The Canyon of Bones

by Richard S. Wheeler

  Skye saw he was not needed and decided to tend to the next business. He hiked slowly past the bones and then climbed the steep slope laden with scree at the foot of the cliff where Winding had jumped. Enough light remained to hunt for the teamster. Skye hoped to offer the man a respectful burial. He had no spade; it would have to be another scaffold burial but at least it would be that much.

  He did not see Winding in the talus, and stumbled about the base of the cliff hunting for the body. But it was not there, nor visible in either direction. He was mystified. Then, looking up, he saw Winding dangling seventy or eighty feet up the cliff, caught by the pole across his arms that had wedged into stone there. He saw only sheer rock, gouged by cracks, and no foothold or handhold.

  He could not bury the teamster. The birds would soon reduce that hanging flesh to bones and then indeed the last of him would tumble.

  He pulled off his old top hat and stared upward. “Mister Winding, I’ll send a letter to your folks in Missouri. I hope they’ll get it. I’d do more if I could,” he said.

  A breeze turned the dangling feet.

  A black bird, raven maybe, settled on Winding’s arm. Skye found a rock and threw it upward. The bird flapped away.

  It didn’t seem right, didn’t seem finished, but he didn’t know what else to do so he retreated carefully down the talus, taking great care not to stumble and twist an ankle. Winding gone. Mercer out of his head. Corporal gone. What was left?

  Slowly, in fading light, Skye descended the slope to the place of the monster bones and paused there. He felt the sacredness of the place. Generations of Indians had come to this place of mystery, taking away some intuition of the origins of life, giving something, reverencing the great bones projecting out of rock. Someone had restored the broken tooth. The piece, including the chunk of jaw, had been carefully restored to the monster’s skull. Odd. He didn’t remember Victoria or Mary coming to the bones to do that since they returned. They had been busy setting up the lodge and caring for Mercer.

  Skye stood in the quiet, feeling the sour song of the bones churn in him. How old they were. It occurred to him that this monster might be one of God’s mistakes. Maybe God didn’t fashion creatures he was satisfied with and kept throwing them out. Maybe this one was evil, cruel and wicked, and God cast it into hell, or into oblivion, which might be the same thing. Maybe heaven was merely the place for what was selected to survive, a place for what proved to be good. These seemed older than a hundred thousand lifetimes. God’s early mistake, not a recent one.

  His mind drifted back to the idea that these were sinister monsters, much older than God, that when God came along he destroyed the evil ones, including this huge creature with the enormous skull and long tail. Maybe the whole world was hell until God vanquished hell and all its monsters, such as this one.

  Skye marveled. The sacred bones had started feverish speculations in him, things he had never thought about. He could not explain it. Why would giant bones make him so itchy, so unhappy with his paltry store of understanding? He had paused at the bones only a minute or two and yet in that time, his mind had catapulted into realms he had never dreamed of before. Suddenly he knew how Victoria’s people must have felt when they first saw the bones; how the bones fevered their minds, fired their imaginations, and soon enough the giant bones were sacred to them, and had to do with their own origins. Skye wondered whether other tribes had found their origins in these bones. And what had they seen? A big bird, like the Crows? He left the shadowed crypt and returned through a peaceful twilight to the camp.

  “The man who cared for horses?” Victoria asked, carefully.

  “Dead. I can’t reach him. He’s hung high up.”

  “The spirit put him there,” she said.

  It was as good an explanation as any. “Did you put the broken tooth back?” he asked.

  She stared blankly, then shook her head, and that was answer enough. He found Mary starting a campfire. “Did you put the broken tooth back in the skull? The one Mercer chopped out?”

  She stood, and slowly shook her head.

  “Someone’s been here and did it,” he said.

  But they saw no evidence of anyone.

  “Very strange,” he muttered. He thought maybe one of the Sarsi had done it before they all left.

  Their task was to move Mercer from the riverbank to the lodge. Skye brought a robe, and he and Victoria slid the man onto it. The explorer groaned and uttered one long wail.

  “Is it all right with you if we shelter him?”

  Victoria eyed him coldly. “I would not want it any other way. We will take care of him. Those who are mad must receive the greatest respect.”

  “Filomena, will you ever forgive me?” Mercer said. “I could not help myself.”

  They waited but the explorer made no more mention of Filomena.

  Victoria slipped into twilight, toward a slough filled with chokecherry brush, and there harvested the last of the cherries as well as more of the bark and roots. She mashed the roots and set them to steeping in water that Mary had heated in a leather bag, using hot rocks. This decoction she slowly fed to Mercer, who sipped, gasped, sipped again, and gradually swallowed much of what she was giving to him using a horn spoon.

  It was an old Crow remedy to quiet a person and settle an upset stomach. Skye thought it would have to do; there was little else growing there.

  “Who are you?” Mercer asked.

  “I am Victoria.”

  “Where am I?”

  “You are in the lodge of Mister Skye.”

  “Who is that?”

  Mercer didn’t wait for a response but dosed his eyes and slipped into quietness. Victoria stood, her work done. Mary covered the explorer with a buffalo robe and they all crawled into their beds. It had been a brutal day.

  Skye slept restlessly, something nagging him about camping so close to the great bones. If Mercer was able, they would leave for Fort Benton in the morning.

  Some time in the night, Jawbone screeched. Skye awakened, and in one swift move lifted his Hawken and slipped into the night, the quarter moon his lantern. The horse was untouched and standing calmly. None of the other horses had been stolen or hurt. It was not uncommon for a horse to startle in the night but Skye ached to leave this place of the bones.

  “Nothing,” he whispered to his women.

  “The spirit,” Victoria said. “Jawbone saw the spirit.”

  They slept fitfully the rest of the night except for Mercer, who seemed to sleep the sleep of the dead, never stirring. But when dawn’s first light began to collect in the smoke hole, Skye discovered Mercer sitting up and staring. His arms were still grossly swollen but dropped to his sides now.

  “Where am I?”

  “On the Missouri River.”

  “How did I get here?”

  “We brought you here.”

  “Who are you?”

  “I am Mister Skye. These are my wives, Victoria and Mary Skye.”

  “Why did you bring me here?”

  Skye hesitated. “You asked to be brought here, to see some large fossilized bones.”

  Mercer stared. “Why would I do that?”

  It was plain to Skye and his wives that the explorer had no memory of recent events. He wasn’t incoherent, just blank.

  “We lost Mister Winding, sir,” Skye said.

  “Who is that?”

  “Earlier, we lost Mister Corporal. Floyd Corporal.”

  “Sorry, the name’s not known to me. Should I know it?”

  Skye scarcely knew how to reply. “Have we met, sir?”

  “Graves Duplessis Mercer at your service, Mister Skye. But I am a little hazy about how I ended up here. Am I a prisoner?”

  “No, not that.”

  Up to a point, Mercer seemed himself, but that was only if he spoke of events long past. It became clear that his ordeal on the cliff had blanked his memory. Engaging Skye and his entourage, the trip, the prairie fire, and the long trek to the bones before r
eturning to England simply eluded Mercer.

  “This is an odd place to camp, Mister Skye, down in this gloomy trench.”

  “We came here because you wanted to see the bones, sir.”

  “That’s very strange. Now tell me, why do my arms torture me? They’re swollen. My shoulders are unbearable. My fingers thick as sausages.”

  Skye hardly knew how to proceed. “The Sarsi Indians here took offense, sir.”

  “Took offense? But why?”

  Skye decided that moment to hold off. “Let’s get ready for travel, Mister Mercer, if you’re up to it. We’ll head for Fort Benton and they can put you on a flatboat going down the river.”

  “Why would I do that?”

  “It was what you had in mind, before … this.”

  Mercer struggled to his feet, and stepped out into the hush of predawn.

  “It’s all very odd,” he said. “I seem to have lost some time somewhere. What is Fort Benton?”

  “We’ll talk about it on the way, sir,” Skye said.

  forty-two

  Skye and his women thought Mercer would be able to travel at least a little while. It would be good to get him out of the gloomy canyon where sunlight didn’t arrive until midmorning and departed midafternoon.

  It was Victoria who saw what to do next. She began packing Mercer’s robe and then realized it contained memories. She found Mercer sitting patiently, awaiting whatever would occur next, and quietly laid out the robe before him. Skye and Mary swiftly caught on, and joined her.

  There, before the explorer, was a pictograph chronicle of events since the prairie fire had destroyed his journal, done in his own hand. Most of the marks scraped into the hide with umber greasepaint could be deciphered only by Mercer but some were plain to anyone. His sketches of the skull, his measurements, his drawings of bones. His record of daily passage through the high plains was more obscure, yet plainly intended to trigger memories.

  Mercer gazed blandly at the robe, set hair-down before him on the ground.

  “What is this, pray tell?”

  “It’s your journal, sir. After the prairie fire destroyed your journal, you kept a log of events here.”

  “How quaint. I’m no artist, Skye.”

  “No, no artist. Neither am I. But each of these little drawings has meaning for you. These mountains here, those are the Snowies, shown from the east. I daresay this is the Musselshell. These figures here are Indians on horseback, wouldn’t you say?”

  “Why would I do this?”

  “You are an explorer and a journalist. I believe you intend to write up your experiences when you return to London.”

  “Well, that’s an entertaining little twist, eh?”

  “Look at each of these, and tell us what it means.”

  Mercer suddenly smiled, that famous toothy grin. “That’s a good game, but not today, Skye.”

  “We’ll bring out this robe again, then.”

  Victoria rolled it carefully. Somehow, the robe would be the key to Mercer’s recollections.

  “One last question, Mister Mercer. You’re in North America looking for material to write about, correct?”

  “Quite correct.”

  “You came out the Oregon Trail and left it accompanied by some Shoshones, correct?”

  “Perfectly correct.”

  “You planned to write about Mormon polygamy, correct?”

  “I believe so, but one learns to follow one’s instincts.”

  “You were present at the moment Mary’s family gave her to me as my second wife?”

  “Was I?”

  “You were curious about it.”

  “Who wouldn’t be, sir? There’s a fine little yarn to be told in it.”

  Skye continued to grill the explorer. It was plain that he hadn’t lost much; mainly the period from the time his wagon burned to the present. Yet he could not remember either Winding or Corporal.

  That was enough for one session. They helped Mercer up; his arms and shoulders hurt so much he gasped, but his legs were all right. Victoria would lead his horse. Mercer could not rein it.

  Skye started them up the precipitous trail to the open country south of the river, and felt relief when they escaped that gloomy, mysterious valley of the bones. He preferred the great open vistas where he could see as far as tomorrow, where he could follow a cloud’s passage for a hundred miles, where a man was not hemmed by anything.

  Mercer began to howl. It sent shivers through Skye. The man bayed like a wolf, the voice eerie and lost. Skye kept his party going, thinking that Mercer’s howling would subside, but it didn’t.

  The explorer was plainly in distress, and Skye began hunting for a campsite. North, the ancient trench of the Missouri sliced through the high plains as if the foundations of the earth had been ripped apart. He descended a giant coulee to a small flat where a spring purled out of a crack in the underlying sandstone and fed thick brush and cottonwoods for half a mile below it before the runoff vanished. It would do.

  They lifted Mercer down. The man was fevered, his face ruddy, his breathing coarse. Victoria and Mary silently began making camp though it was only midafternoon. Skye knew he needed to hunt; they were down to pemmican and jerky. There was spoor from antelope and mule deer here, and a calling card from a black bear. He hoped to surprise a deer.

  They settled Mercer on his robe. Mary began collecting wood for a fire. Victoria would soon decoct one or another of her herbal remedies and let him sip.

  “Skye, why do my arms hurt?”

  “Because they were tied to a pole across your back, straight out, with rawhide that shrank in the sun as it dried. It stopped the blood.”

  “Did you do that?”

  “Some Sarsi Indians did.”

  “But why, Skye?”

  Skye’s gaze lifted to the ridges. “You had offended their beliefs, sir.”

  “How could I do that?”

  “The tooth, sir.”

  “I have all my teeth but one.”

  Skye laughed. “The monster’s tooth, sir.”

  Mercer exploded. “You’d bloody well not make jokes. I hurt so much I can’t even think. My shoulders! If you had my shoulders right now, the pain in them, you’d be lying on this clay weeping. I keep a stiff upper lip, and I don’t need jokes.”

  “As you wish, sir.”

  “Monster’s tooth! You low-bred dog! You off-scouring of London’s alleys! You damned deserter! You barbarian, fleeing all that’s right and proper! You degenerate! You seditionist! Skye, you should have been shipped to Australia long ago!”

  “It’s Mister Skye, sir.”

  “Mister! Mister! You? Mister Skye, is it?” Mercer cackled.

  The explorer’s manner brooked no further talk, so Skye set about his camp chores. He watered and picketed the horses and inspected their hooves and pasterns. He slid the packs off the pack animals. He dragged the lodgepoles to a level spot where Victoria and Mary would raise the lodge. He unsaddled Jawbone, slapped him on his rump, and Jawbone screeched and bared yellow teeth, and then headed for the spring water and the thick brown grasses nearby, scattering his wild mares just for the joy of it.

  “What was that?” Victoria asked.

  “He hurts.”

  “Sonofabitch, so what?”

  “His memory is returning. He knows who I am.”

  Victoria stopped wrestling the lodge cover, slipped close to Skye, and touched his lips. “So do I,” she said softly.

  Skye plucked up his Hawken, checked his possibles, and walked down the endless coulee. He felt like walking. He would hunt and he wanted to sort things out. But there was nothing to sort out. Whether from pain or fear or something else, Mercer had turned on him and the trip to Fort Benton would not be pleasant. Skye would do his duty, take the man to safety, and endure whatever the man pitched at him or his women. It would soon be over. Skye’s responsibility ended at Fort Benton, and then he and his wives could drift south to Victoria’s country, his own country now, along the
Yellow-stone.

  It was a quiet afternoon, without a breeze, the sort of breathless weather that comes just ahead of fall. The afternoons were plenty hot, but the long eves and nights made this September time pleasantly cool. He struck a brushy spot not fifty yards from camp and found himself staring at a sleeping grizzly, a brown giant with unkempt hair, sprawled in a bed she had scraped clear under some protective deadfall from cottonwoods. He froze. He studied the trees, looking for one he could climb but there was nothing.

  She awakened, sniffed the air, and turned her massive head. He studied the area and found the cub twenty yards off, its head up, watching Skye.

  He hurried back to camp. It would not do to camp so close to a grizzly sow.

  “What?” asked Victoria.

  “Big brown sow down there a bit. Cub with her. Taking a nap. Woke up, sniffed, and didn’t like us here.”

  “You going to kill it?”

  “Ten men with ten rifles couldn’t kill it, and my gun is the only one in camp. I don’t like having horses around here.”

  Mary was already undoing the lodge cover and letting it slide back down.

  “What are you doing, Skye?” Mercer asked.

  Skye’s temper was a match for Mercer’s. “It’s Mister Skye, and we’re getting away as fast as we can. There’s bear.”

  “Wave your arms and chase him away.”

  “It’s a sow grizzly, not a black. And she’s protecting a cub.”

  “Well, I’m not moving.”

  Skye ignored that, saddled Jawbone, loaded the packs on the ponies, saddled Victoria’s and Mary’s horses, and helped the women load.

  It came time to load Mercer.

  “I’m not going,” he said. “I hurt too much.”

  “Then we’ll have to leave you.”

  “I’m in command here, Skye, and I say we stay. If we leave that bear alone, it’ll leave us alone.”

  “That’s probably true. But I’ll not take the chance.”

  The explorer didn’t resist when Skye, Victoria, and Mary all helped him up.

  “I don’t tolerate insubordination, Skye, especially from a degenerate hiding from the civilized world.”

  “We’ll leave you here if you want. You and your robe and your horses.”