The Big Sky (44 page)

"Jim ate the final bite of rabbit this morning. I made it last as long as seemed safe."

"That was the caper."

"Tomorrow, though-?" Peabody's voice died away. He took a deep breath and let it out and looked into Boone's face. "I'll pray again tonight. Perhaps God in His mercy will answer. Don't you believe in prayer, Caudill?"

"Reckon not. Leastwise, I don't do it. Like Jim says, seems like God's going to do what He pleases regardless. I'll take this here parfleche off my bullet pouch and we'll soak it some and leave Jim eat it come mornin'."

"That's leather, man?"

"Buffalo hide. It's got some strength in it yet. Wisht I had a pot to boil it in. Way it is, I'll have to soak it in the powder horn." Peabody brought his lips up tight and shook his head. "I'd think that would kill him of itself."

After a silence Boone said, "I'm thinkin' I made a mistake. I should have took out for McKenzie or Flathead House soon's we got Jim fixed. Only I didn't like to leave him hurt so bad. I figgered to down some kind of game."

"Is it too late for one of us to try? I'll take my chance."

"I do' know as I could fight the snow so far, high as it is."

"No," Peabody agreed while his eyes went over Boone. "No, I don't imagine you could -now. So I guess I'm too weak, too."

"A man 'ud have a chance with snowshoes."

Their talk tapered off and came to nothing. Hunger made a body no-account, too beat down even for talking. After a spell of it he sat back, no more than half awake, dreaming of meat while the strength leaked out of him.

Beauchamp dropped another load of wood and skidded down the bank of snow.

"Hungry," he said. "Eat snake. Eat skunk. Eat damn anything." Boone was put in mind of a dog again -a big, skulking dog that maybe might bite your face off if you closed your eyes. Beauchamp didn't show he was starving, though, as Peabody did. His face was still full and his shoulders round with flesh and when he moved it was as if he still had some power left in him.

"Go raise some meat, then, if you're up to it. Or likely you're skeered and would drop your rifle and run like you did from the Piegans."

Beauchamp let him have the corner of his eye. Afterward he reached over and took the powder horn that Boone had propped close to the fire to melt snow in. He was about to set it back, after he had drunk, but saw Boone looking at him and so got up and filled it with clean snow from the bank. Beauchamp's eyes were small and wide-set under a forehead that hardly got started before the hair bushed out on it. There wasn't any back to his head at all but just the continued line of his shoulders. Looking at him, Boone remembered Jim's saying that for a head his neck had just haired out.

The air was toning off to dark. The snow still fell, but thinner now, and a new chill was in the wind. When Boone stood, his head just cleared the bank of snow around him. He faced into the wind, feeling his skin draw up at the cheeks at the touch of it. The white world rolled away any way he looked -flats and drifts and falls and rises rolling away to where the dusk closed down. Goddam it, one thing went wrong and then all the rest did. He had been hoping for a thaw and then a freeze so as to have a crust to walk on.

Peabody sided up to him and punched a foothold in the bank in order to look out, too.

Boone asked, "Can you still hear them steam carriages clankin' across?"

Peabody stepped down, and his head gave a slow nod and then another. "I can still hear them steam carriages." He turned around while Boone squinted into the wind. Boone heard a rifle go off and looked over his shoulder and saw Peabody holding it pointed up.

"We ain't got so much powder," Boone reminded him.

"Not much time, either. And there's always a chance that someone will hear."

Boone said, "All right." Maybe it helped keep Peabody's spirit up, thinking there was a chance a shot would be heard. Anyhow, a shot or two couldn't matter much with time running so short.

The shot roused Jim. He called out, thin-voiced, "You back, Boone?"

Boone went into the shelter. "How's that there hole?"

"Plugged up, I'm thinkin'. It don't hurt so much, only when I move."

It was almost dark inside, saving for the little flashes the fire sent in. Jim's face was a lighter spot against the dark. "I'm sorry as all hell, Jim. I couldn't raise no meat. I'll get some tomorrow for sure. Luck's bound to change."

"Sure. Can't keep on."

"Warm enough?"

"Peabody keeps the fire good." Jim lowered his thin voice so Peabody wouldn't hear. "He ain't a bad little nigger, Boone."

"Better'n some."

"I allus figgered when it came to goin' under a man 'ud put some thought to it, if he had time enough. Seems like I don't care, though. Seems like I don't give a damn."

"You ain't goin' under. Christ sake!"

"Thinkin' is too much work."

"So's talkin', Jim. Shut up now and save your strength."

"It don't make any difference. Sometimes I feel I'd as leave be lyin' out with Zenon, under the rocks and snow."

"You ain't goin' under any more'n I am myself."

"I ain't much for thanks, but if it's so I don't get a chance later on, why, I'm obliged, Boone, real obliged."

"I told you to shut up."

"If'n I hadn't begged you into it, you wouldn't be in such a fix."

"We been in worse."

"I'm light in the head, maybe, but I know you could have saved your own hide. I know it real well, Boone. I know you're huntin' every day, and the snow deep and your paunch empty, and what you git you'll give me firsts on."

"Shut up!"

Jim's smile was just a shadow across the dim spot that was his face. "Just like you say, then, hoss. I'll catch me another nap. Never knowed how good sleep was before."

Boone backed out and sat down by the fire. Peabody put wood on it, and the flames worked up, red and crackling, showing the skin drawn tight against the bones of his face. Beauchamp was slumped forward, drowsing. He was a hard case, in a way, to keep in flesh and strength with nothing for his belly to work on.

Nobody said anything. There wasn't anything to say but the one thing there wasn't any use in saying.
 
 

'Member how Jack Clemens could play the banjo, Boone, and sing to it, and the moon hangin' low over rendezvous and a shiver inside the body that was a glad shiver and a lonesome one to boot, and whisky there for a man and purty squaws, and the heart light and who give a damn about tomorrow? 'Member, Boone? A man didn't know whether to bawl or laugh, he felt so full inside. 'Member?

It's a empty feelin' I got inside now. Seems like this damn bullet hole makes me oncommon hungry, so's I can't rightly tell whether it's chest or belly hurtin' me. Still, nothin' hurts like it did. It all seems far off, like as if a man pinched his leg when it was asleep. Ain't nothin' hurts me too bad. I'm all right. I'm comin' along. It ain't no work to talk, I tell you. Don't fret yourself, Boone. Words come out'n my mouth just like water tricklin'.

It's like a stream flowin', easy and light. We seen a sight of rivers, clear and purty rivers. We had us a whole world to play around in, with high mountains in it and buffler and beaver and fun, and no one to say it was his property and get the hell off.

You think there is a hell sure enough, Boone? It nigh made me take to God, Boone, hearing Clemens play and sing. If'n I close my eyes I can hear him plain, the nice tunes twangin' out and the voice with them and the mountains theirselves seemin' to crowd round and listen. Hi-yi. Hi-yi. Don't sound so good when I sing it, but even a Injun song was something in Clemens' mouth, like as if it brought God down from the sky. Instead of takin' to God, I took liquor and women, but God seemed all around just the same. Seems like he must have felt good, too, seein' us caper. It's ag'in nature he would be set against frolics. Sometimes, lyin' with a woman and the night thick and a wolf singing from a hill, I figgered God was close. I figgered He must be a friend, Boone, and not no stiff and proper son of a bitch puttin' my name down for hell. Sometimes when I looked out over the plains, so far and mighty it dizzied the eye, I figgered God was there, too. Who made it all and give a body an eye to see with and a heart to feel with if 'twarn't God?

I told you once I'm all right. Set down, Boone. You're nervous as a prairie goat, and your face so sharp it might be a hatchet and a frown on it like thunder. Set down. I hanker to talk.

I'm thinkin' God done it, all right, for there wasn't nobody else to. No use to think, though. A man can think his mind to a nub and not know anything about God. He's got to die, I reckon, to find out, and then, if he's dead like a dog or cow, he don't find out then. That's what frets me, Boone, maybe not even knowin' after I'm dead and so never knowin' in all my life.

Hi-yi. Hi-yi. Wisht I could sing like Clemens. Wisht I had me a banjo and knew to play it. 'Member that Taos music, Boone, and the Taos women? Best ever I seed outside of your Teal Eye. Plump they were, and soft and dressed brighter'n ary flower and their faces smart-smeared with paint. I see you steppin' with 'em in a fandango, with a new red-checked shirt on and fancy leggin's with long fringes and blue stones on your ears and your scalp knife in your belt to hold off them pore critters that passed for men there. You was some, Boone. You cut a figger. Women just naturally hankered after you, where I had to tickle 'em into it. It's true as beaver. You nee'n to shake your head.

You was a lucky nigger, Boone, getting Teal Eye. Ain't no she like her, white or red or in between, none so quiet and gentle-like and still so full of life. She ain't like a Injun, or white, either. She ain't like anybody I know of. Close my eyes and I can see her, and I can hear Clemens playin' and smell a Taos woman, all mixed up one with another, all sailin' on the old Mandan and Clemens pickin' his banjo and the woman dancin' and little Teal Eye lookin' out on the land with a light in her eye. Treat her nice, Boone. Ain't no punkin anywhere as good.

Reckon I could stand a bite of somethin', Boone, even if no more'n a real punkin. Would you get me a piece of liver, or some marrow, or just anything? Seems like I can't get enough to eat. Seems like I'm always hungry. Piece of that elk you shot would be slick. No meat? Thought I remembered you killin' an elk. Thought I saw you totin' it in. Thought I saw you cuttin' it up and the blood oozin' fit to make a man slobber.

It's all right. Don't look as if the devil had you. Give me a drink, then, long as we're froze for meat. It tastes good, water does, coolin' the pipe as it goes down and lyin' nice in the stomach and no sickness from it tomorrow. It calms my guts down, so's I can lie comfortable and hear Clemens again. Obliged for it, Boone. I never knowed you could be a gentle man. You was always rough and sudden and kep' a
compañero
on edge for fear of what you'd do. You was honest and true, and a body could count on you no matter if he done good or bad, but I never took you for a gentle man before.

Summers was a gentle one. Old Dick was gentle and knowin' beyant guessin' at. Wisht he was here now. How, Dick, you goddam old hoss! I didn't look for you to stay in the settlements. Me and Boone, we knowed you'd be back, with whisky in your pack and your eye twinklin'. It ain't been the same since you been gone, hoss. Drink's tasted bad and women's felt only so-so and even the beaver holed up, waitin' for you. How!

I see him and then he's gone, Boone, my mind's so crazylike. It comes to itself and then it goes off again, seein' things and hearin' them and gettin' all mixed up. It's clearin' now, and I see you plain and no one else in here, and outside it's cold as all hell and the snow more'n assdeep to the tallest Injun a man ever saw. It's come to me there ain't no meat. There ain't been meat for God knows how long. It was a dream I had about the elk. Christ, you're dyin' yourself, Boone, thin as a goddam blade, you are, and your eyes big as plums and even your hands skinny.

Look, Boone, I ain't got long. When my mind's right I can see that much. I'll be under come tomorrow or next day. Ain't no use to say I'll make it. Ain't no use to try. Hear?

Me and you never et dead meat, but meat fair-killed is meat to eat. There's a swaller or two on my old ribs. Take your knife, Boone. Get it out. I ain't got long, nohow. Goddam your old skin, you hear? Boone!
 
 

Boone backed out of Jim's little lodge while Jim's voice followed after him. He turned around slow and straightened and met Peabody's eye and saw Beauchamp with his gaze fixed beyond him as if trying for a close look at Jim lying weak and crazy inside. There wasn't any reason to speak; they could hear Jim themselves; they knew he was near gone.

Boone picked up the snowshoes that his knife and awl had made out of cuttings of buckskin and limbs thawed at the fire. They were poor doings but they might last a while. He stood with them in his hands, trying for the getup to climb out of the hole and put them on. Little things had come to be work, like moving a hand or foot, so that he had to put his mind to it first and let the thought shape up.

"Another day," Peabody said, and the three of them thought his words over as if to see if they were true. Peabody's face looked all bone except for the brown beard that curled on it now, and his hands were all bone, too. Looking at him shrunk up in his long coat, Boone knew he was bone inside -bone with skin withered on it like on an old carcass the wolves hadn't found.

Even Beauchamp looked ganted up, for all that he still moved as if there was strength in him. His eyes were sunk in his head, and his brows jutted sharp over them, and the muscles of his shoulders and arms had pulled in and no longer swelled proud against his clothes. What a man noticed about him was the steady hunger in his eyes, the hunger that looked out above the black shag of his beard and left nothing else in his face. It was a different hunger from what Peabody showed, or maybe the same hunger but not mixed with thought or spirit or spunk. It was hunger as naked as a raw scalp, looking out of the deep-sunk eyes, looking at the lodge and Jim lying inside.