The Yellowstone (15 page)

Little One knelt beside Blue and held his hand. Blue acted oblivious of everything.

“And we may as well get at it now, early in the day, when there’s plenty of light.” No one objected. “Mac, I want you to help.”

“I’ll assist you,” said Lisette. “I’ve done it before.” Dreyfuss looked at her, uncertain. “I’ll do it,” she insisted.

Dreyfuss nodded. “I’ll need both of you.”

“I want whiskey,” Dreyfuss said to Mac, “and your laudanum. Now. It will take less than an hour to get him liquored up.” Mac went to get the medicine.

“I want three knives, very sharp,” Dreyfuss said in crude Cheyenne. “And three more—make that four—heated in the fire.”

Calling Eagle said she’d take care of that and left.

“To cauterize,” Dreyfuss added in English. “Lisette, please get a bunch of horsehairs. Maybe we can tie off the bleeders.” He didn’t sound confident. “Needle and thread, too.”

First she helped him drag Blue outside by the fire and get him stretched out on canvas.

Dreyfuss felt so clumsy. He was thankful the patient was in the netherworld of the lotus drug, moaning occasionally but not really aware. He also wished Lisette weren’t seeing everything, but she was all business, sitting on the leg ready to hold the flesh back.

“All right, crank it tight,” he said to Mac. Mac had a stout strip of canvas for a tourniquet, and an iron tent peg to turn it. He started twisting.

“Tighter,” said Dreyfuss “Right down hard.” The three of them were crowded around the leg—there was hardly room to work. Calling Eagle was peering around bottoms, arms, and legs.

Finally Dreyfuss could delay no longer. He started his cut on the outside, away from the wound and above it, three or four inches above the knee. That way he would cut away any infected tissue.

He felt as if he were hacking Blue up. He was soon to bone.

Mac handed Dreyfuss Blue’s bow saw silently. They figured it was plenty sharp to get through the bone. The other choice seemed to be the two-man crosscut saw, and that was too big and awkward for cutting a leg. The labor of sawing Blue’s bone seemed gruesome.

Blue appeared to be passed out.

Calling Eagle was watching the white man’s medicine, but Mac had chased the other men back to their construction. He found their desire to look on ghoulish.

Now came the part Dreyfuss was most concerned about. He put it off by cutting a big flap of skin off the calf of the half-severed leg. He would need it to sew on and cover the stump.

Then he went ahead—toward the big artery on the inside he didn’t know the name of in English. He cut through the area the ball had smashed, a mangle of tissue. The ball had passed close to the big artery and mashed muscle hard against it.

Dreyfuss looked around and spotted the horsehairs. “Keep that blood cut off, Mac.” The artery made an ugly, splotchy blue line under the skin.

Mac took another crank. Dreyfuss took his breath in deep, let it out, and cut. The leg was severed.

The tourniquet worked. An ooze of blood, no more. Dreyfuss pushed the dead two thirds of leg away. Now he would have to do a nice piece of work.

He rooted around a little with the point of his knife and exposed the end of the severed artery, as big around as his little finger. Just maybe enough to tie.

He took a long horsehair and wrapped it around the artery, crisscross. He pulled it tight as he could and tied a knot. Maybe it would hold.

He thought a moment. “Give me the hottest knife,” he said to Lisette. She did. The metal was red.

Dreyfuss put the flat of the blade against the raw stump, artery included.

Paul the Blue bucked. His mouth jerked open as though to make a cry, but nothing came out. The sizzle and stench nearly turned Dreyfuss’s stomach.

He looked at his handiwork. Maybe he’d just cauterized the end of the artery closed.

He looked Mac in the eye and nodded. “Loosen the tourniquet.”

Mac eased the pressure slowly. Nothing seemed to happen. He let the tension off.

Blood squirted everywhere, spraying them all. “Put it back!” Dreyfuss screamed.

Blood was spurting all over with every heartbeat. Dreyfuss wiped his eyes. He couldn’t get hold of the edges of the damn artery—it was pulled back into the muscle.

He jammed his little finger in, which made the blood shower, but the artery was a little too small to get his finger up into.

Mac got the flow stopped.

All three of them wiped blood off their faces and hair and looked at each other in desperation. Even Calling Eagle was blood-splattered. She edged closer, to see.

“We got to do it,” said Dreyfuss. He fished for the end of the artery.

Lisette could see what was going to happen. The artery was too big to cauterize, too slick to tie. There was nothing to do but keep trying.

They did it all again. They got squirted again and went through the agony of getting it stopped again.

They did it a third time. The spray of blood was less now.

Dreyfuss reached for more horsehair. “I svear I’m going to get zis done.” His voice broke as he said it.

“Dreyfuss,” Lisette murmured compassionately. He saw something in her eyes, he wasn’t sure what, sadness…

So, he looked at the face. Eyes fixed. He felt for a pulse—nothing.

Paul the Blue was dead.

Calling Eagle reached out, touched Dreyfuss on the arm sympathetically, and eased away.

Dreyfuss looked at himself. A bloody mess. Bled to death right gottdamn on me.

He looked at Mac and Lisette. Everyone was covered with Blue’s blood. Everyone was grief-stricken.

Lisette reached out to both of them. On their knees they all put their arms around one another.

Dreyfuss felt himself sobbing. He thought he could feel the others shaking, too.

Chapter 19

October, 1844, Dust-in-the-face moon

Mac Maclean was fidgety. He expected to be fidgety all afternoon. He had a right—it was his wedding day.

Three United States flags stood in the center of the Cheyenne camp, and the people stood facing them. “The people” meant most of Mac’s crew and probably, judged Mac, fifty Cheyennes, acting properly respectful, if you didn’t consider the naked children and barking dogs. Respectful of the flags, of the banner of the Blessed Virgin, and of the cassocked priest who stood before them. And even of the priest’s acolyte, a Cree half-breed named Gabriel.

“You suppose they’re gonna become tithers?” whispered Jim to Mac, smiling ironically. The two of them were watching from the edge of the clearing in their wedding finery.

Mac shrugged. “They might add a little Christianity on.”

“Cheyennes ain’t Flatheads,” observed Jim. That was true enough. The Flatheads had gotten passionate to acquire Christianity, sending a delegation from far west of the mountains to St. Louis to ask for the gift of the holy black book. They were now taking their new religion—second religion, the late Skinhead would have said—very seriously.

The Cheyennes were less impressed with white folks in general. They might be amenable to adding another power to their pantheon, plus a few ceremonies, any that seemed effective. But certainly they weren’t about to give up their own god.

It was simple. Your god gave you the sun and moon and water and grass, and in the Cheyennes’ case particularly, the buffalo. If the Cheyennes surrendered their renewing of the sacred arrows or their sun dance, they’d starve. But they wouldn’t mind finding out about the gods who gave the Frenchmen things—telescopes, guns, books, sugar, and the like. Clearly those were powerful gods, too.

Mac had argued with De Smet that his conversions were a bad joke. De Smet just smiled and said Mac didn’t understand how mysterious were the ways God worked.

Mac missed Skinhead. And Blue.

The priest and the acolyte opened the service with a chant. Then De Smet prayed at length and explained the prayers and chanted two more canticles. It went on too long. Mac felt self-conscious in his fancy clothes, a white cloth shirt with pleats and puffed sleeves, and pants of antelope skin as white as Annemarie could make them, marvelously thin and soft, decorated with tiny bells that jingled when he walked, and all his scalps down the right leg. They were real pants with a drop front, too, not leggings. His moccasins were fully quilled, and he sported German silver armbands and handwoven garters. He was putting on a show.

Mac had loaned Jim enough clothes for the best man to look splendiferous, too.

A strange day for Mac, a day of sacraments. Words had been spoken over the graves of Skinhead and Blue, murderers in the eyes of the Church. Words would be spoken over infants and small children, magical words to make them Christians, sort of. Words would be spoken to sanctify Mac’s marriage to Annemarie.

De Smet recited the Apostles’ Creed and the Ten Commandments and explained each. It seemed to take forever. Mac had no idea what the Cheyennes were making of all of it. They listened patiently, though. Leg-in-the-Water had asked Mac if Black Bobe’s reading aloud from the sacred book would give the Cheyennes the gift of understanding the talking leaves. Mac told him that reading wasn’t a gift, but a skill you could learn. Mac was going to teach Felice and offered to include any children the Cheyennes wanted.

When De Smet started to admonish the Cheyennes for their thieving ways, which meant horse stealing, and their moral corruption, which meant having more than one wife, Mac murmured to Jim, “I can’t stand still,” and took a walk.

Mac could see Strikes Foot holding the horse off at the edge of the trees, ready and handsomely outfitted, a gray gelding with a quilled crupper passed under its tail, the padded saddle ornamented with beadwork at cantle and pommel, brilliant white ermine tails woven into the mane, and the lead rope wrapped with strips of beaver. Strikes Foot was in full regalia, carrying a lance fancied with a row of eagle feathers.

Mac knew Strikes Foot was eager to walk forward to Black Robe to give his daughter away. The Cheyenne liked the literal version of the English in his own language—to give his daughter away. The very definition of a good man, among the Cheyennes, was a generous man. But Strikes Foot was worried. It was important to him not to limp—part of his pride was to walk erect and straight on his hoof. And his knee was still sore.

Annemarie and Lisette were down in front with Felice. At five months, Felice was going to be christened a second time. The first time she got a sacred song and a secret Arapahoe name. This time she would get some ceremonial words, a little water, and a Christian name. De Smet liked to say the innocent get blessed without having to know anything, do anything, or promise anything.

Mac thought of De Smet’s counsel. A little talk, he said, was required before he would marry anyone. Annemarie was tremulous before the priest and held on to Mac’s elbow.

First, De Smet wanted the couple to understand he could not give them the sacrament of marriage. They had already given it to themselves, if their hearts and minds were right. They were living together—his glance indicated the lodge they sat in, the home they made in marriage. Did they come together in love both human and divine? Yes, Father. Did they intend to be together so long as ye both shall live? They nodded. Did they plan to bear fruit, to bring forth children in honor of God? They did. Indeed, had they not already done so?

Mac let the reference to Felice pass.

Then, said De Smet, they were already truly married in the eyes of the Church and of God. But the priest could bless their marriage, and he would be glad to, after the baptisms tomorrow. De Smet got up awkwardly. The big man had difficulty with stiffness when he sat cross-legged.

“Father,” Mac started in—He couldn’t let it lie and deceive the priest. “Felice is Annemarie’s daughter but not mine.”

The priest sat back down, frowning. He looked long and hard at the girl. That’s all she is, thought Mac, a girl—don’t be too hard on her. Tears were flowing gently down her broad, flat cheeks, to Mac such beautiful cheeks. Mac saw her lift her face to the priest’s and open her eyes, and he admired her.

“Have you been married before?” asked the priest.

“No, Father.” She reverted to the Cheyenne language, and Mac translated softly.

“How did the child come?”

“I was a fornicator, Father.” Mac supplied the alien, accusing English term.

“You did not make a home with this man?”

“No.”

“You did not want to make a home and have children?”

“Only with Mac.”

“Fornication is a sin, my child, but it does not rule out marriage.” The priest looked at her solemnly. “I want to confess you both. Now.”

Mac got up and stepped outside the lodge. Now, he thought, the priest will know the answer to my question—Who corrupted Annemarie? That’s how he thought of it. He no longer put it to himself as, Who is Felice’s father? Because he was Felice’s father.

The priest raised the seashell, bearing its shimmering water from the Yellowstone River. He held it high, ceremonially. Mac saw the waning sun strike the underside, making the white of the shell gleam and the pink-orange turn red. De Smet put his fingers into the water and flung a spray onto the infant’s face. He did it once, twice, three times.
“John Morning Star,”
he intoned,
“ego te baptismo, in nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti.”

De Smet was adding Christian names to the kids’ Cheyenne names, names of the twelve apostles. Mac wondered how, after hundreds or thousands of baptisms, the ceremony still had meaning to De Smet. Yet from the priest’s face, it seemed to. The way he sang the words and the solemn joy of his countenance spoke holiness. As the drops of water flew from the priest’s fingers to the face of the child, they were invisible, and Mac could almost believe the water was transformed in that moment from substance to spirit. The water power, the Cheyennes called this ceremony. And De Smet was using Yellowstone River water—Mac thought of the enchanted high country it came from, full of geysers, hot springs, fumeroles, and other wonders. Maybe such water was a little bit divine.

Another child was brought forward. De Smet looked at it lovingly, and heard the name. “Peter Green Fire,” he chanted,
“ego te baptismo, in nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti.”

Jim nudged Mac and whispered, “Look!”

A dog was standing by the firkin that held the river water De Smet dipped from. As the priest shook the holy water onto the child’s head, the dog raised a leg and watered the outside of the firkin.

Jim coughed to pretend he wasn’t laughing. “Good thing it didn’t piss
in
the water,” he spluttered.

Today Mac could even accept the peeing of a dog as the outward sign of the miracle of water power.

Time to go up with Felice. Annemarie stood beside Mac with Felice wrapped in a blanket, asleep. De Smet smiled at all three of them, a beatific smile. Annemarie held Felice toward him. “Felice Red Hair Maclean,” he said,
“ego te baptismo, in nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti.”
The priest shook his hand, and drops sailed through the air and dotted Felice’s face.

She scrunched up, but she didn’t cry.

Mac stood up before Father Pierre-Jean De Smet and tried to look at him. Mac was sure he was going to throw up or pass out or something.

He tapped Jim’s arm again. Jim opened his hand and showed it to Mac once more—a garnet ring, his only memento of his mother.

Lisette smiled at Mac reassuringly. Maid of honor Lisette. The petite girl looked wonderful, her dark eyes gleaming—even her smallpox scars making her look vulnerable and appealing.

Dreyfuss had stayed away from the holy services, but he was ready now. At a nod from the priest, Dreyfuss started up a stately march on his mouth organ. Mac turned and looked back. Here came Annemarie on the handsome gray, Strikes Foot leading. The warrior was walking smoothly, though carefully, on his hoof, and he was grinning like a kid at the circus.

Annemarie looked glorious. She had slipped off to change her clothes for the wedding. Her hair gleamed black with copper highlights in the late-afternoon sun. It was loosely braided into a single long strand that came over her shoulder and rested on her lap. It was tied at intervals with long strips of green trade cloth edged with buckskin.

Mac couldn’t help knowing something about what her dress would be like—she’d worked on it in front of him for weeks. He wondered how it would turn out, because some materials she had asked for were unusual. She wanted various items that were medicine, including a sample of the white man’s writing. Now he saw the final product, and it was beautiful.

She wore a light-blue wool dress and calf-length moccasins. The dress was ornamented on the bosom with shiny elk’s teeth. When Annemarie turned to dismount, Mac saw that she had sewn brilliant gold and purple quillwork onto the back, the largest wheel of the four winds he’d ever seen. And on the skirt in front she’d trimmed some white cotton in red trade cloth and displayed the great symbol of her husband’s culture, writing. The piece of sack read
STRODE & SONS FLOUR, TEANECK, N.J.

Mac grinned hugely and looked at the priest, whose face was full of kindness and mirth. Mac would have to teach his wife to read.

Annemarie and Strikes Foot drew beside Mac and Jim. Dreyfuss honked out a little fanfare.

De Smet cocked an eyebrow at Mac, and Mac nodded.

“Robert Burns Maclean,” asked the priest in a conversational tone, “do you take this woman to be your wife?”

“I do,” said Mac.

“Annemarie Charbonneau,” De Smet went on, “do you take this man to be your husband?” A simple and happy deed, De Smet made it seem.

“I do.”

De Smet waited. Finally Jim and Mac remembered, and Mac took the ring.

Mac turned to Annemarie, and she looked level at her husband. Her eyes gleamed in that splendid Cheyenne face. God, how he loved her.

Mac held up the ring. The sunlight fragmented on the red garnet. Annemarie extended her left ring finger, as she’d been coached. Mac slipped the ring on.

“Robert Burns Maclean and Annemarie Charbonneau,” intoned the priest,
“ego conjungo vos in matrimonio.”

Mac stood with one arm around Annemarie and the other holding Felice, watching pandemonium.

You don’t get married every day, Mac said to himself uncertainly. He had broken the kegs out, all of the St. Louis kegs, every bit of legal alcohol he had left. There were only two Taos kegs held back for the winter. It meant he’d have to make a winter trip to Taos. Or send Jim. If the Delaware would hire on.

Mac had expected the pandemonium. Dreyfuss played and people danced. Even the Cheyennes were learning to do a jig, voyageur-style.

Some of the young men would get drunk, crazy drunk. Mac wanted to see if any of the leaders would. He hoped these Cheyennes would show better sense than the hang-around-the-forts Sioux.

Lisette put her arm around Mac from the side away from Annemarie. Her ribs were still a little sore for dancing, or no telling what mischief she’d get into. She laid her head against his shoulder. Annemarie smiled at her across Mac.

“Don’t you two think it’s time to go to bed?” Lisette asked.

“I do,” said Mac.

“I do,” said Annemarie, laughing.

“I moved my robes into Dreyfuss’s tent for a while.” Mac looked at Lisette in surprise. One woman with Dreyfuss, Ferry, and Valdez in a tent? “Just for a few days,” she assured him. “Newlyweds need privacy.”

Annemarie squeezed Lisette’s hand.

“I’m taking Felice, too,” Lisette said. “Come on.”

Mac and Annemarie followed Lisette into the tent and put Felice on the floor. She was awake and might want to crawl around. Lisette sat down on her robes.

“Bye,” she said, waving. “Have a good time.”

Annemarie got down on her knees and hugged Lisette around the shoulders. Mac squatted and did the same. Lisette kissed him softly and warmly on the cheek.