by Darryl Brock
The air was scented with pines and cedars, and the grass came up nearly to the horses’ bellies. A cold spring quenched our thirst and drew kit fox, muskrats and jackrabbits to the little stream flowing from it. The grass was tramped down in places by deer, and Goose pointed out grizzly turds that were old and dried. Mindful of my dream, I stared uneasily at them.
We were half a day’s journey from the Hills. A breeze came up and whispered through the trees that night. I felt the same tugging sensation I’d first experienced outside Keokuk. It seemed to be tugging me now toward those dark landforms.
The goldbugs sat around the fire that night recounting every tall tale they’d heard about the Hills: mountains that shone like glass, so transparent you could see the sky right through them; a forest turned to rock where stone birds perched in stone trees and chirped petrified songs; a peak so steep that water falling down its face evaporated from friction heat. “There’s an echo canyon so big,” one claimed, “that if you yell at sundown, you’ll be waked eight hours later by your own yell comin’ back.”
Linc passed these on to Goose, who deadpanned, “Paha Sapa holds many spirits.”
“Will they help us find Tim?” said Cait.
The question was translated to Goose. Aware that it came from Cait, he ignored her, as usual. From the first, relations between them had been cool. Because of Goose’s powerful odor—Cait said he smelled like rancid grease, which was true enough—and his fondness for tapi, the bloody, dripping raw liver from game, and his habit of stretching long strips of meat from his hand to his mouth, then sawing off bite-sized lengths with his knife, she refused to eat near him.
Which was fine with Goose, who still expressed shock that she failed to prepare our food, failed to wait for us to finish our meals before feeding herself, and refused to walk and ride a respectable distance behind us. He thought it especially outrageous that Cait did not pack for everybody. And inconceivable that she didn’t warm my bed with her body.
On that last item I thought he had a point.
Goose told Linc that Cait had no horse value, which was how the Lakota priced most things: how many horses it would take to get them. A wife generally equaled one horse, which was also the going rate for a shield or war bonnet. Would Cait care to know this? Linc asked facetiously. Probably not, I told him.
That night Goose sat facing the Hills, and we heard the soft sounds of his chanting. Afterward, when Linc gave him some tobacco, the Lakota offered the information that Crazy Horse had been born near Bear Butte, perhaps on the very creek where we were camped. He said it as if it carried great import. Linc waited for elaboration, but none came.
I heard lonely, unsettling, distant wails. Goose had told us that packs of gray wolves prowled the lower ranges of the Hills. On the plains we’d heard only coyotes. Now what were we getting ourselves into? I walked by Cait’s little tent to make sure she was all right. Like the rest of us, she was awake. She beckoned me to sit at the entrance and took my hand again.
“He’s in those hills, Samuel,” she said softly.
Together we listened to the wolves’ howls.
TWENTY-SIX
To our surprise, Goose refused to move on. He said he had to purify himself before entering the sacred Paha Sapa, and to do that he must climb to the top of Bear Butte, which he called Mato Sapa. Linc explained that the pinnacle served as an altar, a stepping stone to the stars and to the unknown. The Lakota people prayed there to attempt to penetrate veils of mystery and look beyond for prophecies and wisdom.
“A huge sleeping bear makes the sides glisten like silver,” Linc related. “Goose is going up there to listen to the bear and other spirits.”
I stared upward, mindful of my dream. In the early light, places on the stark shale slopes did seem to shine with preternatural brilliance.
“We can’t stop now,” Cait protested. “How long will he take?”
Linc told her that it generally required four days, but Goose would try to rush things.
“Let’s go ahead on our own,” she urged.
“Our chances are poor without him,” Linc said. “Part of what Goose is praying for is knowledge and power to help us find Tim.”
Cait looked at me.
I thought of Goose as I’d first seen him and as he was now. There had been notable changes. The Lakota had set about gathering inner strength; he’d become purposeful.
“He’s our best hope, Cait.”
We waited through a seemingly endless day. The goldbugs weren’t happy about the delay, either. Toward evening the temperature cooled, and one of them brought out a baseball. Using a limb for a bat and flat stones for bases, we were soon engaged in a lively game of work-up.
Goose emerged from the edge of the trees and intoned, “Tapa Wanka Yeyapi.”
“What the hell’s he jabbering about?” a goldbug demanded.
“Sacred tossing of the ball,” Linc said. “Very important to his people. He says we’re missing some vital things but he wants us to try it his way, to bring good medicine to the trip.”
“What’s missing?” I asked.
“The ball should be made of buffalo hide and hair,” Goose replied through Linc. “And the first throw should be made by a pure young girl, who represents the buffalo calf.”
“We don’t have either of those,” I agreed. “How about Cait throwing out the first pitch?”
Goose nixed it.
“He thinks it’s good we’re using four rocks, ’cause there are four parts to everything that grows: roots, stems, leaves, fruit.” Linc listened for a while, then went on. “And four kinds of breathing things: crawlers, flyers, four-legged walkers, two-legged walkers. And four elements above the world: sun, moon, sky, stars. And four periods of human life: babyhood, childhood, adulthood, old age. In fact—”
“Jesus, that’s enough!” blurted a goldbug. “Let’s do the damn thing!”
Unruffled, Goose stood about where the pitcher would be and motioned for us to reconfigure the bases. “A circle, not a square,” Linc instructed. “And he says it’s the ball that should travel around the stones—not us. And it goes the opposite of how we run ’em.”
Goose tossed the ball to the westernmost base, then counterclockwise to north, east, south.
“Throws like a dang girl,” a goldbug noted.
Which was true. But Goose did catch the ball deftly and send it accurately to the next base. At length he called us together and said we were all to attempt to catch his next toss. Among the Lakota, the ball represented the universe. The one catching it received a great blessing. He didn’t imagine it applied to us, but you never knew.
The goldbugs naturally figured it meant that whoever caught it would strike gold. Goose lofted the ball up. After a roughhouse struggle, with considerable piling on and elbow-throwing, the ball squirted free and rolled down a slope directly to Cait’s tent, before which she sat watching us. She calmly picked it up, rose to her feet, held it aloft for everybody to admire—Goose maintained his stoniest face—and then cranked up and threw it back for all the world like a Wrigley Field bleacherite. Her throw went higher than Goose’s. Another violent scrambled ensued, with the youngest goldbug finally squirming free with the ball.
“I’m a-gonna be rich,” he declared.
“If you ain’t dead in the attempt,” one of the sore losers declared, eyeing the dark lumps of the Hills, above which thunderheads loomed. “It don’t look friendly up there.”
Using strips of red trade cloth as ties, Goose fashioned a dome-shaped frame of saplings. Inside it he built a fire and heated limestone rocks. When the flames died and the rocks glowed, he stretched tarps over the frame and took canteens inside. Seeing Cait looking on, he waved his hand dismissively.
“Not for females,” Linc translated.
“Whoever thought it might be?” she responded tartly.
Goose asked Linc and me to join him. Fifteen minutes later, squatting naked inside, I seriously regretted having accepted. My eyes and si
nuses and lungs were on fire and my skin was scorched. I could scarcely breathe. Goose splashed more water on the stones. Steam billowed around us. The other two, sweating like crazy, acted as if nothing was wrong.
“If it’s more ’n you can stand,” Linc said with a sadistic chuckle, “Goose says to call out Mitakuye oyasin.”
“What does that do?”
“It means ‘all my relatives’—it’s a respectful way for Goose to cool things down.
Like yelling ‘uncle,’ I thought, struggling to remember the syllables.
Goose launched a long-winded oration on the joys of sweat-lodging, which he said served as a preparation for every other ceremony in Lakota life. Pointing to the dirt scooped out to make the fire pit, he said he hoped that Unci, Grandmother Earth, didn’t feel slighted because we hadn’t fastened tobacco and other gifts to the saplings and put sage on the floor. Because of our great hurry, he’d resorted to halfway measures. But at least the limestones hadn’t cracked. And of course he’d been plenty smart to throw in cedar bark, so that the steam, Grandfather’s Breath, was fragrant, and therefore it—
“Mitakuye oyasin!” I bellowed, causing them to jump.
Linc guffawed as Goose pulled the tarp open and let steam escape. Even so, I couldn’t take any more. I burst through the opening and went kicking and splashing and rolling in the stream like a maniac.
“How’d you stand it so long?” I asked when Linc finally emerged.
“Had some practice.” Avoiding my gaze, he said quickly, “Goose claims the steam helps to get in touch with the Spirit World.”
“Yeah, well, it nearly sent me there direct.”
He grinned and repeated my words to Goose.
The Lakota pointed up at the Milky Way. “Wanaghi tachanku,” he said. “Wanaghi yata.”
“It’s the trail of spirits,” Linc explained, “bound for the Spirit World, where people go when fate comes for them.”
I gazed upward. After the sweat lodge, my senses felt as if they’d been stripped and washed. Things stood out in sharper than normal relief, and the night seemed alive with energy flows. “Everybody goes there?”
“No, see there, at the fork.” Goose pointed high overhead, where the luminous pathway split, the greater part sweeping across the sky, the other trailing away in a pale nebula. “There stands Tate, the wind,” Linc translated. “He guards the Spirit Trail and admits those that Skan, the sky, says are worthy.”
“Based on what?”
“Skan reads the tattoo-like marks formed on the spirits during their earthly lives.” The sky was the source of all power, Linc explained, and gave each person his ghost or spirit. It would be the Ghost who testified for us when our time came.
The ghost …
“Tomorrow we go into the Hills?” I said.
Linc nodded. “He says we’re ready as can be.”
The air was mild but her hands were cold in mine. I squeezed her arm and said that her throw displayed the makings of a ballplayer.
She managed a weak smile.
“What is it, Cait?”
She said nothing but kept her eyes fixed on the Hills. I looked too. In the ominous black mass my imagination carved bears’ snouts and arching backs, and I remembered the grizzly in my dream. Then LeCaron came into my thoughts, unbidden and unwelcome. He was somewhere in those mountains right now. I slid closer and encircled Cait with my arm. She tilted her head against my shoulder, a shiver passing through her.
“How do you always stay so warm?” she said, sounding both curious and a trifle sad.
I held her tighter. “Thinking about Tim?”
“You know I am,” she said quietly. “And other things, too.”
I looked down the slope of her forehead, barely able to make out the freckles on her nose. “What other things?”
“There’s a fear in me, Samuel.” She pulled back to see my face. The moon made her eyes luminescent. “And not over Tim alone.”
“What, then?”
She hesitated as if reaching a decision, then said tentatively, “Remember when I first confessed my love for you?”
“Táim in grá leat,” I said, repeating the Gaelic phrase she had used. “I’ll never forget it.”
“When I said that, Samuel, I pledged myself to you. I was to be yours forever.” Her voice held a tremor. “After Colm’s passing, I never thought such a thing could exist again for me.”
I waited for her to go on.
“Remember how frightened I was? Colm was taken while I still carried his child. Afterward, I wanted never to be hurt like that again. Yet when you arrived, it seemed that fate had sent you, and I felt myself opening despite my great fear—terror, to say it truly.”
“Cait, I—”
“Now I’m in that place again.” Her eyes brimmed with tears and she raised her hands to cover her face. “I’m deathly afraid of losing you again.”
I pulled her fingers away and kissed her wet eyes. I kissed her cheeks. She sat very still, as if helpless. To what extent she wanted to resist, I couldn’t have guessed. A clue seemed to materialize, however, when I bent toward her mouth and she leaned away. So much for that, I thought, but she surprised me by touching her forefinger to her tongue, then with that finger gently moistened my lips.
“Chapped,” she murmured.
The action was probably more a mother’s nurturing touch than a lover’s caress. But that didn’t stop it from being incredibly sexy.
I started to say something, my voice sounding strange in my ears.
“Shh,” she whispered and stroked my cheek.
As our mouths met, her lips seemed to form silent words against mine before they parted and our tongues met. I tasted her again after so long, scarcely believing it was happening. Her arms circled my neck and at last we held each other without restraint.
In the past, we’d come together hungrily, a riotous discharge of pent-up forces. Now our hands and lips moved over each other in more leisurely rediscovery, and when we finally melded together, the joyful, slow sweetness of it dispelled, for a time, all uncertainties. My soul, it seemed, had returned from some distant place. In the moonlight I saw that although Cait was thinner—not surprising, given the ravages of our journey—the contours of her body retained their rounded fullness. I lost myself in the beauty of her while Cait traced with her fingers the marks from Dyson’s bullets still on my torso. For a timeless interval we gazed into each other’s eyes.
“I’ve been true to you,” she said softly, her breath warm on my face. “True all this time, Samuel.”
I’d been faithful too, I assured her, and had loved her every minute we’d been apart.
Her hips moved in rhythm with mine.
“Promise me, Samuel,” she said, “you won’t leave again?”
I heard the pleading urgency in her voice, and realized I couldn’t guarantee anything. I hadn’t intended to leave her before. How could I know I wouldn’t be yanked away again? But just then that particular caveat didn’t seem nearly so important as the force of my will, my intent, never to depart again. To be with her all the days and nights to come.
“I promise,” I said.
Her lips touched my eyes, my nose, my lips. I bent to kiss her breasts, and she gripped my hair, and now we moved less gently. Desire lifted us up beside the glowing moon, then higher yet. As I felt myself about to come, a soft moan escaped her and she murmured something.
“Hmmmm?”
She said it again, too low to make out.
On the edge of release, I gripped her hips and thrust even deeper and demanded that she tell me.
She arched her back and grated out something that sounded like “seed.” Then, straining hard against me, the syllables just discernible, she said, “I want your seed, Samuel.”
In a rush that replicated, in its own modest way, the Milky Way blazing above us, I duly delivered it, and not too long after, utterly spent, we crawled into her little tent and lay in each other arms.
“I love
you,” she breathed against my ear.
Nobody in the world slept better that night.
We followed Bear Butte Creek into the Hills between gloomy cliffs of limestone and sandstone. Beaver dams formed marshy ponds in which moss-grown trees resembled tortured bodies. Indian trails were everywhere, but Goose found no signs of recent use.
The goldbugs worked like crazy during every halt, filling their pans with gravel and silt, immersing them in stream water, shaking them vigorously to sift everything, then washing away the lighter soil and tossing off the stones. Gold, if any, remained with other heavy metal-bearing sands. The artistry involved came next—a dexterous twist of the pan to spread the contents evenly over the bottom. Finally the flecks of gold, known as “colors,” were removed by means of matchstick or fingernail and stored in bottles or buckskin pouches.
Maybe for them it was useful as practice. To me it looked like a whole lot of effort for a minuscule return. So much for tales of rich nuggets waiting in river beds and grains clumped on upended roots.
One of the goldbugs asserted that a big-volume placer operation could extract only a few cents worth per pan and still make a profit. A lone prospector, however, had to average at least ten cents. I looked dubiously at the motes in his pan. “You getting that much?”
“Not yet, but signs are good.” His eyes were those of an addict. “Here, try it.”
I handled the pan clumsily but felt a flicker of gambler’s greed myself when I saw several shiny grains. Not unlike seeing the first digits on a lottery ticket match the winning numbers.
Goose’s initial amusement at the goldbugs’ antics gave way to thoughtful detachment as he watched them pull the flakes from the earth. I got the feeling that he didn’t fully understand what they were up to—but he didn’t like it.
