by Clare Dudman
Spring is coming and Annie swells a little with each month. The colonists wait for the rain clouds to come and for the Indians to move on but the Indians remain where they are and the sky stays clear. There is talk among the colonists of a conspiracy. It seems too much of a coincidence that both tribes have arrived at the same place at the same time and are staying so long. Even Jacob and Caradoc agree.
‘They’re trying to intimidate us,’ Caradoc says, ‘but if that’s their plan they can think again.’
There is a murmur of agreement, but then Jacob clears his throat and fixes his pale unblinking eyes on one face after the other. ‘We must remember that they’re children,’ he says. ‘Remember they belong to the Lord just as much as we do.’
The men around him fidget and Annie Williams looks down at her hands.
‘We must treat them with kindness.’
‘Yes, give them no reason to attack,’ agrees Caradoc.
‘But what if they do? What if they’re in their tents now, sharpening their spears?’
‘Then there is nothing we can do.’
And for a time everyone is silent remembering stories: the attack at Bahía Blanca and at the Península Valdés. But they were Puelche, Caradoc reminds them, the smaller, more vicious race to the north, well known for their raids and aggressive behaviour. Like the Chiquichan, the Gallatts are Tehuelche in the main, the Puelche element subdued by the relative calmness of their leaders.
If only he had known what he knows now, Silas thinks, he would still be safe in Wales with a family of children. Sometimes he dreams he has gone home again and Richard is there. He wakes with the taste of their conversation still in his mouth and for a few seconds he remains in a more pleasant land, unwilling to wake.
He tries to fill his mind with his life as it is now: Myfanwy, Megan, his cottage, this farm. He walks around the house from sun to shade then sun again. This time last year their houses were dissolving around them in the rain. Now the sky is cloudless, the sun bleaching it with an intense white heat. No wonder the crops are wilting. It was never like this in Wales – there the heavens could be relied upon to open at tediously regular intervals. They inspect the soil – underneath the surface, which is dry and cracked, the ground is still wet from the winter’s ample drenching. But they throw on water, bucket after bucket, careful not to scorch the leaves, but anxious to keep the ground wet. It does no good. It must be that the earth is poor, and perhaps by watering it they are making it poorer – all the goodness is leaching out, flowing back into the river. The crops go from green to yellow to brown. They look at Caradoc, but he can find little to say. In his thick suit he is feeling hot and tired. ‘Keep trying, brodyr,’ he says, quietly – and rather hopelessly.
The heat is affecting the Indians too. Their youth are becoming boisterous – one night they gather up their horses and tear around the village and settlements, whooping and snapping their whips into the air. The cattle moan and the villagers hide in their homes, fearing for their animals and what is left of their crops. In the morning they inspect the churned-up mud and count their livestock. The next evening it happens again while the Welsh watch: the young men gathering like a pack in each camp then gathering their animals, their voices and laughs becoming louder and more excited. This time the ride finishes with a mock battle between the young of the Gallatts and the Chiquichan. They shout, charge and laugh into the night and the air smells strongly of burning and fat.
Yeluc sits placidly in front of his fire and smokes his pipe, smiling as Silas winces at each whoop and nearby gallop.
‘Can’t you stop them,Yeluc? They’re driving everyone mad.’
The old Tehuelche shakes his head. ‘Even Yeluc young, long time ago. Even Si-las. No?’
‘I was never young like that.’
‘No?’ The old man regards him, calmly. ‘Silas good? Quiet? Sleep all the time?’ He smiles, and Silas smiles back.
‘Maybe I made just a little bit of noise,’ he says. Maybe he did, but that was in another life. Far away, long ago, but all he has to do is close his eyes and he is back there again.
The streets full of people and the market square crammed with stalls. A puppet show, a fortune-teller, and a man who promises to cure toothache by extracting all the teeth. Stalls with potions, ointments and liniments and ridiculous claims, but best of all the seven wonders: a gigantic man and a midget, a man with six fingers on each hand and seven toes on each foot, a woman who can fold herself up so she can fit into a bucket, a man with so much hair he looks like a monkey, the fattest woman in the world and a woman with no ears.
Then that girl. Long brown hair shining as it fell down her back. A smile that made everything else disappear. A glimpse. Just a glimpse but he longs for more.
‘Do you remember the fair?’ he asks Megan, and she nods sadly and squeezes his hand. Another world. One far away now.
A dance in the night. Great braziers along the front. A band playing the tune of a fast dance. A complicated running in and out, swooping forward, breaking off and looping hands, pairing and breaking free, shouting, laughing, kissing. Lips that purse, lips that stay open, lips that reach for his and lips that peck. But not her lips. Fat hands giving way to thin hands: hands that are rough with hard work swap with hands that are slightly smoother. But not her hands. Grabbing, holding, grabbing again and letting go. One girl and then the next, but not her, not the one. Circles, rings, pairs. Girls that hold themselves stiff and girls that don’t, girls that shirk away and girls that grab back. Girls that hold you and then hold you closer, girls that wait for you to kiss and then make you kiss deeper. Girls that smell of the field and taste of fresh butter. Then at last the one that smells of bread and tastes even better. Brown hair knotted and gnarled but her smile still intact. Megan. The one. He’d reached out and held on. Kissed her and not let her go. Knew then that he’d never let her go. Not ever.
Ah, it seems like another life now. Another Megan. That girl and then this woman. That night and now this one. Noise and now quiet. A joyous expectation and now nothing.
Thirty-seven
In the field by the river each shoot is limp and brown; some lie flat against the ground. There is something in the ground, Megan says it is some malicious spirit drowning or poisoning everything that they do. Everything dies here, he thinks, everything withers – crops and children. The shadow returns suddenly, swamping everything, weakening him. Shuddering, he kneels beside one of his shrivelled shoots and supports it with his fingers. No one can survive here. It’s hopeless. He pulls the shoot from the ground and with a shout throws it towards the river. It flutters weakly and lands close to his feet. He picks it up again and with a roar runs and throws it again. This time it reaches the water. It floats and is rapidly carried to a rock pool and is caught out of reach.
John Jones has a new horse.
‘Three loaves and a bag of sugar,’ he says, happily, patting the animal’s rump. ‘I’ve been promised another one for tomorrow.’
‘But that’s not enough,’ says Jacob, ‘you’re cheating them, surely.’
John shrugs. It is Sunday and Jacob has just finished the morning service. Mary has stayed at home with her children as usual. She has been little seen for two months claiming that her children cannot be seen in public because they have nothing decent to wear, so today John has come for all of them – and to show off his horse. Silas admires it with everyone else. It will do to pull the cart he says, and John nods his head vigorously – he has talked enough for one day. He whispers into the horse’s ear and the horse shivers slightly. Then, with the aid of a clack from John’s mouth and a twitch on the reins, the horse and rider trot off to their house to the west.
‘Well, the Indians have horses to spare, I suppose,’ says Silas.
‘And I’m sure John would not have haggled.’
Caradoc and Silas catch each other’s eyes and Caradoc gives one of his rare smiles. The thought of John Jones saying more than a couple of words to the Indians – or
indeed anyone at all – is comically unlikely.
‘Maybe I ought to do a bit of trading of my own,’ Silas says, ignoring Jacob’s tut.
‘Remember their innocence,’ Jacob says.
‘Yes, I shall.’
But before Silas can do much to protect that innocence the Indians are gone. One group and then the other. Silas sees them passing his land early in the morning, following the guanaco, going west towards the Andes and the summer-breeding grounds, over a hundred of them, like ants from a disturbed nest, each one on horseback, the women carrying babies in cradles on their backs, and the horses laden down with poles and skins.
The number of them disturbs him – they seem more powerful like this, one after the other, each one astride a horse with a few more horses trotting between. Silas sits where he is, caught in a hollow in his dry field, out of sight, pressed against the ground, not moving, not even breathing, trying to see their cottage and wishing Megan and Myfanwy had stayed in the village with the rest. But the Indians stream past peaceably, the young men making sorties to the land each side to pick up rocks, and once to peer inside Silas’ brick store at the edge of his field and Silas stiffens as they look towards his cottage as if they are considering going there, but do not, until the last Indian stops beside him and looks, looks right at him, just looks and looks.
For a short time after the rest of his people have gone Yeluc lingers. He seems reluctant to go. He tells Silas he feels old, too old to keep moving and Silas looks at him surprised. But that’s what you do, isn’t it? That’s what you’ve always done? The Tehuelche can’t stop, can they?
‘Sometimes we stop, Sil-as. Sometimes Elal call us. Sometimes he call our children. He take them on big bird in sky. Then we stop. Then we bless land, the big bird go in sky with children in feathers. Ah, Elal – he stop me many times.’
Whenever a white swan comes close Yeluc inspects it to see if it belongs to Elal. ‘That how Elal go, Si-las. On back. In feathers. Some day we go too. We fly up to stars.’
‘Is that the only time you’ve stopped, Yeluc?’
The old man shakes his head and sighs. ‘No, ffrind, one time I stop with white man, with Cristianos.’ He spits. ‘I live with Cristianos. They give me name. Antonio.’ He sings it again, bitterly, one syllable after the other, ‘An - ton - i - o.’ He stops. ‘Is white man name. Is not name my mother give.’
‘Your father is Cristianos?’
Yeluc laughs. ‘No, no, she love the white man game. She play like this.’ He mimes the dealing of cards with his hands. ‘She not win. She give Yeluc away as prize. So I white man’s child. I learn write, read. Many things. Then one day white man die too. Only wife left. Go live with pigs, she say. You dirty like them. So I run. I find my own kind and then I run again. They not like Antonio. Antonio sees spirits, ghosts. Bad things. Make bad things happen. So I Yeluc now.’ He looks up at Silas. ‘We run, yes? All of us. Cristianos, Gallatts, Tehuelche. Run, run, run. All the time. Why, Si - las? Why we always run?’
The afternoon before he departs Yeluc visits Mary’s kitchen with Seannu, Tezza and Mareea. Mary has put on a little party for them all and feeds them with freshly-made bread, cakes full of local berries and black tea. She has taken her best white tablecloth and covered their table. Yeluc’s eyes open wide and seem unable to move from the table even when Silas speaks to him. His wife and her two sisters grab the freshly cut bread and ram it quickly into their mouths before they have even reached the table. Mary is trying not to smile. Silas can see her lips whiten with the effort to keep them still. Yeluc sips cautiously at his tea, declares it even better than whisky, then sits back in his chair.
‘We go, my friend.’
‘I know, we’ll miss you.’
‘We come back. Soon.’
For a few minutes they all drink and eat in silence.
‘We pass our children,’ Yeluc says suddenly.
Silas frowns and looks at Megan, who is sitting quietly and still in the corner. ‘Where they’re buried?’ he asks.
‘Yes, ffrind. We not talk. We listen. We know, here.’ He slaps his chest then looks at Silas. ‘They play, my friend, together – a happy place – in the stars.’
Silas swallows and looks at Megan. She sips at her tea and looks ahead at the wall. ‘We believe our children go to Christ, Yeluc,’ she says suddenly.
‘Christ? You believe in Christ like Cristianos? Like thieves at Patagones?’
‘Of course.’
‘But you not Cristianos. Cristianos cheat, lie, thieve. You not Cristianos...’ He bangs the table with his fist so all the women around the table start. ‘No! Not Cristianos. You different tribe – Galenses, Hermanos. Not Cristianos.’ He stands up, sweeps Mary, John, Miriam, Silas and Megan up to him one by one and then steps back again. ‘My friends. Galenses. Not Cristianos. No.’
He hugs them all again and then stands by the door while his women too are hugged.
‘We back soon. We not forget.’
August turns into September and then October. It is spring, a time of showers and wind, a time when crops should be bursting forth, sprouting upwards. A spring, in the wrong months, perhaps, but still a spring – but not this – not three months with hardly any rain at all. If the crops were not already dead they would perish now. In November the weather turns hot. Caradoc calls a meeting of everyone and they cram into the warehouse – men, women and children. Everyone waits, muscles tense. Caradoc’s voice is strained and high. He tries to retrieve his joviality from a few months ago but fails. They have been in Patagonia sixteen months, he tells them, two winters, two springs and are on the verge of another summer. They have survived so far but can they hope to survive any longer? He goes from one man to the next, asking for reports. Silas feels Megan slump beside him and sigh. He points to each man in turn, waiting for his response.
‘No yield,’ Jacob says and hangs his head. Even the way he sits is subdued.
‘No yield,’ repeats his neighbour after him, his voice dull and exhausted.
‘Nor me.’
‘Enough for a mouse, no more.’
‘Nothing, nothing at all.’
‘Silas?’
‘None from me, either. It’s pointless. No one can live here.’
‘John Jones?’
‘Nothing – like everyone else.’ Mary answers for her husband. ‘Things grow at first but then something happens. It’s the same everywhere.’
‘Selwyn?’
‘Nothing.’
Everyone is quiet, waiting.
‘We should leave,’ says Annie, ‘we should run down what is left of the livestock and leave,’ and this time several people murmur their agreement. Silas looks around. Everyone is nodding.
‘Somebody is going to have to tell the government in Buenos Aires. No matter what they say we can’t stay here.’
Thirty-eight
The Denby, the ship that Selwyn bought to bring back their supplies from Buenos Aires and wrecked on the sand bar, is their only way out. For two months they work together patching it up using parts from the ancient wreck that lies further downstream. Silas is happy. He feels lighter, as if something has flown from him. They will go somewhere else. All of them. They will start again. Together. There are enough of them to ensure their Welsh and their culture will survive. They will be free of the English, the cold, the dryness and they will be free of Edwyn Lloyd. The man still haunts the place. He is there in the houses, the distribution of the plots of land, the track in between them – even in the pattern that the plough makes as it turns over the toxic soil.
It is decided that Selwyn, Caradoc, Jacob and Silas will make the voyage to Buenos Aires. Caradoc assures everyone the ship is now seaworthy, but it seems uneasily balanced on the water, and when Silas is about to leave Megan grips his arm. ‘It’s not safe. Don’t go.’ Her voice is strained as if she is trying to keep herself from crying.
‘All will be well,’ he says and tries to hold her to him but she shakes him off.
; ‘I don’t want any of you to go.’ She goes on to her brother, clings onto him, tries to pull him away from the gangplank. ‘Megan!’ he says, ‘what’s wrong with you? It’s just a short journey up the coast, nothing to be afraid of.’
‘It doesn’t matter how short it is,’ she says, then her voice gives way to a wail, ‘don’t leave me.’
Annie tries to comfort her, but she bats her aside. She watches, breathing hard, while the gangplank falls away and a small stretch of water separates them.
‘There was a halo around the moon last night,’ she cries out, ‘didn’t you see? It’s a bad omen. There’s going to be a storm, like there was on the Maria Theresa. You’ll drown, all of you, and I’ll have no one left.’
Silas tells them he’ll stay behind, but Annie reassures him. ‘Don’t worry, Silas, Mary and I will take care of her. She’s tired, that’s all it is.’
A new moon. She hadn’t mentioned it to him – but recently she’d become more secretive and querulous. Another child hadn’t come, and she’d been looking for reasons: single birds, lights in the dark, even something breaking unexpectedly when she cooked, were all signs of some malign presence. She had always tended to ponder over such things looking for a meaning: omens, spirits, the Tylwyth Teg – all these rested uneasily alongside ideas of God and the Holy Spirit. Megan believed firmly in everything.
They watch her from the deck as the ship moves away. Annie helps her slowly up the beach. When they are no bigger than matchsticks one of them waves from the headland. Maybe that was Megan, Silas hopes, but he knows he is wrong.
It takes them a couple of weeks to travel up the coast. It is February, midsummer, when they approach the vast estuary of the Río de la Plata and the clear water of the Atlantic becomes turbid.
