The High Missouri (19 page)

On the way back they came to a place on a crevasse that was too wide to step across but not wide enough to require a bridge—an easy jump. Captain Chick himself didn’t even take time to look at it carefully—he trotted the last two or three steps and bounded over it. The next fellow, the Frenchy, walked up to the crevasse, glanced down, backed up, took a run, and leapt over easily. The last man, the Englishman, walked up and looked down for a long moment. Backed up. Ran. Stopped at the edge of the crevasse. Looked down for a longer moment. Backed up. Ran harder. Stopped at the edge of the crevasse. Looked down, looked down, and looked down. Stepped into the hole and disappeared forever.

Captain Chick laughed hugely at his own story. Caro seemed enthralled by it. Dylan felt, unaccountably, that he was being diminished by this tale. Why? Captain Chick looked into his eyes intimately, roared anew with laughter, touched Caro’s shoulder with his left hand while holding Dylan’s eyes. Why did Dylan think he was being told, It’s all right, little boy, don’t worry?

He looked into Caro’s room through the poor glass of the tiny window. She was in bed, reading by candlelight. Through the wavy glass he couldn’t see the book, but it was surely Byron. They had no agreement that he was to come. They never did. He felt a little uncertain this time. He pressed his face against the glass, thinking ambivalently what it would look like to Caro. He tapped the glass with a fingernail. She looked up and smiled.

Caro bounded to the door, whisked him into her room and welcomed him with a fine kiss. She took him instantly to bed and teased him and brought desire high in him and then made it ebb—their lovemaking was fine. Dylan was a little surprised that she shushed him several times—evidently she wanted to flaunt her emancipated carnality in front of her father but not before the world. When they’d finished just once, Caro took him to the door and said good night. He felt a pang. She looked very beautiful there in the candlelight, smiling generously, her body perfectly nude and glowing with lovemaking. She embraced him. “Don’t worry,” she said in his ear, “everything’s fine.” And he was out the door.

He awoke full of knowledge. It was so sure, this knowledge, that he got up, pulled on his pants and a capote, and went barefooted and shirtless onto the gallery.

It was empty. He looked at his pocket watch. Five o’clock, not yet dawn. The knowledge felt so sure that he waited in a shadow, his feet freezing. After perhaps five minutes the knowledge confirmed itself: Captain Chick came out of his apartment. He looked fully dressed, in the clothes he wore to dinner, complete with stovepipe hat—had the man been to bed? Without even looking around, he took the few steps to Caro’s door.

The man paused. Without knocking, he opened the door halfway. Was he going to burst in and rape her? But no, he waited. He seemed to tap lightly on the half-open door, perhaps with his fingernails. He waited, unmoving. At last he entered and closed the door behind him.

Without a second thought Dylan walked silently along the gallery toward Caro’s room. The knowledge led him.

He leaned against a post—it might disguise his shape—and looked in through the wavy glass of the small window.

The two of them looked like figures in a strange, disturbing dream, seen perhaps underwater. Captain Chick stood to Dylan’s right, perhaps waiting. Caro set the candle back on the bedside table, burning. She stood up from the bed in her long nightshirt, pulling her long hair back from her face with one hand. She cocked her head—perhaps Captain Chick had spoken, but Dylan couldn’t hear through the wall—and she half smiled. Captain Chick stood motionless, but cast a spell, or emanated a force like a magnet. Dylan could sense it from here. It drew Caro toward him.

Dreamlike, less than real and more than real, she walked slowly toward Captain Chick, an appraising look on her face. She stopped inside an arm’s length from him. She touched his bare breastbone between the lapels of his military coat with a forefinger. Then she slid forward against him and raised her lips to his. As they kissed, he lifted her nightshirt and held her buttocks tight against his groin. Meanwhile he kissed her hungrily—Dylan could feel him sucking the life out of her.

Caro pushed him away and stepped back, but not far, resisting Captain Chick’s magnetism. She drew her nightshirt slowly over her head. She hesitated several times, posing with first her hips and pudenda revealed, then her belly, then her breasts, her head covered all the while. When she stood fully naked, she had the strangest smile Dylan had ever seen.

Captain Chick stood motionless.

Caro reached out and eased the lapels of his coat apart, a finger on each side. She bent her head to his chest and kissed his right nipple. Then she sucked gently, teasingly on the left. With one hand she undid the thong that held up Captain Chick’s breechcloth. It fell to the floor. She did not look at his nakedness. Dylan felt sure the man’s cod was as big as his forearm. She pressed herself against him and bit his chest.

Captain Chick took his hat off and tossed it toward the room’s only chair. He lifted Caro’s legs so that they were wrapped around his waist. Dylan could not tell if he entered her at this moment. Then, holding her, he stepped easily to the bed, flung both of them down, himself on top, and began to frig her vigorously.

Dylan watched it all. He wanted to leave but couldn’t. He ordered himself to leave but couldn’t. He felt the pull of the man’s magnetism.

It did not take long. It was an act of ravishing, not love, of claiming ownership. The Captain frigged her savagely, brutishly. His little coat jigged up and down in back with his motion—didn’t its buttons hurt her breasts? Legs splayed, she frigged back in a frenzy. Twice Dylan thought he could hear Caro’s sharp little cries, even through the log walls. Before long the man’s body stiffened, lengthened, shuddered.

For a moment of stillness the Captain held Caro’s eye.

Then, still atop Caro, he turned his head, looked directly at the window, at Dylan.

Dylan could never be sure, through the distorting glass, but he fancied Captain Chick winked.

Chapter Seventeen

Dylan wandered. He fled from that cursed window on that cursed gallery, got a horse, and set out westward in the predawn light. He had no idea where he was going, what he was doing, what he was thinking, what he was feeling. He didn’t see the Rocky Mountain front rising huge in front of him, or the river, or the canyon it ran through, or the sky growing brighter, or the sun rising behind him. He was lucky—the sky was clear, his blindness would not run him into tempestuous weather.

Occasionally he had a mental image, a picture of Capture Chick ravishing Caro. Some images were memories. Others, equally vivid and indistinguishable, were imagination. He knew that because they were even more lascivious, more horrible, more demeaning to Caro and to him than what he had seen. And though he had watched in silence, cut off from the actual sounds by the window, the door, and walls, these images were accompanied by strange rhythms and music, the heavy clank of metal being flung against walls, the crunch of glass breaking under boots, perhaps a hint of a bell tinkling in the wind, and the thud of ceremonial drums under all.

Except for mental images, his eyes were blind, his mind was blank, numb, cold, stiff, in rigor mortis. He could not begin to process thought or feeling.

About mid-morning his belly spoke to him. He was hungry. Bloody hell, he’d brought no food. He didn’t give a damn.

Once his eyes tried to speak to him—a movement, a straight line against the sky, something? He looked momentarily, saw nothing, and returned to blindness.

He lay on his back and soaked it in the hot water. It was unbelievable how much it hurt, and he had no idea why. He’d been lucky to find this small, sulfurous spring dribbling hot water into the river. Since it was only an inch or two deep, he had to soak the parts of his body in it separately. It was amazing how much he ached, all over. Not like he’d been beaten. More like he’d been trying to hold still against the pitching of a stagecoach ride, and his muscles were screaming, No more, let us rest. He’d soaked his arse and the backs of his legs. Next he would soak his arms and shoulders, one at a time.

He looked at the wavy grass in the hot stream. It was deeper than the water itself if you held the blades up, and it made the stream half solid. A curious grass, stiffish, with white-gray edges, like dried salt. Downstream a bit the rocks on the bottom were covered thick with creamy green algae. He got out of the hot water naked and walked along the stream to look carefully at its oddities. Farther downstream the algae, or whatever the vegetation was, turned rust-colored, purple, gold, ruby-red, gray, russet, and chartreuse. He squatted and looked minutely. There is lovely they are, as the Druid would say.

He had a pang of missing Dru.

He squatted in the water, aching feet and sore bottom in the hot wetness. He dabbled his fingers in it.

Feeling better, aren’t you, laddo?

He started. Dru’s voice, almost like it was real, almost like it spoke to the real ear, not the dreaming ear.

Aye, Druid.

What is it makes you feel better?

Dylan laughed. A fine, hot bath, civilizedlike, he said in his mind, a teasing falsehood.

Aye, laddo, she’s
Mother
Nature, and she’ll suckle ye.

He supposed he did feel better. His brain worked. He had words working now, and not just those
sodding
mental images. Maybe he was just a suckling babe on Mother’s teat.

A shadow fell on him.

Captain Chick blocked the sun.

Behind him stood Saga.

Dylan grabbed for clothing, he didn’t even know which piece, and stuffed it on his crotch.

“Feel small in the cod, eh, my boy?” Captain Chick grinned down at him, huge and triumphant. He let loose a big, warm chuckle.

Dylan thought now, too late, of his knives. He’d taken off his knives to soak his back, and then walked naked away from them.

He stared at Saga. Saga smirked back. Dylan looked at the Captain and jerked his head at Saga. “He’s been here for weeks.” Then where the hell was Dru? Dylan had no intention of asking. “He was out hunting yesterday.”

Saga stepped forward, reached out with his quirt and touched the pink scar on one side of Dylan’s face, then the other side, the scars of their battle over Fornicating Woman. He was still smirking. A new scar twisted the eyebrow Dylan ruined with the hilt of his knife. Saga’s beauty was no longer pristine.

Captain Chick studied Dylan with amusement on his face. “Saga, we will meet you back at the fort.” The Metis moved off.

Dylan roared in his mind, Where in hell did you come from?

“Saga told me he gave you your rather dramatic scars,” said Captain Chick.

“How did you find me?” Dylan rasped. His voice was rough with anger at Saga. He was glad it didn’t sound whiny.

“Zere are not so many alone horses wearing shoes in the country. Why don’t you get your arse up and out, yes, up and out, and we’ll talk?”

His expression changed suddenly, grew sympathetic, friendly, fatherly. “My boy, zere’s nothing to be hithery-dithery about.”

Walking toward Caro’s room, the Captain had been aware of Dylan standing on the balcony. “Yes. Not many men can skulk about”—he moved his arm and hand like a gliding snake—“and escape the notice of Captain Chick,” he said softly.

“Why didn’t you do something about it?” demanded Dylan.

The Captain shrugged. “It was a mere distraction.”

Dylan thought what it was a distraction from, and his guts churned. “So you knew.”

Captain Chick hesitated. “When I thought about zat later, I thought, I don’ know what it mean to him. Probably he brush it off. What is a woman, after all? Maybe he just come back from village looking for
la chatte
.” The Captain chuckled. “Although, permit me to advise you, dawn would not be the time. Even Blood women do not spread their legs at dawn.” He cackled. “Never mind, I thought I’d better follow along and make sure you were all right. You are my guest.”

Dylan reached for his pants and started pulling them on. He eyed the knives in their holsters on the ground. He would be damned glad to get his knives back in position.

The Captain looked at him fixedly. “Dylan, heed me.” He waited for Dylan to meet his gaze. Dylan could feel the spell in his eyes. “It is not important, me with Caro.”

Dylan deliberately looked away, slipped his shirt on, sat down to put on his moccasins. She’s not wearing your ring, he was raging in his head.

Captain Chick watched him all the while, perhaps appraising something. “We men understan’ zese zings, no? A woman.” He spread his arms. “We like zem, yes. Special one like Caro, much like, very fine. Beautiful, and very willing.” He paused. “I promise you she was willing, plenty willing.”

Dylan looked him in the eye. He was sure the Captain knew he had watched through the window, sure the Captain had even winked at him at the end. Or the end of the first round. So why was he pretending?

“A man knows zese things before he goes to her. I knew, she knew. Very exciting for me to know is coming, very exciting for her too.

“But a woman. Like a fine dinner, a man sees, he tastes, he goes on. Tomorrow another dinner, maybe the same, maybe something new better, no? Sometimes a woman is even like handkerchief. You use, throw with the dirty linens, that’s all.” Perhaps the Captain saw the anger in Dylan’s face. “Of course, Caro is too fine for that.

“But a man he not get jealous. I know you. You want live large, not live oh so cramped, no? Not cramped by usual way, not cramped by jealous, not envious. No such silly zing.”

As Captain Chick talked, he watched Dylan curiously, fixedly. Dylan felt like prey. The Captain’s restless intelligence came prowling, slinking, testing his reaction. He would change his words according to what worked. The trouble was, it all worked. Dylan felt held in thrall, and mesmerized but in danger. He was remembering Mr. Pico, the headmaster of his school. Dylan stalled, getting his coat on, strapping his knives on, arranging the straps just so, remembering.

Funny how Mr. Pico stayed in his mind after… it must be ten years. One day after school Dylan threw a ball and broke a window. He was sent to Mr. Pico for discipline.

Mr. Pico questioned him quietly, in a way that was soft yet insinuating. The affair for Mr. Pico was no accident, nor even a matter of boys will be boys. It was a symptom of something larger in Dylan, some innate irresponsibility, some lack of seriousness, some fundamental flaw that merely chanced to show itself through this event, some equivalent of original sin. Mr. Pico saw this stain in him, and of course he could not deny it. Mr. Pico knew—there was no fooling him.

Mr. Pico bore the authority, so his gentleness was fake. The man might do anything to him. Might make him go without dinner. Have him caned. Write his father. Might even kick him out of school. He was the master.

He let Dylan go back to class with only a reprimand, and a warning that this event would be mentioned in the school’s periodic report to Ian Campbell.

Dylan was not deceived. The penalty was modest only because he was afraid, because he saw Mr. Pico’s power and, knowing domination for what it was, bent his knee before it. What Mr. Pico exacted was this obeisance. If he exacted it wordlessly, without explicit threat, that only made it more terrible.

Dylan had tasted shame in his mouth like coppery, salty blood. He was ashamed of himself for acting submissive in front of Mr. Pico, for quailing, for being desperate to please. The headmaster knew anyone as scared as he was would toe the line from then on.

Dylan was not fool enough to accept such men as counselors and friends—men like Mr. Pico, Captain Chick, his father Ian Campbell, others with the mantle of authority, superior, imperious, manipulative men. These men could not be understanding and sympathetic, could not make gestures of generosity. For the relationship was one of power, and depended absolutely on his own submission. From your knees, you saw their magnanimity for the dominion it was. When you were before him on your knees, the king stepped forward and raised his sword high. Now with one motion he might knight you or decapitate you. You never knew. One stroke for either purpose, dependent on his whim. One stroke, and then a chuckle of pleasure.

Dylan stood, dressed, his knives in place, unable to stall any longer. As he stood, he was overcome by a great helplessness, a falling, an endless tumbling through space. He swayed.

I am jealous, Father, and I am terrified, so I am doomed. I am unworthy. I grovel.

But he would never, ever say these words to Captain Chick. Or anyone else.

A picture slapped his face. Captain Chick standing, holding Caro, her legs around his waist, she entirely naked, he from the waist down. He spun, whirling her round and round like a child. Caro laughed a belllike laugh of innocence, let her head fall back, let her hair swing. The Captain showed his teeth and leered.

It was not a memory—they had done no such thing.

He took one faltering step forward. Now, regardless of all else, regardless of the Captain, regardless of Saga, he must see Caro. Captain Chick took Dylan’s elbow with a steadying hand.

“Now we go back to fort, eh? Everybody wants you zere. I want you, Caro wants you, everybody wants you. Sure to goodness.” The Captain made the chuck-chucking sound he would make to a horse. “Is good.”

He smiled broadly and put one arm around Dylan’s shoulder.

Dylan shrugged the arm off petulantly. But he walked toward his horse.

“I want you,” he said.

He paused in the open door and gazed at her, standing in the middle of the room. She looked grand, in a gray wool floor-length dress that seemed to make her green eyes, copper skin, and auburn hair even richer in color. Her hair hung to her waist in a single braid, as he liked it best. She looked graceful, dignified, ladylike. He felt choked with love, desire, yearning, all these mixed up, and more. He still hadn’t stepped inside.

“I want you,” said Caro. Her eyes were luminous, and perhaps sympathetic. She took several steps away, holding his eyes, and sat. “But I don’t want what you are now. I want the large you.”

Dylan walked toward her, but she shook her head very slightly, still looking at him with huge eyes. He stopped.

He didn’t know what to do. Captain Chick had loaned them this room, the Captain’s office, next to his bedroom, a so-called neutral site for their meeting. To Dylan it was charged with his presence, his ownership.

“Let’s go for a walk,” he said.

She shook her head. “It’s dark anyway,” she said. “Perhaps tomorrow, after luncheon.”

“I want you,” he said.

“Later,” she said. “Not tonight.”

The images of what she might do tonight jangled in his mind.

“I promise you,” she told him evenly, graciously, looking gorgeous, “if you spy on me one more time, I will never speak to you again.”

It was awkward. It was painful. Dylan and Caro sat down by the river in the weak autumn sun and had a kind of picnic, pemmican and apples. They pretended to ignore the pain, the pain of the moment, the pain of the two nights past, the pain of the future.

They talked of small things. She took his hand for a few minutes, and that made him feel better. He looked often at the fourth finger of her left hand, at his mother’s ring. He told himself forlornly that it was still the symbol of their future. Together.

He restrained himself. Not only did he not mention Captain Chick, he did not allude in any way, even by tic of mouth or eyebrow, to their difficulties. He told stories of his boyhood. Funny stories, mostly. About the way their parrot would fish brooches out from the cleavages of visiting women. About the play he and Amalie wrote and performed for the neighborhood youngsters, the one that ended with Amalie showing her bloomers. About the way their housekeeper would always forget and say to the Campbells, “Well, when I was a little boy…” And other stories. Too many of them reminded him of sadnesses in his life. Philomene had been sleeping with his father, and he never knew it.

Once, when Caro caught him looking at the ring, she said quietly and with a smile, “Yes, I’m still wearing it,” and no more.