Every Hidden Thing (18 page)

We set to it as the Indians watched. Sack after sack was laid carefully on the ground and opened. Wood shavings spilled out as we extracted the vertebrae and ribs and femurs and tibiae. I noticed that the three Sioux men kept their distance as the bones were revealed. Like standing downwind from a foul smell. Only the boy seemed not to be afraid. All the while I thought about the heads they were
looking for—and who had them—and worried there was something else they wanted back too. When we were halfway through the second crate, the tallest Indian held out his hand to stop us. Enough.

“No head,” he said.

“No heads,” father told him.

The Sioux boy seemed a bit forlorn. The other men looked at him with a mix of pity and annoyance. I might've felt sorry for him if I hadn't also been terrified. Of all the Indians he'd been most intent as we'd unpacked the crates. He bent down now and picked up a fossil toe and closed his fist around it while staring defiantly at my father.

“Yes, of course,” said Father, smiling. “Keep it.”

Ned said, “Hitch, is our meal ready?”

“Ready,” said Hitch from the cookstove, which had been producing a distracting medley of smells.

“Will you eat?” my father asked the Sioux.

They said nothing, but looked at one another, and then, in agreement, sat down on the ground. Ned and I hurried about, bringing them plates of food and utensils, which they ignored in favor of their fingers.

My stomach was all clenched up. I picked at my food. The Sioux seemed to enjoy theirs. They finished what was on their plates and let us give them seconds. It was a very quiet meal. Occasionally Hitch would say something to himself, like he did sometimes, and the Sioux would look over at him, startled, then back at us, and we'd smile tensely, and they'd go back to eating. When they were done, Plaskett offered them tobacco. They took
it and chewed meditatively, spitting once in a while. Finally they stood, mounted their ponies, and left—in the opposite direction from the Cartland camp, I was glad to see.

“I won't lie,” said Plaskett. “I had some very gloomy thoughts back there.”

“I thought we were done for,” I said. “Where will they go now?

“They're likely scouts,” said Ned. “They'll go back to their camp or village and tell them what they've found. What's all this about heads?”

“Cartland's group found some burial platforms on their way out. He cut off the heads to study them.”

Father looked at me sharply. “How do you know this?”

“Rachel Cartland told me. I ran into her, a few weeks ago.”

Ned frowned. “How'd the Indians find out?”

“Must've seen them do it,” I said. Had they seen Rachel take the tooth, too? Maybe it was more than just heads they were looking for.

“That was a bad mistake,” said Ned. “Burial's sacred to them. You don't just saw up their dead.”

“So they thought we were the culprits,” said Father.

“Good thing we didn't have those heads,” Ned said, “or they might've taken ours.”

It was a horrible thought that came to me suddenly. “You think they'll go to Cartland's camp?”

Father was already packing up the uncrated bones. “They wouldn't risk it, not with so many soldiers.”

“We'd better tell them,” I said.

“They'll be fine, Sam. They've got thirty-five cavalrymen!”

“Still. They should know there's Sioux around.”

“They have their own scouts.”

“And someone's got to tell them it was the Indians who smashed their fossil. One of the Sioux had a pickax on his pony, all covered in bone dust. Maybe they were getting even with Cartland for taking the heads. Anyhow, someone's got to clear your name. And it might come better from me.”

I waited anxiously for his answer. I was much more worried about Rachel's safety than Father's reputation. For the first time he seemed to notice my bruised face.

“Who gave you that beating?”

“One of the Yalies when I was riding past their quarry.”

“I hope you blackened his eye too.”

“Might've. Cartland said he's going to finish you. Publish it all over the place. We better tell him before he sends a telegraph.”

“Not safe,” he said. “Those Sioux seem pretty agitated.”

“If they wanted to hurt me, they'd have already done it,” I pointed out. “They just ate our food. Chewed our tobacco. They can't have any grudge against us.”

“Sam's right,” Ned said. “We should tell them. But it'll be dark in a couple hours. I'll go with him.”

Finally Father nodded. “Keep your eyes open in their camp. See if they have anything interesting.”

“Sure,” I lied. I didn't care why he was letting me go. I just wanted the chance to make sure Rachel was safe. And get the chance to talk to her.

As I saddled my pony, Plaskett sauntered over and pressed a pistol into my hand. “You don't have the same aversion as your pa, I think.”

“No.”

“This can't hurt then.”

He showed me how to use it, and put a holster on me. I'd never fired a gun, rarely even held one. With the pistol against my hip, we headed toward Cartland's camp, a plan for thievery taking shape in my mind.

A
T TWILIGHT TWO SOLDIERS DRAGGED HIM
into camp, his face bloody. He couldn't have been more than fifteen.

“Found him by the river, sir, hiding in the grass,” one of the soldiers told the lieutenant. “He's Sioux. Had an eye on our horses.”

They'd already bound the Indian boy's hands behind his back and now forced him down against the side of a wagon and tied him to the sturdy axle. His bruised, bloodied face made me think of Samuel, and I felt a sorrowful squeeze inside my throat.

Lieutenant Frye looked the boy over without a flicker of compassion. “Were there any others?” he asked his two men.

“Not that we saw.”

“Does he speak English?” the lieutenant asked.

One of the soldiers shook his head. “Or won't.”

“Bring Duellist here,” the lieutenant said.

The top of a distant butte held the sun's last light, like a beacon. When Duellist saw the Sioux boy, his normally genial face hardened into a mask. He squatted down and said a few words. The boy glared mutely, then spat on him. Duellist wiped away the spittle, then struck the boy hard across the face.

I gasped. “Was that necessary?”

“You shouldn't watch this, my dear,” my father said, trying to usher me away, but I shook off his hand with a scowl.

“Don't feel sorry for him, Miss Cartland,” said the lieutenant. “We're going easy on him, compared to what his own people do to horse thieves. I knew a trapper who traded with the Sioux. One night they caught a Crow Indian in their corral. First they shot him off his horse, then the braves came and counted coup on him—are you familiar with that practice? They gain honor from striking their enemy with a stick before scalping him. And then the women came with axes and chopped him up and scattered the pieces hither and thither.”

He made a motion with his hand like sowing seed in a field. It made the carnage he described all the more revolting. I was tired of Lieutenant Frye and his instructive little stories about the Indians.

Duellist turned to us. “He says he didn't come to steal horses.”

“Lying,” said one of the soldiers who'd dragged him in. “Horses are like gold to them.”

Quite a crowd had gathered. I was amazed at the change the Sioux boy's presence made in the men. Not just the soldiers but
the Yalies. They stood taller. They talked louder. Their jaws hardened. They were ridiculous.

Duellist and the boy had another exchange. The Pawnee scout turned to my father.

“He says you took the heads of the dead. He saw it.”

“Ah,” Papa said.

I'd never forgotten that mirage-like horse and rider I'd spied on the ridge. We
had
been watched. Guiltily I wondered exactly how much he'd seen.

Duellist said, “He wants them back.”

The Sioux boy was speaking more fiercely now.

“One of the dead was his father,” Duellist said.

Papa must have seen my stricken face, because he said, “‘Father' may be a rather vague term for these people. A term for a relative, or even an elder.”

“We should return them,” I said.

He frowned. “We have no proof any of these men were truly related to him.”

From a distance Mr. Landry jotted notes.

The boy was speaking again to Duellist. The Pawnee scout grunted, turned to us.

“He says you also took something from his father's body—a tooth.”

My father and I glanced at each other, and I felt sickened by our complicity. I'd stood by as bodies were decapitated—maybe even the body of this boy's father. Yes, I'd objected, but maybe not strongly enough. And then I'd made everything much worse
by stealing from the body. With a twist of self-loathing, I knew I would do it again, for that tooth.

“He can tell us,” Papa whispered to me, and his expression was nakedly covetous. “He can tell us where he found it.”

Before I could react, he hurried off. I saw him duck into his tent. He came back with the black tooth in his hand. He crouched close to the Sioux boy and put the tooth on the earth. The boy's eyes blazed. It was obviously an object he knew well.

Papa said, “Duellist, will you translate for me, please? Now, where did your father find this?”

Duellist relayed the question, but the boy just stared defiantly into the distance.

Duellist cuffed him on the side of the head.

“No, no!” said my father. “That's not necessary, please.”

From his pocket, my father pulled a silver dollar. “Tell him if he tells me, I will give him this.” He put it on the ground.

With his foot, the boy kicked the coin away and unleashed a torrent of angry words.

I admired his defiance very much, when he was surrounded by dozens of soldiers, defenseless.

Duellist said, “He says the tooth should be with the body, and you are thieves, and they will smash any bones you find, just like the big ones they broke yesterday.”

Triumphantly I looked at my father. “The Bolts had nothing to do with it!”

“That's of no concern yes yes to me right now,” he said. He showed no signs of remorse. If anything his face had hardened,
and I could tell from his mouth, the forward jut of his neck, how very angry he was.

Pensively he stood, hands clasped behind his back, and stepped over to the lieutenant. “I know this boy is your prisoner, and you will deal with him as you see fit. But to know where that tooth came from would be a very good bit of information. The skeleton of that creature would be a great prize for me and our nation. Can you think of any way we could . . .
induce
him to talk?”

“They're stubborn,” the lieutenant said, “and they're proud.”

“We could give him a good thrashing,” said Daniel Simpson.

I looked at him in revulsion; at the same moment my father sternly said, “That won't be necessary. We're not savages. What you can do is fetch the heads. They're in the storage wagon.”

Was he planning on returning them after all? But I felt a slithering unease. Papa crouched down once more, staring at the boy. The boy stared back. If he was intimidated or frightened he did not show it.

Daniel returned with the burlap sacks, and my father motioned for him to unwrap them. One by one, the three heads were set before the boy. I watched his reaction, saw where his eyes rested. When I glanced at Papa, I saw he'd noticed too. Far right. The boy's father.

“If you tell me where the tooth was found, I'll give you back the heads and the tooth.”

I wasn't at all certain my father was sincere, but the boy had no doubts.

“He says he doesn't trust you,” Duellist said. “He thinks you are a liar, like all the other
Wasicu
.”

Wasicu
. This was what the Indians called us, according to the lieutenant. The word actually meant fat-taker—the person who was selfish enough to take the finest part of the animal for himself.

My father chuckled coldly. “Very good. Well, yes yes tell him, please, Duellist, that he's destroyed something very important to me. Those bones were my property, and he needs to give me something in return. A trade. He needs to tell me where I can find the bones belonging to that tooth. That's fair.”

He spoke with measured calm, but I sensed a terrible undercurrent beneath his words.

Once again Duellist translated; the Indian boy said nothing. I didn't see what more my father could do, but he went and picked up a shovel leaning against the wagon.

“Professor Cartland,” said Mr. Landry, “I urge you not to hurt this boy.”

I looked at the journalist in surprise and gratitude. I didn't feel quite so alone anymore.

“You are a journalist, Mr. Landry, are you not?” my father said quietly. “Then I suggest yes yes that you
observe
, and not
participate
.”

“Papa,” I said, taking a step toward him. I put my hand on his arm, could feel his muscles tensed.

“Don't worry, my dear; I'm not going to harm him.”

He let the tip of the shovel rest very lightly atop each skull
in turn, like he was playing a counting game.

“These are, after all, just bones.”

His knuckles whitened as he drove the shovel down into the head on the far left, again and again, shattering the skull and upper jaw. Horrified, I stared, not at the mangled remains, but at my own father, who was suddenly unrecognizable to me, his face so clenched, eyes narrowed and furious.

“Now,” he said, his voice strained, “I will not ask you again. I want to know where that tooth came from.” He let the shovel rest on the head of the Sioux boy's father, the blade tip-tapping the forehead, the nose, the hole of the ravaged mouth.

He looked at the silent boy—“No?”—and lifted the shovel high.

“Stop it!” I cried.

The Indian boy strained forward, shouting, and my father pulled back.

Duellist began translating haltingly, cutting the Sioux boy short to ask questions of his own. “He says the place is almost a full day's ride up the river. There is a butte taller than all the rest. At its base is a coulee with several big rocks like . . .” He made a curving shape with his hands, as though describing a toadstool.

“A hoodoo,” said Lieutenant Frye.

I'd seen them. They sprouted plentifully from the ground here: a pillar of rock supporting a large stone cap, sometimes very teetery.

“Near these,” Duellist went on, “is where the tooth was found.”

“Is he telling the truth?” my father asked Duellist.

Duellist looked at the boy hard and then said, “I don't know.”

The Sioux boy spoke again.

“What's he saying?” I asked.

“He wants to be released now, with the heads and the tooth.”

“Tell him tomorrow,” my father said. “After he's led us to the place.”

“You
lied
to him!” I protested.

“Only so he doesn't lie to us,” he replied patiently.

The lieutenant said, “I don't want to keep him any longer than that, Professor. His people will come looking, and I'd rather avoid a fight, especially with you and your daughter here. It's not something you'd want to see.”

“I understand, Lieutenant. Would you be willing to send a detail with us?”

“Professor, we're at your disposal. But you realize he might be leading you into an ambush—or straight into an Indian camp.”

“It did yes yes occur to me.”

“But it shouldn't be anything my boys can't handle,” the lieutenant said. His grin was confident. “We'll send Duellist and Best-One-of-All with you too.”

The Sioux boy was shouting his outrage. I heard the word
Wasicu
again.

I rounded on Papa. “Are you even planning on returning the heads and tooth?”

“We'll see what tomorrow holds.”

He bent down and picked up the tooth; he nodded at Daniel
Simpson to bundle the heads back up. The Sioux boy bellowed louder, and Duellist gave him another clout across his face.

“Stop hitting him!” I shouted.

The boy's manacled hands made it impossible for him to wipe away his tears, so he set his face into a fierce mask. He'd been caught. He'd lost his horse. And now he was humiliated and tied up before a Pawnee, one of his sworn enemies.

I looked over at Landry, still writing notes with a grim face. I wondered how much of this would make it into print.

“My dear, don't look so forlorn,” my father told me. “This time tomorrow we might be standing before the bones. Imagine that yes yes. There they'll be, all curled up in the rock like a slumbering giant.”

I pulled away from him. I didn't want him calling me “my dear.” The way he'd treated that boy was monstrous.

But I must have been monstrous too, because even now, even after all I'd seen tonight, when Papa mentioned the slumbering giant, I'd felt a pulse of excitement and thought:
We can wake him.

The rifle's crack gave me such a jolt I almost spilled off my pony. It sidestepped nervously, nickering.

“Stop there!” a voice shouted.

As we approached Cartland's camp, it was properly dusk, and I hadn't seen the soldier's blue uniform until he stepped away from one of the wagons.

“It's Sam Bolt!” I shouted. “From Professor Bolt's camp!”

“Just making sure,” he added when I came closer. “Wasn't aiming at you.”

After the treatment I'd had at their quarry, I wasn't so sure. I wondered what kind of reception I was going to get from Cartland.

“We caught a Sioux trying to steal horses,” the soldier said.

I glanced at Ned. Our Sioux? I was amazed the Indians had dared come so close. They must've seen there were dozens of soldiers.

“Just one?” Ned asked.

“There might be more of them around. Lieutenant's put a double guard on tonight.”

Why would he risk getting caught? Unless he was acting on his own, maybe ignoring the others. I thought:
The boy
.

“Four of them paid us a visit earlier,” Ned said.

“That's why we came,” I said. “To warn you.”

“Bit late. But tell the lieutenant.”

Ned and I picketed our ponies and made our way into the camp. Orderly rows of tents, some round, some rectangular, were enclosed within the perimeter of their wagons. A simple corral had been created. They'd dug a proper privy. A chimney jutted from their cookhouse tent. Some men were hammering together crates, tending horses, cleaning tack. I saw one of the students, Simpson, carrying a burlap sack into one of the wagons. I glimpsed the inside and spotted plenty of small open boxes and a little desk.

I was relieved to find everything so safe and orderly. On the
way here I'd had terrible images of a burning camp, massacred bodies strewn everywhere.

I stopped when I saw the Indian boy tied against a wagon. An officer with a doctor's case knelt in front of him, trying to clean the ugly wound on the boy's face. But he kept jerking his head from side to side, shouting and spitting. Eventually the doctor gave up. Closing his case, he stood and gave me a nod.