Heaven and Hell (15 page)

Her

back was toward him; he couldn't see her face, and the startled emotion evident there. She thought unhappily of Cooper's letter about Desmond LaMotte. How many would turn against her?

86 HEAVEN AND HELL

Saturday. Sawmill shed finished, on the bank of the river, so that lumber may be shipped by steam packet if service ever resumes.

With considerable pride, I watched our two mules drag the first cypress log to the site. With Lincoln at ground level and Fred below in the pit, the log was split with the long two-handed saw.

The method is antiquated, backbreaking, but until we have steam power there is no other way. It is a beginning.

Prudence wants to attend church tomorrow. Will take

her. . . .

To the Church of St. Joseph of Arimathea this morning. I
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wish we had not. . . .

Parking the wagon and tethering the horses, Madeline saw two men from the congregation throw away their cigars and dart inside the small tabby church where Episcopalian families from the district had worshiped for generations.

Both Madeline and Prudence wore their best bonnets. They approached the double doors. Music from the church's tiny pump organ squealed to silence as the avuncular priest, Father Lovewell, stepped into the entrance. Beyond him, in sunlit pews, members of the congregation turned to stare at the women. Madeline saw many people she knew. They didn't look friendly.

"Mrs. Main--" The priest's pink cheeks shone with sweat that steamed his spectacles. He pitched his voice low. "This is most regrettable.

I am asked to remind you that, ah, colored are not permitted to worship here."

"Colored?" she repeated, as if he'd hit her.

"That's right. We have no separate balcony to accommodate you, and I can no longer allow you into the family pew." She saw it, second from the front on the left, empty. Her self-control disintegrated.

"Are you in earnest, Father?"

"Yes, I am. I wish it could be otherwise, but--"

"Then you're a vicious man, with no right to claim that you practice Christianity."

He put his face close to hers, wheezing. "I have Christian compassion for my own race. I have none for a mongrelized race that promotes unrest, plots arson, advocates hatred, and worships the devilish doctrines of black Republicanism."

Prudence looked baffled and angry. Madeline managed a radiant smile. "God smite you where you stand, Father. Before I creep off to hide like some--some leper, I'll see you in hell."

"Hell?" The smug, sweating face drew back. Soft white hands gripped the doors. "I doubt that."

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"Oh, yes. You just reserved your place."

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The congregation broke into angry conversation. The doors slammed.

"Come along," Madeline said, kicking her skirt out of the way as she whirled and marched to the wagon. Prudence hurried after her, confused.

"What

did all that mean? Why did he call you a colored woman?"

Madeline sighed. "I should have told you when you arrived. I'll tell you as we drive home. If you wish, you can leave. As to what else Father Lovewell meant, I'm afraid it was a declaration of war. On Mont Royal, on the school, and on me."

. . . Prudence knows all. She will stay. I pray God she will not regret the choice, or come to any harm because of it.

8

Ml

Charles opened his eyes, braced his hands, pushed upward. An invisible sledge slammed his forehead and dropped him. "Godamighty."

He tried again. This time, despite the pain, he succeeded.

He stared across a small fire built in a shallow hole in the ground.

Beyond the fire, a bearded man weather-burned to a dark brown bent a flexible stick back and forth, trying to break it. The man wore a coat so heavily beaded he might have come from a traveling medicine show.

Near him a brindle dog lay gnawing a bone. Behind the man, cross legged, sat a youth with slanted eyes and a malformed head.

Charles smelled something vile. "What in hell's that stink?"

"Bunch of herbs mashed in a paste of buffla brains," the man said. "I rubbed it on where they banged you the worst."

Charles began to perceive his surroundings. He was inside a tipi of hides stretched over a dozen eighteen-foot poles to form a cone, with a smoke hole at the top. He heard rain falling.

"That's right, this yere's our tipi," the bearded man said. "In the tongue of the Dakota Sioux, tipi means place-where-a-man-lives." He broke the stick and handed half across the fire. "Jerky. Do you good."

Charles bit off a chew of the smoked buffalo meat. "Thanks. I've
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had it before."

"Oh," said the man, pleased. "This ain't your first time in the West, then."

"Before the war, I served with Bob Lee's Second Cavalry in Texas."

The stranger's grin revealed stained teeth. "Better 'n' better."

Charles changed position; the sledge struck again. "Listen, I wouldn't move too quick. You got more purple on you than a side of bad beef 88

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While you was knocked out, I scouted around some. That little rooster who beat you up, he charged you with takin' the Grand Bounce."

"Deserting?"

"Yep. You better not go back on the post."

Charles sat up, fighting dizziness. "I have things there." The stranger pointed. Behind him, Charles discovered his carpetbag.

"I went in and picked it up. Nobody said boo 'cept for the boy on sentry duty. For a dollar, he looked the other way. What's your name?"

"Charles Main."

The man shot a hand over the fire. "Pleased to know you. I'm Adolphus O. Jackson. Wooden Foot to friends."

He lifted the leg of his hide pants and whacked his right boot, producing a hard sound. "Solid oak. Necessitated by a meet-up with some Utes when I was fourteen. My pa was alive then. We trapped beaver in the east foothills of the Rocky Mountains. One day, I was out alone and I got my foot in another man's trap by accident. Then the three Utes chanced by, in a bad mood. It was either get kilt or get outa that trap. I took my knife and got out. Well, part way. Then I fainted.

Lucky for me, Pa come along. He drove off the Utes and got me out ind took my foot off. He saved me from bleedin' to death." It was all said as if he were discussing the jerky he was chewing.

Charles waited till the dizziness passed. "I'm grateful to you, Mr.

fackson. I was in the cavalry till that little son of a bitch spotted me."

"Yes, sir, he's still fightin' you Southron boys, that's plain."

"I appreciate your taking me in and patching me up. I'll move ilong and find some other--"

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"Stay right there," Jackson interrupted. "You ain't in no shape."

ie picked his teeth. " 'Sides, I didn't pull you out of the mud just

>ecause the fight was one-sided, with you on the wrong side. I got a iroposition."

"What kind?"

"Business." Jackson discovered a speck of jerky in the tangle of vhite and brown hairs in his big fan beard. He flicked it away and said,

'This yere group's the Jackson Trading Company. You met me aleady.

This fine lad behind me is my nephew, Herschel. I call him Boy.

t's easier. When his pa died of the influenzy back in Louisville, he idn't have no one else to look after him. He tries hard, but he needs arin' for."

Wooden Foot regarded the youngster with affection and sadness.

hat one glance made Charles like the man. Jackson made him think of

>rry; he, too, had taken in a relative, and given him love and purpose

> replace bitterness and hell-raising.

"And this here--" Jackson indicated the dog chewing the bone--

I

90 HEAVEN AND HELL

"his name's Fenimore Cooper. Fen for short. Don't look like much.

Border collies never do. But you'd be surprised how much weight on a travois he can pull."

Jackson finished the jerky. "Y'see, we go on reg'lar trips out among the Tsis-tsis-tas." He stressed the second syllable.

"What the devil's that?"

"All depends on who you ask. Some say it means our people, or the people, or the folks that belong here, to give it a loose translation.

The Sioux translation's Sha-hi-e-la, which means red talk. Foreign talk.

Other words, people the Sioux can't understand." Jackson watched his guest with a cheerfully superior smile. When he'd had enough fun, he said, "We trade with the Southern Cheyennes. You say their name this way, everybody understands." He executed a series of fast, smooth gestures, fist rotating, fingers jutting out or bending.

"I know that's sign language," Charles said. "Comanches in Texas used it."

"Yes, sir, the universal tongue of the tribes. What I just said was:
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We trade with Cheyennes in the Indian Territory. We take trade goods; we bring back Indian horses. It's a good livin', though not as rich as it could be. I won't deal in guns, or fermented spirits."

By then, Charles had a general fix on the nature of the proposition.

"A good living, maybe, but pretty dangerous."

"Only now and then. They's two, three hundred thousand red men out this way, but way less than a third of 'em's ornery, and those not always. You can get along all right if they know you ain't scairt."

He plucked the turkey feather from his hair and ran his index finger into the broad V cut in the vane. "They can read a coup feather notched this partic'lar way. It says I met a bad Indian once and took his scalp, so he wouldn't have no afterlife, and then I cut his throat."

"The feather says that?"

Jackson nodded.

"Did you do it?"

Jackson's mild eyes stayed on his. "Twice."

Charles shivered. Boy laid a soft hand on his uncle's shoulder, his face showing pride. Fen lazily licked his forepaws. The rain pattered on the tipi. "You mentioned a proposition."

"I need a partner to watch my back. I can teach him the country, and all that goes with it, but I got to trust him, and he's got to shoot straight. The first time."

"I'm a fair shot. I practiced a few years with General Wade Hampton's scouts."

Wooden Foot responded with an enthusiastic nod. "Southron cavalry.

That's a tip-top recommendation."

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"Are you adding a man or replacing one?"

Again the trader squished his tongue around his teteth. "No sense lyin' if we're to ride together, I guess. I lost one last trip My partner, Dean. He laid hands on a woman. Her husband and some of njs Re(j Shield friends carved Dean up for stew meat."

The jerky seemed to perform a leap in Charles's bej]y "What's a Red Shield?"

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"Cheyenne soldier society. They's several of 'em. The Shields the Bow Strings, the Dog Men--Dog Soldiers, they's sor-jietimes called.

'Bout half the braves in the tribe belong to that one. Whe^i a young man gets to be fifteen or sixteen winters, he joins a society ^ an(j jt's ;ust about the most important thing in his whole life. All the societies started a long time ago. The way the legends tell it, a young Cheyenne brave named Sweet Medicine wandered way up north to the Sac-red Mountain, which may be in the Black Hills--nobody's real sure. TV,ey say Sweet Medicine met the Great Spirit on the mountain and they powwowed a while. The Spirit told Sweet Medicine to go back and set Up the societies to protect the tribe. Then the Spirit gave him all the Society names, the special songs for each one, how each one oughta dreSs the entire shebang. The societies are still run the way Sweet Medjcjne io\^ me people to run 'em. They rule the roost, and you better not forget it

Even the forty-four chiefs in the tribal council don't fart in the wind

'thout the society men sayin' all right, go ahead."

"What exactly do these society men do besides boss the tribe?"

"Biggest job's to police the camp when it's time for a buffla hunt.

They keep the young fellas in line, so nobody jumps suddenlike and scares off a prime herd."

"And I'd be replacing a man who got butchered by tl\ese people?"

"Yes, sir, Mr. Main. I wouldn't pretend they's no n^ They's rewards, though. The sight of some of the cleanest, sweetest country God ever made--and some of the fairest maidens. I get along fjne wjtn most of the Cheyennes.

They like old Wooden Foot."

With a gurgle and a coo, Boy knelt beside his uncle un£j patted his beard. Jackson took Boy's hand between his and held it. The youth was calm and happy.

"Here's the cut of the cards," the trader said. "First year, I give you twenty percent of whatever we get for the horses wo bring back. You prove out, I raise you ten percent a year till you're jn for a fuu

half-share. Till that time, I own all the goods and stand uu the risks.

Oh--" he grinned--"I mean excludin' the risks to your liajr ancj your h'fe. What do you say?"

Charles sat quietly, unable to say anything just yel, xne trader 3posed a change both large and profound. The presence of goy made

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him think of his son. If he joined Jackson, he wouldn't see little Gus for months at a time. He didn't like that. But he needed work; he needed an income. And before the war, serving in Texas, he'd vowed that he would return and settle there. He'd loved the beauty of the West.

"Well, Mr. Main?"

"I'd like to sleep on it." He smiled. "I don't honestly know if I could get used to calling a man Wooden Foot."

"I don't give a damn about that if you shoot straight."

Shortly after, Charles rolled up in a warm buffalo robe by the dying fire. He squirmed until he found the position in which his bruises hurt him least, and fell asleep.

Instead of enormous prairie vistas or fierce Indians, he dreamed of Augusta Barclay. In the gray and featureless landscapes of sleep he had his hands on her warm bare body. Then other women slipped in, taking her place. He woke to stiffness, and guilt, then the burned-out feeling of homelessness, made all the more painful because of his aborted Army career.

He still had doubts about Jackson's offer. It was better than some dull, monotonous job, but it was also plainly dangerous.