The High Missouri (35 page)

She would keep her mind on what mattered. This afternoon she had borrowed deer hide from her mother for new moccasins, and moose hide for winter moccasins. Tomorrow she, Red Sky, and their mother would get to work tanning skins fresh from the buffalo hunt for a lodge, a full-sized lodge to replace this summer tipi, one suitable for Monsieur Dylan and his two wives. At night she would strip the bark off willow rods, straighten them, and make them into a backrest for Monsieur Dylan, decorated nicely with snippets of blue and red strouding her mother had left over. With this wifeliness she would make a home.

She was aware, keenly aware, as she sat there poking her awl through the deer hide, that she was taking the big step toward making a home tonight. She had come into camp with her new husband, pitched their lodge next to her parents’, and ignored utterly the man who once called himself her husband. She did not even allow her eyes to see Ermine Head, though he stood in front of the lodge of Tail Feathers, glaring at her. Probably Ermine Head had lived with Tail Feathers, his brother-friend, the five moons she was gone. That did not concern her. Ermine Head would never concern her again. Before the eyes of all the people, she was making her choice.

Tonight she was sewing for her husband. In a few minutes, or an hour, they would lie down in the blankets together. She would make sure, on this night, that they made love. When they woke up with the new dawn, they would be a couple, a family, in the eyes of the people. Even Ermine Head.

Chapter Thirty-One

A scratch at the door flap. Cree sat up in the robes, alarmed. The light was only a hint at the smoke hole, and the lodge was dark. It was much too early for anyone to come calling. She looked at Dylan, hesitated, and then took matters into her own hands and spoke. “Who’s there?”

Her father’s voice called from outside, “Monsieur Dylan, there is trouble.”

She whispered to her husband, and told her father full voice that they would be out in a minute. Red Sky was sitting up too. Monsieur Dylan would need them, all three of them. He was a man of ideas too high, and any trouble might be bad trouble.

They were dressed in a flash, Cree quickly lit the fire, and Red Sky opened the door flap for their father. “Monsieur Dylan,” he said, “come outside.”

White Raven led them all behind the lodge, and in the half-light they saw. They always stored the trade goods staked down under the oiled cloth, for the lodge was too small. In the night someone had pulled the stakes, opened the
pièces
, scattered things about, and probably done some stealing.

“Ermine Head,” said White Raven and Cree at once.

Dylan said, “The whiskey.”

The two kegs were gone.

What the bloody hell. He looked into Cree’s eyes and then into her father’s. He didn’t need to be told. Cree’s ex-husband was getting drunk somewhere, and getting others drunk, and there would be trouble, and Shaking Plume would blame Dylan for it. After all, Dylan brought the whiskey into these people’s world.

He turned to White Raven. “Will they mix it with water?” The Piegans to the north would know to dilute the pure alcohol, but these warriors might not. If they didn’t, it would kill them.

White Raven nodded. “They will. It is probably Ermine Head and his friends.” From the tone, not young men White Raven respected.

“We must stop them,” said White Raven, his eyes meeting Dylan’s.

Dylan nodded.

In the lodge he strapped on his knives, stuck a pistol in his sash, and primed his rifle.

He looked at his wives before he went out. On Cree’s face was a look of sorrow. On Red Sky’s, exultation.

The young men were gambling at the hoop-and-pole game. No one was watching for trouble. They could hardly play. If they’d started out to provoke a fight, ready and alert, they were now just drunk. White Raven felt disgusted.

Hoop and pole was a game of coordination of hand and eye—you rolled a hoop the size of the palm of your hand, with a target in the center the size of a thumb joint, and tried to jab your pole through it, like a spear. They were far too drunk to bring off such a trick. They just thrust and missed and fell and rolled in their dirt and laughed. No one was sober enough to score and actually win a bet.

To quell his disgust, White Raven reminded himself that these were young men, mostly still in their teens, and as yet had no sense of responsibility to the people. Young men never did.

Ermine Head in fact was old enough to move up to the next men’s society, but he stayed back with his younger brother-friend, Tail Feathers. This was another sign of his immaturity. White Raven wondered why he had ever let his eldest daughter marry such a man, even if he himself had struck the match when they were still children.

He looked at his son-in-law’s face and wondered if this one was more grown-up than Ermine Head and his friends. He thought probably so. If not, Monsieur Dylan could use this confrontation to grow up a little. Life was full of opportunities.

Dylan saw that one keg was empty—broken open, in fact, stomped on or slammed down somehow. This would be simple. He walked right among the young men sprawled out on the ground, and stood the other keg on its end. It was mostly full.

He looked at them one by one. He wished he knew which one was Ermine Head—he felt stupid not knowing. And which one was Tail Feathers.

“Are the Piegans cowards?” said Dylan, doing his best version of a snarl. “And thieves?”

He felt like working himself into a righteous fury. “Are you children that you come sneaking in the night?” He stomped. He glared. He wanted to erupt with angry accusations, but the Blackfoot words came slowly, and that made him angry. “Are you Dog Faces that you steal from your neighbors?” Nothing would make a Piegan madder than calling him a Dog Face.

“You are not my neighbor.” The words were mild, lightly taunting. They came from a youth of striking, handsome dress, nearing twenty, probably, but boyish-looking. He was sitting up—now he stood up. The lad was smiling slightly, showing off in front of his comrades.

Dylan knew how to back him down. He handed White Raven his rifle. Holding the youth’s eyes, he raised the keg over his head. Then he turned and slammed it down on a rock. The staves cracked, and the white man’s water gushed out onto the ground.

At least no one could get drunk on it now.

Dylan saw too late that the whiskey splattered on the youth’s long, quilled breechcloth. Water ruined quillwork. He decided to brazen it out. “Do you want to complain now, like a girl, about your spoiled clothes?”

Another young man rose up beside the youth. Dylan raged on, “Do you want to fight? Or do you have to have your friend fight for you?”

The youth’s kick came with the right leg, but Dylan was ready, grabbed the foot and heaved upward.

The youth went down face first.

Dylan looked at the feathers in the kid’s hair. The tail feathers of a magpie, about half a dozen of them.

He stared into the face of the kid’s friend, and saw for the first time that his braids were wrapped in ermine skins. Ermine skins arranged so that the small heads stuck out conspicuously, the teeth like thorns.

He had found Ermine Head and his brother-friend Tail Feathers. He felt a pang. Ermine Head was a handsome man with chiseled features. Why were enemies always the sort of men women found attractive?

It was an open-handed slap, and Dylan was not ready for that. It nicked his cheek.

As it came back the other way, Dylan stepped inside it and rammed his knee upward.

Ermine Head turned his hip into the knee. The fellow knew how to tussle.

He made a fancy swirl for another slap.

His feet squirted out from under him on the whiskey-slick earth.

He landed on his back in the booze.

Dylan didn’t know what to do. He felt White Raven’s hand pull him back. He went.

Ermine Head got up, almost slipped again, and shook his fist at Dylan. He bellowed some Blackfoot words Dylan was too agitated to understand.

Well, Dylan told himself, you’ve teased the bear, and now it’s mad.

“My son,” said White Raven, “you may have to kill him.”

They were in the Frenchman’s lodge. White Raven and his daughters had been out and about the camp, listening. Ermine Head was bragging that he would kill the Frenchman. The Frenchman was full of lies. The Frenchman had insulted him. So Ermine Head had sworn a blood oath.

Nothing would be said, of course, about Dylan taking Ermine Head’s wife. It would be beneath a Piegan’s dignity to fight for a woman.

“He is painting himself now,” said White Raven.

White Raven wondered if Monsieur Dylan understood the gravity of Ermine Head’s oath. He was afraid of offending Monsieur Dylan. You didn’t tell a man what even a youth knew. Ermine Head could not back down. One of the two would probably be dead today. Perhaps Monsieur Dylan could beat Ermine Head within an inch of his life, but…

“He is painting himself,” White Raven repeated, hoping that the Frenchman understood what was unspoken.

Dylan looked at his father-in-law. He did understand the painting, and appreciated the mute effort to warn him. The clown was getting his personal medicine in order. He would have seen some animal spirits in a dream, and would consider them his advisors, perhaps his protectors. He would dress himself and paint his face and body as they had shown him in the dream. Then, his world in order, he would face any danger.

“He said he doesn’t need medicine to rid the people of a Frenchman.” But not to paint would be a defiance of the powers. So that was an empty brag. “He says he doesn’t need weapons to kill a Frenchman,” added White Raven.

“Can I rely on that?” asked Dylan.

“He will carry a knife, probably two,” White Raven said simply.

Dylan looked into Cree’s eyes and saw her fear. Him too. The thought of a blade made his flesh crawl.

“Is Weasel Head a good fighter?”

Dylan had decided for his own amusement to call Ermine Head, Weasel Head. By converting the winter pelt to the summer one, he made Weasel ugly instead of beautiful. And danger was ugly.

White Raven’s eyes registered the change of name, but he only shrugged. “He practices all the time with his friends, and has a great reputation among them. They are only boys. And he doesn’t have the medicine for this.”

Dylan just looked at the old man. In his experience, quickness and savvy and strength and steel won fights, not medicine.

“I will go with you,” said White Raven. He let that sit a minute.

Dylan supposed the old man was simply showing support. He nodded his gratitude at White Raven.

“I will watch for Tail Feathers,” said White Raven.

Dylan looked sharply at the old man. That particular treachery hadn’t occurred to him. Again he nodded his gratitude.

“I think you will have to kill Ermine Head,” White Raven said gently. Odd, that such information could be communicated gently. “He is a brutal man. His rages take him beyond fear.” Dylan wondered what brutality and rage Cree had felt from the ugly Weasel Head. Maybe he could just cut the man’s features so they looked brutal forever. “You might get away with beating him until he almost dies. Or crippling him. But then he would always be your enemy. Worse, his father and uncles and brothers and friends would be your enemies. Better to kill.”

Dylan wondered whether it was true, he would have to kill or be killed. There was nothing he wanted less than killing. You didn’t cement your relationship with a people with murder. By making the family carry a grudge against you. But that was just his excuse, he knew.

He looked at his hands. He couldn’t imagine killing anyone. He couldn’t imagine looking at his very hands, the hands that brought food to his lips, and touched Cree intimately, knowing that they had taken life. He was still a white man.

Uncertain, he said to everyone at large, White Raven and his wives, “I will prepare myself.”

He took off his pants, to leave his feet and legs freer and faster.

He thought a moment and got out the military coat. He had brought it as a present for an important man. In this case a farewell gift to Shaking Plume. Indians loved showy coats like this—midnight-blue, with gold and silver trim. Dylan thought he would wear it. He liked the martial look it gave him. Unbuttoned, it would move freely, not hindering his arms. The thick-woven material would provide some protection against the slashes of a blade. Yes, it was a good idea.

First he would add something. He got a string of hawk bells and tied them to his sash, outside the hips. He would not sneak. He’d ding-a-ling while he walked and while he fought. Not timid music but an honest pealing and chiming. He would make a joyful sound under the sun.

He saw White Raven’s puzzlement, and smiled at his friend. The bells were good.

When he was in the jacket, he asked Cree for use of a hand mirror he’d given her. She showed him his image. That was when he remembered Captain Chick in a similar scarlet jacket, also bare-breasted beneath, corrupt king of all he beheld.

Dylan also saw again the pink scars along his cheekbones, and they gave him an idea. He went to one of the
pièces
, found the right parfleche, and rummaged until he came up with the vermilion he’d brought to trade to Indian women. Using the mirror and a stick, he drew a thin line along the top of one scar, inspected himself, and drew another line on the bottom edge of the scar. He liked the effect. Not what he thought of when he first dreamed the slashes, or saw them painted on Fore’s face, but related to that. A blood relative, he thought with ironic satisfaction. He repeated it on the other side. He liked the stripes. A soldier’s stripes, in blood red.

He turned to White Raven and to his wives, and saw from their faces that he looked imposing. Then it occurred to him, for the first time, that like Weasel Head, he had painted his face as he saw it in a dream.

As Dylan finished painting his face, White Raven contemplated what his new son-in-law did not know, which could cost him his life. He pondered what he must tell Monsieur Dylan, and what he must hold back.

“I wish to speak with you a little, my son,” said White Raven. The old man hoped Monsieur Dylan noticed that he was being treated as a true son-in-law.

Cree and Red Sky moved to the back of the lodge, giving an impression of privacy for the men. Then Red Sky circled behind everyone and slipped out of the door flap. White Raven wondered where his daughter was going. Why she couldn’t stay with the family at a time like this? Why she couldn’t act like a woman? But he had another task to accomplish right now.

“Killing a man is a hard thing,” said White Raven.

He watched Monsieur Dylan’s face for a reaction. He hoped that his son-in-law was not one of those sick in spirit who killed easily, casually. He saw that he had guessed the young man’s feelings truly.

“Even an enemy has something of Napi in him.” Napi, the Blackfoot Creator. “A fellow Piegan… a hard thing.”

He waited again. “It feels wrong. It is wrong, always, when it is a personal act, an act of anger, an act of the unknown, even an act of self-defense.”

He held Dylan’s eyes. Probably Monsieur Dylan was wondering what this old man was trying to do to him.

“In this case the people of this village know it is right,” said White Raven, looking fixedly at Dylan. The young foreigner would not have noticed that the people were taking no action to stop the childishness. They let Ermine Head make a fool of himself. None of his relatives interfered. None of the village elders put an end to Ermine Head’s bragging and taunting. After long tolerance, they were letting Ermine Head suffer the consequences of his foul-spiritedness.