All True Not a Lie in It (30 page)

Now I say it to myself: Cut the straps, drop the load, shoot and mount and go, you ape. But the knife might as well be sodden paper. The rifle might as well be a stick. My heart dips and hovers like a bird deciding on its direction. I might as well be dead. Perhaps I am. I breathe out as the horse does. Our breaths mingle like smoke and then vanish.

No not dead, not all dead. My tired arm pulls back and gives her flank a hard slap. She rears and nearly overturns with the weight on her back, but she stumbles forward, trying to bolt over the fallen tree. Even with the huge load, she knows to run. She catches her foreleg on a root, her spine sways, but she keeps upright. Over the tree she staggers, through the canebrake towards the creek, where she cracks the ice and squeals, doubles back and bolts for the woods. The sounds of her gasping and crashing carry. She might be enough for them, with all the meat tied to her. What else is there?

I hardly hear her now, the blood continues to bang in my ears but more softly. I am still, still.

You might run also
.

The words sing clear in my ear. My feet are near frozen. They say:
Move us, we are dead
.

Death is creeping up from my shoes. The thought of it makes me stagger. I drag myself over the fallen tree into the wider dark. Here on the other side I stand. A rustling like bodies made of leaves coming to life. No pretence that I am alone. We all have our parts now, we all of us know it.

One of them slips off in the horse’s direction, three are running easily through the trees alongside the trail towards me. I know that they are faster than I, I feel their swiftness cutting the shadow. And now at last I move, my dead feet land again and again in the powdery snow, my joints begin to loosen and my lungs to open. My breathing is rough.
Run
.

A shot rips through the quiet. I picture my tired heart raining its last blood down my body.

But no. The one who has the gun drops back, but another is not far behind me, still running. I push on but I am pinched between a rock-fall and another fallen tree, its roots splayed upward and its branches tangled in the rough cane, and so into the stiff canebrake I crash. It is like loving a porcupine as I imagine, my face and hands are stabbed variously, but I push on. I step down onto creek ice—my foot goes through. I pull my leg up and limp along wishing for youth, though forty-four is not so old, is it?

I keep limping. The shots skip past, snow sprays up on each side, dashing me with white. Out of the cane, I find the trail again and I pound on in my frozen shoe. My gun slips in my greasy hands. They are all behind me. Do not think.

A black fall of powder showers the snow, my horn falls empty with a dead thud. The strap flaps loose, shot through, over my chest.
It is a work of beauty. The echo of the shot is quick and close. I am near laughing. They are doing this for sport. They are all murderers. My feet crunch and grind as if in salt, and the thought of salt slows me. The Blue Licks are not so far, I might reach the camp, it is not impossible. I might go on.

I do not go on. My legs sink behind a thick bent pine. The bark is hard through my shirt and against the back of my skull. I see the tree eating me whole, taking me into itself. I see my bones and blood becoming wood and sap and my eyes becoming knots. This I will be for ever. Jamesie my boy, murdered in the woods such a long time ago, will this be the way I find you again?

But no, again no. I am miserably alive yet. My pulse stings in my hands. I open my eyes, I still have my rifle, the long weight of it a surprise. I unclench my fists from round it. I hold it out, I wave and throw it. They will see it or its shadow on the pale ground.

Their steps slow before they get to me. They are leisurely as the winter creek and the snow falling, piling itself into drifts and turning the whole world soft and unreadable.

I have been looking for murderers. My boy’s murderers. These murderers and I have converged at this place. It seems that we have all been aiming for this bent tree for some time. My Fate set me on this trail and at last here I am.

I am an unwilling murderer myself. Unwilling for the most part. Well, all of you, I am sorry.

When they see me, I feel it. I stand to stretch my limbs. I step out. I smile my widest and I say:

—How do. Remember me?

I remember them. Even in the twilight I know one of the faces straight away, the friendly squint of the eyes and the red leggings with their tufts of deer hair. My guard, from my first time in Kentucky. Now he points to himself and tells me his name:

—Aroas. How do.

He grins as he takes my arm and leads me into the night, just as though we are old friends indeed.

In the morning the snow is shin-deep and dry, my beard itches and my back sweats with the pace they keep me at. My shirt grows wet and then freezes and stiffens. When I have to stop for breath, they say
Pasheteetha
. Old man, in Shawnee. I laugh. I am curiously glad to feel my blood moving. I am curiously relieved to have been caught.

Before we reach their encampment, I can see the long fire trench through the trees. There are plenty of them, more than a hundred.

Aroas and my three other captors walk me in, they do not touch me now. The line of embers smoulders below the snow, the flames invisible against the day. All along it Indians sit and stand looking at me.

Aroas points to the far end of the trench and nods. We walk up the line and Indians stare with surprise or interest or distaste. I look at every face in turn, but I do not see the one I would like to rip away and find what is really beneath. No Cherokee Jim. And these are not Cherokee.

We reach the chiefs at the far end of the trench. They are wrapped in fine soft blankets. Their silver jewellery looks frosted over. They do not move at first. They survey me up and down for some time until one speaks to my captors. I do not understand all of the words, and I do not understand when they begin to confer with one another. Their talk is a short thread with knots of silence in it. They do not seem to have so very much to say.

One gets to his feet, holding his blanket at the neck. He is not much taller than I am, and not much older. His eyes take my notice.
They are like black rock, they are impossible. He holds his long hand out slightly. No knife, no gun. I square my bones and he takes my hand, which is cold and likely somewhat greasy still.

The other chiefs are lesser than this first, they come forward in turn and do the same. Their faces are all impassive but interested. For a moment it is as though I were being courted at a frolic or a fancy dance, though the suitors do not wish to play their hands yet.

I decide to speak first. I drag out my Shawnee, poor as it is:

—Well. Great brothers.

But no other words came to mind.

The last of them gets up from the ground then, his blanket loose over his shoulders, his split ears purple with the cold. His face is weary. Surprise runs through me, and I say in English:

—How do, Captain Will?

My voice is too loud and my grin is too wide, as if my face has been taken over. But he smiles as well:

—You say Captain Will to me?

—I always did so.

—Ha! Wide Mouth, ha ha!

He keeps hold of my hand and I must say that I am pleased to be remembered. I say:

—Many years since you took me last.

—Then it is time again.

—I suppose it is.

—You and your big friend Bear. We had you.

He cuffs my cheek and laughs again. My heart falls within me. I know that Stewart is dead. Whenever I see his face in my mind it is all angry and deaf and bewildered. I say:

—My friend Stewart. Did you get him?

The Captain laughs like a delighted child whose pet has come home after so many years gone. He says no more about Stewart, but
he grips my arm harder. I find that I wish to tell him everything that has happened to me, I wish to offer it like a gift. But what a dreadful gift is this story. No gift at all.

I close my mouth. His hand is tight upon me, I am a captive and a stranger. I keep my eyes on the thin rims of his stretched ears and the huge silver rings stiffening them. They look so cold.

Some of the Shawnee warriors circle, curious about the talk and the handshaking. Two point and clap me on the back. One says:

—Old Booney, ha. Wide Mouth.

Then he pulls himself up straight and begins to sing “Over the Hills,” that is to say “Over the Hells.” I can hardly keep myself from weeping, so familiar a sound is it, so happy and so strange in its happiness. Captain Will says soft:

—I told you to keep away.

I try to clear my head. My eyes prick and sting. I pull myself up and I say:

—You spoke of hornets when you left Stewart and me. I have seen none today.

Someone is at my side, very close. A black man. He is full of a slow thick force like a pot on a low boil. A blue cloth is wrapped about his head, a deep blue that looks out of place here. And Findley, now I think of you, another lost friend. You and all your trade things scattered about here in the wilderness. Are you living?

This man lifts his chin. He stands before me silent at first, and I believe him a slave sent to kill me perhaps in some ceremonial fashion. Then he too begins to sing, only a little, in a high hushed voice, the same song.
Over the hills and far away
. His voice is beautiful. He intends me to take notice.

I keep myself steady. Smooth your expression, dry up. A weird warmth goes through my chest and I am reminded of Martha, the troublesome appeal she has for me. Her thin nervous body. God help me but I can see it bare beneath me in my mind, I can feel the
sharp bones of her hips. Now I think of you, Rebecca. And all the children, their faces wavering as if they were fish in a quick stream. I understand nothing. I stretch my fingers and then I clench them and I fix my face still.

The chief with hard eyes speaks briefly to the black man, flicking a glance at me and opening his long hand once. Now the black man begins to interpret in an easy tone. He looks untroubled and indeed uninterested. He stands like a blind stone between us. With a jerk of his head, he says this chief is Black Fish. He is still stony but he is pleased to say this, as I can see.

I have the curious swaying sensation of being about to drop into my grave. Both men are watching me. The black man says:

—What are the men doing at the salt licks a day upriver?

Still hovering, I am slow. I stretch my shoulders to my ears like a dunce and I say:

—Are there men there?

The black man sighs and blinks long as if on Black Fish’s behalf. The warriors began to shift, wondering what is afoot. Diversions are stupid, as I know. Out with it:

—If so, they are my men. From my fort. Making salt.

Black Fish looks in the direction of the river and speaks. The interpreter’s tone is still flat:

—Tomorrow night no men will be left there. Nor their salt.

I look at the chief’s face. It is entirely shut. Everyone has heard of his bloodiness. I study him.

—Did he say that? Did you?

I point, my finger stops an inch from the chief’s chest. I harden my eyes like his. Such are my first angry theatrics. Black Fish watches me with no expression. Then I say:

—Would you not rather have me?

I grin until my gums ache with cold. The chief looks back. His black eyes defeat me. I want him to respond. I keep my arm out
until the elbow joint begins to throb. I think of Daddy’s stand at Meeting. Do not go bandy. I do not move.

The chief speaks again to the black man, who says:

—You are a head man. We know you are the big man here. You keep letting your people come into our territory. And so we are on our way to your fort.

He shrugs in a loose fashion.

My heart is too dead to quicken but it carries on, I cannot endure its carrying on. You already took my son, there is nothing left that you can take. Rip me to pieces and scatter them there and there, I will open my shirt to make it easy—

All of this I think. But I do not speak and I do not move. I can only close my eyes and feel the tissue of the lids too weak and poor to shut out anything. The bumping of my heart stills. And when I look again, they are all watching me in silence once more. The black man has his head cocked now, awaiting an answer. I look at the snow, the white covering of it. I think of what is beneath it all over this country. Bones and more bones. Even bones of elephants. I go whiter and colder, thinking of more death.

Now in pure coldness I say:

—Would you not like to have a whole set of good men first? I can show you some closer than the fort. Less trouble.

And so I sell us all.

T
HE DAY IS
colder. The white early sun flashes on the snow, which has the look of great heaps of glittering salt. If this were the truth, my men at the Blue Licks would be glad indeed. So would Rebecca. I think of her at the fort saying her blood craved salt, just as though it were full of little tongues. When I said she would sell me for a bag of it, and not a large bag, she laughed, but her eyes ran past me.