Dreams Beneath Your Feet (3 page)

He rolled over in his blankets, away from Hannibal.

Sam felt stuck. He wanted to talk to Hannibal and he couldn't. Hannibal was the wisest man Sam knew. Sam was hoping to work his way to the banner Hannibal said he rode under, “
Rideo, ergo sum
” (I laugh, therefore I am).

But Sam couldn't talk about what he saw beyond except to a medicine man. The tradition was that you did a sweat with him and told him what you had seen. It was like what Sam understood of the confessional, sacred and to be shared with no one.

The medicine man didn't give absolution, and he might not give interpretation. A few questions, some hints, and a suggestion that only the seer could understand the vision, that would be all.

Sam wondered if he would get to things the right way with a Crow medicine man again, ever.

He sat up. He had to say something, even if it violated morning coffee silence.

“I can't name it,” he told Hannibal, “but I can do it.”

Hannibal raised a questioning eyebrow.

“Let's go get Esperanza,” Sam said.

Hannibal waited for his partner.

Sam sat up in his robes. “We both know the truth. This trapping life, it's finished. We know what comes next. Let's get my daughter and head for California.”

Hannibal ran some thoughts through his mind, but he felt the need to speak only one.

“All right,” he said. He handed Sam a hot cup, poured himself one, looked across the rim of his cup at his partner, and said, “How are we going to keep the Crows from killing us?”

 

 

 

F
ROM THE FIRST
“Get along” Sam felt hard-minded about the job ahead of him, and he was impatient with everything that got in the way.

They stopped by Fort Hall to pick up their mail and buy some presents. Half-broke or not, they couldn't go see Sam's daughter and his in-laws without presents. The factor at the fort also gave Sam a long-awaited letter and an important package.

Then they rode east in a restless silence over the Salt River Range as fast as they could and into the valley of the Siskadee. Sam didn't trouble to think or remember consciously. His memories were music tapped out by the horses' hoofs.

Sam had written his life on every piece of this country. He'd been in the first trapping party to cross the Southern Pass and wander into the beaver heaven of the Green River Valley. That was Jedediah Smith's 1824 outfit, the first to winter with the
Crows. Bedazzled youngster that he was, Sam fell in love with Meadowlark. The next winter he came back and courted her, won her heart, disgraced himself, and eloped with her.

Sam rode and felt the days of his life in the morning's dawn and the evening's sunset, in the curve of the river, in the swaying of Paladin's back at an easy lope. Paladin herself, a gift from Meadowlark's uncle Bell Rock, was now Sam's saddle horse of seventeen years, the binding of his comradeship with Meadowlark's dead brother Blue Medicine Horse, still his fleshly connection to the family.

Sam couldn't fall asleep at night without Meadowlark coming to him in touches, glances, warmth of body next to him. The hold of their eyes was the dancing of soul mates.

He pulled the blanket of sleep over his memories before they got to what happened. The lovers eloped and married. They went eagerly to California, because Meadowlark yearned to see the great-water-everywhere. They were incredibly happy. At Monterey she died in childbirth.

He brought his daughter back, after big troubles, to the Crow village east of the Yellowstone country where she belonged. The chief, and the child's grandparents, told him to get out and stay out. He did, twelve long years ago.

Daylight brought Sam back to the here and now. He and Hannibal swam the Siskadee—in May the river was at flood tide—and pushed their way up the Southern Pass. They made primitive bivouacs at night, doing nothing but throwing down their bedrolls and hobbling the horses. No need to speak.

Hannibal had watched for twelve years as Sam lived the hard terms of his exile from the Crows. Each year he had trapped and traded and had adventures. Each July he saw Esperanza at rendezvous, because his brother-in-law Flat Dog was kind enough to bring her. But Esperanza never treated Sam as her father, not really. She was no American. Her first language was Crow and her second language Spanish, her mother Julia's native tongue. Esperanza's world was Crow, her habits Crow, her thoughts Crow.

Hannibal also knew Sam felt the loss of more than his daughter. He lost the Crows as his people, the Kit Foxes as his warrior society, the path of the sacred pipe and the vision quest as their shared religion.

The tribe gave him no choice. So Sam set his heart against the pain and with Hannibal made another life, winters lazing in Taos, autumns and springs wading creeks full of beaver, in summer rendezvousing with friends and Sam's fragment of family. Together Hannibal and Sam made two trips to California to buy horses, drove them back to the mountains, and made good profit selling them.

Sam seemed happy—hell, they were young men on the adventure. But he seldom talked about Esperanza.

As they started down South Pass, not far from the village now, Sam kept his mind clear and refused to worry. He watched the ridgelines for movement, for signs of game or enemies. He gave himself to the task at hand, minding his mare Paladin and his second mount.

He refused, even at night in his blankets, with every chore down and every precaution taken, to think about the words he was going to say to his brother-in-law and sister-in-law, who had raised his daughter. He didn't ponder what they might say in answer. He forbade himself to imagine what Esperanza would say.

Life was not his to control. He was doing what he saw he had to do.

Knowing what occupied his partner's mind, Hannibal angled his own to the practical. How the devil were they going to ride into the village of Chief Rides Twice and not get shot? And back out?

 

O
N THE
P
OPO
Agie River they picked up the trail of the village. Near the big bend of the Wind River they spotted it in the distance through their field glasses. The village bustled with people and
dogs, and women were covering high wooden racks with slabs of buffalo meat, laying them broadside to the sun to dry.

“They just finished with the hunt,” said Sam.

After each cold winter in the high valley of the Wind River the village traveled to these buffalo plains and made meat for the summer. Bones swelled with flesh again. The elderly gave thanks for surviving another season of cold and hunger. The young men made plans to win honors in ventures against their enemies. Because bellies were full, it was a good time.

Sam and Hannibal looked at each other. “Nothing else for it,” Sam said.

On a rise above the village they dismounted and waited in full sight. The sentries came quickly. Immediately Sam saw that they were teenagers, too young to remember him the last time he entered this village. He told them in the Crow language, “I have come to see my brother-in-law Flat Dog.” Sam sounded a lot calmer than Hannibal felt.

The lead sentry nodded, and one of his companions rode back toward the circle of tipis. He met Flat Dog halfway there, coming at a gallop.

Flat Dog leaped off his moving horse and handed the reins to a sentry. Flat Dog grinned broadly and strode forward. Only Sam and Hannibal could see the slight quiver in his stride. The Crow gave Sam a Taos greeting, a clap on both shoulders and a buss on the cheek. “Welcome, Brother-in-law.”

“Welcome, friend,” to Hannibal, and an
abrazo
for him, too.

“Your daughter is well, Julia well, the children well,” said Flat Dog. These words were as much for the sentries as for Sam and Hannibal. The young guards drew back and let them ride toward the village.

Fifty paces out Flat Dog's voice lifted up the song of their warrior society. “You dear Foxes, I want to die, so I say.” Sam joined in immediately. This was his declaration, his shield. “I am a Kit Fox,” it announced. “I am a Crow warrior.”

Hannibal's eyes ate up everything. Because his friend was
banned from this village, Hannibal had been here only once, a dozen years ago. He remembered Rides Twice but had no idea what the chief's brothers and nephews looked like. Their hands would wield the weapons.

Sam, you dumb bastard, how could you have killed the chief's only son?
Hannibal knew and understood perfectly—he had watched it—but the creepy crawlies along his spine weren't thinkers.

The women stopped their work of drying meat and stared. Children quit playing and gaped at the strangers. The old men watched through lidded eyes. Some of the young men reached for their bows or their war clubs. But all stood still, frozen by the song and its announcement in their language, “I am a Kit Fox. I am one of you.”

Sam's face was the picture of concentration and devotion. A part of him, Hannibal knew, still longed to be a Kit Fox among his comrades.

Flat Dog led them to his tipi. As they staked the horses next to the lodge, Sam saw Esperanza walking up. Her steps were hesitant and a little crooked. “Papa?”

She was beautiful, her hair auburn, eyes brown, skin the color of cream stirred with powdered chocolate. Sam held out his arms to her. She put on a face of confidence, stepped up to him forthrightly, and offered her hand to shake.

Sam shook it. He was so tickled that she would try out a white-man custom that he didn't tell her that ladies don't shake hands.

Pleased with herself, she stuck out her hand also to the man she called Uncle Hannibal. He bowed over it, and she made a funny face.

Flat Dog said, “Let's do this inside.”

Ducking through the tipi flap, Hannibal took a last glance and thought,
I feel naked here.

 

 

 

S
AM WAS GLAD
that Crows were not people to plunge straight into questions, because he felt funny about the answers. He gave Julia the sack of coffee beans he'd brought as one of her gifts. She stepped outside, visible through the open flap, to build up the fire and make the hot brew.

Few words, many smiles. Sam's vision swam a little. Daughter, brother-in-law, sister-in-law. Relatives, companions, people he'd faced death with. Flat Dog and Julia's two boys must be somewhere around, probably off playing kids' games or with their grandparents.

Sam fished in his possible sack, brought out the box sent by Grumble, and handed it to his daughter. She looked surprised. He enjoyed bringing her a gift each summer and thought it opened Esperanza's heart more than she acknowledged.

She slid off the wooden lid.

“It's called a marionette,” said Sam.

It was a carved wooden horse, each part painted brightly in red, green, blue, or lilac, with strings going up to a hand control. Esperanza looked at it, mystified.

“Let Hannibal show you,” said Sam.

She handed it to him, and he dangled the horse from the strings. He showed her how to make the head and tail move. Then he made the horse walk across the dirt floor, using motion of the head and tail to make it look more realistic. Everyone knew his skill in training real horses, and he handled this wooden creature deftly.

Esperanza squealed and clapped her hands. “Papa,” she said, “it's wonderful.”

“You're welcome.” Sam always felt strange that his daughter spoke English with an accent that was somewhere between Spanish and Indian.

“Let me try,” she cried.

As Julia passed out cups of coffee, Hannibal coached Esperanza.

A half-dozen times she tried to make it walk and on the last time sort of succeeded. “I need to practice,” she said.

“Papa, I don't have your present finished yet.” Their custom was to exchange gifts at rendezvous, and the family wouldn't have left for the annual trade fair for another week or so. “It's very special, though—may I show you?”

“Sure.”

She went to the parfleche behind the buffalo robes where she slept and got out three pieces of rawhide, each about as long as her arm. Two of them were stained. “See, I made this one blue and this one red. The other one's going to be yellow.”

Julia said, “She spent a lot of time making those vegetable dyes.”

“When I get it done, I'm going to braid the strands into a hatband for you. Watch.” Quickly, Esperanza wove together an inch or so of the strands, just as she would braid her own hair.

“Beautiful,” said Sam. “I'll love it.”

She took his hat off and wrapped the rawhide strings around it, tails dangling properly behind.

Sam looked his love at her.

“I want to go show the marionette to my friend Porcupine, all right?”

“Sure.”

She jumped up and bent to go out the flap. In the low doorway she saw the breechcloth and the wrinkled, veiny legs of an old man. Then, dipping down, the angry face of the chief.

She stopped cold and looked back at Flat Dog. “Papa?”

 

R
IDES
T
WICE STEPPED
in without a word, followed by a nephew and a grandson. The uninvited entry was a statement:
To hell with courtesy, to hell with your home, to hell with your family—I am the chief.

The old man still had the bearing of a warrior, though now the effort showed. His face, on the other hand, was ruined, skin crevassed, mouth twisted with bitterness, eyes dark with fury.

I caused this,
thought Sam. He took a deep breath, and the moment of the duel hit Sam again. He had stunned Red Roan by using Paladin instead of a weapon, first knocking his opponent's horse down with the mare, then riding directly over his foe. Finally he jumped from Paladin's back, kicked Red Roan to the dust, straddled him, and jammed the point of his knife against the man's throat. In front of his father, Rides Twice, Red Roan asked to die and Sam granted him his wish.