Every Hidden Thing (27 page)

A
S I RODE, I RAGED. I THOUGHT OF ALL
the ways I'd shown her I loved her, all the loving things I'd said to her. She was cold, so coldhearted, like her bloodless father; there was a part of her missing. She didn't want a baby with me. She still hadn't told me she loved me. She didn't know how to love anyone.

“Looks like they're packing up,” said Thomas, as we neared my father's camp. It was strange: It used to be my camp too, and now it was just Father's. Hitch, up on the wagon, saw us first and waved. I saw Ned turn from striking a tent, and then call out to Father, who was nailing a lid onto a crate.

I was nervous as they all walked to meet us. I was worried about Father's anger, worried he'd try to stop me. Thomas and I dismounted.

“Sam!” cried Hitch, giving me a surprisingly powerful hug. “You're married! Congratulations!”

I laughed. “Thanks, Hitch.”

I didn't know what my father had told them; I supposed it would've been hard to keep it a secret, once Cartland and he rode off together to try to stop us. Ned smiled at me but said nothing. I guessed he didn't want to rile up Father by wishing me well. But I could tell by his kindly eyes he did.

“So,” Father said. We did not shake hands or embrace. “I hear you've struck out with the Barnum boys.”

“Cartland told you?” I asked.

He nodded. “And where is Rachel?”

“Back at camp. We just had a nasty run-in with some Sioux.” I told him about it. “Wanted to let you know.”

“Lieutenant Frye's giving us an escort back to Crowe,” Ned said. “They're calling it quits for the season too. It's nearly September anyway. It'll be getting cold soon. What about you?”

“We'll be out a bit longer,” I said. “We've got a lead on something good.”

“The
rex
?” Father asked.

I wasn't going to tell him anything. “I'm sure Ethan Withrow would be very pleased if we found that.”

“Any bone yet?” he asked.

I said nothing. My father waited a moment, then lifted his hands as if it didn't matter. Hitch and Ned headed back to their packing, and we were alone. Quiet, standing there. I don't know that I'd ever seen him so stingy with his words.

I tipped my head at the crate he'd been closing. “What did you find?”

“Aren't we competitors now?”

“Maybe. But the world is large.”

“Spoken like a wise man. It might be a variety of hadrosaur. Its head is quite large and has a curious hollow crest on top. . . .” He trailed off, distracted. Then:

“I appreciate you coming, Samuel, but—”

“But.” I'd been waiting for this. “She's not a Quaker, and she's the daughter of the man you hate, and you want me to leave this whole thing behind.”

And for just a moment I felt a flicker of what Rachel must have felt—the temptation. To go back to what we'd had, to what we knew and was easiest.

Father looked at me curiously. “No. I was going to say you should get back to your wife now.”

“Oh.” I took off my hat, scratched at my hair. “I'm not sure she wants me back.”

He said nothing. My talkative father, for once in his life, was waiting for me. And like some natural law of physics, my words rushed out to fill his silence.

“She thinks it was a mistake. I'm not even sure she loves me. She's never said so.”

“She ran away to marry you. She risked a great deal.”

“But I'd told her she could go to university and work with me. And just a few days ago, her father came to our camp and offered her the same things.
If
she left me.”

“She stayed, though.”

“Yes, but . . .”

There was so much in my head I didn't know what to say.

“When I was younger,” Father said, “not quite as young as you, I met a young woman while studying in Washington. I thought her very beautiful and very bright, and we saw a great deal of each other. In my letters home, I wrote about her, and my parents knew I was getting very attached. She wasn't a Quaker. My parents wrote back and discouraged my affections. But I didn't care much for their way of thinking and carried on.”

“Did you run away with her?” I asked in amazement.

“No, no. I was not always obedient, but when my parents summoned me home, I went.”

It was hard for me to believe Father had ever done anything he didn't want to.

“They told me it was a youthful passion and it would spend itself and then I could marry a suitable Quaker woman. I was sent to Europe to study and forget about her.”

I wasn't sure if this story was a reprimand, or where exactly it was going, but something suddenly came to me.

“This is where you met Cartland.”

“Correct. But this was not the purpose of my story—”

“You never told me you knew him in Europe.”

He sighed. “Because I now consider our friendship, if you can call it that, grotesque. We met at the university in Berlin and became friendly in the way Americans abroad do. He was a solid scholar, a bit plodding for my tastes, but we exchanged notes and even went on a few ambles looking for samples. Toward the end of the summer we named small specimens after
each other. He got a mollusk, and I got a millipede.”

I shook my head, astonished. Unthinkable.

“And now you will hear my side of the story Cartland told you.”

He made it sound like he was telling it just because I forced him; but I knew he wanted to tell it.

“I was headed home to America a full month before him, so he asked me to deliver a package to Melissa, his fiancée, in New Haven. It was an easy enough stop to make. His fiancée, I was surprised, wasn't hideous. Surprisingly presentable, but not at all my type of woman. Her family invited me to stay before returning to Philadelphia—they wanted to hear all of the news of Frederick Cartland and goings-on in Europe. So I stayed, and Melissa grew attached to me.”

“How attached?”

He puffed air from his cheeks. “She seemed to think she was in love with me—at least, that's what she told me in the letters she wrote when I was back in Philadelphia.”

I looked at him hard. “You didn't do anything to lead her on?”

“I am flirtatious; this is no secret. But I'm flirtatious with
all
women. It's a despicable weakness on my part, I know, but I don't seem able to help myself. In any event, I made no special effort to woo her. And I certainly never seduced her, as Cartland said! She kept writing, though, even
after
she married Cartland!”

“But you never wrote back?”

“Only to return her letters. Which foolishly she kept—which is why Cartland seems to think we carried on an affair. You have my promise, Samuel. I'm sorry for Cartland—a terrible humiliation
for him, of course. She was a fool to keep those letters.”

My whole life I'd been watching Father, listening to him, learning from him, trying to please him, charting the weather of his many moods. I knew his expressions pretty well, his poker face, his foxy charm. I probably shouldn't have, but I did believe him right now.

All these years trying to make sense of his hatred for Cartland, and now I got to see its murky beginnings. This wasn't the only reason they hated each other. Given who they were—their natures, their circumstances, what they'd done to each other—it was inevitable they'd become enemies.

“I'm glad to hear your side of things,” I said.

“This has become a rather long story,” he admitted, sounding uncharacteristically apologetic, “and I've strayed from its main point. I went home. I met your mother, and we married. But there wasn't a single day I didn't think about that lady from Washington.”

“You wish you'd married her instead?”

“I do. I wish I'd had your courage, or recklessness, or both. Whether we'd have been happy, who can say? Your mother was a fine woman, Samuel, but I was a poor husband. She was very intelligent, and took a great interest in my work, but I didn't share it with her. And when her health became poor, I neglected her all the more. My heart may have been beyond my control, but I denied her my companionship and a shared life of the mind. And once you've made your choice, and said your vows, that's a great betrayal.”

He'd never talked this much about my mother. And I had so
few memories of her, it hardly ever occurred to me to ask. But it was the naked way he spoke that struck me. I'd never seen him so revealed. Being a husband seemed a lot more complicated than I'd imagined. Maybe the problem was I'd never even properly imagined it at all.

Father gestured to the cookstove. “There's some lunch.”

“No thanks. I should get back.”

He reached out and shook my hand. “You take care of your wife. You love her.”

“I will. I do.”

His grip was tight. “Come back with us,” he said. For a moment I saw genuine fatherly concern etched into his face. But then it gave way to his familiar charming grin. “I mean the both of you. Next spring we can return, you and me and Rachel, and find this thing properly.”

I smiled, even as I felt a sting behind my eyes. He was sly as a fox still, and it was far too tempting an idea. But I shook my head. “We're going it alone, the two of us.”

“All right, then. You know, I'm starting to enjoy the idea of having Rachel as a daughter-in-law.” He grinned. “I'm sure Cartland's mad as a hornet.”

This was as much of a blessing as my marriage was going to get. It wasn't a lot, but it was more than expected, and it made me think I wasn't losing my father.

When Thomas and I got back, the camp was empty, and we set out to join the others at the buttes. My head was full of things
I wanted to say to Rachel. We spotted Hobart working along a ledge, and Thomas went off to join him. I said I'd catch up later. On the far side of the butte, prospecting one of its many wrinkled folds, were Withrow and Browne. I couldn't see Rachel.

“I think she went farther round,” Withrow said when I asked where she was.

It was a towering monument of stone. I started around the base, shading my eyes, and I didn't see her, and then didn't see her some more.

“Rachel?” I called out.

Why the hell had Withrow let her go off on her own? She might've been spotted by more Sioux. Might've fallen. Might've decided to run off and join her father. I shouted her name again. Panic ballooned inside me, squeezing the air from my lungs. My voice echoed off the steep slopes.

“I'm here,” she said.

She stood tall. She'd been crouched in a shallow crevasse. For a moment I just stared with mute relief.
There you are
. She watched as I came closer. With every step I just wanted her body against me. I climbed down beside her and held her tight. She put down her hammer and her arms encircled me and her palms pressed into my back hard. I felt her solid heat and breathed her hair and skin, and we didn't say anything for a while.

I spoke into her ear. “I did not make a mistake.”

I felt her breathing against my chest.

“All the way back,” I said, “I was thinking of those specimen boxes I'd fill up when I was young. Always trying to fill them all
up. And there was always something else, some new empty space to fill. You're the thing I could never find.”

Her fingers lightly touched the hollow of my throat, like she didn't want me to talk anymore.

“No,” she said. “There'll be something else. With you there will
always
be something else to find.”

“Maybe.” I tried really hard to think, to be honest. “But maybe as long as I'm looking
with
you, it'll be all right. If we can at least be together, that's what I'll be happy with. I'll be a better partner, I promise.”

Her words against my neck: “I wasn't just running from my father. I was running to you. I wanted to be loved by you, to be with you.”

“So we're agreed?” I said. “We'll stay married?”

“Yes!”

From her pocket she took out the two halves of our marriage certificate and gave one half to me. “We'll each keep one. For safekeeping.”

I heard the rattle and looked down to see the snake flicking its tongue against her boot. We both stood very still.

“It's a rattler,” I said.

“It doesn't want to bite me.” Her voice was amazingly calm. “It came for the shade.”

The snake bellied onto the toe of her boot, lifted its head toward her ankle.

“How do we get it off?” I asked.

“Sam. Stay calm. I know about snakes. It'll go away.”

“When?”

A faint rattle emanated from its tail.

“Stay still,” she said. “You're scaring it.”

It moved farther up her ankle toward her calf.

I darted out my hand, grabbed it right behind its head so it couldn't bite me, and flung it hissing into the sagebrush.

“There!” I said.

“Sam.”

Gently she took my hand in both of hers. In the soft part of my wrist, twin puncture marks welled red.

Y
OU IDIOT,” I SAID TO HIM. “WHY DID
you grab it?”

“Damn,” he said. “Damn it.”

I grabbed his arm, locked my mouth over the bite marks, and sucked. I tasted blood and spat, then did it again two more times.

“Just in case,” I said. “It might be a dry bite. Sometimes they don't inject any venom at all, or very little—just as a warning. Sit down. Right here, against the rocks. Put your hand on the ground. You want to keep it lower than your heart.”

He looked at me with a boy's panic-stricken eyes. I put my hand on his arm. His body felt hard, tensed for flight, like he could outrun the venom that might be spreading through his veins.

“Everything all right?” said a voice behind me, and I turned
to see Mr. Withrow. “I heard him calling out for you.”

“I found her,” Sam said. “But I just got bitten.”

“Rattlesnake?” said Withrow, coming closer. He saw the bloody marks on Sam's wrist. “I'll get Thomas. He knows about snakebites.”

“He's on the east side of the other butte,” Sam told him.

“Hold tight,” Withrow said, and ran off.

“What happens now?” Sam asked me.

“Nothing,” I said, searching my satchel for a clean rag for a bandage. “Just sit still.”

If there was venom, every beat of his heart would speed it. I didn't tell him this, because that would make anyone's heart pound.

“Thank you,” he said, forcing a smile across his pale face. “Good thing you know so much about snakes.”

“Well, I never kept poisonous ones, but I've read lots about them. Does it hurt?”

“Like a hot vise,” he said tightly.

“The swelling isn't too bad at all,” I said. “That's good.”

There was still a fair amount of blood as I tied the bandage around the wound.

I sat beside him, feeling helpless. I'd read stories about snakebites; they made irresistible reading. There were many treatments, many cures, but all of them disputed, and some of them downright dangerous. The only thing most people agreed on was trying to suck out the poison.

A few minutes later the others came running. Thomas knelt beside Samuel. He undid my bandage and stared at the puncture marks.

“You sucked out the poison?”

“Three tries,” I said.

He pulled his knife free and, before I could say anything, cut two slashes across the wounds. Sam yelped and tried to jerked his arm back, but Thomas held it tight. He bent his mouth to the bite, and his cheeks caved in as he sucked hard, then spat out. Blood welled up alarmingly.

I'd read that cutting the bite marks did more harm than good, and told Thomas so.

“Helps it bleed out,” he said. “It drains the poison with it.”

I wasn't at all sure about this.

“Tourniquet now,” he said, and took my bandage and knotted it a few inches up Sam's forearm. Sam winced.

This I had heard of. “But not so tight,” I said. “You don't want to cut off the circulation to his hand.”

“If the poison spreads, he could lose more than that.”

“I'm going to lose my arm?”

“No,” I told Sam, glaring at Thomas.

“There's an army surgeon at your father's camp,” Withrow said. “We should get him there.”

“No,” Sam said, shaking his head. Even in the shade sweat beaded his forehead.

“The doctor will know better than us what to do.”

“I'm not going!” Sam shouted.

“There's nothing more anyone can do,” said Thomas. “He shouldn't move anyway.”

“I read something about pouring milk into the wounds,” Browne said.

“No,” said Thomas.

“Whiskey's the trick,” said Hobart. “Half a quart, swallowed neat.”

“No,” I said.

“I'm from New York City, for God's sake,” said Withrow. “We don't have this problem. What else can we do?”

“Carry him back to camp,” said Thomas. “We can use a blanket.”

On the way back Sam was shivering; I wasn't sure if it was fever, or just fear. Walking alongside his blanket stretcher, I touched his head. It felt cool enough. But his skin looked greasy.

“It's more swollen,” he said.

I checked. “It's not so bad.” It really wasn't.

“I've seen it much worse,” Thomas said, glancing over.

“Did they live?” Sam asked.

“Sometimes.”

“How's the pain?” I asked him.

“Bearable.”

“That's good too,” I said. “Some people are doubled over with it.”

Back at camp we got him into our tent and propped him up so his hand stayed lower than his heart. We got him some water, and he sipped a little. I stayed with him.

“So stupid,” he said, and swore at himself.

“That's not meetinghouse language, is it?” I said, trying to make him smile. It didn't work.

“Feel sick,” he said, and turned over and retched against the side of the tent.

“You're all right,” I said. “That's normal.”

“Sorry,” he panted.

“That's fine.” I threw one of my dresses over the mess and bundled it up. “It's been almost an hour, and the swelling's not getting any worse. I think this is the worst of it. Sip of water?”

He shook his head.

“There's a very interesting thing about snakes I read. They get more venomous the farther south and west you get. So that's a good thing.”

“We're pretty far west,” he mumbled.

“But only a third of the way down,” I pointed out. “Anyway, you obviously didn't get much in you. You were very fast when you grabbed it. Its bite must've been quite shallow.”

I'd never tended anyone before. There was always a maid for my father or me when we were ill. I'd never had a mother take care of me or teach me anything, so I just kept repeating things and telling Sam he was doing fine.

But he wasn't. As it got dark, he got sicker. The swelling worsened. He didn't want food or water. He vomited some more, but there wasn't much left to come up. For a while he wanted to talk about the Black Beauty and the places we hadn't looked yet, but it seemed to make him more agitated,
and I said we would talk about it in the morning.

“I'm tired,” he said. His eyes closed, and his breathing came faster. He was terribly pale. A cold sweat dewed his neck.

I wished it were morning now; I hated the dark coming on. I talked to him and told him everything was going to be all right.

He muttered, half-asleep, “Do you have it?”

“What?” I asked.

“It's supposed to . . . every hidden thing?”

I didn't know what he was talking about. The marriage license? So I just said, “Yes.”

His head lifted a bit, eyes only half-open. “You've got it?”

“I've got it, Sam. I do.”

His head dropped back. “Don't lose it,” he said.

“I won't.”

“You hardly ever get one. With nothing missing.”

“I know,” I said, understanding. “We've got every piece.”

He went quiet.

You idiot
. Grabbing the snake when it would have been best to do nothing. So like you to do something rash like that.

Your pulse raced, and your face was gray and filmed with sweat, and I knew you were going to die.

I went close to you, so I could hear your breathing, and I told you you must not die. I told you to live because I'd never felt loved the way you loved me. No one else would be as good at it. I am sorry if I've been stingy. Come back to me. I love you, Samuel Bolt. Please do not leave me.

I tugged at the tourniquet on my forearm. My fingers teased the knot loose so it fell away. That was much better. I didn't remember leaving the tent, but I was suddenly outside. Entering the night air like slipping into a cool lake. Breathing again. A quarter moon and so many stars.

My hand felt fat, a tight leather glove. Hot, too, but its heat kept me warm. There was no more pain. I was light enough to drift up into the sky. Had to concentrate to keep my feet on the ground, really plant them on the soil. My heart was jumpy.

It was good to be in the open, away from the stifling fake night of the tent. But I was sad to be getting farther away from Rachel. Dawn was still a little ways off. With every step, thread spooled out, connecting me to her, but the thread would run out eventually, it couldn't last forever, and then I might not be able to keep my feet on the ground anymore.

Oh, Rachel, I wish you could see the sky now. I want to burst up into it. Would you come with me? Even though we're like two different species and we only have a torn marriage certificate and you don't know how much I love you.

If I caught the Pennsylvanian from Philadelphia to New York, arriving at Penn Station, I could make a quick change to the New England line, which would bring me to New Haven in another two hours. Didn't you say your house was on a big hill? You'll be there, won't you?

I wanted to run, so I ran. It was a sloppy kind of run. Arm jangling loose and painful at my side. I tripped up on something,
hit the ground, tasted blood between my teeth. Up again, stride, jangle, flop, stride, jangle. How good it felt to be going somewhere! Nothing in my way, the far hills hammered together into the same seamless sheet of blackness.

I was torn from a dream. I heard a coyote howl, an echo from all directions. Around me, things moved underfoot. All the earth's nocturnal smells were out to greet me. Still didn't know all their names yet. I staggered and clumped, afraid every sound I made was a thunderclap. Coyotes! Scorpions! Indians! Shhhh. Go to sleep.

How many stars was I seeing? I'd never seen so many blemishes on the moon's pockmarked face.

I had nowhere to go, so anywhere was good.

I know you think I'm terribly impulsive and you're right, or why else would I be staggering in the dark, at risk of breaking my ankle or falling into a gulch, or being scalped by some braves eager to prove their manhood again?

The boy, the Sioux boy. His father battled in the darkness before he saw the sky. Isn't that the way he put it?

I fell again. I liked it. The pain. I wished for a battle, something to fight.

I ran, head tilted to the sky. The stars wheeled, then disappeared altogether, and I was being dragged down, rock striking my spine and the back of my head. My arms and legs nearly wrenched from their sockets—but with each jarring blow I was aware I was still alive. I didn't know how long I fell, but there were snakes. Couldn't see them, but felt their coiled presence all around me. “Shhhh, shhhh,” they said.

I kept falling, went deeper into time, flaying the earth to expose all its secrets. So much easier than prospecting! A single stutter of my heart and I was back a million years, and then a million more. When I finally stopped moving, I knew I was entombed, like all the fossils I'd searched after all my life. The stone was so tight, the darkness even tighter. Within the rock I felt a stirring and a tensing. Something was coming for me.

I should have been afraid. Instead I was elated. Finally! From above came a pale wash of light, and I saw the moon slanting down. I looked at my own bloodied hands, one swollen.

When I looked up, I was feverish with happiness. Lunging from the stone was the most beautiful and terrible face I'd ever beheld. It was the creature the Sioux boy's father had battled in darkness. My heart went
boom boom boom
.

The skull was built from black bones and its jaws were parted and its teeth were curving scythes the length of my forearm, and it was coming through seventy million years of stone to greet me.