The High Missouri (33 page)

To him Red Sky was now an odd creature, but no monster. He was fond of her. They had a connection of tenderness.

He had a sudden fantasy. A whale rose out of his river—illogically out of the
river
—and swallowed him. He was living in its innards. It was doing with him as it liked, gobbling up strange companions for him, lying on the bottom, making him live in the dark, among entrails, and wait.

The sisters were talking animatedly. You’d never have thought Red Sky had gone through an important confrontation two hours ago. But then, she was a teenager.

Cree started in merrily. “Since we’re your wives, we want you to give us something. Something nice, pretty, not practical.”

Dylan gave a mock moan. In the Blackfoot language he said with phony disgust, “Wives!”

He got a candle lantern and led them behind the lodge to where he kept the trade goods stored at night, staked down under an oiled cloth. Cree pulled a couple of stakes. Red Sky held the lantern while Dylan made a show of looking through items without letting them see. The teenager was bouncing on her feet with anticipation.

He ran beads through his fingers. Good but not good enough. He considered vermilion. He wanted to give them one item, not a lot of this and that, so it needed to be something special. Some one thing…

He had it. Bells.

He held up strings of little hawk bells for each of them. The women each grabbed a string with a squeal of delight and started prancing, shaking the bells into a carillon peal. Indian women loved the hawk bells—sewed them onto the dresses they used for happy dances. The rows of brass looked smart, and they made a light, clear jingle that fit the occasion wonderfully.

Their faces said they were thrilled.

Dylan waited by the center fire while they danced around—it was cold outside. When they came in, Red Sky said she was going to sleep with her string around her neck. Cree had something more serious in mind. “Tell us a story about bells,” she said. “There’s a reason you chose bells.”

How did his wife—temporary wife—know?

Dylan decided to tell them about his bells and make it more light than it was, more of a lark. He said nothing about the grave-digging, but put in the fat sexton. He did tell briefly about going up high into the bell tower to see the great humped bells and embrace them. He was getting more serious than he meant to.

So he switched to riding the ropes up and down. And with a thrill in his voice he went on to jumping from rope to rope, up this one, down another, and the tremendous sound.

Remembering the sound, he let his voice become graver. He recalled how the clangor deafened him, how it was more than sound, it was a world, and he was inside. And at the end, when you couldn’t hear the sound, you could still feel, ever so slightly, the air vibrating.

Their faces let him see he had moved them. He felt a little embarrassed. “So I’m glad to get to give you bells,” he said clumsily. “They’re special to me.”

When they slipped into the robes, Cree spooned close behind him. This was the way she liked to start their love-making every night. She said softly, “I think you are a hero.”

He waggled his bottom and made a pooh-poohing sound.

She made him turn and look at her. She had a grave and loving expression on her face. She made him see it, and then began to move against him.

That was when he realized he didn’t think about Caro constantly anymore, maybe not even every day. He felt that was a betrayal. His body moved against Cree’s.

What he was forgetting, really, was the dominion of death, its reign over all.

But Cree moved against him still, and without wanting to, he responded. He decided to keep forgetting for a few minutes.

Chapter Thirty

Before noon Dylan saw two riders on the bluffs to the north, silhouetted against the sky, motionless as sentinel rocks.

He spoke softly to Cree Medicine. She chattered rapidly in the Blackfoot language at Red Sky, and Dylan caught almost all her excited words. The teenager gave her older sister a squeeze, pointed, giggled, and acted like a kid. Cree Medicine gave Red Sky a long hug back. Dylan got the feeling they were home now. They’d been camped here for three days, at the usual winter camp of their people, but only now were they home.

The village arrived piece by piece. First the outriders down the bluffs, then more young men of whatever warrior society they belonged to, the people’s guards, riding up and down the bottom and checking the far side of the river and the tops of the bluff on both sides. A camp must be a haven.

Then the line of travois after travois, all dragged by horses, scores of women putting up lodges with hundreds of children and dogs underfoot.

Last came the men and youths. The grown men set about serious tasks, mounting the tripods that would hold their medicine bundles in front of the lodges, staking their best buffalo horses and war-horses near their tipis. The teenage boys raced and cavorted on ponies until the men got them to gather the mounts all together, put them on good grass farther down the bottom, and set out guards.

As the women and travois began to file into camp, Cree Medicine grasped Dylan by the arm and said, “You must never speak to my mother, or even look her in the eye. Especially not end up alone with her. Never.” She pinched his arm to add to the urgency of her tone.

Dylan thought he might disregard this business of a husband and mother-in-law avoiding each other, though it was customary. For one thing, he was not Cree Medicine’s husband, just her temporary protector. He would give her back, he had decided. For another, if he made contact with his so-called mother-in-law, they would just regard him as a foreigner who didn’t know any better. Which was fine. In fact, it would give him latitude to do things his own way, and be regarded as following his own medicine. If you don’t know enough to do something right, he said to himself with a chuckle, make a point of doing it your own way, like it came straight from God.

He noticed people being careful not to notice him. Lodges went up around him—they were making a great circle of tipis with an opening toward the east. The small travel lodge he shared with Cree Medicine and Red Sky was included roughly in the circle, a kind of outpost to the big lodge of their family.

So he smoked his pipe and pretended to take no notice of anyone as Cree Medicine and Red Sky greeted the women of the family. Hugs first, some tears, finally babble and laughter and a few shrieks of delight. He supposed he was to ignore these displays of emotion, but he didn’t know. Dylan saw out of the corner of his eye that a man of perhaps fifty looked at him briefly and then averted his eyes. Dylan supposed that was the girls’ father, White Raven.

He watched out of the corner of his eye as White Raven hung his medicine bundle from a tripod of sticks in front of the lodge. White Raven went about this business solemnly, with no indication a stranger was nearby and observing. Dylan wondered what was in the bundle. Personal totems, he knew—Bleu had showed him a bundle taken from a dead Piegan. It had several beaded bags, a bell, thong wristlets with beads, a hairpiece made of eagle feathers and tail feathers of a raven, a scalp, a badger skin, a twist of tobacco, bags of paint for the face, and other oddments he couldn’t remember. Both Piegan men and women owned such bundles, which were never opened or looked upon except by the owner. They believed power—medicine—resided in these bits and pieces of animal and earth. Nothing else made Dylan so aware that they were pagans.

He still liked the pun, Piegan and pagan, pronounced the same way.

Then White Raven walked down several lodges toward the horns of the circle and assisted a man in hanging a lot of rawhide cases from a tripod. It must be a big and complicated medicine bundle—Dylan had never seen one that filled so many cases, small black square ones, two big multicolored parfleches shaped like satchels, and a cylindrical case. They covered the tripod as thick as a potentate showing off his finest silks.

“Beaver bundle,” Cree Medicine said to him reverently.

He gave a little nod. That meant it would hold a lot of totem items, plus the gear for some of the principal Piegan ceremonies, especially pipes, drums, and rattles. He recalled with a shiver that Bleu said the hollow globes of the rattles were made of buffalo scrotums.

He shivered again. He realized his hands were cool even against the hot clay of the pipe, and he could feel his feet getting numb.

Somehow it came to him, not as thought of cold, or memory of cold, but as cold itself, seeping into him. He was in a Piegan camp, the only white man in five hundred miles, and he was officially uninvited. The Piegans were famous for their persistence and creativity in torturing outsiders. He was utterly at their mercy.

He had fantasized his adventure would bring him among alien and dangerous creatures. They were at hand.

He supposed the crown of his head should be prickling a little. It was more like tadpoles were slithering up and down his spine.

His first hurdle was White Raven. Cree Medicine brought Dylan to her father’s lodge before the noon meal. He was given the seat of a guest of honor, beside the head of the house. White Raven lit the pipe, and Dylan was able to remember his pipe etiquette and keep his hands steady as he smoked. The women, Cree Medicine, Red Sky, a woman who was probably their mother, Calf Robe, and a young teenager who must be their sister, stayed in the back of the lodge, pretending to mind their own business. Now that Dylan was close, he noticed that White Raven had amazingly long silver-black hair. Before, it had been fastened up somehow. Now it stretched elegantly behind him on the ground for two or three feet, surely arranged with care by his wives or daughters. Now that he was relaxed, White Raven also had a strikingly benevolent face, at once assured, kindly, and wise, like a seer.

White Raven asked no questions. He accepted Dylan’s gift of tobacco, speaking and using sign language at once.

Dylan had prepared his speech carefully in the Black-foot language. He thanked White Raven for his hospitality, spoke his admiration of the Piegan people, and offered to be of service. He intended the use of Blackfoot as a special compliment. The Blackfoot regarded other people with some contempt, and seldom troubled to learn their languages, but waited for them to learn the speech of the Real People.

The old man was silent awhile, as though contemplating Dylan’s conventional utterances. Then he spoke slowly but without signs, which Dylan took as a compliment to his command of the language. The old warrior thanked Dylan in an Olympian way for bringing his daughters back to the people. Dylan thought maybe the old fellow was uncertain of his intentions toward his daughters. He could reassure him about that. Or would the old man feel mortified if he simply gave them back? Would the old man expect him to become a Piegan and take care of them forever? Would White Raven be insulted if he left to rejoin Dru and Saga? Murderously insulted? White Raven ended by inviting Dylan to ask for whatever he wanted.

Dylan let a few moments pass to show that he was considering what his host had said. Then he replied that he would like the opportunity to make some gifts to the chiefs, and waited for an answer.

White Raven nodded, thought for a few moments, and answered affirmatively. He turned his head and spoke softly to the women. In moments the noon meal was in wooden bowls with horn spoons. The two men ate heartily, and the women kept to themselves.

Dylan thought he had jumped the first hurdle.

Shaking Plume was built like a rake, all shoulder and a slat of a body, with an acne-ravaged face above. At first Dylan thought he was too ugly to be a leader. Then he noticed the flash of Shaking Plume’s eyes, and saw authority there, and the will to command. The quality Dylan disliked in Captain Chick and his father and all men who saw themselves as rulers over others. He felt himself blocked, and tried to tell himself the feeling was reasonless.

A half-dozen men sat in the circle around the center fire in Shaking Plume’s lodge. Dylan recognized only White Raven. The others would be counselors and members of the pipe society, Dylan supposed, the heads of warrior societies, or other leaders in war, perhaps healers, seers, wise men. Men whose collective wisdom and influence Shaking Plume used to rule the people of the village. Rule was the operable word.

Shaking Plume offered Dylan a brief and unceremonious welcome to his camp, without generous words or effusive body language. From Shaking Plume’s rear Cree Medicine translated, for Shaking Plume refused to slow his speech down for a foreigner. And it was good for Dylan to have translation, to be sure what was being said, and to give him time to consider his replies. It was also good to have a friend in this council—two friends, Cree behind him and White Raven next to him. He decided to keep his mind on their benevolence, and not the authority of the man who would interrogate him.

Dylan offered Shaking Plume gifts of tobacco, plus blankets, strouding, and beads, including some large and beautiful chevrons. He was obliged to strike the right balance. Too few gifts would suggest a sour heart. Too many would suggest fear, and an attempt to bribe. Shaking Plume accepted in a detached way, neither encouraging nor discouraging.

Dylan explained that he was not an American, nor a Briton, but one of what the Piegans called Frenchmen, men from Canada, who were known to the Piegans since before the memories of the oldest men. He had come here to see and meet the Piegans of this country, who were known by report and honored by Frenchmen everywhere, especially those at Fort Augustus, on the far end of the Old North Trail, where he formerly lived. He hoped to make friends among a people of such wide repute. He thought perhaps the Piegans did not want to have to travel so many sleeps to Fort Augustus to get the things they wanted. If their hearts were open to him, he would trade them the few items he brought, and he would return next summer with Frenchmen friends to trade more.

Shaking Plume gave Dylan’s words a polite space of time, and then asked, “Do you have the white man’s water?” Meaning whiskey.

Dylan didn’t know what to answer. He did, a modest amount. He and Dru and Saga had talked it over carefully before leaving Montreal. Liquor debauched the Indians, there was no question of that. When they drank, they fought, brawled, raped, and even killed each other and white men. But it helped the traders. Once the Indians developed a great thirst, they would hunt beaver and buffalo and other fur bearers to a fare-thee-well. Various traders had tried to do without whiskey, but they always were forced to come back to it.

Piegans were a little different, because their tolerance for their liquor was slight. The custom with the Piegans at Fort Augustus was to mix the pure alcohol with water one part to eight or nine, spiced with the usual tobacco, pepper, molasses, Jamaican ginger, and whatever else was handy. Then they’d give out cups of booze one morning—the Piegans refused to trade for white man’s water, because all water should be free—and start trading the next day, after the riots.

This village probably knew little of whiskey. Dylan wanted to lie. Finally he said, “A little.”

He meant to add that the stuff was poison and the people should stay away from it, but Shaking Plume preempted him. “You will not give whiskey to anyone in this village,” the chief said in a tone of command.

Shaking Plume looked at Dylan, who answered, “That is good.”

The chief regarded his counselors, and Dylan saw unspoken communication pass between them. At length Shaking Plume said in a closed way, “My friend Three Horns has some questions for you.” As Cree translated these words, Dylan could hear the tension in her voice. He understood that he had to get around the obstacle of Three Horns to get to trade.

The man Shaking Plume indicated was squat, and his face looked pugnacious. He asked baldly, accusingly, “Why did you steal the wives of my son Ermine Head?”

Dylan kept his face from showing feeling. He wondered why Three Horns said “wives.” He’d gathered that Cree had a husband, but not Red Sky. Was one of the other women, the ones Père Noël kept, married to this man’s son, whoever that might be? Who was this man? Of what stature and influence? Who was his son Ermine Head?

It was a quagmire.

“Another man stole the Piegan women,” said Dylan, “a man named Père Noël.”

Three Horns bolted forward with lots of words at once. “The Frenchman says another Frenchman stole them. Perhaps it was his friend, perhaps his brother, perhaps he himself held the horses during the theft. I ask, what is the evidence of our eyes—who has our women? If a Crow stole our horses, and the thief’s brother came back riding them, would we listen to his plea that he didn’t steal them, his brother did? Or would we take our horses back, and dance over the Crow’s scalp?”

The man stopped suddenly. Dylan wondered whether Three Horns saw what he suspected, the disapproval of the counselors for the rudeness of his rush of accusations.

Dylan waited to frame a measured response.

“Another man stole the Piegan women. I saw his partner with two of them only. I did not trade for them—I helped them escape. They are Piegan women, meant to be no man’s slaves. Now I return them freely to their people. I thank them for bringing me here.”

Everyone sat in silence. They didn’t look at each other, or communicate in any way. Dylan could feel the universal amazement in the lodge, or stupefaction. They didn’t know whether to believe his claim, or if it was true, what to think of it. This wasn’t the way anyone treated women.

Dylan thought with satisfaction that there might be usefulness in being a foreigner who didn’t know how to act.

Shaking Plume rattled something at Cree in the Blackfoot language. The sentences lashed fast and harsh as whips, and Dylan was sure of no word but her name, and the word
true
. He supposed Shaking Plume was asking her to confirm or deny Dylan’s assertion, and asking in a way that bespoke disbelief.