Dark Passage

by Richard S. Wheeler

  Skye felt a certain helplessness. “And how do I make her obey?”

  “You must punish her.”

  “Is that how the People do it?”

  “Yes, it is the custom to beat a woman who does not obey.”

  “We are talking about my wife?”

  “You must beat her. Then she will respect you.”

  “Then she might run away to someone else.”

  “That would be good; you would no longer suffer such shame.”

  Skye digested all that, his instincts rebelling against it. “Among yellow eyes, it is rarely done, Grandfather.” He used the term of utmost respect, “grandfather,” which designated his father-in-law as a teacher, a wisdom giver.

  “How do your women respect you, then? And why do we never see a pale woman? Yellow eyes hide them from us, and we think maybe you have none and want our women.”

  “There are many pale women. The man is the head of the marriage but the woman is not a slave, and she may do what she will. A husband and wife become companions and make decisions together.”

  “Among the People it is done differently. A man must protect his family, and they must be obedient for their own safety.”

  “Grandfather, is it not the right of each of the People to follow his own path? I follow my path—that which has been given to me by my own people.”

  Walks Alone nodded. “That is your right. But it won’t protect you from gossip or malice among the Absaroka. There is much gossip about you and Many Quill Woman. It brings unhappiness to my lodge.”

  Skye scarcely knew how to respond to that. It had not been easy to live with these Absarokas. A lodge offered no privacy. People lived in unusual intimacy. Skye had not enjoyed Victoria’s embrace since they had moved into her parents’ eighteen-pole lodge. Two sisters, a grandfather, her parents, and assorted visitors conspired to ruin his lovemaking. Once, when he and Victoria had ridden through the narrows where the Yellowstone burst out of the mountains, they had come to a sunny meadow, got off their ponies, and joined together with all the old fire and joy.

  But the family had not shared Skye’s compunctions. Often, at night, he could hear Walks Alone and Digs the Roots coupling just a few feet from him, sometimes screened by a hide barrier strung up in the evening, sometimes not. The women went about their toilet nonchalantly, as if Skye weren’t there. The daily cycle of life within the lodge hinged on the master’s whim. When Walks Alone felt like sleeping, he put no more wood in the fire and drew his robes around him. The rest did, too. When Walks Alone felt like staying up, the rest stayed up. When any had to get up in the night, the fact was known to all. Walks Alone’s elderly father, Standing Weasel, wandered in and out all night. All that had been hard enough, but the custom prohibiting Skye from addressing his mother-in-law, or even gazing directly at her, complicated matters all the more.

  He was mad with need for privacy, wild to possess a lodge of his own, a sanctuary for Victoria and himself. He had been catapulted from years on board a royal warship with no family to life with too much family, and it took a strange toll on him.

  And now Walks Alone was telling him plainly that they were not pleased with him. Well, he thought bitterly, he was not pleased with them; he was coming to regret this whole lash-up. He wasn’t an Indian; he didn’t really want to live in this sort of intimacy, without space or privacy, where everything about him was known and he knew more than he wanted about the rest. How could he be himself in such a circumstance?

  Nor was that all. The lack of privacy assailed him from unexpected quarters. Sometimes one or another of Victoria’s sisters vanished for a time, sometimes overnight, sometimes to the menstrual hut. And sometimes unexplained people stayed in the lodge; a boy, probably some kin, occasionally made himself at home. Yet no one told him who the child was or why he was there. Probably he was an adopted son; the children of the village were constantly being adopted by other families, and children were constantly acquiring new parents. Yet no one explained any of that to Skye.

  In the midst of all this enforced society, Skye felt a deepening loneliness. He had only the dubious friendship of Beckwourth. All this was a lesson. He knew now how Victoria must have felt all the years in the white men’s fur brigades. And how courageously she had adapted herself to a way of life so strange. No wonder she rejoiced just to talk with someone who spoke her language. It had been years since he escaped the Royal Navy, but now his thoughts turned to civilization. Maybe it was time to head for St. Louis and whatever the future might bring. There he would pay off his debts and make something of his life. And he would forget Victoria.

  But to think it was to know that he would not forget her. She had come miraculously into his life during a time of change. The thought of her wry good humor restored his determination to make something of himself among these strange people. His mind teemed again with questions. He would ask his father-in-law how a young man made his way among the Absarokas. There would have to be some way.

  But before he could form a question, Walks Alone reined his pony and signaled to Skye to stop. They had been traversing undulating barrens not far from the foothills of the western mountains. Walks Alone had seen something. He signaled Skye to wait and then steered his pony up a long grassy draw with a halfhearted rill running along its bottom. Skye saw nothing.

  The Crow dropped off his pony, tied it to a juniper bush, and glided up the side of the draw. Then at last Skye saw the quarry, a cow elk standing on the ridge with only her head showing. She was watching Walks Alone, but didn’t move. Walks Alone didn’t approach directly, but angled in a way that gave the impression he was ignoring her, all the while drawing closer, until he was within bow range.

  Skye marveled. He had not seen the elk, but now was receiving a valuable lesson. Walks Alone continued to veer toward the ridge, apparently paying no attention to the elk, which was growing restless. Then, swiftly, he drew his bow and loosed an arrow. It struck the elk’s midsection. She staggered but did not fall, and headed upslope toward the foothills, gouting blood. Skye rode up while Walks Alone returned to his pony and mounted. Then, silently, they followed the trail of blood, which crimsoned the grass ahead of them with bright red drops. The elk had vanished ahead but left a clear trail. It would not be a clean kill, and she would suffer.

  For a mile, two miles, more, they rode their ponies into the foothills, past the first pines and past some slender aspens that had lost their leaves. Sometimes they found no blood and could only guess where the elk went; other times the elk’s flight was clear. Walks Alone ignored Skye, focusing entirely on the chase until at last they found her, still standing, her head lowered, her belly red. Walks Alone drew his bow and loosed another arrow, this one piercing the elk, which shuddered and folded to the earth.

  Skye and Walks Alone rode the rest of the way and studied the lifeless elk, a fine cow, heavy with fall fat. Walks Alone slid off his horse and circled the elk. Then he lifted his arms and sang something. Skye knew the Crow was apologizing to the spirit of the elk for taking its life. He thought maybe that was how it should be, and a better way of viewing hunting than the ways of the whites.

  Walks alone neither gutted nor butchered the elk. He retrieved one arrow, which slid out easily amidst a bloody flux, but couldn’t free the other. He headed for a nearby aspen grove and cut two saplings with his hatchet, and then trimmed them. He was making a drag, a travois, and would take this elk whole back to the village. It probably weighed six hundred pounds, far too much to carry on the packhorse. Artfully, the Crow lashed crossbars to the poles, using thong, and then anchored the drag to the packsaddle. He positioned the drag downslope from the elk, to make things easier, and then he and Skye dragged the elk, bit by bit, onto the travois. It was exhausting work, and they could move the elk only a few inches at a time. But at last they loaded the elk. The saplings bowed under the weight.

  “We will go back now,” Walks Alone said. “The People will rejoice. We will have a feast.”

  “I
would like to keep on hunting,” Skye said. “You go on.”

  “But we have hunted this elk together. The People will honor you.”

  “It was your victory, Grandfather. The honor is yours, not mine.”

  Walks Alone studied Skye, something kind in his eye. “You are a man of truth,” he said. “This elk gave her life to me. That is what she told me. Be patient and ignore the bad words in the village. I have received wisdom from the seer, Red Turkey Head, and understand your ways. He says you are the kin of the great grizzly, the most terrible of all creatures, and someday you will show the People how a grizzly bear defends its nest. Your time will come and then the People will honor you.”

  Skye wondered whether it would. He stood quietly while Walks Alone started back. The packhorse slowly dragged the burdened travois, which threatened to snap under the weight. Skye watched his father-in-law go, feeling an unfamiliar affection for him. Soon there was nothing but two deep furrows in the soft earth, and Skye was alone.

  eleven

  Victoria’s father, with the help of three others, hoisted the fat elk on a stout cottonwood limb. He sawed off the forelegs and fed them to the dogs. With a practiced hand, he gutted the animal and set the offal aside. Then he peeled the fine, thick hide in swift jerks, cutting gently where it adhered to the carcass, all the while enjoying the company of some of the village headmen, who had come to admire the elk.

  Victoria watched somberly. This had been her father’s kill, not Skye’s. Her man was still out hunting. He wasn’t good at it and didn’t have the cunning that any good hunter possessed. She felt embarrassed that he was not present, sharing the moment. But she had been embarrassed a great deal by him recently.

  When the hide finally pulled loose, her father folded it and gave it to her. It was so heavy she could barely hold it.

  “Make a good elkhide coat for your man,” he said. “The Cold Maker is coming and he has nothing to wear.”

  She nodded, knowing it would be good to do that. She could stake and flesh the hide that afternoon, and let it dry. Then she could hair it and brain-tan it and soften it. This was a prize elkhide, unblemished, soft, fine-grained. It would make a fine coat and some winter moccasins and maybe more than that.

  But it should not be a gift from her father. Skye should be wearing the hide of an elk he killed. She watched her father a while more. He was cutting haunch meat and giving pieces to the friends who had helped him. Her brother, Arrow, was helping him. Walks Alone would give most of this elk away. He was a great man in the village of the Kicked-in-the-Bellies, and the more meat he gave away, the greater was the respect he would win. He cut pieces and sent them to his brother the chief, and to the seer, Red Turkey Head, and to the small lodge of Makes Sun, who was old and feeble but took care of three old women, his wife and her sisters. Boys hung about, eager to perform this service for the headman who had killed the elk, and he would give a little to them, too. But when he was done with the giving, there still would be meat in the lodge kettle for several days.

  How adept her father and brother were with the knife, and how fast they butchered the elk. Soon it would be bones for soup and gristle for the dogs. Knives were miraculous tools, and so were axes that cut wood, and awls that punched leather, and iron kettles that cooked meat and didn’t break apart over a fire. Her people could no longer get along without such marvels provided by the yellow eyes. She wondered what it had been like for her grandmothers, who cut meat with knives of flint or bone, poked leather with bone awls, and cooked meat by boiling it in leather containers over heated rocks or burying it in hot ashes lined with grass.

  She toted the heavy hide to her father’s lodge and reluctantly staked it to the ground and began fleshing it. She preferred flint fleshers to the metal ones made by white men. Slowly she scraped the bits of meat and white fat from the hide. She didn’t really want to do that, not because it was hard work but because she didn’t want to give the elkskin coat to Skye. She had another one in mind. Skye didn’t deserve such a fine, flawless skin. Antelope would know better how to wear it. He had a way with clothing. He would see at once that the leather was perfect, soft, golden, and clean, and would wear the coat in a way that told the whole village it was the best coat of all. And all would know who made it for him.

  But she worked on the coat for Skye anyway because her father had commanded it and because she cared about Skye. She toiled through the cold afternoon—the weather was changing—and ignored her friends. Across the way, young men smoked and lounged and sometimes turned her way with amused glances. She knew what they were thinking: she chose Skye when she could have picked a better one. Her brother, Arrow, had joined them, his smirk even larger and more obvious than those of the others. He had no use for Skye or any white man.

  “Where did this fine hide come from, Many Quill Woman?” asked Turtle, one of her old beaux.

  “It came from my father.”

  “Ah, and not your man. He has no medicine.”

  “He has been named Man Not Afraid of the Pawnees.”

  Turtle laughed. “No one is afraid of Pawnees. I am not afraid of Pawnees. I am not afraid of Siksika or Lakota, either. I will fight them anytime.”

  It was strange. Among his own kind, Skye was an honored man and a leader. He had done brave things, fought well, won the esteem of many. Beckwourth admired him. The headmen—Bridger, Fitzpatrick, Sublette—rewarded him. She had been proud of him then. But now, in her own village, she saw that he was without power. His name should be No Medicine, because that was what had happened. He had none; somehow, he had violated the grizzly medicine given to him, and now he was as powerless as a child. It saddened her. She could not say what had happened, only that he didn’t belong in the village. Maybe she would set his belongings outside the lodge door. Then he would go away and she would be free to pick someone else. She needed to think about that.

  Skye rode in empty-handed, just ahead of a swirl of snow. Wearily he dismounted, eyed her and the half-fleshed hide, and entered the lodge without a word. He put his Hawken within, along with his powder horn and the rest of his kit. Then he emerged into the sharp cold, rubbed the black horse with dried grass, and checked its hooves.

  “I never saw an animal. Hunted north, in the foothills.”

  “You have bad medicine. The grizzly has turned his back on you.”

  He paused beside her, forming words, and then turned away. She had heard them all. He led the horse out to the herd. She watched him go. He walked wearily, and wore clothes that had been given to him, and led a horse that had been given to him by a war leader with much medicine.

  She was cold, and tired of fleshing, so she rolled up the half-fleshed hide and took it into the lodge, where it would stay warm and she could unroll it again. Her heart was not good. Everything annoyed her this cold, blustery eve, and most of all Skye.

  Tonight she would go listen to stories again in the lodge of Antelope. Maybe Stillwater would be there, maybe some of the other women. Antelope surrounded himself with women. He had invited her to arrive just after dark, which came early this Moon of Heavy Frosts. The lodge of her father was wearisome this evening. Skye and her mother avoided each other. Her father sat and smoked, tired out by all the butchering. She ate the boiled elk hastily, saying nothing at all to her man, and then wrapped her fine Hudson’s Bay blanket about her and ducked into the night.

  If Skye had power, he would give her a big lodge, with many robes, and have many fat Absaroka wives, much meat, and eagle feathers in his hair—war honors. And he would not have to deal with his mother-in-law. Jim Beckwourth had medicine. She liked that.

  She scratched Antelope’s lodge door politely and was invited in. He sat before a small bright flame, bare-chested, muscular, his tawny flesh much the color of an Absaroka’s flesh. A necklace with a blue stone in it hung over his chest. He had loosened his wavy jet hair and it hung loose. He wore leggings and fine, beaded moccasins made for him by one of his many admirers.

  “Ah, m
y fair Victoria—which do you prefer, Victoria or Many Quill Woman?”

  “I am Victoria; so I was named.”

  “A beautiful name, the name of a princess. Your presence graces the lodge of Antelope this fine evening.”

  “Where is Stillwater?”

  “I sent her away.”

  “That is strange, Antelope. What of the rest?”

  “Pine Leaf will not come this evening. And Walks Beside the River is not going to be with us a few days. And the others—” He shrugged.

  “You sent them away!”

  He smiled. “I told them that this night I would take Victoria to my robes.”

  “Oh!” She didn’t dislike that. He had made his intentions known long ago, and much had passed subtly between them for days. But she thought she would tease him some.

  “What makes you think I would go to the robes with you?”

  “You want a man, and I am a man.”

  “You are saying Skye isn’t a man.”

  Beckwourth shrugged. “Skye is a great man and an old friend. But we are rivals now. He wants to take my business from me, and I want to take his wife from him.”

  “Is that the way of friendship?”

  He grinned. “Of course it is. I will give Victoria what she lacks.”

  “I don’t lack anything.”

  “You lack my attentions. I am a gallant man and famously successful with women. Every man in the village admires me. I have had more wives than anyone else, and they tell other wives to try me because they have such a good time.”

  “How you boast!”

  “Now or later?”

  All this amused her. How fine it was to receive the attentions of such a one. Who among the People hadn’t tried this now and then? Even before she was old enough to bleed, she had learned all about these things from the grandmothers. They told funny stories that made everyone laugh, and they knew exactly what they were talking about because they had done these things themselves. That was what separated the Absaroka from other tribes. The Absaroka knew how to amuse themselves. She decided she wasn’t in a hurry, and she would make him work for his reward.