Gear, W Michael - Novel 05 (15 page)

 
          
 
White Hail studied the distant mountain for a
moment, thinking about his beloved brother, about death, and about desire, if
not lust.

 
          
 
No. I never lusted after Heals Like A Willow.
But I have desired her all these years. Desired, yes. Loved, definitely, but
not lusted. White Hail glanced around, aware that a man had to be careful about
such things. He wasn't sure, but it seemed that the Spirit World listened in on
a man's thoughts sometimes. That, or perhaps it was the Nunumbi, the little
people who hid in the brush, behind logs, and in holes. They had strange
abilities and did no little mischief.

 
          
 
"Where are you off to?" Red Calf
asked, walking up behind him. Her belly was swollen with their first child, and
she'd been nothing but bother throughout her pregnancy. She acted more like a
bitter hawk than ever before.

 
          
 
Red Calf would capture any man's fancy. Her
oval face, large dark eyes, and shining long hair had only accented the saucy
sway of her hips when she walked. People had warned White Hail about marrying
her, but somehow he'd misled himself into believing that Red Calf's tart
answers, her resolute defiance, and unquenchable spirit paralleled the
qualities of Heals Like A Willow.

 
          
 
Fact was, White Hail had married the human
equivalent of a snappy bitch who'd nip the fingers off the first person who
tried to be kind to her.

 
          
 
"You're going to see her, aren't
you?" Red Calf narrowed her lustrous eyes to slits.

 
          
 
"She's my brother's wife. You know what
is expected of me."

 
          
 
Red Calf's smile hardened. "Indeed,
husband. It all worked out, didn't it? You've always done everything you could
to follow in your brother's tracks. Now you can slip your lance into her
sheath, see if you fit her as tightly as your brother did."

 
          
 
He balled a fist. The sudden anger, mixed with
the pain, would have made it easy to flatten her. No one would have sucked
their lips, or looked away in censure. The muscles in his arms knotted, but as
always, the promise of retaliation in her dark eyes quenched any thought of striking
back.

 
          
 
She'll take the child away from me. That, or
she'll find some way of disgracing me, publicly humiliating me. So he said,
"I ought to divorce you."

 
          
 
"Go ahead."

 
          
 
White Hail turned on his heel, striding for
Two Half Moons' lodge.

 
          
 
"She's trouble!" Red Calf called
behind him. "Goes out into the hills during her bleeding. Why? So that the
rock ogres can feel her with their pitch-sticky hands? She dreams about things
a woman shouldn't! Is that it? You want to bring a witch into our lodge?"

 
          
 
White Hail willed himself to deafness.
Brother, I'm sorry it came to this. I cry out that your spirit may know. I have
always loved
Willow
. That was no secret between us. But, brother, I would give her up
forever to have you back alive.

 
          
 
High above, an eagle screamed. White Hail
looked up. Eagle, the messenger from the Spirit World. His brother understood.

 
          
 
White Hail slowed as he approached the doorway
to Two Half Moons' lodge. He pulled his buckskin shirt straight, checking to
see that the eagle-bone breastplate lay flat and the horsehair tassels swung
free. The glossy scalp locks— coup he'd cut from a dead A 'ni warrior's
head—hung down from the tops of his sleeves.

 
          
 
He cleared his throat, scratching on the
leather of the lodge. "It is White Hail, come to see Heals Like A Willow.
Is she within?"

 
          
 
"Come, feci" she said. "I've
been expecting you."

 
          
 
His heart leapt. White Hail pulled the doorway
back and stepped inside, crossing to the man's side and seating himself. It
took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the dim interior.

 
          
 
She sat on the buffalo robes across from him,
Two Half Moons' backrest between them. Dying coals in the firepit radiated
enough heat to keep the temperature comfortable.

 
          
 
As his vision improved, he noted the puffiness
around her eyes, the drawn look around her mouth, and the disheveled hair. Was
this the same wondrous woman whose laughter sparked like flint on steel, whose
eyes laughed and danced like dew on grass?

 
          
 
Despite the haggard look, her beauty remained.
Her heart-shaped face, delicate, straight nose, and full lips were meant to be
admired. Even uncombed, the thick wealth of her raven hair contrasted to the
firm lines of her forehead and accented the thin arches of her eyebrows. He
wished he could reach out, run a fingertip along the smooth hollows of her
cheeks.

 
          
 
He'd seen his brother do that. Seen her melt
at the gentle touch. And his heart cried out at the pain stirred by the memory.

 
          
 
"My soul cries for him, too," White
Hail began.

 
          
 
1 'I didn't know it would be so hard,"
she whispered, looking down. Her slim hands occupied themselves with the
fringes of her dress. If only he could hold those slender fingers, quiet them.

 
          
 
"I want to thank you for attending to him
the way you did. I would have been there, helped you to sing for him, pray for
him, and for the infant, too."

 
          
 
"I know. But you were hunting, my
brother. Attending to your duty to your family. I only attended to mine."

 
          
 
"I thought. . . thought that if I could
bring him fresh meat, hot liver, that it would help. Make him strong. I didn't
expect him to go so fast." White Hail gestured with his hands. How
perfectly futile.

 
          
 
"No one did." The corners of her
lips trembled.

 
          
 
White Hail took a deep breath. "I came
here to ask you to share him with me. Together. . . over the years. I cannot
replace him. I would not want to. My brother's lodge is gone. You have no lodge
to go to. I would have you come to mine, as my second wife."

 
          
 
As long as men remained content with their
rustic huts; as long as they were happy with clothes crafted from the skins of
animals, sewn with thorns and fish bones; as long as they continued to consider
feathers and shells sufficient for ornaments, and to paint their bodies in
different colors, to improve or ornament their bows and arrows, to fashion
little fishing boats with sharp-edged stones, or clumsy instruments of music;
in a word, as long as they undertook such works as a single person could
accomplish, and stuck to such arts as did not require the joint efforts of
several hands, they lived free, healthy, honest, and happy, as much as their
nature would admit.

 
          
 
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Discourse on the
Origin and Foundation of Inequality Among Mankind

 
          
 
No change of expression crossed Heals Like a
Willow's face after White Hail made his proposal. She sat in silence while he
endured the hollow beating of his heart.

 
          
 
"No," she said at last.

 
          
 
He squirmed, as if movement would vanquish the
sudden discomfort in his breast. "I would give you everything you ever
wanted." He swallowed hard. "If you wish, I. . . I'll divorce Red
Calf first. Make you kwihi, my first wife." And give up my son. Other sons
could be made.

 
          
 
She raised her tired eyes, shaking her head.
"I cannot be your kwihi, White Hail. Not your second wife, or your
first."

 
          
 
"But. . . . Have I done something to
displease you?"

 
          
 
She smiled sadly. "No, my brother. Quite
the contrary. I like you a great deal. I will always think of you fondly. Of
the jokes and the laughter. When he looked at you, love filled his eyes. It
will fill mine from now on as it did his. But not with a wife's love,
teci."

 
          
 
"I don't understand." White Hail
frowned. "Is it wealth? I'll bring you all you can stand. Horses from the
A'ni. Scalps from the Pakiani. Mirrors, beads, colored cloth, and metal kettles
from the White men. I'll leave tomorrow, and not return until I can shower you
with—"

 
          
 
"Enough, my brother." She raised a
hand and resettled herself on the robe-covered backrest. "I have no need
of those things—let alone the White man's wealth. It isn't a matter of wealth,
and shouldn't ever be."

 
          
 
"Wealth is proof. Proof of a man's
ability to provide for his women."

 
          
 
"That's a Ku'chendikani belief. Not
mine."

 
          
 
"I would see you decorated in colors,
each step you take accented by the chime of bells. I would have all people look
up as you pass and say: There goes Heals Like A Willow, wife of White Hail.'
"

 
          
 
She arched one of those shapely eyebrows.
"To hear that, you would ruin yourself?"

 
          
 
"Ruin?"

 
          
 
"Isn't that what Red Calf wants? Wealth
and status, to be drowned in the White man's magical colors, metal, and looking
glasses? Isn't that why you've been gone more than you've been at home?"

 
          
 
He sighed and studied the worn parfleches
stacked along the lodge liner. They added to the old lodge cover's musty smell
of leather. "A man must travel a long way, across very dangerous country,
to reach the
Mandan
territory and the Ha 'nidika. When he gets there, he finds that he
needs a great many beaver hides, buffalo robes, and horses for the poorest of
the White man's wonderful things."

 
          
 
"Yet you've been across the Plains
twice."

 
          
 
"I have." He grinned proudly.
"And I'll go as often as I like in the future, too. I'm careful, cunning,
and fast as the wind."

 
          
 
"And if, let's say, the Pakiani catch you
with your horses, pelts, and robes?"

 
          
 
"They'll kill me. That's why I don't
intend on getting caught!" He clapped his hands to accent the point.

 
          
 
"My husband didn't intend to die from
soul wasting, either." Her challenging eyes met his across the fire.
"If I had a husband I loved, I would rather walk in hole-riddled rags than
think he was dead over something as silly as White man's goods."

 
          
 
"A man gains honors by taking such risks.
So does his wife. Would you have people think I am a coward?" He glanced
up to where the lodgepoles were blackened with soot from the smoke hole.

 
          
 
"I would have you be as brave and
courageous as I know you are. I would also have you be wise and intelligent.
Let me ask you, is it better for a man to lose his life way off someplace
trading for White man's goods, or fighting bravely to buy time for his wife and
children to escape the village when the Pakiani attack?"

 
          
 
White Hail stifled a growl and shifted again.
"You twist words around, did you know that?"

 
          
 
"Do I?"

 
          
 
"All right, the Pa'kiani have guns that
they trade for with the British. I must have a gun to fight them. How do I get
a gun if I don't travel across the Plains to where the traders are?"

 
          
 
"Ah! A gun!" She clasped her hands
in excitement. "And then you must trade for powder and bullets. After a
season, you must trade for more powder and bullets. And then the little iron
spring breaks inside the gun—and you have nothing more than wood and metal.
It's awkward to swing it, so you can't even use it to club mountain sheep to
death in a trap."

 
          
 
White Hail glared at her. "You try a
man's peace."

 
          
 
"And you would marry me?" She cocked
her head slightly. "Besides, I thought I heard Red Calf shout just before
you came here. I think she called me a witch?"

 
          
 
"She needs time to think this
through."

 
          
 
Willow
gave him a level stare. "I see. White
Hail, I meant what I said. My eyes will always shine with love for you, but
only as your friend, and sister by marriage. I ask you, stop risking yourself
to provide Red Calf with White man trinkets."

 
          
 
He paused thoughtfully. His puha had been with
him on each of the dangerous trips to the
Mandan
country. As long as he listened to Power,
remained pious, it would protect him. "Death is part of life. All things
die. And the things the White man brings upriver . . . well, they're
magical."

 
          
 
"Such magic, like their guns, comes at a
cost, teci"

 
          
 
He fingered his chin thoughtfully. "I was
only a boy when the Astor men came into our camp. I'd lived barely five summers
then. I see it as if it were yesterday. They were headed west, across the
mountains. I remember the story they told. A canoe, so big it carried more men
than could be counted, with white wings that the wind blew. They were to meet
this magical canoe. I followed the White men everywhere they went about our
camp. I jumped at the thunder sound of their guns, and touched their colored
cloth. I decided then that I wanted to be like them."

 
          
 
"You will remember," she countered,
"that the Astor men got to the mouth of the
Western
River
, found that their magical canoe had sunk,
and most of them starved their way back through our country a year later."

 
          
 
"They are still magical."

 
          
 
"We would be wise to stick to our own
magic. I've heard of their medicine water, how it makes warriors lose their
souls and go crazy like mad buffalo."

 
          
 
White Hail spread his hands wide. "I've
tasted their medicine water. I never thought anything could taste more vile
than phlox tea, but after it hits your stomach, it makes up for the horrible
burning taste. It sets your soul free."

 
          
 
She seemed unimpressed. "Seek the high
places to free your soul, my brother."

 
          
 
"For someone who's never met a White man,
you don't seem to like them very much."

 
          
 
"I don't think they're good for us. I've
heard that horses were brought to our world by White men. I don't think that
was good for us either."

 
          
 
"You've got funny notions, my sister. I
think I love you all the more for them. I only wish you would reconsider and
move into my lodge."

 
          
 
"You would live to regret the day I
entered your lodge. It wouldn't be good for any of us. Not for you, or Red
Calf, or me."

 
          
 
He looked awkwardly down at his hands. "I
have always loved you. Therefore, it would be good for me to have you as a wife.
You will make me think of many things, as you made my brother think. As to Red
Calf, she will adapt, or I will move her things outside the lodge. As for you,
you will have my love and protection. I will cherish you, provide for you, and
give you my souls. Wouldn't that be good for you?''

 
          
 
Her dark eyes never wavered as she said,
"I could never lie with you, my brother."

 
          
 
White Hail managed to keep from squirming
under her gaze. He'd dreamed of her full breasts pressed against his chest. Of
the warmth of her skin against his as her legs locked around him. "After a
period of time to—"

 
          
 
"I'd always be with him, White Hail. No
matter how much you think you love me, it would slowly drive you crazy to know
that when we lay together under the robes, I would be coupling with your
brother—no matter how many years dead."

 
          
 
February 30, 1825

 
          
 
Mississippi River
north of Kaskaskia,
Illinois