The Road to Amber (22 page)

Jamie shook his head.

“Shame,” said Le Bon. “He was a hell of a hunter. Still, I suppose this is the way he’d want to go—while he was about his business, out on the trail… Buried in one of the places he’d hunted.”

Jamie looked away. Le Bon grew still. After a while Le Bon rose and made his way to a fire the men had left where a tin of water was still warm.

“Want a cup of tea?” he called.

“No, thanks.”

He made himself a cup and returned with it. Later, he smoked his pipe, drank more tea. The day wore on. Hugh muttered occasionally, grew still again. Le Bon shook his head and looked into the distance.

As shadows slid eastward Le Bon cocked his head.

“Do you hear hoofbeats?” he asked.

“No,” Jamie answered.

Le Bon lowered himself to the ground, placed an ear against it. For a long time, he was still.

“Hear anything?” Jamie said.

“No. I was mistaken.”

He rose again.

“Little worried about the Ree,” he said. “Had me hearing things.” He laughed and seized a handful of his hair and tugged it about. “Hate to part company with this stuff, is all.”

Later, as they made their dinner of the supplies the major had left them, Le Bon relived his part in the recent campaign. Jamie nodded periodically, watching Hugh. Later still, as the night came on, he covered Hugh with a blanket.

“Amazing strong,” Le Bon repeated. “Sad, to have your strength working against you. When there’s no hope.”

Jamie’s dreams were a jumble, of Hugh and the bear and the Indians, of Major Henry and the men, riding, riding, into the distance. He woke unrested in the morning, letting Le Bon sleep as he broke his fast on crackers and tea. Hugh’s condition seemed unchanged. Still he struggled—perhaps, as Le Bon had said, against his own strength—moving occasionally, but never speaking, face drawn, gray, fingers at times still ascrabble. How long did it take a man to die?

Later, Le Bon shook his head.

“Looks a lot worse,” he said. “Today or tonight will do for him.”

“You’re probably right,” Jamie responded.

“I hope so,” Le Bon said. “Not just for our sake—though Lord knows I’ve seen what those Ree can do to a man—but for him, struggling on that way to no account. It’s indecent what dying does to a man, by way of suffering. How old are you, anyhow, Jamie?”

“Sixteen,” Jamie said. “Pretty near.”

“So you’ve got your whole life to go yet, lessen it’s cut short. Just hope your end doesn’t drag out like poor Hugh’s.”

“Yes,” Jamie said, and sipped his tea gone cold.

By afternoon’s light, Hugh looked as if he were made of wax, face half-melted. There were times when Jamie thought it was over for him. But always there came a small twitch, a low noise, a bit of bubbling breath. Le Bon raised ladders of smoke, puffing, and watched. Birds passed, to and from the river, uttering shrill notes and bits of softer music. The sky clouded over and there came a rumbling from within it, but no rain fell. A wind rose up and the day grew cooler.

“Wonder how far along the major and the men have gotten?” Le Bon said.

“Hard to say.”

“They must feel a lot safer to be on the trail now, heading away from the Ree.”

“I suppose.”

“We couldn’t even hear their hoofbeats for all that thunder, if they were coming up on us now.”

Jamie shivered against the cold.

“Guess so.”

Le Bon rose and stretched and went off to relieve himself in the bushes. Hugh did not move.

They raised a lean-to of branches for themselves and Hugh, hung a sheet of canvas over it. The rainfall that night was tight, drumming. The sound became war drums in Jamie’s steep, and hoofbeats of mounted parties…

The morning came gray and damp, and still Hugh lingered.

“I dreamed a party of them passed us in the night,” Le Bon observed.

“Maybe they did.”

“Then we’re lucky.”

“So far. My! He looks poorly.”

“Same as yesterday, I’d judge.”

“Still breathing, though. Who’d’ve thought any man could hold on so long?”

“Hugh ain’t like other folks,” Jamie said. “He always knew what to do. He was always strong enough to do it.”

Le Bon shook his head.

“I believe you,” he told him. “It ain’t natutal to keep living when you’ve been tore up the way he has. I’ve seen a lot of folks a-dying, but none of ‘em to hold on like this. You know it’s got to be soon, don’t you?”

“Seems so.”

“Be a shame, the two of us to die for someone who could go any minute.”

Jamie went to the spring to rinse the kerchief to wash Hugh’s face again.

As they rolled into their blankets that evening, Le Bon said, “This’ll be it, boy. I know it. I’m sorry, ‘cause I know you’re all the family each other’s got. Say some prayers, ifyou know any. I’ll do the same, before I sleep.”

And the sun shone upon him in the morning. And Jamie’s first thoughts were of Hugh. Turning, rising, he stared. Had it happened during the night? No. The pallor remained, but now a small fluttering breath had begun, unlike the man’s earlier gasps and long silent spells. His chest moved slightly, with a more rapid, shallow breathing.

“I’ve seen men like this before,” he heard Le Bon say. “Soon it will be over, lad. Likely with God’s blessing.”

Jamie wept silently. It was wrong to want it to happen, he knew.

“I just want him to stop hurting,” he finally said.

“And soon he will, Jamie. Soon he will.” Le Bon sounded sad. “There’s few as could fight it the way he did. But soon his trials will be over. You can see it.”

Jamie nodded, rubbing his cheeks dry against his shoulders.

After breakfast, Le Bon stared for perhaps an hour at the man who lay before him. Finally, he spoke:

“I’ve been thinking,” he said, “about the Ree again. You know I’m scared. I know you are, too. Now, meaning no disrespect, and knowing Hugh’ll be gone soon, it takes a time to bury a man—especially when we’ve only our knives to dig with. All that extra time we’ll be running risk they’ll find us, when we could be riding away.”

“That’s true.”

“Being practical now—and like I said, with no disrespect—I thought we might dig it now and have it ready. We’re just sitting here, anyhow, and whether it gets dug before or after won’t mean a thing to him. It’s the spirit that counts, that his friends mean to do right by him. It can’t hurt him none to make it ready. But it could make a difference for our safety—afterwards.”

“Yes,” Jamie said. “I guess he’d understand that.”

So, drawing his knife, Le Bon rose and moved about to Hugh’s far side. He traced long lines in the earth with its point, measuring the man’s great length and width with his eye as he did so. Then he plunged the blade into the ground and outlined the first piece of sod to be removed.

“‘Dust to dust,”’ he said, “like the Good Book tells us. We’ll do fair by him, Jamie. Proper size and deep enough to protect him from weather and the critters. We’ll do it right. I know how much you care about him.”

After a time, Jamie rose and moved to the plot’s farther end. He hesitated a moment, and then began to cut.

* * *

They dug all that day, using their hands where it was soft, their blades where the earth resisted intrusion. They removed stones, roots, and a goodly amount ofsoil. They excavated to a considerable depth, then cleaned their blades in the grass and washed themselves at the spring, before they returned to Hugh’s side.

Still that fluttering breath continued.

They ate their meal, and the day’s last light touched Hugh’s face with color. They watched him till the stars came out, then muttered good-nights and found their blankets.

In all their dreams, Hugh was a part of the earth.

* * *

…Hugh dreamt he lay broken beside his grave, his friends riding away into the west. He had heard them speak of going, been powerless to respond. Now he heard only hoofbeats as they went away from him. Felt them within the earth, heard a momentary exchange of their distant voices.

Vaguely, aware of light, he listened to the sounds. The words died away. A tired moon hung above him. He stared at it through a haze. Dawn had leaked a slight light upon strands of mist. There was no wind to stir it. The hoofbeats seemed to grow louder again. He remembered the taste of blood, the breath of the bear. And crawling…

He was awake atop his bluff, and the sounds of hoofbeats were real. He turned and peered downward. Passing through the fog, three Indian horsemen rode on the trail of the buffalo. Almost, Hugh called out to them, for they could well be Sioux, with whom he was on good terms. Yet, they could also be Ree, and he had not come all this way to deliver himself into the hands of his enemies. He lay still and watched them ride by to vanish westward into the mist.

They could well be the outriders for an entire tribe on the trail of the buffalo. He would wait a time and see what followed. With a larger group, slower in passing, he should be able to tell whether they were friend or foe. And then—If they were Sioux, he would be fed, cared for, his wounds tended. He would tell them tales at their fires, paying them in the coin of stories from his wanderings. Then he would walk again, be about his hunt.

He waited as the fog turned to gold, listening, watching. The sun drifted slowly out of the east, over the course of perhaps an hour. Abruptly, a flock of dark birds rose downstream, cawing and flapping, to move westward, settling in a stand of cottonwoods. Then he heard the barking of dogs and the neighing of horses. A little later a band of mounted warriors came into sight out of the brush, to pass the base of his bluff upon that westward trail.

He watched, suddenly aware of his heartbeat. Mounted on a piebald stallion, the lead warrior was an older man, face hard and craggy, hair streaked with white; and Hugh recognized him. It was Elk Tongue, the war chief of the Ree, and more and more of his people came into view behind him, rounding the bluff, continuing into the west.

As Hugh watched he saw old men and women, children, the ill as well as the hale, in the procession. This looked to be more than a hunt, for it might be forty lodges that followed behind Elk Tongue, and they bore all their possessions, not just those of the hunt. The Sioux must finally have succeeded in dislodging them from their eastern encampment. They were in retreat now, ponies dragging travois bearing furs, pots, drums, baskets of food, a few metal implements, small children riding atop the heaped household goods; the forms of those too ill to walk or ride were strapped onto other carriers. Nursing squaws passed by, babies at their backs. All of them looked haggard. Hugh could almost smell their burning cornfields. They would follow the herd, to feed, then continue to the home of their Pawnee relatives on the Platte.

Hugh snorted. “Ree” was short for “Arikara.” They had attacked peaceful traders several times, which led to the Leavenworth campaign, in which the Sioux had allied themselves with the whites, for they, too, had known unreasoned violence at the hands of these people. The Rees’ cousins the Pawnees were more tolerant, less prone to battle and ambush without good reason. Having been a Pawnee, Hugh spoke their language fluently, the Rees’ dialect as well, though he was certain that the Rees would not recognize his blood-tie with their kin.

Not that the Pawnees were exactly easygoing…

As the tribe passed he let his thoughts drift back over the years. Where did it all begin? Beyond the Pennsylvania valley of his birth, what had brought him to this point? Chance, he supposed. Chance, and human meanness—the meanness of a white man, a Frenchman, as cussed as any he had met on the plains, white or Indian. No race, nation, or tribe had a monopoly on cussedness; it just seemed a part of being human. He remembered the sea.

After that war in 1812 he’d gone to sea, working on traders in the Caribbean. Never had any real desire to see the mountains or roam the plains. He’d known tropic ports, drunk his share of rum, survived fierce storms and damaged vessels. He had enjoyed the sea and its smells and moods, liked the bright birds and flowers and girls of his ports of call, liked the taste of their rich foods, their wines. He would likely be there still, save for the doings of one afternoon on the Gulf.

When the sleek vessel carrying a lot of sail had first been sighted, no one had been particularly alarmed until she struck her true colors and fired a warning shot.

The captain tried to run, but this was a mistake. The pirate vessel overtook them readily. He tried fighting back then, but this, too, was a mistake. He was outmaneuvered, outgunned, outmanned. Actually, there was nothing he could have done that would have been right, Hugh reflected. Simple surrender at that first warning shot would also have been a mistake. Hugh was to learn all of this later, firsthand, though it was mainly confirmation of rumors he had been hearing for years. The captain could not have saved them from Jean Lafitte, who was not of a humor to leave any witnesses to his business that day.

Hugh saw the captain and the other officers cut down. The seamen were treated the same way. This decided him against any attempt to surrender, and he determined to sell his life as dearly as possible. Standing back to back then with seaman Tom Dickens, cutlass in one hand, belaying pin in the other, he killed everyone who came at him, gutting them, clubbing them, hacking at limbs and faces. The deck grew slippery with gore about him, and he bled himself from a collection of wounds. After a time, the attacks slowed; it seemed that the pirate crewmen were holding back, loath to rush in and close with him. Finally, he became aware of a tall individual who stood watching the slaughter. Eventually, the man spoke:

“Let up!” he ordered. “I’ll talk to them.” Hugh heard the French accent and realized this to be the captain of whom he had heard stories.

“You two,” the captain said, as soon as the attacks ceased. “Do you wish to live?”

“A foolish question,” Hugh replied. “Would we be fighting so, were it otherwise?”

The Frenchman smiled.

“I can have my men wear you down, or I can send for firearms and take you at a distance,” he said. “Or you can join my crew and keep your lives. I find myself undermanned again, partly because of yourselves. I can use a pair of good fighters.”