The Revenant

by Michael Punke

  Hugh Glass stood in the chaotic streets of Campeche that November night and made an abrupt decision about the course of his future. He had no intention of joining the fleeing band of pirates. Glass had come to view the sea, which he once embraced as synonymous with freedom, as no more than the confining parameters of small ships. He resolved to turn a new direction.

  The crimson glow of fire cast Campeche’s last night in apocalyptic splendor. Men swarmed through the scattered buildings, grabbing for anything of value. Liquor, never in short supply on the island, flowed with particular abandon. Disputes over plunder found quick resolution through gunfire, filling the town with the staccato explosions of small arms. Wild rumors spread that the American fleet was about to shell the town. Men fought wildly to clamber aboard departing ships, whose crews used swords and pistols to fight off unwanted passengers.

  As Glass wondered where to go, he ran headlong into a man named Alexander Greenstock. Like Glass, Greenstock was a prisoner, impressed into duty when his ship had been captured. Glass had served with him on a recent foray into the Gulf. “I know about a skiff on the South Shore,” said Greenstock. “I’m taking it to the mainland.” Among the contending poor options, the risks on the mainland seemed least bad. Glass and Greenstock picked their way through the town. Before them on a narrow road, three heavily armed men sat atop a horse-drawn cart, stacked precariously with barrels and crates. One man whipped the horse, while two others stood guard from the top of their loot. The cart hit a stone and a crate tumbled to the ground with a crash. The men ignored it, racing to catch their ship.

  The top of the crate read “Kutztown, Pennsylvania.” Inside were newly crafted rifles from the gunsmith shop of Joseph Anstadt. Glass and Greenstock each grabbed a gun, incredulous at their luck. They scavenged through the few buildings that hadn’t been reduced to ashes, eventually finding ball, powder, and a few trinkets for trading.

  It took them most of the night to row around the east end of the island and across Galveston Bay. The water caught the dancing light from the burning colony, making it appear as if the whole bay was ablaze. They could see clearly the hulking profiles of the American fleet and the fleeing ships of Lafitte. When they were a hundred yards from the mainland shore, a great explosion erupted from the island. Glass and Greenstock looked back to see mushrooming flames bellow forth from Maison Rouge, the residence and armory of Jean Lafitte. They rowed across the final few yards of the bay and jumped into the shallow surf. Glass waded ashore, leaving the sea behind him forever.

  With no plan or destination, the two men picked their way slowly down the Texas coast. They set their course based more on that which they sought to avoid than on that which they sought to find. They worried constantly about the Karankawa. On the beach they felt exposed, but thick cane jungles and swampy bayous discouraged turning inland. They worried about Spanish troops and they worried about the American fleet.

  After walking seven days, the tiny outpost of Nacogdoches appeared in the distance. News of the American raid on Campeche no doubt had spread. They guessed that the locals would view anyone approaching from Galveston as a runaway pirate, likely to be hanged on sight. Glass knew that Nacogdoches was the trailhead for the Spanish enclave of San Fernando de Bexar. They decided to avoid the village and cut inland. Away from the coast, they hoped, there would be less awareness of the events at Campeche.

  Their hopes were misguided. They arrived at San Fernando de Bexar after six days and were promptly arrested by the Spanish. After a week in a stifling jail cell, the two men were brought before Major Juan Palacio del Valle Lersundi, the local magistrate.

  Major Palacio gazed at them wearily. He was a disillusioned soldier, a would-be conquistador who instead found himself the administrator of a dusty backwater at the tail end of a war that he knew Spain would lose. As Major Palacio looked at the two men before him, he knew that the safest course would be to order them hanged. Wandering up from the coast with only their rifles and the clothes on their backs, he assumed they were pirates or spies, although both claimed to have been captured by Lafitte while traveling on Spanish ships.

  But Major Palacio was not in a hanging mood. The week before, he had sentenced to death a young Spanish soldier for falling asleep while on sentry duty, the proscribed punishment for the infraction. The hanging had left him deeply depressed, and he had spent the better part of the past week in confession with the local padre. He stared at the two prisoners and listened to their story. Was it the truth? How could he know for sure, and not knowing, by what authority could he take their lives?

  Major Palacio offered Glass and Greenstock a deal. They were free to leave San Fernando de Bexar on one condition—that they traveled north. If they traveled south, Palacio feared that other Spanish troops would pick them up. The last thing he needed was a reprimand for pardoning pirates.

  The men knew little about Texas, but Glass found himself suddenly exhilarated, about to embark without compass into the interior of the continent.

  And so they made their way north and east, assuming at some point they would collide with the great Mississippi. In more than a thousand miles of wandering, Glass and Greenstock managed to survive on the open plain of Texas. Game was plentiful, including thousands of wild cattle, so food was rarely a problem. The danger came from successive territories of hostile Indians. Having survived their traipse through the territory of the Karankawa, they succeeded in avoiding the Comanches, the Kiowas, the Tonkawas, and the Osage.

  Their luck ran out on the banks of the Arkansas River. They had just shot a buffalo calf and were preparing to butcher it. Twenty mounted Loup Pawnees heard the shot and came thundering over the crest of a rolling butte. The treeless plain offered no cover, not even rocks. Without horses, they stood no chance. Foolishly, Greenstock raised his weapon and fired, shooting the horse from one of the charging braves. An instant later he lay dead, three arrows protruding from his chest. A single arrow struck Glass in the thigh.

  Glass didn’t even raise his rifle, staring in detached fascination as nineteen horses barreled toward him. He saw the flash of paint on the chest of the lead horse and black hair against the blue sky, but he barely felt the round stone of the coup stick that crashed against his skull.

  Glass awoke in the Pawnee village. His head throbbed and he was tied at the neck to a post driven into the ground. They had bound his wrists and ankles, though he could move his hands. A crowd of children stood around him, chattering excitedly when he opened his eyes.

  An ancient chief with stiffly spiked hair approached him, staring down at the strange man before him, one of the few white men he had ever seen. The chief, named Kicking Bull, said something that Glass could not understand, though the assembled Pawnee began whooping and howling in obvious delight. Glass lay on the edge of a great circle in the middle of the village. As his blurry vision began to focus, he noticed a carefully prepared pyre in the center of the circle and quickly surmised the source of the Pawnee glee. An old woman yelled at the children. They ran off as the Pawnee dispersed to prepare for the ceremonial conflagration.

  Glass was left alone to assess his situation. Twin images of the camp floated before his eyes, merging only if he squinted or closed one eye. Looking down at his leg, he saw that the Pawnee had done him the favor of plucking out the arrow. It had not penetrated deeply, but the wound would certainly slow him down if he tried to flee. In short, he could barely see and he could barely walk, let alone run.

  He patted the pocket in the front of his shirt, relieved that a small container of cinnabar paint had not fallen out. The cinnabar was one of the few trading goods he had grabbed in his escape from Campeche. Rolling to his side to conceal his actions, he pulled out the container, opened it, and spit into the powder, mixing it with his finger. Next he spread the paint on his face, careful to cover every inch of exposed skin from his forehead to the top of his shirt. He also smeared a large quantity of the thick paint into the palm of his hand. He recapped the small jar and burie
d it in the sandy soil beneath him. Finally finished, he rolled onto his stomach, resting his head on the crook of his arm so that his face remained hidden.

  He stayed in that position until they came for him, listening to the excited preparations for his execution. Night fell, though an enormous fire illuminated the circle in the center of the Pawnee camp.

  Glass was never really sure whether he intended his act as some type of symbolic final gesture, or whether he actually hoped for the effect which in fact occurred. He had heard that most savages were superstitious. In any event, the effect was dramatic, and, as it turned out, saved his life.

  Two Pawnee braves and Chief Kicking Bull came to carry him to the pyre. When they found him, facedown, they read it as a sign of fear. Kicking Bull cut the bindings to the post, while the two braves each reached for a shoulder to pull him upright. Ignoring the pain in his thigh, Glass sprang to his feet, facing the chief, the braves, and the assembled tribe.

  The collected Pawnee tribe stood in front of him, openmouthed in shock. Glass’s entire face was blood red, as if his skin had been stripped away. The whites of his eyes caught the light of the fire and shone like a fall moon. Most of the Indians had never seen a white man, so his full beard added to the impression of a demonic animal. Glass slapped one of the braves with his open hand, leaving a vermillion hand print etched on his chest. The tribe let out a collective gasp.

  For a long moment there was complete silence. Glass stared at the Pawnee and the stunned Pawnee stared back. Somewhat surprised at the success of his tactic, Glass wondered what he should do next. He panicked at the thought that one of the Indians might suddenly regain his composure. Glass decided to begin shouting, and unable to think of anything else to say, he launched into a screaming recitation of the Lord’s Prayer: “Our Father, Who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy Name …”

  Chief Kicking Bull stared in complete confusion. He had seen a few whites before, but this man appeared to be some type of medicine man or devil. Now the man’s strange chant appeared to be putting the entire tribe under some type of spell.

  Glass ranted on: “For Thine is the Kingdom, and the Power, and the Glory, forever. Amen.”

  Finally the white man stopped yelling. He stood there, panting like a spent horse. Chief Kicking Bull looked around him. His people looked back and forth between the chief and the crazy devil man. Chief Kicking Bull could feel the tribe’s blame. What had he brought upon them? It was time for a new course of action.

  He walked slowly up to Glass, stopping directly in front of him. The chief reached around his neck, removing a necklace from which dangled a pair of hawk’s feet. He placed the necklace around Glass’s neck, staring questioningly into the devil man’s eyes.

  Glass looked into the circle before him. At its center, near the pyre, stood a row of four-low chairs made from woven willows. Clearly, these were the front-row seats to the spectacle that was to have been his ritual burning. He limped to one of the seats and sat down. Chief Kicking Bull said something, and two women scrambled to fetch food and water. Then he said something to the brave with the vermillion hand print on his chest. The brave darted off, returning with the Anstadt, which he placed on the ground next to Glass.

  Glass spent almost a year with the Loup Pawnee on the plains between the Arkansas and Platte Rivers. After overcoming his initial reticence, Kicking Bull adopted the white man like a son. What Glass had not learned about wilderness survival in his trek from Campeche, he learned from the Pawnee that year.

  By 1821, scattered white men had begun to travel the plains between the Platte and the Arkansas. In the summer of that year, Glass was hunting with a party of ten Pawnee when they came across two white men with a wagon. Telling his Pawnee friends to stay behind, Glass rode slowly forward. The men were federal agents dispatched by William Clark, United States Superintendent of Indian Affairs. Clark invited the chiefs of all the surrounding tribes to St. Louis. To demonstrate the government’s good faith, the wagon was loaded with gifts—blankets, sewing needles, knives, cast iron pots.

  Three weeks later, Glass arrived in St. Louis in the company of Kicking Bull.

  St. Louis lay at the frontier of the two forces tugging at Glass. From the east he felt anew the powerful pull of his ties to the civilized world—to Elizabeth and to his family, to his profession and to his past. From the west he felt the tantalizing lure of terra incognita, of freedom unmatched, of fresh beginnings. Glass posted three letters to Philadelphia: to Elizabeth, to his mother, and to Rawsthorne & Sons. He took a clerical job with the Mississippi Shipping Company and waited for replies.

  It took more than six months. In early March 1822, a letter arrived from his brother. Their mother had died, he wrote, following their father after barely a month.

  There was more. “It is also my sad duty to tell you that your dear Elizabeth has died. She contracted a fever last January, and, though she struggled, she did not recover.” Glass collapsed into a chair. The blood drained from his face and he wondered if he would be sick. He read on: “I hope it will give you comfort to know that she was laid to rest near Mother. You should also know that her fidelity to you never wavered, even when we all believed that you had perished.”

  On March 20th, Glass arrived at the offices of the Mississippi Shipping Company to find a group of men huddled around an advertisement in the Missouri Republican. William Ashley was raising a fur brigade, bound for the upper Missouri.

  A week later, a letter arrived from Rawsthorne & Sons, offering Glass a new commission as the captain of a cutter on the Philadelphia to Liverpool run. On the evening of April 14th, he read the offer one last time, then threw it on the fire, watching as the flames devoured this last tangible link to his former life.

  The next morning, Hugh Glass embarked with Captain Henry and the men of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company. At thirty-six, Glass no longer considered himself a young man. And unlike young men, Glass did not consider himself as someone with nothing to lose. His decision to go west was not rash or forced, but as fully deliberate as any choice in his life. At the same time, he could not explain or articulate his reasons. It was something that he felt more than understood.

  In a letter to his brother he wrote, “I am drawn to this endeavor as I have never before been drawn to anything in my life. I am sure that I am right to do this, though I cannot tell you precisely why.”

  EIGHT

  September 2, 1823—Afternoon

  Glass took another long look at the rattlesnake, still lying torpid in the all-consuming state of digesting its prey. The snake hadn’t moved an inch since Glass had been conscious. Food. His thirst quenched at the seeping spring, Glass became suddenly aware of a profound and gnawing hunger. He had no idea how long it had been since he had eaten, but his hands trembled from the lack of subsistence. When he lifted his head, the clearing spun a slow circle around him.

  Glass crawled cautiously toward the snake, the imagery of his horrific dream still vivid. He moved to within six feet, stopping to pick up a walnut-size rock. With his left hand, he rolled the rock, which skipped toward the snake, bumping its body. The snake didn’t move. Glass picked up a fist-size rock and crawled within reach. Too late, the snake made a sluggish move toward cover. Glass smashed the rock on its head, beating the serpent repeatedly until he was certain it was dead.

  Having killed the rattlesnake, Glass’s next challenge was to gut it out.

  He looked around the camp. His possibles bag lay near the edge of the clearing. He crawled to it, emptying its remaining contents on the ground: a few rifle patches, a razor, two hawk’s feet on a beaded necklace, and the six-inch claw of a grizzly bear. Glass picked up the claw, fixating on the thick coat of dried blood at its tip. He returned it to the bag, wondering how it got there. He picked up the patches, thinking that he might use them for tinder, bitter anew that they would not serve their intended purpose. The razor was the one true find. Its blade was too fragile to make of a weapon, but it could serve a number of useful purp
oses. Most immediately, he could use it to skin the snake. He dropped the razor into the possibles bag, slung the bag over his shoulder, and crawled back to the snake.

  Already flies buzzed around the snake’s bloody head. Glass was more respectful. He had once seen a severed snake head implant itself on the nose of a fatally curious dog. Remembering the unfortunate dog, he laid a long stick across the snake’s head and pressed down on it with his left leg. He couldn’t lift his right arm without setting off intense pain in his shoulder, but the hand functioned normally. He used it to work the razor, sawing the blade to sever the head. He used the stick to flip the head toward the edge of the clearing.

  He sliced down the belly beginning at the neck. The razor dulled quickly, reducing its effectiveness with each inch. He managed to cut the length of the snake, nearly five feet to the vent. With the snake laid open he pulled out the entrails, throwing them aside. Beginning again at the neck, he used the razor to peel the scaly skin away from the muscle. The meat now glistened before him, irresistible in the face of his hunger.

  He bit into the snake, ripping into the raw flesh as if it were an ear of corn. Finally a piece tore free. He gnawed at the springy meat, though his teeth did little to break it down. Oblivious to anything but his hunger, he made the mistake of swallowing. The large chunk of raw meat felt like a stone as it passed through his wounded throat. The pain made him gag. He coughed, and for an instant he thought the chunk of meat might choke him. Finally it passed down his gullet.

  He learned his lesson. He spent the rest of the daylight hours carving small bits of meat with the razor, pounding them between two rocks to break down the fibrous flesh, and then mixing each bite with a mouthful of spring water. It was an arduous way to eat, and Glass still felt hungry when he reached the tail. It was worrisome, since he doubted that his next meal would be delivered to him so easily.