My Name Is a Knife

by Alix Hawley

  —And no need to keep telling everyone what a villain I am. We have all heard it. You can do that after the Shawnee have come. Your talk is doing no good at such a time.

  He knows just what I am telling him, but he snorts:

  —Your concern for morale touches me, Daniel, but forgive me if I have trouble believing in it.

  I fight down the anger stirring in my gut. I say quiet:

  —I thought you had my soul in mind. Ought we to believe all you say, Hancock? William? Are you quite well?

  Hancock lies back and flaps a hand:

  —We have believed you too often. The men left behind in that dirty Indian town believed you would get them out. What will your Indian friends do with them now? Kill them certainly, if they have not done it already, before they come here to kill us. My belief is only in the Lord to keep His people safe and take us straight to the Promised Land when our time comes.

  —The time may come soon, it may come today, and you lying here in bed.

  He begins to pray loud. Ned and Martha bend their heads, and I say:

  —Well Ned, I did not know the two of you for such believing Baptists. Forgot your Quaker boyhood, brother? Got yourself baptized down at the creek?

  Ned looks up, his face innocent. Darling Neddy, always Ma’s pet and everyone else’s. Hancock takes up his Bible as if he would beat me with it:

  —You know all about false baptisms. Look what the filthy Indians tried to do to us in that cold river. They tried to change our names—

  Molly comes to hush him, to me she says he needs more medicine but there are no roots to be had, and none of the women wishes to go beyond the fields looking. As she turns to me, my throat dries out. I cough, I say:

  —I will tell you all again, I will speak with them, I am the right one to do it. We will make some sort of peace if we can.

  Hancock belts out:

  —The Lord wanted me to come back, to tell you what you have done.

  I grip Molly’s round shoulder, and Hancock halts. I tell her:

  —Your husband ought to think on whether a godly man needs medicine at all. Pray on it, maybe. See what answer he gets.

  Molly gives a little oh. Martha’s big eyes shine like the cat’s in the dim of the room. I stalk out, I bang the door and the soft talk behind me goes on and on, world without end as God would say, if God were here.

  * * *

  The twelfth day. And they do not come.

  The thirteenth. The fourteenth. More.

  Twenty days drag by. And no sign. I try to listen to the air, but it tells me nothing, or I do not understand it.

  But Hancock says no more bad of me, not that I hear of. Busy hobbling down to the river to pray his heart out. Perhaps giving himself a good wash while he is at it, as he is so concerned with dirt.

  I nail the small side postern door shut to make his trips outside harder, and to keep us safer. I keep my eye on him and on everything round us. August near finished now. A fat moon at night. The ripening moon, the corn moon, the Delaware called it. My dead brother Israel’s wife was a Delaware. She once drew a circle on my slate, with hills below it. I do not remember her word for moon now. I was a boy, I did not know what I was saying when she taught me words.

  We keep everyone occupied though no one is happy. Major Billy orders the young boys to quit playing and keep better watch along the banks. Four of the older men are set to watch all the time up in the new corner bastions. They are soon fatigued with watching, as we all are. The rest of us go to the fields to get the corn in. The ears are very fat in their pale green husks now. The women pull them from their stalks and throw them into baskets, and the men carry these to the cabins. Doing this I can keep myself to myself. Soon enough we have the cabin lofts near full with the ears. It is a good crop, I will say that. It will feed us all. So I tell myself at this time.

  In the dark of my loft the hairy corn silk floats about on the air with the dust and settles on me. I kneel and I wipe my face on my sleeve and look up at the cracks of daylight coming through some of the shingles, I will have to split a few new ones. I am climbing down into my house when I hear low cries like birds, like water birds, the odd beautiful sounds these birds make in Kentucky. Outside, the guards are opening the gates, the boys are swarming up from the river, some are wet, and the women are running in from the fields with corn heaped in their arms and skirts. The men without their guns are running into their houses for them. I see Ned standing outside his cabin fumbling to load his shot. I do not see Squire. Jemima comes in a rush, spilling cobs and treading on them—Daddy Daddy—and with my gun I run out to her:

  —What is it?

  She is breathless, she locks her eyes on mine:

  —They are here. One of the boys saw them.

  —How many of them? Which boy?

  —Jacky. Black London’s boy.

  I run against the current of fear and praying and crying. I cry Jacky, Jacky with all my power. Here, someone yells, and I find him in a corner near the gate with Neddy’s Sarah. A few other boys remain huddled round while others whoop and run about with wild excitement or tear off for their houses. Jacky looks up at me all fear, his round brown eyes wet with it. I say:

  —Jacky. You are a good boy. Now you must tell me what you have seen.

  He shakes his head, his hair alight with trapped drops from the river. Sarah kisses his cheek and stretches out his name in a little song: Jaaacky! He sobs now. He is a very little black boy Nat Henderson bought somewhere for his man London to bring up. I say:

  —Do you know the story of Gulliver? The brave man who went travelling everywhere? Will you be like him and show me?

  He looks up with wet running from his nose. He sucks it into his mouth. My little son Jamesie listening to my stories at our house, all I used to tell him. Do not think.

  Jacky shudders:

  —They will get me.

  London comes at a run with his gun over his shoulder and sweat running down his neck. He says:

  —There you are.

  To Jacky I say:

  —London and I will go with you. They will not get near you, and if they try it, we will shoot them. All right?

  He nods and lets London take him up into the crook of his arm. The guards have shut the gates now but I order them opened just enough for us to get out. I tell Sarah she cannot follow and she looks quite cast down, but she trots off to find another child to lavish herself on.

  Two men have their guns aimed outward in each corner bastion now. Jacky points upriver along the bank. We walk very silent, with only a small hiccup now and then from Jacky jogging in London’s arm.

  I look hard, I look for what is invisible. I believe I see faces in everything, but there is nothing but branches and leaves across the river, the smallest breeze shifting them. When we walk round the side of the fort, there is nothing in the thin peach orchard or the apples. Jacky points us into the corn and we walk straight between tall rows, the stalks feathery over my head. London is taller but sees nothing, as I can judge from his watching face.

  I have my gun ready. The earth is black and so soft beneath our feet, it would welcome us in. Jacky is holding tight to London’s gun barrel with one hand and looking ahead. We are near the far edge of the field now, and when we come out into the sun Jacky begins to cry very fierce. London hushes him, I watch the woods. We crouch and wait as Jacky smothers his bawling in London’s shoulder and grabs at London’s puff of hair. I say:

  —Jacky, you have been very good to show us where you were. Now you must show us what you saw.

  He gulps and clutches London who struggles to lift him higher. London points and he says:

  —Here, sir.

  He is pointing at the ground some ten feet off. I walk up and see a footprint, a long moccasin print, set very firm into the earth. Only a single print with no other near. My skin pricks. I say:

  —Jacky, did you see this man? Was it a Shawnee man with hair like mine was? Or a Cherokee with spiked quills standing up�
�so? Was he alone?

  Jacky nods his head, then drops it heavy as a fat bud. I follow the direction of the footprint, I see more, they travel in great broad steps through the good soil at the edge of the field and then into the harder dirt going on into the woods. I run into the trees to follow, but there are no blazes, no other prints, no path, no scent of fire, no sign.

  It is as if the man flew off into the air. For a moment I want it to be so. I want it to be the footprint of my son’s murderer, a giant leaving prints only every seven leagues upon the earth, disappearing when he likes, but always having to come back down. A giant will always be found. Cherokee Jim is a giant man, he killed my Jamesie for nothing, only as a sign for me to be gone, then he vanished.

  I want to make a murderer of myself, a true one, to kill him with my own hands round his throat. My want snarls through me. I look and look but there is no other mark on the ground.

  When I come back, London is crouched, looking close at the first print. He says:

  —A scout most likely. A bold one. See how close he came with all of us in the field hard by him.

  —Yes. Jacky was not wrong. They are here. But not all of them, not yet.

  —When will they be coming, sir? They should have been here some days ago by now?

  He wishes to trust me as I know, though he is not sure he can. This is the face on everyone in the fort, everyone who does not hate me straight out. I sigh deep just as little Jacky is doing, I say:

  —London, I wish I knew.

  * * *

  We walk back with Jacky sniffling. London hushes him in low wordless fashion that puts me in mind of Methoataske speaking to her girl Eliza in Shawnee in the dark. Perhaps it is your footprint in the field, perhaps you have come to speak to me, but what you would have to say I do not know.

  Once we pass through the front gates, I tell the guards to keep them shut. Old Dick who is brushing his bay gelding calls out to them:

  —You are not to shut them yet. My Virginia messenger is back. So is yours, Captain Boone.

  I look behind and Colonel Dick is right, it is Alexander Montgomery riding up with Dick’s man some yards behind. Before they can ride in Old Dick is mounted without a saddle and bouncing along the flat towards them, yelling:

  —How many troops are they sending? When do they arrive?

  Montgomery rides straight past him and Dick wheels to follow at his heels. Once inside the gates, young copper-headed Montgomery catches my eye. He is breathing so hard he cannot speak. He only pulls up his horse and shakes his head. Behind Dick’s man cries out all breathless: Not yet.

  Dick slides off his horse and stands with the look of one who sees the world has turned the way he has predicted. His nephew was much like him. James Callaway hanging at Detroit, his red rooster-lock of hair and his bruised ruined face with eyes open. I knew this was coming.

  Montgomery’s breath still comes raw, he is bent over. Now Colonel Dick turns to his man and says:

  —Did you tell them about Captain Boone? It is urgent they know of him. I will write again to the lieutenant in Virginia today. Major Smith said I may do so.

  The young man bows from where he sits on his horse and begins to speak. My chest bursts. I say:

  —You may fuck yourself, Colonel Callaway. You may do so all day long, and then you may fuck your horse if she will have you.

  A small shot of laughter from a few of the men. Flanders up in the corner bastion nearest me turns to see Jemima, who has come out of their cabin with her shins and feet showing bare below her ragged hem. He stares, I see him staring. If he gets my daughter with child now I will string him up myself and let the Shawnee burn him. I would leave all these people if she were not here.

  I go out the rear gate. I yell to the two older boys set to watch at the riverbank:

  —Anything?

  They cup their mouths and shout back No, no. A hawk drifts in a figure of eight over the shrubs and stumps outside the wall, over the river and the trees on the other side. It sees nothing at all. There is nothing to see.

  I stalk back into the fort. The faces swivel. Montgomery stands beside his horse now, still breathing hard, his shirt with all the fringe soaked with sweat. He gives me a helpless look and says:

  —They said they would try to come when they can. Only not yet.

  Old Dick turns to me:

  —Nothing to see, and no help coming. Why do you not go to your Indians, Boone, and have a word with them? Afraid they will not speak to you any longer?

  His grey eyes brighten. Afraid. He loves the word, he loves to tell me what I am. My head heats, it feels as red inside as McGary’s is. I will be a McGary then:

  —Is that what you want? Then we will go, we will go, we will find them first.

  YOUNG ALEXANDER MONTGOMERY comes out before the rest. He is in a shirt covered with the fringe he likes, as well as dozens of trade beads, it is very fine. He must have kept it put away specially.

  He asks me to paint him up Indian. He is abashed to ask, but his excitement makes him do it. I say all right. I do not have the right berries for red and so I use only black. I get some of the charcoal in his hair. Recklessness is all I can feel, like a rush of hornets through my blood.

  There are hornets in Kentucky, as I know. They will sting whites, as Captain Will told me once. A long time ago, before he was Hancock’s father, before Chillicothe. When he called me Wide Mouth and told me to go home and stay there. Cherokee Jim told me the same thing.

  The Indian town I see in my mind is defenceless. I saw it when Black Fish and I returned from our visit to Detroit, one of the other Shawnee towns, with a quiet ring of bark houses and stand of pines behind. It is north, up the Ohio River, on a creek where there are Indian paintings on the rocks and trees. Horses, pelts, ammunition, money. Perhaps prisoners we can coax news from. Perhaps other things—

  It is an easy few days’ trip, we can cut east and take the Warrior’s Path. It will give us something to do, it will keep the young men happy. So I tell myself. When Old Dick sees I have thirty of the men game for it, his fury rips out of him. He stampedes about, groaning from his marrow. I hear him still as we set out. You will hang for this stupidity, halving our defences, leaving women and children open to slaughter. Well Dick, my women and children appear to think they can do better without me. See how you can do for the time. Major Billy remains in charge, at any rate. Squire and Ned have stayed back, I have told them to keep good order, they know the Virginia troops should be on the way to us sometime. I have told Jemima to keep watch but I did not have to tell her that, I know my girl’s eyes.

  We ride and I do not look back. Rebecca, for a half mile I think of you telling the children about Lot’s wife running from the burning city and turning round. I do not wish to turn to salt in that fashion.

  On our second evening, we stop to hunt at a salt flat on the Licking River, surrounded by buffalo roads. I know this place. I get a deer straight away. It has some fat beneath its summer coat, though the skin is not worth taking.

  The men are cheerful and easy, checking their horses over, looking about. The younger ones lie with their feet to their fire, talking of women. Skinny young Jess Hodges talks very long about a girl he had in Virginia. In drawling fashion he says:

  —She had a crooked inside, but she was hot as anything. And it did not stop me having her in the barn every time I wished.

  —Did she like it?

  This from round-headed Pem Rollins, one of the youngest. His voice comes shy but too curious to stop itself. Hodges squeezes the air with both hands as if he had a pair of breasts in them:

  —Of course she liked it. They all do once they are used to it.

  I call over:

  —She told you so, Hodges, did she?

  He turns to me with his mouth pursed up. He tosses a twig into the fire and says:

  —She did not have to tell me, I knew it without her telling.

  —You know women then.

  —I do.

 
Big Kenton has appeared out of the trees, back from scouting. He spouts a great laugh and he says:

  —My bet is they know you have no balls, Hodges.

  The men laugh also now as Hodges hurls a few pebbles. Kenton says he has seen nothing. He settles to sort his powder and shot and begins singing under his breath in his rough voice. Hodges throws another stone and screeches very tuneless: She reached for his balls, he had no balls at all. Now some of the rest join in: No balls at all, no balls at all.

  —That will have all the game running straight for us.

  So I tell them, but they only laugh and I do also. A few of them take off their shirts and go to lie in the last of the sun by the spring where it bubbles out of the river, though it is getting low this time of year. They close their eyes and taste the salt in the water with their fingers. Hodges goes on with his song. I say:

  —I will be cook tonight, you boys, if you can entertain us better than that.

  I am setting the strips of venison to roast when Alexander Montgomery comes to crouch by me, his coppery hair all raked up. He has not taken off his fine beaded shirt, his face is still smudged with charcoal. He says:

  —Is this the place where you and the others were taken? Where the Shawnee caught you?

  —It is.

  I have not wished to think of it but it is this place, the Blue Licks. All the Shawnee in their blankets, their silver ear hoops frozen, their faces frozen. The chiefs watching me, Pompey their black man telling me just what they thought of us all. And their vote on whether or not to kill us on the spot. Fifty-nine say die, sixty-one say live. I hear it in Pompey’s slow pleased voice just as if he were here. I look about me, I look to the shadows of the trees at the edge of the bare ground. But Montgomery is talking:

  —Then are they not likely to try here again?

  —They might.

  His eyes go very green in the evening light, giving him the look of a thin cat in hope of food. I say:

  —Perhaps you would prefer to go on to Chillicothe and visit them at home? I know the way.