Guy Vanderhaeghe - The Englishman’s Boy

The blue-black hair spread on her shoulders. The soft hollow of the small of her back, the curve of her buttocks had their effect on him. He wished she would make some effort to cover herself, but she lay like a dead one. She weren’t though. He could see her rib cage rise and fall like the breast of a dove.

He sat for a short spell and then, so his voice wouldn’t carry to the men outside, said softly, “I ain’t intending you no hurt. I’ll just stop quiet here a short piece.” No sooner was it delivered than his explanation made him feel a fool, talking English to a squaw girl who couldn’t understand. She didn’t stir to his voice, lay like she was deaf as Selena.

He didn’t know where to put his eyes, that slim coppery red body roused him something shameful. Glancing around the room, he located her clothes bundled in a corner. He stole carefully over, picked them up. Once they were in his hands he knew it was a mistake, because he dare not go near her to give them to her. He sat back down on the stool and untwisted the dress in his lap.

Five pretty buttons he’d bought Selena for her dress. Shell buttons shining rainbowy. Twisted them up in a scrap of paper found laying in the road, so’s to give her the surprise of opening it.

He liked to give her presents. Her face lit like a lamp. She spread them buttons on the table, where the sun danced on them. Counted them into her hand. Closed that hand tight as a strongbox. Smiled and beckoned him.

He followed her up the stairs, three flights to a dusty attic. They stood face to face; he felt a purpose in it. She started to kiss him, lightly, a good many times. He didn’t hold her; he didn’t know how. Maybe she thought it his preference.

She shucked his pants. Smiling that smile, on her knees, just stroking him, passing her hand lingering and gentle over his buttocks, down the back of his legs, down his calves. Stroking him as he shivered, near swooned, as he tugged his shirt front down to hide from her what was happening to him.

“No, no,” she whispered, caught his hand, getting to her feet. She stood and pulled her dress over her head. There was little light but he could see her, pale and thin, stooping to lay her buttons on her dress. She moved back to him, kissed him, and he held her this time. Soon they was laying on the floor. The sun broke in a frosted window and she burst white in his eyes, white as snow except for the dark twigs of her nipples. He just kissed her; he didn’t know what else to do.

She guided him into her. He lay there lost in the pleasure of the slick heat, stunned. He didn’t ask for more, only to rest there, sucking her little teats. Something was passing between them in this melting, he felt as if his darkness was drawing light from her body.

She began to flex her hips under him and he hugged her. He could feel her trying to rise up into him, and he yearning to press down into her. He’d heard the rutting men with the whores, groaning as they pushed the need of their bodies into another body, forcing a black shameful exchange. But this was not the same. He was taking light.

A flush was creeping up her white shoulders, her neck, her cheeks. She arched suddenly and he held his breath, what he passed to her, passing in silence into the deaf girl’s silent world.

He looked up now and saw the Indian girl had turned her face to him, saw a world silent and blind. Nothing was reflected in the dark, unseeing, empty eyes. When he spoke, her face, like Selena’s, registered nothing. Nothing moved in that face except swollen lips, opening and closing, opening and closing.

The Englishman’s boy rose from the stool, flung aside the blanket and went into the other room. Hardwick said, “You done your business? We thought you might need help with your buttons. It was silent as a tomb in there.”

“I ain’t a hog,” he said.

“Who’s ready for seconds?” said Hardwick. “I always like two pieces of pie myself.”

“Scotty don’t want his – I’ll take it,” said Bell.

“I wouldn’t if I was you,” said the Englishman’s boy. Their faces lifted in surprise. It was the harshness of his voice and the wound stoking fever in his eyes, so that they glittered like isinglass in the tormented face. “Look at me.” His urgency stilled the rattling dice. “Don’t you recognize me?”

They all stared at him. Then Hardwick said quietly, “Who you supposed to be?”

“A curse.” He pointed to the corpse on the floor. “Ask Grace. Ask my dead Englishman. Farmer Hank… Lord knows his fate.” He pitched his voice to the corner of the room. “You know me, don’t you, Scotchman? The Scotchman knows there ain’t no bad luck blacker than the seed the Devil cursed.” He turned to Bell. “Go on in there, lie with her, stir Satan’s spunk, let it touch you. See what befalls.”

Bell cleared his throat, sat back down on the floor.

“That’s right,” he said. “You don’t want no portion of me. Who did you think I am? Nobody asked my name. I’ll tell you who I am. I’m what the black belly of the whale couldn’t abide. I’m your Jonah.” He looked around the room. “Any of you wants to test what I say, go on in there and mix your seed with mine, see if it’s a lie.”

Nobody moved. He walked across the room, his shadow breaking on the walls, pushed open the door. The rush of cool air did nothing for his fever, nothing for his lust. He was fumbling with his pants buttons, burning. I ain’t no different. I ain’t no different. I wanted her every bit as bad as any of them. Quick and savage he used himself, fell back against the wall of the post, ending it like all the rest had, with a cry.

The Red River carts stood stacked with goods, waiting to pull south to Fort Benton. The mounted wolfers were bound northwest, up the Whoop-Up Trail, to pursue their stolen horses. The Englishman’s boy had told Hardwick he would not go with him. He would push in the opposite direction, northeast.

“Good riddance,” said Hardwick.

“I’m taking the horse,” the Englishman’s boy said.

Hardwick had only jerked the cinch on his saddle a little tighter.

“I earned it,” the boy said.

Hardwick walked away from him.

Now there was only one thing left to do. They had buried Ed Grace under the floorboards of the fort and were going to burn it down over him. If they didn’t, said Hardwick, the Assiniboine would find the body, maul and mutilate it so his own mother wouldn’t know him.

They all sat their horses in expectation of the torching. Hardwick doused the floorboards with kerosene, came out and splashed the remainder of the can up and down the outside walls. Just as he struck a match, the Englishman’s boy darted his eyes frantically over the assembly and shouted, “Where’s the girl?”

Hardwick touched the match to the doorsill. There was a whoosh like a passing train and blue flame shot out around the sill, then sucked back into the mouth of the door like a fiery tongue. The Englishman’s boy threw himself off his horse and ran to the post, snatched at Hardwick’s arm, screaming, “Where’s the girl?”

Hardwick yanked his arm free and walked to his horse.

He stumbled to a door framed like a picture in wreaths of fire, tried to drive through it, but the furnace-blast sent him reeling back. He tore his jacket off, held it up to shield his face, and threw himself blind at the doorway. For a moment, he teetered on the threshold, then staggered back whimpering, the tweed singed and smoking. Tossing aside the jacket he peered into the rippling air and curling smoke. She was crouched on the countertop like a cat in a flood, the floorboards beneath her awash in fire. Briefly, smoke glutted the doorway; he lost sight of her. He wiped his eyes. The door cleared. She was drawing herself up to spring, spring down into the flames. He aimed and fired the pistol empty. Reloaded mechanically and emptied it again into the billowing smoke, even though there was nothing to see.