The First Dance

by Richard S. Wheeler

  The cask had been perforated amidships, right at its lowest point. The brandy had gurgled out, soaking the saddle blanket, working its way down at the girth strap, and dripping from the belly of the mule. Dirk ran a hand under the belly of the mule, and found wetness there. He was tempted to drink whatever soaked his hand.

  “Sacre bleu!” Sylvestre said. “It is the fate of the Métis. We are doomed. We will become extinct. God has quit us. We will all turn sterile and croak.”

  Dirk untied the straps holding the cask in place and lifted it, hoping to find some brandy remaining—somewhere. But the shot was well nigh perfect, emptying all but a little, and the jarring trip had drained the rest. There was nothing but a faint, enticing odor remaining.

  “So where’s the redeye you promised?” Dirk asked.

  “Those graverobbers found it,” Sylvestre said. “We are as dry as the Sahara. I will die of thirst.”

  “We didn’t do very well collecting vegetables either,” Dirk said.

  “The whole world is against us!” Sylvestre announced. “The heavens are against us. We offended God Himself. We are a doomed people.”

  “What are you going to tell your people?” Dirk asked. “They’re all waiting for the cask. They’ll have people out on the promontories looking for us, and the moment we’re spotted, they will collect around us, and their thoughts will be only upon that cask.”

  Sylvestre groaned. “It is too much to bear. I will not return. I will ride to the end of the earth and tumble off. The visage of Lorenz Sylvestre will vanish forever, and the name given me by my parents will be scrubbed from memory.”

  They didn’t have anything to eat. They had counted on purloining a few vegetables and not even that had worked out. Sylvestre settled on the ground and turned sullen. He glared at Dirk, he glared at the mule, he glared at the empty cask beside him. Dirk knew exactly what was in his mind: eat the mule that had betrayed him.

  “You need to save the mule for food next winter,” Dirk said.

  “Next winter won’t ever come,” Sylvestre said. “There is only now.”

  “You would waste meat.”

  “Who cares, eh?”

  But Sylvestre did not slit any throats that twilight hour.

  Dirk discovered some cattails on the lee side of the island, pulled them up, washed the knobby white roots, and sliced them into tiny bits. He handed them to Sylvestre, who scorned them with an imperious wave. So Dirk gnawed at them. They were miserable, tasteless food, but food even so.

  So passed a miserable night. But it wasn’t raining and the cold didn’t bite.

  They started north even before dawn, with Sylvestre lost in his own dour thoughts. They rode through deep silence as the sun climbed and drove the frost off the brown grasses. They were leaving the Judith Basin when they encountered a black victoria drawn by two trotters, driven by a burly, well-dressed man. Dirk knew exactly who it was. He had seen this man and this rig once before, when Captain Brewer’s column was riding north. It was Harley Bain, owner of three enormous ranches, two in the basin, one east of it, all operating on open range owned by the government.

  Bain sat quietly, his trotters held at tight rein as Dirk and his Métis friend rode up.

  The victoria shone blackly. There wasn’t any road grime on it. The trotters looked as if they had just been groomed. The soft quilted leather of the seats looked inviting. Resting on the seat, next to Bain, was a handsome fowling piece, side-by-side barrels shortened to about sixteen inches, blued to perfection, with a checkered walnut stock.

  Bain said nothing for the moment; not even a greeting. Instead, he was studying faces and cheekbones and the color of flesh.

  Then, staring at Dirk, he broke the silence. “I know you.”

  “Captain Brewer’s column from Fort Keogh, sir. I was the translator.”

  Bain’s black brows arched and settled. “Yes, but I want a name.”

  “Dirk Skye, Mr. Bain. That’s your name, isn’t it?”

  “Son of the squaw man. There are stories floating through the West about him.”

  “Barnaby Skye, sir.”

  “Deserter, womanizer, bigamist, on the wrong side of every white man’s law.”

  Dirk refused to be baited. That side-by-side, no doubt loaded with number ten buckshot, spoke loudly.

  “That one, does he speak English?”

  “A dialect of French.”

  “Métis, of course. He has no business here. Neither do you.”

  “I believe this is public land, sir.”

  “You are not citizens.”

  “What you mean is, we’re not white men.”

  “Exactly. The army came at just the right time. We were busy with the roundup, and that took every man I own, and I hadn’t the means to stop the carpet beetles. But the army did our job. The army was thorough. We’ve cleared the entire country of red men. Except for you. What brings you here?”

  “I think, sir, that is none of your business.”

  “Oh, it’s my business all right. I’ll ask again, and you’ll answer, unless you need additional persuasion.”

  Sylvestre was puzzled. “What is this man, eh?”

  “He wants to know our business.”

  “My business is to turn his carriage upside down and dump him in the river.”

  Bain was smiling. He understood Sylvestre’s dialect well enough.

  “Canada, my friends. Canada. My men are free now. Roundup’s over. We’ve shipped the beef. My men have nothing to do. But I can put them to work. A few of this man’s relatives—they’re all related, you know—are lurking about. It might be fatal to be mistaken for a buffalo or a grizzly bear when my boys go hunting.”

  “Who’s lurking?” Dirk asked.

  “The Mounties tell us that only a few Métis returned. Pity, isn’t it?”

  “You’re in touch with the Mounties,” Dirk said.

  “Of course,” Bain said. “Now, I asked you what your business is here, and you’ve not given me an answer.”

  “Brandy, Mr. Bain. We came to unearth the mother lode, the source of all joy, the fountain of perpetual comfort.”

  “Brandy! Brandy!”

  “Alas, it is gone. This country was the brandy-fountain of the universe, but the spring has dried up, and the brandy is no more.”

  “Brandy!”

  “We came to fill our thirst. We came to load a barrel upon that sawbuck. We came to collect the elixir of the gods, but the spring has been plugged, Mr. Bain.”

  Bain rubbed his hands, tugged at his walrus mustachio, scratched his black hair, and eyed his shining two-barrel weapon.

  “Where is this alleged spring?”

  “Where are the heavenly vineyards, sir? Brandy is grape. Look for grape and you will discover the brandy works.”

  “What does he want?” Sylvestre asked.

  “I want you to ride north and never return. If you return, your neck will fit a noose,” Bain said. “We have our own ways with rustlers. There’s no trial, and things happen very fast.”

  “He says for us to depart this vale of tears,” Dirk said.

  Sylvestre lifted his battered slouch hat, saluted Bain, clamped it down, and started north, leading the mule. Dirk lifted his hat to Bain, smiled, and joined Sylvestre.

  eighteen

  Both of Trouffant’s sons were small and wiry. Therese watched them wheel an overloaded wagon into the yard, put away the ox, and wander into the little cabin.

  “Ah, madame, this is Beau and Martin,” Armand said. “And this is Madame … Skye, is it? who will be helping us.”

  The sons eyed her sharply, plainly astonished by this turn of events. Beau finally smiled. Martin looked sullen.

  Nothing more was said. The boys stared, and then settled at a trestle table wrought from split logs. Therese ladled her stew into whittled wooden bowls and served them. There was no tableware anywhere, and none of these males expected any. She served herself and settled on the floor next to the fire, where she knew a
servant would sit. And they expected it and did not invite her to their table.

  The boys didn’t wait for the stew to cool; they downed it as fast as they could bear to slide it from their bowls into the mouths. They were half-starved, judging from the look of them. She rose, filled their bowls with the last of her stew, and retreated.

  They were eyeing her furtively. They finally finished, wiped their mouths with their sleeves, and studied the cabin in the flickering light of the hearth fire. Their gazes had settled on the ratty canvas wall that would separate them from this woman. Martin, the dour one, eyed her thin silver ring. Beau’s eyes seemed fixed on her breast.

  Trouffant decided it was time to reveal a little more to his sons.

  “Madame has received a vision,” he said, mocking slightly. “She was minding her business near Miles City when Saint Therese of Avila decided to descend from the heavens and bestow a blessing and a task upon Madame here. I take it the apparition was festooned in white linen, and the air was perfumed, and there was unearthly light, eh? Ah yes, a vision. And our madame here was instructed to come to this place and build a church. Mind you, not build a congregation, but a church. With that, the blessed specter marched back up the golden stairs into heaven, and our new friend here, Madame, marched to this place and intends to erect a church.”

  Trouffant was enjoying himself, and pretty soon the boys were too. This was a fine story. One didn’t hear a good story like this but once or twice in a lifetime.

  “Now, Madame’s husband is nowhere to be found, it seems, so Madame is on her own, protected by the vows of matrimony, but not by any husband lurking about. But I assured Madame that she would find protection here, more or less, given a few holes in the canvas that will separate us, and of course I assured her of the full cooperation of the Family Trouffant, which will fell the trees, skin the bark off the logs, and build a church around here, at a place where her divine inspiration directs her to build it. Now, I take it that she has not yet decided upon the spot, but she will put up stakes at the corners and then the frères Trouffant are going to erect this great edifice in honor of Saint Therese of Avila.”

  Beau was smiling and nodding. Martin was glowering.

  “I work from dawn to dusk, until my hands bleed and my shoulders ache. How does she plan to pay us?” Martin asked.

  “Why, that is a matter we’ve only started to discuss,” Armand replied. “I proposed bigamy, and Madame said she’d take it under advisement. She said that the honor of serving the church would more than suffice, and I said we’d take it under advisement.”

  Therese knew she should gather her things and flee, but she didn’t. In some odd way, she was enjoying this, and enjoying the danger of it.

  “I think we should give it a try,” Beau said. “I will want a kiss for every log I bring to the church.”

  She reddened. It wasn’t even proper to talk about kissing. But she enjoyed it anyway.

  “Maybe if we bring enough logs, she’ll decide to talk to us,” Beau continued. “I have yet to hear her voice. What sort of voice has Madame?”

  “I received the vision from above, from God, speaking through my name saint, monsieur. I do not speak with my own voice. If you violate me or disparage my mission, you violate all the hosts of heaven.”

  “That would be entertaining,” said Armand. “It gives a new dimension to being an atheist.”

  “It is for the Métis,” Martin said quietly. “Her vision, it is for our people.”

  “There aren’t any left around here,” Armand said.

  “But if they knew a church was rising just for them, what then?” Martin said.

  She stared at this new Martin, whose glare had subsided. But his gaze lingered hungrily on her face and chest and then her skirts. Martin was the true seducer. The others were just bragging.

  The hearth fire ebbed, and with it the energies of these men. She collected their bowls, took them out to the creek, and rinsed them out, and by the time she returned all three of them had taken to their robes, lying on the shelf beds they had hewn out of wood. That didn’t surprise her. These men toiled until they dropped. That was the fate of the Métis, she thought. Ceaseless toil, just to survive in some small fashion. She eyed them in the subdued light and saw that Martin was watching her. The others had fallen asleep.

  She slipped out again, this time to wash her face in the icy waters, flowing like quicksilver in the moonlight. After she had completed her toilet she returned to the cabin and its pungence of food and sweat and manhood. She could barely make her way to her cloistered corner, but she found the canvas and pulled it aside and settled, fully clad, on the robes that had been offered her.

  She wondered what the night would bring. Her mood was not one of watchfulness or fear or suspicion, but rather surrender. Whatever happened to her this night, it would be something to bear in her mission; something she must endure for the sake of that smile and command she had received that electrifying moment weeks earlier.

  She lay back rigidly, awaiting the brush of canvas and the groping hand. If she was to be a bride this night, at last, then that would be her fate. She had fled from Dirk Skye, so maybe this was all a part of what the stars held for her. But she heard no brush of canvas, and felt no rough hand caressing her or pulling her skirts up. No. What she did hear was a soft snore, which she somehow associated with Armand, not the boys.

  She lay quietly for an hour, her thoughts tracing the memory of Dirk Skye. She drifted into a light sleep, and finally into a restful one, until the clatter of males filled her ears and a thin dawn light filtered into the cabin. She had been no one’s bride that night, and her mood surprised her: she was vaguely disappointed.

  She arose, slid into her moccasins and tied them, and peered out. The men were all dressed and Armand was stirring up something in a pot. She padded past them and outside, cherishing the sweet air and the frosty dawn. The world was clean and cold.

  In time, the young men yoked the ox, gathered their axes and a saw, and rumbled off toward the wooded slopes. Armand began his daily stint of wood chopping, his great axe reducing the piles of deadwood to stove or hearth lengths. He seemed to work without pause, the steady thud of his axe shattering wood. Once in a while she heard the rip of a saw blade, but mostly the thump of his axe. She knew that this was how the Trouffants’ lives were playing out. They toiled ceaselessly, no matter what the weather, heat or chill, snow or blistering sun. They were strong, not just of flesh but of heart. It took courage to spend a life metered by the thump of an axe.

  She needed to wash clothing. Everything she owned was begrimed and worn half to shreds. She had only a few spares of anything, which made her task all the more urgent. The men had no soap and she had no money, but she knew a thing or two. At the cold creek she beat the skirts and blouses and camisole with a makeshift paddle, twisting out the water and repeating the process, and then she spread them over naked bushes, devoid of leaf now, to let the wan October sun and the breezes dry them. Then she returned to the cabin to begin that day’s stew. Her days would be as toilsome as those of her hosts. But she welcomed the work.

  She discovered moldering heaps of their clothing, and set out to wash and mend it, using the same routine on these work-stained trousers and flannel shirts as she had employed on her own. They needed mending, so she approached Trouffant, who paused and leaned into his axe, waiting for her to speak.

  “I can mend your things, monsieur,” she said. “But I lack the means.”

  He smiled, hastened into the cabin, and showed her a stash of thick black cord and two coarse needles. There would be no delicate repairs on any of those trousers or shirts.

  “Bien,” he said, and retreated to the outdoors, where he belonged, and soon she heard the steady whack of his blade splintering off yellow chunks, which he periodically tossed onto a growing heap.

  At midday someone with a high-sided wagon drove into the yard. She watched the driver and Trouffant negotiate, and then the pair of them tossed a
great heap of wood into the wagon. It was not stacked in an orderly way, but simply tossed into the yawning cavity between the high sides. She saw no money, no pay, exchange hands, and the driver turned his draft horse away, and toward town.

  She wondered how many days of relentless toil by the father and two sons had gone into that single wagonload of firewood, and whether they earned much of anything from it from all those English-speaking ranchers and saloon men and storekeepers. It would buy a little food, for men who needed mountains of it to sustain a labor so bitter and hard.

  And so the day passed. By evening, she had another stew simmering, some of the men’s clothing was mended, and her own was dry and stored in her canvas alcove. Once or twice she had retreated there to lie down for a few moments. She cherished her small private nest, the generous buffalo robe beneath her, the sense of safety and sanctity she had discovered in this austere corner.

  At dusk Beau and Martin appeared once again, their wagon groaning under the day’s harvest. She stirred the stew and readied it for them when they entered. They eyed her curiously, but she hadn’t the slightest idea what they thought of her or how they felt about the woman their father had installed in the cramped cabin.

  Still, it didn’t take long for them to discover their cleaned and mended britches on their bunks, or the flannel shirts freshly washed, the worn-through elbows sewn tight. She sensed that whatever else they felt about her, her womanhood, the anguish and temptation she forced upon them, they had at least discovered her utility. A mended shirt was a blessing, especially as winter lowered.

  She served them and again didn’t sit at their table, but sipped her stew seated before the hearth. The men were too weary to talk, and nothing meant more than filling their bellies.

  Then Beau turned to her. “C’est bon,” he said.

  She had found a few seasonings: rosemary, thyme, pepper, basil. Almost anything would improve a stew. The very fact that these work-worn men kept a few spices told her something about them. About the Métis.