The High Missouri (13 page)

Dylan and Fore kept dancing.

Pigtail stepped off and jumped high to stomp again. This time Barrel got a bear arm up and grabbed Pigtail by one ankle. Rolled and twisted at once.

A screech of agony from Pigtail, almost in tune with a scratching fiddle. His body whumped the earth.

They danced.

Sounds of scuffles, half-mute cries.

When Dylan turned toward the fighters, Barrel was kicking Pigtail in the face. Barrel flung his huge body, all his weight, full length onto Pigtail, the embrace of a dark beast assailant. The smaller man lay utterly still for a moment. Barrel put his mouth to Pigtail’s cheek.

Pigtail screamed.

When Barrel raised his face, leering, his mouth was red with blood, and he spat something out. Pigtail’s ear was a scarlet quarter moon.

Fore whirled Dylan away from the sight. She slid close to him, flicked her pelvis briefly against him, pulled back, smiled. His Fornicating Woman, lewdly happy.

A tap on his shoulder.

Saga. And Mr. Stewart.

“My dance, I believe,” said Mr. Stewart.

Fore hesitated, looked into Dylan’s eyes, brushed her crotch against him briefly, and turned into Mr. Stewart’s arms.

“Of course,” she chimed, the first English words Dylan had heard her say.

He felt the separation like a baby thrust from the womb into the cold night air. He stood there for a moment, stupefied at the emptiness of his arms, the cold against his chest and belly.

Before the couple moved off, by the light of the fire, Dylan could see Mr. Stewart’s cod big in his pants.

“And my turn next,” said Saga, his eyes on Dylan, his words to Stewart. After the muteness of the spell, Dylan was mystified by all these words.

“I have a gift for her,” said Saga. Mr. Stewart danced away with Fore, but Saga continued to speak as though to him. He was drunk, slurring his words.

Dylan’s eyes, by arcane forces of the blood, were held on Fore. She was smiling and chatting toward Mr. Stewart’s face high above her own. She was social, out from under the sway of the spell that held her to Dylan. Mr. Stewart appeared to be looking not at her but out into the darkness at whatever he always saw in such places. Since the sun was finally down, Dylan could see little of Fore’s upturned face but her eyes and teeth flashing gaily, and the slashes of white paint on her face and hair, her escutcheon.

“I have a gift for her,” Saga repeated loudly, insistently. “Not to be given up against a wall.”

Dylan looked at him. Grinning knowingly, lewdly, Saga held up his quirt. “This,” he said. Dylan looked him in the eyes, aware that Saga was at last talking to him. “She can use it as chastity belt like the Cheyennes,” he said, cocking his crotch and sliding the quirt through it. “Or she can ask me to use it as a goad.” He panted, thrust his hips vulgarly forward, over and over, and whipped imaginary haunches with the quirt. “Beg me.”

Dylan hit him. Before either of them knew it. Heel of hand hard to nose.

Saga sat down hard. Dylan stood there stunned.

Saga rubbed his nose. Came away with blood on his hand. Stood up slowly, warily, staggering a little, and smiling slyly, crookedly.

He ran at Dylan head down, butted his chest. Dylan went sprawling. So did Saga, too drunk for balance.

They both worked their way onto their feet, cagey, looking at the other, ready.

Dylan charged Saga. The half-breed stepped aside with surprising grace, grabbed Dylan’s left arm, slung him into the crowd.

Everyone had stopped and was watching now, cheering, jeering, guffawing, yelling, hurrahing. This was one of the gentlemen against one of their own. Fore was studying Dylan intently, mesmerized.

The fighters approached each other, watching, ready. Saga jumped and kicked Dylan in the chest with both feet. They both went down, but Saga was up instantly. He stomped Dylan in the belly.

Hurt, hurt. Dylan blinked the world back into existence. The hurt was worse, but his brain was working. If Saga stomped him again now, he would be dead. Though his soul was dead, he didn’t want to die. He wanted to fight. And frig. And drink blood.

Want stirred him. His gut hurt—he was sure something was broken. He rolled to his knees, holding his breath against the pain. Straightened from his knees. Saw Saga holding the quirt, leering down. Knew he was going to die.

He would die fiercely, beastlike. He would revel in what he was, and die. He struggled to his feet.

Slash. On his light shirt. It stung but was tolerable.

Slash. On his legs, not too bad.

Slash. On his face. Terrible. He touched his mangled skin and brought away a handful of blood.

Slash. The other side of his face. He was stunned, paralyzed, helpless.

Slash. His neck, an awful pain, and the sensation of choking. He was done for now.

Came a voice, Mr. Stewart’s voice. “The knife, lad.”

Dylan didn’t know what it meant. He wasn’t skilled enough yet to make an effective throw. Or did the voice mean a throw?

Slash. One of Dylan’s nipples exploded in pain.

He staggered backward, away. He had to get farther away, seven paces, to throw a knife.

Saga let him go, perhaps drawing out the kill. Darted in. Slash! Between the thighs, perhaps intended for the balls. Saga darted back out.

The foes looked at each other, Saga mockingly, crouched low, Dylan standing upright, helpless.

Dylan straightened himself for the gesture. He thought through the motion, imagined it vividly. In imagination it was elegant, beautiful, perfect. He would make his quixotic gesture with good form.

He reached his right arm back slowly over his shoulder, grasped the hilt with his fingers.

At that moment Saga charged.

It was all wrong.

The distance was too short.

Saga’s head was where his chest should be.

Dylan threw, threw with abandon, threw merely to make the motion he imagined. As he let it go, he knew it was a bad throw.

THOCK!

The sound made Dylan shudder. The crowd babbled agitatedly.

Saga stood still for a moment, poised, stopped in his charge. He crumpled up and rolled to the ground.

His left eye was all blood.

The knife gleamed in the eye socket, silver rampant on a field of crimson.

No, now Dylan saw the knife lying on the ground.

Mr. Stewart stepped forward and picked it up. He rolled Saga onto his back and wiped at the blood with a white linen handkerchief.

Dylan knelt beside them. “The gash is against the shelf of bone above the eye,” said Mr. Stewart. He wiped it away again so Dylan could see. The blood welled, fresh, alive, animal.

Mr. Stewart handed Dylan the knife. “The custom,” he said mildly, “is to use the tip, not the hilt.”

Dylan held the knife. Blood streaked it, hilt and blade, human blood, the sign of all his broken vows.

“I’ll take him to Mr. Bleddyn’s camp,” said Stewart.

Good. Dylan didn’t care. His world was rage.

He stood up, looking for Fore. She met his eyes. He held out his hand. She stepped forward and took it.

He led her into the darkness, his cod thrust against his pants, thirsting for blood.

Chapter Twelve

Dylan came back to camp after dawn besotted with high wine, with sex, with iniquity.

“He’s going to be all right,” said Dru softly, as though in a convalescent’s room. “He’s sleeping.” Dru inclined his head toward Saga’s lodge. “It swelled up ghastly,” Dru went on, “but Anastasie poulticed it, the swelling is down, and the eye looks safe.”

He handed Dylan a bowl and spoon by way of invitation. Dylan didn’t even look to see if it was stew or
sagamité
. He didn’t intend to eat for days.

Dru murmured again, “He’ll be all right.” He paused. “You were out of bounds throwing that knife.”

“Bastard was going to kill me.”

“No, he wasn’t. Used to, he would have. If he got drunk and you took his woman. You know about Indians and drink.”

Dru repeated the lecture about Indian drinking philosophy: Whatever you do when you’re drunk, it’s the rum, not you, and you’re not responsible. Dylan didn’t give a sod about that.

“I told you Saga’s not like that anymore. Though he did get a hair carried away. You’re going to have nice scars on your face.”

“Bastard woulda killed me.”

“I told you,” Dru said more sharply, “you can trust him.”

Dylan turned his mind back to his mission. “I want to go to Athabasca with you.” The precious mission they were still being so secretive about.

“No,” said Dru mildly. “That needs to be one for Saga and me, just the two.” He looked Dylan in the eye. “Your job is to look into yourself and find your decision. And tell Mr. Stewart.”

“Frig Mr. Stewart.”

“More like his lady friend, the tale has it.”

Dylan said nothing. Actually, he knew what his decision about Mr. Stewart’s offer was. He’d known last night, when he first thought that Saga might be really hurt, and he imagined he could go to the wild and remote Athabasca country with Dru. It gave him a thrill of joy. In a night of debauchery and rage and guilt, a genuine thrill of joy.

The wilderness was in his nature. An evil nature, perhaps, but his.

He wanted to try. “How about the High Missouri, then? How about the truly wild lands and the truly wild Indians? I want to be a Piegan pagan.”

The Druid shook his head. “It’s not time yet,” he said softly. “There’s a time.

“By the way,” Dru went on, “have you seen the shape of the scars you’re going to have?” He offered Dylan Anastasie’s hand mirror.

Dylan took it and looked. He had a bright red welt and a slender scab from his left eye to his earlobe. Another from his right eye to that earlobe. He barked a hideous, imitation laugh. The marks of Fornicating Woman.

Fort William

Lake Superior

26 July 1820

Father Auguste Quesnel

Notre Dame Place d’Armes

Montreal, Canada

Dear Father Quesnel:

I write you on a momentous occasion.

He took a deep breath. He could hear Stewart rustling papers in the background, but he did not want to look at the man. He wanted to concentrate on the task at hand. He wanted to write without smudging the paper Stewart had kindly given him. And he wanted to calm the beating of his heart.

You may not know that I have joined into the fur trade. I go under a new name. Perhaps this adventure will seem to you precipitously undertaken and foolish. Yet it has been my fondest wish, since a mere child, to walk this country, ride its rivers, breathe its air. Yes, I wish the circumstances of my coming here had been different. Yet it seems not ill to arrive at the place dreamed of by an unexpected path.

As of today I begin a contracted term of four years as clerk of the NorthWest Company, thanks to the consideration of the bearer of this letter, Duncan Campbell Stewart. My station is to be Fort Augustus, on the Saskatchewan River well nigh to the Rocky Mountains themselves, and the center of trade with Indians known as Piegans and Crees. If they have a reputation as Indians most savage and barbarous, I can say only that I welcome the severest challenge. My task at first will be keeping records of the trade with these Indians, and later executing the trading itself, which I am assured requires the utmost in tactics and will.

As yet I have no idea what my undertaking might be at the end of the four years. I will say that I yet harbor some hope of one day venturing to this place in a sacred cause. In fact, I say more: Even now, under the flag of commerce, I hope to hold high a light in this darkness.

Those last words may seem prideful. True, I have discovered, during my venture, that I have the failings of any man, and more. True, I cannot hope to bear any light through my own power. My commitment, therefore, is to seek constantly through Holy Mary Mother of God the strength of the Divine.

I write to ask several kindnesses: Would you please relay my good wishes to my sister? (Tell Amalie I picture her as a bride already, and a mother before my return.) Would you tell my father that I am well? I half wish to write him, but my soul is divided in its feelings. I hope that one day I will wish to see him again, and he to see me.

Last and most important, Father Quesnel, would you pray for my soul? I cannot but tell you that it is fearfully assailed, and the outcome is in doubt. I promise that I shall remember every day the good words you taught me against occasions like the present.

He thought a moment. Should he sign the letter with his old name or new one? If he signed the old, that would keep up the deception. And signing the new would be a declaration.

I remember you and your counsels gratefully.

yr obdnt servant,

Dylan Davies

He had tried three or four letters, and then decided he had to tell her in person. On the way here he prepared perhaps eight speeches, attempts at eloquent explanation. All night long, after every bout of fornicating, he’d tried to get one out, but the words never came, or even began to come. It seemed hopeless.

Here in the half light of dawn he got the first three or four words out. “Fore, I… must go…” He stopped, helpless before his ineptitude and his iniquity.

She looked into his face and saw his heart.

“Must go,” he mumbled. “To Fort Augustus.”

She looked him in the eyes, into his soul, and he saw something shift in her eyes. Understanding of his baseness, he supposed.

She made a disgusted face. Then she sprang up, grabbed her clothes, and started walking away perfectly naked. She spun on one heel, came back, and spat on his belly.

It served him right to be unable to pray.

He slid from the rock onto his knees on the moist, fertile earth. He formed words in his mind asking Holy Mary, Mother of God, to intercede for him with her Son, to help Dylan Davies the lost to soften his heart, to remove the scales from his eyes and let him dwell in the light once more.

He tried to murmur the words, but he couldn’t even get them out—he felt so self-conscious, so stupid. His own black deeds knotted his tongue.

He had been kneeling there, it seemed like an hour. He could not pray. He rose, helpless, and looked wildly around the glade. He was a thousand miles from civilization, and truly alone for the first time in his life.

He could bear the thought that he had abandoned God. He was a wayward mortal.

But what if God had abandoned him?