Gear, W Michael - Novel 05 (38 page)

 
          
 
Packrat knotted a fist and shook it in empty
rage. Through slitted eyes he glanced at
Willow
. You did this, didn't you? Made sure that
he wouldn’t be there.

 
          
 
"I wouldn't take her to the
village," Blue Bull Robe added. "Not if you think she might be a
sorcerer. No one would welcome that. Not even her beauty would do her— or
you—much good."

 
          
 
"Half Man will return before the summer
hunt?" Packrat could hang around the vicinity of the main Skidi village,
waiting until the proper moment to bestow his gift.

 
          
 
Screams At His Enemies laughed as he fingered
his horse's mane. "You know Half Man. He'll time his return to the moment
the hunt is over. Just like he'll leave again just before the harvest. He won't
dare take the chance that he might have to work!"

 
          
 
"Why is this happening to me?"
Packrat wondered.

 
          
 
"Were I you," Blue Bull Robe called,
"I would take her to him at the La-chi-kuts' fort. Who knows, maybe it
will be better that way. It will give you time to be cleaned before he brings
her to the village. Then, if anything bad does happen, it will fall on Half
Man's shoulders instead of yours."

 
          
 
Screams At His Enemies nodded, smiling. "And
think on this, friend. You might be able to steal something from the Sioux, or
maybe even the La-chi-kuts, to help pay for your cleansing. These Doctors, they
charge a great deal for their help."

 
          
 
Packrat mulled the idea. The White man's fort
drew a great number of horses, wagons, and goods. He could rid himself of the
woman, and who knew what kind of wealth he might stumble across?

 
          
 
That, or I'll be killed by the first war party
to pass my way. But then, he'd grown used to the idea of being dead. Why did he
care that both Pawnee hunters were staring so raptly at
Willow
? A man about to die had more serious things
to worry about.

 
          
 
"I shall go straight to the La-chi-kuts'
fort. There, I shall give this weasel woman to Half Man. After that, I will
search for something to pay for my cleansing. Tell my mother . . . tell her
that her son will do this thing. If she sees him again in this life, he will
have succeeded. If not, he has failed, and neither she, her family, nor any
other Pawnee must weep for Packrat."

 
          
 
"I will tell them," Screams At His
Enemies promised. "In the meantime, Packrat, I'd keep my penis out of the
woman." The words didn't match the hungry look in the hunter's eyes.

 
          
 
You have no idea, Packrat thought as he turned
his horse away, driving
Willow
's beast before him.

 
          
 
Throughout the conversation, she'd sat
rock-still, a knowing look on her beautiful face.

 
          
 
"Ride with care, Packrat!" Blue Bull
Robe called.

 
          
 
The last Packrat heard was Screams At His
Enemies saying, "By the Evening Star, when did you ever see such a
magnificent woman!"

 
          
 
Packrat never looked back.

 
          
 
The storm broke in the middle of the night,
cold air blowing out of the west. Gaudy blue-white lightning bolts illuminated
tormented clouds. The wind howled through the spring-budded trees then
brutalized the camp, ripping at blankets and flapping Green's tent. Tin cups,
pots, and kettles rolled clanking across the ground, chased by groggy, cursing
engages who tripped on their blankets.

 
          
 
The rain followed, pelting them from the black
sky. One furious assault after another hammered them until morning, when cold
breakfast was served, and the cordelle was lined out.

 
          
 
The misery Richard had endured to date paled
in comparison to this. Rain beat on his unprotected head, trickled down his
numb skin, and disappeared into his already soaked clothing. With each sodden
step, Richard's breath misted in the chill. As Toussaint passed, wet branches
slapped him. His boots slipped from under him and he fell into the churned mud.

 
          
 
"Why?" he asked. "Trudeau, why
work on a day like this?"

 
          
 
"We are going to the mouth of the Big
Horn. We will be lucky, enfant, to make it there before first snow. Each day,
she is ten miles, no?"

 
          
 
"This is madness."

 
          
 
"Work, pig. Your muscles will warm
you."

 
          
 
Work he did, through that interminable gray
day. Step after step, in the churned slop left by those ahead of him. His worn
boots squished and sucked, water gurgling around his swollen toes.

 
          
 
Only the cordelle and the backbreaking
exertion remained constant. Sometimes he looked up, as if in supplication, to
the leaden sky and the interwoven branches of newly budded ash and elm.

 
          
 
To his right, just spitting distance away, the
river coiled and flexed, water brown and scummy with bits of foam and flotsam.
Rain stippled the muddy surface, tracing patterns on the rippling muscles of current.
How broad it was, more than a rifle shot across. All that water, fighting them,
fighting him.

 
          
 
Lightning flashed, followed by the crash-boom
of angry thunder.

 
          
 
Richard tightened his grip on the thick rope,
leaning into it. His legs trembled: half from exertion, half from the shivers.
Work! Turn off your mind. Don't listen to the land.

 
          
 
Earth and river, each as much a presence as
the indefinable essence of God. How silly of Green to think that he could pull
a boat through a country like this. How silly of all of them.

 
          
 
"We're doomed,'' Richard mumbled as water
dripped from his brow and nose. "No one can do what we are
attempting."

 
          
 
"What do you say?" Trudeau asked.

 
          
 
"I say we're going to die up here. The
land, the river, maybe together they will kill us. Like swatting a fly,
Trudeau. And in the end, for all of your bullying, you'll be just as dead as I
am."

 
          
 
"Oui, if God wills."

 
          
 
"God?" Richard's wet clothing chafed
as he clung to the cordelle. "What does God care?"

 
          
 
"God is God, m'sieur."

 
          
 
"Care to engage in theological
epistemology?"

 
          
 
"Eh?"

 
          
 
"Nothing. I was just about to tell
you..." A crack opened several feet to Richard's left, the ground moving
outward, slanting toward the rushing water. Toussaint, in position ahead of
him, reeled, arms windmilling. The crack gaped blackly.

 
          
 
"Jump!" the cry came in French.
"Swim outwards! Away from . . ."

 
          
 
Richard lost the rest. He fell, pummeling the
air as the loosened earth pitched into the rain-torn river, and smacked
face-first into the crashing spray. The tons of falling dirt propelled a huge
wave into the current that rolled over the struggling engages.

 
          
 
Richard slashed and kicked in the muck,
surrounded by screaming men. The cordelle slithered past him like some tortured
reptile. Most of the engages had recovered from their shock and were striking
out, swimming downstream, cursing and bellowing.

 
          
 
Powered by panic, Richard battled his way
toward the shore, feet kicking off clods of mud that melted underfoot. The
current surged, sucking him along the clifflike bank. Mindless with terror,
screaming, he clawed futilefy at the sheer wall.

 
          
 
A strong arm clamped around him from behind,
jerking him back, away from the bank.

 
          
 
"Fool!" a voice roared in his ear.
"Stop fighting me! You'll only kill us both!"

 
          
 
Richard panted his terror, a catch in his
throat making a sobbing sound.

 
          
 
"Merdel Easy. Like a baby in Mama's arms,
nonl You be safe, you see."

 
          
 
"Help... help me!"

 
          
 
"I was taught to swim like the otter!
What you do, eh? Only a fool swims against the bank that way. The current, she
drags you down .. . that, or more bank falls on you."

 
          
 
Limp in defeat, Richard watched the shore
growing farther and farther away, bobbing in the strong grip of his savior.
Toussaint. That's whose voice it was.

 
          
 
Toussaint, who worked like a stubborn ox, said
little, and smiled rarely. Whose hard black eyes watched Richard as if he were
some sort of insect.

 
          
 
"You no swim?" Toussaint asked.

 
          
 
"N-Never learned."

 
          
 
"You learn now, eh? Kick with your feet.
Legs straight. It will help me."

 
          
 
"Kick?"

 
          
 
"Like mermaid, eh? Legs straight. That's
it. Good, mon ami. Oui, you do good, non! Do not bend knees. That was me you
just kicked."

 
          
 
"Where . . . where are we going?"

 
          
 
"To the Maria. I see her. Just there. A
little way, no further. Stay calm, Reeshaw, we are almost there."

 
          
 
Richard kicked, clinging to the brawny arm
that circled his neck. Raindrops continued to pelt his face and waves slapped
him. The taste of mud filled his mouth.

 
          
 
Then he was alongside the Maria, and hands
reached down to pluck him from the water.

 
          
 
"Of all things," Trudeau asked as he
bent down to give Toussaint a hand, "why did you save him?"

 
          
 
Toussaint came over the side, jerked from the
muddy water like an ungainly fish to flop wetly on the deck. "Practice,
Trudeau. Just in case I 'ave to save you next time, eh?"

 
          
 
Richard coughed and sat up, gasping for
breath. Beyond the gunwale, the river had taken on a silver sheen, roughened by
the slanting sheets of rain. He glanced at Toussaint. "Merci beaucoup. I
can't thank you enough."

 
          
 
Toussaint waved it away. The hard glint
returned to his eyes. "Such things, they are done on the river. Speak of
it no more." The engage stood and made his way forward to help the others
pull in the wet cordelle.