Crow Mountain

by Lucy Inglis

  ‘Come on then.’

  I stared at you.

  You sighed. ‘Em, we established you ain’t any use at sleeping in the wild. And I got only the one roll. In the Army they taught us to keep warm by sharing. This ain’t no romantic proposal. I know you’re saving yourself for Railroad.’

  Mama would have taken a fit if she had seen what I did next. Cautiously I got up and walked over to where you lay. Arranging myself next to you in the narrow bedroll, I turned awkwardly on my side and you wrapped us up in a cocoon. The ground was hard and I realized I’d be bruised in the morning. Beneath our heads was Tara’s saddle blanket, with its horsey reek.

  We settled ourselves. ‘You slept like this with other soldiers?’

  ‘Often enough.’ You yawned. ‘This is an improvement.’

  I didn’t know how to answer that, but a question had been niggling me for days, and in the forced intimacy of our situation I suddenly felt I could ask it. ‘That man. Hart. He called you a deserter.’

  ‘Better a deserter than a shitheel,’ you said behind me.

  I ignored that. ‘What did he mean?’

  For a while you said nothing; I wondered if you were asleep. Then you spoke. ‘He means that at the Battle of the Wilderness, I caught a big piece of shell debris in the leg and I was left for dead with all the other carrion, ’cause being with a cavalry regiment in that terrain was a death sentence. Lost our position, and the road. A scavenger found me as she was cutting off my buttons. The battalion I had fought for was almost entirely wiped out. I ended up in a godforsaken filthy field hospital I knew would kill me, with a sawbones desperate to take my leg off.’

  I shifted on to my back so I could see your face. You propped your head on your fist and rearranged the blanket over me before putting your hand in the dip of my waist over the thick wool. It was surprisingly heavy.

  ‘Knew enough doctoring from the tribe to know that if I could just get away and get cleaned up, I could probably save my leg. So I splinted myself, stole a big old dose of morphine powder, got a horse from the line and got outta there.’

  I watched the firelight flicker on your face. ‘You deserted?’

  ‘Temporarily. Was always coming back, just wanted to come back with two legs.’

  ‘Then what happened?’

  ‘Caught up with the Army when I could stand upright again, and they were going to shoot me as a deserter. So then I deserted.’

  ‘How did you get away?’

  ‘Couple of the guys broke me out just before dawn. Jeb Mullins and Al Donaghy. Said they didn’t have no interest in putting a bullet in me after all those years. I got into the river and let it carry me a few miles downstream, then headed back to Montana.’

  ‘So what Hart said was true?’

  ‘Yep. I’m a deserter. A coward. What do you think of that, Emily Forsythe?’

  ‘Papa says deserters should be shot. As an example to the other men.’

  ‘Ain’t interested in what your daddy says. I asked what you think.’

  I studied your face, your eyes. ‘They would have discharged you anyway, I imagine, with your leg as it is.’

  ‘They wanted to make an example of me, as a coward.’

  ‘But how does Hart know?’

  ‘Army puts out notice of deserters in each state. And Hart, unfortunately, through long and sorry association is one of the few people to know me by all three of my names. My mother’s family’s. My father’s. And the name of the tribe I was raised in.’

  ‘Why is that?’

  ‘His family have been out here as long as anyone. Fur trappers originally, with their coonskin hats and their three teeth apiece.’ The scorn in your voice was clear.

  I sensed there was more to the story. ‘And?’

  ‘And when Momma was in Fort Shaw with me at her breast, Hart took a shine to her. Could see she was having trouble keeping herself together and food in her mouth.’ You were warming to your subject. ‘So the days pass and he’s not taking no for an answer ’cause he thinks he owns the place, and anyway she makes a scene. He knocks me outta her arms and makes a real bad mess of her. Red Feather is in camp. Fierce-looking, big scar right the way down his cheek, off his chin and clear on to his chest from a spear strike. Still, had a strange sense of fair play, particularly where women were concerned and he never liked to see them getting beat on, whatever the colour of their skin. So while the rest of the camp, whites and Indians both, looks on, he steps in. Gives Hart the beating of his life. And that was that. Red Feather had just lost his wife through some fever, and he takes me and Momma home.’

  I frowned. ‘But . . . what about your mother? Did she want to go with him?’

  You shrugged. ‘She never said. But she liked being part of the village and she was always laughing, never seemed unhappy. Unlike Hart. He ain’t never got over being bested by an Indian. Felt Momma was his woman. Made her life hard when we came into camp as little ones.’

  I was silent, listening.

  ‘Anyways, forget that. The Army only knew my father’s name, but word got back to Fort Shaw. Hart put two and two together, and now he holds it over me whenever he thinks he can score a point.’

  ‘But he wouldn’t tell anyone, would he? He wouldn’t get you into trouble?’

  With a groan you let your head flop onto the blanket. ‘He already tried.’

  You were easily close enough to have kissed me. Looking back, I wish you had, because I think that would have saved us a great deal of trouble, in the long run. But you didn’t.

  ‘When I came back to Fort Shaw, he sees me there, thinks on making me look like a trouble-causer so I won’t get work. Pays a man to pick a fight with me in the street.’

  ‘What happened?’

  You shrugged. ‘Killed him.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘To stop him running his fool mouth as much as anything.’

  I gasped.

  Your eyes met mine. ‘Still got too much of the war in me, huh? Then after that, had to leave. And now I gotta take every job Hart gives me or it’ll just be more of the same and a price on my head before long.’

  ‘Did . . . did you like the Army?’

  ‘Didn’t mind it, before the war. I was mainly with the horses, being as how I have the knack and all. And I’m proud of fighting to free the coloureds. Slavery ain’t right. People ain’t property.’

  We looked at each other for a long moment, words unspoken in the narrow space between us.

  ‘But still, the Army don’t seem that fair to me now.’

  ‘Why not?’

  You picked at a slub on the coarse blanket. ‘Because it puts men together in ways that mean they become fastest friends, makes them rely on each other. Then it sends them to war and blows that all to hell and gone.’ The distant look had come into your eyes again.

  ‘Were the things you saw so very bad?’

  ‘Yes. Seen a lot killed. Done a lot of killing. Don’t seem to be able to get away from it. Got the knack for that too.’ Lifting your hand, slowly and carefully, as if trying not to spook me, you drew your finger down the side of my face. ‘You scared of me again now?’

  The wolves and coyotes began to howl. I shivered and turned away from you, folding my hands beneath my cheek and watching the flames.

  Your voice from behind me was quiet, resigned. ‘Pay them no mind. They ain’t coming anywhere near this fire.’

  I was up and had just finished washing in the lake when you returned the following morning. I’d woken alone in the bedroll, the blankets drawn around me, face damp with dew. The fire had been built up and water was just coming to the boil in a can; you hadn’t been gone long. By the cups was a pile of green shoots. I picked one up and smelt it. Mint.

  After making the tea I washed in the cold lake water, looking at the speckled greens, reds and greys of the stones beneath the astonishingly clear surface. When you returned with Tara a few minutes later, the tips of your hair were wet and your shirt was sticking to you a littl
e. I realized you’d gone elsewhere to perform your morning rituals, giving us both privacy. You took the mug I held out and we sat together on the blankets, awkward. You were looking down, at both your hands holding the tin mug, strange eyes shaded. Your question still hung in the air. Was I scared of you? Truly? You glanced at me sideways and I saw, all at once, the child growing up at the edges of two societies, the boy who went to war, and the man trying to make a life at the margins of civilization.

  I took a breath. ‘No,’ I said. ‘The answer is no. I’m not scared of you. Not any more.’

  You sprang into action so suddenly I was surprised. ‘So,’ you handed me the last of the loaf and pulled from the pack what looked like a small square of ancient leather for yourself, ‘the weather looks set fair and I reckon we can reach Indian territory by this afternoon, but we’ll have to push it.’ You chewed on the leather and sipped at the mint tea, as if our conversation of the previous night had not happened.

  ‘What’s that, please?’

  You looked at me. ‘What?’

  ‘That.’ I pointed to what you were chewing.

  ‘Pemmican. It’s buffalo meat. Trail food for the Indians. I make it sometimes, if I get some meat. But I ain’t killing a whole buffalo just for me, so usually I trade something for it. And mine isn’t great, to be honest. You need the kidney fat to make it real good.’ You held it out. ‘Try it. It’s got dried huckleberries.’

  Taking it gingerly, I bit off a tiny piece. I had to almost tear it with my teeth. It was all very unladylike. I tasted salt and fat and the slight sweetness of the berries.

  You cocked an eyebrow, head on one side. ‘Whatcha think?’

  I touched my lips as I chewed industriously. ‘Not as bad as I thought. Very . . . savoury.’

  ‘Yeah, saved my sorry ass on the scout more than once. I’ll get some laid by for the winter, just in case.’

  I’m not sure that at that moment I even registered your reference to the future or anything else you were saying. Something strange had happened: for the first time in my life I lived only in the moment I occupied. I was no longer in a perpetual state of preparation for a day that would not come. I did not need to change or control my person in order to please anyone but myself. As you spread out the map and examined it, pale eyes intent, talking half to me and half to yourself, I understood, with a physical jolt, that I didn’t have to change myself to please you either.

  I realized you’d stopped talking and that I hadn’t heard a word you’d said. ‘Em? I didn’t mean it about the ravine. Ain’t dangerous. Melt’s over.’

  I stared at you, trying to form something coherent.

  ‘Em?’

  ‘It’s OK,’ I said. ‘I was just thinking.’

  You stared back at me for a long moment. ‘It’s OK? Did I just hear English say o-kay? Wait a second, I think I got water in my ears or something.’ Making a show of clearing your head, you looked at me again, full of mischief.

  I blushed.

  Still laughing, you bumped your shoulder into mine. ‘Look. We’re here.’ You pointed to a spot on the map.

  I saw how very far away Helena and Fort Shaw were. You tapped the map with a knuckle, northwest. ‘This is where we’re headed. Railroad thinks he wants to go over the top, through Blackfoot country and just touching the Flatheads and the Kootenai.’

  ‘And what do you think?’

  You shrugged. ‘I think he doesn’t know shit about mountains or Indians. But I ain’t paid to offer my opinion on that, so I’ll just scope the land.’

  ‘But it’ll take us days to get there at this pace.’

  ‘I told you, we’ll get another horse.’

  ‘From whom?’

  You pulled the map into your lap. ‘Something will turn up. Always does in Indian territory.’

  Boosting me into Tara’s saddle when we’d broken camp, you must have seen me wince. After five days of riding, one with no stirrups and all my weight in the saddle, I was more than uncomfortable. Reaching up, you caught me around the waist, and pulled me down. It had taken me a while to become used to such casual physicality and I stood, confused, as you unfastened one of the blankets from behind the saddle, folded it and placed it over the seat. You adjusted the stirrups on both sides.

  ‘Why didn’t you say something?’ Your voice, accusing. ‘Jesus, Emily. You gotta tell me. Ain’t no magician on a stage, can’t see inside your head.’ You flicked my temple and I batted away your hand. ‘Maybe you should decide which is more delicate, your ass or your pride.’ Boosting yourself into the saddle you tucked the blanket down in front of you. Then you lifted me up. ‘Sit square on that. Yep. Feet in the stirrups. Should-a done this yesterday. Wasn’t thinking, like a fool. If you get uncomfortable, stand up and stretch yourself out.’

  ‘What about you?’

  ‘Em, I been in the saddle since I could walk, my backside is tougher than pemmican.’

  Unable to help myself, I had to stifle a laugh. It was what my mother said was a giggle and only practised amongst scullery maids.

  You gathered up the reins in one hand, the other around me. ‘And that is definitely the sweetest sound I’ve heard in a while.’

  We rode for hours, leaving our mountain territory behind and skirting the edge of the plains to the east. You were right, the stirrups and the blanket made things much easier. It also meant my feet didn’t go numb from hanging there in the air. Sometimes you stole the right stirrup from me to stretch your leg.

  ‘Does it hurt?’ I asked, as you pushed the stirrup back to me.

  ‘It’s a real pain in the behind.’

  ‘Oh, I . . .’ It hurt there?

  You put your arm about me, laughing. ‘No, Emily, no hurt. Only in snow season. Mostly it’s just a little numb and useless, but I’d rather have it than not. Anyway, don’t need talking about. Can’t be helped or changed. It’s just what it is.’

  We were quiet for a while.

  ‘Tell me about you,’ you said, after we’d stopped to let Tara drink at a stream and were on our way again, splashing through the water and gaining the opposite bank.

  ‘Me?’

  ‘Yes, you.’

  I faltered. ‘I’ve told you everything already, I think.’

  ‘Yeah, everything about what you must do, and should do, but what did you like to do? Before we met.’

  I thought about it. No one had ever asked me before. ‘Reading. Writing letters. Language lessons. I had a lot of tutors. I had a little dog called Tippet, a spaniel.’

  You brushed my hair to one side, out of your face. ‘You loved her?’

  ‘I loved her so very much. But Mama thought she was a distraction and gave her away.’

  You were silent.

  ‘And I read a lot of poetry. Milton and Dryden and Shakespeare.’

  That seemed hollow too, now. I leant back against you, my shoulders against your chest; you liked it when I did that, I thought. I held my hands out over Tara’s neck in position one for the keys. ‘And I play the piano. Mozart, Beethoven, all sorts.’

  You transferred the reins to the other hand and put your arm back around me. ‘So when the railroad scouting is done, I can put you in a saloon on the piano?’

  This time I giggled out loud. ‘Maybe. Because I don’t think I’m ever going to be able to make an honest living in a bakery.’

  You laughed and dropped your face into the exposed side of my neck, running the tip of your nose up the tendon there, breathing in beneath my ear. Your hand was only just resting on my waist but suddenly it was as if there was nothing but you and where our bodies touched. I couldn’t breathe, feeling as if I were back in the corset. I stiffened. Your hold on me loosened instantly and you sat up. Tara walked on, and order was restored to our little world.

  Late that afternoon, we were crossing a plain. I did not much care for it after the mountain, although it had a thrown-open quality I had become used to from the train. The plains were also strangely silent after the birdsong and fauna of
the cabin. There was a dry ridge to our west, the land in front of us rolled in shallow waves, a patchy green and tan. You had told me, perhaps an hour before, that we were starting to enter Blackfoot country. I could feel something was wrong from the tension in you. After our jokes, we had been quiet, our bodies slackening into Tara’s rhythm. Yet you kept looking up at flocks of birds wheeling, far away.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘This plain should be covered with buffalo at the moment. And pronghorns . . . the antelope. They should be here too. And we should have seen people by now. Indians.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  You chewed the inside of your lip.

  We continued on.

  ‘Can you smell that?’

  ‘Smell what, please?’

  You didn’t respond immediately, pulling Tara to a halt and surveying the landscape. ‘I do not like this. Not one bit.’ You pointed. ‘See that butte? I want to get up there and take a looksee.’ You put my hands on the saddlehorn. ‘Hang on. Tight.’

  Tara surged into a sure-footed gallop. We covered the ground at breakneck speed, the plain flashing beneath us. She raced with economic grace towards the crags ahead, neck stretched, fluid, joyous. As the ground began to rise, we slowed and you reined to a halt. ‘Em, are you up to some walking?’

  I looked down at the ground. ‘I think so.’

  You jumped down and brought me down to stand by you. Throwing the reins over Tara’s head, you pointed to the nearest bluff. ‘Even with only three good legs, we’ll be faster on foot now.’

  We began to climb, leaving Tara by a rock shelf. Soon I was perspiring a little. That is to say, sweating, Mama. You helped me on to ledges my legs were too short for, but my pride soon got the best of me and I scrambled up unaided. After making it on to a larger step I turned and held out my hands without thinking. You thought about it for a moment, then your hands caught my forearms, we both pulled and you came up next to me.

  Hopping up on to the plateau, you walked to the far edge, looking out on three compass points of the plain – west, north and east. You froze. I came up behind you, the plains wind blowing strands of hair from my face and cooling the sweat on my forehead and upper lip. Far below us, and as far as the eye could see, lay many dozens of buffalo, their mammoth bodies pitched into the dust. Above wheeled flocks of scavengers on the wing.