Gear, W Michael - Novel 05 (22 page)

 
          
 
"When you have lived with these things,
then you come back and tell me of truth." August struck like a snake, the
callused hand slapping Richard hard across the face.

 
          
 
Blood tasted salty on Richard's lips as it
leaked from his nose. He cowered lower on the chair, trying to crawl into
himself and away from this hideous man. Tears of fright began streaking down
his face.

 
          
 
August paced to the side, chewing gristle on
his thumb. "I tell you what. You want truth? I give you truth."

 
          
 
Richard looked up as August pulled a piece of
paper from his pocket. "Sign that!" August produced a quill and small
bottle of ink. "I will give you life, mon ami, and enough truth to fill
your belly for the rest of your days .. . such as they may be."

 
          
 
Flexing his fingers, Richard picked up the
paper and started to scan the scrawled words.

 
          
 
"Don't read!" The voice thundered.
"Just sign!"

 
          
 
"But I never sign any ..." One
glance into those terrifying eyes and Richard picked up the quill and dipped it
into the ink. His numb fingers shook as he scratched his name at the place
August indicated.

 
          
 
"Ah, now you will live, mon ami! Just
that simple, non! You 'ave signed for your life. A life of truth. Live long,
and thank August for the gift he has given you."

 
          
 
Richard wobbled to his feet and tried for the
door, but a big hand grabbed him and threw him sprawling. No sooner had he hit
the ground than a knee landed in the pit of his stomach, driving out his wind.
A second later, Richard threw up.

 
          
 
"Cowardice is also truth, chien"
August crooned as he quickly bound Richard's wrists and feet. "You might
want to lick up what you have thrown up. You will need your strength."

 
          
 
August snorted his disgust as he stood.
"Good day, mon ami. Perhaps, before we deliver you to your new life, we
will dunk you in the river, eh? You stink of piss and bile. No man should
voyage off in search of truth when he smells like the privy behind a
whorehouse!"

 
          
 
August stepped out and closed the door.
Richard could hear the latch being fastened on the outside.

 
          
 
The wetness on his chest was growing cold.
What in God's name had he signed? He flopped over on his side, only to rest his
cheek in August's tobacco-stained spittle.

 
          
 
Is this the reality you wanted me to find,
Father? Is this what you wanted me to come to? Damn you to Hell, Phillip
Hamilton!

 
          
 
Years of rain and wind had created a hollow in
the age-rounded rocks. The young warrior crouched in its shelter, squatted over
a small fire so that his heavy buffalo robe trapped the rising heat around his
hunched body. The rock outcrop blocked the bitter wind that howled out of the
west bearing flakes of granular snow. Dark clouds scudded low across the sky.

 
          
 
His horses, a scruffy gray gelding and a rangy
brown mare, stood with their rumps to the storm, heads down. He'd picketed them
between two gnarled juniper trees, now clotted with snow. The crusted white
that lodged in the grass at the animals' feet hid the heavy twisted leather
hobbles.

 
          
 
Among his people, the Skidi Pawnee, he was
known as Packrat: "the one who collects things." The name, like many
among the Pawnee, had been given as a joke. In Pawnee eyes, Packrat was less
than a commoner. He was pira-paru f a hidden child, one born without family.

 
          
 
The Pawnee traced descent through the women,
and it was they who owned the property and controlled the food. A man married
into a woman's household, moving in to live in her half of the large, round
earthen house, taking a place among the members of her family. Living in their
communal houses, the Pawnee shared many things, including sexual favors;
provided, that is, that all parties concerned were amenable to the idea. Strict
rules existed, however. A woman kept track of which man she coupled with,
always being careful to observe the incest taboos and avoid her blood kin.
Beyond that, Pawnee law prescribed that the man who sired a child, and the
woman who bore it, were forever responsible for the child's health and welfare.
Responsible women knew who fathered their children—and Packrat's troubles
stemmed from that.

 
          
 
His mother's true name was Braided Woman, from
a family of status and standing. Unlike many Plains peoples, the Pawnee
recognized three distinct social ranks based on milial heritage. Braided Woman
not only was born of chief rank parents, but at the moment of her birth, the
Star Prince had studied the constellations, finding them auspicious greatness.

 
          
 
With property and chiefly heritage—she was the
daughter of Knife Chief—not to mention the blessing of the heaven. Braided
Woman seemed to have everything a young Pawnee woman could desire. After her
first menstruation, she had married old Makes His Enemies Tremble as a third wife.
But during the spring planting, the year after Braid Woman's marriage, Half Man
had arrived.

 
          
 
In Pawnee eyes, Half Man was exactly that:
half
Omaha
and half Pawnee. His Pawnee mother had been
captured the
Omaha
, taken as a slave, and later escaped back to I Pawnee. Since she was a
respected woman, from a respect family, her sisters had taken her in. Against
the wishes her family, she had allowed her half-breed son to live.

 
          
 
The boy, Half Man, had borne the stigma of his
Omaha
blood with little grace. He'd grown into a
surly young m who finally ran off to claim his
Omaha
heritage. Over the years he had drifted
between the two peoples, always m trusted, always suspect, yet able to claim
sanctuary w either people. Since the Pawnee traced kinship through the females,
Half Man was a full member of his mother's lineage. The
Omaha
traced descent through the males, making
him a full-blood
Omaha
in their eyes.

 
          
 
On the day that Half Man arrived at the Skidi
village, brought with him a tin of the La-chi-kuts' spirit water: White man's
whiskey.

 
          
 
That night, after council, Half Man had given
Makes Enemies Tremble whiskey until the old man went to sleep. Then he let
young Braided Woman drink some. And then some more.

 
          
 
"All I can recall is waking up,"
Packrat's mother had told him. "My head hurt. I thought for a moment that
I had been attacked, hit in the head with a war club. I was lying in the grass
outside of the village. Thirsty, horribly thirsty. I sat up and vomited into
the grass. That's when I discovered I was naked. Looking down, I could see that
I had been with a man. I had bruises on my breasts and my neck had been bitten.
Semen had dried on my thighs.

 
          
 
"I found my blanket and covered myself
before I walked back to the village, shamed, trying to hide myself. A couple of
days later, when I felt better, I went to Half Man, who was staying in his
sister's house, and asked him if we'd coupled He laughed, and said no. He said
it before his family.''

 
          
 
Packrat lifted his head to stare out at the
stormy skies. Wisps of white snow blew around the hollow, finally to pile in
the lee of the granite boulders.

 
          
 
Everyone knew that Half Man had lied. The old
and familiar anger throbbed in Packrat's chest. From the time of her
menstruation until Half Man took her, Braided Woman had not coupled with her husband
No other man could have fathered a child in her. Yet Half Man, with the honor
and respectability of a weasel, had shamed her in public. The reason was
understandable: He wanted to keep his relationship with Knife Chief and Makes
His Enemies Tremble. A man did not lie with another man's wife without
permission.

 
          
 
Therefore, Packrat was pira-paru, a hidden
child, one unrecognized by others. A pariah who lived at the margins of Pawnee
society, but one step up from a slave.

 
          
 
"I'll tell you what to do,"
Pitalesharo had said. "You must always remember that you are Panimaha...
Pawnee. Because of an accident, your life will never be easy, tiwat But we are
a forgiving people, a fair people. It runs in our blood — the gift of Evening
Star when she bore the First Woman. Everyone knows who your father is, and what
he did to your mother.''

 
          
 
Packrat threw another twisted sagebrush onto
the fire. As flames licked up around the dry branches, the pungent honeyed odor
of sage lifted around him and lit the smile on his thin lips. "I told him
I should kill Half Man."

 
          
 
"But no!" Pitalesharo had cried as
he lifted his hands. "That is not the way of the cunning Panimaha True,
people would agree that it would be a justified murder, but you'd still be
suspect, always considered dangerous, not really right for the people. Tiwat,
you must be more cunning. Think back to the stories we tell, the lessons we
teach. You must prove yourself a better man than all others in finding your
revenge. You must do it in a manner that will honor yourself Morning Star,
Evening Star, and the White Wolf You must be cunning, tiwat. . . ever
cunning!"

 
          
 
Packrat tilted his head, allowing the cold
snowflakes to settle on his hot face. Pitalesharo, Knife Chief's son, called
him tiwat, nephew, the most affectionate of Pawnee terms used between men. Of
them all, no man was as brave, kind, and strong as Pitalesharo.

 
          
 
Packrat had considered the lessons taught in
the stories, and from them, a plan had been born.

 
          
 
"I have found my way, tiwatciriks,"
Packrat answered his distant uncle. "The stories have shown me the
way."

 
          
 
Indeed they had. Packrat had taken two horses
and ridden out from the Skidi winter camp, traveling up the river to this place
where the
Platte
vanished into worn rocky gorges and bent
south into jagged mountains. He would travel farther west, into the lands of
the Shoshoni, and there, he would find a woman. Once he'd captured her, he
would return to the Skidi villages, and there he would have his revenge on his
father—and in a way that would elevate him in the eyes of his people, and
restore the standing of his long-suffering mother.

 
          
 
The wind howled harder, white wraiths of snow
streaming past. Packrat, "he who collects things," glanced up into
the darkness. Evening Star's guardians shook their rattles and danced furiously
to produce a storm like this one.

 
          
 
Thinking of Evening Star, and the war at the
dawn of time, made him smile. Retribution could come in many ways. The people
would talk forever about Packrat and the way he had repaid Half Man for his
perfidy.

 
          
 
Packrat stood for a moment, looking westward
into the wind and storm. Somewhere, out there in the blackness, he would find a
woman. Then, all he needed to do was carry her safely to the big Skidi village.
After that, he could take his place among the people, and no one would doubt
him.

 
          
 
A sleet-mushy rain fell from the black spring
sky as Travis Hartman followed the trail that led down toward the muddy bank
where the Maria was tied off. In the distance, beyond the murky
Illinois
shore, lightning flashed against the night:
the first of the year.