Wilderness Double Edition 27

by David Robbins

  Evelyn was not the judge of distance her father was. She reckoned the smoke was three miles away, but she could be off by half a mile or more. ‘Whoever it is, we’re lucky we spotted them before they spotted us.’

  ‘Maybe white men,’ Dega said. Since the slaughter of his people, he regarded all whites with the deepest suspicion. Nearly all; the exceptions were the King family and the McNairs.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Evelyn said. The general rule of thumb for campfires was that if it was a big one, then whites made it, and if it was a small one, nine times out of ten Indians were responsible. This one was not giving off much smoke. ‘More likely they are Indians.’

  ‘Friendly or hostile?’ Degamawaku asked.

  ‘I can’t predict,’ Evelyn said. To the best of her knowledge the surrounding countryside was not claimed by any particular tribe. The campfire could belong to warriors from any of half a dozen: Blackfeet, Crows, Nez Perce, the Utes, even her mother’s people, the Shoshones.

  ‘We go see?’

  Evelyn was tempted. It might simply be a hunting party of friendly Indians. Then again, it could be a war party, in which case she dared not risk the warriors finding out they were there. ‘It’s best we leave them be. In the morning they’ll likely move on and we can get on with our search for your dun.’

  ‘What we do now?’

  ‘What do you think?’ Evelyn rejoined, and reined into the timber. ‘Look for a spot to camp.’

  Near the north end of the ridge, on the side opposite the distant smoke, was a bowl-shaped depression half an acre in size.

  ‘This will do nicely,’ Evelyn said, and made for the center. She was pleasantly surprised to find a small spring, the surface glistening like a polished mirror. Tracks testified to its popularity, but none of the prints, Evelyn was pleased to note, were human. Whoever was down in the valley was apparently unaware of the spring.

  Dega took his lance and went in search of game. He did not have to go far. As he came to the west rim of the hollow, he spooked a rabbit. It took three long bounds, then made a mistake common to small game: it stopped to look back to see if he was giving chase. He wasn’t. He did not need to when he had his lance. The point caught the rabbit in the side.

  Evelyn saw his cast. She was making their fire, but had been watching him. The throw impressed her. A Shoshone could not have done it better.

  Dega carried the rabbit back by its ears. Drawing his knife, he squatted. He inserted the tip and cut a slit down the center of the belly and along the inside of each leg. Then he deftly peeled off the skin, chopped off the head, removed the guts, and impaled the body on a stick.

  Evelyn had seen her father and her brother do the same countless times, but she found it especially interesting to watch Degamawaku. Everything he did was of interest to her, stemming, she felt, from the fact that he was from a tribe so far removed from those she knew. She liked to compare how he did things to how the Shoshones did things. There were many similarities. There were also quite a few differences.

  Accepting the spit, Evelyn rigged it over the fire. She had kept it small. Sheltered as they were by the hollow, she rated the prospect of it being spotted as slim.

  The aroma of the roasting meat made her mouth water and her tummy growl.

  ‘You much hungry,’ Dega teased.

  ‘That I am,’ Evelyn admitted. It had been a long day and tomorrow promised to be more of the same. Her big worry was that the dun had waltzed into the camp of whoever was down the valley, and they would want to keep it for themselves.

  Dega wrapped his arms around his knees and stared at the rabbit. Otherwise, he would stare at her. ‘It do smell good.’

  ‘This is the first time we have ever been out alone together at night,’ Evelyn remarked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I trust you will be a perfect gentleman,’ Evelyn said light-heartedly. He had never been anything but.

  Dega pieced together her meaning. He had heard gentleman used before; whites used it as another word for man. ‘Perfect,’ as he understood it, had to do with not having a blemish, or being without flaw. She was saying, he concluded, that she expected him to be a flawless man, but how exactly he was supposed to go about doing that, he couldn’t begin to guess.

  ‘You never talk much about what your life was like back where you came from,’ Evelyn said.

  ‘Sad to talk. Hurt here,’ Dega said, and pressed his hand to his chest over his heart.

  ‘I savvy,’ Evelyn responded. But there was something she very much wanted to know, something she had held off asking for weeks now. ‘Did you have a gal friend?’

  ‘A what?’ Dega knew gal was another word for girl, and he knew friend, but the combination was new to him.

  ‘A girl you were fond of. Someone you were close to. Someone you might have married one day.’

  ‘Oh. No,’ Dega answered. ‘I have many friends who be girls, but not that way.’

  ‘I was just curious,’ Evelyn said, trying to justify her interest. ‘I’ve never had a man friend I felt that way about, either.’

  ‘You will,’ Dega assured her.

  ‘What makes you say that?’

  ‘You pretty. You fun. You nice be with,’ Dega said. ‘Any man be happy have you.’

  ‘Why, thank you.’ Evelyn shifted uncomfortably. ‘But I’m not in any great hurry to become hitched. I would as soon be my own woman another five or ten years before I say ‘I do.’’

  ‘Ten winters?’ Dega repeated, aghast. It struck him as a terribly long time.

  ‘Give or take,’ Evelyn said. ‘But you never know. A handsome prince might come along and sweep me off my feet.’

  ‘A what?’ This was another new term.

  ‘A prince. They are in fairy tales and stories like that. The perfect man, every girl’s dream.’

  Dega was confused, yet again. Had she not said just a short while ago that she expected him to behave as a perfect man? Did that mean he was a prince?

  ‘In real life there aren’t any, of course,’ Evelyn rambled on. ‘More’s the pity, as Shakespeare would say.’

  ‘No princes?’ Dega said. But hadn’t she remarked that there were? Which was it?

  ‘They are make-believe. Although, if you ask my ma, she will say my pa is her prince. And if you ask Louisa, she will say my brother, Zach, is hers. Which goes to show she wasn’t very choosy.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘There are princes, and there are princes. They can’t all be charming through and through.’

  Dega scratched his head in bewilderment. At times like this he despaired of ever understanding the white tongue. Then he looked at Evelyn and resolved to try harder. ‘Charming be good?’

  ‘Most women think so, yes.’

  ‘Am I any charming?’

  ‘Some,’ Evelyn allowed. But what she was thinking was that he was the most charming person she had ever met.

  The fire crackled noisily. Teak had added green wood instead of dead wood, and it had started to give off a lot of smoke.

  Rafer Bodin coughed, then growled in irritation, ‘Can’t you do anything right?’

  ‘I didn’t get the wrong wood on purpose,’ Teak said. ‘No need to raise a stink about it.’

  ‘The idea is not to advertise we’re here,’ Bodin said. ‘You might want to remember that.’

  Mandingo was the only one still eating. There was not much left of the fawn Graf had shot, but what there was Mandingo would devour. He never let meat go to waste. It came from a childhood of near starvation. ‘You two are always at each other’s throats.’

  ‘I’ll be at it for real if he doesn’t stop trying my patience,’ Bodin said. ‘Graf and you don’t give me half the sass he does.’

  ‘I give no sass,’ Graf said.

  Teak leaned back and picked at his teeth with a twig. ‘I can’t help it if I speak my mind. I wasn’t born to be a doorstep, like some. I don’t ask how high when I’m told to jump. I ask why.’

  Graf rose on an
elbow, his features twisted in anger. ‘Do you insult me again?’

  ‘All I’m saying is that I think for myself. If some here don’t like that, then maybe I should go my own way.’ Teak paused. ‘After we divvy up what we get from the furs, of course.’

  ‘Keep on as you are and maybe you won’t get anything.’ Bodin said. He was sorry he ever let the chronic complainer join them. But then, men who liked to kill and steal as much as he did were hard to find. He could not be choosy.

  ‘That would not be fair,’ Teak said. ‘That would not be fair at all.’

  ‘Life is not about fair,’ Bodin shot back. ‘It’s about taking what you want when you want, and everyone else be damned.’

  Mandingo stopped chewing. ‘Does that include us?’

  Bodin sensed the accusation. ‘Listen, you’ve been with me long enough to know I always share the spoils. Have I ever once shorted you or Graf?’

  ‘No,’ Graf said. ‘You’re the most honest man I know.’

  Teak laughed.

  ‘What’s so funny?’ Graf asked.

  ‘If I say, you’ll only be mad, so I won’t say.’ Teak shifted toward Bodin. ‘I still don’t savvy why we didn’t take the furs straight to Bent’s Fort. Why ride around with them for a month before we get rid of them?’

  ‘I’ve explained it already,’ Bodin said irritably. ‘If we wait, it’s less likely there will be friends of those Crows we killed hanging around the trading post.’

  ‘Hell, they were alone. We proved that by spying on them. You’re as cautious as an old woman.’

  ‘I’m alive,’ Bodin said.

  ‘A whole month, though,’ Teak griped. ‘If you want to be shed of me, why don’t we turn around and dispose of the furs. I’ll take my share and go my way.’

  ‘I said a month, and a month it will be.’

  ‘Then you’ll have to put up with my company that much longer,’ Teak said, and grinned. ‘Aren’t you the lucky ones?’

  ‘Talk, talk, talk,’ Graf grumbled. ‘You couldn’t keep quiet for five minutes if your life depended on it.’

  Mandingo was sucking the marrow from a bone. ‘What I want to know is how long we will stay in this country? We have not seen a soul since those Crows.’

  ‘I like it like that,’ Bodin said. ‘I never have been fond of people.’ Most, like Teak, were a trial.

  ‘Neither have I,’ the mulatto said. ‘But fewer people means less we can help ourselves to. The pickings will be slim.’

  ‘We will help ourselves to what we can, when we can,’ Bodin said. ‘White, red, young, old, it makes no never mind. We take what they have, whether it is a little or a lot, and bury them.’

  Teak was about to add another piece of wood to the fire. ‘That’s another thing. Why do you always make us plant them? Why not leave the bodies to rot? It would be easier.’

  ‘They’re less apt to be found if they’re buried. Or are you fond of the idea of having your neck stretched?’

  Motioning at the forest, Teak said, ‘I could see it back in the States where there are people everywhere. But out here in the middle of nowhere, who is there to find them?’

  ‘Lightning only has to strike but once,’ Bodin reminded him.

  ‘You’re he-coon of this bunch,’ Teak said. ‘So do we ride around in circles for a month or do you aim to go somewhere?’

  ‘We’ll scout out these mountains,’ Bodin said, ‘and be on the lookout for settlers.’

  ‘I hope we find us a woman soon,’ Graf mentioned. ‘I don’t like to go long without.’

  ‘Me either, my friend,’ Mandingo said. ‘That one with the wagon, she sure was fine. I was almost sorry to strangle her.’

  ‘There is more to life than women,’ Teak said.

  ‘Not for me,’ Mandingo said. ‘I like killing, and I’d rather steal than work for a living, but I do this for the women more than anything. To take a female by force is the pleasure of pleasures.’

  ‘My pleasure is whiskey,’ Teak said, ‘which I have not had enough of since I joined this outfit.’

  ‘Don’t start on that again,’ Bodin warned. He glanced at their horses, then off into the night to the west. Suddenly rising, he peered hard into the darkness. ‘Did any of you see that?’

  ‘What?’ Graf asked.

  ‘For a second there I thought I saw the light from a campfire, but now it’s gone.’ Bodin stared a while, then sat back down. ‘In the morning we should go see. It could be more easy pickings.’

  ‘Just so long as there is a woman,’ Mandingo said, and smacked his lips. ‘Young and pretty, the way I like them.’

  Eleven

  Maybe it was her full belly, or maybe it was the warmth of the fire, or both, but Evelyn had seldom felt so at peace, so content, as she did sitting there listening to Degamawaku talk about his childhood. She learned that while the Nansusequa called themselves the People of the Forest, neighboring tribes had referred to them as the Old Ones. Not because the Nansusequa lived to an extremely old age—although many did—but because they had been the first tribe to live in that region. Indeed, according to their own legends, they were the first tribe ever created. But other tribes had similar legends.

  In contrast to the Shoshones, to whom counting coup was the measure of a warrior, the Nansusequa had devoted themselves to peaceful pursuits. To their way of thinking, war was an act of last resort. Warriors were esteemed for their devotion to That Which Is In All Things.

  It gave Evelyn much to ponder. Every tribe she knew of counted coup; the Blackfeet, the Sioux, the Cheyenne, the Utes, the Flatheads. To them, most every other tribe was an enemy, to be attacked on sight.

  Not the Nansusequa. ‘We try live in peace with everyone,’ Dega said, the firelight playing over his handsome features.

  ‘That would not be practical out here,’ Evelyn commented. ‘Some tribes don’t care how peaceful you are. They will kill you anyway.’

  ‘Whites did the same,’ Dega mentioned, clouding at the memory. He wondered if he would ever forget that terrible day.

  ‘I am sorry for what you went through,’ Evelyn said. ‘But not all whites are like those from New Albion. Some of us don’t think the only good Indian is a dead Indian.’

  ‘You be special,’ Dega said.

  ‘Oh, I wouldn’t say that. A lot of whites are peaceable.’

  ‘No. I mean you.’ Of all the whites Dega ever met, only she made his pulse quicken and his thoughts stray in troubling ways.

  ‘I am flattered,’ Evelyn said. She stared into the fire and grew warm but not from the flames. ‘You say the nicest things sometimes.’

  For a while neither spoke. Then Dega said, ‘Tell me. You really wait ten winters to share lodge with man?’

  ‘Maybe not quite that long,’ Evelyn conceded. ‘But I’m young yet. I see no reason to rush.’ In the past year she had discouraged two suitors and had no hankering to have another.

  ‘Among my people,’ Dega said, ‘man must court woman four seasons.’

  ‘A full year? What if the two people want to become husband and wife sooner?’

  ‘Four seasons,’ Dega reiterated. ‘That way both be sure. They stay together.’

  For some reason Evelyn felt vaguely uncomfortable talking about marriage. Which struck her as odd since as she had made it plain she had no interest in wedlock and would not have any interest for a good many years yet. She got Dega to talk about his family instead, and listened to the love in his voice as he described how caring and devoted they were. He was deeply fond of his sisters.

  ‘I would never admit it to him,’ she remarked when he was done, ‘but I reckon I feel the same about my brother. We spat a lot, but there is no one I would rather have for a brother than Zach.’

  The idea of love growing out of conflict was a new notion to Dega. He had been taught that love grew out of harmony, that when two people genuinely cared for one another, they did not fight or raise their voice or do any of the things Evelyn seemed to take for granted as nor
mal.

  The hour was late, the fire dwindling, when Evelyn asked her final question of the night. ‘What do you want to do with your life?’

  ‘Live,’ Dega said.

  Evelyn laughed. ‘No, silly. I mean, what is your goal in life? There must be something you want to do more than anything else?’

  ‘To take wife, to have children,’ Dega answered honestly. Just as his father had done, and his father’s father, and on back the family line to the beginning.

  ‘What kind of wife?’

  ‘There be kinds?’

  ‘Sure. Tall, short, quiet, outgoing. What traits do you look for most of all? What traits don’t you like?’

  Dega considered carefully, choosing the right words so in this there would be no mistake. ‘I want woman who be—’ he caught himself. ‘Sorry. I want woman who is pure of heart.’

  Evelyn waited, and when he did not go on, she said, ‘That’s it?’

  ‘That is it.’

  ‘But what does that mean, exactly? You want a woman who has never been with a man, is that it?’ Evelyn felt herself blushing as she added, ‘What white men call a virgin.’

  ‘That not so important as pure of heart,’ Dega said.

  ‘Explain to me the difference,’ Evelyn requested. ‘I would really like to know.’

  Once again Dega tried to be exact. ‘You know Mississippi River?’

  ‘I have seen it several times,’ Evelyn said. ‘I even fell in it once. But what does that have to do with anything?’

  ‘Mississippi is dirty river. Water brown. Cannot see bottom when stand on bank.’

  ‘That is why some folks call it Big Muddy. So?’

  ‘So lake we live near not like Mississippi,’ Dega said. ‘Lake clear. Can see bottom.’ He looked for the light of comprehension in her lovely green eyes but did not see it. ‘I want woman with heart like lake, not like Mississippi. I want woman with heart that be pure.’

  Evelyn looked inward at her own heart. ‘How can you tell?’ she asked. ‘It is not as if you can see into a person’s heart just by looking at her.’

  ‘Yes, can,’ Dega disagreed. He raised a hand and held two fingers close to his eyes. ‘You look here.’