by T C Donivan
I wrapped my arms around her, pressing her back against my chest and stomach. She seemed to melt into me. Her skin was like velvet to the touch, only the palms of her hands betraying the harsh life she had lived.
“My mother’s family were educated people. Her grandfather was in the New York colonial legislature. My father was an orphan. He came from Canada when he was a boy and made his living at whatever he could. My mother fell madly in love with him and defied her family to marry him. I was born in New York, but my parents moved my sister and me to Texas when we were small, just before the war for independence. We homesteaded a little sugarcane farm a couple of hundred miles east of San Antonio. It was a hard life, but passable.
“Then, about five years ago, my father got the notion in his head to ranch out on the plains near the Comanche country, though he knew nothing about cattle. We were lucky for a while. We parlayed with the Indians and eked out a living bartering Longhorn Cattle at a military outpost.”
She fell silent and I thought the story was at an end. With a heavy sigh, she began again, “Mother died in childbirth and father joined her six months later. My sister married a gambler who planned to become a trader in New Mexico. I went with them as far as Bent’s Fort. While we were camped there, her husband got the notion he could start a harem. I nearly beat him to death with a churn handle our second night at the fort, which barred me from accompanying them to Santa Fe. I was only seventeen years old and alone.
“That’s where I met David Kestrel. His wife had drowned crossing a river in Missouri and he had a twelve year old son who needed a mother. He was a gentle man with a trunk full of books and a head full of crazy dreams. He wanted to start an outpost on the Oregon Trail west of the Rockies for travelers heading to California and Oregon. I married David at the fort and went with him and Little David into the wilderness.
“He had little to no hunting skills. By the time we’d crossed the passes into the Rockies, it was winter and we were starving. By sheer luck, we met an old trapper named Big John Clapper and his Indian wife, Cloud Woman. They took us in and saved our lives. They helped us set up Kestrel’s Station on the Wind River in the unsettled territories, but the spot David chose for his station was far off the immigrant trail. Once the place was built, John and Cloud Woman stayed on to help as he was old and wanted a place to settle down.
“We had plentiful game, but no one came to Kestrel’s Station except Indians and the occasional trapper. You see, practicality meant little to David. The place was nestled deep in a gorgeous valley on the Wind River, so he was satisfied. He called it our Eden. You could see the hand of God in sculpting it, but it was an empty beauty, as if human beings should never have existed in that place. I felt it sometimes, that we were intruders. Perhaps it was the Garden of Eden. If so, then man and woman were bound to be cast out. It was an outpost on the path to oblivion, but we lived there for two years and we were happy.
“David’s trunk full of books, his traveling library as he called it, was our only source of entertainment. It had musty old tomes of Greek literature and Roman generals, Milton and Chaucer and Shakespeare. Even Fenimore Cooper, your favorite. They became old friends to me. I could close my eyes sometimes on a drowsy day and imagine myself in Paris, or ancient Rome. I thanked God for that, as I did not know what I would have done without them.
“One day, two summers ago, David was in the mountains hunting with a band of Shoshone Indians. It was their country and they had befriended us and proven good neighbors, so we had taken them into our trust. I remember the day so clearly. Little David was chopping wood with John and Cloud Woman was in the cabin, cooking. I sat on the small dock we’d constructed by the river, reading Byron, swatting at the gnats, wishing to God for an Eden free of buzzing insects. A tiny skiff David had built out of pine slats sat rocking in the water. Little David waved to me. I smiled and waved back. The day was perfection.”
She became quiet again, lost in the memory, and for a moment I feared she had lost the thread of her story, but after a while she began again.
“The book of Byron was not from David’s collection. He’d gotten it from a river man on his way to St. Louis. Where he had got it, I cannot imagine, but he had been greedy to trade it to David for a shiny, pearl handled knife. It was a terrible trade to make in such parts, a knife being of far more use than a book, but David did it for me. I tell you this because you mustn’t think I disapproved of David. I was grateful most times that he was an impractical man, as it suited me. I’d sooner have a good book and starve for a day or two if that was the trade.
“Anyway, I sat that morning; my back leaned up against the corner post of the dock like a lady of leisure. The sound of the chopping wood and Little David and John’s idle chatter began to gnaw at my nerves, so I began to wander along the river bank. I took off my shoes and waded into the mud. I picked wildflowers and cast them on the waters. If it sounds like an idle life, it was to some extent. Because of Cloud Woman and Old John, I had little to do except read and think.”
She wrapped her hands round mine as if clinging to the edge of a cliff. “I had just begun to walk up from the river when they came slipping out of the woods. Their faces were painted black for war. Old John never had a chance to draw a breath before a stone blade crushed his skull. His head melted away into a red puddle and he fell to the ground dead. David turned to them and stood frozen like a statue. He tried raising his axe, but a warrior pulled it from his hands and swatted him to the ground. He stood over David gloating while the rest of the fiends raced for the cabin where Cloud Woman was working.
“They had not seen me standing in the willows of the river. I could have hid, but I saw Old John’s rifle propped up against the pilings of the dock just a few feet away. Instinct, or God, I don’t what it was; something put wings to my feet. John called it an 1828 Pennsylvania Widow Maker. The thing was heavy as sin. God, the joy he took in teaching Little David and me to shoot it.
“I hauled the monstrosity to my shoulder and leveled it at the Indian who stood over my son. David was only five years younger than me. I loved him so much. I held my breath and squeezed the trigger just like John had showed me. The concussion of the cap nearly broke my shoulder, but my aim was good. The Indian fell dead beside Old John. One of the warriors headed for the cabin stopped and stood facing me across the yard. His face was so hideous.”
Annie’s body began to tremble and I hugged her as hard as I could to stop the terrible shaking. She wept silent tears. I turned her face to mine and kissed the wetness away. I wanted to hold and protect her forever, my heart bonding with hers. I implored her to stop, but she could not. She put her back to me and began again.
“The Indian brave started at me, running across the yard. I heard Cloud Woman scream inside the cabin. I grabbed at the powder horn and cocked it at the barrel of the rifle. I knew I couldn’t reload in time, but I determined to die fighting. As he came at me, I recognized the Indian. It was Kicking Eagle, David’ hunting companion. I dropped the powder horn and lifted the rifle trying to swing it like a club, but it was too heavy. I wobbled at the edge of the dock. The Indian collided with me. His club struck me on the head, but I was falling backwards and it glanced off my skull. I tumbled into the fishing skiff stunned. I was awake, but not able to move. There was a pool of murky water on the floor of the boat and I remember seeing blood forming around my head in the water.
“Kicking Eagle would certainly have removed the scalp from my head then and there, but he was distracted by the noise in the cabin. He left me laying there in all assurance I was dead and would wait patiently for him until after he had helped defile and murder Cloud Woman. I passed in and out of consciousness, all the while in terror of Kicking Eagle’s return. I prayed for God to take me. Death seemed so near.
“The skiff was tied to the dock with a thin rope. It was always breaking and we’d have to chase the boat downstream. It was funny at first and then annoying. I complained to David about it, but he’d just smile
and laugh, promising to make a new one, which he never did. It must have slipped away from the mooring as I lay there. If you believe in God, you could say it was unstrung by the hand of providence. More likely it was just my weight falling into the skiff. I could feel the boat drifting, slowly at first, then it sailed away as if by magic, piloting itself into the main channel of the river. It carried me from the murderers like the ark that saved the baby Moses from Pharaoh. That’s my story Clayton.”
“Was it Hawker and Noah found you?”
“It took all that day to make my way back to the station. When I got there it was dark. The cabin was burned out and still smoking. I saw two white men moving around the yard so I waited in the tall grass near the river. I watched as they dug the graves and buried Old John and Cloud Woman, but I did not see Little David. They sat down and got out their pipes and put a stewpot over the fire. The bugs had made a feast of me and the wound in my head was throbbing. I waited until I couldn’t stand it any longer. They might kill me, or worse, but I didn’t care anymore. I got up and walked to the cabin. The stink of it is still in my nose. They pretended not to see me until I’d come into the light of the fire. Mordecai was sitting between them, wagging his stubby tail. They spooned up a tin cup of stew and handed it to me. I remembered them then. They’d visited our station the previous summer.
They said the Indians had taken Little David and that they would probably adopt him into their tribe as they were short on manpower having lost many of their lodge brothers in a war with the Cheyenne the previous summer. They had found my David on the mountain, dead, which was why they had come down to check on the station. Though I’d known he was likely gone, I had hoped against hope that he’d somehow escaped. To actually hear the words made it so horribly real. I told them I wanted to go after the Indians and get Little David back, but Hawker said it was impossible, that the tribes moved about constantly and that once a boy had been adopted into them, it would be like asking them to give up one of their own children
When I woke up the next morning, Mordecai was curled up beside me and two books lay on the ground near the blanket, Shakespeare’s plays and a volume of Coleridge’s poetry. Noah had found them beside the cabin. Everything else had been destroyed. It was my legacy, all that remained of David Kestrel and my life.
My dress was in tatters, so they cut down a pair of their old buckskins and made a suit of clothes for me. They were not heading to the Rendezvous at the fort until fall as they had trap lines to run in order to make their living, so they were stuck with me. They had a pack horse I could ride. Some would have left me where they found me, but they were kind and noble men and treated me like a sister.
By the time fall came, I had ingratiated myself with them, proving I could be of use, setting traps and even a fair shot with a light gauge musket. I begged them to let me stay in the chance we might find Little David and be able to strike a trade for him. They agreed. That was two years ago.”
“He must be a young man by now,” I said.
She nodded solemnly. “He’s gone forever, I know. God Clayton, it was so horrible. They murdered them all.”
Sobs wracked Annie’s body. I could find no words of sympathy to offer, her loss beyond imagining. I held her until she lay still.
“But you stay with the mountain men?”
“I have nowhere to go.”
“Go with me.”
She touched my face with her hand, caressing my cheek. “You’ve known me for two days Clayton.”
“I know that I love you.”
She took a breath; words poised on the tip of her tongue then hesitated.
“What?” I asked.
“You don’t know me.”
“Tell me more then.”
“I can tell you a dream.” She lay on her back and stared up at the stars. “It’s foolish; you don’t need to hear it.”
“It’s important, or you wouldn’t have mentioned it. Tell me.”
“You’re going to think I’m stupid.”
“I won’t.”
“It was just a dream.”
“Dreams are important,” I told her.
She studied the constellations for a long time. I felt as if a wrong word on my part could destroy the fragile bridge we had built between us, so I held my peace, practicing a patience I was not familiar with. The night was eternity and I was content to bask in it.
“It happened while I was drifting on the river. It was a fever dream like you have when you’re a child. I was in a library and its shelves were crowded with huge, heavy books. It was so incredibly peaceful and the light that shone in through the windows was gorgeous like rainbows through stained glass windows. I took one of the books down and opened it, but I couldn’t read the words. I knew there was some great mystery I must solve, but I had no idea what it was. I fell into a deeper dream that I can’t remember. I began to wake up from it, but was still inside the library, only the halls had turned into clear running water and my boat had become a four poster bed. It sounds funny when you say it out loud, but it seemed so real and so important.
Annie let go of me and held her hands out in front of her. “I suppose it was the blow to my head, but I’ve never dreamed anything like it.” She tucked her hands beneath the robe and held my hands in her. “I told you it was stupid.”
“It isn’t. I’ve dreamed about the library too Annie.”
I told her of the cathedral in the sky and the dream I had in Tree Owl’s camp. The revelation was too strange for either of us to fully contemplate. She stared at me in wonderment.
“I didn’t want to tell you before, because it sounds like I made it up, but I knew there was someone else in the library. I couldn’t see them, but I could feel their presence, like a spirit, or a ghost. When we met outside the fort for the first time, I knew it was you. Clayton, I know it’s impossible when we hardly know each other, but I do love you Clayton. If you want me, I will go with you anywhere,” she said.
We kissed and made love again. We drifted in and out of sleep, nuzzling one another. I dreamed of the owls and doves and knew that Annie was one of them. I felt her stir beside me as the faintest colors of dawn broke over the eastern horizon. For the first time in memory, the world was perfection.
Chapter 18 – Stolen
The sun had barely climbed into the morning sky when we were awakened by the sound of excited voices. I assumed the noise was part of the revelry of the Rendezvous, but I soon detected a familiar note among them. I gently nudged Annie.
“Something’s wrong. That’s Spencer,” I said.
We quickly dressed beneath the blanket and started toward the scene of the commotion. Spencer was surrounded by a group of hunters and trappers, gesticulating wildly. I had never seen him so distressed. We pushed our way through the crowd to him. He stared at me with crazed eyes.
“Where have you been? Don’t you know what’s happened?” He demanded.
I hooked my arm in Annie’s. “None of your business where I’ve been. What’s wrong?” I answered indignantly.
“He’s taken Rachel!”
“Who?”
“Kingfish! I went out last night to sketch the Shoshone Medicine Dance and when I came back she was gone.”
“Are you sure?” I asked, my blood running cold at the memory of our confrontation with the villain the night before.
“Yes I’m sure. He’s gone and the blackguard has stolen Sebastian and Zenobia’s horses. We have to get started immediately. It’s taken me hours just to rouse a few of these drunken sods from their stupor. I’ve offered them a reward, but none of them can be bothered to get off their asses and help.”
One of the scabrous looking mountain men stared out from beneath his shaggy brows looking more like an unkempt grizzly bear than a human being. “We got our own business to take care of.” He patted a stone whisky jug cradled beneath his arm. His friends chortled and the sulfurous band wandered off.
Spencer gave me the fisheye. You have a cut on your forehea
d. What have you been up to?”
I was guilt ridden, remembering Annie’s warning. “It was Kingfish. He attacked me. I fought him off and we left him insensible near the east wall,” I answered, unable to admit Annie had come to my rescue. From the corner of my eye, I caught a tiny smile play upon her lips.
Spencer became even more livid. “Revenge is what he wants. He’s had a grudge against you since Chimney Rock and now he’s turned his venom on Rachel.”
“It’s not my fault he’s a madman,” I argued.
“We’ll talk about it later. So far Sebastian and Zenobia have agreed to join me, but no else. Pack up your guns. We’ve got to catch them,” Spencer ordered.
“He can’t have gotten far,” I said.
Spencer nodded toward the mountains. A dark line of clouds stood above them. “The trappers say there’s a squall coming. If it washes out the tracks, it may not be so easy.” His face turned dark and sullen and his voice lowered to a whisper. “There’s no telling what he may do with her.”
I turned to Annie. “Can you get Hawker and Noah to help us? They know the country.”
“Of course,” she answered.
Within the hour, we had a company of Annie and her friends, Sebastian, Mozart, Zenobia, Trotter and Tree Owl armed and mounted. Though some protest was made, Sosanna insisted to join us as well, her sister being the object of our quest. By then, we had offers of two score volunteers from among the more respectable element of the fort, but we turned them down, believing a smaller company would be more economical and efficient for the business at hand. As we rode out of camp, Kingfish’s pitiful wife and children stood by the trail weeping.
“Have mercy on my husband!” The poor women pleaded as we rode away, but no one paid her any mind.
We picked up Kingfish’s tracks easily as they headed west toward the South Pass of the Rockies. Though these were only the foothills of the mountain range, the terrain turned quickly more contentious as it began the long climb through the hilly, tree lined country. The tall grass was already turning brown in places, indicating an early onset of winter, but the air was ripe and crisp as an autumn day in New England. Tree Owl and Hawker served as our chief scouts. I studied the two men. Though of different races, their clothing and demeanor were similar, the years Hawker had spent among the Indians having nearly rendered him indistinguishable from the locals. About four hours out from the fort, they paused by the trail intently studying a semi-circle of matted grass.