The Best Alternate History Stories of the 20th Century Read online

  And so, to help them, one man puts the whole thing down in those little marks. Obviously this is a very important job, and Spearshaker said that it was only in recent times, two or three winters before leaving his native land, that he himself had been accounted worthy of this honor. Well, I had known he was a didahnvwisgi, but I hadn’t realized he was of such high rank.

  I first purpos’d to compose some pretty conceited Comedy, like vnto my Loue’s Labour’s Lost: but alas, me seemes my Wit hath dry’d vp from Misfortune. Then I bethought my selfe of the Play of the Prince of Denmark, by Thomas Kyd: which I had been employ’d in reuising for our Company not long ere we departed London, and had oft said to Richard Burbage, that I trow I could write a Better. And so I haue commenced, and praye God I may compleat, my owne Tragedie of Prince Hamlet.

  I asked what sort of stories his people told in this curious manner. That is something that always interests me—you can learn a lot about any tribe from their stories. Like the ones the Maskogis tell about Rabbit, or our own tale about the Thunder Boys, or—you know.

  I don’t know what I was thinking. By then I should have known that white people do everything differently from everyone else in the world.

  First he started to tell me about a dream somebody had on a summer night. That sounded good, but then it turned out to be about the Little People! Naturally I stopped him fast, and I told him that we do not talk about . . . them. I felt sorry for the poor man who dreamed about them, but there was no helping him now.

  Then Spearshaker told me a couple of stories about famous chiefs of his own tribe. I couldn’t really follow this very well, partly because I knew so little about white laws and customs, but also because a lot of their chiefs seemed to have the same name. I never did understand whether there were two different chiefs named Ritsad, or just one with a very strange nature.

  The oddest thing, though, was that none of these stories seemed to have any point. They didn’t tell you why the moon changes its face, or how the People were created, or where the mountains came from, or where the raccoon got his tail, or anything. They were just . . . stories. Like old women’s gossip.

  Maybe I missed something.

  To liue, or not to liue, there lyes the

  To liue, or dye? Shall I

  To dye or

  To be or what? It

  He certainly worked hard at his task. More often than not, I could hear him grinding his teeth and muttering to himself as he sat hunched over his marks. And now and then he would jump up and throw the sheet to the ground and run outside in the snow and the night wind, and I would hear him shouting in his own language. At least I took it to be his language, though the words were not among those I knew. Part of his medicine, no doubt, so I said nothing.

  God’s Teethe! Haue I beene so long in this Wildernesse, that I haue forgot all Skill? I that could bombast out a lyne of blank Uerse as readily as a Fishe doth swimm, now fumble for Wordes like a Drunkard who cannot finde his owne Cod-peece with both Handes.

  I’m telling you, it was a long winter.

  For who would thus endure the Paines of time:

  To-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow,

  That waite in patient and most grim Array,

  Each arm’d with Speares and Arrowes of Misfortune,

  Like Indians ambuscaded in the Forest?

  But that the dread of something after Death,

  That vndiscouered country, from whose Shores

  No Traueller returnes, puzzels the Will,

  And makes vs rather beare that which we knowe

  Than wantonly embarke for the Vnknowne.

  One evening, soon after the snows began to melt, I noticed that Spearshaker was not at his usual nightly work. He was just sitting there staring into the fire, not even looking at his skins and bark sheets, which were stacked beside him. The turkey feathers and black paint were nowhere in sight.

  I said, “Is something wrong?” and then it came to me. “Finished?”

  He let out a long sigh. “Yes,” he said. “Mo ful ai,” he added, which was something he often said, though I never quite got what it meant.

  It was easy to see he was feeling bad. So I said, “Tell me the story.”

  He didn’t want to, but finally he told it to me. He got pretty worked up as he went along, sometimes jumping up to act out an exciting part, till I thought he was going to wreck my house. Now and then he picked up a skin or mulberry-bark sheet and spoke the words, so I could hear the sound. I had thought I was learning his language pretty well, but I couldn’t understand one word in ten.

  But the story itself was clear enough. There were parts I didn’t follow, but on the whole it was the best he’d ever told me. At the end I said, “Good story.”

  He tilted his head to one side, like a bird. “Truly?”

  “Doyu,” I said. I meant it, too.

  He sighed again and picked up his pile of raiting. “I am a fool,” he said.

  I saw that he was about to throw the whole thing into the fire, so I went over and took it from him. “This is a good thing,” I told him. “Be proud.”

  “Why?” He shrugged his shoulders. “Who will ever see it? Only the bugs and the worms. And the mice,” he added, giving me his little smile.

  I stood there, trying to think of something to make him feel better. Ninekiller’s oldest daughter had been making eyes at Spearshaker lately and I wondered if I should go get her. Then I looked down at what I was holding in my hands and it came to me.

  “My friend,” I said, “I’ve got an idea. Why don’t we put on your plei right here?”

  And now is Lunacy compownded vpon Lunacy, Bedlam pyled on Bedlam: for I am embark’d on an Enterprize, the like of which this Globe hath neuer seene. Yet Ile undertake this Foolery, and flynch not: mayhap it will please these People, who are become my onely Frends. They shall haue of Will his best will.

  It sounded simple when I heard myself say it. Doing it was another matter. First, there were people to be spoken with.

  We Aniyuwiya like to keep everything loose and easy. Our chiefs have far less authority than yours, and even the power of the clan mothers has its limits. Our laws are few, and everyone knows what they are, so things tend to go along without much trouble.

  But there were no rules for what we wanted to do, because it had never been done before. Besides, we were going to need the help of many people. So it seemed better to go carefully—but I admit I had no idea that our little proposal would create such a stir. In the end there was a regular meeting at the council house to talk it over.

  Naturally it was Otter who made the biggest fuss. “This is white men’s medicine,” he shouted. “Do you want the People to become as weak and useless as the whites?”

  “If it will make all our warriors shoot as straight as Spearshaker,” Bigkiller told him, “then it might be worth it.”

  Otter waved his skinny old arms. He was so angry by now that his face was whiter than Spearshaker’s. “Then answer this,” he said. “How is it that this dance—”

  “It’s not a dance,” I said. Usually I would not interrupt an elder in council, but if you waited for Otter to finish you might be there all night.

  “Whatever you call it,” he said, “it’s close enough to a dance to be Bird Clan business, right? And you, Mouse, are Wolf Clan—as is your white friend, by adoption. So you have no right to do this thing.”

  Old Dotsuya spoke up. She was the Bird Clan Mother, and the oldest person present. Maybe the oldest in town, now I think of it.

  “The Bird Clan has no objection,” she said. “Mouse and Spearshaker have our permission to put on their plei. Which I, for one, would like to see. Nothing ever happens around this town.”

  Tsigeyu spoke next. “Howa,” she said. “I agree. This sounds interesting.”

  Of course Otter wasn’t willing to let it go so easily; he made quite a speech, going all the way back to the origins of the People and predicting every kind of calamity if this sacrilege was perm
itted. It didn’t do him much good, though. No one liked Otter, who had gotten both meaner and longer-winded with age, and who had never been a very good didahnvwisgi anyway. Besides, half the people in the council house were asleep long before he was done.

  After the council gave its approval there was no trouble getting people to help. Rather we had more help than we needed. For days there was a crowd hanging around my house, wanting to be part of the plei. Bigkiller said if he could get that many people to join a war party, he could take care of the Catawbas for good.

  And everyone wanted to be an akta. We were going to have to turn some people away, and we would have to be careful how we did it, or there would be trouble. I asked Spearshaker how many aktas we needed. “How many men, that is,” I added, as he began counting on his fingers. “The women are a different problem.”

  He stopped counting and stared at me as if I were wearing owl feathers. Then he told me something so shocking you will hardly believe it. In his country, the women in a plei are actually men wearing women’s clothes!

  I told him quick enough that the People don’t go in for that sort of thing—whatever they may get up to in certain other tribes—and he’d better not even talk about it around here. Do you know, he got so upset that it took me the rest of the day to talk him out of calling the whole thing off. . . .

  Women! Mercifull Jesu! Women, on a Stage, acting in a Play! I shall feele like an Whore-Master!

  Men or women, it was hard to know which people to choose. None of them had ever done anything like this before, so there was no way to know whether they would be any good or not. Spearshaker asked me questions about each person, in white language so no one would be offended: Is he quick to learn? Does he dance or sing well? Can he work with other people, and do as he is told? And he had them stand on one side of the stickball field, while he stood on the other, and made them speak their names and clans, to learn how well their voices carried.

  I had thought age would come into it, since the plei included both older and younger people. But it turned out that Spearshaker knew an art of painting a man’s face, and putting white in his hair, till he might be mistaken for his own grandfather.

  No doubt he could have done the same with women, but that wasn’t necessary. There were only two women’s parts in this story, and we gave the younger woman’s part to Ninekiller’s daughter Cricket—who would have hung upside-down in a tree like a possum if it would please Spearshaker—and the older to a cousin of mine, about my age, who had lost her husband to the Shawanos and wanted something to do.

  For those who could not be aktas, there was plenty of other work. A big platform had to be built, with space cleared around it, and log benches for the people who would watch. There were torches to be prepared, since we would be doing it at night, and special clothes to be made, as well as things like fake spears so no one would get hurt.

  Locust and Blackfox were particularly good workers; Spearshaker said it was as if they had been born for this. They even told him that if he still wanted to follow the custom of his own tribe, with men dressed as women, they would be willing to take those parts. Well, I always had wondered about those two.

  But Spearshaker was working harder than anyone else. Besides being in charge of all the other preparations, he had to remake his whole plei to suit our needs. No doubt he had made a fine plei for white men, but for us, as it was, it would never do.

  Many a Play haue I reuis’d and amended: cut short or long at the Company’s desyre, or alter’d this or that Speeche to please a Player: e’en carued the very Guttes out of a scene on command of the Office of the Reuels, for some imagin’d Sedition or vnseemely Speeche. But now must I out-do all I euer did before, in the making of my Hamlet into a thing comprehensible to the Anni-yawia. Scarce is there a line which doth not haue to be rewrit: yea, and much ta’en out intire: as, the Play within the Play, which Mouse saith, that none here will vnderstande. And the Scene must be mov’d from Denmark to Virginnia, and Elsinore Castle transformed into an Indian towne. For marry, it were Alchemy enow that I should transmute vnletter’d Sauages into tragick Actors: but to make royal Danskers of swart-fac’d Indians were beyond all Reason. (Speak’st thou now of Reason, Will Shakespere? Is’t not ouer-late for that?)

  You should have seen us teaching the aktas their parts. First Spearshaker would look at the marks and say the words in his language. Then he would explain to me any parts I hadn’t understood—which was most of it, usually—and then I would translate the whole thing for the akta in our language. Or as close as I could get; there are some things you cannot really interpret. By now Spearshaker was fluent enough to help me.

  Then the akta would try to say the words back to us, almost always getting it all wrong and having to start again. And later on all the people in the plei had to get together and speak their parts in order, and do all the things they would do in the plei, and that was like a bad dream. Not only did they forget their words; they bumped into each other and stepped on each other’s feet, and got carried away in the fight parts and nearly killed each other. And Spearshaker would jump up and down and pull his hair—which had already begun to fall out, for some reason—and sometimes weep, and when he had settled down we would try again.

  Verily, my lot is harder than that of the Iewes of Moses. For Scripture saith, that Pharo did command that they make Brickes without Strawe, wherefore their trauail was greate: but now I must make my Brickes, euen without Mudd.

  Let me tell you the story of Spearshaker’s plei.

  Once there was a great war chief who was killed by his own brother. Not in a fight, but secretly, by poison. The brother took over as chief, and also took his dead brother’s woman, who didn’t object.

  But the dead man had a son, a young warrior named Amaledi. One night the dead chief appeared to Amaledi and told him the whole story. And, of course, demanded that he do something about it.

  Poor Amaledi was in a bad fix. Obviously he mustn’t go against his mother’s wishes, and kill her new man without her permission. On the other hand, no one wants to anger a ghost—and this one was plenty angry already.

  So Amaledi couldn’t decide what to do. To make things worse, the bad brother had guessed that Amaledi knew something. He and this really nasty, windy old man named Quolonisi—sounds like Otter—began trying to get rid of Amaledi.

  To protect himself Amaledi became a Crazy, doing and saying everything backward, or in ways that made no sense. This made his medicine strong enough to protect him from his uncle and Quolonisi, at least for a time.

  Quolonisi had a daughter, Tsigalili, who wanted Amaledi for her man. But she didn’t want to live with a Crazy—who does?—and she kept coming around and crying and begging him to quit. At the same time his mother was giving him a hard time for being disrespectful toward her new man. And all the while the ghost kept showing up and yelling at Amaledi for taking so long. It got so bad Amaledi thought about killing himself, but then he realized that he would go to the spirit world, where his father would never leave him alone.

  So Amaledi thought of a plan. There was a big dance one night to honor the new chief, and some visiting singers from another town were going to take part. Amaledi took their lead singer aside and got him to change the song, telling him the new words had been given to him in a dream. And that night, with the dancers going around the fire and the women shaking the turtle shells and the whole town watching, the visiting leader sang:

  “Now he pours it,

  Now he is pouring the poison,

  See, there are two brothers,

  See, now there is one.”

  That was when it all blew up like a hot rock in a fire. The bad chief jumped up and ran away from the dance grounds, afraid he had just been witched. Amaledi had a big argument with his mother and told her what he thought of the way she was acting. Then he killed Quolonisi. He said it was an accident but I think he was just tired of listening to the old fool.

  Tsigalili couldn’t stand any more. Sh
e jumped into a waterfall and killed herself. There was a fine funeral.

  Now Amaledi was determined to kill his uncle. The uncle was just as determined to kill Amaledi, but he was too big a coward to do it himself. So he got Quolonisi’s son Panther to call Amaledi out for a fight.

  Panther was a good fighter and he was hot to kill Amaledi, because of his father and his sister. But the chief wasn’t taking any chances. He put some poison on Panther’s spear. He also had a gourd of water, with poison in it, in case nothing else worked.

  So Amaledi and Panther painted their faces red and took their spears and faced each other, right in front of the chief’s house. Amaledi was just as good as Panther, but finally he got nicked on the arm. Before the poison could act, they got into some hand-to-hand wrestling, and the spears got mixed up. Now Panther took a couple of hits. Yes, with the poisoned spear.

  Meanwhile Amaledi’s mother got thirsty and went over and took a drink, before anyone could stop her, from the poisoned gourd. Pretty soon she fell down. Amaledi and Panther stopped fighting and rushed over, but she was already dead.

  By now they were both feeling the poison themselves. Panther fell down and died. So did Amaledi, but before he went down he got his uncle with the poisoned spear. So in the end everyone died.

  You do?

  Well, I suppose you had to be there.

  And so ’tis afoote: to-morrow night we are to perform. Thank God Burbage cannot be there to witnesse it: for it were a Question which should come first, that he dye of Laughter, or I of Shame.

  It was a warm and pleasant night. Everyone was there, even Otter. By the time it was dark all the seats were full and many people were standing, or sitting on the ground.