by Alix Hawley
—Daniel.
I do not answer. Again she says my name:
—Daniel.
—What is it?
She plucks at my shoulders very gentle as if I were some musical thing she could play. She says:
—It is natural to want—even at such a time.
—Is it.
Touching my cheek and trying to stare me in the eye, she says:
—Perhaps this is not the best time.
I pull my head away, I am about to leave her when she speaks up louder:
—She loves you. Rebecca does.
A bomb bursts in my chest. I say:
—I will thank you not to speak of my wife to me.
—Daniel. She will not have stopped loving you.
—And you know everything your sister thinks, is that right? You always have? What is she thinking this minute, what is she doing in Carolina, has she found someone there to do what I just did to you?
—Danny.
Her voice is so like Rebecca’s that I want to squeeze her throat. I take the hard bread from the table and cram it into my mouth as I go for the door. Her fingers catch at my arm, and she says:
—Neddy is sorry for what he did. He is sorry.
I spit the wad of bread onto the floor, I turn and seize her shoulders with their narrow bones:
—Is that right.
Her mouth shifts as if it is trying to fashion the right words:
—He is. You could ask him yourself.
—Is this your repayment to him for what he did with Rebecca? Is that what you are doing here, again? Are you going to tell her all about it someday?
I give her a shake, I cannot help myself, old anger like half-melted lead slugs its way through me. Her head bobs, her eyes stay hooked on mine, she says nothing. She will say nothing to Rebecca or to my brother, she has too much pleasure in keeping her knowledge secret and acting prim as a blossom. I squeeze her arms and I say close to her face:
—Well. Our darling Neddy has always had good luck, he is lucky to have found God to forgive him. The two of you might pray on it together, pray for me. Chew on my bones and my daughter Jemima’s too.
At this Jemima opens the door as though her name has summoned her. Her eyes are still over-big, and I see them swallow me and Martha locked together in anger, Martha’s torn shirt and bare thighs. My girl spins and goes straight out again, we never speak of it in all my life. Jemima, another thing I am sorry for.
* * *
Outside the day comes white. I go to check the ammunition stores, and I take a handful of the scant shot for myself. Ned is over at the gate, and I do not speak to him. I go up one of the rear ramparts. Major Billy is here staring out towards the river. Holder is with him, though he will not go into the bastion where Bundrin’s brains leaked out until he was dead. He paces about like an unhappy dog on a rope, saying:
—I need a woman. I need a woman.
Can he smell Martha on me? Can everyone? Holder tugs his hat from his unhappy narrow head. I say:
—Go and find your wife then.
—She will not have me while we are so goddamned unsafe here. Shit. Shit.
He pushes his gun out the slit, he will fire at anything as he thinks of being denied by Fanny, Colonel Dick’s pretty girl. I say:
—She is right not to have you. We need no more children here.
My stomach jumps thinking of what sort of child I could have started in Martha if I had given her what she wanted. Something twisted and misshapen, all helpless and dreadful to look at. Holder turns with more to complain of, but before he can speak Major Billy says:
—Captain, here.
His voice is cold, he points over the river where the sweep of mud in the water has spread. The tremble is back now, in an instant I feel it, and my toes curl into my moccasins. It is stronger than before. Holder says:
—What in Hell is it? Is the Virginia army so heavy on its feet? Do they have that much to eat? I should have stayed.
It is not the Virginia reinforcements. I know just what it is. But Holder yells with all his power:
—What are you doing now, you snaky painted bastards?
A young man appears just above the bank. Kaskee. His shaved head and long lock startle me again as they did near the Paint Creek town. He roars in Shawnee, in his man’s voice, before he vanishes again. Holder swivels:
—What did the fucker say?
Now Pompey’s voice rises from the river:
—Did you understand? Kaskee informs you we are digging a long hole to blow you all to Hell before morning.
Holder sees now what they are about. He yells:
—Dig on, we will dig and meet you with a hole big enough to bury five hundred of you sons of bitches!
Major Billy says:
—It is the British who have put them up to digging a tunnel, they may have brought the parts to reinforce it, and the explosives. Listen.
Below the thumps and shaking are a few shouted words. A red jacket is set on a stump above the riverbank. I think of a cannon being shoved through a tunnel, its great black mouth finding its blind way into the fort. Holder cries out:
—You never burned us out and you will not blow us out of here either.
In slow English a Shawnee voice sings:
—Your wife came out last night.
Another says:
—I love your wife in her hole.
In an instant Holder is purple in the face. He fires but no one is to be seen, they only laugh. As he curses and loads again I say:
—Do not waste any more of your shot on them, Holder.
—Then what are you going to do to keep my wife’s name out of their fucking mouths? What are you going to do?
Holder’s eyes are wet gashes in his face, he is angrier than I have ever seen him. Does he think I do not know about my own wife being called a whore, my own daughters, my sister? Holder tips too much powder into his gun pan, I do not stop him, I go along the rampart and down the far ladder. On the ground I roar:
—Get your shovels and dig. Make a trench along the back wall here. Do it now.
Squire’s boy Moses says:
—Who is dead now?
His face is all alarm, his voice carries. Old Dick in his bastion hears everything as he always does, and comes down to ask why I want them to dig. I tell him he is not to ask me. As I go for a shovel he barks:
—I have every right to know what you are having us do.
Everyone is still and silent, they are watching us. I keep walking. Dick calls:
—I will not dig.
At this I turn and I say:
—Then go up and defend your daughter Fanny’s honour. That will be useful to her when she is blown to pieces with the rest of us.
* * *
I did not mean to say it, I meant to keep everyone from panic, but they have long been tight as traps. Two of the girls are at once in tears, their mas hold them and begin to cry also. Jemima darts back into her house before I can speak to her. Squire says loud:
—Dan is right. They are digging in from the riverbank. We can dig to meet them and collapse their tunnel before they can blow up anything.
Some of the people listen to him and go for shovels, and I am glad for it. Hancock and his wife Molly find one another and set to praying at the tops of their voices. Others go slow as sleepwalkers to where they stand with faces turned up like bowls meant to catch rain. Ned steps along from his place at the gate. Martha comes out her door with the coat wrapped tight about her, very quick she bows her head.
I go to the wall near the new graves where some shovels were left, I take one and set to work digging hard. Squire follows and does his best with his one good arm. With the others we soon enough have a trench lined out along the rear wall. We all dig at it very fierce. The shovels cut and scrape, they hide the noise of the Shawnee digging outside. A fat blister bubbles on my palm but I dig on and on. Squire beside me does his best, but when he slows, I say low to him:
—You do
not have to do this.
—You do not have to do it either, Dan.
—It is something to do.
—It is that.
Gently I touch his bad shoulder:
—Go up and tell the riflemen to be very careful with their shot, Holder especially. We have so little. And you and I are not much good in our state.
Squire nods. He turns to go, but as he does it he picks up a stone we have dug up, and with his unhurt arm he hurls it in a long sweep over the wall towards the river. A howl goes up outside. Squire smiles very fleeting and limps to the ladder.
* * *
We have plenty of stones, we have more than enough! We send them flying from our side. I throw a few myself, I will say their weight is very satisfying to let loose. We hear the Indians and the British army swearing and shouting, and I go up the rampart again to look. Kaskee’s strange grown voice yells in Shawnee that we ought to come out and fight like men, not children.
Holder is watching close. When I tell him what is said, he shouts back:
—Come out and I will shoot you like a goddamned man! Through your goddamned balls, if you have any!
Pompey’s call comes now in English:
—We have plenty, are you in need of some?
Holder looks set to burst and shouts every threat he can think of. Some of the other young men along the walls begin shouting also though no one has fired yet, a relief. Then a dark face rises above the riverbank and very quick Holder shoots at it. But it does not go down, it waggles and bounces with a hole through its forehead. We both think at once of Bundrin, and Holder screams raw:
—You can die now, you black shit-licking pig!
It is no pig, it is a wooden face, a rough mask on a stick with punched-out eyes and mouth, and the Shawnee laugh as they puppet it up and down. False men everywhere. I grip Holder’s arm hard:
—Do not shoot again. They will see just where you are and fire back.
—Then give me some of those goddamned rocks, I will bash out all their brains.
Pompey begins singing one of his loose Shawnee songs, I can hear his delight. More stones come flying past us on their way to the riverbank. The singing stops, the sounds of their digging come louder. Below in the fort, I hear a woman all tears:
—Do not throw any more stones, for God’s sake. They will make the Indians angry.
It is old Mrs. South who says it, shaking as she was in her cabin when London was killed. A great hollering laugh bursts from the men digging, they throw more and more stones over and say in high womanish voices, Do not throw stones!
Mrs. South has her apron on over the breeches she wears. She throws it up over her face and walks about this way, she near falls into the trench and one of the men plucks her back. Now she trips over a rock and sits crying on the ground and will not let anyone pick her up again. All afternoon the yelling goes on. Do not throw stones. Come out and let us look at you. Or is there nothing to look at, are you all women with no pricks?
So they know we have put our women in men’s clothes. They know everything. Their digging continues, the stones continue flying, a few shots crack from both sides, but not so very many. How much powder and shot have they got? I know so little now. Black Fish, my father, your face moves into my mind again but you have nothing to say to me, I have not once seen you since the treaty that fell into these dreadful pieces. Are you in a tent at the camp telling your warriors what to do, are you smoking in your calm fashion, are you telling them to find me?
I go back to digging. We have our trench long and deep by evening. It may be no help if they manage to tunnel in past the wall, but it has kept the men busy and made us richer still in stones. Squire sits handing them out, he sorts them by size first, he is precise as ever.
I am telling the men they can stop for tonight when a huge shout comes from a bastion. Colonel Dick is leaning out over the wall. I call:
—Colonel, get down, you will get yourself killed.
He shouts:
—One of them is showing his arse over by the trees, slapping it at us! By God, I will kill him!
Johnny Gass next to him is crouched below the wall trying to hide his chuckling. Calm as I can, I say:
—Colonel, get below the wall.
But Old Dick has all his powder measures out, he is tipping them all into his gun, he spills one over his feet. Major Billy is near me now, calling:
—Dick, Dick, he is out of range.
I say:
—You will waste all your powder when we have none to waste, he is only being a stupid child, do not shoot.
—Show him your own arse!
This from Holder across the way, and the call is taken up by the young men round the trench: Show him your arse. Some of them drop their breechcloths and get up the ladder half naked.
A yell comes from outside in Shawnee: Weethennie. Kitochquelita. Eat it. You love it. Kaskee’s voice, I know it again. I say:
—Do not shoot, Dick.
But Old Dick has ruffled himself up like a great turkey cock, he has been waiting for this outrage every minute since the Shawnee came. An enormous bang tears up the twilight. Dick staggers back with the kick of all the powder but he keeps himself upright and looks very satisfied. So do his wife and his Kezia down outside their door, though they hold their ears covered for some time. My own ears ring. Holder is yelling:
—Did you get him?
—He is down.
This from Old Dick all calm, as if he has just finished a great dinner and has wiped his mouth. I do not believe him, I do not wish to believe him. Kaskee’s young pimpled face, the sulking look of him dragging after me when I was prisoner. I say:
—Can you see him?
Dick does not answer, he only yells at the trees:
—That is what you deserve. For my nephew, you red bastards. James Callaway was his name!
Turning to me with wet shining in his eyes, he says:
—That should make you remember his name too.
James Callaway longed to see me dead, now his uncle stares me down, full of his own longing. Well. If enough people wish it so, perhaps it will come about.
* * *
There is no way for me to go out and look for the body. Their digging continues into the night, they have torches lit at the riverbank to see by, and they do not come to hurl them at us now. A few burning arrows fly at our roofs from the camp in the meadow, but these are nothing. The women sing to the children in the cabins to block the noise, a mess of different songs bubbles up in a stew. Ned joins in at his post, he picks out what Martha is singing to their girls: Sleep sleep sleep.
We are all stupid with tiredness and hunger and fear, so stupid some of the men drop and curl up like pups. Some are flat out on the ramparts. Going past the cabin windows I see women with their mouths open as if they cannot stop their alarm even in sleep.
I go to my cabin and I lay down also. I drop into a surprising blackness I have not known for days. I dream hard but I see nothing, I have only the sweet tobacco smell of Black Fish’s house in my brains. And when I wake before it is light I find my own mouth dry and trying to make an F sound, for Father. But he is not there, no one is there, only the heavy silent waiting that has sat over us all like a cat in a tree since we arrived so long ago and I said This will be the place, this—
WE SET UP a watch at our trench in case they come through it, but they never do. They go on digging and taunting. I listen above their noise for bird calls, if there are still birds.
Two days more it goes on like this. The night following, I sleep a few hours, and I try to dream of my father in case there is some way he can speak to me in my sleep. But I only see others I do not wish to see now, and I wake with my hands balled up and my jaws tight. I think of surrender, or of trying again for a treaty. Perhaps it is not mad to think of it—the Shawnee have kept themselves to themselves but for the ongoing digging of their tunnel. Perhaps they have run out of food and shot, perhaps they are tired of the fighting also, after ne
ar a week of it.
I get up and go out into the dark, though it is not yet my turn on watch. I take no light, I go along feeling the walls, the moon is patched over with clouds. I catch the end of my gun on Ned’s side as I go past the gate.
—All clear, Dan.
His voice is calm as always. I carry on with my round of the fort. As I go past the well a single burning arrow flies into the ground close by. It has a scrap of cloth wrapped round it and smells of pitch but not powder. At this time it seems to me a good sign. I watch it for a moment before I stamp out the flame.
A murmur comes from over by the river, where they have their diggings. I look out a slit in the rear wall, but I can see nothing there, no torches or campfire. Until a light strikes me in the face from the other side and makes me blind. I get my gun up and shield my eyes.
—Sheltowee.
For an instant I think it is my father come for me, and my heart flies up. Poor heart, it is only Pompey. He keeps the light straight in my face so I cannot see him, but it is his voice and his clove smell. He says quiet:
—I have come with a message.
—Ready for peace?
A brief chuckle. I look for his outlines, I see only the light. He says:
—Is that what you think?
—I do not know. Why do you not tell me what I think, as you always do?
—Who is it, sir?
Old Monk is at my shoulder, smelling of sulphur and cowshit. He has been trying to brew up more powder but it takes such a time, there will never be enough of it in all this world, though this world seems to have shrunk down considerably. I tell him it is all right. A child’s wailing starts up, then another, and the old man turns. I say:
—Go to your little Jerry, Uncle Monk. Get some sleep.
Off Monk goes, the smell stays behind him on the air. Perhaps it will give Pompey an idea that we have more powder than we do. It is all a show here, we are all playing.
