Well Traveled

by Margaret Mills

  Jed shot him an eager look. “It has been five years since I danced with others.”

  “You should, then,” Gideon urged, grinning despite himself. “I’m happy to watch.”

  Jed’s face hardened like it had when they’d first met these Shoshone out on the plains. “Do nothing—” He stopped, pursing his lips, then glanced warily around them, “backwards. And stay quiet.” He leaned just a little bit closer and hissed out, “For both our sakes.”

  Gideon nodded agreement, even though he had to wonder what Jed was so worried about. He didn’t speak Shoshone, and while the Shoshone spoke English, they didn’t seem very keen on using the language unless they were talking to him directly. Wasn’t like he was dumb enough to make eyes at any brave, not even Jed, in company like this.

  On the other hand, it was hard not to want to start something when he watched Jed move his blanket to a log in the front row and join the circle. The Shoshone were strong dancers, their movements sharp and aggressive, as if they were doing a war dance. But the sounds of drums and the bodies of most of the other dancers seemed to fade away as Jed absorbed more and more of his attention. Jed’s movements were similar, and his dance was similar, but he used more turns and more circles, his hips and arms weaving patterns in the air. His voice was hard to hear, but Gideon could imagine it, low and clear, familiar to Gideon’s very bones.

  When Jed caught the hands of a brave and a squaw and set them to moving sideways, around the fire, they caught the hands of those next to them, and so on until all of the dancers were joined. The quiet conversations in the audience faded away until all Gideon heard was the crackle of the flames, the beat of the drums, the soft slaps of moccasins on dirt. This went on for some time, and ended as naturally as it had begun, folks simply letting go of each other’s hands.

  When no one was holding hands anymore, conversation picked up again in the crowd, and Jed started to weave among them again. He reminded Gideon of an exotic woman who traveled Bill Tourney’s show. She danced with scarves and veils and chains that she wore at her waist and on her ankles and wrists. The idea of Jed in colored veils, his limbs jingling with chains—well, it didn’t do nothing for Gideon’s peace of mind at the moment.

  Suffice to say, Jed was a sight to watch.

  He moved faster than the others, dancing between them and around the circle, his head thrown back and his long hair whipping around with his movements where the Shoshones’ braided hair stayed more still. When Gideon caught sight of his face, it seemed that his eyes were always closed, which Gideon knew couldn’t be the case—he could have run into the others or stepped into the big fire in the center of the dancing circle.

  Gideon leaned forward, fascinated, so focused that the voice next to him startled the hell out of him.

  “He dances as a warrior.” Tendoy had moved in close beside him, settling on the log where Jed had been sitting.

  Gideon nodded, careful not to reveal what he was thinking.

  “The gods sent us that dance,” Tendoy said slowly, as if trying to find the words. “We believe it is a way to save ourselves from your people, to bring us back to the old ways. To give us back our lands.”

  The sadness in his voice caught Gideon’s attention, and he turned to look at the older man. “That’s the Ghost Dance then,” he said, less surprised than he supposed he should have been.

  Tendoy looked startled for a moment before the lines of his face smoothed to blandness. “The Ghost Dance has been forbidden by your white leaders,” he said, his voice mild. “We would not break your laws.”

  Gideon looked back to where Jed danced, twirling faster now, his arms outstretched, his leg strong and reliable for him, not bothering him at all. Some of the Shoshone dancers had stepped out of the circle to watch him, and Gideon read the respect on their faces.

  Outlawed or not, Indians still held to their faith just like white folks held to theirs. Seemed like Jed was made up of his faith.

  Tendoy said, still very slowly, “It was his people who died at the Knee.”

  His people. Jed moved to the far side of the fire, his movements partly lost behind the bright blaze. “I don’t mean no disrespect, but I don’t know a lot about your people—or any of the tribes, not on their own. I reckon everybody’s read about Wounded Knee,” Gideon offered, careful now. “But I’ll bet I don’t know as much as I should.” It was sort of the truth. Most of his Indian friends were from further north, up in Canada. While he knew that there were a lot of different tribes, he’d never given much thought to the differences between them, not like he would to, say, the differences between Irish and Italians.

  Here he was, keeping company with one, and he didn’t know how to tell him from most of the other Indians he saw.

  Jed did a series of jumping twirls that had the drummers picking up the pace of the beat, and Gideon found himself clapping along, relieved when all the noise made it too loud for more conversation. The other dancers picked up the beat, too, as it grew into a frenzy of jumps and turns and somersaults in the air that made Gideon think more of circuses he’d seen than of Indian ghosts.

  When Jed came out of a jump and fell to the ground, Gideon jerked forward, but Tendoy’s hand on his arm stopped him. “He has died. He will rise anew,” he said, like he was quoting scripture. Gideon watched as a few other braves leapt and fell to the ground, as other dancers moved over and around their panting bodies, and the rest of the tribe got to its feet, clapping to the beat of the drums until the dancers still standing came slowly to a halt.

  They were breathing fast and hard, shiny with sweat, and dark circles stained the shirts of the ones still wearing them. Jed pushed off the ground and shook his head back, his hair wild, his eagle feather still drifting in the air behind him, and strands of hair were stuck to his damp forehead. But his eyes were bright and as alive as Gideon had ever seen them—more alive than in the heat of their passion.

  This was something Jed loved, this dancing, but Gideon guessed Jed loved even more what it was supposed to do for his people.

  Any tensions left between the Shoshone and Jed ended with the dance. The food was ready, and they sat to eat, sharing a meal of goose and fresh venison, some kind of root vegetable that reminded him of turnips, and flat bread still warm from oven or stone. As Jed settled back down beside him, Gideon grinned.

  “If I’d known you could do that,” he whispered, “I’d have asked you to dance for me.”

  Jed grinned back and said just for Gideon, “You have. It’s just a different sort of dance.”

  Gideon watched Jed eat, watched the grease from the venison shine on his fingers and wanted to lick it off them. He turned his eyes away before he made trouble.

  When the stories started, it was easier to ignore the lure of Jed beside him. An old woman who called herself Anzee-chee began the storytelling session, telling of a massacre some thirty years past that had taken too many of their people, and of a medicine man who’d seen it in a dream and saved those families who’d left before the military arrived from Fort Douglas. She told it in English, no doubt for his sake, and the way she spoke the words sounded like poetry to Gideon. He had the sense that if she repeated the tale, every word would be the same. He knew from Harold Crowe and his brother Luke that lots of tribes kept their history this way, since none of them were much for writing or book making.

  “Jedediah says you tell many stories,” Tendoy said, turning to Gideon. He raised his voice, gaining the attention of all the folks settled around the fire. “Gideon will tell a story of his people’s now.”

  Gideon flushed and shot a look to Jed, looking for guidance. He didn’t think stories about the show were proper, not after the tale the woman had told, and he didn’t know what these folks would want to hear.

  Jed nodded to him. “Tell them of how your mother met your father, and how she came to travel with him,” Jed suggested, and Gideon smiled. Jed loved that story, and it was a nice tale indeed. Might lift some spirits around here. So he lau
nched into it, telling about his grandmother the schoolteacher, how his ma said it had been love at first sight with his daddy. “Well, love at first sight or not, it took the whole week the show was in town for it to be love of any other kind,” he said, infusing his voice with the dark humor of it. “A few weeks after the show moved on, Mama turned up expecting with me, and she wrote a letter to my pa to see if it was really love or if she’d just been, well, a stop on the road.” Gideon smiled fondly at the memory, because he’d had his share of stops on the road and not one of ’em would he have been overly happy to hear that kind of news from. “My daddy’s name is Robert Makepeace, and he wired her money to come and catch up with him the same day he got her letter. I was born in New Orleans, where the show hunkers down for the winters, and I’ve worked with it since I was a kid. Still do,” he said.

  “But the show is not near here,” one of the braves said, a question in his voice.

  “Gideon was hired by a horse breeder in Montana,” Jed put in, “to help school some of his animals. Gideon saved my life there, and now I am returning him to his family and his work.”

  Some folks nodded, and plenty of the women were smiling. True love was always a happy tale to tell. When a brave stood up to tell a story, his was happier, too, and right funny, about his first hunt and how bad he’d been at it, scaring the game away with his noise and his questions until his older brother had threatened to leave him under a tree until the hunt was finished. And so the night went on, long after the food was finished and the fires burned low. Some folks had already gone to bed. Gideon could see shadows through the teepee walls, the movement reminding him of puppet shows the actors’ troupe put on for little kids.

  Cowhatocowait asked him for one more story, so he told one about a dancing bear who had been a part of the sideshow for a couple of years, right up until it had tried to dance with the wife of the mayor in a small town in Virginia. The bear had been more interested in the smell of the flowers in the woman’s hat than in the woman herself, but she hadn’t understood that one bit, and the bear had scared ten years off her. They’d managed to get everybody settled down with the bear unhurt, but the bear and his keeper had parted company with the troupe soon after.

  The moon, just a few days past new, had set long ago, and most of the fires were banked for the night. Tendoy held up his hands after Gideon finished. “Rest. We must hunt at dawn,” Tendoy said, his voice stern as he looked at the braves who were still chuckling at Gideon’s story.

  Gideon said, “I’m right tired myself. Jed and I still need to find a place to bed down anyway—”

  “You will stay here,” Tendoy said, gesturing to a nearby teepee. “The furs are thick and soft.”

  Gideon glanced to Jed, unsure of how to answer.

  “We do not wish to take someone else’s furs,” Jed said in English, but he added to it in whatever that language was that both tribes seemed able to speak.

  Tendoy frowned, but he looked a little relieved, too. He answered Jed in that foreign tongue then clapped his hands together, pointing to a little crowd of young men. They rose and moved away to do his bidding, and Tendoy pushed himself to his feet. It was the signal for everyone else, and Gideon was thankful; his legs were aching from sitting Indian-style for so long.

  “We will share Tendoy’s teepee,” Jed explained. “It is an honor to share his home.”

  Gideon nodded his thanks to Tendoy. “Them geese Jed found,” Gideon said, “they weren’t but three days east of here. Big flock of ’em, maybe Jed can tell you how to find ’em?”

  “Three days is off our land,” Tendoy said, a clear rebuke.

  Jed leaned forward, said, “It is less than two days, without a white man and his horse. The land between here and that lake is unsettled. We saw no cattle or whites to the west of it. You could send only two braves, and they could bring back much meat and feathers.”

  Tendoy looked thoughtful, and nodded slowly. “Tell Cowhatocowait of your route. But tomorrow. Now, we sleep.”

  Tomorrow, Gideon promised his unhappy dick, they’d be moving on. But it was going to be a rough night of not thinking about Jed and his dancing.

  It wasn’t though; once he settled in on the bed of furs a hell of a lot softer than his bedroll on the ground, Jed stretched out past him, their heads close together like they slept most nights, he found that he couldn’t stay awake.

  As Tendoy had promised, the next morning started early, and Gideon was not happy to be rousted before the sun was even up. It didn’t take him long to figure out that he was in a whole village of people like Jed, who were up and moving before first light, and he hoped they wouldn’t be staying in too many more Indian camps along the way. He’d got to liking his extra time to rest while Jed got up and roamed for meat or wild vegetables, and he realized now just how much Jed was spoiling him. The thought made him grin, and he vowed to do more of his fair share on the road ahead.

  Star was just as uninterested in moving around at this time of the day as he was, but she gave in more quickly when Jed murmured things to her in his own language and stroked her long neck and behind her ears. Gideon was almost jealous of the horse, and he said as much, drawing a quick grin from his companion.

  They set out with Tendoy and his braves, walking as the sun rose. There was as little talk as there had been the day before, but there was less tension. When Gideon started humming, one of the braves grinned at him, and before too long, he was teaching “Never Mind the Why and Wherefore” to the whole party.

  They stopped at a stream to refill canteens, and Tendoy gave them back their guns. “We will part here,” he said, speaking English. “Kill no more than you must to eat for a day. Go in peace.”

  Gideon took his gun from the man then held out his hand in offering. “Thanks for the hospitality,” he said.

  Tendoy nodded, clasping Gideon’s hand like a white man would. He turned to Jed and spoke in Shoshone, which Jed answered in kind. They spoke longer, and when they parted, they grasped each others’ wrists in the Indian way.

  Tendoy stepped back, and Jed turned to Gideon. “Come on,” he said quietly, leading the way.

  The Shoshone waited as they walked away, and even though he could feel their eyes on his back, Gideon didn’t even think to feel threatened.

  After a while he looked back, and they were gone. He could barely see them moving off to the north, vague shadows amid the dry grass.

  After a while Gideon asked, “Why did they give us back our guns? I thought they didn’t want us killing anything they might need.”

  Jed smiled a little. “You shared food with them, and you shared your life with them. You showed respect for their ways.”

  “How about you, Jed?” Gideon asked. “Did I show respect for your ways?”

  Jed slowed his pace a little, looking at Gideon. For some reason, this answer was suddenly very important, and Gideon stood a little straighter. There was plenty he could have done wrong, from plain old ignorance—

  “Yes, Gideon,” Jed said slowly. “You did. I thank you.”

  Gideon felt his chest puff up with pleasure at that answer, and turned his face away to hide his smile, so Jed wouldn’t tease him about it. Much as he usually enjoyed Jed’s teasing, this thing with the Shoshone had been… well, it had become important to him that he’d done good by Jed.

  They moved on until almost nightfall, when Jed found a stream and strolled along until they found a good spot to camp near it. While Gideon set a small fire, working with Jed’s flint which he was learning to master, Jed put their bedrolls side by side. Before the sun was down, Jed stripped out of his clothes and washed, then he wrapped himself in his blanket and his thong, so Gideon braved the icy water and did the same but pulled most of his clothes back on after. It was getting damned cold tonight. They ate dried meat and flat bread that Tendoy’s people had packed for them, and while it seemed like they were talking a lot, neither of them actually said much with their mouths. Before they’d finished their meal an
d packed the rest away for tomorrow, Gideon was half-hard, just from the looks he and Jed kept sharing.

  AFTER the sun set, the gray dusk gave way to a blue-black night in the east and warm, darkening hues to the west; the crescent moon hung low in the sky. Jed stood and dropped the blanket onto the rest of his bedroll. With his eyes holding Gideon’s, he moved in a slow circle around the bedrolls, swirling and stomping in a rhythm that needed no music, even though he did almost-silently chant the familiar sounds Gideon had come to know.

  Gideon slapped his thigh like a drum, keeping time with his partner, and it wasn’t long before Jed was covered in a sheen of sweat that caught the firelight so that he seemed to shimmer as he moved. Jed’s hair was blacker than the night, and it, too, caught what little light there was, shining as it swung and flew with a life of its own.

  Part of Gideon had a life of its own, too, and it rose hard and proud as Jed danced, his naked skin inviting, his lithe body showing all its finest qualities to Gideon’s hungry eyes. The thong covered Jed’s good parts, but it also defined the hard muscles of his ass, drawing Gideon’s eyes every time Jed turned or twisted.

  On his fourth or fifth pass around their bedrolls—Gideon had lost count long ago—he came close enough for Gideon to reach and run his fingers down the back of one leg. He didn’t intend to throw Jed off-balance, just to draw him closer, but Jed was shifting his weight from one leg to the other, and Gideon’s pull on it threw him off his center. Jed fell. Fortunately, he was small enough that he didn’t hurt Gideon too much when he landed squarely on him. Unfortunately, it ended Jed’s dance—and took Gideon’s breath. Jed lay on top of Gideon, trying to get his arms under him. Gideon caught his hips, hands slipping on all that sweaty, bare skin, and did his best to lift a little, helping Jed put some space between them until Jed got his arms pushed out in front of him.

  His hair hung down like a dark waterfall on all sides of Gideon’s face and over the top of his head so that Gideon couldn’t really see anything: no stars, no moon or sky, not even the details of Jed’s face just a few inches above his. All he could do was feel: the hard dirt beneath his bedroll and the hard, warm planes of Jed’s body pressed against him. He could smell the rich, earthy smell of Jed, and the mint on his breath, could hear the sound of Jed’s panting loud in his ears as Jed quickly caught his breath.