Scar (5 page)

I try again to force him to sit, but he thrashes at me, and between his surprising strength and my feverish head, I'm unsuccessful.

“You'll choke to death if you don't sit,” I yell. But as I'm yelling, I have an idea. And having an idea livens me up. I place him back down, roll him like a log onto his uninjured side, and begin to pound on his back. I've seen the women do this in church with babies. I know Scar doesn't have to belch, but whatever is stuck will have an easier time coming out if I help.

Scar can barely draw breath, let alone cough. I pound his back and shout at him. “Cough, Scar, cough!” This poor boy probably wishes I had stabbed him dead this afternoon. But I don't quit. “For the Lord's sake, COUGH!”

Finally, he half spits, half coughs out a thick, dark-brown liquid. Is it vomit? What is it? I move closer. It looks like he's vomited a wet mess of finely ground tea leaves.

Scar is limp with exhaustion, but able to breathe. The coughing has stopped. I roll him back and he sighs in relief. Covering him up, I reach for the water. He's too tired to fight me, and he drinks. I'm so thirsty, but I close the canteen. After I lay his head down, his moon-shadow is out of the way of his vomit and I see it's not tea leaves, but blood he's been choking on. It looks partially dried somehow. But it's definitely blood.

It's then that it hits me … He isn't going to live.

I guess I knew this when I first found him this afternoon.

Without thinking, I pick up his hand in mine and look up at the sky between the branches of the hemlock trees. Why is it that when we want answers we know we can't have, we turn our faces to the sky? Maybe it's all those stars. Maybe just comparing our concerns to their twinkling masses shrinks our problems.

Scar squeezes my hand.

I'm afraid to look at him. I know that he knows he's dying.

He squeezes my hand again.

I look down. His eyes are like the stars, full of twinkle.
I'm amazed by how well I know his eyes when I don't even know his name.

“Hand prisoner?” he croaks.

His voice shocks me, and I can barely take in that he spoke, let alone understand his meaning.

“Girl?” he says. “Hand prisoner?”

“What?” I say. “I wasn't holding her hand prisoner. Maybe it was her fault. Maybe she forgot to remove her hand from mine.” But then I grin a little sheepishly. “You're right. I held her hand too long,” I admit, lying back down next to him. “She had to eventually yank it from me.”

He laughs. It's a good sound.
Hand prisoner
. I think Scar might be funny. I like knowing this about him.

“After she released herself from my grip, she said she needed to locate her sisters and head home. Her father was unwell and her older sister needed help in caring for him. As she turned to leave, she stopped and spoke to me: ‘So, we are both sixteen. When is the day of your birth?'

“I knew the answer to this, of course, and was just about to give it when my sister answered for me. ‘March seventh,' Mary said.

“‘I'm the fifth,' the girl said. ‘Of course this means I'm the elder, and therefore the wiser, of us.'

“She laughed.

“I didn't.

“‘Two days is hardly time to become wise,' I told her.

“She laughed again, although I didn't think what I'd said was funny.

“My mother interrupted our conversation with an invitation for her family to join us for supper the following Saturday when her father was feeling better. She thanked my mother and accepted. After this, she gathered her sisters and left.

“For the next week I worked our farm like a true descendant of my headstrong mother. It being spring, there was a never-ending list of things to do. Fields to prepare, seeds to sow, animals to feed, traps to check. Within the week, I had our small farm looking quite acceptable. I labored at such a pace that when I hit my straw at night, I was already asleep. I wanted to show Eliza Little that those two days she held over me meant nothing.

“When I awoke on the following Saturday, I made a list in my head of a hundred chores to do to keep from thinking about our supper guests. I was cleaning out the smokehouse, number four on my list, and sweating like a pack mule, when Mary came out and told me to clean up for dinner, our midday meal, for we had a guest.

“I never asked who it was. I assumed it was Mrs. Van Etten. She often visits my mother. She's a kind woman, although she speaks too much of her health. I quickly cleaned myself using a dirty rag hanging in the barn and went to dinner. When I stepped into the cabin I bumped right into Eliza Little. And though she tried to hide it, I saw her sniff.
I'm sure I smelled like last year's smoked pork butt.”

“Or maybe, smell fish,” Scar says, pulling his hand from under the frock and making it swim.

“Yes, thank you,” I tell him, “or maybe I smelled like old fish … anyway … She and her little sisters had come to inform us that their father wasn't feeling well enough for supper that evening, and my mother invited the three of them to stay for dinner.”

“Beside noticing how badly I smelled, it was also the first time Eliza Little noticed my foot.”

I raise my twisted, thick ankle into the air for Scar to see—the toe end of my moccasin bending awkwardly left.

“And when she noticed, she did something that no one had ever done before … She asked me about it. ‘Cow, horse, or tree?' she said. When I didn't answer, she answered herself with a shrug and a laugh: ‘No matter, all three are the same—useful, but heavy when they land.'

“It was a true statement, so I told her as much. And again, she laughed.

“We sat for dinner over beef mixed with currant and cabbage. And this is where I first learned how much Eliza Little loved to talk. As we ate, she described life in their old settlement, including how they'd lost their mother to the pox
the year before. But mostly she entertained us with stories about her older sister Sarah's bad cooking. I'd never seen my mother enjoy herself so much.

“When dinner was finished, my mother and Mary offered to introduce her sisters to our new litter of pigs. Eliza Little and I cleared the table together. It was the first time I'd been alone with her. She told me she was sorry for the loss of my father. I told her I was sorry for the loss of her mother. She stopped clearing then and smiled at me. Not knowing how to respond, I nodded my head. She laughed and called me a serious fellow. But she said it as though being serious was not quite a proper thing. At that moment, my mother came in with fresh water and I announced that I'd walk the girls home. I was determined to behave well no matter what this girl called me.

“On that walk we had our first fight … of many. The argument was over the planting of wheat. She believed in growing more wheat than one needed, and then transporting the excess wheat and flour to market. Now, as a matter of course, I'm not against growing more wheat than is necessary to barter for tools and livestock, but to go hauling it about the colonies … Never mind, it was a heated fight. And about wheat. Who fights about wheat?”

I turn to Scar. He clearly agrees. Although I know he's humoring me. Mohawk men do not plant wheat. They hunt and fish and fight. Farming is women's work.

.
  
.
  
.

“And that is what I said to her. ‘Who fights over wheat?' And do you know what she did?”

I don't wait for Scar to respond.

“Of course, she laughed. She seemed to think everything was funny. Just as she thought that everything needed to be discussed … at length. And so we fought, at every meeting, and on every subject—over how much corn to feed a hog through winter—whether grass be cut easiest by sickle or scythe—how to plow a straight row—even what a correctly plowed straight row should look like!

“And if I ever came close to winning one of these arguments, Eliza Little would bring up those extra two days that she'd lived in this world like they were indisputable evidence of her being right about everything. Sometimes she wouldn't even say a word, she'd just smile while she held up two fingers in the middle of my sentence. It made me want to pluck her up and toss her in the Neversink.”

My voice is tiring. I try to soothe it with spit, but I have none.

“When we arrived at Eliza Little's home, I excused myself, informing her that I needed to return immediately to complete my chores before dark. She smiled and whispered, ‘So serious.'

“That night I lay on my straw, frowning when I thought
about Eliza Little—which made me think that perhaps she was right and I was too serious. She did this to me … sent my thoughts spinning in frustrating circles. And I slept very little before it was time to rise for church the next day.

“Of course, Eliza Little and her sisters were again at the service. The sermon flew by. I had never known the Reverend to speak so well. It was another beautiful spring Sunday, and when I stepped outside, I saw that she was standing in a group next to Mr. Decker. At first I looked around for others I could speak with. But I decided right then and there that I was going to live the same way I did before Eliza Little arrived. So I walked straight for Mr. Decker to say good morning. He halted his conversation and greeted me with his usual enthusiasm. He then began to introduce me to Eliza Little, forgetting that we had met the previous week, standing right beside him. Before I could stop him, he started in on my excellent character, and what a hard worker I was. If I had written a script in my own hand, I couldn't have done a better job singing my praises. The speech went on for quite a while and I felt I should applaud when he finished.
Take that
, I thought,
two days older and wiser
.

“Eliza Little smiled and told Mr. Decker that she also believed me to be of steady character. But even though the words ‘steady character' seemed meant in a complimentary way, I could not take them as such. Instead, I could hear her voice in my head now calling me ‘so steady.' How she got into my head, I do not know.

“She then wished us a good day, saying she needed to be
on her way. And before I could stop myself, I offered to see her safely home … revealing more of my steady character.”

“You see?” I say. “How bothersome she is. And trust me, I had not provoked this from her in any way.”

“Woman comes from sky,” Scar whispers. “Many times, men ask birds, when you take back woman?”

We turn to each other and laugh.

“A flock of crows,” I tell him, “and all my problems might be solved.”

All my problems … Scar is weakening by the moment and my own cheeks glow with fever. We need more than birds.

“I was once again locked into the task of walking her home when it was the last thing I wanted to do.

“The walk started off quite slowly, for her little sisters needed to dart here and there before they moved in a forward direction—like two busy butterflies. And while the little ones flitted about, Eliza Little engaged in her affection for speech. She told me how they had come from Connecticut when she was a baby because her father had a dream of owning his own farm. About how hard they all had worked for that dream and how her mother had basically died for it. She proudly showed me her fingernails, black with dirt from spring planting. She joyfully spoke of our rich soil, our freezing winters, our sweaty summers. And on top of one
particular hill, she even threw open her arms and declared her devotion to the entire river valley.

“I don't know why I did it—maybe it was her passion for the seasons, or maybe her dirty fingernails—but I took her on my secret walk to a certain small patch of land. I'd never invited anyone there before, not even my sister, Mary.

“Her little sisters were thrilled to leave the road for adventure. They engaged me in constant conversation for the entire walk to what I like to call my farm. I explained my plans for the cabin I would build one day and where I would place my barn and fields, and what I would plant first. The butterflies stopped listening when I became invested in the subject of chinking—the mixture applied between the logs in a cabin in order to keep the wind from howling in. Eliza Little didn't stop listening. And she was not shy regarding what she believed were the proper chinking proportions between deer hair, mud, and lime. I actually thought her way too concerned with the lime. But wanting to be polite, I did not mention this at the time.

“When we arrived at my farm, Eliza Little exclaimed over the soil as it crumbled rich and dark between her fingers, pointed out the location's excellence in regard to water, and noted the perfect view in all directions. It made me feel as though I had created the soil and view myself. I told her that I had scouted out this place long ago and that I visited it every evening after my chores were finished. Although as soon as we took a seat together on a rock at the southeastern
corner of my farm, we promptly began to fight over how many trees would need to come down, and where was the best placement for the cabin.

“Every day after this, Eliza Little met me on the walk to my farm at the fork in the path between our land and her family's … and our fighting continued. We agreed on almost nothing but those things that were at the most elemental level, like building the cabin with its back to the wind. It was so rare that we agreed on anything, that when we did, it felt odd, like a bath in midwinter, and we quickly moved past it.”

“You're probably wondering why I even let her walk with me. It's only because she would be standing there at our usual meeting place carrying a birch basket of gingerbread or cranberry tarts. Cranberry tarts … What could I do? Of course I had to let her come.”

I sigh, picturing Eliza Little the last time I saw her. She wasn't holding onto a basket full of tarts, but holding back a heart full of tears.

Breathing in the smell of the river deeply through my nose—the clean scent of drying stone—I look over at Scar. He is sound asleep.