Meed, those trees wore me to tatters I were tossed back and forth for hours even as I cussed bad as I knew All the time I flew across the sky my brains kept kicking At night’s coming, the trees tired of sport and set me down but left a sentry A great grandpa ironwood minded me while the forest went to its evening chores He waved the axe toward the stump what marked the ironwood. And I made a pantomime that the scrap had put me to sleep Soon through a cracked eye I seen that the ironwood was abed too and—
I knew right then what he had done. I have always had a head for understanding Big. His pride were spilling out of him in nervous talk. Let me make you a present of the trimmed and tidy account.
* * *
The trees gave my brother a thrashing and expected he would sleep politely. This faith were their undoing. Once Big saw his guard-tree were dozing he slipped from liar-sleep and made a liar-self from sticks and bark. He left the false Big into the arms of the ironwood, along with his axe – the thwocking of which would have woken up all the forest. Around this time I shown up and he panicked I would spoil his sneaking – so he gently knocked me over the head and laid me down next to his doll. All night he peeled and scotched and girdled, gathered up kindling. Just before the sun stirred from rest, he ran naked through the arbor and lit one hundred fires.
The trees awoke to the dawn of their own burning, with the true sun hid behind the blue smoke. They panicked to find themselves trussed up by Big’s night-work. My brother did not make any deathbed sacraments for his rivals. Instead he grabbed up his axe from the hands of his false self and went wild with progress. He butchered the trees in a dozen ways. Pulling one up and swinging it as a club into another. Busting one over his knee. Sending one tumbling into its cousins like tenpins. Smiling as he went – leaving stumps and holes and busted tree-bones all over. His work were never tidy.
Dawn stirred into day and Big kept toward chewing up the whole western forest. Before too long the fleas was awake and watching – eyes following the shining hair even as the boy underneath looked more a man with every smasher. Finally he felt those flea eyes and ceased his work – huffed some – looked around at his mess – turned to the fleas – spread out his arms like an actor and said Go ahead
At first they moved with cautious wonder, sniffing and kicking at the jumbles of felled timber. But before long caution turned to greed and the fleas ran to claim up the best lots. They set straight to carpentry and knit the still-warm wood into homes and barns and stables and stores, all in a morning. And then I awoke and heard the story straight from Big – how Ohio city, the sister and rival of Cleveland, come to be.
The waters of the west was generally more polite than the trees. At first neither the Cuyahoga nor Lake Erie seemed cross at the slaughter of the forest. The river kept snoring away like a greenbrown sow, but a scowl stole into the lake. Every day we was washing up – fishing – emptying night pots – baptizing – tanning skins – soiling the waters.
Before too long the lake took to fussing at us. But we only acted worse for all the storms and shipwrecks. Sending steamboats crawling across the lake’s face. Spreading ourselves wider and wider along the bluffs. Spilling more mess every day. Finally in the fall of 1829 the lake unleashed a wild wind, lasting for weeks on end. A good many trees spared by my brother keeled over. Fences and barns and houses fell. Churches was shorn of steeples. Children and other small livestock was carried away, never to be seen again. Soon we thought to rope tender creatures down, but both Cleveland and Ohio city spent that season in fear, near undone by the lake’s fury.
Big Son did not see any sense in such tyrannical conduct. After some weeks of constant storms, he marched down to the water’s edge, his hair flapping wet, and proceeded to scold about the inevitability of white folks – that this revolt was foolishness – plumb stupid – that the lake could blow and bite all you wanted but we are here for eternity and you ought to go along like a fellow
The lake did not talk back but its brownblue shade of summer turned to greenblack, and you could see it were drunk on its own might.
Big seen that scolding was not the remedy. He tried to ambassador instead, saying Come now Erie, let us be pals He opened his arms out wide like he would embrace the million acres of water.
Wouldn’t you know the lake rose up and slapped him in the chops with stinging waves. Big grinned as wide as creation and leapt in for a fight.
Man and water brawled for a fortnight. My brother first went after Erie with his axe, but that did no good. You cannot thwock water. Next he tried to drink up the whole lake. But his guts rebelled after he had swallowed down six feet, though Erie is still shallow for it – a token of Big’s admiration.
In a fight, waters go for drowning every time. But Big has the lungs of an elephant and could dunk for a day and night without gasping. The fight gone on and on, such that those who gathered to watch and wager took boredom. So no one saw when the lake finally got Big by the shining hair and tied him to a sunken schooner. Big kicked and fussed awfully and pled for a Samaritan but a fish cannot untie a knot. After some hours of this he finally spread his hands and bubbled UNCLE
The lake were battered too, relieved to toss him to shore. Lakes do not like to have a dead body in them any more than a body likes to be dead. But this particular body should not have been trusted. Big were already at trickery even as he coughed up a perch and gobbled lungfuls of autumn air.
Mr Erie I have got a bargain for you We all will pack up our towns and head right back east in the morning You just give me one good quiet night to rest No wind, no rain, no bitter cold
The lake, sore from the rastle, took the bait. Alright, Mr Big Son You have fought hard and you shown a considerable common sense I will do what you ask
So my brother and the lake they shook on it – climbed into their sleeping clothes and laid down to await the last day of Ohio city.
As soon as the lake bedded down, liar Big went digging for the greatest rock he could find. If the lake might pin him to a shipwreck, then surely he could pin the lake to the soil beneath. He would find a boulder so great that Erie would have no choice but to behave. He snuck to Handerson and Panderson’s emporium and borrowed himself a good three-dollar shovel. He dug all through the night, but he only found regular-sized rocks. From his deep hole Big saw that dawn were crawling into the sky and Erie would soon awake. Around this moment, his shovel uncovered a great oaken door facing upward. Through the cracks Big marked a murmur of bloodred flame and the stink of dead folks within.
He suspected just whose roost this were and what would come of calling – but he took to reasoning. The father of lies surely knew where the largest rocks were on account of landlording deep within the earth. And Big were already a liar for his false deal with the lake – the devil would appreciate such work. Big’s dishonest heart would want washing out on next Sunday already, so he might soil it further without fear. So my brother whanged at Hell’s door with his shovel.
There were some clattering inside and creaking floorboards but soon enough the door swung open. The host what met him were not a scarlet-skinned demon dripping with fiery snots, but a white man aged about fifty years – unshaved and tired around the eyes – dressed in a blanket and nightcap, but not cross at his caller. The devil seen Big into his parlor and poured him good storebought coffee.