Edgar Pangborn - Davy

Emmia smoothed my hair. “Mustn’t run away.”

“Not from you,” I said again.

“Hush then.”

I was finding a clarity like what may come with the ending of a fever. The world receded, yet grew sharper in lucid small detail. The dead guard at the stockade, the gleam of my golden horn, the mue become food for the yellow ants — all keeenly lit, tiny, perfect, like objects seen in sunlight through the bottom of a drinking glass. In the same vision I could find the fact of Emmia herself, that big-thighed honeypot deep as a well and shallow as a ripple on a brook, whom I now loved unpossessively.

She whispered: “I know what made you a big lover alla-sudden. Found you a woods-girl out wilderness-way, one of the you-know, Little Ones, and she must be purtier than I be, and put a spell onto you the way no girl can say no.,,

“Why, an elf-girl’d take one look and say poo.”

“Nay — got a thing or two about you, Davy. Some time I’ll tell you how I know you been next to an elf-girl.” Emmia was laughing at the fancy, half-believing it too, for elves and such-like are real to Moha folk, as real as serious matters like witchcraft and astrology and the Church. “Nay, own up, Tiger-tom, and tell me what she did. Feed my boy one of them big pointy mushrooms that look like you-know-what?”

“Nay. Old witch-woman, terrible humly.”

“Don’t say such things, Davy! I was just fooling.”

“Me too. Kay, tell me how you know.”

“So what’ll you do for me if I do? I know — scratch my back — ooh, lower — that’s it, that’s good — more… Kay, here’s how I know: what happened to your luck-charm?”

My brain banged into that one head-on. I was sitting bolt upright, scared frantic. I knew I had cut that fishing cord, strung the charm on it, and worn it. And not touched it since — or had I?… That I did not remember, and could not… Had it worked loose when I climbed the jinny-creeper? — hnpossible: I’d gone up like a slow wisp of smoke. The stockade then? — no. I’d done that too with great caution; besides, the logs were set so close you couldn’t shinny up — had to work your fingers into the cracks and your toes too, climbing with your body curving out; my chest wouldn’t have touched the palings. But when the guard clouted me I’d fallen face down and rolled, and his foot came down on my middle. My charm must have been torn loose when he roughed me, and I too mad to notice. Presently I couldn’t believe anything else.

“Davy, love, what’d I say? I was just—”

“Not you, Spice. I got to run away.”

“Tell me.” She wanted to pull me back down to her, taking it for granted my trouble was only a boy’s fret, something a kiss would fix.

I told her. “So it must be back there, Emmia, in plain sight. Might as good’ve stayed to tell ’em I done it.”

“O Davy! But maybe he—”

“Sumbitch is dead as shoe-leather.” I must have been thinking till now that I could run or not as I pleased; now I felt sure it was run or be hanged. Sooner or later the policers would find out whose neck the charm belonged to… “Emmia, does your Pa know I took off today?”

“O Davy, I couldn’t cover for you today — I didn’t know you was gone. Ayah, Judd wanted you should take the mules out for to turn the vegetable patch — and found you gone — went and told my Da, and he said — my Da said you better have a real fine entertaining pile of — well — I mean, he said—”

“Just tell me.”

“I can’t. He didn’t mean it, he was just running off at the mouth.”

“Just say it, Emmia.”

“Said he’d turn in your name to the City Council.”

“Ayah. To be slaved.”

“Davy, love, he was just running off at the mouth.”

“He meant it.”

“ No! ” But I knew he’d meant it; I’d tried his patience too far at last. Having a bond-servant declared a slave for misconduct was too serious for even Old Jon to make flaptalk about it. “Look, Davy — they wouldn’t know the charm was yourn, would they?”

“They’ll find out.” I was out of bed and hustling on my clothes. She came to me, distracted now and crying. “Emmia, is it a fact the war’s started?”

“Why, I told you that last night!”

“Must have been while I was light-headed.”

“You stupid thing, don’t you ever listen to me?”

“Tell me again — no, don’t. I got to go.”

“Oh, it was that town off west — Seneca — Katskils went and occupied it and then declared war, a’n’t that awful? There’s a regiment of ourn coming to Skoar to see they don’t try no such here — but I told you all that.”

Maybe she had. “Emmia, I got to go.”

“O Davy, all this time we been — don’t go!” She clung to me, tears streaming. “I’ll hide you.” She wasn’t thinking. “See, they’d never look for you here.”

“Search the whole inn, every room.”

“Then take me with you. Oh, you got to! I hate it here, Davy. It stinks.”

“Abraham’s mercy, keep your voice down!”

“I hate it. Home!” She was trembling all over. Her head swung away and she spat on the floor, a furious little girl. “That for home! Take me with you, Davy!”

“I can’t. The wilderness—”

“Davy, look at me!” She stepped into moonlight, her hair wild and breasts heaving. “Look! A’n’t I all yourn? — all this, and this! Didn’t I give you everything?” Nay, I’ll never understand how people can speak of love as if it were a thing, and given — cut, sliced, measured. “Davy, don’t leave me behind! I’ll do anything you want — hunt — steal—”

She couldn’t even have climbed the stockade.

“Emmia, I’ll be sleeping in trees. Bandits — how could I fight off a bunch of them buggers? They’d have you spreadeagled in nothing flat. Tiger. Black wolf. Mues.”

“M-m—”

“In the wilderness, yes, and don’t ask me how I know, but those stories are true. I couldn’t take care of you out there, Emniia.”

“You mean you don’t want me.” I hitched on my knife-belt. “You wouldn’t care if you’ve give’ me a baby — men’re all alike — Ma says — don’t never want nothin’ but put it in and then walk off. I despise you, Davy, I do despise you.”

“Hush!”

“I won’t, I hate you — screw you , did you think you was first or something? All right, now call me a whore!”

“Hush, darling, hush! They’ll hear.”

“I hate the whole mis’ble horny lot of you — you dirty lech, you boy — so proud of that stupid ugly thing and then all’s you do is run off, damn you—”

I closed her mouth with mine, feeling her need of that, and pushed her back against the wall. Her fingers were tight in my hair, my knife annoying where it hung between us, but we were locked in the love-seizure again, I deep in her and not much caring if I hurt her a little. She responded as if she wanted to swallow me alive. By good fortune my mouth still held hers closed when she needed to scream. Exhausted afterward, and desperate to be gone, I said: “I’ll come back for you when I can. I love you, Emmia.”

“Yes, Davy, Spice, yes, when you can, when it’s safe for you, dearest.” And what I heard in her voice was mostly relief. In both our voices. “I’ll wait for you,” she said, believing it. “Always I’ll love you,” she said, believing it, which made it true at the time.

“I’ll come back.”

I’ve wondered how soon she understood we’d both been lying, mostly for decent reasons. Maybe she knew it as soon as I was climbing down the vine. Her face, like a faded moon, vanished from the window before I turned away down the street. Nothing in life had ever drawn me with such wondrous power as the unknown road ahead of me in the dark.