North Star

by Richard S. Wheeler

  “It is a warm day, good chief Gout Belly, and I have come to slap flies away from you while you enjoy the sun.”

  “I imagine you have something to tell me, then. There are no flies as yet, so man and horse still await their bites.”

  “We will be going to Mister Skye,” she said.

  He considered it. “Then the village will be the worse without you.”

  “We will go with you to as far as the Yellowstone Valley tomorrow. Then you will go east, but we will travel up the river.”

  “Grandmother, there will be no man to protect you and the Shoshone woman.”

  “Who says we want to be protected, eh?” She grinned wickedly at Gout Belly.

  “Then may a dozen Siksika catch you,” he said, referring to the Blackfeet, mortal enemies of the People.

  “I will turn them all into boys,” she said, enjoying the banter.

  He smiled. There were stories about Victoria, Many Quill Woman, told around many an Absaroka campfire deep in the night, to the sound of owls hooting.

  The next dawn the Kicked-in-the-Bellies band of the Absaroka Nation slowly assembled into a column. Mary and Victoria pulled the willow sticks from the lodge cover and let it sag to earth, and then folded it and carried it to the travois. Then they undid the lodgepoles and hung them in bundles from a packsaddle. They had put their possessions into Skye’s canvas panniers, and soon were ready.

  At midmorning the procession wound away from the campsite where they had wintered. The place stank of waste and was shorn of firewood and was grazed down to the clay of the meadows. The Kicked-in-the-Bellies headed down Sweet Grass Creek. When they reached the valley of the Yellowstone, it was time for Victoria and Mary to leave the Absaroka People, and head west.

  They watched the band until it was only a small dark line on the eastern horizon and then there was only silence and loneliness. Victoria nodded to Mary. It was time for them to head upriver. Mary sat inertly on her pony. When they were younger, she was often in the lead, eager to go wherever there was to go. Her face was still young and smooth, not like Victoria’s seamed coppery face that had seen so many winters. Mary was still young, but now she was acting old and weary.

  They rode their ponies over a faint trail that descended pine-dotted hills into the valley of the Yellowstone. Riding a pony wasn’t so easy anymore for Victoria. The sharp bony vertebrae of the horse seemed to slice Victoria in two. That was one thing about age. Everything hurt, even things that once were pleasant and joyous. But Victoria sternly set aside her hurts and focused instead on the ride, on safety, on taking themselves, hour by hour, to Mister Skye.

  They reached the riverbank during a spring squall, and continued westward along a worn trail, while wrapped in good blankets. That cold night they raised the lodge and found warmth and peace within.

  It was only then that she realized Mary had barely spoken all day. Mary had not resisted anything, balked at anything, shown discomfort at anything, but neither had she laughed or chattered or exclaimed, for instance, when a flock of geese rose en masse. There was only that silence, and a haunted look in Mary’s face. It had taken Victoria a while to discover it.

  She watched Mary collect wood and silently build a small fire, silently fill a kettle and set it to boil, silently stare into the hazy twilight, her mind some vast distance from this place and this company. It was as if Mary weren’t even present; that she had left Victoria in another world. Victoria kept her peace, said nothing, and watched closely.

  Perhaps it was only a mood.

  But as Victoria lay in her robes that early spring night, she realized that this silence had been present in Mary a long time. Present even when Skye was there, before he said he wanted a house. Mary had not visited with people in the village much. Winter times are merry times, when the People gamble, play games, flirt, and, above all, tell bawdy stories to while away the short days and bitter nights. But Mary had taken to staying in the lodge, and was often asleep, caught in her robes, when Skye or Victoria returned from a good night of storytelling and gossip.

  Victoria lay in her blanket, shocked at herself for missing this change in Skye’s Shoshone woman. She sensed that Mary of the Shoshone was so desolate that she scarcely cared about tomorrow. It was worse than sadness. Mary had been sad for several winters. No, this was something darker. And with another rush of understanding, she knew that there would be no happiness in Mary until the boy, North Star, would be returned to her. And that would never happen. The boy was far away, learning how to live as a white man.

  nine

  A cold gray dawn filtered through the smoke hole of the little lodge. Victoria knew what she must do. She arose quietly, padded into the frosty dawn, washed her face at the river, and then composed the words she would say to Mary.

  When she pierced the door flap, Mary was sitting up, looking as listless this morning as she had in the twilight.

  “Go to the river and wash. Then come back and heed my words,” Victoria said.

  Mary wrapped her blanket about her and vanished into the cold April dawn. Victoria waited, hunting for the words she still needed.

  It was time for Mary to return to her people. Over a long life, Victoria had watched captive women slowly wither away, lonely and lost, wives of tribesmen whose tongue they did not know, treated harshly by senior wives, little better than slaves. There was nothing left for them, and sometimes they walked into a bitter winter’s night never to return. She knew of Absaroka women taken by Siksika or Lakota warriors, women who never saw their own people again and simply died at an early age from the worst of all sickness, the disease of despair. Victoria had seen the reverse too, captive women taken by Absarokas in war, who spent the rest of their days in listless servitude right there in Absaroka villages. They died young and unmourned. It wasn’t always like that. Some women did well in other tribes and lived happily. But some didn’t.

  Mary, or Blue Dawn, had never been a prisoner, but had married Skye freely long ago and the marriage brimmed with promise. But ever since her sole child, North Star, was sent away to a white man’s school, Mary had slid farther and farther into solitude, which she had concealed with bright smiles. Victoria felt certain about the course she would take. Mary would go home to her people. If it angered Skye, Victoria would bear his anger. But Mary must leave, and this was a good moment for it, when everything was about to change. Maybe, among her brothers and their wives, life might return to Blue Dawn. Maybe not. But even as Victoria reasoned it out, she felt a hardening of her will.

  At last Mary slipped into the lodge and sat down, awaiting whatever might come.

  “I want you to go away from me. Go to your people. Take the lodge. I don’t need it.”

  “But, Grandmother …” Mary said, using the term of greatest respect.

  “Blue Dawn,” Victoria replied, using the Shoshone name, “I want you to visit your people. Your brother, The Runner, will be pleased to see you.”

  “But, Grandmother, I am the younger wife of Mister Skye.”

  “It is my command,” Victoria said roughly.

  Blue Dawn slid into her silences again.

  “Ahead is a crossing place, shallow and gravelly. And when you’re across, start downriver and turn off where the trail goes to the Big Horn Valley. You know it well. And when it reaches the Shoshone River, you will be in your people’s land again. Go!”

  “Yes, Grandmother, if you say it.”

  “You will take the lodge. I cannot raise it alone.”

  Mary started to protest. It was true. It was beyond Victoria’s powers now to lift the heavy lodge cover and pin it in place with willow sticks.

  “The lodge will tell all who see it that you are Mister Skye’s woman.”

  “It will say that. All the people know that lodge.”

  “There is a desert crossing, long and hard, before you reach the Shoshone River. Water your ponies well, and do not forget to take water for yourself.”

  “Yes, Grandmother.”

&
nbsp; “And honor the Shoshone people with my regards.”

  “I will tell them.”

  “And because you will be alone, go with great care.”

  “The spirits will guide me, Grandmother.”

  “We will know where you are and someday we will come for you. Now let us be off. The crossing is not far ahead.”

  For the first time in many days, Mary smiled.

  They broke camp swiftly and loaded the ponies. Mary would have three, two for the lodge and her saddle pony. Victoria would have only her quiet old mare. She would have her blankets, a piece of canvas, a sack with some provisions, her bow and quiver, and her small rifle. It would be fine.

  Two hours later they reached the crossing, and Victoria watched Mary lead her horses across a gravelly bar and negotiate the deeper channel on the far side, without trouble in this time of lowest water, just ahead of the spring flood. Then they stood a moment on opposite banks of the great river the white men called the Yellowstone. Mary lifted one brown hand high, and Victoria replied. Then Skye’s younger wife mounted, settled her skirts, and rode downriver, the packhorses just behind her.

  Victoria watched her go, knowing it was a good decision. A time with her people would lift Blue Dawn’s heart. Skye would approve. The low sun slanted toward the stream, raising sparkles wherever its rays touched the water. Mary’s trip would take an entire moon or so, and there would be danger in every step. She would follow the Yellowstone until it had flowed past the mightiest of all mountain ranges, the Beartooths, and then she would turn south and pass between the Beartooths and the Pryor Mountains, and then cross a terrible desert, and at last she would arrive in the lands cherished by her people, but she still would have many days of travel after that.

  Victoria eyed the trail westward with apprehension, not because of danger but because she felt her years and everything was harder to do. It was harder to stay warm, harder to find food, harder to find shelter. Harder to fend off wild animals. She felt an odd sadness, but pushed it aside. She would not surrender to sadness.

  All alone now, she braved a brisk west wind and walked her pony along a well-worn riverside trail. Her task was to find Skye. She had been his woman when they were young; she would be his woman now, until death separated them. She would be his woman until she was helpless; or maybe he would be her man until he was helpless. She didn’t need much care. She ate little more these days than a sparrow would. The only darkness she saw at all in great age was the lack of comfort. Neither she nor Skye could find much comfort these times. Their backs hurt, or their muscles, or they were too hot or cold, or their feet ached, or their food disagreed with them.

  “Sonofabitch!” she said to the wind. “I want some whiskey.”

  Spirits still killed the pain. But they rarely had any and couldn’t afford to buy any from the white men. With a few jugs of whiskey, old age wouldn’t be so hard. She’d once heard an old white man call it painkiller, and now she knew why.

  She loved whiskey sometimes, but not always. It took her senses away, and it was cruel too. There were other things she learned of long ago, when she received the healing wisdom of her people, good things that did no harm and brought spirit and body together. Now that she was old and hurt much of the time, these things had taken new meaning in her mind. She wanted to be whole, to make spirit and body one again, and not at war. There was one herb she carried with her for that. She prized the peppermint leaf above all else, and often made a tea of it. Deep in her kit, she had some. Just a little. Maybe she would find more. The peppermint, as white men called it, grew along riverbanks. This was a good tea, gathered and used by women. So was willow bark tea, which subdued pain and blessed the lower back, where pain gathered in old men and old women. She had some of both, and this night she would brew a little tea, and maybe that would give her strength and sustain life another day.

  There were other herbs known to the Absaroka People, and not a summer went by that she failed to learn more, for the quest for medicinal herbs was a passion with her people. There were herbs for every malady of the human body. Herbs to stop nosebleeds, reduce swelling, teas to quiet an unruly stomach, herbs to calm the spirit, herbs to bring visions to those seeking them. Teas and herbs that brought comfort to the very old. She hoped to share these things with Skye in the days ahead, when their bodies troubled them more and more. Was she not a medicine woman of the People, with great powers?

  But this night, alone in the great valley of the Yellowstone, she would find a place to brew peppermint and sip it and welcome the air spirits and the earth spirits to come watch over her through the cold night. Her entire kitchen consisted of one small copper pot and a knife. It was enough.

  She rode quietly up the Yellowstone River. The waters of this river tumbled out of the Roof of the World and raced eastward toward the Big River. The water was icy and teeming with trout, but no Absaroka would stoop to eating fish. She despised fish, and thought that eating fish was the reason white men and women were sick all the time. But the water was icy and sweet, and sometimes she paused at the gravelly bank just to sip some.

  She saw no one. Ever since the Lakota had stopped white men from using John Bozeman’s trail two years earlier, the road had grown weeds and fallen into silence. Now it was rapidly disappearing as rain and snow smoothed the ruts and grass hid the campgrounds. Was this the end of white men? Had the Lakota driven them away forever? Foolish question. It was just a small time of quietness before the noise of the white men started again.

  It was a good road for wagons but she felt no need to follow it. Her pony took her anywhere she wished, and not just along a trail calculated to let wagons pass over the land. So she watched eagles hunt, and hawks patrol, and listened to ravens comment about every passing thing. Her spirit helper, the white and black magpie, flitted here and there. All her life, Victoria and magpies knew each other and helped each other. Now she saw half a dozen of them making a ruckus about something, so she strung her bow and nocked an arrow, drawn from the quiver at her back, and rode ahead, not knowing what she might see.

  It proved to be a black bear out of her winter den, probably ornery, hunting for food just when nature provided little. A newborn cub appeared from a hidden place in the river brush, already knowing how to hide itself at his mother’s command. Victoria gave the mother bear wide berth, something her nervous pony seemed to appreciate. Let them live and grow. She honored bears as her sisters.

  Later she came across a pregnant antelope, restlessly circling a sunny valley, looking for a safe place to birth. Victoria lowered her bow. Let the mother live; let the newborn suck on her teat, find life, and enjoy the spring breezes. The older Victoria got, the more something in her resisted taking female life. It did not matter why. This is how she felt, so this is how she would conduct herself. But she would kill and eat any brother male sonofabitch.

  That night she brewed willow bark tea to drive away the pains of her body, and then rested, sitting against sun-warmed sandstone, her robe around her. If she didn’t eat, what did it matter? What she wanted of life now was escape from the pain in her bones.

  The next day was much the same, but she knew she was getting close to Skye. She entered a narrows where the river had punched through some gray and brown rock, and here the trail took her across wind-scraped slopes until she could descend again. She passed by some mule deer at sunset, and kept on because the great bend of the river was not far, only an hour or so more and she could be with Skye this evening, and maybe hold him and make jokes with him, and rub his back if he hurt, which he always did.

  But when she reached the great bend in the early dark, she found no one there. It was as quiet as if no noisy white man had ever been there. She saw no cook fire. She hunted for his campsite and found nothing new; some very old and lonely-looking. She knew he was careful in danger, and might have moved his camp away from the river and into the foothills, or maybe up the Shields River to avoid someone or something. So she searched all the places she knew he wou
ld choose, and found no sign of him, and as dusk closed she puzzled where he might be.

  But this was a large place, and he could be anywhere. The night thickened, and the last alpen glow vanished from the giant shoulders high above, and she could no longer see.

  She built a noisy white men’s fire, sending sparks high into the night, knowing he would see it and scout it out. Then she withdrew from the flames and shrouded herself in darkness some distance away, and waited. Surely her man would come, understand, and begin a search that would reunite them.

  The cold settled around her, and the night grew still and dark. She undid the halters of her ponies and let them graze freely, and settled in her robes, and waited patiently for dawn and the stories it might tell her.

  ten

  The moment Mary crossed the Yellowstone and stood on the far shore, a river apart from Victoria, she knew herself as Blue Dawn, the Shoshone. Mary had vanished from mind. That was unexpected. Now she was Blue Dawn, en route to visit her people, maybe stay in the lodge of her brother, The Runner, until she was called to Skye’s lodge at some unknown time.

  But there was more. She had become a different person, too, just by crossing that river. For many years, she had been Skye’s woman, Skye’s younger wife, and had made no decisions of her own. Whatever Skye and Victoria did, her fate was to go with them, believe what they believed, love what they loved, befriend whomever they befriended. Now, suddenly, Victoria had given Mary her liberty, a time apart from the Skye household among the Crows.

  Those had been happy times at first, time when she brought North Star into the world and loved the child and nurtured him and the three of them all raised the boy, and life was sweet. Those times glowed in her mind. She had a son, she was the woman of the greatly honored Mister Skye, and she had marveled at all the new things that came to her, things that might never have brightened her if she had become the woman of one of her people. No other child came to them, though she hoped more would. It was a mystery.