Climb the Wind: A Journey Into Another Past

by Pamela Sargent

  “I am pleased to see you again, Mr. Rowland,’’ Rubalev said. “I have taken the liberty of ordering for both of us, since the beef stew is one of the few dishes fit to eat in this establishment.”

  Lemuel sat down. A bottle of whiskey was on the table with two glasses, one half full and one empty. Rubalev was about to pour some whiskey into the empty glass when Lemuel shook his head.

  “Ah,” Rubalev said, “I forget that you are not a drinking man.” He leaned back in his chair. “Perhaps you are here at the suggestion of our friend the former commissioner.”

  “He did write to say that you were here, and that if I found myself in St. Joseph, to give you his regards.” He paused, unsure now of how much to say to Rubalev. Somehow he sensed that he should not say anything about Jeremiah Clarke’s letter. Jeremiah and he had, after all, fought together. He still knew almost nothing about Rubalev.

  “It is unfortunate, what happened to Donehogawa,” Rubalev said. “I expected it, of course. Did he write to you before or after he resigned?”

  “After.”

  A waiter came to the table with dishes and some bread, followed by another with a large bowl of stew. The second waiter quickly ladled out the stew. Rubalev waved them both away. “I have not had much of an appetite lately,” the blond man said. “If you wish to eat anything more, I will be pleased to order it for you.”

  “This is fine.” Lemuel tasted the stew; Mrs. Gerhardt could not have done nearly as well. “I’ve left St. Louis, Mr. Rubalev. I’m not planning to go back.”

  “And what do you intend to do?”

  “I’m not sure yet.”

  “Come now, Rowland. I know that two days ago, the commanding officer of Fort Kearney arrived in St. Joseph and asked if a man by your name was staying at this hotel. I am guessing that you came here in the hope of seeing him.”

  Lemuel’s fingers tightened around his fork. He managed to swallow his food without choking.

  “I also know that when my ward Katerina ran off, she used some of the money she took from me to buy a ticket to Hannibal. She would not have stayed in that town, she would have gone to St. Louis, and she would have taken a steamer from Hannibal because that’s how we traveled before. So perhaps she found you in St. Louis, because she would not have known anyone else there and she would have been frightened and desperate by then. How long did it take her to find you?”

  “Not very long.” Katia had told him that Rubalev would know what she had done, but Lemuel had not entirely believed her. Now he wondered exactly how much about his doings the man already knew.

  “You need not look so shocked,” Rubalev said. “Had Colonel Clarke of Fort Kearney not come to this hotel, I might still be unaware of his presence in St. Joseph. As for Katia, it is easy to see what she would do—her choices were limited, as was the sum of money she stole from me.”

  “Then you have probably guessed that she came back to St. Joseph with me.”

  Rubalev drew in his breath sharply.

  “Not on my account, I assure you,” Lemuel said. “She claims that she wants to go back to her Sioux husband.”

  Rubalev threw back his head and laughed. The men and women dining at the tables nearest them glanced in their direction. “That does surprise me,” Rubalev said. “What did you do—refuse to help her?”

  “I gave her money and found her a place to live, in a respectable house with a kind-hearted woman. She decided to follow me here instead.”

  “Well.” Rubalev poured himself another drink. “So Katia wants to go back to her people. A pity she will not be of much use there. I suppose that she told you everything.”

  “She told me very little,’’ Lemuel said. “I know she has a husband, a Sioux chief named Touch-the-Clouds, that you took her to him, and that she left with you and then went back to him one more time before leaving with you again.”

  “You may tell her this.” Rubalev set down his glass. “I will see that she gets back to her husband. It may take me a bit of time to arrange for this. In the meantime, she may stay wherever she is now—I assume at your hotel.”

  Lemuel nodded.

  “She will come looking for me when she runs out of money. I hope that you were not too generous.” Rubalev stood up. “Finish your supper, Mr. Rowland. There is nothing more that I have to say to you until you have spoken with your friend Colonel Clarke.” He walked away from the table.

  “Lem Rowland,” the voice called out behind him.

  Lemuel turned, recalling that voice, so resonant that it could be heard above the noise of the wagons passing in the street. “Jeremiah Clarke,” he said.

  The man in a cavalry officer’s blue coat with a colonel’s gold eagles on the shoulders came up to him and shook his hand. “You haven’t changed much, Lemuel.” Jeremiah had changed; his beard, once a rich brown, was streaked with gray, the strands of hair visible under his hat were thin and silvery, and his face was browner and more creased. The hollows under his jawbones showed that he had also lost more teeth.

  “I happened to be coming this way,” Lemuel said. “I posted a letter, but perhaps it didn’t reach you.”

  “It didn’t, leastwise not before I left Fort Kearney, but I had a feeling you’d show up. Don’t expect it was just my letter that brought you here, though.”

  “No, it wasn’t.” Lemuel hesitated, wondering how much he should admit. “I was tiring of St. Louis,” he said. “Your letter reached me when I was thinking of leaving anyway.”

  “Come with me.” Jeremiah led him along the wooden sidewalk to a saloon. “Started asking at the better hotels where you might be staying, and figured I’d work my way down to the worst.”

  “Then it’s a good thing we met,” Lemuel said, “or it might have taken you a few days more to find me.”

  They went through the doors into the saloon. “Things been that hard for you?” Jeremiah asked.

  “No, but I’m not in the habit of throwing money away.”

  “Yeah—you never were.” They stood at the bar while Jeremiah ordered a sarsaparilla for Lemuel and a whiskey for himself; he downed the whiskey at one gulp and ordered another. Lemuel swallowed some of the sarsaparilla. Men were playing cards at two of the tables; Lemuel followed Jeremiah to a table in the far corner.

  “I’ll get to what I have to say now,” Jeremiah said as they sat down. “Some come to St. Joe to settle, or work at the rail yards, but a lot of them are on their way to somewhere else. I’m guessing that you’re going somewhere else.”

  Lemuel nodded.

  “Ely Parker wrote me a while back, told me you were in St. Louis. That was before he had to leave Washington. Sometimes I think it was a wonder he lasted there as long as he did.” The colonel rested his arms on the table. “I made him a promise. I said I would try to keep the peace out here. I think I’ve done all I can, but maybe you can help me out.”

  “Is that why he told you to write to me?” Lemuel asked.

  “He didn’t tell me to write to you. He told me where you were, that’s all. I don’t know if you heard this in St. Louis, but there’s talk of strange things going on out West, Indians making peace with enemies, saying they want their own nation, like the South wanted to have. I need to know more about what’s going on.”

  “Send out some scouts,” Lemuel said.

  “The scouts I sent out deserted. Then it was some of the colored troops. I sent out one detachment and they disappeared. I don’t know if they deserted or got wiped out—it’s like they just vanished.”

  Lemuel was silent.

  “You don’t know what it’s like out on the Plains now,” Jeremiah continued, “but I’m still thinking you might be able to find out a few things for me, if you’re willing. Ely Parker wants the same thing. I’m guessing you got a letter from him suggesting that you come here.”

  “Yes.” There seemed little point in denying it.

  “You came west with Parker a while back. And I know you had supper two nights ago with a Russian—Rubalev,
he’s called. He’s a gambler and a drunkard, and I suspect that he’s a profiteer of some kind—he made money out in California, probably by fleecing miners, given that he doesn’t look much like a miner himself. But I know Ely Parker had dealings with him, and that he knows some of the redskins’ ways. So I’m guessing that Parker told you to give Rubalev his regards.”

  “Yes,” Lemuel said, knowing that there was no reason to deny that, either.

  “I won’t ask you what he said, or what you said to him, but maybe you can help me out. I need somebody who’s willing to head out to the Plains and report back to me about what’s going on there.”

  Lemuel leaned back. “Any number of scouts could have done that for you by now.”

  Jeremiah shook his head. “You’re wrong there. Either they come back saying that they couldn’t find out anything, or they don’t come back at all. And then there’s a few like Rubalev, men who probably know more than they’re letting on.”

  “Have you tried talking to him yourself?” Lemuel asked.

  “I wouldn’t get anywhere with him. I know that already. He didn’t get what he has by telling what he knows. Besides, I wouldn’t trust a man like that to be straight with me.”

  Jeremiah had finished his whiskey; a solemn look passed over his face. “We could have struck four years ago,’’ he went on. “Sherman was champing at the bit, ready to turn Sheridan loose. Custer was out raiding when he thought he could get away with it—what he needed was more reinforcements. But they held them back—first it was because it was too soon after the war, and then it was because the government thought maybe we’d have to fight in Canada. Then it was Grant listening to Parker. Don’t get me wrong—I would have rather settled this Parker’s way, but that probably isn’t going to work now.”

  The colonel suddenly stood up, went to the bar, and returned with another whiskey. “It’s the railroads that are getting impatient,” Jeremiah said as he sat down again. “They want to lay more tracks, and bring more people out, and they won’t let the Indians stand in the way. If the Indians can’t be bought off and be content to settle where they’re allowed to live, they’ll be forced off their land.”

  “What is it that you want to do, then?” Lemuel asked.

  “Figure out some way to find out what they’re up to and then see if they can be made to see reason. Maybe I shouldn’t have come out here, maybe I don’t have the stomach for this. See, after knowing you and Parker, I don’t like the idea of killing them, even if you two are a lot more like white men than those Sioux savages are. I just don’t like the idea of slaughter. I can admit that to you. Don’t know as I could say it to anybody else.” He propped his elbows on the table; the whiskey had no doubt contributed to his frankness. “If you’ve got any idea of riding out there, maybe with Rubalev, I wouldn’t mind if you reported back to me later.”

  Lemuel kept his eyes on the other man. He could have trusted Jeremiah Clarke with his life when they were both fighting under Grant—had trusted him with it on a few occasions—but that was years ago. Jeremiah, it seemed to him, might be looking for a way to defeat the Indians with a minimum of effort and bloodshed, but he still wanted a victory. The struggle would still end with the breaking of treaties and with Indians being forced onto ever smaller parcels of land.

  Unless the Indians had more resources than he expected, and more ways to fight. He thought of Rubalev. The man did not strike him as someone who embraced hopeless causes.

  “It might work with you,” Jeremiah said. “I mean, they might trust somebody who’s an Indian and a friend of Parker’s. You might be able to find out more about this chief who thinks he can make a country. Maybe there’s nothing to it. I’ve heard a lot of strange rumors that didn’t amount to much in the end.”

  “I think I have a way to ride out there,” Lemuel said, “if I decide to take it. Rubalev can help me. That’s all I can tell you.” He paused. “If I can find out anything that might save lives, I’ll try to get that information to you.”

  “You do that,” Jeremiah said. “I’d send a couple of men I can trust with you, but they might just get in your way. I’ll have to tell you where you can go to get a message to me, but it might be better if, once you learn anything, you put a lot of distance between you and those Indians. The Sioux and the Cheyenne don’t take kindly to betrayals.”

  Wiser, Lemuel thought, not to ride out there at all, where he might, if he were not careful, find himself in the middle of whatever conflict was to come. Rubalev had promised to get Katia back to her people and her husband. Virgil would have come to St. Joseph with or without him. There was nothing to stop him from going back to St. Louis and resuming his old life, except his reluctance to live that closed-in safe and small life again.

  “I’ll see if I can find out anything,” Lemuel said at last, knowing that those words committed him to nothing.

  “Good. I think that calls for another drink.” Jeremiah got up and headed for the bar.

  As evening came on, the streets of St. Joseph grew more lively. Men dismounted from horses or stepped down from wagons to enter saloons and bawdy houses. Lemuel made his way past the knots of people to his hotel. Jeremiah might have called Rubalev a drunkard, but the colonel was drinking fairly heavily himself. Drink had not affected his ability to walk a straight line from the saloon to his horse and the hitching post, meaning that he was probably used to taking in that much whiskey.

  Lemuel decided, as he entered the hotel, that he would tell Rubalev about his meeting with Jeremiah Clarke. Rubalev probably had ways of finding out that they had been seen together. It was in his best interests, at the moment, to be honest with both Clarke and Rubalev. Presumably they were all after the same end.

  He went to the desk clerk to get his key. The man handed it to him and said, “That lady, the dark-haired one who came here with you—she checked out this afternoon. Thought you might want to know.”

  Lemuel was surprised for only a moment. “Did she say where she was going?” he asked, knowing where she had to have gone.

  “Didn’t say anything. Just paid her bill and left.” The clerk had an amused look on his face. It was easy to read what he was thinking, that Katia was a loose woman who had decided to look for more promising prospects.

  He walked toward the stairway. If he asked Rubalev to reimburse him for what he had spent on Katia, the man would probably give him the money. The thought of asking for it repelled him.

  He was in front of his door, just about to unlock it, when he recalled that he had promised to meet Virgil later, just outside the hotel door. The colored man might have heard something he should know.

  Lemuel turned to go back downstairs. For a moment, standing in the shadows of the hall, he felt suspended, without firm footing, as if the floor under his boots had vanished, leaving him standing on air. The walls around him were suddenly formless and indistinct.

  It came to him that he had felt this same sensation long ago. He searched his memory, and then remembered the time he had run away from the Rowlands as a boy. He had been in the forest when the trees around him grew transparent; he had waited, stiff with fear, trying to recall who he was and where he was bound. The world he recalled had seemed insubstantial, the Rowlands and their farm only spirits he had glimpsed in a dream.

  I am not here, Lemuel thought, expecting to find himself back in his room in Mrs. Gerhardt’s house, I don’t belong here, this isn’t the world I know, and then the feeling was gone. He was standing on the staircase, looking down into the gas-lit lobby of his hotel; yet the feeling persisted that he had dreamed this life, that his true life had taken another path.

  Virgil was walking toward him as he went back outside. The two men sat down on a bench. “Heard anything I might like to know?” Lemuel asked.

  The black man shook his head. “Ain’t heard nothin’. Nobody wants to talk.”

  Lemuel was silent for a while, waiting until a group of men rode by on horseback, then said, “If I could find someone wi
lling to take me to this chief you heard about, the one who supposedly treats colored people same as whites, would you come with me?”

  Virgil sat up. “Damn right I would, suh.”

  “It could be dangerous—probably will be.”

  “Mistah Rowland, ain’t nothin’ as dangerous as bein’ a black man tryin’ not to let white folks see you know more’n they think you do. And the longer I live, the harder it gets.”

  “Then I’ll see what I can do.” Lemuel stood up. He might not be doing Virgil any favor by offering him the chance to ride out with him.

  A bellhop led Lemuel to Rubalev’s room; the other man had said that he would speak to him there. Rubalev answered the door. Behind him, Lemuel saw Katia sitting on a settee.

  “Come in,” Rubalev said, handing the bellhop a coin. As Lemuel entered, Katia suddenly stood up, as if preparing to run from the room, then abruptly sat down again. She wore a dark blue silk dress, one he had not seen her in before, probably one of the garments she had left behind when she ran away from Rubalev.

  “Are you here on Katia’s behalf?” Rubalev asked as Lemuel sat down. “I told you that I would see that she was returned to her husband. I am of course willing to pay you for anything you may have spent on her.”

  “I don’t want any money,” Lemuel said. “If you are going to take Katia back to her people, all I ask is that you allow me to come along.”

  Rubalev smiled. “I see. I must assume that this is not because you harbor chivalrous impulses toward my ward.” Katia averted her eyes from both of them. “So perhaps you have met with your friend Colonel Clarke. I think that I know what he wants—for you to spy for him.”

  Lemuel did not respond.

  “I will tell you this now, Mr. Rowland. Whatever Clarke told you, he would use whatever information you bring to him against the Lakota and their allies.”

  “I’m well aware of that,” Lemuel said.

  “Then I must tell you this. If you ride out with Katia, you cannot come back. Do you understand? You may be a friend of Donehogawa’s, or even his blood brother, but you cannot come back until you win the trust of the Lakota. For until you do, I cannot risk trusting you, either.”