“I…”—but that old doubt and dread of the plow silenced him; even now, paltry as it was, man’s endeavor closed around, constricting, cutting off the prairie. He gazed at the crops and horses, to the lodge and house, to Martha and baby-James, to Moneva and Luther, as if the entire earthly kingdom lay stretched before him, there for the taking, to fill the desert of his soul, offered by his brother to share in faith and trust and love—but the only words he could manage in answer were: “I’m tempted, Luther…truly tempted.”
“Then you’ll think it over?” Silent, waiting.
Caspion smiled and gave a faint nod.
XXVIII. A Great and Gentle Beast
Doctor Higley, as expected, arrived promptly at noon. While he carried no watch, he possessed an uncanny sense of time, ingrained through long habit and training; an internal clock that was rarely more than a minute shy or fast of the precise Newtonian hour. Which was a curse, really; and his great reason for coming to the frontier was to escape the tyranny of time, schedule, and profession. He had served as a field surgeon throughout the war, amputating such a tangled mass of blue and gray limbs that it seemed he’d personally halved the “Union” and quartered the “Secesh.”
In binding up the Nation’s wounds, he was as needful of healing as any.
But in the great silence of the prairie those rife screams yet lingered and played nightly in his dreams as if the Right of Partible Inheritance pertained to the flesh as well as to property and must be divvied up at the Eternal’s cold command—and he, the surgeon, with scalpel and saw must make the assessment as to who and how much. So he kept his hands clasped tightly, perhaps to restrain them from ever again performing such operative horrors. And present circumstance ensured that the practice of medicine could place but a meager, desultory claim; although he denied no one his care and answered without fail each call, taking whatever was offered in payment without complaint, his primary focus was fixed on the peace and study of his primitive sanctuary—the isolated dugout, miles from any settlement, made certain that if he were summoned, he was sorely needed. But punctuality was always strictly observed, a respect due others whether a medical or social visit.
“Whoa, Melissa,” he gently urged his Belgian mare as the buckboard rolled to a halt. Dust from the drive covered his pant-legs and sleeves; and despite the heat, he wore a vest, coat, and high-buttoned color—the black suit, his only and Sunday best, worn out of dutiful decorum. Though he went hatless, his hair, beard, and brows so guarded his face that his black darting eyes seemed to peer from the deep misanthropic ruins of his soul. Yet there lay no hatred or mistrust, he was simply an insular being, shy, uncertain, eager to speak, though silence was usually maintained out of fear lest his mingling thoughts sound too slipshod or disjointed, for they formed with such zealous force and abandon, surprising even to himself. Whereas confidence reigned and his hand calmed when he put pen to the page; Doctor Higley was a poet, not of choice or design, but of chance and passion. Words and their riotous gestation kept him habitually frazzled. He quickly tied the reins then clasped his hands.
“Good people,” he abruptly announced; “You’ll not believe…”—waiting an interminable moment—“But I have found…a Mammoth!” His expression left one to wonder whether it grazed nearby. Then he glanced from Caspion to the lodge. “Why, you are Indian…and blue-eyed”—followed by a thought too virulent to contain: “Are you Mandan?”
“No, no, Brewster,” Luther mercifully stepped in, “not Mandan or Mohican. This is my brother, Jim Caspion. Though he carries blood so utterly his own that since he was a boy we’ve mostly called him Caspion. And certainly not the last of our line. Not since you delivered baby-James. But his wife, Moneva, is Indian…Cheyenne. And a woman most worthy of our love and respect.”
Also a tribe most worthy of caution, thought the other as he scanned the horizon, making certain; for the Indian yet posed a tangible threat, and in this savage land death lurked not in the shadows, but loomed from the distance like a storm of sudden fury, leaving one either alive and well, or quite dead in the wake of its passing.
“It’s a Mammoth, though,” he asserted, wrenching his hands apart in attempt to explain, each movement staccato-like, flesh afflicted by the force of tangent thought; “Of that I am certain. What was it Jefferson said…”—a finger tapping his brow—“All the manna of heaven may never raise the mouse to the bulk of the Mammoth!’” With that he gave a nervous laugh.
“Yes, I recall the passage,” Luther added to fill the awkward moment. “He is speaking there, I believe, of the limits placed on each by Providence. That change of soil, climate, food…nor even selective breeding can much alter our fated forms.”
“Quite right, Luther…yes”—thinking: So many formed and by one hand fated. “And not a mile west of here…evidence of an incredible being. I was struck, uh…” He now examined his open palm, contemplating its form and fate, then abruptly clasped his hands and sat silent.
“Well, climb on down,” Luther offered, aware the Doctor had for the moment said his piece. “We’ll have a bite to eat then all ride out. I’m curious to see this Mammoth.”
Doctor Higley made a tentative move, then froze; speculative thought purged by instinct, for in the shadow cast below waited a substantive presence—Ho’ne.
“Don’t mind the wolf,” Caspion grinned, “he’s only half dog.”
Moneva called Ho’ne to her while the Doctor eased down from the buckboard. Caspion induced man to approach wolf-dog. “Ho’ne,” Moneva urged softly; the enchantment of her voice and the word itself had a calming influence as man’s hand edged forth for wolf-dog’s inspection. “Ho’ne,” the Doctor intoned, then stepped back, much relieved to have made his acquaintance with hand intact.
They ate quickly in anticipation, like the famished, anxious to view the discovery. Luther and Martha rode out on the buckboard with Doctor Higley. Since it was only a short distance, Caspion and Moneva doubled up and rode bare-back on the buckskin. Ho’ne trotted alongside.
Scores of “hoppers” jumped and flew before the advancing hooves; the insects harvested the available nutriment with chilling voracity, like hunters thoroughly flaying a beast. Below the hot sun and dry winds, the grass stood in tremulous brown stands, all but dormant, enlivened here and there by traces of green. And while the color remained stronger in the willows and cottonwoods along the creek, the scattered pools were so drawn down by the drought that the current ceased to flow beneath the suffocating scum of “dead water.”
The Mammoth’s remains lay in a slight depression beyond a limestone outcropping a quarter mile east of the creek—the site so windblown and barren of soil that the grass held in a few thin clumps, rooting tenaciously in crevices and about the perimeter. Ho’ne paid scant attention to the ancient bones, sniffed a snake-hole then bounded off in pursuit of a winged hopper. The skeletal mass retained a hint of its living form; and though broken-down and ravaged by an enormity of time, the passing millennia had only half-completed the burial. The left profile lay exposed; the massive head and a lone tusk set in vivid relief, curled like a fetus. It had apparently collapsed on its side and gouged in death-throes throughout the radius, wallowing for the womb, its great tusks prying at the stone bed of long-vanished seas in a vain attempt to reach water. And at the very end, night fell in dark wave over its glacial eye.
Caspion paced off its length; the tusk alone spanned seven feet before it curved, crumbling in blunt decay. The skull’s enormous dome intimated a monarchical presence that would dwarf, as Luther conjectured, any circus elephant known. And Doctor Higley, in further awe, wondered aloud whether a number of the kind still roamed the unexplored regions of the far north. A speculation that silenced all; in their collective mind they saw the beast rise and live again, an aspect more woeful than menacing.
Moneva had knelt by the skull; she ran her hand over the vacuity that had once held its eye and said something in Cheyenne that drew their attention. Then she stated matter-of-fac
tly as she stood: “All wiped out.”
“This you call a Mammoth,” she explained, all but Caspion much surprised by her bold felicity, “was hunted by the first men. Fierce men, larger than we. They hunted till all Mammoth were slain. A great and gentle beast. So it is said. And Maheo, our Father in the Sky, was made angry. He led all animals away and put them underground, in a Great Cave far to the south. For many generations man grew weak and starved, became quite small. He feared the wolf, the lion, the bear…so small the eagle could snatch him up. He hid in the woods to the east and survived on roots and berries and what birds and fish he could catch. At last, Maheo took pity, sent the buffalo, and taught man to hunt again. Later, and this I know…He sent Sweet Medicine to teach the People the true path, the Sacred Way, so they would not repeat the greed of the first men.” A cryptic tale; and none had a word in answer. Tufts of grass vibrated in the wind; streams of dust sifted through the bones. So ended their festive outing.
That evening they again took supper under the stars and relished a feast of buffalo tongue. Naturally enough, with such evidence set before them and Moneva’s tale fresh in mind, their conversation turned to the fate of the buffalo. Luther was optimistic.
“Surely out of the millions, many thousands will survive. There’s room for all in this vast land,” he declared with a sweep of his arm. “And every legislature in the West is moving to restrict the hunt. Some even threaten to ban it entirely.”
Doctor Higley concurred: “Yes, much like emancipation. Once the public is aroused…majority interest will rule against the greed and folly of the few. Such is the nature…and genius of democracy.” Though hesitant now as the thought occurred to him that the many may desire the exact opposite: an equal share of greed and folly.
Moneva remained silent, unmoved by words, absorbed in the timeless essence of woman and birth, of mother and child; at that moment Martha bared her breast, preparing to nurse baby-James. And while the men politely ignored the one, they dared not look at the other, fearing her judgment, for her vantage was frightfully unreasoned and ancient. Rather, they sought the hunter’s view, asking whether the buffalo would go the way of the Mammoth. Caspion glanced to Moneva and Martha then back to the men.
“Have you forgotten, Luther…?” he began; “Only yesterday you allowed as how we’d gunned ’em down. In just five summers, where millions grazed, there’s not a one. I’ve watched the McCormick Reaper…witnessed its efficiency. During the war, I saw and experienced another kind. The modern Army is a great machine, grimly efficient for reaping men. But the current hunt is like a plague of locust…and each man, a machine powered by greed.” His eyes narrowed, steeled by prescience. “The slaughter will be total. The land picked clean. Every settler will have a McCormick, then a beast sired of the Iron Horse to pull a mightier plow. And the Army will not rest till it brings the power of the sun to bear on the enemy.”
“Quite right!” Doctor Higley was wholly swayed; “I agree with Caspion. The sun, yes, most astonishing. With every force science has harnessed, with each new marvel comes an attendant peril.” He examined his open palm; the strange fixation suddenly dispelled by a falling star, this a nightly phenomena in early August on the plains; and with it his thoughts fled to another vista entirely. “Ad Astra Per Aspera…,” he mused aloud; “Our state motto, yes…,‘To the stars through difficulty.’” Then he asked: “Have you ever wondered?”—clasping his hands, as Luther and Caspion followed his gaze to the heavens—“And the notion has struck me more and more of late…whether there are other worlds circling other stars, inhabited by beings…whose intelligence and beauty, perhaps…exceeds even ours?”
The question and its aspiration infused Caspion; his thoughts leapt instantly, adrift in quest of the unimagined; heretofore his explorations had been of the earth, of the flesh and the being within—but of the cosmos and beyond, rarely an intimation. Luther, too, was captivated; there the robust mind could rove untrammeled, free of dithering, untidy matters…the whole hen’s nest of mortal concerns.
Moneva had gone to the lodge to build a fire; presently, she returned and invited Martha to come sit with her. “Visit ni-nov…my home,” she translated. Martha was only too happy to escape the men and their absurdities. Ho’ne followed within. Martha knelt and arranged herself in the manner of Moneva. They sat opposite, either side of the fire, and Ho’ne lay beside Moneva. The fire was quite pleasant; it drew a steady draft from around the edge, cooling the lodge; the inner lining was seldom used in summer. Martha raised her eyes to the smoke-hole where the heated vapors escaped to the stars beyond; for an instant she felt herself ascend, vertigo induced by the circular enfoldment, then quickly glanced down, grounded once more, content to focus on the fire.
Baby-James began to fuss, still hungry. “Shush now,” she whispered, freeing her other breast to place the nipple in his mouth; he gave suck, drawing the sweet warmth with eager pleasure. “You little wolf,” she cooed; “You’ll sup me dry.” Then she cast a forlorn smile to Moneva. “Such an appetite. I may not have enough milk.”
Moneva reached for a parfleche hanging back of her; she searched its contents briefly then presented a tiny cloth bundle in the palm of her hand. It contained a bluish herb, finely ground. She took a pinch and sprinkled it over the fire. She called it “Blue Medicine” and described the plant it was taken from: “What Caspion calls the Lan’quid La’dy.” Martha nodded, she knew the plant as the Virginia Blue-bell.
“The leaves are crushed with Milk Root,” Moneva continued. “Heat it in water. This much,” she withdrew a sizable pinch; “Drink like maktabo mah’pe…like coffee.”
Martha graciously accepted the bag. “I will try some tomorrow.”
“It will help,” Moneva assured.
When she’d finished nursing, Martha asked to lay baby-James on the white robe. Her wish readily granted as Moneva proudly unfolded the robe. The rich softness of the fur surprised Martha more than the purity of its color; she wondered at its mystery and alleged power, and hoped that its blessing would flow to her child. She’d long been curious of the robe, for Luther had shared the letters with her. But her curiosity spoke now of another matter.
“How is it,” she asked, turning to Moneva, “that you met Caspion?”
Terrors of that night played again in the fire; flames that had softly lapped the air suddenly thrust like unsheathed knives. Awoke In Winter lay bleeding in the mud; she felt her hair tangled, trod upon; her hands painfully tied; and the quickening terror, soon thrown on the prairie, brutally scarred. Dog That Smiles, his venomous snarl, forms in the flames as he sets his teeth to lunge at her—then one by one all appear in horrid procession, bestial with foolish water, sating their lust. And finally, the feast abandoned, the forsaken one wakes from her death and struggles on, the wind and blizzard biting her until the still-born lies in the snow and she wanders aimlessly through the trees. Yet another vision rises from the flames, the red blanket drawn about his shoulders, his handsome features vivid as life as he desperately calls: “Monevat! Mo-ne-vat!” And memories of him flood her—Running Hawk, her beloved, so close she can reach out and touch. “Nameho,” she cries, raising her hand to the flames…
At her sharp scream, Caspion came running. Entering the lodge, he found Moneva cradling her hand, whimpering: “Nameho, Nameho…” Ho’ne was up and pacing; Martha looked on, much alarmed. Caspion knelt to Moneva and held her gently, stroking her hair; they spoke softly in Cheyenne for a time. Martha, of course, understood nothing, only aware that the fateful word “Nameho” was often repeated by each.
“She burnt her hand,” Martha said, eyes beseeching. “I only asked how you met…”
“It’s okay, Martha. It’s okay. She was taken captive once…lost in a storm.”
He left it at that. And Martha, deeply sorry for having asked, gathered up baby-James and exited the lodge; admonishing her too-curious tongue as she returned to her sod-house. All that night Moneva clung to him, would not release her hold, lay in
the shelter of his embrace, needed him close—freely captive to the Spirit Hunter.
XXIX. The Housewarming
“There’s gold in the mountains, silver in the streams, but ’round here its molasses. Dirt, sun, wind, damn little rain, an’ molasses.” Daniel was explaining to Caspion how molasses had achieved the status of currency among the settlers. Most were cash-poor and many simply dirt-poor and had to drink “rye coffee,” the grain parched black to give it flavor—so a man usually hired out for molasses, which he then bartered, dealt, or traded for other services or commodities, and so on down the road till all had molasses running out of their ears and dreaded the very sight of. “Some days I get more molasses than water. I’d bath in the stuff but it only draws flies, an’ they’ll skin your hide in trade for more molasses.”
Luther’s was a rare cash-job, therefore Daniel always set out well before sunup, arriving shortly after first light, same each Monday, bound to give his best. Daniel Kelly, born a poor Irish Catholic and proud of his heritage and craft, he could build anything, you name it. But his greater skill and pride were lavished on the piano. He played weddings, taverns, funerals—you name it. And whether at carpentry or at music, he kept up a lively spin of news, gossip, politics, and tales; something of an old-time bard, the bellwether that sniffs the wind and spreads the word.
Only mid-morning, yet the sun bore down till sweat soaked their clothes.
“My, that’s sweet,” Daniel smacked his lips after drinking a dipper-full from the fresh-drawn bucket. “Luther, I’d take this water over molasses any day.” He handed back the dipper and tipped up his hat, eyes squinting with mischief.
“Say, you ain’t heard the latest on Sandy. Set his foot spang into it Saturday. We set ’im up real good. That’s ‘Sandy’ Johnston…,” he nodded to Caspion, “thinks he’s the father benevolent of our wee village west. Mainly because he provides the palings to pen us all in debt. Your risk, his profit. Short, stout an’ thick, wears a tiny derby on his squat bald head. Just like a turtle, no neck to stick out. A true business type. Deals in lumber an’ what not, you name it. Charges a handsome price, you bet. A plunderin’ Swede…I swear, still on a viking. And a regular Columbus to boot, been all the way to St. Lewy an’ back. Knows it all. He means well, I suppose, but he’ll talk you to death…suck up the very air like a cat stealin’ a baby’s breath. Same grist for the ol’ mill day in ’n day out.” He cocked his hat and struck a pose. “‘So ’n so said this, why…an’ I jes’ tol ’em that.’ And so on an’ so forth. You get the gist. Got an opinion on this, that, an’ the other, you name it. If not the weather an’ crops, then hellfire ’n damnation…
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