The Adventures of Silk and Shakespeare

by Win Blevins

  The calf floundered toward its mother and bumped Jim from behind. He went down again.

  For a moment the churning of bodies and snow. Then the cow and calf came lumbering out of the drift.

  But where was Jim? The cow was hippety-hopping strangely.

  A black arm flashed in the sun behind the cow’s rump. The cow jerked.

  Jim was on his knees grabbing for the other leg. His knife glinted. The cow sank onto its hindquarters.

  The calf ran off, slipped in the snow, slid on its side, got up, and loped toward the other cows and calves.

  Silk grabbed his clothes and Jim’s and walked over. Sure enough, the cow was hamstrung.

  Jim was laughing. Cackling so hard he couldn’t stop. His black head was matted with snow, hair and beard alike. He was sitting in the snow, his warm butt melting him deeper.

  Next to him was manure. On his chest and arm was manure. All over him was manure, where he’d been dragged through it. Jim started scraping it off with snow.

  Finally Jim looked at Silk and giggled some more. Silk tossed him his pants.

  “A man hunts like that, his hangy-downs could get chilled,” Silk commented.

  Jim cupped his a moment, squinched his nose, and said, “Feelin’ fine.”

  Jim rose in the snow and beat his naked breast with his fists and howled a war cry. “This child done out-fierced the be-e-asts!”

  Silk gave Jim a wry look and started slitting for the tenderloins.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Youth’s a stuff will not endure

  —Twelfth Night, II.iii

  The next morning Jim was gone.

  Silk woke up late—no Jim, no fire, no sign.

  They’d stayed up half the night, gorging themselves on the elk and trading stories. Silk had slept in, but not Jim. Well, maybe he was gone after the something he had in mind.

  Silk made a squaw fire, started a little meat roasting, and built a rack of limbs high over the fire. He spent the morning cutting the half-frozen elk into strips and spreading them on the rack.

  At noon Jim came striding into camp empty-handed. He took in the drying set-up and nodded back toward the direction he’d come and said, “Let’s go for a walk.”

  All right.

  Jim had nothing more to say on the trail. They followed the hot-spring creek upstream into the woods and up a little canyon. In a couple of miles they came to a spectacular sight, a frozen waterfall. It was a narrow one, a vertical chute between rock walls. Jim sat down, still solemn-looking. Silk clambered down and touched the ice.

  It was incredible. You could see the water, all its little jumpings and turnings and even sprayings. Yet it was still. As if some god had pointed a finger and caught it there in its playfulness and stopped it dead, putting a halt to time. Since then snow had fallen lightly onto the ice, gracing it gently as lace.

  Silk looked up at Jim with a delighted smile, thanking him for the gift of the waterfall. But the black man returned Silk’s look gravely and motioned him over.

  Jim didn’t speak but went on up the trail a few yards, Silk following. Jim turned off into a little glade and stopped at a big dead tree surrounded by boulders.

  He climbed up the boulders and touched the tree with his finger.

  Silk saw that the blazed mark made a Cross and that something was tacked to it. He came up the boulders and…

  Silk reached out and put his hands on the piece of ribbon and then leaned his forehead on it and then his cheek. Silk hugged the tree. Jim saw tears on his face.

  “Your dad’s?” Jim said quietly.

  Silk nodded and hugger harder. Sobs came now.

  “Was afraid so.”

  Jim squatted on the boulder and got out his pipe and lit it. Eyes front, paying Silk no heed. His ears told him of sobs, and then sniffling. Jim sent smoke into the sky.

  Finally he heard Silk working at the horseshoe nails that held the piece of ribbon on the tree. The lad sat next to Jim. On his open hand was a simple Cross made of two strips of scarlet ribbon, dirtied and torn. The initials D D J were stitched in gold thread down the center strip.

  “Where is he?”

  “Somewhere close. Under big rocks and not marked. Else Injuns or critters…”

  Finally Silk asked, “How’d you know?”

  “Heard tell. Jedediah Smith read verses over him, and the boys remembered that and spoke of it. Recalled the coon was said to be a preacher man, and thought it might be your dad. Had to hunt for a sign——Jedediah allus left one.”

  “How’d it happen?”

  “Tale is he was playing on the rocks around the falls, slipped on the wet, smacked his head. Bad luck.”

  “Dad wasn’t much for playing,” Silk said.

  Jim cast an eye upon him. “Maybe that’s what he journeyed to the Shining Mountains for.”

  Silk stared sightless across the glade. “I journeyed to the Shining Mountains to find him.”

  Jim nodded. “I know.”

  How do you get used to the idea, Jim wondered, that you’re never going to get something you want that bad? Silk was quiet a while, fingering the ribbon Cross. “Dad used this to mark his place in the Scripture,” he said.

  Jim nodded and puffed on his pipe. You don’t get used to it, he supposed—you just hurt.

  After a long time Silk stood up and walked off a little and looked long at the tree and the blazed Cross and Jim below it, and then at the waterfall where David Dylan Jones had died. He walked down and put his hand on the ice. It was hard, and cold, cold, cold.

  Silk took one deep breath, and let it out lingeringly. “Thank you,” he said to Jim with dignity, and headed down the trail.

  What was there to do but head down the trail?

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  If the rascal have not given me medicines to make me love him, I’ll be hanged

  —Henry IV, Part 1, II.ii

  Jim had Silk just right. If he’d been standing, he’d have been weaving. When he wasn’t mumbling about enchantments, quarrels, battles, and other impossible follies, he was spilling his guts to Jim and Pine Leaf. Pine Leaf didn’t understand, and Jim thought it was about half funny, but that didn’t matter. It was Silk who needed to understand.

  They were sitting there by the river while the early winter twilight deepened.

  “Rescue fair damsels, defend the good, fight for the right, and stuff like that,” Jim agreed. “Like your daddy taught you.”

  Silk looked to see if he was being mocked, but he wasn’t. “Yeah,” he agreed, “stuff like that.” He raised a salute to the rising moon. “Knight errantry!” he called.

  “But not too damn errant.” Jim made it sound like a-a-a-runt.

  They bobbed their heads in agreement, and Jim handed Silk the jug again. Silk had a little trouble balancing it while he got his swig.

  “Now,” Jim said with quiet emphasis to Pine Leaf. She got up and walked off.

  Jim had built the small sweat hut this afternoon and got Pine Leaf to be the helper, the one who handed in the heated rocks with a stick. He’d taken Silk through all four rounds, the round of four cups of water tossed onto the rocks, the round of seven cups, the round of ten, and the round of uncounted cups, meaning uncounted wishes. The steam had gotten to be some—Jim himself had about passed out from the heat.

  But the dip in the freezing river had jolted them back to their senses half way, and the jug held them only half way while Jim waited for the perfect moment.

  Silk had started by telling stories of Don Quixote, that wondrous knight of old who cared not a fig for odds. Then he told about his dad, and even his mom, and spun a good story about the family fishing together on the Mississippi. He’d talked about feeling second-class in St. Louis, where the folks who counted spoke French and rode in carriages. He’d talked about hating his dad for being a wretched father, and loving him for the Welsh poesy that sang in his blood.

  When Jim asked what good that Welsh poesy would do Daddy’s son, Silk had answer
ed in a silly way, but meaning it, that it gave him the temperament of a knight errant: “My fantasy is filled with those things that I have read,” Silk quoted giddily again, and Jim didn’t hear the rest.

  Sometimes you had to get ’em drunk, or such-like.

  Silk turned half-serious. “Jim,” he asked levelly, “I want you to go with me. Partner me.” Silk’s cast-down eyes said the request was all serious, but he didn’t want to face it square. “We’ll have a hundred barrels of fun.”

  “You mistake me for what’s his name…Pancho?”

  “No, you ain’t a Sancho Panza, I know that.” Silk grasped Jim by the shoulder, comrade-like. “Think of all the stuff we could do.”

  “Hoss,” said Jim seriously, “my life is here with the Crow people. My kids is here.” Silk wasn’t meeting his eyes. “I got to stay at least until I marry up with Pine Leaf, and then a while to enjoy diddling her.”

  “Yeah, I know,” Silk said, sorry for himself.

  “You got to go along with somebody else.”

  Just then Pine Leaf got back, Hairy hanging behind her. Jim didn’t blame Hairy, really, for sulking. Since Jim and Silk got back from the grave of Silk’s dad yesterday, Silk had avoided Hairy completely, mostly sticking to Jim’s lodge.

  “Set,” Jim ordered Hairy, tapping the ground.

  “I won’t…” Silk started.

  “Shut your mouth,” Jim told Silk. “Set,” he told Hairy, tapping the ground.

  The big man lowered his butt to the earth, looking shamefaced. Jim handed Hairy the jug, and Hairy swigged. Jim motioned for him to swig again, and he did.

  “Tell your partner what a louse he is,” Jim ordered Silk.

  Silk got up, unsteadily, to go. Jim jerked him down by the hand.

  “Tell him,” Jim repeated.

  Silk glared back at Jim as long as he could.

  “All right,” Silk croaked. “You dummy! You idiot!” Jim made Hairy drink while Silk hollered. “You’ve likely got half the Cheyenne nation on our tails come spring.”

  Hairy looked at Silk mournfully.

  “It’s so, ain’t it?” Silk insisted. Hairy made a face. “Say it’s so, darn you!” Silk bellered.

  “It’s gospel,” murmured Hairy, hurt. When he nodded, the curls of the chestnut wig bobbed.

  “You stalked a bear, only it was stalking you. Woulda ate you except for me.” Silk waited, glowering.

  “It’s God’s truth,” said Hairy, sounding like he’d cry if a man could cry. Pine Leaf handed him the jug and he imbibed once more.

  Silk was on his feet now, weaving and gesturing. “And you built a huge fire like a kid and set the grass on fire. Lucky it didn’t spook the horses.”

  “Likely so,” said Hairy. He was beginning to take it amiss now.

  “You’re a God—goshdarned fake and cheat and…you ruint my sash and…”

  Jim pushed Silk into Hairy. They got tangled up and rolled on the ground and Silk came up with his fists ready.

  “Hit him,” said Jim to Silk.

  Silk hesitated.

  “Hit him or I’ll hit you.”

  Silk jabbed Hairy in the mouth.

  “Fight back,” snapped Jim at Hairy. “Now.”

  Hairy shook his huge head. “He’s muh partner.”

  Pine Leaf grabbed Hairy’s arms. Jim slapped Hairy in the face flat-handed. It stung, and it stunned, Jim could see.

  “Fight him or fight us all three. Now.” Jim slapped him again.

  Silk punched Hairy in his big gut.

  Jim shoved Hairy into Silk. They went down and rolled around and came up scrapping. Hairy rose bald-headed.

  Pine Leaf covered a giggle with her hand.

  It was a ridiculous fight, the gnat and the elephant. Silk would prance around out of reach, then dart in and hit Hairy. The blows looked puny. Hairy slugged back at Silk, but slowly, without rage.

  Silk was getting madder, though, and frustrated. Finally he rushed Hairy and tried to strangle him. So Hairy couldn’t avoid getting his gigantic arms around Silk. Then the elephant ran the gnat backward into a tree.

  Boy and man lay there stunned. Silk was trying to find some air somewhere in the world. Hairy was trying to figure out what he’d done.

  Suddenly Silk came out with his skinning knife and jumped for Hairy. Pine Leaf tripped him, and Jim kicked the knife away.

  “Keep it clean, boys,” warned Jim. Hairy’s eyes were on Silk’s empty knife hand, and the whites were showing. “Hit but don’t grab,” Jim warned.

  It was a hellacious battle, Jim thought, considering. Silk was to-hell-and-gone mad now, and Hairy had decided morosely that he’d like to teach the little sumbitch who’s who.

  Hairy kept shuffling in, pumping those hammer hands out front heavy but slow. Silk would dart under or around and lick Hairy a good one. Hairy sent him sprawling with swipes a couple of times, but Silk got his fair share in, and maybeso more. Jim had a willow limb to trip one of them with, but he didn’t need it.

  Silk would have won if he could have hurt Hairy, but it was like whipping a bear with a switch.

  “They are mad to kill,” Pine Leaf said softly to Jim. Meaning mad enough to kill. Yeah, it would have helped if they’d been able to hurt each other more. Jim didn’t think either would get hurt. Not serious, anyway. He treated himself to a swallow.

  “A glug of the jug,” Jim murmured, feeling pleasantly high.

  Just then Silk charged and Hairy caught his arm and used his momentum to fling him at a cottonwood. Silk hit it flat on his back, whumphed like he’d fallen off a roof, and slid to the ground.

  Jim started to yell at Hairy for grabbing, but it was too late. The big man was rared up to go. Jim moved fast.

  Hairy leapt, meaning to land on Silk, just as Jim kicked him.

  Hairy went sprawling across the hard ground. Quick, he recovered and crawled toward the downed Silk.

  And burst into tears.

  He picked Silk up. Cradled him. “My Corde-e-elia!” he wailed.

  Silk was pretending to be out, watching Hairy through half-closed eyes for the main chance.

  Hairy set Silk down on the cold earth, hovered over him. He orated,

  Why should a dog, a horse, a rat, have life,

  And thou no breath at all?

  Silk smothered a chuckle. Jim smirked. They looked at each other with mirth in their eyes.

  In the silence Pine Leaf laughed out loud. Jim lost control and ho-hoed because she didn’t know what was funny.

  Silk guffawed. He rolled over and pounded his knees. He rested his head on the ground and shook with joy.

  Tears began to roll down Hairy’s face. He wept silently, the great chest trembling a little.

  Seeing the tears, Jim called “Whoo-e-ee!” He had another tipple.

  Silk looked up at Hairy’s grief-stricken face and grabbed his partner by the shoulders.

  Hairy lifted his profile to the lavender evening sky, eyes still closed, nose noble as a dung heap.

  Jim grabbed both of them into a bearhug, a three-man squeeze.

  They toppled over.

  Prone, Jim managed another swig. He handed the bottle to Silk, who pulled at it avidly. Hairy took a tot. Pine Leaf handed him the wig, and he covered his naked head and wispy scalplock.

  Sprawled all over each other, they had one more round.

  Jim pushed himself upright. He lifted one arm to the sky, the jug dangling from a finger. “Here’s to friends,” he announced, “the friendship of men who’ve saved each others’ tails.”

  Hairy struggled to his feet, raised the jug to the moon.

  The friends thou hast,

  quoth Polonius to his son,

  Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel.

  Jim motioned Pine Leaf over. “Get it for him,” he said.

  She was back in just one more round of the jug. She held something out in the moonlight. “Little Wife fixed it,” Pine Leaf said gently.

  The sash.

  Si
lk felt suddenly sober. He took it and examined the damaged places. It had been cleaned somehow. The tear was covered by…by a long strip of soft, white doeskin decorated with some beadwork. Silk held it up to the moonlight. He couldn’t make out the pattern of the beadwork.

  “Silk and Shakespeare, it says,” Jim murmured from behind. “The names Silk and Shakespeare bind the sash together.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  amaze, indeed,

  The very faculties of eyes and ears

  —Hamlet, II.ii

  On the first day of spring—or it seemed such—a Frenchy arrived at the village with a message from Mr. Tulloch, the trader down to the fort. Tulloch wanted to see Silk and Hairy—beaucoup importe, said the Frenchy.

  “Errand,” said Jim. “Spot of cash money.”

  “An errand for knights errant,” intoned Hairy.

  They talked it over. Winter with the Crows had been tedious. For a while Silk liked listening to the stories of old times, stories that were more like Bible stories, but it got wearisome. The moon of frost in the tipi put an end to hunting and riding and near everything but sitting around. That moon gave way to three new moons and there was nothing to do but visit folks’ lodges and listen to old people tell more stories. Silk even preferred listening to Hairy read from his one-volume Shakespeare tragedies.

  And cash money. Jim said the Crows wouldn’t stir from the spot for a month—not until the ponies got stronger. Why not have an adventure in the meantime? A paying adventure? They rode to Fort Cass with the Frenchy.

  Tulloch’s proposition was simple. He’d heard about the boys’ whupping the Cheyennes. Even heard it was a trifle excessive. Seemed like a good idea for them to clear out of the country for a while.

  So Tulloch had a suggestion, spoken in his ironical manner. Maybe they’d like to carry letters over to Fort Union, down at the mouth of the Yellowstone. Not far—ten sleeps each way. He’d give them a hundred dollars.

  Tulloch went back to making marks in whatever ledger he was working in, like he didn’t care.

  Silk and Hairy talked it over outside.

  “He just wants no trouble around the fort,” Hairy protested.

  “Good idea,” Silk answered.

  “Hoss, they couldn’t tell me without my crazy paint,” Hairy said craftily.