All True Not a Lie in It

by Alix Hawley

  —I assume that you know all that your girl did to please the Indians. My cousins told me that she seemed quite at home. Just like a wife. Or a whore. But you do know all about that. Did you have her yourself when you got her back? Is that how you consoled yourself, by making her your own flesh truly? Perhaps this is what we will have to do for you to get us out. You can see we are quite powerless before you. Will our mouths do, or must you have our persons, Boone? I have wondered.

  He drops the words like a string of pearls he has had stashed in his cheek. He has been thinking over this little speech, likely for weeks. His breath is a stinking wave. I aim towards it and I break his mouth. His teeth snap rottenly. He gasps and groans, and a warrior shifts nearby. I hold myself in, but only just. Hill is awake, calling me in urgent and thick fashion:

  —Dan. Dan. Do not hurt him. He means nothing. I know you will have us out soon enough.

  His voice is small and slurring. I say:

  —Hill, are you all right? Are you ill? I will have them get you something.

  Callaway gives a clipped groan and says some gummy words. I will crack his mouth again and split the corners far into his cheeks, I will rip out his tongue and make jerk of it. Callaway, I would have made a Wide Mouth of you, I would have made your face just like mine, and how would you have liked that? But Hill is speaking again:

  —We do not mean Jemima is a whore. Only a song, a laugh to pass the time.

  I am scored through with anger, it has got right through me, or eaten its way straight out of me. My breath sears my throat:

  —I will kill you if you call her by name again. She is not yours. You never had anything to do with her or Rebecca, she is mine. She is mine! Do not speak of her, you make me sick, God damn your shitty stink.

  Again I strike at the dark. My fist catches something or someone. The others tied to them are moving and murmuring. Hill is trying to speak rapidly but his voice is giving out:

  —Dan—I never did, did you think I did?

  —Shut your mouth, Hill, before I have them kill you.

  His words tumble out of him:

  —Your brother had her, Dan, I heard of it when I went back, I thought you knew. I am sure he meant no harm. You were gone—

  —I have heard that bastard story, thank you. Squire and I can settle our own family troubles.

  The guards are up, they are coming. I hear Callaway working his mushy mouth:

  —Does not know which brother, ha. Ha ha.

  He sucks in a wet stringy breath and says:

  —Brother Ned. Squire would not know how.

  AS DAWN BEGINS to break up the dark, I hear what I think I hear. My keeper hears too. At first I believe it to be Hill or perhaps Ben Kelly, who is so young. But it is Callaway rubbing at himself, trying to grind some pleasure out of this life perhaps. Well, he will have to grind hard.

  He does. Kaskee turns his head in embarrassment. It is very odd. The sounds are tight, as if forced out of Callaway’s great new bloody mouth. As well as lonesome and cold. He is alone but it seems to me that he has got his wish to be so. Stewing in your own irresistible juices, Callaway. He is forcing himself upon us, we can only listen. The sounds speed and then cease.

  He has won. The terrible thing he has told me stands upon me like a great lead horse. Ned. Was it so?

  I am visited by thoughts of Martha, pictures of doing every terrible thing with her I can think of, and things I cannot think of, I only see darkly. Getting children on her through every hole, stuffing her full of children, using her like a rag. Martha, trying to protect Ned while having her private victory over her sister. Using Squire that way, stolid Squire who bears everything like a block. Everyone wishes to keep Neddy happy. Now I see what you were about, Martha, I did not know then. I feel I have crawled up out of a hole into a weird scribbled sketch of a place I thought I knew but do not know.

  It must be true. Darling Neddy, Keep-home Neddy. Wanting only happiness for himself, and to spread his to others. To offer comfort to the lonely, abandoned woman. Wanting to drown the world in sticky happiness like flies in jam. Ned, did it have to be in that fashion?

  He looks so much like you: Ma’s old words. Might well have been Rebecca’s also. Rebecca. You protected him also, but you did tell me in your way. You said the baby was like me too.

  Callaway is silent now. I burn my eyes out at him through the dark. They will crumble into ash. I know he is not a liar. He is a collector of information, like Martha. He is a liquid for mixing it in and turning it clear.

  My mind roams back like a dumb ox let out of harness. It noses along the ground, chewing anything it finds, it will not stop. It sees Hill returning alone from Kentucky, blundering about looking for stories to write about me, getting a sniff of trouble before I returned. It sees the girls kidnapped, Callaway’s young cousins thinking they were going to die, telling Jemima all the truth they knew about her out of concern for her soul, as I suppose. It sees her insisting she was mine. Calling me Daddy. Jemima, is this how it went, did they tell you? Or did Jonathan or Jesse, the other orphans of our house, do so? My mind sees their big eyes and open ears. They were there while I was gone. Did something slip? A visit too many from Uncle Neddy? A visit too late in the evening for travelling home again, a soft sound from the barn in the night?

  Everyone knows my story. Everyone but me, as I think.

  I feel myself a vacant house. I have nothing.

  I hardly see anything the rest of the walk. Callaway and Hill drag along at the rear. The warriors call to them to keep up. Napeia, they shout to Callaway, which means rooster, for his greasy red lock of hair. Hill they call Watchiwie, which means hill. There are no other words for him. And no words at all for either of them in my mind.

  My empty eyes gape when we reach the great wood stockade of Fort Detroit on the bare flats between two rivers. It is enormous. It is like Boonesborough ought to be, ugly and impenetrable. We stand waiting next to a little burying ground outside the wall. The red coats of the British soldiers who push open the gates are a surprise. I have forgot they were so red. I have forgot that there is a war carrying on, a war with uniforms. A war wider than the skirmishes between Boonesborough and Old Chillicothe. A war of rebellion, a war for independence from Britain. I have forgot other people are in it. The English, the French, all the various Indian tribes, the white rebels, the black slaves. White Indians, white blackhearts, who can say who is who?

  The younger men are marched in, dragging their heels. Will and Sam Brooks lean back laughing. I feel only a cold wish that they were in Jamesie’s place. Callaway is bowed, he covers his mouth with his hand but still I see his pale eyes land upon me. I know what that hand was doing in the night: I think this at you, Callaway. But this is no secret like the one he had for me.

  The soldiers take my men off between them. Before he is swallowed up into the maze of streets behind the high pointed stockade, Hill staggers, but turns to see me again. He lifts the corners of his mouth and raises his arm. He must have talked of me during the long unbroken night in the prison house. The book of me he has been so long writing. People need tales at night. Hill, I see your raised hand still, your odd short thumb, your goodbye to me, though you do not know it.

  Henry Hamilton, the British Lieutenant-Governor of the fort, is wearing a wig. Of course. Rich and shining and white. The curls bump down to his shoulders like a log road, a line of dark bristle shows above his forehead. The wig deadens his narrow face and makes it look bland as an egg, as any old egg. He stands at the window of his room with his arms crossed and his hands cupping his elbows. One pane in the grid has been stopped up with wood, but I can make out people going to and fro outside beyond the thick, blistered glass squares. I make out a woman in white going along. She has the look of a tiny puff of smoke.

  Hamilton turns to me. Whose hair made that wig? Or, What did you pay for that? I want to ask. Pompey told me he pays a hundred dollars for American rebels. Nice to know how much one is worth. I could sell myself
and build a better fort for me alone.

  The walls of my skull bang and echo when anyone moves upon the plank floor.

  —Chief Black Fish. Captain Boone. I understand it is Captain.

  He is referring to the army title sent to Boonesborough for me, my ancient life. How does he know this? Perhaps he too knows everything about me already. He has a tinny and courteous sound, like an Irishman trying to sound English. The skin puffs beneath his eyes, but his voice is brisk. He does not look as though he is losing any battles.

  Black Fish speaks and Pompey, after a wilted flourish, interprets in his best weary fashion:

  —We have brought several white traitors from Kentucky.

  —They have been taken to the guard house by now, yes? The payment will be given to you before you depart. But we will dine this evening first. I hope you will stay.

  Hamilton never looks at Pompey, as if he is not here at all. His eyes travel over Black Fish’s feathers and ear hoops and my shorn head. No surprise. Only a brief contracting, it is like a wince but not quite a wince. I picture him hacking his dull way through bush and mud and rebels and French with no expression, his sword in his efficient grip. I see him doing his duty to some wife somewhere in similar efficient fashion, his face unmoved. Is the wife his?

  A hard smile tightens my face. I cannot stop it. Pompey is looking at me and smiling as well. In Shawnee he says to me:

  —Have you any words for the Governor?

  —One or two.

  My stiff smile stretches my mouth further. Pompey smirks and pretends to be struck with a fit of coughing. Black Fish glances at us, his eyes all rocky sparkle again. I turn to Hamilton and I try to rein myself in. Look at Hair-Buyer. My whole body is coiled, the soles of my feet prick in the fur-stuffed moccasins, my toes curl under. Here I stand like a horse for sale. Well—he has seen all my teeth now. I close my lips.

  Through Pompey, Black Fish tells the Governor that the payment for the prisoners is acceptable. His hands folded, he says:

  —You will not kill them.

  —No.

  —You may wish to when you see the way they comport themselves.

  —Not today, at any rate.

  Hamilton laughs politely, a little block of laughter set off from the talk. The wig stays still atop his head, he briefly touches his hairline as if to check. Pompey and I cannot look at each other.

  —Chief Black Fish, may we send the Captain out for a short time? I wish to discuss our affairs with you.

  Black Fish nods without a look at me. I am nothing to him, I am nothing. A trap is opening beneath me, I am swinging lightly above it. Death is back, I know its greetings now. I greet it in return. I am relieved.

  Two redcoats and Kaskee march me. A narrow corridor, a different set of stairs. A darkness welling at the bottom. Another passage, a dogleg bend. Doors and further doors. The English guards appear to be at a brief loss until one says:

  —Here.

  The room is low and wide and full of boxes and barrels. The dust makes everything look ancient, like a dusty town, all built of dust. Like the fallen city of Troy, like all ruins. I have no care for where they put me. Perhaps these walls will fall in on me and my relief will be complete. To one of the guards I say:

  —This will suit me fine. I had a red coat like yours once, did you know? Not so nice, though.

  They say nothing. Kaskee’s face is pained, his nostrils open. The English hold his arms now and shut the door. Their words click along as they walk off with him:

  —Why have you still got all your hair? Why have you, eh? What tribe? What do they call you? What is your name? Your name?

  I listen for Hill and the others, but the lock-up is nowhere near. I listen for Pompey’s voice interpreting above, but I cannot hear anything. There is a high, oblong window with a grate over it. The street outside hums and crows with faraway life.

  For some time I stand waiting. Death does not come. No one comes. The smell gets to me and idly I look into a few of the barrels. Sawdust. Pebbles. Earth. Powder. Ah. Half-full. A barrel half-full of fortune, a hook to drag me up again. Not your barrel, Death, is it? I run the powder through my fingers, grey and black and sandy. I smell it. If I had a flint, I would light it. I might eat it, I suppose, and see whether I go bang. I put a fistful into my pouch.

  Now a click and a scrape. The British soldiers draw the door back. I stand with my blackened hands above the barrel. Guilty. I begin to smile. One holds his bayonet at the angle of a fiddle-bow, with a drooping wrist. He is freckled and looks like a young boy though with very dull eyes. He says:

  —You take him up.

  The other prods my arm and says:

  —You come along.

  We walk. Another passage, a cold wall against my arm. More redcoats passing, mild curious faces. We come to stairs and light. Up here, says the freckled one.

  He has the same accent as my Daddy, slow heavy r’s. From the first Exeter, in England, where Granddaddy and Daddy began. I want to ask the guard: When did you cross, did you know my family there, perhaps you were in Meeting as a child? But there is no point. There is no point in thinking so of the past, I know. It will find you soon enough.

  Now at last, I will be killed. The Shawnee have not done it, and so Hair-Buyer will have it done. I said there would be no dying, Callaway, but you have never believed my promises at any rate. Perhaps I do not believe them myself.

  I walk on all grim and wishing my feet an inch above the earth. Wishing I could cut my heels away from it myself.

  —YOU ARE AN enterprising sort of person.

  Hamilton has seen the powder dust on my hands. He has classified me, I am put in a little box. I keep my face a shell like his. An eggshell. Rotten inside, but who would know it yet?

  He rubs his elbows sharply again, looking cold and irritable but trying to deny it. His face is so hard to get a grip on that I go on staring at his elbows for some time until he interrupts my dumbness:

  —Your people are less so.

  —Less what?

  —Less enterprising.

  I say nothing more. I expect him to take up his sword with a sigh and take off my head himself in his resigned fashion. But on he sits. I see Death has not finished its usual play with me. My tongue is thick and slow:

  —You do not have to kill them for that.

  His elbows remain tight to his body. He says:

  —The families at your fort and the other Kentucky settlements are without supplies and have no hope of getting any. This is well known.

  My brains have set up clanging again. I say:

  —Is it well known? People always enjoy sad tales.

  —Nevertheless, it is known. You know it yourself. You can be sure they would wish you to help your settlers see sense.

  —What sense is that?

  He pauses a moment, but now he pulls himself up as if set for a speech:

  —The sense of calling a halt to these illegal inroads into my Indian allies’ territory, where your people are likely to be slaughtered, if they do not insist on starving first.

  —That would be sensible.

  —It would indeed.

  Say what people want to hear and they are content, they leave you be. For a time at least. He lets himself out as if loosening a bodice a half-inch. He walks across the room behind his table and pivots back to me. Lines run in rays around his eyes and down his face, only from a distance is it bland and bald and pinkish. Again he touches his grey hairline and says very brisk:

  —The sense as well of stopping this new revolt. The King is not the only one who wants it ended. The Indians do not want you here either. They have seen the way you overrun their land and spit on our treaties with them. No settling in that area was to be permitted.

  I turn over the word in my mind. Revolt, revolt. This is what they call it. I say:

  —The company I worked for bought some of Kentucky from the Cherokee. Henderson made his own treaty.

  Hamilton tilts back his head so I can see
up into his nose. He says:

  —That was not a legal government treaty. It has no force. You may be sure not all of the Cherokee wanted it. And our good Shawnee friends had nothing to do with it.

  I can feel the gunpowder grains in the skin of my fingertips and palms. They warm me as if they were all alight. It seems to me that none of us cares much for any of the politicking, we only want to be left alone. To do as we like. Anyone would want this. Ha. If Pompey were still here, I would likely want to laugh again.

  —Captain Boone, I will ask you outright whether you mean what you have told the Indians about taking them to your fort to lead the surrender of your people. You are clearly the person to do this safely. It is your fort. Boonesborough you call it, yes?

  In the street outside a goose screeches, a child squawks after it. A flapping, beating commotion. I cannot see through the wooden square in the window. I look at Hamilton.

  —I mean what I say.

  —Then to Boonesborough you will go. Take Black Fish there. Convince your starving people to abandon their futile attempts at settlement. We do not want women and children killed. Do you? You have children, I think.

  Straighten your mouth, stop your blood. Look like him. So I say to myself. To him I say:

  —I will go. We will.

  He does not let up:

  —And when, I must ask, will you do so?

  I shrug and look at the ceiling: no scalps hanging. A cobweb drifts in the light. I say vaguely:

  —My Indian father knows. Women and children will travel easier in the spring.

  —Black Fish is not an unkind man. For one, it is good of him to lend you to me for the afternoon.

  Hamilton’s arms clamp again to his sides and his face opens, he is near smiling. My hands are cool beneath their coat of black powder. I say:

  —Not sold?

  —No. He will not sell you. Not for any price I named. He says you are a good son and a good hunter and gunsmith as well. You must be very proud.

  —Is that so?