In the remaining two hours of their journey deep into that secretive haven, the world turned white. It wasn’t much of a snow, just the crystalline kind that coated the last leaves of fall and the grasses and the north sides of cottonwood trees. Time had run out for the Métis.
They turned at last into that anonymous gulch that hid several Métis huts, and now the people poured out of their log and canvas shelters, all of them eyeing the mule with the empty packsaddle riding it. They saw more than the empty saddle, devoid of the cask, devoid even of a few burlap sacks of squash or cabbage from Sylvestre’s farm. What they saw was ceaseless hunger, starting this very hour, a hunger for which there was no respite.
Nothing needed saying, so these people just stared as the whipping crystals of ice coated their shawls and scarves and leather coats. Dirk and Lorenz put the horses out with the oxen and mules, which were kept close in a box canyon.
“I hope I’m welcome chez Beauchamps,” Dirk said.
“They got no food. They thought you’d bring some.”
“None?”
“They ready to eat worms.”
Dirk thought that things couldn’t get harder. He found the Beauchamps family inside their hut, but they did not welcome him. They sat in the cold, because they lacked firewood. Clothilde and two other daughters huddled under a worn buffalo robe.
“We were chased away,” Dirk said.
No one responded. There was no welcome here.
“I’m going to the river. I’ll see what I can do.”
Dirk abandoned them and headed for Sylvestre’s hut. “I’m going to look for food. You got some fish hooks and line?”
“Naw, but if you ask real polite, I’ll bring you a few spare buffalo, eh?”
“Mind if I borrow your musket?”
Sylvestre shrugged, handed the ancient weapon to Dirk, along with a powder horn.
Dirk headed into a swirl of ice crystals. This wasn’t the sort of snow that accumulated, but it was mean and mocking, and seemed to howl its delight in making Dirk feel its icy fingers down his neck.
There would be an hour before the daylight faded. At the river he turned east, hoping to find some backwater with cattails in it. Or some ducks or Canada geese. Or anything. His feet were numbing. He did come upon a slough that stretched into an arm of dead water, running into a gulch. That was as good as he could hope for. The gray heavens cast gloom over the place. He studied the water, looking for anything with fins, and that’s when he did see a massive dark shape of a fish, lounging near a bank. The fish had a huge beak in front, shaped like a long spoon, and Dirk thought he knew what it was, but he had never seen a paddlefish and couldn’t be sure. If it was, it would be heavy, around five feet long, and would not be caught with bait. The fish survived on the river debris that filtered through its teeth. It was usually caught with a spear or by hooking a fin.
Dirk eased back from the bank. The fish did not stir. He headed up the slough until he found a willow limb that he might turn into a weapon. He had only his jackknife. He whittled his spear, hoping the fish would stay put. It took most of the remaining daylight to fashion his lance, but in time he had a six-foot pole shorn of twigs and sharpened. Then, his hands numb, he headed back to the bank and found the giant fish lazing there, sucking in whatever filtered past its teeth. It seemed prehistoric, like some monster out of the vasty deep. Its rear fin was wide and looked to be the way to pinion that monster.
Swiftly Dirk climbed out of his britches and leather shirt. The only way he could hope to bring this monster to the table would be to get into the icy river and creep up on the fish from behind and run that lance through its tail.
He eased into the cold, feeling the water bite, feeling his feet purchase traction on muck and sticks and rocks. He eased forward, the cold thunderous on his legs, until he rounded a soft corner and saw the monster ahead, its tail idly switching to hold it steady as its dinner filtered through its mouth. He would have one chance. If he failed, the fish would turn away with a single flip of the tail. He knew too that water was a distorting lens; the tail might not be just where his eyes saw it through a foot of water.
His own energy was failing. He didn’t wait. He lifted his harpoon and plunged its point down, aiming at the fin, and saw the fish lurch even as his lance pierced something and buried itself in muck. The fish thrashed forward, yanking the stick with it, but Dirk pried it back, and the fish twisted to the left, taking the stick that way, but Dirk righted himself just before the stick twisted him all the way into the back water. And so it went, even as the light faded and the ice crystals on the wind numbed the last sensation from his flesh. He lacked the strength to land the fish and yet he had to.
He spotted a gentle grade a dozen yards away where he might drag the fish from water. He felt it throb and tug and twist, but the stick held firm. He lifted the stick, got his hand under the fin, and eased the stick from the muck. The fish turned passive, letting Dirk pull it step by step, his hands on either side of the giant fin. Dirk stumbled backward, gaining the bank, and sat there, tugging the fish a few inches at a time, inch by inch until the heaving thing lay on the weedy ground. Dirk wasn’t satisfied and dragged it two, three, five feet back, until he was sure the paddlefish wouldn’t leap into the river and vanish.
He sat motionless, his heart throbbing, his body numb. He felt the ice on his flesh. He rose, found his britches and shirt and leather coat and moccasins, and put them on, and felt a thin comfort from them. He did not know how to get the fish back to the Métis. It was too heavy to carry. He was too worn. If he went for help, he would never find this place, and likely would never see the fish again. Night creatures would demolish it.
He took the stick and tugged. The fish slid. He tugged more. The fish slid. The coating of ice on the ground suddenly became his salvation. He struggled along the Missouri, a few yards at a time, and then turned up the gulch where these people lived, even as light gave out and he was traveling by sheer instinct.
The ice was his savior. It lubricated the land, so that Dirk could sometimes travel a hundred yards before he was forced to sit, recover enough for another stint, even as the crystals fell from the black sky, and night enveloped him. It took forever, it seemed, and he lost all feeling, and scarcely knew he was moving his limbs.
He stumbled into the clearing of huts, and found no light and no sound. These people were buried under their robes, enduring their empty stomachs, waiting for a worse day when the sun came up again.
He wasn’t sure which of the huts was looming next to him, but he set down the pole and yelled hoarsely.
“Oui?” came a voice. It was Lorenz Sylvestre’s.
“Help me,” Dirk said.
“What is it that you have?”
“Paddlefish.”
“Mon Dieu!”
He stepped toward Dirk, a shadow in the night. He stumbled over the fish, and on his knees ran a hand along its entire length.
“Sacre bleu!” He rose. “Maude! Maude! Get thyself busy and make a fire! We will eat!”
Dirk was too tired to help. He sat numbly while the family fanned a small fire into a large one, all the while gaping at the monster. Soon there were others rising out of the dark, until all the Métis collected there, at the tentative fire, gazing at the silvery fish.
Beauchamps appeared with some good knives.
“I have done this before,” he said. “It is not easy. This fish is all cartilage and there’s not much flesh, and the flesh is wrapped around the cartilage, eh?”
“Cut some for us to boil,” Sylvestre said. “Quick! Quick!”
“Ah, even that is difficult, mon ami.”
But Beauchamps didn’t tarry. He slit the giant open and began wrestling the chord of cartilage running down the back, and as soon as it was freed the women began scraping flesh out of every corner, and throwing it into water heating in a pot over the wavering fire. It would take a long while, but this night every belly would be filled and every heart warmed.
> twenty-one
The paddlefish was the true hoodoo. Elders squinted wisely, knowing that when a paddlefish let itself get caught with a wooden stick, big stuff was happening. Fish stew found its way around the Missouri Breaks, food for the heart but more for the soul. It was a mighty sign. And with it came the news that the soldiers had retreated to winter quarters and all that remained to worry about was the noose.
But what was a noose or two among the Métis, eh? The people had thick necks and great prowess, and could make new Métis faster than they could be hanged. For every Métis the ranchers hanged, there would be ten little ones incubating in wombs. Voilà! And what would it matter if a few cows disappeared?
It was time for the Métis to abandon their hideouts and settle in their promised land. The few who had farms could probably return to them; the newcomers would have to find something else. Who could say where? The best thing was to start out and see where they ended up.
In spite of misgivings, Dirk thought it was a good idea for these people to hit the road. They had been one fish away from starvation. When some of them asked him where to go, he had phrased things in the negative: away from the open range ranches that spread toward invisible boundaries. Go into towns, hamlets, cities, where they could work and survive. But some had other ideas: occupy the line camps of the ranches, now that those cowboys were either clustered in their headquarters or were riding the grub line, as winter visits were called. That was tempting. Those empty cabins had stoves and bunks and corrals, and probably some stray beef not far away.
Thus began the migration. The Métis filtered south, traveling by night, riding the winds of winter, blowing with the snow, hiding by day. No leader directed them. No advance guards warned them away from danger. Yet they somehow knew the time had come to leave the Missouri Breaks—or die in their huts. They were mostly invisible, taking advantage of shifting winds and flurries that kept the ranchers and their hands huddled at their wood stoves. Who could say what the Métis ate? They could fish every stream, harvest frozen berries, pluck up withered roots, occasionally shoot a wild thing. Who could say what their oxen and mules ate? There was green cottonwood bark, that famous last resort for livestock. And yet, as long as the snow held off, and they could roll over frozen clay, the way was not difficult and the giant wheels of the Red River carts never mired.
The Beauchampses and Sylvestres rolled south together, and Dirk went with them, thinking maybe to find food for them. He had learned well from his father, but not all the wilderness lore in the world could feed starving people if there was nothing to turn into food. He thought the frosted earth at Sylvestre’s homestead might still yield potatoes and whatever root crops the man had planted, and that might help these people survive. But it was a forlorn hope because there was no meat in that diet. He feared these people would soon be slaughtering a cow here, another there, just to keep themselves fed. And there was nothing he could do, and maybe he would share the guilt if it came to that.
It was a brutal trip, slowed by hunger and weariness. The children lagged, and could not be hastened. The wind bit necks and numbed fingers. Dirk, on horse, did better than those afoot. He spent much of his time keeping an eye peeled for trouble, but also hunting food. Anything at all. Not only for humans but for animals. One afternoon he found a wolf-killed deer, the carcass frozen and edible. He gradually pried it loose from the blood-soaked frozen ground and carried it to the straggling party, which welcomed it with joy. They would boil it into a stew that evening.
Moccasins wore out faster on the frozen ground, which lacerated the leather. There was little to repair them. One of Beauchamps’s daughters fevered and had to be carried in the overburdened ox cart. At night, the men tried to find a spot that would hide a fire from distant eyes and usually succeeded. The valley of the Judith River was rich in small corners, out of the wind and under the lip of prairie. Yet in spite of all, these determined people were progressing southward to reclaim a home, a garden, a livestock pen, a root cellar, where once they had lived in peace.
They reached the long claws of the Snowy Mountains at last and proceeded across the lonely land toward Lorenz Sylvestre’s homestead. Late in an afternoon marked by glowering clouds that threatened more snow, they rounded a bend and beheld their farm.
But there was nothing there. No log home, no barn, no pens. Nothing but black ash, and a few forlorn black ruins. Scorched earth.
“Mon Dieu!” whispered Sylvestre.
The rest just stared mutely. There were ice crystals in the air, the threat of another storm, and no refuge from it. They led the weary oxen the last hundred yards and surveyed the ruins, seeing nothing but ash and broken dreams. Years of labor and hope lay charred. Comfort and succor lay dead. The simple hope of shelter, a wood stove glowing, a chance to endure a Montana winter, was gone. Dirk glanced at these homeless people, seeing the premonition of death in their sorrow. It was bad enough for the Sylvestres, but in a way, even worse for the Beauchamps women, whose dreams of safety and comfort had flown away in a trice.
Dirk stepped off his buckskin and walked the ruins, wondering if anything survived. But nothing combustible did other than the thick plank door of the root cellar. That hillside structure had survived. Then he realized the iron stove remained, a blackened hulk but a stove nonetheless. He motioned to Sylvestre.
“We have heat, if you have wood.”
That galvanized them. They had a stove; they had their tarpaulins. They had good axes to cut frames and make firewood. The men immediately began wrestling the stove out of the field of ash, along with some stovepipe. Others began the task of erecting a canvas shelter out of whatever was at hand. Dirk pulled open the door of the root cellar and found nothing in it. It was perpetually cold in there. At the ruins of the barn he found nothing. No grain or seed, no harness or implements other than a shovel with its wooden handle burnt off.
Madame Sylvestre was out in the vast gardens, gesticulating.
They crowded toward her. There were still acres of food. No one of the cattlemen had thought to harvest any of it. Frost-covered squash, browned off potatoes, frosted beets, carrots, onions, stretching every which way. Food enough for the winter if they got it in before the frost dug deep into the earth. A feast this very night!
But they had only a single shovel.
“Dig! We must dig!” Sylvestre said. “Dig with the shovel. Dig with sticks.”
The Métis seemed to organize themselves without command. The Sylvestre children unyoked the oxen and turned them loose to forage. Beauchamps and Sylvestre, the most powerful and muscular of them, set to work on the root crops. The Beauchamps girls found some burlap sacks and gathered squash and carried it to the root cellar, bag after bag. The men dug up potatoes and loaded them onto a tarpaulin, and dragged the tarp to the root cellar. Some of the women hunted for firewood and carried it to the stove, which now sat well away from the ashes of the home.
But the garden was the main thing. Dirk realized that these people could manage through the winter if they could harvest the entire garden, which ran several acres. And that full bellies would hearten them to rebuild, even through the bitterest days of winter. It was a task so daunting and complex that Dirk marveled that they would even try. But the Métis had never shied from toil. These people were hungry and cold but didn’t pause to eat or warm themselves. They were in a race against winter, and they intended to win. Toil, the unending torture of their muscles, would be their salvation. These people knew this. They knew that they could chop and shovel and saw and pull and carry on their backs, and the muscle of their arms and legs and backs and necks would keep them safe.
Ice was in the wind. A deep cold that clawed deep into the earth, or a blizzard, could ruin all hope. Dirk found a row of cabbages, frozen and brown on the outside but maybe still mostly usable, and he made it his task to carry them to the root cellar. He found cucumbers that looked mostly ruined, but who could say? He found frost-bit melons, and who could say what might be saved? With a
stick he loosened onions from the earth. All these he lugged to the root cellar and was amazed at how quickly that hillside chamber was filling up. The daylight thinned to nothing but the work continued, people somehow finding their way in virtual blackness.
Light bloomed and grew. The women had a fire going in the stove and were filling a kettle with the fruits of their impromptu harvest. A good stew this night, and more to come. Even as the women prepared a meal of potatoes, onions, carrots, and squash, the men collected the downed corral rails and lashed them into a framework to support the tarpaulins. There would be shelter this night, a little warmth, and heaps of steaming vegetables.
They ate. There weren’t bowls enough, but in time they were all filled, and the Beauchamps girls fell asleep. Sylvestre was whittling a pole to fit into the blade of the burnt shovel. Tomorrow there would be two shovels. Even with two, the harvest would run a week unless a ground-piercing Canadian cold ruined the rest of what lay out there. The tarpaulins rattled in the winter air but stayed the cold as long as the stove radiated its heat.
Dirk lay in his bedroll, unsure about the future. He would stay through the desperate harvest. He would struggle alongside these Métis to put every last potato into the root cellar. And maybe help them with a better shelter, enough to thwart the cold while the men set to work on a new house. There would come the moment when he would be an extra mouth to feed, an intruder among them. And then what? He would leave. He had been discharged not far from this very place. He had lost his livelihood and perhaps his vocation. Who needed a translator? Who needed a barely qualified teacher? Who needed a husband? Not these people.
At dawn there was a fresh white coating on the ground. An inch or two, but it was warning enough to set them all to frenzied digging and hauling, from the earliest light. Dirk pitched in, marveling at how much was achieved with so little. The men dug in shifts, and children carried burlap bags or dragged tarps loaded with the harvest. The women stored the incoming vegetables. There was a whole lore to it; ways to let air circulate; ways to slow the rot. Things to store low, things to hang high. And they knew it all. The smallest children, mostly the Beauchamps girls, hunted firewood. A single day would consume a great heap of it. A winter’s supply was almost unimaginable. And if these people got snowed in, they would sleep cold and eat cold and maybe die cold.
The First Dance Page 14