The Yellowstone (4 page)

Chapter 4

Moon when the horses get fat

Mac thought this bite, this particular slice, was the best piece of food he’d ever tasted. He held it up and studied the dangling morsel. A slice of buffalo liver, raw, dipped in bile.

He held it over his open mouth and let it slither in. He chewed briefly, not as deliberately as he would have liked, and swallowed. Satisfaction. He reached for more.

Each man had eaten liver, each had drunk blood, each had taken that slight edge off his appetite. Mac could not believe that he drank blood and that it tasted ambrosial.

Jim and Skinhead were cutting the carcass into quarters with their ridiculous little knives. Oddly, Mac felt weak, even giddy, after eating a little.

“You coons grateful to this child, ain’t ye?” Skinhead said.

“You saved my life,” Mac said seriously, beginning to feel better. He got to his feet and held a hind quarter while Skinhead cut. When it came loose, he started for the creek.

Mac had to rest several times before he made it. Jim and Skinhead brought the rest of the animal, Skinhead hefting the ribs.

Jim started in with flint and steel to make a small fire. Still dizzy sometimes, Mac stretched out against a piece of deadfall. He meant to eat until he couldn’t rise.

And he did. All of them did. They roasted meat on sticks and let the fat drip into their open mouths and stuffed themselves with half-cooked flesh. “Damn heathens we be,” said Mac

“We so strive,” said Skinhead. The fat man was so gloatingly proud he didn’t need to boast any more.

In an hour not one of them could get to his feet readily. They were keeping no watch. Mac looked around the plains, with their slant sunlight and stippled with shadow. Would Indians come up on them, silent? To hell with it, thought Mac. We are at the mercy of the land, and the winds that blow thereon.

“Damn your hide, Maclean,” Skinhead said softly, casually. Maybe that was why it seemed so threatening. The hairs on Mac’s forearms stood up.

All Mac had said was, “Don’t you think we’d better dry some meat?” That is, all he’d said again, and again whimperingly. He’d badgered them about drying meat last night, and now he was starting in again first thing this morning. He knew it wouldn’t work—he knew a crazy mood had hold of him—but he couldn’t stop.

Sure, he could give reasons for drying a bunch of meat. They still had to cross from the Musselshell to the Yellowstone, several days travel, go a long way down the Yellowstone, and then go overland to Powder River. Then it could still be a while before they found the Cheyennes. But the reasons weren’t why Mac was pestering his comrades.

“Don’t you think we’d better dry some meat?” he repeated weakly.

They ignored him.

He ate, desperately.

At length he got up and walked around the creek bottom, trying to get hold of himself. He began to gather sticks, and break off some green ones, for a rack. He erected the upright poles, the supports, and the cross sticks for the strips of meat at head height. He got a small fire going underneath.

Once in a while he cooked a little meat to munch on as he worked. Skinhead and Jim ignored him. The task took most of the morning.

He went and got the front quarters of the calf and enough hide to lay them on. Jim was napping now. Mac picked up Jim’s patch knife without a word to Skinhead.

The front quarter of a buffalo is the meaty chunk. Mac started cutting it into long, thin strips, laying them flat atop the rack. He didn’t even look at Skinhead, who was still eating.

About noon, finished, Mac lay down with the others and slept. For the first time in days he dreamed not of food but of water.

In the dream Mac and his did go swimming in the Mississippi above town. Sometimes his mom and Uncle Hugh are there, his uncle making witty, bookish fun. They picnic on blood sausage. After lunch Mac swims in a big eddy. His dad, sandy-haired, bearded, severe, sits on a huge log and watches moodily. The two men share a pint. Mac dives to the bottom, flailing his hands about in boyish exuberance to feel a catfish. He grasps something cold, and slimy. Inert. With his fingers getting sticky, he suddenly knows that it’s his father floating on the bottom, drowned.

The boy surfaces in terror and looks for his father. The beach is empty. Empty of family, empty even of log, of brush, of leaves. A blank beach, like an incomplete painting. Panicky, the boy looks up for the sun. It is a magenta eye, dripping a purple tear down the face of the sky.

Mac Maclean, twenty-four years old, itinerant and half-starved on the plains of what would become Montana Territory, awoke uneasily. Jim and Skinhead were eating again. The sun was low in the sky. The fire under Mac’s rack was out. He was ravenous.

Mac was awake first in the predawn light, working at his fire. He had lots of pounds of meat spread here on the rack, drying. He wondered what was going to happen now that all the meat was being dried. Jim was sleeping his light woodsman’s sleep by the other fire. Skinhead was belly up, back down, wheezing.

Or had been. Skinhead sat up, rubbed his face vigorously, got to his knees, then his feet, and shook his body like a dog. He glanced at Mac, eyed the rack, strode over, and lifted off half-dried strips of meat with a big paw. He went back to the other fire without a word.

Mac had thought about it. He was desperate to save some meat for their travel, but he couldn’t force his partners.

Skinhead started chewing, loudly.

Jim woke up, looked at Skinhead, looked across at Mac, rose, and padded his graceful way to the drying rack. He also helped himself, generously, eyes averted from Mac.

Mac helped himself, too. Might as well. He sat with his partners and started gorging. A parody of gorging—stuffing meat down his gullet. He looked at the two of them balefully, made a nasty face, and stuffed more without swallowing until he couldn’t move his jaws.

“Maclean,” Skinhead snarled, chewing, “you ain’t gonna tell me when to eat.”

Mac didn’t know what to do. He got to his feet, feeling idiotic. His feet started moving, moving in a kind of gigue. He started humming through his mouthful of meat—“Hnnnnh,” rising and falling clumsily in pitch.

Skinhead began to belt out the bagpipe march “Bonnie Dundee”—almost unrecognizably. He was pushing with his elbows on his gargantuan rib cage, bellowing the bagpipe.

Jim Sykes began to chuckle.

Mac was dancing more wildly than he’d ever danced, by turns hopping, strutting, larking, spinning, whatever fancy led him to. He felt utter abandon. If he danced hard enough, long enough, fast enough, crazily enough, he would stop being a man and become a dance. Which would be wonderful.

Jim and Skinhead got up and began to dance, Jim stylish, Skinhead clumsy as a bear. Skinhead sang louder and more wretchedly than ever. Mac hummed as fiercely as he could. They all started laughing, except that Mac’s mouth was too full. The others laughed at Mac. Skinhead threw his huge arms around both of them and they all fell to the ground in a pile. Each man had the giggles. Each man was crying.

Mac sat up. He fingered some meat out of his mouth, then the rest of it. He set in determinedly to eat the wad. The other two helped themselves off the rack, as greedily as though these were their first bites. They feasted until food seemed disgusting.

Chapter 5

Moon when the horses get fat

“Bloods,” whispered Skinhead, and ducked back down.

They were crouched in a dry wash, out of sight under a cutbank.

From the Judith Gap they’d been paralleling the old Indian trail, thinking to spot some Blackfeet. Now they’d done it. The idea of killing a dog had sounded good, but it looked dangerous.

Jim had seen the dust that meant a village traveling along the trail. He woke Skinhead and Mac, and they moved here from the creek.

“Bloods sure,” repeated Skinhead. “Do we dare chance it?”

If Magpie was among them, thought Mac, the bastard would want to finish what he started.

The idea was to slip along behind the parade of man and animal, and when the Indians camped, creep close and kill a dog. But with Magpie’s Bloods?

Yet the Indians had plenty to eat, and lots of horses.

“Maybe we could steal some mounts,” put in Mac.

He was looking at the Indians greedily. Men to the front and on the flanks, mounted and on the watch. Women and children alongside the travois, horseback and afoot. The travois heavy with belongings, and sometimes with small children. Dogs walking beside them or cavorting or dashing away and trotting back.

Skinhead shook his head. “They’d track us. We’re in no shape to stay ahead of them on horses.”

True. Mac could feel himself slipping into starvation again. They had eaten the last of the dried buffalo yesterday.

“I can do it,” said Jim. “It’s worth it.”

Skinhead looked hard at him. Hell, thought Mac, maybe Man Who Doesn’t Stir Air can do it. And otherwise we starve.

“I’m going alone,” Jim said. “Safer for me.” He fixed them one by one with his piercing look. “May have to wait most of the night. I’ll be back before noon. Right here. After noon go on without me.”

Mac had just spent the coldest night of his life, shivering in his flour-sack rags. He had enjoyed maybe an hour of sun, and was longing for more, when he heard soft, running steps.

Jim jumped into the dry wash, breathing heavily. “Let’s move!” he shouted in a whisper.

Skinhead jumped up and out of the wash without a question. What the hell was going on? Skinhead set a trot for the creek. Mac supposed the Bloods were hard after Jim. “Go!” Jim whispered hoarsely at Mac. Mac did.

Where was the dog? Jim had no dog carcass. Mac looked back. Jim pointed forward urgently. Jim did have a bow, arrows, and a hawk and man-sized knife. Plus Indians on his tail. Not worth it.

They had about two miles to go to Sweet Grass Creek.

The miles went by hard. Ordinarily Mac could trot this way comfortably. Today his chest was threatening to blow up. He was surprised he could run at all, weakened as he was. But Jim stayed on his heels, and Mac kept moving.

He wished to hell he knew what was happening. Or maybe wondering was just a way to get his mind off his hurting.

The creek was running high, full of riffles and deep pools. Maybe they could splash along a ways and leave the creek on rock. But it would slow them down.

They tramped through the water sometimes, and along the creek-washed bank rock other times, always hurrying, never relaxing. Mac felt desperate. His breath was coming in heaves. He thought he was going to die.

After a mile or two Skinhead held his arm level, pointing. A huge pile of driftwood at the top of an island. Skinhead looked back, and Jim nodded.

They ran toward it, splashing along knee deep, then going waist deep, then swimming into a hole. Skinhead ducked underwater above the logjam. His feet disappeared. And nothing reappeared.

“Come on, Dancer,” came his grating voice from the darkness.

Mac took a huge breath and dove. Under the logs he groped for a way up. Wood everywhere. He didn’t have enough air. He thought of turning around and swimming back out. The current had him pushed against the logs. He was going to drown. He began to see lovely colors, rainbows like oil on still water.

A strong hand grabbed his arm and yanked. He banged his head on a log, opened his eyes into sweet, breathable air, and saw Skinhead’s rough face.

Jim popped up in the next log hole over. They couldn’t get to him. He was smiling slyly.

“How far back are they?” asked Skinhead.

“Not far enough,” answered Jim.

Skinhead nodded his huge head a couple of times. “Wagh! lad, you done right. Weapons is better than a dog.

“Quiet!” Skinhead pointed upstream. Mounted Indians came to the creek, split up, and rode down both banks.

Mac woke to the smell of smoke and burning flesh.

Dreaming again. He had crawled up out of the water, mostly onto a drift log. In the creek he was freezing, colder than he’d ever been in his life.

When he lay on the log, he could doze. But when he dozed, he dreamt. And in the dream Magpie burned the logjam, with the three trappers in it. Mac’s last sensation was not even the agony of the fire—it was the stench of his own flesh, burning.

So he was glad to be awake. But exhausted.

He wished they could move out. But not until dark.

He whispered. No whisper could carry over the shoosh of the creek. “Magpie’s Bloods?”

Skinhead nodded.

Mac started to speak again, but Skinhead’s big hand gripped him roughly. Down, Skinhead gestured. Mac slipped into the water up to his eyes.

A moment later the Bloods rode by quietly on both banks going the other way, upstream. Not so many of them now. The others must be searching the banks downstream for signs of where the trappers came out of the water.

Skinhead winked a huge eyelid at Mac.

In the full dark they slipped out of the logjam. They had to climb out upward. It was impossible to push upstream underwater against the current.

Then they walked downstream in the water, swimming when necessary, Jim always holding the precious bow high.

The going was slow, perhaps a mile an hour. But Skinhead stuck doggedly to the creek.

Shortly after first light they came into the broad, crosswise valley of the Yellowstone River. Slowly they worked their way to the confluence. To Mac the north bank of the Yellowstone represented the far edge of Blackfoot Territory, and the south bank felt like safety. He wondered if the Bloods would be waiting at this spot. The great river rolled by, deep and strong.

“Just let it take you,” said Skinhead, “and stay near me.”

They floated along in the big river, sometimes touching bottom, sometimes not. The river seemed benevolent, but beneath the surface Mac could feel its strength. He thought of the great waterfalls upstream, in the geyser and hot spring country, and their awesome force. That force was here, subtle and sinewy.

The sky brightened steadily. The sun rose behind gray clouds far to the east. Mac couldn’t help thinking what good targets the three swimmers made from the north bank.

After about a mile Skinhead turned onto his side and started kicking for the south bank, Mac and Jim close behind. Soon they were hard against some sandstone bluffs, floating in deep, strong water. Skinhead kicked hard toward a crevice. When he got there, he muscled out quickly, leaving room for Mac and Jim. The two friends followed Skinhead up the six-foot chimney and out onto bare rock. No tracks.

Skinhead slapped Mac’s shoulders and grinned. They were maybe halfway to the Cheyennes. Mac wanted to whoop and holler, but he didn’t dare. Right behind him he heard—a coyote cry.

It was Jim. Jim was yipping a full-blooded coyote song, a primal call.

The song rose shrilly on the cool dawn air, complete with warbles, trills, and ululations, punctuated by yips and screeches, a coyote aria.

Skinhead and Mac were laughing wildly but silently. If the Bloods heard it, what would they think? Some coyote must be spectacularly happy. Or hungry. Or desperate for a female.

Mac decided to join in. He lifted his own voice in coyote cry, a lugubrious and mournful voice. Eyes closed, thinking of elaborations to add, Mac felt a big, rough hand clap over his mouth.

Skinhead was laughing uncontrollably, but he wasn’t damn well going to let Mac howl. “Sounds like a bowel-blocked buffalo moaning,” grated Skinhead.

Skinhead let go of Mac, and Mac held up a finger for attention. “Announcement,” he said confidently. “Goodbye Blackfoot country. This here is home.”