Becoming Americans (54 page)

      "Bugger you!"

      Stephen heard a worker's loud, angry voice. He turned to see one of the hired men pull a broadax from the timber he was dressing and throw it at a man doing like work fifteen feet away. The twirling handle hit the man in the chest and knocked him to the ground. The thrower fell on top of him and started punching. The stunned victim tried to ward off the blows while thrashing with his legs.

      "Get ye two apart," Thomas Biggs yelled as he ran toward the fight.

      Stephen dropped his ax and joined the gathering crowd. Willy Biggs, Thomas's son, ran to stand beside Stephen. The two boys yelled encouragement to one fighter, then to the other. Thomas reached the crowd and pushed the boys apart, then bent down and separated the fighters.

      "I'll have no more of this conduct. Thee art not in the swamp with thy cutthroat friends, today, Mister Jones! Mister Black Jack, back to thy work!"

      The two fighting men calmed, then dusted themselves off, muttered, and picked up their axes. Neither challenged the giant referee, Thomas Biggs.

      "Stephen!" Thomas glared at his nephew's son.

      "Yes?"

      "Why art thee naked in public with no shirt?"

      The crowd of men chuckled. One of them called out, "Yeah, Stephen. Why's that?"

      The soft sound of horses' hoofs stepping on oyster shells caught everyone's attention and turned their heads. The wind lifted the skirts of the female rider and Stephen stepped from the crowd, drawing himself almost as tall as his uncle.

      "It is thy sister, Ann Harbut, Stephen," Thomas Biggs told him.

      Stephen ran to greet his sister and brother-in-law as the men went back to work.

      "Hello, Ann," he said. "Dick."

      He smiled up at his brother-in-law.

      "And, hello, Little James," he said to his young nephew. Little James rode seated behind his father.

      "Hello, Bess," he said to the toddler who rode in front of her mother.

      Ann Harbut stopped her horse.

      "Stephen Williams! What are you doing naked before your neighbors and strangers?"

      "It was hot before this breeze came up," he said defiantly.

      "Father would whip you if he were here. You know that!" His older sister shared their father's concern for appearance.

      "Ann.," Richard Harbut started.

      "Father's not here," Stephen said. "Welcome to Williams manor, Mistress Harbut," he said, and bowed low with a graceful sweep of his hat.

      "Put on your shirt, Stephen," his sister said, then nudged the horse toward the house

      Richard Harbut lifted his son to the ground.

      "Grandmother! Grandma Bourne!" The little boy ran ahead, calling to Mary Williams and the ancient Mary Bourne.

      Ann had come early to her mother's house to lie-in for the birth of her third child. The Harbuts were moving in with the Williamses while Dick Harbut oversaw the construction of the Williams mill. The house would be crowded, but it had been worse.

      "Dick said I should come early, Mother. He wouldn't be able to bring me next week. He's finishing a warehouse up at Great Bridge."

      Dick Harbut had arrived in Virginia with little more than his carpenter tools, but that was more than enough. Skilled carpenters were scarce in Norfolk Town and in the southern counties. Joseph had met Harbut at the courthouse soon after the man's arrival, and decided that the soft-spoken Harbut would be perfect for his daughter, Ann. A carpenter was exactly what he needed, certainly. So, to help his aging and stern daughter, Ann was given a dowry of dressed white oak framing timbers, and one thousand feet of sawn poplar planks. The dowry was appealing to Harbut, and so was the prospect of a continuing source of good timber.

      Ann tried to be a good wife, and followed the example of her mother in urging her husband on to perfection. But, sometimes that effort caused her vexation, as did her children's behavior. Ann was already concerned about her children. Both were demanding and obstinate, she often said, despite the whippings she gave Little James and the solitude she used to punish the willful toddler, Elizabeth.

      "This next one is going to be better," Ann told the family as they ate dinner.

      "That's what I said after you came," Mary Williams told her oldest daughter.

      The family started to laugh, but stopped when Sister Mary's laugh became too loud. Sister Mary always laughed when someone else did.

      "Why didn't Aunt Pathelia come with Uncle Richard?" Ann asked. "She could have been helpful with Father and James away."

      "Your Aunt Pathelia says she feels uncomfortable here, what with people talking about her so," her mother said.

      Ann was adamant.

      "She should have thought about that when she married—excuse me, became the mistress of—her brother-in-law! There can be no marriage in Carolina, I don't care what their Proprietors say. God recognizes no ceremonies without one of His licensed ministers."

      "So, then, your mother is a bastard! Why don't you say it?" her Grandmother Bourne demanded.

      "Say, 'Our sister is an evil bitch,' Sister Mary," Stephen said. "Our Sister is an evil bitch."

      "Bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch…." Sister Mary started a chant.

      "Stop it, Stephen. Be quiet, Sister Mary, and chew you food," their mother said.

      "At least your mother was born of love," Mary Bourne said, finishing the conversation.

      "I can eat no more," Ann Harbut said, and stood up. She held her huge stomach as she walked to the bed opposite the fire.

      Little James took up Sister Mary's chant and banged his spoon on the table, yelling, "Bitch, bitch, bitch." Sister Mary chimed in with him.

      "Children, stop it!

      Mary Williams had had enough. She was tired. She was over forty years old and pregnant, herself, although no one knew of it but her. She was waiting for Joseph to get back before she told.

      Stephen was disgusted with the women, and got up from the table without saying a word. He filled his pipe, lit it with a coal, and then went outside to smoke. But, it was cool after sunset, too cool. After finishing the pipe, he went back inside and climbed up to the loft and got in bed, still clothed, beside the sleeping Little James.

      Stephen was awakened in the middle of the night by cries of pain. He realized that Ann's baby was coming, and earlier than she'd expected. He heard a muffled "shhh," and women's voices, low and soothing. Little James stirred in his sleep. Stephen put an arm around the child and went back to sleep.

      He awoke again, hearing the lusty cries of a newborn baby. The women had done their work. In the morning they would present him with another nephew. He hoped they named it "Stephen."

      He awoke a third time, just before dawn. The only sounds were the crackle of the fire and of his mother's and his grandfather's snores. He lay in the still, listening to the comforting sounds. He heard his grandmother whispering to Elizabeth, his niece.

      "Get back in bed, now, Bess. Don't want to wake up your mother. Your mother's tired, dear. Get back in bed with your Grandma Williams."

      Stephen loved the sounds of home. He wished he were with James and their father, seeing the country, but he loved the sounds of home. One day, he would see the country. He'd go to Carolina again, and he'd visit his Grandma Fewox and his Uncle Richard, but he wanted to always have a warm home with warm sounds.

      The new baby started crying, again, but the hearty screams, soon, were muffled. Then, they stopped.

      Stephen drifted off again but soon was re-awakened, this time by smoke then, fully, by cries for help. He jumped from the bed, pulling the startled Little James with him.

      "Go outside! Now!" he yelled at the frightened child, then dropped the boy down into the hall.

      He stepped into his shoes and climbed down the ladder. Smoke had filled the room. Flames engulfed the fireplace end and crawled across the ceiling.

      "My baby! My baby!"

      Ann's voice pulled Stephen's eyes to her where she lay in bed, struggling to rise with a limp, naked, infant in her arms. His mother was helping Ann from the bed, while Grandmother Bourne tugged at the child.

      There were screams other than his sister's, and Stephen looked through the smoke towards the fire. His niece Elizabeth. Her dress had burned away. Her hair had burned off. Her little body was on fire!

      Stephen rushed for the child, but flames drove him back. His shirt caught fire and he smelled his own hair burning. He couldn't reach the child, and before she fell her screams had stopped.

"Mother sick, Grandmother? Mother sick?"

      Little James tugged at his grandmother's skirts. Ann lay sobbing atop the salvaged cloths that were spread upon the oxcart. She held a dead baby.

      "Where Bess, Grandmother? Where Bess?"

      Mary Bourne stood with an arm around Sister Mary staring, first, at the unrecognizable charred remains of Bess, then at the lifeless infant Ann held. One leg was much shorter than the other, and the face was split with a hare-lip. Stephen turned to stare at his Grandmother Bourne.

      "Those children always die real early, Child. Almost always."

      Mary Williams tried to comfort her daughter who'd lost two children in one night. "Take the boy somewhere, Stephen," she said. "Take him away. Find him something to eat."

      Neighbors had gathered from the creeks and river and from the swamp. Some had brought tools, some had brought food. Dick Harbut galloped up and ran to his wife. Stephen led Little James to a Biggs aunt, and wandered away from the crowd.

      He still saw the fire, the dead baby, Bess in flames and screaming. He still heard the silence that happened when she'd stopped. He walked up the creek to where thick locust poles had been sunk for his father's tidal mill. The sun was above the trees and shining on the ashes of the Deep Creek manor. His home was gone and his Grandmother Bourne had…. He couldn't let the thought into his mind, at first, but he finally knew that his Grandmother Bourne had suffocated the crippled baby. Maybe his Grandmother Fewox had been right, and Grandmother Bourne was a witch! Maybe God had caused the fire as punishment!

      Thomas Biggs came up to him. Stephen's mother wanted him to feed the animals and to say good-bye, he said. Mary, Ann and Little James, with Sister Mary and Grandmother Bourne were going to Thomas's house at Great Bridge until his father, brother, and Uncle Richard returned.

      "Will we still go with Grandpa Bourne to the swamp?" Stephen asked his mother.

      "Yes," she said. "Your father still needs timbers for the mill. There's no change in that. Your cousin, Willy Biggs, is going with you, Dick, and Pa to the swamp. I'll stay with Ann till she's right to travel home by road."

      Oak trees with broad, curving limbs were needed for cutting into strong, arched pieces for wheels and gears. Maple blocks would make hard teeth when set into the wheels as cogs for gears. Grandpa Bourne knew where to lead Dick to find the wood he wanted. He'd find good trees near the edge of the swamp; he'd find more workers deeper in it.

      Stephen had been looking forward to the search, now he was desperate to go deep into the swamp, further away from people than he'd ever been. He was eager to be away from the evidence of man's temporary creations, and the mysterious female magic of life and death. He wanted to think about what he'd seen and heard.

      Dick Harbut decided to bury Bess, with the unnamed child, at the Deep Creek plantation. There'd been no minister in Norfolk County for over a year, so the warden of Elizabeth River parish said words over the two bodies as they were interred beside the resting-place of their great-grandfather, Richard Williams. Their mother was not recovered and remained in bed at her Great-uncle Thomas's.

      Stephen helped lower the little box into the earth while wondering about his Grandmother Bourne's actions. Had she been right to kill the twisted and deformed infant, or should she have let the child bring suffering and shame to the family? Stephen had wanted to speak to his mother and his sister about what he knew had happened, but he didn't. The cold, dry eyes of his grandmother and his mother stopped him. Maybe it was a woman's duty to make such decisions and to act on them. Women were weak in so many things, but they did some things that few men could. There were male witches, Stephen knew, but he'd never heard talk of one.

      Daniel Bourne was almost seventy years old, but the thick, rich air of the swamp sank deep into him, making him hardy and alert. He chewed on a sassafras twig; the taste was good with the chew of tobacco. He was a man again, in his own territory, amongst the challenges he knew. He could sense the forces of God and of the Devil all around. Life, in all forms, was everywhere. Trees towered above, with vines drooping down, bird flying in-between. Vegetation scratched at his face and pulled at his legs. The animal rustles and roars and chirps, snapping, buzzing, and singing were a din. So was the silence. Heady odors of flowers and peat and rot clogged the air.

      Stephen broke free of a tangling brier and caught up with his grandfather. The old man didn't get-up caught in the briers, and his boots were still dry. He was stooped over, but was nearly as tall as Stephen's father.