Brave Enemies (22 page)

The trout was so fat it filled my hands. It was slimy and squirming and almost jumped out of my grasp. I carried the fish quickly up the bank and, laying it against a rock, hit the head with the ax. When the body was still I cut off the head and slit open the belly. I raked out the guts and scraped off the scales and slime with the ax blade, then washed the fish in the creek and stuck it on a stick over the fire.

After the trout had baked for a few minutes I ate it off the stick. The meat was so hot I took only a tiny bite at a time. The flesh was sweet and juicy. Nothing is sweeter than trout fresh out of water. I picked the pieces off the bones like they were manna.

When I'd eaten and washed my hands in the creek it was time to leave. If I was going to sweep in a circle, I had to get started. For it was already afternoon. I wasn't sure how late it was.

I crossed the creek and started walking. I came to an old field that might have been cleared by the Cherokees, but there was nobody in sight. I passed the remains of a campfire, but rain had washed away all tracks around it. As the sun got low in the trees I walked toward the sunset.

M
Y FEET WERE NUMB
from walking on the cold ground. I stepped into a branch to warm my feet and saw a high bank above me. It looked like the side of a mountain with big rocks scattered at the foot. The rocks were covered with deep moss. Logs had fallen over the rocks blocking the way. I raised the torch and saw a hole between two big rocks. It looked like the door to the cellar of a castle. I climbed over the logs and stooped to look inside.

The smell told me something alive was in the cave. I couldn't have
said what the scent was, but it was different from the wet rock and moss smell, the stink of rotten leaves. I took a step and pushed the light ahead of me.

In the corner of the cave something moved, something that looked like a pile of rags, and pieces of leather. There was a dirty blanket. And then I saw a foot.

“Who is there?” I said, taking a step closer.

And then I saw gray hair. It was an old woman. Her hair was tangled and knotted and piled around her head. She'd pushed herself back against the wall of the cave.

“You scared me,” I said. “What are you doing here?”

She pulled back farther and pressed herself against the dirty wall. She was shivering and didn't say anything. I reckon my fire on the stick had surprised her. Her eyes were wide and she was trembling.

Reaching the fire around I looked at the cave. It was just a little cave, with only the room where the old woman sat and a little alcove off to the side. An animal had lived there or died there, for there were bones on the floor, white bones and black bones like they had been half burned.

The old woman shivered so badly she was jerking. I reckon she was freezing.

“Haven't you got any fire?” I said.

But she didn't seem to hear me, or if she did hear she couldn't understand. There was something wrong with her legs. From the way she turned I could tell she couldn't move her legs. She had to push herself with her arms. I wondered if she had been carried there and left. I thought she might have crawled to the cave and then gotten too weak to leave.

“Let me make you a fire,” I said. I went back outside and broke some twigs and sticks and gathered dry leaves. After I got a little fire started on the floor of the cave I went back out and broke some bigger sticks. In the dark I could hardly see to chop with the ax. I broke a bunch of sticks and carried them back into the cave.

Smoke had filled the cave, but if you hunkered down you were out of the smoke, for the air was clear along the ground. I coughed and fanned the smoke away from the old woman.

The woman had a leather bag clutched up to her belly. I wondered if she had anything to eat in the sack, or whether it was a poke of medicine and charms or something to wear. I was pretty sure she was an Indian. In the fire light I looked at her face and saw how wrinkled it was. Her lips were cracked and peeling like she hadn't had any water in a long time. She was all dried out.

The floor of the cave was damp and a little muddy. There was no water for drinking. But there was a branch just outside. I'd warmed my feet in the branch before climbing the bank to the cave.

I looked around the smoky cave for a cup or bottle, a bowl or bucket. I didn't have anything but the ax. I didn't even have a hat. Taking a burning stick from the fire, I laid it on a rock at the mouth of the cave for a light. With my two hands cupped tight together, I scooped up water from the branch and carried it quickly into the cave. Water leaked through my fingers, but I got some of it to the old woman's lips.

She pulled back at first and then sucked at the water with her cracked lips as if she was dying for even a drop. She swilled the water up till it was gone with a suck and a hiss.

“I'll get you some more,” I said, and ran back to the branch. The light was still flickering at the cave entrance, and I scooped up another double handful from the branch and hurried back to the old woman. I must have done it at least five times, and every time she drank like she was still parched.

And then she wouldn't drink any more. I held my cupped hands to her lips and the water dribbled down on her chin, but she wouldn't sip again. And it wasn't just that she had had enough. It was like she'd made up her mind not to drink anymore, to do nothing. The fire had warmed up the cave a little, but she was still shaking.

“What have you got to eat?” I said. I felt the pockets of my coat and remembered I didn't have anything. I reached for the bag she held to her
belly and she didn't resist when I pulled it away. I opened the sack and held it to the light, but there wasn't anything inside but two feathers tied with a leather string, and some black stuff that looked at first like burned bread crumbs. But when I held a piece to the light I saw it was something like pemmican, dried meat cut into little pieces.

“Here, eat a piece of this,” I said and held it to her lips. “It will bring your strength back.”

But the old woman didn't open her mouth. She didn't try to pull away; she acted like she didn't even see me.

“Aren't you hungry?” I said. But she acted like I wasn't even there anymore. Her eyes stared straight ahead into the smoke of the cave.

Just then I heard a growl. I looked around toward the door and saw a head through the smoke. It was a big cat's head and in an instant I knew it was a panther, and we were in its cave. The panther had been out hunting when the old woman crawled into the lair or was carried there.

I dropped the meat and grabbed a burning stick from the fire. I lunged toward the head, thrusting the burning stick like it was a sword. The fire lit up the cat's eyes and it wheeled around and ran. I followed the panther out until it disappeared into the dark. Holding the torch high I looked around in the trees but saw nothing but rocks and the flash of water in the branch.

I found I was trembling. It had all happened so fast I hadn't had time to be scared. But holding the stick now I was shaking, for I knew the beast would be back. It was the cat's lair and it would come back. Cats were afraid of fire, but it would still come back.

I thought of running out of the cave and getting away. I didn't know where the panther had gone, and it might be waiting just outside. But if I left the old woman, it would attack her and kill her. And the old woman wasn't able to move. I'd have to drag her out. It would be all I could do to drag her out into the woods.

I saw I was trapped. Even if I ran away from the old woman, I could still be killed by the panther. There was another growl outside and then
a scream like a woman being torn in two. I'd heard panthers scream before, but never that close up. It was the kind of scream that took all the strength out of your legs and made your guts shiver.

I reached for another burning stick, so I'd have two to jab into the cat's face. But I knew when it came back it would be leaping so fast I wouldn't even see it in the smoke until it was on top of me. And then it would be too late to scare the cat with fire.

Then I remembered the ax. I dropped the sticks back into the fire and grabbed the ax handle. I figured if I stood to the side the cat wouldn't see me when it jumped inside, and I might hit it over the head. Maybe the smoke would burn its eyes till it couldn't see anything.

I put myself right at the side of the cave mouth and held the ax with both hands. There was a growl outside and something stirred in the leaves. The growl sounded closer. But I was afraid I wouldn't be able to see anything in the dim light. What if it jumped on me before I even saw it? I would have to hit fast and hard. I listened and gripped the handle tighter. My heart jumped so hard I thought it was going to break out of my chest.

There were padding steps and a whoosh. Before I knew it the panther had leaped through the smoke. I squinted my eyes and saw it had landed right on the old woman and was clawing her face.

The cave wasn't high enough to swing the ax over my head. I had to sling it sideways, out level with my shoulder. With the blunt side of the ax I hit the cat behind the ears. And then I turned the ax around and chopped right through the back of the head. I cut into the spine and split the spine like it was a piece of heartwood inside a rotten log. I chopped again and again, as I had hit Mr. Griffin, and blood poured and splashed on everything.

When I pulled the cat off the old woman there was blood on her face, but it was mostly panther's blood. Her eyes were staring straight ahead like they had before. I put my finger on her throat and listened to her heart. She wasn't breathing, and she must have been dead before the cat ever jumped on her.

I
SPENT THE NEXT DAY
getting the body of the old woman out of the cave. I had nowhere to stay except in the cave, and I couldn't stay there another night with the dead bodies. As soon as I woke I added wood to the fire to make it brighter, and then I tried to think what to do.

The panther was a big heavy thing, and it was all I could do to roll the cat off the old woman. Blood had splashed on everything and run out on the dirt and rocks. I held the cat's hind legs and pulled but couldn't really move it. I'd have to leave the panther where it was. I looked outside.

It was a cold gray day. The clouds hung just above the bare trees. The low sky made you feel there wasn't any room in the world. The laurel leaves had rolled up like pipes against the cold. It was the kind of day that made you want to hunker by the fire.

I didn't have a shovel or spade or mattock. There wasn't anything to dig with but the ax, and I didn't want to ruin the blade by driving it into the ground. The panther was too big to move, but surely I could drag the old woman. I looked out across the woods and tried to remember what Indians did with their dead.

I shuddered in the cold and hurried back into the cave. A memory hovered just at the edge of my thought. I tried to grab it but the idea slipped away. The old woman's dirty dress was covered with the panther's blood. Her face was smeared with blood too, and blood had splashed into her hair. Blood had run out onto the rocks around her, and there were pools of blood in the dirt.

I looked to see if there was something to wrap her up in. I didn't want to look at her face, and I didn't want to get the blood on my clothes more than I could help. I tried to see what she was lying on. I pushed her over and saw an old blanket in the dirt under her. It had a little blood on it, but mostly the blanket was just damp and dirty. I could wrap her in the blanket to drag her out into the open.

And soon as I thought of wrapping her in the blanket, I remembered what it was I was trying to recall. My schoolteacher, Mr. Pickett, had said Indians wrapped their dead in deerskins and tied them up, knees against their chest, like babies in the womb. They buried them there with beads and pots and tools they might need in heaven. Mr. Pickett had lived with the Cherokees for several months, and he taught us about Indians as well as drilling us in grammar and proper speech.

I pulled the dirty blanket out from under the woman and rolled the body in it. There was a leather string that tied the bag she had held. I took the string and tied the blanket as tight as I could and dragged the blanket out into the open.

There wasn't any way I could dig a grave. I looked around at the rocks and the cold winter woods. Everything was blank and gray. The air had a withering dampness and chill that made you want to huddle against the ground. I left the body and walked among the rocks till I could see the hill above the cave. It was just a little hill, with rocks scattered all around the slope under the trees. Lichens like peeling paint and crumbling seals stuck to the rocks. Halfway around the hill I found a sinkhole above the branch. Maybe if I laid the body in that hole facing west it would be the closest thing to a Cherokee burial. Mr. Pickett had said Indians
were supposed to face the sunset, where all their forebears had gone. I dragged the body around the hill through the leaves. An arm slid out of the blanket and I tucked it back in. The old woman's gray hair trailed in the leaves.

The hardest thing was to get the body into the sinkhole, for the old woman was stiff. That took some studying. I finally had to lean the body up against the side of the pit and push it down into the leaves and mud. Once it was all the way down I smoothed the blanket and laid the leather bag on her chest. And then I thought better and pulled the feathers out and laid them on her head, and kept the bag. I carried rocks and piled them on her so animals couldn't reach the body.

Soon as I got to the branch, I washed my hands and dried them on my pants and hurried into the cave. The fire was still burning and I hunkered down under the smoke and warmed my hands. I was shivering and I was tired. I hadn't had much sleep and I was worn out from all the terrible things that had happened. There wasn't anything to eat, but I was too worried to be hungry.