Gear, W Michael - Novel 05 (17 page)

 
          
 
Richard wet his lips as he resettled his book.
I do live them, you oafish Virginian baboon! Did I not, I’d most assuredly be
anywhere but here, consorting with the likes of you.

 
          
 
The Virgil huffed and rattled, and no one
seemed to pay any heed to the rain that dripped through the plank ceiling.
Tomorrow they would arrive at
Saint Louis
.

 
          
 
And then, Father, I shall deliver your money,
spend a night in
Saint Louis
, and rebook passage on Virgil 's return voyage to
Pittsburgh
.

 
          
 
He gave the grip a reassuring nudge with the
tip of his toe as he stared out at the stormy dusk. Slanting rain marred the
river with patterns of rings. The forest dripped with cold water, shadowed and
ominous. How perfectly dismal. He shook himself, throwing off the dark sense of
despair. By June he would be back at Harvard and his father would have been
defeated. The old man hadn't understood just how easy it was to travel to
Saint Louis
these days.

 
          
 
And I've been able to continue my studies the
entire time. Richard forced his attention to the page, only to have Eckhart's
words creep into his thoughts.

 
          
 
Richard rubbed mist from the glass and gazed
uneasily at the thick forest. In the twilight, his imagination conjured faces
out of the interwoven trees. They mocked him like the masks from a Greek
tragedy.

 
          
 
He retired late that night, jumpy and
irritable, not even bothering to light his lamp. He discounted the smell of rot
as something coming from below decks. Thus it was that he didn't discover the
package until the following morning.

 
          
 
Only after he splashed icy water onto his face
and blinked in the gray morning light did he perceive that his trunk wasn't
quite closed. He made a quick check, ascertaining that while someone had been
through his clothing, nothing was missing. His satchel of books had been
searched. And then he saw the bundle of cloth.

 
          
 
When he lifted it to the small washstand, the
noxious odor filled his nostrils. The cloth was filthy with dirt, dried mud,
and grease stains. The whole had been tied up with twine.

 
          
 
Throw it out?

 
          
 
Some perversity made Richard untie the string.
The cloth stuck to the heavy bundle, and had to be tugged away. For a moment,
Richard stared, seeking to identify . . .

 
          
 
He gasped, backing away until he came up
against his cabin door. A panicked scream stuck soundlessly in his throat. He'd
seen it once before, being savaged by hogs.

 
          
 
There, on his washstand, rested the grisly,
rotting remains of a human head.

 
          
 
Heals Like A Willow exhaled slowly to watch
her breath rise, delicate, in the lavender morning air. Then she followed the
trail worn through the crusted snow. The way led down among the winter-nude
cottonwoods to the ice-cloaked banks of the river. Frosted grass crunched under
Willow
's moccasins, and the dank odor of brown
leaves and last year's vegetation filled her nose with pungency. She carried an
extra blanket and a section of dried buffalo gut.

 
          
 
To the east, pink tipped the high clouds that
huddled just above the silhouetted horizon. Morning would break soon, and with
it the chore of moving camp. In the stillness, she could hear people already
calling to each other in the village behind her. The horses had eaten all of
the grass within a half-day's ride. Despite the time of year—raiders seldom
traveled in winter—it was too dangerous to pasture the herds beyond the camp's
protective warriors.

 
          
 
Horses, always horses.
Willow
shook her head as she reached the edge of
the river. People had already broken the thin film of ice that had formed
during the night. This place had been chosen because the water ran fast beside
the bank, so the ice didn't thicken.

 
          
 
Willow
dropped her blanket and gut container
before she shed her robe, then quickly doffed her dress. Her warm skin prickled
in the chill as she untied her moccasins. Cold burned into the bottoms of her
feet. Sucking a deep breath,
Willow
waded out, gritted her teeth, and lowered
herself into the cold rush, using handfuls of sand and gravel from the riverbed
to scrub herself.

 
          
 
Her flesh prickled from the shock of the icy
water. Breath seemed to stick in her lungs as her heart raced against the cold.

 
          
 
But at least I can feel something. Only my
soul is dead . . . not my body.

 
          
 
Ducking her head, she used a wet fingertip to
clean her ears, and then wrung out her long black hair. Shivering and puffing,
she scrambled back up onto the bank and found the blanket. She used it to dry
herself as thoroughly as possible. Her hair had already frozen into a stiff
black mass.

 
          
 
"How's the water?" Red Calf's voice
intruded.

 
          
 
Willow
looked up as White Hail's wife walked out
of the dawn-shadowed trees. In the gray twilight, Red Calf's blanketed form
blended with the rough bark of the cottonwoods.

 
          
 
"Cold, just what you'd expect in the
middle of the winter. Be careful. Don't slip on the ice."

 
          
 
Red Calf walked forward and shrugged out of
her blanket before she pulled her dress over her head. She shucked off her
moccasins and straightened, rubbing her hands over her distended belly. Petite,
thin-boned, with small hands and feet, she carried her child high under her
pointed breasts. Secrets hid behind her large dark eyes, and her full lips
looked poised for laughter, but more often produced bile. Men had always found
her physically attractive, but White

 
          
 
Hail had had no competition when he asked for
her as a wife.

 
          
 
Now she watched
Willow
suspiciously. "I'd rather you left. I
don't trust you here,
Willow
. You might do something, send some evil up my vagina and into my
baby."

 
          
 
Willow
laughed as she dressed. Before pulling on
her moccasins, she stepped down to fill her section of buffalo gut with water.
She quickly tied off the open end and wrapped her robe around her shoulders.
She endured a bout of shivers as her body warmed within her clothing. "Go
ahead and bathe in peace, Red Calf. I'm no threat to you."

 
          
 
Willow
slung the buffalo-gut water bag over her
shoulder, and stopped to look back. Red Calf waded into the water and gasped at
the piercing cold. She looked impish in the reddening light of dawn reflected
off the ice.

 
          
 
"Red Calf, why do you think I'm evil?
Exactly what is it about me that makes you think I'm a witch, or that I'd hurt
anyone?"

 
          
 
Red Calf watched her warily, hands still held
protectively over her belly. "You're different, Willow. Strange. You're
not a proper woman. You don't know your place, and these other things, ideas
about plants and animals. You make people worry. I wish ... I wish you were
gone."

 
          
 
"I will be. Just as soon as the trails
clear."

 
          
 
"I think you killed them."

 
          
 
Willow stiffened, heart skipping. "I
killed . . . You mean my husband and child? My own family?"

 
          
 
"You meddle in things a woman
shouldn't," Red Calf said smugly. "Slim Pole says so. Women aren't supposed
to be healers. Not until after their bleeding stops. I think your husband found
out you were a witch—so you killed him and your baby. A witch would do
something like that." Red Calf waded out into the deeper water, lowering
herself and splashing water over her arms, belly, and breasts. In the gaudy
light, her skin looked as slick as the surrounding ice; then gooseflesh rose,
spoiling the image.

 
          
 
"A witch might, I suppose." A dead
weight had settled in
Willow
's souls. "But I guess I'll never make a very good witch, will I? A
witch would have killed cleanly, without remorse. Watching my husband and my
boy die wounded my souls forever. I'd have done anything to save them. And
if... if I were a witch, I'd have known how."

 
          
 
"I don't believe you." Red Calf
watched her warily.

 
          
 
"Don't you? I would have gladly traded
their souls for yours, Red Calf." She lifted an eyebrow. "But then...
you're still alive. So, maybe I'm not a witch after all."

 
          
 
At that,
Willow
turned and followed the trail toward the camp.
Fool! You let her goad you into saying things you shouldn't! Anger began to
drive off the last of the river water's chill. It doesn't matter. Soon you'll
be gone from here.

 
          
 
Morning was reaching out with gentle fingers.
In the soft light, lodges were coming down, women and older children knocking
loose the pegs that held the lodge skirts, then unpinning the flaps on the
front before peeling the buffalo hide away from the poles.

 
          
 
Willow
hesitated at the edge of the clearing. She
could see old Two Half Moons, bent over and worrying the stakes loose from the
frozen ground. A small herd of children charged past, giggling and screaming,
camp dogs barking and yipping in their wake.

 
          
 
Instead of hurrying to help Two Half Moons,
Willow
cut across the village, dodging as
blanket-wrapped youths herded ponies around the lodges for packing. An infant
squalled with displeasure. Mingled with the calls of people, buffalo hide
rustled and flapped as lodge covers were folded. Tipi poles rattled as they
were taken down and stacked. Horses snorted and stamped, some in anticipation,
others in irritation. Woodsmoke hung low and blue, vying with the odors of
lodge leather, horses, and earth.