Across the Endless River (28 page)

Maura said, “Madame is a free spirit who believes that young people should be trusted. I cannot tell you how unusual that is.”

“I have some idea that it is not too common in these parts,” Baptiste responded. He was entranced by Maura's presence. Her body had an artless kind of grace, slender without being lean, and for an instant he watched the outline of her breasts rise and subside beneath the dark sheen of her dress. He raised his cup of coffee as if it were wine. “Here is to your free spirit of a godmother.” As they drank their eyes met, and neither turned away.

Maura was distressed. “Yesterday I was refused entrance to the medical faculty's operating theater,” she told him. “ ‘Too much blood for a lady,' they claimed.” Her eyes were wide with disdain. “So I should return to the Gironde and make my life among vintners,” she said with a rueful smile. “Surely the wide world holds more than that!”

“Is there nowhere in France where a woman can become a doctor?”

“Not in all of Europe, Baptiste!” Maura cried. “Is it very different in America? My father's acquaintances say that women there are much more independent.” Her voice was hopeful.

All the women Baptiste had known in St. Louis—from William Clark's two wives and the
grandes dames
of the Chouteau and Pratte fur trader clans to the wives of
voyageurs
and tradesmen—were principally responsible for raising children and keeping the household, fancy or modest. “I can't speak for all of America,” he said at last, “but I don't know of any women doctors. I suppose you could say that women have to be more self-reliant because they're left for months at a time while the men are upriver. But unless they keep slaves, that just means that they do all the work themselves.”

“Are there no other choices?” Maura asked.

“There were some Creole women in New Orleans who ran businesses,” Baptiste told her. “And wives of
voyageurs
often keep accounts and trade directly when their husbands are away.”

Maura considered his words, then said, “My uncle lives in Philadelphia. He once visited New Orleans and wrote that the Mississippi at its mouth is like the sea. When I was a child, he would read to me from a book called
Atala,
which opens with a description of that river. I am intrigued by that part of America.”

Baptiste shook his head. “The rivers I know—the Mississippi and the Missouri, the Kansas and the Platte—are different entirely from what you have in Europe,” he told her. “There are no stone embankments or jetties, and they aren't dredged for boat traffic. They're unpredictable and wily, like something alive, full of tree trunks, sand bars, whirlpools, and rapids. When the rains come, you can't even see across them in parts. And the farther you go upstream, the more you leave people behind. Once you get out into it, there is no end to the wild, open land. There is nothing like that here at all.”

“Our rivers sound very tame by comparison,” Maura said, “but our mountains are certainly wild. In the Alps above Annecy, we saw several chamois on a cliff above the path as we walked around the lake. And there are still wolves in the Alps, and peaks that have never been climbed.”

Baptiste looked at her in exasperation. “The Alps are as wild as this drawing room! Every valley has its village and every mountaintop its cross.”

Maura wanted to take his hand in hers, but Baptiste looked suddenly distant. She sat down in one of the chairs near the hearth and gestured for him to take the one opposite. The vase of greens on the low round table between them gave her hope—they seemed wild, or at least connected to something that was—and she poured out two glasses of wine from the decanter, placing one in front of him. “The frontier sounds like nothing I have dreamed of, much less known,” she said. “Please tell me more.”

Baptiste sank slowly into the chair, stretched out his legs before him, and leaned back with his eyes closed, his face a study in concentration. He sat quietly, wondering if he could find the words. What could someone who knew only Europe possibly understand? Even in repose, he conveyed a sort of athletic readiness that made Maura wonder if he would suddenly jump up and dash from the room. She saw again the chiseled fineness of his features, a bony nobility that had led her father, not without a certain respect, to call him a “Tartar” after their first meeting. But the sunlight showed he was a Tartar with the coloring of an Andalusian, a contrast that was at once unexpected and attractive.

The trace of a smile appeared on Baptiste's face and he opened his eyes quickly, determined to tell Maura about his home. He stood and moved his chair back from the center of the room. Crouched lightly on the balls of his feet, he looked into a fathomless distance and swung his arm across a horizon only he could see. Maura thought of someone poised to throw a spear on a long and perfect arc.

“Imagine the Alps seen across a vast plain, from a hundred miles away,” Baptiste began, “with nothing between you and them but prairies, rivers, and endless herds. There are deer, antelope, elk, and buffalo as far as you can see, sometimes lost to sight by grass higher than a man's head. The land stretches to the mountains in rolling curves of green and brown, and a steady wind carries the smell of prairie sage.” His voice was full of excitement.

“In the wider parts of the rivers, close by, water birds cover the surface so completely that it looks almost like dry land. Only an occasional movement of wings and the noise of the ducks and geese remind you that they are all floating, feeding on the water plants that fill the shallows. From miles away you see what looks like a coil of smoke rising into the air, a strange haze endlessly unraveling upward from the ground until it blocks the sun and begins to move sideways across the plain.” He raised his arm to indicate the motion in the distance. “A flock of birds, you realize, undulating for miles on the horizon, expanding and contracting like a dark and porous sheet being borne away in a stiff wind. They make you see the air as surely as if it were something you could touch, and you follow their dance across the sky until they are swallowed up in the clouds.”

Maura could see that this vision was more real to him than the chair she was sitting on, or the stone walls of the buildings on the rue de Rivoli, or any part of Paris that stretched below them. Gradually his gaze returned to her, his voice softer now but the intensity undiminished.

“Maura, between where you stand and the mountains, there is no trace of human life—no buildings, no roads, no carriages, no fences or walls. All is open, but that does not mean it is unknown or empty. Each tribe is like a shadow that attaches to the great herds and follows them as the seasons change.”

She wanted him to continue before the spell broke. She wanted him to show her what it was like, take her somewhere that only he knew. He told her about hunting buffalo with his Mandan cousins: the long trip toward the herd's feeding ground; the infinite number of animals; the careful attention to staying downwind; the soundless waiting and sudden explosion of surprise; the chase, with its sudden ration of fear, excitement, and individual exploits. And finally, the celebration, satiety, fatigue, and frequent grief at the injury or death of a friend.

“It is how the tribe feeds itself,” Baptiste told her. “If the herd cannot be found, the old, the young, and the weak all drop like autumn leaves.”

Maura could hardly find her voice. “My father uses much the same words to describe what happens to the farmers of Europe when the crops fail.” She took their wineglasses from the table and handed him a glass as she raised her own.

“To the herds and the crops. May they never fail.”

They drank, then Baptiste took her glass and placed it on the mantel. After describing his home to Maura, he felt confident and at ease. He held her hands in his, stepped close to her, and covered her neck with kisses, and her face flushed red. Her body softened and leaned into his and he discovered that her passion equaled his own. Then Maura gently pushed him back, and dimly he saw her shining eyes and the blameless smile on her lips as she whispered, “Not here, Baptiste. Not now.”

He drew back slowly and said, “When?”

“I hope it will be soon.”

She turned away. As she smoothed her hair she said, “Baptiste, I would like you to have something of mine to remember me by when we are apart. Will you take my handkerchief?”

Her hand went to the pocket of her dress for the square of white linen. She placed it in his hand and Baptiste saw the embroidered letters on one corner: MFH. He smiled in thanks and put the handkerchief in his jacket.

“What shall I have in return?” she asked.

Baptiste thought for a moment, then his features brightened. He undid the top two buttons of his shirt, reached in and pulled over his head a thin rawhide cord from which hung a gleaming crescent of black. “It is an eagle's talon,” he explained as he held it before her wondering eyes.

She reached out and touched it. “I can't . . .”

“If you have it, then we will both be protected.”

She took it and placed it against her lips. Just then, a commotion of sorts arose in the hall—voices, a door slamming, more voices—and Maura whispered, “It is my godmother's way of telling us our visit is over.” She sat in one of the armchairs. A tapping at the door soon followed and the older woman entered.

“Why, you must both be parched; you have hardly drunk any wine at all! Whatever is becoming of young people these days?”

Baptiste made his goodbyes. When the door closed behind him, he put his hand into his coat pocket and stroked the handkerchief until his fingertips found the raised thread that silently said the name that filled his thoughts.

T
WENTY-EIGHT

F
EBRUARY 1825

“W
e have been invited to join the hunt with Monsieur le Comte de Chêneville, a friend of my uncle,” Paul told Baptiste. “You will see how Europeans hunt.”

They set out for Fontainebleau, a day's ride south of Paris, the next morning. Prince Franz left after breakfast with his new lady friend, an elegant young woman from Milan, in a sparkling green-and-black landau with the roof lowered, pulled by a perfectly matched pair of bay geldings. Paul and Baptiste decided to ride horseback since the weather was clear and not unduly cold for February. The servants brought around a fine chestnut gelding for Baptiste and a tall black stallion for Paul.

They started out at a trot through the streets of Paris, breaking into a gallop only after they had left the old city walls behind. Baptiste was delighted to be in the clear country air and astride a horse again. And what an extraordinary horse! He had narrow withers and his legs were not long (Baptiste guessed he didn't stand above fifteen hands), but what he lacked in stature, he made up for in power, endurance, and an equable disposition. His mouth was responsive without being too sensitive, and it seemed that all Baptiste had to do was point him in the right direction and let him find an effortless gallop. Paul's mount was everything a purebred stallion could be: tall, perfectly formed, temperamental, and fast as an antelope. He demanded far more attention of his rider, but now Baptiste confirmed what he had only sensed on the few occasions when he had seen Paul on horseback in America: he was a superb horseman. Paul could be ungainly and awkward at times, but astride this horse he had a physical grace that was impressive.

That afternoon, they trotted down a long, gentle descent out of the forest and into the placid streets of Fontainebleau. The horses pranced and strained against their bridles, their hooves clattering against the cobblestones and echoing between the high walls that lined the streets in the dying rays of the late-afternoon sun. Paul led them to the house, hidden behind a side gate in the walls of a tiny street. They crossed a gravel expanse that led between flower beds to a fine stone staircase at the rear of the large house. Servants took their horses. They saw the landau on the other side of the garden, its top now raised.

“My uncle is here with his new friend,” Paul whispered. “She's singing at the Opéra next week.”

Mounted heads of animals jutted from the walls of the main hall: a boar brandished his tusks from on high, several deer and elk gazed from beneath impressive racks of antlers, various goats and antelope displayed their spiral-shaped horns, and a black bear showed its fangs. Guns, swords, daggers, and all kinds of hunting paraphernalia hung beneath the trophies. The polished metal gleamed.

“Come in, come in and make yourselves known!”

Prince Franz had seen them through the door that led to a brightly lighted salon. He drew them into the room and the din immediately subsided. Two dozen guests stood in the
grand salon,
which was comfortably furnished with plush chairs and couches upholstered in wine red velvet or dark green leather. Heavy swags of curtain adorned the windows, and a fire blazed in the black-and-white-veined marble hearth.

“My friends, this is my esteemed nephew, Paul Wilhelm, Duke of Württemberg. Some of you have already had the pleasure of making his acquaintance.”

Paul acknowledged the nods and smiles as he and Baptiste accepted glasses of wine.

“His young friend is Monsieur Jean-Baptiste Charbonneau of St. Louis in the Mississippi River Valley of North America.” Baptiste inclined his head. Prince Franz continued: “He is also known as Pompy, son of a princess of the Snake Tribe.” A gasp escaped the lips of one of the women standing nearby, and a general murmur filtered through the group at this announcement.