Gear, W Michael - Novel 05 (34 page)

 
          
 
So much death. But why? Where has rt come
from? I want to step back, away from the sight. But when I look back toward the
west, I see my people, Dukurika and Ku'chendikani, watching with worried eyes.

 
          
 
I will do anything to avoid their questioning
gazes, so I look back into the blood-black river—and the corpses are staring up
at me while waves of stinking water slap into their eyes.

 
          
 
My chest feels tight, as if a great weight is
pressing on me. I can't seem to fill my lungs. Fear steals along my backbone.
The suffocation increases.

 
          
 
That's when I hear the laughter coming from
far away. I know that laughter, but for the moment can't place it.

 
          
 
I see them as dots first. They charge forward
like fleas in a blanket, jumping and bounding, racing up the river of the dead.
They look like grasshoppers, coming In wave upon wave, more than a man could
count In a lifetime.

 
          
 
The laughter rings out of the sky again. This
time my souls chill at the sound. Yes, I know that laugh, have heard it before
when Coyote sends me one of these Power dreams.

 
          
 
The golden sunlight has faded to a dirty gray,
so I must squint to see that coyotes, not fleas, are running up the river. Why?
To what purpose? And what has killed all these people?

 
          
 
A low moan rises from the floating dead as
they bob and twist in the current. In return, the coyotes alternately cry and
yip with excitement as they race onward.

 
          
 
From a great distance I hear thunder, rolling
and muffled as if from an exhausted storm.

 
          
 
I close my eyes. A soul-deep sickness makes my
guts squirm. I can smell only death and rotting flesh.

 
          
 
What is happening? What do you want from me,
Coyote?

 
          
 
When I can finally open my eyes, I look down
on the river once again. Now the water is calm, as if the river's soul is sleeping.
The air is silent, unstiring. The entire world might be holding its breath,
waiting.

 
          
 
The only thing that moves is a dog, a white
dog. I look closely. It appears to be nothing more than mist. It chases around
and around the way it would if it were trying to catch its tail in its mouth.
Around and around it goes, while the world waits in deathly silence.

           
 
The dream of escape grew in Richard's breast.
He was stronger now. He could pole most of the day and not collapse into
instant sleep after stuffing himself with dinner. Memories of
Boston
filled his hours. He dreamed of the shops,
the fine food, the company of educated men like Will Templeton and George
Peterson.

 
          
 
Laura waited for him, soft and warm. He could
feel her reaching for him, wrapping her arms around him. There, in that
ephemeral safety, the world was far away, unable to harm him.

 
          
 
When I come to you, dearest Laura, nothing
will ever part us again. I swear it. I'll make you a queen, shower gifts upon
you. You and I will be together forever.

 
          
 
Boston
became a magical city: the antithesis of
what he suffered during the day. While Green cursed him, and the engages
glowered at him, Richard retreated into himself, despising their miserable
animal lives. Trudeau was the worst of the lot, a burly, arrogant tormentor.
Trudeau seemed to take pleasure in torturing Richard in little ways, like the
night he tripped him face-first in the mud.

 
          
 
Another of his messmates was Toussaint, a
giant of a man with muscles knotted like intertwined oak roots. Toussaint
watched Richard with oddly flat, emotionless eyes. He worked like a human draft
horse, always silent and introspective. Forever brooding. The rest of the
engages cautiously avoided him.

 
          
 
Louis de Clerk and Jacques Eppecarte were the
other two men in his mess. They had both come from
Saint Louis
, old hands at the river and its ways. Like
the rest, they, too, despised Richard, but rarely went out of their way to add
to his misery. Rather, they did their best to ignore him.

 
          
 
Each night, Richard would stagger ashore and
flop down to look at the leaping flames of the fire. He'd wolf down his supper,
and stare out at the dark trees. The engages watched him like wary hawks lest
he try to escape. The irony was that nightfall found Richard so exhausted that
he could do little more than collapse into his blankets and sleep like the dead
until the morning call.

 
          
 
"
Hamilton
!'' Green ordered one morning. "Today,
you work the cordelle."

 
          
 
They hadn't trusted him on the cordelle
before. On the bank he'd have had an opportunity to slip away into the brush.
But where would he go? The days and miles had passed. Names and places, the
litany of the river, had disappeared behind them like the roiling brown
current: The coal mine at La Carbonier, the squalid
village
of
La Charette
, the cave called Montbourne's Tavern; the
mouth of the Osage; Booneville, Franklin,
Chariton
; and finally the mouth of the
Grand River
.

 
          
 
So. Maybe today he would get away. As he
stepped onto the muddy bank, Travis followed him, rifle in hand.

 
          
 
Green was talking to Trudeau. "Keep an
eye on him. If he slips off, holler. Hartman will hunt him down. If he tries to
run, beat the hell out of him/'

 
          
 
Trudeau nodded wolfishly and threw Richard a
hard glance.

 
          
 
Yes, you'd like that, wouldn't you, Trudeau?
With resignation, Richard took his place in the middle of the line, Trudeau
behind him.

 
          
 
The cordelle was a long rope, thick and
bristly. Pulling it used different muscles than poling did. Richard rubbed the
tender spot on his shoulder bruised by the pole, then took up the rope.

 
          
 
"Hurry up, pull, damn you!" Trudeau
cursed behind him.

 
          
 
The long day began. Cursed and cuffed, Richard
pulled, building his hatred of Trudeau as he struggled with the heavy rope,
tugging the boat against the rippling current.

 
          
 
Like oxen. The thought settled into his brain.
I am no more than a two-legged ox.

 
          
 
What miserable work. They slipped and trudged
their way along the bank, stepping over fallen trees, slogging into muddy
little creeks, and forcing their way through thickets of sumac, hazel, and
tough grapevines. The brush was the worst. Hell must be full of these thick
twisted brambles, for only the Devil could torment a man so.

 
          
 
The air grew hot, muggy, and stale. Sweat
beaded and trickled as they wound their way along the river's edge. Flies
buzzed around their heads as men mumbled, swatted mosquitoes, and pinched ticks
off their flesh.

 
          
 
Richard tripped and fell. He was kicked to his
feet again and forced on. Muscles quaking, he clawed through the brush,
planting his clumsy feet in the steps of those before him.

 
          
 
Around him, the engages sang. What sort of men
were these? They had none of the virtues which he had thought common to all.
This life had nothing to do with the teachings of the philosophers. Reason
dominated the philosophical quest, yet here on the river, among these savages,
it seemed as ephemeral as the breath of God.

 
          
 
"Why do you beat me?" Richard asked
over his shoulder.

 
          
 
Trudeau scoffed, "To make you work. You
are lazy and soft, like the maggot, norc?"

 
          
 
"But why do you beat me? Why do you not
just encourage me to achieve the same purpose?"

 
          
 
"Eh? You would leave us at the first
opportunity, oui! The bourgeois, he say so."

 
          
 
"You have no proof that I would
leave."

 
          
 
"Sacre! It is what I would do were I
walking on your feet! What you get out of this trip? Nothing! So you leave, you
get away, and you be free sooner."

 
          
 
"Perhaps. But why should you care? What
is my leaving to you?"

 
          
 
"Ah, mon ami, if you run, the boat has
one less body to help pull it upriver. My burden grows heavier while yours is
less. Besides, we 'ave hauled you this far. Perhaps I want you to haul me
now."

 
          
 
"Yes, but what about the morality of the
situation? I have been sold like a slave. I am a man, Trudeau. I'm not a draft
animal. What was done to me was wrong. Doesn't that mean anything to you?"

 
          
 
"Cochon! What do I care of your problems?
What do you care of mine? My problem now is that you do not pull hard enough.
You pull harder, or I shall kick your skinny ass so high you fart through your
ears. Pull! I've had enough talk."

 
          
 
Richard threw his full weight against the
rope. After straining for several minutes, he called over his shoulder again:

 
          
 
"Trudeau? I'll tell you what. I'll pull
my hardest, I give you my word on that. If I make the effort, will you not make
the effort to treat me better?''

 
          
 
"Oui! You pull like the mule, and I no
kick you to keep you moving."

 
          
 
Soon Richard was grunting and gasping for
breath. Still he struggled. All right, Richard, if your mind is truly superior,
you should be master of your body, protesting though it might be. This is
nothing more than a problem of perception. I am fit for this job. I can do it.

 
          
 
A couple of hours later he wasn't so sure. He
stumbled more than he pulled. Trudeau began to curse again.

 
          
 
"I'm giving it my best," Richard
grumbled to his tormentor. "How many years have you been hauling boats up
the river?"

 
          
 
"All my life, rich man," Trudeau
growled. "It does not take skill to pull the cordelle. Pull."

 
          
 
Richard strained against the weight. "I
have pulled a boat for one day, now. It will take me at least a week to become
as strong as you who have done this all your life."

 
          
 
"Ha! We shall see. I think you never make
good on the cordelle. I think you'll die soon, weak man."

 
          
 
"A week," he gritted back and
strained at the cordelle. "Tell you what. I'll bet you ten fine
plews."

 
          
 
"And where will you get these? Everyone
thinks you will be dead."