A small hand wandered over his chest, followed by more movement. He ignored it. But then someone kissed him soundly, a long, lingering, sweet kiss that settled on his lips, while the small hand caressed his scruffy beard and played with his grimy hair.
“I’m Clothilde,” she whispered, “and you’re my husband now.”
“No he’s not,” said another voice, and there was a violent tug. Clothilde disappeared, and someone else was attacking.
“I’m divorcing you all,” Dirk said. “I want to sleep.”
“You can’t marry us and divorce us the same hour. You have to wait until morning,” a sweet voice said.
“I’m already married,” Dirk muttered. “Her name is Therese. Father LeBoeuf married us just a few weeks ago at Miles City. So you’ll all have to wait.”
“Therese Trouville,” said a female voice that sounded more maternal. Maybe it was Beauchamps’s wife. “I know who she is. Good family. We are cousins.”
“All Métis are cousins. That’s because everyone marries everyone.”
He didn’t care what he said. He just wanted to sleep. He had come a long way, in cold, that day.
“C’est vrais,” said Beauchamps. “These are country marriages. Madame and I, we have a country marriage. We marry and pretty soon the church gets around to blessing it. We have four daughters before the church comes around. That is the way of the Métis. Pretty soon a priest shows up and says the words, and we’re married for good. But up until he comes, we have our country weddings. Like now. You can marry or not marry or try another, just like I say. You can try out one, and try out another tomorrow, petite country weddings, eh?”
“I’m devoted to the Coyote,” Dirk said.
“Coyote!” whispered a voice. “You are a bad man.”
“I am a friend of the owl,” he said.
“Owl! Why didn’t you tell us! Owls are bad luck,” whispered the voice nearest to him.
“I am a heathen,” he said.
“Then the church won’t marry us to you,” said another voice.
“Bad luck,” sighed some young lady or another.
At long last, Dirk did not feel assorted hands crawling over him, and he fell asleep in a few moments.
sixteen
Dirk Skye knew his very presence was burdening these desperate people, and yet he lingered day after day. He wandered up the neighboring gulches and canyons, and found other Métis families living hand-to-mouth, hiding from the United States Army and the gangs of white men roaming the Judith country.
The Métis were surviving on game, but that wouldn’t last long. Their women were digging up any roots they could eat, harvesting berries, hunting turtles, and killing prairie birds, all for the stew pots. The men hunted, always fearful that their shots would alert the Yankees and send the army down upon them. But so far, the Missouri Breaks nurtured and hid them.
Dirk made friends. He traded the bay horse, which the Métis badly needed, for a good elk-skin coat, a hat and gloves, a buffalo robe to sleep in, and a flint and steel. He saddled his buckskin, borrowed a smoothbore musket, and hunted with the men. His horse gave him an advantage over the Métis who headed out on foot. He reached farther into the lonely canyons and was able to return with mule deer and antelope on two or three occasions. But the meat would only go so far among two or three hundred refugees.
He stayed with the Beauchamps, who had no sons and welcomed whatever meat he could bring to the cook pot. The days shortened and the frosts coated the grasses regularly, and the Métis cast worried glances northward, knowing the time of blizzards could arrive at any time, and they had no way to survive for long if they were trapped and shut in. Reluctantly they built fieldstone and mud-mortar chimneys for their sod houses and began laying in firewood. It had been their plan to filter back to their farms, or start new ones, once the army had retired to its barracks. But the army was still out, still patrolling hills and hinterlands, still evicting or catching Métis families, turning them north, and telling them to head for Canada—or face the consequences.
No one was quite sure what might happen if the army found the Métis gathered here, but everyone was certain it would happen sooner or later.
One day, out hunting, Dirk ran across a group of the newcomers, refugees from Saskatchewan who had headed south in May and June, and who now were trapped.
“What are you going to do?” Dirk asked one, named Paul Beaumarchais.
The man shrugged. “Maybe die, monsieur. Some went back. It’s not hard to cross the border but it is hard to take up land. Hard to start over. The British Canadians will not let them settle, and they will wander until a winter storm drops them, and then they will lie frozen for the wolves to eat on.”
“And you? And these people?”
“Wait, Monsieur Skye. Wait and wait and wait. Someday the army will go away. Then we will go south. We will go where it is warm. We will follow the sun.”
“To Wyoming? Colorado?”
Beaumarchais shrugged. “Wherever it is warmer. Wherever there are field mice and birds and rabbits.” He eyed Dirk. “You, monsieur, maybe you don’t know hunger.”
“I know hunger. I also know what it is to have two bloods. They will think you are worse than if you had one blood. Worse than Indians. Much worse than white men. And you won’t speak their tongue, which makes you even worse than that.”
The man grinned. “We don’t think so good of the damn Yankees, either.”
“What will you do if the army doesn’t quit?”
“Freeze to death.”
“I know something that might help. The army isn’t pushing Métis out of the towns. Only out of the open country because the ranchers want the land. If you could filter into towns, like Lewistown or Bozeman City, and find jobs—maybe that would help.”
“Ah! My friend Skye, now you talk. The Anglo-Saxons, they are lazy. We work. We work from dawn to dusk. We walk into the woods with our axes and we cut wood all day and half the night. Chop! Chop! Saw, saw! We take a tree, chop it down, cut it into pieces, and load the pieces. We’re strong. We saw, we cut, we haul the wood. You take ten cowboys and give them work, and ten Métis and give them work, and the cowboys, they don’t do nothing. Half hour, and they quit. They whine. They hurt. They want to go lie down. The whole batch don’t make enough stove wood to keep warm for two days. But the Métis, ten of us go cut dry wood in a forest, and we bring back ten cords of wood ready to burn.”
“Well, why don’t you?”
“Nothing to haul with. We need good wagons.”
That was a formidable barrier.
“I’m thinking maybe I could find men with wagons who’d employ you. Freight companies.”
“We don’t work for nobody! We work for ourselves.”
“Good luck,” Dirk said.
Dirk returned empty-handed that day. Game was getting scarce. The hunters were trying to feed too many people.
That evening Lorenz Sylvestre came looking for Dirk. “You are the one to talk to,” he said. “I need to get to my farm and take something.”
“Your farm? Way down there?”
“Oui, it is worth it.”
“With armed cowboys guarding it?”
“Oui, like I say, it is worth it. You ride your buckskin and I ride a horse I’ll borrow, and we’ll go through the night, and get what I need.”
“This must be something very important, Lorenz.”
“Oui, that’s for sure. Brandy. I got a cask of brandy hid there. We’ll go get my brandy, eh? I’ll give you some. And a few bottles of redeye too.”
“Let me get this straight. We’re going to raid your farm, dodge the guards, and get some booze?”
Sylvestre drew himself up and glared. “What could be more important, eh? What could help the winter go by, eh? Ten gallons of brandy, few quarts of whiskey. Medicine for aches and pains, eh? Happiness for the Frenchies, eh? Hope for the hopeless, eh?”
“That’s a long way, two days each way.”
“If there’s stuff in the garden, we bring it too.”
“We’ll need a packhorse.”
“I got one. And we got some burlap bags.”
“How do you know the cowboys haven’t found the brandy?”
“I got it hid. It’s hid so good my wife, she don’t know where I got it. If she found it, it’d be used up. If my neighbors knew, if my boys knew, it’d be used up. So I got it where nobody knows nothing.”
Dirk stared at the bright sky. “Let’s go. Sleep by day and ride by night. I’d like to know what’s happening in the Judith country.”
“Ah! You a man like the Métis!”
“No, I’m crazier than you to think about doing this.”
“No, you’re more Métis than us!” Lorenzo said.
Within the hour they were outfitted. Métis hovered around them, looking uncommonly cheerful. “You bring dat stuff, I’ll get out the fiddle,” said old Raoul. “We gonna get a dance going.”
Dirk sat his weary buckskin thinking his old man would understand. His pa, Barnaby, was a famous drinker who would share a bottle with his wives and howl at the moon. Dirk thought he was a little like his pa. A hundred-mile horseback ride to recover some booze to warm an October night or two would be something his entire family would celebrate.
Dirk and Lorenz Sylvestre departed amid plenty of well-wishing. There were more Métis gathered for the departure than Dirk had seen in the Missouri Breaks. The moccasin telegraph had been busy. Sylvestre was leading a bony mule with a pack frame perched on it, and a shovel and a dozen burlap sacks tied to the frame.
They followed the Judith River out of the trench of the Missouri, and out onto endless flats, awash in cold moonlight. It was a long, plodding, cold ride. At dawn they splashed across the river to a forested island where they could shelter all day. They scared up a deer but didn’t shoot it with Sylvestre’s ancient carbine. They were back into ranching country and needed to stay hidden. So they picketed the horses on grass, laid out bedrolls, and dozed in the wan sun, seeing and hearing nothing. One could ride for weeks through that country without seeing another mortal.
At dusk, feeling sleep-starved in spite of the long rest, they set out again, working up the Judith River. Now and then they scared up cattle, which snorted and wheeled away. They were riding deeper into the pastures of powerful ranchers. Still, it was a free country, and this was public land.
They worked quietly south, seeing no one. The fall roundup was done and cattle had been shipped. The open-range ranches had slid into a quietness that would not be broken until the first winter storm. Sylvestre took the lead; he was in his own country now and knew how to move silently through rolling grasslands. He steered clear of the main two-rut lane to his farm and managed to reach a hill overlooking his old homestead at dusk.
There were three ranch hands on the porch, smoking, enjoying the thickening and peaceful evening. Dirk counted six horses in the pen and wondered if these hands each had two, or whether there were more men. The vegetable gardens had scarcely been harvested. The cowboys probably preferred beef. Rows of potatoes, squash, beets, beans, somewhat frost-damaged and browning, spread from the farmhouse eastward.
“It gets dark, you dig; I get the brandy,” Sylvestre said.
“You sure it’s there?”
“I alone know where the cask is.”
“You’ll have it half-drunk before I even see the cask.”
“Maybe you’re right, Skye. I will tell you this: we will take three, four days to get back to our people, eh? We will make sure the brandy is in good condition, eh? We will hide in brush and try it out, eh?”
“You’d better tell me where it is. Just in case something goes wrong.”
“I damn well ain’t going to tell you.”
“What’s to keep the horses from talking?”
“The horses stay here behind the ridge. I’m gonna carry le cask.”
“While I dig potatoes?”
“Then don’t if you don’t want to. Try the root cellar, eh?”
That sounded better to Dirk. He wasn’t sure he’d even see any potatoes he dug up on a dark night.
Then some visitors showed up, clopping along the trail to the farmhouse. Three more on horseback. There was light enough left so Dirk could see the newcomers were cowboys, with big slouch hats and holstered revolvers.
The newcomers ran their horses into the pen, unsaddled, and settled on the broad porch with the others even as night descended. Dirk watched them light cheroots, and watched the tips glow orange, and then watched the whole lot go inside. A lamp flared, and Dirk could see the newcomers toss bedrolls into corners. After a while, it became clear how this night would go. The ranch hands had settled around Sylvestre’s kitchen table and were playing cards and sipping brown stuff. There would be some monthly wages traded before the evening ended. And the game would last most of the night.
It was black and chill now, and Sylvestre was ready. “You go fill some sacks; I’ll get the brandy, eh?”
“If there’s trouble, I’ll meet you on the Judith River, up two or three miles,” Dirk said.
Sylvestre grinned. “Trouble? They’re getting sauced in there. We got the night to ourselves. Yeeow!”
seventeen
Dirk felt a little foolish, but fun was fun. He slipped past the homestead with the poker players studying one another and reached the root cellar. He found the door and opened it slightly. It squawked. He eased it farther and peered in. The interior was pitch-dark, and finding any edibles would be a joke. Who could say what was in there? Rattlesnakes, maybe. He glanced behind him. The moon hung just below the northeast horizon, lightening the sky, but it would be a while before it would cast its pale beams into the cellar. He eased the door shut and decided to fill his empty burlap bags from the garden.
He didn’t know where Lorenz Sylvestre had made off to; this was the man’s homestead, and he could probably find his way around in pitch-black. Dirk stumbled, heading past the pen, and knew every horse was staring at him. But so far, that was not important. He found the garden and found squash that the cowboys had ignored. Well, he’d take some food back to the Missouri Breaks, anyway. The moon topped the horizon now, fat and yellow, casting its jaundiced light across the whole place. He saw something he didn’t want to see: Sylvestre leading that bony mule with the pack frame on it, the cask of brandy firmly nestled into the crossbuck.
And every horse in that pen was staring at Sylvestre and his mule.
The mule started it. He lifted his snout and whickered.
Three of the cowboy nags whinnied. The others snorted.
Sylvestre’s mule cut loose with a long, loud blat and some snorts.
The light in the cabin died, swiftly snuffed by the cowboys. Then the cowboys tumbled out the door and spread out on the porch, some of them rounding the house and heading for the pens. Two of the cowboys were armed; maybe more. It was hard to see anything in the shadowed porch.
Sylvestre trotted toward the slope, his mule behind him, the cask bouncing on the back of the mule. Dirk kept low, abandoned his squash, and dashed toward the safety of the ridge and his tied-up buckskin.
The cowboys were shouting, “There! Something over there!”
A shot. Two more. Lead hit something hard. Sylvestre abandoned the mule and ran for the ridge, as Dirk was doing. The mule picked up speed and soon passed Sylvestre, topped the hill and vanished beyond the rim.
Dirk heard a couple more snaps and some distant voices. He sensed that the cowboys didn’t know what they were shooting at and didn’t much care. Most of them stood on the dark porch, studying the surrounding country, which was more and more visible in the light of the rising moon. Dirk didn’t tarry; those cowboys would shoot anything that moved.
He slipped over the ridge to safety, and moments later his Métis friend did too, and the two stared at each other, and at the mule, which had joined the horses down a bit. Had they made it?
Sylvestre was smiling so broadly Dirk could se
e his teeth white in the moonlight. They climbed onto their mounts, and Sylvestre picked up the lead line of the mule, and they rode hard and didn’t slow until they had topped the next ridge and could escape.
“Ah, monsieur, this is a moment of joy! A moment of revenge! A moment of paradise,” Sylvestre was saying. Now that they were more or less free, he was becoming talkative. Dirk wished the man would hunker low and stare at a night-world filled with menace.
The moon continued to climb, and the moon-shadows shortened.
They reached the Judith River and forded it, hoping to shake anyone following. The cowboys were good trackers and would follow as soon as they had daylight. Then Dirk headed north through the brushy bottoms and forded again, reaching stony ground that would leave no tracks. They continued for miles more, hiding their trail wherever they could, and finally spotted a brush-choked island ahead, where the river braided.
“Ah, Monsieur Skye, I think the time has come for a delectable repast, a chance to enjoy the fruits of our adventure. There rests the cask, fat and heavy, groaning with cheer. Don’t you agree?”
Dirk decided he wouldn’t mind that one bit. They slipped into the river again and worked upstream for half a mile in shallow, hock-high water, and then climbed a bank and onto the island. It looked just fine. The brush stood high enough to hide the horses; and there was cured grass everywhere for the weary nags.
The night had grown chill. Dirk slipped off the buckskin, and Sylvestre dropped from the bay, anticipating a medicinal hour of refreshment and rest. In fact, Dirk had been anticipating this moment for most of the night, and now it would come to pass.
Dirk heard a moan that rose out of the earth and gained volume and ended in a wail. “Sacre bleu!” Sylvestre whispered. “Sacre bleu!”
Dirk headed his way. The mule with the cask lashed to the crossbuck stood patiently. But Sylvestre was groaning, slapping his forehead, and emitting something that sounded suspiciously like sobs. He pointed.
The First Dance Page 11
