Gear, W Michael - Novel 05 (84 page)

 
          
 
"
Reckon ye do."

 
          
 
"Do you know what she did? Back at the
Grand Detour, she came down to the beach. She took off all her clothes, Travis,
and waded into the water. She said that Shoshoni do it that way all the time."
He pitched the grass away. 44 And I wanted her. I wanted her so badly that I
almost gave in to what I knew was wrong."

 
          
 
"
Ye were gonna take her against her will?"

 
          
 
"
No. She was willing, Travis. I'd never force myself on a woman. But it's
just impossible. She knows it, I know it, and I think you know it."

 
          
 
"
Because a fancy
Boston
nob like yerself can't lower hisself to marrying an Injun?"

 
          
 
Richard nodded slowly.
"
My father—imagine the expression on his
face. It would only be worse if I married a Negro."

 
          
 
"
It ain't yer father, Dick. It's you."

 
          
 
"It's me," Richard whispered.
"
It's about the kind of life I want. Laura is
that kind of wife, one suitable to a professor of philosophy. When I get back,
I will marry her. Travis, you know me. How can I hold her, love her, knowing
that when I was with her I'd be thinking about an Indian woman? And if Laura
ever found out..."

 
          
 
Travis tapped at his knee with thoughtful
fingers.
"
Ye don't have to
go back, hoss."

 
          
 
"
I have to, Travis. My life is back there. That's who I am." Richard
dropped his hand down to massage his tender testicles. "If anyone ever
found out. Travis, you've got to understand. I'm a gentleman."

 
          
 
"Is that another word fer silly
idiot?"

 
          
 
"You know what I mean."

 
          
 
"Yer being a fool." Travis stared
down at his sun-browned hands. "Ye come from the top and I come from the
bottom of what's back there. Lookit, hyar we are, jawing up a storm, and back
thar in Boston, ye wouldn't give me a nod in the street. And Baptiste, ye'd
figger him worse than shit on yer heel. Nothing but a nigger, free or not. Tell
me, coon, with all yer savvy about mankind and culture and morality, which
way's best? The top on the top like back there, or all mixed up like out hyar?
Who's free, coon?"

 
          
 
"Is it freedom, Travis? Or a lack of
responsibility?" Richard winced as he straightened his legs.

 
          
 
"Huh! I figger it's freedom. Life don't
let nobody skip outa responsibility. Take me and Green. It don't matter that I
owed him, I'd a took this trip on account of he's my friend. If'n the play was
turned around, if'n it was my boat, Davey Green would be thar. Baptiste is
stringing along looking fer fun, and ten percent, sure. But if'n I wasn't with
this company, nine outa ten says he wouldn't be hyar. Don't matter where ye
are, ye gotta be responsible ter yerself and yer companions. That, or ye ain't
a man."

 
          
 
"All right, accepting that argument, I
must be responsible enough to say no to the temptation Willow offers. In the
end it would only hurt us both."

 
          
 
Travis sighed in defeat. "All right, I
can accept that if'n that's how ye reads sign. That's a man making a choice to
keep a friend from trouble. Willow would savvy that"— Travis's eyes
hardened—"so long's it ain't that she's spoilt goods, and a damn Injun in
yer eyes."

 
          
 
Is that it? Was that why I wanted to kill
Travis? Because he spoke the truth, and I really am a hypocrite?

 
          
 
Travis grabbed futilely at a big black fly
that buzzed around his head. "White men have got some tarnal strange ideas
about what's what, and right, and proper ways fer folks ter act. Same fer
Injuns; just ask that Packrat. Hell, maybe ye can't make it work without
breaking each other's hearts. On the other hand, coon, maybe yer gonna throw
away the best woman ye'll ever meet."

 
          
 
"What will people say, Travis? A white
man ... married to an Indian."

 
          
 
Travis waved toward the west. "Ain't
nobody out there gonna care. Baptiste figgered that out long ago. Yer only in
trouble if n ye goes back ter America."

 
          
 
"But I must, Travis."

 
          
 
"Wal, ain't no man can walk yer road fer
ye. How're ye feeling? Reckon we otta drop back toward the river, see if n the
sneaking Sioux's wiped out the engages. Can ye walk?"

 
          
 
Richard stood slowly and made a face, legs
bowed. "I'll say this, Travis, I sure won't have to worry if Willow
catches me in the river again. You took care of any concerns in that
regard."

 
          
 
"Sorry, coon. I figgered I'd take ye out
afore ye fooled around and hurt me."

 
          
 
"It's going to be a long afternoon on the
back of that bony mare."

 
          
 
Travis's face had resumed that flinty look.
"Yep. Ain't nothing come free, hoss. Trail's never easy ter follow, and
being a mite uncomfortable of an occasion makes a coon think a little
clearer."

 
          
 
"I'll remember that," Richard
growled, as he eased himself onto the mare's back. But all he could remember
was the look in
Willow
's soft eyes as she walked away that day.

 
          
 
Man being born, as has been proved, with a
title to perfect freedom and uncontrolled enjoyment of all the rights and
privileges of the law of nature, equally with any other man or number of men in
the world, hath by nature a power, not only to preserve his property, that is,
his life, liberty, and estate, against injuries and attempts of other men, but
to judge of and punish the breaches of that law in others, as he is persuaded
the offence deserves, even with death itself.

 
          
 
—John Locke, Liberalism in Politics

 
          
 
Baptiste led the way, trotting his horse
ahead, rifle butt propped on his saddle. On the right, Travis rode with his
Hawken across the saddle bows. With each movement of the horses, their long
fringe swayed, beadwork glinted, and long hair danced in the wind. To Richard's
eyes, they looked like barbarians crossing the flat floodplain. This was Ree
country. From the time they'd crossed the Grand River, about five miles back,
Travis and Baptiste had been increasingly worried. They'd ridden warily through
the scrubby bur oak, green ash, and elms that fringed the base of the
cedar-studded bluff that rose like a wall to the west. What a hot, sweltering
day. The sun stood straight overhead, and through a faint tracery of high
clouds, burned the sky white. Silvery mirages shimmered as heat waves played
across the hot ground. Insects buzzed and the horses' feet swished through the
brittle grass.

 
          
 
"Ain't no telling about these hyar
Rees," Travis warned. "Best check yer load."

 
          
 
Richard did so, making sure the priming powder
still filled the pan on his Hawken. Then asked, "Maybe you'd better tell
me about the Arikara? Related to the Pawnee, correct?"

 
          
 
"Uh-huh." Travis barely nodded.
"Baptiste, hyar, he lived with 'em fer longer than this child. Hell, he
talks then-talk, knows most of 'em fer the thieving souls they is."

 
          
 
Baptiste shrugged, squinting around from under
the brim of his black hat. "I don't cotton to them being thieves. Hell,
they just been pushed too far, coon."

 
          
 
"Pushed?" Richard asked.

 
          
 
"They been on the river fer years."
Baptiste waved back toward the south. "Remember all them old villages we
seen? The houses has caved in and weeds has growed up, but you'll see them big
round holes in the ground. Time was, they had more'n thirty villages stretching
up from the Platte clear to the Mandans. Then the Missouri and Osage come. The
Omaha and Sioux and Iowa. Sickness come, too. One by one, the Rees quit their
villages, moved in with kin fer protection."

 
          
 
"Why were the other Indians so mad at
them?" Richard glanced around at the foreboding flats.

 
          
 
"Injuns don't need ary a reason,"
Travis muttered. "They enjoy killing each other just fer the fun of
it."

 
          
 
Baptiste snorted irritably. "Man can't
live without the itch to whack another man and take what's his'n. Don't make no
matter. That's just the way men are. So the Rees come heah, to this part of the
river. . . mostly 'cause the Omaha and Blackbird didn't want it. Look around.
Not much wood grows here. Not like back south on the Platte, or up north in the
Mandan lands. But the Rees hung on, fighting fer their lives against the Sioux
and the others. Then the smallpox come. Blackbird died, and the Omaha didn't
control the trade no more. The Sioux beat Hob outa the downriver tribes and the
Rees figgered their day'd come."

 
          
 
"Tell him about the chiefs." Travis
tightened his grip on his sweat-stained Hawken.

 
          
 
"Rees is different," Baptiste said
as he scanned the brush. "They set right store by chiefs. Descended from
Nes-anu ..."

 
          
 
"Who?"

 
          
 
"Nesanu. That's the Ree name fer God.
Some Injuns out heah, Sioux, Cheyenne, Omaha, they picks a chief by what he
says and does. Not the Rees or the Pawnee. If'n yer daddy be a chief, you'll be
a chief, and yer son after that. Nobles, that's the word Lisa called 'em. It's
passed through the family, and each village had a chief. Like a son from God.
So they call their chiefs Nesanu, after God."

 
          
 
"That doesn't sound so odd. People have
been doing that in Europe for centuries." Richard wiped at the sweat that
trickled over old mosquito bites. His horse shied and sidestepped nervously as
a coiled rattlesnake buzzed at them.

 
          
 
"Wal, coon, imagine thirty villages mixed
inter just two. And each chief plumb equal with every other one. It's like
having fifteen different captains in one boat. All they do is fight with each
other. Hell, give a Ree chief a chance ter lift hair on a Sioux or another Ree
chief, and sure as sun in the morning, he'll take that Ree's hair.''

 
          
 
"That's lunacy!" Richard swatted at
a fly that persisted in buzzing around.

 
          
 
"Ter yer way of thinking," Travis
agreed, "but it's plumb normal fer Ree."

 
          
 
"Why did they attack Ashley?"
Richard watched three buzzards spiraling on the hot air. A sign? Since his
encounter with the wechashawakan, he'd begun to wonder about such things—much
to the disgust of his rational side.

 
          
 
"Trade. What else?" Baptiste cocked
his head to glance at Richard. "In the beginning, Lewis and Clark come
through and told 'em that the Americans was a-coming to trade. The Rees
figgered it was their chance. Then the Americans started passing right on by,
headed fer the Mandans and Hidatsas. Rees watched all them goods going upriver,
and no letup in the Sioux attacks, and all that was left was being poor and
dirty. Hell, the Sioux call the Rees their 'women,' 'cause the Rees plant the
corn, tan the hides, and the Sioux come take 'em whenever they wants."

 
          
 
"Don't matter," Travis replied.
"Rees is cutthroats and thieves. A Ree brave will sell ye his woman, and
cut yer throat as soon as yer pizzle's pumped dry."

 
          
 
"So do Sioux," Baptiste shot back.
"And Mandan, and Hidatsa, and Crow, and all the rest. So don't ye go on
about—"

 
          
 
"They don't cut yer throat the next
instant!" Travis retorted hotly. His horse tossed its head and pranced
wide around a patch of brush.

 
          
 
"Wal, coon," Baptiste growled,
"we'd best not be fighting over it. You've yor way of thinking, Fs got
mine. I reckon we just ain't never gonna see eye to eye on Rees."

 
          
 
"Reckon not," Travis groused, then
gave Baptiste a sly grin. The two rode close enough to playfully box each
other's shoulders.

 
          
 
'Travis, why don't you like the Rees?"
Richard asked.

 
          
 
"Rees have wiped out too many good
friends over the years. I reckon it fogs a feller's thinking about them red
bastards."

 
          
 
"Thar she be." Baptiste pointed
across the flats.

 
          
 
Through the glassy heat waves, Richard could
see the village: several rounded houses on the dusty bluff that overlooked the
river. The palisade still stood in places, charred black, and gaping like
broken teeth.

 
          
 
"Someone's thar!" Baptiste cried,
pulling up his horse.

 
          
 
Travis slowed his animal and slumped in the
saddle, inspecting the flats with uneasy eyes before squinting at the distant
remains of the Ree village.

 
          
 
"Tarnation and brimstone," Travis
growled. "I never did figger all them coons had hightailed after
Leavenworth shot 'em up."

 
          
 
Richard swallowed hard, realizing that these
weed-filled flats had once been small cornfields. The ruined village, the
desolate fields, the heat, all seemed nothing more than a pale reflection of
Hell.

 
          
 
"What now?" Richard asked.
"Will they attack us?"

 
          
 
Travis licked his lips, his gnarled thumb
curling around the cock on his rifle. "Wal, coons, we got ter foller the
river. The Maria's gonna make camp right about hyar, tonight. If'n there's ter
be Ree trouble, we'd best find out."

 
          
 
"You mean ride in there?" Richard
glanced back and forth between the men.

 
          
 
Baptiste flashed white teeth in a wide smile.
"You figger since I lived with 'em, they might not shoot us right
off?"

 
          
 
"Crossed my mind, coon. What's in yer
noodle?"

 
          
 
"Oh, I reckon they won't shoot me right
off—leastways, not till they shoots you and Dick fust."

 
          
 
"Yer sure sassy fer a black beaver/'
Travis slapped his leg. "All right, let's ride easy. First sign of
trouble, we break and run like Hell's jackrabbits fer the boat. Dave'll need
all the warning he can get."

 
          
 
Travis dropped back beside Richard, pointing
at the ruined village. "During the Leavenworth fight, the chief hyar was
called Little Soldier. About the time it looked like they was nigh ter getting
wiped out, he come out under a flag of truce to talk. Told old Leavenworth that
if the army'd hide him from the Sioux, he'd help destroy the village. Ye can't
trust a Ree, Dick. Never fergit that."

 
          
 
"He was trying to save his kin,"
Baptiste called back. "White folks don't always understand what kin can
mean to a man."

 
          
 
Travis said nothing in reply, but narrowed an
eye.

 
          
 
"The place looks deserted," Richard
noted as they rode closer to the remains of the charred palisade.

 
          
 
"Yep," Baptiste said, clipped. 'But
I make it out to be right around ten lodges rebuilt."

 
          
 
Richard studied the brown mounds Baptiste
indicated. Looking closely, he could see a thin strand of blue smoke rising
from within the village. Here and there, small plots of corn, beans, and squash
were growing—but not very well. Dogs began to bark.

 
          
 
"It ain't the whole tribe." Travis
scowled. "I'd guess about fifty people."