The Revenant

by Michael Punke

  The Loup Pawnee, as their name implied, revered the wolf for its strength and above all for its cunning. Glass had been with Pawnee hunting parties that shot wolves; their hides were an important part of many ceremonies. But he had never done anything like what he prepared to do at that moment: crawl into a pack of wolves and challenge them for food, armed only with a torch of sage.

  The five sage branches twisted like giant, arthritic hands. Smaller twigs extended from the main branches at frequent intervals, most of them covered with spindly strands of bark and brittle, blue-green leaves. He grabbed one of the branches and set it to the fire. It caught immediately, a foot-high flame soon roaring from its top. It’s burning too fast. Glass wondered if the flame would last the distance between him and the wolves, let alone provide a weapon in whatever struggle that lay before him. He decided to hedge his bet. Rather than lighting all of the sage now, he would carry most of the branches unlit, backup ammunition to be added to the torch as needed.

  Glass looked again at the wolves. They suddenly seemed larger. He hesitated for an instant. No turning back, he decided. This is my chance. With the burning sage branch in one hand and the four backup branches in the other, Glass crawled down the bank toward the wolves. At fifty yards, the alpha male and his mate looked up from the hindquarter to stare at this strange animal approaching the buffalo calf. They viewed Glass as a curiosity, not a challenge. After all, they had eaten their fill.

  At twenty yards, the wind shifted and the four animals on the carcass caught scent of the smoke. They all turned. Glass stopped, face-to-face now with four wolves. From a distance, it was easy to see the wolves as mere dogs. Up close, they bore no relation to their domestic cousins. A white wolf showed its bloody teeth and took a half step toward Glass, a deep growl pouring from its throat. It lowered its shoulder, a move that seemed somehow both defensive and offensive at the same time.

  The white wolf fought conflicting instincts—one defensive of its prey, the other afraid of fire. A second wolf, this one missing most of one ear, fell in beside the first. The other two continued to rip at the buffalo carcass, appreciative, it seemed, of the exclusive attention to the calf. The burning branch in Glass’s right hand began to flicker. The white wolf took another step toward Glass, who remembered suddenly the sickening sensation of the bear’s teeth, ripping at his flesh. What have I done?

  Suddenly there was a flash of bright light, a brief pause, and then the deep bass of thunder rolling down the valley. A raindrop struck Glass’s face and wind whipped at the flame. He felt a sickening churn in his stomach. God no—not now! He had to act quickly. The white wolf was poised to attack. Could they really smell fear? He had to do the unexpected. He had to attack them.

  He grabbed the four sage branches from his right hand and added them to the burning branch in his left. Flames leapt up, hungrily swallowing the dry fuel. It took both hands now to hold the branches together, which meant he could no longer use his left hand for balance. Excruciating pain extended outward from his wounded right thigh as weight shifted to his leg, and he almost fell. He managed to stay upright as he lurched, hobbling forward on his knees in his best approximation of a charge. He let loose the loudest sound he could muster, which came out as a sort of eerie wail. Forward he moved, swinging the burning torch like a fiery sword.

  He thrust the torch toward the wolf with one ear. Flames singed the animal’s face and it jumped backward with a yelp. The white wolf leapt at Glass’s flank, sinking its teeth into his shoulder. Glass pivoted, craning his neck to keep the wolf off his throat. Only a few inches separated Glass’s face from the wolf’s, and he could smell the animal’s bloody breath. Glass struggled again to keep his balance. He swung his arms around to bring the flames in contact with the wolf, burning the animal’s belly and groin. The wolf released its grip on his shoulder, retreating a step.

  Glass heard a snarl behind him and ducked instinctively. The one-eared wolf came tumbling over his head, missing his strike at Glass’s neck, but knocking Glass to his side. He groaned at the impact of the fall, which reignited pain in his back, throat, and shoulder. The bundled torch hit the ground, spilling on the sandy soil. Glass grasped at the branches, desperate to pick them up before they extinguished. At the same time, he struggled to regain the upright position on his knees.

  The two wolves circled slowly, waiting for their moment, more cautious now that they had tasted the flame. I can’t let them get behind me. Lightning struck again, followed rapidly this time by the boom of thunder. The storm was nearly over him. Rain would pour down at any minute. There’s no time. Even without the rain, the flames on the torch were burning low.

  The white wolf and the wolf with one ear closed. They too seemed to sense that the battle was nearing its climax. Glass feigned at them with the torch. They slowed, but did not retreat. Glass had worked himself into a position only a few feet from the calf. The two wolves feeding on the carcass succeeded in tearing off a hindquarter, and retreated from the commotion of the battling wolves and the strange creature with the fire. For the first time, Glass noticed the clumps of dry sage around the carcass. Would they burn?

  Eyes fixed on the two wolves, Glass set his torch to the sage. There had been no rain for weeks. The brush was dry as tinder and caught fire easily. In an instant, flames rose two feet above the sage next to the carcass. Glass lit two other clumps. Soon, the carcass lay in the middle of three burning bushes. Like Moses, Glass planted himself with his knees on the carcass, waving the remnants of his torch. Lightning struck and thunder boomed. Wind whipped the flames around the brush. Rain fell now, though not yet enough to douse the sage.

  The effect was impressive. The white wolf and the wolf with one ear looked around. The alpha male, his mate, and the pups loped across the prairie. With full bellies and a breaking storm, they headed for the shelter of their nearby den. The two other wolves from the carcass also followed, struggling to pull the calf’s hindquarter across the prairie.

  The white wolf crouched, poised, it seemed, to attack again. But suddenly the wolf with one ear turned and ran after the pack. The white wolf stopped to contemplate the changing odds. He knew well his place in the pack: Others led and he followed. Others picked out the game to be killed, he helped to run it down. Others ate first, he contented himself with the remainder. The wolf had never seen an animal like the one that appeared today, but he understood precisely where it fit in the pecking order. Another clap of thunder erupted overhead, and the rain began to pour down. The white wolf took one last look at the buffalo, the man, and the smoking sage, then he turned and loped after the others.

  Glass watched the wolves disappear above the rim of the cut bank. Around him, smoke rose as the rain doused the sage. Another minute and he would be defenseless. He marveled at his fortune as he glanced quickly at the bite on his shoulder. Blood trickled from two puncture wounds, but they were not deep.

  The calf lay in the grotesque throes of its failed efforts to escape the wolves. Brutally efficient fangs had ripped the carcass open. Fresh blood pooled beneath the open throat, an eerily brilliant crimson against the muted tans of the sand in the gully. The wolves had focused their attention on the rich entrails that Glass himself craved. He rolled the calf from its side to its back, noting with brief disappointment that nothing remained of the liver. Gone too were the gallbladder, the lungs, and the heart. But a small bit of intestine hung from the animal. Glass removed the razor from his possibles bag, followed the snaking organ into the body cavity with his left hand, and cut a two-foot length at the stomach. Barely able to control himself at the immediacy of food, he put the cut end to his mouth and guzzled.

  If the wolf pack had availed itself of the choicer organs, it also had done Glass the favor of nearly skinning its prey. Glass moved to the throat, where with the aid of the razor he could pull back the supple skin. The calf was well fed. Delicate white fat clung to the muscle of its plump neck. The trappers called this fat “fleece” and considered it a delicacy. He
cut chunks and stuffed them into his mouth, barely chewing before he swallowed. Each swallow revived the excruciating fire in his throat, but hunger trumped the pain. He gorged himself in the pouring rain, arriving finally at some minimal threshold that allowed him to consider other dangers.

  Glass climbed again to the rim of the cut bank, scanning the horizon in all directions. Scattered clumps of buffalo grazed obliviously, but there was no sign of wolf or Indian. The rain and thunder had ended, blowing past as rapidly as they appeared. Angled rays of afternoon sunlight succeeded in breaking through the great thunderheads, streaming forth in iridescent rays extending from heaven to earth.

  Glass settled back to consider his fortune. The wolves had taken their share, but an enormous resource lay below him. Glass suffered no illusions about his situation. But he would not starve.

  Glass camped for three days on the cut bank next to the calf. For the first few hours he didn’t even set a fire, gorging uncontrollably on thin slices of the gloriously fresh meat. Finally he paused long enough to start a low blaze for roasting and drying, concealing the flames as much as possible by setting them near to the bank.

  He built racks from the green branches of a nearby stand of willows. Hour after hour he carved away at the carcass with the dull razor, hanging meat on the racks while he steadily fed the fires. In three days he dried fifteen pounds of jerky, enough to sustain him for two weeks if need be. Longer if he could supplement along the way.

  The wolves did leave one choice cut—the tongue. He relished this delicacy like a king. The ribs and remaining leg bones he roasted on the fire one by one, cracking them for their rich, fresh marrow.

  Glass removed the hide with the dull razor. A task that should have taken minutes took hours, an interval during which he thought bitterly about the two men who stole his knife. He had neither the time nor the tools to work the fur properly, but he did cut a crude parfleche before the skin dried into stiff rawhide. He needed the bag to carry the jerky.

  On the third day, Glass went searching for a long branch to use as a crutch. In the fight with the wolves, he had been surprised at the weight that his wounded leg could support. He had exercised the leg over the past two days, stretching and testing it. With the aid of a crutch, Glass believed he could now walk upright, a prospect he relished after three weeks of crawling like a gimpy dog. He found a cottonwood branch of the appropriate length and shape. He cut a long strip from the Hudson Bay blanket, wrapping it around the top of the crutch as a pad.

  The blanket had been reduced, strip by strip, to a piece of cloth no more than one foot wide by two feet long. Glass used the razor to cut an opening in the middle of the cloth, large enough so that he could poke his head through. The resulting garment wasn’t big enough to call a capote, but at least it would cover his shoulders and keep the parfleche from digging against his skin.

  There was a chill in the air again on that last night by the buttes. The last shreds of the slaughtered calf hung drying on the racks above the crimson coals. The fire cast a comforting glow on his camp, a tiny oasis of light amid the black of the moonless plain. Glass sucked the marrow from the last of the ribs. As he tossed the bone on the fire, he realized suddenly that he was not hungry. He savored the seeping warmth of the fire, a luxury he would not enjoy again in the foreseeable future.

  Three days of food had worked to repair his wounded body. He bent his right leg to test it. The muscles were tight and sore, but functional. His shoulder too had improved. Strength had not returned to his arm, but some flexibility had. It still scared him to touch his throat. The remnants of the stitches protruded, although the skin had fused. He wondered if he should attempt to cut them away with the razor, but had been afraid to try. Aside from his effort to yell at the wolves, he had not tested his voice for days. He would not do so now. His voice had little to do with his survival in the coming weeks. If it were changed, so be it. He did appreciate the fact that he now could swallow with less pain.

  Glass knew that the buffalo calf had turned his fortune. Still, it was easy to temper the assessment of where he stood. He had lived to fight another day. But he was alone and without weapons. Between him and Fort Brazeau lay three hundred miles of open prairie. Two Indian tribes—one possibly hostile and the other certainly so—followed the same river that he depended on to navigate the open space. And of course, as Glass knew painfully well, Indians were not the only hazard before him.

  He knew he should sleep. With the new crutch, he hoped to make ten or even fifteen miles the next day. Still, something drew him to linger in the fleeting moment of contentment—sated, rested, and warm.

  Glass reached into the possibles bag and pulled out the bear claw. He turned it slowly in the low light of the fire, fascinated again at the dried blood on the tip—his blood, he now realized. He began to carve at the thick base of the claw with the razor, etching a narrow groove that he carefully worked to deepen. From his bag he also removed the hawk’s-feet necklace. He wrapped the string of the necklace around the groove he had carved at the base of the claw, tying it into a tight knot. Finally, he tied the ends behind his neck.

  He liked the idea that the claw that inflicted his wounds now hung, inanimate, around his neck. Lucky charm, he thought, then fell asleep.

  ELEVEN

  September 16, 1823

  Goddamn it! John Fitzgerald stood staring at the river in front of him, or more accurately, at the bend in the river.

  Jim Bridger walked up beside him. “What’s it doing, turning east?” Without warning, Fitzgerald backhanded the boy across the mouth. Bridger sprawled backward, landing on his backside with a stunned look on his face. “What’d you do that for?”

  “You think I can’t see that the river turns east? When I need you to scout, I’ll ask you! Otherwise, keep your eyes open and your goddamned mouth shut!”

  Bridger was right, of course. For more than a hundred miles, the river they followed had run predominantly north, the exact bearing they sought to follow. Fitzgerald wasn’t even sure of the river’s name, but he knew that everything flowed eventually into the Missouri. If the river had continued its northern course, Fitzgerald believed it might intersect within a day’s march of Fort Union. Fitzgerald even held out some hope that they were actually on the Yellowstone, though Bridger maintained that they were too far east.

  In any event, Fitzgerald had hoped to stick to the river until they hit the Missouri. In truth, he had no instinct for the geography of the vast wasteland before him. There had been little feature to the land since they struck out from the headwaters of the Upper Grand. The horizon stretched out for miles in front of them, a sea of muted grass and swelling hills, each exactly like the last.

  Sticking to the river made for straightforward navigation, and it assured an easy supply of water. Still, Fitzgerald had no desire to turn east—the new direction of the river for as far as their eyes could see. Time remained their enemy. The longer they wandered separate from Henry and the brigade, the greater the odds for calamity.

  They stood there for several minutes while Fitzgerald stared and stewed.

  Finally Bridger took a deep breath and said, “We should cut northwest.”

  Fitzgerald started to rebuke him, except that he was utterly at a loss about what to do. He pointed to the dry grassland that stretched to the horizon. “I suppose you know where to find water out there?”

  “Nope. But we don’t need much in this weather.” Bridger sensed Fitzgerald’s indecision, and felt a corresponding increase in the strength of his own opinion. Unlike Fitzgerald, he did have an instinct across open country. He always had, an internal compass that seemed to shepherd him in unmarked terrain. “I think we’re no more than two days from the Missouri—and maybe that close to the Fort.”

  Fitzgerald fought back the urge to strike Bridger again. In fact, he thought again about killing the boy. He would have done it back on the Grand, had he not felt dependent upon the extra rifle. Two shooters weren’t many, but two were bet
ter than one alone.

  “Listen, boy. You and I need to reach a little understanding before we join up with the others.” Bridger had anticipated this conversation ever since they abandoned Glass. He looked down, already ashamed of what he knew was coming.

  “We did our best for old Glass, stayed with him longer than most would’ve. Seventy dollars isn’t enough to get scalped by the Rees,” Fitzgerald said, using the short name for the Arikara.

  Bridger said nothing, so Fitzgerald continued. “Glass was dead from the minute that grizzly finished with him. Only thing we didn’t do was bury him.” Still Bridger looked away. Fitzgerald’s anger began to rise again.

  “You know what, Bridger? I don’t give a tinker’s damn what you think about what we did. But I’ll tell you this—you spill your guts and I’ll carve your throat from ear to ear.”

  TWELVE

  September 17, 1823

  Captain Andrew Henry did not pause to appreciate the raw splendor of the valley spread before him. From his vantage point on a high bluff above the confluence of the Missouri and Yellowstone rivers, Henry and his seven companions commanded a vast horizon demarcated by a blunt plateau. In front of the plateau flowed gentle buttes, spilling like flaxen waves between the steep bench and the Missouri. Though the near bank had been stripped of its timber, thick cottonwoods still held the far bank, fighting against autumn for temporary possession of their greenery.

  Nor did Henry stop to contemplate the philosophical significance of two rivers joining. He did not imagine the high mountain meadows where the waters began their journey as pure as liquid diamond. He did not even linger to appreciate the practical import of the fort’s location, neatly collecting commerce from two great highways of water.