* * *
When she woke once again she felt sick, drained and brittle as a stick. The man was well across the room, squatting silently by the wall.
“I would like that soup now if you please,” she said as firmly as she could. She would show him no weakness at all. A man preyed upon that.
He rose and went to the fire, filled a tin cup and set it by her side.
“Take a care,” he said, “it’s right hot.” He returned to the fire and came back and dropped a bundle on the floor. “Your clothes is all dry,” he said.
She didn’t answer or meet his eyes. She knew any reference to her garments would encourage wicked thoughts in his head. The soup tasted vaguely of corn, meat a little past its prime. It was filling and soothed the hurt away.
“Thank you,” she said, “that was quite good.”
“There’s more if you want.”
“I would like you to leave the cabin for a while. I should think half an hour will do fine.”
Johnston didn’t blink. “What fer?”
“That is no concern of yours.”
“You want to get dressed, why you got that buffler robe. Ain’t no reason you can’t do it under there.”
“Why, I certainly will not!” The suggestion brought color to her cheeks.
“Up to you,” he said.
“I shall not move until you comply.”
“Suit yerself.”
Oh Lord, she prayed, deliver me from this brute. Banish transgression from his mind. Reaching out beneath the robe, she found her clothing and burrowed as far beneath the cover as she could, certain all the while he could see, or surely imagine, every private move she made.
“Certain rules will apply,” she said. “I suppose we are confined here for the moment, though I trust the Lord will release us from adversity in good time.”
She sat very close to the fire. The warmth never seemed enough. The cold came in and sought her out. The man continued to squat against the wall. It didn’t seem possible that he could sit in this manner for long hours at a time. Only the blue eyes flecked with gray assured her he had not turned to stone. He was younger than she’d imagined, perhaps only a few years older than herself. His shocking red hair and thick unkempt beard masked his face; hard and weathered features helped little in determining his age.
“You will respect my privacy,” she said, “and I shall certainly respect yours. There will be specific places in this room where you are not to venture. Now. I wish to say in all fairness that I believe you very likely saved my life. I am not ungrateful for that.”
“Yes’m,” Johnston said.
“My name is Mistress Dickinson. Mistress Emily Elizabeth Dickinson to be complete, though I caution you very strongly, Mr. Johnston, that while circumstances have thrown us together, you will not take the liberty of using my Christian name.”
“Already knew who you was,” Johnston said.
Emily was startled, struck with sudden fear. “Why, that is not possible. How could you know that?”
“Saw yer name when I went through yer belongin’s,” Johnston said.
“How dare you, sir!”
“Didn’t mean to pry. Thought you was goin’ to pass on ‘fore the morning. Figured I ought git yer buryin’ name.”
“Oh.” Emily was taken aback. Her hand came up to touch her heart. “I … see. Yes. Well then…”
Johnston seemed to squint his eyes in thought. For the first time, she detected some expression in his face.
“Ma’am, there’s somethin’ I got to say,” Johnston said. “Them soldiers you was with. I reckon you know they’re all three of ’em dead.”
“I … guessed as much.” Emily trembled at the thought. “I have prayed for their souls. Our Lord will treat them kindly.”
“Some better’n them Sioux did, I reckon.”
“Do not take light of the Lord, Mr. Johnston. He does not take light of you.”
Johnston studied her closely again. “Jes’ what was you an’ them fellers doin’ up here, you don’t mind me askin’.”
Emily paused. She had kept this horror repressed; now, she found herself eager to bring it out. Even telling it to Johnston might help it go away.
“Captain William A. Ramsey of Vermont was kind enough to ask me to accompany him and his troopers on a ride,” Emily said. “There were twelve men in all when we started. The day was quite nice, not overly cold at all. We left Fort Laramie with the intention of riding along the North Platte River a few miles. A storm arose quite quickly. I believe there was some confusion about direction. When the storm passed by, we found ourselves under attack, much to everyone’s alarm. Several men were killed outright. It was … quite terrifying.”
“Cheyenne, most likely,” Johnston said, as if the rest was quite clear. “They kept drivin’ you away from the fort. Gittin’ between you an’ any help.”
“Yes. That is what occurred.”
“Pocahontas an’ John Smith!” Johnston shook his head. “Yer lucky to be alive whether you know that or not.”
“The men were very brave,” Emily said. “We lost the Indians the third day out, I believe. By then there were only three men left and myself. Whether the others were cruelly slain or simply lost in the cold I cannot say. We could not turn back. I think we rode for six days. There was almost nothing to eat. One of the colored troopers killed a hare but that was all.”
“You got rid of the Cheyenne an’ run smack into the Sioux,” Johnston finished.
“Yes. That is correct.”
Johnston ran a hand through his beard. “You don’t mind me sayin’, this end of the country ain’t a fit sort of place fer a woman like yerself.”
Emily met his eyes. “I don’t see that is any concern of yours.”
Johnston didn’t answer. She found the silence uncomfortable between them. Perhaps he didn’t really mean to pry.
“Mr. Johnston,” she said, “I have lived all my life in Amherst, Massachusetts. I am twenty-five years old and my whole life to now has passed in virtually one place. I have been as far as Washington and Philadelphia. I had no idea what the rest of God’s world was like. I decided to go and see for myself.”
“Well, I reckon that’s what ye did.”
“And yes. I confess that you are right. It was a foolish thing to do. I had no idea it would be like this. In my innocence, the Oregon Trail seemed a chance to view wildlife and other natural sights. Soon after departing Independence, I sensed that I was wrong. Now I am paying for my sins.”
“I’d guess yer folks ain’t got a idea where you are,” Johnston said, thinking rightly this was so.
“No, they do not. I am certain they believe I am dead. I only pray they think I perished somewhere in the New England states.”
“You ain’t perished yet,” Johnston said.
“I fear that is only a question of time,” Emily sighed.
* * *
This time he was waiting, fully awake and outside, hunched silently in a dark grove of trees. It was well after midnight, maybe one or two. There was no wind at all and the clouds moved swiftly across the land. He thought about the woman. Damned if she wasn’t just like he figured, white in near every way there was, stubborn and full of her own will. It irked him to think she was stuck right to him and no blamed way to shake her loose. There wasn’t any place to take her except back to Fort Laramie or on to Fort Pierre, and either way with one horse. He thought about White Eye Anderson and Del Gue and Chris Lapp, and old John Hatcher himself, seeing him drag in with this woman on a string. Why, they’d ride him for the rest of his life.
The shadow moved and when it did Johnston spotted it at once. He waited. In a moment, a second shadow appeared, directly behind the first. He knew he’d been right the night before. How many, he wondered. All six or just two? What most likely happened was the Crow ran back toward the Powder, then got their courage up when the Sioux were out of mind. One was maybe smarter than the rest and found his trail. Which meant there was one r
ed coon somewhere with a nose near as good as his own. Now that was a chile he’d like to meet. Johnston sniffed the world once more and started wide around the trees.
* * *
Now, there was only one shadow. The other had disappeared while he circled past the grove. He didn’t like that, but there was not much for it. He sat and waited. Part of the dark and the windblown striations of the snow. Part of the patch of gray light that swept the earth. He knew what the Crow was doing now. He was waiting to get brave. Waiting to get his juices ready for a fight.
When it happened, the Indian moved so quickly even Johnston was surprised. The Crow stood and made for the cabin door, a blur against the white and frozen ground. Johnston rose up out of nowhere at all, one single motion taking him where he had to be. He lifted the Crow clearly off the ground, the bowie cutting cold as ice. It was over fast and done and he knew in that instant, knew before the Crow went limp and fell away, where the other one had gone. Saw him from the corner of his eye as he came off the roof straight for him, and knew the man had buried himself clean beneath the snow, burrowed like a mole and simply waited out his time. Johnston took the burden on his shoulder, bent his legs and shook the Indian to the ground. The Crow came up fighting, brought his hatchet up fast and felt Johnston’s big foot glance off his chest. He staggered back, looked fearfully at Johnston as if he knew a solid blow would have stopped his heart at once, as if he saw in that moment the widows in the Absaroka camp whose men had met this terrible sight before. Turning on his heels he ran fast across the snow, plowing through drifts for the safety of the trees. Johnston tugged the Walker Colt from his belt, took his aim and fired. The Crow yelled but didn’t stop.
Johnston cussed aloud; the red coon was bloodied but still alive. He didn’t miss much, and this sure was a poor time to do it. He’d counted on horses. Now the Crow would take them off. He maybe should have gotten the horses first. The Crow would go and lick his wound and come back and that was pure aggravation.
He dragged the dead body well back behind the cabin. He sat beside the corpse, cut the heavy robes away. He saw a picture in his head. He saw his woman. He saw his unborn child within her womb. The child sprang to life. It played among the aspens on the Little Snake River and came to him when he called. The picture went away. He drew the knife cleanly and swiftly across the Indian’s flesh below the ribs and thrust his hand inside the warmth.
* * *
With no windows at all, with the cold outside and no difference she could see between dismal day and night, the hours seemed confused. She was often too weak to stay awake. When she slept, the rest seemed to do her little good.
She felt relieved to wake and find him gone. Relief and some alarm. His size, his presence overwhelmed her. Yet, those very qualities, the nature of the man, were all that stood between her and some greater menace still. He cannot help being what he is, she told herself. God surely made him this way for some reason, for some purpose, though she could scarcely imagine what that purpose might be.
The soup tasted good. That morning he had made some kind of bread out of corn and there was still a little left. The fire was getting low and she added a little wood. The wood caught and snapped, for an instant lighting every dark corner of the room. He had set his belongings along the wall. A buffalo robe and a saddle. Leather satchels and a pack. His things seemed a part of the man. Fur and hide greased and worn, heavy with the raw and sour smells of the wild.
She had never ventured quite this close to his things. It seemed like a miniature camp, everything set the way he liked. Her eyes fell upon a thick leather packet. She looked away and then quickly looked back. The corner of a paper peeked out, and there was writing on the edge. How very strange, she thought. Literacy was wholly unexpected. She knew this wasn’t fair, and chastised herself at once.
Certainly, she did not intend to pry. She would never touch Mr. Johnston’s things. Still, what one could plainly see was surely no intrusion. I should not be here at all, she decided. I must turn away at once. Should dizziness occur, I might very well collapse, and this is not the place for that. Indeed, as she turned, this very thing happened. Her foot brushed against the leather packet, and slipped the paper free.
“Now look what I have done,” she said, and bent to retrieve the paper at once. In spite of her good intention, the words leaped up to meet her eyes:
It makes no difference abroad,
The season fit the same,
The mornings blossom into noons,
And split their pods of flame.
And then, from the packet, another scrap of paper after that:
The sky is low, the clouds are mean,
A traveling flake of snow
Across a barn or through a rut
Debates if it will go.
“Oh. Oh dear,” Emily said aloud. “That last one’s quite nice. Or at least I think it is.” She read the lines again, frowning over this and that, and decided it was slightly overdone.
Still, she wondered, what was verse doing here? Where had this unlettered man of the wilds come across a poem? Perhaps he found it, she reasoned. Came across it in a cabin such as this where some poor traveler had met his fate.
The sound of the shot nearly paralyzed her with fear. “Oh Blessed Jesus!” she cried. The papers fluttered from her hand. She fled to a corner of the cabin, crouched there and stared at the door. An Indian would enter quite soon. Possibly more than one. They would not slay her, though, they would take her to their camp. She would tell them about Christ. They would renounce their savage ways. They would certainly not touch her in any way.
It seemed forever before the door opened again and Johnston appeared. “Oh, thank the Lord you’re all right,” Emily sighed. “That shot. I thought—I thought you had surely been killed!”
“Took a shot at a deer,” Johnston said. “Wasn’t nothin’ more’n that.” He shook his coat. His beard seemed thick with ice.
“God be praised,” Emily said.
Johnston set his Hawken aside. Stomped his feet and ran his hand through a bushy nest of hair. He looked down then and saw the papers on the floor and picked them up. He looked right at Emily and didn’t say a thing.
Emily’s heart began to pound. “I … I’m very sorry,” she said. “I certainly had no right.”
“Don’t matter none,” Johnston said. He stood with his backside to the fire.
“Yes, now yes it does,” Emily said firmly. “It is I who have transgressed. I am clearly in the wrong. I do not deny my sin.”
“I ain’t never hear’d so much about sin,” Johnston said.
Emily felt her face color. “Well, there is certainly sin abroad, Mr. Johnston. Satan has his eye upon us all.”
“I reckon,” Johnston said. He scratched and set down. Leaned against the wall in his customary manner.
Emily wondered if she dare break the silence. He didn’t seem angry at all, but how on earth would one know? And they could not simply sit there and look at one another.
“Mr. Johnston, I do not excuse my actions,” she said, “but perhaps you’ll understand when I say I have an interest in poetry myself. As a fact, one small effort has seen the light of publication. Three years ago. February 20, 1852, to be exact. In the Springfield Daily Republican.” She smiled and touched her hair. “I recall the date clearly, of course, There are dates in one’s life one remembers very well. One’s birthday, certainly—” Emily blushed, aware she was chattering away. “Well, yes, at any rate…”
Johnston said nothing at all.
“You must be quite chilled,” Emily said. “There is still a little soup.”
“I ain’t real hungry,” Johnston said.
* * *
This time would have to be different; the Crow was wary now and hurt, and an Injun like that was the same as any other creature in the wild in such condition, the same as he’d be himself, Johnston knew, as deadly as a stirred-up snake. The Crow would be in place early this night, out there in spite of the cold, becau
se the first man out could watch and see what the other man would do. It was a deadly advantage, and Johnston was determined to let the Absaroka have it.
The Indian was cautious and he was good. Johnston could scarcely hear him, scarcely smell his fear. He seemed to take forever, moving when the wind rose some, stopping when it died.
Tarnation, Johnston thought, come on and git it done, chile, ‘fore I freeze these bones to the ground.
At last the Crow struck, coming in swiftly without a sound. The hatchet fell once, slicing the heavy furs, withdrew and hacked again, and Johnston, even in the dark, saw emotion of every sort cross the Absaroka’s face, saw surprise and alarm and then final understanding that the furs crouched there against the tree didn’t have a man inside, that it was simply too late to remedy that.
Johnston shook the snow aside. “That war your trick, son, not mine,” he said aloud. “Ye got no one to blame but yourself…”
* * *
She hated the boredom most of all. It overpowered fear and apprehension. Now she sorely missed being scared. Now there was nothing at all to do. Was it day outside or was it night? Sometimes Johnston would tell her. For the most part he sat like a stone or wandered out in the night. Worse than sitting in the cabin were the times when she had to go out to attend to bodily needs. It was horrid, a humiliation she could scarcely bear. She had to ask. He would not let her venture out alone. He would stand by the door with his weapon while she struggled as far as she dared through the snow. And the cold! That fierce, and unimaginable cold. Winter, she saw now, gave New England a fleeting glance. This terrible empty land was where it was born.
* * *
She heard him at the door and then he stepped inside, letting in the cold. “Found us a couple of horses,” Johnston said, and dropped his heavy coat on the floor.
“You did?” Emily was surprised. “Why, isn’t that odd.”
“Ain’t nothin’ odd to it,” Johnston said.
“Yes, well…” He seemed very pleased with himself. It dawned on her then that horses had meaning in her life. “Heavens,” she said, “that means we can leave this place, does it not?”
The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Seventh Annual Collection Page 61