The Morning River

by W. Michael Gear

  Green hunched over the flour barrels, a candle in his burly right hand The oaken-plank roof wavered in the candlelight, flickers chasing shadows behind the bales, packs, and tins.

  Green had been squinting in the dimness, inspecting his goods, searching for any water that might have pooled in the bilge. Seepage could turn trade goods into disaster.

  Green turned his eyes to Travis. "Trouble how?"

  "Trudeau's getting ideas about Willow."

  "Tell him to leave her alone. What's the matter? Didn't he get his fill of that Maha squaw?''

  Travis pulled on his beard, tugging the scars tight. "Some men just got themselves a passion, Dave. Fer some it's the bottle, fer others a game of monte. Reckon fer Trudeau it's wimmen."

  Green gazed at him thoughtfully. "You know, I'm counting on that girl. She's a Snake. Seeing her home safely might make for real good trade with her tribe."

  "Reckon so." Travis lowered himself to sit on the steps. "I warned Trudeau off. Don't know that it'll take. Might have ter kill him."

  "I suppose." Green leaned over stacked kegs of gunpowder and reached out with the candle to stare down into the blackness beyond. "And how'd your day's ride treat you?"

  "I'm a mite stove up yet. A couple more days and I'll have vigor back in my blood again."

  "Enough to take Trudeau down?"

  "Him and four others."

  Green turned his head, his face sallow in the candlelight. "You getting killed won't do me any good."

  "He ain't gonna do nothing yet." Travis braced his elbows on his knees. "I’m just a-warning ye, it's coming. 'Sides, I reckon Trudeau'll tie into Hamilton first. They had words this morning. The kid was grousing about the Omaha selling his woman, and Trudeau, he was a bragging about how good she was. Sort of prickled old Dick's hide, I tell ye."

  "And Trudeau didn't kill him?"

  "I was too close. And, wal, I reckon Willow would'a drove an arrow through old Trudeau if'n he hurt Dick. She's plumb smart with that bow, you know. But, yep, it's a-coming between Dick and Trudeau. Matter of time."

  "Well, it won't be much trouble burying Hamilton."

  Travis cocked his head. "Trudeau sent a shiver down Dick's back, all right. That Yankee pilgrim looked fer all the world like he's a headed straight ter Hell."

  "How come he hasn't jumped ship yet? He's still figuring on that, isn't he?"

  Travis chuckled. "So he claims. Just as soon's I'm all healed. Reckon it'll be one thing after another. He ain't going, Dave. He just don't know it yet."

  Green set his candle on a crate before dropping down to feel about under the plank decking. "Sonuvabitch!" Green jerked back, banging his head on a whiskey tin in the process. Something scampered in the darkness.

  "What the hell?" Travis demanded.

  Green shivered, rolled back, and stared owlishly into the dark hole he'd just pulled his hand from. ' 'Grabbed a damn rat in there!" In the candlelight, he studied his hand and then rubbed the side of his head. "I hate rats. Did I ever tell you that?"

  "Time or two. Find any leaks?"

  "Nope. We're still tight, Travis. After we grounded so many times the last couple of weeks, I was getting worried. Damn rats! I hate 'em."

  "Comes with the country, coon." Travis fingered the worn oak steps. "We've done right fine, Davey. No serious trouble."

  Green retrieved his candle and picked his way carefully through the cargo. "I don't call you getting gutted no trouble."

  "Ain't nobody dead yet. Nobody drowned. No holes in the boat. Nobody arrested at Fort Atkinson. We're plumb chipper."

  "We're just reaching the frontier, Travis." Green blew out his candle, and Travis rose and climbed out onto the deck.

  "You find anything?" Henri asked as he stepped around the passe avant.

  "She's dry." Green thrust thumbs into his belt, staring out at the river. For a time the three of them stood there, watching the gathering darkness over the water.

  The evening was cool, the air still, and the river had taken on a silvered sheen in the sky's fading glow. As the current tugged at it, the long steering oar canted to the starboard. Travis slapped a mosquito that had been humming around his left ear. Swallows swooped low over the water to skim a drink.

  "Think we'll make it?" Green asked as he watched the dark river swirl below them.

  Travis shrugged. "Sioux country is up ahead. Never can tell about Sioux. Since Leavenworth made such a fool outa himself, it's hard ter say how they'll react. Then we got the Rees up near the Mandans now. Probably still madder than hell. Tarnation, Dave, we're on the upper river now. Who knows? The game changes past Blackbird's grave and the

  Mahas. Downriver, yer more likely to drown. Upriver, yer more likely to get shot, scalped, starved, or froze. If n 'tain't water, it's fire."

  "I take water every time," Henri said as he flexed his powerful hands. "If there is one law on the river, it is that God lets no man die old, non?"

  Green nodded thoughtfully. "Makes you wonder what sort of tools we are. doesn't it? So many things could go wrong. A sawyer could rip the bottom out of the Maria. We could run into a band of Sioux with the prod on. The Rees could figure us for a lone boat and ambush us."

  "And I might get ate by a bear. Reckon there ain't no gain if n a body don't take no risk. What the hell, Henri is right. This coon's done figgered he'll lose his hair afore he dies of old age. Life's fer living, Dave. It's fer taking a gamble and seeing where yer stick floats. Hell, yer not figgering on dying in a bed in Saint Loowee, are ye?"

  "No, I suppose not."

  "Then stop yer cussed worrying. Each day takes care of itself."

  They could hear the engages singing softly as their supper Ked on the bank. Travis batted futilely at a swarm of mosquitoes humming above him in a wavering column.

  "These mosquitoes," Henri growled. "Like the plague, they come to a man most just when he wants to rest. Nusibles! Ah, well. I got to check the painter before I see you at ze tent, bourgeois." The patroon slapped at the humming air and disappeared around the corner of the cargo box

  "He’s a good man. Green noted. "I got lucky."

  "'Yep. And we'd best hope that luck holds, coon."

  "I hope all night and most of the day. Come on, I'm half starved." Green started for the passe avant "Baptiste cut any buffalo sign today?"

  "Yep. Old. but still sign." Travis followed Green down the bouncing plank.

  "River’s up." Green pointed to where the water had risen. "Must be a flood somewhere upriver." He hesitated. "Travis?"

  "Huh?"

  '"Thanks."

  "Whatfer?"

  "For being here."

  Travis patted Green on the back. "C'mon. Let's fill our bellies and get shy of these skeeters afore they suck a man dry."

  Heals Like A Willow sat at the fire, a blanket over her head as protection from the mosquitoes. This night, camp had been pitched on a high bank, the keelboat tied off to gnarled old cottonwoods. She'd placed their fire off to one side, away from the other engages. These White men ate and camped in little groups called "messes." She shared hers with Trawis, Dik, and Baptiste. Dave Green and Henri camped right in the center of the messes, the two of them generally eating alone before the square-walled tent.

  The flames danced happily around the wood. Unlike the White men who chopped logs in two with their axes, she'd used the tried-and-true Indian method of breaking them into lengths, often wedging them between two tree trunks to get the leverage. She didn't need as much fire as the Whites who built bonfires and sat back away from them. Her people built small fires and sat right on top of them.

  Baptiste lounged on the flattened grass, idly slapping at mosquitoes and scratching itches. In her country, she would have used a mixture of larkspur and fir sap to keep the bugs off. Here, among these strange plants, she didn't know what to use except smoke and the blanket.

  From the protection of her blanket, she watched Ritshard—seeing past his blank face to the unease he tried to hide within. From acr
oss the camp, she could sense Tru-deau's hungry interest.

  And when the two finally faced off over her? It didn't take much imagination to visualize Trudeau beating Ritshard into unconsciousness.

  And when he does, I'll split the Frenchman's skull with my war club. The deadly maternal urge to protect rose within her until her eyes slitted, and she briefly considered rising, stalking across the camp, and killing Trudeau before he had the chance to cause real trouble.

  No. Doing so would shame Ritshard. And from that, he might never recover. But why did she even care? A smart woman would let them sort it out between themselves.

  Why Ritshard? She ground her teeth, knowing full well what attracted her. Power hovered around his soul like mist around a warm pond, and it drew her relentlessly toward him.

  And do you really think he could follow in the place of your husband? He doesn’t know the simplest of things. Do you think he's a warrior? He nearly threw up after facing Trudeau!

  No, it would be impossible. He couldn't speak a word of the People's tongue. The Dukurika would eventually laugh him out of camp. And worst of all, what would her father say? It had been bad enough when she married a Ku'chendikani.

  The gentle strains of a song rose on the night air as the men finished their suppers and lit pipes full of fragrant tobacco. So peaceful now, but Trudeau would be trouble—as inevitable as winter on the heels of a late fall wind. Up to now, she'd been able to avoid him, using her skills to slip away when he prowled after her.

  From the corner of her eye, she watched Ritshard. I should leave. Take the trouble away before I get him killed

  But she stayed, watching, seeking to find that link of understanding within herself. Who were these ghost-skinned men from so far away? Their talk of giant villages, of boats larger than Maria that crossed oceans, the fascinating things they manufactured from metal, wood, and cloth, all drew her to know more.

  And to think I ridiculed White Hail for wanting White man's things.

  The Whites took wealth so casually. The day before, Trawis had given her a looking glass, one that portrayed her with such clarity that she might have been seeing another world rather than a reflection of this one. Among the Dukurika the looking glass would have been a source of awe for the entire band, passed from hand to hand with cries of amazement. Trawis had handed the magical glass to her with no more ceremony than he might have used to give her a rabbit-bone bead.

  The fire popped, and sparks twined into the night sky. In the trees, an owl hooted, the mournful note interwoven with the voices of coyotes out in the bluffs.

  Rich in things, yes. That was the White man's way. But of their souls she could detect little if anything. Some of the engages knelt in the morning, mumbling to themselves, eyes closed, and finished with a motion of the hand, touching forehead, stomach, and each breast. Praying, Ritshard had said. Sending a message to God, as they called Tarn Apo.

  But on their knees like children? And with their eyes closed? How could a man find God with his eyes closed? And if he mumbled, how could God hear? Among her people, praying was done standing or dancing, arms upraised, eyes open to allow the soul to embrace Creation. When calling out to God, one sang, rejoicing and raising one's voice so that Tarn Apo or the spirit helpers could hear clearly.

  And perhaps that is the key. The White men keep Tarn Apo locked up like a little thing inside them. If so, how did God feel, to be treated thus?

  When she questioned Ritshard about it, he used words far beyond her. Trawis would make signs, but they, too, ran out of meaning. Talking in signs was for trade and the interactions of peoples having different languages, not for such things as the nature of God.

  Ritshard had told her that Whites kept a special ''lodge" for God. A place called "church." Was it the nature of Whites to enclose things? That they did so with their women was understandable if one thought of a woman like a good horse—but the idea that anyone would try such a thing with God confounded her.

  Trawis stepped out of Green's tent. His pipe was in hand, and he puffed at it as he walked over to the fire and settled himself cross-legged beside Ritshard.

  ''How do, coon?"

  ''I’m fine," Ritshard responded.

  Baptiste spoke up, "Reckon tomorrow I'll scout northwest, see if I cut buffler sign."

  "Ought to. We're close." Trawis stared at the end of his pipe stem. "This child's froze fer buffler."

  Willow kept her head down as Trudeau walked past, then beyond into the darkness. She could hear him urinating just beyond the halo of firelight.

  When he returned, he stopped long enough to nod at Trawis and give her that toothy leer she'd come to dislike.

  After he'd left, Trawis said quietly, "Willow, you stay close ter me, hear? Reckon ye'd best not be walking off by yerself."

  Baptiste nodded as he reached for his belt knife and began fingering the shining blade. ''Reckon that's a heap of sense. Old Trudeau, he's on the prod.''

  "I avoid him," Willow replied. A small ache touched her soul at Ritshard's expression—strained, shamefaced.

  ''Yep, well, that's good," Trawis added. "He's some at moving a boat. Be a shame ter have to send him under."

  ''Always the boat," Richard muttered wearily.

  ''Boat's all we got," Trawis answered in that lazy voice he used sometime

  Ritshard slapped a mosquito, but remained silent, his eyes on the fire. What did he see that was so far away? What did he long for with such yearning in his eyes?

  "Ritshard? You have woman in Boston?" Willow asked

  "No."

  "Family?"

  He laughed sharply. "Yes, but none who would miss me.

  "What is in Boston?"

  He closed his eyes and whispered softly, "Everything."

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Thus the distinct boundaries and offices of reason and of taste are easily ascertained. The former conveys the knowledge of truth and falsehood: the latter gives the sentiment of beauty and deformity, vice and virtue. The one discovers objects as they really stand in nature, without addition or diminution: the other has a productive faculty, and gilding or staining all the natural objects with colours, borrowed from internal sentiment, raises in a manner, new creation. Reason being cool and disengaged, is no motive to action, and directs only the impulse received from an appetite or inclination, by showing us the means of attaining happiness or avoiding misery. Taste, as it gives pleasure or pain, and thereby constitutes happiness or misery, becomes a motive to action, and is the first spring or impulse to desire and volition.

  —David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals

  Easy, coon," Travis whispered as they crept along a brush-choked drainage. Richard paid careful attention to his feet, making sure that each step was placed so as to avoid rustling the green grass. His heart was pounding with excitement. This was the hunt!

  The drainage cut like a twisting wound through the flats. Buffaloberry, currants, and spears of cedar lined the slopes, while a trickle of water fed rushes and cattails in the bottom. Sunflowers and daisies sprinkled color through the grass.

  Overhead, the sun's white intensity flushed water from every pore in Richard's body.

  "Close," Willow whispered behind him. "Wind is right. Waugh!"

  Travis throttled a chuckle.

  "Waugh is not proper English," Richard reminded Willow, but he grinned and winked at her. To his delight, she winked back and gave him a smile that melted his heart.

  "Shhh!" Travis raised a finger to his lips. The hunter dropped to his belly and snaked into a dry gulch that branched off from the cut. Richard dropped to follow, the green smell of crushed vegetation filling his nostrils. His blood began to quicken.

  Digging in with his elbows, he followed Travis's moccasined feet. A hole had worn into the grass-polished right heel.

  Travis slipped sideways past a patch of grass-bound prickly pear.

  In a matter of moments, Richard's muscles started to protest from the awkward position. Th
is mode of travel was ordained for snakes and salamanders—not human beings. He bit his lip and squirmed along in Travis's wake, aware of skittering insects, blades of grass, and the sunheat boring into his back.

  How far were they going? He tried to lift his head to see, but Willow slapped his foot. When he shot a glance over his shoulder, she shook her head emphatically.

  He grumbled under his breath and dragged himself onward.

  Travis had wriggled up to a patch of thorn-bristling rosebushes that clung to the side of the now shallow depression. Heedless of the vicious stems, the hunter eased up to the edge of the draw, parting the plants carefully to slide the long Hawken through the lea

  Richard winced as he scratched himself and eased into place beside the hunter.

  "Careful, coon," Travis whispered. "Buffler don't see worth a damn, but it shore ain't no sin to be extra careful."

  Richard peered through the screen of small serrated K and thorns. Blooms had already opened in putts of pink that delighted the nose. But where had . . . ? Yes, there!

  The shaggy hump of the animal was no more than fifty paces away. Willow appeared as immune to thorns as Travis as she crawled up beside Richard.

  The metallic click of the hammer might have sundered the world, but the buffalo remained oblivious. Time passed interminably.

  "So, why don't you shoot?" Richard barely mouthed the words.

  "Poor bull," Travis hissed. "We'll wait. Fat cow'll step up in a minute."

  The minute turned into an hour under the relentless sun. The first fly was almost bearable as it buzzed around Richard's head. The rest who came—no doubt at some inaudible fly call from the first—drove him to distraction. The best he could do was flip his head to discourage the beasts, but all that earned him was a disgusted look from Travis, whom the flies seemed to ignore.

  The bull had moved away, but a second animal, smaller, almost tan in color, was grazing closer with an agonizing slowness.