A little way from the golden mound of sand beside the open grave Hugh saw something. Ashes. A heap of them. Gray with white irregular rings. A few half-burnt twigs and branches stuck out all along the edge of the ashes like green lashes around a huge blind-white horse eye. Around the ashes were molds and pudges in the sand where men had sat and lain.
With a grunt, and a groan of pain, Hugh lurched forward on hands and one knee. His bad leg dragged. He crawled past the grave and around the mound of gold sand. The green flies buzzed over his back. The whitegray wolf retreated a step. The greenblack turkey buzzard lifted its wing-wavering orbit above him.
He approached the ashes carefully. He studied the sand for tracks. There were many moccasin prints, most of them faint. But some of them were fresh and all of them were of two kinds: quiet Fitz’s small print, the boy Jim’s big-footed print. He knew that moccasin print anywhere. The two lads had bought their moccasins from Bending Reed. And there was that new contrary stitch she’d lately taken to using. The Heyoka stitch.
He circled the ash heap carefully, staying well away from it at first, and only gradually working in on it. Yes, all the fresh prints belonged to either the boy Jim or downer Fitz. And all the old prints belonged to the rest of the party: Major Henry, Silas Hammond, George Yount, Allen, Pierre the cook, all the lads.
Ho-ah! He saw it then. Ae. The major had left Fitz and Jim to stand watch over him while the rest of the fur party pressed on, going northwest and on up to Henry’s Post on the Yellowstone and Missouri.
The major had probably made up his mind that Old Hugh was going to die and had asked for volunteers to keep the deathwatch and afterwards bury him decent. And the boys, Jim and Fitz, had probably chirped up because they felt they owed it to Old Hugh, after the way he’d covered up for them, covered up that they had fallen asleep while on guard duty.
Hugh looked at the shallow grave. “Decent?” Ha. A half-dozen strokes and the varmints had him dug out of the sand, tearing and gorging before he even turned cold. The lads’d sure been lax and lazy digging that grave.
Hugh shivered. He passed a hand over his hot brow.
One leg dragging, still on hands and one knee, grizzled, tattered, crusted over, looking like a he-bear in molting time after a terrible fight, he examined the sand around the ash heap, around the grave, also the spot where he had lain when he first came to. Except for the usual camp litter of broken tins and ripped paper packs and rinds of fruit and slicked bones, there was nothing. Not a thing. Neither gun, nor pistol, nor knife, nor steel and flint, nor food of any kind.
He glanced over toward the bushes where the silvertip she-grizzly had popped his flintlock and pistol. No, nothing there either.
“What in tarnation . . . ?” he muttered again. “Where’s the lads? They must be around somewhere.”
He called out, hoarse voice more like a bear’s growl than a human call, “Jim? Fitz! Hey! Where be ye?”
No answer. Not even an echo.
“Jim! Fitz! Hey!”
No answer.
“Lads! Where be ye? Jim? Fitz?”
Still no answer.
Hugh sagged and lay down on his belly. He couldn’t cipher it. They’d dug his grave but hadn’t buried him. Why? Indians? Red devils up on the hills? Sign? And the lads hiding in the brush?
He lay puffing on his belly.
Green flies settled on his crusts again. The wolf drew up a step. The turkey buzzard floated lower.
The stink of rotting flesh came strong to him again. It came on a rising breeze, not from his torn back. He sniffed the breeze wonderingly. Ho-ah. Something else was stinking up the gully besides himself.
The breeze felt fine on his back, warmish, and helped blow off the down-burning sun and the burning fever.
He raised on his elbows, eyes following where the nose said.
Ho-ah. Green flies in a cloud to one side of the ash heap, under a chokecherry bush. Meat then.
That same instant he felt hunger. Terrible hunger. “Meat,” he murmured, “meat. Gotta have meat.”
He crawled on hands and one knee and found the meat: a pile of bear ribs with scraps of rotting meat still on them, the she-grizzly skull grinning horribly at him, and a large hump of shoulder roast. All rotten. Meat the vultures for some reason had left to the green flies.
With his nails he clawed at the hump roast. Ha. Inside there was enough good meat left for a meal, even if it was a little on the prime side. He brushed off the flies.
What he needed now was a fire. Carrying some of the meat in either hand, he crawled to the ash heap. Carefully he brushed off the top ashes; carefully he shoved in a hand. Ahh! Warmth! There just might be a few live coals left. A spark or two.
Hugh scratched about under the bushes and gathered up a handful of wispy dry grass. He coiled it up into a nestlike roll, placed it carefully on the sand, piled a few leaves over it.
He turned back to the ash heap. He brushed layer after layer aside. When he got nearly to the bottom, he blew into the ashes softly.
And found it. A live coal the size of a ruby. Quickly he whisked it into the coil of wispy grass; deftly closed the wisps down over like a jeweler folding velvet lining down over a precious jewel; blew on it between cupped hands, blew on it long and slow and soft.
At last a slow twist of smoke rose out of the nest. Another long soft breath, and a flame licked out the size of a bird’s tongue. He blew on it once more, long and slow, and it flashed up in his beard. Breath short, he grabbed up all the half-burnt twigs within reach, laid them on the burning grass in pyramid fashion, green spokes to a red hub. The flames grew. He laid on half-burnt branches and finished it off with bits of log. Presently he had a good fire blazing and crackling.
The flames chased back both the whitegray wolf and the turkey buzzard.
Old gray eyes feverish, Hugh broke off a long twig from a chokecherry bush; with his teeth cut a point on the end of it; jabbed on the strong hump roast; held it in the fire.
The burning sun, his rising fever, the jumping fire made him sweat like a jug in humid weather.
But he held on. Hot or not, rotten or not, he had to eat. “Meat’s meat.”
Lying on the side of his good leg, he turned the meat slowly in the fire. The burnt-meat smell almost drove him mad. His cracked lips worked, the gray fur over his cheeks and chin stirred.
When he thought some of the meat done, he bit in, burning his lips and nose tip, sucking, lipping up the strong fat dripping into his beard. He gnawed into it. “It’s my turn now,” he growled, remembering how the she-grizzly had growled and roared and gnawed into him. He chuckled as he thought of it. The old she-rip. Well, and she was flavorsome too, despite the spoilage. Ae, and filling.
He gorged until his belly hurt. The pain in his belly told him he’d probably lain without food for days. The lads must’ve had a time with him. Couldn’t feed a man who was out of his head. Couldn’t make a dead man swallow.
His belly hurt powerful. He hoped he wouldn’t have to vomit. He remembered he’d always had a strong stomach. Once he got his meat trap shut down, it wasn’t too easily opened again. And nature usually took its course. He hoped so.
He belched loudly, the putrid smell expelling through his nostrils. He broke wind.
He lay panting on his belly in the sand. He could feel his stomach jumping around inside. It hopped about like a bad heart.
The fire died down to a suffing glow. Every now and then the breeze coming up the gully peeled off a layer of gray ash and exposed coals as live as flesh.
The wolf drew up a step. The buzzard came down a rung. The flies resettled on his crusts. The sun began to sink toward the west.
It came to him then. Those ashes he’d dug into for that live coal—they were at least a day old. Ho-ah! That meant the lads weren’t hiding in the bushes after all, waiting for Rees to pass on so they could finish burying him. It meant that for one reason or another the lads hadn’t been around for a spell.
What in tarna
tion? They couldn’t’ve deserted him, could they?
Hugh shook his head. Hardly. Not Jim. Not Fitz. Not mountain men. Especially not after what he’d done for his companyeros, saving them from the major’s wrath because they had slept while on guard.
No, not his lads. Certainly not Jim. And practical Fitz, for all his book learning, not him either.
What could have happened? Scalped and killed by Rees? Hardly. The lads would have been laying dead around him then. And the Rees would certainly have counted coup on him, their old enemy, too.
His gun and possibles—who’d taken them? Not the Rees, because they hadn’t taken his scalp. The boys? Impossible. Not the lads.
A cracking headache set up in Hugh’s head. “I feel queersome,” he said.
He felt of his brow. It was slippery with fever’s sweat. Ho-ah. Blood poison had set in then. Ae, rot in the blood.
He lifted his head. And wasn’t too surprised to see the gully swinging back and forth like a sailor’s hammock in a tossing ship. Ae, the putrid rot all right.
Slowly Hugh slipped away into delirium.
“Now, boy, I’ll soon be under. Afore many hours. And, boy, if you don’t raise meat pronto you’ll be in the same fix I’m in. I’ve never et dead meat myself, Jim, and wouldn’t ask you to do it neither. But meat fair killed is meat anyway. So, Jim, lad, put your knife in this old nigger’s lights and help yourself. It’s poor bull I am, I know, but maybe it’ll do to keep life in ee. There should be some fleece on me that’s meat yet. And maybe my old hump ribs has some pickin’s on ‘em in front. And there should be one roast left in my behind. Left side. Dip in, lad, and drink man’s blood. I did onct. One bite.”
He slept and roused and slept by fits.
“You’re a good old hoss, Hugh, but we ain’t turned Digger Indian yet.”
Hugh’s gray eyes rolled white with fever. Vaguely he saw a dozen snake-headed buzzards circling overhead; saw a dozen wolves and coyotes sitting on gray haunches around him. All were waiting.
“Where from, stranger? What mout your name be? I’m Hugh Glass, deserter, buccaneer, keelboatman, trapper, hunter, and one-bite cannibal. Anyway what’s left after an old she-rip had her picks at him.”
The sun sank. The narrow brushed-over gully gradually cooled.
A turtledove mourned nearby: ooah—koooo—kooo—koo.
“Oh! this looks like something now. Hellfire if it don’t. The thought of it makes the eyes stick out of a man’s head.”
The turtledove souled again: koooaaa.
“Hurrah, Jim! Run, lad, or we’ll be made meat of sure as shootin’.”
Hugh dreamt of two boys, one a blackhead like himself, the other a sunhead like Mabel his rip of a wife as was. They were looking up to him. He was showing them how to stand up to trouble like men. Point up. But Mabel was raking him from behind. Down his back. Calling him a worthless bum. A soak who couldn’t stick to a job. A poorpeter who was always getting into fights with his bosses. A tramp who was always running off to the woods. She was ripping him up and ripping him down. After a while the blue eyes of the two boys lowered in shame for him. He couldn’t stand up to trouble himself, let alone teach them. She roared him; she ripped him; she gnawed him. She clawed him until he was finally cowed proper. Laid low. Under the shame in their eyes. What did the old she-rip want?
“Set your triggers, lads.”
Hugh dreamt.
“Jim, lad, let me tell ee something. When the net falls on ee, there’s only two things to do. Set still ontil they take the net off again. Or run off with the net and all. And never come back. Because if you make the littlest move, you just entangle yourself all the more in the law. No, lad, do like I did. Run off with the net and all.”
Hugh slept.
The wolves and the coyotes pressed closer, waiting. The wrinkle-neck buzzards settled on nearby branches, waiting. The flies went off into the brush for the night.
Rusty dusk flowered and faded in the west. Mosquitoes came out like vapors.
3
A COLD TOUCH woke him. Something moved against his good side.
Hugh rolled his grizzly head to have a look. The moment he moved, the something suddenly stiffened against him; abruptly set up a loose rattling noise like little dry gourds clattering in a wind.
Rattler. Hugh forced himself to hold still. The least move and he’d have a batch of rattler poison in his blood, besides all the rot he already had in it.
Rattler? Ah! Fresh rattler made good meat.
Ae, but how to catch it.
After a while he could feel the rattler relaxing against him. It made a faint dry slithering sound. Presently he could feel it begin to crawl away. Its pushing touch slowly drew away from him.
He waited until he was sure it had crawled at least a couple of feet away. Then he moved, moved quick. He sat up against the howling red monsters in his back and rump; snatched up a heavy stone; lunged; mashed the snake’s head before it could coil and strike.
He watched the snake thresh in the sand. It was a huge devil, some six feet long, and quite fat.
He found another stone, this time a flat one with a rough ragged edge like a crude Digger hatchet. With it he jammed the snake’s head off at the neck. He jammed off the skin along one side a ways and skinned it. Then he cut the rattler into a dozen or so separate steaks. Blood welled over his hands.
He brushed through the ash heap, luckily found a couple of hot coals again, built himself a fine roaring fire. He roasted some of the rattler meat thoroughly and filled up. The meat was stringy, but it was fresh and fairly tasty. “Can’t shine with painter meat. Or even old bull. But meat’s meat when there’s hard doin’s.”
Finished eating, and caching the rest of the rattler meat under dry sand, he crawled to the running water and had himself a long and cooling drink. He also lay in the water for a while, on his back, and let the stream and the minnies wash away the impurities.
He had no idea how long he had slept since eating the putrid bear meat. From the way his stomach felt he could have slept a couple of days. Certain it was that he had slept at least a full night because once again yellow light was striking up into blue, which meant morning.
His fever was down some, of that Old Hugh was sure too. He was still very stiff, very sore all over, and the deer-sinew stitches pulled terribly every time he moved. But the hotness, thank God, was pretty much gone away, and his eyes saw clear again, and taste had returned to his tongue.
He ran a cautious hand over his body, exploring his crusted wounds. His jaw felt much better, and the crust in his beard was already beginning to peel away along the edges. The welt up in his hair felt good too.
He explored his back. Except for one bad spot which he couldn’t quite reach, he found that somewhat improved also. The near edge of the bad spot was greasy and very swollen. Green flies were still buzzing around it. He pushed his hand around as far as he could, touched it all gingerly. There was quite a gap. A flap of flesh hung down from it, and he thought he could touch bone, touch the curve of a rib.
He explored his torn rump and was surprised to find that completely crusted over. The old she-rip had taken her biggest bite out of him there. He had expected it to be a horrible mess.
The right leg was different. It was swollen almost twice its size, was discolored blackpurpleblue. He felt of it gingerly; then steeled himself as he dug in to find the line of the bone. Halfway down, directly below where her great teeth had bit in, gnawed in, through the hard swollen flesh, he could feel a crack, a ridge the size of a rim on a stone crock. He looked down the length of the grotesquely fat leg and thought he could see where it bent off a little at a slight angle. That meant trouble. If he let the cracked bone knit as it now lay, he was doomed to become a cripple. Probably never be able to run again. Which meant the end of his prairie days. A down bull had no business in red-devil country.
“Whaugh!” he roared. “Whaugh!” He laughed to see the dozen or more waiting dun-colored coyotes and white
gray wolves jump back. “G’wan, go way. You’re gettin’ no free bites out a me. G’wan! What ye fancy in this old bull is more than this child can cipher. And I’m not sharin’ any of my cache snakemeat with ye.”
He squinted up at the dozen or so turkey buzzards floating around above him. He roared up at them too. “Whaugh!” He laughed to see them raise their wavering, gliding, greenblack circles.
It took him two full days to make up his mind to set the leg himself.
Cost him what it might in inhuman pain, it had to be done. It was that or give up forever being a mountain man in the free country.
Once his mind was made up, he went about it doggedly. He crawled over to a sturdy little chokecherry tree with a crotch a foot off the ground. Grimacing, cursing, he lifted the bad leg into it, hooked the heel and toe well down in the crotch, with his hands caught hold of another nearby stubby trunk—then heaved.
Pain filled him from tip to toe. He passed out a few seconds.
When he came to, he rested a while, panting desperately.
The mourning dove souled in the gully: ooah—koooo—kooo—koo.
When he thought he could stand it again, he set himself and once more gave his leg a mighty wrenching pull. There was a crack; something gave; and he passed out again.
He came to gently, easily, up out of black into blue into yellow light.
He rested a little.
A magpie scolded a squirrel in some bullberry bushes across the brook. The squirrel skirled back.
Breath caught, he felt of his leg carefully, finger tips probing through the swollen rawhide flesh. Ho-ah. The bone had popped back into place. Ae. And now to splint it.
Working patiently, doggedly, saving his breath, he broke off a half-dozen straight chokecherry saplings about an inch thick. With his crude stone chisel he jammed off a long strip from the grizzly hide and built a tight splint around his leg. The strap of raw bearhide was still moist. In time it would shrink and make the splint fit snug.
Lord Grizzly, Second Edition Page 14
