The Morning River

by W. Michael Gear

  Travis grinned, and lifted his shirt.

  Green let out a low whistle. "How long ago did this happen?"

  "About three days. Dick, hyar, he done a mite of sewing on this old coon. Reckon I'd let him darn my socks now. He's plumb practiced."

  Green, muttering, gave Richard another skeptical glance.

  Baptiste bent down and scowled at the wound. "Stay at it, Hartman. Another five or six years on the river and you'll use up all the hide you got left."

  "Huh! Wal, come the day my pizzle gets sliced up, this child's quitting!"

  Baptiste gave Willow an amused inspection, adding, "Then steer clear of this'un, coon. She's pizen!"

  Richard stiffened, but Travis reached back with a hand to cut him off. "Baptiste, I want ye and Dick hyar ta see ter the hosses. Reckon I'm gonna take my leisure like a boosh-way, and ride like a king up on the cargo box."

  "Travis!" Richard cried.

  Travis ignored him. "Now, Baptiste, Dick hyar, he's a mite of a greenhorn yet. Reckon I can recall when ye were of a same mind, all piss and vinegar and damn little sense. Dick's got savvy and larns right quick, but ye need ter explain things in simple words and with a lot of detail. Like I say, he's a-larning. That said, I'd take it as a favor if'n ye didn't cut his throat fer a couple of days, lessen, of course, he really riles ye."

  Baptiste snorted, his dark stare pinning the sputtering Richard. "I'll see. Come on, pilgrim. Show me what you've got."

  Travis gestured for Richard to follow the black man toward the picket. Willow hesitated, then trotted after them, sticking close to Richard.

  Green squinted, then pointed. "Hanging on his belt. . . that's not what I think it is?"

  Travis chuckled. "Reckon so. Our Boston Yankee thinks it's a . . . what in Hob, uh, 'fetish.' That's what he calls her."

  "What's a fetish?"

  "Beats hell outa me. But pass the word. We don't want none of the crew a-telling him he's wearing that Pawnee's topknot on his side."

  "Civilized, my ass!" Green fingered his chin.

  "Whar ye been?" Travis asked, turning toward the boat. "Take my hand, Dave. Reckon I cain't afford ter fall off'n the damn plank. Thanks."

  Green helped him balance as they crossed to the deck. "Had no trouble at all. Seems as if the Company factor was down sick." Green slapped a hand to his leg. "That Bap-tiste, he's a sly one. Showed up just as we landed at the fort. He was standing on the bank cursing like a sailor. Gave me all kinds of hell for being late. Said we were due in a week ago, and how in hell could the Company expect to keep the upriver trade if the supplies were late."

  "Do tell?" Travis settled himself against the corner of the cargo box and slid down onto his butt.

  "You put him up to that?" Green asked.

  "Nope. Reckon he figgered this was his chance ter head back upriver. Baptiste, he's a clever coon. He's figgered there's a chance fer him with us. One he ain't never gonna get with the Company. Treat him square, and he'll back ye to the hilt."

  Green watched the last of the whiskey being toted aboard and stowed. Henri was shouting orders as the plank was drawn in. "After that cocky captain signed our papers and had his boys search the boat, Baptiste walked up as plucky as a strutting cock and hired on. Asked for ten percent."

  "Ten?"

  "Yep, and I gave it to him. He's another American— black though he might be. He'll stick ... if you will."

  The Maria was swinging out from the bank as the polers drove her into the current. "He'll do. Half cat scratch and all fury. But he's just looking fer the same things the rest of us is. Wants ter be treated like a man, and willing to fess up ter the consequences."

  "He's got it." Green watched the trees passing by on the bank. Through the trunks, the horses could be seen, Baptiste, Richard, and Willow riding along. "Since we weren't under suspicion, I took an extra day and signed on three more engages. The gamble is they'll more than make up the time. Now, what's between you and that damned Yankee?"

  Travis leaned back and told the story. When he finished, he cocked a grizzled eyebrow. "And that's the whole of it. That Packrat had us dead ter rights. Woulda kilt us all, and lifted the whiskey. Willow suckered him, and Dick kilt him. We end up with fat cow instead of poor bull."

  "Is he going to run?"

  "Hell, I don't know. He don't even know. He's all knotted up inside over this philos'phy. Got all these high and mighty notions of ethics and responsibility. Reckon the trouble is, folks can spout what they will, but that coon's never mixed his idears with real life. It's a-playing Hob with him. Shoulda seen him trying ter talk me inta burying them damn Pawnee."

  "So, you sent him out with Baptiste?"

  "Yep. Poor Dick. Fer a feller full of worries about being a slave, I reckon old Baptiste is a gonna fetch him up right smart."

  TWENTY-THREE

  As an unbroken courser raises its mane, paws the ground, and rages at the sight of the naked bit, while a trained horse patiently suffers both whip and spur, in a like manner the barbarian will never extend his neck into the yoke which a civilized man bears without murmuring, but prefers the most stormy liberty to a peaceful slavery.

  —Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Discourse on the Origin and Foundation of Inequality Among Mankind

  Richard studied Baptiste surreptitiously. With his swinging fringe, heavy rifle, knife, and a pistol jammed into his belt, the hunter fit every image of a swashbuckling brigand. He sat his horse as if he were a centaur. The blacks Richard had known were mostly house servants, like Jeffry, waspish, elegant, and mannered.

  Baptiste rode to Richard's left, Willow to his right. For once she wasn't asking for words in her headlong charge to learn English. Rather, those beautiful eyes reflected a pensive struggle. Reprising the morning's events, no doubt.

  He longed to reach out, to pat her arm reassuringly. Anything to see that warm glow in her eyes. His gaze kept slipping in her direction, fastening on the curve of cheek and nose, the fullness of her lips, those high breasts pressed against the soft leather of her dress.

  "Known Travis long?" Baptiste asked. He rode with his polished rifle held easily across the horse's withers.

  "No. Only since they dumped me on the deck one night."

  "Reckon yor not gonna find a better coon nowhere."

  "Indeed?"

  Baptiste examined him with veiled eyes before returning his attention to the countryside. Richard had noted the same habit in Travis: constant vigilance.

  Richard cleared his throat. "Look. I'm not here of my free will. I was robbed, tied up, and sold to Green. I'm a man, not a chattel!"

  Baptiste used a finger to push his hat up on his head. "Then why're you heah? I'd a run by now, hoss."

  Richard slumped, wishing he had stirrups. "It's a little complicated. It's partly my fault that Travis got hurt. You heard him. I'll stick it out until he's well. Then I'll do what I have to to gain my freedom."

  Baptiste laughed sourly. "Freedom, coon? Look around. Where on God's green earth is you gonna be more free than heah?"

  "Boston."

  "Shit!"

  "Have you ever been there?"

  "City, ain't it?"

  "Perhaps the grandest in the world."

  "They got slaves there?"

  "There are ... some." Like Jeffry, God forbid.

  "Ain't no freedom in no city, coon." Baptiste's smile rode crookedly on his face. "Ain't no freedom nowhere there's men. Freedom only comes of a wilderness."

  "Then you don't know the meaning of freedom. Freedom is born in the mind, in the ability to think and question. It is reason that raises man above the beasts."

  "Do tell."

  "Indeed I do! Can there be any vocation greater than the search for absolute truth? I think not. And how, the question is asked, can we, as mere mortals, search for the ineffable and sublime? Our only course is through reason, Baptiste. Absolute truth is attainable, and our minds are the levers by which we shall lift ourselves to that lofty goal. There, sir, is the only meaningful free
dom."

  Baptiste was looking at him as if he were some kind of unusual new insect. "What did you just say?"

  "We agree that rationality, the ability to reason, is what sets us apart from the rest of the animals, don't we?"

  "The ability to figger."

  "Exactly."

  Baptiste scanned their surroundings, then frowned. "Reckon so. And yor saying that the ability to figger is what makes men free?"

  "Absolutely."

  "That's a passel of nonsense, Dick."

  "My name is Richard. And if you don't think reason sets us free, what does?"

  "Wal, Richard from Boston, fo' me, it was a double-bitted ax."

  "I don't understand."

  Baptiste made a slicing gesture with his hand. "Whacked off my massa's head. Cut her right clean, I did. Shoulda seen his eyes a-blinking when his head bounced on the ground. A feller don't die right off when his head's cut off, you see. It takes a couple of seconds afo' the blood drains out."

  Richard grimaced. "I thought we were talking about freedom, not murder."

  Baptiste chuckled. ''Reckon it can be the same thing."

  "Why'd you kill him?"

  "I wanted to be free, boy. I runned off twice. Got ketched both times—and whupped like a damned dog both times. Reckoned I warn't gonna live like that. No, suh. So, I whacked the planter son of a bitch what owned me, and I runned again." Baptiste gave Richard a hard glance. "Now, yor not a slaveowner, are you?''

  "N—No, I'm not. I don't believe in it. One human being shouldn't own another human being."

  Baptiste jerked a nod. ''Reckon I'll tolerate you."

  They passed the next minutes in silence. Rather than contemplate the fact that he rode beside an ax murderer, Richard turned his attention to the country. The plants seemed greener in the bright sunlight. Three buzzards spiraled in the hot air. Wildflowers of all colors swayed at the passage of the horses' feet through the tall grass. Birdsong rose and fell.

  Richard finally nerved himself and asked, "Is that why you're out here? You can't go back because of, uh, having dispatched your owner?"

  Baptiste tilted his head, making another inspection of Richard. "Aw, that's right, I forgit you ain't got no idea of freedom. I'm out heah to be free, coon. It ain't like yor Boston. Ain't no folks out heah to be shackling a man's legs in iron." He jerked a thumb back toward the river where the Maria now moved under sail, the wind finally having turned to the north. "I got ten percent share. Why? 'Cause I can be who I is. It don't matter if'n I be a nigger. Dave Green sees a man when he looks at Baptiste. He don't see no runned-away slave. So, tell me, what's all this head-shit about reason and freedom?"

  Richard frowned. God in Heaven, what do I say to that?

  Baptiste went on, "Reckon fo' this coon, I done found all the freedom I can stand. Tarnal Hell, I hated that fort. All them so'jers looking at me like I was some kind of animal instead of a man. Listen well, Mister Dick. So long's you can stay ahead o' them folks from back East, you'll be a free man. It's only when they shows up with their army, and churches, and solid folk that a man's got to bow his head 'cause he's a nigger."

  "That isn't what—"

  "Now, I reckon you can chaw on that fo' a while. It ain't no easy thing to larn, and old Travis, he said you needed a mite of laming. So, I'm laming ye, Doodle."

  Richard sighed. "All right, I'll think about it. I'm not a boy." He glanced at Willow, but she'd obviously been unable to follow the conversation. Good! She doesn't know I’m sounding like an idiot.

  "Huh, wal, that's notional."

  "You don't talk like I'd expect a man raised in slavery to talk."

  "How so, massa? Sho 'nuff, I's a-gwine talk like dis from now on? Make yo all feels right at home now, chile?'' Bap-tiste threw his head back and laughed. "Tarnal Hell, coon. Folks judge a man by how he talks. Old Travis, he done lamed me that right off. Told me, "Now, ye needs ter talk like a white man. Do her, hoss, and ain't no sheriff a gonna figger yer no 'scaped slave.' So I larnt it."

  "How long have you known Travis?"

  "Since the day he saved my sorry hide down to New Orleans. Reckon that's back in eighteen and eleven. They plumb near had me, hounds closing in, folks swarming the country with rifles, shotguns, and knives a-looking fo' me. I's about as dangerous a nigger as had been loose in them parts in years. That's when I run acrost old Travis. He skins me up an old live oak and I hides up there in the moss. Meantime, Travis scrapes this gouge in the mud next to the bayou. When that posse shows up, he's a cussing and stamping, swearing some buck nigger just done stole his pirogue.

  "Me, I lays up there on that limb, still as an old gray squirrel. That posse, they ask some questions, and finally turn right around and head back south. Travis, why, he scouts around, sees thar ain't nobody watching, and waves me down. From there, we lit a shuck north. Follered the river right up."

  As Baptiste talked, Richard measured those powerful shoulders and swelling biceps. Dear God. Richard absently fingered his neck. How soft and fragile it felt.

  "Why did you kill your master?"

  "Man can beat another man," Baptiste said simply. "Reckon that ain't so much. Reckon it was justice, Dick. That planter, he's just plumb cruel. Now, I run, and I got beat fo' it. Fair's fair. But he beat hosses, and wimmen, and every slave he had, good, bad, or innocent. I's running again. I knew he knew it. He's waiting, see? Gonna beat me to death in front of my woman and childrens. Make me an example. Shouldn't otta drive a man to desperation. I's desperate, and one day he turned his back when he shouldn't."

  "Is cruelty worth a man's life?"

  "Ask yerself, Dick. Way I hear it, you done kilt that Pawnee what was beating Willow."

  Richard exhaled slowly. How do I judge him when I’m no better?

  "Then I suppose you understand better than anyone why I have to get away."

  Baptiste's hard brown eyes displayed no emotion. "Travis beating on you? Green?"

  "No. But they took advantage of me. I was robbed—tied up! They made me sign that contract. Held a knife to my throat!"

  "Who did?"

  "Francois and August."

  Baptiste betrayed the first surprise Richard had seen. "And yor still alive?"

  "If that's what you call this."

  Baptiste shook his head. "Waugh! That's some, it is. That Francois, he's as mean a snake as you'll find. Pilgrim, yor just plumb lucky. Be right happy to see each sunrise. Francis don't let many of his victims live."

  "But they've turned me into a slave here!"

  Baptiste turned his head long enough to give Richard a narrow-eyed stare. "Reckon I'm scouting ahead, boy."

  Richard licked his lips as Baptiste trotted his horse ahead, the long fringes waving with each step the animal made.

  "What that?" Willow asked, breaking her silence and gesturing at Baptiste.

  Richard rubbed the back of his neck. "I guess I just made a fool of myself."

  "Guess'? Fool'? Dik?" Her eyes probed his, questioning. Dear Lord God, how did a woman get to be so beautiful?

  "Yes, you could say that. Dik a fool."

  What kind of people are these? The question hung in Willow's souls like thin blue smoke on a cold day. She walked through the evening encampment, winding between the fires. Men sprawled about the crackling blazes, staying close to sparks and heat in an effort to avoid the humming columns of mosquitoes.

  As she passed, the engages looked up at her with lust gleaming in their eyes—just like yellow-eyed bobcats when they inspected a covey of sage grouse. / am not prey for the likes of you, she mocked from within. Not unless you want your head split.

  She'd heard White men called 44 dog-faces," and how true it was. They all had hair growing out of their faces. At first, she'd been startled. Men shouldn't grow hair on their faces. It made them look peculiar. But then, the Pawnee, Oto, and Omaha shaved their heads, and that looked just as peculiar to her as hair on the face.

  Wolf-men. Even to the light-colored eyes. Wolf-men who traveled on
a floating lodge bigger than any council lodge she'd ever seen. Their spirit water had healed the wound in Trawis's side. She'd seen her reflection, so clear, in one of their mirrors. Their metal pots could be dropped without shattering the way ceramic ones did. Their heavy rifles killed the small whitetail deer at distances that defied a bow.

  Perhaps, like Wolf, they really were powerful.

  But what do I think of them? That question lurked in her thoughts and dreams. She'd searched for evil, and found none. Nor had she found anything other than the ways of men. Laughter, lust, hunger, kindness, and cruelty.

  When they watched her, it was as men watch a woman; not with suspicion like Dukurika would watch a Crow woman, even if she came among them as a friend and not a captive.

  Baptiste had become oddly protective when he learned that she'd been a captive. His skin was not painted, but naturally black. He'd patiently allowed her to feel his soft kinky hair so like a buffalo's.

  The White men ranked themselves in an interesting way. The booshway was chief. Trawis and Baptiste were like war leaders, and the patroon was in charge of the boat. Finally came the engages, French, a different tribe of White men who spoke a separate language. She still hadn't placed Dik in the system of rank. He seemed high, yet low. He could speak to Trawis or Green at any time. The engages, however, despised him.

  Did no one understand his Power? Didn't they see that he was a seeker of visions?

  "Willow!" Trawis called from Green's curious cloth lodge. "Reckon we could use ye."

  She'd picked up most of the easy phrases. Now she crossed to Green's lodge. She stepped through the flap to see Trawis being settled on a blanket. Two small fires wavered on the wax sticks they called candles. Dik was shifting nervously while Green saw to Trawis's comfort.

  "What happens?'' Willow asked.

  "Stitches have to come out," Dik told her. He looked nervous, licking his lips, and paler than usual.

  "Wal, come on, coon," Trawis muttered.

  "Travis, don't you think someone with a little more—"

  "Hell, ye sewed 'em in, ye can yank 'em out!"