Somewhere off to the north would be Fort Maginnis. Somewhere ahead would be a low pass that would take a traveler from this high plains country into the Judith Basin, where it was said that grasses grew up to the belly of a cow, year after year. But she saw no soldiers, nor any gangs of armed cowboys. She had expected to see the signs of trouble everywhere; Métis families, leading their oxen north, soldiers, refugees, the poor and lame, struggling along, gangs of these cowboys, adding to misery. Instead she hiked along an empty trail, her peace interrupted only by the occasional alarms of crows. If there was war here, it was swallowed by the land itself.
But late that day she did discover traffic. Ahead was a man sitting in a glowing black-lacquered carriage drawn by two trotters. He plainly was waiting for her. He sat comfortably, holding his hot-blooded horses at bay, his carriage more than ample for his every need. She saw he wore a black suit, a white shirt with a string tie, and a black flat-crowned hat. He had dark muttonchops but no mustache, and eyes that followed her every movement as a predator’s might.
She hoped merely to walk by with a nod, keeping her donkey firmly in hand as she passed the bay trotters. But it was not to be. Even as she nodded and started to maneuver past him, he urged the trotter forward until they were athwart the trail. She halted, wary of this man. He examined her as one might examine a carcass of beef, for weight and heft and marbling of the meat. She didn’t feel herself in immediate danger, yet she sensed that this powerful man could casually change her life, and do so whether she wished it or not.
“Métis?” he asked.
He was reading her dress, which was certainly typical of the subdued skirts and blouses of the womenfolk. There was more, of course. Her flesh equally revealed her Cree and French bloods. Her blue eyes told him she was not a full-blooded Indian. The ring on her finger bespoke a Christian marriage. The duck-cloth panniers on the donkey were not what full-bloods would employ.
She chose not to answer. Let him think she didn’t understand a word. That she spoke only the dialect of her people.
“I think you understand me perfectly well,” he said.
She gave no sign of recognition, thinking this would pass if she was patient.
“I wonder what to do with you,” he said. “I have several choices. Perhaps you could tell me what to do. You’re here illegally, of course. You’re a refugee from Canada, where your people caused endless trouble. Well, what do you think?”
She was able to translate that well enough. She couldn’t speak his tongue well, but she could sound out each word and put it into her own tongue, so long as he didn’t talk swiftly. And he was a leisurely man. And one totally in control.
“You understand perfectly, madam. It’s in your face. One choice would be to confiscate the jackass and pack. Then you’d be without means and nature would soon relieve the United States of a small problem. Another would be to deliver you to the army.”
“Please do,” she said. “Fort Maginnis. My husband works there.”
A faint smile lit his saturnine features. “I knew it,” he said. “Your husband works there, does he?”
She nodded.
“That’s peculiar,” he said.
“A civilian,” she said.
“Ah, now it is clear. Well, tie the mule behind, and I’ll drive you there.”
“I will walk.”
“You will ride, madam. I would not think of depriving an army wife of amenities.”
“I wish to walk. You will forgive me,” she said.
“No, I think I would like to learn more about you. And your squaw man.”
She slapped him.
He rubbed his cheek and smiled. “Ah, some fire in the squaw.”
She tried to slap him again, but he blocked her small brown arm. She saw her chance and led the donkey around the trotters.
“An entertainment, madam, a story for the campfires.”
She did not turn around, but felt herself flinching even so. Nothing more happened. After a minute she did turn around and saw him driving away, continuing his passage in the other direction. She knew, even without proof, that this man would make every effort to keep her church from rising. And would rue the day he let her pass him by.
Someday soon she would find out his name, and remember it.
She was sorry she had alluded to Dirk. It was deceptive. He was not her husband except in name only. But it had spared her further trouble and had surprised the man too. So she pardoned herself for deceiving him.
Ahead the road showed evidence of much use; there were ruts, the grasses were ground down, and horse droppings were scattered everywhere. She came to a branch and realized the heavily used trail would probably lead to the fort, where she didn’t really wish to go. She took the less worn trail, hoping she wouldn’t run into Dirk. He must be somewhere nearby.
The trail wound through pine forest, past rushing creeks, and through small parks where sun streamed onto meadows. But now she saw things that wrenched her. A broken-down Red River cart, its axle shattered, lying in pieces in tall grass. A skeleton of an ox, its bones picked clean. And then a new grave, the earth mounded over the body. At its head was a small cross wrought from two limbs, with a little pewter crucifix appended to it with thong. She paused, aching to find a name, but could see none. These wayfarers had been hurried away. From that point clear to the Judith Basin, she discovered constant signs of strife: an abandoned McClellan saddle, broken in two; a leather case, probably for field glasses. A blue campaign hat. Brass cartridges. Had there been shooting here, at the ford of a creek?
Here too were ruts where the rawhide-clad wheels of the ox carts had dug deep into the soft clay. She found a small petticoat, and a worn moccasin, and an empty burlap bag which she salvaged. Cloth was precious, even burlap. She came upon another grave, this one utterly unmarked. Was it one of her people? A cowboy? An American settler? It too was fresh; the clay had barely settled, and rain had not yet smoothed its surface.
She began a long descent, and the piney woods thinned and surrendered to grassland. She found herself in a valley hemmed by the most beautiful uplands she had ever seen, and knew, from things she had learned earlier, that this was the eastern edge of the Judith Basin, and the prospect would become even more beautiful with every step west. Still, in this entire leg of her trip, she had seen no one. But the signs of tragedy she discovered everywhere were telling her that she walked through a vale of tears.
From the brow of a hill late in the afternoon, she discovered the village of Lewistown, which had bloomed only since the Americans had quieted the Sioux and Cheyenne a few years earlier. She was able to see the town below, nestled snugly on a good creek, a string of false-front stores largely built of logs, a scatter of wooden homes with steep shake-clad roofs. Chimneys constructed of fieldstone and mortar leaked smoke. The place seemed preternaturally quiet. A ranch wagon was parked on the sole business street. Two or three saddle horses were tied to hitch rails.
It would be a beautiful place for a church. Fingers of green seemed to reach right into town, nurturing it. The mountains on the east and south supplied water and wood. No wonder her people had chosen this place over all others to resettle.
She spotted what was probably the wood yard of Armand Trouffant east of town just as she had been told. Stacks of pine logs, limbs, posts, and cut stove wood lay about. She hesitated. Did she wish to contact this man and his sons? She decided instead to continue through the muddy village to the millers on the far side, Poule Blanc and his wife Cherie. She could not say why. She descended the last grade, and into the sunny main street, and now she did see a few people, some of them cattle drovers staring at her with hooded eyes. She didn’t care for them, but no one disturbed her. She discovered several gray board and batten saloons, some with no name at all, others with a crudely lettered sign above the door. The Stockman’s Rest. The Mint. The Whiskey Jug. She saw very little glass; that precious commodity was not yet plentiful in Lewistown.
She felt herself bei
ng closely examined, but ignored the eyes that she knew were peering at her from doors and windows and shaded galleries. Instead, she continued west and was soon at a rushing creek crudely bridged with logs covered with planks. There were two log buildings, one with an undershot waterwheel beside it. The building closer to the road had a crudely painted one-word sign on its front: Blanc. She had reached this remote town, and she had come to the home of a Métis she hoped would help her build her church.
She tied her donkey to a hitch rail and ventured into the building that served as store and home for these people.
She was attended at once by a powerful jet-haired man, as lean and strong as a smith.
“Monsieur Blanc?” she asked.
“Do I know you, madame?”
“Non, but you will,” she said. “I am Therese Trouville, and I have received a vision,” she said.
“Vision! Sacre bleu! Not another,” he replied. “My friend Louis Riel, he had a vision too. His was to return to Manitoba and treat with the British, and lead our people back to their ancient lands. But the church disowned him, saying his prophecy was not true, and then the Canadians hanged him. I suppose you’ll share the same fate,” Blanc said.
twelve
She felt the miller’s soft gaze on her, a gaze that was assessing in nature as if he were looking for signs of madness. Which he no doubt was. Not many Métis women would walk into his rough building and announce that they had received a vision from a saint—and would commence to build a church.
“You are with your husband, madame?” he asked softly.
“I am alone.”
“And you have a place to board?”
“I will find one.”
“There are none here—for respectable women. Have you means?”
“Nothing.”
“You have a family, madame?”
“Oui. My papa, he is Montclair Trouville. My mama, she is Helene.”
He shook his head.
“Our cousins are the Desportes. We have friends, the Lesages. We came after the troubles in Manitoba, and settled in this territory as soon as it was safe, after the Sioux and Cheyenne were defeated.”
“And do they approve of this—enterprise?”
“I did not give them that choice, monsieur. I was instructed by a heavenly apparition to do this thing, and so I came here.”
Blanc stared at her, his fleeting expressions mirroring his inner conversation.
“You have a plan for this church? A churchyard? Masons and carpenters and joiners and ironworkers?”
“Non,” she said.
“A place to pasture that donkey?”
“Non,” she said. “I was hoping to find refuge—here.”
“Madame, my poor household can afford no more boarders. Several of our families, unable to take frail older people, or one or two deformed little ones, cannot take them to Canada, and have begged me for help, and I can offer nothing except a millroom, where there are some bags of grain, some seed, and too many mice.”
“Is there a place there, where I may lay my head?”
“There isn’t, madame. I am sheltering six, no seven, of those driven from their homes by the army, and I cannot feed them except a little flour.”
“Would you need a servant? I am able and healthy, monsieur. I can do chores.”
“Ah, non, my wife and petite ones are crowded into a single room, and I enjoy an excess of labor and am lacking none.”
“Might I do better with the woodcutters—the other Métis?”
The brown-eyed miller drew up straight. “It would not be suitable, madame, with a man and two sons.”
Therese felt herself sagging within. For all of the long walk, the thought of her vision, and building a church, had sustained her. But now she was facing reality. Here was a hostile town, barely tolerating two Métis households, a town of drovers and rowdies, men wearing six-guns, false-front saloons, a town unsuited to women of any sort. And here she was, intending to build a church for her people. She would need land. She would need a plan, and artisans. She would need money to pay them. And while all this was happening, she would need to support herself in some respectable way. And she would need to send word out to the Métis hiding in the countryside that here was their home.
She was hungry and worn. Blanc had been kind but could offer her nothing. She tugged the donkey along and traversed the rude town. It was raw; the main street was little more than muck. The foul cross streets were worse. There were no boardwalks to protect her skirts. But she was used to all that. She eyed the saloons, sleeping in the sunlight, and the hardware and general store, which advertised dry goods and groceries. She saw a blacksmith shop, and a harnessmaker. She spotted a livery barn. She saw no butcher or baker but did see a cobbler and a barbershop. There was a wooden residence of some sort. The general store would have some ready-made clothes, mostly for men; women would have to sew their own. She passed through, safe in sunlight, but at night this place would be dangerous for a single woman. Her silver ring would not spare her and her mixed blood would only invite unwanted advances. But for the moment, with a single wagon parked on the street, and a couple of saddle horses at hitch rails, it was serene.
She continued on to the wood yard and turned in. Here were heaps of firewood, cut and split and drying in the warmth. She discovered mossy logs that had been hauled by wagon to this place. She saw axes and long two-man saws, and a grindstone operated by a treadle, used to sharpen all the blades and axes and saws.
The rude log cabin seemed barely large enough for Armand Trouffant and his sons; there could be no place in it for a woman not connected to the family. And yet, she had no other option.
“Mademoiselle?”
She turned, discovering a blocky dark man in his middle years, with great mustachios curling from his lips and cheeks.
“Je suis Madame … Skye,” she said, feeling she was using her soon-to-be-jettisoned husband. “You are Monsieur Trouffant?”
He nodded, his eyes roving over her every curve. It was all she could do to stand there, but stand she did.
“I am looking for a safe place to board; I would offer work in exchange.”
“I don’t believe we’ve met, eh?”
“Therese … Skye. My papa, Montclair Trouville?”
“Ah, Trouville! Red River, oui?”
She nodded.
“And he sends you here for what?”
“I came on my own, to fulfill a task given to me … by my name saint.”
He laughed. “My name saint gave up on me years ago. But we salute each other now and then, eh?”
Plainly, he was waiting for an explanation, and she was afraid that when she revealed her purpose, he would laugh her away. But there could be no avoiding this moment, so she started in.
“Monsieur, I have come upon a sacred mission, and I pray your indulgence while I tell you.”
His enormous eyebrows caterpillared up and settled, and he ushered her to some logs suitable for sitting. “You will entertain me here,” he said.
That’s what it would be. Entertainment!
She told him the story of her vision, and he listened with intense concentration and a small, wicked smile. He obviously wasn’t accepting a word of it. She felt a little miffed, and continued piously. She had received a task from heaven above; she would persevere.
“Fantasy,” he said. “Superstition, naïveté, silliness, and probably lunacy too.”
He was enjoying himself. “I believe in nothing. My mama, she believed the Cree stories. My papa, he believed the church stories. Me, I read Voltaire and think all religionists are demented.”
He laughed. “Naïve little thing that you are. And why do you wear a wedding ring, eh?”
“I am married. But I am going to have it annulled as soon as I can hire a church lawyer to plead for me.”
“Who to?”
“Dirk Skye. He is a translator for the American soldiers.”
“Skye? Ah, there’s a name, ma cherie
, known to the whole world, if this one is the sprout of Barnaby Skye.”
“He is. His father was British, but lived here all his days.”
“And you want to abandon the son?”
“I already have. He’s—I loathe him.”
“Come in here,” he said, rising. He ushered her into the cabin. It was dark, it stank, it was filthy. Bunks lined two walls, rude projections from the logs. A kitchen was built around a hearth at one end.
“Welcome chez Trouffant,” he said. “We will hire you to cook and clean.”
“Here?” She was utterly repelled.
“Ah! I will hang some old tarpaulins and you will have your corner.”
“Tarpaulins?”
“Oui, ratty old ones no good for anything else. You live here, keep house, feed me and my sons, and build your church, eh?”
She stared at the layers of grease, at the small room with no partitions, at the single window high up the log wall.
Trouffant was grinning. “Wait here,” he said.
He slipped out and returned bearing an ancient canvas, which he soon hung up to make a dubious wall around a corner bunk. Then he beckoned. “See here. You get a buffalo robe and this, oui?”
“The canvas is full of holes!”
“The better to enjoy you, ma cherie.”
“But I don’t wish to be enjoyed!”
“Well, then just endure it. We will enjoy you even if you don’t wish to be enjoyed. You are young and delicious.”
“But I must keep my virtue, monsieur. What are your intentions?”
“To be as virtuous as you wish, but not a bit more, eh?”
“Is that a promise?”
“My promise is like that canvas wall, madame. It is full of holes, but it will suffice in the meantime.”
She reddened. She had never been in such circumstances. But oddly, she didn’t really mind, if the sons were as entertaining as the papa here. “And will your sons respect my privacy?”
“Not unless you sew up all the holes, madame.”
The First Dance Page 8
