Dark Passage

by Richard S. Wheeler

  But that wasn’t what was on his mind one January afternoon when he decided to have another party. Victoria was. He mixed more of his trade whiskey and announced to Stillwater that he would have another party that evening and he would invite all the grandmothers to tell their bawdiest stories.

  “Oh, I would like that,” Stillwater said.

  “I will invite Victoria Skye—Many Quill Woman. Maybe a little whiskey will warm her cold heart.”

  “You’re not going to get her into the robes.”

  “I’m going to try.”

  “I’ll tell her that Antelope is the greatest lover in the village. No man makes a woman happier.”

  “That should entice her.”

  “I would enjoy a time in the robes, too, but I am getting big.”

  “So I noticed.”

  “I will turn my back and listen. I will see whether you are the same with her as you are with me.”

  “Are there any better among all the Absarokas?”

  “I wouldn’t know,” she said, and laughed happily. “Maybe I will find out sometime. The women say that Standing Otter is a great one.”

  “Ha! His otter wouldn’t stand long.”

  “Maybe I’ll find out. Then I will be able to tell you.”

  “Then you’ll know why you married Antelope.”

  That evening he welcomed twelve guests, who entered his lodge, respectfully nodded toward the hearth and its sacred hearth spirits, proceeded by custom to seat themselves in a circle around the small, hot fire, and await the libations of Antelope.

  Among them was Kills the Dog, the old woman, wife of Sees at Night, who was renowned for telling the bawdiest stories known to the People. No woman was her match, although some said that Pretty Eyes was close. But Kills the Dog was much older and more experienced, and knew just what sort of story to tell on a cold January night. What else was there to do in the deep darkness of winter but tell stories?

  Thus Kills the Dog was escorted to the place of honor, next to Beckwourth himself. She had grown fat with age, and that made her wobble as she stooped around the circle of the lodge and settled herself. Beckwourth surveyed the rest cheerfully. Bad Medicine, a fine warrior and hunter with plenty of pelts to trade; Lame Dog, another one of Antelope’s war companions, a famous drinker and womanizer; Two Horns, a gorgeous young virgin, half sister of Stillwater; Pine Leaf, of course, a seductive tigress; and Many Quill Woman, whose good humor contrasted so sharply with the dour Skye. There were many others, of course—those who loved a good cup of whiskey, various female candidates for Beckwourth’s attention, and a couple of good storytellers, both old women.

  “Ah, friends, let us bless the Cold Maker for making us come together on a bitter night. Now we will have a party. I will pass the jug around; take a good drink to warm your spirits. After that, we will tell stories. Kills the Dog promises to tell you the worst stories that ever assaulted your ears.”

  Kills the Dog smiled toothlessly.

  Beckwourth uncorked his jug and passed it first to Kills the Dog, who took a mighty swill, coughed and sputtered, and passed it to the next. No one refused such a generous largess, a gift worth a pelt if one took a long guzzle. Beckwourth eyed Victoria with interest as she swallowed slowly.

  “Sonofabitch!” she said in English.

  The jug made the rounds and returned to Beckwourth, who corked it and set it next to a tin cup. When anyone wanted more, a pelt would come around the circle, and Beckwourth would fill the tin cup with his concoction and send it to the buyer. By the time it reached the buyer, it was usually much diminished by samplers along the way. Which was fine with everyone.

  “Now, Grandmother,” he said to Kills the Dog, “tell us a story.”

  Kills the Dog licked her lips, shook her head, and said that the cup needed to go around a few more times. Only then would her stories melt the wax in their ears.

  So Beckwourth invited another grandmother, Elktooth, to begin.

  “I will tell the story of two young people whose families did not want them to marry,” she began. “But they lived long ago, and were among the first to come to this country where the Absaroka belong forever. One was Pretty Fox, a beautiful virgin, the younger daughter of Makes the Birds Fly. Pretty Fox had eyes only for her beloved Buffalo Hoof, but her parents told her she could not marry until her older sister was married, because her older sister had a bad temper and no man wanted her. So Pretty pined and waited, and Buffalo Hoof decided that the best way to have Pretty Fox was to marry both sisters at once.”

  This was a good story, and Beckwourth settled back to enjoy a fine evening. Soon the grandmother came to the crux of the story: both sisters were married to Buffalo Hoof but no sooner had they moved to the lodge given them by the village than they quarreled about who should be the first to enjoy Buffalo Hoof in the robes. The older sister said it was her right; the younger said she was the one Buffalo Hoof loved. So Buffalo Hoof, who was a magician, put them both asleep, and when they awoke neither knew who had been first, and he wouldn’t tell them when they asked.

  “Ah, I would not put any woman asleep,” said Beckwourth. “That is a bad story.”

  “You would put me to sleep, Antelope,” the old woman retorted.

  That was how the evening went. Once in a while the Cold Maker shot icy air down the smoke vent, pushing smoke into the lodge, and then Stillwater had to go out and adjust the smoke ears, because the wind was coming from all directions. But that was all that marred a splendid evening. The cup went around many times, and by the time it was time for grandmother Kills the Dog to tell her terrible stories, she could hardly speak.

  Beckwourth watched Victoria enjoy herself. Skye’s wife was laughing with all the rest, and her eyes glowed. She sipped every time a cup passed by, and then swore mighty oaths she had picked up from the trappers.

  That was all fine with Beckwourth, and when at last his guests had their fill of wild stories and departed one by one through the oval door covered with a flap of buffalohide, he detained her.

  “Tonight you enjoy the robes with me,” he said in English. “Stillwater says she is too big now, and she says you should enjoy my attentions.”

  “You got too many attentions. Goddamn, maybe sometime, Antelope, but not now,” she replied, not soberly. “I got to keep Skye warm.”

  And then she drew her blanket tight around her and plunged into the night.

  sixteen

  A harsh wind rattled the lodge of Walks Alone, and Skye knew the day would be mean. Victoria slept late into the morning, exuding the stale odor of spirits. Skye had studied her somberly as she lay curled in her buffalo robe. She was not the girl he had married. Not much was left of the bond they had forged during his years with the fur brigades. Spirits were his own demon, and they were becoming Victoria’s as well.

  She awakened as he gazed at her, stared crossly at him, and rolled over. Then at last she got up, straightened her doeskin skirt, tied her beaded buckskin leggings around her calves, pulled up her moccasins, and drew her red blanket about her. She vanished into the cold and returned minutes later, still silent and avoiding contact with him.

  Her mother and sisters had gone somewhere, probably to collect wood, a relentless and demanding task through the winter. Her father had settled into his backrest and stared at the small fire, idled by winter.

  Skye wanted to talk to her. He had things to say, things building up in him for a long time.

  “Victoria, we’ll go get some firewood,” he said.

  “It is cold.”

  “Then we will brave the cold.”

  “It is women’s work.”

  “Then we will do women’s work together.”

  “Dammit, leave me alone.”

  “We will walk along the river.”

  Irritably, she pulled a blanket about her, pulled a thick shawl over her head, and drew gloves over her hands. “It is too cold,” she said. “I do not feel like a walk.”

  He drew a buffalo robe about him
, and put on a thick beaver cap, and they exited the lodge, smacked hard by a brutal wind that pierced their clothing.

  “You see? We go back now.”

  He took her elbow and steered her down toward the river, over glazed snow and treacherous drifts, until they hit a regular path near the bank—in fact, the trail north to the trading cabin.

  She walked in stony silence, radiating rank hostility toward Skye. He couldn’t help that. His marriage was in grave trouble and he was going to talk about it. The vicious wind would punctuate his every sentence, and maybe that would have more effect than long counsels around a cheery lodgefire. Also, he wanted to talk English, which was not possible when they were among her family.

  “You are going to tell me not to go to Antelope’s lodge.”

  “No, I’m going to ask you. I won’t tell you.”

  “You should tell me. All men tell their women what to do.”

  “I prefer to ask you. Then, if you agree, I have your consent.”

  “Goddamn, I don’t understand you, Skye.”

  “I said I’m going to ask you and I mean it. It has nothing to do with obedience. If you obey without wanting to, you will not think of me as a friend and husband.”

  “No, I think maybe you care about me if you tell me no. Maybe I keep wanting you to say, ’Goddamn it, Victoria, do not do this or you can find someone else.’”

  “You are not my slave, Victoria.”

  She glanced at him sharply. A gust of wind lifted her blanket from her, and she cursed. “Let’s go back,” she said.

  He shook his head. “I’m going to tell you what I believe. We’ve never talked about it. I know what you and your people believe, and what you think is right. But now I want to tell you about what I profess and honor, and what I was taught by my elders. Then maybe we can understand each other better and make a better marriage.”

  She didn’t reply.

  The pain of coldness was good. The whole bleak scene before them, the black river running between sheets of ice along the banks, the spidery web of naked gray limbs, the overcast sky, the occasional outcrop of tan rock, the dark junipers and pines, matched the spiritual winter of his soul.

  “For years when I was trapped in the Royal Navy, the ones above me told me what to do, and I did it because I would be punished if I didn’t. I especially hated that life because it wasn’t my own. That is one way of life. A marriage can be like that. Some white men’s marriages are like that. A man tells a woman what to do, and she does it. Your Absaroka marriages are mostly like that. Some women enjoy it. They want to be told what to do. If their man says, Don’t go to Antelope’s lodge, they obey. That may be the way of your people, but it is not my way.”

  “Maybe you don’t know women. If you don’t tell a woman what to do, she don’t respect you.”

  “You will respect me more if I ask you. And it is a mark of my respect for you. You will always have the right to choose. Some white men give that respect to their women. Some don’t.”

  “Where the hell are white women? The mah-ish-ta-schee-da have no women.”

  “The yellow eyes will bring their women someday. They live mostly in villages and cities.”

  That gave her pause.

  Skye felt the cold begin to numb his cheeks and nose, and wondered whether to turn back. He was more vulnerable to this sort of penetrating cold than she. He decided he would endure. On this morning he would endure anything, bear anything, suffer anything to save his marriage. He hastened the pace to stir his blood.

  “Where are we going?” she demanded.

  “I hope to a new place of the heart.”

  “You going to make me?”

  He laughed, and she glowered at him.

  “I am cold,” she said.

  “Yes, you are cold. The words are well chosen.”

  “Maybe I’ll go back now.”

  “I want to talk more about our marriage.”

  “You not gonna make me walk?”

  “Not if you don’t want to. I want us to walk side by side through life because you want to walk with me.”

  She stared and drew her blanket tight about her. But she did not turn around. That was good.

  “Your people and mine have different ideas about marriage. For us marriage is very sacred. We marry forever, all of our lives. Yes, we can escape a bad marriage, just as you can. We can get a divorce, but it is difficult, especially in England, where I come from. But we try to follow the laws of God, and he wants us to stay married. When white men and women marry they make sacred vows to love and honor each other all their days, through good times and bad; to be faithful and caring; to follow the Christian faith together. All this is done in a church, the House of God, so that those who make the vows do so in the presence of God—the First Maker, as you call God—so everyone knows that this is holy.”

  “Goddamn! No wonder all you come out here and escape the women. For us it is different. Sometimes it is no damn good and then we put everything outside of the lodge door to tell the other it’s no damn good.”

  “Yes, that is it. Your ways and my ways are different. I am married for better or worse. I hope you will be, too, because that is how love works. If you love me when times are bad, and I do not provide for you, and I am not a great man in your village, then you truly love me. And if I keep on loving you when you drift away and will not be my friend and lover, then I truly love you.”

  She had no response to that at first, but he could see she was registering it, thinking about it.

  “If marriage is sacred among the mah-ish-ta-schee-da, then why does Antelope collect women? Why do all the mountaineers buy Indian girls at the rendezvous?”

  Skye didn’t have a very good answer to that. But he tried. “What is sacred to the yellow eyes is not accepted by all of them,” he said, choosing his words carefully. “Nothing requires them to believe anything. It is up to them. The very ones who come out here to the wilderness—”

  “What do you mean, wilderness? This is my home.”

  “Well, if I could show you how people live in cities, you’d know what I mean. This all seems like a country where no one lives.”

  “But it is full of people.”

  Skye didn’t argue that point. These people lived in portable towns and left little mark of passage. “Anyway, the ones who come here are usually the ones who reject all those things. They come here to escape. Most do, anyway. Jed Smith—you met him—he’s a believer.”

  “That is a bad religion, then. It is too hard. It drives people away.”

  “Some would say so. I think the rules are mostly good. The rules about marriage are good. They are good for the children, good for the women and men.”

  “Do you think our ways are not sacred to us? Or bad?” She was angry. “You think you are better than us?”

  “Your ways are sacred, Victoria.”

  “I am cold,” she said.

  He stopped. His face was stinging from the bite of the wind. Going back, with the wind, would be more comfortable. “All right. It is cold.” They turned back. “Now you know that I will never tell you to do something. I am not your chief. I am asking you now not to go to Beckwourth’s parties. I don’t know what he has in mind, but I don’t trust him.”

  “You are goddamn strange, Mister Skye. An Absaroka would not let his wife disobey him.”

  This walk had all been for nothing. But he had, at least, told her for the first time who he was and what he felt. “I want you and love you. But I also know I may not be wanted. I don’t fit into your village very well. The future is up to you, not me.”

  He left the rest unsaid. If she didn’t want him, she would put his gear outside the lodge someday, and he would suddenly find himself a single man again.

  They walked in silence, the wind harrying them back, so that the return was shorter than the outbound walk. It had been a good walk. He didn’t know whether she would accept what he said, or him. The more he dwelled upon the customs of the Absaroka people, an
d the customs of white Europeans, the more he believed that there was an unbridgeable chasm between the two people. He could not become an Indian. Maybe he wasn’t much of a churchgoing Christian, but those were nonetheless his sacred beliefs, and if he let go of them he would be a man without a center. There were many customs of the Crows he could easily accept and enjoy, things that would trouble most white people. But he could not turn himself into an Absaroka, or any Indian.

  They reached the lodge, and she turned to him, searching his face. He saw perplexity in hers, but not anger. She took his hand in hers and lifted it to her face.

  “Goddamn, Skye,” she said, and then ducked through the lodge door. He followed, not knowing how it ended.

  seventeen

  Achinook swept away the snow in hours, and the Kicked-in-the-Belly people emerged from their lodges, shed their blankets and robes and gloves, and stretched in the wan, welcome sun. The Cold Maker would soon return, more furious than ever, but for a few days the People would enjoy the blessings of mild weather. The strange warmth seemed heady to Skye; the winter had been long and bitter. He rejoiced as the snow melted into the thawed ground and he took long hikes along the Big Horn soaking up the sun.

  No sooner had warmth come than warriors dreamed of horse raids and glory. Now, for a while, they could carry their lances, bows and arrows, tomahawks, and clubs out on the plains, extending the dominion of the Absaroka people over a fiercely contested land. Jim Beckwourth quickly seized upon the warmth to assemble his long-delayed foray against the Siksika. He progressed from lodge to lodge inviting the finest fighting men in the village to go with him; there would be ample powder and lead for anyone with a musket or rifle, thanks to the American Fur Company.

  He found Skye sunning himself beside the river.

  “Ah, friend Barnaby, the time’s come to even the score. We’ll catch the Blackfeet in their lodges and make them pay. I’m leading a large party on a raid, and I’d be most honored if you supplied us with your keen sharpshooting.”