Dance the Eagle to Sleep by Marge Piercy

Author:Marge Piercy [Piercy, Marge]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781604864564
Publisher: PM Press
Published: 2012-06-23T23:00:00+00:00

Joanna in Harness

The rendezvous was in Bear Mountain State Park. They pulled the car off the road, camouflaged it and hauled in the provisions on the hiking trail to the site agreed on in the negotiations: Corey, Shawn, Carole—who was on the farm recuperating from a bad beating—Big Ned and Joanna. Nobody was at the meeting place. They built a fire and sat around waiting, and after a while Ned and Shawn began to speculate that they had stopped hiking too soon. Then they saw they were surrounded.

Joanna went stiff with fear when she saw the kids. Immediately she was ashamed. Unconscious prejudice. After all, people were scared of the Indians often enough. But the skinny, skinny bodies standing just into the firelight holding clubs and chunks of rusted metal and knives and two with guns, froze her. Black impassive faces and pitiful, emaciated bodies dressed in rags and a few too-big coats.

The tall boy carrying one of the rifles, Marcus, came forward and examined the packages of food, holding the gun on them all the while. “Okay,” he said. “Search them.”

They were lined up and searched and their weapons taken. Ned started to object, but Corey signaled for him to submit. Then with Marcus still holding the gun on them, the black kids fell on the food. Wrappings went flying. With a knife, a boy who looked twelve called Tiger divvied up the salamis into sections, and then they were gone, skins and all, gone. Like tossing bread into a school of hungry fish. A swirl of dark bodies and rags, and then nothing. Her mouth twitched, but she was too scared to smile.

“Bring me food” Marcus commanded, and a couple of the kids scurried up with chunks of bread and cheese and raw hotdog. Within minutes everything was eaten and the boys sat on their heels staring at them across the flames. “Is that all you brought?”

“That’s all we brought this time. There were only us to carry it, after all” Corey said with a big easy grin. “How to get you more food is one of the things we have to talk about. But we did bring blankets in the green pack.”

So they all sat around the fire, and the parley commenced. It was tense enough. Some of the older boys kept eying Joanna and Carole, and their chief asked outright if the women had been brought for their use.

Corey explained that they were warriors, too, and part of the negotiating delegation. Some of the kids sniggered, but the moment passed. Normally Joanna would have pushed into that breach, because she was increasingly aware of how disregarded women were in parleys and councils. But tonight she wanted to stay invisible. Corey could give an imitation of ease, and tonight that was fine with her. Even Shawn looked cowed.

The kids had been in a summer camp for underprivileged children when Harlem was shelled, and they had fled the camp into the Catskills. They had had a hard time. They had known nothing of how to live outdoors, and they had had to learn.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.