by Win Blevins
Remoulet said, “I stay here now, you comprenez? Ze job, it is fini. You pay me now, zis my home.”
Sam counted out some gold coins. “Something extra for risking your hair. Thanks for good work.”
The Frenchies nodded and rode off.
Sam’s mind was eased. The first people he saw wanted to buy horses. He thought the Methodists would, too, and he would sell the rest to John McLoughlin, head of Hudson’s Bay for the entire Oregon country. The White-Headed Eagle was said to be some man to deal with.
So Sam was in a good frame of mind when he saw Flat Dog and Julia riding out to meet the herd. The grass was as good as the bear had promised, and the herd was going to be happy.
Sam and Hannibal jumped down and clapped Flat Dog’s shoulders. Julia kissed Sam on the cheek and said, “We haven’t seen Esperanza in a month. She told us to stay away.”
“Where are they?”
“The cabin is maybe fifteen miles on further west.”
NO ANSWER. SAM and Flat Dog took turns banging on the door of Meek’s cabin with the heels of their hands—they’d been told Joe was there. When Sam hammered on it with the butt of his pistol, he heard stirring sounds within.
Joe Meek opened the door and used its handle to keep from falling down. He was drunk and more than drunk. From the look of him he’d been drunk for days. Nothing they hadn’t seen before.
“Hi, Joe,” said Sam.
“You come to shoot me?”
Fear shot through Sam like when he hit his elbow wrong. Meadowlark died in childbirth.
“Not today,” said Flat Dog. “We want to see Esperanza.”
“That.” Joe’s head waggled. “That. For that you best go to Fort Vancouver.”
He started to close the door.
Sam kicked it open, knocking Joe on his ass.
Sprawled, he wrenched his head around toward them. “I don’t mean you no harm,” he said, “never did, nor your daughter, either. But she done flown to the nest of the damned White-Headed Eagle. Go find her there.” He got to his knees.
“What about the baby, Joe?”
“You can ask her.” He asserted his dignity by standing up. “And you can leave me alone. Tomorrow I’m going hunting and I’m gonna stay gone.”
Forty-one
ESPERANZA TOOK A buffalo robe outside and curled up on the grass in a sunny spot. Sun seemed so rare in Oregon—she wondered if winter was always like this. Winters in the Yellowstone country were cold, but they were also brilliantly sunny. She liked that. Whenever she felt the sun on her skin, she felt good. Here the days were barely cool enough to require a buffalo robe, but they were drearily gray. She felt gray herself.
Well, that was some of the time. Lots of times she felt content and peaceful, and that was everything to do with the baby. In the mornings, before getting up, she would lie on the pallet she and Joe used for a bed and stroke her own belly.
A human being was forming.
She stroked the person and got to know it. This was her person and no one else’s. She was growing it every day, growing, growing, growing, and her life curled up around a feeling whose warmth was hers alone.
When she got out of the robes each morning, she would brew coffee with cream—she loved the cream some of her neighbors made—and ask the baby if he wanted cream. She was sure it was a he. The baby always wanted cream. Then she’d fry some bacon on the iron stove Joe had gotten for them and say to the baby in her mind, Here’s some bacon. Isn’t this good?
Though she was fond of bacon, deer meat was a more typical breakfast. She’d sit at the little table, pat her belly, and simply be. It felt lazy just to be, but it also felt good.
Sometimes, right while she was patting the baby, he would move. The thrill was a jolt, a lightning bolt from inside to outside bearing a message. I am here. I will come forth.
She tightened the robe against a freshening wind.
I will come forth.
She took a nap there in the sun, while her child did his growing, and then she went into the cabin to cook dinner. She didn’t like the darkness of the cabin. Joe and Doc had built it fast, and they only put in two small windows, covered with thin-scraped deer hide instead of glass. The cabin was far darker than any lodge, which let the sun in all the time. It was also colder in the corners. She didn’t see any advantage in a cabin over a tipi.
On the other hand, some houses were nice. She remembered perfectly the day last autumn the bateaux unloaded their passengers, furs, and gear at Fort Vancouver. She got to see the homes of the officers, though only from the outside—they looked like grand places. Her mother had lived in a grand place once, her father’s hacienda. Esperanza wondered if she and Joe would ever have a fine house.
She cut up potatoes and put them on the stove to fry, then did the same to the deer meat. She was used to a monotonous diet in the winter.
She was cooking only for two, and one of those was in her belly. She didn’t know where Joe was and didn’t expect him for supper. He spent his days somewhere else, it seemed, hunting or trapping or drinking with his friends, just as he’d done for all his years in the Rocky Mountains. He spent his nights somewhere else, too, much of the time, especially since she’d told him that he mustn’t touch her anymore until after the baby was born. Her mother had taught her that.
She lay down on the pallet and listened to the sizzle. She felt tired a lot and spent a lot of time resting. She held the bulge of the baby with both hands. This was one person she loved, and she was glad he was inside her. But she needed Joe, too.
THE RAINS CAME and came, relentlessly for several days. This day was dark, like the ones before it. And where the hell was Joe? Esperanza was sick of wondering where he was. This time he’d ridden up to Fort Vancouver to trade his furs for provisions, and it was true that they needed things. It was also true that she needed him.
Esperanza had never seen such a rain. Doc and his wife and the families of some other ex-trappers lived nearby, but not close enough to walk to. Esperanza was afraid to ride Vermilion, not with the child due so soon. Because he was about to come—she could feel it. She knew.
The cabin was cold. She hadn’t restarted the fire this morning. Though the thought of food repelled her, she wanted warmth and she wanted coffee.
She got up, threw chunks of wood into the stove, and got the fire going. Then she reached for the coffeepot, already full of water. Coffee, the thought was so good, something warm and sweet for her. . . .
Just as she lifted the pot onto the stove, she felt the first pain. The muscles in her belly squeezed like a fist, and after a moment they let go.
She added new grounds to the old ones and went back to her pallet. So today was going to be the day. Her feelings flipped side to side, excited and scared, excited and scared.
Another pain came and made it hard to think.
Where the hell is Joe?
ESPERANZA WAS FURIOUS. She was squatting, the way Crow women always gave birth. She held on to the cold stove, for lack of anything better. She couldn’t light a fire because she needed something to hold on to. She was cold. She didn’t have a woman to help her, and she didn’t even have a husband.
The pains were huge now, earthquakes she would never survive. Between pains she was mad as hell at Joe. Or mad at Papa Sam for taking her away from her tribe, where she would have had some help. Or mad at Papa Flat Dog for the same thing. Or mad at Prairie Chicken for putting this baby inside her, this baby that was never going to come out, that was going to kill her. She was mad at all of malekind. She was mad.
Then the pain quaked her, and pain snuffed out all other consciousness.
SHE WANTED MORE than anything in the world to see the baby’s face. She knew by feel that it was a boy, but she felt a huge urgency to see the face. She picked up the tiny creature, crawled to the door, and shoved it open with her bare foot. Through the drizzle and the last of the day’s gray light, she saw a face crinkled like a dried berry and a dusting of auburn hair.
She also s
aw the cord extending from her and wrapping around his neck. She saw how blue his face was.
Cradling him in one arm, she crawled back to the stove, reached up, and grabbed the knife. Though she could see the cord only dimly, she grabbed a thong and bound the cord tight near the baby. Then held it against the floor and whacked it in half. Instantly, she unwound it from her son’s neck.
She cradled him in both arms and rocked him.
A thrust of panic hit her. She crawled with her son to the door, which was still swinging back and forth. She jutted him and herself out into the rain, which was getting harder. Though she wasn’t sure, it didn’t look like he was breathing.
She turned and sheltered him from the pelting drops. She put a finger to his nose and felt nothing. She dried the finger on her skirt, licked it, put it back to his nostrils, and still felt nothing.
Frantically, she squeezed his back and chest, in, out, in, out. She had no idea what to do. She blew breath into his nose and into his mouth. She screamed. She squeezed and screamed.
After several minutes she knew he was dead. She had failed her son. He was dead. She’d never even seen his eyes. She swiveled back across the threshold and stood up in the driving rain. She thumbed his right eye open and looked. The brown eye was flat, without depth, lifeless.
Tenderly, she fingered the eyelid shut.
TWO DAYS LATER Joe Meek found his wife curled up in a corner of the cabin like a feral creature, clutching a dead baby.
He tried to hold her, but she wouldn’t let him. He sat beside her and murmured every word of apology he could think of. He wept for the child, for his wife, and for himself. Weeping was easy when he was soused.
After a long time she let him lead her outside. He dug a small grave on the rise behind the cabin, placed the little form in it gingerly, and shoveled dirt onto her son.
Esperanza watched, wordless and blank faced.
Part Four
Forty-two
“MY LORD!” SAID Sam. Most of the family were sitting their horses on the rise on the south side of the Columbia, Flat Dog, Julia with Paloma on her back, Hannibal, and Jay. Azul, barely able to get on his pony, was back home watching the herd with Rojo.
From here everyone could see that Fort Vancouver was much more than a fort. It looked bigger than St. Louis, Los Angeles, or Monterey, reaching from the north bank back for maybe ten miles to heavy timber, and more miles both upstream and downstream.
“They’ve got as much pasture as a mission,” said Hannibal.
“Growing thousands of acres of crops,” said Sam.
“A whole town where workers live,” said Julia.
“That’s Kanaka Village,” said Jay.
“Look at the fort,” said Hannibal.
That palisaded building, the hub of all this economic bustle, was built to make an impression.
“A hundred paces on a side, probably,” said Sam.
“Plus a section that’s been added recently at the top,” said Hannibal.
Sam lifted his field glass and brought that part into focus. “At the top of the top,” he said, “there’s a kind of . . . mansion. It has three cannons in front, pointed straight into the middle of the fort.”
Hannibal laughed. “The Brits are big on show.”
“You gotta be able to shoot your own people,” said Sam.
“That’s what they call the governor’s house,” said Hannibal.
“Mr. McLoughlin means to make an impression,” said Sam.
“Dr. McLoughlin,” said Hannibal.
“A doctor of science or medicine,” said Sam, “is a critter that would die of thirst knee-deep in a lake.”
“The question,” Julia said, “is whether he can take care of a young mother with a baby, or wants to.”
WHEN THEY RODE their horses out of the river and into what was called Kanaka Village, Sam’s democratic and anti-Brit feelings were inflamed further. It was shacks of every kind, miserable dwellings compared to the fine buildings inside the fort. As they passed through, no one seemed to notice them. They heard a babble of Canadian French and two languages Sam didn’t know.
“Chinook,” said Hannibal, “a mixture of real Chinook, French, English, and whatever else.”
“And Hawaiian,” said Jay. He drew a lot of stares, with his Hawaiian face and rough-cut hair.
“Is your mother here somewhere?” said Julia.
“In the fort.”
“Do these people know you?” asked Sam.
“No. I was raised at Fort Walla Walla,” Jay answered.
“Eyes straight ahead and make for the fort,” said Hannibal.
As they rode, Sam watched the hubbub. The place bristled with strong, rough men, busy as sailors in port. In fact, this was, among other things, a port for great seagoing vessels.
At the gate Hannibal said, “Mr. Hannibal MacKye to see Dr. McLoughlin.”
The guard eyed the men, who were obviously rough trappers, the woman who looked like a half-breed, and the Hawaiian. Fort Vancouver was the strictest of caste societies.
“The doctor is not available,” said the guard, “nor will he be.”
Now Hannibal spoke French in a Parisian accent, far from the métis patois heard in those parts. “The doctor and I are old friends. Announce my presence immediately, unless you want to feel his displeasure, and mine.”
The guard twitched with alarm, surveyed the common-looking crew in front of him again, swung the gate open, and led them toward the mansion at the top of the slope.
“Oh, aren’t the staircases beautiful!” said Julia.
“I guess,” said Sam. Two arcs of stairways led up to the mansion’s front door, each a semicircle, like a French dandy’s mustaches. Half of him hated the staircases because they were a sign of class superiority, and the other half resonated to them because they were lovely.
Another functionary greeted the party at the door. “Good morning, Mr. MacKye,” he said. “Is the doctor expecting you?”
“No.”
The functionary disappeared, and in a moment the White-Headed Eagle himself strode forth. He was a tall man with extraordinary intensity of eye and visage. He bore a great shock of white hair, said to have turned that color overnight when he nearly drowned in Lake Superior as a young man.
“Rideo, ergo sum,” he declared, and braced Hannibal by the shoulders.
“You came, my friend, you saw, and you have truly conquered.” Hannibal hadn’t seen the fort in half a dozen years.
“I have great responsibilities,” said McLoughlin. “Join me in the sitting room.”
It was a warm-looking room, luxuriously furnished and smelling of leather books and waxed floors. The doctor invited Julia to sit beside him on a sofa. At another time her heart would have been touched. She hadn’t seen a sofa in a dozen years.
The doctor addressed Hannibal. “How may I be of service to you?”
Julia spoke up. “Dr. McLoughlin,” she said, “we come to you on a matter of great urgency. Our daughter Esperanza left her husband, fled here for help, probably carrying a newborn child. Is she here?”
McLoughlin’s imperial manner evaporated. He put his arm around this woman he’d never met before. “Oh, my poor dear,” he said.
Julia burst into tears.
He lifted her by the hand and led her away. “Come to my office,” he said to everyone. “It’s more private.”
ESPERANZA RAN INTO the room calling in the Crow language, “Mother, Mother!”
She hurled herself into her mother’s arms and broke in huge, breath-sucking sobs.
Dr. McLoughlin left discreetly.
When she recovered slightly, Esperanza said to Flat Dog over Julia’s shoulder, “Papa.” And to Sam, “Papa.” She reached out her hands to both of them.
Hannibal decided he should follow Dr. McLoughlin. Jay sat on the floor close to Esperanza.
The story tumbled out like water over falls, all full of turbulence. The day of the birth, alone and afraid. The effort of the
delivery, followed by the bliss of holding the baby. The sense that something was wrong, but inability to see in the half darkness. The sight of the cord, the fierce cutting, the unwinding—all too late.
“It’s all my fault,” Esperanza said. “I was too slow to understand. I couldn’t see well.”
“If Joe had been there,” said Flat Dog, “he would have seen.”
“I’ve thought so much about it since I left him,” Esperanza said. “He was gone most of the time. Hunting, trapping, drinking, all the things he likes to do with his friends. Sometimes I’ve hated him. Sometimes I’ve told myself he was only being Joe, just like always. ‘No man like Joe.’ ”
Sam just held her hands, looked into her eyes, and felt how much he loved her.
“How did you get here?” said Flat Dog.
“I rode Vermilion. Left when Joe was over at Doc’s.”
“Have you been treated well here?” asked Jay.
“Dr. McLoughlin has been so nice. He gave me a job in the kitchen right here in the governor’s house, and they gave me a bed here with the servants. The doctor didn’t want me out in Kanaka Village in case Joe came and was mad.” She snuffled. “I’ve eaten better here than in my entire life.”
They had a lot more emotional conversation. Sam savored every word. He savored even more his daughter’s hand in his own.
Finally Sam put it to her. “Do you want to go on to California with us?”
Esperanza said, “I want to be with my mother and my two fathers.”
AFTER MAYBE HALF an hour, Dr. McLoughlin rapped lightly on the door.
“Come in.”
He and Hannibal entered, an aroma of cigar smoke and an aura of camaraderie wafting in their wake.
“May we offer you a place to stay tonight?” Dr. McLoughlin said to the group. “We have accommodations for visitors.”
“That would be very kind,” said Julia.
“And I would appreciate your being my guests at dinner. We like to feed our guests well.”
