He stopped, too, but not because the tether had tightened. He stopped because she had. She turned her back on him and took a small step away.
He turned to follow. He took a step. She kept her shoulder to him until he was right behind her, until she could feel his breath on her neck. Then she completed her turn and touched him in the place-that-whistlers-love, the high place where the neck and back meet, where neither foot nor claw nor beak could reach. She scratched him there as would any other member of the flock, and the drake cooed in relaxed pleasure.
He was hers, now. They were a pair, a flock of two. In a very short time, he would be carrying her towards home. There, she would add him to her own flock of whistlers, a drake for her hens.
“Two Cuts,” she said, naming him. Then she moved her hand back along his spine.
The hotel at Candide was almost as cold and dark inside as it was outside. The sitting room smelled of wet wool and cigars. Several of the overstuffed chairs were occupied and the room was full of the sounds of hushed conversation and rustled newspaper. Men stamped their feet on the outside stoop and hung their cloaks on pegs by the door.
President Custer sat near the small and ineffectual fire, covering his boredom and frustration by reading the week-old, four-page newspaper for a second time. The foul weather that had come off the water four days prior had kept him and the other dignitaries prisoner in the small frontier town near Fort Whitley. The storm remained out there still, a long procession of clouds and rain that turned fields into bogs and made roads impassable. Escape was out of the question.
Robert Matherly, the distinguished senator from the new State of Yankton sat down in a cloud of smoke. He pulled two more clouds from the butt of his cigar and spoke. “May I intrude so far as to wish you a good evening, Mr. President?”
“Not with that foul-smelling thing in your hand, no, you may not,” Custer said without lowering his paper. “Douse it or I’ll have you tossed.”
The senator laughed—a trifle too high and much too long—but Custer heard the creak and crunch as the fat man leaned forward and stubbed out his cigar in the brass ashtray atop the walnut smoking valet.
“There, then. So, what’s the news, Mr. President?”
Custer sighed and scanned the week-old print. “Oh, nothing much. There’s to be a dance last Tuesday. And it says here that the president and his entourage are due here in the morning.” He lowered the page and winked at the ruddy congressman. “Won’t that be a thrill, Robert?”
“It will indeed, sir. I do not believe that I have ever been a part of an entourage.”
They shared a weak chuckle. Matherly groomed his huge muttonchop whiskers with a nervous hand. “I was wondering, sir—,” he began.
Here it comes, Custer thought.
“—if I might prevail upon you to lend your support to a project of mine.”
The Savior of Kansa Bay sighed inwardly and tried to look interested. It seemed that no one spoke to him any more without it being to prevail, or beg, or entreat, or otherwise cajole him into doing some sort of favor. It was so tiresome. He didn’t know how Lincoln had stood for it for twelve years, or how Grant had stomached it at all.
They were better men than I, he thought privately. I’ll have to really think about it before I let myself get coerced into a second term.
As the Yanktonian senator continued outlining his plan for extending the railroad from the Rock Island bridge on into Washita, Custer considered his fate.
The leap from wartime commander to peacetime politician had been too severe. He ached for some activity that didn’t involve sitting at a table and arguing. He’d had six years of talk, and was tired of it. He wanted action. That would have been reason enough to press the issues of Frontier Expansion, but he was thankful for anything else that helped his cause.
America had purchased the frontier territories two generations ago from a bankrupt king, handing over enough cash to bankroll Louis XIV through XVII. But the land still had to be won and now, after years of bloody conflict, they had taken most of it. No, he had. The new state of Yankton, and the territories of Missouri, Kansa, and Santee—also well on their own way toward statehood—these lands were theirs because of the campaigns he had commanded to victory. But the Unorganized Territory still lay out there, galling him with its emptiness.
But the American public didn’t seem to care. The nation was bursting at the seams with its nearly fifty millions. Why, his home territory of Michigan had two million souls in it alone. One territory! They needed room, and room was one thing the Great Frontier still had in abundance. But the people—and the Congress—were against any further aggression to secure the territory.
It just made no sense. The Union owned it. The Union needed it. So damned be those who would deny it to the Union, and damned be the savages who would not admit defeat. He swore to see his grandchildren playing on the open prairie before he closed his eyes for the final time.
But such a plan needed more than just armies. It needed people. Regular people, and lots of them. Several pieces fell in place in his mind.
“Robert,” he said, interrupting, “you’ve got a good idea there. A grand idea.”
“I do?”
“Indeed you do, but your thinking is much too small.”
“It is?”
“Of course,” Custer said. “Don’t you see? I mean, a rail line to Washita? Why stop there? Why not continue straight on through your whole territory and on, across the Missouri, and into the Frontier?”
“Well, why not, indeed!” Matherly warmed to the topic.
“Your territory could become the staging ground,” Custer went on. “The jumping-off point for thousands—maybe even millions—who wanted to help tame the interior of North America.”
“Ahh. I see what you mean. Like a…a western gateway.”
“Precisely. A western gateway.”
The senator sat forward in his chair, elbows on his knees. “Think of it,” he said, and began enumerating on his fingertips. “Trains and ships and boats and carriages and coaches and wagons, all streaming in. Hotels to put them up in style or simplicity, according to their means. Restaurants and saloons to refresh them. Purveyors and grocers and stables and wheelwrights and blacksmiths to prepare them. And then, once they’ve gone, they’ll still need products from the East. Steel, textiles, lumber. Oh, yes sir, Mr. President. I see it. I see it!”
“Good, good. Now you go back to Washita and work on it. That’s the kind of plan I need, Robert. Big and bold. You bring me a plan like that and I’ll support it. You have my word on that.”
The senator stood and bowed from the waist. “Thank you, sir. This has been a most enlightening conversation. Now, if you’ll excuse me, there is much correspondence to which I must attend.”
Custer nodded, dismissing the round man. He watched as he trundled off, calling for pen and paper to be sent to his rooms. The door to the sitting room closed after him.
“Go, Robert,” Custer whispered, sending his thoughts after the retreating figure. “With you and with others like you, I’ll flood the plains with people. Every homestead will be an outpost, every town a fort, every man a soldier prepared to defend and protect his land.” He nodded, satisfied with the vision, and once again raised his paper.
From outside the window he heard the jingle and clop of an arriving horse. Quick steps and raised voices told of some urgency. Custer stood, folded the newspaper neatly, and placed it on the seat of his chair. He turned to face the sitting room door just as it opened.
It was Samuel, his personal attaché, and along with him were the two guards who “protected the presidential person;” a bit of the Lincoln legacy left over from a bad night at the theatre. Behind the trio stood a soldier—private or corporal, he could not see—soaked through and grim as death.
“Let him in,” Custer said. “What is it?”
The young man came forth and saluted. He opened his mouth but did not speak, struck dumb by the legend before him
.
“Spit it out, Corporal,” he said, hoping to break through to the boy’s military discipline with an officer’s imperiousness. “That is an order.”
The corporal saluted again, needlessly, but spoke. “Your pardon, sir, but there’s news of the Abraham Lincoln. Bad news, sir.”
“What is it? What has happened?”
Others around the room stood; two congressmen, a senator, the generals. They gathered closer to hear news of the great craft they saw sail off so gracefully a handful of days before.
“She’s gone down, sir. A patrol picked up a survivor and brought him in. It’s…Lescault, sir.”
Custer did not flinch at the news, well aware that others were watching him. He maintained his composure.
“And the rest of the crew?” he asked in a calm voice.
“One dead, sir. The other wounded and captured by the Cheyenne. We don’t know who.”
The president stood, unmoving, eyes staring at the young soldier, through him, beyond him into the depths of infinity that stood at his back and threatened to roll forward and engulf Custer and all he knew.
One dead. One captured. For which should he hope?
“Get me a horse,” he said.
“But sir,” said Samuel. “The roads—”
“Get me a horse,” he barked as his temper briefly gained the upper hand. Then, controlled once more, “If you please. I want to return to Fort Whitley immediately.”
Samuel Prendergast, a thin, aged man who had served with Custer since his first days in Congress, stepped close and spoke softly. “Mr. President. We’re already overdue in D.C. We must leave here as soon as possible.”
“I can wait for the roads to clear just as easily at the fort as I can here in Candide. There’s a survivor out at The Whit and I want to talk to him.
“Now get. Me. A horse.”
Samuel nodded and stepped back.
“Yes, Mr. President.”
Chapter 4
Hatchling Moon, Waxing
Fifty-three Years After the Star Fell
Near Two-Kettles Creek On the Red Paint River
The day had been clear and full of spring light. Now, with the sun asleep behind the distant mountains, the land gave back the warmth it had borrowed, and the slivered moon lit their way.
They had ridden all day and into the night. And tonight was the first night of the Hatchling Moon, a time of family, of dancing, and the return of plenty. The camp of the People lay ahead, and the three warriors were anxious to be among them once more.
Storm Arriving looked forward to seeing his mothers and younger sisters. He wondered if Standing Elk would send another proposal for Blue Shell Woman, his eldest sister, now that he would be home for a while. He hoped that she had not run off with the young Kit Fox soldier during his moon-long patrol. Blue Shell Woman was a good girl, but Standing Elk was impetuous and impatient. Storm Arriving had not liked refusing his first proposal—that sometimes led to an elopement—but the young man had been too untried. He needed a few coup to count before he was worthy of a great chief’s granddaughter like Blue Shell Woman.
He would know soon enough. Already he could smell the first threads of woodsmoke. There was a low ridgeline a few miles ahead and they had just passed Two-Kettles Creek where, as a boy, his other-father Bull Cannot Get Up had lost the tip of his finger trying to capture a hatchling walker. The People would be camped in the plain just beyond the ridge.
The riders sped through the night, the moon their guide across the hills. Their whistlers were tired, but they smelled the closeness of home, too, and it made them stronger. Storm Arriving saw that his companions were likewise affected.
Big Nose sung a sweetheart song quietly to himself, thinking, Storm Arriving knew, of his wife and their young babe. Even Laughs like a Woman was affected. Though straight-backed and terse as usual, he kept an eye dead ahead and would occasionally lift his nose to test the air. Though the Contrary was bound to live apart and alone, it was better to be apart and alone and also near the circle of the People.
Only the vé’ho’e seemed unaware of their closeness to the camp. One Who Flies still sat hunched over like an old grandfather, his hand holding the first rope like an eagle’s talon and his eyes seeing no farther than the crest on his whistler’s head. Storm Arriving kept a close watch on him as they approached the dark line of the ridge.
The whistlers were panting hard, now, but called out anyway in long whoops that ran from their bellies to the tops of their heads.
A man appeared, standing from his crouch down in the buffalo grass. He was of the People, but Storm Arriving could not see his face in the moonlight. Laughs like a Woman raised his Thunder Bow and let out a war whoop. The guard on the ridge recognized them and whooped in return. One Who Flies looked up suddenly, as a man awakening from a sleep.
He is blind with his eyes open, Storm Arriving thought with a shake of his head. I can smell the cooking meat and the whistler flocks, and even the herd of buffalo two ridges beyond this one. How sad to be so unconnected with the land.
The warrior guard sang out as they rode on to the height. He sang a Kit Fox welcome song, for that was the soldier society that Storm Arriving and Big Nose called their own.
Ho! Listen!
Come! Feast!
You Kit Fox! Be merry!
Gather at the Dawn!
Then they reached the height and slowed to a stop.
One Who Flies spoke in a low moan. Storm Arriving heard his meaning. Oh, Great Spirit, the vé’ho’e was saying. Look at how many there are!
Storm Arriving turned with pride to view the gathering of the People.
The hillside sloped away and down to Cherry Stone Creek which ran northwest to the Red Paint River and the sacred mountains. Beyond the creek lay a broad vale of land a mile deep and more than a mile wide along the creek and river. Upon this black dish of land the lodges of the People had been arranged according to the old ways. They glowed like yellow lamps, and sparks rose from the smokeholes like stars rising to Séáno.
Each lodge was a circle, covered with a cone of buffalo skin, the door facing the rising sun. They were like the nest of a whistler or a songbird, and within the circle of the lodge lived the family. Near each family’s lodge were the lodges of other family members—other-mothers, married sisters—and the lodges of all these formed a circle, with an opening toward the morning light.
Beyond the family circle were the lodges of the band, the clan tied together by the bloodlines of the women. The Closed Windpipe band, the Hair Rope band, the Tree People band, the Suhtai; the camp of each band was arranged in yet another circle, also with an opening to the east. Nests within nests. And the ten bands, when they gathered together as they did now, arranged their camps in a circle around the lodges of the council and the sacred artifacts. Between the camps of the first band and the tenth, there was an opening to the east, toward the morning sun, and the beginning of everything.
With four or five lodges to a family, and hundreds of families to a band, the men on the ridge looked down on a plain where more than ten thousand hearths glowed with the warmth and strength of home. The camp of the People filled the whole vale.
Around the southern and western rim of the camp stood dark flocks of whistlers. Uncorralled and free to roam, they were kept close by hobbling a few of the flock matriarchs.
In the center of the camp were the sacred lodges, the lodges of the soldier societies, and the Great Council lodge. Each was a tall cone twice the height of a family’s lodge, but the fires within them were dim or dark. There were no meetings or dances that night.
That will change, Storm Arriving thought, when we bring One Who Flies to them.
“Nóheto,” he said, and they took off down the slope.
They came upon the second line of guardians at the bottom of the slope. Storm Arriving recognized one of them as a member of his soldier society. They were allowed to pass, but not without a challenge.
“Who is that
with you?” the warrior asked. “His face is not known to me.”
“He is a vé’ho’e, and he is my captive.”
“He fell from the clouds,” Big Nose added with enthusiasm.
Storm Arriving shushed him, but the damage had been done.
“Fell from the clouds? Is he the one?”
Big Nose kept silent this time and they rode on.
“Is he the one she told of?” the guard called after them.
Storm Arriving complained of Big Nose to the spirits. “Why did he have to speak? Word of this will spread faster than fire across the dry grass.”
“Would you hide this from the People?” Big Nose asked in defense. “They will all know tomorrow when you speak with the Council.”
Storm Arriving humphed. “You are right,” he said reluctantly. “But I do not think we shall have much sleep tonight.”
They circled around to the left toward the camp’s east-facing sun-road. Laughs like a Woman continued onward around the rim toward his own lodge. As the three remaining riders entered the circle of the camp, Storm Arriving spoke to Big Nose. “They will know that he may be the one from the vision, but you must not tell that he is the son of Long Hair. Laughs like a Woman does not know this and cannot tell it, but you and I both heard him say it. If the People learn of that, there are some who will surely kill him before morning. The Council must decide what to do with him.”
“And if they decide he should be killed?”
“Then he dies beneath tomorrow’s sun. Not before.”
Big Nose agreed.
“Then I shall see you at the Council Lodge. He will be no trouble?”
“No. He will be big trouble. But I will deal with it.”
Big Nose chuckled through a wry smile. Then he spoke to his mount and rode ahead toward the western edge of camp where his wife and family waited. Storm Arriving rode on, One Who Flies behind him.
The vale was alive with the familiar sounds of home. He heard the lively chatter of gambling songs from women playing the seed game. He heard robust voices of soldiers of the Elkhorn Scraper society singing camp songs. To one side, he heard the slower, serious songs of a medicine man tending to the ailing with rattles and deliberate words. And from every point came the beat of a drum—to time the game, to count the coup, to call the ever-present gods—and it ran like a heartbeat through the camp; a thousand hearts, each pulsing at its own speed, but each a part of the whole.
The Year the Cloud Fell Page 8