The Morning River

by W. Michael Gear

  Richard did so, lighting a twig to start the bowl. He puffed and passed the pipe to Travis.

  The hunter pulled and exhaled the blue smoke through his nostrils. "I reckon tomorrow morning ye might want ter take that gnarly-looking brown gelding. I'd backtrack, oh. maybe a mile or two, then cut straight south. Follow along the flats where the bluffs break down toward the river. Yer two days' hard ride from Fort Atkinson/'

  "What are you talking about? You mean to go get help? Willow says you're going to be all right."

  Travis fixed those hard blue eyes on him. "If'n yer not dumber than a Kentucky fence post, I don't know what is. The fort's two days south. Reckon I'd take that Injun trade gun. Being smooth bore, she ain't fer long shots, but she'll raise anything up close . . . even Pawnee."

  Richard took the pipe, staring. "You mean, you want me to ride off?"

  "Wal. yer game, Dick. Reckon Til just up and tell Dave ye got the slip on me. and I kilt ye when I finally run ye down. Reckon that'll give them engages something ter think about. Davey, wal. I reckon he'll weasel it outa me by the time we make the Mandan villages."

  Richard drew on the pipe, staring down at the crackling fire. Free? Just like that?

  He glanced at the brown gelding standing head down, eyes half closed on the picket line. The evening deepened, faint rays of light spreading amber across the sky while shadows grew among the trees. On the eastern bluffs, several miles away, the hilltops looked golden.

  A mourning dove cooed out in the trees.

  "What about you? What if Green's really upriver? Do you think Willow is going to stay? She could leave, too."

  "Reckon I'm about healed, Dick." Travis lifted his shirt, staring down at the ugly wound. "Ye done right fine. Hell, ye otta seen the job they did on old Louis de Grotte. Looked like chickens danced on his gut."

  "I was scared to death."

  "I know. So's I. Don't know which of us was shaking worst."

  "I was," Richard said softly and vividly recalled his tacky red fingers, the needle dimpling the blood-slick skin, and the sodden pull of Travis's flesh on the thread.

  How did I ever do that? He looked down at his hands. The sun had burned them dark brown, the skin rough and callused; dirt made dark arcs under his nails. They looked like a man's hands. That thought startled him. Are they really mine?

  Heals Like A Willow rose and walked slowly toward them, head bowed, her long glossy black hair slipping around her shoulders. Her leather dress was worn, but it clung to her in a way that accented her broad shoulders, full breasts, narrow waist, and the provocative curve of her hips. The tattered hem ended just below her knees. Richard had never seen a woman's legs before; unabashed, he kept staring. Her skin seemed so smooth and silky. The way the soft leather outlined her thighs and flat abdomen brought thoughts to Richard's mind that he'd never encountered before.

  "Reckon ye'd best close yer mouth," Travis observed. "Yer like to start drooling."

  Richard threw his tormentor an irritated glance, but by then Willow had arrived. She shook out her blanket, gave Travis a solicitous inspection, then settled herself. Expressionless, she stared into the fire.

  "Willow, why do you look so sad?" Richard asked.

  She cocked her head, listening intently to his words as she studied him. Were her lustrous eyes larger than a white woman's? Was that why they seemed to engulf him? Could they swallow a man's soul?

  She made signs to Travis and he made signs back.

  "She says she's sad because her husband and son are dead. They died of a fever this last winter. She was supposed to save them. She's a healer—uh, medicine woman. They died anyway. They were Meat-Eater Snakes, Ku-chendikanu She's with the high mountain Snakes, the Du-kurika, Sheepeaters. She was on her way home when Pack-rat—that Pawnee kid ye sent under—captured her."

  "How'd she get here?"

  Travis made more signs, and Willow's hands traced out the shapes of a response. "She says Packrat was Half Man's son. Packrat was bringing her to Half Man as a sort of Pawnee insult—a way to shame his father for having shamed his mother. Packrat hoped to gain power and prestige among his people/'

  Richard scratched at his bristly chin. "Let me get this straight. Packrat was going to give her to his father, and by doing so, shame him?"

  Travis puffed on the pipe. "Wal, the Pawnee, they got their own ways of doing things. Like clever jokes. For instance, let's say a warrior says another Pawnee is a miser, selfish when other people are in need. Such a thing can destroy a man's reputation among the Pawnee. To stop any such nonsense, the feller accused of hoarding, he up and gives everything he's got to the feller that shot off his mouth. Ye can damn well bet it would put the gabber in his place fer good."

  "I see. Aesop would have liked a story like that."

  "He one of yer perfessors?"

  "No. He was a Greek. Wrote fables. Like the dog in the manger? Ever heard of that?"

  "I reckon."

  "Stories with a moral message . . . and the Pawnee put the stories into practice?"

  "Reckon they do. And, when ye think about it, it makes a sight more sense than throwing a coon inta jail."

  Willow's slender fingers danced.

  "What did she say?" Richard longed to reach out and touch her long hair where the firelight played in it.

  "Wants to know about us, coon. Yer not married, are ye?"

  "No."

  Travis's hands molded the response. Willow continued her inspection of Richard, then she signed again.

  "She wants to know why you keep staring at her that way. She says it's a lost-puppy look."

  Richard blushed and avoided her eyes. Good God, what would Laura think? "Tell her. .. Tell her I. .."

  But Willow's hands were in motion again.

  Travis chuckled. "She says that I look at her with lust, but you look at her with a different eye, the soul's eye."

  Richard glared hotly at Travis. "Stop looking at her that way!"

  Travis laughed out loud, winced, and placed a hand tenderly to his side. Willow glanced curiously between them.

  "What about this soul's eye?" Richard asked. "The soul doesn't have an eye."

  Travis made his signs. Willow started a response, then made a cutoff sign. She stood, walked over to Richard, and settled herself immediately in front of him. She placed cool hands on either side of his head. Then, her face inches from his, she looked deeply into his eyes.

  Richard fell into those endless pools. Brown, limpid, they expanded and engulfed the world with their soft strength. She probed, challenged, and waited for a reaction.

  It's as if our souls are touching. Richard's heart leapt, rising to the challenge. He reached up, cupping her face with his own hands, meeting her challenge and searching as she did. The blood had begun to pulse in his veins.

  How long were they locked like that? An eternal moment.

  She nodded then, lowered her hands, and backed away.

  Richard sat like a statue, hands frozen in the air, still caressing the memory of her soft warm cheeks. His heart slowed its hammering beat, the blood cooling in his veins.

  Her hands formed graceful signs, and Travis said: "The soul's eye."

  Richard nodded and took a deep breath as the tingling surge slowly boiled out of his blood. She continued to watch him, her full lips pursed pensively.

  When her hands moved again, Travis translated: "What did you see?"

  Richard answered, awed, "I saw your soul, Willow."

  "She wants to know if you were afraid."

  "No. Not at all. Why should I be?"

  Travis made signs. "She says most men fear women's Power. Men fear her in particular. She does not act as men think proper. She seeks medicine Power. With it, she destroyed Packrat."

  "Willow"—Richard reached out, desperate to keep that link—"I do not fear you. I am a philosopher, a seeker of truth."

  "Ain't no sign fer philos'pher," Travis growled. "Hell, I'll just make this up."

  "Don't!" Richard cried
. "This is important. I've been looking for her! Don't you see? She's proof!"

  "Proof?" Travis screwed his face up. "Proof of what?"

  "Man in nature, Travis!" Richard beamed in his excitement, Willow watching him with glowing eyes.

  "Wal, hoss, if'n ye think's she's a man, yer not only an ignerant Yankee, but tarnal blind to boot!"

  Richard grinned triumphantly. "Tell her I have hoped to meet someone like her. I want to ... to talk to her. Ask her questions."

  Travis translated. Willow watched curiously, then responded: "What questions?"

  "About God. About perception and the nature of mankind, the epistemological basis of reality that dictates—"

  "Whoa, now! Damn it, Dick! I ain't got no signs for none of that hoss crap but God!"

  "Dik," she said, then her hand made a sign.

  Travis translated: "Learn . . . Talk . .. White man."

  "It takes a long time," Richard told her.

  She gave him her challenging stare and said, "Willow learn talk White man."

  "I'll be damned," Travis muttered He put his pipe back in his possibles and retrieved the hairy piece of hide. He fingered the lone black hair and studied Willow thoughtfully.

  Richard grinned. "I'll teach you."

  Travis lifted an eyebrow and signed.

  "What's that?" Richard asked.

  "I asked if she was going with us up the river."

  Her fingers flew.

  Travis related: "I will travel with you for a while. It would be wise to know more about the White men. You have not been what I expected." In English she ended, "I will learn. Eye of the soul."

  "Eye of the soul," Richard agreed. "One day we will talk about God, and nature, and man's place within it."

  Travis scraped his piece of hide. "Careful, coon. I gotta hunch she ain't just any old squaw."

  "How's that?"

  "I believe that bit she said about Packrat. She said she destroyed him. Watch yer topknot, coon. See that she don't destroy yer soul whilst she's a-looking at it."

  "What do you mean?"

  Travis studied Willow thoughtfully. "When she walked up and looked ye in the eyes, didn't ye feel it?"

  "I did indeed."

  "Power, coon. Heap big medicine. I felt it afore, at Okipa and Sundance, but never from no woman. I reckon she kilt Packrat, all right. And saved our bacon in the process. Reckon she knew what she's about the whole time."

  Richard gave Travis a quizzical glance. "How could magic kill? It's irrational. Ask her, Travis. Willow, how did you kill Packrat?"

  Travis made the signs, and read Willow's answer "I drove his soul from his body and made him insane."

  Why am I doing this? Heals Like A Willow walked barefoot along the muddy bank of the Missouri, as the Whites called it. The golden morning had dawned cool, with a light mist rising above the water.

  Throughout the long night, she'd dreamed of Dik, of the way his soul had reached out to touch hers. She had never dreamed that a man would look at her with such fearlessness. What kind of man was Dik? She'd seen him shaking after killing Packrat, and yet he had no fear of her. Even the Bear Man now looked at her with reservation. Deep in his soul, Trawis understood what she'd done to Packrat, if not the exact way of it

  She crossed her arms, wisps of hair blowing around her like a cloak. I used my puha. I didn 't hesitate, didn 't worry about acting correctly, or as other people expected me to, I used all of my puha, and Packrat is dead If I had used all of my puha, instead of being so cautious, would my husband and baby be alive today?

  She drew a deep breath to counter the bitter ache in her soul. Her husband's face hovered at the edge of her thoughts—but she dared not reach out to him, fearful of what the attempt would do to his souls on their journey to the afterlife.

  If only I had allowed myself to use all of my Power. . . . But she had been frightened of where that would lead, and what would happen to her. And if there is a next time?

  She knotted her fist, refusing to consider the possibility.

  The roiling water flowed past—an incredible moving sheet of brown that shaded into gleaming silver before it met the far wooded shore. Behind her, the new cottonwood leaves rattled in the breeze from the bluff tops. With it came the smells of grass, wildflowers, and dry earth.

  Far out in the river, a giant cottonwood rolled with the current, the branches yellow and pointed, scrubbed bare of bark. Two great blue herons flapped slowly upriver, their needle beaks and trailing feet thin against the sky.

  Trawis said that a huge canoe was being pulled upriver, that it would meet them here. She tried to comprehend what he'd told her. A canoe longer than fifteen men. She couldn't form the image of such a thing in her mind.

  I will ride this big canoe, and learn more. She stopped, toes in the lapping water, and looked up. An eagle soared in easy circles against the morning sky. Is that you, husband? Are you still watching out for me?

  No answer came to the aching loneliness inside. What would he say at the sight of so much moving water?

  Dry-eyed, she blinked, clearing her soul's vision of his smiling face. Killing the desire in her heart for his gentle touch.

  Perhaps getting captured hadn't been such a bad thing. She'd had no time for grief. During that long ride with Pack-rat, her concentration had centered on endurance, and the battle of wills with her captor. Like two otters on an ice floe, they'd teetered back and forth, but in the end she'd worn him down. Right down to the moment when he drew an arrow back to kill Trawis.

  The moment I laughed, I won, Packrat. She curled her toes in the muddy sand. Her only hope at the moment had been to lose him the whiskey, to thwart his little victory. But Power worked in mysterious ways, and Dik had killed Packrat. Why? Because Packrat was beating her. What Indian man would kill another because he was beating a slave?

  Strange beings, these White men. Trawis, she could understand. He was just a man, possessed of all the normal things a man was possessed of, and of some things more so. Courage, for one. No one could doubt his courage, or the strength of his soul. Not only had he insisted on traveling to the river when he should have stayed flat, but he had insisted on healing on the way. And he hasn't died.

  Dik had played a big part in keeping Bear Man alive, but Dik didn't seem to realize his Power. Had no one trained him, taught him to open his soul? What a curious man. He didn't shrink back from a woman using her medicine skills. Didn't he fear the loss of his manhood? That she would somehow weaken him?

  Behind her, a rifle made a pop-boom as Richard practiced.

  "Keep yer eye open, coon! Ye gotta keep yer aim after the flash in the pan!"

  She cocked her head, trying to follow the words. "Eye," she knew, and "yer," "ye," and "keep." Dik had worked with her all evening, until she went to sleep, her souls spinning with new words.

  Today Dik was learning to shoot, a fact confusing to her, since he'd shot Packrat dead.

  She bent down to touch her fingertips to the water and let the crystalline drops run down her hand. What brought me here, so far from my people? Where is Power taking me?

  A person could ask the questions, and the answers always came, but only after a long time.

  She caught one of the drips of water on the tip of her tongue. The important thing was to ask the questions. Two Half Moons might have had a glimmer of that truth when she climbed up under the rim to save Willow from freezing to death.

  Perhaps Slim Pole had been part of the pattern, aware of her shaken belief in her Power, and frightened of the consequences among his people.

  Red Calf knew and rightly feared me. I would have destroyed her. And to what purpose? Justice? The Pawnee showed a great deal more sense than the Ku'chendikani when it came to settling disputes.

  Pop-boom!

  "Reckon that's a mite better, coon! Ye hit the tree," came Trawis's reedy cry.

  "Reckon," that meant to think, but there were other words for the process. "Tree," she'd learned that word, too.

 
; So, you will go upriver with them? Why, Willow? The smart woman you used to be would take a horse and race straight back to the Powder River Mountains. Her gaze played over the huge river. Like clouds, the water never made exactly the same pattern twice.

  "And how," she asked herself, "will you act when a White man crawls into your blankets at night? You are a lone woman traveling with men. Men are no more than they are.

  As women are no more than they are. But are we so different? Yes, we are. A man seeks to plant his seed in as many women as he can. The more women, the better his chances of making a child. A woman seeks a man who will keep her secure and help to raise the child. Because of this, we are always pitted against each other.

  "That doesn't answer your question, Willow. What will you do when one crawls into your blankets?" She made a face at the notion of ghost white skin against hers. It would be the same as coupling with a corpse.

  A Dukurika woman knew ways of keeping men off. Her hand slid down to the smooth handle of the war club she'd tied to the rope around her waist. With it, Packrat had subdued her. But I will subdue any man who threatens me. Similarly, she would claim Packrat's bow and arrows. She hadn't practiced with one since girlhood. Perhaps the time had come to grow proficient again.

  Dik will protect me. The thought surfaced in her soul.

  "And you are a fool, Heals Like A Willow. Only you can protect yourself. Anything else is a lie."

  She entered camp and found the bow and arrows rolled in Packrat's blankets. Stringing the hardwood bow took all of her strength. Most of the arrows were headed with soft-iron trade points, the kind that cut cleanly but bent upon impact with bone. She'd seen the effect they had on a man. Those she would have to save, but the blunt-headed bird points could be used for practice.

  Pop-boom! At the shot, the horses started, then relaxed.

  She headed toward the shooting, testing the pull on the bow. "Are you ready, Dik? I am coming to shoot against you. You with your White man's rifle, and I with my Pawnee bow."

  The Indian pony that Richard rode had the roughest gait he'd ever felt. The little animal hammered each stiff-legged step down the grassy slope, following the travois tracks. Richard held the reins in his left hand, the Pawnee trade gun in the right. To his annoyance, he wasn't a good enough rider to keep from bouncing on the animal's back like a corn kernel on a tin lid.