by Win Blevins
Poor Jane. Miss Jewel had seen her, trapped there in the roots. But there was nothing for Miss Jewel to do there. From the shouts she knew one of the men was going to Jane with a rope. But Jane wouldn’t take it. The fellow had to hoist and carry her out.
After a few minutes Dr. Full came and squatted and held his wife’s dead hand.
Someone else, Elvira Upping, held a burning rag stuck in a cup of congealed bacon grease over Annie Lee’s face. Funny, in that light the face didn’t look beaten up. Beneath, the skull was crushed, but the face looked reposeful.
Miss Jewel looked at Dr. Full’s face. It was fixed. Distant. Utterly unreadable.
She got up and walked toward her cabin.
She sat in the open doorway and looked out at the wilderness. At midnight she couldn’t see much, but she knew what was there and what wasn’t. Beyond the buildings and clearings of the settlement, there was nothing but trees, and mountains, and desert, and mountains, and rivers, and plains stretching beyond sight, beyond imagination, beyond hope. Two thousand miles of it.
This was a place of death.
There was no way out.
Involuntarily, Miss Jewel jumped.
The cold of Annie Lee’s body had run through her like an electric shock. She waved her arms and waggled her knees to make sure they worked.
Would her voice work? Rasping with fright, she tried. “I am lost.”
Again, louder. “I am lost.”
Thought: Right now she would give the world to see Michael Devin O’Flaherty.
A voice came back from the shadows. “Miss Jewel?”
“Who’s there?” she cried. “Sima?”
He came into the moonlight. Sima. Lisbeth behind him.
Maggie ran to him, hugged him, babbled at him foolishly, wept. Lisbeth put her arms around both of them, weeping. They were a six-legged animal, rocking and hugging itself.
These were her children, the only children she would ever have, they were precious. She had been angry with him. He’d disappeared from school for nearly a week without warning and wouldn’t say where he’d been. She would never be angry with him again.
They went inside. Sima made hot tea while Lisbeth helped Miss Jewel change her clothes.
They talked. And talked. The two teenagers stayed up all night with her. They talked about everything. Sadly about the Winesons. Mockingly about Dr. Full. Regretfully about Annie Lee. Happily about Flare. She told them about Billy’s lies, and somehow it got funny, and they all laughed raucously and foolishly.
It was crazy, but when the sun came up, they felt like they’d survived something. They were exhausted and happy.
Chapter Twenty-six
Flare found Innie floating in an eddy about half a mile downriver. Floating face up, which Flare had never seen before. His eyes had a strange look, like he was halted in the midst of doing something, about to raise a hand, maybe, or just say, “Hey!”
The face and head were trampled, bruised, cut, what you will. One hand was boneless as cabbage leaves. When Flare dragged the body out, it felt limp as a rag doll. He didn’t open the clothes to look.
He looked a last time at those eyes, ready to speak or holler or frown or…whatever. Innie’s traffic with life was interruptus, unfinished, fruitless, pointless.
Nothing was as peculiar as life.
He left the body. The others would want to have a burial, maybe. After they found all the horses. Flare had to get along and teach some Indians a lesson, and get some horses back.
The tracks didn’t tell much. Neither Flare nor Skye knew the Indians of this country much. American fur men never spent any time here. Dick James, who knew them a little, said the moccasin prints of the Klamaths, the Rogue Rivers, and the Umpquas looked the same to him. He also said they were ornery, unpredictable Injuns.
Like all Indians, thought Flare, until you knew their minds.
Skye and most of the men took on the job of getting the horses together and moving them north. Flare, Dick, Craw, and Garrett tracked the Indians. The bastards had fifteen or twenty head, no more. They were headed over the divide to the Shasta River, from the look of it. Why had they spooked the herd down the canyon, across the river, instead of running it up the canyon? Stupid, maybe, or murderous.
Time to lift some hair.
He looked at the little camp through the Doland. Right handy a Doland was, and he would keep a telescope if he could stay sober and not gamble it away, or get it lifted by Indians like these.
It had been plain easy. The tracks ran over the divide, down into the Shasta River Valley, and upstream. High, wide, and handsome. Not that there was any way to hide the tracks of that many horses. They were making time, but Flare and his outfit were making better. He had come up on them at dusk, as he planned. They might not like to fight in the dark.
But this was pathetic, a sign of what the Indians had come to.
Flare knew how it would go among most Indians who still were Indians. A warrior would have a dream, or other medicine insight: He should lead a raid, and on that raid such-and-such would happen, and the raiders would cover themselves with honors. He would go to the men of his choice, tell what his medicine said, and ask them to join him on the raid. Then, if they didn’t have medicine leading them to do something else, and if they had confidence in his medicine, they would join the party. In a few days a bunch of warriors would be agreed on, likely including a teenage boy or two to hold the horses while the warriors did the work. They would make medicine to assure success, and go.
This was a bunch of teenage boys. Klamaths. None of them could have any medicine to amount to anything. They were just out looking for trouble, out of control. The older men would reprimand them when they got back. If Flare let them get back. In the old days—even ten years ago, Flare thought, before the diseases played havoc with them—the customs of the tribe would have kept these lads in check.
He watched them through the Doland. There were four in sight. They’d built a squaw fire. The horses were in a rope corral back in the trees. Probably one more there, on watch. Maybe another, no telling where.
Flare slid back from the crest of the hill and told his companions what he saw. He said nothing about his sadness, but Craw and Dick would know.
“Let’s take ’em,” said Garrett. Garrett was angry. Garrett had lost a friend. And he was scared. He’d seen death up close, maybe for the first time.
“What are we waiting for?” he said.
So Flare laid it out.
Why Flare didn’t kill him he didn’t know. The sentry had his back propped against a fir, whittling with a white man’s pocket knife, alert as a stump.
Flare moved up on him stealthily, in utter silence, step after slow step. He carried his pistol cocked. If the sentry heard him and reacted, Flare would shoot him. At the sound of gunfire, Dick and Craw and Garrett would open fire on the camp.
Maybe inalertness wasn’t dumb. Maybe it would save the life of the sentries and his mates. By accident.
Flare took a step no more than every half minute. The soft fir needles made no sound, or less sound than the scrape of pocket knife on wood. Flare eased up until he was behind the fir the sentry leaned against, so close he feared the bastard would hear his breathing.
Then he clunked him solidly with the hammer of his tomahawk.
The kid rolled his head a little and dropped.
It was crazy. It was dumb. Flare did it anyway.
He tied the kids’ hands and hoisted him on a shoulder and walked within conversation distance of the fire. The others must have thought it was the sentry coming back. They didn’t notice the extra heaviness of the step. Their ways would get them killed one day.
He held the kid in front of him with his left arm. Titillating, to stand there in the shadows and watch them and listen to them. Stand within their ken, unseen.
In the Chinook trade language he said loudly, “Don’t move or I’ll kill your brother.”
He held a cocked pistol against the se
ntry’s head and grinned fiercely.
“Don’t move or I’ll blow your head off,” came from the darkness. Dick’s voice in Chinook.
“This child’ll make sausage of ye.” Craw, in English.
Even Garrett got into the spirit of things. “I’ll cut your balls off.”
Flare heard the three of them coming through the darkness. Someone was shuffling his feet and beating them double against the ground, to sound like two enemies. Probably Craw; he had that trick.
When they got into the firelight, Dick told the Klamaths to get down on their faces in the dirt. Warriors would have spit and told the whites to do their worst, which the whites probably would have done. These were kids, so they lay down in the dirt.
“What you wanna do, Flare?” Craw asked.
Flare asked Craw to tie the kids’ ponies nose to tail, to be taken along. Garrett took all their weapons and possibles. Dick tied them hands and feet.
Why are ye soft, old man? Flare asked himself. Why leave them alive? They killed your friend. He didn’t know why. But maybe the tribal fathers would be less angry this way. Or maybe Flare didn’t have a taste for killing anymore.
Flare worried about Garrett. He- looked like he was about to bust with animal rage, or fear, or something. Flare told him to go help his dad.
When they were ready to go, Garrett raised an opposition. Didn’t want to give them such a good chance, he said.
Not a good chance, Flare answered, afoot and without weapons. Might not ever get home.
And might get out of these ties in ten minutes, said Garrett, and come after us. He wanted to knock them cold.
Craw agreed with him.
Flare nodded at Garrett. One by one he clunked them.
When the lad was done using his tomahawk, Craw spoke up.
“Ye’ve killed that un. Tell by the sound on the skull.” It was the sentry. “Since he’s dead, scalp him.”
Even in the firelight Flare saw the lad pale.
Then he took the knife off his belt and stepped over the body.
Craw instructed him. “Take the crown part of the hair.” Garrett grabbed too much. “A hand span’s worth mebbe,” said Craw.
“Now pull it taut. With your left hand.” Garrett switched. “Where it wants to raise the scalp, cut a circle right around. Good.”
Flare noticed that one of the captives could see what was happening. His eyes were full of rage.
“Now sit down and put both feet against the head. Not right on the part you’re gonna pull. Good. Now give it a good, clean snap with both hands.”
Garrett took three or four jerks. Finally the scalp came with a THOCK.
Garrett threw himself to the side and vomited.
“Good,” said Craw. “Now mebbe you’ll grow up be better’n your pa and not do it.”
But Craw made him take it along. To remember, he said.
Chapter Twenty-seven
Early that morning Miss Jewel wrote a poem in her journal:
Face thine enemies—accusers;
Scorn the prison, rack, or rod!
And, if thou hast truth to utter,
Speak and leave the rest to God.
Dr. Full was waiting for her outside the Indian boys’ schoolroom. He greeted Sima pleasantly, and asked to speak to Miss Jewel alone. Sima went on in.
Miss Jewel was amazed at how even-keeled Dr. Full seemed. The minister had lost his wife. His children—stepchildren, actually—were without a mother, his bed empty. Yet he carried on his duties seamlessly. She wondered what his inner strength was. Then she caught herself and felt embarrassed. His inner strength was the Lord God Jehovah, of course.
“At noon will you please give the students some assignment and meet with the deacons, Miss Jewel?”
“It won’t help, Dr. Full.”
“Nevertheless.”
She shrugged.
“At my house, then, at noon.”
He smiled, perhaps making a point of being agreeable. He walked the path toward the church, to go forward a little with God’s endless work, she supposed.
She had come to an odd conclusion about that unalterable smile. It was his way of treating people equally when they behaved well and when they behaved badly. He often said men were sinners in their natures, raised at moments by the grace of God. By treating everyone equally at all times, he was directing himself to that sinful nature. It never changed. The way he treated them never changed. His sympathy for them as sinners never changed. His offer to help them toward grace never changed. Probably he was right.
Miss Jewel went into the schoolroom. Right now she didn’t give a damn about Dr. Full’s meories or his deeds. The only people she gave a damn about in this entire community were her Indian students. She looked at Sima and Lisbeth. They were sitting together, until teacher separated the girls and boys for domestic learning and book learning.
Miss Jewel loved to look at them. She thought what they felt for each other—excitement, concern, generosity, desire; in a word, love—that was truly the gift of God.
They lived in a world of love. She lived in a world of loneliness and despair.
“Miss Jewel,” Dr. Full began, “we come here this afternoon in the hope that you have something new to say to us.”
There was Dr. Full and Parky and Reverend Leslie, who disliked her, and four others she didn’t know well. She looked around at them. Three men of God, indoor men, and four with the weathered faces of men who worked outdoors. Big, calloused, worn hands. Some knobby knees, big ears, big bellies. They were of all ages, occupations, temperaments. She supposed they had devotion to God in common. And a commitment to a way of doing things, which included establishing man’s sphere and women’s sphere and so holding on to man’s rule over woman. Dr. Full was addicted to ruling women. Leslie had tried to turn her into a domestic servant. Even Parky expected deference.
She hated being here. She shouldn’t have come.
“What can I tell you?” she said helplessly. “A man has made accusations against me. He can’t back them up. They aren’t true. Everyone in this community listens to him instead of me. Everyone assumes I’m guilty without any way to know. My character is worth nothing. No fair trial, but I’m condemned.”
“Your character is considered,” said Dr. Full. “Your fallible, human character. And it is loved.”
She just looked at him. “I did right.”
“Isn’t this just a lovers’ quarrel?” asked Leslie.
She stared him down, then looked at each of them, man for man, in the eye. “There’s nothing more to say.” She tried to hold their gazes. They looked at their knees. “Truly, do you want me to lie? What would be accomplished by that?”
There were no answers but nervous hands, shifting feet, downcast eyes.
“What do you want me to do?”
“Perhaps we’d best ask it the other way,” Dr. Full put in gently. “What do you want us to do?”
“Let Billy Wells and I tell our stories in a formal way to the community—say, like a debate. I will tell exactly what happened.”
“I think this community already knows what happened,” said Dr. Full.
Miss Jewel felt the rage rise in her throat, hot and vile. She swallowed it and went on. “Billy Wells won’t stand up in public and tell those lies to my face,” she said. “I don’t think he has the courage.” She also thought that when the women heard her story, heard just the way he sidled up to her week after week, how he’d angled, how he’d begged, they’d know. Women knew.
“Billy is gone to the Dalles,” said Dr. Full. “We’ve sent him to start a new mission there.”
Miss Jewel stared at him. “Unbelievable,” she said at last.
“Billy is a child of God, as you are, Miss Jewel. Like every human being, he is within the reach of God’s redemption.”
She understood. The rage lashed out. “Damn convenient for you.”
The men looked at each other. That word. Well, they were understanding men, but this was t
he woman they’d chosen to teach children!
Miss Jewel stood up to leave. “I don’t understand,” she said. “I’m sure you want me under your thumb. But not this much. What is it you really want?”
Wringing hands and shuffling feet.
She started out.
“Miss Jewel,” Dr. Full put in quickly, “the deacons are obliged to tell about a decision they’ve come to.”
She stopped and looked at him. She enjoyed towering over him and looking down.
“As of this date, you will no longer be teaching the Indian children.”
She felt dizzy and faint. “I don’t believe it.”
“The deacons feel that you are a questionable moral influence on them.”
She looked her anger at them, one by one.
“Not only have you cohabited with a man all winter—”
“You approved that! You suggested it!”
“—you also shared your cabin last night with one of the Indian boys. One who is sexually mature.”
Oh, Lord. She couldn’t mention Lisbeth being there. That would get the child in trouble. She rose. She tried, “Sima is a son to me.”
“Miss Jewel, I assure you, we take this action reluctantly. I invite you to return this evening to pray with me, and with the Lord’s help—”
She slammed the door on his voice.
She stood outside, trembling.
She wanted to fight. By God, she wanted to fight. But who, how, was she supposed to fight?
When Miss Jewel left the schoolroom, she said she wouldn’t be back today. They would have another teacher this afternoon.
Sima and Lisbeth looked at each other, their hearts in their throats. This was a better chance than they’d hoped for.
They looked around at the other kids. A boy was reading, two girls were knitting and chattering, the rest were staring at the walls. Lisbeth got the cloth sack out from under her sewing materials, the sack full of corn bread and side meat. They looked at each other and stood up, and looked at each other, and daringly walked toward the door. When they got outside, they ran for the trees in a burst of delight.
