“Oh, pshaw, old boy. The cathedral’s a work of man. This is just an old boneyard that got covered with sand, and eventually the bones fossilized. Now, that’s not a bit like someone walking into a cathedral and digging up a dead king or duke or two to steal a molar.”
“I’m afraid it’s just like that. For people who find their religion in nature, this is their cathedral. Those prayer bundles hanging from the limbs over there are oblations, sacrifices, gifts to the spirits here.”
Mercer listened impatiently. “Well, I’ll carve a few bones anyway and no one will know the difference. Why aren’t you curious? Why aren’t you excited? The biggest bloody bones in the universe. We’ve found a monster! Why aren’t you dancing? Itching to share this treasure with the whole world? I am all of those things. What do you think these bones are? What sort of beast? I’m absolutely at a loss. A bird? Three-toed feet, eh? A lizard? How do you make out the little front paws and giant rear limbs? Is this some sort of giant kangaroo? By gad, Skye, these beasts are something unknown. Unimagined. Maybe the bones of a dragon? Who would have thought that Mercer would find a prehistoric dragon, eh? But the reality is, sir, that this monster from the deeps is nothing known to mortals. Not a bird nor a lizard, not a mammal nor a fish. This monster will shock the world, shock every single member of the Royal Society. What shall I do? Pretend that these are nothing, not worth the attention of science, not worth bringing to the attention of civilized people?”
Skye tried again, quietly: “As a favor to me and a favor to Victoria—”
Mercer shook his head. “We’ll not impede science. Nothing will come of it. I’ve seen superstition on every continent I’ve visited. I’ve seen strange rituals, sacrifices that civilized people abominate. I’ve seen strange peoples worship a stone or a toad or cut open a carp to examine its entrails. I’ve seen a thousand religions and superstitions and this is just one more in the long parade.”
“Then do this: Be an observer. Leave them alone. Don’t dig them up. Measure them. Record them. Sketch them. Gather witnesses. I’ll verify what you record. I’m sure Mister Winding will. But leave the bones alone. If you leave the bones unharmed, I believe you will leave here unharmed. If you harm these, I cannot say what will happen or which of us might get hurt. Maybe all of us.”
But it was over. Mercer was shaking his head all the while that Skye pleaded with him. The adventurer had already made up his mind and no argument could stop him.
“Lend me your hatchet and your axe, Mister Skye.”
“No, you’re on your own.”
“I’ll use our knives if that’s all that’s available to us. It’ll take longer, that’s all. Some good hot fires over these bones will crack rock and loosen the bones. That and some careful digging. I’ll get some bones, whether or not you’re here to help.”
Mercer smiled, that bright, relentless smile that announced he was going to have his way no matter what. “I refuse to argue. If you feel so strongly about it, we can part company here, Skye. I can make Fort Benton on my own. It’s simply upriver. Winding and I’ll go there after we’re done. I’ll send you a letter of credit for services rendered, care of the factor at Fort Laramie, or whatever you choose. What was it? A hundred pounds? Yes, and well spent. I’ll thank you for services rendered. You and your lovely wives. Excellent service, Mister Skye. You’ve been a fine guide and companion, and here we are. This is the finest of all my discoveries on four continents and nothing will put me off.”
Skye saw that this was how it would end. He eyed Mercer and Winding, thinking of all they had been through, the fire, the loss of all equipment, the odd quest for sensation, and now the sacrilege. Of course Mercer didn’t see it as sacrilege, and for that matter Skye didn’t either, but over his long years in the wilds he had come to understand how his wife’s beliefs governed her life, her choices, her tastes and feelings and very character, just as his own faith, however residual it might be, governed his own.
“Very well. I’m sorry to part company with the mission incomplete. I had hoped to deliver you safely to Fort Benton and with ample material for you to write about. There’s one thing more, sir. I should like a receipt or financial instrument.”
“But there’s not a sheet of paper here, Mister Skye.”
“You may write it on my robe, sir. And sign it.”
“Well, that’s fine, I’ll do it. I’m a man of my word and you’ll have your receipt for services performed, even if we’re parting a few dozen miles shy of our destination.”
Skye nodded. There was always that redeeming quality about Mercer. Mary, who had followed the conversation, was already heading back to the packs to fetch Skye’s robe, and now she returned with it and spread it on the sandy pathway before the terrible bones.
Mercer knelt, and with his stick brush and little sack of greasy paint, dated and began his instrument. For services rendered, Mister Barnaby Skye shall be entitled to one hundred pounds, to be collected at an exchange of his choice. Signed this day, Graves Duplessis Mercer.
It took a while. Scratching text with a fibrous end of a stick required time. A midday brightness began to flood the canyon and its flat, even throwing light upon the great field of bones under the sandstone overhang.
“There you are. Present this at a post and they’ll aim it toward Barclay’s Bank in London via Hudson’s Bay or Chouteau and Company.”
Mercer lifted the heavy robe and handed it to Skye.
“I will do that.” Skye lifted and settled his old top hat, as he always did when at a loss for words. “We’ve been through a lot together, sir. I wish you a safe passage home.”
“Wish me a boatload of bones, Mister Skye!”
Victoria sprang at him, bristling, saying not a word, her glare so fierce that Skye wondered whether she would strike the Briton.
“We will never see you again. No one will ever see you again,” she said.
Mercer, used to more politic language, was plainly at a loss for words but he nodded and bowed slightly.
But there were tears in Victoria’s eyes. It was not just anger, but some anguish, some deep sadness that was moving her now.
Skye slipped over to her, wrapped an arm over her shoulder, but she violently shook herself free. Just then, white men were her enemies.
He hoped this great sadness would repair swiftly. There was little to do but collect Jawbone and lead his family and horses away from this quiet canyon off the Missouri River, and hope the high plains and wind in the waving grasses would brighten her heart.
An odd cloud drifted overhead, a momentary gray on a dry, brittle autumnal sky. An equally odd roll of distant thunder slipped into the canyon, muffled and low, as if it had come from a great distance, maybe aeons away through time and space. Victoria stood rigidly, hearing things that Skye could not hear, and then she stared long and sorrowfully at Mercer. For her, the gods had spoken.
Skye thought maybe the gods had spoken to himself as well, for the odd cloud was vanishing before his eyes and there was naught but hard blue heaven at last from one rim of the canyon to the other. Maybe, when they reached the high plains, they would discover the odd cloud drifting away.
Things did not feel right. He furtively eyed Mercer, wondering if he would be the last person ever to see the explorer alive. And Winding. He collected Jawbone, whose flesh shivered when Skye touched it. What was the matter with the horse?
He mounted, and felt the horse turn leaden under him, devoid of all energy. Mary seemed cheerful enough, but Victoria looked small and shriveled, temporarily an ancient woman as she collected her horse and made sure the travois were readied.
Then, softly, from some other passage into the river canyon mounted Indians came in a long file, all of them painted in ghastly fashion. There was no escaping them. The newcomers took in Mercer and Winding as well as Skye’s party, and continued toward them, never pausing. Some wore black on one side of their head, red on the other. All were hideously painted. And for the life of him, Skye could not ma
ke out the tribe.
thirty-six
Skye glanced at Victoria. She shook her head. She didn’t know either. Mary studied the Indians and shook her head also. None of them could identify this band of painted men walking their ponies toward them.
Mercer saw them too, and hastily moved his robe so it did not cover any of the bones he was rendering to pictographs.
“Who?” he asked Skye.
“Don’t know.”
Mercer began his own preening, straightening hat, adjusting his shirt. Winding stood, watching the painted Indians, a certain resignation in him.
Now the warriors, walking their ponies single file, were close enough so Skye could make out details. The ponies were painted too. The lead horse had a set of pointed teeth across his chest, like an alligator jaw. The hideously painted warrior held a staff burdened with feathers. Not a weapon was visible among any of them. They were all splashed with umber and red, black and tan, with circles and giant eyes painted on their chests, and chevrons on their arms.
“Mercer. Stay quiet. They’re not painted for war.”
“Got it, old boy.”
But Skye wondered whether the explorer did get it. The band now rode toward Mercer and Winding, parading their ponies along the path that bordered the bones, studying Mercer’s pictographs painted on his robe.
Skye held up his hand, palm out, the peace sign, and then did the friend sign. The chief of this band did likewise. For the moment, anyway, trouble receded. Skye beheld about fifteen young men of unknown tribe, all silent, all dressed in outlandish ways, but plainly exhibiting the most powerful medicine they could manage from their paint pots.
They reined their ponies to a halt and stared at the white men.
“Who are they, Mister Skye?” Mercer whispered.
“No idea,” Skye replied.
“Well find out, blast it.”
The explorer who had just discharged his guide suddenly had need of him. Skye allowed himself a moment of amusement.
“I am Skye,” he signaled, pointing to the sky and his chest. “Who you?”
“No Name here,” the leader signaled back. A man who concealed his name.
“What people?”
The leader gave the sign for Sarsi but Skye didn’t recognize it.
“Sarsi!” whispered Victoria.
“Sarsi? They’re Sarsi,” Skye said to Mercer.
“Never heard of ’em.”
“Canadian.”
“Ah, the queen’s very own!”
“I doubt it,” Skye retorted laconically.
He knew little about them. The band had lived on the Saskatchewan plains, been driven west by Cree about the turn of the century, and had found protection and support from their friends the Blackfeet.
“Sonofabitch,” muttered Victoria, who was no friend of anyone associated with her mortal enemies.
“Who him?” signaled the one who owned no name, pointing to Mercer.
“He storyteller, makes pictures, from the land of the Great Mother.”
Skye’s hands flew, his fingers formed and re-formed image after image. Sign language was never easy.
“Why here?” No Name pointed at Mercer.
Skye paused. He had to be very careful.
“To tell story of bones.”
No Name dismounted and stooped over the robe to study the pictographs.
“What’s he doing, Mister Skye?” Mercer asked.
“He is reading your signs as best he can.”
Others dismounted and crowded around the robe, pointing at this or that image. Mercer was plenty nervous and kept smiling, flashing a row of white teeth at one and another of the Sarsi. Then they began arguing in a tongue Skye could not grasp.
“What are they saying?” Mercer asked.
“Who knows?”
“I have to know!”
Skye smiled. “Mister Mercer, at this moment your life depends on the way you behave. Give no offense.”
All of our lives, Skye added silently.
“What do you make of it, Victoria?”
“Secret society. Sarsi come here to get big medicine from bones. Maybe bone society. All young sonsofbitches, eh?”
“What are our chances?”
“No one ever got killed here. What you call it, a truce here. Big truce.”
“But if they decide Mercer has done evil?”
She shrugged, not wanting to answer that one.
The dispute among the Sarsi seemed to escalate. And it involved the robe. That was plain from the gesticulating and pointing.
Skye signaled Mercer to be cautious but Mercer mixed right in with the young men, smiling, making friends or so he thought.
Finally, the Sarsi headman approached Skye, hands and fingers moving swiftly once again. “The storyteller. Does he know the story of the big bones?”
“No.”
“But he has told the story on his robe.”
Skye nodded.
“He will tell the story to us.”
“He does not know the story.”
“But he has painted it on his robe.”
Skye sensed he was trapped. “Mister Mercer, they believe you know the story of the bones because of what you’ve put on the robe, and now they want to hear it. I’ll have to use sign language.”
“But, Skye, I’m really not a storyteller.”
“I told them you are one.”
“What’ll I say?”
“Tell them what Victoria’s people believe the bones to be.”
Victoria glared at Skye and retreated into herself. But Skye sensed she was secretly pleased.
No Name signaled Skye. “We will learn the story of the sacred bones. The Storyteller will tell us. We will dance and pray. We have begged the four winds for the Storyteller and now he is here. This is a great omen. The Mystery of the Bones will be opened to my people. This day will be remembered for all times.”
“What’s he saying, Mister Skye?” Mercer asked.
Skye pondered how to put it. “Mister Mercer, they have waited a long time to learn the mysteries of the big bones. This is a pilgrimage. They come from the north. They have come here to pay their respects to the bones and learn about them. And now they will find out from you. For a long time they have pleaded for you to come here and now you are here. You are the high priest of the big bones. Perhaps one of their shamans prophesied that you would be here. I don’t know. This evening they will listen to you, and dance and pray to the big bones.”
“High priest?”
“You, yes. Behave accordingly. Consider yourself the archbishop of bones.”
“Gad, Skye, I am not a high priest of anything except women.” He was grinning again, even white teeth on display.
“Sir, take this seriously. I repeat, your life depends on it. False priests are the first to feel the battle-axe.”
“But I am to make up a story? How can I take that seriously?”
“A myth is not made-up. The story of Victoria’s people, the people of the great bird, is not simply manufactured. It’s an ancient tradition to explain their origins.”
Victoria absorbed that solemnly.
Mercer sighed. “Storytelling is my calling, it seems.”
It was eerie. The Sarsi dearly believed this encounter was preordained, fated by the gods, and dearly had foreknowledge of Mercer’s visit. There were powers of the universe that Skye didn’t grasp, this understanding of the hours and days and months ahead.
The secret bones society of the Sarsi made camp on the flat dose to the river. They had brought no tents, only a sleeping robe each, and necessaries. Some of the young men had drums; each had his own paints. They carried only a little jerky, just enough to stave off starvation.
That afternoon, they lionized Mercer, bringing gifts to lay at his feet. The high priest of the bones received two robes, a Hudson’s Bay axe, a battle hatchet, an awl, a knife, a King James Bible from who knew where, a small medicine bundle carefully strung over his neck, a fringed elk
-skin jacket, and a sacred pipe with a red pipestone bowl.
“Gad, Skye, I’m rich! Now I can dig bones!” Mercer said.
A cold fear coursed through Skye. “Leave them alone if you wish to live.”
The great ceremony began at sundown, when chill suddenly pervaded the gloomy canyon of the Missouri and a soft lavender light replaced the bold blue of day.
Skye grasped that there would be no food; these Sarsi were fasting, and expected their guests to fast. This was the moment of the big bones and it would be remembered in their tribal history for all time.
At last No Name summoned his men to sit dose to a fire, where they could see Skye’s gestures and learn the story of the bones. One by one, these young men settled, mostly cross-legged, some of them with their robes cast over their shoulders.
“The floor is yours, Mister Mercer,” Skye said.
“Blast it, Skye, I have no story to tell. So I’ll tell them some science, at least as far as my addled mind can come up with some science. They want truth. From me, they’ll get science, and not wild stories.”
Skye waited with dread for the explorer to begin.
thirty-seven
There was this quality about Mercer: he stood there like a Greek god, gathering the light about him, so confident and whole and magical that the expectant gaze of every Sarsi was upon him. What was it that Mercer radiated? Skye could not say. This man was Hermes, god of travelers, luck, roads, music, eloquence, commerce, young men, cheats, and thieves.
Mercer smiled at Skye and his women and then turned calmly toward his hosts, but now his gaze was different, mysterious, as if he were tapping some powers of heaven that eluded lesser men.
“The world is very old. Older than any person can imagine,” he began, and Skye had no trouble translating that into hand-signs. The Sarsi followed easily enough.
“The world changes. Long ago there were oceans here. Mountains rise and fall. Rivers cut through rock and carry land into the sea. Ice carves valleys and cuts down mountains. All this happens so slowly that no one can imagine it. But there are fossils of seashells high in mountains. Nothing stays the same.”
The Canyon of Bones Page 19