Downriver

by Richard S. Wheeler

  “Regrettable,” Bonfils said. “You force my hand.”

  twenty-eight

  Victoria ripped hard through the brisket until the guts burst out into a steaming heap. The cow was scarcely dead. Red Gill waited a few yards distant, wary of the stream of buffalo that were shaking, snorting, dripping water, shivering the very earth. Victoria didn’t like it either, and wondered whether some minor excitement would send the vast herd trampling over her. She and Lame Deer worked only yards from the riverbank, and only yards from the undulating edge of the herd.

  A calf bleated nearby and refused to meld itself into the herd. Victoria felt a moment’s sadness, for this dead four-foot was its mother. But the calf would live; it was three months old, and nibbling grass.

  Lame Deer had sliced open the flesh behind the jaw of the cow, and was carefully sawing off the massive tongue, a great delicacy, while Victoria was scooping out the brisket, aiming for the huge liver, another delicacy. A cloud of black flies whirled and whined over them all; with the herd came every vicious biting fly on Mother Earth, and all types of them were swarming over this dead animal. Victoria knew that by nightfall other predators would congregate, and by dawn this cow would be bone and hide. She shivered.

  Red Gill retreated irritably, leaving the filthy work to the women, but he hovered not far off, and began gathering driftwood and brush to build a fire. The flatboat bobbed and bumped land just a few rods distant. Victoria paused to examine the skylines; all sorts of predators followed the herds, including the two-footed kind, and it paid to be wary. But she saw nothing.

  She reached into the warm, pungent, slippery carcass and clamped her hand over the liver and tugged, while gently nipping away tissue with the other hand until she released the dark and slippery organ.

  Her hands dripped blood, and the black flies swarmed in thick clouds, and she wished this ugly task were done and she was feeding the mighty strength of Sister Buffalo into her wounded man.

  She sliced thin strips of raw liver and popped one in her mouth, feeling its succulence between her teeth. She sliced another and handed it to Lame Deer, who gave it to her daughter, and then bit into a second piece. What finer meat was there than buffalo liver? It carried the strength of the buffalo in it, and made one strong.

  She set the liver aside in the grass and began sawing along the backbone, working toward the hump. She would not try to save this hide; she could scarcely harvest a day or two of meat before night fell.

  She parted the hide along the ridge of the back, releasing swarms of worms and beetles buried in its thick brown matting. This cow must have been tormented, and no doubt the long swim across the river had helped cleanse some of the nesting parasites.

  Lame Deer sliced with sharp, deft strokes, working from the incision under the jaw, until at last she had freed the tongue and it could be pulled out of the mouth. Oh, there would be a feast this night! Boiled tongue would put power into them all. Sister Buffalo would give her strength to the two-legged ones.

  When Victoria had exposed the humpmeat which lay over the dorsal ribs, she motioned to Lame Deer and they grabbed the legs of the animal to flip it over so Victoria could work on the other side of the hump. This took a mighty effort, but the twc women succeeded, and soon Victoria was skillfully slicing out the hump, which lay at the base of the neck, and which contained the most tender and edible of all the flesh of a buffalo. If was no easy thing to cut the humpmeat free.

  She peered up and found Bonfils staring at her, but he didn’t venture into the cloud of vicious black flies, and she wished she didn’t have to feed him.

  Gill set up an iron tripod, hung a black kettle from it, and then collected the tongue, brushing off the black flies. He dropped the tongue into the kettle and fed more wood to the fire.

  But Victoria and Lame Deer slipped liver into their mouths, licking up the salty blood, nurturing themselves and little Singing Rain, even as they worked. Let the men have the tongue. The women had the liver. And tomorrow there would be a hump roast.

  The herd made her uneasy. Every little while it undulated close, and the dripping buffalo trotted by, churning up a muddied slope, so many that the earth quivered under their countless hooves, and the air was filled with soft noise, breathing, pent-up energy, and their sharp odor.

  Then she noticed other animals nearby. Half a dozen wet wolves sat on their haunches on the riverbank, their coats glistening after the long swim across the broad river. A chill shot through her.

  She picked up a rock and threw it at them. She liked wolves; they looked after her people, and some of the Absaroka warriors had wolf medicine. But she didn’t want them there, twenty yards distant, contemplating her and the other women, smelling meat and death. The rock bounced between two of them and they lazily parted a few feet, undeterred.

  She returned to her work, wishing she had her bow and quiver. She would drive an arrow into the big one who watched her with a feral and patient gaze. She turned to Gill.

  “Wolves,” she yelled.

  Gill nodded, looking around for his weapon, when a rifle cracked. She saw smoke erupting from Bonfils’s weapon. A wolf catapulted backward, yapping, shivering, and then dying. The others retreated sullenly. She and the Cheyenne woman held this ground for a little while, but the instant they abandoned the buffalo cow, the wolves would be upon it.

  She stared at Bonfils, who stood grinning, proud of himself. He set down his rifle, poured a fresh charge of powder down its barrel, patched a ball and drove it home with the hardwood rod that clipped under the barrel. Then he cleaned the nipple with his pick. The rifle was armed, except for a new cap.

  It took another stint of hard, filthy work to saw through bone and gristle and meat, but she and Lame Deer freed the hump and laid it in the grass. Victoria severed enough of the filthy hide to cover the hump and liver and the rest of what they had cut loose, and together they dragged it away from the carcass.

  Even before the women reached the cookfire, gray wolves swarmed over the carcass; not just the six she had seen, but a dozen more, snarling and tearing, their feasting drowned out by the mutter of the passing herd, which still stretched from the distant bluffs across the river to the bluffs on this side of it.

  She and Lame Deer dragged the bloody meat aboard and laid it near the front of the boat. Lame Deer began crooning in her own tongue, and Victoria knew she was giving thanks again to the animal that had been sacrificed to feed her and her daughter; and to rejoice in the goodness of the bountiful world, and the kindness of Sweet Medicine, the sacred brother and lawgiver who looked over the Cheyenne people.

  Victoria washed herself at the riverbank, floating away the slime and blood, cleansing her brown face, slapping the black flies that still swarmed around her. The fragrance of the boiling tongue reached her nostrils, and she was ready to feast again. But first, she would feed her man.

  She sawed off some half-boiled tongue and dropped it into one of the wooden trenchers Gill kept on board, and then headed for the cabin. She found Skye gazing up at her, drawn and ill.

  “This is tongue,” she said. “Good for you. It will put the strength of the buffalo into you. Eat!”

  He struggled upward, breathing hard, wincing with every movement, but eventually sat up. He looked haggard.

  “Eat buffalo, goddammit! It make you feel good.”

  But she had to cut each piece because he was too weak to saw at the dimpled tongue meat. He ate slowly, a few tiny slivers, and then waved the food away.

  “Eat!” she cried.

  He tried another piece and then stopped.

  Outside, Bonfils and Gill were devouring the tongue and contesting something in low tones. They were on the riverbank. She could not make out what they were saying, but their words were cross even though they were filling their bellies.

  Dusk was settling over the flatboat, plunging the cabin into darkness. Skye drank some broth, and then pushed aside the tin cup she had given him. He hadn’t eaten enough.

 
“You got to eat and get strong!” she said, irritably.

  The muted hum of the herd, the vibrations reaching her even in the flatboat, the mutter and snort of the animals, was wearing on her, rubbing her raw. The snarl of the wolves was irritating her too. Was there no end to this?

  “Learned a few things from Bonfils,” he said. “He says I’d have to become an American citizen to get a trading license.”

  She didn’t understand any of it. “What is this license?”

  Skye translated the idea to her in jargon she would understand, as he often did. “It’s like a yes. I have to have a yes. Big chief in St. Louis says I got to join them or they won’t let me trade with your people.”

  “How come?”

  “They say the fur trade’s for Americans. Not for others. Especially not for English. Makes sense, I guess. Maybe I won’t be a trader if I can’t get a license from this General Clark.”

  “We come all this way and you don’t be a trader?”

  He sighed. “Lame Deer’s man, MacLees, he’s likely the one going to be made a trader to your people … if Bonfils knows what he’s talking about.”

  “MacLees?” she marveled. “He’s the Opposition.”

  “He’s been driven out. Now it looks like maybe they’ll give him a job, put him to work. He’s a veteran trader. That’s how they do it. Drive out the opposition and then hire the best of them. They’re even employing Gabe Bridger now.”

  She understood only part of it, but fumed at the very idea.

  “Him I don’t trust,” she said, gesturing toward the dark shore where the two men sat at the fire.

  “Bonfils, he’s got his own schemes going. He says we should get off at Bellevue. That’s a big post down the river some. He says I should stay out of St. Louis for my own good. That’s what he talked about a while ago. You want to quit?”

  “Hell no,” she snapped.

  He grinned in the obscure light. “Thought so,” he said. It was the first time in days he had smiled.

  twenty-nine

  Lame Deer awakened to deep silence. Not even crickets were chirping. Her hand found Singing Rain beside her, sleeping peacefully in the bunk across from Mister Skye.

  She understood the silence. The buffalo brothers had crossed the Big River at last, and had vanished to the west. And the wolves had vanished with them. The night was no longer restless, and the very earth did not tremble under the impact of so many dark hooves.

  She could see nothing. No moon lit the landscape or glinted off dark waters. She stirred, wanting to step outside into fresh air. Skye’s sour breath filled this dank cabin, and she wanted to escape it and suck sweet fresh air into her lungs. Her friend the Crow woman slept across the floor of the cabin, rolled into a robe. The men slept outside.

  She heard stirring in the fore part of the flatboat, and knew Bonfils was awakening. She hated and dreaded Bonfils, and marveled that such a one could be here in this flatboat with those he had hurt. She thought again of Sounds Come Back After Shouting, and grieved, the pain so sharp and so bitter that she wanted to scream in sorrow and cut her hair and deface herself as an act of mourning.

  She had not known at first that this man, Bonfils., was the killer of her only son. That awful moment when the Sans Arcs had gathered around Skye, in the fog of dawn, she had seen two men aboard the fireboat dancing about, sometimes obscured by the whisps of fog, dark obscure figures she paid little attention to because Skye was conferring with the Sans Arcs, and she was listening to all of that.

  Then the shocking blast came, and she heard screams, and beheld her boy tumbling to the cold earth. He fell onto his back, and she saw a dark, wet hole in his neck and another in his head, and his lips moved once or twice and then his spirit departed for the long trail. His eyes did not see her. Sound Comes Back After Shouting was gone, after four winters of life, and she heard another blast of the cannon and more screams, and white men’s cursing, and then the Sans Arcs shouted, raced about, gathered their fallen, and vanished … . and she began to weep.

  It was not until the Crow woman told her about Bonfils that she learned who had killed her son. And now this very killer was aboard. She could not fathom it. That man had also killed Shorty Ballard, partner of the owner of this boat, and put three wounds upon Mister Skye, gravely injuring him, and yet that man walked the planks of the flatboat, lorded over them all, and acted as if nothing had happened. He had even been saying he had done a good thing and had rescued the company’s furs.

  She had thought often of killing Bonfils. But she knew she wouldn’t. It was not in her to do such a thing, though sometimes she longed to stick her knife deep into his ribs and let him see what a woman of the People could do to the killer of her beloved son.

  But she had chosen another course. She would tell MacLees about it; tell him everything, let him grieve for Billy, as he called the boy he doted on, and then Simon would be filled with wrath and seek justice against this man Bonfils, after the manner of the white men. And then this Bonfils would be driven from the midst of the white men.

  But here he was, walking among the aggrieved, and she could not fathom it. Why had the boat chief, Red Gill, permitted this man to board? But she knew the answer to that: Bon fils had held a rifle on the boat chief.

  She heard Bonfils walking rearward, heard him awaker Gill, who yawned and cursed after the manner of white men She heard subdued voices, and Gill’s snarl, but then the owner of this big canoe arose, and she could hear him making water over the side of the flatboat, and talking with Bonfils.

  She threw off her robe, caring tenderly not to awaken her child, and stepped out upon the deck. A chill night wine caught her hair and an overcast hid the stars and Brother Moon so she could not fathom the time. But some intuition told her that Father Sun would soon appear upon the horizon

  It was much too dark to navigate, but she realized they were untying the boat from the bankside brush that tethered it, and a moment later she felt the craft bob and move slowly into the bleak darkness. She knew only that Gill had turned i outward from shore. He had great medicine, that man, and maybe he would steer the flatboat just by keeping it in the swiftest current. The boat rode high, carrying so little, and he feared nothing.

  How impatient these men were, and how little they saw All the trip, she had seen a world unfold that they never perceived; the black bear, the ravens, the Arikara women digging roots, the black snake swimming, the minnows, the turtle that paused to watch them, and the eagle climbing the stair to the sky.

  But Gill saw things she could not; the way the water ran the place where currents drove ahead, the meaning of the lines of foam, the snag that made a vee-shaped pattern in the water the changing color of the river as it took on more mud and silt She respected Red Gill, not only for his river medicine, but because he was strong and shrewd and watchful.

  So they were once again moving. She exulted. Soon she would come to this place called St. Louis, and she would find Simon and his heart would be gladdened. The sharp breeze reminded her that it was not long before dawn, and she was hungry. Roasted hump meat hung from a mast forward; to fill herself she needed only saw at it with her skinning knife. She worked forward, through an inky darkness.

  “The buffalo, they let us go,” said Bonfils, materializing beside her.

  She did not speak to this man; neither did she look at him or let him peer into her spirit. There was something possessive about him. She could not quite fathom his interest in her. It was not like a man’s desire for a woman, but something else, as if she were something to use; something that would help him. She wished she knew what was in his mind.

  “Don’t want to talk, madame? Very well. It is not necessary. We will watch over you all the way to St. Louis, and then we will present you to the world.” He laughed softly.

  She found the meat hung well above where a creature could nip at it, and she reached upward, standing on the tips of her moccasins, to cut off the cool and succulent flesh of the blessed buffalo. She
gave thanks again to this mother who gave herself to feed the two-foots, and then sliced a piece and popped it into her mouth, and then several more. And then she sliced a few small pieces and carried them back to the cabin. They would suffice for Singing Rain, and keep her strong.

  She felt her way back, entered the cabin, and discovered that Victoria Skye was awake, and crooning softly to Singing Rain.

  “We’re on the river,” she said.

  “Buff gone?” Skye asked from the darkness of his bunk.

  “Yes, the brothers have passed by and the wolves too.”

  She handed a slice of meat to her child, who began to mouth it. The girl would gum the juices out of it but eat little.

  “Can Gill steer?”

  “No, he is letting the boat go where it will go. He can see nothing.”

  “Sort of like my life,” Skye said. “No one at the tiller. But the river’s taking me somewhere.”

  She heard Bonfils and Gill far forward, trying to see what they could see. She liked the dark, and the soft gurgle of the water on the hull, and the closeness of the cabin.

  “You any better?” Victoria asked Skye.

  “Some.”

  “Want to sit up?”

  He grunted. Victoria wrestled her man upward until h was resting against the cabin wall. She gave him a tin cup water, which he drank slowly.

  “Maybe I’ll walk today,” he said. “Need strength, if the put us off at Bellevue.”

  “What is this?” Victoria asked sharply.

  “I think Bonfils is going to try to put you and me off at th next post. I’m guessing if I don’t go voluntarily, he and Gi will put us off by force. He figures the fastest way to get rid on a rival is to keep me out of St. Louis.”

  “Sonofabitch,” said Victoria.

  “Why would he do this thing?” Lame Deer asked.

  “Get me out of the way. That leaves only Simon MacLees, Skye said.

  “My man?”

  “Your man.” Skye looked uncomfortable.