeping in the corner still.
The women have gone out back with the little ones and Ned. Squire is restless, stalking about the room. He pokes at the fire, he goes over to stare at the clock, preoccupied as a dog with a lost bone. I say:
—Will you sit down, stranger? I will find Ned.
Squire remains on his feet, looking hard at the clock as if at an old enemy. He crosses the room again. At once he says:
—What would you do for some fresh game?
His voice is severe, unusually so. I stop and say:
—Have you any on you?
He laughs briefly with shut teeth. Walking back to the clock, he says lower:
—The Cherokees are backing out of Carolina. They will stay west. No settling any farther than the Alleghenies, treaty says. The Yadkin Valley is all right now. Ellis from upriver has gone back, no trouble. The only places burned were done long ago.
—Ah.
—Not everybody knows this.
We keep standing. We do not dare to look at each other. Then he says:
—We might see for ourselves. Check the properties. And—
I say it for him:
—The pelts will still be fair about now. Hides getting better, winter hair coming off.
—See how many beaver are left on the Yadkin.
—And west. A little way west. A longer hunt. Why not?
—Why not?
—Why not?
We begin to smile, fierce as dogs. Our talk is careful and unexcited, drumming out in short beats. We speak very quietly so that women do not hear us. But our grins are huge and angry, we are fools made to wait for a picnic. I get up and together we go to the window. The leaves are just showing their green on the maple beyond the yard. The clouds drift west in thin threads.
At once old Bryan says very loud:
—You fought for the king.
To him I say:
—Yes.
To Squire I say:
—It will be better there now.
—It could not be any worse.
—No. Well it could be worse. But it will not be. And we can always go farther.
—Then why not go?
—Why not?
OUR YADKIN HOUSE is still standing. It smells of mice but no other life, as if no one ever lived here. This is pleasant to me. I climb to the sleeping loft where Jamesie and Israel were born, where the bed frame sits empty. I go out and grub up the worst of the weeds and, feeling dutiful, I begin to sow a crop. I must say that the earth shows no delight in seeing me again. I walk up and down the empty field with the pebbly seed corn falling from my hand, I see the rough line of the woods not far off, waiting for us, as it seems to me.
The quiet is not empty. A few families are back, cautious but resolved to get their land again. No word of Indians or French either, but for a few traders. Squire and I buy a small quantity of shot from one when he agrees to give us credit, surveying us with ticking eyes. Everything we buy is on credit. Everyone surveys us with ticking eyes.
We make our plans for the hunt. John Stewart, the young husband of our sister Hannah, has come with us, in want of money also. He is a big-boned man, deaf in one ear and often shy of speaking in case he has not heard right, though his voice is loud. He is a good hunter, a good man. He always sees what needs to be done.
We begin to prepare the packs. And out of the dark one evening, Hill turns up at the cabin, hallooing on a high-stepping grey gelding with an elegant manner and saddle. He leaps down, jangling the reins, and sees Squire and Stewart and I are cleaning the old traps. He says:
—Your wife said you had come out this way. I bear her good wishes for you. Are you setting off again? Where? I will go with you.
Squire and Stewart look at Hill. I say:
—Well well. In search of further land investments along the way, no doubt.
—And further amusing pursuits among the Boone boys, ha!
Hill sits down beside me, full of happiness, and presses a bundle of notes upon the back of my hand with a small smile. I do not wish to touch them, so he balances the stack on my leg and takes out his flask. He swallows and says:
—To friendship. And investment. We will all be rich in the end. And I will write about you boys, I will make your name. I am writing now also, did you know?
He holds his flask against the side of his nose. Squire says quiet:
—Who will read it?
Hill laughs and says:
—Anyone who reads the Virginia newspapers, my old friends. Everyone wants a story.
Squire shakes his head lightly and goes back to his trap. I sit a while with Hill. I do not know quite what I have done to deserve him. But his sincerity affects me queerly, as does his talk of wealth. He seems to have a need to believe in our friendship. And I believe in his money and his luck with it, I can feel the bundle sitting on my thigh.
For two more days we ready our supplies. The last night before we leave for the mountains, we sit outside. Nobody wishes to give up this spring air with the breath of summer in it. There is no moon but the fire sends up pickets of light. Hill sings, but mercifully low, content with his bottle. A couple of late birds scythe through the air overhead and Stewart says in his sudden fashion:
—Those are big for bats.
As he raises his big hand, a creaking, jingling sound stirs up the dark.
I can see nothing beyond the fire. The noise goes on. It is quite unfathomable and absurd, ringing and jingling. I say:
—Dancing bears, must be.
Stewart’s great abrupt laugh escapes him. An answering laugh comes, high and wavering, above the jingling. We fall silent again and look into the sea of dark. Two eyes shine white-green and high. They bob and vanish and brighten, like cats’ eyes, but so high. I stand, Squire and Stewart beside me. We have our guns up now. My neck is cold. Hill rouses himself to say with dark excitement:
—I knew the spirit world would show itself to me, I have always—
The ringing ceases abruptly and a voice comes out of the black silence:
—I heard it was you. I heard you had come back, cowards.
There is a soft fall and a nosy breath from a horse. The man, if it is a man, is dismounting. The body’s outlines become clear, I see the face fully. Findley. I know him straight away. I laugh and I say:
—So it is a bear. An untrained one thou
gh, no manners.
—None at all, none at all, though my dancing is not so bad as that.
We shake hands. His grip is gentle. He opens a saddlebag and dumps a load to the ground. It flashes in the firelight like a lost treasure come out of the deep. Trinkets, Indian jewellery, silver earbobs and rings, packets of needles, a tangle of ribbons like hair. I announce:
—Findley and son, peddlers.
Findley chuckles high and says in the singing Irish tone I remember:
—You are right there, Boone. But no son to my knowledge, none whatsoever. There may be daughters aplenty in various locations, all beautiful.
He sits and stretches his arms and says:
—Last I saw of you, my man, you were running from the Monongahela River like one let out of unlocked Hell.
It is a surprise to hear someone talk of the terrible battle, it had seemed a painted rag rolled up into a corner of my brains. For a moment I see with Findley’s light eyes through the cloth he had over his face. I see myself a hazy shape running into the river. I see myself carrying on running home and doing a murder on the way, though I did not wish to do it. I see my ghosts.
Findley appears to be one of them, staring hard at me with his pale face glowing and amused, as if he had followed me home through the backwoods, as if he saw everything that happened. I say:
—I see you survived.
—Only just, only just, only just.
He taps his thin nose, his hair straggles down over his forehead. I say:
—But you have brought us some pretty things. Too kind.
—I trade among the Indians mainly, but I make exceptions for you backwoods folk. You are near enough to Indians at that.
—No more taste for army life?
—No, no. Too much marching about.
Hill interrupts:
—Then you will not wish to join our party?
He has a magnanimous look about him as he sits with his knees wide and his hands open, pleased to fancy himself part of a long-hunt. Findley surveys him for some time. He turns and says to me:
—Marching back to war?
—No.
—No taste for it either, Boone?
Again I say:
—No.
But Findley is amused now, he minces up and begins to tie one of his ribbons around my plait. I have to smile as he plucks and tweaks at me with his bony fingers. He stands back and says:
—Lavender suits you. Let it be a gift for your lady, or keep it all for yourself.
Hill says:
—Only put it around his neck next time, and tighter.
Hill roars with laughter and Findley rocks back and forth. He sits again in his mess of shiny tangled things like a magpie and takes off his hat to scratch his head. Without it his face looks lonely and tired for a moment in the firelight. He says:
—You are all off travelling, then?
—Tomorrow. Long-hunt, we hope. The first in a few years. We will have a good look about first and hunt properly when summer is finishing.
I feel myself grinning. Squire’s own smile alters his serious face for a moment, and he says:
—Good trapping too, if luck is with us.
—We are lucky. Dan is.
Stewart says so very loud. He thumps me on the back, and I am pierced by this belief in whatever it is in me that people cannot leave alone. Indeed my back throbs with Stewart’s belief. Findley laughs and tells him:
—My man, your lucky charm is no Irishman.
I say:
—Have we need of an Irishman?
—Everyone does, everyone does.
—You had best come along then.
Findley looks amused once more and reaches up to coil my purple hair ribbon round his hand as though it were a cat’s tail. He says:
—What are you paying?
Hill bends into the light and says:
—The pleasure, the great pleasure, of our company. Have you anything to invest with us?
Findley shakes his head. He tugs at the ribbon gently. I feel myself caught. He says:
—There are things only an Irishman knows.
I say:
—Irish women.
—Ha! Better.
—Ha! What could be?
Findley spreads his hands now, and they look adrift in the night. He says:
—Boys, boys, you will not need to wait for your hunting. I know where you will see thousands of buffalo and every other sort of creature. The Indians gave me excellent furs and skins when I first traded there, before the war. Plenty more of that. And have you heard of this most marvellous place?
I am listening. I say:
—Not one of your Irish fairylands.
Hill speaks with sudden drunken piety:
—We have all heard of Heaven, I hope.
The fire pops and spits a shower of sparks over us. I remember his army talk of all the secret places he knows. Findley is very pale, his hands floating on the air. He says:
—Better still. A true place. Heaven on earth. God’s country. And no one knows the way but me. No one white.
THE WAY TO Heaven as it turns out is easy. I have hunted west of the Yadkin many times and now I feel welcomed in again. I know the creeks and animal traces and salt springs here, I feel quite at home. Findley says these are nothing whatsoever. Farther on is a whole creation you cannot imagine, he says, rocking from side to side in his saddle.
Well I do imagine. All of May we ride and hike higher into the mountains, and all is shadowy and peaceful. I have crossed the Blue Ridge myself, but I have never been so far. We carry on to the west. It is difficult to see the way in places, but I trust Findley, who does seem to know what he is about. We are on the Clinch River, Findley says, and then in Powell’s Valley, a narrow, forested place. At times I feel myself in a long half-dream like one of Rebecca’s with its stabs of detail and its sudden changes. Rebecca, I remember you telling me of a dream of butter walking out of the churn and burying itself somewhere out of spite. Here, everywhere is bright raw green, and I can well picture all of it coming alive, but there is no spite, only peace and strangeness. When the weather turns one night, I wake first and see my companions all mounds of sleeping white. Snow covers everything completely.
Rain comes the next night and washes the world green again. We have reached the Allegheny ridges, I know, though we do not speak of it. It is difficult going but we do not mind it. Soon enough we reach a crest and make a steep descent into lower hills. We are on a road. The Great Warrior’s Path, Findley says, the old trace the Indians have packed flat over the years. It narrows and takes us along high white cliffs to a great gaping gap in the mountains. The high sides part on either side of the path easy as skirts, letting us in. Findley is triumphant, standing at the centre of the pass and bowing as though he made it himself. Even Hill is admiring, though he says it is not quite Heaven as he pictured it.
We stop to carve our initials into the cliff and then carry on through the gap. We begin a slow descent. It is well treed and smells of easy, wet growth. Light snow falls now and again and covers our tracks. We keep watch for any travelling Indians, but the Indians have not yet begun to move from their winter towns this year, as the spring is cold. In truth we near forget that Indians exist, in spite of this road of theirs, or that anyone at all exists. Though there are more paths, wider than the streets in Philadelphia. Findley says:
—The buffalo have made them since God’s own fingers deposited them here to run about.
He is pleased to lead us along these ways. They make the going very easy, taking us to the salt licks and drinking places. At this time I believe this place was made to be occupied, having such broad tracks. How could I not believe so?
We see a few bear and deer at the licks. They look at us without interest, we get the skins without trouble. But there is not much hunting yet. Standing on a small hilltop and surveying the trees, Hill says suddenly:
—Do you know, Findley, I am not sure I believe in your buffalo.
And we do not see any of the creatures until all at once one dawn we come upon a herd at a big lick, a great heaving dark mass. They paw and lick at the ground, their great heavy heads all butting and nodding as if they will eat a hole straight through the earth. How can there be so many? Thousands there are, uncountable. I see Squire’s eyes trying to fathom their numbers, and Hill shaking his head and grinning. The calves bleat with a sound of shaky trumpets. A few of the bulls sniff at the air and turn, but remain unconcerned with our presence. They have never seen other humans, I am certain. Or perhaps no white humans, perhaps whites are nothing here.
We keep back in the trees. Findley is laughing behind my shoulder. He says:
—Good eating, if you can kill them.
Hill says:
—If this is hunting, it is easy.
Stewart at once scrambles for his gun and aims. This place has filled him with boldness. He gets one at the edge of the herd, a smaller cow, he has her between the eyes. The beast turns and flies at him, blundering along with her big bleeding head down, a curl standing up on her humped shoulders. Findley is laughing all the harder as Stewart runs for a tree crying:
—Shoot it, Dan, shoot it for God’s sake!
Now I am laughing too as Findley calls:
—Wasting your lead, my man. Wasting your balls.
The buffalo charges for Stewart again after a snorting pause. I get her down at last after two shots through the neck as Findley laughs on and on in his weird fashion. The sun grows behind his head and he says:
—Breakfast.
We roast the hump and the tongue. Findley cooks the thigh bones and cracks them open for the hot marrow. This is my first buffalo meal, and it is very fine, much better than venison. Jamesie and Israel and little Susannah, and Jesse and Jonathan as well, I make my plans to jerk the next tongue and take it home for you. I do think of you all, you hop across my mind like little birds.
We eat. Findley gives Hill a piece of the raw liver, which he says will make a man of him. Hill laughs and enjoys it mightily and Findley says: