by Alix Hawley
—I told you the meat was from the day before. Maybe you needed to be poisoned, to see such a thing.
She gets to her feet. She opens the door. I see the little girl watching in the gap. She steps in and presses a finger over the nick on my cheekbone. Then she looks at the blood printed on her fingertip. Holding it high she leaves. For a moment the door is open. The air is fresh and warm and the sky is paler as though it is a different place, a different year.
My mother’s eyes are full of tears again. She is still my mother. She will not touch me but she cannot keep from looking at me and calling me son, Niequeetha, and something else related to eggs. Fresh Egg perhaps, or Egg Head. She does not call me Sheltowee. But she is trying.
My young sisters skulk outside in the twilight, peering through the bark in their old way and hoping for something interesting. There is no sign of the wolf pup, perhaps they have done away with it.
The pot over the fire is smoking. My mother’s tears travel in lines down the sides of her nose. I say:
—May I help you, Mother?
She smiles and blinks, more tears spill. She pulls herself up. She speaks to me soft as if I were her true son whom she has known all along:
—No woman’s work. You say this always.
—Where is my father?
She looks at me intently. Her eyes cross my face and double back again. She says:
—My son. You are sad tonight.
—Well Mother, you have found me out.
—Why?
I bow from the waist, I rub the side of my bare head. I say:
—I do not know. Perhaps the moon. Perhaps I am getting old. An old turtle—
She cuts in:
—You think of your whites. Your white family. Children and wife.
I am surprised. The cooking pot is overflowing with smoke, but she makes no move to stir it even when an evil bubble erupts from it. She only looks upward. There is the moon hanging over the hole, I see it too, a pale fruit hazy in the smoke. She weeps for a few moments, she wipes her forearm across her eyes. She breathes tears. I wish I had some helpful thing to say, any words.
She clears her throat and coughs out a clog. She takes up her spoon and says heavy as if she is tired of saying it:
—My son. When you bring them to live with us, they will be your family also.
—They are gone now. Gone.
I know it as I say it.
The dinner is so burnt there is no hope for it.
The guard Kaskee, with a crop of fresh pimples, smiles straight in my face. I sit up and crack my forehead on his jaw. He yelps and flails backwards and makes to hit me but I catch his wrist and I try to laugh:
—Back again, my old friend. Life rolls along.
I am glad to see him. The wigwam is otherwise empty. No Black Fish. I have not seen him since they let me out.
The young guard looks at me, a mixture of murder and resignation. He pulls me towards the door. My forehead stings somewhat, which is no consolation to him, as I can see.
We walk up the street. A few boys are about, kicking a leather ball against a house and chasing an elderly dog back and forth with sticks. The dog throws itself down wheezing in the middle of the street. We step over it. The children scatter and group again and follow us like mayflies.
Before we reach the river, I see the two figures side-by-side. They look like preachers set to outdo one another. Or like judges. Their faces are bland as judges’ faces. They say: You will have to guess what I can do with you. At once I am struck with a thought of my piles of debts behind me, my bankruptcies, magistrates I have stood looking up at.
It is Pompey with Black Fish. Seeing my father for the first time now, I am relieved. They are waiting for me. The guard walks me down towards them. The river is fuller now, moving quickly and rolling over in places, the sun flashing on it. A broken log is jammed against rocks, its inside shows yellow and torn. I think of that old dog lying in the street wheezing. The children have gone, perhaps they have returned to kick it and make it move off and kick it again.
Black Fish is keeping himself to himself. He nods once. It appears that I have been forgiven. He looks set to make the best of what he has left. I understand this. I say:
—My father.
He looks at me so that I want to weep again but I dry myself out, I turn to Pompey and I say:
—Pleasant to meet you here as well. Out for a stroll?
My words fall flat. Pompey hums, he looks up at the birds crossing the sky. No purpose is obvious here. But I will say that I am glad to see them both.
Up the stream a short way, a horse is tied to a thin elm. It is splashing its nose in and out of the river. It is a paint, with a blotch spreading round one eye. In it the eye looks astounded.
—A gift for you, Sheltowee.
Pompey is watching me. I say:
—Indeed?
—Yes.
—I am lucky in horse gifts.
I think of the beautiful white mare from Hamilton, no longer mine, shifted off elsewhere. So many people and animals and things shifting about, bought and sold and traded, this country is full of their tracks. And do not wonder where they get to. There will be no answers, you ape.
Pompey holds out his hand. Black Fish is still. I walk down towards the paint horse. Its spots make it look as if it is trying to hide in the trees. Guilty horse. So calm am I now that I do not imagine the burned fort when I say:
—We are off on another journey, then.
Pompey laughs high and Black Fish echoes him, adding something in quick Shawnee. So surprised am I that I laugh too. Pompey says:
—Not yet. You will have to stay here for some time. Bridegrooms generally like to keep at home.
Keep-home Neddy, darling Neddy. I cannot help but think it. It is like a stone in the body, growing more and more until its pain cannot be stopped. I ought to have kept home more. But now there is none. And I cannot imagine facing Neddy now.
Rebecca, a gentle thought comes of you in the bed on our wedding night, your hair all outspread, before any of this. And in our first cabin on your grandfather’s land in Carolina when you felt safe. Queen of the Backwoods. You would hate it here, even more than you hated the fort. One morning there I heard you outside, you said to Martha that you wanted to fall on the path to the spring and never get back up. You said: But I have no choice. How old do I look? You laughed for a moment and touched your neck, I saw you. I knew you were crippled up inside with homesickness and suffering. You went along for me. You were trying to make up for Neddy, for Jemima, for everything.
Black Fish’s eyes scan my face. They open wider when he says soft:
—Happiness will keep you here. You will be happy, you are my son.
Pompey translates in his slow measure but I have understood already. He is thinking: If I stay, you stay. I can see that Black Fish’s sentimental vein has opened. And I find myself not unhappy.
On my wedding day, the ceremony is quick enough. Black Fish presides and joins our hands and wraps them together in a bright calico cloth. My mother weeps through it. My little sisters stand at the front and look crafty. Delilah’s little girl is watchful. I cannot see Delilah’s face. My poisoner, my barber, that is to say my barberess. I might have known that we were intended for one another. I hand her a deer’s hoof when prompted, but I do not look. For a moment I think of you again, Rebecca, of dragging that dead deer to you when I was courting you. But quickly this thought slides away. Pompey passes the hoof to me and tells me very loud what to do.
He says her name is now Methoataske. Delilah’s name. My wife’s. It means Turtle in a Nest.
There is a feast, a circling dance that runs all night. I can still see the dancers at Bryan’s when I married my first wife. But it is a curious silent vision. The laughing and calling and shuffling here in the big house overlap that old picture.
Methoataske is silent beside me on the sleeping mat. My mother has draped this wigwam with fresh pine boughs and bunches of thin
green leaves and a few pale orange flowers with black eyes. She backs out the door, where my little sisters and Methoataske’s girl whisper before she drags them away. I do not know what to say about them. I do not know what to say. But I speak nonetheless, her silence is so deep:
—This is why you shaved me again. Made me look a little more decent.
I feel her head move, she is nodding. I say:
—Well. You have seen all of me already.
I think of her beating me in the river, cleaning me and pulling out my hair. I think of myself opening my blanket to show her my wet body, limp also. I taught her that word. I want to laugh. I say:
—My father gave me a gun tonight. The horse as well. My mother piled me down with blankets. If I had known that this was the way to get all of this and a good barbering, I would have proposed to you some time ago.
My joking has little effect. I keep expecting Pompey to pop up from behind the cooking pot and say: Aha. See where your sentimental heart has got you.
Bang. I shut my mind to him and to everyone else. Here I am and here we are. I turn to face her, I touch her. Her skin is warm and very slightly rough.
She is accepting.
It is not difficult, of course it is not.
—Have you tried your gun yet? Does it work as you might have expected?
Pompey touches his breechcloth and the warriors laugh. A couple of the Boonesborough men are among them. One watches my face, his eyes moving in any direction mine do. I cannot look at him, he makes me think too much of the fort. His Shawnee father is very fond of him, he puts his arm about the young man’s shoulders. I want to say: This is not a bad place. This is better than what we have left. This is what we have now.
But instead I say to everyone:
—Everything is in working order. Rest assured.
Black Fish leads, smiling. We go up the street and through the growing fields and out into the woods. They all elbow me and ha-ha some, but they let me loose with the gun. No guard. The early air is warming, I feel myself freed from any prison I could imagine. My father fills my pouch with powder and shot. We cross the fields and go into the woods and get a couple of deer straight out. The lead smells damp and precious.
When I return to my wife’s house in the evening, I have plenty of venison. I bend to get through the door and I am knocked down hard. My back rocks on the ground, the meat is spilled, my breath is gone. I cannot see my attacker until I lift the body from my face. It is Methoataske’s girl. I grip her shoulders, she stares me down, the hard steady stare of children. Then she gets up and runs into the house. I am still sprawled amidst the meat when Captain Will comes along with his wife.
—Here, my old friend.
He pulls me up from the ground by the arm. He says:
—New wife, new daughter. A family. I congratulate you.
His wife smiles as women do with the newly married, thinking of their own weddings. She and the Captain adopted two of the whites, Hancock and Jackson. Another ready family. They pass on up the way with their sons behind.
Inside the wigwam, my wife is brushing dust from the mats. She looks up. The girl is curled into a corner, whispering to a wooden spoon that she is revolving between her palms. Her fingertip is still dark. My blood still?
—Ought not you to wash your hands, miss? Or stir the pot?
She continues to turn the spoon about. I say:
—Now, what is your spoon’s name?
She is silent. Then at once she announces:
—Eliza.
—Well. Fine old English name. Not Sheltowee, after me?
—No.
Her eyes slide back to her occupation.
—And you, what is your name? I do not know it yet.
—Eliza.
She speaks just as though she is naming another utensil, as though it were no matter to her what her name is.
—Is that so?
Her mother looks at her with a small smile. The girl puts the spoon into her mouth and gets up to stand before me, her cheeks puffed out. Her stare is unblinking, like the wolf pup’s. She seems to decide something. She holds out the spoon to me. I take it, with its damp half-circle from her mouth.
—Thank you, Miss Eliza.
Methoataske bends, her plait slides over her back, her hips lift. My wife. I go out and I pick up the remains of the meat.
At night Eliza is banished again to Black Fish’s house to give the married couple their privacy. I can hear her howls. Methoataske stirs, troubled.
—Go and get her. Bring her back.
When Methoataske carries her in, Eliza’s eyes are triumphant above her blanket. She keeps them open for hours, I can see in the low firelight.
She attaches herself to me like a nettle.
Methoataske has to keep her from following me everywhere, even the latrine pit. She seems never to blink. My little sisters hover outside and call her to come and play but she suddenly pretends not to understand Shawnee any longer. They go off in a whispering huff.
When I go to hunt she keeps beside me. I do not mind. I like her presence. She sits on a rock where I tell her to stay. When I come back with game after a few hours, she is still there, chewing on a fingernail. She says:
—I am here.
—Why, so am I.
I carry her home on my shoulder, the rifle knocking awkward over my chest. She kicks at it with her ankles. She takes the ramrod and waves it about like a wand.
In spite of herself, she drops into a heavy early sleep after our expedition. Her limbs sprawl out as if she has fallen hard upon the floor. My wife and I sit outside in the light evening. We can hear her deep breaths and occasional snores.
Methoataske is shelling seeds from last year. The husks strike the ground softly. I am stealing a handful from the basket when my wife says:
—She is not easy.
—Easy? Is any child?
I crunch seeds between my teeth. I think of other children, but the thought is vague only, I chase it off. She slides a glance at me:
—Is this not a word? Easy?
—It is a word. You are not wrong.
—She is not—at home. She feels this.
—She has a good home. You are a good mother, I can see for myself.
Methoataske brushes husks from her lap, her arm is like a wing. I catch at her fingers. She says:
—You are her father now. She believes so.
—Her father, was he a good man? I hope so.
She shrugs one of her shrugs. I take her hand, I want to know suddenly. The man must be dead. Am I the first replacement?
—I am sorry.
She picks up her basket. The husks sound like light rain falling. Her fingers are quick and unthinking.
—I do not know her father.
For a moment she seems flustered, it is very odd for her. I look away and listen to the night insects and birds starting up. After a time I say:
—Your history is not my concern.
She carries on with the seeds, she moves her foot up and down. Inside Eliza coughs and gulps. The dark slides down.
—I am not her first mother. She was given to me.
—She was a captive?
—Yes.
My chest tightens and tells me to shut my mouth but I do not. I ask:
—From where? Another town?
Methoataske’s hands keep working busily. The seeds split softly: crack, crack. She says:
—In the south. No name. A moving town, not Shawnee. It is gone now. My town.
—Your town also?
—Yes.
—You are not Shawnee?
—I am now Shawnee. I was Cherokee once.
She speaks matter-of-factly, as if I should have known. All I am able to say is:
—Ah.
A flash tries to ignite in me. Ignore it, stamp it to death. I close my lips. I reach for my happiness, smooth and clear and thin as a ball of glass. Straighten your mouth. I say:
—Then you are a captive too, you were
adopted here.
—Once.
I do not wish to know, I do not wish to know this. I wish to brush her past away like the seed husks, as she seems to have done, as they seem able to do. But I cannot stop myself. I say:
—Eliza. She came with you?
—No. Later.
—But from the same town?
She shrugs again, she is maddening. This talk is maddening. She says:
—The town moved after the attack. Maybe the same town, maybe not. We move our towns.
—The Shawnee attacked the people there again. Your people.
—One of the wars. A little war only, not your big war now against the British. Her parents died.
I push at her, still burning in the pit of my chest. A lump of coal is there, a stone, an eye. I say:
—Died. Killed. Murdered.
—Yes.
So simple is this word against everything.
I stand, opening and closing my hands. I want to see the girl, I move towards the doorway, but Methoataske stops me, her hand tight on my arm:
—They gave her to me. I had no people.
—She was an orphan. What did they do to her family?
The eye in me bulges and burns. Everything burned to the ground, flesh and bone gone to charcoal and dust. Orphans. Orphans are left, orphans survive. Jonathan and Jesse. My own children. My heart bangs dull and familiar. She presses my arm faintly and then lets go. She says quietly:
—She came from another town first. She is maybe some white.
The reddish hair. The English. Someone else’s captive, traded in and passed on. I spin back to look at Methoataske, I grip her:
—Where did she come from? You do not know? What was her name? You have never asked her?
—No. Why? She will not say. She is young.
—If I ask her, she will say.
Another shrug, a slow one. I turn back, I stand in the doorway, I hear the girl turn over and sigh. I cannot wake her. I cannot drag this out of her. The eye inside me is wide, it is demanding, I cannot close it. It wants to know everything, it cannot leave the past alone. To Methoataske I say tightly: