The Eden Hunter (18 page)

Xavier was waiting for him on the other side of the bridge. “I have been looking for you,” he said. “You are still ready to leave tomorrow, no?”

His ankle felt right to him at last. “Be ready now,” he said.

“Good. Then I am supposed to tell you that the General wants to see you first.”

“When?”

“Soon,” said Xavier. “For supper.”

“Again?”

“That is what he told me.”

Kau nodded. The soldiers had built up their cook-fires, and he made his way through the half-light to his tent. He passed two men tossing dice, and they called out to him with Spanish words that he did not understand. He stopped but the soldiers only grinned and then looked away.

 

HIS TENT WAS lit with candles, and Beah was sitting on the camp bed. He placed his saddlebags atop the table and looked at her. She had her wide legs crossed and was rubbing her foot. “Where you been?” she asked.

He motioned back behind him. “Walkin. You needin somethin?”

Beah smiled. “I see you gettin along now, not limpin no more.” She patted the bed. “Come here and sit now.”

“Garçon waitin.”

“So he gonna wait a little more. Come on. I got some questions to ask you.”

He sat down next to her.

“What the General see upriver?” she asked. “I believe he told you.”

“No.”

“You lyin.”

“I ain’t.”

She grabbed either side of his face and then pressed her lips hard against his own.

He pulled away. “What you doin?” He had not known kissing until he became a slave. He had asked Benjamin about it once and the boy had seemed as confused as he was, said only that it was something people did when one loved the other. Samuel had been more helpful. You do it cause it feels good and right, the old man had told him.

“Bed me,” said Beah.

He slid away from her and stood. “What now?”

“You gonna need a woman. Every man need a woman.”

“Thas what you want? To be my woman?”

She stood as well. She loomed over him. “I ain’t aimin to die jus yet,” she said. “I ain’t like the General.”

“Why you think he gonna let you leave with me?”

“He got respect for you.”

“And why you thinkin that?”

“Maybe cause you seen things even he ain’t never.”

He was quiet. Of course he could not take her.

“Well?”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “But—”

Beah pushed at him and he stumbled backwards. “Don say nothin else right now,” she said. “I want you to think hard on what I’m askin you. We’ll talk when you through with the General.” And then she turned and laid herself down on the bed to wait, Kau realized, for his return.

 

THAT NIGHT HE dined with Garçon for a second time. Xavier was summoned to join them at the table, and they were served thin cuts of venison drizzled with sweet muscadine gravy. The pigeons occupied a corner of the tent, secured in a big cage of bent and woven willow, and Kau figured there were close to fifty birds huddled inside.

They began to eat, and then Garçon asked him once more if he might like to take one of the British muskets along when he left the fort. “As a gift,” he said.

Kau shook his head. “Thank you,” he said. “But no.”

Garçon stood in a rush, and the startled pigeons slapped against the ceiling of their cage. A thin white curtain separated the room where the General ate from the room where he slept. He disappeared behind it, and Kau followed the movements of his shadow.

Xavier spoke. “Be more careful,” he whispered. “Stop saying no to him.”

But when Garçon returned he was smiling. He held a straight length of barked wood in his fist like a staff. “Here,” said Garçon. “This is for you.”

Garçon walked over and offered Kau the wood. He took it. The heavy pole was almost as long he himself was. Garçon brought his hands together in front of him, then slowly pulled them apart as he spoke: “You once hunted with a bow, correct?” Kau nodded and Garçon continued. “I had my Choctaws bring this from upriver,” he said. “Yew. They tell me the finest bows are made from that tree.”

Kau turned the wood in his hands. He recognized the pattern of the fissured bark from a species of evergreen he had seen in the slope forests to the north. There had been several such trees in the valley of Elvy Callaway. He wondered if Beah was right—if Garçon really gave him this attention and kindness, offered him these gifts, just because he was interested by him. That seemed impossible to believe. Accepting this gift from the General put him in mind of Chabo and the wife of the Kesa farmer who had once been placed at his feet. From what he knew of gifts they were almost always more than what they seemed.

 

AFTER SUPPER HE borrowed a whetstone from Xavier and went to his tent. Beah was asleep in the camp bed, but still a candle burned. He removed three biscuits from his shirt and placed them on the table for her. Beah’s face was wet with sweat, and he looked away from her.

He contemplated the cut yew. The stave was much too large for an Ota bow and would need to be carved down. He sat in a
chair and began to sharpen Benjamin’s hunting knife, sliding the blade across the whetstone until he had an edge fine enough to shave the coarse hairs from his arm. Satisfied, he stripped all of the bark from the yew and then closed his eyes. He spoke quietly to his father in Kesa, whispered, Please, Father, guide my head and my hands.

The bruised bark carried a strong odor, though in truth he did not find it to be all that disagreeable. To him the shaved wood smelled of tomato leaves and turpentine—skunk, perhaps—any of which he preferred over the sulfur stink of gunpowder.

He went outside and found a small knob of oak lying loose near a woodpile. He fixed the oak block to the tip of his blade, creating a drawknife of sorts. Returning to the tent, he leaned the skinned yew against the side of the table so that it rose up from the dirt floor at a diagonal. He spread out his horse blanket and straddled the stave—crossing his legs behind him so that the wood was pinned between his thighs—then he took the oak block in one hand and the handle of the knife in the other.

Suddenly Beah began to yelp and buck in her sleep. The damp bed sheet was now twisted around her, and Kau was thinking that he should go to her when she grew silent and settled.

He touched the blade to the top of the yew and then started to plane wood from the belly of his bow. At first he did not trust himself with the sharp knife and so he moved slowly, afraid that he would ruin this rare wood Garçon had favored him with. He tried to remember the dimensions of all the bows he had ever seen in his life: Ota bows but also Kesa bows, Choctaw bows and Creek bows.
In his mind he created a new sort of bow, one that combined the best features of them all. A short bow but a sturdy bow. A bow that was powerful but still not so large that it would slow him when he moved through the forest. With each cut his hands grew more steady and certain. The wood came off in long, yellow curls.

 

IT WAS VERY late in the night by the time he finished with his initial shapings. The naked stave was heavy with sap and would have to be seasoned before it could launch a fast arrow.

He went outside. It was black dark save a few quivering cook-fires, and he waited for his eyes to adjust. One of the bachelor soldiers living in the fort was also a trapper, and this man had cut himself stretcher boards for mink pelts and fox pelts and coon pelts. Kau filled a wooden bucket with water from a horse trough, then eased his way to the place along the north wall where the trapper kept his supplies. Among the stretcher boards he found a long one that suited his purposes—a five-foot length of pine meant for a bobcat or an otter. The thin board was squared at the bottom and rounded at the top. He lifted it away from the wall and then returned to the tent.

Water sloshed from the bucket when he set it down, but Beah did not stir. He laid the otter board on the ground and placed the yew lengthwise on top of it. The planed side of the stave met flush against the flat otter board, and the snugness of the fit pleased him. He removed the oak block from the end of his knife and stood. The canvas wall of the tent was folded over where it fell down onto the
dirt, and he unraveled the fabric, then cut out several long strips of canvas that he placed in the bucket to soak.

Once the stiff strips of canvas had softened in the water he tied them under and over the flat otter board, cinching the bow stave in place. His knots would tighten as the canvas dried, and in three or four weeks the wood might be seasoned well enough for him to be able to finish shaping it. He cut a wider length of canvas away from the tent and then wrapped this around the entire otter board. Beah was awake and watching him now. He pretended not to see her, but then she spoke his name. He set down his bundle and went to her. She forced her hand into his own and then smiled at him. “What you at?” she asked.

“The General gave me some wood for a bow.”

She closed her eyes and gripped his hand tighter. “You even ask him?”

He did not answer and she nodded.

“I won’t be beggin you no more,” she said.

“If I knew for sure I could get us to some safe place I would take you.”

“I believe that.”

He pointed at the biscuits he had left for her but she shook her head.

“You sleep here tonight,” he told her. “I’ll go and be by a fire somewhere.” He moved away but she would not release his hand.

“I’m scared of what’s comin,” she said.

“I know.”

“Will you stay here?” she asked. “Will you stay here jus till I fall asleep again?”

He sat down beside her and for some reason he thought of Morning Star, of the prophet’s death chant. He began to sing this to Beah but in the soft and quiet style of a white man’s lullaby. He repeated the Creek verses ten times before her breaths finally became even and her fingers slipped from his hand.

H
E AWOKE LYING next to a cold cook-fire. It was dark still, but they were to leave at daybreak. He collected his knife and canteen and folded his horse blanket, then walked to his tent. Beah was gone. He stuffed the blanket into one of the saddlebags, then balanced the bundled yew stave on his shoulder and went back outside.

The gate of the fort was open and a sentry was watching him. “
Adiós
,” said the sentry. The man seemed exhausted, maybe even drunk.

Kau walked past him and then found the others waiting on the bank of the river. Xavier was in uniform and was holding a longrifle now instead of a musket. A canvas haversack was resting by
his feet. Kau looked at Garçon. He was bareheaded and shirtless, wore only his ivory breeches and black boots. His braids had been tied together with a frayed yellow ribbon, and the matted ropes of twisted hair fell down the center of his muscled back like a cluster of dried tobacco leaves. The General smiled at him. “So you have not changed your mind?” he asked.

“No,” said Kau.

“
Très bien
.”

A square raft of milled pine was beached on a slick stretch of hard mud, the same stained spot where the manatí had been dragged ashore and butchered six days before. Garçon kicked at the side of the raft. “You will take this instead of a canoe,” he said. “This is good strong wood. I thought perhaps you could use some of it to build a shelter for yourself somewhere.”

“Thank you.”

Garçon looked at Xavier and laughed. “And then you will walk back to the fort.”

“Yes, sir,” said Xavier.

Garçon then pointed at the wrapped otter board that Kau was holding. “The yew?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“I would like one day to see the bow you make of it.”

Kau nodded.

“But probably you will never see me again?”

He thought before speaking. Here it felt right to lie. “No,” he said finally. “I think I’ll be seein you.”

“Wonderful. I will look forward to that then.”

“Thank you again for all you done.”

“Of course,” said Garçon. “It was my pleasure.”

Kau helped Xavier load their supplies and possessions onto the raft together with the caged pigeons, and then the both of them stepped aboard. When they were ready Garçon pushed them off, and the raft was swept out into the current.

Xavier poled them toward the center of the river with a long length of wood that had been cut from the trunk of a straight pine. The raft pulled away from the fort, and Xavier corrected their course with punting jabs of the push pole. Kau stood watching Garçon on the bank. A sheet had been thrown over the pigeon cage to calm the birds, and Kau could hear them begin to coo behind him. He wondered whether even penned and in the dark those pigeons could possibly know that they were leaving their home. He kept watching Garçon. They were moving away from him as the sky lightened to show itself cloudless but yet without a sun. In one way the General was becoming clearer to him, in another he was disappearing. They followed the bend of the river, and finally Garçon was eclipsed by the trunk of a big bank cypress. Kau turned and looked to the south. He was facing downriver and the pigeons had quieted. The leaden sky was now blue.

 

HE SOON SAW that a raft adrift in a deep river is a chore to control. Away from the shallows the push pole was useless, and their awkward vessel was at the mercy of the current. The river would bend and double back and twist like a confused snake, and their raft would stray off course. To their left were negro farms, to their right
was all forest. Whenever they neared the shore Xavier would muscle them true—and so they journeyed, bouncing from east-bank farm-land to west-bank wilderness as they made their way downstream.

As the hours passed Kau found himself liking Xavier, enjoying the company of the young and cheerful soldier. Kau showed him the leather sling he had carried since Yellowhammer, even sent one of his saddlebag stones sailing from the raft west out over the river. It landed among the top branches of the longleafs growing behind the shoreline cypress, spooking a bronze hawk into flight. Xavier whistled and then asked for a turn.