Every Hidden Thing

by Kenneth Oppel

  “They destroyed Cartland’s big quarry,” I whispered.

  This got my father’s attention. “What’s this?”

  “They smashed it all up,” I said. “Unless you did.”

  “Don’t be absurd,” my father hissed.

  The Sioux went into the wagon, rummaged around our foodstuffs, but came out without anything. On the ground we had a couple crates we’d been packing, their lids off. The Indians started sifting through the buffalo grass, lifting out the flour sacks we’d packed a few bones in.

  “Careful. Please,” Father said, unable to restrain himself. He walked closer, one hand held up beseechingly.

  They looked over at him severely. “Gold?” the pockmarked one said, jabbing his finger at the sack.

  “Gold? No, no.” My father shook his head.

  Was that what they were after? I remembered Ned talking about gold in the Black Hills, but that was a long way away. Did the Sioux think we’d found some here?

  “Bones,” my father told them, looking at Ned to see if he knew the word in Sioux. Ned shook his head helplessly.

  My father walked closer to the crate, his hand extended toward the Indian for the flour sack, smiling helpfully. “May I? I’ll show you.”

  After a tense hesitation, the Sioux handed the sack to my father. He quickly untied it, reached in, and brought out a partial rib.

  “Bone,” he said again, tracing his own rib. “From a big animal.” He got down on all fours and lumbered around like a rhinoceros. “Big animal!” he said encouragingly.

  It was such a ridiculous sight, I might’ve laughed if I hadn’t felt so queasy with fear. The Sioux looked at him like he was a madman, and then the short one began to laugh, and the other two men followed. The boy looked at him disapprovingly. He said something sharply to the men, and they stopped laughing. I was amazed by how he treated them.

  The boy came and stood over my father, still on the ground. I worried he was about to kick him. There was an anger in this boy I didn’t understand. He said something to Father, and then, with both hands, gripped his own head below the chin and gave a jerk as if he meant to pull it right off his neck. He looked crazy.

  Slowly Father stood, frowning. “There is a head, yes,” he said, pointing at one of the crates. He touched his hands to his temples, turned his index fingers to horns. “Animal head!”

  “No.” The Sioux boy pointed at my father’s head.

  My guts churned coldly. I saw Ned’s eyes stray to the wagon, where his rifle waited. The Sioux boy looked at the other Indians and said something to the tallest. He sounded angry but also frustrated.

  “You take heads,” the tall Indian said to Father. “Our heads.”

  I understood now. The heads that Cartland had sawed off at the Sioux burial platforms.

  “No,” I said, shaking my head with slow emphasis.

  The Sioux glanced at me with scorn, like I’d spoken out of turn, and turned back to Father.

  “We did not take any heads.” He opened his hands invitingly to the crates. “You can look. Ned, Sam, let’s unpack these crates so they can see.”

  We set to it as the Indians watched. Sack after sack was laid carefully on the ground and opened. Wood shavings spilled out as we extracted the vertebrae and ribs and femurs and tibiae. I noticed that the three Sioux men kept their distance as the bones were revealed. Like standing downwind from a foul smell. Only the boy seemed not to be afraid. All the while I thought about the heads they were looking for—and who had them—and worried there was something else they wanted back too. When we were halfway through the second crate, the tallest Indian held out his hand to stop us. Enough.

  “No head,” he said.

  “No heads,” father told him.

  The Sioux boy seemed a bit forlorn. The other men looked at him with a mix of pity and annoyance. I might’ve felt sorry for him if I hadn’t also been terrified. Of all the Indians he’d been most intent as we’d unpacked the crates. He bent down now and picked up a fossil toe and closed his fist around it while staring defiantly at my father.

  “Yes, of course,” said Father, smiling. “Keep it.”

  Ned said, “Hitch, is our meal ready?”

  “Ready,” said Hitch from the cookstove, which had been producing a distracting medley of smells.

  “Will you eat?” my father asked the Sioux.

  They said nothing, but looked at one another, and then, in agreement, sat down on the ground. Ned and I hurried about, bringing them plates of food and utensils, which they ignored in favor of their fingers.

  My stomach was all clenched up. I picked at my food. The Sioux seemed to enjoy theirs. They finished what was on their plates and let us give them seconds. It was a very quiet meal. Occasionally Hitch would say something to himself, like he did sometimes, and the Sioux would look over at him, startled, then back at us, and we’d smile tensely, and they’d go back to eating. When they were done, Plaskett offered them tobacco. They took it and chewed meditatively, spitting once in a while. Finally they stood, mounted their ponies, and left—in the opposite direction from the Cartland camp, I was glad to see.

  “I won’t lie,” said Plaskett. “I had some very gloomy thoughts back there.”

  “I thought we were done for,” I said. “Where will they go now?

  “They’re likely scouts,” said Ned. “They’ll go back to their camp or village and tell them what they’ve found. What’s all this about heads?”

  “Cartland’s group found some burial platforms on their way out. He cut off the heads to study them.”

  Father looked at me sharply. “How do you know this?”

  “Rachel Cartland told me. I ran into her, a few weeks ago.”

  Ned frowned. “How’d the Indians find out?”

  “Must’ve seen them do it,” I said. Had they seen Rachel take the tooth, too? Maybe it was more than just heads they were looking for.

  “That was a bad mistake,” said Ned. “Burial’s sacred to them. You don’t just saw up their dead.”

  “So they thought we were the culprits,” said Father.

  “Good thing we didn’t have those heads,” Ned said, “or they might’ve taken ours.”

  It was a horrible thought that came to me suddenly. “You think they’ll go to Cartland’s camp?”

  Father was already packing up the uncrated bones. “They wouldn’t risk it, not with so many soldiers.”

  “We’d better tell them,” I said.

  “They’ll be fine, Sam. They’ve got thirty-five cavalrymen!”

  “Still. They should know there’s Sioux around.”

  “They have their own scouts.”

  “And someone’s got to tell them it was the Indians who smashed their fossil. One of the Sioux had a pickax on his pony, all covered in bone dust. Maybe they were getting even with Cartland for taking the heads. Anyhow, someone’s got to clear your name. And it might come better from me.”

  I waited anxiously for his answer. I was much more worried about Rachel’s safety than Father’s reputation. For the first time he seemed to notice my bruised face.

  “Who gave you that beating?”

  “One of the Yalies when I was riding past their quarry.”

  “I hope you blackened his eye too.”

  “Might’ve. Cartland said he’s going to finish you. Publish it all over the place. We better tell him before he sends a telegraph.”

  “Not safe,” he said. “Those Sioux seem pretty agitated.”

  “If they wanted to hurt me, they’d have already done it,” I pointed out. “They just ate our food. Chewed our tobacco. They can’t have any grudge against us.”

  “Sam’s right,” Ned said. “We should tell them. But it’ll be dark in a couple hours. I’ll go with him.”

  Finally Father nodded. “Keep your eyes open in their camp. See if they have anything interesting.”

  “Sure,” I lied. I didn’t care why he was letting me go. I just wanted the chance to make sure Rachel wa
s safe. And get the chance to talk to her.

  As I saddled my pony, Plaskett sauntered over and pressed a pistol into my hand. “You don’t have the same aversion as your pa, I think.”

  “No.”

  “This can’t hurt then.”

  He showed me how to use it, and put a holster on me. I’d never fired a gun, rarely even held one. With the pistol against my hip, we headed toward Cartland’s camp, a plan for thievery taking shape in my mind.

  18.

  THE THIEF

  AT TWILIGHT TWO SOLDIERS DRAGGED HIM into camp, his face bloody. He couldn’t have been more than fifteen.

  “Found him by the river, sir, hiding in the grass,” one of the soldiers told the lieutenant. “He’s Sioux. Had an eye on our horses.”

  They’d already bound the Indian boy’s hands behind his back and now forced him down against the side of a wagon and tied him to the sturdy axle. His bruised, bloodied face made me think of Samuel, and I felt a sorrowful squeeze inside my throat.

  Lieutenant Frye looked the boy over without a flicker of compassion. “Were there any others?” he asked his two men.

  “Not that we saw.”

  “Does he speak English?” the lieutenant asked.

  One of the soldiers shook his head. “Or won’t.”

  “Bring Duellist here,” the lieutenant said.

  The top of a distant butte held the sun’s last light, like a beacon. When Duellist saw the Sioux boy, his normally genial face hardened into a mask. He squatted down and said a few words. The boy glared mutely, then spat on him. Duellist wiped away the spittle, then struck the boy hard across the face.

  I gasped. “Was that necessary?”

  “You shouldn’t watch this, my dear,” my father said, trying to usher me away, but I shook off his hand with a scowl.

  “Don’t feel sorry for him, Miss Cartland,” said the lieutenant. “We’re going easy on him, compared to what his own people do to horse thieves. I knew a trapper who traded with the Sioux. One night they caught a Crow Indian in their corral. First they shot him off his horse, then the braves came and counted coup on him—are you familiar with that practice? They gain honor from striking their enemy with a stick before scalping him. And then the women came with axes and chopped him up and scattered the pieces hither and thither.”

  He made a motion with his hand like sowing seed in a field. It made the carnage he described all the more revolting. I was tired of Lieutenant Frye and his instructive little stories about the Indians.

  Duellist turned to us. “He says he didn’t come to steal horses.”

  “Lying,” said one of the soldiers who’d dragged him in. “Horses are like gold to them.”

  Quite a crowd had gathered. I was amazed at the change the Sioux boy’s presence made in the men. Not just the soldiers but the Yalies. They stood taller. They talked louder. Their jaws hardened. They were ridiculous.

  Duellist and the boy had another exchange. The Pawnee scout turned to my father.

  “He says you took the heads of the dead. He saw it.”

  “Ah,” Papa said.

  I’d never forgotten that mirage-like horse and rider I’d spied on the ridge. We had been watched. Guiltily I wondered exactly how much he’d seen.

  Duellist said, “He wants them back.”

  The Sioux boy was speaking more fiercely now.

  “One of the dead was his father,” Duellist said.

  Papa must have seen my stricken face, because he said, “‘Father’ may be a rather vague term for these people. A term for a relative, or even an elder.”

  “We should return them,” I said.

  He frowned. “We have no proof any of these men were truly related to him.”

  From a distance Mr. Landry jotted notes.

  The boy was speaking again to Duellist. The Pawnee scout grunted, turned to us.

  “He says you also took something from his father’s body—a tooth.”

  My father and I glanced at each other, and I felt sickened by our complicity. I’d stood by as bodies were decapitated—maybe even the body of this boy’s father. Yes, I’d objected, but maybe not strongly enough. And then I’d made everything much worse by stealing from the body. With a twist of self-loathing, I knew I would do it again, for that tooth.

  “He can tell us,” Papa whispered to me, and his expression was nakedly covetous. “He can tell us where he found it.”

  Before I could react, he hurried off. I saw him duck into his tent. He came back with the black tooth in his hand. He crouched close to the Sioux boy and put the tooth on the earth. The boy’s eyes blazed. It was obviously an object he knew well.

  Papa said, “Duellist, will you translate for me, please? Now, where did your father find this?”

  Duellist relayed the question, but the boy just stared defiantly into the distance.

  Duellist cuffed him on the side of the head.

  “No, no!” said my father. “That’s not necessary, please.”

  From his pocket, my father pulled a silver dollar. “Tell him if he tells me, I will give him this.” He put it on the ground.

  With his foot, the boy kicked the coin away and unleashed a torrent of angry words.

  I admired his defiance very much, when he was surrounded by dozens of soldiers, defenseless.

  Duellist said, “He says the tooth should be with the body, and you are thieves, and they will smash any bones you find, just like the big ones they broke yesterday.”

  Triumphantly I looked at my father. “The Bolts had nothing to do with it!”

  “That’s of no concern yes yes to me right now,” he said. He showed no signs of remorse. If anything his face had hardened, and I could tell from his mouth, the forward jut of his neck, how very angry he was.

  Pensively he stood, hands clasped behind his back, and stepped over to the lieutenant. “I know this boy is your prisoner, and you will deal with him as you see fit. But to know where that tooth came from would be a very good bit of information. The skeleton of that creature would be a great prize for me and our nation. Can you think of any way we could . . . induce him to talk?”

  “They’re stubborn,” the lieutenant said, “and they’re proud.”

  “We could give him a good thrashing,” said Daniel Simpson.

  I looked at him in revulsion; at the same moment my father sternly said, “That won’t be necessary. We’re not savages. What you can do is fetch the heads. They’re in the storage wagon.”

  Was he planning on returning them after all? But I felt a slithering unease. Papa crouched down once more, staring at the boy. The boy stared back. If he was intimidated or frightened he did not show it.

  Daniel returned with the burlap sacks, and my father motioned for him to unwrap them. One by one, the three heads were set before the boy. I watched his reaction, saw where his eyes rested. When I glanced at Papa, I saw he’d noticed too. Far right. The boy’s father.

  “If you tell me where the tooth was found, I’ll give you back the heads and the tooth.”

  I wasn’t at all certain my father was sincere, but the boy had no doubts.

  “He says he doesn’t trust you,” Duellist said. “He thinks you are a liar, like all the other Wasicu.”

  Wasicu. This was what the Indians called us, according to the lieutenant. The word actually meant fat-taker—the person who was selfish enough to take the finest part of the animal for himself.

  My father chuckled coldly. “Very good. Well, yes yes tell him, please, Duellist, that he’s destroyed something very important to me. Those bones were my property, and he needs to give me something in return. A trade. He needs to tell me where I can find the bones belonging to that tooth. That’s fair.”

  He spoke with measured calm, but I sensed a terrible undercurrent beneath his words.

  Once again Duellist translated; the Indian boy said nothing. I didn’t see what more my father could do, but he went and picked up a shovel leaning against the wagon.

  “Professor C
artland,” said Mr. Landry, “I urge you not to hurt this boy.”

  I looked at the journalist in surprise and gratitude. I didn’t feel quite so alone anymore.

  “You are a journalist, Mr. Landry, are you not?” my father said quietly. “Then I suggest yes yes that you observe, and not participate.”

  “Papa,” I said, taking a step toward him. I put my hand on his arm, could feel his muscles tensed.

  “Don’t worry, my dear; I’m not going to harm him.”

  He let the tip of the shovel rest very lightly atop each skull in turn, like he was playing a counting game.

  “These are, after all, just bones.”

  His knuckles whitened as he drove the shovel down into the head on the far left, again and again, shattering the skull and upper jaw. Horrified, I stared, not at the mangled remains, but at my own father, who was suddenly unrecognizable to me, his face so clenched, eyes narrowed and furious.

  “Now,” he said, his voice strained, “I will not ask you again. I want to know where that tooth came from.” He let the shovel rest on the head of the Sioux boy’s father, the blade tip-tapping the forehead, the nose, the hole of the ravaged mouth.

  He looked at the silent boy—“No?”—and lifted the shovel high.

  “Stop it!” I cried.

  The Indian boy strained forward, shouting, and my father pulled back.

  Duellist began translating haltingly, cutting the Sioux boy short to ask questions of his own. “He says the place is almost a full day’s ride up the river. There is a butte taller than all the rest. At its base is a coulee with several big rocks like . . .” He made a curving shape with his hands, as though describing a toadstool.

  “A hoodoo,” said Lieutenant Frye.

  I’d seen them. They sprouted plentifully from the ground here: a pillar of rock supporting a large stone cap, sometimes very teetery.

  “Near these,” Duellist went on, “is where the tooth was found.”

  “Is he telling the truth?” my father asked Duellist.

  Duellist looked at the boy hard and then said, “I don’t know.”

  The Sioux boy spoke again.