The Snake River

by Win Blevins

She warned Flare with a finger not to speak.

  “You told him Dr. Full and his family know this—everyone on the journey knows it—and the entire community will soon know it.” She looked down at her hands. “You even embellished your lies with something about how…lusty…I am.”

  Flare wouldn’t kill the bastard, not yet.

  She turned fierce. “By God, if I am lusty, you’ll never know it!”

  She controlled herself with a deep breath.

  “You went further. You said your friend Mr. Skye loaned us his tipi for a…rendezvous. Billy could check it with him, you claimed.” She eyed Flare. “Comtemptible, Mr. O’Flaherty.

  “Billy acted with great courage. Few men would have done what he did. Though he was upset, he brought your lies to me. In an understanding way. He was even willing to overlook my supposed…wantonness. Because he loves me. But he has insight into people, and with the help of God it didn’t take him long to see which of us was lying and which telling the truth.”

  Now she put both hands up flat. She wanted to finish uninterrupted.

  “I must say, Mr. O’Flaherty, that I told you more than once, and told Sima, what an appealing man you are. I also observed that you make no attempt through the grace of God to subdue your lower nature in favor of your higher. I said that must in the end corrupt you. You have now proven it.” She stretched the syllables out: “Unredeemed man.”

  Now came the fire. “I insist that you are not to attempt to speak to me again under any circumstances. Or to Billy. You have no further business at this mission.”

  “I want to see Sima,” Flare put in.

  “If you talk to anyone at all here, I will tell them about your lies. Anyone, including Sima. I want you away from him.”

  “The liar here is Billy.”

  She stifled a sob. She shook her head decisively.

  “I take it back, Mr. O’Flaherty. There’s one place in the mission I’m willing to see you, and hear your voice. That would be on your knees in the church, begging the forgiveness of God.”

  And she stalked away.

  Billy was whispering something sweet to her. He didn’t look back.

  Flare didn’t want to get on Wolf Tone, he didn’t know why. He stood there wanting to stomp the earth to death with his moccasined feet.

  A dozen feet from Wolf Tone’s picket pin was a pine sapling, slender as a man’s wrist, and limber.

  Flare kicked it. Hard. With one moccasined foot, then the other. Over and over again.

  It hurt. He kept kicking.

  In a couple of minutes he reduced the sapling to a stump of splinters.

  Getting on his horse, he looked at the shriven thing.

  Wolf Tone, he thought, loud in his mind, perhaps your Irishman is quite mad.

  Late that afternoon Flare recognized his trouble. He was profoundly afflicted with a desire to roam.

  This trouble had first come on him as a lad in County Galway—sure and how the warm western sea fetches in to remind you of the rest of the world. From there it sent him to the New World, the Fortunate Isles of the Uttermost West. Then it came on him again in Montreal, and sent him to Indian country. He had honored it on these two occasions, and on almost every other. It was an old friend, loyal and dependable. He would give it the tribute of obedience now.

  “I’m going to clear the hell out!” he told Nicolette.

  He gave her this letter to send up to Mission Bottom, carefully sealed, addressed to Sima with no outward sign of the correspondent.

  first quarter, moon of the popping trees

  Dear Sima:

  Something has come along, I regret I cannot just yet say what, but I must take advantage. I shall be gone for a bit, and then return near the beginning of spring. I plan to go to see Dr. McLoughlin with you then, to get your news.

  Work hard and learn well. Draw what you want to. Remember that your qualities of spirit are so fine that those missionaries have naught to teach you. Enjoy your time with Lisbeth.

  Your friend

  and obdnt. servant,

  M. Devin O’Flaherty

  Flare saw no need to warn Mr. Billy Wells that vengeance would be coming. He bethought himself that vengeance is a meal best eaten cold. And heartily, he added, very heartily.

  Then he tied onto his packmule, cinched up his saddle, and took to the trail. Amazing how simple life could be. And how beautiful, when you kept it simple.

  Chapter Twenty

  Sima was miserable. He wanted to complain, and he couldn’t. Only one person understood, only one person didn’t correct him, explain to him that things he hated were wonderful, or at least were good for him. Flare. But Flare was gone. Gone without warning, gone without good-bye, gone….

  That was the most grievous of his complaints, and no one would sympathize with that one. He thought Miss Jewel would, but she told him in her tolerant and kindly and therefore condescending way that Flare was good riddance.

  Also, Dr. Full told him to leave the likes of Lisbeth McDougal alone. At first Sima thought Dr. Full was implying that Sima wasn’t good enough for Lisbeth. “We’re both mixed-bloods,” Sima protested. But that wasn’t it. Dr. Full had a great future in mind for Sima. He would make a living through his art, and other stuff. Sima didn’t want to make a living, he just wanted to live.

  Right now, though, he didn’t like where he lived. He bedded down in the main room of the Winesons’ cabin with the three boys, the oldest fourteen. The Winesons made a point of putting no son on the floor to sleep, but they slept on blankets on hard boards. Sima had to sleep on the packed dirt floor. On the other hand, the dirt didn’t seem to him as hard as the boards. He was used to Mother Earth.

  Why didn’t white people want to sleep on Mother Earth? Why did they think it was pagan—whatever that meant—for him to call her Mother Earth?

  Lots of things you didn’t try to understand, you just marched forward.

  Jane Wineson was a silent, sullen, worn-out woman who seemed not strong enough for life. Miss Jewel had put a stop to the way she made Sima do all the chores. She’d told Mrs. Wineson he was no servant. But Sima still helped her a lot, she was so tired all the time. And she still put him on the floor to sleep.

  The one Sima resented was Alan Wineson. He worked during the day in the smithy, and spent all of every evening reading the Scriptures. He was a big man, tall and heavy-limbed, with a loud, rasping voice. Often he would declaim, in a tone of more authority and respect than meaning. Sima could never tell what the words really said when Mr. Wineson read out loud, but he made lots of it sound like harsh corrections from a crazy-mean father, and other parts of it like miraclee that made all tremble before it.

  With all this Scripture-reading, Mr. Wineson never did a thing for the family at night. When he quit black-smithing every day, he quit working. Sima and the small boys had to buck up the wood, Sima had to split it all, and the boys stacked it. Plus all the other chores, especially hauling water.

  Sima would have complained, but he was afraid of setting Mr. Wineson off. Truth was, Sima thought something was wrong with the man’s brain.

  What worried Sima the most was the way Mr. Wineson talked about Lazarus all the time. He was crazy on this Lazarus. Flare had a word for the way the missionaries were about religion: “obsessed.” Mr. Wineson was obsessed about Lazarus. Sima wished Flare were here to talk to about it.

  Wineson kept saying, every night after dinner when they talked about Scriptures: “If Lazarus could rise from the dead, why cain’t we? Surely we can show as much faith as a Jew eighteen hundred years ago, cain’t we, surely?”

  Sima liked the story of Lazarus. It seemed to have some Spirit power in it. And Sima considered that he’d kind of Lazarused himself, falling, breaking his leg, passing through the little death, and being waked up by Flare. Miraclee.

  Mr. Wineson came to Sima, in almost a begging way, and asked what he described as a mighty and holy favor. Would Sima draw one of his colored-pencil pictures of Lazarus coming fo
rth from the jaws of death? Would he? That would mean more to Mr. Wineson than anything in the world.

  Maybe more important, Mr. Wineson said as though transported, it would give Sima a chance to let God’s grace flow through him, through his mind, and eyes, and his heart, and his very arms and hands and fingers into the pencil and onto the paper. He could be an instrument, a vessel….

  Mr. Wineson trembled with a holy fervor.

  Sima said he would do it. He was glad to draw the picture. He liked the subject, and it would please Miss Jewel and especially Dr. Full. Which he’d decided he’d better do.

  Fact was, though, Sima thought Mr. Wineson was addled. Maybe seriously addled.

  Sure and there is a god, thought Flare. He was the god of adventure, of men sallying forth for a little risk, a little gain perhaps, and a monkeyload of fun.

  Sure and that god appeared to Flare in the form of Mr. Skye.

  When Flare got downriver to Vancouver, full of anger and nothing to do, Skye was just back from Walla Walla. He had a plan.

  “You and me’ll play a wicked tune on the devil’s fiddle this time, mate,” he exclaimed.

  There was an American merchantman in port, and Skye had arranged for passage to Yerba Buena, at the big bay in Alta, California. (He wouldn’t have set foot on a British ship for love nor money.) He’d paid their passage already—had to spend Dr. McLoughlin’s money for the express for something, didn’t he?

  He and Flare would start by having a fine old time in a fine sailor’s port. That appealed well enough to Flare. He could have plenty of fun without getting drunk, as long as there weren’t any Protestant missionaries around.

  Then they’d slip up to Santa Rosa mission, Skye said, and have a look at the wonderful old Spanish buildings and fine vineyards and vast herds of cattle and the thousands of horses there. So many horses the padres didn’t know how many, and didn’t care, they might as well be wild horses. And then with some volunteer help—there were, by God, mountain men living around Santa Rosa—they would cut out a few hundred of the horses, not stopping for a proper bill of sale, and drive them back to Oregon and trade them.

  “Earn ten years’ wages in a month or two, we would,” said Skye.

  “Aye, or steal it,” said Flare, and the two men laughed. “What’s the difference?” they said.

  Neither man had to mention Old Bill Williams and the Utes. They tried the same trick a couple of years back. Tried to drive the horses all the way to mountain country, from Californy clear east of the Salt Lake, and lost most of them along the route. Like life, you got the gelt—gold’s gold—but you lost it along the way.

  Skye’s plan was better. They wouldn’t have to drive the horses a thousand miles, less than half that far, it was an easier route, and they could be trading them to Indians right along. Leave California with a powerful lot of horses, arrive in Vancouver with some horses and a powerful lot of furs. Which the emp would gladly buy.

  Flare said he’d have his gear aboard well before they weighed anchor.

  A little sallying forth will do me good, he thought. Purge my mind of Billy Wells until it’s time enough to deal with him.

  Billy Wells started in on it one Saturday night. She just finished washing her hair—she was always a little dishabille washing her hair—and Billy kept angling one way and another about getting married now. He absolutely wrung his hands and twisted his body this way and that and looked like he was in abdominal pain. “Miss Jewel,” he said in anguish, “I just have to get married soon.”

  She gave him a reproving eye and covered her shoulders better. She thought he just had a nice, bright, spanking case of animal lust, and that was fine, as far as it went. She could say no to him from here to kingdom come. Moaning and groaning and twisting his body around wouldn’t help him a bit. He would grow by overcoming his lust, just as she did by overcoming hers.

  Mr. O’Flaherty hadn’t touched her and Billy wasn’t going to. No man would until she was married.

  And she wouldn’t get married until Billy got a letter from Miss Amanda Perkins of Boston setting him free. She didn’t intend to get married and have that Miss Perkins show up here on the next ship.

  Something seemed positively wrong with Billy about it, though. He acted like he was in real agony, not just a little body heat. Well, a lot of good that would do him.

  He had a sneaky look about him, too. She knew furtiveness, she’d seen it plenty of times on men. She couldn’t figure, though, what Billy thought he could get by being sneaky. It certainly wasn’t going to be her body he got.

  Huh! Perhaps Billy Wells did have something of an immature character.

  But then she thought back on how he handled it when Mr. O’Flaherty came along with those lies, and she admired and loved Billy all the more.

  That was his real self. He was just growing into it. She would give him time.

  Alan Wineson didn’t pay much attention to Dr. Full’s sermon. Just before church, Sima had shown him the picture of Lazarus coming forth from the very grave.

  Mr. Wineson was thunderstruck.

  Lazarus shone on the page with a holy light.

  The Lord’s hand showed here. The Lord entered the page and made Lazarus glow. He showed the light still residing in the resurrected from the everlasting light, which he gloried in in heaven for three days.

  Lord, what that celestial light must be! Light to make the sun itself as a graying ember.

  The Lord had wrought a miracle with a humble vessel. He had used the Injun boy to bring that light into the world.

  Manifestly, this small miracle was a promise of the great one to come. How could Alan Wineson longer wonder about the power and the glory of the Lord God Jehovah?

  Lo, now the blindness was lifted from the eyes of His servant Alan Wineson.

  Lo, faith gushed forth from him as from a bounteous spring.

  Now. Now was the time.

  While Dr. Full talked about faith, Alan Wineson would act in faith.

  The blacksmith left the letter at the foot of the hearth, under it the miracle drawing, and on both a stone.

  He wasn’t so good with spelling and such, but God would help his dear wife and his beloved children understand. The letter said,

  Ree Joyce! I go unto the Lard! In 3 days wil I bee rezur rected unto my be loved on this urth. I wil come fourth from thee grave in the shining rayment of His glory!

  Alan Wineson felt ecstatic. He fell onto his knees on the hearth, before the fire, and prayed aloud.

  “Lord, you have chosen me, a sinner. Thank you. Holy be Thy name. You lift me up to do this great deed for my family, this mission, and Thy glory. Praise be unto You.”

  Alan Wineson was thrilled that God had chosen not one of all the learned men, all the holier-than-thou, all the blessed, Scripture-quoting women. He had picked a common man, a blacksmith, Alan Wineson. Just as, two thousand years before, he chose mere fishermen to be His disciples.

  “Praise Your name. I ask not that this cup passeth from me. I hold high the chalice and drink of it. O Lord, I think not of the pain of this act which the Lord Jesus endured. I know Thou will lend me Thy strength to pass through the valley of pain and even through the gates of death, there to see Thee. In Jesus’ name, amen.”

  He balanced above the fireplace and leaned over his right foot. His bottom bumped the mud-and-stick chimney awkwardly. Though he had chipped places for his feet, until he got the work done, balancing would not be so easy. But God would give him whatever strength he needed.

  He would only be able to nail the feet and one of his hands. God wouldn’t expect more.

  Resolute, the blacksmith put the point of the biggest nail he could find to the arch of his foot and raised the hammer. Wielding a hammer was something God had made him good at. He thought the first swing better be the one that counted.

  With thanks on his lips, Alan Wineson gave a mighty blow.

  After a while he realized that he had survived the pain.

  He smiled be
atifically. He murmured, “Thank you.”

  He swung once more, with the strength of his faith.

  With a roar of pain he fell sideways.

  His big body swung down like a pendulum.

  His head and shoulders smacked into the coals of the fire.

  The nail held him upside down, wriggling.

  Alan Wineson bellowed. He didn’t have the time to doubt. His hair was on fire.

  While the others were having fellowship in front of the church, Sima found Alan Wineson nailed to the fireplace.

  He nearly gagged on the stench of burned flesh and hair. He started screaming.

  For a couple of frantic minutes he couldn’t get the nail out of the chimney. When he did, Wineson flopped mostly clear of the fireplace, luckily.

  Sima dragged him off the hearth.

  He couldn’t tell if the man had any life left in him.

  No one had come. Sima ran outside the cabin and bellowed.

  Sima watched while Dr. Full ministered to Wineson. The man had a strong heart, said the doctor. He cut the curtains of flesh away from the raw places and rubbed grease on them. In an orotund voice he encouraged Alan Wineson and asked the mercy of God.

  Alan Wineson lived nearly an hour.

  Jane read the letter out loud in an odd, declamatory voice. Then she reached out to hug her children and fell unconscious to the floor. Dr. Full brought her around.

  Sima read the letter two or three more times. He felt drawn to it and repelled by it at once. It had some ugly power of spirit. He never touched it.

  Sima sat outside with Lisbeth. He held her hand. If Dr. Full saw, he would get even more angry. Sima didn’t want to go away from the family right now, away with Lisbeth. Much as he wanted to talk.

  He murmured to her. He knew he was incoherent. He said how strange it was that no one in the family mentioned the possibility of resurrection. Neither did Dr. Full. It didn’t even seem to occur to them.

  Crazy. If they thought their Scriptures had spirit power, why did they act like…?

  But they never for a moment considered…

  Lisbeth didn’t like his heresy. She tried to shush him. “The ways of God are mysterious,” she said.