Patrick Henry and the Frigate’s Keel: And Other Stories of a Young Nation (12 page)

6

The Brood

 

THE BROOD

H
E WOKE
, looked into the hot sun, then closed his eyes and sought the dark restfulness of sleep. But the sun burned through his lids; awake, he heard a thousand noises that were not there before. He gave up sleep, and came alive as he always came alive at the beginning of a day. He came alive not as himself, but as the oldest of the brood. As himself, he had almost no identity; as one of the brood, he was one of six scrambling, squabbling, jealous bits of life.

As himself, he was a boy of thirteen, tall, gangling, skinny, ugly. A bony, sheepish face; bony hands that did the wrong thing instinctively, that invited blame.

As of the brood, he was Jim, the oldest. His sister, Jenny, was a year younger; his brother, Ben, nine; his brother, Cal, eight; his sister, Lizzie, six; the baby, Peter, was fifteen months, stub of the brood.

He, Jim, became awake—to sound, to light, to consciousness of time and distance. Time and distance stretched out, and always eighteen sway-backed covered wagons were his world. In that world he lived, fought, bickered, slept, and waked. Past and future were as nothing; for only intermittently did he think of the place where they had originated, and hardly at all of the vague place to which they were going. That it was the year eighteen seventy-two meant little to him; that the purple haze on the western horizon was the hump of the continent, the Rocky Mountains, meant even less. The world was within the circle of wagons, and that was all the world.

Becoming awake that way, to heat, to smells of cooking, he felt the contact of his sister Jenny's ribs pressing his elbow. He jabbed with his elbow, felt his sister twitch out of sleep, jabbed again, and heard her offended cry.

“You lemme alone!” she screamed.

He sat up, a smirk on his long, sun-splotched face, his lips pursed and whistling: “Oh! Susanna, oh don't you cry for me—”

Jenny kicked out. He rolled her over, went on with his whistling. He became aware of his mother's approach, a big woman, large of bone, of hand and foot. She carried the baby, and she walked strangely, bent almost double. There was a reason for the crouched walk, and for a moment it drove all else from Jim's mind, leaving only the world he knew, the world of eighteen wagons that had moved constantly westward, but now moved no longer; the world that had thrown itself into a circle, a wall of wagons, a shelter pit in the center, an enemy outside. Jim thought of the enemy, the brown enemy, the painted enemy, of arrows that quivered loosely in sandy soil. Thoughts of the enemy mingled with plans and devices for outwitting his sister. He forgot the enemy and continued his whistling.

“Maw, he's hittin' me again.”

He whistled calmly.

“Stop that whistling!” his mother ordered. She put down the baby. It was early morning, but already her face showed lines of weariness.

“He hit me,” Jenny said.

“She's a liar.” The words came out instinctively, with a rush, and his face assumed the sheepish look that was a confession. They would all be against him. If he hadn't hit her, she would have plagued him until he had. Regardless of what he did or didn't do, it was wrong. The oldest of the brood, he was bound by it. His lanky, awkward body incurred their derision, not their respect. In that moment, he hated them.

“Jim! Jim, don't you call nobody a liar, or I'll lick the livin' daylights outta you.” His mother sighed, sank to the ground. She was a tall woman, too tall for the shelter pit. All day under the hot sun she had to crouch and hide the length of her body.

“Maw, look, he hit me here.”

Other bits of the brood had come to life. “I seen him,” Ben said, joining in the argument.

“Stop that whistling!” She slapped him.

He kicked out of the blankets and stalked off. Clothed, but barefoot, he had slept. He took pleasure in the fact that he wouldn't be ordered to wash, to dress. The slap still stung, and he made up his mind that Ben would feel the weight of his own hand.

“Bend your head!” his mother ordered.

His sister Jenny was laughing.

He stood defiantly erect. That way, erect, he stood too high. His head rose above the edge of the scooped hole that housed their world, that had been their world for two days now. His head was high enough for him to see beyond the boundary of fresh-piled dirt, for him to see the eighteen long, canvas-covered wagons, drawn into a circle and chained wheel to wheel, for him to see the men who lay under the wagons, between the wheels, guns held.

“Jim, you—get your head down!” his mother cried.

Jenny made a face. “Too tall for his own good, ain' he, Maw?”

“Jim, you come back here!”

He stood wavering, shamefaced, hot about his ears, conscious of smiling glances from many other families in the pit, hating the brood he was a part of.

“Jim!”

He shuffled back. The hot, fresh-turned dirt of the pit broke between his toes. He came back to the brood with his head bent. Jenny made faces. Lizzie grinned at him with impish satisfaction.

“Never seen a boy like you,” his mother sighed. “Never seen a boy to make his mother's life a trial.”

“What I done?” he demanded.

Jenny cried: “He don' know, Maw. Jus' listen, he don' know.”

“Shut up!” Jim cried.

His mother's hand stung on his face. She thrust a pail at him. “See you don't spill the water,” she told him.

Pail in hand, he started across the shelter pit. He kept his head erect, defiantly, glancing eagerly at the linked wagons, at the sweat-soaked men who lay beneath them, rifles in hand, at the sweep of yellow, sun-dried prairie beyond, at the hazy mystery of the landscape where the enemy waited. He indulged in generous self-pity, seeing himself there with the men, wounded, hero-like.

His mother's voice came after him, “You, Jim—get your head down!”

Close to the center of the shelter pit, sunk into the earth and covered with canvas, was all that remained of the water, some eight barrels. Other boys were there waiting, pails in hand, ill-at-ease members of broods, conscious of a gawky, adolescent uselessness; more vaguely conscious that they were sent here because their mothers feared to face the diminishing water supply.

Mr. Johnson, one arm in a sling, his long mustache drooping and sorrowful, dispensed the water. He dipped it out of a barrel with a quart dipper, allowing a quart a day for each member of each family. It was little enough, yet too much, and his hand shook like a miser's as he poured the water. A thousand times he had counted the quarts of water in camp.

The boys crowded around him, asking questions, jostling one another, able to stand erect because here the pit was deeper, but trying to give the impression that they would have stood erect anyway.

“Expect attack soon, Jack?”

“Reckon that wound hurts?”

He poured the water carefully, gently.

“How about a little drink, Jack?”

He looked down his mustache with scorn, poured the water.

“How about the cavalry, Jack? How come they ain' here?”

“How come you all talk so much?” he demanded.

Jim's turn came. “Seven,” he said. He tried to look important. That was a big family; not many families could demand seven quarts of water.

Johnson poured the seven quarts.

“My, it looks cold,” Jim said. “My, I'd like to have one little drink.”

“You'd cheat on the water,” Johnson said shortly.

Jim flung a hand at the men beneath the wagons. “Them out there—they got plenty drinkin'.”

“Maybe you'd like to be out there?”

“Maybe I would.”

Johnson spat his contempt, and Jim felt the red burn about his ears. He turned and started back, holding the heavy pail with both hands.

Johnson called after him, “Mind that water gets to your maw!”

The boys laughing, Johnson's mournful mustache hiding his contempt, the hot sun, the dust, the close contact of eighteen families in the narrow boundaries of the pit, his sister Jenny running toward him, warning shrilly that water was slopping over the edge of the bucket, dancing around him—

“Leggo my hand!” he cried.

His mother: “Jim—be careful!”

Then he fell, and the water swirled out into a loose splotch of brown mud, over himself, over his sister. He rose awkwardly, red hot, bitter, conscious that every eye in the pit was upon him. He picked up the empty pail and looked into it. He raised his eyes and saw his mother approaching him.

There were no words he could say. He stood stock still, holding the bucket, until he felt the bulk of his mother's presence.

She said slowly, “Seven quarts of water—”

Every eye in the shelter pit was upon him, yet he felt alone in an immensity of sun-baked prairie, unprotected, too big for himself, all hands and feet and flushed neck.

“A day's water,” his mother said.

“I'll go back. Maybe Mr. Johnson—”

“You won't go back. We'll do without.”

He looked up at his mother, choked in his throat and his chest, wanting to cry, yet unable to cry. Then he turned and walked across the pit. Eyes followed him; no words, but turning eyes all the short way, past Johnson and the water barrels, past three graves with wooden crosses over them, past seven wounded men, who lay under a bit of canvas.

For a long time he sat with his back against the loose-dirt side of the pit, his knees drawn up, hands about them, bare feet plucking at the ground, the sun burning down and turning his neck a brighter red. The life of the pit went on and ignored him. The sun beat down. Breakfast was cooked and eaten. Water was hoarded and sipped. His lips became dry and cracked, his throat tight and sore. He longed for anything to happen, for attack, for rescue, for obliteration. His self-pity grew and swelled. His hatred for the brood increased.

At last he saw his mother coming toward him, bent over as she walked, carrying a plate of beans and a cup of water. She came up to him and held out the water.

“I ain' thirsty,” he said.

“Drink it.” Her voice was almost gentle.

He pursed up his lips and began to whistle: “Oh! Susanna, oh don't you cry for me—”

She opened her mouth, as if to say something, as if to lash him with the usual torrent of words, then left the words unspoken, stared at him as if she were seeing him for the first time, seeing something beyond the bony awkwardness of him. There was something like satisfied relief in her eyes.

She nodded, then placed the cup of water and the plate of beans on the ground beside him. As she walked away, his dry, broken whistling followed her: “I've come from Alabama with my banjo on my knee—”

Slow time and slow passage of the sun overhead. The heavy juice of the beans dried out, and their skins cracked. The water in the cup became cloudy with dust. The animation of the pit disappeared. Women and children were waiting. For two days now, they had crouched behind their wall of wagons, waiting. One quick, furious attack had left seven wounded and three dead. Since then they had waited—for attack, for rescue, for hope, for death. The sun swung, as on a tight-drawn rubber band.

He was very hungry, even more thirsty. Again and again, he looked down at the beans and water. He whistled until his lips were too dry for the sound to emerge, and then he sat with his cracked lips drawn tight.

The sun hung above them, then started its long sway to the other side of the world. Tiny shadows lengthened. Exhausted, parched, the people of the pit lay still. Only the wounded moaned sometimes, and sometimes those who had their dead wept for them.

His brother Ben crept across to him once. Jim ignored him.

“Spilled seven quart water,” Ben said.

Jess pursed his lips to whistle.

“Seven quart.”

“You git,” Jim whispered, his voice hoarse with hate.

“Seven quart,” Ben grinned. Then he crept away.