My Name Is a Knife

by Alix Hawley

  —Becky, Levina, get them hot drinks, something to eat. Tell Jemima and Susy to bring more bandages, and fetch my bag. Isaac, see to their horses, get the boys now.

  They all run to help. Kenton catches at me again:

  —Rebecca—ma’am—

  I turn to stare at him:

  —Simon, do not say a word to me if you cannot tell me where he is.

  —I will go back and find him.

  He looks fit to cry, like a great child who has ruined something precious, something that cannot be repaired. He says:

  —We won. They agreed to a peace. It was McGary—

  —Do not tell me! Will you never stop, any of you?

  I brush past him and go outside and up the path to the boat cabin. Lint, oak bark, oak ooze, water. These are the only words I will allow in my head.

  * * *

  Kenton has left by the time I am back, and we settle everyone remaining. I brew a tea to make the men sleep. I tell the girls to keep the fires high, and the boys to see to all the animals. When it is done, I send them to bed as well.

  The moon comes up very white and clear, shining on the river. When all is deeply quiet in the tavern, I go out to look at it. My head aches and my left eye shimmers, as though the weather were changing. But it does not change. No rain, no wind. Only the same frost we have had all this month.

  I am thankful for the frost, all the silver lines and patches on the white riverbank. It gives me something to stare at. I cannot shut my eyes. I do not wish to see Daniel’s face behind my lids, misshapen there. The drawings of him in the newspapers, they have never been true—always too big, shoulders too wide, the mouth a thick line without lips.

  Hoofs ring on the cold earth. I look upriver. Kenton back again, with more words, unable to stop them. Thinking they will help. My toes curl. I hardly feel them.

  I turn to go back indoors. The horse brays, and two of the dogs wake.

  —Hush. Hush!

  I throw a stick at them, harder than I mean to.

  —I came back—to tell you—

  My back freezes. He dismounts before he reaches me, and lets the horse loose. It goes straight for the river to drink. He staggers forward and the moon catches him. Daniel, white as a sheet, his eyes rolling upward. I force my cold feet to move, and my tongue to work:

  —Are you hurt?

  —No.

  —You are, let me see—

  —No, do not look at me.

  I hold him by the arms. He stares upward, I cannot see his expression. He smells only of cold and grease, no blood, no rum. When one of the dogs starts up again, he reaches for a stone and hurls it without looking. The dog whines.

  —Come inside, you are frozen.

  —I came to tell you—

  He sinks to his knees. He does it on purpose, and slowly. One knee cracks as he bends.

  —Daniel.

  —No! You will listen, it is for you.

  And he holds out his arms towards me while he tells me, as if it is a great gift he has been carrying all the way back from the Shawnee towns:

  —He is dead. I saw him dead. First I saw him alive, I knew it was him, I saw his long face and his eyes, they knew me!

  —What—

  —No, no, listen to me! I shouted his name—I said, that is the man who killed my son in Powell’s Valley, Cherokee Jim, the over-tall one, that giant—

  My elbows are so tight to my sides they are bruising me. Daniel’s head is still tilted back. He shakes it and says:

  —Logan heard me. He came with some of his men. Big Jim tried to talk with us, then he tried to cut us, he swung his knife—

  Daniel stops and shakes his head again. I have to shut my eyes. His knife, my son Jamesie stabbed and hurt—but Daniel keeps on, he will not be stopped:

  —His voice was not what I remembered. He was trying to speak—but they shot him, they all stabbed him. He fought, but they got him down. When he was dead they took his scalp and cut him up. I watched.

  —Oh God—

  Now he does look at me. His face is bleached by the moon. He says:

  —He is quite dead. All dead. I told Israel I would kill him one day, I told you also, and now I have done it.

  He drops his arms. He has given me what he has wanted to since Jamesie died in the woods. Have I done well, are you happy? His thoughts are so plain. The pain moves into my eye. The light flickers on the water where the horse is moving, sharpening the ache. There is no relief. There is none. I hold myself tight and weep.

  —Little girl. Rebecca.

  I catch my breath:

  —You did not bring the scalp—not for me, I do not want it.

  He gets to his feet. His voice is surprised, but more his own again:

  —No, I did not.

  —Thank God you did not take the boys. The others—how many killed? You said there would be peace now—

  —There will be.

  —Are you certain?

  —Yes. Yes.

  —But Simon Kenton said McGary had done something, I thought he had killed you—

  Daniel roars, he will wake the dogs and the children:

  —That bastard, God damn him to hell! He ought to have killed me!

  —Hush—

  He staggers back along the bank to where the horse is browsing now. No one comes outside. In a moment I dry my face and follow him:

  —What did he do?

  He spins on his heel and nearly slips on the frost:

  —Do you want me to tell you, truly?

  —No, I do not. But you had best do it.

  He lays his head and arm on the horse’s side. His voice is dull:

  —Moluntha was there. Afterwards. He said the peace would hold now those who did not want it were beaten, he would see to it. He had his pipe, I could smell his good tobacco, we were to have a smoke together.

  —The chief?

  —One of them, a great one. The oldest of them. Eighty years, must be, I do not know.

  Daniel rubs his cheek on the horse. He says:

  —Moluntha was taking his pull. He was in his fine old jacket, a wine-coloured thing, he always wore it. And then McGary, that fucking monster, came from behind him and cut his throat. And got on his horse before I could cut his—

  I gasp and my hands fly to my own neck:

  —Oh—

  Daniel is weeping. He slides down at the horse’s front leg:

  —Blood all over his jacket, all down the front of it, like Israel.

  —Oh, do not—He turns and cries to me:

  —We killed his son, Moluntha’s son, at Paint Creek. They killed our sons, Jamesie and Israel, but we killed his, without even knowing it. And I killed my own father’s son myself, without knowing. They knew it, and they did not kill us.

  —Your father—your Indian father?

  He turns away, then back again, his face soaked and shining, his breath hitching. He says:

  —I wanted to see him. Black Fish. McGary told me once that he was dead too. But I wanted to see for myself. I wanted to see my family, that family. I did not see him, he was not there. I did not see—

  My eye pounds. I kneel beside him. His whole body shudders with sobs, as Nathan’s does when he wakes in the night. I cover my eye with my arm, and put my other hand on his back:

  —I know they were good to you. You have told me.

  He quiets himself. He breathes through his teeth. The horse shifts its legs and blows, but does not walk on. Leaning towards me now, Daniel says:

  —I wanted to see if there could be peace. My father believed it, Moluntha did also. Wewossakie—

  He goes into his other tongue with a few more of those subtle strange words, followed by a silence. He wipes his nose roughly. I shake my head, which makes it ache the more. He feels my movement and looks up:

  —It was supposed to be finished after Cherokee Jim was dead. That should have been the end. I thought I could see everything. I thought I knew every way things could go. I have won enough times.
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  He coughs. He straightens his back and says:

  —I will find McGary.

  He picks up another stone. I pull his arm back:

  —No.

  —I will kill him. I have had dreams, terrible dreams I am him, walking about with that son-of-a-bitch evil slavering dog, and those red eyes in my own head, I do not want it—

  —Do you want to be killed? Is that what you want?

  —I do.

  —No.

  He drops the stone. He puts his cheek on mine. His tears are cool on my face when he turns to see me:

  —All of this, I did it for you. I would do that also, little girl.

  His smile is crooked, half hopeful, willing me to love him and say so. I say:

  —You will not.

  His smile falls, and his expression is just like Nathan’s when he was very little. A boy’s disappointment and insistence. Innocent of what he has really done. Was he always this way, even before I knew him, when he was a child in Pennsylvania doing as he liked? The moon has made his hair silver and his face too smooth.

  —You cannot go back, Daniel. You are here now, look. You cannot go backward.

  He stands, then gets on the horse. The dogs bark and whine as he rides off. I cannot hear if he speaks again.

  HE COMES and goes. Alive. Unhappy, cracked inside. When he is up and walking about again, Flanders comes to sit by the tavern fire, and tells me that Cherokee Jim was not what he had imagined. He would hardly have noticed the man if it had not been for his height, the particular way he carried himself. He likes to talk of it now that he is healing, making a story of that fight. I wish to say: I thought you did not see him at all, I thought you were already knocked down and senseless—

  When Daniel is here, we do not speak of that man or of Hugh McGary or of Shawnee towns. It is done.

  * * *

  And in another year, it is all done here. None of the newer Kentucky claims belong to us, the new government has decided. Most of the surveying Daniel did has been cancelled by other claims as well. Daniel is taken to the law by some he has sold land to, and is called a liar and a fraud in the court. Will tells me so very low one evening when he returns, pulling on his ears as if he wishes he had not heard it. I think we will never see Daniel again, but he comes home one evening weeks later, stiff as a lamed horse. He kicks a shaggy root of ginseng up and down the path without bending his knees. No one wants ginseng, as it turns out. This variety does not make men men enough. The cows and horses will not touch it.

  The trade at Limestone has slowed as the news of too many claims spreads in the east. We sell most of the racing horses. We have to sell Luce also. It is bitter to see her going on a boat with her little boy and the last of the Indian prisoners. She keeps her back to me while Easter calls out a long goodbye. Daniel says there is no other way—I am always owing, always! I do not know what they expect to get out of me.

  Easter is coldly polite with me after this, taking away her love of the girls’ babies. I send her off to help with the packing of Will’s warehouse when Becky’s Philip buys the tavern for almost nothing, with whatever family money he has managed to keep back, or with whatever his father sends him. When we go, Easter walks at the back, alone behind the last wagon.

  Watching us, Becky holds her baby Danny high in the air. She would not leave that man and his broken nose, though I pleaded with her on the last night.

  A turn south. This is the direction Daniel plans for, though his eyes look worn to blankness, a paler blue than they ever were. Back into the heart of Kentucky, as though he has hidden this idea from everyone. Isaac speaks up in blushing agreement straight away. But Will and Flanders argue, and so do Morgan and Jesse. My boys are men now. They still wrestle and tease, but with loud sure voices and great long limbs. Both of them put me in mind of my granddaddy, the certainty he was born with. He had lilies in his big house, and I thought their pollen was fairy’s gold. He told me once that his own great-grandfather had been a duke, and lived in castles. Morgan and Jesse look quite princely to me. Like Madoc and his brothers, arguing all the time:

  —It is finished there. Why not the Spanish territory? Plenty of land. All you have to do is swear you love their king.

  —I swear it!

  —Why leave it all to the fat Spanish?

  —Why not go there?

  —Why not, Daddy?

  Why not. The idea sticks to Daniel. He sends the boys with Will and Flanders to scout out the Spanish Mississippi Valley, but he takes the rest of us south as he intended, back along the buffalo road, past the empty racing horse pastures. We go along slowly. Daniel seems to be peering at every leaf, every branch, every bird, stopping all the time to look, letting Isaac lead. When we reach a broad creek after some days, we turn off the buffalo road. Here, he says. All right.

  The little ones are happy with camping and sleeping outdoors for the time, though it is difficult to settle them at night. I sit with Susy and Jemima’s babies while Levina helps them bathe the older ones in the creek. They sound like ducks and owls having a quarrel.

  I do not sleep much any night now. My body seems to have tired of it. Late one night I get up to move my legs, and find Daniel awake also, lying very still at the fireside, not singing or humming to himself. His silence wakes me further. I say:

  —Not to Boone’s Station. Not to Boonesborough.

  He looks up:

  —Why would I go there? Those are not mine either.

  —Do not forget it.

  He rolls his ankles about before the flames, clenching his jaw. His bones pain him. He says:

  —I could build you a house here, just as you like.

  —This is not the right place.

  —Well. How do you know where that is?

  —I know it is not here.

  A small sadness comes over us both. I know he wishes to give me something more, something that is not real, and I wish I had some easy thing to tell him in return. I sit beside him for a time until he is asleep, talking with himself in murmurs and snores.

  * * *

  We stay a little time at this creek, but I find myself restless, thinking of houses. Perhaps a house I have never had and have only imagined all my life. A big house, a chimney that draws properly without any noise. A clock like my granddaddy’s. I used to sit with my ear to the side of it, listening to the tock of the pendulum.

  Daniel insists on going for a few days’ hunt. We need to eat, he says when he sees me watching him lay out powder measures. I say:

  —All right, but you are taking Isaac with you.

  —Then I will take Nathan also. Time he came along.

  He looks always as if he were trying to read something held too far away for him to see properly. When he tips out the powder, his right hand slips, and he curses horribly.

  —The little ones will hear you.

  I try to help him, but he elbows me off:

  —I am not quite ready for soft eggs and skirts yet, madam. Neither are they.

  He is hardening himself again, trying to keep to the shape he always has fit himself into. His eyes blaze at everyone: Do not tell me what you think of me. Well I will not.

  Isaac is happy to go, and Nathan even happier, singing at the top of his lungs as he packs a little bag with the shot his daddy has given him. Nine years old and sturdy, but a boy still. I cannot stop myself from grabbing him before they ride off—Be careful, be careful—but he grins and shrugs me away. I cannot let him go without saying the words, as though they are magic ones.

  For the rest of the day, I have the children picking berries, so many we do not have enough baskets to contain them, so many the flies and midges bury themselves in the heaps, and Susy’s boy Boone is bitten everywhere and cries that he wishes he had gone hunting.

  In a week they do come back, all of them, and more. Nathan is first to the camp, with a skin bundled behind him, and shouting for joy:

  —I got a deer all by myself! A big one! And look who we found, Ma!


  —Or who found us!

  Daniel cries it as they ride up. Beside Isaac is Israel’s friend Joseph Scholl. He has a ruddy skin and a new-looking hunting shirt. He was not killed that day at the battle, he is here alive. He nods and looks away when he sees me. And a little distance behind is Squire, smiling with his chin tucked in. His hair is almost as grey as Daniel’s, his bones lean as ever. I call:

  —Well. Who found who?

  Squire pulls up and dismounts, tapping the horse’s flank. He embraces me lightly, hardly touching me. He smells of the fort somehow, as it was. I pull myself back, and ask:

  —How is Jane, Squire? The children?

  —All well.

  Daniel drops a pack of meat. Joseph Scholl leaps off to help. Bent over it and breathing hard, Daniel says:

  —We asked them to come visiting, as my wife does not wish to visit them at home, did we not, boys?

  Nathan shows me his gun, the lock, the empty pan. Look, Ma—Ma—

  Daniel keeps his back to me, busying himself with the tugs. I say:

  —Nathan, Isaac, help your daddy now.

  The girls come flocking, the children rush to see what has been brought. No buffalo tongue this time, a shame. Another day! So Daniel says.

  Squire looks over the camp as he stretches his back, then sinks back into his hunch. He says to me quietly:

  —Show me the creek?

  I laugh, it is such an odd request:

  —It is just there.

  —Will you show me, Rebecca?

  He looks at me with a frankness I do not understand. He was a boy when I first knew him, keeping himself in the stables, never having much to say for himself. I asked him if he liked horses, and he considered for a long time before saying yes.

  I walk through the grass to the water, and he follows. We stand looking at the flies and the water bugs that creep over the surface. I will cut some of the reeds later.

  —Here it is.

  He tips his hat to the back of his head, and says:

  —Martha has died. I am sorry.

  I am stung by how little feeling I have. As if I had just seen one of the insects go under and vanish. Perhaps I have run out of feeling. I touch my chest.