A Thousand Moons

by Sebastian Barry

  But this person was not Luther Carp and I was disappointed in my hopes of death.

  When I tried to speak, I knew instantly that it was a mere whisper. I was dismayed by my lack of strength. I tried again.

  ‘Thomas McNulty will be looking for me,’ I said, but I might as well have remained silent, for all the effect it had on these two men.

  ‘Thomas McNulty will be …’

  ‘This Winona Cole,’ said Jas Jonski, looking at me, but I thought, I know who I am – ‘she found on the Nashville wagon road. Bullet wound, see?’

  ‘She ain’t nothing but an Injun,’ said the man, doubtfully.

  ‘I pay you,’ said Jas Jonski, roughly.

  ‘Injuns don’t take well to medicine,’ he said, so I knew he was a doctor. ‘I as likely kill her as cure her. They like wild things. Ever try to fix a robin’s broken leg? Same thing.’

  ‘Look, doc, you got to get that bullet out of her and if you kill her, I kill you, how about that?’

  But he wasn’t saying it with menace, it was his effort to be humorous. Always the humorous boy.

  ‘I guess that fair,’ said the doc, sitting near me and opening his bag at his feet.

  ‘You speak English?’ he said.

  But I said nothing.

  ‘She speaks English. She work for the lawyer Briscoe. She civilised right enough.’

  ‘My name is Dr Memucan Tharpe,’ he said slowly, emphasising his words like you would for a child. ‘And if you lie quietly there I will try and dig this bullet out of your shoulder.’

  So then he was taking up a metal pliers and he put it against the wound. ‘It pretty red around this hole, when she get this?’

  ‘I was told by the men that brought her in that she was at the fight at Zach Petrie’s place. They saw her follow them all the way. They were coming back with their own wounded and thought it best to put her on the cart. One of them knew she was my fiancée.’

  ‘I weren’t called to that, thank God. I heard there was a big fight,’ said Dr Tharpe. ‘Your fiancée? Why would you go marrying an Injun, son? They ain’t got no proper understanding of that institution, believe me. Easy come, easy go.’

  He had just uttered these words when he inserted his instrument to locate the hard bullet in the flesh. All I could do was take refuge in my idea of honour and not let a sound escape my lips. But if he had touched my heart with a flame it could not have been more painful.

  ‘She don’t even cry out. These creatures,’ he said, ‘you see, they ain’t even human, not truly, not the same as you and me.’

  He found the bullet all the same and was a few moments digging in to grip it and then he drew it out with a sucking of flesh.

  ‘Musket ball,’ he opined, holding it up to the light, such as it was. ‘You boil me up some water now, son, and I’ll clean this off with bromine. There now, missy,’ he said, touched by a pride in his work despite it was just me benefiting from it. ‘Guess you’ll be feeling better by and by.’

  ‘Dr Tharpe,’ I whispered, when Jas Jonski had left to go fetch the water.

  ‘Yes, missy?’ he said.

  ‘You know Lige Magan? Elijah Magan? He got a place near McKenzie?’

  ‘I know Lige. I knew all his people. You the little Injun living there? I heard of you too.’

  ‘I the Injun. Doctor, can you let Lige know where I be? He sure be worried. How long I lying here? He don’t know where I be.’

  ‘Cannot young Mr Jonski do that service for you?’

  ‘I ain’t no fiancée of Jas Jonski. I a prisoner. If you can get a …’

  Just then, the same Jas Jonski reappeared with a steaming bowl of water. The doctor looked at me and I looked at him. I didn’t know what he was thinking.

  ‘All right, missy,’ he said, and smiled at Jas Jonski, and now with a somewhat gentler hand, since we were acquainted and had spoken English together, cleaned out the wound, and poured in the bromine from a little brown bottle.

  ‘Going to have to suture this up for you, missy,’ he said. ‘Might hurt a little.’

  Then he threaded a big needle like a very seamstress and gripped the wound. He dipped the metal in once, twice, thrice, through my skin and then his work seemed to be done. Even in this bath of pain I was desperate for fear that he would rise and leave me with Jas Jonski.

  ‘Doctor,’ I whispered again, and weakly gripped his wrist.

  ‘Don’t you fret, missy,’ he said. ‘You’ll heal good.’

  But whatever sort of man Jas Jonski was, he had a sort of instinct about him which was why I had liked him in the first place. He could see into a little problem.

  ‘You maybe want this by you, Winona,’ he said, taking out my pearly gun and placing it beside me on the bed. ‘Didn’t want you lying on it and shooting yourself.’

  ‘Where my boots?’ I said, in my tiny whisper.

  ‘Where your?’ he said.

  ‘My boots.’

  ‘Boots under your bed. And the knife is in the left one.’

  ‘You got the Spencer rifle?’

  ‘Didn’t see no Spencer. Ain’t you armed enough now?’ he said, laughing.

  Then they both went out. I heard the click of the lock.

  *

  The curious thing that assailed me as I lay there was a worry about Tennyson’s Spencer. That coveted gun which was the only precious thing that Tennyson owned. Was it lying out on the goddamn eastern road? And what of my poor mule? And would Thomas McNulty and John Cole be scouring the countryside for a trace of me? That was a better thought. I also thought, Jas Jonski is crazy to take me prisoner. There’ll be veritable hell to pay for this. How great a fool I had been. Going off after soldiers like I was a true boy. Oh, but was I not the niece of a great leader, and the daughter of a warring woman? Then I was thinking, God help Jas Jonski, but the next chance I got I would kill him myself. I imagined locating my boots and plucking out my little knife and sticking it suddenly into him when he was leaning in near. Leaning in near. What right by the laws of Blackstone’s book, the lawyer Briscoe’s bible, did he have to take me and keep me? And I thought of Peg’s words, the words of a girl I barely knew but who I had said everything to, a little waterfall and deluge. She had weighed my words as we moved among the trees and the little farms and she had concluded that Jas Jonski was a villain. And even as I raged against Jas Jonski I thought about Peg and how she had seemed to me, how strangely bright she had seemed to me, as she balanced in the bush above the murderous waters. And how, going against very nature and natural justice, I had not let her fall, I had pulled her back to life.

  And then I worried again about Tennyson’s rifle. You can take a bullet out of a girl’s shoulder but that won’t make her well. I was plunging down into fever, I knew I was. Because that strange gold creature was piercing me again, putting bright bars of light between the poor planks of the room. I thought it must be that my eyes were too open, or my head, or wherever were the doors into a person. The light crept into the room and held me pincered down in the bed. But I didn’t have chains on me, I didn’t have ropes. Could I not rise up if I gathered myself? Could I not call out? But I had no voice for calling out, I had no legs to raise me up.

  *

  Was it a fever of hours or a fever of minutes? I had no notion of it. Except, Jas Jonski did not return.

  As I pitched about in pain and confusion I almost prayed he would. Just to stop the room spinning. Round and round as though I was strapped to a mill wheel. My stomach was burning, my wound was burning, my head was burning. Sweat sat up on my bare arms in pearly beads. Where I wasn’t fire I was liquid.

  Perhaps I slept. Perhaps I woke. Perhaps I slept. And woke.

  Then John Cole came and took me up in his arms and carried me out. He didn’t utter a word.

  Lige Magan’s blessed cart was waiting at the back of Mr Hicks’s store. My mule was tethered to the rear. Never was human so glad to see an animal. He stamped about as if rebuking me for leaving him. Thomas McNulty was standing
in the bed of the cart looking as fussed as a mother hen. I tried to see, I tried to see if the rifle was in the holster, but John Cole was lifting me up now to Thomas McNulty.

  ‘I sorry,’ I said, ‘I always causing you trouble.’

  I was laid down gently, just like Tennyson before me. Thomas wrapped his old army coat about me. Again, not speaking a word.

  It was dark night but I saw Dr Tharpe on the boardwalk. As the cart pulled away he lifted a hand in farewell.

  *

  It was so dark out on the Huntingdon road that even owls were hushed. I was the weakest girl in Tennessee but I was so happy to be held by Thomas McNulty even if he was offering me a continuous homily that included many an anguished outbreak of annoyance.

  ‘You best hush a little, Thomas, she not ready to be rebuked,’ said John Cole.

  ‘I ain’t rebuking her, I just …’

  My voice was still vexed by extinction but I tried my best to comfort him.

  ‘You right,’ I said. ‘I the greatest fool girl ever lived.’

  ‘You not that, no, that ain’t what I meaning, goddamn it, I meaning … You’re the most precious item we got and then we find your mule wandering like a poor Ahasuerus all out of sorts and snorting lonesome fire. And then that top hat fool, what was his name, John Cole?’

  ‘Who name?’ said John Cole.

  ‘Fool stuttering doctor full of nonsense talk?’

  ‘That Tharpe,’ said John Cole. ‘Why you say that? He talked pretty good. And then we knew where Winona at. You should be baking tarts for Tharpe, Thomas.’

  ‘Goddamn tarts, I don’t know. And then we hear the worst thing we ever hear in a long long history of worst things we endured that that goddamn fool jester of a boy Jas Jonski got you – holy murdering God but what sort of news was that for us to hear? And now you saying you crept away and was following Purton and that you was in battle out at Petrie’s?’

  ‘Whyever you elect to go and do that, Winona, child?’ said John Cole.

  ‘Because Tennyson need to be righted,’ I said, with words so quiet I don’t believe even I could hear them. But they could hear me right enough. They had been listening to my least words all my life. They had ears for me.

  They didn’t say anything then. Those two men had a very profound sense of justice maybe as deep as the lawyer Briscoe’s. Maybe deeper, because it arose from the heart not just Blackstone’s book. I couldn’t hear my own words but I could almost hear their brains working away at thoughts like little engines.

  ‘I guess we only got ourselves to blame, John Cole,’ said Thomas in some despair.

  ‘Guess that right,’ said John Cole.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Now we heard in the distance behind us a strange rattling jangling noise, like a cart coming after us at crazy speed. It was difficult to see back the road especially for me, but John and Thomas pulled their rifles out from under John’s feet. They were going to square up against the back gate of the wagon if needs be, I knew. I lifted my head as best I could and stared back down the road. It was something breathing lights and flames and making a great bluster of noise. There were a butcher’s dozen of men actually pulling this vehicle, pulling and hallooing. Now I gazed up the road the other way because some other light drew my attention. The terrifying light of leaping flames that disturbs the dreams of all house dwellers. Now the charging men with their roaring vehicle passed us, not even inclined to look at us. They wore uniforms and moustaches and big tin hats.

  ‘What news?’ called Thomas. He was looking for news now. But the men said nothing in reply. Their machine looked heavy and violent. On they drew it. Two of those dapper gents were Negroes.

  ‘They heading for the lawyer Briscoe’s house,’ said John Cole astutely, peering into the darkness at the distant flames.

  ‘That not good news neither,’ said Thomas.

  *

  We came near to the lawyer Briscoe’s and sure enough his lovely old house was ablaze. The tin-hatted boys had reached it and by some miracle were directing water onto the flames. We could see figures still going into the wide front door and figures coming out with items, the dark pictures of the early Briscoes, and Joe and Virg Sugrue with armfuls of documents, and Lana Jane Sugrue carrying those little German statues that the lawyer Briscoe loved as being mementoes of his marriage. I propped myself against Thomas and gazed. John Cole braked the wagon and leaped down to go to their assistance. Minutes later I saw him go into the house and minutes later come back out, carrying the canopy of the lawyer Briscoe’s bed. The base and mattress soon followed in the care of other men. Then it was that old shiny table he worked at and then it was big brasses from the kitchen and whatever else anyone could grab. The men with the water hose slaved at the work. I saw a long long snake cross the road in front of us, going down into the little creek. I knew this big engine was pulling the water from there. Desperate miracles.

  The lawyer Briscoe himself emerged, all black of face, waving his book of roses. He was calling out in a state of hectic calm. To set the lawyer Briscoe’s house alight. That was a terrible venture. Now John Cole clambered back on the wagon, maybe mindful of me.

  ‘What Jesus name going on?’ said Thomas.

  ‘Petrie’s boys, they done fired the house. Came out of the woods and fired it. Were in their burlap sacks and all. Why they wear those hoods? Ain’t that how everyone know them? Crazy boys. Shot the horses in the stable so they couldn’t ride for help. The lawyer Briscoe and Joe and Virgil saw them off. Then Joe Sugrue raced across country in the black darkness and roused the firemen. Else the house was lost for sure.’

  ‘We best kick on,’ said Thomas, looking at me. ‘This girl faint as the moon.’

  ‘I all right,’ I said.

  ‘That fever talking maybe,’ he said. ‘You look like Death’s sister.’

  So John Cole shook the reins at the horses. My mule had a horror of the flames and was bucking and snorting at the back.

  ‘You go on, you go on,’ said Thomas.

  Just as he spoke and in spite of the great flower of water from the hose I saw the flames enrichen in the lower floor. I thought of the office there with that familiar silence now being burst through by fire. The flames widened and broke the glass of windows in an enthusiasm to be out into the night air. The tin-hatted boys, the lawyer Briscoe, Lana Jane and her brothers, all seemed to draw back in the same attitude, and hands went to heads in shocked despair. Then with a moon-high explosion the flames ignored all beams and floors or scorched them so heartily they were gone, and with a shocking eruption took up residence in the roof, and there raged and ranted, till they blossomed out through the shingles and victoriously whooshed up into the sky of old stars, making fools of rafters and petals of those mere slates.

  *

  Not for the first time my kind friend Rosalee Bouguereau carried me into the cabin. There was no trace of the Spencer rifle in the holster because I begged her to check before ever she took me in her arms. She said, no, child, it ain’t there. She didn’t fuss about it. Oh, but it grieved me to hear her words. How would I face Tennyson? When he did come in to see me, he was as bright as a sunbeam. He stroked my face and pointed at my wound and shook his head. He was both happy and angry in the same breath. He didn’t ask about the Spencer. Well, he couldn’t speak, but there are ways to ask other than in words. Maybe he knew from Rosalee. I swore to myself in secret that I would find him another, somehow, or search the four compass points of Tennessee to find it, if I did nothing else in my life.

  Rosalee carried me in then and took off the yellow dress and asked me where I had got it but I couldn’t style an answer. I didn’t know how to frame that story. The wound had bled again from the journey so that the dress was now rightly stained, three or four times over, and indeed the dried blood had stiffened and blackened the cotton. She asked me where the trews were and the shirt but again I couldn’t ferret up an answer. I could not be lying to Rosalee Bouguereau. I was more wretched about the rifle
than the wound. She spread a mess of straw on the ground and set herself to sleep there. Soon the cabin was heavy with night and I heard the famous snoring of John Cole through the walls and I thought of the lawyer Briscoe’s fine house burning and my eyes were being stolen by sleep.

  ‘That a nice little linsey, I clean that nice for you,’ Rosalee said, from the floor.

  ‘I thank you,’ I said. ‘I thank you, Rosalee.’

  *

  Quickly enough due to Dr Tharpe’s ministrations the wound closed and healed.

  Tennyson Bouguereau continued to show no bitterness about the gun. He was sparing me. Well I knew it.

  The biggest story in the cabin was the firing of the lawyer Briscoe’s house, and why that had happened, and what might happen next. John Cole was of the opinion that men like Zach Petrie and Aurelius Littlefair knew the ground had improved under their rebel feet. When Lige Magan went into Paris for provisions it was all the talk there too. That and the colonel’s chaotic raid. In the store of Mr Scruggs which now had the benefit of our patronage, Lige sensed a wariness to speak too openly but also he could read the fear writ on faces plain enough.

  His worry then was that Zach Petrie might come out our way finally to avenge his brother’s death, or punish us for Tennyson and Colonel Purton, or whatever he imagined were the imperatives of the war against his enemies. John Cole was as jumpy as a jackrabbit and put us all to picket duty, and one by one we relieved each other, just like proper soldiers. Lige Magan brought the old bell in from the barn that used to toll the slaves in from the fields, and that he hooked up as a warning to be sounded, especially by good wordless Tennyson. In the meantime he was pulling on with the crop but we were coming into that time where the sun deepened and hotted up and his main task with the tobacco and the corn was to hoe the devil weeds out of the fields.