Going Home

by Richard S. Wheeler

  But an hour later, as they rode along Henry’s Fork of the Snake, the hellish creature trotted along, just beyond rifle shot. The dog knew full well how Skye felt: time after time, Skye dismounted, gathered a handful of pebbles, and threw them. The dog gauged Skye’s accuracy and ignored the missiles. Skye was feeling defeat and climbed into himself.

  Victoria turned stony. “It is spirit-dog. You make trouble for us,” she said. “He has come to protect us.”

  He ignored her. He was not going to endanger her, himself, or his property by accepting the company of some disease-shot yellow parasite that would howl at the first sign of trouble. If there was one lesson he had squeezed out of his six years in the wilds, it was to hide from danger. Hide from passing villages, hide from angry bears, hide from unknown bands of horsemen, hide from solitary warriors, hide from storms and wind and cold. If he welcomed that miserable excuse for a dog, he could hide no more.

  The bright day invited a sunny heart, but his spirits darkened. Victoria refused to speak to him, her frown beclouding an otherwise perfect summer day spent upon a sweeping grassland surrounded by hazy mountains.

  That dawn, when he had discovered the dog lying on the very edge of his camp, he threw off his robes with a roar and plunged barefoot after the cur, his bear-rumblings driving the animal far afield. Two minutes later the dog sat on its haunches laughing at Skye.

  Then, midday, the mutt circled around the right side of Skye’s small caravan, trotted out ahead, paused occasionally, sniffed, and trotted even farther forward. Skye, always the wary man, unsheathed his Hawken and checked the load. A fresh cap covered the nipple. He preferred the percussion lock version of the Hawken brothers’ mountain rifle to the flintlock, even though there was always the danger of running out of caps in a place so far from a resupply. But the caplock Hawkens fired when you wanted them to, and rarely failed in damp weather.

  The man meandering through a sunlit meadow ahead clearly was no Indian. He wore a high-collared white muslin shirt, a proper tweed jacket with elbow patches, and laced hightop boots. He carried a rucksack. A panama, tilted at a jaunty angle, covered his head. Skye tugged his reins, the sight of the lone traveler straining credulity.

  “Goddam!” muttered Victoria, pulling up beside him.

  The yellow cur had frozen ahead, nose and tail pointing, as the man studied the earth and occasionally plucked something from it as if he were hunting for lost gold. Close to him walked a nondescript gray dog carrying a small pack of some sort. It turned toward the yellow dog but did not attack.

  “Hello,” yelled Skye.

  The gentleman straightened up.

  “Ah! Company! Come see this. It’s a sport variety of the death camas. Look at this. The raceme is really a panicle.”

  He waved a limp stem at them. The man behind that weed seemed to consider Skye and Victoria old friends.

  “Where’s your party, sir?” Skye asked.

  “Party? Why, I don’t believe I know. Back at the camp, I suppose. Wyeth, of course. He’ll be along sometime.”

  “I’m Mister Skye, and this is my wife Victoria.”

  “Oh, forgive me. When I’m out in the field I forget my manners. Nutmeg here, Alistair Nutmeg, on a small sabbatical.”

  “You are an herbalist? A doctor?”

  “Ah, no, sir, a naturalist. Here we have a whole virgin continent filled with species never collected or recorded, and that’s what I’m doing … now hold on, Dolly dear, don’t growl at our visitors.”

  He caught the collar of his gray dog and smiled. “Do come down off those steeds and we shall have some Darjeeling, eh? What a jolly coincidence!”

  Skye scarcely knew what to make of it. “You came with Wyeth?”

  “Yes, a fine little jaunt. He’s got twenty of his New Englanders with him, pleasant chaps but timid sorts, and half of them are out of temper and going home. The rest’ll come along to the coast. He’s got a trading ship going there, you know, the brig, Sultana, and I’ll return to Boston on it. Visionary fellow. I’m a lecturer at Harvard but actually an Englishman. I didn’t get this far last time; that was with the trapper Manuel Lisa in ’aught-ten. But I got a fine bag from it. Hundreds of new species. Wrote it all up. And it’s only the beginning.”

  An Englishman.

  “Well, sir, so am I an Englishman. London born. And you?”

  “Leicester, sir. I came over here in ’aught-eight, apprenticed as a printer in Philadelphia, but that was a mistake, eh? This is what I was born to do, born, born, born. This pup here, Dolly, carries some good, watertight panniers where I keep my notes and sketches and dried samples.”

  “You aren’t armed?”

  “Why should I be, Skye?”

  “It’s Mister Skye, sir.”

  “Yes, of course. Professor, here. Professor Nutmeg.” He discovered a moth floating by. “Now look at that white beauty. I wish I had my net. But I can only do one thing at a time. We’ll leave the bugs and get the herbs. Of course, when a species lands in my lap, I record it. Do you know how many cottonwoods I’ve found? Three. All unknown to the world. I propose to name one Populus nutmega. Vanity, you know.”

  The professor lifted his panama, and Skye discovered that it had shaded a high-domed pink forehead and receding hairline. The man peered up at Skye with boyish blue eyes, innocence in his countenance. His was the face of a man who’d never heard of evil, a man born before Adam.

  The man was a fool.

  “When’s Wyeth coming?”

  “Oh, whenever the rendezvous breaks up, I suppose. He’ll find me.”

  “He knows you’re here?”

  “He’ll catch up with me.”

  “You’re saying you got ahead of him? And he doesn’t know it?”

  Furrows plowed across Nutmeg’s brow. “I suppose I should have notified him.”

  Skye was aghast. “Don’t you suppose he’s looking for you? Sending out searchers? Combing the country for a body? Expecting to find a corpse with a scalped head, maybe?”

  Nutmeg reddened but held his peace.

  “What was the arrangement? Did you tell him you’d be wandering wherever your fancy took you?”

  “Why, sir, I scarcely thought of it.”

  “Did he ask you to stay close?”

  The professor nodded.

  “There’s a rule in this wilderness, Professor. Men stick together always. Lives depend on it. If a man’s missing, the whole outfit stops and searches and camps at that place until the missing man is found. Are you aware of that?”

  “Oh, yes, they were always talking about it coming out from St. Louis.”

  “Have you seen any Indians?”

  “Well, I believe one sits astride her steed beside you, Mister Skye. Nice specimen, properly dried and pressed she’d last forever. Get into the British Museum. What species?”

  “Goddam Absaroka.”

  “Ah,” he said, amusement crinkling the corners of those innocent eyes as he gazed upon her. “She speaks the king’s tongue with great vigor.”

  Skye liked him and laughed in spite of his indignation. “Where do you sleep? What do you eat?”

  “Why, this is July, Mister Skye, and this whole continent bursts with wild strawberries, grapes, cherries, huckleberries, blueberries, wild onions, nuts, chokecherries, various tubers that resemble carrots …”

  “And how do you feed your dog?”

  “I don’t. She’s on her own. She has to use her little dog brain. Sometimes the Indians give me meat. Very pleasant people, these North American Indians. Some fine chaps in black-dyed moccasins dropped by just yesterday and left me some venison for the pooch. But Dolly is quite adept at hunting. Is that your fine canine there, the yellow one?”

  “Professor, he’s yours. He’s loyal to a fault, totally disobedient, and without honor.”

  Nutmeg sighed. “If I had a pack rig for him, I would, but you see—”

  “I’ll rig something. He’s all yours.”

  “Why, how extraordinar
ily kind.”

  The Skyes and Nutmeg repaired to a grove of noble cottonwoods sheltering the bank of Henry’s Fork. There the professor and Victoria ignited a small fire, boiled water, and produced tea, while Skye restlessly watched horizons. He didn’t like the news of Blackfeet in the area.

  “Professor, how many Blackfeet in that party?”

  “Blackfeet were they? Oh, perhaps twenty. Young men, all painted up like a bunch of Zulus.”

  “On horse?”

  “Yes, everyone, and most had a spare.”

  “What did they do?”

  “Jolly fellows. I invited them to step down and see my collection. I pulled out my sketches and pressed flowers and notes, and they had a fine time. I made a sketch of one fellow, and he laughed.”

  “You damn lucky to have your hair,” Victoria grumbled.

  “Oh, they were perfectly cordial.” He touched his breast. “They have good hearts.”

  “Painted up means they were going to war, Professor,” Skye said. “You should learn that.”

  “We shouldn’t be fussbudgets, Mister Skye. Worry, worry, worry, and all that.”

  Skye listened dourly. He didn’t tell Nutmeg that most Indians leave crazy people alone and some even honor them. He and Victoria exchanged glances.

  “Here, try this Darjeeling. I’ve nursed my little canister of it. A fine brew, I’d say.”

  It did taste good to Skye, even in a tin cup. “Professor, which direction did they go?”

  Nutmeg pointed downstream. The Blackfeet were ahead, then, and that was the answer Skye least wanted to hear.

  The professor’s gray dog settled in the shade, panting slowly. The damned yellow cur sulked just beyond a stone’s throw. Skye didn’t know how he would catch the thing and fit a harness to it.

  “Professor, your dog’s starved, and you’re surviving on a few berries that won’t be here long. Then what?”

  “Yes, poor Dolly’s having a time of it. Old carcasses, that sort of thing.”

  “Where are you heading?”

  “Vancouver, of course, and on to the coast. Atlantic to Pacific, gathering botanical specimens. I’ll sail home. There’s Wyeth’s brig to go back on, with Captain Lambert, but also Hudson’s Bay runs a supply ship out there each year and back to Liverpool.”

  Skye pondered that. The man would never make it alive to Vancouver unless Wyeth caught up with him.

  “I think, mate, that we’d better have a talk,” Skye said. It would be irresponsible to leave this man-child here. He would start Nutmeg toward the rendezvous and hope the man survived.

  nine

  The strange Englishman’s dog was starving. Victoria wondered whether the man was even aware of it. It lay miserably at the man’s feet, its ribs poking out, its flanks caved in and skeletal. It was in worse shape than the yellow dog, which had some ability to fend for itself.

  Victoria itched to put an arrow through the mallards or the Canada geese she saw everywhere and feed the meat to the hungry dogs. But she held her peace. She was Skye’s woman and Skye did not want her to feed the dogs.

  He obviously didn’t want to feed the Englishman, either.

  “Professor,” said Skye, “I think you’d better bloody well turn around. Go back to the rendezvous and find Wyeth. You owe that to him. He’s no doubt worried aplenty about you, and it’s your responsibility to inform him of your whereabouts just as fast as you can. You’ve probably delayed him for several days. You just can’t do this to a captain of a brigade.”

  “Well, I’m sorry, but my work engrosses me. I’ll just wander along, then. Don’t you worry about old Nutmeg.”

  Skye visibly pushed back the anger percolating through him. “This isn’t safe country. You’re unarmed and unable to defend yourself even against an animal. I’ll give you some parched corn, and any other necessaries you might need, and I insist you turn back and relieve Nat Wyeth of his worries.”

  “But Mister Skye. That’s the wrong direction. I’m heading for the Pacific coast. Wyeth will catch up.”

  Skye lifted his black top hat and resettled it. “Professor, you have no idea what lies ahead. I do. Here you’re in an Eden. But when you reach the Snake, the country’ll turn harsh, dry, volcanic, and there won’t be fruits and berries hanging from every tree. Then you’ll need to cross the Blue Mountains, and there’s nothing much in them but pines and dry meadows. Then it gets worse. You’ll pass through desert …”

  “Your dog, it ain’t gonna last two days,” Victoria added.

  Nutmeg gazed mildly at her through his oval gold-rimmed spectacles. “She does all right, don’t you think?”

  “Look at her,” Victoria snapped.

  “Yes, yes, but that yellow dog of yours looks just the same.”

  “It’s not ours, mate. It’s a stray.”

  “Well, I see. But I’m traveling west. Suppose I go with you?” He smiled. “Consider me a stray. The world’s full of stray dogs.”

  Skye shook his head. “We’re mounted and we’re in a hurry. We’ve business at Fort Vancouver. Sorry, mate.”

  “But I can keep up.”

  “Show me your boots.”

  The Englishman reluctantly pushed his feet forward. Both soles were worn and the uppers were separating from the soles. This man would be barefoot in a little while. Skye shook his head.

  “That’s one more reason we can’t take you. Sorry.”

  Victoria didn’t like this. Why was Skye treating a man from his own nation this way? She arose, angrily. There were moments when Skye angered her, and this was one.

  The yellow mutt watched her.

  Nutmeg bowed slightly. “Well, I’ll just putter along, then. Much to do. This day I’ve found two subspecies of grass unknown to botany. I plan to publish, you know. Complete notes, dried specimens to take East, sketches …”

  “Goddam,” she snapped, and hiked away from the men. She could not understand white men, and especially Englishmen. She poked along the banks of the placid river until she reached a widening where cattails thickened and the waters scarcely eddied. There she strung her bow, plucked an arrow, and drove it through a Canada goose, which flapped once and lay still in the water. She waded out, retrieved it, freed her arrow with her skinning knife, and shot another goose just as it lifted into flight. This day the starving dogs would get some meat and she would make sure the two Englishmen didn’t get a morsel.

  Happy at last, she gathered the geese by their necks and trudged back. Skye would glare at her like a thundercloud, but she didn’t care. The two men were fussing with their kits. The professor was settling his little canister of tea in his ruck-sack, while Skye was adjusting the pack on the horse.

  They paused, watching her enter the shady bower bearing her big geese. Both dogs stood, alert, aquiver.

  “Dammit, this is for the dogs. They deserve meat more than you do,” she snapped.

  “Why, you have given Dolly a little treat,” said Nutmeg. “How pleasant. Thank you.”

  Skye said nothing, his face a mask.

  “The Englishman has thanked me,” she said to Skye.

  The dogs quivered and crawled, but neither pounced. Angrily she plucked feathers by the fistful and singed away the residue in the dying fire, choking on the foul smoke, turning the birds until the coals had reduced them to naked flesh, while the dogs whined. Then she gave one big bird to each mutt. They each nipped at it, tore gently, whined, and finally clamped their paws over the booty and worked flesh loose with their teeth.

  Skye’s gaze radiated his anger, but she didn’t care.

  “You have done Dolly a great service, madam. I am in your debt. I shall name a new species after you.”

  “Sonofabitch.”

  “I don’t know of any such species, but I’ll manage the Latin version.”

  Skye laughed. Something suddenly eased in her big man, and she saw the merriment in his face.

  “Professor, if you’re going to tag along I can’t stop you. But you’ll walk along righ
t smartly and not go chasing daisies. Maybe Victoria and I can see you out to Fort Vancouver and maybe we can put some meat in Dolly’s paws now and then. But we’re going to leave messages for Wyeth. Lots of them. Starting right here.”

  That was one of those many moments when Victoria loved her man more than she had words to describe. Something passed between them and she knew that everything had been made true and good again.

  “Now, there’ll be some rules to follow,” Skye said. “We’ve a Blackfoot war party ahead of us and we’ll be traveling as silently as we can. I think Victoria can make meat with her arrows. She’s a good and quiet hunter. But we’re no match for a dozen Blackfeet and our only refuge is to flee, to hide, to make ourselves invisible.”

  “Oh, Mister Skye, they’re fine fellows. You oughtn’t worry a bit.”

  Skye didn’t respond. She could see him swallowing back everything that he wanted to say to Nutmeg. Indeed, she would have pitched in with a few words of warning about the Siksika, ancient enemies of her people, but she didn’t. There was something in Nutmeg’s innocent eyes that showed them how it went with him.

  “Before your boots fall off your feet, you let us know. We can patch. Victoria has an awl and plenty of thong and thread. But above all, we can’t delay. That’s the one thing I must impress upon you.” The storms in his eyes passed. “Here we are, a pair of limeys in paradise.”

  “I say, you have a humor of your own,” Nutmeg said.

  “You lead the packhorse, Professor, and I’ll have Victoria work ahead of us. She’ll be our advance scout.”

  Skye asked the professor for some paper, wrote a note, wrapped it in a patch of greased buckskin, built a low rock cairn smack in the trail, and placed the note under the top rocks.

  “We’re going to leave more notes for Wyeth,” he said. “I still prefer that you go back, but you won’t, and I don’t have time to argue. Now let’s go.”

  And so they started. The dogs were still gnawing at their feasts, but would catch up soon enough. Victoria urged her pony forward, solemn and alert, watching the way birds flew, listening for unusual silences, studying the air ahead for dust. She saw and heard nothing unusual, but that didn’t mean much. A number of unshod ponies had gone by, leaving faint prints in dusty ground, and these she studied as she rode.