Fair Land, Fair Land (27 page)

"
If Brother Higgins were to die before you, you
would have no rights," Potter told her.

"
He not die. I take care of him. And rights?
What rights? What I care about rights?"

"
Skip the rights," Summers said. "Point
is, you want to get married again?"

"
Little Wing?" Higgins asked.

Of a sudden she smiled. "Do again what is done.
Why not? We eat big, and we sing."

Potter nodded his head, a smile touching his lips.
"Sunup seems the chosen time. What about sunup tomorrow? Then I
must leave you."

"
So soon?" Summers asked. "What for?"

"
In good time. In good time. After we've eaten.
Might I have a taste from that jug again, Brother Higgins?"

"Excuse me all to — Excuse me, anyhow. Looks
like marriage put it out of my mind."

A harsh spring wind came up as they were finishing
their meal. Lije rose without speaking, and pretty soon Higgins saw
smoke blowing up from the log cabin. It was warm enough when they
entered with the fire cheery in the mud-and-stick fireplace. There
were robes on the floor, and a wood block for Potter to sit on.

Potter rubbed his hands in front of the fire and made
himself comfortable. "As I said I would tell you, I must be in
Helena day after tomorrow."

Summers' voice was almost a growl. "Last Chance
Gulch."

"
Of course you have heard of it?"

"
More'n I care to."

"
There's a conference there. A meeting of the
Methodist ministry. There's a growing support for my hope of a
mission. I intend to promote it."

"
Makes sense.' Higgins said. "Whereabouts?"

"Undecided, but I have my eye on this region."

Summers lit his pipe and passed the twig to Higgins.
The women sat cross-legged on the robes. The boys were sprawled out.

"
Now for bigger news," Potter went on.
"They are moving the Blackfoot agency from Fort Benton."

"
What in hell for? Oh, pardon me, Brother
Potter," Higgins said.

"
It appears there is too much violence, too many
drunken lights there."

"
All the fault of the Indians, of course,"
Summers said with a lift to the comer of his mouth.

"
Do you think for a moment I except the whites?
They sell that foul whiskey and are prone to violence themselves."

"
Sorry, Brother Potter."

"
Where's the agency goin' to be at?"
Higgins asked.

"
That's the big point. As I am given to
understand it will be right here in the Teton valley, only a few
miles away."

Summers took his pipe from his mouth and forgot it.
His eyes went from Potter to Higgins to Teal Eye, to Little Wing and
the boys. At last he said, "Things are closin' in on us."
He shook his head slowly.

"
Yes, Brother."

"
An agency means a tradin' post, and a tradin'
post grows into a town, and a hunter might as well lay down his
rifle, for there"ll be no game for fifty miles around. Hungry
Indians trailin' in for rations and havin' to eat what the white men
won't and stealin' to get money for rotgut. I can see it all. Lord
Jesus, I can see it." He turned. "I wasn't cussin', Brother
Potter." Now he remembered his pipe.

"
Have faith. Have trust."

"
It comes hard. It ain't possible."

Silence fell over them, silence and Summers' sadness,
and the fire burned low, and the only voice was the voice of the
breeze singing uneasy outside.

At last Summers raised his head. There were lines in
his face Higgins hadn't seen before, or perhaps it was just the
shadowed play of the fire which he had just put a stick on.

"
I got a proposition, Brother Potter,"
Summers said. "I make it, but Lije and Teal Eye has to be
willin'."

"
Yes. Go on."

"
I got a patch of land down in Missouri I could
deed to you."

"
What in the world for?"

"
And some gold dust to boot."

Something inside him made Higgins say, "I'll put
up my share," though he didn't know what the deal was. It was
just that Summers looked so sad and so beat.

"
I wait," Brother Potter said.

"
My boy, Lije, he needs to know more, more about
how to read and to write and to figger."

"
And to love Jesus."

"
If his stick floats that way."

Summers cleared his throat. He turned the dead pipe
in his hand. "I was thinkin' maybe you could take him and teach
him."

A little cry, quickly smothered, came from Teal Eye.
Lije lifted his shoulders and sat straight, nothing showing in his
face.

When Potter didn't answer, Summers went on, "He's
comin' into a white man's world. He has to change himself to it. What
good is what he knows now? It don't hatch any eggs that he can speak
Blackfoot and Shoshone and English besides."

Brother Potter sat forward on his block. "This
western world needs interpreters. You forget that."

"
Maybe so. And maybe I'm plumb out of bounds,
talkin' this way. So forget it."

"
Brother Summers, I have listened. I have
weighed your words. First let me say that I will take no money or
land. If you feel like it, donate to the church. For the rest, I will
take your boy and teach him as best I can and in all ways treat him
as if he were my own."

A wail came from Teal Eye. She cried out, "No.
No."

"Think of our son, little duck. Think only of
him."

Into her crying she got out, "I know. I know."

Potter turned to meet Lije"s eyes. "What do
you say, my son?"

The boy's voice sounded lifeless. "I do what my
father says."

"
Amen."

33

TO TEAL EYE the morning sun looked angry. It rose,
bit by bit, and glared at the party, at Brother Potter with his book
and Higgins and Little Wing standing side by side while he said the
words. Summers and Lije were at one side, and Nocansee held her hand.

But no, she thought, squinting again against the
morning light. The sun wasn't angry. It wasn't anything. It just
watched, and a person could see anger or sorrow in it if so he
wished. Or he could see nothing at all except for the blazing ball.

"
"Our Father who art in heaven. . .' "

How many suns had looked down on them, at Lije, the
baby, at Lije, the young boy, at Lije as he stood now, his face
unshowing. How many winds had pushed him and pulled? How many moons
had lighted his steps? They were all one, all one with the now that
was then. She mustn't cry, not during prayer.

" ‘
Thy kingdom come . . .' "

Nocansee pressed her hand.

" ‘
Thy will be done . . .' "

It was over, too soon over, and Higgins kissed Little
Wing while Brother Potter smiled.

"
Now we must be off," Brother Potter said
when the handshaking and good-wishing were done. "Are you about
ready, Lije?"

"I got the horses saddled and tied up over there
just a ways," Summers said. "I'll get 'em."

They were silent while he was gone, silent before the
hurt of the parting soon to be. Even Brother Potter had no words.
Summers came back, leading four horses.

Teal Eye dared to speak, hearing her voice come out
frail. "You have everything, Lije? You sure?"

"Everything, Mamma." He turned his eyes
from her face. Brother Potter shook all hands again. "We'll see
you soon. Don't worry about Lije. Have faith."

Summers helped him into the saddle. Lije shook hands
with Little Wing and Higgins. He came to his father, and they shook,
man to man, smiling with smiles that weren't smiles. Nocansee threw
his arms around Lije, saying, "Brother. Little brother." It
was all right for blind men to cry.

She held Lije tight, not screaming her inside
screams. All she could say was, "Be safe, my son."

Lije mounted his horse. Summers came to her and took
her hand. She felt tension in his. Brother Potter led away, and she
watched and watched, Summers beside her, until they rode out of
sight. Then she turned and went into the tepee.

She lay down on their bed and let quiet grief take
her, hearing movement and voices outside that had no meaning. Her man
was right. Lije had to go. But why was the god of Brother Potter so
cruel? Why should a baby, torn from her body, be torn away at his
manhood? Would she see Lije again? Ever? Who, what could fill the
space he had left? When again could her heart be full?

Nocansee came in and sat down beside her, saying
nothing, only taking her hand, and the keening she had held in broke
from her throat. It was keening for death. But Lije wasn't dead, she
told herself fiercely. He had just gone away. She choked off her
cries.

She didn't know when Nocansee left, he was so
light-footed. Little Wing took his place, telling her she should eat.
Eat when she had no stomach, no insides but the hurting heart?
Summers came in, once, then again and again, and his hand stroked her
head, and he kept on saying, "It will be all right, little duck.
Don't take on so hard."

Noon came, and afternoon, and she didn't care. When
she napped, it was only to wake up with the pain and the emptiness in
her. Something told her that never again would she see her son.

It was dark when she wakened as Summers lay down
beside her. He hugged her close. Two people but only one, she
thought, two people made one by their sorrow. Grief, she thought.
Grief and the body, and body needing body in grief.

She helped her man enter her.
 

34

IT'S BEEN one bitch of a winter, but now I think
maybe its backbone is broke," Higgins said. He was talking just
to be talking, talking loud against the wind that was trying to
outholler him.

On days like this one, Summers thought, there was
nothing to do but sit in the cabin, smoke and once in a while throw a
log on the fire, nothing to do but listen to the wind that tore
around the corners and went shouting away as another blast came. A
man could hardly stand up outside. Beside him was a ragged deck of
cards that he and Higgins had played Old Sledge with until they tired
of the game.

It had been a bitch of a winter all right, snow and
blizzard and the quiet cold that crept through the clothes, the skin
and the muscles, driving for the last flutter of life.

"
Anyhow, this here's a chinook, a damn hard
chinook but a chinook just the same." Like Higgins, he was
talking for talk's sake.

Teal Eye was doing beadwork by the little light a
window let in, its panes shaken and veiled by the blowing snow.
Nocansee was working with a deer skin to make it useful and soft.
Little Wing was chopping meat on a block. A mouse peeked down from
the sod roof.

The deer had plowed down from the mountains and often
an elk, and their meat was stringy and tough and their bellies full
of chewed wood. No trouble in shooting them. They stood alone, ganted
up, or yarded together in the brush, maybe thinking a bullet was
better than torment, and their hides hung to their bones with no fat
between. Buffalo? They were long gone, to the south or wherever,
moving slow under the weight of their hair. Blue meat, it would be,
when a man butchered one.

The cabin was warm enough but not stuffy, as it would
have been if he and Higgins had built it tight. Loose-built, it let
in the whiff of horse manure now and then. In bad weather horses
always crowded around a cabin or barn or tumble-down building. Given
time, they would butt and shoulder it down. Damn nuisance, but it
saved trying to catch them up in the open. The mouse sat still and
beady-eyed, soaking up heat.

The cabin shook to a harder blast, and Higgins said
through his pipe smoke, "I never knowed it to blow so hard
without snow or rain comin' after. This time I'm bettin' on rain."

Summers rose. His bad leg almost let him down, the
damn thing. "Foot's asleep," he said. He made it to the
door and opened it a few inches and looked out, looked out at nothing
but sweeping snow and the nose in front of his face.

He closed the door, sat down again and said, "Ground
blizzard. It will sweep the flats clean."

"
And leave hellish drifts."

"March and April are notionable months."

"
Bad as people," Higgins said. They
relighted their pipes.

"
Speakin' of notions — " Higgins began
and fell silent.

Summers didn't speak, knowing that Higgins would go
on in time.

Teal Eye stirred. "I hope Lije not out in this
wind." She kept thinking about Lije.

"
Brother Potter look after him," Little
Wing said as she scooped the cut meat in a pot.

Nocansee lifted his head, perhaps having heard the
little movement of the mouse. The mouse watched.