Moontrap - Don Berry (11 page)

Webb puffed contentedly on the new tobacco, staring
out at the hillside as though unaware Monday was there.

"
Anyways," Monday said, anxious to get to
some other subject, "what're you doin' nowadays, hoss?"

The old man made a fluttering, winglike motion with
his hand.

"
Livin' with the Crows," he said.

"W'hat band?"

"
Kicked-in-their-Bellies. We winter up to Wind
River."

"
When you figure t' get back?"

"Don't figure t' get back," the old man
said calmly. "This child's a-fixin' t' die."

2

Mary was scouring the plank table when she heard the
sound of a horse coming down the trail from the north, and knew it
was not her husband's. She put aside the pumice stone and went to the
corner where the old rifle now stood. Dusk had fallen, and she knew
the light of the candles would be visible from outside.

She took the gun and went to sit in the chair at the
back corner of the cabin, away from the door. The flickering light of
the candles cast long darting shadows in the room. She put the rifle
across her lap and sat still, making herself small. She watched the
door, motionless, listening to the sound of the rider dismounting,
the sound of the reins being thrown over the rail, the firm footsteps
on the porch.

She did not move when the knocking came. but sat
still as a doe with her hands folded on the stock of the gun. It came
again, and the candles fluttered and the dark shadows danced.

Then there was a voice, a woman's voice, but firm and
strong. "It's me, child. Doctor Beth."

Mary stood and went to the door. She opened it and
stepped back to let the woman pass in. Dr. Beth was a big woman,
built square and stocky, but she moved lightly, like a girl.

"I was just passing by, child, and I thought I'd
drop in if I'm not bein' a trouble to you."

"
No," Mary said. "You come in,
please."

Dr. Beth glanced at the rifle Mary still held, but
said nothing. She came into the room and sat down at the table,
facing the fire, while Mary returned to the corner and stood the
rifle up. Beth watched her carefully, the slow, measured movement,
the size of the swelling belly. She was awful young, Beth thought,
not more than twenty or twenty-one. Monday must have taken her to
wife at fourteen or so. A third of her life spent this way. No wonder
she was so hard to reach. Beth shook her head and turned back to the
tire.
 

"There is—no tea," Mary said
apologetically. "And the coffee is for the man."
 
"
Makes no difference, child," Beth said.
"I can't stay long. I just wanted to get off that animal for a
minute."

The white woman watched the fire for a moment in
silence. "Well, Mary," she said at last. "How's it
coming along?"

"He is coming pretty soon, I think," Mary
said.

Beth nodded. "A few weeks, I'd guess. You're
sure you can't remember the last time you mens—the last time you
had the moon sickness?"

Mary shook her head silently.

It wouldn't be so bad, Beth thought, if the girl had
stayed with her people long enough to learn from the other women what
to expect from birthing. As it was, she had no way of knowing except
what she could remember seeing as a child. She simply waited, alone,
and with no one to ask.

"He's moving around a lot now," Beth said.

"Yes."

"You know, child, sometimes there are—troubles,
when the baby comes."

Mary said nothing.

"Sometimes they come wrong end to, and it can be
hard."

"
Yes. Woman die sometimes."

"If there is someone else around, sometimes they
can help," Beth said. "Sometimes there are ways to turn the
baby around, if that happens."

"Yes," Mary said.

"
You understand, when you feel the baby coming,
you should send your man for me."

"Yes."

Beth sighed and leaned back against the table. There
was absolutely no way to tell if she was reaching the Indian girl or
not. She simply sat with her hands quietly folded and said "Yes."

Beth knew the baby was coming breech. The one time
Mary had let herself be touched, Beth had felt the head up high, too
high. Sometimes they switched ends in the last couple of weeks,
sometimes not.

"
Listen, child," Beth said. "I have to
touch the baby again. Do you understand? I want to see how the baby
is."

"No," Mary said quietly.

"
Mary, listen—"

The Indian girl lowered her eyes and looked at the
floor. "I think it is better if you do not come here any more,"
she said.

"I'm just trying to help," Beth said. "I
don't want to hurt the baby"

"
No," Mary said. "But I think is
better. Because—I am Siwash. I am Shoshone."

"
So?"

"
I think maybe—the white women not like you to
touch me, and then touch them."

Beth stared at her, the calmly folded hands, the
gentle patience of her body. The Indian girl had spoken quietly, with
neither anger nor pity for herself; stating a fact of minor
importance.

"
Mary, you don't understand—" Beth
started.

Mary looked up, her face lit warmly by the flickering
of the fire and the lighter glow of the candles. "I understand,"
she said.

Beth felt suddenly tired and unable to find anything
to say. All the high moral talk that came to her mind—none of it
would make any difference. It was just talk. The girl sitting quietly
beside her knew the way things were, and the theory could never
compete with the reality.

Mary stood up. "The man is coming now," she
said. She had been listening to the sound of the two horses
approaching while they talked. They were just outside now, and the
girl reached down to swing the coffee pot near the fire.

As the soft sound of moccasin-shod feet sounded on
the porch, she started toward the door. As she was reaching for the
handle, it swung open. At the threshold was the terrible figure from
some nightmare of long ago.

The old man peered at her as though over the sights
of a rifle, his bright, indifferent eyes holding her pinned immobile;
then she was dismissed. He pushed past her into the room, bent and
shuffling, muttering something she caught only as ". . . no gun,
anyways."

He moved over to the fireplace, glancing sharply at
Doctor Beth but not greeting her. He squatted on his haunches before
the fire, grumbling and looking around the cabin, the long rifle
planted upright between his knees and clasped in both hands.

Monday came in then, and the solid familiarity of his
shaggy blond head and wide grin broke the web of fright that held
her. "Damnedest thing, Mary," he said. "Just ran into
old Webb out in the hills. He come all the way from the mountains to
see us."

"
Yes," Mary said. She closed the door
softly behind her husband.

"Doctor Beth!" Monday said, surprised. "Saw
the horse, but I didn't recognize her. That's a good-lookin' animal."

"New," Beth said shortly. She was watching
the old man's back as he squatted before the fire. Suddenly she said
in a hard voice, "Old man, don't you know enough to take off
your hat in a house with women?" Webb's head turned slowly to
survey her, and he made a grunting "Wagh!" very softly.
After a moment the leathery skin around his eyes crinkled with what
might have been amusement. He leaned his rifle carefully against the
fireplace and slowly lifted the limp hat with both hands.

Dr. Beth leaned forward, full of sudden interest.

The top of Webb's head had been scooped out. An area
the size of a man's palm was sunken in nearly an inch deep below the
sides, a gaping cavity in the crown that seemed impossibly deep. The
crater was rimmed with heavy ridges of scarred tissue, and the inside
was a dull, bluish gray; the very bone of his skull.

"Well, damn me," Beth breathed, leaning
forward to inspect the exposed skull more carefully. A leather
headband circled his head just below the cavity, and from it were
hung suspended the two long locks of black hair that dangled from
beneath his hat brim. Monday suddenly laughed, and the sound was
abrupt and shocking in the silence. "Wagh! you ol' coon! They
got to y' at last!"

Webb had obligingly tipped his head forward for
Beth's interested inspection. "Well, they did," he
grumbled. "Lifted this child's ha'r slick as a hound's tooth."
He looked up at Monday triumphantly and bounced one of the headband
plaits in his hand. "This here's the Piegan nigger as lifted
her, though. "An' this'n here's a friend o' his." He
flipped the other scalp lock over his shoulder.

Monday leaned over to peer into the crater. "She's
a damn strange color, now," he said speculatively.

"That's bone, boy, " Webb said proudly.
"She'll weather down some."

"How'd you dress that?" Doctor Beth
demanded sharply. She was fascinated and delighted, never having seen
a scalped man alive before.

"Wagh! Hell's full o' dressin's," Webb
muttered. "Slapped a fresh-kilt beaver pelt on top and pegged
her down with a string. Had that by-god beaver tail a-slappin' at the
back o' my neck f'r a week or better." He chuckled at the
remembrance, a thin, breathless, rasping sound.

Monday frowned, started to speak, and hesitated.
"Hoss," he said seriously, "I don't mean t' call you a
liar, or nothin' . . ."

Webb looked up with annoyance. "Best not,"
he said. "Can't y' see the damn bone your ownself?"

"No, it ain't that. But—how c'n you be sure
that Piegan topknot you're wearin' is the same as lifted yours?"

"Why, y' damn dunghead! I took it off'n him
right there, wagh! I did, now. Was runnin' my line up to Marias River
with a Pikuni Blackfoot name of Baptiste. He wa'n't full-blood
Piegan, but a breed. Half white an' half Injun, an' that's damn bad
blood both sides. Wagh! Heerd somep'n in the brush, an' first thing I
knowed Iwas eatin' mud."

"
Wagh!" Monday said. "That's some,
now. "

"Baptiste, he had both moccasins planted in the
middle of my back,  just a-rippin' an' a-tearin' away at the old
topknot. Must of dazed me f'r a minute, for I can't recollect him
takin' the knife to 'er. Well, now."

"There's doin's," Monday exclaimed, lapsing
into the almost ritual encouragement of the story-teller.

"That made me so mad, but I didn't say nothin'.
Truth is, I was a leetle mite confused, though you can't hurt a
mountain man by hittin' him on the head. Baptiste, he had one
turrible time liftin' that ha'r, he did now. Pretty soon he gets her
off, though, an' leans down to wipe 'er off a bit on the grass.

"Wagh! Up jumps this nigger, like to eat a
painter. Couldn't see nothin' whatsomever, account of all the blood.
Fetched that child up by feel, I did, wugh! Smote 'im hip and thigh,
like the Scripture recommends, till I guessed he wa'n't about t' run
off. "

"You did, now!"

"
Outs with my knife, same as I got in my belt
now, 'n' slips it inter his hump-ribs slick. Then I takes my turn
a-—dancin' on his back 'n' liftin' ha'r a while."

"Hooraw, coon!"

"An' wa'n't there whoopin' when I gets back
t'camp! This child was livin' with Heavy Runner's band at the time.
One thing you got to give the Piegans, boy, they give a right smart
coup dance. And they never 'low but four scalps off'n any one head,
not to count coup on, anyways. Them dunghead Rees take half a dozen
or better, just little-bitty pieces 'n' get half the tribe puffed up
on one man's hair.

"Well, now. It wa'n't long thereafterwards that
Heavy Runner's band come down with the smallpox, wagh!" Webb
swept his right hand under the left, signing "gone under."
"Ever' one o' the niggers. It were a fearsome stink in camp,
now. and the hollerin' were somep'n to hear. This child didn't set
toe near them lodges. he didn't. Turned around smart and high-tailed
it down to Absaroka country, 'n' been livin' with the Crows ever
since."

"That's some, now," Monday said admiringly.
"Didn't ever figure you had enough hair t'be worth takin',
myself."

"
No," Webb said, fondling the long black
strands that hung from his headband. "This nigger got the best
o' the bargain, that is a fact. The Absaroka call me Has Three
Scalps, my own 'n' two others. Lost m'own some'ers along, but it
wa'n't no 'count anyways. Gettin' ratty, it
was,
like a summer pelt."

"
How long it take that to heal?" Dr. Beth
asked. "You put any kind of medicine to it? How long you keep it
covered?"

Webb was flattered and pleased by the attention. He
became almost embarrassed as he tried to remember. "Fact is,"
he said uncomfortably, "this child never did pay too much mind
afterwards. If I'd of knowed somebody was to be so hell-fired
interested, why, I'd of wrote 'er down or somep'n."

"
You aren't much help," Beth said
accusingly. "That ever happen again, you pay better attention."