The Eden Hunter (26 page)

 

HE TOLD BEAH and Samuel what Xavier had done. Samuel said that he would pray for the boy, and then they all walked back to the river and sat down together on the bank. Beah was washing Samuel’s feet in the shallows when they heard the faint boom of a flintlock echo down to them from the north.

They remained on the riverbank, listening. Samuel spoke first. “That has somethin to do with him,” he said. “You know it do.”

“Yes,” said Beah. “We know it.”

The day was still very bright and without clouds. Kau told himself that they should stay put until dark, push off at sunset and never look back at this place. But no. He stood up and Samuel nodded. “You’d be doin right.”

Kau looked at Beah. “What you think?”

She sighed. “Xavier a good enough boy. Go on.”

“You sure of that?”

“Yes.”

He tried to give Samuel the longrifle but the old man refused. “No,” he said. “That’d be useless to me.”

“You jus keep safe,” said Beah.

He took her hand. “I’m not back here fore dark, you two gotta go and leave on without me.”

“Quit with that.”

“Promise.”

Beah turned away from him but gave a slight nod. “All right,” she whispered. “All right, all right.”

He walked over to Samuel. The old man squeezed his shoulder, and they both looked out from the bank at the river flowing past them. Kau told him how to find Israel’s island, then explained that there was a shack there with a dry bed and a cistern filled high with rainwater, a buried cask of food. “Stay to the inside of that island till them ships are gone,” he said. “Ain’t nobody cept me ever gonna even know you there.”

Samuel touched the brim of his gray hat. “I’m obliged,” he said.

Kau forced his canteen into Samuel’s hands, then took one long last look at Beah before he turned and went running into the forest.

 

HE STUDIED A short length of cut rope left lying in the thicket, then saw where a stray shot had slapped off the side of a pine.

Tracks and these scattered bits of sign told him much of the story:

Xavier walks the horse path for a long while before he is surprised by a rider on an unshod horse—the same black-turbaned man from early that morning, perhaps—coming hard from the south. Xavier hides himself in the sharp heart of a blackberry thicket, but
then the rider at last spots the bootprints and dismounts in a rush. He is wearing moccasins, the rider, and has the pigeon-toed gait common among Indians. The rider hitches his horse beside the trail, then creeps forward carefully on foot. The path crosses through the blackberry thicket, but Xavier misses his ambush shot and is captured. His hands are tied and he is marched to the horse, made to mount first so that the rider can straddle him and then carry his prisoner north.

 

KAU BEGAN TO jog the path, masking his own footprints within the tracks of the horse. Even under the weight of the saddlebags and the longrifle his breaths came easily. He felt the strength in his legs as he ran. He was an Ota again. An Ota, hunting.

 

THOUGH SLOWED BY his prisoner the rider kept a quick pace. The horse waded warm black creeks that drained into the river, and at those crossings not spanned by fallen-pine bridges Kau would shed his osnaburgs, then move forward with all of his belongings held high above his head.

After several miles he looked to the east and saw smoke collecting in the blue sky. He untangled Benjamin’s sling and looped it around the wide trunk of a tall pine. The leather was at first stiff in his hands but soon it began to loosen slightly. He tied both ends behind him and leaned back, walking up the trunk in the manner of the Ota. Every few steps he would straighten his legs against the tree and jerk himself forward, releasing the tension on the sling so in that weightless instant he could throw his arms up and slap the sling higher still, gain purchase and ascend.

Soon he was in the canopy sitting astride a sturdy branch. The tree swayed in the breeze and something clicked
kuk kuk kuk
. Above, a gray squirrel—its shoulders bumpy with the larvae of botflies—was perched on the rim of a dead-twig nest and watching him. Kau shifted and the startled squirrel bolted off along the branch. It leapt for the next closest tree and went falling before its claws hit bark, scratched and then stuck. Kau moved again and the squirrel scrambled away, terrified.

In the treetop he was a surveying eagle. He looked to the south as if searching for Samuel and Beah, and he believed that he could see the curvature of the world. Portions of the federal road were sometimes hard and smooth, and one day Benjamin had taken a stick and drawn a big circle in the dust. Inside this circle the boy marked Yellowhammer and the Americas and Africa, the ocean Kau had sailed across. The boy then drew the sun and the planets and convinced him that the earth was round. And indeed—gazing upon the moon and the sun thereafter—it had seemed ridiculous ever to have thought differently.

Though of course by then he had also learned of the vastness of the world.

The forest thinned a short distance to the east. In a space between trees he saw the rising thread of wood smoke that was coloring the sky. He moved to another branch and spotted the British jack that flew over Garçon’s fort. He shook his head. He was back. Twice now he had left the fort and twice now he had returned. He walked himself down the rough trunk of the pine, and then again took up the trail that would take him to Xavier.

 

ABOUT A MILE north of the fort, the sounds and smells of many men and many horses gathered made him realize that he had come upon the American soldiers, camped along the river. He figured that there would be sentries posted, and so when he glimpsed the first of these white men he quit the trail and climbed another tree—though a shorter one this time, a scrub oak growing alone in a thicket that separated the pines from the river.

He hid himself in the dense foliage of the oak, lying limb-draped as he watched the American encampment from a safe remove. At least a hundred soldiers were standing in a cluster, and a collection of Indians moved among them. He saw Xavier as well as the rider from that morning. The Indian in the black turban had cinched a belt around Xavier’s neck and was now leading him about like a dog, a bell cow. The soldiers pushed at Xavier until he swung at them with tied hands and was tripped. He sat down hard in the dirt.

The American soldiers wore dark blue coats and high leather hats adorned with a single egret plume. Most of them seemed very young, younger even than Xavier. The Indian in the black turban waved them away, then he squatted down beside his prisoner. He was inspecting Xavier’s longrifle when another soldier appeared. This man wore white trousers and a navy shortcoat, had a red sash tied around his wide waist. Thick brown sideburns ran down from under his black bicorn, framing his pink and glistening face. He was not very old himself, but from his dress Kau figured him for an officer.

The officer spoke to the Indian and then to Xavier, and when Xavier did not respond the Indian kicked at him until he screamed
out in Spanish. The officer turned to the gathered soldiers, but they all shrugged in confusion. The officer spoke again, and soon a soldier presented with a shackle and a length of chain.

Xavier was secured by his ankle to the wheel of a nearby fieldpiece, and thereafter the soldiers seemed to lose interest in him. Kau watched as they began to peel away in groups of three and four and five, ambling over to their cook-fires to fix their separate suppers.

 

THE SUN WAS setting when the scalp of the sailor was found. The Indian in the black turban pulled it from Xavier’s haversack and let out a whoop. Some soldiers hurried over and then the fat officer stepped out from his tent. The Indian tossed him the salted scalp, but the officer let it drop. He knelt in the dirt to examine the scalp, and when he finally rose up he seemed very angry. Again Xavier was interrogated, but again he would answer only in Spanish. Orders and five of the Indians left south in a long canoe. One of them was carrying the scalp. Kau watched the Indians paddle away and was reminded of Garçon’s pigeons. Back and forth, back and forth.

 

HE HID THE longrifle and his saddlebags near the base of the oak. It was a dark night; clouds covered the moon. The sentries were spaced too far apart at their posts and—moving slowly with the breeze, pausing during the lulls—he was able to creep past them in time.

The soldiers were asleep in their tents. He went to the center of the camp and knelt down among the cannons. Xavier opened his eyes but kept silent. Kau tugged at the shackle and chain, then looked up. “This a fix,” he said quietly.

“Leave me,” whispered Xavier. “Please.”

There came a noise from one of the tents—a soldier moaning in his sleep. Kau waited for the man’s nightmare to play itself out and then spoke: “Why you done this?”

“You will think I am crazy.”

“No. Go on.”

“I heard him in a dream. The General.”

“So? Evbody dream.”

“He was calling for me.” Xavier waved his hand in front of his own face. “Everything was black but I could hear his voice.”

Kau grunted.

“You do not believe me,” said Xavier.

“I believe you fine.” Again Kau looked at the shackle. “We gonna figure this.”

A breeze blew in from across the water, carrying a rank scent that teased his memory. Bear grease. He turned and saw two Indians coming over the top of the cannon. Kau put his hand to his knife as they leapt for him. The Indians were big men and soon he was dragged far away from Xavier and pinned. They began to mock him in Creek. So these were indeed Creeks, he realized. Lower Creeks. There came the shouts and curses of soldiers as the camp stirred, and he was thinking of the redsticks he had known—how remarkable it was that, in the end, they should come to share the exact same enemies.

 

HE SAT WITH an Indian on either side of him, his arms locked in their own. Torches had been lit, and a soldier was studying him.
The American had a scar that ran from high on his neck to the corner of his eye. He asked question after question but Kau would not to speak.

They were ringed by tired soldiers, and soon the officer came pushing through. He seemed upset. “You wake me to see a child?” he asked.

One of the Lower Creeks hooked a finger in Kau’s mouth and pulled. His cut teeth were revealed and the soldiers began to murmur among themselves.

“Jesus,” said the officer.

A tall soldier interrupted: “We caught him sniffing at the prisoner, sir.”

The officer demanded his name, but Kau still would not answer. Finally the officer sighed and began walking back to his tent. “Then put him alongside the other one,” he ordered. “We will see to him tomorrow.”

 

THE SHACKLE WAS meant for a full-sized man, and placed around his ankle it slipped off his foot. After arguing on the matter the soldiers found that the iron coupling fit perfectly around his neck. He was chained beside Xavier to the wheel of the fieldpiece, and then the few remaining soldiers extinguished their torches and returned to their tents as well.

The sentries stationed around the perimeter of the camp were beyond earshot, and so once they were alone Xavier spoke out in the darkness. He asked after the others, and Kau told him that he hoped they were already on their way to Israel’s island. For a
moment Xavier was quiet and then he spoke again. “I am sorry for this,” he said. “You should have left me to die.”

 

OF COURSE TO be chained by his neck as a prisoner brought the killed Ota to his mind. He remembered his people lying in that dead tangle, connected by a necklace made of necklaces, and all he could think was broken necklace, broken necklace, broken necklace. A broken necklace he had buried with them, but that two days later scavengers had no doubt unearthed. Now nothing would remain but the chain itself, and he imagined that in some distant year it would be found by another make of people moving through his lost land. These trespassers would examine those rusted loops of iron and see no evidence that they had ever held lives at all.

T
HE SUN ROSE hot over the trees and the brown river shined. He sat huddled beside Xavier in the tight shade of the fieldpiece, watching as the Americans emerged from their tents. For breakfast a cook had set water to boil in an enormous pair of footed kettles—one for coffee and another for a thin gruel of cornmeal. A soldier brought two bowls over to Kau and Xavier, then spit into each before setting them down.

Earlier this same soldier had traded with one of the Lower Creeks for Benjamin’s hunting knife. He had long black hair, four dead teeth that sat like gray pills in his mouth. He dragged the point of the knife against Xavier’s chest, then flicked the blade toward Kau. “Compared to you, he’s lucky,” he said.

“
¿Qué?
” said Xavier.

“He might get to be a slave again,
amigo
.” The soldier laughed. “You just a dead man.”

Kau lifted his bowl and began to eat. Others came to sit atop the cannons and watch them. There were here and there questions that went unanswered and soon the talk turned to other matters and curiosities. Kau kept his head bowed but was listening.

A soldier claimed to have seen Dolley Madison up close once. She brushed against him on a muddy street in Washington. Her dugs were as big as wineskins. . . . The fat officer’s name was Clinch. A born leader, him. . . . Chinamen saw 1816 as the year of the fire rat. They did that, named their years for animals and elements. . . . Chief McIntosh and his Lower Creeks were camped across the river. Clinch had met with him and two lesser chiefs just that morning. . . . Up north the weather had turned backward, and some were already calling this the year without a summer.