The Morning River

  Big Yellow indicated his silent people. "My friends can see my children. Their arms and legs are thin, their bellies hang out. Look at the hunger in their eyes. Look at my women. They wear only what the Sioux have left us. Their dresses are worn thin. The milk in their breasts will not feed their children."

  Big Yellow fixed Travis with level eyes. "Is this what the White men wished? To see us so?"

  "Reckon not," Travis said carefully. "They's hard times ter go around fer everybody."

  Big Yellow betrayed no expression. "We have not seen hunger or want in the eyes of the Sioux."

  "Them coons take what they want. It ain't just the Rees that they've been raiding and stealing from."

  "I do not worry about others," Big Yellow stated. "I worry about my people, Bear Man."

  "You know the trade," Travis countered. "We got ter go where the beaver is. How many beaver can ye trade?"

  The weary smile creased Big Yellow's lips. "The time for easy talk is past, Bear Man. I will tell you how the Rees think about trade. We trade among ourselves, but it is to make things balance. Some do not have what they need, so we trade that all may share. In the beginning, we thought the White men were like Nesanu, powerful, surrounded by wonderful things inside and outside their bodies. We did not understand how you could live in our houses, eat our food, and not share everything you had with us, as we share with each other. Nesanu taught us to give something to everyone. But you White men keep as much as you can for yourselves. We have never understood how you could be so selfish. Until I met a White man, I did not know the word ‘profit’."

  "That's the way of trade." Travis pulled at his beard. "A trader has to take all he can get. If n he don't, he can't trade fer more knives, guns, and powder. Ree ways and white ways is different. Killing traders ain't gonna fix it. Why'd ye pick a fight?"

  Big Yellow rubbed a callused hand on his bare arm. "It was because we thought you were our friends. It was because we offered you everything, and then you left us to be killed by the Sioux. In the beginning, when Nesanu made the world, he made it so that people would share with their friends. How does the White man act when a friend stabs him in the back? Does he not pick up his rifle and make war? Is that not what you did when the British came to trade on the river?"

  Travis rolled his jaw from side to side. Hell, that's what they'd told the damn Injuns. Lisa had set in this very village and explained the war that way.

  "You do not need to answer, Bear Man." Big Yellow straightened his back. "This chief understands now that your ways are different, that you do not have Nesanu s words in your heart. Some of my people have told me I am a fool for coming back here to the river. They have said that I will die here, killed by the Sioux, or by the Whites." He pointed across the heads of the watchers to a low dirt mound. "My ancestors lay there, in that earth. I can feel their sishu, their souls. That is why I am here. If we are to die, it will be on our land, among our ancestors. So many of them are dead because of the wickedness in your souls, my life would only be one more."

  "Cain't nobody keep disease away." Travis took a deep breath, his nerves tight as fiddle strings.

  "Perhaps, Bear Man." Big Yellow's bug-eyed stare drilled into Travis. "We are poor now. You see what we have. When Green's boat comes, will you trade? Big Yellow understands that you are taking most of your wonderful things to our enemies, but we will offer what we can."

  Travis chewed his lip, considering. A dirty, moon-faced child watched him with round eyes. The kid's hair was matted, and he sucked on muddy fingers.

  "Reckon we'll trade some," Travis admitted. "Ain't much, but it will help."

  Big Yellow nodded slowly. "It will help. Your men will have been long time without women. Once, we thought it curious that you had no women of your own. It was believed that a man could give his woman to you, and afterward, he could gain some of your Power by lying with her. I think now that it was a lie. No man ever gained White Power through his woman that way. If we had, we would not be like we are today."

  "Boat will be up by dark," Travis said. "Reckon we'll trade what we can. But, Big Yellow, yer a wise old coon. It wouldn't do fer some warrior ter get outa sorts. Let's keep folks separate fer the most part. Less likely ter be an accident that way."

  "Reckon so, coon," Big Yellow agreed.

  "So, what's happening?" Richard wondered as they walked toward their horses.

  "We're gonna trade," Travis answered. "Hell, they ain't got squat but women to offer. Only thing we're getting is free passage and a lighter load."

  "But it beats a fight," Baptiste replied, eyes half-lidded.

  "Women?" Richard sighed.

  "It's about all they got," Travis reminded.

  "I'd call that whoring."

  "Not according ter their lights, and it'll fill a couple of these kids' bellies."

  Maria lay tied off on the bank below the Arikara village. Laughter carried on the warm night breeze. A half moon hung low over the dissected buttes east of the river, and stars dusted the sky. Far to the south, flickers of lightning danced, but no sound of thunder reached them.

  This is an awful place. Willow sat on the cargo box beside Travis. She rubbed her smooth shins and watched the firelit bank. Unease, like a subtle undercurrent, twined with her puha. She could sense the spirits here, troubled and crying. It would be better to leave this place of sorrows.

  Green stood just below them, a rifle in his hands. Richard sat at the bow, his Hawken across his lap while Henri stood guard at the stern. Baptiste was ashore with Big Yellow, keeping a wary eye on the engages who dallied with the Ankara women.

  Bonfires illuminated the ruined village in a ghostly glow; human shadows wavered against the palisade and earth lodges.

  "Looks a mite more peaceful than the last time I was hyar," Travis said. "Reckon we'll get nigh away without trouble. Green and me, we done decided, about an hour afore dawn, we're heading out. Reckon them coons best wet their pizzles, 'cause we'll be humping backs upriver hard. Leastways, until we make a distance atwixt us and the Rees."

  Willow filled her lungs with the musky scent of the river and slapped a mosquito that landed on her arm. "Can you feel them, Trawis?"

  "Huh? Feel what?"

  "The spirits. Some angry, others so sad."

  He cocked his head, concentrating. "Don't know, gal. I been on edge ever since we got hyar. Reckon this place has done gone sour. It's them kids. The way they was looking at me. I never give much thought to kids afore. That's the saddest part."

  "Green did not like giving them flour and so much food."

  "Nope. Might make things a tad tight come winter on the Big Horn. We'd best hope we make a good fall hunt and the buffs is down in the valleys this winter. Bellies might be a shade gaunted up otherwise."

  She reached out, laying a hand on his arm. "If you are worthy, Tarn Apo will provide."

  Travis sucked his lip for a moment, then shrugged. "I had me a dream back when ye made that travois. Saw old Manuel Lisa and his coons. They told me the river was dying."

  "Baptiste says it is because of the White men. I think he is right. The water may continue to run, but the river's soul will wither."

  "Yer a different sort, Willow. Ye see more than most folks."

  "I have always been different." She rubbed her hands together. "At times it has made my life hard. I have been told I ask too many questions."

  Richard shifted, and Willow couldn't help but watch him. If only . . .

  Travis, ever keen, noticed and studied her from the corner of his eye. "He's a good man. Reckon the two of ye'd do right nice together."

  She shifted on the hard deck. "We follow two different trails. He to the east and his people, and I to the west." But her soul was haunted by the warmth in his brown eyes, and the tender way he touched things. If she closed her eyes, she could imagine the sensation of his fingers on her skin, the warmth of his body against hers.

  "Different worlds can join, gal. It ain't always a gonna fall apart."
>
  "The White world touched the Ankara. What do they have left? Begging for food? Selling their women? I have heard the talk. The cut-throat Sioux say Arikara are like women to them. They make things just so the Sioux can come and take them away."

  "Sioux is tough coons. Trouble is, they's so many of them."

  "They have strong medicine."

  "Reckon." Travis rubbed his ruined nose and mashed a mosquito that had settled from the humming hoard. "To my way of thinking, it makes Baptiste's notions wrong. If'n whites destroy everything in their path, the Sioux otta be about wrecked, too. But they ain't. Seems to this child that they just get stronger and stronger."

  "Perhaps."

  They shared a long silence.

  Travis asked, ''Something happened back at the Grand Detour. Dick and ye, ye ain't been the same since. Each of ye is sad way down deep in the heart."

  "We saw truth in each other's eyes, Trawis." She batted at the cloud of mosquitoes. "I cannot go to Boston. I am told it isn't my place. He would not like life among the Dukurika. What more needs to be said?"

  "He don't know that." Travis resettled his rifle. "He figgered he'd hate the river. Hell, he still thinks he hates it, but ye've seen the shine come ter his eyes. He's becoming a man, Willow. He just ain't got his sights set straight yet. A feller don't know what he's got until he can see forward and backward. I reckon Dick's still looking back so hard, he can't cotton ter what's right afore his nose."

  "I do not understand."

  "He's fixed on Boston, and some gal named Laura."

  "Who is this Laura?" What was her Power, that she could hold Ritshard from so far away?

  Travis shifted nervously. "Wal, she's little sister to a friend of his. Said she'd let him come court if'n he come back. It ain't final, ye understand, just an agreement to pay court. Them Boston folks do things that way."

  "And she is a lady?" Willow's stomach soured at the thought. "Is that what he wants? A lady in a box? To be taken care of?"

  Travis plucked absently at the fringe hanging from his sleeve. "He ain't figgered out that his soul's been changed. It'll happen, but he's a bullheaded son of a bitch. Might take a spell yet. . . and maybe a good whack on the side of the head, but he'll see. He's a right savvy Doodle."

  She stilled the whirlwind that churned inside. What a fool I have been, "I cannot wait that long, Trawis. I have decisions of my own that must be made. His heart cannot rest until he has gone back to his Boston." And he can have his White lady, in her house, with her children, "Mine cannot find peace unless I can smell the trees, hear the birds, and enjoy a warm fire on a cold night."

  "Ye sure?"

  "Could you live in his Boston?"

  "Nope."

  She returned her attention to the Ree village, fists clenched at her side. "I think of good things, and they are all in my land. I want to see my father again, laugh with my mother. I want to hunt the mountain sheep again. We trap them in pens on the side of the mountain. My best memories are of cold mornings after a good kill. When you cut the animal open, the bodies smoke in the cold."

  "Steam. That's the word, gal."

  "Yes, steam. You know the smell, don't you? Of blood, and the insides of the animal. Sweet—and all the while, your soul knows that meat will be roasting, and your belly will be full. People will laugh and tell stories around the fires that night. They do not do these things in Boston?"

  "Nope. Folks buy meat all cut up."

  "That sweet smell, Trawis, that is the smell of life, of the animal's soul that will join with yours. At that moment, I know I'm part of Tarn Apo's world. I think these people in Boston do not know these things."

  Travis exhaled wearily.

  "What will happen when the White men come to my country? Will they take that sharing of life away?"

  "I don't know."

  "I think they will. They put their women in houses. They put their God in a house. I have heard Green tell me that other Injuns, Shawnee, Cherokee, Iroquois, have all been put in places. Is that what White men do? Will they try to put the Dukurika in a place, like flour in a barrel?"

  "Yer Snakes are a long way away from whites."

  After an uncomfortable pause, she asked, "What about you, Trawis? Why don't you go back? You are a great warrior, a hunter, a powerful man. The Whites should make you a gentleman."

  He laughed at that, but she could hear the bitterness.

  Again the silence stretched.

  Finally he said, "Willow, I ain't sure the whites are gonna go clear ter the Snake lands. Traders, sure. But not the farmers. It'd take some doing ter make a living in the mountains. Hell, there ain't nothing there. I seen the Snake country. It's too damn dry fer growing corn. Only thing a body can do is hunt. And I ain't seen a damn thing can be done with sagebrush but burn it in a fire—and hardwood's the beat of sagebrush any old day."

  "I think they will come, Trawis." She rubbed her legs harder, as if to scrub the thought away. "I think the White man wants everything he can get—even if it is only sagebrush to burn in the fires."

  "Ye make it sound like poor bull, gal."

  She pointed at the village. "Is that fat cow?"

  Travis pulled at his beard. 'The Rees went to war with the whites. That's what comes of killing white men." He paused. "There's other ways, gal. Snakes could join the whites, help fight the Blackfeet. It wouldn't have ter be grief. Yer warriors know the country. And ain't the Black-feet more trouble fer ye than the whites would be?"

  "My people would kill a man like Trudeau. This would not make other White men mad?"

  "Hell, I'd like ter kill him, too." But again she heard hesitation in his voice.

  "You have answered my question, Trawis. Now do you see why Ritshard and I must go our different ways?"

  And I must go mine, at the first chance. If she didn't, the sadness within would slowly consume her soul. Laura? What kind of a name was that?

  Beside her, Travis stared glumly into the night.

  THIRTY-ONE

  But the most frequent reasons why men desire to hurt each other ariseth hence, that many men at the same time have an appetite to the same thing; which yet often they can neither enjoy in common, nor yet divide it; whence it follows that the strongest must have it, and who is strongest must be desided by the sword.

  —Thomas Hoboes, Leviathan

  The four days they'd spent alternately towing and poling the Maria away from the Ree village had drained everyone's gumption. Green had finally called a halt, here, on a grassy bluff that looked out over an oxbow of the sun-silvered river.

  Richard lay propped on his elbows, chewing the sweet stalk of a bluestem. The western breeze had carried the earliest of mosquitoes away. Every muscle ached from the time he'd spent on the cordelle, adding his strength to the work.

  A wasp landed on his thigh. With a thumb and forefinger, he flicked the beast away and squinted up at the triangular cottonwood leaves. His soul squirmed between his growing desire for Willow and his commitment to Laura.

  Across from him, Baptiste skinned a monstrous rattlesnake, peeling the scaly green hide from pink meat.

  Travis lay flat on his back in the shade, his worn felt hat pulled low to shield his eyes. The hunter had fallen into a deep sleep, chest rising and falling slowly. The up-tipped face visible beneath the sagging hat brim exposed the crisscross tracery of white scars and bush of beard.

  For the moment, Richard envied Travis his lack of responsibility. How pleasant it would be to flit about, never making a commitment to any woman. But how hollow would he feel in the end, when he finally realized that he'd never fully shared his life with a woman?

  I hereby resolve I will not make that mistake, Richard decided.

  Green and Henri, as usual, sat before the booshway's tent, their talk perpetually on the river and whether the water was rising or falling.

  The other engages lay like logs, with only the unlucky mess captains seeing to fires and cookpots. Grasshoppers chirred in the lazy air, while magpies a
nd robins flitted through the bur oak ringing the meadow.

  Richard stretched and winced at his cramped limbs. He turned his head, wondering what had happened to Willow— and from the corner of his eye, caught sight of Trudeau.

  Something about the man focused Richard's attention.

  Usually, the boatman swaggered, but now he walked furtively, a slight crouch suggested by his steps as he eased into the fringe of bur oaks.

  I'm too damned tired to worry about him. Richard took a deep breath and lay back on his saddle, happy to let the afternoon sun warm his face. The world was filled with too many troubles as it was. Laura, Willow, his father; he'd begun to fret about all of them.

  Furtive? . . . Trudeau?

  He sat up with a grunt, and threw the grass stem away. Trudeau had vanished into the trees.

  Richard growled at himself and stood. He massaged the stiffness in his legs with equally stiff hands, and picked up his rifle. He turned his steps in the direction Trudeau had taken, unconsciously adopting the wary hunter's stalk that had become so familiar.

  The most likely path was a deer trail that wound westward, away from the river and toward the bluffs. Several of the pale leaves on a buffaloberry had been bruised where Trudeau had passed.

  On moccasined feet, Richard followed silently, employing all the skills Travis and Baptiste had tried so hard to beat into him.

  The trail wound uphill into the bluffs, past chokecherry and wild grape. It opened into a grassy cove lined with brush. Richard slowed as he spotted his prey. Trudeau crouched several steps ahead, screened from the clearing by a mass of oblate chokecherry leaves.

  On the far side of the clearing. Willow plucked the first ripened chokecherries off their stems. She dropped them one by one into a leather sack. Each night, she'd been collecting such foodstuffs, carefully drying them, and refusing to allow anyone to partake of her growing cache.