Heartsong (55 page)

The woman got up without a word and knocked on a door behind her. Charging Elk looked her up and down, from her small feet to her narrow waist to her small shoulders and slender neck. He immediately thought of Marie, but then another young woman came into his mind—the one who had given him the holy picture, which he now knew was Jesus Christ, the man who died for these people's sins. He remembered the pleasant, hopeful afternoon beside the lake in Paris. He tried to think of her name but couldn't.

The woman opened the door and stepped aside and said they could go in now. The guard pushed him gently in the back and Charging Elk said, “Sandrine,” but no one seemed to hear.

The warden was block of a man, as wide in the waist and hips as in the shoulders, which pulled his suit coat taut to the point of catastrophe. His shiny bald head was jammed into a neck that was too short and thick for the stiff collar of his shirt. He had been writing something but now he stopped, placed the pen in a tray, and rolled a blotter over the wet ink. Then he looked up. His eyes were small and dark in the round, red face and his nose was incongruously long and thin. He looked like a strange bird that Charging Elk had once seen in a tabloid, a bird that couldn't fly.

“Ah, Monsieur Charging Elk. How goes it? All right?”

“Yes sir. Just fine.”

“Very good.” The warden picked up a wrinkled, damp handkerchief and mopped his forehead. “They tell me you are a good prisoner, you don't make trouble for us. Is that correct?”

“Yes sir.”

“We like that and we are going to give you a little reward, a little more freedom. You would like that, wouldn't you?”

“Yes sir.”

“We are going to move you to another unit. We think you will like the company there a little better. And you will have a few privileges
that are currently denied you—more time outside your cell—for legitimate purposes, of course—access to our library, such as it is, and most important, a job. Now you can't complain about that, can you?”

“No sir. Thank you.”

“All right then. That's about it. Oh, one other thing—you will be able to send and receive one letter each month, no funny business, keep in mind that we read everything. And you may have up to two visitors once every three months.” The warden picked up his pen and dipped it into an inkwell. That seemed to be an end to the interview, and the guard touched Charging Elk's elbow.

But the warden looked up again and the guard stepped back. The warden smiled. It was a crooked smile as wide as his mouth was long. Charging Elk tried to remember the name of the bird. Somebody—Mathias?—had said the name.

“You must tell me sometime about your wild west. I hope to go to America someday and I would like to see this country—the cowboys and the Indians and Buffalo Bill. Someday you will tell me everything so that I may prepare for my journey. Yes?”

T
he next morning a guard arrived at Charging Elk's cell in another building, which was identical to the one he had just left. It was five-thirty, an hour before breakfast time. He waited while Charging Elk dressed, then led him down to the mess hall.

About thirty men were seated at one of the long tables. The guard motioned for Charging Elk to sit at the far end. Then he went away.

Charging Elk glanced up the table, taking in the faces, but not one looked familiar. He had been a little surprised at the variety of faces in the prison. Except for the immigrants, the men of Marseille were of a certain type. There were variations, but for the most part,
they were shorter, darker, and thicker than most of the men in prison. But Causeret had told Charging Elk that the inmates came from all over France—some were even foreign. Charging Elk had already met an Englishman and a Dutchman, two of Causeret s friends. They had been in La Tombe long enough to have learned passable French.

Soon a small group of men in white aprons began to set bowls of mush, baskets of bread, and pitchers of water on the table. Some of the inmates groaned and protested but the men in the aprons paid no attention. And soon the malcontents were eating as fast as the others. Then the servers cleared off the food and bowls and set cups before each man. Pitchers of coffee and hot milk were passed down the table, and now the malcontents were yelling for sugar and complaining about the weakness of the coffee.

Charging Elk had just filled his cup when one of the guards banged his baton against a pan at the serving table and the men began to get up. He gulped the lukewarm liquid and stood along with them.

As they departed in various directions, a large, dark-skinned man ambled over to Charging Elk. He was a
wcuichu
but he looked as if he had been baked in the sun for all the years of his life.

“You are this Charging Elk, yes?” He stood as tall as Charging Elk and ten kilos heavier. His heavy beard was streaked with white on his chin, otherwise coal-black. “Can you do a days work?”

“I will do my best, monsieur.”

“Come along, then.”

Charging Elk and four others followed the big man out of the mess hall. They crossed the packed-earth yard toward the administration building. But instead of going in, they stopped before the main gates. A guard unlocked a small door in one of the gates and opened it. The big man stepped through and the others followed, Charging Elk bringing up the rear. He had to duck his head, and
when he straightened up, he was overcome by the sight before him.

The first things that caught his eye were the green trees at the bottom of the hill. In the hazy morning light, they seemed to float above the valley floor, like round green balloons. Then he saw the little village of St-Paul-de-Fenouillet. Although the houses were all alike, with their whitewashed walls and orange roofs, to Charging Elk, who had become so accustomed to the dull yellow stone of the prison, they looked as exotic as circus tents. Beyond the valley, the hills were fuzzy with pine forests and stone outcroppings and meadows full of grazing sheep.

Charging Elk had never seen a more beautiful sight. Not even the smoky-black Paha Sapa could compare with such colors and lushness. Taking in the scene all at once, he realized that he had not really seen a country landscape in all his time in France. He had performed in cities, and when the show traveled, it was always at night after the last performance. And he had not been outside of Marseille in the four years he lived there.

One of the guards who had accompanied the men outside nudged him in the back. “Over there. To the toolshed.”

Charging Elk followed the men to a low, ramshackle building with a thatched roof. Once inside, the big man handed Charging Elk a floppy straw hat. “Put it on. You'll need it.” Then he grabbed a hoe, which had been hanging from a peg on the wall, and thrust it at the newcomer. “Come with me.”

Charging Elk, in his almost mesmerized state of a few moments ago, had not really noticed the terraces of plants that grew down the hillside.

“Have you ever gardened before?”

“No, monsieur.” The hat was too small for his head, and the stiff breeze that blew up the hill threatened to take it off.

“Do you know your plants?”

“Some,” he said, thinking of Réne's flowers. “I know geraniums and lavender—and wild poppies.”

The big man grunted in disgust as he led Charging Elk down a path through the terraces. He stopped at a series of long rows of thin, limp stalks. “These are onions. And over there, garlic.” They walked down to another terrace. “And these are leeks. And those bushy ones just below us are tomatoes. Come.”

Charging Elk followed the big man down to the rows of tomato plants. He noticed that there were five or six terraces of plants below them. Two of the men were down on one of the terraces taking things out of the ground and throwing them into a wheelbarrow.

“New potatoes,” the man said. He had noticed the newcomer's eyes on the men. “And here we are.” The man took the hoe from Charging Elk. “I plant my tomatoes in neat rows, as you see. Everything you see between the rows is a weed. I hate weeds. They are my enemies. At night I dream of weeds and always they are big and wild and threaten to strangle my vegetables. Here.” He walked a couple of steps into the rows of tomatoes. He struck down with the hoe and chipped a clod of earth away, which he picked up. “You see? Bindweed. The very worst. Just one bindweed can strangle three of my tomatoes. This is a small one, but in one week it would begin its evil task.” He handed the hoe back to Charging Elk. “Now it is up to you to save my beautiful tomatoes. You walk between the rows and every green thing that doesn't belong, you take out. And make sure you get all the roots. Do you understand?”

A
nd so Charging Elk began the job that would fill his days for the rest of his time at La Tombe. Eight months a year, from early March to the end of October, he spent his days in the terraced gardens or in the apple and almond orchards at the bottom of the hill.
In the spring, he pushed a wheeled plow to break up the hardened soil, spread manure, mixed it in, and raked it smooth. He planted radishes and onions, leeks and peas and tomatoes. Then he tended them through the growing season, watering the plants, weeding and watching for pests. From mid to late summer he harvested vegetables, picked apples, and shook down the olives and almonds. In the fall, after the first frost, he pulled the spent plants, pruned the trees, and cleaned up debris. He repaired tools, sharpened hoes and shovels, straightened up the toolroom and the greenhouse. Then he walked through the prison gates for the last time each season, cold and tired, feeling a peculiar mixture of satisfaction and sadness.

And for the first few weeks, as the weather turned wintery, he would sit in his cell, wrapped in his blanket against the draft, and try not to think that he was there for the rest of his life. In the gardens, it was easy to forget. All the hard work beneath a blazing sun or a chilling rain blocked out any despair that he would remain in La Tombe until they carried him out for burial in the plot not far to the north of the garden. And when he rested, looking out over the valley or at the orange roofs of the small town, he knew that the work was necessary to his survival. He had heard too often of inmates who hung themselves in the laundry or the latrine when no one was around, or late at night in their cells while the others slept. He had heard of, and twice seen, inmates stabbing other inmates with a sharpened piece of metal from the blacksmith s shop or a knife stolen from the kitchen. He had seen guards take troublesome inmates away in chains—never to be seen again. But out in the fields, Charging Elk could forget about all that went on within the walls of La Tombe.

Although they were never close, the big man who ran the gardens, Gustave Boucq, was pleased not only with Charging Elk's work but with his constancy. The others came and went, but Charging Elk was always there. Sometimes Boucq would come and
watch the Indian hoe weeds or pick corn. He would wait until Charging Elk stopped to wipe his brow or pull up his trousers (he lost five to ten kilos every summer), then ask, “How goes it? Not too hot?” When Charging Elk would assure him that he was fine, Boucq would kick the crumbly earth or look away toward the far side of the valley and say, “Well, you'd better drink some water,” or “Those tomatoes need pinching off when you're done here—but take a break. Don't want to be responsible for killing you off.” Then he would mutter some words that passed for appreciation and walk off to his own job. These moments under the hot sun were as close as the two men ever got.

Charging Elk never received a letter in all those years he spent in prison and certainly not a visitor. La Tombe was a long way from Marseille, and while René had remained loyal and supportive during the trial, he had to sell fish every day to support his family. And there was no one else on the outside.

Causeret remained a good friend. Although they were in different units now, they did see each other in the yard and the mess hall. If he was serving the line of inmates, he would put an extra potato or sausage link on Charging Elk's plate. But after a few years, the juggler smiled and laughed less often. When they walked the yard during those cold months Charging Elk didn't work, he no longer talked of scaling the wall and going to America to look for gold. Instead he spoke of a wasted life of going from town to town, to fairs and markets, performing his meager art for people who considered him, rightly, a mere sideshow. And when Charging Elk reminded him that he had made people happy, he laughed. But it was not the laugh of old, the laugh that had raised Charging Elk's own heart; it was a weak laugh of regret that trailed off into a cold wind. Eventually, Causeret quit walking. Charging Elk would walk the perimeter of the yard by himself, and when he came back, he would find the once-vigorous, aerobatic
little man shivering in the lee of the wall, holding his thin jacket closed, waiting to return to his cell.