The Snake River

by Win Blevins

  Flare and Garrett had a good time trying. Flare hung the loop on his powder horn once and his spur once, which gave Innie a fine laugh. That was well enough. Sometimes you taught people by letting them teach you.

  Their first night out they camped without a fire. Both lads were the sons of mountain men, Garrett sired by Craw and Innie by a coon Flare had never known, now gone under, and Innie lived with Craw’s family. Garrett was a good-tempered fellow if ever there was one, a pleasure to be around.

  Garrett told Innie stories borrowed from his old dad.

  “Last time this child was up this canyon come on a she-griz. Old Ephraim wasn’t glad to see me. Run me uphill. Had her whipped till my horse fell. Went cartwheeling. First saw I’d lost my rifle, laying twenty feet away. Then saw I’d lost my horse, flying up the canyon.

  “Old Ephraim considered. Though she might prefer horseflesh, there was something to be said for me being handy.”

  Innie smiled a little and looked sidelong at Flare to see if they were being strung along. He got no help.

  “She come up snuffling and snorting the way they do, slow-like, though you know they’re quick as cats.

  “I laid still. Dad told me they’ll pass you by lots of times if you’re still.”

  Innie snickered a little, to show cynicism. Flare saw it didn’t shine to be thought gullible. Even for a youngster that couldn’t know nothing yet.

  “I moved just my eye, to check my priming. Hadn’t lost it.

  “Ephraim come right close, snuffling and snorting—like to tore up my nerves but this child was still. Finally she just reaches out and slaps at my leg, playful-like.

  “Damn, but they’re strong. Like to took my leg off. Warn’t a cool evening I’d show you the scar on my thigh.

  “Wall, that done it. Up I leaps and fires that pistol point-blank at her heart.

  “Ephraim cocks her head funny, like considering what to think of that.”

  Innie looked enthralled now.

  “I couldn’t wait to find out if she were hit mortal or merely amused, and I had one bad leg. So I jumps on her and drives my knife into her chest, right up to the Green River.” He touched the hilt of his knife, a slow smile on his face. “Then she grabs me big. Boys, that’s what they mean by a bear hug. I could smell death, thar in her arms, her breathing on me.” He just looked at Innie a bit.

  “What happened?” busted out Innie.

  Garrett gave Innie a straight look. “She killed me and et me.”

  Flare told stories, too, but he didn’t feel like telling yarns. He told real stories, just as they happened. What he’d done with old Craw, what he’d done with old Skye. Though they were both madmen, always looking to fight or fuck, Flare didn’t let that show. He told them about the real life of a beaver man, times starvin’ and times shinin’, deep drafts of both hard and grand. He truly remembered, not just the deeds but also the feelings.

  Then he realized he felt like he was saying last words at a funeral.

  “So boys,” he finished, “you best ship out for the South Seas, or the like. Beaver’s done.”

  Neither of them said so, but he could see they didn’t give a tinker’s dam if it was done. They were going.

  Since it was safe country, Garrett finished the evening playing an instrument Flare had seen only once before, the harmonica. Handy thing—you could put it in your pocket. Old Batiste Charbonneau, a fellow Flare had never liked, used to play one, probably still did. Garrett seemed an appealing fellow, Flare’s notion of a pied piper. In Flare’s honor he played “The Girl I Left behind Me”:

  The dames of France are fond and free,

  And Flemish lips are willing,

  And soft the maids of Italy,

  And Spanish eyes are thrilling;

  Still, though I bask beneath their smile,

  Their charms fail to bind me,

  And my heart falls back to Erin’s Isle,

  To the girl I left behind me.

  Ah, Kathleen!

  For she’s as fair as Shannon’s side,

  And purer than its water,

  But she refus’d to be my bride

  Though many a year I sought her;

  Yet, since to France I sail’d away,

  Her letters oft remind me,

  That I promised never to gainsay

  The girl I left behind me.

  Ah, Maggie!

  She says, “My own dear love, come home,

  My friends are rich and many,

  Or else, abroad with you I’ll roam,

  A Soldier stout as any;

  If you’ll not come, nor let me go,

  I’ll think you have resign’d me,”

  My heart nigh broke when I answer’d, “No,”

  To the girl I left behind me.

  Ah, the curse of being Irish!

  For never shall my true love brave

  A life of war and toiling,

  And never as a skulking slave

  I’ll tread my native soil on;

  But were it free or to be freed,

  The battle’s close would find me,

  To Ireland bound, nor message need

  From the girl I left behind me.

  It nigh made Flare sentimental.

  He rolled up in his blankets. He thought about his son. And then about Miss Jewel, until he got irked by that business with her and Billy Wells. And then about Sima again. He would get back to the mission and get his son out of there, and have a new partner to ride with. That fantasy fulfilled him. He didn’t really suppose Sima would spit in his face. Would the lad?

  Flare didn’t sleep that night. Everything he thought about tasted sour.

  The next morning he got Garrett and Innie to do the job at hand, drive the ponies out into the big valley. That’s when it started raining. The sort of rain that goes on for a week in that northern Pacific Coast country.

  They saw neither hide nor hair of padre or angry vaquero.

  “Dr. Full,” Miss Jewel said over the rim of her coffee cup, her eyes bright and defiant, “I am not guilty.”

  Easily, Dr. Full said, “We are all of us sinners, Miss Jewel, all guilty.”

  “Of this particular charge, Dr. Full, I stand before my God innocent.”

  She does not appeal to me for any verdict at all, thought Samuel Full.

  She’d had her say. Dr. Full got up to pace, as was his habit. He looked at her, turned away. What could he possibly say to her?

  Yet Dr. Full welcomed this opportunity. Crisis always brought change, and his mission among his flock here was to make that change for better, to shape the people on the anvil of God’s will.

  He’d heard her out. He saw the passion in her denial of sin. Last night he’d seen the abject sincerity of Billy Wells’s confession. The issue was urgent within his flock. It could divide them badly, or weld them together. He needed time to consider.

  Even if he didn’t, as a matter of policy he would have given the answer he now gave: “Miss Jewel, I need to take this to the Lord in prayer. Please come back after supper.”

  She nodded once and marched toward the door. He touched her reassuringly on the upper arm, but she withdrew from his touch.

  “All will work together for the good,” he told her.

  Miss Jewel looked at him skeptically. Then she went out into the rain. It had rained for days already. It looked as dreary as she felt.

  Dr. Full put himself onto his knees and asked God for clarity of mind in resolving this painful issue. Then he rose, paced, and let his mind hover around the facts of the situation, as he often did in crises.

  Extraordinary…an extraordinary woman. He admired her, he always had. He admired her independence, prideful as it was. He admired her courage in coming this evening to confront him. He thought she had character, and, of course, intelligence.

  Which did not change the facts. She was a woman. Had she been a man, she would have made a worthy opponent. But she was a woman. She had brandished her refusal to stay in her own
sphere, to play a woman’s part in life. Inevitably the opportunity to teach her a woman’s place had to come. This was it. Dr. Full thought that was to the good.

  It was not necessarily in a personal way that he liked it, he told himself. As leader of this community, he relished it. It was an opportunity.

  He had heard her story of the interchanges—intercourse, he punned in his mind—between her and Billy Wells. In its own terms her account was plausible, perhaps persuasive. Dr. Full was not blind to the deceit, and self-deceit, all human beings were capable of, including Billy Wells.

  Yet he liked Billy’s story. Dr. Full enjoyed the forbidden thoughts it brought to his mind, as other people did. He was pleased by the iniquity it bespoke, the eternal condition of mankind.

  Billy was a less admirable person than Miss Jewel, less mature, less formed. But Full did not mind his faults. He liked flawed vessels for doing God’s work. They were humble, malleable.

  Miss Jewel until now had proved unmalleable. A nuisance in a man, intolerable in a woman. And against God’s will, Dr. Full reminded himself. To make woman man’s helpmate had been God’s decision, not Dr. Full’s. The wisdom of that decision had always been manifest to him. A True Woman was pure, pious, domestic, and submissive.

  Dr. Full returned to his knees and thanked God for His help. His knees hurt in that position after a short time, a fact he would not bring up to his congregation.

  He got the coffeepot off the stove, filled his cup. He looked toward the cabin where she now lived alone and wondered what had happened there. He thought he could make a shrewd guess, but did not allow his mind to stray in that direction.

  He watched her face again in his mind’s eye. She had told him her truth in perfect composure, then awaited his decision equably. Admirable. For practical reasons she hoped he would see things her way. In more enduring terms, it didn’t matter to her. Her refuge was her truth. Thoroughly admirable.

  Strange, though—her virtue was a poor tactic with Dr. Full. It kept her beyond his reach, ungovernable. Billy’s vice (if such it was) was infinitely more useful.

  Besides, there was fundamentally no question here. Dr. Full was no fool. He had heard Billy’s confession with his own ears. He had seen his congregation’s dramatic response. He had felt the fever raging through the community the past twenty-four hours. Even people who previously disapproved of Billy Wells today went to his workshop to embrace him and whisper words of support.

  Like all leaders, Dr. Full knew a groundswell when he saw it. He could not have reversed the tide lifting the body politic into one great swell of feeling had he wanted to. Which he didn’t.

  He reminded himself carefully that he was committing no injustice. He did not know who was telling the truth and who was lying.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Rain and all, they moved those horses easily over to the valley of the Sacramento and straight on north.

  The valley was high, wide, and handsome, making things easy. They moved the horses right along. Flare figured the danger was from the Mex soldiers. The Indians around here weren’t even horse Indians. So they made distance day and night, dozing in their saddles. It was a satisfaction to travel with mountain men, who didn’t complain when the life or the country got hard. Or winter turned out to be the rainy season, not the cold season.

  Innie seemed to think herding animals, using your skills of horse and rope, was a fine life. It struck Flare as irksome as herding missionaries. The critters didn’t quarrel, it was true. But if you worked for a mission or a big rancho, you’d see the same ridges and creeks every day of your life, and chase stupid beasts. While your horse slipped around in the mud, far as Flare could tell.

  Folks in Texas and California raised a lot of cows and a few horses, he’d heard. They could have ’em.

  Up the Sacramento River into country dominated by one solitary peak that looked like a volcano. Flare and Craw and Garrett and Murph rode in and palavered with the Indians who lived near the foot of the volcano, gave them tobacco and cloth.

  No troubles. Flare and Skye and the others had to talk sharp to the young fellows, especially Innie, to make them keep their eyes out for the troubles that never came. Straight on to the north and then a little west, into the Siskiyou Mountains now, rough going.

  Up canyon, across divide, down canyon, through the rain, slipping and sliding, until they came to the Klamath River.

  This was what had been nettling Flare’s sleep. It was running out of its banks, high and hard, the rush like the rumble of hoofs, the waves snapping up like horses’ tails, white and angry.

  For two days they scouted the river’s banks, upstream and down, looking for a better place to cross. The ford Skye found, a few miles downstream where the river was wider, was the best they could do. A little slower there. Not a man of them liked it at all.

  When you got horses into a river, they acted crazy. Kicked each other, jumped on each other’s backs, turned around and tried to swim into the herd, every damn thing. If you lost a hundred horses, there’d be little profit in the venture. Worse, you’d look a fool to yourself.

  Best thing to do was tie the critters nose to tail, send a savvy rider into the river leading them, drag them till it got deep, and pull until they had to start swimming. It would take time. Days. It was the only way.

  Only Innie saw it otherwise. Even when he wasn’t angry, Flare noticed, he was a moody lad, and right now his mood was to drive the lot into the river and see what happened. He switched between saying “It’ll turn out fine” and “It don’t matter.” When he saw every man was ignoring him and just getting ready to do the job, he shut up.

  When there was work to be done, sometimes Innie pitched in and labored like the very devil. Sometimes he’d do nothing at all, like he wasn’t part of the outfit, sharing all. At other times he seemed to make a point of doing double the work of any other hand. You could never predict which would be which, or whether the youngster might growl at you. Human beings were a study, Flare thought.

  Flare thought the finest discovery around would be why Garrett did nothing but enjoy his life, turn it into laughter and music, and Innie hated his. It was the same life.

  Skye took the first bunch, and all hands watched nervously.

  Into the current, gently, slowly, letting the pony feel the cold first, and then the pull of the water. He stopped, fretful, eyes down at the freezing brown rush. Aye, matey, it might be full fathom five for us both, true enough. Then a touch with the spurs to make him move.

  He did move. Gutty little pony, proved it before oft enough. Skye turned and looked at the string. The first horse had its feet in the river now, not liking it a bit, pulling back on the rope.

  Rope dallied on the horn of Skye’s Spanish saddle. Pony upstream of the others. When the current took them, the rope wouldn’t sweep Skye off the saddle—they’d go away from him. Could let the string go if you had to. Must not, because of money. Each horse a half dozen plews, the ten worth a month’s trapping, or even two. Must not because of pride.

  The water roiled around the pony’s belly now, and it fought for footing. Didn’t want to swim, no, not a bit of that. Touch of the spur. Beast’s confidence in man. Pony pulled forward.

  Water in Skye’s moccasins and leggings now, bloody cold.

  The pony lost its feet, flailed. Swung downstream fast. About to go over. Skye pulled the head upstream, and the pony righted and began to swim. Still swept downstream, then swimming took hold. Pulled. Right enough now.

  Strong pull on the rope. First damn horse stopped hard, forefeet planted.

  Cracking sounds—Flare and old Craw using their quirts on the horses at the back. They bolted forward and knocked the front ones into water.

  The planted horse came tumbling, they all came, they all began to swim. Skye got his pony balanced and gave it the spur and the critter pulled hard for the far shore. That’s a matey.

  Oh, bloody Christ. The river swooshed up to Skye’s waist and his chest, colde
r than the hand of death. He spurred and made his quirt whistle. A wave smacked him in the face.

  He fought for breath. He didn’t know where he was in the river, going in what direction. He kicked the pony hard.

  The pony found bottom, clambered forward, sank into current again.

  The whole river roared over Mr. Skye.

  The pony found bottom, Skye kicked it. Feet on the bank. Clattering out. Backward pull on the rope. Rope ripping Skye out of the saddle. He turned his pony toward the horses coming out. They pranced onto the shore, nervous-footed, mad-eyed.

  Skye dismounted and shook himself like a wet bear.

  It doesn’t get any bloody easier, thought Flare.

  It was his third trip across, and he was still leery. Bloody river. He’d have nightmares about being down with the fishes and the turtles tonight. He always did, when he had to ford high water. If he’d been a sailor, like Skye, on those big seas he’d have died of his dreams.

  He looked back at Craw and shook his head. Craw grinned. Craw used to say fear was a boon, it kept a man’s bowels cleaned out. His backwoods talk.

  Skye and Flare and Craw and Murph had made all the trips today. The lads were back up the canyon, holding the other horses. They itched to make the hard ride, but Flare said they’d wait for tomorrow. Maybe water would be down tomorrow.

  He looked at the water, brown with mud, dirty with floatsam, choppy, and in every way nasty. Flare figured he was made for a dry country. He dreaded his dream tonight.

  He wondered if the new and unproven horse, Doctor, would be the death of him on one of these trips. He touched Doctor with his heels, and Craw put the quirt to the wild ones. Flare plunged in.

  He would never get used to this cold.

  The next morning the water was down, a tad, at least.

  It was first light. Hosses making fires and some breakfast—which was needed when you rode through a freezing river like an idjit.