THEIR THREE DAYS AMONG the Iceyeeye niim Mama’yac flew by. The feast of the sun was, above all, a time of rest, and the travelers were more than willing to indulge.
Each morning began with an icy bath in the creek. The Iceyeeye niim Mama’yac bathed religiously. From youngest to oldest, none escaped. It was as social as it was hygienic. For the better part of an hour, the men occupied a broad sandbar a quarter of a mile downstream from the village. There they gossiped, told dirty jokes, and complained about their wives, who had their own swimming hole a mile or so upstream. Only Chino refused to get in the water. He said it was too cold for human occupation, declaring it a health hazard and predicting epidemics of every known disease from pneumonia to foot fungus. Lu ignored his warnings. After more than a month of dirt and sweat, it felt good to start each day fresh.
Once everyone was scrubbed and clean, the women prepared breakfast. Over the course of a little more than three days, Lu tried five varieties of stream trout, elk, rabbit, badger and squirrel. All were delicious, but he preferred the badger. Elk was too strong, and squirrel too tough. Rabbit was good, but not as sweet as badger.
After everyone had eaten, the Indians told stories, each with some sort of moral or lesson. Lu’s favorite by far was the story in which Coyote first encountered a family of humans, starving in the wilderness. He showed them which fruits and vegetables were good to eat, taught them how to hunt, to dress and preserve their meat, and how to cook it over a fire. Eventually, the family got so strong they tried to hunt Coyote himself. In retaliation, he killed the oldest member of the family. The description of that first ever death was as delightfully bloody as any Lu had ever heard.
There were also games. The most popular consisted of little more than throwing arrows through a series of gradually more distant hoops. Henry proved a crack shot, capable of threading the smallest hoop at nearly thirty paces. Only Ollokot did better.
When they tired of games, the Indians napped or did chores. Lu chipped in wherever he could. One afternoon he accompanied Chuslum-moxmox and his mother on a hunt for mushrooms. They found only a handful, not even enough for one person. But the trip was by no means a waste. On the way back to the village, Alikkees stumbled onto a patch of wild strawberries. They picked all afternoon, eating as much of the sweet fruit as they saved.
After the evening meal, the Indians prayed and sang songs. At dusk, a few of the oldest men went into what they called a sweat-lodge, where they built a small fire and sat for hours on end, roasting in the heat and smoke. MacLemore tried it, and was cooked after only a few minutes. Jack went the distance, emerging only when the fuel was gone and the sweaters ready to retire to their various tipis for the night.
For their last evening in the village, Joseph invited the whole party into his tipi for supper. It was a rare honor. They’d eaten every meal with the headman and his family, but never inside. Truth was, not one of them had so much as ducked his or her head through the door.
Lu’s other clothes were worn and stained from constant use, so he changed into his blue silk suit, the one his mother had packed for him. He wished now that she’d thought to send the shoes that went with it.
Joseph and his family met them in front of the tipi. Alikkees wore a new dress, and her braids were wrapped in strips of beaver fur. She looked quite beautiful. Ollokot stood beside her, his face set in its usual grimace.
“Welcome,” Joseph said, then repeated it in his own language.
They exchanged pleasantries, MacLemore doing most of the talking while Joseph translated, and then Alikkees motioned for them to go inside. Lu entered last, ducking through the flaps behind Chuslum-moxmox. As they took their seats around the fire, Lu noticed the other boy staring at his suit.
“It’s silk,” he explained. “My mother made me bring it.”
“Silk,” Chuslum-moxmox repeated. He touched Lu’s sleeve. “It’s soft.”
“Worms make it.”
“No! Worms?”
“They spin it. Like a spider-web.”
“Your clothes are made of webs?”
“Sort of.” Lu wasn’t entirely sure of the process himself, so he didn’t elaborate. Fortunately, he didn’t have to. Before Chuslum-moxmox could ask any other questions, his mother arrived with the food.
MacLemore clapped when he saw it. On one end of the platter was a roast—venison probably, though it might have been elk or moose—and on the other was a heap of steaming vegetables. Lu recognized wild potatoes, carrots and onions. Alikkees had also baked a loaf of kehmmes bread. Khemmes was a kind of root bulb that Joseph’s people ground up and served with every meal. It didn’t taste much like bread, but it was as close as Alikkees could get, and slathered with honey it wasn’t too bad.
It was a fine meal. The food was good and the conversation friendly. The Indians chatted in their own tongue, while their visitors talked amongst themselves in English. Jack went back and forth, never missing a beat. Chuslum-moxmox told his uncle about the silk-worms and was immediately bombarded with questions, which he passed along to Lu. Ollokot wanted to know if the insects spun the fabric in colors, or if it was dyed. He also wondered whether the silk could be fashioned into anything other than clothes, such as bowstrings or rope. Lu did his best to answer all these questions, and when he didn’t know something he guessed. Ollokot seemed satisfied either way.
When the food was gone, Joseph announced that he had yet another treat for his guests.
He drew a long pipe from a fringed leather sheath, along with a small pouch of pipe-weed, which he packed into the bowl and lit with a twig from the fire. A cloud of iridescent green smoke swirled around his head as he got the pipe-embers going.
Lu thought the smoke quite beautiful. He watched it swirl lazily up and through the open top of the tipi. It might have been nothing, a mere trick of the imagination, but Lu would’ve sworn he saw the smoke coalesce, forming into the shape of a man’s face, mouth bent in a deep frown, just before it was caught by the breeze and dispersed.
Joseph handed the pipe to Ollokot.
“Do we all have to smoke?” Lu whispered to Chuslum-moxmox. The war chief was sucking rapidly at the pipe, sending little puffs of green vapor out over the fire.
“You don’t want to?” Chuslum-moxmox asked.
“I never have.”
“Never?”
“Well, once,” Lu lied. “But I didn’t care for it.”
“Just take a tiny bit and hold it in your mouth.” Chuslum-moxmox took the pipe from his uncle and demonstrated. “You’ll like it, I promise.” After taking a deeper drag, he handed the pipe to Lu.
Seeing no way around it, Lu lifted the pipe to his lips. The mouthpiece tasted strangely spicy, and it made his lips tingle. He wondered what sort of plants the Indians smoked. It didn’t smell like tobacco.
“Go ahead,” Chuslum-moxmox urged. He made sucking motions.
Lu drew a tiny bit of smoke from the pipe and was surprised to find it sweet. He’d expected the taste to be bitter, but this was more like fresh cut grass or green hay. Encouraged, he took another puff, this time drawing the smoke into his lungs. The coughing fit he’d anticipated never came. In fact, Lu felt surprisingly calm. His lungs, rather than rejecting the foreign substance, actually seemed to welcome it. He wished he’d taken more when he’d had the chance.
Lu nodded enthusiastically.
The pipe made its way around the circle. When it was his turn, Jack sucked deeply at the pipe not once, but three times. The clouds of vapor that escaped his mouth were as dense and radiant as liquid emeralds. Only Henry begged off.
When everyone had smoked, Joseph tapped the charred remains of the pipe-weed into the fire. It flamed up, for an instant turning the whole inside of the tipi pale green, and then was gone.
“And so ends the feast of the sun,” Joseph said.
That night, Lu dreamt of home.
He dreamed he was kneeling outside his grandfather’s sanctum, just as he had on that fateful evening so many weeks ago, peering through the key-hole. It was late, Lu felt that instinctively, but his grandfather was still hard at work, mixing some kind of potion. It must have been complicated. Master K’ung had a scroll open on his desk and consulted it numerous times. Lion-dog was sound asleep beneath his chair.
Happy to see them both alive and well, Lu snuck upstairs to his mother’s room. She was in bed, so Lu took a quick look around.
The room had changed since he left. His books, usually piled atop the dresser, were gone, replaced by a mirror and a set of lady’s combs. His bed was gone as well, disassembled, and the mattress shoved into the corner behind his mother’s bathtub. Lu was angry. He’d been gone little more than a month, and already his family had eliminated all signs of him. Lu was about to shake his mother awake and tell her what he thought of her, when he noticed something clutched beneath her arm. It was a doll. Lu had loved it dearly as a little boy, dragging it behind him until its clothes—a suit of blue silk—were frayed and dirty. Lu was still pondering the doll, wondering where his mother had hid it all these years, when he felt a hand close over his shoulder.
“Wake up,” Chuslum-moxmox whispered.
Lu opened his eyes. It was still dark. “I was dreaming of home,” he mumbled, not yet fully awake. “I was dreaming of my family.”
“Of course you were,” Chuslum-moxmox said. “You smoked Father’s pipe.” He grinned. “But now get up.”
“What do you want?”
“Come with me.”
“Where?”
“It’s a surprise.”
Reluctantly, Lu rolled out of his blanket. The rest of his companions were still sleeping soundly. Jack was missing, but that was no great surprise. “Just let me put on my boots,” Lu whispered.
Chuslum-moxmox guided him through the village, silently creeping past Joseph’s tipi and a handful of others before stopping at the trailhead, right where they’d first encountered Ollokot and his warriors. Joseph was waiting for them, as was Ollokot. The war chief held the leads on three horses.
“What is this?” Lu asked. He didn’t know if they’d been caught sneaking around or if Chuslum-moxmox knew his father and uncle would be there. “What’s happening?”
“I want to give you something.” Chuslum-moxmox took one of the horses from his uncle and pulled it toward Lu. “This is my horse,” he said. It was a pinto, white with large brown spots. “His name is Elaskolatat.”
“I don’t understand.” Lu looked at the older men, hoping for an explanation.
“My son wants you to have his horse,” Joseph said.
“But why?”
“We have only a few horses that can wear the white man’s saddle,” Chuslum-moxmox explained. “These three are the best.”
Lu inspected the pinto more closely. Compared to the MacLemores’ horses, it was short, spindly-legged and barrel-chested. Its hooves were broad and thick. In fact, it looked exactly like one of the old nags that pulled the plows through the fields west of St. Frances. Worst of all were its eyes. The top half of each was black, just like those of any other horse, but beneath that was a lighter area, like cream poured into strong coffee.
“He sees fine,” Joseph assured him. “When a horse is born with such eyes, we call him a spirit horse. They are prized companions.”
Lu was unimpressed, but didn’t dare say so. “Good-looking animal,” he offered.
“No he’s not,” Chuslum-moxmox countered. “He’s ugly and skinny and short. But he’s sure-footed as a goat. You’ll be glad to have him in the Hell Mouth.”
“I can’t take your horse,” Lu protested. “You’ll need him.”
“No I won’t.” Chuslum-moxmox beamed. “I’m getting a new horse. And a rifle. I’m to be a warrior.”
“Oh.” Lu was surprised. Standing beside his uncle, Chuslum-moxmox looked so young and hopeful. He was just a boy. It was all but impossible to imagine him riding into battle, maybe even to kill another man. But Lu could also see how proud of his new status Chuslum-moxmox was. Lu forced himself to smile. “Congratulations,” he said.
“Here.” Chuslum-moxmox thrust his horse at Lu again. “I want you to ride him.”
Seeing no alternative, Lu took the pinto’s lead. He guided it in a circle, watching it walk. The horse hung its head as though worn out. “What about a saddle?” Lu asked.
Chuslum-moxmox raced to the nearest tipi, Ollokot’s, reappearing a moment later with a cavalry saddle and matching blanket. The leather, both on the seat and skirt, was well-worn, but still very serviceable.
“Where’d you get it?” Lu asked.
“Ollokot took it.” Chuslum-moxmox pointed at the blanket. There was a brown stain on one corner. Lu was no expert, but guessed it must be blood.
Together, the boys placed the blanket and saddle onto the pinto’s back. When it was cinched tight, Lu climbed aboard. Instead of a bridle and bit, the Indians steered their mounts with a nose harness. It wasn’t so very different, really. Lu guessed he could get used to it in no time. After all, he’d only been riding a few weeks.
Lu trotted the horse a short distance into the forest, then galloped back. He was surprised to find its gait smooth. Much smoother than Cody’s. The horse was well-trained, too. He responded to every kick and nudge as though Lu had been riding him forever.
“He has a nice trot,” Lu said. “What’s his name again?”
“Elaskolatat. It means, ‘Animal that runs into the ground.’”
“I thought you said he was sure-footed.”
“He is. It’s a joke.”
“Well, I can’t call him that. I need something shorter.” Lu thought a moment. He didn’t want to change the horse’s name completely, just make it easier to use. “I know, I’ll call him Crash.”
Chuslum-moxmox looked pleased. “So you’ll take him?”
“Which of those others are you giving to Chino?”
“Both are Jack’s,” Joseph said. “Which Chino might choose to ride, I can’t say.”
“I don’t understand. Jack traded for two horses, not three.”
“My son gives that horse to you as a gift. It is yours.”
Lu looked at Chuslum-moxmox, stunned. “A gift? But why?”
“Because we’re friends.”
There was no question of refusing now, not that he would have anyway. Lu scrambled down off his new saddle and shook Chuslum-moxmox’s hand. “I never owned a horse before,” he said. Lu was so happy and proud he thought he might cry. A lump even formed in his throat. “I really appreciate it,” he said, forcing the words out. “I really, really do.”
By the time they got back to camp, the other travelers were up and preparing to leave. A fire had been lit and a pot of coffee set over it to burn. Chino was especially busy, distributing supplies amongst the half-dozen mules, now strung together in a single-file line. MacLemore helped. Sadie and Henry saddled the horses. Jack gave coffee to Ollokot and Joseph. Chuslum-moxmox placed the saddle he’d brought—twin to the one Crash wore, minus the blood-stained blanket—beside the fire. Jack offered him coffee as well, but Chuslum-moxmox refused.
“Are these the new horses?” Jack asked.
“They’re fine animals,” Joseph assured him.
Jack nodded. “That mare especially. But what about this other?” He pointed at Crash.
“He’s mine,” Lu said.
“Is that right?”
Joseph nodded. “It is a gift from my son.”
“He any good?”
“The best,” Joseph said.
The coffee was nearly gone by the time Chino finished loading the mules. In addition to their food—pemmican mostly, a mixture of animal fat, nuts and berries, which the Indians ate whenever they were traveling—Chino had packed a dozen large water-skins. They hung empty round the necks of the mules, like scales from a molting snake.
“What’s with all the empty skins?” Henry asked.
“Going to be dry,” Chino explained. “After we cross the canyon there won’t be water for miles and miles.”
“And just how do you know that?”
Chino grinned, but refused to say any more.
Jack gave Chino his choice of the two horses, and Chino selected the mare. She was at least a foot taller at the shoulder than Crash, and no doubt outweighed him by two hundred pounds, all of it muscle. Chuslum-moxmox offered to place the saddle on her, but Chino wanted to do it himself. “I like a firm ride,” he said.
All that remained to be packed was MacLemore’s guitar, which he carefully tied to his own saddle, right behind the seat.
“Guess that about does it,” Jack said.
Lu glanced around the remains of their camp. The wagon they’d driven all the way across the plains, and up the eastern slope of the mountains, sat to one side. Its canvas top, and much of its wood, had been stripped away for fuel, or to construct packing harnesses for the mules. What remained was a skeleton.
“It’s been a real pleasure,” MacLemore said, shaking hands with Joseph, Ollokot and Chuslum-moxmox. “All we need now is that map.”
“Won’t be necessary,” Jack said. “I know the way.”
“Since when?”
“I’d still feel better if we had a map.” MacLemore looked at Joseph. “You think you could draw up something? I’ve got a pen and paper in my suitcase.”
“I’m sure Jack knows the way,” Joseph responded.
“I can’t see how that’s possible. Just yesterday he told me we needed directions. Now he’s an expert?” MacLemore looked at Joseph, then at Jack. Neither offered an explanation. Disgusted, MacLemore shook his head. “I sure hope you know what you’re doing,” he grumbled. “I’d hate to get all the way to the bottom of that canyon with no way out.”
“Mount up,” Jack said.
Lu was about to climb onto his own horse when he noticed his bag, the white cotton sack his mother had packed for him, tied to the back of one of the mules. He quickly unfastened it and carried it to Chuslum-moxmox.
“I’d like to give you something,” he said, reaching into the bag and drawing out his blue suit. “It’s not much, but—”
“Silk. Made by worms.” Chuslum-moxmox held the suit out in front of him as though it were gold. He said something to his uncle, who touched the fabric and smiled.
Lu scrambled atop his horse. The cotton sack, now all but empty, he shoved into one of his saddle-bags.
“I’ll do my best to care for Crash,” he promised.
Chuslum-moxmox smiled. “He will take care of you.”
That night, they camped on the banks of a high mountain lake, beneath the broad boughs of a sugar pine. The tree’s enormous cones, each as long as a man’s forearm, made excellent fuel for the fire, and its trunk provided shelter from the wind. They didn’t make camp until well after dark, so instead of cooking they decided to try the pemmican.
Unlike most Indian cuisine, which Lu liked tremendously, this was awful. It was beyond greasy. Even the currants, which had been mixed generously throughout, did little to cut the gaminess of the fatty paste. And Lu wasn’t the only one who thought so. Sadie and her father both complained.
“A ball of fat only gets so tasty,” Henry remarked.
“Makes beans sound darned good, don’t it?” Chino added.
No one had much to say after that. Choking down their supper was hard enough. Talking about it would have been too much.
When they were finished, Jack went for a smoke. Lu followed him. They circled the lake, staying always a half-dozen strides from the water. The banks were stony, and Lu tripped numerous times, but always managed to right himself before falling down. Jack never faltered.
“What do you want?” Jack asked finally. They’d gone far enough for the campfire to resemble nothing so much as a bright star in the inky darkness.
“Can I have a smoke?” Lu asked.
The gunfighter reached into his shirt pocket, took out another cigarette and lit it off the first. “Here.”
Lu took a drag and coughed. This was nothing like what he’d experienced the night before. After a single puff his tongue felt as dry as week old bread, and tasted half as appetizing. He took another drag, but it wasn’t much better.
“You’d best enjoy that, because it’s the last you’ll have ‘til you reach a town,” Jack said. “It’s a disgusting habit anyway.”
“But you do it.”
“Exactly.”
“Can I ask you something?”
“Shoot.”
“Well, you gave a cannon to the cavalry, and then delivered rifles to the Indians.”
“So?”
“Who’ll win?”
“Cavalry.” Jack paused to stub his cigarette out on his boot heel. “Though it might take them a good while. That Hotchkiss gun isn’t likely to do much good amidst all these trees.”
“What makes you think the Indians will lose?”
“All peoples get the chance to taste defeat sooner or later,” Jack answered. “For Joseph’s tribe, that time’s now.”
“What’ll happen to them?”
“Get shipped off to a reservation, I expect.”
“Isn’t there anything they can do?” Thinking about these mountains without the Indians in them made Lu sad, nearly as sad as when he thought about the Indians without the mountains.
“They could die fighting. You reckon that’d be better?”
Lu considered a moment. “I don’t know.”
“Me either.” Jack shrugged. “I offered to fight with them, but Ollokot refused. I guess he’s right. This is their battle to lose, not mine.”
They wandered down to the shore. Jack rinsed his hands and face in the cold water.
“Couldn’t they just run?” Lu asked him.
“They’ll try.”
“But they won’t make it?”
“Where would you run, supposing you had to?” Jack asked. “And dragging along a whole passel of children and old folks? Where would you go?”
“I’d … I don’t know.”
“Neither do they.”
“Did Joseph tell you how to navigate the Hell Mouth?”
“Not exactly.”
“Then how do you know the way? You didn’t before.”
Jack looked at him. “What was your grandfather doing last night?”
“Grandfather?” Lu started. “He was … mixing a potion. Lion-dog was curled up under his chair.”
“And how do you know that?”
“I … I don’t want to say.” But in his mind he knew the answer. It was that strange green smoke. There’d been some enchantment in it. Through the smoke, Joseph had showed them what they most wanted or needed to see. Lu guessed that Jack had wanted to see the safest path through the Hell Mouth.
“Fair enough,” Jack said. He pointed at the cigarette in Lu’s hand. A long tube of gray ash hung from the end. Lu had completely forgotten he was holding it. “You plan to finish that?” Jack asked.