The country comprised of broad ravines and deep gullies lined with silty banks and clay. What mounds of snow there had been had vanished. Deposits of shale and sand made the land unsuitable for the sowing of wheat or rye, but there was fescue and there was juniper. Over centuries, bison roamed the ranges in substantial packs. The open frontier was their domain. Their livers fed the Indians’ bellies; the sinews of their muscles were the red man’s bowstrings and cordage. Bison were the gifters of shelter and of nourishment and of good fortune. It had been three years since Ott had seen one of the shaggy, grazing giants.
The Louisiana Purchase had nearly doubled the size of the young nation, America, and the shrewd man in office down Washington way was eager to populate the northern reaches of his acquired territory. President Jefferson had sent pathfinders Meriwether Lewis and William Clark on the fateful expedition to map the West, claiming the vast plains and wondrous mountain peaks in the name of the republic. Soon after, Polish, German, Norwegian and Scottish citizens abandoned the lives that they knew to become pioneers. To gamble on oxen and dirt and freedom. Granpappy had said there were rumours of gold in the area. If rumours proved true, the whites would arrive in droves. It would be the end of the era of the mighty bison, and the dawn of cattle-breeding in America and in the queen’s territories.
Ott disremembered the better part of the lectures. Granpappy tried to impart the particulars over cups of bitter tea, by the fire. He kept every newsprint he found. The old man had a keen interest in the goings on in Macdonald’s newly carved dominion, in the coastal states of America. Often, he had spoken of the hordes of buffalo he’d seen as a child. Like a sea of brown, the wild things stampeded, leaving their trail on the land in swaths a mile long. Missouri Territory it was. Where Pappy had met Gran. Where he yearned to return.
In Ott’s mind, Gran figured as a matronly woodland princess, with flowing hair and a pie baking in the oven. A succulent pigeon berry pie, or apple, with a thick layer of crust. She would have tended a garden and met Granpappy at the threshold of their cabin each evening, ready to see to his aches and pains. Providing comfort and a steaming bowl of wild turkey soup.
How Ott conjured these details, he didn’t know. He had never met Gran, and Granpappy rarely spoke of her. Still, the wagoner thought of her—of the two of them together. Young and vibrant and happy. Soon, he would bury Granpappy next to her. If only he could navigate the way.
It was the last of the chew that Ott stuffed behind his lip, against tarnished teeth. The tobacco was another casualty in a list of inadequate provisions. He whipped the mule on its rear and sucked the flavourful juices. The hills rolled on before them, carpeted in browns and sage.
In the early stages of the sickness, Granpappy worked through his fever. Perspiration saturated his underwear and the pits of his shirts as he manhandled the cattle or secured fence line with piggin string. His breathing grew louder. Ott would catch him doubled over, leaning on a post for support. Pappy became winded even during the simplest tasks, such as pitching hay. On an evening after blood sausage and frybread, he coughed and hacked fiercely. A foul-smelling fluid ejected from his lungs. Ott waited to be told what to do—how to remedy the illness. Granpappy asked for hot compresses. For liquor. There was no improvement. Pappy slept for longer intervals. He slept through the light of the next day. Ott was seized by a level of worry he’d never known.
“Pappy, I got tea for ye. Pappy, sit up. Can ye hear me, Pap?”
The old man’s responses were weak. When his eyes were open, they were dusky and saw through his grandson. Pappy’s body gave off constant heat and he began to mumble in a queer delirium. He writhed upon his bed, curling up like a child. Speaking in tongues.
“…oughtn’t to cut agin the grain like that…mind now…they’s a chancy wasp nest tucked in behind there…ain’t no cause for that behaviour…these are y’own chillun…”
Ott would loosen his grandfather’s buckle and remove his clothing. The paleness of his skin was a stark contrast to his face and neck, which were sunned even through winter. The fish belly whiteness was disturbing. Pappy pleaded for Ott to build up the fire. The cabin was a furnace and Pappy’s forehead could have grilled bacon, but he shivered with chills.
“…acre of wheat…we’ll grind into middlin’…plug them infernal coyotes…”
When the torrent of diarrhea came, the young caretaker fell into a panic. Pender had lit out for his own spread long before Pappy’s decline. There was no one near at hand to plead to for guidance. Ott found that he could not keep the patient clean. He moved Granpappy to his own bed, and both bunks became soiled. The linens scarcely had a chance to dry before they were needed again. Granpappy ceased taking in food.
“’Sakes alive, Pappy. Just a spoonful. Won’t ya swallow it down fer me? Please?”
The young man sobbed over the wasting corpse. He begged charity. Beneath the skin of Granpappy’s chest, Ott could see the curvature of a shallow ribcage.
“It’s only water. Come now, Pap. Drink some down. You’re turnin’ desperate thin.”
The skin about Granpappy’s eyes yellowed. The veins of his temples showed through. Ott wept to see the coming down of the man who had always been hardy. Soon, Granpappy’s brief episodes of consciousness were given to violent retching. With his kerchief, Ott wiped the bilious spittle from the dying man’s mouth.
The wagon jarred Ott from these dismal remembrances. He came upon no further signs of buffalo. The winds persisted in unpredictable gusts, and Sir Lucien began to balk with greater frequency. Ott felt the frisky blasts inside his ears, and his ears began to ache.
A thin cut of salt pork was what he needed. He checked the mule and fetched his tinder box from the wagon. Behind a weighty slab of stone, he laid kindling. Ott used the stone and his body to block the wind. It was a fight to get flame, but he succeeded. Too much sitting had left him aching in his spine. Setting the skillet directly atop the wood, he got the meat sizzling. For flavouring, the wagoner drizzled the pork with juices from a jar of pickling. A lively hiss and spit came off the surface of the pan. Ott squatted to see to the meat.
He endeavored to put it out of mind, Pappy’s appalling deterioration. The putridity of his breath, which made the cabin stale and rotten. The way his pupils rolled into his head when he tried to concentrate on Ott words.
When the winds lifted, they made a rustling flag of Ott’s hat. The wagoner kept one hand on his hat, one hand on the fork. He shielded the fire and stabbed at the pork until it was ready.
Thin bracken and conifers formed a fence line along the base of the hills. Midway up the spine, clean limestone reflected the misty sunlight. Shale chips and chunks of boulder made a white belt beneath the limestone. Ott observed his surroundings. He pondered the chances that Pappy and Gran might have once walked the very ground he occupied. He ate his hot meal and felt the weight of it in his stomach. Sir Lucien could cover more territory yet before nightfall. Ott lifted the skillet and stomped the flames dead. As he tossed the greasy liquid in an arc, the winds shifted. Droplets of scalding grease contacted the wagoner’s bare forearms, and he cursed at the stinging pain.
“Goddamn blasted…!”
Squeezing his arm just above the burn, he pranced and capered around the fuming ashes. The skin of his wrist and hand discoloured the harder he squeezed; the blotches of his wound reddened. Ott’s jaw stretched and contracted between his curses. Sir Lucien reared, looking sidelong at his companion.
“God ‘n Moses!”
The gusts endured across the plains, sending topsoil rolling and swirling.
* * *
“Hey there, trailblazer. Come, come. At attention.”
A chunk of hardtack pelted Ott’s cheek, stirring him from his slumber. It was early dawn, and he felt the cold in his extremities. He murmured some confusion and wriggled on his bedroll. Three soldiers in Prussian blue coats and felt caps stared down from roan mares. One of the men stroked the neck of his mount and spoke in a booming baritone.
“Believe you done missed the nearest burg by a hundred miles, corporal.”
Ott was not fully prepared for conversation. His tarnished rifle was in the bed of the wagon, where one of the burly soldiers was poking about.
“Burg?”
“Totin’ a coffin, I see. If it’s the undertaker yer wantin’, yer runnin’ off course. Ain’t no undertaker to be found roundabouts for days on.”
Ott noticed his arm and was reminded of his injury. The sweaty cloth he had tied over the burn had loosened through the night.
“Oh uh, no. I mean, yes it is. A coffin, that is. Only I ain’t aimin’ for the undertaker. Thank you. Granpap—uh, this one’s bound for a special plot all his own. A meaningful burial, if’n you understand me.”
The trooper at the wagon had been resting his free hand on his holstered pistol. He now pinched his nose.
“If that special place be more’n fifty paces from where you sit, I’d wager yer the bloominest idjit I ever laid eyes on. That corpse is overripe, boy. You need to get a spade in the ground and quick.”
Ott decided that the soldiers posed no immediate threat to him. It was fortunate that they’d awakened him, and he could make an early start.
“You passin’ through these parts unattended?”
“Yessir.”
The one doing most of the talking—an officer, presumably—scrutinized Sir Lucien and took up a critical tone. “Gamblin’ on this crowbait? Is that a bluff, mister?”
Ott found his feet and gazed on the long stretch of hinterland he had yet to cover. The cavalrymen regarded one another as if they weren’t sure the greasy-looking fellow before them was real. Ott wagged a finger.
“No, it ain’t no bluff.”
The officer frowned. “What report do you have to make as regards the enemy?”
Ott was stretching his arms. The performance was somehow unnatural in a body that seemed to lack collar bones. At a loss how to answer, Ott stared at the officer.
“The enemy. The Sioux or the Blackfoot. The rebel redskins. Come, man. What sign of the savages have you had?”
The officer was barking his words now. Ott couldn’t help but feel he’d committed wrongdoing, though he was blind to what wrong that might be. The forceful officer had yellow decorations on the shoulders of his uniform. Gold braiding hung beneath and at his cuffs.
“Redskins? No, I ain’t met with none o’ them lot.”
The soldiers studied the wagoner. The puny fellow with craters gouged into his face gave the least hint of cunning or deceit. It was possible he was precisely what he appeared to be: a fool out on his own in plain view for all to see.
Ott filled the lull in the conversation. “By any chance, do y’all know how far on it is to the great river? The Dark River, somes call it.”
The soldier aside the wagon lifted his head.
“Pilgrim, you ain’t figurin’ to tug that skeleton box all that distance, is you? You couldn’t haul a dead skunk that far in a wreck like that’un. The Dark River? They’s friction all about this territory ‘twixt the cavalry ‘n the heathens. The Sioux done shot and scalped Custer last summer ‘n the cavalry’s bin on everlastin’ warpath since. Ain’t you heard? This here’s a war zone you travellin’ through. You’d be slick to skedaddle ‘n plant that there box somewheres else if’n you value yer own neck.”
The wagon owner smiled and nodded at this genial bit of advice. Rigid-limbed, he started on hitching Sir Lucien. The horsemen awaited a response that would show that the man realized his folly—how he had accepted the danger of his situation. They got neither. Only a cordial Obliged and I thank ye.
The soldiers could think of no further business with the traveller. As one, in ceremonial fashion, they trotted out of the area.
Ott was passably rested, albeit in discomfort. He made for the direction of the river, where the pistoleer had gestured. On the north shore, in the place where the river widens, Granpappy had set Gran underground. Where the river widens. I marked her grave in sandy red stones, Granpappy had said, that seemed to be waitin’ through all ages to be arranged into a cross. I carried my bundle as I took to the saddle and headed for Wood Mountain, though the place weren’t yet called that. I didn’t allow m’self to look back.
Pappy had put in his request a hundred times.
The wagoner massaged his hands like he was working a lump of clay. A spark of hope spurred him forward, knowing he was in fact on the right path. The Dark River. A red stone cross. He commanded the mule to push on. His cargo would not wait.
* * *
Striated rock formations lined the ravines that came into view. As tall as five men, they were rocky knobs which mesmerized the traveller and seemed carved by an unknown hand. Etched to a smoothness, the formations wore perfect horizontal rings of white and maroon and dun.
Shallow brooks ran through the gorges. The water cut the land in meandering paths. Ott was forced to steer the wagon in looping curves. It was a roundabout method of moving. He made fewer miles than he had the day before.
The banded knobs were like immense saddle horns that seemed strategically placed. A row of lopped off monoliths. Ott had not known that the world held such wonders. He gawked at the formations as the wagon rumbled forward.
When the brook, or tributary, revealed itself, the wagoner sat erect. Here was the beacon he wanted. A signpost on the sprawling land. The water’s flow was steady; Ott could hear it when they hugged close to the ravine terrace. A wash of relief settled within him. He had found it. Mapless. Without Pender’s governance. Without anyone. Of his own accord. True, the river might amble on another hundred miles. There could be many nights yet spent on the cold ground. Still, he had found the water by his own wits. The wagoner whistled scraps of campfire tunes, off key. He had something to follow now.
Back home, slender trout swam in the waters not far from town. Ott had delighted in afternoons when Granpappy and Pender loaded the saddlebags with hooks and horsehair line, and the men ventured there to try their luck. The summer sun was fine on Ott’s bare skin as he played his bait on the water’s surface. The action of a fish on the line made Pender’s speech become high-pitched and rapid.
“Ah, they’s a nip. That’s right. Take it. Take it now…”
Pender would wind his horsehair round his wrist, lunging toward the fish. His eyes cocked. Granpappy would forget his own lure and monitor the activity. Ott remembered. There were afternoons when the men caught ten fish apiece.
He peered at the running water and thought what species of fish dwelt within.
“Steady on, now,” he pulled Sir Lucien’s head toward flat land.
Together, they made on for the badlands.
The curious knob formations dwindled into cliff shelf and scarp. But for the trickle of river, the scenery was arid and desolate. Hardly a tree to be found. A grumbling in Ott’s belly told him they were getting on toward mealtime. Sir Lucien was dragging his feet, and the prospect of more dried fruit was unappealing to the wagoner. He elected to alleviate his tender heinie and stroll about the area in hopes of finding meat. Hares and grouse were common on the plains. Fatty partridge, if luck was with you. Ott got the mule tethered and watered, then he tamped powder into his flintlock and readied a ball. Stealthily, he set out alongside the shallow tributary.
Hunting is an art form, Granpappy had always said. A delicate, deliberate exercise. You’ve got to think like your prey. Anticipate. A bird or beast may have pebbles for brains, but its nose and its ears are sharp. Ever alert.
Granpappy’s ancient rifle was an anvil in Ott’s hands. Often, when young Ott had accompanied Pender and Granpappy on a hunt, he found he was unable to spot a broken branch or a tread in the dirt. He could not identify disturbances in nature. The boy wondered if it mightn’t be his vision that was his obstacle. There was no optician in the region. Ott had seen folks fitted with glass spectacles, in picture books. In the east, these technologies were commonplace. He once suggested to Pender that he might benefit from donning a pair of eyeglasses but was shouted down as a dunce and a maker of excuses. Set o’ spectacles ain’t likely to remove yer head from yer arse, Pender posited.
The barrel tip nudged the ground here and there, what with the wagoner’s drooping arms and stumpy legs. He made an effort to hold the weapon higher. Ott kept a keen eye on his footing, careful to avoid snapping any fallen twigs. Ten minutes of searching yielded nothing but two slimy frogs and a red-winged blackbird. The hunter was hesitant to wander too far from his cargo.
Invariably, it was Granpappy or Pender who felled the hare or the grouse. Too late, Ott would take his shot. Too far behind the prancing deer would he spend his lead ball. Next time, Granpappy would say, with a pat on the head. Yer young yet.
Losing his way was Ott’s primary talent. In a series of bluffs, one set of branches quickly became like the next, to his view. North, south, east and west jumbled and rearranged somehow. For Ott, it was a doomed assignment trying to stay on course without Granpappy at his side. Without his voice to guide him. Ott kept close to the tributary edge.
The unlucky hunter retraced his steps. Beside the wagon, he set up his spit forks and dangled a pot of boiling water from two S hooks. He cut the slender legs from the frogs and tossed them in for flavouring. It was lonesome business, eating his meals by himself. A deep longing for Pappy’s company overwhelmed him.
* * *
“Move yerself, ya loafin’ no account…Git!”
Beneath the rickety wheels, myriad ancient fossils were locked in the folds of the earth. Frozen in time by sedimentary rock deposited thirty million years before. Freakish and unrecognizable were these proofs of life. The spiral shells of the ammonite and, farther on, hoofprints of the oreodont—an ancestor to modern hogs. Remains of forgotten snail and rodent breeds were cast. Minute traces of plant seeds gone extinct. Giant skeletons. The rhinoceros-like brontothere. Teeth and jaw bones and, claw and leaf imprints.
The wagoner saw none of these. He knew no difference between claystone and shale, between conglomerate rock or limestone formations. These mysteries were meant for scientists from the colleges of Massachusetts or Virginia. Paleontologists with fine brushes and magnifying glasses and weighty textbooks. The wagoner saw only the ass end of his mule. He felt only the muscles of his back flaring with pain and his stomach rumbling. Sir Lucien’s weight shifted with each step, his tail flopping and swaying. The grey hairs of the animal’s hind were coarse and oily.
The terrain elevated, developing into uneven cliffside alongside the tributary. At intervals, Ott threw pebbles from the toe board over the cliff edge to measure the depth. The stinging from his forearms, where the grease had gotten him, had not abated. He followed the meandering spine of highland.
Sir Lucien whinnied, tossing his mane upward. It was not a whinny of panic; still, the wagoner scoured the ground for snakes and burrowed critters. A thorn will sometimes stick into the foot of a mule, causing discomfort. Ott saw no prickly things. When the animal jerked again, stamping and snorting, Ott elected to bring the wagon to a stop. It was then that he smelled it: a hint of burning sage and sweetgrass.
The scents drifted lazily over the cliffside. Ott took in the smoke and was grateful for it. He stood to locate the source.
“Git. Come on.”
The mule proceeded around another bend to the lip of a valley, where Ott spied the plume of a campfire. Three figures were crouched at the fire, a fourth one lying motionless with its head on the lap of another.
The Indians were gaunt. Their breechcloths were worn and lay loose over their shoulders. One of the men had his hands extended to the fire; the bones of his wrists protruded in the light. The throats of the men were sunken, their eyes heavy-lidded and watery.
They were Blackfoot. Of the Northern Piikani. The seated one, who might have been forty or sixty, had beads in his plaited hair. A string of claws hung high on his chest. Each of the men wore buckskin leggings. The elder’s feet were crossed, and Ott could see the skin of the man’s heel through the hole of his moccasins.
Slowly, the youngest of the Indians turned. He was neither pleased nor surprised to see a white man approaching. It was as though he looked past the wagoner, to the dimming sky. A musket lay at the brave’s side, yet he made no move to handle it. Ott, walking the soreness from his body, grinned his gap-toothed grin. He parted lips to speak but saw the brave turn languidly back to the flames. Next to the brave, his brother or companion—equally emaciated, with open sores showing on his neck—held a clay bowl of simmering leaves and herbs. He used his free hand to wave the scant smoke toward his chin. An eerie quiet clung to the scene. Ott held his tongue.
The figure lying prone was an aged woman. She was older than the man who nursed her. All kinds of ages. Ott saw the contours of the blanket which covered her; the woman was no larger than a child. She lay on her side, the skin of her face a mesh of deep cracks. The old woman appeared dried out, like a prune. Her lips had collapsed into the cave of her mouth. Like a baby bird, she jutted forth her chin, wanting feeding. The Indian who cradled her held a ball of spruce gum resin. With a gentleness Ott found disturbing, the Indian placed the ball into the woman’s mouth, allowing her to suckle it.
“I spied yer…yer...That is, I meant to ask y’all how much further on…”
A dog carcass was laid out in back of the old woman. Ott could identify the skeleton as canine because of the head. The skin around the skull and mandible was partially intact, and a jagged line of doggy teeth was visible. No tongue. Scraps of tissue and fur were stuck to the curled ribcage.
Ott made a slow revolution of his hat, pinching it on the brim at his waistline. His words drifted off with the campfire smoke. The wagoner’s feet inched forward and back, unsure of their place. His heart was saddened to see a people stricken to such extent.
“I have, uh…back yonder in the…”
Gesturing, he spun round and hobbled to the rear of the wagon. There were sounds of clinking and clunking as Ott grabbed what remained of Pender’s donations and rooted for tins that were not empty. Sir Lucien nibbled at the needles of a spruce—likely the same tree from which the Indians had harvested the resin. The wagoner returned to the group, sounding gleeful.
“There now. See here, you’ll want some o’ this here.”
He proffered a small tin, which the brave gawked at but didn’t touch. A flat stone lay next to him. It was coated with tallow.
“G’on. Take it. I’m givin’ it over.”
His hand trembling, the young Blackfoot accepted the gift. He held the tin between his thumb and middle finger until it dawned on the giver that the brave had no means of opening it.
“Ah. What’m I thinkin’? Right.”
He produced a knife, which startled the anemic plainsmen none, and he punched the tip into the tin. Ott peeled the lid back and passed the food anew. Dried raisins.
Once the brave pinched a few of the raisins and brought them to his mouth, Ott opened a tin for the others.
“It ain’t much, I’m afeared, but it’s real grub. They’s salt in there. I knows that.”
It gratified him to see them eat. The elder chewed the stale raisins individually before inserting them into the emaciated woman’s mouth. Rather than gorging, they ate slowly. Deliberately. None of them looked Ott in the eyes. No words were spoken.
There was a small travois. It must have been how they transported the old matriarch. Putting his head on an angle, Ott saw that there was a second dog. It had tucked itself underneath the travois buckskin, with its snout resting stationary on its forepaws. Ott looked the pitiable creature in the eyes: they appeared to be of two contrasting colours, the left dark as onyx, the right milky white. A sadder example of a hound he had never seen.
“I’ll uh, I’ll just…there’s a brook.” Ott shuffled sideways. “If’n you’ll mind my mule for me.”
It was as if they were a company of the deaf and the mute. Ott might have urged them to gut Sir Lucien where he stood and make for themselves a dinner of his blood-warmed organs. The Indians wouldn’t have reacted. Nimbly, the wagoner scrambled down the low escarpment with two pans. He gathered water and did his best to avoid spilling the drink on his return. Ott’s hips and ass were dusty as he plucked a cup from the wagon and served the starving Indians.
The old matriarch had fallen asleep. The one who cradled her cooed softly, attempting to get her attention. Or to comfort her. She did not stir. He poked a finger into the water Ott had provided and let droplets fall over her mouth. Ott waited to refill the cup but the elder sipped and dripped the portion haltingly. Ott took a pan to the dog that was yet living and set it before its snout. The lamentable hound lay uninspired. Ott, in soothing tones, attempted to coax it. He put the pan closer on, so that the edge of the pan touched the lip of the dog. This had the desired effect. Gradually, the pink tongue of the animal emerged and sunk into the water. Ott smiled a melancholy smile. The dog lapped up more of the drink.
The wagoner stood apart then, uneasy. His sack hat found its way again to his restless hands. No solution could be found here. He knew of no town in the vicinity. No trading post nor homesteader property. There were no means of knowing even which side of the border he stood on. The pistoleer from the morning had spoken of warfare betwixt Indian warriors and Yankee soldiers. If Ott was to make a run for help, was he apt to brush with a sympathetic tribe or with a hostile troop of Yanks? How would he communicate with a party of Indians when he did not know their talk? How would he differentiate one tribe from another? What direction would he take? For a man who had never been ten miles from his home, the task was too large.
Nightfall would be coming soon. The elder had ceased cooing to the shrivelled matriarch. The brave began to crawl for the water cup. Over at the cutbank, a flock of sparrows plunged out of sight. The wagoner’s purpose returned to him. Granpappy. The Dark River. A cross of red stones. He heeled his retreat. The mule chewed the last if its dinner. The Blackfeet, in torment, scarcely registered the interloper’s withdrawal.