Philipp Meyer - The Son

“The man who built that bow is dead,” I told her. “It cannot be replaced.”

“You need to put those days behind you, Eli.”

If she had been male I would have killed her and not thought another thing about it. Later I would consider this and decide we were both lucky.

“Jacob and Stuart brought your shoes back for you.”

“I’m not wearing those fucking things,” I said.

I went to my pallet and took the wool blanket off it, then went into the kitchen. I took a knife and some things I found in the drawers, a ball of sisal, a needle and thread, a half loaf of corn pone.

“Eli, you may take whatever you want,” said my stepmother. “It all belongs to you. This is your home now.”

It was a queer way to act. She was either softheaded or a Quaker.

I WAS SURE I’d be followed by my stepbrothers so the trail I left them led right to a patch of quicksand. From there I made some footprints that led to a rattlesnake den. Finally I went to the tree where I’d buried my things and dug up my bag, which contained my revolver and various other pieces of gear, all in fine condition.

After walking another hour I found a high overlook with a stream running in front of it and plenty of shade. I made a fire and fell asleep wrapped in the blanket, listening to the wolves howl. I howled back and we went on for a while like that. I kept my Colt under my knees, Indian-style, but I knew I was not going to need it for anything, the country was too settled up.

The next morning I hacked down a bunch of saplings with my stolen bowie knife, which was indeed a very good knife, heavy but nicely balanced; even after batoning through some of the saplings it was not dulled at all. I wondered if Jim Bowie had actually owned it but by then for him to own all the knives attributed to him he would have had to live a thousand years. I made a drying rack and a frame for a brush arbor. But there was not much point in working so hard. I lay down in the sun and looked out over the green hills; I had forgotten how warm it was in the lowlands. I thought of all my friends buried up on the snowy Llano, cried for a while, and fell asleep.

That afternoon I shot two does and skinned and flayed out the meat and hung it on the racks to dry. I teased out the long sinew from the backbones and cleaned and washed the stomachs. One of the legbones I sharpened into a passable scraper and fleshed both the hides. By then the sun was almost down so I built a fire and had a fine supper of venison rubbed with cedar berries, and marrow mixed with dried sugarberries. The next day I decided to find a bee tree.

After a week I’d built another bow and a dozen arrows so inferior to the one Grandfather had made me that it put me into a conniption every time I drew it. I made a new pair of moccasins and a breechcloth, then went back into Bastrop. I walked directly to the backyard of my stepmother, where my stepbrothers kept the hogs they had threatened to feed me to. I shot all the hogs full of arrows.

Their mutt was easily converted with the gift of a bloody piglet, after which we were friends for life. He followed me back into the countryside where my brothers were afraid to go, as they’d been told they would be stolen by Indians. Of course the Indians would not have stolen them; they were more the type to be knocked on the head.

I stayed out a month, missing Toshaway and Prairie Flower and all the others. I guessed N uukaru and Escuté were out there somewhere in the snow, but how I would find them, I had no idea.

I WENT BACK to town often, mostly to steal things that seemed interesting, like horses, which I rode for a while, then left them tied wherever I got tired of them. I let myself into people’s houses and enjoyed fresh-baked pie and roasted chicken and all the other bounties of civilization, but when the sun got low I always headed back where I belonged.

It did not take long to figure out that the nicest house in town belonged to a judge by the name of Wilbarger, who was the enemy of my friend in Austin. I would sit in the trees overlooking his backyard, listening to the stream there. Occasionally his wife would come out and read books on the porch. She was the woman I’d seen in the shift, very pretty, somewhere in her forties, but very thin and sad. Everything about her was pale. Her hair, skin, eyes. I did not see how a creature like her might survive in such a sunblasted place, and the servants must have agreed because they were always looking in on her, as if they expected her to die or run off at any moment.

A few times a week she would go walking by herself in the woods, which was safe for someone with sense, but probably not for her, so I would follow at a safe distance. She would walk a stream until she guessed she was alone, then strip naked and swim in some convenient hole. She had a few favorites but they all got more traffic than she supposed. The first time I saw her go under she held her breath so long I nearly dove in to pull her out. She and the judge had as much in common as a Thoroughbred and a cross-eyed donkey.

After swimming she would lie on the rocks in the sun and I would squint to get my look. There were wisps of gray in the hair she had, which was something I had not thought about. I felt certain the judge had not been in there recently. All thunder and no lightning.

AT THE EDGE of town one afternoon I was stopped by a man who identified himself as the sheriff’s deputy. He was not pointing his gun but he said he needed to take me in for some questions. I could have slipped him but I was bored and I wondered what jail would be like.

It was not bad. The judge’s wife came and cooked for me every day, three meals with pie. Of course I recognized her and she was even prettier up close than from a distance. She was tall and thin with gray eyes and delicate bones and a pleasant manner; one look and you knew she was an import. The local women, most of whom could have wrestled a razorback hog, must have hated her. She had an accent that made her hard to understand but I knew my brother would have liked it. She was English, they said.

Judge Wilbarger, whose Thoroughbreds I’d been riding some nights, came and gave me a lecture on morality.

“I understand you have been through a hard time,” he said. “But we cannot have you stealing horses and killing people’s livestock.”

I nodded.

“I’ve hanged men for stealing horses.”

I nodded again. I hadn’t actually stolen any horses, just borrowed them and returned them, probably better behaved than they’d been before I got to them.

“If you are caught breaking the law again, you will be severely punished. This is your only warning. Tell me you understand me, boy. I know you speak English, you were with those Indians not even three years.”

“The wind blows softly through the flowers,” I said, in Comanche. “Also, you smell like a buffalo’s cunt.”

“Speak English,” said Wilbarger.

“I have stimulated myself to your wife over thirty times.”

“English, boy.”

Then I didn’t say anything.

Finally he got up. “You’re smarter than you act, boy. You can be tamed and I will do it if you make me.”

They held me three more days but after Wilbarger left, the sheriff let me out of the cell to walk around.

“Don’t piss him off,” he said. “They told me you came in with scalps but you are gonna get yourself in a tight you can’t get out of.”

I shrugged.

“Those were Indian scalps, weren’t they?”

“One was a white man,” I said, in English. “But he had been living in Mexico.”

He looked at me and burst out laughing. I started laughing as well.

“Is it true all they had you doing all day is riding and shooting?”

“There was a lot of rutting as well,” I said.