Beneath a Hunter's Moon

by Michael Zimmer

  * * * * *

  From the back of the roan, Big John watched the herd disappear over the brink of the horizon, leaving behind only the scent of dust and buffalo and a litter of dead animals.

  He had quit the hunt early, fighting the stallion and a reeling dizziness that pulsed at the edges of his vision. He could feel the slow seepage of blood through the bandages Isabella had wrapped around his side, and called himself a fool for allowing his craving for the chase to override common sense. Isabella had warned him that he was still too weak to run buffalo, but he hadn’t listened. At this late date in his life, he supposed he probably never would.

  He rode leisurely to a shallow coulée where a single sapling, no more than a couple of years old, was nearly twisted off at its base—a victim of the stampede, although he figured the willow’s chance for survival on the buffalo plains would have been slim, regardless. Only the tough, deep-rooted buffalo grass lasted long out here; prairie fires and rubbing bison soon destroyed the rest.

  Alone, Big John permitted himself the luxury of a small groan as he dismounted next to the sapling, then sank down cross-legged beside it. Taking out his pipe, he absently filled it while surveying the plain around him. Already a few wolves were venturing cautiously toward the dead buffalo. Even from his position on the ground, Big John could count at least thirty carcasses scattered from north to south. Adding up the totals in his mind tarnished his satisfaction with the hunt. It wasn’t the by-products of a successful run—the meat and hides that were the mixed-bloods’ livelihood—that saddened him so much as the waste he knew would come with it. For every pound of buffalo the Métis utilized, at least twenty would rot or feed the scavengers. And even then, he knew half of them would return home with only partially filled carts.

  A rider appeared from between a couple of low hills to the west and cantered easily toward him. Big John stood and put a hand on one of the pistols in his sash until he recognized Charles Hallet.

  Hallet nodded as he rode up, but his expression lacked the characteristic grin of a man completing a profitable hunt. Stepping down smoothly from his pad saddle, he said: “Hello, Big John. How went the chase?”

  “Well enough,” Big John replied. He hesitated, then fingered a wire pick from his tobacco pouch and began unloading his pipe.

  “What troubles ye, Charles?”

  Hallet’s gaze was wandering. “I’m looking for Etienne Cyr. Have you seen him?”

  “He’s missin’?”

  “Baptiste found his horse half a league or so back. It’s lame and skinned up, but not hurt otherwise. He was trying to backtrack, but I said I’d come on ahead. Baptiste’ll be a bloody long time sorting out that trail, if he even has the eye for it. I figured Cyr would be closer to the rear of the herd, his pony being slower than most.”

  “I’ve not seen him, but I’ll help ye look.”

  “He wouldn’t be the first to get thrown from his horse, but I’d hate to think of him being caught under the hoofs of a herd this size.”

  “Have ye talked to any of the others?”

  “No. Everyone else is still with the chase. I only stopped because I saw Baptiste with an extra horse.”

  Big John put away his tobacco and pipe, then mounted the roan. “I’ll swing east, then work me way back. If ye do the same to the west, we ought to find something.”

  Hallet nodded glumly. “Look sharp, Big John,” he said as he moved back alongside his runner. “My heart feels bad about this.”

  * * * * *

  “Here,” the moon-faced bitch grunted.

  Celine stopped and turned.

  “You skin this one with me,” Isabella said. “Watch, then you will learn.”

  Celine stared at the mound of curly brown hair lumped on the prairie in front of the meat cart. Only slowly did she recognize it as a dead animal, a buffalo. Around her she became aware of the other women stooping above similar mounds.

  “Is this Big John’s buffalo?” she asked.

  Isabella nodded.

  “How do you know?”

  Isabella pointed to a piece of green cloth trampled into the ground several yards away. “McTavish marks his kills in this manner,” she replied impassively, then tied the cart pony’s lead rope to the dead buffalo’s horn and walked around to the rear of the vehicle to gather her tools. When she returned, she handed Celine a pair of knives and a worn whetstone. As Isabella stripped off her heavy capote, Celine idly contemplated plunging one of the sharp blades into the woman’s soft abdomen. She didn’t, but there was a pointed sense of gratification in visualizing the quick spurt of warm blood over her hand, the look of shock on the old squaw’s round face.

  “Now you will learn to butcher,” Isabella said.

  Celine glanced at the fallen buffalo. It lay on its chest with both front legs broken and tucked back along the body. Grabbing the nearest limb close to the hoof, Isabella hauled it roughly around, then cocked the knee at an angle to the body to hold it in place. She made an impatient gesture with her hand, and Celine went around to the opposite side and did the same with the other front leg. Then Isabella drove one of her butcher knives into the back of the buffalo’s neck.

  Steam rose from the laceration as the warmth of the buffalo’s meat was exposed to the cool air. With both hands and an aggressive sawing motion, Isabella drew the blade back over the hump and along the spine. At the base of the tail she repositioned the knife to cut down the back of one leg as far as the hock. Then she moved to the front of the shoulder and did the same there, ending her cut just above the knee. “Now,” she said, puffing a little as she grasped a double handful of curly hair at the juncture of the shoulder and spinal cuts, “we pull. See?”

  She gave a hefty tug, and an inch or so of hide flaked back to reveal the marbled flesh underneath. A warm, cloying odor was released into the air. Celine breathed deeply, finding the scent strangely intoxicating. She leaned forward to peer into the triangular cavity while Isabella worked her fingers under the leathery rind. Bracing her foot against the buffalo’s shoulder, Isabella strained backward, expertly separating hide from body. From time to time she was forced to sever a particularly stubborn piece of membrane with the knife she kept clenched in her right hand, but, to Celine’s surprise, the hide came off fairly easily. Within minutes Isabella had one whole side skinned to the ground.

  Stepping clear, the old woman straightened slowly, pressing both hands against the small of her back. Glancing at Celine, she said: “Now you do the rest.”

  “The rest?”

  Isabella’s lips thinned with impatience.

  Celine circled around to the offside. Tentatively she extended a hand over the abrupt termination of hide at the top of the hump. She appreciated the warmth of the meat on her slender fingers. Her hand, stretched horizontally from her shoulder, came just even with the highest part of the buffalo, causing her to marvel at the animal’s size. Once she had wondered why the half-breeds didn’t train bison to pull their carts, picturing them from memory as little more than mop-headed oxen, but she could see now that any such attempt would be doomed from the start. She could as easily imagine emptying the Great Lakes with buckets.

  “Cut,” Isabella said gruffly.

  Celine placed the tip of her knife against the hide above the neck and pushed down, but nothing happened.

  “Hard!” Isabella snapped. She made a quick, downward motion with her hands to illustrate what she meant.

  That was all it took. Celine’s rage exploded, and with a shrill cry she lifted the knife high in both hands, then plunged it down with all her might. The blade sliced cleanly through the matted hair and hide, going an inch or more into the meat. She screamed and jerked the knife savagely toward her, but her grip slipped and she lurched backward. She remained where she stopped, feet splayed, fists clenched, glaring at Isabella, who held her own knife up defensively.

  For half a minute the two women stood frozen, gazes locked. Then Isabella came around the carcass without taking her eyes
off of Celine. Returning her own knife to its sheath, she grasped the wooden scales of Celine’s knife and worked it back and forth until she’d freed it from the bison’s hump. In a calm voice that belied the emotion clearly visible on her face—the tattoos on her chin were wiggling like tiny snakes as her lips trembled—Isabella said: “Jab only to start your cut, as I did. Then you slice. See?” She indicated the top of the hump where she had already peeled the hide away on the opposite side. “Now I will do this side, too, but you must watch and learn. A woman must know how to skin a buffalo. It is her life.” She began to slice awkwardly down the side of the neck, though keeping her eyes on the younger woman.

  “Are you afraid of me?” Celine asked suddenly.

  Isabella stopped and turned, holding the butcher knife in her right hand with the cutting edge turned almost casually up. She shook her head.

  “I think you are,” Celine said, surprised. She moved closer, and Isabella instantly stepped to one side, away from the buffalo. Celine laughed and said: “Yes, you are.” Then her expression changed and she pointed to the carcass. “Show me,” she demanded. “Show me how a woman of the pays sauvage butchers a buffalo.”

  Isabella took a deep breath, then turned back to the fallen animal. “Good, yes. I will show you. Like this, see? Slice.”

  Sweat was glistening from Isabella’s forehead by the time she finished butchering the first buffalo. As Celine watched, she skinned the hide down both sides, then laid it out flesh side up like a pink and white tablecloth. On it, she placed only the choicest cuts—the petite bosse, that small hump above the cow’s neck, the dépouilles, from each side of the spine and above the upper ribs, the grosse bosse, or large hump above the shoulders, the plats-côtés, the croupe, and the brochet.

  She took the liver and the finest fats—both hard and soft—for her pemmican, and the best strips of sinew that she would dry and use as thread. Only at the last did she take that most select of all meats, the tongue. Wrapping it all in the two halves of the hide, she carried both to the cart and pushed them toward the front of the bed. Stepping back, she eyed Celine curiously. “See, it is a simple thing, but you must learn it well if you are to attract a husband.”

  “Are there not other ways to attract a man?” Celine asked.

  It was clear from the immediate shift in Isabella’s demeanor that she understood the innuendo, but she didn’t acknowledge it. Celine looked to the south where a small party of horsemen was returning. She recognized Big John first, then Charles Hallet, and finally Baptiste LaBarge, leading a fourth mount that was riderless. But she didn’t see Gabriel’s Baldy among them, and a prickle of alarm coursed down her spine. Whirling toward the old woman, she said: “Does Gabriel mark his kills with pieces of cloth, like Big John?”

  Isabella looked momentarily perplexed, but shook her head. “Non, he does not.”

  “Then how does he know?”

  “How does he know what?”

  “Which buffalo is his.”

  Isabella just stared for a moment. “Why would he not know which buffalo is his?” she asked finally.

  Impatiently Celine flung her arm toward the far-off southern horizon, where so many black lumps of dead buffalo awaited butchering. “They all look alike!”

  Isabella’s confusion vanished, as did the lingering tendrils of her earlier fear. Deep down, Celine knew she had erred, had lost her leading edge. Laughing softly as she ran the blade of her knife between pinched fingers to clean it, Isabella called to Lizette Hallet, who was dragging a hide toward her own cart a short distance away. She spoke in Cree so that Celine wouldn’t understand, but she knew Isabella was ridiculing her by the tone of her voice, and by Lizette’s low, answering snicker. Turning back, Isabella said: “Would you not know your own handwriting on a piece of paper, fancy girl, even if a hundred others wrote the same message all around it? A Métis knows because he is Métis. A woman knows because she is his woman. A wife, a mother, a daughter, it does not matter. She knows.”

  “But how will I know?” Celine pressed. “How will I know which buffalo to skin?”

  Isabella’s voice grew stern. “You will butcher the buffalo I tell you to butcher. None others.”

  Under her breath, Celine said: “But I must butcher for Gabriel if I am to be his woman.” She frowned uncertainly. Was that what she wanted, to be Gabriel’s woman? Or was it Pike’s? The two images blurred in her mind—young and old, gray and dark.

  Isabella had put away her knives and whetstone and was slipping into her capote. Brusquely she said: “You will butcher for your father. Gabriel can dress his own meat.” She loosened the cart pony’s lead rope, then started south across the barren plain.

  They passed a dozen buffalo in the next mile without stopping to examine any of them. Then without warning, Isabella altered her course to approach a smaller bison with short, spike-like horns. After studying the animal for a moment, she glanced at Celine with a wry smile. “You want to butcher Gabriel’s buffalo? Then good, I will let you. This is Gabriel’s.”

  Celine walked over to inspect the carcass. A few gnats were still spiraling around the twisted head, and the black nose was clotted with ropy, bloodied snot. Its eyes were open but lifeless, filmed with dust. Hesitantly she toed a small, neatly rounded black hoof. It shifted slightly, then rolled back into its original position.

  “You butcher this one like I showed you,” Isabella told her. “Then wrap the meat tight in the hide and catch up. We will pick this up on our way back.”

  “You want me to butcher this one by myself?”

  Isabella didn’t reply. She brought out a couple of knives and a whetstone and dumped them on the ground beside the buffalo. Then, giving the cart pony’s lead rope a series of short, quick tugs, she went on in that slow, waddling gait Celine had come to despise.

  It surprised Celine to see how quickly the cart seemed to shrivel as it rattled on along the trampled path of the buffalo. Soon even the shrieks of its axle were silenced by the wide-open spaces. The strengthening wind whipped her dark tresses and her body swayed like a stem of long grass. In the middle of the broad plain she felt suddenly small herself, as if she were shrinking right along with the cart.

  She spun a slow circle. In the east, far away, Monique Pouliot was toting a dark bundle toward a minuscule cart. To the northwest, a cluster of women surrounded the men who had returned early from the hunt, although they were too far away to recognize, and much too far to hear her screams, should her life come into jeopardy. Taking a deep breath, she lifted her eyes to the solid mantle of clouds and her heart thrilled. She was alone, completely alone. The freedom of it made her laugh and cry at the same time.

  She should have watched more closely. Almost as soon as she picked up one of the knives, Celine realized she didn’t know what to do. Her immediate problem seemed to be that Gabriel’s young spike had fallen on its side, rather than its chest, as Big John’s buffalo had been considerate enough to do. So the wisdom of running her first cut down the spine seemed questionable, especially if she wanted to remove anything from underneath the animal. Although she considered slitting the belly as she’d seen Isabella and others do when skinning deer, she was too daunted by the thought of spilling the intestines. Besides, skinning buffalo with a center cut down the spine seemed to be the accepted way of doing things in the pays sauvage. Isabella had done it that way, as had Lizette Hallet. Isabella claimed that a buffalo’s hide was larger and thicker than that of a deer or even a moose, and that it was easier to tan if halved first, then sewn back together later. Her own sleeping robe had been cured that way.

  Walking around the bull’s shoulder, Celine put both hands under the hump and shoved upward, but the massive body didn’t even budge. With a small cry of frustration, she kicked the woolly shoulder as hard as she could.

  She went around to the belly side. This is Gabriel’s doing, she thought peevishly. She wasn’t his woman, so why did she have to skin his buffalo?

  Squatting with her forearms
resting on her knees, she stared uncertainly at the buffalo’s belly until she suddenly became aware of the jutting sheath of its maleness. She became instantly fascinated. Pushing at the rear leg, she exposed the pouch that held the testes, lying flaccid against the inside of the bull’s upper thigh. Stooping closer, she probed the scrotum with her knife, her eyes widening as the tip of the blade easily pierced the finely-haired sac.

  * * * * *

  There was a plop in the grass beside Celine’s knee. Another struck the ground behind her, the sound like a fishing cork hitting the calm surface of a lake. Two more fell on the far side of the buffalo, and thunder rumbled overhead. Within seconds, rain began to splatter the ground around her. She looked up and saw that the clouds had lowered ominously, a dark craggy plate racing past dizzily. Even as she looked, a drop struck her cheek like a miniature slap. With her head tilted back, she opened her mouth wide to catch the icy liquid.

  A pony’s hoof stamped the ground nearby. Turning, she discovered Lizette Hallet standing behind her, staring. Hallet’s expression frightened Celine, and she jumped to her feet, convinced that Indians had somehow crept up on her while she worked. But the plain was empty, and, when she looked again, she realized it was she the Hallet bitch was looking at. Glancing down the length of her body, Celine gasped at the smeared blood and chunks of pale fat that fouled her clothing. Her hands were slick and red, the sleeves of her cloth dress soddened.

  “Oh, God,” she whimpered, staring at her crimson arms. Then she closed her eyes to shut out the sight. “Oh, God, save me. Please.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Weary in bone and muscle, his eyes gritty for want of sleep, Big John leaned back against his rolled-up sleeping robe. His legs were stretched to one side of the dying fire, crossed at the ankles. His dudeen sat beside him on a hummock of grass, flint and steel and a half used bit of char lying next to it. Staring reflectively at the hard-packed mud just inside the lodge door, where the grass was already matted flat and nearly worn away, he was only dimly aware of the rain that pattered gently against the thin, bowed hides of the teepee.