“What am I accused of?” Dirk asked.
“Disobeying me.”
“I believe I am a civilian under contract.”
“Disobeying me, Skye.”
“Asking you to reconsider.”
“In this army, Skye, you don’t ask an officer to do anything. You sound like a jailhouse lawyer. Let’s call it insubordination. Every time you open your mouth, you make it worse. Since I haven’t any manacles, here’s what’s going to happen. You are discharged from service here and now. You will leave this patrol and report to Major Brevoort. You will tell him I have terminated your service. You will leave here immediately. If you aren’t out of sight in five minutes, I will instruct my command to hasten your flight by whatever means they have at hand. Am I clear?”
Dirk registered that and nodded. “Very clear, Captain. And when he asks what happened, I will tell the major exactly what happened here, and what you are doing to this family.”
“Out!” Brewer roared. He waved violently.
All this was absorbed by the Métis family as well as every man in the command.
Dirk turned to Robicheaux. “Don’t despair. Your case will be known, and you’ll soon be secure here.”
The Métis barely nodded, not wishing to inflame the situation.
Dirk slowly rode his buckskin to the rest of the family. “Take heart,” he said.
“Skye!” Brewer yelled.
“Take heart,” Dirk said to Robicheaux.
He collected his spare horse that was carrying his pack and rode swiftly east, down into the magnificent Judith Basin, aching with golden grass, icy creeks, and warm skies. He didn’t look back. In the allotted five minutes he had rounded a bend and vanished from the view of the patrol.
His work for the army had come to an abrupt end and yet he rejoiced. This had been the most harrowing mission he had been on. Maybe it was time to do something else, but he didn’t know what. The army was the enemy for the time being. The army was pushing and shoving, and it was getting ugly.
Dirk debated whether to return to Fort Maginnis at all. He was out, and what difference did it make? He would never again receive a brown pay envelope from the War Department. Or any government agency, for that matter. He knew he was not done with this. The Métis were good people. Different, friendly, peaceful, and very hard workers. They should be welcomed, not booted out. He itched to talk to someone in authority.
But he didn’t know what he might do. He was facing the might of the army, of the government in Washington, of the territorial government in Helena, and all officialdom. Even if he wanted to help these Canadians, he didn’t know how.
He rode his lonely way east, his packhorse following along behind him as he traversed a vast country girt by dark and distant mountains in most directions. He thought of Therese, wondering what she was doing that very moment; wondering whether she still wore his ring, and whether the torments of her heart had somehow quieted. His own feelings hadn’t changed. Therese was still a dream and a horizon.
Far ahead, he saw some riders, and even at a great distance he knew they were drovers, and they would be wearing their great felt sombreros and would have lariats tied to their high-backed saddles, and would have spurs on their boots and six-guns strapped to their belts.
He liked cowboys; always delighted to share a camp with them.
This bunch closed fast, so Dirk halted his buckskin, settled in for some palaver. The riders swept in and swiftly settled round him, as if to block his movements.
There was one old drover who was tanned to the color of a chestnut, and seamed by a life in the sun and wind. But he had bright hard black eyes, and for a moment Dirk felt uneasy.
“Howdy,” Dirk said.
“What’ve we got here, boys?” the old boy said.
“Looks like we got us a breed, if’n I read him right,” said a young ferret-faced one.
“And he’s got him some fancy nags too,” slurred another, with a wad of tobacco in his cheek.
“I’m Dirk Skye. And you?”
“Well, this here breed speaka da Engleesh a leetle,” said the black-eyed one.
“All my life,” Dirk said. He was not liking the way this was going, but there wasn’t much he could do about it.
“You speak a leetle Frenchie too, you bet?” asked the ferret.
“I speak English, Crow, Shoshone, the Algonquian tongues such as Blackfoot and Cree, and yes, I had three years of French when I was in school in St. Louis.”
“A bunch of them tongues in redskin,” said tobacco-wad.
“That’s my living. Army translator. I came up here with the Fort Keogh company.”
“That sure is a tall tale, Canuck. If you was with the army, then that’s where you’d be, stead of parading along with a couple of extry good horses.”
Dirk saw where this was leading, and didn’t like it. “Care to ride back to my unit? About two hours that way?”
“We don’t cotton to the army, breed. It’s just messing up our business.”
“Which is?”
“Cleaning out the country—of breeds.”
“You working for Bain?” Dirk asked.
“It’s Mister Bain to you.”
“My father, Barnaby Skye, always called himself Mister. He said in the New World, everyone should be addressed as Mister. So, sure, he’s Mister Bain, and I’m Mister Skye, and you are Mister—?”
“You sure are full of palaver,” said tobacco-cheek.
“I’m on my way to Fort Maginnis to report to Major Brevoort. Care to ride along with me?”
“Where’d you get them nags, breed?”
“Miles City.”
“You got papers?”
“At my home.”
“But not here, eh?”
“The bills of sale for these horses are in my quarters at Fort Keogh.”
Black-eyes ignored him. “Maybe we should just haul this here breed to Bain and let him look over them horses.”
“He might recognize me. He met the column on the road near the fort. Sure, let’s go.”
“No, let’s not go. You get off that nag, breed. We’re going to return these here horses to their rightful owners.”
Dirk felt the heat boil up in him. He also checked it, knowing suddenly that he would be lucky to escape with his life. He was unarmed, except for the revolver he carried in his pack on the other horse. He slid off, touching ground lightly.
No one had drawn a gun, which was a good sign. Maybe his connection with the army was slowing down these hard-riders a little.
Black-eyes grabbed the reins of the buckskin.
“Thanks, breed,” he said.
They rode off, leading Dirk’s two horses, and then he was alone on the trail, with nothing, no one, at his side, and miles to go on the road to nowhere.
nine
Therese walked up a grassy gulch that rose to prairie, where scarcely a tree intruded and nothing slowed the wind. She wore her white apron, for in it she would collect buffalo berries, or chokecherries, and bring them to her cousins. She drove her feet hard, pushing through the thickness of her gray skirts, but no matter now fiercely she walked, she could not escape her past or her fate. She had shamed her family by fleeing her new husband; her cousins barely tolerated her and permitted her to stay only because she worked hard.
Her feet could not take her far enough or fast enough to spare her, and she always returned, sometimes with a few berries to offer the Desportes as propitiation for her foolish conduct. This day was no different. She was aching for something, she knew not what.
The people had gravely asked her why she ran away from Skye at the celebration, especially after she had made her vows before the priest, and she had the simplest of answers for them all: she suddenly realized she didn’t like Dirk Skye. Not one bit. He had no steel in his heart and was betraying himself and others, doing what he did. He wasn’t worth the time of day, and that was that.
At the head of the gulch was a small amphitheater wi
th dense brush lying at its heart, and here she paused because it was the home of red-winged blackbirds, which she loved. The males had bright red shoulders with a yellow band, while the females were nondescript and freckled, just like the Métis people. They were kinfolk of the Métis. The men were gaudy; the women retiring. Now, the males were hopping from twig to twig, and the sky was transparent, and she could see beyond the world and beyond the heavens, to the place of beauty.
She was not religious but this place was always filled with the mysteries. Theology and the church were for men, and there was nothing for her in them. But here, just below the lip of the grasslands, was a holy place where she sometimes came to make things right in her soul.
And here she rested, amid a sweetness that lifted her heart to the sky.
And here, this hour, she beheld a woman in white linen descending ivory stairs from blue heaven, a woman she knew at once to be her name saint. This homely lumbering saint was smiling at Therese, and finally stood just apart, glowing in her robes, while all the world stood sweetly quiet.
“Therese, we give you a mission,” said Saint Therese. “We rejoice to find you here, your heart opened up to us. We rejoice that you are ready and willing to help your people. For your mission is very like mine. It was given to me to found many Carmelite convents and reform our order. And so it is given to you, my sister. Gather your people together and build a church. Raise the church where your people are gathering. Then you and your Métis can live on the very land that the Blessed One gives to you for all eternity.”
Saint Therese smiled, and her voice was sweeter than any that Therese had ever heard, and she marveled, and wondered whether this vision was true.
“Lead the Métis to their new home. Let them gather around the church you shall build, for that is to be their true home. Go, Therese. There is a place called Lewistown where you will build your church. You will find your people gathering there. They will hear you. They will help you. You will leave here, leave your family, go to where your people are gathered, waiting for you to be their shepherdess. Gather your sheep. Do this and you will never be alone.”
Then the saint was gone. The ivory stairs vanished. Therese saw the red-winged blackbirds again, and there was a red-tipped feather in her lap. She drew the perfumed air into her lungs. She smelled roses, sweet and thick, though no roses grew anywhere near.
She sat very still, unable to absorb all the miracles that had pierced her at that moment. There was no wind, nothing but aching silence. The air caressed her lungs. But she was not the young woman who had climbed the gully moments before. She was new, and strange to herself, and she marveled. She felt weightless, as if she had been lifted free of her mortal flesh, and could soar at will through the empyrean light. She felt that she could touch a plant or a tree or a bee or a butterfly and make it grow.
She sat quietly. How could it be? Why had it been visited upon her and not someone else? Saint Therese had wrestled with the church hierarchy, worked tirelessly to restore the faith. The young woman who had just fled a marriage was bewildered, but it didn’t matter. She barely knew the story of Therese Sanchez de Cepeda y Ahumada, a few things learned in homilies about saints. But she knew this much: the nun had changed Spain. And now Therese must change Montana.
The Métis were poor, scattered people, with only a few tools among them. There would be no army of stonemasons and carpenters and joiners among them to erect a great church, if indeed that was to be her mission. In truth, she hadn’t the faintest idea what it all meant, and she could do nothing until more was revealed to her. She finally stood, aware that the world had been restored to the only one she knew. But the bright red-winged blackbirds were there, a cordon of honor awaiting her steps down the long gulch.
She walked, but couldn’t feel herself walking. It was as if she was being transported softly, on air, her feet never touching the earth. She marveled at this. She was living outside of her body.
When she reached the farmstead, she found her aunt Celeste bustling about the kitchen.
“Where are the berries? Don’t say there were none!”
“Madame, it was not for me to pick berries this day, for something beyond telling has happened to me.”
Celeste Desportes stopped in her tracks, a big spoon in one hand and an onion in the other.
“Ah! Not for you to tell me, eh? You’ve found a new way to be lazy.”
“It was a vision. That’s what I saw. It came to me at the top of the gulch.”
“A vision, was it? First you run away from your husband after making the vow; now you are chasing visions!” She smiled. “I suppose you saw Dirk Skye up in the clouds.”
“It was a saint, madame. And the air was filled with the scent of roses, and there were red-winged blackbirds watching me.”
“A saint! After what you did to the honor of the Métis, you talk with saints! The potatoes need scrubbing.”
Therese saw how it would go. “I’ll make the stew,” she said.
“No you won’t! You’ll tell me about the saint that came down from heaven to have a little talk with you.”
“It was Saint Therese, my name saint.”
“Saint Therese! Now I know you are fevered. What did she say?”
“She was dressed in white linen, head to foot, and light shown around her, and the skies were so clear I could see up the stairway of ivory to the heavenly world.”
Aunt Celeste marched over, slapped a warm hand on Therese’s forehead, and held it there. “Just as I thought! You’ll climb into bed and hope the Lord above forgives you, telling such tales.”
“I am not sick, madame. I saw what I saw.”
“What did she say, Saint Therese?”
Therese wasn’t at all sure she should say anything. But there was her aunt, waving a big spoon at her, ready to beat the truth out of her.
“Madame, she said I had been chosen to raise a church.”
“Ah! Now I know you are fevered. You must make a full confession for this sin.”
“She said she reformed an order called the Carmelites in Spain, and I must build a church.”
“Therese Trouville—or should I say Skye? Where is the money for this?”
Therese had no reply, so she washed potatoes.
“Where are your builders, eh?”
“Madame, I should have said nothing. I will make the stew now; your husband, he’ll be ready for supper before we are.”
“Trouble, that’s what this is! Too bad there’s no priest around to hear you. Build a church! This story is so lunatic it would require a bishop! And he’d likely send you into the forests to feed the bears. No wonder our dear cousins Montclair and Helene sent you out of their house! What else did she say?”
“She said the Blessed One wants me to build this church in the village of Lewistown, where the Métis are settling.”
“Ah, trying to get us into trouble, is she? Saint Therese faced the Inquisition, she did.”
“Madame, she told me to lead our people. That is all I know. The church will be at their new home.”
“Wait until Monsieur hears this! He will banish you from the house! He will put you out. It all started when you walked away from your husband, and now this! Mon Dieu! That was the beginning of trouble, and now the trouble is ten times worse! What did she look like?”
“White linen, madame, and she was filled with light. There was strange light everywhere.”
“Whoever heard of a saint in linen? And strange light. It’s all nonsense. The sun goes up and the sun goes down, and there is only one kind of light. You are making this up.”
Therese was tired of this. She sliced the potatoes and dropped them into the stew, which was heating up in a kettle hung in the hearth, where flames licked its blackened belly. This was a good time for stews, with the root cellar bursting with garden produce. She found a fat cabbage and sliced it into big chunks and added those to the stew. There was still a haunch of antelope Monsieur had shot, and now Therese began to saw it
into stew-sized chunks, and added them to the pot.
Madame kept eyeing her, as if something alien had settled in the Desportes homestead. But Therese ignored all that. She had seen what she had seen and had told her aunt, and what else was there to say?
Ambrose Desportes showed up at sundown. He had been cutting wood against the brutal winter, a task that consumed his every waking hour. There was nothing worse than plunging into a bitter cold day in February with no wood to heat with or to boil a stew.
Monsieur pulled off his leather gloves and vest and eyed the women, who silently served up large bowls of the stew.
They ate in deep silence, interrupted only by Monsieur’s questioning gaze at the women. This meal was unlike the other, affectionate ones at the Desportes table.
“So, what passes?” he asked.
“Therese has something to tell you,” Madame said.
Therese started in boldly. She had no fear. She was telling the truth, and that was all that mattered. She was even enjoying it. No such thing had ever happened to her, and she intended to milk it for all it was worth.
Monsieur ate slowly, and sometimes his jaw stopped the mastication, especially when Therese was talking about transparent heavens and the scent of roses, all of which raised the bushy black eyebrows of the master of this farmstead.
He asked no questions. He didn’t interrupt. He listened quietly, nodded, stared at the rafters, pushed his bowl toward Madame, indicating he wanted another serving, and finally simply stared at Therese.
“How will you build a church?” he asked. “Can you dress stones and cut beams?”
“I will do what was asked of me, monsieur.”
“Of course. You will inspire carpenters and stonemasons and build the church. And where will this be?”
“In the village of Lewistown.”
“That is a good place. That is where the Métis are collecting. This saint of yours, she knows a thing or two. Why did she choose you?”
“That is not anything I can say, monsieur. She came to me in brightness and asked me to do this thing.”
“I suppose you’ll be leaving us, then. How will you survive, eh?”
The First Dance Page 6
