The dance is also the tribe’s way of getting ready for spring. It reminds everyone that winter will eventually pass and it will be warm again. That’s what North Wind Comes told me, the last time we talked.
When spring comes, I’m supposed to go downriver with Clyne and all the other “specimens” that Clark and Lewis are planning to ship back to St. Louis and, eventually, to Mr. Thomas Jefferson.
Clyne is the biggest specimen of all, of course. The plan is for him to spend the rest of the winter locked up, until we go. He’ll be locked up while we’re traveling and probably after that, too. Lewis is also sending a couple of the men back as guards, to make sure nothing happens to the shipment.
Until then, Clyne is supposed to stay inside his tiny wooden cage, right outside Fort Mandan, on the Corps of Discovery’s side of the river.
He was out hunting with the wolves the day we found him.
“Hello Clyne. How have you been?”
“Jabberstuck, but still inquisitive, and mostly well-hosted. There are things we need to speak of, though. A good time to meet, friend Eli!”
He might have talked more except that he was surrounded by spears and arrows and people who wanted to kill him. Especially LeBorgne. “You! You are the one who drove Crow’s Eye away!” The man stood up and pointed to Clyne. “Kill this spirit! Kill him now!”
I stood in front of my friend, ready to protect him.
At that moment, I saw North Wind Comes. He jumped off his horse and ran toward me. You could see the breath leave his mouth and turn to icy steam as he moved.
“No, no! Do not listen to LeBorgne! Do nothing to the lizard man! You will bring terrible medicine on all of us if you do!”
The hunting party stood still a moment, looking at North Wind, at LeBorgne, at me, a little afraid of Clyne, and unsure what to do next.
Then we heard the crying.
One wolf stood over another, giving a long, mournful wail. There was an arrow sticking from the dead one’s neck.
North Wind walked over to them. “Silver Throat. Forgive us for doing this to your daughter.” Then he turned to face the men again. “How stupid to kill a wolf for no good reason. Who did this?” But nobody said anything.
That seemed to be enough killing for one day, though. They decided to capture Clyne instead, and bring him back here. Where he remains in his cage.
But I don’t think Clyne can last that long in such a tiny, enclosed space.
I wonder if he can see these bonfires from where he is? The flames are pretty bright. I don’t know if it’s the heat from the fire, but my lingo-spot seems to be itching like crazy. And I’m distracted, thinking of home, of Dad, and of Mom, wherever she is.
And Thea.
I try to let the music fill me for a couple of minutes, to slow down the swirl of thoughts in my head. There’s drumming from the Mandans, fiddle music from Cruzatte, and lots of dancing around the flames, not only to call the buffalo, but also to celebrate the recent successful birth of Sacagawea’s baby boy.
His name is Pomp. Or at least his nickname. I think his real name is something pretty fancy, like John the Baptist. Or I guess the French version, which I think is Jean-Baptiste. Clark really likes the baby. Pomp was a name he came up with. And to everyone’s surprise, Lewis doesn’t seem to mind him, either. He even likes holding him.
Which is good, because Lewis was the very first person in the world to hold him. When we were out chasing Clyne, he found some powdered snake rattle in the fort’s supplies. He gave it to Sacagawea, and it worked.
They didn’t need dinosaur skin after all, and Pomp was born before we got back.
“Thinking about your lizard friend again?” I didn’t even hear Lewis come up. He’s holding a cup in his hand. “Some brandy? We’re celebrating tonight. And hoping, eventually, to get fed.”
“No thanks.”
Lewis shrugs and takes a sip.
“We’ll be leaving here, soon enough, and proceeding on. It’s too bad you won’t be joining us.”
“I’ll miss you, Captain. I’ll miss everybody. They don’t —” I search for the right words. When I was a kid, I didn’t worry about the right words so much. “They don’t have many adventures like this left, where I come from. Not real ones.”
“Where is it that you come from, lad? You’ve never really said.”
“Like I said… the territories.”
Lewis listens to Cruzatte’s fiddling a couple more minutes, looking thoughtful.
“How is it, young squire, you came to be so expert in the ways of this lizard man? I didn’t even believe the stories before. I thought Jefferson needed you out of his hair. Yet the beast is real, and you came to know him even before we arrived here. Do creatures like him live in your ‘territories,’ too?”
“I’ve… been on other expeditions with him,” I say.
“And if I asked you what expeditions those were, I’d surmise you wouldn’t answer.”
“That’s right.”
“Presumably for my own protection.”
“Yes.”
There is a long silence between us then. The music and drumming don’t fill it. Both our minds were elsewhere.
“There is much we do not know, Master Sands.”
I nod in the dark, even though he can barely see me.
“Perhaps, there is much we should not know.”
“I’m… I’m trying to get that part figured out, Captain.”
“Like the president, and his incognitum.”
“What do you mean?”
“We are, all of us, always going about trying to name everything, trying to quantify it and understand it. I’m beginning to wonder if that’s always the best idea.”
“I still don’t know what you’re getting at.”
“I’m wondering what will happen to your lizard man, your incognitum, once you and he are returned to Washington. You realize he will never be allowed to live freely, regardless of what or who he is?”
“I realize that, sir.”
“I’ve seen you actually talking to him, when you thought no one was looking.”
“Yes.”
“Do you consider a caged specimen like that… a friend?”
“Yes, sir, I do.”
The drums are getting faster, and Cruzatte tries to keep up on his fiddle. I’m stomping my feet on the ground, staying warm.
“This journey is teaching me about an otherness to things, Master Sands.”
“I’m still not sure what you mean, Captain.”
“An otherness. There is so much that exists outside ourselves, so much beyond our own experiences or viewpoints…so much life. It’s as if our very bodies, as if every thing, were filled with an unknowable essence, an energy, buzzing all the time, like swarms of bees on the prairies we’ve just crossed, crashing against every other bit of energy in the universe, all making an incoherent whole. Sometimes all of existence overwhelms me, Master Sands.”
I’m not sure, but he may have accidentally described the idea behind the reverse positron time-charge that my parents were working on.
“I’ve been overwhelmed a lot lately, too, sir.”
“And sometimes I wonder if Captain Clark and myself are responsible for more than we realize. Like the very course of the future itself.” He takes another sip from his cup. “For example, what will every one think of their world once I send the lizard man back with you? Will they feel as safe as they once did?” He doesn’t have an answer for himself. “You appear restless, young squire.”
“I am, sir. I’m worried about the lizard man, too.”
I stomp some more for my toes’ benefit, and listen to Pierre start up another fiddle tune. Some barking joins the music. “Ah,” Lewis says. “Seaman is in a festive mood tonight, too. He’s glad to be out of the fort, here with us, on this side of the river.” There’s another pause. “But perhaps you’re thinking of going the other way, back to the fort, to see your serpentine friend.” He sloshes the liquid around in his c
up, like he’s suddenly really interested in it. “While the rest of us are distracted here?”
What does he mean? Does he suspect something? “He’s going crazy in that cage, sir. It’s not good for his spirit.”
“He’s being guarded, you know.”
“I know.”
It seemed like Captain Lewis was trying to read my expression in the dark.
“These are all good men on this expedition, Master Sands. All good men. My wish for them is that none of them is harmed, in any way.”
“That’s a good wish, sir.”
“I suppose that since we’ve been sent out to find so many things — new Indian tribes, water passages to the sea, tribes of giants — that it is unlikely we will find all of them.”
“Probably not, Captain.”
“Some of the things Jefferson expected us to come back with…may elude us, in the end.”
“Yes.” I think I’m getting what he’s telling me. But I can’t be sure.
“And perhaps, if we’re not meant to know everything just yet about the mysteries of our lives and our times and our land… perhaps that’s just as well. Perhaps that will leave room for other adventures later. Even in the territories you come from.”
I nod. Of course, in the dark, I don’t know if he sees me agreeing with him or not.
“All of which is a terrible thing for an expedition leader to say. So I expect I shall recant all this in the morning. But for now…” He finishes what’s in his cup, then turns back to me. “But for now… Godspeed, young squire.”
“Yes. Thank you, Captain Lewis.”
“So you’re walking back over the river now?”
“I’m not sure.”
“I believe I shall be going back to the fire. I’m not always one for company, but tonight seems like a good night for it. Oh— take this.” He reaches into his jacket and pulls out something wrapped in a heavy kind of cloth. He hands it to me. It’s sort of slushy, like it’s almost frozen. “What is it, sir?”
“A couple of servings of the portable soup I made. The paste. Wrapped well in oilskin. You need only add boiling water to it. In case you get hungry. Tonight, perhaps.”
I take it and put it deep inside my coat. “Thank you, sir.”
“You are welcome, young squire. And I will say it again: Godspeed.”
And with the slightest tip of his hat, he walks away.
I wrap my buckskin jacket tight around me, put the soup packet between layers of clothes — though I’d like to avoid having to eat any of it if I can — and pull my floppy hat down as low as possible without blinding myself. I head out across the ice, back toward Fort Mandan. Back toward Clyne.
Using what moonlight there is, I walk carefully over the frozen river, long slow steps, careful not to land too hard, in case I hit a patch of thin ice.
Though there hasn’t been much thin ice this winter.
I see a little flicker of firelight on the other side. Whoever had pulled guard duty at Clyne’s cage was trying to stay warm, too.
I use the flames as a beacon, a kind of lighthouse, and keep walking toward them. I’m almost at the other side, ready to step up on the bank, when I hear a noise ahead of me. You can hear the whispery crunches on the snow ahead. Something’s there, ahead of me. Waiting on the bank.
Something like a large dog. Seaman?
But it can’t be. Seaman’s on the village side of the river now.
And even in the little moonlight I have, I can tell. It’s a wolf. Sitting there. Waiting.
Right according to plan.
Chapter Nineteen
Clyne: Reaction
February 1805
Evidently nothing went quite the way Eli had planned.
Being the true friend he is, he wanted to release me from the wooden cage, where once again I was to be specimen-probed.
Eli had arranged with North Wind to send the wolf leader, Silver Throat, to the fortification of the explorers, Clark and Lewis. She was going to bring the survivors of her pack and scare off the guards. This way, they guards would have a legitimate reason for leaving their posts and, perhaps would not be whipped, as was the custom, for deserting them.
Such harsh penalties! Do mammals not take time to note the fragrance of their orange-graced world? If they did, it seems the consequences for small transgressions would necessarily be reduced.
Humans create such intrigues and problems for themselves. Eli’s main current problem was that he would only have a short period of time to free me from this prison.
Silver Throat would then lead Eli and me away, back to the Spirit Mound, where we would meet with North Wind, who still hadn’t returned to his people since Birdjumper’s killing took place.
After resting, we would then follow Silver Throat’s pack to another safehold, moving farther and farther away from settled human establishments. And when the spring came and rivers began to flow, we would navigate the waters again, on our own, and try to find Thea.
“Though you’d still be a big, giant scary lizard,” Eli observed, “to anyone who saw you.”
That, anyway, was the plan…
Silver Throat succeeded in scaring away the guards. She and her wolves swarmed out of the woods as if they were on a full-bore Cacklaw front press, and ready for an actual attack. My watchers fled, presumably to get help, which would leave a few minutes for Eli and me to make our departure. But another human showed up before Eli did — or rather, I should say two humans: Sacagawea, a name with a regal high-Saurian elegance to it, and her hatchling.
“Pomp.” Eli recognized the child. “Sacagawea, you shouldn’t have come. It might not be safe — in a couple of minutes.” My friend cast a nervous glance back across the river toward the mammal dancing.
Yes, finally, actual mammal dancing, and I, apparently, am to miss it.
“The baby was crying, and I was out, walking with him, trying to soothe him. I saw the wolves come into camp. I thought you or North Wind might be here. And I wanted to say goodbye. To you. And the snake man.”
“Actually,” I informed her, “I am not related to the local snakes, but instead a Saurian—”
Before I could finish, she reached up through the bars and put a finger to my lips. “No matter which, I know you are a friend. And along with goodbye, I give you this.”
She produced a small mineral sample. It was translucent, a crystal with a glow in its center from light that seemed to radiate from obscure parts of the spectrum.
“The flame stone,” Eli said. “The one you used when you found me.”
“Yes,” Sacagawea nodded. “I would like you to have it for your journey.”
“But it’s yours. You said it’s been with you since you were a child. Since you were kidnapped and sold.”
“Yes. I always thought it might help lead me home. Now, with little Pomp here, I’m feeling that going home may be possible at last. So you take it now. You and the snake man need to go home, too.”
Again, that flicker of thought: Where was my home now? Was it my nest-source on Saurius Prime, or was it here, with my friends?
Some other light — firelight — moved on the other side of the river. This was a different kind of dance, the kind I had grown more familiar with.
“They’ve been alerted to the wolves now,” Sacagawea said. “They’ll be coming. Fare warmly,” she said, rewrapping Pomp in the furry skins that humans permanently borrow from other animals. “Find good trails.”
“And you”— Silver Throat looked at her— “guard every moment you have with your little one.”
Sacagawea didn’t have a lingo-spot, and I don’t know if she understood the wolf, but before she was done covering her nestling, she kissed him. Then she waved at us and headed out across the ice.
“Wait—” Eli said.
She’s delaying them, Silver Throat said. For you. But hurry.
The only trace left of her was her voice, giving song, drifting back from the dark ice:
Always riding out
Never coming home
The trail takes me far
Blood and honor
dancing
She left singing of the arrak-du.
Eli regarded me. “All right. Then let’s get that cage unlocked, Clyne.”
“Yes. It is bound tight with strips of rendered skin.”
“Leather.”
“Yes. I have been steadily claw-tearing it when the guards were distracted. I will soon cut through the last of these practically applied tendons.”
“Just hurry.”
Eli warmed his hands with the mineral sample while looking over his shoulder. We both saw the portable firelights — torches, a word that’s not quite as crisp as taco but is still interesting — on the far side of the river. The exploring party would soon be here.
“We still have to pick up the supplies I left in the woods. And we still have to get far enough to make it hard for them to track us.”
“Friend Eli, may I see the flame stone in your hand?” While I worked on the task of freeing myself, I realized where I most recently saw light waves pitched to such arcane frequencies: Alexandria. They came from the light tower, where Thea and her mother were doing their experiments.
Eli held up the small crystal. Even with only the nearby campfire and distant starlight available to refract through the prism, I recognized the glow. It’s what my friend would call—
“WOMPER light.”
“What? Clyne, what?”
The wolves growled. The torches were starting to make their way over to our side of the river.
“I believe a WOMPER particle is trapped in that crystal, orbiting inside a gas that may be trapped there from ancient times. There may be such stones on this planet. Thea’s mother may have heard of their properties.”
“Clyne, can you please get out of the cage? We have to go!”
“Oh. Yes, friend Eli. A good time for freeing.”
I ceased work on the tendon straps that bound my cage shut. The jabberstick wound on my limb seemed to have healed, and I have just about enough room for a top-stompers Cacklaw move.
Trail of Bones Page 13
