The First Dance

by Richard S. Wheeler

  “I have not given it a thought, monsieur.”

  “How do you know this is a true vision?”

  “Madame felt my forehead and there was no fever, monsieur.”

  “The devil leads people into folly.”

  “The Saint was very tender, monsieur. As if she knew what would be placed before me. And how hard it would be.”

  “And you intend to do this?”

  “Oui, monsieur.”

  “It comes from God,” he said. “The Métis need a place to gather. We were driven out of our homes, and our blood lies upon the fields of Manitoba and Saskatchewan, and we are scattered to the winds, family torn from family, friend from friend, and now we are like chaff in the wind. And now this vision comes to this young woman who sits at my table, and it is a good vision. Erect a church, and the Métis will collect around it and make this place their home. It is the gift of God, and he has sent his messenger.”

  Therese stared. She had been expecting derision, or skepticism, or worse, and now her uncle was finding miracles in it, and hope in it.

  “I will help you,” he said.

  He was struggling with himself, even as his hands clasped and unclasped at the thick rough homemade table.

  “Take the donkey,” he said.

  “But, sir, you need the donkey for the plow and—many things.”

  “Take him. What I need more is the knowledge that the people have a destiny, and that God has chosen a place for us to go, and that you, my own niece, has been given this task. Tomorrow we will make a pack for the mule, and we will fill it with the things you need, clothing, moccasins, grain, flour, a thing or two to cook with, and your blankets. If this is what is ordained, my chérie, let it be said that Desportes offered his hand.”

  ten

  Therese Trouville—for so she called herself now that her marriage was dead—left at dawn, leading a grouchy donkey that refused to submit to the will of a woman. But a resounding slap from Desportes improved the donkey’s attitude and Therese walked quietly away, even as her aunt and uncle watched, adding their blessings to her. She turned to look back and saw them standing rock solid, unmoving, as she led the donkey along the worn trail that would take her to the great valley of the Yellowstone River.

  So much had happened in the space of a few hours. Now she was on her way, obedient to the mission that was visited upon her, scarcely knowing why she had been chosen. Why her? Why not someone more qualified? Someone with a deep faith, unlike herself. She had hardly bothered with her religion; it mostly got in her way. But here she was, leading a donkey to a muddy little crossroads called Lewistown, where a few stores and saloons huddled, far from anywhere she knew anything about. It was somewhere near where her husband Dirk Skye might be, and she fervently hoped she would not see him at all.

  The Desportes vanished behind her, and now she was alone, treading the north bank of the river, along a familiar trail that connected smallholdings to the town of Miles City. The village basked in the morning sun, mostly invisible across the solemn river. She hurried on, passing Fort Keogh, white rectangles surrounding a sleepy parade. It didn’t look at all sinister, and yet its soldiers were away on a mission to drive her own people across the Canadian line—just in time for winter. And her husband was assisting them.

  She would seek an annulment. But first she had to build a church.

  The chuffing of a steam train caught her attention. She peered into the hazy valley, and discovered an eastbound Northern Pacific freight, drawing a few boxcars and a caboose. She watched it pass, and then started along the path again. There would be no trains to Lewistown, which was a long way from anywhere. The donkey rebelled for a moment, but she gave the line a hard yank, and the beast settled in. Then it decided to trot past her, and she was barely able to yank it to a halt as it sailed by.

  “The saint has told me to build a church,” she said, “so behave yourself.”

  It yawned and settled into a shuffle that matched her stride.

  She settled that night in a berry patch. She found herself in a damp draw, surrounded by hackberries, chokecherries, buffalo berries, huckleberries, all in thick brush. She wouldn’t need anything else for a supper, and soon was feasting on her bonanza. She picketed the donkey, unrolled her blankets, and settled down for the night, uphill from the moist gulch to avoid mosquitoes.

  The next evening, after a day of lonely travel, she reached Forsyth, a railroad coal stop and little more. From an ancient bachelor who tended the coal and water chutes for the railroad, she learned that from this place a trail swung away from the river and would take her where she wished to go. The old droopy-eyed rogue didn’t look like anyone she wished to be around, so she started off at twilight and hiked until full dark, when she no longer could see, and then she bedded off a way, behind a mound. It was a good choice. She heard traffic pass in the night.

  The next day she traversed open country so vast she could see into tomorrow; she could see so far ahead that she was looking at country she was still two or three days away from. The great plains were endless but never boring; there were cutbanks and springs and hidden valleys choked with cottonwoods. The land had been grazed, but she saw no livestock, and the buffalo had all been shot away. She felt lonely at times; what if she were in peril? There would be no help for her. So she took great care not to disturb rattlers or make her presence known. Only a few years earlier the tribes roamed freely, and there was still a remnant of those people hidden away in obscure canyons or uplands.

  Why would mortals fight over land, when there was so much? There was more here than any reasonable person could use or want, but still it was fought over, and blood had been spilled. The whole of the Métis people could live here without disturbing others. It wasn’t a pretty land, but it would do, and it would support cattle, just as it had supported buffalo. So why was this land so coveted? And why were there wars? She could not answer these things.

  For days on end she saw no one. Sometimes she dipped deeply into the cornmeal and wheat she carried; other times, she feasted on lush berries and all the fruits of late summer which had not yet succumbed to the antelope and deer and foxes and elk and eagles and hawks.

  Her shoes wore out; these had been cobbled, but now she would resort to moccasins, which she could repair as needed. She gained strength as she walked, and the donkey did too. She made sure the beast had ample to graze upon each evening. Once or twice they were stranded without water, but the road did supply most wants and seemed to steer itself toward every spring and seep, and so the miles passed by, and the weather held, with cool evenings and mild days.

  And still she saw not a soul. Off to the south a railroad had been forged across this great land, but here it was as if civilization had never arrived. One afternoon she reached a valley with an oxbow river wending through it, and knew it was the Musselshell. Here she discovered deer and antelope and some wild horses, and the prints of shod hooves that suggested traffic. She settled in a grove of red willow brush and quietly bathed herself in the warm, sluggish water, and thought that it was heaven. She kept a sharp eye for visitors, because she felt vulnerable and without defense. She had no weapon other than a butcher knife. She stayed in that gentle haven a day, mending moccasins, sewing rents in her skirts, letting the donkey feast. It was a good place, and she was on a good mission, and somehow she would fulfill the task given to her by her name saint.

  Soon after that, she found herself drawing ever closer to the Little Snowies, as well as the Judith Mountains, and she knew she was not far from where she would begin to find her people, the ones who fled after several pitched battles fought with the Northwest Mounted Police, or other armies of the ruling English people. The closer she came to those forested slopes, the more signs she saw of human activity: wagon ruts, horse droppings, the cold black ash of campfires, sometimes bones and kitchen waste. But still she saw no one. For two weeks or more she had seen no one. But quite possibly, there were those who were watching her, and sooner or later s
he would find herself face-to-face with—someone. Soldiers? Renegades? Rough and dangerous men, with assessing gazes?

  She muttered swift prayers, often to her name saint asking her protector to intercede and help her complete this strange mission.

  The moment came when she was not far from the foothills. She rounded a bend in the trail and confronted a man. He was simply standing ahead of her, unsurprised and waiting. She knew at once he was one of the people. His bright red and white and blue sash told her all she needed to know.

  “Bonjour,” he said.

  So he knew her to be one of the people too.

  “You know me, then,” she said.

  “Only by your blood. You are very foolish to walk this road.”

  “I’m Therese Trouville,” she said. “And, Monsieur?”

  “I am simply Pierre. That is all for you to know, for now.”

  “It is so bad, then?”

  “You do not know? Are you new here?”

  “I’ve come a long way. My papa, we have a farm far to the east. Do you know Miles City?”

  “Ah, your people fled the Manitoba troubles in the sixties; we here are from Saskatchewan. Come. It is not good for us to stand in this road. We will go there.”

  He pointed to a gulch along the foot of a ridge. She followed, leading her donkey into the serrated countryside, which could hold a thousand secrets. He led her to a shaded area, where alders, just starting to turn gold, crowded the banks of an intermittent stream, now dry. It was a sweet place, sheltered and peaceful.

  “Now then, you walk alone, madame, going from somewhere to somewhere.” It was actually a question.

  “Monsieur, I blush to tell you, for you will not believe a word of it.”

  “Then don’t tell me,” he said.

  That startled her. And yet it was all of a piece with his secrecy. “Then tell me what is here, that I should be wary of,” she said.

  He stared at her, assessing. “Where is your husband, Trouville?”

  “Monsieur, I am barely married and will obtain an annulment. I was wed to a man who is against us, and fled. He is no good anyway.”

  “And his name?”

  “Dirk Skye, or North Star in his mother’s Shoshone tongue.”

  “Against us?”

  “A translator for the army.”

  Pierre stared at the blue sky. “Then I can tell you nothing.”

  This was so shocking to her. A Métis, like herself, saying these things to her. Very well, then.

  “I will tell you my story,” she said. “Even if you will not hear it.” She waited and received only his steadfast gaze, which never left her face. “I live in dishonor among my people. I walked away from a holy wedding. My parents would not have me; I lived with an aunt and uncle. Then I received the vision that brought me here.”

  She saw not the slightest change in him, or evidence of curiosity, or anything that might be taken for warmth.

  She told him of her daily berry hunt, and the red-winged blackbirds, and the heavens so blue and clear that she could see into a different world, and the saint who walked down the ivory stairs, and who was her name saint Therese of Avila, and how this glowing woman in white linen charged her with an impossible and strange task, which was to build a church in the village of Lewistown, where her people were gathering.

  “And you see, sir, I am doing that. I know nothing about building churches. But I will find land and men who can carve beams and dress stone and make windows and big doors. And I will find a way because I would not be asked to do this if I could not.”

  “Who will build your church?” he asked.

  “I will find the men.”

  “Where will you get the land?”

  “I will ask for it.”

  “And who will come to worship if we are all driven away, eh?”

  “Maybe no one, monsieur.”

  “This is a great sign,” he said. “I will tell the people about your vision. We have been waiting, and now the waiting is over.”

  A sign? Of what? But even as she wondered, she knew. It was not just a church of stone and wood she would be building, but a congregation, and that congregation would be her Métis, and the commission she had received was really a promise to her people: build a church and this will be your home. She felt her heart soar.

  “What did you say your name is, monsieur?”

  “Pierre, and that is my name saint you know.”

  She stared at this man, wondering how he spotted her, or knew of her coming, and whether it had happened by design, or whether he would help her.

  “It is like this,” he said. “Our people were defeated by the Mounties this summer, and there were hundreds of families that walked or rode the carts here, because it was known among us that the Judith Basin here would be a good place. There are families living here who came in the seventies. It was because of them that we knew to come here.

  “But the Yankee ranchers never liked it; they grazed their cattle on public land and thought it was theirs to keep, and they have made it hard for us to settle. There have been whippings and burnings and destruction of crops and many terrible things. But our people kept coming, and the Yankee ranchers appealed to the army, and got Fort Maginnis, so the army is doing their dirty work now, driving us out of our homes and farms.”

  “I have heard a little of this, Monsieur Pierre.”

  “They don’t have enough soldiers and this is a very big land. They thought they could evict us and send us on their way to Canada with a warning not to return, and that is what they did, simply driving us from our homes, or stopping new settlers and turning them north. But, madame, there are not enough soldiers to do it. Our people, forced to leave our farms, start north until we’re well away from the blue-shirted army, and then we hide. The Métis won’t leave. We have fled to the hills, and moved into mountain canyons, and settled like me on remote creeks for the time being, but none have returned to Canada. We have runners, and we know where the others of us hide, and whenever the army raids another farm, we help the people. We will stay here, madame, but winter is coming and the times will be very hard. There are not enough soldiers in the entire Yankee army to drive the people back to Canada.”

  “They’re hiding?”

  “Even as I hide, madame. And you are the sign sent to us. We will help you build your church. For this is what every man and woman of the people have ached to see. You are the messenger we have prayed for, the promise that this will be our home forever. The church will rise, and the people will gather.”

  “How did you know to expect me?”

  “A woman among us had a dream: salvation would come with a Métis woman leading a donkey.”

  “She dreamed that? She dreamed of me?”

  “She is my mother. Every day I have waited here for you to come. I will tell her of this thing, and our messengers will fan out across this territory, and whisper these things. The dream was a true dream, and your vision is a true vision, and we will make this Territory of Montana our home.”

  Therese was frightened. Everything seemed a thousand times larger now.

  “I do not know what to do now,” she whispered.

  “Do what you were asked to do,” Pierre said. “Go to Lewistown. It’s a miserable place, with a few stores and a few saloons, and a lot of dangerous cowboys wearing revolvers. But it is set in a handsome valley, and it has ice-cold creeks and plenty of firewood from the nearby forests, and it lies in the heart of the home that is given to us.”

  “I will go, then,” she said.

  “And then we will build our church,” he said.

  eleven

  That homme Pierre, he seemed to know everything, and he shared all that he knew with her.

  “Two Métis families live in Lewistown,” he said. “The soldiers don’t trouble them. It’s only the Métis out on the range who are driven away. Poule Blanc and his wife Cherie live in town. He is a miller and makes flour for the ranches. The other is a widower, Armand Trouf
fant, who is a firewood dealer. He and his sons harvest the forests and supply the needs of the town. They cut down trees, saw logs, cart wood, and do what lazy Yankees won’t do. Go to them. There is no safe place for a Métis woman. You would be fair game for any cowboy or soldier who takes a fancy to you. Poule Blanc lives on the west side of the village, and he and Cherie would find a way for you to subsist safely. Trouffant lives just east of the village.”

  “I have not one centime,” she said.

  “Tell them of your vision, and they would be pleased to take you in,” Pierre said. “Tell them you have come to build a church.”

  “Merci, this is helpful. I didn’t know what I would find there.”

  “There’s more, madame. There are gangs of young men roaming about, making life hard for our people. They are what’s called cowboys, herders of cattle, but the ranchers have set them loose upon us. If you encounter such a gang, you would be in great peril. You understand?”

  “How might I protect myself, then?”

  “I know of no way other than to invoke the protection of God.”

  “It is my fate to do what has been given to me, monsieur. And so I will go to meet my fate.”

  The man she knew only as Pierre gazed sadly. “Adieu, then. Be with God.”

  She tugged the line and started her donkey along the road once again, knowing that Pierre was still there, watching her walk toward her destiny. She had gotten from him some valuable information. Names of families that might offer safety. A warning about what to fear.

  Her donkey trotted along easily, having enjoyed a swift meal while she and Pierre talked. There wasn’t much cornmeal left and she was out of most everything else. She still was three long days from this village called Lewistown, where the Métis had collected. But now she was in the country being scoured by soldiers, roamed by hard young men without scruples, but still populated by the Métis, who lived like ghosts in distant valleys and hidden plateaus.

  With each hour, the mountains ahead grew larger, and the forests on their slopes grew blacker. She had thought that pines were green, but by some trick of light, the pines that covered these slopes seemed to lay a blanket of blackness only to be checked by outcrops of towering rock.