“Yes, ma’am, I’m afraid that’s true,” Gage said unhappily. “I guess I’m just an ignorant gaje myself. When I heard you all praying this morning I thought you were chanting, or something. I have to admit it’s been a great surprise to me to find that you’re such a good Christian, ma’am.”
“Pah, who is a good Christian? Anyway, a lot of those sayings are true. Many of my people are just like that; the women want to be fortunetellers, mystical, wise, able to see the future. Dukkering, the chovihani, miry deary Dovvel hates it. And to most of the Gypsies, it is all tricking, anyway, they tell the silly gaje they must have money, only then can they see their futures, then they tell them a bunch of shesti. And there are Romany that are liars and cheats and thieves and adulterers and murderers.” She shrugged. “We’re just like other peoples. There are good and bad, smart and dumb, foolish and wise, heathen and Christian. It’s just that we’ve gotten so that we hide everything about us from the gaje. So they see what they want to see.”
“Yes, ma’am, I understand,” Gage said thoughtfully.
“Anyway, I want to tell you my truth I learned from you,” she continued in a lighter tone. “My favorite Bible book is Proverbs. I understand Proverbs, most of them, anyway. And what I’ve always taught is that the gaje, the ones who mistreat us, who hate us, who think we’re dirty and liars and thieves, will pay for their wickedness, miry deary Dovvel promises over and over again that He will make them pay.”
“That’s very true,” Gage said, mystified. “I hope I haven’t done something wicked that you think I’m getting away with.”
She chuckled. “No, no, that’s not the lesson.” Again she put down her sewing to look directly at him. “Yesterday, I needed help, and it was surprising that a gaje would take such care of a Gypsy, and then be so generous as to give me the medicine, without taking money for it when Nadyha offered. But the real lesson came when you asked us for help. No one has ever asked a Gypsy for help. At least, not that I know of. And that was when I started thinking that Gypsies need to help others too. All my life I’ve thought that since we were so despised, that the gaje should give to us, and they should pay when they treat us badly. The only help Gypsies must give is to our familia, our vitsi, our kumpania. And I remembered Jesus said even the publicans, the trickster choros do that. How much more should we give?”
Gage grinned engagingly. “Uh-oh. It’s been my experience that once the Lord taught me something like that about myself, it seemed like every time I turned around it was slap-up in my face. I hope you don’t get run over by needy gajes, Baba Simza.”
“It would be good for us, maybe. Especially Nadyha. She learns this hard lesson from you too, Gage. She would never admit it, but I know, I see her thinking about it. She’s quick. And I can tell you that this is the only reason she ever would have asked you and Dennis to come here, to stay with us. I think the lesson hits her hard, too,” she said with satisfaction.
“Is she a Christian, ma’am? I can’t quite make it out, with her.”
Simza sighed. “She knows God, she knows Jesus from when she was just young, a bitti chavi. But now she’s angry, she wonders, she can’t think of why things are the way they are, she doesn’t like this, she doesn’t like that. So she draws away, she makes fun, she has the smart lips. Hai. She thinks she forgets God, but He won’t forget her.”
WHILE HE AND SIMZA were talking, he watched the others as they began their day. As Niçu had said, these people worked. Nadyha, tucking her hair up into a wide-brimmed straw hat, went off into the woods with a small spade, a rake, and some hand tools. Boldo the bear followed her, and then with deadly silent grace Anca padded off down the path behind them. Mirella tended to the fire, making preparations for dinner and supper. Then she began to weave baskets. Niçu got his armorer’s forge going and began working with sheets of tin.
Gage decided to go hunting, as Denny seemed to be resting quietly. The pickings were easy in this stretch of thick woods, and just to the east of the ridge was a canebrake that covered several square miles. He went there, and came back in the early afternoon, his gamebag full, and carrying a trussed wild boar slung over his shoulder.
He greeted Baba Simza, who was still sitting in her chaise sewing, and went to the lean-to. Niçu was sharpening a knife, and Gage stopped for a moment to watch in admiration. Niçu had made a sword-like handle for a long tapering whetstone, and he sharpened the butcher knife by clashing them back and forth, as if sword-fighting himself. The butcher knife glinted keenly in the sun.
Gage went to the lean-to worktable, threw the boar down on it with a grunt, and began to unload his game bag. Neatly he started lining up his birds, eight doves and two of the large quails called chukars. Mirella, Niçu, and Nadyha joined him. Slowly Niçu reached out and picked up a bird. It was headless, with a piece of twine tied tightly around its throat.
“So you climbed a tree and strangled these birds?” he rasped.
Gage grinned. “Not hardly. But I tied them up at the neck so they wouldn’t uh—lose all the—uh—you, know, in my game bag.”
“Blood?” Nadyha suggested. “And you also shot the boar in the eye so you wouldn’t have to see all that blood?”
“I just—I forgot to ask, before I went hunting,” Gage said with some confusion. “You were so upset about my red shirt, and I remembered that we haven’t had any meat to eat, and then I got afraid that maybe the red, because it’s the color of blood, you know—”
Mirella, Niçu, and Nadyha exchanged amused glances. “Gypsies eat meat, Gage,” Nadyha explained as if to a small child. “Yes, the lalo color is unclean to us because of blood, but only mahrime, unclean blood, from sickness, wounds, things like that.”
“Do you tell me you shot the heads off these birds? Really?” Niçu said in wonder. “And the boar, exactly in the eye! You must be a really good shot.”
“Yeah, I always have been,” Gage said casually. “It just comes naturally to me somehow. So, if you’ll show me where I can dress out this boar—maybe somewhere outside the camp?”
Niçu said, “Behind the lean-to, there’s a low-hanging branch, we can hang it up. It’ll be easier. C’mon, I’ll help you, Gage.”
“Okay. Ladies, I’ll be glad to clean those birds, too. I’ve gotten really good at it.”
Mirella said, “No, Nadyha and I will do it.” Her eyes sparkled as she looked at the boar, then at Niçu. “Guess for supper tonight?”
With relish Niçu rubbed his hands together and said, “Gója!”
Retrieving a stout rope from the lean-to, he and Gage went to the back and strung up the boar. Gage heard slow heavy breathing behind him and turned to see Anca sitting there watching them. Her deep golden gaze was one of intense interest. Her tongue came out and licked her three-inch, razor-sharp fangs. Her head almost reached Gage’s waist. “Uh—hello there,” he said weakly, stopping his dressing.
Niçu turned, saw the cougar, and shrugged. “She loves boar, it’s just about all she hunts.”
“Is that right. Think she wants this one? ’Cause for my part she can have it if she wants it.”
“Yes, she’s definitely expecting a nice haunch when we get through.” Then Niçu went on quietly, “You know, the reason we don’t have much meat is because I don’t know how to shoot. The Perradoses, they never let us have guns.”
“I haven’t heard about the Perradoses yet,” Gage said. “But if you want to learn how to shoot, I’ll teach you.”
“You will?” Niçu said excitedly. “So I can shoot like you?”
He was, after all, only about twenty or twenty-one, Gage had guessed. With a pang he realized that, at twenty-five years old, he felt immeasurably older than Niçu. “Maybe,” Gage said cautiously. “But I’d want to teach you on my Mississippi rifle. This rifle, my Whitworth”—it was still slung over his shoulder and he pulled it to cradle it in his arms—“is a sharpshooter’s weapon, it’s so accurate—”
Niçu interrupted him, “What’s a sharpshooter?”
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br /> “Some of us were very good with a rifle, so we were chosen to go in close to the enemy, find a good ‘hide,’ and shoot them one at a time. Because most of the time you can’t get closer than a half-mile or so, we had these special rifles.”
Slowly Niçu said, “You shot them one at a time . . . from a half-mile away?”
“Or maybe a little more.” Gage was clearly uncomfortable with the conversation, so he went on in a lighter tone, “So this is a special rifle, and it takes special ammunition, and I don’t have a whole lot left. I have a couple of boxes of cartridges for the Mississippi, though. But I do like to use my Whitworth for hunting. It messes up small game too much unless it’s a head shot.”
“And the boar?” Niçu asked, his depthless eyes glinting.
“Aw, that was just for fun.”
They finished dressing out the boar, and Anca took her quarter haunch from Gage’s hand as delicately as a lady picking up a petits four. Dragging it, she walked out into the woods.
Gage and Niçu went to wash up at the pump, and Gage saw Boldo, whose fat torso was completely wrapped up in honeysuckle vines. The bear was happily pulling pieces of the vines off and stuffing them into his mouth. One long vine was twisted around his head like a garland. Gage laughed. “Seeing that one, it’s hard to believe that bears can be so vicious.”
Niçu said evenly, “You’ve seen bears that are vicious, have you?”
“No, I’ve just heard the stories.”
“They aren’t, you know, unless you threaten them, or unless you blunder up on a mother with cubs. Their favorite foods are vines and berries and roots and especially honey. Not people.”
“And crawfish,” Gage added. “He loved them.”
“Yes, they do love fish. And occasionally they might grab a rabbit or a squirrel, if they’re really hungry. But Nadyha never lets Boldo have any meat. She doesn’t want him to get a taste for it.”
“Smart,” Gage murmured. Boldo was small even for a black bear, which was of the smallest species. He was perhaps five feet tall when reared up, about three feet on all fours. Of course, he had the huge paws and deadly claws, but on Boldo they were just kind of funny, as he tried to handle things like crawfish and honeysuckle flowers.
That night Gage found out what gója was, and he thoroughly approved, and decided that he wasn’t, after all, sick of onions. Mirella had stuffed the boar, not with cornbread or white bread, but with grated potatoes, diced onions, tiny pieces of boiled quail, and rice, seasoned it with an assortment of herbs, and then had baked it all afternoon long. It was mouthwatering. For Denny and Baba Simza, who were still on rather restricted diets, she had boiled a squab, picked out the tenderest darkest meat, and had made a rich brown broth. They were gathered by Baba Simza’s chair in the fall of the evening, drinking the strong black coffee that the Gypsies loved, and talking. Denny sat in one of the cane chairs next to her, while Gage, Niçu, and Mirella sat cross-legged by them in the cool deep mint.
“I want to tell you a lil,” Baba Simza said. Niçu, Mirella, and Nadyha set down their tin coffee cups and came to attention.
“Long ago was a Big Man gajo, a powerful and cruel man with much land, much treasure, and many slaves. He found the Romany camping in one of his pastures, by a stream, and he hated them. He said if they didn’t leave by the day after, he would have all of the men hung and he would enslave all of the women and children.
“That night the Romany gathered up their camp and left at dawn. As they were on the road, they saw this Big Man, this cruel gajo, on the side of the road. He had been robbed, and stripped, and beaten so bad he might be dying.”
Gage noticed that Niçu, Mirella, and Nadyha exchanged rather confused glances. A trace of a smile played on Baba Simza’s leathery lips.
“All of the Romany were happy to see the Big Man there, and hoped he would die. They said he should pay for his sins, for he was hated not just by them but by the slaves and freedmen and all the peoples around him. And so they went on, vardo and vardo and vardo, and all of them looked down on him lying there bleeding, and said to themselves that so it should be.
“Now there was one young romoro, who did well because he was a goldsmith, and he was to be married soon. As he drove by in his vardo, he looked down at the Big Man and felt pity and sorrow in his heart. He stopped, and then the vitsi stopped. ‘I must help the Big Man,’ the romoro said.
“And his vitsi all called him a dilo, and said he was stupid because once the man was found, it might even be said that the Gypsies had done this to him, and he would probably be hung if he tried to help the Big Man. And his young chavi pleaded with him, and the Rom Baro and the Phuri Dae forbid him, but it did no good. And so the vitsi left the romoro and the Big Man.
“The romoro picked up the Big Man and laid him on his bed in his vardo, and then went to the next village, to the gaje doctor, and said, ‘Here are clothes for him, and fine boots, and here is money. Will you take care of him?’ And the doctor said he would, because it was a good sum of gold coins.”
She sat back and studied her grandchildren, then said with emphasis, “Amaro deary Dovvel blessed that romoro for his mercy. He married and had many children, and when he died he sat at the Lord’s Wedding Feast in a place of honor. Hai, Lord Jesus, may it be so for me and mine.”
DENNY HAD A QUIET night, with no fever and only three coughing spells. Though he could give himself his medicine now, Gage still woke up and gave it to him, then sat with him until the coughing spells passed, and took the rags to the fire pit. Still, it was more sleep than either Denny or Gage had had for many days.
Niçu wanted Gage to give him a little target practice before they went hunting. Niçu said, “Let me show you something.” He went into the lean-to and led Gage around to the back, where the horses’ bales of hay were stacked. Niçu tucked the top of a canvas square just above his head between two bales of hay and unfolded it; it was a target, a series of black circles from large to the small center. It already had many holes it it, Gage noticed. Seeing his curious look, Niçu said, “I’ll show you.” From the lean-to he brought out an upright block with eight knives stuck hilt-up in it. “Hold this,” Niçu commanded Gage.
Then, casually but swiftly, swit-thoomp, swit-thoomp seven times, and seven of the knives stuck out of the target in a precise small circle around the bullseye. With a flourish Niçu picked up the last knife, threw it, and it landed exactly in the center of the circle.
Gage’s blue eyes were alight. “I’ve never seen anything like that before! That’s really something, Niçu. With your eye, I don’t think you’re going to have any trouble learning to shoot.”
“So can we use the target?” Niçu asked eagerly.
Gage shook his head. “Sorry. Rifle bullets travel a long, long way. I’m afraid we’d do some damage in the lean-to, and we might shoot Baba Simza or, heaven forbid, one of Nadyha’s pets. No, I’ll tell you what we can do. I’ll take you out to the canebrake, where I was hunting yesterday. All those tall stalks of cane, it’s easy to pick out a target, near or far. And I’ll bet you’ll bag something today, too, Niçu. Seems like you’re a good man with a weapon.”
Niçu splintered lots of tall reeds, shot several cattails in the head, and brought down a wild turkey. He lamented that it wasn’t a head shot, but Gage said, “It was a clean high chest shot, front-on, Niçu. A good shot, especially for your very first time with a rifle in your hands.”
Niçu swelled with pride and, when they got back to camp, told Mirella in excited Gypsy, with much gesticulation, about every single reed, cattail, and the wiles of the turkey.
Gage found Denny now sitting up, his back against a very thick pillow propped up against a tree. To Gage’s amusement, Matchko the cat was sitting on Denny’s lap, his one eye half-closed, his paws tucked primly under his chest. Denny was stroking his head. “Nadyha said I could,” he said defensively.
“What? Sit up, or pet the cat?” Gage said as he sat down beside Denny’s pallet.
; “Both. But it seems like this dumb cat decided that I must be here for the sole reason of petting him,” Denny said with mock disgust. “I’m the only one around here that’s not working.”
“Yeah, and measles and pneumonia’s no excuse for it, either. You should be ashamed of yourself.”
“Oh, I am,” Denny said unconvincingly. “How’d Niçu do? He looks and sounds pretty excited. Bet he didn’t shoot it in the eye like you do.”
“He did real good for his first time. And you gotta see him throw knives, I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Denny looked at him curiously. “Hey, Gage? Can you shoot as well with handguns as with a rifle?”
Gage smiled a little. “I had a captain that loved to have competition between us sharpshooters. We were all pretty good, you know, so it kinda got to where one was about as accurate as the other. My captain got bored with the Whitworths, so we started having handgun competitions with the officers’ Army Colts. That was fun, I wish I could afford a pistol. Anyway, yeah, like I’ve told you before, it just kinda comes natural to me. I usually won. Why?”
“Oh, just curious,” Denny said casually. He turned to watch the Gypsies.
Gage followed his gaze. Mirella and Nadyha were working at the campfire, Nadyha making coffee and Mirella brewing tea. It was odd, Gage thought, he never really noticed what Nadyha and Mirella wore, because it was so plain, just a faded gray or blue skirt; plain blouse with short, puffed sleeves and high, rounded necklines. They tied their hair up with bright ribbons, the only color on them. Baba Simza had worn the headscarf called the diklo, and patterned skirts and colored blouses. Gage suspected she only did it because she wasn’t up working. The women, Gage had observed, always went barefoot while Niçu wore boots. Nice boots, of good leather, with one-inch heels, taller than average.
The River Palace: A Water Wheel Novel #3 Page 10
