Heartsong

by James Welch

  “Marcus Aurelius Causeret—and I too am innocent.”

  Charging Elk took the hand. “I am Charging Elk.”

  The man laughed. “Just as I thought. When I first laid eyes on you just one moment ago I said to myself, ‘Believe it or not, that is an American Indian/ Well, Monsieur Charging Elk, welcome to our suite.”

  “But how could you tell?”

  “How could I not tell? Did I not go to the Wild West show every night when it was in Paris? Did I not wander through your village of tipis every chance I got?”

  Charging Elk was still holding the blanket, the slop bucket, and the tin cup. This was the first time anybody, except René, had mentioned the show in such a way. He was stunned. “Did you see me?” he said.

  The man’s eyes grew wide and a grin lit up his face. “You were there? At the Exposition Universelle?”

  “Yes. I performed every afternoon and every evening. I played poker in the village and saw many famous sights in Paris.”

  “Small world!” The man laughed. “I’m certain I saw you, but no, I don’t recognize you. I just recognize the physiognomy. The American Indian is very striking, but there is a similarity among them. To an untrained eye like mine, you all looked alike—no offense intended, my friend.”

  “No, no.” Charging Elk smiled. He couldn’t believe his luck in finding a man who had seen him perform in Paris, whether this Causeret knew it or not. “The people of Marseille—except for the immigrants—all looked alike to me.”

  “Ah, Marseille. We French call it the armpit of France. We look down our long noses at this foul, flyblown dark hole of—what?—pestilence! See? We don’t even know what. That’s what.” Causeret held his head back so that he did actually look down his nose at Charging Elk. He had to lean back a way because he was a head shorter.

  “What are you here for?” Charging Elk set the slop bucket down and threw the blanket on the unoccupied bed. He didn’t know what to do with the tin cup.

  “Right to the point. I like that.” Causeret climbed back onto his cot and sat with his legs crossed beneath him. “They say I murdered my wife and her lover. They say I found them in bed together—my marriage bed, incidentally—and cut both their throats. They say it was a particularly gruesome affair. They say I actually laughed when I described the murders to the police. The newspapers called me a heartless fiend. No remorse. They say if I had shown just a bit of remorse I might have gotten off—crime of passion, you see, the wronged husband.”

  Charging Elk sat down tentatively on his cot and looked at the lithe, clean-shaven man. At first glance, he had looked almost frail, but now Charging Elk could see that Causeret s shoulders were wide, his arms longer than usual, and his waist small. There was an energy, a quickness, about him. Even his speech was fast—but clear. Charging Elk could understand much of what he said, especially the part about cutting the throats of his wife and her lover.

  “But you are innocent,” he said.

  Causeret laughed again. “Of course, my friend. You will find that we are all innocent in here.” He suddenly shouted, “Dax! Are you innocent?”

  A lazy voice from across the corridor answered, “It goes without saying.”

  “You see? Ill bet you’re innocent too.”

  Charging Elk was still looking across the corridor. He hadn’t really thought of himself as innocent or guilty—except in the eyes of the courtroom. He had done what he had to do. It was that simple.

  “And what did you do that you’re innocent of?”

  “Killed a—a man.”

  Causeret leaned forward with his hands on his knees and an almost gentle smile. “Did he need killing?”

  “He—he was evil.”

  Causeret slapped both knees and laughed. “Good enough for me! ‘He was evil.’ I hadn’t thought of that one.” He suddenly flopped back and stretched out on the cot. He lay perfectly still, looking up at the ceiling.

  Charging Elk waited, but when the man said nothing, he took off his shoes—the brown dress shoes which by now were dull and scuffed beyond hope—and lay back on his own cot. He closed his eyes and felt his whole body melt. He hadn’t realized how tense he had been for the past several months. It had become his natural state ever since he had killed Breteuil. But now that he was here—and would remain here until he died—he felt it all, all the days of jail and the trial, the train ride, his past, let go and he didn’t care if he ever moved again.

  “Buckwheat and horsehair—that’s what these pads are stuffed with. You’ll get used to it.” The man spoke without moving. When Charging Elk didn’t respond, Causeret said, “You want to know what I did on the outside?” After a pause, he said, “I was a juggler. I juggled at flea markets, outside theaters, velodromes, fairs, you name it. Did lots of fairs, all over. Batons, torches, balls—I could juggle watermelons. Think of it. Big, fat watermelons. I could balance a watermelon on a stick on my chin. I could balance a chair on one leg on my chin. Crazy, isn’t it? I’m probably the only man you’ll ever meet with a callus on his chin.” Another long silence. “That’s how I came to be at the Wild West show in Paris. I performed outside the gate before the show. And when the show began, I went inside. I’m sure I saw you.” Causeret lay quietly for several minutes. Then he said, “Itinerant juggler. That’s what they called me, because I performed all over—Lyon, Orléans, Tours, Besançon, Bordeaux. Never got to Marseille. Pity. Can you imagine? They call me itinerant because I go where the work is. How can I be itinerant when I have a wife and a home, I tell them. So the magistrate says, Well, you don’t have a wife and home anymore. You killed your wife and you are in jail. If you can find the justice in that, please enlighten me, monsieur.”

  But Charging Elk had fallen into a deep sleep, one beyond voices or thoughts or even dreams. He had never slept this deeply before, not even as a child on the Little Bighorn River, nor as a young man out at the Stronghold, nor as a bone-weary performer in Paris, not even after an exhausting day of shoveling coal into the furnaces of the soap factory. If he could have caught himself on a limb on his way down into the black hole of unconsciousness, he would have gladly let go, for he would never again in his life come as close to joining his ancestors as he did that late afternoon in La Tombe. The sleep of death, he would later think ruefully, but not the real thing.

  Charging Elk and Causeret were cellmates for three years, and they became very close. Even out in the yard, during their one hour a day of fresh air, they would wander the perimeter together, Charging Elk for the exercise, Causeret looking for a means of escape. He had no doubt that he could scale the stone walls—that was the easy part. But what would he do on the outside? He had plans to go to America, but he didn’t want to leave without Charging Elk. Together they could make their way to Charging Elk’s homeland and hide out in the hills. He was especially interested in the gold miners in Paha Sapa. Where did they find the gold? How much did they find? Where did they sell it? Charging Elk, of course, cared nothing about the gold, but to placate the juggler, he said the miners picked the gold up from the ground, big chunks of it. Once he had stubbed his toe on a piece of gold as big around as a watermelon. Causeret would become silent, almost sullen, at such news and Charging Elk would regret feeding the juggler’s dreams.

  But for the most part, Causeret was a good companion. He had a job in the kitchen and so twice a day, at four-thirty in the morning and again at three-thirty in the afternoon, he would be gone for three or four hours. Because he helped prepare food for the administrators and the guards, he would sometimes smuggle back a treat—a croissant in the morning, a sausage or chicken thigh in the afternoon. Once, a few days after Charging Elk had lamented that he would never see a piece of real meat again, he came back with a chunk of beef the size of his fist. As he watched Charging Elk tear into it, he said, “Good Lord, you have the jaws of a wolf.”

  Near the end of his third year, Charging Elk was summoned to the warden’s office in the administration building in the corner of the yard near
the heavy iron gates. As he was led into the small anteroom, he almost stopped in astonishment. Behind a desk of dark wood sat a woman who looked to be in her mid-thirties. She wasn’t particularly attractive—her hair was pulled up into a tight bun, she wore no rouge or lipstick, her blouse was a stark white, and her long skirt, what he could see of it above her shoe tops, was black and slightly frayed at the edge. But she was a woman and he hadn’t seen one in three years. He bowed awkwardly when the guard announced him.

  The woman got up without a word and knocked on a door behind her. Charging Elk looked her up and down, from her small feet to her narrow waist to her small shoulders and slender neck. He immediately thought of Marie, but then another young woman came into his mind—the one who had given him the holy picture, which he now knew was Jesus Christ, the man who died for these people’s sins. He remembered the pleasant, hopeful afternoon beside the lake in Paris. He tried to think of her name but couldn’t.

  The woman opened the door and stepped aside and said they could go in now. The guard pushed him gently in the back and Charging Elk said, “Sandrine,” but no one seemed to hear.

  The warden was block of a man, as wide in the waist and hips as in the shoulders, which pulled his suit coat taut to the point of catastrophe. His shiny bald head was jammed into a neck that was too short and thick for the stiff collar of his shirt. He had been writing something but now he stopped, placed the pen in a tray, and rolled a blotter over the wet ink. Then he looked up. His eyes were small and dark in the round, red face and his nose was incongruously long and thin. He looked like a strange bird that Charging Elk had once seen in a tabloid, a bird that couldn’t fly.

  “Ah, Monsieur Charging Elk. How goes it? All right?”

  “Yes sir. Just fine.”

  “Very good.” The warden picked up a wrinkled, damp handkerchief and mopped his forehead. “They tell me you are a good prisoner, you don’t make trouble for us. Is that correct?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “We like that and we are going to give you a little reward, a little more freedom. You would like that, wouldn’t you?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “We are going to move you to another unit. We think you will like the company there a little better. And you will have a few privileges that are currently denied you—more time outside your cell—for legitimate purposes, of course—access to our library, such as it is, and most important, a job. Now you can’t complain about that, can you?”

  “No sir. Thank you.”

  “All right then. That’s about it. Oh, one other thing—you will be able to send and receive one letter each month, no funny business, keep in mind that we read everything. And you may have up to two visitors once every three months.” The warden picked up his pen and dipped it into an inkwell. That seemed to be an end to the interview, and the guard touched Charging Elk’s elbow.

  But the warden looked up again and the guard stepped back. The warden smiled. It was a crooked smile as wide as his mouth was long. Charging Elk tried to remember the name of the bird. Somebody—Mathias?—had said the name.

  “You must tell me sometime about your wild west. I hope to go to America someday and I would like to see this country—the cowboys and the Indians and Buffalo Bill. Someday you will tell me everything so that I may prepare for my journey. Yes?”

  The next morning a guard arrived at Charging Elk’s cell in another building, which was identical to the one he had just left. It was five-thirty, an hour before breakfast time. He waited while Charging Elk dressed, then led him down to the mess hall.

  About thirty men were seated at one of the long tables. The guard motioned for Charging Elk to sit at the far end. Then he went away.

  Charging Elk glanced up the table, taking in the faces, but not one looked familiar. He had been a little surprised at the variety of faces in the prison. Except for the immigrants, the men of Marseille were of a certain type. There were variations, but for the most part, they were shorter, darker, and thicker than most of the men in prison. But Causeret had told Charging Elk that the inmates came from all over France—some were even foreign. Charging Elk had already met an Englishman and a Dutchman, two of Causeret s friends. They had been in La Tombe long enough to have learned passable French.

  Soon a small group of men in white aprons began to set bowls of mush, baskets of bread, and pitchers of water on the table. Some of the inmates groaned and protested but the men in the aprons paid no attention. And soon the malcontents were eating as fast as the others. Then the servers cleared off the food and bowls and set cups before each man. Pitchers of coffee and hot milk were passed down the table, and now the malcontents were yelling for sugar and complaining about the weakness of the coffee.

  Charging Elk had just filled his cup when one of the guards banged his baton against a pan at the serving table and the men began to get up. He gulped the lukewarm liquid and stood along with them.

  As they departed in various directions, a large, dark-skinned man ambled over to Charging Elk. He was a wcuichu but he looked as if he had been baked in the sun for all the years of his life.

  “You are this Charging Elk, yes?” He stood as tall as Charging Elk and ten kilos heavier. His heavy beard was streaked with white on his chin, otherwise coal-black. “Can you do a days work?”

  “I will do my best, monsieur.”

  “Come along, then.”

  Charging Elk and four others followed the big man out of the mess hall. They crossed the packed-earth yard toward the administration building. But instead of going in, they stopped before the main gates. A guard unlocked a small door in one of the gates and opened it. The big man stepped through and the others followed, Charging Elk bringing up the rear. He had to duck his head, and when he straightened up, he was overcome by the sight before him.

  The first things that caught his eye were the green trees at the bottom of the hill. In the hazy morning light, they seemed to float above the valley floor, like round green balloons. Then he saw the little village of St-Paul-de-Fenouillet. Although the houses were all alike, with their whitewashed walls and orange roofs, to Charging Elk, who had become so accustomed to the dull yellow stone of the prison, they looked as exotic as circus tents. Beyond the valley, the hills were fuzzy with pine forests and stone outcroppings and meadows full of grazing sheep.

  Charging Elk had never seen a more beautiful sight. Not even the smoky-black Paha Sapa could compare with such colors and lushness. Taking in the scene all at once, he realized that he had not really seen a country landscape in all his time in France. He had performed in cities, and when the show traveled, it was always at night after the last performance. And he had not been outside of Marseille in the four years he lived there.

  One of the guards who had accompanied the men outside nudged him in the back. “Over there. To the toolshed.”

  Charging Elk followed the men to a low, ramshackle building with a thatched roof. Once inside, the big man handed Charging Elk a floppy straw hat. “Put it on. You’ll need it.” Then he grabbed a hoe, which had been hanging from a peg on the wall, and thrust it at the newcomer. “Come with me.”

  Charging Elk, in his almost mesmerized state of a few moments ago, had not really noticed the terraces of plants that grew down the hillside.

  “Have you ever gardened before?”

  “No, monsieur.” The hat was too small for his head, and the stiff breeze that blew up the hill threatened to take it off.

  “Do you know your plants?”

  “Some,” he said, thinking of Réne’s flowers. “I know geraniums and lavender—and wild poppies.”

  The big man grunted in disgust as he led Charging Elk down a path through the terraces. He stopped at a series of long rows of thin, limp stalks. “These are onions. And over there, garlic.” They walked down to another terrace. “And these are leeks. And those bushy ones just below us are tomatoes. Come.”

  Charging Elk followed the big man down to the rows of tomato plants. He noticed that ther
e were five or six terraces of plants below them. Two of the men were down on one of the terraces taking things out of the ground and throwing them into a wheelbarrow.

  “New potatoes,” the man said. He had noticed the newcomer’s eyes on the men. “And here we are.” The man took the hoe from Charging Elk. “I plant my tomatoes in neat rows, as you see. Everything you see between the rows is a weed. I hate weeds. They are my enemies. At night I dream of weeds and always they are big and wild and threaten to strangle my vegetables. Here.” He walked a couple of steps into the rows of tomatoes. He struck down with the hoe and chipped a clod of earth away, which he picked up. “You see? Bindweed. The very worst. Just one bindweed can strangle three of my tomatoes. This is a small one, but in one week it would begin its evil task.” He handed the hoe back to Charging Elk. “Now it is up to you to save my beautiful tomatoes. You walk between the rows and every green thing that doesn’t belong, you take out. And make sure you get all the roots. Do you understand?”

  And so Charging Elk began the job that would fill his days for the rest of his time at La Tombe. Eight months a year, from early March to the end of October, he spent his days in the terraced gardens or in the apple and almond orchards at the bottom of the hill. In the spring, he pushed a wheeled plow to break up the hardened soil, spread manure, mixed it in, and raked it smooth. He planted radishes and onions, leeks and peas and tomatoes. Then he tended them through the growing season, watering the plants, weeding and watching for pests. From mid to late summer he harvested vegetables, picked apples, and shook down the olives and almonds. In the fall, after the first frost, he pulled the spent plants, pruned the trees, and cleaned up debris. He repaired tools, sharpened hoes and shovels, straightened up the toolroom and the greenhouse. Then he walked through the prison gates for the last time each season, cold and tired, feeling a peculiar mixture of satisfaction and sadness.