Bit by bit, his keen eye worked out her trail. The grassy gullies drained from north to south, and Willow had to keep to their bottoms.
The drainage he now followed was broad, offering little concealment. He took a chance, kicking the horse to a canter, watchful of low humps and swales. He couldn't be that far behind her. She'd had no more than half a day's head-start, and despite the tricks she'd used to hide her trail, the country didn't offer many hiding places.
The shallow drainage came to a head at the base of a low knoll, but no sign of Willow could be seen.
"Fool!" Packrat balled a fist and smacked himself in the leg. "Better to have slowly worked out her tracks." He glared back down the drainage. The sun lay half-a-hand above the horizon, casting thin shadows in the rolling grass.
"All right, Packrat. She's crafty and cunning. No fool, this one. She didn't lose her head and run like a pronghorn, so where would she be?"
He heeled the horse around and headed back down the drainage. He almost rode past her a second time, barely giving the little sandstone ledge a second glance.
It had formed where the water undercut a thin layer of golden-brown rock. Just a gravel-filled hollow screened by a thin beard of grass. Not even room to hide a jackrabbit, really.
Some odd sense, that feeling of being watched, caused him to pull up. He looked twice, and, yes, there she was, prone, barely hidden by the ledge.
"Perhaps my Power hasn't been broken completely, Willow," he called to her. "But yours has, Snake woman!"
He jumped lightly from the horse, swinging his war club. Savoring the anticipation of the impact as it broke her skull "I shall have your scalp . . . little as it is to repay me for what you've done!"
She stood warily, poised to flee. In the setting sun, she looked magnificent, her skin bronzed by the light. The breeze teased her gleaming black hair, and Packrat remembered those full breasts and how they'd filled his hands.
But then, that was what had caused all the trouble in the beginning, wasn't it? For the briefest of instants his resolve wavered. Such a shame to kill a woman this beautiful and smart.
She read his indecision and signed: "Do not hesitate. Kill me."
Packrat chewed at his lip, overcame the urge to leap forward and crush her skull, and signed: "You should be afraid, for you see your death standing before you."
A flicker of a smile touched her full lips. The gleam in her eyes challenged him. Her graceful hands made the sign for, "Strike. As soon as you do, I will have won."
Packrat cocked his head. "You'll be dead."
"And you'll have nothing. Finished." She lifted an eyebrow, mocking him.
Packrat kicked at the sandy gravel with his toe. He'd have her bloody scalp. Wasn't that enough? He glanced at her from the corner of his eye. She knew something he didn't.
"You've done enough to me. It is finished!" He made the signs with a flourish.
Her white teeth flashed. "Tell your father how close you came."
Packrat lifted his war club, tensed, and slowly lowered it to his side. Was there a way out of this? No matter what she'd done to him, some redemption would come of handing her over to his father.
Packrat stamped his foot. In Pawnee, he said, "Giving you to Half Man would be too good for you—and he's no better than a flea-bit camp dog!"
Willow signed: "Kill me."
Packrat shook his head, disparate ideas forming. He told her, "No. You'll live. With Half Man, you'll pay for making me unclean. At least a little. And, who knows, maybe you'll do the same thing to him."
His Pawnee words were lost on her Shoshoni ears. Packrat signed: "You don't win. I'm taking you to my father."
He couldn't be sure as he studied her blank face, but somehow he perceived that she'd beaten him. With his war club, he pointed southward toward the river. "Walk, woman. Darkness is coming. And if you try to run, I won't hesitate to drive an arrow through you."
Willow turned, and doggedly started down the drainage. Packrat watched her straight back, the way her hips swayed, and the proud set of her head. Her movements conjured memories of coupling with her. He shook his head, viciously kicked a scrubby rabbitbrush, and turned back to his horse.
TWELVE
Since the pure ego envisions itself outside self, and torn asunder, everything that has continuity and universality, everything that bears the name of law, good, and right, is thereby simultaneously torn to pieces, and goes to rack and ruin: all identity and harmony break up, for what holds sway is the purest discord and disunion. What was absolutely essential is absolutely unessential. The pure ego itself is totally disintegrated.
—Georg Friedrich Wilhelm Hegel, Phenomenology of Mind
The Missouri differed from the Mississippi as night differed from day. The Mississippi might be dangerous, but the Missouri was downright treacherous. As the current twisted like an angry brown serpent, it undermined the banks, toppling huge trees. Once in the river's grip they floated down the muddy channel like giant rollers, jagged branches slashing the water. Pity the keelboat that ran afoul of one. Sooner rather than later, the trees would ground, snagged by the roots. Thus anchored, the trunks bobbed up and down in the water: They called these nightmares sawyers, for they'd cut the bottom right out of a boat.
The trees often piled up, creating huge logjams that lined the sandbars like some perverted beaver dam. Such an obstacle was called an embarras. The river's channel would weave around the devilish tangle of trunks, roots, and branches, to undercut yet more of the bank and topple yet more forest giants into a watery grave.
The spring flood was the most perilous time on the river, for as the water rose, entire rafts of embarras would break free, spinning down the river en masse, branches and roots interlocked.
Travis watched an embarras float past, splintered branches dripping like bloody spears as the current toyed with the jagged snarl of wood. Brown water slapped at the slick black trunks, and scummy white foam bobbed.
"Glad that one missed us." Green rubbed his face. "Mess of junk like that comes down on you, there's not much you can do."
"Cast loose," Henri said, powerful hands on the steering oar. "Outrun it downstream."
Travis nodded. "Times come, old coon, when ye've got ter cut and run."
Green reached up under his cap to scratch his head. "Yes, I know. Downstream. Every inch you lose is another you've got to make up. It's a long way to the mouth of the Big Horn, Travis."
"Better alive than dead, hoss. This child'd rather get there a mite late than not at all. Compared ter going under, a winter spent at the mouth of the Yellerstone appears right pert."
Green propped his hands on his hips, squinting upstream, searching for planters and sawyers. "You know what will happen if we do. Assiniboin will come in. Trade us out of everything we've got. We'd have to pull our stick come spring and head back downriver. No, I want two years, Travis. That means the mouth of the Big Horn. Time to get established."
"Wal, ye might do 'er." Travis watched the sweating men pole the boat against the current. Unlike the ocean, where wind did the moving, every ounce of boat, line, and cargo had to be tugged upriver with human muscle and sweat. Hell of a poor way to run a boat. But then, no one had found a better one. Steamboats rarely dared the Missouri's bars and snags. Break a boat up here, and you might just as well leave it behind.
"Faible chien!" Trudeau cursed. "You are worthless as a pig without legs!"
"Leave me alone!" Hamilton's voice called back.
"Then work, bebe!"
Green glanced at Hartman as the polers walked the boat against the current, their heads bobbing just beyond the edge cargo box. "Think that pilgrim Doodle will make it?"
"Cain't say."
"I swear to God, Travis, I'm not sure his skinny carcass is worth the trouble of feeding him."
"He ain't caved in yet."
"Lord knows, he gets babied enough. He still hasn't worked a full day. A boy would have been more help."
Travis caught He
nri's eye and shrugged. "Wal, think of 'er this way. The engages got all their attention on him. Not a one's thought ter start gritching about the boat, the wages, or the work—'cept what Hamilton ain't doing. I ain't yet had to bust a single head. Reckon by the time Hamilton breaks in or gets hisself kilt, we'll be up past the Platte."
Henri was grinning.
"Can't believe you," Green said. "Nursing that skinny bone pile like he was a sick calf. You of all people."
Travis jabbed Green playfully in the ribs. "I recall yer not so bad a nurse yerself. Pulled me through, ye did."
"That was different. You were a man."
Travis studied Hamilton's head as it bobbed along, slightly out of rhythm with the rest of the polers. The kid hadn't quite got the way of it yet. "He might be. One day."
"Hell might freeze over, too."
"Folks what don't take a long shot now and again never gets nowhere, Davey. Or do I need ter remind ye what a savvy man would say about this hyar expedition of yern?"
Green continued his scan of the river, watchful for eddies in the current, or the humping of water that might mark a submerged planter. "So, what is it about him?"
Travis hawked and spit over the side. "Don't rightly know. He's a queer sort. Book-larned better than any feller I ever met. He spouts off about them Roman and Greek fellers like he was telling winter stories in a Sioux lodge."
"And that's why you took up for him? I could have brought an old squaw along if stories was all you were interested in."
"Reckon it's more than that, Davey." Travis pulled at his beard. "Looks like a sawyer up there. Near the bank where that water's a mite muddled."
"Steer wide," Green ordered Henri.
"Oui, booshway. I see her." Henri bent to the steering oar.
"Reckon the pilgrim's got sand, Dave. I jist don't think he knows it. The way I figger, he ain't never been pushed. Them Boston folks hid him away in books all his life. He ain't never had him no chance to see what he's made of. Can't tell how stout a hickory stick is till ye bends it."
"And what if he breaks?" Green asked.
"Reckon life never gives none of us no promises."
Green sighed. "Well, I'll be honest. We've passed the Osage. I never thought he'd make it this far. Must have hurt to take in all them bets."
"Yep," Travis mused. "I'm one rich child fer sure. Man can't have that much owed and feel right. Fact is, I done bet the whole caboodle. Wagered he'd make the mouth of the Platte afore we had ter shoot him."
Trudeau bellowed, "You are worthless! A woman would work harder!"
Richard almost tripped over his feet as he stumbled along. Sweat dampened his flushed skin, and he made desperate gasping sounds.
"You have more faith in him than I do," Green muttered.
The only sound in the camp was Packrat's soft snoring, and choked whimpers that couldn't quite break free of Heals Like A Willow's lips.
Two field mice dared the presence of the humans, slipping stealthily between sleeping forms, whiskers quivering as they followed familiar scent trails. Their watchful eyes like black beads, they picked through the grass for the bits dropped by the humans. They froze each time the woman made one of her piteous sounds.
Bound tighter than a stack of green willow sticks, Heals Like A Willow slept with her back propped on a half-rotten cottonwood log. Her head bowed on her chest, and her hair hung like a black veil to obscure the pained expression on her face and the eyes flicking back and forth beneath closed lids.
As the power of Willow's dream grew, the mice scurried for cover, content to seek their food in other, less troubled territory. . . .
I stand on a grassy point high over the plains. Sunlight fills the land with a soft golden glow that blurs the harsh edges of the bluffs and the tree-choked stream bottoms. I look down and see a steep drop-off, and far below at the bottom, a river is shining silver in the sun.
But such a river? A strong man couldn't shoot an arrow halfway across the shimmering waters. As I watch, the river changes, the silver surface turning murky and dark. Looking closely I can see that it has been fouled, clotted with floating bodies of dead men.
The water is black now, the color of old blood. The corpses continue to float past men, women, and children. Some are dotted by sores from the White man's pox. Others have coughed until their lungs have shredded and protrude from their mouths. Here and there I can see wasted bodies. They look like winterkill with the skin shrunken into a rawhide tightness around the bones.
So much death. But why? Where has rt come from? I want to step back, away from the sight. But when I look back toward the west, I see my people, Dukurika and Ku'chendikani, watching with worried eyes.
I will do anything to avoid their questioning gazes, so I look back into the blood-black river—and the corpses are staring up at me while waves of stinking water slap into their eyes.
My chest feels tight, as if a great weight is pressing on me. I can't seem to fill my lungs. Fear steals along my backbone. The suffocation increases.
That's when I hear the laughter coming from far away. I know that laughter, but for the moment can't place it.
I see them as dots first. They charge forward like fleas in a blanket, jumping and bounding, racing up the river of the dead. They look like grasshoppers, coming In wave upon wave, more than a man could count In a lifetime.
The laughter rings out of the sky again. This time my souls chill at the sound. Yes, I know that laugh, have heard it before when Coyote sends me one of these Power dreams.
The golden sunlight has faded to a dirty gray, so I must squint to see that coyotes, not fleas, are running up the river. Why? To what purpose? And what has killed all these people?
A low moan rises from the floating dead as they bob and twist in the current. In return, the coyotes alternately cry and yip with excitement as they race onward.
From a great distance I hear thunder, rolling and muffled as if from an exhausted storm.
I close my eyes. A soul-deep sickness makes my guts squirm. I can smell only death and rotting flesh.
What is happening? What do you want from me, Coyote?
When I can finally open my eyes, I look down on the river once again. Now the water is calm, as if the river's soul is sleeping. The air is silent, unstiring. The entire world might be holding its breath, waiting.
The only thing that moves is a dog, a white dog. I look closely. It appears to be nothing more than mist. It chases around and around the way it would if it were trying to catch its tail in its mouth. Around and around it goes, while the world waits in deathly silence.
The dream of escape grew in Richard's breast. He was stronger now. He could pole most of the day and not collapse into instant sleep after stuffing himself with dinner. Memories of Boston filled his hours. He dreamed of the shops, the fine food, the company of educated men like Will Templeton and George Peterson.
Laura waited for him, soft and warm. He could feel her reaching for him, wrapping her arms around him. There, in that ephemeral safety, the world was far away, unable to harm him.
When I come to you, dearest Laura, nothing will ever part us again. I swear it. I'll make you a queen, shower gifts upon you. You and I will be together forever.
Boston became a magical city: the antithesis of what he suffered during the day. While Green cursed him, and the engages glowered at him, Richard retreated into himself, despising their miserable animal lives. Trudeau was the worst of the lot, a burly, arrogant tormentor. Trudeau seemed to take pleasure in torturing Richard in little ways, like the night he tripped him face-first in the mud.
Another of his messmates was Toussaint, a giant of a man with muscles knotted like intertwined oak roots. Toussaint watched Richard with oddly flat, emotionless eyes. He worked like a human draft horse, always silent and introspective. Forever brooding. The rest of the engages cautiously avoided him.
Louis de Clerk and Jacques Eppecarte were the other two men in his mess. They had both come from Saint Louis,
old hands at the river and its ways. Like the rest, they, too, despised Richard, but rarely went out of their way to add to his misery. Rather, they did their best to ignore him.
Each night, Richard would stagger ashore and flop down to look at the leaping flames of the fire. He'd wolf down his supper, and stare out at the dark trees. The engages watched him like wary hawks lest he try to escape. The irony was that nightfall found Richard so exhausted that he could do little more than collapse into his blankets and sleep like the dead until the morning call.
"Hamilton!'' Green ordered one morning. "Today, you work the cordelle."
They hadn't trusted him on the cordelle before. On the bank he'd have had an opportunity to slip away into the brush. But where would he go? The days and miles had passed. Names and places, the litany of the river, had disappeared behind them like the roiling brown current: The coal mine at La Carbonier, the squalid village of La Charette, the cave called Montbourne's Tavern; the mouth of the Osage; Booneville, Franklin, Chariton; and finally the mouth of the Grand River.
So. Maybe today he would get away. As he stepped onto the muddy bank, Travis followed him, rifle in hand.
Green was talking to Trudeau. "Keep an eye on him. If he slips off, holler. Hartman will hunt him down. If he tries to run, beat the hell out of him/'
Trudeau nodded wolfishly and threw Richard a hard glance.
Yes, you'd like that, wouldn't you, Trudeau? With resignation, Richard took his place in the middle of the line, Trudeau behind him.
The cordelle was a long rope, thick and bristly. Pulling it used different muscles than poling did. Richard rubbed the tender spot on his shoulder bruised by the pole, then took up the rope.
"Hurry up, pull, damn you!" Trudeau cursed behind him.
The long day began. Cursed and cuffed, Richard pulled, building his hatred of Trudeau as he struggled with the heavy rope, tugging the boat against the rippling current.
Like oxen. The thought settled into his brain. I am no more than a two-legged ox.
The Morning River Page 20