The Snake River (6 page)

Part Two

A PILGRIMAGE

Chapter Five

They called him Web, and he hated it. The name came from his mother’s brother, Rockchuck, when Web was born. Rockchuck immediately saw the skin between the baby’s two big toes and the next ones, like duck’s feet, and mockingly called him Web. A sure sign that he was the son of his father, Rockchuck cracked. And his father was a no-good
divo
, a white man.

Besides, Web knew he should have outgrown his childhood name by now. He deserved a name he had earned, or one given him from his first coup. But he had no vision. He had purified and prepared himself, twice, and gone onto the mountain and deprived himself of food and water, twice, but he had seen nothing.

He also had no coup. He had only once been invited on even a pony raid, and then permitted only to hold the ponies while other men stole Crow horses.

Also, his hair was rust-colored, not black, like a true Shoshone’s. Another bitter gift of his white-man father, as everyone knew.

It was all a disgrace. He was eighteen years old, and a disgrace.

These people mocked him, and would always mock him.
Numah-divo
, they called him. It was the people’s word for half-breed, their word for
Shoshone
spliced onto the word for
white man
. They could make similar words that meant Shoshone-black white man and Shoshone Mexican. All were words of scorn. Web was the first
Numah-divo
of his people.

But tonight he would earn another name. This very night.

In his own mind he kept another name for himself anyway: Sima Untuasie. When he found out why he was named Web, he asked his grandmother, Black Shawl (his
un kakau
, his mother’s mother), whether his mother had spoken before she died, shortly after bearing him.

Yes, his grandmother had said. She murmured,
“Sima untuasie.”
My first son.

His grandmother added, “She loved you.”

He liked the Sima part: first. He was something new, a
Numah-divo
, yes, the first, the only.
Sima Numah-divo
.

Tonight he would show them.

He was waiting now, frustrated. Waiting for his
hiantseh
(friend) Yu-huup, which meant Fatty. He knew a lot of being a young man was waiting—waiting to go on your first pony raid, waiting to get to help steal ponies instead of just holding the horses, waiting to get into a real fight, waiting to get a coup, waiting to marry, waiting to be recognized for what you are, a man.

He had been tortured with waiting. He would make it end tonight. If Yu-huup ever came.

He bent his attention back to the rock. He’d come to this outcropping because the warm lava rock drew the lizards, and he could hear the shoosh of the creek churning by. He found flowing water soothing. And he liked to catch lizards with his quick hands. While his friends clowned around and missed and acted like they didn’t care, he could catch ten, two hands’ worth, sometimes more, without having one dart away. Like the sound of the water, catching them eased him mind. When he was watching a lizard, he thought of nothing, not his intolerable situation, not his future, nothing at all. It took his mind off the festering within him.

Tonight.

He festered all the time. He raged half the time. He hated his life.

Web hated the trapper who fathered him. Back when the Frenchies first came to hunt beaver on the Snake River, this man had spent a winter with his people, with his mother, Pinyon. When spring came, the trapper simply left, abandoning a people who had adopted him, and abandoning a child in his mother’s belly.

The Frenchie didn’t give a goddamn. That was what Web always called the man out loud. Goddamn Hairy. He chuckled whenever he said it. The whites said each white man had two names—not a secret name and a public name, like a Shoshone, but two public names, which they called first and last. No one knew his father’s name, so Web gave him one: Goddamn. The second one the people gave him because he had
Inqa-moe-zho
, red hair all over his face. Rockchuck said the fool accepted the name without a complaint, didn’t even know it was an insult.

Goddamn was one of the few
divo
(white-man) words Web had learned, and he knew it well. The other trappers who had come Americans, they called themselves—had told Web all about it. It was a word of bad medicine, a curse. It meant plagued by the spirits. The Americans seemed amused at his interest, but they joined in. Hairy was a member of another white-man tribe, they said, a Frenchie, so they goddamned him heartily. They explained that not all Frenchies were Frenchmen, some were Englishmen, but Web didn’t understand that.

Another bad-medicine word Web learned was son of a bitch—son of a dog. But that didn’t seem so bad to Web. It might be a man’s medicine to be given power by a dog in a dream, so to be the spirit child of a dog. So Web preferred goddamn—cursed by the spirits.

In his mind he called his father Goddamn instead of Hairy always. Then maybe his father’s
woah
would burn when he pissed, or the Crows would steal all his horses, or his children would all grow up to hate him.

Web hated him. One day the goddamn son of a bitch would come back and Web would show him.

Like tonight. Tonight he would show everybody.

It started the summer after the big fight against the Blackfeet in Pierre’s Hole, the year the white men called 1833. That summer Web went with his band to the big trading fair on the Siskadee, what the Americans called rendezvous. There Web talked with white men a lot for the first time. And when the people left that rendezvous, he found out how deep was his humiliation.

Rockchuck took him hunting in the high country of the Tu-nam pai-okai-pin. It was a bad time for the family. Web’s grandfather, Beak, died a week before. No one knew why. He complained a lot going over the last divide from rendezvous, said he had a terrible gut ache, and sometimes rode on a travois, like an infant. Then suddenly rolled onto his knees, shook and jerked violently, and pitched into the dirt, dead.

Since Web’s mother died in childbirth, he had been raised by his mother’s parents. That was usual enough. Many first children were raised by their maternal grandparents. But Web was being raised with half the family anyone was entitled to, among a people to whom family was every tiling.

So Beak was the only father Web had ever known, and he was gone. They boy would not miss him much. For several years Beak had been withdrawn, remote from the family. But Web felt for his grandmother, Black Shawl, and he knew he now had no male protector.

After the mourning, Black Shawl asked Rockchuck to take Web deer-hunting. The boy was fourteen winters old, she pointed out. It was the Shoshone way.

Actually, Web’s father’s brother, his
hai
, should have become his teacher, to show him the ways of the earth, the ways of the rooted, the winged, the water-dwellers, and the four-legged. This man should have taught him how the four-leggeds leave their signs on dirt and sand and mud and snow, and how to follow them, how to know what they will do, how to catch them and take some of their power, or their lives and their power. This man should have prepared him to find a dream that would show him his power, his personal, special way to walk the earth.

So Rockchuck complained—that’s not my job, he said, I’m the kid’s
mother
’s brother, his
tami
. Old Black Shawl spat in the dust. She wasted no time pointing out the obvious—she just ordered Rockchuck to take Web hunting.

So they set out resenting each other. Rockchuck left Web on stands alone for several days, entirely alone, with nothing to eat or drink, and the necessity of absolute stillness. Rockchuck said it was to teach him patience. Web suspected it was to inflict punishment. He thought Rockchuck was not out trying to jump deer, but in camp, napping. And there was nothing Web could do. He refused to be caught off his stand. At night, in camp, Rockchuck acted sullen, and occasionally arrogant. If Web had good medicine, he hinted, they would not be taking so long to find so common a thing as a deer, and kill it.

When they did find one, it was only a buck so young the antlers hadn’t branched. Still, Web kept the dewclaws as a sign of his first hunt, and gave them to his grandmother. He knew he had learned something, alone there in the beating sun. He could master not only his hunger and his thirst but his anger.

In front of the people, Rockchuck seemed to shrug the kill off. A small deer, a nothing, his manner said. Web could almost hear them whispering,
“Numah-divo.”
Halfway of the people, not exactly one of us.

That night Web learned something else: He learned not to cry when his feelings were hurt. He learned not to care about these people who scorned him.

He did care about his grandmother. Only she felt truly like family. But a woman could not teach a boy the ways of men. She always held out the hope that Goddamn Hairy, Inqa-moe-zho, would come back and be a father. But Web didn’t want him back. Web would learn carefully the lessons Rockchuck had for him, and despise him every moment. And Goddamn could go to the Ninabee, the devils with tails who eat children. No, to Joahwayo, the big fool with a hairy face and scaly body who ate grown-ups.

Now, four years later, Web had passed eighteen winters. And he had learned.

He saw a lizard by his right foot, a tiny one. The innocent creature came out between Web’s feet, stood still, peered about, its head frozen still. Then it scurried up between Web’s calves, stopped, peered.

The fool. Web would wait until it came within reach and catch it. Even catch it with his awkward hand, the right hand. And fling it away. This lizard would be easy.

He had learned the patience his uncle forced on him. He had learned quickness with his hands—Web could do anything that required nimble fingers, especially whittling with a knife or drawing or painting. He had learned cunning. And he had learned not to care.

The little lizard was up between Web’s thighs. This was an affront. For this the lizard must become like a winged one, and fly. Web eased his hand off his upper leg, felt the warm rock with his fingertips. He moved with the gentleness, the stealth, the calculation, and the cruelty of the hunter. The lizard was confused—even Web’s right hand would be plenty quick for this prey.

Snatch!

He held the creature up to his eyes and studied it. It jerked its head back and forth, looking about stupidly, understanding nothing. It flailed its legs in the air, then held them utterly still, then flailed them again.

Web pinched hard with his thumb and forefinger. The lizard squashed all over his hand.

Guilt and shame lifted him like a great wave. You are angry, he accused himself, so you take it out on a lizard.

Miserably, he wiped the goo off on his breechcloth.

Yes, I am angry and upset, goddamn you all.

Tonight I will show you.

Wh-r-r-r!

Rattlesnake!

Web jumped up. He couldn’t see it. Which way should he run?

Goddamn!

He jumped off the rock, fell to the ground, scrambled away.

Whomp. Someone landed on him from behind. Held his head down. Grabbed his scalp lock.

Web felt the hot prick of the knife. He shook himself, but the man was too heavy, too strong.

Hah, hah, hah. Hah, hah, hah. A laugh, slow, elaborate, mocking.

His captor stood up. Web rolled over and looked up at his big friend Yu-huup. His grin was big, his eyes wild as moons. One open palm held the rattlesnake rattle, a big one. Web remembered when he and Yu-huup killed the snake together.

“Cousin,” said Web weakly. He reached up for a hand and heaved to his feet. “You could have hit me with the poison.” He was still getting his breath. Web was a slight, wiry youth, Yu-huup a big one, and fat.

“A Crow would have lifted your curly hair,” said Yu-huup, putting his knife away. Web was always sensitive about his hair, which not only was brown but also curly. His hair and his light skin gave away that he was
Numah-divo
.

“So what do you want, cousin? What’s such a secret?”

Now Web looked at him in the eyes. Here was a real test for Yu-huup. The deed would be daring, and exciting, but tomorrow some people would shun Fatty. He might have to take the full blast of One Bull’s anger, and One Bull was a plenty mean old man.

Web felt cold in his gut, hurting. Maybe Yu-huup would say no. Maybe Yu-huup would say yes and, just when he was needed, run like a coward. Maybe Yu-huup would tell his mother and father and spoil the plan.

Web sat down on the lava rock and motioned Yu-huup to join him. He looked at his cousin and best friend nakedly. “Tonight I’m going to steal Paintbrush.” He let it sit. The cousins looked at each other hard. Fear appeared there—and boldness and daring and excitement…and the uncertainty of teenagers.

Finally Yu-huup said, “One Bull will kill you. Horn’s kinsmen will kill you.”

Web shook his head and smiled a wicked smile. “I have a plan,” he said.

Web first saw Paintbrush the summer when they were both twelve, the year before the great rendezvous on the Siskadee. She and her brother came to live with One Bull. Their parents had been killed by the Crows, a terrible thing, and One Bull and his wife were their uncle and aunt. Since Paintbrush and Web had not come to the changes—to young womanhood and manhood—the two played together as children.

Paintbrush was lonely. Occasionally she cried for her parents and her band, but more often Web would find her sitting alone by the river, her eyes far away and infinitely sad. He felt for her—she, too, was a stranger among these people. He befriended her.

And Paintbrush brought Web a great gift. With childish pleasure she showed him the implement she was named for. She showed him how to make tools for painting from bones, or from willow sticks, and how to chew the end of the stick to make a wide implement for some strokes.

Web loved painting. Though women did quillwork and beadwork and decorative, geometric painting, men did paintings showing real objects, men and horses at war, and the like.