Gear, W Michael - Novel 05 (19 page)

 
          
 
"Mr. Hamilton?" the steward asked,
working his way down the line of passengers crowding the gallery. "Would
you like your baggage delivered, sir? And if so, to what address?"

 
          
 
"Yes, thank you. The Hotel Le Barras,
please."

 
          
 
The plank was dropped and the deck fares
crowded forward in a mass, pushing and shoving, their few belongings held high.
Refugees fleeing Napoleon might have appeared thus, ragged and mindless.

 
          
 
"Mr. Hamilton?" Charles Eckhart
thrust out a hand, cigar puffing in the corner of his mouth. "It's been a
pleasure, sir. I wish you all of the best."

 
          
 
"And you, sir."

 
          
 
Eckhart stared out over the throng, then up
the slope toward the low brick buildings on the bluff. "I know
Saint Louis
will seem strange and savage to you, Mr.
Hamilton, but opportunity often arises from the most unpromising of
circumstances. More than one young man has come here to test his mettle. I hope
you find yours."

 
          
 
Eckhart touched a finger to the brim of his
hat, smiled, and strode off. Richard glared at his departing back. How arrogantly
Virginian, to think worth came from physically challenging the world. It was
the keenness of a man's mind that made the real difference. All else was
illusion.

 
          
 
Richard returned his attention to the
settlement and sniffed; the odor of rot—mixed liberally with woodsmoke and coke
from the brick factory—carried to him. Then he followed the others down the
stairway from the gallery and across the wagging plank. The muddy shore had
been churned into a morass.

 
          
 
"Carriage, sir?" a driver called to
him.

 
          
 
"I’ll walk, thank you," Richard
returned. Dear Lord God, after all those weeks aboard the cramped boat, a walk
was definitely in order. Besides, walking would give him a sense of the place,
if only so that he might recall its crudity over the years.

 
          
 
He set out, grip in hand, climbing up from the
waterfront and reveling in the solid ground beneath his feet, even though most
streets in
Saint
Louis
consisted of ruts worn through the rich black soil and into the pale gray
limestone. Horse and cow manure left a bluish-and-brown film on the puddles.

 
          
 
Glancing back, he noticed Eckhart following
along behind him. Wishing to avoid an unnecessary encounter, Richard slipped
into the market, quickly crossed to the other side, and ducked behind a wagon
trundling up the hill.

 
          
 
French, English, and Spanish were spoken, the
three languages often intermingled in a hodgepodge. There, right there, stood a
real Indian dressed in cloth and skins, with feathers woven into his hair.
Richard stopped to gawk. The Indian stared back, black eyes hard and wary.

 
          
 
Following the Indian came two white men
dressed entirely in skin clothing decorated with bright beadwork; the long
fringes swayed with each step. They carried slim rifles and each had a belt
pistol and large knife. Richard blushed as he came under their wolfish
scrutiny. For the first time, he felt real excitement at the proximity of the
untamed frontier. He climbed to
Third Street
, looking west along Olive.

 
          
 
He tried to soak it all in, to remember it in
detail to tell Laura. What would she make of his stories? That enchanting smile
would curl her perfect lips, and her eyes would sparkle with wonder.

 
          
 
He took a deep breath, swelling his chest, and
looked westward. Out there, beyond the trees and rolling hills, not more than
one hundred miles away, lay the last real toehold of civilization. Then,
onward, across the plains and mountains, lay the vast emptiness—peopled only by
the Indians and a few fearless traders. For the briefest of instants, the heady
rush built. What would it be like out there? Pure and innocent, as Rousseau
maintained? Or the brutality described by Hobbes?

 
          
 
Richard forced himself to be sensible and let
his steps carry him where they would. He marveled at the old French houses with
their second-story verandas and whitewashed walls. The city evoked a feeling of
rambunctious youth grappling with an older society—and the older was losing.

 
          
 
The large Indian mounds, in perfect
north-south and east-west alignment, piqued his interest. He climbed the tallest,
well over seventy-five feet high and two hundred feet long, and tried to fathom
its secrets. From the summit, he peered out at the river to the east, the
forest to the west, and the city below. What ancient society had caused the
construction of such piles of dirt, and what could their purpose have been?

 
          
 
Rousseau, you would marvel.

 
          
 
The gathering dusk finally overcame his thirst
for exploration. He turned down
Olive Street
, holding the precious grip to his breast as
he entered the shadows.

 
          
 
A woman's laughter issued from one of the open
windows. Giggling children ran past in a wild game of chase. The odor of baking
bread twisted something in Richard's innards. He'd passed most of the houses
now, and found himself surrounded by dark warehouses.

 
          
 
His ebullience ebbed, leaving him nervous as
he hurried down a muddy street, confused by the darkness. All he need do was
find the hotel, contact Blackman, and be on his way back East.

 
          
 
I’m here, Father.
Saint Louis
! And I am as resolute about my future as
ever. But which way was the hotel? Surely, he'd missed a turn.

 
          
 
"Pardon, monsieur!" a voice called.
"A moment, if you please. Could you help me?"

 
          
 
Richard could see a man in the shadowed
darkness between two buildings. Something about that crouched figure .. .

 
          
 
Richard backed warily away. A rasping laugh
came from the shadowed man, who started forward, calling, "Eh? Monsieur?
You 'ave time for talk, oui?"

 
          
 
"I don't know you," Richard cried,
and started to retreat the way he'd come. Two men cut him off. Richard dodged
to the side; a cry strangled in his throat. He fled down a narrow passage,
making better speed as he ran downhill toward the river.

 
          
 
"Run, bourgeois," a hauntingly
familiar voice cried. "We are coming for you, mon ami."

 
          
 
Richard ran for all he was worth, footsteps of
pursuit thudding in the twilight. He darted down toward the river, aware that
only open fields lay between him and the water.

 
          
 
"Leave me alone! Go away!" Richard
stepped in a hole, wrenching his leg as he half-fell. Dear Lord God! "Help
me! Someone . . . help!" He ran on.

 
          
 
"No help, Yankee! We catch you!" The
pursuer was barely straining to keep up.

 
          
 
A quick glance over Richard's shoulder sent a
horrible start through him: He looked into Francois's leering face.

 
          
 
"Mon ami, we will party and sing
songs," Francois crooned, and a muscular arm snagged Richard from behind,
cutting off his wind. "Repayment for a gift, no?"

 
          
 
Richard clawed at the choking arm. His scream
became a gurgling sound. Another dark figure wrenched the grip from his arms as
if plucking a petal from a flower. Richard flopped and twisted, powered by
panic. The chokehold only tightened.

 
          
 
"We 'ave him, Francois!"

 
          
 
His vision had gone gray . . . floating. A
roaring filled Richard's ears, growing ever more faint. Even the pain at his
throat was fading . . . fading. . . .

 
          
 
What seems at this point to be the
individual's power and force, bringing the substance beneath it, and thereby
doing away with that substance is the same thing as the actualization of the
substance. For the power of the individual exists in conforming itself to that
substance, that is, in emptying itself of its unique self, and thus objectively
establishing itself as the existing substance. Its culture and its own reality
are, therefore, the continual process of making the substance itself actual and
concrete.

 
          
 
—Georg Friedrich Wilhelm Hegel, Phenomenology
of Mind

 
          
 
Through groggy dreams, Richard shied from the
pain. Lurking shapes huddled in the darkness. Voices, echoing hollowly like
ghosts, mocked him with indistinct words. Spectral creatures reached out from
the depths with tendril fingers to ensnare him. . . .

 
          
 
In a blind panic, Richard ran down dark
cobblestone streets. Like a coiled serpent, the pain hissed and slithered as it
waited for consciousness. Richard whimpered and ran on, his breath tearing at
his windpipe. He'd do anything to escape, to drift smokelike and unseen through
the streets of
Boston
.

 
          
 
Professor Ames's soft voice filled the empty
lecture hall. Laughter rang out in Fenno's Tavern on the
Charles River
. Gleaming spars on the ships in the harbor
were webbed with black rope.
Boston
. Peace. . ..

 
          
 
But the precious images faded away into soggy
obscurity.

 
          
 
Spears of white agony replaced them, and
slowly dragged Richard to consciousness with each beat of his heart.

 
          
 
My skull is cracked and broken. The jagged
pieces are grinding against each other. He tried to bring his wounded mind into
focus. The wretched stabbing in his head failed to mask the smaller pains at
his wrists and ankles.

 
          
 
Oh, God, where am I? What's happened?

 
          
 
No whiskey-head had ever tortured him thus.
His numb flesh bordered on shivers. Cold—everything cold. He lay on his side,
cheek pressed against something gritty. Dirt, from the smell of it. He tried to
bring his hands forward, met resistance, and gave up.

 
          
 
What's happened to me? A wadded rag filled his
mouth and tasted foul. Swallowing hurt. His throat felt as if a splintered
broomhandle had been pushed down it. For a horrible instant he wanted to throw
up. No! Gagged like this, you will strangle in your own vomit. His eyes ached
as though sand-filled, and rheum stuck the lashes together. He blinked to clear
them.

 
          
 
In the faint light he could see the dim
outline of a rude table—little more than rough-cut boards—a rickety chair, and
mud-chinked log walls.

 
          
 
As he flopped on the dirt floor something
scurried along the wall. To Richard's horror, a rat ducked through a gap where
timbers rested on the rock foundation.

 
          
 
Again, he tried to bring his hands around,
then realized they were tightly bound. When he sought to straighten his legs, a
cord behind his back pulled down on his wrists. He could only flop like a fish
on a dock.

 
          
 
Memory returned: the ambush on
Olive Street
. The chase and capture. Francis. Robbed!
His father's money. Thirty thousand dollars. Gone. . . .

 
          
 
He slumped back on the floor.

 
          
 
Time passed. Something rustled in the
darkness.

 
          
 
God help me. Now that they have the money, why
don't they just let me go? Questions led to answers he didn't care to embrace.
Shivers started as the cold deepened and his full bladder demanded relief.

 
          
 
How long do I have to lie here? He chewed on
the rag in his mouth. It had gone soggy, and grit rasped against his teeth.
Damn it all, someone had to come or his bladder would burst!

 
          
 
In the end, he lost that fight The several
drops that leaked out onto his legs became a warm rush. Shamed, he lay there
while urine cooled and filled his nose with its tangy odor.

 
          
 
This isn't happening. I'm a rational human
being. They have the money; now, why can't they just let me go?

 
          
 
Tears leaked from his eyes, while fear charged
his imagination with images of torture and death. He couldn't shake the memory
of a hog chewing at a human head as it rolled in the mud.

 
          
 
Stop it! Think back . . . remember . . . Yes,
the last night on the way to Will Templeton's. That's right.
Boston
. Two days before you left. The night you
fell in love with Laura. Think about it. Bring it all back. Walking the snowy
streets . . . remember. . . Remember the lights? The passing people? Pastries
in windows . . .
Boston
, my
Boston
. . . The shops, the books, musicians,
enlightened conversation, and prosperity. Ships from the ends of the earth
brought cargoes, ideas, and learned men to
Boston
's safe harbor. Within the walls of her
colleges, the intellectual torch of the
Americas
burned with resplendent brilliance. There,
Richard Hamilton had enfolded himself within the womb of philosophy and had
drawn its nurturing protection around him. How could his father dare send him
away from this, the only life he'd ever known, or ever wanted?

 
          
 
Laura? Please, God, let me see her again.

 
          
 
Had it been real, that night of revelry? Or
simply illusion? Prone in the darkness, still and numb on the shack's dirt
floor, Richard could no longer be sure. He started, gurgling against the gag as
something scampered behind him. Rat. . . yes, it had to be. They ate people,
didn't they? Bit them until the blood ran?

 
          
 
He thrashed until he could hear the foul
rodent scamper away, and, exhausted, closed his eyes in the cold darkness.

 
          
 
How had he managed to get from Laura's parlor,
so warm and happy, to this place?

 
          
 
Laura, I'm going to die here. I'll never hold
you in my arms. Never share your love. Tears trickled down his face.

 
          
 
The pack weighed more than she had expected.
Heals Like A Willow took a firm grip on the leather straps and grunted as she
swung it onto her shoulders with the easy grace of one long accustomed to heavy
loads.

 
          
 
"That sits just about right." Two
Half Moons ran her pink tongue over her thin brown lips as she shoved the pack
up on
Willow
's back to check the straps. "If you
start getting a headache, tighten the shoulder straps and pull this higher over
your hips."

 
          
 
"You shouldn't have given me so much to
carry."
Willow
stared out over the village, newly settled among the winter-gray trees.
As always, the Ku'chendikani placed their winter camps in the cottonwood flats
beside the river. Only in such places did enough grass grow for the large horse
herds, and on those occasions when terrible winters snowed the people in, they
could augment the grass by stripping cottonwood bark for the horses. To
Willow's eyes, the disadvantage was the cold that lay in the bottoms with its
fog and bone-numbing chill.

 
          
 
Now the tawny lodges with their soot-darkened
tops sent streamers of thin blue smoke into the clear morning sky. The happy
sounds of children squealing at play carried over the muted voices of adults
talking. Somewhere behind the willows, a man whooped as he broke through the
ice for his morning bath.

 
          
 
"You just be careful." Two Half
Moons squinted toward the west and the snow-crowned peaks, pink now in the
morning light. "If the weather warms, you keep an eye out. You know how
this country is at this time of year. A real nice day, and you better get ready
to hole up like a beaver in a bank, because you know it's gonna turn real cold
and snow hip-deep to a tall horse."

 
          
 
"Yes, Napia, I know."

 
          
 
The old woman waved it off. "I'm not your
aunt anymore. Your husband and child are dead. That bond is broken."

 
          
 
Willow
hunched her shoulders to reposition her
pack. "To me, you'll always be my napia, relative or not."

 
          
 
"Ah, girl. I'll miss you."

 
          
 
"The Dukurika keep track. Some fall, when
you're wintering close by my mountains, I'll come visit."

 
          
 
Two Half Moons sighed, turning her squint to
Willow
. "Are you sure you don't want a
horse?"

 
          
 
"You only have two, Aunt. And you'll need
both of them to move your lodge."
Willow
smiled wryly. "Besides, you
Ku'chendikani only have one form of wealth, your horses. I couldn't impoverish
you."

 
          
 
"That nephew of mine, White Hail, he
thinks he's going to be a big man. He'll steal me another horse. You wait and
see. He's so busy stealing horses, the A'ni and Pa'kiani won't have any
left."

 
          
 
Willow
turned, heading toward the edge of the
trees. "Red Calf doesn't know what she has. She'll waste him, Aunt. She
has no sense, and he doesn't know when to say enough. She'll want more and more,
beyond what is good for her and her family. What good is wealth if you're a
widow?" Like me.

 
          
 
"A young man must try. That is the nature
of young men. Sometimes they grow wiser as a result."

 
          
 
"Lessons from the winter stories, Aunt?
Like the ones told about the Bald One, Pachee Goyol Is that what you mean? Just
because the Bald One grew wise through his adventures doesn't mean White Hail
will."