The Yellowstone (25 page)

“I don’t get it,” Thomas said to Smith.

“I was tracking you. When they found your horses, they found me.”

“Oh.”

“I’m taking you to Yellowstone House.”

“I ain’t going.”

“Yeah,” said Smith, “you are.”

Chapter 12

Time when the cherries are ripe

On that journey home—at least Smith called it home—Thomas Jefferson Maclean came to understand that his brother was a traitor. And his father.

Smith and Thomas first rode to Platte Bridge Station to meet Peddler. Peddler was heading north into Powder River country to trade with the Sioux, pulling his cart, and Smith wanted to escort him. Smith thought Peddler was mad to be traveling alone. It made no difference to him that the old Jew never seemed to have a speck of trouble.

Smith made no pretense of keeping Thomas prisoner. It felt too ridiculous. He just wanted to get Thomas home, and to talk about his new infatuation. He’d gotten his head turned by the white man’s science.

Smith spoke of an elementary science demonstration he and Thomas had seen at school in St. Louis. The teacher had put an acid and a base together in solution and grown beautiful blue crystals of copper sulfate. He’d even done the same thing with spirits of niter—grown crystals as if by magic, and then ground them into gunpowder.

Traveling north along the Powder River, Smith told Peddler and Thomas how Doc Lang back at Fort Laramie amazed him. Smith had always thought of the body kind of, well, what Doc Lang called mystically. If you got a pain, you cured it with a prayer or a dance. Doc had shown him the white man’s way of seeing the body. The first amazer was how smallpox vaccination worked—you injected a person with cowpox virus and he became immune. Hypodermic needles themselves were a revelation to Smith. How Doc laughed, Smith remembered, when Smith realized the blood goes from the heart all over the body and back. Ether, which put men to sleep for surgeries, seemed a miracle, too, but a sort of natural miracle, unlike the Cheyennes’ miracles.

Smith showed a book he’d bought from Doc, a primer called
The Methodology of Natural Science
by Professor Alban Jones. Peddler looked the book over as he walked, expressing surprise that the doctor would give up such a volume. Smith replied that he was, after all, the son of a trader.

Thomas was silently getting mad. The white men wanted the Indian’s land. Now, through books, they meant to conquer his mind. They already had Smith’s mind, Thomas saw. And then he really saw: Thomas’s father, Mac Maclean, was unconsciously the whites’ missionary, the advance guard of the invasion.

Smith self-consciously showed Peddler and Thomas his scar from a cutdown Doc had done. Doc evidently was a little crazy. He’d done a dissection on a soldier’s corpse for Smith to see—how muscle moved bone, how the heart pumped to the lungs and out through the major arteries, where the major organs were, and their functions. When Smith asked if there was a way to see a living artery working, Doc said, “Sure. Yours.”

So Doc did a cutdown. Grinning, he scalpeled back a flap of Smith’s skin over the sizable artery on the inside of the elbow. Smith could see the red vessel pulsating, his lifeblood itself. It felt like beholding the inner workings of the universe.

Smith had said to Doc, “This, this whatever it is, science, is the most powerful thing in the world.” He touched his own artery gingerly with a forefinger.

Thomas interrupted to ask if Smith was still interested in participating in the sun dance with Thomas next summer. Smith just shrugged.

Exactly, thought Thomas. He saw his brother surrendering, raising the flag of the white man’s learning over a mind that should have been Cheyenne. Cheyenne men were first of all warriors.

“You’re gonna go back to school in St. Louis, ain’t you?” said Thomas.

Smith looked at him and slowly nodded.

This is where it takes us, thought Thomas. Mac Maclean’s reading books in the winter. It bleaches our souls white.

Three nights later Thomas made his move. It was his watch, Smith and Peddler asleep. First he called the little white terrier over. Punch came from Peddler’s blankets willingly—Thomas had established the habit of feeding him scraps. The dog couldn’t be allowed to make a noise.

Thomas picked Punch up in one hand and held him in his lap. He dangled a long strip of meat in front of the dog’s lips. Punch snapped it up and chomped greedily. Then Thomas gently enclosed his muzzle, held it shut, and wrapped the dog in a blanket. With a warrior’s calm he slid the knife into the soft underbelly hard and deep.

The slight squeal was muffled in the wool. Thomas waited three or four full minutes. Neither sleeper stirred.

Then Thomas started walking around camp. That wasn’t unusual for the guard—neither Smith nor Peddler would think anything of it. He moved softly out to the picketed horses. Silently Thomas saddled his pony. Silently he saddled Smith’s horse. Then Thomas slipped into the saddle and loped off, riding his own gelding and leading Smith’s mare.

Both Smith and Peddler woke up to the dull thump of receding hoofbeats.

Smith eased out to where the horses had been picketed. They were gone. The guard was gone.

Peddler immediately missed Punch—the little dog should have been sleeping at Peddler’s head. He saw a white blur by the rock where Thomas had sat on lookout. Peddler hurried over, panicky. He picked up Punch and felt the warm, sticky blood. The dog was still warm and quivering slightly. On the underside Punch gaped red.

Peddler looked up at the infinite stars. “That’s Thomas, I guess,” whispered Peddler. Tears flowed. “That’s Thomas.”

Smith came walking back. “Now we’re both on foot,” he said.

Punch gave a quiver, and another, and was still.

Chapter 13

September, Plum moon

Mac tossed water from the gourd and drew the steam that roiled up from the hot rocks deep into his lungs. It seared him, as always. It brought him peace, as always.

He switched himself lightly with sage branches—arms, shoulders, back, face. And then, instead of raising a prayer, he began to ruminate, to remember, to dream.

Mac treasured his sweat baths here on the little island in his beloved river. This island was his cathedral, his place of solace and renewal, and the sweat bath his sacrament.

He preferred to sweat alone. Sometimes he took Jim Sykes. Occasionally his sons. Last week, when they got back from the Powder River country without Thomas, he brought Smith and Peddler. Never had he brought a woman here, even his wives and daughters. This evening he was bathing entirely alone. He did not want to think, exactly. He wanted to meditate. Perhaps then his worries about Thomas would ease, and the world would again seem bearable.

Mac threw more water onto the rocks and luxuriated in the intense rising heat.

He had long since developed his own ritual for the sweat, adapted from all the tribal customs, or none. During this time of the first and most intense heat, he simply maintained silence, as yet trapped mentally in the pain of the heat. Later he might stay silent, or he might speak or sing, but he would be free of the bodily oppression. If he sang, he would wander among old songs of St. Louis rivermen from his childhood.

Adieu to St. Louis, I bid you adieu;

Likewise to the French and the mersquiters too,

For of all other nations I do you disdain,

I’ll go back to Kentucky and try her again.

If he spoke, he might quote from his namesake, Bobby Burns.

To see her is to love her,

And love but her forever;

For nature made her what she is

And ne’er made sic anither!

Or even one of Burns’s ribald verses.

Then give the lass a fairin’, lad,

O give the lass her fairin’,

And she’ll give you a hairy thing,

And of it be not sparin’.

But lay her o’er among the creels,

And bar the door with both your heels,

The more she bangs the less she squeals,

And hey for houghmagandie.

Mac loved the plain Scots word
houghmagandie
. In his family it was the expression for bedroom doings because it just sounded like so much fun.

It was good that he took these sweats out of earshot. A listener might get the impression they weren’t sacramental at all.

Between rounds of the sweat, he would first put more hot rocks in the lodge. Then he would step naked into the river and dip his body in cool liquid. Sometimes, in winter, in very cold liquid. And then return chilled to the blasting heat of the sweat lodge.

On this evening like the others Mac finished the first round, did his chores with the rocks, and eased down the bank at the head of the island into the river. He stood thigh-deep in the moving water, feet solid in the good bottom mud of the Yellowstone. He stretched his arms, leaned his head back to look at the first star, and then on impulse threw himself backward into the river, to get wet all over quickly, without thinking.

The bullet thwacked hot past his moving nose.

Mac jerked in breath and nearly got a lungful of river. He flipped facedown in the shallow water and started swimming toward the far side of the island.

This time he heard nothing, but he felt a violent slap on his right buttock. Plunging into deeper water outside the island, he headed down. The current hit him and nearly turned him over. He made what he hoped was a half circle downstream. Then he kicked hard toward the invisible island. His hands found a dead branch, and he pulled himself to the surface. The branch broke off, and he was flailing in the river again. This time he got a willow bush.

Mac stood up in the shallows and looked toward the bank, where an assassin waited with a rifle. A repeating rifle, from the sound of it the cavalry’s Henry .44. Bastard.

Mac groped his ass. Plenty of blood. He was damn well shot. But he wouldn’t die from that, at least not tonight.

He considered. It would be dark in half an hour. But if Mac waited here, the assassin might come down to finish the job. Being naked made you feel helpless as a hatched chick. He did have a choice.

Mac had spent twenty-five years doing what needed to be done, when it needed to be done, without inner or outer protest. He did it now. He slipped into the strong current of the Yellowstone, head low, and started swimming downstream like a porpoise, up and down, snatching a breath, then gliding under.

Ears underwater, he heard no more shots.

Mother River, he thought, take me home.

Yellowstone House was half a mile downstream.

I can scramble back to my family naked and bleeding in the dark. Mother River, take me home.

Tribes have distinctive styles of cutting and stitching moccasins. Even individual makers do. Sometimes, if you can get a print clear enough, you can pinpoint the woman who made the moccasin.

The print in the dust, a fine, full print, was as familiar to Mac as the buttons on his clothes. The style was Arapahoe, the style of Lucy, who had delivered Felice twenty-one years ago at Fort Platte. The only woman within five hundred miles who cut moccasins like that was Lisette. And Little One made moccasins only for her men—she hated making them and did it only when Annemarie couldn’t.

Mac and Smith looked at each other over the print in the dawn light. Jim Sykes eyed Mac. Two of Lisette’s men were standing over the print now. The third had made it. Thomas.

Thomas had even turned it into a signature—he’d brushed away all the little marks surrounding the print. And evidently gone to some trouble to leave a nice, unmistakable version, heel to toe.

Thomas’s other signature was where they were. Mac, Smith, and Jim were standing on Mac’s personal sentinel rock, where he’d come weak and starving twenty-two years ago, then had mounted, meditated, and decided to build a trading post. Where he’d first seen the island. The sentinel rock was a place awkward to climb, and useless. Except to overlook the island and get a clear shot at the man who did his sweat baths there. If you knew the man and his habits.

Mac shifted into a position more comfortable for his tail. He stared out at the river. He couldn’t have said what he was thinking. Maybe he wasn’t thinking anything—maybe he was just rising and falling on waves of feeling, in the tidal current of half-conscious memory. The child who had taken his first steps holding Mac’s finger. Who he’d taught to swim holding his skinny body in the Yellowstone. Who’d been jealous of the company of his dad and sometimes barked at his mothers and his brother and sisters to leave them alone together. His son.

“A warning,” said Smith. “Maybe he didn’t want to hit you.”

Mac’s heart lifted—just a calling card, a declaration of hostilities? But his head said no. “No,” he said softly. “I’m shot.”

“Why didn’t he come to the fort?” put in Jim. Mac gave him an upward look.

Yes. Thomas had chosen a personal place, but it gave him a long shot and an awkward downward angle. Shooting sharply down, you usually shot high. Thomas could have done otherwise. Thomas could have come straight into their home. He could have extended a hand to his father and let the hand turn out to be full of pistol. At point-blank range.

“It’s the drug talking,” said Smith.

Mac nodded. “The drug’s been talking way too much.”

Three days after Thomas had gotten away from Smith, the mixed-blood family at the mouth of the Tongue had been burned out and nearly wiped out. The moccasin telegraph said Thomas Jefferson Maclean did it.

Nevertheless, Thomas hadn’t come in close. That meant something. He couldn’t face Mac. Or at least not face his family. For some reason he felt murderous toward his father, but maybe he couldn’t quite own up to what he was doing. Except at a long, impersonal distance.

So in a confrontation, Thomas might hesitate.

Mac coughed, a sound that in other circumstances might have been a little laugh. He tried to stand up stiffly but dropped back into a one-legged squat. His ass was going to hurt like hell in the saddle.

Thomas was probably uncertain and uncommitted. That was good to know.

A flash flood of fright ran through Mac’s body. Are you thinking, man, of whether you can shoot your son in a face-off, or whether he’ll shoot you?

Self-disgust belched up Mac’s throat, burning.

He looked at his other son. “Let’s go,” said Mac. “We’re half a day behind, and we gotta move easy.” Because, both of them knew, Thomas would watch his back trail. And maybe dry-gulch his old friend, his brother, or his father.

“I don’t think he means it,” said Smith.

“When a wasp tries to sting you,” said Mac, “you don’t ask what it means.”

Jim gave Mac a hand, and this time he made it to his feet.

But Mac couldn’t ride. His wound screamed pain on every step of the horse. It bled like a creek. It got raw and angry-looking. Mac was so determined to go that he stayed in the saddle a couple of hours before he turned around. Then he walked back to Yellowstone House. Leading his horse around back, where the riding horses were kept, he felt old, tired, and defeated.

Before he got past the smithy, Annemarie came running up and grabbed Mac’s hand. Good, Mac wanted to sit with her and Lisette and be still and not think about their son. But she was all stiff and agitated.

Then he saw, standing by the big fur press in the center of the courtyard, Owen Mackenzie.

Mac deliberately shot a look of contempt at Mackenzie, but the big breed was immune. Seeing Mac’s attitude, he was amused. “Have a look, Maclean,” he said with a curling smile. He handed Mac an official-looking piece of paper.

“Read it out loud, Maclean, for those who ain’t lettered.”

Annemarie was almost breaking Mac’s hand. He looked into her face. She’d read it.

It was a bounty on Thomas—also Drewyer and several Cheyennes—issued by the Department of the Army. It cited the assault on the Army doctor for his drugs. It cited the ambush of the Warren brothers and their companions, civilians who grew hay for the Army. It cited the murders of the Rikers. It cited the burning of the telegraph station at Julesburg, the killing of the Stationmaster, and the cutting of the telegraph line.

The bounty was five hundred dollars each on Thomas and Drewyer, one hundred on each of the Cheyennes.

“At least Thomas got top dollar,” said Owen.

Mac read it again. The Army wanted them dead or alive. The order was signed by a General Ryan, all the way to Omaha. The only way Mac could get it undone would be to get to Ryan.

Owen waited grandly for Mac to finish reading through a second time. “He’s headed for the firing squad, Maclean,” said Owen. Annemarie felt panicky next to him.

Mac dropped the warrant in the dirt and ground it under his bootheel.

“He’s a real bad un, Maclean. To take a shot at his father.”

So Owen had found out.

“If you’re his father.”

Mac freed himself from Annemarie. “No,” she squeezed out. He held on carefully, took a breath or two, and calmed himself. He didn’t care that much about giving away the pounds, but the damn wound would make him slow, and he needed to be functional right now. He had a job to do.

Mac heard a spurt and looked sharp at the kid sitting by the fur press. The kid was lighting a cigar, and the flame illuminated his misshapen face, flat-nosed and bug-eyed. A black bowler hat made it look ridiculous.

With a sardonic eye the kid watched Mac looking at him. He got up and walked over. Now Mac realized: It was the face of a kid who killed small animals for fun, grown into a near-man who kills human animals. Annemarie was twisting Mac’s finger.

“Mac Maclean,” said Owen, “this here is Lonnie Chapman. My fight-hand man.” Owen stopped and laughed at himself. “Maybe ‘fight-hand’ is right. The kid can shoot.”

Chapman wrinkled his nose. Mac ignored his extended hand. Owen repeated pointedly, “Lonnie Chapman, my right-hand man. Him and me and you are gonna get Thomas and Drewyer.” Mac reached and shook the hand. No sense in provoking a mad dog.

“Drewyer’s dead.” He told them how and where.

“Let’s go get him,” said the Chapman kid.

Owen said, “It’s been three weeks. He’s picked clean.”

“I bet they left his clothes and gear. That’ll be enough for the Army.”

Owen shrugged. “The other one’s more interesting.”

“Some profession you two have,” put in Mac.

“It’s a living,” said Owen with a fierce grin. “A good one. Course it’s too wild to be taking women along. Except on a temporary basis.”

He regarded Mac with amusement. “Maclean, we got a deal for you. You come with us, help us bring him in, and we’ll bring him in alive. Otherwise we bring him in dead. Makes no difference to us.”

“You bastard,” said Mac.

Mac asked Peddler to go to Virginia City fast on horseback to see Meagher, the acting governor. Maybe if Meagher would use the influence of the governor’s office, the Army would quash this damned bounty. Whether it would be in time, Mac had no idea. Peddler would need five days to get to the territorial capital, punishing Mac’s horses all the way. He’d need some time to talk to Meagher, if the damned bureaucrat was where he belonged. Then he could send a message to Salt Lake by stagecoach, just three days, a day-and-night, hell-for-leather trip. Salt Lake was the nearest telegraph to Virginia City. Mac might have word from General Ryan in less than two weeks, damned good time.

Mac thought he could keep Owen and Chapman away from Thomas for a while. With luck, Jim and Smith would find Thomas first anyway. Or if the bounty hunters found Thomas, Mac could keep him alive till they got to a fort.

He got Owen to delay one day for the sake of his tail wound—Mac had to endure a close and mocking examination to get the leeway. He spent the evening alone with his wives, in the simple, reassuring ritual of a meal. He spent the night holding them close, Annemarie tense and hard, Little One weeping softly. In the morning he kissed them good-bye and set out with the two bounty hunters to hunt down his son. He went, by necessity, lying on a litter dragged by a horse. It was the most humiliating experience of his life.