Heaven and Hell: The North and South Trilogy Page 20

  Charles noticed a kind of pupil-and-teacher relationship in an attentive group of girls and mothers addressed by a much older woman. It was instruction by a member of the quilling society, Wooden Foot told him later. Decorative quilling had great religious significance for the Cheyennes, and had to be done in a prescribed way. Only women elected to the society could teach the art.

  Black Kettle invited Wooden Foot, Charles, and Boy into his lodge one evening. Charles now knew from conversations with the trader that the Cheyennes had a number of peace chiefs, men of proven bravery and wisdom who advised the tribe when it was not at war. As Wooden Foot stressed, whites always wanted to deal with the chief, but he didn’t exist. There were peace chiefs and war chiefs, as well as a chief for each camp—Black Kettle also held that position in his village—and there were leaders of the warrior societies. All of them collectively governed the tribe, which had numbered about three thousand people for as long as anyone could remember. If the tribe never increased, neither had it been diminished by disaster, starvation, or its foes. Charles’s respect for the Cheyennes went up another notch when he figured that out.

  The peace chief Moketavato was a well-built man of about sixty with braids wrapped in strips of otter fur. He had solemn eyes and an animated, intelligent face. He wore the familiar leggings and breechclout and deerskin shirt, all heavily decorated, and, in his hair, a cluster of eagle feathers and three beaten silver coins strung on a thong. He passed a long calumet to the white men after they all sat down. Just a couple of puffs of the smoke made Charles dizzy. His head filled with fanciful shapes and colors, and he wondered what sort of herb or grass was burning in the pipe bowl.

  The peace chief’s quiet and retiring wife, Medicine Woman Later, served a hearty turtle soup, then bowls of a savory stew. As they ate, Black Kettle apologized for Scar’s actions. “The loss of his mother robbed him of reason and warped his nature. We try to curb him, but it is hard. However, your trade goods are safe, and your animals.”

  As Wooden Foot thanked him, Charles popped another warm morsel of meat into his mouth, following custom by using his fingers. “Delicious stew,” he said.

  Black Kettle acknowledged that with a smile. “It is my wife’s finest, for honored guests.”

  “Young puppy dog,” Wooden Foot said.

  Charles almost threw up. He struggled to keep his mouth shut and his face calm while the piece of meat worked its way down his throat against a series of strong spasms. Finally the piece went down, though it didn’t settle well. He ate no more, merely made a show of fiddling with the bowl.

  “I hope that treaty you signed means peace for a while,” Wooden Foot said.

  “It is my hope also. Many of the People believe war is better. They believe only war will save our lands.” He turned slightly, to include Charles, and spoke more slowly. “I have always thought peace the best path, and I have tried to believe the white man’s promises. That is still my way, though fewer and fewer will go with me since Sand Creek. I took the People to Sand Creek because the soldier-chief at Fort Lyon said we would not be harmed if we settled there peacefully. We did, and Chivington came. So now I have no reason to believe promises, no reason but my own burning wish for peace. That is why I touched the pen again. Out of hope, not trust.”

  “I understand,” Charles said. He liked Black Kettle, and saw the liking returned.

  Outside the tipi, firelight gleamed, and there was festive music. Boy smiled and marked time in the air with his finger. Charles cocked his head. “Is that a flute?”

  “Yes, the courting flute,” Black Kettle said. “It is being played at the next tipi. Therefore it is Scar. He does have some interests besides war, which is a boon for the rest of us. Let us look.”

  They stepped into the twilight and saw Scar, near the adjacent tipi, playing a handmade wooden flute and moving his feet in a shuffling back-and-forth step. Black Kettle spoke a greeting. Scar started to return it, saw the traders and scowled. He blew several sour notes before he got the melody going again.

  Tied to Scar’s waist thong was a tuft of white fur. Wooden Foot pointed to it. “White-tailed deer. It’s a big love charm.”

  A yellow dog ran by, barking. Fen ran away in pursuit, barking too. From the tipi that Scar was serenading, a young girl emerged—the same girl Charles had noticed the day he arrived. He saw a hand pushing the girl from inside. Evidently parents were forcing her out to acknowledge her suitor.

  “It is my sister’s child, Green Grass Woman,” Black Kettle said to Charles. “She is fifteen winters now. Scar has wooed her for two, and must continue for two more before she can become one of his wives.”

  The gentle swell of the girl’s breast showed that she deserved to be called Woman. She wore leggings and a long ornamented smocklike garment, which was pulled up to her groin and bunched front and back by a rope between her legs. Strands of the rope wrapped her body from waist to knee; she hobbled, rather than walked.

  Black Kettle saw Charles’s puzzlement. “She’s no longer a child but not yet married. Until she’s Scar’s wife, her father ties the rope at night to guard her virtue.”

  Green Grass Woman tried to smile at Scar, but it was plain she didn’t have much heart for it. Scar looked unhappy and shuffled his moccasined feet faster. Then she noticed the observers. Her reaction to Charles was sudden and obvious.

  So was his. The stiffness startled him. Embarrassed about being attracted to someone so young, he turned to one side, hoping nothing showed. He eased his conscience by telling himself it was merely the girl’s beauty, the talk of sex, and his relatively long deprivation that caused the reaction.

  Black Kettle observed the exchange of glances and chuckled. “I heard that Green Grass Woman regarded you with favor, Charlee.”

  Scar saw it, too. He glared, stepping between the white men and the girl and turning his back on them. He spoke to her rapidly. She replied with equal speed and obvious tartness, irritating him. He deluged her with more pleading. She tossed her head, grasped the edges of the tipi hole, and stepped over. Before she disappeared, she cast another lovelorn glance at Charles.

  Scar’s face wrenched, a mask of black and copper in the light of a nearby fire. Clutching the flute, he stamped off.

  Fen shot into view, chased by the yellow dog. A baby howled. Wooden Foot sighed.

  “Well, I know it ain’t your fault. But now that no-good bully’s got one more reason to hate us.”

  Next day they began trading. The weather turned unusually warm for early winter, enabling Wooden Foot to lead Boy to the riverbank at dusk. There, out of sight of the tipis, the trader gave his nephew a much-needed bath, something Boy couldn’t do for himself. Charles stripped, waded out, and washed himself clean. He felt reborn.

  During the trading sessions, Wooden Foot did all the bargaining. Charles fetched and displayed the goods and tended the horses given in exchange. Along with exposure to the details and complexities of Cheyenne society came a growing respect for the tribe. In some ways the Indians remained primitive; sanitation in the village was negligible, with food scraps and night soil carelessly thrown about. In other respects, Charles found the Cheyennes admirable: instruction of the young, for instance.

  The Cheyennes considered manhood not merely something inevitable, but a privilege, carrying great responsibility. At night the sides of this or that tipi would be rolled up and tied while members of one of the warrior societies met inside at the fire, fully painted and dressed in society regalia. A large crowd of boys always gathered, as intended, and watched the men speak and dance and perform some of their less secret rituals.

  He never saw any of the village children disciplined, but one afternoon all of them were summoned to Black Kettle’s lodge, where a man who had stolen another’s buffalo robes was to be punished. The young boys and girls watched as the possessions of the thief and his weeping wife were brought forward. Their blankets were torn and cut to shreds with knives. Other families joined in to smash the thief’s
clay pots and stamp on his woven backrests. Finally his tipi was slashed apart and the poles thrown on the fire. When the punishment was over and the crowd dispersed, the children took with them a vivid impression of what awaited them if they committed a similar crime when they grew up.

  Two Contraries lived in Black Kettle’s village. They were bachelors because the honored role of contrary required that. Singled out for exceptional bravery and their ability to think deeply about the ways of the tribe, they lived in tipis painted red and carried great long battle lances called thunder-bows. Their special rank demanded special, difficult behavior of them. They walked backwards. If invited to sit, they remained standing. The first contrary to whom Charles spoke said, “When you are finished trading, you will not leave us.” Wooden Foot explained that he meant they would leave. The Contraries were a small, strange, mystical order, each member greatly revered.

  The trading continued briskly and profitably for eight days. On the ninth morning Charles woke early to find the dawn sky threatening rain. Wooden Foot wanted to get going. They dismantled and packed their tipi in six minutes—beating their own time was a game Charles now thoroughly enjoyed—and after an hour of elaborate farewells to Black Kettle and the village elders, they rode south, herding fourteen new ponies ahead of them.

  The wind smelled warm and wet. The tipis on the Cimarron disappeared behind them, and then the thin columns of smoke rising from them. Jogging easily on Satan, Charles thought of Green Grass Woman, whom he’d encountered often in the little village. Each time, her pretty face left no doubt about her feelings. She was smitten. That flattered his vanity but it also made his hermit’s life somewhat harder to bear. One night he’d had an erotic dream in which he lay with the girl. But every time he met her he did nothing more than tip his hat, smile, and mutter pleasantries in English. He wondered if, when he returned to St. Louis, Willa Parker might—

  “Look sharp, Charlie.” Wooden Foot’s sudden warning yanked him from the reverie. He pulled out his Colt as a mounted Indian burst from a stand of cottonwoods beside a meandering creek ahead of them. For a moment Charles expected a war party to follow. But no other horsemen charged out of the trees.

  The lone brave galloped toward them. Charles recognized Scar.

  Gloomy, Wooden Foot said, “He rode mighty fast and mighty far to get ahead of us. Somethin’ must be burnin’ him bad—as if that’s a big surprise, huh?”

  Scar trotted his pony up to them. His dark eyes fixed on Charles. “I have words to say.”

  “Well, we didn’t figure you come out here to take the healthful waters,” Wooden Foot said, aggrieved. The sarcasm went right by the Indian, who jumped from his pony and took a wide, solid stance.

  “Get down, Charlie,” Wooden Foot said, dismounting. “Gotta observe the formalities, God damn it.”

  When the two traders were on the ground, Wooden Foot keeping hold of the rein of Boy’s horse, Scar stamped a foot.

  “You shamed me before my people.”

  “Oh, shit.” Wooden Foot sighed. “Anybody shamed anybody, it was you shamed yourself, Scar. We did nothin’ to warrant killin’. You know it, and Black Kettle knowed it, and if that’s your complaint, why—”

  Scar grabbed him, furious. “We will meet at the Hanging Road. You will travel it.” His eyes jumped to Charles. “And you.”

  Dark as a plum, Wooden Foot said, “Let go my shirt.” Scar merely twisted it more. The trader shot his hand forward, caught the thong of Scar’s breechclout and snapped it. Scar yelled, released him, leaped back as if snake-bit.

  “Why, what’s this?” Wooden Foot said with exaggerated surprise. He pointed at Scar’s exposed genitals. “Sure-God ain’t a man.”

  Inexplicably, Scar screamed and leaped for Wooden Foot’s throat. Charles yanked his Colt from the leather. “Hold it!”

  The warning brought Scar up short, his fingers inches from Wooden Foot’s neck. The trader showed Scar his breechclout. “Gonna have trouble courtin’ that girl ’thout this.” He tucked the clout under his belt. “Yes, sir, a lot of trouble.”

  Scar clearly wanted to fight for it, but Charles’s Colt, pointed at his head, kept him from doing so. Quietly, Wooden Foot said, “Now you get goin’ ’fore my partner puts a bullet where your balls used to be.”

  Used to be? What the hell was going on?

  Scar’s departure, for one thing. His disfigured face looked more scarlet than brown. Puffed up as if about to explode, he sprang into the air, caught his pony’s mane, flung a leg over, and galloped away.

  Charles exhaled as the tension drained. “You’re going to have to explain what you did.”

  Wooden Foot pulled the breechclout from his belt. “ ’Member what I said about Cheyennes cuttin’ their hair? This is kinda like it. You take a man’s clout, he loses his sex. He thinks he ain’t a man any more.”

  Charles watched the Indian galloping fast into the north. “Well, now you and I are even. You gave him a reason to hate us too.”

  “I did at that,” the trader said as the flush left his face. “Pretty dumb, I s’pose.” He sniffed. “Enjoyed it, though.”

  “So did I.”

  Both men grinned. Wooden Foot clapped Charles on the shoulder, then held his palm to the sky.

  “She’s gonna be drizzlin’ soon. Let’s get movin’, Boy.” As he mounted, he said, with a degree of seriousness, “Guess it’s plain we ain’t seen the last of that bastard. Hang on to your hair, one and all.”

  MADELINE’S JOURNAL

  December, 1865. No news of Brett. And a murder in the district.

  Night before last, Edward Woodville’s former slave Tom found on the river road below Summerton with three pistol balls in his body. Col. O.C. Munro of the Bureau and a small detachment marched from Charleston to investigate, without result. If any in the district know the perpetrator, they are hiding it. A tragedy indeed. Tom visited here last week, still overjoyed to be free of Woodville, a bad master.

  Munro and his men camped overnight at M.R. Munro inspected the new school and took down what little I could tell him about the fire. He is required to send reports of all such outrages—his term—to superiors in Washington. He will report Tom’s murder also. He offered two soldiers to guard the school for a time. I refused but said I would call on him if we are troubled again …

  … A tourney announced for next Sat. at Six Oaks, where Chas. fought his duel as a young man. I will not go, and dissuaded Prudence after long discussion. Before the war I attended some tourneys with Justin—rather, was dragged to them—and thought them pretentious affairs—the young men on horseback, with plumed hats and satin garments, trying to spear the hanging rings with their polished lances. All gave themselves high-sounding medieval names. Sir This, Lord That. With the pennons and great striped pavilions and gluttonous feasts of barbecued pig or kid, the tourneys seemed too emblematic of the society the war swept away. If slavery was a benevolent institution (so ran the unspoken argument of that society), those practicing it had a need to display themselves as persons above reproach. This soon translated itself into romantic exaggeration—the fondness for Scott’s novels, endless disquisition about Southern chivalry, and tourneys.

  And where will they find their young knights now, when so many fell as you did, my dearest, in the Virginia woods and fields? …

  About fifty ladies and gentlemen of the district gathered in the clearing at Six Oaks, by the river. Carriages were parked nearby, and horses tethered. The white spectators ringed two-thirds of the open space, with the low, wet ground nearest the river segregated for black coachmen and servants, all of whom had presumably entered into employment contracts with their masters.

  The winter day was warm. Long shafts of dust-moted light patterned the tan ground where three middle-aged riders galloped in a line, their lances leveled at the small wood rings hanging on strings tied to tree limbs.

  Hooves pounded. The first rider missed all the rings. So did the second. The third, a graybeard, speared one, th
en another. An old bugle blared in imitation of a herald’s trumpet; the crowd rewarded the victor with desultory applause.

  While two more riders prepared, a fat woman who entirely filled one of the seats of a shabby open carriage complained to the gentleman standing beside the vehicle.

  “I say to you what I said to Cousin Desmond in my last letter, Randall. It is one word, one query. When?”

  Her rouged lips made the question juicy with spite. Mrs. Asia LaMotte, one of the innumerable cousins of Francis and Justin, sweated excessively despite the mild temperature, and badly needed a bath. In the wrinkles and creases of her doughy neck, perspiration had hardened her powder into tiny pellets. Randall Gettys found her a disagreeable old woman but never showed it because of her family’s social standing and his friendship for Des. Poor Des, doing stevedore’s work, nigger’s work, on the Charleston docks to support himself.

  Gettys made sure no one was close by and listening before he said, “Asia, we cannot simply march to Mont Royal in broad daylight and take action. The fire failed to frighten her. That mephitic school is open again. Of course we all want it abolished, and the slut punished. We don’t want to go to prison for it, though. Those damn Yankees from the Bureau are nosing about because of the murder.”

  Asia LaMotte wasn’t persuaded. “You’re all cowards. It wants a man with courage.”

  “Í beg your pardon. We have courage—and I speak for your cousin Des as well as myself. What it wants is a man with nothing to lose. We must find him, enlist him, and let him stand the risks. It only means a delay, not abandonment of the plan. Des is as fiery as ever about getting rid of Mrs. Main.”

  “Then let him show the family by doing something,” Asia said with a sniff.

  “I tell you, we need—”