Gear, W Michael - Novel 05 (67 page)

 
          
 
Henri battled the steering oar while Maria
slipped closer to death on the jutting logs. If she hit, they'd tear through
her like teeth.

 
          
 
The engages bellowed and pulled, Trudeau
motioning them onward. Maria edged ahead.

 
          
 
"Come on," Travis prayed. "Hold
her, boys."

 
          
 
For long minutes they watched silently as the
misty rain picked up. The boat inched forward against the surging water.

 
          
 
Willow
pulled her blanket over her head, and Travis noted the strain in her face.
Richard had been dragged through the mud. He coughed, soaked and bedraggled, as
he leaned into the cordelle.

 
          
 
Maria edged away from destruction.

 
          
 
"Close one." Travis rubbed his face.
"Mighty close."

 
          
 
Maria pulled clear of the current. The weary
engages toiled toward the sandbar. At the lead, Lalemont staggered out onto the
land, feet pocking the muddy sand.

 
          
 
Henri steered wide of the shallows to keep
draft. Green was rocking from foot to foot, still tense with fear.

 
          
 
"What if the boat sank?"
Willow
glanced at Travis.

 
          
 
"We'd be in a mess. If'n we lose that
boat, she's a long walk ter Saint Loowee. Green would have lost everything he's
worked for. All them years . . . gone."

 
          
 
''You White men are hydro . . . hydro—"

 
          
 
"Hydrophobied."

 
          
 
"Crazy."

 
          
 
"Reckon so, gal. Ain't no worse than
some, I'd say."

 
          
 
"Some?"

 
          
 
"Folks. Guess we're all a little crazy.
Maybe yer Tarn Apo made us that way."

 
          
 
"Not in the beginning, Trawis. But after
the Creation, when Coyote was making trouble, that's when the world got
crazy."

 
          
 
The engages had all reached the thin spit of
sand. They lined out now, holding their places on the cordelle, catching their
breath.

 
          
 
Trudeau walked down the line to Richard, waving
his arms, shouting angrily. Richard stood stoop-shouldered, chest heaving as
water trickled down his face.

 
          
 
Travis couldn't hear the words over the
distance, but Trudeau balled a fist and drove it deep into Richard's gut. The
Yankee doubled under the impact and dropped flat onto the mud.

 
          
 
"Son of a bitch," Travis growled,
eyes narrowing. "The kid couldn't help falling."

 
          
 
Baptiste had left his place, running down to
pull Trudeau off. The other engages watched silently. Trudeau and Baptiste
stood toe-to-toe, and finally Trudeau shook his head with disgust and tramped
off to take up the cordelle again.

 
          
 
Baptiste had bent over Richard, then pulled
him to his feet.

 
          
 
"Levez!" came Trudeau's cry. And the
engages threw themselves into the endless pulling.

 
          
 
Richard stood bent over, head hanging as the
engages pulled past him, none daring to look him in the eye.

 
          
 
Willow
sat
in stony silence, a hardness in her delicate face.

 
          
 
"Wal, I'd reckon thar's more coming from
Trudeau."

 
          
 
"Ritshard should kill him,"
Willow
said woodenly.

 
          
 
Travis allowed himself to slump in the saddle
again. "Ye care fer that Yankee, don't ye?"

 
          
 
She glanced at Travis with smoldering eyes.
''Power. . . how do you say? The medicine is strong in Ritshard. He has a fire
in his soul, one that he does not know yet. Green has his boat. The engages
their work. Ritshard looks for more. I understand that quest."

 
          
 
"Quest?"

 
          
 
''The search, Trawis. One day, Ritshard will
find it, and when he does, he will be a great man."

 
          
 
Travis ground on his quid for a moment, spat
the juice, and crossed his arms. "Maybe. 'Course, we gotta keep him alive
long enough."

 
          
 
It may seem strange to some man, that has not
well weighed these things; that nature should thus dissociate, and render men
apt to invade, and destroy one another: and he may therefore, not trusting to
this inference, made from the passions, desire perhaps to have the same
confirmed by experience. Let him therefore consider with himself when taking a
journey, he arms himself, and seeks to go well accompanied; when going to
sleep, he locks his doors; when even in his house he locks his chests; and this
is when he knows there be laws, and public officers, armed, to revenge all
injuries shall be done him; what opinion has he of his fellow-subjects, when he
rides armed; of his fellow citizens, when he locks his doors; and of his
children, and servants, when he locks his chests. Does he not there as much as
accuse mankind by his actions, as I do by my words?

 
          
 
—Thomas Hobbes, Leinathan

 
          
 
Sheets of rain slanted down from the night sky
to spatter steam from the smoking remains of Richard's fire. He shivered in his
blanket, wet to the bone. Water dripped through the soaked tarp he'd tied
overhead.

 
          
 
His belly hurt where Trudeau had hit him. Dear
Lord God, how low could a man sink? To be abused by brutes, tormented and cold,
and somehow ashamed that he'd only been able to lie in the sand while Baptiste
rescued him.

 
          
 
Trudeau wants to kill me.

 
          
 
Numb from the cold, Richard fingered the soggy
fetish on his belt. Lightning flashed whitely in the sky, illuminating the
slanted blanket shelters, shiny-wet against the backdrop of the dripping
cottonwoods. Several seconds later, the bang of thunder hammered the air.

 
          
 
Richard closed his eyes. Why haven’t I run? I
could have been back to
Fort
Atkinson
by now. Or on my way to
Saint Louis
by pirogue or bateau.

 
          
 
But he hadn't taken any of the opportunities.
Instead, he'd promised himself it would be the next day, or the next, when he
made his break, stole a horse, and galloped south.

 
          
 
"I'm a coward," he whispered, and
wrung water from a twist of his blanket. Perhaps Laura did deserve Thomas
Hanson more than him.

 
          
 
Trudeau. Damn Trudeau! If only he could have
blocked that blow, given the boatman back measure for measure.

 
          
 
And degenerate into what? Another human beast
like Trudeau?

 
          
 
"Coon?" Like some hunched night
creature, Travis ducked out of the dark into the shelter. He grunted, pulling
off his hat and wringing it out. "I reckon they's frogs what will drown in
this."

 
          
 
"Go away."

 
          
 
"Ain't much of anywhere to go. Hell, even
the hosses won't get stole in weather like this. River'll be up another couple
of feet in the morning. Creeks is all flooded."

 
          
 
"Then maybe we'll be lucky and all
drown."

 
          
 
"Yer not sounding so pert, coon. This
beaver figgered ye'd be keen ter philos'phy me half ter death with yer Roossoo."

 
          
 
"He can drown, too—except he's already
dead."

 
          
 
"How's yer gut?"

 
          
 
"Sore."

 
          
 
"It warn't yer fault. Fellers slip in the
mud. Could'a been Trudeau as likely as ye."

 
          
 
"But it wasn't, Travis. Let's face it,
I'm not fit for this. It's not my place. I should be back in
Boston
, working on the docks if nothing else. I
had that chance once . . . Patrick Bonnisen was hiring." Damn you, Father.
Maybe I should have taken him up. You'd appreciate that, wouldn't you? A son
who worked as a dockhand?

 
          
 
Travis had seated himself cross-legged. A
flash of lightning illuminated his terrible face, the scars water-slick.
"I worked docks before. Men there is the same as Trudeau."

 
          
 
"How cheery. Something to look forward to
when I get back to
Boston
."

 
          
 
"Don't have to be that way."

 
          
 
"Indeed? Perhaps you know something about
my father that I don't? I'm a failure, Travis. All I wanted was to continue my
studies, stay at the university. I lost my father's money, was kidnapped to
this Hell, killed a boy . . . almost wrecked everything today. All I'll ever be
is a failure."

 
          
 
Travis's face twisted. "Ye ain't no
failure—lessen ye wants ter be."

 
          
 
"Oh?"

 
          
 
"Hell, coon, ye knows a sight more than
old Travis. All them fellers ye talk about. Roossoo, Haggle, Kant. And a passel
more I been hearing ye tell of."

 
          
 
"A great deal of good it does me
here."

 
          
 
"Yep, wal, yer not seeing things with a
skinned eye, coon. Willow's free of that rascal Packrat. I ain't wolfmeat
'cause ye sewed me up."

 
          
 
Richard pushed his wet hair back. "I
didn't have any choice."

 
          
 
"Reckon ye did. What of all that free
will yer so fond of spouting up?"

 
          
 
"Do I look free, Travis?"

 
          
 
"Yep."

 
          
 
Richard stared silently at the fire's steaming
ashes. Rain pattered in the darkness, accented by louder spats of water falling
from the trees. The smell of smoke carried from the half-drowned fires to
mingle with the wet scents of trees, grass, and ground.

 
          
 
"Dick, a feller's only as free as he
makes hisself. Ask Baptiste. Hell, ask me. I done been in a sight worse mess
than yer in. On a brig in the middle of the ocean, ye can only dance the jig
while the fiddler plays the tune."

 
          
 
"I'm not convinced."

 
          
 
"Lord God A'mighty, Dick, yer problem is
that ye've got to thinking ye've all this high and mighty truth tucked away
inside, but ye don't. I ain't read all them books. I don't know what them
fellers said, but I know about living, and freedom, and going whar my stick
floats. And that, coon, is why I'm a heap smarter than ye—and all yer book larning
to boot."

 
          
 
"Aristotle would be pleased to hear
that."

 
          
 
"I'll tell him next time I see his sorry
arse. But tell me this: If'n a philos'pher's got all this truth, it sure otta
stand up ter living, ottn't it? I don't know what's in them books, but I do
know this: If'n ye've got all the laming in the world, it's poor bull ter fat
cow if'n yer not willing ter be wrong. Ye might as well be a turtle as a
man."

 
          
 
Richard studied Travis's dark silhouette.
"What are you saying?"

 
          
 
"I'm saying yer right. Yer a failure. And
ye'll always be one unless yer a-willing ter look life straight in the eye. The
way I figgers it, ye've growed up thinking it's all easy. Even yer philos'phy.
Read a couple of books, and ye knows it all. No sweat and blood, no pain and
misery. Wal, coon, philos'pher or not, yer gonna be a failure lessen ye stands
up like a man. Maybe ye'11 get shot straight through the lights . . . and maybe
ye won't. But ye'11 know yerself. And die like a man instead of a boy."

 
          
 
Lightning arced in the sky, flashing weird
shadows over the sodden camp.

 
          
 
"Yer pretty damn silent fer once."

 
          
 
"I was just thinking of Socrates,"
Richard said uneasily.

 
          
 
"I knew a slave by that name once. On a
plantation in South Carolina."

 
          
 
"A slave ... no, Travis. This is the real
Socrates. A Greek philosopher who lived two thousand years ago."

 
          
 
"And he wrote one of these books?"

 
          
 
"No. But he taught the men who did. Any
student of philosophy has heard his immortal teaching: 'The unexamined life is
not worth living."'

 
          
 
"Did he get that out of a book?"

 
          
 
"No. As you would say, he stood up and
looked life straight in the eye. He was an orator, and a soldier. When Athens
went to war, he picked up his shield and sword and fought. When he encountered
a wise man, he questioned him, regardless of the consequences. In the end, it
cost him his life." Richard stroked the fetish. "You'd have liked
him."

           
 
"Real cat-scratch scrapper, huh?"

 
          
 
"Yes." Richard took a deep breath.
"So, what do I do?"

 
          
 
"Take life as she comes. Why, ye've an
opportunity most men'd kill fer. Yer on the river, Dick. Headed fer the Shining
Mountains. Stop trying ter see everything from outside, and see it from inside
fer once."

 
          
 
What was it about Travis Hartman? Where did
that fearless self-assurance come from?

 
          
 
The same place as Socrates the internal voice
told him. From having tested the truths in the crucible of life.

 
          
 
"I've been a fool, Travis." He
rubbed his stomach. "The lesson's a little painful, is all."

 
          
 
"Them's the best ones."

 
          
 
"I guess Trudeau was right to hit
me."

 
          
 
"Nope. Warn't yer fault. Reckon that
Frenchie's gonna be a thorn in everybody's butt lessen I take him down."