Katu Page 4

me.”

  I know it’s not possible, but Grandfather seems to be condensing, making himself slighter, as if hiding from his own words.

  James halts, once again his true felicity toward Grandfather suppresses his ire, and he turns back for us. He stops at Grandfather’s side, perching a portion of his rump upon his left heel as he brushes dirt from his right boot. Looking rather nervous as he studies the moving creek as if his next words were written on it, he leans in, speaking his words conspiratorially, “If General Washington and his troops can last until the thaw, well, that’s where them fish come in. They will come strong as to feed them men—the men winter didn’t want.” And as if it were some measure of reassurance, some binding existential promise to the old, however far above mortal jurisdiction to make, James places his hand upon Grandfather’s scrawny shoulder and whispers, “You and me, Katu, we will be here to feed them men, help make things different for the little ones.”

  James and Grandfather nod in unison as if they’d just come about the same tick of the nerves. These two disparate men are united, for once, in whatever certainty they can give the unknown. Their sentiment is plain even when there are no spoken words, such is their friendship. So much oft goes unsaid between Grandfather and James that I make it my practice to study the discourse between the two, for in their conversations more is emoted than ever verbalized.

  “James, you really believe our farmers can beat back them red coats?” I ask.

  “I believe it so, Mister Joshua,” says James as he slowly rises to his feet, “seems God willed. What other cause it be for such insanity? The work of God, so it be. He done it with the Israelites.”

  “Preacher says the Israelites was running; Father says our men stand.”

  Grandfather grunts as he looks at me as if to ask who I think my people are. He grunts again for he knows my answer.

  Appearing discomforted, James reaches beneath the breast of his coat and withdraws a letter. “Just so, my Mister give me a letter for your father.”

  “I’ll take it for you,” I say. “He went to pay his men and close up. He’s sending his carriages up to the barn as he’s certain, on good authority, that they will burn the city before they leave and take his carriages with them for a comfortable exit. He said he’d be damned if he makes it any easier for the enemy to progress.”

  “I plead you not to repeat my words like you do your father’s,” James says nervously. “I got me enough troubles.”

  “No, no, of course not, I will never speak of them,” I reply, shaking my head.

  Grandfather stops his stitching. Apparently, my loose tongue warrants his full attention. Of which, he is prepared no doubt to give generously of now. “It is not wise to go round reciting another man’s words the way you do,” he reprimands me. “A man wants another to hear his words, he will say ’em hisself.”

  My feelings significantly stinging from their disapproval, I emphatically nod my full agreement. I’ve never heard either man commit such a timbre against me. Though it appears my promise is accepted as satisfactory, for Grandfather quietly recommences and James nods before disappearing up the bank. He’s likely headed after Louise to the kitchen behind our house where he oft sits awaiting her, looking out at the river thinking things he never speaks, maybe about little Moses, maybe about freedom. Such a view is to be had at that window that it gets one to wondering about faraway things. On a clear day, I can see all the way to the pinnacles of Fort Mifflin in the south, and easterly straight past the open field of staked yet undeveloped city, to the loosely woven outskirt of squat brick boxes and lean-tos, until finally a buckle-shaped lot of neatly gridded streets full of trees and rightly made buildings swell the horizon in unnatural slate-capped hillocks that end at the Delaware, where the tiny white points of clipper ships once moved along the sill of sky like low-flying birds.

  The War for Independence has changed the landscape, and we’re all wondering what it will look like when it’s over. Mother, for one, is fearful our home will be billeted by British officers, and we’ll all be taken prisoner or worse. She and Mina hung heavy curtains on every window last month even before the heat had gone, and she methodically draws them shut every night at sundown to hide our candlelight and safely seal us up like a secret of the dark woods.

  Of late, Father keeps his rifle at close reach. He is never at ease, never at ease. Whereas Grandfather sits and smokes in his chair, usually saying little, as if he does not care of the outcome one way or the other. But is this true? I now look to him as he continues his work.

  Grandfather’s tiny brown eyes pucker, as if about to altogether disappear as he lifts his chin and sniffs the breeze. I find reward in emulation, a brief invitation to his thoughts, for this time I too know what my eyes can’t see.

  Campfire. Meat. Men.

  Grandfather seems to me to have the instincts of an animal. I’ve always rather admired his abilities as they seem rather preternatural. This has made the past few days all the more disquieting, as he’s never seemed more troubled. I’d give over my sweets for a month if he would just share his thoughts about the war, about why he fears the winter is fated to abscond with his very life; these thoughts minimally, but I know better than to ask. I will only get his silence for overstepping my place.

  Without skipping a beat in his stitching, he points toward Philadelphia, ever more encroaching toward our town.

  “Afore the whites came, my people met up the kithane, the other river, at Kacamensi. This day, the English call it Shackamaxon. And how we et, all kind of food. Some came far, from the mountains, from near to the sea; they came bringing their foods and news and goods to us. Eh, eh, but some brought trouble. When I was boy, there was always a war to put down—clan fought clan some back then. And when the whites came, eh, this did nothing to bring them together. There was just something new to fight about. Some men are made to make war. Never forget that; it is in their blood. They have no peace in them, only battle. The elders knew this. They knew they couldn’t be lef to it, for war only hatches more war. So the clans would come, and their elders talked with the other elders. Sometimes it was days until they made peace according to our laws.”

  “Your people had laws?”

  “Yuh, we had laws. We was the first people; we made the first laws in this land.”

  “What kind of laws? Pertinent ones?”

  “Good laws.”

  “Were they alike English laws?” I ask.

  He flusters then glares at me. “We are not English; why would we have English laws? Our laws had reason; everyone understood them. They were not wrapped in idiot’s poetry to deceive those they wanted to exploit or conquer. No, the law was for all. English law,” he waves dismissively, “is treacherous. This I know. Law is not meant to protect the few and punish the many. No, no, no, good laws have been the same since the beginning of man and will be the same until the end of him. Good law is natural law and the same all this great world over, I think. It is bad laws what differ nations, divide the peoples.”

  “I haven’t studied much on law, any laws, really, but I shall. It interests me greatly. There will be a new system soon, and I should like to learn all I can know; that of the Greeks and the Romans and that of the greatest thinkers in Parliament. Grandfather, I’ll thank you to tell me of those old laws of your people.”

  He’s momentarily pensive, then swiftly lightens as if a spasm has now passed him. “With my people, a man was never to take from another but for gift or trade, and that meant never hunting on another clan’s grounds without their permission. This was bad, very bad—thievery at its worst. When many people depend on the same things to live, they must keep the law or some will get fat and others will starve. A man is meant to live off his portion. He cannot go and take from other peoples and then still go back and enjoy all of his own. The elders gave those stolen from a voice and a way to settle disputes without having to make war. People cannot be committed to something which they have not agreed to. That is natural law.”r />
  “That is what this war is about, Grandfather.”

  “Is it now? I pay no mind to them.”

  I believe he pays more mind than he admits. He once said, “The big talker does no more than rally at his own words and worship his own fool thoughts. Eh, the silent man, he is silent because he is listening and learning. He does not give up his wisdom for a whim.”

  “I think our colonists are much like your people; both are lovers of the good and just.”

  “I pay no mind,” he says again, silently stitching. He purses his wide, thin lips as if he is about to kiss the wind and then resolves to continue. “It was an important time when our clans came together. We were one family, my family—your family, Nunshetu . . . They do not come anymore.

  “Past Kacamensi, there was a cove what drained into a swamp, full of snakes and eels, wild and stinging like bees,” Grandfather laughs, playfully pinching at me as I brush him away. “One day, my brother and I went there. We were young then, younger than you, but it was time, we thought,” Grandfather balls his fists tightly, “time we became men.”

  “Were you and your brother greatly frightened?”

  “Yuh, that is why we went,” he says as he ties a knot I could not have repeated.

  “I can’t say I would have gone to such a place; snakes and