by Win Blevins
He felt her body soften. Two or three easy expansions of the rib cage came and went.
“I’m better now,” she said weakly.
Sam just kept holding her.
As it turned out, Meadowlark had been hiding troubles. She had a blinding headache. Her stomach hurt, and had been hurting for days. Off and on for the last week, she’d had difficulty catching her breath. “Even just sitting still or laying down,” she admitted. “Can’t get my breath.”
Now that she was calmed down, she spoke English again, but her voice was wan, her skin pale, her face glistening with sweat.
Julia checked her hands and ankles. For sure, they were swollen.
“We need to talk,” Julia told Sam firmly.
He kissed the top of Meadowlark’s head.
“Talk with me,” she told them. She gave her husband an I-mean-it look. “Talk with me too. My body, my child. My life.”
The talk was complicated. Julia wanted other minds to hear, so Jedediah and Evans also sat in. Julia’s cousin had gotten sick like this, late in her pregnancy. The same symptoms, swelling of the face, hands, and ankles. Terrible headaches. Pain in the stomach. Shortness of breath.
“Convulsiónes,” said Julia.
Jedediah, Evans, and the translator Laplant kicked it around; Jedediah came up with English words they knew and dreaded. “Puerperal convulsions.”
“My cousin,” said Julia, “she died of it. Her daughter they saved, but my cousin, she went into convulsions and died.”
For Sam, that was enough.
Fourteen
Going for Help
They were on some river called the Appelaminy in front of a huge range of mountains. Where they were in relation to the Spanish towns or the missions Sam had only a vague idea. Some Indians here had talked about the missions, so … Somewhere to the west was the ocean, somewhere west the towns and missions that dotted the coast. Sam would damn well find them.
He told Meadowlark she wasn’t allowed to lift a finger, women’s work or any other. He loaded up their belongings. The missions and towns along the ocean would have women who understood being with child. Women who knew how to heal. He searched his mind for the word. Curanderas. Or midwives.
Abruptly he thought, The Indians will have healers too. These Indians. Any Indians. Then he rejected that. The Indians were unfriendly. He wanted a Spanish healer or midwife.
He made a litter for Meadowlark, a pony-drag behind her mount with blankets lashed across. Her pony would pull the drag, and Paladin would come unburdened, on a lead.
Not until he was nearly packed did Sam realize that Julia was packing up too, and Flat Dog was ready to go.
“Too dangerous to go alone,” Flat Dog said.
“Meadowlark needs a woman,” said Julia.
The captain helped Sam with the last knots. “Come back when you can,” he said. “Meanwhile, here’s your pay.” Sam took the coins and swung into the saddle.
Jedediah gave another stack to Flat Dog and said to both of them, “I won’t dock your wages while you’re gone. Take whatever time you need.”
Flat Dog looked at the coins and said, “This is a year’s wages.”
Jedediah nodded.
Flat Dog asked quietly, “When will you start across the mountains?”
“A month,” said Jedediah. “When the moon comes back to half.” He hesitated. “We must.”
He stepped to Sam and reached a hand up. “Take care of her,” he said.
Sam chucked at the horses.
They got their first sight of the mission five days later.
Sam had alternately rushed and forced himself to slow down. They rode down their mountain river to the Peticutry, crossed the big river and the plains beyond, pushed up a low coastal range of mountains, and eased down their west side.
They found ranchos, and people told them that the mission at Monterey was run by a kind friar who would help.
From the top of the mountains they could see the big bay, a broad expanse of the Pacific calmed by the embrace of the land. Sam wondered whether what lay ahead would be like the peaceful Pacific or the stormy one. He tried constantly to calm the terror that chewed his mind.
Meadowlark sometimes insisted on riding, so she could see the beautiful waters ahead. Now her headaches were less frequent and her stomach pain less severe, but her face, hands, and ankles were still puffy. Sam watched her constantly.
The mission was imposing, and the four visitors were shown to bedrooms even before the friar arrived.
“Padre Enrique,” he said by way of introduction.
Sam spat out their names and rushed to the point. “My wife needs help.”
This friar had some English. “A woman has already been sent for, a comadrona, what you call a midwife.”
Meadowlark was put on a bed, and Mexican women fussed over her.
Sam faced the friar, pursing his mouth. “We could have some trouble. We don’t have passports. We’re beaver hunters. Our outfit is in the mountains four days’ ride to the east, not in California.”
At least it was Jedediah’s theory that Mount Joseph wasn’t in California. Who knew how far to the east the province extended?
Sam looked his will at the friar. “We came here to get help for my wife. No other reason.” He paused. “I would appreciate it if you kept it to yourself. The news that we’re here.”
The friar smiled gently. “Christian charity,” he said, “takes precedence over the edicts of governments.”
Sam sorted out the Spanish accent and the big words and smiled.
The comadrona slipped past Sam into the room where Meadowlark rested. Rosalita was a young woman of remarkable beauty, blue-black hair, dark skin, and a face delicately scribed.
Sam wanted to trust her but didn’t know if he could. “Seems like she’s too young to know anything,” he told Flat Dog.
“Like you’re too young to know about hunting beaver?” said his friend.
After a few minutes of examining Meadowlark, Rosalita called Sam, Julia, and Flat Dog in. “Meadowlark, she has the sickness that maybe leads to convulsions. You must take it very seriously.” She was to stay in bed all the time, all the way until the baby came. “Solo,” Rosalita added, with a glance at Sam. “Alone.”
Flat Dog grinned at the word, but Sam didn’t have any grins inside him.
Rosalita would come every day, early in the afternoon. Meanwhile, she gave them three pouches of herbs to help Meadowlark. “This is hyacinth. Put this bag around her neck and leave it there. This one is saffron. Put this bag around her waist and let it hang on her belly.” She handed over a third bag. “This is raspberry. Make a tea from it two or three times a day and be sure she drinks it.”
Rosalita started away and turned back. “And in return you will give me something for medicines and my work,” she said directly.
Flat Dog handed her a coin or two. Sam left that up to him.
“In bed all the time,” she repeated as she left. Her beautiful face looked grim. “Until the baby comes.”
Meadowlark lay in a kind of sweet daze. Occasionally, she napped, but mostly she lay gently awake. Coy curled up around her feet and gave her a poignant look, seldom lowering his eyes. Sam sat on the edge of the bed and told her lots of stories, mostly about his father Lew and the days upon days his father spent with Sam in the woods, roaming. When Sam was small, he said, he and his father had a special glade in the forest they called Eden. He explained to her again what Eden was, how the first man and woman came from there, and how they were perfect while they were there, until Eve committed a sin and persuaded Adam to do the same.
Meadowlark stuck out her tongue, as she always did at that tale. “Stupid story,” she said. Coy mewled.
Sam told her the one about the game he and his father had, naming all the plants and animals, like Sam was Adam. Then, when the boy had learned about each creature, Lew would tell him its real name.
Meadowlark had heard this story before, but she li
ked it, and it seemed to make her peaceful.
He told her as well about his younger brother Coy, the one that Coy the coyote was named after, the brother who died. Sam recalled their favorite ways of playing. One way was tumbling and the like. Coy loved to do somersaults, headstands, handstands, cartwheels, things like that. He even developed a sort of flip where he put Sam in a frog position, ran up full speed, planted both hands on Sam’s back, and did a turn in the air, landing on his feet. Sam did all the same things, except for the turn. He was never as good at them as Coy.
Whenever they talked about the original Coy, the coyote on the end of the bed would thump his tail.
He told her again the story of the last time he saw his older brother, Owen, the one who was interested in the business and in the world of commerce, but completely uninterested in the woods and the way the real world works.
When Sam ran away from home, because Owen got the woman Sam wanted, he took the family boat. But, Sam always emphasized, he left everything else the family owned, the mill, the store, the house, the acreage. He abandoned it all to Owen, though by right half was his.
The next night, while Sam was exploring Pittsburgh, the constables tried to arrest him for stealing the boat, and stealing the Celt, the rifle his father had left him. Sam drew a word picture of Owen telling the sheriff these lies.
Meadowlark always smiled as the ending of this story came. Nearly two years later, back home for the first and last time, Sam paid his brother back with a big fist to the chin. He hit Owen so hard that the older brother toppled backward over the sofa and lay unconscious on the floor.
Meadowlark giggled at that.
Meadowlark wanted to tell stories too, the old stories of her own people. However, everyone insisted she keep as quiet as possible, so Flat Dog told several.
Among the Crows storytelling was regarded as a high skill. A good narrator filled his stories with verbal wit, puns, and tongue-twisters, phrases like “Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.” Flat Dog was in high form. Though Sam’s Crow was far from perfect, he caught onto the wit.
This tale was one of the many tales about Old Woman’s Grandchild, a mythic hero of the tribe. Flat Dog made it long and extravagant and funny. Later Sam remembered it like this:
“Old Woman’s Grandchild was going to his lodge, and he knew the snakes were waiting for him there. They would tell him stories, and if they could make him fall asleep, they would kill him. He would try to do the same to them.
“He was worried. On the way to the lodge he met Jackrabbit, and that gave him an idea. He traded eyes with Jackrabbit. That way, even if he fell asleep, the glassy stare of Jackrabbit’s eyes would make him look awake, and the snakes would not kill him.
“In the lodge the snakes spoke first, in lulling phrases: ‘In the spring when cherry and plum blossoms are in bloom, when we kill a deer, we cook it on the sunny side of a cherry tree thicket. In the spring when there is a little wind in the daytime, we sleep well.
“‘In the fall when it is cool, we are out a long time, and when we come back to our tipi and find it warm, we go to sleep right away.’
“These phrases, and others like it, the snakes recited.
“Old Woman’s Grandchild was in fact fast asleep. But the jackrabbit eyes made the snakes think he was awake, and they dared not attack him.
“Before starting, Old Woman’s Grandchild gave a special bidding to his four magic arrows. When the snakes thought they had failed to put him to sleep and it was his turn to charm them, one of the arrows was to fall on his face and wake him up.
“Now the arrow fell. Old Woman’s Grandchild woke up and began to recite his own hypnotic words:
“‘In the summer, when the rain strikes the tipi and there is a rattling sound, we sleep well.
“‘In the fall, when it rains, we can hear the rain on the tipi, and we sleep well.
“‘In the fall when there is a little breeze and we lie in a shelter, hearing the dry weeds rubbing against one another, we generally get drowsy, don’t we?’
“Now half his listeners were asleep.
“‘When out hunting in the mountains, when we have killed a buffalo or deer toward evening and built a fire and cook, while we are cooking, it grows dark. We are very tired. We take our cooked food and eat it. Rain comes, and when we lie down to sleep, we sleep right away.’
“Now most of the snakes were asleep, but not all.
“‘In the daytime, as the drizzle strikes the lodge, pattering, and we lie warming the soles of our feet, we fall asleep, don’t we?’
“All of the snakes appeared to be asleep now, but the boy had to make sure. He spoke four more lulling phrases. They truly looked asleep.
“‘Attention!’ cried Old Woman’s Grandchild.
“No snakes stirred to his words.
“So he proceeded to cut all their heads off.”
Meadowlark laughed and clapped her hands.
Julia didn’t understand the Crow language. While her husband told stories, she brewed the raspberry tea for Meadowlark, or made trips to the kitchen to get the sick woman broth, with a little meat in it.
Sam was struck hard with this thought: Julia is a good sister, a good wife, and a good human being.
After a few days, though, Sam couldn’t stay in the room all day. He was antsy. He was jumpy. As a matter of fact, he was angry. When he began to pace, Meadowlark, Flat Dog, and Julia threw him out.
He walked the streets of Monterey fiercely. It was a pretty town, facing the bay like an amphitheater. Sam found a cantina with a view of the ocean and sat for hours one afternoon, gazing at the water. He drank endlessly the strong café they brought him—he didn’t want to be even slightly drunk.
He sat on the beach with Coy. He wondered what the little coyote thought, following Sam everywhere he went, now sitting by the waters where Coy could see no food for either of them. Maybe Coy didn’t think. What a relief, not to think, or imagine, or dread the future …
Sam tried not to think. Instead he stared at the water and pictured the many creatures that Robber described within its depths. He discovered that the waters of the Pacific did something to soothe the waters of his spirit. The moment he and Coy walked back toward town, though, or toward the mission, Sam’s spirit was riled. Sam Morgan was working himself up to be very angry. If anything happened to Meadowlark or their child. Angry at the world. Angry at God.
He decided to try to find Grumble, Abby, and Sumner.
A barkeep remembered them. A beautiful woman, he recalled, an older man, and a … He didn’t say the word. “They were looking for a cantina to buy,” he went on in hesitant, melodic English. “There were difficulties. An immigrant, he, she is maybe Catholic, or become Catholic. The black also. They must take a pledge of loyalty to Mexico, all three. And then”—the man gave a shrug—“I only am cantina. Me, I don’t want to sell.”
Sam put himself down at night on the floor next to Meadowlark’s bed at the mission. He noticed that the earth’s soil was not as hard as man’s floor. He was a little envious of Coy, who got to sleep on the bed, next to Meadowlark’s feet.
She seemed better. If she had ever been in serious danger, maybe she was moving beyond it. Sam sat every morning with her, and wandered during the afternoons. After lunch Julia and Flat Dog made him go for a walk. Their nice words meant, Get out of here and stay gone for a while.
Usually he checked Paladin first. One day he noticed she was waxing up—she would foal in a few days. He left jauntily on his walk, and near the buildings he got a terrific surprise—he recognized a voice.
He darted back around the corner of the building at a run. Sure enough—Gideon Poorboy. The bear man was bent over something he was working on, and cussing in French.
“You boys got any time for a trapper who doesn’t want to buy a thing?”
Gideon looked wide-eyed at Sam, handed the platter to Angel, and ran to give Sam a bear hug. Even in that crush Sam thought, He’s sure moving better on tha
t peg leg now.
“Mon ami.” He held Sam at arm’s length—Sam was a rag doll in the big man’s hands—“Amigo!” Gideon exclaimed. They were getting into a regular stew of languages.
Angel gave Sam a warm handshake. “He must finish this embossing while everything is right,” said Angel.
Gideon went back to it. Sam could see a geometric design had been drawn on the surface of the metal and outlined with a tracer. Gideon turned the platter over and put it facedown on an asphalt block. The outlinings were visible on the reverse side. These he then hammered delicately, so that those areas would be raised on the front side.
Angel watched carefully. “Good. Very good … Just so … A little less … Nicely done. Nicely done.”
Now Gideon turned the platter over and put it back onto the yielding asphalt. This time he re-embedded the background of the design, so that only the crucial parts were raised. The process required an eye, a delicate touch, and artistry. Sam felt proud of his friend.
Gideon held the platter up and regarded his handiwork. His eyes were busy, his smile broad. “Le bon Dieu,” he said, “I do it.”
“Bravo!” said Angel.
Sam asked to see more of Gideon’s work.
Gideon showed him, murmuring, “These are only the efforts of a beginner, they …”
Sam could see, though, that the work was beautiful, done with a fine eye and deft fingers.
“I make something maybe special,” said Gideon. He brought out a wood carving, a bear, Sam saw. The bear was reared up on its hind legs and roaring. It was very well done, with lots of detail and a sense of motion.
“He has a flair for this carving, your friend,” said Angel.
“I’m glad,” said Sam.
“He also has maybe a patron.”
“The don, his rancho is near and he is rich, he say California is the land of many bears, and I am the bear man. So he ask me to carve bear for him—golden bear.”
“Golden?”
“Oui, I gild it. Here, I show you.”
Sam was tickled at his old friend’s enthusiasm.
Gideon brought out a small book and showed the very thin sheets of gold interleaved in the book.
