Pure Sin

by Susan Johnson

  “You mean we’re not going to have a decorator out here before you can draw an easy breath? And the shape of the bathtub won’t cause you any sleepless nights?”

  Flora smiled up at him. “Well, it might if I’m lucky.”

  Adam laughed and drew her close, so their bodies touched and she could smell the sweet sage from the prairie in his hair. “Perhaps we should take a look at it now.” His dark eyes promised her pleasure.

  “What a perfect host.”

  “Western hospitality,” he murmured.

  “I’ve heard of that. How long do you think this hospitality might last?”

  His grin was pure seduction. “As long as you want.…”

  Epilogue

  Much to Baby DeeDee’s delight, a son was born to Adam and Flora in May, an event of great and momentous joy. And two years later another baby boy joined the family. By the time their daughter entered the world, Lucie was eight years old and past the self-interest of her four-year-old world. She’d been longing for a sister.

  The Comte de Chastellux took his growing family on numerous travels over the years to please his wife’s interest in anthropology, and in so doing, please himself.

  James became Uncle James when he fell in love with Spring Lily and gave up the array of beautiful women who had serially infatuated him. It was a surprise to all when their simple friendship suddenly changed.

  And the young children of the two men who had always been the best of friends grew up together in Aspen Valley, a large and raucous crew of mixed-blood children, bright, beautiful, wild, and unconditionally loved by their parents.

  That wild spirit was nurtured by their families, tempered by the responsibilities of their lives, briefly constrained by the curriculum of eastern colleges, and eventually channeled into challenging careers in the new state growing up around them.

  There were nine of them, four Serres and five Du Gards.

  They called themselves Ravens-Who-Touch-The-Sky.

  More conventional souls, resistant to the charm of their brash assurance or hostile to their wealth and power, called them less poetic names.

  Notes

  1. The word “Absarokee” is spelled a variety of ways in historical and contemporary sources. Robert Lowie (1905), Frank Linderman (1930), Glendolin Wagner and William Allen (1933), and Joseph Medicine Crow (1992) use the spelling “Absarokee.” Since Lowie was the most thorough in his research and compiled extensive word lists in addition to his anthropological work, I adopted his spelling.

  Variations found in other sources:

  Rudolph Kurz (1851): Absaroka

  Edwin Thompson Denig (1856): Ap sar roo kai

  Edward Curtis (1909): Absaroke

  William Wildschut and John Ewers (1918): Apsaruke

  Rodney Frey (1950): Apsaalooke

  2. In 1833–34, Alexander Philipp Maximilian, Prince of Wied-Neuwied, traveled from St. Louis up the Missouri River as far as Fort McKenzie (near present-day Great Falls, Montana).

  As a student of Professor Johann Friedreich Blumenbach at Göttingen, Maximilian learned that rationalistic empiricism was the philosophical foundation for natural history and the study of man. Maximilian was especially interested in American Indians because his mentor, a leading Enlightenment theorist on the development of the human races, believed in the biological equality of all people. Blumenbach taught his students that climate, habitat, diet, and the means of human subsistence within a locale affect the development of races and cultures. In concentrating on the relationship between humans and nature, Blumenbach demanded close observation and the collection of plant and animal specimens and cultural artifacts.

  Also essential to the anthropology of Blumenbach and Maximilian was visual documentation of peoples and their natural habitat, and it was in this context that Swiss artist Karl Bodmer contributed so much to Maximilian’s expedition. The fervent belief of Blumenbach and his contemporaries in painstaking empiricism demanded that field-workers and collectors have great skill in observation and description.

  For Blumenbach and the Göttingen “school” of explorers, discrete fact was the bedrock of science. In his work Maximilian came to see, to learn, and to record, and he labored to preserve as much as possible of the time and place in his journals.

  Maximilian’s manuscript journels, Travels in the Interior of North America, are in the collection of the Joslyn Art Museum in Omaha, Nebraska, and first editions of his work were published in German, French, and English between 1839 and 1843.

  3. Edwin Thompson Denig, a fur trader at Fort Union for twenty-three years, left an account of the five Indian tribes of the upper Missouri. His broad experience among the Indians and his objective point of view enabled him to write about their cultures with concern and respect. In his work he estimates the Absarokee population in 1833 as 6,400. Smallpox devastated many of the Indian tribes in 1837, so only 360 Absarokee lodges were left after the illness, or approximately 2,480 people. By 1856 the population, according to his estimates, had reached 460 lodges or 3,680 people.

  Indian agent Vaughan’s estimate of population in 1856 is 450 lodges (3,600)—very close to Denig’s total. In 1871 when the Absarokee were on the reservation for part of the year, Agent F. D. Pease’s report listed 2,700 Mountain Crow and 1,400 River Crow. (“Crow” was the designation given to the Absarokee by the outside world.)

  In relation to the large Lakota, Blackfoot, and Cheyenne tribes that surrounded their territory, the Absarokee were very small in numbers.

  4. In July 1866 the Northwest Peace Commission met both the Mountain and River Absarokee on a steamer at Fort Union. The commission sought rights of passage to the Montana and Idaho mines, and establishment of posts by the army within the Indians’ territory as bases of operations against the hostiles.

  The treaty granted rights to roads, highways, and telegraph lines up the valley of the Yellowstone River to Virginia City and Helena, as well as the privilege of establishing depots and military and stage stations at suitable points of ten square miles each along the roads. The government agreed to expend for the Absarokee Nation the sum of twenty-five thousand dollars annually for twenty years, with two hundred dollars annually to each head chief.

  Granting right of way for roads was a means of solidifying relations with Washington at a time when the Lakota were pressing hard on the eastern boundaries of Absarokee territory.

  The treaty was never ratified—not an unusual circumstance once treaties reached Washington.

  5. Like members of every society, the Absarokee had their own system of terms to denote kinship, and the importance of clan affiliations accounts for the extended range of close familial names.

  Since clan membership was matrilineal, Adam would refer to a male cousin on his mother’s side by the same term he used for a brother. The term would also be used in speaking to any of his mother’s brothers. In the case of James Du Gard, referred to as “brother” when he was in fact a cousin, that term denoted a male cousin of maternal lineage. A male cousin on the paternal side would be referred to as “father.”

  6. In the myths, folktales, and religion of the Absarokee the Little People are supernatural dwarfs generally of a benevolent nature. They may bestow favors on mortals they pity, confer bounties in their own right, grant extraordinary powers, or opportunely rescue those in distress. They’re sometimes called Little Helpers, and the nooks of the universe harbor these kindly beings.

  7. In this instance it was perfectly acceptable for Adam to marry his sister-in-law, Spring Lily. In fact, if a brother (the clan designation for a true brother or a male maternal cousin or uncle) was killed, the widow often married her brother-in-law. It was necessary that the family be protected and supported. Adam politely chooses not to marry Spring Lily, but not because of cultural taboos. And as Spring Lily mentions, he’s already taken on the responsibility of caring for her family.

  8. As a young man, Thomas Meagher was active in the Irish political movements working toward separation from
England. With the revolutions of 1848 sweeping Europe, England became increasingly concerned with the Irish factions advocating independence. In July 1848 Parliament passed the Suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act, which gave broad powers to the lord lieutenant of Ireland to apprehend and detain anyone he suspected of conspiring against queen and government.

  On July 28, 1848, Meagher, along with several other men, was arrested.

  Packing the jury was a common practice at the time, and when Meagher came to trial, he pleaded not guilty and then noted that in a Catholic county of a Catholic country, it was curious that only eighteen Catholics had been selected on a panel of three hundred jurors.

  He was found guilty and on October 23, 1848, was sentenced to be hanged, beheaded, drawn, and quartered. As the son of a wealthy Irish merchant, Meagher’s plight was immediately appealed. Two appeals were denied, but the death sentence was commuted to banishment for life to Van Dieman’s land (Tasmania).

  Three years later, after arranging an escape for six hundred pounds (about three thousand dollars), a considerable sum in 1852, Meagher arrived in New York and was welcomed as a hero by the large, active Irish-American organizations.

  9. Having been informed that General Sherman was sending twenty-five hundred guns up the Missouri River from St. Louis, General Thomas Meagher gathered up a half dozen of his officers and made the long, hot trip from Virginia City to Fort Benton. His party arrived in Fort Benton on July 1.

  It had been an unpleasant trip from Virginia City. For the previous six days the excessive heat had made traveling hard, and before the group had reached its destination, Meagher was ill. As he rode, tired and weak, down the main street along the riverbank, he overheard one of the bystanders say, “There he goes.”

  Ordinarily this apparently harmless remark would have gone unnoticed, but the rigors of the past few days had made Meagher worn and nervous. Since he had a number of sworn enemies in the territory, he interpreted the words as a threat.

  The horsemen pulled up before Baker’s store and dismounted. General Meagher retired to the back room, where the sympathetic storekeeper offered him the only therapeutic aid at hand—blackberry wine.

  Johnny Doran, the pilot of the steamer G. A. Thompson, a fellow countryman from Ireland, invited Meagher to spend the night in one of the steamer’s state rooms. That evening Meagher told his host that his life was threatened in town and asked for a gun. Nervous, Meagher asked Doran to stay with him, but Doran insisted there was no cause for worry.

  Later that night a sentry pacing the deck of the Thompson heard a noise at the vessel’s stern. Glancing in that direction, he saw a white figure moving about. He dismissed the matter, thinking it was one of the ship’s officers preparing to retire. But as he wheeled about to resume his guard duty, a loud splash indicated a man overboard.

  The night was black, and that time of year the Missouri was brim-full and swift. Meagher’s body was never found.

  10. The authority on chocolate seems to be Brillat-Savarin. His The Physiology of Taste, a wonderful kind of memoir/treatise comprising thirty years of research, wisdom, and good taste, and self-published shortly before his death in 1826, is the gastronomic classic against which all subsequent works are measured.

  In reference to ambered chocolate he says: “If a man has drunk a little too deeply from the cup of physical pleasure; if he has spent too much time at his desk that should have been spent asleep; if his fine spirits have temporarily become dulled; if he finds the air too damp, the minutes too slow and the atmosphere too heavy to withstand; if he is obsessed by a fixed idea which bars him from any freedom of thought; if he is any of these poor creatures, we say, let him be given a good pint of amber-flavored chocolate, in the proportions of 60–72 grains of amber to a pound, and marvels will be performed.” A modern translator of Brillat-Savarin points out to those unfamiliar with the additive, the amber should be ambergris from the sperm whale, not yellow amber. And an apothecaries’ grain weight is 0.002083 ounce, or 0.0648 gram.

  Apropos Russian chocolate: make a heavy syrup of bitter chocolate, sugar, and vanilla, cool it, and then blend it with its weight in rich whipped cream. Gobbets of this dark, thick sauce are then put in heated cups and hot milk poured over it from a silver pot.

  11. The cost of the five-month campaign, in which the number of militiamen ranged from 80 to 250 for most of those months, totaled 1.1 million dollars. When the bill was sent to Congress, it was so excessive, no appropriation was approved. Protests from Montana flooded Washington, and finally, in 1870, Inspector General James A. Hardie was sent to Montana to determine the manner in which the money had been spent and to adjust the claims.

  The inspector general discovered that claims from $200 to $220 had been put in for horses, many of which were unbroken Indian ponies. He allowed $80 per head on the 848 horses the militia had purchased. Wood had been purchased for $16 to $20 a cord when it was available for $6.25 to $7.50; $45 to $65 per ton had been paid for hay, which normally sold for $30 to $35 per ton. In one instance he discovered that Colonel James Fiske of the Volunteers had asked a livery stable keeper in Helena for some vouchers, which were signed, but on which no amount had been specified. He explained that these were to reimburse him for some money he had expended personally. Fiske then filled in the vouchers for a sum of $25,000 and sold them around Helena.

  Supplies of all conceivable types were purchased. These included four dozen bunches of red tape at $1.50 per dozen, as well as alcohol and bourbon whiskey at $10 a gallon.

  By May 1872 Hardie reported that $513,000 would extinguish all just claims. So an Indian war that never materialized, despite the efforts of the troops to produce it, cost the federal government a half million dollars.

  12. In deference to the rich, who often brought their families and servants to the Spa for the entire summer, hotels as early as the 1820’s allotted some of their space to cottage suites or actual cottages. Over the years their seclusion had made them so popular, the large hotels eventually offered what they called apartment suites, which offered cottage privacy with the solicitude and service of an elegant hotel.

  Each elaborate suite contained a large parlor, one to seven bedrooms, and a private bath. Visitors were announced by card, carriages were brought directly to the door, and if desired, breakfast, lunch, or dinner was delivered to the occupants in their suite or on the apartment’s porch.

  Each summer brought to Saratoga wealthy bachelors, and family men whose wives and children were vacationing in Europe, who wished female company after a day at the races or gaming at the club. Prior to the existence of the cottage suites, a difficult dilemma had existed, for the rich sporting bloods disdained the local brothels, and the village fathers resisted attempts to introduce the luxurious bordellos the wealthy men preferred.

  Concern that these affluent men might abandon the Spa and transfer their free spending to a more hospitable resort required a discreet relaxing of the rules of propriety. Although the hotels kept their lobbies clear of light-skirt ladies on the prowl and refused to register guests who gave the barest hint of not being wed, if a guest was rich enough, such rules were overlooked.

  On one occasion a wealthy Texan who had accumulated several million dollars and was known to spend it freely, followed the famous dandy Berry Wall and his manservant to the front-desk register of one of the prominent hotels. He studied the entry that preceded his—“Wall and valet”—looked at the pretty bit of baggage he’d brought with him, and wrote “McCarty and valise.” Both he and his companion were admitted.

  By tacit agreement the cottages were free of restrictions and surveillance by the hotel detectives, who guarded the entrance and piazzas against ladies of easy virtue plying their trade. The cottages were off by themselves, and the price of a cottage suite (as much as $125 a day) gave assurances that the guests who rented them were important enough not to antagonize.

  Some rich indoor sportsmen found the arrangment so much to their liking that they stocked the la
rger suites with a variety of young and beautiful nieces, while younger bloods turned up with a bevy of stunning cousins. An oil millionaire was so swamped in business deals that he installed five pretty secretaries in his cottage apartment to help him handle all his work.

  No one was fooled by these fictions, but the money spent by these wealthy men was too attractive to turn away.

  13. After the revolution in France, in 1792 the legislative assembly laid down rules for marriage as a purely civil contract. Divorce was admitted to a practically unlimited extent; it was possible not only for causes determined by law and by mutual consent, but also for incompatibility of temper and character proved, by either husband or wife, to be of persistent nature.

  The Code Napoleon of 1804 maintained the revolutionary principles pertaining to divorce.

  In 1816, after the restoration of the monarchy, a new law abolished divorce, making marriage indissoluble, as it had been prior to the revolution.

  On July 27, 1884, divorce was reestablished by law but permitted only for certain definite causes. On April 20, 1886, the law was simplified, although divorce by consent was still not permitted.

  14. When George Crum shared culinary duties with his sister-in-law Catherine Weeks (Aunt Kate) at Cary Moon’s Lake House, it was said he could take any edible and transform it into a dish fit for a king. And the eager customers who responded to the call for supper, which Aunt Kate blew on a fish horn, rarely disputed it.

  The few who did complain and returned their orders to the kitchen were rewarded with the most indigestible substitute George could contrive. He enjoyed watching their reaction.

  In 1853, the first season the Lake House was open, a dissatisfied diner was the impetus for its temperamental chef to create unwittingly a delicacy of enduring flavor and international fame.

  Dissatisfied with his french-fried potatoes, the guest sent them back to Crum with instructions to fry them longer and slice them thinner. Crum received the request with typical hostility. He sliced some potatoes into paper-thin shavings, bundled them in a napkin, and dropped them into a tub of ice water. Half an hour later he dumped the chilled slices into a kettle of boiling grease. When they were fried to curly crisps, he took them out, salted them, and sent them to the complainer’s table, then peered into the dining room to watch the effect.