The Morning River

by W. Michael Gear

  "Better than freezing on the cliff, don't you think?" Two Half Moons asked. Somewhere in the darkness beyond the lodge, a horse snorted and stomped at the frozen snow.

  The warm lodge, with its cheery fire, mocked the terrible cold just beyond the finely tanned buffalo-hide walls. The polished lodgepoles gleamed redly and reminded Willow of bone freshly stripped of meat and still slightly bloody.

  Square parfleches, humped mounds of robes, backrests crafted from willow stems, and a stack of firewood furnished Two Half Moons' lodge.

  "What will you do now?" the old woman asked.

  "Wait out the weather," Willow replied. "Go back to my people."

  Two Half Moons rubbed her leathery old face as she peered into the fire. The crimson light accented the tones of the old woman's weathered face. Age hadn't treated her nose kindly; it had a shape that reminded people of a mushroom. Her undershot, toothless jaw snugged up to make a flat line of the wrinkled mouth. Spirit still burned in those obsidian eyes, despite the silver-streaked braids that hung to either side of her round head with its broad cheekbones.

  "You are young, girl. I know that your husband's brother will speak to you soon."

  "White Hail is just a boy."

  "He's a man now. Killed his first enemy. Sought out his vision. Married. And I know he's always admired you. Wanted his wife to be like you."

  "Didn't succeed, did he?" Willow reached for the stack of sagebrush and dropped another gnarly branch on the fire. Flames leapt from the leaves and twigs in a bright display of white light, only to subside into coals as the layers of wood charred and peeled back from the stem.

  Willow raised her hands in defeat. "Yes, yes, I know he's a man now. I just can't help but think of him as the daring boy with a joke on his lips, and the gleam of fun in his eyes. Remember all the pranks he played?"

  "Time has a habit of scuffing such memories away. Live with him for a while and you'll think of him as a husband— no matter that he's younger than you are."

  Willow shook her head. "I like White Hail. You know that. But I can't marry him."

  "Don't want to be a second wife?" Two Half Moons stabbed at the fire with a cotton wood stick. "Is that it? Afraid he'd make you do all the work? Think Red Calf would make you miserable?"

  "She's always looked at me with suspicion."

  "Don't be too proud to be a second wife, Willow."

  "It's not that. It's that. . ." I loved my husband. Without him, I don't want to stay here. Memories of High Wolf, her father, filled her. He'd look at her with that glint in his eyes, and tell her stories of the great puhagans again.

  "Yes?"

  "When the weather clears, napia, I'm going back to my people."

  Two Half Moons sighed. "It's the middle of winter. Oh, sure, this cold will break. Probably be followed by a warm spell, but you know that spring storms will roll down out of the north before you can get home. Stick your hand out there in the snow and see just how cold cold can be."

  "I know how to survive in snow. Besides, I'll be climbing. A person can always find shelter in the mountains, make it from brush, logs, and snow, if nothing else."

  "You'll be wading in snow up to your breasts."

  "Unlike the Ku'chendikani, I remember how to make snowshoes."

  "How will you find your Dukurikal They could be anywhere up there in the Powder River Mountains."

  "They'll be in the southern foothills. Probably camped in the south-facing rock shelters where the sun warms them during the day. They'll be hunting the slopes where the snow blows off, then melts. The deer winter there. That's also the first place the shooting star and biscuit root grow in spring."

  Two Half Moons snorted in irritation. "You know everything, don't you?"

  Willow gave her a humorless smile. "What can I say? I'm Dukurikal

  "It doesn't have to be White Hail. Fast Black Horse would be proud to make you his wife."

  "Then I'd be a third wife."

  "That's a third of the work you'd have to do if you were the only wife."

  "Fast Black Horse has the largest horse herd in the band. He kills more buffalo than anyone else. That's why he needs wives. The more he has, the more hides he can process for trade with the Mandan and the Whites."

  "And the more fine things you can adorn your clothes with.

  You'd be looked up to, admired by everyone in the—"

  Willow reached out and placed a hand on the old woman's arm. "I love you, Aunt. But I don't want those things. I don't want the things Kuchendikani want." Silence stretched until Willow began to worry that she might have offended the old woman. She added, "And besides, Slim Pole and Iron Wrist will be happy to be rid of me."

  Two Half Moons waved it away. "Perhaps, just a little bit. They're not used to a woman like you, asking questions, prodding and prying at what people believe. They don't trust a woman who uses puha. It smacks of something omaihen, forbidden. But despite their growling, I think they respect you, girl. Those dreams of yours leave them a little nervous. A woman shouldn't be having visions, shouldn't be fooling around healing people."

  Willow shied from thoughts of her husband and son, and said, "Why not? Puha is puha. It comes and goes where it will."

  "A woman can heal . . . but not until her bearing years pass."

  Willow threw her hands up. "Monthly bleeding has nothing to do with visions, puha, or healing. Precautions have to be taken, that's all. I wouldn't try to heal someone while I was bleeding." She ground her teeth, staring down into the blinking red eyes of the embers. But that's when the dreams seize me with the greatest power. That's when the visions are the clearest.

  "You do strange enough things when you're bleeding. Wandering off like that. Makes people suspicious that you'd leave the menstrual lodge and go up in the hills to do Tarn Apo knows what. Some think you're flirting with rock ogres."

  "Pandzoavits wouldn't want me. I just get bored sitting in the menstrual lodge. What is there to do? Lie around and gossip, make moccasins, do beadwork? Napia, let's be honest. I couldn't care less who is sneaking off into the bushes with whom. Most women want to talk about other women. I'd rather talk about why Tarn Apo made the world the way He did."

  Two Half Moons sucked her lips past her gums and nodded.

  "I know. That's why I always appreciated you. I think that's why my nephew loved you so much. You were different. Beautiful, exotic, and worthy of his status and souls."

  "And that's why I can't take another man here, Aunt. Who could follow in his place?"

  Two Half Moons rubbed her face with a bony hand. ' 'No matter what you might think now, with your husband freshly dead, someone always comes along. And you'd better prepare yourself. You'll have a handful of suitors seeking to claim you."

  "I can understand White Hail, and maybe Fast Black Horse, but why would the rest want me? Most of them think I'm nothing but trouble, and I'd be the last woman most of their wives would want to see brought into the lodge to share their fire."

  The old woman shrugged, extending her hands to the fire. "Some want you because you are young and beautiful. Some want you because by claiming you, they gain some of your husband's status. And then, there are those who see you as a challenge. Like a prize buffalo horse, you have spirit and strength. They are the ones who want to tame you to the halter, make you docile, and control your strange ways."

  "They might as well try to trap the lightning."

  "Men and women go together. Tarn Apo made the world that way. I think, deep down in your souls, you know that, don't you?"

  Willow bowed her head. "The world might be made that way, but I don't have to like it, do I?"

  February 9, 1825

  Mississippi River, just below the Chains

  Dear Laura:

  At last, we've entered the Mississippi. What a broad and manly body of water it is, but so different from the

  Ohio, which I consider to be a Greek river, for it has the clarity, beauty, and grace that would inspire a Hellenic poet. This Mis
sissippi, however, is Roman in its nature, brawny, without nonsense or faint virtue. Caesar would have approved. The water of the Mississippi has a very different taste than that of the Ohio. I've noticed the distinct bouquet of must lingering on my tongue after taking a drink. The morning coffee has begun to leave a film of grit on the teeth that was missing before. Not that I should be surprised: Flotsam and brown foam dot the surface.

  As we travel northward, more farms have been cut into the forest. Unlike the high bluffs on the Ohio, the hills on the Illinois side of the Mississippi are low, generally farther inland. Ragged outcrops of gray rock, angular and cracked, stand on the eastern shore, while the western side of the river disappears into a maze of trees.

  My dear Laura, the world is filled with trees, endless trees. The wary sense of a hunted animal has grown within me when I look out into those sylvan shadows. What a wretched country this is. I am not without my shield, however, against the wild tangle. I clutch my volume of Kant to my chest as a legionnaire would his scutia. Behind it, I remain invincible.

  Dear Laura, how do I tell you this? Despite my education and rational mind, it defies acceptance that this could be part of my world. Does Harvard really exist? Does Professor Ames still lecture about Hegel and Rousseau somewhere on this earth? And, most of all, I ask, are you sitting, even now, your wondrous blue eyes shining? Boston, wondrous Boston, how distant it all seems. It is real, isn't it?

  Or have I been carried by some terrible nightmare to a place as dark and ominous as Hades? High above, in the tortured morning sky, patches of shredded cloud are whipped and curled. The moist breeze carries a bitter chill.

  As I write this, I am sitting on the gallery, nodding to the now familiar faces of the other passengers as they pass. My comrades have all come to some sort of amiable relation, addressing each other by first names. But I have remained steadfast, and am still referred to as Mr. Hamilton, or simply "the scholar"—which suits me fine. Thus far, I have been able to maintain my bargain with myself. I remain a gentleman, no matter what.

  Please do not feel that I presume upon our short acquaintance, but your face fills my dreams every night as I fall asleep. I may be bold, but you have become a source of strength for me, Laura. No moment passes but that I think of you, and count the days until I may pay my respects to you in person again.

  Your Obedient Servant, Richard Hamilton

  PS: Give my best to Will, and tell him that I remain a fortress!

  Chuffing and clanking, the Virgil steamed north into the Mississippi's current. The notion hadn't quite sunk into Richard's skull that speed was relative to current. Whereas the Virgil had raced down the Ohio, she now plowed along at a quarter her old speed while the stacks belched black smoke. At night, sparks streaked out of the scalloped tops.

  As he walked along the gallery railing, he looked down on the heads of the huddled people who couldn't afford a stateroom. They camped on the lower deck amidst barrels, crates, and bales, wrapped in blankets or worn coats, and sheltered by bits of canvas strung to whatever was available. A shift in the breeze carried the odor of unwashed humanity to Richard's nose. A child squalled, and Richard located the young mother: little more than a bone rack surrounded by four other clamoring children. Without concern, the gingham-dressed woman bared a dirt-smudged breast and gave the shrieking infant her nipple. At the same time she harangued the older children in a twangy nasal voice.

  "Dobe! Y'ain't t' knit at yer bruther! Stoppit! I'll lallup ya one if n ye don't!"

  The murdered English grated on Richard with the same irritation as sand on window glass.

  And this, Father, is the frontier. They shall build a nation of brutes where once pristine nature flowered. Describing this wretched state to Laura would take the most delicate of language. How did one communicate such unpleasant truths to a lady?

  "Good day, sir." Charles Eckhart walked up and leaned his elbows on the gallery railing. He wore a dark frock coat, tailored trousers, and white shirt. A pale pink scarf covered his throat, and his beaver hat topped his head

  "And a good day to you, too, sir."

  "It appears we've made good time. When last I made this journey, the engine stopped. Evidently the piston needed repacking, whatever that means, and we lay tied off on a small island just below the Chains until parts could be brought."

  Richard gestured below. "And the hoi polloi camped on the deck the whole time?"

  "Some did. Others were ferried over to the western shore to walk the rest of the way into Saint Louis. They had the better of the deal, and reached the city before the rest of us."

  Richard shook his head, watching the woman with her dirty children. She'd seized the oldest boy by the ear and was dragging him screaming into the shelter of her canvas, the infant still suckling her flattened breast.

  Richard lowered his voice. "Look at them. How can human beings— rational beings—live like that? You've seen their farms, the flatboats. The difference between these wretched beings and mere beasts is but a distinction of language, not nature."

  Eckhart reached into his pocket for the inevitable cigar, but having no light, simply rolled it around in his mouth like a brown stick. "My father always taught me that if every man was a king, we'd all die of cold and hunger because no one would build the castles, grow the food, or cut the firewood. Now, me, I've never been to Boston, sir. I, however, find it difficult to believe that all men there are kings."

  "Assuredly not, but they don't live in mud and excrement, either." The domestic squabble below ended with a meaty slap.

  "People do what they must," Eckhart said. "I dare say, sir, that while you and I, both gentlemen with advantages of station, honor, and education, might abhor the conditions and actions of others, the Holy Book teaches us charity in thought and action. Opportunity comes of breeding, sir. However, a gentleman should also seek to understand the plight of those beneath his station."

  "A philosopher, sir, does not concern himself with charity, but with truth and understanding. I have dedicated myself to the study of our nature, and what it means to be a man. I confess, as I watch these people, I find nothing outside of shape in common with them."

  "And should your station change, Mr. Hamilton? As an educated man, I assume you have read Shakespeare. Kings, like all mortals, rise and fall."

  Richard made an airy gesture. "Fall I might, but I can promise you this, sir. I will be dead before I ever consent to live as they do."

  Eckhart carefully removed his cigar, bowing slightly. "A man of honor and integrity, sir, should never have to. Thank you for a pleasant discussion. Should you be interested, we will be starting a game within the hour. Just in case, sir, you'd be challenged by something so unscientific as luck."

  "Thank you, but I believe I shall find leisure with my studies. As always, the conversation was my pleasure."

  Eckhart studied him with thoughtful eyes, started to turn away, and then spoke in a low voice: "Mr. Hamilton, most of my companions on this journey consider you to be a most irritating young man. For myself, however, I think you're just frightened, hiding behind your books and arrogance so that you don't have to face the world. For a philosopher to hide seems counterproductive to the search for truth."

  "I don't see that that is any of your concern, sir."

  "Perhaps not, Mr. Hamilton. But. . . well, I suppose you could call it friendly advice. Something you may or may not have had acquaintance with in the past. Good day."

  Eckhart touched his hat and strolled along the gallery toward the forward cabin.

  Of all the . . . Richard started to turn, then froze. Francis, the boatman from Fort Massac, leaned against a davit, arms crossed, beard and sash toyed with by the wind. Richard met those deadly blue eyes. His soul shivered for an instant before he forced himself to turn away.

  Just coincidence, that's all. Many people travel to Saint Louis.

  He'd made but a step when Francois's voice called up, il Mon ami, I have something for you. A gift!"

  Ri
chard kept his back straight and walked away. He's an animal, nothing more. Ignore him.

  Heals Like A Willow slept, curled on her side. She'd drawn her knees to her chest, arms tucked tight, like a lost child. Layers of heavy buffalo robes covered her. Her long hair had twisted until it covered her face in a black web. Her hands twitched in time to the mewing sounds locked in her throat. Outside, the icy winter wind worried the thin lodge walls that protected her from the brunt of winter; they whispered around the narrowed smoke hole. In the firepit, faint eddies stirred patterns in the glowing coals. Patterns— like the shape of Power.

  Willow dreamed . . .

  I can sense it coming ... something terrible, i look around, seeing the mountains in the distance, so clear that I could reach out and touch their rocky heights. Snow blows through the sagebrush around my feet and whispers through the tough stems. It seems to be laughing, mocking me. The feeling is worse; something is very wrong. I look around, searching desperately for the danger. I see nothing, only smooth bluffs and the glass-bead blue sky overhead.

  And then, from out of the very air, I hear cackling laughter. I know that sound; It is very old, from the beginning of the world. Coyote the Trickster's laughter sends chills up my back.

  I run.

  As I do, the horror comes from behind, hurling itself forward with the speed of a racing pronghom. I run harder, willing my feet to move like the wind. Breath tears in my lungs as I sprint eastward, driven by this unseen horror.

  The dark threat is so close. I feel it tracing cold fingers across my back; tendrils try to close around me, to pull me back into its dark interior.

  If I falter, allow myself to be drawn into the black depth, I am lost. My souls are screaming at the faintest touch of the blackness.

  Fear rushes through me, and I leap arroyos, race up grassy hills, and fly down slopes faster than falcon on the wind.

  Run! Panic curls around my guts, squeezing tightly to wring the last bit of energy from my burning muscles. The dark horror is bearing down, twining in the wind, searching to snare my soul and drag me down.