Dirk told them. They collected their tools and plunged into the whirling snow, Therese among them.
There was only Dirk and Father Reilly.
“Leave me be, ye bloody Englishman,” the father said.
“What can I do for you?” Dirk said.
“Ye can go to the hog ranch and ye can get a black bag that’s behind me cot, and bring it quick. It has the things I’ll be wanting.”
The buckskin was miserable and glad to be scraped clean of snow and on the way. Dirk rode quickly. It wasn’t cold and there was little wind, but the snow fell. He found the black satchel just where Reilly said it would be, grained the horse, and started the long ride back, arriving just after sundown on a bleak December eve.
He found Father Reilly sitting, all alone, in the front pew, staring at the altar.
“Tell them that’s homeless and in need, my ranch’s for them all, for any that’s needy, and my hogs are for all, for them that’s got no food in their bellies, and whatever else is needed, they have.”
“Where will you stay?”
“I’ll have a cot in the sacristy, and a little wood for the stove, and I’ll get along.”
“I will tell them.”
“Now leave me be.”
Dirk slipped into the darkness. The snow had stopped and the night was still. He walked to the wood yard, which had become, it seemed, the place of refuge for Therese’s people. They welcomed him warmly, and he told them that Father Reilly had given them the use of his entire place, and that he would find a niche in the sacristy for now.
“He will come to the dance, eh?” Trouffant asked.
“Dance?”
“Of course the dance. What do you expect after the mass, eh?”
Close to six that eve, a knot of the Métis, and Dirk, trudged through the shining snow to the church on the slope, where lamplight spilled through windows. The Métis were dressed as well as they could manage, mostly in tall lace-up boots, leather trousers, woolen Hudson’s Bay Company shirts, sweeping skirts, and bright shawls. Gradually they filled all the pews, which seated far more than anyone had imagined.
When they arrived, they found many others there, including three fiddlers, their instruments out and tuned. There were vessels on the altar and a Latin text. Father Reilly was not evident, but there was light in the sacristy. The Métis continued to drift in, children, elders, the sick and the lame, and more women than Dirk had seen together, all somehow shining and gay. The scent of leather and smoke filled the nave. At a chosen moment, the three fiddlers began, their music tentative and hopeful, and after some unmeasured time, Father Reilly appeared in white vestments except for the Métis sash he wore this hour as his stole. People saw him and sighed. Was this not a miracle? He strode forward, gestured to Dirk to come translate below him, and thus began the first service, a mass and dedication, in Therese’s church.
He saw her settle near the rear, but Trouffant firmly lifted her elbow and escorted her to the front pew, and then sat beside her. And so it went. First a blessing. The Word of God. The Peace. A Prayer. Was this the Pappy Reilly Dirk had come to know? No, it wasn’t. This was some other man bearing that name.
There were things in English, and then Dirk wrestled with the French Métis tongue, and managed to convey most of what the priest was saying. There came the dedication of the church and its naming, Saint Therese, the patroness of the one whose vision brought this church to life, and then a prayer followed, while the fiddlers played its words to life.
Then came the mass, the penance, the sacrament of communion, and Dirk wondered where the host had come from. This was Latin, and for Therese’s people, so Dirk retired to a pew and watched the priest prepare and receive the host, reciting the liturgy, his arms sometimes rising, his hands supplicating, his white-robed back to the people, who all faced their Lord.
It came time for a benediction, an ending, and there the priest paused and faced the Métis people, and with a gesture summoned Dirk once again.
“At this moment, I wish to add a special blessing,” he said. “Madame, please come forward.” He gestured to Therese.
Dirk translated.
The Métis whispered. What a good thing, blessing the woman who had received a mission and had dutifully fulfilled it.
But she came forward, reluctantly, and awaited the blessing, which would of course honor her for all that had happened here, for this church, for this gathering of her people in safety, far from their homeland. She buried her face in her shawl so no one could see it, and she could hide herself even before this congregation of her own people.
Father Reilly beckoned, so she came closer, and finally he placed her next to Dirk, who was increasingly puzzled.
“Now, my beloved people, you Métis who have gathered here to consecrate a church and yourselves. We will bless one other thing this evening. We will offer a blessing to these two, Dirk Skye and Therese Trouville Skye, and upon their marriage, and upon the fruit of their marriage, now and forever more.”
It didn’t require translation. The Métis could scarcely believe what they were witnessing.
The fiddlers played.
Father Reilly offered a benediction, and the fiddles sang.
epilogue
One sunny September Sunday, Father Reilly baptized the sleeping infant boy wrapped in a gray blanket who rested in the arms of his mother. And the boy was christened Barnaby Montclair Skye in that hour, and was named after his grandfathers. The child had the olive flesh and strong cheekbones of both of his parents. The young couple, he in a stiff black suit and starched white shirt, and she in a pleated gray dress, smiled tenderly, and the congregation beyond them shared their joy. But the bronzed young man’s dress was not quite ordinary, for within his suit coat was a gaudy Métis sash, wrapped thrice about his waist and tied there, its tasseled ends dangling below the suit coat. He might have different bloods, but the Métis were his people.
And so it was done. The child carried the European bloods of England and France, the indigenous bloods of Shoshone and Cree, and perhaps a little Scots and Ojibway, but he was an American, wrought from the ideals and visions of many peoples. The baby eyed his parents and the priest, yawned, and returned to its sleep.
There had been a tussle with the diocese, but now St. Therese’s Church was in the fold, the building and land owned by the diocese, the priest especially loved by the congregation, for they had all struggled together. The bishop had not yet visited, but someday soon he would greet his newest congregation.
Its congregation was mostly Métis, and most of them did not speak English, and thus the church stood apart from other congregations in the territory. But that was changing. A parish school had been started, and its young headmaster was the man whose son was being christened. And his mother was the one who had, against all odds, brought these things into existence.
The surrounding country was peaceful, and many of the Métis had homesteaded there, starting family farms or orchards. An all-white jury had refused to convict Harley Bain, but he had returned to his ranch subdued and had devoted himself to a peaceful ranch life. His night riders had fled the country ahead of Major Brevoort’s winter dragnet and were never caught or punished. If the Métis were not widely accepted, at least they were allowed to live in peace and put down roots in their new country. And just being left alone was as much a blessing as anyone could ask.
Later that afternoon, the fiddlers once again tuned their instruments and began the jig, for once again there was life to celebrate. And that young couple, so much in love that everyone saw it, and so brimming with austere joy, danced the first dance with their newborn in their arms.
BY RICHARD S. WHEELER
FROM TOM DOHERTY ASSOCIATES
SKYE’S WEST
Sun River
Bannack
The Far Tribes
Yellowstone
Bitterroot
Sundance
Wind River
Santa Fe
Rendezvou
s
Dark Passage
Going Home
Downriver
The Deliverance
The Fire Arrow
The Canyon of Bones
Virgin River
North Star
The Owl Hunt
The First Dance
Aftershocks
Badlands
The Buffalo Commons
Cashbox
Eclipse
The Fields of Eden
Fool’s Coach
Goldfield
Masterson
Montana Hitch
An Obituary for Major Reno
Second Lives
Sierra
Snowbound
Sun Mountain: A Comstock Novel
Where the River Runs
SAM FLINT
Flint’s Gift
Flint’s Truth
Flint’s Honor
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
THE FIRST DANCE: A BARNABY SKYE NOVEL
Copyright © 2011 by Richard S. Wheeler
All rights reserved.
A Forge® eBook
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC
175 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10010
www.tor-forge.com
Forge® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.
ISBN 978-0-7653-2202-9
First Edition: July 2011
eISBN 978-1-4299-7625-1
First Forge eBook Edition: July 2011
The First Dance Page 27
