the drum of my bloody heartbeart.
I N THE night I woke shaking, the uncontrollable movements of my body adding to my pain. Poesa was there, watching me. She fed me and wet my face,wiped at the eternal sweat. She swaddled me tightly in blankets against my weak protests and fanned me with my hat. She sang me back to sleep as if I were her own sister.
I woke in the dark and she was there, asleep at first and then woken by me. She lifted my bandage and clucked when I gasped.
Pain bad, she said.
I nodded. I hurt too much to speak or sign.
She nodded and then she pulled up her clothes to show me a scar in the centre of her belly, another naval, made by a De-Creator.
I live, she signed. Your wound is not as bad as this.
How? I signed.
She shook her head.
Thank you for saving me, I signed.
She wiped my face and neck again. She lifted the packing and examined my wound carefully while I clenched my teeth. She poured water into the wound and then packed it again with agrimony.
The fever is good.
Is my horse here?
Your horse is good. She is outside waiting for you.
She sat back and watched me burn. I saw her there through drifting eyelids whenever pain pushed me up to the surface of consciousness.
T HEOPHILUS STAYED on, sleeping in a tent he erected outside of the teepee. He came often to sit with me after the draining and washing and packing of my wound was done. He sat on his pack with his knees far apart and his elbows rested on them. His limbs were skinny as sticks inside his worn clothes but his feet were either bizarrely long and thin or else he wore shoes stuffed with newspaper.
Will you go on if the infection heals?
If it heals?
Iâm sorry. I believe that it will continue to heal. Poesa says that it will and she knows her patients.
Sheâs very kind.
How do you feel?
Less dead. If I donât move or breathe then not so bad. When she pulls the stuffing out of my head I feel like murdering myself.
Theophilus nodded. He leaned in close to sniff my head and whistled sympathetically.
Will you go on looking for your mother?
Yes. If I can I will.
After a long pause he asked, Why do you want to find her?
I donât. Or, I donât know. I promised I would.
A broken promise made to a dead man is seldom punished.
I had no answer to that and so I was silent. Theophilus cleared his throat a few times and rolled his eyes and rocked on his heels and swapped his cup from one hand to the other and back.
I love these people here, he said. Lizzy and her husband took me in one winter. I didnât know nothing about Indians. They showed me a buffalo jump where the bones of the buffalo have been layered over thousands of years. Around the fire they told me about the dog days, the days before horses, and the winters of starvation. They made me feel like part of a human family.
Thatâs good, I said.
If you are who you say you are, I knew your daddy. That is, if you can trust Jane when she says that it was Bill.
I tried to sit up and cried out with pain. I held the packing against my ear and breathed hard through my teeth until I could speak.
How do you know him?
Heâs dead; you donât have to worry about finding Wild Bill. Is that who it is?
I donât know. Thatâs what she told my father.
He looked confused. She couldna told Bill; he was dead before you were born.
No. I meant the man who adopted me.
Oh, well. That makes sense. I knew Wild Bill in Abilene when he was city marshal and I was selling lumber. He was a good man. I never knew anyone so sorry for killing a friend.
For killing a friend?
Yup. Say what you will, he was a gentleman of the old style in a savage new land.
I turned my head to listen better and Theophilus took this as encouragement to tell the tale he had been holding for me.
I WAS there ahead of the rush, got there in the winter, what year was it? 1881, 1882? Anyhow, in the early spring great herds of Texas cattle arrived to be shipped to the eastern markets,
I N THE night I woke shaking, the uncontrollable movements of my body adding to my pain. Poesa was there, watching me. She fed me and wet my face,wiped at the eternal sweat. She swaddled me tightly in blankets against my weak protests and fanned me with my hat. She sang me back to sleep as if I were her own sister.
I woke in the dark and she was there, asleep at first and then woken by me. She lifted my bandage and clucked when I gasped.
Pain bad, she said.
I nodded. I hurt too much to speak or sign.
She nodded and then she pulled up her clothes to show me a scar in the centre of her belly, another naval, made by a De-Creator.
I live, she signed. Your wound is not as bad as this.
How? I signed.
She shook her head.
Thank you for saving me, I signed.
She wiped my face and neck again. She lifted the packing and examined my wound carefully while I clenched my teeth. She poured water into the wound and then packed it again with agrimony.
The fever is good.
Is my horse here?
Your horse is good. She is outside waiting for you.
She sat back and watched me burn. I saw her there through drifting eyelids whenever pain pushed me up to the surface of consciousness.
T HEOPHILUS STAYED on, sleeping in a tent he erected outside of the teepee. He came often to sit with me after the draining and washing and packing of my wound was done. He sat on his pack with his knees far apart and his elbows rested on them. His limbs were skinny as sticks inside his worn clothes but his feet were either bizarrely long and thin or else he wore shoes stuffed with newspaper.
Will you go on if the infection heals?
If it heals?
Iâm sorry. I believe that it will continue to heal. Poesa says that it will and she knows her patients.
Sheâs very kind.
How do you feel?
Less dead. If I donât move or breathe then not so bad. When she pulls the stuffing out of my head I feel like murdering myself.
Theophilus nodded. He leaned in close to sniff my head and whistled sympathetically.
Will you go on looking for your mother?
Yes. If I can I will.
After a long pause he asked, Why do you want to find her?
I donât. Or, I donât know. I promised I would.
A broken promise made to a dead man is seldom punished.
I had no answer to that and so I was silent. Theophilus cleared his throat a few times and rolled his eyes and rocked on his heels and swapped his cup from one hand to the other and back.
I love these people here, he said. Lizzy and her husband took me in one winter. I didnât know nothing about Indians. They showed me a buffalo jump where the bones of the buffalo have been layered over thousands of years. Around the fire they told me about the dog days, the days before horses, and the winters of starvation. They made me feel like part of a human family.
Thatâs good, I said.
If you are who you say you are, I knew your daddy. That is, if you can trust Jane when she says that it was Bill.
I tried to sit up and cried out with pain. I held the packing against my ear and breathed hard through my teeth until I could speak.
How do you know him?
Heâs dead; you donât have to worry about finding Wild Bill. Is that who it is?
I donât know. Thatâs what she told my father.
He looked confused. She couldna told Bill; he was dead before you were born.
No. I meant the man who adopted me.
Oh, well. That makes sense. I knew Wild Bill in Abilene when he was city marshal and I was selling lumber. He was a good man. I never knew anyone so sorry for killing a friend.
For killing a friend?
Yup. Say what you will, he was a gentleman of the old style in a savage new land.
I turned my head to listen better and Theophilus took this as encouragement to tell the tale he had been holding for me.
I WAS there ahead of the rush, got there in the winter, what year was it? 1881, 1882? Anyhow, in the early spring great herds of Texas cattle arrived to be shipped to the eastern markets,
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