Mary regretted slicing up the harness of those men. Now she was stuck on a mosquito-ridden island while they repaired it. She wore the poncho, and it helped, except around her ankles and neck and forehead. But the horse suffered, and the constant lashing of its tail did little to relieve its torment.
And across the channel of the North Platte, those former Confederates were no doubt riveting or tying their harness, unable to move until they could hook the mules to their wagon. If they had rivets they could make repairs easily; if not, they would have to bore holes in the leather and then lash the severed pieces with a thong, a slow and miserable process.
Mary bitterly endured, knowing the men were not far distant, beyond the band of riverside trees. She was fairly safe behind walls of brush and trees on her island, but the whine of mosquitoes maddened her and the horse. She finally led the miserable animal to a place where there was mud stretching into water, and patiently coated the horse with it. One
handful at a time, she ran a protective coating of mud over its rump and flanks and withers and neck and chest, and then its belly and legs. The horse eyed her gratefully, she thought, and quieted. She rubbed mud over her own neck, without doing much good.
At one point the horse’s ears pricked forward, and Mary feared it would whinny. She crept to the edge of the island and peered across the channel. Downstream a little, the men were watering their mules and her three ponies. She ached to have her own ponies back, but remained still. She glided back to her new horse and gently rubbed its nose, hoping to keep it from signaling the other horses. Eventually the men and the livestock left the riverbank.
Mary hunted for food, but the bird nests she found were already deserted, and she spotted no turtles. She saw whiskered catfish, loathsome creatures, and would have eaten one if she had to, but she was spared that. She found bountiful cattails, and systematically pulled them up from their swampy habitat. They had gnarled white roots that could be pulverized and boiled into a thick paste that was nourishing, though vaguely repellent. She would do what she had to. Rocks were hard to find on that island, but she finally found what she needed and mashed the white roots, and added them to a growing heap in the copper pot.
She built a small fire directly under a stand of cottonwoods that would dissipate the smoke, lighting it with the flint and striker that hung in a pouch from her belt. And then she waited for the water to soften the cattail roots into something she could stomach. Much to her surprise, this had consumed her day, and as twilight overtook her she doused the fire, let the mush cool, and then ate it with her fingers.
She would not endure another night in this mosquito-misery,
and resolved to use the friendly dark to escape, no matter that those men were nearby and might discover her. As darkness settled, she brushed mud off her horse, settled the blanket pad over its back, dropped the saddle and tightened it, and bridled the horse. She rolled up her few goods in the poncho, braving the whining mosquitoes again, and tied the poncho tightly to her saddle. She was as ready as she could be. She mounted, eased the horse across the gravel bar to the south bank without discovery, and made her way downstream, worried that she would be halted at any moment. She stayed in the loose-knit woods, finding just enough light to avoid copses of trees. No one stayed her progress.
She startled a deer, which startled her, but soon she was some good distance from the men and wagon, and steered the horse out to the well-worn trail and into a starlit night. She did not pause, but rode steadily east, the Star That Never Moves always on her left. She rode past a wagon with people bedded down, and was glad her horse and their horses didn’t exchange greetings.
She rode most of the night, and only when the first blue line of day stretched across the eastern skies did she look for a place to rest herself and the weary horse. She found a low knob, scarcely twenty feet above the country, and took her horse there. It was a much-used place, but there were no mosquitoes, and its contour concealed her from prying eyes.
She rested until the day was warm and velvet. She saw no one. The Big Road was used mostly by people who could not pay to take the steam trains rolling over the nearby rails.
On the south slope of the hill she discovered yucca plants, and she rejoiced. A large one dominated a dozen more.
“I will leave you, Grandfather,” she said to it, but selected
a sturdy one for her purposes. She had no digging stick, and would need to use her knife to cut the yucca free, which she did with great care because she did not wish to break her knife. She dug patiently until she could pull the yucca out by its roots, which were thick and long. These were her treasure. She cut off the top of the plant, but kept the roots.
She eyed her mud-streaked horse and herself, and headed down the hillock and toward the river half a mile distant. The North Platte was lined with thick forest on both sides of its slow-moving current, forests that would shield her from the world. The sun had stirred a soft breeze that carried the scent of spring flowers. She thought she smelled roses, but maybe it was lady slippers. She could not say. She passed through lush grasses joyously reaching for the heavens, and wandered through copses of willows and trees she didn’t know, and finally to a riverbank where there was a soft curve of sandy shore. She scared up red-winged blackbirds, and alarmed a few crows, and then she found herself alone.
At the river she cut the roots into small chunks, then mashed these between two rocks, dropped them into her copper kettle, and added water. She manipulated the pulped pieces and soon had foaming suds filling her kettle, a rich lather to wash with.
She shed her clothing in the hushed bower, and stepped into the flowing water. She was tall and bronze and thin, and the years did not yet show in her, except for the beginnings of gray in her hair. She undid her braids, letting her rich jet hair fall free, and then knelt in the purling water and let her hair float in the stream. The water wasn’t cold, as it once was tumbling out of the mountains. Here it was mild and slightly opaque, carrying a little silt on its way to the distant sea. She
sudsed her hair with the lather from the yucca roots, which she called amole, and felt the lather cleanse her hair until it felt silky. Then she rinsed it in the gentle flow of the river and washed her body with the amole. She ran rough willow bark over her flesh, abrading it gently until it tingled. She knelt in the shallow water, rinsing herself and then letting the river strain through her hair one last time. She finally felt chilled, though the sun warmed her in this quiet glade.
But she was not done. She immersed her clothing, piece by piece, in the river, washed them with the yucca lather, and then twisted the water out of each piece. Then she spread her skirts and blouse on the grasses, and began the long wait for the sun to dry them.
She led the horse into the river and washed it carefully, sudsing away the mud until its coppery coat shone. It was a good horse and it stood patiently while she cleansed it. She combed its mane and tail with her fingers, plucking thorns and debris from the horse hair. She rinsed it with kettles of water, and let the horse shake water off its back with several violent convulsions of its flesh. Then she led it back to grass and picketed it once again.
She spread the poncho on the grasses and lay down upon it, letting Father Sun finish her cleansing. She loved the warmth of the sun on her tawny flesh, and for the first time in many moons she felt utterly clean. She wished for sweet-grass, so she might bathe in its smoke and might take onto her body the scent of the sacred. But she was far from the places she knew and the herbs and grasses she knew. White men called this place the territory of Nebraska, but she knew no more than that. She spent much of that day lying in the sun, screened from the Big Road by a band of forest, waiting for her clothing to dry.
There were no mosquitoes there, at least not yet. With evening, things would be different. She dressed late in the afternoon, eyed her contented horse, and decided to ride a while. Her son was calling her. In some mystic way, she could hear him within her heart, calling for her to come to this place called St. Louis, where he resided with the blackrobes called Jesuits.
She dressed in slightly damp clothes and found her way back to the Big Road, heading east once again. The road was empty, and that pleased her. It felt good to be washed and clean. The horse was well rested and set an eager pace. This night she would be that much closer to the big city, and that much closer to her son.
She passed an encampment of several wagons and could see various men at their evening chores. Some were gathered at a cook fire. She saw no women, and thought it would not be a good place to stop, so she rode onward, but then they were shouting and mounting their horses and coming after her.
“Hold up there,” one yelled.
She dreaded it and kept on walking her horse.
A shot from a revolver changed her mind. She reined in the horse and waited, while half a dozen bearded white men swiftly overtook her and surrounded her.
“That’s her! That’s the nag!” one said.
“What is it you wish?” she asked, not concealing her knowledge of their tongue.
“Stolen horse, chestnut like this, proper shod, and taken by a squaw!”
She addressed an older one, with massive shoulders and a hard look in his eye. “This is my horse.”
“No it ain’t, woman. We’re taking it. Feller came by yesterday,
said look out for just such as you. Said’twas his saddle and tack too.”
“Did he tell you he took three of mine, and all I possessed?”
“Likely story. Squaw story, you ask me.”
“Did they tell you they tried to force themselves on me, and I barely escaped? Do you approve of violating a woman?”
“I ain’t here to argue that. I’m here to get that horse and send it forward. Them fellows are ten, twelve miles west and we’re going to take this nag to’em.”
“Did they tell you they planned to kill me after they had used me?”
The bull-shouldered one only smiled. “You’d better fetch yourself off that nag, or we’ll pull you down, and maybe you’ll get used after all.”
He had ahold of her rein. The others crowded close, eyeing her.
“I’m on my way to visit my son in St. Louis,” she said. “He’s in school there.”
“Sure you are,” one said. “More likely you’re just findin’ ways to make a nickel along the road.”
“Would you speak of your own mother in that way?”
“Where’d you learn English so good, eh?”
“I am a Shoshone. My husband was born in London and has been in the fur and robe trade all his life. We live in the territory of Montana.”
“Stealing horses from white men, I imagine. West’s full of renegades, and more’n half are hitched up to squaws.” He paused. “Off!”
She saw how it would go, and slid off. She started to untie her kit, the cornmeal and cook pot wrapped in the poncho, when he snarled at her to leave it alone.
“I wish to have what is mine.”
“That fellow, Willis, he said the horse and every damned thing on it was took.”
She saw half a dozen men looking for an excuse, and quietly subsided. With luck, maybe she could walk into the thickening dark with the clothing on her back.