All True Not a Lie in It (16 page)

We see a few bear and deer at the licks. They look at us without interest, we get the skins without trouble. But there is not much hunting yet. Standing on a small hilltop and surveying the trees, Hill says suddenly:

—Do you know, Findley, I am not sure I believe in your buffalo.

And we do not see any of the creatures until all at once one dawn we come upon a herd at a big lick, a great heaving dark mass. They paw and lick at the ground, their great heavy heads all butting and nodding as if they will eat a hole straight through the
earth. How can there be so many? Thousands there are, uncountable. I see Squire’s eyes trying to fathom their numbers, and Hill shaking his head and grinning. The calves bleat with a sound of shaky trumpets. A few of the bulls sniff at the air and turn, but remain unconcerned with our presence. They have never seen other humans, I am certain. Or perhaps no white humans, perhaps whites are nothing here.

We keep back in the trees. Findley is laughing behind my shoulder. He says:

—Good eating, if you can kill them.

Hill says:

—If this is hunting, it is easy.

Stewart at once scrambles for his gun and aims. This place has filled him with boldness. He gets one at the edge of the herd, a smaller cow, he has her between the eyes. The beast turns and flies at him, blundering along with her big bleeding head down, a curl standing up on her humped shoulders. Findley is laughing all the harder as Stewart runs for a tree crying:

—Shoot it, Dan, shoot it for God’s sake!

Now I am laughing too as Findley calls:

—Wasting your lead, my man. Wasting your balls.

The buffalo charges for Stewart again after a snorting pause. I get her down at last after two shots through the neck as Findley laughs on and on in his weird fashion. The sun grows behind his head and he says:

—Breakfast.

We roast the hump and the tongue. Findley cooks the thigh bones and cracks them open for the hot marrow. This is my first buffalo meal, and it is very fine, much better than venison. Jamesie and Israel and little Susannah, and Jesse and Jonathan as well, I make my plans to jerk the next tongue and take it home for you. I do think of you all, you hop across my mind like little birds.

We eat. Findley gives Hill a piece of the raw liver, which he says will make a man of him. Hill laughs and enjoys it mightily and Findley says:

—Your stomach certainly must believe in buffalo now.

Stewart is doing his utmost to skin the carcass. The hide is difficult to pull away and too heavy to pack along with us, but he will not stop. We all watch him putting his shoulder to the body, trying to get the remaining attached side free until he gives it up. Sitting wiping his knife, covered in greasy smears, he looks perplexed and says very heavy:

—I told my Hannah I would get her some furs for herself. Not just to sell.

Findley says Stewart can embrace the carcass tonight and feel himself wrapped in victory. And besides, he says, buffalo hides are worthless on the market. Now he raises his flask:

—To buffalo. And their killer. And their would-be killer.

And in the end Stewart raises his as well.

The way remains easy enough, but the clouds spin themselves into a thick wool. A thin crust of snow remains in a hollow where we camp. Here Stewart catches fever overnight, and we have to stop to nurse him. He is sorry for his sickness, he keeps saying so, he clenches his rattling teeth to get the word out between them: Sorry. He is angry at the fever and at himself. When he improves, we go on slowly, though he is not quite well and looks pale and hollowed out. He keeps close to me, I feel his eyes on my back. He is not fit to hunt properly yet. We see no more buffalo, though I get a deer now and then. We begin to grow used to the country.

Hill does not like being used to anything, as I know. He does not like this landscape, as yet he sees no useful land he might sell. And
there has been little enough adventure to his taste. He has fallen out of excitement into a pit of ugly boredom. At the fire his face is dull. He takes out his papers and ruffles them, but he announces:

—Nothing to write home of.

He has a trick of becoming like a straw pallet we have to drag along and try to amuse, though who can amuse a pallet?

He is quiet for a morning. Then he calls ahead to Findley:

—We ought to set up our station camp and set the Boones to hunting, if this is your great place.

Findley pays him no heed and carries on riding. He has taken us into some low hills and down along the side of a river, where we have to walk the horses. Hill persists:

—We expect to see a wonder at any moment.

Findley looks back with a smile and calls:

—This river, my dears, is the Red River.

We pick our way through the remaining patches of hard snow and the high stalks of cane along the water. We have to walk the horses, they do not like it here. The cane brake is higher than our heads in places, it is like being in a stiff cage. A stalk pokes Hill near his eye and he says:

—Who says it is the Red River? On whose authority is it the Red River?

I pay no heed to these two. A broken cane now scratches my face from ear to neck and I feel a drip of warm blood, which I touch with my finger. I taste it.

I am alive here, my blood is alive. I want there to have been no one here before us. I want the river not to have a name. I sprinkle blood from my finger into it where a creek joins. Lulbegrud Creek I name it, for Gulliver. One of his words. Behind me Findley says:

—I say so, yes. On my authority. I was one of the first to come here and the only one to go so far. The trading post was beyond here if I remember, and I do—

He turns and walks out of the cane. And there indeed is the post. Only burned. The foundations look like agonized jaws caught open. The stockade still stands in a few places, grey and beaten and sorry. A few mouldy pumpkins and cornstalks are sinking into the ground. The horses stop to crop at the thin, tender grass trying to come through the rags of snow and ashes. For a moment Findley looks disconcerted. Then he picks his way into the centre of the ruins.

—Ah.

He sifts through the snow, taking up a handful of ash and charred lumps, looking intently. He half-sings:

Any old needles, any old pins. I might perchance have left some here for the Indian maids of Eskippakithiki. Oh the Indian maids—

Hill stalks into the ruined post as well:

—Keep your goddamned bog-Irish puke in your hole. Sickening us all.

He walks footprints all over the snow and ash, looking sidelong at Findley, then pushes over a burned pole. It falls too gently for his liking. He jabs at it with his boot and says:

—Is this all?

Findley says:

—Is this what?

Hill blows out a rush of air:

—You are an arse of a know-nothing with nothing to show us, I have seen that from the first day out. What exactly is it that we are doing? Why do we find nothing at all of use? And why have you nothing to show for your trip here, you bastard liar?

Findley tosses the handful of ashes and charcoal into the breeze, and some of it scatters across Hill. I see the rage travel up Hill before he spits at Findley and reaches into his belt. Findley says very soft:

—A group of Shawnee and French took my skins and furs on my last trade trip. Did I not say? But there are plenty more for the taking. Plenty of land where no one has yet been. And the Indian
maids, my friend. Think of the maids. I have seen the maids, I have unmade them myself. There may be one left for you, or one you might unmake again, if you use your celebrated imaginative powers.

Hill draws out his blade. He is no knifeman and will certainly blunder about it. I say:

—Have you not had your fill today, our Hill? Buffalo is better eating as we know, thanks to our bony friend.

Hill stands swaying on his planted feet, holding his knife thrust out at Findley and enjoying his own fury. He loves to be whipped by great feeling, he loves a scene. Squire is watching carefully, Stewart leans his head against his horse. Findley aims a grin at me and his eyes say:
I stayed at the Monongahela to see what would happen. I saw you run. What will you do now?

He steps forward and sings lightly:

Oh, the Indian maids
.

Hill’s arm tenses, he is set to see his performance through. He curses and throws the knife wild. Findley dodges it easy. I take it up and give it a spin as I toss it so that it spirals into the tree nearest Hill’s arm but catches the edge of his shirt. I say:

—Hill, Findley has not been lying. He knew how to get us here. He has been here, it is true. He knows this place.

Hill tugs out the knife. He looks at me for a time. Then he gives me his friendliest smile, as though we have never been anything but the best of friends. His eyes uncloud, he laughs with his teeth apart. Now he walks over and gives Findley a tap on the breastbone with his knife handle. He says:

—When you die, I will eat you. I will chew you.

He turns the knife about in his hand. A laugh flees Stewart like a nervous dog. Findley bows, unsmiling now, and says:

—I shall look forward to such a rare fate.

And he turns. Without looking at us he swings up onto his chestnut horse and jabs its ribs with his thin legs. He rides swiftly
away from the river up a slope into the trees until we cannot see him. We are left staring stupidly. A weak ray of light makes its way through the cloud, and in it the ruined post looks more sad and lost than ever.

My hunting shirt grows cool against my back, a breeze flips past us and swings round in our faces. Hill curses at length, they are quite good curses and imaginative ones. I am loath to admit that I can see why he is angry. But I can.

We do not move. I do not know precisely where we are. Stewart looks at me with his exhausted face still feverish and asks:

—Are we lost?

I say:

—Perhaps. No. Let us say we are bewildered.

We stay where we are for the night. Nobody speaks.

When the sky lightens, I unhobble my horse and mount. Before I can go, Hill raises his head and curses:

—Goddamned bastard Irish peddlers!

But he follows quickly, satisfied again with having something fresh to do. Squire rises and helps Stewart mount, he pulls himself up and off we ride. I take Findley’s trace. He has made it easy, knocking twigs from trees and catching his knife on others to make pale gashes.

After some hours we come to a rocky incline, very steep. It soon becomes a sheer cliff. Findley’s chestnut horse is hobbled at the bottom with a surly look. On seeing us it stamps one forefoot again and again. We leave ours to keep it company. They begin to stamp as well, bang bang bang.

The only way is up the rock. I say:

—Well, boys. To Heaven.

The wet stone scrapes my fingers and palms, my feet slip again and again and fly into the empty air beneath me. The horses beat their hooves as if to drive me mad. There is a great rock hump I must hug myself to, angling out over the earth below, but I climb its spine and get over it to the top, where I lie on my belly at the edge with my head dangling. Below me are the upturned faces, all curious.

—Well, Dan. What now?

This of course from Hill. Squire gives Stewart a leg up. Stewart is slow, but he manages it, though he is very pale after I haul him up the last few feet. Squire shins up quick and then he and I pull Hill over the hump. We all sit panting. The horses stamp and nicker below. Findley’s looks up, it flashes its teeth and gums.

The trees are in a thick dark knot round us. Stewart points a shaking arm:

—There.

And there is Findley, waiting against the crook of an elm some yards off as though he was born there. He has been watching.

We push through the trees into the daylight and stand before him, still breathing hard. Hill spits at the ground,
pah
, reminding us of his powers of spitting. Findley hums a tuneless little song and says:

—Here you are now. Please to go ahead. Your servant. See it without a bog-Irishman in your view.

He gives another little bow and a flourish. His eye is on Hill. He steps aside.