Dreams Beneath Your Feet (13 page)

She stripped off his clothes, every stitch, moccasins, breechcloth, legging, shirt, belt. She cut six inches of the leggings off to make them halfway fit and rolled up the sleeves of the shirt. She took all the gear he wore on his person, shot pouch, belt bag, knife, pistol. She got dressed, forcing the hurt leg to move. Actually, it hurt less as she used it. She crawled to Warrior, pulled herself onto her two feet, bent, and with one big effort lifted the saddle and plopped it onto the horse. Then she tied Boy's possible sack behind.

She walked unsteadily to a low boulder, belt knife in hand, and sat down. She looked around at the beautiful meadow, the perfect sky, the gorgeous morning. A tear ran down one cheek. With the knife she cut her hair off in huge hanks.

The task took longer than she'd imagined. She looked at the shiny black mass around her feet, then raised her eyes and refused to look back down.

Then she took Kanaka Boy's rifle and threw it in the hot, bubbling pot. She watched the handsome killing machine sink into the death intended for her. His knives, pistol, and shooting pouch she kept for herself.

One last job, another way to slow Boy down. She found a flat stone the size of her hand. She stood over her ex-husband's naked form, asking herself if she really wanted to do this. The answer was yes.

Could she get it done? Why not? She'd seen it done to colts.

She pulled his legs apart, knelt between them, put the stone under his scrotum, and pushed aside his penis. With one hand she pulled the balls toward herself. With his belt knife, she carefully cut off one testicle.

She looked into his face. He seemed to try to focus his eyes on her. The eyes swam and floated away again.

She cut off the other testicle. She held the two bloody lumps, like big peach seeds, and looked at them. For some reason, she didn't know why, she put them in her belt bag.

 

 

 

P
AYETTE SAT AT
the head of the trestle table, surrounded by Sam, Flat Dog, Julia, Hannibal, and Esperanza. At the other end were the fort hands, including two Owyhees, plus Azul and Rojo. Esperanza looked nervously at the china plate, flatware, and napkin in front of her. Julia whispered to her, “Just watch what I do.”

She looked nervously at her sons at the other end of the table. They were talking enthusiastically with the hired men. She hoped the boys' playfulness wouldn't include throwing food.

First Payette had a little fun. “Since we have no wine—rum later, gentlemen—it is our custom here to toast our guests with this drink almost unknown in the Rocky Mountains, none other than cow's milk.” He lifted his glass. “To you and your journey—bon voyage!”

Now Esperanza had her first taste of milk since she was an infant. She made a sour face.

“Our guests from the United States,” Payette told her, “are generally more delighted by our dairy products than anything else we can offer.”

Esperanza looked at her mother and curled her lip.

More treats—plump loaves of warm bread and bowls of creamy butter. Esperanza watched carefully as the others used their table knives, not the big knives in their belts, to pick up and spread the butter. She did the same, took a small bite, then a big bite, then finished the slice and reached for another.

Sam thought,
At least there's something about civilization she likes.

The next course was slabs of dried salmon.

“Thomas Aquinas gave us seven proofs of the existence of God,” Hannibal told Esperanza. “I think salmon is the eighth proof.”

Though his friend liked to say fancy things, Sam hadn't heard this one before.

“This tastes incredible,” said Esperanza. These were the first words she'd spoken at dinner.

“On this river lower down and on the Columbia,” Payette said, “are the Indians we call Salmon Eaters. They catch lots of salmon in weirs and dry it on racks to preserve it. Fort Hall trades with us and Fort Walla Walla, their pemmican for our salmon. Mr. Ermatinger says the fish represents a welcome change from the ubiquitous buffalo. We see it the other way.”

Though Sam had learned to read a dozen years ago, he would never get used to hearing words like “ubiquitous” in conversation.

“The two basic groups of Natives in the Oregon country,” Payette went on, “are Buffalo Eaters and Salmon Eaters.”

Esperanza took a second piece of salmon and picked up some flesh with her fingers.

“Fork,” said Julia quietly.

Esperanza took the hint.

The vegetables were green beans and boiled potatoes. Esperanza watched the others and used the potatoes as an excuse to consume more butter.

Sam thought that if they lived in civilization for a while, everyone in the family might not be so scrawny.

Payette crowned the meal with cups of coffee and pieces of fine Swiss chocolate. “The chocolate is a personal indulgence of mine,” he told them.

From the look on her face, Esperanza's conversion to civilization got another boost from the candy.

When the table had been cleared and the company was waiting for glasses of rum, Hannibal said, “We met a man named Kanaka Boy, said he's a trader. What do you know about him?”

Payette gave them a look of amazement. Then he calmed himself. “I want to say you kept company with a right bastard—pardon me, ladies. But I confess I'm not sure.” He looked around at each of them, uncertain. “He seems more a nuisance than an adversary. We shall keep an eye on him.”

The rum arrived, and Esperanza asked for a glass.

“Just a sip,” Julia told Payette.

Hannibal proposed a toast—“to the glory of salmon.” Esperanza joined in the ceremony of clinking glasses.

Payette looked nervously at Julia and Esperanza, and Julia took his meaning. “I must put the children to bed,” she said.

She took Paloma's cradleboard from where it hung, put it on her back, and put her hands on the boys' shoulders.

“Aw, Mom,” said the boys. She pushed them along.

“Esperanza,” she said, “come.”

“I want to stay up,” said Esperanza.

Julia looked at Sam.

“She's an adult,” he said.

Esperanza threw a snitty look at her mother's retreating back.

“Let me show you a map,” said the Frenchman—he said he'd been born in Montreal. He took a big scroll from a side table. “As
it happens, I'm proud of this document. I myself trained the young man who made it in the use of surveying instruments.” He spread the scroll on the table.

Sam, Flat Dog, and Hannibal rose and leaned over the huge drawing.

“The Company has put this together from the information of all their partisans,” said Payette. It displayed the entire Oregon country, from far north into Canada to the border with California and from the crest of the Rocky Mountains to the sea.

Sam was impressed. The mountain men kept their maps of the West in their heads. None except his friend Jedediah Smith had ever written down the streams and mountains, plains and deserts, and Diah's were lost when Comanches killed him on the Cimarron.

“After you crossed the Snake River plains and followed the river north here,” Payette said, pointing, “you saw the Owyhee Mountains off to the southwest. On their far side is the Owyhee River. It heads up in the mountains and flows through here—a terrible desert, terrible—and on north to where it joins the Snake.” He fingered a spot near his own fort. “Kanaka Boy's camp is somewhere here, according to report. However, he might move the camp often. You can never tell about these types. We don't really know where they are.

“We have reliable reports that Kanaka Boy and his merry men distill whiskey to trade to the Indians. Villainous practice, harmful to the Indians and certainly contrary to the Company's interest. Now that we're aware of his activities, the factors of the three forts, Vancouver, Walla Walla, and here, are keeping a wary eye on Mr. Kanaka, or is it Mr. Boy?

“Unless you have a weakness for excessive inebriation,” Payette said, “I'd say that pilgrims like yourselves are safe from him.

“Now I'd suggest one more glass of rum. What do you say?”

He poured for the men and cocked an eye at Esperanza.

“Please,” she said.

This time Julia wasn't around to say no, and Sam didn't.

Esperanza accepted a full serving, gulped it down, and smiled at both her papas. Sam saw only a slight flush of tears in her eyes.

A terrific crash came from the kitchen. The door banged open. A young Hawaiian propped himself in the doorway with a bent arm, head pulpy and bloody from a beating. One legging was stained with blood. He staggered a step forward, said, “Help me,” and fell hard to the floor.

 

 

 

“W
HO ARE YOU?
” Payette asked several times, and then in a sharper tone, “Who the devil are you?” He gave the boy another sip of rum to bring him back.

“Jay,” the boy finally said in a weak voice. “Call me Jay.”

The boy's face was a bloody mess, and his nose looked broken. One ear was torn half-off, and blood was in his hair. His clothes looked like he'd been smashed into the mud several times. Underneath the blood, though, Julia could see that this was a Kanaka boy of about fifteen or sixteen, still beardless, a boy whose face had once been pretty in the Hawaiian way.

“Help me,” he said.

“Let's have a closer look,” said Payette.

Julia and Esperanza cleared the table, and the men lifted Jay onto it.

“I'll get hot water and clean cloths,” said Julia. She and Esperanza disappeared into the kitchen.

Payette felt of the nose.

“Ow!” said Jay, and jerked his head away. That made him roar, “Ow!” a lot louder.

“It will heal,” said Payette.

He pulled up the right legging and inspected the wound. “You've been shot,” he said, “straight through, between bone and tendon.”

Seeing blood on the shirt, Sam reached for the ribs. “Any injuries here?”

Jay covered up his chest with his arms. “They only beat me in the face.”

“Who?” said Payette.

“Kanaka Boy and his men.” Jay hesitated. “I wanted to leave . . . his outfit. Boy doesn't allow that.”

Sam, Hannibal, and Flat Dog looked at each other, thinking there must be more to the story.

Jay tried to struggle up onto one elbow and fell back. He looked at Sam and Flat Dog. “You have to help me. Boy will kill me.”

Julia put a pot of hot water near the boy's head, and Esperanza dropped clean cloths into it. “Be still,” Julia said. “I'm going to sew that earlobe back in place. This is going to hurt.”

She nodded to Sam and Flat Dog, and they held Jay's head hard, the injured ear turned up.

Julia produced a needle and thread from somewhere and sewed. Jay gritted his teeth, growled, and banged his feet, but he didn't cry out. The two men kept a vice grip on his head.

Then Julia washed the blood off his face and felt gingerly of the jaw, cheekbones, and forehead. “I don't think anything's broken except the nose.”

Esperanza studied the face with an expression Sam couldn't read.

Jay was in a daze, maybe from the pain of the sewing.

“Those gashes are going to leave scars,” Flat Dog said.

“I'm afraid you won't be pretty any longer,” said Julia.

“Just as well in a lad,” said Payette.

Jay muttered something.

“What did you say?” said Sam.

“Help. Please help me.”

“So we are doing,” said Payette.

“I mean you Americans,” said Jay. “Please help me. Take me with you, down the river. If I stay here, Boy will find me and kill me.”

“Shush,” said Julia. “Get a good night's sleep and we'll talk about everything tomorrow.”

“I'm scared.”

“You'll be safe with us tonight,” said Sam. “I promise.”

Sam and Hannibal supported Jay under the shoulders, got him through the dining room, out into a night lit bright by the moon, and finally to their brush hut.

Jay looked at it, then at them, and seemed to recoil. He looked across at Flat Dog and Julia ducking into their lodge. Then back at the brush hut, where there would be barely room for the three of them.

“May I . . . ?” Jay couldn't get it out. He met Julia's eyes. “May I . . . ?”

Sam saw something happen in Julia's eyes. “Of course,” she said. “Come into the tipi with us. You'll feel safer.”

She came forward, wrapped her own blanket around Jay, and led him to the lodge.

“What do you think?” Sam asked.

Flat Dog and Hannibal spoke at the same time. “It's a risk.”

Julia rematerialized in the darkness of the lodge door and came to them. “You will not,” she said, “think for a moment that we can ride off and leave this poor boy.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

S
AM
, H
ANNIBAL, AND
Flat Dog built a rope corral for the hobbled horses, from cottonwood to cottonwood in the bottom-land near the river. From her cradleboard Paloma watched Julia and Esperanza put up the tipi for the night. Azul and Rojo chased a sage chicken around and around a log. The bird didn't want to fly, and the boys wanted to whack it with a stick and turn it into supper. They tried this trick often and succeeded seldom.

“I'm still thirsty,” said Flat Dog.

The three men walked back into the water calf deep and slurped out of both hands, cupped.

Hannibal said, “Don't you like Jay?”

Sam shrugged. “If I'm going to pick up more children, it would be nice to get laid along the way.”

Hannibal and Flat Dog laughed. Their friend had one child the usual way, Esperanza, and then adopted Tomás. Now Jay, a
Hawaiian on the lam, seemed to be adopting Sam. And Sam hadn't had a mate in seven years.