1811: Jeremias met Eve at the New Year’s Day market. He told her he’d heard from Monsieur DeGannes that Papá had gone with his hat in hand to ask Monsieur for a loan. Monsieur told Jeremias that he had hesitated to proffer the loan to Papá, for Papá was already indebted to him for a sizeable sum due to a loss of future income. When Jeremias asked what Monsieur meant by “loss of future income,” Monsieur said nothing more. Jeremias told Eve that he heard later, from a reliable source, that Papá had gone straight from Monsieur’s to the clerk’s office and, with water in his eyes, set down DeGannes’s money on the desk and watched the clerk write on his receipt: Recovery suspended for an additional 365 days.
It was Saturday, December 28, 1811, when Padre José declared the Rendóns’ mourning period ended. Papá, sitting upon his rocker, his arms crossed, having finished Eve’s weak tea, looked him in the eyes and told Padre that he could find his way to a hot and smoky hell and could take his blasted false pronouncements with him. And when the obeah woman came and told Eve that the worst was over for now but that Papá would fall ill and that a stranger would come to help him, Papá became so vexed, he told the woman that he wanted every red cent Mamá had ever given her returned, and when she could not scrape up the money from the little cotton purse she carried, he set her upon her ragged heels and told her to find her way back to whatever mud shack she had crawled from.
Yet, it had been earlier in that month of December when Papá admitted to Rosa that he had begun to feel something that could only be described as a numbing relief. “I feel breath filling my lungs all the way up again,” he told her. And he had pointed to the crown of his head to show Rosa that some, though not all of the silver that had come to be in his hair, had begun turning black again, and Rosa herself could see that Papá’s chest had firmed once more and that his shoulders seemed to remember their solid roots, and she believed that though Papá knew wheels needed axles and axles needed wheels, he was beginning to understand that one could make progress with one’s own two feet and one’s own two hands alongside one’s still-broken heart.
CREADON RAMPLEY
Isle of Trinidad
1810
I went to the island cause Gregory swore it promised gold.
When the boat docked at the quay in Puerto d’España, the December night sky was cast in a black that had such a shine to it that it looked like every light in the world had been eaten by it. And it left the earth so shadowed that I couldnt hardly see my hands. So I set myself down on the first thing I bumped into. A stone mole. And slept off my sea legs, wakin the next mornin under a sun so brutal, I couldnt hardly imagine how much more heat daylight could hold.
I went three days hungry til I stole a dull machete from a scorched field and filled my belly with mangoes and coconut meat and blue plums that sprouted like dandelions in that place. I butchered my way through the thickest, most brambly bush I ever seent, from Naparima to Moruga, from Mayaro to Toco, panning the waters of the Caroni, Couva, Nariva, and Ortoire rivers, casin banks, clefts, rifts of hillsides—any place I thought I could find a few of them yellow nuggets.
After a rain, sometimes I had to wait two, three hours for my clothes to prune on sun-hot rocks—wetness in the tropics could kill a man. At dusk, ocelots followed me til I took to treetops and all cross that land lived snakes so vile that when I slept I swore I was gonna wake to my own chokin.
I walked that island for over a year searchin for any glint a gold. Months in loneliness. Months thinkin about a long-ago past—my time in New Spain and them murderin that poor boy, my split with Stephen in Mexico—months thinkin about a future I aint have no shape for.
It was just fore rainy season when I first noticed them dead birds. Every mornin lined up round me with their glassy black eyes unseein in the sunlight. Damn Indians, I knowed it was. I caught them lurkin once. They wasnt exactly the same kinda Indians from Missouri Territory or Oregon Country or even New Spain but they wasnt much different. They had skin like crisp leaves and bright black hair, and they moved quiet as hummingbirds, light and brisk, and had tilted kinda eyes. I figured all they wanted was to frighten me off and I chuckled at the thought. Not cause I couldnt be frightened but cause I prolly could count the days on one hand when I aint been.
“A scared man is a dead man,” Pa would say. I used to think Pa meant that bein scared could get a man killed but now I think he meant that bein scared made a man hard and hardness made joy impossible so you might as well be dead.
Look, I aint no believer in the sayin that if you know everything bout a man you understand a man. Sometimes knowin everything bout a man can make you hate a man and that aint really no kinda understandin, is it? Well … maybe … but anyhow, I aint think them Indians was gonna kill me but it sure seemed to me that they knowed somethin about the kinda frights I didnt wanna member, the kinda frights I aint think I could ever overcome.
Pa had told Lik Smith not to let that fella join our brigade. The new fella seemed to come outta nowhere claimin somebody from Hudson’s Bay sent him to meet us. Pa questioned him and sure enough he had the right names, the right titles for people Pa knew but he aint have no letter. And Pa said he needed a “letter of appointment.” Appointment. The other men laughed at that word. But Pa told Lik that without that letter he aint want no extra split on the money. The other men put it to a vote sayin they could use a nother hand, so Pa went ahead and led the crew, and the new fella fit in just fine. Til he didnt.
There was lil things at first. One time the new fella questioned Lik and Lik told him to just follow orders and then Lik’s water pouch had a slit in it. A nother day, the new fella aint like that his meat was tough and the next mornin the man who cooked supper couldnt find his boots. Then a nother time after the new fella complained about his pack bein too heavy, he “forgot” some skins and cost the crew twenty whole dollars. All this went on with nobody able to much prove none of it was malicious til the day come when he challenged Pa.
I musta been eight years. They was playin cards and Pa, pie-eyed, told the new fella to shut his trap and “be a good bloke fore I beat my fist into your face.” It was late. And it was Pa bein Pa. But I seent the look in that fella’s eyes. Eyes shaped like talons. I stayed woke and watched over Pa all night, listenin for that fella with a lump the size of a fist in my throat.
But he aint make his move til the next mornin.
It was cool and I was down by the river, sleepy as the dickens. When I splashed my face, water trickled into my belly button and made me feel sickly. Tryna pay it no mind, I looked up and saw a hawk soar up into the clouds. Big wide wings it had. I smiled and wished I could fly like that. Felt like if I thought about it real hard, it might could happen and I member feelin joy at that idea. Real joy til I turnt to the bank and seent the new fella standin there. He had a narrow purple-veined face and ice eyes and ivy ears that jutted outta his head like his head was too hot. Comin outta the water, hopin to pass him, I slid to the left but he moved to block me. I slid to the right and he did the same. Pa was still sleepin off his drinks so I reckoned I was gonna have to stay in the water all mornin or approach the fella straight on.
“Mornin,” I said to him with my back set straight. Fore then I aint never had a solid reason to fear a man. That aint to say I aint never been scared but til that mornin I was scared only in the silly way children got scared.
The man movin toward me was gonna change all that. He bared his gums. Them ivy ears inched up and his narrow talon eyes looked like they was sprayin ice-blue balls. He come at me hard, fists pummelin, soundin like wet pelts beatin a rock. I member lookin down and seein his white knuckles redden and that red movin into my belly button up onto my winter-pale chest like some horrid rash. I dont know why I tried to keep standin. The force of some of them blows lifted me into the air and after the last, I let myself fall into one big reddened ball with the shadow of that circlin hawk promisin to cool the back of my thumpin, sweaty neck.
I didnt tell Pa bout none a this cause e
verything bout that fella told me it could get worse. Two days passed and sleep hadnt reached me again. One early evenin I was sittin fore the fire still feelin the soreness from his blows and tired from a hard day of climbin when the new fella started watchin me. We was at the start of supper when hungry eatin usually kept things real quiet so nobody noticed but me. And my hands just started shakin. I tried to stop em but when I brung the mug a hot soup to my lips, my hand shook so hard I dropped the whole damn thing down my neck and chest. I yowled and Pa tore open my clothin, lifted my vest, tryna keep the soup from peelin away at my young skin. He cleaned me with his bare hands and noticed the purple bruises pockin me from my pits to my waist. The other men turned away like they aint wanna know the story behind them marks. Pa’s chest heaved and he stared into my eyes for a real long time searchin for an answer. He had this look on his face like he was a seventh-mornin kinda angry but he was as sober as I knowed him to be. And he knowed. And Pa aint said a word to me fore he turnt to that fella. Priebus. Yeah, that was what Pa said.
“Priebus. You put your hands on this boy?”
Priebus was bout as cool as toes without cover. “Sure didnt.”
Pa turnt to the others. “You want me to question every man in this goddamn brigade?”
Fright and dont-give-a-shit travel fast among men. Pa reminded em of the way things was fore Priebus come. How he warned em that Priebus was trouble. How Priebus had caused more of a headache than his worth. Pa told the men they was being taken for fools by a swindler who had more comin. More comin if they aint take care of him now.
It was that easy.
That easy to unchain em like animals who tasted somethin once and longed for it again. Violence is like that—a lusty girl who touches every dark chink in a man with all-knowin, all-seekin, all-willin fingertips, promisin to free him from fear.
Priebus was a man like the rest but in any man you can find difference enough to justify a punishin violence.
They went at him with fists. Fists and heels and elbows and knees on flesh and bones and teeth and pillowed ribs. I stood back not knowin how I felt that Priebus was gettin it worse than he give it to me. The skin on my stomach was wet and sticky with broth and sweat. I watched his ivy ear get smashed into dirt and that narrow face of his bloated like it thought more flesh was the answer. After what felt like a forever beatin, Pa dragged him toward a thick-veined ponderosa, pulled his arms round it, and with hemp cord, tied his wrists to the trunk.
I seent the fella in the cracks tween the men. He had a smushed face that shoulda summoned mercy. But my Pa couldnt find mercy in the dark marshes of humiliation. It seemed Pa was most riled cause of my two-day silence, the surprise of it, how it made him look weak. He was the one man Hudson’s Bay paid never to be caught not knowin. So how couldnt he know about his boy? What else had Violence done to his son with her lusty fingers? I watched the other men now. They aint have no desire to protect me, only a need to reorder the world so they couldnt be accused of weakness by the one man who held power over em. They broke Priebus cause if they didnt then it meant they seent themselves in him. In his crushed eyes. In his ribs that wouldnt member their pillowed places no more. They broke him cause they could. Cause Pa told them to. Cause I let Priebus pummel my chest and silently swallowed them bruises like berries and they never wanted to be like me—the bitch of Violence.
“Come here, boy,” Pa called to me.
The men parted. Their heavy wheezin wasnt no different than when the gripes hit camp. Theyd just finished pushin out the worst of em and it was nasty but relievin. Pa made me lift the left side of Priebus. He was heavy like a pile a wet fur and smelled sweet and foul like the first minutes of meat over a spit. Lik had already fashioned the noose. He done it quick like he done it plenty before. It was a narrow loop, and me and Pa had to flatten them ivy ears against that bloated head to get it on. A head that was just as hot as I thought itd be. Sweet and foul smellin and hot. I wanted to run. But Pa was waitin and watchin and demandin. What had Violence done to her bitch? he seemed to be wonderin.
“You know why we did this, dont you?” Pa whispered this to me but he aint want no answer. One man threw the rope over the branch of that cryin tree, and me and Pa yanked it like we was haulin a stack of skins over a ridge. Cept furs dont gurgle up yellow bile and their fingers dont wiggle and their ivy ears dont sprout fresh blood.
The dead birds lay on their backs surroundin me. I moved em closer and saw on their breasts the place on each where somebody had plucked out the arrow. Their lil bodies was almost weightless, bones so soft it woulda took only a pinch to crush em. I put em back in their places along the circle and sat crossed-legged in the middle while them island Indians watched me. The fear was in me. Fear wasnt ever lettin me alone. And them Indians seemed to know it. And Pa knowed it too. He just wanted me to understand how to get some relief from it.
1812
At the risk of soundin mad, Imma tell you I mighta walked a nother year lookin for gold, if I aint run into Mr. Abbott in Saint Joseph. You see, I couldnt let myself believe that travelin cross treacherous seas and livin months in that miserable jungle without findin gold could be right. I went there to discover somethin, become somethin. David Thompson told me once that I aint have no drive and with all my heart, I aint want him to be right.
Mr. Abbott’s top hat stuck out against a backdrop of turf roads and mud-shack fronts. I come out from the bush in search of a town but found instead a barely there village. The guard on my machete had shorn clean off and I needed help, so I sidled up next to his horse and asked if he knew a blacksmith. He got all giggly when he heard my accent, whistled, pointed down at my leather chaparajos then grinned with teeth black as crow plumes.
“The Union, you dont say? Isnt there a war raging now?”
I aint never been to the part of North America people called the Union but tryna explain the bigness of them territories beyond it woulda been like tryna explain a mountain to a blind man. So I nodded then reached cross his stallion (the nicest I seent) and offered him my hand.
“Rampley? Quite a good English name!” Then he winced like he seent somethin that wasnt quite so English. “Dont tell me youve come for gold?” He laughed. “Each year this wicked island murders a half dozen men from that Union who didnt ought to come. Men reeled in by the tall tales of mates who rather hope youll arrive with money to aid them in their continued miseries. Oh! To hear them!”
He laughed harder, and I thought that was exactly what somebody woulda said if they aint want prospectors on their island.
“You dont believe me?” Mr. Abbott climbed off the stallion and dusted his clothes and pointed to the road. “Tell me, do you think this place would look so terribly bedraggled if there were secret riches in the rivers? Wouldnt you suppose youd have run into others during the—” He took off his hat and pushed it into my chest. “Tell me, how long have you been here?”
“I suppose eighteen months or so, sir.”
He fanned the hat at me like a spinster with a parasol. “What the devil! You jest, no?” he said. “Eighteen months and not one piece of gold and youre dragging your arse back into the perilous forest to fight off that crazy lot of Amerindians? God bless you! And for what? Indeed, you must wish to die!”
I aint want no lecture. I just wanted a blacksmith. I thought to tell him I found minor deposits but there was somethin about him that made me not wanna be dishonest.
Abbott leaned over and with breath like the most wicked belly wind, he whispered, “Some of them prey on human flesh, you know. When the desire to eat their mothers falls upon them, theyre sent into the wild with the hopes that the gods will do battle against those evil spirits.” He licked the corners of his mouth. “But of course, this is not before theyve chewed on the bones of lost men like you.” He looked me in the eye and I aint knowed what to make of what he said til he chuckled. “All right, then.” He slapped me on the back. “Youll not be convinced. But all that gold wont disappear in one night. You ou
ght to come home with me, have a drink—”
“I dont drink, sir. Trying not to no more, sir.”
“Long sad story Im sure to grow quite bored with,” he said. “Well then, let me recommend you a pail of water to bathe? Then to make an end of it, I can direct you at dawn to the best blacksmith on the island, a darkie no less.”
It was kind of him, so I agreed. “And where can I find a stallion like this?”
The horse had beautiful sheathin.
“You might not believe I got him from the same darkie youll meet tomorrow,” he said. “But given that youve found no gold and have not a sixpence, I imagine the only thing youll get on with is the two tired feet youll walk there on.”
That evenin Abbott warned me that my time in Trinidad might be short-lived. That the country hadnt met its possibilities and given the Crown’s mismanagement, might never. He told me that many had been close to starvin for thirty years and that the best talents on the island had left in search of real prosperity.
The next mornin, I hurried along a macadam road wonderin what I got myself into til I spied the blacksmith’s home through some trees. As I neared, I wondered if Abbott aint mislead me, cause I aint never knowed a colored man with any somethin to his name. But the house was just what Abbott said it would be. Double doors. Two spires. Wood trim. And a rockin chair (two) under a bell on the front porch. The place wasnt big and looked to have fallen on hard times but there wasnt no mistakin that it was once a damn fine piece a house.
Book of the Little Axe Page 20
