North Star

by Richard S. Wheeler

  She started laughing. “Mister Mahoney, I like you,” she said. “But you must understand. In my marriage, my man, Barnaby Skye, he’s the savage, and I’m the civilized.”

  Will Mahoney stared, bright-eyed. “By God, next time I lift a mug, I’ll salute you.”

  She didn’t know what all that was about, either, but it didn’t matter. They both had mixed-blood boys, and that was what bonded them.

  Soon they were rolling again, and night fell over the car, and she could see almost nothing, and lay quietly in the hay through the strange night. But not long after dawn she saw an occasional building, and planted fields, and once a man riding a buggy, and then more buildings, mostly whitewashed places, and finally the train pulled to a halt in the place called Omaha, where there were many tracks side by side, and many buildings glowing in the early sunlight.

  Then the train started to crawl slowly, and she heard voices, and then it stopped. Directly out of her door was one of those ramps leading down to pens. She could unload her horses here.

  Mahoney appeared. “I had’em pull up a bit so you could get these nags out,” he said.

  In moments, she had unloaded her ponies into the pen, while he collected her saddles and gear.

  Now she was in a strange place, with many rails, and many buildings, and she felt utterly helpless.

  “You go see your hellcat,” he said.

  “But, sir, I don’t know …”

  He saw her fear.

  “Hey, I’m done. I got to go to that building over there, and then I’ll take you down to the river and put you on the road. Whatever you do, stick with the river and go downstream. You’ll go through a bunch of towns like St. Joseph and Kansas City, but you keep on going to the biggest one, where the Missouri meets the Mississippi.”

  “Many days?”

  “It’s a way, lass. A week or more, I reckon.”

  She went with him to the building, and soon he was leading her through the city, with its broad streets and shops and ornate houses, larger than she had ever seen. People stared at her, seeing an Indian woman in quilled leather. She lifted her head and sat proudly. She would let them see she was a Shoshone, and proud, and nothing would frighten her.

  Mahoney led her down a steep grade, past more handsome houses, and finally to a worn dirt road that ran alongside the great river.

  “I guess this is it,” he said. “Good luck. Me, I got two hellcats to visit. Pawnee women, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. It’s more than I can handle.”

  But he laughed infectiously, and Mary decided that a three-hellcat family was probably a good one.

  She watched him trudge up the hill, plainly weary after his long hours as a brakeman. Something in her loved him.

  twenty-six

  Cold rain soaked Mary, but she endured. She had no other clothing than her blue chambray blouse, red-quilled elk-skin vest, and doeskin skirts. It had rained constantly, usually in afternoon thundershowers, but there was nothing she could do, and rarely did she find shelter. The moist climate had bred mosquitoes and flies, which often swarmed her, but there was little she could do about those, either. So she endured. The sun dried her clothing and the clouds soaked it with their tears. Sometimes she thought it was a way of keeping clean.

  St. Louis frightened her. Now, as she plunged deeper into its outskirts, she brimmed with anxiety. What if North Star didn’t wish to see her? Or was no longer there? Or was so changed by life with the blackrobes that they could only stare at each other across some chasm? Finding him would not be easy. She had only two names. The school was St. Ignatius, named after the founder of the blackrobes. And she knew Colonel Bullock had retired in that place, after years at Fort Laramie.

  So she endured the rain, endured the curious stares of people on the river road, endured the occasional boys who raced along beside her, shouting “Injun! Injun!” She knew about boys. Many a time when Skye and his wives entered a strange village, the boys clotted around them, sending mock arrows at them, raising a hubbub. White boys were no different.

  The vast valley of the Missouri proved to be a good place to feed herself, with all its berries now in season. She lived on the bountiful raspberries and blackberries, on wild asparagus and green apples, and familiar roots. The land was not so settled or farmed that she failed to find safe havens at night, well hidden from the people nearby.

  Soon she would see her son. She would see how he looked as a young man, adult by her standards, almost so by Skye’s. Fifteen winters he would have now, and he would have his full height, and broad shoulders, and a man’s gait.

  Would he even recognize her? Worse, would he care?

  Of course he would. She heartened herself with that belief, and continued to travel the river road, now running east toward St. Louis. Now things crowded her senses. She passed farmsteads, with plowed fields and laundry flapping on lines. She passed tall freight wagons drawn by ox teams, driven by profane teamsters, hauling mountains of white-man things to the outlying settlements. Some of those men eyed her with something more than curiosity, and she hurried past them.

  She formulated a plan of action. First she would try to find this school herself. She would resort to Colonel Bullock only if she could not find it. She had enough English to ask directions. Where were the Jesuits? Where was this St. Ignatius school that took in Indian boys? She feared that if she went to Colonel Bullock first, he would dissuade her, or even forbid her to see her son. She didn’t know why. White men were mysterious to her. But what if the Jesuits refused her? Would they keep her son from his mother? She dreaded that, dreaded not even having a glimpse of him, locked behind stone walls and iron grilles, hidden from her hungering eyes.

  The road took her along the waterfront, an area of grim brick buildings and rough wooden structures side by side. A bluff separated this part of St. Louis from the rest, and above she could see homes shaded by stately trees, and women strolling. Occasionally steep roads connected the rest of the city with this waterfront. Some of the buildings had signs she could not read, but plainly one was a saloon. Before it a wagon stood, its big draft horses quiet in their harness, while burly sweating men in grimy aprons unloaded big wooden casks and carried or rolled them into the dark building. Downriver, she saw steamboats docked at the riverbank, tied in place by great hawsers wound around wooden pilings. Some were being loaded; others sat idle, no fire in their bellies.

  This did not look like a place where the blackrobes might have a school.

  She saw not one woman here, but men of all descriptions, a few in black suits, but most in rough workmen’s clothing, such as those unloading the kegs. She trusted workingmen more than men in suits so she edged closer to one burly man in a filthy apron, with cinnamon chin whiskers and watery blue eyes. He paused, eyed her up and down, and grinned toothlessly.

  “I am looking for help,” she began. “I want to know where the Jesuits are.”

  “A squaw that talks English. I’ll be goddamned. And a couple of dandy horses too,” he said, his eyes surveying Mary and her two good animals.

  He simply grabbed her bridle. “Looks like maybe I can tell you,” he said.

  His freckled hand held the bridle, and she knew she was trapped.

  “I am visiting my son. The blackrobes at St. Ignatius are teaching him. Please tell me how to go there.”

  “Got me a pretty squaw,” he said, his toothless grin widening. “Got me a couple of nice horses too. What say you come visit me? I live in there. I’ll show you how to get around the city. You can pay me any way you want.” He was leering now. She understood the leer, which crossed all peoples and cultures, and was very plain.

  He had her horse. No one paid the slightest attention. And she knew no one would heed anything an Indian said. If it came to an argument, his word would win. He would accuse her of stealing his horses, and he was just getting them back. Something like that, anyway.

  She didn’t intend to give up her horses to this man, even if he weighed twice as much as she did. Bu
t she was not without a few ploys, some of which Skye had taught her. She dismounted, sliding off the horse, which lifted her skirts a little as she settled on the brown paving blocks that surfaced the street.

  “Hey, you want a good time?” she asked, drawing close. “I’ll give you a good time. You want a squaw? You’ll get a squaw.”

  He grinned, and nodded toward the building. He was still holding the bridle.

  She stood before him, alluring and tall and slender, and she smiled.

  “Go on in there, squaw, and I’ll be right along,” he said.

  “What’s your name?” she asked.

  “Oh, you’ll find out,” he said.

  She edged close to him, smiling, until she was practically in his arms, which he enjoyed. But he was still holding the bridle. She brushed against him, closer now, eyeing him carefully because she would have only one chance, and if she failed he would probably beat her senseless.

  She caught his eye. “You big man?” she asked, even as she lifted her knee smoothly, fiercely, and with deadly aim, into his groin.

  “Yooww,” he bawled, his arms flailing outward and then down to his crotch. He folded like an accordion, holding himself and wheezing. He was gasping, red, his mouth a big Oh, his lips drooling saliva. She dodged back, recovered the rein of her skittering horse, threw herself upward and over, before the bearded man recovered enough to roar and spring toward her. But he missed, and she was clear, her packhorse too.

  She hastened away, but he stood there watching, and strangely laughing. It was all in a day’s work for him.

  But she had other ideas. She would never seek directions from a man again.

  The city was strange, a world utterly amazing, and she wondered what to do. Mostly from instinct, she took one of the steep roads that led away from the muddy river, and when she topped the slope she found herself in a different world, a place where people lived in buildings unlike any she had ever seen. Some were made of brick, and had tall glass windows and wooden porches. Others were made of wood. Great trees cast shade over emerald lawns. She wandered aimlessly, past stores that displayed goods in their windows, or had signs swinging in the morning breezes. Some buildings seemed beyond her fathoming, and she had no idea what happened inside of them.

  Horse-drawn buggies rattled past, and big freight wagons drawn by massive horses rumbled by, or paused at a store to deliver crates and cartons. She wondered where the horses were fed because she saw no pasture anywhere. She wondered where she would feed her pack and saddle horses. Pasture would be a long way away, and her horses would be very hungry soon.

  She saw young women carrying empty baskets she thought were intended to carry their purchases, while others wheeled small carriages with babies or children in them, and she marveled. The women wore long, full dresses and covered their arms, even in the moist summer heat, and wore bonnets or hats. The men usually wore black suits and white shirts, but the workingmen dressed in rougher clothing, but were just as covered as the women. She could not fathom it. In any camp of her people, on a moist, hot day like this, the men would wear very little, maybe just a breechclout, and the women would be sleeveless at the least. She eyed these people, thinking how much they had to suffer through the fierce heat. She could not imagine why anyone would live with such discomfort.

  She herself endured the rain and heat, but the moist air was not pleasant. It made her flesh oily and she yearned to return to the mountains. She discovered that St. Louis seemed to have districts, some with old, narrow streets and ancient houses, and some newer. She occasionally attracted attention, especially from children, who swarmed around her until she feared her horses would kick at them, while they studied her angled face and strong cheekbones and the clothing that told them that she was from one of the tribes. She smiled, and they tentatively smiled back.

  But this was an urbane city, and it largely ignored her as she wandered her helpless way through it. She had utterly no idea where this place of the blackrobes might be, or where she might find North Star in a city that contained more people in it than all of the Shoshone, east and west, every branch.

  A carriage sailed by, pulled by a pair of high-stepping white horses, reined by a man in a shiny black silk hat rather like Skye’s, and beside him was a red-haired woman in gauzy white, with sleeves that were almost transparent. Mary thought it might be a chief and his woman, because she could wear something more pleasant on this sopping hot day. The air was so heavy and moist that she felt suffocated, and every instinct in her cried to flee to the country where there was real air.

  Some great bells began to bong, and for a moment she was paralyzed with fear. Would the noise signal soldiers? But no one on the cobbled streets paid heed, and she realized that these bells were ringing in the towers of a great stone edifice nearby, one with endless steps climbing upward, and crosses topping the towers. The crosses she recognized. Ah, now she knew where the blackrobes would be, so she turned her horses that direction, up a mild slope toward this great and frightening building, taller than four or five buildings piled on top of one another.

  Father Sun had climbed as high as he would go this day, and burned down from above, making the heat all the worse. She knew one thing: she would never, not in a thousand winters, choose to live here. It was so hot that not even the flies lingered in the sunlight, and very few buzzed about her horses.

  Then she saw a blackrobe walking down the steps of this great building, and she rejoiced. She steered her horses to the foot of the wide stairs and waited, and when he approached, she spoke.

  “Sir, could you direct me?”

  He peered up at her, and she marveled. He was gowned head to toe in black, but he showed not a drop of sweat in his face. His gaze took in her native dress, and he frowned slightly, as if not approving of her.

  “Madam?” he asked.

  “I wish to go to the place of the Jesuit blackrobes called St. Ignatius.”

  “I’m not a Jesuit,” he said.

  Her heart sank. This one looked like the blackrobes she had seen among her people.

  “But yes, I can direct you. And why do you ask?”

  “I have come to see my son.”

  “Ah,” he said. “Yes, they school some red boys there.” He eyed her doubtfully. “It’s four blocks that way, two more, over the bridge, and then back one.”

  He was waving his black-encased arm this way and that.

  “What is a block?” she asked.

  “I see,” he said. He eyed her amiably. “Follow me,” he said.

  He strode away from the river, his pace fast, his robes flapping, and she followed behind, past streets and people and houses and a small green park given to trees, and she soon didn’t know which direction she was going, but he never paused until at last he came to another building with towers with crosses, and a high brick wall surrounding whatever structures lay within.

  “There,” he said, pointing to a narrow grilled gate.

  She nodded her thanks, but he had already wheeled away, his black skirts flapping, and soon was gone.

  Here was the place she had sought months earlier, the place where her own North Star lived, where her flesh and blood slept and ate and learned. She thought of all the days and moons she had traveled, the perils and starvation she had endured, the gifts of those who had helped her, and the hope that had inspired her. If only she could see her boy. If only she could gaze upon him for a while. She tied her horses at a hitching post with an iron ring in it, turned toward the grilled gate, found a cord, and pulled it.

  twenty-seven

  Mary struggled with an instinct to flee but forced herself to stand quietly. When a man appeared, it was not a person in black robes, but a man wearing the suit of the white men, and wire-rimmed glasses perched far out upon a bulbous nose. He peered at her.

  “I have come to see my boy,” she said.

  He looked doubtful. “But it is class time …”

  “I have come from the mountains to see my son,” she sai
d.

  The mountains meant something to him, and he softened. “You are?”

  “I am Mary, the woman of Barnaby Skye, and Dirk Skye is my son.”

  “Oh, Dirk,” he said, warming a little.

  He opened the grilled gate and she entered a serene courtyard, with somber buildings surrounding it. Somewhere, somewhere near, would be the Star That Never Moves. Her pulse lifted. In truth, she hadn’t the faintest idea what she would do when she saw him. But that was all she wanted. She had come all this distance, all these moons, to see him.

  He led her to an austere reception room, white plastered walls, a crucifix, some chairs, a small window opening on the yard. He nodded her toward a wooden chair and vanished through a door.

  She felt utter confusion then. Why had she come here? What did she expect? Who was she, that she had abandoned her husband to come here? What would her son look like? Would he accept her? Would he smile? Would he turn his back to her?

  It took a long time, and she resisted an impulse to flee to the safety of the street, collect her horses, which she had tied to a hitching post, and escape.

  But then she heard noises, the door opened, and she beheld a thin young man in white men’s clothing with warm flesh, medium height, dark hair, the strong cheekbones of her people—and blue eyes.

  She gave a small cry. It was North Star. She uttered his name in Shoshone, but he looked puzzled.

  “You are Mary of the Shoshones?” he asked in English.

  “Oh, my child.”

  “Are you my mother?” he asked, his own bewilderment as large as her own.

  “Seven winters, seven winters,” she said, a river of anguish flowing through her now. “Seven winters ago.”

  He stood quietly. “That was what Papa wished for me,” he said.

  But she could not speak.