My Name is Resolute (67 page)

It was Cullah; I would know his voice on my dying day. He must have been slain and was even now walking the earth on this Hallows’ Even. I could not pray. I could barely breathe, but I choked out the words, “Go away. In the name of God go away, you.”

“Ma!” There was a rushing clump and a bang, as if the thing threw itself against the door. “Ma, let me in! I beg you. We have come such a long way.”

Jacob said, “They will tell you anything to get you to open the door. Let it not in, Resolute. It said it came up from the dell and that there is more than one. That is the graveyard. On your knees, children, and pray them away.”

Gwenny did as he said. Benjamin burst into loud sobbing as Jacob started saying Our Father. He panted a few times. “Our Father,” and after but a few words he slipped into Gaelic.
“Arr uh nee-ehr, air nee-uv.”

“Ma,” called Cullah. “Please let me in. It’s been so long, Ma.” The voice began to weep! “Ma-ma?” I reached for the latch on the bar at the door. Its cries broke my heart.

“Stop!” screamed Jacob. “It’s a trick, Resolute. In the name of God, don’t open it. We will not open! Do you hear, spirit? Your tricks do not work here. Go and menace some other for by the name of God we shall not let you in.”

“I am not a spirit, sir!”

“At midnight,” I whispered to Jacob. “At midnight the hallows return and saints rise to heaven. Then if Cullah is still there—”

Jacob hissed at me, “It is not Cullah, woman.”

Then I thought to ask it questions. “Who are you?”

“Brendan MacLammond.”

I sank to my knees then. Was my son killed, too? “Whence came you?”

“From a river and a fort, north in the Canadas. My father follows me. My friend accompanies me. We will perish if you let us not in, for we are starved. Mother, please believe me.”

“It is All Hallows,” I called. “I cannot open the door.”

The voice was silent for a long time. “Mother? I didn’t know what day it was. Oh, how may I prove it is I?
Gumboo!
By the sword of Eadan Lamont and the cross of Holy God, I tell you the cross of
gumboo
binds me to you and him.”

I looked at Jacob. He raised his face to me as if he felt my stare and he whispered, “Ghosts would not call on the name of God. Nor fairies. It sounds like Cullah.” I threw the latch and lifted the bar. Behind me Jacob took a firebrand from the hearth and held it high, ready to fight off the minions of Satan if need be.

Into my house walked a man wearing a filthy plaid. He had a young man’s beard but his face was so dirty it matched his hair and I knew him not. He was tall and thin but broad of shoulder, as if not yet filled in. He wore English boots and a tattered leather shirt under the long plaid across his shoulder. He held the door ajar. “Ma!” he said with a great smile. “It is I, Brendan. Oh, but you had me so afrighted, thinking you would not open to me. Hold a moment. I have brought a man with me. He’s been wounded but holding up. Rolan? Can you make it here?”

“Brendan?” I feared touching him, but if he were my son, I should want to hold him as any mother would. Was this my son or a fairy? Did I dare believe it?

At that moment a gaunt fellow appeared dressed in ragged summer linens that had once been tan. His beard, too, was one of youth, but longer and fairer. He shivered as if the bones of him could rattle together. I would not have thought it possible, but he was thinner than the first. Nothing but bones and filth. He had an oozing wound on his neck wrapped around with what looked to be a man’s old stocking, for the toe of the sock stood out at an angle like a flag and still bore imprints of dirty toes. He tried to bow but could not move his head. He said,
“Plaisir de vous rencontrer, mademoiselle.”

“Not ‘mademoiselle.’ She is my mother. Ma, this is my friend Rolan. We’ve come from the fighting. We’ve done with it. I tried to turn him in but they told me to kill him, and I nearly did. But he did not die. My time was up, you see, and he was my prisoner but we got separated and we were both afraid of the Indians. We had to get away from the Indians for the army left us abandoned in the woods. We had such a long way to go and got to be friends on the way home. Since I am not a soldier anymore, I’m my own master again and I chose to call him friend. Well and aye.”

The blond man said also, “Well and aye, madame.”

“You are French?
Français? Vous êtes français
?” I asked. “Brendan?” I asked the first man. “But your voice, it was Cullah MacLammond calling me. Or, I thought, calling his mother. You frightened me to my death. It is you, Brendan my son?” I raised my arms to embrace him.

“Ma, better not touch me until I have a chance to scrape a few layers of dirt. I’ve been itching. Oh, so great to see you all.” He turned to Jacob. “Grandpa Jacob? You believe I am myself, don’t you? Have I changed that much? Gwyneth, you? Ben, don’t cry. Be a good wee man, there. It’s I, your brother. Where’s little Dorothy-dolly? None of you know me?”

I said, “My son went away a boy. You have a man’s voice and a man’s body. I did not expect that a year and a quarter of fighting and foraging would put height on you. To appear on All Hallows, we could not be sure it was not some spirit. Or that your father had not died and his ghost came to torment us. If you are not Cullah, where is he? And close the door. We do not have wood to heat all of Lexington from our hearth.”

The man laughed. “My mother would always be practical.” He smiled and closed his eyes, tears emerging from them, coursing through dirt and making clean stripes on his face. “I am home.” He dropped to his knees. “Thank God I am home.”

Jacob went to him then, put his hand on the man’s shoulder and said, “My bonny wee Brendan?”

Brendan stood, a good foot taller than his grandfather, and smiled. “It is,” he said. “Have you aught to eat?”

I shuddered. It was told in these parts to never, never feed a fairy. You will never get it out of your house if you do. I closed my eyes. “What time is it?” I asked no one and everyone.

“Well past midnight,” Gwyneth said. “Surely the hallows have gone back to the grave now. Ma? Grampa Jacob has nailed iron rings over every door. No fairy will go under iron. He couldn’t have come in, had he not skin as ours.”

“Would you at least feed my friend?” he asked.

I said, “We had apples with cinnamon for supper. Push up the fire and I will get some long forks for you.”

They started in roasting the apples. I could not bring myself to believe this was my son; though he seemed like him he did not look like him or talk like him. But no duppy or fairy would sit so close to a fire. No ghost would want to eat. I watched them a while, then asked again, “Where is Cullah?”

Brendan squinted and said, “He’s coming. It is taking much longer for him to travel with the people going with him. He told me to get Rolan to some shelter and food and go on ahead. I didn’t want to leave him, but there were reasons. Oh, that is good. Have you bread, too? And cheese?”

“Would you like some ale warmed?” Gwenny asked.

“I will take it any way it comes, warm, cold, or frozen solid,” he answered.

While I cut slabs of bread and cheese, she poured tankards for him and for Rolan. Rolan took a cup from her with a sheepish nod and said,
“Merci.”

I asked, “Do you want to clean up? We might retire upstairs and leave you with clothes and water mixed with vinegar. I have sponges and soap. Your wound,” I said to Rolan, “needs dressing.”

“Madame?”

“Votre blessure a besoin de bandages.”

“Oui.”

I turned to Brendan. “Will you be all right to stay down here tonight? It is late. We will make your bed tomorrow. For now, wash yourselves and sleep in these blankets by the fire.”

“Ma?” Gwyneth began.

“Up to bed, children. Benjamin? Wake Dorothy and take her by the hand. You both sleep with me tonight. Jacob?”

Brendan said, “Good night, Ma.”

“Good night, Ma,” Rolan mimicked.

When we got to the top of the stairs, I pulled Gwyneth into my room. Jacob came up behind, and bolted the door, while unlatching the secret passage to the tower room and from it to the stair down to the barn. We would not leave, but it would be there if needed. Then we arranged for him to make a pallet in one corner, while the children all took my bed, and I slept curled up on a chest with a blanket.

Morning came late, and the clouds had not parted, indeed the cold wind that blew in brought winter with it, and two inches of snow. If we had left those men in the parlor below to face the winter night, they would have died. I would have acted less charitable had not there been a familiar ring to his voice. So, when I descended the stairs to find someone I now recognized as my son, clean shaven and wrapped in a blanket, with clean hair, my heart felt as if it swelled in my chest. I smiled. “Brendan,” I said. “Oh, please forgive me for not recognizing you. I had no idea you would change so much.”

“Well and aye, Ma. Why did you keep insisting it was Pa calling for his mother?”

“Do you not know? Your voice has gone so low I thought it was your father. You sound exactly like him. I am so pleased to have you home, son. So thankful.”

“I am happy to be home. I was sore afraid you would have more soldiers billeted here, and poor Rolan would have to be turned over to them. He is supposed to be my prisoner but he’s an all right chap after you get to understand him. Farm boy from the south of France, pressed to be a soldier just as we were, and shipped here to fight us.”

I bent over the bed where Rolan slept. His face and hair were clean but not shaved, and the dirty bandage was still about his throat. I touched his head. He had fever. “Why did you not change this bandage?” I asked. By then, the rest of my family started meandering downstairs.

“He said he would tend it. He let me wash first, and soon as I got shaved, I fell asleep. I slept like the dead until just before you came down.”

“Rolan?” I called. The man did not move. “Brendan, get me that vinegar and some rum. I will change this. You had better pray for him if he is your friend, for to get a blood fever in the neck, he will never last.”

I thought I had witnessed all the worst that man or animal could bear in the way of sores and disease, but I was not prepared for what came away in the filthy stocking at Rolan’s neck. I was glad he did not seem to feel me tending him and glad I had not yet eaten. Once I got fresh linen wrapped about him, I hoped he felt better, for I knew I felt better, but whether or not he felt relieved as I, I could not tell. I tried to wake him and held up his head to put a spoonful of rum between his lips. He swallowed it, opened his eyes for a moment and mumbled something, then fell back to sleep or swoon.

I took my scissor and trimmed the beard on his neck and then trimmed all about his chin, as well. I combed his hair and braided a queue in the back, tying it with a length of woolen yarn. “Why are you doing that?” Gwenny asked. “What difference does it make how the man looks if he’s sick unto death?”

“I am not doing it for his grooming, Gwyneth. It is to keep the hair from tangling about the bandage or just getting in his face. Keeping the bandaging and wound clean are most important now, and it will need to be changed again in a few hours.”

“I’ll do it,” she declared with a conviction that brooked no response.

Brendan told me about his prisoner. Rolan Perrine was the second son of a farmer. He had no interest in soldiering, while Brendan thought of nothing else. Rolan was a terrible shot, and more terrified of killing a man than facing a noose for desertion. He had admitted to Brendan that when he had him in his line of aim, he had pulled the barrel high so as to fire at his officer’s command yet not kill anyone. Brendan laughed deep in his chest. “Fine soldier, this fellow. If he killed anyone it was an accident. The most effective weapon he used on our men was being too thin to see behind a tree. Me, I, well, have you any of those flat cakes you used to make?”

“Yes. See if Rolan will have another spoonful of rum while I make the batter and start the iron heating.”

Rolan did not die that day or the next and he was still alive when Sunday came and able to sit up and eat broths and pancakes. I begged Brendan to stay with his friend. “I never miss Meeting now,” I said. “Do not look surprised. I have sent many a prayer heavenward on your behalf. And your father is not home yet. Your uncle sails under more danger of his own making. There is more to living in a town than I knew when you were young. Things have happened. It is important to go and to give to the poor and to keep in good graces with all who know us.”

“But you always said to trust your own heart.”

“That is true, son. I do not do this for trickery but to make myself known. If people have your acquaintance and friendship, they are not so quick to believe falsity. Last month across town, Goody Meacham was tried for witchcraft because she argued with a neighbor whose dog killed her goose. The neighbor’s child then died and his cow had a calf born with two heads. No one knew her. No one came to her defense. She might have been hung had not the judges disagreed on whether she looked the part of a witch. I never want to be in a place where no one would come forward to say to a judge that they have known me to be righteous. A life well lived, in some respects, needs witnesses.”

Brendan cocked his head. He watched me pour batter on the hot iron, turned back to my gaze, then he said with a laziness to his voice that belied the workings of his brain, and that I recognized in the son I knew, “That will be something to think about. I believe you are right. Evil loves darkness and good the light. Is that cake ready to turn?”

I smiled and flipped the flat cake over. The other children gathered around and ate, and after breakfast Jacob said he would stay with the boys while we went to Meeting.

*   *   *

Eleven days after Brendan came home, I was out in the barn when I heard a voice in the woods, singing the “True Lover’s Farewell.” I stood in the barnyard and looked in every direction, for the voice echoed all about. I had forgotten what a nice voice he had to listen to, every note on the right pitch. “Cullah?” I spun on my heels as I called with all my strength. “Eadan!” Searching the meadows and fields, I saw him at the edge of the woods. He had a huge sack over one shoulder and his sword lashed over the other one. What was more, he was clean and his beard neat, his hair in a tail at the back under a tricorn hat, wearing not his tartan but new clothes made of skins. He stepped out toward me and I to him. Then he put down the sack and sword and ran full out. “Eadan!” I cried again. At last his arms closed about me and swung me about, both of us wanting to melt into the body of the other. “Husband. Oh, my husband, you are home.”