Fair Land, Fair Land (19 page)

The women got busy unloading the meat, their voices
raised in pleased chatter. One of them was Little Wing. Higgins said,
"For Christ sake," to Summers and moved as if to take the
girl's place. Summers grabbed him by the arm. "That won't win
you no ribbons. Don't butt in. Let it go." `

Teal Eye came up with the boys in tow. "Big
hunter," she said, putting her hand on his sleeve. "I am
proud."

"
You keep out of the way, little duck. I'll
unload."

At his side Higgins said, "That won't win you no
ribbons."

Summers glanced at him, then at Teal Eye, and said,
"I already won mine."

Teal Eye pulled at his sleeve. "The other women
do it. Shame to me."

Summers smiled. "Grab that rope then. Last thing
I want is to shame you."

The women began cutting
and hacking at the carcasses. There was no quarreling, no grabbing,
or not much, for the best cuts. They just divvied the meat even, a
share for each fire. Teal Eye took a chunk and walked toward their
lodge. She hadn't fussed or grabbed, but still it was sheep meat she
carried, knowing that he liked it for a change.

* * *

That night they sat in a rough circle in front of the
lodges — men, women and young'ns. The lean dogs limped around,
sniffing for scraps. There was a time of waiting. Indians were good
at waiting.

Summers took Higgins by the arm. In the other hand
Higgins carried his fiddle. "Mosey out to the center, sit down
and make music," Summers said.

"
Christ, Dick, I ain't no prize at a box social.
You rigged this deal, but damn if I like it. I'd druther take off or
crawl in a hole."

Under Summers' hand Higgins' arm trembled. "Now,
now, Hig. You can do 'er. You know you can do 'er. I know it. Teal
Eye knows it. You wouldn't let her down, or Little Wing, either.
She's there in front of the chief's lodge. Go it, boy."

"Oh, shit."

Higgins walked out slow but not bent, like a brave
man knowing he was about to get shot. He took his time sitting down.
He took his time tuning the fiddle. His first tunes were quick and
merry, and the hands and feet of the Indians moved to the rhythms.
"Sing, damn you," Summers said without speaking. "Fiddle
alone ain't enough. Sing."

As Higgins paused, the Indians' voices rose, thanking
him, wanting more. Higgins sat still, the bow upheld in his right
hand, as if waiting for word from inside himself. Summers reckoned
his flutter had died.

Higgins lowered the bow, took a couple of slow licks
and sang, low-voiced at first. He sang old songs, dim and far back in
Summers' memories, songs of lost love and death, sorrowful as years
that had passed. Voice and fiddle, gaining strength, seemed to move
around the tepees, seemed to move to the still trees and carry on
into distance.

The Indians sat without moving. Smoke wavered up from
dying campfires. The tepees rose shadowed under ya slanting
half-moon.

Summers knew he was breathing short and slow, as if
even the sound of breathing was out of place. Little Wing sat' like a
statue. Even the two boys at his feet didn't fidget. A dog let out a
mournful howl and was cuffed into silence.

Voice and fiddle. They sang all the lonesomeness of
time, the sad lonesomeness of the years, the sad, sweet lonesomeness.
Teal Eye's hand reached out and took his.

Higgins got up to the cry of voices and walked to his
tepee, not paying heed. The Indians, silent now, watched, unmoving,
as if it was right to leave the singer alone.

Summers put his arm around Teal Eye and pressed her
against him. "Some doin's," he said and knew how poor the
words were.
 

24

SHE SAY YES," Teal Eye said.

 
That didn't mean that Little Wing was all for
marrying him, Higgins thought. Maybe she was just paying mind to the
chief who, thinking of horses, had given his orders. Maybe she was
just being biddable. That was one hell of a way to pick out a mate.

It was dark and late and a trifle chill, and he sat
around the fire with Summers and Teal Eye. The boys had gone to bed.

"
Could be she's just bowin' to White Hawk,"
Higgins said. "Like as if she had to."

"
No, she like you. It is not the chief, not the
horses."

So she liked him, huh? Liked him with age coming on
him. Liked him with his haggle of mouth. It didn't stand to reason.

He said, "Dick buys me a bride out of his own
pocket."

"
Shut up," Summers told him, smiling.

If he had teeth like Summers, it might be different.
If he looked like Summers, face and body, it might be.

"
I ain't goin' to, Dick," he said. "This
is plenty important. Why is she willin' to marry me? On account of
the chief? On account of I'm white?"

Teal Eye put in, "Because you are you."

"
Just bein' white don't mean anything.
Underneath any color, there's just blood and meat."

"
And brains and hearts," Summers said.

"
I seen enough black-hearted white men."

"
We're off the track, seems to me."

"
I reckon I know what I know."

"
It's only you knows things," Summers said.
He grinned as if to take the raw off his words. "But if it ain't
a go with you, then it's no go."

"
I didn't say that."

"
It's about how I got it."

"
Oh, hell, Dick. She's pretty and she seems all
right, but I don't know."

"Foolish man, you," Teal Eye said. "She
make good wife."

They sat silent then, as if more words were no use.
They stared into the fire. A thing about fire, Higgins thought. In
the flicker of it, in the small leaps of flame, men might think
they'd find answers. In it they dreamed dreams, dreams of happiness,
dreams of peace, the ends of hankerings. Was it the same way with
Indians? Not now for sure since the other fires were dead and their
people asleep. But still, what did fire mean to them, other than
warmth and heat to cook by? Were their dreams of warpath and scalps?
Or did they, like him, just want their frets gone?

He looked up at the sky, seeing nothing but black
overcast. The Shoshone tepees blended into the dark. A horse
whickered from the hillside, and a coyote sang to the night, bark and
quaver and trill.

He felt a small burrowing at his side and flinched
and reached out, and his hand closed on a small hand, and he looked
quick, and there was Little Wing, her eyes catching the glow of the
fire. He kept hold of the hand. The fire, and a hand in his, and
Summers and Teal Eye  watching, silent, knowing as he did that
she had come on her own, slipping out to them while the camp slept.

The fire, and a hand in his, and he said, his voice
rough in his ears, "Wl¤en can we do it, Dick?"

"
Camp's awake before sunup. How about sunup?"

"
Tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow. I'll talk to the chief."

"
TelI her- no, ask her if it's all right."

Summers spoke to her in Shoshone, and she answered,
and then the hand drew away from his, and she was lost in the dark.

"They got a ceremony, Dick. A rigmarole?"

"
Search me. Maybe they get out their rattles.
Maybe march with their coup sticks. Maybe so a dance or more."

"
Rattles ratt1in'. Drums thumpin'. Hi-yi and
hi-yi. You got to save me from that, Dick."

"No help for it, fur as I can see."

"
I got an idee."

"
So?"

"
You marry us. You be the preacher."

Summers' mouth opened, and then he laughed, keeping
the laugh low so as not to be heard in the tepees. "That's the
damndest thing these ears ever heard. Me playin' preacher!"

"
You got your marriage license?"

"
Sure thing."

"
Show it. Make as if you were reading from it.
The camp won't know any different. And maybe, between us, we can
piece out the Lord's Prayer."

"I'm thinkin' you're out of your mind."

"
No, Dick. What you might say would be as
bindin' on me as a double-tied rope, tight as any preacher could make
it."

"
Who says the camp would go along?"

"
White Hawk listens to you. I'm bettin' the
Indians would be — what is it? — impressed. They would be plumb
pleased. Do it, Dick, please."

Teal Eye put in, "I think right. My man will do
it. Yes?"

Summers put a hand on her head and gave it a small
shake. "Even you vote against me. I'm elected, huh? I never
thought to ride so close to God."

"
You mean you will?"

"
Looks like I got to, no matter what. Means I
have to talk to the chief and set it up, if I can, before sunshine."

In his bed that night
Higgins stayed awake for a while, going over his lingering doubts. He
couldn't even talk the girl's talk, barring a few words. She couldn't
talk his. How could one know what the other was thinking, what the
other one wanted? Coupling was one thing, but where was the real
glue? It lay deeper than talk, he thought. It lay in the feelings. It
lay in wishing only good for the other. A man could call it love if
he wanted to.

* * *

Higgins got up before light. He went to the stream
and cleaned himself and put on fresh clothes, and, back in his lodge,
shaved by feel in the dark, using his old straight edge, cold water
and the scrap of soap he had saved from his bath.

Teal Eye called to him and came in when he said to,
leaving open the flap of the tepee. There was just enough light to
see close-up things by. She had him sit down, and she kneeled behind
him and braided his moist hair, tying red ribbons at the ends.

She was almost done when Summers came in. He looked
almost white in his best buckskins.

"
I got it jixed," he said.

"Chief's agreeable, but he wants to stand by me,
which is all right. He wised up the camp. The Lord's Prayer is pretty
well set in my head."

"
What else you aimin' to say?"

"
What comes to mind. Now rest easy. It's me
actin' beyond my own self. It ain't easy, puttin' myself in the
pulpit."

"
You seen Little Wing?"

"
She'll be ready."

When Higgins looked out of the tepee, he saw that
dawn had sneaked up on the dark. The bowl of the sky had turned
silver except for a kindle of fire in the east. He sat cross-legged
and waited. A man couldn't hurry up time. The women were getting up
but not building fires.

Summers passed by him, saying he would come back when
the time came. Higgins kept waiting, feeling empty of stomach and raw
in his nerves. The sun, not yet up, had laid a red banner before it.
People had begun ranking themselves, men first, then women, then
children.

Teal Eye appeared, bringing Little Wing, who smiled a
kind of scared smile. Her hand took his. They walked out. The Indians
stood, their eyes alive, their bodies still. Teal Eye led them to
where Summers stood. White Hawk was beside him, wearing his
eagle-feather headdress. Teal Eye faded back.

"
Step ahead, please," Summers said. "Turn
a little. Let light be on your faces." He looked around at the
crowd and spoke for a while in Shoshone. When he couldn't find a
word, he made the sign for it.

The sun, half up now, caught the silver in Summers'
hair. The white of the marriage license Summers held in his hand
seemed to make White Hawk's dark skin even darker. Higgins felt the
girl's hand tremble in his.

Summers switched into English. "I have explained
the white man's way. One wife and her forever."

Uh-huh, Higgins thought. That's what the book says.
So what? He would go by the book.

"
I have said that was your way, Mr. Higgins,
that you were a good man and would make a good husband. Now let's get
on with it."

He looked at the license, then raised both hands.
"Let the sun see, and the moon and stars at night. Let the
winds, big and little, take notice."

By God, Higgins thought, there were more sides to
Dick Summers than to broken ice. And he was serious, not sly or
playful as Higgins had feared. He was sober enough himself, but
Summers' words made him more so. He pressed the girl's hand.

"With the blessing of the great spirit, this man
and this woman are about to be wed."

He explained in Shoshone.

"Let your blessings be on them."

Again the Shoshone.

Using both languages together with gestures, Summers
went on, "If anybody's got any reason against this marriage,
speak up now or shut up forever."

He looked over the crowd, then turned to Higgins and
said as if reading from the marriage license, "Do you, Hezekiah
Higgins, take this woman to be your wife, your wife all the time,
your only wife?"