by Win Blevins
“Last night.
“With the man who stands next to me.”
Pause. “Michael Devin O’Flaherty.”
She turned full to Flare.
“It is you I love, and you I will now marry.”
They permitted themselves a moment to look into each other’s eyes in joy.
Over the gasps and mutterings of outrage Flare heard Dr. Full emit a loud, animal groan, as from a gut-shot animal.
A lot of people started to rise out of their seats. Dr. Full grabbed for Miss Jewel. Everyone stopped, frozen, when Mr. Skye grabbed Dr. Full from behind and bellowed, “Belay that, mates!”
His hand had Dr. Full’s hair, and his pistol was jamming the minister’s head far enough back to sprain his neck.
The mountain men had spread down the side aisles. Pistols and blanket guns were out from underneath their blanket coats, held muzzles to the ceiling, at the ready. Flare looked ready for a fight, and fiercely happy.
In the icy silence Maggie spoke to Parky. “Reverend Smith,” she said with an immense grin, “will you please administer the vows to me and Mr. O’Flaherty? I think maybe quickly?”
Flare thought Parky actually chuckled before he intoned the first words.
And over the vows, solemn and joyful, came the exuberant voice of Sima. He sang his father and his new mother a song of blessing, a song calling all the powers of the four winds to bring a benediction to this union:
Hiyo koma wey, Hiyo koma wey
Hiyo koma wey sheni yo
Hiyotsoavitch, Hiyo tsaovitch
Hiyo tosavitch sheni yo.
Chapter Thirty-five
Flare’s watchword was, “Keep an eye on your back trail.” The newlyweds, Sima, Mr. Skye, and several Frenchies went a couple of hours down the Willamette toward Vancouver. Then, while the mountain men went on downstream, left a conspicuous trail, and made camp, Flare, Maggie, and Sima slipped over a divide to the east, driving their dozen California horses. That bunch of preachers couldn’t read a trail, wouldn’t know which tracks were mounted men and which a loose herd. If Dr. Full came skulking around looking for a lucky shot, the mountain men would take care of him.
Just the same, Flare, Maggie, and Sima would skip Vancouver, go down to the Columbia an unusual way, and head straight for Walla Walla. And just the same again, they would keep a move on. The wedding night Flare gave Maggie was dozing in her saddle and stretching out exhausted for an hour or two while he and Sima took turns on watch.
By the second night they’d covered a lot of ground, too much for a bunch of preachers, and their back trail was clear. They made a proper camp, and Flare put up his canvas lean-to for the newlyweds and made a bed out of blankets and buffalo robes. He told Sima to stand watch out of earshot, which gave the boy a kick.
At first Flare thought Maggie was about to cry. She’d joined herself to a pagan and a madman, and he’d gotten her into trouble and run her half to death the first two days. What a marriage.
He fed her pemmican out of a parfleche. She made a brave attempt to eat it.
He put her head in his lap and rubbed the scalp under her long, pipestone-colored hair. It was beautiful hair. She was a beautiful woman. He loved her until it ached.
Now that he’d done it, would he be able to take care of her? Now that she’d cast her lot with him, could he make her dreams come true?
Yes, boyo, a grand romantic gesture. A long chance she’s taking, truly. Are you thinking yet that it’s a long chance for you as well? You’re both mad, perhaps.
Nay. I say love is enough. I say love is all there is.
Long chance this way, no chance other ways.
He rubbed for a long time without a word, and she uttered nothing but an occasional sigh. He saw a tear trickle down her cheek.
She thought she was crazy. She didn’t understand herself. Without understanding, she had the damnedest conviction that for once in her life she’d done right, absolutely right.
She felt wild, mad, exhilarated with freedom.
Scared as hell, too.
What of everything she’d lived for?
She would always love God. She’d changed her mind about which human beings walked His way.
She’d always want to teach Indian children.
She’d always want to live with a certain snap and sass.
Maybe she was ready to go adventuring and see where it took her.
Maybe? She’d put herself into the hands rubbing her scalp and neck and shoulders. Utterly. She was out of choices now.
“Well, lass,” he said at last, “what will it be? Shall we go to Missouri and be Indian agents? Go to Californy?”
She cut him off. “Let’s go talk to Sima.”
Flare’s suggestions were Missouri, California, and Taos. He described Californy as grand, a wonderful country where it’s always spring or summer. Taos as a place of peculiar beauty where a breed boy would get along. Missouri as a most sensible choice.
“We’ll want to visit Sima’s people first, wherever we go,” he said. “And I expect you’re strong for stopping in at the Red River settlements.” Sima braved a smile at this idea. “Lots of travelin’ ahead.”
They looked at Sima.
He spoke hesitantly, but with a new confidence. “I want to go to my people for a while,” he said. “And take the horses.”
Flare nodded approvingly.
“I have a task to undertake. Four days. June would be the right month.”
Flare understood. His son wanted to go on a quest for vision, for medicine. First he wanted one of his own people to prepare him properly.
“I don’t know where I’ll go after that,” Sima said.
Indeed he didn’t, Flare thought. You never knew where the force of life would take you.
Sima grinned. “Maybe wherever you go.”
They went back to the lean-to. He asked her where she wanted to go. “The world is wide to us, lass,” he said.
There’s a lame sort of joke, Michael Devin O’Flaherty, she thought. She said, “Shut up and rub me.”
He rubbed. She wiggled sometimes, and moaned softly. She was half out with fatigue.
Finally she sat up. She pushed him down on his belly. She rubbed his neck and shoulders. Her hands felt strong, and she kneaded firmly.
Finally she turned him over onto his back. She kissed him lightly on the lips. She looked at him, and touched his nose with a forefinger.
“I don’t know where we’ll head, Michael Devin O’Flaherty.” She looked into his eyes to see what world was there. “Where we’ll go, really, is adventuring.” Scared again. Tremulous.
“I want you to fill my belly full of babies, and we’ll spend our days raising them up.”
She looked into herself for a moment. She saw high seas and no landfall.
Then she slipped on top of him. Wiggled all over.
“I’d like to get started on that part right now.”
Afterword
This book is perhaps as much historical fantasy as historical novel.
The physical settings are real—the Intermountain West, the Pacific Northwest, and California of the 1830s, Fort Vancouver, the Methodist Episcopal mission on the Willamette, and other places. So are some of the characters portrayed in this book—for instance, John McLoughlin, chief factor at the Hudson’s Bay Company establishment. The cultures, both Anglo and Indian, are drawn with what I hope is scrupulous fidelity. (The story of Pachee Goyo is borrowed form Rupert Weeks’s Pochee Goyo.)
My missionaries are not historical portraits (since history doesn’t tell lots that’s crucial)—they’re impressions of the sorts of Christians who participated in that well-intended and misguided effort. (One of them actually did try to crucify himself in the horrifying manner described here.) The most important of the evangelicals, my Margaret Jewel, is closely modeled on the mission teacher Margaret Jewett Smith. Her liberated style, her conflicts with the men in charge of the mission, her betrayal by her fiancé—all these are histo
rical. The journal entries and poems attributed to her in this book are the ones she actually wrote and published. (The reader can pursue the people of Mission Bottom further in The Eden Seekers, by Malcom Clark, Jr.)
The other characters—Flare, Sima, and the crew—are the children of my imagination and my love. I hope readers have as much fun living with them as I did.
One scalawag, Mr. Barnaby Skye, is borrowed from the books of my friend and colleague Richard S. Wheeler. Thanks for the loan, Dick.
Some readers may get the impression from these pages that of all Americans I’m most fond of the Irish and the Indians.
Sure, them and the Welsh, and all others who see the magic in the world.
—WIN BLEVINS
Jackson Hole, Wyoming
December 1, 1991
Acknowledgments
The Honorable Clyde M. Hall of the Shoshone-Bannock Reservation at Fort Hall, Idaho, has helped me greatly with the matters of Shoshone language, culture, and worldview in this book (for the Shoshone words he used Wick R. Miller’s Newe Natekwinappeh: Shoshoni Stories and Dictionary, and his own knowledge of the Shoshone language). Murphy Fox of Helena, Montana, helped me cope with other realities of the historical West, especially mountain men. Both have been my guides in such matters for several books now—my deepest gratitude to them both.
Michael and Kathleen Gear, archaeologists and anthropologists, provided wonderful suggestions. Ian Fallows and Alan Smith, of Kendall, Cumbria, England, helped me with matters of Irish, Scottish, and English speech.
Bob and Inger Koedt came up with something crucial at an urgent time. Bill Gulick walked ahead of me in Snake River country. Dick Wheeler and Lenore Carroll lent their wisdom.
Profound thanks to you all.
About the Author
Win Blevins is the author of thirty-one books. He has received the Owen Wister Award for Lifetime Contributions to Western Literature, has twice been named Writer of the Year by Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers, has been selected for the Western Writers Hall of Fame, and has won two Spur Awards for Novel of the West. His novel about Crazy Horse, Stone Song, was a candidate for the Pulitzer Prize.
A native of Little Rock, Arkansas, Blevins is of Cherokee and Welsh Irish descent. He received a master’s degree from Columbia University and attended the music conservatory of the University of Southern California. He started his writing career as a music and drama reviewer for the Los Angeles Times and then became the entertainment editor and principal theater and movie critic for the Los Angeles Herald Examiner. His first book was published in 1973, and since then he has made a living as a freelance writer, publishing essays, articles, and reviews. From 2010 to 2012, Blevins served as Gaylord Family Visiting Professor of Professional Writing at the University of Oklahoma.
Blevins has five children and a growing number of grandchildren. He lives with his wife, the novelist Meredith Blevins, among the Navajos in San Juan County, Utah. He has been a river runner and has climbed mountains on three continents. His greatest loves are his family, music, and the untamed places of the West.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this book or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2012 by Winfred Blevins
Cover design by Mimi Bark
978-1-5040-1287-4
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