The Revenant

by Michael Punke

  “Or maybe you got no pecker at all.”

  Without thinking, Bridger jumped to his feet, grabbed his rifle, cocked it, and pointed the long barrel at Fitzgerald’s head. “You son of a bitch, Fitzgerald! Say another word and I’ll blow your damn head off!”

  Fitzgerald sat stunned, staring at the dark muzzle of the rifle barrel. For a long moment he sat like that, just staring at the muzzle. Then his dark eyes moved slowly up to Bridger’s, a smile creeping to join the scar on his face. “Well, good for you, Bridger. Maybe you don’t squat when you piss, after all.”

  He snorted at his joke, pulled out his knife, and set to butchering the deer.

  In the quiet of the camp, Bridger became aware of the heavy sound of his own breathing, and could feel the rapid beat of his heart. He lowered the gun and set the butt on the ground, then lowered himself. He felt suddenly tired, and pulled his blanket around his shoulders.

  After several minutes, Fitzgerald said, “Hey, boy.”

  Bridger looked over, but said nothing in acknowledgment.

  Fitzgerald casually wiped the back of a bloody hand against his nose.

  “That new gun of yours won’t fire without a flint.”

  Bridger looked down at his rifle. The flint was missing from the lock.

  The blood rose again in his face, though this time he hated himself as much as Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald laughed quietly and continued his skillful work with the long knife.

  In truth, Jim Bridger was nineteen that year, with a slight build that made him look younger still. The year of his birth, 1804, coincided with the launch of the Lewis and Clark expedition, and it was the excitement generated by their return that led Jim’s father to venture west from Virginia in 1812.

  The Bridger family settled on a small farm at Six-Mile-Prairie near St. Louis. For a boy of eight, the voyage west was a grand adventure of bumpy roads, hunting for supper, and sleeping beneath a canopy of open sky. In the new farm, Jim found a forty-acre playground of meadows, woods, and creeks. Their first week on the new property, Jim discovered a small spring. He remembered vividly his excitement as he led his father to the hidden seep, and his pride when they built the springhouse. Among many trades, Jim’s father dabbled in surveying. Jim often tagged along, further fixing a taste for exploration.

  Bridger’s childhood ended abruptly at the age of thirteen, when his mother, father, and older brother all died of fever in the space of a single month. The boy found himself suddenly responsible for both himself and a younger sister. An elderly aunt came to tend for his sister, but the financial burden for the family fell upon Jim. He took a job with the owner of a ferry.

  The Mississippi of Bridger’s boyhood teemed with traffic. From the south, manufactured supplies moved upriver to the booming St. Louis, while downstream flowed the raw resources of the frontier. Bridger heard stories about the great city of New Orleans and the foreign ports beyond. He met the wild boatmen who pushed their craft upstream through sheer strength of body and will. He talked to teamsters who portaged products from Lexington and Terre Haute. He saw the future of the river in the form of belching steamboats, churning against the current.

  Yet it wasn’t the Mississippi River that captured Jim Bridger’s imagination—it was the Missouri. A mere six miles from his ferry the two great rivers joined as one, the wild waters of the frontier pouring into the bromide current of the everyday. It was the confluence of old and new, known and unknown, civilization and wilderness. Bridger lived for the rare moments when the fur traders and voyageurs tied their sleek Mackinaws at the ferry landing, sometimes even camping for the night. He marveled at their tales of savage Indians, teeming game, forever plains, and soaring mountains.

  The frontier for Bridger became an aching presence that he could feel, but could not define, a magnetic force pulling him inexorably toward something that he had heard about, but never seen. A preacher on a swaybacked mule rode Bridger’s ferry one day. He asked Bridger if he knew God’s mission for him in life. Without pause Bridger answered, “Go to the Rockies.” The preacher was elated, urging the boy to consider missionary work with the savages. Bridger had no interest in bringing Jesus to the Indians, but the conversation stuck with him. The boy came to believe that going west was more than just a fancy for someplace new. He came to see it as a part of his soul, a missing piece that could only be made whole on some far-off mountain or plain.

  Against this backdrop of an imagined future, Bridger poled the sluggish ferry. To and fro, back and forth, motion without progression, never venturing so much as a mile beyond the fixed points of the two landings. It was the polar opposite of the life he imagined for himself, a life of wandering and exploration through country unknown, a life in which he never once retraced his steps.

  After a year on the ferry, Bridger made a desperate and ill-thought effort to make some progress westward, apprenticing himself to a blacksmith in St. Louis. The blacksmith treated him well, and even provided a modest stipend to send to his sister and aunt. But the terms of apprenticeship were clear—five years of servitude.

  If the new job did not put him in the wilderness, at least St. Louis talked of little else. For half a decade Bridger soaked in frontier lore. When the plainsmen came to shoe their horses or repair their traps, Bridger overcame his reserve to ask about their travels. Where had they been? What had they seen? The boy heard tales of a naked John Colter, outracing a hundred Blackfeet intent on taking his scalp. Like everyone in St. Louis, he came to know details of successful traders like Manuel Lisa and the Chouteau brothers. Most exciting to Bridger were occasional glimpses of his heroes in the flesh. Once a month, Captain Andrew Henry visited the blacksmith to shoe his horse. Bridger made sure to volunteer for the work, if only for the chance that he might exchange a few words with the captain. His brief encounters with Henry were like a reaffirmation of faith, a tangible manifestation of something that otherwise might exist only as fable and tale.

  The term of Bridger’s apprenticeship ran to his eighteenth birthday, on March 17, 1822. To coincide with the Ides of March, a local actors’ brigade played a rendition of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. Bridger paid two bits for a seat. The long play made little sense. The men looked silly in full-length gowns, and for a long time Bridger was unsure whether the actors were speaking English. He enjoyed the spectacle, though, and after a while began to develop a feel for the rhythm of the stilted language. A handsome actor with a bellowing voice spoke a line that would stick with Bridger for the rest of his life:

  There is a tide in the affairs of men,

  Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune …

  Three days later, the blacksmith told Bridger about a notice in the Missouri Republican. “To Enterprising Young Men …” Bridger knew his tide had come in.

  The next morning Bridger awoke to find Fitzgerald bent over Glass, his hand pressed against the forehead of the wounded man.

  “What’re you doing, Fitzgerald?”

  “How long’s he had this fever?”

  Bridger moved quickly to Glass and felt his skin. It was steamy with heat and perspiration. “I checked him last night and he seemed all right.”

  “Well, he’s not all right now. It’s the death sweats. The son of a bitch is finally going under.”

  Bridger stood there, unsure whether to feel upset or relieved. Glass began to shiver and shake. There seemed little chance that Fitzgerald was wrong.

  “Listen, boy—we got to be ready to move. I’m going to scout up the Grand. You take the berries and get that meat pounded into pemmican.”

  “What about Glass?”

  “What about him, boy? You become a doctor while we’ve been camping here? There’s nothing we can do now.”

  “We can do what we’re supposed to be doing—wait with him and bury him when he dies. That was our deal with the captain.”

  “Scrape out a grave if it’ll make you feel better! Hell, build him a goddamn altar! But if I come back here and that meat’s not ready, I’ll
whip on you till you’re worse off than him!” Fitzgerald grabbed his rifle and disappeared down the creek.

  The day was typical of early September, sunny and crisp in the morning, hot by afternoon. The terrain flattened where the creek met the river, its trickling waters spreading wide across a sandbar before joining the rushing current of the Grand. Fitzgerald’s eyes were drawn downward to the scattered tracks of the fur brigade, still apparent after four days. He glanced upriver, where an eagle perched like a sentry on the bare branch of a dead tree. Something startled the bird. It opened its wings, and with two powerful flaps lifted itself from its perch. Carving a neat pivot on the tip of its wing, the bird turned and flew upriver.

  The screaming whinny of a horse cut the morning air. Fitzgerald spun around. The morning sun sat directly on the river, its piercing rays merging with water to form a dancing sea of light. Squinting against the glare, Fitzgerald could discern the silhouettes of mounted Indians. He dropped to the ground. Did they see me? He lay on the ground for an instant, his breath arriving in staccato spurts. He snaked toward the only cover available, a scrubby stand of willows. Listening intently, he heard again the whinny of the horse—but not the churning pound of charging horses. He checked to ensure his rifle and pistol were charged, removed his wolf-skin hat, and lifted his head to peer through the willows.

  There were five Indians at a distance of about two hundred yards on the opposite bank of the Grand. Four of the riders formed a loose semicircle around the fifth, who quirted a balking pinto. Two of the Indians laughed, and all of them seemed transfixed by the struggle with the horse.

  One of the Indians wore a full headdress of eagle feathers. Fitzgerald was close enough to see clearly a bear-claw necklace around his chest and the otter pelts that wrapped his braids. Three of the Indians carried guns; the other two bows. There was no war paint on the men or the horses, and Fitzgerald guessed they were hunting. He wasn’t sure of the tribe, although his working assumption was that any Indians in the area would view the trappers with hostility. Fitzgerald calculated that they were just beyond rifle range. That would change quickly if they charged. If they came, he would have one shot with the rifle and one with the pistol. He might be able to reload his rifle once if the river slowed them down. Three shots at five targets. He didn’t like the odds.

  Belly to the ground, Fitzgerald wormed his way toward the cover of the higher willows near the creek. He crawled through the middle of the brigade’s old tracks, cursing the markings that so clearly betrayed their position. He turned again when he reached the thicker willows, relieved that the Indians remained preoccupied with the stubborn pinto. Still, they would arrive at the confluence of the creek with the river in a matter of instants. They would notice the creek, and then they would notice the tracks. The goddamn tracks! Pointing like an arrow up the creek.

  Fitzgerald worked his way from the willows to the pines. He pivoted to take one final look at the hunting party. The skittish pinto had settled, and all five Indians now continued up the river. We have to leave now. Fitzgerald ran up the creek the short distance to the camp.

  Bridger was pounding venison against a stone when Fitzgerald burst into the clearing. “There’s five bucks coming up the Grand!” Fitzgerald began wildly stuffing his few possessions into his pack. He looked up suddenly, his eyes focused in intensity and fear, then anger. “Move, boy! They’ll be on our tracks any minute!”

  Bridger stuffed meat into his parfleche. Next he threw his pack and possibles bag over his shoulders, then turned to grab his rifle, leaning against a tree next to Glass’s Anstadt. Glass. The full implications of flight struck the boy like a sudden, sobering slap. He looked down at the wounded man.

  For the first time that morning, Glass’s eyes were open. As Bridger stared down, the eyes initially had the glassy, uncomprehending gaze of one awakening from deep sleep. The longer Glass stared, the more his eyes seemed to focus. Once focused, it was clear that the eyes stared back with complete lucidity, clear that Glass, like Bridger, had calculated the full meaning of the Indians on the river.

  Every pore in Bridger’s body seemed to pound with the intensity of the moment, yet to Bridger it seemed that Glass’s eyes conveyed a serene calmness. Understanding? Forgiveness? Or is that just what I want to believe? As the boy stared at Glass, guilt seized him like clenched fangs. What does Glass think? What will the captain think?

  “You sure they’re coming up the creek?” Bridger’s voice cracked as he said it. He hated the lack of control, the demonstrable weakness in a moment demanding strength.

  “Do you want to stay and find out?” Fitzgerald moved to the fire, grabbing the remaining meat from the drying racks.

  Bridger looked again at Glass. The wounded man worked his parched lips, struggling to form words through a throat rendered mute. “He’s trying to say something.” The boy knelt, struggling to understand. Glass slowly raised his hand and pointed a shaking finger. He wants the Anstadt. “He wants his rifle. He wants us to set him up with his rifle.”

  The boy felt the blunt pain of a forceful kick against his back and found himself lying facedown on the ground. He struggled to his hands and knees, looking up at Fitzgerald. The rage on Fitzgerald’s face seemed to merge with the distorted features of the wolf-skin hat. “Move, goddamn you!”

  Bridger scrambled to his feet, wide-eyed and startled. He watched as Fitzgerald walked to Glass, who lay on his back with his few possessions piled next to him: a possibles bag, a knife in a beaded scabbard, a hatchet, the Anstadt, and a powder horn.

  Fitzgerald stooped to pick up Glass’s possibles bag. He dug inside for the flint and steel, dropping them into the pocket on the front of his leather tunic. He grabbed the powder horn and slung it over his shoulder. The hatchet he tucked under his broad leather belt.

  Bridger stared, uncomprehending. “What are you doing?”

  Fitzgerald stooped again, picked up Glass’s knife, and tossed it to Bridger. “Take that.” Bridger caught it, staring in horror at the scabbard in his hand. Only the rifle remained. Fitzgerald picked it up, checking quickly to ensure it was charged. “Sorry, old Glass. You ain’t got much more use for any of this.”

  Bridger was stunned. “We can’t leave him without his kit.”

  The man in the wolf skin looked up briefly, then disappeared into the woods.

  Bridger looked down at the knife in his hand. He looked at Glass, whose eyes glared directly into him, animated suddenly like coals beneath a bellows. Bridger felt paralyzed. Conflicting emotions fought inside of him, struggling to dictate his action, until one emotion came suddenly and overwhelmingly to prevail: He was afraid.

  The boy turned and ran into the woods.

  SEVEN

  September 2, 1823—Morning

  There was daylight. Glass could tell that much without moving, but otherwise he had no idea of the time. He lay where he collapsed the day before. His rage had carried him to the edge of the clearing, but his fever stopped him there.

  The bear had carved away at Glass from the outside and now the fever carved away from within. It felt to Glass as if he had been hollowed out. He shivered uncontrollably, yearning for the seeping warmth of a fire. Looking around the campsite, he saw that no smoke rose from the charred remains of the fire pits. No fire, no warmth.

  He wondered if he could at least scoot back to his tattered blanket, and made a tentative effort to move. When he summoned his strength, the reply that issued back from his body was like a faint echo across a wide chasm.

  The movement irritated something deep in his chest. He felt a cough coming on and tensed his stomach muscles to suppress it. The muscles were sore from numerous earlier battles, and despite his effort, the cough burst forth. Glass grimaced at the pain, like the extraction of a deep-set fishhook. It felt like his innards were being ripped out through his throat.

  When the pain of coughing receded, he focused again on the blanket.

  I have to get warm. It took all his strength to lift his h
ead. The blanket lay about twenty feet away. He rolled from his side to his stomach, maneuvering his left arm out in front of his body. Glass bent his left leg, then straightened it to push. Between his one good arm and his one good leg, he push-dragged himself across the clearing. The twenty feet felt like twenty miles, and three times he stopped to rest. Each breath drew like a rasp through his throat, and he felt again the dull throbbing in his cleaved back. He stretched to grab the blanket when it came within reach. He pulled it around his shoulders, embracing the weighty warmth of the Hudson Bay wool. Then he passed out.

  Through the long morning, Glass’s body fought against the infection of his wounds. He slipped between consciousness, unconsciousness, and a confusing state in between, aware of his surroundings like random pages of a book, scattered glimpses of a story with no continuity to bind them. When conscious, he wished desperately to sleep again, if only to gain respite from the pain. Yet each interlude of sleep came with a haunting precursor—the terrifying thought that he might never wake again. Is this what it’s like to die?

  Glass had no idea how long he had been lying there when the snake appeared. He watched with a mixture of terror and fascination as it slid almost casually from the woods into the clearing. There was an element of caution; the snake paused on the open ground of the clearing, its tongue slithering in and out to test the air. On the whole, though, this was a predator in its element, in confident pursuit of prey. The snake began to move again, the slow serpentine motion accelerating suddenly to propel it with surprising speed. It went straight for him.

  Glass wanted to roll away, but there was something inevitable about the way the snake moved. Some part of Glass remembered an admonishment to hold still in the presence of a snake. He froze, as much from hypnosis as from choice. The snake moved to within a few feet of his face and stopped. Glass stared, trying to mimic the serpent’s unblinking stare. He was no match. The snake’s black eyes were as unforgiving as the plague. He watched, mesmerized, as the snake wrapped itself slowly into a perfect coil, its entire body made for the sole purpose of launching forward in attack. The tongue moved in and out, testing, probing. From the midst of the coil, the snake’s tail began quivering back and forth, the rattle like a metronome marking the brief moments before death. The first strike came so quickly that Glass had no time to recoil. He stared down in horror as the rattler’s head shot forward, jaws distended to reveal fangs dripping with poison. The fangs sunk into Glass’s forearm. He screamed in pain as the venom coursed into his body. He shook his arm but the fangs held on, the snake’s body flailing with Glass’s arm through the air. Finally the snake dropped, its long body perpendicular to Glass’s torso. Before Glass could roll away, the snake rewound itself and struck again. Glass couldn’t scream this time. The serpent had buried its fangs in his throat.