A Place of Meadows and Tall Trees

by Clare Dudman

  Thirty-five

  The colonists are surrounded. The women and children have retreated back to the fort and for a few days they huddle together inside. Just until they see what happens. Just until then.

  Silas is lying next to Megan in Jacob’s cottage. Myfanwy is the only one who is sleeping. They have arranged layers of skins on the floor to keep out the chill of the earth, and even though they are quite comfortable they are still wide awake. When they are not talking they are listening. The sounds of the Indians are all around them: dogs barking, horses stamping the ground, children crying, adults laughing and calling out. And they can smell them too: fires burning, and meat and fat cooking on aromatic wood. Every time they try to sleep there is another waft of smell and another animal sound to remind them that they are not alone. After a year of solitude in this place they are finding it hard to bear.

  The next morning the Indians are still there. Silas creeps from Jacob’s house to the low ground outside the fort wall. He looks around. The collection of about twenty tents is like a strange miniature city; the shadows in the early morning making each tent appear longer and more important than it really is. Each opening points east, the curving skins providing a shelter from the wind that usually sweeps in from the Andes. It is very quiet and he assumes everyone is asleep; he can just see their bodies lying beside the glowing embers on the floor. Then he notices that there is one man sitting and watching, his eyes following Silas, a rifle over his lap and a dog lying on his feet. The dog pricks up his ears and then his head, and then a few other dogs notice him too and come running up; an assorted selection, some as thin as whippets, and some as docile as old sheepdogs. Perhaps these are the relatives of Antur. He holds out his hand and one of them kisses it with his nose. The dogs follow him as he walks away from the tents and the village to where the wilderness begins. He empties his bladder. The small rivulets in the sandy soil disappear instantly, leaving just the impression of their passage. The dogs come over and sniff. ‘Shoo,’ he tells them, buttoning up his trousers but they just come up closer to him and sniff again. He smiles to himself – like Benny and Polly they seem particularly interested in his crotch. ‘Go away,’ he says, waving at them with his hands but they take no notice. A few more are coming and he begins to feel uneasy; suddenly he seems to be surrounded by a pack and some of them are large and don’t look tame. When he starts to walk away quickly one of them starts to growl.

  ‘Wati!’ The man keeping guard calls out and the growling stops. ‘Wati, wati, pespesh.’ The dogs stop and slink away. Silas holds up his hand to the man in greeting, but the man doesn’t seem to see him.

  They are Yeluc’s people, the northern Tehuelche – of the same stock but loyal to a different chief. Tribes change; Yeluc has told them, drawing pictures in the sand to add to his words. They form and reform as they migrate across the desert – sometimes just a small family group, sometimes a few families coming together for the big hunt in the early summer. The winter brings the guanaco to the coast where the weather is milder; in the spring and summer they go back to the breeding ground hundreds of miles inland and wherever the guanaco go, the Tehuelche follow. It has been like this for centuries, even before the Cristianos brought the horse. Each tribe has its own territory and each member of the tribe carries a clear map of the boundaries in his head. There are trails and signs, the old man has told him, and soon he will show the Welsh exactly where they are. It will be better for everyone if they know.

  ‘What about you?’ asks Silas. ‘Where is your tribe?’

  The old man shrugs.

  ‘But you must have a tribe,’ Silas persists. He feels comfortable with the old man now, they have spent many evenings like this – smoking and talking.

  ‘Many men,’ the old man says, stirring the mud at his feet with a stick, ‘and one.’

  Silas frowns at him: ‘Stop talking in riddles.’

  The old man smiles and gradually explains with words, pictures and expressions with his hands and face. He was cast out. He draws a line between a figure representing him and the rest of the tribe.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Old one sick. They call – Yeluc, Yeluc – and Yeluc come…’ He makes a strange gesture with his hands, as if plucking something from his forehead, then holding out his hands palm downwards in front of him.

  ‘What?’ Silas frowns and then realises. He thinks Yeluc is making the sign for a spell or curse.

  Megan used to pretend she was joking when she talked about such things: old women she knew who could turn milk sour, and make children ill. She would deny believing in such things but would nevertheless avoid them if she encountered them in the street.

  ‘But she die.’ The old man allows his hands to fall back into his lap.

  Silas nods. ‘And they thought it was because of you?’

  The old man nods his head. ‘Yes, brawd.’

  ‘What happened then?’

  ‘I go. They afraid of Yeluc. I go with toldo and horses and dogs. I have Seannu. I happy.’

  ‘What about Tezza and Mareea?’

  ‘They have men. Men die. They cut hair.’ He motions with his hand across his forehead. ‘They see Seannu. They come with us.’

  Silas dabbles at the ground with a stick. ‘Don’t you mind?’ he asks. ‘Don’t you miss other men?’

  Yeluc shakes his head. ‘We meet. We talk. We trade. With Tehuelche. With white men. With bad men at Patagones.’ He smiles. ‘With the good men at Chubut. Is good. Yeluc happy.’

  Silas returns to Caradoc’s house. The old man is dozing but Jacob and Megan are awake and talking over the fire as they cook breakfast.

  ‘Are they still there?’

  Silas nods, but from the way Jacob turns away it is obvious that he already knows the answer. Yeluc comes to talk to Caradoc and Selwyn, reassuring them that all is well. Using a mixture of Spanish, Welsh and Tehuelche they manage to work out that this tribe is well known to him; Chiquichan, their chief, is an old friend. Yeluc tells them that Chiquichan will want to trade, and so all day they wait for a visit from their chief. It comes at sunset when the temperature of the air is dropping fast. Chiquichan is huge – tall like Yeluc but massively covered in flesh as well. Yeluc shows them how the chief’s mantle has had to be made larger than most with an extra couple of skins just to ensure that it overlaps at the front. He is heavy not just with flesh but silver too. He has silver clasps and pins on his cloak and trousers, silver spurs on his boots, and more silver inlaid on his saddles and bags.

  ‘He play cards,’ Yeluc says quietly, out of earshot of everyone but Silas, ‘for silver. At Patagones. He say Chiquichan win, but no. Chiquichan no win,’ the old man shakes his head. ‘They cheat. They thieves. No one win at Patagones.’ He spits on the ground.

  When Chiquichan reaches the entrance to the fort he opens his arms in greeting, exposing a rounded smooth belly that seems as stuffed full as the faggots Silas’ mother made as a treat for Christmas. He throws his head back and smiles so widely his eyes are drawn shut into slits. He reminds Silas of Polly, the way she used to roll over for him to scratch her belly. Yes, just like a dog, Silas thinks, and wonders if he is as trusting – but he suspects not. Caradoc and Selwyn step forward to greet him while Silas and Yeluc look on.

  Chiquichan grabs hold of his cloak and draws it together again with his folded arms. There is a short explosion of Spanish, and Caradoc looks at Selwyn for an interpretation.

  ‘I think he wants drink,’ Selwyn says, looking at Yeluc. ‘Is that what he said?’

  Yeluc nods. His folded arms hold his mantle closely to his body.

  Caradoc nods to Selwyn and Selwyn walks quickly into the warehouse. He returns with three bottles.

  ‘It’s all we have,’ Caradoc says, holding them out to him. ‘We don’t drink strong liquor. We have this for when we’re sick.’

  Chiquichan looks puzzled, but takes the bottles, prizes open one of the corks, sniffs and grins, then he slaps Caradoc on the back and laughs. His cl
oak falls open and through it Silas glimpses the large elaborate buckle of a belt holding up his trousers. Around his neck, half-hidden by his mantle, is a large red neckerchief. The man’s face is florid. He fires a few words at Yeluc and Yeluc replies in the same tongue.

  ‘He happy,’ Yeluc says. ‘He friend. If Chiquichan friend, then all the Chiquichan tribe is friend.’

  The chief has a grin as wide as his face. He climbs upon his horse and the animal sinks perceptibly beneath his weight so that Silas feels a pang of pity for it. Then the great cacique Chiquichan digs in his silver heels and gallops back to camp.

  The night brings more noise. There are the sounds of many hooves, snorting, dogs yapping and barking, and hushed voices calling and whistling.

  The next morning they wake to find the city of tents to the north of the river has a satellite to the south.

  ‘Gallatts,’ says Yeluc.

  The two tribes look across the water at each other.

  ‘Big meeting… aix. Many tchonik… people. Smoke, talk, trade – horses, skins, feathers, wives, anything,’ Yeluc explains enthusiastically to Caradoc and Selwyn in his usual mixture of Spanish, Welsh and Tehuelche. ‘Find women,’ he says, and smiles. ‘New blood – strong women, then strong coquetra… children.’ His voice drops.

  ‘Do you have any children?’ Silas asks Yeluc later.

  ‘Yes, many.’ He holds up all his fingers.

  ‘So where are they now?’

  ‘Gone.’ The old man’s voice is quiet. Silas has to move closer to hear. ‘Up.’ He points to the sky. ‘With gods, heroes. Ááskren… stars?’

  Silas nods.

  ‘Yes, with stars. With sun, with showan.’ Yeluc throws open his arms to include all the sky. His old eyes brim with tears. ‘To Elal and… sleep.’ He gestures with his hands, closing his eyes. ‘With old ones? Yes?’

  Silas nods. ‘In heaven.’

  ‘With stars?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good. Where dead ones go?’

  Silas nods.

  ‘Some man say up there hunting grounds. Much guanaco, much ostrich.’

  ‘Maybe there is, Yeluc.’

  ‘And in Welsh hea-ven? What there?’

  ‘My father, my...’ his voice breaks. He forces it to continue. ‘My Richard, my Gwyneth.’

  The old man reaches out to him and draws him close, holding his head firmly against his padded chest. ‘Is good, Si-las. Good place. Fine place. If they there.’

  In the morning the chief Chiquichan leads a white mare over to the entrance of the fort and leaves it there. The horse is flawlessly white, and it stamps the ground with a fine but strong hoof.

  ‘For drink,’ explains Yeluc, ‘he happy. He get drink. Gallatts did not. He very happy. He thank you.’

  Thirty-six

  After a year of seeing just the same hundred or so faces, they now have to get used to seeing more. It is too much change. They have become used to having space, spreading out, laying claim to all that they see, but now they are surrounded, and feel hindered and watched.

  The Indians allow or send their children first, peeping in at windows and around doors, and then approaching more boldly when they smell bread.

  ‘Do you want some?’ Silas asks holding out a piece of crust. The child comes closer. A little too pretty to be a boy, but long dirty hair and a band like they all have, and her own small gown of guanaco fur held around her body. She wears a thong of leather around her neck with what looks like the carcass of a very small animal hung in the middle. Silas guesses that it might be some sort of charm or talisman. No shoes of course, but then neither has Myfanwy. The child looks at the bread for a few seconds then darts forward and grabs it from him.

  ‘Like a wild animal,’ Megan tuts. ‘I know dogs with better manners.’

  The child chews carefully, her eyes never leaving them all: Silas, Myfanwy, Megan, then back to Myfanwy again. Myfanwy herself is enthralled. The two stare at each other unguardedly, and for a moment Silas wishes he were a child again, able to take in the world just for what it is, without preconceptions.

  ‘More?’ he asks, holding out another crust.

  Megan tuts again. ‘Stop that. You’re only encouraging her. We haven’t got enough food to give away.’

  This time the child comes forward more quickly.

  Silas smiles and whisks it away. ‘Bara,’ he says, ‘you say it.’

  The child steps back and looks at him.

  ‘Bara,’ repeats Myfanwy, ‘go on, you say it and he’ll give it to you.’

  The child looks from Silas to Myfanwy. The two look as if they could be the same age, although the Tehuelche is taller and more strongly built.

  ‘Bara,’ Myfanwy says again, more slowly. ‘Go on, your turn.’

  ‘Bara,’ says the child, slowly, and Myfanwy claps her hands.

  The child steps backwards at the sudden sound then smiles as Silas gives her the bread. ‘Bara,’ she says again, and Myfanwy claps. ‘Good, good, see Dadda, I’m teaching her.’

  Either the child is a quick learner or Myfanwy is a good teacher, but by the end of the day the two seem to be understanding each other enough to have built a small toldo of their own in the yard just outside the house. It consists of just a few large rocks and a blanket but the two children stay there most of the next day and the day after that.

  ‘Tomorrow Leesa is going to bring us some real skins,’ she says, ‘and we’re going to look for sticks.’

  ‘Well don’t go far.’

  Within a week there is a small tribe of six making their own village outside Silas’ back door. When he goes past them he listens to them. They seem to be developing their own language. There are a few words of Welsh that he recognises but the rest is strange, probably Indian or something else they’ve made up. They play intensely and seriously, hardly noticing his passing.

  In the village the visitors are older and more intrusive. ‘They never leave us alone,’ Annie says, during one of her visits for tea. ‘Every hour I have one at the door, begging for something or offering me an ostrich feather or one of their smelly blankets. What do I want with that?’

  Silas murmurs that being surrounded by so many must make things feel a little awkward.

  ‘Worse than surrounded,’ Annie says, ‘invaded.’

  She presses down her dress, proud of the tiny bulge that lies beneath there. Even a friendly invasion is tiresome, she says. ‘I don’t feel I can leave the house otherwise they’ll be in there, helping themselves to whatever they can find.’

  When no one replies she continues. ‘It’s the young boys who are the worst. You know, if they come in the house, I have to turn them upside down and shake them before I let them leave? And usually something comes falling out, doesn’t it, Sel?’

  Selwyn nods. Silas smiles – with a wife like Annie, Selwyn rarely finds the need to speak.

  ‘A spoon, or a knife, or something like a thimble. Anything shiny, and anything useful.’

  Silas and Selwyn laugh.

  ‘It’s not funny.’

  She turns her back to them. ‘I’m sorry to have to say this, Megan, but I blame Jacob. He’s too keen to please, too keen to let them do just as they want without anyone saying anything. Children, he says. Well I don’t think they are innocent at all. I think they know exactly what they’re doing. And anyone with any sense could see that.’

  Megan slams down a cup of tea in front of her with such force that some of it slops over the side onto the table.

  She is frowning, but Annie doesn’t seem to notice. ‘Thank you,’ she says, smiling happily. ‘You’ll have to come to our place after chapel next week.’

  ‘I’m not going anywhere near her,’ Megan says after they have gone, ‘and I wish she wouldn’t come here.’ She narrows her eyes. ‘Do you invite them, Silas? Is that why she comes?’

  ‘I thought you could do with the company. I thought you liked her.’

  ‘Why on earth did you think that? All those stupid things sh
e says. Indians, my brother, thieves. Of course it takes one to know one.’ She sits at the table. ‘You know where she comes from, don’t you?’ She doesn’t wait for him to reply. ‘The docks at Swansea, with all the prostitutes and pimps.’

  ‘Megan!’

  ‘It’s true, Silas, you know it is.’ She picks up Annie’s cup and drops it into a bowl of water so that the suds splash against her clothes. She brushes herself down with quick angry movements. ‘When she’s not talking about that, it’s her stupid morning sickness, babies, birth, whether she wants a boy… or a girl.’ Her voice breaks, and he reaches out to her but she shoves him away. ‘The woman has no sensitivity, no regard for how other people feel.’ She buries her face in her hands. ‘I don’t want to hear, Silas, I don’t want to know. I just want to be left alone.’

  But Mary says that Annie talks because she is afraid. Silas has come looking for Myfanwy, knowing where she’ll be. The little group of friends have moved camp to the Jones’ house because Mary is more generous with treats and gentler with her tongue than Megan. They are all sitting inside their dilapidated-looking skins contentedly munching on crusts of bread. Inside the house sits Seannu with Mareea and another woman Silas doesn’t recognise.

  ‘We’re having a chat,’ she tells him. ‘Miriam’s making notes.’

  The girl looks up and grins at him. She had been so quiet in the corner he hadn’t noticed her. ‘There’s so much they know – a herb for everything. Miriam’s writing it down and trying to guess what they mean.’

  It was Annie who gave her the idea, Mary says. Annie with her cure for sickness and her anxiety for something to help her when her time comes. ‘Her mother died in childbirth, and left her penniless. Now she’s frightened. I know it’s difficult to believe, but she is. She told me that she heard her mother scream, as if she were being ripped in two. But I’ve told her, she’s big-boned, it’ll be to her advantage. It’s midgets like me who have to worry.’ She smiles. ‘Not that I’ve ever had much trouble.’