by Alix Hawley
I dream, and I know I am dreaming. Jamesie is in my head. He is a baby, hiding with Rebecca at the edge of a field, waiting for a chance to run. She says: It is too light, and she whips the skirt of her gown up over the little one, face and all. Martha appears without her clothes and says: I love to see the sun rising over the fields. She lies in the dirt and parts her legs. All of my men stand in a line waiting their turn, holding their pricks stiff and looking amiable. I am the first. Jemima stares at us in great surprise and disbelief, holding the cat. Now I stab myself with the awl and find I have been heavily asleep, blankly so, my arms loose and my neck falling over. This is the first time since we were captured that I have been in such a state, that I have had any dreams. Such dreams.
A booming crack snaps through the air, like ice breaking on the river. But it is already broken, I think. I feel my brains struggling to surface, my limbs jerking as I pull myself to sitting. My Indian family is looking at me with some curiosity. Black Fish is at the door now. I stand and am pulled by the tug tying me to the wall. It is loose. It is flimsy. It is a test, as I know. It says: Will you stay?
—Come.
I did not dream the cracking sound. My father motions with his head, I untie myself. We go outside to listen in the direction of the woods. Other men are coming out of their wigwams. We all stand listening, our heads turned. No one speaks.
There is a yip, a crowing howl, full of cold laughter. My spine ices up to my neck. The moon is only half full, one bleary eye blotched by a scrap of cloud. Wolves will howl at it regardless, if they are so minded. This is the way they are. But wolves’ minds cannot be penetrated. Even if you were to crack open a wolf’s skull while the animal lived, you would find nothing there you could read, only a howling grey blizzard.
From up the road comes an echoing call, clearly false. A poor imitation of a wolf. Hill, and Callaway soon afterwards in a lower tone. Alive, then, though still locked up. Black Fish loosens for a moment and then pulls himself straight. I see his hands flex and close. My little sisters venture into the doorway with big eyes and are swiftly pulled back. The air is cool, the trees and houses are silver round the edges, the purple is gone from the sky. Black Fish strikes out quickly up the middle of the street. I follow, I see a few white faces and I raise my hands to say I do not know what is happening. I go rapidly to keep up and as I pass the last wigwam, I see Pompey standing in a patch of deeper shadow there, I see the outline of his headscarf and neck against the dark. He turns and steps forward so that his face is lit by the moon, so that his lazy enjoyment shows, and he says for my benefit:
—Ducks can fly when they remember how. Little duck bastard has up and gone.
VOICES DRIFT out of the big house on a long slow tide. Banging from the prison house accompanies it, kicks against a wall all night.
Three days after Johnson runs, several chiefs and their warriors ride in from other towns, all wrapped against the cold spring wind. On and on they come.
One blanket is a bright violet. The chief in it is quite aware of himself, like a bird making a display, looking at no one but certain of the eyes on him. The women draw in their breath. They have never seen this colour, I know. They have no word for it. To each other they say: Red? Blue? They all hold themselves in and touch their own clothes, they picture the blanket around their own bodies. Even the little girls touch their waists and necks. I have never seen them so moved. I have never seen quite this colour. Where did he get a thing like this?
I watch, tied to the house door with my guard sitting near and my mother and my sisters standing just inside. I want to ask the chief: Did you get it in exchange for Kentucky? Are you Cherokee? Were you there at the treaty, or at the murder of my boy? My throat aches. I watch the riders, all the silver flashing on their horses’ reins and bodies. I think to ask this new chief about Cherokee Jim. But I do not want to say his name, I do not want him to exist at all.
I will not speak. I feel my guard’s eyes, and those of other warriors. I am under tight watch again. As are we all. Johnson, God damn your duck heart.
—Father.
It is late when Black Fish comes back to the house. A scent of grassy tobacco wafts in from outside the door before I hear him. My mother and the girls are huddled asleep, I am tied to the wall, but I chance a move towards the doorway. He does not look at me but only pulls at the meeting pipe as though the smoke were some pap and he a toothless starved old man. It is peculiar to see him so uneasy. I go on:
—What do the chiefs want here?
He exhales and inclines his head. The smoke drifts about his face. When it emerges again it looks sharpened, as if a chisel has been at it. He says:
—They bring some news.
But he does not tell me what it is. He at once turns and strides back up the street towards the big house, where smoke is still spiriting out from the roof hole. The fire and talk are still on. I can just see him disappearing inside. I hear Pompey singing one of his high monotonous Shawnee songs from there. A scattering of sparks leaps out of the smoke hole against the night. It strikes me that Black Fish is well named, although this is likely not his first name or his only one. The Indians do not seem to be so very attached to names. But he does have the look of a fish hiding near the bottom of a river in winter, belly to the mud, almost unmoving and almost invisible. Then snapping to life in an instant with jaws wide for a fly.
The moon is fading and the little girls are surfacing into a lighter sleep, turning on their mat. The talk goes on, it does not seem to have slowed at all. I stay in the doorway untying and re-tying the knot around me, trying to pick up words. I think of Johnson’s beaky face close to mine, cold under its mad, rough mask. Like it here?
I lower myself into his mind, it is like sinking into a green pond. I know that if he can find his way back to the fort without starving first, he will go there. Back to the stench and the idle half-life of Boonesborough. At least he will be able to tell the women what has become of the rest of us, that I have sold all their men. Or perhaps he will keep up his mad act for amusement. I find myself wondering what eats ducks.
The silence spills from the big house all at once as if all the visitors and warriors have instantly fallen asleep. I listen for Hill or Callaway but there is nothing from them either. Only the creak and rustle of the trees and night birds, the river pulling itself along. Someone yawns a few houses away. Someone grunts as if tired of an old pain.
Black Fish’s pipe is still lit. I see the small glow approaching. I say:
—Your business finished?
He brushes past me and goes inside, where his shape darkens. Then in one of his abrupt movements he is beside me in the doorway again. He says:
—My son, I have decided you will go also.
I try to look surprised and grateful. I am surprised and grateful, at that. Usually he calls me Niequeetha, son, with a flicker in the word. He is not old enough to be my father. I am not his own flesh. But now he looks at me as if he has known me since the minute I was born. I say:
—Father, I am not like Pekula. I am staying here with you.
White teeth split the dark for an instant. His voice is gentler:
—We go in the morning. You too.
—A hunt?
The blue energy I have met before in my life rips all through my body. My arms and legs feel young and unthinking, my eyes can cut through the night. I see my mother’s bare forearm flung out from her blanket, my sisters coiled into one another like hair, the carved faces on the stool I made. One of the girls begins to sit up. Black Fish kneels to stroke her and says very low as if hushing the child:
—A journey.
—Here. Ride this.
The pony is a black and white paint with its hair in its face and its ribs showing. No saddle, only a rope around its neck for my guard to hold as he walks alongside. Pompey hands the rope to him and rides off on his own animal, which is fatter. The chiefs are on their horses in front. My men walk, tied at the wrists in pairs and with a sing
le rope about each neck stringing them into a short column, with warriors alongside and behind. Near the back are Ben Kelly and the Brooks boys. They have made nothing but trouble for their new families. They look smug and victorious, as young men who have exasperated their elders will. Behind them are Hill and Callaway, pale and starved and sore-eyed and changed.
I hold the pony back, which does not please it. Kaskee pulls at the reins. But I turn to call:
—Boys, it is not too far.
A stupid remark, I do not know where we are going, and I fear it will be the fort. There are warriors enough and these other chiefs with their men. We are heading north, but perhaps we will make a loop back again, perhaps they are trying to perplex me. I watch the trail. It is narrow here. In my mind I see the fort, I see them all there, waiting for us to come. Rebecca, will you have thought me dead—again? What will you say when I appear amidst all of this? You will cover your twisting lip, trying not to laugh or cry, or you will bash out my brains.
I look to my roped men with an encouraging face. But fresh hate rises from Hill and Callaway like their caged-up smell. They were inside that dark little house near all the weeks we have been here. Their night singing and talking dwindled to a few occasional dirty bellows from Hill. Till I’m bone of your bone, and asleep in your bed. His singing always seems to pierce straight to my liver, do what I might to ignore it.
I see my father in profile as he passes under an arch of boughs, his long nose and his shining earring. I cannot read him. I nudge the hairy little pony on and the guard is relieved, but Callaway’s cool low voice is behind:
—Off your high horse, Boone. They will sell you too.
He has dragged the whole column closer to me, as if seeing me has given him some peculiar force. The cord about his neck is rubbing the skin raw. It has the look of a hangman’s burn. He looks at me out of his bright red eyes. Hill beside him keeps closing his own.
I call:
—Do they have to be tied so, Father?
Black Fish looks back, I point at my neck. Callaway says:
—Spare us your pity. Only let me see you roasted alive or boiled in oil or whatever the British are having their savages do for them now.
—That your last request, Callaway?
—My dying wish.
—I am sorry to displease you. There will be no dying. But wish away.
He snaps his jaws shut and yanks Hill forward with him. They both stumble, then regain their slow shuffle. Hill has said nothing, for once. He does not look right. His back is queerly bent and his eyes are still shut. I call to him but he does not look up.
I get off the pony and walk along beside my pimply keeper, closer to my men, though they want nothing to do with me. Black Fish has retreated deep into himself. The other chiefs ride quietly ahead. The purple blanket flashes like a signal in the trees, I watch it come and go.
Pompey sits his pony with idle ease. He says:
—Walk on, Sweet Apples.
His voice and his lazy manner infuriate the younger ones, and Ben Kelly shouts:
—At home I will have you picking my apples for me. Baking my pie. I will have you for my own sweet prize black boy. Or girl, if you prefer.
Young William Brooks, whose face has thinned and hardened, makes kissing sounds. His brother Sam chuckles. Pompey gives his high laugh, a gang of pigeons flings itself into the wind.
Be empty, I tell my mind. I watch the trees: hemlock, ash, pine. No fresh blazes chopped out of them. This path is old and well-worn. We have not made any great turn yet, though we are tilting east. Some leaf buds are beginning to appear, still hard-packed. The men speak occasionally, their voices carry to me on the wind. The word spring strikes me like a hand in the face, as does home. How long before the Shawnee insist it is time to go and take the fort as promised?
Snow still lies in brittle heaps and hollows.
There are still trees with no buds at all. No green. The bare branches do not hide the sky.
The sun is pale, near lost.
Do not think of the fort. No bread by now. No corn. No salt. Only meat, if they are lucky enough to get out for any without being killed. Johnson will tell them to hold on. He will tell them that the men are alive and that we are here. That it is not all lost. That we will all be brothers and sisters with the Shawnee, ha. Johnson will tell them about us. If he gets there.
It is curiously easy not to think of Boonesborough. As if it is in a private strongbox in a past time. Lock it up. Bury it. Do not think of it. Well. It does fling its lid open into my face sometimes when it will. It does now. It blacks my eyes and dents my nose. It is an agony.
Rebecca, you are strong. You have been without me before, and plenty. You have Squire and Neddy and the old men and the boys. The girls too. Put them in boys’ clothes, if there are any left to wear. Make it look as if there are more men about. Walk them about on the walls, do what you must.
Only when I think of the place, I cannot see myself there. Not on the blockhouses or at the gate or in the cabin or digging in the cursed ha-ha. I am not anywhere.
I close the lid. I nudge the pony.
A moment later a wet shot strikes the back of my shoulder. The Brooks boys have their heads lifted, the rope tugging at their necks. The guards are smirking.
—Oh, did my spittle land upon you, sir? My apologies.
—No no. He got in the way of your spitting.
Do not think. The pony keeps its head low and plods. How can it see? It has no need to see. It snaps at a flea or tick in its shoulder, its feet carry on. On his mount, Pompey lollops ahead. I slap my pony’s back and loudly I say:
—Giddup, Beauty.
I aim for Pompey’s tone. To myself I say: Straighten your mouth and keep it straight.
We make a camp near a small lick. Two of the warriors get a couple of deer in the trees. The smell of venison and cornbread softens the evening chill. Pompey comes over to where Kaskee and I sit eating.
—Going to call on Hair-Buyer.
Pompey says it as he finishes chewing. His tone is cordial, as if he wishes to chatter. He swallows slow, I can hear every muscle of his throat working separately, every mite of the food moving down him. He adds:
—You have not much hair left for anyone to buy, Sheltowee.
—So we are going to Detroit, then. Good of you to tell me.
He goes on chewing and swallowing. His noise interferes with my relief that we are not marching on the fort. But I do not trust Pompey. I do not trust the hard film over his eyes and whatever is behind it.
A knot of warriors laughs suddenly from down near the fire. Two of them throw and catch something. A knife. The moon is like a fingernail hooked above. Callaway and Hill and the others appear to be asleep sitting up, bound tight to one another for the night. Their heads dip and loll. The horses’ bells swing and tinkle in the breeze and my scalp pricks.
—Why is Black Fish taking some of us there now?
—Perhaps he thinks you will run away from him, and then where will he be? Alone, alone again. No son.
He smiles at me and I know he wants something. As I think this, he says:
—Would you like another language lesson, Sheltowee? You have not forgotten that you owe me for the first. Neppa, neppoa. Do you remember the difference?
Sleeping. Dead. I do remember. This night I lie wrapped in my blanket with Kaskee next to me. Pompey sleeps not far off. I do not think that I will sleep but I must, for I dream of Hair-Buyer, that is to say the British Governor at Detroit, sitting in mounds of scalps, clouds of hair, all colours of it, fair, brown, black, grey. Crisp and dry and rustling. Hair floats and spins like straw and gold in the light. High above everyone he sits on the mountain of it as if riding a great shaggy beast. The dry skin of the scalps shifts and rustles under his great legs, white rebel scalps and enemy tribe scalps alike, some French. Any scalps. Everyone is digging up trouble for him in this land. Idly he brushes loose hairs from his face. His fingers run over the strands, they decide
on quality and then flip shillings to sellers who scuttle off like beetles with the money in their mouths.
In this dream I see Governor Hamilton from every side as though I am a vapour curling through the air, as though I have no body. The Governor crooks his great fingers around a china cup, it is a blue and white one, and then he says in his puzzled British voice: No more today?
Black Fish steps forward with fistfuls of scalps and lays them down like flowers upon a grave. The violet-blanketed chief arrives with more. I know each one. Each hair. My men’s, and the women’s too. The children’s.
Aha, Hamilton says with satisfaction.
My hair is not there, it is not there—
I wake with one hand over the top of my skull. No relief in finding my scalp still attached. My guard is asleep on his back. Pompey is half-awake and staring at me with an interested gleam in his eye. He pats his own head in its scarf and turns over when I say nothing.
Someone else is awake, one of the tied-up men. I hear my name cutting through the quiet:
—Boone.
When it comes again I rise quietly and step closer though not so close as to rouse the guards. I crouch and whisper:
—What is it?
—Can you hear me? You can.
It is Callaway. I can near feel the current of his breath, rude and stinking and sickening like his buffalo carcass left outside the fort. I think of his dogtooth with its blackening tide line. It must hurt him. I say:
—Callaway, do not start in. There is no way to get anywhere tonight. Unless you see something I do not, which I doubt. Leave it to Detroit and I will—
He gives short laugh. Then he says in his cool fashion:
—I know your promises. I know all that you are capable of. I have travelled with you quite enough to know, as my uncle did when you went chasing after my cousins and your daughter.
He coughs and rubs his arms against the rope about him with a painful chafing sound. He carries on: