Climb the Wind: A Journey Into Another Past

by Pamela Sargent

  Lemuel thought of the moment of strangeness that had come to him before, when he had felt himself apart from the world, uncertain even of his own reality. To follow this trail meant leaving everything he knew, and for what?

  “Perhaps you will change your mind,” Rubalev said. “Donehogawa may be disappointed, but there is nothing he can do, and perhaps he is only asking you to take risks that he can no longer take himself, or that he is unwilling to take. You may leave this room, go back to St. Louis, even travel back East if you like. I will not stop you if you leave St. Joseph now. You do not yet know enough to have any effect on events.”

  “I’ve made my decision,” Lemuel said. “A Negro named Virgil Warrick is willing to travel with us. I hope that he can come along.”

  Rubalev frowned. “Already you are asking for more conditions. I know nothing about this man.”

  Katia said, “He’s the black man who came with us on the train.” Lemuel turned toward her, surprised to hear her speak. “Mr. Rowland appears to know him fairly well and to trust him,” she continued, “and if he turns out to be useless, he won’t live long anyway.”

  Rubalev’s eyes narrowed. “You make a good point, child.”

  Lemuel wondered why she was speaking up for what he wanted. “Then perhaps,” he said, “we can now discuss when we are to leave with you and what I might need to take with me.”

  “You will not be traveling with me,” Rubalev said. Katia’s eyes widened with astonishment. “I will see that you have a guide, but I cannot go with you. There are matters I must tend to elsewhere.” He was silent for a few moments, and Lemuel did not ask where Rubalev intended to go. He probably would not have told him anyway.

  “My husband,” Katia said, “will be disappointed at not seeing you with us.”

  “You may tell him that I am securing our alliances,’’ Rubalev replied. “I trust that he will be happy to see you again, but if he is not, then the arrival of Mr. Rowland will perhaps be some consolation. Touch-the-Clouds can always use skilled men.”

  Katia’s hands fluttered.

  “She would be safer with you,” Lemuel said.

  “She wants to go back to her people. In any case, she is of no more use to me here.”

  Katia got up and hurried from the room, slamming a door behind her.

  Rubalev leaned back in his chair. “Now, Rowland, let us talk about the arrangements for your journey.”

  The street leading to his hotel, usually lively even late into the night, was almost empty. Lemuel passed a row of saloons and saw only a few men in each, sitting at tables or standing at the bars. He had been in Rubalev’s suite for some time, talking of the route he would take and the way he would travel, to Omaha on the Missouri by boat and by horseback after that.

  He had better start getting used to long hours on a horse again, Lemuel told himself; he was out of practice. Rubalev, after telling him that it might take some time for him to arrange things, now seemed anxious to get him away from St. Joseph as quickly as possible. He would have to wait in Omaha for his guide to meet him. The guide would probably be Rubalev’s colored man, Denis Laforte, if everything went as Rubalev hoped.

  He would be putting himself in the hands of strangers, people who seemed to hope for some justice for the Indians of the Plains and some sort of action that would preserve their lands. He did not know what else they wanted. Rubalev had promised to give Lemuel enough money for the journey, but if he reached his destination safely, it was unlikely that he would need any greenbacks and coins among the Sioux.

  He was risking his life. He could still turn back. Rubalev had made that statement several times, repeating it so often that Lemuel began to think the words were a test. “You can go back, Rowland. Even after you get to Omaha, you can turn back.” To take Rubalev at his word might involve just as many risks as keeping to his decision. By turning back now, he would be showing Rubalev that he could not be trusted after all. He thought of Katia, helpless to go against him. Lemuel did not want to find out what the man might do to someone he could not trust.

  The hotel lobby was as empty and quiet as the street. Lemuel got his key at the desk and went up the stairs to his room. He was closing the door when the thought came to him: I must write to Donehogawa.

  Lemuel lit the lamp on the nightstand, then sat on the edge of the bed to write his letter. He had brought ink and paper with him, intending to send a brief note to Katia at Mrs. Gerhardt’s in order to maintain that charade. He would use the cipher for his letter, since he could write in that as easily as in English.

  He dipped his pen in the inkwell and wrote quickly, telling Donehogawa that he would be traveling to Omaha and then from there to the camp of Touch-the-Clouds. He set down everything that Rubalev had told him that evening; after hesitating for a moment, he wrote a short version of his meeting with Katia in St. Louis and what had followed. Rubalev would assuredly send Donehogawa a report of what had passed, but Lemuel wanted the former commissioner to have a letter from him as well.

  The letter came to two pages in length, on both sides of the paper. Lemuel was about to fold up the letter and slip it into an envelope when he realized that he had left something out.

  If you are wondering why I decided to come here and seek out Rubalev, he wrote quickly in the cipher, it is because a dream told me that I had to ride out to the Plains. There was no need to tell Donehogawa anything more than that.

  Lemuel got up early. He would go to the livery stable near his hotel to see about a horse, and then mail his letter to Donehogawa. It came to him then that perhaps one of the reasons he had written that letter was to have a thread connecting him to his former life. He might ride out to the camp of Touch-the-Clouds only to disappear from the world he knew as completely as though he had never existed. He might die out on the Plains before he even reached his destination, or—perhaps worse—discover that he had given up his old life for no reason. He wanted at least one person back East to know where he had gone.

  In the daylight outside the hotel, he felt more hopeful. A wagon rattled by, and then another; a knot of men had gathered in front of the general store down the street from the stable. Lemuel waited for a buckboard to pass, then hurried across the road.

  “Came in on the telegraph last night,” one white-bearded man was saying as Lemuel approached. “They called in a doctor right after it happened, but it was too late. Died yesterday morning, it said.”

  Lemuel slowed his pace, then turned. “Was he drinking?” a young man asked. “Always heard he was a man what enjoyed his liquor.”

  “I don’t know,” the older man replied, “but maybe it wouldn’t have mattered one way or the other. Maybe it was too dark to see the carriage coming. Maybe there weren’t enough time to get out of the way—I mean, that congressman was hurt, too.”

  Another man shook his head. “The Rebs couldn’t kill him, but a carriage in Washington City could.”

  “Washington?” Lemuel said before he could stop himself.

  “Guess you ain’t heard, son.” The white-bearded man folded his arms. “President Ulysses S. Grant’s gone to meet his Maker. Seems he was crossing the road not for from the White House when a couple of panicked horses hitched to a carriage came around a corner. They carried him into a boardinghouse nearby, and the doctor came, but the president died a few hours later.”

  Lemuel opened his mouth, but no words came.

  “Going down to the Journal office,” a man in a duster said. “Maybe they ran off the new edition by now.”

  Lemuel turned away. Schuyler Colfax was president now. The man from Indiana had been Speaker of the House before becoming vice president. The vice president was a man enamored of the sound of his own voice, which was why he had spent much of his time traveling around the country to lecture, and he had a weakness for both flattery and money. Donehogawa had always regarded Colfax with some amusement, especially after the vice president had announced his intention to retire from public life in the hope that a grou
ndswell of popular support would dissuade him. When his announcement was greeted with silence, Colfax had quickly retracted his promise. He was a man who would likely not have been invited to run with President Grant a second time, and now he was president.

  How would the country fare with President Colfax at its head? Lemuel walked toward the stable, too stunned to feel any grief as yet for his former commander. Again he had the feeling that the world around him was insubstantial, that the news of Grant’s death was something he had only imagined.

  NINE

  Two weeks after word of President Grant’s death had reached him, Lemuel was in Omaha with Katia and Virgil Warrick. To reach the city, which stood on bluffs overlooking the Missouri, required crossing from Council Bluffs on the eastern side of the river in a ferry that seemed ready to capsize into the muddy water at almost any moment. Omaha was a crowded, rapidly growing city of muddy streets with newly planted trees and dust-covered buildings, of horse-drawn omnibuses and mud-spattered carriages, of restless people on their way to someplace else.

  Denis Laforte met them in Omaha, telling them little except that they would be leaving in a few days to travel northwest up the Missouri, and then west toward Dakota. Snow would be coming to the Plains soon; Denis wanted them to reach the Sioux camp before the worst of the winter set in. It occurred to Lemuel again that he might not survive the harsh winter.

  He could turn back. The money Rubalev had given him would be enough for him to go back to St. Louis. The thought crossed his mind for only a moment before he pushed it aside. He had survived as a Union soldier; he would make himself live through this.

  He left Omaha with his companions early one morning. By now, he had grown used to seeing Katia on a horse. Rubalev had gone riding with the two of them on the outskirts of St. Joseph, obviously wanting to make certain that they would be prepared to make a long journey on horseback.

  “Katia can ride without a saddle as easily as with one,” Rubalev had told him, ‘‘but of course she has been riding since childhood. I saw to it that she did not lose the skill, although she is somewhat out of practice. But you will see. By the time I see you again, she will be a better rider than either of us.”

  “When will we see you?” Lemuel had asked.

  “I do not yet know. That depends on how long it takes me to settle matters with those who may be helpful.” Lemuel had not asked Rubalev what he meant by that, and who the people were that he was to see; the man would tell him nothing. He knew only that word of Grant’s death had disturbed Rubalev greatly.

  The colder weather had held off, and the air was warm for late autumn. Lemuel felt grateful for that. Once they left the Missouri, and headed into territory unsettled by the white man and unmarked by railroads and wagon trails, there would be no more small towns or encampments at which to stop for a meal and a bed. They would be dependent on their scouts and on whatever hospitality the Sioux were willing to offer.

  The Plains grass had grown dry, and the farther they rode from settled lands, the more monotonous the landscape became. The short yellowing grass rippled and rolled like the waves of a vast sea. Four days after they had left Omaha, there were no sightings of a distant cabin or sod dwelling on the horizon to mark their passage, only an isolated tree, a rocky outcropping, or a slight rise in the land. At dusk, as they pitched their tents and settled down for the night, the wind wailed, died, and then picked up again. Lemuel slept to the sound of the wind, hearing it in his dreams, and when he woke, he recalled only fragmentary dreams of horses and riders on the western horizon, always moving ahead of him, never allowing him to catch up.

  Virgil Warrick was awkward in his saddle, and when out of it, walked stiffly and sat down gingerly, obviously sore and aching from the long ride. It was clear that he did not have much experience as a rider, but he refused to complain and did his best not to slow the rest of the party down.

  Katia did not complain, either. By the third day, she was easily able to keep up with Denis and Lemuel. By the fifth day, she was riding ahead of them, reining in from time to time to allow them to catch up with her. On the sixth day, after they had struck camp, Lemuel was preparing to saddle his horse when he saw Katia leap onto the blanketed back of her mount.

  “I’ll ride this way,’’ she said as she swung one leg over the horse and dismounted.

  “Without a saddle?” Virgil asked.

  “I rode that way as a girl, before I had a woman’s saddle.” Katia picked up her saddle and lifted it to the back of one of their three spare horses. “We are being followed,” she went on.

  “I know,” Denis said.

  “We have been followed for the past two days at least,” Katia murmured, “perhaps longer.”

  Lemuel wondered how Katia could be so certain of that. Someone could track them; he had no doubt of that. There would be their trail to follow, the droppings of their horses, the places where they had camped. He had seen no one at a distance, so whoever was tracking them was keeping well out of sight.

  “Cavalry?” Lemuel asked.

  Denis shook his head. “If they were soldiers, they would have shown themselves by now.” Lemuel did not think that they would rouse any suspicion even if soldiers crossed their path. He and Katia could pass for young homesteaders with two black servants, and if they were brought into any fort, he would have a message sent to Jeremiah Clarke. Still, he was relieved that they were apparently safe from being waylaid by soldiers.

  On the seventh day, Katia took down her hair and braided it in two long plaits. She still wore a plain brown woolen dress and a thick sheepskin coat, but there would be no mistaking her for a settler now. The wind had tanned her skin and brought color to her face; when she reined in her horse to lean forward and scan the horizon, she looked like what she was, a Sioux. He had feared that she might slow them down, that he would see regret in her face. Instead, she seemed to be looking forward to her return.

  On the eighth day, as they were about to ride on, Lemuel finally spotted two riders in the north, across the treeless plain of rippling yellow grass.

  Lemuel sat on his horse, waiting as the riders approached them. They were Sioux, clothed in ragged leather jackets that looked as though they might have once belonged to white men, leggings, and boots made of hide. Their long black hair fell to their waist.

  When the two riders were near, Denis held up a hand, then glanced toward Katia. As the two strangers reined in their horses, Katia said a few words that Lemuel recalled were a greeting.

  “She is saying that she is the wife of their chief,” Denis murmured, “riding back to her husband, and that you and Virgil were sent here by their friend Yellow Hair.”

  Yellow Hair, Lemuel assumed, was Rubalev. He heard Virgil suck in his breath.

  Katia said another word that sounded to Lemuel like “magaskawie.” He guessed that it was a name, perhaps her own in Lakota. The men responded with more unfamiliar words and sounds.

  “They are saying their names,” Denis said, “what they are called. Magaskawee is what Katia is called here—it means Graceful Swan. The two men are Hotahwambee—White Eagle—and Kohana Tashunka, or Swift Horse. I do not know these men, but they are the men who were sent to meet us and to take us to the camp of Touch-the-Clouds.”

  Lemuel nodded. Once he was among these people, more of their words would return to him.

  “Was you the one tole them we was coming?” Virgil asked.

  Denis shook his head. “Mr. Rubalev sent someone else to tell them.” He did not explain how that had happened.

  “I can speak.”

  Lemuel tensed. One of the Indians had said those words. “I can speak your words,” the Sioux said again, looking directly at Lemuel. “So I will speak in words we can all hear and know.”

  Again Virgil inhaled sharply. “We hope you can be trusted,” the man continued. “If you are not trustworthy, it will not go well for you.”

  “You can trust them,” Katia said.

  “It is not enough for y
ou to say it,” the man replied. “We will see if they are trustworthy.” He sounded as though he was not quite certain that he could trust her, either. “You will follow us now.”

  The man who spoke English was the one named White Eagle. Lemuel found it easier to think of his name in English than in the still unfamiliar sounds of the Lakota tongue. They rode in silence, stopping at intervals to graze and rest the horses. When night came, Lemuel and his companions pitched their tents. The two Sioux slept under a makeshift shelter of a blanket and branches.

  In the morning, they set out at dawn. By late morning, the dry and grassy land was giving way to small hills. By midafternoon, Lemuel saw several tepees in the distance.

  Swift Horse and his mount were soon galloping toward the camp. White Eagle rode after him, quickly leaving the others behind. “It is my husband’s camp,” Katia said. “I can see his tent.”

  The tepees looked much the same to him. Only when they were closer could Lemuel see that each was painted with different colors and patterns. His horse moved alongside Katia’s. “You will have to tell me what to say to your husband.”

  Katia made a sound that might have been a laugh. “Greet him, and tell him that you have come as a friend,” she said. “Nothing else you can say will make any difference.” She glanced at him from the sides of her eyes. “If he has forgotten some of his English, and you most of your Lakota, I’ll translate for you.”

  They continued toward the camp. By the time they reached it, a number of people were gathered in front of their dwellings to stare at them. As Lemuel dismounted, he saw the look of apprehension in Virgil’s eyes.

  White Eagle called out something in his own tongue, too fast for him to grasp it, then stooped to enter the nearest tepee. Katia dismounted and came to Lemuel’s side. “He is greeting my husband,” she said softly. “I don’t know if he will invite us inside or come out to meet us.” Her voice shook slightly; he realized that she was frightened.