Then, to everyone’s surprise, the attacking warriors stopped, all of them waiting in a group just out of rifle range. They were watching the lanced man, who was walking slowly toward them, the two ends of the lance protruding from either side of his body.
“Now, there’s a sight,” Charbonneau said. “Stuck clear through and still walking. Ever see anything like that, Tom?”
“No, but my brother was shot clean through with a bullet—that occurred in a barroom in Cincinnati, Ohio, and my brother is as active today as any man you’d want to know,” Tom said. “The bullet missed his heart, missed his lungs … and there you are. I suppose a lance like that could go through and miss the vitals—that’s what it looks like happened.”
“No it couldn’t—no it couldn’t,” Kit Carson said.
He did not like the sight of a man who must obviously be dead walking around on the prairie.
“They do say the Blackfeet are tough as bears,” Charbonneau announced.
Jim Snow, though not apprehensive, was as startled as Kit Carson at the sight of a lanced man walking. The Blackfeet warriors seemed startled too—who could blame them?
“Perhaps that wicked Piegan is filled with such a power of sin that even the Sin Killer cannot subdue him,” Mary Berrybender suggested, with her usual, slightly insane smile.
“Shut up, that’s nonsense,” Tasmin insisted—but Jim refused to second her objection. He just looked hard at Mary, a girl he had been suspicious of ever since he came upon her talking to a snake. He knew that he had been very lucky in his race to save the Broken Hand. It was not often that a warrior dropped a lance—surprise had caused it. Luck, not skill particularly, had decided that struggle. And here the man came, walking slowly—but walking.
“I’m in a hurry for that man to die,” Kit Carson said. “It’s way past time for him to die.”
“I guess Piegans don’t feel like they have to die just because you want them to, Kit,” the Broken Hand said. “I would have died this afternoon myself, if Jimmy hadn’t come on that fast mare.”
The Indians were talking to the wounded man, who seemed to be delivering a firm opinion. Then one of the older Indians came walking slowly toward the post. The other Blackfeet watched. The fighting urge seemed to have left them, for a time.
“Well, I’ll swear, they want to parley, after chasing me five miles,” Tom said. “Do you want to go talk to them, Sharbo?”
“I can’t talk much Blackfoot—just a few words,” Charbonneau admitted. “What about yourself?”
“I’m no better at it,” Tom said. “The Blackfeet don’t have many whites as guests. There’s not much opportunity to learn their lingo.”
“I can talk a little,” Pierre Boisdeffre said. He was a trader—his job depended on getting along with Indians; otherwise they might burn his trading post down.
“All three of you go, then,” Jim said. “Just don’t wander out far enough that they can cut you off.”
“I suppose we all know better than that, Jimmy,” the Broken Hand said, with a touch of impatience.
Charbonneau, Boisdeffre, and the Broken Hand all walked out of the stockade. After a few minutes of conversation in sign, they all came slowly back.
“They want a horse,” Boisdeffre said. “That fellow with the lance stuck through him wants to go home to die—I guess he don’t think he can make it if he has to walk.”
“They’re not having my mare Augusta—or the carriage horses either,” Lord Berrybender announced. Though severely blistered, his face peppered with gunpowder, he was not blinded—though he did have gunpowder on his eyelids, a circumstance that did not improve his temper.
“No need—give them Joe Walker’s mule,” Boisdeffre suggested. “I’ll pay Joe for her myself.” What was the price of a mule compared to the distress of watching his trading post burn?
Tasmin, Jim, and all the rest went up to the lookout to watch Pierre Boisdeffre deliver the mule. The animal was duly turned over, and the wounded man carefully lifted onto its back.
“I doubt we’ll ever see a thing like that again,” Charbonneau said, as they watched the party of Blackfeet move slowly off to the west.
“I hope not,” Kit Carson said. “Once is enough to have to look at a dead man who won’t die.”
33
The wounded man was called Antelope …
OLD Moose, the leader of the little band of Blackfeet who had been trying to chase down the trapper known as the Broken Hand, led the small mule that the wounded warrior rode. The wounded man was called Antelope, because he could outrun anyone in the tribe—or anyone in any tribe, for that matter. Antelope was a very fast runner, though it was not likely that he had much more fast running to do. How fast could a man run with a long stob stuck through him? That he was still alive was wonder enough. Old Moose and everyone else in the band expected Antelope to fall over dead at any moment. Old Moose tried to pick a smooth route, so as not to jostle Antelope too much—a man with a lance through his breast would not enjoy being jostled.
In fact, though, to everyone’s surprise, Antelope did not seem to be feeling too bad.
“Let’s go a long way before we camp, otherwise the Sin Killer might come and stick spears in all of you,” he suggested.
“I’m not sure that was the Sin Killer,” Old Moose said. “He was moving so fast I didn’t get a good look at him.”
“Of course it was him,” Two Ribs Broken said. “He killed a bunch of moose up north—the Assiniboines told me. They call him the Raven Brave. They were mad because they wanted all those moose for themselves.”
“Don’t be in a hurry to camp,” Antelope repeated.
There was a bright moon, so the Blackfeet traveled deep into the night. Even if the Sin Killer wasn’t following them, someone might sneak up on them and try to steal their mule. Everyone still expected Antelope to give up his ghost any minute, but he didn’t—instead, he began to eat jerky—tough jerky from an old mountain goat Two Ribs Broken had killed.
Antelope’s main problem was that he now had to sleep on his side—the protruding lance made it impossible for him to turn on his back.
“I don’t like sleeping on my side,” he complained, and yet he was up at dawn and walked over to a nearby creek, where he drank plenty of water.
The band began to face the fact that they were likely to have Antelope on their hands for at least another day. He was not particularly well liked. Thanks to his speed of foot he got a lot of attention from the women, including the wives of several members of the party. In general the man was aloof, but there he was, with a lance stuck through him, just as difficult as he had always been.
“I think we could pull that lance out of you if several of us pull,” Old Moose suggested. Antelope’s state of health struck him as ridiculous. Was he really going to have to walk along leading a mule all day because Antelope was too stubborn to die?
“No, if you did that my soul might fly out,” Antelope said. “I don’t want my soul to get away.”
Antelope’s comment provoked much debate— when it came to the tricky business of souls, opinions differed. Who knew what might prompt a soul to leave? Two Ribs Broken sided with Antelope this time, though he had never cared for the man much.
“He’s right—it would be risky,” he said.
The band traveled all that day, shot a doe, and wounded a buffalo; at night, though he complained about having to sleep on his side, Antelope was still very much alive.
Some of the warriors were of the opinion that Antelope wasn’t really a human being, since a human being would undoubtedly have died of such a wound. A small warrior named Red Weasel was now firmly convinced that Antelope was some kind of witch. Red Weasel thought the best thing to do was to cut the witch’s throat, a plan he had to abandon because no one would agree to help him.
“If we had a saw we could saw off this lance right where it goes into my body—then I wouldn’t have to sleep on my side,” Antelope remarked.
“There a
re saws at the camp,” Old Moose told him. “I guess we can try something like that when we get home.”
When they reached their main camp the next day there was, of course, much comment about the fact that Antelope had come back with a lance sticking out of his body. The strongest man in the tribe, Bull, thought he could give the lance one good jerk and pull it out, but Antelope refused to allow Bull to try it, on the grounds that it would provide too good an opportunity for his soul to escape.
A saw was found, and duly sharpened; the lance ends were sawed off so close to Antelope’s body that a few scraps of his skin were sawed off too. But such discomforts were minor. Instead of a floppy lance handle, Antelope now merely had a neat plug, could sleep on his back again, and even decided to change his name. His new name was Man with a Plug in His Belly. The women, to Old Moose’s disgust, paid him more attention than ever.
34
“Dern ’em, they should die when they’re supposed to!” he insisted.
PEOPLE won’t always die when they’re supposed to,” Tom Fitzpatrick insisted. All those who had watched the young warrior ride away with his own lance sticking out of his chest were confused in their heads about what they had just witnessed. Kit Carson was terribly agitated—he had stayed in the lookout tower until the little band of warriors was out of sight, hoping to see the wounded man fall dead; but he didn’t.
“Dern ’em, they should die when they’re supposed to!” he insisted. “Right’s right!”
“Now, Kit—just look at Hugh Glass,” the Broken Hand argued. “I’d never seen a man that torn up, and neither had Jimmy Bridger. Hugh’s chest was ripped open, most of his ribs were broken, and his scalp was nearly torn off. I thought he was dead and so did Jimmy, or we would never have left him, Sioux or no Sioux. But then, six months later, here he comes, as alive as I am.”
“I ’spect you all know Tom Smith,” Charbonneau remarked. “A horse fell on him and he busted his leg so bad that it couldn’t be set, so Tom sawed it off himself. Not only that, he got up the next day and whittled himself a fine peg leg.”
“One of Ashley’s men had to have his guts sewed back in after that big fight with the Rees,” Tom remembered. “Hugh Glass helped hold his guts in and Jedediah Smith did the sewing.”
“I have seen a few sights in that line myself,” Lord Berrybender remarked. Though Milly had done her best, his face still looked as if it had been nastily peppered.
“The Spaniards, you know, are cruel to their own peasants,” Lord B. continued. “Stick ’em on sharpened tree stumps and leave them to die. Picked a fellow off that had been stuck on a stake for two days— the surgeon sewed him up and off he went. Never know what humans will stand until you’ve seen a bit of war.”
Though Jim Snow listened to all this talk about combat wounds and mutilation, he did not contribute. Some men were tough, there was no denying that, but his failure to kill the young warrior still puzzled him. A bullet was a small thing—it might pass straight through and do little damage. But a lance? Yet the man had walked almost a mile, got on a mule, and rode away.
Pierre Boisdeffre was fretting that this miracle would embolden the Blackfeet, who were plenty bold anyway. The medicine men would use the incident to belittle the power of the whites. A hundred warriors
might move against them tomorrow—he doubted that his little stockade would stop a hundred warriors.
“I expect it’s time to start south,” Jim said to Kit.
“I don’t see why,” Kit said, and then he got up and walked off. Everyone agreed that lately young Kit had been impossible to deal with.
“There’s not a better guide in the West than our Kit,” Tom said. “Only he takes bossing. What he can’t do is boss himself.”
Jim walked back to the nursery, which had been undisturbed by the brief attack. The mood in the nursery was calm, so calm that Jim felt awkward about going in. Monty had just nursed; he hung from a peg, waving his tiny hands. Tasmin was drowsing; she hardly yet had her strength back, which discouraged Jim’s inclination to strike out on their own and let the Berrybender party follow Kit and Tom. With Tasmin still weak, it might be best to stay with the group.
“Can’t I just trim your beard?” Tasmin asked, waking. Jim had the confined look he got when he was indoors.
The request annoyed Jim—she could immediately see it. Men were prickly about the least things, it seemed. Why would a snip or two cause him to draw away? Nothing made her feel as wifely as cutting Jim’s hair, and yet he did his best to withhold the privilege.
“You and your snippin’,” he said. “You need to get packed—you all do. We need to get out of here while the getting’s good.”
Tasmin refused to give up—she felt that she must
put up a fight, else Jim would never let her do the things she wanted to do.
“Please, just a trim,” she said. “I have very little to pack.”
“If he won’t let you cut his hair, I’ll let you cut mine, Tasmin,” Vicky said. She had been happy for a bit with her babe, but Lord Berrybender’s brutal indifference, plus the absence of Drummond Stewart, had caused her to sink back into glum resignation. If she was to have only the love of her baby, why bother with three feet of hair?
Jim Snow turned and left, his beard unsnipped, which left Tasmin furiously annoyed. When Vicky made it clear that she meant what she had said, Tasmin grabbed some scissors and applied herself with such vigor that virtually the whole floor of the nursery—not a large room—was soon covered with Vicky’s shorn locks. Coal and Little Onion watched in amazement—neither of them had ever seen so much hair come off one head.
As Tasmin clipped and cut, Buffum came in to watch, and then Cook and even Eliza. Only Milly missed the cutting—as usual she was busy with Lord Berrybender, who was just getting fitted with a wooden leg, the work of the skillful Tom Fitzpatrick, who had been shaping it for several days.
“It looks a good fit, you’ll soon be hopping about like a cricket,” Millicent assured His Lordship, who did not welcome the comparison.
“Perhaps not quite like a cricket,” he said. Helpful as she was, Millicent did not exactly have a way with words.
When Vicky Kennet first saw her new self in the mirror she could not hold in a shriek.
“I’m shorn like a nun—though I don’t feel like a nun,” she admitted.
“As usual, Tasmin has overdone it,” Mary commented. “She has cut off far too much.”
“Tasmin should have left you a bit more on top,” Buffum ventured. “To me you look rather rabbity, I fear.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” said Father Geoffrin, who had just wandered in. “In fact you look quite Joan of Arc-ish. I hope you won’t be foolish enough to attempt martyrdom.”
“Look at all this hair on the floor,” Bobbety exclaimed. “It’s as if a great yak has been sheared—or a musk ox, even.”
“I might remind you skeptics that Venetia’s hair will grow,” Tasmin said. She was annoyed by the superior tone everyone was adopting.
From Coal’s point of view, and Little Onion’s, the great pile of shorn hair was the most exciting thing about the whole procedure. When Vicky indicated to them that they could have what had once been her great mane, the girls were almost overcome with excitement. In no time they had sacked up every hair—when Tasmin tried to find out what they meant to do with it the girls gave merry shrugs—they didn’t know, really, but were firmly convinced that they had secured a treasure.
Then, almost at the same moment, to the surprise of all the onlookers, both Tasmin and Vicky began to cry.
“What in the world is it now, in this year of our Lord 1833?” Buffum wanted to know.
“It’s … it’s … ,” Tasmin gasped—but then she stopped.
“It’s … just … that life seems so wanting—I think I’ll smash my cello,” Venetia Kennet said.
35
“… and now he’s chopping up the buggy.”
BEFORE Vicky Kennet could carry out thi
s desperate action—one which would deprive them all of music for a very long time, as Tasmin, Buffum, Bobbety, Father Geoff, and even Mary pleadingly informed her—who should rush in but the large laundress, Millicent, sporting a large bruise on one cheek and blubbering loudly.
“Oh, please help me, Lady Tasmin,” Milly pleaded. “First Lord Berrybender claimed that his peg leg was too short, and now he’s chopping up the buggy.”
“What?” Tasmin asked. “Has the old fool gone mad? We need that buggy.”
“It’s just that he’s drunk and in a violent temper, I’m afraid,” Milly cried. “When I tried to grab the axe from him he hit me quite a solid lick—not with the axe, of course, else I’d be dead.”
“Being Papa’s bawd is a rough job, just ask our Vicky,” Mary said, with her mad grin.
They all rushed to the courtyard, where Milly’s statements were soon confirmed. Lord Berrybender, swinging the axe wildly, had almost succeeded in reducing the fine London buggy to a pile of kindling.
Kit Carson and Tom Fitzpatrick stood nearby, solemnly watching the destruction. Of Jim Snow there was no sign.
“Very good, Father—I see you’ve been acting with your usual thoughtfulness,” Tasmin said. “We’ve three infants in our company, thousands of miles of wilderness to negotiate, and you suddenly destroy our buggy—what’s the sense in that?”
Lord B. ignored her remarks.
“I never liked that buggy,” he informed them. “Felt damn good, chopping it up.”
“I suppose this means you intend to cram us all in the wagon, then?” Tasmin inquired.
“Not at all—the wagon is for Millicent and me and my guns and shot,” Lord B. replied. “No squalling brats invited—might scare the game. Besides, Milly and I will be wanting a little rest now and then—a little time out for human nature.”
“Fornication, you mean—spare us these vague euphemisms,” Tasmin said, in high indignation. “I do think you’re the most selfish old bastard I’ve ever encountered. So Vicky and Coal and the rest of us will just have to walk, if we hope to get anywhere.”