Ghost Dance

by T C Donivan

  The pair of us climbed aboard the sturdy beast and started back toward camp, Mozart following on his spotted pony. We were the first to return. Spencer relit the campfire then went thrashing about in search of bandages to dress my wounds. The sun was just going down, casting a red canopy across the stormy landscape.

  “What’s that?” Mozart asked, a wondering tone in his voice.

  “Where?” Spencer asked.

  Mozart stretched out a thin arm angling a finger to the east. A string of canopied wagons crawled slowly across the hilltops silhouetted against the fading light.

  “Emigrants,” Spencer announced tearing a strip of cloth into shreds. He paused, staring off in the gloom. “Not many of them. I make it to be no more than a dozen wagons. Too small a party to be traveling alone.”

  “We’re fewer,” I said, my mind still half dazed by my ordeal.

  “Yes, but we’re not emigrants. We’re hunters and philosophers and well armed to boot. That small a band should never strike out on their own,” he said decisively

  “I’m still bleeding,” I complained wiping a swath of blood from my forehead.

  “It’s nothing. You’ll live,” Spencer told me. Putting aside the bandages he started for Blue. “I think I’ll guide them in. Ask them to share our camp for the night.”

  “And leave me to bleed?” I asked feeling rather put out.

  Spencer nodded at Mozart. “Tend to him Moze.”

  “Yes sir boss,” Mozart answered.

  Spencer climbed astride the tired horse and trotted out. I looked at the African who in turn glared back at me. Insolent, I thought, determining not to ask him for anything.

  “If’n you can tend the mending of your syke, I reckon I’ll help the massa. Just keep your bearings on that trail up high, we got a long way to travel,” Mozart said.

  He strode away cocksure like a bantam rooster to where his pony stood in the tall grass. I wondered if my head was concussed. His words seemed a jumble of nonsense and prescient wisdom.

  “Syke, what do you mean by syke?” I called after him.

  The boy did not turn round to look at me, only pointed a slender finger at his noggin. Of course I thought, psyche. But how could he know the meaning of such a word? I feared my head was damaged worse than I had imagined and was dreaming all this. As the two of them rode out to meet the emigrants, I fumbled alone with the bandages. A snuffling noise startled me and I turned to see Elijah bobbing his head at me as if in affirmation of an unstated question.

  “So you’ve chosen to return you traitor,” I said.

  The horse snorted and stuck his face in the water bucket that Spencer had set out to wash my wounds with. Unsanitary my poor dead mother would have said. I tried getting up to unsaddle the horse but found my legs would not hold me, so I sat back down abruptly, my energy spent. I sat dozing by the fire, half awake and half dreaming, buffalo stampeding through my head. There is no path in the sky, no track to follow I thought, remembering Spencer’s recitation of my incoherent words as I drifted in and out of slumber.

  I awoke to the sweet, soft sound of women’s voices and happy, barking dogs. I thought I must still be dreaming as I blinked away my drowsiness and saw the bell shape of dresses dancing about the campsite. One of them came to me and knelt down; dipping a rag into the bucket Elijah had slaked his thirst in, then daubed it about my cut forehead.

  “You are injured. You should be lying down,” she said, her soft hands caressing my face.

  I smiled wanly. “Am I dreaming,” I said aloud, enjoying the illusion.

  “You’re half delirious,” she affirmed.

  I stared into her face. She was beautiful, with curly raven hair and eyes the color of liquid almonds. “What is your name?” I asked.

  “Rachel,” she told me. “Now you must lie down somewhere. Do you have a bedroll in one of these tents?”

  “Miss Hanisch!” A strident male voice called out. “Leave him be and tend your own people.” A harsh looking man stood near the edge of the encampment with Spencer.

  “Mind your own stock Uriah. This man needs doctoring,” she answered peevishly. A soft, lisping accent colored her voice giving it the feel of scented flowers.

  “Your husband?” I wondered, my hopes flagging.

  She smiled knowingly, almost with amusement. “The captain of our party. I travel with my parents and Sosanna.”

  “I’m glad,” I said, my heart reeling with joy.

  Rachel motioned to a lithe shadow that lingered near the tents. “Sosanna! Warm some broth while I put this man to bed. There’s beef stock in the wagon.”

  The girl stepped from the darkness, her face alight with the flickering glow of the campfire. She looked to be no more than fourteen, or fifteen. She was blonde, but her eyes were as sharp and black as an eagle’s. Biting her lip, she did as she was told and scurried across the encampment.

  “My sister,” Rachel explained.

  Just then, a great ruckus broke out as Sebastian and his crew arrived back in camp hooting like a pack of wild Indians. I turned round to behold the spectacle as the jaunty youth slung a bloody pair of buffalo horns into the fire light.

  “My trophy!” He boasted with glee.

  “Yeah and good eats,” Trotter added slinging a gelatinous mass of raw meat into the dirt. “Buffalo tongue!”

  Though no stranger to butchered meat from the days I’d spent on my grandmother’s farm, I felt my stomach rising up to meet my throat, the day’s many adventures overwhelming me. Rachel steadied me, her warm bosom rubbing against the side of my face.

  “Who are our guests?” Dr. Zenobia asked quietly, his hands as bloody as if he had completed a major surgery.

  The hard bit man who had attempted to chastise Rachel stepped forward. “Captain Uriah Kingfish. We started from Independence last month. We’re a pack of stragglers too late to join up with the big parties headed west, but we determined to go on our own.”

  “And the pretty girl?” Zenobia asked, doffing his hat.

  “Rachel Hanisch,” my benefactress answered. pronouncing the name Hawn-eesh.

  “Hon-eesh, what sort of name is that?” Trotter asked dumbly, his brows knitted together in perplexion.

  “Jews,” Kingfish said.

  Chapter 7 – The Temple of Dreams

  August 1844 – Somewhere on the Great American Prairie East of Chimney Rock

  The human heart is as complex as the Egyptian Labyrinth and within its complexities I am lost. Rachel, she is a fever. And yet she is the cooling nectar of heaven too. She is the architecture of woman, a temple built of flesh. The touch of her hands tending my bruises is a memory that will not be still. She was Athena riding on a cloud across the sky of my yearning. I watch her moving about the square of wagons, singing her strange Israelite songs, her voice like a whippoorwill’s, haunting and gentle. The other men watch her too and I am jealous. I fear I tread the fine line between love and obsession.

  We have been traveling with the immigrants now for six weeks, happy for the diversity of company after our solitary sojourn in the wilderness. In that time, I have learned much of the Hanisches, who are the first members of the Hebrew race I have known. They come from the Ukraine, a province in the Russian Empire, their residence near the ancient city of Kiev. The father and mother speak only broken English and are reticent in their dealings with us. Rachel is the eldest of the daughters and known for her quiet, good nature. She is younger than me by three years, but contains a maturity greater than my own. The sister, Sosanna, is fifteen, with large, wondering eyes like a baby bird’s, but a deceptive intellect. Their destination is Oregon, where they hope to farm, as this was their vocation in the Old World.

  The other immigrants are a nondescript lot, farmers and tradesmen, hoping to make a new start in the Pacific country. They are led by Uriah Kingfish, a former blacksmith who fashions himself a captain, though I doubt he’s ever served in any military. The title, I suspect, is a self-appointed one. Like the others, he has a
wife and small children, though he seems to take a proprietary interest in Rachel.

  There are twelve immigrant wagons in all, with a total of twenty-six adults and forty odd children. Because of their late start from Independence, they will be hard pressed to make the Rocky Mountain passes before winter comes. They have welcomed our company for the added guns and occasional meat we add to their cupboard, but find us alien in our leisurely endeavors of sport and art. Such is the height of laziness to people so grounded in hard work and the betterment of their lot in life. They are, by and large, a homogenous lot except for the Hanisches, whom they tolerate, but do not entirely accept because of their religion.

  I find no prejudice in Rachel’s Jewishness; rather it makes her seem exotic as Cleopatra, a human oasis in a desert of desire. In her presence I feel a renewal of spirit and creativity, filling up the sheets of this journal so rapidly I have begun to fear I may run out of pages before we reach the coast, as every hilltop and vista, no matter how mundane, has taken on new significance. Love intoxicates with a weird mixture of misery and purpose.

  ****

  “You look moon eyed as a toad,” Spencer said.

  Caught red handed moping about Rachel, my face turned red and hot, the blush burning all the way down my neck. Spencer laughed at me. I shoved my journal away into my bag and cinched it tight against prying eyes.

  “Who is it – Kingfish’s wife,” Spencer asked.

  Sebastian guffawed at the jest and put in his own barbs, “No, I think he must be in love with Mrs. Miller. She bakes him biscuits you know.”

  “I don’t need to be insulted by a band of fools.” I stood up and stalked away into the dusk.

  “The female prairie dogs are not safe tonight,” Sebastian called out after me.

  I could easily have boxed the young lout’s ears, but let it go due to his fragile state. I walked toward the light of the immigrant wagons. At night, the immigrants would form their wagons into the shape of square, securing their livestock, oxen, milk cows, mules and horses, in the center. We had made our camp outside the wagon square, befitting our independence. We would sometimes lounge about for an additional day or more, if the location was good for hunting and painting, before rejoining the modern day pilgrims. We enjoyed the company, and as Sebastian had alluded to, the occasional basket of biscuits in exchange for the fresh meat we sometimes provided them, but had determined to go our own way when we reached Chimney Rock.

  I stepped lightly over the uneven terrain, my feet picking up speed as I set my mind. I had plied Rachel with small gifts, slowly building our friendship, but had never crossed the line, suggesting romance. Spurred on by the jibes of my friends and our forthcoming departure from the immigrant company, I decided to state my troth. Such was my youth and inexperience; I had not worked out how I would proceed if she were to reciprocate my feelings.

  I was greeted by hullos within the circle and offers to share a swig of spring water from several of the wagons, but politely waved them off. I found the Hanisches finishing up from their supper, the two daughters helping the mother with the scrubbing of the dishes and pots and pans. I wavered at the edge of their camp, suddenly shy at the sight of Rachel’s shapely figure.

  “Clayton! Have you come to read to us?” Sosanna called out spying me.

  I smiled at her. She was a sweet girl, vivacious and a flirt, unlike her sister who bore an air of self reserve and secret culture. The mother stared at me as if I had grown horns. She was a dull woman with a face that bore the demeanor of a closed book. The father was baldheaded and square as a block with hands like hams and thick sausage fingers. He sat repairing the canvas wagon covering with a needle that resembled a small harpoon. Rachel blinked at me in surprise; her hands immersed in dirty water then went back about her business.

  “No, not tonight,” I told Sosanna.

  “Then I shall read to you!” She replied.

  The younger girl wiped her hands on her apron and ran to the wagon. She climbed nimbly up the tailgate and pulled out a leather bound tome heavy as a Plymouth Puritan’s Bible. She flipped open the pages of a geography filled with symbols made up of an alphabet foreign to my eyes.

  “What is this?” I asked reading over her shoulder.

  “A map of Jews,” she said.

  “Ukraine,” the father corrected without looking up from his work stitching the canvas.

  “Our homeland,” Sosanna said brightly.

  Rachel joined us, the supper dishes done. She took the book from her sister and thumbed to a section of Mediterranean history. She indicated a map I recognized immediately.

  “Our true home, Palestine,” she said.

  I nodded knowingly. My tongue suddenly tied, all my knowledge of the Holy Land having fled my mind. “The birthplace of Jesus,” I blurted out.

  “Beware false prophets,” the father intoned. Sosanna giggled.

  I forged on despite my gaffe, determined to carry out my original plan. “Rachel, would you go walking with me?”

  “What do you need?” She asked.

  I stumbled over my answer and in so doing, gave myself away. “I just ah… Thought you’d like to look at the stars…” She understood immediately my intention.

  “No, I’m sorry, I have to help my mother.” She said, her voice grown suddenly cold and formal. She cast a faint smile at me, as one would bequeath a fool and turned away.

  “I’ll go walking with you,” Sosanna spoke up.

  “You will not!” Her mother sharply rebuked.

  “But I know the names of all the stars and constellations," Sosanna argued. She raised a slender finger to the heavens. “I can trace their path crossing the sky like the Tsar’s highway to Odessa.”

  “No more!” The mother said sharply.

  The girl defied her mother and gave me an insolent look. “If Rachel won’t go with you, I will. Clayton brings us rabbits,” Sosanna said in my defense.

  “They are not kosher,” the father said.

  “But we eat them!” Sosanna protested.

  “We must not starve,” her mother replied.

  The father stared at me as if I were a Philistine. Crestfallen, I turned to slip away. Rachel heaved a mighty sigh and flung away a patch of cloth she had picked up with the intent to mend a worn dress.

  “It is a fine night, I will go with you for a little while,” she said casting a sidelong glance at her sister who seethed with envy.

  I expected further resistance from the parents, but neither spoke a word, carrying on their business as if I did not exist. We walked out of the wagon square and followed a dry streambed, careful not kick over any rocks; lest we disturb a sleeping rattler. My fear of the deadly reptiles had grown obsessive since the death of poor Titlark. I considered taking her hand, but my courage failed me, so we walked along, side by side, together, but apart.

  “I’ve heard you and your friends are leaving,” Rachel said.

  “Yes. Trotter says the hunting will be good to the south of the Platte River,” I explained.

  “Will you go soon?” She asked, a faint longing in her voice.

  My heart rose up. Did she care about me? “No, not for a week or two yet. Not until we reach Chimney Rock,” I said.

  “And we shall turn north for the Oregon country. We will miss you,” she answered softly.

  Though she was proficient in English, Rachel tended to drop the harsh consonants at the end of words, which gave her voice a lilting, soft quality. The sound of it thrilled me.

  “Your hair is curlier than it was,” I noticed, casting about for a compliment.

  She had tied her thick mane back in a pony tail that hung down her back. She put a delicate hand to her tresses and smiled shyly. “There’s rain in the air makes it so.”

  “Tell me about yourself. Why did you come to America?” I asked.

  “You are always asking questions.”

  “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to pry. It’s just my nature, and my profession. When we reach the coast, I shall
send my stories by packet ship round Cape Horn to New York to the publisher Spencer contracted with,” I explained.

  She gazed at me thoughtfully. “Your people are English?”

  “Irish Protestant actually. Not a very popular breed in the country we came from. I’m second generation American. My grandfather was an immigrant like you,” I replied.

  “So, you do not know about our part of the world.”

  “Russia?”

  “Jews are not Russian. They may live in a country for centuries and still not belong. That is how we were in Ukraine. The people there hate Jews. They kill us and steal our property and no one punishes them. An evil man threatened to make me his slave, so my father took us away.”

  “It’s hard to imagine such things are allowed,” I said in horror.

  “Many things are allowed in the world that should not be,” she told me. I reached out and took her hand in empathy. She pulled away as if she had been bitten by a snake. I was mortified at my error, but she went on as if nothing unseemly had happened. “There was a boy wanted to marry me in Kiev, but the Tsar took him away to his army for thirty years,” she said.

  “Did you love him?” I asked, trying to hide the envy I felt.

  “I did,” she answered.

  “Does he write to you?”

  She made a weary expression of regret casting her upturned palm to the heavens, her voice mocking. “Where is the postmaster in this place Clayton?”

  Her rejection of me was palpable. I wondered why she had come out at all.

  “Let me take you back,” I said.

  We turned and started for the wagon square. The night birds had begun to call out their songs, but I felt no joy in their music. I could hear the soft strains of Mozart’s violin drifting on the wind from our camp on the far side of the wagon enclosure. I walked Rachel to her parent’s wagon. The mother had disappeared inside, but the father still worked at his sewing on the canvas. Sosanna sat reading the book of geography in the dark. Rachel scurried off inside the wagon without a word. Sosanna stared up at me quizzically.

  “You have keen eyes to be able to read in this light,” I said.