All True Not a Lie in It

by Alix Hawley

  Round the bend, Black Fish is alone. He is off his horse, standing at the centre of the path and waiting for me to catch him up. His eyes are hard. He has let his blanket drop to his waist and his hunting shirt is open. I see a thin crooked line on his chest. I think of knives. My heart begins to speed.

  —My son.

  He seems to be speaking without falseness or threat, he is all calm. He waves Kaskee off. The others go on at his nod and we remain where we are. A grapevine is coiled around a tree, hard and brown with a few new shoots snailing out. He seems to admire it. He touches one of the tendrils and pulls it to see it spring back. I watch his hand, the easy return of it to himself.

  The party has moved a way ahead, I can hear the murmur of talk, the horses’ footfalls. We go on staring at the vine until Black Fish abruptly speaks again:

  —You miss your wife? Your daughters and sons?

  I think for a time. Pompey has been speaking to him, I know, and saying what?

  No answer comes. My tongue clicks and feels dry and loose in my mouth. The shut box flies open in my face once more, and I see the fort and all of them there. They are like a set of knives stuck in me and pulled out again, leaving holes. But here and now they are not quite real, the way the fort has never been a real place. They have become a story. I do not know how to finish it, I cannot bear to think of them suffering, I do not know how to save them from it and from you, Father. I do not want them to be here. I want to be here.

  Such are my tangled thoughts, but I do not try to untangle them for his benefit. I say only:

  —We will see them soon.

  A good response, surely. Safe.

  Now Black Fish is quiet. His eyes inspect every inch of the tree bark. My gut rumbles and he points his finger at my belly:

  —Do we not feed you well here?

  He looks quite sincere, I might say concerned. My throat is rough as I say:

  —You feed me fine. And I hope my hunting satisfies you, Father.

  —You know you are a fine hunter.

  —I know I am.

  I am struck with the sense that he does know me, and that we do not have to play the old false game. A bird rustles in the dead vine growth up the tree. Black Fish puts his hand on my neck. I feel the fingers before they reach me. He takes them away and says softly:

  —They may have hanged your men by now at Detroit. This is what they do, no matter what they say. They have no use for such prisoners as those.

  My eyes want to dart off from his. Keep them still. Keep your mouth still. But I cannot. Instead I blink and look for the bird. I say:

  —I know.

  I did not know, though, did I? I did not know that this was why we were going to Detroit. Behind my lids I see Callaway’s neck, burned further and stretched, his angry face purple, his eyes cast with blood and bulging. Hill’s neck, his voice all gone, his curious eyes dull as a pond. The others all hanging like terrible dolls. Will and Sam Brooks. Ben Kelly. The young men. All of you, I am sorry. I am sorry now.

  —Sheltowee, did you wish it so?

  I did wish them all dead at one time or another. My Fate seems to have twisted and pulled at her weaving to bring it about for me. Black Fish’s eyes are so tender that I have the curious feeling that he is not speaking to me, but to his dead son. And as his dead son, in a dead skin, I reply:

  —It had to be so. Father.

  —We took them to Detroit. You brought them to us first. This is what you think. But the way they were is not your doing.

  —I know it.

  My voice comes in taps like a hammer on thin metal. Black Fish is still speaking softly. He says:

  —The men talk always of your daughter, your wife.

  I tighten my lips. This has the feel of a sly stab with a dull old knife. I stab back:

  —They talked of them. Before they were dead. Which they now are. You could have burned them yourself. Saved us all a trip.

  My father now takes the vine in his hand. He says:

  —This is good for hanging. Very strong.

  —You would know that, I suppose. Being who you are.

  My blood is rushing, my stomach lets out a moan. Callaway makes a queer noise deep in my skull and Hill calls up: Dan, Dan. Now Black Fish is close, I can see each of his lashes around his black eyes and the dark shadow beneath the skin of his jaw where his hair is coming. He has almost no smell, it is so peculiar that I find myself sniffing without thinking. He says:

  —Your daughter, the one they say is a whore. I know of her.

  —Everyone knows that story.

  I speak sharp, thinking of Delilah saying the same thing back in Old Chillicothe. The kidnap, the rescue. Why can this not be buried, as the bodies at Detroit must be by now, buried in unmarked graves, bundled up with other bones to be lost? Why must it be paraded about like a severed head? But Black Fish lifts his hand and goes on:

  —You took her back from our people. We would have kept her as we keep you.

  He is rolling his neck, the looseness of the movement is not like him. His face has gone slack.

  —I took her back. Of course.

  I have to calm the pitching and flaring inside my body. I exhale hard and I see Black Fish blink, a ripple passing over his face like a breeze over a lake. I saw the same ripple when I first went into his house as his son, the same wave rolling over and vanishing. I keep myself still until I am able to say:

  —Father, she belonged with her family then. But we will all be one family, will we not? Is that not our intention? You will be able to see her when we go to the white fort.

  My knuckle joints all ache, my ankle aches, all my old pains. Black Fish grabs at my cheeks and pushes his forehead hard against mine. His skull grinds on me, I feel his nose brushing and butting mine, I feel him suck in a breath. Now at once he turns, he is walking. His back is to me as he goes. The others are out of sight and hearing. I do not run, I go on standing. He stops and looks back at me to say:

  —I have daughters.

  —I know your little girls.

  —They are what is left to me.

  I want to stop him talking now, his voice has gone all glassy, with nothing to catch at. He has begun to speak in soft English and I am surprised by it. I say back:

  —You have me. Is that not what you wanted also?

  I grin without thinking, all teeth. But he has turned back, he is walking on. I shout:

  —You had a son.

  His blanket trails along in the soft mud, looking royal for all that. I shout harder:

  —I had a son. Brothers of yours took him.

  He turns, he is in the centre of the path beneath an arch of trees, he is so still, looking out over the woods, surveying his country. His blanket falls gently about him, his hands fold over each other beneath it. I walk towards him, I have no choice. He pulls me in and down like a deep well. Tears are all down my face. He says:

  —You have sons still. You are what I have left.

  I can see him breathing, his chest rising and falling, light and slow. He is controlling it. His eyes open like traps, the bottoms drop out of them, they are only black. He says:

  —Your people killed my son when you rescued your girl. Perhaps it was you who killed him, ha? My son.

  My head seems to crack like a shell, a rush of air and light blast in. I see the Shawnee I shot, fallen into the campfire, rolling in the flame and going still. His hair sparking and crackling, his face down. His thin torso, a splash of paint on skin, fingermarks visible in it. And then I forgot it. Jemima running towards me, her face open, Daddy, Daddy—

  Now he has turned again, he is walking on. His voice has lightened. I catch it as it glides ahead:

  —In war, you kill me, I kill you. We all make our trades. All right?

  THE BEAUTIFUL HORSE talks in her sleep. In my sleep. She pulls back her grey lips and says through her ivory teeth: We might go, the both of us. We are too white.

  Her voice is a horsey whisper, her breath smells of old bark an
d roots and leaves.

  When I wake the horse is still there with the others, hobbled and glowing in the dark. Her head is low like those of the warriors keeping watch, they are nodding by the fire now with their elbows propped on their knees. Outside the glow are dark humps under blankets and furs. The dew is rising already. The damp cushions footsteps and movement.

  Pompey sleeps by himself, away from the fire. Black Fish is across the camp with the chiefs. Perhaps he is awake too, with his face beneath his blanket as always, imagining his own murdered boy, trying to sink into the grave with him. I saw his eyes before he snapped them back into blankness. Just before he told me, I knew what had happened to him, I saw that he was eaten inside as though ants had found a way in and left nothing behind. Well. There is always a settling somewhere, as I have found. And always I will be full of a burning shame, my Father, like a house on fire for ever. So much have we lost. What a ruin we have made, or I have made.

  The night is very still. The camp feels like a field after battle, the quiet shot through with rough echoes. Though we are the same in our ruin, I feel myself sundered from Black Fish and I am sorry for it. I feel myself sundered from everyone.

  Jamesie. Or do you have a different name now, do you not recognize the old? I wonder.

  For the first time in months I allow myself to speak to him, though only in my mind. I ask him greedy things, I ask: Where are you? Tell me. What ought I to do with myself now? Will I end like you? Do I have a choice about it? Are you all right now? Where are you?

  I await a sign. I await something clear, I feel smothered in fur. I groan, and the white horse whinnies suddenly and breaks wind. Well, this gives the feel of a sign, so desperate am I for one. I pull myself up to a crouch, though my thigh muscles protest. My old hurt bones begin to throb at once. My whole body is struggling to move and get itself to life, it seems to me here in the dark. Thinking of my boy, I have gone back to being half-dead as I was when I first arrived.

  Keeping my blanket about me I stand and take two short steps, as if I am hobbled myself. My legs will not loosen. I tell myself that I have escaped before, I did so with Stewart and it was easy enough.

  I stop and listen again, my feet bare and cold on the dirt. Stewart’s corpse seems to club me over the head like a ninepin, or like an elephant bone: Get out. And I begin to see things. O you murdered dead are all about this night, you are all here to tell me the same thing, are you? Telling me to go. Or to join you. If I knew what it was, I might consider doing it.

  The air has a populous and whispery feel to it. Hanging bodies sway among the branches, if I look. Do not look. The dead keep their flesh, I have learned, you can see them as they were, only they are cold and dense, like wet sponges. Israel’s face in the dark, Jezebel breathing. I turn my face but here inside a tree that leans towards me is another: Stewart again. Stewart, you always looked at me that way. As though I were a signpost waiting for someone to come and read it. As though some great answer were there, if you only had the time to spell it out. Even your skull with its sockets all hollow looked at me out of that tree your bones were stuffed into.

  I have no answer. I never have had it, though others have thought I had. Dogs with another dog, Captain Will said. Thinking they might get something from me. I have nothing for anyone, I bring only disaster.

  I banish the dead, that is to say I try to do so. My head swims and rolls. The soles of my feet ache. I dig my toes in as if I were in a swamp and seeking the bottom. I will go. I will take the horse and I will go.

  I step forward on my sore legs, making ready to reach for the reins. I find that I have to think over each part of the movement. Here is how you lift your hand. Here is how you open your fingers. Here is how you breathe, do not do it so hard.

  Gently I cut between two trees, holding my stiff body as still as I can. My mind sends out a few half-hearted arguments: No gun, no food, no knife, no shoes, you ape. My hand slips into my pouch. Some powder remains at the bottom, I pinch for the grains. No shot, you greater ape. And no gun, have you forgot?

  Needles make a slippery fallen skirt about my ankles. The clouds pass and split about the moon, the horse glows. Its head bobs gently. Its breath is warm, I know, I can near feel it. I move again and my feet swish over the needles before I step onto harder earth. I breathe high in my chest. I reach for the bridle, I have it. My nose is against the white shoulder. And now the face I see is clear. It is Pompey’s. Black with bright living eyes. They flare up with hope for an instant and then cool like coals. His mouth opens tall as if to begin singing: I see what you were going to do, you were going to run. And without me. I see clear through you.

  EACH MORNING I expect to wake in my dream Kentucky, my Heaven. I expect a smell of dry winter cane going softly rotten, and fresh shoots coming through. But there is none.

  My Shawnee mother and sisters watched us march in when we returned, after Pompey caught me thinking to run. My eye lit on them first as they stood with the other women along the street. My mother’s eyes were brimming as usual but the tears did not drop down her cheeks. I saw her looking at Black Fish and the superior types who rode in first on their best mounts, far from me. The other Shawnee, all painted up, paraded the gifts of Hamilton and the other chiefs. Silver, powder, plate, linen, wool, shirts, blankets skins, furs. Things. The faces were approving.

  A thin rain fell, a spring rain, setting drops like shining seeds on the presents. It fell on me also but only made me damp. Here I was, the draggled tail of the proud return. When the treasures had passed along I felt all the other eyes turn to me. The white faces of my remaining men were startling. They stood with their families. They did not nod. I was tied to two tall fighters, I was white and unpainted, coated in dust and mud, bare and miserable as a bone.

  —Hello ladies. Pleasure to see you again.

  My voice was weak enough but I hoped that they would laugh so I might laugh. Some of the women smiled into their palms. Some kept their faces still. But the door between us had shut again. My mother kept her wet eyes away from me after one look. My little sisters appeared older already, thinned out and thin-lipped.

  —Girls.

  The elder made a wary face. Pompey was behind me, the last of all, keeping an eye on me, as he put it. He was carrying a wolf pup in one arm. It was my wolf pup to start with, it came to me out of the night where I was tied at our last camp, it burrowed straight under my blanket and nosed up to my side as if it belonged there. But nothing is mine anymore.

  Pompey leaned over and set the pup down. Sweet Apples tossed its thick tail about. The small wolf splayed its legs and raised its face. Pimmepessy, my littler sister, took it up as if snatching a scrap of food from a trap. She and the prim-faced Miss Hiss made off into the wigwam with the animal. It did not even let out one of its customary howls. It did not try to bite me, it did not turn its head in my direction. It pricked up its ears and was gone. Pompey kept up his bored expression but was glad I had lost it, as I knew well enough. He wished to see me brought to nothing.

  The guards were taking me away from the rest now up the street to the prison set off from the big house. I saw Delilah then, looking away down the road as if there were someone yet to come. A cloud passed overhead and lightened her eyes. For the first time I noticed an old scar on her cheek, a small pitting, like pox come and gone. As I went by her I said:

  —I am the last. No one else.

  —No one else.

  She spoke in English and pressed her lips together as all of the women and girls seemed to be doing. She turned away. Then the sharp-faced child appeared from behind her hip, looking straight up at me:

  —Here I am.

  They are not supposed to speak to me, as I can see. But the girl’s clear little voice gave me a smile. She was still the same. I thought of you, Jemima, still the same. For so long I wanted not to think of you and the rest. Now you are all I can think of.

  It is spring now, there is no denying the damned corn shooting up in the fields and th
e river opening. I saw it before they locked me in. They will keep me in here until it is warm enough to march. Then I will see you all there, I will see your faces light with surprise and then fall with disappointment at what I have done, just as the faces here did when we marched back into the town. I will not have saved anything. Still, you are a comfort to me in my prison, though I keep you a little distance off like a blanket on a warm night.

  The prison hut has room enough for Callaway and Hill and the rest to congregate and haunt me further. My first night here, they beat me to death in my mind. The Indian man I killed as he sat fishing so long ago stares at me all curious, Jezebel’s breath cools me.

  I feel compelled to defend myself. I tell them I tried to do right. There was no other way. But I feel mean and sick as I think it. The next night I wait, my whole body waits, my teeth grit against each other. I chip a piece from one, and the part left behind is pointed and jabs at my tongue every chance it gets. But the dead do not turn up again to listen to further sorry remarks.

  I sleep a short while, not a deep sleep.

  —A dozen deer. Three buffalo. Jellies, your favourite drinks, any innards you fancy.

  The singsong voice snags me in the dusk of this windowless house. It is outside the door. I make myself answer:

  —Could be reckoned excessive.

  The voice says:

  —We wish to keep talking of our victorious journey to Detroit, so we let our food grow cold. There is always more. We have more meat cooked and start our dinner fresh. A simple idea, but clever also, do you not think?