North Star
Page 26
“Ah, young Mister Skye, this is fortunate. I came looking for you.”
Dirk stood uneasily, wondering what he had done wrong.
“It was the Quakers, the Society of Friends, that got it done,” Graves said.
Dirk had scarcely heard of them. Some sort of Pennsylvania society that was attempting to help western Indians cope with the tide of settlement. Dirk didn’t know what to say.
“The school, my boy, the school. Would you like to teach?”
“Teach? Teach who or what? Why do you think I’m qualified?”
“They have it from the Jesuits that you’d do just fine, and could teach the ABCs, writing, composition, arithmetic, including addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, and you’d be just fine with history, some geography, mechanics, religious instruction, and moral instruction.”
“But who?”
“These good people. Here at the agency, in the government schoolhouse.”
Dirk felt the weight of his youth on him. “I’m not sure I’m the one, sir.”
“Ah, young Mister Skye, do you want to? Would you like to see these people master the skills they’ll need in the future?”
Dirk stared out the window. A part of him said that he only wished the government would leave his mother’s people alone to continue as they always had. But another part of him knew the world would never be the same.
“Yes, sir, I would.”
“The Quakers can’t afford much. It’s all subscription for them, but they’ll pay twenty dollars a month, and of course the government will supply the schoolhouse and teacherage, and handle basic expenses.”
“But where are the slates, and primers, and all that?”
“Ah, a sticky business. My officer colleagues at Fort Laramie have rustled up some readers, a few slates and chalk, a few pencils and some paper. Enough to start. The Quakers are working on it, but it won’t be until spring before you’ll be adequately equipped.”
“You think a person my age would be accepted, sir?”
His mother replied at once. “North Star, you are a man.”
He had not thought of himself as a man, but now he would be stepping into a man’s job. He would need patience and courage and idealism. He would need to persuade young people his own age to come to his class, learn, and make use of what they learned. There would be immediate utility in it: they could make their grievances known. They could make sure whatever agent governed them was acting justly.
“Let’s go look at the goddamned place,” Victoria said.
They rose at once, wrapped shawls and robes about them, and hiked across a snowy reach to the school, where Skye let them in. This place was a single room, with a potbellied stove, student desks, windows out upon a snowy world, and little else. But it came alive, even as Dirk walked the creaking wood floors. It came alive with Shoshone faces, young and old, with the radiant heat of the stove, with pretty girls and seamed old men, with ponies tied to the hitchrail outside. He would give them what he could. He would try to teach a practical education, so they might operate businesses, raise meat and grains, supply wood, build roads, repair wagons, and all the rest.
“Major Graves, I will do this,” he said.
“The teacherage is yours if you want it.”
“Maybe someday. Just now, I want to help my parents.”
“Yes, helping Major Skye would be a welcome service,” Graves said.
“Major? Major?” Skye asked.
“A courtesy rank, sir. Indian agents are commonly called major.”
“Not I, Major Graves. I am Mister Skye. I have always been Mister Skye, a man without rank. To the day I die I will be Mister Skye.”
BY RICHARD S. WHEELER FROM TOM DOHERTY ASSOCIATES
SKYE’S WEST
Sun River
Bannack
The Far Tribes
Yellowstone
Bitterroot
Sundance
Wind River
Santa Fe
Rendezvous
Dark Passage
Going Home
Downriver
The Deliverance
The Fire Arrow
The Canyon of Bones
Virgin River
North Star
Aftershocks
Badlands
The Buffalo Commons
Cashbox
Eclipse
The Fields of Eden
Fool’s Coach
Goldfield
Masterson
Montana Hitch
An Obituary for Major Reno
Second Lives
Sierra
Sun Mountain: A Comstock Novel
Where the River Runs
SAM FLINT
Flint’s Gift
Flint’s Truth
Flint’s Honor
Praise for Richard S. Wheeler and the Skye’s West Series
“A master storyteller whose heart is obviously in the West.”
—Library Journal
“Skye is the Horatio Hornblower of the Rockies!”
—Rocky Mountain News
“Wheeler is among the top living writers of Westerns—if not the best.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“Wheeler deftly balances the violence and cruelty of frontier life with the love and tenderness of a husband and wife caught between cultures.”
—Publishers Weekly on The Fire Arrow
“Let’s face it, it’s always nice to spend time with Barnaby. Recommended most heartily to anyone who likes a good, old-fashioned Western yarn.”
—Booklist on The Fire Arrow
“Wheeler’s Skye is a much more well-rounded character than one usually finds in Western literature. He is intelligent, erudite, compassionate, and self-aware. The thirteenth entry in the series is one of the most satisfying.”
—Booklist on The Deliverance
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
NORTH STAR: A BARNABY SKYE NOVEL
Copyright © 2009 by Richard S. Wheeler
All rights reserved.
A Forge Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC
175 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10010
www.tor-forge.com
Forge® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.
eISBN 9781429992664
First eBook Edition : January 2011
First Edition: February 2009
First Mass Market Edition: January 2010