The Powder River (9 page)

Chapter 12

One fugitive, Elaine Cummings Maclean, felt in her bones that it was hopeless. She felt tired, so damn tired, of hopelessness.

They were in a big draw, in the dark, and Elaine could smell the river from here, a sweet, ripe smell. The only sounds were animal sounds, a horse clomping here, another letting out breath there, others fidgeting and creaking.

The Human Beings were fording the Arkansas at night, those who usually walked pulled up onto horses. Scouts were out looking for the white soldiers, who were Surely around somewhere. The chiefs’ sons Wooden Legs and Bull Hump were shepherding riders across this shallow place, showing them how to stay away from the quicksand.

Elaine couldn’t see the river from where she sat her horse, but she saw it in her mind’s eye, her gelding breasting the water chest deep, the moonlight reflected on the dark surface ahead, and the little waves breaking the moonlight into shards of shiny, broken glass.

The railroad tracks lay across the river on the north side, a brazen sign of danger. But the railroad brought to mind a world Elaine was no longer part of, a world where men changed life with huge railway engines, steamboats, bridges, and plows, a world where mind transformed the earth. Now Elaine lived in a world of pony drags, rivers to wade, sacred pipes, and enchanted songs, a world where magic transformed men. The white world was remote now, infinitely remote.

Adam leaned out of his own saddle, touched her arm. She knew he was worried about what she might do—run away. Except for her marriage vows, it was true, she would have fled in a moment. The gesture was no longer noble, just stupid.

Adam urged his horse forward with his knees, and she followed close behind. Lisette behind her, Rain next, bearing Big Soldier on her back, and Sings Wolf in the rear. Adam and Elaine rode big American horses, the others small Indian ponies. Without hesitation Elaine’s gelding plunged into the river, the liquid making a delicious, soft, shushing sound on its belly. Already she was in almost to her knees and moving implacably across. She felt drawn to the black water. No matter how it roiled around her, it seemed cool, peaceful, enticing.

She couldn’t see beyond Adam, but she followed him without thought. At times the water was only fetlock deep. She looked back and saw Lisette, Rain, and Sings Wolf following, but couldn’t hear them. She felt oddly isolated, cut off from family ahead and behind, and oddly passive, distant, uninvolved. Though she must look precarious, hanging off the horse sidesaddle, she was not at all frightened of the fording. Suddenly the river rose to her thighs and her bottom and her horse was swimming.

Adam turned in the saddle and said something sharp to her. She didn’t understand. He gestured hard upstream. He must mean for her to point the horse up. She did, but it was difficult to make headway against the current, and it didn’t seem important. She supposed she had let him drift a little downstream. She turned the horse’s head up again, but he took the bit in his teeth and swam straight. Elaine saw Lisette over her shoulder, coming up close on her pony on the upstream side.

They were getting near Adam, but farther below him than she’d thought. Elaine could hear a little turbulence in the water ahead—must be a rock. The horse struck the earth with its forefeet and started clambering into a shallower spot. She urged him up with her quirt, and the horse’s hooves slipped on something slick. The big animal floundered for an instant, but lurched forward and found some footing.

Just then Lisette’s pony pulled out of the deep water on Elaine’s upstream side, also struggling for footing. The pony got its balance and then slipped and fell and banged into Elaine’s mount. The horse jumped sideways and …

It was all blackness and flailing and thrashing and no air anywhere. She felt the bottom, a big rock beneath her legs and soft, sweet mud under her head. Sharp hooves slammed into her leg. It didn’t matter because there was no air and there was something sweet about the water and it’s all right Adam and…

Something huge rolled over her and for one entire eternity ground her into the river bottom and she rose above the pain, she saw hues, she floated in a world of no air but many iridescent, delicate colors and she would breathe in these utterly lovely colors and …

Arms came like gods and ripped her upward into the air.

Elaine sucked. It felt utterly blessed, that air. Her whole body shivered a little with the deliciousness of a breath.

A voice snapped something out—not Adam’s voice, she was distantly surprised to hear, but the voice of Sings Wolf, almost in her ear.

Strong arms heaved her. Pain took her breath away. In the first shock she couldn’t tell where the pain came from. Then she felt it—her shin, her right shin. She heard herself cry out a little.

Then a long time, a different eternity, of jostling and hurting and sharp mutterings before she was set down and felt the dirt underneath her back and shoulders and hips. She sensed, with a sweet regret, that perhaps she must draw away from that dark, pleasant world underwater.

Someone rolled her over and began pumping at her back. Then she recognized Adam’s voice close behind her, urging her, pleading with her. She heard desperation in his voice—he must care for her. She supposed she would come back to him. But for now she must rest.

Smith crouched over his wife, less agitated now. Lisette, Rain, and Sings Wolf stood behind him, looking at doctor and patient, seeming less worried. The patient was easier—he’d administered some laudanum—so the doctor was easier.

She lay sprawled on the canvas on the riverbank, unconscious, limbs sprawled out, skirt bloody from her leg, body looking tortured but her face at peace. A peace that came out of a bottle.

A rider trotted up in the dark and dismounted. Lisette stood up and held the pony. It was Medicine Wolf. The healer squatted beside Elaine.

“The horse kicked her and rolled on her,” Sings Wolf said. “Here.” Smith lifted the sleeping woman’s dress to show Medicine Wolf the wound, an open fracture high on the shin. The splintered tibia jutted out naked and raw.

Smith felt embarrassed, an odd reaction, he told himself, for a doctor. It wasn’t that Elaine’s modesty was violated by a display of shin, though she wouldn’t have liked it. He felt odd that her mortality should be shown to the world, naked, through a splintered end of bone. That felt desperately intimate.

His mother touched him softly. He put an arm around her waist. Lisette had been close, quiet and steady and helpful, all through it. He always felt so good just to have her nearby. In a rare moment of foolishness she’d said it was all her fault—she’d let her pony bump Elaine’s horse when the animal had poor footing. Smith said, “Nonsense.” He would reassure her again later.

“Let’s go to it,” said Medicine Wolf, looking Smith in the eye.

Yes, he’d been stalling.

He’d had a time getting the bleeding stopped. Now they had to try to get the ends of the bone together. Otherwise the tibia would never knit, or would knit with the ends overlapping, or maybe the wound would never heal. Then Elaine might have a crooked leg, or a short leg. Or no leg. Or she might die. Smith made himself use the word in his head: Die.

He didn’t think they could get the ends of bone back together.

“We should send for Bridge,” said Medicine Wolf. Which meant one of Bridge’s healing songs, the monotone chant with snorts and bellows.

Right now that sounded ridiculous to Smith. He wondered at himself for his intolerance. But he just shook his head and said, “White medicine for the white woman.”

Medicine Wolf moved down, sat, and put Elaine’s foot in his lap. He looked at the situation for a moment, and without hesitation braced his moccasined foot in Elaine’s crotch for something to push against. He looked at Smith, and Smith nodded.

Medicine Wolf began to pull. There would be nothing delicate about this procedure. Medicine Wolf had to stop the ends of the bone from overlapping—stretch them beyond each other. Then Smith had to manipulate them until they touched, and preferably matched. It was tricky work under any circumstances, feeling bones through the musculature of the calf, getting the splintered ends to mesh perfectly. The dark and the desperation made it worse.

Smith grasped Elaine’s ankle with his huge hands and helped Medicine Wolf pull.

Smith squatted and rested his hands on his knees and tried to rest his mind from it. He felt like he’d got the bones to touch—Medicine Wolf had had a hell of a time pulling the leg out far enough—but the leg didn’t look right and didn’t feel right.

Medicine Wolf sewed the splint of green hide onto her leg now. The splint wouldn’t mean anything if the bones didn’t knit square.

Lisette and Rain sat quietly beside Smith, and he felt like holding her and getting teary. He was grateful for the closeness of Rain as well as his mother. Sings Wolf stood, and Smith could not bring himself to look into the old man’s face.

“Is she all right?” Sings Wolf asked.

Without looking up, Smith shook his head.

“Can you help her?” the old man insisted. He was deliberately being hard.

“If we could put her in traction,” Smith said, using an English word that could mean nothing to Sings Wolf. “She may end up with a crooked leg.” Smith mulled over the next words. “Or no leg. And she may be hurt inside.”

“She has to go to the white people,” said Sings Wolf.

Smith raised his head and looked into his grandfather’s eyes. Maybe Sings Wolf meant only that Elaine needed medical attention. But Smith heard hints of other declarations. That Elaine was no good for the tribe. That the Tsistsistas-Suhtaio were moving further into the world of spiritual power, where a white person didn’t belong. That Sings Wolf’s power might get the Human Beings through, if Elaine wasn’t there with her
veho
spirit.

Smith spoke hard. “We’ll have another look at the leg in the morning,” he said. He refused to grant more than that. Which was stupid.

Hooves clopped, a horse shook audibly, and two riders appeared out of the night, out of the river. In the lead Smith saw a young dog soldier—he couldn’t remember the man’s name. These men brought up the rear, guarding against the soldiers.

Smith decided to bring the men into it. “We need poles for a litter,” he said.

“For the white woman,” the dog soldier replied tersely.

“For the woman,” Smith said defensively.

The other rider reined his pony in beside the dog soldier. It was Twist. Staring at Smith with contempt, the warrior made a hissing sound, like a snake.

Smith wanted to kill the bastard.

The two riders touched their heels to their ponies and rode on. Refusing to help was a grave and deliberate insult.

Smith started to his feet, murder in his eyes.

A strong hand pushed him back down. “I’ll get the poles,” said Sings Wolf. Smith thought his glance said, See what I mean?

On a fine morning in late September a couple of days later, Smith stood naked by a little campfire, holding up two pairs of pants. He’d just slipped out of the ones he’d torn up for leggings. He was about to put on the others, a fine worsted pair, suitable for a college graduate and professional man. He looked across the fire at his grandfather, who was relishing Smith’s discomfort.

“It feels dishonest,” said Smith.

“It’s honest,” Sings Wolf mumbled, smiling around a piece of antelope meat.

Smith pondered that a moment. It might mean that Smith was really a white man and belonged in those damned things with a fly that buttoned. He looked at Sings Wolf for irony, but saw nothing but his grandfather eating greedily. Sings Wolf tended not to judge, merely to observe with amusement.

Still, Smith felt dishonest.

To hell with it. He pulled the pants on and reached for the shoes, properly short Jefferson boots. He’d ripped up his other pants for use with a breechcloth.

He felt good about something, at least. He was doing what needed to be done. Today he would get Elaine to Dodge City or Fort Dodge and find the best doctor available. He looked at her wrapped in her blankets, still not talking much, sipping on the broth he’d insisted she take. Her face was haggard, which meant she hurt pretty bad. This morning’s laudanum wasn’t helping her yet. She had to be medicated to travel, because the travois bumped and lurched.

The morning after the ford of the Arkansas, when the Cheyennes stopped to sleep through the daylight, Smith had been able to make the decision comfortably. Elaine might have internal injuries. She surely needed traction for that leg. She had to go to Fort Dodge or to Dodge City, east along the railroad. Had to—everyone agreed.

Smith told them all he would rejoin the Tsistsistas-Suhtaio about a week ahead. Their trail was high, wide, and handsome—as easy for Smith to follow as for the soldiers. Smith could see some of the Cheyennes didn’t think he’d come back. They thought he was taking this chance to get his ass safe, away from the shooting. And his wife’s ass.

Evidently, though, Smith’s grandfather believed he would return. Sings Wolf volunteered to come with Smith to help cover his back.

But Smith wasn’t sure that his grandfather’s coming along was a vote of confidence. The truth was, Smith himself wasn’t sure what he would do. The truth was, he couldn’t imagine going off and leaving his wife. The rest of the truth was, he couldn’t go off and leave his people in the middle of the worst trouble they’d ever had.

He slipped on his best white-man shirt, the one with a wing collar. Today was the day. It made sense then and it made sense now. His wife was white—she needed white medicine.

He brushed at his pants. He really did prefer a breechcloth.

“I won’t wait for you beyond tomorrow,” said Sings Wolf without warning.

Smith looked at his grandfather warily.

“I’ll leave after sundown. I don’t expect you. I think you should stay with your wife until she’s well. You can meet us in Powder River country later. No one will blame you for taking care of her.”

Smith didn’t know what to say. He’d been acting like his decision was made, that he was coming back to the Human Beings. It didn’t do to pretend to your wise grandfather. “The people need me, Grandfather. She will be in bed a long time.” He was trying the words on for size.