Gear, W Michael - Novel 05 (33 page)

 
          
 
Triumph had become a disaster. Heals Like a
Willow had profaned him with her menstrual blood and broken the purity of his
manhood. The Spirit World would turn its back on him, withdraw its protection.
A warrior depended on Power to protect him, to give him luck. But now . . .

 
          
 
He glanced self-consciously up at the sky and
remembered stories about young men who had been profaned, and how lightning had
struck from clear blue skies, and how they died in freak accidents.

 
          
 
I must return to the Skidi and be cleansed. He
winced at the implications. The Doctors could cleanse him, but the ceremonies would
cost his family a fortune. The Singers and Doctors would have to be paid,
feasts provided for dances and sweats.

 
          
 
Not only would his folly cost his family's
wealth, but he would pay a terrible price in public humiliation. The jokes told
at his expense were already ringing in his ears. "Pack-rat, the pira-paru,
so desperate he dipped his lance into a bleeding captive!" "Hey,
Packrat! If you were so desperate, why not stick yourself into a camp dog? The
shame would have been the same, but you wouldn't have made your family
destitute in the process!''

 
          
 
I'll find her even if I die in the process. A
likely event, since the Spirit World would shun him now. And then I'll kill
her!

 
          
 
Until he had been purified in the ceremonials,
people would avoid him. In his current state of defilement, no one, not even
his own family, would allow him into their houses. They'd refuse him entry into
the village.

 
          
 
Adding to his humiliation, the woman had taken
what had been a dashing coup, and thrown it in his face.

 
          
 
I curse you, you Shoshoni bitch!

 
          
 
All those great plans! His only chance to
establish himself, repay his father for that long-ago perfidy! His guts went
hollow at the thought of Pitalesharo's reaction. I'll no longer be tiwa! He'll
disown me.

 
          
 
He kicked his horse forward. It's all her
fault. She'll pay . . . and very dearly.

 
          
 
He found the thongs on a low hilltop. Willow
had obviously located a sharp stone and managed to slice through the rawhide
straps. Inspecting them, Packrat smiled at the flecks of blood. It wasn't easy
to cut one's bindings when one's hands were tied behind one's back. Too bad she
didn't bleed to death in the process.

 
          
 
Bit by bit, his keen eye worked out her trail.
The grassy gullies drained from north to south, and Willow had to keep to their
bottoms.

 
          
 
The drainage he now followed was broad,
offering little concealment. He took a chance, kicking the horse to a canter,
watchful of low humps and swales. He couldn't be that far behind her. She'd had
no more than half a day's head-start, and despite the tricks she'd used to hide
her trail, the country didn't offer many hiding places.

 
          
 
The shallow drainage came to a head at the
base of a low knoll, but no sign of Willow could be seen.

 
          
 
"Fool!" Packrat balled a fist and
smacked himself in the leg. "Better to have slowly worked out her
tracks." He glared back down the drainage. The sun lay half-a-hand above
the horizon, casting thin shadows in the rolling grass.

 
          
 
"All right, Packrat. She's crafty and
cunning. No fool, this one. She didn't lose her head and run like a pronghorn,
so where would she be?"

 
          
 
He heeled the horse around and headed back
down the drainage. He almost rode past her a second time, barely giving the
little sandstone ledge a second glance.

 
          
 
It had formed where the water undercut a thin
layer of golden-brown rock. Just a gravel-filled hollow screened by a thin
beard of grass. Not even room to hide a jackrabbit, really.

 
          
 
Some odd sense, that feeling of being watched,
caused him to pull up. He looked twice, and, yes, there she was, prone, barely
hidden by the ledge.

 
          
 
"Perhaps my Power hasn't been broken
completely,
Willow
," he called to her. "But yours
has, Snake woman!"

 
          
 
He jumped lightly from the horse, swinging his
war club. Savoring the anticipation of the impact as it broke her skull "I
shall have your scalp . . . little as it is to repay me for what you've
done!"

 
          
 
She stood warily, poised to flee. In the
setting sun, she looked magnificent, her skin bronzed by the light. The breeze
teased her gleaming black hair, and Packrat remembered those full breasts and
how they'd filled his hands.

 
          
 
But then, that was what had caused all the
trouble in the beginning, wasn't it? For the briefest of instants his resolve
wavered. Such a shame to kill a woman this beautiful and smart.

 
          
 
She read his indecision and signed: "Do
not hesitate. Kill me."

 
          
 
Packrat chewed at his lip, overcame the urge
to leap forward and crush her skull, and signed: "You should be afraid,
for you see your death standing before you."

 
          
 
A flicker of a smile touched her full lips.
The gleam in her eyes challenged him. Her graceful hands made the sign for,
"Strike. As soon as you do, I will have won."

 
          
 
Packrat cocked his head. "You'll be
dead."

 
          
 
"And you'll have nothing. Finished."
She lifted an eyebrow, mocking him.

 
          
 
Packrat kicked at the sandy gravel with his
toe. He'd have her bloody scalp. Wasn't that enough? He glanced at her from the
corner of his eye. She knew something he didn't.

 
          
 
"You've done enough to me. It is
finished!" He made the signs with a flourish.

 
          
 
Her white teeth flashed. "Tell your
father how close you came."

 
          
 
Packrat lifted his war club, tensed, and
slowly lowered it to his side. Was there a way out of this? No matter what
she'd done to him, some redemption would come of handing her over to his
father.

 
          
 
Packrat stamped his foot. In Pawnee, he said,
"Giving you to Half Man would be too good for you—and he's no better than
a flea-bit camp dog!"

 
          
 
Willow
signed: "Kill me."

 
          
 
Packrat shook his head, disparate ideas
forming. He told her, "No. You'll live. With Half Man, you'll pay for
making me unclean. At least a little. And, who knows, maybe you'll do the same
thing to him."

 
          
 
His Pawnee words were lost on her Shoshoni
ears. Packrat signed: "You don't win. I'm taking you to my father."

 
          
 
He couldn't be sure as he studied her blank
face, but somehow he perceived that she'd beaten him. With his war club, he
pointed southward toward the river. "Walk, woman. Darkness is coming. And
if you try to run, I won't hesitate to drive an arrow through you."

 
          
 
Willow
turned, and doggedly started down the
drainage. Packrat watched her straight back, the way her hips swayed, and the
proud set of her head. Her movements conjured memories of coupling with her. He
shook his head, viciously kicked a scrubby rabbitbrush, and turned back to his
horse.

 
          
 
Since the pure ego envisions itself outside
self, and torn asunder, everything that has continuity and universality,
everything that bears the name of law, good, and right, is thereby
simultaneously torn to pieces, and goes to rack and ruin: all identity and
harmony break up, for what holds sway is the purest discord and disunion. What
was absolutely essential is absolutely unessential. The pure ego itself is
totally disintegrated.

 
          
 
—Georg Friedrich Wilhelm Hegel, Phenomenology
of Mind

 
          
 
The
Missouri
differed from the
Mississippi
as night differed from day. The
Mississippi
might be dangerous, but the
Missouri
was downright treacherous. As the current
twisted like an angry brown serpent, it undermined the banks, toppling huge
trees. Once in the river's grip they floated down the muddy channel like giant
rollers, jagged branches slashing the water. Pity the keelboat that ran afoul
of one. Sooner rather than later, the trees would ground, snagged by the roots.
Thus anchored, the trunks bobbed up and down in the water: They called these
nightmares sawyers, for they'd cut the bottom right out of a boat.

 
          
 
The trees often piled up, creating huge
logjams that lined the sandbars like some perverted beaver dam. Such an
obstacle was called an embarras. The river's channel would weave around the
devilish tangle of trunks, roots, and branches, to undercut yet more of the
bank and topple yet more forest giants into a watery grave.

 
          
 
The spring flood was the most perilous time on
the river, for as the water rose, entire rafts of embarras would break free,
spinning down the river en masse, branches and roots interlocked.

 
          
 
Travis watched an embarras float past,
splintered branches dripping like bloody spears as the current toyed with the
jagged snarl of wood. Brown water slapped at the slick black trunks, and scummy
white foam bobbed.

 
          
 
"Glad that one missed us." Green
rubbed his face. "Mess of junk like that comes down on you, there's not
much you can do."

 
          
 
"Cast loose," Henri said, powerful
hands on the steering oar. "Outrun it downstream."

 
          
 
Travis nodded. "Times come, old coon,
when ye've got ter cut and run."

 
          
 
Green reached up under his cap to scratch his
head. "Yes, I know. Downstream. Every inch you lose is another you've got
to make up. It's a long way to the mouth of the Big Horn, Travis."

 
          
 
"Better alive than dead, hoss. This
child'd rather get there a mite late than not at all. Compared ter going under,
a winter spent at the mouth of the Yellerstone appears right pert."

 
          
 
Green propped his hands on his hips, squinting
upstream, searching for planters and sawyers. "You know what will happen
if we do. Assiniboin will come in. Trade us out of everything we've got. We'd
have to pull our stick come spring and head back downriver. No, I want two
years, Travis. That means the mouth of the Big Horn. Time to get
established."

 
          
 
"Wal, ye might do 'er." Travis
watched the sweating men pole the boat against the current. Unlike the ocean,
where wind did the moving, every ounce of boat, line, and cargo had to be
tugged upriver with human muscle and sweat. Hell of a poor way to run a boat.
But then, no one had found a better one. Steamboats rarely dared the
Missouri
's bars and snags. Break a boat up here, and
you might just as well leave it behind.

 
          
 
"Faible chien!" Trudeau cursed.
"You are worthless as a pig without legs!"

 
          
 
"Leave me alone!"
Hamilton
's voice called back.

 
          
 
"Then work, bebe!"

 
          
 
Green glanced at Hartman as the polers walked
the boat against the current, their heads bobbing just beyond the edge cargo
box. "Think that pilgrim Doodle will make it?"

 
          
 
"Cain't say."

 
          
 
"I swear to God, Travis, I'm not sure his
skinny carcass is worth the trouble of feeding him."

 
          
 
"He ain't caved in yet."

 
          
 
"Lord knows, he gets babied enough. He
still hasn't worked a full day. A boy would have been more help."

 
          
 
Travis caught Henri's eye and shrugged.
"Wal, think of 'er this way. The engages got all their attention on him.
Not a one's thought ter start gritching about the boat, the wages, or the
work—'cept what
Hamilton
ain't doing. I ain't yet had to bust a single head. Reckon by the time
Hamilton
breaks in or gets hisself kilt, we'll be up
past the
Platte
."

 
          
 
Henri was grinning.

 
          
 
"Can't believe you," Green said.
"Nursing that skinny bone pile like he was a sick calf. You of all
people."

 
          
 
Travis jabbed Green playfully in the ribs.
"I recall yer not so bad a nurse yerself. Pulled me through, ye did."

 
          
 
"That was different. You were a
man."

 
          
 
Travis studied
Hamilton
's head as it bobbed along, slightly out of
rhythm with the rest of the polers. The kid hadn't quite got the way of it yet.
"He might be. One day."

 
          
 
"Hell might freeze over, too."

 
          
 
"Folks what don't take a long shot now
and again never gets nowhere, Davey. Or do I need ter remind ye what a savvy
man would say about this hyar expedition of yern?"

 
          
 
Green continued his scan of the river,
watchful for eddies in the current, or the humping of water that might mark a
submerged planter. "So, what is it about him?"

 
          
 
Travis hawked and spit over the side.
"Don't rightly know. He's a queer sort. Book-larned better than any feller
I ever met. He spouts off about them Roman and Greek fellers like he was
telling winter stories in a Sioux lodge."

 
          
 
"And that's why you took up for him? I
could have brought an old squaw along if stories was all you were interested
in."

 
          
 
"Reckon it's more than that, Davey."
Travis pulled at his beard. "Looks like a sawyer up there. Near the bank
where that water's a mite muddled."

 
          
 
"Steer wide," Green ordered Henri.

 
          
 
"Oui, booshway. I see her." Henri
bent to the steering oar.

 
          
 
"Reckon the pilgrim's got sand, Dave. I
jist don't think he knows it. The way I figger, he ain't never been pushed. Them
Boston
folks hid him away in books all his life.
He ain't never had him no chance to see what he's made of. Can't tell how stout
a hickory stick is till ye bends it."

 
          
 
"And what if he breaks?" Green
asked.

 
          
 
"Reckon life never gives none of us no
promises."

 
          
 
Green sighed. "Well, I'll be honest.
We've passed the Osage. I never thought he'd make it this far. Must have hurt
to take in all them bets."

 
          
 
"Yep," Travis mused. "I'm one
rich child fer sure. Man can't have that much owed and feel right. Fact is, I
done bet the whole caboodle. Wagered he'd make the mouth of the
Platte
afore we had ter shoot him."

 
          
 
Trudeau bellowed, "You are worthless! A
woman would work harder!"

 
          
 
Richard almost tripped over his feet as he
stumbled along. Sweat dampened his flushed skin, and he made desperate gasping
sounds.

 
          
 
"You have more faith in him than I
do," Green muttered.

 
          
 
The only sound in the camp was Packrat's soft
snoring, and choked whimpers that couldn't quite break free of Heals Like A
Willow's lips.

 
          
 
Two field mice dared the presence of the
humans, slipping stealthily between sleeping forms, whiskers quivering as they
followed familiar scent trails. Their watchful eyes like black beads, they
picked through the grass for the bits dropped by the humans. They froze each
time the woman made one of her piteous sounds.

 
          
 
Bound tighter than a stack of green willow
sticks, Heals Like A Willow slept with her back propped on a half-rotten
cottonwood log. Her head bowed on her chest, and her hair hung like a black
veil to obscure the pained expression on her face and the eyes flicking back
and forth beneath closed lids.

 
          
 
As the power of
Willow
's dream grew, the mice scurried for cover,
content to seek their food in other, less troubled territory. . . .

 
          
 
I stand on a grassy point high over the
plains. Sunlight fills the land with a soft golden glow that blurs the harsh
edges of the bluffs and the tree-choked stream bottoms. I look down and see a
steep drop-off, and far below at the bottom, a river is shining silver in the
sun.

 
          
 
But such a river? A strong man couldn't shoot
an arrow halfway across the shimmering waters. As I watch, the river changes,
the silver surface turning murky and dark. Looking closely I can see that it
has been fouled, clotted with floating bodies of dead men.

 
          
 
The water is black now, the color of old
blood. The corpses continue to float past men, women, and children. Some are
dotted by sores from the White man's pox. Others have coughed until their lungs
have shredded and protrude from their mouths. Here and there I can see wasted
bodies. They look like winterkill with the skin shrunken into a rawhide
tightness around the bones.