Travis bit his lip as the inflamed skin on his side cooled in the air. "Spirit water," she'd signed, making a motion for Richard to pour it on the suppurative wound. And damned if it didn't seem to help. The scab was tight and dry on his side, whereas pus had leaked out of his bear cuts for weeks.
Travis looked down at the curving scar. Half Man had come damned close to killing him.
Green would be at the rendezvous today, or tomorrow at the latest. Tarnal damnation, they were a hard day's walk from the river. Time was running out.
"I been laying hyar two days now." Travis made his decision. "Real slow, Dick. Take my hand. Help me up."
"You can't get up! You'll kill yourself!"
"Dave's gonna be waiting. Worrying himself sick." Travis reached out. "Come on! Hell, child, I'm half-healed already. This hyar's a scratch."
Heals Like A Willow came up behind Richard. In her sibilant speech, she said something that Travis could tell was unkind. Richard reluctantly held out his hand and helped pull Travis upright. His weight tugged at the stitches. "Damn!" Cold sweat popped out, the pain building.
"Whew! Hang onto my hand, Dick. Reckon I'm just a hair stiffened up. Need ter move a little, warm my joints."
"Crazy damn bastard!" Richard scowled his disapproval.
"What? Ye laming ter talk like an American?" Travis blinked as he looked around the shaded bottoms. Over there, where Richard had dragged them, lay the Pawnee corpses. They'd be stinking something fierce real soon.
Willow, still muttering to herself, took Travis's other arm. He set his jaw, and took a step, hating the premonition that his guts were about to spill out on the ground.
"I'm just going to walk a little. Nothing tricky like." And by Hob, don’t let me fall down and bust open like a rotten melon.
For several minutes, he hobbled around, and sure enough, his side seemed to soften. He dared not turn, reach, or bend, but he could walk.
"Now, Dick, I reckon ye might pack them hosses fer me."
"You can't travel!"
Travis looked at Willow, his hands making signs. "You would help me get to the river? Help with the horses?"
A curious respect grew in her eyes, then she nodded slowly, almost grudgingly.
"Why did you stay?" Travis asked.
She smiled crookedly while her graceful hands told him, "I did not feel good, either. Head hurt until this morning. I also said I would help Young Warrior."
"You are a good and brave woman."
She laughed cynically at that.
Travis indicated Richard, and asked, "Will you help him with the whiskey?"
After a thoughtful glance, she walked off to bring in the horses. Travis hobbled over to the two dead Pawnee. Glancing back, he saw that Hamilton and the squaw were out of sight. Gingerly, he bent his knees, easing down. The bloated corpses reeked of death. Flies had blown the wounds, and the little maggots were wiggling and feasting under the caked blood. Funny how maggots made rot smell worse.
Travis took his knife from his belt, and did what he needed to. Placing his prizes in his possibles, he straightened, ever careful of the stitches in his side.
One slow step at a time, he walked back to the horses. Richard had learned the basics of packing, and was doing tolerable well at hoisting the tins, tying the knots, and checking the balance.
"Watch that lash cinch," Travis warned. "Yer a bit far back 'round the belly. If'n that nag were ter throw a fit, ye'd have a hellacious wreck—whiskey all over Tarnation."
When the last of the horses was packed, Travis gritted his teeth and hobbled up the winding deer trail, moving as carefully as possible. How far to the river? Six, seven miles?
And I’m racing along at maybe a mile an hour.
"Travis?" Richard asked, head down.
"Huh?"
"Those men ... the Pawnee . . . well. . ."
"Well, what, fer God's sake?"
"We ought to give them a decent burial, don't you think?" Richard scuffed his toe on the grass.
"Tarnation! What's a coyote ever done ter ye? Anything?"
"Why, er, no. Nothing."
"Then let 'em eat, Doodle. Coyotes, wolves, buzzards, worms, hell, they all got ter make do out hyar, too, don't they?"
Richard's mouth had dropped open.
"I ain't saying no more about it." And God alone knew, he'd better save his breath for the climb out of this little valley. Those gentle slopes now looked for all the world like the highest of the Shining Mountains.
He was panting when he made it to the caprock, eased over the lip, and looked onto the flats. A sea of grass led eastward to the bluffs above the river. He stepped aside as Dick led the horses past.
"You're a fool, don't you know?" Richard called. "You'll be dead before nightfall!"
Travis squinted up at the sky. "Too much buffler meat in my blood, coon. I'll swear ye this! If'n I up and decides ter die, today, I'll do'er at the river. Hyar's fer the mountains, Dick. This child'll race ye ter the water!"
Heals Like A Willow was saying something in her tongue. Telling him how stupid he was, no doubt. "Wal, hell/' he said, whether they heard or not, "Hugh Glass crawlt this country after Old Ephraim tore him up. Afore that, old John Colter outrun the Blackfoots plumb naked. He crossed half the Plains without a stitch on his hide. Me, I got, oh, maybe a hunnert or so. I reckon I'm way ahead o' Colter. And I done been bear-chewed long back. If n that didn't kill me, well, by God, I'll make her."
An hour later, he was wondering if maybe he shouldn't have had his lips sewed shut along with his side.
Anything ter keep ye from a-spouting off like a jackass! A terrible weariness had settled on him, making each step an agony. Had he ever been this tired?
Yep. And in a hell of a fix worse 'n the one I'm in now.
"Travis?" Richard asked, pacing alongside, lead rope in hand.
"Yep."
"Are you all right?"
"Hell, no! As smart as yer always claiming ter be, I'd reckon ye'd be right mindful of what old Half Man done ter this beaver with that knife of his."
"We could rest."
Travis slowed to a stop, staring around at the waving bluestem and the puffy clouds that had built to the west. How far had they gone? Maybe a mile.
Feels like I’ve crossed half the world. "All right, Dick. Ease me down. Reckon I could rest a bit, get my puff back."
Richard helped him down. The grass prickled against him, smelling of spring. Damn! Why did it have to be so cussed hot? What I'd do fer a cup of water.
Heals Like A Willow leaned down, studying him. By God, she was a smart-looking woman. Travis allowed his imagination to play as he watched her full breasts sway while she checked his wound. He'd been too long without a sits-beside woman. The whores in Saint Louis were just relief for a man's pizzle. Maybe if this trip didn't kill him . . .
But he'd had his one great love: Calf in the Moonlight. A young Crow. Her gaze, so like Willow's, haunted him from the past. She smiled at him, that dancing twinkle in her eyes. How they'd loved through that too short period. His heart twisted with the old familiar sorrow.
Hell, stop it. She's dead, damn ye. Ye damned well knows ye cain f t live with no woman. Not after her.
Willow hunched down beside him, making signs. 'T must find medicine. Then I will be gone"—she held her hand to the sky, making the sign—"two hands."
Two hands? Not long. The sun traveled that in a couple of hours.
He closed his eyes, head spinning. So very weary. The world had gone floaty, shimmery. Travis smiled, falling back into the dream, seeing Calf in the Moonlight. That year had been like magic. Everything had been new, heady as foam on cool ale. A man could come to like living like that, his robes warm each night. And, unlike white women, she was always willing to open herself to his need. How they'd loved, and shared, and merged two lives into one.
And to think he'd always dreamed of having a white wife. But why? White women were nothing but trouble. Stupid coon, how come ye never underst
ood that afore?
"Because us fools always bought the notion that white women was fer successful men. Injun women, hell, they's fer the mountains and plains." But a white woman, she had to be cared for, a stay-at-home woman who lived in a cabin, baked bread, and raised children.
He could see Moonlight so clearly. He was walking toward her and she looked up, laughing at him. Her white teeth gleamed, that soft black hair streaming over her shoulder .. . Gone. Dead, lost in the hazy past.
Voices. He knew them, coming from the haze that had wrapped around him.
Someone leaned over him, blocking the sunlight. He frowned up at Michael Immel. Tall and lanky, and so young. Yes, that had to be Immel bending over him.
Travis chuckled hollowly. "Reckon ye had her wrong, old coon. Thought ye'd be headed back ter Saint Loowee a rich man. Figgered ye'd get yourself some fancy lady, all decked in rustling silks. Stick ter the Crows, or maybe the Sioux, irn ye wants ter do it up right, I'd say find ye a Cheyenne wife. She'll stick with ye through thick and thin."
"Travis?"
"Stay away from the Yellerstone, hoss. I had me a dream that you and Jones went under. Dreamed ye were ketched by the Blackfoot and kilt."
"Travis! Wake up!" A hand reached out of the shimmering past and shook his head.
"Huh?" He blinked and asked, "Dick? Whar'd Immel go? He's just hyar."
"Travis, listen. You're sick. Wounded. This is Richard Hamilton. Willow brought in some cactus and peeled it. She tied it onto your wound. Then she got on her horse and rode away. Travis? Travis! Listen to me! What do I do?"
He frowned, mouth dry. "I got a terrible dry on, Dick. Fetch me a tin of water, will ye?"
"Do you hear me?" Dick bent down, eyes wide. "Willow took her mare and left! What do I do?"
"Serves ye right fer setting her free, pilgrim. She's some woman, did ye know? Be a sight better fer ye than some white gal who only wants to sit around a house and live on a feller's labor. An Injun woman, Dick, she's more. Work side by side with ye, she will."
"I don't want a woman. I want you to tell me what to do. You're raving, Travis. Out of your head. You just had to push yourself, didn't you? Well, if you die out here, what am I going to do?"
"Foller the rivers, Dick. A feller cain't get lost. Clear out to the Black Hills, all the rivers run east to the Missouri. Beyond the Black Hills, the rivers run north to the Missouri. Any creek will take ye ter the Missouri. Foller the Missouri downstream to Fort Atkinson."
"What about the whiskey?"
"We gotta get that ter Davey. Reckon he'll go bust without her. We owe him, Dick. Kept us alive he did, nursed us after Old Ephraim tried ter put us under. Davey's a good man. Got grit whar it counts. That's all that matters in life— if n a feller's got. . . grit."
Richard shook his head. "I've got to figure out a way to move you. We can't just stay here. There's nothing to tie the horses to."
"Back," Travis whispered. ''She'll be back—in two hands. How long?"
"What?"
"Willow. She’ll be back."
"Maybe. If she comes, it will be a miracle. I sure wouldn't."
"Reckon ye would, Dick. It's in ye. Yer not the kind ter up and quit." Damn, when did it get so hot? "Reckon I'd do fer a mite of water, Dick."
"I don't have any, Travis. The closest is back at the spring."
"Wal, I reckon I done without water afore. This child's just plumb tuckered, that's all." He swallowed hard. "Let me close my eyes. Just fer a while."
In the hot blackness he floated, hearing voices from far away. Firelight flickered, and the sparks formed into faces. Immel, Jones, Keemle, Joshua Pilcher, Manuel Lisa. They sat joking, smoking long-stemmed clay pipes. Four heavy log posts gleamed golden in the background, upright to support a square smokehole. Mandan lodge. The fire popped and sparked.
Someone was singing "Yankee Doodle," while a squeeze box wheezed and tooted the notes. Along the southeast wall, where the horses were sometimes stabled, engages danced and cavorted in their heavy white canvas clothing. The red hats bobbed and swung with each merry dancer's pirouetting steps.
"She is dying, Travis, " Manuel Lisa said. The long-faced Spaniard watched him through those brooding dark eyes. "The river, she will never be the same. Perhaps the Omaha chief, Blackbird, poisoned it like he did all of his rivals. We had but a moment, a shining time. The river is going to die soon, choked in steam and smoke. But I have suspicions about the mountains beyond. They, too, will die. But for a time, the freedom will be there.' '
"The mountains?" Travis asked. "We're a-headed thar. Me and Davey Green."
"Watch out fer the Blackfeet, coon," Immel warned. "Watch yer topknot, Travis. They'll hit ye when yer not ready. ''
Jones puffed at his pipe, cheeks sucking in. He lifted a lip in disgust, then broke off an inch of the stem, the white clay discolored from the smoke. He puffed again, and smiled, saying, "Much better. She smokes a mite sweeter now." Jones raised his eyes. li Yer stars has always been lucky, Travis. Bug's Boys ain't whar ye expects 'em. Light out south. They'll seek ye all along the river, a-figgering ye'll double back fer the Mandans.''
"Ain't no Blackfoot down here near Fort Atkinson/' He wished the fire wasn't so hot. Lord God, he was hotter than a Doodle in a sweat lodge.
"Travis?"
"Huh?"
"Travis! Wake up!"
He felt something cool—water—passing his lips in dribbles. He blinked, dazzled by the bright light of afternoon. A gut water bag was placed to his lips. He sucked down more of the refreshing liquid. Not Immel and Jones, not Lisa. He squinted up at Dick Hamilton and the Snake woman, Heals Like A Willow.
"Travis," Dick told him, "we've got to get you up. Willow made a .. . well, a thing. We can get you to the river."
Travis took a deep breath, hating the lightheaded floating. Fevert It's still got ahold of me.
Willow on one side, Hamilton on the other, eased him to his feet. He stood on weak legs, the wound stinging and pulling. The scrubby little mare waited, head down, a travois tied onto her withers. Travis hobbled to the woven mat of willow and hazel branches. Then he settled back, feeling the springy wood give under his weight.
Willow lifted his shirt then, and checked the split cactus on his wounds. She made the signs: "Cactus will keep the wound from drying and cracking. At the river we will poke the wound, make it flow. Then more spirit water."
"Whyn't ye just up and kill me?" Tarnal Hell, that whiskey stung like rattlesnake poison.
He winced when the mare started forward. He eased his side as best he could given the jolting and watched the trails of bent grass made by the travois legs. The sky was clear this afternoon, cloudless and wonderfully blue. The water had helped, but he felt so terribly weak.
He reached into his possibles and brought oat the scalp he'd carved from the young Pawnee's head that morning. With his patch knife, he began to carefully scrape the bloody tissue from the skull side of the hardening skin. As the knife scraped, dreams of Moonlight flitted through his head like cottonwood down on warm morning breezes.
TWENTY-ONE
We must not confuse selfishness with self-love; they are two very discrete passions both in their nature and in their effects. Self-love is a natural sentiment, which inclines every animal to look to his own preservation, and which, directed in man by reason, and tempered by pity, is productive of virtue and humanity. Selfishness is nothing more than a relative and factitious sentiment, engendered in society, which disposes every individual to set a greater value upon himself than upon any other person, which inspires men to all the mischief they commit upon each other, and is the true source of what we call honor.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Discourse on the Origin and Foundation of Inequality Among Mankind
High clouds burned with a salmon pink radiance in the peaceful dusk. Richard made a final inspection of the night's camp. Through gaps in the trees, he could see the evening-silvered waters of the Missouri flow past. The surface looked so smooth, polish
ed pewter marred only by the shimmering columns of insects that hummed over the water.
He checked—then double-checked—the picket line that held the horses. The knots were tight on the rope that stretched between two cottonwoods. Willow had helped him with the work, surprising him with her strength as she carried the heavy tins of whiskey to the pile. She'd watched him warily as they watered the horses, and studied him with those large dark eyes when they tied the lead ropes to the picket line.
What was it about her? Why did he keep sneaking glances at her? He shook his head, irritated with himself, with the attraction he felt, and concentrated on his duties.
Everything looked sound. Even the fire that he'd made— luck riding his shoulders with this, his second-ever fire from a strike-a-light. His first smoldering spark had caught in the char-cloth and blown to flame in the dry grass he'd used for a starter.
Travis lay on his blankets beside the firepit. His eyes had cleared and his color was better. Tongue stuck out the side of his mouth, he worked on a small patch of hide with his little patch knife. Long black hair streamed from the pale leather. Horse mane? No, the hair looked finer than that.
Richard dropped to a squat. "You feeling all right?"
"Heap better, coon." Travis looked up, mild curiosity in his eyes. "Reckon I caught a tetch of fever today."
"Shouldn't have tried to leave before you were healed."
Travis waved his piece of hide toward the river. "We beat Green hyar, didn't we?"
"They might have poled past here—or been on the far bank."
"Yep, or even sailed if they got wind. But they didn't."
Richard followed Travis's gaze. Willow sat on a downed cottonwood at the water's edge. Since they'd finished chores, she'd stared in silence at the river. At this point it had to be over two hundred yards across. What thoughts were in her head?
Richard said, "I never thought she'd be back. She saved us."
"Yep. I reckon she did." Travis smoothed the glistening black hair with his callused fingers. "Hunt around in my possibles. Build us a smoke, coon."
The Morning River Page 31