The Untold (5 page)

B
eside the river my mother blacked out again. The old man rolled a cigarette while the old woman dropped to her knees and began unwrapping the blanket to determine the source of my mother's bleeding.

The old woman was muttering,
I will save you, I will save you
, which irritated the old man exceedingly.

Woman!
he screamed finally.
She's too far gone. And if she lives she'll surely be trouble.

I will not leave her
, said the old woman, and she was calm and defiant and she kept about what she was doing.

She's just another mouth for me to feed
, said the old man. He sat down on the sand and his dog sat down beside him.

The old woman stood up and raised a crooked finger to the old man.
All of these years in this miserable place I have prayed for the company of someone other than you and here she is. I am taking her.

The old woman shuffled over to the river to wet her handkerchief to clean up my mother.

She's of no value
, said the old man, sucking in his breath. Then he lit his cigarette and poked the air with it, pronouncing,
Woman, nothing is of value in this world if it does not fight.

The old woman was not listening. She was slightly deaf anyway and distracted by my mother's trousers, which were still billowing and bloody in the shallows of the river. She reached after them with a stick.

While the old woman's back was turned, the old man stooped
over my mother to examine her. Her brow was heavy and her jaw was sharp and he did not like the look of her. Her dark hair fanned out in a tangle around her and for all he knew she could be some runaway, some murderer—which, in fact, she was.

He crouched right over her and blew smoke into her face.

My mother opened her eyes and saw the old man and she did not know what he was but she knew he was danger. She took a gurgling breath and she coughed up something from the depths of her. And then she spat it dead center between the old man's eyes.

The old man went hurtling back, falling onto his dog, who was whimpering and howling. The old man hooked his arm around the dog's neck and said,
Don't worry your mongrel head. If she does not die here, I will kill her.

M
orning of my birth, the sounds of Fitz were indistinguishable against the rain. He was already scraping his boots on the steps before my mother realized he was there.

She had grown tired in her waiting, but on hearing him she was suddenly awake, suddenly standing on her chair, all seven months pregnant of her, steadying herself against the wall as Fitz wrestled with the handle of the door.

He flung the door open. It hit the edge of the chair and she could see him pitching back and forth and then there was no time for hesitating.

Her anger surged within her and pulsed through the wooden handle of the axe, and as Fitz lurched forward she threw the axe across his back and he was so drunk he fell down immediately. He roared and she leapt down from the chair before he could get up and she swung the axe down again across his back and she did not stop swinging till she was certain that he could not walk or lift himself up from the ground ever again.

N
OT
EVERY
DAY
is a good day to be born and whatever bright stars were concealed by clouds that morning and whatever their angle, they did not bode well for me. As my mother took the axe to my father a wave rose inside of her and pushed me up and turned
me over till I felt sick and deaf to everything. Till I grew cold. When I could not hear her heartbeat I panicked. I kicked and twisted and dug my heels in where I could and then I felt her drop to her knees and, worse, I felt the wild sea inside her spill out.

My birth, though months too soon, was not an agony. I put all of my weight onto my head and bore down. My mother moved around me like a snake sliding out of old skin. And then I thought I heard bells ringing and I fell into the bells of her hands and that was my birth.

I opened my eyes and thought:
Is this life?

I saw my poor mother gasp at the sight of me. There was just enough light to make me out and I felt her mouth around my mouth and her breathing into me and then spitting out all of that wild sea I had drunk in. She shook me from side to side and covered my mouth with her mouth again. And then she grabbed me by the feet and swung me around and smacked my arse, and I thought,
Fuck, Houdini! What life is this?

I heard my mother sobbing. She held me in her arms for a while and then she carried me over to my father's view. I looked into his dark eyes and I saw them grow wide and I heard a crack as his head hit the floor.

I saw my reflection in his eyes. Covered in fur, unlovely, I do believe it was the sight of me that finally killed him.

M
Y MOTHER TRIED
to feed me milk from her breast but no milk would come. She put hot washcloths over her chest and she tried to feed me again. But I could not breathe and I could not feed, so she
bathed me in warm water while my father grew cold at her feet. And then she bundled me up in a sheet and tied me to her before she smashed the gun cabinet with the axe and took out a rifle. She dragged Fitz to the opening of the cellar and then, with her feet, she rolled him in. She poured kerosene into the mouth of it and into every dark corner of the house. She threw a match into the cellar and then match after match until it threw back flames. With what was left of the kerosene she drenched those armchairs and set them ablaze.

The flames leapt up and the sound was like Fitz on a tirade. But we were safe and already outside. I clung to her as she saddled her horse, packed a blanket, a gun, a knife.

The rain was upon us. We could hardly see where we were going. We rode anyway.

A
t best, if the weather held, Jack Brown was a day's ride from Fitz's place.

He had been riding since dawn. Finally, just as the sun was setting, he had in his bleary sights those rocks as perfect as squares which signaled to him the end of the northern range and the beginning of the valley. He rode on and the land leveled out and the rocks overlapped like scales on some creature's back. Trees fell away on either side, as if it had cleared a path to find its rest, its tail winding down into the valley, disappearing into darkness.

Jack Brown rode on through the night. The sky gave enough light so he could just make out the ground, which was a litter of branches, and he stepped his horse over them and moved into clearings where he could.

He was desperate to get to her.

He had made the delivery, wound through the gorges he had come to know so well, three weeks' riding with stock in tow, one week back without. He had not lost one sturdy cow. His job was done. Fitz should be happy with that.

He had rehearsed it so many times on so many rides—what it would be to finally stand up to Fitz, to ask to be paid, to quit. Jessie had warned him that with Fitz there could be no reasoning, that the only way out was to escape, or he would most certainly have them both thrown in jail. They must wait is what she had said. But his question now was his question then:
Wait for what?

In his three years in the valley,
Jack Brown had herded and branded stolen cattle for Fitz, unknowingly and then knowingly. Until Fitz discovered her pregnancy, Jessie was there for every ride and for every heist. Fitz had kept his hands clean of it all and threatened to incriminate them both if ever their loyalty wavered.

But there was no loyalty because there was no freedom. There was only an oppressive bind. Fitz held on to a whole stable of horses as evidence of their crimes. Jack Brown knew that a black man had no more power than a convict woman, maybe less, and they could never plead a case of blackmail or rely on white man's justice. But as much as he did not want to be imprisoned or see Jessie imprisoned again, he also did not want to be Fitz's captive or his fugitive. He held out for the chance to reason with him, man to man.

Over the long ride, when Jack Brown played it in his head, he did see a man. It was the man of himself, riding through Fitz's forest, having delivered a hundred head of cattle; a man fully possessed of his own power, his own worth. He would arrive at Fitz's homestead, walk surely up the steps, remove his hat. He would be tall at the door and stand strong. He would shake Fitz's hand and they would bargain for his freedom and for Jessie's.

But he did not know what to bargain with. And as often as he played it, it never came to him what to say or how to say it. He only hoped that the man of himself, in the moment of his facing Fitz, would truly know his worth and the right words would flood his tongue, just as prayers come to desperate men when they need them.

A
S HE RODE
into the valley a storm rolled down from the northern range and clouds turned over themselves like rabbits chasing their own tails. Jack Brown took in the vastness of it and saw that there were two distinct skies, one that was churning and one that was not. He was glad to be on this side of it.

He had covered a lot of ground in good time and when he finally reached Fitz's forest the sun was going down again, and though his body felt spent, his mind was clear. He was certain of what he had to do next.

He rode into the thick of the forest. The last of the sunlight moved around him in giddy, skipping lots until it was gone completely. The darkness of the forest did not bother him. He had ridden through it so many times that he could have made his way with his eyes closed, just by the smell of it and the weight and drift of air on his skin.

Soon he heard the sound of a creature moving near him. In itself that was not unusual, but the creature sounded like a horse and he knew that no horses roamed loose in Fitz's forest because nothing of value roamed free under Fitz's reign.

Jack Brown rode through the undergrowth, ducking to avoid the low branches. He could hear the creature tearing up grass and he was almost upon it when he saw its silhouette. The horse reared up. He swung down from the saddle and moved in closer, calming the horse with his voice. When it had quieted, he felt for markings on its hind quarter. It was one of Fitz's. He tossed a rope around its neck and once it was secured the horse made no protest. He
mounted his own horse again and led the stray out of the clearing and back through the undergrowth.

He rode on.

Before he reached the edge of the forest, Jack Brown came across another two of Fitz's branded horses. There was barely enough length in the rope but he looped a neck hold for each of them and secured them. He moved along slowly so there was a stepping length between the horses. They should not be in the forest. He could think of no good reason. He was not heartened by finding them or by the way they stepped like prisoners behind him.

W
HEN HE REACHED
the first gate of Fitz's paddock Jack Brown thought to lead the horses into the holding yard. The second gate was already open. A few livestock sauntered within the paddock. He rode through the second gate. Remaining on his horse, he closed the gate behind him and let the other horses loose. They scattered in different directions. He kicked his own horse into a gallop and rode fast up the rise.

He was sure his eyes were failing him when he saw the house and he stood up in the stirrups for a better view. As he could make it out, part of the roof was caved in and the other side buckled at strange angles. He pulled up his horse and turned on it, one way then another, then he pushed on towards the house.

His concern about what to say to Fitz and how to say it was taken over by thoughts of my mother.
Where is she? Is she safe?

Jack Brown slid from his horse while it was still moving, and stepped onto the veranda. His eyes were not deceiving him.

Jessie!
he called, and then,
Fitz!

He walked through the door that was already open.

Jessie!
he yelled, and kept on yelling. But nobody answered.

He walked through the house. His boots crashed against all kinds of things. When he thought he heard some movement, he stopped dead. But then he realized it was the sound of his own moving chaos.

T
HAT NIGHT HE CAMPED
in the stable. When he checked the horses he saw that Houdini's stall was empty. He lay down to sleep but despite his exhaustion he hardly slept at all. There were so many possibilities racing through his head, thoughts turning over thoughts.
Was she dead? Was she gone?

He was not on the clear side of the sky at all.

He fell into a tense spell of sleep just before sunrise and when he woke he thought he heard Fitz's voice shouting orders to him from the veranda. He sprang from his bed of hay, brushed himself down and ran up to the house like he would have any other morning. But where every other morning something cringed inside him at the sight of Fitz, now he cringed at the sight of the house and the sight of him gone.

In the light of the morning Jack Brown could see that most of Fitz's horses and cattle were missing and those that remained were subdued and heavy in the legs, tottering aimlessly as if they had all eaten some nullifying weed.

The house, too, looked like a sick thing with its cowering head. Around its smashed windows and open door was charred wood and the residue of flames spiraled out to its edges.

Inside was the same mess and tangle Jack Brown had traced the night before. But by daylight he could see there were footprints and the footprints were not his own. They were Fitz's. He was sure of it. They led in towards the cellar and they led back outside.

Jack Brown pulled furniture and other charred things from the opening of the cellar and lowered himself down. He pressed his hands and feet against the sandstone walls and when his feet reached something solid he planted himself on it. He lit a match. The floor was a soup of mud and shards of glass and piles of salt. Against a wall was a shelf lined with cracked jars and sacks piled up, some of them still whole, but most of them split right open.

His eyes adjusted, Jack Brown surveyed the cellar, turning in the small space. He balanced on bricks until he realized that the bricks were balancing on some other thing. He kicked away the rubble and he saw what he did not want to see. It was Fitz—or what remained of him. Jack Brown could make out his grimy torso, his arm and the buckle of his belt glinting in the dark.

He pressed both hands against the wall. He thought:
It should not have come to this. Did he kill Jessie first and then kill himself? Is her body here as well?

And then:
I am done for. A black man standing over the remains of his white boss. If I thought justice would not serve me then, I know it will not serve me now.

Jack Brown pulled a sack from the shelf and tore it open. He poured out its contents; he could not tell if it was sugar or salt but
he was not about to taste it. He thought,
Salt would preserve him best—but why would I want to preserve him at all?

And just like the old man had done with the dog, Jack Brown opened the sack right up and filled it with his find. But unlike the old man, Jack Brown did not regard Fitz's body as any kind of prize. Fitz was dead. There was no life left in him and there was nothing that Jack Brown could do to reverse it. He dragged the sack up and out of the cellar.

He was still not certain that Jessie was not in the cellar too, so he lowered himself back down and lit matches and moved things around until no part of the cellar was unturned. Only then was he certain. She was not there.

But where was she?

He followed the tracks of Fitz's boots, first to the veranda and then out through the mud to the edge of the grass. Jack Brown knew Fitz's prints, the size and weight of them in the dirt, and he knew the length and unevenness of his stride. He pressed his fingers into the indentations in the ground and he knew they were not made by Fitz. He guessed it. Jessie had worn Fitz's boots. She had killed him and she was gone.

Was this what he was to wait for after all?

He mounted his horse with the grim haul and headed back towards the forest.