The Canyon of Bones

by Richard S. Wheeler

  “Whoa,” Skye said.

  The horse sniffed, bared its yellow teeth, and screeched.

  “You get to be Best Man,” Skye said. “You going to have a ring ready for me?”

  Jawbone reared, pawed the air, settled to earth, and grunted.

  It was odd thinking of marriage in white men’s terms, brides, grooms, rings, attendants, churches. This was all so different it seemed not to be a union of a man and a woman.

  “Ah, there you are, Mister Skye, looking capital, capital,” said Mercer.

  The man had gotten himself up in his best, which wasn’t half bad considering how far he was from a clothier or laundress. He had brushed his trousers, cleaned his boots, trimmed his hair, washed his face, clipped his own beard.

  “Thank you. I’ll never get used to this,” Skye said.

  “You old dog. I haven’t decided whether to send it to the Manchester paper or the London. Manchester, I imagine. London’s too cosmopolitan. A little spice works better out in the provinces, you know.”

  “Spice, Mister Mercer?”

  “Spice, Mister Skye. It’s a good thing you are marrying the most beautiful girl in this entire camp. I plan to make note of it.”

  Skye laughed. One could not escape Mercer.

  Victoria herself emerged from the lodge, pulling away the flap from the oval door. He saw at once that she had adorned herself. Her hair was parted and shown bright in the sun. She wore her loveliest gingham, blue with a white pattern running through it, and she had blue-quilled moccasins to match. What would her role be? She wasn’t exactly the mother of the bride.

  She smiled at Skye, took his hand and squeezed, and then smiled at Mercer, who bowed gallantly.

  By some mysterious clockwork known only to Indians, a party gathered over on the Shoshone side of the meadow, a dozen people perhaps, and Skye could see even across that verdant flat that they were festively dressed, and lots of bold reds, sky blues, and creamy buckskin colors filtered to his vision.

  There were several women, fewer men. Back a way, much of the Shoshone village followed. So the cathedral would be filled; every pew!

  Skye simply stood, not knowing whether to meet this oncoming party halfway. But Victoria simply smiled and waited. Leading the party were two slim people, a young man and a young woman, and Skye knew at once these were The Runner, and his sister, Blue Dawn, soon to become the second Missus Skye.

  How handsome they were, their faces bronzed by a benevolent sun, their dress breathtaking. He wore fringed elk skins without a single bit of decor, but over his neck hung that bear-claw necklace, its long, lethal black claws curving down in an arc over his breast. Her dress was quite the opposite, for she had been festively attired in every way. Her jet hair was parted at the center and hung in shiny braids laced with scarlet ribbons, and with a white ribbon at the tip of each braid. A streak of vermilion was painted on her amber forehead. She wore a whitened doeskin dress, as soft as flour, and lining each sleeve were jingle-bells that sang merrily in the hush of the afternoon. High moccasins trimmed with red encased her feet. A blue girdle, or sash, caught her waist. It truly was a bridal costume, and her eyes danced with anticipation as she caught sight of Skye.

  Behind were other handsomely dressed women, each bearing burdens Skye could not fathom.

  They approached.

  Jawbone screeched and whinnied. They paused a moment, but Skye smiled, assuring them.

  He only had eyes for her. She only had eyes for him.

  The Runner stopped before Skye. “Prithee, be thou Mister Skye?”

  “Yes, and are you The Runner?”

  “Verily, thou knowest my name. My Shoshone name. I am also, in thy blessed tongue, St. John. Thus did my pater christen he who standeth before thee.”

  “Ah, I see.”

  “I rejoice to speak in thy blessed tongue. My good father taught me words, and gave me the secret of reading, and left three books upon which I might whet my powers. Thy holy book, and one of a teller of tales, one Shakespeare, and other whose blessed name I don’t fathom because his name was torn from the front. From these I have mastered thy tongue.”

  “You do very well, sir.”

  “It has taken much practice. But sirrah, thou hast spoken for my sister, and thus cometh I to present her to thee. Is she comely?”

  “Ravishing.”

  The Runner frowned. “You would call her that?”

  “Beautiful.”

  “Ah, that is a comfort. We bring thee emoluments and honors. See? Thou shalt have a quilled shirt, and thou shalt have a holy bundle to wear about thy neck, upon thy bosom, in which shall be the sacred things of the One-God blackrobes, along with our holy things, a turtle stone and an eagle claw.”

  Skye accepted the small leather bundle, and lowered the necklace over his chest.

  “Sonofabitch,” said Victoria. “Big stuff!”

  “And now, prithee, Mister Skye, dost thee wish to take hold of my sister and carry her away to thy abode?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Then we rejoice and sing Hosannas. Take her. She is thine. Be thou blessed. Maketh her fruitful; fill the world with thy children. Seal with her the peace betwixt the Absaroka and the Shoshone, and thy own pale ones from across the seas.”

  He nodded to his sister, who walked forward to Skye, stood before him expectantly. Skye scarcely knew what was required, so he caught her hands in his, answered her smile with his own.

  “To you I am wed; to you I pledge my love and life,” he said.

  That seemed to fulfill these people. A sudden relaxation swept through this large crowd.

  “Well done, old sport,” called Mercer. “She’s a handful.”

  Skye found himself so joyous that nothing the explorer might say could possibly mar the moment.

  The Runner stepped close, clasped Skye, and smiled. “It is blessed,” he said.

  And so the moment dissolved, until there was only Victoria, Mary, Jawbone, and himself.

  “I guess we’d better go home,” he said, uncertainly.

  “No, I will go to our lodge. I will carry these things given to you,” Victoria said. “You and Mary, you go that way, dammit.” She pointed toward a distant lodge, one Skye hadn’t noticed, far apart from the Crow village.

  “It is a place the People have prepared for you and the Shoshone woman,” she said. “It will be a good place.”

  thirteen

  The lonely lodge stood perhaps a thousand yards distant, and Skye hurried toward it in the thickening dusk. Mary was as eager as he, and matched his stride with her own. A fine, hot, wild passion was building in Skye, and he knew she was enjoying the moment as much as he.

  It was a soft night. The lodge had been pitched beside some larches in a moist hollow, somewhat below the surrounding meadow. A jovial moon was climbing the rim of the world and tossing yellow light upon this Eden. The air felt balmy, somehow more moist than elsewhere in the camp.

  He clasped her hand.

  Jawbone meandered along behind, not quite abreast but not inclined to abandon his owner, either. The horse was envious. It amused Skye. Where else on earth was such a beast?

  They reached the lodge, a small cone nestled in moist grass and screened by the trees, so that the village was invisible.

  He handed her through the oval door and into the hushed dark, where only a little twilight filtering through the smoke hole lit their way. The floor was plush with robes.

  He couldn’t wait, and swept her into his arms, and she hugged him fiercely. But the whine at his ears troubled him. He slapped away a mosquito, and more, and again. The faint humming swelled to a night whine now, and he and she began swatting fiercely, surrounded by scores, and then maybe hundreds. They lit on his neck and hands. He swatted. He felt the sting of several.

  She slapped at her neck and her calves.

  He yanked the door flap aside and pulled her out, but the mosquitoes found them outside as well as in.

  “Mary, head for that high gr
ound. I’ll get some robes and follow,” he said.

  “This is a bad place,” she said.

  He laughed. “It’s a Crow joke. They love nothing better than a joke like this.”

  “Joke! This is a joke?” She slapped at two mosquitoes that had landed on her wrist.

  “Go!” he said.

  He dove into the lodge, plucked up two heavy robes, and plunged out, cussing at the cloud of whining bloodsuckers that were tormenting them.

  He caught up with her as they raced up a long grade into air that was somehow dryer and scented with juniper from the slopes above. Eventually they were free of the swarming mosquitoes.

  “This is a joke?”

  “Yes, and probably Victoria’s little surprise.”

  Mary was quiet, and then turned to him. “She is your sits-beside-him woman. Will she be kind to me?”

  “You have to understand Absaroka humor,” he said. “It is not meant to harm, but to frustrate. There’s nothing a grandmother loves so much as a story about lovers frustrated by mosquitoes. Or anything else. It could be a snake or a skunk or a horse. It could be old coyote. When Coyote frustrates lovers, that’s the biggest joke of all.”

  “Can we play a joke on her?”

  Skye laughed. He liked that. “We’ll think on it.”

  “We will make a joke!” she said, delighted at the prospect.

  They climbed an arid hillside through thickening juniper brush, the resinous scent sweet to his nostrils. There was something clean and bracing in the scent.

  “It is good, here,” she said. “Find a place, Skye.”

  The request was so winsome, so tender, so eager that Skye felt half mad. Ahead, pale in moonlight, was a bluff. He headed that way. Behind, he heard Jawbone crashing through the dense juniper. The bluff proved to be a rocky outcrop, so he followed its base until they happened upon a bower, half cupped by overhanging rock, and surrounded on its lower side by a wall of juniper as high as a man’s chest. There were no mosquitoes there, and no harsh wind and nothing but nature’s own invitation to lovers. Swiftly he scraped away the debris of gravel and juniper sticks under the overhang until the clay was clean and the ground was sweet.

  She stood quietly.

  “This is good, Mister Skye,” she said.

  It was good.

  “You are my man,” she said.

  “And you are my woman, Mary.”

  It was almost dawn before they tumbled into sleep. Then he dreamed sad dreams: everything a mistake. Victoria, hurt. Victoria, silent. He dreamed of pulling into himself, talking to no one. Going away, never coming back. Cold. He awakened in bright daylight. She was staring at him, sitting bare on her robes, her eyes soft.

  “You did not sleep well,” she said. “I think you maybe too tired, yes?” Her eyes were merry.

  He nodded. She was beautiful, her golden flesh aglow in the morning sun. Yet he felt a sadness he could not define. It was not rational. He had spent the sweetest night of his life.

  But the serenity of the morning swiftly stole through him, that and her sweetness as she settled beside him and pressed her lips to his. The kiss was honey at first, and then paprika, and then as fiery as chili peppers. He thought only of her, and she was thinking only of him. There was nothing else; no warm sun, no sweet morning, no resinous junipers guarding their bower. They captured each other and fell back onto the soft mat of the buffalo robes, and let the world return to their consciousness. A bee hummed past, hunting for blooms hidden under the juniper canopy.

  Only hunger could have driven them from that place, and in time Skye was ravenous for a haunch of buffalo. He helped Mary collect the robes, and they wound their way down the foothills to the encampment and their peoples. The Shoshones smiled at them shyly; the Absarokas smiled slyly. Skye sensed he was facing yet another of those small hurdles that a multiple marriage might bring. How would Victoria be this bright morning? How would he feel toward her? Maybe it was all the nonsense of his European ways; maybe not. Maybe there were many men who would wonder whether they could divide their love among two or three wives.

  And what else? How would Victoria treat Mary? How would the wives get along? What if one wife tried to ally Skye against the other wife? He suddenly realized he was borrowing trouble, thinking this way. He laughed, and plunged through the Crow camp toward his own lodge. Actually, it was Victoria’s lodge. A Crow man rarely owned his lodge.

  Victoria was kneeling beside an elk hide she was scraping; women’s work never ended, even on festive occasions.

  “Well, dammit, now I got someone to help me,” she said. “I started this before the sun rose, while you were busy.” She laughed suddenly, a small cheerful chuckle.

  “I will work, grandmother,” said Mary, hastily kneeling beside Victoria, and grabbing a bone scraper.

  “The hell you will,” Victoria said. She rose, fed kindling into the embers of a morning fire, and was soon rewarded with flames licking the black cook pot.

  Mary rushed to help, but Victoria shooed her off.

  Victoria stood, eyed the fire, and smiled at Skye. It was a loving smile. He hastened to her, drew her tight, and was rewarded with a hug. She welcomed his arms and he welcomed hers, and that was all that needed to be said or done. But Skye wondered how he would ever sort it all out. Mary was discreetly staring off toward her Shoshone camp.

  Victoria plucked up Skye’s arm and examined it minutely.

  “I don’t see any,” she said.

  “Any what?”

  “Mosquito bites. I don’t see none on her, either. I guess you were too busy to get bit.” She cackled.

  “Is the lodge still there?” he asked.

  “Hell no,” Victoria replied. She turned to stirring the stew, and let it go at that.

  The wedding night sure had been public.

  Suddenly it was fine. They would feast. He was ready to eat half a buffalo. Mary looked ready to eat the other half. This afternoon they would leisurely visit friends and family. There would be a good visit with The Runner. It amazed him: here were Shoshone siblings who could speak English after a fashion, a legacy of a father living in Europe.

  Victoria poured the steaming stew into wooden bowls and bade them eat. This was a feast. Many a morning Skye had sawed off some cold venison or buffalo haunch or elk meat from a cooked roast, and eaten it. But the warmed meal was Victoria’s way of celebrating the new day.

  They ate greedily, and then Mary silently collected the bowls, let the camp curs lick them dean, and headed for the river to wash them. Skye watched her go, aware of the lovely body that shifted beneath Mary’s skirts.

  “You look worn-out, Skye. She wear you out, eh?” Victoria said. “Maybe she’s too much for you, eh? Englishmen, they all wear out too fast.”

  Skye lifted his hat, settled it down on his locks, and roared. “Worn-out! Just try me and see how worn out this Englishman is!”

  Victoria made bawdy noises, plainly pleased, and continued with her hide-scraping.

  Skye stretched, fed and relaxed and comfortable as the sun pumped some warmth into the morning. Around him the summer’s visit was winding down. Skye saw some of the women packing their kitchens into parfleches, while over in the Shoshone camp, the women were hooking travois to horses and loading heaps of robes and bundles onto them. The summer’s fun was coming to a close.

  That’s when Graves Duplessis Mercer threw a shadow across Skye, and stared down at him.

  “Well, you lucky dog, I don’t suppose you’re worth a thing today.”

  Skye nodded curtly.

  “Camp’s breaking up. I want to hire you. I need a guide. It’s now or never, Skye. There’s things to see before the snow falls. You interested? A hundred pounds.”

  Skye found himself saying yes even before he could weigh the offer.

  fourteen

  Skye waved the man to a log that served as a bench. Mercer always managed to look dashing and now was wearing a broad-brimmed felt hat, a canvas shirt, and short britches tha
t bared hairy white calves.

  “Let’s talk about it,” Skye said. “Where are you heading? What do you want to see?”

  “The geysers near here. And the big bones your older wife was telling me about. I also want to meet strange tribes. I want to discover ones that have never seen a white man. There are some, you know. Down in the desert canyons. If you know of tribes that practice cannibalism, that’s my meat.”

  He laughed at his own joke.

  “And where are you headed? It’s late in the year.”

  “Why, the Oregon country. After we’re done here, I’ll hook up with Hudson’s Bay, take the first ship out. To the Pacific islands I hope, but I’ll take China or Australia or whatever. I have journals to go to London. Need to find a ship sailing somewhere.”

  “You’re too late to get to Oregon, Mister Mercer.”

  “Too late! How can I be too late?”

  “It’s August. You need to be on the Columbia a month from now.”

  “Well, well be there.”

  The man had little grasp of North American geography and even less grasp of its winter climate. He didn’t realize how far he had strayed from the Yank road to Oregon, the only practical way over the continental divide, the only way to reach waters flowing west.

  “If you were to head this day for the Oregon Road and then head west as fast as you can move with that wagon, you might barely make the Pacific coast before winter shuts you in.”

  “But, Mister Skye, it’s summer. It’s hot. I’m dressed in tropical clothing.”

  Skye was relentless. “You could do some sightseeing in this country, reach Fort Benton on the Missouri River in October, build or buy a flatboat, and reach St. Louis just ahead of bad weather.”

  “I should turn around? Return to St. Louis?”

  “If you want to see the sights here, yes, turn around. If you want to hightail for Oregon, start now, this hour. Don’t waste a minute.”

  Mercer sprang up and paced. He had a boyish quality but Skye sensed the man was harder and more resourceful than his demeanor suggested. Victoria, who had been listening, squinted darkly at Skye. He knew she didn’t approve. But a hundred pounds would outfit Skye for years. It was worth the risk posed by this adventurer.