Blue Dawn of the Shoshone People made her way east along the Big Road. She was no longer Mary, the name Skye had given her. She was no longer the woman of a white man. She was what she had been born to be. She sat perfectly erect in her saddle, and did not slouch like white men. She sat with her head high and her back straight, and thus she told anyone who saw her that she owned the world and was a woman of the People.
But she met very few westering parties, and they paid her little heed. There was something about her that discouraged contact, and that was how she wanted it. Skye would count miles, but she never fathomed those invisible marks, and instead counted horizons. On a good day she rode past several horizons. She was now some unimaginable distance from her people and from Skye and Victoria. It was so far she had no word or concept for it; and yet the land never ended, and the only thing she observed was that the grass was thicker and taller, and there was more standing water and evidence of generous rain. But each day she was a little closer to her son.
When North Star had been old enough, Skye had taught the child the mysterious signs Skye called writing, and taught the boy to read these signs. Sometimes Skye would draw them in charcoal on the back of a piece of bark, or an old paper, and then have the solemn child learn the letters. Then Skye taught his son words. Often this was early in the morning, before the world stirred much. Sometimes Skye found a book and taught his son the meaning of each word, even as Mary listened. She often thought that she, too, could read with a little help, but he never offered to teach her. He only told her he wanted their son to have a chance at life, a chance that was taken away from him when he was young.
Skye had been a patient, cheerful teacher, who never reprimanded the boy when he could not fathom a letter or word or idea. Skye often illustrated the words, making up little stories, or telling the boy all about the place called London, with its streets and half-timbered houses and fog and thousands of people and frequent rain. So the boy had soon connected words and letters to these magic things, so different from the buffalo-hide lodge that was his real home, far from any sort of building.
She had watched this mysterious ritual proudly, watching the boy discover a word and point a finger at it, watching Skye rejoice whenever his son had made a bit of progress. North Star was a patient boy, but sometimes he got restless when Skye detained him too long in their lodge on a winter day, or outside when the weather was good. Her son wanted to run and walk, like other sons.
She only vaguely knew what this schooling was all about. Her boy would learn the magical powers of white men and be able to do the things white men did, and know what they knew. She knew this would take her son away from her, bit
by bit. He would not be a Shoshone boy when he had mastered all this, but a white boy. That was a great sorrow to her, and yet she also was proud that he was learning Skye’s ways.
“He needs to know these things,” he told her. “If he learns these things, he can choose the sort of life he wants to live.”
That seemed strange to her. Why would one choose a life? What was wrong with the life they were sharing? Did Skye have some sort of plans for the boy that she knew nothing of?
Sometimes North Star would pull out a scrap of paper and read words to her, pointing at each one. The child scarcely imagined that only one parent had these mysterious secrets hidden inside, and that she knew nothing of writing and reading. But she could at least teach him the ways of her people, and she showed him how to draw language-pictures, how to make the signs that were understood by most plains tribes, and she taught him all the words of her own tongue that she knew, and Victoria taught him the words of her Crow tongue as well, so the boy grew up trilingual, switching easily to her tongue, or Skye’s, or Victoria’s whenever he was addressing one of his three parents. This was a beautiful thing, for the boy had drawn close to each. He was quiet and sunny, and she had watched him proudly as he grew into a person, and left his infancy and childhood behind him. But what did Skye intend for him?
Skye had seemed driven to teach the boy his words and his writing, and it troubled Mary because it was as if Skye were investing something in the boy that she couldn’t understand. All he would say was that he didn’t want Dirk to be trapped in the life that Skye had lived after being put on a ship and sent into the Big Waters. It amazed her that Skye’s people would snatch him away from his father and mother as
a boy and put him on a boat and keep him from ever seeing them again. Surely that was a terrible violation of Skye and his parents, and it made her wonder about the English. No Shoshone boy would ever be captured and forcibly taken from his parents. It was unthinkable. These English, they had no respect for the liberty and rights of the family they had torn asunder. They must be a very hard people, she thought, to permit such a thing. Hard and cruel. She liked her people more, because each boy could choose his own path, and was not stolen from his family.
Skye was a hard man, she thought. He could have taught her to decipher the letters and words, and shape them into language. He could have taught her, the same as he taught their son. He could have taught Victoria too. But they were women, and he never thought to teach them how to put words on paper with marks. That was for white men. She didn’t mind much. She liked being his woman, and gathering nuts and berries, and firewood, and mending the lodge cover, and nursing the boy, and making quilled shirts and moccasins for him. But he was hard, and more often she could not fathom what went through his head. White men’s thoughts were so different from hers, and sometimes he seemed to be an utter stranger to her.
Still, it had been a happy lodge, the four of them, his late-in-life boy, she and Victoria sharing the work and Skye’s arms. North Star had prospered. The Absaroka boys taunted him because he was different, but he gave back as much as he got. He was Skye’s son, and that gave him an aura of mystery, for Skye was a legend among them, the strong white man who had come to live with the Crows and fight beside them.
Then one day, her happiness fell apart. North Star had lived eight winters. They were at Fort Laramie, and Skye was
talking with his friend Colonel Bullock, who was the sutler. They talked for a long time, and Skye brought North Star to the colonel, and presented him, and the men all talked a long time, while she and Victoria wandered outside. She knew it had been a bad year for Skye; he could not pay the colonel what was owed. Fewer Yankees wanted guides to take them into the lands unknown to them, because now the country was known, and there were trails. And Skye went ever deeper in debt.
Then at last Skye appeared on the veranda of the post store, looking solemn. He was searching for words, trying to bring himself to say something to his wives and son, and the more Skye struggled, the deeper was the dread in Mary. He was having such trouble that even the boy caught the malaise, and stared.
Skye ran a weathered hand through his graying locks, and settled his old hat, and began.
“The colonel’s retiring,” he said. “He’ll no longer be my agent. He’s sold his inventory to a new post sutler named Harry Badger. The new man won’t extend credit. I owe over two hundred seventy dollars, and we’ll be unable to buy anything until that’s paid.” He stared glumly at Victoria. “We’ll do without.”
That was bad enough, but then it got worse.
“I don’t want my boy to grow up without a chance at life,” he said. “He needs schooling, and a trade, so he can make his way. He’ll need to support a wife and family someday. He’ll need to read and write and pay bills and earn his way. I just can’t give him that here, with a few old books and newspapers.”
Skye looked so uncomfortable that Mary took alarm.
“Colonel Bullock’s leaving for the East tomorrow. He’s retiring in St. Louis, and he’ll be taking Dirk with him.”
A sudden desolation broke through her.
“It’s all arranged. The blackrobes have a school for Indian boys in St. Louis. This is Father de Smet’s dream, helping native boys get an education and passing that along to their people. They’ll take Dirk and give him an education. They’re good people. They’ll teach the boy whatever he needs, and start him on his way.”
Skye had been talking about Dirk almost as if the boy weren’t there, listening to every word.
“But, Papa,” he said.
“How long will this be?” Mary asked. One winter, maybe. That would be forever. One winter, and then her son would come back.
“Until he’s sixteen,” Skye said.
It was as if she had fallen off a cliff and were tumbling down, down, down to the cruel rocks far below. Eight winters.
“But he will have no mother!” she said.
“The blackrobes will care for him. And Colonel Bullock will look in on him. There is a dormitory, a place where he’ll be with other boys, safe and warm.”
“Eight winters.”
She felt dizzy as grief overtook her.
“Sonofabitch, Skye!” Victoria snapped.
He started to reply, and subsided into silence. He tried to draw them to him, but she went stiff and wouldn’t let him touch her, and Victoria stalked off the porch. He tried to catch his son, and soothe him, but Dirk had gone pale and was sliding deep into himself. In that moment Skye’s family had shattered, and it didn’t seem possible that it would ever be put together again.
“I can’t even pay my debts anymore,” Skye said.
That made no sense at all to Mary, but sometimes white people made no sense to her. She glanced furtively at her son, as if she shouldn’t be looking at him because he wasn’t hers anymore, and felt something shatter inside of her.
Skye knelt before his son, and clasped the boy’s shoulders in his gnarled old hands.
“It’s for you, Dirk, not for me. It’s to give you the chance to make something of yourself. You’ll be grateful someday. You’ll be lonely and homesick for a while. But then you’ll be too busy to worry about that. And the blackrobes will help you grow up to be whatever you want to be.”
But Dirk’s face had crumpled into fear, and Mary ached at the sight.
“They took me off the streets of London and put me on a ship,” Skye said. “I never saw my family again. I had to learn how to live, how to survive. It won’t be so hard for you. You’ll see us in a few years, and we’ll all be glad. You’ll be better off than we are.”
But it was as if Skye were talking to the wind. There was only the terrible reality that Skye’s son Dirk, and Mary’s son North Star, was being torn from the lodge.
“Now, son, it’s time to say good-bye to your father and your mothers.”
But the boy could not manage that. He simply stared, a tear welling in each eye. Skye took him by the hand and led him to his mothers. “Son, you’ll see them in a few years, and we will all be proud of you. Colonel Bullock and the Jesuit fathers are giving you something precious, something that will help you to have a good life.”
But Dirk simply stood mute and miserable.
“We’ll say good-bye now,” Skye said, but no one did.
Finally, helplessly, Mary watched as Skye led her son to the clapboard house where Colonel Bullock resided. She watched a woman welcome the boy, and then the door closed, and so did her own life.