David Mitchell - Cloud Atlas

Mister Lardbird he slipped thru my fingers an’ skipped off, but I wasn’t givin’ up, nay, I chased him upstream thru bumpy’n’thorny thickets, spring-heelin’ dead branches’n’all, thorns scratched my face diresome, but see I’d got the chasin’ fever so I din’t notice the trees thinnin’ nor the Hiilawe Falls roarin’ nearer, not till I ran schnock into the pool clearin’ an’ giddied up a bunch o’ horses. Nay, not wild horses, these was horses decked in studded leather armor an’ on the Big Isle that means one thing only, yay, the Kona.

Ten–twelve of them painted savages was ‘ready risin’n’reachin’ for their whips’n’blades, yellin’ war cries at me! Oh, now I legged it back downgulch the way I’d come, yay, the hunter was the hunted. The nearest Kona was runnin’ after me, others was leapin’ on their horses an’ laughin’ with the sport. Now panickin’ wings your foot but it muddies your thinkin’ too, so I rabbited back to Pa. I was only a niner so I jus’ followed my instinct without thinkin’ thru what’d happen.

I never got back to our tentin’ tho’, or I’d not be sittin’ here yarnin’ to you. Over a ropy root—Georgie’s foot maybe—I tripped’n’tumblied into a pit o’ dead leaves what hid me from the Kona hoofs thunderin’ over me. I stayed there, hearin’ them jagged shouts goin’ by, jus’ yards away runnin’ thru them trees … straight t’ward Sloosha’s. To Pa’n’Adam.

I creeped slywise’n’speedy, but late I was, yay, way too late. The Kona was circlin’ our camp, their bullwhips crackin’. Pa he’d got his ax swingin’ an’ my bro’d got his spiker, but the Kona was jus’ toyin’ with ’em. I stayed at the lip o’ the clearin’, see fear was pissin’ in my blood an’ I cudn’t go on. Crack! went a whip, an’ Pa’n’Adam was top-sied an’ lay wrigglyin’ like eels on the sand. The Kona chief, one sharky buggah, he got off his horse an’ walked splishin’ thru the shallows to Pa, smilin’ back at his painted bros, got out his blade an’ opened Pa’s throat ear to ear.

Nothin’ so ruby as Pa’s ribbonin’ blood I ever seen. The chief licked Pa’s blood off the steel.

Adam’d got the dead shock, his spunk was drained off. A painted buggah binded his heels’n’wrists an’ tossed my oldest bro over his saddle like a sack o’ taro, an’ others sivvied our camp for ironware’n’all an’ busted what they din’t take. The chief got back on his horse an’ turned’n’looked right at me … them eyes was Old Georgie’s eyes. Zachry the Cowardy , they said, you was born to be mine, see, why even fight me?

Did I prove him wrong? Stay put an’ sink my blade into a Kona neck? Follow ’em back to their camp an’ try’n’free Adam? Nay, Zachry the Brave Niner he snaky-snuck up a leafy hideynick to snivel’n’pray to Sonmi he’d not be catched’n’slaved too. Yay, that’s all I did. Oh, if I’d been Sonmi list’nin’, I’d o’ shooked my head digustly an’ crushed me like a straw bug.

Pa was still lyin’n’bobbin’ in the salt shallows when I sneaked back after night’d fallen; see, the river was calmin’ down now an’ the weather clearin’. Pa, who’d micked’n’biffed’n’loved me. Slipp’ry as cave fish, heavy as a cow, cold as stones, ev’ry drop o’ blood sucked off by the river. I cudn’t grief prop’ly yet nor nothin’, ev’rythin’ was jus’ too shock’n’horrorsome, see. Now Sloosha’s was six–seven up’n’down miles from Bony Shore, so I built a mound for Pa where he was. I cudn’t mem’ry the Abbess’s holy words ’cept Dear Sonmi, Who art amongst us, return this beloved soul to a valley womb, we beseech thee . So I said ’em, forded the Waipio, an’ trogged up the switchblade thru the night forest.

An elf owl screeched at me, Well fought, Zachry the Brave! I yelled at the bird to shut up, but it screeched back, Or else? You’ll bust me like you bust them Kona? Oh, for the sake o’ my chicky-chick-chicks do have mercy! Up in the Kohala Mountains, dingos was howlin’, Cowardyyy-yy-y Zachryyy-yy-y . Lastly the moon she raised her face, but that cold lady din’t say nothin’ nay she din’t have to, I knowed what she thinked o’ me. Adam was lookin’ at that same moon, only two–three–four miles away, but for all I could help him, that could o’ been b’yonder Far Honolulu. I bust open an’ sobbed’n’sobbed’n’sobbed, yay, like a wind-knotted babbit.

An uphill mile later I got to Abel’s Dwellin’ an’ I hollered ’em up. Abel’s eldest Isaak let me in an’ I telled ’em what’d happened at Sloosha’s Crossin’, but … did I tell the hole true? Nay, wrapped in Abel’s blankies, warmed by their fire’n’grinds, the boy Zachry lied. I din’t ‘fess how I’d leaded the Kona to Pa’s camp, see, I said I’d just gone huntin’ a lardbird into the thicket, an’ when I got back … Pa was killed, Adam taken, an’ Kona hoofs in the mud ev’rywhere. Cudn’t do nothin’, not then, not now. Ten Kona bruisers could o’ slayed Abel’s kin jus’ as easy as slayin’ Pa.

Your faces are askin’ me. Why’d I lie?

In my new tellin’, see, I wasn’t Zachry the Stoopit nor Zachry the Cowardy, I was jus’ Zachry the Unlucky’n’Lucky. Lies are Old Georgie’s vultures what circle on high lookin’ down for a runty’n’weedy soul to plummet’n’sink their talons in, an’ that night at Abel’s Dwellin’, that runty’n’weedy soul, yay, it was me.

Now you people’re lookin’ at a wrinkly buggah, mukelung’s nibblin’ my breath away, an’ I won’t be seein’ many more winters out, nay, nay, I know it. I’m shoutin’ back more’n forty long years at myself, yay, at Zachry the Niner, Oy, list’n! Times are you’re weak ‘gainst the world! Times are you can’t do nothin’! That ain’t your fault, it’s this busted world’s fault is all! But no matter how loud I shout, Boy Zachry, he don’t hear me nor never will.

Goat tongue is a gift, you got it from the day you’re borned or you ain’t got it. If you got it, goats’ll heed your say-so, if you ain’t, they’ll jus’ trample you muddy an’ stand there scornin’. Ev’ry dawnin’ I’d milk the nannies an’ most days take the hole herd up the throat o’ Elepaio Valley, thru Vert’bry Pass to pasturin’ in the Kohala Peaks. I herded Aunt Bees’s goats too, they’d got fifteen–twenty goats, so all-telled I’d got fifty–sixty to mind’n’help their birthin’ an’ watch for sick uns. I loved them dumb beasts more’n I loved myself. When rain thundered I’d get soaked pluckin’ off their leeches, when sun burnt I’d crispen’n’brown, an’ if we was high up in the Kohalas times was I’d not go back down for three–four nights runnin’, nay. You’d got to keep your eyes beetlin’. Dingos scavved in the mountains an’ they’d try to pick off a wibbly newborn if you wasn’t mindin’ with your spiker. When my pa was a boy, savages from Mookini’d wander up from Leeward an’ rustler away a goat or two, but then the Kona slaved the Mookini all southly an’ their old dwellin’s in Hawi went to moss’n’ants. We goaters we knowed the Kohala Mountains like no un else, the crannies’n’streams’n’haunted places, steel trees what the old-time scavvers’d missed, an’ one–two–three Old Un buildin’s what no un knowed but us.

I planted my first babbit up Jayjo from Cutter Foot Dwellin’ under a lemon tree one a-sunny day. Leastways hers was the first what I knowed. Girls get so slywise ’bout who’n’when’n’all. I was twelve, Jayjo’d got a firm’n’eager body an’ laughed, twirly an’ crazy with love we both was, yay, jus’ like you two sittin’ here, so when Jayjo plummed up ripe we was talkin’ ’bout marryin’ so she’d come’n’live at Bailey’s Dwellin’. We’d got a lot o’ empty rooms, see. But then Jayjo’s waters busted moons too soon an’ Banjo fetched me to Cutter Foot, where she was laborin’. The babbit came out jus’ a few beats after I’d got there.