All True Not a Lie in It (25 page)

We stay. Rebecca says:

—I am not giving birth in a cave.

This latest baby is low and near its time. Fatigue has blurred Rebecca’s temper, her spark has dimmed. She has let me drag us all into the wilds, and farther into the wilds. I say:

—Not even in this cave? Good enough for she-bears. Roomier than most of our houses.

—A nice place for a child to appear.

Rebecca looks at the long drips of rock overhead, trying to laugh. She blinks and two tears run down her cheeks. I say:

—A fine place. A palace of a cave.

—Surely. We might call it Cave-dweller. The baby.

—Sounds Indian. Sounds fine.

—None of your romancing now.

She is smiling a little with her eyes glittering like rain. She stretches her tired back. She says that I may kiss her hand. I do so. And I build her a house up near the forks of the Yadkin, on Beaver Creek. It is a solid one. This house has likely disappeared now, like all our houses, Rebecca, but I remember the place. Here is where I stay for the birth, I insist on watching all of it. Martha is also present to help and she watches me all the time, keeping her mouth in that soft squashed
O
. She grips my shoulder when the baby is coming as if she is faint, but she is not faint. I kneel below the birthing stool, and I see the dark circle of hair at the crown appearing out of Rebecca like a whirling pool out of flat water. If I close my eyes I can see it still now.

Rebecca lies in the bed, tired out but glad that her child has appeared in a civilized place. She lets me name the new boy. He is quiet. His hair is black like mine, I think. I pick Jesse.

—Not Cabin-dweller?

She smiles thinly now, her face slick and grey. She does not want me here, but at the same time she is glad of my staying, I know. I say:

—No. Not this time.

—This household has a Jesse already.

—He will be on his own soon. He needs a namesake here. Show his roots. Jesse Bryan Boone.

Rebecca likes this, my talking of roots. She likes the Bryan too, a huge gift. It costs me some to give it but I do. Martha glances at me sharp as if to ask,
Why do you let her win?
But Rebecca tells me to plait her hair for her and says:

—Martha, you go now. I am all right with Dan.

She briefly gives off her old bright light as the baby begins to suck and opens its fist against her breast. I plait her hair smooth. It seems as though we have walked over a thin skin of ice. We have not said much. But we are easy enough together for the first time in some years.

At this Beaver Creek homestead, we set to clearing, and we get the first crop in the ground. James and Israel are old enough now to do much of the work with Jonathan and Jesse, as well as to hunt with me. They are fine boys, I am proud of them all.

We are all digging out stumps for a new field when we hear the horses. We stand to look. Two men, one riding and the other walking. They are wearing headscarves and bright calico shirts. It seems to me at this moment that I have conjured them up. But the others see them too. Jonathan and Jesse and Israel stand, Jamesie stays crouched where he is. Jemima runs out of the cabin and shrieks:

—Mama! Some Indians are here!

I walk over slowly. When I am a few yards away I say:

—Brothers.

My skin pricks, alertness rises through me. The man on the horse points and says:

—Little Blue Eyes. How do?

He dismounts and offers his hand. He is tall, with that long
rocky fall of a face. He splits it now with a broad closed smile and goes on looking at me.

I know him. Of course I do. I say:

—Well my old friend. Did you enjoy my gun, Jim?

I am pleased at remembering his English name. The Cherokee Jim gives a light coughing laugh and an easy salute. The other man is a stranger to me, but he laughs politely too. Jim holds out a pipe and says:

—Smoke?

We sit at the edge of the half-cleared field. The air smells of burning stumps and sweat. I call the boys over and they obey stiffly. They know to be polite and careful, though my bold Israel stares. Jemima is not to be outdone in boldness and runs up through the raw churned-up earth to stare also. The strange man grins and reaches to pull one of her black plaits. She scratches his cheek with her swift fingernails. I say:

—Stop that now.

—Daddy
he
—

The man gestures, it is all right. He touches his face, and seeing no blood, he rummages in his pouch and pulls out a lump of dark, hard candy. Jemima takes it, quick as a cat. The boys look over with interest.

—Not so old, ha.

Jim passes them all lumps of the maple candy. The other man nods, then takes out his tobacco. Flies cut through the air around us, scenting the sugar. Jesse sucks loud. My Israel pokes him and says:

—Slow down, they have more.

We sit chewing and smoking, talking here and there of the weather and the cropping. The Cherokee appear to be relaxed anywhere. They are easily still, like tools or guns set down. Our talk is broken and shallow, and yet I am queerly glad to see this Jim again with his easy manner. He reminds me of Kentucky.

Squinting against the pipe smoke, he asks how long we have been settled here. I say:

—A good while.

—You will stay?

The boys all look at me at once. Jemima too. I say evenly:

—For now.

Jim digs the toe of his moccasin into the yellowy earth. He says:

—A good place. Good water, good fields.

The other man is tweaking Jemima’s ear. Out darts her hand for another piece of candy. Jim chuckles and goes on:

—We saw your man.

I sit up and say:

—Which man? Name of Stewart? A big man, like this?

I point at Jonathan, who is tall. I set my hands apart to show Stewart’s greater width. Jim smiles in the direction of my boys. He shakes his head and says:

—Your ghost man. Your Blue Eyes.

—Findley. Ah. He still has his eyes then, he has not traded those away. You saw him in Kentucky?

The grey taste of smoke swirls in my mouth, and my heart leaps with the thought of Kentucky being a true place that still exists to speak of. I do not want others there, but I wish to speak of it. I say it again:

—In Kentucky.

Jim shakes his head and looks east, saying:

—Kentucky is Indian land. No whites.

—For now.

As I say these words again, we laugh, but it has a brittle sound. We know about the Iroquois giving up any claim to the land. But there has been no word of any Cherokee treaty, nor any Shawnee. The other man is snapping his fingers lightly, and Jim tugs a weed from the ground and rolls it about his thumb. I say:

—You have not given it up, then. But there is plenty of room there, plenty of game. Our man Findley might have some pretty things to give you in trade, would that change your mind? Though I do wonder if our Blue Eyes is dead. He was always white enough to be a ghost, and Kentucky is paradise.

I look at Jim. He smiles again but says no more. The flies are insistent. Jemima pipes up:

—Are you on a long journey? Where are you going? Where is your home?

Jim shrugs and widens his eyes to saucers at her but she does not laugh. I say:

—Then you have no home to get back to.

—Home is where we like.

—Kentucky, I suppose.

—If we like.

—You do just as you like. This seems to me a fine philosophy, it was my brother Israel’s too. One we might all abide by.

Jim’s smile has gone stiff. He suddenly pushes the pipe straight at Jamesie, nodding. My boy sets his brow. He has avoided it so far, but now he takes a pull and coughs, trying to swallow the smoke, and then coughs harder, his face stained deep red. The Cherokees chuckle and clap. Jamesie suffers. He never could laugh at himself but he tries now, coughing still. Jemima pounds on his ribs with both fists. Cherokee Jim looks around slowly, still smiling. He says very firm:

—A good place. To stay.

Well. There are better.

I get restless all through again, my brains itch as though stitched up too tight in their casing. It is now a Sunday, and we all put on
good clothes and sit about silent to take our ordained rest after my sister Hannah gives us a good talking- to about God and prays for her husband’s return. I listen, for Stewart’s sake, but I cannot keep my mind from wandering. As we sit outside the house, I remove one of my good black shoes, which is creased over the top and loose about the heel. My bared toes look white and sorry and blind. I am at once ashamed of my shallow roots here. So much for Rebecca’s happiness. I am sorry, Rebecca, but there is no help for it. We keep scratching at the ground and trying to dig ourselves in, but nothing is holding us here but stubbornness. And so there is no reason not to go on a space. I know of a space that I cannot forget in spite of what the Cherokee said.

I find myself wishing that the Cherokee would come back, and they do.

Rebecca huffs about my Indian tea parties and sends Susannah and Jemima out with seed cakes and rude stares. These occasions do feel thin, but we go along with them. We are attempting good will, as the Indians are. They always offer candy to the children and a smoke to the boys. Jamesie gets better acquainted with the pipe. Jim pulls the girls’ plaits lightly every time he visits, and after Susy cajoles him, he once lets his hair down out of his headscarf. He has only a scalplock, which falls down over the back of his skull and down his shoulders. Susy grabs it and laughs. Jemima will not touch it but she stares a good long time.

We talk of all manner of subjects. But I cannot think of anything but walking through Kentucky. All winter I think of it.

Again Fate reads my thoughts. Two broad shapes poke up out of the earth next spring as if from bulbs, all confidence. They are on horseback, and two slaves ride with supplies some distance behind. They are not Indians. One is William Hill.

—Here you are, Dan, we have heard much of your travels! And your woodsman’s prowess, your nobility of character. The first
white man in Kentucky. I have spread the word, my old friend, are you glad to know it? The newspapers probably never reach you here. And I am still writing my book.

Dismounting, Hill bows low so that his forehead almost touches the ground. He has grown a small stiff beard and has the look of a broom when he springs up again.

I say:

—Hill, you are not telling the truth. I was not the first there, you know that.

—What does that matter? It is my book.

He snatches up my hand and pumps away, asking how I have been keeping, happy to see the family and all the dear Boone children.

The dear Boone children look for the most part perplexed. I will not let him near Jemima. She cannot be his child. Surely she cannot be. I look sharply at her face. Her eyes are not his. Even the thought makes my brains feel dirtied and sick all through. No. She is mine, or near enough now. I go stiff-necked, but before I can speak, Hill’s companion says:

—Everyone has heard of you now. Why do you make yourself so hard to find?

He is sleek, with the look of one who has lost all his edges. Even his head and shoulders look coated in a layer of plump new fat. He is well-dressed, like Hill, and has shiny eyes that are kind enough but float about in a desire to see more of everything. He makes the cabin feel shrunken. Hill says:

—My friend William Russell, from Virginia.

Russell holds out his hand to me with the glove off and the palm up as if to show off its toughness and redness from riding such a distance. He has been much with Hill, it seems to me. He calls for one of the slaves to bring the horses round to the barn.

Hill has turned to Rebecca with a light in his eye. Russell is
looking at her with a bailiff’s appraising flash. They turn their look on Susy, who is a pretty and lively girl, never still.

These two both here alive, and Stewart lost. I want to strike them dead. I stand, but Rebecca pulls herself up next to me and says in her best queenly manner:

—It is natural that everyone should have heard of my husband.

Hill laughs, all good cheer. He says: