The High Missouri (15 page)

After Mad Jack gave the chiefs a little tobacco, he presented them with some rum. This was the real stuff, about fifty proof. As the trading went on and the Indians got drunker, Bleu had said, the liquor would get more and more diluted. Since their craving for rum was said to be prodigious, and this drink was powerful, Dylan was surprised to see the head chief dip his fingers into the cup and shake a few drops onto the ground and a few more into the sky.

On the way back to the fort Mad Jack muttered that these Piegans seemed in no hurry to get drunk, so the trading would be hard. It’s hell, he said merrily to Dylan, not to be able to take advantage of an ignorant bugger whenever you feel like it.

The trading was an education. Mad Jack let the Indians into the fort only a few at a time, the head men first. The interior of the fort was in separate rectangles—the lodgings of the fort officers, including Dylan, the lodgings of the blacksmith and other artisans, the smithy and carpentry shop, an area for horses, a common area, and the trading rooms, where goods were stored and traded.

After the Indians got into the room, there was more ceremony. The chiefs claimed they loved the Nor’Westers like brothers, even like their own children. They promised to stay away from the HBC men, who were not worthy to be called men anyway. They explained through Bleu that they had done as well as they could for their good friends, but not as well as they meant to do, and they would do better next time.

In overblown and absurd language Mad Jack returned their compliments, their love, and their good intentions.

The Piegans seldom had many beaver plews, or pelts, to trade, just a few they got from other Indians. Now, after the summer season, they had none. They brought a few wolf pelts, and the summer skins of ermine, otters, and other small animals. They did their best to trade things the white men didn’t much want—dried berries, herbs, roots, and the like. Then out came their dried buffalo tongues, which were prized moderately. Next to last came bags of pemmican sewn shut for preservation, quite a few of these. They were holding back, Jack said, and would bring more later, when they were more desperate for drink. And finally what they were most proud of, buffalo robes, skillfully and lovingly tanned, some even painted. It was the best hide you got in this miserable country, said Jack, but it was no cash crop compared to beaver. If it wasn’t for pemmican, the Nor’West men wouldn’t be in this country.

For these items the Indians wanted rum, tobacco, rum, hatchets, rum, knives and axes, rum, guns, rum, powder and lead, rum, blankets and cloth, rum, beads and vermilion and other trinkets, and rum. All the rum must be free. The Piegans called it white man’s water, and they refused to buy water, any kind of water.

You had to give them what they wanted, Mad Jack told Dylan as they worked. If the Indians had lots to trade, like children they let it go freely and you did smashingly well. If they were poor, you still had to let them have something, or they would trade with the Lords and Ladies, or even start shooting you in the back in the wilds. “Lords and Ladies” was Jack’s mocking appellation for what he also called the “DisHonourable Company.”

First the gift of rum. One rule Jack stuck to, though overfond of a tot himself, was that they had to leave the fort before they started drinking. Otherwise it was too dangerous. Dylan would see.

Dylan felt little sympathy for Jack when he complained about not being able to get all he wanted for his trade goods. One of Dylan’s jobs as clerk was to keep track of what was traded and at what price. Jack was trying to get ten times the cost, at least. He bragged that when these Indians came in last autumn, he traded a keg of rum for peltries worth twenty-five or thirty pounds. It had cost the company one.

Jack grinned big when he told this story, like being a real white man was knowing how to get the best of people.

Jack was earning, or gouging, a handsome profit for the company. Dylan was writing it down. Sometimes the figures started to squiggle, as at the bank. He’d come all the way to the Rocky Goddamn Mountains to juggle figures again.

Well, at least figures weren’t debauchery.

Out of the darkness of early evening, up from the mists along the river, in tempo with the ancient rhythms of the swirling water, through the incandescence of the last light of day, she undulated toward him, naked. Tendrils of mist brushed the rosy nipples of her breasts and slipped between her legs and around her arms, which were held up to him. Her hair gleamed, her eyes shone, and her body was luminous—it seemed in the early starlight to glow with welcoming.

A fantasy, of course, Bleu’s fantasy, the picture he kept drawing in an inimitable mix of English, French, and unknown languages this afternoon during a lull in trading.

A powerful fantasy. Powerful enough to bring Dylan down here to the village at nearly dark, a matter not entirely safe. He told himself he wanted to see for himself—see the drunkenness, the debauchery, the licentiousness. He told himself he wanted to know, bottom-know, gut-know, and understand. So he told himself. He admitted in his heart, also, that he could not resist the allure Bleu had spun in words, pictures of Indian girls “in their season,” as he put it, sexually feverish from rum, and preferring white men because of the baubles they got.

Dylan intended to act like a civilized man and a Christian in the wilderness. He had decided that did not mean he was not a man. He thought of Fore and acknowledged what he could not resist. This weakness he would simply admit and give in to without undue self-censure. He could not help it. He had no choice.

But he did mean to act like a civilized man. He had no intention of becoming like Mr. Stewart. Well, like the Stewart of Bleu’s stories, if they were to be believed.

Bleu immediately had recognized Stewart’s knives, now Dylan’s knives. They launched him into Monsieur Stewart stories. They were just stories, and not flattering to Stewart. Stories of stupidity and clumsiness, stories of obtuseness, scatological stories, stories of sin, most of all stories of a man whose imagination was haunted by the barbarism of the Indians.

These last stories worried Dylan.

“When Monsieur Stewart was
bourgeois
here,” said Bleu, “like Jack be now, and Jack clerk like Dylan, when Monsieur Stewart be
bourgeois
here,
oui
, his mind is
comme
on fire,
pris en feu
, with the violence. Crazy Frenchy, Monsieur Stewart. No, only Englishman be so
fou
, so… mad. At first he is, how you say, like virgin, among us but not one of us, not be touched by all such blood as peoples live with, like walk without touching ze ground.

“
Mais
, this one, he, how you say, fascinate, with ze blood, he especial want know about the scalping. I tell him what he asks, is simple tell. How cut, why cut, what mean. He fascinate. Delicious to him that some peoples take all scalp, not just topknot but all, down to…” Bleu pointed to his eyebrows, his ears, the nape of his neck.

“He ask me bring scalps, he put them on wall in bedroom, he trade for scalps wiz anyone who bring them. He say he want whole scalp”—again Bleu ran his finger from brow to ear to nape—“and he want whole head. I tell him scalp the part for the whole, peoples used take whole head, very medicine, now take topknot, is more easy. He offer me twenty dollar whole head. I…” Bleu made a motion of brushing something away. Maybe a shudder was beneath the gesture. “Very medicine,” repeated Bleu.

“One day Monsieur Stewart drunk. He get habit go village at night, frig women, no? Is good, frig,
mais
Monsieur he make it bad. Feel bad medicine in himself, bad to do, act bad, and he no like ze women after such.

“This day village from far south, other fork Saskatchewan River, it come in. Assiniboines, never be here before. Monsieur he not know these Indians, he go anyway at night, frig. Women he get,
tres belle
, no remember name, this man Hawk Cries want her bad. Bleu remembers his name, Hawk Cries, Monsieur Stewart never forget it.

“This woman
belle
, no? Though a man who is,
vraiment
, a man knows they are all alike, yes?” Bleu shot a lecherous grin at Dylan.

“Hawk Cries, he hide bushes, attack Monsieur Stewart after frig. Indun drunk, maybe mean to kill, maybe not, who know? Monsieur Stewart he have big anger spirit, he big with savage, throw knife.” Bleu mimed the motion. Dylan was uncomfortably conscious of the pair of knives strapped onto his back.

Bleu thumped his chest in a stabbing motion, lurched, and gagged his apparent last breath. Gave Dylan a serious look.

“Monsieur all…” Bleu circled his hands in a frenzy, “agitate. Never kill man before. At first leave knife in chest, come back to fort, drink. Later go back, body still near bushes, maybe no one notice. Maybe take knife and no one know who kill. He take knife. Then use hatchet and knife, cut off head.” Bleu drew a line across his neck.

“Now mad. Under
charme
, spell, in sway of own medicine. Take head, come back fort, get ladder. With guards watching, stick head onto picket by gate so all see. All peoples see, know who kill Hawk Cries, and who proud kill. Bleu when he sees, he take head down.

“Next day Assiniboines big council, much talk kill Monsieur Stewart. Some say he drunk, rum kill, not Monsieur. Some say he not drunk until after, come back for head. Woman say he not drunk, he big in the cod. Altogezer, maybe Assiniboines kill him, maybe kill all Frenchmen, burn fort.

“Bleu, I say, Monsieur is stupid, know nothing, probably drunk. I not think drunk but say to Indun drunk. Let him pay, says Bleu. So Monsieur pay. Good Northwest gun, tobacco, six horses. Dream of Monsieur
cher, tres
expensive.

“After zat Monsieur look at knife like big medicine, bad medicine, very good, very dangerous, he not know. Look at himself very bad. Man have bad-medicine dream, not make good medicine, mind gets sick, he act sick, that’s all. Stupid. Monsieur Stewart, life taste bad to him now. Stupid.”

Out of the darkness of early evening, up from the mists along the river, in tempo with the ancient rhythms of the swirling water, through the incandescence of the last light of day, she undulated toward him, naked, tendrils of mist brushing the rosy nipples of her breasts, and slipping between her legs, and around her arms, which were held up to him. Her hair gleamed, her eyes shone, and her body was luminous, seemed in the early starlight to glow with welcoming.

The fantasy had Dylan in its thrall. He could find nothing like that. He wandered aimlessly through the village, searching to fulfill his dream. What he saw was drunk Indians, men and women. Many were lying on the ground, passed out. Dylan wondered why they drank more than was fun, drank until they got stuporous and sick. Your cod wouldn’t even rise when you were that drunk.

In two different places men and women were sitting, kneeling, and standing around a robe playing a gambling game. He watched a few minutes. A fellow with a carved piece of wood or bone would hide it in one fist or the other and shuffle it invisibly back and forth. The drum would start thumping, and the man would begin to dance, twisting, contorting, wrenching his body, and all the while passing the bone back and forth, or pretending to. The drum would rise to a huge, throbbing crescendo, and stop. The dancer froze.

Bettors put valuables on their choice, right hand or left. The men risked knives, animal paws, pouches, even blankets. The women risked beads, moccasins, awls, hatchets, bells. Dylan wondered if anyone would get drunk enough tonight to risk a gun. He was sure someone would.

The bets were placed quickly, the tension feverish and rising. Still frozen, the dancer then opened a full hand, or an empty one and then the full one, and the crowd would cheer or moan. The game began again.

At the second game Dylan saw a young woman, really just a girl, take off the cotton blouse she wore and risk it. The Indians wore little cotton, for it was expensive. Bare-breasted, she knelt and bounced on her heels until the first hand opened. Dylan knew which hand she had bet on from her downcast face. She sat crestfallen for a few moments, stood, slipped out of her deerskin skirt, sat naked, and folded it in front of her. A man put a blanket next to it and looked at her with veiled eyes. She nodded.

As the drum rose and rose, the girl seemed almost to dance on her knees, her eyes enthralled with the dancer. The music stopped. The dancer opened one hand dramatically. The man and girl looked at each other. He took the dress and blanket. He spoke something to her. They went off into the darkness together hurriedly.

Dylan watched the game, inflamed. He must find a woman. In ten minutes the girl and man came back, she wearing the blanket, naked beneath. They sat far apart from each other, eyes indifferent to all but the game. He bet the skirt on the next round. She took off the blanket, folded it, and bet it.

He found a woman, but not his fantasy. She was a woman in her thirties, perhaps forty, worn and thick-bodied but at least not fat. As she first walked drunkenly toward him, she pointed to her crotch. When she got close, she brushed her hand on his cod. He held up a string of small bells. She grinned and took them.

In the darkness, on the ground, she put the bells near her shoulder. As they frigged with all their clothes on, they shifted until she bumped the bells on every thrust and they jingled forlornly.

The next morning Mad Jack introduced him to another of his white-man tools, the set of surveying instruments. Dylan immediately felt they might cleanse him. Thermometers, bulbs full of quicksilver, a sextant, a measuring wheel, a compass, and it got more wonderful yet—an artificial horizon, parallel glasses, a pocket watch, and best of all, the yearly
Nautical Almanac
and its accompanying handbook,
Requisite Tables
. All these were what the Indian world lacked.

They spent all that day and the next on techniques of surveying, which as a white-man leader Dylan needed. They took double meridian altitudes of the sun, which gave latitude, which was easier to get than longitude. But Dylan was keen, and learned quickly to calculate longitude by the method based on lunar distances. Jack showed him how the instruments could get into rough shape and throw the calculations off. Extreme cold affected them, he said, and liquids might make the bulbs and tubes burst. Dylan liked it all. He even liked the words—degrees, minutes, seconds, calibration, calculation, angle, azimuth, zenith. They made a clean world.