The Snake River (8 page)

Chapter Eight

The exile wandered. He drifted. He walked and rode like he was drunk, or opiumed, or like the air of the whole world had turned foul and fogged and soured his spirit.

Web rode slowly through the heat of the moon when the berries are ripe, which the white man called August. He went along a nameless creek toward the Snake River, and then over the lava plain to the white-man trail. One sleep away for a strong, lone man with no women, no children, no travois. It took him two days to get there.

The exile was half-hoping Yu-huup would track him and catch up. Maybe his cousin would bring him some gifts, some extra pemmican, extra moccasins, another blanket—maybe even another horse. It would be some company. Yu-huup could at least wish him a good journey, though never say good-bye.

So he drifted along toward the big river, where he would turn west toward Fort Walla Walla, toward Fort Vancouver. Toward his father’s people, and his father.

It would be a hard trip. The Snake River here ran through lava flows, sagebrush plains, and desert flats. The river made its own canyon and ran crazily over big falls, through terrible rapids, a mad, accursed river for sure. But he would follow the trail the white men used. They came every summer to Fort Hall, to collect the beaver pelts and pack them downriver—to Fort Walla Walla, Fort Vancouver. A moon ago he might have been able to ride downstream with some of them. But they had gone back to Fort Vancouver by now. The names of the forts made a kind of thumping music in his mind, like drums, lulling and irritating at once. He almost fell out of his saddle, drowsy in the heat, his spirit murky.

Web knew he would have to be lucky to make it all that way. Anybody might take his scalp. He snickered to himself. Maybe one of the Frenchmen who were now his only people would lift his hair and give it to his father, lordly there in Fort Vancouver. And his father, knowing it for what it was, would roar and roar with laughter, and hold up the red scalp of Web, his red son, for all to see.

Yu-huup didn’t come.

Web spent the third day lying by a seep, a half mile below the trail. He told himself he was resting his pony, but the creature didn’t need rest yet. Web lay in the shade of a rock all day, occasionally drinking, eating too much of his pemmican. Far too much. He was torporous. He had eaten the first night greedily, like a man consuming his last meal. He needed to remember to make it last more than a moon, until he got to Fort Walla Walla. Now he would have to hunt. Which would take more days, make him later getting to Walla Walla, make him need more food.

If his spirit weren’t so heavy, the exile might see something. Might get
poha
(medicine) from Spirit. Might be brought help by a lizard, or a spider. But he knew his spirit was fouled.

Yu-huup didn’t come.

The next day Web lay around again. He daydreamed. He fantasized.

His imaginings were ugly. He began to think he would lie here forever, until he died. When he thought of the people finding his bones here next summer, he smiled with wry satisfaction. Or maybe the pony would go back to camp, and the people would know. He chuckled bitterly. He liked to imagine how they would be sorry and know they’d been wrong, and how Paintbrush, especially, would weep over the body of the exile.

Sometimes white people gave their horses names. Now that he was a white man he would name his pony. Maybe Mom-pittseh. Owl. Among his people the owl was the messenger of death.

Yu-huup didn’t come. Rockchuck didn’t come.

On the evening of the fourth day he decided to change. Simple as that: He decided. His decision went like this: True, he had abandoned his first people, or been abandoned by them. But he would never abandon Spirit. He would now ask Spirit to enlist its
poha
on his side. He would pray. He would renew his promise to avoid the behaviors Spirit forbade. He would ask for the strength to make a sacrifice as his bond for that promise.

It was a simple thing to decide, and necessary. At first it made no difference. He lay there, torpid, his strength lulled, his will limp, his spirit listless. When he made the decision to go through these gestures, he felt no better, no stronger, no more hopeful. His pledge was simply to make the gestures, to do his part, to see if he could act better.

He gathered sticks and built a small fire. Then he gathered the needles of the cedar and burned them. He rubbed the smoke on his body, purifying himself.

He took two valued possessions out of his old, ragged parfleche bag, sweetgrass, and the compass his father had left with his mother. Web had always felt odd about this compass. According to Black Shawl, his father left it with some words and a promise. He explained that the stick always called toward the north, where the white buffalo lives. While Pinyon had the compass, all Hairy’s travels would lead him to Pinyon. The words said the compass had power. Yet his father had not come back.

Nevertheless, the compass still showed the direction from where the white buffalo sends the cleansing winds. Web would honor its power, however small. With a bow drill he made a small fire and lit the braided sweetgrass. He passed the compass four times through the thick, curling smoke.

Then he stood. Without even a
toih
, pipe, he faced each of the four winds, the west of the Thunderbird, the north, home of Magpie, the east, where Meadowlark comes from, and the south, where Owl lives. Without even tobacco to offer, he lifted his arms to Father Sky, made obeisance to Mother Earth.

Then he prayed.
“Ne Nahgai Ook,”
he said—Hear me, Spirit.
“Ne shone deah”
—Have mercy on me.
“Ne tsaanani-sunte-ha”
—I pray well.

He promised to bring an offering of tobacco in the future. To behave as Spirit had taught Shoshones to behave. To make a sacrifice of flesh to Spirit.

He asked for strength to start on his great task, finding his father. Strength of spirit to do what he must do. Strength of body to set out firmly on the long journey. Strength of will to persevere for many sleeps. Strength of mind to make wise decisions.

He finished his prayer with thanks to Duma Apa for the earth, for living things, and for his own life.

When he was finished, he felt scarcely different from the way he felt when he decided to change. He was a little more hopeful. At least he could do what he had decided to do, whether it was futile or not.

Now was the time for his sacrifice. He took his knife from the belt of his breechcloth. He kept it very sharp. As he looked at the blade, his hand jumped.

Taking control, he sat cross-legged by the fire, once more threw cedar needles on the coals of the fire, once more purified himself. He took the knife in his right hand. With his left he lifted the skin a finger joint’s length above his left nipple.

He forbade his imagination to go ahead of him. He had seen this done but never tried it. The pain of imagination, he knew, would be greater than the pain of the flesh.

Deftly, he made a downward cut with the knife point. Blood popped like beads of red sweat from the thin line.

Quickly, not quite frantically, he made three more cuts, outlining a square of flesh the size of his thumbnail.

It worked. He felt a mad glee. It worked. He’d done it. Now he knew that he’d doubted he could do it.

The next would be the hardest part. He put a stick in his mouth and clamped down hard. With his fingernails and his knife point he loosened a corner of the square.

Then he got a good grip on the corner, opened his eyes wide and staring into the night, and pulled. Steadily, his mind screaming, he peeled the patch of flesh off his breast.

It was in his hand. He had done it.

His chest welled blood, and it spilled down his belly.

He realized he was half-lying in the dust. Instead of yelling, he said a quiet thanks to Spirit for giving him the strength to do what he must. Then he cast the patch of skin to the earth.

Then he cupped his right hand over his bleeding left breast, pulled his blanket over his body and slept.

At dawn he saw something simple and practical. He realized it was past time to get Mom-pittseh, Owl the Messenger of Death, some real water. The poor old horse had been forced to lick at the seep for two days. With the river right there within sight, though through a hell of a broken gully. Web needed to get Messenger down to the river. Probably he could lead Messenger carefully through the gully. A quick trip down and back.

But leading the horse down there turned out to be tricky. It was all lava rock, jumbled and crazy. Messenger went gingerly. It was a skittish, unpredictable horse and probably wouldn’t have gone at all if it couldn’t smell the water. They squeezed between boulders, watched their feet around cracks in the lava rock, clambered over boulders. It was goddamn awkward.

The exile talked to this pony, stroked its muzzle, kept it calm, kept a good hold on its bridle. Web could feel the trembling urgency of the horse to get to the river, within sight, within smell. Web began to feel a little better about himself—he was doing the right thing for Mom-pittseh, and doing it well. And now they were through the worst, to where the floor of the gully was mostly clear.

The light changed. That was what he thought afterward. The quality of the day’s light shifted somehow—darkened maybe and came back tinged with red.

Mom-pittseh, Owl, appeared in the sky.

Transfixed, Web watched owl flap down the gully toward them, from the south.

It was the middle of the day, when owls don’t fly. It was a region where owls didn’t live. Owl was huge, twice the size even of the great horned owl, which was as big as the war eagle. This was Magic Owl.

Web could not move. He was rigid with fear. And if Magic Owl was flying toward him, he didn’t want to move. He mustn’t show fear. He stood at attention. He held the horse Mom-pittseh, named Owl the Messenger of Death, tightly. He watched the spirit-bird come.

Magic Owl flew directly at them, fast as an arrow and straight, unvarying, not at all like an animal. He seemed to be headed for Web’s face. The exile stood fast. He gritted his teeth, but he refused to let Owl see him flinch.

At the last instant Owl veered off slightly. His wing slapped Messenger the pony impostor in the face.

Messenger tossed its head and bolted.

The jerk threw Web off balance. He stuck out one foot to catch himself. And stuck it straight into a lava crack—in above the ankle.

He let go of the bridle with one hand to keep from falling…

Messenger’s hindquarters bumped Web. The exile went over hard.

Falling, he thought Owl had truly brought death.

The rim of the crack snapped his leg.

“Ataa!”
he roared, a cry of pain. And lost consciousness.

His mind rose through waves of pain. All was shimmering, unclear, like the air next to the ground on a hot day. He was swimming in pain.

Web came up from the little death. The little death had taken him for a while, he knew. Owl brought it.

He blinked, and cleared his mind a little. Lifted his head.

Pain knocked him back down.

But the little death didn’t get him this time.

He wanted to lift his head enough to see his leg. Maybe that would tell him the big sleep was going to take him.

He was sure he would get far enough past the pain of moving to get his head up. After two more tries he did. His leg lay crooked on the rock, bloody and bent at an unlikely angle.

Web thanked Duma Apa. The leg was broken, but it was not caught forever in the crack. Maybe no big sleep yet.

He rested, then lifted his head again.

Pain. His head fell.

Gingerly, he lifted his head again and looked. The horse named Messenger of Death was in the river, drinking. He wondered if the horse would drink too much and kill himself. He supposed it didn’t matter.

His tongue hurt already, dry, yearning for water. Later today or tomorrow it would swell and crack. Until he got to the seep.

He intended to survive. Or at least do everything needed to survive, and leave his life in the hands of the powers.

He would get back to the seep, whatever it took. There he had water and food. There he could survive for weeks.

He would do that much. Then he could give himself up to the powers. And submit to the big death with honor.

He would rest first. And hope that Messenger came back, and he could at least hold on to the saddle and drag himself up the gully.

He lay still. His mind wandered, drifted, half-dreamed.

Messenger didn’t come.

Yu-huup didn’t come. Rockchuck didn’t come. Black Shawl didn’t come. Goddamn Hairy didn’t come. Owl didn’t come.

He heard a snuffle. Messenger. Out of reach. Looking at Web.

Impossible. How could he have heard the snuffle and not the clops of hooves?

Didn’t matter. He would catch the reins. Get Messenger close. Use the stirrup to try to pull himself up.

He talked softly to the horse, gently, winningly.

Messenger stood off a few feet, sideways to Web, still, looking at the rider.

Wariness was in the horse’s stance. It didn’t eat, didn’t look around at the world. It eyed the exile warily.

Web cooed at Messenger. He spoke to the horse seductively.

Web’s grandfather said the four jobs of a horse are grazing, drinking, mating, and running. If a horse wasn’t doing one of these, he said, it was looking or listening or smelling for something to run from. And you better figure out what.

Web tried to think about what the horse was wary of. His mind didn’t think of anything well. Its answer to all questions, right now, was pain, pain, pain. Maybe Messenger was scared of the pain.

Web almost managed a smile.

Well, maybe it was the blood. Maybe Messenger smelled Web’s blood and was afraid of it.

“Mom-pittseh,
ne punku haintseh
,” Web addressed the animal softly. Messenger, my horse friend. “You are my life. Come here. Let me touch you, let me stroke your muzzle. Don’t trot away with my life.”

The horse put its head down and began to nibble at grass. The reins lay on the ground now, puddled. It jerked at grass with its teeth, chewed grossly, and swallowed. The jerking seemed rough, unnecessarily rough. The pony did not even look at Web, but tore at the grass, indifferent.