Grace of a Hawk

by Abbie Williams

  I turned and ran, leaving Pierpont and Albie in the crowd; I had to find Cora. She was inside the wigwam, sitting on a woven mat in its warm, smoky interior, playing beads with Emmeline. Without saying a word I told Cora I must speak with her and she came to my side at once. Emmeline sat humming, sorting her beads, and no one else was about. I bent close to Cora’s ear and said, “A man just arrived here with another man, a dead one.” At the fearful question which sprang from her eyes, I hurried to say, “It ain’t Boyd, I made certain.” I drew a breath and whispered, “But it’s a man from that night, Cora, the one Boyd beat upon. I don’t know how he died but it weren’t from Boyd’s beating.”

  She whispered, “Who brought him here?”

  “It ain’t someone who seen us that night,” I answered, knowing what she meant, and Cora nodded, her thin shoulders drooping in pure relief. My thoughts went leaping like jackrabbits. “But there was another man we never seen that night, remember? He was with the cattle, roundin’ them up. Do you recall his name? The Yankee spoke it…”

  Cora whispered, “Hoyt. They called him Hoyt.”

  “Yes, that’s it.” I nodded, struggling to push aside the horror of that rainy night and remember it for what really happened.

  “He never saw us because he never rode into camp,” Cora whispered. Her eyes looked wild and scared, and I hugged her close. Emmeline peeked our way, still humming, the beads making little clicking noises as she dropped them in the cup of her palm.

  I tried to think what Boyd would do, was he here with us. But I knew what Boyd would do and I wasn’t big or strong enough, or armed enough, to do any of them things. On its long jackrabbit legs, my mind kept leaping. I thought, Do we tell Xavier and Fern? Do we keep quiet? Who would believe us? I can’t rightly blame this man Hoyt for killing Grady or Quill…not when it was Virgil an’ the Yankee who done it, on Fallon’s orders…

  If the man who’d entered the fort just now was Hoyt, he would have answers. If only I knew how to get them. I could hardly tug on his coat hem and beg. I was a mosquito of a boy, buzzing ’round with questions a man wouldn’t trouble himself over. But he would know about Virgil and Fallon, and their whereabouts, and he’d know what happened in the meantime since riding away from Boyd and Cora and me. He would know what had happened at Royal Lawson’s homestead. Finally I decided, “We ain’t gonna say a thing for now,” and I felt Cora nod against my fast-thudding heart.

  XAVIER TOLD the story over dinner, around the hearth fire in the wigwam that had sheltered us for days. Cora ate without lifting her eyes but I knew she listened as careful as me for any scrap of information Xavier might let slide. Xavier was acquainted with both men who’d appeared today; he said the dead man’s name was Byron Johnston, a Yank from Ohio, once a soldier and then a trapper. The man who’d brought him to the fort was named Hoyt Little, another soldier-turned-trapper who claimed Johnston died of wounds after being shot during an argument with a Hidatsa man. Xavier and Fern did not seem to question this story but I did, and I knew Cora did. Who had really shot the Yank? Had the two ridden from Cora’s uncle’s homestead? Had they delivered the cattle Virgil helped them steal? What if Virgil or Fallon or the half-breed rode next into the fort? I was loose in the bowels over the worry of it.

  I saw how Fern listened hard, leaning forward to watch Xavier as he spoke. Albie and Emmeline never failed to pantomime their mama’s actions, even if they didn’t know they was doing it, and kept their black eyes fixed on their daddy, food forgotten. Pierpont was too busy scraping his plate to pay much attention to the conversation; I figured that out here in the Territory, so far from any law, a dead body wasn’t so unusual. When Xavier paused to sip from his bottle Fern asked her husband a question in her own language. Xavier shook his head in response and I might not have thought about it again except that he said, “My dear, your brother did indeed ride with them for a spell. You might ask after him in the morning. Once Johnston’s body is properly cared for, Little would surely have a moment to converse.”

  My eyes locked with Cora’s.

  Later, Pierpont and me went outside to make water, away from the wigwam in the cold dark night. Standing with our backs to each other, our breath making big clouds of steam, I tried to sound like I was just asking any old question. “Your mama’s worried about her brother, huh?”

  “He worries Maman often,” Pierpont said in his strange English, each word emerging like he’d swallowed part of it. I figured he spoke English least of all three languages he could speak; the common tongue here was mostly French. “He carved for me my crossbow and a quiver for all the arrows I can make.”

  “What’s his name?” I wondered, hunching up as I waited for Pierpont’s answer.

  “Animkii,” he said over his shoulder.

  I closed my eyes against the night. I felt a bolt of relief at this news; behind me, Pierpont continued, “But Papa calls him Celui Qui Cite des Saintes Écritures.”

  “That seems a right mouthful,” I said. The French language was too wordy for its own damn good.

  Pierpont explained, “Other white folks call him Church Talk, but Maman does not like that, either. She believes he should not make quotation from the white eyes’ religious book, not when he was raised Anishinabeg.”

  It took me a fair amount to pull in a full breath.

  At last I whispered, “I would think not.”

  HOYT LITTLE remained at the fort in a wall tent he erected outside the gate. I had no contact with him, nor did I seek out any even though I felt I should. I told Cora of what I’d learned from Pierpont, that Fern was likely kin to the half-breed who’d shot Boyd with his crossbow and dragged him behind his horse, who’d been part of the attack and would have seen us all killed under that oak. And I was all the more tangled up inside. Fern was a kind and gracious woman. She’d braided up Cora’s hair and sometimes rested her hands on Cora’s head, just like a mama. Fern cared for us, two strangers in her home, fed us and provided woolen blankets. She figured we’d spend the winter at the fort, she had said so many a time. And yet her brother was a killer, a criminal a dozen times over. What would Fern say if I dared to tell her the truth, like I wanted to a hundred times a day? Would she believe me? Or would she cast us out like dirty water from a washtub?

  As the days rolled by I knew I must return for Boyd. I could no longer delay no matter what the weather. My heart was tore all the more in two; I couldn’t bring Cora on such a ride across the prairie, not for a second time. And neither did I wish to leave her behind; I could not do that to her, it would destroy her. But I had to ride for my brother and understood I would have to go alone, without telling Xavier. He would not allow me to leave, nor was anyone willing to ride out into the open prairie with winter on the advance. I would have to go without help. If I died, I would at least die trying to rescue my kin. I was a coward staying here where I was warm and safe, when Boyd was not.

  Lying in my blanket before everyone rose, the dawning air as gray as sadness, I saw Boyd’s face as it looked when he bade me farewell. I knew he thought he would be dead before I could return for him, that he’d done his best to be brave for me. He was the bravest man I’d ever know. Great, choking sobs tore a hole right through me. I scrambled up and outside, running past the fort wall and falling to my knees, alone but for the wind and snow pellets hurling from the sky. I wanted to curse a blue streak, to scream at the sky, angry enough to break something apart with my hands or slam my own head against the fort wall. I bent forward, resting my hands to the frozen ground, and thought, Quit being a suckling coward. You gotta leave today.

  I HEELED TRAPPER at the sight of the fort on the horizon, seeing smoke lifting from the hide huts of Indian people, praying with everything in me I would find my brother and Cora safe within this place. I’d scoured the land as I traveled westward along the Missouri, hawk-eyed for any hint of Malcolm’s passage through it; finding none, I allowed myself to be reassured. I’d been in dread of spying the bloated carcass of Aces High, the boy
and Cora curled alongside the horse’s cooling body. All manner of terrible visions plagued me as I traveled. I kept sane by fixing on the next horizon and what fortune I’d gleaned, determined to take nothing for granted – I had food, I was armed. I’d been in far worse straits only a week ago. I came across not a soul as I rode, cantering and walking the mule in intervals, fearful to push him too hard, though he was sound stock.

  Think only on the next hour. Then the next. There ain’t no other way, not just now, you’ll go crazy as a jaybird.

  Despite the early morning there was plenty of activity around the stockade wall, fires from many hearths sending out the scents of frying meat and coffee. My progress towards the gate was stopped by a small contingent of men, clad in furs and armed to the teeth; they were Indian, imposing but not unfriendly; they spoke in English and I explained my presence as best I could, not wasting time on anything but basic facts, answering their numerous rapid-fire questions. Yes, I was alone. Yes, I’d been traveling for days. No, I bore no furs or other trade goods. No, I was not a trapper. When they seemed satisfied, snow dusting our shoulders, making Trapper’s long ears twitch, I said, “I seek a boy riding a chestnut gelding. He woulda ridden in with a girl, perhaps two weeks gone.”

  One of the men, whose cheeks were finely etched with a tracery of black tattooing, widened his eyes and nodded with a single bob of his head. He reined his gelding about and invited, “Come.”

  It was all I could do not to gallop abreast, to grasp at his sleeve and beg for answers. Instead, Trapper and I followed this man and his horse at a sedate walk, into the fort and past small, log-constructed cabins and more of the Indian structures. At last he halted his gelding, dismounted, and tugged a small bell-pull at the entrance of one of these. I all but tumbled to the ground in my haste and on my weakened leg, tugging the knitted cap I’d taken from the trapper’s dugout from my head. My beard was coated with ice but I hadn’t the energy to be ashamed of my ragged appearance as an Indian woman lifted aside the opening, hunched over to peer outside, her black eyes roving over me with plain curiosity.

  I clutched the hat to my chest and said, “Ma’am, my name is Boyd Carter –” but got out not another word, as I heard a wild exclamation from within, a heart’s cry. I scarce had time to brace myself before Malcolm hurtled forth and into the morning’s light, leaping at me. I caught close the boy and buried my face to his neck, tears hot as blood on my face.

  Malcolm wasted no time telling me everything he knew, and I wasted none telling the Darvell family exactly what had transpired on the prairie. I knew there weren’t a thing to be gained by hiding the truth; for only seconds did I consider telling Malcolm to hold his tongue, allowing me the chance to find this Hoyt Little in the dead of night and get a knife point to his gullet. Little would tell me the truth then, I had no doubt, but I was not in any position to be on the run or to enact vengeance without minding the consequences. I had Malcolm and Cora to consider, foremost, and the memory of Lorie ripped apart by a judge’s questions in Iowa City, the both of us defending Sawyer’s actions, rang in my head. I could not risk being carted to jail and rotting away for an action I’d not thought through. Was I furious enough to kill Little with one deft sweep of a knife? Quiet, no one alerted by the action, no one the wiser? I was, and would, if not for the threat of consequences. And so I made short work of explaining what had occurred that night.

  Somewhere in the back of my mind I was thinking, Little…why do I feel like I know the bastard…

  I could hardly miss the looks passed between husband and wife; the woman, Fern, struggled to believe her brother was capable of such harm, naming her doubts in halting English the moment she’d sent her children on errands. Only Cora and Malcolm remained inside, Cora tucked beneath my arm as she’d been since I set foot within the hide structure, as though I was her own daddy returned from the grave. The Darvells were kind and generous; I thawed before their fire, had been given food and drink, and the mule cared for with a few brief orders from Xavier to his son. Still, it was no secret Fern wished me and my story gone from her home; her dark, eloquent eyes worried over my face and then back to her husband’s, in an endless circle. Xavier was less sentimental; he waited until I was done eating before catching up his tasseled woolen cap and saying, “Come along, Monsieur Carter, let us pay a call. Little is not an early riser, likely still abed this morning.”

  As Xavier and I approached the wall tent outside the stockade I saw at once the roan upon which the Yankee had been mounted staked alongside a second gelding. My heart increased its speed, the wound on my leg throbbing. Now that selfsame Yankee was dead and the man within the tent had answers. My right hand twitched; I could not help but trace my thumb over the smooth reassurance of the pistol tucked into its holster. Xavier Darvell was a stranger to me but he’d cared for my brother and Cora, had offered all of us shelter and food, and therefore I owed him a debt beyond gratitude. I followed just a step behind his confident stride, over crunching snow, watchful and trying not to allow anger any firmer a handhold; this Little might not have taken direct part in the violence, but neither had he stopped it. He’d ridden with Fallon.

  Xavier paused at the entrance and bent down; there was no bell-pull on this tent and he addressed the man within, inquiring through the canvas, “Little? Are you about?”

  A grunt met our ears, then a snuffling snore. I eyed the empty bottle half-sunk into the snow near the entrance, its cork missing. Xavier’s breath emerged in an exasperated cloud as he heaved a sigh and said, “I would like a word.”

  A snort this time, and a gruff, drowsing voice responded, “It ain’t even the noon hour, Darvell. Bugger off.”

  I gripped the edge of the tent, where its sides met in a long seam; I’d slept in just such a tent in my soldiering years, its canvas stained with filth. I fought the urge to jerk the structure from its stakes. With no patience for pleasantries, I demanded, “Where did you meet Fallon Yancy?”

  In the following silence I heard Little slide a piece from its leather holster. Xavier lifted a hand, silently shaking his head as I reached at once for my own pistol.

  Little ordered, “Tell me who’s asking.”

  “Come out so I can see your face,” I said.

  “What in the goddamn hell? Who are you?”

  “Gentlemen,” said Xavier, in the tone of a longtime father. “I have no wish to be shot to death this early morning.”

  “My name is Boyd Carter,” I said, grim with impatience. “We ain’t been properly introduced but I know you. An’ I ask again, when an’ where did you meet Fallon Yancy?”

  Little did not answer and I sensed him calculating.

  My teeth met at their edges. “Tell me.”

  He finally spoke. “I ain’t acquainted with a man of that name.”

  “That is a goddamn lie. You rode with him but weeks ago. You stole cattle with him. Did Royal Lawson swallow the story you cooked up? Does he know your men left his niece to die on the prairie?”

  The interior of the structure shuddered as Little rose and stormed to the entrance. I tensed and stepped away, holding steady with my piece; the barrel of his pistol appeared first. I could see one eye peering out behind it. He barked, “Stand down, for Christ’s sake.”

  Seconds later I stood facing him in the gray morning light, our barrels directed at the ground, ready to spring into play at the least suggestion of hostility; Little was older than me, closer to the age Angus had been, heavyset and stone-faced. His eyes were cold and hard as he took stock; I understood he would defend himself against any accusation I could throw his way, that he was known here at this fort while I was not, and there was nothing but my word against his at this point.

  I kept my voice level. “The corpse you rode in here with, how did you know him?”

  “We done some hunting together these years since the War. We met up a week past, at the Hidatsa camp near Fall Creek.”

  “How did he come to die?” And it was as I asked this question
I heard Grady’s voice, the very first night we’d made acquaintance; Grady had said, The Littles take money where they can get it, you take my meaning? I gave no sign I’d made this connection; it could be that this man Hoyt was no relation to the scarred buffalo hunter named Bill Little. Clannish, I heard Grady say.

  Little lifted his chin and refused to answer my question. “I brung him here for a proper burial.” He looked to Xavier and asked, “What is this young firebrand about?”

  Rather than letting Xavier answer, I leaned farther into Little’s space. “The party I rode with was attacked near the Missouri, east of here, on our way to deliver cattle to a man named Royal Lawson. Our livestock was stole an’ two of my party shot to death. What do you know of this?”

  “I don’t know a goddamn thing, boy,” Little said, unshaken by my words. I could tell nothing I said would rattle him. “I been on my hunting route since August.”

  Xavier asked, “Have you seen my wife’s brother this autumn? I know he rode with Johnston for a spell. I know you’ve ridden with him in the past.”

  “I ain’t seen him this season. Church Talk is awful fond of the whores in St. Paul. ’Course they make him pay extra, him being red, but he’s willing to pay for them saucy white gals. I figure he’s wintering there.” Little maintained his stone face. He was a good liar, I’d give him that; and I knew, to my very bones, that he was lying.

  “What of Fallon Yancy, Virgil Turnbull?” I pressed. “Where are they just now? Where are they wintering?”

  Little was not intimidated by me. His upper lip curled as he ordered, “I’ll thank you to leave me be, boy.”