Speaking Silence

            On Tuesday I went onto the OSAP website and printed the four page document that the letter I’d received the day before told me I needed to provide. It was a declaration and consent form. I signed it and photographed all four pages but the document looked familiar. I looked at the files I’d already uploaded to OSAP and saw that I’d already uploaded the same signed document nineteen days before. I called up the Financial Aid office and waited on hold for about fifteen minutes to ask if I’d done something wrong. The person I spoke with put me on hold for another five minutes as she went to check my uploaded documents and it turned out that when I turned the photos of the document into a pdf I’d accidentally used two copies of page four and forgot page three. I made a new pdf of the four pages and tried to upload it but I got a message that I couldn’t upload the file because I was past my deadline. I resolved to just take the hard copy of the four pages to the Financial Aid office the next day.

I practiced my song “Person" three times.

            Before leaving I half boiled a potato and left it in the hot water so I’d have something to eat when I got home.

            It was quite cold for my ride to the Tranzac but my feet were warm enough with two pairs of socks under my new Blondo boots. I started out just on the daylight edge of the twilight zone but entered into it by the time I got to the Annex. The only available bike post ring was right on the corner of Bloor and Brunswick and it was halfway embedded in a mound of ice, looking like the handle of an upside down discarded dirty popsicle. I had to lock my bike on a sideways lean and position it askew in order to fit it on the little ice hill.

            All I had in my pocket was $4.95 and so I told Giovanna Riccio that they’d have to take fifteen minutes off my open stage time because I was five minutes short. She joked, “That's it! You're cut off!"

            I unfolded my portable guitar stand and set it up on the edge of stage left, just near the top of the side stairs. I tuned my guitar and left it there.

            There is always a mix of new and familiar faces at Shab-e She’r, with the body of the audience being there because they know the features.

            Bänoo Zan welcomed us to the 71^st Shab-e She’r and declared that she was 71 times crazy.

            As usual lately, Terese Pierre did the land acknowledgement. I think it would be more powerful if she learned it by heart like Laboni Islam had.

            Bänoo announced that next month Shab-e She’r would have its annual celebration of Nowruz, the Persian New year and that in addition to poets there would also be Persian musicians performing.

            Bänoo suggested that there would be no need for big introductions and explanations of poems because the audience has probably heard more poetry than you have and so they already understand.

            The open stage began with one of the Shab-e She’r volunteers, Marta Ziemele. Her poem was untitled – “A bag of coins from world war II … They’re made of aluminium … How can that be true? They seem too light … Who did you belong to? Were you drinking money? Why do we always want to do these things again? Maybe we should be required to carry a pocket full of coins from World War II."

            Kelita’s poem was also untitled – “When asked, you say, “Tell them you drowned yourself in holy water … Hope is always a problem … three months … Maybe it’ll be enough to sanitize this history.”

            Afia read “Diamond” - "The state of feeling vulnerable ... Is this really love ... I end up in the same place that I used to be ... I need a volcano to push me … to become the diamond I am worth … Prone to be an everlasting stone … one in a million … my allure …”

            Bänoo says she wants to bridge the division between literary poets and spoken word poets. I would say that certainly they are both starving at either side of the gap between them.

            Norman Allen read “Betsy’s Goddess" - "She adds bergamot in my tea to conjure Earl Grey ... Do it yourself manuals … Matthew speaks of the critical mass … Now in the teeming billions the gods are gone … The goddesses have all left … in taxis … for New Jersey … My problem is I’m negative … I’m irritable … cope with appetite … Worrying is part of my problem … I’d like to see Jerusalem without police …”

            Bänoo commented that Jesus doesn’t monopolize punishment with fire.

            Ghadeer Elghafri warned everybody, “My poems might trigger you …” At least one person thought she was joking and laughed. Really though, is there anything that anyone could do or say that wouldn’t be a potential trigger?

Ghadeer read “God’s Blessing” – “He locked her in a cage … He became a monster … Laugh more … love more … Her heart was broken … Her tiny body was scared … Her dreams vanished … She wants to heal … She deserves loves … hugs and kisses … Fear is in her vagina … to hide her vagina … to keep her lower body frozen … She eats before bed to have full tummy … She was a happy child … She is alive … She runs away from her body … mad vagina … Speak up my vagina … Hold a space for me … Feel me … Find me.”

Jonathan Freeman read “For My Big Brother” – “Let me tell you my latest crazy scheme ... I scoff ... I can't help thinking I've won at last ... He was always unreachable ... to sing shaving cream instead of shit … legend bound and breathless … He never allowed my small hand on the tiller … playing out self-deprecation like fishing line ... Our ancient father is deaf ... for you big brother ... We're never quite presentable … watching your downfall … Paternal praise was the subtlest of weapons … I hate you for hiding from me ... I'm still ten years old and you're already a man ... Out we sail ... cracking wise ... feasting on cold chicken wings and ginger ale … where no one’s keeping score.”

Leah Liora Cohen read “Even Eve Eavesdropped" and mixed Hebrew with English as she went along - "It was Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve ... Not true … I read the book … 'The other' as Simone de Bouvoir calls them ... I will not be made ashamed of the secret ... to cower ... to shower ... the dirty, dirty, dirty thing ... We don’t teach that to outsiders or to the other … They forgot our sin in the Torah … It’s allowed if they give us permission … Love is just under the male gaze … This kind of love … not really love … A man should not lie with a man … There is not one word about a woman who lies with a woman.”

The first feature was NourbeSe Philip. When Terese read NourbeSe's bio we learned that she practiced law before becoming a poet.

NourbeSe began by saying, “I know you said we shouldn’t explain but …” She said of hr first poem that Harper was still in power when she started it. She said it might be considered too similar to a poem by Mutabaruka. She told us she would begin with Mutabaruka's poem and then read her own.

From “Dis Poem" (Note that NourbeSe pronounces it “This” but Mutabaruka says “Dis”) - "Dis poem shall speak of the wretched sea ... Dis poem shall speak of time ... Dis poem is vexxed ... Dis poem is revolting … Dis poem will not be recited … Dis poem is a drum … Uhuru Africa … Dis poem is a rebirth of a people … Dis poem shall continue even when poets have stopped writing ... Dis poem is still not written / Dis poem has no poet … Dis poem will not stop ... Dis poem is still not told … Dis poem was copied from the Bible … Playboy magazine … Dis poem is messing up you brains … Dis poem shall disappoint you … Dis poem is to be continued …"

From NourbeSe’s “After Mutabaruka” – “This poem will not stop hunger … It did not stop the Rwandan war … This poem will not prevent a single rape ... It cannot stop one single child from drowning … It will not stop number 45 from tweeting … It will not return the lost ones to Africa … It won’t solve the rental crisis … It cannot turn back the clock … It didn’t solve the ebola crisis … It didn’t stop Hiroshima … It didn’t stop Jesus from being crucified … It didn’t build the pyramids … It didn’t help the NDP or Justin … It cannot stop hurricanes … It has done nothing … This poem is nothing but black words on a white page.”

“The Ceslians had held on to their silence … The only group whose silence was not on display in the museum of silence.”

“I was born in Trinidad and Tobago … We collected caps from soft drinks … Under the caps were pictures of heroes of the empire … David Livingstone only had one convert, who later went back to his indigenous religion …”

From “Looking for Livingstone” – “The traveller wanders through time … looking for David Livingstone … journey of 18 billion years … It is also a time of quiet reflection for the traveller ... The first and last of the month of new moons  ... My own map was a primitive one … Along the way some people had given me some of theirs ... little pieces of bark with crude pictures ... I also had … a mirror … Where was I going? I had forgotten where I had come from … I will open a path to the interior … Dr. David Livingstone … with the help of the bushmen … The smoke that thunders … discovered … named it Victoria Falls … Livingstone now lies buried at Westminster Abbey because he 'discovered' and explored Africa, turning what had been … only roamed over by a few scattered tribes of untameable barbarians … into a high country … Perhaps he discovered something else …

“ ... lips caress / before / the cruel between of teeth ... hard kernels / of silence ... touch, prod, kick / shove / push ... I have stroked the kin / the stranger / within … taken it to places secret / with within … a giant birthing … inside / smell / of body / smell of birth … odour / rank / upon me / I re / cognized it / in its belonging …

“The 10,000^th year of our word … circle upon circle … I questioned … everyone … had only the barest intimations … Each map is blank … an old piece of parchment … ‘As soon as you see it you will recognize it' This was what the women told me … The women laughed at my questions … What colour is it? … Green like the fields? ... How will I recognize it? Suddenly the women stopped laughing and withdrew to their huts … By my reckoning they were gone for three months … It had only been half a day … They were preparing to go to war …”

NourbeSe explained that they go to war because one group believes in the word and the other in silence.

“ … sealed the vagina / excised the clitoris / set fire to the bride … the witch burned / celluloid nipple / gripped by pincers … bitch-white / nigger-woman / black / Victoria / Queen or Jemimah / whore-woman / virgin-slut / across / the ache in chasm / stretched the word / too tight / too close / too loose … grounded / in the or of either

“Beyond the beckon in / beyond / the last sea … where space is / the page / blank … beyond / the side of other we call / nether ... certified / in silence ... their mysteries ... their silences … mapping contour … to risk the fall in original / with sin … to find the bang that was / beginning ... the straight line ... into ever / from the silence of / stone / dropped ...

“Five thousand years – that’s how long I had been travelling … The SCENILE ... made me work for my keep ... For the first few hundred year I worked in their library ... It was my ignorance that got me the job … knowledge of the script meant power in their society ... They understood what I was looking for ... Nine hundred years ... after I got there I decided to leave.

“They refused to let me go ... until I answered three skill-testing questions:

1.      What is the quality of silence?

2.      Why was Dr. Livingstone buried at Westminster Abbey?

3.      When Stanley first met Dr. Livingstone what were his first word?

“Shakespeare had to have written something about silence … 'The quality of

silence is silence' … Oh how they laughed … Was I right or wrong? …

            “Why was Livingstone buried at Westminster Abbey? ‘Well, they couldn't leave him in Africa, could they?' … 'Because he discovered Silence!' ...

            “What did Stanley say to Livingstone? ... 'You’re new here aren’t you?’ … they embraced me and said I was now one of them … ‘What if he had said, 'Dr. Livingstone, I presume?' More laughter … We presume … Long live I presume!

            “We feasted and danced … finally they let me go …"

            I think that NourbeSe Philip is right to be concerned that her first poem is a little too close to Mutabaruka’s "Dis Poem" to be unique and interesting. But “Looking For Livingstone” is very original, creative and compelling, and the poems contained within it are outstandingly visionary, provocative, disturbing and sensual.

            We took a break.

            I retuned my guitar and quietly ran through my song again.

            Looking back at the audience there seemed to be a pretty good crowd this time around.

            Ghadeer stopped to ask me what I was writing. She told me that she runs a reading series called the Toronto Poetry Club and has a list of almost 4000 contacts. It's entirely open mic and people can read in any language. I told her that I’d make it out eventually. She moved on and promoted her event to some young women that were sitting behind me. She told them that the poem she'd read earlier is the only one that she hasn’t also written in Arabic because a lot of the words are taboo.

            The warm-up poet for the second feature was Heather Wood.

From “The Appropriate Poem” – “The sucker punch editorial ... The morning resignation ... The it's only a jokes ... the rage ... the man named White ... The incendiary $500 prize ... The endless mansplaining … The CBC … The promises of change … The denials … The tears of Turtle Island."

The second feature was Valentino Assenza who told us that all of the poems he would be reading would be from his autobiographical book “Through Painted Eyes”.

From “South of St Augustine’s Piety" - "What's a bluff? They went straight down ... He was bluffing ... You held my hand ... your grip was extra hard ... One hand feeding the birds and the other in mine.”

From “Just the Angels Bowling” – “Thunderclouds remind me of my living room … someone taking a picture … rain pelts the awning like someone is tipping a bucket from the sky ... I still feel the rumble ... I'm the kind who doesn't mind the forecast … I ask for thunderclouds … I embrace the irony … into a dancing calm.”

From another poem – “One day my mom handed me a brown paper bag … Inside … multicoloured fans … before I knew they were caterpillars … It gently raised its wings … Miranda … It’s a butterfly I said … Why isn’t it doing anything? It’s dead … No it’s not! … Yes, it’s dead … I wondered what dead meant … My mother heard the commotion … No, she’s not dead … She’s just sleeping … I looked back at the motionless butterfly … sleeping.”

From “Don’t Look Back” – “In the bottom of a box, collecting dust … in front of a gate with a black car … No black suit is built for a Sicilian son … even on a wedding day … The photographer had it all wrong … A prematurely setting sun … A lost little boy … The congregation’s expression is consistent … The father of the bride … a stern nervousness … The men … handkerchiefs across their brows … Maybe if we saw her face … we would be able to make out the occasional cough … during the exchange of vows … Silence … What happened after the black car passed through that gate … Afterwards the stars shone … They all learned to face forward.”

From another poem – “ … The sandal for scorched toes … while walking the desert … The loafer … uncomfortable … The runner … the sneaker … for making sport of the sporadic … The ones you stare at in the perfection of the mirror … tapping the tapestry … The high heel … pump … The sauciness of a succubus … perfect for drunken dirges … the steps echoing … You put one hand on his shoulder … He carries a scented name … takes his hat off whenever he enters a room … What shoes does he wear?”

From “The Tobacconist” – “I’m leaning my elbows on the counter … It’s easier to eat pistachios this way … I will say, ‘Avanti!’ … We speak English but they never do … Whatever brand that’s at the tip of their jonesing tongue … They’ll let me know that I’m more to them than a peddler … I’ll ask a question and you serve me some horseshit … Roll one for yourself … Let a Marlboro hang from your mouth … Tell us about that bet Queen Elizabeth made with Sir Walter Raleigh about whether smoke could actually be weighed … Drink too much wine … If I got bored I’d read a Time magazine … Lock the grey screen door … pull it down real hard and take advantage of the weight of the world on your shoulders … You remember the first time you ever smoked.”

From “The Sower” – “You told me to come by and look at the sunflowers … They’re my favourite because it seems they are always in good moods … I carry the heavy bags of soil … delicately to let the seeds fall … through two fingers of scotch … that night … I levitated just above my mattress … my grandfather used to hold up his tomato plants with hockey sticks I wished I could’ve used … Somewhere in those confines is the garden untouched … I knows there’s a time when the telescope will point from the other direction … show you what you planted.”

I heard more innovative writing from Valentino Assenza about twenty years ago at a poetry slam that I organized. The childhood reminiscences in this set had the feel of country and western lyrics that are full of sentiment accompanied with the occasional good turn of phrase. There are also cinematic elements and a relaxed use of language that certainly does not work the brain but there is no attempt to break poetic ground.

Bänoo announced that the next Shab-e She’r would be on March 26.

Returning to the open stage we began with Farah, who read “Representation Matters” – “They gave me no choice but to read novels by white authors … Love is a red rose … My soul is a Eurocentric black hole … Then one day I read a book by an author who looked like me … until I was full of stories of the east … Now my soul is busy rewriting itself.”

From Emilio D. Puerta’s poem – “ … defining me … my home, my bliss, my anima … within the yellow, blue and red the maple leaf was part of me … I’ll always be a double C … O Canada Columbia.”

From Emilio’s second poem – “Another sun had made his arc … the silence softly swirls and streams … towards the shoreline … with guidance to move forward.”

Maureen told us that this was her first time performing in Canada. From “Superwoman Melts” - "My identity was dependent on my performance ... I remain to be perfectionist ... I pretended to be good ... I radiated my smile … ran from one to another with my smiling face … I consumed the world … I couldn’t wear my mask … the true hurting person inside me crying every day … I screamed out love with anger … I screamed out love with anger … I accepted I m not super woman … I found my peace … I started my new life … I became proud of my own skin … I accept me with all my pain … I count … blessings … Disappointments are divine appointments … I will continue."

Nick Miceli read two poems. From the first – “Mystery goddess … my light … where did you abscond? I follow the sun … shimmering orb … ‘Welcome goddess’ I say to the warmth of my room ... A gathering respite ...flame within and around ... blade I wield in peace ...”

From “Unique in My Kind” – “A bright shining beacon … the infinite storehouse … explosive emotion … abundance … down the steps of the infinite … the tide of humanity … all make the big picture.”

Since I wasn’t using the mic I moved both stands back and further apart. The last time I performed with my guitar I felt like I was about to fall off the stage and so I wanted to give myself some room this time.

I sang my translation of Serge Gainsbourg’s "Personne" – “Well I confess to not take interest in much that I do / or many persons / but that's not a complaint that I could make about you / my pretty person / who I love more tomorrow, today and the day before / than any person / and you who play it innocent, you know that a lot more / than any person // Oh but I should not have ever reached my hand to caress / your lovely person / I should have rather kept a leash on that to protect / my crumbling person / Who do you take me for? You know that I would never speak / to any person / Rest assured outside this door they all are gonna think / you’re still a virgin …”

My finish was to begin whistling and to turn and dance my way back to stage left while still strumming. I should have drunk some water before performing because my whistling was pretty weak. I think my performance went over fairly well though. As Bänoo met me when I descended the stairs she said something like, “Wonderful!”

Sacha Archer read an excerpt from "Umo" - "Over seven ... On one was ever ... never saw ... as see seems as are more ... seem on more were … can save can … was was a … once more … on now ear on … warm … zoo never seen … no name was … was zoo … as ever … over more was … a … can see as were … was so a … so see never … as were a so a … a … was a man … was now … and was … as ever … was cane … on was on … on soon … was more … on a … was no … was zoo anew … was a on … so enormous … a zoo were … on even on … was care … one ever … zoo … never was … was … as on … zoo was even … news was one … even was ocean … on a … zoo was zoo … was a zoo … a.”
            Najmaah said “Good morning!”  but I don’t know if that was a greeting or the title of her poem – “You are life unravelling … You are paranoia personified … You have not slept … Vivid moving pictures of death … You are a mess … The doctors ask you to explain … Can you blame them? When your friends ask what is wrong … you start seeing things moving in the night … You look in the mirror … her face distorted … You start drowning in tears … impossible to be put together again … You are a shell of what you once were … it sinks … surrounds you … and I am done.”

Jerome read “Three of the Six Years” – “Feet grow green again … a whole change without nexus … aging in vitro … The hunt is not yet organized … she can sleep now … the lightless warm … night sun in the grass … the rocks suspect the sand … acceleration … exhalation … Third year … parting of the ways … A body remembers what the mind wastes … Pillow drenched in hair … inflamed but still concealed … hibernation.”

Rix Poet told us, “This is my seventh day in Toronto and this is the coldest place I’ve ever been! I can’t believe people would live in a place this cold!” He said that he’s from Kenya and that he’s here with Engineers Without Borders.

Rix read “Take Me Away From This Place Daddy” – “ … I want to be in your pain … daddy what happened? I want to know the high alcohol gives you … I want to know the thrill of your stagger … How did you learn to play the music that kills? … In my dreams nobody is whipping my back from a mark that I missed … You swallow all the air … Do you know what a coffin looks like for a walking corpse? Our home … Does the high of liquor free you? It’s raining me daddy … They’re shooting poison machismo … I want to be high with you … (Rix begins humming a melody) I too want to forget the death of my childhood …”

Daniel Karasik read “Smooth” – “They’re smooth, somebody said … I shaved for the first time my legs … Some bigots say means woman … Just boy or girl … if what you want to do is hail me … When I conceive myself … I argue my way out of trouble … I would masturbate … I trimmed my bottom … I keep my balance … I hide the unshorn hairs … I try harder than I should to make you like me … a peltlessness equivalent to make the outside match the in … A bottom’s just another way to help you find me.”

From Daniel’s second poem – “ … It is never the case that life is neither hard nor sad … because one is always making or not.”

Peter McPhee read “Hymn 1” – “I love the poorly educated … disenchanted … misunderstood … the disinfected … deloused … the common worker … the self-righteous … the peaceful … the over armed … the devious … the under appreciated … and women … the collared … the plain … the insane … the mistrusted … the simple … the evil and the good … the losers … the liars … the preachers … those who wear a happy face … those who wear a poker face … the inherited … I love you.”

Laura de Leon read two poems.

From “Courage My Love” – “Have courage not to be discouraged … displaced as they may seem … in times of calamity … Try to remove the self … the cause of much struggle … deceitfulness … Invite the hand that feeds … Hearsay is irrelevant … speech no more to be hindered … to sow the evil seed of destruction … your rite of passage.”

 From “Inner Synergy” – “Stealing from me my precious time … Worn out … Bad faith … At peace … Not corrupted … Not stolen … racing with time … self-effacing … broken winged birds … Wills that relent … Spinal constancy … The gravity of descent … Pay heed to the … goddess of sky.”

Esther read excerpts from five connected poems with the overall title of “Prophetic Interjections”.

From “The Weight” – “What then do I carry? Each orifice a carriage … Ancestral memory holds no bounds … Isolate trajectories … A logic of prophecy comes at a price.”

From “Shapeshifter” – “I hold fake memories of my former lives … jealous lovers.”

From “Call to the Crowd” – “I have many names … I may call small gods to my tongue … I am … phoenix … I am a litany … Do not forget to call me by my name.”

From “Consumption” – “Her eyes see for mine … She’s already swallowed half of my inside … gods I am not ready for … I have birthed a hunger.”

From “Untitled” – “What does it look like to quantify thoughts? Would I be both worshipper and source of faith?”

Bänoo declared, “If you want the universe to give you something, say it loud!” She says that this is how she got Shab-e She’r.

Hmmm. I see a few flaws in that premise. If it were true that one could get presents from the universe by asking for them loudly then it could be consistently proven. I’m sure there are plenty of people at this moment asking the universe loudly for shelter from oppression, torture, bombs, slavery, disease and many other things.

It’s more logical that Bänoo got Shab-e She’r because she’s social and knows almost every poet in Toronto. She goes to all of the poetry readings and she put a lot of energy into founding her own series. Nobody dislikes her. She’s enthusiastic. She attracts female poets and wherever one can get female poets to gather then male poets will follow. I doubt if the universe cares about anything, but if it did it would care about universal things and not specks of dust in its armpit reading poetry to each other.

The final poet of the night was Jade Wallace, who will be one of next month’s features. She read “Catching Gold” – “I circuited summer festivals as a goldfish dipper … The fish was a foot long … By kismet or coincidence we never did have goldfish … They swim ever further from home … I only snuck one pearl scale home … took her five months to forget the river.”

I helped fold the chairs through I didn’t know what to do with the black metal ones that wouldn’t pile neatly with the other more difficult to fold chairs.

            I spent quite a bit of time chatting with Cy Strom. He was curious about the translation I’d done and wondered what the French had been for my line, “Rest assured outside this door they all are gonna think you’re still a virgin". I told him Gainsbourg hadn't said the french word for "virgin” but I needed something to rhyme with "person". Gainsbourg says "Croyez-moi que je vous ferai passer pour une aimable personne” which means, “Believe me, I’ll pass you for a nice person”.  This was around 1961 and I think he meant “nice person" in the sense that in mainstream society at that time a “nice girl" wouldn't have been sleeping with a guy that she wasn’t married to.

I told him I probably wouldn’t make it for the next Shab-e She’r because I have to turn in an essay on Frankenstein the very next day and it would take a miracle for me to finish my paper before March 26.

We discussed Frankenstein for several minutes and I told him my plan is to write about how perceived ugliness as presented in the novel reflects how Romanticism changed the views of beauty and ugliness and also how all art in order to be new must transform some of the previous artistic views of ugliness into those of beauty.

It was almost 23:00 when I got home. I had a very late dinner and watched an episode of “Rawhide”.

This story begins with Rowdy riding off the trail to discover a cabin, in front of which are two dead indigenous men. Inside is a woman in her kitchen making candy and singing “Rock of Ages”. She appears to be in shock as she does nothing but continue singing when Rowdy questions her. When Rowdy tries to leave she holds onto him. Gil and Pete go looking for Rowdy and find the cabin too. Pete says the dead men are of the Delaware tribe and therefore far from their home in the east. He explains that some of them travelled west looking for land. He says they are a peaceful tribe and that many of them are Christians. They decide they will take her on the drive with them to the nearest fort. Before leaving Pete takes a piece of candy from the table and puts it in his shirt pocket. We see, but the men don’t see that there is a jar of arsenic on her kitchen table. She puts it on the shelf and turns the label away from sight. That night at the drovers’ camp she finally speaks to Gil. When she hears he wants to take her to the fort she runs to Rowdy. She says her name is Amelia and that her husband was a missionary who got killed by an arrow. Meanwhile a man in a black preacher’s hat and suit comes to the cab and find the graves of the dead men. He takes off his hat to reveal a Mohawk style haircut. He says something about being god’s executioner. On the trail drive Pete eats some of the candy and a while later begins to feel sick. That night Amelia asks Rowdy to kiss her and at the same time Pete collapses. Wishbone recognizes the symptoms of arsenic poisoning right away. He makes a drink of mustard powder and water for Pete to drink. Gil finds some of the candy in Pete’s pocket and Gil realizes that the Delawares had been poisoned as well. Amelia denies poisoning them and says, “You think more of those dirty savages than you do of a white woman?” Gil tells a man to ride to the fort and get someone to come for Amelia. Rowdy says he’s taking her back to New England. Gil lets him go but tells him that if Pete dies they’ll come after them. The next day Gil brings to Rowdy campsite Amelia’s sister with her husband and some soldiers from the fort. Amelia admits to poisoning the Delawares. Amelia tries to run but she is shot by god’s executioner who has been tracking them all along. He immediately gives himself up to the soldiers. He says his name is Moon and that he’s also a Delaware.

Mr Moon was played by Richard Hale, who was often cast as Native Americans.

Amelia was played by Oscar winning actor Kim Hunter. She is so good I didn’t recognize her at all.