Night Birds, The (20 page)

Pifpaf was making grunting noises like something was hurting her. Something big was coming out of her rear end. A big green blob. It looked like the biggest poop ever. It was quivering. She kept on moaning and bleating like she was gonna die. There was blood too. Then it come to me that it was stuck inside her, that she wasn’t making a poop but having babies. I did not know what to do. The noises she was making hurt my ears. I thought the wolves were going to hear her and come for us. Nobody else was around. So I went up to her and put my hands into her opening. It was squishy and it did not smell just like poop. But I could also feel something moving so I pulled on it. Pifpaf bleated and made gnashing sounds with her teeth. Then it all come it out with a sucking sound and I fell over and the whole mess come down on top of me. Next I knew it was squirming and there was not one but two of them and Pifpaf was licking off the blood. They were all wet from being inside her. They could hardly walk. She lay down with them. But I was afraid that wolves would come so I tried to make her get up. Then I took her babies and she came after me in the grass making angry sounds. But I made it to the cabin. Now me and Pifpaf are friends. Everybody agrees that I am a hero but I don’t feel no different.

CALEB
J
UNE 15,1859

There is both terror and beauty here. Papa reads to us from the book and sometimes my mind can’t wrap all the way around the passage and sometimes it makes a load of sense. “It would be well, perhaps, if we were to spend more of our days and nights without any obstruction between us and the celestial bodies, if the poet did not speak so much from under a roof, or the saint dwell there so long. Birds do not sing in caves, nor do doves cherish their innocence in dovecots.” What I thought when Papa read this was: mosquitoes. They must not have skeeters at Walden Pond like they do here. I too would like to sleep out under the stars but only so long as a good smudge fire burned near to keep off the bugs.

Hans Gormann came onto our land to cross the river. I could tell right off that Papa didn’t like him. Hans was wearing a slouch hat and had lean, spindly arms and small eyes. He had a swaybacked mule that was pulling a dray cart filled with puppies and a barrel of what he called “spirit medicine” for the Indians.

There were two blonde girls following behind wearing come-kiss-me bonnets and lemon-colored linsey-woolsey dresses. The material had been washed so many times you could see their pale white chemises and skin beneath. They each had dark blue eyes, dark as lake water, and were fetching to look at. It was strange to be around white folks again after a month seeing just Indians. All at once I felt embarrassed not to be wearing any shirt and the oldest girl looked at me with a kind of scorn, but I didn’t see any reason for her to be uppity since her Papa had sunk so low as to sell moonshine to Indians.

I recognized them from the first day in the country. These were the ones who’d poisoned the blackbirds and what a load of good that did; we have more birds now than ever . . . as if they’ve come for revenge. The man introduced himself and his daughters, Cassie, the oldest, and Sallie. Cassie did a curtsy and the little girl mimicked her, but the hem of her dress was so frayed with grow-stripes the gesture looked pathetic. I used my deep voice to say my own name and I could see they were impressed and all at once I wished to have a shirt on so I could impress them more. That man Thoreau says we are to beware of enterprises that require new clothes, but just between you and me I think he is a jackass.

Hans had yellow skin like a pear. He offered to sell Papa some of the puppies which he said were well-bred and when Pa said no he offered to sell him some of the liquor. Pa told him he didn’t think it was right to sell moonshine to Indians because in town he had heard it made them crazy. Hans sighed. “You’re a stubborn man,” he said. “I been told me about the wolves getting your cow and I come here with good intentions to help your family.”

Papa swallowed and his face turned red. “My cow drowned,” he insisted. I noticed his lower lip quivered when he said it and then I looked over at my sister Hazel who sees things straight and we both realized that Papa had told us lies that night.

Then Hans lifted out one of the mewling creatures from the cart and held it by the hackles. They were pretty dogs with brindled fur and long ears and snouts. “Drowned or not,” he said. “It’s a shame all these puppies are going to end up in the red man’s stew pots when you might use ’em for protection.” The puppy loosed a high whiny bark to let the man know it didn’t like being held in such a way.

Daniel went into a frenzy. “You mean they eat them? Pa we can’t allow them to get ate up.” He tugged on Pa’s pant legs and Pa’s face went from red to a darker shade of purple and then back to white again. No, he didn’t like this man at all.

“What breed are they?” he asked.

Hans set the puppy back in the cart. “Half wolf, half Newfoundland. They won’t stay scrawny for long.”

“So be it,” Papa said. “I’ll buy two of them.” Then Daniel stepped forward and plucked out one that kept getting stepped on by its littermates and another that nipped his fingers. He said he was going to teach them to keep the blackbirds out of the corn, but only Hans laughed at that. They were done doing business and I could tell Papa was waiting for the man to leave but Hans only shifted his feet in the dirt and nodded over to his girls. “You wouldn’t mind if they stayed here, would you? They could help out around the property.”

“Why?” Papa said.

“They don’t like Indians. Terrified, in fact. I let them to see a scalp dance one time. And well, it frightened them.”

“I reckon,” Papa said, though I could tell he was still perturbed. And with that, Hans drove his mule across the river shallows, the cart of doomed puppies mewling and whining for their mates, as they squirmed to avoid the jug of spirit medicine that rolled in the cart along with them. Papa looked over at us and told us to get back to work laying fence.

The girls stayed behind with Hazel to help her with the wash, but it didn’t seem that Hazel liked them much. Women are particular. They get their feathers all in a huff for no reason, so pretty soon I noticed the girls weren’t helping Hazel but just sitting on the porch, with that older one watching me. So I made sure to carry extra-heavy limbs and heft them over my head like they were mere twigs. Cassie came over and said, “My you’re strong,” while I was laying fence. I could only grunt in response because that was clearly God’s truth. “I feel safer here with you,” she continued.

Then Asa came beside us dragging a skinny log through the tallgrass. He grunted as he lifted the branch up onto the fence and then sagged beside me trying to catch his breath. “It’s mighty hot out,” he said. Both girls nodded. I was afraid he was going to make them uneasy by starting to talk about how he didn’t want to be buried beneath the ground or Indian torture practices or some of the other gruesome things he likes to speculate on. Cassie twisted the hem of her dress in her hands and you could see that she had firm, pretty legs. She told us about her pa and how he liked to dress up and play Indian sometimes and how he could be gone for weeks. She wanted to know if our pa was part of the militia in town to protect the white people. “Protect,” Asa said. “From who?”

“Why, Indians,” she said. “They steal and trespass and . . .” She lowered her voice and leaned closer to us. “They kill livestock to frighten people away.”

Asa ignored that last part, and said, “But you just said your Pa dresses up like them.”

“Only to keep an eye on them,” Cassie insisted. “To keep us safe.”

I wanted to hear more from her perspective, but Asa tugged at my arm and we went down to finish our afternoon’s work.

Evening came and the girls were still here with no sign of their father. “I suppose it’s too dark for you to walk back, what with your place being a whole half mile away,” Hazel said. I still am not used to the sound of her voice. She’s only been talking again for a month and I am not sure I like it. Her tongue is a getting an edge to it, too smart for her own good. But the girls only nodded and ate some of our supper.

They were still here later when old man Hanyokeyah came with Winona and Wanikiya for their evening lessons.

Right away, Cassie got upset when she saw that Hazel was giving them book learning and I realized they must have argued about Indians earlier in the day. Still, I was willing to listen to her when Cassie drew me aside and said that the boy had a look about him that she didn’t care for. I was starting to like her less and less, the more she talked. Asa was also nearby, peering at her with his squinty pale eyes. “I see,” he said. “You don’t know how to read, do you?” I don’t know how he came to that conclusion, but that did it. She flew into a rage and said that we were the most ignorant folks that had ever moved into this country, aside from the Indians. She took her sister by the arm and stormed off the porch past the old man and my Papa and across the prairie to her home. I went over and sat down next to Daniel and played with his puppies, lifting them up by the scruff until their eyes rolled back in their heads and Daniel got angry. “What a hussy,” Asa said and I nodded, though in truth there was a part of me that was sorry to see her go.

ASA
J
UNE 30, 1859

I am tired of all of them. Tired of Caleb bossing me around during chores. Tired of sleeping on a mattress tick stuffed with marsh grass and waking in the blue-gray of dawn. This is not the life for me, not what my mother wanted. She always told me that my fiddle was for hicks and that I would cast it aside and learn finer things—the viola, or pianoforte. And then she had to go and marry this printer and look where that has brought us. Mother. She is alive out there and there is no one who cares but me. The rest of them are happy to grub in the dirt. Every day that passes I am less and less able to tell us from
them
. Now that there is not as much work in the fields we have more time to spend with
them
and Caleb has made up stupid games to play in the woods along the river. It bothers me that no one grieves for my mother’s absence. How can people be so quick to forget? She wouldn’t have left Matthew and me on purpose. I am going to run away and then what will Jakob think when he opens this stupid journal he bought me and beholds my thoughts? Then it will be me who is laughing.

Always that old man is here with that boy and the half-breed girl with her great big eyes like a cow. I can see her watching during Hazel’s boring lessons, waiting to see if I will take down the fiddle or sing. She butchers the words when she sings along. Her little laugh rings through the room. And that way she has of putting her hands over her mouth and lowering her eyes. But I have seen the blush that spreads along her throat and chest when she knows I am watching. And she always wears that same shirt, white doeskin sewn with conch shells. When she sits beside me the fringes of the doeskin brush against me. She leans forward and I can see the swinging curve of her breasts, the dark, cherry-colored nipples pressed up against the white cloth. It makes my own blood surge and boil and I forget what I was thinking or singing the moment before.

Mother said the slaves were like that, breeding like animals in the fields. So what if her skin is not as dark; she is the same as all of
them
. Mother said to be careful around the slave girls because they could lure you away from a life that is pure and right with God. She said that is what happened to Josiah. He sold his soul for African ebony and then turned away from his own wife to go down into the quarters after dark. I was not sure what she meant until we came here. Oh, but I know now. Winona with the pretty cow eyes. I know what this girl is up to and I will not fall for her tricks.

CALEB
J
ULY 1, 1859

I didn’t mean to, but there was so much blood, I lost control of my senses. The half-wolf puppies got into the chicken pen while we were eating breakfast. In a few minutes the two puppies tore the henhouse to shreds, blood and feathers everywhere. All the hens that provide us with breakfast eggs were dead. I think I blacked out I was so angry. Those puppies with their lean snouts drenched in blood. I just started swinging, pounding them into the wet mud with my fists. They were yowling, cringing. It felt good to hit them like that, my knuckles cracking against their skulls. I picked one up by a leg and twisted it around and threw it through air.

He shouldn’t have tried to stop me; it wouldn’t have happened then. But they were his and he was fond of them. Turnip and Tadpole, he’d named them. Like I said, I couldn’t see, there was this dark curtain before my eyes. When Daniel grabbed hold of my leg, begging and crying, I swung for him too. But the noise he made was different and he lay there afterwards for a long time among the chicken carcasses. Then everybody was all around me, pulling me away and Hazel was inside the pen rocking Daniel back and forth. When she helped him to his feet, I almost cried with relief I was so glad to see I didn’t hurt him too bad. But Daniel ran behind her, hiding in her skirts, and she was red-faced and using words I hadn’t ever imagined she’d use before.