Gear, W Michael - Novel 05 (14 page)

 
          
 
And then, from out of the very air, I hear
cackling laughter. I know that sound; It is very old, from the beginning of the
world. Coyote the Trickster's laughter sends chills up my back.

 
          
 
I run.

 
          
 
As I do, the horror comes from behind, hurling
itself forward with the speed of a racing pronghom. I run harder, willing my
feet to move like the wind. Breath tears in my lungs as I sprint eastward,
driven by this unseen horror.

 
          
 
The dark threat is so close. I feel it tracing
cold fingers across my back; tendrils try to close around me, to pull me back
into its dark interior.

 
          
 
If I falter, allow myself to be drawn into the
black depth, I am lost. My souls are screaming at the faintest touch of the
blackness.

 
          
 
Fear rushes through me, and I leap arroyos,
race up grassy hills, and fly down slopes faster than falcon on the wind.

 
          
 
Run! Panic curls around my guts, squeezing
tightly to wring the last bit of energy from my burning muscles. The dark
horror is bearing down, twining in the wind, searching to snare my soul and
drag me down.

 
          
 
Run! my husband shouts from above. I dare not
look up. A misstep and I will fall, the landing worse than any tumble from a
racing horse. My bones would splinter, and my flesh tear when I bounced across
the ground like a buffalo-hide ball. I'd lie stunned, and oddly painless in that
moment before agony seeped through the bleeding wounds to crush me. I’d gasp
desperately for breath, my shattered chest incapable of filling.

 
          
 
And then the black horror would settle over me
like smoke from a burning forest. As it tightened itself around me, it would
suffocate my souls and suck them down into the terrible eternity.

 
          
 
Run! I tell myself.

 
          
 
I race down a long slope, legs pumping, feet
hammering the grass. Before me I see a line of trees. My hair is flying out
behind me, the tips teasing the black horror. I am moving so fast the trees
seem to rush up at me in an impenetrable barrier, the trunks gray, branches
waving in the wind.

 
          
 
An arrow might see the world flying toward it
in this way, the whistling passage, the end growing ever larger until. ..

 
          
 
I burst through the trees, and have vague
memories of snapping branches, of lashing leaves. Then I hang, the sensation
that of floating, feet churning empty air, as I am stopped short by a great
river. A huge expanse of water flows before me, menacing, with secrets hidden
beneath those swirling depths.

 
          
 
With water blocking my escape, I pant, a hand
to my aching chest. Blackness filters away the world. The horror looms in the
sky to the west, blotting out the trees. It has a shape: a huge creature with
soulless eyes.

 
          
 
I back into the river. Better to drown, and
free the mugwa, than to be swallowed by this horrible power.

 
          
 
And suddenly the mist dog appears. It comes
from the side, a foggy white shape, and takes a position facing the menace before
me. Tarn Apo, it is too late. I have nowhere else to go. Water is up to my
knees, and I am afraid to leap into those cold black depths.

 
          
 
The blackness arches over the sky. I have
nothing left, no escape route. Only the misty white dog separates us. He is too
small. How can mist defeat such terrible, evil power?

 
          
 
I crouch and scream as the black terror beast
springs like a coyote onto a mouse, in that instant, I see the white mist dog
leap....

 
          
 
Heals Like A Willow cried out and jerked
awake. She blinked her eyes open to see the familiar lodge. Her fingers were
entwined in the thick neck wool of her heavy buffalo robe. Frost tinged the
curly brown fur before her mouth, and hoary patches of breath had frozen where
her long black hair lay close to her face.

 
          
 
The images remained as vivid as if she'd just
lived them in the light of day. A dream. Only a dream. But so powerful.

 
          
 
She gasped in relief, happy to fill her lungs
with the biting air. Beyond the tawny translucence of the lodge, two dogs were
barking, and a man shouted at them to go away. The barking persisted until a
hollow thump was followed by a piercing yelp, and silence.

 
          
 
Then a pack of coyotes sent their songs like
thorns into the quiet night.

 
          
 
Coyote had laughed at her, as if daring her to
run, knowing that nothing could save her from the terrifying darkness.

 
          
 
But what had been the meaning of the misty
white dog?

 
          
 
Willow
rolled onto her back. Since her husband's
death, most of her dreams had been this way. Pursuit, panic, fear, and flight.

 
          
 
What is it? Is the Spirit World trying to tell
me something? Give me some warning?

 
          
 
Her breasts ached, as if the exertion from the
dream flight had settled within them. She reached up beneath the heavy robe and
massaged them, a familiar tenderness in the nipples. As if her son were still
there, once again drawing life from her. A shiver passed through her chest and
down her spine to warm her pelvis.

 
          
 
The ache in her breasts hardened with the
memory of his movements within the cradle of her hips. How miraculous that her
husband's seed could take nourishment inside her, become that life that had
been so much a part of her.

 
          
 
I gave him life from my own, A man couldn't do
that. He but planted his seed and was done with it. I made my boy. From my pain
and blood, he was born. From my breasts, he drew his life.

 
          
 
"From me," she whispered, and lifted
her damp fingers to inhale the fragrant musk of her milk.

 
          
 
Then she turned her head and wept, the sobs
choked so that no one outside the lodge might know the bitter depths of her
grief.

 
          
 
She was called the Maria. Travis ran his hand
along the cargo box as he walked down the passe avant of the cleated walkway
that ran the length of the deck on either side of the boat. It was nothing more
than a narrow path between the cargo box and the gunwales. Maria measured forty
feet in length, with a twelve-foot beam. When loaded with thirty tons of
freight, she drew less than three feet of water. Rude wooden benches in the bow
provided a place for eight oarsmen.

 
          
 
Travis walked toward the stern and climbed
atop the cargo box. Here the patroon, or steersman, stood and handled the long
steering oar that extended out over the stern of the boat. A twenty-foot mast
had been stepped into the middle of the box, and carried a square sail for
those rare days when the wind was right.

 
          
 
"How's she look?" Dave Green asked,
the weak winter sun gleaming in his blond hair as he clambered up the ladder to
stand beside Travis.

 
          
 
"Reckon she'll do. From what I can see of
the hull, she's somewhat scarred up, but the planks seem sound."

 
          
 
"I looked her over from painter to
steering oar. I know something about boats, and I couldn't find much wrong with
her," Green stated.

 
          
 
"Yep, wal, I've pulled lesser boats
upriver." Travis stared out over the swirling muddy water. The
Mississippi
had a raw look, heavy with snow melt and
churning mud. The Illinois bank to the east lay muzzled in patchy gray trees.
Even from here, Travis could see the distant Trappist monastery on the big Indian
mound above
Cahokia
.

 
          
 
"Come on." Green turned. "Let's
look inside."

 
          
 
Travis followed Green down into the cargo box.
Some of the trade goods had already been stored: barrels of flour and salt
rested neatly between the ribs on either side of the deck planking. The
six-foot clearance made him crouch. Ropes, to stabilize the cargo, had been
tied off from the mast to rings bolted onto the ribs.

 
          
 
Loading a keelboat for the upper
Missouri
required special skill. The cargo had to be
balanced to maintain the boat's trim in the water. Trading would occur
throughout the journey, so different kinds of goods needed to be easily
accessible at all times. Guns, shot, and other durables were placed low in case
the hull was breached by a sawyer or some other underwater obstruction. Powder,
cloth, and goods easily water-damaged rode higher in hopes they could be
salvaged before the river exacted its toll.

 
          
 
"Wal, Davey, weather's turning. Ice'll be
a-breaking up-river any day now. Time's about here."

 
          
 
Green fingered the edge of a barrel packed
with hanks of colorful Italian glass beads. "And we're still short enough
men for a crew."

 
          
 
Travis pulled at his grizzled beard. "The
good Lord provides, or so I was told once upon a time."

 
          
 
Green knotted a fist. "Time? That's the
one thing we don't have." He pursed his lips. "Huh! Seems like all of
my life, I've been gambling. Well, all right. I say we bust a gut and sail
within the week." He leveled his gaze at Travis. "Find me the men,
Travis. We've got to go. The sooner the better. Too many people know what we're
about. If word gets to
Clark
,
he'll stop us cold."

 
          
 
Travis rapped one of the barrels with his
knuckles. "I'll find us enough crew ter get out of
Saint Louis
—provided ye ain't picky about what sort I
gets. We can recruit as we go, too. Reckon we ought ter be able to fill out a
boatload. Won't be a brigade like Lisa could muster, but by Hob, we otta be
able ter piece together a boatload."

 
          
 
"That... or there'll be hell to
pay."

 
          
 
Travis made a clicking sound with his tongue.
"Waugh! Yer headed for the mouth of the Big Horn, smack inta Injun
country, an yer worried about Hell? Reckon we'll git enough of that ter fill a
lard eater's gut and then some." An' we'll be pilgrim lucky if'n there's a
one of us with his topknot left by next spring.

 
          
 
The sun shone brightly in the cloudless blue
sky. With characteristic suddenness, the terrible cold snap had broken, driven
away by west winds that had howled out of the night

 
          
 
White Hail squinted up toward the bright sun,
shielding his eyes with a callused hand. Their camp lay in the
Warm
Valley
bottoms of the
Big
River
. To the west, the
Warm
Wind
Mountains
rose in tall peaks capped with a bright,
aching white against the deep blue of the sky. To the north, the tall, snow-clad
heights of
Coyote
Penis
Mountain
rose as a symbol of the Trickster's
culpability. In the beginning times, Coyote had paid dearly for unmitigated
lust, his member being turned into rock as a reminder to all who saw it that
moderation was often prudent.