The First Dance

by Richard S. Wheeler

  “Will you help me build my church?”

  He smiled. “Who knows? Churches ruin people, eh?”

  She was weary. Here was a bed, of sorts, in a cabin owned by a Métis, of sorts, with a shred or two of virtue, of sorts.

  “I must take care of my donkey,” she said.

  “I’ll do that. You start supper. At sundown, my boys will return and will be hungry.”

  He vanished outside. She stared, wondering what she had gotten herself into. She would soon be enslaved, compromised, and ruined. Or maybe not. If he misbehaved, maybe he’d be the ruined one. The odd thing was, she welcomed the test of wills. The heathen versus the pious woman. The libertine against the virgin. She could not imagine why she didn’t just walk away, but she had no intention of that. And besides, Armand Trouffant intrigued her. She’d never met a rascal before, and now she probably would meet three.

  She eyed the miserable stove, with a pot half-filled with dried, caked something or other. She didn’t trust it, so she took it out and emptied it in some bushes. She’d start some soup, if she could find any ingredients. Soup was the heart of most Métis meals. Soup could be made of most anything and turn out just fine.

  She found a nearby creek and rinsed the pot in it, and then set to work. She discovered no meat, but there were carrots and squash in a root cellar, and those would have to do. But first, a fire. She collected some kindling and some shavings, and started to lay the combustibles in the stove.

  “I’ll do that,” he said.

  She whirled. Trouffant was carrying a slab of meat as well as some onions and potatoes.

  “Good,” she said. “We’ll have a stew.”

  He set the food on the table and laid the fire in the stove, and lit it with a lucifer. A flame swiftly rose in the stove, and she felt its heat rising through the cast-iron top.

  “Madame, we’ll help you build your church,” he said.

  “You? The heathen?”

  “This is the most important thing to come upon us. My sons and I, we will build it.”

  “With field stone?”

  “Non, madame, log. Many logs. Hard work. And we will get others. We know a few. But we will make the church rise up, just like in your vision. And maybe that will rescue the people like us, eh? You are a special one, touched by something, eh? Who knows what is the truth. I don’t. I listen to Cree elders, I listen to priests and French elders, and I don’t know anything at all. But you came here, sent by Saint Therese, and I scratch my head and say, good enough. We’re going to build that church, eh?”

  She began peeling onions, stripping away the brown husks, and then cutting them into pieces, weeping all the while.

  “It is not the onions,” Trouffant said.

  “It is the onions!” she snapped.

  thirteen

  Dirk Skye watched the horsemen vanish in the west, taking his two horses and his pack with them. It was very quiet. He stood on a two-rut road across a vast basin brimming with lush grasses, cured brown now. Lewistown was far to the east; Fort Maginnis quite a bit farther. Here were a few open-range ranches, a few farms owned by Métis—if anyone was still there—and an overarching silence.

  He might, if he hiked all day and much of the night, alight in Lewistown, where he would get no succor and be taken for a vagrant half-breed, unwelcome in any establishment even if he addressed the occupants in good English. If he hiked another long day he might arrive at the fort and could get help, at least until they heard that Captain Brewer had done the unusual thing of discharging him during the middle of operations.

  He studied the hoofprints in the dust, looking for anything that might make them unique in the crush of prints, and he did find a few things. A shoe that dug deeper on the left; a horse with large cleated shoes. Then he started west. The roving cowboys were going somewhere, so he would go that way too. He would probably end up hungry, but he knew a few things about living off the land gotten from his father and might keep himself fed.

  This trail was familiar to him. One branch wound south toward White Sulphur Springs. Another plowed toward Great Falls. The whole area was open range, where branded herds sometimes intermingled and were sorted out in the fall in great communal roundups. Maybe he’d end up at a ranch this night. They were more hospitable to strangers than towns. They even welcomed mixed-bloods—sometimes.

  This country was riven by cold creeks, and at each one he drank gratefully. He hiked slowly west, studying the prints in the dust, keeping an eye out for the cleated shoes, as well as the prints of his own horses. It was not hard. So long as it didn’t storm, he would have a trail he might follow.

  He forded a shallow creek and stopped to have a bite to eat. He pulled up cattails, washed the muck away from the knobby roots, and then cut the roots into small pieces with his jackknife. The bits of root tasted terrible, but they were almost pure starch and would sustain him. Then he continued, harvesting occasional berries as he went.

  The heavens were an aching blue and the September sun warm, without the power to scorch him. It would be good to recover his pack as well as the horses, because the pack held a coat against sudden cold.

  He continued in this leisurely fashion through much of the day, and then the hoofprints turned south toward the foothills of the Big Snowy Mountains two or three miles distant. There wasn’t much of a trail now, but the horse with the cleated shoes was heading this way and so were his own. He proceeded cautiously. This was Tomorrow Country, where anyone with a sharp eye could see into the next day. For all Dirk knew, that bunch of cowboys was keeping a careful eye on him and planning a little unpleasantness.

  As twilight approached, Dirk spotted a string of smoke rising quietly ahead. It was time to abandon the two-rut trail, so he slipped to the left and climbed, staying under the brow of a long ridge so he would not be skylined. He rounded a bend and found himself staring at a compact farm nestled in the foothills. There were extensive gardens and a log home with a generous porch and fieldstone chimney. There was a large woodpile. The owner had cut a large supply of cordwood. There was only a small pen, suited for two or three animals, but within it were seven horses, including his own two. Saddles were strung over the rail. He supposed his packsaddle and saddle were too, but couldn’t see well enough to know. Beyond the pen he saw a broken cart, a wheel missing, lying in weeds. He looked for a dog and saw none.

  This was a Métis farm, not a ranch building. But the occupants were cowboys from one of the ranches, and it was a good assumption they were occupying the place to drive away the owners should they return. A rancher was usurping the farm.

  Dirk studied the surrounding country, looking for telltale graves, clay mounds, with markers—or maybe without markers. He saw none. The light was failing. He eyed the horses, three of which were staring at him. He located the gate, which was wide and would probably squeak loudly if he opened it. Everything the Métis built squeaked because they used wood.

  His knowledge of the ways of the Métis might help him here. The pen would likely be bound together with rawhide which had been applied wet and allowed to dry to iron hardness. With a little patience, Dirk could cut through it and remove the poles from the rear of the pen—if the horses would not take alarm and bring cowboys boiling out of the log house.

  He would try it. If he could not find his own saddles in the dark, any other would do. He might have to leave his pack. Getting the packsaddle and pack on his second horse would be pushing his luck to its limits. Maybe he could settle for a few items in his pack—if he could find it: his coat, the revolver, a bedroll.

  One of the cowboys emerged from the cabin, lit a smoke, and sat down on the lip of the porch. He was followed by another, and a third. One of them tossed a cigarette aside, a small arc of orange light. Dirk thought he saw a fourth head for the outhouse in the murk. There was no dog.

  The cowboys drifted inside. A lamp flared briefly and died a few minutes later.

  Night settled and he felt the cold eddy out of the mountains
. He knew enough to wait. It would be hours before he could move. He heard a distant wolf and an answering bark not far away, and smiled. The wolves seemed to be a good omen.

  An hour passed. A cowboy materialized on the porch, did something, and vanished inside.

  The chill intensified. Dirk stretched, worked his muscles to keep them limber, and waited. A quarter moon rose, supplying some needed light. He was in luck. There was just enough light to see what he was up to. He waited some infinity longer and finally stretched his aching body and began a quiet trek toward the farmhouse. The moon vanished behind a cloud, and he proceeded in blank darkness. He bumped into the pen, stirring the horses. He felt along the top pole to the post, felt the rawhide binding, and felt the bindings on the middle and lower poles. He sawed away the bottom two, easing the poles to the ground. Then he cut the bindings at the other side and removed the poles. Only the top pole remained in place. The horses didn’t move. It was too dark to tell which were his own. He explored the top pole clear around the pen, stirring the horses a little. He saw nothing moving at the farmhouse. He found a saddle, but knew it wasn’t his; this one had basket weave stamping on the skirts; his didn’t. He found other saddles and narrowed the choice down to two with smooth skirts. His was not a stockman’s saddle, and it took only a cursory sweep of his hands to decide which one was his.

  Now the tricky part. He needed his own bridles, and there would be no time to adjust someone else’s to his horses. He found none at all on the top pole, and realized they were all hanging over the porch rails at the log farmhouse. He was nerving himself to head that way when the moon reappeared, making everything suddenly bright. He spotted his own bridles, which were less gaudy than the cowboys’ and scooped them up carefully, retreating to the safety of the pen, where the horses continued to stir. He bridled his bay and then the buckskin, saddled the buckskin, and led both horses to the far side of the pen, where only the top pole remained. He sawed that free with his knife, set it aside, and led his horses out. The other horses followed. He led his toward the ridge, rather than the road out to the valley, while the ranch horses stopped to graze.

  He found himself in the extensive vegetable garden. A heap of empty burlap bags lay on the grass. Good enough. He stepped off his buckskin and loaded a sack with squash. He cut a neck hole and armholes in two other sacks and pulled them over his head. They would do for a coat as long as the wind didn’t blow. He grabbed two more sacks for future use, stepped into his stirrups again, and rode toward the ridge. Just about then the light failed again, which suited him fine. He topped the ridge and set off toward Lewistown by dead reckoning, sensing only that the Snowy Mountains were on his right.

  He had some decisions to make. Report to Fort Maginnis, as directed by Captain Brewer? Some good might come of it. He might be able to reoutfit. Head for Miles City? He had no reason to return there. She was gone.

  He moved quietly through the night, pondering his fate. He felt like giving the bay a free rein, and let the horse take him wherever it chose to go—which would be to the nearest lush pasture. This Judith country was probably the finest ranch land in all the West; certainly in the West he knew. And that was why the Métis were being driven out. Why lordly ranchers like Harley Bain were stuffing cowboys into the homesteads of the evicted Métis. Keep them out!

  He stopped the bay. The sky had cleared off, and now the whole bowl of the heavens glittered above him. He found his namesake, the North Star, the Star That Never Moves, in the stories of his mother’s people. It was time to be North Star. Sometimes he was Dirk, loving his father and his father’s European world. But now his mother’s blood was riding his veins, coursing through his heart, pumping through his arms and hands and feet and legs. The mixed-blood Métis could well be his people, no matter that he was Shoshone. He would come to them, bond with them, do what he could for them. He would try to undo everything his employer, the army, had tried to do.

  Then he laughed at himself. He lacked an outfit. He was wearing burlap. He had no weapons, little food, some loose change in his britches. He had only a passion for justice, and a tenderness toward those uprooted wretches whose lives and dreams were being destroyed. He knew then, in the icy cold of an October night, what he must do. If the Métis had been driven toward Canada, then he would head north. If they were hiding from the army, it might be in distant mountain islands rising out of the great plains, such as the Little Rockies to the north. Or the Highwoods. Or maybe the Missouri Breaks, those mysterious canyons so remote that few had seen them, where the hunted could hide.

  He would head for the Missouri Breaks and somehow find a way to help these people, and help himself. He knew intuitively that’s where he would find these refugees. The breaks stretched deep into the prairies back from the Missouri River. They twisted every direction, and branched into a thousand side canyons. They offered game, water, shelter, fish, concealment, firewood, and safety. And even escape down the river, if it came to that.

  He suddenly felt just fine. The pall of indecision lifted, and he spurred the buckskin north, straight toward the North Star, riding through a night so thick he could scarcely see where he was going. At the earliest crack of dawn, he stopped at an icy rivulet for a rest. He let the horses graze and pulled a squash from his sack. With his jackknife he sliced into it, cut out a long thin strip, peeled off the rind, and cut the cold hard meat into small pieces, which he could masticate and eventually swallow. Thus did he pursue a breakfast that was surprisingly pleasant, in spite of the lack of coffee or meat or cereal.

  After an hour, with the sky well lit in the east, he climbed onto the buckskin and headed north again. He had gone only a short while when he topped a rise and discovered a ranch close by. He swiftly backed off, not wanting to skyline himself. A column of smoke rose from a kitchen and another from a bunkhouse. He eyed the place, knowing there would be dogs, but saw none. He was much too close, so he rode a wide circle around the ranch, crossing numerous horse trails where the riders had fanned out to do a day’s work.

  Ranch life was varied. Some days the cowboys worked hard, especially during calving, branding, castrating, and shipping. Other times, the cowboys seemed almost to loaf through the days. Some of those who toiled endlessly, such as farmers and woodcutters, thought that cowboys were lazy, riding horses all day and doing very little to exercise their muscles. Dirk thought it would be an easier life than bucking a plow, weeding, or cutting wood.

  He continued north, struck the Judith River, and followed it as it wound toward the Missouri, through rough, anonymous country. Here were places where men with secrets could keep them.

  At the nooning he worked more of the squash into bits and downed them. He found some prairie turnips and harvested them, adding to his sack. He had the feeling at times that he was being watched but he saw no one, so he rode wearily onward, toward whatever destiny lay in wait. Somewhere ahead would be an invisible border between settled country and wilderness, and deep in there somewhere would be the people he wished to reach.

  fourteen

  Dirk rode toward Canada. He was on a road to nowhere. He had no good reason to go north but neither did he have reason to go south or west or east. He told himself he wanted to help these people, but in fact he was the one needing help. He tried to list what he could do for them and it amounted to nothing much. He knew the English-speaking world and could interpret it for these French Canadians. But mostly he rode north simply because his heart drove him north; there was no logic in it. Who had said the heart has its reasons which reason knows not of? He couldn’t remember. Pascal, maybe.

  He sawed off pieces of raw squash and masticated them one after another, but felt more and more starved. He found occasional buffalo berries and cattail roots to vary his intake. But nothing allayed the deepening need in his belly. He wanted meat; a buffalo rib, sizzling hot, dripping fat. But the buffalo were gone. No one had seen a buffalo for years.

  The weather turned. Gray clouds with iron bellies scudded over and l
ashed him with rain. His two layers of burlap were no defense against it. He rode into the Judith bottoms, looking for shelter in the willow brush or perhaps deep in the roots of a cottonwood. He was plenty cold, and getting more so every moment.

  A noble bronze-leafed cottonwood beckoned. He rode that way as icy rain smashed into him and found what he was looking for: giant roots splayed outward, with deep hollows between. Swiftly he cleaned debris out, unsaddled the buckskin, unfolded the saddle blanket, wrapped himself in its blessed warmth, and wedged himself in. He lacked a picket line or halter for the horse, and ended up holding on to the reins.

  “Sorry,” he said.

  The back of the buckskin, and also the bay, had blackened with rainwater.

  But he was in a good spot, leeward of the drenching rain, under the canopy of yellowing leaves that soon would tumble to earth. He saw no break in the lowering clouds, and knew this ordeal would not end soon. He could have ridden south. He could be on his way to Crow Agency, where he was known. He could have started for Bozeman City. He might have found menial employment there, maybe swamping a white man’s saloon where he could not legally have a drink. Something for his belly, anyway. He eyed the burlap sack of squash, thoroughly blackened now with rain, and decided simply to wait. He was more or less dry, and the thin warmth of the saddle blanket sufficed.

  It all called to question why he was in a remote river bottom, hiding from the drumming rain, en route to—what? To the Métis, of course. But why? He was a well-educated man with English running in his veins; he knew Shakespeare and Euclidean geometry. He could teach the aborigines. But he also knew the beat of drums and feared Owl, the most sinister of all creatures in his mother’s world.

  He was puzzled with himself and accused himself of following impulse rather than setting a rational goal. The honest to God truth was that he was adrift and hadn’t the faintest idea how to take command of his life.