The Morning River

by W. Michael Gear

  "Yes, sir. I am, but I—"

  "And you did sign that paper, didn't you?"

  "But I had no choice! You don't understand what he was—''

  "Then it's a deal. Fair and square."

  "Deal! He had a knife to my throat! You can't—"

  "Look here, boy. I don't know what Francois did, and further, I don't really give a good God damn. Francis is a black-hearted son of a bitch, I'll grant. But your trouble with him is your own. My trouble is that I've got to get this boat upriver and I don't have the men to do it. What I do have is a contract with your signature on it."

  "But this is abduction! The laws..."

  "Lad, don't go spouting law at me. You're on the river. Law is for back East." Green laced his fingers together and cracked his knuckles. Richard stared at those powerful hands and swallowed dryly. "From the moment you signed that paper, you became an engage. You know what that means?"

  "Contracted labor. But I wasn't—"

  "Damn right. Contracted labor. You're going to work this boat upriver, boy. I'm the booshway on this trip. That means the chief, understand? Travis Hartman's the little booshway, my second in command. Henri is the patroon, head of the boat. When it comes to camp, you're in Trudeau's mess. You're bottom of the heap, boy. You do what others tell you, and you'll get along fine."

  "But I've got rights! Rights guaranteed under the Constitution of the—''

  "You don't have shit, boy. Not here, not on the river. You'll work ... or you'll wish you had. Understand?"

  The engages were watching, drawn to the commotion. Someone snickered, and another big muscular man grinned and elbowed the man next to him. Wolves would watch a sheep with eyes like those.

  Green chuckled grimly. "Let me lay it out for you, boy. Let's say you jump ship and make it back to Saint Louis. What the hell do you think's going to happen to you? Francis's gonna get wind of it, and he's gonna kill you. Dead. Got that? The miracle is that you're alive at all, but then luck slips into just about anybody's life once in a while."

  "Luck? You call this luck?"

  "Yep. You're floating on the water instead of in it. Now, look at it from my side. I'm short-handed, and I damned sure can't have you going back telling people that the Maria is headed upriver. Provided you lived long enough to tell anyone, and provided they believed you, Clark would send an express off to—"

  "Express?"

  "A rider... with a message to Fort Atkinson that I was headed that way. Understand? They'd stop me just as sure as Francois would stop you. They'd just throw me in jail, boy. But you, well, you're a heap better off on this boat than rotting in the mud along the bank someplace."

  "But I've been robbed!" Richard cried. "They hit me. I never signed any contract. Not of my free will!"

  Green fumbled in the little leather sack tied to his belt. He unfolded a wrinkled sheet of paper. "That your signature?"

  "Yes, it is. But you don't understand. They made me!"

  "Uh-huh. Tell you what. You help get this boat up the river and you can go free as a bird. Till then, your meat's mine."

  "But I—but you ... you ..."

  Green looked up. "Travis! Come here."

  Hartman appeared from behind the cargo box. Long fringed leathers, grease-stained and shiny, covered his muscular body. He moved with a powerful grace, padding like a lion on moccasined feet. Silver-streaked hair streamed down over the beaded shoulders of his buckskin jacket. Seeing him in daylight, Richard gasped. Something had once tried to rip Hartman's face from his skull. A mass of scar tissue arced across from his left cheek, through the mangled nose, then thinned into parallel lines on the right side that ran back toward his ear. A full beard did little to hide the damage.

  Hartman lowered himself to a crouch, thick thigh muscles giving his squat a springy resilience like that of a hunting animal poised to leap. Richard looked into blue eyes that froze his soul. Up close, more scars were visible tracing through Hartman's hair in marbling patterns.

  Green indicated Richard. "If he tries to jump the boat, Travis, hunt him down and shoot him. I'll have no man breaking his contract."

  Travis narrowed one eye. "He do that an' he'll be wolf-meat, Davey. Reckon as how I'll do 'er."

  "My God, you wouldn't!" Richard stared from one to the other.

  "Ye'd better check yer topknot, Doodle. I give me word ter old Francois. Reckon ye'11 fill out yer contract." Hart-man's frigid blue stare froze Richard to his guts.

  "Get yourself some breakfast." Green pointed toward. "Then get to work. We don't get upriver any faster if you set on your skinny butt, boy."

  Then Green stood and clumped his way aft to shout up at the patroon.

  "I reckon ye heard the man," Hartman said as Richard gaped in disbelief. "Fetch yerself some vittles and pick out one of them poles stacked on the cargo box. They's some old, but we'll cut new ones up past the settlements."

  Richard backed carefully away from Hartman, wobbled to his prickly feet, and made his way forward. A pot containing the remains of diced meat and vegetables—now stone cold—was propped against the plank wall of the cargo box. Richard's soul crawled at the sight of the congealed grease in the bottom. In God's name, how long had it been since he'd eaten? His gnawing stomach overcame squeamishness. With nothing but fingers to eat with, Richard scooped the last dregs out of the pot and fought down the desire to vomit.

  Maria coasted gracefully along the shore. The west bank was high here, gaps in the trees marking occasional fields. The Mississippi ran dark and deep, water roiling and choppy from the south wind. The boatmen were singing yet another of their songs, this one some nonsense about walking footpaths, being made to laugh, and being afraid of wolves. They glanced curiously at him, several with the bloodshot eyes as a result of their revelries the night before.

  Richard huddled beside the empty stew pot and stared dully out over the gunwales at the river and the malignant trees beyond. Miserable as he was, he could sense that presence, as if the land watched him from deep within those shadowed ways.

  "God, I'm going to die out here. What kind of a place is this? What kind of men are these? A land of demons ... peopled by a race of devils."

  ". . . No arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all y continual fear and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.'' The acid words of Thomas Hobbes filtered through Richard's brain.

  "Wind's dying!" came the cry from the cargo box. "Break out the poles, boys!"

  Richard dropped his head into his hands. Father, why did you do this to me? This isn't true. It just isn't true!

  "Dick?" Hartman's voice intruded. "Ye'd best be getting yer pole down like I told ye."

  Richard glanced up into that cold stare.

  "Best get on, now," Hartman said

  Richard rose unsteadily. He'd seen this kind of activity on the river. A man set the end of his pole in the mud at the bow of the boat and walked to the rear, pushing off on cleats pegged to the passe avant, no more than fifteen inches wide. Upon reaching the stern, he pulled the pole out of the mud and walked back forward while the boat coasted on momentum before he set and pushed again. The pole had a large knob set in the end to cushion a man's shoulder.

  The engages watched him pull one of the long poles from the pile. Snickers gave way to guffaws as he grunted, teetering to balance the weight With all the bravado of a terrified mouse, he picked a place between two burly engages who stared suspiciously at him.

  He handled the pole awkwardly, lowering the end into the water, hunching over the knob, and pushing as the boat moved slowly under his feet. At the end, he pulled, twisting to break the mud's hold, and started back toward the front of the boat.

  He made three trips before he began to gasp for breath.

  TEN

  With passions so tame, and so salutory a curb, men, instead of being wild and wicked, and no more attentive to ward against harm than to cause any to other animals, were not exposed to any dangerous dissent
ions; as they kept up no manner of intercourse with each other, and were, of course, strangers to vanity, to respect, to esteem, to contempt; as they had no notion of w r hat we call yours and mine, nor any true idea of justice; as they considered any violence they were liable to as an evil that could be easily corrected, and not as an injury that deserved punishment; and they never so much as dreamed of revenge. . . .

  —Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Discourse on the Origin and Foundation of Inequality Among Mankind

  The short-coupled, rough-gaited mare that Willow clung to cantered relentlessly across the sage. Whenever the mare slowed, the stubborn young Pawnee warrior who kept his own mount close behind used a willow crop to quirt the mare's rump. An equally stubborn Willow clung to the horse's mane with cramped fingers. The Pawnee had tied her feet beneath the mare's belly, and if she lost her hold and slid around the mare's barrel, she'd be kicked half to death—or, worse, the animal might fall and crush her into the sagebrush and rocks.

  The wiry mare stumbled now, driven to her limits. With each jerking misstep, Willow's heart skipped. For four days, they'd alternately ridden, walked, and ridden some more, straining the endurance of the horses and themselves.

  Fool Willow mentally told the Pawnee, no one even knows that I’m missing. And worse, if they did, no one would follow.

  The mare caught a hoof and lurched forward, jolting Willow's hold. If the mare fell and killed her, at least the agony of cramped and screaming muscles would be over. The numbness had started in her thighs. Then a terrible ache had eaten into her knees and calves. It had spread to her hips, climbed her back and shoulders, and ended in her pain-knit fingers.

  The day had been warm, and the snow had melted to create a slick, pale gray mud treacherous to anything two-or four-legged. The Pawnee had chosen to ride up, away from the river, where the uplands provided better footing for the horses, and better points of vantage for him to study the backtrail.

  Now, as the winter sun dipped behind the transected plains to the west, the Pawnee slowed the killing pace, once again glancing back at the purple mountains that rose in points against an orange and lavender evening sky.

  The Pawnee kicked his horse up alongside of Willow's. He signed, "We camp," and led the way down into a drainage.

  He had an eye for campsites, picking a concealed location with a southern exposure. The weathered sandstone would remain warm through the night, while the hollow protected them from both the west wind and the seeking eyes of pursuers—of whom there would be none. Juniper and tall sagebrush filled the hollow, while one lone Cottonwood had taken root where the drainage trickled over the rocks.

  The Pawnee slipped over his horse's side, deftly hobbled Willow's pony and his own. Only then did he untie the thongs from around Willow's ankles. When she slid down, her rubbery legs betrayed her. For a long time she lay staring at her hands where they propped her on the grass.

  The Pawnee eyed her warily as he began twisting sagebrush out of the ground for firewood. She met his stare with one equally as wary. She knew his name now: Packrat—the knowledge rendered by sign language. Of the Pawnee people, she knew only a little: that they lived far to the east; mostly raided to the south; and were very warlike. Among other things, Pawnee were known to sacrifice young women to Morning Star. The gift of a woman to repay the female powers who had created the world.

  Is that why he wants me? She cudgeled her memory. The Pawnee captured a young woman, treated her well, and finally took her out and tied her to a scaffold. Then, precisely at dawn, when the stars were right, they shot her full of arrows.

  Willow calculated the exact spot on his skull where she'd land a blow the first time she got her hands on anything suitably lethal.

  Packrat used his lips to point the way he wanted her to go. Willow pushed up, stood carefully, and walked on brittle legs toward the base of the sandstone outcrop. At his gesture, she settled herself on the pale sand. Their eyes held for a moment. What was he thinking behind that serious expression? Curiously, he looked slightly concerned.

  "What do you want, boy?" she asked.

  He said something in his own tongue.

  "Well, don't worry about me. I'm not going anywhere.

  Not tonight. Every bone and joint in my body aches. Even if I wanted to run away, I just couldn't." Besides, you're still wary, ready for me to make a break. But down the trail, when you begin to relax, that will be different.

  Packrat muttered something in Pawnee. Then he bent down, pulled charred tinder from his leather bag, and used a strike-a-light to start a fire. With care, he nursed his glowing spark to flame, then added bits of sagebrush twigs until he had a suitable blaze. From Willow's pack he pulled what was left of her jerked meat, handing a hard piece to her.

  As she chewed, she signed, "What are you going to do with me?"

  "You are a gift," he returned, watching her.

  "To your gods?"

  He chuckled at that before signing, "Not as you think, but I hope Morning Star will be pleased."

  From the stories told, captive girls were kept for almost a year, pampered and jealously guarded before the spring morning when they were taken out, tortured, and killed. The hunt, capture, and return of the prisoner were highly ceremonial. Packrat's dress and actions hadn't reflected anything of the stories Willow had heard.

  "A gift for whom?" she signed.

  "My father."

  "To be a slave to him?"

  "Yes."

  Willow chewed thoughtfully on the tough jerky. As the night darkened overhead, the temperature dropped. Packrat, she noted, kept a careful fire, never letting it flame up, making sure it burned at a red glow, enough for heat and some light but not enough to disclose their position to watchers.

  The horses simply stood where they'd stopped, heads down, as raggedly weary as she herself was. She forced herself to eat the last piece of jerky Packrat handed her. Strength was important. One day soon, she'd need all she could muster.

  "You will try to escape," Packrat signed.

  "Not tonight. Too tired."

  He considered, chuckled dryly to himself, and motioned her to roll over.

  "Why?" she signed in defiance.

  "Tie your hands and feet."

  "No. Too tired to escape. I hurt everywhere."

  He cocked his head, a slight smile giving his handsome face a mischievous look. Dimples formed at the sides of his mouth. "Better that I tie you. I, too, am tired. Too tired to want to chase you down or have to defend myself when you sneak over and grab my war club to brain me."

  Was she that obvious?

  He was so young. Undoubtedly inexperienced. And somewhere therein lay her final victory. She signed, "Heals Like A Willow wouldn't hurt you."

  He laughed aloud, exposing straight white teeth. His flashing hands responded, "You think I'm stupid?"

  "Not at all. You caught me, didn't you?"

  "It wasn't very hard. Why were you out there, all alone like that?"

  She considered, weighing her responses. He expected pursuit, and thus far had dealt with the flight from Ku'chendikani country like a seasoned warrior. Since he expected pursuit, lull him another way? "I was going back to my mother and father. My husband and young son are dead. Nothing remained for me among my married-into people."

  He nodded with sudden understanding. "That is why you had no horse. I have heard how you wild people live. Had you had the luck to have been born Pawnee, you would still have your house, horses, fields, and family. A woman owns everything. If a husband dies, she does not end up poor, like you."

  "I am rich enough," Willow insisted "Not all wealth is in the form of horses or guns."

  Packrat leaned back, evidently having forgotten he was going to tie her. "How rich can a woman be who rides tied to a Pawnee horse?"

  Willow gave him a confident smile. "I am rich in dreams and visions. Several nights before you captured me, I dreamed of running as fast as an arrow, right for some trees. Then I tore through the trees and was flying." Yes
, that's right. This might be the way to beat him. "Power brought you to me. It is all happening the way it is supposed to."

  Packrat reached up to scratch his ear, jumping as a wolf howled in the gloomy distance.

  And then she remembered a story she'd been told once. Wolf—in the Pawnee legends—was killed just after the Creation. Because of Wolf's death, men, too, must eventually die. Yes, and the willow was Wolf's tree, the one that symbolized death in the Pawnee ceremonials.

  "You are a wild woman," Packrat signed with irritation. "Don't tell me your Snake people stories. I do not believe them."

  "Do you know that star?" Willow pointed to the southwestern sky. "That is the star in my dreams." As well as the star that the Pawnee associated with death.

  Packrat followed the way her finger pointed. He glanced at her and narrowed his eyes. His hands flew as he told her, "You are a foolish woman. Now, roll over. I'm going to bind your hands."

  The lines at the corners of his eyes had gone tight Like a small thorn in the flesh, it would fester, work on his confidence. She gave a harsh laugh as she rolled over, submitting her wrists to his thong.

  After he had finished, he dropped her buffalo robe atop her and settled himself by the fire, his own robe draping his shoulders. He yawned, head nodding.

  The howl of the wolf carried again on the quiet night

  Teetering on the verge of sleep, Willow opened her eyes to a slit For long moments the tired boy stared up at the Wolf star—the Death star of Pawnee legend. Then he growled something to himself, shook his head, and lay back on the sandy soil.

  Think about it, boy. Dream about it.

  Images of captivity played through Willow's mind. What would it be like? She'd be beaten by the boy's father to teach her submission and to break her spirit One wasn't a slave without being beaten on occasion. She'd have to spread her legs to any man who wanted her. And at that thought, she glanced again at the young man who slept just across from her. This night he was too tired to think of it. Soon, however, he would take her.