“Vincent,” he said as he looked up at the embodiment of his failure. “Do me one small kindness, if you would, and kill me now. It would be fitting, don’t you think?”
Vincent’s chuckle was a mixture of cruelty and sympathy. “Hardly,” he said as he reached down and offered George a hand. “I’m not such a fool that I’d kill the goose that lays the golden egg.” He pulled George up by his arm and steadied him on his feet.
“What do you mean?”
Vincent revealed crooked teeth in a lopsided grin. “Why don’t you let me buy you a drink?”
With an emptiness in his stomach and knees that shook with anger unspent, the idea of a drink sounded good, regardless the source.
“A drink,” he said, glaring at Vincent with an unsteady eye. “Why do you want to buy me a drink?”
“Why, because this is your lucky day,” he said as he took George by the elbow and escorted him around the corner of the tavern. Red Arrow stood near the rain barrel, and George saw sadness in the Indian’s eyes.
“Walk free,” he said to George, and raised his hand in farewell.
George chuckled. “He’s just going to buy me a drink. I’ll see you later and bring you some. You’ll see.”
Red Arrow only closed his eyes. “No,” he said. “I see you no more. You go to another place.”
“Crazy Injun,” Vincent said as they walked toward the tavern’s rear. “Drink affects ‘em more than it does us white folks.”
But to George, Red Arrow’s words of parting sounded like a judge’s sentence. He stared at the man from the Cut-Hair People. Though his clothing was soiled and his face swollen, the expression on his face was peaceful, and the large hand that he held up was flexed as if he was pressing it against another, unseen hand. George shivered and had the urge to leave Vincent, to refuse this man entirely.
And why shouldn’t I? he asked himself. This man who has done me so wrong? Why should I follow him so, as if the past year and a half had not happened?
He stopped, and Vincent, still leading George by the arm, turned. He looked at George, and then at Red Arrow who stood as still as stone at the corner of the building.
“What? You don’t hold with what he says, do you?” He tugged on George’s arm. “He’s just a crazy Injun, eh? Mais oui, crazy and drunk.”
George pulled his arm out of Vincent’s hold. “Some would say the same of me,” he said, “and yet for me, you’ll buy a drink.”
“Now, listen, George—”
“I should kill you.”
“Are we back at that?” Vincent asked, showing the knife he’d taken from George. “Do I have to trounce you again, you foolish bastard? Because I will.” He raised one fist. “I’ll thrash you, I will, if you won’t come to your senses.”
“You stole from us!” he shouted. He remembered the battles the People had fought to get the weapons they’d tried to purchase. “Men died because of you!”
Vincent shook his head and looked at him with narrowed eyes. “Ah, non, mon ami, not because of me. No one died on account of me. If I stole, I stole from healthy men. I killed no one.” He waggled a finger in his direction. “If anyone killed them, it was the man who led them.”
The insult was too great, the challenge too open. George lunged at him, one hand grabbing for the knife, the other reaching for Vincent’s narrow neck, but the wily man stepped to the side and thrust upward with his fist into George’s gut, crumpling him like a paper bag. He fell heavily to one knee, but Vincent kept him from falling farther by grabbing onto his arm once more.
“Settle down, now,” Vincent said, solicitous and patronizing. “Come on, and I’ll buy you that drink. Vraiment, I think you need it.”
The desire to harm, to inflict pain, fired in George’s heart. He wanted to do something to atone for his sins, to make up for his weaknesses, and most especially to hurt this man who had been author of so much of it. His mouth hungered for the offered drink, but his soul cursed, demanding some sort of payment. Vincent was an old man but he had bested George twice in the length of time it told to tell the tale. As he knelt on the sodden ground, with Vincent standing over him like some benevolent Samaritan, he knew he had to do something, even if it only be a token. He looked and saw Vincent’s muddy boots and the soiled hems of his trouser legs.
He grabbed one trouser leg in each hand and stood. Vincent was upended like an unbalanced wheelbarrow, falling down hard into a puddle of muddy rainwater that had the consistency of cream. With one step forward, George had his foot on Vincent’s throat, a hand in his hair, and had taken the knife from his stunned grip.
George grimaced through the dizziness his sudden action had brought on. He glared down at Vincent, whose eyes were white-rimmed and whose ears were puddling with rainwater. He rotated the knife on its axis and let its honed edge catch the sharp light of the sun, drawing bright lines across the face of the man who had cost him so much. Vincent’s mouth trembled and he panted through a gaping mouth with breath as rapid as a bird’s. The man’s fear was absolute.
“So tell me,” he said to him. “Tell me why this crazy Injun shouldn’t just take your scalp and leave you for the little-teeth.”
Vincent stared up into George’s eyes as he twined his fingers in Vincent’s greasy hair and brought the knife to his forehead, ready to make the hard, thrusting cuts that would peel back a strip of scalp from the skull. Vincent’s lips worked, trying to form words without the benefit of breath or voice. He pabbled like a pot of boiling water.
“B...b...but...”
“But what?” George asked with a smile.
“B...but the law!”
Doubt stayed George’s hand, and Vincent recognized his opportunity.
“Mais oui, the law.”
“What law?” George asked.
“Any law. My law, your law. Oui, oui, you cannot kill me. Even your beloved Cheyenne would not kill a man for theft.”
Fury enfolded George’s heart. “The People’s law is only for the People!” he shouted. He stepped hard on Vincent’s throat, refusing him air. “It does not pertain to you!”
Vincent struggled against the pressure, pushing against George’s leg. “It does, it does,” he squeaked. “It pertains to people of the same tribe. And you and I are of the same tribe!”
“No!”
George stood up and fell against the tavern wall.
It was the quandary that had dogged him, tortured him for years, through battle and courtship, through life among the People and deliberations with the Spanish and Americans. Was he white, or red? Vé’ho’e, or Tsétsêhéstâhese. And now here that question came at him again, cast up at him from the Devil himself; the one question out of a million questions that could stay his hand.
Stay my hand, George thought, looking at the knife he held. Stay my hand from killing him, perhaps. There are other ways to end this.
He felt his breast to find the space between his ribs where he might slide the blade in and puncture his heart. He pulled open the yoke of his tunic and moved aside the medicine bag he wore beneath it. He found the spot—there, just there—beside the sternum, a place where the flesh was softer. The blade of the knife winked at him as he turned it around and placed the tip against the exposed paleness of his skin.
O happy dagger, he thought to himself, and winked back at it. I am spent, with thy help.
For the second time that day, his knife spun from his hand as Vincent slammed into him.
“Tabarnaque,” Vincent swore as he pushed George up against the wall. He slapped George across the face once, then again, and George saw in his eyes a puzzled concern. “What do you mean to do?” he asked.
George blinked. “Isn’t it plain?” he asked in response. “I am done here. I am finished.” He held his arms open, displaying himself, displaying Vincent. “I can fall no farther. There is nothing more for me to do.”
“But there is!” Vincent claimed. He led George—now unresisting—around the back of the tavern, up the rickety s
teps that led to the stoop, and plunked him down on the splintery wood. “There is plenty that you can do,” he said.
“What?” George asked. “What can I do? I have failed everyone I have tried to help.”
Vincent cuffed him on the shoulder. “Except the one person who needs your help the most,” he said, and leaned down to look him in the eye. “You.”
George recoiled from the idea.
“No,” Vincent pressed. “I mean it.” He stood back and motioned to the world. “I read the papers. I’ve read about what you’ve been doing. You’ve been trying to help everyone, trying to make peace where none can be had. And don’t forget, I lived with you among those Cheyenne you love so much. I’ve seen how hard you worked for them. Trying to build them up, trying to show them the proper way. Mon Dieu, what haven’t you tried to do for them?”
He climbed the steps and sat next to George on the stoop. “But that’s no reason to give up, mon ami. Au contraire, it is time to start up again, only this time, you need to think of yourself.” Leaning back, he pounded on the tavern door. It came ajar with a creak, and Cora, the thin, pale woman who ran Haffner’s kitchens peered out.
“Ah, Cora,” Vincent said, smiling up at her. He reached into a pocket and passed her a silver coin. “As you can see, my partner and I are in need of a scrubdown. Would you please get some water ready? Oh, and bring a bottle of rye, too, if you please, while the water heats?” Cora retreated without a word.
“Partner?” George asked.
Vincent patted him on the back. “Yes, young man. Partner.”
George could only close his eyes against the memory, too tired to fight any longer. “I was your partner once before. That didn’t work out too well.”
The door creaked open again and Cora slammed down a squared-off bottle of copper-colored liquor before retreating on heavy shoes. Vincent smiled and reached back for the bottle.
“Cora doesn’t like me, but she won’t refuse my coin,” Vincent said. George watched as he squeaked the cork out and took a large swallow. Vincent saw the hunger in George’s eyes, and handed him the bottle.
George took it with trembling hands, his mouth watering and his heart a-thunder with the closeness of the liquor. He lifted the bottle, smelled the whiskey’s bite before it touched his lips, felt his throat tighten and his stomach twist in preparation. Just having the bottle in hand, his mind had begun to calm, the stampede of thoughts and emotions slowing. He held the bottle in both hands, encased the opening with his lips, and tilted back in a series of gulping swallows. He tasted its sourness, its mineral edge, and its heat. It coursed down his throat, burning its way to his stomach where it flared into a bloom of warmth that passed through to his lungs, his heart, his soul.
He sighed, eyes closed, and felt his entire body relax. The presence of Vincent beside him no longer offended. The memories of failure and pain no longer ached. The bottle in his hands was all he cared about.
“Better?” Vincent asked.
“Hmm,” George said, taking another drink. He took third drink and then opened his eyelids a crack to peer at the man next to him.
Vincent D’Avignon had put his fifty-odd years to good use, and it showed. His wavy hair was thin and streaked with silver, and the stubble on his chin was pale, not dark. Lines creased his brow like a farmer’s furrows, and drew tributary wrinkles at the corners of his pale brown eyes. His cheeks had been hollowed by long familiarity with hunger, and his nose bore the marks of lost tempers and lost fights. His clothing, too, showed wear, from the worn hems of his coat to the dingy ridge of his button-on collar. Yet, despite his hangdog collection of features, his disposition was as wry, as sharp, and as lively as ever George had known it.
“What are you doing here, Vincent D’Avignon? Why aren’t you up north, living a sumptuous life on my stolen gold?”
Vincent sighed. “Alas, the world does have its way of getting back at a man.”
“What? Did you spend it all?”
Vincent smirked and glared at him. “Hardly spent,” he said. “Lost.”
“To whom?”
“To Angus, my purported co-conspirator and the man, it should be said, who jacked you over the head.”
George gaped at the older man who sat with eyebrows raised in wistful recollection of the loss of a fortune in gold.
“Oui,” Vincent went on. “Just as I betrayed you, so was I betrayed in turn. While Angus and I reveled in our newfound wealth at your expense, he was having the chests of gold loaded onto a coast-bound train. He left in the night, and by the time I rolled my aching head out of bed the next morning, he was headed for the lonesome dales of his bonny Scotland.” He reached over for the bottle, took a long draught that dribbled down his mud-spattered chin, and passed the bottle back. “When I heard that the ship had gone down in the shoals off of Greenland, I could only think it was a fitting end and the Devil had been paid in full. And me? I’ve been down here among this refuse ever since, selling them the things they need, just as I traded with your Indian people. I tell you, the whites are easier to cheat than your friends were.”
He turned to George and looked him earnestly in the eye, a gaze that George did not care to meet.
“But that,” Vincent said, “is why you and I should be partners again. It’s a sign, my meeting you here. It is fate, peut-être, we should both come to this place after so long. It’s a second chance, and we’ll do it right, this time.” He grabbed George’s sleeve to emphasize his words.
“I need you, young Custer, and you need me. I remember all the spots we prospected, and you know the Cheyenne. Together, we can go up in the territory and make ourselves a respectable fortune. They’d let you, surely they would, after all you’ve done for ‘em, no? We won’t ask for much, you see. Just enough for ourselves. Just enough for two simple men. Enough for us to live out our lives in quiet comfort. They’ll grant you that much, don’t you think?”
George’s head was awhirl with the freedom of the alcohol and the influx of notions that Vincent was spouting, and he had to concentrate to bring the ideas into focus.
Go back? he thought. I’ll never go back.
“I won’t go back to the People,” he managed to say.
“No, and I’m not asking you to,” Vincent said. “Just take us to the Territory. I’ll do the prospecting, and you’ll be there to make sure I don’t get a Cheyenne arrow in my back. We’ll stay ‘til winter comes. No longer.” He leaned closer. “We make enough for you to buy yourself a house and settle back and watch the grass grow for the rest of your life. What do you say, George? Partners?” He held out his hand to seal the deal.
George looked at the hand—the hand he shook once before—and then looked at the bottle that he held tightly with both hands. He knew that he didn’t have the courage to kill himself, though he had been trying to drink himself there. But neither did he have the courage to live.
Do I deserve to live? he asked himself. Do I deserve a future? Or am I afraid to be just an ordinary man?
He thought of all the men and women of the world, and how they were content—even blissful—to live their unremarkable lives. The concept of ease escaped him. That there should be a state wherein he could rest, where all that needed to be done had been done, was foreign to his nature. Always, for as long as he could remember, there was always something else waiting to be achieved, some next accomplishment that lay before him. As a boy, it was the expectations of a general’s son, and as a youth, it was the demands of teachers and headmasters. Later, it was the challenges of high society, and the scrutiny of the world as it watched the son of a beloved legend follow on his father’s path. He had walked the road of challenge for so long that he couldn’t see the upward slope of his life. From youth, to man, to officer, to leader, to challenger, to hero, to...? Where would it end? Would it end?
Vincent offered again his hand and the pact of mutual benefit, of quiet security and perhaps—George allowed himself to dream—of obscurity. Hesitantly, George releas
ed the bottle of forgetfulness he held, and clasped Vincent’s hand.
“If you betray me again,” he said to the older man, “I will kill you.”
Vincent nodded. “Tristement, I would deserve it,” he said with a smile. Then he stood, pulling George to his feet as he did so. “Let’s get you cleaned up, for without a doubt, mon ami, you stink!”
Chapter 11
Light Snow Moon, Waning
Fifty-seven Years after the Star Fell
Southern Reaches
Alliance Territory
Speaks While Leaving glanced over at Mouse Road as they approached the vague limits of the vé’ho’e town. The younger woman’s knotted brow and tight grip on her whistler’s halter rope told of her nervousness in this, her first meeting with vé’hó’e.
“They won’t kill us, will they?” Mouse Road asked.
Speaks While Leaving chuckled. “I doubt it,” she said, but the humor she put into her voice was false. During her travels as a healer, she had met several vé’hó’e up along the fringes of Alliance lands, but those vé’hó’e had been unusual. Loners in a forbidding land, they appreciated the occasional visit from anyone willing to trade gossip or skills or goods; man or woman, pale-skinned or dark, the opportunities were welcomed.
Here ahead of them, though, were vé’hó’e of a different breed. These people kept close to one another, were barely trustful of their neighbors, and were fearful of riders coming in from beyond their borders.
She could only pray that any fear the vé’hó’e felt would not cost her and Mouse Road their lives.
Set on the banks of a thin, northward-trending creek, the small town had been settled in the vé’ho’e way. Where the People generally set up their camps in circles or in accordance to the lay of the land, the vé’hó’e organized their towns in straight lines; lines often in complete defiance of the ground on which they lay. And so, the town was built on either side of a line that stretched upslope, away from the creek, so that only those on the downhill side had easy access to its banks and others had to hike all the way through town to fetch their own water.
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